Now that Daniel has had a little time to think about his future, it's time for him to get back to the present as he deals with the everyday life that is serving with the 501st Joint Fighter Wing. This means a mix of harrowing situations and weird shenanigans – enough to give anyone constant headaches!
Not long after Daniel's day trip, the unit was called for a briefing my Minna. As she entered, Major Sakamoto, along with Generals Bradley and Patton were right behind her. Daniel was a bit starstruck, as it took quite a bit of self-control not to start bombarding them with questions. They all informed the unit that allied command had come up with a plan to get the operation to Berlin back on track. The first step was to retake the northern Karlsland port city of Kiel, where they could ship and gather the ground forces. To do that, it would be the 501st's job to clear the path to Kiel before they made an attack run to clear the city.
That afternoon, the witches were sent in multiple groups on a scouting mission to find the best path to Kiel. At first, things seemed to be going smoothly, with everyone reporting that Neuroi activity along the desired route was surprisingly light. However, as the teams were set to return to base, Trude and Erica were attacked by a particularly high-speed Neuroi that neither one of them could keep up with. Before long, Erica's striker unit was hit, and she fell into the forest below. Trude wanted to immediately go after her, but the Neuroi prevented her from getting to Erica. After dogfighting the Neuroi for some time, Yoshika and Shizuka came in to help. While Erica was still in danger, there was nothing they could do at the moment, and the two Fuso witches had to drag Trude back to base.
Everyone knew this was really bad – if a Neuroi could shoot a witch like Erica down, then this would be a very formidable foe indeed. It was decided that due to the Neuroi's speed, Shirley and Daniel would lead the rescue team the next morning, with Yoshika and Shizuka joining them as backup. Minna tried to console Trude, but apparently she was stuck in a mental loop, going over everything that had happened in her head. In addition, she skipped dinner that night and breakfast the next morning. When everyone found her, she was in her room doing strenuous exercise. When they told Trude of the plan, she stated that they weren't good enough, which annoyed Shirley, but concerned Daniel, as she rarely doubted his abilities in battle anymore these days.
A couple of hours after launching, they reached the spot where they lost contact with Erica, where the Neuroi from the day before was awaiting them. Although they did everything they could, no one in the rescue party could keep up with the Neuroi – even Daniel's efforts only got him a stalemate with the Neuroi. It wasn't able to deal any damage to him, but he, in turn, wasn't able to deal any dame to it. Soon, Shirley's striker was giving out a bit from the strain being put on the engines, and the Neuroi was able to get a hit on her striker. With Shirley out of the picture, and Daniel not being able to make any headway, the group returned to base, with Yoshika and Shizuka carrying Shirley on their shoulders (Shirley expressing obvious frustration).
When they reported in, Minna became very concerned about what to do next. While Erica was an important member of the squad, not to mention a dear friend of everyone in the unit, she couldn't expend resources for too long to rescue just one witch. Plus, they didn't even know if she was still alive. Minna decided to make her decision about any further rescue plans in the morning. Daniel immediately volunteered for a potential rescue mission. "I was able to keep up with it enough to prevent any damage, at least," he said. Minna nodded in acknowledgement and bid him good night.
The next morning, as Minna and Daniel were discussing another possible rescue mission, Trude came in her office – though she was being held up by Shirley. She said that she was ready to go out, though her obvious condition seemed to say otherwise. When they got to the hangar, Trude revealed that she had Shirley modify her striker unit – basically stripping it down to make it as light, wind-resistant, and aerodynamic as possible. She then ripped off her uniform jacket, revealing her to be in nothing but a sports bra and panties, while also revealing her newly ripped abs. She had spent the last two days losing dramatic weight and building muscle in order to make her faster so she could keep up with the Neuroi!
While Daniel was impressed with what she had done, he was still worried about her mental state, as well as how long she could keep this up in battle. Yoshika and Shizuka had volunteered to carry her back to the battle area so she could conserve energy, but they wouldn't be able to effectively help her otherwise. He then insisted on coming with them, "I can give it another target to worry about, and you have to admit, I DO have the ability to keep up with it, at least!" Trude nodded in agreement, and soon, the four of them were off. Before they took off, Shirley slipped a 'present' for Trude into her panties.
As they reached the battle area, they were once again met by the Neuroi, at which point Yoshika and Shizua let go of Trude, and let her get to work. While Daniel was once again able to keep up with the Neuroi only to the point of a stalemate, Tude was completely outmaneuvering it and outracing it, much to Daniel's complete shock! 'That's full-blown Jedi-like speed!' he thought while he watched as Trude was able to attack the Neuroi and destroy with within a matter of minutes.
However, just as they were celebrating the Neuroi's destruction, Trude spotted a figure lying on the forest floor. It looked like Erica, and she looked to be trapped under the crushing weight of a tree. At this point, Trude instantly began to mourn for her dearest friend and became depressed – to the point where another Neuroi came to attack them, and she didn't even seem to care! However, as Daniel used his Jedi senses to get a closer look, he was able to see that while it looked like Erica, the figure wasn't even organic. He then sensed Erica's presence running towards the spot where they were looking. 'Looks like she set up something to trick the Neuroi,' he thought. He tried to tell Trude over the comm, but she wasn't listening to anyone at the moment.
Then, it looked like Trude caught sight of something out of the corner of her eye, and she began to laugh maniacally, saying that "everything is fine now." She then began to do her thing and attack the Neuroi with the full intent of sending it to the depths of hell, even getting rid of her main guns at one point to attack it with her fists – Daniel had only seen that with Kanno! She then suddenly shouted, "Now!" and Erica came up from the forest wearing one half of her striker unit (a unit on one leg only) before engaging the Neuroi with her 'Sturm' technique. She was quickly able to overwhelm the Neuroi, and set it up for Trude, who used the 'gift' from Shirley – a six-shooter pistol – to finish the job and destroy the Neuroi.
Erica's unit then failed her and she once again began to fall. This time, Trude was able to catch her before she landed. As they headed back to base, Trude gave Erica a chocolate bar she was keeping in her sports bra. Erica was as cheerful as ever, and while Trude wouldn't show it in her emotions, everyone could tell that she was VERY happy to have her friend and partner back.
A couple of weeks later, things seemed to be going normally as they were once again prepared to engage the Neuroi in battle when Yoshika's unit failed her, and she fell out of the sky. While Lynne was able to catch her in time, they were once again faced with the problem of Yoshika's magic being out of sync, which was strange because she had been flying like normal for quite some time now. According to the base doctor, while Yoshika could control her magic pressure, her magic power was now taking much longer than normal to refill itself. This meant that she would have to limit herself to only the most important missions to preserve her magic power.
Later that afternoon, Lynne came back to the base carrying some sort of ancient-looking pot. She had found it while searching for something to help Yoshika. While Daniel and the girls were trying to figure out what it was, Francesca was impatient as usual and tried to reach for the pot, knocking it out of Yoshika's hands and sending it to the floor, where it opened and revealed some sort of strange doll or idol. Francesca proceeded to giddily grope the idol's 'assets,' when the doll's eyes glowed and it began to float. As everyone was in a state of confusion, Francesca began to experience pains in her chest, which went away seemingly as quickly as they came – leaving a very unusual 'present' for Francesca. 'NOT. NATURAL!' thought Daniel as he then got a tick in his right eye while seeing Yoshika feel these new 'assets' for herself. "Come on, really, Yoshika?" he shouted as everyone else also noticed that Yoshika's familiar had activated.
At first, Francesca was thrilled with the enhanced state of her chest, while everyone else was in a state of shock. Then, Francesca began to speak as though she was possessed by an evil spirit or something, saying something about an offering and fertility. She then dashed out of the room, with the idol following her while still floating in midair. The rest of the group followed her out of concern as to what she would do.
When they got outside to where Sanya and Eila were, they were too late to stop Francesca as she was groping Sanya from behind, saying something about giving herself to the priestess – Daniel couldn't quite make it out. A few moments later, Sanya experienced the same thing as Francesca had experienced minutes earlier, and she began to speak in tongues – though Eila somehow seemed to understand what she was saying. While Eila was in a daze, Sanya went up and groped her, causing the same results as before with Eila starting to speak the same strange language as Sanya. Before the rest of the group could react, the three witches dashed off.
While most of the group was still trying to figure out what was going on, Lynne was able to make sense of it, as she had heard Francesca speaking. Apparently, this was some sort of fertility ritual curse caused by the idol that would require nine witches, meaning that the three already affected witches would seek to transform six more witches for their ceremony. To Daniel, this was the most absurd thing he had ever heard of! It was decided that they would split up into groups to cover more ground and for everyone to have at least one partner – the goal being to break the idol and hopefully break the curse along with it.
Daniel, however, went alone, as it was determined that it would be exceedingly unlikely for him to be groped due to his status as a male. 'I'm going to need a lobotomy after this,' he thought to himself as he grabbed his lightsaber from his room and wandered the halls looking for Francesca (he planned to use his lightsaber to destroy the idol). After some time, he finally came across her in one of the corridors and began to chase her down. He was finally able to catch her and corner her, saying, "Give it up, Francesca! You have nowhere to go and I'm taking that idol down!" She then began to flex her fingers, as though getting ready to grope him. Daniel deadpanned, "Oh, please. In case you've forgotten, I'm a guy. I don't have those." However, Francesca continued to smile a very mischievous smile. This confused Daniel for a moment before he sensed another presence coming up right behind him. Before he could react, he felt a relatively heavy and blunt object strike him in the back of the head before he blacked out.
As Daniel began to stir, he noticed that he was lying down in some sort of storeroom with Lynne and Yoshika looking over him. "Ooohhh. What happened?" he moaned in pain. "We found you unconscious in one of the corridors with a large bump on your head," explained Lynne. "We couldn't leave you there, so we took you with us while hiding in here from everyone else," Yoshika added. As Daniel touched the back of his head, he felt some sort of cloth there, wrapped around his head. "Oh, yeah – I was able to find a first aid kit and bandage you up," Yoshika said. "Also, we made sure to take your lightsaber with us," said Lynne. Daniel sighed and thanked them, while also asking, "So, what do we do now?"
By that time, everyone else had apparently been possessed by the idol and were now mindless zombies. This situation was getting even more ridiculous by the moment. "It's like we're in some really crappy horror movie," Daniel said. Yoshika then suggested that she feel up Lynne's chest, pointing out that she had briefly regained her magic when she did the same to Francesca before. Daniel was about to scold Yoshika for suggesting doing that to her friend when Lynne gave her permission to go ahead. Daniel's eyes bugged out, as this is something he definitely wouldn't expect Lynne to agree to. "Are you sure about this?" he asked warily. Lynne nodded and added, "We really don't have many options at this point." Daniel had to admit that was true, and then offered to turn away while Yoshika did what she had to do.
However, before Yoshika could do it, a bunch of arms came bursting through the outer wall and the door, reaching for the inhabitants inside – just like in a stereotypical zombie movie! Soon, several arms grabbed a hold of Yoshika and dragged her away, with Francesca saying that they now had their offering. This left Daniel and Lynne as the only ones left who could do something to end this absurd series of events. Although he still had a slight headache, Daniel offered whatever assistance he could to Lynne as he gathered up his lightsaber and she gathered up a sniper rifle.
Together, they followed their zombified friends into the woods – to the spot where Lynne had found the pot earlier. When they got there, they could hear everyone chanting something in a language they couldn't understand – presumably part of the ceremony – with Yoshika dangling from a rope above the lit fire in the middle. Thanks to Lynne's excellent sniper skills, she was able to cut the rope with a bullet and free Yoshika, calling out to her to get over there. As the zombified witches attempted to recapture Yoshika, Daniel attempted to use the Force to hold them back.
As Lynne engaged in a battle of magic with the other girls, an explosion threw Yoshika forward and into Lynne's arms. Suddenly, Yoshika's magic was back, and she engaged her shield to hold of the other witches. Combined with Daniel's abilities with the Force, they were able to engage in a stalemate with the zombified witches. Seeing her friends struggling to hold them off, Lynne aimed her rifle again and was somehow able to weave her shot through the tiny gaps in the witches' shields to hit the idol dead on, causing it to shatter and everyone else to collapse and their chest sizes to return to normal. Daniel sighed in relief, as it was all over now. "Damn! That was a hell of a shot, Lynne," he said to her, as she just smiled back.
The next morning, the unit gathered in the briefing room to discuss what had happened. "After some research," Minna began, "it was determined that this idol was used in an ancient witch fertility ritual." Daniel knew that she meant for agricultural purposes, not the other meaning. As they discussed the various aspects of what happened to explain everything, they also debated as to whether the ritual played a part in Yoshika's magic temporarily coming back. Francesca then suggested that Yoshika do like her and grab some.
While Yoshika seemed intrigued by the idea and looked in Lynne's direction, Daniel, with his head still bandaged, was not having it. "Don't even think about it, Yoshika," he said. "Huh? Why not? It worked before – maybe it will work again," she replied. "You shouldn't be doing that to your friends – it's for your own good. I'm playing the big brother card on this one. Besides, we aren't that desperate…yet." As Yoshika moaned at how unfair Daniel was being, Lynne looked to Daniel and smiled – silently thanking him from saving her from an embarrassing situation.
As for Daniel, he was definitely NOT going to be mentioning this incident with Sasha the next time he called her.
In this arc, Daniel has to deal directly with the absurdities of being a part of the 501st Joint Fighter Wing. Who knew that it would be so hazardous to his health? I hope you all enjoyed that and that you continue to read on as I continue towards the finish line.