"The way is clear"

One bright day in Bruruil, the South Liberion Continent under territory of Neue Karlsland in 1945… a non-lethal explosion happened in one of the building complexes of a research compound. A blonde-haired late teen had her hair messed up with soot all over her once white scientific uniformed body. "Eh… You got to be kidding… So that was the kicker…" She muttered that to herself and removed the glasses on her eyes that were partly covered in soot. 'The new supercharger needs more magic allocation after all. But the magic input by itself uses the wrong spell charge. Jeez… I still can't get that completely fixed up…'

The girl removes her lab coat, and she only has her Karlsland uniform. On a newspaper that was on a table near her was a headline that read that the Super Hive over Venezia has been eradicated. A pair of strikers that had open panels was seen at a nearby workstation she was working at. That's the surroundings of her work room.

The phone rang in the room and she decided to get it. Picking up the handset, she answers. "This is Ursula." She spoke with an almost flat tone.

"Miss Hartmann! Good to hear your voice as always. How's the unit working out for you?" A man in his forty's replied on the other line.

"Well, I guess you can say there's progress, but it's a little slowed. An overloaded supercharger. Nothing to hinder the development, but it's still needed."

"Ah. Then I'll be sure to give you additional components."

"Thank you, sir. We can't let what happened to Captain Barkhorn happen again. So much magic input, which also leads to suction. And we shouldn't forget there has to be extra restraint to the engine's intake even if there was a powerful output for the unit."

"Eh. Maybe putting the Heavy Ordnance Cannon wasn't at all necessary. Do what you can on that design, Hartmann. That's the next line of jet strikers that you'll be producing and I'm counting on you to make this work."

"You can count on me, sir." Ursula said this before gently putting the handset down. "Agh… This is hard work…"

And before she knew it while drowning in her work, Ursula found herself cleaning up her work station late at night. Sighing in relief, she only realized late that she had forgotten one other component she didn't install before her own prototype unit threw soot on her face. Shaking her head, she decided to drop out and call it a night. Working herself too hard would lead to problems, and thought of her health. And before she knew it, she was already asleep wearing her night gown.

Meanwhile, Josh was seeing the end of the gateway. 'Damn it…!' "CRAP!" And he felt his body exit while he put his arms forward to prevent his head from getting hurt. Just as the momentum took over, he was flying forward and hit the kitchen cabinet, making noise on the silverware before his body lay still for a while on the floor before he grits his teeth in pain and attempts to get up.

Ursula was stirred awake by the sound coming from the kitchen, making her open her eyes and sit up. And making her vigilant, she let her magic flow, even letting her familiar features come from her head and her lower back… those ears and tail of a badger. She sat up and got off her bed, while walking barefoot to a table and picked up her gun and wore her glasses. "I have a feeling," she muttered to herself before headed out of the room.

That time, Josh was looking around. He identified the first location he got into was a kitchen, but the walls were what caught his attention. Were they stone walls? Unless the design of the interior is incorrect, he has no choice but to believe the kitchen is a special place. He sighs and gets to one exit of the kitchen. He looked at the corridors and saw how clean it was and how it looked grand. It was mostly a mansion from the surroundings of the wooden walls and polished marble floor.

Ursula narrowed her eyes and spotted her target from a distance. This made her a little upset. 'So security isn't very tight. Not to worry. He's mine.' Ursula decided to try and attack him, but she realized he could see in the dark. 'I think I have an idea.' She then hid and started to sneak. Her silent footsteps from her bare feet allow her to move without making a noise.

Josh, though he could see in the dark was very suspicious. He walked the corridor and looked further as he walked. 'This is definitely another place. But where am I?' He then found another room with an unlocked door. He opens it slowly and sees the inside. There was a pair of armaments that's as long as the the normal person's measurement of thighs to legs. But what didn't get was why it was designed to be like an aircraft. He wasn't sure of it at first, but he recognized the paint and the feel of the unit. He then looked somewhere and saw a bed, recently touched with the sheet moved.

Ursula snuck behind the man and pressed her pistol gently on his back. "I suggest you don't make it harder than it is." She said this, examining his figure. He was wearing a dark blue shirt and blacdk tie from behind his black jacket with its rear extensions going up to his thighs.

Josh softly groaned and didn't move. "Funny I should tell you the same thing." He snapped a finger while reciting a mental rite. An electrical charge came to his assailant's pistol.

Ursula was partially electrocuted as her pistol had burned out, forcing her to drop the weapon and step back while deploying a shield rune to protect herself from more of the electrical charge. She looked at him and sensed there was electricity on his body, but was fading. And seeing the man turn around, she was looking at him carefully and realized he didn't have familiar features like what a witch should have. 'What…? Then what is-?'

Josh turned around and looked at her, protected by a frontal shield rune. 'So that's how they're protecting themselves from those enemies.' He looked down and saw the burnt out pistol and identified its model. "Mauser-Werke." He looked at the girl who seemed surprised of what he said. "This is the 40's, isn't it?"

Ursula's surprise was fading as she adjusted her glasses. "You don't even want to run… much less knock me out." She said this just as she lets the shield she deployed, fade and disappear. "Should I be concerned?" She asked, before picking up her burnt out pistol. "…maybe you're here to act in espionage."

"Maybe. But I'm not here to attack anyone." Josh said this and looked into the room. "So that's the thing you use to fly. I only had a glimpse but… I get that this world is under threat."

"Mhm." Ursula approached him and was curious. "We should talk inside."

Josh and Ursula made the basic introductions and made conversation. She sat on her bed and he sat on a chair. After talking for several minutes, she's able to eventually understand him.

"A world where Warlocks and Witches exist in a wavering harmony…" Ursula rephrased his words from their conversation. "…and are in danger of warring against each other."

"I had specific reasons as to why I came here, Ursula." Josh said this as he looked at her eyes in a serious way. "Best you don't get involved. I have no quarrel against the witches in this world."

"But you came here anyway. So it concerns myself and witches." Ursula said this, removing her glasses. "I think you shouldn't pretend. You know as well as I do you've had an idea of how capable we all are in this world… fighting the Neuroi as we are now."

"You sure you wanna ask for that subject? Because you don't know what's at stake. I never even told you."

"I can make a good guess." Ursula glared at him. "It involves taking at least one witch to your world." She looked at his eyes and measured him. She took several seconds to see if there was truth to it, and he didn't look away while narrowing his sights. "That's the goal."

"You're full of surprises." Josh sighed and stood up from his seat. "There's no reason for you to get involved. Now if you'll excuse me-"

"WAIT!" Ursula spoke with a voice loud and firm while her head was down. "Where do you think you will go? Even if you find a witch powerful as you think who would help you in your own ways to prevent the war in your world or much less stop one, how would I know it would benefit us in the slightest?"

Josh grits his teeth and kicks a chair to knock it down. "That's how it is?! You want something in exchange?! Maybe you haven't realized it, but I had things happen to me before I went here!" He groaned and opened the door. "You wouldn't understand. You wouldn't know what to really sacrifice to get you this far."

Ursula closed the door and slightly pushed him away from him and was clearly upset. "How dare you?! Tch. I thought we understood each other."

"I thought I did too. Look… It's best we part ways. I can make it on my own and I can do my task effectively."

Ursula shook her head. "There's no assurance that we'd be benefiting from this! No. I'm not allowing you to just leave and take a witch of your choice without assurance from you. Please… we've lost lives here while we were fighting!"

"I got no time for this." Josh said before clenching his fists and got them to slightly punch each other by its knuckles, just before the fists glowed a whitish-blue color from his magic flow. "You don't want this fight, Ursula. Step out of my way."

Ursula lets her magic flow, slightly glowing with a blue outline on her body while she shows her familiar features. She glares at him. "No. You may as well bruise me well if you want to leave through that door. If I were my sister Erica, she wouldn't let you escape either."

Josh grits. 'Is she really just going to fight me with her nightgown and bare from her thighs?! Crazy!' He snorts, knowing what would happen next. He maintains his fist still giving out that magic glow before he starts to walk towards the door. He saw Ursula walk towards him as well. "Have it your way." He suddenly punches with a jab and it was blocked with a shield rune from Ursula, before he punched a straight next. It was this time that she evaded his straight and grabbed his elbow, but he pushes his body forward to knock her off. He keeps walking and he saw her strong foot launched towards his face which he narrowly ducks under before turning to her, seeing her spinning as she tried another kick. This time, his hand caught her by her ankle. He sees her grit her teeth, with her legs held up like this and making her blush. "Give it up, Ursula. You're not stopping me."

"Then I'm not giving up either," Ursula was not fearful as she lifts her other leg off the ground and kicks his face this time.

Soon, two low-ranking witches were walking to a direction in the corridor where Ursula Hartmann's room should be. Their almost quiet conversation was interrupted when the door in front of them was suddenly take off its hinges as a man in a black jacket was thrown with the door. He hits the wall together with the door and lands on his feet but collapses. The witches were alert that time when they saw Ursula leave the room. "Hartmann!" The witches shouted together.

Ursula looked at the two witches. "You pilot officers should call up security over here now! I have a man here who needs to be detained for questioning!" And she saw the witches nod and run the other way while looking towards where Josh should be. Wincing, she finds out he wasn't there anymore. Looking around, she, with her keen sight, saw a reflected silhouette of a humanoid running the other way. "He's invisible?!" She muttered this and ran to the same direction.

Josh bursts out of the door from the building he was in and looked around, finding himself at a complex with a nearby runway. He looks around and takes sight of spotlights now active, searching the complex for him. He was breathing intensely, since his cloak would only work for so long while he has energy. 'Rotten luck… Maybe I should have been more considerate, but I got my own problems to deal with!' He tried to run towards one of the paths leading out of the complex across the unused runway, but he was running out of breath. His cloak was beginning to wear off because of this.

A witch smirked, flying over the skies when she saw a figure moving on the runway, partially visible to her eyes, but it didn't fool her. "I have him." She said this briefly before diving down and narrowly leveling her flight to copy the ground. Heading for the partially visible man, she makes a sharp agile turn on the last moment to have her striker unit hit his head. This knocked the man off balance and force his cloak to wear off completely just as his body was thrown off through the runway. And seeing this, she equips her MP4 Submachine gun and hovered to the now unconscious man. "Looks like we got him!"

Ursula was running together with a squad of Karlslander soldiers, seeing Josh knocked out on the runway. But moreover, she saw a peculiar figure… a peculiar appearance like herself who's in a striker unit. "Erica?" She muttered this to herself. Sighing, she approached Erica who was hovering low. "Sister."

Erica smiled at her twin sister Ursula. "Looks like I got here on time. Thought I'd see you after the Venezia Hive was done for."

"Well… I don't know what to say…" Ursula frowned, looking at the unconscious Josh being turned on his belly and being given wraps behind his back before he was carried by one of the soldiers. "Erica, I need you to not be hard on him."

And Erica was seeing there was a certain alignment between Ursula and the man now being carried into questioning. Crossing an arm over the other, she narrowed her eyes on Ursula. "What have you gotten yourself into, sis?"

"Good question." Ursula sighed and was looking at the man carried into a building. "Sister… Can you try not to react so much? There's… something I need to tell you."

And from afar, a magic spell to let one see from far was being used to see Josh being carried into the building where he's going to be questioned. The eyes turned to the two blonde witches, one on the ground and one hovering in a striker unit. "Interesting conundrum." A teenage girl with an American accent said this to herself as she inspected the two. "So the plans are being accelerated then… Good to know." Getting off the tree branch, the shadowy figure leaps away into the darkness of night…