Chapter 1-Don't shoot!

Thank you very much for you various responses to my story, as my first fanfiction I wanted to make a good start. I guess I should answer some questions and make some things clear:

The Fox God: There are going to be land Neuroi: Turtles and other elites that I will mention later on. Also, thanks for the comment about the Neuroi shooting beams rather than lasers, I'll make sure to amend that in future chapters.

Ok, asides from that-Land Neuroi. Whilst the Turtles are going to be the back-bone of Neuroi land forces, they are going to have elite vehicles resembling tanks from 1945 onwards as their elites. The same goes for aircraft, these are also going to be distinguished by a lack of beam patches on the exterior of the Neuroi, rather there are going to be concentrations of firepower on the gun, machine-gun ports and also the rear of the turrets, to give them all around firepower. The aircraft are going to have their beam patches where weapons were on the original. Also, this fanfiction WILL NOT completely follow the story, this is the story of Ryuu (along with others, heehee), not especially the Strike Witches, even if the Strike Witches will be heavily involved. Last but not least is names of companies and so on, for simplicity I will NOT rename manufacturers and I do apologize for any mistake there may be throughout, tell me and I will try to correct them. Also, thanks to majoramiruddin for allowing me to use his O.C.s!

Ryuu's P.O.V.

Well this is just brilliant. We've done our training, and our familiars decided to dump us off in a hangar in the South of-what was it, Britannia? God.

'Could you not have done something else?' I asked Terra.

'Familiars can't manifest bodies in worlds their master aren't in,' replied Terra. I sighed, before picking myself up along with my GSh-30-1. Oh yeah, quick note, our weapons use magic to reconstruct the ammo. The GSh-30-1 barely takes any energy, but remaking missiles takes a few minutes when under combat stress. Picking it up, I walked over to the stack of crates Mei was hiding behind.

"Yo bro, where are we?" asked Mei in a chipper voice, standing up with her GSh-30-1. I sighed.

"Somewhere in the South of Britannia, Dover I think," I responded. She looked around a little.

"Oh look, our strikers!" Mei ran off to where our strikers and launch units were.

'Your doing I believe?' I asked Terra.

'Heehee, yup.' Grinning slightly I ran up to them.

"Wahoo! At least we have something we know how to work with!" Mei yelled out loud. I nodded in approval. Then I heard footsteps. Aww crap!

"I heard something from in here!"

"Yeah, we should deal with it before Mio gets back." Two people at least, but a whole lot more footsteps. I heightened my senses, showing my familiar features. 9?

"Let's bust 'em!" Oh boy, this won't end well.

'This is a base for witches, right?'

'Yeah… oh no.' I facepalmed.

"Mei, guns up! We've got company!" Acknowledging my command, she raised up her 30mm GSh-30-1. Suddenly, 9 people burst into the room. Seeing our weapons raised, they narrowed their eyes.

"Who are you?" asked a red-haired woman. I looked at my sister and she nodded.

"Mei and Ryuu Sato, you?"

"I see no reason for us to introduce ourselves," said a blonde haired girl, sneering. I rolled my eyes at her response.

"Why you… If it's a fight you want it's a fight you'll get!" yelled my sister, deploying her familiar. Sighing, I readied myself as well.

"I'll warn you once, start a fight and this base won't survive," I added.

"You..!" The brown haired one growled at me. I snarled back, causing Mei to launch herself at the girl. Mei ended up picking the girl up by her feet and tossing her all the way to the end of the runway in one swift move, before firing off a small burst of flames after her. Sighing, I walked up to her.

"Mei…"

"Yes?

"Overkill." She pouted before pointing at the girl.

"She started it!" I chopped her head, earning a yelp of pain.

"There wasn't any reason for you to go 50% on her you know." I turned back to see the rest of the group staring at us slack-jawed. I sighed, before walking up to them, garnering a lot of distrustful stares. "Ryuu Sato, elder brother of this little rascal here."

"Mei Sato, sorry 'bout that." The group visibly relaxed, save for the red haired girl and the blonde haired girl.

"Flight Lieutenant Charlotte E. Yeager, Shirley."

"Sergeant Lynette Bishop, pleased to meet you."

"Ensign Francesca Lucchini, ciao!"

"Flying Officer Erica Hartmann, I've never seen anyone throw Trudy that far before, that was awesome!"

"Ensign Eila Ilmatar Juutilainen, nice throw!"

"2nd Lieutenant Sanya *yawn* V. Litvyak. Sanyaaaa…" Then she promptly fell asleep in Eila's arms. Weird.

"And the two of you? I promise you we harbour no ill inte-" I was cut off mid-sentence by the sound of an air raid siren.

"Mio!" yelled the red head. I shook my head.

"An ally I presume?" She nodded cautiously. "Need help?"

"No thank you! We'll help the Major ourselves." I shook my head.

"Don't be pretentious, we'll help, that's what we're here for! Bro?" I nodded.

"Fine, no missiles this time, we shouldn't need them." I turned around and hopped into my striker. "And no going supersonic either!" I flared up the thrusters, and disengaged the locking clamps, ignoring the protests of the rest of what I presumed to be the 501st Terra told us about.

"Yo bro, I got one large Neuroi contact up ahead. It's tearing apart a fleet of vessels!" I cursed under my breath.

"Let off a pair of Adders Mei, we've gotta stall it."

"Roger." Two missiles ignited, reaching Mach 4 within seconds. The missile left a wispy smoke trail in its path, whilst the solid fuel booster gave off an otherworldly roar as it leapt towards its target.

Mio's P.O.V.

"Miyafuji, watch out!" Damn this is bad! This is Miyafuji's first flight, I'm low on ammo and magic and the squadron isn't going to be here for a good ten minutes still. This is a do or die situation…

"Major, what do we do now?" Damn Miyafuji, if only I knew.

"Miyafuji, this'll be our last chance! 3 seconds, then follow me okay?" I asked, tentatively.

"Roger!" Brilliant, I hope this ends well. Giving a wave of my hand as a signal, I flipped over and began diving for the Neuroi, with my eye actively looking for the core. Within three seconds, Miyafuji followed, but…

"Ahh!" I knew it, she can't even get close.

"Stay away for now Miyafuji! I'll handle this!" Though I'm not quite sure how…

"I hear you guys are in a pickle, need a hand?" What the..?

"Who is this, identify yourselves!" I yelled. Not that I didn't appreciate the help, but still.

"Good to hear you're more accepting than some of your knuckleheaded subordinates. Ryuu Sato, reporting ma'am. You should notice a change in the Neuroi in three seconds." A change?

Ryuu's P.O.V.

"One second to impact. Boom!" Mei narrated the path of the missiles through the HUD radios, sending me an up-to-date feed of the missiles' trajectories. Direct hit.

"Sato?"

"Yes ma'am?"

"What the hell was that!?" I cringed at her loud voice, magically dampening the radio.

"Geez Major… ummm…"

"Sakamoto." What an impatient woman…

"Major Sakamoto, with all due respect that Neuroi is still alive, and both you and the Sergeant over there are a little low on magic, experience, ammo or all three. We'll take over if you want." The line went quiet for a little, before she responded.

"Ok then, it doesn't sound like you're bad people." I rolled my eyes at her comment, before turning to Mei.

"You know what to do?"

"Yup!" I grinned, before pulling my GSh-30-1 out of its holster on my back.

"Let's go!" I kicked in afterburners, making my speed leap to Mach 0.8 and my sister followed behind at a very good 900km/h.

It didn't take long for us to reach the fight, twenty seconds at most. I grimaced at the sight. One destroyer was hit and listing hard to port, and the rest of the fleet was scattering in every direction, sporadic fire failing horribly to even put the Neuroi on its toes. But the worst of the damage was on the Akagi itself, smoke trickling through the sky. And before anyone asks, remember the HUD? Yeah, that's how I knew it was the Akagi. Shaking my head, I held three fingers up to my sister, then pointed at the Neuroi with my pinky. It was a giant wing shape, with several laser patches dotted around. Easy.

"Bye bro!" Mei dove down under the Neuroi, before speeding towards it at near supersonic speed and jerking upwards in a high-G manoeuvre. In turn, I pulled up into a steep climb, trading most of my speed for altitude, before kicking my feet over my head and pushing straight down. I grinned, bringing up my cannon just as Mei brought up hers, and we executed a scissor manoeuvre, spraying the Neuroi from head to toe with Armour Piercing Incendiary Tracers (API-T) and poking holes through the Neuroi. Which didn't last very long as the Neuroi quickly regenerated its armour.

"Crap, Mei! Switch to HEI-T ammo!"

"On it!" The two of us zoomed past the Neuroi before I pulled an Immelmann and Mei spun around in a Chandelle, putting us right behind it. It didn't have time to react, as both my gun and Mei's roared into action, spitting out 30mm High Explosive Incendiary Tracers (HEI-T) at the Neuroi. Upon impact the rounds flared up, blasting chunks of armour away and we managed to hit the core after about 3 seconds of continuous fire. The Neuroi instantly began to crystallize, before shattering in a majestic display of fine white shards. I sighed in relief, before speaking into the radio again.

"Major, the Neuroi has been dispatched." I heard her hum in thought for a second, before she responded.

"Excellent job Sato, but I couldn't help but notice that you're male?" I sighed.

"Do you have a base? I'll need to explain this to everyone in your unit."

"Yes, back at Dover."

"You wouldn't happen to know a-"

"Major!" Oh mother of a dragon.

'HEY!'

"Is that you Perrine?" Perrine huh?

'Hey Terra, is that he pretentious Gallian noblewoman you were talking about?'

'None other.' That's not good. I looked over where the Major was and saw her holding the Sergeant. A girl around the age of 14. Well, I guess that Francesca Lucchini was younger, but I still can't get over the fact this world has pant-less girls aged 13-20 fighting aliens that shoot lasers.

"Mio! Why are those two next to you?!" Oh great, her as well…

"Calm down Minna, the two of them saved me and Miyafuji. They're our guests, at least for the time being." I could literally hear this 'Minna' fuming on the other side of the line.

"Fine, at least until he explains why he can fly the striker unit and he's a boy. Not to mention the strikers the two of them are flying are really different from the ones we fly." Phew, at least we'll have a chance to explain without pounding them to pieces.

It took us only a few minutes to land at the base. As we did so, and docked at our advanced docking units, I noticed that our land strikers had been left untouched, albeit pushed aside slightly. I smiled at that, noting these people were not as bad as I may have originally thought them to be. I jumped down from my J-31s, and almost instantly noticed everyone crowding around Mei and myself. I sighed, knowing this was going to end up as some question and answer session no matter what. I turned to see Major Sakamoto and Sergeant Miyafuji both walking up to me, along with a mix of either very annoyed or very scared expressions. The first one to speak I recognised from earlier, the commanding officer-Minna was it?

"Ryuu Sato, correct?" she asked with a venomous tone.

"Correct. Minna was it?" I asked, not giving off any sort of emotion in my response. I could tell by a small flicker in her eyes that for a second, she was surprised.

"Explain yourself, and your sister. How did you get here?" I grimaced slightly hearing the question.

"Of course I will, but I think I would like everyone to hear this. No point repeating myself." Minna was positively fuming by this point, but managed to keep it bottled down. I smirked internally at how this conversation was riling her up.

"Ok then, I will call a general assembly, we need to introduce Sergeant Miyafuji anyways." She spun on her heel, before walking away. Sighing, I turned to Sakamoto.

"Major-"

"Sakamoto, or hell even Mio please. I think you've earned at least that honour with your fighting prowess."

"Mio then, what seems to be everyone's problem with me? They accepted Mei easily enough." Sakamoto pondered the thought for a second, before responding.

"We don't see many men at this base, and the thought of men with magic is unheard of." I groaned, realising that this was going to be a lot less simple than I had originally envisioned. Not only was I dealing with falling into their world from another dimension, but I was an anomaly, something that had not been seen before.

It didn't take long for the 501st to gather in the meeting room. Well, one uneventful night anyways, in which my sister and I just stayed in a guest room. Anyways, assorted in front of me were 9 people, all of different nationalities and backgrounds, and all eyeing me suspiciously. I sighed a little, before Miyafuji went up to introduce herself to the 501st.

"In case you haven't spoken to her yet," Minna started, "This is Sergeant Yoshika Miyafuji, our newest recruit. Major Sakamoto brought her from Fuso."

"Thank you for accepting me," she began courteously, "I look forwards to working with you in the future." She looked like a nice girl, a bit innocent to be on the front-lines of a war, but then again, this was a desperate world. I noticed Minna pull something onto the lectern, and I grimaced as I realised what it would be. A gun. My suspicions were confirmed when out from under the lectern she produced a Mauser C96, and proceeded to present it to Miyafuji. I watched her intently, as she first registered what it was, and then proceeded to push it back towards Minna in disgust.

"Sorry, but I won't be needing this." I raised an eyebrow but didn't say anything, awaiting the reaction of the room. I could feel my sister gasp in shock, and the rest of the room reel in face of the news. One girl took it particularly badly.

"I've had it!" The blonde haired girl from earlier stood up, kicking aside her chair in anger. I raised an eyebrow at this, and was about to quiet her down, but Minna beat me to the chase.

"Hush for now Perrine, there is one more thing we need to do." She turned to me. "Please introduce yourselves." I walked up to the stage, my sister following closely behind. I could feel all the eyes in the room curiously, angrily or timidly following the pair of us as we walked up. I bowed in greeting and my sister followed.

"Pleased to meet you. My name is Ryuu Sato."

"Same here, my name is Mei Sato." I could feel the atmosphere in the room, it was still tense although one person relaxed. Strange, I wonder who that was.

"They will be staying with us for the time being. Please treat them accordingly." Huh, seems like Minna's lightened up a bit.

"Excuse me," the girl who Mei punched raised her hand, "But where did they come from? And how can the man use magic?" I groaned, before turning to Minna.

"Can I explain?" She nodded.

"Go on."

"Right, I'm going to go through everything, start to finish, and don't want any questions until the end. First off, the two of us shouldn't have magic at all, we come from a place where magic is non-existent. Yet here we stand, and with magic to boot. This is because we never belonged in that world, and though we may not fully belong here, at least we have a purpose. We want to help you defeat the Neuroi. Our familiars are powerful and ancient creatures, dragons, who have given us custom strikers to help us do so. So please, do not be afraid, we are only here to help." After I finished my explanation, I noticed that the entire room had visibly relaxed, including Minna. I turned around to face her, before holding out my right hand.

"Why?" asked Minna.

"To a prosperous relationship." Minna thought for a second, before grasping my hand with hers.

"Indeed." Suddenly, something popped into my mind.

"Hang on a second, aren't you guys military?" I asked Minna. Her eyes widened in realisation.

"Oh, how did I forget!?" I sighed slightly hearing her response.

"No biggy, tell them about us and the next time you go to see High Command, we can just tag along."

"Wouldn't there be problems for the time being?"

"I don't think so, we can just act as volunteers." Minna mulled this over for a second, before giving her response.

"Okay then, I think that'll work. Take the rest of the day to familiarise yourselves with the rest of the squadron, okay?" Both my sister and I nodded at that. Minna turned around again to face the squadron.

"That is all, you are dismissed!" The girls all saluted, leaving Minna to inspect them. Minna was obviously satisfied, as she walked off, probably to do some paperwork. I turned around to see my sister and Yoshika mixing up with the rest of the girls. Two of them walked up to me and I recognised them as the two Karslanders from earlier. That is the counterpart of Germany right? As the two approached, I snapped into a smart salute, surprising one of them and making the other groan slightly. I raised an eyebrow at this.

"Why the groan…" I thought for a second, "Flying Officer Hartmann?"

"Yeah, but you can just call me Erica," she replied. "And I groaned because seeing you means Trudy here will-"

"Why can't you be as ordered as him Erica?" asked the other girl. Trude?

"Excuse me, but what is your name?" I asked. Hang on, wasn't she…

"Captain Gertrude Barkhorn, you know, the girl who Mei tossed down a runway earlier?" I cringed slightly on the inside, but made sure to keep my calm composure.

"Sorry about that Captain Barkhorn, but she is very easily provoked."

"I noticed Ryuu, and I hope she won't do that again." After saying her piece, she swiftly turned around on her heel and left, leaving me alone with Hartmann.

"Man, what is up with her..?" I thought aloud, wondering why she was being so cold.

"You probably remind her a lot of herself back then," replied Erica.

"What do you mean Flying Officer?"

"Please, just Erica. And I mean that she also has a little sister, but her little sister was badly wounded by Neuroi during the evacuation of Karsland, and she's been beating herself up about it ever since." I understood her entirely. If anybody dared to hurt Mei…

"Well then Erica, do you mind showing me around?" I asked her. She giggled a little.

"I've gotta do a press shoot first, they wanna bag some shots of me and Trudy since we've got more than 200 kills." My eyes widened slightly at the revelation.

"Wow, you guys really are good aren't you," I said, slightly amazed.

"WOW!" yelled Erica suddenly. I grimaced slightly at her yell.

"Why are you yelling?" I asked, irked.

"Oh, sorry, it's just that for as long as you were here you never showed any emotion. It was kind of scary actually." I blinked slightly at what she said, realising the gravity of her words.

"Yeah, I usually put on that sort of front," I mused, "But maybe I don't need to anymore…"

"What do you mean?" I looked Erica in the eyes.

"Back when we were in my world, I always acted harshly towards others, just as they would towards my sister and myself. It became kind of a habit for me to be emotionless, even if something tore me up, just so my sister would always have someone to protect her." I looked down, all of a sudden feeling slightly guilty. "And I must have either irked or scared some of you guys because of that, I'm very sorry." I felt depressed, knowing that my outwards behaviour may have just caused trouble for both me and my sister.

"It's alright," Erica replied, "Everyone seems to understand that the two of you mean well." I smiled a little at this.

"Oh, shouldn't you be going to that press shoot?" I asked. Erica's eyes widened.

"Damn! I almost forgot, thanks Ryuu! Can you wait for me here, I shouldn't be too long." I nodded as she ran off. I chuckled a little.

"What a peculiar girl."

As I sat around in the briefing room waiting for Erica, a few people turned up. First of all, Eila was it? And Sanya?

"Hello Ryuu," said Sanya. I waved in response.

"Hey there!" yelled Eila.

"Hiya girls, what are you doing here?" I asked them.

"Just wanted to get to know you more, that's all," replied Eila. I suddenly got a thought.

"Hey Eila?"

"Hmmm?" I suddenly threw a small sandstorm at her, but took careful note of her reaction. Interesting. Before I even started, she'd already narrowed her eyes, and when I did, she instantly leapt out of the way.

"AHA!" I yelled. Eila looked at me pissed.

"Why'd you do that?!" she yelled at me. Sanya was also looking at me suspiciously. I pointed at Eila.

"I knew I felt something here! It was you!"

"Me?" she asked, still irked.

"Yeah, my familiar Terra told me there was a person here with foresight. I could feel something different about you so I decided to give you a little test," I gave her a thumbs up, "And you passed with flying colours!" Eila looked at me funny for a second, before smiling and then all-out giggling.

"You know, when I first saw you I was kind of scared of you, but you don't seem so bad," Eila responded, stopping her giggling. Sanya just looked at the both of us for a second, before falling asleep on Eila's shoulder, causing me to raise an eyebrow.

"Night patrol?" I asked. Eila nodded.

"Yup, the fact that she's even up right now is a miracle." I nodded back in response.

"You should probably take her back to bed then, having her walking around half-asleep is just an accident waiting to happen, and that'll probably lower her capabilities during the night patrol," I said in a serious voice.

"Yup, I'll go now," replied Eila. She walked off carrying Eila just as Erica rushed in.

"Heya Ryuu!" Erica cried out. I waved back.

"Yo, Erica!" I yelled back. She ran over to me as quickly as she could.

"Sorry about that, I got caught up in the shoot," she said, sheepishly rubbing her head. I stood up and walked over to her, then bonked her head slightly with my right fist.

"Try not to forget about me, 'kay?" I asked. She pouted slightly, whilst nodding her head, making me chuckle.

"'Kaaaayyy…" she replied.

"Good, can you show me around the base now then?" I asked her. She nodded furiously.

"Yeah! Let's go!" she yelled.

We started to walk around the base, first visiting the kitchen.

"First stop on our tour of the base-the kitchen!" Erica announced, in her best tour guide voice. I sniggered slightly at the sight, garnering a giggle from Erica in return. Once we had calmed down, I took a better look around the room. The kitchen was attached directly to the dining room, and both were of a relatively large size. The dining room contained a long table with many places on it, more than the amount of current residents. I looked at the kitchen again.

"I hope Mei will join in with the cooking whilst we're here," I said. "She'll never do anything else otherwise." Erica looked at me with a raised eyebrow.

"And what's wrong with that?" I sighed.

"I just don't like it when she's overly lazy," I said in response. I looked over at Erica.

"What?"

"I get the feeling you're pretty lax outside of combat too?" I asked. She giggled in response, causing me to sigh. "Well, where to next?" I was promptly dragged out of the kitchen and out to the rooms.

"This is your room," Erica said, pointing to one of the doors. I nodded.

"Okay, who are my neighbours?" I asked. Erica grinned.

"Me and your sister, left and right accordingly!" she replied with energy. I chuckled slightly.

"So long as you don't mind me waking you up every now and again," I said to her. She gasped.

"NOOOOOOOOO!" she yelled dramatically. I plugged my ears until she finished.

"Okay, geez, you can have your sleep, I was only joking you know?" I told her irritably. She laughed nervously.

"Oh, okay then… hehe." What a girl… I was promptly dragged from the rooms out towards a closed door. I took a guess.

"Bath?" I asked. She blushed slightly, before turning around.

"Yeah, we're gonna have to check with Minna about rotating that, eheh…" I sighed.

"She's probably already got something sorted. Anyways, is there a firing range here?" I asked her.

"Yeah! I'll show you!" Grabbing my hand again, she dashed out of the building, dragging me behind her. She ran relatively fast, making me actually have to work this time and rounded a few tight corners, almost slamming me into the hedgerows. Eventually we came out to a long firing range. I guess that makes sense considering the size of our weapons.

"Nice…"

"Tada! One extra-large firing range for extra-large weapons!" she said with vigour. I chuckled at her comment.

"Extra-large certainly does describe my weapon." Seriously, the GSh-30-1 is 1.978m long, 15.6cm wide and weighs 46 kg. It's big!

"Speaking of which, what is that weapon? I know you aren't from here, but still…" I sighed.

"You know Orussia?"

"Yeah?"

"In my world, they were the Soviet Union, and this gun comes from them. For aircraft of my time, it's actually a small weapon." She looked at me like I had just revealed the existence of ghosts and demons. Welp.

"No way…" I only nodded in response, causing her to turn away.

"Anything else Erica?" I asked.

"Eh, nope. Oh wait!" She once again dragged me by my hand, inside the base.

"Where are we going?!" I asked, as I was pulled up a flight of stairs. Seriously, not cool at all. I could make out a bright light at the top of the staircase.

"You'll see, heehee!" That doesn't give much away… Suddenly we popped out of the staircase and what I saw…

"Wow…" I looked out over the scene in front of me. The white cliffs of Dover in the distance, the rolling plains and grasslands of rural Britannia, dotted only by small hills. The glistening sea all around the island eventually gave way to a landmass to our South-East. Europe…

"This is the highest point on the base!" Erica announced proudly.

"This is certainly a view…" I said, still taking in the spectacle. I frowned as a thought entered my head.

"What is it Ryuu?"

"It's just," I pointed over to Europe, "It just occurred to me how much damage the Neuroi have done. And how many people depend on us," I said, melancholically. All of a sudden, I felt slightly depressed. Even if Mei and I were really strong, would we be able to combat the Neuroi? I felt a hand on my right shoulder.

"Don't worry about it. We do our best, and we won't be beat!" I felt myself be lifted by that answer. "Hey, you know what?" I turned to face Erica.

"Hmm?"

"Whilst the others are out training…" she pointed at my sister, Lynne and Yoshika, "Want to do a duel?" she asked, smirking. I gave her a grin in reply.

"Live ammo, first to pop their shield?" I asked. She nodded in confirmation.

"Let's go!" she finished, before running down the stairs. I chuckled as I leapt down the staircase as well, following her to the hangar. I jumped into my striker unit after discarding my shoes, before attaching the wingpack and grabbing my GSh-30-1 cannon. Erica was quicker, only having to grab her Kaiser's Buzzsaw (MG-42) and was already detached by the time I was ready. Which lead to a call from Minna being sent straight to my recently equipped helmet.

"Ryuu, what are you and Erica doing?" asked Minna. I could tell by her tone of voice she was annoyed. Oh boy.

"Just going out for a duel Minna, nothing to be concerned about," I replied.

"Ooh, a duel? Can I watch?" Looks like I've peaked someone's interest.

"Yep!" replied Erica. "Okay Ryuu, we'll start 4km away from each other and at an altitude of 6,000m, okay?"

"Mhmm." I mumbled incoherently into the radio to signal my acknowledgement. I flew to my designated position, waiting for confirmation that Erica had done the same. We decided to go above the channel, to avoid giving anyone a bad scare. As soon as Erica confirmed, Minna began to count down.

"3! 2! 1! GO!" I didn't need to be told twice. I immediately charged, opening up my throttle to max. But I didn't charge forwards. I went straight up, even engaging afterburners, which consisted of liquid ether injection into the jet stream to produce immense thrust, although it tired me greatly. My altitude skyrocketed, and I reached my goal of 10,000m in short order. Once up there, I looked back down, to see Erica desperately trying to catch up. Perfect. As she slowed down to a crawl, I flipped onto my back into a classic Split-S manoeuvre, getting down to her altitude in seconds and at a cool 1,000km/h. I brought my cannon up and aimed at her. But it wouldn't be that easy. Immediately, she pulled a prop-hang and forced me to overshoot, allowing her to aim her sights at me. Cursing, I immediately dropped into a downwards spiral, ending up below Erica, which would have been disastrous had she not just pulled a prop-hang like she had. This allowed me to pass safely underneath her as she slowly built back up her speed, and with an Immelmann I was once again directly on her six from higher altitude. Then she mixed it by launching herself into a tight loop, the small diameter of which again forced an overshoot from my speedy jet. Careful not to go past 1,100 km/h for fear of breaking the sound barrier, I did something only a striker could do, I redirected my legs down in a somersault motion, instantly killing my momentum. Within seconds I shot back up from under Erica, and almost had her. She then decided to use her magic.

"STURM!" And it was a kind which helped her manoeuvrability. Crap. She lurched out of my way and swung her gun around, making me do something I had only theorised. I swung my legs sideways, causing my body to rotate 180⁰ on the x-axis and turning me upside down. I passed harmlessly aside Erica's bullets, also leaving an unfortunate case of jawdrop-itis and grinned, bringing my gun to her and shot one round, which due to her lack of options, had to be stopped by shield. I flew over to her, grinning at my victory.

"How did you do that?" asked Erica, stunned. Minna was also there looking at me shocked.

"It wasn't too hard, I just shifted my body over to the right causing me to swing up in a ferris wheel motion," I replied honestly. I was kind of unnerved at the fact that they were looking at me as if I'd just revealed to them the existence of God, I mean, seriously?

"Also, what strikers are those? I've never seen them before," asked Minna.

"These are Shenyang J-31 Gyrfalcons, my sister's are the Sukhoi Su-47 Berkut, or Firkin. My land strikers are the Norinco Type 99s and my sister's are the Hyundai Rotem K2 Black Panther," I listed off. The two of them looked at me quizzically.

"Shenyang? Norinco? Hyundai Rotem? Are they weapon manufacturers?" asked Minna. I sighed at her question.

"Don't you remember? Future and all that?" I asked her. She slapped her head as she remembered, earning a giggle from Erica.

"Sorry, I forgot. Anyways, after that spectacular duel I reckon you're hungry?" asked Minna. Just on cue, both Erica and my stomachs growled softly, earning a giggle from Minna and a small blush from Erica. I rubbed my head sheepishly.

"Yeah, I guess. Let's go?"

"Yeah, let's go."

Dinner was relatively uneventful. I heard from Mei that she, Lynne and Yoshika had been training with Mio (and that it had been harsh. Good!). Something looked off about Lynne, but I shrugged it off, Mei and Yoshika could probably sort it out. I departed for sleep alongside and before long, fell asleep quickly. That fight with Erica really took it out of me. I wonder what surprises await me tomorrow?