Chapter 9 – Liberation of Afrika

"Ah, the rest is coming," an ebony beauty dressed only in a uniform shirt, panties, and flip-flops noticed before anyone.

"Vigilant as always, Matilda," a Fusojin witch in a no less gaudy tropical uniform from the Second Neuroi War said with a smile.

"Heehee, Hanna is coming," a blonde witch in a desert Wehrmacht uniform giggled.

Out of seemingly nowhere, Hanna, Trude, Mami, Nami, Keiko and Aya appeared as they were during their little encounter.

"Ho? What are you doing here?" Raisa asked just as she saw Trude.

"She dragged me in here…" Trude mumbled with a faux pout plastered to her face and pointing at Marseille. "I can go if I'm not welcome."

"No, please stay, Gertrud," Matilda said with her usual deep but caring voice. "Ah, but we have some rather distinguished guests?"

With a mental agreement as fast as light, Nami and Aya ran up to Matilda and unanimously cheered, "Hi!"

"The Queen of Gods and her cousin grace me with their presence," Matilda nodded with an all-knowing face. "This is a good day."

"Oh? You remember me?" Nami asked confused. "But we met just once!"

"I have a good memory for people's faces," Matilda smiled.

Aya in the meantime looked both at her and Nami, and she finally said, "I feel small…"

"You're not that small, Your Highness," Matilda smiled yet again. "At least you have only a few centimeters lacking to us, unlike…"

"Unlike me?" Mami popped in suddenly from behind Aya's back.

"Point and case," Matilda nodded.

"See, Aya? This is why I hate my original body!" Mami pouted heavily.

"But we love you the way you are, Grandma," Nami said as she picked up Mami, despite slight non-verbal protests, and placed her on her shoulders. "You're cute!"

"Well…" Mami muttered. "I know that people see me as cute, but that's just rooted too deep inside me…"

"How's the air up there?" Trude asked as she walked up to them.

"Better than down there!" Mami laughed heartily. "Ah, I always wanted to say that! Say, cousin?"

"Yes?" Trude, Nami and Aya asked in sync.

"Ugh, I wanted to ask Aya, but… So, which of you knows what happened on the day Afrika was liberated?"

"I know," Trude said. "I can even tell a bit about it from a sideline perspective."

"Oh?" Mami tilted her head.

"Remember what the day was?" the suddenly appearing Marseille asked.

"Nooooo…"

"It was my birthday, dumbo. Operation Bring Down The Sky coincided with my birthday," Hanna said proudly. "And Trudy here called me, heheh…"

"She did?" Keiko asked as she appeared.

"Totally!"

"Almost impossible to think of…" Aya nodded. "Oh, Trude! Finish the story!"

"Yeah, of course. Everyone, wait a moment, I'll just end what I started."

"Affirmative," Raisa winked

I took a deep breath and said, "Hi, Marseille…"

"Hoho, Trudylein! This is a very rare occasion! I have to write this in stone, hahaha!" Hanna replied cheerfully.

"Marseille, I'm hanging up…" I grunted through clenched teeth.

"Okay, okay, I'm sorry," Marseille said apologetically.

"Now I have to be dreaming…" I sighed. "Anyway, Marseille… Uh… Happy Birthday and all that…"

"Thanks, Trudy; it's nice of you to call."

"You're being awfully nice all of a sudden… You found a man or something?"

"Ha, rich! Nah, it's just… You know, there's an operation slated for noon, and I'm trying to make the best of what can be the last day of my life…" Marseille said calmly.

"Wait, what?" Toshiro butted in. "What operation?"

"Operation Bring Down the Sky. The combined forces of the 31st and some other units will destroy the Hive over the Suez Chanel. Nice coincidence, huh?"

"Wow, seriously?" I asked. "Hey, you don't have to act like that, I know you'll win!"

"I wish I could tell you the state of my mind during this call, but no can do," Marseille sighed. "In the case of the worst outcome, remember that I always respected you, just like I respected Erica, maybe even more. Bye, Trudy," the connection was cut off.

"What…?" I asked with a blank face.

"She's probably not good with emotions…" Toshiro smiled and patted her on the shoulder. "Just like you."

"Oh shut up…" I muttered. "I'm going to my room… And thanks for everything…"

"No problem, Trudy."

"You really fucking scared me back there…" Trude sighed. "How could you end a call like that?"

"I really thought I wouldn't make it. If not that Hive, then that Neuroi Queen could make short notice with me in 1946. But that didn't matter, huh?"

"Well, you damn won!" Trude yelled.

"Oh, maybe we should all tell what we did during that day?" Keiko asked.

"I bet it's not a funny story from your perspective, huh?" Nami asked wryly.

"Pffff… I may have been the unit commander, but that's not just desk work, damn you!" Keiko shouted, but she took a deep breath and added, "But yes, until the battle preparations, it was a dull day for me. Tina, why don't you start?"

"Me? Sure!"

"Tina, what will you be doing?" Keiko asked.

"I'll probably just kick back in my bunk and not bother until the time comes. Have any plans for me?"

"I'm just asking so I'll know where you'll eventually be in the case of emergency, that's all," Keiko smiled.

"Rai, not coming with me?" I asked.

"Oh, if you're inviting… But please, give me a few minutes so I can finish all of this, okay?"

"Sure thing, Rai, have a blast."

I buzzed out of the office and made a beeline out of the base HQ building, which was now a solid, two-story concrete building, not a slightly oversized tent. I moved north, right to my cozy barrack. Upon opening the door, I was greeted by Matilda as usual.

"Welcome back, Mistress."

"Relax, Matilda, just like I'll be doing it."

"As you wish," the witch said and moved deeper into the building.

On the outside, it was a fairly normal barrack, but it had a key feature – it was entirely owned by me, which was possible with a lot of money and a lot of grease applied at and by Galland. The interior of my room was furnished like a hunters saloon, with a bar standing beside one wall, and an enormous queen sized bed making itself visible near the other. I pulled off my shoes, as not to sully the puffy carpet on the floor. Those things were a bitch to clean…

"Matilda, want something to drink?" I asked as I was nearing the refrigerator.

"No, thank you, Mistress."

"Suit yourself," I shrugged and pulled out a half-pint bottle of milk, and chugged it down in one go. "Paaaaah! Now that hit the spot. Time to drop dead on the bed until I'm needed.

"And that's that, at least till dinner."

"You won't win a Nobel Prize for that book…" Trude muttered.

"Your preparations for the last battle weren't a Ludlum grade thriller too," Marseille pouted.

"Come on you two, stop bickering," Mami came between them. "My turn!"

"Where are you?" Trude looked around into the air demonstratively.

"Fuck you!" Mami yelled and kicked Trude in the shin.

"Waaaaaaaaaarrggggh!" Trude roared as she jumped on one leg. "Why I oughta…!"

"Cousin Trude, please…" Aya raised her hand. "You brought it upon yourself."

"But she fucking kicked me!"

"Cousin Mami…" Aya looked at the half-pint Fusojin with content.

"Oh okay…" Mami sighed. "Ugh… Sorry, Cousin…" she mumbled towards Trude.

"Me too…" Trude muttered, after receiving a death glare from Aya.

"Brilliant…" Keiko shook her head in disbelief. "You're better than me, Aya."

"Oh please… The two are my family, so I bet they have a little different bond than, for example, you, Cousin Mami, and Hanna, right?"

"True, nothing beats family," Keiko smiled warmly. "Okay, Mami, go on with your tale."

"Heh, okay!"

From the moment I woke up, I had only one thing in mind – cooking. It was vital to make a good breakfast for everyone, but also a satiating but light brunch before the battle itself. The first went easy, but the second one…

"Mami, I need you in my office ASAP," Keiko's voice sounded from the PA system.

"Not NOW…" I mumbled sourly and ran up the panel on the wall. "I'm busy cooking, I can't go!"

"Ah yes. Then I'll tell it remotely – the rest of the strike force will be coming over for a briefing and a meal before the battle itself, so you'll have to cook a lot more."

"Whaaaaaaa?! How many more people?!"

"Twenty…" Keiko sighed. "Are you up for it?"

"I'll need Ruko for this! And Matilda!" I shouted in panic.

"Doable…"

"Oh, can I take over now?" Furuko asked.

"Sure!" Mami cheered.

I was doing my voluntary guard duty at the new guard booth I had at the base entrance. An air-conditioned small concrete room and windows that made up for and 180 degree view. I was sitting in a chair, humming quietly to the tunes of the radio, which played as quietly as my backing track of sorts.

"Fuko, how are you doing?" Keiko asked through the PA.

I pressed the button and replied, "Doing good, Keiko."

"I need you to dump your guard duty and go to the kitchen, Mami needs your help."

"Oh? She does?"

"We'll have guests for dinner, heheh…"

"Ah… Okay then, I'm going!" I shouted and ran out of the guard post, boarding the Type 5 Chi-Ri Land Striker that was standing beside it swiftly.

It took me only two minutes, and I was already in the kitchen, where Matilda and Mami were waiting for me.

"Great, you're here!" Mami shouted enthusiastically and jumped on the table. "Ladies! A great task is at hand! We are to make a pre-battle meal for twenty-six people! We have the resources, we have the power, but I don't know if we have the spirit to do it. Do we?!"

"Yeah!" I cheered from the top of my lungs.

Matilda looked at me, than at the sour Mami, and she sloppily cheered, "Yeeeeees…"

"Well, we gotta work with that," Mami giggled. "Let's do this!"

Keiko was outside, watching at the whole squadron descending towards their base.

"Twenty people…" she sighed. "I really do hope the girls made that dinner…"

The witch that was flying a Meteor at the front landed and taxied up to her. She wore a cowboy hat, which was protecting a slew of dark chestnut long hair.

"Oi mate, Claudia Caldwell 'ere!" she said with a thick accent and forwarded her hand.

"Keiko Katou, nice to meet you," Keiko replied slightly amused. "It's rare to see a witch from Australis over on my turf."

"Command told us to deal with that cunt 'ive, so we're here! Say… Have some grub? I'm fockin' starvin'!"

Keiko looked as the rest of the unit was taxying towards them and replied, "Come on to the canteen, the food should be ready."

"Ladies, grub's a waitin'!" Claudia shouted at her squad mates.

The spontaneous cheers made Keiko smile involuntary, and she said, "Come on, everyone! Ditch your Strikers in the hangar over there, and let's eat!"

"Be right back!" Claudia said and zipped past her towards the hangar.

"What a bunch, heheh…"

Keiko waited a moment for her guests to start amassing, and she led them into the mess hall.

"They're coming! Battle stations!" Nami shouted, grabbing an enormous pot of soup and enabling her Type A Strength Magic.

"Aye aye!" Furuko replied and grabbed a stack of plates.

"Affirmative," Matilda said ever so calmly and took a whole box of cutlery, and put a ladle inside of the soup pot.

"Forward!" Nami yelled and went forward with the pot over her head.

"Oi, a midget!" one of the guests shouted in wonder.

Mami grabbed the pot so hard she dented it, however Matilda kneeled beside her and said, "These are our guests, Mami, please treat them good."

"But… She called me a damn midget!" Mami whispered loudly.

"Are you not in fact?"

"I am but… Oh whatever now, dinner time…" Mami muttered and went forward.

"Hey, you're so cute!" one of the guests ran up to Mami and started pulling her cheeks. "Just like those Fuso dolls!"

Mami was now torn between letting herself being complemented and still remembering that somebody called her a midget.

"Mami, put the pot down, or there's a chance our dinner might land on the floor," Keiko commanded.

"Oi, Petra, give that lass a rest," the one near Keiko added. "Unless ya want to eat your soup with sand in it."

"Yeah, yeah, boss…" the witch stopped mangling Mami's face, but she did give her a pat on the head as a final touch.

"It's not that I didn't like it…" Mami muttered with a red face.

"Dinner's ready?" Hanna suddenly popped up from the croud.

"No thanks to you!" Mami yelled, garnering some attention from the guests.

"Everyone, please take your seats!" Keiko commanded. "Fuko, please pass out the plates."

"Yes, Keiko!" Furuko quickly started running around the tables and giving out plates, just as the girls started taking their seats.

"How about some introductions then?" the leader of the new bunch proposed.

"Please, go ahead," Keiko said with a smile.

"Colonel Claudia Caldwell of the Australis RAF! Pleased to meet ya all!"

The 31st looked at her with big eyes, which Claudia understood all too well.

"Heheh, don't worry, we're under YOUR command right now, so I'm just your mate."

"That's nice of you, Claudia," Keiko nodded with relief. "So, the rest of you?"

"Major Adrianna Goldsmith," one witch with short blonde hair and a cheeky smile stood up. "Nice to see you."

"Captain Pattie Hughes!" another chestnut haired witch shot up.

Following her example, the rest started introducing themselves.

"Lieutenant-Colonel Jane Waddy!"

"Major Katie Truscott."

"Lieutenant Lisa Clisby."

"Major Charlotte Schelf!"

"Captain Nigella Cullen!"

And so on and so forth, the girls introduced themselves up to the last one.

"Lieutenant-Colonel Robina Gibbes."

"How the hell did we not hear about all of you?" Hanna asked. "You're a unit that has nobody less than a Lieutenant!"

"We were assembled together from all around the world, some of us from units that barely made the last pages of the newspapers," Claudia said with a smile. "Hell should I know why, bloody brass… But since we're here together, I guess we stand a chance at our objective!"

"Right!" the whole Australis ensemble shouted.

"Hoho, what eagerness," Keiko giggled. "But now, let's eat. Itadakimasu!"

"Nice last supper…" Claudia smirked.

"Oi, oi!" Charlotte protested. "Don't be like that!"

"Yes, be mindful that I'm planning for all of us to return," Keiko said with a shrewd mile.

"Right, what's the plan?" Jane asked.

Keiko started silently reorganizing the tableware, so that at the end, she had all their glassed at one spot, and a pyramid made out of four conjoined forks at another point.

"Nice tactical map," Hanna snorted, but her face turned into a stone mask quickly. "So, explain, Kei."

"I'm getting to it," the Fusojin smiled and reorganized the cups. "We will attack in squadrons of five, so five squadrons in total, with the exception of my unit as a whole being a squadron of six. As for the tactics themselves…"

"I'll skip the boring lecture, right?" Keiko asked the gathered around her.

"Well sure, the result counts," Trude nodded.

"Yeah, tactics are boring…" Nami yawned demonstratively.

"Oh, and skip whatever happened until the moment just before battle, kay, Kei?" Mami asked. "That's kinda irrelevant too."

"Sure, Mami," Kei smiled. "So, just before the battle…"

All twenty-six witches were preparing their Strikers. Even Matilda and Furuko, who normally furiously clung to their Land Strikers normally, now both had XF-2's on their legs. Mami was amazed by this, which didn't escape Matilda's attention.

"If it's a must, it's a must. This battle will decide about the future of Afrika," Matilda said sternly.

"You can fly one?" Mami asked.

"Remember that time I had left for two weeks?"

"Yes?"

"I was secretly training with such a contraption, but that one had propellers."

"Oh, now that makes sense…" Mami nodded and looked at her Kikka. "Yup, a jet is something else though."

Mami looked around everyone else, who were armed to the teeth and all had jet Strikers on their legs.

"Ladies, the time has come," Keiko announced. "The full liberation of Afrika is at hand, however, don't cheer yet. This is a suicide mission basically, and the plan I've put together only guarantees us minimal chances of success. But execute it flawlessly, and we might see an end to that big Hive! Witches, to battle!"

Various rallying calls were heard, and all the jet engines started slowly getting into revs. After a minute, the 31st JFS formed their formation at the front, and took off.

The enormous Hive was visible from miles to come, as well as its guardians, almost blackening out the view from sheer number.

"You weren't kiddin' this would be a suicide mission…" Claudia muttered under her nose, dead in front of the formation.

The five squadrons were in a diamond formation, with the 31st in the center.

"I have never felt so tense in my whole life," Matilda said.

"Well duh…" Furuko mumbled. "Look at all the enemies…"

"Kei's plan is simply foolhardy, but damn, it looks effective," Hanna said. "Are you sure this will work?"

"It all depends on Mami," the Fusojin looked at her compatriot. "Right?"

"I do hope this will work…" Mami patted a small round pouch she wore on her hip.

"It has to work," Keiko said with a smile. "I'm here after all, right? My shield is now just a light show, so if I didn't believe in my own plan, I wouldn't be here."

"Logical to the T…" Raisa nodded.

Hanna saw a glint in the mass of the enemies, and led both by instinct and using her magic, she dragged Raisa by her collar just ten centimeters to the right, thanks to which the little Karlslander avoided a beam.

"Um… Wow… Thank you…" Raisa said dumbfounded.

"You'll thank me later," Tina winked. "Kei, orders?"

"Commence operation!" Keiko shouted through comms.

"ROGER!" she got a thunderous response.

"So what was the plan?" Trude asked all of a sudden.

"Will you fucking not interrupt?!" Hanna yelled. "We're getting to it!"

"Sheesh…" Trude backed up a step.

The formation changed into a single line, shielding Mami and Hanna in the back.

"Let's do this, Mami!" Hanna cheered and grabbed her shoulder. "Mímisbrunnr…" the Karlslander whispered.

At the same time, Mami took her pouch and pulled a grey metal ball, about twenty-centimeters in diameter, and took a wind up, aiming with her left hands thumb and index finger. Her whole body flared up with a slightly blue film of magic.

Hanna looked at the Hive, which was ten kilometers away. She saw the world devoid of color, but nothing changed anyway.

"Okay, Mami, just like we trained," Hanna said with a steady voice.

Mami began to adjust her aim slowly but surely, moving her left hand around the big Hive.

"STOP!" Hanna shouted. "A bit to the left!"

Mami corrected herself and asked, "Do you see it?"

"Yes, I fucking see it! LOS!" she yelled.

Mami unleashed the ball out of her hand using her magic. The ball accelerated to a hypersonic speed, and two seconds later, a loud bang was heard coming from the Hive, and the Neuroi around started exploding one after another. Just a bit later, the Hive itself disintegrated itself with an earth shattering noise. After that, there was only silence. One could hear the quiet whiz of the jet Strikers, but not much more. And then, everyone started cheering.

"And that's that, Trudy," Hanna said.

"So you used your Final Art, which enabled you to see three seconds in the future and guess the position of the core, and Mami used her Mass Drive to drive a metal ball into it?"

"Yup," Mami nodded with a grin of satisfaction. "It's good that we developed them sometime after summer ended."

"And don't you think that was an easy task, Trudy. Imagine seeing another future every time Mami even took a breath. It was so damn exhausting…"

"Sure, I acknowledge your effort," Trude shrugged. "But in the end, we all met here, in the afterlife, hahaha!"

"Hey, Hanna?" Aya asked. "Why are the Aussie girls not here?"

"Because this is a reunion for just the 31st, duh?" Hanna smirked. "Hey, we could invite them, but do you want such a soiree here and now?"

"Why not? I like to meet new people!"

"Aya, Aya…" Nami whispered to her. "Come on, we kinda forced ourselves in, let's go find someone else to bother."

"You say so? Well okay…" Aya mumbled quietly. "Um, Hanna, we're going now, but if you want, just throw us a message, kay?"

"You're going now?" Mami butted in all of a sudden. "Bawww… Bye cousin and granddaughter, don't make me waiting for another occasion to meet!"

"Heehee, sure oba-chan, will do," Nami snickered.

"Same for me, Cousin," Aya bowed, and the two went off.

"Who woulda think that she's the Empress of Gods, huh?" Mami asked Trude.

"She's an Edelweiss, everything is possible with those crackpots," Trude said and cackled out loud.

And suddenly, twenty new girls appeared, all smiling wickedly at the previously gathered.

"Well then…" Trude, Mami and Hanna muttered in sync.

AusFlyer, I delivered XD

The Ausie girls are of course based on their real world counterparts.

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