Chapter 3: In the Invisible Sky
Evangeline ignored the expressions on their faces and kneeled down next to Mami, who was obviously favoring her left leg at this point. "You, sit. We need to get this taken care of. I didn't rescue you just to have you bleed to death". Mami finally seemed to realize how bad her wound was, and sat down gingerly, obviously starting to feel pain. "Now unfortunately, I'm not particularly good at healing magic, for rather obvious reasons, and I doubt this Midchildan mage could heal her way out of a paper bag." Fate started a bit at that, but motioned agreement that she couldn't help. "So how about you, Miss Magical Girl?"
Mami grimaced a bit as she stretched her injured leg out, "yes, I can do healing magic, but unfortunately I can't use it on myself. I've tried in the past, it just doesn't work." She peered at Evangeline, "you aren't a Witch are you?"
Evangeline chuckled at that, "I have been called a witch, I was once even burned at the stake. Not a pleasant experience, if you're curious, but no. I'm not the kind of Witch you probably think I am. But that's for later." Ending the conversation, Evangeline tugs off Mami's right boot, and then strips off the tattered remains of her thighhigh. With the bloody sock out of the way, the wound looked bad. A slice running from just below her knee on the right to halfway up the top of her thigh, with blood still pulsing out of it. "Oh this is not good at all, but I think I can deal with it." And with that, Evangeline lowers herself over Mami's leg, and begins to lick up the blood. Mami turns bright red in shock, while Fate blushed nearly as much.
"Ev…Evangeline-san, what are you doing?" Mami manages to get out.
"Well, as you may have figured out by now, I'm a vampire. And that spell I just used is no joke, so I'm feeling a bit peckish." She looks up, a bit of Mami's blood spilling from the corner of her mouth. Behind Mami she can see Fate trying to decide whether to look away or pull Evangeline away. "But that's not the only thing, one interesting side effect of being a vampire is that our saliva has slight disinfecting and analgesic properties. Its not as good as full on medical treatment, but it will reduce the pain and help prevent infection." As she looks up again from her "treatment", she sees Fate still trying not to look "oh, you remind me of someone I know, she'd have this same reaction. Anyway, we'll need cloth to bind the wound, find something."
Fate looked around the rooftop, covered in melting ice and chunks of monster corpse, and then sighed to herself and pulled off her cape. "Bardiche, Harken Form". Using the energy blade, she cuts strips off of the cape, and brings them over to Evangeline, who looked to be finishing up. "Here you go. My name is Fate, Fate Testarossa Harlaown, an Enforcer with the Time-Space Administration Bureau" She handed the strips to Evangeline, who starts wrapping them around Mami's leg. "I have a question…Evangeline", she hesitated a bit, but moved onwards, "while I'm not from Earth, I lived there for some time when I was young and…as far as I know, Vampires don't exist." Fate actually looked somewhat sheepish at making the admission.
"I'm not surprised you think that, considering what has most likely brought us here." She looked down at Mami, who was feeling her leg, and pulling her boot back on, "in fact, I'll bet you'd never heard of the 'Witches' this girl here…"
"Mami, Tomoe Mami", Mami interjected as she pushes herself to her feet
"Ah, that Mami here referred to, correct? And Mami, I'm sure you've never encountered a Vampire, or heard of the Time-Space Administration Bureau, have you?" Both Mami and Fate nodded. Well that's because…a roar off in the distance interrupted Evangeline. "Oh that's not good, We probably shouldn't hang around here much longer. Both of you are capable of flight, correct?", another nod from both the other girls. "Well in that case, lets get to somewhere a bit less…messy, and we can discuss it more on the way. With that, Evangeline floats up in the air and starts heading westward, towards the setting sun. Fate and Mami look at each other, and Mami smiles and gives a faint shrug and jumps into the air, followed by Fate. Behind them, to the east, another roar emerges from the forest…
As she flew over the Adriatic Sea, Perrine H. Clostermann, Flying Officer of the Free Gallian Air Force and 501st Joint Fighter Wing, was growling magnificently. Right before her long awaited private training with Major Sakamoto, she'd been told she had to go run a scouting mission over this completely empty stretch of ocean. It seems that the Sanya had managed to wake up long enough to report an anomaly, and then promptly went back to sleep, like she always did. Since the Major obviously couldn't take the patrol, and the rest of the 501st was away from the base, it was left to Perrine to investigate. But it wasn't a total loss, it was a beautiful day for flying, crystal blue sky as far as the eye can see, and the deep blue of the ocean far below. It was as if the entire world was open to her.
As she enjoyed the feel of flying through the air, Perrine realized she was no longer alone, someone had joined her. No, not someone…something. She came to a halt, hovering in the sky, and spun around…and found herself mere yards from one of the witch-shaped Neuroi. It was impossible. The last time the witch-shaped Neuroi appeared was right before the hive had descended on Romagna, and none had been seen since. The shock at its appearance had flustered Perrine, and she belatedly snapped her Bren machine gun upwards, pointing it at the Neuroi. The Neuroi skittered backwards a few yards in reaction, and…shook its head? It then raised one of its arms and pointed off behind Perrine, before suddenly darting in that direction.
Still confused as to what was going on, Perrine followed, keeping her gun trained on the Neuroi ahead of her. "This is such a bad idea" she thought to herself, but something compelled her to follow the Neuroi anyway. After about twenty minutes of flying, the Neuroi came to a stop. Perrine looked around, but other than the Neuroi, there was nothing to see. The Neuroi raised its arms, and Perrine looked upwards, and a soundless roar filled her ears. The world went black.
As her sight returned, Perrine realized they were no longer alone. In fact, she was in the middle of a raging battle. The previously empty blue sky was no longer empty, and no longer blue. A strange teal sky, meeting an orange colored ocean, and in this sky, Neuroi were engaged in battle. Hundreds, maybe even thousands of Neuroi, of all shapes and sizes, from the human shaped ones like the one she had followed, up to ones the size of battleships. But that was only the least of it, they weren't fighting witches, or even fighter planes, they were fighting monsters. The creatures looked like some sort of wingless dragon, all teeth and scales and claws, but they still seemed capable of flight. They were mostly the same size, perhaps a bit larger than a human, though far in the distance she thought she saw something that may have been a larger non-Neuroi creature. But if there were thousands of Neuroi, there were tens of thousands of these monsters.
As these realizations rushed through her head, Perrine realized she was in the middle of this mess, and right then, several of the creatures seemed to suddenly appear before her…and there was no way to avoid them. But brilliant red beams erupted from behind Perrine, and blew the creatures out of the sky. Perrine turned to see the Neuroi who had led her here. She raised her gun and returned the favor by shooting down a creature that had appeared behind the Neuroi. "I can't believe I'm saying this, but thank you." The Neuroi didn't visibly respond, but Perrine somehow felt…embarrassment? That couldn't be right. Regardless, she was stuck here for now, and it seemed the Neuroi weren't going to fight her, and they seemed more approachable than the monsters at least. "Well, let's get to this, shall we?"
The battle seemed to last for hours without end, though Perrine knew it couldn't have been that long. She and her Neuroi had fought back to back, covering each other as they took out the seemingly never ending supply of monsters. The rest of the Neuroi fought just as hard, yet it seemed, as hard as it was to believe, that the Neuroi were losing. As she let out a burst of fire, taking out one of the monsters, she saw a massive Neuroi, at least the size of the Akagi itself, become swarmed with the monsters, and explode as they reached its core.
Her Neuroi friend was firing beams constantly, and seemed inexhaustible, which Perrine most certainly was not. But it, her, constant presence had become comforting and reassuring, something for Perrine to hold on to as she fought for her life as she never had before. But then, as Perrine turned to take out a monster that had appeared over the Neuroi's shoulder, one of them slipped through the Neuroi's web of beams, and Perrine watched in horror as the stabbing horn shot through the Neuroi's chest and out its back, destroying the red gem that formed its core.
"No…noooooooooooooooooo!" Perrine screamed as her companion, her friend, exploded into a million shards of light. Dropping her Bren, she grabbed her rapier from the scabbard on her Striker Unit, and charged at the monster which had killed the Neuroi. She sliced right through the monster's head, yanked the sword out, and sliced off a forelimb from another. A black fluid coated her sword, and spattered onto her face. Raising her sword above her head, she gathered her magic power, "Tonnerre!" brilliant blue lighting crackled from her body and gathered into the point of her sword, finally discharging into a huge blast of electricity, which took out dozens of the surrounding monsters. The burst of magic left Perrine winded, and a monster that had survived the discharge leapt at her, and she looked up to see its tooth filled maw descending towards her…