STRIKE WITCHES: HELL'S ANGELS
"Okay, I'll get you to your Striker unit," you tell Sakamoto, preparing to gun the motorcycle.
"Ffffuck no," she says, her single visible eye flashing with eager light. She thrust her katana past your head, pointing at the beach. "TO THE MARTIAN SHIP! BANZAI!"
You blink.
"If they can't steal them, they'll kill them," Minna says. "Do it!"
Girl's got a point. You turn the motorcycle towards the Martian positions, gun the engine for all its worth, and drive straight into a huge concentrated barrage of heat-rays, rockets and bullets.
Good job. You're dead. BAD END.
Except when you open your eyes, you're bathed in the searingly bright light of Minna's active shield. "DRIVE!" she screams, clutching you with an iron grip, and you do what you do best.
You drive.
The terrain is broken and cluttered, with a seeming abundance of waist-high obstacles strewn about for no fucking reason - typical English landscaping, you suppose. The machine handles beautifully, and even with two girls who've no idea how to lean into turns, you eat up the distance between you and the Martians with incredible speed. You feel your skin drying out, and with horror realize the Martians are training their heat-rays on you, which Minna's shield can't entirely stop.
Behind you, Sakamoto is laughing that same strong belly laugh, but this time it isn't stopping, and there's a new, feral quality to it. "THAT'S THE WAY, PILOT!" she roars with unholy glee. "SHOW THEM YOUR SKILL!"
The Martians are now plainly visible, and you actually VRRRRRRRROOOOOOOOM past their advanced line before they can react. The bike's suspension lurches, and you see Sakamoto FLYING THROUGH THE FUCKING AIR, her kanana glowing with battle-magic as she roars with primal fury, her shield active as she hurtles towards the hapless Martians.
Turning the bike, you do the only thing you can think of - take it even further, past even more stunned Martians, carefully jouncing and bouncing down the rocky slopes to the narrow sandy beach of the island. The natural berm of the tiny "sea-cliff" gives you a moment's respite, and doesn't get you shot in the back trying to flee.
"Everybody off!" you declare, swinging off the bike. Minna gets off with you, holding your pistol, and you unsling the BAR
"What now?" you ask. Scarcely a hundred yards distant you can see the bloated form of the Martian landing craft, sitting at the very edge of the beach. "I dunno about you, but right now, I want to shoot these motherfuckers."
What does Minna order?
Minna's eyes dart from the dark landing craft, then back up the low bluff. The sounds of gunfire and men's shouting are growing louder by the second, and you can tell the engineers and male support staff are making a headlong charge, probably taking advantage of your distraction. Minna's face twists in pain, and you're watching as her eyes go cold and flat.
"Support the advance," she says, nodding at your BAR. "I'm entering the ship."
"That's fucking stupid," you say instantly, and she slaps you so fast you almost don't see her hand move.
"That's an order!" she barks, her voice hollow. "You fucking do it, soldier!"
Go along with this?
"Going in there alone is suicide. I refuse."
Minna shoves your pistol into your abdomen, her eyes blazing with fury.
"Those men are being butchered up there, you selfish fuck! I'm the Commander! ME! You fucking... arrogant, selfish, pigheaded egotistical... PILOT!" She spits the last as if it's the nastiest word she could possibly use.
So you do the only thing you can think of, which is to slam the strongest part of your skull into the weakest part of hers. You're not the biggest guy in the world - pilots rarely are - but Minna weights all of a hundred pounds soaking wet, and she's already been battered a-plenty tonight. She topples onto her ass, stunned.
"SIR, FUCK YOU VERY MUCH SIR," you declare, shoving the BAR into her arms and taking your 1911 back. It'll be more useful in the close quarters in the alien ship.
Before Minna can get up and rip your anus out and feed it to you, you haul ass for the Martian vessel. It's like nothing you've ever seen before, and every pilot has seen just about everything they've cooked up, on recognition flashcards if nothing else. It looks like a flattened spheroid, and is strangely sleek for a Martian vessel - they've no seeming care or worry about concepts like aerodynamics. Just one more oddity, all told.
An entrance is easy to find - there's several hexagon-shaped openings all over the sides. You grab onto a protrusion near the edge and sling your way in, 1911 up and ready.
The inside is a tubular nightmare. The construction is neither wholly mechanical nor organic, with strange, flowing shapes molding into stark geometric bulkheads and boxy equipment with no seeming rhyme or reason. It's obviously designed for the tentacle-ball Martians, as there's no clear pathways and the ship seems laid out like a honeycomb - you'd have to be a monkey to navigate it easily.
From above you, a scream: "LOOK OUT!"
You don't bother trying to figure out which of the six dimensions the Martian is coming from, so you just dive through the nearest honeycomb-like set of girders and roll on the ground a bit. Something big and Alien-like goes FLHAMPHULAMPALAUMP as it lands near you in a big ball of tentacles. One thing a fighter pilot is good at is spatial awareness, so you've no trouble locating the enemy. Thrusting the 1911 at it, you jerk the trigger three times, the mighty concussions of the hefty .45 caliber pistol kicking your eardrums hard in the enclosed space. The Martian isn't dead, however, and adroitly snatches your pistol away from you, tearing it from your hand with such force your trigger finger is wrenched out of the trigger guard with terrible pain.
A tentacle latches around your throat, crushing your windpipe, and you feel the cold circle of the muzzle pressed against your forehead.
*click*
A meaty, alien trill.
*clickclickclick*
BANG!
You shit so hard it blows clean through the side of the Martian ship and propels you out the other door. Your bowels convulse with the force of ten thousand gorillas on PCP as your brain warps into a tube to evade the path of the bullet. You scream so loudly the bullet shatters in midair as you go hurtling towards a dark tube with a bright light at the end.
This all happens the instant you hear that huge, horribly loud BANG! and none of it happens because for some insane fucking reason you're still alive.
There's another horridly loud BANG! and then two more in quick succession. Since you're not dead, you figure, hey, may as well take a breath. Then another. Then you open your eyes, and you find yourself staring at Francesca Luuchini.
"HA!" she hollers. "YOUR FACE! YOUR FACE! OH MY GOD, YOUR FACE!"
You clutch at your face in horror, expecting to find it blown off, but it's perfectly intact.
"THE LOOK ON YOUR FACE!" she yodels, and then she breaks into desperate, hysterical laughter.
"HEY!" you growl-screech at the ceiling. "FUCK YOU, ZUCCHINI!"
Her laughter comes to a sudden, strangled halt.
"I'VE TAKEN SHITS BIGGER THEN YOU, YOU LITTLE TWERP!" you howl, flailing about like mad. "AHRGH OFF, OFF, OFF ME!" you almost scream, tearing at the stiff, rubbery tentacle still wrapped around your throat. Staggering upright, you kick the dead Martian as hard as you can, lifting it an inch off the floor. "FUCK, YOU, I BARBECUE OCTOUPUZZ!"
From behind you comes the sounds of strangled, helpless laughter. Turning, you see Ian, slumped against one of the honeycomb-like girders, absolutely helpless with laughter. His chest is heaving, but he barely has breath to wheeze more laughter.
"What?" you ask incoherently.
Ian raises his right hand a little, drawing your eyes to his sidearm - a big, heavy Colt 1909 revolver chambered in .45 ACP, which he held onto even after 1911s were issued in their stead. He fumbles a half-moon clip out of his pocket, and makes a weak motion to reload his pistol, but the laughter takes him again and he slumps, unable to move.
Above you, that fucking Italian bint starts laughing again. "Ya look like you were trying to shit and scream at the same tiiiIIIIIIIEAAAAAAAH!" she exclaims, plummeting from orbit. You look up in time to see her snag a honeycomb girder before she drops too far.
From the roof of the odd vessel, other Witches come tumbling down, all of them managing to catch themselves with some amount of grace - except Gertrude, who just bounces off a few girders. You lunge to catch her in your arms, except 110 pounds of falling girl aren't easily stopped. Instead of catching her, you cushion her fall.
"T-th-thanks," she stammers, scrambling off you. You groan with pain. At least the hum is gone.
Hum? Yes, the hum. You weren't even aware of it till it ceased. Trude pulls you off your ass in time to see Sakamoto emerge from some separate compartment near the center of the odd vessel, her katana still glowing.
"I, Sakamoto Mio, declare this ship impounded and immobile," she says with satisfaction.
"Translate from blowhard, please," Ian says, irked.
Sakamoto flips up her eyepatch to reveal an eye glowing with magic. "I saw a glowy thing, and I sworded it. Now the ship is broke."
She turns, and stares at the hull.
"The xeno scum... have been purged," she says, wiping her blade off on her sleeve carelessly. For the first time, you notice she's wearing a big, fluffy pink bathrobe, and you don't think she's got anything on underneath.
"Nice timing," Ian says. "They were sniffing for me, and I thought I was boned before you came charging in."
"I've been playing bait all night," you bitch. You look down at the dead Martian, one tentacle still clutching your .45. "How the fuck did I live?"
"You put it out of battery," Ian says.
"I... what?"
"Out of battery. With your forehead. You pressed your skull against the gun as much as possible. It was out-of-battery." Ian almost giggles again, but manages to catch himself before the mad laughter takes hold again. "Should've seen the fucker. Cocked it four, five times, couldn't figure out what was wrong."
You shake your head. If you'd intended to do that, you have no recollection of it.
You limp out of the Martian landing vessel, supported by a Witch under each arm. Especially after having Gertrude land on you, the regular beating you've sustained is really beginning to tell. Once atop the bluff, you see Sakamoto was telling no lies - the ground is littered with dead Martians, but the shooting has ceased. Men in their underwear and others in torn, singed uniforms stalk about grimly, probing bushes and strands of trees with the muzzles of their rifles.
Numb from exhaustion, you let yourself be led to a temporary aid station, where a serious matronly-looking woman is tending to a long line of injured people. Miyafuji is with her, helping wrap people in bandages and such.
You sit down, then lie down, then fall asleep. You wake up in short order when something stingy is splashed across your face.
"PTHHSKCAK!" you bitch, sputtering.
"Quiet, you big baby," Miyafuji says with experienced ease, already wiping your forehead off with cotton gauze. You hear the ripping sound of medical tape being torn, and a few minutes later, Miyafuji pronounces you patched up.
"Just nicks and scratches and things," she says, "but you've taken a lot of blows to the head recently."
"That explains why I headbutted that bitch instead of shot her," you gripe.
"... okay, that's nice," Miyafuji says in a brittle tone, and scurries off to help the others.
Sitting upright, you rub your weary eyes. You want nothing more then to sleep, but in the immediate aftermath of a horrible, unprecedented attack, you just can't. To say nothing of the jangling electrical sensation in your nerves.
You sigh. You'd love to find out what the hell Ian was doing, or find Sean and pull him off the nurses, but you could also confront Minna now. Take the bitch by the ponytail.
wat do?
It seems you were asleep for a little bit, since the line of wounded men are all gone. You find Sean and Ian within a stone's throw. Sean is eating a sammich - Miyafuji's sammich, to be precise - and Ian is workong through a fifth of Jim Beam.
"Hello, sleeping beauty," Sean says.
"Fuck you sideways with a chainsaw," you reply.
"Eloquent as always," Ian says, nervously stroking the grips of his .45 revolver.
"What the fuck is going on," you ask, in a general sense.
"Most of the girls are airborne," Ian replies. "Sanya did get ambushed. Miyafuji went to rescue her, and Erica shot up the engines of that subma-thing before it could push off."
"The what now?"
Ian nods towards the Martian ship. "It came from underwater. Look closer, you can see barnacles and shit all over it."
You grunt, shaking your head in amazement. "Well, that's a new one."
"What isn't, with these motherfuckers?" Sean snarls, tearing into the sammich viciously. "They hit us everywhere. Half the big airbases got hit as well. London, too."
You swear under your breath. "That's why they hit the Witches simultaneously."
"Gotta give the fuckers credit, they take a while to learn, but when they do, they don't apply the lessons half-heatedly," Ian says, nodding. "Too fucking bad for them, we're not as thorough but we adapt a lot faster on our feet."
"How long was I out?"
"A good two hours. They just flew in a C-47 with Home Guard guys. Just what we need, trigger-happy scrubs with hand-me-down revolvers."
You sit down heavily, rubbing your head. "Ian, where the fuck were you?"
He shrugs. "I woke up when I heard thumps from the room next door. Didn't seem right, and when I walked in I found Sakamoto trying to beat a Martian to death with a curtain rod." He waves his revolver. "This worked better."
"And then?"
"Sakamoto got her sword out and I got the fuck out of her way," Ian says simply. "I just hung back and shot the bastards whenever they tried to mob her." He lifts his shirt to reveal a huge swath of bandages. "Dunno if you noticed, but one of them half-baked me with a heat ray before Sakamoto wasted it. They were trying to capture the Witches, but they weren't fucking around with us."
You recall the cold circle of your pistol's muzzle against your head, and you shudder. "Yeah, no shit. What happened in London?"
"Parliament got shot to hell," Sean says. Then he chuckles. "Get this shit. Somebody stole my fucking thunder!"
"They... what?"
"Churchill was having some late-night shindig after this medal ceremony. He was decorating some grunt named, get this, Churchill. And this crazy fucker, he was wearing his sword for the medal ceremony. A claymore, too, just like me."
"You don't mean-"
"-ruddy Scottish bastard upstaged me," Sean grunts. "With the same weapon."
"I thought claymores were big-ass meatcleavers," Ian says, sketching a big-ass meatcleaver in the air to illustrate.
Sean snorts. "A billion years ago, dolt. The basket-hilted blade, they were charging musket-lines with those babies."
"What was that you were singing?" you ask. "In the hangar."
"My families battle-song," Sean says. Ian snorts, and Sean tears up a handful of sod and flings it at him. "Shaddap, you uncultured mutt swine. I've got roots, bitch."
"Where did you learn to fight like that?" you ask, unbelieving. "You were like... damn."
Sean shrugs. "Fencing club. High school. Didn't either of you dorks take any sports?"
You ask for further information, but neither Sean nor Ian can give it to you, telling you only that your own airbase hadn't been hit. Nothing is certain with the ongoing chaos, however, and any flight-capable Witch or fighter in the entire ETO is in the air, prowling for more trouble, so most people who might be answering questions or organizing the chaos are busy getting aircraft in the air.
With that settled, you pick yourself up and go to find Minna.
You find her in the cellar.
All your worries about the engineering staff of the 501st being pinned down proved baseless - the engineers killed the Martians trying to pin them down all on their own, and were already engaging the alien rearguard when Sakamoto and Ian showed up. Five of their number were killed; since they weren't near any Strike Witches the Martians wanted to capture, the aliens didn't "fuck around," as your crewmate put it. The dead were moved to the cellar until they could be properly buried, and a passing medic told you Minna was down there.
You stomp down the stone corridor firmly, limping a bit, aching from your injuries, your head throbbing like a fucking tomtom drum, but resolute. You have to back up Minna and back her up now, before she digs in her heels and battens down the hatches on whatever bullshit story she tries to cook up.
You come upon the sagging, rotten wooden door of the long-neglected storeroom used to house the bodies, and are about to kick the damn thing in when you hear something soft and uneven coming from inside.
No. No.
Yes.
Yes, that is definitely sobbing.
Not daring to risk the ancient hinges, you drop to the floor and peer through the crack under the door. You see Minna, kneeling against the wall and sobbing inconsolably into her arms.
... what the shit. Perhaps this isn't the best time to get into an argument.
Wat do?
You stand by the door, torn. Rushing in and kicking an eighteen-year old girl when she's down - no, assaulting a Wing Commander in a moment of vulnerability you would have sworn on a stack of bibles she was incapable of - is fucking bastardry of the highest order.
On the other hand, Minna has made it her business to be your enemy, and shown you nothing but hostility since before you even put your wheels down on the bitch's miserable, retarded excuse for a runway. She also has a hell of a lot of rank on you, and the political club of Witch-dom, and you're in no mood to have it wielded against you. And, horrible or not, her current state is an advantage you can exploit.
You split the difference, leaning against the wall outside. You wait, for at least a half-hour by your estimation, as the sobs inside subside into sniffles and eventually quiet whimpers. Eventually you hear footsteps approaching the door, and Minna staggers out, wiping at her eyes and slouching miserably.
She sees you immediately and stiffens, coming to a sort of attention, her eyes flaring with rage and embarrassment.
You stiffen as well, glaring her down. "Do it."
She blinks.
"Do it, bitch. Court-martial me, shoot me, whatever, just get on with it. I don't have all night."
Minna's cheeks quiver, and she seems about to fly into a rage, but then the tension seeps from her body, and she just looks tired. She points through the open door.
"There's your punishment, you fuck. They're dead because of you."
"What a load of horse shit," you retort. "You covered them with the BAR. I heard you shooting."
"And I didn't do SHIT," she snarls. "You were in better shape, more familiar with it - American gun, isn't it? You would've HIT what you aimed at." Her chest heaving, Minna leans closer to you, eyes brimming with fresh tears, a frantic, trapped fury in her eyes. "AND WHY? WHY?" She's challenging you, daring you. "WHY!?" she screams, grabbing you by your lapels and shaking you with her meager remaining strength. You feel a tingle as she tries to put some magic into it, but she's spent.
So, why DID you knock her on her ass and charge into the ship? Or more importantly, what should you tell her?
"You're the COMMANDING FUCKING OFFICER!" you roar, knocking her arms off your shirt lapels. You shove her roughly, sending her stumbling into the corner where the corridor turns. "You've got responsibilities. Why do you think I was asking for your orders in the hangar in the first place, bitch? I don't like you. I fucking HATE you! But you know this shit better then me, you can LEAD better then me, that's just the way it fucking is!" You're pissed now, but you can't summon much heat to put behind it - you're too weary. But you still find a little. "Just like being a Witch! You were born into the power, so you're more val-"
The word isn't halfway out of your mouth before Minna slaps it, hard enough to snap your face around. Apparently she found a little more heat, as well, because it staggers you enough that you stagger when Minna shoves you back. "FUCK YOU!" she howls. "HOW MANY LIVES AM I WORTH? HOW MANY MEN?" Her fingers scrabble for the rank chevrons stitched on her uniform shirt, and she rips them off violently. "Always the same fucking b-b-b-bULLSHIT!" she stammers, tears sliding down her face. "Fuck you! Fuck all you butchers! I'm a soldier! I can die, it's my DUTY to die, just like anyone else! You coddling fucks!" She shoves you again, and this time you fall on your ass, painfully. "NOT A FUCKING TOY!" she howls, kicking you in the shoulder. Her bare foot doesn't do any damage, however. " 'You're worth a hundred of us,' they say, then they shield me like a knight in shining armor AND THEN THEY FUCKING DIE!" she screams, her teary eyes huge and full of torment. "STOP! STOP! FUCKING STOP!"
Some dim, exhausted part of your mind recognizes this moment - the second when the hero says something clever, insightful, and amazing, something that heals a wounded soul and reveals their delusions and probably makes angels fart unicorns or some shit like that.
You're no hero. You're just a twenty-year old fighter pilot, a man chosen for his aggressive instincts, with more balls then brains, nine yards of ammo and two inches of patience. You've never been eloquent, or diplomatic, or even insightful.
So you do the one thing you always do when you're in a corner - you tell the truth.
"Self-centered bint, it's got absofuckinglutely nothing to do with you," you mutter from the ground.
"The fu-"
"NOTHING!" you yell, clawing your way up the wall as you stand. "You stupid bitch, four men in my training flight died in accidents. Two from disorientation - just flew right into the fucking ground. One in a landing accident. One walked into a propeller. Was that your fault too? Were they trying to PROTECT you, little Miss Special!?"
Minna does a double take. "That's-"
"Bitch," you growl, "you ate a whole bowl of stupid-o's this morning. WHAT DO PILOTS DO?"
"Buh-"
"WHAT DO PILOTS DO?" you bellow, the pain in your throbbing head threatening to kill you.
"Fly!"
"WRONG!" you snarl. "We fly PLANES! They're seats bolted to a huge fuel tank hooked to a machine that operates by making thousands of explosions a minute blasting through the sky at four-hundred fucking miles per hour! Does that sound SAFE?"
Minna's mouth works, but no words come out.
"My father flew for the Postal Service before the war. He landed in fields half the time, and half the pilots he knew are dead! Know who shot them down!?"
"Uh..."
"FUCKING NOBODY!" you snarl, poking Minna in the chest. "Engine trouble, disorientation, cloud bank over a mountain, negative space wedgies, accidental spins, ground-loops, you name it, it'll kill you. We slap the face of God and tell physics to piss off every time we go wheels-up, you think that comes easy? Or cheap?"
Minna stares at you, completely shocked, tears drying on her face.
"Go suck bogwater," you say miserably, and limp away from her, up the steps and out of the cellar, clutching your miserable, aching, pounding head. The pain is almost intolerable now, and you want nothing more then to lie down somewhere and sleep forever, perhaps longer. The hallways of this goddamn castle seem to go on forever, and you idly wonder why you ever thought combat would be so great. Boring patrols flying circles in the night was fine, you think, just fine. If only you could lie down, for just a minute...
You stumble into a room. You're not sure whose. You wouldn't give a shit anyways. Stumbling, feet dragging, you stagger towards something shaped like a bed. Heaven. Valhalla. The reward for great warriors, wearied of earth.
You dimly see the bed has occupants.
NO.
YOUR BED.
You know how to handle Witches. You bounce them! You strike from above, in a steep dive, hammering them with your cannons and then blasting past them into the deeper atmosphere, safe from their compatriots before they even realize they've been attacked!
ATTACK! You leap airborne, and plummet towards the cushiony oblivion like a hawk, a dark hunter, a black comedian!
Wait, what? Who cares, your tired. You impact the bedsprings with force, and two young, light girls are bounced clear off the bed and onto the floor.
Your victory thus secured, you roll over and promptly pass out.
You wake up and stare Beauty in the face.
Pert nose, delicate, sculpted features, smooth, unblemished skin, deep, limpid eyes full of bloodlust and hate -
WAIT WHAT -
"Touch Sakamato-san and die," the girl sitting on you whispers, her hands dug into your shirt and her nose almost touching yours.
Somebody knocks on the door.
"Ah, hello?" You hear Gertrude's voice. "Uh, General Patton is here and he wants to know where you hid Minna's body."