STRIKE WITCHES: PATTON ON THE RITZ

The gorgeous French tart sitting on you, her pert lips inches from yours, seems to be angry about something.

"Touch Sakamato-san and die," she whispers, her hands digging into your shirt.

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."

You are a fighter pilot of the 442nd Night Fighter Squadron, and you're about to have another average day.

WAT DO

Suggestions include: scream, counter-troll, divide and conquor

COUNTER-TROLL

Your Right Brain and Left Brain try to run around and scream in panic, but only slam into each other and knock themselves out. You stare into the French girl's warm amber eyes, quite unable to think.

"Not a word," she whispers, barely audible.

Having woken up about two seconds ago, after not enough sleep and too many blunt-force head injuries, and especially with no caffeine in your system, your brainstem decides to process that statement, and reaches an obvious conclusion.

You kiss her.

It lasts for a long, sweet, glorious second before she recovers from the shock enough to jerk away from you, squeaking with horror.

You hear a silence from the other side of the door. An actual, tangible silence, the aggressive *absence* of noise on the other side as someone stops thinking, fidgeting, and even breathing.

"... Perrine?"

Perrine squeaks again, then covers her mouth with both hands, staring at the door. Being caught making death threats is never good, but she's still straddling you, and your brain stem takes this as a Good Sign.

"Mmmm," you say with half-conscious delight.

Perrine's hand shoots down to clamp over your mouth, eyes ablaze, but it helps little. "MmmmmHMMMMMM," you moan louder, quite happy to have the little French Witch straddling you and rubbing all about.

The whole "death threats" and "General Patton" thing come into sharp focus about two seconds later. It's amazing how somebody trying to strangle you can clarify things.

The door slooowly creaks open on old hinges, to reveal Gertrude, a carefully prepared look of blank impassiveness on display. Apparently, Perrine strangling you isn't what she expected to find.

You always thought that people who type "..." are lazy bums, but you honestly can't think of any other way to characterize the look on Gertrude's face at this exact moment. Being strangled might have something to do with that.

"Stop," Gertrude says. Perrine's hands fly off your throat as if it's scalding hot. The French girl opens her mouth to speak, but nothing comes out. Her hands make vague gestures in the air, soft, gentle gestures to explain what soft, gentle thing she was totally doing to you just now, rather then what it looked like, which was fucking strangulation. She cuts her eyes at you, full of desperate fury and panic, and the message in them is clear.

Help me out here, or I'll finish you off in a dark hallway later.

You think about that, take a swift tally of fucks currently given, look at Gertrude and say the only thing you can possibly think of.

"Auto-erotic asphyxiation."

Perrine tries to scream, object, gasp and leap away from you at the same time, and it all gets jammed up in her throat somewhere. She sputters like a cold steam locomotive and tumble-falls off the bed, covering her face with her hands and nearly knocking Gertrude down as she bullrushes past her, her footsteps vanishing down the hallway so fast you suspect she used magic to speed her escape.

You turn to look at Gertrude. She stares at you.

"She could've *asked,* at least."

"The... General... wants to..." Gertrude asked. You suspect she was counting on that trump card ensuring she'd have YOU flustered and confused for a change, but you've got to get up really damn early to inflict unusual madness to a man who fought Martians alongside Witch Girls at 3AM.

See the general?

RUN LIKE HELL?

Collect intel?

Find your witnesses?

ZERO FUCKS GIVEN

You swing your legs over the bed, blinking against the morning sun pouring in the blinds. "What time is it?"

"Eight-thirty."

"I woke up with a beautiful woman straddling me and it's still bad news. Only in this castle. Only Witches could fuck that up for me," you swear, groping about for your clothes, your pistol belt, your flight jacket, before you remember you never undressed before literally bouncing two little girls off their own bed. Well, fuck them, too.

"Miss..."

"Gertrude," she supplies.

"Gertrude," you say. "Kitchen. Coffee."

"My friends call me Trude," she says.

You blink, trying to decipher why the hell you care.

"That's nice," you say blearily. "Kitchen?"

Gertrude shrinks back a bit, and silently leads you out of the dormitory wing to the lower levels housing the kitchen. You keep your eyes open just enough to see Gertrude's back until you enter the rooms without any goddamn windows.

Somebody's in front of the coffee maker, pouring themselves a cup. He turns as you approach.

"Would you like some?" he asks with a slight Oxford accent. In reply, you take the entire pyrex brewing pot from him and drink straight from it.

"Yup."

"I'm sorry you all had to be woken so early. Especially after the fight you all had last night."

You nod to indicate you're pretty damn sorry too, and drink straight from the coffee pot like it's a huge mug, holding it casually in one hand.

"I believe General Patton was looking for you."

You grunt an affirmative. Prying your eyes open a little more, you make out the man is wearing a long coat and one of those nifty peaked caps the Germans issue. They look something like the dress uniform hats of the Army Air Corps, which makes them fantastic, in your opinion.

The man standing before you seems to examine you thoughtfully. "Patton hates soldiers who aren't immaculate, but he does love that battle-hardened, fresh-from-the-field look." He snaps his fingers. "I've got it. Here." You feel the end of something papery and cylindrical thrust into your mouth, then hear a *snip!*

Something cool, rectangular, tiny and flat is slipped into your free hand. "Find your flight jacket, and that should do the trick."

You nod, smiling around the cigar at this strange man with such profound wisdom, and go in search of your flight jacket, still holding the coffee pot.

Stumbling outside, you scan the world through the narrow margin of your almost-closed eyelids, seeking a clothesline. You find it on the same part of the island grounds where last night's battle raged. In the mist of carnage, scorch marks, and two dozen heat-slagged, bullet-pocked waist-high walls, is your flight jacket, miraculously untouched, unsinged and undamaged, hanging heavy on the thick clothesline. You shrug it on one arm at a time.

"Mister, I need to take you to the general," Gertrude says apologetically before seizing you by the arm. She must be putting magical strength into it, because you can't budge, so you just switch your coffee to the other hand and continue drinking as you're dragged across the grass, around the castle, and to the courtyard in front of the hangar.

Standing in the middle of it is a short man built like a bull, wearing an OD-green helmet and scowling at everything around him. He plucks a cigar from his mouth, and points at the pureed remains of the Martian maser crew that Erica, apparently, murdered via direct application of her Striker unit's magical propeller blades as she took off last night.

"Now that," General Patton says, "is one tough bitch."

Gertrude doesn't release you so you can walk up to the general in a dignified fashion, but you do remember the cigar. Fiddling with the metal rectangle reveals it to be a Zippo, which you apply to the already-cut cigar with a practiced flourish.

"Sup," you say as the General turns.

You lock into some approximation of attention, firing off a snappy salute, and introduce yourself by name, rank and serial number just like you should.

The General looks you over. "That coffee any good?"

You silently hand over the pot, and Patton sips from it, apparently judging it adequate.

"So. You're the man who murdered Minna and hid her body."

"Sir, permission to speak freely?"

"Granted."

"What in the flying fuck are you babbling about, sir?"

Patton laughs at that, long and hard. "Nobody can find Wing Commander Minna today, and you were the last person seen talking with her, walking into the cellar of the castle where she was... alone. Thus, the evil hand of calumny has already begun to circulate."

wat do

Patton stares you down. "So, what passed between you two?"

"I was going to ask if she was going to court-martial me for headbutting her."

Patton blinks.

"I'm sorry, pilot. What did you just say?"

"I was going to ask if she was going to court-martial me for headbutting her."

"You... headbutted... your commanding officer."

"Wing Commander Wilcke ordered me to stay back while she entered the Martian ship alone; tantamount to suicide. Then I headbutted her and did it myself."

"So you disobeyed a direct order, then physically assaulted your commanding officer," Patton breathes. His face hasn't changed a millimeter, but his natural tenor is getting a bit squeaky and strained.

"Yep. So if somebody killed her after all the trouble I went through, I'm going to gut the lousy son-of-a-bitch and hang him from a flagpole by his balls. Sir."

"Trouble. Describe this... trouble," he says, making a little rolling gesture in the air with his cigar. "Summarize the events of the action last night."

You tick off the points on your fingers. "Woken up by Sean - my radar operator - led into the hall, he kicks in Erica's door, tentacle drags her out, HE jumps out after her. I run downstairs, find Miyafuji, we go around the castle, find Erica, Sean, Martians, kill Martians, come here, find THOSE assholes -" you point to the pureed Martian gun crew - "go through the building, find Minna attacked by Martians, kill Martians, get to hangar, ambushed by Martians, kill Martians, Miyafuji and Erica take off, me and Minna borrow Charlotte's motorcycle, circle around front, Sakamoto gets on, we charge the Martians on the motorbike and Sakamoto jumps off then we get off and Minna goes stupid and I headbutt Minna and charge into the alien ship and get my ass kicked and Sakamoto fucks them all up and then I went to sleep."

General Patton is silent for three entire seconds.

"... and Sean used a sword?"

"A basket-hilted claymore, to be precise. He gets all pissy if you forget that detail."

Patton turns to Gertrude. "Does he act like a stuffy, arrogant asshole who's real full of himself?"

Gertrude cuts her eyes sideways at you. "Often."

Patton squints at you, and without warning snatches your Colt 1911 out of your shoulder-holster. He checks the chamber, pops the magazine out and counts the rounds, then sniffs the muzzle and winces at the stench of recently-burned cordite. He shoves the pistol back in your holster.

"Son, you have just emulated over half my career in less then twenty-four hours. I can't do jack shit to you."

You don't really know what to say to that, so you just remain at attention.

"I, and other select Generals, are here precisely because you and the Witches fought a ground action last night that is entirely unprecedented in the history of the Martian War," Patton says, abruptly dropping the topic. He thrusts his cigar at the Martian portable Maser, still sitting on its tripod. "For example, that is the first weapon of its type we have captured intact. To say nothing of the submersible, which is the first mostly-intact Martian vessel thus recovered. Everywhere else they attacked, they were either victorious, or soundly defeated before they made an orderly retreat. Only here were they so swiftly and brutally overwhelmed."

He nods to nobody in particular, and takes a drag on his cigar.

"Hartmann and Mio were the only Witches not captured in their beds, because of the direct actions of your men. And you, if not for you, no Witches would have gotten airborne at all. You saved the whole thing."

You shrug. "I just found aliens, shot them till I ran out, then found some more aliens."

"That's how it works, son. Just answer me this - how did Sean know about the attack before it began?"

You know this is a dangerous question, but you really don't have an answer for him.

Patton catches that.

"I hear your friend Sean is Irish," he says. "The ancient Celtic tribes would select their most trusted, intuitive warriors for the outer patrol. They called them Outriders, and trusted them to know when an enemy would come in the dark, in the mist, in the snow." He takes a thoughtful drag on his cigar, and you do likewise. "They sang their battle chants like we sing our hymns, pilot."

"What are you saying, sir?"

"Not a god damned thing," he says immediately, staring right at Gertrude. "Pilot, she is hereby ordered to keep you within arms reach all day until you locate the Wing Commander."

"Sir, can you give her that order?"

"Technically, no, but I think she'll follow it anyway. She looks pissed at you." Patton laughs and spins on his heel before walking into the hangar.

You look at Gertrude. She doesn't look at you.

Wat Do? Suggestions include:

Start looking somewhere

Ditch Gertrude, then look

Find crew, have WTF session

"Well. That was new." You turn to Gertrude. "So, Lieutenant Gertrude, where do you think Minna would be? You've known her longer then I have."

"Apparently not as well, however, since you and she are already on a first-name basis," Gertrude says stiffly.

You shrug. "Wing Commander Wilke is too long to use in screaming matches."

Gertrude snorts. "She'll want to be alone, to think. The whole island is swarming with soldiers and scientists." She latches onto your bicep - hard - and begins hustling you about. You remove the cigar from your mouth to converse better. "You could let me go, you know."

"I think the General wants me to keep things *professional,* she mutters, not releasing your bicep.

"Where are we going?"

"To check the cellars. Then, the towers."

Gertrude seems rather... frustrated.

Wat do?

"Uh, Gertrude-"

"LIEUTENANT Gertrude, thank you."

"... right, Lieutenant. What the hell did I do to you?"

"Absolutely nothing," she says, in a tone which implies this isn't an entirely blameless thing.

"Okay... is Minna's Striker Unit still - OW!" you exclaim as Gertrude tightens her viselike grip on your bicep.

"Wing Commander Wilkie is a devoted and courageous soldier and leader, and she would sooner *die* then abandon her post or her soldiers," Gertrude hisses. "And yes, her Striker is still here."

"So you're pissed at me because of something I did to Minna?"

"Her NAME," Gertrude hisses, "Is Wing Commander Wilke, LIEUTENANT."

"Oh, that's right. Flight Lieutenant. We're the same rank."

Also, she's out of magic from all the action last night, and the patrols immediately after. So you trip her.

Gertrude stumbles, and as she flails her free hand for balance you twist your arm to break her lock on your bicep, giving her a little nudge with your hip to make sure she falls.

She rolls gracefully and springs to her feet like a wildcat. "You - you-"

"WHAT?" you snap. "You dude who saved my life? You dude who nearly got killed ten times over last night saving your sorry ass again? What the hell is everybody's problem? Okay I'm an asshole but I do my job, isn't that enough?"

"Well it was just your *job,* I don't see why you expect such accolades for saving my life," Gertrude says coldly. "You didn't need to save Perrine's life to get her to jump you, did you?"

"People try to kill me with absolutely no prompting whatsoever, it's true, my life is fantastic, thank you."

She blinks. "What?"

"You didn't actually believe that asphyxiation thing, did you? You look smarter then that."

"Auto-erotic would be if you were choking yourself, by the way. You should have said 'erotic asphyxiation.'"

You roll your eyes. "Fine. Fine. Could you just... not ride me so hard? I haven't even spoken to you."

"Perrine's riding you hard enough already, I guess."

You slap your palm to your forehead and give it up for now. "Okay, she's not going to be in the cellars."

"How do you know?"

"You ever sit in a cold cellar without any pants?"

"You have?"

You sigh.

Cellar or tower?