Chapter 8

jetslinger333- I've never heard of that franchise, so I can't really comment nor do anything involving it. Although that does seem rather interesting and I hope someone gets to do it.

Robo Reader 21- Yeah, I know her hair is dyed Indigo and that her real hair color is red. I just didn't think it was noteworthy enough to bring that up yet.

Also, I didn't know about that part of the cure curse thing, but even if I did know that at the time of the writing of the section, she wouldn't know that part. Plus, is it really a cure or is it something else? I don't know.

Everything else was updated to better fit your criticisms.

Anonymoose- Yeah I know. She's a very random character to be added into this, but I'm confident that I can make it work.

Austin- Apparently she still can, the wiki states Witches can use Magic in other realms on account of their Bile Sacs.

Master Chief

"Oh, this is so exciting." Said Joy as Chief and Lilith stood at the bridge of the White Base. "It's so intriguing to be on a ship that doesn't follow UNSC ship designs. Right Chief." Master Chief just stayed silent as he looked at the bridge of the ship called the White Base. If he was perfectly honest, he found the ship's bridge design to be a bit impractical for a military vessel. It was far too exposed to enemy fire and the loss of the bridge would be crippling to a warship. It provided a good view of the battlefield, yes, but that could easily be done with sensors or radar. Wondering what this meant, Chief listened to Lilith as she took in the view.

"This is quite a magnificent view." Said Lilith as she looked at the front view of the bridge, feeling at peace with such a beautiful view. The clear blue sky and the fields of green were a wonder to see. If this was the human world, then Lilith wouldn't mind staying here for a while. She, of course, would like to return back home to her family, who must be worried sick once they found out she was missing. She also needed to go back home because of the fact that she was cured of the curse. Something she also needed to figure out how that came to be as she had no idea why she was cured of the curse at all.

The curse that she was talking about was the curse that she had inflicted on her own sister back when they were teenagers, an act of selfishness that Lilith regretted and hated herself for committing. The curse not only prevents the bearer from performing magic over time, but it also transforms them into a vicious owl-like beast that is near uncontrollable in its ferocity and attacks anything it sees in sight. Her entire family suffered because of her actions and she loathed herself to this day for what she did that day. And that day was over two decades ago. She only recently started to make amends to her sister and her family. She even had shared the curse with her sister so as to share the pain with her, but she knew that she still had a long way to go before she could remotely make up for the consequences of her mistake. The least of which was finding a cure for her sister and now her. Something that she was finding difficulty finding a cure for. At least until now. Because she was now cured of her part of the curse.

To her utter amazement, her curse was, for the lack of a better term, cured. Her eye returned to its normal color. All of her dyed hair was back to being indigo and, to make things more official that she was cured, her bile sac was fully functional.

A Witch's bile sac was an organ attached to a Witch's heart that enabled them to perform magic. It supplies them with a ready supply of magic without needing an external source in order to perform magic. The curse prevented her bile sac from functioning along with other sources of magic for her with the exception of a certain type of magic that relied on external sources of magic or magical staffs/palismens to help conduct magic. Neither of which she had with her at the moment. These Zeons must have taken both her staff and whatever she had on her when she was transported to this strange world.

"Edalyn won't let me hear the end of this if she finds out about this." Thought Lilith with slight annoyance. Her sister would have a great laugh over this. Her being captured by humans and then later has her stuff confiscated by them, including her staff and a few other personal belongings as well as things that she can cast magic with. Although, now that she was cured, she didn't need those things. She had tested beforehand if she was capable of doing magic on her own after recovering from the shock of seemingly being cured. Doing a simple circle of magic, she watched in shock as she fired a blue piece of flame from the spell circle. Confirming to her that she had, without a shadow of a doubt, been cured of her side of the curse. After the shock wore off that she had just conducted magic without an external source to assist her, excitement filled her person.

If she can figure out how she was cured in the first place, she can hopefully replicate it and cure her sister as well, finally rid herself of one of her many mistakes. With that being said, she was also indebted to the people that saved her life. Having recalled the beatings and abuse that she received from her captors at that military base after some time to herself, Lilith saw that she was indebted to the Master Chief for freeing her. Desiring to repay that debt, Lilith decided to help him in anyway shape she can until she can find a way back home. Speaking of the Master Chief, she looked at the armored soldier and wondered what he thought as they approached the base where they were held captive. When he came back to her and Fernando, he told them that they were welcomed into the White Base, right before telling them that they were needed at the bridge. He then asked Fernando to stay with the Pelican and lock it up while he took Lilith to the bridge. Fernando complied with his orders while Lilith, blinking in surprise at how blunt he was, nonetheless followed him towards the bridge, where they were escorted by a bunch of armed teenagers.

That was something that Lilith was getting quite nervous about. Not the armed escort or the number of them, no, but the number of teens on this ship and no adults. Everyone she saw was only in their teen years. She wasn't an expert on human biology, but she was certain that they were all in their teen years. And that was something that she was quite uncomfortable with. Despite them not talking about it, she knew Fernando looked put off with it as well. Seeing just teens and no adults at all. She didn't know what Chief felt, in fact, she didn't know what the man was thinking with all that armor and his posture gave no indication of what he was feeling at all. He was like Belos in that regard. Difficult to tell what he was really feeling.

As she was wondering what he was feeling, she then heard one of the boys at the very top of the bridge, sitting in a chair that was so high off the ground that it left Lilith a bit worried for their safety, especially when it seemed that they have nothing to keep them from falling off for whatever reason.

"We're approaching the Zeon base now." Said one of the boys, the one with glasses.

"Marker, is the enemy alerted to our presence?" Asked Bright as he sat in the captain's chair, which was on the same platform as the two boys high off the ground.

"They are, but they're not scrambling fighters." Said Marker, the other boy high off the ground. "Either they're out of fighters or they're down for maintenance."

"There are no fighters anymore." Said Chief, speaking up and catching everyone's attention. "Before we escaped, we destroyed their fighters. There may be a few on patrol when we escaped but we sabotaged their refueling and maintenance capabilities before we left. So, there shouldn't be any that should give you problems." Upon hearing that, Bright nodded at that before ordering the ship to move closer. As he gave the order, Bright felt Chief stare at him from the side, unnerving him. It was like the man was judging him on how good of a commander he was. For what reason, Bright had no idea, though he had several theories why.

He likely was judging him because he and his people were now on his ship and any poor decisions he made may affect him and his people. Whether that be injuries or even death. In that case, he can see why the man was judging him.

Another theory is that he wanted to see how he fared as a commander. See how he did under pressure. That he can deal with sudden changes in the field. And, perhaps most importantly, see how he treated his men. Both theories sounded plausible to Bright and it didn't sound too unlikely that it was a combination of both. If so, then he hoped that he didn't disappoint the man too much otherwise Bright feared what would happen if he was displeased. Taking a breath, Bright ordered their Mobile Suits be deployed.

"Have Gundam and Guncannon go first. Then follow up with Guntank." Said Bright. After all three Mobile Suits landed on the base, have them issue a declaration to the base to surrender. Three Mobile Suits should be sufficient enough to drive them to surrender, especially if they don't have any Mobile Suits of their own." Upon hearing the term Mobile Suits, Joy spoke up.

"Mobile Suits? Interesting." Said Joy as she listened to what was going on. "I wonder what those things are. Don't you Chief?" Master Chief just stayed silent as the bridge crew went about doing their jobs with a surprising amount of efficiency for teenagers. Although he didn't say it, he was also curious about these Mobile Suits and what they were. He didn't see any at the hanger, but he expected such things in the first place. Such things were expected from a good and competent commander when interacting with unknown entities offering help. Although he didn't expect teenagers to be manning this ship, they did decent enough in maintaining proper first contact procedures. At least the initial part.

Since then, they went downhill. On his way here to the bridge, he spotted no less than five flaws in how they operate this ship. It ranged from small things like how they operate their equipment to mundane things yet vital things like patrolling the hallways and corridors of the ship in case of stowaways or, worse, enemy saboteurs. Even when they took him, Lilith, and Joy to the Bridge, they made a mistake, several in fact, when keeping an eye on them.

One, they were too close to the captain. Second, they were also too close to the helmswoman, who was strangely using an old steering wheel. Yes, they were more than adequate armed guards around them, but an experienced soldier could have easily killed or incapacitated either of them if given the chance to do so. For Chief, it would be child's play. And also a few guards were far too close to him. Close enough that Chief could easily disarm them and use their weapon against the others. All this screamed people that only knew the basics of military protocol at best and nothing more. Then again, he shouldn't expect anything more from teenagers.

Looking at the mostly young men and women bridge crew, Chief wondered why they were all so young and manning a warship. Just what was their government thinking in doing this? Or was their government so severely lacking in manpower that they resort to having teenagers manning warships? He'll have to think and learn more about this later. For now, he'll see how they conduct this simple operation. He needed to see everything about this. How they conduct themselves in a battle, even a small one, so he can best adjust himself and his people to their new environment. And if they needed to teach these people some pointers if they wanted to survive this war they had with this Principality of Zeon.

"Gundam is launching now." Said a young blond woman in a pink uniform as she relayed to Bright who was sent first from the hangers.

"Good, have they been informed of our plan as well as that we need this base intact, specifically its supplies?" Asked Bright.

"The orders have been relayed to them." Said the blond woman simply as she looked at the Master Chief and Lilith, her face expressionless. Noting how she was observing them with meticulous observation, Master Chief looked at her, causing her to swiftly go back to her console. With that done, Master Chief looked at Bright as the woman told him that Guntank and Guncannon were soon launched. Wondering what these things were, Master Chief went closer to the front window of the bridge. The soldiers guarding him watched this and pointed their guns at him nervously, wondering if their guns would ever do anything against his armor, which seemed to offer better protection than standard Federation field armor for infantry. Lilith, seeing this, reassured everyone that he didn't mean any harm by getting closer to the windows.

"He probably just wants to see how your people fare on the battlefield." Said Lilith, hoping that was true because she had no idea why he was doing that. She soon got her answer when he spoke up.

"Giant mechs." Said Chief simply as he looked at what the White Base just deployed to the Zeon base. Widening her eyes at this, Lilith went over to the window and saw, to her shock, three giant robots of various colors and designs standing over the Zeon base. Jaw-dropping to the ground, Lilith remembered a time when Luz Noceda, her only human contact, told her of how human boys were intrigued with giant robots and how there were plenty of shows and movies on Earth that depicted giant robots and fared quite well with people. Although she smiled at the excitement that Luz displayed at revealing more of her world to her friends, she didn't really have much interest in such things. Robotics and the like were more of the interest of Alador Blight, Chief engineer to Blight Industries, a company that specialized in magical golems made out of the slime. Now, though, she could see why such things were of interest to people like Alador and children.

Staring at the mechanical marvels, Lilith was in awe of just how large they were. Not even the biggest abomination made could match the size of even the smallest of them, which was on the treads and looked more like a vehicle than a man. The amount of material alone would have made such a thing unfeasible. Why build one giant abomination when you can make multiple smaller ones that work just as well, if not better because of the less weight they have to move around? To have giant robots here meant that these humans had access to vast resources and manufacturing expertise that surpasses anything that her people had.

As she was staring in awe at these machines, Master Chief was looking at them as they pointed their weapons at various buildings in the Zeon base, most likely to entice them further into surrendering, noting how they operated and how fluidly they move. Combat mechs were not unheard of to the Spartan. The UNSC has fielded such things in their war against the Covenant, an alien coalition that the UNSC has faced before in a devastating war that nearly wiped out humanity, but they were never as large as the ones that he was seeing now.

Their large size made them an easy target for airstrikes and infantry-portable rocket launchers if aimed at the right locations. Seeing their size as more of a detriment than aid, Master Chief wondered why Bright thought these were efficient weapons. Looking at the captain and seeing his stoic face, Master Chief concluded that there was a factor that he had no knowledge of. One, or even several, that caused such large mechs to be feasible combat units.

Regardless of their feasibility, Joy was ecstatic to see such large mechs.

"Oh my. I never thought I would get to see something like this." Said Joy with excitement. "I know the UNSC has combat mechs in their arsenal, like the Mantis Exoskeleton, but I never managed something like those things down there. Oh this is so exciting." While Joy was ecstatic to see such machines, Chief was looking at the pilots and seeing how they were doing. So far, they were doing okay for novice pilots, but that was it. None of them looked like they were professionals. In fact, no one here looked like they had any professional training baring the young captain. Something was wrong. Very wrong and he wanted to get to the bottom of this soon.

Having seen enough, Chief looked at Bright and spoke his mind.

"No one here looks or acts like a professionally trained military force." Said Master Chief as he looked at Bright. "Too many errors in military procedures and security to indicate that. There's also the fact that I haven't seen someone above the age of twenty since arriving here. Why is a warship like this operated by undertrained teenagers and young adults?" Upon hearing that, Bright sighed. He knew that he had to tell the man the truth about the status of his crew. Although to be perfectly honest, one had to be blind to not see what was wrong with his crew.

"You're right in your observation." Said Bright as he looked at the Master Chief before explaining his crew's situation. "To be perfectly honest, we had a fully trained and professional crew before, but…we lost a great majority of them in an ambush sometime ago. Everyone but the cook was wiped out in the attack and made the colony they hit was rendered uninhabitable until repairs are done to it." Upon hearing that, Master Chief stayed silent as he processed this. An entire colony wiped out? What would bring the cause to that?

"Why would they damage a colony that severely?" Asked Master Chief as he looked at Bright, causing the man to sigh as well.

"That is indeed something that even I am struggling to understand as well." Said Bright. "Why would they attack a colony with no regard to the civilian population nor for the structural stability of the colony? It doesn't make sense, especially their way of attack. They only attacked with two Mobile Suits and nothing else." While Lilith reacted in horror at this information, the Spartan took it in stride. Master Chief, upon hearing that, nodded before going back to see the giant mechs, termed Mobile Suits by the crew of this ship.

"Is it because of your Mobile Suits?" Asked Master Chief as he watched them aiming their weapons at the Zeon base.

"It has to be." Said Bright, seeing no harm in revealing common knowledge to this individual. After all, everyone knew the Earth Federation didn't have access to Mobile Suits prior to the war. "The Earth Federation had no Mobile Suits prior to the conflict with the Principality of Zeon, so it's likely that the enemy wanted to destroy our attempts to create our own."

"Understood." Said Master Chief. He was about to ask another question to get more information out of Bright when the blond woman from before spoke to Bright.

"Bright, Amuro, and the others are saying that the enemy is agreeing to the surrender." Said the woman. "Shall I inform Lieutenant Matilda to arrive?" Upon hearing that, Bright spoke to the woman.

"Yes, tell her that the enemy has surrendered and that her people can now acquire what they want from the enemy base." Said Bright. As the woman relayed his orders, he looked at Chief and Lilith and asked if they were still missing a few items from the enemy base. While Chief just shook his head at the question, having double-checked if he and Fernando were missing anything with Joy doing more checks just to be safe, Lilith was missing a few crucial things to her and thus told Bright that a few things were taken from her by the Zeons and she was still missing them. With that, Bright told her to talk to Sayla, the blond woman from before, so she can relay to Matilda what items they should be specifically looking for.

"I'll tell her that they're important to a few refugees and that it would earn the trust and admiration of the people here if we do so." Said Bright, which was technically true from a certain point of view. "Unless there is anything else, you're free to head back to the hanger. Under guard, of course."

"There is something that I want to discuss with you." Said Master Chief as he looked upon Bright, unnerving the young man with his silent stare. "It's concerning this crew and why it's crewed by teenagers only. Why hasn't anyone replaced them or, at minimum, reinforced them with more professionally trained soldiers?" Bright sighed at that, realizing this was going to take a while to explain without giving away certain military secrets and just how desperate the Earth Federation was in terms of manpower. Taking a deep breath, Bright told him that he'll explain their situation later. For now, he had to coordinate and speak with another Earth Federation officer so as not to draw suspicion about them. Hearing this, Chief simply nodded before looking over the crew one more time.

"I'll stay here regardless." Said Master Chief before explaining his reason. "Lilith is with me and I'm not going to leave her alone with your crew. Is that fine with you?" Hearing the question, Bright just nodded.

"Of course." Said Bright, knowing that the man was simply looking out for his people, like any good commander. He did leave the other man of his group alone with their ship, but according to the security detail guarding the ship, it was sealed shut and there was no way for them to get through without explosives and that wasn't exactly a good idea because of the green armored soldier that was currently eyeing Bright with a faceless helmet and can probably wipe them all out without even trying, despite being weaponless, which was one of the requirements if they wanted to be at the bridge. "Stay here as long as your friend needs." Giving a curt nod at that, Master Chief and Lilith went over to Sayla while still being escorted by the armed teenagers so that Lilith can tell Sayla what she was missing.