Prologue - An Unsuspected Attack

July 1944 - Britannia

Flight Officer Sanya V. Litvyak was flying around in her Mig-60 striker on her nightly patrol listening in for any sign of Neuroi activity through her Magic Antenna. She sighed as flew threw the night and started humming her song that was written to her by her father. That seemed so long ago since the Neuroi War started 5 years earlier. Sanya's parents had disappeared early in the war but was confident in her hope that they were still alive somewhere and that she would someday see them once again.

Less than a month ago she and the rest of the 501st Joint Fighter Wing otherwise known as the "Strike Witches" liberated the Republic of Gallia from their Neuroi oppressors. Much to the joy and jubilation of squadron's resident Gallian noble, Flight Officer Perrine Clostermann. The eleven witches of the squadron threw a huge party in the base after the battle, and all over the world, thousands upon thousands of people celebrated long into the night. All of the 501st were given a thirty-six hour liberty pass by the squadron commander, Wing Commander Minna-Dietlinde Wilcke, who told them all just to relax but to be prepared for an attack if any should come. Even the squadron leader, Major Mio Sakamoto, attended the party despite the fact that she was confined to wheelchair due to injuries sustained earlier that May. Though the main focus of the party was Sergeant Yoshika Miyafuji.

Yoshika had joined the Strike Witches in the summer of 1943, via Mio who had scouted her out in Fuso and brought her along to Britannia aboard the IFN Akagi. Yoshika came with Mio at first to find out about what had happened to her father, after she had received a letter written by him after his death, not so that she could be recruited into the military. Though Yoshika boarded the Akagi with peaceful intentions, she was forced to adapt her ideals when the Neuroi attacked and she would now fire a gun, but not in anger or rage but for the protection of her friends.

Sanya's Magic Antenna flashed red as it detected something flying around in darkness of the night, she shook herself from her thoughts of her fellow witches and turned her attention to the sky searching for whatever it was. As she looked around she noticed a large storm had gathered off to her right.

Sanya had a suspicious and very ominous feeling about the giant wall of clouds there and she flipped the safety off of her Fliegerhammer and flew to stop and hovered, as she gazed onto the large unyielding dark gray masses. Her eyes searching for any sign of movement in the cloud cover. Then, with almost no warning a bright blood red beam shot out of the clouds and straight towards Sanya. Who panicked for a second or two before she acted quickly and threw up a blue shield that took the impact of the Neuroi beam forcing her back slightly. Sanya grimaced a little as she shouldered her massive rocket launcher and quickly ripple fired two rockets off and into the clouds. One of the missiles struck something judging by the large, ear-piercing squeal of a neuroi sounding out from the the cloud bank. The other missile though on the other hand blew away the cloud cover, that had once hidden the neuroi from Sanya's view.

The neuroi was a massive one with six panels that circled around one long hexagonal tube that connected to two counter-rotating platforms. One of the platforms had four rectangular prisms that stuck out perpendicular of the one that turned counter-clockwise. While the other was a kind of box shape that turned in the other direction. Over the thing was about a kilometer long and was covered in the typical dark grey almost black and blood red hexagonal patterns of the neuroi.

Sanya's eyes widened slightly, in horror at the sheer size of the massive neuroi. She dodged two more beams before up a shield to block a third. Sanya reached over to her ear and quickly radioed the base, and in a very uncharacteristic manner she screamed out in a very panicked. "Mayday, mayday! This is Sanya! I've been attacked by a large type neuroi! I need help immediately, over!"

Minna was up in the tower monitoring the radar screen for any activity while Sanya was out on patrol. While she was there she allow herself a moment to relax, and delved into her thoughts over the past year. Ever since Mio had come back with Miyafuji, things around the base had become more... interesting to say the least. The young girl had done wonders for the Strike Witches. First of all she managed help Lynne gain confidence in herself and her abilities, allowing her to become a valued member of the witches. Not to mention she managed to get Trude out her little funk with Chris being in a coma, who had woken up a few weeks ago, and she had helped Minna herself, finally get over Kurt's death. Though also was when she disobeyed direct orders and went to go and make contact with the nueroi. Which lead to the whole fiasco with Trevor Maloney and the Warlock and, suprisingly the destruction of the Gallian hive.

Minna shook out of her thoughts as she turned her attention bac towards the radar screen. As she was watching the radar it suddenly went out as if someone had flipped a switch and turned the thing off. Minna straightened up and frowned as she saw the light go out and walked over towards the console trying to get the screen to pop back up. She was about to reach the console when she heard the radio suddenly crackle to life as Sanya's panicked voice came through. "Mayday, mayd-...! This... Sanya!... been attacke-... nueroi!... need help... over!"

Minna stood still for a few precious moments, before her brain finally caught up with what she had heard. Sanya was being attacked and by what sounded like a nueroi over the garbled transmission. She quickly activated her Three Dimensional Space Understanding Ability and quickly zeroed in on Sanya's location. When she saw the neuroi that Sanya was fighting against she was left stunned at the sheer size of it, before she quickly turned around and slammed her palm onto the air raid siren as she quickly ran out the door and rushed to the hanger.

As she ran down Minna ran into Trude along the way. They shared no words as they bolted down the hallway. Along the way, Lynne stuck her head out of her door just as the two Karlslanders passed by and asked tiredly, "What's going on?"

They stopped short and turned around to face Lynne, while Minna answered her, "Sanya was attacked on her patrol and she needs help. Can you fly?"

Lynne just nodded her head in response before quickly tuning around and headed back into her room to throw her uniform on quickly. When she came back out the, now, group of three started to move to the hanger as quickly as they could.

"Hey! Wait up, if Sanya's in trouble then I'm coming too!" the voice of the 501st's resident Soumus ace, Eila Juutilainen, cried out. The three witches just nodded seeing how it was useless to argue with Eila, especially if it about Sanya's state of being. The four of them ran down the hallway and straight to the hanger.

Three minutes earlier, Yoshika was wandering around the base staring up at the night sky thinking of flying. She sat down at the end of the runway, swinging her legs as she thought about what had happened over the past year. From joining the army, the defeating the neuroi infected Warlock and the neuroied Akagi. Though she did not regret it at all, seeing as how she had made new friends in the 501st, such as Lynette and even Perrine and Barkhorn. Yoshika laid down and crossed her arms behind her head as her eyes stayed glued onto the sky.

The silent peace of the night was suddenly shattered by the loud and blaring noise of the bases air raid siren sounding off. Yoshika stood up quickly and turned around. Sprinting down the long runway to get to the hanger and to her striker unit.

Yoshika burst into the hanger and a quick glance around the hanger bay revealed that Barkhorn, Minna, Lynne and Eila were all in their strikers and getting ready to take off.

Barkhorn noticed Yoshika first and called out to her, "Miyafuji! Get in your striker and hurry up about it, will you! Sanya's in trouble. She ran into something big out there!"

Yoshika's eyes widened at that and she quickly ran over to her A6M3a striker unit and quickly jumped in. After feeling her magical familiars activate, she quickly turned and grabbed her modified Type 99 machine gun, and bolted down the runway alongside the other four witches.

Hang on Sanya. We're coming. Just hang on a little longer, Yoshika thought worriedly as she and the flight of five flew as fast as they could to rescue their fellow witch and friend.

Sanya was starting to panic, it had been close to five minutes since she had sent out the distress call. And there was still no sign of reinforcements yet. The neuroi was slowly circling around her, rapidly firing off shots at the night witch. However, Sanya was tiring quickly between her either dodging or blocking neuroi beams she being rapidly drained of her magical energy. It was a battle of attrition… one that Sanya was losing very, very quickly.

The neuroi stopped its massive barrage, though only for a moment, and circled around it's prey as though waiting for the perfect time to strike, but Sanya is not a cat you want to trap in a corner. She sized the opportunity and quickly fired off three more rockets before quickly diving down to the water weaving in and out trying to dodge as many beams as she plummeted down the water. Though if she had stayed for a second she would have seen her rockets strike one the six stationary panels blowing it clean off and her other two missiles strike one of the massive pylons creating a massive hole in it. It was all for naught though as the massive alien immediately started to regenerate but that was also Sanya's saving grace seeing as it allowed for her to retreat into the massive storm cloud, but the neuroi quickly finished regenerating and chased it's prey into the swirling clouds of gas.

TBC=Chapter 1 - A Witches Disappearance

A/N: Whew! Prologues finally done! That took me about three hours to write.

Now for those of you who have played the ace combat series you should all recognize what the neuroi is, if not then it is basically a neuroi version of the SOLG Satellite from AC5: The Unsung War

IAlso some of the neuroi that I will have in here will super planes or weapons from the AC series, because think about it! They have some cool freaking designs in there.

Updating also might be slow for a while because I have finals week coming up for high school and I'll be travelling up to D.C. with my family for about two weeks, so I will try to updated as quick as I can for you guys. DesertWriter01 out!