Constructive criticisms, reviews and suggestions always welcome. Un-beta'd as per usual.

Disclaimer: Don't own Strike Witches or anything related.

Herausforderer | Prologue

An apocalyptic scene lay before her eyes, one that she became accustomed to in these days and weeks of never ending war and destruction.

The French sky, dark but flickered and streaked with the colours of fire. Red... orange... bright yellow sparks appearing in flashes along the horizon as another section of the once vibrant coast became char and ash.

As she continued to scan this new world, the more she noticed the many wrecks of military vehicles and civilian alike. The army camps and installations wore the same dress of the homes and businesses that once flourished and thrived together:

A dress of rubble and seared glass.

She was too young for this. For all of this. Her fragile mind, a fragile mind of a child, no longer held the thoughts that one of her age should hold. The mental agony of witnessing death, destruction and pain wrecked havoc with her, so much so that she could no longer perform he task to protect those vulnerable to what she was viewing.

The girl of eleven years struggled to kept flight as her uncontrollable emotions began to interfere with her magic.

Her magic mingled with her senses, amplifying the scene before her into a nightmare that no child should ever bare witness to. The rivers appeared as red as her hair, the cries of panic and despair become wild like the spiked tips.

She began to wonder whether her eyes would evolve to a colour that now dominated the once green landscape, would that mark a beginning of the end of her already fragile sanity? Would she become one of them? One of the merciless, metallic beings that appeared out of no where, which roamed Europe without a thought of who and what they were eradicating... exterminating.

Her prototype Me 262 Strikers groaned and hissed at the magical fluctuations. A Striker unit of such age was not accustomed to this sort of starvation, it's greedy gasps for magical essence began to tire it's user more and more, the Striker would need more because of this, and more and more... a vicious cycle which would lead to only one conclusion unless the girl could focus and retreat to safety.

The dubbed 'Second Dunkirk Evacuation' would not be remembered as a miracle unlike its historic counterpart. The unrelenting Neuroi advances and attacks brought devastation to the surrounding evacuation vessels. Whether it be in the air or on sea, civilian or military, anything and everything would be targeted by random Neuroi that would seem to appear out of no where, seeming coming to existence the second any passenger believed that they had been able to board hope and salvation.

The retreat was never planned, nor was it expected. The shock and awe from the Neuroi staggered everyone, never mind their appearance from out of the blue, slap bang in the centre of the European heartland that Summers day on June 2nd 2009. 11:13am from that day would be forever known in the hearts and minds of many, if humanity were to survive.

It had taken only two weeks for the United Nations forces to be hurtled to the French coast. The irony of the event stuck with many... an evil rising from the mainland, pushing back the allied forces to a location remembered for its darkest days in history.

It seemed that it was playing out all over again...

Countless dead, resources lost and unattainable, countries swamped with red and black 'machines' feeding on the land below it.

Would it even be a home to come back too if we were to ever succeed in our goals to liberate Europe...

Even the word liberate was a word used lightly. What was so liberating about recovering a lifeless husk from hive entity?

The leaders of the world, knowing that an evacuation needed to be under taken, threw everything at the effort. Almost every single Man, women and witch were fighting, with many of the remaining European countries armour and weaponry aimed directly at the Neuroi to slow them down, just long enough, to save many...

Many became few.

Britain, with Russia as a firm resister and America and Japan from afar, would once again the nations that would determine the course of history...

And the fate of humanity.

Her stamina continued to fade as she headed towards her mentor.

Yui was the one who found her that day a year ago as she lived on the German streets, begging and stealing food to live.

Yui gave her a home and a goal in life, to protect and fight for her home nations of Germany and Britain.

Yui gave her the WWII era Striker unit where her unit would refuse, and for that, she was grateful to her.

But Yui gave her something that never experienced in her short life:

A family.

For her, Yui was like a mother to her, while her comrades played the part of sisters and cousins.

The connection between the two amplified each other, their magic working together perfectly. Their styles blended and compromised in a way Striker wings would only dream of having. Yui's dragon familiar and her Bombay cats' familiar attuned in a way a mothers and daughters would. The protection and the attachment was strong between them, never being seen apart.

Her senses led her closer to Yui, her dwindling power allowing her to evade the senses of the Neuroi who had more pressing matters to attend to, if they had those feelings that is. Even from here she could hear Yui fighting and the clatter of swords...

Swords?

That couldn't be right, can it? Either her fatigued began to effect her mental state to the point where she was imagining swords fights, or one of the team decided to spar in the middle of a war-zone.

Surely?

She had heard stories and rumours of Neuroi who were humanoid instead of imitations of human craft or other mostly randomly shaped objects. All though humanoid, the never acted human at all, preferring to kill them in a more barbaric way than a glowing cuboid ever could.

Could it be that such things were true?

What would that even mean? Their imitations of old and modern fighter planes already confirmed a suspicion of intelligence within these aliens, were they even aliens? They were more metallic and crystalline than skin and bone, in fact, it was all they showed... their heart being a core within a superstructure, far to complex to comprehend or understand without every theory being written off or questioned...

It could just be that they were rogue AI from some distant part of the Galaxy, consuming all that it could find... all a path of evolution, or a choice chosen by a highly intelligent species...

But they were all theories, no one could prove them or at least justify them.

That's what made the Neuroi frighting to some... something that you cannot hope to understand before they annihilate you.

The girl snapped back into reality just in time to see her teachers body receive a fatal, deep cut to its chest... and those eyes...

Those soul scorching, red metallic eyes:

Claire Herausforderer, awoke in the school library, noticing the small crowd that had gathered around her to make her day a tad bit more difficult.

"Still... could be worse" She thought, thinking back to the nightmare that played out every time she closed her eyes.

27/10/16 – Updated the opening part of the chapter. Writing does improve as story goes on and I gained experience.