Strike Witches: Fallen Humanity

Rise

Andrea: Help...

Pivot: Look at you, you're still laying down.

Andrea: Is this a dream?

Pivot: It is.

Andrea: Then why am I still suffering?

Pivot: The Neuroi did a good job on you, they evolved based on your persona.
They did what we never did, evolve based on the situation.

Andrea: But why am I still suffering?

Pivot: You're weaker, not even a dream can make you feel better.
And I honestly prefer this to be.

Andrea: Why?

Pivot: Shut up! You're the last human from your world, you're dishonoring it with your weakness!

Andrea: What?

Pivot: I said to shut up! I didn't train you like that, you have fallen in the oldest trick of them all! You're becoming a disgrace to all of us!

Andrea: Commander, where is honor when there's no one to demonstrate it?

Pivot: Your disgusting! You're the shame of our world!

Andrea: THERE'S NO WORLD! THERE'S NO WAR, YOU HAVE ALL DIED!

Pivot: How dare you! Remember who you are, you're a soldier!

Andrea: I'm not a soldier, I'm a person! I don't want to survive, I want to live!

Pivot: Hear me now because there won't be a second time: You will now cure yourself and you will kill the Neuroi! You will fly with your jetpack and the only thing you will know will be killing! Or maybe you're too worried about your girlfriend?

Andrea: Don't name her!

Pivot: You're in love, I see. You will get distance from her, she's a distraction.

Andrea: Why?!

Pivot: Why?! You dare ask why? Look at you, you're becoming an idiot, you're weak, you don't want to kill humans!

Andrea: There must be a pacific way to solve this!

Pivot: Pacifism? Tell me this is a joke, tell me!

Andrea: What do you know about this?! You're dead, you're my head, I don't need to listen to you!

Pivot: This is enough. Stand up and swear you won't say that again!

Andrea: I don't have anything to regret!

Pivot: I'm telling you for your own safety, Andrea, do what I told you.

At that phrase Andrea stood up.

Andrea: Warmonger! You are the real reason the war started! You told me, violence destroyed us, you're just spreading oil on the fire! You're not my master anymore, let me fight my way in peace!

Pivot: Regret what you just said!

Andrea: No, fuck you!

And he punched the face of Pivot.
Pivot looked at his hand, there was a spur of blood, nothing serious... Physically.

Pivot: You...

Andrea: I... I punched you.

Pivot: You...

Andrea: I... I didn't mean to, I don't know what I did!

Pivot: TRAITOR! YOU'RE GOING TO DIE FOR ME, STARTING FROM NOW!

Andrea: Wait, I didn't mean to-!

Pivot: GO AND KILL NOW!

Andrea was reported back in the world of living. He was on a bed, with the Witches of the 502nd around him.
His eyes were red, he didn't say a word.

Aleksandra: He's alive!

Kanno: Fiuu... You scared us, Andrea.

Waltrud: Andrea... Sounds quite female to me.

Nikka: To you everything sounds female, you pervert.

Gundula: What a nice face... Fortunately Georgette was able to cure you.
I'm Commander Rall, nice to meet you... Are you listening?

Hikari: Andrea? You should respond.

Georgette: He seems... Immoble.

Edytha: He would seem full of surprises.

Aleksandra: Andrea, can you hear us?

Andrea didn't say a word, he stood up on his bed and left the room, heading to the hangar.

Gundula: Lemare?

Georgette: Not a single idea.

Aleksandra: Maybe it's the trauma, weren't spiders his greatest fear?

Kanno: We will get him back on his feet. Where he's going?

Nikka: Let's go, before he hurts himself in a way or another.

Andrea wore his Horten, this time loading himself with plenty of weapons.
A shotgun, his modified rifle, a bunch of grenades, two bayonettes and a pistol.
Munitions all over him, on the legs, the arms, the chest, even on a hat he just stole.

Aleksandra: Andrea? What are you doing?

Edytha: Listen, we know the Neuroi did many bad things to you, but you can't just load and take off after that kind of wou-?!

Andrea took off vertically breaking Mach 1 in seconds. For a frame he was there, for another he disappeared.

Kanno: What the fuck?!

Hikari: Quick, we need to catch him!

Edytha: Haven't you seen? That was Mach 1, he's already out of range!

Gundula: I'm going to alert the Headquarter, we need to track him!

In that precise moment Andrea was already in Ostmark airspace, destroying within minutes an entire fleet of Neuroi bombers.
The soldiers on the ground described the scene as a slaughterhouse, mostly because during the battle, of the 25 pilots who joined the fight, not a single one returned alive.
They were all destroyed by friendly fire, all coming from Andrea.
When the fleet was destroyed, with the same speed as he arrived he left, pointing another target.
In a single hour he reached South Karsland, eliminating a Ground Neuroi battalion and the tanks who were fighting them, again, because of friendly fire.
As he did the first time, he left and arrived in Gallia, near a village getting attacked by an enormous Neuroi flying fortress.
The fortress was taken down in half an hour, and he deliberately let it fall right over the village.
In only one day 544 people have died because of friendly fire, all by him.
In the following days the retaliation from the Neuroi was harsh, but it would seem that Andrea was peering with them, killing whoever he encountered.

The SJS quickly got his hands into the situation, quickly censoring the informations and occulting the facts. Controlling the global information was easy for them, so they changed the situation, avoiding talking about the civilian and military casualties and reassigning the witnesses to the most dangerous fronts.
The Joint Fighter Wings were controlled, the information filtered, not knowing they were already plotting against them, increasing suspects about the SJS performance.
Both of the factions theorised a bipolar thinking in Andrea's actions, they thought he was partially controlled by the Neuroi.
But what was really happening was that he wasn't even there, in his head.
Andrea was in a state of coma, experiencing visions thanks to the power of the Neuroi core.
So who was "piloting" his body? No one, the only thing that Pivot did was separate his short-term memory from his long-term memory, eliminating the emotions and the memories even of his "families".
The only thing remaining was his knowledge of surviving and fighting, and because of his expertise in those arts, all the rest of his energies were used as fuel both for the Horten and himself.

The coma lasted for months, ending only the 12th of January 1946, when the 501st, with the help of newly developed jet strikers, was able to outrun his partially destroyed Horten.