Elsa wrote:

    Battle-trained reflexes had her hands reach for her favored weapons,
a cavalry saber and an archaic rune-encrusted revolver,

Well, as long as she knows how to use them.

    The City Defense Project's and the Circle's culminating work: the
Hanagumi Teikokukagekidan. Others may have followed: Les Fleurs de
Paris, the Broadway Blossoms, the San Francisco Flowers, die Blumen der
Berlin and others but the original was known to the world since that
faithful day in 1929.

I only saw part of the original ST series. Just couldn't seem to get into
it.

    When one of them gave her life to save the city of Peking and drag a
demon back into whatever hell it had come from.

    "So, you want to come with me?"

    "I haven't visited her for a long time, too, you know."

    They walked in silence and entered the Gates of Heavenly Peace to
emerge in the small park that served as the memorial's home. Filled with
flowers, it had been well taken care of by the Republic's gardeners.
Taking the path they had last visited fourteen years ago when they came
to bury one of their own.

Last sentence is fragment. Need something else there.

    Tunguska was more of a blasted hole now than what it was back in
1940 when the Beast of Air was first awakened. Two of the bravest women
that Leni Milchenstrasse had ever known in her life had died to make it
so. The Tiger himself died along with an entire battalion of Mitsubishi
Kanazuchis to ensure that those two did their job.

How dramatic.

    Then, Iris Chateubriand led the greatest fighting retreat in the
history of warfare. The Imperial Third Army, the Imperial First Armored
Cavalry, The Imperial Second Armored Infantry Regiment and the Hanagumi
Teikokukagekidan along with the Chinese Fourth Republican Armored
Infantry, the Korean First Royal Cavalry, and assorted Russian partisan
groups retreated more than a thousand miles, fighting.

    Three months. From the wastes of the Siberia to the plains of
Mongolia. Till the day that they smashed through Cabal lines again at
the Kerulen River and managed to reach Zhangjiakou.

Heck of a battle, all right.

    Along the way, three-fourth of Iris Chateaubriand's army died. Never
mind that it was probably the best she could have expected. Never mind
that none of her personal team had died, the Teikokukagekidan's luck
holding through once again. Never mind that she had been given the
Imperial Medal of Courage, the Republican Medal of Valor and the Royal
Ribbon of Thanks. Never mind that she became, in one fell swoop, a name
said in the same breath as Patton, Montgomery and Rommel.

Poor lass. Who would want to be compared to Monty? :P

She had even

been the Japanese representative, though not a Japanese citizen, to the
Allied Tibetan Conference at Shangri-la, standing beside such luminaries
of what was even now being called the Second Demon War: Lamont Cranston,
the Dalai Lama, the Grand Abbot of Shaolin and the Magi Laureate Albert
Wulfric.

Oh? Lamont went public with his identity?

    Now, the Cabal armies were smashing against Zhangjiakou like a
sledgehammer. It was going to fall. It had already held a month longer
than expected.

Geez, things aren't good, are they?

    Nine young women had arrived there before them. Always nine, Leni
thought, always nine for the sisterhood of steel.

And  we have a title.

    Leni nodded, impressed. A few months after the attack on Tunguska,
while Iris and Leni were still behind enemy lines, Makoto Shishio, one
of the Beast's Revived Ones, had led an army of elite troops to strike
at Chongqing as a counter to the Allied Siberian strike.

Good choice, although one would assume he'll be planning a coup to take
control of the Beasts. Shishio was determined to rule hell after he died.

Truly a man with far ranging goals.

    Leni peered into the dark bushes looking for the young kunoichi's
companions. Tsunade Shinomori, scion of the Oniwanbashuu ninja company,
was lying about hearing about this little visit, of course. Iris hadn't
told the base guards where she was going and Leni had jumped the fence,
in accordance with her shinobi training, after seeing her captain leave.
But Shinomori wasn't that smart. She had taken too much after her
legendary grandmother, Misao Makimachi,

Heh. Misao did play by her own set of rules.

 to think things as deeply as

that.

    And she did say 'we'.

    The other members of the team stepped out of the shadows. Takami
Akechi, the fierce intelligence behind her glasses a reflection of her
famous detective-uncle's, examining and cataloging the people and the
clearing for information. Ryoko Kanzaki, niece to an old friend and
interdimensional explorer from the world of Gaia, was looking at the
statue that was the memorial's centerpiece with curiosity. Hinako Aino
was smiling, the half-American blonde radiating that strange almost-
manic sense of happiness she had. Emi Aoyama was looking over the
Beijing team, her swordswoman's eyes gauging their skill. Kaori
Higurashi, the oldest member among the current group excepting Leni and
Iris, was fingering her nemuranai pistols, Leni recognizing the fact
that she was listening to the spirit-voices that whispered from them.
The sight of Keiko Asagiri's ever-present scowl brought to Leni the
realization that she had missed all of them. Sisters of steel, Leni
remembered Sakura once call all those who had ever piloted a koubu. They
were sisters truly and it was nice that they would get to meet their
departed sister.

Only recognize a handful og them.

    "Hey, flying weed, still haevn't

haven't

    Itsuki just shrugged. "Call from home. Then, she immediately called
for a full base meeting. You're all here. I'm here; she's bringing the
commander of the Chinese defense and Tachi."

    As if in response to her statement, several figures emerged into the
clearing. Countess Julie Arisugawa, or as her Japanese subordinates
called her "Juri-sama", was dressed in the full-dress uniform of a Mahou
Tsukai regiment commander,

Yeah, I can see her being one.

    But it had to go through New York City first. That was where Its
forces were stopped. Four months of heavy fighting and half of New York
was rubble. But It was stopped and the counterattack that followed, led
by Patton himself, and the Tesla-created five-man Megadeus armor called
Voltron,

Ha! Nice one.

Entertaining.

DB Sommer



             .---Anime/Manga Fanfiction Mailing List----.
             | Administrators - ffml-admins@anifics.com |
             | Unsubscribing - ffml-request@anifics.com |
             |     Put 'unsubscribe' in the subject     |
             `---- http://ffml.anifics.com/faq.txt -----'