#Cooking with Neuroi
###By Avalanche ###Status: Canon
It was July 1946, Southern Karlsland, the height of summer.
"It's hot."
"Of course."
Despite it being only midmorning, it was a sweltering 33 degrees. The air rippled as thermal currents rose, but was otherwise completely still. Neither bird nor beast called from the dry hills surrounding the high stone castle, forest long burnt away in a previous battle.
"I'm tired."
"Yep."
Deep within a cellar of their Castle, Witches from all over the allied nations draped themselves over the cool stones sheltering themselves from the scorching heat.
"I'm bored!" wailed Matsuda Shouko, rolling back and forth across the floor.
"Aren't we all." said Cecilia, as she flipped another page on the book she was reading in a stray sunbeam.
For a moment, Shouko sprawled flat on the ground, facedown and limbs splayed.
"It's hot." the plaintive cry echoed out again.
"Of course." said Cecilia immediately.
"Please for the love of God and Nation, someone stop those two."
Ottilie Kittel stuck her head out from within the huge container crate she was rummaging around in "Shouko, if you're that bored, help me organise more of this stuff from the containers."
The huddled lump on the floor remained still for a moment, then "I'm hungry… - yeowch!"
Shouko sat up, blinking like a startled cat, until she spotted the rolling can of food next to her. With a huff, she collapsed back down and started batting around the can, bouncing it across the stone floor.
"We’ve been eating canned food for months, it's better than that Neuroi mush, but I want some real food," Shouko muttered, "Like some rice and teriyaki chicken, proper miso soup, fresh caught fish- mmm fish…"
Ottilie was silent for a moment, then looked into the distance, remembering back, "Fresh fruit would be great, bread, just baked in the morning with proper unsalted butter…"
Abruptly, she swung around, looking at the 501st JFW, most of whom watched on in wary contemplation. Unlike the current captives, they were not yet used to the presence of the Neuroi, of the two Sorceresses guarding the entrance to the cellar. Two more were deeper within, escorting Erica as she looked for something, she had kept hush hush about what exactly, and lastly, another two escorting Miyafuji Yoshika on a higher level. Apparently, the Neuroi only took her away to stare at her, or at least Yoshika couldn't tell what else they were doing whilst she healed various people in need of it.
Charlotte Yeager was first to answer, the tall, sociable Liberion girl stretched out on a mattress alongside Sarah Lebs, neither seeming to mind the heat in the slightest. "I miss thanksgiving turkey, with proper gravy, mashed potatoes and chickpeas. The flyboys tried really hard though when they heard, bless their souls, they actually smuggled one all the way from the mainland onto the Hornet, they lost it over the side when it turned out it had survived the trip over the Atlantic. They were good people…"
Cecilia picked up where the other three left off "Breakfast pancakes… not that we had pancakes for years now, the rationing was already bad by the time I entered service." Cecilia looked to Lynette, wordlessly asking the other Britannian girl to continue, missing the guilty look between Charlotte and Sarah, neither of whom had experienced rationing in Liberion and Australia respectively.
Lynette nodded shyly and spoke, a slightly dreamy look on her face "I like making sweets, but for my favourite food, it had to be roast beef and Yorkshire pudding. The way the crust crunched and the gravy would burst from between pieces of beef. I had it once before I deployed, but with how bad the rationing must be now with the Neuroi Submarines... I can't imagine I'd be able to try another course of that even if I managed to get back to Britannia."
Before the mood could sour, Gertrude spoke up, her clear, clipped tones carrying through the cellar "Though I make Eisbein all the time with pork calves, if I had the ingredients I'd use the pork to make some sauerbraten instead, with sauerkraut and knoedel, the combination of the sour and savoury taste is a delight to the tongue."
For moment, the girls leaned back and imagined a feast they prepared, a table adorned with food from every nation. A distant dream at the moment, for all they had at this moment-
"Christmas dinner in a can? Can you even do that?"
With a round of chuckles the girls returned to quiet conversations in the stifling heat, watched over by the Neuroi Sorceresses.
The hum of a hovering sorceress announced the excited return of Erica Hartmann, and she had found a bounty.
Slightly damp from the melting frost covering her body, Erica triumphantly brandished her loot. An entire side of beef in her right hand, two racks of lamb cutlets, cut and strung together dangling from her left hand, hung around her neck, coils of wurst of every make, attached to her belt, a bag of flour and a sack of vegetables, and her pockets stuffed with containers of herbs and spices.
While the other girls gaped in shock at the spectacle, Sarah Leb piped up hopefully "Barbeque time?"
Erica moved to the side, a rather put upon looking sorceress floated in, carrying an entire grill.
"Superior Existence R1 has temporarily allowed support orders from 206-M-1066-3 natives, subtype 1, classification X to this Existence."
A voice like a crackling collage of radio speech sounded out from within the Sorceresses helmet.
"Yes, barbeque time." smiled Erica
It was the work of an hour for the girls to cut the meat down to size, their survival knives finally finding use as something other than can openers. Herbs and spices were lovingly applied to neatly divided steaks and cutlets. Gertrude overdid herself and prepared an entire roast from the leg of the side of beef.
"I don't know the recipe for proper Yorkshire pudding, but I'll try and make it as close as I can get."
"Look colonial, these are Karlsland sausages, they're called Wurst."
"Snag's a snag pommy, and you cut them down to middle to stop them rolling off the barbie… Oi! Not now, after we start cooking, you're gonna let out all the juice!"
"Could you go wake up Yoshika? I don't think she'll want to miss this."
"Parsing order. Contacting Existence in proximity of Existence Yoshika Miyafuji. Her current status is- Asleep. Standbye."
"Uh… I guess I'll get back to you then…"
"There's no way we're going to be brewing anything like Soy sauce with onions of all things."
"Leave the onions alone! They're for the gravy along with the cutoffs."
"Pity there's no wine or beer for marinade."
"A good thing too seeing how we're all underage."
"What? The drinking age is fourteen."
"…What barbarity is that?"
"Nono, sundried tomatoes simply won't do."
"It'll take too long to soak them again, just chop them finely. It's just gravy."
"Are you insulting gravy?"
Finally, the preparations were done, the girls grabbed onto the grill loaded heavy with the work, and carried it out into the midday sun.
"…Uh."
…
"So…"
"Don’t say it."
"How are going to cook all this without any coal or firewood?"
"You said it."
The witches stood around their grill, awkwardly shuffling. The meat piled up high and enticing, just waiting to be cooked.
The Neuroi had carted off coal and gas within the kitchen, not even leaving the cooking oil, the spare stocks of firewood had burnt away in the same forest fire that had ravaged the surrounding forests.
They could almost feel the pressure of the glare the Sorceress pinned upon their backs. She was festooned with various things the witches could not find room to carry, a scarf of sausages wrapped around it's neck, the leg of beef secured with a crash harness across her back, rucksacks of herbs and spices slung across both hips, parachute cords tying several five litre canisters of water across her chest.
"Well, we’re out here anyway, do you think we could ask her to, you know, help us with heating the grill." suggested Sarah, looking around.
At the other girls looked at her in confusion, Sarash curled her fingers into a pistol shape, then mimed firing at the grill.
The reaction from the 501 was near unanimous denial and disbelief "Ask the Neuroi to fire lasers? To heat up a grill? Are you out of your mind?"
Nearly ten minutes passed without resolution, but with the day passing on and none them growing less hungry, the witches finally decided to ask their sorceress for help.
Naturally, as the one to prose the idea, Sarah Leb was volunteered to approach the sorceress, the other witches having pulled as much of the raw meat onto their improvised plates as possible and standing a respectable distance from the grill. Not letting her nervousness show, the Australian jaunted over to where the neuroi stood in the shade of the walls.
"Heya," her voice wobbled slightly, swallowing and grinning only slightly sickly, Sarah asked "Could you heat up the hotplate?"
"Parsing order. Fire support request recognised. Target acquired."
Sarah's slight unease turned into full blown horror as the Sorceress raised her arm, a dull red glow building for a brief moment before a faint red beam lashed out at their carefully arranged midday meal.
The grill plate glowed faintly red, an echo of the laser that had struck it, and sagged downwards slightly. Smoke rose from the unfortunate pieces of meat left upon the grill plate.
"Noooooo! The steak! The cutlets! Th-th-the snags!"
Indeed, their carefully prepared feast had been devastated, charred meat surrounded ground zero, some of it was simply carbonised, flaking into ash even as they watched.
"W-wh-what was that?" Sarah demanded, spinning back around to face the sorceress.
"Fire support… insufficient?"
The sorceress sounded nearly uncertain.
"Insufficient?! How was that insufficient?!"
Sarah swore she could hear gears grinding against each other and steam escaping from overheating pipes as the sorceress replied "Parsing local language - English lexicon - Secondary implicit meanings dictionary - sarcasm… Referencing Compiled multi-level interaction database…"
No. She wasn't imagining it, steam actually was radiating from the top of the Sorceresses head and lights were flickering from behind her helmet. Then as abruptly as it started, the lightshow stopped.
"Query parsed. Sarcasm detected, ninety point six percent certainty. Rewording request in baseline: Not enough gun." broadcasted the sorceress. Raising both arms, it continued "Charging Plasma Casters."
The gauntlets over the sorceresses forearms suddenly extended. Actinic white flashes of lightning, the smell of a thunderstorm, and a crackle of static running over her skin was all Sarah needed to know. It was bad things.
"Save the meat!" she screamed, turning and running out of the way. The witches scattered, delicately balancing as many as three plates each as they scrambled to get out of the way.
"Standby" rumbled the sorceress, almost with a note of glee, "secondary capacitors charged."
The white light built up to a crescendo, brighter than the sun above, then-
"):<"
The sorceress staggered, the lightning building around her arms dissipating abruptly.
From behind a corner, the witches watched as another sorceress descended. This one was different, slimmer, without the laser cannons and various other weapons… and on its helmet, there was a series of several animated lines.
As she approached, they moved into a new configuration.
"-_-"
The sorceress sounded almost sheepish "More firepower was requested- "
"0_o"
"…transmitting mission logs."
"ಠ_ಠ"
The new Neuroi turned and gesture at the witches, whom cautiously emerged from cover, eyeing the gauntlets of the Sorceress. None had ever seen that weapon before.
Behind them, with a pathetic creaking noise, the grill collapsed onto itself.
Then the new Neuroi spoke, the lines on its helmet moving into a facsimile of a smiling face ":)" "Hello, I am Emissary zero zero. Most future interaction between our races will be left to those of our design."
Gesturing backwards at their ruined grill the emissary continued "(シ_ _)シ" "I am sorry for the destruction of your cooking device."
Behind her, from the castle, the sound of scampering feet, grew louder and louder, then with her characteristic aplomb, Yoshika Miyafuji tumbled into the courtyard. Rolling to her feet like a determined spring, she glanced around hungrily "I smelt food so I got here as fast as I could, what's cooking?"
Awkward stares were exchanged all around before, once again, Sarah was pushed forwards, "Well, uh, we had a grill, but, well, y'know, thingshappenedmaybeIhadaneuroishootitandit'swreckednowokay?"
Yoshika blinked one, twice thrice, then sagely nodded. Humming, she placed her hand on the cobblestones, quickly snatched her hand back, then looked up at the sun, then at the pure black Neuroi. Sarah could feel it in her bones, something ludicrous was about to happen, she had to stop this-
"Hey, how hot would you get if you stood in the sun for a while?"
But before she could, Yoshika turned and asked a question that would see one particular Neuroi subprocess humiliated across all of Hive Cluster 206 space.
"This Existence registers complaint over improper use."
Charlotte placed another prime steak over the helmet of the sorceress "Quieten down, if you coulda tempered your laser, none of this had to happen."
The sorceress was hovering in midair, face up and limbs splayed. Turned out that Neuroi under a strong sun, heated up very quickly, hot enough to cook on in fact, especially when they increased their surface area by deploying their manoeuvring flaps.
"Superior Existence R1 has the capability to manufacture and transport a heating element to this location within two hundred seconds. Query: Why is this necessary?"
"¯_(ツ)_/¯" "Relax and sort out your database, run a simulation with unit Y Thirteen if you wish to occupy yourself." Next to her, the emissary was floating in the same position, although she seemed less agitated. Probably because the witches weren't placing steaks on her helmet.
"Query: Why is this necessary?" Demanded the sorceress in vain again, as a set of cutlets were removed from her left arm pinion in favour of a pot of thick brown gravy, which soon began to bubble.
The witches sat down on the stones within the lengthening shade, heading out back towards the pair of floating Neuroi for refills. In that fashion, they ate and chatted through the afternoon, enjoying the well made dishes and swapping recipies.
Evening had finally brought a cool change along with brisk winds.
The 501st JFW and other captives pulled their matresses back up from the cellars, dusting them off and pulling over covers and duvets, arranging them side by side in a single room so they could sleep together.
As the other girls settled down to sleep, Matuda Shouko and Miyafuji Yoshika leaned against a window. The frames, weakened by the fire, were reinforced by the Neuroi to prevent escape, but the windows themselves still opened and closed to let air circulate.
The two Fusoan girls sipped on milk, having found some milk powder from the supplies the Neuroi still occasionally dropped into the courtyard.
Yoshika silently scanned the skies above, looking for constellations in the foreign sky, counting. More than a few times, she was sure she saw star travel in retrograde with the rest of the night sky. How many more Neuroi lurked within the skies, was it even possible for humans to win?
Next to her Shouko was concerned with more immediate matters, frowning and looked down at the courtyard.
"Miyafuji-san, are you sure we should be doing this?"
Yoshika simply smiled mischievously, "If the hive doesn’t move her by tomorrow, we let her off the hook."
"Query: Why is this necessary?" the plaintive call echoed out from down below as Shouko shook her head and closed the window.
The night was quiet. Completely silent, devoid of even the insects that would normally populate such an area.
"Query: Why is this necessary?"
Well, nearly completely silent.
""Query: Why is t-"
Sorceress unit G501S1-9 abruptly flipped herself upright. New order asserting themselves.
She turned, looking to the North. A Neuroi SSTO shuttle was inbound with more captives. Reforming with her squadron, she headed for the drop site, awaiting the arrival of her new marks.