It was almost years ago. She still remembers clearly. That streak of light, the absolute silence, then the deafening booms and the bone shattering shockwaves.

That was the missile strike nine years ago; the missile strike which leveled her home town.

Even though she was only eight at the time, she remembers everything like the drawings in a picture book. Unchanging, etched down forever.

She remembers the cold dusk air, the cracking of the bonfire in the village square, even the lyrics to the old folk song the adults were singing. It was new year’s eve, and the joyfulness of the people hung in the air.

Then someone yelled, then more people yelled, and everyone pointed towards the same place in the sky.

She remembers turning to look, and seeing dots of light flying towards them, trailing light whiffs of vapor behind them.

Then the specks lights shut off, and the hysteria ceased somewhat.

A friend of her mother’s picked her up, and, despite her shouts of disagreement, hurried towards her little wooden house near the edge of the woods.

She was dumped on the wooden sofa, as the man went to talk to her mother. She remembers their conversation, something about an attack, about an air raid. She pushed herself off the sofa and went to find her mother, but had only gone a few steps when the warheads hit.

The thin walls of her house exploded inwards. The fragile wood shattering into thousands of splinters as the explosions rocked the little town.

She was blown from her feet by the powerful explosion and thrown against the collapsing walls of her house. Out of instinct she threw her hands up and grabbed her own head—an action which most likely had saved her life. Because moments later the support beams of her house collapsed, a large piece of it shattering her right arm at the elbow joint.

The world turned dark as she got buried beneath the ruins of her house. She remembers feeling no pain, just a numbness in her arm which confused her. Out of sheer luck the collapsing building had constructed a safety cell around her, shielding her from the rest of the barrage and the fire.

She heard screaming and the crackling of fire, which seemed to grow closer by the minute.

Then smoke began to fill into the space. Thick, black, asphyxiating smoke. When she breathed it in it felt like her lungs were being sliced into pieces by a razor. She coughed and cried, trying to get the attention of anyone outside who may help her.

In her panicked state she must have not heard the roar of the jet engines, because just when she was about to give up hope, the rubble was pulled away from above her and the face of a middle-aged man with golden hair appeared.

He reached down and picked her up, placed her down on her feet and looked her over. The man pulled out a roll of bandage and began looping it around her arm and neck. It was only then, that when he touched her arm, did the pain begin to register.

It must have been some really bad pain, because she collapsed on the spot, unable to even move because of it. The man picked her up gently and brought her over to a waiting helicopter full of survivors. When then flew her all the way to the city of New Asia.

Only later did she learn that that attack had happened before the war had become desperate, and civilians were mostly spared and allowed to leave the frontlines via rescue vehicles. If that attack had happened now, she msot likely would have been slaughtered.

It soon became clear within a few days that the rest of her family had not survived. Whenever she asked to see her mother the nurses simply comforted her and distracted her with toys. Whenever she cried because she missed her older brother the nurses simply came and sang her to sleep.

She stayed in that hospital for three months. She got her elbow fixed, a titanium joint mounted in place of where her bones are supposed to be. Apparently the amount of smoke she inhaled had badly damaged her airways, and the doctors said it would be unlikely her raspy voice would return to normal.

One day, three months after she was rescued, a man in a black uniform came to see her. He introduced himself as Captain of the twenty-second fighter squadron, and took her away from the hospital to a military boarding school meant for young children and orphans near the edge of the city.

There she began studying maths, chemistry and physics, preparing to one day become a fighter pilot. She had no choice, but she didn’t really mind anyways. She was lost, completely lost. Most things she did she did it because someone told her to. When she felt thirsty she drank some water, when she felt hungry she stuffed some food down her throat. She had no goal and no one for her to ean against. But then again, so was to be expected when an eight year old loses her entire family right before her eyes.

When she was bored she would go into the simulator complex and play around with the gunnery simulator. She got pretty good at it, and for some reason, found comfort in shooting down enemy fighters. Maybe because she felt it gave her a way to fight back, maybe because it allowed to her to use her broken right arm for something, maybe because she simply liked the moving colors.

Life wasn’t easy. Aside from the gaping hole in her heart torn open by that day, she was often bullied for her raspy voice and inward personality.

“Listen to her voice!” They would often say. “She sounds like a donkey. Come on, say something. Oh wait, you can’t!” Then there’d be laughter and someone would pull her hair or they would all just run off, leaving her alone in whatever classroom she happened to be sitting in.

Because of that she learnt to never speak louder than a whisper, because if she didn’t, no one would be able to tell that her vocal cords are badly damaged; no one would be able to learn of her dark history and use it against her.

Soon enough the kids got bored of her, and the constant jeering subsided somewhat. But one day, somehow, someone found out about her broken arm. Maybe they saw the scars, maybe because she always dropped things when trying to hold them with her right hand. Whatever the reason, the bullying started once more. They would poke at her scars, throw things at her arm and call her names, all the same as before.

One day, a boy, a little younger than her, with jet black hair walked over and sat down next to her while she was doing some homework. Automatically she tensed up, thinking he was going to do something to make fun of her. But he didn’t.

“Where are you from?” Was all he said.

She froze, caught off guard by the seemingly sincere and harmless question. “A village, far off in the wilderness somewhere,” she whispered after a moment of thinking, “I don’t know where it is exactly.”

The boy nodded. “I’m from the factory district,” he said, “I didn’t want to work in a factory, so my parents sent me here. Where are your parents?” He asked.

“They’re… they’re… not here anymore.”

“Not here anymore?”

“They’re dead.”

“Oh…” The boy mumbled, a little taken back. “How did…” he began again, but halted his words when he saw tears begin to well up in her eyes. “Ahh I’m… I’m sorry!” He panicked. “Please don’t cry! I didn’t mean to make you sad!”

“It’s alright…” She replied, wiping her eyes roughly with her sleeve. “It was a long time ago.”

“I see…” the boy mumbled. A silence fell between them which seemed to last forever. Finally, breaking the awkwardness, the boy spoke up once more, “How about I tell you about where I’m from? Then maybe you can tell me about your village far off in the wilderness somewhere.”

“Sure…”

And so he began talking, and talking, and talking. They talked for a long time, longer than Ying had ever talked to anyone else. They talked about the boy’s home, the factories in New Asia, and the deep rumbling of jet engines as the fighters and bombers took off. They talked about Ying’s village, the rich green hills which surrounded it, and the plump fruits which hung on the trees every spring.

The next day they began talking again, this time about games, about what they want to be.

“I want to be a commander!” The boy shouted. “I want to soar in the skies and be a brave warrior!”

She asked him for his name, it turned out to be June.

“That doesn’t sound like an Asian name,” She said softly. “Where is your family from originally?”

“China, way back from before the war. We moved here even before New Asia was established,” June answered. “My mother’s family name is Jun, so we changed it to ‘June’ and made it my first name since they changed the official language to English and the word ‘Jun’ is quite hard to pronounce properly." [1]

“Wait so your name is June Jun?”

“No no. It’s Chinese tradition to always inherit the family name of the father, and my father’s family name is Misaka. So that makes my name June Misaka. What about you? What's your... family name?"

“Lee.”

“Lee… I like it. It’s a nice name.”

“…thank you…”

The next day they talked again. And the next, and then the one after that. Before long they had become great friends, best friends even. Everyday they would hangout together, play games together and do homework together. They would share books and stories with each other and laugh together until their stomachs hurt.

She had a person who cared for her, and who she cared about.

Then one day, the other kids decided to have another go at her. They cornered her in a hallway and threatened to tear her arm apart to see what it really is like.

A few kids pinned her down while another tried his best to break her elbow. Luckily for her the titanium joint meant she felt no pain, and was strong enough to endure the beating.

“Get away from her!” A voice shouted. June’s voice.

The other kids turned to look at him, their eyes like those of a wolf who had just seen a lost lamb.

“I’m going to tell the masters... Hey… stop… don’t come near me,” June faltered. He knew he stood no chance against a mob like this.

“Her arm is strong ‘cause she has a machine elbow. But what about you huh?” The leader of the mob shouted.

They pounced like lions onto June, who screamed in terror and fell to the floor.

“No!” She shouted, her fragile voice breaking into a strained whimper.

“Hahahaha!” The kids roared. “Listen to her voice!”

Then they had June’s arm extended against the floor, and bit by bit, applied more and more force into the elbow joint. June screamed, cried, begged for them to stop. But they didn’t.

Somehow June managed to struggle to his feet and began wrestling a larger kid for control. He slipped and fell backwards. He put his hand out to catch his fall, but the larger kid lifted him up his legs.

The hand June reached out touched nothing. He had flipped almost a half turn in the air, and with a fibrous crunch, hit the ground the the back of his head. His body’s momentum crushed down onto his neck, bending his head forwards into his chest and shattering his vertebrate like a glass vial.

June fell limp immediately. The kids jumped back with looks of terror and confusion on their faces. Someone screamed and an adult came. Then more adults came with a stretcher and took June away. She tried to follow them, but someone picked her up and took her to her dorm room.

Later news came. June was paralyzed, forever. The fall had separated his spinal cord clean in half.

Once again she had lost someone who she cared for. Once again she was unable to do anything to help.

The rest of her early years passed like a boring diary. Nothing of importance happened, nothing which she cared about anyways. She trained even harder at gunnery, hoping to be able to one day protect the ones who she love.

At age fifteen she was enrolled into the fighter pilot training program, wherein she was quickly selected to become a gunner for her excellent performance in assessments and simulator tests. A year later she was put into the 45th Heavy Fighter squadron as a gunner under the command of Commander Lenn.

It was then, when she walked up to them and they took her in with open arms, that she decided she would protect these three with all of her ability no matter the cost, even if it means to lose her own life.

She didn’t want to lose another person who matters to her, because she had already lost too much.

But now it was going to happen again. As they plummeted from the sky, trailing flames and thick cloud of smoke.

For a moment she froze, unable to do anything as the memories came flooding back to her. It was going to happen again. She was about to lose everything, again.

“Lenn! Eject!” Rei shouted, snapping her back to reality. “Lenn’s hurt bad, he can’t pull the ejection handle. You two override and eject first, I’ll try and fly this plane down.”

Their aircraft is built with a special ejection seat system, in which all new members have to pull the ejection levers for ejection to happen. If a single crew wanted to eject by themselves they can hit the emergency ejected button right besides the main ejection handle.

“If we eject we do it together,” Ying said. “I don’t want to lose anyone anymore…”

“I agree,” Kang echoed.

Rei sighed. “You guys… Fine… Ying, you take over control. Kang, try contact base for rescue. I’ll stabilize Lenn.”

Ying turned to look back. Lenn looked to be in pretty back shape. He was the closest to the explosion and had taken the brunt of the impact. Blood was dripping from his head and pooling on his chest.

She turned back to look forwards and began trying her best to fly their plane using the little backup joystick on her arm rest. She wasn’t the best flyer to begin with, and now that their plane was heavy damaged it took every ounce of her strength to keep them from falling out of the sky.

She tried her best to maneuver it parallel to the valley and began descending towards the ground slowly. Ahead of them she spotted an open patch of land and decided to try and set down there.

The plane shuddered and shook heavily as they approached the tree line. As they got closer Ying realized that they were going to fall short. She pushed a slider on the joystick forwards to increase power to the engines, but there was a pop followed by the sound of the engines spooling down.

“We’re not gonna make it…” She panicked. The trees came up at them, this time they had no way to get out of the way. “Brace for impact!”

The first treetops shattered against the belly of their aircraft. Then the thicker trunks slammed into the nose of their plane with a sickening thud. The canopy cracked, the splits in the acrylic spidering out all around them. She feared that the canopy should shatter, and that they would be impaled by the limbs on the trees.

One of the wings were struck by a particularly large tree and was torn off the fuselage. With the sudden loss of lift their plane rolled to the side and plummeted onto the ground just as they broke out of the trees and into the clearing. Luckily they were low enough that the fuselage was able to absorb the majority of the impact.

They slid to a stop in the middle of the clearing. With a bang the canopy was jettisoned and they began unbuckling themselves. Ying felt something warm running down from her forehead. Blood, most likely.

Rei, with the help of Kang, heaved Lenn out of his seat and hopped down on to the ground behind Ying, as flames began enveloping the entire airframe. They carried him a distance away and stopped near the tree line.

“He’s hurt really really bad, we need the first-aid kit,” Rei told them as he laid Lenn down on the grass some distance from the wreckage. “I’m afraid I won’t be able to save him otherwise.”

The first-aid kit is stored in a little box in their cockpit, which was now covered with deadly smoke. Without thinking twice Ying turned and ran towards the burning wreckage.

“Ying! No!” Kang shouted, grabbing her arm before she could go. “Too dangerous! It's gonna blow anytime.”

“I don’t wa…” Ying shouted back, her voice breaking into a rasp. She torn her arm free and turned to run again.

Kang tackled her and they fell in a bundle onto the grass. They wrestled each other for control for a while, but Kang’s greater strength meant he quickly got Ying under control.

“Use your head!” He shouted.

“He’s going to die!”

“So are you if you go back there!”

“I don’t care!”

“You idiot..."

"Do you want to save your friend or not?" A unfamiliar voice suddenly asked.

People were standing over them, one of them pointing a gun to his head. Kang froze, and so did Ying. Rei noticed too, and was staying as still as possible.

The man had blonde hair, a strong jawline and a somewhat slim yet strong face. His eyes were blue and sharp, but seemed to contain no emotion. Slowly the pistol pointed at them was lowered until it was at his side. He tossed a medical bag on to the grass next to them, which landed with a soft thump.

“Don't panic, I didn’t come here to take prisoners nor to interrogate you,” the man said in a vague European accent. “Fix your friend up, and we’ll have a talk.”