Between watching the Anime over 19 times and reading so many fanfics that are too Miho-reliant, (Not in so much that there is anything wrong with that, but rather I'd prefer to see more variety than the normal Miho kicks ass all the time fanfic). So with that said, I have decided to write a major alteration to the girls und Panzer story. However, there are a few things I should mention here.
Yes, this is an OC commander, deal with it. She will be making her own mistakes, and she is not going to be this perfect little angel, even though per personality is generally described as being calm and peaceful.
Yes, Rikona is going to have a beef with Miho at times, even though Miho was, and still will be, one of her best friends. I'll post a spoiler right now, Miho and Rikona will have at least two, possible three confrontations.
Yes, people are going to have a more realistic viewpoint on Miho than they did in the anime. That includes both Shiho and Erika's beef with Miho. And not everyone at Ooarai is going to have a good opinion on Miho all the time. That's not to say they will be treating her like trash, but some will like her, and some... not so much.
Yes, the above point also stands for Rikona. She'll have both her fans and her critics, some of which will be justified in both cases.
Yes, this is a totally different line-up of tanks. It's an alternate storyline to the anime, adopting many of the events but changing others.
Yes, I am basing the school year of this fanfic loosely around the American school year.
And finally, yes, the instructor is more competent than Ami (Instructor Nishisumi has done a lot for me) Chono.
And that's about it. Enjoy! I do not own Girls und Panzer. By the way, this AN is only 327 words long.
"That's quite the tight formation they've got there." Lifting her binoculars from her face, Yukari glanced at Miho. "Nine Matildas and one Churchill, we have our work cut out for us."
Miho give a small nod, her apprehensiveness growing. "I'm surprised they're able to keep up their formation at that speed."
"They've got way more skill than us."
Miho glanced at her M-18. "That's where tactics and skill come in," She commented to the brown haired girl. And our superior firepower as well, she added silently.
Yukari smiled. "Right!" Both simultaneously rose and clambered into their tanks. "Mako, I want to deploy but make sure that the engine doesn't echo," she whispered on her way into the tank. Said driver nodded and fired up the tank, before turning the American beast around.
Miho gazed at her school's tanks as they all took off at the same time. I had no idea Ooarai had such fire power left in her arsenal, considering they stopped doing Sensado back in 1972, she observed to herself. I'm even more surprised Rikona didn't mention that she was the Heiress of this school, back during during the year of middle school we shared.
In the lead where two ZUT-37's, a Russian SPAA tankket with a 37mm auto-cannon, capable of firing five shells per reload. While hey where underpowered in many aspects, they made excellent scout tanks, and excelled in taking out other tankkets and Panzers with thin armor. They, like her M-18, had a modified roof mod to make the tanks Sensa-do compliant, the only differences between the commander's viewports on the M-18 and the ZUT-37's was that you could actually turn around in the M-18 while the ZUT-37's had a massive blind spot.
Both ZUT-37 teams referred to themselves as Duck team, which consisted of the ex-volleyball club members. This group was well renowned for their energetic personality and said energy had often led to both teams either dominating or rushing into a trap in equal numbers during practice.
Shortly followed where the three German class ranks of the school, the Panzer III J, Panzer IV H, and the Tiger II H, all decent tanks in their own rights. Nestled in a line right behind them was the SU-500 Y, which was a massive soviet tank destroyer, and a KV-2. On the far right and far lest of the line where a Churchill and a M4A2 respectively, the M4A2 hosting the team commander.
Finally, at the end of the line was their own tank, the M-18. This tank was a glass cannon in all aspects, but had an excellent gun and top speed. Said tank suddenly diverged from the formation to take their position on the cliff.
"Remember everyone, we want to make certain that we don't fire on any tanks if the head of the commander is sticking out. Fire your machine gun slightly behind the tank as a fair warning as required by section A-4.34 of the safety chapter in the rule-book. And for god's sake Miho, don't keep your head out of the panzer while you are under fire."
Miho gave a little nod. "Don't worry Rikona, I don't want another incident like what happened on the bridge during our first practice match." During their first practice match Miho had lead her team across a bridge, while under fire. Her driver, being fairly unskilled in driving, had driven too close to the left, snapping some of the wires, and nearly causing the tank to fall into the river.
The only reason why it didn't was due to the quick thinking of Rikona, who commanded her gunner to fire a shell at the right corner of the tank, giving it enough of a push to place it firmly on the center of the bridge. Said commander quickly canceled the match for safety reasons.
Needless to say, Rikona had some very harsh words for Miho, and the instructor wouldn't even let them get near a tank for at least three weeks, instead drilling safety rules and regulations into their thick skulls.
"Good. And Miho," Rikona paused for a brief moment. "You're a good friend to me, one of the best. I don't want to lose you to some accident," she finished off.
Miho let out a quiet mummer of agreement before replying. "Don't worry, We'll be safe." Coming onto the ridge-line, she let out a quiet sigh. "We need to wait for Darjeeling's team to reach us. That should give our team plenty of time to prepare their ambush."
"Fire,"
With that command the American tank hunter spewed out it's iron and sulfuric fireball, speeding toward one of the Matilda's. While her gunner's skill was good, she wasn't yet ready to hit moving targets with one hit.
But nine Matildas and a Churchill all moving in formations where a big target, and despite her gunner's relative lack of training against moving targets, her shell hit one of the Matildas, knocking it out.
"We've got their attention, let's get out of here," Miho shouted. Mako gave a slight nod and began the harsh task of avoiding close range fire from nine tanks. "Our armor is extremely weak so we'll get taken out if we get hit head on," she remarked, before turning around and peering out of the commander's window, gasping as a shell was nearing the rear of the tank.
August 19th, 2008:
Two girls stood in front of the tank shed, gazing at the doors for a brief moment. One of them was the school president, Anzu, while the other one was the Heiress of the school and current tank commander of the Sensado team.
Anzu glanced at the girl, reflecting on how different she was and look in comparison to herself. Rikona, dispute being the rightful heiress of said school, was undoubtedly american, her skin tone and facial features nothing like most of the kids going to her school. She had light green eyes, along with a few light freckles across her face. Her hair was a medium brown, with most of it lying flat across her back save for two slightly bushy pigtails,roughly thirty centimeters long and of which they usually rested on or behind her shoulders.
"You are viewing the sheds again?"
Rikona let out a small sigh. "Yes Anzu, I'm viewing the sheds again. Is there any reason why I shouldn't?"
"N..no, I guess there isn't," Anzu stammered as she opened the door, letting the Heiress into the building. The smaller girl walked in a ways, slightly weary of Rikona.
"I don't bite, you know," Rikona chuckled. "I just don't like when I see leaders doing nothing is all," she added gently.
"I guess you are right." Anzu mumbled. Every since Rikona had taken over, Anzu had to pull more of her weight on the student council team. Beforehand, she had been head honcho, able to do anything she wanted, thanks to the laxed nature of the previous headmaster. Granted, Anzu had to run everything from the shipping course to general courses, but it had been made easy as her subordinates had done most of the work for her.
Rikona had put an end to all that. After it was discovered two years ago that she was supposed to Inherit Ooarai, and that the previous headmaster had dealt with some... unlawful adjustments to the papers, said girl had been rushed through nearly three years of collage in two years on top of her normal middle school courses.
Even though she wasn't ready to take the full mantle of responsibility, after all she had to attend classes for at least two years to remain eligible, she quickly got to work on changing things. During her first year, she had toured the school, taking notes of everything she had saw. Second year she bought the tanks and began the mandatory safety classes so that Ooarai would be able to compete in the upcoming tournament the next year.
In between last year and this year, she also made adjustments to the schools curriculum and leadership. Now the Ship course, engineering course, general course, all had their own student councils, with Anzu's group becoming solely the general course council. Along with Rikona chewing her out for making most of the assistant body go through student records while she munched on dried potatoes, she reduced the chronicles powers while simultaneously hiring more instructors and overseaers to prevent accidents.
"I can't believe I spent nearly 350 Million Yen (3 Million in USD) on these tanks," she mummered sadly.
Anzu looked up at her in surprise. "But you had to do something, you only have five years until the school shuts down, if you don't show considerable improvement." she tried to encourage her.
"Maybe you are right, but we need more than just an A-rate team in Sensado. Maybe if the former Volleyball team can get enough freshmen and 2nd years to sign on, I'll restore the club, though as an official sport."
"That could be a good start," Anzu mused.
Rikona smiled breifly before frowning. "I've also been considering merging with Ooarai boy's academy, though I'm not too sure about it yet."
"Between the cost, the inevitable marriage with the Heir, and the uncertainty of who would be headmaster, I don't blame you," Anzu remarked.
Rikona let out a sigh. "Well, I should have until the end of the third year to decide. Besides, the Boy's academy isn't doing much better either,so if it comes to the point he has to join us, then it'll be easier for me to remain Heiress."
"You'll still have to marry him though," Anzu pointed out.
Rikona let out a small gag before shaking her head. "True. Maybe I'll take him out to dinner, just to see what he's like."
"And then?"
"Who knows. Maybe I'll like what I see. Maybe I won't. Who knows," Rinkna smiled to cover her discomfort at the conversation before gazing back at the tanks.
"Have you picked a Vice commander yet?" Anzu queered after a moment of silence.
"I'm thinking about asking Erwin," Rikona admitted. "After I see how well the class does in their first practice match, I'll know for sure.
"So, so I see..." Anzu trailed off in thought. "What about Miho?" Miho had been one of Rikona's best friends during middle school, back when Miho's middle school ship had a serious issue and the students had to transfer to another middle school for the year. Miho and Erika had both became fast friends with Rikona, and had mentored her when their school was undergoing it's first tournament.
"No, the last finals proved she's too reckless," Rikona admitted softly.
Anzu could tell it wasn't easy for the heiress to discuss her best friend like she was now.
"Sending her team along that cliff was asking for trouble." Rikona continued. "It's only the fact that she saved the lives of the crewmates in the Panzer III that she didn't receive anything worse than a soft expulsion."
"True." Anzu let out a gusty sigh as she, for the first time, was thankful her position as student council president hadn't forced her to make any such decision, soft or otherwise. Soft expulsions where basically where a student was asked to leave a school due to their performance not meeting requirements, yet the student didn't have enough of a disciplinarian record to warrant a full explosion.
"We are in for a rough year, aren't we?" Anzu asked.
Rikona gave her a brief nod. "We'll get though it. We've just got to work hard."
Anzu knew she was right.
Alright... so we've got a lot of exposition and some brief action. Basically to give you guys a small taste of what is in store.
One thing I should mention, they may be slight changes to some of the personalities of the characters, mostly because I only have access to the Anime, OVA's, and the Real Anzio Battle episode. Not the movie, books, manga, video games, or anything else. So unless I decide to rely on the Wiki, I only have what is in the Anime. Though in some cases it might be to try and balance another character's personality to make them somewhat more realistic.
Another thing, they will be other OC's in this fanfic, due to my desire to have most of the tanks filled to with-in one member of optimal capacity. IE a Panzer III having four out of five members, or a T-38 having Three out of four members. There might be close to six or eight OC's aside from Rikona, but I don't think I'll need much more than that. If I do, I can slip a few highly modified cannon characters from other fandoms, or maybe make some siblings of existing Girls und Panzer characters.
Might even consider giving Miho a cousin as I could easily could see some drama going on there especially if she felt like her older cousin was passed up on becoming Vice Commander and wanted to take it out of Rikona. I've fairly got down the basics for this fanfic, just not the final teams and drama plots.
If you have any questions, or have something to say, feel free to Review. I'm sure Rikona will be all to happy to answer any questions.
Rikona: wait... what?
Well, rate, favorite, follow, review, subscribe, retweet, share thumbs up, or even thumbs down if you really want to but I don't react to that last one.
Rikona: I think you're getting Youtube, Twitter, Facebook, and jumbled up. Blaze?... Blaaaazzzze... Huh, he left. Well, favorite, follow, and review if you like.
10/26/2017 5:50PM - Quick update:
I've made few adjustments, namely making some things a bit clearer, switched a few words around, fixed a few spelling errors. You know, those sort of things. Chapter two will be gone over and any needed adjustments done by 11:00 AM CST, on 10/27/2017. Chapter three will be uploaded simultaneously with the third chapter of my Acer's Morality fanfic, located in the Sword art Online section of the site. This note will be deleted approximately 5 days after chapter 3 is published.
11/10/2017 7:26 AM - quick update:
Fixed the Expulsion being explosion mistake. New chapter should be up by the 13th.