Chapter 1: Happy Times
"Reports continue to come through that relations with China continue to sour."
Miho reached across the desk to grab her mouse and clicked mute on the livestream of today's news. She hated to hear about the war. Her only affiliations with war went as far as practicing Tankery with the armoured vehicles she commanded and she wanted to keep it that way. War was a horrible thing.
Not that it was officially a war. A lot of people called it a war, but government officials were insistent to refer to it as "rising tensions", "the dislike the two countries felt for each other was just at it's highest in several decades".
Most of the public bought it, but not Miho. She was schooled to be a military strategist for God's sake, she knew and saw the signs. And then there was the establishment of that new branch from an American company. What we're they called again?
Vault-Tec. That was it. Maho had told her about it. She had looked into them but couldn't find much since all the articles on them we're in English. But their sudden arrival was a little suspect.
She went back to her notebook that she was scribbling in. She was meant to be evaluating the performance of the teams, but got a little bored and started to sketch a little Boko face in the corner of the page. She leant back in her chair with a sigh and added a few more creases too his eye patch. The drawing didn't look great in pen, but it still looked cute regardless.
She did a quick scan over the performance stats of the teams she had calculated so far. Turtle Team were performing adequately. Momo's shooting was still some of the wort she'd ever seen, and with only three crew members they were a little slow in some aspects, but despite that they could be a hell of a lot worse. The girls of Turtle Team had stayed at Oarai for senior high school education, and Anzu had managed to be elected as student council president for a fourth year in a row.
Rabbit Team were performing better than ever. Their kill rate was a little low but she put that down to the smaller caliber guns on the M3 Lee more than anything. What she was impressed by was the efficiency in which the team communicated and worked together. Azusa was really showing off her skills as a commander. Thinking ahead for the future, since Miho was now in her third year, she was contemplating appointing Azusa as vice-commander to take over when she potentially left next year.
Leopon Team were amazing, though that needing the word 'considering' next to it, circled twenty times. The Tiger (P) was just as unreliable as ever, but goddamn the automotive club somehow managed to keep it running and were actually effective with it.
Duck Team were... not great. Miho hated to admit it. The volleyball club were such lovely girls who loved their Type 89, but the damn thing with its pathetic armour and pea-shooter of a cannon was only contributing to the Tankery club by boosting their numbers. She couldn't imagine how any other team would've performed in it, that tank was made for Duck Team.
Out of the corner of her eye she saw the livestream change scenes and glanced up. It immediately grasped her attention when she saw her Panzer IV, complete with the Anglerfish Team sigil, rolling across a field. She grabbed her mouse and unmuted the feed.
"-Girls High School. It's going to be really interesting to see how they're going to perform in the 64th High School Senshado Tournament!"
Miho then realised it was a clip of their match against Saunders, as the camera panned to show Alisa's Sherman, the Saunders flag tank, desperately trying to run away from them. She couldn't help but smile as she watched it, remembering the thrill of the match, and the tension as Hana lined up her shot to take out the flag tank while the Firefly was doing the same to them.
And her smile grew bigger still to the point she was grinning. A year ago, she was glad to be rid of Tankery, a year ago she was excited to start a new school year independently. Now she was excited to see what challenges this upcoming school year would bring to her hardened Tankery team that had worked so hard to save the school they all loved. Twice.
How things change so quickly.
In fact, as she was thinking of how her school had been saved a second times, she remembered that she had promised Alice she would give her a call. She muted the news feed again, they were just talking about the performances from the last tournament and how the teams might compare now that everyone had learned not to underestimate a team just because they have fewer numbers.
She brought up her list of contacts on her phone and flicked through then until she found Alice, then called her. The phone wasn't ringing for long before she picked up.
"H-hello, miss Nishizumi," Alice was still relatively shy, especially over the phone. She preferred to talk face-to-face but Miho considered it an improvement that she was now actually saying "hi" when she picked up the phone.
"Hi Alice," Miho responded with a chuckle. "How many times have I told you, you can just call me Miho!" she was careful to say that with a hint of sweetness to not make it sound like she was annoyed, which she wasn't, she was being patient with getting Alice to open up. "How are you, anyway?"
"Not great. I still feel little sick from the boat when I came to visit you."
Oh yeah, Miho remembered that Alice got sea sick easily.
"Oh that's horrible. I hope it doesn't turn you down from picking a school to transfer to. You seemed alright when you made it onto the carrier itself. And trust me, a few weeks at sea, you get pretty used to it!"
Alice actually laughed a little. A quiet, timid laugh. More of a giggle.
"Oh I don't doubt it," she said, then paused for a moment, trying to figure out what to say next, she didn't want to have to rely on Miho to carry the conversation again. "So... uh... how are you doing miss Nishi- uh, Miho?"
Miho smiled at the cute but clearly effort-full attempts Alice was making. She was happy she could get her to open up more.
"Well," she sighed, "I'm meant to be comparing all my teams' statistics to make sure they're performing well, but I'm just procrastinating it. I like Tankery but not enough to want to do all this paperwork!"
"Oh if you need help on how to gather data on teammates I can give you a few tips. I had to evaluate my tanks all the time."
"Sure!" Miho didn't actually think she needed help, Alice commanded a team of 30 tanks and probably shared the workload with the commanders of the Bermuda commanders, Miho only needed to worry about eight tanks. But if it meant it could get Alice to keep talking to help boost her confidence she was more than happy to listen.
The two chatted for a while longer. Miho sketched little more of her Boko drawing, adding fuzz to the edges and trying - but failing because she was using a pen - to add a little bit of shading. It kind of ruined the drawing a little but she didn't mind. She wondered if she should draw more in her spare time.
She snapped back to the discussion as she heard Alice finish her pointers. "And... yeah... that's pretty much it."
"Thanks, Alice! I should probably get back to work now."
"OK. Thanks for talking to me, Miho."
"It's OK, really! I enjoy our talks. Bye."
"Goodbye."
Miho hung up the phone. She meant what she said. She really did enjoy their talks together. She leaned forwards at her desk, tapped her pen against on the surface a couple of times, unmuted the news and then went back to work.
Yukari was in her room, also at her desk. She was being very careful, summoning all of her willpower to get keep completely steady, she was gripping her right wrist with her left hand, sweat pouring down her forehead.
Her 1/25 model of the twin-turret 7TP had to be perfect. If the paint job on this turned out as a well as she wanted, this was going at the front of her model lineup. All of her practice in painting the Tiger, the Sturmtiger, Panzer IV and Firefly led up to this moment to make this model perfect.
Saori cursed as she realised the vegetables were starting to burn in the frying pan. She had been paying too much attention to the broth, and forgot she needed to check on them. She quickly took the frying pan off the hob and turned it off.
She had got a lot better at cooking lately, when she didn't burn the food. She wanted to cook for her friends again some day, she liked it when people enjoyed her food, it made her happy to know she had pleased others with it, and it gives them full bellies to boot!
Hana was arranging some flowers in a little vase on her bedside table. A few Wisterias, nothing too fancy, but she wanted some of her favourite flowers beside her when she slept. She heard the rustling of paper from her front door. She finished her arrangement and then went to check on the noise, having a strong suspicion of what it was, with a tinge of excitement.
She picked up the letter that had been pushed through the mail slot and opened it. She pulled out what was inside it and stifled her excitement lest she turn into Yukari when she saw a tank. It was just what she was waiting for! An anti-tank chart! It was a replica of the kind that soldiers used in World War 2. A piece of cardboard had a column of diagrams of some of the most common German tanks fought, with the sides, front or rear darkened to show if they were vulnerable at the range indicated at the bottom of the column.
There were a few of these columns arranged side by side, each one at a further range. Another cardboard sleeve allowed the first piece to be slid in and out, with a little window cut out on the sleeve so the gunner could concentrate on the relevant column.
But the units of measurement were in some weird unit used in Europe. She took out her phone to start searching the net for conversion rates.
Mako was sleeping.
Rabbit Team were sat on a sofa, munching away at popcorn and other sweet treats with the film Fury playing on the TV in front of them. It had been mentioned and agreed several times that they were glad they didn't have foot soldiers to worry about in Tankery. They were watching the crew take on the Tiger. Azusa squealed when she saw the tank commander disappear from being hit by the Tiger's cannon. The rest of the girls turned to her to see her covering her mouth.
"Azusa, it's just a movie," Aya giggled.
"I know," Azusa responded. "That was just... that was... That just made me appreciate that we use fake shells in Tankery."
"What do you think would happen if you did get hit, Azusa?" Yuuki asked.
"I think miss Nishizumi once explained to me that Tankery shells are especially made to disperse all their energy out the back the moment they feel themselves make contact, so minimum damage is suffered by whatever is hit," Azusa explained. "So as long as you don't get hit in the face or from point blank range you should be OK."
"Guys, I'm trying to watch the film!" Karina hissed.
Duck Team were busy hand painting their own posters to advertise the volleyball club. With new freshmen coming in when school started again in a few days, they were determined to get some members on board to get it restarted! They already had a couple of students show interest; they had even arranged to meet up with them for a match! The next academic year was going to be great!
"If you're sure... Sign here, please," the representative slid the contract across the table, a pen going along for the ride.
Anzu picked up the pen and uncapped it. She took a moment to admire the logo at the top of the paper. She thought it looked like a gear, Momo thought it looked like a bullseye. Either way, she took fascination in it for some reason, she admired its simplistic design. She signed the contract with her signature.
Turtle Team were in the student council offices.
Most of Hippo Team were in their share home. Saemonza, Oryou and Caeser were kneeling around their table. Saemonza was checking her bow for damage on her trip back from staying with her parents for the last few weeks of summer. Oryou was reading a book, and Caeser was on her laptop sending messages back and forth with Carpaccio.
The sound of rattling keys could be heard. Everyone looked up from their activities, then between each other, smiles growing on their faces. Then quickly, Oryou closed her book with a thump, Saemonza put her bow on the table and Caeser closed her laptop, and they all stood up, excitedly heading for the door. Before the person on the other side had a chance to slip their key into the lock, Saemonza unlocked it and wrenched it open.
"Erwin!" the three girls exclaimed.
"The Desert Fox has returned!" Erwin said, hands on her hips, a suitcase by her side.
Saemonza flung herself onto Erwin for a hug, which took her by surprise and she nearly toppled over.
"How's everyone been?" Erwin asked over Saemonza's shoulder.
"It's been quiet without you,"Oryou responded. "How are your parents?"
"They're fine," Saemonza had let Erwin go by this point, and she reached over to take the handle of her suitcase. "My mum made me a late birthday cake shaped like a StuG."
"Oh, that sounds cool!" Caeser said.
"Yeah. I gotta unpack now, guys. I'll be down later!"
Mallard Team, along with the rest of the Student Morals Committee, were at the school. The Committee office was filled with Sodoko's helmet-haired clones, tending to their duties and responsibilities, they were preparing for the start of next semester. Sodoko was looking at a list of newly enrolled students to add them to her database on her tablet; another several hundred names to remember and reprimand for being late through the gate.
Her phone message tone suddenly went off in her pocket.
"Who's texting me while I'm working?" she grumbled and pulled out her phone.
It was from the student council president. She read the text message. Then she read it again. And again.
She stood up from her seat and raised her voice to address the entirety of the Committee.
"Ladies," she started. "We have a new responsibility. Panzomi, I need you to print some things off for me. We're going to be busy this year."
Anteater Team were playing their tank videogame. They hadn't missed each other over the summer, they had consistently kept in verbal contact and played with each every day.
"What the hell!" Nekota exclaimed.
"What happened, Nekonya?" Momoga said over her headset.
A moment of silence before Nekota answered.
"That platoon is so good!" she finally said. "I just watched the killcam, that shot was ridiculous!"
"Oh, you mean the Fiends?" Piyotan asked. "Yeah, they're a well known clan in the community."
"Wait, what's that?" Momoga asked.
"That's... a bomb," Piyotan saw it in the game's sky too.
The large bomb was easily visible in the clear sky. Anyone watching it through their tanks rangefinder could see the logo of the Fiends clan on the side. It collided with the ground and caused a completely blinding light before everyone within the game map was greeted with a death screen.
"This game's balance has gone to hell," Nekota said.
On the training grounds on the Ooarai campus, Suzuki and Nakajima were grunting as they pulled the garage doors open on their sliders.
"They're still there!" Tsuchiya confirmed excitedly.
Nakajima slipped inside the garage.
"One, two..." she counted, "seven, eight. Yep that's all of them!"
Nakajima ran over to the Tiger (P).
"Oh, I've missed you!" she said, running her hand along the side of the dusty chassis.
"I never thought I'd miss that hunk of junk," Hoshino said, sauntering over to the Tiger with the rest of Leopon Team. "But it's good to see her again."
The rest of the team agreed.
"Alright, girls," Nakajima turned to the rest of the Automotive Club, "We need to make sure all the tanks are in working order for when we start practicing again!"
"Next year is going to be great!" Suzuki said excitedly. "We can just practice and compete in matches without having to worry about the school shutting down or anything!"
"YEAH!" they all shouted, and ran over to the pile of tools in the corner of the garage.
Miho smiled and sat back in her chair again. She massaged her hand, she was getting cramp from all the writing. But she was done now, at last. Her phone made a noise to tell her she had a text message. She picked it up and unlocked it to read it.
It was from Nakajima, Leopon's commander. She was texting to tell her all the tanks were in top condition! Well, other than the Tiger (P), but that went without saying.
That's great!, she started to type a response. Thanks for taking the time, Nakajima. I really appreciate it!
She sent it. And then she smiled again. Her next year at school was looking to be her best yet.
