AN: Its a new story I was writing in my spare time. Will update as soon as possible. Note to everyone: I don't own GUP.
Miho awoke to someone rapidly knocking on her door. As she got up she glanced at the time, it read 6:30 am. Who would be this energized at this time of day. The only logical answer was that it was her hyperactive loader, Yukari.
Sure enough the moment she opened the door she was greeted by sight of Yukari at her apartment door, bouncing up and down in an attempt to dispelling excess energy.
"Hi Miho" she said having stopped calling her Ms. Nishizumi.
"Yukari it's 6:30 in the morning, what are you doing here?" Miho asked, skipping the pleasantries.
"The student council called and said that they wanted to talk us so hurry up and get ready." She responded.
"Ok give me five minutes." Miho said closing the door. She got dressed in a hurry and went out with Yukari towards the school, discussing their summons by the student council.
"What do you think the student council wants with us?" Miho asked Yukari as they neared the school.
"Don't know, but if it's us they want then it has to be about tankery." Yukari responded. "We're here so I guess we will find out."
As they waited in the elevator to reach the student council room Miho's thoughts began to wander. 'What could they need to talk about tankery for?' she thought. 'The tournament doesn't start for another few weeks.' Then a worst case scenario crossed her mind as she glanced at Yukari. 'What if they are disbanding tankery from the school?' Miho had actually begun to like tankery after being shown it wasn't all about winning. Plus, she knew it would break Yukari's heart to not be able to operate a tank anymore.
When the doors opened and they walked into the council meeting room Miho forgot about her questions when she saw who was in the room. Not only were Anzu, Yuzu, and Momo of the student council in the room but Kay from Saunders and Darjeeling from St. Gloriana's were also attending.
"Good, now that Nishizumi is here we can begin." Momo stated.
"Begin what?" Miho asked.
Darjeeling decided to step in the conversation. "The higher-ups in the tankery administration believe we need to unite with our western comrades."
"Huh?" was Miho's response.
"What she means," it was now Kay talking this time. "Is that we are going to now be participating in the western tankery tournament."
"Western tankery?" Miho asked.
"Yes." Momo stated. "The officials have come and gone and have deemed our three schools to be the weakest. Therefore our tankery teams will be combined and then partnered with a western team."
"Which western team?" Yukari asked Momo.
"They're known as Manhattan High School and all we know are two things. One, they seem to use only prototype type tanks and two, we seem to have only the file on their commander. This is it." She said turning on the projector in the room.
The file that was projected on the wall gave the girls quite a shock. The commander of Manhattan's tankery team was a boy. He looked tall and his curly black hair was slicked back. He was wearing a black t-shirt, gray pants, and a pair of PF flyers so old they looked to be falling apart at the seams. But what was the most shocking about the boy was that his entire right arm was robotic. It looked very advanced and by the worn out look of the appendage it had been attached to its owner for quite a while.
Momo was the first to recover from the shock and began to read off the stats on the profile.
"Name: Alexander Jackson, height: 6'2', weight: 155lb, age: 16, rank: commander, year: junior, instructor's note: Alex has proven to be highly exceptional in both atypical and asymmetrical warfare. His team cohesion is on par with that of most professional teams. Though most of his confidence has returned and his physical injuries have healed, it has been stated that Alex still suffers from survivor's guilt as well as sporadic panic attacks following the incident. Recommended that all persons not familiar with incident file 34F refrain from mentioning it to him. And that is all we could find in the file." Momo concluded.
"Incident file 34F, do you have anything on to what that is." Darjeeling turned to Momo.
"Not a clue. Like I said this is the only file we could find." Momo responded.
Kay pointed to the boy's prosthetic. "I bet it has something with his robot arm." The others only nodded in response.
"I wonder what tanks they operate." Yukari said aimlessly.
"Well you won't have to wait much longer." Anzu said. "We have to go meet them at the airfield in about thirty minutes so get to your tanks and meet us at the runway."
30 minutes later
Miho was sitting on the top of the Panzer IV's turret with Yukari while Hana, Mako, and Saori sat on the front hull. Next to them was the Hetzer with the student council as well as Kay and Darjeeling sitting on its roof. They were waiting for Manhattan's tankery team to show up.
"They better get here soon; they are starting to run late." Momo observed.
"If they are late it will look bad on their reputation." Darjeeling added.
As they were having this conversation Yukari spotted a formation of six C-17 cargo planes on approach to the airfield. She immediately drew the others attention to the sight.
"Hey guys look, there they are." She yelled out, pointing to the formation.
"Why are they bringing so many planes?" Kay asked.
"They said they were bringing their mechanic squads and spare parts as well, so that explains the extra transports." Yuzu replied as the transports began to land.
One of the planes' cargo ramps dropped and out of the back came three large tanks. They all had the same hull design but they were different in the turret and paint scheme.
The first one's turret was not as tall as the others but it was wider and had what appeared to be periscopes on the sides. Plus it seemed to have a smaller gun than the others. Painted intricately on the side was an image of a man laughing menacingly while wearing a strait jacket made of money. Printed on his forehead were the words Million Dollar Madman. The second tank had a taller, narrower turret without the periscopes and slightly larger gun. On its side was a painting of God with his arm trusted outwards and lighting coming off his fingers. Written on the arm like a tattoo was the tank's name, God Mode. The third tank had the same turret as the second one but had a much bigger gun. Painted on its side was a calendar that was full of bullets holes and written where the month should have been was Make My Day.
Yukari gasped when she saw the tanks. 'Oh my god, best day ever!' She yelled in her head.
"Yukari do you know what tanks those are?" Darjeeling questioned.
Yukari nodded her head so rapidly the others thought it would roll off.
"Yeah I do." she pointed to the Million Dollar Madman. "That is a T29 heavy tank with a 105mm gun and a command turret." She then pointed to God Mode. "That is a T34 heavy tank with a 120mm main gun." and lastly she pointed to the Make My Day. "That is a T30 heavy tank destroyer with a 155mm cannon."
Miho's jaw dropped. Not even Kuromorimine wielded that kind of firepower. This Manhattan must have had a pretty good team if they could field such experimental weaponry.
As the girls were in awe of the tanks they noticed that the three war machines were getting closer. Their turbine engines going from a dull hum to a load roar as the heavy tanks raced towards their smaller counterparts. Leading the charge was the T34, God Mode. They skidded to a stop just in front of the Panzer and the Hetzer. The commander's hatch on the God Mode popped open revealing the one person the girls had been waiting for all morning.
Alexander dropped off the side of the T34's turret and made his way toward the Panzer IV. The girl that appeared to be the commander of the tank as well as one of the turret crew jumped down to meet him. The girl with short brown hair approached him first.
"Hello I'm Miho Nishizumi, commander of Ooarai's tankery team and this is my loader Yukari Akiyama."
"Name's Alexander Jackson, leader of Manhattan tankery but you can call me Alex or Jackie, doesn't matter." Alex shook her hand with his metal one while admiring her choice of tank. "Panzer IV ausf H, classic, nice choice." He commented.
"The same could be said for you, where did you get these tanks anyway." Yukari asked.
"The founders of the school were a group scientists who happened to work on the Manhattan project. So naturally they had access to most of the prototypes our team fields. All we had to do was add the carbon shells and upgrade the engines." Alex explained.
"Well at least you're on our side." Miho responded.
"Couldn't agree more, say where are your tank hangers, we need to unpack our gear before the planes have to take off again."
"You can follow us to them." Miho said as she and the rest of the girls climbed back into their vehicles and started them up.
Alex climbed back onto the top of the T34's turret but not before turning to see one of the girls staring at him. It happened to be Darjeeling and she waved at him from atop the Hetzer. He gave a short wave back and dropped down into his turret and began looking for one specific person. That person happened to be his radio operator, McKenna.
"McKenna tell the others to follow us to the hangers. Oh, and give us some quality music for the drive." He commanded.
"You got it boss." She then relayed the orders to the rest of the tanks, most of which were just now leaving their transports. Then she turned to her radio console, where her iPod was hooked up and found the perfect song, Steppenwolf's Born to be Wild. She smiled as she hit play.
Darjeeling jumped when she heard the opening to the road rock song. Looking back she noticed that the Manhattan tanks had loud speakers on the sides of their turrets. She was in shock on how different this new team was. She would have to pay closer attention to the Manhattan team, especially their team leader. She could see a wealth of knowledge in his eyes and she was eager to learn, but she saw something else as well. She saw a type of sadness in his eyes, a look of longing had shown when he stared back at her.
Darjeeling was yanked out of her thoughts as the song died down and they arrived at the tankery sheds. As most of the vehicles went to go park in their assigned spots Alexander dismounted and once again approached them. When he did Momo handed him a stack of folders.
"In here you will find everything your team needs, living arrangements, practice schedule, and a map of the carrier. With that we bid you farewell." Momo said as she and the rest of the girls began to leave for classes as it was still early in the morning.
As the girls walked away Alex turned around to look at the rest of his team. They had been here for no more than a half-hour and yet they were already falling into the same old routine. Ammunition was being stowed, fresh paint was being applied, and the mechanic crews were swarming the tanks doing everything from basic maintenance to full overhauls. He looked down at his right arm and smiled, the first time in weeks. He could learn to like this place and hell; even that girl that was staring at him was kind of cute. But he knew there was time for play and time to get serious and right now it was the latter of the two.
"Well," he said to himself as he walked back towards the tank sheds. "It's time to get to work."
