The hero's journey had come to an end. He drew his sword and looked at the heinous villain who had slaughtered his whole family and village in who was standing in front of him, and he charged at him, and the two locked swords!
"You won't defeat me, Shadow!" the villain shouted as a purple aura flared up around him.
"Heh... That's what you think, dumbass..." said Shadow, his own amazing red aura flaring up around him, making his red and black clothes flutter with the raw energy being released.
A female voice called from downstairs. "Tamae, come eat dinner!"
The girl with messy black hair, thick rectangular glasses, and pale skin from staying indoors too much stood up from her seat in front of the glowing screen of the laptop. Shadow should definitely use his Incinerator Demon Cannon against the villain once he gloats about killing Shadow's friends, Tamae thought as she stepped down the stairs and made her way to the dining room. She sat on the floor as her father piled a small heap of food onto a plate and placed it in front of Tamae. "You didn't hear your mother the first few times she called you," he said. "Were you watching that anime again? What was it? 'Your Superhero High School?'"
"No, Dad, I was writing my stories," she replied in her meek voice.
"Oh, I see," said the elder Wakabayashi, grinning at his daughter. "You know, if you keep that up, you could be famous one day."
"I don't know about that, dad. I've told you I don't really think -"
"Nonsense. You can do anything you put your mind to."
"Your dinner's getting cold; eat, Tamae," said her mother sternly. Tamae took the hint and began to do as she was told. The food was good, as her mother's cooking always was, and soon the plates of the Wakabayashi family were empty. They were piled into the sink and summarily washed by Mr. Wakabayashi - it had been Tamae's turn last night - and Tamae was climbing the stairs again. "Try not to stay up too late, tonight," her mother called after her. "You need to be up early tomorrow."
"I know, Mom," she replied, before going to her room. Now, should I have Shadow get a cool new transformation? she thought.
***
Shoko's mother had blown it again. Now they were even further in debt and there would be little food this week. Her father was a hard-working man, she knew, but that didn't excuse his failure to reign his wife in. Shoko couldn't and wouldn't stand around outside the door to her home listening to her parents scream and throw things at each other, and made her way to the old storage shed directly to the left of the lighthouse tower overlooking the sea.
She threw the doors open violently and tripped over a rake that fell in front of her, which she promptly picked up and threw out onto the lawn angrily. She brushed a few strands of dyed blonde hair out of her face and checked the backs of her hands as well as her knees for any cuts or scrapes. Her tanned skin was unblemished, and so she stood up and put a hand on the large metal structure within the shed: an old Toldi I light tank. It had been Shoko's grandmother's before she passed away, and was left to her, as she was in elementary school at the time and it was assumed she would attend a school which offered Senshado. That had not been the case, but Shoko had managed to keep her mother from gambling the tank away, and it became her escape of sorts.
She climbed in through the driver's hatch, not bothering to shut it, and started the engine. Her family never tried to stop her from leaving, and despite not having a license, these roads were rural and never policed. Shoko got the tank moving and began to drive somewhere not quite far away enough from her home. She stopped momentarily in the middle of the road to use her cell phone to text a friend to tell her parents she would be coming over. The friend responded with a short, but mechanically-perfect answer, something Shoko didn't understand when it was much easier to type things out shorthand and with cute emojis.
About thirty minutes and a few miles of rough dirt and smoothly-paved roads later, at half-past ten, Shoko showed up at Tamae's house. The outside light was on, Shoko finding the door unlocked as she tried the handle. The inside of the house was neat and clean, something she could see even with the lights dimmed. Mrs. Wakabayashi was sitting on the sofa to her right with the television on some late-night talk show; her husband was nowhere to be seen, and Shoko assumed he was in bed. "Tamae's upstairs in her room. You know where it is," she said quietly with a smile. Shoko nodded and begun to head up the stairs,
The first thing she said when she was through the door was "Tama, get off your computer. I'm mad."
"One second," she said, minimizing the browser window she had open, revealing a desktop background of some anime character with spiky white hair from the current season. "What is it?"
"I'm sick of not having money, and my parents are awful with it."
"There's not too much I can do about that, Shokotan..."
"Sure there is."
"What do you mean?"
With that, Shoko opened the browser on her cellphone and showed her friend the page she had open. It detailed a new highly-unregulated and legally-ambiguous form of Senshado, called Tankathlon. Tamae took the phone for a moment and scrolled through the page, parsing the information as she went. "Shoko, we could actually lose money this way. It says here the competitors have to compensate for damage and their own equipment."
"Well yeah, but that's why we win and get really big. I've already got a tank, so we don't need to buy one, and it just so happens to meet the weight requirement."
"I don't know, I've never really been interested in Senshado..."
"Good, because this isn't Senshado. You and me, tomorrow, we're going to go get the stuff we need."
"With what money?"
"You have an allowance, don't you?"
"Yes, but..."
"But you were just gonna waste it on one of those... what are they called, ojee boards, right?"
"Ouija boards."
"Right, those. Think of all the ouija boards you could buy if you could get in on those cash payouts."
"That's true, and I could probably afford a lot of new games, too, but we have school tomorrow, Shoko."
"Not anymore we don't."
And that was that. Tamae didn't press the issue any further; she had a hunch that this was one of Shoko's schemes, but she seemed determined and it was better not to push it - and if Shoko was determined to do it, Tamae wanted to make sure she didn't bite off more than she could chew. After a moment of silence, Shoko spoke up. "Your tank driver's license isn't expired or anything, is it?"
"No, why?"
"Then you can be the driver."
"Me? Didn't you drive here?"
"Yeah, but you don't need a license to command, or gun, or load... If we were to get stopped on the way to a match and I was driving, well..."
"Ah. I suppose I can drive... Hey, Shoko, wanna watch some of this new anime that just came out? I think you'd like it. It's about this guy who's the son of an evil dragon and he has to try to defeat him."
"Oh? Sure, sure. Sounds right up my alley."
They woke up late. Not that it mattered, but Tamae's father had woken them up after realizing they had slept in, made them eat breakfast, and ushered them off to school. Tamae had offered to drive the tank to get some practice in, and Shoko accepted. Luckily, it wouldn't be hard to trick Mr. Wakabayashi, as he had to work and there was a Senshado supply shop in town. Tamae had taken her bag with her and stuffed most of her saved-up allowance into it, and after her father left, the two were off to the shop.
They arrived soon enough and dismounted the tank after parking it in the lot next to a new silver sports car and across from an old dark green van. They walked into the shop and were greeted by the woman manning the register. Shoko waved to her, and Tamae remained quiet. "Hey, point us to where the Senshado stuff is. Like, the bullets, yeah?" Tamae nudged her friend gently.
"Say please," she whispered.
"Ah. Please."
The woman at the counter smiled; she didn't look too much older than either girl. "Of course; all Senshado supplies are the back wall of the store. If you need help with anything else, let me know, okay?"
"Sure thing," Shoko said, before dragging Tamae along to the back of the store. Along the way, Shoko looked left and right at what was actually on the shelves; she was surprised to find most of it was just official Senshado League merchandise, from Saint Gloriana tea to Selection University bumper stickers to Anzio pasta cookers.
"Why's all this random stuff here? I get that it's Senshado related, I guess, but isn't it sort of strange to have pasta pots in a tank shop?"
"Not really. That's how the store stays in business," replied Shoko. "They have to make money somehow, and I'm sure they're not meeting their rent just by selling tank parts here, of all places."
"I guess when you put it like that, it makes sense."
After about an hour of careful phone-browsing and shopping, the two left the shop after paying for their things. The woman at the counter was more than happy to help them, and while Shoko chatted casually with her Tamae stood behind her friend playing a mobile game. Shoko unwrapped and began to eat a chocolate bar she'd thrown in with their other purchases. All in all, they'd put a considerable dent in Tamae's saved-up allowance. "Alright, Tamae, let's go practice."
"Where?"
"The space by my house is plenty empty. No one will mind if we drive around there and set up a few targets," Shoko said as she climbed into the turret of the Toldi, bringing with her their purchases.
