Chapter Three The Division is Born
"You were in the city 5 minutes and you have already damaged public property, what do you have to say for yourself!" bellowed the Chief, in front of him stood Brenten and the rest of the senior members of the tank police 3rd division. This was supposed to be a final briefing with a member of ANTI-SKILL to go over the selection and training of the new division but that officer was late because she had been called out to the rather large hole in the ground made by an AP round. The worst part was he didn't know if that had been a tungsten round or a depleted uranium round so he had called in Multi Active Rescue (MAR) to deal with a possible radioactive source turning a fairly mundane operation into a full-blown catastrophe.
"Sir to be fair the Railgun did more damage than the tank police," said Brenten almost sounding disappointed.
"The Railgun didn't fire a possibly radioactive shell at a vending machine!" Yelled the Chief before collapsing back onto his chair clutching his stomach as his ulcer flared up. He knew the tank police did not stock any armoured piercing ammo and all ammunition had been counted and secured in an ammunition holler meaning the round had been purchased illegally so only God knew what was in it.
"Just where did you get an armoured piercing round Leona?" said the Chief, resigning himself for the public backlash when the round was found.
"I helped the Scots Dragoons repair their challengers and get spare parts from our scrapyard, so they said I could take anything from the turret of a deadlined tank," replied Leona cheerfully.
"And so you took the ammo," the Chief groaned, this was just like Leona.
"Not just the ammo Sir," she said pointing to the new water boiler that turned up one day to replace the kettle that Leona now had in her tank.
"Sorry I'm late," said a young woman with blue hair as she walked into the room.
"Ah this is Yomikawa Aiho from ANTI-SKILL Branch 73, she is our liaison with ANTI-SKILL" introduced the Chief.
"Thank you Chief, ANTI-SKILL has inspected the tanks delivered to us by the Newport city police and we wish to make some alterations to the original order," said Yomikawa flipping over a notepad. "Ah yes the Tiger special-".
"What? Chief, don't tell me we are giving them one of them and not getting one for ourselves?" Interrupted Brenten as he hauled the Chief out of his seat by his shirt, bringing the shorter man to his eye level.
"Yes we got one of them but it's too big and far too expensive so-" started Yomikawa before she was interrupted by Brenten again.
"Armoured plated with an engine that would run all day and all night with a Canon that could fire a shell 20 miles, air droppable, amphibious. I would not expect a girl to understand the sheer power of a Tiger special, only a man could appreciate that tank," ranted Brenten at Yomikawa.
"You need to get laid," was Yomikawa rebuttal, causing the entire assembled tank police to burst out laughing, Brenten was left speechless.
"Anyway we do not need the Tiger special or the Bonapartes that were delivered-."
"What? The Bonapartes are the best tanks in the tank police, handcrafted out of steel with independent tracks that let you chase the criminals anywhere, up stairs, into basements, through narrow alleyways, anywhere, how dare you insult my Bonaparte!" Yelled Leona as two of her colleagues held her back.
"You need to get laid as well," said Yomikawa blinking at the struggling woman.
"Thou knows that gambling is a sin but," started Chaplain.
"Current odds are 108:1 that she will bed the tank before her boyfriend, Al, you want in?" asked four-eyes taking out a note book with the word pull written on it.
Yomikawa looked confuse but Leona did not refute the allegations nor did she seem particularly surprise or even angry at the implications that she was to timing her boyfriend with a tank.
"As I was saying we have no use for those tanks so are prepared to negotiate a buy back of the tanks with Newport city," said Yomikawa finally able to complete her sentence.
Brenten perked up at this no doubt thinking of getting one of his beloved Tiger specials, 'sadly' the Chief would have to disappoint. "I'm afraid I cannot do that, the Mayor specifically told me not to bring those tanks back," said the Chief sternly. That order was her attempt to keep a lid on the expansion of the tank police and to keep that Tiger special away from her city and more importantly away from Brenten.
"Very well, we can always use them for spare parts," said Yomikawa fallowed by several loud complaints by the offended tank police officers. "As for the selection of officers for the new tank ANTI-SKILL, we are in luck, some of our members are ex treadheads for various armies from around the world and some of them have seen combat."
"What sort of treads are we talking about, western or Warsaw pact?" asked Brenton looking serious.
"Type 70's mainly although some of my colleagues have trained on Chieftain, Leopard 2A5, M1A1, T-90's and Merkava," replied Yomikawa.
Those Type 70 tankers would make things easier, as the tank police's tanks had started out in life as a Type 70. The other tankers would have some things to unlearn but knowing how to drive a tank would be a step up from where the tank police had started from all those years ago.
"Any of your treadheads worked unsupported by dismounts in a city before?" Asked Brenton his brow furrowed.
"No, but that won't be an issue, we plan to integrate our tanks with special response teams rather than an independent unit that does its own patrols," said Yomikawa. This was no doubt an attempt to prevent the sort of large scale destruction that the tank police rot on Newport city on a daily basis, interesting but impractical.
"Look lady where on earth are you going to get the number of officers to do that and how are you going to keep the crunches from getting killed in droves. The tank police has not lost an officer in 3 years despite losing a lot of tanks, SAWT has lost over a hundred officers in the last year, and you don't want to know how many the regulars have lost," exclaimed Brenton. This was both a source of pride for the tank police as well as a tragedy for the force as a whole.
"We are hoping that the tank support will reduce casualties and the fact we have ANTI-SKILL on foot means we don't have to blow up half the city to do our job. I also feel I should point out that we are not the crime hotspot of Asia," said Yomikawa sounding like the teacher that she was explaining something to a rather confused child.
This could get out of hand very quickly with the expressions on the tank police's face so the Chief stepped in. "Thank you Yomikawa, this doctrine ANTI-SKILL is adopting sounds very interesting, I look forward to seeing it being used in an operation, and evaluate its performance," said the Chief trying to be placating.
Yomikawa smiled politely at him seeing the hidden meaning in his words, that he thought that there doctrine would change after operational evaluation, but that he was being diplomatic and would not say that out loud. "Shall we move on to the training roster?" she asked steering the briefing away from the volatile subject of doctrine.
The roster was fairly strait forward if not time consuming with working out rotations for units to get time off from their regular duties. Being the summer this would also free many ANTI-SKILL from teaching their students even if most had remedial lessons scheduled over the break.
"This is going to be a waste of our time," complained Brenton after the briefing was over. Being the proverbial 100 billion monkeys and typewriters that might come up with Shakespeare in the next millennia, his sole contribution to the roster discussion was "you like your coffee white or black?"
"Yeah and she didn't even add anything to the pot," muttered four-eyes after Yomikawa left the room. He had been useful, although personnel was not his strong point his intelligence and problem solving ability kept things moving.
"Hay guys, if they don't want that Tiger special and we can't buy it back lets steel it, I always wanted to do Grand Theft Auto but I have been holding myself back," announced Brenton, but thankfully no one was listening to him.
0o0o0o0o0
"What a bitch," complained Leona loudly, this was the next day and Leona was still complaining about that ANTI-SKILL officer who implied her Bonaparte was not as good as another tank. By now the only one listening to her was Al who was only half listening and he was helping pull maintenance on the recovery vehicle.
The rest of the third platoon thirds squad were lounging around or pulling maintenance on someone else's vehicle, as thanks to the Bonapartes not being used in ANTI-SKILL none of them were on the training roster.
"I'm going on patrol," Leona snapped angrily in the time-honoured tradition of a police officer, who wanted to get out of the station.
"Wait, Leona! The Chief said that we are not to go on patrol," pleaded Al.
"Fine then, I am going to give Bonaparte a shakedown," snapped Leona as she climbed into the cupola.
Al apologetically handed back the wrench he had been using to the crew of the recovery vehicle and dutifully strapped himself into Bonaparte's driver seat and started up the engine.
"Are we going anywhere particular?" Asked Al as he exited the temporary HQ and turned right.
"Just drive," ordered Leona, she was definitely in a bad mood, she didn't know where she wanted to go then again he only knew where the accommodation was.
Obeying his orders he drove around the city in a random pattern waiting until she calm down, it would not take long, Bonaparte had a way of calming her down like nothing else would. Al knew that she would talk when she was calm, and sure enough an hour into the impromptu patrol as Al pulled up for a traffic light she began to talk.
"ANTI-SKILL is making a big mistake," said Leona as a nun dressed in white crossed in front of them.
"What do you mean Leona?" Asked Al turning round to give her his full attention, he knew what she was going to say, but him saying it would not calm her down.
"No Bonaparte, no patrols in tanks, supported infantry," listed Leona as she watched the road ahead.
"Yeah, if they try to run a tank division like that then most of those tanks will never be used, and no one will fear going up against tanks as anyone worth a special units time will bring anti tank," said Al as, he turned back around. As the lights changed he slipped Bonaparte into gear and moved off.
"And what happens if the criminal goes into a back street or into the underground?" asked Leona rhetorically.
"Before we had a Bonaparte we would blow up the alley, or cave-in all the entrances to the underground," said Al wistfully.
"We still do," smirked Leona.
"Yeah," laughed Al before stiffening "mugging 12 o'clock,"
"I see them, charge them down," ordered Leona.
"The Chief said not to arrest anyone," said Al as he complied with Leona's orders.
"We won't have to, look it is Railgun," said Leona a positively feral look on her face.
Al looked past the two thugs and saw the Railgun wearing the white and green armband of Judgement. That solves two problems at once, the first one being that they had no jurisdiction in Academy city however they were obligated to help a local law enforcement as part of the training. The second was they had no ammunition thanks to the Chiefs demand to unload every round from the tanks including what was procured off the record, they didn't even have ammo for their side arms, but that didn't matter as the Railgun used any metal object as ammo.
Something nagged at the back of Al's mind about the picture as he expertly drifted the tank alongside the 'would be' muggers with sirens blazing and Leona already half out the open cupola.
"You're under arrest," bellowed Leona as the tanks slewed to a halt. "You have the right to remain silent; you have the- HEY WAIT!" Yelled Leona as the two muggers bolted for a nearby side Street formed between a block of flats and a wooden fence hiding construction.
"After them," ordered Leona punctuated by a kicked to the back of Al's head which was unnecessary as he had already floored the gas and was in hot pursuit. The alley they dived down was just big enough for a Bonaparte and with a couple of seconds to spare Al could have easily entered the side Street without touching either side. Unfortunately for the construction crew he didn't have the time and so tomorrow when they arrived back at work the first job of the day would be to repair the wooden fence.
"You're scratching my Bonaparte!" Exclaimed Leona followed by several more kicks to the back of house head.
"This is Tango-31-1 we are in pursuit of muggers in support of Judgement branch 177, we are on route," Leona glanced down at her display and read off the street name, "suspects are believed to be unarmed and have yet to demonstrate ability over," reported in Leona.
"She's doing what?" Came the Chief's voice in the background of their temporary HQ's control centre.
"Control were losing you come again, damn these buildings must be blocking our signal," said Leona as she played with the radio before turning it off in the time-honoured tradition of the tank police simulating a radio error.
The two muggers ran into another alley this one smaller forcing Al to skid into the far wall and uses momentum to prop the two left treads up on the building so the Bonaparte was now driving at an angle its turret just missing the opposite wall. Up ahead the alley split into a T-junction which the muggers chose to go right, Al try with all his might to get the small tank round the corner but even it was too big. It didn't matter however as the alleyway abruptly ended in a dead end, ironically the left exit to the T-junction led onto a busy high Street.
"As I was saying, your under arrest, you have the right to remain silent, you have the right to call a lawyer, if you cannot afford a lawyer one will be provided for you," said Leona reading out their rights.
"What makes you think you can stop us? We are level two, you guys are not even levels zeros," said one of the two confidently.
Leona's response was to get back down into the turret open the kettle, pull out the two parts of a HESH round, load them into the Canon and fired it the wall behind the two causing it to collapse. "You may have superpowers but I have a tank" yelled Leona over the thunderclap of the round.
"Such misfortune!" Cried a spikier haired boy from within the shop that's back wall had just been destroyed.
The two muggers decided wisely that two level twos versus a tank was a bad match up and surrendered, they did not resist Leona handcuffing then to the front of Bonaparte.
0o0o0o0o0
Mikoto blinked, that was unfair, she had been scolded for electrocuting someone, but these guys could use tanks? Her attention was drawn away from a tank chasing two delinquents down the street by the boy who had been attacked.
"They should have got here earlier," he said brushing her off as he walked away.
"What's wrong with him?" asked Mikoto to herself.
" Misaka, how did it go? Did you find it?" asked Mii as she walked up behind her.
0o0o0o0o0
"Where the hell did they go!" cried Leona in frustration at the street that should have had one victim and one Railgun. This was a problem; they could not take these criminals back to HQ and so would need to find someone from that Judgement branch to take them in. Without waiting for Leona's signal Al moved off in the direction his GPS told him Judgement branch 177 was.
"You two stay right there," ordered Leona as she clambered down from the cupola, the two muggers dutifully nodded their heads.
"What's the plan Al?" She asked in a whisper, it would not have mattered if she had shouted as with the soundproofing in Bonaparte's fighting compartment no-one could hear her outside the tank.
"Got a route to Judgement branch 177 on my GPS so I was thinking we could just drop them off their," explained Al.
"I didn't think we could get a GPS here," said Leona.
"I have not lost the satellite yet, I heard four-eyes talking about how they got some really advanced satellites in geosynchronous orbit over us, so they must have some really good GPS equipment up there," explained Al as he turned a corner.
They continued following the route the GPS laid out for them for a few more minutes in silence and only getting some disbelieving looks from bystanders.
"Al?" asked Leona.
"What's up Leona?" asked Al, trying not to curse at the taxi that had just pulled out in front of him.
"Those two guys we arrested, they were beating up that kid under Judgements nose," said Leona.
"It is as if they don't care if Judgement catches them or even would," agreed Al realising that it had been one of the things nagging at the back of his mind.
"Yeah, if someone tried that in Newport city you would need a toothbrush to clean them off the pavement," said Leona. Al had the mental image of a fight starting right behind a cop's back in Newport city, it would involve the officer unloading several HEAT rounds at the criminal, before asking for a surrender.
"So why here?" asked Al.
"Simple they don't fear the cops," answered Leona.
"Well these two certainly fear us now, not that ANTI-SKILLS tank force will be feared, and Judgment is not getting any tanks," reflected Al as he stopped to let a black clad priest cross.
"That's it!" exclaimed Leona.
"That's what?" asked Al as the man crossed the road.
"We give Judgement tanks!"
"Huh" was Al's eloquent response.
"Why do those two fear us?" asked Leona as if she was a teacher.
"Because we chased them down," said Al not getting how giving a student-based disciplinary committee tanks would improve the situation.
"Because we chased them down in a tank. The tank police deterrent, criminals will not commit crimes because they know if they do, then we will come after them with tanks," explained Leona as if to a particularly dumb student.
"The Chief won't go for it, it's a good idea, God we are wasting our time with ANTI-SKILL, but we are in enough trouble with the Chief as it is and we will get chewed out for chasing these two even if Judgement backs us up. Also where would we get the tanks, we gave them all to ANTI-SKILL remember," said Al mournfully. Al genuinely wanted to help curved the crime rate in this city, he was a police officer after all and that is what he did, but no one in their right mind would let them get away with that.
"I suppose you're right, then again there are those Bonaparte's that they don't want, and if we were training someone on the Bonapartes we could not possibly arrest anyone," said Leona in an innocent tone that was anything but.
As Al pulled up outside the Judgement branch he turned back and smiled mischievously at Leona who bore a similar expression, "and I suppose you have an idea on who would make a good candidate for a trial run," said Al just as innocently.
"Of course, and look here we are outside their office," said Leona her smile getting even more mischievous, a smile which scared the living daylights out of the two muggers when she popped the hatch.
0o0o0o0o0
Kuroko scoffed and turned her nose up at the two tank police 'officers' in front of her, at their feet was two delinquents they had allegedly found mugging another boy, so they had chased them down with a TANK! Honestly it was like an entire police Department took Onee-sama approach toward delinquents, turned it up to 11 and called it policing.
Kuroko didn't need to ask Uiharu to check the records to see if these two suspects had committed any crimes or review the surveillance footage, these two apes had been brought in by her so many times she knew them by name now.
"Please teleporter girl don't let them fool you we-" pleaded one of the apes on the floor before she cut him off with a glare, she would of cut the delinquent off with one of her darts embedding itself in the floor but she liked the carpet.
"Anyway when we got back to where we saw that Judgement member, the Railgun she was gone," finished Al, the tanks driver.
"So you came here to steal Onee-sama's arrest," said Kuroko before realising something very important.
"But Misaka is not part of Judgement," said Saten in confusion.
"Huh, she was wearing one of those green armband that you guys wear," said Leona the tank gunner. The woman had looked like she was about to start yelling before Saten spoke, now she just looked confused.
"My armband," cried Uiharu who was holding onto the girl whose bag was missing in an attempt to keep the little girl away from the madness that was the tank police.
Kuroko lost it and started to bang her head against the nearest solid object in an attempt to get some sanity back into the world, this forced Uiharu to be the one who call ANTI-SKILL to have the two delinquents taken into custody. Shortly after ANTI-SKILL arrived to pick up the two delinquents and take statements, Mii call to say her and another Judgement member had found the missing bag and would meet them back at the restaurant that Uiharu and Misaka had been eating at earlier.
0o0o0o0o0o0
So this was how the tank police did things? Aleister Crowley noted that if this kept up the tank police would have to be directed away from Touma in an attempt to protect him, Imagine Breaker was to important to Academy city. Still Aleister considered himself a man of science now and could not argue with results, he could only attempt to understand them, and the tank police got results.
Tuning in to the surveillance equipment around a certain restaurant Aleister watched a touching scene as a little girl was reunited with her bag; of course the tank in the background spoiled it, even if it looked like something a child would draw. After the little girl left to return home the two tank police officers offered to buy the girls' dinner at a nearby restaurant.
Aleister continue to watch the group as they ate, they seem to be having a rather animate discussion with the girl called Shirai Kuroko becoming 'agitated' several times during their meal. He wished that there was some audio bugging device in the building or even an active mobile phone, however being so close to curfew the restaurant was almost empty. When everyone was done eating the Chief of Judgement branch 177 agreed to something and shook the tank police officers hands and then left with Railgun, two other members of Judgement left with a level zero whose name he could not be bothered to look up. The two tank police officers stayed for a while talking excitedly about something before paying for the bill and leaving in their tank, taking a direct route back to their headquarters.
Aleister followed all three groups on his monitor waiting until they reached earshot of an active phone they could hack into or an audio bugging device. As it turned out the first to reach an audio bugging device was a group consisting of Railgun and the Chief of branch 177 who entered an ANTI-SKILL branch.
"We would like to make a statement about an incident my subordinate was witness to earlier today," said the Chief of branch 177 as she leaned over the front desk of the ANTI-SKILL branch.
"Okay do you mind if we do it here, I don't have the key to the interview rooms," said the rather board looking man behind the desk. A quick check of that ANTI-SKILL branches inventory showed that the key for the interview rooms was in the top drawer of the desk the man was sitting at.
"Sure this won't take long" said the Chief of branch 177, taking the man at his word. it didn't matter anyway there was just as many recording devices in the front office as there was in the interview rooms.
"What time was the incident?" asked the man as he jotted down some notes.
The Chief of branch 177 gave a brief description of the time and place, then let the Railgun described the incident which Aleister had watched earlier.
"So you didn't get the victim's name?" asked the man behind the desk, jotting down some more notes.
"It's my fault" said the Chief of branch 177 quickly, " Misaka here was just seeing if she wanted to join Judgement, she's not a full member, so I should not have left her on her own."
An interesting lie but the Railgun was too important to him for her to be charged with impersonating a member of Judgement.
The man behind the desk waved her off, "don't worry about it we have the tapes from the cameras and will find the victim and make sure he is alright. So have you decided to join Judgement or not?" He asked as he continued to take notes.
"I am not sure," she said hesitantly.
"Don't let today put you off, most of the time you would be helping lost kids and cats down from trees," said the man encouragingly.
"Thank you," said the Railgun with a very fake smile on her face. After saying their goodbyes the Chief of branch 177 and the Railgun left the range of the listening devices.
Checking the two Judgement members and the level zero he found that they were close to a Sister who had just finished cleaning up from the Level six Shift experiment. Overriding the clone's commands he directed her to stay out of sight of the group but close enough to overhear their conversation.
"They extorted Onee-sama with that lie about her being a temporary member of Judgement, honestly whoever heard of a temporary Judgement member," said the one called Shirai Kuroko.
"Misaka seemed to like the idea," said the other Judgement member Uiharu Kazari hesitantly.
"Of course she did, tank Judgement what on earth where they thinking," ranted Shirai Kuroko loudly and punctuated with several arm gestures.
Tank Judgement? Aleister was confused, but also intrigued as to what transpired in the restaurant.
"It's not like anyone would let them get away with training Judgement to use tanks," said Uiharu Kazari trying to be placating with a big fake grin on her face with an equally fake laugh accompanying it.
Judgement using tanks? That completely defeated the point of the organisation, still Aleister wanted to see how the tank police tactics compared to Academy city's ANTI-SKILL's. He could compare the performance between Newport city and Academy city, however the best way to conduct an experiment was with as few variables as possible and the vast differences between the two cities could invalidate the experiment. He would approve this in the morning and find a way to get it past the board of directors.
"Still, I wonder what it would be like to drive a tank, would it be like having an ability," Asked the Level zero softly.
Shirai Kuroko made a loud gagging noise "those tank police are worse then the criminals they arrest, Academy city should never have let them in."
"What do you mean Kuroko, they are the police, they are the good guys right?" asked the level zero.
"Good guy?" Shirai Kuroko snorted "the good guys don't destroy a whole city, killing and injuring bystanders to stop a pickpocket."
Ah but little Miss Shirai Kuroko life is cheap, Heaven Canceller is good at putting people back together, and investors will always be willing to help rebuild the city in the name of science.
A/N welcome to the Graviton Bomber Ark and why I called this tank Judgment, just so you know I am following the time line on the Toaru Majutsu no Index wiki so it will differ from the anime slightly, but it's just easier for me to keep track of times and dates.
Yes that was a certain nun but she will not be in this proper for a bit as she needs to bite someone first, a someone who is lucky Leona didn't have an AP round handy. Another character not in just yet is Accelerator; all I am willing to say is that when we meet him someone is going to regret that, and the sisters in bunny suits.
For ANTI-SKILLs tactics I am following a more conventional doctrine for armoured warfare as the way the tank police do their operations is just silly, but this is police with tanks so that's a given.
