Hey guys sorry its taken so long things have been busy lately and I have been working on my other stories. But here is the next chapter of it because a few of you are really liking it and wanted me to update so heres your update! Panzer vor!
I dont own GUP
Claire and I cruised down the roads in the Panther at the ship's speed limit. We sat in silence as she drove down multiple streets, earning us a few odd stares as we passed by people. This was probably a rare occurrence for them to see a tank like the Panther. Every now and then, I would look over at Claire only to be given a slightly annoyed look from the corner of her eyes, as she pushed more to focus on the road. After about ten minutes, we came to a stop in front of a hospital. The nurses and some of the patients looked at us oddly as we pulled up in the tank. Claire stops at the front doors, "He's on the 10th floor, just tell the nurse your first name and she'll let you in." Claire says still sitting in the driver's seat.
"Aren't you coming in?" I ask as I climb out.
"No, me and him have had… a falling out so to say, I'm just going to park the tank." She puts the tank into gear and drives off.
I walk into the hospital and make my way to the elevator, pushing the 10th floor as I got in. Light classical music play in it as it rises the ten floors to it's destination. The doors open with a light ding.
"Well guess this is it." I say walking up to the reception desk of the floor.
The young nurse sitting there was typing on the computer. The floor was relatively quiet, with the light beeps of the heart monitors, as well as the sound of gourneys rolling across the floor. The nurse didn't notice me until I rang the little bell that sat on the desk. She looked up and her eyes widened in surprise.
"You must be Eric, am I correct?" She says looking at the computer, then back at me.
"Yes, I was told that I am supposed to meet someone here?" I ask.
She nods, "Yes, the thing is he won't stop talking about you, but I must also say that a bunch of people came here in uniform and asked if you had visited yet."
My face grows annoyed at the mention of military personnel coming here to visit a dying man, but still asking about me. The nurse notices. "Are you alright?" She asks.
I push that feeling of annoyance aside and give her a quick smile. "Yes I'm fine can you bring me to his room?"
She nods and leads me down the hall. She stops at a door and knocks, "Mr. Oswald? Your guest has arrived." She says opening the door.
I look in and see two men in military uniforms standing next to the bed of a frail and weak man. They look at me and nod, before giving Oswald a light pat before heading out the door. I walk into the room as the nurse closes the door behind me. "I'll come back in a little while." She says.
I nod and pull up a chair next to Oswald. The old man's eyes still gleam with the sense of mischief that was accustomed to him. "So it seems after all these years, you only come back to visit a man with one foot in the grave." He laughs. "It's been what five years since your last visit? How've you been Eric?"
"I've been rather well actually, and just today I started at Ooarai." I say with a smile.
He laughs a throaty chuckle. "So they decided to put you in a girls academy what would they think of next, but did you like your transport here?"
"It was tolerable, but as I told you before I've wanted to distance myself as far as I can from tanks and tankery as much as possible." I say looking away from him, "I've wanted to stay away from it ever since…"
"Eric, you need to stop blaming yourself for what happened to them, it wasn't your fault." the old man said coughing as he spoke. "You did what you could and you served valiantly. Sara wouldn't want you to be feeling like this. She would've wanted you to push on with your life."
"But I was their leader! They died all of them died because of me!" I cried.
Eric that is enough!" Oswald roared in his old military voice.
I shut up immediately and sat there as his face softened. "I am dying Eric, I don't want to have my last moments dwelling on the past. I want to leave this world feeling content and not worrying about the past and look more to the future.
I nodded silently and sit back in the chair. "What is it that you wanted me here for." I ask him leaning forward.
He coughs and shifts in his bed, "Can't an old man want to see a friend of his one last time?" He says with a smile.
I couldn't help but smile, "Knowing you there's more to the story than meets the eye."
He laughs, "You know me so well Eric." Coughing he points at a box that until now I had not noticed sitting on the tableside bed. "Bring that here for me."
I nod and grab the wooden box bringing it over to him and placing it on his bed. "What's in the box?" I ask him.
Oswald carefully opens the box and pulls out a pair of keys. "Sara wanted you to have these when the time was right." He places them in my hands, "She wouldn't tell me what tank these were for, but she said that when you were better, to give these to you."
I look at the keys and couldn't help but feel tears form in my eyes, but i quickly blinked them away. "Thank you Oswald." I tell him gently as he smiles and coughs.
"You know what this reminds me of?" Oswald said getting a faraway look in his eyes. "This reminds me of the first time Sara introduced you to me. I was sick in bed and she was just so excited to have finally made a friend that she had brought you over to the house."
I smiled at the memory of it, "Yea and I had the same sort of attitude I have now back then."
"She was just so excited to find someone who loved sensha-do as much as she did and who knew that you would turn out to be a prodigy! You used to love sensha-do spending hours looking at tanks and pointing out their specifications and everything." Oswald eyes grew even more distant. "But after what happened you changed. And that just broke our hearts." He looked at me and I could see the pleading in his eyes. "Please think about continuing sensha-do, Sara would have wanted you to and son, I'm sorry what happened but it isn't your fault."
I sat there silently, absorbing his words. A slight sigh caused me to look up and my emotion caught in my throat. Oswald layed there with his eyes closed in a peaceful manner, but his chest had stopped moving. Looking over at the monitors hooked up to him I saw that every one of them were flat lined. Choking back a sob I stood and paged for the nurse. Before the nurse arrived I stood and patted Oswald's hand and gave him a salute. "May we someday meet in the afterlife my friend." I said sadly as I turned and walked out the door as the nurses arrived.
I walked towards the elevator and pressed the call button. It wasn't until i reached the ground floor, that I realized that I was still holding the set of keys Oswald had given me. "Why did Sara want me to have these keys?" I wondered as I walked out the hospital's doors to where Claire had parked the tank.
She was lounging on the top of the tank with a book laid over her eyes. I climbed in without her really stirring. "Hey!" I yelled at her.
The book fell away from her as she sat up suddenly startled. "Don't scare me like that!" She said picking up the book.
"Well you seemed to be sleeping, so I wanted to get you up." I said cracking a smile.
"Jerk." She said hopping down from the top and into the driver's seat, "So the old man have anything to say?" She asked starting the engine.
"He's gone." I said looking down.
"I'm sorry."She said with a sympathetic look. "So where is it you want to go?" She shifted the tank into gear as we pulled out of the parking lot and headed down the street.
The keys were still clutched in my hand. "Take me to Sara's house. Do you know where it is?" I asked as we sped down the road.
"Of course I know where it is." She said pulling off one road to another, "I should say that we should be glad that her family home that they usually lived in was on the boat or we would've been in trouble."
For the next twenty minutes we drove in silence before we reached a road near the stern of the ship. Claire pulled the tank onto the road and up the long drive until we came to a stop in front of the house. Claire turned off the engine and climbed out. "Seems no one's home." She said looking in through the window.
"They're probably busy at the hospital," i said climbing out of the passenger side and landing on the ground.
"Are you sure you're allowed here?" Claire asked as i walked up to the door and pulled the spare key out from under a plant.
"It's been a while since I've come here, but I was still a close family friend." I said unlocking the door and walking in.
The house was the same as I had remembered it. It had the same decor and furnishings still in the place it had always been in years ago. I walked through the house and up the stairs to Sara's room. Claire follwed behind me as I opened Sara's door and walked in. "What are you looking for?" She asked me as I began searching through the bookshelfs.
"The last time I was here, I remember that Sara showed me a key she hid in a book that she said was for the garage, now if i can just… ah here it is." I said pulling a thick leather bound book off the shelf and flipping it to the back.
Hidden in the back covering was a small cut out compartment. Inside sat a black handled key with a note underneath it. I pulled the note out and opened it. I fought back tears as I recognised Sara's handwriting. "What does it say?" Claire asked leaning in.
"It says, 'For the good old memories we made, Love Sara.'" i read placing the book back on the shelf and pushing past Claire.
"Hey wait up!" She said hurriedly following me down the stairs and out to the backyard.
I quickly made my way over to the shed that I always remembered as being locked. "Why is it always locked?" I remember asking one of the times I came over.
"It's a secret." Sara had said with a giggle before she would toss something at me and run off.
I smiled at the memory as I reached the shed's door and produced the key. "Well let's see this secret that you had kept from me all these years." I said placing the key in the lock.
The lock clicked and the door unlocked. Leaving the key in the lock, I turned the knob and opened the door. Everything inside was dark. My hand reached over to the right as I fumbled to find a light switch. My hand brushed against something and I flicked it up. Slowly the shed began to fill with light, and I felt tears well up again in my eyes as the room became fully illuminated and revealed a massive object in the center.
"What is it?" Claire called from behind me, as I was blocking the door.
"How can this be?" I said in a choked sob as I moved closer and ran my hand over the metal of a tank.
"Oh wow." Claire said in amazement as she entered the room. "It's been awhile since I'v seen one of these. Whats so special about it?"
I couldn't answer as I just stared in mute shock and emotion as I ran my hand all over the tanks metal. "This, this tank is where I met her." I said as I climbed onto the turret and opened the hatch into the tank.
Everything inside was almost exactly the same from so many years ago. "How so?" Claire called from outside the tank.
I was about to answer, when I saw a small black notebook sitting on the driver's seat. Curious I moved over and picked it up.
"MR. Stuarts Adventures" I read the notebooks title.
Opening the book, I was met with multiple pictures of memories that I had not remembered for so long. Some pictures were of me and Sara doing something stupid or silly, while others were of me when I was younger. I couldn't help but smile sadly at the photos. I felt a tear roll down my cheek as I reached the last picture in the pile. It was a photo of all of my friends standing in front of the tank all posing and smiling. I flipped the picture over and read the back.
"Fox team ready to roll out for action!" It read.
I placed the photos back into the pile and was about to close the book when I noticed a small paragraph right in the back cover.
"Thanks for all the memories in this tank Eric! I'm so glad that I got to meet you all those years ago when we first met at this tank. You were fawning over how gorgeous it looked and everything! I hope that you continue Sensha dou in the future, you loved it with a burning passion, and I hope you will always continue on with the fire still burning in your heart. I hope you like the gift I'm going to give you once this tournament is over!" Love Sara."
She had drawn a smiley face and hearts all over her signature. When I finished reading her message, I glanced down at the key I was holding, and before I could think, I placed the key into the ignition and turned it. The tank roared to life and I couldn't help but laugh. "Seems Mr. Stuart still has life in him!" I yelled over the noise.
"What are you doing?" Claire asked her head appearing on the turret.
"Open the sheds doors, I'm taking this guy out for a spin." I said with a laugh, feeling all the regrets and sorrow slipping away in a moment of bliss.
Claire smiled and hopped off, opening the doors and giving me a salute. "Eric you are free to disembark."
I gave her a salute, and shifted the tank into gear before taking off down the drive and back onto the road. I laughed as me and my M5A1 Stuart travelled down the road passing by people walking on the sidewalk heading back to Oorai school.
My radio crackled to life. Claires voice came in "What are you doing and where are you going?" She asked.
I picked up the receiver and squwaked into it, "I'm taking this back to Oorai, as that place has a good area to practice, and possibly also engage in a mock battle." I said in bliss.
"I thought you hated sensha-dou." She said back.
"Let's just say that I've been inspired, and I now have a drive." I said pulling the photo of my team out of the notebook and placing it in one of the grooves. "I'm feeling rather feisty, so I want you to get those military hacks who are always after me, to bring my tank to Oorai."
"Which one?"
"Tell them to bring my Type 5."
"What are you going to do with it?"
"Just tell them the Deserts Fox has returned."
So whats erics plan now? keep a lookout for the next chapter and be sure to like and review and follow the story! See You!