Chapter 20: Team Fortress 3 and Oorai tankery lives.
Shinji POV
A strange sense of foreboding fills my entire body as I join Rei and the others in taking stock of Angelo's gang's rather interesting collection of smuggled weaponry.
No two arms look alike.
For all the tenseness of the loudening quakes erupting from outside, it is not the fear of the upcoming battle that causes me to dreadfully convulse.
"Shinji. Take point. You're the most experienced veteran out of us all and you were always the best at winning success in the missions we were assigned back in NERV." Rei admiringly requests. To which the entire team nods their immediate approval in almost perfect unison.
Their undivided attention towards me is what really gets my blood racing. Even if what Rei said was true, I had only ever been good at following orders from Misato, my father and his eerily grinning professor friend "Dr" Fuyutsuki.
That man's sinister expression gave me the creeps to even think about.
There was something seriously wrong with the doctor who badly needed a doctor of his own.
"Rei. I don't think I can do this. Why not you? Or one of Angelo's friends." I try to respectfully protest.
"I don't think I'm ready."
"The amazing pilot who saved my life more times than I can count doesn't think he's ready."
Rei replies, accidentally sounding more sardonic than she intends.
"Shinji. Tell me you at least realize how if not for you that this entire planet would have been wiped out several times over."
My eyes go wide and my jaw drops like an anchor.
"Please tell me. That you see at least in part that the one reason my cruel creator decided to spare you because of your sheer brilliance in your strategic tactical genius that neither Asuka nor I could hope to match. See that I was taught my whole life to sit and lesson."
"If there is one champion who's snatched victory from the jaws of defeat enough times for us to trust our lives to it can only be you."
Mari adds.
She turns to the spiky American with the same brown his hair as mine and his three German accomplices.
"What say the rest of you?" She asks.
"Our legend knows what is best for us. I would not have anyone else lead us in our hour of prominence even if you put a knife to my throat" Angelo boldly declares in slightly off but perfectly understandable Japanese. "If you won't take point than none of us will."
From the way he puffs himself upfront as he speaks, it is clear he has spoken for all of his group.
"Your orders. My commander. My true commander." Rei finishes as she holds her peace along with everyone else.
Tense seconds pass as I wait for anyone to break the silence but as they continue to stand with bated breath even as the sounds of loading guns echoes from outside.
I close my eyes and see rather than darkness, the face of my deceased mother.
Her eyes are closed too as she gives me a brief grin of sincere approval before fizzling once more to the spirit realm. .
My mother from the great beyond has spoken.
I reopen my lids and proudly regard the mighty platoon who've placed themselves under my complete authority. They number but half a dozen not including myself but I feel as if the weight of the world now rests upon my shoulders.
"Everyone pick your preferred weapon and then we'll head to the top floor for the best view" I nervously pipe only to find my words treated as gospel as my grand battalion leaps to obey without hesitation.
Rei faster on the draw than anyone else.
As Angelo explains, some of these weapons they found lying here when they came and others, they had taken alongside with them in their travels.
I stare down at the one untaken weapon remaining on the floor nearby as everyone else brandished their arms of choice.
It was the first rule of honour in ancient bushido for the Shogun to allow his men to choose first.
I was no great lord but I was not about to disrespect tradition.
A large minigun lay unpicked before me.
A gigantic octo-barrelled beast of a machinegun capable of the greatest rate of fire of all.
It was as long as I was tall and enough to make most mounted weapons on a tank or cruiser look puny in comparison.
I knew the reason it was not picked by anyone was its weight.
It would take a hulking body builder to even have a chance to heft it one inch above the ground.
The hulk himself might not manage the feat.
I remembered the extra chores my old roommates barked at me nonstop to do every day into the small hours of the morning when the sky was not yet bright.
I vividly recall the times a certain redhead threatened me with clenched fist in my face to massage her every fibre until she was satisfied and then again.
Then again. And again.
I wished I was back in my EVA each time she subjected me to such torment.
My doubts then vanished almost in a puff as with the greatest ease, I placed by hands on the underside of the massive rotating gatling gun and lifted it as easily as if it were the feather of a pigeon.
I never knew my own strength until now.
It was then a simple matter of finding the trigger.
All pilots were given basic firearm instruction due to their importance in Earth's defence and how likely it was for them to be the target of kidnappings and assassinations from outside influences.
Of course, no one mentioned bullying and domestic abuse as some of the reasons why such training would prove beneficial.
"Our team needs a name" Angelo noted as he showed me his own choice of weapon.
A metallic baseball bat (wooden bats broke far too easily and were discontinued a few years prior in USA) and a very sleek appearing double barrelled UZI designed in such a way so that its shots would scatter wildly in a great arc when fired.
The "Scattergun" he called it.
"The scout" he would call himself based on the role he planned to take in the upcoming battle.
Speed. Nothing but speed. Speed was key.
Sherwood explained that he would do most of his part in the fighting from his computer as he brushed a few strands of black hair from his dark face.
He gave a brief demonstration of how he'd programmed most of the facilities former defence systems to work for us instead since technology was always his strong suit.
These systems included multiple mounted gun turrets and a missile silo with three dozen heat seekers ready for launch at a second's notice.
He would keep a plasma welding torch in his belt in case more direct involvement was needed. It was emerging research and despite its highly ionizing beam it could only reach short distances as of now.
The full version had been delayed by the scientific comity on account of more funds being siphoned into NERV's Evangelions.
"The Engineer" he'd humbly request to be named for his speciality in my squad.
Against all my predictions and expectations, Rei chose the medium sized M16.
An assault rifle designed to combine the accuracy of a bolt action rifle with the firing rate of a submachine gun. "Perfect balance" as she would put it. Just as the zen Buddhists of old Japan once practiced.
"I am your soldier." she obediently stated at me as she raised the firearm in a smart salute.
"Send me into the abyss of death itself and I will be fearless in my pursuit to see your orders executed. Commander Shinji-kun."
Mari more expectantly picked the surprisingly light and compact anti-tank stinger.
It's very slow rate of fire was more than offset by the sheer demolition one shot could cause to even the most heavily armoured of war machines.
Perhaps the best bet at piercing the plating of Asuka's (It was obligatory sadly for me to mention her name for the purpose of clarity) upgraded Evangelion.
Its purpose was to demolish.
"And you can call me the demogal" she pridefully quipped carrying herself confidently doing the swagger like only she could do.
It was Lola and Candy's turn to present their choices.
Lola had taken up a large longbow that seemed old-fashioned even when compared with the few other remaining arrow-based weapons remaining in this rapidly advancing age of discovery.
It would have looked simple to the point of obsoletion even on a medieval battlefield of chainmail clad knights and horses.
She had strapped to her right arm a quiver of incredibly sparkly metallic arrows, each with a blood red point much larger than the rest of the arrow.
"Incendiary arrows" She wistfully announced in historical commemoration. "Last used by Katniss Everdeen in the final liberation movement of Panem's hunger games."
"Fire is catching" the pink haired invert of Asuka poignantly quoted "And if we burn. They will burn with us." Then she whistled the mocking jay theme perfectly giving me shivers up my spine.
"I'm the pyro" She said as she strapped a crudely made belt of glass jarred Molotov's to her other arm "The Pyromaniac. Things are really about to heat up."
Candy was the one member whose loadout consisted of a cosmetic adjustment.
In her case, a pitch-black balaclava mask that completely hid the innocence of her timid expression and highly appealing single tail of blonde. She had mentioned taking an acting workshop briefly back in the US before a change of heart compelled her to follow Angelo and his friends here. She was certainly making quite the dramatization.
She held the pistol from the day we met in one hand and tightly clasped a razor butterknife in the other.
"Shhh. Be vewy. Vewy quiet." She warned putting a finger to her mouth.
"You'll blow my cover as the spy for this operation."
"Now you need a title too" Mari politely noted as she carefully taps me on the arm.
"We can't have our great leader without an amazing name for our amazing team that will secure victory no matter the odds."
"I don't need one. Just Shinji is fine"
"Now is not the time for false modesty. You've done so many great things for all of us so come on. Show a little pride. There's no shame."
I considered sticking to my point but then I see that Mari is not wrong.
I had indeed risked tooth and nail countless times for those I loved and if no one else, I was proud of that.
I could not let my friends down now as I reminisce the countless insults every one of the acquaintances, I once knew loved to toss like confetti my way.
"The fat lard not worth the space he takes up." Misato spat insultingly.
"The greedy fatso" My classmates itching to have my job jeered behind the teachers back.
"The slobbering pig not worth the food I pay him to keep alive" my father once discreetly murmured in his office which I caught earshot of while waiting for him to see me.
I took one look at the weighty minigun I and I alone could hoist in a usable position.
I spared one flash at the size and power of EVA unit 1 which no other EVA could compare to which I was given the duty over in my tenure.
I had the perfect name for myself.
"The heavy weapons guy is me." I eventually decided as my team looked on me with a new level of respect at my decision.
"So, you can all call me. Heavy."
"Speech. Speech. Speech!" Angelo eggs on as he spins his baseball bat around threateningly.
I nod modestly with a bow.
"My father" I intoned injecting every last ounce of my passion into every breath. "Is a sick man.
What sick man sends babies to fight us?"
I was referring to not simply Asuka but the rest of the pathetic army numbering almost a thousand accompanying her.
How trivial. Sending a huge band of fighters to capture but two minors who wanted only to please their ungrateful parental unit.
Those men were immature to arm themselves to the teeth and think they'd get a warm reception from even me who had his limits in spite of his patience.
When I had a beloved wife (or waifu as I preferred to call her) and the greatest friends I could not have wished for even in my wildest dreams.
My squad already begins to cheer.
"But I." I force myself to continue despite how strange this feels. "I have the best team I could ever hope to ask for. A team of friends. A team of heroes. A team of legends.
But the best thing about all of you on my team."
I take a brief pause to carefully choose my words.
"Is that the entire team... is BABIES!"
It was true. Everyone here was fourteen or younger. They were all child geniuses and underage prodigies well ahead of their time.
The crowd went wild. Lola blew a noisemaker with all her breath as Angelo shot a big bunch of confetti and Rei gave me the proudest look, she ever had in the time I'd known her.
The heavy's rule over his great team would not end easily.
"Now give our team a name" the demogal called out as the building shook once more.
"Team fortress 3" the heavy immediately responded not needing any time to think.
The long-awaited continuation to a fallen band of once noble protectors who fell to needless infighting and unnecessary profanity.
The team whose great fortresses would long outlast any that those who fell beneath their unstoppable march of glory.
"Now let's go out there and show Asuka and her entourage what we are made of.
It's time for her to learn the hard way, that she cannot just take what she wants by force. You and I will give them everything we have. And we will show them that this is our fortress. Our team fortresses. Team fortress 3."
"You and me both." I hear Lola whisper under her breath as we stride out the room with our chosen gear to take our positions from where we would hopefully have the best chance against our adversaries.
"Give up stupid, you're outnumbered. Put down your weapons and come with me now or we will blot out the sun with our assault."
Asuka calls to us through a speaker built into her Evangelion as we come into view.
"Then we will fight in the shade." I simply retort, having no more words of parley for her after the years of manipulative trauma she sadistically subjected me to.
Maya POV
There were mean people in NERV who liked to call me the useless coward.
There were neutral people who simply addressed me by my name and sometimes lieutenant if the occasion called for it.
But the two sole souls in existence who truly understood me on a deeper and more emotional level able to connect with me called me the one thing that I pleaded every day to no avail for others to refer me by. When no one listened to this plea, it made me hit my head in frustration and put me into a deep depression I could not describe.
"What's wrong. Sniper?" Ritsuko asks when she finds me forlornly staring into the distance of the landscape from the slightly ajar window of the hotwired jeep, we had found in a parking lot just outside the city. Just one of the few great virtues of my senpai.
The ability to admire my marksmanship that I spent countless sleepless nights honing in spite of my utter distaste for gore of any sort.
"Nothing. Dear Medic. Nothing" I gratefully reply, repaying her admiration with my own.
When my little half-brother Shinji was ill and injured as his missions and beatings from the red haired foreigner often left him, he did not go to the hospital.
His paycheque was far too low and his father far too miserly to spare even such meagre expenses knowing how many lives rode on Shinji's wellbeing.
It was not just any doctor who saved a near miscarriage involving Shinji and his mother on the day he was born. Despite his father's every insistence for Yui to just drop the baby since he wasn't important, both mother and son were rescued from death's door with no ill effects.
She stood for one day and one night attending the dying Yui's every need.
They all said that Ritsuko alone could diagnose and treat Yui's ailments since she was the only qualified doctor. Had she left Yui for one second, she'd certainly have died with Shinji.
It was Ritsuko, Shinji. She was your medic. You owe your very existence to her generous concern and devotion to her medical studies. Would she have done so if she were truly the vindictive asshole a lot of NERV loved to see her as?
We had been following the NERV convoy led by Asuka ever since we caught sight of them.
We knew they were looking for my younger brother and we were determined not to let them go without intervention.
We had tailed them, keeping a careful distance naturally so as not to be found out.
Just earlier with our combined efforts, Ritsuko "Medic" had dragged a lagging behind lone soldier while I knocked him out and we split his equipment between the two of us.
Me taking dibs on the laser sight sniper rifle and Medic getting the contents of the first aid kit that was standard issue at least for important operations such as this.
Which included a short-ranged syringe shooter that could also fire capsules of transfixing neurotoxin if necessary.
The medgun, medic called it.
I climbed a tree and put the scope to my good eye. I normally refused to shoot human targets but regretfully, these remorseless killers had given away their humanity choosing to disregard my brother and their saviour with such ingratitude.
"No one lays a finger on my small bro." I insist with complete seriousness.
Rei POV
I pick off one-foot soldier after another with pinpoint accuracy as I repeat to myself the eight rules of our newly founded team, the fight clu...er Team fortress 3.
First rule. The simplest rule. You do not talk about fight clu... erm sorry. Team fortress 3.
Second rule. An even easier rule. Obey rule 1 or else. You do not talk about fight...Team fortress 3. No one likes a show-off who only parades themselves while not listening to anyone else. Actions speak louder than words.
Third rule. The most important one that distinguishes us between the bloodthirsty enemies we are forced to face despite our love of peace. Someone yells stop. Taps out. Goes limp. The fight is over. We show mercy. We negotiate. We listen and are fully open to a completely pacifist conversation. Let no one die if there is any way at all we can prevent it. A single sacrificed life marks a defeat.
Fourth rule. All for one. One for all. One of us picks a fight and the others immediately rush to their aid. That is the basic rule of friendship and trust and we will follow it to the letter.
You deal with one of us. You deal with all of us.
Fifth rule. One fight at a time. Intense focus on what was immediately before him at the cost of several other skills namely social skills, won my Shinji the decisive victories he alone could accomplish.
Sixth rule. No swearing. No taunts. No berating or undermining our fellow teammates or our enemies. In fact, we do not treat anyone even those we must fight as an enemy. The only reason we would ever resort to violence would be when faced with no other option. Those we combat are a threat to our lives and the lives of those most innocent but never our enemies. Constant swearing is the tragic reason why fight club. Grr. Stop doing that Rei. Stop being so brainless.
Constant swearing is why Team fortress 1 and 2 eventually flopped and disbanded. We'll not make those same mistakes. Please and thank you in every request.
Seventh rule. Fights will go on as long as they have to. Retreat at discretion but if a single member of our team or a single innocent life is on the line. Then no retreat.
We are happy to surrender. If the surrender terms do not strip away our dignity which Asuka inevitably intends to. Me and Shinji are hard workers who know the value of hard work.
We would be more than glad to be cast into a coal mine for the rest of our lives as part of a surrender term. But ask that we be tortured and executed and you can kiss your peace deal goodbye.
And rule eight, I hum to myself as the forest floor is painted red with the blood of our former fellow NERV employees.
If this is your first day here. You have to fight. Asuka won't let us go without one.
No POV
...NERV LTD DOCUMENT...
TOP SECRET
Convict name: "Commander" Miho Nishizumi
Convict prison serial number: 133769
Age: 13.3
Hair colour: Light auburn.
Hair length: Slightly longer than chin length. Quite short.
Eye colour: orange.
Gender: Female.
Blood type: O positive.
Occupation: Student from Oorai Tank academy. Tank commander and star member of school Tankery club.
Relatives: Maho Nishizumi. Sister, currently missing. Mother and Father cannot be named for legal reasons.
Crimes: Opposing the closure of Oorai academy when it was seized to be sold for funding for Evangelion repairs through leading forceful demonstration.
Ran executioner over with tank after tutors of no longer needed tankery club were publically executed as a show of force.
Punishment: To be sold off and worked at brothel serving her signature dish of sweet potato ice cream as well as providing "a good time" to wealthy clients. Was spared the death penalty on account of her great dessert cooking skills and incredibly seductive appearance especially when undressed. Convict will be fed as sparingly as humanly possible for survival and kept in most cost effective holding cell possible when not during forced labour.
Punishment time: Indefinite.
Permission to appeal: NO
Miho Nishizumi POV
Oorai has fallen.
The harmless and inspiring sport of tankery is no more.
Tanks are only maintained but new ones never built.
All my classmates who helped me find my place in life are gone, save my tea-loving cellmate Darjeeling. I do not know what became of them but it is reasonable to assume they are all dead.
My sister has fled into hiding after mum and dad were sentenced to the electric chair for parenting me.
They weren't great parents but I still mourn their loss and find it tragic.
It's cold. It's so cold. This floor is so hard.
The short skirt and sleeveless green collared sailor outfit that makes up the uniform of Oorai does little to insulate from the elements of the wintery air that finds its way with ease through the poorly insulated walls.
I'm so tired. It's not easy to sleep when they don't give us a pillow or blanket.
This work is degrading. Being forced to dress so revealingly in front of so many unpleasant and rude jerks who get mad so easily and...
I don't want to describe it. It's too awful.
"How are the Evangelions better again?" Darjeeling asks as she flips her gorgeous long blonde twisted braid to lighten the mood. "They can only punch and kick which isn't that powerful while tanks can shoot big cannonballs from a long distance away."
I don't have it in me to answer her.
Sorry Darjeeling.
Weapons don't have to be evil. Oorai tankery club proved that.
A harmless spectator sport that drew millions of spectators and got our academy tons of sponsors and good publicity with plenty to donate to charity.
How much longer can I stand this for? Already I can hear the murmuring in my head that never stops.
I'm talking to myself. I'm laughing maniacally even as Darjeeling tries to comfort me.
I'm slapping myself a big slap on my cheek.
Please just send me to the electric chair so I can join mum and dad.
Put me out of this misery.
What is that whizzing? After all these years I still recognize it as a shell being fired. The juddering rumble that accompanies it is unmistakably the sound of a big track. The largest wheel based vehicle could never be that loud and rugged.
But that's not possible. I'm just getting salty at the prospect of never tanking again with my good and supportive comrades.
Rat tat tat tat tat.
That's a machine gun. Someone's shooting a machine gun. Someone's killing a bunch of people in the room outside and making them scream their hearts out in woe and anguish.
My mental state hasn't been the best but this is just ridiculous.
Jingle. Keys.
Someone's jingling the cell keys.
What? Have I already gone insane?
"PLEASE HELP ME!" I start shouting anyway banging with every remaining ounce of my strength as Darjeeling responds in kind.
"Help us please. We'll do anything. Please. Please. Please just let us out. We won't hurt you. We promise. We are harmless. We will be in your eternal debt. We are girls of many talents and especially fantastic at driving a tank but cars and buses do fine too. We can be useful"
Chink. The key's going into a lock.
A lock. MY LOCK. OUR LOCK!
A deadly handsome Russian stand in the doorway, the cape of his fur cloak billowing grandly as he adjusts his ushanka and holds up the key with a flourish.
A bizarre looking blue haired girl clad in almost complete white stands behind him with a touch of impatience but nonetheless with great catharsis to see us unhurt and unharmed.
"Come with us if you want to not die." She says sharply with surprising authority in her voice despite her childlike and innocent appearance.
"As payback for my general's great kindness in choosing to risk our safety in saving wanted criminals who could have backstabbed us with great ease, it would be kind of you to join our inkvasion in which we plan to take the entire city and base of NERV under our control. As of this moment, we have but one panzer in our arsenal and we require assistance in..."
I stopped listening the moment she mentioned der panzer.
Oh danke gott fur alles.
The moment we were out of danger, me and Darjeeling would be sure to proclaim our lifesavers the new representatives of the student council.
We had no gold stars to give out due to our school's closure but I was certain they would be equally pleased with a sweet potato ice cream and a glass of deliciously prepared exotic lemon tea as a reward.
Though but the two of us I and Darjeeling remained. Oorai lived once more.
Special thanks to fictionelement777, neoWarkid4, bandiras, An enemy of the state, Fantasian, Kycosoccerref and every other unnamed guest for your kind and generous reviews.
You are all great people. Thank you for reading and see you all next time and bye.