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CHAPTER SEVEN – Hunting Panther II – Spiegel

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You cannot run from me no longer, con not you, now?

800m from the two German panzers that crashed into each other, a girl with messy long black hair and completely heterochromatic amber-blue eyes aimed her 80 mm gun at the exposed Panther, cackling ominously at her cornered prey. At this distance and angle, she was a neurosurgeon with a cannon.

But her prey also aimed its gun at her, while reversing and showing its frontal armor.

"Erzsi. Flag tank, 800m," Vice-commander Diana calmly and coldly ordered behind her. "Tűz!" Fire!

"My pleasure!" Erzsi yelled smilingly as she pulled the trigger.

…

Szene 011: Panther VS Tas

And then, "BOOM!" two explosions at once, one was really close, the other, faraway. The whole tank shook in protest. The two shells passed each other. Both of them, glanced off the armour of their respective targets, deafening everyone inside.

"Just a ricochet. Keep reversing!" Said Verena. "Face at the enemy! Loader, keep loading AP! "

"Two ricochets!" Asaka bitterly corrected, sighting the Tas. "They're moving."

The Tas moved to Asaka's right, obviously trying to outrun Asaka's gun and outflank the Panther. The Panther was now perpendicular to the pathway.

"Panzer, halt. Feuer Frei!"

To Verena's order, the tank stopped.

"Auf Wiedersehen." Asaka traversed the turret, aimed and pulled the trigger.

At, first, Asaka thought it would hit, but suddenly the Tas braked and turned towards the Panther, the shot missed. The Tas shot back, but the shot ricocheted off the Panther right turret wall.

"Dang it!" Tamara cussed. "My ears!"

"They're straight on us!" Dietrich said. "They're straight on us!"

"We do the same, Panzer, Vorwärts! Full-speed. Load AP!" Verena commanded excitedly.

The Panther turned a little and went straight to the Tas, charging through the trees at outstanding speed. The two similar tanks looked like two mirrored distant cousins, charging at each other.

The Tas shot again while moving, but Nanami swerved the Panther away from the shot. It missed.

"Fire!" Verena shouted.

Asaka retaliated, the Tas followed by suddenly swerved away the shot, causing it to bounced off the frontal armour.

"It's not worth it. The stabilizer is useless at this range and speed." Asaka told her Commander.

"Then, prepare for another sudden stop and fire!" She replied.

"Roger!" Complied the driver.

Asaka took a deep breath. She saw what Verena was going for. She quickly estimated it was about 660 m between the two similar tanks. Calculating another ricochet, she aimed the lower gun mantlet, knowing the shell would bounce to the weak hull roof. Now just the battle of the loader.

"Clear!" Tamara announced.

"Panzer, Halt! Feuer Frei!" Verena calmly commanded.

At 500 m of range, the two tanks stopped almost at the same time, seemingly mirroring each other. Indeed, Verena and Diana always had the same decks up their sleeves, especially during the day.

The two guns aimed at each other, waiting for the hull to stop vibrating after the sudden stop in a split-second.

But my Panther has a stabilized gun sight!

"Auf Wiedersehen!" She yelled loudly as she pulled the trigger.

But something was wrong, very wrong. Asaka pulled the trigger again, once, twice, thrice.

The gun didn't fire.

Szene 012: A Shot that Never Be

"The Panzer IV has taken out Team Vice-commanders' flag tank! Team Commanders won the mock battle!" The referee's voice was heard over the radio.

To the announcement, there was deadly silence inside the Panther. Then, without apparent initiator, there was a giddy laughter all around the Panther interior. All of the Panther crew beside Asaka was laughing.

Apparently, Bosporus and her unit managed to shot down enemy's flag tank down in the sandy plains. The safety system prevented firing since the match was basically over.

Asaka sighed in half-disappointment as she leaned back on her seat. Damn it Bosporus, bad timing.

"Anticlimactic!" Dietrich remarked chucklingly.

"That was really exhilarating." Nanami said.

"Did anyone hear Asaka yell, thinking she would fire a heroic shot?" Tamara said as she stood up and headed to the rear hatch while still giggling.

Asaka leaned over, resting her head on her sight. "I really thought I had her. Bosporus couldn't choose a worse time."

"Brilliant job everyone." Said Verena while gasping for air. "Tamara, while you're out there, check the damage, please! Dietrich, go with her, I don't want her to make the damage worse."

Dietrich chuckled. "Aye!"

"Darn it, commander." Tamara cursed, as she kicked the heavy rear hatch open. "Screw you, you crazy girl!" Tamara shouted happily to the outside world. "We won, Erzsi! We won!"

"Ah, I love my crew. did I ever tell you lot that?" Remarked Verena.

"Too often, Ren." Nanami replied from the hull. "For almost three years."

"And for that time, you don't disappoint. That was some eloquent driving, Nanami." Verena replied.

"Eloquent, huh? Thank you, Ren."

"Hey, Asaka, you too." Verena said, handing her a water bottle. "Good shooting, although the best one was never be."

Asaka wheeled back. "I... It's okay. Although I missed the most important shots." She said before she gulped the water from the bottle.

"No, you didn't." She denied.

"Yes, I did." Said Asaka bitterly.

"No, you did your job. Most of your shot hit at least a tank, killed most of them." She explained as she opened a tin of Scho-Ka-Kola, and started eating the chocolate. "Don't think about the ricochets, that was chaos. I once saw three shot from a Tiger glancing off a Sherman. Thrice, to a cute little Sherman." She disapprovingly shook her head.

"Give me that." Asaka took a piece of chocolate from her hands and ate it. "But still, I missed the shot to the flag tank earlier. And. No, that's not how ricochet works, V."

"Hey, hey. Enough." Nanami said. "The tank is sad hearing you two keep arguing in the past three weeks."

"Yes, Mrs. Suzuki. We're sorry, it won't happen again." Verena and Asaka recited flatly.

"Hold on! What does that even mean!" Nanami ranted.

To that, Verena and Asaka only laughed. "Well, it was a harmless argument, so..." Said Asaka.

"Mr. Panther doesn't need to brood over it." Verena completed.

"It won't change anything anyway." Asaka said again.

"Well, if we retrospectively disregarding the loss, this win is a win-win-win-win situation for our alliance." Verena remarked while chewing her chocolate.

Oh, here she goes again. Asaka thought, rolling her eyes. "How's so?"

"The team can outflank a Pakfront ambush, march in a near-perfect formation, completely break a near-perfect formation, and recover the said formation after being completely broken—I'd say the team is ready to face Pravda. Oarai did defeat them with worse odds."

"They had Miho-chan... Er, I mean Nishizumi Miho."

Verena chuckled. "But, we have you."

Asaka scoffed. "Yeah, well. And I have you guys, so romantic." Asaka muttered sardonically.

"There you two goes again. So cute." Said Nanami.

"I am not cute. Oh my God." Asaka denied.

"Aww, thank you, A-Chan." Clare said as she got back inside the tank. "I never had any friends before." Asaka didn't know if that was a joke or not.

"A-Chan? Oh, God. Not you too, Clare." Asaka protested.

"Yeah, yeah. This tank is very wholesome, alright." Said Tamara from the rear hatch. "Can we go home, please."

"The damage report, Miss Murakawa?" Asked Verena.

"Yeah, that. It's just scratches Absolutely nothing is broken." Tamara said.

"Süßer Apfelstrudel! Nan, you heard the girl. Let's move out." Verena ordered.

"Aye-aye," Said Nanami.

With which confirmation, the Panther moved again, driving its way on the narrow pathway inside the forest.

"A-Chan, gun front, careful with the trees."

"Jawohl." Asaka muttered as she spun the traverse wheel. After a tune of familiar whine, the turret now faces the the frontside of the tank. "Hey, V. Did you forget about something?"

"Ah. Dietrich, give me all tanks, all teams."

"Aye! Broadcasting, now." Dietrich replied.

Verena cleared her throat. "Greetings all, Girls of Steyr and Kebab, this is the Commander of Allied Force, Verena von Vetsera. Thank you for being with me today, that was really a good match. Both teams have worked their bests, I believe. Now the last practice match is over, after this practice, the tanks will be quarantined for maintenance, so the next time we will be inside the tanks is this weekend, on the match against Pravda. But tonight, let's have a semblance of fun in the briefing party aboard the Steyr school ship, in my humble castle. That is all, thank you. Vetsera, Out.

Somehow, Asaka could hear the team cheering through the radio, although she wasn't sure if it was for the party or for Verena's quaint speech. Asaka noticed that Verena was able to make her speech less eccentric and weird lately.

I guess my idea to talk to the team more is really taking off, huh? Asaka pondered.

As the Panther was steering back to the school ship, Tamara relaxed on the turret floor and Verena laying her back and head to the turret wall. She could only imagine the hull-dwellers, Clare and Nanami relaxing on their seats. Following suit, Asaka rested her head on her left arm against the left turret wall.

Then, Asaka let The Panther rocked her to sleep while thinking about what kind of match She will be having against Pravda.

Pravda. Am I... enough for the team? Will I miss a crucial shot again?

Chapter VII – Hunting Panther – END