"M-Mojave Rose!?"

"Yeah, that's the school. You heard of them?"

"Er… Yeah.. You haven't?" She responded, still flustered.

"Should I have? I haven't really kept up with the sport. I just looked at the schools who were looking for an exhibition match." Miss weaver said

"They were last year's American champions. Right now they're in the semifinals internationally! What are they doing here?" Mariah said, nearly hyperventilating.

"Oh… Should we tell them?"

"I don't think we should. Not until afterward We don't want to make them give up before the match even starts"

"Alright, you're the boss."

"Wait really? You know it's only been two days, but you're giving me quite a bit of responsibility." Mariah pointed out.

"Ahh well, the less work I have to do, the better." Miss Weaver said jokingly.

"Can't argue with that" Mariah said, still staring at the piece of paper. "On the bright side, we know the terrain better than they do, as well as their team composition." Mariah said, noticing the battlefield was a relatively large local park, a bit small for tank combat, but with enough concealment to make it doable.

"Okay, I'll put a plan together and brief them tomorrow." Mariah continued nervously.

"Alright. I'll let you handle it" Miss Weaver said, going back to grading papers as Mariah turned and left.

Later as home, Mariah sat down on her bed, opening a map of the park and trying to put her mind to work. "Hull down T29 here, have the SPG's here with the T-34 guarding" She muttered to herself, becoming more and more nervous as she remembered the array of late war medium tanks she was sure Mojave would be fielding. "At least we won't be outnumbered" she thought, noticing the match was 10v10. "Not that it matters" she continued bitterly, after all, they had better tanks and more experience. All she could do was hope for the best after all. She had what she thought was a decent plan, all she could do was go through with it.

The next day at school, Mariah couldn't focus. Even the thought of briefing the team was difficult for her to comprehend. All day, she tried calming herself down. Deep breaths over and over. She kept telling herself that it didn't matter if they lost. There would be other matches against teams which Mariah assumed wouldn't be difficult. All the way up until lunch, Mariah kept this mental debate going, with her calm, logical side battling the catastrophizing voice in the back of her head.

when lunch rolled around, however, Mariah had a few visitors. This was surprising for her. Normally it wouldn't be, with it being normal to spend the period in a crowded lunchroom surrounded by other students, but this wasn't to Mariah's liking. After all, she was horrible at normal socializing and honestly had no one at the school she considered a friend as a result.

Because of this, Mariah spent most lunch periods in the library, either reading or on her laptop while she ate. The library had a nice comfy couch she could sit on, and the librarians were friendly enough. They didn't seem to mind as long as she didn't get food on the couch.

"There you are! I've been looking all over for you!" Mariah heard a young male voice say.

"Oh, um… Matt?" She asked, looking up from her book. Rather than just her gunner though, her entire crew was standing there in front of her.

"Oh! Everyone? What are all of you doing here?" She continued, even more surprised by their visit.

"Well we figured that if we're going to be in the same crew, we should hang out outside the team. That and Sydney noticed you stressing out about something during third period." Lyn said

"What? How?" Mariah asks, wondering how she could tell that just by looking at her during class.

"It's a talent of mine. Besides, you weren't exactly trying to hide the look of dread on your face." Sydney responded, booping Mariah on the nose. Mariah did her best not to recoil. Sydney genuinely seemed to be trying to make friends with her.

"Really? I'd have never noticed it on yours" Mariah said, in awe of how others could so easily tell the emotions of others, gently removing the finger from her nose.

"Oh, you would have, it was plain as day!" Sydney said, plopping herself down on the couch next to Mariah. The rest of the crew took a seat on the couch across from the two.

"I'm eating lunch alone in the library. I think that should tell you I'm not the best with people." Mariah responded, smiling a bit.

"Are you serious? You do great commanding us around and briefing the class and stuff!" Matt said, somewhat uncharacteristically assertive.

"Thank you. Unfortunately, that doesn't exactly translate well to making friends." She responded.

"Ahh, I think we're getting off topic." Lyn interrupted, trying to steer the conversation back to the original topic. "Why have you been so stressed this past day." Lyn continued.

"Oh, that. I just… Well I learned that our first match is going to be against a very tough team. Lots of late war medium tanks and a great track record in matches so far." She explained, hoping this would be a satisfactory answer. "I'll tell you more during the briefing today."

"Don't worry. No one on the team is expecting to win our first match. I don't think they'll get too discouraged no matter what happens. Everyone is just here to have fun after all." Lyn reassured.

"Good. I hope so." Mariah said, relieved.

The five talked with each other and socialized for the rest of the lunch period, only 15 minutes at this point, with how long it had taken to find Mariah. It was a strange experience for her, but she was starting to enjoy it. At the very least, she wasn't thinking about the briefing anymore. All too soon, however, the bell rang, signaling the need to finish up and get back to class.

The rest of the day wasn't quite as bad at least. For some reason, being reassured that no one was too interested in winning the fight was encouraging. It meant she didn't need to worry about her worst fear, the team getting so discouraged that they flat out quit the team, leaving just herself.

As such, the second half of the day went by much faster than the first and Mariah soon found herself standing in front of the tankery team, ready to give her briefing. After a deep breath, she figured she was as ready as she'd ever be and decided to get started.

"Okay, I'm going to be honest. Miss Weaver chose a very difficult match for us. The team has a wide array of mid to late war medium tanks from various nations. The first thing I'm going to go over are the two tanks I know for a fact will be participating in the match, the two command tanks on the team.

"The T-44 is the priority target. Most of our tanks will be able to penetrate it from the side, so if you see an opportunity, don't hesitate to take it. Of course these are experienced tankers, so don't think that will be easy."

"Second is the IS-3. This thing is seriously tough. Getting through it from the front is almost impossible. Our best hope for defeating it is the T29, so do your best to keep it alive. Even then, a side shot is our best chance for bringing it down."

"With that aside, let's get to our strategy. You have all been to Challenger park right?" Mariah asked. There was a general nod of affirmation, although there were a few who hadn't, they decided to stay silent and hope Mariah would explain. Luckily for them the next slide in Mariah's presentation was a map of the park from a recent orienteering meet.

"For those of you who can't read orienteering, the east side of the park is mostly a flat plain, that's what the white part without much stuff on it is. There's one road running through the east side of the park. This green stuff over here on the west side means there are woods here, with another trail through it. I don't think they can fit the big tanks through it, but I won't rule out them trying an Ardennes maneuver with the light tanks." Mariah said, before stopping to make sure everyone understood. Luckily, "Green=Trees and White=Plains" didn't seem to be too difficult for everyone to understand.

"This line of white here in the southwest is a clearing for a set of power lines that run through here. Schnitzel and Sushi, you two hide here. At this range, your shots should come down on the top armor. Borsht, you guard them against flankers. Burger, you head over here at the edge of the treeline, behind this short hill. Tempura, try and cram yourself behind this building. I'll take the rest of the mediums over here into this thicket in the southeast." Mariah said, pointing at various areas on the map. "Lastly, our light tanks will head directly into the forest here and try to spot targets for the rest of our forces." Mariah finished up, pointing at the middle of the map.

"Does everyone understand their roles?" Mariah asked nervously.

There were general nods of affirmation from the team, the plan being relatively simple.

"Alright, let's get to practice then!" Mariah said eagerly.

Throughout the week, training went as well as could be expected for the new team. In addition to firing practice, the team practiced driving up and down the slope of the ditch at a steep angle as well as driving in formation and concealing their tanks in leaves and behind buildings. With this, Mariah hoped that the team could at least get a few kills against the enemy.

When the day of the match came, Mariah was, dare she say, somewhat optimistic. As she planned, the team reached the park an hour before Mojave Rose in order to deploy on the south side of the park where they couldn't be seen. There, Mariah stood atop her tank and gave her final briefing before the match.

"Before we start, there are two things that I forgot to tell you. One major, one minor First, this is an annihilation match. First team to knock out all the tanks on the other team wins. Second, we've only rented the park for two hours since there are other matches going on for the whole week." Mariah said, feeling like an idiot that she didn't mention that sooner. With that done, she continued on to her main speech.

"It's hard to believe we're really here, having a match. I know you're all nervous, I sure am! Just follow the plan and do your best to win and no matter what happens, I'll be proud!" Mariah said, fully aware of how awkward and meandering it was, but unable to think of anything better.

"SO, is everyone ready?"

The team let out a big cheer, too eager to get started with the match to care about Mariah's lackluster motivational speaking skills.

"Great! Now take to your tanks! The match starts in 10!" Mariah said cheerfully, hiding her nerves as much as she could before climbing into the commander's cupola of her T20. The other team members did the same, climbing into their positions. Mariah looked at her phone, eagerly counting down the minutes until the match was scheduled to start, tapping her foot nervously. With a few minutes left, she looked up at the woman with the starting pistol, also looking at her own stopwatch. At exactly 6 AM, she raised her pistol into the air and fired. The match was on.