"Okay, you all know your roles, head to your assigned positions" Mariah ordered. Before the tanks could advance far, however, there was a loud bang from the other staging area. A few seconds later, a massive explosion slammed down in the middle of the deployment area.

"Fuck, fuck. Damage report!" Mariah said into her radio, panicked. "Fries, okay." The rest of the teams reported in as well, and it soon became clear that no one was hit. It had merely stunned them. "They must be fielding their artillery, so stay on alert!" Mariah said, the blast having rattled her. "Tanks Forward!"

The tanks advanced, the two SPGs, and the T-34 breaking off to the west to assume their defensive positions, the light tanks heading off into the woods, the O-I hiding behind the visitor's center, and the T29 heading to assume a hull down position. Lastly, the remaining three tanks attempted to make their way to the southeastern thicket.

Unfortunately, on the way there, a shot flew above the tanks. Mariah looked to the left for the source of the shot, scanning the terrain with her binoculars. In the distance, she spotted a Cromwell swerve to the left, breaking off the attack before Mariah's tanks could rotate their turrets to respond, not having expected an attack so soon. Luckily, the Cromwell broke off before firing another shot, no doubt reporting its findings to the main group.

"We have contact! Is anyone in position to take that Cromwell out"" Mariah radioed.

"Sorry, we can't see it!"

"Still getting in hull down position!

"We haven't even reached the visitor's center"

Mariah swore under her breath. "It's pulling back, just get to your positions as planned." She advised. Her squadron of tanks rolled up into the thicket that looked over the east side of the battlefield, waiting for the enemy.

As it turns out, they didn't have to wait long. Through her binoculars, Mariah spotted six tanks advancing across the far eastern side of the field, near the edge of the battlefield.

"Contact, Six vehicles!" Mariah said, relaying the position to the other vehicles. "Both command tanks, the Cromwell from earlier, a Sherman Jumbo, a VK… Something or other, and an AC 4!" She continued.

As this was going on, the Cruiser ran into its own problem. Namely, it ran straight into a Jagdpanzer.

"Shit! Left, left! Mindy shouted to her driver, turning out of the way just in time to avoid the shot.

"Stay to the side of them" Mindy said, as the cruiser circled the Jagdpanzer, the turret rotating to the side and firing into the side of the enemy tank, which plinked off the angled side armor

"That one didn't go through!"

"We didn't even scratch them!"

"That one bounced!"

"We didn't penetrate their armor" She reported as shell after shell bounced off the side of the Jagdpanzer.

"Okay, I think I have an idea" Mindy said as the Jagdpanzer reversed. "Forward now!" The Cruiser slammed forward, ramming into the left side of the enemy, inside the range of its gun. "Now, turret right" The gunner obeyed, the turret turning to the right as the tank grinded against the Jagdpanzer as it reversed towards the forest edge. "Good, now fire!" The cruiser shot its shell directly against the barrel of the tank destroyer, not penetrating it, but deforming it.

"Now reverse!" Mindy said, the Cruiser slamming into reverse as the Jagdpanzer lined up a shot. Mindy braced herself, hoping her plan would work. The Jagdpanzer tried to fire, however sensors in the barrel determined the shell would detonate if the gun went off, preventing the shot from being fired and raising the white flag. The team had made their first kill.

The celebration of this fact didn't last long as a 100 millimeter shell impacted the turret of the cruiser, the armored column Mariah had spotted having turned their turrets to deal with the threat.

Inside the tank responsible for the kill, the mood was high. "Good shot, Emma!" The commander said to her girlfriend. It had been a difficult one, Emma reflected, 500 meters wasn't that difficult, but with all the foliage in the way, she could barely see the target. "Thanks Val!" She said, looking up at her commander before looking back through the gunsight.

With that out of the way, Valarie decided to proceed to the next stage of her plan. "Nomad, Mirage, time for a scouting mission of our own." She said, smiling.

"What are they doing?" Mariah asked, staring at the enemy tanks that had halted in the middle of the field, just short of the field of vision of the SPGs and the O-I. "Why are they just sitting there."

As soon as Mariah said that there were cries through the radio. A grey blur flew past the path through the woods that borscht was supposed to be guarding, moving faster than any tank should be able to move. Borscht fired far too late, then rotated its turret and hull, trying to intercept it, desperately reloading. The two SPGs attempted to turn around and deal with the target themselves, but it squeezed off several machine gun shots into the rear of sushi, impacting the carbon curtain. As this portion of the vehicle would have been exposed had this been an actual war, this was enough to trigger the white flag.

The Sturmpanzer panicked and fired prematurely, the shell flying off into the woods and detonating, not that it would have mattered as the vehicle, which Morgan, the commander, recognized as a puma circled them easily. Borscht tried to put another shot into the armored car, but missed, the gun jerking to the side at the last moment as Schnitzel found itself between the Puma and its ally. As soon as Borscht fired, the Puma screeched to a halt and put a shell into the Sturmpanzer's side. It turned away to the right to dash out. As it did, Borscht finally got a clear shot and fired right into the Puma's rear armor, taking it out of the fight.

"Damn it, Borscht, what's going on!?" Mariah practically screamed into the radio, hearing obvious shots, but no response.

"Sorry Commander!" She heard as a response, but not from the T-34. "We got knocked out from behind. She heard Morgan say, slumped down in the Sturmpanzer. So did Sushi."

"It's not your fault, don't worry." Mariah responded earnestly, before trying to contact borscht again. "If you can hear me, move up and guard the T29!"

"Right, commander!" She finally heard as the tank moved out toward their new goal.

"Commander, they're moving!" Maria heard from Asado.

Sure enough, the rest of the enemy tanks had begun advancing through the park, past the playground. "Okay, let's give it all we got! All tanks open fire!" As she said that, the O-I slowly crept out of cover and the rest of the tanks opened fired, springing what Mariah thought was a pretty good ambush.

The three tanks in the bush opened fire. As it so happened, all three shells did indeed impact their targets, Matt putting a shot into the thinly armored Cromwell, popping the white flag. The other two shells, however, impacted the T-44, ricocheting into the distance. Then, the first shot from the T29 sailed over the IS-3, having overestimated the shell drop. Before the O-I could add its own 3 guns to the fight though, the artillery added its guns to the fight though, the Artillery added itself to the fight again, a shell detonating against the treads of the O-I before the main cannon could get free.

"Fries, this is Tempura, the artillery just hit us. They have to be watching us from somewhere."

As Tempura delivered its own bad news, the main column stopped again firing into the thicket, having determined their location by the muzzle flashes. Realizing what was about to happen, Mariah frantically ordered Asado and meatball as well as her own tank to reverse. Unfortunately, Mariah came to this realization just a second too late. She managed to get her own tank behind a nearby mound, but the Stridsvagn and Nahuel got knocked out easily.

"Borscht, new mission! The O-I is the target, not the T29! Try and figure out how they ranged in on them! Scone, hunt down that arty, it has to be in their deployment zone! Mariah said as her own tank fired off another futile shot at the enemy command tank, the T-44 somehow dodging to the side, something Mariah didn't even think was possible

The T-34, having just arrived at the T29's location, took a hasty shot in the general direction of Mojave's tank column before rotating to the right and heading off towards their new objective, much to the driver's consternation.

"Damn it, already? Do you have any idea how hard it is to drive this thing?" Morgan, the driver, complained, putting all of her strength into working the controls, getting close to the O-I's location before stopping and slumping over the controls, physically exhausted.

In location, Sally peered out of the commanders hath with a good deal of effort, scanning the treeline for the scout vehicle Mariah was sure was there. Unfortunately for Sally, she was right, though a bit too slow on the draw.

"There it!" Sally started, pointing to her right before being cut off by the unmistakable sound of a cannon firing. When the smoke cleared, the T-34 had its white flag raised. The scout tank, a Stuart had decided to preemptively fire into the side of the T-34.

"Damn it!" Sally shouted, annoyed at being taken out by such a small weapon

"Does this… Mean.., I don't… Have to… Deal with… These controls?" Morgan panted, actually somewhat relieved.

As she spoke, Scone was beginning its own effort to get rid of the artillery barrage. They had made it through the woods and into the area Mariah had guessed the artillery had come from. It wasn't like there were many places to hide on a battlefield this small after all. Sure enough, as the Light tank barreled into the enemy deployment zone, running straight into an SU-14 just as it fired.

The impact from the small tank was enough to throw off the aim of the artillery, the shell flying off harmlessly. Apparently incensed by the light tank ramming it or aware they wouldn't be able to fire with it bothering them, the driver of the artillery slammed the controls forward, climbing up on top of the vickers' hull as it hopelessly fired into the bottom of the artillery. The SU wasn't quite as heavy as, say, a Maus, but it was quite enough to deal the fatal blow to Scone, the white flag being raised.

While this had been enough to spare the O-I from the artillery, it wasn't enough to save it in the end. Splitting their fire between it and the the T20, ignoring the T29 as it sent another round over their column. Two Mojave rose tanks turned their turrets towards the superheavy, with the ACIV and the Jumbo firing a volley into the tank. The American tank bounced off the front armor, though jolting the crew considerably while the Australian put a sabot round directly into the front left secondary turret, taking the helpless O-I out of the fight.

"Damn it! Matt, target the right tread of the IS-3! I have an idea!" Mariah said, her tank cowering behind a small hill as suppressive fire zoomed by overhead.

"Our right or theirs?"

"Ours!" She yelled down at the gunner before talking frantically into the radio, giving orders to the one remaining tank on her team, briefing them on her plan.

"Sydney! Forward on my mark… MARK!" she said as Mojave Rose fired another volley, her driver obeying her order, creeping forward and unmasking the gun.

Matt took careful aim at the IS-3, shooting his shot, blowing the tread off the IS-3, its momentum throwing it to the side, exposing its rear armor to the T29. The driver frantically tried to wheel the tank around, but it was too late. Burger fired off a shell into the rear armor of the soviet heavy, causing it to grind to a halt and show the white flag.

Just after knocking the treads off of the IS-3, however, the T-44 avenged its fallen comrade, taking advantage of the brief exposure of the turret to knock out the T20. This left the T29 all alone on the battlefield, facing down 6 remaining tanks. One shot from the artillery, however, put an end to any fantasies the crew had of playing hero.

"All of Clear Ditch's tanks have been eliminated! Mojave Rose is the winner!" Mariah heard over the referee's comms channel.

Mariah slumped over in her tank. She supposed the battle had went as well as she expected. It was an incredibly tough matchup after all. As the recovery vehicles swooped in to bring the tanks back to wherever they were meant to be, she wondered if she should go talk to Valarie. After all, she was a big part of why Mariah decided to start the team. It turns out she didn't need to consider for long. As Mariah stared out into space, debating the issue, the T-44 pulled up beside her, Valarie hopping out of her tank.

` "Oh, h-hey, Valarie!" Mariah said, perking up instantly. "I'm a huge fan!"

"A fan?" She responded. Valarie seemed surprised at Mariah's statement. Had she really never met a fan before?

"Well yeah! Of course! It's an honor to get my ass kicked by the American Oarai!"

"The what?" Valarie asked, being shocked at being compared to her own idol.

"I mean, you pulled off the same thing. Why not?"

Valarie stayed silent, unable to come up with an answer. "Well, either way, Great match! And it was nice seeing some rare tanks in action!" She continued, holding her arm out for a handshake.

Mariah took Valarie's hand and shook it as if she was shaking the hand of the pope. "Thanks! And I got lucky. Some school in Austin was getting rid of their tankery team. I don't know why in this climate, but I'm not complaining."

"Well whatever it is, if you just keep working hard, I'm sure you'll do great in the future." Valarie said confidently.

"Thanks! Coming from you, that means a lot!" Mariah said eagerly.

"You're welcome. I'm really looking forward to facing you again. Ahh, it looks like Emma's waiting. I'd better go!" Valarie said, walking off, climbing back into the T-44.

As the tank drove away, Mariah leaned back in her tank, relaxing. Despite the somewhat disastrous results of the match, hearing her idol say she thought Mariah would do well made her not care about the results of the match as much. After all, win or lose. At the end of the day, she was a tanker now.