"Wait, did you say we're on a ship?" Otto stated his disbelief. Earlier that morning, the Duck, Mallard, and Rabbit Teams were told about Faber and the other soldiers. Duck didn't really care, Rabbit Team became hyped, saying something about how it sounded straight out of a sci-fi novel, and Mallard Team's commander, Sodoko, of course said something about them abiding by rules. Just as the excitement died down, Faber and Otto walked right into the Ooarai team hanger, apparently to check on the process of the Wundermotor. While talking back and forth, Saori mentioned that they were on a ship.
"Yeah, we're on something called a School Ship. They're massive ships that carry entire cities." she answered.
"W-wow...I thought we were on an island or something." Otto rubbed his head, which was shaved.
"I guess not then…amazing, something of this size really blows the [König der Lüfte] out of the air then. Is there really an interior to this ship?"
"Yup. I wouldn't recommend going down there though." Anzu ate a sweet potato. When the two Germans asked why, Sodoko informed them,
"It's a slum filled with delinquents. They're pretty nasty too…"
Faber and Otto looked at each other for a split second before Faber smoothly said, "Can't be that bad compared to Germany post-Treaty of Versailles. Ugh, it was absurd. People burned money because there was too much of it, there were paramilitaries everywhere...well, according to my father anyways."
Otto, turning to where the Leopon team was examining the Wundermotor, walked over. "How's it going?"
To the shock of the Ooarai girls, the Leopon Team sighed in defeat. Satoko, looking the most dejected, breathed, "This thing is a genuine piece of alien tech. Screw this, it's too complicated."
"Oh dear...Well, I guess we'll be here for a while then. Also, you're called Hoshino, correct?"
Hoshino perked up. "Yeah, what is it?"
"This is very out of nowhere, but I'm very sorry. A few days ago I snuck in here to steal parts from you all and you walked in on me, and I impulsively knocked you out by throwing a piston head. Sorry."
"O-oh, I see. Well, you said you'd help us repair our tanks so we'll be even in the end."
"Thanks. Why do you need these tanks anyways? We never asked…" Otto looked around at the tanks, recognizing many just like when he snuck in.
Miho answered. "It's for a sport we do called Sensha-do. It's where we use tanks and fight each other in a sort of mock-battle style." Almost immediately afterwards Miho added, "I know, it sounds crazy huh?" Because Faber and Otto seemed to make faces of disgust and bewilderment at the same time.
"Sorry, it's just that...We've seen some pretty gruesome things regarding [Panzers]. No one dies or anything, right?" Faber said hopefully at the end.
Anzu said in reply, "People die doing normal sports, right? Besides, all of our tanks are modified so we don't get hurt. Unless we stick our heads out of the cupola."
"Yikes. Better not do that then."
"Well at least we know why you have all these tanks. We all thought this was some sort of military school, with all the weapons. Although color me surprised, you have a Porsche Tiger of all the [Panzers] you could've used."
"We're on a budget. We can't just buy new tanks, we had to scour the entire ship for them." Momo filled in.
"And what's wrong with the Tiger(P)? It's got good armor and a 88mm gun!" said the Leopon Team somewhat in outrage, as Otto sounded quite disdained that they used a Tiger(P).
"I was there when they tested the Porsche Tiger for the first time. Hitler marvelled it's gun and armor, but Albert Speer mentioned it's engine and tracks. Seconds later it sunk into the mud and I ended up laughing at its rather pathetic performance. Oh well, if it gets the job done then go for it." Otto remarked with a near condescending tone, which provoked the Leopon Team(and the Student Council to an extent)to pout.
Before he could make anymore tank remarks, Faber covered Otto's mouth and asked the Student Council, "You wouldn't mind if we explored this ship a little bit, right? The slums that the bowl cut girl mentioned."
"Well...If you don't make a big deal of it or get caught, then sure. Just don't go in looking…" Anzu waved her hand at the appearance of Faber and Otto. "Like that."
"Right, got it."
"What kind of tanks do you guys have?" Yukari energetically shouted.
"How many times are you going to ask, I'm not going to confirm or deny that I command the P.1000 Ratte."
"Naw, not just that, I mean, Erwin said you guys had a Tiger 1, do you have any other tanks?"
"Not sure if we should-"
"Otto, please stop. We have a number of German tanks, and the one I use myself is a Konigstiger."
"Wow, a Tiger II, huh?"
"Just like Kuromorimine. It's all German tanks." Miho added.
"I'm guessing that school is another school that happens to do Panzerfahren?"
"What?"
"What?"
At seeing everyone's confused faces, Faber realized what he just said. "Sorry, for some reason 'Sensha-do' translated into Panzerfahren in German. A-anyways, I think we'll take our leave considering we're not here to do anything except check that the Wundermotor is doing alright."
As the two walked back into the forest, Otto muttered, "You're not serious about going to explore some slums, right?"
"Of course I was serious. After all you can't really scold me or anything, you've been fiddling with that rifle cane of yours ever since we were brought here."
"Barbed wire?"
"Well this is supposed to be a slum. Of course there'd be wire to block people, Eric."
"Do you have cutters, Clemons?" Eric held out his hand. When none was given, he sighed.
"Here." Walking forward, Ratte loader Ralph took a heavily serrated knife from a thigh holster and with a semi-loud scraping of metal sawed down the barbed wire.
"Well there you go. Come on, let's look around this ship before any of the delinquents wake up." Faber commanded. Unlike his usual officer's attire, he wore a long sleeved cotton sweater with black pants. He still wore his gloves, eyepatch, and jackboots. As the 4 continued to walk deeper and deeper into the ship's interior, the more they marvelled at the ship.
"This is one big ship, huh?"
"Definitely. I wonder what the battleships back in the Kriegsmarine would look like compared to this carrier." The 3 men accompanying Faber on their journey into the ship wore blue and white Kriegsmarine uniforms, caps included. Interestingly they also looked similar in appearance, blue eyed with brown hair. The 3 Kriegsmariners marvelled and talked about the ship until Faber stopped them.
"Do you hear that, you 3?" he said to them abruptly.
"Sounds like...singing?" Eric rubbed his ears.
"[Ja.]"
"Wanna go look for whoever it is? We have nothing to do anyways." Clemons offered. Everyone agreed. And so they began to trail the sound of the singing. It was a woman(or young girl)'s voice, and following it they went every which way. Eventually, they came to a pole leading down a pit, and after some consideration, all of them went down, crashing into a pile of crates and boxes. Except Faber. He just jumped down, and landed perfectly. "You really are a super soldier huh?" Clemons coughed while he got up. Again, the 4 followed the voice, and came to a stone wall. "Is this a dead end?"
Wordlessly, Ralph threw himself forward and with a loud clunk, the wall gave way and rotated around, revealing it as a fake wall. "Come on. We're almost there." quietly his voice followed. Walking through the fake wall, in the left of the small hallway was a doorway, where the voice was coming from. Walking into the doorway, the 4 soldiers saw a girl with pale white skin and long white hair singing the song, "Drunken Sailor" albeit in botched English. Looking around they saw a few others sitting in what appeared to be a bar, a girl dressed as a maid or bar tender behind the counter, 2 others wearing sailor outfits, one stocky and black haired, and the other shorter with red fluffy hair. The only other person was a girl with lightly tanned skin, long black hair worn in a ponytail, and a black jacket and boots.
"Why don'tcha come in?" the tanned girl said, turning around to face the 4 soldiers.
"Oh, no we were just exploring this 'ship,'" Clemons pointed over his shoulder and began to edge backwards. "We'll leave if you desire."
The red haired girl suddenly laughed, and lurched from her seat, seemingly drunk with a bottle of rum in hand. "Do you even know where ya are? You're in a city sized ship after all…*hic*"
Faber clenched his hand. "[Scheiße!] Your right…"
"Well, ya might as well just come in and have a drink then."
"Aye." the tanned girl gestured to the bartender for some drinks. "Come and sit. Faber Eisenherz."
Silence hit the Germans.
"How do you know who I am?" Faber's voice was cold and hard. He clenched his fists again.
"I've got eyes and ears everywhere mate. Don't worry, we won't snitch." As she stated her intentions, the others turned around or looked up. "I'm Ogin, captain of this fine vessel. The buff girl is Murakami," Murakami nodded. "Rums the drunken girl,"
"Aye."
"Flint over there, singing, or was," Flint flashed a peace sign. "And Cutlass, our bartender. Welcome to our bar, Donzoko."
Faber, Eric, Clemons, and Ralph all had different reactions. Faber's face eased, but he still had the aura of a prowling tiger. Eric seemed perfectly content with the situation, grinning a bit. Clemons' eyes darted about, studying the place with an almost nervous attitude. Ralph stayed silent, his face completely unchanged. All, however, accepted Ogin's offer wordlessly, the latter 3 sitting down at various points in the bar, and Faber sat down at the bar, next to Ogin.
"Drinks are served." Cutlass quietly informed as she slid down the bar with glasses of drinks. Faber caught the second one-which seemed to be for him-and looked at it with a surveying eye. It was a yellow-auburn colored liquid, with a lemon slice on the glass. Taking a sip, Faber sighed in relief. It was good to drink alcohol again. The Ratte crew had run out of French and German wine a long time ago, and the only thing that had a high amount of alcohol was the Sauerkraut that the crew kept making out of boredom. "Do those gentlemen want anything?" Cutlass said emotionlessly.
Faber turned to his crewmen. "[Do you want anything?]"
"[Ja.]" was the response of all three. Cutlass began to mix more drinks.
"Why aren't you all too young to be drinking?" Clemons' voice was a mix of curiosity and concern.
"*hic* Naw man, it's all fine." Rum stumbled up from her seat and lurched towards where Clemons sat in the corner of the bar at one of the tables, throwing herself down right in front of him. "Stuffs non-alcoholic anyways!"
Clemons surveyed Rum head to toe. "Then you're just being a fake drunk, aren't you?" Cutlass placed down a glass of brown yellow liquid in front of the man. "Thank you." he added on.
"Whaaaat?" Rum slurred.
Eric thanked Cutlass, with Ralph taking his drink silently, although he did nod. To the amusement of the others, the two silent and stoic characters made an odd moment of eye contact when Cutlass was handing Ralph his drink. "Very similar, aren't they?" Ogin remarked as Cutlass returned behind the bar.
"[Tatsächlich], ever since I met Ralph, he's always been like this. Silent and stoic. He's a bit scary though."
"Really? Well, Cutlass does have some strong thumbs. How is Ralph scary?"
Faber put a hand up to think. "Once, a squad of Allied soldiers snuck up on us and held several of the crewmen at gunpoint."
Ogin nodded. "I'm listening."
"Ralph had left to go do maintenance, and when he returned, he eliminated all the soldiers in a few seconds. See knife of his?" Faber gestured over to Ralph, who was drinking with one hand and in his other flipping his serrated blade. "According to Hans, my second in command, he took out two guards with that knife, and then gunned down the rest in one sweeping motion with an MG-42. While holding said gun with only one arm. I wasn't around, I was uhh...relieving myself."
Murakami, who had stayed at the bar, Ogin, and to an extent, Cutlass, went a bit wide-eyed at the story, and definitely not at that Faber missed it all using the bathroom. "H-hold on, you've gotta be talking about..5-10 guys, right?" Murakami asked, speaking up for the first time.
"If Hans and the others didn't lie on the body count, I'd say about 20. Or maybe more. Anyways, Ralph is silent and deadly."
Flint, finished from singing, looked around at the 3 sailors. Eric and Clemons wore white uniforms with a matching white sailors cap, both caps being emblazoned with the symbol of the Kreigsmarine, although noticeably the swastikas were scratched out. Ralph, meanwhile, while the others wore white uniforms, he wore blue. In terms of layout the uniform was the exact same, except the white was replaced by blue and vice versa, and he wore a cap that more resembled a German tankers cap, which was also blue. "So, are these laddies tankers or sailors?" she asked.
"We were Kreigsmarine. Then we got pulled to join Faber's unit." Eric polished off his drink. "Anyways, we should probably get going, we've been down here for a while. Don't get stuck drinking alcohol Faber."
"Right...So how do we leave?"
Ogin smirked, and Faber got a bad feeling. However before he could act on it, the door suddenly flew open with violence.
"[oi kraut, chto ty delayesh' v takom meste?]"
"[What? I don't speak Bolshevik.]" Faber said to the man in German.
The man, disgruntled, took a swig of Vodka from a bottle he held in his right hand, and adjusted his ushanka. "Sorry, I meant to say, 'What are you doing down in a place like this?' [Nemsti.]"