"Who's he?" Murakami asked, getting up from her seat and cracking her knuckles.
"A Russian tanker who came here alongside us Germans." Faber pointed at him. "What's your name again? Nicholas? Niklav?"
"*Grunt*. That's my brother's name. I'm Niko, idiot. Niklav and Willy asked me to trail you 4, so what's up with this place?"
"Why it's our *hic* quaint little bar down in a place that most don't like." Rum stumbled upwards, still acting drunk. "Can I have a swig of that?" she drunkenly mumbled.
"[Da.]" and before anyone could stop him, Niko handed the vodka to Rum, who took one deep swing and immediately spit it back out.
"What the hell is this!? Gasoline!?"
Taking the bottle back, Niko laughed heartily. "96% alcohol vodka [друг]."
Rum and the others gawked at him. Except the Germans. Rum remarked, "Geez, and I only drink 4% or less."
Faber turned his attention back to Ogin. "What do you want?"
Ogin smirked again. "I thought we'd all have some fun, so complete our challenges and we'll escort you out ourselves." The other girls nodded.
"Alright then." Ralph, Eric, and Clemons left their seats and stood together in a line. "Let's get started then." they said simultaneously.
Rum stepped forwards first, and two flags in hand, began to rapidly swing her ups up and down, signaling something. Eric cleverly answered, "What makes a great battleship? The ship itself or the captain and crew?" Rum nodded eagerly, and Ogin and Flint clapped a bit. "Now see if you can tell what I'm signaling, just out of curiosity." Pulling out two flags of his own, he rapidly waved his arms.
"All guns to 3o'clock." Rum answered in turn. Eric did another signal. "Fire on the HMS Hood," Another signal, even faster. "Incoming bombers, prepare to dive." One final flag signal. "Prinz Eugen under bombardment, return fire."
"Good job! These signals are quite complicated as well." Eric grinned broadly. Rum, and Ogin shared a brief look. Those signals were oddly war based.
Flint stepped forward next, with a tangle of knots hanging from her arm. "Try untying this." she said simply.
"That, I believe, is an anchor's knot, albeit much more complicated." Without another second, Clemons stepped forward and just like a machine, unwound the knot, holding up the rope.
"Wow, that was quick." Flint said in surprise.
Next, Cutlass wordlessly held out her hand for a thumb fight. Wordlessly, Ralph sat down at the bar, and interlocking fingers they began. Their fingers grappled and wrestled at an incredible speed, and eventually, Ralph pinned Cutlass' thumb under his own. "You're strong." Cutlass said emotionlessly.
Ralph nodded in silent acknowledgement. "I'm guessing it's Faber's turn now?" he muttered.
"Yup!" Murakami stood up, cracking her knuckles and stretching her shoulders. "My challenge is to see who would win a fist fight!"
Then, to the concern of everyone present, the face of the Germans twisted to say, Is this girl insane? Clemons spoke up, sweat of nerves on his face. "Are you sure? Faber is incredibly strong, and it would be bad if he broke something." Even Ralph looked concerned, and he was as stoic as a stone.
"Of course! Stronger the better!" Without another word, Murakami lunged forward and threw a punch, which Faber dodged quite easily. She continued to punch and Faber continued to dodge, with Murakami even throwing her hat like a boomerang to try and get at least a single hit in. Faber simply caught the hat and threw it back, with even more force. Murakami dodged and the hat crumpled itself onto Flint's face. Throwing an uppercut, Faber was forced to dodge backwards, but stumbled, allowing Murakami to strike him in the stomach. However what happened was the complete opposite of what was expected.
"Eyah!" instead of Faber yelling in pain, it was Murakami who yelped in pain. "What the heck, is your body made of steel or something!?" Murakami tried to throw another punch, but Faber said disgruntled,
"Enough!" and threw a punch downwards at her extended fist, and with a sickening crack Faber had just broken Murakami's entire hand.
Several minutes later, after Murakami had her hand heavily bandaged into a cast, Ogin had one last challenge. "Beat me at drinking our infamous 'Habanero Club' drink." The Germans all looked at each other, uneasy. They definitely drank, but outdrinking someone and then leaving the ship was out of the question.
"*hic*" they then all turned to the only other male in the room. Niko, still holding his bottle of vodka which somehow hadn't run out. Sitting down at the bar and taking a deep breath, he took the first shot of the liquor and downed it all in one go. Ogin did as well. The liquor was spicy, and Niko felt it burn on it's way down his throat and into his stomach, but when the next one came Niko downed it all in one go as well. Niko's determination and steely gaze impressed and actually unnerved the girls of Donzoko. Perhaps Ogin chose the wrong person to have a drinking contest with?
Several minutes later and way too many shot glasses later, Ogin's head fell against the wooden bartop, and she began to snore. "[I win.]" Niko laughed as he downed one last shot, then to the shock of all, took his vodka and downed yet another swig.
"Geez, and we said we'd escort you guys out but now Oyabun is out of it…" Rum mumbled to herself.
Handing the bottle of vodka to Rum, he instructed her, "Give her a shot of this. This stuff wakes you up instead of putting you to sleep." With those instructions in mind, Rum took a sniff of the vodka, winced, and leaning Ogin's head back, poured some of the volatile liquor into her mouth and closed it. A few seconds passed...Before Ogin violently flipped backwards and coughed hard.
"Welp, I'm awake now. Let's get going then."
After quite a bit of walking, they finally reached the upper decks of the Ooarai school ship. "That reminds me…" Ogin suddenly said. "We've gotta check on something that we had brought up here, wanna come see?" There was a general agreement amongst the men, and they followed the Shark Team through the streets and to where Ooarai kept their tanks. The group walked into the hanger, and Faber noticed something large covered in a blue tarp, sitting at the far end of the hanger, which he hadn't noticed before, and without a word, Ogin tore the tarp off, revealing a large tank.
"Say hello to the Landship! She's a real beauty ain't she?" she said, voice full of pride.
"This is a British Mark IV tank, isn't it? My father told me about them when he fought in the First World War. He said that he and his men fired until their machine guns turned red but couldn't scratch the British tanks."
"Got history huh?" Rum said with a pointed hand.
Faber nodded. Eric whistled, before asking them, "Are you going to join that Panzerfahren team they got here?"
"Panzerfahren?" the entire Shark Team said confused.
"It's the German way of saying Sensha-do, it seems. It just comes out like that." Clemons explained. "Anyways, are you going to join their team?"
"Mhm!" Rum said eagerly. "We do owe Momo-chan after all!"
"Do you mean the monocle-"
"Don't call me Momo-chan!" The Germans snapped around to see the Student Council and Miho Nishizumi and her team walk into the hangar. "Oh it's you guys, what're you all doing here?" Momo walked over to the group, the rest trailing behind.
"Us or them?" Faber and Ogin said simultaneously.
"Both of you guys."
Faber answered first. "We went into that 'Johannesburg' the girl with the bowl cut mentioned, then we ran into them."
"We talked and had some drinks, then we had some challenges, so we decided to escort 'em out. We're also here to check on the Landship here."
"...I see. Anyways, you Germans should get back to the forest before someone comes by."
"I'm here too, [malyshka]." Niko polished off the rest of the vodka and put the bottle into his jacket and adjusted his brown ushanka.
"What did you just call me?"
"It means little girl, [malyshka.]" Niko said smug.
"I-I am not a little girl!" Momo cried out before she began to berate the Russian.
In the midst of all this, Miho was thinking. What're we going to do for practice? We'll be fighting against a number of different schools at the Festival, and while we can practice against each other, it might not be enough…
"You're thinking about what we should do for training, aren't you, Nishizumi-dono?" Yukari appeared, patting Miho on the back.
"Huh? Oh, yeah. It's just that training against each other might not be enough, and we can't ask the other schools before the festival, especially with them around." Miho gently nudged towards the group of Germans and the Russian. Momo was still bickering with them, while Shark Team sat off to the side on their Mark IV, laughing.
Yukari went into deep thought. "Hmmm, your right…I could try recon…" Yukari continued to scheme, when a lightbulb lit up inside her head. "Ooh! I got an idea!"
"What is it?" Miho and Anzu asked, the latter after tearing her attention away from Momo.
"The soldiers have tanks, right? We could train by fighting them!"