Sitting atop their BT-42, Mika slowly played her kantele to the tune of Sakkijarven Polkka, the only song she knew how to play. She stared down onto the barbecue, she could hear cheers from below, which prompted her loader and driver to climb out of the tank to investigate. After grabbing a pair of binoculars, Aki climbed next to her before peering into the distance. Once the binoculars began to focus, Aki could see various students from many different schools walking around, eating their food, and cheering as they chugged their drinks.
"They're all partying down there," Aki said, as she looked to her commander. "Didn't we bring some non-alcoholic Kossu? Can we join them?" Mika simply shook her head, as she continued to play on her kantele.
"The wind whispers that it brings something we may not like," she said, as both Aki and Mikko looked to her with confusion. Judging from her tone, they inferred that whatever the wind was suggesting was not good.
"So you're saying we can't leave or join them," Mikko said from the front of the tank. "Then what do we do?"
"We wait and watch everything unfold," Mika responded, as the three looked to the barbecue below.
Gibson sat on the ground along with the rest of her friends, as they drank their saké. She could already see the effects of the alcohol on surrounding students as they began to stumble about and slur their words whenever they spoke. None of them were sober enough to notice this as they ignorantly drank away. She could see Yarra and Tanami leaning against each other as Victoria and Darling told each other bad jokes. Obviously, even the non-alcoholic drinks had begun to affect them, as Darling, who usually hated bad jokes, laughed loudly at every one of Victoria's shitty jokes. Eyre looked around the group, before speaking.
"So, somehow, everyone who brought drinks brought alcoholic ones." The girls looked to her in silence, before Gibson spoke up.
"I remember seeing Jatkosota brought some drinks. Maybe we could ask them to share some of theirs."
"It's Jatkosota, do you expect them to share?" asked Simpson, unconvinced.
"Well, normally, no," replied Gibson. "But we have so much food we can exchange with them. Plus, we have a Churchill Crocodile somewhere here to help incentivise them."
The mention of the flamethrower tank caused all the girls to suddenly stand up. Yarra and Tanami began to stumble towards the tank storage areas to find the Crocodile, with Victoria and Darling following close behind, eager to see the tank. The rest of the girls rose to their feet as Eyre hid the quarter bottle of saké in her clothing, as they entered the crowd of people, looking for food to trade. Approaching a table, she could see Wallaby slumped over, unconscious, along with Anchovy, who was blacked out, holding a bottle of wine in her hands. Gibson looked at her wristwatch, which indicated that 15 minutes had passed.
"Yes!" she exclaimed, as Murray looked at her, confused.
"What are you so excited about?" she asked.
"You know how we all made bets on when people would start blacking out from drinking?" she asked, as Murray struggled to recall. "Well, I said it would only take like fifteen minutes before people start passing out, and surely enough, fifteen minutes later our commander has passed out."
A smile emerged on Gibson's face as she and Murray continued to search for food to trade. After a bit of foraging, the two of them met up with Eyre and Simpson before combining all the food they had found worth exchanging. A plate filled to the brim with sausages, steaks, as well as a surprising amount of pasta and sushi they had liberated from Anzio and Chi-Ha-Tan greeted them. Now, the group, led by Eyre, began to make their way towards Jatkosota. After climbing the hill, the four found one of the Jatkosota girls sitting on their tank, wearing a funny hat playing a strange tone on an equally mysterious musical instrument. Within moments, two other girls emerged from the tank, having smelt the food that Eyre and her friends had brought.
"Hey! Mika, is it?" she yelled out to the girl playing the instrument. "My friend here told me that your school brought some drinks, is that true?"
Now, a shorter girl with blond hair tied up into two buns piped up. "Yeah! We brought some non-alcoholic Kossu with us. Why do you want to know?"
Eyre looked to Gibson, before turning back to face Mika. "We brought some food over to trade for your Kossu, and what we brought is far better than all the rations I presume you 'borrowed'." Mika looked at her from the top of the tall turret of the BT-42, impressed that they were able to figure out the rations she had 'borrowed', before climbing down.
"Eyre, is it? It's a deal. You give us the food, and we share the drinks we brought." Shaking Eyre's hand, Mika quickly snapped her fingers, and her two crew members made their way off the tank and into a trailer they had brought, taking out a few bottles of non-alcoholic spirits. Suddenly, Eyre felt a rumble as the ground began to shake. The other girls looked behind them, to see a Churchill Crocodile climbing the hill, its gun aimed at the BT-42. Eyre waved her hands about, signalling the tank to stop, as it stopped. Victoria climbed out of the tank as Eyre began to speak.
"Stop! We don't need the tank anymore. I've already worked out a deal with Mika." She heard complaining from within the tank, its crew obviously were disappointed that they couldn't fire the flamethrower. Finally, the girls climbed out of the tank and joined their comrades on the ground. Now the shock of the sight of the tank disappeared, as Mika turned to Eyre again.
"Why didn't you just take the drinks the other schools brought? I would have thought we'd be the last place you would ask."
Eyre began to scratch her head, thinking of an appropriate answer, as Simpson butted in. "All the schools brought actual alcoholic drinks with them, except a single bottle of saké that Chi-Ha-Tan brought." The mention of the bottle of saké made Gibson remember the bet, as she tapped Eyre on the shoulder.
"Hand over the bottle of saké, Eyre." Eyre looked to Gibson with confusion, as she remembered the bet she made with everyone. Now that they had found a new source of drinks, she happily handed over the bottle as Aki handed a bottle of what Eyre presumed was Kossu, as she placed the plate of food on the picnic blanket that Jatkosota had placed next to their tank. Handing bottles of the non-alcoholic Kossu to Victoria and the other girls on the tank, Eyre sat down, as Aki, Mikko and Mika dug into the food given to them. Eyre could see Victoria sitting on the turret of the Churchill drinking alongside Darling, while Tanami and Yarra clinked their glasses, before drinking. Gibson, Simpson and Murray sat down next to Eyre, as the four of them began to drink away, while the Jatkosota girls feasted on their food.
Author's notes
Sorry for the delay on this chapter, being delayed for one and a half day. If you want, leave a review and uhh... time to go back to writing.