I'd like to thank LoFiFozzy, Shooter989 and TheExecutor25 for favoriting and for everyone else who has followed my story so far! Let's get back to the action!

Somewhere in the skies over Oahu,

Darjeeling awoke with a start as the Viscount hit a patch of turbulence. The windows outside were just a white wash of fluffy-looking clouds. Looking around, she saw that it appeared she was the only one awake. Assam had fallen asleep with her laptop still open on her lap, a lick of drool at the edge of her mouth. Pekoe had slumped over onto the empty seat next to her, curled up in a pose that vaguely reminded Darjeeling of a cat. Once her eyes acclimated to the light, she took stock of the situation. The sun was up, the temperature inside was pleasant, and the soothing vibrations of the turboprop engines relaxed her nerves somewhat.

She felt the nose of the plane dip as the flight crew made an announcement.

"Ladies please prepare for landing. We're 20 minutes from arrival at Honolulu International Airport, at this time put your seat backs and tray tables in their upright and locked positions."

Darjeeling undid her seat-belt and went around gently waking up everyone she could on the plane, Assam stirring from her slumber and helping wake Rosehip and Pekoe as well. Just as everyone was finally ready for landing, the plane gently banked left and punched through the last barrier of clouds. She couldn't help but gasp at what she saw below.

Three thousand feet below the Viscount, the island of Oahu rose up from the glimmering blue Pacific Ocean, spread below them like a postcard. On one side, the city of Honolulu and the famous white sands of Waikiki, the other side Pearl Harbor and spectacular wild mountains. The engines kicked up an octave now, their whine becoming mildly uncomfortable as the flaps sprang into action. Darjeeling felt the deceleration in her stomach as the pressure built in her ears as they descended towards land.

"Here we go, girls!" Assam called out as the plane dipped gently towards pavement and the wheels kissed the ground. The engines roared and the speed brakes deployed and before Darjeeling could even process it, they were stopped on American soil. Popping her ears, she glanced out the window and did a double-take. Crowds of people hugged the airport perimeter fence. People with signs, posters, some in full tankery-style uniforms. A sizable number of them were children she guessed were under the age of 12. And they were all cheering, hollering, celebrating.

"They haven't even seen us yet, and they're already celebrating!" Rosehip yelped.

Assam sighed as the plane began taxiing towards a parking spot on the apron.. "They are Americans. They will toot their horns at anything."

The Vickers Viscount stopped with a bump and they heard the engines powering down. Dutifully, Darjeeling stood up and made her way to the front of the aisle just behind the cockpit door, the pamphlets from Earl Gray in her arms.

"As you can see, we're in Hawaii." Rosehip groaned at Darjeeling's attempt at dry British humor as Pekoe and Assam dutifully went around distributing the immigration literature to everyone.

"Us four have a meeting with the Kuromorimine delegation in ninety minutes at the hotel downtown, so we'll leave first. We'll arrange transportation for-" She was cut off by Ami Chono's head popping into the now-open door of the plane.

"Hello everyone from St Gloriana! Welcome to the United States of America!" Receiving a planeful of dumbfounded gazes, Chono continued.

"I'd like to introduce Colonel Jacobs of the U.S Army to you all. He's the one who made all of this possible in the first place. Jacobs, get in here!" She tugged on an invisible sleeve.

On a scale of one to uber-Texan, Jacobs was definitely uber-Texan. He barely fit inside the cramped fuselage of the plane, his huge frame taking up most of the space and forcing Ami to contort herself into a corner. A cowboy hat adorned his head and cowboy boots decorated his feet. Darjeeling smiled. Those definitely can't be regulation.

"Hey girls. On behalf of the US Armed Forces, welcome. I-uh, understand that you're in need of transportation to the hotel." He jabbed a thumb to his right.

"Hickam Field air force base across the way over there has a couple of buses they use to transport personnel into the city. I'm sure they'd be happy to lend them for you to get into town, just make sure you have the address right before they leave."

Rosehip blurted out suddenly, "How did you meet Miss Chono?" Assam clapped a hand over Rosehip's mouth and apologized profusely on behalf of her kouhai.

Jacobs roared with laughter, slapping one of his knees. "Oh, little lady, it's quite simple really. When I was stationed in Japan a few years ago, I got to meet Miss Chono at a gala event the armed forces were throwing. She's really something, and her skills in that Type-10 are serious. I'd be confident pitting her against some of our best Abrams commanders, and that's saying a lot. What about it, Chono? Loser buys the winner beer?" He jabbed Chono in the ribs with a beefy elbow, eliciting a heavy blush from Ami.

"S-s-shut up! I'm not that good…" She barely whispered out, her cheeks flushed. Rosehip giggled.

Jacobs clapped his hands together. "Right. I'll head over to the base and get the buses over here as soon as I can. The sooner we get you into the city, the better." With that, he and Chono exited the plane and got into a waiting army jeep, which sped off across the tarmac.

Darjeeling turned back to the sensha-do team, brushing that awkward interaction to the side. "Okay, let's get inside and clear customs and immigration, then meet back at the plane to head into Honolulu. Leave your bags here for now, just bring your papers. Chop, chop!"

The Hawaiian sun blazed down on the St Gloriana girls as they trudged across the acres of asphalt towards the terminal, waves of heat lazily wafting up from the pavement. The moment they'd disembarked the plane and been in view, the fans clinging to the perimeter fences roared and cheered, throwing their hands up in the air and waving their signs. The energetic Rosehip waved back and threw beaming smiles at the adolescents closest to the fence, and would have rushed over to it had Assam's hands not closed like steel jaws over her shirt collar, dragging her back in line. In the sunlight, her pink hair shone like fire, cameras flashed and boys hollered.

Darjeeling's soul felt like a block of ice, heavy in her chest as the cameras rolled and flashed. Some Austro-Hungarian prince had once said that cameras stole pieces of the soul every time they took a picture; and maybe they were right. A modern movie camera, recording at sixty frames per second, would chip away at the soul like a machine gun. And now, here she was, on American soil, about to take part in a historic Sensha-Do competition where the audience was at least three times the size of any previous Japanese Sensha-Do tournament. Her body was on autopilot, but her brain was running a billion miles an hour.

And then they were inside the terminal, the cool air from the A/C wafting over Darjeeling's hot skin and refreshing her mind. The place was practically deserted, security having cleared the building to expedite the immigration process for the Sensha-Do teams. Darjeeling stepped up to the customs desk, forcing a smile onto her face and handing the gruff officer her documents.

Immigration into the United States wasn't nearly as hard as she thought it would be. Sure, there were questions, but it wasn't even close to being anything like the Hollywood blockbusters told her it would be. She wasn't asked to divulge her entire family lineage, nor was she thrown into a holding cell for not knowing the answer to "have you been exposed to any infectious diseases in the past 90 days?" Despite this, when she was waved through and her passport stamped, she couldn't help but feel relieved that she'd made it through without being detained.

The closest thing to a problem came when Rosehip was caught with a bottle of juice from the Ark Royal on her person by the customs agent, and was forced to either drink it all at the desk or dump it out. Naturally, she'd drunk the whole bottle in one fell swoop and after finally being cleared, had sprinted for the nearest restroom.

After another walk across the scorching hot pavement, they were back at the plane, offloading their bags onto one of the US Army troop buses that was idling patiently next to the fuselage.

"Assam, have you heard anything from Kuromorimine? They should be arriving here today, shouldn't they?" Darjeeling asked, passing a bag to Assam.

"They should, the meeting at the hotel is today, after all….I wouldn't have expected Maho-san to cut it this fine though. It's in less than three hours…" Assam's voice was slowly drowned out by the sound of an approaching jet….but not a modern jet. The noise was much higher pitched and extremely loud, and then they saw its source. A Baade 152, prototype East German jet airliner designed in the late 50s, the first jet airliner to be developed in Germany. With its high wings and two turbojet engines in pods, it looked distinctly Russian but it was technically German, and with the standard Kuromorimine German Gray paint and the Iron Cross roundels adorning its fuselage it was now well and truly German. The Baade flew low over Pearl Harbor, its jet engines whining loudly before lining up to land on Honolulu's Reef Runway.

"Leave it up to Maho-san to make an entrance." Darjeeling tutted, as the Baade rolled along the tarmac before coming to a stop next to the Gloriana Vickers. This close, the noise from the engines was truly deafening, as everyone not wearing ear protection ran into the bus until the jets were shut down, much to the relief of the St. Gloriana Sensha-Do team. Darjeeling and Assam got off the bus again and stood next to one another as the door to the Kuromorimine plane hissed open, a set of integrated stairs unfolding down to the ground like reverse origami.

Maho and Erika squinted in the bright Hawaiian sun as they descended the steps. Their eyes adjusted, they greeted Darjeeling and the others cordially before tending to their own team. Exchanging information about lodging and accommodations as well as possible inter-school mingling in the free time before the match.

"Maho, what hotel did KMM put you in?" Darjeeling asked, her eyes skimming over the hotel reservations.

"The Sheraton Waikiki. Yours?" Maho asked, her steely gray eyes darting up to meet Darjeeling's.

"The Marriott Waikiki, I think that's on the other end of Waikiki Beach from the Sheraton. We can have students on the Sensha-Do teams who want to hang out from each school meet on the beach if they want to go anywhere." Darjeeling said, thumbing through the hotel brochure included in her packet of papers.

"The Graf Zeppelin is due to arrive in port before dinner time Hawaiian time. Mother-I mean headmaster isn't allowing any KMM student to stay on the islands overnight, but they can leave the ship during the day with a 11pm curfew for everyone who isn't on the Sensha-Do team." Maho responded, watching detachedly at her group of girls descending the stairs and loading their bags onto the other bus.

"Ah. Well then, we best get going. I'll see you at the Hawai'i Convention Center for the meeting?"

"Yes. Yes you shall." With that, Maho turned on her heels and went to collect her stuff. Darjeeling also turned and boarded the bus, as the last person on board she did a quick head count before the door hissed shut, she took her seat, and then the bus was moving. Upon seeing the bus start to move, the wave of Sensha-Do enthusiasts outside the fence roared and cheered, and moving like a human wave, they followed the bus as fast they could until it had long outran them.

The bus turned out of the airport and merged onto Hawaii Interstate 1 East, and the more keen-eyed motorists noticed the Gloriana team through the tinted windows and took pictures or drove alongside the bus honking their horns and waving. Darjeeling had never seen such a spectacle before, she thought as the bus took the off-ramp for Waikiki.

Rosehip was absorbing everything as fast as her mind could; and considering her reputation for being the resident speed demon, that was really rather fast. Soon enough, the bus was stopping in front of the Marriott Waikiki, a tall and imposing structure perched above the pristine white sands of Waikiki Beach, high above the shimmering blue water. She practically flew off the bus the second the door opened, grabbing her bag and bolting off into the lobby. Unlike at the airport, most of the beachgoers were there not for the Sensha-Do tournament, but rather for the sands and beautiful views of the Pacific Ocean and Diamondhead.

Despite this, on almost every light post and pole, there were huge posters advertising the upcoming match between Kuromorimine and St Gloriana. And a few cameras caught glimpse of Rosehip and the rest of the St Gloriana girls disembarking, flashes ringing out in the daylight. Darjeeling took charge of the situation and led the group into the hotel lobby, stopping in front of the clerk at the desk.

"Hi there; I'm Darjeeling, and we're from the St Gloriana Girls Academy in Japan. We" (she gestured to the rest of the girls) "Are the Sensha-Do team from the school, and administration has arranged accommodations for us in this hotel." She slid the packet of documents across the desk.

The clerk picked up the documents and shuffled through the papers. She typed away on her keyboard for a few seconds, clicked her mouse a couple times, and clapped her hands together.

"Alright, everything's in order here. Please follow me, your rooms are on the 12th floor." She walked out from behind the desk with a stack of keycards in hand and strolled over to the elevator, the rest of the girls following her. Rosehip tapped her feet on the floor impatiently as the digital numbers slowly ticked down to the lobby. The elevator dinged and the door glided open on well-oiled tracks, and as everyone got in, the clerk handed each girl a keycard.

"The keycards are programmed to open all of the rooms reserved for the Tankery team. Just let each other know that you're coming in before you barge inside, okay? Rooms 1205-1215. Take care!" The elevator doors hissed closed.

The girls emerged on the 12th floor of the hotel, startling some guests before finding the rooms allotted to them.

"Okay girls. Sort yourselves by tank crew. Crews sleep together, except for Rosehip, you're with us. Okay, get a bit of rest, unpack and meet downstairs in 30 minutes for the pre-match briefing. The match itself is in three days. Dismissed!" With that, everyone split off and sorted themselves to their own rooms.

Darjeeling immediately chose room #1214, inserting her keycard into the lock, which chimed pleasantly before clicking open.

"Darjeeling-sama, did you choose 1214 because it matches the chassis code of the FV Conqueror? FV 1214?" Assam asked, staring around Darjeeling as best she could into the room.

Darjeeling smiled softly. "You're as sharp as ever, Assam. Now, get inside. We don't have much time to unpack." She walked inside, where a soothing palate of light blues greeted her eyes. Two queen-size beds as well as a pull-out sofa bed, a large bathroom, other assorted tables and dressers, and a balcony with striking views of the Pacific Ocean as well as the Diamondhead volcanic formation.

She slung her bag onto the floor near one of the beds and began to disarrange her rolled uniforms and other clothing items from their neat positions in her bag. Assam opened her suitcase and began to remove her neatly arranged clothes from their cordoned sections. Pekoe opened her suitcase and unpacked her pre-selected outfit packages. Rosehip opened her very bloated-looking bag and dumped a pile of wrinkled clothes out onto the floor, before throwing the bag closed and running out to the balcony, watching the ant-like shapes of tourists climbing the volcanic crags of Diamondhead. Assam sighed; Rosehip still had much to learn.

Eventually, they all finished unpacking and stood together on the balcony as a group, taking in the sights of Honolulu spread below them as they inhaled deep lungfuls of that salty air.

"Well, girls. We made it." Darjeeling started, wishing she had a cup of tea to calm her nerves.

"Yeah. We did! When can we hit Waikiki beach?" Rosehip asked, practically vibrating.

"...after the briefing, I guess….." Assam started, prompting a whoop from Rosehip who screeched her way out of the hotel room and bolting down the corridor towards the elevators.

Darjeeling chuckled. "Right, it was close enough to 30 minutes anyway; let's go girls." Assam was the last to leave the room, after making sure that the myriad of security cameras that she'd packed were operating and recording normally. Down they went to the lobby and out of the hotel, back into the still-waiting bus where Pekoe did another head count before the door closed with a hiss and then they were off to the Hawai'i Conference Center in the heart of downtown Honolulu. As the sleek gray bus wafted by, eyes followed and the sound of cheering fans penetrated the double-glazed windows.

The other bus was already waiting in front of the conference center, dark, cold and empty, a stark contrast to the swollen crowds of fans out front barely being restrained by lines of policemen. Maho and her girls must already be inside. "Come on girls, let's not keep KMM waiting!" Everyone filed inside in an orderly fashion and followed the signs for the Sensha-Do meeting, before ending up in a refreshingly cool conference room where Ami Chono and Colonel Jacobs were already chatting aimlessly to each other, half the seats filled with the KMM Sensha-Do team. Upon seeing Darjeeling and the others, their faces lit up.

"Ah! Welcome, Darjeeling!" Ami chirped. Darjeeling bowed respectfully before taking a seat, her girls following suit in a prim and orderly fashion. Well, except…..Rosehip tripped over a table leg and went sprawling to the floor in a pile of flailing limbs and surprised yelps, but the damn girl sprung up again like a mailbox flag and stood at attention regardless of the nasty spill she'd just taken. The KMM girls were not amused by this spectacle.

Jacobs snickered slightly before clearing his throat as Rosehip slowly took her seat. "Right. Here's the battlefield for the first match." A satellite photo was beamed up onto the screen.

"The Sensha-Do organizers have dubbed the area Resolute Peninsula, but in reality it's made up of three smaller areas or points, marked as Intrepid Point, Keka'a Point, and Waipio' Point." Yellow borders appeared on the picture, dividing the area into three sectors. Assam scribbled down notes as smaller copies of the battlefield maps began to be passed out to each participant by JSDF employees.

"One team will start on Intrepid Point, the other on Waipio' Point, with a choke point in the Keka'a region." He gestured to the designated areas with a laser pointer. "The only north-south road in the entire battlefield runs through that region. Whoever has control of that road has a massive strategic advantage in moving armor through the battlefield, if you hadn't figured that out already."

The satellite picture zoomed in. "On Waipio' Point there used to be a cadet training center for the armed forces, including a lot of hard cover that can be used as defensive positions or to force a stalemate in the region." The picture zoomed in to focus on an array of rusty shipping containers, a group of artificial sand dunes, and a whole town set up to train cadets in urban combat.

"On Intrepid point there's more jungle and trees to be used as cover; a good spot to set an ambush or to sneakily make slower progress if you don't want to use the road. There's also a few water hazards that could be useful in trapping tanks if you decide to use them that way." The laser pointer in the colonel's hand darted back and forth across the screen.

Ami piped up. "Any questions?" No hands went up. "Right. Dismissed! The captains of the Ark Royal and Graf Zeppelin have been contacted and state that they'll arrive in approximately six hours. Go and have some fun before the ships arrive!"