Chapter 19:

"Report coming in from Erwin's STuG, Miho!" Saori spoke into her intercom. "Hippo and Luna have disabled one Tiger II, but they're trapped on the second floor of the parking garage under heavy shelling!"

Yukari cheered upon hearing of the loss of a Kuromorimine tank, and her commander smiled, but Miho knew what her friends were about to face. "The three remaining Tigers are going to tear that garage apart" she sighed. "I hope the reinforcements I asked for arrive soon."

She continued her vigil at the rectangular viewing slots within her Panzer's cupola, waiting patiently for the tanks of Rabbit, Duck and Mallard teams to arrive at their ordered destination point and feeling deeply puzzled by her sister's seeming unwillingness to close and engage her lone tank in battle. "I wonder why Maho is holding back?"

. . . . .

The parking garage had quickly become a living nightmare for the two teams trapped inside, as large-caliber shells from Erika's Tigers repeatedly pounded the concrete structure with volley after volley of large-caliber munitions.

"It's getting really loud in here!" Makoto exclaimed as yet another shell disintegrated a section of the structure's crumbling wall, filling the partially-enclosed space around the stopped Ooarai tanks with thick choking clouds of dust and lethal fragments of flying concrete. She felt her Panzer shake beneath her feet from the unending barrage. "Minna, if this keeps up much longer, the floor we're sitting on could collapse! We might have to make a run for it and take our chances outside!"

"At least your plan seems to be working, Mako-chan!" Rei yelled back above the din. "Maybe a little too well! All three Tigers have to be shooting at us now!"

"That Tiger we hit wasn't the tank you wanted us to knock out first, Mako-chan" Ami turned in her seat and told her commander. "It had a short radio antenna. Erika's and Maho's Tigers have longer ones."

"Damn! That means Erika is still out there causing trouble!" the tall brunette muttered. "That's it!" she growled. "We're knocking out her Tiger today if it's the last thing we do!"

The teens then heard two more shots fired, sharp cracks that sounded somewhat more distant than those of the nearby Tigers' heavy 8.8cm KwK guns. A moment later a new sound reached their ears, a loud metallic bang as the engine of one of the Tiger II's exploded.

"Minna, the cavalry has finally arrived!" Makoto said as the shelling of the parking garage abruptly ceased. "And not a moment too soon!"

"I think Momo and Hoshino have their first kill of the match, Mako-chan" Ami agreed. "Now it's Kuromorimine's two tanks against Ooarai's four!"

"I like those odds" her commander grinned back. "Minako-chan, it's time we reengage. Take us down the ramp!"

"Hai hai! Here we go!" Minako released the clutch and began steering her tank around piles of rubble that littered the garage floor.

But as their Panzer rumbled towards the exit, two more shots from the remaining Tigers and sharp clangs of rounds striking armor soon brought unwelcome news on the radio. "Turtle team is out, Mako-chan!" Usagi groaned. They got hit twice before they could drive clear!"

"Keep going, Minako-chan! We're finishing this skirmish here and now!" Makoto ordered.

"Hai!"

Luna's Panzer IV and Hippo's STuG trundled down the crumbling debris-filled ramp as fast as they dared, with both teenage gunner's index fingers resting on their triggers.

More shots rang out as the Tiger P and one of the Tigers traded volleys, both rounds striking their targets' thick front armor.

Reaching the bottom of the ramp, Riko sat hunched behind her periscope's twin eyepieces. "Tiger dead ahead, Saemonza!"

"Firing on it!"

This time, three shells flashed across the intersection. The third Tiger's heavy round impacted the beleaugered Tiger P at the collar of its turret, disabling the tank moments after Hoshino pulled her trigger.

But the troublesome prototype machine would not be denied its due, when its shell and that of Riko's STuG finished the Tiger off with simultaneous strikes on both the front and rear of its armor plating.

"Good kill, Saemonza!" Riko praised her gunner, but as Caesar scrambled to reload, the fourth and last operational Tiger, bearing a tell-tale long antenna, opened up on it from close range. The STuG abruptly stopped dead on the ramp, its white flag pushing upward through the rubble that littered the machine's top deck to end the History Girls' day.

"It's just us and Erika now!" Minako blurted. "Ami-chan, turn your gun to the left!" The blonde floored her tank's accelerator, sending the Panzer rocketing past the disabled Hippo team and thundering out of the parking garage. "You may have the bigger gun, but you aren't going to outdrive me! No chance! Nobody out-drives Aino Minako!"

Minako kept the pedal hard down, pulling back on her left control stick to swing her Panzer in an tight arc around Erika's Tiger. "I'm going to drive around you until you're dizzy and dead!" she vowed. "It's get-even time!"

. . . . .

"Shoot that Panzer!" Erika screamed at her gunner, stunned from the loss of the three other supposedly far-superior Kuromorimine tanks in her charge. "Kill it now!"

"I can't track it, Erika!" the girl operating their gun wailed. "They're circling us faster than our turret can keep up!"

. . . . .

Minako glanced through her side viewport as she drove, adjusting her Panzer's speed to keep out of the line of fire of the long barrel of the Tiger's frantically-pivoting weapon.

Ami had quickly realized what her driver intended and soon had her short-barreled gun pointing at ninety degrees to her tank's hull, launching her first round into the massive Kuromorimine tank's exposed flank from scarcely ten meters away.

"Reloaded!" Rei yelled a few seconds later.

Ami promptly fired again, striking her target's turret this time, but the Tiger stubbornly refused to die.

"Keep it up!" Makoto encouraged her gunner. "Hit 'em where it hurts, Ami-chan!"

. . . . .

Erika felt a sinking sensation deep in the pit of her stomach. "If we can't shoot them, we need to break out of this ridiculous trap! Floor it!"

Her driver obediently did so, but it was too little too late. The Panzer IV with the gold crescent moon emblazoned on its turret curved around until it passed directly behind the fleeing Tiger.

"This one's for Yukari" Ami softly spoke from behind her gunsight as she squeezed the trigger one final time. The blue-haired girl's third expertly-aimed shot did the trick, penetrating the Kuromorimine tank's fast-revving engine and setting it ablaze.

"There's the flag!" Makoto confirmed, a wide grin spreading across the ponytailed girl's pretty face. "Minako-chan, you can stop circling now. Erika is officially out of the match! We did it!"

The crew of Luna team's Panzer erupted in wild cheering, while unknown to them, in an old house not far from Nerima the cheers filling the living room were even louder and more enthusiastic.

"I knew my Mako and our girls would make it!" Yuji proudly exclaimed, leaping from the sofa amid a cloud of popcorn. "Ooarai wins that engagement!"

"I honestly wasn't convinced they'd manage to survive this long" Haruka admitted to the boy with a wry chuckle. "But with Minako's driving and Ami's gunnery, that last Tiger didn't stand a chance!"

. . . . .

Back at the intersection, Minako reluctantly eased the gas pedal up and ended her turn, allowing her Panzer to slow down. "I'm so hot for lots more pedal-to-the-floor driving, Mako-chan! Where do we go next?"

"Don't get too hot, Momma Minako" Rei teased the girl. "You won't be seeing your Taro for a while yet."

The blonde driver giggled, "But when I do... all I can say is that when we go home, I hope my sugar muffin is well-rested and ready for plenty of girl and boy love-love action! Because that's exactly what I'm going to give him!"

Makoto chuckled, shaking her head at Minako's seemingly endless supply of libido. "Usagi-chan, radio Miho with the news" Luna's commander spoke, still grinning happily. "Ask her where we're needed."

"Hai. Making the call, Mako-chan" Usagi replied. She laughed as she changed frequencies, "I hope I get the chance to fire my machine gun again! That was fun!"

"This engagement cost us three good tanks, but now the score is even" the miko sitting behind her smiled. "Ooarai still has a chance to win today's match."

"And win it we will!" her brunette commander nodded confidently. "Erika's done for, and next it's Maho's turn!"

Makoto opened her hatch and stood with her upper body above the cupola, surveying the carnage of disabled machines scattered haphazardly around the intersection. "What a mess!" She spotted Leopon's Tiger P and watched Satoko stand on its rear hull, spraying the contents of still another extinguisher into her crippled machine's smouldering engine compartment.

'That thing's got a really strong gun, but it's on fire more often than the fireplace at my house is in wintertime' she thought.

Satoko smiled and waved at Makoto as Luna team's Panzer drew near, then gestured with her empty extinguisher at Erika's Tiger, its engine engulfed in flames and its crew bailing out in panic from the tank's open hatches.

The Leopon commander laughed, "Pffft! Amateurs!"

. . . . .