The Legends Still Live On
Bogen Achtzehn: Es ist Katjuschas Porträt!
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Aboard the Kiev on another day that was as normal as it can be when Russians are involved, practically all of Pravda's Arts of Warfare members were assembled together. The area of assembly was in front of the Pravda Panzerkraft hangars. Some of those present were talking amongst each other for the moment.
"So Comrade Katyusha had us all assemble so suddenly," Ivan remarked to Igor beside him. "You have any idea as to what she has planned?"
"Not a clue," Igor shrugged. "I dunno, maybe she forgot to say something during morning assembly?"
"Well, there's also the fact that she looks really prideful right now…" Ivan observed. He then chose to take a drink out of a vodka bottle he had with him.
"Yeah…" Igor nodded slowly in agreement. "That's starting to give me a bad feeling about this now…"
At the very front and facing the crowd were Pravda's main leaders: Katyusha, Nonna, Sasha, and Nudelmann. All of them, including the Pravda students gathered before them, were in the normal Pravda school outfits.
Katyusha had a look of pure confidence as she stood with a confident grin and with her arms crossed. She looked like she was very prideful about something. Nonna, Sasha, and Nudelmann were beside her on each side wearing relatively neutral looks, such that they could easily pass off as Katyusha's bodyguards. Also at the front, and where the Pravda foursome was standing at the moment, was something about as tall as Nonna covered by a white sheet.
"Everyone!" Katyusha began and drew all of the attention to her. "I have called you to gather here because I have an announcement to make!" She then turned to Nonna. "Nonna, if you would, please!"
Nonna nodded and whiffed off the white sheet from the object, revealing what it was. The object was a statue carved out of stone, with no base, that was modeled after someone vaguely resembling Katyusha. The head was almost a match, but the body was far more grown up and mature in appearance, on the scale of Nonna's body. Also notable was the Pravda uniform carved in great detail into the statue itself. This version of Katyusha was pointing off in a specific direction with a heroic stance.
"So as to properly commemorate our victory in the 62nd International High School Arts of Warfare Tournaments, we have made this stone statue of Katyusha!" Sasha informed on Katyusha's behalf as he gestured to the statue with a hand. "Now bow down before the brave figure of Pravda's heroine now carved into the pages of history books everywhere!"
Upon registering the sight of the Katyusha statue, Ivan performed a spit take with his vodka in shock of the sight.
Sasha and Katyusha heard the spit take, and both of them grew death glares at the crowd for their perceived reason as to why a spit take was done.
"Who was it?!" Sasha barked out in an interrogatory manner. "Who was the one who performed that spit take?!"
The two on either side of Ivan, Igor and Alina, immediately turned away their heads, pretending they did not see anything and implying that Ivan was to blame.
"Nyet, nyet, that was…!" Ivan denied while shaking his hands in denial. He was denying his spit take in a relatively desperate manner with how his face appeared. He thought quickly for something that would appease the leaders, and he soon got it as he lowered his hands a bit. "I-I was just so surprised by how splendid the figure appears… It looks magnificent!"
"Ah, you say that, you say that…" Sasha grew more accepting with a friendly boast, as if buying Ivan's hastily made excuse. Katyusha seemed to buy it too, as she returned to her previous state of simply looking prideful of her statue.
Sasha then sighed a bit as he closed his eyes and shook his head in dissatisfaction. "But the sculptor misunderstood the request at first and made Katyusha this tiny with their first sculpture," he explained as he gestured to another statue. This statue was completely scaled to the size of the real Katyusha, and thus represented what she was really like, but it was otherwise identical in stance to the bigger statue of her. "It sure took a lot of effort to get it revised."
"That one was just humiliating," Katyusha similarly said with a similarly dissatisfied tone.
"Do not worry. The sculptor shall be purged," Nudelmann vowed. He was holding the smaller Katyusha statue steady by the head.
"Nonna, could you please dispose of that one?" Katyusha requested as she made a shooing motion with one hand to the side.
"Da," Nonna responded. 'Da, moya devochka,' she fondly thought to herself with a grin of satisfaction.
Sasha and Nudelmann hastily looked to her upon hearing that she was taking the statue to dispose of it. 'Remember our plan with that one!' they both conveyed via facial expressions.
Nonna rolled her eyes briefly and returned a look that said, 'I know, I know. I'm taking it to a safe place.'
Both of the Russian boys grew more relieved and at ease looks upon seeing Nonna confirm the plan all three had made for the smaller statue prior. That moment was also when Nonna took the smaller statue and walked off to perform the 'disposal' of it.
Some other people were looking at the scene with odd looks of either confusion or disbelief. They couldn't discern what exactly was exchanged between the three, but they were in the right direction with their thoughts.
"What are they planning with that?" Alina muttered in wonder as she stared at the scene. She knew that the three normally around Katyusha were planning something, but what exactly it was remained lost on her.
'Dear God, I've never seen that kind of smile from Comrade Nonna before!' Nina thought to herself with a somewhat shocked look of disbelief in reference to Nonna's seemingly delighted grin.
"But continuing on!" Katyusha beckoned everyone's attention to her once more. She was now leaning against the larger of the statues with one hand on it. "This is a complete commemoration to that international victory! And as a special service to everyone, I'll let you all take pictures of it for free! Take as many as you like!"
While some of the Pravda folks immediately started to take some pictures of the statue with their phones, Ivan grew a more carefree look as a thought came to his mind. "With the pictures you take of it, I imagine you'll usually end up saying something like, 'Who's that?' every time you look through them," he commented in a thoughtless manner.
"Hey, shut it Ivan!" Igor whispered over to him with a bit of urgency upon hearing the relatively flippant comment from him.
Immediately, Katyusha and Sasha grew looks of simmering anger at Ivan for his comment, and Ivan appropriately reacted as he pulled out his phone in a hasty manner to try and avoid their wrath. "Akh, nyet, it's just that the one I just took had the face obscured because of just how bright the halo was shining…!" he explained in a panicked tone. He hastily took a photo of the tall Katyusha statue with his phone. "Well, thanks for the photo! I'll make this my permanent wallpaper!"
Again, Katyusha and Sasha seemed to buy Ivan's excuse as they relaxed once more. "Ah, that's great, comrade!" Sasha praised Ivan for making the photo his eternal wallpaper. "Now that being said, you're all free to take a look at it from up close!"
Katyusha made a beckoning motion and gestured to the statue as well. "Come on and take a good look at this grand figure!" she encouraged. During this time, Nonna had also come back from 'disposing' of the smaller Katyusha statue. She was now amongst the rest of the crowd.
The rest of the Pravda crowd chose to do as Katyusha suggested and take a closer look at the Katyusha statue. The closest to it was Ivan, who was currently inspecting it very closely.
"Vau, it sure is made with quality…" Ivan observed. He then took notice that the statue had the details of Pravda's clothes implemented into it. "Even the really small details are well done…"
He chose to touch the statue's skirt to feel its texture. He grew a childish smile both at being able to do such a thing along with confirming how detailed the statue was.
But he did not take notice that because of his touch, the statue started to stagger a bit as it came to be unbalanced. The statue started to tip over and fall down to the ground, and only during that time did Ivan notice what was happening as he grew a look of dread.
The statue crashed to the ground and shattered into numerous pieces, large and small. Immediately, those Pravda folks closest to him turned away, silently denying their involvement. Ivan kneeled down, now with an extremely nervous and dread-filled face, as he tried to hastily put the statue back together. But he soon took in a quick breath of fear when he felt the presence of someone else behind him.
That someone else was Nudelmann, who had come over so he now stood behind him and towered over him. Nonna stood to Ivan's left doing the same thing. Katyusha stood to his left. Sasha stood to the front of him. All four were wearing intense glares at him for breaking the statue. Both Sasha and Katyusha had veins popping from their foreheads as well.
Ivan was, understandably, terrified in his current scenario as he shook in fear. "Um…" he began with a similar tone of fear. "No, that was just… uh…"
"Comrade Ivan," Nudelmann began in his usual calm tone, but such a tone only served to instill more fear in Ivan. "I had thought you were a suspicious person for a long time now…"
"So you finally choose to plaster Katyusha's pride with mud!" Sasha growled out in what was clearly restrained anger. He had a look similar to that of a wolf hunting its prey as he bore his teeth and clenched his fists.
"I-I-I-It's all over now…" Ivan groaned out, now fully in belief of what his fate was as he stared into the predatory look on Sasha's face. "This is the end of Ivan…"
"Comrade Katyusha!" one of the other Pravda folks began as they came to a stop nearby. They had previously been running into the area.
Everyone surrounding Ivan momentarily turned away to divert their attention to the one who had spoken.
"There are visitors from Schwarzwaldspitze and Saunders!" the Pravda informant notified. "They're coming in one after another!"
Katyusha and Sasha both grew alarmed looks upon hearing that information. Nudelmann and Nonna both remained calm as they both stood beside Ivan, who now was more surprised about the intervention itself than by what it was about, considering that said intervention effectively spared his life for the moment.
The distinctive whooshing sounds of prop wash and of turboprop engines soon became prevalent, and the Pravda folks turned their attention to them. Approaching from opposite the hangars in the air were two transport aircraft. One was a Lockheed C-130J that had Saunders' markings on it in the typical American pattern of markings on the upper left wing surface, lower right wing surface, and on the fuselage sides. The other was an Airbus A400M that had Schwarzwaldspitze's Iron Cross markings on all wing surfaces and both sides of the rear fuselage.
Both were on the landing approach as they prepared to land directly in front of the Pravda Panzerkraft hangars. The hangars had a small field that extended ahead of it a decent distance. Although the field's length was short enough that it would normally prohibit any modern large multi-engine aircraft from landing there, that wasn't the case for these two transports.
Schwarzwaldspitze's A400M came in first with gear and flaps lowered. It touched down at a relatively slow and docile speed, and it steered off to the side as it came to a stop very close to the left-most sections of the Pravda crowd. Saunders' C-130J followed immediately as it descended at a slow speed with flaps and gear lowered, and it touched down several seconds later. It then steered and stopped beside the German transport, and both began to shut down their turboprops.
After the whooshing from the turboprops finally died away some time later, both of the transports opened their rear cargo ramps as well as their fuselage doors, and out from both planes came some particular people. For the Americans came Kay, Alisa, Naomi, Chuck, Ray, and Christian. For the Germans came Maho, Erika, the Panzer III Commander, the Panther Commander, the Jagdpanther Commander, the Maus Commander, Koume, Alfred, Hans, the Bf 109 Pilot, the Fw 190 Pilot, the Ta 152 Pilot, and the Ho 229 Pilot.
All of the new arrivals wore their respective schools' usual school uniform. They also all appeared to have their usual attitudes in place as they met up behind the center sections of the Pravda crowd. The Americans were their usual carefree selves while the Germans were in their more natural states of greater discipline.
"Ah, hey Alfred!" Kay called out to Alfred in a friendly way. "Long time no see! So, you all got called out by the Russians, too?"
"Our ships just so happened to be sailing relatively close to each other," Alfred coolly responded in a professional way.
'Why are you so friendly to her?!' Erika angrily thought to herself nearby. She had grown a look of huge jealousy at seeing the interaction between Kay and Alfred, though exactly why she was so jealous remained unknown.
"Yeah, it seems like they called out to all of the ships that were close by," Ray observed on a tablet he held. "What a bothersome disruption."
"Because of that, we ended up having to end practice early," Christian noted. He then shrugged in a dismissive manner with a slight grin. "But I'm not complainin' about that."
"So I wonder what they wanted to show us?" Koume wondered amidst the German-American group with a polite smile. Most of the others there, mainly the Germans but also some of the Americans, were looking around the area and keeping wary of their surroundings. Neither side really trusted Pravda so much for historical reasons, which was why they preferred to remain wary when around them.
"Guh, I completely forgot!" Sasha realized. "Agh, we called you because we really wanted to show you all Katyusha's glory, but…" He scratched his head furiously as he tried to think. He then looked behind him to try and get an idea.
"Hurry and put that back together!" Katyusha barked behind her with a huge sense of urgency. Behind her was where the destroyed statue was. Currently kneeling around it and trying to find a way to reconstruct it were Nina, Alina, Ivan, and Igor. Watching over them were Nudelmann and Nonna.
"That's just ridiculous, though…" Sasha noted with his more mechanically apt state of mind as he looked on at the attempted reconstruction, which was going horribly.
"Sasha!" Katyusha turned to address him. She was looking like she was desperate for a way to rebuild the statue. "Please tell me that this can be fixed!"
"Well…" Sasha tried to think up a way to break the news to her in a way she would both understand and be able to accept. "Sorry to say it, but in that," he gestured with a hand to the statue, "state, there's no way that it'll get rebuilt quickly, if at all."
Katyusha turned back to the statue's remains as her mind raced for any possible ideas. She soon got one as she picked up the head. "Well maybe with just the head, I can present it as avant-garde art…" she figured as she held the head of the statue above her own. It was clearly too heavy for her to lift comfortably, as her arms were shaking from holding it.
"That's just too avant-garde, right there," Nudelmann noted as he observed the scene.
Also watching the scene with quite a bit of remorse showing on his face was Ivan. 'What have I done…' he thought in shame. 'Because of my actions, Comrade Katyusha is going to lose face… All because I carelessly destroyed her stone statue…'
He soon raised his eyebrows with a slight start upon remembering it was a stone statue. 'Wait, stone statue… Wait just a minute!' he thought as he grew an enlightened look.
"But there is one that can still be used!" Ivan suddenly exclaimed. His exclamation drew the attention of all four of Pravda's leaders as they all looked to him. "We can still do this properly! We can just use that one statue that comrade Nonna had taken before! The first one that was tiny!"
Nonna quickly comprehended Ivan's words as she raised her own eyes in enlightenment. "Actually, now that you mention it…" she began.
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A few moments later, the original small statue of Katyusha was brought out to the area by Nonna and put on display for all of the guests to see.
"So!" Sasha began. He was purposely trying to look as cheerful as possible, even though he very much thought that this idea would end in disaster. Katyusha thought similar things beside him, though it was more obvious with her greater honesty in projecting her emotions. "What do you all think about Katyusha's gallant figure? Tell us your impressions to becoming witnesses of history!"
"Woo!" some people called out as a huge applause of clapping came forth. Everyone from both Saunders and Schwarzwaldspitze were clapping in approval. The boisterous Americans were more animated in their applause than the more stern and reserved Germans were.
"Aaa, applause?!" Katyusha wondered in pure disbelief that they were cheering for the small statue of her.
"Well, since it's about you, Katyusha…" Chuck began as he stood amongst the Americans. "I just thought you'd make yourself look much taller than usual."
"I thought you'd make it more adult-like," Alisa opined.
"All in all, I figured you'd give it a 'Who's that?' kind of feeling to it," Naomi interjected as she stretched her arms behind her head.
"So this is unexpectedly frank in my eyes," Hans also interjected with his own views.
"U-Uh-Nyet! There's no way I'd do anything like that!" Katyusha hastily denied with a bit of embarrassment at being so easy to figure out. "What are you saying… really now…"
"But regardless," Maho spoke up. "It's true that the glory of being the 62nd's champions belongs to you. Congratulations." She ended with a polite clap. All of the Germans there followed with a polite clap, and some even offered some congratulatory smiles as well.
"R-Really?" Katyusha asked in disbelief still. "… Well, thanks…"
Sasha, however, was looking more dissatisfied with the congratulatory applause as he glared at Alfred. 'Cherniy chort, you know full well that we didn't earn that victory!' he tried to convey to him via his facial expression.
Alfred could see his look as clear as ice, and he returned it with a look that said, 'Now's not the time to debate that incident, Techniker.'
Sasha huffed in dissatisfaction with Alfred's response. He wasn't pleased with it judging by his still dissatisfied look.
Meanwhile, Ivan was watching the entire scene play out between Sasha, Katyusha, and the Germans and Americans, and beside him was Nudelmann. Nudelmann took the time to glance over to him. "Let's just call this a lucky break," he began.
Ivan looked to him upon hearing him speak up, and he diverted his attention to Nudelmann's words.
Nudelmann continued with a slight grin, "I just had this great feeling that we could close the gap between all of them by showing them the first, most honest version of the statue without any of those strange decorations or details."
"Ah…" Ivan acknowledged as he slowly nodded and raised his eyebrows.
"And this was all because of you, Comrade Ivan," Nudelmann continued on. "Spasibo."
Ivan grew a surprised yet delightful smile as he brought his hands up. "Oh no no, it's nothing like that!" he humbly denied while waving his hands around in a gesture saying no as he stumbled backwards from his surprise. "You're being too kind…"
He did not notice that as he stumbled back that he had also ran into the smaller Katyusha statue. He did not notice the impact because of the smaller size of the statue and hence lighter weight.
The smaller Katyusha statue toppled over like the larger one earlier, and as the larger statue did, it shattered as it crashed to the ground. Ivan immediately turned his attention to it as he grew yet another extremely nervous look mixed with dread. From behind him, he could also feel the intense glares from four people, and he just knew already that they were Katyusha, Sasha, Nonna, and Nudelmann.
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Ivan has found himself in a situation that can't be talked out of.
Part of Projekt Jägermeistern.
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The author doesn't claim to own "Girls und Panzer," the music used, or any other references made. "Girls und Panzer" belongs to Actas. Any references made belong to their respective owners.
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