The Legends Still Live On

Bogen Zwanzig: Nach der Wartung, es muss ein Bad sein!

Kapitel Ein: Schlagzeilen

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Another day, another dollar. That's how the saying goes, though it's somewhat modified for the Aeronautics Club of Ooarai High School. It's not quite on the level of 'der Rubel muss rollen,' though one could argue that was indeed the case judging by physical appearances alone. To the Aeronautics Club, the saying could be best summed up as 'we'll do it since we're the only ones that can, even though we don't get paid jack for it, because we're just that selfless.'

Both Pfirsich and Zitrus knew such things when they strolled into the hangars that morning to see how the Aeronautics folks fared in their overnighter spent fixing up all their fighters. Both wore their usual school uniforms as they gazed at each of the fighters belonging to the school. Pfirsich's eyes shined in satisfaction, while Zitrus had a grin to express his own satisfaction. Finally, both turned to the ones responsible for such perfect work, and it was perfect, if the two student council members had to be honest. The two were even given forms for each of the fighters that summed up their inspections, and all passed with flying colors, no pun intended.

"Well, this was very sudden of us to ask you this favor, but you all performed admirably," Pfirsich stated with just a hint of satisfaction in his voice. He doesn't often show gratitude, but when he does, it's obviously genuine. "You all have our deepest thanks."

Zitrus nodded with a grateful smile on his face. "You all must have had a rough night," he commented when taking in the appearance of the Aeronautics club. "But you still put up some of your best work, and for that we thank you."

"Hey, no worries," Yeager replied with a mock-salute, though the way it was done betrayed his exhaustion. "I will admit, though, we needed quite a lot of caffeine to make it through the night."

All four of the Aeronautics folks were coated with stains ranging from oil to grease to built-up black dust, becoming absolutely filthy. Not like they cared, for they were used to this. All of them also had barely enough energy to hold themselves up, though both Yeager and Brown pushed forth and at least made the effort to keep some of their dignity by participating in conversation. The same could not be said for Reitsch and Dittmar, who looked about ready to fall over at the slightest breeze.

"But there you have it!" Yeager continued to report to the two student council members. "All fighters are back to immaculate condition!"

"Yes, thank you very much," Pfirsich nodded. "For such hard work, I believe you've all earned a day of rest." The professional Bavarian then waved his hand in a shooing motion. "So go on, take the rest of the day off. I'll notify your instructors."

"Ah, thanks a ton," Yeager replied with gratefulness. He and his cohorts turned to leave, but Yeager looked over his shoulder to say one last thing. "And if you need us for something, well, you know my number."

Both of the student council members nodded their understanding and waved farewell to them.

The four guys responsible for everything mechanical that could take to the air walked off together. They made no attempt to at least appear presentable, because they all knew they weren't. So there was no point.

"Ugh, that was a real wringer we were thrown through," Dittmar opined to the others. "So what do we do now?"

"That," Reitsch raised a finger to interject. He also had a grin that was delighted, yet didn't quite appear so due to exhaustion. "I have already taken care of."

"Neato…" Brown voiced himself without thinking.

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Elsewhere several minutes later, all of the Aeronautics guys entered a small slice of Heaven. That is to say, Reitsch's idea was to have a hot bath in the middle of nowhere using four fifty-five-gallon drums reused in a very unique way.

"Good mother of God," Yeager moaned in pleasure within his own drum bath. "If you don't experience this at least once, then you're not living."

"Don't we bloody know it," Brown agreed wholeheartedly from his own drum. Reitsch and Dittmar didn't respond, but their faces showed they also were enjoying the chance to unwind. After all, it was once in a blue moon that the Aeronautics Club ever got a chance to let themselves go.

The drum baths themselves were originally an invention of the Automotive Club, though the Aeronautics guys, as always, implemented their own improvements to the system. It was still basically the same as before, being drum baths supported by cinder blocks with large hoses pumping water into them from the bottom, with water provided via pumps. The Aeronautics folks chose to change the previous arrangement of driving the pumps via generators, and replaced the generators with electric motors that presently drew power from the ship itself. The main benefits of such an arrangement allowed the entire system to be plug-and-play, as the electric motors could be powered from standard wall sockets, and the electric motors were far more practical to use since the water pumps were scarcely used aside from the first several seconds when the drums would be filled up. Simply put, the generators were far less efficient than the electric motors for this role.

From the start, the entire system gave each drum bath the ability to regulate water temperature and to recirculate the water automatically. The Aeronautics folks modified the entire system's hot water supply extensively to gain the ability to have a hot bath instantly. This was achieved by holding the necessary amount of water to fill the bath in a separate supply tank known as the 'ready' tank very close to the bath. The tank itself was designed with a two-layer construction, with both layers holding no contact with one another, and the space in between the two layers was vacuumed out. The final result meant that heat transfer from the water to the tank was minimized as much as possible, meaning that even when left to sit, the hot water inside would always stay hot, even after just starting a bath, which had the effect of practically eliminating warm-up times.

Overall, the system was insanely practical, surprisingly enough. It was surprising because the Aeronautics guys had a known penchant for overengineering, exemplified by their work with the school's Me 163. But they nevertheless created a very practical hot bath that was portable, as the only things that needed to be provided were water and electricity. It still had an exceedingly obvious Jerry-rigged look to it, but as the Aeronautics folks persisted: function over form.

"I said it before, and I'll say it again," Yeager proclaimed as he washed his arms. "This is fucking paradise."

"Yeah, I agree with you there," Dittmar spoke up from his own bath, looking completely loosened up. "I know the school has that large public bath for everyone, but I honestly don't like the idea of public bathing. Plus, this is far more relaxing."

"Ah, well," Yeager responded as he slouched in his bath, leaving his head just above the water. "It's a cultural thing, so I won't criticize it, but I feel the same way." He then let himself go silent as he just relaxed, letting his head descend even further into the water. The American aeronautical engineer found himself relaxed enough to start falling away into sleep.

Not a smart idea, as he realized very quickly when he shot up on full alert, coughing viciously. "Ugh! Holy fuck!" he exclaimed. He soon recovered after taking many deep breaths and regaining full consciousness. "Goddamn, I never thought I could ever feel so relaxed that I would end up drowning in the source of my relaxation." The American soon lazily passed his gaze over the others before he gasped and opened his eyes in alarm.

The sight he found was all of the others doing the very same thing he had done only seconds prior: falling asleep in the water.

"Fucking hell!" Yeager cried out. "Wake up, guys!" He got no response, and he didn't bother waiting for one either. He had already moved to unveil a few other surprises built into the baths, collectively labeled the Emergency Self-Defense Equipment. The equipment was held in racks built into the sides of the drums, and each one had the necessary equipment.

First up, Yeager drew a slingshot. It was a rather crude weapon, one that was almost impossible to overengineer without turning it into something besides a slingshot, but it got the job done. Yeager took out a baseball and shot it with the slingshot against Dittmar's bath. He quickly moved on to take another baseball and shoot it against Reitsch's bath. The sound generated and the heavy vibration were enough to stir the two of them out of unconsciousness with quite the start, but Yeager already moved on without bothering to see if his attempt was successful, for time was of the essence.

The American next pulled out a baseball bat, an aluminum bat to be specific. "Sorry about this," he muttered before proceeding to swing it as hard as possible against Brown's drum, which was right next to his own.

The sound produced was so heavy that Yeager could feel the air vibrating around him in protest, but, even if it was an arguably cruel way to wake someone up, Brown still woke up.

"Gah!" the British engineer among the group shouted in alarm.

"My bad, but you all know that it's suicide if you fall asleep in water," Yeager apologized to the group as a whole while also giving a brief lecture. He tried to recover his breath at the same time, as he had performed his emergency wake-up routine in about five seconds, which was obscenely quick and no doubt only possible with adrenaline.

"Yeah, yeah," Dittmar agreed, looking somewhat shameful at falling into such an action. "Thanks, Yeager."

"That was very hazardous…" Reitsch groaned out as he let his head droop over the drum's edge. "But oh, it felt so good to just do nothing."

"My bloody ears, mate…" Brown soullessly mentioned. Yeager could already tell that the Brit's ears would be ringing for a very long time.

"Just be careful, guys," Yeager reminded, now with a sense of relief. "I know we're all lacking sleep, but you've got to keep your wits still." The American then smiled ruefully. "Besides, for all that I wish we would make headlines, I do not want it to be because we died a very odd death." He looked around to find everyone else's expressions in agreement with his own. "Although, I will admit, it would be very entertaining to see the reactions of the student council."

Reitsch and Dittmar grinned in amusement of the last statement to come out of Yeager's mouth. Then Reitsch grew a thoughtful look before asking, "Hey, guys?"

"What?" Dittmar provided a reply.

"Did you all remember to bring some spare clothes?" Reitsch wondered.

Everyone remained silent, awkwardly silent, for no one had an answer to that.

"… So you mean to tell me that we all just jumped in here without thinking?" Reitsch asked in confirmation as everyone slowly started to realize what was being implied, the dread of which infiltrated their faces. "… How in the hell are we gonna get back home?"

"Wait, wait, wait," Brown quickly interjected as he waved his hands around. "Can't we just wear our old clothes back?!" The Brit looked over to the pile where their coveralls and underclothes rested, only to find everything soaking wet. Even then, their clothes were still caked with oil, grease, black dust, and all of the messes that the group seemed to be naturally attracted to. "… Bloody hell…"

"Dead tired," Dittmar muttered. "We were definitely dead tired…"

"Well, I think it's decided that we're gonna be making headlines tomorrow," Yeager observed with a smile that said he wanted to forget everything.

"Not for the reason any of us wanted!" Dittmar retorted, mortified like everyone else.

Brown thought for a bit before eventually shrugging. "Well, it doesn't matter," he opined. "We just need to make a mad dash and just get the thing over with." With that, he made to get out of his drum.

"Wait, whoa, whoa!" Yeager exclaimed while shaking his head in disbelief. Brown halted in confusion. "You can't just go out there swaggering without a care and having your dong waving around for all to see, Brown! There's got to be a better way!"

Brown raised an eyebrow, as though lost. "But, like I said earlier, it doesn't matter," he repeated. "If we get this done quickly enough, then we're in the clear." He then made to get out again. "And besides, you won't know if we even run into someone-wait, whoa…" He changed gears when he felt his drum start to stagger and tilt, and he instinctively stopped his movements.

Because of shifting his center of gravity, Brown had inadvertently upset the balance his drum had on the cinder blocks it rested on, which caused it to start to topple over.

"Uh," was the oh-too-brief response out of Dittmar's mouth when he saw what was coming. Brown's drum toppling over ended up causing a chain reaction that took all of the other drums down with it, sending them all to the ground as well with a huge smash and splash as the water gushed out of all the drums like torrent rapids.

After all of the water left the drums, everyone remained silent for several seconds as they digested what the hell just happened. They all remained within their drums in varying states of discombobulation.

"Well…" Yeager finally broke the silence. "Looks like we're out of the frying pan now… and into the fire… Hehe…" He cracked an amused grin at the end.

"Gott, of all references, you choose that one," Dittmar deadpanned.

"Hey, just because I love that song doesn't mean you have to automatically hate it!" Yeager retorted, still amused from his reference-making.

"Well," Brown spoke up as he laid on his back. "At least you weren't the one to screw us over. Hehe, my bad, mates…" The Brit in the group found it just a tiny bit humorous that it was his own doing that screwed everyone over.

"Bah, I don't mind," Yeager waved off in forgiveness. "Besides, don't we generally find ourselves in a lot worse trouble when we're actually working?"

"Very true," Reitsch nodded his agreement, though he didn't get anything else out before a loud sneeze was heard.

"Ugh, verdammt," Dittmar groaned as he wiped at his face with his arm, having just sneezed. The sudden lack of hot water was starting to take its toll. "I think we should find some way to solve this little problem of ours before we all get sicker than dogs."

"Hey, maybe someone might pass by and we can ask them for help," Brown suggested as he crawled out of his drum and stood up to check their surroundings. "We're close to the old club buildings, though, so we might not get so lucky for someone to come help."

"That's exactly why the baths were built here, I think," Yeager informed as he crawled out from his own drum. The baths were built on the outskirts of the grounds for the old club buildings that had long since been abandoned. The American spotted something, though, as he squinted. "Oh, wait up!"

Brown spotted it too. "Oh, isn't that the girl obsessed with tanks?" he wondered as he saw Yukari walking down the center street of the old club building complex. She had her unique utilitarian backpack with her, as she always seemed to. Her reputation of being prepared for anything preceded her.

"Her name's Yukari," Yeager shook his head in disbelief. "Jesus Christ, I can't believe you still don't know the names of all the combatants."

"Well, can you blame him?" Reitsch inserted. By now, he and Dittmar had also come out of their drums, though Dittmar was already shivering from the sudden exposure. "Technically, you're the only combatant among us, Yeager, so only you are required to know all the combatants by name."

The American test pilot rolled his eyes. "Yeah, yeah," he sarcastically replied, but conceded their point anyways. He then brought himself back to the matter at hand. "But moving on, how do we get her attention? 'Cause we sure as hell can't call out to her. Otherwise we'd draw way too much attention."

The others lowered their heads to think for several seconds. Finally, Brown raised his head. "Hey, what about those baseballs from the Emergency Self-Defense Equipment suite?"

"You're not decapitating her!" Yeager immediately shot down with a glare.

The Brit among them rolled his eyes. "Fine, fine," he conceded. "How about a rock?"

"Pebble!" the American was sure to specify.

"Yes, yes, a pebble…" Brown rolled his eyes again. "Can I get on with it or not?"

Yeager looked at the Brit for a moment before finally nodding his head. At that go-ahead signal, Brown scooped up a handful of pebbles from the ground in one hand and moved to bring Yukari within his line of sight.

"Here goes nothing, mate," the Brit offered some final words before he threw one of the pebbles at Yukari. The pebble missed its mark, which earned a few snorts of amusement from Reitsch and Dittmar. "Yeah, yeah, well can you blame me for missing? I'm not the one who has weapons experience."

Brown tried again with a sharp chuck of another pebble, but this one missed as well as it impacted the ground short of its target.

"Oh, for fuck's sake, let me-" Yeager began to interject, but Brown waved him off.

"No, I got this!" the Brit stubbornly insisted as he took another pebble into hand. He then launched it at his target again, this time hitting his mark.

But Brown hitting his mark had no discernible effect on Yukari, as the pebble landed in her extremely fluffy and naturally messy brown hair. The Brit raised an eyebrow at that, as did everyone else, but Brown tried again. He missed his next shot, but three more tries all landed within Yukari's hair, and as before, the tank guru's hair seemed to swallow up the pebbles and leave no impression to the young girl that she was ever struck by anything.

"Oh, for all that is holy! That achieved nothing but possible sexual harassment!" Brown raged in great displeasure of his success/failure. While he hit his target, many times at that, it didn't even matter since Yukari wasn't even alerted to the pebbles hitting her.

"Aaaaand she's gone…" Yeager noted with disappointment. "Well, if I can say one thing, that is some damn fluffy hair. I imagine there's no need for a pillow at night with hair like that."

"Hey, guys!" Dittmar beckoned as he pointed into the distance again. "There's the sleepy tank driver!"

"Goddammit, guys, are you all so behind on your names?" Yeager questioned with an incredulous expression. He then shook his head and looked over to where Dittmar had pointed, and the one and only Mako was indeed walking past the old club building complex looking just as sleepy as always. "Nevermind. But, yeah, there's Mako. Though she's looking quite tipsy."

Without waiting for anyone to say it, Brown took the liberty of throwing more pebbles in an effort to get Mako's attention. The first one missed, again, but the second one hit. Though due to Mako's dizzy and unstable manner of walking, the impact of the pebble was enough to send her toppling down to the ground with a hard slam.

"Holy hell, what the bloody fuck did I do?!" Brown freaked out at the sight and tried to move to help by instinct.

"Calm the fuck down, Brown!" Yeager demanded as he held the Brit back. "Calm down and just look!"

The entire group saw how Sodoko, strangely also around the area, started picking up Mako and supporting her.

"I will never understand how those two always manage to find each other," Reitsch observed.

"I'll never comprehend just how that girl manages to push on with absolutely no energy," Dittmar brought his voice into the mix.

"Yeah, that should be just about impossible," Reitsch agreed. "She's basically the human equivalent of dry starting an engine every single start."

"Or trying to take off with maximum propeller pitch," Dittmar added.

"Aaaand they're gone…" Brown observed when Sodoko escorted Mako away from the area. "And they didn't even bother to investigate…" He then turned to Yeager. "Okay, give me the baseballs now."

"Throwing more shit at people isn't gonna work!" Yeager denied. He then fell back into his own thoughts, using his engineer mindset to try and engineer their way out of their problem. Looking around for ideas, he saw that there was almost nothing they could use without either causing injury or grave humiliation. Well, okay, Yeager was desperate enough by now to allow grave humiliation to occur, because he was also starting to feel the onset of a cold. Looking around one last time, he thought of the drums, about how they were scattered about but all laying on their side. The American took a foot and idly kicked one with a tap of his foot to send it into a small roll. His eyes lit up when the realization hit him. "… Wait, I've got it!"

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"Gott, why did you have to fall asleep in the middle of it?" Erich complained from beside Miho as the two made their way to school. "It was so awesome! And you ended up missing the best part!"

The light brunette girl chuckled softly, marveling at how energetic the blond-haired ultra-ace was that morning. And knowing that the sight of Erich actually being full of energy in the mornings was almost a once-in-a-lifetime experience, Miho also cherished the moment. She knew she would never forget that rare moment where she was woken up by the blonde, already fully dressed in his usual school outfit and ready to head out. Usually it was the other way around. Because they had both left rather early for school, they chose to take a more scenic route, which led them to their current area by the old club building complex.

"Yes, so you keep saying," Miho responded with a pleasant smile on her face as she shifted her bag on her shoulder. The light brunette Panzer ace's school uniform ruffled slightly from a slight breeze that day, which only served to relax the young girl's consciousness even more. Life was just great at that moment.

"But still!" Erich insisted in his own childish way. "You missed movie night!"

"I didn't miss it," the girl countered as she looked to the blonde with a playful leer. "I was there, was I not?"

"But you fell asleep in the middle, therefore you missed it!" the ultra-ace argued as he gesticulated wildly.

Miho rolled her eyes affectionately. "Okay, so I fell asleep in the middle," she admitted. "You want to spoil the rest for me?"

"Fine, since you are so interested," Erich sarcastically said, but he had a smile on his face as well. "Well, after you fell asleep, the rebels rejected the peace proposal and launched an all-out partisan campaign with the help of the main character's provision of aerial recon. But the recon got intercepted by the occupation force's fighters which started a dogfight. And then, just when the enemy captain got a bead on them, the recon pilot pulled a tight barrel roll and used their pistol to quickly shoot the enemy at the top of their barrel roll while the enemy passed underneath. Gott, now I want to try that so badly for myself!"

"A barrel roll, huh…" Miho noted, though she wasn't really paying much attention. She was still enjoying the state of bliss she was in.

Suddenly, Erich stopped and looked around. "Wait, did you hear that?" he asked.

"Huh?" Miho snapped out of her stupor and stopped to look at the blonde.

Erich strained his ears before he raised a finger and quickly interjected, "That."

Miho listened again and heard a distant rumbling that was getting louder. "You mean that?" she asked Erich while they both turned to the source of the sound.

The two of them saw four drums barreling towards them at a lightning fast speed. All four drums were on top of the pair in no time at all. Upon getting within meters of them, all four drums made abrupt turns to the left, so abrupt that their momentum kept the drums heading in their original direction, but the lack of rolling now made them all skid to a quick stop. One of the drums was unique in that it jerked upright at the same time as it turned left, which made the drum skid a bit before rolling on the edge of its flat end for a bit before it resolutely grounded itself upright with a slam.

Out of the open end, facing the sky, popped out Yeager with a grin of accomplishment, still wearing absolutely nothing, and in the other drums lying down it was assumed that the others of his little team of aerial engineers were the same way. "Y'all wanna have a drum bath with us?" he asked as if there was nothing wrong with that picture whatsoever.

Both Erich and Miho stared for a bit with wide eyes and blinked a few times in stunned silence. Then, Erich grew a highly amused grin. "'Do a barrel roll!'" he quoted the most appropriate line for what he just witnessed. He then seemed to remember he wasn't alone and quickly turned Miho away with a more sheepish grin. "How about we come back another time, huh?"

"I am going to scream," Miho warned just after Erich finished speaking, somehow using a tone that would not convince anyone she was about to scream. Her still-widened eyes begged to differ, however.

"You heard her. Move out!" Yeager ordered his small squad of drum-rollers. They immediately started to roll themselves away, the American bringing his own drum back down to the ground and rolling to follow.

"Wait, take me with you!" Erich tried to follow, evidently knowing that Miho wasn't kidding with her warning, but the light brunette girl held him back with a vice grip. "No! Don't leave me!"

But even though the four drum-rollers managed to get away in time to avoid the worst of it, they still managed to hear Miho's unbelievably loud banshee-like scream. All four Aeronautics guys silently sent their apologies to Erich, who without a doubt would have his ears bleeding after suffering exposure to that kind of scream.

"Well, I'm calling it," Dittmar muttered to himself as he rolled his own barrel along from within. "There'll be an article tomorrow about this. Hopefully it'll be interesting enough to dispel the embarrassment."

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Part of Projekt Jägermeistern.

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The author doesn't claim to own "Girls und Panzer" or any other references made. "Girls und Panzer" belongs to Actas. Any references made belong to their respective owners.

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