The Legends Still Live On
Bogen Vierundzwanzig: Kompanie der Helden
Kapitel Ein: Es kam aus der See
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It was the black of night, and all that was visible in the sky was a vast array of stars shining brightly from several thousand light years away.
When I was young, I always felt a lot smaller whenever I looked up at the stars. There were just so many of them up there. But then I grew more curious the longer I thought about them. Why were there so many? Maybe there were so many of them perhaps for the reason of them being home to otherworldly beings. Was it possible that humanity might not be alone in the universe?
The dead of night brought with it a calm and serene ocean. The waves stayed relaxed for a while, but at some point in the night, something began to ascend from the ocean, causing some larger waves to form from the disturbance caused by the object.
But, maybe, I was looking in the wrong direction the whole time.
Whatever the object was, it started to coast towards the coastline, to the city of Ooarai in particular. The object itself seemed sentient and distinctly fleshy with a massive number of tentacles.
On the shore within Ooarai, spotlights started sweeping the skies after a number of reports concerning a large disturbance started coming in.
One day, an extraterrestrial creature emerged from the bottom of the Pacific.
The unidentified creature continued to emerge from the waves as it got closer to the coast. The stomping of its tentacles was heavy enough to shake the ground, and it was extremely large, being about twice to thrice as large as a two-story house.
It came ashore without any prior warning, choosing to make landfall in Ooarai. But what is 'it' exactly? Well, 'it' is called…
The spotlight system within the city soon shined its massive wattage onto the creature in question and revealed it for all to see. While it was gigantic, it was also extremely unique. It had a massive number of tentacles, practically making up the entirety of the creature's body. In the middle of the creature, the only part that wasn't made up of tentacles, was a face of sorts. The nose was extremely large by proportion and very pear-shaped, while the eyes were quite small and rested on either side of the nose. No mouth was readily visible.
… the Arraipe.
The massive Arraipe began to maneuver through the streets of Ooarai, the stomps of its tentacles echoing loudly and shaking the ground. The residents of Ooarai were able to discover the creature via the city's spotlight system, and to say they were terrified was an understatement.
"It's the Arraipe!" one citizen bellowed out in utter terror. "The Arraipe has come ashore!"
It was mass panic for the Ooarai citizens to describe the scene succinctly. They were all screaming in terror and fleeing the area as quickly as their legs could carry them, in an effort to get clear of the Arraipe's path.
"Run for the hills!" another cried out at the same time as someone else bellowed, "Run for the Zuikaku!"
The massive tentacled beast continued plundering through the city, shaking the ground left and right with nearly every movement it made. The latest of such damage came in the form of some of the Arraipe's tentacles pounding against the nearby marine tower.
"The marine tower's been hit!" one of the citizens observed while also running for their life. The tower itself had a massive gouge in it thanks to the impact, but it was still in one piece for all that it was worth.
"It's the wrath of the great Arraipe!" an old woman proclaimed. She looked like the opposing form of crazy that had taken over the city as she came down to her knees and pressed her hands together as if in prayer. Her face showed just how senile she was, looking like she had gone completely off the deep end. "At last, the rage that humanity deserves has finally arrived!"
"Grandmother, please calm down and let's get going!" a much younger man held himself back to stay with the old woman. He wasn't looking ready to get down and bow to the Arraipe, though. He looked more ready to pick up his grandma and run for dear life. "The Zuikaku's heading out to the ocean, so let's get to the boats quickly and-!"
"It's all over!" the old woman cut off her grandson to continue her insane praise to hell's impending wrath. "This is the end of the world!"
"Don't worry, everything'll be just fine!" the young man insisted, having chosen to grasp his insane grandmother from under the shoulders and dragging her back. He didn't want to spend a second longer there, so he began to forcibly drag her away. "It'll be alright, because Ooarai has-!"
He was cut off by the sounds of large-displacement piston engines beginning to join the sounds of mass panic. The crowd all started to look to the source of the sounds, and many of them started to rejoice out of relief, because those sounds were also promises to keep them safe.
With the Arraipe, the massive creature was stunned momentarily after enduring a great number of spontaneous explosions, some focused machine gun fire, and a single instance of high-caliber gunfire, followed by the sound of a handful of aircraft roaring above one after the other. The Arraipe was unscathed, showing its massive resilience to harm. It even resisted the rocket attack that descended upon it; two streams of smoke, the telltale sign for a rocket attack, were present in the air after the large strike.
Swarming the skies were five fighter aircraft, each adorned with the distinctive Ooarai version of the Balkenkreuz as their markings and with a unique identifying emblem on the tail, different for each one.
There was the F4F-3, notably altered with the use of a bomb rack under each wing for using two 100 lb bombs that had previously been dropped in the run.
There was the Ki-10-II, unchanged from its usual appearance due to the fact that it was basically useless in the ground attack game. At best, it was a mere annoyance to the Arraipe with its two peppering 7.7 mm machine guns.
There was the Fw 190 D-12, which had launched an impressive offensive load of one 500 kg bomb under the fuselage and two of the 210 mm Werfer-Granate 21 rocket-propelled mortars, one under each wing. Any variant of the Fw 190 could easily lay waste to anything on the ground that found itself unfortunate enough to get caught in the German fighter's crosshairs, and that also included the Dora model.
There was the Me 410 A-1/U4, a twin-engine heavy fighter that needed no extra help as to its ground attack abilities. Its massive 50 mm Bordkanone 5 cannon, loaded with armor-piercing rounds containing explosive filler, was capable of easily laying waste to any ground target it could get a shot on, and add to that the cannon could do so twenty-two times before needing a new magazine of shells.
And lastly, there was the Bf 109 K-4, which was relatively conservative in its secondary armament with only a single 500 kg bomb having been dropped from its place under the fuselage. But such a meager load could still easily get the job done.
Or, at least, it should have. Erich-Dietrich Hartmann, the 109's master, looked back and observed the aftermath of the attack run. He noted how the Arraipe wasn't noticeably affected by the heavy airstrike. At most, it appeared irritated by the ground-pounding.
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"Hey, that didn't do jack," Miho Nishizumi heard Erich's voice relay over their radio connection. The telltale sound of his Bf 109's DB 605 engine could also be heard in the background.
"What? Seriously?!" the light brunette reacted with disbelief.
"Nichts," the blonde confirmed how nothing had changed. "I think all we did was piss it off."
"Ugh…" Miho groaned and rubbed her forehead at the realization that the massive airstrike Ooarai's fighters had carried out had no visible effect on the Arraipe. She then smoothed her hand over the surface of her Ooarai Panzerkraft jacket. "Alright, we'll deal with it for now. Go back and rearm. Maybe we need all of us to take it down."
"Jawohl," Erich replied affirmative over the radio link. "I can leave Hornisse-Vier at your disposal, but do use him sparingly. He's only got twenty-one shots to fire now."
"Verstanden," Miho responded, saying she understood.
"Oh, and if you want something to use as bait or for harassment, then take Orkan-Drei as well," Erich continued.
"Got it," the light brunette confirmed again, nodding her head absently as well. The line went dead after that as the two German captains continued on with their respective businesses.
The Panzer ace sat back in her seat and closed her eyes, taking a deep breath to calm herself. Dealing with the Arraipe would have to be done with pure brute force, but the kicker was this: it would require so much brute force that she needed everything they had, which would take time to amass. So she would have to play a stalling game with the beast.
After settling on her thoughts, the light brunette Panzerkommandeur uttered a single command, "Hana. Feuer."
The 7,5 cm KwK 40 L/48 cannon fired on-demand by the black-haired flower arranger's trigger finger. The shell struck the Arraipe, causing it to turn to the source of the blow against its flesh. There the beast found five of Ooarai's Panzers lined up on a street facing it: the Panzer IV H with its still-smoking barrel, the M3 Lee, the I-Go otsu, the StuG III F, and the Jagdpanzer 38(t).
"Nice shot, Hana!" Yukari gave a compliment to the Kanonier's flawless gunnery as she loaded another Panzergranate 39 into the breech.
Hana shrugged in her seat. "It's pretty hard to miss such a large target," she humbly denied the praise from the Lader. She grew a bit thoughtful next. "Though along those same lines, it might be a bad idea to get too close to it. The gun doesn't elevate nearly as high as the Flak guns can, which could spell trouble for us."
Miho nodded in agreement from her commander's post. "While that kind of gun elevation would be very useful to us now, the vehicles the Flak guns are carried by are far too vulnerable," she rationalized her decision to not call upon their aid. It would've just endangered the Flak crews' lives needlessly. "Mako, try to maintain a distance with it."
"Roger," the sleepy Fahrer's monotonous voice gave back an affirmative.
"Wait, wouldn't increasing distance reduce our effectiveness against it?" Saori questioned the logic behind the order, not understanding the idea.
Miho would've taken the time to explain her order, but the rumbling sounds characteristic of the Arraipe maneuvering began to surface once again as the large beast began to approach the five-strong Panzerwaffe. That forced the light brunette's mouth to stay shut.
"Hey, the Arraipe's coming this way!" Erwin reported the sight from within her Sturmgeschütz III with an adrenaline-filled grin. "Looks like it wants a fight, fräulein Kapitän!"
"Oh, shit, we're so fucked…" Saori began to tremble in fear in the radio operator's post within the Panzer IV upon seeing the monster approach for herself.
"Saori, get me a line with Hornisse-Vier," Miho calmly ordered her Funker. She really didn't need the ginger freaking out at a time like this, hence her deliberate attempt to remain calm for her sake.
The attempt apparently worked as Saori fumbled with the Panzer's radio for a bit, visibly focused once more. She turned back and nodded at Miho after the deed was done.
"Hornisse-Vier, attack at your leisure, but I stress that you be efficient with your shots. We'll be playing a wild goose chase with the Arraipe to buy time until the rest of the Jagdwaffe returns." Miho began to issue orders to her subordinates, starting with the Me 410. She knew it was unnecessary to speak with Orkan-Drei, because she knew Erich would've already addressed that himself.
"Jawohl, fräulein Kapitän," Wolf returned an affirmative, the two DB 603A engines powering the German Zerstörer coming over the connection loud and clear as well.
Miho looked to Saori and with no wasted words requested, "Get me back on the Panzerwaffe channel."
Saori flicked the radio back to the previous channel, nodding again at Miho to signal it was done.
"After this, get all of us on the same frequency. I don't want to have to change channels constantly," Miho gave an order to Saori for later. The light brunette Panzer commander calmly issued her next orders to the rest of her Panzer crews. "Everyone, keep drawing it in our direction. We're all going to be acting as bait to lure the Arraipe over to the maneuver grounds on the outskirts of town. We're starved for time right now, so we need to buy some if we want to take it down. We need that time so the civilians can evacuate as well as for our air power to rearm and return, because we'll be striking together with them. While we're still in town, try to avoid causing collateral damage if possible. I know we only had just us five available to fight back, and even with the help of air power I'm not sure if we can do this, but we can sure as hell try our hardest!"
"YEAH!" was the overwhelming response. Everyone's morale was high, and Miho knew from experience that an Ooarai team with high morale was capable of punching far above its weight.
"Begin Unternehmen Wunderbar! PANZER VOR!" the light brunette finalized her commands.
With the end of Miho's string of commands, the five-strong Ooarai Panzerwaffe bolted into action against the Arraipe, maneuvering to get into firing positions.
"What does 'wandaba' mean, anyone?" Yuuki wondered within the M3 Lee. She had tried to pronounce 'Wunderbar,' but it came out wrong due to her vast inexperience with the German language that Miho and Erich were naturally fluent in. That was a notion that also applied to the overwhelming majority of Ooarai's Panzerwaffe: the team typically only understood 'Panzer vor' and not much else.
"No clue!" Aya shook her head with the energy that seemed exclusively reserved for the Rabbit Team's members. "But it sounds cool!"
"Would you two stay focused?!" Azusa butted in with her commander's tone after hearing Aya and Yuuki lose focus. The sensibly-minded commander then felt eyes staring at her and turned to see Saki looking over towards her with her usual not-all-there expression.
But Azusa seemed to just know exactly what she was thinking despite not showing any emotions to it. "Don't worry, Saki!" she was quick to reassure. "I'm sure we'll get a chance!"
Saki just continued staring.
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Outside the M3 Lee, the Arraipe was under attack by the Ooarai Panzerwaffe after they had gotten an opportunity to attack unveiled to them.
"That thing's easier to hit than the broadside of a TOG II!" Erwin observed with overconfidence from within the StuG III. "Kanonier, feuer frei!" She then gave the command to Saemonza, the gunner, to fire at will.
"Understood!" the Sengoku-era history buff gave back a confirmation before unleashing the fury of the Sturmgeschütz's 7,5 cm StuK 40 L/43 cannon.
All of the other tanks were similarly engaging the giant Arraipe, as well as the two aviation assets available to them: the flying tank destroyer Me 410 A-1/U4 and the pecking pest of a plane with the Ki-10-II. The Japanese biplane entered a strafe and put out a brief burst of its two rifle-caliber machine guns into the Arraipe, not doing any damage whatsoever but succeeding in drawing the beast's ire and allowing the Me 410 to set itself up for a strafing run.
On the ground simultaneously, the Panzer IV and StuG III fired off their KwK 40s again, not missing with their marks as the shells struck two of the tentacles of the Arraipe. Also engaging with its rather pitiful firepower was the I-Go otsu, but its crew was still driving aggressively despite not being able to do jack in terms of damage output.
Swooping down from the heavens and lined up for an attack run, the telltale boom of a 50 mm cannon brought with it the Me 410's own strike. The 50 mm AP shell did not miss its mark, but because the BK 5 cannon fired incredibly slowly, Wolf, the Hornisse's pilot, could only get a single accurate shot in before passing above the beast and ending his strafing run. That was the cue for Ron, the Ki-10's pilot, to head back into the fire to play the role of distraction with his worthless ground attack abilities.
Also engaging was the Jagdpanzer 38(t) belonging to Ooarai's student council girls. However, judging by how its 75 mm shell impacted the ground shy of the Arraipe, it was easy to deduce who the gunner was this time around.
"Momo, how are you missing such a large target?" Yuzu asked from the driver's seat, a little disbelieving that the gunnery was this bad.
"SHUT UP!" Momo barked from her place in the gunner's seat just behind the driver. "It's too damn big, that's why!"
"Momo, do you want to switch?" Anzu lazily offered the suggestion from the commander's seat, which was just behind the gunner's. The diminutive twin-tailed girl simultaneously rolled her eyes lazily, knowing that with Momo at the trigger, there'd be absolutely zero hits on target.
The Ki-10 finished up another pecking session of a strafing run and began to climb away from the Arraipe. Ron looked back to observe the beast's behavior. "Hmm, it's a slow fucker, it looks," he noted. "So as long as everyone keeps their distance, then it should be impossible to get taken out by it."
The badminton prodigy then took notice of how some of the tentacles atop the beast began to sway in a peculiar manner, almost as if they were tracking the movements of the tanks maneuvering down below. Those kinds of stalking movements just seemed to spell trouble for the Panzerwaffe.
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"INCOMING!" all of the Ooarai tanks heard the urgent alert from the Ki-10 pilot over the radio.
"Hä?" Miho briefly uttered before the ground around her Panzer IV shook as hard as a sudden earthquake.
"AH!" was the collective response from all of the other tank crews as the Arraipe's tentacles quickly stretched and slammed into the ground super close to them. There was practically no warning to the counterattack, but luckily for the Ooarai tanks, the tentacles missed hitting them directly. It was still a hellish experience, though, as the ground trembled under the attacks.
"That was close!" Karina remarked in astonishment, not for a moment believing she had just managed to steer the M3 Lee away from the incoming tentacle strike.
"It can stretch those tentacles?" Yuuki guessed. It was obvious from her face that she didn't want her guess to be spot-on.
"If that thing can do that…!" Ayumi started with a panicked voice.
Miho quickly recovered and spoke up to her crew, "Is everyone okay?"
"Nothing to worry about," Mako responded first with her monotonic voice. She was completely unfazed by the attack. "Those things travel slower than tank shells do."
"Not helping, Mako…" Saori moaned at her best friend uncomfortably.
"Hey, what the fuck are you doing, Duck Team?!" Ron, the Ki-10 pilot, came over the radio waves again. That's when Miho looked up through the vision slits in her cupola and saw the I-Go otsu commandeered by the volleyball players charging to the Arraipe.
"Do us a favor and give us some cover, will you?!" Noriko barked back over the channel to Ron. She made no effort to stop the Japanese tank she commanded as she deliberately played with fire once again.
"Well at least you haven't gone completely off the deep end considering you bothered to ask for cover!" the badminton captain retorted as he began another strafing run on the beast. It was otherwise pointless if it wasn't for the reason that he was meant to be a distraction.
With the volleyball girls, they continued to push their tank onwards to the Arraipe. "Watch out and avoid the tentacles, Shinobu!" Noriko warned as the tank closed. "Remember, it's all about guts!"
"Roger, captain!" Shinobu responded affirmative from the driver's seat.
It didn't take long for the Arraipe to stretch one of its tentacles in the direction of the I-Go. The tentacle ended up striking solid ground, though, as the Japanese tank juked out of the limb's path.
"Now! Do it!" Noriko barked, seeing the opportunity granted by the beast's tentacle briefly stuck in the ground.
The I-Go climbed upon the tentacle and began to charge toward the Arraipe using its own limb as a pathway. One 57 mm shell released itself from the cannon breech toward the beast.
"This box of metal can't do any damage if we don't attack from point-blank!" Noriko berated Akebi for firing at that distance as the tank drove in closer. "Closer!"
"Even then, it's still doubtful we could do any damage anyway!" Taeko provided the more reasonable outlook on their situation.
It was a nice thought, but the notion that the I-Go could do any damage was crushed when the tentacle it was driving on freed itself from the ground and began to wrap itself around the tank, trapping it.
A few seconds of silence ensued within the Japanese tank. Then, all hell broke loose as the volleyball players all desperately latched onto each other when they felt the tank begin to shift courtesy of the tentacle moving. "HELP UUUUUS!" they all screamed in utter terror.
"Get Duck Team free!" Miho ordered her tanks as she watched from below.
"With pleasure!" Saemonza was heard from the StuG III's radio. "Load APCR!"
"Yukari, tungsten!" Hana requested as she aimed the Panzer IV's KwK 40 onto the tentacle holding the I-Go otsu.
Yukari knew what the flower-arranging gunner was asking for, so she got out a Panzergranate 40, an APCR shell, and loaded it into the breech. "Loaded!" came the verbal cue.
The trigger was pulled not half a second later and the shell zoomed with a decisive boom into the direction of the tentacle holding Duck Team, just barely after the StuG III fired its own shell.
Both shells hit their mark, and because the shells were APCR shells – shells using an extremely hard tungsten core, which, provided the material was thin enough, could cleanly cut through anything like a hot knife through butter – the tentacle ended up being cleanly cut through, leaving the limb to fall off.
"Wow!" Azusa observed the engagement from the M3 Lee, being sure to lock away everything in her mind for future reference and for learning's sake. "They can actually hit those tentacles!"
"But Duck Team is falling!" Aya pointed out with horror-filled eyes to the Japanese tank falling down to earth from above.
"Yuzu, do it!" Anzu quickly ordered her Hetzer's driver upon spotting the I-Go unravel from the sheared-off tentacle and begin to fall.
"Right!" Yuzu responded as she skillfully maneuvered the small German tank destroyer.
The Jagdpanzer 38(t) quickly maneuvered to rest below the I-Go's descending trajectory. When the Japanese tank finally hit something below it, it was not the ground it impacted, but the Hetzer. The small German tank destroyer effectively acted as a cushion to allow the I-Go's crew to land a little more gently on the ground.
Of course, the impact wasn't pretty as Miho observed, wincing when she heard the sharp and heavy impact of metal on metal. "Duck, Turtle, are you all right?!" she quickly concerned herself with the crews of the two involved tanks.
In response, both mentioned tanks popped their white flags. It was obvious by that point that neither of them would get back into the fight. The force of the impacts each of them experienced were enough to crush both tanks' suspensions.
"Well, looks like that did us no good, Miho," Anzu responded to Miho's call using the Hetzer's radio.
"Our bad, captain!" the volleyball girls were heard collectively responding over the radio.
"And sorry for taking you out, too, Turtle Team!" Akebi added in separately.
"Two Panzers gone in one go…" Miho filed away in her head. She then took note of the Arraipe itself, particularly in how the limb that was sheared off by the tungsten-cored APCR shells had already regrown itself. "And it's regenerating…" She then spoke up to make sure everyone left heard her. "We need to make sure we keep our guard up!"
"Captain!" the light brunette heard Sodoko's voice over the radio next, courtesy of Saori patching her through. "We finished up with evacuating the refugees to the Zuikaku! What do we do now?"
Miho responded immediately, "Get the crews of the destroyed tanks and take them back to the ship!"
"Understood, captain!" the leader for the Public Morals Committee confirmed.
After Saori changed back to the main channel, Miho issued some more commands to the Panzerwaffe, "Turtle, Duck, get out of here and link up with the Public Morals Committee! Everyone else, follow me! We're on the move now!"
"Understood!" all her subordinates responded unanimously. Following that, the tanks that were still mobile – the Panzer IV H, the StuG III F, and the M3 Lee – mobilized again, with the Arraipe pursuing in all its gigantic lumbering.
Miho then recalled something that would fit at this moment in time, and got back on the radio, "Hey, Bubi, can you put on some Musik?"
"Oh, so now you ask me for my Musik, now do you?" she heard Erich's voice return with mock-anger. She could hear the amusement in his voice as well.
The light brunette also smiled in amusement at the notion that she finally sought Erich for his unique taste in music before continuing, "Yes, I am. It would fit the mood very well."
She heard the 109 pilot let out a long sigh of mock-annoyance before hearing him say, "Alright, I've got just the one."
Soon enough, while the three-strong Panzerwaffe made its way down the street with the Arraipe pursuing, Miho heard the telltale electric guitar slowly build up its high-pitched strumming over the radio.
"Resist, and Biiiiite!" Erich dramatically introduced over the radio before letting the song itself take over, the guitars playing with a steady drumbeat accompanying them.
"WHOO!" Miho heard the StuG III crew whoop in celebration. The history buffs were clearly delighted to hear one of Sabaton's tracks, as the band was known for making heavy metal music about history.
"War is coming swiftly
The border is closing in
We're a company of soldiers
Mere forty rifles strong
All alooooone!
Stand alooooone!"
"Incoming!" Miho alerted Mako as the Arraipe's tentacles lurched forth toward the Panzer IV. The Panzerfahrer nodded absently and modulated the track brake levers to juke out of the path of the incoming strikes. The light brunette Panzerkommandeur looked back and found just the sight she wanted: the StuG III and M3 Lee were following them still despite the attack. "That was close."
"Ardenner ground is burning
And Rommel is at hand
As the Blitzkrieg's pushing harder
The war is all around
All arooooound!
Hold your grooooound!"
All remaining tanks continued rolling down the city streets at their modest speeds to lead on the Arraipe, who gracelessly pursued after them with all the floundering of a beast. During that time, the StuG III managed to pass the Panzer IV to take the lead for the time being.
"Fight all eighteen days of battles!
No odds are on our side
Few will fight for all until the bullets are gone"
"Shrines!" Miho broadcast to the StuG III crew their intended path to the maneuver grounds, which were to go through the shrines in the city. She had to quickly articulate her message and at just the right point to ensure the message was heard thanks to Swedish power metal still playing over the radio. She succeeded by doing so at the extremely brief reprieve between lines.
"We!
We will resist and bite!
Bite hard!
'Cause we are all in sight!
We!
We take up arms and fight!
Fight hard!
Resist and do what's right!"
Hippo Team took a detour along some side streets when the Arraipe stretched its tentacles for another attack, and Anglerfish and Rabbit Teams followed behind them. The Arraipe continued to follow after them in its single-minded state, trotting through the city and leaving a swath of destruction in its attempt to maintain contact with the tanks that had once again evaded its attacks.
The flying pest otherwise known as the Ki-10 banked and maneuvered to set itself up for another strafing run. A short burst of hilariously ineffective 7.7 mm rounds connected with the massive Arraipe, but as always, they served merely to tick off the beast.
"No matter our fighting
The numbers will still count
We're outgunned and few in numbers
We're doomed to flag or fail
We fought haaaaard!
Held our guaaaaard!"
That was apparently the last straw for the Arraipe as far as the Japanese sesquiplane was concerned, because just as the Ki-10 came close enough after its strafing run, the beast swatted a tentacle at it. The limb just barely caught the Japanese plane, but it was able to tear off what it did catch: the right wings were utterly mangled from the swat and made the plane unflyable from then on.
"Mayday!" Ron, the pilot, yelled over the channel. He had just enough control remaining to keep the Japanese sesquiplane from going into a nosedive and used that given mercy to bail out at a higher altitude where he could survive the parachute down.
"But when captured by the Axis!
And forced to tell the truth
We will tell them with a smile!
We will surprise them with the laugh!
We are aaaaall!
We were aaaaall!"
Miho winced upon hearing the sudden mayday call. This was easily the riskiest encounter she, and everyone else in Ooarai, had ever been a part of, considering they could very well die in the defense of Ooarai from the Arraipe. The thought that they were so vulnerable and at risk of death sickened the light brunette, but she did her best to not let that show and continued to command the three tanks she had left.
"We were told to hold the border!
And that is what we did!
Honored were our orders in despite of our foe"
Miho looked back to check if the Arraipe was still in hot pursuit. She wasn't disappointed, as the tentacled beast was still after the group of tanks in its utterly graceless manner.
"We!
We will resist and bite!
Bite hard!
'Cause we are all in sight!
We!
We take up arms and fight!
Fight hard!
Resist and do what's right!"
Soon enough, the threesome of tanks turned off of the side streets and onto a wider four-lane road running along the seaside. Chugging along behind them and pillaging through the buildings was the Arraipe, still going strong in its pursuit after the Ooarai tanks.
"Gloria fortis miles
The Wehrmacht closing in
Adversor et admorsus
The boar against the eagle!"
Wolf, up in the air flying the Me 410 A-1/U4, observed the situation from above, waiting for the perfect opportunity to strike with that massive 50 mm cannon extending out from the Zerstörer's small under-nose bomb bay.
"Gloria fortis miles
The Wehrmacht closing in
Adversor et admorsus
The boar against the eagle!"
The German history buff of a pilot got his chance when he saw the Arraipe begin to focus more on the Panzers. With that, he banked into a turn and lined up for a strafe. He waited until the distance was closed enough to ensure he wouldn't waste the shot.
Miho could easily distinguish the boom of the Me 410 A-1/U4's big 50 mm BK 5 cannon as it opened fire a single time, even over the rest of the crumbling and crunching courtesy of the Arraipe crushing the ground it walked upon. She could still make out the distinctive cannon fire even when the guitar solo began for the theme music playing over the radio still.
The Me 410's 50 mm shell struck the Arraipe before the plane itself broke away and began putting distance between it and the giant tentacled beast. The Arraipe definitely felt that shot, judging by how it tried to swing a tentacle out at the German Zerstörer. It was a vain effort, though, due to the high speed at which Wolf maintained all throughout his attack, which allowed him a margin of safety from any tentacle attacks.
But that aerial attack was able to distract the Arraipe from its three armored targets, which was taken advantage of by Hippo Team at the next intersection. The StuG III got to the intersection first and quickly spun the assault gun around in a one-eighty, while the Panzer IV and M3 Lee took a right at the intersection, which led to the shrines.
The StuG III quickly aimed at the beast and unleashed a single shot. The crew didn't bother to observe the shot's effect, turning back around immediately and flooring it to catch back up to the two other tanks.
It was a wise decision, as the shell had struck the Arraipe. Because of that, the beast got ticked off even more and unleashed two of its tentacles to strike down the StuG III. Thanks to the Sturmgeschütz immediately vacating the area, the attacks were too little too late and missed their targets, slamming into the ground instead.
As the StuG III fell back in line with the remaining tanks, both the M3 Lee and Panzer IV took aim at the Arraipe while still on the move, aiming directly to their rear. The German tank acquired target first and opened fire with its 75 mm cannon, which resulted in a direct hit to another of the Arraipe's tentacles thanks to Hana's impeccable gunnery. The American medium tank fired its 37 mm gun later, but its shot went wide, courtesy of Aya having nowhere near the aim of the Panzer IV gunner.
"We!
We will resist and bite!
Bite hard!
'Cause we are all in sight!
We!
We take up arms and fight!
Fight hard!
Resist and do what's right!"
Continuing on the path to the maneuver grounds outside of the city, the Panzers continued to lead on the very much annoyed Arraipe. Wolf found himself with yet another opportunity, and he seized it as he banked the twin-engine Me 410 and lined himself up for another shot.
Another boom through the skies alerted the Ooarai Panzerwaffe that the Me 410 had struck again with its massive 50 mm cannon. The shot was certainly not wasted, having struck the massive tentacled beast and diverting its attention to the Zerstörer yet again. The Arraipe quickly extended a tentacle to try and reach out for the Me 410, but the speed carried by the German bomber destroyer as it broke off its run made it impossible to ensnare.
Finally, the Ooarai Panzerwaffe arrived at the maneuver grounds just as their background music came to its end over the radio. The three remaining tanks formed up line-abreast with each other as they continued to drive along. The hatches began to pop on each of them as each of the crew members sought fresh air.
"Here it is, the arena for the decisive engagement!" Caesar notified for the entire group from the StuG III.
"Yes," Miho nodded in agreement from the Panzer IV. "Here we can engage it without having to worry about collateral damage. We can use the open area to our advantage and stay out of its reach. Don't forget that we're still waiting on-"
"You won't be waiting on us anymore," Erich interrupted over the line and contradicted what Miho was about to say. "We're all airborne now and heading for your location. T-minus five minutes."
The light brunette blinked for a second before recovering just as quickly. "Okay, disregard the waiting," she amended her previous words. "We just need to-"
Miho stopped again, but not because of an interruption. This time, she had been absently observing her surroundings when she noticed the Arraipe was nowhere to be seen.
"Miho?" Saori wondered about the light brunette's sudden silence. She was sticking her head up out of the tank through her hatch.
"The Arraipe's not here!" Miho quickly recovered her composure. "But why?"
"But I could've sworn it was following us the whole time…" Yukari said as she looked to the path the tanks had taken in an attempt to spot the Arraipe. It was to no success, though, as there was nothing but open land behind them.
"INCOMING!" Wolf's voice hollered over the radio in alarm.
About a second later, everyone left on the Panzerwaffe understood the cause for alarm as the Arraipe slammed into the ground from above, making the ground shake like an earthquake again.
"AH!" was the collective cry of shock from the Ooarai Panzerwaffe.
Just after landing, the Arraipe immediately swept one of its tentacles in an arc in front of it, in an attempt to strike down any of the tanks. The beast did end up swatting one of the tanks – the StuG III – across the land like it was a mere pest. The Sturmgeschütz's crew had no time to react, meaning they went for a ride through the air until the assault gun came crashing down to earth into a small pond in the area.
"It came flying!" a few of the freshmen of Rabbit Team freaked out at the display.
"Karina, get out of its range!" Azusa recovered quickest, her more sensible nature clearly of benefit in this moment. "Drive!"
The shell-shocked Karina instinctively drove the M3 Lee to outside of the Arraipe's reach, following the Panzer IV that did the same.
"Hippo Team!" Miho cried out upon seeing the StuG III descend below the water of the pond it crash-landed in. She let out a terror-filled shriek when she saw the Arraipe swing another tentacle in her direction, and immediately ducked back into the Panzer IV to avoid getting decapitated.
In the pond itself, the entirety of Hippo Team soon broke the surface of the water, taking in deep breaths of blessed oxygen to refill their starved lungs.
"That Arraipe's got quite the surprise attack!" Erwin remarked during her attempts to regain air for her lungs.
"I don't think I can be surprised anymore than that," Caesar gave her thoughts on the attack that took them out.
There was a cloud of dust that had begun to build up courtesy of the Arraipe's landing, spreading out from the massive beast and partially obscuring its lower sections from vision. But that partial obscuring did not deter a certain Zerstörer from another strafing run.
"Coming for another run," Wolf notified over the channel as he lined up the Me 410 for another chance at a strafing run. The German history buff of a pilot lined up the crosshairs of the telescopic sight – also part of the /U4 Umrüst-Bausatz to enable shooting the 50 mm cannon from a long distance – onto the Arraipe, but he squinted a bit in curiosity when he saw the Arraipe's face give off a glare of light. He widened his eyes when he discovered why a glare would be present, and immediately pulled back on the stick to abort the attack.
The evasive maneuver was done just a bit too late to escape an incoming burst of extremely high-pressure water spat out by the Arraipe. The stream of water cut through the Me 410's left wing, outboard of the engine, like it was butter and cutting off the outer portion of the Zerstörer's wing.
The twin-engine bomber destroyer lost almost complete control over its maneuvers. Only just enough control remained to keep the plane pointed nose-up for the time being, but Wolf knew that wouldn't last very long.
"Steig aus!" Miho heard the German pilot yell to bail out over the radio. She could also see through her cupola's vision slits two figures jump out of the twin-engine bomber destroyer, which spiraled completely out of control now that it no longer had a pilot. Wolf and Leonidas, the operator for the Me 410's two rear defensive guns, descended via parachute down into the ocean.
The light brunette herself looked not at all like herself after that extremely trying experience. Though she tried her hardest to stay strong for the sake of her crew, she still looked noticeably terrified of the situation at hand, having seen the StuG III get swatted aside effortlessly and the Me 410 get abruptly shot down. It was now sinking in within her mind that this was not simply another Panzerkraft match. This was real, and it could very well end in lives lost.
That was something Miho never liked to think about, the possibility of lives being lost. It was why she tried to stay away from Panzerkraft for some time, because she just couldn't continue on knowing that lives could be at risk anytime she took to the battlefield. She had a very prominent aversion to death, even compared to most other people, not being able to stomach the idea one bit.
The stomps of the Arraipe's tentacles snapped Miho out of her stupor, and she observed the massive merciless beast begin to stalk its way over to the Panzer IV and M3 Lee. The picture was much like a beast stalking its prey as the Arraipe slowly, intimidatingly, stalked over. There was no longer any dust visually obstructing it, but the force of the stomps still generated some dust with each heavy step.
"S-Say, is this a really bad situation for us now?" Saori spoke up with a shaking voice, betraying exactly the fear she had. "Considering we only have two tanks left and lost our only remaining air asset?"
Closer and closer the Arraipe continued to come with each successive stomp. Miho didn't want anyone to pay a visit to Queen Hel, so she did the only thing she could: silently pray that someone, anyone, would come to their rescue.
XXXXXXXXXX
"Oh, Erich, please hurry…" Erich heard Miho quietly whisper over the radio. That single message shook the blonde into alertness, because he knew that the light brunette would only become so quiet in the heat of battle if she encountered her greatest fear: a great possibility of death.
It did him no good that it would take at least another minute to reach her general location. Though what remained of the Jagdwaffe was fully rearmed with their choice loads – that being two 100 lb bombs for the F4F, a 500 kg bomb and two Werfer-Granate 21 rocket-propelled mortars for the Fw 190D, and a single 500 kg bomb for the Bf 109 – they couldn't unleash that massive firepower yet. It frustrated Erich to no end that he could do nothing when he heard the one person he cared more about than anyone else practically praying for him to help.
"Look alive, Hartmann!" the blonde heard a distinctly Japanese voice begin over his radio. That was odd to Erich, because as far as he knew, there wasn't a single Japanese member on the Ooarai Jagdstaffel. But at the same time, it was vaguely familiar to the blonde. "On your six from above!"
Erich looked back – well, he looked back as best he could, because the Bf 109 never had very good rear visibility – and tried to spot if anything was behind and above him. He could make out a single moving dot, so he brought up his sniper scope to his eye to try and discern the identity of the dot. The use of the magnified sight quickly blew up the size of the dot, and not just because of the zoom level, Erich noted. It was also because the dot was traveling at an extremely high speed, far faster than any World War Two-era fighter.
The blond-haired ultra-ace raised his eyebrows in surprise when he discovered the identity of the unknown aircraft. It was a very specific modern-day Japanese fighter built off an American design. "No way…" Erich muttered in astonishment when he connected the dots as to who that was in the fighter.
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In the M3 Lee, Azusa caught sight of Saki staring at her again. The tank commander knew exactly what the mostly-mute tank loader was trying to communicate, and she nodded. "Karina," Azusa began. "Advance."
On the sensible freshman's command, the M3 Lee mobilized and started to head for the Arraipe itself.
Miho noticed the American tank begin to advance. "Rabbit Team?!" she spluttered in surprise.
Along with her, the other members of Anglerfish Team had also noticed Rabbit Team begin to proceed toward the Arraipe.
"What are you doing, Rabbit Team?!" Saori practically screamed over the radio, deeply concerned for the freshmen's well-being. "Get back over here! You'll get torn apart out there!"
"Mako, follow them!" Miho immediately ordered.
"But we'll be in the danger zone, too, Lady Nishizumi!" Yukari objected to the idea of putting themselves at risk as well.
"Captain Nishizumi, we're sorry!" Azusa apologized over the radio, but she did not bother to order the tank to stop. "We've been hiding something, something super important! The Arraipe-!"
The sensibly-minded freshman was cut off when an object shaped much like a projectile rocketed through the air at an extremely high speed, faster than sound judging by the cracking boom shortly following. The jet-boosted projectile blasted into the Arraipe and knocked it off its tentacles, throwing it back several hundred feet from the force of the initial impact as well as from the explosion that followed upon impact.
Shortly after that missile strike followed the distinct roaring whoosh of air that was characteristic of high-speed passes by jets as a jet fighter flew by overhead. The jaws of Rabbit Team and Anglerfish Team dropped in disbelief, but Miho grew even more stunned when she identified the jet in question: a Mitsubishi F-2A, heavily laden with external armament consisting mainly of guided bombs, but also an anti-ship missile. From the presence of an empty rack on the other side, the light brunette could assume that the anti-ship missile that such a rack was built for had been the projectile that threw around the Arraipe like a ragdoll.
"Hauptmann Honda?" Miho spoke into the radio out of curiosity to see if her hunch was right about the identity of the pilot in the Mitsubishi F-2, fitted with the hinomaru markings characteristic of Japanese aircraft.
"You're covered, you show-off," Captain Muto Honda of the JASDF notified over the radio, seemingly unrecognizing of Miho's transmission. His Mitsubishi F-2 was beginning a long turn to double back. "Now get in there and get crackin'!"
The light brunette Panzer IV commander was about to speak up again, thinking she wasn't speaking loudly enough. She could tell it was the Japanese Captain on the other end, but she really wanted to alert him to the Arraipe's offensive abilities.
Miho never got the chance to ask again thanks to the distinct sound of a few 120 mm smoothbore cannons going off, and not even an eye-blink later was the Arraipe struck again with considerable force, enough to make it stumble. The cannon fire drew the attention of the remainder of Ooarai's Panzers, and Miho started growing a relieved smile when she recognized the modern-day tanks that were the source of the fire.
"IT'S THE TYPE 10!" Yukari loudly fangirled over the appearance of Japan's most modern main battle tank, three of them at that. One was perched at the crest of a hill behind the Ooarai Panzers while the other two had begun to descend down said hill, cannons aimed at the tentacled beast.
"Hauptmann Chouno!" Miho said, greatly relieved that her remaining tanks had effectively been rescued by a trio of the JGSDF's most advanced tank yet.
"Good job, very nice, you girls!" Captain Ami Chouno applauded the Ooarai tankers' efforts over a radio channel. The Japanese tanker herself was in full combat gear this time around, aboard the Type 10 sitting on the hillcrest. "You all held yourselves well so far, so take a breather! Fighting kaijus is the JSDF's job! PANZER VOR!" She ended with a final command for her own Type 10 to advance, and the Japanese tank began to descend down the hill as well to engage the monster.
"For your information, it can stretch its tentacles to attack and can spit very high-pressure water!" Miho quickly briefed Ami on the Arraipe's offensive abilities. At the same time, the Japanese tanker's Type 10 flew past the Panzer IV with all the speed of a modern-day main battle tank, which was quite fast. "Both have a great reach, so be careful!"
"Roger, thanks!" Ami acknowledged the info as she continued to approach the Arraipe with the other two Type 10s.
The tentacled monster faced the threesome of Japanese Type 10s that were closing rapidly. The beast began to charge up a stream of extremely high-pressure water to attack the Japanese tanks, but it was interrupted when Captain Honda in his Mitsubishi F-2 released a JDAM-equipped bomb of 1,000 kg in weight. The Japanese fighter then broke off from its heading to put some more distance between it and the monster.
In the meantime, the fire-and-forget JDAM directly impacted the rear of the Arraipe thanks to its highly-accurate GPS guidance system, making the beast stumble forward and nearly falling over from the force of the impact and explosion. The impact also made the monster's water attack lose all pressure and simply fall out of its mouth like a small waterfall.
The three Type 10s took advantage of the distraction provided by the Japanese fighter and drove around the right of the Arraipe. Their cannons aimed at the monster, and all three fired in quick succession while still on the move. Despite that, the sabot shells landed right on target thanks to the tanks' modern-day fire control systems working flawlessly.
The Arraipe stumbled a bit more from the attacks. Dust was building up again on the ground, thanks to the tentacled monster, the Japanese main battle tanks, and the aftermath of the Japanese fighter's airstrike. But the beast was not down and out. No, far from it as a matter of fact.
The Arraipe pulled another trick out of its figurative sleeve when it revealed itself to have a tail of sorts. The tail itself was similar to a pitchfork in appearances with the forked pikes, but the beast's tail had six of those pikes at the end of its tail compared to three for the common pitchfork. The monster swung its tail out toward the Japanese Type 10s to cut them down.
"SHIT!" Ami cursed in surprise over the radio when she saw that six-pike tail swing in the direction of her tanks. To her luck, though, the tail strike missed, though only barely. "Retreat!"
With that order, all three Type 10s started to book it out of the area.
Simultaneously, Captain Honda had launched the other anti-ship missile his Mitsubishi F-2 had been armed with, the brand-new ASM-3, derived from the pre-production XASM-3 anti-ship missile. It featured an integral ramjet as its power source, which gave it the ability to exceed Mach 3, along with a guidance system that combined mid-course correction with terminal guidance to give the missile the ability to detect its target from long range while also providing the extreme accuracy that a terminal guidance system can achieve.
The freshly-deployed ASM-3 impacted with the tail of the Arraipe at extremely high speed, blowing it to pieces and flinging the beast itself quite a ways, away from the Type 10s. The monster was not happy about that at all, having to let what remained of its abused tail shrivel back into its place of origin. In retaliation, the Arraipe extended a great number of its tentacles to rain down onto the Japanese tanks.
"Keep your speed up! Evasive!" Ami ordered her small group of tanks when she saw the tentacles coming straight for them.
True to the order, each of them steered left and right unpredictably in an effort to shake off the Arraipe's tentacle strikes. It worked, as the tentacles smashed seemingly everything but the Type 10s. After evading the tentacles, the three Type 10s turned left, still maintaining their high speed, and aimed at the monster again. They all opened fire in quick succession while still on the move, and the shells all impacted to force the beast back.
A few seconds later, another JDAM dropped by the Mitsubishi F-2 struck the Arraipe, making the beast stumble again to avoid losing its footing.
From the top of the hills that looked over the battlefield, the M3 Lee and Panzer IV crews watched the JSDF continue to harass the big monster. Up above, the Ooarai Jagdwaffe were similar, though they were effectively circling the battlefield instead. There was, very obviously, no need for the Ooarai folks to join in, because as Ami said, fighting kaijus was the JSDF's job, and they were proving damn good at it.
"As expected of all the new and powerful weapons they have at their hands…" Yukari annotated while watching the fight as she leaned out from the loader's hatch of the Panzer IV. "It's much like shooting fish in a barrel, considering the Arraipe can't raise a single limb against them… Seems like the intelligence of humankind has given us the ability to defeat the unknown even before coming to understand the unknown…"
Miho paid no attention to the tank guru's annotations, choosing instead to watch the fight. She had that look in her eyes that said she would intervene if things started going to shit, no matter what anyone told her.
"… What the devil are you talking about, Yukari?" Erich asked over the radio. He didn't understand at all why Yukari was saying what she was saying. To his ears, it sounded as if the tank guru was off in her own little world.
The situation with the Arraipe was much unchanged: the beast was still getting attacked without being able to launch an attack itself. The Type 10s were simply too quick to strike, let alone the untouchable Mitsubishi F-2. If anything, the modern-day Japanese fighter was what did by far the most damage to the Arraipe, enough so that the beast actually seemed to shy away in fear whenever an airstrike came in.
"Saki!" Miho heard some of the freshmen cry out. "Saki, get back here!"
The light brunette looked over her shoulder, and spotted Saki outside of the M3 Lee, running in the direction of the Arraipe. Yukari saw the scene as well, as did the rest of the Anglerfish crew.
"What the-!" Mako widened her eyes, caught greatly off-guard by the sight of the nearly-mute freshman girl descending down the hill. The tank driver immediately shut up and dumped the clutch at full-throttle, making the Panzer IV take off after Saki.
"What?! What happened?!" Saori repeatedly asked in her own kind of shock. "Saki is-but why?!"
"It's about what we wanted to say to you earlier, but Saki…" Yuuki tried to explain over the radio in the M3 Lee, which had also taken off after Saki.
It seemed to make no difference, as the Arraipe had caught wind of Saki approaching it, and immediately jumped over to her place, generating a large cloud of dust upon its heavy landing.
Saki lifted up an arm to shield her eyes from the dust, but she removed it a few seconds later to look the Arraipe in the eye. "Arraipe…" she began to address the beast.
XXXXXXXXXX
"Wait, you're saying what?!" Ami roared incredulously when she got wind of what Saki was doing via a radio message. The Japanese tanker quickly barked out an order over the channel. "Break off! Break off!"
Her order to break off was directed at Muto up in the air, but the order came in just too late, as the Japanese fighter pilot had already dropped a JDAM intended for the Arraipe. The beast lifted a tentacle and, in desperation, Saki lifted her hand to cover her mouth and nose along with closing her eyes upon discovering the bomb heading for them both.
But the bomb impacted regardless and exploded in all its glory, generating a massive cloud of dust and shrapnel. The cloud itself was massive, easily obscuring the gigantic Arraipe from view.
Soon after the blast's sound dissipated, Ami popped open her Type 10's hatch. "Mother of God…" she absently said, not expecting the coming picture to be anything resembling pretty.
But she was given yet another surprise when the cloud of dust dissipated. Enveloped protectively by one of the Arraipe's tentacles and completely unharmed besides some coughing was Saki.
When she finally opened her eyes, Saki found the Arraipe staring down at her as the beast withdrew its protective tentacle back. It didn't appear to hold any sign of aggression toward the seldom-speaking freshman.
"… Thank you, Arraipe…" Saki spoke up to the monster. She then reached into the top of her shirt, where a bit of a squirming motion was noticeable. "Also…"
Out of her shirt, she pulled out a much, much smaller Arraipe, about the size of her own head. Saki noted how the Arraipe extended a lone tentacle, but the mostly silent girl had a smile pulling at her lips. The reason being was because she knew the Arraipe wasn't extending its tentacle as a form of attack. Instead, it was simply reaching out to the smaller Arraipe, which was also extending its much smaller tentacle in much the same way.
"… I believe this belongs to you," Saki notified the gigantic Arraipe, extending her own arms towards the monstrous creature to return the smaller Arraipe to it.
The large Arraipe accepted the smaller one as the two creatures connected tentacles with each other.
XXXXXXXXXX
A little later when the sun began to rise and begin a new day, the rising sun outlined the figure of the giant Arraipe swimming out into the Pacific ocean.
On the beach of Ooarai, the students of Ooarai that had actually taken part in the fight were watching the much more peaceful Arraipe swim into the rising sun. Also there were the JSDF members that took part in the fight. The remaining vehicles used by the students and the officers that weren't utterly destroyed were parked behind them, including the three-strong Ooarai Jagdwaffe and the Mitsubishi F-2.
"So, do we just declare this case as closed?" Muto wondered, holding his removed helmet with one hand. He still had on the g-suit, though. Closest to him among the ad-hoc group were Ami, Miho, and Erich.
"I guess so…" Miho responded as she looked out at the sea with a smile.
"Well, the report on this I think will be quite entertaining to the higher-ups to say the least," Ami remarked with a hand on her hip.
"I want to see the gun cam footage of the fight," Erich contributed to the conversation along the same lines. He had his signature calm grin in place. "Hell, I could probably find someone to make all that footage into a movie."
"You mean to tell me that this attack was done for the sole purpose of that thing looking for its young?" Caesar questioned with plenty of disbelief. The history buffs were all drenched in water still, Wolf and Leonidas being drenched from landing in the ocean after bailing out of their Me 410. All of them were dressed in gym clothes seeing as there were no other dry clothes on hand.
"Apparently…" Wolf shrugged. He still had his Schirmmütze on his head, dripping water as it was.
"So false alarm, then!" Erwin reached a conclusion for the baffling situation while still drying herself off.
"Wasn't that little Arraipe so cute?" Akebi gushed with the volleyball players. The rest of the volleyball players didn't pay much heed to the busty blonde's fawning, simply looking into the sunrise in the manner of a job well done.
"No, it fucking wasn't!" Ron actually gave a response to Akebi's words, though it was of great annoyance and frustration. No doubt he was frustrated from getting effortlessly swatted aside by the tentacles of the beast. "Next time I see an Arraipe of any size and I'm going to tear off all its godforsaken tentacles until it's no longer able to sustain itself due to a lack of ability to move!"
All members of Rabbit Team were looking more remorseful rather than the relieved mood of everyone else, and for good reason.
"Saki found the little Arraipe on the beach yesterday…" Yuuki revealed with hands clasped together nervously. "… We had thought about reporting it somewhere…"
"But it only wanted to be around Saki…" Karina continued with the revelation.
Saki said nothing, but not for her usual reason of simply being that kind of person. Judging by her face, she was upset at having to say goodbye to the Arraipe, and in light of the freshmen's revelation, it made sense why. Saki had developed quite the bond with the unique creature, and having to say goodbye to it made her tear up.
The very quiet girl looked to her right upon feeling a hand descend upon her right shoulder. She found Miho standing there with a knowing smile. The light brunette knew all of her tankers really well, and the quietest tanker of them all was no exception to that.
Miho turned her head to look back to the sunrise. "Yukari…" she began, knowing the tank guru was standing off a bit to the side. "It's true that the intelligence of humanity might be able to counter the unknown…" The light brunette's smile seemed to grow even brighter with the sun shining down on it. "However, the heart that tries to understand the unknown rather than conquer it might be the more important thing. And we showed that to the Arraipe."
Miho soon felt a masculine body lazily wrap around her from behind, and she could tell from the grip that it was Erich. "Ugh, pleeeeeaaaaase…" the blonde moaned sleepily as he rested his head on her shoulder, going back to the everyday Erich that never lifted a finger if it wasn't necessary by his extremely lazy standards. "Can we not sit here and talk about our feelings, of all things? It's so boring…"
Miho silently chuckled at her companion's mentality. Yep, it was back to being the unbearably lazy and childlike Erich for the blond-haired ultra-ace. The light brunette let one hand roam to his head and ruffle his hair affectionately. "I find it ironic considering at one time I heard you give the most heartfelt speech I ever heard in my life," she retorted.
"Huuuuuh...?" Erich muttered sleepily and slightly confused.
Miho continued to fiddle with the short blonde hair of her closest companion as she elaborated, "I heard what you said to Dziubek that one time."
"Wait, you were actually awake for that?" Erich became fully alert at remembering the time in question.
"Mmm-hmm," Miho hummed that he was correct in that assumption. "You know I'm an extremely light sleeper."
"Ah, right," he remembered that particular aspect of Miho's habits. He then obliged the light brunette as he began to retell some of his words from the time in question as he stared into the sunset, standing up fully behind Miho and with a smile. "Never hate, it only eats you alive. Keep an open mind and always look for the good in people. You may be surprised at what you find."
XXXXXXXXXX
A TV screen went black as the content it showed came to its end.
"Uuuuuh…" Douglas droned for a bit at a complete loss.
"… What in blazes did we just watch?" Assam asked the question on everyone's mind.
Douglas, Darjeeling, Orange Pekoe, Arthur, Assam, and Dennis were all seated on a couch in front of a now-black TV screen. They had just finished up watching a movie they were sent.
"Well, that was… interesting, I'll say," Arthur offered his judgment on the film.
Dennis picked up the case that the movie they just watched came in. The case itself said 'Giant Arraipe vs. Ooarai Combat Group' with 'Final' just below. There was a small Saunders High School emblem on the cover as well. "Looks like this is one of the films the Americans plan to screen during their amateur film festival…" the Northern Irishman deduced.
"Wasn't this just an absolute masterpiece?!" Darjeeling excitedly said. She was apparently greatly interested by the movie. "Oh, I do wonder if there are any extras? Is there perhaps something like a commentary?"
"I doubt that…" Orange Pekoe offered her opinion. "Even though it's a final version, considering it's an amateur film, I don't think they had time to make any extras for it…"
"I see!" Darjeeling nodded, still full of energy. "Should we also make-?"
"Please, no," everyone else in the room cut her off with. They knew what Darjeeling would ask before she even finished, but they were all damned to hell for all eternity if they would let Darjeeling of all people develop a movie. The rest of the British folks were sure they were doing the world a favor by not allowing the Englishwoman to produce a film.
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Disclaimer: no giant tentacled creatures were harmed in the making of this film.
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. The music belongs to Sabaton. Any references made belong to their respective owners.
Feel free to ask any questions if you have them. Please note, however, that questions asked without being signed in will not be answered. The author would prefer to address questions outside of the story, and leaving questions while signed in provides that ability.