The Legends Still Live On
Bogen Siebundzwanzig-komma-fünf: Glorreiche Zwecke
Kapitel Ein: Klein Italien... Italiener, das Heißt
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Anchovy was out. She was out cold, at her desk of all places. The duce of Anzio was napping, just barely keeping her head up off the desktop with a hand under her chin, eyes shut out of weariness, and not looking as if she would wake up anytime soon.
There were a number of reasons why she was slacking off as she was now. For one, the amount of work she had to do as duce was, obviously, a lot. That was enough to make most anyone else just get up and walk out. There was also the life those at Anzio tended to live by: the party life. Such a life often came back to bite the next morning, and Anchovy was no exception to this. Partying until the wee hours certainly contributed to her present napping state. But, considering it was the weekend, the consequences were much less severe than they were during the week.
Another high-ranking reason for her exhaustion was her fellow comrades. While she could never dislike her comrades, she had to reluctantly admit to herself that they were with their flaws. A lot of flaws, many of which were incredibly frustrating to deal with. Perhaps she would be awakened by one of them when they inevitably brought some problem before her so she could fix it.
Nah. That's not how she was awakened.
A harsh yank on one of her twin pale green ponytails jolted her awake as she experienced the sensation of being pulled downwards and to the side by her hair.
"Hngh!" she grunted in surprise, feeling her head loll to the side from whatever yanked on it. "Bah-but-what the-what is going on!?" She tripped over her words for a bit from the suddenness of it all, until she looked down to the side to find out what was pulling on her hair.
"Sorella!" a little boy elatedly called her as he kept insistently tugging on her hair. "Sorella!"
What was… undeniably odd about this boy to Anchovy is that he effectively looked just like a de-aged version of Franco, no more than five years of age if she had to guess, with the short black hair and everything, all on a much shorter and childlike body. He lacked the cape, rather instead just sticking with a miniaturized version of the basic black and white school uniform of Anzio.
At the sight of 'Mini-Franco,' as she had now dubbed in her mind, Anchovy could do nothing more than lower her head slightly and give off an 'are you kidding me' expression. "Oh, are you kidding me?" she saw fit to mutter aloud, as well. "I already had to go through this once, and that was enough to last me a lifetime. Please don't let me go through this again…"
The words she spoke to herself were in reference to how she had a younger brother, who she well remembered had pulled pretty much the exact same annoying antics on her at that age. It was frustrating because Anchovy knew that she couldn't simply bark at Mini-Franco to stop, as she knew from experience that telling someone like him to stop only served to further enable him to keep on doing whatever it was she wanted him to stop doing.
After a minute, she grabbed Mini-Franco's comparatively tiny wrist gently but firmly, halting his hair-pulling. "Let. Go," the Italian tanker demanded, finally sick of him and his yanking on her precious ponytails.
"No!" he smiled and yanked on her hair again, making her head loll again from the force.
Anchovy's face adopted the 'this is gonna be a long day' look.
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Later that morning, Anchovy was out on a casual stroll, having nothing better to do at the moment since there were no classes that day, nor anything related to the Panzerkraft team she had to do. Nope. It was just her, and the fresh air.
Well, okay, maybe not quite.
She heard the tappity-tap-tap of small feet coming from behind. Looking over her shoulder, she saw the little boy she dubbed Mini-Franco behind her, running to just keep up with her walking pace. At first, she thought nothing of it and dismissed him.
That turned out to be a big mistake. "Sorella!" she heard that unmistakably childish voice just as she felt a massive tug on her other ponytail. Mini-Franco was literally swinging a la Tarzan using her hair.
"Hey!" Anchovy grunted at him swinging with her hair. "I thought I said no more pulling! I did NOT mean go to the other side and keep on doing it! GAH!" She yelped in surprise upon feeling another harsh tug on her other unoccupied ponytail, and from the feelings she was getting she could only interpret that someone else was using it to swing around, just like Mini-Franco.
"What the-? My other…!" she glanced over her other side to try and find out the cause of her other ponytail's swinging.
What she found was another child, this one a girl that looked incredibly like Pepperoni, having the same short, braided hairdo. And, just like the full-size Pepperoni, the miniature version had rambunctious levels of energy, as she was also using one of Anchovy's ponytails to swing around a la Tarzan.
"… Huh?" was all Anchovy could dumbly say in response, with an appropriate dumbstruck face to match.
It was at this moment that Anchovy was suddenly grateful for the particular shampoo and conditioner she regularly used on her hair. The blend would go to work on strengthening her hair at the roots as part of the overall objective of making her hair healthier in its appearance. However, it wasn't exactly cheap, and she remembered well how Carpaccio had considered it overkill upon reading off what it could do. Now, however, il duce was convinced it was worth the money considering she was able to withstand two rowdy toddlers swinging their weight through the air using her hair.
"Siiiii!" the two miniaturized Italians joyfully cheered as they continued swinging on Anchovy's hair like it was a ride at a park.
"Oh, for heaven's sake, WILL YOU TWO QUIT MESSING AROUND WITH MY HAIR!?" the twin-tailed leader and present carnival ride raised her voice with the two children.
"NO!" both of them joyfully declined to stop, continuing to swing around with her hair like it was a rope swing.
Anchovy gritted her teeth at that, not at all liking how she was degraded to a park ride so easily. Her scalp, while perfectly intact thanks to her shampoo, was aching at the roots due to all the pulling, and it was getting annoying. Also, she had a bone to pick with how the two children were so readily opposing their elder.
At that thought, Anchovy pressed a hand to her temple, immediately blanching at how she was considered an elder in this light. While it was technically true, it still disgusted her to have the term associated with her. She was far from an old woman.
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Later, when Anchovy decided to head back to her flat briefly with her two swinging passengers, she found herself not minding the two rambunctious toddlers all that much. Yes, her scalp would still be killing her the next day, but she was eventually able to just let go of the childishness, realizing it for what it was: childish fun.
"Hey, you guys," Anchovy said to the two miniature Italians as she walked deeper into her flat, sparing them both a glance. She was hoping they would like the idea that had struck her earlier, the reason why she went back to her dorm. "I have a football somewhere around here. You want to play around with it?"
The effect was immediate as she felt the sudden lack of tension now on her hair and heard the gasps of eagerness from the two of them. "SIIIII!" they shrieked an affirmative.
"Ha ha, okay, okay," Anchovy shook her head with an indulgent grin at the two children, finding them irresistibly cute at that moment. "Just wait here for a moment while I go get it." She held her hands out in a gesture to stay where they were, before heading to her closet.
Her rooms were a bit of a mess, but compared to the rest of Anzio's students, Anchovy wasn't all that bad in maintaining cleanliness in her own place. Unlike some people she knew, whose quarters were so messy that one could hardly find the floor beneath all the rubbish.
That level of disorganization Anchovy had limited to her closet, instead. "Oh, come on, where are you…" she muttered to herself as she sifted through the pile of miscellaneous items on the floor inside.
She found something, but just by feel alone, that wasn't the football she was looking for. "No…" she mumbled, tossing an old schoolbag behind her aimlessly. "No…" Next she tossed an old plastic trophy she got from some competition she entered as a child. She couldn't remember what it was now. Afterwards, she felt a handle, and lifted it out of the pile out of curiosity.
"Oh, I've been wondering where these went!" she marveled briefly at the small container she pulled out, filled with dozens of those small, super-bouncy balls that were so fun and addicting to bounce all the time. After a second, she set the container aside to continue her search for the football.
"Whoa, wait a minute, wait a minute…" she paused briefly as she felt that distinct outer skin of a football. Just to be sure, she ran her finger around the surface of it, catching a dip that she knew was stitching. Tracing it around, she felt six distinct points before her finger was back where it started. That confirmed it for her. "Aha! There you are, you sneaky little thing!"
Pulling the football out, she proceeded to leave, but she paused for a moment looking at the state of disarray her closet was in. She stared for a moment before shaking her head. "Meh, I'll clean it up later," she mumbled to herself before leaving her room.
Her footsteps were easily heard by the miniaturized Franco and Pepperoni. As such, she was immediately greeted with an incredibly enthusiastic, "DUCE!" from the both of them as soon as she was in their sights.
"Alright, I've got it!" Anchovy said to them, holding up the football. "Now let's go and have some fun!" She was quite enthusiastic about playing around with the two children, even if she wasn't before, just because she understood the meaning of 'work hard, play hard.' And she definitely worked hard, so why shouldn't she play hard?
"Duce! Duce!" the two little Italians cheered as they all practically hopped out of the dorm. "Duce! Capitano!"
Okay, that was a little weird, Anchovy had to admit, with that 'Capitano' cheer, but it didn't bother her really.
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"Duce?" Franco tried to gain Anchovy's attention and rouse her from her sleep, to no success.
"Ehi, duce!" Pepperoni tried to rouse il duce herself. But her attempt was to no avail also.
Out in the real world, Anchovy was still fast asleep, head resting atop her arms on her desk. Franco and Pepperoni were both on either direct side of her, the both of them gently tugging on her twin ponytails to try and awaken her. But it was to no avail.
"She's still not awake?" Fernando asked. He was also in the office, as were Carpaccio and Furio. The three of them were currently preoccupied on the floor playing a game of BS, having nothing better to do. The most unruly of the three laid down two cards for his turn. "Two fours."
"Cazzate," Furio immediately called BS on him.
"Dannazione..." Fernando cursed, inheriting the small pile of cards between them all into his own hand, having been called out truthfully.
"Duce must be real tired to still be asleep by this time," Carpaccio mused, gracefully laying down a card. "One five."
Neither of the two boys dared call BS on her play.
"No, no… I said no, Mini-Franco…" Anchovy mumbled into her arms. Though, because of that, it came out more like, "Mm, mm… M mm MM, Mm-mm-MM-mm…" Or, something along those lines.
"Did anyone say something?" Carpaccio asked, having heard something.
"I didn't," Fernando quipped.
"Not me," Furio answered.
"Wasn't me," Pepperoni and Franco both responded simultaneously from the desk.
At that, everyone else just decided to shrug it off and leave the mystery to rest.
None of them were aware of it, but Anchovy's sleep-talking was done in reference to her own dreaming. In her head, the three of them – her, Mini-Pepperoni, and Mini-Franco – were all heading to a field to play around with the football, but Mini-Franco was insistent on going to the muddiest field out there. Anchovy did not want that, since she knew it would be a pain to get cleaned up afterwards.
But neither of the two children listened and instead took off for the muddy field at full speed. Because children.
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Part of Projekt Jägermeistern.
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The author does not 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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