Disclaimer: I do not own World of Tanks or RWBY.
The next day saw a rather dreary morning dawn over Beacon; the sort of morning where it isn't actually raining, and isn't expected to rain, but the morning still feels the same as if it were raining. That is, rather dark, cold, and generally miserable to stand around in. Still, this did nothing to dissuade the English tank crew, who headed to their boxy little Cruiser IV at a time before most of the school was even awake. And as the Cruiser's engines came to life, spurting in waking and then descending into a low, somewhat dissatisfied rumble, the German tank crew came out. All of the German crew.
As the Cruiser began moving, its treads creaking and whining slightly against the concrete, Gladys, inside the turret, said aloud, "Sorry for not announcing ourselves. You were already asleep when we got back last night."
Ribbans had to yell over the sound of the engine, as he said, "Don't much mind waking up on one of these days!"
He turned back around, and Gladys sniffed slightly at that, then made the unsaid decision to forgo telling her gunner about the events of yesterday. Being surrounded by the familiar steel walls of a tank, all the troubles of the new world which Gladys was in suddenly seemed rather silly. For a few moments, those troubles even fell away entirely, as she wholly forgot them in favor of fondly daydreaming on her time as a proper commander, in proper matches.
Her daydreaming wasn't too vivid, nor too long, though, as she stared through her periscope, watching as the bottom of the hilly path into the Emerald Forest came closer and closer. Finally, the Cruiser IV started to level, its Christie suspension smoothing the experience a little but still letting it be noticeable. Gladys quickly ordered, "Driver, right."
At the prompting, the tank turned to the right, bumbling off the path and into the woods themselves. To the tank's right, now, was the cliff of the mountain that Gladys and her crew had just descended; and so, the commander turned her periscope to the left, her eyes narrowed as she peered through it to look for threats. A Beowolf was the first thing to catch her attention; or at least, a four-legged black thing, the details of which weren't really discernible at a distance, through a somewhat narrow slit, and from a moving vehicle. Still, it was enough for Gladys to, on instinct, open her mouth to give Carney an order to halt.
And then she stopped, hesitating, brushing aside the feeling of being in the familiar, good old days. The times when she would have been in a tank destroyer, and so needed to halt and turn to get the gun on target. Gladys bit her lip lightly with indecision- and promptly noticed that the Beowolf was now gone, lost between the sea of trees.
Blushing with the same red as her coat, Gladys quickly glanced over to Emma, only to realize that the loader hadn't noticed something was wrong; she didn't have a periscope to see, after all. Still, the loader did notice her blushing commander, and so question, "What's it?"
Gladys shook her head quickly, and Emma shrugged, turning away and back to staring at the ammo racks. At that, Gladys let out a sigh of slight relief, then turned back to her periscope, peering through and, after a moment, catching sight of another thing to shoot. Quickly, she opened her mouth- then stopped, then opened her mouth again, ordering, "Gunner, target ten o'clock."
Promptly and professionally, Ribbans turned the traverse mechanism, and the turret whirred into motion. Immediately, Gladys' stomach rebelled at the feeling of two separate motions happening at once- going forwards from the tank and to the side from the turret. Her hand quickly flew up and to the side of her hatch, clinging to the cold steel.
Poom!
The gun fired, and Gladys could do nothing more than keep her mouth shut as she heard the ringing of the spent round being discarded, while Emma quickly hunched over and slammed a new round into the breech. Her job mostly done, the loader called, "Up!"
Poom!
Emma's head barely got out of the way of the next round, as she grabbed the spent round. Quickly, the loader dropped the round, then twisted over to the ammo rack and grabbed another, slamming it in and calling, "Up!"
After a moment's hesitation, she finally stooped back over, grabbing the two spent rounds and tossing them out through her hatch. Ribbans yelled, "All that yobbing about with children make you forget to bloody stop?"
"You nearly took my head off!" Emma retorted, "Hit the bastard the first time, next time!"
"Well I would if I didn't have two movements to lead!" Ribbans bickered. Gladys quickly interjected, "We're in a…"
She trailed off, her stomach once again rebelling against her, before finishing, "M-Medium tank."
She leaned forward a little, resting one hand over stomach as she breathed quick, light breaths, almost her entire being focused simply on not throwing up. Ribbans huffed, "Bugger that."
Emma stared over at Gladys for a long moment, as the commander continued to do nothing. Finally, Gladys managed to steel herself, and lifted off of her hatch. A few moments later, she spotted another something, and ordered, "Ribbans, nine o'clock."
Once again the turret turned, and Gladys' eyes widened as the contents of her stomach once again shifted and rocked with the motion. Quickly, desperately, she grabbed for the intercom, yelling, "C-Carney, sto-"
Her speech cut off, as bile instead flew from her mouth. Then, the tank stopped all at once, sending Gladys careening nearly off her commander's platform. Bits of her comit flew forward a little, smacking into Ribbans' coat and staining the bright red to be more of a dark, dull red.
Poom!
Ribbans fired anyway, despite the stop. Emma, for once, didn't immediately move to load another shell, instead pointing out, "There's a reason you don't do this to yourself!"
Gladys nodded lightly, her head spinning with faint dizziness, while Emma turned away, grabbing a round. Ribbans grumbled, "Bloody stupid Kraut, thinking we should act as a medium…"
He glanced over at Gladys, and Emma called, "Up!"
Quickly, Ribbans focused back in on his gunsight.
Poom!
And put a forty-millimeter round straight through the skull of a Grimm. Finally, Gladys collected herself, then murmured, "That, ah, w-was a mistake. My apologies."
Emma shook her head lightly, grabbing another round. Casually, she rammed it into the breech, reporting, "Up!"
Ribbans nodded a little, while Gladys turned to her periscope, to find nothing around. With her stomach still feeling discontent, though, she elected not to move anyway, and instead opened her hatch and clambered out a little. Cold, fresh air washed down on her, and Gladys took a deep breath, letting her lungs fill with the crisp air. Finally, she let it out, then sucked in another breath, before murmuring, "Really ought to be getting on…"
She sighed, then glanced around- and spotted the Panzer III, off to the left, as if it had driven straight ahead from the trail before stopping. At the still sight, she blinked in confusion, being much more used to Hans having it charge around rampantly. And then a sound like a buzzsaw ripped through the morning air, and Gladys understood the reason for the halt all at once. She sighed at that, then ducked back into the turret, picking up the intercom and ordering, "Forwards, Carney."
-A while later
It was a much less dreary afternoon when Ruby headed out to the forest- though, it isn't common at all for an afternoon to be dreary, so that isn't much of an accomplishment. Still, it should be said that the sun was hanging in the sky as it always did in the afternoon, sending rays of light down, much of it being intercepted by the blanket of leaves which covered over the forest. And it was into the shade that Ruby plunged, coming off of the hilly path and going into the Emerald Forest itself.
As usual, she didn't have much of a direction at all, merely heading along, plodding at first along the dirt trail that led from the mountain path all the way to the road to Vale. And it was along this dirt trail that she eventually spied someone else, and recognized them at once to be Otto, lying haphazardly in the dirt. Quickly, she headed over, raising a hand despite knowing it wouldn't be seen as she greeted, "Hey Otto. I was looking for you guys- some things kinda came up, and…"
Ruby trailed off, finally noticing the odd position Otto was in, as if he'd just fallen down. She still continued walking, though, only pausing her talking; and so she came to stand over the man, looking into his eyes. They were glassy little orbs, that seemed only to reflect Ruby back at her. A mish-mash of holes in the man's chest told of his fate; shot by a machine gun. The girl shuddered momentarily at the sight, then stepped quickly back, muttering, "R-Right, it's you guys…"
She chuckled a little, perhaps from simple nerves, perhaps from the ridiculousness of having gotten used to seeing dead people based solely on them being 'the tankers'. It was still a bit of an oddity, but she'd seen almost all of them dead by now; and so she simply backed away, saying, "Uh… get well soon!"
She then headed off the path entirely, not truly wanting to be around a dead corpse anymore than necessary. This, of course, meant that she now had absolutely no navigational aids, and so wandered aimlessly around the trees. Finally, she head a distant boom, and lifted her head at the sound, heading in its direction. It took a few more booms for her to really get a sense of where they were coming from, by which point she could hear a creaking noise too; the sounds of a tank, just what she'd been looking for.
It was still a while after that before she found the thing; or, to be precise, saw the thing. It was, at least, the right tank; the boxy little brown thing, with the red and white strips on the top part, that Ruby vaguely knew as being Gladys' tank. Quickly, she raised her hand, calling, "Hey!"
Despite this, the Cruiser sped off. Ruby ran to follow, and the Cruiser abruptly stopped. As Ruby ran, the tank held still for a moment, before-
Boom!
The firing of its cannon sounded, dust filling the air around the barrel, kicked up by the muzzle fumes being spread outward by the muzzle brake. Ruby smiled at the sight, then yelled, "Hey guys!"
Another moment passed, as the dust settled back down to earth, before Gladys popped out of the tank, looking over at Ruby. Quickly, the girl sped over, and Gladys abruptly ducked back in with a cry of, "Not again, chit!"
A moment later, the Cruiser sped off, and Ruby called, "Wait!"
And, after that brief, entirely unconsctructive encounter, it was another hour before Ruby found the tank again. This time, it was stopped inside of a small gully, and Ruby didn't bother trying to run at it the normal way, instead using her Semblance to simply shoot herself onto the turret-
Boom!
-and into the cloud of dust kicked up by the gun firing. A moment passed, before Emma popped out, informing, "We hardly get a chance to do this, so what do you want to interrupt us with?"
"Uhh… so…" Ruby murmured, "You guys remembered how, well, Blake and Weiss were arguing? Something else came up, when we all went into the same room, and…"
She hesitated, wondering whether she should really tell people that Blake was a Faunus.
"Spit it out," Emma shot. Ruby asked, "Have you guys seen Blake?"
Emma ducked downward, and only took a second before coming back up and saying, "No. Now clear off so we can get moving."
"Not at all?" Ruby questioned, "I couldn't find her around the school."
Emma ducked back down. After a moment, both the loader and Gladys came up, the front of the commander's coat stained slightly. Gladys informed, "We haven't seen Blake, and my gunner wants to bash you with the barrel, so it really would be best if you headed off."
"Have the other guys?" Ruby asked. Gladys shrugged at that, and Ruby asked, "Where are they, anyway?"
"Somewhere else in the forest, I suppose," Gladys answered, "It'll take a while for you to find them, so you really should be going."
"Can't you?" Ruby questioned. Gladys shook her head, and Emma snorted. The commander shot a quick glare over at her loader's lack of manners, then said, "Well, we really should be off- if we see Blake, I'll tell her you said 'hello', alright?"
"Thanks," Ruby shrugged. The commander and loader promptly dipped back down, their hatches creaking slightly as they shut closed again, and Ruby hopped off the tank. A moment later, the Cruiser heaved itself out of the gully, then sped along and away.
Author's Note: Hullo. I must apologize for how long it's been since I gave any sort of an update- my computer has, of late, run into a rather odd, and rather crippling, error. And, to be frank, I've been a bit of a lazy bastard as well, continually putting off this task when I probably should have gotten on with it. But, to be even more honest, I simply didn't have many ideas for where to go with the story past... honestly, since about Forever Falls, really. Still, I'll at least try to keep calm and carry on; hopefully, the next chapter won't be quite so far off as the previous one is from this.