A/N: This is what happens when I start procrastinating for a couple months… I regret nothing. Other than that, I'm finally done with Suzukaze's past. Alright, let's get on with Leon and the crew. Welcome to chapter 8 everyone. I will attempt to try and not have a fight scene every goddamn chapter but that is not quite guaranteed.
Edit: Oh god, I just noticed that a lot of the Tank girls have silver hair… My mistake...
Chapter 8: Why are there crates in the port?
Suzukaze finishes her story and looks up at Leon.
"So there's the whole story." she says as she stands up. Leon gets off the bench and walks over near the pier and puts his arms against the railing of the pier.
"Kazuma and I once stood here watching the sunset after a small confrontation in Mexico." Leon says as he stares into the morning mist of San Diego's Harbor. Noel gets up and walks besides Leon.
"Commander…" she says as she tugs on his shirt. Leon looks down at Noel.
"Hmm? Do you want something, Noel." he asks her.
The grey haired girl looks up at him.
"I sense something is in the water… Like a container or something like that…" she says pointing at the water.
Suzukaze and Leon look into the water.
"I don't see it though, are you sure it's in the water?" Leon asks. Noel nods, still pointing at the area. Suzukaze looks down into the water of the pier.
"There is something down there… It looks like it has a navy symbol on it and something else… It's really hard to notice though." Suzukaze says. "Wow, I never knew that was there." she says as she jumps into the water. It's still pretty early in the day, so not many people would be up right at the moment except for the guards returning from night patrol or the workers working to fix the breach in the fence. But instead of falling into the water, she hit's the water as if there was a barrier not allowing her to sink into the water.
"Crap! I still forget I can't sink down." she says as she walks back up onto the pier.
Leon gets up and walks besides the pier and takes off his shirt.
"I'll be back in a moment." Leon says as he jumps into the water. Whatever grogginess that Leon still had from waking up suddenly disappeared as the cold sea water hits his face like a brick.
Leon swims towards the crate on the bottom of the water. His chest starts to ache, but he fights the urge to go back up to the surface to take a breath. He lifts the crate, which was kind of heavy, and starts to swim back up to the surface. He breaks onto the surface and inhales in sharply, tossing the crate onto the pier. Just then, Leon notices another glint coming from the another spot.
"Umm, Leon-teitoku, are you okay?" Suzukaze asks him. Leon gives her a thumbs up and says
"Yeah, I'll be right back."
Taking another inhale, he dives back into the cold sea water. Looking around, he spots the crate laying in a more deeper part of the water. Leon breaks to the surface for air, taking three breaths, then diving down to near darkish waters. He touches around the rocks and then feels a small handle, and tugs on it, loosening the plant growth around the crate. Leon surfaces and sees Suzukaze offering her hand to take the crate. Noel sits on her shoulders, her cheeks slightly red in embarrassment. Leon slowly swims back towards the pier, climbs up the ladder, and then lays down on the wooden platform.
"Commander, are you okay…?" Noel asks, giving him a small questioning. Leon nods, breathing heavily.
"I'm alright, I guess." he says as he sits up and glances at the two crates, the barnacles slowly opening up.
"I guess we could open these up and see what's inside them here" Leon says as he slowly reaches into his pockets and takes out the small GPS device. He walks over to the first crate and puts the device next to it. The crate makes a beeping noise and a microphone appears.
"Teitoku, what's going on?" Suzukaze asks Leon, but he places his index finger on her lips silencing her. Suzukaze's face reddens, but she nods and stops talking. Leon slowly talks into the mic, giving it his voice recognition and the microphone retracts. A hissing sound comes out of it and girl slightly taller than Noel sits up and yawns. What catches Leon's eyes immediately about this girl is the fact that her hair color is orange. She opens her eyes and looks around. Another thing that Leon notices is that her eyes are red. Noel covers her mouth, looking as if she knew this person. The orange haired girl looks at Leon with her cherry eyes and smiles. She jumps out of the crate and gives him a salute.
"Hello commander! Nice to meet you!" she says happily as she runs over to Noel and hugs her.
"Umm… I know you are a tank girl, but what type are you?" Leon asks. The orange haired girl looks up and smiles. She walks over and takes out what looked like an oversized panzerschreck with what looks like a large panzerfaust rocket loaded into it.
"Oh right! My name is Erika, SPG type 'Mörser Karl'!" she says energetically flashing her toothy grin at him. Leon stares at her.
"You mean Karl as in the large artillery piece?" he asks. Erika nods.
"The one and only!" she says excitedly. Leon turns around and stares at the second box.
"So I pray to RNGsus that this would be something good… God this brings me back to CS:GO case openings…" he mutters as he repeats the process in which he opened Erika's box. The case gives off a hiss of steam and unlocks. Instead of a short tank girl who comes out, there stood a girl who looked taller than Suzukaze. Suzukaze stared, her eyes wide with surprise. The taller girl yawned and looked at Leon, her eyes still a bit mopey from the time she spent in the case.
"You must be Admiral Henderson." she says as she raises her arms to make a salute. She then smiles a weary looking smile.
"I'm Furutaka. I'll be happy to show all the good points of heavy cruisers. Nice to meet you, Admiral." she says.
Heavy SPG Karl-Gerät "Erika"- An energetic girl at the very least. She has noticeable cherry red eyes and orange hair that goes down to her shoulders. She wears a german SS officer's uniform with the pants swapped with a black skirt. She stands at around 4'9. She smiles a lot, much more cheerful than Alheid. She takes a liking to Noel for some reason. She carries an enlarged panzerschreck rocket launcher that seems to fire panzerfaust rocket. She has what looks like a kevlar vest and a pair of binoculars.
First Furutaka class Cruiser "Furutaka"- The first class warship of the Furutaka class cruisers. Furutaka has interesting eyes one normal eye and one that glows an electric yellow. She wears a sailor uniform, which looks its for a Japanese high school than for the navy. She's just shorter than Leon by a little bit. Her gear includes three 20.3cm Twin Gun Mount. She looks like the kind of shy type of girl, which is the type of girl Leon is really weak with from some past history.
Leon stands up and stretches.
"Any of you girls hungry?" he asks as he looks over at his two new girls. Erika looks up to him hearing the promise of food. Furutaka simply nods, still a bit asleep. Leon looks over at Suzukaze, and she gives him a nod of agreement. Leon sighs a bit and then waves them all over.
"Let's go for breakfast then, I think I might know a place." he says.
"Alright! I'm starving!" Erika says, smiling as they start walking towards the heart of the survivor city.
Leon sips on his coffee while he watches the rest of the girls eating their pancakes happily. They are currently in what looked to Leon like a Denny's restaurant.
"Fwahh, that hits the spot!" Erika says as she puts down her glass, which was filled with orange juice.
Furutaka also nods.
"Thank you, Admiral. I hope that didn't cost too much." she says quietly. Leon waves his hands.
"Nah, that wasn't too much." he says as he drains the rest of his black coffee. Leon looked over at Suzukaze who was pretty quiet the whole time.
"You okay there, Suzukaze? You seem depressed." Leon says.
Suzukaze looks up, smiling sheepishly.
"It's nothing, I was just wondering what would happen if Yuudachi-nee and Harusame-nee were to be here right now." she says. "And if only Samidare was here with me too…"
Leon catches a bit of the last part, but decides not to ask her who Samidare is, just in case it might worry her.
"Thank you for your patience, Mr. Henderson, here's the to-go you ordered." the waitress said as she hands Leon four styrofoam containers.
"What are those for, Admiral?" Furutaka asks as Leon thanks the waitress.
Leon takes the food and thanks the waiter.
"This is for the rest of the company right now back at my place." he says. Furutaka looks at him with a funny look.
"Just the rest of my division that are still asleep at the moment." Leon clarifies.
"How many of us are there?" she asks, looking up at nothing particular.
Leon counts in his head for a second.
"If you're counting only ship girls we have four including you. If tank girls, I think we have about seven." he replies looking back at Furutaka.
Furutaka nods. "I see, commander." she nods then takes a look around them and takes note of something that interests her.
"Commander, What is that?" she asks as she points at Leon's M4 Carbine, which sits on his back. Leon slings the rifle and hands it to her.
"I forgot that you still don't know what these are, sorry about that." Leon says, checking if the safety is on.
He hands Furutaka the M4 carbine. Furutaka takes it and inspects it, taking the magazine out and looking through the scope of the assault rifle.
"This is very different from the Arisakas that I had once held." she says as she looks down the dotted eotech scope that was on the M4.
Leon laughs.
"With each coming generation there are different variants of weapons." he says. "By the way where's all of your gear?" he asks taking note of it because he doesn't see it anywhere.
"Oh that? It's in here." she says as she points at the small briefcase that she's holding. "Though, I do want to have one of these so called assault rifles that you have, teitoku."
"Alright, I think I might have one." Leon says as they walk down the path.
"Commander why are people looking at me funnily?" Erika asks as she walks towards his right side.
"I can see two reasons, one being the fact that you're in an SS uniform, and second, I don't think it's normal to see a girl holding a rocket launcher that is taller than herself." Leon says as he takes a look at the SPG.
Erika looks up at Leon, her face in a pout.
"Commander is a bully." she says. Noel tugs on his shirt from behind.
"Don't bully people, commander, that's rude." she says in a monotone voice.
Suzukaze chuckles softly, to Leon's dismay.
"Teitoku, don't be mean to the smaller girls." she says and laughs out loud.
"WHY MEEEE?" Leon laughs as he screams these words into the air.
"Oh you're home." Tomson says as he gets off of the couch to greet Leon. Then he notices the new faces.
"Uhh….Leon please tell me what's going on, I don't seem to remember seeing these girls before." he says.
Leon only sighs.
"I was just about to talk about that," he says while facepalming. "Oh yeah and here's your breakfast you dick."
Suddenly three gasps could be heard from the hallway as a door opened up.
"It's Furutaka-san, poi~!" Yuudachi shouts as she hugs the heavy cruiser. "I haven't seen you since our deactivation, poi~!"
Furutaka chuckles awkwardly. "Yup, it's been awhile, heh…"
Harusame slowly approaches Furutaka and bows.
"N-nice to meet you again, F-furutaka-san." she stammers and bows.
She then feels a hand on her head.
"Nice to meet you, Harusame-chan!" she says, smiling.
Slightly blushing, Harusame nods.
On the other side, Erwin excitedly runs up to Erika, smiling.
"It's been a while, Erika!" Erwin smiles and hugs the SPG.
Erika smiles, taking off her helmet.
"Yes it has. Though it is really surprising how the world has changed drastically." she says.
Erwin nods. "Yup! Oh right, we have another one you might want to meet." she says as she runs into a room in the hallway. The shouts of surprise could be heard and complaints could be heard as Erwin comes back out with Valeriya in her arms.
Erika stares at Valeriya. Valeriya stares at Erika.
"Umm… Nice to meet you, I'm Valeriya, Model T-34/76, nice to meet you, Erika…?" she says as she offers her a hand shake.
"Nice to meet ya, Valeriya! I'm Erika, Tank model Karl-Gerät heavy SPG!" Erika says as she grabs Valeriya's hands and shakes them.
Valeriya nods, giving off her usual dull face.
"Valeriya's usually pretty silent, so it's pretty common for her not to respond." Tomlin calls from the kitchen.
Leon walks back onto the balcony and stares down into the harbors where people are starting to get busy with the day again.
Tomlin walks up besides him.
"San Diego really doesn't have that apocalypse feeling in it doesn't it?" Tomlin says as he takes a sip of orange juice.
Leon nods in agreement.
"By the way this has been bothering me for a while." "What's that?" "We don't have a name for our platoon."
Tomlin looks in the air for a second.
"An idea will come up sooner or later."
Leon nods then turns around.
"Girls, get your breakfast." he shouts.
Erika's voice came up.
"But commander, we just ate!"
Leon facepalms.
"Those who didn't eat already." he shouts.
Military outpost on the outskirts of Los Angeles. Time 1126 hours. Weather: Clear skies with some clouds
The day passes slowly as a small platoon, part of the 40th infantry division, returns from a scouting patrol that took place near the very edge of Los Angeles.
"The infected are still crowded in the heart of the city, sir!" the private reports to the sergeant.
The sergeant nods, yawning a bit.
"Go get some rest, tell the boys too, It's going to be a long day ahead of us." he says as he dismisses the private.
With a salute, the private runs off.
"San Diego just called in, Sergeant McKinley, apparently Leon got to the outpost." the corporal sitting in the other desk says as he looks up from the book he was reading.
The sergeant scoffs.
"Heh, that bastard finally shows his face." he jokes as he opens a bottle of water and takes a small drink.
"Hopefully Leon's got plans to get Los Angeles. That kid's got some tactics and coordination when it comes to liberation" The corporal says as he puts the book down.
McKinly sighs.
"I don't know about Los Angeles though the scout parties we've sent all have estimated that there are at least over 3 million infected there, and that's only in the heart of the city alone, If we manage to get our hands on some working artillery, that'll be perfect too, but all we have right now are five M252 mortars and a hand full of Humvees that are operational." he says.
The corporal nods his head and thinks for a moment.
"Yeah, true enough, but still what if-"
His sentence is cut off abruptly as both of them hear the sounds of screeching and gunfire.
"Fuck, more company...We're running low on ammunition." The sergeant says as he takes his FN-SCAR and loads in a magazine.
They walk out of the small building to be greeted a small white haired girl. Her eyes were glowing crimson red, her expression was dull and blank. Her hands looked very mutated with what looked like a barrel sticking out of her palm. She slowly looked at the two men.
"Target acquired…" she says as she says as she slowly points the cannon barrel at the two men.
McKinley and the corporal scream as they let off bursts out towards the girl. The girl screams and covers herself, letting both men run off.
McKinley and the corporal take cover behind a destroyed pickup truck. The shrieks of the infected overcomes them, filling the men in terror. McKinley takes a small peek at what was the encampment. Dead soldiers laid on the ground, some had been mutilated with their intestines spilling onto the ground.
"Sergeant...Help me… I want to go home…" A voice behind the Corporal and McKinley says. They turn to see a private first class crawling toward them. To their horror, the private was missing his torso, his face was also gashed in many spots. The private falls on the ground in front of the two men.
Suddenly a female voice could be heard singing a chilling tune.
"Life is still spinning
Your end, my beginning
And everything I hope for has been strangely set aside
Breathing for living
My mind is forgiving
And destiny is proving to be absent from my life"
A shriek emits behind them as an infected man runs at them.
"Fuck, position compromised!" the corporal shouts as he takes his Desert Eagle out and fires at the infected. The creature falls over it's brain matter pouring all over the concrete. The men continues to run, the girl's haunting voice still resonates in the air.
"I know it, I feel it
I know when you're sleeping
I know the things you're dreaming
And I know you will never give up and die"
McKinley spies a humvee up ahead of them.
"There, get to the humvee! We could get to safety!" he shouts. The two make a run for the vehicle. Just as they make it to the armored jeep, The alien girl's voice appears behind them. The sound of howls could be heard behind them as McKinley opens the driver's seat door. The corporal tries to enter the vehicle too, but is grabbed by an infected.
"Corporal!" McKinley shouts reaching his hand out to him. The corporal smiles and salutes to McKinley.
"It was an honor serving with you, Sergeant. I'll hold them back." he says.
McKinley salutes him and starts the engine.
"Farewell, Corporal." McKinley says as he drives off. The corporal struggles his hand free and takes a bayonet out of his pocket. He slashes at the creature's eye and manages to injure it. It screams and bends over in pain.
"'Till the bitter end..heh..." he says as he severes the spinal cord of the creature.
"Conscious fulfilling, the darkness revealing
All faults and insecurities are shining like the sun
Eyes are deceiving
Your mind will stop breathing and
All that you are made of will now rightly become mine"
The girl's voice is right behind him now and he feels the cold barrel poking at his neck.
"I've got you now…" the girl says.
The corporal sighs.
"I guess this is it… Just kill me it'll be easier." he says.
"As you wish…" she says in a monotonic voice.
The corporal closes his eyes.
"One last question before I die."
"That is?"
"What are you…?"
"I am Type H light tank… It was nice knowing you."
A gunshot could be heard as the corporal's body falls onto the ground.
The girl takes out a comm set.
"Mission complete, Commander, but one got away."
"It's fine, head back to base."
"Roger that, commander."
A/N: It's been three months.. I'm sorry. Anyways, I read through some earlier chapters that I had written and noticed that there is some mistakes that I had made in the past (ex. 12.7 instead of 127mm guns). I will happily assume that the next chapter should be in about a month I hope. As always OCs are still being accepted. See you all next month.
-Lenju II