Viewpoint Papa, Local 16:01

It was early afternoon, an hour or so after the end of our regular classes, and our practice had been scheduled to start a while ago, but everyone was sluggish today, alarming since our very first real match was only three days away. It was more of a maintenance day, just simple things that were crucial to victory, stuff like changing out engine oil, cleaning the gun barrels, or switching out possibly faulty parts on our panzers. Mentioning parts, we had a distinct lack of extras, since we had used a lot of our original supply to repair our panzers after our mock battle. Even Rabbit Team, who hadn't received a single direct hits during the battle, had managed to overheat its engine while wallowing in some mud, and fused a couple of cylinders into the engine block incapacitating them. Which forced the entire engine to be removed and almost completely replaced, parts wise, giving the automotive club's girls a real headache. Although they didn't really seem to mind at all the amount of work we forced upon them. It also seemed that everyone was pretty confident regarding our upcoming match, which should be helped further by the news we would be receiving a new panzer. Anzu had late yesterday afternoon after practice pulled me aside and insisted she tell everyone the news, I guess she felt she had created this great opportunity singlehandedly. Even though as I understood it, the new panzer and crew had been sent to us out of the blue, from a school we had never heard of. And that's not to mention that we might not even have the equipment to repair a panzer of that specifications should it be damaged or knocked out. And it would be very interesting to see how they would get a panzer of that weight here, but I suppose that would be their task and not ours. Most of our panzers were in battle condition, except for Duck Team was having one of its forward tread sprockets repaired, how they managed to damage them, I don't really want to know, but other then that we were all ready for the match in two days time. Anzu suddenly called everyone from their panzers, which we did with haste, and fell into our normal order. She was, as usual, flanked by Yuzu and Momo. She waited for a moment before starting

"Afternoon everyone!" Another pause for us to respond with a greeting. "As you should all know, we're to have a elimination battle with St. Gloriana in two days time. However, you may not know that the odds are now-" A sly look at me was shot, while a smile slowly crept cross Anzu's face. "Leaning in our favor." It seemed that she was trying to be cryptic, which, from my experience was the last thing a commander should be. A hand shot up, Takako's I think, although I suppose she preferred the name Caesar.

"Didn't you say yesterday at the briefing they had five tanks? Did one become unusable?" Anzu attempted to answer, however she was cut off by someone else speaking.

"I don't think St. Gloriana would have a problem with not having enough panzers, they have quite a big reserve of them if I'm not mistaken." Anzu made an effort to regain the attention of the conversation, but to no avail. A second disembodied voice piped up.

"They might only feel like fielding four, you never know!"

"They aren't that stupid!" A additional voice snipped in. I saw that this was degrading into rabble quickly, with the discussion quickly changing from what it was intended to be, and it looked like either Anzu or Momo was going to blow a a fuse if everyone didn't quiet down. It seemed that Yuzu also notice the oncoming hellfire and scooted farther from Anzu's side. Momo snapped first.

"EVERYONE SHUT UP!" Silence was almost immediately reinstated. Momo looked quite pleased with herself. Anzu acknowledged her before continuing.

"Thank you, now, what I specifically meant by that is that their lineup will not be changing, but ours will." She paused again, allowing what she said to soak in. Someone spoke out, again.

"Somebody found a new panzer?"

"NO!" Momo yelled while stomping her foot, still steaming. Anzu continued.

"If you would allow me to explain, someone has sent us a panzer." She looked so pleased with this recent development. "A foreign school has kindly donated to us a new panzer. It should arrive soon. That is all. Dismissed!" After the end of this short show, everyone returned to what they had been doing before. But, as we returned to our panzers, I heard many questions being asked about Anzu's little announcement, and I suspect she could have been more precise, but choose not to divulge any more information. Why, I have no idea. It seemed as if there was two groups regarding this news, those who were ecstatic about this development, and those who were more skeptical about the introduction of a new team. But, only minutes later, a low, almost inaudible roar was heard. I rushed outside, almost tripping on some misplaced equipment, along with a half-dozen other girls, searching for the producer of the sound. Eyes were everywhere.

"Found it!" Someone called out, hand pointed towards the sky. I shielded my vision from the sun, still quite high in the sky and began to search. I found a small gray smear in the shape of a plane, high above us, and watched as a smaller brown speck fell from it. The speck fell for a moment, growing larger as it did, before what looked like a parachute opened, slowing its descent to almost a stop, and began to drift down like a feather. It was very low now, but I could barely make out any real details, but it looked as if the cargo was a panzer, maybe in standard olive green? It disappeared behind some buildings farther forward on the ship, preventing any further observation. It seemed Anzu's announcement was almost perfectly timed. Whether that was purposeful or accidental was still debatable. I decided we should probably go find the panzer, if that's what it was.

"Mount up! Mount up everybody!" I yelled, since we would arrive at the landing sight of, what I assumed to be our newest panzer, faster on treads then on foot. I followed Yukari and Hana up the front of our Panzer IV and was followed by Saori, while Mako had not left her position through the announcements, but had only now seemed awake. Everyone was hurrying onto their respective panzers, however, Noriko shouted at me just before I dropped into the commander's hatch.

"What are we suppose to do then?!" She and the the rest of Duck Team was idly standing beside their layed up Type 89, which still had one of its tracks unhitched and a forward sprocket off while our other panzers started to rumble into life.

"Try getting fixed as fast as possible and meet us there!" I replied, positioning myself to drop into the interior of our panzer.

"So just get it on and go?!" She asked

"Sure!" I responded, and quickly Noriko ordered her Team to feverishly replace the sprocket. I then dropped into the cozy interior of our panzer. "Mako could you-"

"Already on it." Mako replied while the engine turned over, rumbling deep inside the panzer, idling before jerking forward and we left the cooler air of the Sensha-do shed for the outside, with the sun streaming down onto us. We formed a column of sorts while navigating our way onto the street, before spreading into a combat-esque formation with Turtle Team at the spearpoint, then Rabbit Team taking over the position that Duck Team would have been in abreast of us and Hippo Team pulling rearguard duty. I was servaying our surrounding for any signs for the landing location.

"Hey Miho!" Saori yelled from her position as our radioman, slightly startling me.

"Yes?" I replied.

"You think these are the new girls Anzu was talking about?" She asked inquisitively turned around and leaning out of her seat so she could see me better, she seemed thrilled as well about this development.

"Who else would it be!" Yukari laughed while righting some shells that had fell sideways in their rack. She had been like for the last two days, since we first received the news of this sixth panzer being given to us, although I guess it was a very good reason to be excited. In fact, I was quite delighted by this event too, for the advantage of a Pershing would make all of our matches substantially easier, and might give a spirited chance at winning the impending national championship. And all thanks to some anonymous friends.