Chapter Six- Welcome to Italia

"Ugh..." Mica groaned on the couch the last morning they were in Paris. He was tired out from the party they had the night before, the same one they spend half the day planning. The rest of his team felt the same laying in different spots around the room. "What time is it Rin?"

"Um..." Rin got up from her bed, her hair covering most of her face and reached for the clock. It was hard to tell if it was looking at it or not. "It's 8:00AM..."

"You mean we have three hours to get onto our flight on time?" Tsuki asked from her spot in a chair.

"Yeah, that's not good..." Rin dropped the clock onto the ground. For a few minutes, the room stayed silent. Not a peep was made from the five.

"I'll get the bags!" Naoki suddenly got up and started to pack up.

"Yeah, I'll help." Tsuki took off from her chair and joined Naoki.

"I'll start to gather up all our things!" Alan started to dash round the room looking for thing.

"I'll go check on the others." Mica walked out of the room and started to knock on the other doors.

"And I'll do nothing!" Rin laid back on her bed and closed her eyes. In annoyance, Tsuki and Naoki threw clothing on her. By the time she responded, "Fine, fine!", she was covered in socks.

Meanwhile, outside, Mica was knocking on the other doors to make sure on the others would wake up. "Shut up!" Mica heard as he transitioned to another door. He walked back and looked at the door.

"Okay..." He banged on the door loudly just to annoy whoever had said that. Even another team from Pravda stopped to watch him before walking away laughing. Heck, by the time he stopped, Leo had stopped by to see what was going on.

"You okay there, Mica?" Leo peeked from the corner. Mica turned around to see the messy haired kid. He had realized what others probably had seen him do.

"Uh-uh, I'm fine, just doing some...things." He embarrassingly said.

"Oh okay, also, that was a good match, you guys did good."

"Oh, the match? Oh yeah, and, you too Leo, I wish I could talk, but I really need to do stuff."

"Okay, see ya later Mica." Leo left to go back to whatever he was doing in the first place. This left Mica arguing with himself in his mind over why he did what he did. Eventually, he situated himself and went back into his room.

"You guys ready yet, I mean, we have to go."

"Almost, just gotta zip it up, that's the hard part there..." Mica witnessed all four of his crew trying to zip up their luggage. They actually had to work together in order to get the thing zipped. After a comedic few minutes they had everything ready to go. "I'll be honest, that was funny to watch."

"Hahaha, like you were much help anyways." Naoki slapped the back of Mica's head on the way out. The group joined up with the other teams in the main lobby. They all looked the same, tired and yawning often.

"Okay guys, give me all our keys and I'll check ourselves out of here." Mica went around collecting their room keys and counted them each. He nodded when he got the right amount and went to the receptionist. Except when he got there, there was already a line of students waiting to hand in their keys.

"Oh you gotta be kidding me..." Mica's legs grew sore from waiting and just standing in general as the line slowly shrinked. After what felt like hours, he finally turned in those keys and had to wait even more to process them. It had taken him a half hour to get through that line and to finish.

"Hey, he's back from the dead." Alan chuckled as he saw him come back.

"Funny, we should probably go right about now." Mica grabbed onto his luggage and went outside to hail a taxi. It wasn't much better outside either, taxis were crammed into the street picking up teams. "Oh dear..." After a long while waiting for the congestion to clear up, they got themselves a taxi and crammed themselves in it.

"To the Airport, right?" The taxi driver looked back at them and spoke in his French-English accent.

"Yeah, the Airport..." Mica realized that this driver had made multiple rounds there already. Inside the taxi, it was cramped, four of them had to sit in the back while Mica got shotgun for getting in first.

Once they arrived at the airport, Mica reorganized the other teams and students together in the entrance. Okay, we all go in at this gate..." He pointed to a gate number on his ticket. "Which means we go over there..." Mica looked over at a sign that was in English and French.

"We got a hour to get there on time, Mica." Kurtis picked up his luggage.

"Yes I know...so might as well get started, let's go." The students got into the lineup for checkin, then into processing. The monotony was absolutely dreadful for them, line after line. Ever when they bought food to eat while waiting.

"Well this is nice...I suppose..." Alan Bit into a piece of toast.

"Better than nothing, which we had in the first place." Tsuki was nomming on a breakfast crepe.

"Finish up, flight's in about ten minutes."

"I'm already done..." Alan walked up to throw away his plates. Tsuki followed suit with her unfinished crepe. Over the intercom, the voice spoke out different flights and boarding them. After that ten minutes, the intercom came back up with their flight.

"Well, let's go." Mica rushed to get ahead of any line that was going to appear. In fact, he was the first one in, leaving his friends behind. Lugging through the aisle, he found his seat and packed away his luggage and waited for Naoki, who always sat next to him.

"You left us behind..." Naoki came through the aisle, "not cool man, not cool."

"I know, but I don't like lines so...yeah...you have to deal with that." Naoki finished up packing and sat down next to him.

"Still, you have to stick with us. We're your friends Mica, remember that."

"Yeah yeah, I know." Mica eased back into his seat. "Now I'm going to catch some sleep for once." He closed his eyes and eventually dozed off.

After hours, he woke up, yawning rather loudly at that. "Naoki, how much longer will it take?"

"Eh...about a half hour."

"Really? I was sleep for that long? Huh, I was just that tired."

"Yeah, you slept like a baby."

"Shut up man."

"Oh yeah, here you go..." Naoki passed over a glass of ginger ale. "Your favorite." Naoki smiled, he knew Mica hated ginger ale.

"Really? You wasted my one drink on...that?" Mica picked it up, the ice was all melted, and really diluted it. "Well, bottoms up, I suppose." Mica chugged down the drink and gasped.

"How was it."

"I really, really hate you..."

"You'll come crawling back." After a half hour passed and ten minutes of landing procedures, they touched down in Rome.

"Oh sweet, precious ground! I love you!" Rin hugged the carpet.

"You know millions of people have stepped on that right?" Tsuki was disgusted.

"I don't care at all." Rin was satisfied with being on the ground again.

"Okay, let's get together..." Mica went hunting for his classmates and found them all wandering around. After herding them through even more processing and lines, they all gathered in the main lobby.

"Looks like we're all together..." Maya looked tired as heck.

"You okay there Maya?" Kenneth peeped up.

"No, couldn't get sleep, sat behind a crying baby, I could honestly collapse at any moment."

"Nice to know, okay, now this is the building we will be staying at." Mica took at his map, unfolded it and pointed to a grey block.

"That's what we're staying at, a patch of grey?"

"Hey look on the bright side, it's labeled." The only thing in the block was a label: Tankery.

"All that says is Tankery, you have to be kidding me.

"It's a step up from France, okay, now go find taxis or buses to get there." The group split up to find their own means of transportation. Naturally, Mica and his team took a taxi there, as it was most likely the easiest means.

It was a long ride from the Airport down to their building. But when they arrived, it was scarily packed. It had appeared that the staff there had been overwhelmed by the influx of the students that lasted over the last round.

"Great, another line." Naoki said as he stepped out of the car.

"Does look nice for a grey block though." Alan chuckled on the way out.

"Let's just find our rooms, I need to lay down, or sit down or just die on my bed." Rin blew the hair out of the eyes.

"Can you die? I would like that for the shoulder pain you have me in Paris." Tsuki slapped her back.

"Hey, no internal quarrels, at least not without my consent." Mica picked up his things. "So let's go, you can argue in our rooms. The group got into another line and waited even more just to get to the counter.

"Wait, we're not waiting for the other teams?" Rin looked at the back of the line.

"They know what to do by now." Mica picked up their room key from the counter. "At least I hope they can do it without me."

"Are you sure about that?"

"Yep, let's go." Mica quickly dashed away in search of their school section. It took them what felt like hours to find it, since their section was on the other side of the building. "It had to be this far away, didn't it."

"Yeah yeah, just get us in." Rin jumped up and down. In response, Mica jiggled the key into the lock and opened the door.

"You happy ye-" before he could finish, Rin ran from behind and jumped onto the bed yelling in joy.

"Is she dead?" Tsuki dragged herself in.

"No, so, what now?"

"As always, I will try to find the best food I can and bring it back, take care of my stuff." Alan took off out of the door.

"You're not joining him?" Mica looked at Naoki.

"No, I need to catch up on my studies." Naoki took out a book, sat up on his bed and started to read. Their Tankery Academy had to offer a sort of academic option to still be considered an Academy in the first place.

"Okay, that leaves me and you to hog the TV, Tsuki."

"Perfect! I want to watch some anime!" Tsuki took out a box from her pack.

"But what about the tanker match, they always do one on the first day of week."

"Haven't you forgotten? The theme for this round is a Night Elimination."

"Elimination, oh dear that means trouble for us." Due to their underwhelming numbers elimination battles were often difficult. These required either team to lose their entire roster over the course of the match. This combined with the night time restriction only made it harder.

"Eh, we can do it, just like we did with Calvario Fiat, now for some anime." She put the disk into the reader and started the program. The screen flashed up to the menu screen.

"Uh." Mica stared at the screen. "So many bright colors, this is going to be painful."

"Good luck Mica, she made me watch hours of that show back in Japan." Naoki flipped the page to his book.

"Oh don't mind him, he's a killjoy." Tsuki pressed play and the screen flashed again.

"Oh dear..." The two watched the show until night approached. Mica was scared about what he saw. He was not used to this kind of showing. Slowly, took turned his head to find the clock, it was nearing the time of the battle.

"This is the best part..."

"Nope!" Mica grabbed the remote out of Tsuki's hand, paused the show and switched to the TV input.

"Hey...it was the best part."

"You said that three hours ago." Mica flipped through the channels until he reached the match. "Thank god, the announcer was already done." Mica looked intensely at the tanks. It had appeared that Pravda was going to go up against Vickers Royals. He knew it was them due to Barret's signature white markings on the turret of their single Centurion Mk.I, standing out in the dark with a 17pdr.

"Oh goodie, this looks good." Tsuki grabbed the remote and turned up the the camera flipped to the main brunt of Pravda's force. "Is that?"

"Yep, that's a KV-2, 152mm howitzer and that boxy turret." On the screen was a ghostly white KV-2 smack in the center. It was surrounded by a multitude of ghastly white tanks that stuck out of the dark.

"When a fun tankery match became a horror movie..." Naoki put down his book and joined them.

"Speaking of horrid, where's Alan and our food?"

"Knowing him? He's probably trying to impress a dame." Mica looked closer. The match had just begun, the screen was split has both teams were depicted with tanks kicking up dirt and sand. Vickers had taken a beach as their starting, Pravda the took the forest.

"Those white tanks stick out like a sore thumb."

"Yeah, but can you imagine a KV-2 clad in white firing at you, I'd pee my pants." The camera took a more bird-eye view giving a general outlay of the land.

"So that's our stage in three days, a coastal battleground."

"Yep, nice place, shame we have to tear it up." The Centurion on Vicker's side led two Cromwells and Comets to a northern terraced farmland. The Churchill , three of them took ahead to the town, relying on their thick armor. All the while, three Fireflies and two Bishops moved south into a rocky region.

"Bishops? Don't remember those in Barret's lineup."

"Looks like they're setting up a position for indirect fire, should be effective if they can do it properly."

Meanwhile, Pravda had their KV-2 travel with two KV-122s into the town. Five T-34/85s traveled north into that region as well. Two SU-100s traveled south escorted by three T-34/57s. It looked like three KV-1s had set up a last stand position in the forest.

"One passive force and one active force, let's see what happens." The first shot was made in the town, with the KV-2 taking a nasty chunk off the track of a Churchill. The KV-122s rushed up, but with coordinated fire, one of taken out while the other managed to retreat.

Up north, both wolfpacks starting a massive firefight. The Centurion stayed back while the Comets and Cromwells, with their speed, pushed forward. The camera zoomed in with Barret sticking out of the commander's hatch, directing fire.

Down south, the Bishops had set up a position in a relatively cleared area, the Fireflies moved one, leaving one to guard their fire support. Pravda's T-34-85s had received severe damage, losing three of the group to Barret, but dealt a damaging hand back. A Comet and Cromwell hull were smoked out in the open while another slipped down a terrace and tracked itself to be finished off. The remaining Centurion and Comet slipped back into cover and waited for the enemy.

All the while, the KV-2 and KV-122 had dug in, and were well behind cover of which the Bishops could not hit. They instead turned their attention to the Fireflies, who had encountered the southern force. One Firefly was instantly taken out by a SU-100 as it rounded a rock. The other retreated but was hunted down by the T-34s, it ricocheted a few frontal shots and took two out but was ultimately flanked and knocked out.

"Pravda is pushing hard on them, they might lose the line soon enough…" Mica looked around to see if anyone brought popcorn.

The Centurion and Comet had backed up to their beachhead hearing word of Pravda's advance. The remaining Firefly held the line while the Bishops moved to safer ground at the beach. The group of heavies had been in stalemate for a long while and it was obvious that they were not going to budge anytime soon.

The four tanks on the beach created a defensive position, the Firefly, sensing no danger, decided to cautiously pull back to their lines, as they were losing ground quickly, once they hit the sand, they joined the last stand. The group of five tanks had created a steal wall of both kinds of firepower.

This also left the Churchills surrounded now, they were forced to take heavy cover. The Southern force started to snipe them off from a hilltop that protruded from the rocks. One Churchill took a hit at one of the SU-100's tracks, the loss of the track made the other track, now slightly heavier than the other, to slip under and caused the tank to fall to its knockout.

The KV-1s that had hung back now advanced up to join their fellow heavy tanks at the front. Now with additional reinforcements, they made a straight charge for the Churchills with their firepower. However, the Bishops had set up and started to fire onto the town. The KVs had made the mistake of taking the main road, the Churchills had hid on smaller roads or behind houses.

With the indirect fire coming from the Bishops and direct fire coming from the Churchills, the KVs were forced to retreat, but not before losing their last KV-122 and a KV-1. By now, the SU-100 and T-34/57 alongside the northern T-34/85s decided to take a route down into the town to trap the Churchills. While the plan seemed good on paper, what they didn't expect was Vicker's last three mediums moving up themselves.

Staying directly behind their heavies, each of the three mediums sported a deadly AT gun, two 17pdrs and a 77mm HV could seriously damage tanks that they faced. The pincer movement was commenced as the tanks moved down from the flanks and onto the Churchills. While they didn't expect this at first, losing a Churchill, but they inadvertently were prepared. The mediums fired onto the unaware tanks and absolutely decimated them with the help of artillery support from the Bishops.

The only survivor was a crippled T-34/85 who limped back to cover with a slightly damaged engine. This prompted a blind fire from the KV-2 which miraculously hit the Comet, the force of the 152mm HE shell actually blew the track of the Firefly next to it. But both were now out of action leaving the Centurion to leave their allies. It was now five to three, the Bishops were out of ammo due to their intense barrage and the extremely low ammo capacity they had of 32 rounds.

Slowly, the British made their advance, the Bishops decided that they should act as bait, moving up to the town alongside the Centurion. They found the crippled T-34/85 who fired a round off in retaliation, but it hit dirt as they didn't aim properly. Decidedly, they were finished off and there were only four left.

On Pravda's side, the KV-2 fired another blind shot, it nearly hit a Churchill but slammed into a house taking a sizable chunk away. It wouldn't help that it spotted a lone Bishop moving up the lane. It foolishly moved out of cover to fire a shot, but a Churchill took a round out on the track causing the gun to veer the right and misfire causing the round to slam into the corner of a building.

The Centurion took aim, moved the just a bit to the right of the KV-2's mantlet, where the armor was at its thinnest on the turret, right where the ladders were. Then it fired, APDS straight into the turret. When it didn't do enough, a second and third round were used to finish it off. The white flag stuck from the ghostly horror, it was as symbol of victory for Vickers as they made a direct charge, excluding the Bishops, for the remaining KV-1s.

Despite their best efforts, the KV-1s were outnumbered and outgunned. Booms roared out from both sides but in the end, it didn't end well. The KV-1s' white flags joined the others, a KV-2, two KV-122s and a single Churchill they managed to take on their last stand. Vickers had won this match, and it was a hard one.

"Woah…" Rin broke the tension in the room as sat up in bed.

"I thought you were dead!" Tsuki jumped up.

"It was a joke!"

"I don't want it to be!"

"Did I hurt you that bad in Paris?"

"Yes! My shoulder hurts! A lot!" Before Tsuki was about to strangle Rin, Alan came in with a single box.

"One box, it better be good." Naoki looked at it. "This is a McDonalds meal."

"Yeah, who said it was for you? I bought it for myself, I couldn't find anything, so I'm hungry as heck."

"So what do we eat?" Rin looked over. The room stayed quiet as Alan nommed on his burger "So what do we eat?" Rin repeated.

"Alan…"

"Yes…" Everyone stared at him. "No, you're not taking my food!"

"No…." Mica walked up to him, "where did you find that McDonalds?"

Hey guys, HaikuFoxy here. Yeah, I got it done and I like what I did with it, alot. I'll be honest, this is in fact the longest anything I've ever wrote and well, I think it's really good compared to my past works. But I have no more comments on this, next Chapter will come something between now and some other date. But I'll see you guys next time.

-HaikuFox