Author's Notes: Hey hey!
How are you all doing? I hope this chapter finds you well. Please do enjoy and until the end of the chapter!
Chapter 10
Into the Vally
Shamrock Training Field
25th of April
10:51 AM
"Tally-ho!" Assam shouted in elation as she caught sight of the Valentine heading their way. It was a spot of luck that the bumbling infantry tank had taken this long to spot them through the smoke. A second earlier and they would have found the Crusader in an awkward situation.
Unfortunately for the duo of Irish wannabe lasses, the six-pounder had finally decided to cooperate and spit out the shell stuck inside, which she immediately shoved into the deepest recess she could find in order not to serve as a workplace hazard inside the turret.
'Who knew loading could be so hard?' Assam thought to herself.
With that out of the way, Assam was able to load a fresh shell, making sure it wasn't a bogus one and told Roselle that they could climb down now, where she immediately spotted their opponent.
"Roselle-san, please turn the tank towards our eleven o'clock," Assam said into the radio receiver as she made her way back into the gunner's position after using the commander's periscope on the other side of the gun.
"Roger that, Assam-senpai." The driver made proper adjustments just in time to cause another shot of their adversary to ricochet off the turret, producing a piercing noise that shook Assam to her core.
But there was no time to waste and so, with ears ringing, Assam hopped back into the gunner's seat and sighted her target. The playing fields had been levelled once again and anyone could still win now, even those two bunglers over there.
Roselle pushed the tank forwards to meet their enemy and Assam, taking into account the movement of both tanks, aimed the gun a good few inches to the front of the vehicle, anticipating that that would be where the Valentine's turret would be in a few seconds.
This variant, in particular, was the first Valentine to mount a three-man turret and sacrificed 10 millimetres of armour on the side to achieve this, bringing its overall side armour to a paltry 50 millimetres, making the six-pounder's 100 millimetres of penetration more than enough to finish the job.
And without asking Roselle to halt their advance, knowing that the time it took to wait for the gun to stabilize would be enough for their opponents to cycle their cannon and deal the fatal blow, Assam fired.
The moment she depressed the trigger with her finger, she knew that it had worked as intended and for once, she was glad to feel the brunt of the recoil on her shoulder as the shell left the barrel.
However, as the shell swiftly flew over to its intended target, it occurred to Assam that she had miscalculated. Due to the driver messing up her controls, the tank itself not being well maintained or an unknown variable out of her control, the Valentine was moving slower than she anticipated and it was clear that the round would pass mere centimetres in front of the enemy turret.
It would seem though that she lamented too early and with her eyes pressed against the gunner side periscope, Assam watched as her shot, through some astronomical chance or divine intervention, connected with the middle of the Valentines gun barrel and ripped it cleanly off its mounting.
Assam paused for a minute as she considered her options. It was quite obvious that she had limited the fighting capability of the Valentine but, theoretically speaking, there was still a slim possibility that the two-pounder could fire off a round and Assam was not taking that chance.
As she moved up from her seat to use the breech handle so she could remove the shell casing and load a new one, she heard a loud explosion from outside. In a pinch, Assam stepped up on the platform and opened the hatch, to see what that explosion was.
She felt the Crusader still speeding at breakneck speed; good, that meant they weren't white flagged yet. A further visual inspection had confirmed that as she glanced at the port where the knockout flag would have popped out.
With that line of inquiry satisfied, Assam shifted her attention to the Valentine. Wisps of black smoke momentarily obscured the infantry tank from her sight but these dispersed and Assam was stunned at what laid before her eyes.
It was nothing like she had seen before.
Their opponents had gambled and lost, the stump of the main cannon was now shorter than ever before. The whole front was stripped clean of its green paint job and a weathered desert tan coating was seen underneath, all peppered with shrapnel made up of pieces from the gun.
Despite this, the Valentine still limped forward, shrugging off its battle wounds as superficial and looking as if it was ready to engage in a ramming action. Assam was heading back inside the turret to report this to Roselle when a fit of coughing overcame her, sending her wheezing as some of the traces of smoke-filled up her lungs.
In between her coughing, Assam was able to hear the wind whooshing nearby and was quite surprised when she found out that the Valentine was firing its machine guns at her, the whooshes being bullets whizzing nearby. The muzzle flashes from the infantry tank's mangled turret face were all the proof she needed to confirm that their opponent had made a breach of Senshadou's core rules and Assam retreated back inside before either the acrid smoke or the machine gun bullets sent her to Elysium.
Those cheeky buggers!
Rosehip was wondering what the others were running away from…
And then it hit her.
A battered Valentine tank was making its way towards them and was showing no signs of stopping. Following closely behind was her Crusader, which was keeping some distance away from the rogue infantry tank.
More people continued to run away as the commentator of the match, Shannon, began to head the evacuation effort, applying the same enthusiasm into rallying people to leave in an orderly fashion as did she commentating on the match a while ago, albeit now with a sense of urgency on her voice.
"OI! YOU LOT! GET OUT OF THE BLOODY WAY! MAKE ROOM FOR THE TANK!"
Rosehip had lost count of the people that had bumped into her in their haste to get out of harm's way. She saw Callan, the nurse that tended to her earlier, quickly help those that had tripped and fallen in panic up to their feet, preventing a stampede from occurring.
The infantry tank had run over some of the banners hastily left behind by their holders and Rosehip was staring intently at these when she felt someone tugging at her sleeves and looked back to see Rosemallow, all colour drained from her face and worry in her eyes.
"Come on, we have to go!" her concerned loader voiced out.
But for once, her legs failed her and Rosehip remained rooted in place, unable to save herself from impending doom.
The built-in ventilation system was working overtime removing some of the excess acrid smoke that had got inside the Crusader's turret, and the system's efforts were helping to clear Assam's head as she thought back over her most recent blunder.
She was rotating the turret back towards the front using the hand crank after she had swivelled it earlier to counter a perceived side skirmish after their foe fainted a head-on collision, which proved to be a big mistake.
The Valentine, in a sudden change of pace, had managed to outsmart her. The infantry tank had used what little momentum it had and utilised it to swing into a drift behind the Crusader before speeding on towards the front, peppering the Crusader with machine-gun fire along the way.
Assam, who had the turret pointed towards the port side, was caught napping as the Valentine gained valuable ground unharassed. Roselle sped up the tank even further, however, slowly closing the distance between the two tanks. The pair inside the Valentine were none the wiser and continued to run away.
Assam was confident that their cruiser tank could catch up and so they carried on giving chase. Traces of smoke made keeping the infantry tank in sight difficult though, but a spark of inspiration came to her and she reached for the radio transmitter.
"Roselle, manoeuvre us to their four o'clock," Assam ordered, remembering that the wind was blowing a northwestern course and with the Valentine heading towards the north, this move should place them in a position where the smoke was thinning out, thus giving her increased visibility.
Her driver heeded her order and the Crusader changed tack, with Assam simultaneously rotating the turret toward their hightailing foe. The Valentine passed through a thick patch of leftover smoke and Assam had to wait for their own tank to break through before she could see the infantry tank again.
This time, instead of shock, she felt fury at the cowardice of their opponent. Instead of bringing the fight into more open ground, like an honourable person would, their adversary's planned action involved moving through the crowd, using the audience as human shields.
Oh, those flippin' pillocks!
Assam's emotions bubbled inside her stomach as she reached out towards the back of the turret for the radio transmitter. The mere thought of disregarding a non-combatant's safety to gain an upper hand was enough to make her puke. For all her faults, Earl Grey had drilled into them the importance of safety and respecting the rules of engagement.
"Roselle, do your best to avoid any of the crowd but make sure to shadow them!" Assam relayed into the transmitter.
Instead of giving confirmation, Roselle screamed back at her through the intercom, "Senpai, they're going to run over Rosehip! Take the shot!"
Impossible! Perhaps Roselle was simply wrong and mistook another redhead for Rosehip.
But these doubts or attempts at augmenting reality were shattered when Assam looked out to the front with her the gunner's periscope. And there over the distance, was the unmistakable sight; two figures dressed in red, in a sea of green and grey, stood directly at the path of the Valentine.
Ah, so it's personal now….
The metal beast continued to run rampant with no signs of stopping, cutting through the ground which mere moments ago had been jammed packed full of people. Rosehip continued to stand frozen, with genuine fear trickling down her throat; she could have sworn she pissed her knickers at some point.
Rosemallow had tried to push or pull her, using all available surfaces she could hold on; hand, arm, hair, but Rosehip just wouldn't budge. Her loader was all but ready to abandon her when an explosion rang out and a massive fireball formed behind the Valentine, causing it to grind to a crawl before stopping it all together and the all too familiar Ting-tchik! of the white knock-out flag popping out was heard.
The Valentine had halted mere footsteps away from them and Rosehip saw a hatch on the front thrown open. Out came a beaten and battered redhead, with defeat on her face. The girl was relatively unscathed except for some minor abrasions. She was, however, missing a leg, which made her attempts to climb out of the tank clumsier and more at home in a comedy skit.
Her jacket was torn to shreds and her white bra was out for everyone to see as she was able to finally free herself out of her tank. The dunce seemed to have grazed her hands on some of the metal shards embedded into the tank's front armour, causing her to lose her grip as she descended and fall face-first onto the sand below.
As if a switch had been thrown open, Rosehip was able to move her legs again and was quick to step forward to help but the amputee lifted her head up and caught sight of Rosehip, then a noticeable change appeared. Confusion was replaced with anger and a scream elicited from her foaming mouth as the girl on the sand was ready to pounce.
"YOU!"
Rosehip was sure she would have been dead meat had it not been for the timely intervention of Clare, who appeared from behind her, with a fire extinguisher in one hand, getting between the two of them.
"Laune, that's enough!" Clare let out, extending her free hand towards her fallen comrade, while simultaneously holding the extinguisher as if she was ready to swing it at a moment's notice.
Laune, looking as if she had just given up on life, begrudgingly accepted the hand and lifted herself from the ground, dusting herself before wobbly balancing herself on one leg, giving Rosehip enough time to examine how extensive the damage to the girl's clothing had been.
"Someone get this girl her leg!" Clare ordered and immediately a tiny bean came out of the crowd, who were some of the people that had returned from their withdrawal, and made a beeline for the Valentine, jumping inside and coming back with a slightly bent, shoeless metal prosthetic. The brunette handed the leg to Clare before blending in back into the crowd.
"Thanks," Laune murmured as she lifted her stump of a leg before fitting on her prosthetic, all the while glaring harshly at Rosehip.
Clare was busy checking to see if the Valentine had any fires and soon looked at the one-legged pirate when she determined there were none and asked, "Where's Erne?"
Rosehip looked around and saw Shannon, who up until that moment had been rendered speechless for once. Now, however, she lifted her megaphone up to her mouth and shouted;
"HERE COMES OUR WINNER!"
The Crusader expertly parked alongside the Valentine and the moment it stopped, Assam threw open the hatches and got out of the tank, jumping off to a wave of cheering before landing on her feet, her boots kicking up a bit of dust.
"Where is she?" Assam asked in a harsh commanding voice that she was unsure if it was her own, her mind being clouded not by physical smoke but a metaphorical one as she wanted nothing more than to wrap her hands around the neck of that cheating snake.
Oh, how she wished she had the Welrod with her at that moment.
The applause died down as the crowd began to realise the magnitude of the situation and probably took her question as a challenge and so not a single soul dared to say a word, not wanting to be the one on the receiving end of a furious dressing down.
Assam spotted her dartboard challenger from last night, looking worse for wear as her top was riddled with holes and was just barely hanging from her shoulders. The girl, whose name she remembered was Laune, was looking down at her dented iron leg, making it appear that she was busy inspecting it for further damage.
"Where's your friend?" Assam repeated. Her tone was harsher than before and amidst the silence of the crowd, she heard her own irate voice.
Calm down, Assam, you need to remember to act with the decorum expected of you as a Gloriana student.
Assam told herself, questioning if she really wanted to make a scene and cause disgrace to her school, which led to her mellowing out a bit.
Laune continued scrutinising her foot, her face covered by her apricot-coloured bangs, hiding her expression behind a wall of hair. A silent battle for dominance began as Assam hoped that Laune would be pressured more by the silence, rather than just being shouted upon, to give in. Not a minute passed when the redhead, still bowed in defeat, jerked her head towards the knocked-out Valentine.
At that exact moment, her trusty driver finally emerged from their own tank, a spanner in her hand and some oil slicks on her cheeks served as war paint as she charged, her hastily tied headband fluttering in the wind like a war banner.
"Alright, I'm here, where's the fight?!"
Not wanting her head to be bashed in over a game, Laune jumped behind the taller Clare, whose sight stopped Roselle dead in her tracks and significantly calmed her down.
"Are you out of your bloody mind?!" The brunette driver shouted, waving her spanner like a sword, only being held back by Rosemallow who had rushed forward to prevent a brawl as Laune continued to use the flat-chested Clare as a shield. "Why would you drive into the crowd like a coward?! Come here and face me yourself!"
Laune popped her head above the now irritated Clare and replied, "It wasn't my idea! I was just following orders!"
Inside the Valentine, Erne tried her best to hold back the tears but they just wouldn't stop coming.
Her tank… Her beautiful tank
Though blinded by tears, she could see the destruction on the interior of her tank. The gun assembly was all mangled and bent out of place, the shattered remains of the cannon rested pathetically on the recoil guard, still hot to the touch.
Even the walls next to the gun were blackened with soot. Erne could scarcely imagine what the tank looked like on the outside, where most of the power of the explosion occurred. What little force doubled back inside was enough to destroy the turret controls and gunnery sights besides the tank.
She knew that the match was over but with all vision blocks shattered by the explosion, Erne had no means to see what was happening outside. Laune, that cowardly twat, was quick to abandon ship, leaving her alone in her sorrow.
Erne could simply open the hatch and stick herself out, however, the tattered state of her uniform prevented her from doing it with honour. Her jacket was all but obliterated by the blast and her brassiere was held up by a single thread, ready to snap and reveal her voluptuous breasts for all to see.
She cursed everyone that led her to this point; those Gloriana girls for cheating and using smoke; her driver, Laune for being the stupidest person she could have picked for a second; and finally, herself for being so stupid as to play this outrageous game with those foreigners.
What will Annalee think of her after this?!
In hindsight, it was idiotic of her to have tried to fire the damaged gun and it should have been no surprise that it had exploded, throwing her back against the wall and causing her pearly white skin to be marred by scrapes and grazes. But the blatant disregard for the made-up rules by those in the Crusader, as she perceived it, had put blinders on her eyes and made her act against conventional wisdom.
She had merely wanted a dance-off, so she could show off the new tricks taught to her by her friend Fane, or an instrument battle perhaps, to demonstrate her prowess at playing the pipes but no, she had been forced against the wall, knowing that her backing out would cause her to lose face.
Even the hair she took so much care of, always taking the time to comb it diligently before going to sleep, had been ruined, the right side of it being singed by the heat. Only the force of the explosion that forced her back had saved her face from having a similar fate.
The turret hatch was thrown open and light flooded in, her eyes taking some time to adjust to this sudden increase in brightness. Soon enough, her eyes were able to make out a figure or two, but whether they were friend or foe she couldn't tell because the smoke of the first explosion and some gunpowder fumes were making their way out of the newly opened hole, obscuring her vision.
More time passed and Erne saw the faintest hint of red on the two's clothes and she knew she was facing her opponents, who had come to shame her further. She attempted to cover herself to the best of her ability, not wanting to give the two more satisfaction over their victory, as she waited for them to brag about their recent triumph.
"Goodness gracious… Are you alright?"
Instead of an arrogant taunt, a question of concern reached her ears and she looked up towards who had asked. This was not the pink-haired girl she had drinks with nor the blonde one with the same look of her rival Clare in her eyes. Rather, it was a brunette, with black tar marks on her cheeks and a white handkerchief tied to her somewhat large forehead.
"Miss, are you alright?" The girl repeated the question, rightfully assuming that the blast messed up her hearing but the ringing had subsided much earlier and Erne had been able to hear her quite clearly the first time around.
Erne didn't dignify her with an answer and made a move to get out on her own, ready to slap any hands offered in help. However, the slightest movement was enough to tear up what little of her clothing remained, producing a loud RIP and resulted in her jacket being dangerously close to falling apart entirely.
The brunette, whose name was probably not worth remembering, breathed a sigh and started unbuttoning her own jacket, removing it and then handing it over towards her when she was done, leaving Erne with a dilemma.
Would she rather go out naked or wear the enemy's colours?
In the end, the fear of having pictures of her nude figure circulating the social circles made Erne snatch up the jacket and sling it over her shoulders.
The silky-smooth fabric of the Gloriana Senshadou jacket was much better quality than Shannon's reused brass band outfits but she couldn't help but feel a sense of shame as she moved towards the only exit on the turret.
The two gave way for her to get out, one of them being the blonde that had stepped in for Rosehip, the only name she could remember from last night and she promptly ignored them, instead turning her attention towards the crowd.
The laughter and jeering she expected were nowhere to be heard, nor were the screams of anger and resentment. In fact, there were no sounds at all, as her fellow schoolmates were dead silent.
The only student of note she gave notice to was her damned driver, Laune, who was now sitting on a crate and being treated by Callan, the team's nurse. The fool cost her today's match, had she followed her orders to the exact tea, the duel would have been over in the first shot.
As she was being paraded in humiliation, in her adversary's redcoat of all things, Erne couldn't bear to look at the crowd anymore; her head was bloody and bowed as she continued her wayward march.
In what could only be described as a sixth sense, Erne knew that someone she held dear was watching and with great pain, she raised her head and was immediately able to lock eyes with her sister, Akina.
She didn't need to look twice to see the look of disappointment etched on her sister's face and it pained Erne greatly to have caused this; more than the scratches she received from the explosion and even the humiliation she was currently going through. Both of which were now insignificant to the loss of Akina's approval.
The procession continued and she averted her eyes towards her own tank, in the fleeting hope of alleviating some of the misery in her heart, but what she saw shattered it further.
If there was anything she loved nearly as much as her sister, it was her tank and her valiant Valentine was all but destroyed. The gun was nonexistent at this point and the whole front was littered with pieces of it.
Her tank would likely be scrapped at this point!
Unbeknownst to Erne, another set of eyes was watching her with dismay. Their owner was sitting well away from the crowd, not wanting to be seen by anyone else. She fumed in rage, knowing if it hadn't been for this stupid busted-up leg she could have been in that very tank and the outcome of the duel would have been drastically different.
Author's Notes: Quite a bit short, ain't it?
I planned on having this chapter be longer but I couldn't pass up this perfect ending, so here we are.
Special thanks to Sharky as usual and the Discord server for their everlasting support. Oh and I think this is the perfect time for me to announce that I'll be rewriting the beginning of the story! Nothing game-changing really, just enough to bring everything up to standard, especially the prologue!
