Full title for second chapter: The Second Battle of the Masurian Lakes.
"Results are pretty much inconclusive on a tactical level but you now own Lodz?" Gisela asked if this was going to be correct.
"Yep. And we should be getting ready for another big push against Saunders whom we learned that they and their allies had been spread out over the course of the entire map. And since St. Gloriana and now BC Freedom are going to threaten Kebab, we should try our best to take Warsaw as quickly as possible. Once Saunders is left reeling from this major defeat, we can focus on St. Gloriana, BC Freedom and the Serbian Gang while Saunders recovers their losses, get them out of the way and then we make our push on them and defeat them next." Manami explained the plan that they had, they wanted to deliver a lethal blow against Saunders and while they were reeling away, they could turn their attention against the other schools and defeat them before finishing Saunders off.
"Okay, sounds like a plan, we've got our teams reorganized with better leadership." Gisela told Manami that the Dual Alliance was going to step it up a bit if they were going to help Kuromorimine out.
"Okay good. It's going to be freezing tomorrow so we better dress warmly." Manami also advised that they needed to be prepared for the cold otherwise they were going to freeze.
"Okay we got you." Gisela told Manami.
It was clear that the field of battle was split up as Kuromorimine was going to attempt to use overwhelming force to achieve her goals, it was two to one as Kuromorimine was going to handle Saunders while the Dual Alliance was taking on their middle school allies. Plus, it was cold out meaning the students were in their winter clothing. Olivia walked up as she had some news for Runa who was busy with a pair of binoculars.
"Runa, Gisela is pushing forward the attack, she faces stiff resistance as her goal is to lift the siege at Przemyśl but the middle schoolers are giving her a run for her bullets as her supply lines are stretched a little thin." Olivia told Runa that their ally was going to be fighting their way through the mountains of infantry that were clashing on top of each other.
"Good, get ready to assault Osowiec fortress with Erwin, you'll have Big Bertha cannon support." Runa told Olivia to get ready to follow in behind once a breakthrough has been achieved. Then the next objective for her was to seize the fortress and move on.
"Okay got you." Olivia replied. She walked off to get herself ready as Runa was looking out ahead. It was cold out there. Manami walked over to her.
"Are you ready to do this?" Manami asked Runa. Runa turned her head to her friend, and she spoke.
"Yes." Runa told Manami. The Kuromorimine students had gotten their rifles and bayonets ready. They were going to launch their attack in the white out. Manami got out her watch and whistle as Runa got ready. The clock had ticked to just right, Manami grabbed the whistle and blew into it. The whistle signaled to the group to get ready and hop out of their trenches. The Kuromorimine students went over the top as they began to move in as the first wave of attack. The machine guns were held back as they were going to cut down any advancing troops along with the tanks. Runa was going to use them in case the armored cars came back, and they needed to take them out fast.
Across from them in their trenches was Himari's rainbow group as they were all huddled in the trenches, freezing themselves.
"How long until Yuri is out of prison?" One of the students asked, she was beginning to miss her friend. She huddled her arms and shivered; it was an awful time to be fighting out here in the cold.
"We don't know. Why did Megumi have to throw her into prison? It's like she didn't do anything wrong?" Another student told her friend. She too was shivering in the winter conditions, they had taken up Kay's vulgar style of clothing as they wanted to mock her, but it turned out to be more dangerous than they thought, it was doing nothing to shield them from the cold.
"That's because Megumi is racist and a fascist." Himari told them as her voice chattered, she wasn't able to properly speak as she was shivering hard. "I wouldn't be calling her this if she gave us some blankets." While Himari and her regiment were freezing in the snow, Runa and Manami were starting to appear, ragged and ghost-like from the blizzard. Himari looked around to spot Runa and Manami approaching them from the front. Manami ordered her group to stop just a few meters away from the trench. No one seemed to be firing at them which was a good plus. They were going to use the snowstorm to infiltrate and get close to the enemy. Himari turned to see that Kuromorimine was now right on top of them.
"Okay students surrender now and nobody gets hurt." Manami told the Saunders students in their trenches. The students threw their hands up as there was no way they were going to fight and win in such weather.
"Okay we surrender, don't shoot us." Himari told Manami that she was handing her entire battalion over to Kuromorimine. Runa shrugged as this was easier than she had expected this to turn out to be.
"Simple. Escort these students to the rear and we can continue the assault on Saunders, there is a big hole blown in their lines and we can finally capture Warsaw." Runa told Kirishima that she needed to escort these students to the rear while they exploit their success. She then turned to Olivia. "You, Erwin and Azusa assault Osowiec Fortress. You'll have 42-centimeter cannons to help blow the fort up." Runa laid out the orders as she was splitting the middle schoolers from her force to threaten the fortress that they failed to take the first time.
"Understood." Olivia told Runa. She turned and began to lead her group off despite the busted arm she had. Runa was going to continue to assault Saunders.
Megumi was panicking over the news that a hole had been blown in their lines. Kuromorimine was pouring their way through and going to assault the second line of defenses.
"This isn't good, Himari just surrendered without a fight, and she just let them go through the gates." Megumi told Alexandra.
"What should we do? Alexei said his students are fighting stiffer resistance than they had expected to. Gisela clearly wants revenge, but we don't know how long this will last." Alexandra added. Megumi knew she was right, there were no reserves other than themselves to deal with the situation. "We're Lola, we're going to ask her to patch the front together as best as we can to try to stop Kuromorimine's advance?" Alexandra asked as she knew her friend was the best solution to helping to keep the front together.
"She's helping fortify the second line of defenses. I don't think she has enough time or the forces to hold Kuromorimine back. We need more reserves." Megumi explained to Alexandra that Lola stood in Kuromorimine's way, but she alone wasn't going to be strong enough especially with how big of a hole that Kuromorimine blew into it.
"What about Nathalia Kornilov, she is assaulting her way to Krakow." Alexandra asked that one of their commander detachments was on the attack and was attacking the Dual Alliance. Megumi knew she needed her now to help plug the gap up.
"Tell her to stop the assault and withdraw to help shore up the front, also tell Lola she needs to abandon Augustow for now. I'm planning to stretch Kuromorimine thin so we can counterattack and take back the lost territory." Megumi told Alexandra that she needed to make some reorganization before they were going to take the fight back to Kuromorimine.
Kay was at the fortress in the freezing cold. Jajka was cleaning her rifle with some snow and Mika shivered, the water inside of the machine gun must've been frozen but they managed to keep the gears working so there wouldn't be a malfunction.
"It's pretty cold out, I thought Himari was going to be a fool for surrendering to Kuromorimine instead of fighting." Kay began. She definitely didn't want to be out here, and she didn't want to follow Alexandra's orders of standing fast and holding Kuromorimine off.
"Well, we're in their way, Himari gave her group up after she couldn't deal with the cold." Jajka added some salt to the situation. She finally assembled the bolt to her rifle before getting it back in.
"I want to be in that fortress, they most likely got a wood stove going. I probably definitely want a hamburger and some potatoes and some coke to go with that." Kay shivered, she was hungry and needed something to eat.
"Fortress is for the more experienced students, the wind tells us there is a hierarchy regarding in terms of year." Mika explained to Kay, they looked up to see the snow-like fog beginning to clear, Kuromorimine had used it to infiltrate deep into Saunders lines but with the fog clearing up, they were going to be exposed.
"Hey, the blizzard's clearing up." Jajka told them. It would be a couple more minutes before the landscape was cleared for them to see. Suddenly, they heard the sound they knew that was coming.
"Kuromorimine artillery is coming in." Kay sighed. She knew that she didn't want to fight another battle. She looked up to see massive shots of firecrackers fly over them and hit the fortress behind them. Kuromorimine was attacking the fortress first before moving in, the smaller guns also targeted the trenches as the students were huddled in their defenses.
"Fire!" Azusa ordered the 420mm cannons onto the fortress, the huge cannons lobbed their shots straight at them, the shots flew up and over, landing on the fortress again, tearing holes in the concrete like structure. Kay knew she needed to be serious and lead this battle as she was on her own.
"They're targeting the fortress but why?" Kay asked why Kuromorimine was attacking the fortress first and not the first trench.
"They seem to be confident in their victory, they know we must defend this line or risk losing this battle all together." Jajka did her best to explain what her plan was. The artillery from the Kuromorimine went silent as the middle schoolers were going to prepare the assault. Olivia was looking out ahead as she wanted to take the fortress, but she knew a bad feeling was washing over her as the students got themselves ready. Her plan was to use the artillery to bombard the fortress and take it out, once the fortress had taken considerable damage, she would assault and take the trench as there would be little in the way.
"Are we ready for this?" Erwin asked curiously. Olivia held her luger pistol in one of her hands while cocking the action. She was ready.
"I'm ready to drive her out of this hole though something tells me that this wouldn't be easy and getting repulsed back is high." Olivia told Erwin. Azusa looked at them before she nodded as well.
"Fix bayonets?" Azusa would ask. Olivia smiled before looking at her.
"Fix bayonets!" Olivia would call out; the students grabbed their plastic bayonets and attached them to their rifles. Olivia despite her left arm bandaged up, what Kay wasn't counting on was the fact that she was going to fight with a saber in the bad hand as it didn't require much squeezing for a good grip. Olivia got her way out of the trench as she was going to be leading the way. Erwin exited the trench next as Azusa followed out. The regiments of students exited the trench as the smaller guns they were using were only going to fire a couple more salvos before they were going to go silent.
Olivia was leading the students across the open ground as there were several spots, she believed she had blown open. Over in the Saunders trench, the fortress had taken a beating from the artillery and the trench had also taken considerable damage as several Saunders students had been taken out and the rest were scrambling to man their positions. Kay raised her rifle to spot the Kuromorimine students heading on out.
"Someone call the artillery to blunt this advance, we can use all the help we can get." Kay gave the order. Mika nodded before she made her way for the field phone. Once she grabbed it, she began to make the call.
"Hello?" Rumi asked to see who was on the other side of the phone.
"This is Mika, we request the artillery to fire down onto the advancing Kuromorimine students." Mika urgently requested support from Rumi for the support to convince Kuromorimine to turn back; they didn't know if they were going to be strong enough to repulse this attack.
"Okay be patient, we're loading the cannons up now. We'll begin firing within the minute." Rumi told Mika that they were just about ready.
"Okay." Mika told Rumi; she hung up before turning to Kay with some good news. "Kay, Rumi said that the artillery is on its way, we just need to hold Kuromorimine off." Mika told Kay about it. Mika grabbed her rifle and prepared to aim.
"Okay! We're holding Kuromorimine off right here and right now. Prepare to fire." Kay told the group. The students got their rifles ready as the Middle School students drew closer and closer, "Now!" Kay shouted, the girls began firing away as the rifles crackled at the smaller students as they attempted their assault, some of them began to collapse but they were determined to break through, the machine guns inside of the fort also began to crackle as they too were determined to prevent them from taking the trench. Olivia knew she needed to keep her nerve to prevent her group from panicking and running back. She knew she needed to give the order.
"Everyone down!" Olivia shouted; she dropped down first along with the other students. Saunders was still firing in their attempt to take these students out. Olivia knew she needed to organize a new method of this attack that was going to succeed. "Who's got the grenades?" She asked, several students crawled forward as they were still getting fired at. Olivia too pulled out a firecracker grenade as the students unscrewed the bottom out of them before they pulled the pin. They then threw the grenades into the trench as they exploded, taking out a few of the students, now the path to get on through was open and they could flood through. Another grenade attack was made as several similar firecracker grenades landed by the machine gun and they blew up, taking the machine gun nest out, now two holes have been blown and Kay was at a breaking point, if one more hole had been blown, the middle schoolers could break on through and capture the damaged fort. Kay knew there was only one option left.
"Fix bayonets!" Kay shouted, she then grabbed her bayonet and attached it to her rifle. The other students did the same as the fight was now going to become personal and up close, the other girls got the third batch of grenades ready when a whistle came from the trenches. Olivia thought they had the superior numbers, and they could take Kay on and break through to the fortress, but she was wrong. Some of the students lifted their heads to see the Saunders students heading out of their trench and heading to them while the machine guns in the fortress covered them.
"Olivia they're coming, prepare to fight." Erwin told Olivia as the crack of the machine gun tried to target him, but he ducked down in time as the students rose up for an intense fight. Some were ready to use their grenades as a melee weapon if they had to. The Saunders students then crashed into the middle schoolers as Kay swung her rifle around and bashed one of the middle schoolers in her head. Some were still firing periodically before crashing into the wall of students. Olivia fired her pistol several times to take down at least one of the Saunders students. She swung around and swiped the plastic saber she had and took out another student. Mika and Jajka were busy wrestling one of the middle schoolers to the ground as another one came along and poked one of their friends in the back. Mika grabbed the students rifle and threw it like a javelin, striking that student down. Then the artillery shells that Mika had ordered began to rain in. The students tensed up for the impact as the firecrackers exploded all around, taking out friend and foe alike. This was one of the instances of friendly fire as both sides were so close to each other, they were going to get taken out.
The middle schoolers were a bigger victim to the artillery fire due to the fact that they bunched up to throw their grenades to blow holes in the front trench before moving into the fortress ahead to capture it. Erwin saw this as he was losing many students from the artillery and machine gun fire. He knew he needed to withdraw what remained in order to rescue the survivors and regroup.
"Retreat!" Erwin shouted, he turned and began to pull back with the rest of his group falling back as well. Azusa was covering using rifle fire as they stumbled back. Kay watched as the middle schoolers melted away, back to their trenches. Kay and the others returned rifle fire until the students had withdrawn from the site.
"Cease firing." Kay called out, the last of the students cocked their rifles before they decided to take a tally of the casualties they had suffered. "We held off attack number two. We should be able to reorganize and attack yet again." Kay announced to her friends that their morale was rising, and the middle schoolers had once again been driven off the field. They turned around and began to help tend the wounded.
Alexandra was hearing the information that had relayed back to her as she was getting ready to launch the next attack.
"Good news Megumi, Kay has fended off the second attack on Osowiec Fortress. They thought they were going to have a quick victory, but Kay did her job. Also, part of the fortress has been destroyed from the attack due to the artillery." Alexandra told her that there was something good that came out of it.
"Nice. Looks like it's now our turn to turn the tables against Kuromorimine." Megumi told Alexandra; the armored cars went ahead first as they were going to act as the spearhead as well as the breakthrough vehicles to help Saunders counterattack. The Cavalry will exploit the rear.
"Right on, let's do this!" Alexandra called out; her cavalry began to gallop forward as Megumi left the armored train which had been providing support for them to help blunt Kuromorimine's advance. Alexandra's cavalry headed off behind the armored cars. They were coming to their friend's rescue.
Lola meanwhile had been fighting furiously against Kuromorimine for the past couple of hours as both sides had been entangled in the furious fighting. Lola was starting to get rather nervous.
"The line is at breaking point; we can't keep this up for much longer." Lola told her students. She fired her rifle, and the shot took down another Kuromorimine student at close range. The machine gun crackled again as more students were taken down.
"Should we fall back and regroup?" One of the students called out. Lola wasn't entirely sure about this. Lola knew the answer was no.
"We can't give up more ground than what we left from it. Kuromorimine now owns Augustow and we can't retreat further back." Lola explained that the only plan that was available was to stand and fight.
"Should we counterattack?" The student asked again. Lola didn't answer as the rumble of an armored car was heard, she looked behind her to see several armored cars approaching them. Their machine guns blazing. Lola smiled at the notion as the Kuromorimine students began to retreat, the armored cars headed over the trench as the Cavalry came along, leaping over the trench as they led the counterattack.
"Yes! Lead the attack to regain the ground we lost!" Lola called out with enthusiasm. The students leaped out of their trenches and began to charge in behind. The Kuromorimine students ran even though they had the upper hand in the beginning of the battle. They had definitely declared victory in a tactical sense by dealing damage but at the same time, their attack turned out to be more like a raid. Within the hour, they recovered the territory they had lost including Augustow but they were only able to chase Kuromorimine that far.
After the match, it was declared a Kuromorimine victory due to the heavy losses Saunders ended up taking. They also didn't push Kuromorimine back to its starting position.
"Man, this war is starting to take its toll on us, we aren't able to push Kuromorimine back to where Himari had surrendered." Lola began. Alexandra and Megumi were thinking about it as they were still curious about it.
"Yeah, what caused them to surrender in the first place? Was it the fact that she's still angry with us and wanted to tell us to shove it by surrendering?" Megumi asked if Himari's loyalty was being tested. Lola was puzzled by this notion and decided to try to answer it the best way she could.
"That's a possibility. We had to abandon Augustow then take it back under heavy Kuromorimine resistance. At least you called Nathalia Kornilov over to stop the offensive to Krakow and help us patch the front together. But because of the recall, we ended up losing Czernowitz as Alexei told us his students were unable to get it back." Lola admitted. She sat down before Alexandra looked over.
"Our strength is getting sapped more and more each day and with this Kuromorimine victory, we don't know if we will be able to keep the pressure up or we should go on the defensive and wait for more supplies to come in as we're starting to run out of a lot of it. A good chunk of the rifles has to be written off as they don't have spare parts and some of the armored cars need repairs due to the battle as of today." Alexandra told them as the situation was starting to look grim. Not even ten battles in and Saunders' supplies and morale was starting to show its weak side.
"Should we call our allies to see if they could hand us over some guns to make sure we are still able to arm ourselves?" Megumi suggested that they could purchase rifles from the other schools to help supply the entire school army.
"Not yet. We'll see how this pans out for the next week or so and if we do enter a lot of attrition where we have more students mobilized but not enough rifles to go around, then we'll consider purchasing rifles." Alexandra explained to Megumi that she was pretty hesitant about purchasing another school's rifles if they had surplus in inventory that they needed to get rid of. Megumi nodded as she was going to trust Alexandra's word on it. Lola was busy relaxing in her chair.
"Okay. If you say so." Megumi told Alexandra. Megumi got up and left the room as Alexandra was sitting there. Lola looked like she had fallen asleep after a hard day of fighting. Alexandra knew she needed to help her friend to bed.
"Hey Megumi, before you go, want to help me get Lola to bed?" Alexandra asked Megumi if she could have a hand. No response. Megumi had already left. Alexandra sighed, she now had to get her friend to bed. Scooping her up, she carried Lola off to bed. Once getting to Megumi's dorm, she laid Lola on the air mattress before tucking her in for the night. "I'll see you in the morning." Alexandra left Lola alone while she went off to do some work.
Back at Kuromorimine, Gisela and Manami were discussing the results of the battle.
"Good job on taking back Czernowitz. It's beginning to show that you're actually getting better now that you're getting the experience." Manami told Gisela as she seemed to be grateful with her friend getting some of the school's strength back.
"Yep, and you blowing that hole in Saunders was also pretty good. So did you capture Warsaw as you planned to?" Gisela asked Manami if that plan had been finalized. Manami knew she needed to tell the truth to Gisela.
"We haven't but it's beginning to show that Saunders' own strength is waning, they didn't push us back all the way to where we started the battle so it's a victory for us." Manami also added. "It wasn't as big of a slap we hoped it would be, but it did manage to save Krakow. We'll be leaving you alone for the time being while we go sort out BC Freedom and its allies plus test some new weapons so you're on your own for the next couple of days."
"What about Saunders, do they still have some strength left?" Gisela asked as she was still worried.
"Yes, but hopefully they should be weak so you can hold them off while we sort the situation in the west before, we slap them again for Warsaw." Manami explained to Gisela that she just needed to hold her off for the time being until they could get the situation sorted first before making their own decisive strike.
"I'll see what I can do." Gisela sighed before she began to march away. She knew she needed to hold out on her own.
[A/N]: Saunders' own strength is being sapped away as the school steadily grows weaker. Now Manami is going to shift her focus from the East to the West as she is going to test something out. This is going to be revealed in a few chapters from now as this will have a third battle for the same fortress.
I hope this fanfic gets more attention despite me making less and less updates to it. Hopefully I can get the other story finished and put more time and effort into this one. I've been burned out when it comes to writing history stuff.
A new character has been introduced Nathalia Kornilov, she'll be very important later on in part 4.