"Ankara?" One of the students asked. Ankara turned her head as they were preparing to resist another attack from Saunders. The situation was beginning to look grim.
"What is it?" Ankara asked. She picked up her revolver and was ready to lead the front.
"We're getting reports from some of our students that the Armenian students in Van have rebelled and are planning to hold out until their supposed help arrives." We don't know if we should have the forces to take Saunders on while dealing with the rebellion." The student did her best to explain the situation to Ankara about what was going on with some of their students.
"I'll take my best students with me to face Saunders, you try to sort this situation out." Ankara explained to her that she was going to be on her own as her best students were going to be facing the enemy down.
"Do you need any artillery?" She asked.
"No, the artillery is being left with you so you can quickly resolve this situation. Once that's done, reinforce us when this is done." Ankara explained to her friend to take care of the situation as fast as possible. She would be able to use the rime to join back up and reinforce the front. Ankara then left the area with her best students. The front around Van was going to have to hold until Saunders arrived with help.
Alexandra rode up on her horse while she surveyed the situation ahead. After a couple minutes of observation, she decided to get down as Megumi rode up on another horse.
"Well, we're going on the offensive, let's hope those defenders at Van that Nelly has talked about hold out while we go in with the cavalry and attack." Alexandra explained. She got out the binoculars ahead to see Kebab students setting up defenses, they didn't have much depth in the defenses as they didn't have many students to guard the flanks.
"Hopefully so." Megumi told Alexandra. Lola rode up on her horse as she was going to be riding up on her own.
"Artillery has been set up, we'll begin the shelling." Lola explained that the artillery guns were in place and now they were just about ready to push their way to Van. Alexandra was just about ready.
"Open fire!" Alexandra shouted, the artillery guns began firing, for Ankara, this was bad, her troops were still in the middle of setting up their defenses and Alexandra was getting tired of waiting. The students didn't even dig a foot down when they heard the whirling of artillery shells.
"Artillery! Get ready!" Ankara shouted, the firecracker shells began to explode, this sent many students scattered about. The Kebab students got their Mauser rifles out and began firing wildly at the attackers. The three groups of cavalry were charging in, a couple of the students were hit and fell off their horses but to Alexandra, that didn't matter, what truly mattered was reaching Van and helping the occupants out of there. Lola pulled out her rifle and began firing, she was hanging back while Alexandra raced ahead for the kill, drawing the saber she had, her horse galloped forward, she held the saber low and when she found the first student, she swung up, taking the student out immediately, she circled around as more students charged in with their sabers and rifles, determined to take out this enemy. Alexandra's horse galloped ahead, and she swung the saber low again, taking another student down. Ankara knew the situation was hopeless and now their defense was going to break apart into a rout. "Fall back!" Ankara shouted.
The Kebab students attempted to make a retreat, but the retreat quickly dissolved into a rout. Alexandra and the cavalry had quickly overwhelmed them and now they were breaking their way through. The Kebab students ran for their lives as it was clear that they weren't going to be holding this force back. Alexandra swung the saber down again and only swung up when taking out a student was guaranteed, she swung up, taking the student out quickly with the slash of the saber. The Kebab students continued their retreat.
"Hunt them down until there is not a single one left." Alexandra called out on her horse. Lola and her group galloped back to gather the artillery and move them up to the front. They needed to keep the pressure up.
Ankara and her group had retreated to their camp and the situation was beginning to look grim. Not only did Alexandra catch them completely by surprise, but they also lost a good chunk of their student army as well. They needed to figure out what the situation regarding the Armenian students in Van was before they could decide what to do with Alexandra's cavalry which was the biggest threat to them at this point.
"How's the attack on their defenses going?" Ankara asked her friend if had any form of output regarding the situation at hand.
"Not good, resistance is stronger than we anticipated and they're firing back on us." She began to hear the explosion of one of their artillery guns getting struck. Ankara heard it too as it looked like the situation was starting to get desperate.
"Move most of the artillery guns against the cavalry, Alexandra and her forces have broken through and are bound to attack us any minute now." Ankara instructed her friend to begin setting up defenses if they were going to hold the Saunders Cavalry back. All of the artillery guns had been moved from Van to help bolster up the defenses on the outside. Then Alexandra and the cavalry force began to appear. Their artillery was off in the distance somewhere, ready to open fire. Ankara began to look out through the binoculars as the cavalry began to move in closer and closer. Alexandra knew that Ankara was going to fire on them. "Fire!" Ankara called out; the barrage of artillery began to open fire as they were now attacking Alexandra's cavalry. Alexandra heard the whirling of incoming fire and knew she needed to break up the formation or risk getting slaughtered.
"Everybody scatters!" Alexandra shouted. The horses began to maneuver out of the way as the incoming artillery began to pour down on them. The firecracker artillery shells began exploding all around them, smoke filled the air while Ankara was trying her best to observe any damage she might have done to try and take Alexandra out. Once the smoke cleared, she looked ahead to see nothing had been done. Alexandra had outplayed her.
"Where is she?" Ankara asked, the other students were busy reloading as they were confused to see where the enemy was, then there was another sound, the sound of incoming artillery. Ankara had just given herself away. "Now they're coming for us." Ankara sighed, she had been caught by surprise and now it was her turn to get pounced on by the enemy. The Saunders artillery began to rain down onto the Kebab artillery, the first salvo blew up some of the ammunition that they had scattered around as the explosions took out their artillery guns as well. Ankara looked behind to see that the Saunders artillery was playing into her weaknesses, she was getting torn apart. "The artillery is ripping us to pieces, we have to retreat back to Van!" Ankara gave the order to keep falling back. Then the other girl realized her mistake.
"I haven't taken out their defenses fully since you called all the artillery guns forward here." She called out. Anakara looked on as she was furious with what the student had done.
"You son of a bitch! The rebels were supposed to be neutralized and now the rebels can either get away or worse have contacted help." Ankara's fury was beginning to pour from her mouth. She wasn't very pleased with the news that the enemy had been able to slip past them. Then the second barrage of artillery was heard, more explosions from the firecrackers were heard as artillery guns were blown apart and students were sent flying from the explosions. Ankara knew they needed to get out of there, she turned and began the headlong retreat. "Fall back!" She called out, the students had abandoned the artillery guns as what remained of them had been blown up. Ankara took ten steps that way, but she was instantly spotted by Alexandra and the cavalry, she had feigned her into a trap.
"Right where I want you." Alexandra told Ankara; the cavalry began to gallop down after her while Ankara was trying her best to figure out what the best solution was. She knew she could go to Van but with the defenders still dug in the city, it was going to be hard to dislodge them. Alexandra and Megumi were closing in on the sides and with her rear cut off thanks to Lola and the artillery. She knew she had no choice but to give up.
"Wait!" Ankara shouted, the cavalry paused, the horses neighing up as it took a minute or two for the cavalry to calm down, once the horses gathered themselves, Ankara looked ahead before sighing, she was surrounded on all sides. Alexandra was on her horse with Megumi on hers. Ankara sighed before she began to speak. "Don't shoot, we surrender." Ankara told Alexandra. Looks like the mighty hot-blooded commander was easy to foil into making her give up. Alexandra knew she had won the battle and therefore causing her to fold was pretty easy.
"You think so?" Alexandra asked Ankara if this was going to be the case. Ankara decided to think about this for a moment. Cut off and with her best students decimated thanks to the artillery, she knew it was best to surrender.
"Yes." Ankara responded. Alexandra got off of her horse and walked up to Megumi. She had a few words for her regarding how this will be handled.
"Send her to the rear, I can safely declare this battle to be finished." Alexandra told Megumi that she was to escort the prisoners to the rear. Megumi nodded before she looked at Ankara.
"Come with me." Megumi told Ankara. Ankara knew she had to take the walk of shame as she had been decimated again and it was thanks to the artillery and the cavalry that swept around and trapped her. Alexandra turned and headed back to her horse before mounting again. She galloped off to take the city herself.
The battle was over as the second battle ended in a Saunders victory against Kebab. It was clear that Saunders was still winning but the problems weren't fully going away.
"Another victory against Kebab, I wonder if we'll keep this up, we'll knock them out of the war?" Kay began as she was relatively pleased with this. Alexandra wasn't too sure about this.
"Kay, you do realize we're still running out of supplies?" Alexandra asked Kay if she realized this. Kay looked up from the papers as she didn't know what Alexandra was talking about.
"What is it?" Kay asked. Megumi slid over the piece of paper to Alexandra and her friend began to read.
"We got a backlog of a couple hundred rifles that need to be made, another thousand that need spare parts, we don't have much ammunition left, fifty maxims need to be replaced, ten armored cars need to be repaired and we need parts for the tanks, this battle with help from the Armenian students, shows that we're running out of supplies. The factories aren't replacing those losses fast enough. We'll be out of supplies within the next week." Alexandra told Kay that their supplies were dwindling fast and when there was nothing left, they could use to fight the war, their foes could easily steamroll them as there would be nothing stopping them. "Unless you want us to start dragging out our obsolete Berdan rifles from storage is up to you. I say we should begin looking for rifles that we can purchase along with ammunition." Alexandra suggested that they should look for rifles that they could begin buying. Kay hung her head back.
"I'm interested in neither proposition; we can still win this with the supplies we have. It'll take another few days before the factories go into overdrive. I gave the order to begin making rifles and parts. Ammunition for the rifles, revolvers and the artillery are going to take a bit longer as those factories are tooling up. At this rate, we'll have our stocks restored to what they were in about a month." Kay explained that she gave the order for the factories to begin producing equipment for them to use. Alexandra knew Kay got half of her job done. She was happy that Kay gave the order to begin replacing their losses, but she was worried about when they were going to be replacing everything.
"A month? We don't have time for that, we eat up ammunition faster than we can produce it. We need to take a break if we are going to replenish those supplies." Alexandra expressed her concern, a month was too long and at the rate they're producing ammunition, it wouldn't be enough to replace the losses they had been taking.
"We have to keep fighting regardless of the situation we find ourselves in." Kay told Alexandra. Kay and Alexandra were right. Kay was right as she wanted to keep fighting for her school to defeat its foes and show the other schools, she wasn't a weakling that couldn't make up her mind. Alexandra was right regarding their supply problems and how fast they were going to replace their losses, it wasn't fast enough to try to keep up with the demand. They were going to be facing some serious shortages in the next few days if Kay continued to attack. Lola decided to step in and try to offer a solution to the best of her ability.
"Kay, it's best we listen to Alexandra and open up the markets for the replacement rifles and we should begin a major withdrawal of our forces from the salient to straighten ourselves out and shorten our supply lines. We don't want to risk getting ourselves encircled as a whole." Lola did her best to propose a plan to get themselves out but also follow Alexandra's advice. Kay however wasn't one to give up any hard-earned ground.
"We have to keep fighting for the ground we have captured; I don't want to give up our prizes." Kay called out. She was resisting the fact that the collapse of the front was inevitable, and she wanted to hold onto the territory they had captured.
"You don't understand Kay." Lola began. She stood up and began to walk over to her. "We're running out of supplies and we're going to pay dearly for our mistake that you want to make. It's best we avoid this mistake and begin a withdrawal of our student army from the salient." Lola tried to explain to Kay that staying, and fighting wasn't the best decision to make. Kay looked at Lola as she was ready to shove her away.
"I'm not about to give up the school's reputation just because someone had said retreating was the best option. We have to keep holding, every student they lose means that their morale will fall, once the morale has fallen enough, they'll sue for peace." Kay told them that she wasn't going to give in to their demands and retreat, she was ready to fight to the bitter end if she had to. She thought that they needed to keep grinding the enemy down until they had no choice but to make peace if they were going to save themselves. Megumi got up and left first, she wasn't going to deal with Kay's decision to keep fighting. Lola was the next to leave. She grabbed the door handle before turning her head to Kay. She looked at her with distrust as if it was a message that her idea wasn't going to work. Lola then exited the room, defeated by Kay's doggard stance, only Kuromorimine could deliver a hard enough punch to knock Kay back to her senses. Alexandra was the last to get up as she left the room. She opened the door before looking at Kay, giving her a glare with her eyes before she began to speak.
"You're going to regret what you said about your stance that you're taking, and you will pay dearly for that." Alexandra told Kay that her stance was going to backfire horribly and when it will, the entire front will collapse. She closed the door behind her, the entire room was filled with silence.
Ankara meanwhile was dealing with her own problems, the rebellion of the Armenian students plus the recent defeat had made her grow more and more suspicious. She looked at her students with increasing hostility.
"Why are they rebelling?" Ankara asked. She slammed her fists down onto the table as if she wanted to vent her anger out. Her friend scratched the back of her head as she was confused too.
"We don't know. They don't like us that's the first thing and secondly, you're treating them too harshly, they're turning themselves over to Saunders as they think they are their saviors. We need to restore order in the ranks before this begins to get out of hand and we lose the students that we can use against them." She tried her best to explain to Ankara the possible reasons why they were leaving her to join with the enemy. Ankara looked at her friend with distrust, she didn't know how she could solve this problem entirely on her own.
"So, what do you think we should do about this?" Ankara asked. She was rather annoyed with the prospect of losing all her battles so far, much like Gisela. "I even offered to be Gisela's meat shield while she recovered her forces. Now neither of us are in the best shape, it's only a matter of time before we completely collapse."
"Uh… that didn't answer my question." She began speaking to Ankara. "What are we going to do about the Armenian Students?" Ankara began to think about it, she found it rather difficult to come up with a safe solution as she felt like she was going in circles. She then stopped thinking when she had the solution.
"I have a solution. Exterminate the Armenians!" Ankara shouted as she thought getting rid of them was the only way to fix the problem she had. The student seemed skeptical about the plan. She knew she needed to explain.
"Ankara? Wouldn't that be like… declaring war on the school's minority population, that'll mean we'll have less able bodies for the front lines." She tried to explain that going around and slaughtering your own population would be detrimental to the whole war effort.
"Well, we need to maintain order on the ship and no student shall be deserting under my command! Right miss task force chair lady?!" Ankara continued to shout that she didn't want anyone to desert under her command. She felt like she was in an awkward position. Ankara wanted extermination and she wanted to see if a better solution was found. After thinking for a minute and coming to no conclusion, she then began to speak.
"Well… bombs away." She somberly told Ankara. Ankara smiled, knowing that she was going to get what she wanted.
[A/N]: I struggled making this chapter, I couldn't think of anything regarding this battle as this Caucasus front isn't really all that exciting. I want to do two battles but I'm only going to do this one as Van isn't really all that exciting. I'm most likely only going to do two more battles regarding the Caucasus front as this front bogs my mind down. I think I might take a bit of a hiatus from writing this fanfic for a bit while I gather more ideas and information though there will be a lull in the fighting in about three chapters from now. So, a bit of development will take place during the Lull. Other than that, I might be doing something else but keep your eyes peeled, you might not know when I will return to this.