The next morning would come as Count High School's first battle was beginning, they were going to be advancing through the Carpathians to link up with the 9th army and widen the front for the enemy. They may even recapture Belgrade if things went smoothly. The plan went as follows: The 9th army under Lola was going to steadily advance while Count High School crossed the Carpathians to link up with the 9th army. Ileana walked ahead while carrying her Mannlicher rifle and a pair of binoculars. She hopped from bush to bush while giving the look out. She raised her head from the bush and pulled out the binoculars and looked ahead. The Dual Alliance was still reeling from Alexandra's offensive as it had mostly battered them completely. Resistance was light. She decided to give the notes of what she saw to Mahou.
A few minutes later, Mahou trudged up the hill to give the announcement that the attack was about to begin.
"Sisters!" Mahou began. She pulled out her pistol before raising it into the air. "The time to kill this cancer and free our brothers and sisters has finally come! So… May god be with us!" Mahou then fired the pistol into the air as a signal to attack. "Charge!" The Count High School students and their friends charged in as this was her plan of attack. Mahou was hoping that Ileana's information was correct, she knew that the weakened Dual Alliance could be swept aside, and they could advance under light fighting with minimal losses. Ileana was carrying her rifle with her as Noemi followed behind her. Gisela and one of her students approached as Gisela was holding a pistol and the other was holding a rifle. They began to fire away at the charging Count High School students. The few rounds zipped past them as one of the Count High School students had been struck and brought down. The others charged in as they were making sure to go around her to avoid trampling her. Ileana and Noemi slid into a creek as Ileana decided to aim her M1893 Mannlicher rifle to see if she could take out Gisela early and paralyze their command structure by leaving them leaderless. Ileana raised the rifle and fired, the first shot missed as Ileana cycled the bolt of her rifle to prepare another shot. She raised the rifle again and fired. The student with the Mannlicher straight pull was shot down as Gisela was scared now. Count High School students were getting closer and closer to her lines.
"BRING THE MACHINE GUN!" Gisela screamed. A couple Dual Alliance students came forward before setting up their Schwarzlose machine gun as the second one reached back for the ammo box while another one placed the machine gun on the tripod. The student handed her the ammo box before she inserted the belt into the machine gun. She began firing away as if she wanted to mow down as much of the enemy as possible. Ileana fired her rifle but she fell back into the creek where the other Count High School students were charging in her wake.
"Ileana, are you okay?" Noemi asked Ileana if she was doing okay. Ileana looked up at her before she got up.
"Better than ever." Ileana puts it in a humorous term. Noemi and Ileana and the other students continued to charge on and with the machine gun out, more of their students were getting mowed down as they continued their advance. Ileana meanwhile was determined to break through if it meant securing a victory for the school early on in their campaign. She headed to a tree before opening the bolt to her rifle, the last round flew out and she loaded a fresh enbloc clip into the rifle. She swerved around and pointed the rifle at Gisela and fired. The plastic pellet hitting Gisela square in the forehead. Gisela collapsed as Ileana had secured a small victory for her school by taking out one of their leaders. However, this victory wasn't to last. The Schwarzlose fired a burst, striking Ileana in the chest, this caused her to fall over as she had been taken out of the fight. She looked on as the rest of the school continued onward without her. She had done her duty by taking out their primary leader. With Gisela out, Solti was now in command of the school.
Lola was advancing on the Dual Alliance as she had managed to advance up to a mile that day before they were settling down for the night. Resistance was weaker than expected but they were attempting to fight back and resist Count High School. Lola was very nervous about what was happening.
"We're making progress so far but Kay and Alexandra are getting into arguments and as a result, they're moving way slower than anticipated." Konstantina began speaking about the recent messages she had received from the more experienced students.
"I'm nervous about tonight. While we are making gains, their slow progress of entering the school worries me. All we know is that Kuromorimine might put more of a dedicated effort into destroying us ever since we nearly annihilated the Dual Alliance with Alexandra's offensive." Lola added. She had been picking up on Alexandra's assault tactics and had been utilizing them more and more now.
"That I know. Some commanders won't learn from their mistakes. I think you will be calling the offensive off here for now?" Konstantina asked Lola if this was something that she was going to do. Lola looked at her before she spoke.
"Yep. I do not want to cause any more casualties today. I need to save some for tonight." Lola replied. Konstantina nodded as she got out her phone.
"I'll text Alexandra about that." Konstantina nodded with approval that Lola wasn't going to risk higher casualties and was going to hunker down for the night. After sending the text. She received another text with some news. It was from Mahou. Konstantina decided to play the text to figure out what it had said.
"Offensive is going well so far. We've captured Brassó and we've sunken our teeth deep into Transylvania and the Carpathian mountains, resistance was lighter than expected though the machine guns were giving us problems. We took Hermannstadt briefly before the Dual Alliance counter attacked and we had to give it up. We're planning on taking it back tomorrow, only when we meet up with you and we can plan for this." Mahou's text read out. Count High School was making progress, much better than they were doing but this was only against a weakened foe. Lola was still worried, thinking Kuromorimine would counter attack during the night and rip the school apart. She knew she needed to put her fears behind her and try her best not to think about it.
The sun began to set as Mahou looked on with Noemi, feeling rather proud about herself. Noemi was cleaning her Mannlicher after a long day of using it.
"Hypothesis Z is going smoothly, we were able to advance six miles in just one day, we were expecting the enemy to be stronger but we managed to brush them aside. We'll be launching offensives into the Banat tomorrow once we force the enemy from Transylvania." Mahou began while overlooking from the hill she was standing on.
"Do we have machine guns of our own in case Kuromorimine tries to attack, that's who I am worried about." Noemi asked Mahou if they had weapons to keep Kuromorimine from coming in too close.
"Hopefully Saunders should provide us with some Maxim machine guns but for now, we're going to have to hold with what we have. You're on watch duty Noemi." Mahou told her friend while she went off to plan for more offensives. They were still praying for the fact that Saunders was going to show up overnight and help fortify the captured territory they had gained. Tonight however was going to be different and Saunders wasn't going to be there to help them.
Later that night, the bushes rustled as several students. They weren't from Count High School. The students looked on while more continued to arrive. They were getting ready to launch a night attack and take the sleeping Count High School students off guard. One of the Count High School students was holding a lantern as she patrolled the area, oblivious to her surroundings. One of the students got out his plastic bayonet and snuck up on the student. Noemi was patrolling around that night before spotting the student who was going to attack her friend. She got out her Mannlicher rifle.
"Marina!" Noemi shouted. Bam! The Mannlicher rifle fired as the night time fight was beginning.
It wasn't Kuromorimine that was fighting them tonight but rather Mittelschule des Königsimperiums, their morale was relatively high after stopping Alexandra in her tracks. These students were disciplined, organized and just like Kuromorimine, very lethal. The students hollered out as they charged from their positions, they were going to try to throw Count High School off balance and take back all the ground they lost today. Marina, Mizuki and Noemi slid into the trench and began to fire their rifles back at the charging students. Noemi fired her rifle before cycling the bolt. The students up and down the line fired as they wanted to stop this attack. The Count High School artillery began to fire away as they too were determined to stop the counter attack. The charging middle schoolers continued as some of the firecrackers landed and exploded, taking a few of them out as the shock of the blasts had caught them off guard. Azusa looked on ahead as she found a tree to take cover behind. She lifted her Gewehr 98 rifle and fired, bam! She cycled the bolt to prepare another shot. Bam! She cycled the bolt again before realizing that she had missed those two shots. She decided there needed to be another way through this. She pulled out a firecracker grenade, unscrewed the bottom and pulled the pin out. She chucked it over in the hope it was going to help take them out. A couple Count High School students were busy firing their Mannlicher rifles before the grenade landed in the trench. They looked down at the grenade that was cooking away before they looked at each other. They had no idea of what to do with the grenade and a moment later, the grenade exploded, taking them both out.
Mahou woke up from her tent to figure out what the commotion was. She looked at Mizuki while the latter rushed up to her with news.
"Mahou, we're being counter attacked, we need to withdraw and find Saunders." Mizuki told her commander that the line was beginning to buckle and was going to collapse.
"Okay tell the survivors to begin retreating, we're getting out of here, Hypothesis Z isn't working." Mahou told Mizuki to give the order to retreat. Mizuki nodded before she rushed off to find the others. Mahou knew that her offensive and plan to help Alexandra win the war was falling apart. She had no choice but to find her and give her the news.
Morning had come and the counter attack intensified for Count High School. Kuromorimine, Ausztria-Magyar, and Yogurt Academy joined in and they invaded from three directions to try to throw Mahou and the rest of the school into disarray. Lola had received the news of Alexandra and Megumi from Konstantina which ordered her to stop advancing and go on the defensive and send her troops to the Moldova region where they were going to prepare a defensive line.
"We were only able to fortify this region because someone had to throw a party on the field and had to slow our advance down." Alexandra began as she was pretty angry at Kay. Kay was too busy loafing around and drinking her coke to really care.
"So what?" Kay smirked. Alexandra knew this was getting bad and she didn't know how this was going to proceed.
"When are you going to throw in a bit more and participate harder to win. You seem to think we're the richest school and you think it's appropriate to throw all the money into the furnace and burn it?" Alexandra asked as she and Nelly were digging trenches and setting up strong points to try to resist any attacks from the enemy. Jajka was pulling a machine gun and placing it into one of the pillboxes.
"Yes. Can't we learn to love life?" Kay asked. "We need to establish ourselves as nice and friendly. You seem to not get it through your dense head. I ended the ration protests as I gave the people bread like they wanted."
"Yeah but in doing so our grain reserves are nearly empty!" Alexandra shouted back at Kay that opening up the granary, they drained their reserves of grain and whatever grain Alice was supplying, wasn't going to last forever and she was determined to end the war as fast as she could to refill said reserves. "You don't know the concept of rationing and economics and how to make resources last."
"So what, I can spend the budget on more food. You seem to not get the concept of it." Kay retorted back.
"Just because we have infinite money doesn't mean we have infinite resources." Alexandra shouted back.
"Stop it you two!" Megumi called out to break the two of them up. "Kay I would tell you to go to the rear and stay there for the rest of the day. Alexandra…" Megumi tossed her a shovel. "Help prepare defenses for the school. We don't know when we'll be attacked."
"Yes Megumi." Alexandra told Megumi before she got the shovel and began to dig in. Kay got up and headed to the rear. Megumi followed Kay as she wanted to talk to her and drill some stuff into that skull of hers. Alexandra was still digging, thinking what Kay had said about opening the grain reserves and how quickly those were going to get depleted. She looked up to see the trotting of hooves from Konstantina's horse. She and Lola have arrived to see them, a very welcome sight to a frustrated Alexandra.
"You seem frustrated Alexandra, did you get into an argument with Kay again?" Konstantina asked if this was going to be the case.
"Yes I did, she opened up the grain reserves and by the looks of things, the reserve is completely empty. I don't know how much longer her friend will keep up the grain shipments but based on everything we've been seeing, we can be out of grain and the people will be hungry in the next day or two. The other food isn't better off as Kay had used it all up in her party and with no one growing food essentially. Saunders can have the possibility of facing massive famine." Alexandra explained that the school was running out of food and with the populace having nothing to eat, rebellion was inevitable. "Only solution to ending this is either to begin rationing while looking for another grain supply or making peace with Kuromorimine. This is something neither Kay nor I want to do is make peace with the enemy but when push comes to shove, we might have to make peace if this rebellion happens."
"We might have a tough time thinking about this. Even with the Dual Alliance on the verge of collapse and that is the only goal you want to pursue. Kuromorimine on the other hand will continue to harass us as they are stronger." Lola explained that this will be a hard decision they were going to have to make.
"I know. They might have the advantage for now but we might as well hold our ground for now." Alexandra told Lola that they needed to hold and wait for Kuromorimine to withdraw their strength from the front.
"Okay." Lola sighed. She turned to see Count High School or rather scraps of the school joining up with Saunders to help bolster up to Moldovan front.
"They ravaged us, even though you were committed to helping us, we got ravaged by four schools at once, they had seized our grain and oil reserves and we have nothing to give you other than our four battered armies." Mahou told what happened. Their offensive had ended in disaster, they had sustained a lot of casualties in less than a day. Mittelschule des Königsimperiums had helped save the Dual Alliance once more by launching a night attack and forcing them into retreat. Much of the next morning was retreating and fighting as the other schools joined in.
"Join the defense but I am now distraught that we aren't able to get any supplies from this." Alexandra told Mahou that they weren't able to do much of anything at this point with their supplies running low. Now the only thing left to do was dig in on the Moldovan front and try to win through attrition.
Back with Kuromorimine, they were discussing the results from the battle they helped join and repel Count High School. Manami was confident but for Runa, Maho and Erwin, the three of them felt uneasy.
"Although taking over Count High School was quick, it wasn't exactly easy to do." Runa began, she read over the papers of the losses that the five schools had taken over the course of the past day or so. "The Dual Alliance had gotten ravaged in Transylvania as many students were still deserting to their side. Their advance had once again threatened to capitulate them. And when we fought them, they were poorly equipped but well trained and willing to fight."
"Well trained you say?" Erwin asked. "I think much of my school had lost up to 75% of their forces in the attacks starting last night in some units. I will give it to them. We knew that we were able to take them down thanks to you as we couldn't do this task alone."
"That's what I wanted to hear. We don't know what kind of attacks will be going forward but with the Western Front still locked in stalemate, the big goal as of now is just to take Saunders out still." Manami added that if they could take out Saunders then they could defeat everyone else.
"We're in the process of dividing up Count High School's grain and oil as this will give us a boost to our flagging school's economies." Runa added that this boost would be vital if they were going to continue fighting this war.
"When do you think Saunders will be sick of war?" Erwin asked. "If Saunders collapses in the next week or two, we should be able to divert Kuromorimine resources to the West and Anzio. I want to try out some new tactics that we've learned from Alexandra's offensive as well as some new tech."
"Learning from the enemy? What tech are you talking about?" Runa asked if Maho's friend had any ideas what he was talking about.
"It's a machine gun that is the size of a rifle and fires pistol rounds that could fit into your hands. It weighs eleven pounds and fires from 32 round snail drums the P08 Luger uses. We got a bunch of excess of those laying around that haven't been used much. We should use those so we don't have to develop a new magazine design." Erwin described the new weapon they were going to use and test among themselves. Manami and Maho nodded, they liked where this was going but Runa was still curious about it.
"How fast does this weapon of yours fire?" Runa asked curiously. She wanted to see how fast this gun was going to shoot.
"Not very fast but this is the plan for us to begin developing. This thing can switch from offensive to defensive in a flash as it can be a solution for mobile automatic fire." Erwin told them that they didn't need a fast firing weapon but one with a sustained rate of fire and mobility to help push across the trenches.
"If we can give you funding as well as your school testing the weapon, we can finally end the stalemate of endless trenches on the fronts." Runa told Erwin if he was given the greenlight for this project and it can be produced and tested, they could figure out a way to end the static war.
"Much appreciated." Erwin told them before he gave a salute. He was definitely going to do his best.
Meanwhile for Saunders, the mood was becoming dire. Kay had opened up the grain reserves and they were running out. This wasn't the only problem they were facing. Alexandra was pacing back and forth as she didn't know what exactly was going to happen. Then the phone rang.
"Hello?" Alexandra spoke when she picked up the phone. Alice from Stars and Stripes Middle School was on the other side.
"Hey Alexandra, we got some news." Baby Lee began. "And it's not good."
"What is it?" Alexandra asked.
"Well the excess grain is drying up and we can't be able to ship any more of it out without tapping into our own reserves. We're shipping grain to several schools at once and we're starting to cut back and as a result, you're no longer receiving grain." Baby Lee described the bad news. Alexandra was shocked, the grain they had relied on for the past couple of weeks was no longer there.
"When is the last shipment going to arrive?" Alexandra asked Alice when the last of the grain shipments was going to arrive.
"It will arrive tonight along with the weapon and ammo shipments. We'll still ship weapons and ammo but we can't ship anymore grain to you. You're going to have to find another shipper." Baby Lee told Alexandra that the school's last grain shipment was coming tonight and for Alexandra, this should leave Saunders with enough grain for the next day or two. But with Kay having opened the reserves and willing to use said grain, there wasn't going to be enough to feed the school's population for even a few hours.
"Okay looks like we're going to have to suffer." Alexandra told Alice to put it mildly.
"Yeah sorry to hear, I wish there was more for me to do to help." Baby Lee told her friend. "I have to go, see you." Baby Lee then hung up the phone. Alexandra was feeling rage build up in her, the grain reserves were nearly full before Kay decided to open them up completely there should have been enough for the next few months as Alexandra had been rationing it out. Now with the reserves empty and all the other food starting to run out, Alexandra knew that the only solution left to her was to get rid of Kay completely.
"This will be the last we talk about, Kay. I will have my revenge due to your poor handling of this war. Now the school is facing starvation, I will want to take over." Alexandra vowed herself that she wants revenge against Kay. Even though Kay had the power of the army behind her, Alexandra knew to get rid of Kay was to rouse the population in the school that didn't attend classes, shopkeepers, metal workers, those that were living their day to day lives that were now going to be affected by starvation due to a lack of bread.
Saunders was on the verge of revolution.
[A/N]: With the war having gone on for the past 22 or so chapters, Saunders is running out of many things, most worryingly in Alexandra's eyes is food. Now Alexandra's solution to all of this is to get rid of Kay to start fixing the shortages the school is still facing. How Alexandra is going to solve the grain problem is something that is going to be harder for her to decide on a solution. She wants to end the war at this point but she still wants victory. Something needs to influence her decision. See you later.