ARC II chapter 8

Traf looked at the sudden announcement on the internet about the All-stars team challenging Oarai and he knew that someone else had arranged it and masked it nearly perfectly. But only thanks to God's warning about someone trying to take over the world, he could tell that.

But that was only the smallest worry he had. After all, the match being an Annihilation mode with the Liberation of Paris setting - the defenders being All-stars University team and the attackers being Oarai and allies, already putting them at a disadvantage.

"Found anything?" he asked George through a phone call. "I got something. It seems that MEXT plans on giving us a larger contingent of reinforcements, while that mysterious new University would support the All-stars," his radioman responded and Traf breathed a small sigh of relief. After all, they won't be facing a 2 to 1 situation.

"Oh no…" George suddenly added and Traf straightened up, bracing for the bad news. "The fight is rescheduled to the day after tomorrow," he announced and Traf paled. That would leave the reinforcements a little to no time of rest, thus giving them another disadvantage.

"That… slime!" Traf growled after a while. "How dares he give himself as many advantages to win as possible?!" Only a gulp from George stopped him from ranting more and he took a few deep breaths to calm down. He didn't know his motive as to why he wanted to win so badly, but he suspected that it had something to do with the disappearances five years ago.

"Inform the rest about this," he said and after George made an affirming sound, he hung up, before picking up the map of Oarai to search for best defensible positions to place the heavier tanks, marking them with a red crayon and he sighed, before changing into his pajamas and going to bed.

The next morning, near the city of Oarai, allied command tent

Miho looked at the various gathered commanders and sighed, when Oshida and Andou from BC Freedom started insulting each other again, while Jaques and Fritz sent each other death glares. But, Boris and Vadim were doing both at the same time.

"We're still missing at least four tanks," she heard George mutter to Assam, while he tried to avoid Rosehip. She was again trying to tackle and tickle him, the hyperactive bundle of a girl that she was.

It was simply chaos in its purest form. But, before she could say something to calm them down, Sodoko somehow shouted far louder than them all to stop it and Miho sent her a grateful look.

"Any strategy, commander?" Kay asked and Miho nodded to Trafalgar, who put down the map of Oarai with highlighted possible lines of defence that the enemy might use. "From what we know, Raven's Nest has several M24 Chaffees, KV-2s, Tiger II Bs, T26E4 Super Pershings and a Maus. The latter three would most definitely be blocking all roads at these points that I highlighted," he said to the cries of anger and shock from the other commanders.

"While All-stars would use their typical setup of one Centurion and several M26 Pershings with M24 Chaffees. We also might face their Karl-Gerat, if we're unlucky," he continued and pointed at two points, each marked with the symbol of the team leader.

"Here are our and their starting points. The guy who issued this wants to give Raven's Nest and All-stars as many advantages as possible for us to lose…" but then he stopped talking as the last four commanders went in.

"Sorry for the wait," Kafka from Gregor said, "but we got stuck in traffic. Do you know who has that Myš?"

Trafalgar sighed and looked at her. "Raven's Nest, the 'allies' of All-stars," he responded and she paled. "How did you know what she was asking about?" Yukari blurted out, before Miho could stop her.

"That's actually very easy. Only the Maus can cause that much problems, while being transported," he said and Miho nodded in approval at that skillful deduction he showed.

"Alright, let's start again with the recapitulation…" Trafalgar stated and listed everything that they all knew, leaving her enough time to prepare a plan on the spot.

Renta sat down next to Shiho, Tsuneo and the headmasters of the high schools that were participating, clearly showing that he cared about each of those schools and didn't want them closed down for such a petty reason like 'lost the Tournament' or 'lost against the University team' and yet, there was one person, who thought that it was enough for Oarai to get closed.

And that person was sitting with only the upper half of his mask on near the very best place to watch the whole battle without even looking at the screen. That one was (luckily) taken by the Shimada matriarch and some of Renta's higher-ups. With them here, he'll might not do some underhanded tactics like that assassination attempt with the PTRD 41.

And with a small smile, he watched as the Oarai commanders and their allies came out from their tent without a single insult or death glare being sent in between them. After all, that was the true spirit of Sensha-Do in his opinion.

Oarai, Kuromorimine, Saunders, Pravda, Anzio, BC Freedom, Chi-Ha-Tan, Gregor, St. Gloriana, Jatkosota… 44 tanks in total, due to the rest not being able to arrive in time… I only hope that it's enough, he thought and sighed. If he hadn't manipulated the time, when the fight was scheduled to begin… Oarai might've stand a bigger chance of winning this farce.

"At least, they don't have a Ratte, huh?" Tsuneo joked and Renta shivered at the mere thought of seeing the behemoth and logistical nightmare of a tank in one giant package of steel and death. If there was one thing that he hoped that he didn't buy was something unbeatable like the Ratte.

And with that, he shook his head to clear his thoughts and looked as the joint boy and girl crews entered the middle, where Ami Chono was already waiting for them to start the match, unofficial it might be, but it still wasn't the new trend called Tankathlon, so at least one judge was still needed.

Takashi looked at the small army of clearly brainwashed girls as they refused to put 16 tanks from the battle to make it more fair. "Are you kidding me?! Firstly, your headmaster somehow manages to cut off some of our allies from arriving and now this?! Just put the tanks away!" Traf shouted and surprisingly, everyone from the senior tankers were nodding to support him. Even those from the All-stars team did so.

"I want a fair match. Or as fair as possible, so get the 16 tanks away," a small girl from the opposing team said with that type of tone that didn't accept 'no' as an answer. But, of course, the leader of the Raven forces still didn't budge and stood her ground, saying something about receiving orders to keep the full force.

And he knew that something bad was going to happen really soon, when the commander of the Raven forces turned on her heel and walked away, taking all her subordinates with her with a very angry, but still distant, expression.

"I have a bad feeling about this," he muttered and saw Takashi nod at his statement with a few others nearby, while Miho chose 14 tanks to leave the battle to even out the numbers, but they would still have at least 1 tank from each school present.