ARC II chapter 26

George breathed a sigh of relief, when he saw that the already long training match between the newest teams and Boris' crew had finally ended. While the VK 16.02 was busy trying to take down the T-34/85, the Cromwell used the distraction and took down the T-34 first, soon followed by the Leopard, whose crew was too confused after the takedown of their target that they didn't even notice the incoming doom in the form of a 75mm shell.

"The Dragon team is the winner," he announced with the help of a microphone he borrowed from Tsuneo for this training match's duration, just as Takashi and Traf had finished some paperwork regarding this training match and the next match against Jatkosota of all schools. And the worst part about it? They didn't know all of their tanks - minus the BT-42 and a lot of T-26s. Even our little spy was forbidden to spy on them, he reminded himself and looked back at the training grounds, knowing full well what happened to some spies from Pravda, and possibly some people from KMM as well, when they tried to do just that.

"Tsuneo will tow away all disabled vehicles later. Dragon team, stay here and wait for the rest of the team to arrive," he said and gave a nod to his two crewmates, before handing the mic to amoused-looking Tsuneo, who had done another of his "sneak attacks" on the trio, and walking down the stairs towards their tank. After all, they sorely needed to practice a bit to prevent something like what CHT did from happening again.

7 hours later, 50 nm away from Giblartar, HMS Victorious

Capt. Henry Foster was not happy. Just a few days ago, he had seen the stream of one match he wanted to see - Saint Gloriana vs Gregor - and he was less than pleased with the results. It was blatantly obvious that the attack by the two tanks with autoloaders was just a distraction from the real threat - the Panzer 35 (t) look-alike medium tank holing itself up on the small hill to do recon for its allies, even managing to take one Matilda down, before being KOd.

I bet that it humbled her, he thought for about the 100th time since the match. After all, he never liked "Darjeeling's" bragging about being unbeatable by "minor" schools and several, if not most, of the "major" ones. But, then came another problem - the nutjob called "Rosehip" and her suicide charges in an A15 Crusader Mk III with a disabled speed limiter.

That one ignores most commands given to her. Gloriana was better with "Gunfire" as the team commander. She fielded A34 Comets, the very same A22 Churchill MK VII that "Darjeeling" used, some Valentine Mk IXs, A27M Cromwell Mk Vs and hell… even 2 A39 Tortoises and 4 Churchill 3-inch Gun Carriers of all things…he reminded himself of the woman that was about as old as him (and he had a slight crush on in the past). But, there was something else he needed to do first.

"Ronald Bean, Amelia Mason, come here!" He nearly shouted at the two highest ranking people in the team as he saw them walk by, the latter being the team commander, while the former was her second-in-command, and they saluted with inquisitive looks aimed at him.

"Someone bought most of the Tulip rockets. And you know what that means for our Fireflies, correct?" he started, the duo nodding almost immediately. After all, if one of their surprises was in short supply, they won't be using the affected tank. At first, it was the sudden drop in interest for Churchill AVRE after one American match, depriving them of one tank and now this.

"Whoever did that must be rich," Ronald stated the obvious, but it narrowed their list of suspects to: British and American High school, University and Professional league teams. Which was quite a lot, but not enough in Henry's opinion, because there were a little over 500 suspects left.

And yet, none of them was the true culprit of this.

Renta was positively seething. Only after he had sent the "tulip bouquet" of 7.5k heads to a trusty mediator, who'll give it to his American guests, he finally received the map of the area, where Oarai would face Jatkosota… only to find it, much like the jungle, too advantageous for the opponents of his former school and he couldn't do anything at all about it.

For starters, Oarai's starting point was further away from all advantageous positions than Jatkosota's own starting point was. Not to mention, it was in the area that the latter used for practice often, giving them the "Home field" advantage. And the area overall had the least amount of cover, most of it in Jatkosota's reach, from all the locations that were used recently for a match. Even the jungle had more cover.

And worst of all, one of the few trusty people in that department of Sensha-Do gave him a report of his superiors accepting a bribe from a young man with blue hair to get Oarai as many disadvantages as possible, even going as far to let them allow Jatkosota to even have their White Witch to have a separate starting spot in the forest. And he even managed to lift a part of the ban on Raven's Nest of all things!

I must stop him! But how? He thought as he tried to find the best solution for the problem, only for his phone to suddenly beep as he got a new message and he paled as he read it, before quickly texting Tsuneo about what he had learned, warning him not to mention the last message to anyone, fearing what would happen, if he did reveal it.

Traf looked over the map and couldn't shake off the feeling that it was going to be similar to their fight against Chi-Ha-Tan. After all, the location of the place, where the match would take place, was said to be Jatkosota's favorite training ground and to top it off, they also held the advantage with the best positions to set up an ambush being near their starting point! And he learned about that just a few minutes ago from Tsuneo, who got it from his friends in MEXT and the Sensha-Do HQ.

Well… and there's also that unknown sniper that took down Saunders' flag, he reminded himself as he looked at the picture of the disabled M4A1 Sherman, trying to find out what was the possible culprit. But, aside from the caliber - 7.5 cm - he got nothing else.

Hell… the Finnish used a few tanks with a gun of that particular caliber. It can be anything from StuG III F to Panzer IV J. That still leaves 6 possible culprits, since a short 7.5 cm gun would need to fire at a much shorter distance to accurately hit that spot, thus revealing the tank in the process and Panther would be more likely to be hidden inside one of the buildings.

And with that in mind, he noted down everything he deduced from looking at the map, adding to it his speculation about the mysterious enemy tank and a few tactics, albeit with only the first steps finished to leave space for the others to contribute to create the best possible strategy to win the battle.