Girls und Panzer and the Wundermotor

A Tank Geek and the Rat's Den:

The next day...

"I'm gonna go looking in the Rat's Den!" Yukari declared to her teammates.

"Yukari, are you still hung up on the entire land battleship thing?" Saori turned up from her card game with the Rabbit Team, her voice clearly showing that she was tired of Yukari's obsession with the P.1000 Ratte.

"Yes, I am! And it's more than just part of my hobby, think about it, a tank that never left the planning stages, finally made real! That'd be so..." Yukari shivered and sighed at the idea. "Anyways, I'm going! Wish me luck!"

"A-alright, good luck Yukari!" Saori said with a nervous smile. The Rabbit Team cheered on their senpai with full energy.

"Akiyama, please just stop..." Peter muttered to her. After pushing through the bushes she found the German commanders Peter, Konrad, Carl, and Lennard all sitting around, taking a break from maintenancing their tanks which sat out in the open surrounded by greenery. "If Faber finds out that you're snooping again, he'll get mad, and when Faber gets mad these days it's usually with murderous intent."

"Little Peter is right,"

"Stop calling me that Konrad!"

"Faber gets really angry when he sees me philandering, so I bet you trying to find anything more about us would be like that to him. Won't stop no matter how angry he gets."

Lennard put down his wrench. "Besides, what evidence do you have that we use a Ratte? Words don't count if they're not recorded or heard by enough witnesses, and as someone who's crazy about the Second World War, shouldn't you know that Albert Speer called the damn project ridiculous? We use these." Lennard pointed to the Tigers and Panthers, and then over to where Faber's Tiger II sat, now painted a dark green and grey.

"Too many people, isn't it? There's 42 of you guys and there's only..." Yukari paused and counted the tanks. "Six tanks, and knowing the amount of crewmen needed to man these tanks, there's still more of you guys left."

"Hey, it's like Lennard said," Carl began. "Speer said the Ratte and P.1500 Monster were ridiculous and had them cancelled. Right Peter?"

"Yeah!" the young commander replied. "Besides, even if you do go looking for anything, there are traps too."

"Some little traps won't stop me! I've trained in survival ever since I was little! Yaaah!" Yukari charged off through the foliage, leaving the four Germans amused and to continue maintenance.

Yukari began to look high and low for her target, the P.1000 Ratte. Going north from where the Germans were doing maintenance, she found a clearing with piles and piles of shells everywhere. Yukari leaned down, and saw that they were Sensha-do Federation shells, the same ones that Ooarai had given Faber and his men when they fought against them, and to the right of those piles were shells that she realized were real, live shells. She picked one up, and while she was strong enough to lift the 75mm shells used in the Panzer IV, a good deal of the shells here were 88mm, definitely heavier. "Dang, these guys are really prepared for war huh? I hope they don't get them mixed together, that'd be a disaster." Yukari placed down the 88mm shell back into a stack before continuing forwards. She went down a small path that seemed promising when she felt a wire tug at her ankle before something flew into her fluffy brown hair. "What the..?" Yukari reached behind her head and pulled out from her hair, a dart with a glass chamber full of a white liquid. Yukari felt herself go cold. These guys are serious!

Yukari threw the dart away. Jeez, I better be careful now. Alright, where was I? Ah right, my Ratte hunt! Yukari took approximately 21 steps before she felt a wave of cold water splash all over her, soaking her clothes and herself to the skin. Yukari yelped as a man wearing a Kreigsmarine uniform stepped out of the foliage. Seeing the serrated knife in his left hand, she realized it was Ralph, who stopped and stared. Yukari felt herself blush before she put her hands over her chest.

Ralph tipped his head and smirked. "Camouflage underwear? That's cute..."

"Just stop!"

Ralph began to laugh, which sounded along the lines of, "Hickhickhickikik." it was a high and honestly, quite horrible laugh, one that only a cruel person would have. "You pulled that trap first, and it took you 5 seconds until you covered yourself. I still think it's cute." Yukari, her face now absolutely blood red, threw a punch and hit Ralph square in the face, knocking him to the ground. "Ow." Ralph said unfazed, even though his nose was starting to bleed.

"Hmph!" Yukari stormed off before Ralph could tease and insult her more. "That guy is a real freak...Back to looking for the Ratte." She kept going forwards, rubbing her now wet hair. She placed her foot forwards and felt it begin to fall, but she kicked forwards with her other leg and found herself on the other side of a pit trap. A few minutes later, Yukari felt another wire press against her leg, and before she could react, a bright red stielhandgranate was dropped at her feet. It burst open, spraying her with a warm red liquid. Wait..."Is this blood!?" It wasn't, it was just blood red dye, but it made Yukari look as though she were on the wrong side of an MG-42. Yukari spat some out and kept going. "I'm not going to let some traps stop me!" Yukari suddenly froze, staring at the mud and dirt. Sitting there in the ground were tread marks. Massive ones, so large that any tanks caught under whatever had rolled there before would be reduced to scrap. "Are these?" Yukari's wet, paint covered face lit up. "It has to be!" Like a bloodhound tracing its prey, she followed the tracks. "These are very deep in the ground, and the treads are quite wide apart..." Yukari straight upwards, and her heart began to race and hammer in her chest. Through the thick foliage of trees and bushes and vines, was a square patch of steel. "I...I did it! I found the Ratte!"

*click*

"[Frau], turn around." Yukari froze. Standing behind her, his Walther P38 in his right hand, Faber aimed the pistol directly at her back. "I said turn around."

"F-Faber? What's-?"

"Yukari, I may like you, but I wasn't joking when I said me and my men would keep our secrets until the very end. Turn. Around." Yukari turned around, her eyes widening at the sight of Faber's extended gun arm. "Let me guess, you're looking for our 'tank' and you triggered our traps? Well I most certainly commend you for being able to push through them all." Yukari tried to speak, but her voice turned into a squeak. "Feh. Just speak." Faber holstered his pistol. Yukari swallowed instead. "I saw Ralph earlier. You're pretty strong, and..." Faber smirked devilishly. "Camouflage panties?"

Regaining her strength, Yukari immediately shrieked, "So what!? It's comfortable! And that Ralph guy is a creep!"

Faber gave a light-hearted sigh. "He's always been like that, according to Eric and Clemmons, the only time he's ever shown real expression was when he would sing der mächtigste könig im luftrevier when he was still a senior officer on the Bismarck. If that's what he's truly like, I would kill to see it, but now we all just know him as a psychopath."

"I could tell."

"Hm, well, anyone can...anyways, just...please, give up."

"Why though? You know me, I love tanks, and getting to see a Ratte would be tremendous!"

"I can tell," Faber laughed, mirroring Yukari's words. "But...me and my men swore that we would never give the Ratte up to our enemies. When HItler questioned how dedicated I was, I said I would drive it into hell myself, all in the name of the Fatherland." Faber paused, seemingly in contemplation, reading Yukari's body language. It was the body language of a scared girl. "Not in Hitler's name no, for [Deutschland]. Not him."

Yukari swallowed, wetting her dry throat. It was at that moment Yukari realized that they had never asked Faber, nor any of his men, one defining question. "I...we never asked you about...' him'...so your not a-?"

"[Frau.]" Faber walked close to Yukari bending down slightly to look straight into her eyes. "I hate him, and I hate them. When you see your comrades again, and if they ask about Hitler and the Nazis, tell them that I said I wouldn't mind seeing them be dragged to hell by Satan himself." Faber raised himself back up and told Yukari, "Please, just leave us this one thing for now. [Auf wiedersehen.]" he turned around and left through the foliage, leaving Yukari to contemplate her choices in looking for the P.1000 Ratte.