Girls und Panzer and the Wundermotor

In the belly of the beast:

The match was a disaster to say the least. Maya was sent to the hospital for shrapnel wounds. Bailey had light burns on her back and shoulders, but it was something that could've been treated with a little first-aid kit and some gauze. Everyone else was fine, they only had some cuts and bruises from the shrapnel created by Peter's shell. Speaking of Peter, he was bandaged up. Bailey's brief fury had cut his shoulder quite badly, meaning he couldn't use his left arm, but fortunately, Faber and Peter's crew said he would recover his arm in about three or four days. The Saunders girls speculated about what caused the shell to punch straight through the Easy Eight's front armor. Some of them said the carbon coating was defective and thus it failed to stop the shell. However, it didn't take the Stahlrattes very long to find out the cause. Somehow, a real, sub-caliber, armor piercing shell with a tungsten core had been mixed in with the ones used for Sensha-do, and with that information out, it didn't take a genius to figure out why the shell had gone through. It was a shell designed to kill people and destroy tanks, not play a sport. Some of the Saunders girls went as far as to speculate it was deliberate, but these theories were quickly shot down, because why would they try and kill some innocent girls? The two that shot down the aforementioned theories the hardest were Faber and Koume. "It was merely an accident, and that's that." Faber said firmly to shut them up.

However, as soon as he was bandaged up, Peter went back into the forest camp and didn't return the next day. And Koume had something of his. She felt her emotions beginning to run as she walked into the deep, dark forest. It was unbelievably dark, despite it being the morning, and if she was attacked by a wild animal, she only had one thing with her. Peter's Mauser C96, which he completely forgot about, but Koume hadn't, and picked it up. Last night, she had done some digging and found out the specifics of the old pistol. Chambered in 7.63x25mm Mauser, ten bullets, and had a shorter barrel and grip, making it the Bolo variant. Despite the fact that she didn't have the intent to shoot anyone with it, she kept it in the folds of her uniform, ready to shoot if something, or someone, attacked her. It felt very off, keeping the Mauser, it was like it had its own spirit, and it was a worn one. Oh geez...I should've asked Miho to point me in the right direction, I'm totally lost here...

Koume's ears suddenly perked at the sound of several voices singing in english. "[I'll give my all to the Southern cause, and die in the Southern army...]" they sang, along with the music of a banjo, fiddle, flute, and some others. Running towards the voices, she broke into a clearing, where she saw Willy Nathans and his cousins and brothers singing, but with Koume's appearance, they quickly shut up. "Hey, you're that German girl, right?" one of them exclaimed, pointing a finger.

"W-well, yes, I'm not actually German though. Do you know where Peter is?" she asked as kindly as she could.

"Hmmmm." Willy scratched his beard. "You talkin' about that kid?" A firm nod was Koume's answer. "Well, I don't know where that boy is, Faber does though. And luckily for you, I know where he is."

"R-really!? Thank you!" Koume thanked him with a bow.

"Yeah, just take a right from where I'm sitting, through this lil' path here...should take you to a clearing where the Germans keep their tanks, last time I checked, Faber was there." Without another squeak, Koume briskly left the circle of American Southerners. "[Now where were we? Ah, right...If I must die for home and land, my spirit will not falter! Here's my heart and here's my hand...]" their voices faded out as Koume continued down the path, occasionally dodging underneath branches and hopping over tree roots. After several minutes of walking, she had to push through a bunch of flora again, and when she did, she came into a large clearing. Directly opposite from her were six tanks. Two Tiger H1s, two Panthers, one G variant, which Koume recognized as Peter's, the other was another G model, a somewhat familiar dark grey and green colored Tiger II H, and a dark, steel blue Panzer II, which had four 20mm autocannons instead of one. It had the word, "Sturmwind" written in white on the side. Taking a look to the left, she saw a large number of tools, and most disturbingly, shells. Through a break in the forest walls, Koume had spotted a clearing which held dozens of shells, well over a hundred. They were neatly separated into two piles. Looking to her right, Koume came face to face with the six foot tall generaloberst that was Faber Eisenherz.