Andou's Rebellion

Chapter 6: For every action

"Attention students. I have an exciting announcement to make," said the headmaster over the loud speaker. "Uh, 'Our Sensha-dō team has made a decision to incorporate our visiting guests of Kuromorimine Girls Academy into our team.' What's that say... To comraderate... oh I see, 'To commemorate this wonderful union of differing schools, we will be hanging the flags of our new allies along side ours in the atrium' wow that was hard to read, how about another drink after this..."

"Get back inside, return to your classrooms immediately!" yelled the school guards in the atrium at the many students gathered in protest. Marie and Oshida looked down from their class into the atrium and sighed.

"Damn Examination faction. They always make such a big fuss over these things," said Oshida.

"You don't suppose we're moving too quickly, with this partnership do you?" asked Marie.

"Not at all, commander, we're moving right with pace. Those who are too dense to see our forward progress will be left behind," said Helena as she walked into the classroom.

"What are you doing here?" asked Marie.

"The school's going into a bit of a lock down. Our class, at least, has dismissed us for the day. It seems these protesters will have won. For now," said Helena in reply.

"Tomorrow we'll take back order," said Oshida, bluntly.

"Nay, on this day we will. The head master has asked our support in moving these students out. They suggested we might use the tanks to block off areas and perhaps to motivate students to exit the quad." replied Helena.

"The head master?" asked Oshida, surprised to hear.

"Yes, he told me so," replied Helena.

"Why would he tell you first?" asked Marie.

"I was meeting with him since I was supposed to be a part of the announcement. But that got cut short and I got sent back to class," said Helena.

"This would be a bad precedent to set: using our Sensha-dō team to break up a protest." said Marie, unsure of the suggestion.

"Yeah, but knowing Andou and the Escalators, this will probably turn into a riot again. Besides, they've had us students do this before: breaking up riots. Come on, let's get dressed," said Oshida.

"They didn't have you, they let you. I'll stay here, I don't want to get dirty," said Marie, hiding her discomfort with her usual haughty attitude towards things.

"Suit yourself, ma'am. But believe me if you want to snuff out a flame best, blowing lightly will stoke it, blowing hard while it's small is how you destroy it," said Oshida as she left. Helena left Marie and walked after Oshida who made her way to the armory. "You'd best get your crew," said Oshida.

"Right, I'll call on them. Where shall we meet up?" asked Helena.

"Meet us at the quad. We'll have tanks there for you," said Oshida.

"Right," replied Helena as she left her co-commander.

"How did the meeting go?" asked Lisa as Helena entered their dorm.

"It went better than expected! The whole Examination faction has risen up – and get this, I managed to talk the principal into allowing us to use tanks to quell the riots that will inevitably start," chuckled Helena.

"And why exactly do we want a riot?" asked Elise.

"Because, Elise, if this happens all of the schoolships in this ocean will see what is happening, and when word comes that we were the ones to put an end to it, we'll be famous!" said Helena.

"I thought we wanted to just, you know, fix the Sensha-dō team and make them 'vassals of Kuromorime'." pointed out Lisa.

"This is bigger than that! Conquering will come after, first we must have good reason to become the true leaders of the Sensha-dō team. Being famous makes that easy. We have the chance to make our own way. We'll take the place from that cake eater and her lackey, we'll be bigger than them, bigger than Maho, even! Ha ha! And the other one, what was it An-dope, she's as good as gone already," laughed Helena.

"I see," replied Elise.

"I hope you're not getting too big for your britches," muttered Lisa. "I just want to chill."

"Alright everyone, riot gear on! We're going to show these girls we mean business, if anyone comes at you, knock them down. We're going to restore order and make pride from this disgraceful act in our atrium!" said Oshida to the girls as they got dressed into the riot gear they would be wearing.

"Miss Oshida!" said one of the girls, running into the locker room.

"Yes?" asked Oshida as she turned to her.

"A lot of the tanks are missing. We still have most all of the Renault production tanks. And the Panzers are all still in the garage. But the SOMUAs and the Shermans are missing."

"You're kidding! Tell me the ARLs are still there!" exclaimed Oshida.

"No, miss, I wish I were joking.But yes, we still have the ARLs." replied the girl.

"Ready them, we will need them in case those girls get any funny ideas, we might just need to disable a few tanks." said Oshida, hastily.

"In a full crowd?" gasped the girl.

"I don't want to do this, but the headmaster has told us to. And besides, we won't do anything unless they do. It would be worse to let them fire on us with impunity than to neutralize any threats that occur." reasoned Oshida.

"You really think they would shoot at us?" asked the girl to Oshida.

"Stupid Escalators, wouldn't put it past them," said Oshida, as she donned her flak jacket.

The Escalator tanks rolled out through the narrow streets, made to recreate the Parisian streets on the deck of the ship.

"Andou!" yelled Marcé, as she approached her leader.

"Marcé, what's wrong?" asked Andou, standing up from where she was sitting with a bottle of soda.

"They're rolling in tanks to our location! The headmaster has sent for the Sensha-dō team to quell the protest!" exclaimed Marcé.

"What!" gasped Andou.

"I mean it, now come on, we need to get all the people we can to resist!" replied Marcé.

"How?" asked Andou, standing up in an almost dazed state.

"If they use tanks, we'll use tanks. For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction!" answered Marcé, pulling Andou along with her.