Chapter 3: Three of Diamonds

Roulette Academy eventually became a fairly successful player in the High School Tankery League after that. The addition of a fourth tank to the team and the inspiration granted to them by Ooarai made them perform all the harder. They moved on from 2v2 skirmish matches to full on fights against small schools that only usually fielded Tankathlon teams.

Viggen and Gregor Highschool were the first to be added to the list of the defeated. The respectively themed Swedish and Czechoslovakian schools struggled against the coordinated might of the M6 and new SU-76I crews, with the Chaffee providing reconnaissance with their speed.

Friedrich started keeping a physical list in her office of the defeated schools, and the dream was to eventually see the Big Three names on there, furthermore with Ooarai's at the top. An ambitious dream that a future commander may have to fulfil, but Friedrich was certainly going to give that commander a good head start, as she managed to add Viking Fisheries, Koala and Count Highschool to the list. They lost the first time to the latter because the enemy showed up with a surprising number of Romanian tank destroyers that she wasn't prepared for.

Their success got them noticed by their unofficial sponsor, who started to "find" more tanks for them to add to their roster.

The commander of one such new crew was currently enjoying a spot of reading. She was lounging in her special reading spot in her dorm room of the unthemed complex. Hijiri's spot was an expensive bean bag with a low, small coffee table just beside it to rest a cup of green tea and a book on.

Hijiri was reading a history book on the North African Campaign, partially out of interest, partially because she had chosen to write a paper on it for school; but mostly it was to see if she could steal a few tactics. The long conflict saw the genius minds of Montgomery and Rommel trying to out-do each other, so she figured it was a gold mine for tank strategies. The only thing she wasn't liking about it so far was that it didn't feature any late-WW2 British tanks, which were her favourite.

Hijiri was a rather colourful girl with twin ponytails that had a gradient of sky blue on her scalp to navy blue at her tail ends. The sky blue matched her eyes. Her hair was long enough to reach her hips when she stood up. When she sat down in her spot, she liked to spread the ends of the tails over the bean bag; she took pride in the length of her hair.

On her little coffee table, her phone buzzed. She picked it up and saw it was a notification from the Roulette Ship app. Some school ships had taken to making apps to keep the community connected, they had live updates for the ships destination, weather forecasts and energy graphs. Of course, the Roulette app featured a plethora of casino and gambling games that connected to the casinos on the Strip; some of the students had tabs in their favourite casinos that were like second bank accounts.

Hijiri tried to keep out of the Blackjack, slots and Roulette games, but she liked to dabble in a good bet. And a smile grew across her face as she saw the notification appear on her screen.

Congratulations! You won a bet! 1000 yen added to your tab

And very shortly afterwards, she got a text message from Sakura from the Chaffee crew,

You were right honey! I just saw Allison and Fiona on a date, they're totally hooking up. Did you get your pot?

Hijiri typed out a response.

Sure did! Which couple should I correctly guess this time? ;-)

It was only a half-joke.

The four themed dorms took inspiration from existing schools, and much like how the school ships had bastardised cultures of the countries they attempted to ape, the school dorms had bastardised atmospheres of the school ships they masqueraded.

Maginot Maginot was one such dorm. It was visually inspired by the Paris Paris hotel in real Las Vegas, complete with an Eiffel tower out the front, albeit obviously smaller; and it took its theme from the French Maginot school. It featured an art gallery, which was half filled with replicas while the other half was filled with the works of Roulette's very own top performing art students; as well as a series of restaurants (all French themed, of course) and a few relaxing bars. The dorm was the second smallest, and a lot of it was reserved as a hotel, so as a consequence the dorm rooms were studio apartments much like those of the unthemed dorm.

Maginot Maginot was were the "artsy" students tended to end up, though a few on normal education programme would sometimes request to live there.

One such case was Akira. At the moment, she was trying on a series of accessories whilst wearing the Roulette Tankery uniform in front of the mirror, with a smile on her face. Not a beaming smile, but a smile that showed off just how content she was with where she was and what she was doing, the kind of smile that if somebody else had been there she might start humming.

Flowers, clips, bracelets, scarves, belts, snoods, necklaces and even handbags. Anything she had she was trying on. Akira had heard that Friedrich was trying to secure a match with one of the French schools. Akira loved the French, so she wanted to look her best for the match. She wasn't quite sure what it was about them she adored so much, it just seemed to be a little bit of everything to do with the French spirit. Maybe it was the food, that was one of the major reasons she picked Maginot Maginot after all, so she could live above all the restaurants.

Her love of the French didn't go unnoticed, and her friends gave her the nickname 'Orleans' after they heard she had been to both the old and new namesake cities. And her favourite tank was the AMX-13, that didn't help either.

Her phone started singing the instrumental of Dans les Hussards as it received a call. Picking it up, she noticed it was just the person she was thinking of.

"De Brak, honey! How are you?"

"I am just fine, mon cherie! I did some looking and found a spare Czapka for you!"

"Thanks a lot! Do you think you could bring it to school tomorrow?"

"Not a problem, dear. See you tomorrow!"

"Au revoir," Akira joked with a giggle and hung up.

Akira was the only case of Hijiri losing a bet on a gay couple forming. Hijiri had bet Akira would eventually hook up with De Brak, but it wasn't to be. Akira was straight after all, much to her own frustration. She could at least admit De Brak was attractive.

Akira admired herself in the mirror for a moment to see if she liked her image. Her blonde hair was tied into a bun with some hanging loops, a hairstyle she was quite pleased with. Her nails were painted a blue that matched the French flag. She also had a red hair clip in her hair shaped like a playing card diamond, but she wasn't sure if she liked how it went with the blue.

Not that any of this mattered. As the loader, it wasn't like anyone was going to see her.

She heard some hissing coming from her stove and panicked as she realised she left her dinner boiling in a pan with a lid, and now the water was starting to spill out over the sides. She rushed over to save her dinner.

Bake in the oven for ten minutes until crispy on the outside.

Well, which was it? For ten minutes, or until crispy? What if the cookies didn't go crispy after ten minutes? How was she meant to check? Just by looking? What if her sense of judgement wasn't right? What if her view of "crispy" was different to that of the people who wrote the book? Maybe it was lots of people that wrote it, that would be worse! Then there would be a whole array of contradicting beliefs on what the perfect "crispy" cookie looked like, and she was just another addition to the problem!

Youmi took a breath and considered for about the fifth time if she should just give up and throw out the whole batch. She almost did the first time when she accidentally added three extra grams of flour. Now though, she was too far in to give up now. Hopefully the cookies wouldn't turn out too awful.

Youmi was the radio operator of the Sherman DD, which was ironic considering her poor social skills. She had trouble looking at people in the eye; it was rather odd, like a force was preventing her from looking at them directly, so when she talked to people it would usually be while casting a glance just past them, it made her look like she had two lazy eyes.

But that didn't stop her from being a decent enough radio operator. Hijiri understood her. She knew that if she gave Youmi orders she would repeat them over the order exactly as she was given them, right down to the enunciation.

Youmi pulled the tray of cookies out of the oven once the ten minutes was up. They certainly looked crispy. But what if her friends didn't like crispy cookies?

She grimaced and set the tray down, then knocked the side of her head. She knew she was being silly, but she couldn't help it. Her brain was trying to convince her of all these irrational things.

After letting the cookies cool down, she tried one. They were... alright. Perhaps they crumbled a little too much, they seemed a little more "hard" than "crispy", the gooey inside could easily make a mess, but at least it tasted nice.

She bagged the rest, one for each of her friends, and a second for Sumi.

Later, at about one o'clock in the morning, the Strip was just as bright, colourful and alive as it always was. The Seven Clovers Casino and Bar was a particular favourite of Azumi's, not a weekend went by without her paying it a visit.

Azumi loved Seven Clovers because it featured one of the largest dance floors on the Strip. It was estimated it could fit about 350 people on it, though Seven Clovers recently put up a notification on the Roulette app that about 420 managed to squeeze on for a mosh pit last weekend. But Azumi had already left by that point, her delinquency had limits.

Tonight the bar was featuring just some good old techno music, just the thing she could dance to.

Azumi had a head of thick black hair, tied into a single braid down her back, which made it heavy and short enough that it wasn't a nuisance when she twirled and threw herself around while dancing. She also grew out her bangs and hair sprayed them to keep them stiff to frame her face.

While tearing up the dance floor with some girl friends, they laughed as a boy started jigging his way over. She liked how casual he was being about it, she was sick of men that tried too hard to be smooth.

As the beat dropped into some really low tones, the boy did a Matrix lean backwards to coincide with the low bass. Azumi saw this as a challenge and copied him, the two expertly keeping themselves suspended on just the tips of their shoes.

They snapped back up to a stand at the same time, dancing in front of each other. The boy shuffled up his shoulders against her, a big smile on his face. Azumi returned the dance move. She was having some good fun.

And as the song reached its ending crescendo and stopped, the two settled to a stand to catch their breath, giving each other a respective nod for the other's skill.

And then, just as he was turning to leave, he reached over and gave her a slap just behind the waist.

Azumi's smile melted into a look of "did you just...?"

The next thing the kid knew, as he was just taking his first step to leave, he was on the floor after being knocked flat from a clean right hook to the jaw.

Cracking her knuckles, Azumi nodded to her friends and they left the dance floor. The boy was swallowed by the rest of the dancing patrons; nobody had noticed the fight since the next song was starting.

Later in the evening, over in the tank garages, a few of the engineers were working late into the night to get some needed repairs done after a recent practice skirmish match. Sumi was the driver and maintainer of her crew's Sherman DD. She loved her precious "floaty Sherman" tank for how ridiculous it looked.

The match had caused a tear in the flotation screen, amongst other faults, but to Sumi, replacing the screen - or "shower curtain" as Azumi called it - was of utmost importance. Though admittedly, the damage was her fault.

"Get out of the damn way!" he had shouted at the start of a match as the teams set off, directed at the tank in front of them.

"Sumi, that's the Chaffee," Hijiri laughed, "They're the scouts, they need to be in front."

"If they're in a Chaffee then they could at least move a little faster!" Sumi drove the pedal to the ground and pushed both the tread levers forward.

"Sumi, no, stop!" Hijiri tried to tell her, but Sumi rammed straight into the back of the Chaffee in an attempt to push it along.

"Earth to Three Diamonds!" Sakura, the commander of the Chaffee, transmission over the radio, "You're kind of mounting us!"

"Sumi, for God's sake, pull back!" Hijiri ordered, ducking her head into the tank to scream the order at the driver.

"Commander, the Chaffee's gun is pointing this way!" Azumi relayed, spying through the gunner's optics.

Hijiri transmission "Five Hearts, what are you doing?!"

What came through was Fiona, the Chaffee's radio operator, trying to give an answer while Sakura could be heard arguing with the gunner in the background, "F-Five Hearts to Three Diamonds; we're k-kind of in a pickle right now as-" but what she said afterwards was never heard as the Chaffee fired straight into the Sherman DD. The round ricocheted off, and now Azumi, desperately trying to keep her composure, had run out of temper.

"Eat sh-!"

BANG

Five minutes into the match, the Chaffee was knocked out.

The flag tank.

The other team won.

"Hmph, should've been at the back anyway," Sumi huffed at the memory, pouring some water from a jerry can onto her hands to wipe off the dust and grime from attaching the new screen to the floaty Sherman.

As the bell rang to signal lunch time at Roulette Academy, the five girls met up in their usual spot at their usual table in the cafeteria. Hijiri was the first to arrive, followed by Akira.

"Hijiri, honey!" said Akira, sitting opposite her commander with tray in hand. "How was your weekend?"

"Hi, Akira! My weekend was just fine!"

The girls were dressed in the Roulette Academy uniform, which was a white buttoned shirt with a grey blazer, grey skirt and black bowtie.

"'sup, bitches?" Azumi sat down next to them.

"A good morning to you too, Azumi," Hijiri giggled.

Azumi snapped her fingers. "Hijiri, I need a favour to ask. Could you help me study for the test tomorrow?"

"I don't suppose you did any studying over the weekend?" she asked playfully.

"You know I can't study by myself."

Hijiri sighed exaggeratively, but said with a smile, "Fine, since it's you asking."

"Cheers, I owe you one."

"Don't you owe her five, now?" Akira asked, cocking her head.

"Shh," Azumi placed a finger to Akira's lips, "Quiet, Orleans."

"Well, well, if it isn't Sumi!" said Hijiri, watching the driver make her way over then slouching down in a seat next to Azumi. She looked worse for wear, like she hadn't slept.

"You look like you and Youmi were up all night," Azumi smirked.

Sumi punched her in the arm. Well, it was more of a brush of her fist. "The Sherman took a while to fix," she mumbled.

"It'd be faster if you let someone else help you," said Hijiri.

"Nobody is touching my precious floaty Sherman!" Sumi waved a finger in the air.

"Oh hey, it's Youmi!" said Akira, and Sumi was immediately wide awake, her eyes shooting open while she sat up straight.

Youmi was holding a plastic of cookies. She stood next to the seat Sumi was sitting in and leant down and gave her kiss.

"How long have you two been together for now?" asked Akira.

"Four months," Hijiri answered for them.

"How do you remember that?" Azumi asked.

"They were the first couple I bet on," Hijiri stuck out her tongue. "I'll be honest, I remember more the message I got on my phone to tell me about the pot I won."

"I'll never forget Sumi's face when she told us they were together," Akira giggled.

"Oh," Sumi exclaimed sarcastically, wrapping an arm around her girlfriend's waist, "You mean that time I sat my closest friends down to tell them about this really important moment in my life, and then one of them goes 'Oh yeah, I know, I won two grand off it'?"

"Yeah that was it!" Akira snickered.

"It was funny, Sumi," said Azumi, "You were fuming."

"Pfft," Sumi waved her hand, "Joke's on you guys, I'm the one that got Youmi."

"Didn't she ask you out?" Hijiri asked, resting her chin on her hand, elbow propped on the table.

"W-well... yeah... but I was... going to ask her out anyway..."

Even Youmi peered at her to raise a suspicious eyebrow.

"Weren't you two friends for years?" asked Hijiri, looking rather smug with her smile with her chin resting on her hand. "You were taking your sweet time."

Sumi stuttered for an answer.

Youmi had the smallest smile on her face the whole time, she liked watching her girlfriend getting teased, she always had to have the last word.

"Hey, Youmi," Sumi looked up at her to change the subject, "How you doing today?"

"Um... I... I made cookies for everyone," she said timidly, holding up the bag.

"Oh, how sweet of you!" said Akira.

"There's one for everyone," said Youmi.

"Um... Youmi..." said Azumi with a slight grimace of guilt, "Sorry, but I don't really like cookies."

Youmi looked like she had just seen her dog die. "Oh..."

Hijiri kicked Azumi under the table. Akira flashed daggers at her.

"I'm sure they're lovely cookies!" Azumi waved her hands, "I'm just not a fan! I wouldn't want to tell you I liked them when I didn't..."

"No, that makes sense," Youmi nodded, "You don't want to lie to me. I respect that. I'm sorry I couldn't give you anything."

"Don't worry about it!" said Azumi, "I don't even know what you feel like you need to give me something for."

"Well... I just wanted to say thank you to everyone for being my friend... so I made cookies for everyone."

"Oh, honey!" said Akira, her hand to her heart.

Sumi rubbed circles into her girlfriend's back with a smile.

"Why don't you have Azumi's, sweetie?" she asked.

"Y-yeah," Azumi nodded, "I would like it if you had mine."

"Alright," Youmi agreed.

Youmi handed out the cookies, keeping the last two - the second one for Sumi and the one meant for Azumi - wrapped up in the bag. She didn't realise that she was gripping the ends of her blazer with her other hand, awaiting the criticisms of her baking.

She started to regret giving them the cookies. Too crispy, the inside too messy. She should've started again. She tried to do this nice thing for them, got them excited for some cookies and now she was going to subject them to-

"Oh wow, these are delicious!" said Akira.

Youmi's eyes lit up. "You think so?"

"Yeah, these are great!" said Hijiri.

"You don't think they're too hard?"

"No, I don't think so," said Akira.

"Is the chocolate inside nice?"

"Oh yes!" said Hijiri, "It's so sweet!"

"You did a good job, sweetie," said Sumi, "These are nice cookies."

Youmi was overcome with relief.

"Are you sure you don't want one, Azumi?" asked Hijiri.

"I'm sure. I wish I could, but I feel sick when I eat too much chocolate at once."

"That sucks," said Sumi.

"S-so, um... what does everyone want to do today?" Youmi asked.

"Study," Azumi answered.

"Study session at my place tonight?" Sumi asked.

"That sounds like fun!" said Akira.

"Yeah, I'll go if Hijiri does," said Azumi.

Hijiri gave a thumbs up.

"Youmi?" asked Sumi.

"Yeah, and she'll stay behind all night afterwards," said Azumi, much to Sumi's blushing.

Sumi punched Azumi in the arm again, properly this time.

"Ow!" she cried. "Well, that's a dead arm now."

"Um, yes Sumi, I'd love to come."

"Then it's a date!" said Hijiri with a smile.

Mars' Tips For Making a Cast of Characters

Tip #1

When giving names to your characters, make them discernibly different. Here we have an Azumi, a Youmi and a Sumi. I was the one with the cheat sheet and even I had difficulty telling these three apart. This works for humorous purposes if the characters are meant to be a duo/trio, but I'd still limit it to just two people.

Tip #1.5

When picking a name for a character, I like to give their name a meaning, even if its really obscure to the poit I myself will forget it. You can make names rather distinguishable this way.

Tip #2

Physical descriptions are important so you can picture the character in your head. Give the character something more than just a hairstyle and colour (though Youmi is a good example of telling her apart by hairstyle because of her unique colours). Height also doesn't work, because just about anyone could be described as tall, mid height or short.

Things like complexion, skin colour, beauty spots, hair thickness, breast size, accessories (The creator of the M6 crew knew what he was doing on this one. Even a pair of glasses makes the character different), piercings and clothes (And not just the colour of their shirt. Give your character a very distinguishable costume. Look at Danganronpa 1 for good examples on telling characters apart just by clothing) should be used to make the character stand our in the reader's mind. In animation this isn't as important because the characters can be seen, so a picture doesn't need to be painted.

For example: Imagine a high-school student in a white/green sailor uniform with shoulder length copper hair that has an almost permanent expression of unsuredness.

Did you guess I was trying to describe Miho? You might've, but you can see my point on how that description could've fitted just about anyone.

This is an important point for me to stress because I'm only three chapters in and I'm starting to run out of ways I can describe a character when I've got next to nothing to go on besides their hair style. Some of these descriptions have actually been personal interpretations.