•Eraser Tales•(Aizawa)

Ronin-demo (33)

An Abrams M1A1 style tank rolls up for the group and stops. Colonel Bowen, an American army officer, motions to the tank. Yagi smiles and starts to walk in his long strides, he has even in his thin form. Aizawa is slow to respond so Col. Bowen turns to him.

"Aizawa-san I suggest you leave that behind or finish it quickly. You won't have time to drink it once the demonstration begins..."

Aizawa wrinkles his brow, "Why is that Col. Bowen?"

"Well you see this is a live demonstration and we are the bait along with 11 other tanks. This is a training practice..."the Colonel smiles with glee.

Shouta lets a tired sigh out and finishes his coffee then climbs into the training modified tank. The lid to the tank is closed and locked. The underground hero heads for the empty spot next to Toshi.

"Aizawa-san, why don't you be the eyes for our tank and be gunner?"

"Ah Yagi is running on more sleep than me so he is logically a better choice don't you think?" Shouta says.

"Yagi-san is your loader and there would be times that fatigue will come into play. If we lose this practice then you will buy us a round of beers is all..."

The commander of the tank looks over his shoulder, "ready for one hell of a ride my friends?"

Everyone nods their heads and smiles but Aizawa frowns. The pain reliever is kicking in along with the caffeine, at least. The M1 takes off at a quick rate of speed and the underground hero would guess about 40mph/63k.p.h. He remembers something about this tank can fire a shell at 60 m.p.h./95.5k.p.h due to stabilizers.

How can a helicopter take this out?

"This is Tank Commander Domen, is Ronin set?" the tank driver says in the communication set. "Advancing now control."

The commander puts the conversation between tanks on so all can hear. He turns a small monitor on for the rest of the crew to get a 'feel' for the helicopter, afterall it is a demonstration not real combat so the monitor is included.

Shouta sees the countryside of the rough terrain course moving quickly by. This must have cost the military a ton of money since Japan doesn't have the luxury of land to spend on driving tanks over terrain with trees and tank traps. Commander Domen turns right sharply and all are jostled but the M1 is designed to keep the crew stable for staying on task. Aizawa does feel his insides shift around and that is a rather unappealing feeling. The sensation of being on a roller coaster but in an armored car instead.

An excited voice comes across, "Fuck! Where did she come from?! I'm dead!"

A response, "She's been hiding on the ground all this time. Knowing Ronin she slept in her bird...She caught you on a hill and just rose up?"

The other commander states, "Yeah like a fucking dragonfly hovering right in front of me!"

Commander Domen breaks in, "The dead don't talk, get off the channel Commander . Commander Hano get your mind back in the game."

"Yes sir.....beep...beep...beep."

A female voice comes across the air, "You're dead commander Hano with a hellfire up your ass, if I was armed with one..."

"Where did she come from?" Commander Hano says exasperated..

"An Apache can almost do a complete 360 loop gentlemen and the 30 mm chain gun follows the pilot's eyes so where Ronin looks the dangerous end points."

Commander Domen makes a quick turn again and Shouta gets his first look at the Apache AH-64 coming rolling up and over a hill at half throttle ( full throttle is 182mph/293kmp-cruising 165mph-never exceed speed 227mph)in a barrel roll.