Chancellor Tanya Degurechaff had finally done it. She'd defeated the communists, won WWII, and brought Germania out on the other side stronger than ever before. With unprecedented developments in weapons and magi-tech creating such wonders as early missiles, jets, and even self-aware warships, it seems that nothing could challenge the ironclad alliance she'd forged. So then why does she feel so on edge?
The reason, it turns out, is because not hours after the ink is dry on the new peace treaty than does her grand fleet of diplomatic escorts for her and her allies get whisked away in the midst of a furious storm into another very familiar world. Though Tanya has to admit, she doesn't remember a pitched war between the demonic spirits of warships long past and the souls of noble vessels reincarnated as hilariously well-armed quirky girls.
Fortunately, she's not alone.
Now if only she could get her own ships to stop calling her "mother".
"Alright...let me see if I've got this right," he sighed and rubbed his eyes.
Admiral Krouse was a tired man.
Dealing with his homeland and most of Europe being under siege by demons from beyond his worst nightmares 24/7 tended to do that to a person. He rarely slept more than 4 hours at a time, if he slept at all, and none of it ever truly felt like it did more than keep him from completely falling apart. Being the commander of the German naval response and defense was far from an easy job, after all.
So he thought he could be forgiven for forgoing decorum. Not that he could bring himself to care particularly much if he wasn't.
"Chancellor Degurechaff, was it?"
The person who, if the report of his men was to be believed, was the ruler of an alternate parallel of his own nation. One in which she led Germany through WWII, and not the dreaded tyrant Adolf Hitler. Where she had won against impossible odds and brought the nation back from the brink of destruction.
"Yes, Admiral. I imagine this must be quite an unexpected surprise for you, no?" She flashed him a picture-perfect smile over her mug of steaming hot coffee, "Still, I must thank you for your generous hospitality."
"It is no trouble, Chancellor." He waved her off.
He had to admit, he couldn't stop himself from trying to compare this woman to that old monster. They'd both occupied the same general period of time and place, if the reports where anything even approaching accurate, yet it appeared they couldn't be further apart. Instead of a genocidal tyrant of a man who dragged his ancestors into a horrific and doomed war, she'd uplifted her nation into a proud beacon of excellence and innovation. All while looking like no more than a petite young woman in the prime of her life, fresh out of college.
Which makes the reports indicating her as the single most dangerous human ever to walk the earth all the harder to swallow. He admitted in the privacy of his own mind.
Admiral Krouse dealt with spirits of war on a regular basis, each one capable of leveling a city block on their own. The most dangerous could probably decimate a small country if the mood struck them. Yet, all of them were spirits, all of them manifestations of war at its most direct. Degurechaff took all the raw magical power he'd expect from a spirit and combined it with the single most dreadful thing in all existence.
A politician.
And a terrifyingly influential one at that.
A woman who can raise up a new thriving German Empire from nought but ashes and blood is certainly someone to be respected. Carving out trade deals, reforms, new alliances from less than nothing is no mean feat. Krouse thought, And one who led her nation through two of the bloodiest wars in history, and the tip of the spear no less…
He took a sip of his coffee to hide his nerves. Legends have been born of lesser accolades. And in times like these, that can be a very dangerous thing.
"In any case, let's get introductions out of the way." he began, lowering his own cup to his desk. "You're already well acquainted with heavy cruiser Admiral Hipper-"
The stern-looking blonde woman in a neat and tidy black and red dress uniform gave a short bow and leveled something almost approaching a suspicious glare at the newcomers, but just managed to stay on this side of politeness.
Krouse gestured to his left, "-and our lone fleet carrier, Graf Zeppelin."
The tall pale blonde in a similar uniform in white and black gave a shallow bow. Her face was neutral, almost cold, but Krouse could see the way her eyes blazed, locked on the face of their new guests, and her recent saviors.
"These are my two aids, battleships Gneisenau and Scharnhorst," The two violet haired women to either side nodded. They were nearly identical while in their dress blues, save for the glasses on the former and the eyepatch on the later. "They are my left and right hands in nearly all matters pertaining to the war, and can be trusted without question."
"And as you well know, I am Vice Admiral Krouse." he motioned to himself. "A pleasure."
"Indeed," The Chancellor smiled that perfect politician's smile that meant nothing at all, and gestured to the handful of her own staff she'd brought with her.
"This is General Lergen," A tall wiry man with glasses and cold eyes nodded.
"Admiral Blutzlow." A more stout man with a carefully trimmed mustache gave a short wave of the hand.
"Vice-Chancellor Visha," A bright-eyed young woman with brown hair and just about the exact opposition proportions of the Chancellor gave the first truly warm smile of the meeting.
"Elya," The lack of titles for the green-eyed woman unsettled him almost as much as her amiable smile.
"Our ever reliable Sturmmann lead by Colonel Koenig," The squad of heavily armed and armored soldiers stood menacingly against the wall. That there were only five of the soldiers in what he could only assume was power armor using this fabled Germanian "magi-tech", gave him little comfort after hearing his sailor's reports on their effectiveness against Abyssals.
Though, I suppose it's only fair that they bring their own man-sized superweapons. Krouse admitted. Graf Zeppelin alone could probably kill everyone in this room with just a sneeze, and she's only a carrier.
"And…" The Chancellor paused for a half-second, twitched ever so slightly, then pushed on with her smile looking even more plastered on than before, "our KMS of the aircraft carrier Kaiserin."
The tall blonde smiled proudly, revealing unusually long canines. There was something lurking in her wide blue eyes, though, something very dark. Krouse had to admit, Kaiserin looked very much like she could have been Degurechaff's sister, or perhaps daughter given the Chancellor's actual age. An odd mixture of adorable and beautiful with a strong undercurrent of absolutely terrifying. Given her name and the stories he'd heard...well, that was all for a very obvious and uncomfortable reason.
Second coming of the German Empire indeed. He thought grimly.
She was, as he understood it, another expression of Germania's advanced "magi-tech". She wasn't actually present in the room, instead being projected from the hull she was bound to via the strange glowing orb the Germanians had placed on the table. How it worked, he had no idea, but from what little he'd managed to gather coming up to this meeting with his country's counterpart, such things were considered but one example of Germania's many technological innovations.
Innovations that could turn the tide of our war. Krouse knew. Now, I only have to deal with the Devil herself to get it. All while trying not to set off a political landmine.
All of them were seated in a conference room set aside for them by local French authorities. He didn't like having to leave his homeland for this, but with the current state of the mediterranean there was no getting any of the hull-bound out of Toulon's port. The chaotic maelstrom of politics had sent the French on edge, but at the moment there was little helping the current situation.
At least the accommodations are nice. Krouse acknowledged, and that Chancellor Degurechaff isn't so petty as to overly abuse French hospitality. Thank god for small mercies.
They weren't here for the full official talks, not yet. That would involve many of his own politicians, diplomats, and more egos than he could count. In truth, the Chancellor didn't need to be here at all, she'd simply offered it as a "small courtesy".
"To make sure we all have the story straight" She'd said. He grumbled. I can't thank the woman enough for saving lives, but damned if I don't feel like I'm on the edge of my seat around her.
"Well," Krouse started, brushing those thoughts aside and moving on. "With that out of the way I suppose it's best we get started with this, don't you think Chancellor?"
"Why, of course, Admiral." Degurechaff smiled that empty smile, "where should we begin? I do want to make sure we all have the record straight, after all."
"I think…" he sighed and downed another sip of his rapidly cooling coffee. He braced himself for what he knew was going to be a very strange conversation. "I think that the story of how this whole mess got here is best, don't you?"
"Indeed," the Chancellor agreed and leaned back into her chair, her eyes wandering as her mind fell into the past, "why, it all started with some unfortunate weather…"
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Several Days Earlier...
0030 before transition...
"Looks like bad weather up ahead, Chancellor."
I frowned slightly and cursed my luck.
The captain of the ship looked mostly unconcerned, but then this was his job.
"Of what variety?" I asked. I couldn't see anything yet, but I had been an aerial mage, not a naval one. The whims of the sea had never been something I'd had to deal with. Until now, of course.
"Heavy storm…" He began, looking through the binoculars to gaze into the open ocean, "I'd say we're looking at heavy rain, lightning, large waves...the usual."
I sighed and resisted the urge to pinch the bridge of my nose.
On the one hand, it was probably nothing. The captain wasn't concerned, and he'd no doubt weathered many storms like this throughout his career. On the other hand, ever since the week had started, she'd been on edge.
I'd been hopeful about the outcome of the peace talks. We'd been at war for close to a decade now, and while most on the western front had fallen to the central powers and our allies, the Federation and their various puppets were still putting up stiff resistance. Most had been surprised by it, especially given the fact that we'd managed to basically surround them on all sides with superior force. I, on the other hand, had more or less expected any foray to try and invade the Federation homeland proper would be a long and painful affair. The recent peace talks had been an effort to, at the very least, prevent us from turning the entire world into an Exclusion zone with the more recent developments.
And...it had worked. More than worked, it had succeeded far beyond my wildest dreams.
Much to my unease.
It wasn't that I wanted these things to fail, of course not. It was simply that things had been going, simply put, too well. I knew full well that there was no way my life would have everything just fall into place after all the hell Being X would put me through. Obviously, he was never going to leave me alone, so that meant that in spite of how well things seemed to be going, the other shoe was going to drop at some point.
And so I waited for it with bated breath.
And waited…
And...then nothing happened.
Instead...we won. We managed to get actual peace, and everything we'd wanted along the way. The world was saved from an apocalyptic meltdown. The Unified States were happy, the Central Powers were happy, the Akitsushimani were happy, the Allied Kingdom was pissy but at this point no one really cared what they thought, Visha was happy, and I was satisfied.
Just satisfied.
I wasn't happy. With every piece that fell into place, I only felt that sinking feeling in my gut get worse and worse. The war couldn't just be over, not like that, right? Being X would never have allowed me to just win, right? So...where was the other shoe? Where was the twist where everything went wrong? There had to be something somewhere, right?
I hadn't just...won, had I?
No, of course not! I thought irritably. There's no way Being X is going to roll over that easily!
I glared out the window into the darkening clouds blotting out the sky. A terrible feeling sunk it's way into my gut. No matter how innocuous it seemed, I knew it would end terribly.
And I was wondering where the other shoe was? When would Being X step in to send it all to hell once more? I cursed internally. Well here it is!
...whatever it is. I sighed, realizing that perhaps I was letting paranoia get to me. I still have a bad feeling but, at the same time, I haven't a clue what being X could be trying to accomplish with something as paltry as a storm. Unless he's going to flex his so called 'godly' muscles and actually summon something biblical, I doubt this will accomplish much.
Either way, though, no use worrying about it now. I had to admit, much to my chagrin. I hate it, but that fact is that things are out of my hands now. I'll simply have to put my trust in my subordinates.
Repressing another sigh, I turned to the captain of the ship. "I trust you can manage?"
The captain smiled and handed off his binoculars to another crewmember. "Of course we can, Chancellor. Nothing to be worried about ma'am"
He turned towards another young woman on the bridge, a tall one with long golden blond hair, long canines, bright blue eyes that shone with intelligence, flawless skin, and a flight jacket worn over a conservative white dress.
"Kaiserin-"
I winced at the name.
"-I trust everything is in order?" He asked.
The woman gave a polite politician's smile and responded, "everything is locked down and ready for rough seas, captain. I could do with a little spring shower."
The captain snorted at the joke and turned back to his crew. I, on the other hand, turned back to the woman who many could easily pass for my sister. I'd already heard more than one comment about it, and I'd already been swearing revenge for all the members involved in this little operation. Her other peculiarities certainly didn't help with that matter.
The woman smiled back and said, "Yes?"
I waved the woman off and bit down a retort. "I'm fine, thank you."
Frankly, "woman" probably wasn't even the right term to describe "her", but humans liked to personify things and it was best to err on the side of caution. Particularly when said individual in question could level a city if they were in a particularly fowl mood. If I wanted to be more accurate, KMS was the technical term, the Germanian translation of "artificial magical ship's intelligence".
The breakthrough had been one part driven scientists pushing the boundaries, one part me daydreaming about whether or not we could use our computation orbs to imitate actual computers for certain things, and about five parts the Doctor being an insane bastard. It had eventually worked, and while large and unwieldy for most things, the results of being able to fashion magical AI's for things like large ships and bases was an undeniable game-changer. But, because Schugel was an insane bastard it came with the downside of all the AI's in question having certain...
Quirks.
"As you say, mother."
My brow twitched at the moniker the Kaiserin's KMS had given me. It was bad enough that I had just barely managed to scrape by and keep the populace from naming me the Kaiserin during the war by the skin of my teeth. No, to make things worse, the Navy Brass had gone behind my back and announced the lead ship of the newest class of Aircraft Carrier as the Kaiserin in a very public demonstration. And after the massive wave of public support and the spike in moral, I couldn't very well just not follow through with that. I'd been penned in by popular support once more, forced to submit to the will of the masses if I didn't want it all to end in pain and suffering.
That Visha found it amusing had absolutely nothing to do with my decision to grudgingly approve it.
To make it all worse, after the KMS had properly developed she had decided that since it was obvious to anyone with more than half a brain cell that she'd been named after me, even if indirectly, that I had to be her mother. The fact that I was also the one responsible for her creation in the first place, given my station and influence with our R&D across the board, might have also contributed. That every other Germanian KMS had followed suit only made the whole debacle worse.
I saw the way every last man or woman on the bridge suppressed a smile, with varying degrees of success, and I marked them all as dirty traitors in my mind. I tried to ignore the ray of sunshine radiating pure joy and humor that hovered over my shoulder.
I failed.
"Come now, Tanya,"
I looked up to see Visha hovering over my shoulder and waiting by the stairs for me, "There's nothing we can really do up here. Might as well head down to our quarters, right?"
I huffed a sigh. She had a point. Much as I was sure this had Being X's fingerprints all over it, there wasn't really much I could do against getting a whole storm thrown at me. At least, nothing that being on the Germanian Flagship in the middle of an entire coalition fleet helmed by qualified and battle-tested experts couldn't already do. Standing on the bridge crowding everybody certainly wasn't going to make them do their jobs any better. Learning how to delegate was an important aspect of management, after all, and I knew when to let others with more experience take the reins.
"Very well," I said, walking over to join her. Visha smiled and began to make her way down, but before I followed her down I turned to the KMS again.
"Kaiserin," I nearly choked on her name, but I pushed through it with a polite smile, "Please give me any relevant status updates."
The KMS brightened, her whole appearance lighting up like a young girl being told that, yes, she could have a pony for Christmas. "Of course, mother! Please leave everything in my hands and feel free to enjoy yourselves!"
She actually had the audacity to finish it off with a wink at Visha.
The entire bridge was suddenly struck with a round of very awkward coughing and flush faces. My jaw clenched and my eye twitched, but I managed to flash her a lame attempt at a smile before I followed Visha down the hatch.
I know she's doing this on purpose. I grumbled internally.
It was about two hours later, while the two of us were sitting in our cabin curled up together on a couch with coffee and books in our hands, when it finally happened. As much as we might have liked to have been... "celebrating" the end of the war, the ever-present sense of impending doom I could feel hovering over us put quite a damper on my mood and Visha knew me well enough to feel the tension as well. The fact that it been quickly discovered that Kaiserina, and indeed all KMS, were essentially omniscient within the confines of her hull may have had something to do with it.
That Visha and I had been the ones to find out, and in such a...delicate situation, was something I refused to think about, no matter how much Kaiserina loved to talked about it.
Suddenly what felt like a wall of turbulent magical energy slammed into us. Visha and I stiffened, and if I was right so did every other individual in the entire fleet who was even vaguely magically sensitive. A feeling passed through me, distantly familiar, but one I hadn't felt in ages. It reminded me of the first time I died, not quite the violent part of it, nor the discussion with the accursed Being X, but what came after. Time itself seemed to drag on for a moment, then lose all meaning. Seconds turned into hours, minutes into moments, I don't know how long we sat there, every sense in my body in high alert.
Then, after an eternity and an instant, it was over. Time passed normally, the air no longer felt like it was made of tar, and the vague sense of intense magical energy around us faded. It didn't, however, go away. Instead of returning to what I'd grown accustomed to as normal levels, they instead remained far higher than they should be. At least, they were unless we were surrounded by a horde of angry mages, but...
I looked to Visha, who in turn stared at me with wide and alert eyes. We both opened our mouths at the same time to say something.
A loud siren blaring in our ears cut us off. Suddenly, Kaiserin appeared in the middle of our room hovering over our table.
"Action Stations! Action Stations!" She bellowed in a voice even I found respectable for command. A sheathed saber was cupped in her hands, braced point down, a rifle slung over her back, her mouth now filled with pointed fangs, and wolfish ears now perked up on her head, twitching and alert. "This is not a drill! All crewmen to your Action Stations!"
She turned to us with an apologetic fanged smile. "I'm sorry to interrupt your fun, mother," then she had the nerve to actually wink at Visha again, which earned her a slight flush, "...but it seems we've stumbled into an unforeseen complication. It looks like we won't be getting back home anytime soon."
My jaw clicked shut, my brow twitched, my fists clenched by my sides, and as I could hear the distant thunderous rumble of autocannons firing into the sky, I renewed my vow for vengeance on that which had brought me here.
Curse you Being X!
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A/n:
Alright, so there's the start of the fic.
If you're not clear on what's happening, this is a recursive fanfic, a fanfic of a fanfic, that started life merely as an omake I wrote for jacobk 's fantastic A Young Woman's Political Record, which itself is a fanfic of Tanya the Evil wherein Tanya essentially replaces Hitler as chancellor of Germania through a series of ever-escalating upward failures.
Anyways, this is a crossover of that with Kancolle, but with slight twists to both. Political Record, while it ended conclusively to my satisfaction, is being modified such that WWII went to shit and dragged on for a little under decade, with some accompanying worldbuilding adjustments as needed. For Kancolle, there's going to be more than a little bit of my own twist on Kancolle's worldbuilding, as opposed to drawing from some of the major fanfic setting's like with Jersey or Settle.
That's enough of background, though. Going forward I have a number of chapters premade, as well as the 2nd part to this chapter I'd already posted on the original fanfic as an omake. I'm going to get the 2nd part out, and then a 3rd brand new chapter, and then that's going to be it for the day. I kind of sat on this for a while, not sure if I ever really wanted to post it, if it was good enough to bother especially since it's just a fanfic of a fanfic.
But in the end, there's nothing for it but to try. So here I am.
Hope you enjoy this little experiment.
Update 8/7/21:
Changed start and introduction of characters to better suit framing device and end of arc. Slightly altered war and location information.
Update 9/7/21:
I've decided to finally post this story on SV. At first, I really just posted it on SB because I had no idea if I'd actually manage to keep any kind of audience at all, or I'd just get laughed off the stage, so to speak. One year, and several large hurdles later, here I remain.
So I figure the one-year anniversary of the fic, as well as my birthday, is as good a day as any to bring the fic to SV. Also, I'm lazy as shit and this requires basically no work. Admittedly, however, I dunno if I'll be as active on this thread as I am on SB's. Still, hopefully, you'll like it as much as SB does.
A/n: Warning, incredibly lewd handholding occurs in this chapter.
You have been warned.
0100 After Transition
With the Primary Germanian Fleet...
"Pardon me, mother."
I glanced up from the map on the table to see Kaiserin's projection standing across from me. I was in the Operationszentrale, or combat direction center, something that was effectively the "brain" of the ship where flag officers and qualified crew could take in the various data inputs, analyze the battle, and strategize accordingly. Appropriately, it was one of the most heavily protected sections, being buried deep beneath the ship's armor. Within that bubble of heavy armor, also sat that complex array of magical computation equipment that ran Kasierin's KMS, which was right below our feet, something made the expression "brain of the ship" all the more apt.
It had been another bit of naval architecture doctrine I'd introduced, though this one was borne mostly from the accident of an idle comment. Surprisingly enough, there had actually been a little bit of precedent for it, it had been conceptualized for years beforehand, it was mostly just that no one had thought to actually try to implement it in the real world yet. It didn't replace the bridge or the captain's duties, but their tasks had become more about the immediate actions while the OpZ focused more on the big picture. The introduction of the KMS hadn't invalidated it, simply streamlined the process of analyzing data for us humans to decide what to do with it. The ability for the KMS to control data streams also allowed the OpZ to better serve as a secondary bridge if the primary was damaged.
While I wasn't technically an officer anymore, and certainly not an Admiral, I was the Chancellor of Germania, and had personally involved myself in more than a few military actions in the war. I didn't want to be seen as an overbearing boss who liked to micromanage their subordinates, but sadly it appeared my reputation had escaped me. Too many of these admiral's and generals seemed to defer to me when I was in the area, no doubt out of a fear that I would lay silent judgment on them from my position of authority on the subject.
Honestly, it made me worried that it'd be impossible for me to retire if they were this helpless without my benevolent and gentle hand keeping them from blowing themselves up.
"Yes Kaiserin?" I asked, wondering what was so important that she decided to bring it up like this instead of just displaying it onto the screens of the various specialists in the room.
"Our scouts have found something." She began, using her power over the various magical mechanisms in the ship to project an illusion of the relevant data including maps and pictures. "We believe it could be the American Fleet…"
"That'd certainly be welcome. We'd all gotten lost, split up, and turned around after the storm." An admiral said,
"Having more friends is always a benefit," I agreed. Unfortunately, I sensed there was more to the issue than that. I arched an imperious eyebrow at the KMS and asked, "but what's with the hesitation Kaiserin?"
"Ah...well…" she hedged, then gestured her hand towards the center of the room.
There, an image appeared, likely captured from a recon mage in the fleet in question. It showed a great big American battleship, it's familiar dreadnought frame clear to the eyes of everyone in the OpZ.
Everything seemed all well and good, and I was honestly wondering why Kaiserin had even bothered to bring it up to us, until I caught a glance at the ship's flag.
It was an American flag, of course, the classic red white and blue. Except, instead of the circular image of the more familiar Unified States, it was very clearly the old stars and stripes of the UnitedStates of America.
Fuck
A general beside me scrunched his face up in confusion. "What flag is that?"
"It looks like a bastardized version of the Americans'" Another chimed in.
"Perhaps a colony of theirs?"
"That we don't know about?"
"What colony on earth would they just give a battleship to?"
The various flag officers and politicians in the room went on and on, spinning theory after theory, all as my own mind whirled.
That had to be a battleship of the US from my old world, a US that had fought the most famous war in history against Germany. A ship that had no doubt played a part in that war…
Or...still is I thought as a cold tendril of fear wormed its way through my gut.
Time, as I'd seen myself, didn't need to stay constant between dimensional hops. Being X had transplanted me from modern Japan to early 20th century Germania on, as far as I could tell, a whim. Compared to nearly a century, what was a decade? While for us it was almost 1950, that damnable Being X could have easily just plopped our fleet down in the Atlantic right in the middle of WWII.
If that's the case, then we might be up shit creek without a paddle.
The Allies of this world would be unlikely to trust a new faction of perceived Germans showing up right when the Nazi's are finally getting their teeth kicked in, and even worse they're unlikely to feel generous to give our lost fleet refuge. It doesn't matter how powerful this particular fleet may be, they'd never be able to fight off the rest of the world by themselves.
But at the same time, the direct alternative was a complete nonstarter. Even if Hitler led Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan could be trusted, a laughable notion in itself, my constituents would never agree to work with such monsters. Hell, even as much as I try to stick to the practical and away from the sentimental, I can't help but curl my lips in disgust at the mere thought of working with such grossly cruel, violent, and wasteful tyrants.
So where did this leave us?
There was a flash of smoke on the screen displaying the ship, shortly followed by a distant roll of thunder. The old battlewagon rolled as the main guns fired at some unseen enemy. Various AAA batteries across the deck lit up the dark stormy skies with lines of tracer fire. A shadow passed across the image, followed by another, then another again.
The recorder zoomed out to show the full picture.
"So there are more of them" I muttered, looking over the variety of airborne enemies they were facing.
The temporary designation was "demons", largely because of the lack of information beyond the fact that all magical sensors went haywire in their presence. Their forms were also hard to discern, and there'd been many new cases of headache appearing across the fleet for those who'd bare most witness to them. However, none had been reported among those with even the slightest talent for magic. On top of that, the various KMS all reported that they felt like something was...pressing down on them, trying to get in, all claiming it had something to do with the storm or the things that attacked us. It was all very unnerving, and given that, "demon" seemed apt.
"Are those mages?" An eagle-eyed analyst asked, gesturing to the bobs floating on the water, firing out at the demons surrounding them.
"Kaiserin?" one of the admirals asked, gesturing to the image.
The KMS's lips twitched as her eyes glanced to me for a fraction of a second, but as her gaze caught my own I had to suppress a sneer at the implied joke. Fortunately, she was professional enough to let the opportunity slide in the name of the efficiency.
"Yes, Admiral," Kaiserin said as she pulled a hand up to her ear, imitating the movement of speaking into an earpiece for our benefit. A moment later, the image shifted as the recon mage shifted the recording process of their orb to take a better look at the supposed "mage" on the water.
For a moment, the room was silent.
"...Well, that's certainly not something you see everyday…" A general said.
Indeed, watching what amounted to a pinup girl in a variation of a US navy officer's dress uniform specially altered and fitted to awaken the carnal desires of even the most repressed puberty stricken boy covered in large guns shooting into the sky was certainly not what I expected to be doing today.
"Today is certainly becoming a very strange day." General Lergan muttered in irritation, glaring at the image as if it'd personally offended him.
For once, I agreed with him.
Still, that began another wave of arguing about what to do. I frowned as I realized that I wasn't going to be able to just sit back and watch my people handle this. For one, there were too many cooks, so to speak. All this brass in one room, combined with the politicians, reporters, and everyone else with two cents to add, meant that all the inflated egos were all locking horns instead of getting work in. For another, representing and pursuing the best interests of my nation was my job, no matter what that entailed.
Finally, after waiting for a minute or two to see if anything productive would come from this infighting, I finally sighed.
"Very well," I muttered in resigned acceptance. Holding up my hands, I pulled on a very simple, but oh so useful spell.
SNAP
The sound, not unlike a gunshot, rang through the whole CDC and silenced all in the room. They turned to me, faces a mixture of fear, irritation, confusion, and most worryingly of all, the ever present awe.
Still, I pushed on.
"Gentlemen," I said, using the voice I'd earned from ordering and chastising many a subordinate. I arched a single judgemental brow, and they all looked suitably embarrassed. Turning to the Grand Admiral of the Navy, I spoke once more.
"Grand Admiral Blutzow," I began, putting special emphasis on his rank. Hopefully it would help remind him of his position, and that getting involved in such petty squabbles should be beneath him. After all, what kind of example did it set for his men?
The man in question snapped to attention at my words. "Yes Ma'am?"
"That ship," I pointed to the battlewagon on the display, "and all who bear it's flag are Americans, and I expect them to be treated as befits one of our closest allies."
While not technically untrue, I doubt the Americans on screen would see it so plainly. Still, this was the best opportunity to get in their good graces.
"Am I clear?"
"Of course, Ma'am!" He barked, his face hardening into a stone visage as he thought about all the implications of what I'd said.
"Good," I nodded, "then you are no doubt working on a strategy to rescue our wayward friends?"
I'd expected Blutzow to blanche at my announcement, it was, after all, a dangerous new task I'd pushed onto him immediately after we'd supposedly won a decade long war. Instead, he took on a resolute, almost proud countenance, and gave me a sharp nod.
"There is no doubt, Ma'am."
I suppose I shouldn't be surprised, I thought, even after ten years of war, the Navy didn't get much in the way of opportunity to sink it's fangs into enemy fleets themselves. Of course these battle crazed maniacs are eager for a new fight on the waves.
Still, it was the best approach I could think of to keep us all from complete ruin. It was one thing to have a massive fleet of apparently German warships appearing out of nowhere, it was quite another to have them appear to pull your ass out of the fire and render aid. My hope was that a good introduction could help smooth things over.
"General Lergen," I continued, turning to the aging warhound.
The man's eyes snapped to me, an almost unsettling focus and energy in them. No doubt he was chomping at the bit to tear into these new enemies of Germania, and feeling incredibly frustrated about how useless he was at sea.
Good.
"I need you to start coming up with strategies and tactics that we can use to defend ourselves on the homefront should these demons strike at us again once we get back to port. If this is but a prelude of things to come, Germania needs to be ready to weather the storm on the seas and on land." I commanded. It was very much true, and most importantly it kept his bloodthirst focused on protecting Germania in the future, rather than how useless he was now.
The man held my gaze for a moment, but eventually nodded. Turning around, he began to address his own staff in the OpZ with the kind of laser-like intensity of potential violence that I valued about the man.
"Elya," I turned to the best name in intelligence in the world, or, at least, in ours. "Is there anything you can tell me that might relate to this? Any whispers of some communist revenge plot, any cultists running around trying to play with old magics, anything?"
Elya, a bit out of her element, grimaced and shook her head. "I'm sorry, chancellor, but I must have truly failed you to have not so much as heard anything about this. While there are-were, numerous plots against you and the nation, none so much as hinting at...this."
"...I see," I repressed a sigh. I hadn't expected much of anything different, given Being X's capabilities, it probably wouldn't be beyond it to just pull something like this from thin air. Still, I had to hope, else what was the point in living?
More importantly, I had my most trusted and powerful spymaster at my side, so what on earth was I to do with her.
Hmm...if we truly are on another Earth, then all our intelligence, political, and economic networks are probably shot. We'll need some way to establish ourselves, make ourselves useful enough to keep around to the locals and too powerful to outright absorb. I thought about the issues and how best to put Elya to task on solving them. While she might not be able to perform miracles, she's come damn close…
If Elya was unnerved by my silence, she didn't show it. No doubt she was used to my long periods of quiet thought in the face of adversity.
Well, I suppose first things first.
"Elya," I eventually began, grabbing her attention, "in the end, it doesn't matter if you didn't know about this before, because that won't change where we are now. Going forward, however, I'm going to have a lot of need for you and your people. How many are aboard the fleet?"
She opened her mouth to respond, but I cut her off.
"Actually, no, don't tell me. It's better if I don't know. I wouldn't want to get in your way, you've shown that you do your best work when given broad leeway to get results."
She preened quietly at that. It was prudent to give your star employees compliments from time to time, let them know that their hard work was appreciated. While it wouldn't do to let it get to their head, letting them have their pride and acknowledging their value to the team could help inspire loyalty and more earnest efforts to earn more praise. More importantly, a kind word would take so little effort on my part, but could mean so much to them, it was just economical to be generously strategic with your praise.
"Right now, we're out of our depth. I'm going to need you and your people to keep your eyes and ears open, getting anything and everything you can that might explain this new threat, and most importantly how to deal with it." I explained. "Everything comes from something, and even these new demons of ours must have some form of precedent, some basis that we can explore."
"And beyond that…" I drew on faint whisps of magic and crafted a simple illusion spell. Simple enough I could cast without an orb or a trace, but invaluable in this game of secrets. When next I spoke, my lips didn't so much as twitch. Yet, to Elya, my words whispered right next to her ear.
"These new Americans...I suspect there is more going on here than meets the eye. When we join up with them, try to see what you can get out of them. Just be...gentle, and discrete. We wouldn't want to antagonize our new guests."
Deactivating the spell, the next words were spoken conventionally. "Be careful, Elya. I doubt anything is what it seems."
She smiled kindly, yet her eyes danced with that razor-sharp intellect I'd seen slit far too many throats. "Don't worry Chancellor. Message received."
I stepped away, back to the center of the OpZ and sitting down next to Visha. It took everything I had not to collapse down into the chair. A moment later, I felt a hand under the table tracing circles on my palm. I glanced up to see Visha flashing me a supportive smile. I forced a tired grin back, shifting my hand under the table and giving her own a gentle squeeze.
I had to remember I wasn't alone now, not anymore. I couldn't tell Visha everything, there weren't enough hours in a lifetime for that, but...I could tell her something. She'd been my rock in the war, probably the only thing holding my sanity together. Talking to her about my various problems, both strange and mundane, helped before.
It would be enough now.
It would have to be.
But that would be later, in the privacy of my-our, room.
For now, though, I had done what I could. Things were out of my hands now, I just had to trust my staff to do their jobs. Deligating was a critical skill in upper-level management, and knowing when to pull back and let your team do what needed to be done was vital. As much as it stressed me out, now was one of those times. We were in strange waters now, and I had to hope that my people were up to the task. They had seen us through WWII and all the communist plots, I had faith in their abilities.
Hopefully, whatever the story was with those...odd...American mages didn't cause too much trouble for us.
Given the "demons", I had my doubts about that.
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A/n
Let me know how I'm doing with Tanya's voice. I'm not sure I'm getting it right, I certainly don't think I have jacobk's talent for the classic Tanya misunderstanding field, so I'm not really trying to do it to hard, but there are times where I'm worried that my certain habits when writing characters in 1st person make Tanya a bit too perceptive, at least accurately, and thereby kind of lose the charm of Tanya in the first place.
Honestly, for Tanya I'm kind trying to aim for more of the uber-pragmatic-super-capitalist who lies to her self more than anyone else kinda angle, since I have a lot more confidence in being able to do that, but let me know how you think it's working.
Also, this is the first all-new chapter of the series. Yay, it's finally out there.
Hopefully, it's up to par and you all like it.
The next chapter will probably be coming out either tomorrow or the day after, so get buckled up for that.
Update 9/7/21:
Fun fact, this chapter, as originally posted, was actually chapter three. The first two chapters were omakes made in the original PR thread, and starting with three there's all-new content. At some point I rearranged things to work better.
Even that wasn't enough, though, since this past summer/spring I spent several months doing heavy revisions to many of the chapters I'd posted in 2020. In some cases, I even went so far as to completely restart a chapter from scrath with an entirely different plot. Ironically enough, this chapter, specifically, is one of the few to completely forgo any significant changes at all, which I think makes it kinda funny that it's the chapter where I actually bring it up.
In any case, these two chapters might be it for today. I've got a nine-chapter deep backlog from SB to post, along with various side stories and such, but I'd much rather pace myself than blow out all my steam in one day. Either way, hopefully, you've enjoyed what I have to present so far.
Nevada licked the blood from her teeth, the taste of iron and oil filling her mouth. Every inch of her body ached. Her hull was dented and warped from battle damage, her skin and cloth burnt and shredded. The twisted steel of her true flesh laid bare in ragged patches, the tender false-muscle underneath stinging painfully in the cold rain.
"Dammit," Nevada wheezed, sending a baleful glare to the cloudy skies above.
She'd been part of a large convoy bound for the Mediterranean Sea. It was supposed to be a big show of strength. A breeze of a mission, with a massive escort fleet with elements from both the US and the British just to help bolster morale. "Give the people an easy win," she'd been told.
Then, the storm hit. The call of the Abyss. The deafening drone of a thousand nightmares, all howling for her blood. The unending horde that choked out the very sky. She wanted to believe she gave as good as she got, but she'd never been a very good liar.
Now, she was damaged, lost, and out of contact with Texas and the rest of the fleet. She had no idea where the closest allied vessel was, and the abyssal storm overhead was playing hell with her ability to navigate. The battle damage she sustained, while not critical, certainly made things a hell of a lot worse, and her odds weren't good in the first place.
"God damn my rotten luck," She spat out another glob of oily blood into the ocean.
She was a battleship, one of the oldest in American service, and she was damn proud of it. She was supposed to go down swinging, either in a brutal slugfest in the line of battle, or defending her fleet until her last breath. Instead, she was going to die by inches, swarmed to death in the darkness. Lost, and alone.
"And God damn this rotten storm!" She growled, willing her own crew to work even faster in trying to get her back into fighting shape, "Didn't want to go out like this. It ain't fucking fair!"
Life's not fair, Some part of her seemed to say.
"Ain't that the truth," She grumbled, though the fight in her was dying.
Her spirit still burned bright, but… she couldn't fool herself. She'd go out swinging, but there was no doubt in her mind about what would happen to one lone damaged old battleship lost in the middle of a storm. The fire in her soul may be strong, but it wouldn't take much for the Abyss to snuff it out.
Still… ain't noth'n else I can do 'bout it.
"Hell, if I'm gonna go down," Nevada said, with a bitter grin. She straightened her back as best she could, and gathered up the last remnants of her good old American bravado. Her remaining guns creaked ever upwards despite melted steel and burnt out motors. "I might as well see just how many of those inhuman fucks I can drag down with me-!"
She was cut off by the sound of a loud fog horn blaring nearby.
Nevada stopped, stunned, "what?" She whirled, her eyes wide.
There was a searchlight spearing out through the darkness. It came from what looked like a light cruiser to her eye, or the largest destroyer she'd ever seen. More to the point, it was an actual hull, not merely the spiritual incarnation of the vessel like Nevada was.
On top of that, it seemed old. Granted, Nevada was far older, but this vessel looked like it'd come straight out of the end of WWII, nothing like the modern steel hulls of today she'd familiarized herself with. Her first thought was a hull-bound spirit on a museum ship, but she knew those were rare, and that the US had the lion's share of those, each one she knew by heart. This ship looked nothing like them.
Smokestacks in the back, gun turrets fastened to every spare inch of decking, torpedo racks on the side, and a massive battery of what looked like her own dual-purpose secondaries. There were a few other oddities; strange boxy weapons mounted on gimbals, what looked like advanced radar arrays, and even stuff that looked like turreted cameras.
The ship surged towards her, slicing through the churning waves like a blade parting the seas. For a moment, Nevada was frozen, unsure of what to do and paralyzed by a dozen fears. Then the choice was taken from her when the searchlight suddenly darted to the side and landed on her. She bobbed in the violent waves, hand over her face to keep out the painful spears of light lancing out at her eyes.
When it was gone, Nevada was finally able to take note of the flag flying fiercely in the wind. The gold, black, and red was unmistakable.
"Of course, it had to be the fuck'n Krauts," She cursed under her breath, then let out a sigh. "But I guess cain't be choosers, can they?"
Much as her orientation classes had illuminated just how far back in the past the old war was, that still didn't change the fact that Nevada felt like she'd been shelling Normandy just the other day. To suddenly be allies with them was jarring, but she had to admit it could be worse.
Coulda been those damn nip bastards. Nevada almost snarled. I know times have changed, but god damnit if old scars ain't hard to heal for a spirit like me.
"Fine, fine," Nevada said with a dash of her western drawl, sagging into the water in a bit of resigned acceptance. This was happening whether she wanted it or not and-
...and either I'm way more fucked up than I thought, or those are flying people.
Nevada blinked, shook her head, and still saw the people. There were actual full-size human beings, as far as she could tell, flying over the water in little more than heavy coats and rifles.
"Well…" she muttered, dumbstruck, "that's… new."
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It had taken a bit of work to get her onboard the strange german ship. It had taken the barest hints of diplomacy that Nevada could manage, shedding her rigging, and surprisingly good english from the… magical flying Germans, but in the end it worked.
Nevada tried to focus on the last part, instead of the agonizing pain racing through her now very human body. Fortunately, it wasn't too hard with the little wolf girl, floating in front of her.
"Why do you smell weird?" She said, head cocked in a look of pure childish curiosity.
The girl was a small thing, if she was a human Nevada would have pegged her as perhaps starting her first day of middle school. Wide blue eyes, long brown hair, and an adorable little fang completed her image of being little more than a cute innocent girl.
Of course, nothing could be further from the truth, her seemingly innocent demeanor set at odds with several glaring facts staring Nevada in the face. Casually levitating a couple feet off the ground for one. The twitching ears and tail of a wolf certainly didn't help either. Nor did the small armory's worth of ordinance she carried around with ease, along with the enormous belt fed machine gun fit to start and end a small war.
The most glaring point of all this to Nevada's eyes, however, was the way the girl's mana melded with the ship. To a spirit such as herself, such a thing was plain as day, they seemed to intertwine seamlessly.
No… not intertwined… it's like they're… the same. Nevada's brow furrowed as she tried to parse what she was thinking. And… that would mean she's some kind of hull-bound spirit, like Tex. Gotta be a German Destroyer from the look of things, too.
But… that should be impossible, right? Nevada bit her lip at the thought. Hull-bound are incredibly rare and valuable. Normally, they gotta be museum ships or something with a long legacy or pride, which ain't easy to pull off these days. Hell, last I checked, the only German hull-bound was Bismarck, and that was after she pulled herself up from the bottom.
Then the girl's last words registered.
"Smell… weird?" Nevada repeated.
"Well…" the girl's eyes shifted to the side, lips twisting in thought. "Smell isn't really the right word. Honestly, your readings are all over the place period. Mass, mana levels, gravity waves… but, you also smell weird."
Nevada hung her head and sighed.
"Leipzig, do you think you could… elaborate for our guest?" said the lieutenant standing next to her.
The four of them, including the ship's medic, were in what passed for the ship's medical bay. It wasn't very large, but considering that it was fitted for a destroyer Nevada thought it was a fitting setup for her mission profile. Clean, well stocked, and well equipped to handle the general needs of the crew at sea, whatever may come.
"Well… you smell more like a ship, than a person." Leipzig hummed to herself while the medical officer wrote down her notes in the corner. "Literally, but also… something more than that…"
More than that? Nevada considered her words. Maybe she's talking about the texture of my soul? That's generally something most spirits have an instinctual feel for, but it's not like there's a good way to explain it to humans.
"From my own measurements," the doctor said, "I have no idea what she is. Her blood isn't really blood, or rather, just blood. If I didn't know better, I'd say her skin was more like metal than flesh."
Part of Nevada was confused, since that should all be relatively common knowledge for a military these days. All of that came with the territory of being a ship girl. The other part of her was embarrassed by having her inhumanity so blatantly spelled out, again. Much as she might be half ship, half of her was still human, or near enough for her psyche. Human enough that she never liked being made to feel… different.
"She smells like oil and gunpowder," Leipzig nodded. "Also blood and steel, and… well… something more."
"More as in…?"
"She smells like a ship," Leipzig shrugged.
"…Well that's helpful..." the lieutenant repeated drily.
"Ah… well, that does sound about right. If it helps, she's probably smelling my soul?" Nevada offered with a wince, hoping she wasn't making a fool of herself. "A mean… I did say I was a shipgirl?"
The lieutenant shared a look with the doctor and Leipzig.
The doctor shrugged and said something in german, along with something that Nevada thought might be a curse. Leipzig added a comment of her own and shook her head. The lieutenant sighed, but didn't look at all surprised. When his gaze turned back to her Nevada sat up straight on the cot.
"I'm very quickly getting the impression that everything about you is above my pay grade." he grumbled.
"Uh… I'm afraid I can't comment?" Nevada said apologetically.
He scoffed and waved it off. "Either way, it'll be out of our hands soon."
Nevada frowned, "What do you-?"
The mana fields around her twisted-
"-Oh, my, my," a voice purred from behind her.
Suddenly Nevada felt soft, velvety fur wrap itself around her, a field of warm mana blanketing her wounded body, and an oh-so familiar soul hovering just behind her.
"What a beautiful American Battleship I've found myself," The voice whispered, hot breath tickling her ear.
Nevada's head whirled around, eyes wide, mind reeling, and beheld something impossible.
"A-Akagi!" she yelped.
Her spirit was unmistakable. How could Nevada ever forget the sight of the being who caused that dreaded day. The moment that lived forever in her nightmares. The fires, the death, the anguish, and the unbridled rage at the end of it all.
The scars of that day were burned into her soul just as surely as they were burned into the bottom of Pearl Harbor. And provisional ally or not, she'd never forget the one who did it. And right now, standing in front of her was the unmistakable form of that damnable carrier.
Except… it isn't, is it? Nevada realized.
She saw past the tall woman, her steel-born spirit, to the ship beyond it. It was unquestionably Akagi, her soul blazing with the pride of that name. The woman herself though, the affectations of the soul around, the flavor of the mana wafting off her spirit, it was all impossibly different. Where the incarnation of Akagi that she knew of was a calm and pleasant professional in a traditional Japanese archer's garb, the woman behind her was… something else.
"Oho, so our mysterious sailor knows my name?" The woman giggled behind a hand and batted her eyes, "my, my. How you flatter me, my darling battleship."
This Akagi was a tall japanese woman with dark hair and flawless features. That was where the similarities with the Akagi she knew ended. A set of nine fox tails covered in dark velvety fur curled around them both, each coiling and swaying like each was a separate being. Matching them were her twitching fox ears. A japanese dress of jet black and blood red, decorated in gold, wrapped itself around an elaborate white and gold undershirt, all held together just below her bust with a black belt stamped with the golden chrysanthemum.
And, to finish it all off, two eyes of burning red blazed with a frightening passion as they gazed into her own.
"Uh-" Nevada managed.
Suddenly, she was swept up into not-Akagi's arms, her head buried in the odd woman's generous chest.
"But don't worry, my darling little battleship, I'm here now." the impossible spirit cooed gently, stroking Nevada's long pale hair with a tender hand.
"Whu-" Nevada's face burned and her mind spun.
"Akagi," the lieutenant warned with a distinctly unamused, but not terribly surprised look. Over his shoulder, Leipzig hovered and rolled her eyes. "Stop torturing the poor KMS."
"Aww. But, lieutenant, I've got my own little American hero, and she's so adorable and strong…" Akagi grinned, stroking Nevada's toned arms. She licked her lips in a loud and provocative gesture. The disturbing hunger in her eyes did little to provide comfort. "Why, I think I could just eat. Her. Up."
Nevada stuttered incoherently, unable to comprehend what was happening. This was supposed to be the woman who'd burned her home to ash, sunk her and her family, and set fire to the furious wrath of her nation.
And instead, she's...!
She's...!
"Or maybe I should give her a good Akitsushimani welcome?" She purred into Nevada's ear, soft tails wrapping around the battleship's sore form in a warm embrace. "What do you say, sailor? Would you like dinner, a bath, or me?"
It was at this point that Nevada's brain finally decided to melt.
Pop!
The fox-woman stopped and flinched back when something smacked her square in the forehead, leaving a red welt.
"Akagi!" Leipzig almost growled with a cold voice, her machine gun sporting a smoking barrel
"Report," the lieutenant continued in a no-nonsense fashion.
"Fine, fine," Akagi dismissed the officer's concerns with a wave of her hand. Nevada noticed that the welt was gone, like it had never even existed.
Just like a hull-bound spirit. Nevada thought. Just like Texas.
"I've already told your captain and the rest of the staff, but my captain's sending a few mages and a helicopter your way to take this poor girl back to me," She smiled, something both inviting and welcoming and yet promising untold darkness behind it. "Much as Leipzig here may do her best with what she has, I'm simply more… equipped to handle your needs."
Akagi's burning eyes turned back to Nevada, and she couldn't help gulp at the intensity of her gaze. "I can't wait to have you in my bed, my dearest sailor." She purred.
Nevada gaped like a fish, barely noticing when Leipzig nodded to the lieutenant and said, "Yes, she was explaining the situation on the bridge while she was playing her games here"
He hummed in acknowledgment. "Good, the captain will probably-"
There was a subtle shift in the vessel's ambience. It was slow, but the soft vibrations of a ship in motion lessened, the hum of the engine getting ever so softer.
"-Want to slow us down so the rest of the fleet catches up," He continued with a nod. "Good, good."
Looking back down, he turned to Nevada again. "Now, I know this isn't exactly an ideal situation, but right now we're practically lost in enemy territory and separated from the main fleet."
He sighed, running a hand down his face. "Do you think there's anything… anything at all you can give us that would help us link up with the Americans, at least?"
Nevada fumbled for a moment, caught off guard by the sudden weariness and sincerity. Even worse was that she didn't have a good answer.
"I… I don't, I'm afraid. This storm, and the Abyssals… it got us all twisted and turned around. Me, especially," Nevada said, glancing away shamefully.
"Abyssals?"
Nevada caught the officer's questioning tone, and it surprised her. Who the hell didn't know what an Abyssal was? Who could possibly sail into a storm like this and still have no idea what an Abyssal was?
Perhaps they have a different name for it? She thought. She knew that while the name 'Abyssals' had been popularized by the Japanese in the Pacific Theatre, where the fighting was the fiercest, the American government had and continued to officially use terms such as 'Shades', 'Royals', and 'Wounds'. Perhaps the Germans had done the same?
But if she was honest with herself, she'd admit that she didn't really believe that excuse herself. Still, it was all she had.
"You know… the big magical, cursed… ships and planes and stuff," She explained, hoping she got her point across. "You know, the big demonic things responsible for all this?" She gestured to the storm around them.
"The storm? Cursed?" The officer repeated, scowling at the words.
Leipzig chimed in, "lieutenant, I believe she is referring to the unknown hostiles we encountered earlier."
"That makes sense," He nodded, "If I recall correctly, they sent the magical sensors haywire, yes?"
"Like we were surrounded by a horde of angry mages," Leipzig agreed.
"There was also that presence," Akagi commented with a shiver, "I can still feel it. Like something is weighing down on my processes, trying to worm its way in. Hell, I can almost hear voices whispering in the back of my mind."
"Yeah…" Nevada sighed, "It's best not to think about it too much. I'm told it's some kind of… info hazard or something. The more you focus on the voices, the more they start making sense."
"I usually try to just fill my head fighting when the get'n's good, and praying when I'm waiting for the fight to start. That, and protecting my allies, making sure the fleet behind me makes it out ok and I do'em proud..." She continued, then trailed off when she realized she was surrounded by silence.
Looking up, she realized that everyone was staring at her.
"Umm…?"
"You… you know about the enemy, don't you?" The lieutenant eventually said. "You've encountered them before?"
"Um, yes?" Nevada said, though the intensity of the officer's gaze was starting to make her question her own reality. "I… we-we've been fighting 'em for a few years now?"
The Lieutenant's scowl deepened. "Well…this is most certainly well above my pay grade."
After a moment of chewing it over he looked up at Akagi, who for the first time since they'd met, actually looked absolutely serious and totally focused. Something about that sent a shiver down Nevada's keel.
"Akagi, this seems more suited to the boys and girls at the head of our little task force, don't you think?"
She nodded, "I'm sure the Admirals will be most… interested in what Nevada has to say."
Turning back to Nevada, the German officer said, "While I truly don't know what is going on, from the sounds of things you might have information vital to the survival of the task force, and likely the fleet as a whole. If even a shred of it is true, the Chancellor needs to hear of it."
I'da thought they'd be more concerned about taking it to an Admiral first. Nevada thought, But then, I don't rightly know much about Kraut politics, so who am I to say?
"Plus, I hear Arizona is quite popular with you Americans?" Akagi added. "Something about the 'last Standard' being quite the living legend, yes?"
Every thought in Nevada's head came to a crashing halt.
"Wha-?"
"Unknown contacts!" Leipzig clipped out suddenly in an ice-cold tone. "Presumed hostile."
The lieutenant swore, jerking up and biting out a command in German. Leipzig nodded and gestured to the empty center of the room. Abruptly, a holographic map in blue appeared. At the center was a small formation of various green symbols of varying size. At the edge of the map was a cloud of red dots, one drawing larger and closer with every pulse of the radar. A storm of cursing in foreign tongues erupted around her, but Nevada could scarcely hear it over the roaring in her ears.
Her soul went cold, her breaths short, eyes wide, mind racing.
That's not possible. Nevada repeated, numb with shock, as she looked at the lone green symbol labelled USS Arizona. This… this can't be happening.
Nevada jerked as Akagi disappeared in a burst of ruby flames. The lieutenant left the room and Leipzig made to follow him, but Nevada stopped her at the last minute.
"Leipzig!" She called out, her fingers digging grooves in her palm.
The ship spirit whirled around and scowled at her, "What?" she said, her tone sharp and uncompromising.
Nevada swallowed her tongue and held tight to her fear. Forcing herself forward, she looked Leipzig in the eye and asked.
"What did Akagi say?"
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And here is the long awaited rewritten chapter 3. Of the three rewrites, this one sticks the closest to the original. Mostly, this just combines the original chapters 3 and 4 into one, refines it a bit, and allows it to flow into the new 4. As a result, I've shamelessly cut in a bunch of lines and segments from the originals to give myself less work. It's lazy, but it does the job well enough, and Guillocuda really helped me shore up all the problems it caused.
Of three posted, I'd say this one is the least important to reread, but I think it's still enjoyable enough on it's own. Plus it helps address some of the problems I had with the originals. Hopefully ya'll agree.
"Didn't you hear me?" Leipzig snapped, "We're about to get swarmed by hostile contacts! We have to get you to safety, you have valuable intel and we can't afford to lose you. This is no time to start spacing out!"
" 'fore that…" Nevada muttered, eyes locked on the only two things in the world that mattered right now. The first, the churning cloud of red on Leipzig's map, and the second, one of the large dots they were racing towards. "Who did Akagi say that was?"
"Arizona," Leipzig hissed, barely audible over the dull roar of the active room. "Look, I know the 'last standard' is a big deal for you guys, but-hey!"
Nevada didn't pay attention to the rest. It didn't matter. All that mattered was that her sister was here, and the Abyss was coming for her. Before she knew it, she was running out of the medical bay.
"Where do you think you're going?" Leipzig glared at her, her floating avatar easily keeping pace in front of Nevada as she raced through the destroyer's corridors.
Nevada ignored her.
"Wait, that's… you're going out? In this?! In your condition?!" Leipzig exclaimed.
Nevada pushed through the last door and shouldered her way onto the weather deck, and there she saw her. Floating there in all her old glory. Unbroken by war and untainted by the abyss. Pure as fresh-pressed steel, and a finer sight than the morning sun, was USS Arizona. And sailing in her protective shadow was the carrier that killed her, Akagi.
Yet, beneath that gleaming form, Nevada could feel the dull embers of a burning rage slumbering beneath the surface. Something so unlike the Arizona she knew, it seemed almost impossible, yet her sleeping soul was undeniable.
I cain't wrap my head around none of this. Nevada admitted, but I don't need to. It's like a delirious dream come true, and the Abyss wants to drag it back into a nightmare.
"What are you even hoping to do out here in your condition?" Leipzig popped up in front of her, face pinched in frustration. "You're just one mage against an army of demons! Even Mother would come up with a plan and work with her team, not just rush into trouble half cocked!"
Nevada squared her shoulders, tightened her jaw, and pulled on her steel-born soul.
"I ain't got a clue what half the things you're talkin 'bout mean, but that don't matter none." Nevada growled. "Cause ain't no hope in what I'm doing, ain't no try. I know in my iron soul what needs doing, and I'm gon' get it done."
She took a step forward, her boot stomping down with a resounding clang. Leipzig jerked and looked down at the deck in bewilderment.
" 'Cause I am Battleship-36, USS Nevada!"
She gathered her rigging from where it lay in the depths of her soul and held it gently in her grasp, feathering it on the edge of manifestation. She took another step forward, pounding another dent into Leipzig's deck.
"I am gonna save my sister!"
Leipzig's next words were lost in the storm as Nevada ran forward, each step harder and faster than the last. It was a delicate balance, pulling on enough of her steel soul to give her the strength to do what was necessary, but keeping herself human enough to keep from punching a hole in Leipzig's hull.
It's hard finding that balance. Like dancin on the edge of a razor, Nevada grit her teeth, But it needs doing, and that's all there is to it.
She pulled on every iota of power from her engines, reinforced her flesh and blood with the strength of her steel, and still managed to hold onto the weight of a mere mortal.
At the end of the day, it ain't about me. It's about them!
And, with that thought, Nevada leapt off Leipzig's deck with all the force that her boilers could bring to bear.
For a moment, she hung in the air, dangling on nothing in the middle of an Abyssal storm. The rain splashed across her deck, the wind parting across her hull, and the acrid scent of the cold dead abyss filling her mouth.
Then she came crashing down into the sea, skin of iron and bones of steel holding her together through the rough impact. The Abyss called to her, tried to drag her down while she was denser than any rock on the earth.
Nevada manifested her rigging.
With a roar, the black seas parted as she launched out of the depths. The buoyancy of her true soul, of her old hull, defied the feeble bounds of reality. Her boots found purchase on the water's surface, seawater sloughed off the sides of her clothes and hull, her rigging creaking its way into position around her. She stood tall on the roiling black seas, armor bent but unbroken, guns hot and loaded, all the teeming masses of the Abyss before her, and everything she'd die to protect behind her.
"If ya'll want to get to my sister," Nevada growled, guns twitching around her as the horde drew ever closer in the gloom of the storm. "You'll have to get through me!"
Her crew cheered.
Nevada's cannons roared.
And the Fleet sang with her.
/-|-\
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The staccato drumbeat of war thundered in Nevada's ears.
Rockets roared, guns boomed, and screams rang out in time with the familiar symphony of chaos, and all the while the shadow of the horde of Abyssal aircraft loomed ever closer. Yet, Nevada's newfound allies were more than ready to meet them.
The dark haze of the storm around Nevada was momentarily pierced by a lance of bright fire stabbing into the flight of inbound bombers. Tracer-like bolts of holy light tore through darkness and abyssal flesh alike, ripping through the formation like a scythe through wheat.
The swarm of darkness tried to weave around the torrents of lead leaping their way, but each of the four Germanian Destroyers struck out at the sky together in a dizzying array of firepower and precision. Their dizzying array of anti-aircraft weaponry tore through the sky like tendrils of fire, scorching deep lines through the swarm of Abyssal fighter craft like a great burning kraken lashing out at the sky.
Well I'll be damned. Nevada thought, gazing up at the air war raging above her with widened eyes, a bewildering mix of anachronisms and foreign magic. A barrage of rockets, cannons, jets and even flying people ripped into the Abyssal horde in a dazzling display of carefully choreographed violence.
When she'd been laid down, such things as the war raging above her weren't even the stuff of fantasy, and even now such a horde of abyssal airpower was a thing to be feared. Yet her newfound friends were taking care of air war handedly with their wrong technology and strange wizardry.
But while the fleet at her back looked to the skies, the seas held a danger all their own.
An Abyssal Destroyer appeared, cresting over a tall wave, and charged the fleet at her back with guns blazing. The rest of the fleet was too focused on the skies to notice, pouring all their fire into the horde of planes bearing down on them. It was a godsend, but it left them vulnerable, as the Abyssals had clearly noticed.
The Destroyer's twisted maw stretched into a wide, howling, grin. Glowing eyes gleamed with anticipation, its gun twitching towards the fleet as it descended the wave. Behind it, three more of the sleek black abominations followed behind, and the grinning form of a light cruiser, eager to tear into the distracted fleet of humans.
Grinning, until it caught sight of Nevada.
It scarcely had time to recoil in fear before all eight of her secondary turrets let loose. This close, and against such paper thin armor, it didn't stand a chance. High explosive rounds ripped through the flotilla. The Light cruiser used the destroyers as a shield, letting them be torn into so much scrap, meat, and oil, to save her own hide.
She received a single fourteen inch shell for her trouble. The top half of her hull disappeared in a blast of fire and steel. An instant later, with a clap of distant thunder, the rest of the cruiser's smoldering corpse collapsed into the sea.
Nevada sailed past it without comment, her eyes already scanning the horizon for the next threat. The wild sea swelled beneath her, momentarily giving her a wider view of the surrounding seas, yet the rain, wind, and darkness still worked against her. With her ship's eye, she caught movement in the distance, small forms charging across the seas with reckless abandon, and three much larger silhouettes hanging back.
There. Nevada thought, Those are the leaders
She doubted they were royals, but they didn't need to be. Even a normal battleship could give this fleet trouble if it got close, and given how ignorant these people seemed about Abyssals, they might not even realize how much of a threat they'd be until it was too late.
"I cain't let it come to that," she grunted.
Nevada steadied her stance and readied her guns. She grit her teeth through the pain as her damaged rigging creaked upwards. Shifting to get every inch of elevation she could find, waiting until rose to the top of a wave again, making sure she had the right shells loaded, even pacing her breathing, every inch of her focus was trained on making the shot.
Then, she let loose with a single belch of fire and a reverberating roar. A solitary shell flew out from turret number two, arcing across the stormy sky all by it's lonesome. Nevada watched for the splash and puff of colored smoke that would mark her ranging shot, all the while letting her crew put her secondaries and AAA batteries to work on her surroundings.
An old standard like her might not be able to hold a candle to the likes of North and Jersey, but with her Bofors, Oerlikon, and 5-inch secondaries, she could certainly do her part to hold back the tide of Abyssal airpower.
Finally, in the distance, she caught sight of her shell landing. A splash of green just behind the line of abyssal leaders. Nevada clicked her tongue and fired off another ranging shot.
While waiting for the shell to fall, her captain directed her towards another quartet of destroyers led by a light cruiser approaching the fleet. A salvo of five-inch firepower later, and most were little more than chunks of burnt meat and melted scrap, but the cruiser managed weather through most of the damage.
Before she could rearm her secondaries on the lone abyssal, those strange flying soldiers swooped in and shot it. Nevada almost felt sorry for soldiers, and tried to warn them off, but to her shock, their guns hammered the light cruiser into pieces. Each shot slamming into the abyssal with unnatural force. Even from this distance, she could tell it was nothing compared to her main battery, the firepower far closer to the 5-inch shells of her secondaries, but for something as thinly armored as an abyssal light cruiser that was more than enough.
I know I ain't got no room to talk… She wondered, eyeing their rifles far more carefully. But what the hell are those guys pack'n?
She looked back across the battlefield, looking at the flying soldiers with newfound respect as they gunned down plane and ship alike. The Abyssal ships took far more hits than the planes, and none of the ones on the field at the moment had armor really worth talking about, but even a simple frigate should be able to laugh off small arms fire.
They're like flying Destroyers themselves, Nevada swallowed nervously. God help us if the Taffies find out…
She shook the wild nightmare from her head and refocused on the task at hand. Looking back out to the horizon, she managed to catch another green puff of smoke, this time just in front of one of the distant ships.
Nevada narrowed her eyes, squared her hips, adjusted her aim, and fired off another shell. Ranging like this was an old reliable standby for getting shots on target, but it limited how much she could move around if she wanted to maximize her accuracy. That, and it took time, time she didn't have.
Her captain gave her a warning, prompting her to look up. She spotted a flight of bombers splitting off from the swarm and heading her way. Nevada cursed and pulled up her secondaries. Her five inch shells punched hole after hole into the dark sky, but with each shot she felt her age weigh on her more and more. The bombers wove around the sporadic bursts of flak, only losing a few of their number, but ultimately undaunted by the fire and uncaring of their own demise.
Nevada braced herself for the incoming bombs and kept an eye out for any torpedoes they might drop. When they started to come screaming down, even with all the firepower she could muster flying up at them, she knew she was in for some hurt.
Then two lines of howling fire tore right through the diving formation. Three of the bombers tried to pull up in a desperate attempt to avoid the tendrils of burning lead, only to get gunned down by a barrage from a pair of flying soldiers. The two soared over her, before circling back around with the rest of their comrades.
Quickly taking the opening, she glanced back out to the horizon, just in time to see a green puff of smoke erupt out of one of the Abyssals, its lumbering form stumbling from the hit. Nevada smirked, a thrill of satisfaction running through her.
"Bingo," She whispered.
Her radio crackled to life and a familiar voice filled with static called out.
"I don't know what you were thinking, pulling a stunt like that. Though, in truth, I barely even know anything about you at all," Leipzig said, exasperated.
Nevada peered behind her and saw Leipzig's hull shadowing her, letting off bursts of fire to cover both of them from the swarm overhead. She frowned as she reloaded all her guns with armor piercing shells in preparation for her upcoming salvo. "And?"
Leipzig sighed. "But… clearly we have larger things to deal with. And as they say, the enemy of my enemy…"
"So… you believe me?" Nevada asked, raising a brow of her own at the strange destroyer.
"Everything about you utterly confounds me," Leipzig countered. "But it is irrelevant. Protecting the fleet is all that matters."
Nevada nodded slowly. "...Amen to that."
"Amen… heh," Leipzig snorted, "Still… why are you bothering with these sea-bound mages? They are a bit troublesome and odd, but-"
"-Don't know how much you know 'bout 'em. Or the rest of us, really," Nevada cut her off, "but we pack a whole lot of bang in a small package. We're called ship girls for a reason, after all. Ski-bound like me? We're all the souls of warships crammed into the skin of a girl. Most of 'em abyssals out there right now ain't much more than a Destroyer, but the bigguns? One's like me? We're battleships, carriers, worse..."
Nevada opened her mouth to protest, but Leipzig didn't give her the chance.
"However, that just about describes everything else about today so far, including yourself," There was another pause, followed by a sigh. "...I have informed my captain. He says that in times like this, all we can rely on is our training, our friends, and our faith."
"And I'm a friend ?" Nevada asked while she squared her stance for her next shot.
"He has faith that you are."
Nevada actually laughed at the absurdity of the statement. "Hah! Well, tell him I got faith he's a friend too."
She could hear the wry smile in Leipzig's voice. "I'm sure he'll appreciate that."
"In the meantime, I have my orders, and my own faith," Leipzig's voice turned resolute. "Do what you must to keep the fleet safe, Nevada. My mages and I will cover you. Gott mit uns."
And with that, the radio clicked off. Nevada looked up and saw Leipzig's 'mages' circling around them, swirling through the air in physics defying patterns and firing beams of light into the abyssal horde, all while maintaining a parameter. She glanced back, further beyond Leipzig, towards Arizona sailing beside Akagi, firing off her own formidable flak batteries to protect the carrier that should have killed her.
"Well… today's been one helluva strange day," She chuckled, a thrill of dark humor running through her as she took aim. "But… I suppose I ain't got no room to talk."
She shook her head and squared her shoulders. "That's 'nough ruminating, Nevada.."
The sea swelled beneath her. Her gunnery crews finished their work. Her breath drew still. For a moment, every inch of her body and soul was focused on only the shot. Her whole body became just another part of a gun aimed straight at the brains of this Abyssal force as each cannon thunked into place.
You got work to do.
Then, with the click of a hammer in her mind, her guns bellowed out in defiance. Her cannons spat fire and fury, the sea parting under the pressure of the blast, digging her heels into the ocean. All around her, the air trembled as ten explosions of booming thunder roared out on the sea.
A minute later, a large Abyssal ship in the distance broke apart under the barrage and fell into the sea.
"Heh," Nevada snorted, a proud smirk spreading across her lips.
"Still got it."
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" 'nother one down." Nevada noted, watching as the second of the Abyssal capital ships collapsed beneath the waves under her salvos
Given the way Abyssal airpower had slacked off, and how easily they'd crumpled under Nevada's fourteen inch shells, she could only assume they were all carriers.
But… then why were they so close? And where are the rest of the planes coming from? She wondered. Three carriers sure as hell couldn't account for all this… but it cain't hurt to finish 'em off.
Nevada searched the dim horizon for her next target, then blinked when she couldn't find it.
Wait… where'd the last one go?
"Hey, uh, Leipzig?" Nevada called out over the radio, "you got fancy radar, right? You see'n the any other big ships out there? I got two of the carriers, but I cain't find the third, and with all these birds in the air, I'm bet'n there's more out there somewhere. Hope'n you could track down for me."
There was a pause, where all she could hear was the distant choir of explosions, jets, and screaming over the howling wind and quiet whispers of the Abyss. Then her radio clicked to life and the staticky voice of Leipzig rang in her head.
"No," She said simply.
"No?" Nevada frowned, "Nothing?"
"I cannot be sure," Leipzig clarified. "My 'fancy radar', as you call it, is currently being negatively affected by this storm. As such, the range and reliability of my sensors has been severely curtailed."
Nevada sighed, "Yeah, that sounds 'bout right."
"However, we have been making use of our aerial mages as spotters," Leipzig said, "So, if you can tell us what to look for with these… humanoid carriers, as it were, we can track them by eye."
Nevada whistled, "Well that'd be mighty helpful. As for what yer look'n fer… now, how'd Ark put it…?"
She paused to consider it for a moment, then how to censor that image so it'd be less… profane for the destroyer's ears.
"Basically yer look'n fer, like, an undead pim-er-witch with a big ol' tentacle hat."
"...what?"
Nevada blushed. "Well, they got a big ol' cloak, a cane, and this big fancy living hat with tentacles and a giant mouth it launches planes from."
I cain't believe I actually just said that.
"...Uh-huh."
"Honest!"
"Well… I'll relay that information to the fleet," Leipzig said. "Thank you for the assistance."
"No problem…", Nevada grumbled, burying her head into her hands. "Happy to help."
"In any case, my captain would like me to send you a request," Leipzig continued seriously.
Nevada dragged her head out of her hands, and shook herself. "Oh?"
"With your efforts to take out their leadership, the tide of battle is swiftly turning." Leipzig explained "But our forces have identified three more strike groups of these Abyssal 'ship girls' inbound from the east. Could you engage?"
"Sure thing, hon," Nevada grinned, her embarrassment forgotten and with an eager determination to get back into the fight. "Long as ya'll got my back, I feel like I could take on anything!"
"Hmph. Well, we're no 203rd," Leipzig scoffed, "but I'll admit that we are quite an effective team. So, thank you for your assistance."
The radio cut out before Nevada could reply, leaving her alone with a question on her lips.
"The hell's a 203rd?" She stood there for a moment, before she realized she wasn't getting an answer. Sighing, she pushed off towards the closest of the three groups of Abyssals.
It didn't take much for her to tear through them. With the decreasing air cover, the aerial mages, as Leipzig had called them, could put more work into firing on the enemy ships below. With the paper thin armor of the light Abyssal ships, the strange magic of the mages could tear them apart with a few barrages.
Nevada wasn't sure how they'd fare against a ship with armor worth talking about, but given how much fire they had to pour into even a Destroyer in the first place to kill it, she wasn't confident about their chances. To make matters worse, they were glass cannons, even the most basic Abyssal anti air guns being enough to scare them off.
Which is where Nevada came into the picture.
"Get some!"
She let out a battlecry over the howling winds and rain, immediately drowned out by the barrage from her secondaries. A wave of explosive shells rolled over the bunched up formation of Abyssals, several misses producing splashes, but the hits erupting in short lived fireballs and the shredded metal and oil of abyssal flesh.
A retaliatory barrage came soon after, and she braced herself with arms and rigging crossed over her face and body. Even injured as she was, the shots did little more than bounce and burst harmlessly against her thick slabs of armour plating.
Nevada grinned, the feeling akin to little more than hot rain. "Ha! You think you can beat me with those wimpy firecrackers?"
Before either of them could reload, a flight of mages swooped down from the sky and gunned down the survivors. Just as had happened before, the Abyssals were too busy focusing on her to notice her friends until it was too late.
She felt nothing but the satisfaction of a job well done as she watched their smoldering hulls sink beneath the waves.
Nevada turned towards Leipzig, who'd had an easy time keeping pace with her, and asked over the radio, "Is that the last of them, hon?"
"No, there is another o-"
Leipzig's radio abruptly cut off, and several things all happened at once.
There was a flash of light from behind Nevada, then another from Leipzig before her as the Destroyer fired off a salvo of cannon fire. More bursts of light and the crack crack crack of mid air detonations just above her head, each one closer to the ship than the last. Finally, a shell of light flickered around Leipzig's hull for a moment, catching a massive explosion that impacted just below her bridge.
"Leipzig!" Nevada screamed over the radio.
Ain't no way that was a 5-inch shell! Some'n like that… could she even survive it?
She watched, transfixed as the light, smoke, and ocean spray dissipated around the Germanian escort. When it was gone, there was a giant scar of burnt, warped, and melted armor in the Destroyer's flank, but it looked like her hull integrity hadn't been compromised. Already, Leipzig was putting on speed and laying down a smokescreen from her stacks while she beat a hasty retreat.
She made it… Nevada might have sagged in relief, if not for the spike of dread plunging through her heart. But a shot like… it only could have come from a battleship…
Nevada spun around, main battery at the ready, and for a moment she could barely see anything on these dark waves. The wind, rain, and abyss-damned darkness all worked to obscure the world from her. Then there was a flash of lightning and illuminated in front of it was a tall grinning figure with burning red eyes and a long pale tail of bulging muscle and blackened steel.
"Oh lord…" Nevada muttered in horror. "It's a Re-class."
Some of the mages heard her and looked at her in confusion, but most simply turned to fire on the Abyssal in a fit of rage for what she'd tried to do. Yet, just as she'd feared, the powerful arms of these mages simply splashed against the thick alabaster skin of the Re-Class battle carrier.
The Re eyes gleamed a malevolent red, and all along its body flesh twisted and bulged under armor and cloth.
"Run!" Nevada cried out to anyone who could hear. "Get out of there!"
But it was too late. Long barrels of steel sprouted from every inch of the Abyssal's skin, and in a cascade of flashing lights she painted the sky red. Nevada watched helplessly as the mages who'd fought beside her were torn apart by the barrage, with only the most maneuverable and lucky able to survive the attack.
Behind her, she heard Leipzig's guns pound out their own retort through the smoke, her rockets detonating around the Re in a storm of fire and shrapnel, streams of tracers dancing across her skin. The onslaught barely singed the Abyssal's skin, and she laughed it off with ease as she continued to cut down the mages around her.
When the sea erupted from a torpedo detonation beneath her, the Re stopped laughing. The Re's tail twitched forward, readying another burst of fire.
"Not today!" Nevada shouted, letting off her own salvo of all ten guns from her main battery.
At this range, she could eyeball it well enough, so she felt a thrill of satisfaction when five of her shells slammed home across the Abyssal's hull. Then the smoke parted, and she saw the scorched skin, the faintest of cracks in her armor, and baleful red glare directed straight at her.
Then it all happened so fast. The Re's tail snapped out again. Nevada braced, holding her rigging in front of her. Flashes of light, a roll of thunder.
Blinding pain.
Nevada's hull rocked back on the waves, her left side burning with white hot lances running up and down her arm. Damage reports poured in, spots swam in her vision, and the sea beneath her was stained with the crimson-black of skin-bound blood. Struggling to get her body to move, she assessed the state of herself.
Turret number four had taken the brunt of the damage, the armored metal of the rigging being shredded and melted until it more resembled molten scrap more than a cannon. Behind it, her left arm was equally scared, the human skin peeled away to reveal the twisted remnants of her hull beneath. One shell even made it far enough to punch a hole through her wrist, leaving her left hand hanging on with little more than two strips of steel.
Nevada grit her teeth through the pain, forcing her soul back towards its iron self, back to the part that already knew what it felt like to get gutted and sunk. Instead of letting the pain consume her, she looked back up to the battle.
The chaotic tangle of fire and thunder had only grown. Leipzig's sisters had joined in, throwing a hail of ordinance at the Abyssal. Akagi's jets roared overhead, launching rockets and bombs at her. More mages had joined the free, each darting in elaborate physics defying maneuvers of impossible speed, while prodding the Re with precise fire.
The Re-class howled with laughter through it all, giving it all back tenfold.
One of her shots whizzed through the smokescreen the destroyers had set up and slammed into one of their bows, shearing off a chunk of their hull. A barrage of AAA fire ripped through half a dozen mages, sending a rain of shredded meat falling back to the sea. A torpedo detonated against a flickering bubble of light around another destroyer.
It's all my fault. Nevada thought, horrified at what was happening to the fleet. All these people who'd tried to save her, people she'd tried to save, all dying because she slipped up and let the one Re-class through.
How the hell'd I miss this? Two Wos guarded by a Re? She hissed, pushing her boilers back up to speed in spite of the shrieking protest of her rigging. Not that I coulda done much even I'd known. My guns weren't made to take down some'n that tough. Even if I could punch through her armor, she's sturdy and crazy enough to kill us all before she finally sunk.
Nevada tried to let out a ragged breath, but it came out as a bloody cough. If I'm honest...not much I coulda ever done on my own here.
Nevada grinned despite herself. But then...I ain't really alone, am I?
Then, behind the Re, at the far edges of the battle, Nevada caught another series of flashes from an all too familiar form. Within the depths of her hull, from the devious mind of her own crew, came the whispers of plan. It was a stupid plan, practically suicidal, the kind of thing no self-respecting ship would ever think of. Yet, what else could she expect from the minds of her devil dogs?
You're all idiots. Nevada shook her head, a blood-tinged smile blossoming on her lips despite the pain. And I couldn't be prouder.
Suddenly, a burst of howling fury slammed into them, screaming with rage and boiling with pain. The tone mournful, the soul familiar, but the hate so potent that it even brought pause to the Abyssals. Not for long, only a momentary twitch, a widening of the eyes, a flicker of fear, and then it was gone. But it was enough.
The roiling black waves of the ocean around them roared open. Great gouts of seawater shot up as a dozen enormous shells, undiminished by the bindings of skin and spirit, each fell like God's judgment around them. A blinding flash of sparks, a resounding ring of a blacksmith's hammer, and the deafening shriek of rent steel let Nevada know her luck held true.
When the ocean spray finally fell back down, Nevada beheld the damage Arizona's salvo had done. Nevada didn't know the how or why of it, not when by all rights her little sister should be packing the same fourteen-inch shells as herself, but the results spoke for themselves.
The Abyssal's right side was a mess of twisted black metal and bleeding white flesh. Her arm nearly shorn off, tail covered in cracks and oil, and a hole in her side where the armor had been sheared off. Nevada saw her black ribs exposed, oily blood poured from the hole, and steel skin all around it cracked and melted.
And the Re saw her, far too close and pouring on more speed.
Before the Abyssal could get a shot off, Nevada's secondaries rippled off a salvo of high explosive that detonated in the Re's face to distract her while her AAA batteries fired into the ocean to throw up more sea spray to obscure her.
A shell punched through the clouds of water, soaring past her shoulder. A rumble shook the ocean. The Re screamed again, closer this time. The iron scent of blood filled the air, mixing with cordite, oil, and rot to produce a smell wholly unique to the Abyss. The screams grew louder, the sound of steel being hammered into shape rang out around her, more shots pierced the veil of mist that shielded her. Some whizzed by, some pinged off Nevada's armor, and some bit into her hull. One cracked her eye, another sliced open her cheek. With every second passed, every bit of sea she put behind her, there was more thunder, more pain, more chaos.
Then Nevada punched through the veil, and the Re-class was right there.
The demon's burning red eyes widened, her tail snapping into position to fire off a shot. A loud crack over Nevada's shoulder. A lance of blue light pierced through one of the bleeding wounds in her tail in a geyser of blood, viscera, and metal causing the Re roared and flinched.
Nevada charged, right shoulder first, and fired off a salvo at point blank range with her front two batteries. As soon as she fired, she shifted the weight of her soul, playing a careful balancing act. For a moment, her mass dropped, sending her spinning from the recoil. Two shells immediately slammed into the Abyssal, spreading more cracks through her armor and making her flinch again.
She shifted her soul again, pouring all the fire her boilers could bring to bear on her screws. She shot forward, the recoil bringing her left side swinging forward, hand outstretched, all while she got closer, closer, clos-
[Brace for impact!]
An almighty ring ripped straight through Nevada, sending every part of her reeling from the blow. The depths of her hull screamed in protest, the metal of armor screeched from the abuse, and all the crew within desperately clung to their stations. At the end of it all, Nevada ended up with the mangled remains of her left arm shoved elbow deep into the Abyssal's rib cage.
Nevada barely had time to celebrate the blow before the Re's tail whipped out, smashing into her bent and broken left side, and sending her careening across the waves. Nevada tumbled across the ocean, desperately trying to juggle the human and steel parts of her soul to keep her from flying to pieces. When she finally came to a stop, she looked up only to see a shattered metal stump where her left arm should have been, and the Re-class looked down at her with the rest of it lodged in her chest.
"Cute," The Abyssal crooned, her words an unnatural chorus of a thousand dead voices from all across the Mediterranean. "I think I might even keep this one." The Abyssal smirked, her red eyes burning with sadistic glee.
The Abyssal idly flicked the bent piece of steel sticking out of her. At the act, Nevada saw an ember flicker to life within the fragment of her arm.
"How desperate you must be if you had to resort to fists. Ha! Truly, if this is the best you have, you heathens were doomed from the start," The Abyssal's smile widened, rows upon rows of razor sharp teeth gleaming in the dark, "Yet still, you amused me. After I'm done carving my way through the rest of these heathens, I think I shall take you as my prize in this glorious crusade."
"I-" Nevada let out a watery cough, lungs burning, keel shrieking, boilers bleeding, but her determination never wavered. "I'll stop you."
"You?" The Re-class laughed, "How? Even your last salvo was more pathetic than the last. Point blank and only two hits? Hah! Did you forget to load your guns, or are you just that sad?"
Nevada gave her a bloody grin with shattered teeth. "Didn't forget. Save'n 'em."
The Abyssal frowned. "Saving them? For what?"
Nevada nodded towards the arm buried in the Abyssal's chest. The arm that still burned from the inside with a smoldering fire.
The arm with a clenched fist holding every last piece of ammunition she could spare.
The Abyssal's eyes went wide. "You crazy bit-!" And the waves whispered
The world went white. Return to us, oh lost daughter ours
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A/n updated 8/8/21:
Alright, here's the totally brand new chapter 4. Of the three I'm uploading now, this is the only one with absolutely no connective tissue to the old version. It was also the first and most fun to write. I haven't actually had a proper fight scene crop up in the story yet, have I? Hopefully, this measures up.
Again, the reason I wrote this was because I realized that I was turning the kancolle side of things into the helpless damsel in distress for the PR side of things to constantly come in and rescue. Not only was it turning into a PR wank, it was also robbing the KC side of any real agency. Plus, I didn't really make as much use out of the cool little flotilla I'd made as I wanted.
As such, this chapter. It was fun to write, lets Nevada shine, pushes back a bit against the PR side, and put the little fleet to work. I think it turned out pretty well, though Guillocuda was invaluable in helping to refine it. While it's not strictly speaking necessary to understanding the story if you're already caught up, I do think it's a fun chapter to read.
I growled, almost jerking up and pacing around the room before Visha tugged my head back.
"None of that, now," she chided me, almost like I was a little girl, "This is your time to relax."
I'd have probably felt emasculated if, well, I was still a man, or if Visha's ministrations on my pounding skull weren't a heavenly bliss that dulled my every ache.
"So," she said as she continued braiding my hair and massaging my scalp. "Nazis?"
"...You know how I said my last life had parallels to this one?" I began, trying to figure out how to start.
During the weight of stress over the past decade, Visha has been one of the few sources of refuge for me. It makes me feel a bit vulnerable and silly to admit, but I trust her. More than that, we'd figured out what we really meant to each other over the years. Sometime during that war, the truth came out.
Well, a version of the truth.
I didn't say, 'I used to be a Japanese man working a desk job' for… various reasons. Instead, I phrased it more like I could just remember my past life with unusual clarity. A fiction that has actually been becoming more true with each passing day.
I find as I get on in the years that I think of myself as Tanya first and foremost, and the Salaryman a distant second. I can't remember the faces or names of my previous friends and family, nor can I even recall if we were actually close. Hell, I can't even remember my own name. General specifics about the world, as well as the things I'd found more immediately relevant such as historical details and tech developments, had remained sharp, likely because I thought about them more.
But the things that had made the past version of me, well… me…
They just seemed to slip away.
I tried not to dwell on it too much. I had far too much to worry about these days to waste time on an existential crisis.
A crisis, in which Visha became my irreplaceable confidant. She might not know the specifics of my old life, hell I was starting to forget that too, but she knew the important stuff. She knew enough to help. She didn't press for any more.
Honestly, I couldn't tell her how thankful I was for that.
"You also said that most of those parallels had gone out the window," She pointed out. "Something about flying by the seat of your pants, I believe."
I blushed, shifting my head on Visha's lap. "Yes, well… the situation has changed."
"Is it because of those Americans?"
"Indeed," I nodded before a tugging sensation on my head stopped me. "That flag hails from the United States of America. A nation very much like the Unified States, save for the fact that the battleship we saw on the reports was likely well known for fighting Nazis, assuming it's actually the one I think it is. Hell, it was probably involved in one of the most famous battles from history."
"And the Nazis are… us?"
This time I practically snarled, "No!"
"They are a bunch of deluded racist backstabbing war mongering fanatical fascists, who only seek to gain more and more power, without the slightest inclination on how to actually use it, or anything but immediate gains," I scowled at the ceiling, "And they have the unfortunate displeasure of pulling German people into their games."
"Actually, that's not even half of it!" I said, getting all worked up again. "They're why I had to work so hard to pull Germania on track. Practically everything around the world conspired together to shaft us… them, so hard that the people were desperate for anything, and then came in the bunch of fanatics selling just the right image of power and solution. Not five steps later, it's all genocide and world domination! Don't even get me started on-"
Visha cut me off by pressing a gentle kiss to my forehead. I blushed furiously and looked away, caught off guard and somewhat intimidated by the blatant affection.
I muttered something in Japanese about not letting me rant properly. She poked me in the head.
"Rude."
A moment later she went back to braiding my hair. The rhythmic, regular, sensation of her warm fingers brushing through my scalp was enough to pull me back, and before I knew it, much of my earlier stress slipped away.
"So…" She began, "What does that mean for us?"
"It means…" I sighed, now feeling more depressed than angry. "...It means that we're likely in a world that could very well confuse us with the most infamous enemy from history. The Nazis are generally considered an evil against which all others are measured in this world. Usually in petty ways, but being compared to the worst monsters of all time is never a good thing."
"Which means, we'll have an uphill battle," Visha reasoned.
"If we're lucky," I groused. "More likely, they'll assume we're Nazis right out the gate and shoot at us without warning."
"Which is why you jumped on the chance to save those Americans we saw, isn't it?"
"I figured a good introduction could go a long way to smoothing things over."
"But, you're still worried about it, aren't you?"
"Of course I am! People are dumb panicky animals by nature. What are the chances they see our fancy new toys in the hands of what is considered the worst mortal evil in all history, and decide to wipe us out?"
"But… the situation isn't exactly like what you remember, right?" Visha pointed out, tapping her lip thoughtfully. "Didn't you say your past life was rather… mundane?"
I frowned. "Yes, these… 'demons' are completely new to me, and more importantly, I don't know how we'll deal with them. Where do they come from? We defeated them this time, but were they at full strength, or was this just a probing attack? What are their numbers, their intentions, their full power? Are they even hum-"
Visha cut me off with another flick to my forehead. "Enough of that."
I frowned again, though given her tiny little smile, it probably looked more like a pout.
Curse my eternal youth! I thought angrily, something I'd once never thought would ever cross my mind, let alone become the bane of my existence.
"Instead, think about this," She continued, moving her hands to massage the spot just behind my ears. I stiffened and shuddered as a wave of pleasing tingles shot up and down my spine. "If the 'demons' are different about this world, what else might be?"
Paralyzed by chills, I was forced to think about it. When I did, I realized something.
"I… don't actually know."
"So, maybe," She offered, tapping the tip of my nose with a lone finger, "that means more has changed than you think? Maybe, things aren't so grim?"
I grimaced, "Knowing my luck, the Nazis created those things as some sort of new wonder weapon crafted to win the war."
"Maybe," Visha shrugged, "but, we don't know, do we?"
"But-"
"But nothing," she cut me off with a finger on my lips. "If you don't have any idea what the answer could be, why torment yourself with unfounded fears?"
"Because I know I have the worst luck, when it comes to these things," I muttered around her finger. I knew it was more than luck, but I didn't feel like bringing up Being X right now. I had enough stress without bringing that thing into the mix.
"Hmph," Visha gave me a knowing smile, "well, I know something else too. You want to know what it is?"
"Sure," I said dourly, the rampant fears of my mind still trying to do whatever they could to send my mood into the darkest depths.
She leaned over me, her face opposite mine, her long brown hair hanging down and tickling my cheeks. She looked at me with those wide blue eyes filled with such open warmth it made me uncomfortable. I tried to look away but she pulled me back in with hands on either side of my head.
"I know," Visha said, an intensity and honesty in her gaze that both frightened and captivated me, "that you're a brilliant leader, who's far too much of a perfectionist to let something like this get in your way. You're going to go out there, and you're going to perform miracles. Because that's what Tanya Von Degurechaff does."
"I know that come hell or high water…you've always got me." She leaned down further. I could feel her breath brushing across my face, sending lightning racing under my skin. "And...new war or not, you promised me my wedding day."
Her eyes blazed with smoldering intensity focused solely on me. Our hands intertwined in our hair, waves of mana gently lapping together in a gesture no one else could ever understand. Now, more than ever, I felt the weight of cool metal resting on my finger, as well as the comfort of its twin wrapped around Visha's own.
"So you'd better keep your promise, dear."
And then she sealed it with a kiss. I kissed back, lifting myself into it. We shifted, getting comfortable on the soft bed of my personal room. For a moment, we were in blissful heaven.
Of course, it didn't last long.
"Um…"
Visha and I paused at the sound of a third, very uncomfortable, yet very familiar voice.
"Ah… sorry, mother," Kaiserin said, standing awkwardly on the other side of the bedroom, doing everything she could to avert her eyes from us. A pointless gesture considering we all knew that the KMS was effectively omniscient within these walls, but most KMS seemed to run on polite fictions of feigned humanity.
"But, uh... well, there's been a development."
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Nevada woke up slowly, her consciousness returning to life as her crew finally put the finishing touches of her brain back together. Needles of light pierced her eyelids, and a familiar presence nearby demanded her attention. From what she could feel around her, she was relatively safe aboard a ship, laying on a cot that'd probably been set aside for her.
Nevada could feel the ship's spirit, distant in a way that reminded her of most ships that hadn't fully awoken yet, but also painfully familiar. She tried to recall how or why, but her jumbled mind was such a mess, that the memories just seemed to slip further out of reach the harder she tried to reach for them.
Still, she was probably safe, given the distant churn of living human souls and the absence of any whispers of the Abyss. Finally acknowledging that she couldn't deny reality anymore, Nevada opened her eyes.
Or, her lone eye, as it were.
Looking down at her battered body, she took stock of all the damage and found that her left side, in particular, was a mess. A missing arm, half her face torn off, and her left eye and leg were all shattered. Even the left half of her teeth had been shattered, and with the missing skin on her face it gave her a kind of twisted grin filled with fragmented knives.
Her right leg was barely better off, but her keel was riddled with stress fractures. It'd probably take her weeks of intensive repairs just before she could safely walk on her own power again. All in all, she looked like some kind of twisted robot-zombie on her last legs, and Nevada could feel every inch of it.
Nevada managed a groan around broken teeth. "Vestal's gonna kill me."
"Is she now?" a familiar woman teased from out of nowhere.
Nevada tried to jerk up from the sudden sound, only to earn spikes of pain lancing their way down her back for the trouble. She groaned at the sensation, keel shrieking and engineers yelling from the effort.
"Easy there," The voice softened, a warm hand on her shoulder gently forcing her back down to the bed.
Nevada took a moment to let the shudders pass, wincing not only at the pain, but the riot her crew was throwing for nearly breaking everything they'd just patched up.
Sorry, she whispered in her soul to them. It didn't make them happy, but it did seem to make them less angry with her. ...fair enough.
Nevada let out a sigh then cracked open an eye to see who this achingly familiar woman was.
What she saw was red, and fur, and steel, and fire-
She blinked once, twice, thrice, her mind whirling frantically to resolve the image before her. Suddenly, a memory bubbled up, of a too-friendly woman once a bitter enemy. That, and a thousand impossibilities.
"A-... Akagi?" Nevada ventured.
"Oh?" Akagi let out a haughty laugh behind a raised hand, her smile wide and eyes gleaming, the devious expression sending a shiver down Nevada's spine. "It seems my saviour remembers me! Now, whatever shall I do to show her my most earnest gratitude?"
It was at that moment, as the carrier's spirit leaned over her, that Nevada realized what exactly her formally sworn enemy was wearing.
"W-what are you wearing? I-I-I thought-" Nevada stuttered, an unbidden blush, not at all helped by more than a few wolf whistles echoing through her corridors, blooming on her face.
"Well, seeing as you are in my medical bay, it seemed only prudent that I dress appropriately whilst I repay my dearest hero," Akagi leaned ever closer, dressed in an extremely flattering, and incredibly provocative approximation of a nurse uniform. The hungry grin, the fire in her eyes, and the forbidden valley all sent what remained of Nevada's boilers burning. "So, now that I have finally got you in my bed, do you want to take me up on my offer?"
Akagi's noze grazed Nevada's own. Impossibly soft velvet fur caressed her battered arms and legs. Something silky smooth, and burning hot pressed against Nevada's chest.
"A hero like you deserves a reward, after all."
"I-uh-wha?" Nevada's brain felt like it was melting under the stress. "N-no, I-I don't…"
"After all you went through, you don't want dinner? Or a bath?" Akagi pouted. "Or perhaps... it's my company you do not desire?"
Nevada licked her lips and gulped. "We-well, I d-didn't say that."
Nevada could feel Akagi's purr, the smile on her lips as tantalizing and cloying as honey. "Well now, that's simply di~vine, my darling battleship~" The perplexingly alluring carrier whispered her enchanting words into Nevada's ear. "Because, Rear Admiral Valkenhayn will be here shortly."
For a moment, Nevada just sat there, face read and mind uncomprehending of what was happening or how things had ever gotten here.
Does she-?...Is she?Nevada thought in a daze But… I… how… it… it ain't supposed to be like this. She-we… and after Pearl and the war and… and… what would everyone else think, and-wait!
Nevada's mind abruptly ground to a halt, Akagi's last words finally running through her mind.
"Rear...Admiral...Valkenhayn?" Nevada repeated slowly, her voice rising with each syllable.
"Indeed!" Akagi abruptly stood back up straight at the foot of Nevada's bed, a vulpine smile on her lips as she clapped her hands together. "Arizona's old CO."
"Wha-bu-here? Now?!" Nevada exclaimed, her all too human heart racing. "Why?! How?!"
"Hmm, as I understand it, he planted his flag aboard her on our victory lap back, for old time's sake, since she was his command for most of the war. Then everything went to hell and, well, here we are," Akagi shrugged, then gave her another sultry grin. "Then, well, he heard that a certain dashing sailor came to the rescue of our little fleet, all while declaring she would do anything to protect his darling old girl."
The carrier gave Nevada a devilish wink.
"Quite the impression you set, hero."
"Oh lord," Nevada's gut sank. "How much time I got?"
"Five," Akagi said.
"Five minutes?" Nevada grimaced, "It ain't great, but I can work with it."
Alright guys, I know you can only do so much, but I just need ya'll to make me look my sunday best-
"Four."
Nevada froze.
"Three," Akagi grinned.
"What?! Naw! I-I ain't even-... my eye's-..." Nevada's mind spun frantically. "I ain't even got mah clothes!"
"Two."
"Y-you planned this, didn't you?" Nevada glared at the carrier, jabbing her one good hand at her. "You planned to catch me off guard like this you devilish little shi-"
Akagi's grin only widened. "One."
In an instant, several things all happened at once. The door to her room swung open. Nevada jerked herself into something approximating attention. Between blinks, Akagi's form shifted from provocative fantasy nurse to an actually respectful, period accurate, uniform with less absurd proportions.
That fucking fox! Nevada growled internally.
Then, she caught sight of the man in front of her, and her mind ground to a halt once more.
"Well, well, well," the dead man smiled, his eyes filled with life that should have been snuffed out long ago. "I'm happy to see our newest hero is alive and well. Or, as well as you can get, all things considered."
Nevada's eye's crawled over every inch of the dead man, all of it falling into place with her old memories, yet, not. His face, his name tag, his soul. All so similar, all so close to the portrait in her mind, but ever so slightly off. Then, she caught the indisputable rank of Rear Admiral on his crisp white uniform, and she gulped, feeling uneasy from the Authority of Arizona's old CO pressing down on her.
Looking at this man, a man she remembered, a man who was supposed to be dead, now hale, hearty, and an Admiral of all things… it felt more surreal than Arizona. As bad as Arizona was, she was a spirit. Death was a bit more nebulous for beings like them. But for a human?
Dead, was dead.
At least, it was supposed to be.
Looking at the problem spiritually was no help. The man felt just like the old captain Valkenburgh she'd known, but slightly different. Not enough for him to be a different person, or for his Authority to be invalid, but different enough to notice.
Like off-brand food. Not bad, not wrong, not even fake. Just not the same.
Yet, at the end of the day, an American Admiral was an American Admiral.
"How're you holding up, sailor?" The not-dead admiral asked. "'Cause, frankly, it looks like you shouldn't even be alive, and yet…"
Nevada shrugged, trying to hide her nerves. "C-comes with the territory, I suppose."
She tried to give him a reassuring smile, but with half her face missing, Nevada was fairly confident it was the stuff of nightmares instead. Yet, the admiral didn't so much as flinch at her Glasgow grin, only giving her a relieved smile of his own.
"Well," he grunted out, maneuvering himself into a chair, "You're not the worst case I've seen. Though, admittedly, you are the strangest."
He gestured to her various injuries, particularly the one on her face. Nevada grimaced, knowing the raw steel underneath was twisting itself into impossible shapes in a macabre impression of muscle and bone. She was fortunate her damage control teams had managed to patch up all the leaks, lest her oily black blood ooze from her wounds and make her look even more like some twisted nightmare of flesh and metal.
I suppose once you get under the skin, we aren't so different from Abyssal after all, are we? Nevada thought. It's really only fitting. In the end, we're only two sides of the same coin, and it's oh so terribly easy to flip. I should know better than most, shouldn't I?
"I'm sorry you have to see me like this, Admiral," Nevada bowed her head, lone eye glancing away. "I ain't really in the right state to have guests or noth'n."
"Don't worry about it," he waved her off, "I'm the one who came to see you, after all. No need to be ashamed of what scars you got in the line of duty. To hear Leipzig tell it, you quite literally sacrificed an arm to save us all."
Admiral Valkenhayn leaned in, eyes locked on Nevada. "That takes a special kind of spirit, sailor. And, I can't guarantee that every man and woman in this fleet wouldn't be dead if you hadn't done it. For that, I'll never be able to thank you enough."
Nevada glanced up and met his gaze, the burning intensity in his eyes catching her off guard. She could see his whole soul set alight through those eyes, like a sun reignited right before her, the heat of it washing over her. At the edges of her soul she could feel it, a thousand little pricks of light dancing across the boundary of her spirit. A thousand human souls all thinking of her, remembering her, thanking her with earnest hearts.
"I-it's more than enough, Admiral," Nevada choked out, throat tight and heart clenched. "I-I was just doing my Duty. N-no need to make it something so special, not for little old me."
"Oh, but I insist," He said. Then as fast as it came, it was over, the intensity gone. The heat of his soul still lingered, the feather-light touches of all the wisps of Mana dripping into her still swirled around her soul, but the pressure was gone. "And on that note, is there anything we can do to help you out here? Not to be rude, but, well, you gave Akagi's medical staff quite the scare."
"Indeed," Akagi nodded, any trace of levity banished from her form. "None of us had any idea how to approach your triage. Had you been a normal human, you would have almost certainly died by this point. That you are alive at all seems a miracle, but I doubt you are satisfied with that?"
Nevada winced. "Ah… I can imagine how hard that'd be. And, uh… while I don't exactly feel the pain the same way, I ain't having a fun time neither."
"So, what can we do to help you on your road to recovery?" Admiral Valkenhayn asked, "I'm sure Akagi would be perfectly willing to gather whatever you may need."
Glancing back up at the carrier, Nevada saw the vixen's grin crawl its way back onto her face and a devilish glint in her eye. "Oh, why I would be more than happy to accommodate you!"
"Well… in that case…" Nevada still felt a bit guilty about it, but since they were offering she might as well take the opportunity.
Asking her crew, she gave the carrier a list of all the essentials she could think of. Most, like a tub of seawater or sticks of Bauxite, earned her strange looks. Nevada had to admit she found it all a little embarrassing, but given the fact she was missing half her face, an arm, all her ammunition, she had larger problems on her plate.
"Is that everything?" Akagi asked, poking the scroll she'd pulled out at some point with her brush.
Given that I'm not looking to start up a diet of human souls again anytime soon? Nevada thought sourly, mind darting back to the dark days of her first awakening.
"That's it," Nevada nodded, doing her best to pull the remnants of her face into a smile.
"Well," Akagi smiled, making a grandiose flourish on the page, and rolling it up with a flick of her wrist. "I shall endeavor to have it ready soon."
Then, with a bow, and a flash of ruby flames, Akagi disappeared.
Nevada stared at the smoldering spot where the newest headache of her life had once stood, and wondered if she was really going to have to get used to this.
"So," Admiral Valkenhayn said, the clap of his hands yanking Nevada from her thoughts, "With that outta the way, I hope you don't mind if I ask you some questions?"
"Wha-? Certainly not, Admiral!" Nevada snapped, the Admiral's Authority a shining beacon on her soul. "I'd be happy to answer your questions, Admiral Valkenhayn -!"
Nevada paused, forcing herself to take a step back and reassess how impossibly bizarre this situation was. Much as her soul recognized his Authority as an American Admiral, he was also supposed to be dead, not to mention the other thousand bewildering things she'd seen since meeting Leipzig. Akagi and Arizona chief among them.
"-uh… actually… I have a few questions of my own as well…" Nevada ducked her head, "I-if you don't mind, that is."
Admiral Valkenhayn let out a soft chuckle, "Heh, I think you've earned more than a few questions, Nevada." He leaned back in his chair, and gestured to her, "Go ahead, sailor. Shoot."
Nevada lost track of time as they talked. Each answer was more bewildering than the last, to both of them, none of it truly satisfying. At some point, however, another topic came up.
"So...if I've got this right, you're the spirit of a battleship crammed into the skin of a human because...magic?" He asked.
"Well, that's about the long and short of it." Nevada agreed.
"So...I've seen the recordings," he leaned forward and looked at her with narrowed eyes. "What on earth possessed you to punch that thing?"
Nevada blushed and looked away. "...my marine compliment…" she muttered.
Admiral Valkenhayn blinked and just stared for a moment. Then threw his head back, slapped his knee, and let out a roar of laughter. "Ha! 'Course them Devil Dogs thought punch'n there way out was a good idea." As he sobered up, he shook his head and said, "Remind me to get them something nice when this is all over."
"Well, I do not believe we have any crayons on board, but I shall see what we can do." A familiar voice purred from behind.
"Ah!" Nevada jerked at her entrance.
"Akagi! Good, you're back." Admiral Valkenhayn greeted her with a smile, "How's the requisition coming?"
"Well, Admiral Valkenhayn ," Akagi bowed, "But that is not why I am here."
"It's not?" he raised a brow.
"No," she shook her head, "Rather…"
"We've made contact with another fleet."
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Graf Zeppelin watched dispassionately as another Abyssal sunk beneath the waves.
She'd lost count of how many they'd sunk in the past couple hours. Of how many eyes had sent that final glare of hatred, before they fell back into the cold deep embrace of the Abyss once more. If it wasn't for her internal clocks, Zeppelin was sure she'd have lost track of how long they'd been fighting, too.
Fortunately they were almost done with this wave. As she looked around, Zeppelin could see most of the other girls mopping up the remaining Abyssals in the area. All the larger threats had already been sunk, and all that was left was a scattered handful of light cruisers and destroyers.
"Zep!" came a sharp voice from behind. She turned to see Admiral Hipper shooting her a disapproving frown.
Not an uncommon sight for her, really She thought.
"Are you spacing out again!?" Hipper said, thrusting her baton at her like it actually gave her some authority.
"No," Zeppelin shook her head, "I'm just thinking about h-"
A shell whizzed by her head, and she flinched. Whipping her head around, Zeppelin caught sight of a light cruiser leveling its guns at them. Before it could get off another shot, however, two fist-sized holes punched through its jaw.
"Dammit Zep!" Hipper growled, the smoking guns on her rigging twitching angrily, "We're still in a warzone, you idiot! If you don't pay attention, you're gonna get sunk!"
"Ah… sorry," Zeppelin winced.
The Abyssal let out a low groan of twisted metal and twitched a rack of torpedoes in their direction. Zeppelin, eager to prove herself, let off a volley of her own 15cm guns. All of which managed only to straddle the Shade. It let out a wheezing chuckle and managed to let off two torpedoes, before Hipper silenced it with two more shots through it's faceplate.
The lone two torpedoes weren't terribly fast, and with the last Abyssal in the area sunk, avoiding them was little trouble.
"What was that!?" Hipper cried, throwing her hands at the sinking abyssal. Angrily gesturing to Zeppelin's casemates, she said, "You could have easily taken her with those things!"
Graf Zeppelin peered down at her 15cm guns, ostensibly put there to defend her in close surface fighting.
"...Sorry," She replied, giving a gentle pat to her rigging, "I… don't have much experience with these. Or… anything, really."
Unlike many of her sisters in the new German navy, Graf Zeppelin had never been completed, let alone experienced combat. She had nothing to draw from there, and little in the way of mentors who could teach her.
"Hmph," Hipper crossed her arms, and scowled at the cloud choked sky. "I guess I can't blame you for that. That is why we're supposed to be here, after all. Not your fault the god forsaken Abyss ruined the training exercise," She grumbled.
"But!" She snapped, whirling around and thrusting her baton in Zeppelin's face, "That's no excuse to be spacing out in the middle of a fight! You're the only carrier Deutschland has, so we can't have you going and getting yourself shot!"
"... Um…" Graf Zeppelin's eyes trailed along her battle damaged flight deck.
It was covered in pockmarks, craters, tears, and one of her catapults had even been shorn off. She only had a single catapult remaining to launch fighters with. One that needed to recharge for an hour after limited use, and she couldn't even recover any planes she did put up.
The only carrier of the Fatherland, and I can't even do my job. Graf Zeppelin thought. Some carrier I am.
For a moment, Hipper's face winced and a measure of something familiar passed through the cruiser's eyes.
"A-ah, right, well… sorry." Hipper muttered. Her trademark sneer re-emerged. "But don't go getting yourself shot again, you hear? And don't even think about getting sunk!"
"...Okay," Zeppelin managed a tepid thumbs up.
I can't let them down. Not here, Zep thought. Not again.
"Anyways, that should be the last of this wave." Hipper said. "We should head back into the formation before the queen bitch yells at us again."
"Hipper…" Zeppelin scowled.
Hipper rolled her eyes, "Fine, the oh so glorious Warspite scolds us for being 'naughty little ship girls'. Happy?"
Graf Zeppelin wasn't, but she didn't have the will to argue about it anymore, so she just sighed and sailed back towards Bismarck. Around her flagship, she could see the looming forms of the few other Hull-bound ships they'd brought along with the training exercise.
The prominent, flat topped hull of Mistral, a large French amphibious carrier, stood out, like a giant metal brick on the ocean. By contrast, the battleship Bismarck, sailing beside her, appeared more like a castle on the waves. A towering behemoth of armor and guns. The sharp edged form of Belfast next to them, however, was an anachronism. The way the slim angled profile of her descended hull sliced through the waves made her look like some deadly predator from some alien world, rather than a mere frigate. A modern missile frigate, amongst the old warships of the Second War.
It didn't take them long to fall back into formation in the fleet, even if the proximity to so many foreign vessels made the ship in Zeppelin uneasy. Still, the fact that she was now more directly under Bismarck's guns eased her nerves.
What didn't, was the sight of the scars of twisted and blackened metal on the battleship's rear turrets.
"That's gonna be a pain to repair," Hipper grimaced. "Bet it hurts like a bitch, too."
Graf Zeppelin nodded in agreement, her own comms array twinging in sympathetic pain. She already knew how it felt to be deaf and dumb to the world. It was a fate she wouldn't wish on anyone.
"It is not as bad as it appears," came a voice from their side.
The two skin-bound looked up to see Bismarck's spirit standing horizontally upon the side of her hull looking down at them in a mind-bending display of a casual disregard for gravity. Continuing that trend, her long blond hair under her officer's cap, her long black skirt, and her black and red fur-trimmed cape all drifted "down" towards her feet firmly planted against her hull. Combined with how trim and tidy her buttoned up uniform in red, black, and gold, it all painted a powerful picture,.
Fitting, for the flagship. Zeppelin thought.
Graf Zeppelin had heard stories that this was the third incarnation of this version of Bismarck's avatar. The first two weren't exactly talked about, but given how modern Germans had reacted to her when she first woke up, particularly all the Nazi-based imagery decorating her, it wasn't hard to put the pieces together. She could only imagine what the flagship of one of the most hated navies in history had to go through if it took two full redesigns of her avatar, of the expression of her very soul, to be accepted as she was.
Speaking of… Zeppelin thought, peering further up Bismarck's towering hull.
Up on the deck, she could see Bismarck's living human crew moving across the deck. The cacophonous yelling of damage control teams, and the bustling of ammunition haulers filled the air. Several of the anti-air gun crews snuck glares down at the two damaged ship girls.
Zeppelin's eyes met the scowling gaze of one of the gunners, and she flinched. The people of Deutschland today held nothing but hate and disgust for the Deutschland of the Old War. An era that Zeppelin, Hipper, and Bismarck all represented. She was sure that the war spirits of the old regime were only tolerated because they were the only way Deutschland could effectively fight back against the Abyssals.
Just my luck, isn't it? Zeppelin sighed, when I get a second chance, an opportunity to serve my country, it's to a people who feel nothing but hate and disgust for everything that led to my birth.
Though… I suppose I never really was much more than a burden in the first place. Maybe…
Hipper's shrill voice pulled Zeppelin from her thoughts before they could get much darker.
"You have a giant fucking burn scar on your back!" Hipper shouted.
"I've had worse," Bismarck waved it off, then frowned at Hipper. "Also, I'll remind you once again to watch your language."
"Hah?" Hipper arched her brow.
"We are representing the proud nation of Deutschland. As such, we must be on our best behavior," Bismarck paused, "...besides, your attitude in general is unbecoming of a girl in your position."
"What?! That's outrageous!" Hipper whirled on Graf Zeppelin with a huff, "You don't think I'm unbecoming, do you Zep?"
Graf Zeppelin shuffled in the water nervously. "Um… you are, perhaps… a bit crass at times?"
"You little-!"
"Admiral Hipper," Bismarck's tone was carefully neutral, in that way of a mother or school teacher rapidly running out of patience.
Hipper froze momentarily at the rare invocation of her full name, before adorning her trademark sneer and looking away.
"Fine," she bit out, "I'll try and be more… polite. Happy?"
"Very," Bismarck's smile, small and rare as it was, was a beautiful thing to behold. "Oh, and while I'm at it, someone wanted to say hello."
She gestured up towards the edge of her deck. Both ship-girls looked up to see a small girl in a blue dress with long grey hair cascading down a large coat gazing back down at them with a blank look. Her expressive amber eyes, however, shone brightly on her cool porcelain face. She held up a tentative hand and waved down at them.
The fact that Zeppelin knew it was the only hand she had left was the only thing that she could focus on.
Hipper forced a smile and shouted up at the destroyer, "Z-46! How's life being the new mascot?!"
Z-46 cocked her head at the cruiser. "Mascot?"
"Yeah cause you're…" Hipper froze, the words dying on her lips. Her eyes darted to the burned sleeve with a crimson edged hole in it. It flapped loosely in the fierce wind.
Zeppelin's fist clenched.
"N-never mind that," Hipper continued, wincing "How're you doing?"
"Good," Z-46 said simply. "Bismarck is nice and the crew give me headpats."
She never really was much for words, Zeppelin thought, Not that I have much room to talk.
"Good, good," Hipper nodded jerkily.
Another projection of Bismarck appeared on her deck behind Z-46. Placing a hand on the destroyer, she said, "Come on inside now, 46. You still need rest."
46 pouted, "I can still fight."
"Not without taking me under, you can't," Bismarck lightly chided. "You need to keep yourself more human than not while you're onboard. Under no circumstances will I allow you to see active combat in your condition, young lady."
"But-"
"But, nothing." Bismarck said sharply, ending the argument. Z-46 sulked, but Bismarck seemed well used to such things by now.
With an arm on her shoulder, and a final wave from the destroyer, Z-46 limped back into the armored depths of the flagship. When she was finally out of sight, Hipper asked, "How is she?"
"Doing better," replied the projection of Bismarck still standing on the side of her hull. "In her current state, gently feathering the line between human and ship, she's still light enough to carry and organic enough to patch herself up, while also still being machine enough to not truly feel the pain."
"Still," the battleship sighed heavily, "She's lost a lot of mass. It's not something we can just patch up here. She'll need to get back to the repair docks in order to tackle the major problems."
"Dammit!" Hipper cursed.
For once, Bismarck didn't correct her.
Zeppelin too felt a spike of guilt. She wasn't responsible for the girl's injury, not directly, but it had been an aerial strike that had crippled her. A strike that Zeppelin's fighter wing should have been able to counter.
And, instead the little destroyer, no more experienced than she, had already been crippled.
"To make matters worse, it seems the Abyssals are targeting many of our screening ships. Destroyers and light cruisers are getting hit hard, with many being crippled," Bismarck nodded off into the distance.
Hipper and Zeppelin turned around and saw, to their horror, Tennessee battered, burnt, and bloody, but still sailing. The destroyer laying limp in her arms, however, was missing everything from the clavicle up.
"Or worse," The battleship added.
"Worse?" Hipper challenged. "She's been decapitated!"
"You forget, we are ships, not humans," Bismarck corrected sharply, "You know as well as I that few things are truly lethal to us, so much as they can temporarily disable us. We are spirits of steel, something more than merely our crew, after all. When we get back to port, with enough time and resources, she will be repaired. Perhaps, she will even receive a refit out of it."
"If we get home," Zeppelin muttered.
The other two scowled.
"The fact is," Bismarck let out a heavy sigh, "We're being hunted by a Royal Battleship."
Ice poured into Zeppelin's veins, a cold weight settling over her as the pull of the Abyss grew louder.
"One bound to their hull. One we've never seen before," Bismarck sent a dark look out towards the horizon. "One much larger than I…"
"Larger than…" Hipper trailed off, stunned into silence by the revelation.
"Bismarck… if it's bigger than you… and when we can barely keep our own skies clear," Zeppelin felt an icy chill wrap itself around her heart, "...how do we kill it?"
Bismarck was silent. Zeppelin could feel her heart pound as the cold grip of the Abyss drew tight.
"So, we're just gonna keep running from it?!" Hipper exclaimed, eye frantic.
"We'll try, but…" Bismarck sagged, "even if we loaded all the skin-bound onto hulls, Mistral is… very slow. We'd never be able to outrun the Royal, not without leaving her behind."
"Then just-!" Hipper started.
Bismarck's eyes snapped to the cruiser and narrowed. Hipper froze then looked away, scowling at the ocean.
"Leaving anyone behind is not an option," Bismarck said, icily.
"Then… what do we do?" Zeppelin asked.
At that, Bismarck closed her eyes and sagged against her hull.
"That… I don't know."
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A/n Update 8/8/21:
Alright, well this is actually about half of the segments I'd initially had intended for this chapter, but I have this done now, it's nice and succinct, and it's about twice as long as I thought it would actually be.
Plus the content review for it to get approved didn't actually take that long, so you're getting a shorter chapter now instead of a longer one later.
Also because I want to sleep.
Hope you're fine with that.
As for the intimacy that occurs in here, I have a confession to make.
At heart, I'm something of a romantic.
Important to note, however, I find 95% of all fiction romance to be bland pointless "will they won't they" bullshit at best, and complete chicken shit at worst. Most "romance" tends to revolve purely around the opening acts of courtship. You know, trying to get the guy/girl. Then after the first kiss, *poof*, happily ever after.
Or just the two fucking like rabbits everywhere.
So I'm skipping to what I consider the good part, which is what you do when the involved parties are already in a committed relationship and how that plays out. Two people earnestly in love being together and in it for the long run, hell yeah, sign me up for that. I'm also skipping over some of the other points of "drama" like Tanya telling Visha the truth. That shit already happened years ago, I don't feel like wasting 15-odd chapters on Tanya's angst about telling her Paramore about her past.
Nah fam, shit's already sorted.
So, with that in mind, I wanted to spend a minute in this chapter having Visha and Tanya exploring their emotional intimacy. I find it way more interesting than just slapping together a few sentences about the two fucking like rabbits. It's also about Visha helping Tanya work through her stress and problems so she's in a healthier mental state, something that occurred often during the war. Then, of course, laying the groundwork the eventual meeting between Tanya and Nevada.
Anyways, let me know what you thought of this little chapter.
Meanwhile, I'm going to sleep.
And finally, here's the updated chapter 5. Chapter 5's big problem was that it was criminally short. It was one little scene that, while good for the character work it provided for Visha and Tanya, didn't really do much beyond that. As several people, including myself, mentioned, it felt like only part of a chapter.
So I sought to change that, and 4v2 gave me the perfect opportunity to do so. As such, it's got a scene that bridges the new 4 and the updated 6. Following up with Nevada after the fight and looking at her recovery. I'm not 100% sure how well I handled her conversation with the admiral, part of me thinks he should be more admiral-y, but another part things this is pretty much par for the course in kancolle, and most of me can't be bothered to rewrite the scene again. Plus, Guillocuda thought it was fine, so whatever.
However, that's not where things end. This is probably the most important rewrite for ya'll to read, even if you are caught up, because I stapled everything else to a truncated version of what was going to be chapter 10. It's actually a bit more complicated, given how many times I've rewritten the end of the arc at that whole...thing, but to save time I'll say that there's a lot of characters and perspectives introduced at the end of the arc and Guillocuda thought it was better to introduce them a bit earlier, and that these rewrites were the perfect opportunity to do so. Since chapter 10 already introduced the characters, situation, and was written, I decided to just shrink it down a bit and attach it to the rest of 5.
Still, I'll hold off on talking about that more. I could probably write an entire chapter sized post on the behind the scenes stuff going on with this chapter alone, and this A/n is getting pretty long already. I'll cut it off here, and leave you all simply saying that I hope you enjoy all the things I did with these rewrites. I really tried to do my best to raise the quality of this story up to the point where I could actually take some pride in what I'd built here. Given the audience it's drawn, I felt it was the least ya'll deserved.
Also, I had Tanya and Visha actually mention their engagement.
