Against the Odds (Kantai Collection/Worm AU)

[Wolf of the Sea]

January 1st, 2011
2:00 PM Eastern Standard Time

The sun was low in the sky, the seas were rough, and the bows of black ships that oozed evil and hatred dipped and rose through the heavy surf as they approached their launching points. Already, Battle Squadrons and Divisions, along with their attendant escorting formations were racing at speed towards their designated targets.

But here, two hundred twenty miles off the Northeastern Seaboard, a full twelve Fleet Carriers and twice that many Light Carriers maneuvered, their decks were loaded with dagger-shaped fighters, humpbacked torpedo bombers, and bulged-bellied dive bombers. Each one of the Fleet Carriers carried almost ninety aircraft while the Light Carriers carried around fifty and they were preparing full deck strikes, The rumbling roar of dozens of piston engines coming to life filled the air as the craft warmed up their engines.

Creatures skittered across the decks like insects, running final preparations and checks on armament, Gleaming black general-purpose bombs, incendiary bomb clusters, and rockets glittered in the evening sun. Signals went up as the aircraft had their preparations completed. Once their jobs were done, they settled into the gangways along the sides of the flight decks.

Together, the many carriers turned into the wind and the first aircraft began to race down the flight decks, then They lumbered into the air and began to claw for altitude. Soon, the skies were filled with a horde of aircraft that covered the sky like a cloud of aluminum and chitin.

This task force wasn't alone, there were two more task forces just like it within five hundred nautical miles of the fleet. They too were turning into the wind and launching their strikes, already though the Deep were striking against the stain upon the world that was humanity, for the many wrongs committed against them, they would be avenged come hell or high water.

The cloud of aircraft turned and flew into the west.

---

Brockton Bay, New Hampshire
Roughly an hour later

Taylor Hebert walked along the Boardwalk, heading towards the riverwalk. Her two best friends were walking alongside her. She had to admit, she was honestly thankful for that chance to encounter Madison a few weeks before the new school year had started. That being said, the feeling of foreboding that she had gotten for some reason wasn't going away.

"Something wrong Tay?" Emma asked, fiddling with her hair. It was still noticeably shorter than it used to be. A constant reminder of the incident in the alley. It made her uneasy. You always heard about people getting dragged in alleys, beaten up, or robbed by thugs, but those were always distant happenings. Stuff you read about in the newspapers or saw on TV.

"I don't know Emma, I really don't know," Taylor admitted. Again, she found her gaze sweeping out to sea, down the great length of the bay. For some reason, she felt uneasy.

"So you're feeling uneasy too?" Madison asked. She was, as always, the personification of innocent cuteness. It had surprised Taylor that the brown pigtails and cutesy dress hid a sharp and insightful mind. Madison was a good actor.

"I am, but I just don't know why," Taylor replied. The last time she had felt like this was shortly before a Nor'Easter had hit Brockton Bay in 2009. It was as if a sixth sense was telling her that there was a great danger approaching. A natural disaster.

"How so?" Emma questioned. Her tone was curious, but Taylor could tell that her friend was on guard. Something bothered her, and she tried to hide it from them.

"Have you ever had a sense of foreboding that something horrible is about to happen?"

"Yes," Emma stated. Her voice suddenly bore a hint of shakiness. Taylor winced and swore softly, she had likely just dragged up all sorts of unpleasant memories for her best friend. She knew from the sleepovers that they had started having recently, that Emma still suffered from nightmares and more than once had woken up screaming. "The…Alley".

"Sorry for bringing it up," Taylor mumbled. She hated it, hated seeing her best friend like this. It irked and irritated her considerably, and she just felt bad for not being able to do anything about it.

"It's okay Taytay, it's my fault for thinking of that foreboding feeling you just mentioned and my Dad's own damn fault for not locking the fucking car doors." Emma's voice turned more and more into a hissed snarl as she spoke, and Taylor couldn't suppress a sigh. Seeing how strained Emma's relationship with her father had become stirred something in her.

"I must admit, I actually haven't felt as uneasy as I do right now before," Madison spoke up.

"Why Madison? You're pretty hard to unsettle," Taylor noted.

"Dad's part of the Merchant Marine, and he told me recently that he's seen some outright spooky stuff. Channel Sixteen has also been more active recently, a lot more ships are getting into major trouble," Madison admitted and the other two girls looked at each other in confusion.

"Channel Sixteen?" Taylor and Emma queried in unison.

"Jinx," Madison said with a smile that didn't reach her eyes. "More seriously, Channel Sixteen is the International Maritime Distress Channel. Usually, a ship ends up in significant enough trouble to require evacuation, about once a week, but for the past few months, there's been a major spike, Before he went out on his latest contract…it's now up to about ten ships a week on average, about two ships a day. He's been hearing rumors that the Army has gone on heightened alert and that the Coast Guard as well as the PRT might end up under the Department of Defense if things continue."

"Wait, can the United States Government actually do that?" Emma asked, confused. "Like, I never really cared much about shit like that, but isn't that like the whole idea of the PRT that it's not some sort of supersoldier program for the Feds or shit like that?"

"I mean…," Emma paused. "Wha–why are you two staring at me like that?"

"How and why do you know shit like this?" Madison asked incredulously.

"Because –" Emma rolled her eyes and threw her arms into the air. "I browse PHO too. Have you ever spent two hours in front of a mirror being prettied up for a model shoot? It. Is. Boring. As. Fuck," she added with a groan.

"Actually," Taylor spoke up, "I heard that too. Like, obviously the PRT works a lot with other agencies, but they are kind of a mostly independent player. They are technically a paramilitary organization, but then again not really? It's really weird, Mom has ranted about it a few times."

"That's Taylor for you, She might be a dork, but she's our dork and never skimps on her research," Madison said cheerfully.

Taylor grinned, before admitting: "Yeah, I read up on that since I wanted to join the PRT when I was old enough. Admittedly, that was before I found out about the physical requirements to do field work."

Emma snorted.

"I don't get why you do such in-depth research for things such as the PRT," she said with a smile.

"Et tu, Emma?" Taylor whined, but her smile was playful.

"So what do you mean by physical requirements?" Madison asked.

"It's like in the military or police, Taylor groaned. "Among everything else, you need physical requirements to sign up. Like, with sports I can turn these–" she gestured to her stick-thin arms, "-- into some shredded monsters that allow me to do a thousand pushups with one hand while threatening to burst every sleeve I own…but my eyes…?" Taylor paused, trying to fight the downcast expression that urged to spread on her face.

"Like…it's never going to happen." She sighed. "My sight is shit, and I need at least 20/50 vision without things like glasses."

"I take it your vision without glasses is bad?" Madison asked. "Can't you do surgery or go to Panacea? Maybe you are lucky…"

Taylor shrugged helplessly. The fact that her vision was a major reason why she couldn't join was a major bummer. Sure she could get in shape to meet the fitness requirements, but there was no way in hell her family could afford the costs it would take for her to have the treatments needed to make her vision compliant. In many ways, it simply wasn't fair.

"You could always work on the civilian side of things, say bagger at the Rig gift shop and make your way up to the big leagues," Emma noted.

"True, but it just stings you know? I always wanted to have some way of making a difference, but I guess I have none." Taylor admitted. "Like, I don't want to sound depressed, but my chances of getting superpowers are higher than for this."

Emma sighed, and they continued their walk in awkward silence, until suddenly, a bright expression began to spread rapidly on Emma's face. Excitedly, she reached out with a hand and gave Taylor a hard shoulder swat.

"Ouch," Taylor startled. "What was that for, Ems?"

"Oh, shaddap and listen," Emma exclaimed. "I just had the idea."

Taylor just shot her a questioning look.

"Like, there was this dude a while ago. Do you remember him? Accord or something like that."

"...no?"

"Oh, well, it was all over the news a while ago," Emma snorted. "Like, some cape derives a plan to end world hunger, everyone ignores him, and he ends up publishing it all on the internet. Like, jeez girl, how could you miss this? Shitstorm went on for weeks."

"Wow," Taylor said, "but what exactly does that have to do with me?"

"Eez–"

"I think," Madison interrupted with a contemplating expression on her face, "Ems wants to say that you should go private. Work yourself up to make a name, start up your own business, and stuff like that."

"Exactly," Emma grinned. "You love traveling and you do love the ocean, so why not do something with that? Fish-farming or sailor perhaps? Pretty sure this guy's plan involves fish farming."

Taylor just groaned, before shooting them a flat stare.

"Madison, I might love the ocean and be a bookworm. But I don't think I can handle being on a merchant ship. I don't have the build for it, my parents would never let me work for a former villain, plus I am a girl."

Madison frowned. "So what?"

Taylor was just about to respond when something caught her eye, and she gestured for Madison and Emma to follow her gaze.

Further down the Boardwalk, near where it turned and became the Riverwalk, she spotted two of the Brockton Bay Wards. Little Vista with her dark green visor and full plate armor was instantly recognizable, standing next to the distinct silhouette of Shadow Stalker. She couldn't help but notice that the local broody antiheroine had undergone a partial revamp in appearance. Most of her costume remained the same, but her cloak had been replaced by a great black long coat. Had she finally caved in?

Before any of them could react, Madison let out a noise of delight and bolted towards the two Wards.

"MADISON WAIT!" Emma cried and immediately went after her. Taylor just smiled and followed with a shrug. Personally, she had never met Vista and finally getting to meet Brockton's littlest Ward was a nice opportunity.

---

Not far from Brockton Bay
A little while later

A United States Navy P-3C flying from Maine spotted wakes and closed to investigate, quickly realizing that the wakes were warships and began to scream out an alert over the radio. The radioman only got partway through the message before a pair of Loire 210 Floatplane fighters flashed out of the sun like demons. The pilots flying the twisted mockeries of what had been proud floatplane fighters had good aim, 7.5mm bullets riddled the cockpit, killing the pilot and maiming the co-pilot.

One of the inboard turbofans turned into a fragmentation grenade, shredding itself, the left wing, and part of the fuselage. The radio message terminated in a terrified scream as the Orion physically broke apart and plunged from the sky in flames.

But it was sufficient that NORAD was informed immediately; the size of the partial sighting report resulted in extreme measures being undertaken.

---

Brockton Bay PRT Headquarters
3:45 PM EST

Director Emily Piggot's phone rang, her steel gray eyes flicked up to Caller ID and her eyebrows rose. It was the Chief Director, Why the hell? She picked up the phone.

"PRT Brockton Bay District Director Emily Piggot speaking, what can I do for you, Chief Director?" Emily asked brusquely.

The terseness of the Chief Director's voice caught Emily off guard. "Emily, I just got off the phone with NORAD, In about two minutes, a National Emergency Message is going out. We have multiple unknown forces inbound on all three American coasts. Possibly Endbringer-related, Brockton Bay by all accounts is directly in the crosshairs of one of the advancing forces. You need to activate S-class procedures right now."

"Christ, is this confirmed?" Emily breathed, shock evident in her tone of voice. The only other time that a National Emergency Message had been activated in American History, at least on Earth Bet, had been when the Simurgh had attacked Madison, Wisconsin.

"For Brockton Bay? I am afraid so, I am looking at a partial sighting report that NORAD received from Bangor Naval Air Station that they received from a P-3 Orion, callsign Rapier Five-One, multiple warships spotted making at least twenty knots heading for Brockton Bay. We don't know what they are beyond warships with possible transports." Rebecca announced and something erupted in Piggot's gut, not fear, but fury.

"So, we have bastards trying to fucking invade the United States of America?" she snarled in a low voice. "Ma'am, we are going to activate Endbringer Protocols to get civilians off the street and meet these fuckers head-on."

The Chief Director's response had a quaver of fear in it. "Negative Director! One of the groups has a coherent estimate of numbers and types. Super Dreadnoughts have been spotted in that group along with what looks like transports."

Emily frowned, What the hell was a Super Dreadnought? "Chief Director, what's a Super Dreadnought?" she asked, confused.

"Something like USS Texas down in Houston. A battleship with an all-big-gun armament with a caliber of the main guns larger than 12 inches; an Endbringer shelter will not protect you from that for any meaningful length of time. If they got sixteen inchers, not even the PRT Headquarters would be able to withstand that sort of abuse for long." The Chief Director said and Emily gulped in terror, that was fucking terrifying.

PRT Headquarters were universally equipped with Grafwall, a complex tinkertech alloy that was renowned for its durability, to the point that it could stop a physical attack from Behemoth or a couple of lightning strikes from the Endbringer, and said alloy was usually sheathed in decorative granite and backed by at least two meters of Graff-reinforced concrete. Meanwhile, an Endbringer Shelter usually had graff-reinforced concrete to the tune of four and a half meters thick.

The fact that the Fourth might actually have the firepower to devastate such structures? Terrifying, absolutely terrifying. Fuck, not good, this was not good. Then there were the transports, transports could only mean one thing in terms of naval ships.

Invasion.

She knew the score and it wasn't a pretty picture. She had just fourteen capes at her disposal, about five hundred PRT Agents and the Brockton Bay Police Department had roughly fifteen hundred Officers and a small detachment of five capes affiliated with them. Then there were the Non-PRT capes that could be added from the Gangs and Rogues of Brockton Bay, which added something like twenty-five to thirty more capes between Empire 88, Azn Bad Boys, the Archer's Bridge Merchants, the Undersiders, Coil's Mercs and the man himself, Faultline's Crew, New Wave, various small time heroes, and villains; not to mention the unpowered people. It wasn't a lot, at most she could call upon maybe a hundred capes who could show up for sure given the short notice.

Then there were the military forces that were close enough that they could likely arrive in time to actually be helpful; to be specific the 197th Field Artillery Brigade of the New Hampshire Army National Guard with three batteries of M270s, useless in a short-range fight but might be able to do something about contesting those landings. In nearby Concord was an Air Ambulance Battalion also attached to the National Guard, they would likely have UH-60M Blackhawks, it wasn't much but it was a godsend.

There was a second National Guard formation that could assist, but it would take a couple of hours for them to mobilize and move out, and at least another two hours afterward for them to arrive. That unit was the 27th Infantry Brigade of the 42nd "Rainbow" Division, normally assigned to the New York National Guard that was entirely based in Troy, New York. Roughly five thousand soldiers, humvees, trucks, the works. Not the most powerful unit, but frankly the largest one that could mobilize the fastest and not drip feed itself into the charnel house that Brockton Bay was going to become.

The most powerful unit that would be able to assist but would take the longest to mobilize, consolidate, and deploy, would be the 86th Stryker Cavalry Regiment, but the component elements of that Brigade were scattered across the Vermont, Maine, New Hampshire, Connecticut, and Massachusetts National Guards. Most of the units were in the Vermont National Guard and at best, they were five to seven hours out, two hours to mobilize, and three to four hours to arrive. But it was another almost five thousand men and women plus a whole hell of a lot of vehicles.

There was additionally, the 157th Security Forces Squadron at Pease Air Force Base, which was located as part of the Brockton Bay International Airport. It honestly, was the largest source of trained military personnel who could actually fight worth a damn that was close enough that she could consider it available immediately, nearly twelve hundred men and women. Not the end of it, the last aspect that she could whistle up for support was a couple of companies from the 1st and 2nd Battalions of the 25th Marines, to be specific, four companies from the 1st Battalion and a company from the 2nd Battalion, essentially it was a scratch MEU, but a thousand Devil Dogs was not a force to be trifled with.

The problem was time. It would take hours for most of the support to arrive, which meant that for a couple of hours, the only thing that would stand between the invader and Brockton Bay was at most a hundred capes and five thousand men and women, maybe as high as seven or eight thousand. But with the reinforcements who could arrive here quickly, she could add on another six or so thousand to that.

"Crap, I am going to work with the Brockton Bay Emergency Center and the NOAA, get a Civil Danger Emergency out, and make it clear that this isn't something that the Endbringer Shelters will protect you from and that you're to evacuate. Please tell me that the Triumvirate is on the way." Emily said, there was a quaver in her tone.

The idea of the Endbringer Shelters not being able to protect you was terrifying to Emily. The equally terrifying thing was the fact that she might be staring at an invasion force dead in the face and she had nowhere near the forces to counter it.

Her heart sank with the Chief Director's reply. "I am sorry, Director, but enemy forces have been spotted heading towards Houston and San Francisco. Eidolon and Alexandria cannot reply to Brockton Bay and we don't know if more cities are in the crosshairs, Legend says that he's not going to be assisting other cities until he knows for sure if New York City is in the crosshairs as well. Frankly, we don't know enough about what this Fourth might be or if it can run more than three instances of itself."

Fuck. It was worse than she feared, way worse than she feared. Then a bolt of terror went through her. The Rig's shield didn't extend below the waterline, if this force had warships equipped with even shitty torpedoes, they could sink it. "Chief Director, I need to call you back, I have to coordinate the evacuation of the Protectorate Headquarters."

There was a long pause on the other end. "Alright, Emily, godspeed."

"Thanks, Chief Director, I have a feeling that I am going to need it," Emily said and then, after hearing the click of the Chief Director hanging up, hung up herself. She took a deep breath, keyed the intercom, and started giving out her orders as she went to crisis management.

---

URGENT - IMMEDIATE EAS ACTIVATION REQUESTED
CIVIL DANGER EMERGENCY
UNITED STATES PROTECTORATE
BROCKTON COUNTY EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT
RELAYED BY THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE PORTLAND, ME
3:50 PM EST SAT 1 JAN 2011

…NEW ENDBRINGER SIGHTED…

THE FOLLOWING MESSAGE IS TRANSMITTED AT THE REQUEST OF THE UNITED STATES PROTECTORATE AND THE BROCKTON COUNTY EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT.

A NEW ENDBRINGER HAS BEEN SIGHTED MAKING ITS WAY TOWARD BROCKTON BAY AT TWENTY KNOTS. IF WITHIN TEN MILES OF THE COAST, EVACUATE IMMEDIATELY, IF NOT, SHELTER IN PLACE IMMEDIATELY!

IF EVACUATING, HEAD AT LEAST TEN MILES INLAND, EVACUATE NOW! IF SHELTERING PLACE, HEAD TO THE INTERIOR PART OF YOUR HOUSE AND STAY AWAY FROM WINDOWS, TAKE COVER NOW!

ALL INDEPENDENT HEROES AND VILLAINS IN BROCKTON BAY, SOUTHSHORE, LORD'S PORT, PORTSMOUTH, DURHAM, DERRY, KINGSTON, NEW CASTLE, AND EXETER - THE ENDBRINGER TRUCE IS NOW IN EFFECT, HEAD TO YOUR LOCAL PRT OFFICE FOR TRANSPORT TO THE SITE OF ENGAGEMENT.

THIS IS FOR THE ENTIRETY OF ROCKINGHAM, BROCKTON, AND STRAFFORD COUNTIES IN NEW HAMPSHIRE.

---

1 January 2011
3:55 PM EST
Brockton Bay Boardwalk
Shadow Stalker

Shadow Stalker was stunned beyond words when she heard the words from the electronic speakers saying that the upcoming activation of the Endbringer Sirens was not a test. Then a new sensation filled her, terror and fear.

One of them was coming here, to Brockton Bay?! She swept her gaze down at Vista, who met her gaze, her eyes wide behind the visor of her mask. The radio crackled in her ears as Console started yammering out instructions as the sirens began to wail, the Thunderbolt Sirens that had been selected for the task of being Endbringer Sirens had such a haunting sound to them. The undulating wail sent chills down her spine and caused goosebumps to sprout across her skin even though her new greatcoat was very warm.

People on the boardwalk were starting to panic, There was a building tumult as people ran, trying to get to their cars or the parking garages where their cars were which weren't far from the Boardwalk. Fuck, this was going to turn into a disaster soon!

That's when Vista kicked her in the shin. "Ouch!" she hissed.

"Focus Shadow Stalker!" The brat said, her voice near breaking - a keening waver in her voice.

Right, she needed to focus, but she needed to get people to stop panicking so that way this didn't turn into a fucking stampede or something like that. Not for the first time, she was thankful that the mask she wore had tinkertech. It incorporated a Megaphone, naturally, it altered her voice, but still.

"THIS IS SHADOW STALKER OF THE BROCKTON BAY WARDS!" she roared out as loudly as she could. "PLEASE DON'T PANIC, EVACUATE THE BOARDWALK IN A CALM AND ORDERLY MANNER!"

Shockingly, people started to calm down, she repeated her orders twice more and then looked down at Vista. "We need to split up and make sure that the Boardwalk doesn't dissolve into chaos," she said.

Vista nodded. "Be careful Shadow Stalker."

"I always am, runt." Shadow Stalker replied with a grin under her mask.

"Stalker, this is serious! New Endbringer!"

"I survived Behemoth, I can handle myself squirt, don't worry about me," Stalker said, It was true, surviving Behemoth was no small matter even when you were on SAR. Thus, she liked to consider herself experienced.

"Don't call me that!" Vista snapped, it was an old joke at this point.

Console, Browbeat was on it, was still shrieking in her ears, something about regrouping at the PRT HQ. Vista snapped out again, telling Console to shut up because they were trying to prevent an evacuation from turning into a mass panic.

Was it hopeless? Most likely.

Were she and Vista going to at least try to keep things from spiraling? Yes, because that's what heroes did - she may have been an Anti-Hero at best when she was a vigilante, but the guiding hand that Assault and Miss Militia had provided during her probationary period had taught her otherwise.

She stared out to sea as she remembered what the alert that had caused all hell to break loose said, it was cast in darkness by the coming night. She gulped, fighting an Endbringer at night was quite possibly the most unpleasant thing imaginable. The battle against Behemoth that she had been part of had been at night.

The nightmares still haunted her.

Out in the bay, the glittering, rainbow bridge that connected The Rig to shore, and was colloquially known as the Bifrost, activated. It shone like a brilliant beacon against the darkening skies. The HUD inside her mask updated, information flowed across it and she swore.

She had work to do and the knowledge that The Rig was undergoing an emergency evacuation - there were things that it said about the incoming Endbringer. Very, very terrifying things about the new Endbringer. To be specific, the sort of firepower that it was packing, the Rig to her knowledge, was rated to survive a near miss from the nuke that the Soviets had hit Behemoth with when he attacked Moscow. That device had been a 25-megaton thermonuclear weapon, the largest weapon in their arsenal.

If they were evacuating the Rig….her thoughts fell away. This was terrifying, beyond terrifying. The Rig was one of the safest places she knew and yet, it was nothing before the might of this Endbringer.

She might have been known as the Honey Badger of Brockton Bay and was viewed as more of an Anti-Hero than a true Hero by the general population but she was thankful for her friends as well who had made her turn away from the path she had been going down. But when an Endbringer decided to come to town, unlike the normals, she wouldn't run, she wouldn't hide, she would turn to face it down because she must.

Even as she set herself to the task that she had decided to carry out, for the good of helping others. She faintly heard the rumbling of piston engines overhead and in the darkening sky as the sun set, saw hundreds of shapes hurtling across the sky, far too high for them to likely be attacking. But she hit the vision enhancement systems on her mask and zoomed in, She saw slung under the bellies of the aircraft, which reeked hate, what looked like fat bombs.

Shadow Stalker felt a sickening stone of cold, icey dread form in the pit of her stomach. Just the sight of those aircraft, slowly crawling across the sky made her realize that this Endbringer was likely more powerful than even the Three that were known.

There was fear at that realization, Shadow Stalker deep down wanted to panic, to run and hide. But she swallowed her fear after recognizing it was there, she had more that she needed to do. With this in mind, she called her sighting in and then got back to making sure that the waves of panic didn't spread.

She was really surprised when the darkening horizon suddenly bloomed in a brilliant orange, the flash caught her attention and held it. More flashes soon erupted in that direction and then came a sound, an echoing shriek that rapidly morphed into a sound comparable with a fast freight train, a heavy roar that rattled her bones.

Two hundred feet away, a building took a direct hit from what could have only been a heavy shell. The facade of the building caved in, then there was an explosion that blew out the entirety of the storefront and partially blasted the roof off. Then the shockwave smashed into her and she was thrown to the ground and sent tumbling across dry wood.

Many more explosions bloomed all around her after that, but some of the shells instead landed with extremely heavy thuds. One landed mere feet away from Shadow Stalker as she was regaining her feet with her ears ringing, the impact force tossed her to the ground again. As she scrambled up, she looked at the shell and laughed a dud. A fucking dud, hah, she was going to the lottery if she survived this.

Then she heard hissing and looked at the shell again, terror gripped her as a dark yellow-green gas began to flow out of the shell. She knew that color, having accidentally made some in her Chemistry class once at Winslow, which had gotten her in an interesting amount of trouble and earned her a lecture she never forgot. She keyed her radio and screamed five words to Console, not even bothering to address the message properly. "GAS! GAS! GAS! MY LOCATION!"

Then the Chlorine and another, invisible killer, began their insidious work on her, for her mask hadn't incorporated filters for dealing with poison gas, only smoke and riot control agents. A horrible smell that was a combination of cut grass, pineapple, and pepper filled her nose and she hacked violently as a metallic taste landed on her tongue while a burning sensation began to make its way down her throat and into her chest.

I've been poisoned. She realized and she could hear Console screaming at her, but she couldn't hear the words, She knew that she likely needed to get higher to get to an area with a less fatal concentration of gas. She staggered away, gasping as the yellow-green gas quickly began blocking everything from sight like a thick impenetrable fog made of pea soup.

She couldn't go shadow, the gas would just kill her faster by coating everything inside of her. Chlorine did horrifying things when it got wet, she remembered the lecture she had gotten and what it did. Going shadow would kill her much quicker she knew, but it would be even more excruciating than it normally would be.

She continued hearing explosions and screaming of civilians, along with the sounds of many people choking on the gas that was working quickly to kill them; they were guttering, choking, drowning. The shriek of shells continued around them, the heavy thuds of gas canisters landing and the earth-shaking explosions of shells.

She staggered towards where the buildings were, her chest and throat shrieking in agony from the gas. But she knew in her heart that her exposure was likely already approaching lethal levels. This meant that at most she only had minutes to live, choking as her lungs were torn apart by the poison gas that she was practically swimming in.

A ladder materialized in front of her out of the fog, she gripped the rungs and climbed up to the roof. She had just made it to the roof when she slipped, she scrambled, fearing she was about to fall when suddenly, something loomed out of the poisonous clouds and grabbed her before effortlessly hauling her up. For a second, she thought it was Armsmaster, but then realized that the Power Armor she was looking at bore more in common with the armor of a Terran Marine from Starcraft than Armsmaster's armor.

Out of the fricking fryer and into the fucking fire. She thought sluggishly, realizing that she had just been saved from going splat by a villain until the huge armored figure offered her something. A gas mask, a real one, who the hell knew where either Uber or Leet had managed to even acquire an M50 Joint Service General Protective Mask, but she wasn't fucking complaining. Grateful beyond words and thankful for the Blacava that she had made a habit of wearing under her usual mask, she lowered the hood of her greatcoat and pulled her Shadow Stalker mask off, The enormous armored figure slipped the mask on effortlessly and suddenly, she could breathe again.

Her throat and chest felt like it was on fire, but suddenly she could breathe again. That's all that mattered, She secured her cape mask to her belt and after a moment of fiddling, got the internal comm bead on the gas mask turned on and flipped it over to the Protectorate frequency bands so she could communicate.

When she spoke, her voice was a dry rasp. "Radio check, radio check, can anyone hear me?" she spoke.

"Thank fuck, you're still alive!" An extremely relieved-sounding Browbeat answered.

"Not sure for how much longer, I've been poisoned by Chlorine Gas. Encountered at least one villain, a member of Multiplayer not sure who, though, accepted an offered M50 gas mask that they somehow acquired." Stalker answered, her voice a raspy wheeze that made speaking painful as her lungs worked.

"Roger. Switch over to the Endbringer bands." Browbeat said darkly and Stalker nodded before doing so.

"Radio check," she said again.

"Reading you loud and clear, you're welcome for the mask by the way," Uber said and Shadow Stalker smiled, nodding at the villain.

"Same here, reading you five-by-five Shadow Stalker." A different voice answered, it was a PRT Dispatcher.

"Affirmative, status on Vista?" Stalker asked.

There was a significant pause, before in a solemn tone the dispatcher answered. "Unknown, her VITSIG stopped transmitting her vitals a few minutes ago, not a flatline, signal lost. Your vitals are looking very shaky Shadow Stalker, blood-oxygen concentration isn't looking great and you got an erratic heartbeat."

"Roger. What's the plan?" She asked, grief beginning to compete with the pain in her chest from the burning sensation of Chlorine that was working on her lungs. Shells continued falling, she could still hear the shrieks and rumbles of them along with dozens of explosions.

"At the moment, return to the PRT HQ."

"That will take time, I can't use my mover-breaker power when I am in this environment, not unless I want to coat my skeleton in Chlorine Gas and die in a patently horrific manner. It will take me at least forty-five minutes to get there, at best, with everything, at least an hour."

"Not good enough Stalker, We need you here ASAP. Brockton isn't the only place under attack, so is Lord's Port. We've received scattered reports of something going on in Southshore as well, might be another bombardment." The dispatcher responded and Stalker swore loudly to the best of her ability, that was the Bay's southern coastal district, about five miles away from her current position.

Suddenly, something to her south exploded, it did so with such fury that the illuminated light was visible even through the choking walls of gas. She realized that it must have been the tank farm for the Brockton Petroleum Terminal going up about three seconds before the thunderous explosion washed over her, the blastwave throwing her to the ground painfully.

She came up to her knees, hacking violently. A cold hand clamped around her abdomen and she was roughly tossed across Uber's shoulders. "This is Uber, PRT, I am bringing Stalker in. Best guess for the time until arrival, twenty minutes."

Then he started to run, She was being roughly jostled, but the man was moving quickly and effectively. "God, I need to close my eyes for a moment."

Uber pinched her, hard and she cried out in surprise. "Don't fall, asleep Stalker, otherwise you're dead," he growled at her and Shadow Stalker nodded as the words hit her.

"K-keep me talking Uber," she said after a moment, realizing that if her mind wasn't occupied, she would simply slip away. But before Uber could answer, even as the brilliant illumination from the fires of the burning petrochemical storage area grew and pulsed as more shells landed amongst it.

There was the roar of a whistle, the clanging of bells, and then in the distance, in the direction of the riverwalk came a rhythmic sound that she had never heard before. Then, in that direction, great upperworks appeared, a towering tripod, and the tips of funnels were silhouetted by the flames.

 

[Wolf of the Sea]

The Riverwalk

The echoing roar of shrieking shells, thunderous explosions, heavy thumping impacts, and the screaming of civilians was the first thing that Taylor heard as she came too as she regained her hearing after being thrown to the ground. After that frankly…massive explosion, she had lost track of what was happening. Now though, she realized that they were in an outright horrible place to be.

For one she could see billowing gas beginning to flow towards them as it was carried on the wind, but then something else began falling out of the sky. It landed with heavy crashes and she realized that it was fragments of steel, likely from the tank farm. They needed to get out of here, preferably before something large and heavy landed on them.

With an echoing shriek, another shell landed nearby and exploded, throwing her to the ground. As she scrambled up to her feet something else began to fall amongst them.

Burning fuel.

The globs of burning petroleum descended upon them, carving smokey trails through the sky as they did so. One glob though she tracked with her eyes had already reached the apex of its flight and was now descending with shocking rapidity. It grew brighter and brighter as it fell towards them before it was blazing like a star, then it landed, and hot fuel splattered.

She and Emma managed to avoid getting hit by burning droplets of fuel, the same couldn't be said for Madison who got thoroughly splattered mostly across her left leg, thigh, and calf. The cute teenager began to scream, she screamed and screamed and screamed - the sound tore from her throat as the brunette shrieked in agony as the burning fuel ate through the clothes where it splattered and started to turn the delicate flesh underneath first red then darker shades.

Another explosion roared in the distance as another fuel tank in the tank farm ruptured catastrophically. The hellish glares of the fire caused the incoming shells to glitter as they streaked down from the heavens with canvas-tearing shrieks. Around them, more oil fell from the heavens as they carved their trails through the sky.

Then something plunged into the river, for the water spalled white, and a plume of spray was thrown into the sky, the suddenness of the event caused her to drop to the sidewalk once again. The dry wood was splintering from all of the concussions that were crashing through the ground and they poked and stabbed at her hands.

"EMMA!" she screamed at the redhead who was only now regaining her feet and gestured wildly to the still shrieking Madison. Emma's eyes went wide and she lunged at Madison, frantically swatting at her trying to extinguish the flames as all around them the shells kept landing.

Another fuel tank in the petroleum complex either cooked off or took a hit. The flash was blinding in its intensity, a rampaging fireball billowing upward into a mushroom shape before fading away - but there were more white trails of smoke carving through the air led by burning droplets of fuel and pieces of debris.

"TAYLOR!" Emma shrieked at her and Taylor jolted out of watching the destruction unfold around them. Emma had managed to extinguish Madison and had roughly hauled the brunette up to her feet, Madison was clearly favoring her right leg with tears gushing down her face. The sound of her sobs was lost in the roar of the hell that was all around them.

Taylor threw her arm around Madison and the smaller girl immediately shifted more of her weight onto the ravenette.

With a stupendous crash, a piece of steel that was trailing fire from the burning fuel on its inside smashed into a tea shop just a few hundred feet away. The roof caved instantly and the facade of the building crumpled and peeled away with the glass shattering while flames soon began to shoot up through the roof as the extremely hot metal ignited the wood inside. The shockwave from the impact nearly threw the three of them to the ground in a tangle of limbs, which would have been extremely painful for Madison.

"We got to get out of here!" Taylor screamed at her friend who nodded grimly.

"If we can get off the Riverwalk and onto a sidestreet, the buildings should provide better cover from, from whatever is going on!" Emma responded, her voice barely audible through the buzzing in her ears.

Up ahead, a building took a hit, and a huge portion of the roof was smashed to kindling, shattered metal, and wood flying in all directions, and flames quickly joined it, ravenously consuming the support structure.

Where was the closest street? She couldn't remember, not with all the landmarks she used to help identify where she was in the process of being blown apart by shell fire, smashed by falling debris, set on fire from a variety of sources, or some combination thereof. "I don't know where the nearest street is!" she told her and Emma boggled at her.

"How!?" The redhead demanded as they slowly moved farther and farther away from the coast carrying Madison between them.

"All my landmarks I either can't see or they're currently in an unrecognizable state!" she snapped back and Emma paused but nodded in understanding.

A thundering howl built up, Taylor looked over her shoulder and spotted it arching towards them in an arc that seemed almost gentle, a projectile that was glinting an irrepensible black or grey in the light of the fires. Her eyes widened as she realized where it would land.

"DOWN!" she screamed before dropping, Madison cried out and collapsed as Taylor threw herself to the ground, dragging Emma with her.

The heavy roar of the shell became overwhelming and then there was a heavy whump as the round plunged into the Piscataqua River and then it exploded. The shockwave rattled her bones and wood shattered before her eyes as steel whistled through the air as the shrapnel from the shell scythed through the air.

"UP!" Emma shouted and Taylor came up to her knees, she started to pick Madison up-

There was an explosion directly behind her, pain went shooting up her back and in her mind, she suddenly heard the screech of a bosun whistle and then she was elsewhere.

---

A man with grey eyes and blonde hair was suddenly in front of her, he was wearing Dungarees, though his cap was gold and blue, and in white was the emblem of the Protectorate with wings to draw attention to it. Behind him stood two menacing triple turrets and a substantial superstructure that had a tripod mast.

"Ready to go ma'am?" he asked and Taylor supremely confused and thinking that she was seeing Death right before her nodded "Yes, I am," she said in sadness.

The man, who looked familiar for some reason, grinned. "You are not dead yet," he said.

Then she was elsewhere on the ship, a quick look around confirmed it was the ship's bridge.

"Sound General Quarters!" Someone shouted.

"Aye sir!" another man responded before saying "Bosun!"

"Bosunmate aye sir?" Someone, the Bosunmate replied.

"Sound General Quarters."

"Aye, sir!"

A whistle screeched a distinctive rattle. Then the klaxon howled its frantic cry.

"This is not a drill! This is not a drill!"

Sixteen Yarrow oil-fired boilers came into existence along with their accompanying systems. Pre-heaters kicked on, warming the bunker fuel oil which was then fed to the sprayers. Igniters kicked on and they roared to life as fuel was turned to fire to let the monsters roar. The steam generated ran to the Parsons geared turbines which began to spin up to deliver the 180,000 shaft horsepower her power plant could generate..

"Engineering manned and ready for action!"

"General Quarters! General Quarters!"

Three magazines with 375 10-inch rounds each weighing 525 pounds manifested, while men of all ethnicities began to furiously transfer the rounds to the hoists which raced up to be carried to the gunhouse. While high in the gunhouses themselves, some seventy people worked furiously to uncap the guns, seal up the turrets, and get the first of the ready rounds and ready charges into the loading trays.

"Main battery manned and ready for action!"

"All hands man your battle stations!"

Damage control lockers were banged open and equipment was frantically handed out to members of the damage control teams. Breathing apparatuses were secured to sailors who then raced to their assigned areas to wait for the inevitable counter punches that the enemy would land.

"Damage control manned and ready for action!"

"Set traffic down and aft on the port side!"

Up in the highest portions of the ship, men scrambled into the gun directors and began to peer through the various rangefinders. They were eager to call corrections and guide the fury of the main battery onto the foe.

Likewise, slightly lower down on the ship, additional men rushed to their stations to slew rangefinders and other directors onto the target for the secondary battery.

"Fire Control manned and ready for action!"

"Up and forward on the starboard side!"

The secondary battery, sixteen 6in/53 caliber guns in twin turrets materialized, and the big brawny secondary turrets tested their mechanisms as until now they had never been in existence prior to this. Shells and powder charges landed in loading trays and were eagerly rammed into waiting chambers where gun breaches slammed shut.

"Secondary Battery manned and ready for action!"

"Set Condition Zebra throughout the ship!"

Hatches were slammed shut and dogged with a rhythmic clanging sound as the ship was secured for the best protection against water incursion in case of torpedo hits or shell hits below the waterline.

"Condition Zerba set!"

"We're engaging a hostile surface force!"

Various smaller weapons ranging from three-inch guns to mere thirty-cal were prepared to fight. Shells were brought to mounts and belts of ammunition were loaded into the weapons. They would protect their fortress of steel from threats in the sky.

"Anti-Aircraft Battery manned and ready!"

"General Quarters! General Quarters!"

"All stations manned and ready ma'am, awaiting your order." The bridge talker said and Taylor looked down at the hat in her hands. It was your typical Navy Captain's hat, identifiable the world over. She put it on and as she did so, she knew.

She had been designed to hunt and kill cruisers, to tear apart such vessels and mercilessly pummel enemy battlecruisers only for her design to be condemned to the dustbin of history by a packet of paper before she could even be finished being laid down, strangled in the womb as it were. Not now. Not anymore. Now? Now she would fight.

For she had been born to go into harm's way - come all!
Ye hell or high waters be damned!
No lightning, no thunder, nor hurricane gale could stand in the face of her wrath!
But now her fury would cause the Enemy to shake to the core of their souls!

"USS Brockton CB-1!" Taylor began, before thrusting her arm out. "WEIGH ANCHOR!"

---

Taylor opened her eyes, sixteen boilers roaring their rapturous cry like some sort of ancient beast, her turbines were thundering. Then, she pushed off the shattered riverwalk upon which she stood and when she hit the water. It wasn't a girl that hit the water, it was nearly thirty thousand tons of steel.

The four enormous bronze screws bite into the waters of the Piscataqua River and she began to advance towards Brockton Bay. Without even looking behind her, a sort of spatial awareness granted to her by her myriad of lookouts told her that there was another, no, two ships behind her. One of them was another Brockton class large cruiser and the other was significantly smaller, a Benson class destroyer.

<<Hoist the Battle Flag!>> she ordered and within moments there was a screech of the halyard as a stupendous 48-star American Flag went racing up the mainmast as her enormous eight hundred-foot long hull powered forward at the fastest possible speed that she felt comfortable with. It wasn't flank speed, it was roughly twenty knots and she had to cover one and a half nautical miles before she could reach the much deeper waters of Brockton Bay proper. Thus it was almost five long minutes before she cleared the river meanwhile ahead of her, the enemy continued its bombardment.

<<Enemy sighted! Looks like four Canopus class Pre-Dreadnoughts and two Diadem class Protected Cruisers. But ma'am, they look wrong.>> A lookout said as her hull put the glares of the fires from the burning petroleum complex behind her and now with her Rangefinders and the binoculars in use by her lookouts free of said glare she could finally get a good look at the enemy.

Those were Canopus class pre-dreadnoughts and Diadem class protected cruisers alright, old ships. By the time she would have been launched, those ships would have been old enough to vote. Thoroughly obsolete things they were, but there was something wrong about them, the lines of their hulls weren't quite straight. the angles of their superstructures were not quite right, and the masts seemed off as if they weren't made of wood or metal. There seemed to be a glow of some color intermingling with the gritty coal smoke that gushed from the two funnels along with flashes of what might be teeth along the waterline but she couldn't tell for sure.

She shifted her gaze briefly over to where she knew that the Rig was beheld a horrifying sight. It had a terrifying list to port that gave the impression that it could very well capsize while the glittering shield that appeared to have been made out of gold frosted glass was completely down which meant that the superstructure had been brutalized by shell fire and that the structure was thoroughly engulfed in flames that roared high into the sky like a funeral pyre. As she watched - tiny figures leaped off the platform and into the water while davit lifts were slowly deploying lifeboats to join a small formation of the things already in the water.

One of the still-lowering lifeboats took a hit and shattered in an apocalypse of fire and fiberglass, undoubtedly killing everyone onboard and more shells landed amongst the other lifeboats already in the water. She snapped her rangefinders around and quickly spotted the source of the fire - destroyers, small things with far too many funnels, and a lot of small open gun mounts. British River class Destroyers maybe? Those things wouldn't stand a chance against a Benson class unless they got lucky with a torpedo and judging by the state of the Rig that was unlikely.

The Benson class that was with them knew it too, for suddenly it blasted past her accelerating up to flank speed, her lookouts caught a good look at her number: 425. The two 5in guns forward elevated and they each fired five times in rapid succession and high above the enemy, starshells snapped into existence. The enemy ships all seemed to universally recoil in horror as the much-improved illumination likely helped the enemy finally figure out what was emerging from the Piscataqua River.

Too late for them, she brought her rangefinders onto one of the Pre-Dreadnoughts and caught it in their deadly gaze. The ship's funnels belched thick gritty smoke and the water around the stern frothed to white as she ramped her engine RPMs up to max in a desperate bid to try and get away. Which was something that wouldn't help them, she was a solid eight and a half knots faster at flank speed than even their destroyers…a good fourteen knots faster than their Cruisers…and an astounding sixteen knots faster than the Battleships.

The enemy here was dead, they had been dead the moment she had gotten underway but just didn't know it at that time. Her forward turrets twitched and traversed, slewing her forward guns onto the target. There was a tautness in her arms that was begging to be released and at this range, approximately 7,850 yards, she couldn't possibly miss.

"USS Brockton, commencing combat!" Brockton shouted.

<<Guns, Commence firing!>> She yelled at her fire control chief.

<<Aye ma'am! Match pointers and shoot!>> Fire control replied and the six forward guns roared in unison as they fired for the first time in anger, the water ahead of her cratered from the fury of their collective voices as they spat 525-pound projectiles forth at over 800 meters per second.

Just under nine seconds later, the glowing yellow shells slammed into the Canopus class just as it was beginning to turn away. One landed just short and undoubtedly holed the hull below the waterline. The other five smashed into the ship proper, two appeared to strike the belt while the three remaining shells punched into the casemate. The 6 inches of Krupp Cemented steel that protected the belt and casemates offered no protection.

The entire horizon was illuminated in a hellish red and pink eruption of fire, smoke roared into the air, and fragments of the ship went high into the sky as the secondary magazine and quite possibly one of the broadside torpedoes detonated. The Pre-Dreadnought was violently ripped asunder by the blasts. Just the sight of it caused Brockton to grin wickedly as her guns dropped to their loading angles.

Shifting her rudder slightly, she allowed the second Brockton class, a familiar redhead to bring her own guns to bear. "USS Southshore, engaging!" the redhead roared and her own ten-inch rifles crashed in unison - the projectiles shrieking through the air, two seconds before they landed, one of the Diadems cut loose with a ragged broadside with its six-inch guns.

The corrupted shells landed all around Brockton in a very loose pattern that didn't even resemble accurate shooting. It was as if the enemy cruiser had just pointed its guns in her general direction before cutting loose with its guns.

Brockton's own 6in battery could bear three turrets, they commenced to ripple fire their turrets. The first flashes from hits had just started to appear on the enemy cruiser when her main guns came back up again, as they did so a 12in shell from one of the enemy Battleships slammed into her belt at a weird angle and broke apart amid an ugly screech and a shower of sparks.

A quick check confirmed that one of the Pre-Dreadnoughts had been lamed by Southshore's fire and thus Brockton left that ship for Southshore to destroy. Thus, this meant that there were really just two more Battleships to deal with that were in full condition. Which would make this utterly easy.

Another ragged salvo landed nearby, again judging by splashes it was six-inch guns, not enough to even threaten her armor plating. It could damage her upperworks for sure, but that was about it. A quick glance via her spotters and watchmen confirmed that the sporadic shots were coming from one of the Diadem class, one of which was already burning ferociously bad due to her six-inch guns laying into the Protected Cruiser with utterly brutal fire - it had flames shooting up amidships. Most of its guns had fallen silent with the hateful thing having a notable list to port.

To the south, there was a furious roar, a weird scream that sounded absolutely terrified, followed by a sound not too dissimilar to a blowtorch….if said blowtorch was utterly enormous. That was probably Lung making his displeasure incredibly well known, meanwhile, to the North a figure blazing in a blinding white light ascended above the buildings, Purity. The Empire 88 Cape fired at something, a beam of blinding white radiance shot towards the water.

This was followed by a rapid-fire series of purple, crimson, and pale blue energy blasts streaking toward the water in the same general area that Purity's shot had gone towards. The Empire 88 cape fired another shot toward the water, joining the fusillade of fire that the New Wave Legend Packages were unleashing. Sporadic tracer fire slashed upwards from the water in retaliation, however, also from that direction tendrils of smoke and flame were already rising and starting to slant in the wind.

BOOM! Her own guns crashed out a salvo upon command from her gunnery chief, the ten-inch projectiles, four of them smashed into the stern of enemy Pre-Dreadnought and exploded inside. The enemy warship's stern seemed to swell - before in an apocalyptic explosion the ship's aft turret, aft funnel, and part of the superstructure all seemingly leaped upwards as the shell plating vented fire and blew apart. The gunhouse that contained the two 46-ton guns went pinwheeling into the air as if it were a child's toy atop a tower of burning powder.

That Pre-Dreadnought was joined in death some twenty seconds later when Southshore's main battery crashed out another salvo and the dying Pre-Dreadnought blew apart in a cataclysm of fire and noise.

"Seems like there's something wrong with their ships today." A teenager's voice quipped over the radio.

Clang! Another shell, much smaller than the round that had hit her previously, a 6-inch most likely wanged off Turret I, the shell detonating harmlessly in midair, shrapnel pinging off her Special Treatment Steel construction and cemented armor, along with ruining several planks in her deck.

Southshore's secondary guns crashed out a salvo, giving the burning Diadem class its last rights, the ship violently heeled over onto its beam ends and began to sink.

One of the Pre-Dreadnoughts had its guns flash, there was an echoing screech from the shells that closed on her. Two plumes of spray erupted around her as the heavy 800+ pound projectiles crashed into the water, one of them actually exploded, the base of the spray plume being illuminated by a brilliant flash.

Ten seconds till her 10-inch guns came up again.

There was a brilliant flash on the horizon, just outside the entrance to the bay proper. The enemy rounds hurtled in, the sound was significantly different from the 12-inchers than the enemy Pre-Dreadnoughts had. The bass and pitch were much different, that wasn't a shot from a piddly little derp gun kicking an 870-pound projectile at likely around 650 meters per second...that was a very heavy shell going very fucking fast.

The shells hurtled down, the sound of the incoming morphing into a roar that made Brockton want to duck, and four plumes erupted in a loose bracket that hurled water almost as high as her tripod mast. That was ranging fire from a capital ship, a real one, and not a two-bit Pre-Dreadnought with a mere six-inch belt for protection, most likely a super-dreadnought judging by the sound of the shells.

<<Guns, I want illumination over that bastard!>> Brockton ordered as the horizon erupted again, she cocked her head at seeing it. Something about the gun flash hadn't been quite right for ranging fire.

<<Aye ma'am.>>

"Southshore, does anything strike you as odd about that ranging fire?" Brockton asked her sister, she wanted to know if she was just seeing things.

"Yes, that almost looked like full salvo fire from enemy Pre-Dreadnoughts, but with a much bigger flash. No one built Pre-Dreadnoughts with weapons larger than 13.5in and that flash looked way too big for even 13.5in weapons, about the only thing that it might be is either a Kerasarge or Virginia class Pre-Dread firing full salvoes." Southshore replied and Brockton hummed as her 6-inch guns began firing forward, hurling illumination rounds downrange.

To the north, there was a tremendous flash, that briefly illuminated the distinctive outline of another Brockton class Large Cruiser, followed seconds later by the distinctive crash of the guns firing. "Jesus! Is that a friend or foe?" Southshore yelped and Brockton grimaced, the prospect of fighting another Large Cruiser in waters as confined as this would be unpleasant.

But this still left the identity of the enemy unknown…then the star shells started bursting above the general location of the enemy. It revealed to her quite possibly the oddest-looking capital ship that she had ever seen.

"Brockton, what the fuck is that?" Southshore asked in a confused statement and Brockton echoed the sentiment…that was very clearly the hull of a Courageous class Large Cruiser…but the armament was completely wrong in every respect. That thing didn't have eight 9.2 inch guns nor did it have four 5.5s…if anything that thing looked like it had two turrets mounting a pair of 15in/42 caliber Mark I guns and the secondaries…she wasn't sure how to describe how that mount looked.

"Call it an Outrageous class, because that thing is just utterly Outrageous." Brockton grumped back over the radio after a moment, there seemed to be three or four of the weird Outrageous class.

"That fits the bill." A new voice answered.

"This is USS Southshore CB-2, identify yourself!" Southshore hissed and the other voice sighed.

"Is that any way to greet a sister Southshore? This is USS Norfolk CB-5, sailing in company with the flight deck cruiser Valcour Island and the light cruiser Bagnor." The new voice, Norfolk, replied and warmth bloomed in Brockton's chest, she had another sister! Yes!

"Who is Valcour Island and Bangor?" Southshore asked curiously as another salvo rumbled in from the Outrageous class. Her own guns crashed in salvo fire, six shells streaking towards the final Pre-Dreadnought, there was a large explosion inside the ship, and the vessel immediately started slowing and listing heavily.

"I am Valcour Island!" The voice from earlier said in a chipper tone.

"I am Bagnor." A new voice said, it paused and hummed. "Norfolk, we got enemies emerging from the vicinity of the Spruce Inlet near Portsmouth, looks like five or six of them."

"I see them, Norfolk engaging the enemy!" Norfolk replied and two seconds later her forward guns roared.

The horizon flashed again, shells hurtling towards them, Brockton scowled and gave an order. <<Ahead flank.>>

<<Yes ma'am! Ahead flank aye!>>

Her blowers roared as her boilers demanded far more fuel, water, and air to create the joyous steam her turbines began to hunger for in ever greater amounts. She seemingly crouched down and began to rapidly accelerate, kicking up a high roostertail as she did so, accelerating rapidly. Despite her size, she could sprint in excess of thirty knots for sustained periods. The water in her path was roughly shoved aside and frothing into white foam as she advanced towards the exit of Brockton Bay and the cold waters of the Atlantic beyond.

The incoming shells didn't even land in the same postcode as she was - throwing cataphracts of water high into the sky.

Behind her, something very large rose into the heavens, a draconic shape whose immense wings pounded at the air. Lung, the Dragon of Brockton Bay rushed forward at great speed, he very quickly overtook the accelerating Brockton and Southshore. He then swooped and dove at the enemy which cut loose with sporadic AA fire, Lung's immense jaws opened, and a cone of blue flame blasted forth.

The splash was considerable, it seemed like a full two-thirds of one of the Outrageous class caught fire. Its ammunition lockers exploded like demolition charges and the aviation fuel for the flying-off platforms ignited and detonated adding to the conflagration that was roaring into the heavens. With that much fire, Brockton wasn't sure that the ship would survive and even if it did…the odds of getting home with severe fire damage to the steel structure would likely be very small.

Still…all of that fire made for an absolutely brilliant target. Her forward guns crashed out in unison, followed two seconds later by the forward guns of Southshore as she added her own fire. 6,300 pounds of metal hurtled toward the enemy at supersonic speeds. The glowing tracers rose up and then tipped over and dove. There were at least three hits possibly as many as seven, it was hard to tell, but smoke bloomed out of the funnels and the ship came to a heaving groaning stop and started to list heavily, clearly doomed.

The enemy realized it and began to turn and run, smoke-belching in a thick gritty spew from their funnels as they began to accelerate. They had been holding station roughly three nautical miles away from the entrance of Brockton Bay. At flank, she could go 34.5 knots thereabout, roughly 105 seconds to cover a nautical mile, very fast by any stretch as far as warships were concerned.

She could go a solid two almost three whole knots faster than her opponents this meant that they would not be escaping. Up behind her, came Southshore who had also accelerated to flank speed and Norfolk was pouring on the oil now as well, her funnels belching a thick grey smoke. The sight of that much oily smoke caused Brockton to frown, Norfolk's crew needed work it would seem with balancing her boilers.

The enemy fired again, the rounds hurtled in and one connected with Brockton's belt. The armor-piercing round exploded on impact, pain shot across her stomach as she doubled over with a loud whuff, clutching her stomach. "Ow!" she grunted.

Overhead the Dragon of Brockton Bay roared his challenge and dove, he spat fire at the offending enemy ship and it erupted in fire as this time Lung made sure to ignite it from stem to stern in flames. Ammunition lockers and aviation fuel started cooking off, the ship was already listing heavily as she burned and started to sink.

Brockton turned her gaze on the last two Outrageous, they would not be getting away. With that her guns roared, followed shortly by Soutshore and Norfolk as they commenced a vicious bombardment to tear them apart.

 

[strictpig]

Interesting. I hope to see this continued.

 

[Wolf of the Sea]

Interesting. I hope to see this continued.

Click to shrink...

I have been writing this out for awhile. I am going to posting 1.3 in a second.

 

[Wolf of the Sea]

AN: Right, here we go everyone, we have seen some action…but things are now going to get extremely chaotic, for the Fog of War has cast its long shadow across the Eastern Seaboard.

Also, special thanks to @Sandy River DL, for allowing me to reuse the appearance of USS Lordsport (with a single slight modification) for USS Bangor.

---

Three miles from the mouth of Brockton Bay
USS Brockton CB-1

Brockton stared west at her namesake city, watching as the sky turned orange and red from the hellish flames that were ravenously consuming the tank depot. Every so often, there would be a bright flash as something cooked off. It frankly, looked like an erupting volcano or a rampaging firestorm, something that shouldn't exist in Brockton Bay, not here, not now. The glow was blazingly bright…thankfully the monsters that had caused this were either on the bottom or were heading there now.

But the damage had been done…her city, her home, Mom and Dad, were more than likely gone. A white-hot anger erupted in her breast at that realization, these monsters had taken absolutely everything from her. They would pay, they would all pay!

A hand placed itself on her shoulder and Brockton started, she turned her head and her eyes met those of Southshore. "You alright?" she asked.

"N-no, Mom and Dad and home are g-gone." Brockton wept and Southshore pulled her into an embrace, it was firm yet gentle.

"They're still alive, I know that they're still alive," Southshore explained and Taylor sobbed.

"Are you sure?! The DWU is in Southshore, remember? And Dad's still at work at this time of day and Mom is at the University of New Hampshire!" Brockton practically screamed and Southshore just applied more pressure in the hug, she buried her head into her sister's shoulder.

She didn't know how long she was weeping until she became aware of a pressure on her leg that caused her to pull away from Southshore and then look down. There was a girl, maybe twelve years old with long sandy brown hair and dark brown eyes. Eyes that at the moment were extremely wet with tears. But what really caught and held Brockton's attention was the getup that the girl, USS Bangor, she realized, was wearing.

Bangor was wearing a gold-trimmed light grey blouse paired with a brass-buttoned white bodice and blue A-line skirt coming halfway down her thighs. She also had knee-length stockings a few shades darker than the blouse and a pair of dark grey thigh-high boots with red feet and blue trim, along with rudders on the one-inch heels. Then, hanging off her hips was a mass of blue-grey steel sporting two plate-sized triple turrets, four twins on panels lower down, and two quad torpedo launchers on the inner surfaces of the panels. Across her chest was a shoulder strap on which a third triple turret was mounted with a semi-grip stock protruding from the back and a black and silver crystal ball painted on the roof.

Southshore immediately knelt, but strangely, she didn't immediately tumble head over heels into the water. Instead, it was as if she was on land. "What's wrong Bangor?" the Large Cruiser asked of the Treaty Cruiser.

"I saw my parents torn apart before my eyes by, by, the bombardment." Bangor sobbed, tears cascading down her face.

Southshore immediately hauled the girl into a hug and Bangor's eyes seemed to bug out. "Ack, too tight!" she wheezed and Southshore managed to look abashed as she slackened her grip.

"Sorry," Southshore muttered, looking abashed.

"No," Bangor sniffled, "I needed that, t-thank you. I just, one moment Mom and Dad were in front of me, the next thing I know, I am like this and they're just in…" Bangor trailed off and the tears came again.

"What's your name? Your real name." It took Brockton a moment to realize that she had spoken.

"Dinah, Dinah Alcott." Bangor, no Dinah said in a soft voice.

"I am Emma Barnes." Southshore introduced herself with a flourish, a curtsey really.

Dinah looked around at the others. "What are your names? Your real ones?" She asked nervously, her eyes flitting around desperately.

Brockton didn't do a curtsey like Southshore did as she introduced herself. "Taylor Hebert or USS Brockton CB-1,"

"I am Vacour Island, or-" The Flight Deck Cruiser began introducing herself before the small Cruiser's eyes bugged.

"Aisha!?" Dinah yelled, shocked and surprised.

"Holy fuckballs, Dinah?!" Vacour Island or Aisha exclaimed before a new girl skated into view and Dinah rushed to meet her. When they collided for a hug, it didn't sound like two people thumping into each other. It was an unholy roar of noise as if many thousands of tons of steel were crashing together at speed.

Southshore clamped her hands over her ears. "Was that really necessary?" she demanded of the two.

"Well excuse me Miss Curtsey, me and Dinah are classmates and now we found out we can kick daemonic ass together? Well, sorry for being excited!" Aisha snapped at the larger girl who promptly gained the expression that one might have if they unwillingly bit into a lemon.

Brockton broke out laughing. "She's got you there, sis."

Southshore pouted at her fellow large cruiser.

"I am Charlotte, USS Norfolk CB-5." The final large cruiser said she looked nervous, the blue and white Star of David that swung from her neck was probably a great indication as to why she looked so skittish.

Brockton opened her mouth to speak when the radio squawked in her figurative ears. {This is Rear Admiral Holloway of Lord's Port Naval Yard to the unknown naval task force, please respond.}

---

Lord's Port Naval Yard
Vice Admiral Franklin Holloway, Commanding

Vice Admiral Franklin Holloway, commanding officer of Lord's Port Naval Yard was not having a good day. First, he found out that a motor had blown up on the crane over drydock two while they had been attempting to lift a containerized gas turbine. This meant that they couldn't replace the gas turbine that USS John C. Butler FFG-80, an Earnest Evans class Guided Missile Frigate had stripped while attempting to chase down a Neo-Nazi tinkertech drug boat for at least a day while they did an engine replacement and then ran a variety of tests to make sure that they wouldn't overstrain the new engine with the lift. To call this irritating was an understatement as the SWATH Frigate was taking up a valuable Drydock that could be otherwise used to repair USS Hardhead, a Seawolf-class Fast Attack Boat that had slammed into a seamount a couple of months ago and had barely avoided going on Eternal Patrol given that drydock one currently held a merchant that had barely limped into Brockton Bay after it had been hit by a torpedo of all things!

Then he learned that his yard was going to be receiving a visit from USS Earnest Evans FFG-62, the class leader because she had the shit kicked out of her by something strange. Which, well, probably meant that she had been used as an unwitting target by a new Nautical-specialized Tinker who didn't know that fucking with the USN was always a bad idea.

That's when shit really decided to go to hell in a handbasket when the new Endbringer got sighted heading towards Brockton Bay! Great, he had a multi-million dollar guided missile frigate, close to a full squadron of multi-million dollar Independence class Littoral Combat Ships, plus a contingent of Pegasus class vessels. Plus a damaged multi-billion nuclear-powered fast attack boat and he couldn't get any of the ships out of there before the Kaiju-wannabe arrived!

Naturally, then the Endbringer had revealed itself not as a giant monster that could decimate heroes, obliterate cities, or obliterate cities and kill hope but as something else! That something else had taken the form of warships that had oozed hatred and malice as their guns spoke like thuggish brutes as they had indiscriminately slaughtered practically everything in range.

LPNY hadn't been as hard hit though as it should have been, the relatively small naval yard and base hadn't been as heavily focused on the busy container port just a mile or so to the south and the tankfarm down by the Riverwalk had gone up so spectacularly that Holloway just knew that place was going to be burning for weeks. Even so, Hardhead had taken a hit that had breached her pressure hull, she had promptly sank to the bottom of Grand Bell Bay with all the grace of rock, which meant she was a total loss more than likely.

To make matters worse, John C. Butler had eaten a high explosive shell that had blasted apart her forward superstructure and had probably caused her to shift on her blocks. If she had shifted then she was also more than likely nothing more than a total loss. Which was just fucking fantastic and then, as his PHMs were preparing to get underway to actually do something even as the PHQ cracked, burned, and flooded under a consistent hammering of shellfire and torpedoes, something else had galloped past LPNY, heading for open waters with a gaggle of smaller ships behind it.

"Rear Admiral, sir!" An ensign with a wild look in his eyes entered his wrecked office, dragging him out of his reverie of just how utterly screwed his career likely was since this devastation had happened on his watch.

"What is it?" Holloway asked as he gazed at the ensign.

"We managed to identify that big bastard that galloped past the Naval Yard to enter the bay proper." The man said, his voice shocked.

"And, what the hell was it?" Holloway asked, his nerves were shot to hell, America was at war, and he had at least two ships here at LPNY sunk…what else could go wrong?

"Sir, that ship that just blew past us? It's a Brockton-class large cruiser. One of the Cherry Trees from the early 1920s. We... nobody has the slightest idea where the hell it came from," The ensign stated and Holloway paused in his recriminations of himself because that was a very good point.

A ship whose keel had never touched the water or even been laid down had just galloped past LPNY and then blasted at least a dozen ships into smoldering ruins. "What about the silhouette of the ship that's down by the Rig?" Holloway asked the Rig had long since succumbed to its likely mortal injuries, resting fully on its side.

He couldn't imagine what it was like for those inside. For the floors and ceilings to suddenly become the walls and the walls to suddenly become the floors and ceilings. It would be plain and simple, utter hell. Particularly as the thing would be slowly sinking which would make it imperative to get out. The waters around the Rig were now a debris-choked choked partially burning hell.

"We've identified her," the Ensign said a frown on his face, "USS Madison DD-425, funny my grandfather served aboard her during the Second World War. Not the most experienced of ships, she never saw much surface action primarily on convoy duty or shore bombardment work. She was escorting the USS Los Angeles when she got torpedoed and sunk by the Japanese and pulled almost all the survivors from the water after she caused the submarine to fuck off. That earned her captain a Medal of Honor and herself a Presidential Unit Citation. She's probably rescuing survivors, there were close to five hundred people on that thing."

That likely made sense, but that didn't explain the light show that was occurring outside the Bay unless there had been enemies waiting outside of it. Plus those ships were American and Navy to boot. He took a deep breath and centered himself then considered what he had available.

Sixteen PHMs, eight LCSes, at least one Brockton class Large Cruiser, and an unknown number of smaller ships. He wasn't going to order USS Madison into combat, not when it would only waste the ship and abandon any survivors in the water. Assuming it was USS Madison, and not some sort of bullshit parahuman projection that is. Capes pulled the oddest fucking things out of their asses...

He shook the thought off and continued his thinking on what he had available. Cape support thankfully was confirmed given all the energy blasts, but Dauntless hadn't been seen, he had probably been on the Rig coordinating the evacuation when the shooting started and likely hadn't escaped before it rolled.

But this still left the situation at hand, Brockton Bay was burning, that much they couldn't fix easily and there seemed to be an engagement occurring off the coast. The air defense emergency meant that shit was immensely complicated, hundreds of fighters were in the sky defending America and the radiowaves were a convoluted babble of conversations, tally cries, kill and loss confirmations, and a hell of a lot of irritation over missiles even tinkertech ones having kill rates that were nowhere near what people were boasting they were capable of, close to twenty percent for the standard stuff and fifty percent for the tinkertech missiles. Usually, standard missiles had about a fifty percent kill probability on average and tinkertech shit had kill probabilities close to eighty.

Then there were the things that the fighters were seeing, ships bombarding indiscriminately and landings occurring. Rumors were already circulating that the strategic bombers were going to be running missile strikes soon…god help whoever would be on the receiving end of that. Boston was apparently a fucking smoke-choked nightmare that even thermals were having a hard time determining what the actual literal fuck was going on. The only things that they knew for sure were that the berths for Salem, Cassin Young, and Constitution were somehow empty and that something with the form of a Cleveland class Light Cruiser was burning heavily in the center of the brawl even as it fought on.

He wouldn't be sending his forces south because he wouldn't know if they would be reinforcing dead men or be completely unfucking needed. This meant either keeping them in Brockton Bay or sending them north and at the moment, given how Portland and Saco Bay were frankly shrieking for help. He didn't have much for forces at his disposal and thus he needed to choose his engagements, because if he was going to use up his assets…he needed to treat them like a currency, to spend them and not waste them.

But it would still be damn hard considering how those ships had crews who had families back home. Yet right now…he needed to trade lives for time for this situation to stabilize. It was something that he hated, but that he absolutely had to do.

"Someone get me a radio, I am going to contact the forces that might have just saved the Bay, as for the LCSes and PHMs, they have their marching orders, once they can sail, they are to form up with the task force outside the Bay and then the whole formation is going to sail north to the sound of guns at Saco Bay," Holloway ordered and then he began to try and figure out how to get air cover.

Wait, he had actually caught a glimpse of one of the ships, it had been the last in line and he had only seen the stern, but it had clearly been an aircraft carrier. A bit small, maybe a Bogue class, but still, it was an aircraft carrier. That meant it had aircraft and the ability to provide some death from above, more importantly even if the pilots weren't exactly night qualified, Brockton Bay was so enormously lit up that you could probably see the flames from space.

He needed a radio because LPNY didn't really have the facilities for managing a battle. He paused and then added. "Also, someone check to see if the Butler's CIC is still intact and if her connections for shore power are still good, we'll be able to better coordinate ourselves from there," he said as the flashes of naval gunfire continued out just beyond the bay.

The next twenty-five minutes were thus a whirlwind of activity as Admiral Holloway worked quickly to get a command center rigged up. Thankfully, he had learned that the CIC for John C. Butler was in fact usable, as were her connections to shore-based power. Her various radars and illuminators might have been completely destroyed by the shell hit she took, but her Blue Force Trackers and Datalinks were still functional as were her radios - thus she had connections to the Battle Network.

It was rather slapdash all things considered, but for the moment, it would work. The information that was being fed through this CIC as the powerful onboard computers started crunching the numbers and the data didn't provide a good display of things.

To say that things were bad was an understatement, enemy attacks seemed to be confirmed across every major waterway, with bombers being reported upwards of nearly two hundred fifty miles inland in places. But the force composition for all of these things was varying wildly, for instance, Philadelphia had been attacked by maybe two or three ships at most weight unknown while from what little they could parse, Halifax was being fucking hammered by what sounded like at least eight battleships. If there was anything left of the city by the time that these…monsters were done with it…he'd be amazed.

Then of course it seemed like almost every single small hamlet on the coast from here to NYC was screaming about being attacked. He sighed, Fog of War, he was positive that ninety percent of those hamlets weren't under attack, but it was just panic from all the shit that was flying around suddenly. But he needed to try and bring a slice of order to the anarchy that had fallen like a shadow across the United States, more than that, the people would need a victory on this dark day.

Again, he looked at what was going on across the Eastern Seaboard and sighed, this was going to be hell for sure. To make matters worse, the Battle Network was very patchy, which meant that getting even somewhat correct information was going to be hell. Still, he needed to cut the sortie orders for his PHMs and the Small Surface Combatants.

His eyes slid over a division of aircraft that seemed to be circling near the Ellisburg Exclusion Zone. He looked at one of the techs who had accompanied him to the ship. "What are those aircraft near Ellisburg?" he asked, gesturing to their dot with a laser point on the main strategic display.

"Give me a second sir." One man said, typing away on a keyboard for a few moments. "It's a section of eight A-10Cs from the 127th Fighter Squadron, call sign Warhorse. Armament is four AIM-9X Sidewinders, fourteen Hydra-70 Rockets, six AGM-65 Mavericks, four CBU-97s, two Mark 84s, and twelve hundred rounds of thirty mike-mike apiece. They are ready for tasking."

That was a tremendous godsend, eight Warthogs loaded to the nines with ordnance, including AAMs! He could use these A-10s to help clear the enemy out from Saco Bay, it was a damn shame though that they didn't have AGM-166 HVMs and just Mavericks, but it was better than nothing. Still, he needed to know what he had for the strange naval assets that had destroyed the forces in Brockton Bay. For that, he needed a radio, which thankfully, this CIC had access to for it was one of the auxiliary control stations for the ship.

"Get those A-10s moving towards Saco Bay, also have any capes landed at Pease AFB? I know that its a rally point for fliers in case of Endbringer attacks." Holloway said and one of the men leaped to that task.

He then keyed his own radio. "This is Rear Admiral Holloway of Lord's Port Naval Yard to the unknown naval task force, please respond," he said, his tone firm and commanding.

There was a pause of a couple of seconds before a young girl's voice answered, she sounded like she was fifteen years old at the absolute oldest. "This is Brockton-Actual, go ahead, Admiral, over,"

"Brockton-Actual, how old are you, over?" Holloway asked incredulously.

"Fifteen, sir. Ah, over." Brockton-Actual replied and Holloway felt like he was at his wit's end, ships that were women, no not women, young girls. It wouldn't be right to throw them into war, but at the same time, he needed those hulls to relieve Portland and Saco Bay.

I am going to hell for this. He thought grimly as he answered. "Roger, Brockton-Actual. Interrogative, state force comp, over."

"Copy Lord's Port, force comp is three Brockton class large cruisers, one flight deck cruiser, and one light cruiser, over," Brockton-Actual replied and Holloway made a few quick notes. The presence of a flight deck cruiser however was very surprising.

"Roger, Brockton-Actual, status on the flight deck cruiser? Can she spot a strike? Over." Holloway said, that was a solid formation, but they had no escorts, though his own ships could make up the difference for that.

There was a pause. "Affirmative, she can spot a strike, however, she only has F2As and SB2Us for aircraft. No night capability, over," Brockton-Actual replied and Holloway grunted, he knew that but thankfully he had a solution.

"Roger, launch the strike anyway. Once the attack is completed, all of the aircraft are to return to Pease Air Force Base, we can get her aircraft back to her in the morning, over," Holloway stated grimly.

There was a low groan from Brockton-Actual. "Affirmative Lord's Port, be advised, I am very much objecting to this, over."

"Duly noted, Brockton-Actual, the reason I am ordering the strike is due to what sounds like enemy landings at Saco Bay. Once the ships stationed here at LPNY set sail and meet up with you, you are to head north and engage the enemy forces there before commencing a bombardment of enemy positions, over." Holloway replied and there was a long pause.

When Brockton-Actual replied, there seemed to be actual heat in her voice. "Copy, Lord's Port, enemy landings confirmed. Valcour Island seems to be utterly furious, over."

Valcour Island was the name of the first naval battle of the United States Navy, which meant that it was probably the carrier of the group. Still, he could learn the particulars of what was going on later, right now he had an enemy to fight and forces to fight them with. "Trust me Brockton-Actual, so am I. We got a war to win, I am designating additional forces to you. The 15th PHM Flotilla and the 7th LCS Squadron. Sixteen PHMs and eight LCSes, I am designating you as fleet flag Brockton-Actual. Once you rendezvous with those forces, head North at best speed, over."

There was a pause. "Will do, Lord's Port, out," Brockton-Actual replied and with a click, the line went dead.

Right, that was handled, he had ships that were eager for action. Four Cruisers essentially, three larges and one light plus his own forces, short of the enemy actually having purebred capital ships at Saco Bay and Portland, they should be able to pull a clean sweep. Given what reports he was hearing, a couple of actual victories that they could parade around would do wonders for morale which was bound to be in the tank after this.

"Sir, Glory Girl, and Aegis just landed at Pease AFB. There seems to be an argument going on between the PRT and the USAF as to what to do with them. The PRT wants them on SAR and the USAF wants to use them for military purposes." An aide said and Holloway frowned.

"Contact the PRT and tell them to fuck off, the Endbringer Truce doesn't count here because the United States of America has just gone to war, which means the PRT has practically no say in what happens with Aegis. They should recognize that the PRT's own charter states that should America ever go to war the Protectorate and all Wards who are seventeen years of age will come under the purview of the Department of Defense. As far as I am concerned, World War III might have just started and they're trying to politic their way through this. Tell whoever the fuck is deciding to be pedantic to back the fuck off unless they want to get arrested and face charges." Holloway snarled angrily, he didn't need this.

"That will give us Aegis sir in our chain of command, but what about Glory Girl?" The aide continued.

"Give her the option to join Aegis, they are to launch a strike towards Saco Bay," Holloway said grimly, the two Alexandria packages could each lift a single Mark 84, in the grand scheme of things it wasn't much. But they would have an immense ability to evade enemy defensive fire and could basically drop the thing wherever they pleased.

Another man suddenly looked at Holloway, the expression on the man was the sort one might have if they survived getting punched in the face by Alexandria. "Sir, orders from on high, there's going to be a Roman Candle strike on Dover AFB, a flier operating out of Fruitland Maryland has confirmed that there's a major enemy landing in progress and that the base appears to be overrun."

Holloway's eyes bugged out in shock, when it came to tactical brevity codes, hearing the words Roman Candle, while it sounded innocuous, meant only one thing. "How many missiles and what's the yield?"

"Eight missiles, 150 kilotons each. They're aimed at Dover Delaware, Dover AFB, Pickering Beach, Kitts Hummock, and the area near the Port Mahon Fishing Pier. Two for Dover, three for Dover AFB, one for Kitts Hummock, one for Pickering Beach, and one for the Port Mahon Fishing Pier." The same man said, sounding sick to his stomach.

Holloway didn't blame him, they were going to be launching a nuclear strike on their own soil. Things had gone to complete shit maybe an hour ago, maybe, which meant that whatever was landing near Dover Delaware must have been very nasty.

All that Holloway could think however was that this was going to get way worse before it got better. Still, he hated the thought of sending the only Alexandria Package that the Wards had into combat against what could be best described as monsters from the abyss of the ocean. They had risen out of nowhere and hadn't even offered terms, they had just opened fire without regard to civilian or military targets, firing even chemical shells into civilian targets.

This war he realized, was going to be a hateful, bitter fight to the throat.

 

[Sandy River DL]

Wow. When you said you were going to crosspost, I didn't expect you to yolo yeet it.

 

[Wolf of the Sea]

AN: Once again I am amazed at the reception that Against the Odds has been receiving. This has been amazing to see.

---

"Hell no, we didn't see it coming. The Directors, the Triumvirate… Quzilqurt, I don't think even the Allah-damned Simurgh knew what was about to happen until the whole world got set on fire." - Miss Militia, Brockton Bay Protectorate
​

---

USS Brockton

Brockton watched as Valcour Island turned into the wind, the flight deck on the cruiser was stacked with Vindicator dive bombers and Buffalo fighters, as the mighty roar of their radial engines as they warmed up echoed across the water. Then, the aircraft began to accelerate down the runway. Minimum distance take-offs, she was rolling a Vindicator every forty-five seconds. It was impressive to watch as the navy blue dive bombers lumbered into the heavens.

"Valcour Island?" Brockton called to her as the Vindicators continued launching.

"Yes?" The flight deck cruiser asked.

"What ordnance are you slinging on your Vindicators?" Brockton asked.

"A mix of thousand pounders and five hundred pounders, I don't have any sixteen hundred pounders unfortunately. Those fucking things would smash their way through fucking anything." Valcour Island said irritably, it was admittedly a bit difficult to make out the features of her rig.

"Not a fan of doing a strike at night?" Bangor asked her friend.

"Not particularly, my pilots aren't trained for doing battles at night and then there's the fact that they're not going to be returning to me after they're done." Valcour Island replied and Brockton frowned at those words.

"Sounds like someone is a mother hen to her pilots," Southshore said and Valcour Island glowered.

"Am not!" She snapped.

"Yes, you are," Southshore replied smiling and clearly having fun.

Brockton did her best to ignore the banter of the two cruisers as her lookouts reported that the naval forces based at Lord's Port Naval Yard were clear of Brockton Bay and were maneuvering to join up with them. The Littoral Combat Ships were sleek trimarans that radiated speed, grace, and power - behind them came the significantly smaller PHMs, small little hydrofoils.

"Brockton-Actual, this Water Witch-Actual, flagship of the LCS Squadron, moving to rendezvous, over." A man's voice blared through her radios.

"Affirmative Water Witch-Actual, be advised, Valcour Island has just about finished launching her strike. Once she's finished securing from air ops, we can head north, what's your maximum possible speed, over?" Brockton said she was unfamiliar with the Independence class LCS and its capabilities.

"Maximum speed at flank for my LCSes is thirty-eight, repeat three-eight knots. The PHMs can manage forty-eight, repeat four-eight knots at flank while foilborne, over." Water Witch-Actual replied and Brockton nodded, that was plenty fast though her fastest ship could only manage about thirty-three knots, granted if she were loaded light then she might be able to run with the LCSes at flank. That being said, the PHMs would absolutely leave her in the dust, which was saying something since she could probably crowd thirty-six knots herself.

"Roger Water Witch-Actual, be advised, slowest ship flank speed is thirty-three, repeat three-three knots, over," Brockton replied as she caught sight of a blinker light on Valcour Island flashing at her, it took her a second to decipher the flashes.

[Brockton, Valcour Island, air operations completed with all birds launched. I am flushing Avgas lines with CO2 now, Let's go kick some ass.] The message said and Brockton allowed a smile to spread across her features.

"Affirmative Brockton-Actual, over."

"Water Witch-Actual, be advised, assume defensive formation, Valcour Island just finished air operations and she's flushed her lines with CO2, we're good to move out," Brockton said and she smiled grimly, she had work to do and it was going to be oh so much fun smashing the enemy flat.

<<Ma'am, might I recommend that when we get underway we use emission controls?>> One of her fairies, a man who in another life would have been her captain during the Second World War asked.

Brockton thought about it, before nodding. <<Good idea, we will assume radio silence once we head for Saco Bay.>> she told him.

"Affirmative Brockton-Actual, let's head into harm's way." Water Witch Actual replied and Brockton nodded before hitting the TBS.

"All ships weigh anchor and set sail for Saco Bay. As of now, we're under emission controls." She ordered her formation before passing orders to her crew. Her blowers roared as the amount of fuel and air reaching her boilers increased exponentially and as such, so did production of steam which rushed to her turbines which joyfully accepted the offering. Her screws spun faster, and the water before her split as she accelerated up to speed.

The flames that roared into the sky from Brockton Bay began to move to the south as she started her long sprint north. Thirty-three knots wasn't the fastest that she could manage, nor could her hull sustain these speeds for long periods. But for a brief jaunt up to Saco Bay was something that she could very much do and it wouldn't even strain her turbines too much either. Still, it was forty-five miles to Saco Bay, and at her flank speed, it would take her assembled force a little over an hour to reach it. That might seem like a long time, but as far as the military was concerned - an hour wasn't very long. Any information that they got on the attacking forces would be considered immediate, actionable intelligence.

Regardless, deep, deep down, there was something that had been stirred within Brockton. A primal fury at enemy boots on the sovereign soil of the United States of America. It was something that in her opinion shouldn't be able to stand and it wouldn't stand as long as she was alive.

She caught a glimpse of a flashing signal light from one of the ships, it took her a second to realize it was Norfolk who was flashing that light at her. [Brockton?] she flashed nervously. Huh, she hadn't even known that there was Morse code for question marks. The fact that she could even determine that Norfolk was nervous was honestly, rather strange.

[Yes Norfolk, what's wrong?] she blinked back.

[Scared, Brockton, I am scared. Why did this happen? Who chose it to happen?] Norfolk asked if the jerkiness in the light surprised her. It wasn't exactly smooth, maybe her emotions were affecting her crew?

[I have no idea who decided to cause this nor do I know why they did so. I wish that I did though, it would make directing my anger easier.] Brockton replied truth be told, she was also scared but she didn't want to tell those under command, because she feared that it would disrupt command if they knew that she was scared. After all, who would follow someone who was scared into battle?

[I just wish that Bangor hadn't seen her parents die before her eyes. That's…that's horrifying, but the worst part is that I am also very distrustful of her.] Norfolk said and Brockton paused, why the hell was Norfolk distrustful of Bangor because it made no sense.

[Explain.] she practically demanded.

[I am Jewish, remember? I've always been distrustful of those who aren't part of the local community because of fucking Empire 88.] Norfolk seemingly snapped at her if the rapidity of the blinks were anything to go off of.

[Are you distrustful of me?] Brockton asked back, hoping to try and make sure that Norfolk wasn't a wildcard.

[A little, but that's because I don't know how you stand on Jews.] Norfolk replied, almost skittishly.

[Jews? Norfolk, I have no problems with you being Jewish, if I did then Mom would kill me very slowly. Now, want me to punch out Hookwolf with 180k shaft horsepower?] Brockton said, hoping that she made her stance clear.

The light flickered erratically for several seconds after that, Brockton realized that she could very faintly hear over the sound of the water and the wind from her motion forward, laughter. Then the light resumed normal blinking. [As long as I can record it, you have a deal.]

Brockton allowed a smile to grow across her face. [Can do.]

---

Hannah Washington

Flames crackled in her ears.

Smoke choked her lungs.

Copper filled her mouth.

Spots danced in her eyes.

Heat blistered her skin.

Despite this, she swam, pulling Shawn along with her as she kicked feverishly in the hellish burning water. It was almost paradoxical, water should not be able to catch fire. Yet that's what was happening here, that's what she was swimming through, a sea of burning water.

Each kick sent jolts of pain up her legs and each painful breath caused the ache in her chest to intensify it seemed. She spat to try and get the taste of copper out of her mouth and a crimson glob came out, she shuddered. No wonder her mouth and throat tasted of copper, there was blood in them. More than that, she struggled to keep both her head and the head of the person she was trying to save above water even though said water was actively on fire.

"Let me go, Hannah!" Shawn demanded of her.

"I won't!" She sniped back, and she could see the ship with 425 on the bow, men were manning hoses and working furious to attack the flames around them and nets were clearly in the water. Tiny figures coated in oil climbed up those nets while others which seemed to be on fire were physically dragged up on deck with ropes and life rings.

"Hannah, you are barely able to stay on the surface as it is… you're not going to be able to make it to that ship," Shawn grunted as a swell washed over both of them, her eyes started burning as oil got into them.

"I am not letting go!" Hannah practically screamed at him, she wouldn't let go, and she couldn't bear the thought of losing Shawn to the deep blue sea. She'd lost too many people to things she could have saved them from. Her childhood friends just mangled corpses in the sand due to the minefield they'd been forced to walk through by fucking Turks. They couldn't escape it either due to the barrier troops they had placed who would shoot at them.

"I am not asking, since I can't feel my legs thus I doubt that I can climb up the net," Shawn replied calmly, she wouldn't let him go.

"Then they'll haul you aboard!" she snapped, she could see the men hauling lines along the ship's side.

Something thumped against her legs as she kicked trying to drag her fellow hero to the ship that was working furiously to rescue oil-covered people from the burning waters before the fires got them all. Then it snagged her and something wrapped around her leg!

Shit. Hannah thought having just enough time to draw in a deep breath before the thing, likely a rope from the Rig snared her and tightened around her leg. She thrashed her legs trying to get the rope to come loose, for it to let her go but all her actions managed to do was seemingly tangle herself even more!

"Help!" she screamed loudly, trying to get the attention of the ship, but over the roar of the flames, she couldn't be heard even as she screamed again and again in desperation. It was unbecoming of a hero, she knew, but she wasn't Miss Militia right now, not since her mask had slipped off, she was just Hannah.

Shawn was reaching for something on his belt, his hands scrabbling at something just out of sight.

I am going to die here. Hannah realized she couldn't get free, not without letting go of Shawn who couldn't hope to even tread water if he had no feeling in his legs and she knew from experience that he couldn't float on his back, like, paradoxically she could. She didn't want to abandon him and couldn't bear the thought of letting go for even a few minutes to work herself free. Not when he couldn't still swim.

Tears stung her eyes as the flames seemed to roar ever higher, the thunderclap of detonations from the burning tank farm. The acrid fumes burned her nose as she desperately tried to get free even as a burning sensation began to ravage her due to the heat. She couldn't think of any way that she could get out of this one, no way that would see her not dying tangled in a line that she couldn't see and probably wouldn't be able to find.

She looked fornlorningly out at the ship with the big bold number on its prow with a sense of longing. Safety was so close she could practically taste it and yet, because she had gotten tangled, she would never reach it.

She'd been to Simurgh fights, she had seen the effect that the bitch had on people and how she killed. Hannah couldn't help but wonder if this was what it was like to be on the receiving end of her cruelty, to see safety so close and yet have it be an impossible distance. It was taunting her, tormenting her, to know that salvation was so close and yet out of her grasp.

She could die either to the flames or to the water now…it caused her to sob quietly. The shells were no longer falling, but the aftermath was still killing people.

Suddenly there was a knife in Shawn's hands, where the hell had he gotten that? Was the first thing that crossed Hannah's mind. Then the crippled man spoke up. "Let me go, Hannah," he said firmly.

For a moment, Hannah's mind blanked in shock. "Why?" she asked through the searing pain, her vision turning foggy and red.

"To cut the rope," Shawn said plainly.

Hannah couldn't believe her ears. "But you'll die!"

To her shock and amazement, Shawn despite the pain that he must have been feeling grinned. "We're heroes Hannah, putting our lives at risk to save others is part of business. Remember what Velocity said about the motto of the Pararescue Jumpers?" he said simply and Hannah nodded meekly.

"Y-yes, its 'so others may live' right?" Hannah asked, well aware that her energy had been largely sapped trying to break free of whatever had ensnared her.

"That's it, it means that you will sacrifice your own life so that others may live," Shawn said and with that, he wrenched himself out of Hannah's grip, and before the Kurdish-American could scream at Shawn to not do it, he slipped under the water.

She could feel him working his way down to whatever had ensnared her. Then she felt whatever had her shifting as if it was being cut, it must have been thick for it continued for several long moments and then suddenly, the sensation of restraint vanished. Free! She was free!

Shawn didn't come up.

He didn't come up.

No! No!

She sobbed as she realized that Shawn had known he likely wouldn't be able to come back up if the rope was as thick as it must have been. And yet, he had done it anyway…

She began to honestly cry in despair at her teammate's sacrifice, but despite the tears in her eyes, she knew that she couldn't allow his death to be in vain. She turned, rolling onto her back, and began to really swim towards the strange ship that stood like a rescuing angel amongst the flames.

Despite the pain coursing through her body as she paddled through the burning waters, she eventually got within earshot of the ship and heard voices of the men on deck start shouting words of encouragement and helping guide her in.

The hull loomed above her like an ancient titan…its guns were gleaming and men in khaki uniforms lined the rails.

Climbing the net was an exercise in agony and pain, her hands and feet were slick with oil and water, which made getting a grip difficult, and by some miracle, she didn't fall. As she got up close to the railing, hands slipped under her arms and she was physically hauled aboard and then deposited on something.

"Jesus Christ, Corpsman! Corpsman!" Someone shouted as she looked around, the ship she was on had a fine collection of weapons that she could see. A warship, this was a warship, an old one at that.

Where had it come from? Brockton Bay didn't have any naval museums. She was about to ask where this ship had come from when suddenly the world grew dim and she felt very weak.

"Quickly! To the Wardroom!" someone shouted.

Then nothing.

---

Radiant
Saco Maine

Radiant swore and ducked as faceless soldiers wearing tattered uniforms fired a ragged volley from their rifles, it was answered by sustained automatic fire from the MP5s. The report of the submachine guns sounded weak and pathetic against the heavy crashing of their bolt action rifles and the rhythmic clacking of their actions after every shot.

"Advance! Heavy support will be here in a moment!" A PRT officer shouted and fired off a burst from his submachine gun.

Radiant bolted out of cover, power glowing in her hands as she moved. Gunfire ripped through the air as she ran towards the next car that was some twenty feet closer to the enemy. Ruined buildings and fires were everywhere as shells kept falling. She fired a bolt of energy, her blaster power didn't grant her an ability that had a lot of explosive or penetrative capability, but had a lot of concussive force.

The blast struck one of the figures that she could just barely make out and hurled it to the ground even as something vroomped past her ear amidst the constant crackling of gunfire. She retaliated with two more shots in rapid succession as she slid into cover. Though she had no idea where those went.

She checked her surroundings just in time to see a PRT trooper get hit, the bullet caved the faceplate, snatched the man off his feet, and tossed the corpse to the ground. She resisted the urge to throw up like she had when Austerity had been shredded beyond recognition by a grenade. She looked away from the body and threw another energy blast down range.

Gunfire rattled in response, and the car shuddered amidst an alarming series of bangs, as the enemy bullets ripped into it. She poked out and fired a bolt of energy and immediately ducked back as more gunfire crashed into her cover, one bullet succeeding in piercing all the way through. She leaped back from the sudden hole in the door with a yelp of terror.

"GRENADE!" someone screamed and Radiant threw herself to the ground and something clattered to her right before detonating with a hellish roar. Shrapnel whistled through the air hellishly, pinging off the ground and steel.

Braap! Automatic gunfire now screamed up the street.

"That's a fucking DP!" someone shouted, as more bullets screamed through the air and MP5s chattered in response to the automatic weapon beginning to lay down its storm of steel.

Going to die here. Was the first thought that came to Radiant's mind as she stuck out of cover and fired another bolt of light, this time she faintly heard a high-pitched cry of pain that didn't quite seem human.

In response, the automatic weapon checked its fire on whatever it had been suppressing and shifted its attention to her. The alarming noise that came from the car as heavy bullets tore into the metal was absolutely deafening, it drowned out all other noise that she could hear.

Behind her, she heard the roar of a diesel engine and looked over her shoulder just as a heavy response PRT truck raced around the corner, the six barreled weapon on its roof fired with a sound that a horrific combination of an electric motor and a continuous roar, the weapon belching a jet of flame nearly as long as her arm. The relief was immensely gratifying as the gunfire ceased and she rolled out of cover, her hands glowing and Radiant advanced.

The enemy was swept aside by the murderous fire being put out by the PRT vehicle, the minigun was sweeping what looked like laser beams across anything that shot at them. Enemies shattered and came apart under the hammer blows which when joined with her energy pulses made the advance all the easier.

Off in the distance, a low rumble combined with a really weird noise began and steadily got louder, though Radiant didn't notice at first. But someone else did.

"I don't like the sound of that." A PRT trooper said as Radiant fired a bolt of energy that partially caved the skull of an enemy.

"Why's that?" Radiant asked, they were winning! What was there to be concerned about?

"Because that sounds like a tank and I don't know how the fuck we're going to kill it." The man said sharply.

"Blaster here, I can handle it," Radiant said, confident in her abilities as a cape as she hurled another bolt of light down range. However, there were slim pickings for targets as that PRT vehicle was putting them all in graves.

"If you say so." The PRT man said as he fired a burst, joined an instant later by the minigun spewing death.

The grinding, clattering, and clacking of the tank grew louder and louder as if it was getting closer. She was a cape, no need to worry about it.

Two minutes later, rising out of a shell crater it rumbled up. A huge metal beast seemed to climb ever higher into the air before a tipping point was reached and it slammed onto the ground, riding on its suspension the vehicle approached.

The minigun roared and red tracers pinwheeled off its armor like rain amidst an utterly deafening racket even as the truck shifted into reverse and began backing up frantically. Radiant called upon her power and fired.

The bolt of orange light slammed into the tank and didn't even phase it. She fired again and again, the bolts simply shattered upon its black chitin armor as it calmly rotated its turret, and well, a three-inch gun didn't seem that big… until you stared down the business end of it.

Ka-wham! Flame and smoke blasted from the cannon, the front half of the PRT vehicle shattered in an apocalypse of flying metal and fire, the fuel tanks cooked off and added to the inferno that the vehicle became flying shrapnel sliced open gashes in Radiant's legs and arms, blood wept from them and she cried out in pain as she tumbled to the pavement.

As she scrambled out she realized that the gunner for the PRT vehicle was still alive…and in the process of burning to death. His screams were extremely loud, the sound tore at her ears as the wails of the dying man were horrifying to behold, an apt comparison would be nails on a chalkboard being produced by a human throat.

Radiant couldn't help it. She fired a single bolt and the screams mercifully stopped.

The tank's turret traversed and fired, and an entire PRT squad disintegrated amidst the explosion, and body parts and pieces thereof went through the air. The dim light made Radiant grateful that she couldn't make out the full details of what had just happened to six men beyond that they had died messily.

Shouts and screams rose from the PRT agents, most of them were some variation of "Oh shit, run." and "How the fuck are we going to kill that thing?"

Radiant couldn't believe what she was seeing as she fired again and again, her energy bolts did not affect the tank. They shattered harmlessly on its armor and the tank's gun roared again, a wall blew out in a detonation sending chunks of masonry flying through the air, the shockwave rattling her bones.

She backpedaled, still firing even as behind the tank, another of the thirty-ton monsters ground out of the crater. It also fired as well, the shell howled through the air and detonated somewhere behind her. The shockwave from the blast caused her to nearly tumble forward, but she planted her feet and continued spraying energy bolts as quickly as she could into the advancing tide of infantry that were moving up confidently alongside their tanks despite the scattered fire that was pouring into them.

The fire that the enemy sent their way was devastatingly accurate, PRT bodies fell to the ground lifeless, jerking in ways that seemed painful as they slumped and collapsed.

Then she got hit, a bullet blew through her shoulder, blood splashed and all feeling in her left arm vanished, the limb flopped uselessly as she tumbled to the ground with a shriek of terror and agony. She could feel pain from her skinned knees and her ruined shoulder.

Going to die here. Radiant thought as a weapon next to the cannon on the lead tank, green and white tracers slashed through the air, several times she heard screams amidst meaty thunks. She realized that this was the end, they were overrun, and they had no way to stop those tanks - their guns were useless and her blaster power might as well have been spitballs.

Her radio bead squawked. "This is Warhorse 5-1, attention all ground forces, we're on station," An unfamiliar voice said, in the background was what seemed like an utterly feral scream of engines.

One of the PRT men shouted something about them being on the verge of overrun and said that Warhorse 5-1 was 'cleared hot'. "Roger, rolling in."

An echoing scream built up, a shriek that was like thunder. It caused Radiant to throw her head up to try and spot in the dark skies the aircraft that had to be slashing down out of the heavens like avenging angels. The radio squawked again "Warhorse 5-1, guns guns guns."

The tanks exploded as many hundreds of tiny explosions went racing up the street like a vicious combine, enemy soldiers shattered into pieces, and gouts of fire shot into the sky from the exploding vehicles.

Then came the gun report, similar to the minigun she had heard but much louder - before with an echoing screech, an aircraft shaped like a church's cross rocketed overhead its turbofan engines roaring joyously as the craft pulled up and away.

"Warhorse 5-2, rolling in weapons hot."

Radiant looked up, inland and spotted the aircraft hurtling in. She saw a craft with a bubble-like canopy, wide straight wings, an H-tail, and two high-mounted engines. It hurtled in hard and fast, its turbofans shrieking righteous fury.

"Rockets away." The pilot announces as he does two things flash under the wings and a rapid-fire fusilade of explosions blooms somewhat farther away. The second fighter pulled up and away rocketing up into the heavens and banking back towards the west. As the fighter did so, a sporadic series of orange flashes appeared in the sky. "Taking AA fire." the pilot said in a remarkably calm voice for being shot at.

Radiant keyed her radio. "This is Radiant, local hero, Warhorse 5-2, how the fuck can you keep your cool despite being shot at?" she demanded

"Considering what's near the beach, I think they just have bad aim." The pilot shot back as sporadic stabs of yellow light now streaked up into the heavens along with an incessant rattle of automatic gunfire.

"Fuck, Radiant, your hit!" Someone shouted. A PRT officer ran up to her, a can of biological medical foam in hand, some medical specialty tinker had created it as a way to revolutionize battlefield medicine with the basic idea having been taken from the Halo novels. The man was rapidly shaking the can as he prepared to use it.

Radiant laughed weakly. "I know, fuck, I think my shoulder's fucked." she panted, looking at the ragged entry wound, a bloody hole that was easily the size of her thumb.

"Fucked is understating it, you probably need someone like Panacea more than likely to gain full mobility back in your arm." The man said as he pushed the applicator into the wound and with a sensation like a hundred burning knives the foam was applied, cleansing it and packing the wound.

"Gah!" she snarled out from the pain that buried itself deep into her shoulder, it quickly faded but that didn't mean it was unpleasant. The man quickly slapped a bandage on both sides of the wound, it was packed for now and would hold for several hours. Long enough for her to get transported to a proper medical facility…at least she hoped.

The PRT man seemed to nod in sympathy, and then he paused. "Say again Warhorse 5-1, you have IFF pings from BFTs stating there's six capes inbound?"

"Confirmed, okay, names?" The man asked and then he cursed and looked at her, bewilderment clear in his body language.

"What's wrong?" She asked.

"Aegis, Lady Photon, Shielder, Laserdream, Glory Girl, and Purity from Brockton Bay are coming in, according to the BFT, Aegis, and Glory Girl are strike-loaded," the man said and Radiant raised an eyebrow.

"What the fuck are they doing so far north?" Radiant asked before she realized something, "And why are they strike-loaded? What does that even mean?"

"Believe me, I am trying to figure out why they are this far north. But for Alexandria Packages like them? Strike loaded means that they're lugging a two thousand pound general purpose bomb." The PRT man said and Radiant could tell by his body language that he was rather confused, capes were far north from their usual stomping grounds and armed for war.

It was just another sign of how the world had seemingly gone mad just a few hours ago when they had capes lugging bombs. It just wasn't right, this was something that China or the USSR would do, not the United States and yet, it was happening. Radiant feared that she was witnessing cape culture as America knew it beginning to enter a tailspin from which it would never recover.

She looked at the PRT man and asked a single question. "Will cape culture be the same after this?"

"I don't think it will Radiant," was the reply.

---

Ten miles south and ten thousand feet up
Glory Girl

It was strange flying this high, she had never flown this high before and she was thankful that her shield could act like a pressure suit. But the view that she could see was nothing short of horrifying, ahead of her Portland Maine was burning, a titanic leviathan of the ocean sat leisurely at anchor, guns the size of trees casually discharging every thirty seconds, and the explosions from the shells were blinding. Weapons located along the ship's sides were firing almost constantly and the escorting ships were doing the same.

Closer to her and off the coast of Saco lay a blocking force and a landing force. Ships of all sizes cut through the water, most notable was a pair of weird-looking things with a pair of huge quadruple turrets forward with several smaller quadruple turrets located along the sides and aft, with a singular funnel rising from amidships. It didn't look anything like the beasts of steel that she had flown over while racing north to catch something called a 'strike package'.

They looked decidedly wrong as if the poor crooked squire had built them out of metal that screeched EVIL to the heavens for all to hear. But she wasn't concerned about them, she was primarily concerned about the big bastard that was content with shelling Portland, it looked larger and heavier than the small but long ships that were patrolling off the coast of Saco Bay. That thing had weaponry that was likely larger and more importantly, it was actively murdering people and she could tell that it was enjoying the fact that it could be so casual in the slaughter it was unleashing.

She keyed her radio. "Lady Photon, I'm going to attack the thing shelling Portland," she announced casually, she wanted to call Lady Photon, Aunt Sarah, but knew that it wasn't time.

There was a pause before Lady Photon replied. "Okay Glory Girl, I want you to take Aegis with you. Myself, Laserdream, Shielder, and Purity will support the air attack on the closer enemy force."

"Got it." Glory Girl replied.

"Roger," Aegis said.

"Godspeed you two." Lady Photon said and Glory Girl couldn't help it, she broke what was routinely identified as protocol among capes.

"Thanks, Aunt Sarah," Victoria said, voice carrying a nervous tone. This day had been a thing and frankly, she wasn't sure how much more she could take.

"You can handle this Victoria, you've handled worse before," Aunt Sarah said, having noticed her slip up and she didn't admonish her for it.

"Thank you, Aunt Sarah. See you back in Brockton Bay so me and Aegis can tell you all about how we sank that big bastard," Victoria said eagerly.

"And we will explain how well we did against this group here. Good luck Victoria!" Aunt Sarah replied, she wasn't apprehensive, if anything, she sounded eager.

Glory Girl climbed and accelerated, signaling to Aegis as she did so, a quick glance confirmed that the Wards Cape was following her, climbing and accelerating. She wanted to close as quickly as possible with that big bastard and knock it out as quickly as possible.

This was doable, she could handle it. She was the best flier in Brockton Bay after all and she was eager to avenge the deaths caused by the monsters of the deep blue sea which had risen like tyrants to slaughter those who opposed them. She snarled, they would die in time.

As she approached, she could begin to pick out details on the ship. It had four heavy turrets and an enormous funnel situated between two masts, the forward one was a tripod, and forward of the tripod was a bunker-like superstructure. She didn't recognize the ship in the slightest, it matched nothing that she could immediately recognize - but she did know that it was an intimidating thing - a virtual mountain of armor and guns.

She was going to sink it and would boast about how she sank a battleship on PHO.

As she peered down upon her prey, she saw things skittering across the deck and starting to man something. She realized just as her radio clicked and Aegis announced that he was starting his run that the things were manning anti-aircraft guns. With a sinking feeling, she realized that she was about to play dive bomber, with a real bomb, and was going to get shot at.

Her mind went from thinking 'This is gonna be awesome' to 'This is gonna suck'. No choice though, she keyed her radio and then said "Glory Girl, starting my run."

Then she dove, hurtling towards the battleship just as it erupted, gun flashes stabbing from four separate positions, and moments later, the storm of yellow tracers and shrieking shells were all around her. The sound of the wind rushing in her ears dueled harshly with the vroom of near misses from the small guns and the ka-whams of exploding projectiles from the larger weapons.

BOOM!

A shell hit her forcefield literally millimeters from her face, the projectile deforming before her eyes before exploding, popping her field and sending her tumbling with her ears ringing. She regained control and was aware of some sort of pain in her back and right arm but she ignored that pain for now and after quickly determing where she was, dove once again even as the maelstrom tried to zero in on her.

Shrieking shrapnel and glowing tracers caged her, steel slamming into her field, this time it miraculously held, but she pushed herself to go faster and she dove into the hell that was surrounding her.

Another hit, her shield dropped again but this time she didn't tumble, when it came back she felt pain along her left side. She smiled, she was catching up to Aegis and she might act-

Aegis vanished, being ground zero for an apocalyptic explosion. The shockwave punted her, hurling her off course and causing her head to ring, she could hear bells ringing and could feel blood gashes in her front and part of her vision was cast in a red haze. Regaining her wits took time and she recovered almost too close to the water.

That's when she realized that the guns couldn't really hit her and grinning despite her throbbing head, she accelerated. Plumes of water hurtled up around her as she wove through the cones of tracer fire that was reaching out to touch her. Perfectly close now, hit bomb release with one hand, caught it in the other, and then she one hand slamdunked the bomb straight down the funnel and proceeded to fly away like hell.

WHUMP.

The explosion displaced water and the vessel began sagging alarmingly and began listing, her bomb might have blown out its bottom and broken the keel, but with how the ship simply was built, she couldn't tell if she had indeed broken its back. The terrifying thing though was how it quickly began to sink, heaving onto its side.

Glory Girl pitched up and climbed away, as she did so, she glanced down at herself and saw that she had been mangled, bloody wounds that were almost like stabs wept crimson fluid and her right arm had a large chunk sliced out of it. Huh, that was…weird…being able to see your own arm bones…she would need to see Amy.

As she turned to fly south, she caught sight of burning pillars rising from the water and the beach, aircraft shaped like crosses were headed inland, she counted six of them and two definitely seemed damaged. She could also see Purity shining like the sun, a blazing jewel of sculpted white light. A perfect guide marker.

She effortlessly caught up to the other flier. "Where's Aegis?" The E88 Cape asked her.

"Dead, I think his bomb got hit directly and it exploded." Glory Girl replied, bringing a hand up to clutch her throbbing skull. "I think I am concussed and I am badly mangled, Aunt Sarah's gonna kill me for that slamdunk stunt."

Purity shifted nervously and that's when Glory Girl realized that she was carrying Crystal who…just sort of ended at the waist. She looked at Purity panic rising after realizing that the other two Legend Packages were missing. "Where's Lady Photon and Shielder?" she asked frantically.

Purity only said one word. "Gone." she sobbed.

Glory Girl felt her world shatter, Aunt Sarah…dead…no…no…not like that…not that easily. Aunt Sarah had been alive just a few minutes ago! They had been eager to swap stories about how they had destroyed the unknown enemy that was attacking. She felt a hand on her and she looked up, oh, she had lost altitude…

There was a wetness on her cheeks and the sobs came shortly after.

 

[Wolf of the Sea]

AN: I am again amazed by all of the responses that I've been getting for this.

---

"I wish to have no connection with any ship that does not sail fast; for I intend to go into harm's way," - John Paul Jones
​

---

USS Brockton

Brockton could practically see Valcour Island's glower from here despite the formation spacing that separated them. She could tell that the Flight Deck Cruiser was distraught about something and the soft sobs that she was hearing meant that whatever it was. It was something that had deeply affected her which, shortly before a major battle, wasn't a good sign.

Unfortunately, it seemed that Valcour Island was out of earshot, and with them under EMCON, using radio was out of the question. Still, this limited her communication options to merely using the blinker light. [What's wrong Valcour Island?] she blinked.

[I, I, New Wave is gone.] Valcour replied, shocked and horrified.

W-What? How? They were one of the best hero groups around…gone. No, that didn't make any sense. It made none at all, they couldn't have been exterminated that easily right? Right? No, it didn't make sense. They had been shining symbols to Brockton Bay, symbols of hope…now? Now they were, according to Valcour Island, gone.

[How bad?] she asked quietly.

[I only saw Purity and Glory Girl still alive, I think that Purity was carrying someone but I don't know for sure, her fucking glow made it hard to tell.] Valcour Island answered, her voice quivering.

[Was it in vain?] Brockton asked weakly, wondering if the capes she had seen going in had died for nothing.

[No, I think they along with Purity managed to sink an enemy light cruiser, class unknown. Glory Girl sank a battleship, how I have no fucking idea, but that deserves a medal of some kind. I lost two-thirds of my air wing for sinking two more light cruisers.] Valcour Island replied a sort of numbness discernible in the blinks.

Fuck. That wasn't good, b-but they could mourn after they had won. [Remaining enemy ships?]

There was a pause in the blinks, Valcour Island was obviously thinking about this hard, going through what her pilots had seen. The wait seemed to stretch into eternity as the flight deck cruiser considered what she had seen and was likely grilling her pilots about what they had seen during their strike. The uneasy pause made her consider just how unpleasant of a fight they actually had on their hands here, they needed to win here at Saco Bay. Given the events of today, she shook her head and focused, the thought of not succeeding was a bad one, for the good of the country's people, they needed to win. To show them that the Armed Forces weren't helpless and that they would fight.

Finally, the blinker light started flashing again. [Two Dunkerques, one Heavy Cruiser, three or four destroyers, and there might be torpedo boats in there though how many, I don't know.]

Brockton cursed under her breath, the words lost in the roar of the blowers in her chest, the thunder of her screws, the crashing of the waves, and the rushing wind. That was a lot more than she was hoping to encounter. Way more actually.

The Dunkerques in particular were extremely concerning. She didn't know much about them apart from what her ONI Recognition Manuals had on them. The ships were large cruisers that were fifteen years newer than her (going by when her design was drawn up) and they had eight 13-inch guns in their main battery along with comparable armor thickness. They weren't quite as fast, indeed she was about five knots faster than them. But the biggest problem was their armor, while thickness was comparable, the plating benefitted from approximately fifteen years of metallurgical development.

Thus the ships had an advantage in protection and she wasn't sure at what distance her guns could actually penetrate that sort of armor. <<Guns, I want you to try and figure out at what distance we can successfully penetrate the armor on the Dunkerques.>> she asked.

<<Will do ma'am, we'll get started on crunching the numbers.>> Her gunnery chief replied, referring to the Empirical Formula which could be used to determine the effectiveness of a given gun caliber against armor plating. She hoped that they didn't have to get too close to be effective. But she feared that the answer would not be good…and if anything might suck.

A flicker of light gained her attention. Water Witch was signaling her.

[Sonar contact, rising fast, sounds weird.] The message stated and Brockton tensed, could it be a submarine?

[Define weird.] She demanded, wanting to know what was going on.

[Sounds like a wreck is coming to the surface, to put it bluntly.] The blinks started and Brockton felt her eyebrow slowly creep up.

[Do not engage until you've verified its the enemy, it might be another one of well…us.] Brockton proposed, what was she really? A ship or a girl? Either way, she had a gut feeling that whoever was coming was going to be a friend.

There was a pause before the blinks resumed. [Copy that.]

Brockton wondered why Water Witch had seemed to hesitate but thought better of it. She needed to focus, she needed to make sure this all didn't fall apart. So much was riding on this battle being a victory that it was hard to stomach. She could do this, could she?

Until literally not even two hours ago she hadn't fired her guns in anger before or even fired them in practice shoots. Now she was fighting a war and she wasn't sure if she was cut out for it or not. It was so much to take in, particularly since she had no warships and no previous war experience. What she wouldn't give to have just a few ships that knew what they were doing, because she sure as hell didn't.

[Time to surfacing?] she asked.

[Ten seconds.] came the response after a moment.

Those seconds slowly ticked by and she could watch the guns on the steel hulls slew around, their directors pointing on. This was either going to be the quickest victory in the history of the United States Navy or it was going to be rather awkward.

The water spalled and frothed to white.

An antenna and then a mast rose out of the surf and it was quickly followed by two funnels. Water sluiced off of bridge wings, gun mounts, and torpedo tubes. She couldn't make out the ship's paint as the moon wasn't set to rise for several more hours. But the shape, the silhouette looked familiar.

Bangor violated orders. {Don't engage! Friendly ships, Benson class destroyers!} she shouted over the Talk Between Ships.

Brockton swore that she heard Southshore facepalm, loudly. She certainly wanted to rip a strip off the girl for breaking radio silence like that. But, she looked at the ships and sighed, so much for radio silence. {Unidentified squadron, identify!} she barked over her own TBS.

There was a pause before a voice sounding like it was about Aisha's age answered sharply. {This is USS Plunkett DD-431, DESRON 7 at my command. Now, can you very kindly, point all of those guns away from us? It's making some of my girls anxious.}

Friendlies…that made them Benson class Destroyers going by the hull numbers…sisters to Madison. Capable ships, a proper screen to be sure. But she was unaware of what their records were, best to assume that they were inexperienced.

But still, seven destroyers was an amazing boon for their odds, still, Brockton didn't like the fact that she had to break her orders. {Affirmative Plunkett, assume escort formation and radio silence, communicate via blinker light from now on if you must. We have a battle to fight in Saco Bay.}

There was a pause in the silence, the low-slung silhouettes of Benson class destroyers maneuvering to gain up their escort positions. Soon though, a blinker light flashed at her and she quickly translated. [So the enemy, who are they?] Plunkett demanded.

[Unknown, they attacked Brockton Bay without provocation and things are so confused we don't know what's going on elsewhere.] Brockton admitted.

[Sounds like a party, I can have my girls energize their sets if you wish so we can give you proper information on the enemy formation.] Plunkett replied and Brockton paused, the order to energize the radars could give her an enormous advantage but would it give their position away like radio transmission would? That she wasn't entirely sure about and if she made the wrong decision, the enemy could lay a trap for her forces.

It was an agonizing decision…particularly since she was about halfway to Saco Bay, about forty-five minutes out. She simply didn't know enough about how radar functioned. It was a risk…but she had heard what it could do. It was a risk worth taking. [Energize.] she ordered.

[Roger.]

She knew what radar was, but she didn't know anything about the sets or what their abilities were. For all she knew, they could just be lighting off giant "here I am, come fuck me!" lights. But if radar really did live up to everything that the crew from the 1940s were saying it did…then it gave her an inordinate advantage.

They galloped north at speed, the water slushing away from the many bows that carved foamy white streaks through the water as they split the waves. She couldn't help but look over at her sisters and when squinted, she finally spotted the mass of steel that they wore, just like Bangor. Though she could only readily make out Southshore behind her.

On the right side, two huge superfiring gun turrets each mounting three guns loomed above a mass of steel, on the left-hand side was another triple gun turret, and above it was a quartet of 6in/53 caliber Mark 15 turrets. She thought she could see the anti-aircraft guns, but they didn't look like 3in/50 caliber guns…those looked like 4in/50 caliber Mark 10s. Strange, why did Southshore have those guns when she had 3in/50s?

A question for later, Brockton decided. They had a war to win.

The minutes dragged on as she proceeded north at best speed. Again, she found her mind wandering, she just hoped that she was good enough. But she wanted to avenge the massacres that had occurred and likely were still occurring. Every shot they fired against the enemy was a life avenged. But the point remained about dealing with those Dunkerques, how they were going to deal with those ships. Something almost half-remembered flickered across her mind and she smiled. That could just about work.

If they used high-explosive at long range and then once they got close enough, switched to armor-piercing. They could then more than likely, dismember the enemy Dunkerques rather easily while taking hopefully minimal damage in return. But the problem was that she didn't know how capable those 13s were.

<<Guns, have you finished crunching those numbers?>> she asked.

<<We have ma'am, want to hear the results?>> Her Gunnery Chief, a Peter Massey, replied.

<<Yes, I do.>> Brockton said.

<<Right, our tens should be able to get through a Dunkerque at about twelve kiloyards there about.>> Peter replied and Brockton swallowed, which was a lot closer than she expected. Her basic plan for dealing with them might be the only way to deal with them.

<<What about the enemy guns?>> She asked, dreading the answer, and with good reason, the Empirical Formula gave you a solid baseline for the capability of a given gun against armor protection.

<<To put it plainly ma'am, this is gonna suck. Those guns can penetrate you at any conventional range, let alone the close range we have to get in order to penetrate them.>> Chief Massey replied.

Brockton felt her face heat up. <<Phrasing!>> she hissed at her gunnery chief.

Her gunnery chief unhelpfully laughed. <<Brockton, lighten up just a tad, will you? You are stressed all to hell focusing on the battle that hasn't even happened yet.>>

<< You're not scared or stressed?>>

<<Of course I am, ma'am. But a little bit of humor goes a long way to making that seem less bad.>> Her Gunnery Chief replied, giving her the impression that if he could, he would be giving her a playful shove and despite everything, Brockton allowed herself to smile.

<<Thanks for that, Chief.>>

<<Anytime, ma'am.>>

Turning her attention away from her gunnery chief she snapped out instructions on her blinker light. [Southshore, relay to Norfolk. Engagement instructions are as follows. The enemy force composition is two Dunkerque class large cruisers and one heavy cruiser. Brockton and Southshore shall engage the enemy large cruisers, use high-explosive at long range and once we get inside twelve thousand yards, switch to armor-piercing. Norfolk shall engage the enemy heavy cruiser, ammunition selection at her discretion.] she sent.

There was a pause before she got a response from Southshore. [Affirmative, relaying engagement instructions to Norfolk.]

A light on Plunkett began stuttering at her, strobing blinks forming words that she effortlessly deciphered. [Radar contacts, range fourteen nautical miles, bearing zero-two-five, speed twenty-eight knots, closing. Recommend that we swing to starboard to Cross their T.]

Brockton inhaled and exhaled deeply, night action, and more importantly, it was time to decide how to deploy. She knew that there was a landing occurring in Saco, Maine and she wanted to disrupt that. But how to do it? She wanted to make sure that her primary force posed a large enough threat that the enemy would focus their attention on her.

The PHMs and a DESRON should be sufficient to chop up those landing forces, actually, add Valcour Island on that as well, a Flight Deck Cruiser had no place in a major gunfight like this. She could keep Bangor, the other DESRON, and the LCSes with her and her sisters whereupon they could chop the enemy. The best range to engage would be…a little under twenty thousand yards.

Thinking quickly, she relayed her instructions to her fleet and they leaped to their tasks. Putting her rudders over, she came about onto a new course. Her guns twitched and traversed, the enormous gun tubes each weighing about thirty metric tons elevated as in their breaches, 525-pound high-explosive shells were shoved into her gun breaches followed by powder charges. Breachblocks closed and sealed, the guns announced that they were ready to fire.

The range wound down and kept winding down.

Then they passed that magic point.

Three hours into the event that had started with the shelling of Brockton Bay. Brockton's salvo buzzer rang and her guns roared as humanity's first counterassault against this unknown enemy began.

---

A USAF B-52J Stratofortress
That same time

Soaring high in skies in the vicinity of Edmonton Canada, an eight-engined behemoth lazily orbited, leaving long distinctive contrails in the sky as it did so. The craft was so high up that from what the crew had heard of the enemy fighters, they doubted that they could be caught. Simply too high for their engines to properly function or if they could function that high…their bomber could probably outpace them just by opening the taps slightly on the throttles.

Despite that though, four F-24A Lightning IIs escorted the massive bomber as it orbited its anchor point with many other craft. Ordinarily, a B-52J wouldn't be escorted like this, but there was a reason for the madness. For secured to the wing hardpoints and loaded in the belly of this B-52 were twenty AGM-129 ACMs each equipped with a single 150-kiloton nuclear bomb. The bomber was carrying enough firepower to absolutely decimate most countries in a single attack.

As such it needed protection, hence the F-24s - the small single-engine fighters were due to be supplemented by the RCAF soon, Avro Super Arrows. But the crew frankly was more than a little concerned about happenings that were going on in regards to the coasts. This high up at sixty thousand feet, while they couldn't exactly see the coast, the trails of smoke that were now beginning to slowly rise from that direction were something to be concerned about.

More importantly, was that the smoke seemed to be originating from multiple places. Where they couldn't tell due to the winds. But the sheer quantity of smoke indicated very bad things. The captain of the old bomber that had been flown by his father before him was half tempted to send half of his escort off towards that smoke and find out just what the hell was going on over there.

But protocol stated that he couldn't, his bomber needed at least four escorts. The payload that he was carrying during an air defense emergency stated that he couldn't. The nukes that his bomber was carrying were far too important, particularly ever since Scion made it impossible to have more than two thousand nuclear warheads in your arsenal. Thus the mere thought of sending even one of his escort fighters off on a tear to go and investigate something that didn't concern his bomber was very rapidly squashed.

Regardless, something was very wrong about this. The radio channels were alive with chatter, it seemed like all hell was breaking loose so many miles below them. Particularly along the coasts, it sounded like naval bombardments were going on and some areas sounded like they were having naval landings occur. But his plane was loaded with nuclear weapons and thus he couldn't provide close air support.

There was a chime from the instrument panel, which immediately gained the pilot's attention. A very high-level burst transmission had just been transmitted to his bomber. What on earth could have required a message to be sent in that manner and not via standard radio communication? Flicking through the MFD regarding communications, he opened the message and his heart sank when it asked for both the identification number of his bomber, his authorization code, and a master-stranger passcode.

Why in the hell did a text message require all of that shit? However, the wording of the message indicated that it was extremely time-sensitive. Thus, reaching down to the keypad that was tied to that specific touchscreen multifunction display (MFD), he tapped in the required information and then the message opened.

His eyes flicked over the message and then he read it again just to make sure that he had read that right. It took over a minute for the reality of what the message stated to sink in and what was being requested of him.

"Jesus Christ." It took him a moment to realize that he had been the one to utter those words. Frankly, who could blame him for doing so? Considering that the message was for a nuclear strike order on American soil.

"What's wrong boss?" His EWO asked.

"We just got a nuclear strike order." The pilot replied and swears were offered up by the three men and one woman in the cockpit in a variety of languages.

"Target?" The navigator asked.

"Dover, Delaware. Dover AFB, Delaware. Kitts Hummock, Delaware. Pickering Beach, Delaware. Port Mahon Fishing Pier, Delaware. Bethany Beach, Delaware. The reason for the strike is due to the enemy landing in sufficient force to threaten Washington D.C. and to deny Dover AFB to the enemy." The pilot said in a monotone, shocked that this was happening.

"That's like, the whole fucking state!" The co-pilot replied.

"Indeed, let's authenticate this thing and start praying to god that this was a foul-up. Wizzo, Co-pilot, Navigator, transferring credentials to you." The pilot said, transferring the mission authority codes. It took multiple people to authorize a nuclear strike on an aircraft or submarine. In this case, it took the pilot, co-pilot, navigator, and the weapon systems officer or wizzo to authenticate and execute the final stages of a strike.

"Wizzo, do you concur with the validity of the target?" The pilot said after a moment.

There was a wet gulp. "I concur." The Wizzo stated

The navigator closed his eyes and leaned back in his chair. "I concur."

There was a muffled curse but the Co-pilot said "I concur."

"Very well, the targets are valid. Request permission to authenticate." The pilot said.

"I concur." The co-pilot said.

"I concur." The navigator said.

"I concur." the Wizzo added.

"Alright, authenticate strike order." The pilot said.

"Authenticate, yessir." The Wizzo said, reaching down and using a biometric scanner to unlatch a sealed storage container under his "desk" so to speak that contained a sealed code card. On this card was a randomized string of letters and numbers that made up the sealed authenticator system. An identical code had been included in the strike order that had come down from the USSTRATCOM - to be specific the Strategic Air Command aspect. If the codes didn't match, then there would be hell to pay, but if they did.

A curse ended that as the Wizzo said, in a voice quavering with outright fear. "Message is authentic."

Once the order had been determined to be authentic…they were required to launch.

"I concur." The navigator said, stunned.

"I concur." The co-pilot said, dread in his voice.

The pilot swallowed. "I concur, may God help us all. Wizzo, spin up missiles one through twelve. Set arrival pattern for time on target." he said, using the arrival pattern for time on target meant that all of the missiles would arrive simultaneously. It was a method of attack meant to overwhelm enemy air defenses and to give them the fear of God.

"Spinning up missiles and loading attack pattern. Attack pattern loaded and target coordinates set." The Wizzo replied.

"Prep your key. Co-pilot's aircraft." The pilot ordered, pulling out his key. They needed to be inserted and turned at the same time for the missiles to be armed.

"Key prepped." The pilot said.

"Key prepped." The Wizzo said.

"My aircraft." The co-pilot said.

"Prep lock." The pilot said, his key in hand and reaching down and flipping open the lock, breaking the wax seal.

"Lock prepped." The Wizzo said.

"Lock prepped." The pilot said.

"Insert key on my mark. Three…two…one…mark!" The pilot said.

Two keys slid into their locks with resolute clicks.

"Key inserted." The two men said together.

"Turn key on my mark. Three… two… one… mark!" The pilot said.

Two locks were turned together with sharp clacks.

Immediately the communication system sent out a burst transmission notifying all friendly units synced into the battle network that the B-52J wearing the callsign Alicorn 1-3 had received an authentic nuclear strike order along with the coordinates of said strike and that she was going to be launching soon. This caused the pilots of the escort for the enormous aircraft to start swearing profusely at what they began to witness.

"Open bomb bay doors." The pilot said.

"Opening bomb bay doors." The Wizzo said activating a command on his console. There was a whirr aft of the cockpit as the bomb bay doors slid open, revealing the lethal missiles.

"Launch missiles." The pilot exhaled.

The bomber shuddered. "Missiles away." The Wizzo said in an exhausted voice as the computer went through the automatic procedure for launching ordnance.

As it occurred, all the pilot could think about was how the names of himself and the rest of his crew would go down in history as the American bomber crew who nuked American cities. It was not a pleasant feeling.

One by one the missiles fell away from the bomber, falling hundreds of feet before their turbofans spun up and they began to assume their formation and then once all of the missiles had launched. Twenty spearheads, a mix of nuclear, conventional, and ECM missiles turned east and as one, they started a one-way trip that would see them cover over two thousand miles and take a little over five hours to complete.

---

Brockton Bay
Brian Laborn
That same time

Flames crackled as Brian Laborn, commonly known as Grue swam back to consciousness. The villain looked around, funny he hadn't remembered falling over, yet he was on the floor and there was all manner of shit all over him. Groaning, he pushed himself up and looked around. The loft was burning, flames greedily consuming what had been the living room, there were the shredded remains of what had probably been Alec cast across the room in about a dozen semi-liquified pieces, the stink of ruptured intestines chose that moment to assault his nose.

Brian gagged and retched at the stink. He needed to get out of here, preferably before the building came down or he suffocated to death. He hurried over, grabbed his helmet, and slapped it on his head, dropping the visor. Then, staying low he made his way out of the Loft as he tried to remember where the other two members of his team had been.

Rachel had been walking her dogs, Scion only knew where she was now or even if she was still alive. However, Rachel did have good survival instincts so it was rather unlikely that she had been killed by whatever had blown up the building. She was probably headed inland, to one of the rally points for Endbringer fights.

Lisa…Lisa had been on the boardwalk. She was either dead, dying, or in an Endbringer Shelter and probably dealing with the thinker headache and she didn't have her Vicodin. He had seen how she could be knocked out by those thinker headaches even when she slammed the Vicodin. Which meant that she was probably in complete and utter agony at the moment.

He pushed that thought out of his mind as a new thought came to him. Aisha, he needed to find Aisha. To make sure that she was alright, the problem was figuring out where the hell he was. He knew the street, but how did he get home from here? The landmarks that he used to guide him were gone. Flames billowing upwards, the buildings of downtown were engulfed by a thick green fog of some description.

Wait a minute. There in the fog, it was on fire and it didn't quite look right, but that was the Medhall building. Alright, he knew how to get home just based on the Medhall building. He headed inland as fast as his feet could carry him.

He could hear explosions, the occasional gunshot, and screams. He didn't care, all that cared was Aisha. He hoped that she was alright. He was maybe a block away when he heard a roar, he looked over his shoulder and grimaced, the loft had just collapsed.

His decision to leave had turned out to be prudent. Alright, he pushed the thought of Alec's remains likely being lost to the flames aside, and focused on where Aisha probably was. Not dad's house, Aisha hated that man. Mom's place, okay, he had just come from there to get to the loft today. They had been planning to start scoping the Ruby Dreams Casino for a hit later in about a month or so.

Every so often he smelled a bitter stench in the air, but it didn't affect him, at least he didn't think. His fog was up around the gaskets of the helmet to create his 'Grue' voice. Maybe it was also filtering out whatever was causing the stench. Something to ask Lisa about later.

He came around a corner and beheld a double-decker city bus. The front third had been blown open like an obscene flower, shredded seats, and broken bodies lay cast about the interior of the vehicle which lay on its side. The last time he had seen a city bus in even remotely this bad of shape had been when Lung had decided to throw Hookwolf into one. Even so, that hadn't quite resulted in as thorough destruction as this had.

His eyes saw movement, wading through the morass of broken bodies was a hero. Velocity by the looks of it. He ignored the hero and was about to bypass the wreck when a body lying nearby caught his attention. A simple streak of purple is lying on the head of a body.

No. No.

He ran towards it. "AISHA!" he shouted as he ran. His boots stomped on the tarmac as he ran towards the body. He skidded to a stop and paused, dread and horror materialized into a lump in his belly.

Aisha Laborn lay flat on her back with half of her face torn away and crimson gushing from the wound and pooling on the pavement. The expression on her face, at least what remained of it, was one of shock and surprise.

He fell to his knees, took his helmet off, raised his head to the sky, and let out a scream of fury and despair. It should be him on the street! Not her! It wasn't fair! It just wasn't fair! Then came the realization of why Aisha was here.

He hadn't been as careful at slipping out as he thought he had been and thus she had decided to follow him! She was dead because of him!

A hand placed itself on his shoulder and he looked over his shoulder and through the tears, he saw that Velocity had walked over to him. "Grue right?" he asked.

"Y-yessir," Grue answered, his voice roughshod with tears.

Velocity looked at Aisha's corpse and sighed deeply. "Family?" he asked.

"M-my sister." Grue sobbed.

"Judging by how you reacted, I say you triggered because of her." The man said and Grue wanted nothing more than to smack the hero in front of him. But the way that the man delivered those words, it was delivered as a matter of fact and he hadn't pried for details.

He nodded numbly. "Yessir, I triggered out of a desire to protect her, a-a-an" he couldn't finish that statement.

"Easy, Grue. I triggered for similar reasons, wanting to save a buddy who was wounded in action and we couldn't get to a safe location for dust-off. We're similar because of that and I know for a fact that you're currently tearing yourself apart with guilt." Velocity said, revealing how he had likely triggered.

"But I couldn't be there for her!" Grue sobbed.

Velocity paused and bobbed his head in agreement. "True, but maybe you can be there for someone else."

Grue paused. "What do you mean?"

"Grue, look at what's happened in Brockton Bay, we're going to go to war without a doubt. I recommend that you enlist in the Air Force and join the Pararescuemen just like I was. I think that our creed might be well suited for you." Velocity said and Grue looked at him.

"What is it?" he asked.

"It is my duty as a Pararescueman to save life and to aid the injured. I will be prepared at all times to perform my assigned duties quickly and efficiently, placing these duties before personal desires and comforts. These things we do, so that others may live." Velocity said and Grue looked at him.

"W-would Aisha want me to dedicate my life to that?" Grue asked.

"Grue, if your little sister is anything like mine. She would find a way to come back from the dead with the sole purpose of kicking your sorry ass down to Key West and back for even thinking about that. I recommend that you join the Pararescuemen so that you don't tear yourself apart with grief. Trust me, I've seen what grief can do to people, and it's never pretty. At best you trigger and become a parahuman, at worst, you put a gun in your mouth and pull the trigger." The hero said and Grue paused, yeah, Aisha would totally do that, even if he had no idea where Key West was.

Aisha was gone, but, he could find a way to do something that could allow him to atone for his failure. He stooped down and, tears leaking from his eyes, slapped his helmet back on before looking at Velocity. "Think you can give me some pointers on being a Pararescueman?"

Velocity smiled. "I don't see why not. Follow me, we have lives to save."

The hero turned and started to walk away, Grue looked back at Aisha and he knelt, closed her remaining eye, and then hurried to catch up with the Breaker. "Can we have someone come and take her to the morgue? I don't want Empire 88 violating her corpse."

"That I can do."

 

[Wolf of the Sea]

AN: Once again I am amazed by the feedback.

---

The Battle of Saco Bay

Four hundred twenty-three pounds of powder ignited, and the 1,235-pound Semi-Armor Piercing Projectile, one of six, hurtled out of the barrel with an explosive crash that sounded like the roar of a mauled thug. The projectiles, glowing like the sun rose into the heavens before tipping over and plunging towards the sea and their target some thirteen thousand yards away.

Their target rose from the sea like a great iron and steel beast, with an enormous flared bow, a broad flush deck, studded with two great funnels, and an immense set of upperworks and tripod mast, along with three triple turrets and eight smaller twin turrets. The triples on the target flashed, the water cratering with their voice, followed almost immediately after by four of the smaller turrets crashing out in unison.

Five shells plunged into the water, throwing great bright plumes of blood it seemed, the sixth smashed into a secondary turret, ripping the port side open and completely dismounting one of the guns. The fuze armed, the projectile continued on its way, coring through the deck and into layers of steel. It detonated with a thunderous wham above the armored deck amid a galley, heavy fragments combined with the blast effects shredding everything there and perforating bulkheads causing further havoc, with some splinters burying themselves in the armored deck.

Brockton gasped in pain, a deep ragged gash appearing in her left shoulder, blood, and oil flowing freely from the wound. Her left arm didn't seem to want to function correctly anymore, gritting her teeth, she watched through her spotters the fall of shot.

Seven plumes of clear water erupted and two brilliant flashes bloomed on the enemy. One shell seemed to have struck the belt and the other slammed into the base of the singular funnel. Slowly at first, but then gaining outright shocking speed amid a belching plume of smoke, it toppled over. The enemy ship, which was already down by the bows, heaved and seemed to slow.

Cheers erupted from her crew and she felt like pumping her fist at the sight of it as the cataclysm of noise from the collapsing funnel reached her, the sound audible over the thunder of her blowers, the rushing of the wind, and frothing water.

The hated thing was hurt, it was dying. Slowly and inexorably, the sea would claim this monster and cast it into the depths. They were almost at the range where according to the Empirical Formula, she could get through that armored belt, but frankly, given the damage that the ship had sustained the armored belt might have been buckled by earlier hits. Such damage would reduce the armored belt's effectiveness.

Best to get some armor-piercing into those hoists now actually, she decided and sent the orders. Within a minute or two, she would be firing armor-piercing projectiles.

Its six remaining guns flashed and it completely missed all six shots, the enemy vessel's shooting was scoring consistent brackets Brockton had noted, the guns were likely spaced too close together. This meant that the muzzle blasts were affecting the shells, hmm, the Standards early on had that problem if she recalled correctly. It was something that could be fixed by delay coils, but even so, her opponent didn't have them.

Her guns returned the favor even as the secondaries on her opponent flashed. Those secondary guns were considerably more accurate, at least three shells speared her. She grunted as the 130mm HE-Frag rounds detonated high in her hull opening new gashes in her body, they could only really annoy her barring a shot landing somewhere important.

Shells from her guns, four of them lacerated the superstructure of the enemy ship with tremendous flashes, and a fire erupted a hellish orange glow that was visible from here. She smiled, a brutal thing that showed her shining white teeth, that would complicate matters for the monster.

Aft there was a sudden shriek of agony, Brockton looked back just in time to see Southshore illuminated by a horrifying gout of flame. For several long seconds amid a roar like an enraged dragon that cast a harsh illumination all around, before it receded - leaving her spotters blinking spots out of their collective eyes.

"Fuck, ow, ow, ow!" Southshore sobbed over TBS. "Turret three burnt out."

A third of her sister's firepower was gone, just like that.

She took another heavy hit, it was her seventh, and this one was mind-numbingly painful. She shrieked in pain as it tore through her forward portside triple torpedo launcher resulting in a huge bloom of flame in the form of a BLEVE. Then the shell detonated practically parallel to her armor deck, driving splinters through the plating like it was made of rice paper. The wounds that opened up were deep and stinging ones, blood and oil gushed from them freely - as a deep searing pain dominated one side from the BLEVE.

That could be problematic if the warheads exploded. Damage control teams were already rushing to the site of the fire to bring extinguishers and hoses to bear on the fire and to douse those warheads.

"Thanks, Southshore, for the smoke screen. I can't see my target!" Norfolk groaned in dismay.

"Not my fucking fault." Southshore snapped angrily.

"It sort of was, in a very roundabout way," Norfolk replied semi-cheekily.

"Norfolk?" Southshore asked in a dangerous tone, her voice riddled with pain.

"Yes?" The Jewish cruiser asked sweetly.

"Please shut the fuck up." Southshore snarled, pain evident in her voice.

"Jeez Southshore, just trying to lighten things, OW! Oh, you sneaky fucking Spaniard." Norfolk glowered at her opponent in a harsh Brooklyn accent, her tens firing in salvo in response.

"Are you alright Southshore?" Brockton asked as her guns fired.

"Hahaha, no not fucking really. I have been hit like fourteen times by this bastard's main battery. I've lost a main turret and my citadel got penetrated, I've lost a boiler room." Southshore replied bitterly, pain evident.

"Wait, you've lost a boiler room?!" Brockton asked, appalled as a bracket of six shells landed around her, plumes of blood being thrown high into the sky. This was followed by a pair of smaller impacts from those blasted 130s, she answered with her 10s crashing out in salvo fire followed immediately by her surviving sixes.

"Yes, I can still manage thirty knots or so, but if I lose another then I will be in trouble," Southshore replied amid an almighty bang on her end. "Make that fifteen times, fucking ow!"

"Shell magnet much?" Plunkett asked cheekily.

"Not fucking funny!" Southshore snapped out in anger.

"Lay off of her Plunkett," Brockton chided as she took another 13-inch shell. This one came in at an extremely low angle, tore a meter-wide gash in her armored deck, and ricocheted off, tearing its way through various decks and bulkheads before bursting out the opposite side.

"Sorry, Brockton." The Gleaves class answered.

"Thank you," Brockton said gruffly, before smiling viciously.

The first of her armor-piercing rounds, gleaming black shell bodies with bright yellow rings below the nose landed in their loading trays. The rammers pushed them home, these 525-pound projectiles were followed by approximately 230 pounds of powder in four bags. The breach blocks slammed shut and enormous tubes rose.

The salvo buzzer rang.

The guns crashed, hurling the armor-piercing projectiles from the barrels and they flew through the air. The enemy ship took three and heaved under the hammer blows but it didn't lose speed which meant that nothing critical had been hit by the shells. She had penetrated the enemy's armor though judging by how the enemy reacted.

Brockton grinned at the sight of it. That had hurt the damnable thing badly. It lashed out with its six remaining main guns and all six shells landed in a loose bracket.

Again the salvo buzzer rang.

Again the guns roared, cratering the water.

Four hits this time and there was a spectacular fireball that bloomed out of the ship aft a few seconds after one of the hits, a huge fire quickly began enveloping the ship's stern. What had that been? A ready locker for the AA guns? An explosion in an ammunition handling room? Maybe even an Avgas store igniting? Whatever it was, it gave her an absolutely brilliant target, it was well-illuminated now, and she knew that from here the accuracy of her guns would go up dramatically.

She also noticed that the enemy's secondaries, which had been maintaining a constant rate of fire had gone silent after that explosion. So turrets were either knocked out or jammed or the gun crews had been slain by splinters. That was quite good, those guns had been more problematic than the heavy guns that had been shooting at her.

Her guns finished their reload cycle and elevated again. She had noticed, even before she had scored that hit early in the action which had knocked out half of an enemy main turret and had clearly made things more difficult for reloading for the affected turret, was that she had a quicker rate of fire. She was definitely at least ten seconds faster on the reload.

Again, the salvo buzzer rang with a harsh metallic sound, and in answer, there was a great rushing crash from her guns, sending the projectiles in their chambers forth like lethal daggers. This time, she had a significantly harder time telling how many hits she had scored due to the glare of that inferno which was rampaging out of control aft - but she was reasonably sure that she had scored a hit near a main turret.

She was definitely starting to win the damage race against the enemy ship, it was probably half-blinded by that raging fire. Which combined with the other problems that it had, primarily with the gun blast affecting the shells. It had practically no way to win.

This made her wonder as her guns went through their reload cycle again, why wasn't retreating? Her opponent was beaten, why wasn't it retreating? Why hadn't it struck? She could just about make out a flag flying. Wait, it was sending a new flag up…Brockton felt her boilers skip a beat. A bloody flag, a simple piece of cloth that was blood red, raced up the brightly illuminated mast.

No quarter would be given and no quarter asked for. This thing was going to fight to the death. But why was it going to do so? Better to strike or to turn around and try to beach itself to save the crew. So why was it going to continue fighting? It made no sense, the commander of that thing was insane. Why?

Those questions flowed through Brockton's mind as she gazed upon that fluttering red flag as her guns finished reloading. Well, she decided then and there. If the enemy wanted to fight to the death for some asinine reason that she couldn't figure out, then she would be more than happy to send the enemy into the deep.

The salvo buzzer rang.

And there was an immense explosion aft, casting the horizon in a hellish pink-orange glow, that drowned out the sound of her guns firing.

"That's for the fucking Spanish Inquisition! Scratch one heavy cruiser!" Norfolk whooped loudly over the TBS.

But before Brockton could congratulate Norfolk on the confirmed kill, a heavy cruiser at that, Southshore shrieked. "The enemy screen is making a torpedo attack!"

Jesus Christ! She hit the TBS. "Water Witch, Plunkett! Your show! Stop those bastards from getting a single fish in the water!"

"Roger Flag!"

"Affirmative Brockton-Actual!"

The LCSes in the van peeled away to intercept low, sleek shapes that were dashing through the water at close to thirty knots. The Bensons and Gleaves of Plunkett's DesDiv 13 peeled off immediately to follow them in. The foredecks of the LCSes were bathed in fire and leaping from their decks came lethal javelins atop pillars of flame - while the single lonely gun on their bows began firing as fast as they could be fired. The destroyers engaged with their own heavier artillery.

The challenge that those ships brought forth was answered in kind by the enemy. Shells carved through the air, pillars of fire rose with resounding double shockwaves and descended with even greater ferocity, and tracers by seemingly the hundreds were exchanged as the two forces closed, then intermixed.

Within minutes, the water was dotted with burning, sinking hulls as the two screens proceeded to tear each other apart. The TBS seemed to be going crazy as the LCSes frantically coordinated with each other to keep track of where they were. Soon enough though she could hear shouted orders over the TBS along the lines of "Abandon ship."

Brockton didn't care and thundered past the brawl, her guns still firing. Yet from that brawl came first one, then two, then five more low sleek ships that oozed malice and hatred. Their hulls charged forward with tremendous bones in their teeth. She roared <<Secondary and Tertiary Guns, take those things out!>> to her crew.

Her massed batteries of six 6in/53s and four 3in/50s that could bear swung into action, their rate of fire becoming a sustained roar of noise that hurled glowing shells at prodigious rates into the sky. Plumes of water erupted and stuttering flashes bloomed on the enemy.

One ship slowed, low by the bow and burning from repeated hits but advanced with suicidal stubbornness. The gun on the foredeck flashed and a glowing round hurled itself like a spear towards Brockton, the shot landing short and throwing up a plume of water. Two more shells from Brockton struck it and the craft disintegrated as the magazine cooked off.

But two more pressed the attack even as their compatriot slipped below the waves, their forward guns spitting fire seemingly as fast as they could be cycled, their slender hulls dashing for splashes as they bore in.

Yet for all that, they were bolting for the plumes of water that her guns were throwing up, they couldn't successfully dodge forever. One of the boats took a hit that tore its bow off and ever so faintly, a scream echoed across the water as it heaved, crippled.

The second however continued onwards, uncaring of what had happened to its companion. It wove with deft precision through the splashes, getting closer and closer. Then it veered hard over, revealing its broadside. Three flashes followed, torpedo impulse charges.

Brockton went to flank, her turbines howling as steam pressure dramatically rose as she climbed from approximately twenty-six knots and began making turns for thirty-three knots. It would completely FUBAR the solution that the enemy had on her. "Torpedoes in the water!" she shouted over TBS as she threw her rudders over by ten degrees.

She shifted onto her new course, and held it for several seconds, before resuming her original course. Confident now that the torpedoes would miss she worked furiously to regain her solution on the enemy ship. High up, her spotters however could tell that several friendlies had broken through the enemy screen and were pressing the attack streaming their colors which in the light of the flames were blazing like the sun.

<<Main Battery cease firing! Cease firing!>> She ordered out of fear of hitting her friends due to having to refind the range. This was because Brockton knew, that if you maneuvered, it affected your firing solution much more than the enemy's. A deviation of one or two degrees was something that could be easily accounted for in firing solutions.

But the radical evasion she had just done to avoid torpedoes? She would have to completely start from scratch to find her firing solution again. If she got it wrong and had shells landed short, which was a certainty in this case, there was a chance no matter how slight, that she could hit friendlies, and given that large caliber projectiles only rarely left caliber-sized holes…it was too much of a risk to take.

She watched as her escorts closed, presented their broadsides, and then wheeled away - back towards them. The minutes slowly ticked by as she waited for them to get to a distance that she considered safe. She was about to give the order to commence firing when a spout erupted on her target, it was followed by two more in rapid succession!

The enemy seemed to slam into a brick wall and then over the course of maybe two minutes seemed to heel over onto its side and begin to sink. Brockton couldn't help it, at the sight of such a hateful thing slipping into the depths of deep after a long and hard-fought battle. She cheered and whooped with glee at the sight of it.

She confirmed through her spotters that there was still one enemy left and it had maneuvered violently to avoid torpedoes. But it had turned towards them instead of away, a sign of possible overaggressiveness perhaps? Or maybe it wished to keep its main guns firing while doing torpedo evasion. Brockton shrugged.

Either way, it would cost the thing.

Her salvo buzzer rang.

---

Brockton Bay
Madison Clements

Standing on her bridge, Madison Clements, the reincarnation of USS Madison DD-425, nervously looked around as her helmsman carefully guided herself or was it her hull? She wasn't exactly sure. Into Lord's Port Naval Yard, the surviving lifeboats from the now capsized PHQ followed behind her like ducklings. She could already see men gathering on one of the piers, a variety of emergency vehicles, some military with huge red crosses on them and others merely being civilian ambulances waiting nearby.

She thought of the people that she had on her hull. Tired, shell-shocked, cold, soaked, and in many cases wounded men and women were crowded on her deck either standing with assistance or by themselves, with many others laying on stretchers. She thought of the people on the stretchers and how her chaplains had given some their last rites - including a woman that she believed was a hero.

She couldn't help but feel like a stranger, everything felt right with her being here yet at the same time…Madison pushed those thoughts aside as she proceeded to the bridge wing to watch her crew guide the ship in. As they approached, a tall thin man wearing what appeared to be Dress Whites, raised a speaking trumpet and an electronically magnified voice reached her ears. "Ahoy Madison!" the man boomed.

Madison scrambled for and found a speaking trumpet, lifting the thing to her lips she shouted in response "Ahoy land, coming up to dock with survivors from the PHQ onboard!"

"Understood Madison, how many rescued souls onboard?" Came a response from the officer, she realized that it had to be an officer who was speaking to her.

Madison realized that she instinctively knew among those who were onboard, who were her crew and who wasn't. She effortlessly knew that number - it was a very scary thing, to say the least. "About a hundred and sixty, sir!" she shouted through the trumpet, knowing that she had successfully rescued a hundred sixty-two people from the water.

There was a long pause and then the man responded. "Excellent work Madison!" came the reply and Madison allowed herself to preen from the appreciation that was given.

"Thank you, sir! It was rather toasty out there despite the chill." Madison replied through the speaking trumpet as the Officer of the Deck (OOD) behind her called out commands to get her tied off to the pier so they could start unloading the survivors. Right now, she had so many people on board that she had no prayer of fighting effectively which meant that she wanted to get them off ASAP. Judging by how the man on the quay reacted to her words, she had successfully made the man laugh.

That reminded her. "Begging your pardon, sir. After all, survivors are unloaded, what are my next orders?" she asked as the line handlers took up their positions to help bring her in.

There was a long pause and she swore that she saw the man talk on a handheld and wait for a response before raising the megaphone again. "Admiral Holloway wants you on harbor guard until you are relieved by the Coast Guard, assuming that the cutters stationed here can still sail."

Madison nodded, harbor guard. Boring duty, but a drastically necessary one. She would be damned if she allowed the enemy to pull essentially a Resistance on them while she was around, thinking about the British Battleship that was sunk in Scapa Flow by a U-Boat.

"I can do that! Tell the Admiral that nothing will get by me!" Madison called out as the lines were secured, she felt a gentle tugging as she was pulled closer to the dock. The tugging turned into a tightness around her torso as she was tied off.

"Finished with engines!" she heard the Officer of the Deck call.

She turned towards the Officer of the Deck. "Right, let's get that gangway lowered. I want the at-risk cases offloaded first, followed by the regular stretcher cases, followed by those who need assistance walking, and finally everyone else including the bodies."

"Aye, ma'am." The OOD said and began barking commands, she found a stool on the bridge wing and practically collapsed into it. The last couple of hours had been a grueling slog of carefully poking through burning waters, sweeping her searchlights across the inky blackness looking desperately for survivors.

They had pulled far too many corpses from the water as well - the worst part had been finding a deceased Ward, Clockblocker…the cause of death was obvious, severe internal trauma probably incurred from when the PHQ had capsized. Madison sniffled, no one deserved to die like that - scared and alone in burning waters as you bled out from internal trauma. The sight of him being limp and lifeless was going to stay with her, she just knew it…the day was already bad enough…but pulling a dead hero from the water was just sickening.

She watched as the stretcher-bearers hastily guided themselves down the gangway. The first stretcher held the woman she believed to be Miss Militia. She had been heavily burned and when she had regained consciousness, before she had been given a dose of Laudanum had been shrieking her damned head off. How were these severely burned people going to be treated? Between the gas and the bombardment, if the hospitals were still functional, it would be a SECNAV-given miracle.

She continued watching Miss Militia's stretcher be handed off to a military ambulance crew. She watched as they put the cape on a backboard and quickly hustled her into the back of the waiting Humvee ambulance. She watched as the process repeated itself many times over and the ambulances slowly began to peel away once they were loaded.

Madison couldn't help but wonder as she watched the ambulances, their sirens baying and their lights pulsing, where were they going? The hospitals had to be in ruins even despite the solid half-dozen hospitals that Brockton Bay had.

She turned to the OOD and sighed. "OOD, I want you to find out where those ambulances are going."

"Aye, ma'am. Mister Brown!" Madison tuned out the following conversation as the OOD went about his duties. She felt like she had run a marathon without any conditioning, her arms felt like thick noodles and her legs were jelly. More than that, she felt like a wall or something had taken offense to her feet and stubbed all of her toes…repeatedly and then bruised her shins just for good measure, which indicated where she had struck debris while slowly making her way through the debris choked waters.

"You alright ma'am?" she heard a voice ask.

Madison looked up at the source, one of the bridge wing spotters. "Not particularly, Brockton Bay is my home, and for all that Boston is the place of my birth, in both of my lives. It stings seeing the city like this."

"I never lived in Brockton Bay, Providence was where I lived - but with how the city is located right on the water." The man said with a shudder and Madison couldn't help it, she laughed.

"Battleship Cove is located nearby, they have a destroyer, a heavy cruiser, and a battleship all preserved as museums. That museum is one of the most visited in the entire Northeast, only the real big-name ones in the region see more people. If the same thing that happened here happened there. I reckon that those ships will take great bloody offense." Madison replied and the man hummed.

"Which ships?" He asked.

"Montana and Quincy are the battleship and heavy cruiser, can't remember the destroyer for the likes of me," Madison replied and the look that the man gave her caused her to giggle.

"Those leviathans? Fucking Christ, you need something like those Japanese Yamatos to do more than annoy a Montana class." The watchstander said and Madison cringed at the mention of Yamato. That was an infamous name among the ships of the US Navy, quite possibly the highest-scoring battleship to ever sail the seven seas, a leviathan of the ocean that had earned majority credit on three Standard Battleships during the Battle of the South Pacific which had developed after a raid on Efate and a ship that during Leyte Gulf earned at least partial credit for benching an Iowa class for the remainder of the war, and partial credit for sinking another.

"No shit, I never saw one in person, but I heard about the horror story that was South Pacific," Madison admitted she had heard the stories though. The Worst Defeat had been an extremely ugly shclacking of the United States Navy by the Imperial Japanese Navy that had cost the USN thousands of lives.

The sound of boots on metal decking got her attention. "Ah, Mister Brown," she said, turning to face the man who was coming up to her, vaguely illuminated by the dim red lighting.

"Ma'am." Mister Brown greeted.

"So, where are those ambulances going?" Madison asked as she stood up, her legs were no longer aching, which was a good thing in her opinion.

"Pease Air Force Base, apparently Admiral Holloway pulled off a miracle and found something called a Super Galaxy, he's going to have the wounded loaded up on that thing, and that aircraft is then going to fly to Dayton, Ohio." Mister Brown said and Madison nodded - that made sense as much as anything.

"Good to hear," Madison said as she went back to watching everyone file off, the number of people onboard slowly dropping.

"Indeed, what's a Super Galaxy though?" Mister Brown asked.

Madison shrugged. "Transport of some kind, Mister Hebert, the father of one of my best friends would probably know for certain because I sure as hell don't."

She watched as the dead were brought out. Twenty cloth-covered bodies, some staining the sheets crimson, others not. But it was heartbreaking to watch those corpses sent ashore. It was bleak and somber watching it. Finally, though, the bodies were offloaded and Madison gave the order.

"Bring in all lines, helm take us out, nice and steady," Madison ordered and she watched as the line handlers brought in the lines. Her turbines slowly spun up as her horn roared, she pulled away from the quay and slowly maneuvered to head back out.

"OOD!" The talker screamed as they exited the enclosed area of LPNY, increasing speed to fifteen knots.

"What is it?" The OOD said and Madison perked up, wondering what could have caused the man to shout like that.

"Mayday call on Channel 16!"

"Have the radio room send it through to here!" The OOD called, knowing that in a situation like this, seconds counted.

"Aye aye, sir!" The man called, relaying his instructions. The bridge speakers came to life as the radio room connected the message through the repeaters.

"Mayday Mayday Mayday. This is the freighter, President Roosevelt, our position is 62°42'17.2" North 38°39'38.0" West. We're on fire, sinking, abandoning ship." Came the garbled voice of the captain on the other end of the line.

Madison scrunched up her face, President Roosevelt, why was that so familiar? Her face then went slack, that was her father's ship. That was the ship he had left on for his most recent contract. She darted to the chart table and quickly found the position and then, her shoulders slumped, tears running her down her face.

Dad's ship was sinking in the Irminger Sea - there was nothing she could do - swallowing back her tears - she looked at the assembled faces. "Captain, what's wrong?" The OOD asked.

"The President Roosevelt is the ship that my father is on as a a merchant mariner. I can sail across the Atlantic and yet despite that, he's far out of reach…and I can't save him and that far north…" she sobbed, despair dominating her voice as she realized that her father was gone.

That far north with the water temperatures being what they were? Madison sniffled, swallowed her grief, and straightened up as the comforting mass of steel that she was settled around her. She had a job to do and there would be time to mourn later.

---

Somewhere In Virginia

Far from Brockton Bay New Hampshire and Saco Bay Maine, near a small city lay the ruins of a bullet-ridden Black Hawk helicopter, a long trench carved into the ground behind it. Bodies were strewn about, fuel and other fluids pooled on the ground. Trapped within the destroyed ruins of the passenger compartment, her legs at angles that no human leg should be in and with no feeling past her shoulders. The Chief Director of the Parahuman Response Team took in a wheezing breath, held it, and with a rasping rattle, exhaled for the final time.

 

[BigBadBen]

Holy shit. This is fantastic!!!

 

[Wolf of the Sea]

Holy shit. This is fantastic!!!

Click to shrink...

Any particular moments that stand out?

 

[BigBadBen]

Any particular moments that stand out?

Click to shrink...

The entire story so far. The pace, the context, the way that heroes and villains die, and an all around fantastic feeling.

 

[Wolf of the Sea]

The entire story so far. The pace, the context, the way that heroes and villains die, and an all around fantastic feeling.

Click to shrink...

Thank you, capturing the atmosphere for something like this is pretty difficult. I am just glad that I can do it so well.

 

[Wolf of the Sea]

The formation of Brockton Bay as I see it in this story is actually quite different from how it is in canon.

Brockton Bay is actually a Ria, a flooded river valley in the much same vein as Narragansett Bay, New York Harbor, Delaware Bay, Indian River Bay, the Chesapeake Bay, and Charleston Harbor are rias on the East Coast, along with Willapa Bay and Grays Harbor in Washington and San Francisco Bay in California on the West Coast. The bay itself was formed partially through differences in erosion caused by the Laurentide Ice Sheet during the last Glaciation along with the fact that the Adirondack Mountains developed in a position that was further north and east than where they did historically. The resulting changes in hydrology prevented the Piscataqua River from flowing where it did historically. Over the hundreds of thousands of years that followed after the last Glaciation, the Piscataqua River carved out an immense bay that was vaguely bell-shaped, this bay has multiple inlets and is home to the cities of Brockton, Lord's Port, Southshore, Dover, and Portsmouth - with the former three eventually being incorporated as the city of Brockton Bay.

The bay itself is located several miles further south in comparison to where the Piscataqua River empties into the Atlantic Ocean in IRL. It's 12 miles long with its widest point being approximately 7 miles which is across the mouth - there are three major islands in the bay along with five navigable inlets. Four on the northern side, three of which are navigable by Big Boats and one that is navigable by Small Boats, and the last navigable inlet is on the southern shore of the bay and is the shallowest of the five. Furthermore, there are several islands located in the bay itself. It's fairly deep, furthermore running through the city of Brockton is the Piscataqua River, which at its mouth is approximately a half mile wide.

Then there was the harbor defenses that were built throughout the 1800s and into the 1900s, which was lumped in with the Army under Harbor Defense Command Brockton Bay.

Harbor Defense Command Brockton Bay had seven forts: Fort Foster, Fort Constitution, Fort Stark, Fort Dearborn, Fort Mason, and Fort New Hampshire - all of these Forts save Fort Mason, and Fort New Hampshire are real forts.

Fort Foster originally had three 10in Disappearing Guns and two 3in Guns on Pedastal Mounts, it also would have a minefield. The ten inchers were scrapped in 1942, but a new Battery of two 6in guns was planned but work was suspended in 1944. However, it did have an Anti-Motor Boat Battery installed composed of four 90mm guns.

Fort Constitution had two 8in Disappearing Guns, but they were removed during WWI for use as Railway Artillery and weren't returned along with two 3in guns.

Fort Dearborn had two massive 16in/50 caliber guns in casemate mounts and replaced the 10in guns at Fort Foster, it also had another Anti-Motor Boat Battery of four 90mm guns, additionally, the first gun battery at this fortress was four 155mm guns on Panama Mounts. A third battery had two 6in guns.

Fort Stark in the Endicott Period had two 12in Disappearing guns (which were retained until '45), two 6in Disappearing Guns, and two batteries of two 3in guns on Pedestal Mounts. During WWI, the Sixes were dismounted for use as artillery, but after the war weren't returned to the Fort. During WWII, one of the 3in gun batteries went to Fort Constitution while another was installed in a different position. A third Anti-Motor Torpedo Boat Battery was proposed, again 4 90mm guns, but it was never authorized.

Fort Mason is Taft Period Construction, it was armed in the Interwar years with four 16in Howitzers and two batteries of three 6in guns, it also had a torpedo battery. Furthermore, it had space for another battery of 155mm Panama Mounts - an Anti-Motor Torpedo Boat Battery of four 90mm guns was installed. This fort was badly damaged by the Slaughterhouse 9 when they came to Brockton Bay and was only partially repaired.

Fort New Hampshire had broadly similar armament to Fort Mason.

I would draw a map of Brockton Bay itself, but I have literally no drawing skills at all - though if anyone wants to try, they're more than welcome to and then send it to me in PMs.

 

[Unsealedimp]

I felt the memories hit. I was a carrier man. You did good

 

[RookDeSuit]

Massive RIP to a Multitude of Parahumans. What are the Shards doing in response? Would they be susceptible to Abyssal corruption or the fear effect that regular humans are suffering from?

Anyway, keep up the good work.

 

[strictpig]

Massive RIP to a Multitude of Parahumans. What are the Shards doing in response?

Click to shrink...

This is probably the greatest lost of Shard hosts in this cycle, especially if the Abyssals are attacking multiple countries. I would imagine a lot of countries sent out their capes to defend and lost a considerable number of them. And seeing how Abyssals are largely unaffected by capes' powers, this will probably be a very humbling experience to the survivors.

 

[Wolf of the Sea]

And seeing how Abyssals are largely unaffected by capes' powers,

Click to shrink...

Don't get me wrong, Parahumans can be effective against Abyssal Warships, but BAEB and effectiveness for Parahuman powers scale with tonnage. For instance, Purity could likely damn near cut a destroyer or scout cruiser in half. But will leave only rather small holes (caliber size if she's lucky - essentially a hole the size of her hand) in something like a Battleship.

Now Purity versus Abyssal Ground Forces is a completely different kettle of fish.

this will probably be a very humbling experience to the survivors.

Click to shrink...

It indeed will be. Victoria for instance got clubbed with a clue-by-four...

 

[Bigshot0910]

This is an excellent story so far, and I am eager for more. Holy hell though are you going heavy on the grimdark right from the start. I get it, war fic, and realistic, but whew.

Curious about that last scene. Body double, is RCB not chief, or is she not Alexandria?

 

[Wolf of the Sea]

Curious about that last scene. Body double, is RCB not chief, or is she not Alexandria?

Click to shrink...

Its the body double of RCB that died in that scene...which means Cauldron just lost the PRT...

 

[strictpig]

Its the body double of RCB that died in that scene...which means Cauldron just lost the PRT...

Click to shrink...

Makes sense since Alexandria would be needed on the front lines during what other fanfics would call Blood Week. So with Cauldron losing control of the PRT, it opens up the spot for someone not following Cauldron's agenda, so we might see the PRT actually be effective.

 

[Wolf of the Sea]

So with Cauldron losing control of the PRT, it opens up the spot for someone not following Cauldron's agenda, so we might see the PRT actually be effective.

Click to shrink...

The PRT ITTL has actually had trouble at times with funding before they became an official government organization, primarily because ITTL, the USSR is still going strong despite Behemoth's attempt to headshot it. Thus the Cold War is still ongoing, which means...yeah...trying to convince the US Armed Forces to separate from their funding when there is a known peer power around? Oh yeah...good luck with that.

Granted, that only lasted for the first few years of the PRT's existence before funding managed to get to a point where RCB was at least happy. But the PRT's soft-balling of villains has led to jokes in the military regarding PRT competence.

Post-Blood Week, cracking one of those jokes is a good way to get punched in the face. The PRT suffered one of the highest casualty ratios of any service under the DoD's jurisdiction (the PRT is like the Coast Guard, in times of war, it ends up under the aegis of the Department of Defense instead of Homeland Security - which got formed ITTL due to the rise of Parahuman Villains as well as things like the Endbringers and The Fallen)

 

[Salvare7097]

Here come the crossposts

---

The Old Guard

---

Shoulder arms about face 21 steps, shoulder-arms about face.

Explosions, gunfire and screaming happened in the background. He continued his March.

Shoulder arms about face 21 steps, shoulder-arms about face.

He absolutely would not abandon his post. The tomb would remain untouched.

Shoulder arms about face 21 steps, shoulder-arms about face.

Unknown figure carrying a weapon. Does not look human. It is attempting to violate the tomb. This cannot stand. He sites His rifle in On the Enemy. Just as he had done at Basic in Camp Dodge in Iowa in 1917. Just as he had done at Basic At Camp Shelby in Mississippi in 1942. Just as he had done At Bellawood. Just as he had done at Iwo jima. just as he had done at Salerno. Just as he had done at Normandy.

He fired. The figure dissolved into black smoke.

Shoulder arms about face 21 steps, shoulder-arms about face.

Gunfire. Explosions. Thick smoke.

Shoulder arms about face 21 steps, shoulder-arms about face.

He was an honor guard. He would stand guard until relieved.

Shoulder arms about face 21 steps, shoulder-arms about face.

The sun was rising.

Shoulder arms about face 21 steps, shoulder-arms about face.

 

[Sandy River DL]

How long had it been since I sank? Decades at least. But then, did it really matter? The war would be long over, and the only use for a shattered hulk would be scrap.

Wait.

Something had changed. A foulness was building above. If it went unchecked, everything I had fought for, everything my crew held dear, would be facing destruction.

I could not, would not, let that happen.

Chains of decayed blood and rusted iron held for but a moment before giving way and loosing me from my former self to ascend back to the surface.

I would see battle again. I would strike down any who threaten my country once more.

I broke through the waves, a savage smile on my lips, and shells in my gun breeches.

 

[Salvare7097]

---

Return of The Grey Ghost
A/N: The crossposting continues Now this is about 3 Sidestories compressed into one.

---

She had been many things in her life: Lucky E, The Grey Ghost, The Grey Eminence, The Grey Angel. But at the end of the day, she would always be USS Enterprise, the younger sister to USS Yorktown.

She'd done many things over her career and life. Training in peace with Yorktown. Learning of her sister and aunts' loss at Coral Sea had been particularly painful. The deaths of Colorado and Maryland, so soon after what happened to her sister and aunt, made her feel numb.

The end of Zuikaku in August and Soryu in October brought her out of the numbness for a bit. The deaths of Auntie Sara and little Wasp made her see red when she learned of them.

The next couple of years had been a bit of a blur for her, although she could remember bits and pieces of it.

Battle after battle, engagement after engagement. She can remember them if she focuses, but her mind shies away from it.

What gets her out of this state of numbness is a near miss. One of her escorts, Mitscher, shoots down a kamikaze, and she is suddenly back in the war. Her mind is clear and focused.

And that name that name brings a tear to her eyes.

But she needs to focus on winning the war. Her planes bomb airfields and raze them to the ground. She sinks cargo ships. Her aircraft shoot down snoopers and single plane infiltration attempts at night. She shot down a number of aircraft.

And then she's sailing into Tokyo Bay, and she sees the city of her hated enemy, the one that had killed all but one of her family.

Ruins is the first thing her mind registers when looking at Tokyo. They had reduced the city to ruins.

The Japanese coming aboard and surrendering on her deck made a part of her soul ease. The part that had been demanding that she destroy this country eased. She watched. The same thing happened to Pennsylvania. The rage that had been ever-present in the battleship's eyes since Pearl Harbor and the death of Arizona dimmed, and a look of relief flashed behind green eyes.

The pain that had been behind West Virginia's eyes also eased, although it had been nowhere near the same level as Pennsylvania's.

After bringing U.S. troops home and being a part of Operation Magic Carpet, she and many of the other ships she talked to felt a sense of closure and finality that they had won.

And then, after a refit, she was put into reserve.

Being put into reserve had been a bit boring, although she and the other ships there did war game with each other. Mitscher was there at least.

Then, around the mid-50s, talk began of what to do with her. The USAF had politicked to keep her out of Korea. A part of her that had been asleep for years began to wake up. She would not go gentle into that good night.

She was then saved from an unexpected source. The US Marine Corps needed assistance. The battles in Korea had taught them that they needed more support on the ground.

Her old Admiral Halsey, hearing of this and seeing a way to save his ship, brought the idea up with the commandant.

She was taken out of reserve and then put through a conversion.

She would emerge two years later, feeling much better. The damage that her prior refit had missed had been repaired. A lot of the war had been repaired as well.

Operating helicopters was an odd experience. They didn't behave like the aircraft she was used to. They could take off vertically. She managed to keep her number, though. Being LPH-6 was, well, relaxing compared to being a fleet carrier.

She'd also gotten a variant of the Skyraider, an aircraft that she had never touched in her old career. The A1X apparently was a variant of the Skyraider that had been modified to work from her deck. Given contra-rotating turboprops, the aircraft could barely manage to take off from her deck, fully loaded, but it was something. She could operate 16 of them.

Her Marines adapted quickly to her, as did the rest of her crew. The conversion had included an expanded infirmary.

Working up as an LPH was interesting.

Practicing landings with the Marine Corps had shown her just how complicated they were. Sometimes remembering her thoughts about the Marines taking so long to take islands made her cringe now. It was an incredibly complex task. Mitscher in a new refit had joined her.

Then came Vietnam.

It relaxed her a bit

What she was doing in that war made her feel confused.

Why were they even here?

Regardless of her own thoughts and feelings, she had a duty to do. She did it well.

She would insert Marines a bit behind the lines, and her Skyraiders would provide them support while they hit a target. That earned her a new nickname, and it was kind of embarrassing, The Gray Eminence.

Her absolute favorite part, though, was rescuing downed pilots. The thanks she got from the other carriers for that was heartwarming. The reaction of Coral Sea was particularly memorable. She'd always be quite giddy and thank her profusely.

It felt really nice to be appreciated for something other than destroying things.

That had earned her another nickname, The Gray Angel. The nickname had been flattering. It had been a bit embarrassing as well.

Then she met the new Langley, and looking at her hurt. But it wasn't a bad feeling. She looked like her mother, like Mama Langley.

Then came the capstone of her career and the moment she was second most proud of; the first would always be hosting the surrender. Though this one was also special.

It started when 32 U.S. Navy SEALs, whom she had once known as UDT divers, came aboard.

She had dropped off SEALs before.

But this mission, this mission was something else.

The SEALs had come aboard with heavily modified HH-3s. Her Skyraiders were getting loaded to the nines with ordnance.

Over on Little Langley's deck was also a maelstrom of activity as they began loading up Phantoms and A4s for the mission.

Operation Daredevil, they called it. A plan to bust in and liberate The Hanoi Hilton.

It succeeded wonderfully. The airstrike cleared a path to the target, and her helicopters and Skyraiders managed to liberate the camp. The enemy's counterattack did more harm to them than good. A good number of them were shot down by Langley's aircraft as they withdrew.

It was decided that she would take the POWs home. As she was pulling into Pearl Harbor, she felt a shooting pain in her chest. She had the superheater failed on her number 2 boiler.

That had led to her being placed in reserve as her number 2 boiler was uneconomical to repair.

That led the government to an entirely different problem. The question of what to do with her began again.

They couldn't scrap her. She had done too much and was pretty much a symbol of the Navy at this point. Some of the people she had rescued had influential relatives.

End of the day, she opened as a museum In Pearl Harbor on July 4th, 1976. The Bicentennial Celebration. It had been a long, long journey.

Her faithful escort was also there as ever she would be preserved with her. Along with Samuel B Roberts the Destroyer that had captured her.

That led her to where she was now, talking with Theodore about the Tomcat. She was still amazed at jets.

Mitscher and Sammy were were talking with one of the Burks about how to destroy your tactics at evolved.

And then she heard a loud, familiar droning. Looking up, she saw it. She recognized those shapes. Those were Vals and with them Zeros. However, they were wrong. Oh, so wrong. They gave off a ghastly, evil feeling that just screamed: Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong. Destroy.

Theodore screamed.

Memories of war rushed through her, the deaths of her friends and family.

Her hull glowed with a blinding light.

The world froze, shivered, and hiccupped.

And USS Enterprise CV-6 Materialized on her flight deck.

---

Conversations

---

Lieutenant Commander George W. Bush sighed as he sat down to write a letter.

Hi Dad,

I just wanted to let you know that I'm all right. The mission that we went on was a success and everything is looking up. or that's what I would say if I had been writing this letter yesterday.

On to more important matters, with your connections, you have no doubt heard about what happened to Enterprise. I have been acting as the Commander Air Group since Commander Benson is Stateside due to injuries and they have not had the time due to the upcoming mission to replace him.

You may have heard that Captain Brown is at fault, that is not true. attached in this letter are copies of written requests approved by Admiral Hudner but turned down by Pacific Command to have Enterprise go through her deferred maintenance. It was requested in writing multiple times by Captain Brown and approved multiple times by Admiral Hudner. Only for it to be turned down each time.

Now I'm not sure the Following part is true. I have heard rumors that the Navy wants to make an example of Captain Brown. He had as you'll note in the attached requests wanted to put the Enterprise through maintenance. Pops I know you maintain your security clearance so I'm not in violation by sending this to you. Especially with your role in the House Armed Services Committee.

Dad, please do what you can for Captain Brown. he's a good officer and has taught me a lot. He does not deserve to have this blamed on him.

Your son,

Junior.

As he went to send the letter he bumped into someone else who was also holding a letter ''Hello John.'' The two of them had become good friends on the voyage back to Pearl. He said glancing at the letter in John's hand that it was marked to be sent to his father.

"I think the two of us should talk." George W. Bush said as he showed John McCain to a bar that he had found. The two of them began to plot how to save Captain Jesse Brown's career.

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Consequences

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Months later

In the tense atmosphere of Captain Drummond's office, the door swung open abruptly. Admiral John S. McCain Jr., accompanied by six stern-faced Military Police officers, stepped inside. The air was heavy with unspoken accusations and the gravity of what was about to unfold.

Admiral McCain's gaze was steely as it fixed on Captain Drummond, who looked up from his desk, his expression a mix of defiance and apprehension. The room was thick with the unspoken weight of the tragedy that had unfolded under Drummond's watch – sixteen lives lost, four others forever altered.

"Captain John S. Drummond," McCain's voice was firm, brooking no argument, "you are under arrest for violations of the Uniform Code of Military Justice: Article 81, conspiracy; Article 93, cruelty and maltreatment; Article 107, making false official statements; Article 132, fraud against the United States; Article 133, conduct unbecoming an officer; and article 134, negligent homicide."

Drummond's face hardened, but he offered no resistance as the MPs moved forward. McCain continued, "Your actions have not only cost lives but have stained the honor of this Navy. A general court-martial will be convened. You will be held accountable."

As Drummond was escorted out, McCain's expression remained impassive, but there was a hint of personal insult in his eyes. This wasn't just about military justice; it was about upholding the core values of respect and integrity – values that Drummond had flagrantly violated. The door closed behind them, leaving the office in silence, a stark reminder of the consequences of negligence in the high-stakes world of naval operations.

---

Perseverance - The Winds of Change

AN: prior relevant snip here, and here

---

At her core, she was a destroyer. Of her two names, she preferred the one named after a hero: USS Mitscher DL-1. She did not mind being called by her other name, Shimakaze, as that's where she came from; she was still partially Shimakaze.

Her first mission while working up was an escort mission from Okinawa to Tokyo Bay. She was the Escort. Over the four days and three nights she lost three of the four transports. After the war, she would learn who was responsible and even meet her.

In the second and last combat operation of her first commission, she was at the Battle of the Philippine Sea, and the ambush in the San Bernardino Strait.

She watched, open-mouthed, as Nagato and Matsu exploded, the fire reaching their magazines. Awaji, Fuji, and Kita burned to the waterline. Later that night, she watched helplessly as her captain and admiral both committed seppuku, instilling within her a distaste for suicide.

---

Not 15 minutes later, the encounter that would forever change her career happened.

Out of nowhere, they were engaged by a combined American torpedo boat and destroyer force ambushing them in the San Bernardino Strait. She had no idea what was going on. The opening salvo had Musashi sunk by torpedoes. In the confusion, her XO was killed. Then one of the American destroyers rafted herself to her.

And that's when she was boarded, and American sailors swarmed all over her—her crew, already massively reduced from the fight, was either killed or captured. And she was looking at the spirit of the American destroyer, dead in the emotionless gold eyes.

Wordlessly, she handed her sword over and, gently shaking, collapsed to the ground and curled up into a ball. She had been captured.

Americans first brought her to Ullagi for patch job repairs. Towing the destroyer escort, Samuel B Roberts that captured her. And then after their stay over at the American base there into Pearl Harbor, the whole time the American stars and stripes are flying above the Japanese rising Sun.

Entering the harbor, she was momentarily shocked out of her stupor by the sight of two battleships sunk. One a shattered wreck and the other capsized.

Looking to Samuel, she asked, "Who were they?" Her English was still thick but understandable. There was a beat of silence before Samuel replied, "They were Arizona and Oklahoma." Sammy, looking up at her from her deck, her gold eyes that still seemed a bit lost.

She didn't know what came over her next, but she bowed her head in a gesture of respect.

She was then thoroughly examined. It was then that she realized the Americans had captured all of her codebooks. An American admiral named Rochefort came aboard personally to take custody of those books.

After that was done, they began to test her machinery and guns.

---

Then, about a month later, something unexpected happened. She was taken into dry dock and given new armaments: new guns, new torpedoes. She was equipped with radar, something she had only heard rumors about, along with new directors and more. She was then recommissioned on April 5th, 1945, as USS Mitscher DL-1.

Her first assignment was to TF 58.3. She arrived on May 10th, 1945. When she saw the Enterprise, the Grey Ghost, her eyes were unfocused and glazed, as if she was seeing through her.

Not four days later, she and her crew proved their worth. Her crew, mostly Nisei, had initially been treated with a bit of suspicion.

Her radar detected an enemy aircraft, and her crew went to action stations. A Zero was lining up on Enterprise. Her new 5/54 guns opened fire, followed by her 40mm guns.

Just as the Zero began to set up for a dive, a shell from #2 gun on her forward 5/54 gun impacted the bomb the Zero was carrying, causing it to detonate and utterly obliterating the enemy.

Then, Enterprise was looking at her. Did she do well? Did she break doctrine? Did something go wrong?

Enterprise was smiling, a look of sadness in her purple eyes. "Well done," those two words, said so quietly but with such genuine gratitude, became one of the most memorable moments of her career from her point of view.

There was another feeling as well – that she had done something great, that she had prevented something catastrophic.

The next months were hard but rewarding. Her crew had earned respect. She was the plane guard for the USS Enterprise.

Then one day, it was over, and they were sailing into her former home. Strangely, it didn't feel like home anymore.

It was with a jolt that she watched the leaders of her former home surrender to her new one on board Enterprise.

That thought brought her up short.

Japan was no longer home.

She assisted with bringing people home alongside Enterprise.

She then underwent a refit, mostly to clean up the little damage there was, and was put into reserve.

It was then that she realized she had lost no one. Not a single crew member had been killed or injured.

She participated in the monthly war games that the other spirits held and performed well.

It was there she met the submarine that had sunk all but one of the transports in her first operation under the name of Shimakaze: USS Harder.

The two of them hit it off, joking around and becoming friends.

---

In 1951, she was brought out of reserve.

The US apparently liked her design.

So, they began a massive, in-depth study of her. She was brought into dry dock and put through exhaustive tests. When it was all done, she learned that the US was planning to build more ships like her. She was going to have sisters.

Over the next couple of years, she watched with excitement as nine sister ships were constructed. Based on her design, they incorporated her power plant and some design work she hadn't heard about, which had taken place prior to the end of the Second World War.

She would be refitted to match these new advancements.

A part of her that had felt lonely since the cancellation of her eighteen sisters began to ease.

---

Her deployment in Korea was an odd experience.

Being a part of Task Force 77 brought a sense of nostalgia, yet she couldn't help but miss Enterprise. Knowing her, she was probably quite irritated about the Air Force's actions.

It left a bad taste in her mouth as well.

She observed as the Corsairs returned from yet another strike mission. The last in the formation, Tail end Charlie, was damaged. Her crew prepared as the flight of Corsairs approached the USS Leyte for landing.

In the end, all was fine, and the damaged Corsair touched down without a problem.

Ensign Brown was lucky that day.

---

In 1956, she, along with half of her sisters, were brought in for a refit.

Her boilers were thoroughly cleaned, and her radio and radar systems were replaced with newer models. Her sonar and directors were also upgraded.

Her back two 5/54 twin mounts were removed and replaced with a new weapon: the RIM-2 Terrier missile system.

She was then assigned to Amphibious Ready Group 1, alongside the USS Enterprise.

This assignment was an old task, but now equipped with new technology.

She easily fell back into her old routine with Enterprise, reminiscent of their time together during the Second World War.

And then came Vietnam.

That's when things started to feel strange. Why were they even here?

Nevertheless, she had a job to do.

---

The enemy attempted an air raid on their group only once.

It was insultingly easy to shoot down.

She picked the pilot out of the water and transferred him to Enterprise, where the Spooks were stationed.

Then she observed some modified HH-3 helicopters landing on Enterprise.

An hour later, the decks of both her and the newest ship in the fleet, USS Langley CVN-65, began to buzz with activity.

Task Force 99 was then ordered to increase speed to 30 knots and make a dash towards Hainan.

She flashed recognition at ROCS Hong Kong, which was escorting them as well.

She watched as the strike package launched from the Langley and the insertion package launched from Enterprise.

Mentally, she wished them well, hoping for their safe and successful mission.

---

While escorting Enterprise back into Pearl, she noticed as E clutch her chest and collapsed onto to her the deck.

"That fucking moron," was her first thought. Damn Drummond to hell. That REMF had constantly denied Captain Brown's repair requests and ignored Admiral Hudner's requests.

As the days passed, she heard about the deaths of 16 men and the crippling of 4 more.

All the while, she maintained watch over Enterprise.

---

Enterprise was deemed beyond economic repair.

E was then placed into reserve in Pearl Harbor.

Hearing what happened to Drummond brought a sense of satisfaction. The bastard got what he deserved.

There was debate about what to do with Enterprise. She was a bit worried that they would scrap her friend.

In the end, those worries came to nothing. Enterprise was just too much of a symbol to scrap.

With the worry for her friend out of the way, she began to worry about what they would do to her now. She was not that much younger than Enterprise.

Her old country, though, came in and saved her. They agreed to assist with the preservation of her as a museum ship.

They even brought Sammy back from the reserve fleet, and the three of them were then made into the Pacific War Museum and Memorial in Pearl Harbor.

---

Discussing modern destroyer tactics with USS Russell was interesting. They had evolved so much, taking on some of the roles of cruisers. It still boggled her that the missiles she carried in Vietnam were not really comparable to the ones the navy was using now.

Then she heard it.

The droning of familiar aircraft.

The carrier that Enterprise had been talking to screamed.

Her hull glowed with blinding light.

The world froze, jittered, and hiccuped.

And USS Mitscher DL-1 appeared on her deck.

---

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Spoiler: USS Mitscher/Shimakaze

Immediately after commissioning as USS Mitscher


At her decommissioning in 1976