Belated Battleships (KanColle) [REHOST]
- Thread starter theJMPer
- Start date
You Are Not Helping!
- Location
- 'Murica
Under normal circumstances, Jersey supposed she should be thrilled with herself. Falling asleep in the titanic and utterly unclothed chocolate cleavage of a stunningly pretty woman—a woman whose breasts were as huge and soft and structurally superfluous as they were inferior to Jersey's own American-built, more weight-efficient and perkier Mark Sevens—was ever red-blooded American man's dream.
If Jersey caught one of her crew taking a nap on such ample pillows, she'd have no other option than to lavish him with praise. High-fives would be involved, as would at least a few beers and lecherous comments and snide accusations of heterosexuality.
Only Jersey wasn't one of her crew. She wasn't a man. She was barely even a person, and only that because it was kinda hard to insist she was only a boat when she could walk and eat like a living thing.
And whatever the hell she was, she had Crowning. Or… had. After what she'd done, the battleship would be astonished if she stayed in this fucked-up jury-rig of a relationship until daybreak.
Jersey scowled and bolted off the bed. Sweat glistened on her pale skin as she stormed around her Japanese paramour's room. The battleship bit her tongue, frantically trying to break the skin with her teeth as she snatched up her bra and shirt.
Anger boiled though her veins and her muscles shook with rage. She didn't even bother trying to dress herself. Even if she could get her quaking muscles to comply, the battleship was so enraged she'd just tear the fabric to shreds. Her vision was little more than a bloody red haze, and her mouth filled with the taste of copper and fuel oil.
Jersey was a fast battleship of the American Navy, the fastest and strongest of her kind ever built. She existed for the sole purpose of chasing down the object of her hatred and wiping clean its stain upon the earth.
But what if the object of her hatred was herself?
"FUCK!" Jersey roared in fury and spat out a mouthful of stick red oil. Half of her wanted to crawl somewhere very dark and wallow in her misery. Fuck what her Admiral said, fuck what Crowning said… she really was a shitty fucking battleship if she couldn't even keep her… whatever the fuck the girl version of 'dick in her pants' was.
But the other half of her… the other half was nothing but unrefined rage. A rage that sent howling steam screaming down her turbines and powered her forwards despite the whimpering protestations of her cowering mind.
Somehow, the battleship's furious retreat ended up in a tile-lined shower hall with her clothes wadded up in the corner. Jersey was too mad and too miserable to question it. She just threw open the valve to its coldest setting and let water hammer against her skin like ice-drops.
She'd been so close… the only man who'd ever loved her… the only man she'd ever loved… She could have been happy. She could have had a boyfriend… or even—
"So," chuckled a teasing Australian accent that Jersey had long since grown to loathe. "now you can call him yer boyfriend."
Jersey roared in anger and threw her fist in the general direction of the voice. "Fuck you, Vicy, I'm not in the mood."
"Mate," Victory grabbed Jersey's arm and—after a brief moment to lovingly appreciate how bigger the massive American's muscles were—swung herself around to glare up at the towering battleship. She'd changed—or appeared, as the case may be—back into that impossibly skimpy union-jack bikini from earlier. "You may not be in the mood, but you sure as hell need me."
Jersey narrowed her eyes. "Fucking… this is your fault."
"I'm a figment of your imagination, mate." Victory happily put her arm though the battleship's rippling stomach to demonstrate. All Jersey felt was a little tingling where the man-o-war's timbers intersected with her own steel.
"I don't give a fuck," scowled the battleship. "Which one of us fucking told me to go for sodomy?"
Victory huffed and shook her head. The long feather on her oversized Admiral's bicorn tickled at Jersey's soaking nose, somehow deepening the battleship's scowl. "And bloody hell did you go for it." She paused for a second, then added, "I assume."
Jersey blinked. "You assume."
"Figment of your imagination, mate!" Victory poked Jersey in the stomach to underline the 'imagination' part. "I only know what you want me to know."
Jersey scowled and batted the sailing ship away. For a figment of her imagination, Victory always did make her frustrated and miserable. "Then how the fuck can you give me those pep-talks you handed out?"
"'cause," said Victory, "Deep down, you wanted someone to tell you you're not a fuckup."
"Don't like liars either," said Jersey. "Yet here we are."
Victory planted her hand on her hip and sighed. The look of disappointment on her face was almost motherly. Or would be, if she wasn't solidly half Jersey's height. And dressed in three UK-themed postage stamps and a large hat. Jersey's subconscious had weird fashion sense. "Mate?"
Jersey grunted in response.
"You made a mistake."
"No fucking shit," hissed the battleship.
"But," Victory carried on like Jersey hadn't said a word. "People do that, you know."
"Not me," said Jersey. "Not like this… I've got too much riding on me to make mistakes."
"Heh, I know something you'd want riding on ya," Victory smirked.
Jersey roared an inarticulate noise of anger in the British man-o-war's general direction.
"Sorry, force of habit." Victory shrugged. "But really, mate. Is getting you laid really a matter of national security?"
"Yes!" snapped the battleship. "I mean… no… just… I'm a bitch, okay?"
Victory looked up and down the American's towering form. She might only have one eye left, but that eye picked out every detail of the battleship's massive rifles, layered air-defense, and radar masts with the studious attention of a fighting Admiral. "A bitch? You? nooooo."
"'s true," Jersey let her head hang under the shower. Icy water cascaded down her broad back and slicked her strawberry blond hair to her skin. "I'm hard to love."
Victory shoved her hand in her face to stifle a giggle. "Sorry. continue."
"All I do is take," Jersey's voice was barely audible over the sound of freezing water crashing against her body. "I fuck up, he forgives me. I make trouble, he goes out of his way to fix things… I'm a shitty girlfriend even before…"
Victory fussed with her eyepatch and shrugged. "You try talking to him about it, mate?"
Jersey growled. "Fuck no. Tell him that after all the effort he put into me, I fucked it all up because I couldn't keep it in my fucking pants for one fucking deployment!" Jersey's voice jumped to a roar of anger and she threw her fist against the wall with all her might. Tile shattered and even the concrete substrate faltered under the force of her blow.
"Nobody's perfect, mate."
"Well I fucking should be," snapped Jersey.
"You lost your little sister, mate." Victory suddenly changed back into her usual admiral's uniform with a puff of vaguely oak-scented smoke. "You're a thousand miles away from home. Don't fault ya for seeking a little solace, mate."
"Fuck you," Jersey muttered.
"And…" Victory smirked, "It ain't gay if its under way, mate."
Jersey's grumbling shifted into an even lower register.
"I gotta say, mate… you got good taste." Victory smacked Jersey across her broad American stern. "That was one magnificent piece of chocolate ass."
Jersey eeped in surprise and clapped her hands to her stinging aft. "Oh my fucking god! Victory!"
"What?" Victory smirked, "she was delicious wasn't she?"
Jersey roared in incoherent rage and threw a punch that passed though Victory's smug little grin like it was made of smoke.
"I'm not gonna stop talking," said Victory, "Until you actually woman up and talk to the love of your life, mate."
Jersey scowled, and momentarily glanced to the heavens. "The fuck did I do," she sighed, "To get this useless-ass tea-drinking fucker stuck in my head."
"Just talk to him, mate." Victory smacked Jersey across the stern again. "Then I'll leave you alone."
Jersey stood scowling under the showerhead like a soaking cat for a good five minutes before shutting the water off with a grunt. "Fine. But you—" she rounded on the tiny sailing ship, only to freeze when she noticed Victory's absence. "I fucking hate it when she does that."
The battleship grumbled incoherent complaints about Victory in particular and the United Kingdom in general as she shuffled over to here her clothes were wadded up. She'd almost gotten her panties back on when someone rounded the corner and face planted squarely in the soft expanse of her upperworks.
Jersey blinked.
The newcomer blinked back. He was Japanese, a sailor by the look of his close-cropped hair and fit figure. But he was also most definitely a man. But as he pried his face out of the American's manifest breastiny, his features told a tale of more confusion than lecherous.
"Uh…." Jersey elucidated.
The sailor said something in moon-moon. One of Jersey's radio-faeries happily trotted across her bridge with a handwritten translation in hand. The battleship snatched his clipboard away and hastily skimmed the tiny writing.
"Miss", it said, "this is a men's bathroom."
Jersey's gaze narrowed and she stared at some point beyond the horizon. "Mother fucker."
Sarah Gale used to think the way Kongou existed as a quantum entity unbound by such pedestrian laws as causality and locality was a trait unique to the four English-designed fast battleships. But not anymore. The sailor was vibrating so intensely from her giggles, she was certain she was approaching Schrödinger's Dess.
Gale wasn't entirely sure if anything she'd just thought made any sense. She never was good at exotic physics. Or regular physics for that matter. She was a Yeoman after all. Her job mostly entailed paperwork and paperwork accessories.
Or it did until shipgirls became a thing. At which point the amount of babysitting and running after naked ten-year-olds who were also two-thousand ton engines of war she had to do suddenly shot up.
But that's beside the point.
The point was that Wash was right there. The most stunningly beautiful battleship—the most stunningly beautiful woman—Gale had ever met had haltingly, nervously asked for her love.
And Gale'd been more than happy to offer it. After what felt like months of false-starts, backsliding, and general D-grade rom-com shenanigans, Gale and Wash were finally sitting across from one another as lovers.
So why did the battleship look so pale. Well, paler than the delicious creamy snow-white her skin usually sported. Her face was a stark, chalky white. Her prodigious chest quivered with shallow, nervous breaths, and her hands frantically worried the hem of her splinter-pattern miniskirt.
If she didn't know better, she'd say the forty-five thousand ton battleship looked terrified at the simple prospect of meeting her parents.
"Wash?" Gale calmed herself long enough to slip a word out without squealing like a schoolgirl. "Are you alright?"
Wash shook her head, but her lips stayed pressed shut.
"What…" Gale grunted as the truck swayed over a bump. Wash might not be able to outright slay a truck with her titanic weight like Jersey could, but she could at least bring it to its knees begging for mercy. "What's wrong?"
Wash opened her mouth for an instant, then promptly closed it again. She closed those warm hazel eyes and sucked in a deep breath. Her chest swelled against the straining fabric of her uniform, and Gale had to struggle not to sneak a look at the battleship's upperworks.
Finally, she opened her eyes again. "I'm scared."
Gale blinked. "You?"
Wash nodded.
"Of… what?"
Wash clenched at her skirt and nervously crossed her legs. "I… of meeting your family."
Gale stared at the warship for a moment. Then she burst out in howls of laughter that send her slumping down the side of the cabin. "Wash, they're—" the sailor paused to suck down a breath, "They're good people. Don't worry."
Wash shrugged. "I'm… I've always been a quiet person," said the battleship. "I don't really… do public appearances."
"It's Christmas dinner," said Gale. "Don't worry about it, there's not even a single press conference."
Wash nodded. "I…" she sighed, and smoothed the puckered fabric of her jacket. "I've just never met such important dignitaries."
Gale blinked. "Wait, dignitaries?"
The battleship nodded as her cheeks glowed a brilliant red. "The family of the love of my life."
Gale let out a squeal that could probably be heard all the way back at base.
"Huh?" Tenryuu glanced up from her coloring. Well, nominally it was Borie's coloring book, but Tenryuu had borrowed a page. For quality-assurance reasons, of course. She was a grown warship, she didn't find any childish pleasure in something as basic as coloring.
"What?" Kidd glanced up from the nest of coloring books, crayon boxes, and half-eaten donuts she'd assembled around her section of floor.
Tenryuu tapped a half-gloved finger against the base of her floater. "Did anyone else hear that?"
Kidd and the other destroyers exchanged shrugs, but then England waved her tiny hand. "I did."
Tenryuu smiled. So she wasn't crazy! The cruiser chuckled to herself and happily returned to the task of coloring batman's utility belt.
Jersey was so busy loading up her tray for breakfast that she didn't even notice someone sneak up on her.
Admittedly, between balancing a foot-tall stack of pancakes oozing in syrup—the good kind that's basically just liquid sugar, not the shitty Canadian kind that may or may not be a communist sleeper agent—, humming a wordless tune that drifted between Anchors Aweigh, the Marine Hymn, and the Robocop theme at will, and trying desperately to purge any memory of Musashi's delicious chocolate pagodas from her brain, Jersey didn't have much spare attention to give.
"Um… excuse me?" said a very quiet, very timid voice.
"Gah!" Jersey almost dropped her tray as she spun around on her heel. Only she didn't because she was an American battleship. And as an American battleship, she had the best gunnery computer ever build by mortal hands and reflexes that made light look like a geriatric Frenchman.
"S-sorry," stuttered a towering girl a scant few inches shorter than Jersey's already enormous frame. She was a Yamato, she had to be. Jersey would recognize those smooth, creamy features, pointed chin, and tiny little nose anywhere.
Only this Yamato wore actual clothes. Instead of a microskirt and bandages, her curves were draped in heavy canvas robes and inch-thick steel plating. She wore glasses, and her ashy black hair was tied back in a simple ponytail.
Her chest also lacked the enormous jiggling bulge of a certain chocolate-flavored pagodaboat. Instead, the heavy steel of her archery breastplate sported a gentle curve that was barely bigger than Kongou's bustline.
Oh, and she was also decked over. Probably should have lead with that one.
"Hey," Jersey casually leaned against the serving line in an effort to seem cool and collected. It worked until her immense weight tore the the tray-rack from its mounts and sent it clattering to the floor.
The carrier bit her lip and blushed.
Jersey stared at the fallen bit of metal. "Shit."
"Sorry," mewed the carrier so quietly Jersey had to strain to hear it.
"What the fuck for?" Jersey smiled. "You're Shinano, right?"
The carrier nodded timidly.
Jersey looked up and down the quivering girl. She wasn't anything like Musashi. She was quiet, timid, flat chested… everything Musashi wasn't. Which was good, because Musashi or Musashi-related activities was the last thing Jersey wanted to get into today. "Jersey," the battleship thrust her hand at the carrier.
Shinano just stared at the offered hand for a moment, before sheepishly bowing herself. "Jersey-sama, It's—"
Jersey smacked the carrier on the back of the head. It wasn't a particularly light slap by normal standards, but if Jersey put any less power into it the over-armored Japboat wouldn't have even felt it. "Just Jersey. I don't have time for that moon-rune shit."
"Oh," Shinano blushed an even brighter red. "So-sorry."
"And stop fucking apologizing," Jersey grunted under the weight of her breakfast tray and set a course for the closest open table. "You wear a shirt, 's enough for me."
Shinano smiled for a moment, than hastily trailed after the battleship. "Um, Jersey?"
"Yuhs?" Jersey grunted though a mouthful of pancakes.
"I… I was wondering," Shinano blushed and scuffed her armored toe against the floor. "If… if you're not busy I mean."
"Shuhnuah," Jersey shook her head. "Juhst tah meh."
"Oh, right." Shinano took a breath. "I was going to visit Akihabara with Albie. And I'd like to invite you."
Jersey popped another mountain of pancakes into her mouth. "Thahs lahk wub lhnd, raht?"
Shinano blinked. "I'm…" she blushed and shrank back in her kimono. "I don't speak American."
"I said," Jersey swallowed. "That's like nip weeb land, right?"
"Oh," Shinano nodded. "yes!"
Jersey thought for a moment. On the one hand, she'd promised Victory that she'd talk to Crowning about… that. But she really didn't want to.
And… well, she'd just been asked for escort by a carrier. And if there's anything she'd learned in her decades of service, it was that the highest duty for a ship of her class was protect the carrier.
Besides, she'd been asked for escort by a ship of an allied navy. Refusing would be tantamount to insulting the entire nation of Japan. It would be an international incident! And Jersey would never want to cause an international incident.
Heh.
Okay, she wouldn't want to cause an incident with Japan. Talking with Crowning could wait, her duties to her allies came first. That was her story and she was sticking to it.
"Sure," Jersey smiled. "I'd love to, Shinny."
Shinano smiled, and hugged herself with glee. For a while, the two ships sat in silence. Or as close to silence as possible given Jersey's horrendously messy dining habits. Then, the quiet carrier opened her mouth once more.
"J-Jersey?"
"Whaddup?"n
"I…" Shinano ran her hands though the end of her long ponytail. "I really like your hair. The braid."
Jersey beamed and stuffed a forkfull of pancakes in her mouth.
"Do…" Shinano blushed. "Do you think you could teach me?"
Jersey swallowed, then looked down at her syrup-splattered hands. If syrup was blood, it'd be quite the gory sight. "Lemme clean up first, k?"
If Jersey caught one of her crew taking a nap on such ample pillows, she'd have no other option than to lavish him with praise. High-fives would be involved, as would at least a few beers and lecherous comments and snide accusations of heterosexuality.
Only Jersey wasn't one of her crew. She wasn't a man. She was barely even a person, and only that because it was kinda hard to insist she was only a boat when she could walk and eat like a living thing.
And whatever the hell she was, she had Crowning. Or… had. After what she'd done, the battleship would be astonished if she stayed in this fucked-up jury-rig of a relationship until daybreak.
Jersey scowled and bolted off the bed. Sweat glistened on her pale skin as she stormed around her Japanese paramour's room. The battleship bit her tongue, frantically trying to break the skin with her teeth as she snatched up her bra and shirt.
Anger boiled though her veins and her muscles shook with rage. She didn't even bother trying to dress herself. Even if she could get her quaking muscles to comply, the battleship was so enraged she'd just tear the fabric to shreds. Her vision was little more than a bloody red haze, and her mouth filled with the taste of copper and fuel oil.
Jersey was a fast battleship of the American Navy, the fastest and strongest of her kind ever built. She existed for the sole purpose of chasing down the object of her hatred and wiping clean its stain upon the earth.
But what if the object of her hatred was herself?
"FUCK!" Jersey roared in fury and spat out a mouthful of stick red oil. Half of her wanted to crawl somewhere very dark and wallow in her misery. Fuck what her Admiral said, fuck what Crowning said… she really was a shitty fucking battleship if she couldn't even keep her… whatever the fuck the girl version of 'dick in her pants' was.
But the other half of her… the other half was nothing but unrefined rage. A rage that sent howling steam screaming down her turbines and powered her forwards despite the whimpering protestations of her cowering mind.
Somehow, the battleship's furious retreat ended up in a tile-lined shower hall with her clothes wadded up in the corner. Jersey was too mad and too miserable to question it. She just threw open the valve to its coldest setting and let water hammer against her skin like ice-drops.
She'd been so close… the only man who'd ever loved her… the only man she'd ever loved… She could have been happy. She could have had a boyfriend… or even—
"So," chuckled a teasing Australian accent that Jersey had long since grown to loathe. "now you can call him yer boyfriend."
Jersey roared in anger and threw her fist in the general direction of the voice. "Fuck you, Vicy, I'm not in the mood."
"Mate," Victory grabbed Jersey's arm and—after a brief moment to lovingly appreciate how bigger the massive American's muscles were—swung herself around to glare up at the towering battleship. She'd changed—or appeared, as the case may be—back into that impossibly skimpy union-jack bikini from earlier. "You may not be in the mood, but you sure as hell need me."
Jersey narrowed her eyes. "Fucking… this is your fault."
"I'm a figment of your imagination, mate." Victory happily put her arm though the battleship's rippling stomach to demonstrate. All Jersey felt was a little tingling where the man-o-war's timbers intersected with her own steel.
"I don't give a fuck," scowled the battleship. "Which one of us fucking told me to go for sodomy?"
Victory huffed and shook her head. The long feather on her oversized Admiral's bicorn tickled at Jersey's soaking nose, somehow deepening the battleship's scowl. "And bloody hell did you go for it." She paused for a second, then added, "I assume."
Jersey blinked. "You assume."
"Figment of your imagination, mate!" Victory poked Jersey in the stomach to underline the 'imagination' part. "I only know what you want me to know."
Jersey scowled and batted the sailing ship away. For a figment of her imagination, Victory always did make her frustrated and miserable. "Then how the fuck can you give me those pep-talks you handed out?"
"'cause," said Victory, "Deep down, you wanted someone to tell you you're not a fuckup."
"Don't like liars either," said Jersey. "Yet here we are."
Victory planted her hand on her hip and sighed. The look of disappointment on her face was almost motherly. Or would be, if she wasn't solidly half Jersey's height. And dressed in three UK-themed postage stamps and a large hat. Jersey's subconscious had weird fashion sense. "Mate?"
Jersey grunted in response.
"You made a mistake."
"No fucking shit," hissed the battleship.
"But," Victory carried on like Jersey hadn't said a word. "People do that, you know."
"Not me," said Jersey. "Not like this… I've got too much riding on me to make mistakes."
"Heh, I know something you'd want riding on ya," Victory smirked.
Jersey roared an inarticulate noise of anger in the British man-o-war's general direction.
"Sorry, force of habit." Victory shrugged. "But really, mate. Is getting you laid really a matter of national security?"
"Yes!" snapped the battleship. "I mean… no… just… I'm a bitch, okay?"
Victory looked up and down the American's towering form. She might only have one eye left, but that eye picked out every detail of the battleship's massive rifles, layered air-defense, and radar masts with the studious attention of a fighting Admiral. "A bitch? You? nooooo."
"'s true," Jersey let her head hang under the shower. Icy water cascaded down her broad back and slicked her strawberry blond hair to her skin. "I'm hard to love."
Victory shoved her hand in her face to stifle a giggle. "Sorry. continue."
"All I do is take," Jersey's voice was barely audible over the sound of freezing water crashing against her body. "I fuck up, he forgives me. I make trouble, he goes out of his way to fix things… I'm a shitty girlfriend even before…"
Victory fussed with her eyepatch and shrugged. "You try talking to him about it, mate?"
Jersey growled. "Fuck no. Tell him that after all the effort he put into me, I fucked it all up because I couldn't keep it in my fucking pants for one fucking deployment!" Jersey's voice jumped to a roar of anger and she threw her fist against the wall with all her might. Tile shattered and even the concrete substrate faltered under the force of her blow.
"Nobody's perfect, mate."
"Well I fucking should be," snapped Jersey.
"You lost your little sister, mate." Victory suddenly changed back into her usual admiral's uniform with a puff of vaguely oak-scented smoke. "You're a thousand miles away from home. Don't fault ya for seeking a little solace, mate."
"Fuck you," Jersey muttered.
"And…" Victory smirked, "It ain't gay if its under way, mate."
Jersey's grumbling shifted into an even lower register.
"I gotta say, mate… you got good taste." Victory smacked Jersey across her broad American stern. "That was one magnificent piece of chocolate ass."
Jersey eeped in surprise and clapped her hands to her stinging aft. "Oh my fucking god! Victory!"
"What?" Victory smirked, "she was delicious wasn't she?"
Jersey roared in incoherent rage and threw a punch that passed though Victory's smug little grin like it was made of smoke.
"I'm not gonna stop talking," said Victory, "Until you actually woman up and talk to the love of your life, mate."
Jersey scowled, and momentarily glanced to the heavens. "The fuck did I do," she sighed, "To get this useless-ass tea-drinking fucker stuck in my head."
"Just talk to him, mate." Victory smacked Jersey across the stern again. "Then I'll leave you alone."
Jersey stood scowling under the showerhead like a soaking cat for a good five minutes before shutting the water off with a grunt. "Fine. But you—" she rounded on the tiny sailing ship, only to freeze when she noticed Victory's absence. "I fucking hate it when she does that."
The battleship grumbled incoherent complaints about Victory in particular and the United Kingdom in general as she shuffled over to here her clothes were wadded up. She'd almost gotten her panties back on when someone rounded the corner and face planted squarely in the soft expanse of her upperworks.
Jersey blinked.
The newcomer blinked back. He was Japanese, a sailor by the look of his close-cropped hair and fit figure. But he was also most definitely a man. But as he pried his face out of the American's manifest breastiny, his features told a tale of more confusion than lecherous.
"Uh…." Jersey elucidated.
The sailor said something in moon-moon. One of Jersey's radio-faeries happily trotted across her bridge with a handwritten translation in hand. The battleship snatched his clipboard away and hastily skimmed the tiny writing.
"Miss", it said, "this is a men's bathroom."
Jersey's gaze narrowed and she stared at some point beyond the horizon. "Mother fucker."
—|—|—
Sarah Gale used to think the way Kongou existed as a quantum entity unbound by such pedestrian laws as causality and locality was a trait unique to the four English-designed fast battleships. But not anymore. The sailor was vibrating so intensely from her giggles, she was certain she was approaching Schrödinger's Dess.
Gale wasn't entirely sure if anything she'd just thought made any sense. She never was good at exotic physics. Or regular physics for that matter. She was a Yeoman after all. Her job mostly entailed paperwork and paperwork accessories.
Or it did until shipgirls became a thing. At which point the amount of babysitting and running after naked ten-year-olds who were also two-thousand ton engines of war she had to do suddenly shot up.
But that's beside the point.
The point was that Wash was right there. The most stunningly beautiful battleship—the most stunningly beautiful woman—Gale had ever met had haltingly, nervously asked for her love.
And Gale'd been more than happy to offer it. After what felt like months of false-starts, backsliding, and general D-grade rom-com shenanigans, Gale and Wash were finally sitting across from one another as lovers.
So why did the battleship look so pale. Well, paler than the delicious creamy snow-white her skin usually sported. Her face was a stark, chalky white. Her prodigious chest quivered with shallow, nervous breaths, and her hands frantically worried the hem of her splinter-pattern miniskirt.
If she didn't know better, she'd say the forty-five thousand ton battleship looked terrified at the simple prospect of meeting her parents.
"Wash?" Gale calmed herself long enough to slip a word out without squealing like a schoolgirl. "Are you alright?"
Wash shook her head, but her lips stayed pressed shut.
"What…" Gale grunted as the truck swayed over a bump. Wash might not be able to outright slay a truck with her titanic weight like Jersey could, but she could at least bring it to its knees begging for mercy. "What's wrong?"
Wash opened her mouth for an instant, then promptly closed it again. She closed those warm hazel eyes and sucked in a deep breath. Her chest swelled against the straining fabric of her uniform, and Gale had to struggle not to sneak a look at the battleship's upperworks.
Finally, she opened her eyes again. "I'm scared."
Gale blinked. "You?"
Wash nodded.
"Of… what?"
Wash clenched at her skirt and nervously crossed her legs. "I… of meeting your family."
Gale stared at the warship for a moment. Then she burst out in howls of laughter that send her slumping down the side of the cabin. "Wash, they're—" the sailor paused to suck down a breath, "They're good people. Don't worry."
Wash shrugged. "I'm… I've always been a quiet person," said the battleship. "I don't really… do public appearances."
"It's Christmas dinner," said Gale. "Don't worry about it, there's not even a single press conference."
Wash nodded. "I…" she sighed, and smoothed the puckered fabric of her jacket. "I've just never met such important dignitaries."
Gale blinked. "Wait, dignitaries?"
The battleship nodded as her cheeks glowed a brilliant red. "The family of the love of my life."
Gale let out a squeal that could probably be heard all the way back at base.
—|—|—
"Huh?" Tenryuu glanced up from her coloring. Well, nominally it was Borie's coloring book, but Tenryuu had borrowed a page. For quality-assurance reasons, of course. She was a grown warship, she didn't find any childish pleasure in something as basic as coloring.
"What?" Kidd glanced up from the nest of coloring books, crayon boxes, and half-eaten donuts she'd assembled around her section of floor.
Tenryuu tapped a half-gloved finger against the base of her floater. "Did anyone else hear that?"
Kidd and the other destroyers exchanged shrugs, but then England waved her tiny hand. "I did."
Tenryuu smiled. So she wasn't crazy! The cruiser chuckled to herself and happily returned to the task of coloring batman's utility belt.
—|—|—
Jersey was so busy loading up her tray for breakfast that she didn't even notice someone sneak up on her.
Admittedly, between balancing a foot-tall stack of pancakes oozing in syrup—the good kind that's basically just liquid sugar, not the shitty Canadian kind that may or may not be a communist sleeper agent—, humming a wordless tune that drifted between Anchors Aweigh, the Marine Hymn, and the Robocop theme at will, and trying desperately to purge any memory of Musashi's delicious chocolate pagodas from her brain, Jersey didn't have much spare attention to give.
"Um… excuse me?" said a very quiet, very timid voice.
"Gah!" Jersey almost dropped her tray as she spun around on her heel. Only she didn't because she was an American battleship. And as an American battleship, she had the best gunnery computer ever build by mortal hands and reflexes that made light look like a geriatric Frenchman.
"S-sorry," stuttered a towering girl a scant few inches shorter than Jersey's already enormous frame. She was a Yamato, she had to be. Jersey would recognize those smooth, creamy features, pointed chin, and tiny little nose anywhere.
Only this Yamato wore actual clothes. Instead of a microskirt and bandages, her curves were draped in heavy canvas robes and inch-thick steel plating. She wore glasses, and her ashy black hair was tied back in a simple ponytail.
Her chest also lacked the enormous jiggling bulge of a certain chocolate-flavored pagodaboat. Instead, the heavy steel of her archery breastplate sported a gentle curve that was barely bigger than Kongou's bustline.
Oh, and she was also decked over. Probably should have lead with that one.
"Hey," Jersey casually leaned against the serving line in an effort to seem cool and collected. It worked until her immense weight tore the the tray-rack from its mounts and sent it clattering to the floor.
The carrier bit her lip and blushed.
Jersey stared at the fallen bit of metal. "Shit."
"Sorry," mewed the carrier so quietly Jersey had to strain to hear it.
"What the fuck for?" Jersey smiled. "You're Shinano, right?"
The carrier nodded timidly.
Jersey looked up and down the quivering girl. She wasn't anything like Musashi. She was quiet, timid, flat chested… everything Musashi wasn't. Which was good, because Musashi or Musashi-related activities was the last thing Jersey wanted to get into today. "Jersey," the battleship thrust her hand at the carrier.
Shinano just stared at the offered hand for a moment, before sheepishly bowing herself. "Jersey-sama, It's—"
Jersey smacked the carrier on the back of the head. It wasn't a particularly light slap by normal standards, but if Jersey put any less power into it the over-armored Japboat wouldn't have even felt it. "Just Jersey. I don't have time for that moon-rune shit."
"Oh," Shinano blushed an even brighter red. "So-sorry."
"And stop fucking apologizing," Jersey grunted under the weight of her breakfast tray and set a course for the closest open table. "You wear a shirt, 's enough for me."
Shinano smiled for a moment, than hastily trailed after the battleship. "Um, Jersey?"
"Yuhs?" Jersey grunted though a mouthful of pancakes.
"I… I was wondering," Shinano blushed and scuffed her armored toe against the floor. "If… if you're not busy I mean."
"Shuhnuah," Jersey shook her head. "Juhst tah meh."
"Oh, right." Shinano took a breath. "I was going to visit Akihabara with Albie. And I'd like to invite you."
Jersey popped another mountain of pancakes into her mouth. "Thahs lahk wub lhnd, raht?"
Shinano blinked. "I'm…" she blushed and shrank back in her kimono. "I don't speak American."
"I said," Jersey swallowed. "That's like nip weeb land, right?"
"Oh," Shinano nodded. "yes!"
Jersey thought for a moment. On the one hand, she'd promised Victory that she'd talk to Crowning about… that. But she really didn't want to.
And… well, she'd just been asked for escort by a carrier. And if there's anything she'd learned in her decades of service, it was that the highest duty for a ship of her class was protect the carrier.
Besides, she'd been asked for escort by a ship of an allied navy. Refusing would be tantamount to insulting the entire nation of Japan. It would be an international incident! And Jersey would never want to cause an international incident.
Heh.
Okay, she wouldn't want to cause an incident with Japan. Talking with Crowning could wait, her duties to her allies came first. That was her story and she was sticking to it.
"Sure," Jersey smiled. "I'd love to, Shinny."
Shinano smiled, and hugged herself with glee. For a while, the two ships sat in silence. Or as close to silence as possible given Jersey's horrendously messy dining habits. Then, the quiet carrier opened her mouth once more.
"J-Jersey?"
"Whaddup?"n
"I…" Shinano ran her hands though the end of her long ponytail. "I really like your hair. The braid."
Jersey beamed and stuffed a forkfull of pancakes in her mouth.
"Do…" Shinano blushed. "Do you think you could teach me?"
Jersey swallowed, then looked down at her syrup-splattered hands. If syrup was blood, it'd be quite the gory sight. "Lemme clean up first, k?"
Richardson
CAN YOU HEAR THE PEOPLE SING?
- Location
- Yes
*facepalms hard enough to achieve nuclear fusion* So close, yet so fucking far, Jersey.
Still, good on you for at least doing one of your jobs.
Still, good on you for at least doing one of your jobs.
Old Iron
Admiral Unfun
- Location
- The Southwestern Deadlands of America
Very well done there.
It'll be interesting to see how Mushi comes out of this, but I really liked how Jersey handled it with Vicky. It could have been much worse. It could have been much better. But it was very, very human. Something I think Jersey needed on a fundamental level. And maybe it'll be the boot to the head that her, Mushi, and Crowning finally need to sort themseves out. Or at least begin trying to sort themselves out.
Gale and Wash's Christmas adventure is going to be all sort of fun isn't it. :3
Also looking forward to the trip to Akibahara. Shinano, Jersey, and Albie... Hoo boy, this'll be a thing!
It'll be interesting to see how Mushi comes out of this, but I really liked how Jersey handled it with Vicky. It could have been much worse. It could have been much better. But it was very, very human. Something I think Jersey needed on a fundamental level. And maybe it'll be the boot to the head that her, Mushi, and Crowning finally need to sort themseves out. Or at least begin trying to sort themselves out.
Gale and Wash's Christmas adventure is going to be all sort of fun isn't it. :3
Also looking forward to the trip to Akibahara. Shinano, Jersey, and Albie... Hoo boy, this'll be a thing!
Richardson
CAN YOU HEAR THE PEOPLE SING?
- Location
- Yes
I do hope Wash has a US Navy credit card, otherwise she will literally Eat Out of House and Home.
- Location
- 'Murica
Gale: I don't think you understand how much my mom cooks.
Richardson
CAN YOU HEAR THE PEOPLE SING?
- Location
- Yes
Wash: I'm not sure your mother knows how much I eat, Gale.
Always Late
Lacking in coffee, sleep, and brains
- Location
- Ohio
Missed 'y'.
1. Another missing 'y'.
2. Gun unloaded.
1. Sex jokes until someone does something for you. That's cruel, and I like it.
2. Appeal to @theJMPer.
... whelp.
rofl:Pft. That's nothing. Mine can be heard across the fourth wall.
So Shinano meets Jersey at last.
Seconding this.
And so the mentorship begins.
YuffieK
(Verified Ninja Princess)
Is it bad that I read this as "I'd love to, Shinji."?
There are some paralells though...
Burning Baron
This position needs more entrenching.
- Location
- In here, not out there.
Akihabara? Cheese weeb will be so jealous.
Stahor
BookWorm
- Location
- Russia, Moscow
*Consults with a chart*
I wonder, how exactly much media presence in Japan has Savior of Tokyo and American Black Dragon.
Richardson
CAN YOU HEAR THE PEOPLE SING?
- Location
- Yes
Richardson
CAN YOU HEAR THE PEOPLE SING?
- Location
- Yes
Well, not Shinni, who basically walked off a carrier-killer strike like it was Tuesday.
Bets on Musashi and Crowning talking before Jersey gets back? I'm hoping those two can work a proposed alliance for Jersey to weigh in on.
All hail Dr. Crowning, Battleship Boyfriend.
All hail Dr. Crowning, Battleship Boyfriend.
7734
Trust and verify.
- Location
- Philmont
I wouldn't say that was a carrier-killer hit. Severe damage, yes. One shot and kill, no. One thing a lot of people forget is that most of the time in battle its a contest of who makes the least mistakes. Japanese carriers for most of the war alternated between brilliant and idiot, normally when launching and taking attacks respectively.
Shinano merely reversed that trend for a while.
Richardson
CAN YOU HEAR THE PEOPLE SING?
- Location
- Yes
She took a hit that killed Japan's fleet carriers at Midway.
Old Iron
Admiral Unfun
- Location
- The Southwestern Deadlands of America
That could be a very interesting conversation. XD
7734
Trust and verify.
- Location
- Philmont
From SWQ89:
"Fronk did not try to get a harem. The harem tried to get Fronk."
Replace Fronk with Dr. Crowning, and you're going to have a very simple description of how said doctors memoirs are going to go. That said, I fully expect Crowning to be juuuuuust concerned enough about this to call Musashi, who will have one long "oh shit" moment until Crowning asks if she was drawn to the flak batteries that could shoot down planes or dat powerplant with the turboelectric drives (Don't actually think the Yamatos had them, so...).
Cue Musashi hemming and hawing until Crowning mentions he knows a few shiprights who might not know how shipgirls work, but are happy to learn.
Edit: @Richardson, that's like saying she took a hit, period. English and American carries both shook off worse damage than Japanese ones took to sink on a regular basis. I'm comparing her against the mean spread which makes her average, you're comparing her against her very squishy sisters, which makes her look like a Konigstiger sitting next to a Type 98 Peasant Crusher tank in comparison.
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One nitpick, the last classes of battleship in USN service to use turboelectric drive systems were the Colorado and Tennessee-class battleships. All of the rest used conventional geared steam turbines for propulsion.
- Location
- National Capital Region, USA
Or it's trying to tell you something?
Still true! Sodomy is not illegal in the Royal Navy after 90 days at sea!
Physics is going to cry now.
And Jersey, why so mad at yourself? As other pointed out in here, you and Crowning haven't exactly established any boundaries or such for... whatever this relationship is. Not that this stops you from self-loathing at your failure to do so, though.
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
Wash eats at something like normal human speed, she just eats for several hours per sitting where a normal woman would be done in like ten minutes. However, her pace is limited, which means an enthusiastic and skilled cook (with helpers) probably CAN keep up with her, at least until collapsing of exhaustion, which will probably take longer than it takes Wash to finish eating.
The hard part will be the risk of her literally running the pantry out of ingredients.
Jersey loves Crowning and wants a relationship with him, she's just too messed up to have established one in a forthright way. So she feels like she's screwed up the thing she WANTS to do (but is frustrated with herself for NOT doing).
If anything, that can be more traumatic and upsetting than it would be to just straight-up fail.
Nitpick: the Iowas didn't either.
If I remember it rightly...
Turboelectric drive was a lot more appealing around 1920 than it was by 1940, and the only 20th century heavy warships to use it were USN ships built within a few years of 1920. First-generation turbine engine ships were almost cartoonishly simple; the turbine shafts were connected directly to the screws. This meant that the turbines and the screws had to turn at the same speed, which was highly inefficient.
By contrast, if you used the turbines to power generators, the generators to power electric motors, and the motors to drive the screws, you could run the turbines and the screws at totally different speeds. This gave superior fuel economy and flexibility.
The fuel economy was especially appealing to the US, which foresaw its fleets needing to cross an ocean to get anywhere important. Long cruising range was a priority.
So the US got particularly enthusiastic about turboelectric drive. Of the thirteen* Standard battleships laid down, seven were designed with it, including all six of the most modern two classes. The Lexington-class battlecruisers, had turboelectric drive, too, which carried over as they were converted to carriers. The South Dakota follow-on battleships (heavy ships that were a noticeable step up from the Standards) were also designed with them, though they were never built due to the Washington Treaty.
However, engineering and metallurgy got better in the '20s and '30s. By World War Two, people knew how to build gearboxes for battleships, so there wasn't really a need for turboelectric drive anymore.
______________
*Washington (BB-48) was scrapped, so thirteen keels translated into twelve ships
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obssesednuker
Commander of 10 Million Men
- Location
- In the Kremlin, activating Perimtr.
Latest chapters now on FFN, just FYI.
Harry Leferts
Suave Shadow Cabal Kaiju
obssesednuker
Commander of 10 Million Men
- Location
- In the Kremlin, activating Perimtr.
Found the pic on the anime thread for AH.com and instantly knew I had my new SV avatar.