Might as well actually write this thing now:
The future is dark. My life has not been a happy one, and now I find myself...torn. Must I continue to fight with those I consider enemies? Must I fight against my own countrymen--my own crew? All I have ever known has been destroyed and now I don't know what to do.
------
For anyone else, the water was terrifying. Human and Lemurian alike were unwilling to venture into any more than a shallow pond or riverbed, very aware that doing so was certain death. The 'flashies' saw to that. Perhaps, there were places on Earth that were safe to swim in. But the East Indies were not such a place, and the drifting ruins of the Grik assault force in Baalkpan Bay had driven the deadly silver fish to frenzy. It was crazy to get near the waves.
And yet, the impossible form of a woman sitting on the water over the ruin of the battlecruiser Amagi was quite visible. Her long kimono spreading out around her in a blue wave, seemingly untouched by the flashies. The rhythmic clunk-clank of the bony-headed fish hitting a ship hull echoed over the waters, incongruous as that sound was. Then, it wasn't much odder than the woman herself. Sitting atop the waves, not sinking and not showing any sign of noticing the fish swarming beneath her.
"Skipper," Jim Ellis' voice was dry as a desert, his eyes drifting from the woman that Donaghey approached and towards his superior. "Bet's that she's like Walker?"
"Not a bet I'm taking," Matthew Reddy snorted softly. His own eyes were focused on the tense form of the two girls standing in front of him. Young girls that barely reached his stomach in height, and had never once turned their intense gazes from the silent woman. "Now, if I'm not mistaken, those are Jap clothes. Lieutenant?"
That question was directed at the ram-rod straight form of Tamatsu Shinya, the only Japanese officer in the entire Alliance. Hell, the only Japanese officer in the world that wasn't serving with the Grik...on the ship they were floating near. A man who only twitched slightly at the question, his voice thick with unreadable emotions.
"Yes. Yes it is." Shinya blinked slowly, reaching a hand up to wipe at his eyes. To clear them or out of the raging emotions under his stoic appearance, it was impossible to tell. "It can't be her, yet--Captain, if I may?"
Matt sighed heavily, placing his own hand on the shoulder of the brown-haired girl at his waist. "Walker?"
"She's definitely like us, Captain!" The little girl, the spirit of tough old USS Walker, spoke up. Her bright blue eyes stared up at her Captain when she twisted her back to allow her face to look up at his. A serious expression, entirely out of place on such a young face, looking at Reddy. "Probably..."
"Amagi, yes." Shinya was the one to reply to that statement.
A statement that had everyone on Donaghey flinching slightly. Amagi had been the source of nightmares. First for the American destroyermen she had chased into this world. Then for the Lemurians, upon her brutal destruction of Neracca Home. Her mighty guns had torn apart Baalkpan and her fortifications. Sank Walker and crippled Mahan, before Jim Ellis' suicidal ramming attack crippled- and ultimately sank -the massive battlecruiser. She was a demon in the truest sense. Comparing that vision to--
"Doesn't look like much, does she?" Ellis whispered quietly.
--the woman sitting on the water? Difficult.
Shinya's lips twitched, ever so slightly. However, instead of sparring with the commander of Mahan, the Japanese officer stepped up to the side of Donaghey's railing. And looked down on the, as yet silent, woman sitting in the water. "Hello! Can you hear me?"
Those words were shouted in Japanese. If this was Amagi, why would she respond to English? Could she respond to English?
An explosive sigh was the only answer from the woman, at first, before she turned her head. Deep brown eyes opened in a face that wouldn't have looked out of place on a china doll, it was so finely sculpted. Equally brown hair fell around her face, cascading down her back and tangling in her blue kimono. Her gaze trailed along the sleek lines of Donaghey, from Captain Reddy to Jim Ellis, to Walker and Mahan--before settling on Shinya. Her brown locked into his darker gaze, staring the officer down.
She couldn't fail to make note of his distinctly American-patterned uniform.
"Yes, I do." Her voice was almost musical in tone. Soft and sweet. "I was not aware any of our countrymen served with the gai...Americans."
The hesitation in her words was only slight, but notable enough to have Walker and Mahan growling lightly. The girls were normally fairly timid, Mahan more so than Walker because of what the elder sister had been through. However, this was the ship that had dogged them so long, and was responsible for both their 'deaths'. The closest thing to a natural enemy either girl had.
And she had just insulted both them and their Captains.
"Girls, relax," it was only Matt's iron grip on their shoulders that kept the angry little destroyers from shouting back at the placid battlecruiser staring up at them. "The last thing we need is to make her an enemy, again. If Lieutenant Shinya is correct, she may be more willing to help us than the Grik."
"I do believe so," the officer in question spoke in English, nodding at his Captain. "If Commander Okada is any indication, most of her crew were unwilling to work with the Grik. It was the madness of her Captain that--"
"Kurokawa."
The pure venom in that single word was enough to get all eyes back on Amagi. The strange woman had finally climbed to her feet, smoothing down her kimono and completely ignoring the swarm of fish literally nipping at her heels. She flipped back her hair, deep brown eyes dark pits as they looked at Matt Reddy. Not Shinya, not Walker, not Mahan. Amagi recognized who the one in command was, and she wanted it quite clear who she was talking to.
"I have no desire to work with Americans. You are the enemies of the Emperor and of Japan. But the monsters that I was forced to serve--" Amagi clenched fists in her clothing, fat tears forming in the corner of her eyes. Out of anger or frustration, it was impossible to tell. "Those demons are the enemy of everything. They will not stop, they will not rest, and they have no honor. They will devour my crew and everything I ever held dear. I longed with all my heart to destroy them, even if it required working with Americans. To protect my crew and all who called me home."
Blinking away her tears, Amagi glared at nothing in particular. The formerly placid woman was consumed with months of repressed rage, all directed at one man. A man who, no matter what loyalty she had given him in a previous life, had thrown it all away. Consumed by revenge to the point he had thrown her away, along with the lives of her crew. Of his crew. Men who had been loyal to him and thought he had their best interests at heart, even if he was strict about it like a proper officer.
A man who was insane on every conceivable level.
"Make no mistake, American. I am not working with you out of thanks or out of loyalty to your cause. I work with you to destroy the demons you call Grik, and to rescue my crew. Nothing matters to me, more than bringing my former Captain- Kurokawa -to justice and freeing my crew from the grip of his madness and the demons. Nothing more, nothing less."
As Shinya translated those words, Matt Reddy stared down on Amagi with a raised eyebrow. An inquisitive expression on his face, as he looked at the battlecruiser. He never doubted, once the impossible situation had settled on him, that Walker and Mahan were loyal and would fight by his side. Despite the assurances of his Japanese--was it right to call Shinya a friend? Regardless, despite Shinya's words, there was the worry that if Amagi came back as Walker had, she would sail back to the Grik and they would be back at square one.
To hear that she hated her Captain and the Grik as much as anyone, perhaps even as much as Adar, was a relief. Her reasoning may not have been morally sound and was motivated by revenge more than any love for her former enemies. However, it was still a declaration of war on the Grik. A very personal war.
He could respect that.
"We have a lot to talk about, then," Matt spoke through Shinya. Stoically staring down at the battlecruiser that had haunted his nightmares for so long. "A lot indeed."
I've said for a long time I wanted to do one of these. To me, Destroyermen!Amagi is an interesting character to imagine. She's something of a tragic one-- forced, against her wishes and a lot of her crew's wishes, into an alliance with the closest thing to demons any Japanese ship or man had ever seen. All because of one insane man's vendetta against Americans. I really do think she'd be concerned with nothing more, even if it required working with her enemy, than getting what was left of her crew away from Kurokawa. No matter what it took.
Though she'd probably be cold, at best, to the Americans and friends. At first anyway.