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"Bwaaah?!" An emergency swerve had something big and black zipping past my face with metres to spare as a shadow abruptly bulldozed out of the clouds and right into my path. For a second, both myself and the twisted-looking flying whale monster stared at each other with equally dumbfounded looks, too stunned to react as we passed each other by and vanished into the clouds.
The moment passed, an enraged roar immediately coming from the creature's general direction accompanied by the stuttering buzz of propeller rotors as the thing wheeled about as fast as it could. Already I could hear the pop-zip of machine guns firing, blindfired streams of lead cleaving lines int the cloud cover shrouding us from view.
"Oh,
scheiße!" All four of my Daimler-Benz engines roared as I juked up and away from the hail of stinging projectiles passing dangerously close to my unarmoured rigging, trying to push myself deeper into the safety of the all-encompassing cloudbank. Just my luck the first signs of life I'd run into had to be hostile! Ripping off the pair of miniature planes hooked onto my belt with gloved fingers, I wound up for a throw and hurled the little aircraft into the mists. "Arado, I choose you!"
《
Ja, ja!》 A pair of tinny voices chattered over the radio as the roars of the fighters' engines joined the din somewhere in the distance. 《
Ja, ja ja jajaja!》
"What?! What do you mean
you can't see anything?!" I all but shrieked as the fighter pilots duly informed me that, yes, they had bugger-all vision in these cloudbanks. "Bloody hell, I-
augh!" The harsh words I had in mind were lost as a brace of bullets stitched along my side, the evil whale monster homing in on my position at last. The beast's guns chattered and I screamed in pain as tiny daggers raked across my torso, tearing holes in the reflective fabric of my stewardess's uniform and puncturing the soft skin beneath. Blood trickled from the many shallow wounds I now spotted, my ears filling with the hissing of escaping hydrogen...
Oh,
screw this.
Lettong out a pained battlecry I gunned the throttle and charged, plowing into the surprised beast with all the grace of an angry freight train. Unarmed though I was I still outmassed the little
miststück by nearly twice over, and as our hulls collided with an almost comical "boink" it let out a yelp of panic as my vicious bodycheck sent it tumbling over in an uncontrollable spin. "I'm not done with you yet,
arschloch!" I snarled and seized the creature by the tail, grasping fistfuls of its leathery hide as I locked my legs around the beast's midsection and began to pound its face in with my bare fists. "Shoot!
*bam* At!
*biff* Me!
*pow* Will!
*smack* You!"
None too pleased with my
ministrations, the thing roared in pain and tore itself from my grip, propellers churning to gain distance as it wheeled around several dozen meters away, murder burning in its ghost-fire eyes. My eyes widened as it suddenly lunged forward, closing the distance with unexpected speed with its jaws locked wide, and I grunted in agony as its slab-shaped teeth dug into my shoulder. "Ach, get off! Get off!" My free hand slapped weakly at its sides as the beast gnashed its teeth and began to gnaw, my mind racing with ever-increasing pain as I rummaged in my "interior" for sonething, anything that could help-
There!
The monster roared as the pewter dessert fork sank into its eyepit, backing away with its horrible jaws stained with blood and bits of shimmering cotton. As it made to lunge once more, a metallic tinkle rang out along with its agonised howls as I clobbered the bloody creature's face in with a handheld dinner bell taken fron my galley cupboards. Tumbling bum over teakettle for the second time today the creature appeared to bear an aggrieved look on its alien features, a sizeable bruise already forming on its battered nose.
"Hah!" I grinned, fierce joy swelling in my gas cells(?) as I held out the innocuous ringer in challenge, the heavy brass ornament tinkling menacingly. "There's more where that came from, you overgrown fish!"
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With a roar and a yell the two of us collided with another resounding "boink", girl/wolf/ship(?) and whale/shark/balloon(?) tearing into each other in a tumbling melee of tooth and bell. Gunfire from one of the turrets dotting the whalebeast's underbelly falling silent as I drove a pointy heel into the offending organ, putrid breath washing over my face as fist-sized incisors snapped shut centimetres from my nose, a bulbous nose smashing into my stomach and driving the air from my lungs; the two of us were wailing on the other in a drawn-out slugfest with the fury of vengeful and the utterly insane.
At last, I lurched away as a series of hatches opened up along the whalebeast's underbelly and began disgorging streams of little black bomblets, the creature roaring in triumph as it watched me frantically scrabble away from the rain of falling TNT. And yelped as a thrown dining chair shattered across its face, driving splinters into its hide and knocking a couple teeth loose from its frothing maw.
Right, this was getting nowhere. Both parties were staggering drunkenly through the air now, circling the other like punch-drunk boxers in the ring as we caught our breaths. Each snarl and gnashing of teeth was met with a menacing tinkle in a strange standoff, neither of us having the stomach for being beat up even more for the moment; I hesitantly rolled my wounded shoulder and winced at the sensation of grinding bone. Definitely out of commission.
"Ja!" I blinked, glancing aside at the tiny crewman perched on my healthy shoulder as it jabbed at my cheek with its stubby arms. "Ja! Ja jajaja ja-ja!"
I
blanched. "Wait
what."
"Jaja! Ja ja jaja!"
"
What- That's- are you insane?!"
"JA!" The little one crossed its arms, an excited grin across its cheeks.
"You know what?
Fine!" The floating monstrosity before me reeled back in surprise as I tackled it again, wrapping my arms around its midsection like an oversized koala. The beast quickly recovered from the impact this time around however, a throaty growl reverberating through its gas-filled body as tiny gun barrels jabbed into my stomach in preparation for a withering point-blank burst.
"
JAAAAAAAAAAAA!" Dozens of tinny voices screamed in my ears as my crew boiled out from within my rigging, miniature attendants and deckhands crawling over my shoulders like demented ants and throwing themselves onto the struggling whalebeast-
Pushing past one of my comrades as he drove an enemy crewman's pointy helmet into its hapless owner's eye, I smashed a bottle of premium Obstbrand schnapps over the dome of the captain of the enemy airship. Decking the fellow with a haymaker to the face for good measure, I beckoned over one of my colleagues and together we began to lift the captain's struggling form. A great heave and the captain went crashing through the airship's windows, a muted "Neeeeeeeeeein-" as the flailing man tumbled into the empty void-
"Well... that was fast." I gingerly released the limp whalebeast, hooting crewmen clambering back up the sleeves of my uniform as I drifted away from the lobotomised hellbeast. Beaten to a pulp and its decks scoured of life the monstrous airship made for a sorry sight, the once-nigtmareish flame in its eyes now an vacant ember as it drooled mindlessly.
It was pitiful to look at, in a way.
Staring at the dented remains of the ruined bell in my hands, I shrugged it bludgeoned the beast over the head one last time, sending its bloody hulk careening away into the clouds-
I let out an undignified squawk as a pair of planes shot out from the mists, my missing pilots homing in on the tinkle of the bell and catching the whalebeast in a crossfire. Incendiary rounds punched into the creature's hide and ignited the gases within, quickly setting the creature alight from bow to stern and sending it plunging from the skies in a ball of fire. The planes waggled their wings as they zoomed past the falling corpse of their quarry, victory cheers filling the radiowaves.
My eyes narrowed.
Why was one of them trailing smoke? The crew'd already silenced its guns, how-
The sound of my uninjured palm hitting my face could be heard for miles around.
The idiots had shot each other. "You feckless
dummkopfs had one job...!"
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THE SHIP IS A GIRL
THE CREWMEN ARE GAULS
THE PILOTS ARE WAR THUNDER PLAYERS
AND THEY'RE ALL INNA CLOUD
ZEPPELIN!
A KANTAI COLLECTION MOVIE
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"Ha-hah! Direct hit, target destroyed!" I crowed as the torpedo boat vanished in a massive spray of seawater, zombie-baby-thing viscera and bits of Blüthner grand piano. "ACME sends their regards!"
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COMING SOON
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