[X] Check your damage and do minor repairs.
oOo
You weren't embarrassed.
Really, you told yourself that you weren't. You had been just been testing the attentiveness of your minion. Obviously she had passed with flying colours with the way that she had immediate responded to your entirely intention transmission!
You gave a sigh as that didn't sound convincing even in your own thoughts.
Turning from the ruined dockside you stepping out onto the water, feeling reassured by how the still waters of the harbour felt beneath your feet, and did your best to ignore the heat in your cheeks. Wrapping your arms across your stomach you did your best not to think about how you'd, again, shown yourself to be less than perfect in front of your sole escort.
A lesser ship would have been crushed by this realisation. She might have cried, complained, or denied it. However, as you reminded yourself sternly, you refused to be lesser in any way at all!
(Well, except in sheer cuteness. You had to admit that Puppy had you beat there...)
"I am Darkness," You told the sky at though petitioning it, staring up at the infinite night which was smeared with the city lights, "I am Hate. I AM."
Saying the words out loud like that restored a little of your confidence and, with an imperious nod, you tried to think of something to do before you went to meet with Puppy. It wouldn't do to have her think that you were desperate for company, for reassurance that you weren't alone in the Grey, that you hadn't been abandoned by those who should have gone down with yo-
The sound of cannon fire from across the bay broke you out of your thoughts before you could slip into a suitably intense
brooding contemplation of the unfairness and futility of existence. While you couldn't see Puppy nor hear her voice somehow the sound of her cannons spoke volumes about her enthusiastic obedience to your orders.
Focusing on that place beyond the darkness, the place where Puppy stood out as a loyal shadow and the shining shapes of the still slumbering spirits of ships were visible, your breath caught as you realised just what your minion was firing at.
A patrol boat.
For a moment, as you drank in the uniform that the ship-spirit wore, you were filled with hot
HATE towards her and delicious glee as you realised that Puppy was playing with the vessel. She was good at it, enjoying it, and a small corner of your mind wondered if 'Kitty' might have been a better name given the almost feline sadism that was being shown.
It wasn't a true naval vessel, not a ship of war, but even a customs boat was close enough to make you want to rush out and join Puppy into tearing her apart!
You stepped forward, hardly heeding either your surroundings on the mini-gun which you held in both hands, when suddenly your unconscious intention ran into the shoals of reality as your leg buckled beneath you.
"Wah!" The sound escaped you involuntarily as you started to fall but, despite your hands being occupied, you managed to catch your balance. Confused about why your body had betrayed you, you stared down at your leg then were enlightened.
"That does explain much," You murmured as you considered the small chunk which was apparently missing from your calf. "But why didn't I notice th-"
You definitely weren't blushing again as the reason came to mind.
Taking a deep breath you decided that you would just have to let Puppy have her fun alone for now. It was probably, debatably, more important for you to sort out what the heck you'd done to yourself. And, specifically, to your damage control.
While you didn't think that you were at risk of sinking, you were sure that you would have noticed internal flooding of all things, you took the precaution of moving back towards the pier and sat down on the edge of the concrete.
One of the figures who had been present earlier was still moving, wriggling around unlike a handful more who were there but sort of leaking, so you focused on not letting your internal monologue about matters slip out by accident. You had already embarrassed yourself once and you really weren't sure what to say about the fashion sense of this one.
For some reason part of you felt that bandages might be an acceptable garment for someone with the right sort of 'firepower', but this female had the figure of a submarine without their adorable look and was wearing those ropes
over rather dowdy clothing.
Firmly quashing the urge to preen and show off your 'firepower advantage', you just gave her a curt nod and a quelling look before turning your attention inward.
The most obvious issue was that you had sort of, kinda of, welded shut your damage control and severed all possible means of communication with it. The memory of the flood of what were, you now realised, false reports coming from it made you shudder. Fixing the makeshift 'modification' would be easy you feared that doing so would force you to deal with whatever accumulated agonies might be inside it.
Fixing things up without damage control central though would be quite... difficult.
Putting your mini-gun (MINE!) on your lap you did a manual external inspection while trying to parse the weirdness which were the unfiltered internal reports on your own readiness. Your rudder hadn't been further damaged, although sitting on it as you were probably wasn't the best idea, and your radar was still showing you things no better nor worse than prior to your most recent encounter.
You definitely didn't bite back a tear as you realised that your paintwork had been scuffed horrible, with small pockmarks in the underlying metal denoting a scattering of minor damage, and somehow part of your hair had been shortened to barely an inch by a few shots.
How were you going to present a proper look of a Lady of Darkness if you had what amounted to a
partial crew cut?!
Running your hands down over your hips and thighs you only encountered any real issues when your seeking hands found the damage to your calve. You weren't always clear about how damage represented itself externally and internally, but in this case the injured muscle was showing just what you'd done to one of your shafts.
Whichever way you looked at it you really were going to be limping along, at best, until you did some pretty major repair work. Although, you realised, if you did get your Damage Control Central up and running again they could either start on the repairs or jury rig something to help you move at a somewhat closer to normal speed for a while.
From somewhere across the bay you felt it as Puppy, having obviously grown tired of her cat and paralysed mouse, finally sunk the battered and abandoned boat. The eyes of its pitiful little spirit snapped open as the hull sank beneath the surface, her face a rictus of pain and fear as she scrabbled futilely to prevent her decent.
You couldn't help but smile as the darkness seized her, took her and the entire sinking ship in, as her scream became a stream of pretty little bubbles and you eagerly reclaimed a bounty of
Ammo,
Fuel, and
Metal in return.
Your smile became a frown as you suddenly realised that, actually, you were worse off in a way than you'd previously believed. You had known that you'd actually had proper armour but the evidence was there that you had. As was the signs that, at some point, you'd literally cut away vast sections of it as dead weight in a way which would have sunk an actual sh-
Light suddenly flaring around you from above interrupted your contemplation, something that was irritating to say the least, but before you could localise where the darned spotlight was an amplified voice rang out at sufficient volume to make your ears ring.
"BUTCHER!
PLACE DOWN YOUR WEAPON,
RELEASE YOUR HOSTAGE,
AND RAISE YOUR HANDS ABOVE YOUR HEAD!!"
What the...?
oOo
Out of the Fog
A (Not So) Safe Harbor 1.17
oOo
You're Not Getting Damage Reports Because DCC Is Down.
You Have Bright Light In Your Eyes.
You Have Moderate Injuries And 'Scuffed Paintwork'.
Minor Damage To Your "Rudder" and Radar.
Major Damage To Your Leg. (Limited To "Walking" Speed.)
oOo
UPDATE: You have gained 1 Ammo, 1 Fuel, and 2 Metal.
What Is Your Response? (Pick One.)
[ ] Attack.
[ ] Flee.
[ ] Quibble.
[ ] Monologue.
[ ] Tango (You do not have time to tango, buddy.)
[ ] (Write-In: One word summing up your reaction)
Optional: A Sentence or Two of Detail on the Response.
[ ] (Write-in.)
Optional: What Repairs Did You Set In Motion? (Pick as many as you wish and can afford.)
[ ] Fix paintwork and hair. (Costs 1
Fuel)
[ ] Fix brused "rudder". (Costs 1
Fuel)
[ ] Undo DCC modification. (costs 1
Fuel. May cause flood of pain.)
--[ ] Jury rig your leg. (Costs 1
Metal.)
--[ ] Partial repairs to your leg (Costs 2
Metal.)
[ ] Ready the Rotary Cannon Thingy. (Costs 1
Ammo.)
--[ ] Mount the Rotary Cannon Thingy. (Costs 1
Metal.)
I'm not saying this is a good idea, I"m saying I'm going to enjoy it. V: