So, this is a Stunning demonstration of why you don't paint your 40k minis while watching… whatever it is that KanColle is.
On with the show.
Why did I cross the street?
Screech, thud! The world may never know.
Seriously, that's how I died. Alone, in the cold, having never even seen the bus that killed me.
As the world faded from my eyes, I saw a golden glow began to envelop everything.
Sea and Sky
Chapter 1
I awakened slowly. I hate waking up, possibly because of my ridiculously early schedule, but this time it was worse than most. It may have had something to do with the splitting headache pounding through my skull, or it may have had to do with the crushed bones in pretty much the entire rest of my body.
So, you done goofed.
The voice reverberated in my head, somehow without making my headache worse.
You were supposed to... well I can't tell you.
"Wha..." I croaked. I was pretty sure my jaw was cracked.
In any case, you weren't supposed to be hit by a bus. Way to go there, genius.
"Ca yo fix me?" I managed to say, through my cracked jaw.
I can't fix you. Not here. I'm not God, after all. I'm only a Gatekeeper.
"Why am I here..." I said.
I can send you somewhere else, though. That can repair you... at a cost.
"Fine." I said. It was getting hard to stay conscious.
Are you sure? This could be quite amusing... for me.
"I'll take that risk." I said. The pain of speaking was nearly overwhelming, but I needed to get that out. I didn't want to die.
Well... you like Warhammer 40,000, don't you?
My eyes widened through the swelling. That probably wouldn't end well for me.
Oh no, I have something much more Fun in mind.
The way that word seemed capitalized stuck in my mind.
You'll be going now. We'll probably never speak again. That almost never happens.
Then the pain of my injuries overcame me, and I passed out.
[x]
When I woke up again, I felt like I was floating on a cloud of butter. There was an odd sensation to it, like there were little waves running through my cloud.
I opened my eyes, and almost immediately squinted. The midday sun was above me, and the smell of salt was in the air.
A wave washed over my face. As I coughed the salt water out of my mouth, I realized I was floating. In the ocean.
On the plus side, I wasn't in pain. But now I had a slower and much less pleasant death facing me. If I could just move my limbs...
"Hey!" A female voice called. "Over here!"
I heard a strange rushing sound in the distance, slowly drawing closer. On one hand, it could be anything, but on the other hand... My situation couldn't get much worse.
As the sound drew closer, it separated into two distinct sounds, which drew closer to me, and then faded.
A face appeared in my field of view. She was cute, with medium-length brown hair and petite features.
"Um... Sister, I don't know what this is." She said. "Its definitely not an Abyssal, and it looks like its wearing an Outfit, but I think it's a boy..."
"Oh, a boy?" A second, also female, voice said. "We just found a boy in the middle of the Ocean! Let me see!"
The whirring sound returned, and a second face appeared in my field of view. She looked similar to the first girl, but with longer hair and more defined features.
"Huh." The second girl said. "It is a boy. We should take it back to base and see what the Admiral thinks. I'll attach a tow line."
She reached behind her back and withdrew a flat metal disk attached to a chain. She reached forward and placed it on my chest with a clank. Oddly, I didn't feel anything.
"We should get this back to base now." The first girl said.
"Right."
And so began by experience of being towed across the ocean. It was... less than pleasant. Namely, I was dragged across the surface of the water, occasionally bouncing around like a ragdoll. As feeling returned to my limbs, I was able to stabilize myself somewhat, at least enough that I didn't get a face full of salt water more than every... I don't know. Less frequently than I was before.
Eventually, we began to slow down. I wasn't really sure what was going on, until I saw a ceiling appear high above me. Painted steel beams were visible in a framework hold the ceiling up like the inside of an aircraft hangar.
The pair of girls continued to drag me inside the hanger, slowly coming to stop. There was a short pause, then a crane appeared in my field of view, reached down and grabbed me. It lifted me into the air, then dumped me on the ground. I landed awkwardly, like there was something under my back.
I lay there for a minute, recovering my strength. Eventually, the discomfort of my position drove me to force myself to my feet. I groaned, ignoring the scraping sounds I made as I stood up.
Looking around, I saw that I was standing in what looked like machine shop crossed with a marina. I took a step forward, my foot landing with a clang. I looked down at myself.
I was covered in metal. It covered my body in layered sections, battleship grey with a golden, two-headed eagle on the chest. A trio muzzles protruded from either side of my chest. I paused, stunned.
Panicking, I stepped forward and looked at my reflection in the water.
I was wearing a suit of Space Marine Terminator Armor, though it appeared to be modified slightly to allow me slightly greater peripheral vision. There was indeed a golden Aquila on my chest, and what looked like a halo of gold metal surrounding my head. The barrels of three plasma guns extruded from either side of my chest, and my left arm was encased in what looked like an array of gun barrels. The barrel of some kind of cannon poked out from above my head.
What was going on?
I needed to figure out where I was and what was going on. I needed to-
"THIS IS AN EMERGENCY BROADCAST." An automated voice boomed. "ABYSSAL FORCES ARE APPROACHING THE BASE. ALL UNITS SCRAMBLE TO INTERCEPT!"
We were under attack. An instinct awakened in me. The enemies of Mankind were attacking, and as a loyal warship of The Emperor's Shield, it was my duty to stand against them. I was a Mars-class Battlecruiser, and I would not stand for-
Wait, what? What was I thinking? I wasn't a spaceship! I was me!
As the emergency broadcast began to repeat, I realized something. Something calling themselves the Abyssals were attacking, and that didn't seem like it could be anything good. People were in danger, the same people who had fished me out of the ocean. I needed to do something.
A sudden understanding rose in me that the water was my friend. Well, not a friend, as such, but it would accept me. I was a warship, and worthy to stand upon it. I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and stepped forward.
My foot hovered just over the surface of the water, throwing up small waves on either side of it. I took another step, and the same thing happened I was now standing fully on the water.
Willing myself forward, I began to advance, like I was wearing some kind of powered-water-roller-skates. I looked down at my left arm. The forearm was indeed encased in an array of gun barrels, which I somehow knew were a Mk. XIII Godsbane Lance Array, just as the plasma guns on my chest were Hecutor-pattern Plasma Broadsides. And the massive cannon on my back was a Mars-pattern Nova Cannon.
I held my hands out to my side and focused. My heartbeats unnaturally loud in my ears, and ten heartbeats later, a cloud of mist coalesced around my hand. I somehow felt, through my armored gauntlet, something metallic drop into my hand. I looked at it. I was holding a massive, five foot chainsword, though it seemed like it weighed nothing at all. Nodding, I started the engines of my Ram with a mental command.
With a deep breath, I pushed myself forward. I began to gain speed as I moved toward the exit of the hanger.
It should be noted that I have never actually roller skated. Remember this, as it will be important in a minute.
I took off out of the hanger and looked around. I knew that Mars-class ships had some fairly substantial auspex arrays. If I could just activate them, then I could potentially figure out just what the threat-
At that moment, several automatic cannons somewhere behind me started firing. Or I could just look where my side was shooting.
Following the tracers, I took off toward the open ocean. As I did so, I spotted a bolt of something back towards the tracers. Something exploded behind me.
My eyes narrowed on something fast and back shooting across the surface of the ocean, dodging the autocannon fire. It looked like a whale, mutated to have tentacles trailing off behind it. It opened its mouth, revealing a cannon, and fired a shell toward the defending autocannons.
That would probably be the enemy. I fired my plasma cannons, sending six blasts of blue light lacing across the ocean... all of which missed by miles. I raised my lance, hoping I'd have better luck with that.
I tracked the whale-thing briefly, then fired with a mental command. A blazing, white hot beam of light... lanced... across the space between us, striking the whale in a blast of energy. And explosion ripped through its flank, knocking it backwards.
Not giving it a chance to recover, I shot forward, the engines of my chainsword revving. As the whale landed on the surface of the ocean and, turned, in defiance of all laws of physics, not that I had much room to complain.
It fired its cannon at me. An explosion blasted across my bloody, and I felt a wave of warm air wash over me, but I seemed unharmed.
I was on the Whale before it had the chance to fire again. My chainsword bit into it, sending up a cloud of smoke as my weapon tore into it.
The speed of my passage separated me from the enemy before I had the chance to finish it, and I began to circle back around.
As soon as the enemy monster entered my field of view, I raised my lace and fired again. The same bolt of pure white light shot out, striking the enemy whale again. This time, I blew it to pieces.
I looked around, three more whale-things were approaching me. I assumed a ready stance, and the plasma batteries on my chest began tracking one of the approaching monsters.
Just what was going on here?
I circled around toward them and fired my plasma guns. Bolts of energy lanced toward the approaching whales. The leftmost whale was bracketed by blasts of blue plasma, several of which struck home, blasting chunks out of the whale. The three whales spread out as they approached me, opening their mouths to reveal their cannons. They opened fire almost immediately.
Strafing to the side, I raised my lance and firing in the general direction of the leftmost whale. My beam struck a glancing blow, knocking the monster tumbling, but it began to recover quickly. As I moved, I tried to keep the front of my chest pointed toward the leftmost whale, so I could continue firing on it with my plasma broadsides, but I really had no idea what I was doing, and I fell.
Hitting the surface of the ocean wearing my Terminator Armor, if that's really what it I was wearing, was... Interesting. It was like landing on a hard trampoline. I bounced slightly off the surface from the shock of the landing, and as I slowly began to recover, I was struck twice in quick succession by the whales' mouth cannons.
A small indicator appeared in the bottom left corner of my vision, showing an intricate shield styled like a golden Aquila with its wings outstretched. Half of it was black. As another shell struck me, a significant amount of the remaining gold in the indicator disappeared. It didn't take a genius to figure out what that represented. I wasn't sure how much of a beating I could take without my Void Shields, but I didn't want to find out.
The three enemy whales began to circle me. I still had one weapon I hadn't tried yet, but if I was right about how it would work, I would want my enemies in a nice bunch when I used it, and I would probably want to be a fair distance away.
I took off in the initial direction the whales had approached from. If there were more of them in that direction, then I would have a problem, but given their positions relative to me, if offered the best chance of escape.
As I ran, I tried to activate my Nova Cannon. I wanted to glance behind me to see if the enemy was gaining on me, but the design of my armor made that impossible. I would have to roll the dice that the enemy were in a tight enough group.
Slowly, my Nova Cannon rose from its position on my back, over my right shoulder to firing position. A small red cross appeared in the center of my view as I dropped my sword, which puffed to mist, and grabbed a stabilization handle on the bottom of my Nova Cannon. '
I took a deep breath, then kicked out my left leg and spun around, falling as I did so.
But it brought my Nova Cannon on target.
My crosshair fell nicely on the three enemy whales rushing me in a neat line.
I fired.
To be honest, I'm not really sure what happened next. A flash of light filled my vision, and a strange sensation, like my whole body being slapped at once, struck me, and then I was filled with a sudden feeling of weightlessness.
I realized I was looking up at the sky. I was flying.
Then I hit the water. Ouch.
I lay there for a little while, stunned. Nothing came after me, so I guess the shot from my Nova Cannon destroyed the enemy whales. Slowly, I began to recover, climbing to my knees. I wasn't sure why I was smoking, and my Void Shield indicator was almost completely black.
Was the attack over? Come to think of it, where was I? I looked around. I couldn't see any land. Come to think of it, I didn't know which direction I had been thrown by my Nova Cannon shot.
I was in trouble. Again.
With a sigh, I raised my lance. It was pretty visible, so maybe someone would see it. I fired, sending a beam of light straight into the air.
Then I waited.
Eventually, I saw a speck approaching me, a wave of water rising behind it.
"Over here!" I shouted, waving. "I'm over here."
Nothing happened for a moment.
Then I exploded.
My Void Shields absorbed the hit, but they were depleted by the blow. It dawned on me that I was under attack. I raised my lance and fired in the direction of the speck, but I had no idea what exactly I was doing with the powerful weapon, and I missed.
I started climbing to my feet, but a second shell hit me, tearing straight through my weakened Void Shields, and blasted into my face, sending me tumbling.
As a third shell hit me, I realized that I was outclassed. I had beaten the first four whales by luck, but whatever this thing was, it was going to kill me.
Again. I was really having a bad day.
With a sudden surge of strength, I climbed to my feet and took off at a right angle to the direction the speck was approaching me from. It would make me a harder target, and maybe give my Void Shields some time to recover, which could buy me a little more time for...
For what? I was going to die here. I couldn't save myself. As my hope faded, the enemy came into view.
It looked like a girl, but covered in inky black material that covered her body like armor, which two massive gun pods behind her shoulders. It was these that fired the shells at me which were about to end my life.
I was falling so deep into despair as I continued my evasive maneuvers that I didn't even hear the rushing sound that had heralded my first rescue approaching.
A figure in black appeared at the edge of my field of view, then shot past me, toward the monster that was pelting me with fire. As the figure moved, three massive arms extended from its back, each carrying a trio of heavy guns.
They fired with a roar, sending nine shells tearing into the approaching enemy. As they struck, obscuring the enemy in smoke, the figure began to strafe to the side. It raised its arms, in which it was holding two long pistols. They fired into the smoke clouding the enemy, and then the guns on the mechanical arms fired again.
Shells detonated in a series of bangs, and the figure stopped.
It looked like a man with close-cropped hair, wearing an elaborate tuxedo. Allowances were made in the suit for the variety of weapons mounted on the stranger, including the three massive arms.
As the smoke cleared, all that was left of the enemy was a smoking debris field. The stranger turned towards me and moved closer, like they were gliding across the ocean. They stopped maybe fifteen feet away from me and leveled a pistol at my chest. The three arms on their back pointed their weapons arrays at me.
"You," The stranger said, in a clearly female voice, "Are a prisoner of the USS Iowa, of the United States Third Fleet."
I raised my hands. "I've had enough for one day." I said.
She tilted her head. "Can you move?"
I struggled to my feet. "I think so." I said. "I'm not sure how quickly."
"Fine." She said, then pointed behind me. "Base is that way. We should get moving. You first."
I turned around and began to propel myself toward the base, wondering just what in the world was going on. After a short time, a coastline came into sight, and slowly an island began to resolve itself. As we drew closer, two other girls wearing bizarre outfits, which looked like WWII warships put through a blender and turned into clothing, and gliding on water moved to intercept Iowa and I.
It should be noted as a reference to just how bad my day had been that I wouldn't have raised an eyebrow to any of the above sentence.
"What's going on?" One of the girls said. "What are you doing, Iowa?"
"What does it look like I'm doing?" Iowa said. "I've captured a prisoner, and I'm escorting it back to base."
"And I'm most certainly not leading an overwhelming force toward your base of operations." I said. "Because that would be bad, and I'm probably on your side."
"Ohh." One of the strangely dressed girls said. "Is that a boy? But how can he be wearing an Outfit?"
The way she said that sent a shiver down my spine.
"Yes." Iowa said. "It would appear so. The Admiral will decide what to do with him."
"Well, we're here to escort you back to base!" The second girl said. "So we'll help you!"
We took off again, and it didn't take long for the base to come into sight.
To be honest, it looked like it had seen better days. A long wall of concrete ran along the shoreline, with raised bastions for gun emplacements. Several of these were blown out, however, and the wall itself was scarred with craters.
The girls escorting me angled towards a wide gap in the wall, and I followed. We entered a harbor protected by the massive wall, and I looked around.
A second, inner wall lined the harbor, and several ships were at anchor next to gaps in the wall. The two girls leading me turned toward a long, low building along the waterfront, and I followed.
As a high concrete ceiling came over my head, I took a deep breath. What was I walking in to?
As we jetted into the massive space, the water began to become shallow. I reached the edge of the water and took a step forward, my armored boot landing on solid ground. After walking around on water, it felt different.
The two girls that had led me into the base walked over to a row of machines against the far wall. Each device looked like a mechanical spider cross with an elliptical machine. As the girls stepped onto the machines, the mechanical spider arms reached down and began disassembling their bizarre outfits, quickly leaving them in their plain street clothes.
Uncertain, I looked back at Iowa.
"You first." She said.
I looked at the machine, uncertain.
One of Iowa's gun arms moved to track my head.
"Fine, fine." I said, stepping forward and up onto the machine nearest to me. "Um, armor disengage."
The robot arms reached down and began questing at the seams in my armor. I felt their presence and, with a sigh, let them do their job. Within minutes, my armor was disassembled and piled up in a large box next to the machine. I was left wearing a grey bodysuit the same color as my armor.
As soon as I stepped down from the machine, Iowa stepped up into the one next to me, and was quickly left in only her tuxedo.
"This way." Iowa said, waving.
We made our way down a long hallway in silence, eventually coming to what looked like a train station. As we entered, a small monorail train pulled up and stopped, its doors opening.
I gestured at the door. "Ladies first."
Iowa frowned. "Prisoner first."
I tilted my head to the side. "Fair enough."
I boarded the train and sat down. Iowa sat down next to me.
"So." She said. "What were you doing out there?"
"Well." I said. "I woke up in the open ocean, then two of you girls found me, dragged me back to base, and left me on the dock. When I heard the Emergency Broadcast, I decided I had to do something, and I took off to the ocean. Then I encountered these this whale thing, so I killed it-"
"You mean an I-class destroyer?" Iowa asked.
"I have no idea." I said. "Anyway, I killed that one, but then three more of them showed up, so I killed them with my Nova Cannon. It was a close call, but I-"
"Wait." Iowa said. "Nova Cannon? What is that?"
"It was that big gun on my back." I said. "I don't know exactly how it works, but it took out all three whales, and-"
"Abyssals." Iowa said. "They're called Abyssals. Ships of the Abyssal Fleet. That was what you were fighting."
"Anyway, then that weird girl attacked me, and you killed her, then took me back to base, and our narrative has caught up with the present."
"Interesting." Iowa said. "What about before that? How did you get out to the middle of the ocean?"
"I don't know." I said. "Until I woke up there, its all kind of a blur."
The train started to slow down.
"We're at headquarters." Iowa said. "We're going to talk with the Admiral. You have to show respect."
"I understand." I said.
The monorail stopped, and the doors opened. Iowa and I disembarked, and stepped onto the platform. Iowa walked over to an elevator set into the wall, and pressed a button on the control panel, which flashed green. A moment later, the elevator opened, and Iowa and I walked in.
The inside of the elevator was lined with mirrors, with varnished wooden handrails. The doors of the elevator closed, and it began to rise. The doors reopened a moment later, and we stepped out.
The hallway outside the elevator looked like a fairly typical office building, perhaps belonging to a high-class law firm. We began to walk down the hallway, which was lined with doors.
We quickly came to the end of the hallway. The door there was slightly more ornate than the others, and Iowa stepped forward and knocked.
"Come in." A muffled male voice said. "It's unlocked."
Iowa opened the door, and we entered.
The office looked like, well, an office. A tall, young-looking man with pure white hair sat behind the desk, hands folded in front of his mouth.
"So." He said. "Interesting. You are the new Ship Girl Iowa found, correct?"
"I'm not a girl, sir." I said. "And I am a Mars-class Battlecruiser, not a ship."
"But you are capable of operating an outfit, correct?"
"Yes, sir."
"Good. As of this moment, I'm officially conscripting you into the United States Third Fleet."
I was about to open my mouth to protest, when a side door slammed open and a woman in a grey business suit entered. She had pale white skin and steel grey hair. She stared at me, and behind her thin-framed glasses, her eyes seemed... endless.
"You can't do that." She said, adjusting her glasses. "Legally, you can only conscript U.S. Citizens confirmed to be Ship Girls, and only when there is a pressing strategic need."
"Sure I can." The Admiral responded. "Iowa found him on the open ocean. That makes him salvage. And according to the post-Abyssal Laws of the Sea, any salvage can be used in the war against the Abyssal Fleet without any red tape. Therefore, I can use him for the Third Fleet. QED."
"That's not how it works." The Grey Woman said. "He is clearly a person, not a derelict warship. I don't think you can."
"I'm fine, actually." I said. "I'll fight against the Abyssal Fleet. Your people saved my life, and I really don't have anywhere to go. I want to be paid, though." I turned to Iowa. "Iowa, how much do you make?"
"What?" Iowa said. "I make five thousand a month. But-"
"I'll do it for twice that." I said. "And room and board. Plus a month's pay as a retainer."
The Admiral raised an eyebrow.
"And what makes you think you're worth that?" The Woman in Grey said.
"I'm an unknown, and therefore potentially valuable." I said. "Think of it as a holding fee, so I don't decide to go shopping around."
The Admiral started laughing out loud. "Excellently put. Far enough, Enterprise, pay the man."
"Very well." The woman in grey said.
As she pulled a pad of paper out of her pocket and began to write on it, I connected the dots on who she was. Grey. The Grey Ghost. Enterprise.
"Here." She said, handing me a piece of paper. "That's your pay order. Take it to the quartermaster on the third floor to cash it in. Don't lose it, et cetera."
"And that brings me to another matter." The Admiral said. "Iowa, I have a transfer order for you. I'm moving you to a special Surface Action Group."
"What?" Iowa said. "But I'm-"
"No, this is what we're doing." The Admiral said, then looked at me. "Also, I'm putting you in the new group, Mr... What was your name again?"
I paused. "Jack Aureus, I said after a moment. "It's a pleasure to serve under you, sir."
"Very well." The Admiral said. "You're Surface Action Group will be housed in the new Hackworth building. You're on the top floor. Now, I have a call with the president, so I'm sure you have more important things to do than be talking to me. You're dismissed."
"Yes, sir!" Iowa said, saluting, then turning around and walking out the door. I followed, unsure what to do.
As the door to the Admirals office closed behind us, I turned to Iowa. She seemed upset.
"What's wrong?" I asked her, stepping ahead of her and turning to face her.
"Look." She said. "You just got me transferred out of the Fifth Line Squadron. I was happy there, dammit. Now I'm part of some quack experimental unit."
"How is that my fault?" I asked.
She glared at me. "That should be obvious, idiot."
I fell back behind her and shook my head.
"So, what is going on?" I said, trying to change the subject.
"What are you talking about?"
"I mean, what are these Abyssals everyone keeps talking about?" I said. "What are you? I saw you walking on water, and forgive me, but I don't think that's very common."
Iowa turned around and shot me a look. "Have you been living under a rock for the past five years?"
"I'll tentatively answer that with a yes." I said.
Iowa rolled her eyes. "Look, one day, the Abyssal Fleet showed up from the bottom of the ocean and started attacking shipping. The navies of the world started trying to fight back, but they were doing poorly, and taking losses faster than they could rebuild. Then the first Ship Girls were discovered. Girls born with the souls of battleships from days past. That's what I am. We could fight the Abyssals on equal terms, and since then, we've been stemming the tide of human losses."
"What do you mean, stemming the tide?" I asked, "You mean we aren't winning?"
A concern flashed through me that I may have signed up for the wrong side. That... would not be good.
"Of course we aren't winning." Iowa said. "They keep it under wraps, but we're losing more than we're gaining. There just isn't an end to the Abyssal Fleet."
That's was bad. I had just joined a losing army.
But then, the other side clearly wasn't human. Was there any choice but to stand and fight the Xenos scum?