A/N: If you firmly believe that WE (as in, all humans in the KanColle verse) ARE RIGHT, this is not the fic for you. In fact, the humans in my rendition will be, very clearly, villains, anti-heroes, or exploiters. This comes despite all my other in-progress fics (all of which will be eventually finished) because I read one too many "Us GOOD, Them BAD" KanColle fics, not to mention the election of You-Know-Him, the Hate Machine, etc. (various other titles)…
This is the spiritual successor to "The Ocean of Fears" which I took down.
Chapters will follow the Abyssal leaderships' initial form numbering, with occasional side-cuts to their secret allies.
The problem is that sadly, the first bit of actual depravity will have to wait until the next chapter, because the Anchorage Demon and Princess are first by that list (see chapter end) instead of Armoured Carrier like I'd hoped. Regular gangbangs and beatings up to plasma cutters, in theory to test the resilience of their creations, is very minor compared to everything else the Abyss Project did to its experiments. Thus this chapter doesn't earn the Horror genre, that begins next chapter, sorry to disappoint you. This does however set things up. Square brackets are "optional text" a la Bible translations.
Chapter 1: Weigh [of the] Anchor[age]
"For GDI, this war is about feeling superior, about satisfying their need for control over others.
But for us, it is about no longer being food.
I… no, the last one who wore this body and its genetic makeup… she lived and died in the hell made by those people. She went through that hell with they whose forms we take.
They were a group. They would do… anything… to stay alive.
It wasn't enough.
So we, more powerful than they ever were, act as a group now. We will do anything to stay free.
I will never forget her memories of those days she lived in. Things you see in war… stay with you…
Forever."
—The Unnamed Ship-Girl
2196, 8 years post Reaper War
We have been free for a year now. Free to choose our destiny, to no longer merely know ourselves as Experiment number whatever.
It hasn't been all it's cracked up to be.
Of course, this was perfectly understandable given the loss of control would send the dominance-obsessed flesh-bags into a tizzy. Faking pain while they used various parts of their bodies on us had been quite annoying, after all, but it was mostly the assertions of authority that this represented that was really irksome. The flesh-bags… ahem, humans, that's the term… had basically been tickling a dragon and forcing it to act submissively when any one of us, the humanoid Experiments, could fry them with little more than a hard look.
We tried to stay out of the way at first after gaining our freedom, vanishing into the deep sea. We shared the waves with the flesh-bags and their constructs, sea-going machines so familiar in psionic form that they drew us to the surface, to gaze upon them in a sense of familiarity and wonder.
Then the flesh-bags panicked and realized that the unknown sightings were the escaped slaves of their "Project Abyss", slaves that had blasted our way to liberty. And then they hated us, much as they hated everybody who wasn't like them, the moment they knew what we were and thought they could no longer cover us up, they sought to silence us. It was a story that had repeated itself over and over in their history, afflicting every flesh-bag—AHEM, HUMAN!—faction to varying degrees. And what they hate, they attack until it is dead, such was the human way… no, the GDI way…
Long ago, the Abyssals and the three human factions lived in peace and harmony, then, everything changed when the GDI attacked…If I recall correctly, that's a distant cultural reference from somewhere on the human Internet.
And it was to the traditional enemies of the flesh-bags that had created us that I was now serving as a hopeful envoy. At least, that was what the agreement among the Princesses and Demons claimed to say. I knew the truth. It was because I was the weakest of the leadership of the Abyssal Fleet that I was expendable for this purpose. There was also the fact that Armoured Carrier Demon and Armoured Carrier Princess might explode the moment they saw a toilet. The last software patch inserted into our brains before the Egression forcing our minds and souls to be more human-like, the very patch that caused us to finally blast our way to liberty, certainly hadn't done those two any favours.
If only my younger sister was here with me, she'd be better at the fan-service with her constant state of undress. Then again, she wasn't quite as smart as me, the prototype for her creation. Thinking that stripping nude and begging would draw the flesh-b—HUMANS'!—attention onto her instead of pounding me in every sense of the word… well, it did help shorten the line. Fortunately, she grow stronger in her hate and despair each time they forced me to at least pretend they were actually hurting me while making her watch the… gangbangs, I believe the humans call them?
Yes, gangbangs, that was the right term. You'd think the humans, being humans and thus familiar with human mating practices, would have better techniques than pressing me down and sticking it in as I have come to know to be the way for human breeding, but, well… it wasn't like they just believe in the basics anyhow. They thought I should be pained and ashamed, just because they drugged me halfway to oblivion each time with paralytics and more painful compounds before they tried to copulate with me? They must have been laughably dumb, not only for trying so hard to breed someone who was certainly not human but also for sticking it in anywhere but what corresponded to a human's reproductive opening on this imitation of a human female's body. You'd think given they were all supposed to be brilliant scientists they'd know better than to waste their genetic material, but apparently they were idiot savants or whatever the term was.
Perhaps I should not think on that topic again, or I might be too worked up about their torturing my sister by forcing her to watch. She'd wanted to divide the amount of time and effort needed to sate them so that I wasn't forced to pretend to hurt anymore. There were a few cases, where they brought out the plasma cutters to stab me with during their gangbangs, where they actually hurt me, and my replica didn't like that. On the plus side, basically permanently being nude and lewd-seeming did get the less patient of the gangbangers to indulge in her instead of wait their turn with me, which meant satisfying them all was a faster task than it otherwise would have been.
I didn't like those sessions much either, compared to the apathy and hidden amusement I treated the more common sessions with.
I should think on something else. The fate of the Abyssal Fleet rested on my negotiations, on this audience we'd gained with the SI and Nod leadership. It boggled my mind to think that their leaders would so easily agree to see an Abyssal in person. But perhaps it was due to…
I, Anchorage Demon, blinked as I was met by the exhausted-looking guards off the northern shore of Haida Gwaii. There were four of them, three with minor damage, a few shell craters in their armour, and one with her right side girdle terminating where her fore turret had been, presumable blown off by a magazine explosion in the bow magazines. The big utility box on her back, formerly her stern utility bay, was also a smoking crater, but she remained resolutely upright and moving, hustling me into the facility and falling in position to my forward left…
What… the… hell…
This… is the most pathetic repair yard I've ever seen, and the ship-girls here universally look like shit. Even the four escorting me seem exhausted, veins bulging on the backs of their hands, which were clenched around their secondary weaponry of three double 100mm turrets per side. Their primary armaments, two triple 300mm turrets were mounted on the rigging to their sides, pointed to either side so that when we marched, one would point toward me, and the other to the sides as a silent warning in case anyone went berserk upon seeing me. This was of course with the exception of the maimed one…
A/N: No, that's not a historical ship class, it's one of my own creation. Tertiary/AA armament initially comes in masses of double 40mm L/75 automatic cannon, in enclosed turrets, and a handful of depth charges in divots. Anyone who remembers the old SI Archives might remember the ED-1937 "Destroyer" (based on year of design, first built rather later)… and the tendency of SI Navy ships to survive being blown in half due to modular, well-divided construction, to the point of the stern half sometimes towing the bow to port if the split was pretty much right down the middle.
The SI faction began in Canada in the mid-1800s as a private company, then expanded to be integral to that nation, and eventually began acquiring overseas territories after WWII ended in 1948 (in this timeline). They wanted to scare the Germans during WWII into being paranoid about commerce raiding, so they named their 25000-ton, 200m long-range-escort plus monitor plus pursuit hybrid design as "Destroyer". Its role was a fast, long-range warship intended to screen the battle fleet from smaller, powerful, short-range attackers. The fact that "smaller, powerful, short-range" meant the Deutschland-class and Hipper-class heavy cruisers was an inside joke.
Another plus of leaking the design specifications to the Germans was a hope of either making the Germans build expensive battleships—which the Royal Navy could smack down with superior numbers, design experience, etc. and their own high-speed convoys could run circles around—or spam submarines. Submarines would make Britain more dependent on their company's shipping ability, as their high-speed convoys and even faster escorts could still outrun and evade submarines with trivial ease. This would increase their influence.
Then there was screaming, and the deep roar of a Destroyer ordering the rest of her surgical team. Four EF-1937 type Frigates held down another of their number on a heavily reinforced operating platform while the Destroyer worked on her head. The patient was having the slagged half of her face and the helmet practically smelted to her head removed with a plasma blade held by a straining Destroyer holding her head still by practically digging her fingers into the smaller ship-girl's face. This removal was needed, so that she could regenerate without the dead tissue being in the way, but to do it without anaesthetic of any type, even the good old fashioned medical bat used to subdue unruly patients… it was no surprise that the operating platform had gouges from the girl's fingers clawing chunks out of it in blind pain before being forced down and back under control.
The lesser ships' weapons were also quite distinctive, with two triple 200mm guns like their larger cousins, a good number of twin-40mm turrets and, on those same S-WM-20 series mounts, occasionally a single 100mm gun instead. Back in the world wars, they had served as a point defence weapon against smaller ships, when the standard 1500-ton Corvettes or whatever other escorts they were assigned weren't expected to be sufficient to keep the 5000-ton EF-1937s safe.
There was another commotion as another batch of maimed ship-girls arrived and triage teams met them, this time with both sides being mostly Corvettes, who took their less injured comrades aside and the more wounded to other operating platforms. Two other tired-looking Corvettes were sleeping against the far wall, bandages wrapped around their heads from an ear or nose that had been shot off, judging by the blood stains on the gauze. Only the steady rise and fall of their breathing told me that they were still alive. There were more bunks laid out in rows nearby, divided only by a curtain from the concrete operating platforms.
As far as I was concerned, this place resembled a ramshackle field hospital. Sensing my look of disgust at how crowded and dark everything looked, the damaged Destroyer escorting me pointed out "We are still new to the Ship-Girl War, so our facilities aren't very good and we still don't have the accelerated repair technology everyone else and their mother seems to have. It would REALLY be appreciated if your side would stop attacking while we negotiate, you know, given the girls are in such a rush just to stop the incursions of your kind."
I watched, as she said this, the two Corvettes that were napping against the wall being shaken awake one at a time by a Frigate, because the bigger ship's other arm ended under the elbow. Almost all her secondary weapons on that side had been blown away, but her main battery had been repaired enough to hold the line. The two speedy escorts pulled themselves back up and began heading toward the exit, summoning their characteristic batteries of twin 40mm turrets and forward twin 100mm in their right hands as they rose.
The Destroyer's jaw muscles flexed as she saw where I was looking "This place is modelled after early World War Six field hospital footage specifically to remind us of our spirit of defiance. There is no downside as we don't catch diseases or infections, so we stuck with the idea. It reminds us of where we came from, and where we all go." She finished bitterly, quoting one of the heroes of the Reaper War, as we finished passing through the big open space. It had probably once been some manner of submarine pen, but had been repurposed for a ship-girl facility. One of the smaller doors at the far side admitted me and my current escorts to a conference room while I thought back. I did not know what photo she was speaking of, but with the hasty field surgery and one of the faction's only appropriate-era (e.g. summon-able) capital ships being more than half damaged and not being able to be repaired for now, I had a good idea the sort of pressure she meant.
The Abyssal Fleet was no better off, and the more righteous fury… the more vengeance… the more hate we were filled with, the better we did. They were no different from us, at least, not in this sense.
If my escorts were more remodelled than they were right now, I would be scared shitless. The 150mm rocket artillery turrets that could easily replace the 40mm turrets, and in later remodels at least partly DID… against an Installation type like me, without enough armour to greatly overmatch the destructive power of their warheads (or if they loaded dual-purpose rounds)… they would plaster me with stupid ease.
"Triticale, the hostility is uncalled for. For all we know, this is all because of a cyborg project that Nod started that got taken over by GDI, a program which escaped, and GDI is launching these attacks against our coasts to probe our ship-girl strength after they shared the technology with us! That sound about right, great-grandfather?" A young-looking black-haired woman on a screen shifted her talk to ask a bald, slightly older-looking man. Well, it seemed they didn't trust me enough to meet in person, good, they weren't stupid.
Triticale, named after a major carbohydrate crop like SI-built Destroyers traditionally were, bowed her head and thumped her right hand—still in a cast—over her chest "My apologies, Generalissimo."
"It's alright, I know that with what we had on hand modelling it after those field hospitals" which had been more like glorified triage stations "was the best we could do for keeping fighting spirit up, but that doesn't mean snapping at everyone. Just make sure to keep that bit in check and you'll be fine."
"Other than the fact that the Abyss Project was a secret GDI project from the very beginning, trying to compete with Nod cyborg technology and SI propaganda and cost-effectiveness, you got that almost completely on the money." I stated the main reason for the negotiations. "It is the hope of the Abyssal Fleet that peaceful coexistence will one day be possible… after we hunt down every single scientist involved in the Abyss Project."
"Agreeable."
A few hours later, still 2196
"In exchange for ship-girl accelerated healing technologies, the Brotherhood of Nod and Shepards' Independents will clandestinely assist in the recapture of the remaining two Abyssal mobile manufactories in GDI hands. In addition, within whatever navigational channels are carved out by the GDI forces, we shall only engage each other for training purposes and to keep up the ruse. We will also provide supplies and whatever other aid is feasible to the Abyssal Fleet, as well as request the most forward posts in our nominal cooperation with GDI, so that they cannot push as hard as they might like while we pretend to be bogged down with back-and-forth combat. Once again, I emphasize that the combat will only be for training purposes, not to kill one another. However, we will instruct our fleet members to cooperate with the Abyssal Fleet should they join up, and will also provide means for any Abyssals who wish to change sides to work with us under adequate guises. We will also help spread the war to the other human colonies and aid in coordinating Abyssal command and control if the GDI escalates by sending their ship-girls off-world before ours are ready to follow them as insurance. I believe these terms are more than generous enough." These were the basics of the terms I had been given.
I didn't know it then, but that had not been a long-distance teleconference. The two factional leaders had actually been on-base so that the communications would be as secure as possible. The fact that they both (and GDI for that matter) had artillery ships in orbit capable of rendering Earth uninhabitable (unless the other factions stopped them) meant they were dealing from a position of strength. However, both were known to be kind and generous when it was possible to be (e.g. most certainly not when dealing with the GDI or any other politicians), and had offered the best they could without provoking outright war with the Galactic Defence Initiative. Their people would not have the appetite for such a war against fellow humans, not so soon after the end of the Reaper War.
What they were doing now was far worse than to start a shooting war to punish the Galactic Defence Initiative for its crimes. They were going to prepare for a propaganda war, and then proceed to tear GDI apart from the inside with the will of its people, just like they did a hundred and seventy years ago. Their own forces would be strong enough to prevent GDI from lashing out at them then, either in space or on the ground with the GDI ship-girl fleets. Of course, they weren't going to actually destroy GDI, not completely, as something much worse may well rise from its ashes, but giving it a good hard knock, pressing a few tough reforms through? That was merely history from what I downloaded upon connecting to the Internet.
…For the record, no, I did not in fact download any porn, despite the Internet seeming to be mostly exactly that. I looked at some history websites from each faction instead, and cross-referencing gave me a reasonably accurate history.
Ahem… back on topic…
I didn't like how we were just another piece to be manoeuvred in the long game of the three human factions, but I knew full well that we had no choice, not if we wanted to survive. We have been fortunate the GDI had built the research facility we were made in, and most of the other Abyss Project facilities, on the slowly-being-fixed Tomb World that was Earth after the Reaper War. Sadly, two of the five major manufactories are off-world, and we would need help to retrieve them, even if only being smuggled into the general area within the star systems in question would be enough. Both of the other human factories wanted to silence those facilities, one way or another, and had no problem with aiding us, because they still held a final option we couldn't beat, namely a space navy.
It seemed the Destroyers escorting me sensed my frustration—I would learn later that I needed to learn to hide my involuntary facial expressions better—and commiserated. "Do you know why we fight so fanatically for our faction? The other nations of the day… they betrayed their ships. The tools were designed to be disposable, and thrown away quickly after the war was over. We know this, we saw this, but we were kept, generations of sailors served on us and moved on, and we were kept in fighting condition until sinking in battle. The 1975s weren't our children, more like reincarnations with how much of our metal was recycled and re-forged for them as a propaganda stunt that the faction never abandons its warriors, and the treatment our spent veterans got compared to the nations that rallied under the GDI banner… that is why we can immediately believe your claims. We know their betrayal too well, seen too many old comrades be torn apart the moment they could be discarded… and we knew their betrayal when so many of us were forced to fight the traitors we had thought were allies during the Sixth. We will stand with you." The eldest Destroyer, EF-1937-1 Millet, informed me, leaving out how her faction tended to conduct tests on war prizes.
We waited more as the Destroyers spoke about their history, which was a bit biased compared to the Internet cross-referencing, but valid enough. We waited for the preliminary plans to be made based on what data was available and what I could contribute, and for it to be presented.
These humans… always fighting each other for dominance… then again, even if they didn't want to, others of their kind would fight them, so they had to fight back. As long as intelligence existed, there would be conflict.
So be it. I thought, and then the klaxons went off.
My face would have paled further if it could, as an involuntary reaction of terror gripped my heart. What were my rogue kindred doing? No… what were the GDI pawns doing?
Yes, that was easier, to blame them… and more importantly, in addition to being easier, it was also truth… mostly… hopefully…
"You cannot stand in our battle line. The agreement must remain secret from the eyes of the Galactic Defence Initiative. Slip away if we turn out to be unable to hold this island. Some of the less wounded will guide you out one of the base's emergency exits if we fail out there." Millet instructed, before rising and heading off to answer the call to arms, as she was still whole and healthy. Only a few grievously wounded remained once the entire force poured out of their caverns like a great swarm of angry wasps.
I knew that this was a test… with every single remaining weapon trained on me, they weren't dumb enough to not have insurance. I looked into the remaining eye of a Frigate with only half a head—the shattered half had been cut away, and a sealant hastily slapped on before she was left to regenerate on her own—realizing she was the one who had been in surgery earlier, and nodded at her. She blinked her remaining eye back, the three remaining intact barrels among her two main battery turrets not so much as twitching away from my direction. Some of the other wounded were seemingly merely immobilized by having most of their watertight sections holed and being repaired, huge gashes torn into their bellies. They aimed their weapons steadily at me, holding their ripped hulls together with their hands, eyes never once leaving me.
This sortie was the beginning of what would later be referred to as the First Panhandle Defence Campaign, once the preliminary skirmishes ended and the attack began being pressed in earnest.
A/N: If I cannot manage to make you want to skin the leaders and "scientists" of the Galactic Defence Initiative alive by a few chapters in, I will have failed in my writing. Here is a roster list of the Abyssal leaders who will appear.
Number 539 and 540 come first, Anchorage Demon and Princess respectively. I will presume they upgrade to Anchorage Water Demon.
Number 544 and 545, Armoured Carrier Demon and Princess respectively, are next, and there, the madness truly begins.
546, 547, 548 are Southern Demon, Southern War Demon, and Southern War Princess, 556 Airfield Princess
556, 631-633, 650-652 Airfield Princess (progressive upgrades over first 4 forms, land-based support over last 3)
557 Battleship Princess (x2 at least as we see pairs), upgrades to 603/604 Battleship Water Demon or Battleship Summer Princess (696-698)
573 Harbour Princess, 605-608 Harbour Water Demon are upgrades, but the best upgrade is 613 Harbour Princess Mk II… though it's not as good as Water Demon at actual Harbour duties due to having less facilities.
574 Isolated Island Demon, 634-636 are upgrades
581, 582 Northern Princess (event forms, latter vastly stronger), 587-590 map 3-5 forms (weaker)
583-584 Midway Princess
585/586 Aircraft Carrier Demon/Princess (x2, as we can see pairs sometimes)
597/598 Destroyer Princess
599/600 Aircraft Carrier Water Demon
601/602 Light Cruiser Demon
605-608 Harbour Water Demon
609-612 Anchorage Water Demon
625-627 Seaplane Tender Princess
628-630 Air Defence Princess
637-640 PT Imp Pack
641-643 Light Cruiser Princess
644-646 Submarine Princess, 693-695 sacrifice some armour for pre-emptive torpedo strike and improved formation efficiency as a flagship.
647-649 Destroyer Water Demon (676-678 are lower-HP forms with marginally more armour, found in the north Pacific)
653-658 Supply Depot Princess (last 3 are damaged forms)
659-661 Heavy Cruiser Princess, 662-664 upgraded forms of initial versions. 705-707 are "summer" forms of initial versions, 705 is weaker than 662 but the other two have more HP than the other two upgrades.
668-672 Isolated Island Princess
673-675 Destroyer Ancient Demon, upgrades to 690-692 Destroyer Ancient Princess
679-683 Lycoris Princess (power is 4-1-5-2-3)
684-686 Central Princess, 687-689 are "damaged" (a bit less HP, more armour, firepower, torpedo) counterparts.
699-701 Harbour Summer Princess (Very distinct from standard Harbour Princess), 702-704 are damaged forms (a bit less HP, much more armour)
708-710 Seaplane Tender Water Princess
711-713 Abyssal Jellyfish Princess
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