After a moment, I decided to question the Abyssals about the ongoing war.
At this point, I had realised that I wasn't in the actual KanColle world anymore-mainly due to the strange list of possible weaponry that was shown by the humans.
"I'm sorry...but I need more information from all of you first-can you please give me an account of the war between you and the humans?" My voice shook as it left my mouth.
Wo blinked, and sat on the couch opposite mine. She breathed in once, and begun her story.
"A few years back, I came along with our commander, wanting to establish a base here, for reasons she herself only knew...but then we started hearing reports of a attack from the west, from the humans."
"Then, a while ago, we heard that they were reaching our territory, and in response, our commander took a fleet out to try to stop them. And...we lost."
Well, fuck...that doesn't say anything...
"Ok, I see. Do you have any pictures- er, any 'drawings' or records of that battle? I will need it to decipher what the humans can do."
Wo looked at me, right before offering her hand to me.
"No, I mean, could you give me-"
"Just take it." Wo gave a blunt reply.
Errr...I extended my hand and grasped it-
Light.
I felt something sucking at me, pulling me into it...
God, not another rude awakening in the span of an few hours.
As my vision returned to me, I saw that I was within a not-particularly dense fog, and saw several figures within it.
I tried to shake my head-huh? I can't?
A voice cut into my mind. "This is my memory." Apparently it was Wo's.
"Hey, how are you-" I began-
"Right now you are seeing the battle I had, where I saw- and fought- those 'strange shipgirls' I showed you. "
My inner self felt rather disoriented. "Hah? When did you Abyssals learn this trick?"
"I mentioned that when we 'evolved', we learnt new things about ourselves. This was one of the things we learnt- memory-sharing. When there are two of us, either of us can choose to re-experience our old memories, sharing it with the other. That was how we learnt about the strange 'flying fortress in the sky'. Some of my sisters fought it, and they went and showed all of us about it."
Ok...
Meanwhile, the memory continued playing. Wo was part of a battle formation, which consisted of (as far as I could count) 20 Destroyers, 25 Cruisers (Light and Heavy), 10 Battlehips, alongside with 9 Light Carriers plus Wo, and...a Battleship Princess.
The Princess seemed to be the commander of the whole formation, as she was giving random commands to the whole formation, although most of them were just concerning the position of her subordinates.
The entire formation was in an expense of empty ocean, all cloaked in fog, and was moving at a high speed.
Wo conrinued. "The...former...commander learnt that a human fleet was on its way here, therefore she led out us to protect the base..."
Suddenly, the Battleship Princess ordered the entire group to a stop, and begun a speech of some kind. "Remember, the humans are still moving, and they will not be able to respond as they cannot see us until we emerge. Attack quickly, and don't let them deploy their shipgirls!"
Turning to me (actually Wo), she asked, "Ready your planes. We will attack under the cover of your planes."
Wo simply nodded, and the Princess turned back, preparing to advance, and I felt energy surging through both Abyssals-
Only for a strange blue beam to slam into the princess, throwing her backwards and into the water.
Wo and I screamed in shock, and as she moved forward to help, a strange piercing whine erupted out of nowhere. As it reached a climax, a white pulse of energy sliced across the battlefield, at the same time pushing back the fog with it-
And revealing a large group of shipgirls charging towards the Abyssal formation.
Wo's comrades had begun to panick upon seeing their commander hit by that strange beam, upon seeing the shipgirl armada, some of them had started to back up and retreat, until the Princess stood up and roared-a long angered roar-before engaging their enemies. Seeing this, Wo turned around, slammed her staff unto the water surface, calling her swarm of aircraft into the frey.
A second beam sliced across the horizon, narrowly missing the Princess. In response, she pushed herself upwards, and her guns spoke in defiance as they unleashed their wrath upon her enemies.
A battle of the past begun, as I watched in shock and awe.
As the Abyssals stood their ground and returned fire, Wo and her fellow Aircraft Carrier maidens dashed to a spot away from the main fighting, behind the defense lines of their comrades, while the Princess pushed through the ranks to participate in the fighting.
As soon as they reached their destination, all of them turned around and faced rhe ongoing battle. Wo placed both her hands back on her staff, and-
Out of a sudden, my vision twisted, and I found myself looking at a swarm of Abyssal aircraft.
Wo's voice came back on inside my head. "This was something else we learnt- being able to 'see' from our aircraft."
Not bad. Perhaps this would come in handy when one had to command fleets-
The view shifted sharply downwards, now aiming towards the battle. Apparently Wo had the same idea as mine in the past. Taking full advantage of it, I focused my energies into watching the battle.
Which was...interesting, to say the least. Despite it being technically a naval battle, what I saw seemed more like a reenactment of medieval-style ground combat on sea. The Abyssal Fleet had formed into a singular, block formation, where the destroyers were at the front and sides, cruisers just behind them and the battleships right at the back. As I watched, the formation held its ground, with the battleships and cruisers barraging the shipgirls, while the destroyers slowly peeled away and formed wolfpacks of 2-4 each, before attempting to flank the shipgirls on both sides. Meanwhile, the Battleship Princess headed to in front of the cruisers, as if attempting to rally and raise the morale of her comrades.
As we flew over the Abyssals, and past them, the view switched to facing the shipgirls.
By the time I was able to get a decent view of them, the shipgirls had started their response to the Abyssal movements.. Originally they were charging towards the Abyssals while divided into 3 blocks of 10 destroyers, 8 cruisers and 5 battleships, totalling up to 69 shipgirls participating in the battle-at least, considering that the enemy carriers had been suspiciously missing as the battle begun. In each group, the battleships were at the front, forming a V shape, with the cruisers placed right behind them, and the destroyers right at the end, as if focusing their firepower towards the front. As the Abyssal destroyers attempted to flank them, their formation morphed- the 3 blocks merged together, and in doing so, the cruisers spilt into 6 groups of 4, and headed off to the left and the right, heading off to counter them before they could perform devastating torpedo runs. As the cruisers spilt off, the remaining cruisers and battleships realigned themselves, forming what was similar to 3 spears- battleships at the 'tips', destroyers being the 'shaft'.
As the main group attacked the Abyssal defense line, Wo's vision shifted to focus on the fights between the Abyssal Destroyers and the shipgirl cruisers. As I watched, the shipgirls hit the Abyssal formation at the side, focusing all their firepower on a single spot.
It was painfully effective-as they flanked the destroyers, the Abyssals hastily put up a defense, which was quickly broken by the enemy cruisers smashing headlong into it. Some destroyers did get their torpedoes off, which mostly missed except for two shich hit the same unlucky cruiser, which then back tracked, looking badly damaged. The rest of the cruisers, having broken the destroyer lines, began to bombard the Abyssals, forcing them to scatter. Thankfully, despite being hurt, most of the destroyers managed to limp back towards their comrades in a circuitous route.
At this point, the planes suddenly took a sharp downward dive, and I found myself looking straight at the main group of shipgirls, their forms expanding in my view as the Abyssal planes began preparing an attack run.
I immediately took a look at their rigging- while they originally did not seemed to be a lot different, a closer inspection showed that the differences were rather subtle. For one, their rigging seemed to be standardised, with battleships using the same type of rigging, destroyers using the same type, etc etc. Secondly, rigging seemed to be a few levels bulkier than what I knew-particularly for the destroyers- and adding on to this was that the rigging seemed to look a lot more modern-ish compared to the WWII-styled ones I remembered. For example, there were less visble smokestacks, alot more electrical parts, and-
Hang on, are those rotary cannons pointed at me?
As if in response, I heard the telltale whine of several motors revving up-
BRRRRRRTTTTTT- went the combined amount of a fleet's worth of point defense battery as those same cannons began spitting fire and lead at the multiple groups of Abyssal aircraft. Immediately I felt past-Wo order the planes to begin evasive manouvers, causing the aircraft to begin speeding up and pulling up sharply, narrowly avoiding death by anti-aircraft fire and water by a hair-length. As they sped up, I saw cannons correct their fire and continue spewing death at their enemies. I myself grabbing hold of my composure, the vision turned to facing dead straight at the shipgirls ahead of me, and spotted several aircraft in front of the one I was seeing from get torn apart by hypervelocity bullets.
Moments later it failed to execute a good enough spin, was caught by those tracers and torn apart, causing said vision to spiral out of control-
-only for it to switch to the perspective of another plane, which at that moment dropped its torpedo and deftly swooped up, its surviving comrades following suit. The vision turned a full three-sixty degrees around, giving the view of a squad of slowly disappearing shipgirls, alongside with a full blast of cannon fire. As a few more planes were shot from the sky, I saw shipgirls desperately trying to avoid torpedoes and bombs, resulting in a few explosions of water and flame as a few managed to find their mark.
At this point Wo asked in my head, "You feel...shocked. What did you see?"
At which I replied, "Yeah...that's a rotary cannon...that means that shipgirl rigging has had a gone through quite a few upgrades..."
'Gone through a few upgrades' was really underselling it-if they could place more powerful equipment on rigging...
I tried to shove that thought for later, and watched the Abyssal formation as the planes flew by. There was not much change, just that both sides rate of shelling fire had intensified-not surprising as they had managed to hunker down by now-and that the Abyssal destroyers had finally retreated to their formation. As for the shipgirls chasing them, they had broken off and were also heading back to their own group.
"Let me change to when we saw those strange shipgirls." As Wo spoke, the vision changed.
Now I was still seeing from the outside of an aircraft, the situation on the water had changed.
Currently, the Abyssals had still held their ground, but by now the shipgirls had almost reached the front of their formation. Currently both sides held formation, but there were some changes; for the Abyssals, some of the battleships had stopped performing artillery fire, and moved to the front to soak up enemy damage. There were also some Abyssals repositioned to the carrier holding spot, looking seemingly wounded. As the plane traveled enough for me to get a look on the shipgirls, I saw that the formation had shrunk a little, with some members missing, probably sunk or retreated.
As both sides closed in, the planes began to dip (whence I noticed that the formation had shrunk considerably), and-
All of a sudden, whooshing sounds cound be heard from an area from far behind the shipgirls. Soon, a massive swarm of streaks of light swept into the battlefield, flying towards the Abyssals.
I swore as I saw them. "Fucking missiles!"
As I looked bewilderedly for the source of the attack, the Abyssals stopped firing in shock, right before they began to scatter. Their formation broke apart as they tried to scatter, to avoid being hit by the incoming barrage. They spaced out, wider, wider...
However, it was hopeless. As the moved further apart, the missiles retargeted, aiming for individual enemies. As they locked on, they swooped in for the kill.
As they struck, flashes of light and flame appeared, with the sounds of munitions detonating following aoon after. As the high-pitched, unearthly wails and screams of their victims rang out across the ocean, smoke and fire blew out, and as they dissipated, the damaged, destroyed husks and bodies of the unlucky Abyssals collapsed and sunk into the depths.
Immediately after the horrific scene occured, a pained, tortured scream ran across the battlefield. The vision turned to its source, the Battleship Princess, who appeared to had been hit by a large number of those missiles. Her form, smoking, hurt in a hundred places, and rigging bent and broken everywhere, shuddered as she cried in grief and pain. When her banshee-like wail ended, she shook, and charged aimlessly at the formation of shipgirls.
In response, the shipgirl formation slowly broke up- the destroyers charged out from the back and curved towards the flanks of the Abyssals, while the others started to form squads of 6, moving to assault the broken ranks of the Abyssals.
As they dashed out, I watched as a strange device on the back of their rigging lit up with energy-which then spread throughout the body of the shipgirl. Immediately afterwards, the shipgirl acclerated at a ridiculous rate, she and her comrades rapidly closing the distance between them and the Abyssals.
The Abyssals began to respond, but before they could, the shipgirls had reached them, firing on them with cold ruthlessness. They would swing and surround an Abyssal, blast her repeatedly with all their firepower, before quickly moving on to the next. As I watched an Abyssal Battleship put up a defense, a shipgirl rushed in and knocked her silly with a point-blank shot to the face, causing the Abyssal to lower her defenses, then ducking back and letting her team mates barrage the Abyssal to death.
I felt the fury from Wo-both past and present- as the planes rushed towards the source of the missile attacks. Soon, they reached their destination, as they were undeterred by anything-
Finally, I saw those 'strange shipgirls' that Wo was talking apart. They were lined up in a line, facing the battlefield, their missile batteries opened and primed. Before the planes dived, starting to begin their attack run, I saw that the shipgirls were in the middle of preparing a second wave of missiles. As Wo's planes attacked, they panicked, frantically trying to retarget and destroy the attacking aircraft. As the Abyssal aircraft launched their bombs and torpedos, they responded with waves of retargeted missiles. As some failed to home in in time, others either found their mark or detonated midair, soon wiping out the remaining planes.
As the vision returned, I found myself looking back over the battlefield in a single scout plane.
By now, the Abyssals had been completely routed. The shipgirl wolfpacks of cruisers and battleships were now chasing the Abyssals, who were now in full retreat, attempting to return to the fog where they came from. The plane itself was also heading towards the carriers, who were trying to collect the rest of their aircraft before disappearing into the fog. As the Abyssals ran, the shipgirl destroyers attempted to harry their retreat by launching torpedos into their paths-any who were hit would stumble, right before a barrage of artillery fire came that erased their existence from the earth. Whats more, the blue streaks of energy returned, slashing through the battlefield-I watched in horror as a cruiser screamed as she was blown away by a lucky shot.
There was only one last true combatant-the Battleship Princess, who was a literal force of nature as she fought off 20 other shipgirls. What seemed to be a storm surrounded her, and she used it to great effect-each time a shipgirl fired at her, a wave would rise up and catch the shell, or attempt to drag the shipgirl down. Each time a shipgirl charged the Princess, a blast of storm would blow her backwards-once, I saw the Princess grab hold of an attacker, and slowly blew her apart with the storm and guns. It seemed to work, for I watched her combatants collapse and retreated, be dragged away by the comrades, or simply go down, dragged by her wrath.
But above all the chaos, I heard her rasping voice cry for her sisters to run.
But in the end, fate claimed her too; a cruiser decided to take a dastardly move, whipping a spear from her back and charging at the Princess's back. Her guns managed to spin around in time and blast the cruiser-but it was too late. The spear pierced through black corrupted armor, pale skin and flesh; exiting from the chest of the Princess, spilling black blood and gore into the ocean.
The Princess wailed in pain and despair, and her storm started to subside. Other shipgirls then took the chance to begin hammering her in her vulnerable state, causing her to collapse under the force of a hundred shells and twice as many explosions.
As I watched the Princess die, the memory began to fade.
As I returned to the present, I collapsed back onto the couch behind me, Wo standing straight, looking at me.
Looking out of the window, it was apparently nighttime, and I saw a crescent moon slowly rise out of the fog and into the sky.
After a long time, Wo finally asked, "So...did you find out any thing?"
I tried to compose myself. After a while, I gave up. "I'm sorry...but let me rest, and I also need to think."
"How long more do you need to think?" Wo started, suddenly harsh.
"What?"
"We have spent here for almost half a day, and you have yet to give me any answers! Do you know, the more we wait, the faster the enemy will finish our sisters-" I gaped as Wo began to lash out, backing away a little.
Suddenly the Ri with the long ponytail stepped up to her and held her shoulder, cutting her off. They both stared at each other for awhile.
At this point Wo also fell back into couch, letting her staff clatter to the floor.
"I'm sorry," she began. "Its just...its just...seeing my sister die again..." Her voice trailed off, and what seemed to be a tear trailed from her eye.
We all said nothing for awhile. Deep in my heart, I felt pity for her, her comrades, and the Princess coalse inside.
Somehow, that filled me with determination, and my composure rushed back.
I sat up straight. "All right." Wo and the Ris looked at me.
"I can begin now."