Edinburgh was the first to return accurate fire, swiftly turning her turrets towards the nearest flash of light. Her guns let out a hateful roar just a fraction of a second after they finished their spin. Her secondaries soon joined the cacophony, the zipping amber of outgoing tracers following the shapes of beings that danced in the night around the convoy.
A series of near misses bracketed the sea next to Ardent, showering her already soaked body with cold seawater. The girl screamed in terror, clutching her turrets protectively to her chest. All around her the continued fall of shells churned up the sea. The burning sheet of oil that leaked from the swiftly dying container ship poured from the ocean like the blood of some hellish monster, silhouetting Ardent and giving the abyssals a target.
"Glowworm. Zubian." Edinburgh tersely began, refusing to draw her attention away from her current target, a jet black lovecraftian horror sporting a wide variety of casements and turrets over its body. "Fall back to us, we're going to make a fighting retreat to the east."
Any replies the girls made was drowned out in the monster's gurgling roar as the beast lunged out of the water, its hellish form thrusting forwards, freezing Ardent in place.
"Ardent." Edinburgh cried, zipping tracers of her anti-aircraft weapons scouring the monster's flanks for any sign of a vulnerable area they could find. "We've got too many baddies here for you to freeze up. Pick one that's smaller and kill it."
Ardent swallowed, attempting to drive down the fear the shapes dancing on the edge of the fire instilled in her. Drawing a hesitant bead on a smaller shadow she harshly squeezed on the tiggers of her 4.7 inch turret, sending a blossom of fire and a salvo of shells into the dancing shadows. As Ardent began to take charge, so too did her faeries and deep within her rigging shells began to pass into her guns at a rapid pace and lookouts began rapidly squeaking targets to her and the gun crew.
The shapes continued, the larger ones, dancing in the night on the edges of the ruined ship just out of torpedo range, taking range on the British ships within the flames. The smaller of the abyssals, hateful fishlike horrors with strange and illogical weapons sticking out of their bodies began to push into the fire's perimeter, occasionally letting out rogue shots with their destroyer sized weaponry.
A sudden salvo erupted to Ardent's left, revealing the positions of her fellow destroyers as the two girls made their fighting retreat, stopping just ahead of her and Edinburgh.
The cruiser did little to acknowledge the arrival of the two new girls, already bearing the brunt of the Abyssal fire and doing her best to offer her own response in turn. "Zubian, Glowworm." Edinburgh tersely cut in her words shaken slightly as a shell bounced off her shoulder, "help Ardent keep them out of torpedo range."
"What about the big boys?" Glowworm asked, squeezing off a volley.
Several more small caliber shells impacted Edinburgh's torso, causing a pained string of muttered curses. "I'll keep them busy until Jerry saves our arses."
Beneath the glare of the battle, Glowworm's expression darkened, though she made no audible complaint. The girl's attention was quickly diverted by the shape of a sickly looking abyssal destroyer making a torpedo run and she sent off a salvo of shells to answer its probing.
As if angered by Glowworm's destruction of their comrade a second destroyer pushed forwards, letting out a shrill and unearthly howl as it quickly pushed past the shredded giblets of the first. A small pack of similar beasts following the apparent pack leader.
"Ardent! They're rushing!" Glowworm shouted, squeezing off rapid fire rounds the meet the surging mob.
Ardent swing around, nervously eyeing the incoming inhuman mass of bodies and suppressing a shudder. She raised her weapon, bringing the lead ship into the gunsight mounted on her pistol gripped turret.
"Watch out!" The familiar voice of Zubian interrupted, signaling too late an incoming barrage that impacted Ardent's upper hull and bridge, sending the A-Class staggering shortly backwards and leaving her mentally reeling. A second shell struck the ship that issued the warning, striking Zubian in the upper arm and sending her a half step backwards.
Ardent had only briefly registered the feeling of a second set of rounds exploding before she dropped to one knee, her ears ringing and her vision pulsing. She attempted an uneasy step upwards, steadying herself on her feet only momentarily before searing pain in her legs forced her downwards with a muffled scream.
"Ardent is hit!" Zubian cried despite her own injury, her alarmed. words carrying over the battle.
"Shite." muttered Edinburgh her gaze still unwavering from the fleet assembled ahead of her, "how bad?"
"Bad." Zubian returned, ducking shells to make her way to the girl in question.
A shriek of incoming shells caused the cruiser to instinctively hold her arm before her face. An explosion erupted from an impact on her forearm, sending her staggering back with a pained curse.
Her arm left limp and bleeding Edinburgh raised her good hand to respond in kind, her remaining turrets barking off in rapid succession. "Glowworm. Take Ardent and Zubian push east until you hit land or you hit the ocean's bottom."
Glowworm broke from tracking targets to give the cruiser a desperate and worried look, "But-" she began quietly.
"I'll take the rear." Edinburgh assuaged, "I'll be right behind."
"If you try and be a hero or some shite I'll come back and kill you myself." Glowworm screamed at the cruiser. She turned to Zubian, .
Zubian ignored the tone, wrapping the wounded girl's arms around her shoulder and pulling Ardent up, causing the younger girl to gasp in pain. "We've got you." She muttered comfortingly. "Zubian's got you."
A shell impacted Edinburgh's bridge, causing her to reel slightly beneath the force of the round and eliciting a pained snarl out of the cruiser that she channeled against her charges. "Fucking get moving!" She screamed.
Zubian took off, accelerating through the still choppy waters with the battered form of Ardent hanging limply against her flank.
Glowworm began to steadily reverse behind the pair, throwing back the smaller horrors that pushed their way into the perimeter of flames with streams of cannon fire, doing her best to ignore the splashes that marked gunfire bracketing her position.
"Edinburgh, we need to go now." the destroyer announced, alarm creeping into her voice. "I'm not leaving you."
The cruiser said nothing, spitting a globule of blood into the still burning seas before quietly reversing, her one good eye following her still remaining arm as she tracked and dispatched targets, occasionally letting loose with her cannons.
With the weight of Ardent resting on her shoulder, Zubian's crew were doing their damndest to bring their ship's speed back up. Disabling safeties, overpressuring boilers and straining her to the breaking point. She glanced sympathetically at the limp form of Ardent, bloody and only half-conscious. The destroyer steadily felt heavier in Zubian's arms as her consciousness continued to slip. "It's okay Ardent," the tribal class offered between pained and labored breaths. "We made it through bad damage too. It's how we became us, just stay strong."
Ardent offered no response and Zubian took the time to nervously glance at the twin silhouettes illuminated by the flames to their rear. Their gunfire growing steadily quieter as Zubian's speed outpaced the rearguard's. "They'll be okay too Ardent, you'll see." She offered, more to comfort herself than the barrel cognizant destroyer in her arms.
A half mile ahead of her a great series of fireballs forced the darkness back briefly, followed a fraction of a second later by the deep boom of naval guns.
Zubian let out an undignified squeal of alarm, slowing herself so dramatically she nearly lost control of Ardent, the jostling causing her charge to let out a pained gasp.
A second deep mushrooming of explosions, larger and louder than the first pushed back the darkness again.
Ducking instrictively as shells screached over her head, Zubian gave an uncertain glance back to the twin silhouettes that held back the Abyssals to her rear.
The explosions sounded again, signifying a second bombardment, and causing Zubian to glance again at the unknown before her. As the fireballs faded, Zubian caught sight of a humanoid figure in peaked cap and standing cross armed with a raincoat billowing up behind from the force of the blast. The destroyer's face brightened. "It's the German's Ardent, we think it's the Germans." She happily explained to the girl hanging on her shoulder.
Zubian's kicked her speed up again, her screws churning up the stormy waters behind her. She glanced down at Ardent, her expression now growing worried again and attempted to wipe a rainsoaked patch of blood off of the A Class's forehead with her wounded arm. "Hey, stay with us Ardent. Don't you want to meet the Germans." She paused and considered that statement. "Maybe not," she rescinded with a worried grin, "but we want to see you meet the Germans, it'll be funny."
Ardent offered no rebuttal. Fading in and out of consciousness in the Tribal's arm.
Ignoring the squeaking protests of her engineers regarding the danger of a boiler explosion, Zubian only cut her speed when she could make out the definite shapes of a group of escorts approaching her. Two of them worre the distinctive sailor caps of Kriegsmarine, though the third bore little resemblance to the Germans, a US flag hanging off the girl's rigging, instead of a German one.
"Ardent's hurt." Zubian wheezed to the trio, exhaustion over her sprint finally catching up to her as she slowed to an unsteady stop.
"You're hurt as well," countered the nearest German, a blonde girl with 'Z23' written neatly on her Navy cap.
The American coasted to a slow stop next to the British pair, "I'll take her." she offered, concerned sympathy apparent in her voice and expression.
Zubian first responded with a protective and resistant glare before her expression softened and she quietly relented with an acquiescing nod. Gently using her good arm to assist the American in transferring Ardent off of her own shoulder and onto the Fletcher's.
It was only after Ardent's weight was pulled off of Zubian's shoulders that the destroyer's adrenaline wore out and the girl fell to her knees among to roaring Atlantic waves.