October 11th, 2020 - New York - 09:48 Hrs - HMS Belfast

Belfast sighed as she pulled herself onto Pier 86, followed by Intrepid after she'd recovered her aircraft. Looking around, Belfast noted the lack of damage inflicted on the city. It made sense as the Abyssals had been concentrating their efforts on Intrepid's old steel body, which gave Belfast the impression that they had been attempting to prevent her summoning by sinking her at anchor. Even had they somehow succeeded, the harbour was shallow enough that Intrepid's hull would have simply settled on the bottom, like Queen Elizabeth and Valiant had when they'd been attacked in Alexandria in 1941. Belfast had at the time not remembered that particular incident, but after being turned into a museum had read up on it, along with anything else that had happened during the early years of the war. She had noticed the war seemed to be a period she couldn't remember much, except for the period between her mining and the last few weeks of her rebuild. Exactly why, however, she had never been able to answer.

"Hey, nice work with that battleship. I didn't think a light cruiser was even capable of taking one on?" Intrepid noted as she stowed her rigging, the two sitting down to catch their breath.

"Yeah, us Towns can punch above our weight. I've got to say you bailed me out with that other battleship, I really owe you one there," Belfast replied, causing Intrepid to smile. "Hey, quick question. You have the more modern flight deck, but you were operating WW2 vintage planes. Didn't you have Crusaders and Skyhawks?" she asked, earning a sigh from Intrepid.

"Well, it would have taken much longer to get them armed and launched than the propeller-driven stuff, so I used them instead," Intrepid explained before giving Belfast a cheeky smile. "Not every one of us can use our more modern equipment as you can," she added, referring to Belfast's radar, which was from her 1959 refit. It was far superior to WW2 vintage radar which, if they had any, the Abyssals would be using in some form or another.

"Ah, there you are!" A familiar voice noted with satisfaction, causing Belfast's blood to boil. She knew that voice.

"Agent Spenser, shouldn't you be in a brig?!" Belfast asked rhetorically as she got to her feet and stared at the man. He simply smiled slimily, before answering.

"Bah, the lock was child's play. Slipping past the guards wasn't tricky either, not with that show in the river to distract them," Spenser answered, giving a cocky smile, making Belfast bristle.

"Erm, who is this guy?" Intrepid asked, having not seen Spenser being arrested in the wardroom earlier. She clearly didn't know about him.

"This is Agent Spenser, a CIA asshole who thinks he can treat us like objects," Belfast answered as she stared at Spenser, waiting for him to try something.

"You are objects. No matter how you try and act human, you are still objects!" Spenser retorted angrily, as Belfast suppressed the urge to punch the man again.

"Hey! what the hell do you think you're doing!" Walker shouted as he charged down the gangplank, followed by the Admiral and two marines, all of whom didn't look happy.

"This isn't over!" Spenser snarled before making a run for it, followed by the Marines who despite being fitter than the CIA man, didn't seem to be able to close the gap on the man.

"Fucking Spenser! what the fuck is the CIA even doing here?" Walker asked the admiral angrily as Spenser disappeared from view, the Marines still following him like bloodhounds.

"I don't know; it seems that since this war broke out the CIA seems to think it can do what it likes, and with everyone too busy fixing the real issues no one has been able to reign them in," The Admiral answered, a hint of anger in his voice, before turning to Belfast and Intrepid. "Good work you two, but I'm afraid we can't give you a break. It has been decided that we need to speed up the pace of summonings, and that means you two are going to be very busy," the Admiral answered.

"What's the plan, Admiral...?" Intrepid trailed off, as Belfast mentally calmed herself down. She hated it when her temper got the better of her, it reminded her too much of her past.

"Bennet, but that's not important. what is important, before the Abyssals regroup: Intrepid, you're going north towards Canada, then you'll be heading to the West coast. Belfast you'll be heading South along the east coast. We've spoken with the Royal Navy and they've agreed to the length of your stay, understood?" Bennet asked as he fished out a piece of paper.

"The east coast… does that mean I'll be seeing Texas?" Belfast asked hiding her nervousness. Texas was the last person Belfast wanted to see, her hatred of Belfast almost rivalling that of Victory's.

"Yes, It will. I'm sure you must be excited to see her again," Bennet noted before he handed the paper to Walker. "Here's the itinerary for Belfast Captain, I'm assigning you as her chaperone during her stay. You'll find a car in the parking lot waiting to take you to Newark, where a plane will be waiting to take you on your journey" he ordered before gesturing for Intrepid to follow him.

"C'mon Belfast, we've got some driving to do," Walker spoke as he began to walk towards the car park. Belfast followed behind quietly, deep in thought.


October 11th, 2020 - New Jersey - 10:22 Hrs - HMS Belfast

Belfast sat quietly in the passenger seat as the helicopter flew across New Jersey. Mentally she was anything but happy: she was on a collision course with someone who detested her guts, and she was powerless to prevent their meeting, a meeting that-in her head-wasn't going to end well for her.

"You ok Belfast?" Walker asked, dragging Belfast from her thoughts as she turned to answer him.

"Fine, I'm just thinking about something," Belfast said before she turned to stare out of the window, watching the countryside pass by as she went back to thinking.

"Ok, tell me if you need anything. We should be in Philadelphia in about a few minutes," Walker replied. Belfast, however, was hardy listening.


October 11th, 2020 - Portsmouth - 15:35 Hrs - HMS Gambia

Doctor Taylor hummed quietly as she moved about the lab, rechecking her notes and sensors for the millionth time as she did so. At least that's what she appeared to be doing in Gambia's eyes. She had been silently waiting for the doctor to commence her testing of her and Duke of York, who were currently the only two shipgirls still in the UK. Cavalier was off in Poland having been sent to summon the Polish Destroyer Błyskawica. Warrior in Ireland getting Caroline, Victory was off getting Unicorn and Trincomalee, and Alliance was in Germany getting U-995 and Wilhelm Bauer. Duke of York had been surprised to discover the two German subs still existed, even after operation Deadlight.

"Ok, we're good to go here!" Taylor exclaimed with glee as she gestured for Gambia and Duke of York to take their places in the centre of the lab. "Now, as you will have been told, Cavalier, Gannet and Ocelot have been interacting as spirits since being converted to museums. This has given me an idea regarding how summoning works, and after Duke of York's summoning in London, where Belfast suffered some side-effects, I have decided to conduct a test to check my hypothesis," she explained as the pair sat down next to one another, not quite sure what the doctor had planned for them.

"Okay, so what exactly are we doing Doc?" Duke of York asked nervously. From what she'd seen of the doctor's mathematical formulas, it didn't make a word of sense, and she was meant to be good at maths, Taylor however simply smiled before answering.

"Simple my dear, we are going to attempt a joint summoning, I am going to have you two summon the same spirit together, to test for the side-effects that Belfast suffered," Taylor answered as she set the cameras to record, the side-effects not being limited to feeling weak and wanting to sleep, but that what they had failed to tell Belfast, was that when she had collapsed she had been twitching, until Gambia, Cavalier and Alliance had grabbed a hold of her, at which point the twitching had stopped. "Now if you would join hands we can begin" she began, with Duke of York and Gambia complying, "Now close your eyes and concentrate on your target" Taylor continued, as Duke of York and Gambia started to concentrate, their target being Gambia's sister Jamaica, who both had known during their careers, and who at Gambia's insistence had been chosen for the test, in return for which Gambia had said that she and Jamaica would help Duke of York summon her sisters in return. As the two concentrated, however, as Gambia started seeing flashes of her sister at North Cape, a battle which she hadn't fought in, and then in one blinding flash, she found herself sitting on Jamaica's deck.

"What the hell just happened?" Gambia exclaimed as she got to her feet, noting that she felt perfectly fine, Duke of York however simply gave her a confused look, "I saw North Cape, a battle I wasn't part of, did you see any of my memories?" she asked.

"Nope, sorry, I guess whoever has the stronger memories is the one who makes the connection," Duke of York Guessed, as she got up and began looking around "Now where's your sister going to be?" she asked, Gambia simply sighed before marching towards the superstructure.

"Well ever since she was in that film in the 50's she was obsessed with films and TV, so I'm guessing she'll be in her old hanger, which got used as a cinema from time to time," Gambia explained as she led Duke of York inside, through the superstructure and into Jamaica's hanger, where they found the cruiser layed out on a deck chair asleep, as a projector played the film, The Battle of the River Plate on a screen stuck against one of the hanger walls, "See told you" she exclaimed as she looked at her sleeping sister. Jamaica had darker skin than Gambia, with ginger hair instead of Gambia's brown, and a dark red jacket and skirt and a black shirt in place of Gambia's green jacket and skirt and a white shirt.

"So how do you want to do this?" Duke of York asked, Gambia however simply smiled and walked up to her sleeping sister.

"The only way fitting of someone who used to rub it in that she'd been in a film!" Gambia explained before grabbing the bottom of the chair, as an evil grin formed on her face "WAKE UP SLEEPY HEAD!" she shouted before flipping the chair and her sister over, with Jamaica landing on her face, before everything went white, which when it cleared, Duke of York and Gambia found themselves back in Taylor's lab, with Jamaica lying on the floor in front of them.

"Any side effects? and injuries? any weird stuff?" Taylor asked quickly as the pair got to their feet.

"Apart from Gambia seeing my memories, nothing to report" Duke of York explained, prompting excited noises from Taylor as she scribbled down the results, only for a low groaning noise to catch everyone's attention.

"Owwwww, why does my face hurt?" Jamaica groaned as Gambia stifled a laugh, she did love her sister, but after all those years of Jamaica bragging, it had been good to get some payback.


Authors notes

So what do you get when you take insomnia, stress, a lot of paperwork and writer's block, Answer a two-week delay in writing, and I'd like to apologise for the absence, I've just had a bad few weeks, anyway all I can say is sorry and that I'll try and do better.

On a side note, I've started a TV-tropes page for this and the prequel, I don't know why I did (I was probably bored or something), anyway feel free to contribute to that if you want.