On Thursday morning, Damon and the ship girls, having woken up two hours before the beginning of their scheduled agenda, are gathered around the tables on the third floor of Benjamin's house. Mr. Araki's ship girls, Furutaka, Fusou, and Kitakami have already arrived early in the morning as scheduled. Damon has cooked some quick hot oatmeal for everyone, and as they sit around the tables quickly finishing their breakfast, Benjamin walks in and sets down the two boxes that was delivered to the house the previous day on one of the tables.
"So you'll be going after you're done eating?" Benjamin asks.
"Yeah, basically," Damon says, swallowing a bit of oatmeal with some artificial brown sugar as he stands up to manage the boxes that Benjamin has brought in.
"Dude, if I find the fuckin' FBI at my front door for housin' a goddamn asshole charged for treason..." Benjamin begins, shaking his head as Damon opens the boxes to confirm the contents inside.
"Why're ya complainin' 'bout that? I thought you were the master 'a makin' preparations. Jus' get rid 'a all the evidence of our connections, and you'll have an alibi."
"It doesn't really work that way, but whatever..."
Damon pulls out one of the 3-D printer handguns that he had ordered two days prior. It is way too small for his big hands, but they would fit the smaller hands of the fleet girls more aptly, and they were small enough to be hidden inside the navitasium cube compartments.
"So how does this work?" Amatsukaze asks, already finished with her breakfast and also looking into the box.
"So basically, you're gonna hide these things inside the places where you'd normally load the cube things," Damon explains. "They - "
"That sound so unbelievably wrong, you have no idea," Murakumo shakes her head.
"Which makes me wonder what you think of every night before goin' ta bed," Damon sneers almost immediately. "What the hell were you doin' in the bathroom again at one in the mornin'?"
"Th-That's different!"
Damon rolls his eyes and continues. "Where was I...this thing looks pretty ridiculous, but it holds two bullets already loaded into the chamber. Its range is shit, its accuracy is shit, but when we're up close 'n personal inside a meeting room or somethin' like that, those things don't matter. All you need to do is point 'n click."
Damon looks around at his fleet girls seated about the tables, finishing their respective bowls of oatmeal.
"I'm gonna have everyone who ain't got a cube right now on 'em to carry one 'a these," Damon concludes. "And people who already have cubes loaded but don't feel like they need 'em, I want 'em to take the cubes out 'n leave 'em here and carry these instead."
"Then that means I don't need my cube," Amatsukaze says, proceeding to eject hers and place it on the table, "since my Ignition Glove doesn't need the cube's energy..." She takes one of the printed plastic pistols and places it comfortably inside the cube compartment. "Not bad, though it'll feel weird when it starts bouncing around..."
"I'm only gonna have ya carry 'em for today only, hopefully..." Damon says. "And I jus' wanna remind everyone, in case our little meetin' goes to shit, my life's basically gonna be in your hands, a'ight? Can I rely on y'all ta keep me alive?"
The more passionate fleet girls shout "Yes sir!"
"At least some 'a ya don't want me to die, that's comfortin'. Don't worry, I don't blame ya if yer part 'a the group 'a people who don't give a shit, I'm kinda used to that by now, haw haw haw." Damon feigns a few laughs and turns to Benjamin as the latter grabs a bowl of oatmeal for himself and is in the middle of distributing brown sugar into it. "You made arrangements for Mr. Araki yet?"
"Working on it, bro, there's an office space on lease right now in this plaza but they haven't officially put the signs up 'cause the lease on whoever else's there right now hasn't expired yet and they ain't planning on renewing it. Relax, I'll handle it, so long as Mr. Araki gets me my money."
Damon nods and walks over to the newest additions to his fleet, the girls from Mr. Araki. Approaching Fusou, he asks her,
"Did Mr. Araki transfer command priority over to me yet? I just wanna make sure."
Fusou nods. "Yes, Admiral. He ordered us to take permanent command from you for the time being."
"And how'd he do that? How do I know that you'll do as I say?"
"We have reprogrammed ourselves to follow instructions from our memory of your voice, Admiral."
"Voice activation, huh. Then that's fine, that's all I wanted to ask." Damon withdraws, pulling out his knife handle and looking up at the clock on the wall for the time. Seven. He opens up the hologram screen of his knife handle, and lines of code start to scrawl from the top down. Tapping the hologram screen and using the fingers of one hand to type in more code on a small hologram keyboard underneath the screen, Damon reworks some code for about ten minutes and has the program run the code. Once it goes through successfully, Damon deactivates the hologram screen and calls to Benjamin.
"Yo, Yamamoto, catch!"
Benjamin turns around just in time realize that Damon has tossed his knife handle over to him and barely snatches it out of the air before it strikes him on his head.
"The fuck, dude? Who do you think I am, some sort of knife-catching clown?"
"You're a clown, that's for sure. Keep that safe, since I bet they'll take that shit from me when we get there."
"Fine."
"You're not gonna charge me storage fees for one knife, are ya?"
"You want me to? I can, asshole."
"You do, I'm settin' up my own codin' business 'n puttin' your shit outta work."
"Fuck you."
"Nah, I'm good." Damon claps his hands. "A'ight, when y'all're done eatin', let's get out there. Get this shit over with, and see if we can find some 'a yer sisters 'n take 'em back..."
The door of the hidden elevator opens slowly as Damon peeks out and looks around. Seeing only one other person outside, making her way down the empty early morning street away from them, Damon beckons the girl behind him, and they pour out onto the street and follow Damon to the rendezvous point. The overcast sky has not changed one bit since they had first gone underground into New Chicago, even if it is early morning.
After an eventless fifteen minutes of silent walking, Damon and his fleet arrive at the same street where he and the girls, except for Fusou, Furutaka, and Kitakami, had gotten dropped off two days earlier. Even though it is a few minutes before eight, the limousine is already waiting there, sitting alone in the sullen street. Damon approaches the driver's window and raps on it, and the doors click open. Damon opens the door and beckons the girls to get in.
"C'mon, hop in."
Damon enters last, closing the door behind him as the girls get comfortable. Kitakami sniffs the air curiously, breathing in the new car smell that she's never before experienced smelling, and Damon taps the back of the driver's seat.
"Yo, we're all in, let's go."
The limousine begins to move, and it makes its way over to Inner Chicago, passing through the same military checkpoint guarded by a large squad of American soldiers posted there. The bleak grandeur of extravagant Inner Chicago re-emerges, and the limousine zooms down the empty outer streets of the wealthier district like it had outside in the poorer parts of the city.
"So this is the rumored part of the city that we've only heard about from stories and other people..." Furutaka mumbles bitterly in Japanese. "What is this supposed to be, anyway? Some sort of sick memorial to the greed and selfishness of all humans? More than likely."
"You think so?" Kitakami says in a carefree tone. "I think it's cool. It's a lot better than looking at the rest of the city - being above New Chicago's just plain depressing to me."
"How can you say that this is 'cool'? At the very least, there are honest and hardworking humans living outside in the poorer outer districts of the city and underground in New Chicago. Here, there is not one decent human being, because if a human chooses to live here, that means they have chosen to ignore all the wretched people who live in abject poverty and instead pursue their own interests and further their own desires and pleasures. At least in the outside, you will find decency among the indecent if you look hard enough. Here, there is no decency..."
"Furutaka, please do not be overstepping your boundaries," Fusou calmly responds to Furutaka's angry words.
"Huh? Fusou-san, how exactly am I 'overstepping my boundaries'?"
"However much you may resent this place, you and the rest of us are still guests invited into this place. Without their invitation, you would have never received a chance to even enter, let alone have a chance to see for yourself what Inner Chicago is really like. And I highly advise you to refrain from making judgments based off assumptions and generalizations. Such things can easily misguide you from seeing the true picture."
Furutaka scoffs. "I already know the true picture, Fusou-san. This is the home of all the wealthy people in the area. They come here to pursue the lives of comfort and ease that they pursued before this whole war happened, and even when they know that people outside these walls are starving and dying of thirst and exhaustion, with no proper housing or living conditions and even being forced to sell themselves just to get by, they do nothing but drink martinis and drive around in ridiculously expensive vehicles - all these absurd things that they think represent their status in society. And just what kind of society do they think they live in? A society in which the only kind of people who exist are themselves? That's bullshit. That's just utter bullshit."
"And so you think that is an excuse for you to group everyone who lives in this place to be all the same? To group them all as uniformly selfish, greedy people?"
"Most of 'em, anyway."
"Most...not all."
"Goddamn it, Fusou-san, you know what I mean. And is it really like we're gonna meet people here to get to know them? And even if we do, what's the chances that they'll turn out to be actually decent?"
"Well, then again, if you think about it, if you have a lot of money and you had the choice to either live in a poor place or a rich place, you'd wanna live in the rich place, right?" Kitakami points out. "So are you really blaming people for trying to look out for themselves?"
"That's what I can't stand!" Furutaka turns to Kitakami. "These people have tons of money. They can afford to look out for more people other than just themselves, right? Why don't they do that? What're they even going to do with all that money anyway? Sit on it and pretend they're raising chickens? That's ridiculous!"
"Enough, Furutaka," Fusou sternly says. "People will choose to do as they please. Unless you yourself track them down and attempt to persuade them otherwise, your thoughts alone will not convince anyone to act otherwise. Now silence, you are embarrassing us in front of our newfound comrades."
"Embarrassing? In front 'a him?" Furutaka points at Damon, who glares back at her in return. "He's not our comrade, he's our new 'Admiral'. Only 'cause Araki-taichou told us to follow his orders."
Fusou's eyes widen. "Furutaka, stop your insolence right - "
"Oi!" Damon barks across the limousine. "Jus' 'cause I don't understand Japanese doesn't mean I can't tell whenever yer talkin' 'bout me or not! You, Furutakee or some shit, what'cha say 'bout me?"
"It's Furutaka, you asshole!" Furutaka yells back. Fusou covers her mouth with one hand in shock at the fact that Furutaka is throwing profanity at her new Admiral, but Damon scoffs back.
"Fine, Furutaka, what were ya sayin' 'bout me? Lemme hear it!"
"I asking Fusou-san why we would have to treat you as a comrade, much less an Admiral!"
Damon laughs sarcastically. "I dunno, man! Maybe it's 'cause Mr. Araki told ya to!"
At the mention of Mr. Araki, Furutaka roars back at Damon and jumps out of her seat, trying to move in to throw a punch at him, but Fusou quickly grabs Furutaka' wrist to prevent her from advancing further.
"Why you little piece of - !" Furutaka growls. "Talk to Araki-taichou like that again, you motherfucker, and I swear I'll - "
"Furutaka! Behave yourself!" Fusou urges, pushing Furutaka back down next to her on the plush limousine seat. Furutaka, knowing that Fusou won't let her get up again, scowls silently, crosses her arms, and looks away from Damon, refusing to even look at him.
"Hoo boy...gonna have me some problems!" Damon rubs his hands together in fake anticipation. "First Murakumo, then Kaga, then Furutaka...who else..."
"I-I apologize for Furutaka's unacceptable behavior," Fusou quickly apologizes to Damon. "We had already discussed this before meeting with you earlier this morning - "
Damon waves it off. "Whatever. I can handle it later - right now we got somethin' bigger to worry about. As long as no one gets all pissy while we're doin' this shit, everythin'll be fine." Leaning forward, Damon drops his casual grin for a serious countenance. "But I better not fuckin' have to deal with this kinda shit while I'm talkin' with the President, y'all hear me? Wanna know why? If the President's got some 'a your sisters under his command, it's me who's gonna hafta try 'n get 'em back for ya. Am I fuckin' clear?"
Silence greets him as he leans back in his seat again, looking out the windows of the limousine and watching the urban landscape paint the horizon like some sort of anachronistic painting, a window to the past of a forgotten and abandoned world of history. Closing his eyes, Damon lets his bottled up thoughts run rampant throughout his mind as the limousine drives deeper and deeper into the heart of Inner Chicago.
As much as it's clear that Damon and Furutaka have an abrasive relationship and hostile attitudes towards each other, Damon, had he known what Furutaka was talking about with Fusou and Kitakami, would be inclined to agree. The fact that many people who lived in Inner Chicago lived there because they didn't want to live amidst the hardship and the bleakness that permeated the ghetto districts of Chicago came off as cowardly to Damon. It's certainly true that the average resident of Inner Chicago does nothing but live lives of luxury at the expense of everyone else in the city, like they were the equivalent of the aristocracy class of old European medieval times. So if you live in Inner Chicago, that itself is a very telling fact about you and your character to the rest of the inhabitants of the city outside the inner district - that probably means you're a selfish, greedy asshole who either moved in to get away from the reality of the post-apocalyptic environment that now makes up the majority of the world nowadays, or you're just a lazy bum going out to parties and drinking yourself to sleep everyday. Either or would match the bill just right, unless you're only living in there because that's where you're employed and it costs too much to commute back and forth.
But then again, Damon had made it. He was a very rich individual with a lot of money to his name, mainly earned through the blood, sweat and tears that he'd put into eeking out as much of a living as he could for himself. From odd jobs to helicoptering supplies across the country, he'd worked hard enough where he, too, could've been one of those people who could've chosen to go live a life of luxury for the rest of his life with the money he'd earned. He even served for a time in the unofficial armed forces of post-war America, the army that was made up of entirely American volunteers that rose up to defend the North from southern rogues and bandits during the Border Wars, not Federal troops, but that was because he was promised that he could loot money and supplies that he encountered along the way. Because here in America, even if the nation had gotten nuked to hell and back, the American dream was still very much so alive. Still elusive as hell, though, and not something just about anyone could achieve, like it always was, pre-war or not, but it was there. Just 'cause the nukes changed the landscape didn't mean they changed society. Life would continue on as it always had, so long as there were humans to live it, and when humans are still living, society still keeps on living.
And in this society, money still meant everything. In fact, one could argue that money matters more now than it did before the war.
But Damon doesn't care about what money meant before the bombs fell. All he knows is he can do almost anything he wants with the money he has, because he knows that money is how people climb the rungs of the American societal ladder. So while Furutaka has a compelling reason to believe that everyone living in Inner Chicago is a douchebag, then again, there are some people who are poor, wretched, and destitute because they're too busy spending every penny they make working at some horrible side job drinking their paychecks away.
Damon knows that he is the end result of what everyone should strive to be if they want to stop being poor and destitute from the aftereffects of the nukes. He'd worked lowly jobs, studied skills that would be highly desired in his environment, grabbed opportunities wherever he could to improve himself and expand his knowledge and skills, and use everything when the times called for them. And even if he had to do things illegally, he still did them anyway, but only if he knew he would have a great chance of getting away with it. After all, he'd heard some people joke about the fact that nothing is illegal until you get caught, but the way he did things, that was hardly a joke at all. That was the cold, hard truth that would potentially equate to cold, hard cash.
If he could do it, anyone else who wanted to use their brain effectively can.
But then again, had he respected the American government a bit more, he would have felt at least a little bit of guilt breaking laws and doing illegal shit. But he'd already decided a long time ago that the American government could go to hell. In fact, while at that, all governments that existed right now could go to hell. The government wasn't there to protect its citizens and provide for them in times of hardship or need - it's there to serve its own selfish purposes, goals, and needs, to consolidate its own power as its top priority before getting around to servicing the needs of its people, dying from starvation, disease, and radiation of the Third World War, a war that no one expected nor deserved.
You could even go as far to say that Inner Chicago is the physical embodiment of the American government.
Not to mention the fact that the American government - the "Feds" as they were infamously referred to as by the general surviving American populace - was direcly responsible for how Damon turned out to be. The Feds were the ones responsible for making him turn out to be a freak in some messed up science experiment that killed everyone involved but him. So many things about that Genesis Thesis Project pissed him off - the whole carrot-and-stick lure to draw in willing families to participate in this fucked up experiment, only to have every single subject killed by the end of it except for himself; the fact that the experiment was most likely directly responsible for the death of his mother, leaving him to life his youth growing up alone with no one to turn to or rely on except for himself; the treatment he'd gotten when he was a kid because he was different from the rest with his freaky dark blue hair and yellow eyes that made him look like he always had cholera or something. And yeah, he might've gotten some awesome powers out of the experiment - namely, a regenerative body that would repair any injury, no matter how severe and given enoughtime, so long as he didn't just die outright, and weird eyes that let him see things that normal humans can't see, but beyond that, what else did it give him? And were these "superpowers" really worth the fact that the experiment killed everyone else but him? Because if you put it that way, it would almost seem as though Damon is directly responsible for the deaths of everyone else in the Genesis Thesis Project.
The sole survivor, the only one who got out of that shitty experiment with anything at all besides his own life.
And of course, besides how the government directly fucked his life up, Damon had seen too many instances of the American government's apathy and greed for power and money and security for itself. When the southern regions, the Factions, seceded, the Feds did little to stop them. They'd always voiced strong intentions of one day quelling the independent factions and bringing them back under Federal control, but that's only because the Feds want their tax revenue, those selfish fuckers. But what did they do? Twiddle their thumbs and jerk off as the south basically disemboweled itself with all the fighting and anarchy that ripped the southern states of America apart, displacing even more people and creating even more refugees and casualties.
Savannah, Georgia, is the result of the American government's apathy. The people who live there are proof of the Feds' intention of letting the southern rogues fight themselves into exhaustion and one day retaking the south with little effort on their end.
But obviously with factions like Atlanta doing well in terms of military power meant that the day that the American government would take back the southern states like this were the Civil War all over again hasn't yet come, but this would be the least inexcusable of its vices and wrongs. Damon had found out, through his own research and interactions with survivors of the war, especially military personnel that he'd gotten to know through his military service, that the Feds practically focused on trying to expend all of their own nukes to destroy as many of their enemies as they could while the nukes were still flying around in the atmosphere. And after the nukes stopped raining hell down on Earth, they used the American military to fulfill the needs of those in power or with money first, because, well, you're not going to deny an offer of a hundred million bucks to fly a rich guy's family up to Canada, right? Of course not. You do what the money tells you to do.
And afterwards, relief efforts were pitiful and pathetic. You were lucky if your area even got any federal aid. In many parts of the country, federal aid wouldn't even show up, because the soldiers sent to bring relief aid stole the supplies for themselves and abandoned their posts to go find their own families to help get through the crisis. And in some parts of the country, the soldiers sent to bring your town aid would sometimes ransack it and rape the people there, because the soldiers basically said fuck it, we've got the guns, we got the law and we can do whatever the fuck we want, and oftentimes they meant that literally.
So much for federal aid.
So with all of this in mind, Damon wonders just what kind of meeting they'll get into. He knows what the Feds want: his fleet of ship girls, most likely. He knows what he wants: more ship girls to add to his fleet. So theoretically, with this polar opposite setup of purposes going into this ill-fated meeting, they're bound never to reach an agreement. Would they end up walking away at the end of this without having gained anything? Or would the Feds try to do something underhanded to take back their fleet girls from Damon? Or are there some other things to this meeting that he's not aware of just yet? But then again, what external factors could there be regarding this meeting?
Maybe he should've thought about this crap sooner. Damon hates situations that are overly complicated. Thank God politics doesn't really exist anymore as a career field nowadays, it would just serve to throw another wrench into this shaky society America's being up held by in this world.
The limousine rolls into the same underground parking lot of the Chicago City Hall and stops directly in front of the elevators this time. Damon leans over to the dashboard of the limousine, and the digital clock reads 8:29.
"A'ight, everyone out. Remember what I told ya before comin' here...leave the talkin' to me."
Damon gets out first, being the closest to the door, and the sixteen ship girls gather in front of the elevators as the limousine pulls away. As it does so, the doors of the middle elevator pull open, and out walk Sanford, the Controller of Chicago City, Mr. Korotayev, and his secretary, Mr. Hendsfield.
"Mr. Polchow," Mr. Hendsfield walks forward ahead of the other two men and formally addresses Damon. The usual courteous, professional smile that he had on two days before is nowhere to be seen - it is all strictly business now. "The President wishes to speak with you."
"That's why we're here, ain't we?" Damon says with a small smirk. "Let's fuckin' go."
"Very well. Because there are so many of you, we'll have to take all three elevators, so if you want to split up your group here..."
Damon quickly divides his fleet into three groups. As the elevator doors open up to receive them, Damon pulls Sanford away for a moment.
"You go into one 'a the other elevators," Damon mutters fiercely.
"Why? What's wrong, kid?"
"Don't trust this place. Feel like they might do somethin' to my girls while we're goin' up."
"Psh...kid, you're bein' a bit too paranoid."
"Too paranoid, or jus' bein' safe?"
"Whatever, kid."
Sanford sighs and joins the girls in the right side elevator, and as soon as Damon enters the middle elevator with the Controller and his secretary and his own girls, the elevator doors close and rise up to the top floor, the fifteenth floor. They exit, and Mr. Hendsfield leads them through a set of automatic sliding doors into a rather large room that reminds Damon of an airport terminal. Metal detectors, scanning machines, and, of course, armed U.S. soldiers. Their M-4 Carbines and M16-A4 assault rifles are slung either under their arms, over their shoulders, or simply being held in anticipation of their new guests. The ship girls, seeing the soldiers, glare back at the soldiers with suspicion.
"No need to worry, they are only here to provide security for the President," Mr. Hendsfield reassures them. "We do have a few armed guards around here, but this kind of security is only for this occasion. If you will please do as the soldiers instruct."
Damon beckons the girls forward as one of the soldiers closest to them, a sergeant, approaches Damon and his fleet.
"Alright, ladies 'n gentlemen, I want you to step forward and walk through these sets of metal detectors, and someone will have you stand in the middle here so that they can give you the good ol' pat-down. After that, you'll be set, simple as that. Is that clear?"
No one responds to him.
Being the first one through, mainly because he's already used to this procedure, Damon stands behind the screening process and watches as his girls, one by one, get through security. After everyone gets through without problems, Mr. Hendsfield leads all of them out of the screening area and into a side conference room.
"Please wait here. I will inform the President that you've arrived, so it will be a few minutes before he is ready to see you," Mr. Hendsfield informs them, and he and Mr. Korotayev exit the conference room. Damon slides into one of the many swivel armchairs and amuses himself by swiveling around in it, and the other ship girls also sit down in the chairs.
"Man, what was with those pat-downs, poi!?" Yuudachi, now that they are in a space to themselves, complains loudly, flailing her arms about. "It felt like they were trying to touch me all over, poi! I don't like this place anymore!"
"That's just part 'a the process, don't worry," Sanford laughs. "It's common security procedure to do that."
"So it's okay for people to touch all over your entire body?" Kitakami frowns. "Somehow that doesn't sit right with me."
"I mean, if you had a gun underneath your clothes, people wouldn't like that either, so..."
"Touche."
"Though, I'm sure no one needs to worry about havin' guns here, am I right?" Sanford smirks and gives Damon a friendly shove, who glares back at him annoyedly. "So how ya feelin', kid? Excited to meet the President 'a the muthafuckin' United States 'a America?"
"Fuck no. I get more excited when bullets whizz by my fuckin' face," Damon snarls. "I just wanna get this shit over with. I don't wanna hafta deal with the fuckin' Feds more 'n I have to. You know what they're up to?"
"Even if I knew, ya really think I'd be able ta tell ya?" Sanford replies. "Are ya fuckin' serious?"
"Fuck your political connections. I'm jus' out here tryin'a stay alive."
"Yeah, fo' sho', you're doin' a lot more 'n jus' stayin' alive, by the looks 'a it." Sanford looks around and notices the faces of the three new ship girls, Fusou, Kitakami, and Furutaka. "New faces...you found 'im, huh?"
"Yeah, turned out he's livin' down there. That one - " Damon points at Furutaka - "found us 'n took us over to 'im, but she fuckin' tore me a new one." Damon lifts his burnt palm at Sanford, who whistles at the sight of the blackened scab over the palm where Furutaka had burned off his skin with her searchlight eye.
"Damn, you got fucked up."
"Yeah, best of all, she fuckin' hates me too."
"You got that right, bastard!" Furutaka growls across the conference room table, and Damon shrugs at Sanford with the smug see-what-did-I-tell-ya look.
"Yer gonna have one helluva time, I'm tellin' ya," Sanford snickers, slapping his palm onto Damon's left shoulder.
"Don't fuckin' touch me, dude."
Then, the door opens again, and Mr. Hendsfield peeks in.
"Mr. Sanford, the president wishes to speak with you first," he says, and Sanford pushes off Damon's shoulder to follow him, turning back to speak to Damon one last time before exiting the room:
"Good luck, kid. I'm thinkin' you'll need it, since from here on out I won't be 'a any use to ya."
Damon scowls silently at him, and silence once again fills the small conference room once the door clicks shut. The atmosphere inside the room is tense, and no one feels like talking much, but Damon swings his feet up on the table anyway and pulls his cap over his face, leaning back in his chair and letting his hands droop down of to his sides.
"Damon...?"
Damon lifts up his cap at the mention of his name, peeking out to his right. Amatsukaze, who is sitting next to him, is looking at him intently.
"Wayawant?"
"Um...aren't you nervous at all?"
"Nervous 'bout what?"
"Well...I mean...there're soldiers everywhere, and...you're going to be talking to the person with the most amount of power in this whole land, aren't you? I mean, that's what the President is in this country, right?"
Damon snorts obnoxiously.
"Once ya get used to gettin' yourself in situations where you could die at any given moment, everythin' else doesn't really have as much excitement," Damon murmurs, almost in a bored tone.
"But...it's the President we're talking about here, aren't we?"
"Would it fuckin' matter if he were the President or some fuckin' bum off the streets? He's still a damn person like me. If I wanted to, I'd put a bullet in his head, and he'd be dead. Obviously I ain't gonna do that 'cause the repercussions 'a me doin' that are fuckin' shitty for me, but it ain't like I should feel scared 'r anythin'. So there." Damon removes the cap off his face and begins twirling it around on the tip of his right index finger. "Plus, hey, everyone, listen to me. Do y'all realize who the President is?"
No one answers him back, so Damon takes his feet off the table and sits up, tossing his cap up into the air.
"He's the guy who ordered the whole Genesis Thesis thing. So you can imagine what I feel 'bout that fucker."
As the words soak in, the door opens once more, and for the last time, Mr. Hendsfield leans inside and looks at Damon.
"The President is ready to meet with you all. If you will follow me, please."
"A'ight, crunch time, ladies, let's get it." Damon smirks in half-feigned anticipation, and he leads the ship girls out to follow the secretary, and they enter the large conference room next door.
Certainly the setup in this conference room isn't what Damon was expecting. A normal square table is in the middle of the conference room that looks like it's been cleared out just for this occasion, and a single man in an ordinary business suit is seated there, facing Damon with a casual Gendou pose and some papers in front of him. To the right and the left, Secret Service agents, dressed in their iconic Men-In-Black-style business suits, shades, mic pieces in their ears, and crossed arms stand, four by four, overseeing the event. Several military officers, in full uniform and medals, are flanking the man at the table directly behind him. And as soon as Damon and his fleet enter, they all immediately notice the line of girls behind the man at the table.
Damon looks behind him, back from the doors from which they entered, and he sees Controller Korotayev lock the doors quietly and stand in front of them.
"Mr. Polchow, please take a seat with the President," Mr. Hendsfield instructs. "Um, ladies, if you'll make a line and stand behind Mr. Polchow...yeah, like that - "
The girls line up like the the line of fleet girls on the other side of the table as Damon moves to sit down. Then, a sudden loud gasp grabs everyone's attention.
"Zuikaku! ! !" Shoukaku screams, and the girl Shoukaku calls out to, hearing her name and recognizing Shoukaku's voice, also screams back,
"Shoukaku-nee-chan!"
The two of them break formation and rush at one another with open arms, but the Secret Service agents nearest to them swiftly intercept them, holding them back from one another.
"L-Let go! Let go of me!" Shoukaku screams at the top of her lungs, tears already building up in her eyes. "Z-Zuikaku - Zuikaku! ! !"
"Get your filthy hands off me, assholes! You - you won't stop me - " Zuikaku struggles, clenching her teeth and preparing to use her superior strength to throw off the suited men restraining her, but the man already seated at the table sternly calls out in a surprisingly deep voice that doesn't fit his image,
"U.S.S. Zuikaku, stand down, now."
"Kuhhh..." Zuikaku, having received an order from her Chief Admiral, bites her lower lip and slowly releases her clenched fists that she was about to swing at her restrainers. "...yes, sir..."
Damon, who was about to sit down in his chair, suddenly twirls around at the sight of the agents putting their hands on Shoukaku and bellows, pointing his finger at them, "Oi, oi! Let go 'a her, she ain't yours!"
"Tell her to stand down, and we will release her!" one of the agents commands, so Damon complies.
"Shoukaku, stand down! This ain't the place to have a family reunion!" Damon barks. Shoukaku, looking as though Damon has just slapped her across her face, is compelled to cease her struggling and gazes longingly after Zuikaku, who glances back regretfully at her older sister as she is escorted by the Secret Service agents back to her place in the line behind the President. Damon takes Shoukaku back himself to where his other fleet girls are standing, who are watching the scene tensely, before returning to the table to sit back down again. He glares at the Secret Service agents who have restrained Shoukaku and Zuikaku, who show no further reaction to his glaring.
"They're awfully touchy, ain't they?" Damon sneers. "As you'd expect 'a the fuckin' Waffen SS. Oh, wait, mahhh baaaaad, sorry, wrong country, right?"
The man seated before Damon snorts, unamused by Damon's extremely rude remark. He is dressed in a simple gray business jacket, a black tie, black dress pants, and an Elgin watch on his left wrist. A visible, neat scar mars the man's left cheek, and his face, while neatly chiseled, is thin and slightly gaunt - shadows are starting to form underneath his eyes, and the dark gray eyes beneath his graying hair have no sign of light within them.
But the military men behind the President do not take Damon's insult as casually.
"You shut your mouth, young man, while you're in front of the President!" an older officer with a bit of a white beard growls at Damon. "Why, if you'd been an officer of mine, I'd've had you court-martialed immediately for that kinda insolent talk - "
"Colonel!" the man seated in front of Damon says sternly, and the old officer reduces his complaints to a low scoff. "Interestingly, that wouldn't be the first time I've heard that insult," he continues, organizing his papers before him.
"So would that mean you're literally Hitler?"
"Not quite, I'm afraid. Unlike that man, I actually did something with my life after being unable to become accepted at the university of my dreams and built my life up instead as a construction site manager and the CEO of a small but successful software firm. In addition, I don't have any intention of forever smearing another culture's religious symbol to make it symbolize my own twisted beliefs and intentions."
"Riiiiight..."
"I never said you had to believe me." The man clears his throat and puts his hands down clasped in front of him on the table. "Then let us proceed to the matter at hand. Just for courtesy's sake - "
"Yeah, yeah. Mr. fuckin' President, Tawney Blackwood, forty-seventh president 'a the United Fuckin' States 'a America, hoo-rah."
"Why, you - " the old officer Mr. Blackwood had referred to as the colonel starts again, but the President barks over him,
"Colonel Tafferson, the only one doing any court-martialing around here is me. Are we clear about this?"
"Tch...yes, sir..."
Mr. Blackwood grins lightly back at Damon. "I'm surprised, son. Young men like you nowadays hardly know their American history lately."
"With a country like this, it ain't really a surprise that no one bothers to learn more 'bout it. Not to mention the current president's more like the president 'a pre-war Russia with the amount 'a power he has. You tryin'a make Putin proud 'r somethin'?"
The President gives another unamused snort.
"So, Mr. Polchow. I hear that you've set yourself on quite the odyssey venturing into the Deep South searching for the products of our F.L.E.E.T. Project that are trapped down there. I must say, your efforts are certainly commendable. I can't profess to say that I know anyone else who would have pulled something like this off and returned in one piece with sixteen pieces of naval personnel."
Damon leans forward on his end of the table.
"Get to the fuckin' point, Blackwood. I already know what'cher gonna ask me."
"Oh? Then what will I say? You tell me."
"Don't fuckin' flip it on me, asshole, I wanna hear you say it."
Mr. Blackwood gives a quiet sigh and nods at his Secret Service agents. All eight agents swiftly reach into their inner coat pockets and draw out their silenced Glock-19 9x19mm Parabellum handguns and point it at Damon.
As soon as he sees the agents reach into their coat pockets, Damon immediately snaps his fingers. At the same time that the agents point their silenced weapons at Damon, fifteen out of his sixteen fleet girls eject their 3-D printed pistols and swiftly draw them and point them at the President and the agents. The only one without a gun, Murakumo, gets ready to pop her Waterfall Shield at the first sign of a trigger pull, and the room becomes dead quiet as the crossfire of weapons gets established.
Damon finds himself grinning horribly at the President.
"Hey, hey," he says, "you really didn't expect to jus' have me come here 'n take my girls away? C'mere 'n bend my ass over so you can slide your big fat government dick into my asshole 'n push my shit in? Are ya fuckin' autistic 'r what?"
President Blackwood peers at Damon's fleet girls, some of whom are pointing their two-shot pistols at him as well.
"Well," he begins slowly, "I can't say that I anticipated this. I thought our security measures would have weeded out the possibility of allowing you to come in armed."
"Well, I ain't, but they are," Damon nods behind him. "Hey, man, I gotta be honest. If you knew 'bout all the shit I did down in the South, why didn't'cha expect I had somethin' up my sleeve? I didn't go around addin' all these girls to my own fleet outta blind luck - though I definitely got lucky some 'a the time. You can't pull off what I did bein' some ordinary Joe or bein' an idiot, don't'cha know that? I'm disappointed in ya, Mr. President."
President Blackwood returns Damon's smirk with a calm, composed smile of his own. "About thirty or forty million more Americans are also disappointed in me, Mr. Polchow. I hardly see a reason to recognize your disappointment in me as a leader of this nation as anything special or otherwise noteworthy."
"Huh, figures."
Damon peers at the ship girls behind the president and his three military officers. They are all looking very tense and uncomfortable at the situation at hand, a powder keg ready to explode at the first sign of a spark.
"So then. What'll it be? Now that shit's tossed outta the window, what do you want from me, eh? What does the fuckin' government want from me?" Damon challenges, as if daring the President to play his hand.
"It is as you've said. Now that the cat's out of the bag, I will be direct with you, Mr. Polchow," Mr. Blackwood says. "The United States military would like to reacquire the goods that it has lost from the Third World War, the goods that were produced by the Fleet Expansion and Enhancement Test. As you can clearly see, our intention was to simply wrest control of them away from you, but - "
" - but it didn't work out, huh?" Damon sneers sarcastically, cutting the President off. "Yeah, man, that sucks, doesn't it? Kinda like how, y'know, you're standin' in line for bread rations until you realize the person in front 'a ya took the last loaf 'a bread? Yeaaaaaah, I know what'cha mean, I know exactly how that shit feels, 'cause that's happened to me before. Man, I feel reaaaaaaaaaaaaaally sorry 'bout that, I apologize, man. Oh wait a minute, no, I take that back, you DON'T know what that shit feels like 'cause you've never had ta stand in a breadline before 'cause you're too busy drinkin' Domaine de la Romanee and eatin' veal, ya lil' fuckin' snob!"
"I'm afraid I don't see the connection here between my eating habits and the naval personnel," Mr. Blackwood says, concerned more about that than Damon's insults.
"You don't? Then don't worry 'bout it. It ain't like it matters if you don't realize the kinda situation the vast majority 'a Americans are in, anyway. I mean, fuck those guys, right?" Damon rolls his eyes.
The President sighs heavily. "Mr. Polchow, if you're done with the less-than-flattering words about me and the government of this country, I would like to offer you some terms."
"Let's fuckin' hear it, rich boy."
At this, the colonel can endure Damon's snobbishness no more. Pulling out his own .357 Magnum Revolver holstered at his side, the old colonel brandishes it in front of Damon's face. Damon immediately raises his hand without looking back at his ship girls to stop them from shooting the colonel, some of whom have pointed their pistols at the colonel, recognizing him as another high threat.
"Listen up, you little grunt! If you don't fix that rotten attitude 'a yours, I've got six chances to drag your brains from this end 'a the floor out of this here building! You think I'm just some old-timer who don't know how to shoot no gun, but I'll teach you - "
"Yo butthead!" Damon yells over the old colonel swinging around his Magnum like some sort of deranged idiot. "I'll teach yer old dog ass somethin' right now. Your safety's on."
"What did you - " the colonel points the magnum directly at Damon's head and tries to pull the trigger, but nothing happens. Sure enough, when the colonel checks his weapon, the safety is still on.
As the old officer tries to take the safety off, Damon stands up so fast that his chair gets knocked over backwards, takes one stride toward the Colonel, grabs him by the collar, and buries his right fist into the old officer's face. Colonel Tafferson is knocked to the ground, dropping his revolver and groaning weakly with the blow, but Damon does not relent. Grabbing him by the collar and pulling him back up, Damon repeatedly beats his face in, smearing the tops of his fingers and his knuckles with cold blood. The Secret Service agents feel their trigger fingers itch, but the President quietly tells them to stand down, so no bullets are fired, and everyone in the room watches as Damon punches the shit out of Colonel Tafferson's face. Finally, after something like the twenty-something-th face-punch, Damon hurls the limp body of the colonel off to one of the walls of the conference room, and Sanford sidesteps out of the way casually in order not to be in the way of the colonel's flying body, and the military officer rolls along the floor and crumples messily to a stop. The colonel is not making any movements.
Damon slowly turns around to face Mr. Blackwood, who has witnessed Damon beat the shit out of one of his top military advisors.
"So I guess what they say's really true, that ya can't teach an old dog new tricks," Damon says quietly as Mr. Blackwood watches the colonel's blood drip off Damon's knuckles and onto the floor. "Do you fuckin' understand, Blackwood? I'm the one with the fuckin' dick in here. I'm the one with the finger on the fuckin' pussy trigger, both way up there in the motherfuckin' skies and down here on the ground, and my name ain't even Vaas to do that. And look how many shits I give 'bout me talkin' to the President 'a the United Fuckin' States 'a America." Damon holds out his hands, outstretched so that Mr. Blackwood can see his palms. "None. Fuckin' none. So unless you wanna give me all the ship girls ya got over there, hit me with your best shot. I'm fuckin' waitin', dude. By the way, you shoot me, and every single person who ain't a ship girl in this room dies. Includin' the president. Y'all understand?"
Damon smirks at the president, the military officers, and the Secret Service agents, looking all around the room, as if daring them to open fire.
"While I would have preferred if you did not beat one of my top military aides to death, I can excuse that because I have personally grown tired of his nonsense," Mr. Blackwood sighs again. "But please do not do that again."
"I'm amazed you even keep officers like him around. What good's he if he doesn't even realize his own damn safety's off?" Damon snickers as he sits back down, not bothering to wipe the blood off his knuckles.
"Had I any better officers at my command, I would be able to afford the luxury of being able to choose the most competent among them. I thought you were an intelligent man yourself as you make yourself out to be, Mr. Polchow."
Damon feigns surprise with a gasp. "Oh God, I never knew! I didn't know that this country was so weak leadership-wise, I'm sorry! You'll hafta excuse my ignorance on that one!"
The President, clearly getting tired of Damon's constant caustic remarks, clears his throat again.
"Mr. Polchow, hopefully without any more interruptions, I will cut straight to the chase. I am going to offer you the following amount of money for your fleet." Mr. Blackwood pulls out a checkbook from his inner coat pocket and begins filling out a paycheck on the spot.
"Whoa, shit. You're jus' gonna write me out a check right in front 'a my ass?" Damon says, almost in shock himself at the scene. "And who the hell fuckin' uses checks nowadays? I ain't seen one in years."
"To prove this deal's legitimacy. This check is effective immediately once you agree to the terms of this negotiation, and you can cash it in any major CCPL post or city, so there is no need to worry about the check itself, however outdated of a payment system it may be in our current time," Mr. Blackwood says, and once he finishes filling out the check, he slides it along the slippery tabletop over to Damon, who picks it up and reads it. Once he reads the numbers on it, Damon whistles, impressed.
"Ten million, huh? That ain't too shabby at all," Damon says. "I'm amazed you Feds even had that much in the bank, with how little you even try ta provide the CCPL posts with adequate aid. Or maybe this number's how much the government still owes in debt? Oh, shit, never mind, that's like in the tens or hundreds 'a billions still, isn't it..."
"Once you've agreed to the terms, your signature will be required on this document," President Blackwood says, ignoring Damon's rapid-fire insults and pushing a document filled with legal obligations and terms of agreement. Damon simply stares at the document, holds out the check in front of him so that the President can clearly see what he is about to do, and rips the check to shreds and tosses the pieces up into the air above him like confetti.
"Fuck your money," Damon growls, his nasty smirk off his face. Reaching into his back pocket, he pulls out his wallet and opens it, showing the President the thick wad of bills inside. "See this shit? This money's enough for me to live out the life I want. I don't wanna live a fuckin' pampered 'n boring life like the people in this fucking city. You 'n your money can go straight to hell 'n burn for all eternity, for all I care. And don't'cha ever offer me money for my girls ever again. What are we, slave traffickers?"
"Mr. Polchow, you need to understand that these naval personnel are not humans. We don't need to act as though we are dealing with humans here," Mr. Blackwood says.
"Yeah, hm, 'bout that, wasn't there somethin' called, I dunno, slavery? Y'know, 'bout a hundred 'n sixty or seventy or so years ago? Y'know, we fought our bloodiest war over that shit 'r somethin' like that? Yeah, back then, a lotta people didn't think black people were humans either. Your point?" Damon intentionally sticks his finger up his right nostril and wipes it on the document. "As far's I'm concerned, they certainly look like people and talk 'n act like people. I dunno what you're seein'."
"This has nothing to do with slavery, Mr. Polchow. Please do not bring in unrelated topics to the issue."
"I dunno, the way your SS dudes treated that one girl from before, doesn't seem so convincin', ya feel me?" Damon looks over at Zuikaku, who realizes that they are talking about her and averts her eyes.
The president taps his fingers together in musing. "So what shall we offer you, Mr. Polchow, in reparations for your fleet? Because it is clear that we cannot take them back by force without risking the lives of everyone here, I am open to suggestions. My goal here is to reacquire what is supposed to be property of the American government, so your cooperation would be highly appreciated."
Damon smirks again. "Funny, I didn't know your government understood the meanin' of 'appreciation'."
"Mr. Polchow, if you would please refrain from blurting out your own side thoughts - "
"Why, Mr. President, what's gonna happen if I keep blabbin'? You're gonna shoot me? Arrest me? What good's that gonna do when I tell my girls to kill everyone here? Shut the fuck up, Blackwood, you're not the one runnin' the show here." Damon's voice changes to a low, quiet, nasty snarl, and Damon again drops his smirk. "You never were. The instant I came in here, I was the one dictatin' this whole fuckin' meetin', you fuckin' got me? That was your mistake. If you wanted any chance 'a takin' my girls away from me, you fucked yourself by havin' me meet with you, 'cause that means I get the opportunity to hold your life ransom. Wanna know why? 'Cause your life's clearly more important than mine, just 'cause you're the fuckin' President of the US of A. So much for American democracy, right? Equality 'n shit? Yeah, 'bout that."
President Blackwood returns Damon's fierce glare with cold, emotionless, reserved eyes.
"My goal here's not to lose my own fleet. See where this meetin' kinda got screwed, Blackwood? I thought 'bout it a lil' bit before comin' here, and I figured you'd be tryin' to pull this kinda shit on me. See, you're lookin' to take back your 'property', while I'm out here tryin'a build this fleet 'a mine, 'cause I want more. As it is now, we ain't gettin' anywhere. I ain't gonna hand 'em over, and it ain't like you're about to jus' up 'n give me yours, are ya? No, 'course not. So what the hell do we do now, dear ol' Mr. President? Sit here 'til our shit gets stale 'n our piss gets dry? You tell me, 'cause I'm a fuckin' horrible negotiator at this kinda bullcrap anyway."
Damon leans forward on his chair.
"Oh, and I dunno if you realized, but remember the Genesis Thesis Project 'bout seventeen years ago? I betcha do, you were the one who issued the executive order for it, weren'tcha?"
President Blackwood frowns at Damon. "What are you - "
"I'm the fuckin' kid who came outta that shithole alive, you fuck. It's nice ta meet the guy who killed my mom face-ta-face, it really is."
Mr. Blackwood's eyes widen in surprise. "So you're that boy, then. I should have known - your name was somehow vaguely familiar when I first read it..."
"Yeah, we oughta visit my mom's grave together sometime, how 'bout it? By the way, you're buyin' a bottle 'a vodka on our way out if we are."
"We will discuss that possibility later. But for now..." President Blackwood raps his knuckles softly against the tabletop, thinking for a few minutes.
"Very well, then." Turning to the two remaining military officers behind him, President Blackwood says, "Gentlemen, a quick word. Mr. Polchow, I must consult with my aides for one moment, it will take some time. Mr. Hendsfield, if you will, please." Mr. Hendsfield joins them as they remove themselves from the large conference room to a back room, and one of the Secret Service agents escorts them there and stands in front of the door to make sure no one else comes in. Sighing, Damon rolls his eyes and leans back in his chair. The rest of the Secret Service agents are still pointing their silenced weapons at Damon.
"You bastards gonna lower your guns?" Damon mutters, but the agents give him no reply. "Yeah, figured..."
He looks at the ship girls lined up in front of him to kill time, who look back at him uneasily or emotionlessly.
First Tenryuu-Class Light Cruiser, Tenryuu.
Appears to Damon like she is possibly eighteen or nineteen, maybe five foot eight or nine. A light black school blazer with rolled-up sleeves that show white inner sleeves. A collared white shirt covering her bosom where the v-neck of the blazer exposes it, with a checkered gray and black necktie over that. Fingerless gloves with thin and flexible metal plates on the backsides, a short skirt a bit lighter-toned than her black blazer, black thighhighs that almost appear purple at an angle, and black combat boots. Perhaps her most distinctive features are the purple-striped eyepatch over her left eye, a golden right eye, short, dark purple hair, and the head array that float, still as rocks, above her ears, perhaps the same kind of technology used for Murakumo.
Second Tenryuu-Class Light Cruiser, Tatsuta.
Looks older than her height suggests, just a bit shorter than Tenryuu. Damon can't tell if what she's wearing is a one-piece dress with its chest area intentionally cut out to expose a white shirt covering her breasts and collar or all part of one dress, but whichever the case, it extends down to two or three inches above her knees, with white borders and cuffs. Black gloves, normal white socks, Mary Jane shoes, short, neat purple hair with a widow's peak, a curious mechanical halo that floats above her head, glowing with yellow rectangles around the halo's midsection.
Second Shoukaku-Class Aircraft Carrier, Zuikaku.
Practically the same outfit as her older sister Shoukaku. Vivid gray hair tied up into twintails and held up by white ribbons and pale yellow eyes. Seeing her interactions - or attempted interactions - with Shoukaku, Damon makes the educated guess that she is Shoukaku's sister, and drawing from this conclusion, Zuikaku certainly seems to give the image of a younger sister. She might even be slightly taller than her older sister - but for now, there wouldn't be a way to tell.
Fourth Myoukou-Class Heavy Cruiser, Ashigara.
One of the taller ones in the line, at least six foot. To Damon, she gives the image of an office woman, like that hotel receptionist down at Mobile back in the days when he only had Murakumo. A bright, Roman-royal purple long shirt with a white bosom and collar and white borderlines along the sleeves. Black spats, white thighhighs, white armgloves, a black metal belt around her waist, and thick black highheels that have short and wide pegs. Graceful, reasonably long brown hair, white hairband over the top of her head, a red tassel over her bosom, and fierce brown eyes.
First Kaidai VIa-Class Submarine, I-168.
Damon can tell she's a submarine, since she basically looks more or less like Iku in terms of clothes and stature, though somehow to Damon she looks like she might be older than Iku based on physical appearance. A white and vivid blue serafuku top and pink tie with blue borders on the sleeves over a blue school swimsuit. Persimmon-red hair partially tied up into a single ponytail with a few white ribbons and strips tied about her hair and eyes of the same hue, the Cloaking gears slowly turning around the pupils, ready to be activated. Toed sandals are on her feet.
First Kagerou-Class Destroyer, Kagerou.
Probably in her teens, maybe sixteen or fifteen, but probably sixteen...five foot six or seven, probably too. A dark gray zip-up vest with a left breast pocket and left waist pocket, a white collared dress shirt underneath the thin vest, a green tied ribbon at the base of her collar, white gloves, short dark gray skirt with two white border lines, back spats like the ones Ashigara has on, kneesocks that rise just below the knees, and brown Mary Jane shoes. Brown hair separating into side payots, two twintails tied up by yellow ribbons, and a bit of a widow's peak, though not as apparent as Tatsuta's. Light purple eyes peer out underneath that brown hair, uncertain and fearful.
Second Kagerou-Class Destroyer, Shiranui.
Like I-168 is to I-19, Shiranui is to Kagerou. Same get-up, basically same height. Distinctive short pink hair tied up also into a shorter ponytail than Kagerou's, held up by some sort of strange blue ornament, and light blue eyes - dark, brooding, and hateful.
First Ise-Class Battleship, Ise.
Probably most distinctive features that Damon notices right away are Ise's thick thighs and heavy build, but her gentle face marks a stark contrast to her stature, which overall makes her seem like she's physically just over twenty years old, though nowhere near as tall as Ashigara. Even Zuikaku's probably taller than her. Some sort of Japanese-style left-over-right white heavy shirt with red outlines and detached oversized white sleeves literally stitched together at the shoulders by red cords, and a black skin-tight shirt underneath it. A red sash separates the top from the folded brown knee-length skirt, along with military-grade combat boots. Dark brown eyes with equally dark brown hair tied up into a ponytail with the same red cords that hold her disembodied shirt together.
Ninth Type-II Fubuki-Class/Ayanami-Class Destroyer, Sazanami.
A short, young girl who looks like she could be either an eighth grader or a freshman in an American high school, either or, no more than five foot four at the most, probably. An overly simplified school uniform, or serafuku, whichever it is, made up of a plain white shirt with blue sleeve and collar borders and a blue ribbon at the chest and a blue skirt. Red and blue wristbands are strapped to her wrists, though a bit loosely. Plain white sneakers and normal socks, marred with dirt and mud hastily scraped off, vivid pink hair and eyes that is a deeper tone than Shiranui's, twintails held up by two pairs of hair bobbles, and some kind of orange badge printed with images of strawberries all over over where her right kidney is. Strangest of all, why the hell is there a damn mini-rabbit sitting on Sazanami's head staring at him?
Tenth Type-II Fubuki-Class/Ayanami-Class Destroyer, Ushio.
Markedly taller than Sazanami, though only by an inch or two, Ushio definitely looks like she would be a freshman in American high school - but if that's the case, then her chest would probably beg to differ. Same clothes as Sazanami next to her, except for the black knee-high socks. Long black hair with an ahoge sticking out quite visibly, all curled up off to the side. But those dull gray eyes are somewhat disturbing to Damon - not only do they seem so extremely out of place with Ushio's overall image of a soft-spoken, hesitant, and passive girl, but they have the look of someone who's already seen a lot of shit.
First Type-III Fubuki-Class/Akatsuki-Class Destroyer, Akatsuki.
The last four girls are probably all of the same class, since they're all wearing the same damn thing and are all more or less the same height. And for sure, these ones look like they're in middle school. For this one...a white and black - wait, is it dark blue? - serafuku that doesn't expose much of the skin at all, compared to some of the other serafukus. Black (or dark blue) borders at the sleeves and collar, as seems to be customary, but this time there's a print of a large white anchor in the bosom. Standard folded black skirt, and is that pantyhose? with the usual brown Mary Janes. Reasonably long black hair, with a big ol' tuft of it draping down her forehead and in between her blue eyes. A white roman numeral III is printed onto the left collar flap on her serafuku, and a cap a bit too big for her head sits on her scalp, with white lines and a white anchor on the front. At certain points, it seems like those sleeves might be too long for her arms, too.
Second Type-III Fubuki-Class/Akatsuki-Class Destroyer, Hibiki.
Same clothes, right down to the cap, pantyhose(?), and the III on the left collar flap. Snow-white long hair, with her bangs partially hiding her iceberg-blue eyes - Damon feels a bit cold just by looking at her. Her cap is donned more neatly than Akatsuki's and at an angle, and Damon can see a part of another III numeral printed on the back of the cap, and probably the same is true for Akatsuki's cap.
Third Type-III Fubuki-Class/Akatsuki-Class Destroyer, Ikazuchi.
The only thing differing her from the previous two is the lack of the sailor's cap, and the III is now printed on her right collar flap. Short brown hair with equally bright brown eyes that are visibly full of hope at the sight of a potential new admiral. A very small hairpin is over her left bangs, and her canines are showing.
Fourth Type-III Fubuki-Class/Akatsuki-Class Destroyer, Inazuma.
Damon is instantly reminded of Ushio - the same meekness and hesitancy. The III has now migrated down to her waist, over her right kidney again, the notable absence of pantyhose and instead replaced by simple calf-high black socks, the same hue of brown eyes and brown hair but longer and tied up into a folded ponytail.
"Got-dayum," Damon says aloud, his obnoxious tone louder than it probably should be in the tense atmosphere of the conference room and visually perusing the ship girls across from him, "how many damn fleet girls didja end up makin', Sanford?"
"You could argue we might've made too many."
Damon turns around and points his finger at Sanford.
"Bullshit, you can never have enough ship girls."
"Hey man," Sanford shrugs with a smirk, "we woulda recreated the whole damn IJN if we had the time, but you can blame the fuckin' Navy for requestin' that we ship 'em as fast as we could."
Damon laughs out loud, turning away from Sanford as the door to the side room opens again.
"Fuckin' military brass, am I right or what?"
The President returns with his aides and seats himself in front of Damon again.
"So? What was the hold-up all about?" Damon mutters, bored by the dullness.
"My aides and I have come to the agreement," Mr. Blackwood states calmly, "that we are to transfer the control of our current fleet to you, Mr. Polchow."
"And why would that be? This's a fuckin' trap if I've ever heard one, ya realize," Damon says, unamused by this sudden turn of events in his favor. "Like they say, if it's too good to be true..."
"You haven't heard all of it, at least not the part that we will not be simply handing over the fleet girls under our command to you for free."
"Then what's the catch?"
The president clears his throat again.
"What I am about to say is highly classified information. I'd prefer it if you did not spread this among others, because this is sensitive political maneuvering that we are trying to do here."
Damon narrows his eyes in disbelief. "What the fuck? I already made it clear that I don't want any part 'a your fuckin' poli - "
"Mr. Polchow, as far as we, as the American government, are concerned, this is the easiest way for both parties to reach meet their respective quotas."
"But ain't'cher 'quota' to take back your 'property'?"
"We have abandoned that quota and have settled for the next best alternative solution," Mr. Blackwood states, "but you must first understand the context."
Damon glares at Mr. Blackwood. "There's somethin' you want me to do for ya, ain't it?" Damon accuses, his intuitions kicking in. "Spit it the fuck out. What're ya playin' me into?"
"I shall, Mr. Polchow, but if you will please stop interrupting me, you will understand what we want from you when you listen. Do I have your word that you will not cut me off?"
Rolling his eyes, Damon leans back in his chair. "Yeah, whatever. Story time, chop chop."
"Very good, then I shall begin. Right now, we're in a rather dire strait: our diplomatic talks with England have been interrupted by attacks on London by an international terrorist organization known as 'The Inner Circle'. Are you familiar with them?"
Damon shakes his head.
"Then I'll explain that first, since it's important to know who they are. The Inner Circle is, as mentioned, an international terrorist organization that is the remnants of a former, larger terrorist group that was highly prominent and active before the Third World War, called the Advanced Administration of the Holy War, or A.A.H.W. for short."
"Sounds somethin' along the lines 'a Al Qaeda before the war," Damon mutters. "Wait, if they were so famous, why haven't there been anythin' written 'bout 'em? Why's this the first time I'm hearin' 'bout this A.A.H.W. crap?"
"Highly confidential information, I'm afraid I can't tell you about that. Even mentioning this to you is dangerous business I'm getting into, so for now let's focus on the Inner Circle. As of the current, they have branches in North America, South America, Japan, North Korea, northern China, Siberia, Australia, North Africa, Switzerland, and India. While their numbers are estimated to be rather low, with no more than perhaps a few thousand personnel, apart from their leaders, they have already been involved in multiple acts of terrorism throughout the globe. I daresay they've been operating for longer than you've been alive, Mr. Polchow."
"I've been puttin' bullets into people's brains longer than you've been fuckin' President, dude, the fuck do I care?" Damon rolls his eyes for the tenth time or so.
"Then forget that minor detail. For now, what you need to know is that they are planning an all-out assault on London and southern England. The timing of this is very detrimental to us, because this will interrupt our talks and prevent our plans from falling through. Obviously we don't wish for our connections to England to be severed just yet due to this attack, so we have stated our willingness to assist the English in repelling the attack. The problem now, however, thereby lies in our actual military capability. With nearly 85% of our current military power invested into domestic affairs, we were planning to send these naval personnel that we had recovered from what military bases are still under our control after the third world war was over..."
Damon points at the President's fleet girls.
"How long they been activated for?"
"Not very long at all. Barely less than a month."
"Why didn't'cha activate 'em earlier? Didn't you know 'bout 'em?"
"I hope you realize that I have not been president ever since the war. It was under my term that I learned of the F.L.E.E.T. Project and the secrecy surrounding it."
"What, they were just...forgotten...?" Damon says in an incredulous tone.
"For lack of a better phrase, yes, they were."
"Un-fuckin'-believable."
"Unbelievable or not, I daresay everyone was more worried about keeping themselves and their families alive and safe during those hectic times. Why would anyone have time to worry about anything else, much less one of the most highly classified military secrets that America has been involved in producing?"
"Some classification that is when I went down to the South 'cause of some damn rumors about 'em ship girls."
"Since we were planning to put these naval personnel to use, such rumors would have come sooner or later."
The president reaches down beneath the table, rummages through a suitcase, and pulls out some papers to hand to Damon.
"I'm going to assume that you know very little about what the situation is like in England right now," Mr. Blackwood says. "These papers will give you information on the most important people in England right now: the Prime Minister Alton Holmwood and the surviving members of the English Royal Family."
Damon picks up the papers and scans them quickly, memorizing the faces on the papers.
"Here are the profiles of the most well-known leaders of the Inner Circle. They're the biggest names in that organization: a man who refers to himself as 'The Sheriff', and another man who refers to himself as 'The Abyssal'. Both are enigmatic figures with very little information actually known about them, other than the fact that they are high-ranking, if not the leaders of the Inner Circle. The only reason why we have data on the Sheriff at all is because he was part of the former A.A.H.W. before the war. In fact, we have evidence to believe that he was the one who launched all those nuclear missiles the day the war broke out."
Damon's face is beginning to develop a huge smile.
"This's fuckin' sick. I think I'm startin' ta like this," Damon says slowly. "So this whole shit's one giant puzzle, 'n the pieces're jus' need to get found 'n put back together..." He looks up from the papers. "So why're they attackin' England again?"
"The reason is standing behind both of us." Damon glances up at the President, who is pointing behind him and behind Damon. "England also possesses a few naval personnel like the ones you and I command, Mr. Polchow. Well, I should say...they used to. We have received visual confirmation that the Inner Circle now possesses all of England's naval personnel and are planning to launch their assault on the English shores and capital before the week is out."
"That ain't answerin' the entire question, Blackwood. They got ship girls, okay, whatever, we've got fuckin..." Damon counts the ship girls currently in the room, "...twenty-nine, nearly thirty fuckin' ship girls, so unless they have jus' 'bout as many, why're they attackin' England with 'em, the ones they got?"
"We believe that their objectives are to raze London, capture and possibly execute the remainder of the English Royal Family, and use the naval personnel that they have acquired to wreak havoc throughout the rest of Continental Europe. We need to stop the problem where it starts - failure to stop the Inner Circle here would be the start of a highly possible domino effect that will leave Europe crippled and unable to rebuild. We helped them rebuild after the second world war - I'm not quite sure we can do that a second time, especially not in the state we are now."
"Yeah, that's a fuckin' given. And so you want us ta haul ass over there across the fuckin' pond and help the English keep their scones 'n tea safe? Am I gettin' this right?"
"To put it as bluntly as possible, yes, you would indeed be getting the gist of it."
"But then, why didn't'ch'all jus' send your ship girls on over 'n beat 'em by now? What's the hold up?"
"That was precisely the problem we had found ourselves running into. If the Inner Circle find out that these naval personnel were sent by Americans and authorized by high American command, they will use that as an excuse to launch North American campaigns and acts of terrorism on our own turf. Needless to say, I'm fairly certain no one here wishes to have that right now. But now, with you involved as well, we figured that if we transfer command of our naval personnel fleet to you and simply let you command the defense of England, the Inner Circle cannot justify our connections and thus will not be compelled to launch attacks on America."
Damon grins.
"You're usin' me as a scapegoat, in other words."
"But of course. This world cannot run without its scapegoats, Mr. Polchow. I'm sure you've realized this throughout your own lifetime."
"Yer damn right I have..." Damon murmurs.
"Then will you agree to these terms? We will hand you command of our naval personnel on a lease for six months. During this time, you and your fleet must be responsible for all military maneuvers that we need taken care of. All naval personnel that are present here and that are currently under American authority will obey your orders, and you will be responsible for their actions and act as their commanding officer. In addition, all future naval personnel that you discover along the way will fall under these same terms but will be returned to American government jurisdiction at the end of this six-month lease. There will be no direct connections between you and the American government, and the naval personnel will not represent the United States of American in any way. Instead, they will only represent you and your personal fleet. The consequences of their actions will be the responsibility and obligation of you alone, not the American government."
"What 'bout military support? I don't mind commandin' 'em, but we'll need guns, ammo, 'n all the shit that the ship girls'll need to fight."
"That can be arranged. The American government will fund whatever essential supplies that you will require on your operations, short of direct military involvement."
"Do I have a blank check on this?"
"Not quite a blank check, but something quite close to it. We won't be giving you nuclear missiles, if that's what your asking for, Mr. Polchow."
"Haaaaa, good joke."
"That...wasn't a joke, I'm afraid."
Damon puts down the papers. "Fine. I'll agree to this shit. Go over to England, kick some terrorist ass, come back and be a true American hero. I'm down with this shit, this shit sounds like fun," Damon scoffs sarcastically. "Then what're the details of the op? When're we leavin'? Where do we need to be?"
Mr. Blackwood reaches for the final time into his briefcase and slides a plain manila folder across the table.
"That is for you to keep, although we'd prefer it if you kept that information classified outside of your own naval personnel and our government and military personnel. That folder contains all the information that is crucial to this operation."
"And what 'bout a contact method? A way to reach ya in case I gotta request somethin' or find out what's goin' on?"
"That is also included in the folder. You will be contacting these men behind me, Vice Admiral Alex Stukov and Chief Admiral Gregory DuGalle. Colonel Tafferson, too, would have been included, but..." Mr. Blackwood's eyes trail over the limp body crumpled next to the wall. "...I think we can forget about him now."
Damon also glances over at Colonel Tafferson.
"I think he looks better that way with his ass stickin' up like that, to be honest."
"I can't say I was too fond of him either. I think his age was catching up to him."
Damon picks up the manila folder, deciding to peruse its contents in private. "Then are we done here? Or do we gotta talk some more bullshit?"
"For now, this is all. I certainly hope that you do not fail this operation, because failure means that our past three years of diplomatic efforts towards England will have been ruined in one weekend."
Damon laughs in President Blackwood's face.
"I can't give any less of a shit 'bout your damn politics. I hear ship girls, and that's all the reason for me to haul ass over the fuckin' Atlantic."
Mr. Blackwood turns around to face his ship girls.
"All naval personnel, switch command prompt priority to Mr. Damon Polchow. You are now under his jurisdiction."
Damon stands up with the manila folder under his arm, and so does the President. Mr. Blackwood extends his hand to Damon, but Damon simply stares at Mr. Blackwood's hand like the President is some sort of alien.
"If only you hadn't authorized that fucking experiment, huh. You wouldn't hafta deal with an asshole like me or make me feel like you're my mom's murderer," Damon snarls quietly, and Mr. Blackwood, his facial expression ever unchanging, slowly lowers it. "Oh, and one last thing. Have your SS dudes back the fuck off and stop pointin' their guns at me, and I'll do the same."
Mr. Blackwood turns to his Secret Service agents. "Gentlemen, do as he says," Mr. Blackwood says quietly, and the agents put away their silenced Glocks and step away. Damon nods at his own ship girls, who lower their own guns as well.
"...sir..." Shoukaku mutters, fidgeting. Damon glances at her, knowing what she wants, and look glances over at the ship girl called Zuikaku.
"You her sister?" Damon asks.
"Y-Yes, sir," Zuikaku says earnestly.
"Well, what're ya waitin' for? This time there ain't no stoppin' you."
So this time, Shoukaku and Zuikaku throw themselves into one another's arms without disturbance. As their tears and wails of neglected reunion fill the conference room, Damon glances once more at the president."
"Hey, Blackwood. Outta curiosity, what do you see these girls as?"
"What do you mean?"
"You know exactly what I mean, shitface, I can fuckin' tell jus' by the way you call 'em. You don't see 'em as humans, do ya?"
"I am not allowed to view them on the same level of humans from a political standpoint, even if I wanted to."
"Oh, so are ya implyin' that even if you weren't the muthafuckin' President, you still wouldn't see 'em as human?"
"Probably not, if we are assuming that I still hold the same amount of knowledge about them in my non-Presidential state."
"Ah, a'ight, that's good to know." Damon points to the limp body of the colonel that is still laying crumpled along the floor near the wall, and then raises his manila folder.
"What I'm holdin' right now's the only thing between your face 'n my knuckles. I dunno how you've treated 'em up 'til now, but I bet the ten million bucks I just ripped up that you're the biggest faggot I've ever met."
Mr. Blackwood closes his eyes.
"I understand that you are young, hot-blooded, with much...fighting spirit mustered up within you, but you will come to realize that a man like me cannot afford to succumb to the vices that are the human emotions while serving this post, neither can I afford to appear a mushy character and appeal to the morals that define human emotions."
"Oh yeah?" Damon hisses, taking an aggressive step toward the President, causing some of the Secret Service agents to put their hands inside their coat pockets in case Damon starts attacking the President. "Get this, ya fat fuck, there're two kinds'a people in this world: the people who do their jobs bein' themselves, and the people who do their jobs bein' people they ain't. If you've been spendin' the last couple years buildin' up a country on fuckin' lies, greed, 'n misery, then I can't say I'm too fond 'a callin' myself an American."
President Blackwood stiffens his back. He and Damon are just about the same height standing up.
"I'm afraid I don't follow, Mr. Polchow."
"You don't? Maybe yer dumber than ya look. Get this, motherfucker. Between you 'n me, we're the two most powerful people on the face 'a North America right the fuck now, whether ya realize it or not. I ain't gonna make the same mistakes you did or will."
Mr. Blackwood coolly peers into Damon's hostile, ferocious yellow eyes that are beginning to seem like they are glowing lividly.
"Are you saying that you will rectify what I have done wrong?"
"I'm sayin' that a young'un like me can teach you a couple things on how ta manage a country - in my case, runnin' an army, shitbag. I dunno which country you've been livin' in, but we're in fuckin' America. I don't give a damn that you're more'n twice my age."
The President smiles.
"Then that is awfully convenient of you. Perhaps you can be of use to the United States of America."