The sound of a loud crack filled the air, followed by a short-lived gurgling sound.
While its source still wriggled around for a few moments, the battleship princess tried her best to shake the, now dead, soldier's head off her heel and sighed while brushing the dust off her black dress. 'Foolish morons.'
The moment she and her fleet had made shore, they were instantly fired at from several directions with, what she assumed, where tank shells and land-based missiles, with only the latter being much more than a nuisance.
To their great surprise, they were only shot at once they had actually landed on the beach, while being left alone as long as they were on the water, which gave them enough opportunity to take a good look at the area before they landed.
Whoever was in command had probably figured that they would have a harder time evading while they are on land, and then decided to save their ammunition for when it was easier to hit them, but didn't account for them to have eyes and ears in addition to their radars.
In other words, it was most likely someone who has never fought against an Abyssal fleet before, and had no idea that they might still have enough time to get out of the danger zone in time and would only receive neglectable amounts of damage, so the Battleship Princess assumed it was most likely no one associated with the Naval forces, but rather the ground troops.
Still, the Battleship Princess had to give them some credit, while she and the other princesses could still easily wreak havoc upon the troops, their Wo-Class carriers first got completely de-planed and then obliterated, due to their lack of Armor compared to them. And, while they technically couldn't sink here, they could still explode, so she was ready to give them a B+ for the effort.
However, at the end of the day, she was still way more worried about the carrier in the south, than anything on the island itself.
Another thing that made her cautious was that, at least according to the last transmissions, something had actually managed to blow a hole in that blasted gate protecting the island, a feat even she had failed at in the past. Unfortunately, there was a severe lack of intelligence regarding the perpetrator, as none of the planes sent into the direction the shot came from ever returned.
Meaning that, unless the new Princess was deliberately withholding information, what has caused the hole, other than it must have been something big.
Eventually, though, she put on a sadistic smile, hoping it would be another ship and thought about the fun she would have when seeing it sink, and all the humans, running around like headless chickens she could shoot with her side-armaments.
'Ugh, those annoying worms.' The Battleship Princess exclaimed as another shell exploded close to her. 'Why do they even bother, when their joke sized shells can't make it through my armor anyway?!'
'And that is why you are walking in front of us.' The Carrier Princess scoffed at her. 'Now, be a good meat-shield and let those shells bounce off you, will you?'
The battleship frowned, 'Unless you don't watch your tongue, I might just mistake you for one of those obstinate girls and greet you with a shell.' and petted the monstrous beast that was her equipment. 'So how about you concentrate on finding them already, instead of mouthing off, you dumb bitch?! How can air-recon against almost no air-defense even take that long to begin with?!'
The Carrier Princess rolled her eyes, 'As long as it takes. Unless you want us to end up without any planes at all, that is.' and continued in a mocking tone. 'First of all, let's not forget whose brilliant idea it was to leave the beach BEFORE knowing where the missiles came from.'
Suddenly the battleship stopped, letting the carrier behind her crash right into her equipment, before giving her a piercing gaze from her glowing red eyes. 'Perhaps we don't need a carrier after all, a carrier without planes is nothing but a huge pile of scrap metal. Allow me to help with the dismantling.'
'Can you two stop bitching at each other already and concentrate on the enemy instead?' The third Princess snapped. 'I won't be able to set up camp if we don't get rid of those missiles first.' Just as the Airfield Princess finished reprimanding them, another tank shell bounded of the Battleship Princess' head, only to leave pretty much no damage at all.
'Annoying!' The Battleship Princess roared in anger, while her demonic beast fired some shells into the general direction of where the tank shell came from. 'Is that goddamn newbie-princess sleeping or what?!'
A strong breeze made Enterprise's hair wave in the wind as she was looking towards the island from a balcony near the launch bay.
Approximately an hour ago, the Admiral and most of the other ship girls made their way to their respective mission areas, leaving only the ones waiting for the battle to begin behind on her namesake.
Somehow, Enterprise got a bad feeling, when looking over to the island.
Sure, she wasn't anymore comfortable with Admiral Smith being so close to the Abyssals than any of the others, but that wasn't the full extent of the problem.
Something about this whole operation just felt awfully off.
At first, she had just put it off as a lingering feeling of deja-vu, but the closer the mission drew, the more she realized that there was more to it.
While it was true that, again, Pearl Harbor got attacked while she was away, only for her to return to see it devastated, and that she would sail towards japan afterwards yet again, that couldn't be everything there was to it.
An Abyssal in the middle of Pearl was not only nothing to laugh about, but also begged the question of how it got inside in the first place.
Their humanoid ships of course were rather easy to explain. As long as they keep it low no one would suspect anything assuming they commandeered some clothes beforehand. Their demonic beasts on the other hand, were a completely different issue and wouldn't be able to easily sneak by, no matter where they landed.
In other words, it was impossible to explain how they had managed to land on the island.
However, all strangeness of the occurrence and uneasiness aside, a hit that close to home hurt.
For the past 12 years, this island had been her home, where she met all her friends and even got reunited with her sisters after nearly a hundred years.
And now, there was a pretty good chance that it would go up in nuclear flames, if they couldn't clear out the Abyssals by the time the Admiral was about to return and everyone important enough was brought to safety.
Suddenly, Enterprise felt a pinching pain in her side and let out a short 'Ouch' as she was left her thoughts only to look at Atlanta's usual irritated expression.
'I've been talking to you for five minutes now.' The light cruiser complained.
'No reason to pinch me, you cheeky light cruiser' she answered, in a low tone while pinching both of Atlanta's cheeks, pulling them up and down and eventually held them up in a way that made it look like Atlanta forced a really creepy smile. 'Well it's not perfect, but still better than your usual frown.'
'Very funny, E.' Atlanta freed herself and rubbed her cheeks. 'What are you standing around for while I have to entertain those annoying destroyers.'
'How are they annoying?' Enterprise sighed, having a good idea what might come out of the light cruiser's mouth next.
'That Nightmare waving that ''Sail'' of hers around for instance.' Atlanta looked annoyed and then murmured. 'If that was actually a sail I'll eat my hat.'
'Just let it go already, Atlanta. Otherwise, you might get into trouble with the admiral, plus she isn't even here right now.'
'Getting into trouble over that is fine, I'm an Anti-Air cruiser, not a kindergarten aunt. Besides, who says ''poi'' every other word?'
'Just bear with it, after all, they have to bear with you too.'
'Ha-Ha-Ha-Ha-ha~Ha' Atlanta deadpanned and leaned over the railing herself. 'Don't worry, I'll shoot down all those Abyssal planes down in a niff. They won't even know what hit them.'
'It looks like the ones who don't know what hit them is us though...' Enterprise sighed with a frown.
'Yeah...It's strange...The radars should have picked them up miles before they got even close to the island... Something stinks... And then there is this whole thing about the Admiral going right into their nest...'
'...Even though we just got him back not too long ago... Now he goes off into an infested place again...'
Atlanta didn't answer immediately, but instead looked up to the sky, before her expression turned into a slight smile. 'It's fine though... There isn't a thing in this world able to hold a candle to the admiral.'
'Yeah... He is the kind of man who'd put himself right between someone and a raging battleship.' Enterprise chuckled thinking back to that moment.
'...And push said battleship into the water...twice.' Atlanta added in a deadpan tone.
Both shipgirls laughed for a few seconds but then fell silent and just looked towards the island quietly, staring into the slowly darkening sky, until Enterprise eventually pushed herself away from the railing and turned around.
'Let's go inside, Atlanta. There are storm clouds on the horizon and I don't want to get wet before the mission even starts.'
When the two girls went inside, they immediately felt that the mood was a bit lighter in here, although still rather tense.
Some engineers made some last check-ups on the shipgirl's equipment, while others were busy checking the docks, making sure they'd be fully functional for their return or any unexpected retreats during the mission.
The two battleships, Iowa and Yamato, on the other hand where busy chatting while Teruzuki was playing a board game with Saratoga and a still pouting Wisconsin.
Other than that, the shipgirl hangar felt rather silent. Most of the other girls were long on their way to the Meade, so only the ones who would enter the bay later were still present at the moment, making the interior really silent compared to just a few days ago.
If it wasn't for the Abyssals being just a cat-jump away, Enterprise would have described this as a vacation from her usual duties of getting everyone in line before the admiral had to step in.
Alas, she was aware that this feeling of reprieve wasn't justified at all. Everyone left, having been scheduled to set off later also meant leaving her namesake under the protection of nothing but two destroyers and an aging carrier, neither of them being exactly easy to miss.
Luckily for them, the Abyssal's retaliation up to now has been surprisingly weak, and only consisted of some easy to evade long-ranged shelling and some planes that were easily downed by the Titan's anti-air defenses.
'Well, time to get ready, I guess.' Enterprise forced a smile. 'we can't have the Admiral come back to a heavily damaged fleet.'
Meanwhile, the larger interception fleet finally arrived at the designated meeting point with the US Carrier task force, consisting of the carriers themselves and several destroyers serving as their escorts.
'It's been a while since we've last seen that many ships in one place.' Yahagi mentioned while slowing down about fifty meters off the USS George G. Meade's stern.
'My, My.' Mutsu, who would serve as one of the flagships once the battle began let out.
'Just watch where your torpedoes go, once they are forced to go into close range.' Yorktown warned. 'It's really easy to hit a destroyer by accident during an engagement. And if someone tells you to stay still, just do it, believe me taking an Abyssal's shell is much more pleasant than anything those destroyers can hit you with.
'Shouldn't they just stay with the carriers then?' Shoukaku asked once she stopped next to Yorktown.
'They do,' New Jersey still pouted, much like her sister back on the Enterprise. 'They just have a ridiculous firing range.'
Missouri, looked at her sister and frowned. 'Stop pouting already, It's your own fault that you got told off by Cmdr. Knight, for all the ruckus you've caused.'
'You are just sour because you got your ass kicked.' Johnston mocked Jersey from right behind her.
'Come here you little rascal,' Jersey said with an angry face, pressing her eyes shut, while turning around at the same time, trying to grab Johnston, all while still finishing her sentence. 'so I can show you what an actual kick in the ass feels like.'
Johnston on the other hand, just elegantly evaded the battleship's attempt to grab her and drew a huger circle around the group, ending it by pulling the skin below her right eye down with her pointer finger, looking at the fast battleship. 'Blegh!'
'Can you two finally show some discipline, you childish Dummköpfe?' Bismarck sighed as she put her hands on the destroyer's shoulders to stop her from moving. 'Otherwise, you'll just get told off for wasting fuel.'
Just as Bismarck had finished her sentence, an irritated sounding Rear Admiral by the name of Thompson called in over the radio, demanding that they stop wasting fuel and move over to the Meade already, so they could refuel before contact with the enemy fleet.
'Those young admirals really need to get that stick out of their asses...'Jersey shrugged and hit her engines now traveling the remaining distance towards the Meade, while Bismarck just facepalmed and shook her head at the same time.
Once the ship girl fleets were close enough to the Meade's stern, a crane lifted a platform down into the water for them to step on, and quickly moved them up in groups.
Unlike the Enterprise-class Titan, the carriers were only retrofitted to carry ship girls with them, and usually never had as many of them on board at the same time either, so even though the Meade was a relatively new carrier, its ship girl related facilities were rather lacking compared to the Enterprise's, forcing the pilots to share one of the mission briefing rooms with the shipgirls, while the space for other facilities, such as their docks, had to be taken away from other areas, usually the ones the crew wasn't too happy about sharing with their unwelcomed guests.
However, this time really topped it. Since the carriers usually only had a really limited number, if any at all, of shipgirls on board at once, additional containers were put up to serve as quarters for them, so they didn't have to cramp up the crew more than it already was. The strange thing was, that only one of the containers had additional docks, although the American shipgirls suspected that more of them were waiting on some of the destroyers.
Shoukaku, who as a carrier, was particularly interested in it, took a good look around the hangar.
Although she had seen the Nimitz from afar before, actually standing inside one was an entirely different case.
Things looked very different from back then, like the planes being much larger and their lifts being in different locations than the used to be back in the 1940s. In a moment of complete self honesty she had to admit to herself that she even had trouble guessing the function of some of the things she saw in that hangar. And yet, despite all that, it felt like there was a lot more space.
However, no matter how much Shoukaku looked around, she could hardly find any similarities between the Enterprise and the supercarrier, despite that the former is said to have been converted from the same class as the latter.
The American carriers on the other hand, were less impressed and didn't even bother to look around, probably because they have already seen plenty supercarriers before and got used to it over time.
The truly stunning difference, between the two ships on the other hand, was that no one felt really responsible for them, and just did business as usual, like final check-ups of the planes or attending their briefings.
Only a single disgruntled ensign stood somewhat close to them, but it was clearly visible that he didn't want to bother with them either, so all of them had yet to start refueling.
While the fact that they hadn't been there for too long made it sound like less of an issue, the fact that all but 7 shipgirls from the Enterprise were currently inside the carrier, turned the lack of interest in their fuel storage into a real problem, as there wouldn't be enough time to refuel them all should this continue much longer.
After about five minutes, or so, New Jersey finally lost her patience, and stepped right in front of the ensign, deliberately putting herself way into the young officer's comfort zone, 'Hey cherry boy, mind getting whoever is responsible for our fuel over here already? Ship's don't run on air.' which earned her a pinch from her sister.
'Wha..?' the ensign suddenly noised in surprise, indicating that he did actually not pay any attention to them at all, despite that his positioning close to where they have been waiting hinted that he was actually supposed to.
'F.U.E.L.'Jersey took another step closer, so she almost buried his face in her chest due to the difference in height. 'You know the fluid made out of that other, really sticky black one you pump out of the ground. Now, can you get someone with fuel over already?' She rolled her eyes and then changed her voice to a more suggestive, yet mocking, tone 'Or did you actually plan to refuel us yourself?'
The ensign quickly took a step back and needed a moment to get his act together, as he looked not only dizzy, but also as if he started to understand the innuendo. 'Aehm... Yes of course.' the young man stammered, still having to lay his head backwards to look at her face, despite having already taken a few steps back.
Once he was finally out of hearing range, Missouri mercilessly pinched her sister in the side again. 'Next time you ask for something, do it without the sexual harassment!'
'Where would the fun in that be?' Jersey sheepishly blinked at her sister with both eyes, 'Besides, there is no harm in laying the foundations for the after-show party.' and then gave her sister a wink.
'Oh Lord...' Missouri sighed. ' I beseech thee, please bless me with a lobotomy, or a different middle and younger sister. 'Preferable one that isn't as impossible as her.'
'No refunds on used ware~' Jersey sang back happily.
Missouri on her end just sighed even more and facepalmed before turning around, leaving her sister to her own machinations. 'Just make sure the admiral won't have to deal with ANOTHER harassment complaint because of you.'
After a few more minutes passed, they finally started refueling the large fleet of shipgirls for the upcoming battle, leaving them mostly sitting around.
'So what are we going to do in the meantime?' Shoukaku wondered out loud while her fairies started filling the her fuel tanks and loading ammunition.
'When we are on ships, we usually just sit around and wait...' Yorktown answered truthfully. 'What do you usually do?'
'We drink tea or go for some food, I guess...' Shoukaku thought out loud, with her pointer finger pressed against her cheek. ' We are usually not on ships though... In fact, even our bases barely have any personnel.'
'Wait a second, if you don't have any people on your base, who does all the maintenance or man the mess hall?' Yorktown asked her with a hint of disbelieve.
'The mess halls are staffed by supply ships... As for maintenance... That's probably done by Yubari-san and the repair ships...'
'There is no need to worry,' Mutsu interrupted, 'There will be a whole lot of staff around the base soon. Right now, we aren't even using the entire naval district. Besides, with all the additional ship girls and sailors they'll also have to place more guards around the perimeter.' and then added. 'Besides, Yokosuka and other districts with more incoming ships are well staffed. '
'I guess it's going to feel a bit crowded for you very soon then.' Yorktown joked.
Shoukaku just smiled. 'Having a lively place can be nice too.'
'Ahaha, just don't expect any of them' Yorktown nodded towards the sailors while faking a laugh. 'to be too social with you.'
'Don't worry, ours aren't much better. Not that there will be too many people on our side anyway. Apparently, pretty much everyone wants to bring on some of their own staff.' The Big-Seven explained.
'Going by the Admiral, the EU even added people from countries without direct sea access as guards… To make it look more like a unified effort.' Missouri joined them.
'Like who?' A curious Johnston suddenly appeared on the fast battleship's port side.
'Hungary and Austria for example.'
'Heehh?' Johnston looked at her dumbfounded. 'Australia has sea access on all sides and is most certainly not in Europe.'
'Austria, not Australia. You are a ship, learn to read a map already, goddammit.'
'Ha? If you are so smart then tell me where that is even supposed to be.'
'Somewhere near Italy...' Missouri explained and then thought out loud. ' Maybe..:'
'You just said maybe.' Johnston deadpanned.
'A...Anyway.' Missouri coughed and sat up straight. 'You should rather tell the other destroyers on how to not get hit by friendly fire... Or hitting something on accident.'
'She already did, ~ poi!' Yuudachi energetically mused in, joining the group.
'Easier said than done... With this many ships, it's going to be confusing as hell.' Johnston complained and let out a sigh. 'Let's just hope none of the Abyssals actually makes it close enough to the carriers, or we are screwed.'
'Let the flagship's worry about that, will you?'
'The flagships should worry about not over-penetrating their targets…' answered cheekily.
'Thank you very much for volunteering for the next battleship target practice, Johnston. Don't worry little tin can, those 16inchers only hurt half as much when they over-penetrate…' Missouri responded in a serious tone.
'As if! Blegh!' Johnston demonstratively jumped behind Yorktown, pretending to hide behind her.'
'Leave me out of it. I like my armor plates where they are.' Yorktown frowned, causing the entire group to laugh.
'For the love of God, shut up over there! Some of us have to work here.' an elderly engineer with an Irish accent working on a F35 shouted over. 'Unless you want these planes to crash-land into your faces, shut your bloody traps already.'
'Come on,' Bismarck broke her previous silence. ' Let's leave them to their work. The stern seems less busy', and then lead the way towards the rear balcony with Prinz Eugen already on her tail.
While they continued their refueling process in the hangar's back, the Meade suddenly started to slow down, apparently they drew closer to their destination.
'Looks like it's going to begin soon.' Yorktown leaned over the railing.
'Are they really going to be fine though?' Fubuki asked while looking at one of the Arleigh Burke-class destroyers and then glanced towards Johnston for a moment. They don't look like they have that many AA guns.'
'Don't worry too much about them...'Bismarck educated while trowing her hair back with her right hand. 'If any of them would have been around back then, they could have probably cleared out the sky on their own.'
'They also have missiles inside their hull,' Eugen added. 'so there is really no reason to worry about them. They are actually really helpful if they don't get in your way.'
'Or let their missiles fly 10 meters off your bow...' Sammy added.
'Or their torpedoes...' Jersey tried topping.
Mutsu blinked questioning. 'My... Doesn't that sound like more trouble than it's worth?'
Yorktown tilted her head to the side and looked a bit unsure while thinking. 'They can make you feel really useless, should you happen to be a carrier.' She gave one of them a quick glance. 'I guess in the end, they are really just doing their job of protecting the carrier though.'
Some more time passed, while the ship girls talked and refueled.
Suddenly a whistling sound could be heard all over the speakers, and everyone got called to battlestations. Somehow, a lot more time than they thought had already passed.
Soon after the first Harpoon missiles left the destroyer's hull and speed towards where the Abyssal fleet was supposed to come from, while the planes got moved to the lift.
As usual, the conventional ships would try to destroy as many Abyssals with a preemptive strike, while preserving as many missiles as possible for later.
Since the Harpoon's had a high range, they still had more than enough time to send all the ship girls down into the water using their platforms and get all the planes up into the air.
The American shipgirls stretched and walked over to the platforms, which had previously lifted them up in groups. For whatever still remained after the missiles and planes were done, would be theirs to take care of.
And when the signal for them to sortie final came, Yorktown smiled confidently when she got on the ramp. 'CV- 5 USS Yorktown, ready to dominate the skies!'
When Admiral Smith slowly regained consciousness, his head felt as if it was rested on a comfy neck-pillow, while someone clearly petted his head, causing him to wonder whether he had been reborn as a cat or dog but then slowly regained a feeling of his limbs, which were still clearly human.
However, when he was about to open his eyes, the hand on his head quickly moved to hold them shut. Even though Smith didn't have particularly long hair, he only realized now that the hand was actually rather cold.
'Who allowed you to open your eyes?' A familiar voice spoke slightly echoing with a sad undertone. 'I really don't want to be seen like this. Not by you, that is.'
Smith forced a weak, but also happy sounding, 'Hey.' out of his throat.
The Abyssal voice hissed a complaint. 'Don't you 'hey' me so happily. I almost killed you...'
Smith, not yet fully awake rubbed his face deeper into the "pillow" and murmured. 'You didn't though. Besides, you even got me a comfy pillow.'
'Just so we are clear...' She said in a slightly embarrassed voice, 'Those are my thighs, and you rubbing your face in like that is surprisingly embarrassing.' and accidentally stopped keeping his eyes closed, giving him a good view of her cracked up body.
Just like earlier, she still had an almost pure white skin, with cracks that were emitting a rather gentle glow all over her body. When Smith rolled over, he could also confirm that Arizona still had horns and really long white hair, which surprisingly suited her rather well, especially combined with the vampire-like Abyssal eyes, whose glow almost managed to camouflage the slight blush that had formed on the Princess' cheeks.
However, another thing her looks did were slowly making him nauseous, and yet, it felt by far not as bad as when a shipgirl touched him.
'Roses...' Smith let out the moment some of her hair fell down onto his face.
With these words coming out of the admiral's mouth, the Central Princess seemed to have finally processed, that Smith could see her, causing her blush to intensify followed by her expression changing to a fitting one, right before she suddenly crossed her legs, covering his eyes with the hollow of her knee. 'I told you that I don't want you to see me!' The Central Princess snapped.
'I've seen you without clothes before, you know.' Smith tried to struggle, and had a hard time talking due to his mouth being covered.
'I didn't look like a Monster back then!' she snapped at him again, this time, with a hint of desperation in her voice.
Smith gathered some strength despite his nausea, 'You are still as beautiful as ever. Besides, I'm too happy to see you to actually care.' and moved his hand upwards to her cheek, only for it to get slapped back down by the Abyssal.
The Princess put a bit more pressure down on his face with her leg. 'Stop lying already!
I can feel, AND, see you shivering, you liar!'
'Your skin isn't exactly warm, you know?'
'Stop giving me that bullshit. You are scared of me!' The Abyssal snapped, while Smith could feel something oily dripping down on his face, that got however quickly removed by his fiance's hand.
Smith sighed when he realized that his hand was indeed shaking pretty bad, despite that his nausea wasn't as bad as usual. 'Can you please just believe me for a change..? A lot has happened while you were gone, you know? It has nothing to do with you personally either… So what if I'm scared? ...It's called instinct, it's been the basis of human survival from the very beginning.' There was a brief pause, with neither of them talking before Smith broke it again. 'Where are we even?'
'A room they didn't turn into a total mess that still had its own shower.'
'That explains the rose fragrance and moist skin.' Smith said while some of Arizona's hair fell right against his cheeks, telling him that her head was right above his own.
The Central Princess sighed. 'Can you please stop it.?! It's hard enough holding back while feeling your breath against my thighs, the last thing I need now is you putting me off.' She then started fidgeting. 'I'm, happy too, you know, but I also think I've caused you enough pain for one day too.'
Smith went silent for a moment before he spoke up. ' I've got captured by Abyssals before, you know? I wish they had just tried killing me.'
The Abyssal Princess was at a loss of words for a moment and turned her head to the side, 'So that's why...' she murmured, but then shrieked in surprise. 'Hey stop tickling me!'
'I'm not tickling you, I'm trying to get your leg out of my face.' Smith said while trying to lift it off, but failed to do so. It was actually even rather surprising by him how she managed to balance the pressure so well, that he couldn't lift her off, yet didn't feel an uncomfortable amount of pressure either.
She suddenly giggled in a stuck-up tone, that went rather well with her Abyssal voice. 'Be quite. You should feel grateful for being allowed to be my leg rest.', while having no intention of releasing him.
'Fully back in character, I see, your Royal Highness.' He replied while still trying to lift her off.
'Stop calling me that!'
The admiral had to smile. From the very first moment they had met, he had a certain talent for getting her out of her high-horsed attitude. - Although her attitude completely changed once they became a couple and only rarely reverted back to it. 'Can you please move now, my nausea is actually going to be worse like this.'
'No, I can't. Especially not now, after what you've just told me.' she still echoed silently.
'If I could imagine having any bad memories about you EVER, I wouldn't have put that ring on your finger in the first place, you know?'
'You really are...' She started but then suddenly panicked and checked her left hand, followed by some tears dropping down onto Smith's face. 'It's still there.' She smiled, 'When you mentioned it just now, I suddenly became scared it had come loose.' and put her hands on her chest, roughly where a human's heart would be. 'When I lost my buoyancy I just kept sinking and sinking... It felt like forever.' She then shook her head violently, to calm herself, making those tears feel like drizzling rain. 'Oh my god... How much time has even passed?'
'We've got the last quarter of 2035.' he informed her, while using her mental absence to gently remove her leg from his face and straightened up, before turning around to face her.
The corrupted shipgirl looked at him and blinked a few times with teary eyes. 'Sorry for having been gone so long.' before she finally realized that her leg was no longer resting on his face, and that he was right in front of her own. 'You are a jerk,' she smiled at him dumbfounded. 'If a woman tells you that she doesn't want you to see her like that, you are ought to just silently accept it and comfort her with words alone, until she gives you permission to look at her, you know?'
She then grabbed his shoulders and pulled him onto the bed, and crawled over him, while holding him down, but soon just let herself fall onto him. 'You could have at least waited with being disobedient until the eight of me that still wants to kill you finally shuts it.' she said softly.
Smith chuckled. 'Just an eighth? That's actually less than usual.'
The Central Princess smiled down on him with tears in her eyes. 'Really, what am I going to do with you?'
With a short blaze the bullets fired by the two carriers planes turned into Hellcats and rose into the air when the seven ship tall fleet finally entered the combat area.
Enterprise looked up into the sky. Every time she saw her Hellcats take off, she couldn't help but let her mind drift off for a second, wondering how many of her pilots would have died with their families, rather than crashing into the sea, if she had just carried Hellcat's from the beginning back then.
Alas, as flagship she couldn't afford those moments to get melancholic, and quickly snapped out of it. Besides, whatever planes the enemies had left after trying to go for her namesake, were already on the move towards them.
'Cant we go faster? I want this done before the Admiral returns or they decide to nuke Honolulu.' Wisconsin complained.
'Well sorry for not having the armor to charge in like an idiot.' Enterprise replied. 'Just concentrate on keeping the sky clear.'
Even though Enterprise had said that, armor wasn't really an issue here. If push came to shove, she could just hide behind one of the battleships, and Saratoga still had her battlecruiser armor. Besides, it's not like much would get past their planes and Atlanta either way, and Teruzuki seemed to be specialized in shooting down planes too. Going in at a slower pace really was just the more prudent move, given the consequence of failure.
Enterprise threw an inconspicuous glance towards the source of their relative speed loss, namely, the Japanese super battleship, but looked forward towards the island again a second later. 'Looks like they had some surface ships left after all, let's take them out fast.' The Yorktown class carrier then launched some of her Helldiver and Avenger squadrons, while Saratoga did the same.
About 45 minutes had passed, and the fleet now lined up at the side of the giant hole in the harbor's bulkhead and the girls took their first peek inside, to assess the damage.
The flagship formed binoculars with her hands and zoomed into the distance.
Although the majority of the ships looked like they were being ignored, the state of the naval base took Enterprise right back to World War II.
Even from where she was, she could clearly see that the base, had been on fire, while others, like for example the shipgirl-docks, have completely burned down.
The small number of life-sized-ships that looked like they had try to sortie, either had several large holes in it, or, in the worst few cases, had capsized into the bay.
Luckily, history seemed to have repeated itself yet again, and none of the carriers were in the harbor when the attack happened.
Still, what worried her most, was that she couldn't see any of the ship girls who were supposed to be still at the base, around either. What she could see, however, were several corpses of base personnel mutilated by explosions.
Wisconsin used her hands as binoculars too and sighed. 'Great, Sis hull has a hole... Bet we aren't going to hear the end of it?'
Sara rubbed her temple in frustration. 'Can you please focus on the mission, Wisconsin? Right now, we couldn't care less about any of Missouri's ho-' Sara stopped. 'You did that on purpose, didn't you?'
Wisconsin just gently put her fist against her forehead and put her tongue out a bit instead of a proper answer, like Iowa sometimes did when returning with major damage.
'You can't believe how much I'm looking forward to see the admiral punish you...' Sara rubbed her temple in annoyance.
'Pshhht' Enterprise hissed. 'There are probably still a few of them further in the bay.' She then looked at the only two lighter ships in the fleet. 'Anything on the sonar, so far?'
Both Teruzuki and Atlanta shook their heads. 'No, it's safe to say they didn't bring any submarines with them.' Atlanta shrugged.
'Well, let's give them a warm welcome then, I guess.' Enterprise remarked shortly and signaled her attack squad while Sara did the same.
In a matter of seconds, two carriers worth of bomber squadrons started their descent towards the Abyssal forces inside the channel.
Instantly, the Wo-Carriers picked up on it and readied their own launch bay, only to be interrupted rather abruptly by the two carriers.
'Oh no, you don't!' Enterprise and Saratoga shouted in unison, while firing their rifles. As soon as they had pulled their triggers, bullets started to speed towards the Wo-Class, and eventually burned up mid-flight, only to transform into a Squadron of Hellcats.
Despite the Wo-Class' attempts, to get their planes off in time, most of them were shot down right as they left the Hangar-Beast's maw, while the rest of their fighters went up in flames shortly after.
This in turn, prompted the Destroyers to shoot at the carriers, while trying to move into torpedo range. However, just as Enterprise had planned it, the three battleships jumped in front of them, not only deflecting the bullets but also making quick process with the destroyers, thanks to their 16 and 18-inch turrets.
'Don't fall behind now, Yamato!' Iowa winked and started speeding inside of the bay, closely followed by her equally fast sister, while Yamato drove in last.
The rest of the commute towards the Naval base turned out to be a rather one-sided battle, and thus no one in the fleet was really that much impressed when the princess' Abyssal Beast showed up all on its own, without it's master, only accompanied by two meager destroyers.
Atlanta sounded annoyed when she and Teruzuki drove up behind them and saw something crucial missing on the battlefield. 'Looks like someone feels to good to come out herself.'
'Maybe she is just as ugly as that mini beast there, and seeing us made her conscious about it.' Wisconsin taunted extra loud to no avail. 'Aww... Usually, they are easily taunted.'
Suddenly, Teruzuki shoved the battleship to the side while firing their Anti-Air armaments at a low angle, shooting down several Abyssal planes in the process. 'And here comes the Takoyaki...'
'The what now?' Atlanta snapped, making the destroyer flinch, while turning towards Nevada Point.
There, on top of a singed Humvee sat a Battleship and a Carrier Princess, looking at them with glee in their eyes and a huge smirk on their faces, while several Abyssal planes rose from further in, where the Hawaii Shipyards are located.
'You had to jinx, it didn't you, tincan?' Atlanta sighed.
'Tincan?' Teruzuki spouted in surprise.
'Can we put that off to later?' Yamato glared towards the Battleship Princess, and fired a salvo directly in their direction.
'Looks like we have to fight them from two sides now.' Enterprise sighed, 'Fine...' then commanded her planes. 'All fighters set course to intercept! Attack squadron, continue your run!'
Then, more bombers entered the Battlefield from somewhere north of the bridge connecting Ford Island to the rest of Honolulu.
'Where are those coming from now?!' Atlanta complained.
Enterprise evaded some shells coming directly from one of the memorials south of the Missouri. 'They must have hidden inside the city.'
'Aren't we a bit outnumbered here?!' Wisconsin complained while having two of her turrets fire towards the two princesses to their left, while firing the remaining one towards the lone beast.
'Keep evading, the destroyers are already on it.' Enterprise shrugged her off. 'Also, let's screw the No-Torpedo rule for that direction.' Enterprise nodded towards the two princesses while she kept evading.'
Sara was about to nod, but then got hit by one of Artillery Imps on the memorial markers. 'Aahh!'
'Are you alright?' Yamato turned her head towards the carrier, causing her to receive a shell of her own, causing her eyes to flinch upon impact. 'Ouch... That's one boiler down.'
'It's just a slight list, concentrate on the battlefield!' Sara cried back and tapped the water with the tip of her boots to check whether it was still fine.
Despite receiving a hit, the Abyssal Battleship and Carrier just kept smirking, and then jumped onto the water, only to quickly turn around and sail away from them at top speed.
'Quickly, hit their turbines, they are trying to get around the island!' Enterprise shouted to the battleships, who immediately fired, but the two princesses just ignored them and went flank speed towards their goal, and even the torpedoes Teruzuki and Atlanta had fired towards them earlier just exploded when impacting on the shore.
A few moments later, several burning objects speed towards the battlefield, apparently coming from where the carrier and titan fleet were stationed, towards the shipyard. That was if one were to go by their trajectory.. However, the princess there seemed to have no intention of getting hit either.
While the accompanying Anti-Air missiles took out a good bunch of the fighters the Airfield Princess had sent towards them, some of them made it through and either shot down the incoming missiles, or, if they couldn't, they just crashed into them, causing a huge fireball in the air.
However, there was some good news too. All that noise apparently gave a few of the ship girls in the base a chance to actually make water and sail towards Enterprise's fleet.
The seven ship girls looked at the incoming reinforcements. Although they weren't in perfect shape, none oft them seemed too damaged to fight. Alas, their number certainly left a lot of room for improvement.
Enterprise took a quick breather in between the unknown beast's firing cycle. 'At least that should even the odds a bit:'
'DON'T. JINX. IT!' Atlanta wailed.
The newly formed larger fleet decided to draw back a bit to regroup. Apparently, they had just gained another battleship, a light cruiser, and another carrier.
'E!' the blonde carrier waved towards her elder sister while approaching at top speed with a light cruiser and a blue-haired battleship in her tow, although the former seemed to be really distracted leaving most of the work to the battleship.
'November-Echo-Bravo-Charlie... Huh? That's not one of Pearls ships, isn't it.' Iowa noted.
'They probably re-assigned her when we left.' Saratoga breathed heavily in exhaustion when she drifted by. 'Stop looking a gift horse into the mouth.'
Wisconsin drove by Sara and lifted her into a more steady position, then winked while holding her pointer finger up. 'I'm pretty sure she is a battleship though.'
Sara looked at her with an almost dead expression and Iowa just let out an exhausted sigh, while Yamato didn't even bother reacting to it.
'Wrong time, Wis.' Iowa buried her face in her hands.
'What's up with Saint Louis?' Enterprise whispered once Hornet had stopped right in front of her.
The other Yorktown carrier leaned forward and whispered into her sister's ear, 'Helena got hit pretty hard when we tried getting onto the water a few days ago. She's been unconscious ever since, and we can't repair her because the docks have been hit.' and then leaned back, only to give the light cruiser a worried look. 'Frankly, she shouldn't be here... But we are literally the only ones we can still spare. Everyone else is too damaged or needed to escort the others to the escape ships. '
'Figures.' Enterprise sighed. 'At least you seem fine.'
'One of my elevators is a bit on the fritz and not at full speed, Medusa and Rigel really didn't have that much time fixing us up with all that's been going on... Say are they really planning on..?'
'Nuking the island? If we fail to kick them off in time, then yes.' Enterprise said, following by everyone going silent.
The Central Princess smirked happily while the room got filled with steam and the sound of tiny drops of water hitting the shower base.
She turned her head a bit and looked at her far longer than usual hair. To her own surprise, she actually liked it that way, despite how much of a pain it would be to dry it. Sadly, it was probably only a temporary circumstance. As soon as she'd return to being herself, it would go most likely go away too, together with whatever ships' or land's spirit was mixed up with her at the moment.
The princess leaned backwards and quickly met an obstacle to lean against. 'Do you think we can do something so I can keep my hair as it is?'
Smith stroke through her hair, shampooing it in the process. 'You'll have to ask Medusa or Vestal about that.'
'I don't think either of them is going to talk to me anytime soon... I know I wouldn't...'
'You'll probably have to stay in the house for a while, yeah...' Smith sighed. 'I should be able to get that through. Getting a shipgirl back should be convincing enough for them.'
'You do realize I'm not exactly just Arizona right now, do you?' The princess sighed while leaning backwards, pushing him against the wall while doing so. 'For example, if I was just Arizona right now, I'd give you an actual reason to be scared of me if you don't stop shivering.' She pouted. 'I'm trying really hard to hold any Abyssal-like thoughts back, you know? At least trying to stop it is the least you can do.'
Half an hour has passed before the bathroom door opened again, and The Central Princess made her way to the closet, putting on a disappointed look when she opened it.
She sighed. 'Oh well...putting the clothes of someone you might have killed on might feel macabre anyway.'
'Did you say something?' Smith asked when he left the room and walked over to his clothes.
The Central Princess turned around. 'Nothing, I just wanted to borrow some clothes and couldn't find anything I like.' She closed the closet and turned around. 'Shouldn't you be more worried that I could be mad? You never stopped after all.'
Smith turned around, 'I'm so-', but got interrupted by a kiss, apparently Ari had gotten closer without him noticing.
'It's fine, I was just messing with you.' The Central Princess smiled with her red eyes glowing towards him. 'If you had lost your energy too though, I'd actually be mad now. Just don't let me get used to you being scared of me, I might actually start liking it.'She moved the back of her hand along his cheeks and giggled, 'Thee-hee.' before she walked towards the door.
Smith flinched. That laugh just now actually sounded rather creepy. Still, Smith regained his composure instantly. 'Where are you going?'
'Trying to make a Wo strip without getting bloody... And no, I won't be bringing her with me. We've had enough fun for now. I'll be back in a bit. You wait here until I'm back.' She commanded.
Twenty minutes later the door opened again, and Smith saw Arizona in what looked like she was wearing a Wo-Class' Top and shoes, with a skirt that looked suspiciously like a ripped off part of the black cape the Abyssal carriers wore.
However, unlike a Wo-Class' usual suit, this one had a fist-sized hole around the navel, and was partially black.
'Sorry I took so long.' The Central Princess sighed. 'I couldn't find any bleach, so I had to check if someone had Hydrogen Peroxide.' She then walked over to him stretched her hand out to Smith. 'You still want to take me home, do you? Then give paw.'
Smith didn't hesitate to take her hand, nausea be damned. 'Not funny.'
He no longer cared about whether the short time they were separated might cause him a panic episode when he touched her again. Besides, his stomach was probably already empty anyway.
The Princess showed him the best angelic smile she could produce, given the demonic horns on her head, 'Good boy.' and pulled him up. A few seconds later she looked at him as if something was off, before she opened up a few buttons of his shirt, to re-arrange them. 'Really now... You had twenty minutes and actually managed to get a button wrong?' She sighed and scolded him. 'How did you ever manage to get promoted to Admiral?'
'Must have been my charming personality.' Smith joked.
'Let's just go...' The Central Princess pulled him towards the door and handed him his rifle. 'You can just hang it over your shoulder, you won't need it while I'm around.
Smith nodded and did as she said.
Then they walked, toward the second exit, hand in hand.
The Central Princess looked down at their hands and closed her eyes with a big smile. Despite all those memories she had as 'Arizona', there were barely anywhere they had the liberty to just walk around holding hands. Certainly, she could always hug him whenever she wanted the moment they were alone, and she also held hands with him and rested her head on his shoulder whenever it was just the two of them, sitting on a couch reading reports. However, she barely had any of them just walking around like that, so she silently hoped that she wouldn't start forgetting about it once she became just 'Arizona' again.
After a while they approached a corner and Arizona came to a halt, pulling Smith back almost violently. 'Stop.' She said with a darkened face and undid her improvised skirt's knot.
'Seriously now?' Smith sighed.
'Oh, shut up! ' The corrupted shipgirl snapped and threw the black cloth over his head, 'Just show me a bit trust, and let me lead you for a bit, will you?!' and walked up behind him, carefully leading him through the corridor.
The scene in front of her was certainly nothing for a weak stomach, and quite gruesome. Compared to the rest of the compound, the blood here was quite fresh, and large holes replaced the spots where the door frames used to be.
The Princess looked inside one of them and found a large pile of chewed off bones and meat-squash. If she remembered right, this particular room was the one she had designated as her own beast's kennel a few days ago.
Obviously, letting someone she loved see such a gruesome scene, one she had caused, was the last thing she wanted.
And then, there were the feelings of guilt, that resurfaced. - A sensation she couldn't feel before she woke up again.
The Central Princess let her head hang down.
No matter how she looked at it, she was the guilty party here, and while her inability to remember most of it was rather welcome, she also knew that it was just a convenient excuse.
At the end of the day, whoever those people were, they had died because of her, whether she killed them directly didn't really matter. "How is it that it sucks so much…" She thought out loud while pushing Smith toward the exit, and only removed the Wo's cape from her fiance's head once the elevator doors were fully closed.
"An elevator to hell…" she whispered absently while re-attaching the cape around her waist, not envying whoever had to clean up her mess.
"Don't worry it will be over soon." Smith said. "We'll all be together again."
The Central Princess looked straight into her fiance's eyes and tilted her head obliviously.
"Hm?" Smith looked at her. "Oh… Don't worry, I promise I won't let Yuki give you a hard time, this time around. I'll have a really long talk with her."
"Yuki…" The Central Princess said lost in thought, lowering her head.
"Who needs that insufferable brat. You should just get rid of her, and have him for yourself."
Arizona suddenly found herself in a dark room, only illuminated by two red lights.
She walked towards the light's source and stopped in front of a mirror, but when she looked into the mirror the light was gone.
She took a moment to inspect it, but no matter how one looked at it, it was just a normal mirror, reflecting her image as best as it could in this dark room.
She took another look at mirror glass. - It reflected her smiling face.
Smiling? She was pretty sure that she wasn't smiling at all right now.
Suddenly her mirror image's eyes flashed red, and a voice sounding like her own echoed throughout the room.
"Seriously, just kill that annoying bitch. You clean up after her, wake her up in the morning, and are always nice to her, even though she is a total bitch. Just rip her heart out already!"
Arizona wanted to contradict her mirror image, but no matter how hard she tried, not a single tone would leave her throat.
She stepped back from the mirror, but suddenly hit something behind her.
Arizona turned around slowly to find another mirror, smiling back at her and chanting deviously.
"Kill. Kill. Kill."
She took a step to the side, but hit another mirror with her left shoulder, and was greeted by a fourth when she tried escaping right.
"Strangle her." one of the reflections said almost amused.
"Huh? You should hit her so hard that she implodes." the second reflection grinned.
"Why waste the energy? Just pump her full of bullet holes." the third one yawned.
Arizona sank onto her knees, covered her ears, and pressed her eyes as hard together as she could, and started crying.
Yet, covering her ears changed nothing at all. No matter how hard she pressed her hands against her ears, she still kept hearing all those ideas echoing around her as loud and clear as before.
Eventually, she realized that only three of the mirrors were talking, and the one behind her had been silent the entire time.
She turned her head backwards as far as she could and opened one of her eyes.
The mirror was gone.
As soon as she had discovered the opening, she jumped up and started running but almost instantly hit an immovable object, making her fall backwards onto her butt.
The dreadnought looked at what she hit, and opened her eyes wide in shock.
Again, she would see herself, this time though, her hair was longer, her skin white as snow, and her eyes shone brightly in a tone of blood-red, while two asynchronous horns emerged from "her" forehead.
Next to "her" stood a semi-large beast, that was seemingly chewing on something, that it suddenly spit out.
It looked like the remnants of a child's arm.
Suddenly, she found herself looking down onto the remnants from the other side, and she was standing, comforting the monster next to her by petting it
The Central Princess then spoke in a cold, mocking, tone. "I'm sorry, I should have known that little brat will upset your stomach."
Smith looked at his fiance staring leaving the elevator and open the door out of the compound almost autonomously. Her hair kept him from getting a look at her face, but he could still tell that she must be deep in thought and didn't want to disturb her.
When the central Princess opened the door, she was immediately greeted by the sound of explosions. Apparently, the battle was already in full motion.
Planes flew over her memorial marker, the very place they had just emerged from, straight to where her beast was waiting for them. And yet, she still felt as if she was in a trance while looking around.
Suddenly she spotted a lone news drone barely close enough to catch her image from afar. She turned around, and looked back into the small room, and stretched out her hand. "Mind making a quick stop at my wreck?" She smiled innocently.
"Don't worry, Admiral Smith anticipated that the army wouldn't be able to hold their ground against the Abyssals. All you need to do is buy us a bit more time and stay afloat." Knight spoke into his microphone.
"Easier said than done." Enterprise answered truthfully over the comm. "They still have enough planes to suicide any missile you send towards them. We could really need those jets right now."
"The Nimitz has orders to stay in position until the two battleships from the other bases, the admiral procured arrive. You'll have to survive until then."
"Aye, Sir. Enterprise out."
Commander Knight fell back into the command chair. "I just hope this works out as the admiral planned… After all…" Knight looked at his Communications Officer, but she only shook her head.
"After all… The Admiral is probably no longer with us." he whispered silently.
That was at least the current assumption, as the SEAL-Team's report strongly suggested it to be true. After all, the last thing they had seen was Admiral Smith getting choked to death by an enemy leader, and, given the difference in physical strength, it was highly unlikely that he found a way out of that situation.
"How much longer until those reinforcements arrive?" Knight asked, trying to get his mind off his superior's demise.
Right now, he hasn't told anyone but the senior officers, minus Dr. Yamada, whom he had deliberately excluded from that list, and he most certainly didn't tell the shipgirls about it. Right now, he wanted to keep his mind on the mission, rather on how he would tell his daughter's best friend's family the bad news.
"They should be within range in about 30 minutes, Sir."
Knight relaxed a bit and closed his eyes, and spoke silently to himself. "I see… This battle is the no-win situation you've talked about so many years ago... Isn't it Admiral?…"
"How many planes do we have left?" Enterprise breathed out.
"I'm down about half." Saratoga looked at her equipment.
"We were fully resupplied before they let us get onto the water, so I'm almost full. It's mostly fighters though." Enterprise's sister reported.
Enterprise nodded. "Sounds good, although I doubt we can manage supremacy with that princess still afloat…"
"You can leave the princesses to us. Iowa smiled, put her arms around Yamato's and Wisconsin's shoulder and pulled them closer."
"I...Iowa-san!" Yamato let out in surprise.
'Why are you only including them?!' the blue haired Battleship complained. 'Are you taking a dig at me?!'
Enterprise let out a huge sigh, and gave South Dakota a sharp, and silencing, glance. "Being able to sink them won't help any you if you receive a torpedo to the citadel before you see them.
"Actually, I have them on my radar… I could start shooting right -" Wisconsin started.
"I have a radar too, and unless you want to risk hitting the bridge, Ari's wreck or even the admiral's house, you better don't even think about shooting, because the moment you do, they'll start evading."
"We are really accurate though…" Iowa and Wisconsin pouted.
"Not accurate enough, to not risk hitting something someone might be hiding in." Enterprise furrowed a brow. "Especially going by how your radars look,"
The three battleships each looked at their equipment. "That's just some soot." Iowa assured. "It's not built out of paper, you know."
"Actually, my surface radar might be a bit damaged." Yamato raised her hand weakly.
"Ehh?! Where?!" Iowa moved around Yamato, inspecting her rigging.
"I don't know… It just feels off for some reason."
The two carriers shouldered their rifles. "Looks like we stick to shooting what we can actually see." Enterprise gave Iowa a victorious gaze. "If we AND the Abyssals were still actual ships, it would be something a different matter. However, as things are, hiding behind a rock is actually easier for all of us than it used to be." Enterprise paused. "Just imagine, someone is hiding inside a building you hit because you blind-fire on a radar blip. And then, imagine that someone could be someone you know, or their children."
For a moment, Iowa imagined admiral Smith leaving a building, only to be hit by one of her shells, and pressed her eyes together.
"Fine, I get it! I get it." Iowa complained.
Once Iowa had conceded Enterprise checked everyone's rigging, to assess the overall damage. Both Atlanta and Teruzuki, were one turret down, but luckily still battle-ready. The three battleships had only received some minor damage but were overall still operational. Meanwhile, one of Saratoga's elevators was stuck as a result of the hit she received earlier.
"Sorry." Saratoga apologized. "I can still launch them, but you will have to do the maintenance and re-arming."
"That's not a problem, looking at how it is, we are still better off letting our planes fly with half their ammunition than not at all. Besides, if we go with a picket screen, all of us can fire at the Abyssa-"
Enterprise just realized that St. Lois hasn't been listening to what she said at all, and was still just standing there absently.
The carrier gently shook her head and moved over to the cruiser, putting her hand on her head, causing the dead-eyed cruiser to look into Enterprise's face. "I know how it feels to lose a sister, you know. All three even." Enterprise looked into the cruiser's eyes gently, but with a hint of sadness. "But she isn't dead yet, you know. Do you really want her to get out of the docks in a few days and hear that you sunk because you kept worrying about her?"
St Lois didn't answer and just shook her head weakly.
'Then get your act together already. Even if she turns out to be out for half a year, in the end, she'll still be fine. However, if you sink today, just because you kept worrying about her, it won't just feel like some distant memory from ninety years ago for her anymore. It will stay with her for the rest of her life.'
The light cruiser still just looked at her with teary eyes.
Enterprise smiled and offered her hand. "Let's all concentrate and get through this together, so no one has to be sad. OK?"
The light cruiser wiped the tears out of her eyes and nodded.
'Well, let's get our island back, everyone.' Enterprise said confidently.
Yamato looked at Enterprise with a bit of awe. 'Musashi wouldn't have been that gentle about it' The battleship thought. In fact, she wasn't sure if she had been that gentle about it either, nor did she think Enterprise would have been if it had been Iowa or Wisconsin who were spacing out.
It gave Yamato something to think about being a flagship. Although she had officially replaced Nagato as Japan's flagship back then, she had still spent most of the time in the dock, barely being let onto the sea, a thing that hasn't changed much since then.
'Compared to that, I'm really just a Hotel, aren't I?' Yamato followed in her position, left of the carriers, while Iowa was leading the front, and Wisconsin guarding the rear.
Enterprise, on the other hand, was the exact opposite of her.
Even though she is a battleship, Yamato was rather shy when compared to the others. - Especially her younger sister.
Suddenly, the battleship's air radar sprang on, and she and the others turned their cannons upwards, while the fighters, the carriers had launched, moved to intercept the Abyssal's bombers.
The battle had begun again, and Yamato couldn't afford thinking about her own shortcomings anymore right now.
For a short while, things were going fine.
With the Battleships and the two Anti-Air ships surrounding the carriers, and the carriers fighters intercepting the enemy bombers, the sky was basically free, despite the Abyssal sending planes after them from several locations.
However, the closer they got to the Arizona's wreck again, the harder the Abyssals tried pushing them back.
'Ouch!' Yamato whimpered as a large geyser of water emerged right next to her, after a shell had exploded underwater, while a shell from one of the Battleship Princess's secondary turrets hit her right into the stomach.
From thereon, the Central Princess's beast and the Battleship Princess started raining down hell on them, forcing them to loosen their formation.
Enterprise quickly accelerated as fast as she could and turned starboard, drifting enough to almost crash into the other carriers, but somehow miraculously managed to avoid just that.
The flagship and the other carriers looked at the two enemy battleships. "Squadrons launch!" The three of them shouted in unison while pulling the trigger of their guns.
A loud sound emerged from the barrels as the three bullets left them and burned up, burning up into planes as if they were newly hatched phoenixes.
Enterprise ordered: "Everyone, fire!"
Iowa and Wisconsin didn't let their flagship ask them twice, and turned all their turrets to the port side. "Fire! Fire!" Iowa shouted, following by the thunderous sounds of her cannons filling the air, while the crater the pressure her shots caused in the water made it seem as if even the water was trying to get away.
"Yamato, commencing fire!" Yamato shouted once she had finished turning, following by similar events as the Iowa sister's just with a tad more impact.
'Heh, as if I'd loose in a brawl! Fire!' South Dakota added before her turrets joined in.
The 36 shells made their way towards the enemy battleships, each at a slightly different trajectory, to make it harder for them to evade.
The beast howled loudly when some of the shells had hit, and ruined a turret as well as secondary turret, but the princess and the beast soon retaliated, with shells now flying into the ship girl's direction.
Again, Yamato was hit, however, this time one of her propellers got damaged to a point where her fairies could no longer fix it on their own, and she would have to spend some time in dry dock for repairs.
As if this wouldn't have been enough, Teruzuki had to scuttle her torpedoes, and was also down to one turret thanks to the shock-wave of a near hit.
Unfortunately, the carriers didn't fare much better, Hornet apparently got hit rather hard in the side and was now heavily listing starboard. Leaving Enterprise with the task of trying to resupply three carriers worth of planes, inevitably causing her to fall behind rather quickly.
The Carrier Princess smiled from the safe position, she had taken inside the city. "Sink." She commanded her bombers coldly towards the damaged ships, while three of her fighters strafed the surrounding buildings, and hunted down everyone brave, or dumb, enough to try running out onto the street.
Yamato looked up into the sky as the takoyaki formed planes drew closer, and braced for the impact, eyes closed. With her propeller destroyed, the only way she still had to at least attempt to evade was playing around with her speed a bit and hoping her armor would take care of the rest. However, that tactic wouldn't work against torpedo bombers.
Suddenly Yamato felt a sharp pain and everything around her seemed to be on fire as one of the Central Princess' beast's main gun shells caused a direct hit.
"Yamato!" She could hear Iowa shout silently, however, the shout was overturned by the disturbance in her systems the explosion has caused.
The Japanese flagship fell to her knee, followed by another explosion, which seemed to have come from inside of her rigging.
One of her remaining boilers had just exploded, and the Japanese battleship was on fire, steadily loosing electricity.
She looked towards the planes again, and tried shooting at them, but barely any of her guns even responded, and most of the ones that did, were just barely firing into the right direction.
Iowa tried speeding over to her but had to realize that she wouldn't make it in time, as the torpedo bombers were already flying too low for her armaments to still get the properly without hitting the already battered battleship.
Yamato smiled at her friend's eyes closed, as she could hear the planes approach.
Then she heard unintelligible crackling through her damaged radio, 'E...l.. o...f...x…' before it too fell silent.
She looked down at the water with slightly blurred sight, thinking that at least it wasn't too deep, so they might be able to raise her later, so she closed her eyes and prepared herself for the hull breaches she was in for, as she felt the heat from the explosion in front of her.
However, instead of the hull breaches, she felt as if she was moving again and opened her eyes to find a one-armed Teruzuki and a slightly charred St. Lois towing her away.
At the same time, several jets were chasing Abyssal bombers and shot at them with machine guns and AA-missiles alike, while speeding towards where the Abyssal's Airfield Princess had nested herself in.
'Are you alright, Yamato-san?' Teruzuki turned her head towards the battleship and spoke in Japanese.
'I think so.' She looked at her rigging a bit disorientated. 'What's happening?'
While her surface radar would need extensive repairs, she should still be able to shoot, given that at least one of her observation planes was still in the air. Unfortunately, that wasn't the case, and as her radio was fried too, she couldn't even ask the other battleships to launch one for her.
Then she remembered, she didn't need a radio herself for that. - A bonus of having a human form. 'Is your radio still fine, Teruzuki-chan?'
"Mhhh! Yes, it's still working. Why?"
"Then please ask Iowa and Wisconsin to launch an observation plane for me and pass me their instructions."
'I can do that, but…' The destroyer looked at the heavily battered battleship. 'I'm not sure you should still shoot…'
'I still have should have enough power for one turret.' Yamato proclaimed with a weak voice.
'Ok…' Teruzuki said and did as Yamato told her to.
Yamato gathered her strength and moved her aft-turret towards the coordinates Teruzuki passed her, and fired a shot, only slightly missing the Abyssal beast.
Meanwhile, the air was surrounded by explosions above them. The ship girl's fighters had teamed up with the Nimitz's planes to re-gain control over the sky. In addition to that, the Nimitz planes had also taken out the Airfield Princess, since the planes coming from her direction, were replaced by wads of smoke rising from the ground up into the air.
The princess-less beast, and the Battleship Princess on the other hand, were a bit more persistent, and they also had a hard time dealing with the Carrier Princess, as she was hiding somewhere in the city.
As the Abyssals lost more and more escorts Iowa and Wisconsin took the chance to close the distance between them and the enemy battleships.
'How obstinate…' The Battleship Princess complained. 'Can't you see how meaningless your struggle really is? In the end, you will just sin-'
Iowa and Wisconsin stood there dumbfounded, as a whole Salvo of life-sized 16inch shells hit the Battleship Princess, costing her beast its arm and ruined two of it's turrets.
'They didn't, did they?' Iowa wondered.
'Nah… Never…' Wisconsin answered slowly.
Iowa checked what her observation plane saw, and looked at Wisconsin with a deadpan look, that was soon followed by a radio message to the entire fleet from the newly arriving ships. 'Sorry, it took us so long to get here, ladies. We had some slight engine problems' A rather old-sounding male voice could be heard over the Radio. 'USS Iowa and Wisconsin, engaging hostiles.'
There was a moment of silence.
'Ehhhhhh?!' The battleships shouted back in unison. A few miles off the coast, several tugboats came to a standstill, while parking the two ship girl's hulls at their position.
Enterprise and Saratoga stopped next to them. 'Concentrate on the battle already!' Enterprise scolded, but then saw something in the distance, near Arizona's wreck, that caused her eyes to open wide and loose focus for a moment herself. 'Admi...ral?' However, she got quickly taken back into reality when a shell splashed close next to her.
The Central Princes glided over the water towards her memorial, lifting smith up a few centimeter over the water surface.
'This feels surprisingly humiliating.' Smith complained.
'Would you rather have had me carry you like a princess?' The Princess chuckled, as she let him down onto the small platform that was attached to the hole where her second main turret used to be.
Above and to the sides of them, the battle was in full motion, with the Abyssals apparently having been in the lead, but that ended when the jets suddenly entered the field, and by the time the Abyssal had put Smith down, she also saw the Abyssal fleet getting bombarded from the east.
The Central Princess walked closely behind him, as her fiance took the final steps towards secretly eyeing what she believed to be the news drone she saw earlier. Unbeknownst to Smith, she wasn't just carrying his rifle anymore, but actually pointing it at him.
The Central Princess then took a quick glance from the corner of her eye towards the battlefield and made her beast shoot into Enterprise's direction, deliberately missing her by just the right amount."Don't space out…"She thought.
Suddenly, a shell exploded around close by, setting the oil leaking from her wreck on fire.
A few moments later, the two were surrounded by a literal sea of fire.
Smith turned around and looked at her. "Can't you do something about that-"
At this moment, Arizona pulled him down and pretended to struggle with him, throwing the rifle into the water in the process.
"I love you." She kissed him while still moving in ways that would suggest them struggling instead, and then slowly moved Smith's hand towards his sidearm, putting it against one of the larger cracks in her body, and checked one last time if the drone was still pointing towards them.
The sound of a gunshot tore through the silently sizzling sea of fire, around the two of them, gave off, as Arizona had forced her loved one's finger to press the trigger.
Smith looked into the eyes of his bleeding fiance, who had fallen down into his arms, as she coughed up blood.
His weapon had just pierced through the vitals of the ship girl he loved so much, and yet, she was smiling at him happily, tears of joy flowing down her cheeks.
Smith looked into her eyes and shouted. "Are you crazy?! We need to get you into the docks!"
Arizona's eyes just mirrored the flames surrounding them, while her black blood slowly began staining Smith's white uniform.
Arizona gently shook her hand and gathered her remaining power to speak weakly, while gently shaking her head. "If I had gone with you, you would have lost something you hold very dear."
'What the hell are you talking about?! I couldn't give a damn about this job or what people thi-'
The sound of two more shots filled the air, while Arizona just continued to smile at him full of affection. "I'll rather go to hell than taking something you love so much from you." She paused, and the sound of thunder cut through the air, followed by heavy rain whipping against Smith's face, which completely hid his tears.
Still, Arizona saw them and knew they were there. That was actually enough for her. "Besides… Right now… everyone needs their hero…" She moved her hand on his cheek and intensified her gaze. "Take good care of your…" The Dreadnought paused for a second and then smiled while blinking long. "Our child."
Right now, those were Arizona's feelings. She knew looking at Yuki as her own child was stupid, especially given their relationship, but for some reason, she did nevertheless.
Smith wanted to answer but was muted fast.
With her last remaining strength, Arizona had pulled herself up and pressed her lips against his one last time. "I love you, Bruce."
And as the next thunder roared through the sky, Arizona slumped and only Smith was left alive.
Slowly, his fiance dissolved into dozens of small golden orbs, that floated up the sky, leaving his arms empty.
Smith sat there, tears still flowing down his eyes.
He didn't know how much time he had spent in the rain since Arizona vanished anymore.
"Admiral!" A silent voice could be heard from the side, but Smith didn't really seem to notice it.
"Admiral!" Enterprise almost shouted, finally causing him to turn to her. Enterprise and Saratoga gave him a relieved smile. They were happy their commander seemed unharmed. "It's over. We've won."
The apparently 'strange' switch between how Arizona/Central Princess is being referred to throughout the chapter is fully intended, and there is actually a pattern to it. I might actually go back to the last one and fix it up there too.
Some of you might also think that they have seen the last part somewhere before. Since it's been MUCH longer than I had planned since then: It's the extended/ more customized version of the short paragraph the pearl arc started with in chapter 4.