Portland's great adventure Chapter 34: The Solomon Struggle: Santa Cruz Part 3, an azur lane/碧蓝航线 fanfic

Disclaimer: Indy Best Girl

Why is it always the first week returning to School the hardest one to deal with?

Reviews:

John: Now that you say it, I'm just imagining Hornet wearing shades and carrying a chainsaw. "Ha Ha Eagle Union go Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr"

The One: Horny must survive. (Hornet might not.)

Severak: Well one of the character might be gone a bit sooner than you think...

Enterprise's POV:

"Hornet has escaped and is currently regrouping with her task force." Grim cawed. "She is safe for now."

"Thank God." I exhaled in relief, my coat once again falling below my shoulders. I readjusted my jacket before addressing the group. "Hornet is safe for now. We shall continue the mission."

"Continue?" Portland asked. "But Hornet is not operational, shouldn't we suspend our activities until she gets better?"

"We have critically damaged two carriers." I responded, refueling the landing dive bombers. "We must sink them before they return to Truk and repair."

"But this is too dangerous, is it not?" Portland pointed out. "They must at least have another carrier group here."

"At best, they have one more." I responded. "The rest are either occupied in other theaters or of negligent potence."

"We need better than one to one odds to ensure victory." Portland responded. "We should not risk our only operational carrier in the hopes of damaging one of theirs."

"Portland," I sighed. "Essex and her sisters are coming off the line rather soon. It is not us that needs to treasure air power. Any opportunity to sink one of their carriers must be acted upon."

"Very well." Portland conceded.

"So what are we doing now?" South Dakota began to juggle ammunition in the air. "Just wait and stuff?"

"You're supposed to be providing Anti Air Fire." I notched a fighter in my bow, walking closer to the front. "But for the time being, we are unspotted now."

"Are we in range of their fleet?" Portland asked.

"We should be." San Juan took a rough estimate. "I mean, they were able to attack Hornet, who were supposed to be rather close to us."

"Hornet fought in hand to hand combat…" I muttered, scanning the sea. "They should be close enough to us."

"Would engaging from this close of a distance risk Surface Combat?" Portland interjected my launching process.

"You may be right." I judged the situation, slowing down. Surely we would be able to hold out long enough to make a run away. Our fighter patrols should last long enough, and our Combined AA would be a strong enough deterrent.

"We can just fire some salvos and kite away." South Dakota echoed my sentiments. "Hornet seemed to do that well enough, and she didn't have a battleship."

"But Hornet got lucky." Portland waved it off. "Now, if she had Indy on the other hand…"

"Please don't." San Juan rubbed her forehead.

"The Gospel of Indy must be preached!" Portland started her sermon. "Even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream. I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: 'We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men shall bow down beneath the glory of Indy' I have a dream that on-"

"Stop." I swung my right arm to the side. There was something off; the pacified sea was just barely quivering, as if it was preparing for a thunderstorm.

I instinctively jumped back, soaking my screen with saltwater.

"Ewww." South Dakota pried seaweed from her hair. "Was that really necessary?"

"Sorry, I suppose I was on edge." I began to apologize. "It jus-"

From behind, I was tackled to the ground. Seconds later, a hurricane of bombs rained from the sky.

"Awww." A figure dropped from the sky, her lavender hair ruffling through her descent. A wooden deck fanned out from behind her like a scroll as the planes began to rumble off the parchment. "I almost got ya."

"Who are you." I quickly sprung up to my feet, loading a plane in my catapult.

"I think you have a file on me somewhere." She shrugged as her painted fighters formed a rainbow behind her. " I'm famous, ya know?"

"I'm sorry, we don't keep records on mediocrely skilled aircraft carriers." San Juan jeered.

"Ouch!" The carrier grasped her heart, pretending to be hurt. "I suppose I must introduce myself then."

"I am Junyou!" Her planes passed in front of her, forming a staircase on which she climbed above us. "The world's number one Idol!"

"The world's number one Idol!"

"The world's number one Idol!" Saratoga proclaimed as she poured fish oil into my coffee.

"The world's number one Idol!" Saratoga proclaimed as she replaced the light bulbs with disco balls.

"The world's number one Idol!" Saratoga proclaimed as she dumped 3 tons of balloons in my office.

"The world's number one Idol!" Saratoga proclaimed as she flashed her 20 year old panties at me. (1)

Oh god. Not again.

I drew my bow and furiously barraged the staircase with bullet rounds. Junyo slipped from the shaking and barely managed to land on her feet as she touched down on the sea.

"Well that wasn't very nice." Junyo brushed off some soot from her oriental gown. "I just got this a few months ago. Look at what you did to it. Apologize!"

"I would rather not." I closed the distance and initiated combat.

I started with a quick jab to the side of the head, to which Junyo jumped back as her planes funneled out from behind her. I held my deck in front of me as the torpedo bombers rapidly closed in. I closed my eyes and braced for the expected impact.

I lowered my deck and saw that the torpedo bombers had disappeared. A buzzing sound in my ear turned my head to the side, where the kates had repositioned themselves at my sides. They aborted their attack to form a Hammer and Anvil!

"Clever." I thought as I turned around and reversed my engine, repositioning my armored hull against the bombers. "But not clever enough."

A fist materialized from my behind, slamming into me with the weight of 250 Kilogram bombs.

"Surprise!" Junyou cheered as she hopped back away, with her colorful palette of planes returning to rearm.

"This is going to be a troublesome one." Portland noted as she handed me some ammunition.

"Want to retreat?" South Dakota offered.

"I'm fine." I formulated a plan in my head. "I've got an ace up my sleeve."

"Shikikan." I asked as the sun began to set on the tranquil harbor. "Why is it so important for us to exercise this far away from base?"

"When you utilize this power for the first few times, it makes you incredibly vulnerable." Shikikan responded, stuffing a small packet of instructions in my backpack. "This is a safety precaution to make sure that you are completely safe."

"Safety precaution from what?" I whined. "The Iris Domain and the Royal Navy can easily hold any Iron Blood Expansion, and the Sakura Empire is currently busy fighting the Dragon Emperey. Who else would dare attack us?"

"Enterprise, you and your big sister are going to be the future of the Eagle Union." The aging Shikikan patted my head. "It is important for you to become the strongest you can be, in case they ever rise again…"

"Who are they?" I asked. "The Dual Crown kingdom? The Northern Monarchy?"

"You don't need to know about that for now." Shikikan smiled as he led me to a group of battleships. "Tennessee, you're in charge of taking care of her. Make sure she learns this skill, understood?"

The battleship nodded before grabbing my hand.

"Oh ho?" Junyou struck a pose, "You're approaching me?" (2)

"Indeed." I grinned, launching myself and a squadron of dive bombers at the mirage of chromatic weapons.

All I have to do is set up the perfect counter attack.

"Good Luck!" Junyou's planes bursted out from behind her deck, twisting in mid air as they strafed the avengers, turning each one of them into a gooey mess.

I continued to charge at the carrier, my shield of escort fighters slowly disintegrating through the flames of their zeros.

Just one more step closer… Come on...

"Got'cha!" Junyou took out a dive bomber and met my charge with a stab.

"Counting on that." I dug my heels in the water and forced my momentum to throw me backwards. Matching speeds achieved. Midair, I took out my bow and notched a torpedo.

Skill Activation:

Lucky E

The explosive flung at the Sakura Carrier whistled in the air.

Goodbye, Junyou.

Detonation in 5

Skill Activation:

Eagle's Defiance

The torpedo did not arm. (3)

My momentum died down just as Junyou accelerated towards me.

The Carrier flashed a grin.

Junyou's hand connected to my waist, and a 500 Kilogram bomb exploded in my gut.

The shockwaves sent me reeling to the ground, as ruby red blood polluted with gunpowder gushed out from my belly. I clutched my stomach, desperately grasping a towel to help bandage the rapidly forming gap.

"You know, I would sink you here and now." I could barely make out Junyou's voice through the pain. "But my dumb senpai wants something of an armistice, so you get to live for now. Or the honors of killing you, I forgot which one was it. Her voice is just so drabby, and she's always like 'oh Shokaku this!' and 'oh Shokaku that!' But at least you get to live! Remember that in the negotiations, okay? It was fun fighting you, for sure."

I was being pitied my a light carrier. I bit my lip and tried to stand back up, but collapsed once again on the ocean waves

"Let's get you to Vestal." Portland muttered as my screen ships hurried to me and began to carry me away.

Hornet's POV:

"Northampton!" I waved. "Over here!"

"There you are!" She sailed to me.

"Oh my gosh, I've been looking for you for so long." I shook my head. "You haven't been responding to my radio calls at all, what is up with you?"

"Yeah, sorry?" She apologized, bowing. "My bad."

"Why are you apologizing?" I took a step back. Something's off. "The Northampton I know isn't this nice."

Northampton didn't respond, but took one step closer to me.

"Northampton, what is your hull number?" I ordered, launching a squadron of torpedo bombers in the sky.

Northampton fired anti air rounds against my planes, and took yet another silent step towards me.

I glared at Northampton's face. What did she think she was doing?

Then, a ice cold bucket of realization forced a chill down my back.

Northampton's eyes weren't yellow.

Battle of Santa Cruz Islands:

Pyrrhic Sakura Victory

Footnotes:

(1): Saratoga is technically 11 years older than Enterprise. (Does it make her shotacon?)

(2): MUDA MUDA MUDA MUDA MUDA MUDA

(3): Eagle Union Torpedos are known to be quite trash. They should ask Ark Royal to design them, she's an expert on 'pedos.

Yeah, hear me out:

It's true that the Sakura Empire did lose a lot of planes, and temporarily lost two carriers in the field. However, they did manage to remove all allied carriers from action in Guadalcanal for the time being, Except for USS Robin. (Fun Fact, Robin was not a Eagle Union Carrier, but actually HMS Formidable! God save the Queen!)

Although this was a tactical victory for the Sakura Empire, The problem was that the Sakura Empire had to overrun the Eagle Union at every battle to win the war, and since they failed to do so here, they were no longer able to win anymore.

Hoo, that was long.

Anyways, see you next week!