My vision flickered, white noise at the edge of my sight. How bad had the damage been? I'd been fighting... a Hime? I'd had my rigging shoot torpedoes into her back, then fire everywhere... I tried to turn my head, and that in and of itself was a chore.
I couldn't see out of my left eye, I couldn't even feel it moving in my socket as I moved it around! Was it gone?! I reached up with my arm and- My arm flailed short of its intended target, probably because it was short itself, terminating at the elbow.
"Well, dang." I thought, looking around at my immediate surroundings. Hakone, the dear, was passing tools to my crew, and from the sound of muttered Japanese among some of the fairies, hers as well. Countess was eating something with Giang (And when did he get here?) and the little Duc'ling was playing around with some of my fairies, the little girls using his arm as a slide while he giggled in Vietnamese.
"Copper pipe." My Chief engineer called out, Hakone passed her the item as the rest of the crew set to cutting it up for proper fitting. I looked down at myself, I was a wreck. I still had shrapnel (From the Cruiser-Hime?) sticking out of my blackened chest in places, my form was almost completely black, oil and soot having hardened onto my hull. I needed to sand this off, "wire brush." I asked, holding out my arm expectantly, Hakone, apparently lost in thought, wordlessly handed me the implement. I rasped it across my front a few times, but the angle was awkward with only one hand, and I only got a few of the larger flakes off. I looked at my gammie-arm sadly, was this my life now? Would I be able to put it back on here? or would I need to pull a Chitose and deal with stump jokes for a while? I shook my head, now wasn't the time for depressing thoughts, there was only one thing to do.
"Hug," I called out to Hakone, dropping the brush and holding out my good arm. The girl looked as though she was going to pass something to me but paused, silly girl, you don't pass a hug! She looked at me, eyes widening. "Hug, need one right now, please?" Hakone let out a squeal as she flung herself at me, the engineers working around me barely able to avoid being crushed between us as the Ri snuggled into me.
"GEORGIA!" I squeezed back, letting my Negative-Nancy feelings drain away, before I patted her back awkwardly.
"Hey," I said, Hakone turning her head so we were nose to nose. "Your pushing on one of my shrapnel wounds, it's starting to hurt." Hakone gasped, springing from me as I rubbed the area around the spike she'd been driving into me.
"I'm sososo sorry!" Hakone wailed, her eyes watering.
"No biggie, just be careful next time." I looked as everyone gathered around me, Duc stayed-put, enjoying my crew's company too much to get up. "So, where are we and why? Also, when did you two show up?" I said the last to Giang, who shrugged.
"Was minding own business, your friends stumbled into the basement we at." He actually blushed a little as he continued. "Hakone... convince us to help get you away from City." Duc chose that moment to speak-up from where he was playing, I don't know what he said, but it set Giang to sputtering as he replied back in rapid-fire Vietnamese. Duc laughed, before going back to his entertainment.
"They kept up the bombardment while you were out, Georgia, we had to take cover in the hospital's basement to avoid any more damage to you, we met the brothers there. The City is gone, I think they are still shelling it actually." Hakone said, picking up where Giang left off. "Giang knew about this gas-station out past the suburbs, we figured we could lay low for a while and get you fixed." She looked down at my arm briefly. "Or at least conscious." Well they'd definitely achieved that much.
"Thanks guys, all of you, for looking after me," I said sincerely. "I'd probably have died if you hadn't carted my unconscious butt off, really, thanks." Hakone positively beamed, while Countess took the chance to speak up.
"̴T̸h̸e̵y̷ ̵p̸r̵o̶b̶a̶b̸l̸y̷ ̷b̷l̶e̷w̷ ̸u̴p̷ ̷t̷h̵e̵ ̸h̵o̶u̵s̶e̷,̷ ̴w̵h̷e̷r̴e̶ ̷d̴o̴ ̴w̸e̷ ̵g̸o̶ ̶n̷o̶w̸?̷"̷ I paused, taken aback. That boat had been our home for a while now... but far more importantly:
"Countess, since when do you talk?" The woman shrugged, and a few loose splinters of her armor chose that moment to fall off.
"̴F̸o̵u̴g̴h̶t̷ ̶a̴ ̵c̶o̴u̷p̸l̵e̵ ̶o̷f̷ ̷N̵e̶-̴c̴l̵a̵s̴s̷,̷ ̴I̴ ̸w̴o̸n̸,̴ ̷s̷o̴ ̷I̶ ̸a̴t̴e̵ ̸t̷h̷e̷i̴r̵ ̸h̸e̵a̶d̸s̸ ̴f̶o̴r̸ ̸t̷h̶e̴i̴r̵ ̶v̴o̷i̸c̵e̸ ̴b̸o̵x̸e̶s̷.̴"̸ I stared at countess with my good eye, who looked me in the eye right back with HER singular orb (together we made a full pair!)
"You know, I'd say why that should be considered wrong, but with how I made you in the first place, I really don't have the room to cast shade." Countess seemed confused by my turn of phrase. "Just, just don't eat anyone we know, or unless I give the go-ahead, okay?" She nodded, idly fingering one of the holes that went through her hanger. "Don't pick at that, you'll make it worse!" I snapped at her, the fingering stopped. Meanwhile, Giang seemed more and more alarmed at the way the conversation was going, I turned to him and said comfortingly. "We mean Abyssals, she doesn't eat humans." I looked at Countess. "Right?" She shrugged, that was SO not reassuring. "Countess! No eating humans!" She nodded slowly. "I want to hear you say it!" I said warningly, wagging my finger.
"̴I̷ ̸p̸r̷o̸m̵i̸s̴e̸ ̴I̶ ̵w̶o̵n̶'̷t̶ ̸e̸a̸t̴ ̶a̶n̶y̷ ̷h̷u̷m̸a̴n̷s̶,̷ ̴t̷h̵e̴r̴e̷,̵ ̸h̷a̶p̵p̸y̵?̷" She said mulishly. I nodded my head.
"Very, now as for where to go..." I paused, where could we go? the river to the south was chock-full of hostile abyssal, the humans (present company hopefully excluded.) Hated our guts, the only real person that I knew would probably help us was... "Chitose!" I said. "She'd be able to help! I hope." The brothers looked confused, Duc more so, seeing as he had no idea what I was saying at all. "She's a Kanmusu we helped out a little while ago, maybe she can get the Vietnamese to take us in for a while? at least until this blows over and we can get out of their hair?" Giang seemed rather shocked.
"You know Kanmusu?! A ship spirit?" I nodded happily, not sure why he didn't count ME as a ship-spirit but whatever. "Where is she? Close by?"
"Yup, just a few hours up-river at full-steam actually! I think the place we let her off was Short Zooyen?" At his blank look I tried again. "Maybe Long? Long Zooyen?" His eyes lit up in recognition.
"Long Xuyen!"
"That's what I said!" I agreed happily.
"Many people fled there on their way further into Cambodia, we never went, by the time we came out of hiding, Abyssals were patrolling further inland." He shrugged, "Better to scrounge in empty land then get shot trying to move." That was fair enough.
"Alright! We have a gameplan, people!' I went to clap my hands together before I remembered being a one-armed bandit. "After we get some more patchwork done, we find a working landline and I'll give that number Chitose gave us a call! If she gets put on the line, we can hash out a way to get us into Long Xuyan-"
"Long XuyEn."
"That's what I said! And then we can go from there!" I looked at the brothers, "Want a lift? we could bring you along if you want. You must miss being around other humans, right?" Giang paused in thought, before seemingly coming to a decision as he nodded his head.
"Nothing left for here, with the city gone, most good pickings for preservatives are up in the smoke, we won't get a better chance to get through the border if not with you." He translated the new plan to Duc, who shot a suspicious look at Hakone for some reason, before nodding his head slowly.
"Alright! Plan not get shot on the humans doorstep is-go!" I made to fist pump, only to put a hole through a table I didn't see on my left side with my stump. Dang gammie-eye... though speaking of... I turned to my Chief Engineer, getting the little woman's attention.
"Can I get an eyepatch?"
For that matter, if they cant put the forearm back on, why not replace it with a hook? may as well.
So it seems Chitose and Georgia's separation may be shorter than expected. Oh no. who could have seen this plot development coming? certainly not like, 90% of you lol.
