With Chitose:

I finally allowed myself a large sigh of relief as the last Destroyer was practically disintegrated, finished off by three of my remaining Zuiun's. The Destroyers hadn't lasted long, their AA too weak to ward-off my dive bombers. That, combined with the torpedo spreads from Georgia and shell-fire from Countess and Hakone the fleet hadn't stood a chance. Not when attacked from so many vectors at once. I pulled out of my 'Carrier sight,' the cockpit of one of my Zuiuns quickly replaced by the sight of Commander Lao scrambling up onto the nearby car ferry.

"Commander, what are you doing?" I asked curiously. The Commander, eyes wide from the second story of the ferry, replied while scanning the water frantically.

"D-Didn't you see what that Submarine did?! She wrestled a B-Battleship into the water! I'm n-not setting keel in open water again unless I c-can see where that thing is!" I hadn't, actually, I'd been concentrating on sinking the small ships too much to pay any attention to the Ta-class flagship's demise, it being Georgia though... I could guess why Lao was unnerved.

"Oh, Pham... Don't worry! Georgia would never hur-"

"She. Capsized. And. Drowned. A. Battleship." The small Frigate reiterated, and I winced, thatwas a fairly bad way to go. Why did Georgia have to do these things? Was I somehow to blame for her behavior? I'd been her first contact after all...

I shook the depressing thought out of my head, looking to Lao, I decided to give Georgia a call to give her a piece of my mind. "This is Chitose, Georgia? I know you arent under radio silence, respond, over." I waited a couple of beats. Georgia responded, her voice coming in faintly as she spoke, probably to Countess.

"-ou grab the arms, I'll pick up the legs, you have way more upper body-strenth than me, alright, gotta talk to Chitose, hold on." The Submarines voice got louder as she put her mouth closer to the radio, which was odd, as the radio was technically inside of her in the first place. "Chitose! To what do I owe the pleasure of your sultry voice?" I sputtered a bit at that, the cheeky sub always managed to tease me in situations like this!

"G-Georgia!" I continued, to the background of Georgia's giggles. "This is serious! Lao is terrified, she's on top of the car-ferry and won't come down onto the open water because of whatever it was you did to that Fast Battleship! What did you even do?!"

"What? She saw that? How? Oh, wait, right, that weird third-eye Carrier mojo, forgot about that. Well, I kind tackled her and sorta threw my weight around, we both ended up underwater, and I sorta... bit her collarbone open, then I-"

"Georgia." My voice was perfectly calm and even. "Did you just say that you took a bite out of that ship? Because I sincerely remember you making a promise that-"

"Oh OH! No! No, I didn't eat anything! I just clamped on and tore, I didn't swallow anything!" That was... Better, as sad as that was to say. "In any case, yeah, after that I just held her down till her compartments filled up! And so here we are!" That was absolutely terrifying, a little expected by now, but terrifying. That sort of method would have left the ship remarkably intact, though, and along with what I'd heard raised another question.

"Are, are you bringing it back? I heard you talking about it with Countess." I'd need to warn Lao if that was the case, no need to frighten the poor thing more than she already was with an unexpected corpse!

"...Now, if I say no... Would you believe me?" I facepalmed.

"Just... I'll talk to Lao, we have to get moving as soon as you're back, so if you want it someones going to have to carry it, and I'll tell you now I'm not doing it for you."

"AWESOME! That's OK, I'll just show Countess how to do a fireman's carry and she can do it herself, once we have the hull drained again she'll probably float un-assisted anyways, the only real hole is just below her bridge! See you in a few, Georgia, out!" Why did I feel as though I was a mother allowing her child to keep a stray kitten? Oh, wait, of course.

I turned back to Lao, craning my head up to look at her as the Frigate scanned the water with her eyes and, presumably, her sonar. "Lao?" No response. "Commander!" her eyes darted to mine. "Georgia's cruising up with the Ta-class's hull, Countess is with her."

"W-Why?" A very good question.

"Remember when I told you about how Georgia 'made' Hakone?" The Frigate nodded cautiously, before freezing in-place, her brow rising almost to the hairline.

"You don't mean...?"

"Yes, at least, that's what I've gathered." I grinned a little. "I guess soon we might have a Fast-Battleship on our side!" Before my grin died at the next thought. "I hope she isn't too childish, I already feel like an overworked kindergarten teacher sometimes..." I quickly backtracked at Lao's offended expression. "Ah! N-not you of course! I meant the other girls!" Oh, she wasn't buying it... I needed a distraction! "Ah, and um... Lao? You may want to come down, I can see up your skirt from here."

"EEP!"

With Georgia:

I signed off the radio with a small squeal of glee as cruised along behind Countess, holding the Ta's locked-up legs like a wheel-barrow as countess held her arms under her armpits. Water was still draining from the hole in her hull, as well as out of her mouth, nose, and ears. "She said we can keep her Countess!" I said giddily, the big ship merely cast a glance back, making a small shrug, careful not to dislodge her half of the cargo.

"I̸ ̵d̴o̷n̷'̷t̸ ̷s̴e̵e̶ ̴t̴h̵e̵ ̵b̸i̸g̶ ̶d̶e̶a̸l̵ ̶m̶y̷s̵e̵l̵f̸."

"Oh come ON! We got a Battleship! It'll be so cool! I won't have to worry about you or Hakone taking too much damage with a Battlewagon there to help you!" Countess drooped a bit at that, and I wasn't able to tell from her scratchy voice, but she seemed almost sullen.

"N̵o̸t̷ ̸m̷u̴c̶h̷ ̸o̸f̴ ̸o̶n̸e̸,̴ ̷s̶h̴e̵ ̴d̵i̸d̶n̸'̸t̵ ̶e̶v̴e̷n̴ ̴d̷e̵s̵t̵r̶o̵y̵ ̴a̴n̶y̷t̶h̶i̸n̸g̸ ̷b̷e̵f̵o̶r̸e̸ ̸g̵e̷t̶t̷i̸n̶g̸ ̷s̵u̶n̴k̵,̷ ̶I̸ ̵t̸o̵o̶k̷ ̴o̵n̶ ̵t̷w̵o̸ ̷N̴e̸'̷s̵ ̷a̴t̷ ̷o̵n̷c̸e̵!̷ ̷W̸h̷a̴t̶ ̷d̵o̶e̶s̷ ̴s̷h̴e̷ ̸h̶a̵v̷e̴ ̵t̴h̴a̴t̸ ̴I̷ ̵d̴o̷n̸'̵t̸?" Oooooh, she was feeling jealous wasn't she? Time to nip that one in the bud.

"Now Countess, you know that I consider you a vital part of... Whatever this is that we have. I'd never trade you in for a better model! Think of it like... Like getting a new big sister, yeah? One you can rely on to help protect everyone! She'll be new as well remember, so she'll need you to teach her the ropes of being a big surface ship!" That seemed to do the trick, the slump disappearing from her posture as the Light Battlecruiser carried-on in silence.

That was about the time Hakone finally caught up to us, steaming in from the West.

"Hi Countess, Georgia! That was a close one, if I hadn't moved out of the bracket-shots she'd have had me for sure! I don't think I'd be able to handle 15" rounds very well at all!" I nodded at that, a Heavy Cruiser had heavy armor, but a 15" shell was a 15" shell. "So that's the girl? Wow, she's really big, and that's a lot of 6" secondaries... Think she'll be nice?" I hoped so, and told Hakone as much, I hadn't had any crew set-foot inside the hull yet, so I had no idea what kind of ship she even was.

We continued on in relative silence, me and Hakone going over the battle through our own perspectives as Countess chimed in occasionally with her own remarks. Until we finally reached the intersection we'd left the carries at. Most of the civilian ships and small militarized junks were long out of sight, having continued on at full-steam while we'd dealt with the Abyssal strike force, I could still see the screwed-up bridgeless car ferry, right where Hakone had left it, and along with that was Chitose, apparently trying to coax the Commander off of it like a scared cat stuck in a tree.

"Hey, Chitose! We're back!" I would have waved, but my arms were full of Abyssal keel. Lao made a noise, before scooting further onto the roof of the ferry, peeking over the edge with wide eyes. Chitose huffed at that frustratedly, before turning and waving at me.

"Georgia! you ready to go? We need Hakone on the ferry again..." She continued, looking askance over her shoulder and raising her voice a little. "...And Lao needs to get OFF of it."

"Never! I'm a land-ship now! You can't make me!" Oh my god, this Frigate was adorable.

"But you're on another boat, not land." I pointed out reasonably. Lao just looked at me fearfully, before pointing at me in an accusing manner.

"I'll come down, but on one condition. You stay the hell away from me! Within eyesight! Thesecond I don't know where you are I'm on land again, got it?!" Oh, how naive to think being on land would keep me from sneaking up on her, but if it got the girl to come down...

"Sure, now can we get going? You're holding up our escape from death, dismemberment, and possible cannibalization of parts." The Commander turned a bit sheepish at that, remembering that we were in a bit of a time-sensitive situation here.

"R-Right." She climbed down one-handed, keeping one hand holding down the back of her skirt for some reason. As she did, Hakone cruised up to grab-hold of the ferry again, and I told Countess how to properly carry the now-fully-drained Battleship. Lao put her middle and index fingers up to her eyes, before pointing at me, I simply shrugged and grinned widely.

And so we started off once more, leaving fiery wrecks and oil-slicks in our wake, it sounds a lot cooler than it was, but them's the breaks.