Chitose came out of the bathroom with a sigh of relief, her freshly washed clothes feeling fantastic against her hull. The other ships were waiting in their shared bedroom, Coun-Anne, had to remember that, Reclining on the bed, staring at the ceiling as Hakone chatted with Lao, recalling her experience after she'd run from the police with Georgia and Anne.
"You really shouldn't have run, what if they chased you? The property damage alone..." Lao said. Hakone looked indignant at that.
"Georgia said we were too pretty for women's prison! If we went with them they'd try and do weird stuff to us, so we ran after her!" Lao facepalmed as Chitose gave out a small giggle, covering her mouth.
"You know, I have no idea where you three went after you left the bar, I was... Well, I wasn't going anywhere in a hurry, lets put it that way." Lao snorted.
"More like the police were struggling to put your aft into their cruiser while you had your sheets to the wind." Chitose ducked her head at that, still slightly mortified over it as the Frigate continued. "So in any case, Hakone, you told me a bit about the next part, you said you ended up in the old scrapyard, what happened after you broke in?"
"We ate a few cars, Georgia found some copper and aluminum, Anne even found a few shards of Abyssal steel!" The two Kanmusu startled at that, before Lao shrugged a little.
"Well, with how long this war has been going on, shouldn't be surprised some small bits of scrap from a fucked-up Abyssal ship ended up in a yard." Chitose made a noise at Lao's cursing, but quieted with a huff as the Frigate just tilted the thumb of her closed fist towards her mouth in a drinking motion, grinning.
"...Well, after we were chased off by the night guard there, we wandered around for a bit, trying to find our way back home, we must have gone somewhere we weren't supposed to, because we got attacked-"
"What!?" Hakone nodded.
"Yeah! it was a group of five humans with bandanna's over their bridges, they started yelling at Georgia, and we had to hit them a couple times to make them stop when they attacked us with baseball bats and crowbars!" Chitose drew herself up, looking horrified.
"Please tell me you didn't kill anyone?!" The Heavy Cruiser just shrugged.
"Probably not? They were all screaming a lot when we left, so they obviously still had working boilers. And if they had any magazines we didn't hit any. They even still had their command bridges!"
"That isn't how humans work Hakone!" The Cruiser simply repeated her shrug, not all that concerned over what happened to enemy vessels.
"After that, we went to a place that had a lot of needles, Georgia tried to get me and Anne a 'Tattoo,' to commemorate our christening, but the needle broke off on my hull..." Lao, puzzled, cut in, even as Chitose gasped.
"Wait, christening?" The Cruiser nodded, smiling happily.
"Yup! I never got christened as a ship, neither did Countess, so Chitose and Georgia got a couple of champagne bottles and smashed them over our bridge, that's why Countess is Anne now, Chitose named her!" The Frigates mouth worked silently for a moment before she sighed.
"That explains the 'violent hooligans' the Chief of police mentioned...I guess I never really realized that most Abyssals weren't ever actual steel hulls, you never would have had a christening ceremony, would you? Anyway, contin-"
"-Tattoo's?! She tried to get you tattoo's? Is Georgia insane!?" Chitose finally found her voice. Hakone leaned back from her outburst, even as Anne picked up where she left off.
"S̴h̷e̶ ̴d̸i̸d̴ ̷a̸c̷t̶u̷a̸l̴l̶y̸,̵ ̸s̸h̵e̵ ̶g̶o̷t̷ ̷t̶h̶e̸ ̸i̵n̸k̴ ̶a̵n̶d̴ ̴h̸a̷d̵ ̷t̷h̷e̷ ̸a̸r̸t̸i̶s̴t̸ ̴a̴i̸r̸b̶r̷u̵s̵h̷ ̶t̶h̶e̴m̷ ̴o̷n̷t̴o̷ ̴o̷u̶r̸ ̵h̵u̴l̵l̷'̸s̸,̶ ̷h̸a̷d̶ ̴t̷o̵ ̴u̴s̶e̶ ̴s̸o̶m̵e̴ ̷o̵f̸ ̵m̵y̷ ̵o̵l̸d̷ ̸a̶i̷r̷c̸r̶a̷f̷t̵ ̸p̷a̵i̴n̸t̴ ̶w̷a̴n̷d̶s̴." Chitose froze, before a look of terrifying calm took over her face.
"Show me."
Hakone scooted up on the bed first, a bit hesitant, and rolled up the sleeve of her right arm, revealing two anchors on her shoulder leaning against each other, ? ﾝﾕﾺ? written across both in a fancy English font. The tattoo was actually quite well-done, and the colors showed up starkly on Hakone's white hull. "I told Georgia I should get two, because I have two moms." She said.
Chitose put her hands up to her mouth, eyes watering in shock. While she was speechless, Anne turned her back to everyone, lifting her top to reveal her shoulders. She had a nautical star right between her shoulder blades. "S̷o̵ ̶I̴ ̷c̷o̴u̶l̷d̴ ̵a̵l̷w̷a̷y̴s̸ ̴f̵i̵n̴d̴ ̵m̴y̶ ̵w̷a̷y̷ ̴h̵o̸m̸e̵," Anne said. Before turning around and holding her fists out towards them, showing off the ? ﾝﾖﾔ? ﾝﾖﾉ ? ﾝﾖﾆ? ﾝﾖﾙ tattooed onto her knuckles. "S̷o̶ ̶I̴ ̶n̷e̵v̷e̴r̸ ̶l̵o̶s̸e̸ ̶m̵y̸ ̴g̷r̷i̴p̷ ̴i̵n̴ ̶a̷ ̶f̸i̷g̶h̴t̵." Chitose finally recovered, taking hold of Anne's hands and looking closer at the words as the large ship shifted, a little uncomfortable at the close attention.
"Did Georgia get one too?" Anne nodded as Hakone spoke up.
"She got a really big one too! It took a while, it took up her whole upper back, it's a big giant squid with a skull for a face!" Chitose sighed, running her hand down her face, wiping away her tears as she got herself under control. Lao, meanwhile, was looking over Hakone's tattoo with interest as the Cruiser kept her sleeve up to let her look.
"This is great work! Never thought of getting a tattoo before...The Vietnamese Navy frowns on tattoos in exposed areas... Though I AM a Kanmusu, and they allow for odd uniforms for us... Maybe an American bald eagle and a Vietnamese dragon? That would be a pretty cool pair of sleeves..."
"And then what happened?" Chitose said shakily, internalizing the rant on Georgia's irresponsible behavior for when she actually FOUND the sub.
"That's about the time we lost Georgia, actually, we were looking everywhere for her, and I'm fairly certain I heard her laughing a few times, but in the end we figured she'd just follow us if we went back to the hostel, that's about the time we met up with Lao here." Hakone gestured to the Frigate, who gave a gesture of acknowledgment.
"So the last time you saw her was outside the tattoo parlor?" The two ships nodded. "Then we have a starting point, I'll get Ha Si and his older son, we'll head down and see if the tattoo artist saw anything, then we can go from there, OK?" Once more she got agreement from all of the ships present.
The hunt for the drunk Ohio begins! Short chapter, but I figured I'd flesh out what the hell actually happened after the cops showed up. Georgia does not remember virtually any of this, and will be quite surprised, in fact, when she realizes she has a massive tattoo on her back.