"AHHRRG! STAHP! I GIVE I GIVE!" I begged, as Chitose, arm wrapped around my neck, gave me the mother of all noogies with her free hand. "HAVE MERCY!" I wailed.
"I was in the drunk tank all night while you were who-knows-where doing who-knows-what! And I finally find you and you're having monks set you on fire!? What is wrong with you!?"
"They wanted to try a spirit-cleansing ritual and I was feeling guilty after I ate their food OK? How was I supposed to know it would actually do anything?!" I defended.
"YOU ATE THEIR FOOD?!"
As I struggled to get out of Chitose's chokehold the rest of the fleet rushed in, Lao came in first, bowing quickly to the old guy, who returned it, before launching into a conversation with him in Khmer. She was followed by Hakone, and finally Anne. Who, seeing me under vicious assault from a rabid Japanese Seaplane Tender, promptly charged to my rescue!
"ACK!" Oooor they just thought we were hugging and wanted to join in.
"Please, off, cant, breathe!" I choked out within the mass of ship-people.
"You don't need to breathe." My Captain helpfully reminded me.
"Oh, yeah."
Eventually, everyone disentangled from each other. Starting when Chitose realized there were still over a dozen monks in the room with us, watching with looks ranging between bemusement and mild irritation. She stepped back, dusting herself off and acting like she hadn't just tried to strangle me. Hakone and Anne continued hugging me for another minute, until I noticed something on Anne's knuckles.
"Anne? did you get a tattoo?!" The ship nodded. "Why in Go-" I glanced at the monks. "-why would you do that!? Getting a tattoo is a big deal!"
"B-But Georgia, you're the one who told us to get them!" Hakone responded. I was taken aback.
"What?! I Did?! You have one too?!" Hakone nodded, the ship rolling up her sleeve to reveal two anchors with the word mom, on each... Two moms... Oh. I looked over at Chitose, who looked back, a little embarrassed. I did jazz hands.
"It's a girl yaaaay?" She smacked me. "OW! Domestic abuse! I want a divorce!" By now Chitose's face was burning, more than mine had earlier!
"Stop it, I know exactly what you're doing, OK? Just stop it." I laughed.
...
Japan, Tokyo, Kanmusu Naval Base.
With Admiral Matsumoto Keiko:
Keiko was busy, drawing up fleet compositions in her office. The American Admiral, Tommen Mckenzie, had been reluctant to do such an abrupt transfer, even temporarily. But as soon as Iowa, who'd been lounging in the repair bathes (which did double duty as a regular bathhouse) had been shown the audio recording of her sister, he'd had a choice: Either let his ships join the expedition force willingly, and get suitable temporary replacements for the trip back home. Or, have Iowa desert, along with any ships that decided to follow her, and still get the replacements, except with a lot less goodwill.
Thankfully, Mckenzie knew his girls and knew them well. He hadn't even bothered trying to convince his Battleship not to go, and instead simply told her to send him a list of volunteers. She'd gotten a lot of them.
Keiko looked at the copy she'd been given, an Iowa-Class Battleship, of course, as well as four Destroyers of varying types, a Casablanca Light Carrier, and a Northhampton Heavy Cruiser. Almost enough to make their own strike-group, which Keiko assumed was the point. She'd Assign Mutsu, DesDiv 15, and Junyo, with Tatsuta filling in for Houston. Normally she would be considered a poor exchange for a Northhampton Heavy Cruiser, but the woman had a knack for fighting Submarines, which were more prevalent on the Eastern trade route than most. Likely remnants of the Submarine Hime that had led the Palau Armada.
There was a knock on Keiko's office door, "Enter." she said, wondering why Houshou hadint warned her of a visitor beforehand.
The door opened to reveal an unexpected figure. "Mr. Shen, this is a surprise, I thought you were on business in Kyoto, to what do I owe the pleasure?" The balding man, a Naicho representative Keiko had had dealings with in the past, simply sat down opposite of her, wiping a sweating forehead with a handkerchief he produced from his coat pocket. He nodded in belated greetings.
"Admiral Keiko, I was in Kyoto, until this morning. Before I go on, Is your room secure?" Keiko nodded, intrigued. The man produced a small thumb drive, and Keiko booted up her desktop. "This thumb drive contains numerous pictures and a video that was censored by the Cambodian government, shortly after they were uploaded. It was viewed by a few thousand in that time, and copies were made and reposted to Twitter and Facebook. We are aware that you are getting an expedition ready to send to Vietnam, correct?"
Keiko nodded, only a little surprised that the CIRO had already deduced her plans.
"Me and my associates are smoothing the political hurdles in your way, representatives with the PM's permission are on their way now to get the conservatives to stand down. Consider the mission sanctioned in full, in return, we only ask that you move up your time-table. Keiko blinked, surprised. She inserted the thumb-drive into her computer as she thought of what to say.
"This is, sudden. I can launch the fleet by tomorrow, you actually interrupted me in the middle of composing the composition of the fleet. Why the sudden urgency?" The man sighed.
"Just look." Keiko nodded, opening the folder that popped up automatically on her desktop, she clicked on the first image.
"That is the first of a series of pictures taken in Long Xuyen, Vietnam, shortly before the City fell to the Abyss." The picture was fairly good quality, allowing Keiko to see Chitose and another, unfamiliar Kanmusu. Next to them in a relaxed pose was what was obviously a Ri-Class Heavy Cruiser dressed in a ragged traditional dress, along with another taller ship that had the head of a Ne, but was far too large and heavily armed to be of that class, next to Chitose was a small girl wearing overalls, the Rigging and pale complexion revealing her as an Abyssal as well.
"I assume that one of these ships is the USS Georgia." The man nodded, pointing at the girl. "She's... Smaller, than I expected."
"So was the Northern Princess." That shut Keiko up, the small Princess, herself recorded to be physically the size of a child, had almost single-handedly dismantled an entire Russian/American Battlegroup before disappearing again into the Bering sea. She continued flipping through the pictures, mostly showing different angles of the same scene. "I thought Camera's didn't work on Abyssals?" She said, extremely interested.
"These were taken with cheap disposable cameras and developed in a dark-room. Apparently, Abyssal interference doesn't affect developed film photos." And wasn't that a potential game-changer? With modifications, drones could be equipped with film camera's, they'd still have to make it back to base for development, and actually aiming the camera at an Abyssal would still be near impossible with video, but they'd be able to take pictures in the general direction of interference and get actual, non-scrambled intel!
"This is... Big. But what is this?" Keiko clicked on the last icon, a video file.
"That was a video uploaded last night, the only upload from a new account on youtube, it was taken down shortly after due to the sites copyright policy, but not before it was reposted in other media, the current stable video currently has over ten thousand views, and is growing exponentially.
The camera, hand-held by how it shook around, started centered on the pudgy face of a fairy.
"Hey! hey hey, Hey!" The face was pushed to the side by another fairy, this one dressed in a Japanese sailors uniform, or what passed as one among her girl's fairies.
"Desu! desudesu-"
"HEY!"
The fairy got pushed back out of the frame, which panned shakily around the apparent table the fairy's were standing on, many of them wore Japanese aviation gear (Chitose's crew?) But others wore unfamiliar uniforms, decidedly American in style, but monochrome. They were mostly clustered around a human-sized shot glass, using it as a massive keg to fill their canteens from, the bottle resting next to it implied it was filled with sugar-cane rum.
"Are those... Abyssal fairies?" Shen nodded.
"So it would appear." We watched on as the camerawoman, apparently done messing around, lighted her camera upon the same Abyssal pictured earlier on a stage in what was apparently a bar. As music began to blare from speakers next to her.
...
...
God rest your one-eyed soooooooouul! The video came to an end.
"...Mr. Shen." The spook turned to look at her curiously. "What in the absolute fuck, did I just bear witness to?"
"According to viewer comments? Naka's new rival." He wiped at his brow again at Keiko's unimpressed look. "The Abyssals and the Chitose apparently went on a drunken bender yesterday, the video was only possible due to the camera very likely originating from the Abyssal herself. If any Intelligence agency didn't know about USS Georgia's existence before, they do now." He looked Keiko in the eye, trying to impart the seriousness of the situation.
"If we don't send a fleet to collect her very, very soon, someone else may very well try to beat us to the punch. And gain or, more worryingly, piss off, a potentially nuclear-capable submarine."
You'll notice the Fairies are speaking in 'HEY!'s and "DESU's, that's mostly because it was two humans watching it, any Kanmusu would hear what was actually said, which was mostly drunken slurs and insults between the camerawoman and the video-bombing Japanese fairy.