Kaoh Thum, Cambodia:
"So wait, I have a tattoo, too?" I asked. Chitose, pinching the bridge of her nose, nodded. "Where?" I asked in slight dread. Hopefully, it wasn't tattooed anywhere indecent...Then I wouldn't be able to show it off!
"It's on your upper back, it's a giant squid with a skull on it!" Hakone chimed in. I sighed in relief, that wasn't that bad of a spot, shame I couldn't see it though, sounded awesome.
"That sounds pretty cool actually, but putting all that aside, especially the fact that I'm now apparently the proud co-mother of two young girls at the tender age of, like, eight-" Chitose's second hand came up to join the first as she cupped her face, hiding herself from the world in mortification. "-I was kinda in the middle of something with the old man over there."
"You said something about cleaning your spirit, right? What's so dirty about it that it needs cleaning?" Hakone asked. Chitose interrupted me before I could speak.
"So...SO many things Hakone, so many things..." She shook her head woefully as I tried not to giggle, before turning to look at me seriously. "So you didn't have them actually set you on fire? the paper just started burning out of no-where?" I nodded.
"Yep, the old guy started chanting something pretty religious sounding, then next thing I knew I could hear my forehead start to sizzle, surprised everyone I think!" I rubbed my forehead subconsciously, and something black flaked off, probably burnt paper still glued to me. Meanwhile, Lao had finished her little pow-wow with the old man, and was walking over with him at her side.
"Elder Chanvatey told me what happened, Georgia? I know I'm supposed to be terrified of you and all, butwhat the hell is wrong with you? What if that ritual had worked and you got exercised?!"
"Then I'd be pretty buff, eventually, depending, ya know, on my diet and how often I kept it up." I flexed my noodle ship-arms for emphasis. Lao shook her head ruefully, before her eyes widened as she looked at me with something approaching fearful respect.
"...You're good at that, you know, I can see why you'd make a good spy." I looked at her curiously. "You made me lower my guard for a moment there, by acting like an idiot." I made a noise of protest-" But that's not fooling me, got it? So just stop! I'm on to your tricks, submarine." She made the 'I'm watching you' gesture and it was all I could do to keep from arguing that my stupidity wasn't an act. Then I thought about it, and decided I'd let the Frigate have her delusions. Chanvatey, the old guy's name, I guess, stepped forwards.
"The spirit's vessel Pham Ngu Lao has made me aware of your circumstances." He bowed again, first to me, then to Chitose and the others. "It is a great thing, to save a life, especially when to do so is against one's nature. And from what I can gather from the recent surge of outsiders passing through our temple's gates you, together, have saved many." I scuffed the ground a bit, a little embarrassed at the praise. Hakone, however, was not.
"Thanks, mister!" She said cheerfully, "most of it was Georgia with her missiles though, she's awesome!" Oh my god, now I'm blushing, I can feel it.
"Come on! you guys helped! That whole ferry woulda been borked if you hadint tugged it along Hakone! And all of you were pulling pretty heavy AA duty back there! And Countess lugged that Battleship's body all the way here too! Which, thinking of, we really should probably do something about before it starts to stink."
The monk frowned slightly, before smiling again.
"While I cannot condone killing, you did so in self-defense and so that others could escape death. And while even then, as a bhikkhu I still cannot accept such a thing," He leaned in slightly as he lowered his voice, "-as a man, I am grateful." I nodded in thanks.
"Thanks, !" The man smiled as he shook his head softly. Lao, meanwhile, perked up at the mentioned Battleship.
"Oh, yeah! That's right!" She turned to me, "You guys mentioned you can resurrect ships, right?" I made to nod, but then paused.
"I don't think its really bringing 'em back to life, to be honest, Hakone didn't remember a single thing when she came to, neither did Anne... I think, I think the ships that wake up are new people entirely." There was a small shocked silence at that. One broken, unsurprisingly considering the subject matter, by the monk.
"I'm sorry, Georgia, but did you just claim to be able to...Create life?" I nodded happily.
"Yup! When a ship-persons hull gets emptied of crew, they become derelict, empty shells. I have some of my girls go inside and start them up again!" I wrapped an arm around Hakone's hip from the side, hugging her to me while pointing at Anne. "That's how I got these two little darlings here." Hakone knelt down, hugging me back as the monk hummed.
"I don't suppose you could prove this? Forgive me for doubting a spirit, but they are occasionally known for mischief." I grinned.
"I know I put a pretty big dent in your food stores, but if you can get a butt-load of it together I can show you!" At his questioning look, I clarified, "When they first wake up they're really, REALLY hungry. Because the crew they summon inside them take a set amount of resources to summon, and a Battleship will probably have thousands!"
"...I'm sorry, resources?"
"Food will do it, but it takes a lot apparently, compared to the raw components, things like steel, bauxite or aluminum, copper, electrical wiring... You name it, if it goes into ship construction, we can eat it! And it takes a lot less than food." The man nodded thoughtfully.
"Bring this... Empty shell, here. I will have my students ask around for any scraps of what you've just listed" He made a calming gesture as Chitose and Lao made to argue, "Do not worry, to live as we do is to live a beggars life, its what we chose. If metal and wiring suffices where white rice does not, I will not argue." At that he smiled, "I don't think we have enough in our stocks to feed another spirit vessel so soon regardless, you ate most of this week's planned offerings."
Georgia!" Chitose said chidingly. I ducked my head.
"Well, we can help out! I vaguely remember eating a car last night, you have a scrapyard here, right?" He nodded, "Alright! if one of your guys finds something like a washing machine or bus nobody wants, one of us can carry it back for you!" At his slightly disbelieving stare, I shrugged. "We're stronger than we look!"
I turned to Anne, "Hey, mind bringing that Ta here? These guys can look her over while we get the stuff we'll need!" The ship nodded.
"S̸u̸r̵e̵ ̷t̷h̸i̷n̴g̷.̶.̶.̵ ̸M̸o̸m̵." She left before I could stop gaping at her. Lao giggled a bit.
"You should have seen the look on your face."I turned a deadpan expression onto her, "But seriously, cant wait to see this whole 'Lazerus' thing you have planned. She's not gonna, you know, be violent or anything when she wakes up, will she?" I shrugged.
"None have been so far. We can lift off her barbettes first, if it makes you feel better?" She nodded as we turned to follow one of Mr. Chan's guys.
...
Mid-day had started to bleed into the evening by the time we got back, the temple was more packed than it had been, and I got a fair amount of funny looks as I shifted my grip on the Volvo V70 over my shoulder. Apparently the transmission broke and the owner didn't want to fix it, too expensive. Rather than send it off to the scrapyard for squishing, he gave it to the young monk that was following after me, a confounded look still etched onto his face ever since I'd just up and hefted the car over my shoulder like a sack of flour.
We got to the entrance, and I was faced with a conundrum. "Um...HEY! Chitose! Hakone! one of you girls in there!?" I waited a minute as the monk I'd been with entered, Anne poked her head out. "Can you help me get this car through the door? I could force it through but I don't wanna damage anything" She nodded. I set down the car on its still-inflated tires as a small crowd started to gather. "Alright, you get the front end I'll get the back." I went around to grab the back bumper as Anne got a grip somewhere below the hood, "OK! let's do this nice and easy, ready?"
"Y̷e̴a̸h̷."
"Alright, ready? One, two, three!" We hoisted the car easily enough, but it was bulky, and Anne was a fair amount taller than I was, so it was going in lopsided, I could hear it starting to grind against something. "OK OK hold up! Easy easy! Woah, woah woah stop stop!" Anne let the car drop down a little, and I could see that we would need to go in sideways, "Ok" Anne started pulling again, "Nonono! Twist it!"
"I̸ ̷a̶m̷" The car started to grind against the gate again.
"Nonono the other way!" She kept twisting it the wrong way, "No! twist it the other way! Other way you're twisting it the wrong way!" Anne was starting to get a bit irritated, she dipped the car so she could try to look over it at me.
"W̵h̴a̸t̸ ̵d̸o̴ ̴y̷o̴u̴ ̶w̸a̶n̵t̵ ̷m̷e̷ ̷t̴o̶ ̷d̴o̶?!"
"OK, so, you see how I'm holding it?" I waited till she could see my position, "Hold it the opposite of that, OK?" She nodded, "Ok" We started again, only for it to grind against the stonework on the other side. "Nononono! OK just hold it! Set it down."
"O̷K̶." We set the car down, I sighed, running a hand down my face.
"Alright, let's just hang on and figure this out," I looked over the car and noticed it was actually too wide to get through whole like it was. "Alright, here's what we're gonna do, We'll screw the hubcaps off, take off the tires, and take the wheel hubs off and this'l be a whole lot simpler, Were making this a lot harder than it has to be." Anne nodded. I bent down as I started unscrewing the first nut, "It's easier than we're making it."
We finally got inside fifteen minutes later, allowing the crowd that had built up to get into/out of the temple behind us. Anne took full-hold of the car and showed me to where the others had gathered outside.
The Ta-Class's empty hull was laid out in the middle of a circle of salt, she had a white sheet over her body, likely provided to prevent people bringing offerings from ogling too much, pieces of paper like the one that had been stuck to me were placed at intervals around it, it seemed a good number of monks, even more than before, had gathered, and as I approached more seemed to be showing up. Along with different scraps of metal and a small amount of food, there were a couple of things like clothes-dryers and plumbing pipes, and Chitose was sat down talking to Lao next to a...
"Chitose!" Said woman turned to look at me. "How the heck did you get a truck in here? I had to screw the tires off that car Anne has just to get it in through the door!" She shrugged.
"Ah, I went in through the back. The compound's walls don't go all the way around." Typical, absolutely typical. I facepalmed, letting out a slow sigh as Mr. Chan came up to me from where he'd been talking to a few of his fellows.
"Many of my fellows wish to witness this, I hope you don't mind the crowd." I shrugged, it made no real difference to me. "We have assembled what we could on such short notice, your friends helped in this a great deal. Your kind truly do possess great strength, I am sorry for being skeptical." I shrugged.
"Don't worry about it, if you ever need a tree-stump pulled or anything just let me know huh? I owe you guys anyway for the free meal, but in any case!" I clapped my hands, "Let's get to summoning!"