Long Xuyen, Occupied Abyssal territory

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The heavy Cruiser squinted into the water, only just able to make out the unnatural blip on her sonar, finally, she nodded.

"Alright! I got something here!" The Ri yelled. One of the reclamation barges brought up from Saigon was floated over, and cables with what were essentially giant blunt hooks on the end extended downwards. The lines were dragged over the area the Cruiser had indicated, until one of the lines snagged on something, the ships nearby, two Tsu-Class Light Cruisers, closed in and grabbed hold of the line.

"Alright! Heave!" The ships pulled, and the tether, made of Abyssal steel chain links, began to creak menacingly, "It's something big! Snag more lines on!"

The ships obeyed, and soon they had several tethers attached to... whatever it was. The ships began to lift the object, straining against the weight of what had to have been the waterlogged weight of a Heavy Cruiser or larger.

Finally, the object breached the surface, silver hair hanging limply from the head that came up, the hooks lodged firmly within the gaping holes that had probably sunk her.

"We got one of the Fast Battleships!" The Ri took a closer look, "Well, half of one. Get her dried out and thrown in with the rest, I'll keep an eye out for the other half of her." The other two ships nodded, faces inscrutable behind their smooth bridge coverings as they grabbed onto the corpse with their massive hand Rigging.

As they lifted the deceased Ta-class onto the barge the scene was repeated, again and again by the other vessels on the river, as ships were dredged up from the bottom, only to be towed to shore and carelessly tossed onto the growing piles of metal forming at the pier.

Two of Jersey's Ru's watched over the scene as the Fast Battleship's corpse joined the combination of wrecked human vehicles and mangled Destroyer carcasses.

"Hmm, think that's Ta-02, you think?"

"Dunno, she was the one that didn't get along with 07, right?"

"Yeah."

"Then fuck her. Speaking of 07, Jerseys still with 'em, right?"

Ru-03 turned to her sister, wincing "Yup, I couldn't...You saw what was left, burned clear to the waterline. Nothing left worth fixing. Couldn't stand there and watch em cut what was left apart, had to come out here, same?"

Ru-04 nodded, "She was pretty broke up about it, Jersey I mean. The scrappers had to hold off chopping till she was done screaming at the empty hulks to get up." Ru-03 grimaced while 04 continued, "I left when she started kicking their hulls to wake them up."

"Damn, think she'll have an episode in there?"

"SHH!" 04 quickly hushed the other Battleship, before pointing over her shoulder at one of the larger scrap piles. "Her Rigging is chowing down on that pile right over there! You want the damn thing to hear you talk about her like that?"

Right on cue, one of the T-56 tanks on the pile, missing its main turret, tipped over. A massive hand held onto its engine as Jersey's Rigging came into view from behind it. Both of the Ru's stood stock-still as the Rigging grabbed-hold with its other hand and tore off the engine block, ripping great chunks out of the metal with its teeth as Jersey herself stormed out of the building behind them.

The Battleship didn't say a word to either of them, simply marching down the road at a hurried pace, her Rigging, having been content with its meal till then, let the engine block go, letting it crash to the ground as it loped behind the Hime.

The sound of grinders started as soon as the woman cleared the door, Ru-03 winced. "Well, back to work, huh?" The other Battleship nodded as they walked over to the dead Ta together.

"Damn, I know she was a bitch, but holy hell, what a way to go... How long you figure she lasted on the bottom?" The two Battleships lifted the Ta's upper body, each taking an arm as they dragged her towards the building their forces had appropriated for rendering down the scrap for transport, sparks flying from where shredded hull dragged on the asphalt.

"If she had intact compartments? I dunno, twenty minutes? Max? If I start to sink, do me a favor will ya? Blow my bridge off, not something I wanna be conscious for." Ru-04 said, opening the door with a kick, the noise of grinders became deafening as they wordlessly tossed the body onto one of the makeshift 'gurneys' that were, in practice, basically solid metal slabs.

"Hey! Got another one! Fast Battleship this time!" 04 yelled, one of the few Cruisers in the room, ripping a civilian car into more manageable chunks for the fairy workers, turned away from her work at the voice. She gestured towards the hulk they'd dragged in, probably speaking into her radio to be heard over the power tools working on the other dead hulks.

A veritable swarm of fairies with power tools descended on the body like ants on a sugar cube, small welding torches and grinders starting up and adding to the surrounding cacophony as they rendered the Ta down into her component parts. As the two Battleships left to get another load of human vehicles for the Cruisers to tear apart, one of them held the door open for a Ne-Class, who was carting a full container of rendered and separated materials, mostly Abyssal steel and regular human scrap iron and steel, with smaller containers for aluminum and copper.

The Ne, carting what was essentially a re-purposed industrial dumpster, wheeled her load down the street to the pier, past the junk piles, and unto one of the barges waiting to be filled.

She slotted the container in-place with the others, and turned to leave, before hearing a growl. She looked back, seeing a pack of Destroyers drifting close by, nosing at the vessel curiously. "Hey! Piss off! These are bound for storage in Saigon, to pay off the Supply Depot Hime for new girls! No chewing on the merchandise!" They scattered back, before slowly drifting forwards again, "Aw hell...Just gimmie a minute."

The Ne looked one way, then the other, before scooping up a double handful of Abyssal-steel chunks, rendered down to easily smeltable peices roughly the size of an American quarter by fairy cutting tools. "Here ya stupid fish! Now piss off I got work to do!" The Ne tossed the chunks outward and the Destroyers quickly scrambled to catch the chunks before they sank too far, devolving into a frothing mass at the edge of the wharf as the Heavy Cruiser walked away chuckling to herself.