Ruins of Ho Chi Minh City/S̶̗̉ä̴̺́i̶̳̽g̸̟͌o̴̱̐n̸͇͑, Vietnam.
New Jersey finally cruised into the harbor of Saigon, followed by most of her remaining Battleships and a small coterie of the remaining Cruisers towing a small barge, Kitty-Hawk had stayed in Long Xuyen with her escorts, hands full trying to organize the Abyssal aircraft unable to return to their Wo Carriers. Ta-01 had left before Jersey, taking with her a small strike force to chase down her treasonous sister.
Jersey was met at the dock by Ri-07, who walked up to meet her with a slight limp.
"The repairs on the wounded?" Jersey said without preamble.
The Cruiser saluted somewhat shakily. "We were able to fix about a third of them without any need for dockyard time, they just had minor breakages and superficial damage. The others though... Unless we get them all the way to the drydocks in Palawan there's no fixing their damage, most of it is structural."
Jersey merely grunted, "Scrap them, then add their materials to the rest."
"B-But Jersey-Hime! Surely M-Mae would want to look them over first?" The Cruiser wilted even further at the withering look Jersey sent her way, "She has the facilities to fix them! She might want semi-intact and conscious hulls over raw materials... right?" The Cruiser dared argue.
Jersey looked murderous at the perceived insolence for a second, before pausing in thought, seemingly remembering something. Eventually, she spoke. "Send them off with the rest of the resources then. If Mae wants to bother repairing them she can, otherwise she'll tear them down for materials herself anyway. Either way, we get more hulls back."
The Cruiser merely nodded in relief, "Yes, Jersey-Hime." The ship turned and started off towards Saigon's makeshift machine shop to spread the news.
Jersey, meanwhile, stepped onto land, followed by her Battleships as the Cruisers began to unload their special cargo.
Human captives, most wearing dirty and torn uniforms, were shepherded out of the barge, followed by crates of raw resources, most of it reclaimed Abyssal steel.
"Get these meatsacks moving and into the summoning chamber, before my Rigging gets hungry," Jersey said somewhat hurriedly, as her mentioned machinery began to slowly growl at the sight of the humans before it. The Cruisers hurried to obey, shoving the now-surprisingly cooperative prisoners ahead, who were no less eager to see the back of Jersey's Rigging than they were as they hurried along.
Jersey followed behind at a sedate pace, well behind them to avoid...Incidents.
Ru-01 scowled as she followed along behind her princess, "Still don't see why we need those animals, can't we just get away with the resources we dragged in from Xuyen?"
Ru-06 baffed the other Battleship upside the head, "The summoning needs dead humans, you know that, idiot. It won't work otherwise."
Ru-01 almost leaped at the other ship, before being cut off by Jersey. "Stow it, girls. 06 is right. Summoning a Hime needs sacrifice, don't know why, and I don't particularly give a shit, now shut, your, m̵̧͂o̸͖͗̃u̵͎̅͛͜t̵͇̒̅h̷̩̣̀s̴̭͂."
The pair, unsurprisingly, obeyed.
"J-Jersey said she wanted you alive, she didn't 'COUGH!' Mention you had to be intact, now did s-she?" I said, stumbling forward as the little asshole tried to scuttle back, stopped by the wall behind her. I leaned down unsteadily, grabbing the Submarine by the throat. I started throttling the little bastard one-handed, If I had two normal hands, I'd have torn her head clear-off instead, such was my irritation. But when you have Arm Rigging the size of a car replacing one of your hands, one has to make compromises.
"'Got, m- -igginng -uo -itch!" the girl choked out some gibberish, was she finally throwing in the towel?
"The f-fu̶̧͎̹̯̰̎̌̀͜͝ck you say brat?" I eased the grip on her throat, and she gave me an oil-stained toothy grimace.
"I said 'You forgot my Rigging, you B̸̧̤̓͊̋Ì̶̢̩͕̓T̷̲̖͚͇̙́̓̀͝C̷̨͖͕̘̼͋̅͒́͊H̷͔̏̋͌̈́̈́͠"
I heard launch tubes fire off behind me.
"Ohshi-" were my last waking thoughts.
...
...
...
The silence I hadn't even noticed was broken by a series of crunching sounds, before someone began to speak, their voice warbled, as though they were speaking through a particularly bad ham radio.
" ̴̲̉̿ ̶̛͎͑̕͘ ̷̙͔̰̭͑̈́̕͜ ̸̜̠̟̱͈͗́̆ ̵̪͖̯͎̈́̈́͂ ̴̝̫̝̔͆ ̶̛̣̯̩͂̑̕͘ ̵̰̟̑͗̕Galveston, I know you can hear me you asshat. ̴̲̉̿ ̶̛͎͑̕͘ ̷̙͔̰̭͑̈́̕͜ ̸̜̠̟̱͈͗́̆ ̶̛̣̯̩͂̑̕͘ ̵̰̟̑͗̕."
That sounded like... Someone I knew, who was it? I felt like I was floating underwater, no, not water, this was... thicker. I tried to open my eyes, before realizing I had none to open, I simply floated, existing, the fact I was able to feel at all was, inexplicable.
" ̴̲̉̿ ̶̛͎͑̕͘ ̷̙͔̰̭͑̈́̕͜ ̸̜̠̟̱͈͗́̆ ̵̪͖̯͎̈́̈́͂ ̴̝̫̝̔͆ ̶̛̣̯̩͂̑̕͘ ̵̰̟̑͗̕ I'm not one for long-winded spiritual nonsense chants, so I'll just get to the point; Get your dead-aft in here right the fuck now, or when you finally DÖ̸̦ deign to turn up I'll kick your damn bridge in. ̴̲̉̿ ̶̛͎͑̕͘ ̷̙͔̰̭͑̈́̕͜ ̸̜̠̟̱͈͗́̆ ̵̪͖̯͎̈́̈́͂ ̴̝̫̝̔͆ ̶̛̣̯̩͂̑̕͘ ̵̰̟̑͗̕."
Was that... New Jersey? But why would the Battleship be talking to me? Last we'd spoken had been shortly after I'd been sold for scrap in... '75? Jersey had been deactivated again at that point, following the post-Vietnam war Navy cutbacks, and I'd been passing by the mothball fleet on my last cruise to the cutters, she'd cried then from the confines of her deck, she'd cried a lot back then.
" ̴̲̉̿ ̶̛͎͑̕͘ ̷̙͔̰̭͑̈́̕͜ ̸̜̠̟̱͈͗́̆ ̵̪͖̯͎̈́̈́͂ ̴̝̫̝̔͆ ̶̛̣̯̩͂̑̕͘ ̵̰̟̑͗̕Galveston I swear, get in here or Abyss take me... ̴̲̉̿ ̶̛͎͑̕͘ ̵̪͖̯͎̈́̈́͂ ̴̝̫̝̔͆ ̶̛̣̯̩͂̑̕͘ ̵̰̟̑͗̕"
Abyss? what was- .̴.̴.̴.̴.̸.̴.̷.̶.̷.̵.̴.̵.̵.̸.̴̙̀.̴͇̞̀.̸̧̞̓.̶͔͌̂.̶͈̈́͝.̸͔̺̔.̸̣̻̾.̴͇́̆.̸͋̌͜.̵̱̾͠.̶̖̏.̶͖̍.̷͈̽͌.̸̩́̆ ̶̛͎͑̕͘ ̷̙͔̰̭͑̈́̕͜ ̸̜̠̟̱͈͗́̆ ̵̪͖̯͎̈́̈́͂ ̴̝̫̝̔͆ ̶̛̣̯̩͂̑̕͘ ̵̰̟̑͗̕!
The surge of Hate took me by surprise, along with the parade of dis-jointed memories that came with it.
-Oh.
I drifted (Upwards? Down?) and felt more than saw a light, I was near the surface! I kicked legs I didn't remember having a split second before, pushed forward by-
New Jersey smirked as she cut off her tirade, tucking a rogue black tendril of hair behind her right horn as she watched the liquid light up with a purplish hue, that was Galveston, alright. Not many in her fleet had purple lights, and none of them were Risen aside from her.
She stood before a pool, only a few feet deep. Dug by hand into the concrete floor of an abandoned warehouse, carvings littered the room, spiraling out from the filled crater, copied from pictures and sketches originally taken from Kanmusu summoning circles and modified and spread for Abyssal use. Jersey had acquired a copy years ago, along with a list of incantations she never particularly bothered with, in her experience, simple intent mattered more than purple-prose and foreign languages, anyway.
Around the circle were her Battleships, alongside some Cruisers brought in to help. They'd prepared the sacrifices, piling the steel and bauxite high, almost enough to make two Cleveland-Class Light cruisers, and had cracked off the heads of the human prisoners all at the same time at Jersey's signal. Their blood had seeped into the pool, itself already black from the oil poured in earlier, turning it a dark, muddy red before it had lit up.
Dozens of grey arms much like those belonging to her own Rigging rose from the water, pushing Galveston out of the liquid, the sudden manifestation of her naturally buoyant body appearing underwater along with the solid push given by the appendages forcing her upwards like a rocket, the hands, their job done, sunk back down below the surface. Galveston stumbled on the water as she landed, going to one plated knee as the water cleared, the blood and oil tainting it going... Somewhere else.
"About time you showed up. You know how much trouble I went to getting live humans for this?" Jersey gestured at the headless corpses around the pool.
"Jersey... Where are we? I was in Can Tho, last I remember..."
"You got your ass sunk, is what happened. Magazine detonation, there wasn't much left." New jersey stepped onto the pool as her Rigging looked in through the window, its eyeless forehead taking up the entire view outside.
"Later, y̷̩̓͑ou damn glutt̵̺̖̓on!" Jersey said suddenly, head darting to look at the beast, before she turned back to Galveston, offering a dainty hand for her fellow Princess.
Galveston took it, helped to her feet as Jersey looked over the Light Cruiser. "You look... different."
Galveston cocked her eyeless head questioningly at her as Jersey let go of her hand, slowly cruising around the newly Risen Hime, Galveston's turrets swiveled to keep the Battleship within their sight, inadvertently clueing Jersey in as to what exactly had changed.
New Jersey stared dumbly at were a good amount of Galveston's gun-mounts used to be, the twin-rail Talos SAM launcher replacing them staring back.
Galveston leaned away warily from Jersey, who had begun to laugh.
Hysterically.