The Re had been... eaten.
Anything above her ribcage was simply...gone, jagged indents that looked like the indents of the teeth of some massive beast showing that whatever had taken off the Re's upper body had done so with one massive bite that had enveloped the ships entire upper torso. Her lower body had been skinned much like the other two ships, though it seemed to have only been on her left side, leaving gaping wounds that were difficult to look at.
"What the fuck could have done... this?!" Ta-01 stepped forward, taking in the Re more fully. And the two other ships followed, it was then that the Cruiser with them noticed something.
"look, they took her turrets."
Indeed, where the top of the Re's tail had once sported a triple barreled 16" turret, there was now only a gaping hole in its 'head'. A head that seemed rather bloated, now that they looked...
Ru-08 stepped forward, setting down her Rigging before kneeling between the slabs of metal, "Her hanger has something in its mouth."
"Maybe she grabbed an enemy before she went down?"
"I don't think so..."
08 grabbed the tail's jaws, noticing then that its teeth had clearly been wrenched out, leaving nothing but empty gums. Before, with a wrench of her own, she forced the mouth open, peering inside with her spotlights.
At first, she couldn't make any sense of what she was seeing, she reared back, blinking hard, before taking a closer look. She was joined by Ta-01, who also had to rub her eyes at the peculiar sight.
"Is that the roof of a boiler room?" She pointed, to where the ruined remains of a steam header could be seen, ruptured pipes clearly chewed through.
"Is that," The Ne joined them, "I-Is that the Re?"
Ta-01 stepped back a little, taking in the sight of the roof she was looking at in the Re's hanger, before looking over at where, exactly, her lower torso terminated.
The floor of a boiler room.
"Girls," Ta-01 stepped back, her eyes growing wider, "I think that's the rest of the Re in there."
Ru-08 looked at the Ta, mouth opening to rebuke her, before she paused, looking back. She made a head motion for the Ne to come closer, "Hold this open." The Standard commanded, indicating the slack hanger's jaws. The Ne did so, struggling slightly to hold up the massive maw as Ru-08 reached into the hanger, grabbing the edges of whatever was taking up most of it's space.
She pulled, and cursed as hull immediately came away in her hands, she reached in further, getting a more solid hold, and inch by inch, yanked out the obstruction.
The Re's upper body finally slid out of her tails' hanger, crashing onto the ground as Ru-08 let go of it with a yelp. Her face was frozen in an expression of mild confusion and wonder, ever present grin still stretching across her still face.
Her upper body ended about where her spine met her ribcage, jagged cuts matching her bottom-half separating the hull and armor in a crescent, like a cookie with a single massive bite taken out of it. There was also damage from the exploded boilers, creating even more jagged holes in her hull, there was probably matching damage within the hanger.
Ta-01 gasped, covering her mouth, before she eventually forced out the words, "T-They made her... eat herself?"
…
…
"Fuck this." The Ne started walking away speedily, but was brought short by Ru-08 snatching her by the shoulder.
"Where the hell do you think you're going?!" The Ru said, eyes nonetheless wide as dinner plates.
The Ne twisted out of the Standards grip, pointing at the Re's remains, "Away from whatever the fuck did THIS!" She gestured around, "Whatever did ALL of this!" She started off again, "Do what you want! I'm out! I choose life!"
"You know what Jersey would do if we came back empty handed!" Ta-01 said, stepping after the retreating Cruiser.
"Who s-said anything about empty hands?"
Ta-01 turned to look at Ru-08, and quickly traversed her turrets to face her, as the Standard had her main guns trained on the Fast Battleship, what ensued was a tense standoff as the two Battleships faced each other, "What the hell do you think you are doing?!" Ta-01 hissed furiously.
"A-All I have to do is bring back your bridge, 01, and we can get out of this fucking jungle." 08 said, grimacing, "Jersey may get mad, might give me a beating, but that'll be the end of it. And that's a lot better than ending up like this." She gestured towards the Re.
"Stand down! We still have a chance at this, all we have to do is stick together and-"
"Ha! Like these girls did!?" 08 aimed the shaking barrels of her 16" guns center-mass on Ta-01, right over her Boiler room, "If we keep chasing these damn things we'll just end up like them! At the mercy of-
"Me."
There was a moment of shocked silence, the Battleships eyes briefly widening as the radio signal reached them. They didn't dare take their eyes off one another, but inside frantically tried to trace the origin of the signal, to no avail.
"I'm going to give you two a choice." The voice continued, "I am the Abyssal Hime USS Georgia, and you guys have really, really, pissed me off." Ta-01's eyes widened at that, the large Submarine from before... "Either turn tail and run like your Cruiser friend back there, pluck out your turrets and give up, or die horribly. I'mma give you till the count of five to pick one... Five."
"How the fuck is she on our frequency?!" Ta-01 whispered frantically, eyes wide as she finally tore her gaze away from the Ru, scanning the area frantically with her search lights. Nothing.
"A Hime?! Jersey didn't say anything about a Risen..."
"Four."
"She's bluffing, s-she's gottah be bluffing! There's no way..." 08 glanced at the Re, whose frozen expression sent a shudder through the Battleship.
"Three."
"W-We should surrender," Ru-08's gaze snapped to Ta-01 as the fast Battleship's turrets wavered, "We can't beat her, and we can't go back, all we can hope for is that she's mercif-"
"Fuck that! 'Merciful' I'm not being turned into a scrapheap without fighting back, you damn coward, I-"
"Two!" The voice's countdown continued, seeming to grow more excited as it neared zero.
"It's just trading one Princess for another you dolt!" Ta-01 said through gritted teeth, "I'm not dying here! Not without asking my sister why!"
"ONE!"
Ru-08 tried to steady her aim, a crazed snarl on her lips, "Don't you fucking dare-!"
"...One and one-half?" The Hime was just toying with them now. But they couldn't dare press the woman's patience. Ta-01 made her choice.
Ta-01 quickly threw her hands up, elevating her turret's barrels to point at the sky, "I give up! I surren-"
Ru-08 fired, the shells taking Ta-01 in the pelvis as she tried to twist out of the way. At this range, the HE shells pierced what little armor the Ta-class had outside her citadel like butter. Ta-01 fell, her hips shattered and legs falling out from under her as five streaks 'whooshed!' overhead.
The cruise missiles carried into Ru-08, two catching the large woman square in the chest, while the rest crashed into her portside Rigging under her number 3 main turret.
While the Ru's armor was thicker all around than a Ta's, they possessed no Citadel, and while the barbettes for her 16" turrets had armor in excess of sixteen inches, the armor over her powder room below was not nearly so protected.
The missiles took Ru-08 clean off of her feet, almost tipping the battleship over before detonating. The powder rooms within her turrets exploded almost immediately afterwards, causing a chain reaction of internal explosions that left the Battleship a ruined flaming torch.
Ta-01 meanwhile screamed on the ground, clutching at her ruined pelvis, one of her legs had torn off. The damage was simply too much for the structure to stay attached during her fall, her other leg held on by strips of metal to what remained of her hips. Causing agony when she attempted to move. She couldn't see, not properly, as her viewports had been partly shattered from the explosions so close by, giving her sight similar to looking through a cracked glass.
She clenched her teeth as she tried to scrabble back from the Ru's flaming wreck, eventually dragging herself away from the burning ship, out of range of any more potential mag detonations . She made it to a nearby tree before she slumped against its trunk, grasping at her ruined keel.
"Holy crap!" A white form darted out from where it had been hidden amongst the tree's, "She got you good!"
Ta-01 felt hands pawing at her, she looked in the direction it came from, but couldn't see more than a shapeless blob of white, tainted orange from the nearby flames, "P-Please." She stuttered.
The pawing stilled, and Ta-01 got the impression that it had turned to look her in the eye, "What?"
"P-Please... don't sink me." She said, plaintively.
There was a pause, interrupted only by the crackle of fire, "OK, sure." The voice said, "But I'm going to have to have some friends move you, and something tells me-" There was a motion, and 01 gasped as her ruined remaining leg was jostled, "-yep, that would be a bad idea with you conscious." The voice continued.
"What... what do you want me to do?"
"Tell your bridge crew to step back for a while, can you do that?"
She could, but that would disable her, wouldn't it? "...Why?" She dared question.
"So you aren't screaming bloody murder when I start welding you back together, doofus! Now do it, or was that 'I surrender!' a load of crock?"
She'd heard that? Well, the Hime had a point, if she actually was going to help, it would no doubt be incredibly painful regardless. And if she was lying and about to skin her alive like the others? She didn't want to be conscious for it anyway.
Fighting back in this state didn't even occur to her.
"A-Alright." She gave the order. Her bridge officers were reluctant to abandon their posts, and therefore her, to the mercy of whatever this thing was, but they truly had no choice.
The last thing she saw before consciousness left her was the scattered white blob moving in closer.