Chitose didn't say a word, her mouth a straight line as she looked at the pair of small girls howling with laughter. She turned around, looking blankly at the trail of splintered destruction leading up through the forest they were now in.
"That looked awesome..." Hakone said, stepping over a large, fallen trunk.
"And quite dangerous, what if they had crashed?" Diane said, taking some of the wind out of Chitose's building response.
Lao looked at one of the trees, a splintered stump all that remained upright, "That's not crashing?" She didn't wait for a response, "well, they got to the bottom quickly, at least," she said, walking over to the pair of laughing vessels along with Chitose.
"Hahahah-OW!" Ky Hoa rubbed the back of her head, where Lao had given her a mighty smack, almost synchronized with Chitose as she did the same to Georgia.
"Sentry you idiot!" Lao pulled the Minesweeper into a tight hug, "you scared the shit out of me!" She leaned back, looking at the smaller ship, "What would I tell Dai Ky when we got back? That you fell off a mountain and died? She'd have me hanged!"
"Hanged? With what? You weigh like... a lot," Georgia said, rubbing her own head from where Chitose stood next to her, arms crossed.
Lao grimaced, "She'd find a way, trust me. The Admiral can be pretty scary when she wants to be."
"W̵e̵ ̵s̴h̸o̴u̷l̷d̵ ̷g̷e̸t̷ ̴m̶o̸v̵i̷n̵g̵,̷," Anne said, coming over to stoop beside Lao, frighting-off Ky Hoa in the process, "t̷h̵e̶y̵'̷l̷l̶ ̶s̶e̴n̴d̷ ̷m̷o̵r̴e̴ ̸p̸l̵a̶n̴e̴s̴,̷ ̸s̸o̴o̴n̶" She gestured with her cane back up the mountain where they'd come.
"She's right, come on, Ky Hoa, you said you knew the way to the tributary?" Chitose asked, pointing at the squadron of Zuiuns in the air overhead, flying low to help avoid any enemy RADAR, "the longer my planes stay up there the more likely they are to be spotted."
The small Minesweeper nodded, "Yup!" She waved everyone forward, "Come on let's go!" She turned abruptly, jogging off through the trees, one hand on her bridge hat as it bobbed along.
Chitose put both hands up to cup her cheeks, letting out a small squeak.
Georgia turned to her, "'sup with you?"
Chitose got control of herself, patting down her red skirts, "She's so damn cute," she muttered.
"More like a pain in my eye," Georgia grunted, before looking towards the front of her Rigging. She raised both hands, holding an invisible set of reins, before flicking her wrists, "Mush!"
Scooter started off after the Minelayer, and after a small pause, she was quickly followed by the rest of the fleet.
...
With Georgia:
Apparently, our wild tobogganing had put us closer to our destination (which was totally according to Keikaku). We hadn't been walking for more than twenty minutes before the trees gave way to a fast-running body of water, it was almost too small to be called a River, but the water ran uninterrupted, and you couldn't see the bottom, so I hesitated to call it a stream or creek.
On the opposite side, I could see a road running along beside the water.
Ky Hoa turned, giving a double thumbs-up, "This is the place!" She looked around, before noting some shrubbery that had been trampled nearby, "I'll be right back!" she started along the path slowly as everyone else caught up.
"Ah! this will do nicely!" Chitose stated to herself, before stepping out onto the water. She seemed to almost shudder as she left the shore, "Ohhhh," She glanced at my raised brow, "it feels nice to have water under my keel again," she answered my unspoken question.
"Aw jeez, you're right, it has been a while, hasn't it?" I said, as Chitose's Zuiuns came in for a landing.
The small white-painted seaplanes nosed down, before swiftly leveling off as they came close to the water, floats sending up (relatively) great gouts of water as the seaplane taxied toward the Seaplane Tender. It slowed to a stop next to Chitose, who wasted no time latching onto the small craft with one of her cranes, a small crewman helping the pilot latch the individual ropes onto the catches near the cockpit, before going... somewhere.
Chitose gently hoisted the aircraft back on board, where it went after that, I had no idea, though I assumed it had been put back into her hanger, she went for the next Seaplane as Lao spoke up.
"It has been a few days, hasn't it? I was starting to feel a bit 'dry' myself," Lao said, stepping out onto the river as well. She looked at the fast-running water with a grimace as it slapped against her heels, "I don't think this high wind is natural," She said, looking up at the stormy clouds.
"Well it's not me doing it, at least, I don't think it is," I said, watching the light drizzle patter in the water in front of us. The raindrops had grown in size since we'd descended the mountain, much to Anne's delight, as the big warship stood silently in the open, eyes closed as she held her face to the sky.
"You know I've always wondered if Abyssal Princesses controlled the weather on purpose," Chitose said, glancing over at me for a second, "all that's really known is that they usually herald a large offensive, usually one that includes at least one Hime."
I shrugged, "I've never given it a go, to be honest," I said, looking up at the clouds.
I concentrated, squinting my one good eye, "Rain rain go away! This I command!" I thought at the sky.
Nothin'.
Actually, fairly certain it started raining harder just to spite me!
I raised my arm out, clutching the air like I was a Jedi or something, face scrunched up in intense concentra-
"You look like you really need to take a dump," Ky Hoa said, spoiling my concentration as she came back from wherever she'd disappeared to.
"I do not!" I said, giving her a scandalized look as my concentration shattered.
"Do too"
"Don't too!"
"Yes too!"
"Yesin't!"
"No-" Ky Hoa paused, mental gears clearly having gummed up for a second, "that isn't even a real word!"
I raised my chin defiantly at the shorter girl, "Yes it is! You've clearly been speaking Vietnamese too long, if you can't even remember all the American words proper-like!" I accused.
Diane, watching our back and forth, muttered under her breath, "I thought we were speaking English?"
"Ky Hoa," Lao said, interrupting our spat from where she stood on the water, "you found the truck?" She asked.
The Minesweeper perked up, "Oh! yeah! They're right where we left them," She seemed to sag a little at the 'we', "I disabled the bounding mines, it's safe to go now."
Ooookay, apparently there had been bounding mines, good thing I hadn't followed her then.
Goddamn explosive gremlin.
We trailed after the Minesweeper, who led us along the riverbank, Chitose and Lao following on the water, until we came to a small series of shallows. Ky Hoa suddenly straightened a little, blinking, before smacking herself in the face.
"Urhh! I'm so dumb!"
"What is it" Chitose asked, scanning the sky.
"I brought you all the way to the shallow part so we could cross!" Ky Hoa swept an arm, encompassing our entire group, "We can all walk on water!" The Minesweeper promptly stepped out into the river.
"Not used to being with other Kanmusu, I guess?" Chitose ventured, coming up alongside.
Ky Hoa wrung the hem of her shirt, "Yeah..." she eyed the girls, "not used to bein' near them either," she paused for a moment, contemplative, before shaking herself, "Right! the flatbed is this way!"
We came up onto the opposite embankment with no issue, and after a short walk, came upon the road.
It was paved, but it clearly hadn't seen proper maintenance in years, large potholes you could more generously call cauldrons pockmarking entire stretches as we carried onward.
"We felt safe leaving the vehicles alone here in among the underbrush," Ky Hoa said, pointing off into some of the dense foliage off the road, "anyone that would want to steal them would think it's an Abyssal road trap, and any Abyssal would have set off one of my traps!"
I could see them now, painted in muted colors was a single large antique-looking truck that would look more at home on a farm somewhere than in among the ferns, as well as a cluster of motor-bikes of different makes and models.
"Wouldn't humans set them off too?" Hakone asked.
"Nope!" Ky looked at us as she walked backward, "I use tripwires made from spare spools of towline for my Paravane!" She grabbed a spool mounted on her Rigging, before pulling out a familiar-looking string, almost as thin as a piano wire, "if you had the horsepower you could tow a Fletcher with this thing!" She pulled it from both ends, getting a satisfying 'snapbwowowowo' as the towline went taut.
She went over to the nearest low lying branch, and, looping the small wire around the wood, looked back, "Watch!"
She pulled the wire taut again, and the branch sheared off. Like it had been made of wax or cheese or something.
Oh man, now I was hungry for cheese.
She smiled widely, "See? It's so strong and heavy that any human is more likely to just trip over anything I make."
...
Okay, that was pretty cool, I had to admit. And gave me more than a few ideas...
Hmm, thoughts for later, I suppose.
"Well, let's get moving then!" I said, walking up to the truck, I tried the door.
Locked.
I looked over at the still smug-looking Ky Hoa, "Got the keys?" I held my hand out.
...
Ky Hoa's smile became rather strained.