With Georgia:

The torpedoes, having only been held in-place within their turret by yours truly, had already been activated, and promptly exploded, plugging three new holes into the Tsu-class's midsection.

The explosions, of course, were powerful enough to push back the water around us for a brief instant. I was suddenly stranded, plopping on my front in the crater revealed by the explosions and getting a face-full of mud.

Then the instant was over, water rushing over me again. I scrubbed my face furiously for a moment, getting the mud out of my eye, before twisting in the water like an eel. I turned back toward the Cruiser. While the water was muddy, I could still see she wasn't moving anymore.

Her torso sported a trio of tremendous rents, one of which was right between her boobs and below her collarbone. So I could only guess her boiler room had been pierced by one of the torps, she wouldn't be moving anytime soon.

I could hear screaming above on my hydrophones, and could see the be-ruddered, hoofed heels of the second ship, as she flailed around, no doubt distracted by my Rigging.

She wouldn't be paying me any attention with my adorable balls of Eldritch Horror nibbling on her stern, I swam to the nearby earthworks and surfaced to climb on.

The first thing I saw as I left the water was a lolling tongue, hanging out the mouth of a zombie as he tried to skewer me on a bayonet.

The attack failed, of course, the rusted blade only barely managing to sink into one of my tiles before stopping, basically skin-deep.

I Attac!

With one hand on the soil to pull myself out of the water, I shot forward and grabbed his ankle with the other. I whipped my arm backward, and the man suddenly did a decent G-mod impression, skipping on the water a couple of times as he was thrown away from me at high velocity.

I finished climbing out of the water, drawing the tooth knife I'd left holstered in my... Actually, where HAD I had that thing holstered? I didn't have a belt or anything, I'm not even wearing pants!

-Fwah! SANLOSS bullshit for later, I drew my knife from SOMEWHERE and made a wide swing, taking out another zombie's knees as I watched one raise his gun toward me, only to have one of the wonder twins bite down on his head from above.

The teeth clamped down past his head and shoulders, almost to his pectorals, and the man stumbled confusedly for a moment, almost toppling into the water with his arms now pinned to his sides-

*CroOonch!*

His clothes fell limply to the ground as wonder twin-one floated wobbly away from where he had stood, temporarily disoriented from the sudden loss of what little resistance there had been. I scrambled to my feet, before taking in the surroundings.

The remaining Abyssal Cruiser was busily fending off Scooter, massive hand-Rigging making clumsy swipes to ward her off as the turrets swerved wildly, trying to compensate for the wild movements.

Scooter veered towards me, floating just between me and the enemy vessel as I made a running jump off of the earthworks. I came down on Scooter feet-first, and using her as a springboard, leaped at the Cruiser. She barely managed to raise her head from Scooter, a no-doubt gormless expression on her face as I-

She suddenly raised an arm, snatching me out of the air with her massive right hand. As I struggled in her grip, still relatively light from my jump, her right arm-Rigging's turrets swiveled to face me.

One of the Wondertwins came at her from the side then, biting at her helmeted face. The Cruiser screamed, swiping with her unoccupied hand as I finally wrenched my knife-arm free.

I stabbed her in the right shoulder, almost right where her Rigging met the rest of her body, the furthest I could reach while in her clutches. With a sound similar to that of opening a shaken pop-can, the white blade sank into the black Abyss-steel hull. The Tsu gasped as a tortured shriek of metal filled the air. The arm, now bereft of a majority of its support, gave way, twirling off of her sideways with me still held in its grip.

I fell into the water, trapped briefly as I pried at the dead fingers still clutching me with a maddeningly crushing hold. After a moment or two of wriggling out of the stiff fingers, I got my feet under me again and kicked, coming out of the water just as the Tsu's hooved feet passed over me, trying to peel my Rigging off her face one-handed.

She didn't have much success, and I didn't plan to give her another try at it.

I slashed again, this time aiming for the back of the knees, and was rewarded as the Cruiser crumpled backward, hamstrung, as the knife once more proved able to pierce the hull effortlessly, pressurized steam spewing out of the slash indicating I'd probably hit something important.

The Cruiser weakly tried to right herself as I darted underwater again, moving towards her head this time, now that she was laying on the water prone. Her legs were already starting to list from the water being sucked in from the wounds I had already inflicted. I could just leave her to sink now, in this rice-paddy in the middle of no-where...

But I had to look this asshole in the eyes.

I had to know if these Abyssals had been the ones to kill all those people back there, on the road. If so? I dunno what I'd do. Probably leave her to sink or swim.

Probably.

My mind flashed back to that woman, dead eyes staring up at the rain, before I focused back on the task at hand.

If not? Well, I'd already taken on one prisoner, why not another?

But first, I had to take that stupid helmet off.

I surfaced just behind the head of the remaining Cruiser, just as my Rigging finished pinning down her remaining arm. She seemed to be trying her damnedest to try and keep the stump of her right arm above water, even as she was yelling her bloody lungs out.

I didn't waste time, grabbing the rim of her helmet from behind, clamping down right on the teeth located right above where I assumed her nose was. The Cruiser thrashed, somewhat weakly, as I put my elbow around her neck, getting a good grip.

I yanked, as hard as I could.

*Sssshsshhhrrrriek!*

...

...Oh.

Apparently, the helmet wasn't a helmet after all...

With Chitose:
The fleet had moved east, toward where the majority of their earlier gunfire had gone. The terrain was flat and easily traversable, though visibility was still poor due to the pervasive mist that surrounded them. This was compounded by the eye-height stalks of grass they were quickly surrounded by, though that proved to be a temporary problem once they had come under heavy fire again. The heavy guns of the Battleship's response proving more than capable of flattening out the foliage in every direction from the sheer air pressure alone.

The wind had become far too strong to launch planes in, Chitose decided. Not that they were particularly needed, with the amount of firepower the girls were putting out. The Battleship sisters (Though truly only in body, and not mind) had put out the lion's share of their heavy ordinance, 15" shells intermittently interrupting the absolute downpour of 6" naval artillery.

For casemate guns, they had a surprisingly good firing arc, able to get a full broadside from both sides downrange at the same target. This was no doubt due to the humanoid nature of the hull the guns sat behind. Though shooting backward would always be a difficult proposition for them...

Honestly, Chitose was still quite leery of 'Robin', the Ship may have surrendered to Georgia, but having a Battleship of questionable loyalty around during a firefight strained her faith in Georgia's already suspect judgment.

Then again, back when she'd first seen the unconscious Battleship, with her legs shot off and Georgia working furiously to repair her... Her mind had gone back to what must have been a similar scene, back on the waters north of Pratas.

She honestly had no right to tell the sub who she saved, she had been one of them, after all. And that was back when she likely would have shot the Abyssal out of hand, for simply being an Abyssal! Though to be honest, she doubted now that it would have ended particularly well for her...

Chitose was interrupted from her musings by an RPG, the missile whistling past her bridge from the pervasive fog.

"What did you stop for?!" Lao asked, popping off a pair of shots from her 5" turrets in the direction the attack had come from. The little girl seemed angry, though, from the... from what they'd found on the road, Chitose couldn't particularly blame her.

"Ah! Sorry, sorry!" Chitose said, quickly opening fire with her remaining 12.7 cm guns. Though truthfully, she had no idea how effective it would actually be, they had no idea where the enemy was, only the general direction they were attacking from, and that was everywhere!

At least the artillery fire from the west had ceased, Georgia's work, no doubt.

Dimly, over the gunfire, the Seaplane Tender could hear notes from what sounded like a bugle again, the same one that had heralded the attack in the first place!

The fire slackened momentarily, and in their confusion, the Abyssal girls stopped blind-firing as well, though they quickly picked it up again when they realized the more experienced Kanmusu hadn't stopped.

Lao's eyes widened, "They're charging!" She yelled worriedly. How could she...?

Oh, of course, she was initially an American ship, she had Radar. Ooooh! She should have asked her to share targeting data!

Chitose's self-admonishment was quickly swept to the back of her mind, as dark forms began to materialize out of the fog, sprinting from all directions. They had been surrounded!

The forms were human, and Chitose had a bone-chilling moment of terror, thinking they had been firing on Vietnamese forces responding to the massacre behind them, before Ky Hoa began screaming.

"I-It's them!IT'S THEM!" Ky Hoa cried, stumbling back into Hakone, who had been shooting behind her. Lao, having paused briefly to look back at the Minesweeper, turned back, opening up with all her guns.

The fire from her 5" guns whizzed through the air, making one of the forms quite simply disappear from the waist up while causing another two close-by to drop to the ground, convulsing from the near-miss. After a few moments they grew still, before seeming to simply deflate.

The Abyssal girls had not paused, firing into the oncoming forms, cutting swathes through the oncoming horde with their heavy guns.

It was not enough. They were coming in from almost every direction, and for every dozen simply vaporized by the heavy artillery, several more gained ground.

They were close enough to see clearly now, and the fleet's fire slackened again momentarily as the girls reeled in shock.

"G-Ghosts!" Hakone cried, stepping back fearfully, only to nearly trip over Ky, who was clinging to the Cruiser's leg tightly, hyperventilating. Robin and Diane seemed put off as well, their fire growing more inaccurate the closer the enemy came.

Anne alone didn't seem to care about the enemy's ghoulish appearance, her guntacles simply keeping up their fire. The Cessex stepped forward, moving in front of Hakone and Ky, before planting her cane more firmly into the soft, soggy ground, anchoring herself more firmly as gunfire peppered her front, some ricocheting off in sparks going in every direction.

The seeming show of bravery did not go unnoticed, as Hakone, seeing herself screened by the massive warship, gained a look of determination, before looking down at the Minesweeper clutching at her leg.

"Come on! She needs our help!" Hakone couldn't pry the small ship off, her arms occupied as they were operating her Rigging, but she didn't truly have to.

Hakone laboriously stepped forward, grunting, as Ky Hoa was lifted off the ground with a squeak. The Minesweeper swept along with the leg she had been clinging to. This somewhat ridiculous picture seemed to jar the vessel out of her shock, and she quickly stepped away from the cruiser, belatedly adding her own light guns to the fight with a high-pitched yell of fright and anger as a frag grenade went off next to her, ruffling her skirt but doing little else.

The guns, light as they were, proved just as effective, if anything scything down more of the approaching... things than the heavy guns had. The rate of fire proving more valuable than the harder hitting, but slower loading secondaries and main guns.

Chitose noticed this almost immediately. "Switch to your light AA!" She ordered, opening fire with her own impressive amount of type 96's. The nearest enemy, having come within mere yards of the ships, bayonet readied, simply exploded. Chunks of flesh dissipating as quickly as they arced-off in every direction. The 25mm autocannons proving devastatingly effective against withered flesh.

The other ships complied, and soon the air was filled with a veritable wave of firepower, the relatively small-caliber shells shooting out from the Kanmusu and Abyssal ships in a rough circle, arcing out in every direction.

The wave of approaching apparitions were scythed down within moments, some picked clean off of their feet, cartwheeling in the air, only for empty rags to hit the ground. Others were blown backward, ragdolling as if struck by an angry god, holes clearly visible through their midsections for brief moments before they disappeared.

The only section the approaching wave found any progress was where the larger ships faced them, Diane and Robin only having a quartet of light 3" AA guns between the pair of them.

Diane yelped as she waited for her secondaries to reload, as a man in moldering clothes closed the distance and attempted to stab her in the throat. The attack, of course, was practically pointless, but made the tall woman reel back regardless. Clutching at an un-wounded neck, before realizing no damage had been done, the Battleship responded by firing one of her 3" guns at point-blank range. The results were rather predictable.

Robin back-handed another charging enemy aside, cracking the man in two as she fired from her primary armament once more. This time, however, the apparitions themselves were not the target.

The HE shells, aimed at the ground, detonated under the approaching infantry, throwing up great chunks of earth and giving the ships some breathing room. "Contact fuses aren't sensitive enough for their bodies! Aim for the ground!" She yelled.

Diane nodded, adding her newly reloaded main guns to the carnage.

With the infantry rush effectively stopped dead in its tracks, the ships had a moment to simply breathe, though scattered small-arms fire still pattered the ground around them, and pinged off of their hulls, it was significantly reduced. Their enemy having seemingly spent their strength on a pointless charge...

Then, over the howling gale, they heard engines.

Lao's eyes widened, "It was a distraction!"

The fleet heard loud reports echo out from beyond the field they were in, vapor trails from heavy ordinance streaking-by in a crossfire. The ships began to return fire, but the first salvo went to the enemy, who had sacrificed an entire wave of infantry to set up their heavy weapons while keeping the ships pinned in-place.

A round, fired from the northeast, glanced off Diane's belt armor, careening into Chitose's forehead as the Tender turned to look.

Chitose heard more than felt it crack through the glass of her bridge's windows, and the world went black.