Disclaimer: I do not own either Kantai Collection or Halo, nor do I gain any monetary funds from either them or this fanfiction.
Author's Note: Alright, so this past month was hell for me, and that seriously pushed back this chapter. I'm not happy about that, and less happy about putting together such a short chapter by comparison to the last two. But I've got a lot still planned, so I'm giving you guys this to let you know that the story is not dead, and it won't be for a long time! I've got a loooong timeline set up and already have more written for future chapters than I do here... So, yeah, it's not ending anytime soon!
Here's part 2 of the battle, and a scene which I don't think many have tried to do with shipgirls much... urban warfare. If this doesn't make much sense, then I apologize, but then again... I can't say I'm TOO sorry! A lot of google mapping and such was used to get a feel for where these fights were taking place, which is part of why it took so damn long to update. Also, readers may recognize a lot of the names that I use from other works, and while I am trying to make my story original I just find myself to be inspired a LOT by these other works enough that I include them as a sort of 'hats off' to them. If they want me to pull those names and use different ones I shall, but for now, here you are! Again, constructive criticism is MUCH appreciated! Read and Review!
Italics - Radio, Ship names, thoughts, other human languages, etc
Bold - Jarring events
Leviathan looked down at the shore as she flew overhead, her rear fangs scraping against one another and drawing blood from her cheeks as she grew angrier at the sight below. Black, oil-covered... things... were crawling out of the waves onto the sand, half-flopping and half-crawling until they got their bearings before grouping together in rough units. These units then started moving inland like a bunch of demented leapfrogs, carrying assorted weapons in their arms. Some had what looked like barnacle encrusted rifles, others had blades or claw-like protrusions alongside pistol-like weapons. Yet others had weapons seemingly 'built into them' in such a way that made her plating crawl... and all of them were heading inland from the southern harbor.
The cruiser opened a comm-line to the Marine teams that she'd sent out as roving AA pickets, mentally sorting through the frequencies going on around her to find the thread of their radios in hopes that they were still operational. "Leviathan to ground teams, come in ground teams. Again, this is Leviathan Actual calling ground teams, all units check in."
"Ooo!" came back one of the teams over the radio fuzzily. "Oo, oo ra! Ra!"
"Say again Lieutenant? Radio's breaking up," she said. The cruiser was getting IFF and health monitor pings from her sensors saying that all of the gremlins she'd sent out were still alive, although one had a slight concussion, but the detonations from ordinance as well as all the other radio fuzz were causing hell with the airwaves, along with some kind of jamming that her systems were having issues with. As Levi got closer it was clearing up, but it was still hell...
"Ooo, oo! Oo-oo-rah! Ra-rah-oo!" came the soldier's voice again.
"Roger that Lieutenant, shoreline forces have been dealt with, I am taking over-watch above the city. Call out targets for ground strikes as needed. Hammer and Anvil teams are standing by to reinforce..."
Leviathan felt something explode against her hull, causing her to look down at where an surface-launched rocket had failed to penetrate her armor, causing her to frown. There'd been no radar or laser based targeting that her sensors had registered, which meant that was either an unguided rocket or something else, but it had slipped past her nonetheless. Growling, she lifted her left arm and pointed her clenched fist at the group of 'soldiers' that had aimed at her, the point defence cannons on her elbow and wrist swiveling to target the Abyssal group before unleashing hell on them with a side-order of tracers. The explosive shells detonated amongst the things, sending black metal and chitin up into the air and ripping craters in the concrete beneath them.
Her eyes flicked over the area again, and she noted a distinct lack of resistance from 'friendly' forces. There was some coming from the remains of the naval armory near the port, but it was fading fast, which meant that the entire waterfront was effectively enemy territory. Feeling that some sanitization would do some good, Leviathan raised both her arms in front of her like a boxer, hatches running along the raised plating of her forearms popping open to let fly four Archers at the sea of black and grey beneath her...
Tenryuu saw the explosions coming from the shoreline from out on the water, gritting her teeth as she could only imagine what was going on over there. "Come on girls, put your screws into it!"
The others were already doing just that, panting hard to get as much oxygen and ventiliation to their engine rooms as possible as they made flank speed back towards Manila. Around them they could see the burning oil slicks of Abyssal ships, some by their own hands as they had driven a wedge through the enemy towards their leader, but most were downed by that flying Abyssal that had shown up. Off their bow and limping to port, they could see the form of the BRP Simeon Castro fishing sailors out of the water from the stricken BRP Gregorio del Pilar. The Japanese ship JS Ōnami was also burning just behind and to the starboard of their position, but its single Otobreda 127 mm/54 gun was still barking in defiance in support of the Philippine ship Artemio Ricarte as they put holes below the waterline of an Abyssal destroyer that had already lost its cannon and torpedoes. As they continued on though, another sight caught their eyes...
"Chikuma... Chikuma-nee... Get up, please!" Tone was trying to pull her sister away from where she'd stopped, kneeling on the water in hysterics despite the enemy forces having been depleted in the area.
"Hyuuga-san... She... She's still down there! We can't... She..." the shipgirl said as she clawed at the water's surface.
"Chikuma!"
"HEY! What are you two idiots doing?! The fight's over THERE!" Tenryuu shouted as she pointed at the shore.
"It's Chikuma, she won't leave!" Tone said pleadingly.
"Why the fuck not?!"
"She said Hyuuga got pulled down here!"
The light cruiser pulled up alongside the two kanmusu, leaning over to look at Chikuma's face. "What do you mean 'got pulled down'?"
"The... They took her... They took Hyuuga-san..." Chikuma said, breath rattling as her fingers curled into fists in the water, as though trying to pull it away to get beneath its surface. "We... We have to get her back, we..."
"Hey... Hey hey hey hey, easy now..." Tenryuu said, grabbing the other cruiser's shoulder. "What happened?"
The green-clad woman sniffled as she seemed to register Tenryuu's presence for the first time, her grey eyes clouded with tears and seemingly having trouble focusing. "S-subs... Abyssal subs... They dragged her down... Hyuuga-san was fighting them and... I tried to get to her..."
Tenryuu heard a hissed intake of breath from behind her as DesDiv 6 crowded around them, and the one-eyed woman cursed under her breath. "Damnit... Alright, look, we'll come back for her later, but right now we're needed back at base."
"Bu-but she...!"
"They took her alive, right? RIGHT?!" Tenryuu asked with a shout.
"H-hai!"
"Then likely she'll still be alive when we come back for her! The Americans are on their way already, we'll have them track the bitches down to where they took her. I doubt Hyuuga would go down without a fight after all, there'll be a trail..."
Inwardly Tenryuu knew that the chances of that were actually quite slim. They'd never recovered anyone taken before, at least that she'd ever heard of. It was a terrifying fate to think about, but there was still a chance that it might be true... And it didn't change the fact that they all needed to work together now. Looking back at her destroyers, she gave a cocky grin.
"Alright you slackers, listen up! We'll take the north port into shore and try to move inland from there. Chances are that the Abyssals all went after the south port and the river, but given how that Ju-class is breathing fire like a dragon right now they'll probably be too busy focusing on her to notice us in the north. We'll hook up with whomever we can and then counter-attack!"
Nagato hissed to herself as she watched the events play out on the monitor. Though it was happening so far away, Yokosuka Base wasn't turning a blind eye to events going on in the Philippines. Indeed, she even had a C-5 already bringing JGSDF troops and a handful of girls to the scene. Tatsuta had complained that her sister was 'off having fun without her', but the battleship knew that the chuunibyou was simply worried for Tenryuu. The falsely angelic cruiser may have had a jealous streak in regards to her sister a mile long, but nothing could ever keep them from backing each other up when the chips were down, and that meant that it was absolutely chafing to Tatsuta to have to continue her own escort operation.
That left the senior staff, however, with an uninterrupted view of what was going on from a distance via the overhead satellites. Cloud cover was still pretty bad over most of the sea area, but with the Abyssals' offshore fleet in shambles or sinking to the deeps the actual fighting was visible in the city. Nagato's eyes narrowed as she watched DesDiv 6 and the Tone sisters moving into the port and began trading fire with Abyssal shore-forces, tearing into the erstwhile infantry like a knife through flesh. The steel-hulled ships were regrouping, rescue operations still underway, but the real excitement was going on over the southern port.
"Mutsu, get the Intelligence officers on this immediately. See if you can get one of them approved through OPSEC and then in here to watch this. I want their opinions as soon as they can," she said, causing her sister to race for the phone. On the screen, flames and blast waves erupted from where the unknown Ju-class was pounding the Abyssal landing forces, their return fire seeming to wash off of her like morning fog as her cannons ripped craters into the ground and sent shrapnel splinters throughout the area. Nagato did NOT envy whatever poor bastard would be in charge of cleaning it all up afterwards, but her focus was taken up by more immediate concerns.
Like how the Abyssal was flying. No Abyssal had shown to be able to launch themselves into the air unless they were fighter and bomber craft, and those had NONE of the firepower that this one was showing. Between her multitude of guns, seemingly as light a caliber as she had thought but with a FAR faster firing rate than she'd ever expected and in greater numbers, and the guided missiles that she was using more sparingly, it made Nagato wonder if this wasn't some kind of new design the enemy had cooked up that had, for one reason or another, gone AWOL on them. It wouldn't be the first time that the Abyssal tried to experiment. In the years of the war, they'd seen several attempts by their aquatic foes to try and create things that had never been thought up by human hands, and even more in this very fight itself... An infantry force, no matter how oddly designed, was still something that had only been hinted at in prior conflicts, and had been relegated as a sort of attempt at the Abyssals using their own former crews as shore parties.
The idea still made Nagato shudder. There had always been a net of mystery surrounding the tiny humanoids that were often referred to as fairies (which got more than one chuckle out of the American forces on more than one occasion), and with the Abyssals showing a similar sort of shadow-fairy it had caused more than a few questions. For the sake of drawing a line between them, Kanmusu and the humans who worked with them referred to the Abyssal crews as 'Imps' instead of 'Faeries', allowing PR and Intelligence divisions a means of further demonizing their foes. It may have seemed like a cold-hearted response, but it was preferable to increased riots over the nature of ship-girls in general, along with all the new theories and realities that they brought.
And now, there was another to add to the list. The Ju-class was letting up on her bombardment now, seemingly coming down to land in the ruins of a church (San Augustin from the monitor's mini-map, thank you to whoever attached Google Maps to the system), and as Nagato watched a pair of small aircraft lifted off from her back to head further into the city. She'd seen a few of the fighter craft that were following the Ju-class, but it still made her worried. A light carrier with the armament of a modern cruiser, if not better, and the ability to fly, all made for a mobile and well-armed package. If the Abyssals fielded more of these types, they would be in trouble...
But that then begged the question: Why was THIS Abyssal firing on its own forces? Was it confused, or was there some kind of schism going on amidst their enemy? No doubt the politicians and Intel committees would LOVE that, especially if they could figure out a means of creating more such conflicts amidst the enemy. Hell, she was willing to bet the Imperial seal on her gorget that the Americans would jump on it in a heartbeat, given their usage of similar tactics before the Abyssal war in nearly EVERY theater they'd been in.
"Nagato-nee, we've got Chief Parker coming up here soon. He'll be up in five minutes," Mutsu said as she hung up.
"Yokatta... Keep Admirals Goto and Yashiro appraised of the situation as well, but don't neglect our other operations," Nagato replied with a nod, not removing her gaze from where the Ju-class was now moving between buildings on the ground.
"Hai! And the others?"
"The rest of the Admiralty will likely know already or are being informed by their own secretaries. No need for us to go stepping on toes Mutsu-chan."
Sergeant Bautista cursed as he felt a piece of concrete skip off his helmet as an Abyssal trooper fired at him, and the big man pushed his carbine out from behind the sandbags and flower-pots he had been taking cover behind to blind-fire in return, attempting to force the thing shooting at him to keep its head down. Guinto was patching up another marine who'd been struck in the upper chest, slapping a disinfectant patch over the burnt and bleeding hole in the man's shoulder. The worst thing about these 'infantry' was that it seemed that they liked to coat their ammunition in some sort of toxin that burned as it got into the wound. Even with the bandage on him the wounded trooper was gritting his teeth harder and harder in an effort not to scream as the toxin went into his bloodstream. Flores was doing a good job of taking his time to pick his shots, each burst leaving a tight grouping of holes in the softer chitin of their enemies' armor and causing them to fall back or fall down.
The silver lining in all this mess however was that stupid little RC car that had shown up earlier. Despite all sense and logic, the bullets that the tiny little chaingun on its back was spraying out were hitting with the force of an autocannon, tearing into Abyssals and cover alike whenever it swept their way, scything through flesh, bone and steel equally. The little hoots and hollers of its pint-size crew only added to the surrealness of it all when people saw the Abyssals reacting to it in no different a manner than they did the Marines themselves. Bautista had a fleeting thought that he might be hallucinating the whole thing, but if it kept his people alive then the little hallucinations could have a tea party with the Fairy Queen for all he cared, so long as the bullets kept going down-stream.
About three blocks behind them there were wounded civilians being carted off on stretchers towards Tanduay Fire Sub Station, where the handball courts were being used as a field hospital before being further taken to Mary Chiles hospital and the evacuation centers for better treatment, while those that could walk were hobbling around behind those too hurt to move on their own. Every so often another bunch would come up the straight-away via the Ayala bridge with Cthulu-style horrors nipping at their heels, and the marines would have to simultaneously beat them back while protecting the civilians. More than one civvie simply dropped to the ground as bullets starting going past them, while others continued to try and crawl or run forwards. The ones who were too slow or who froze up in terror were mercilessly cut down by the foe, butchered like animals by creatures little better than that. No, worse, since animals would only kill to eat or defend territory, not for the sheer joy of it...
Another explosion came as a shell pierced the corner building of the Department of Budget and Management, showering them with yet more debris as something within the crowd of horrors took offence to their continued resistance. The REAL threat in this section came from the Isla de Convalencia, a small island in the middle of the river that the Abyssals were using to set up some kind of artillery in the form of one or more of their more humanoid ships. These women moved like titans amongst the lessers of their kind, even if they were only light cruisers or destroyers, for they carried the firepower of an armored column and could break a defensive line easily if they rushed. The Intramuros area was already in enemy hands, as were Ermita, San Nicolas, Malate, Binondo and Paco, with Quiapo, Sta. Cruz and Tondo remained as contested. The marines and Philippino metro police were holding a line along San Miguel, despite the constant assaults from the river. They hadn't received any orders yet to blow the Ayala bridge, but if no more of their own people came across then Bautista figured it only a matter of time before they had to cut their losses...
Another explosion occurred, this time followed by three smaller ones. Spitting out a curse he growled to the others. "They're getting ready to push! Heads down, then get ready to pop up once the fireworks stop! They'll swarm us if we let them!" A chorus of affirmatives were drowned out by more explosions, and he had only a moment to notice one of the little cars trucking it through the smashed-glass of the furniture store Saver's Place across the road to keep from being out in the open. 'Good on him,' Bautista thought to himself, as it meant that even magical hallucinations knew to take cover when the rain turned to lead.
Three horrifying minutes passed as the area was shelled, and Bautista could practically smell the horde forming behind their artillery's cover fire, the smell of something fundamentally WRONG with them curling the hairs on his big arms as he checked over his weapon again and prayed. The explosions weren't quite big enough to be true artillery, some of it seemed more like grenade launchers or mortars, though there was enough of the larger ship-based shells going around to make them sit tight. When the shells stopped falling, the Abyssals let loose a long, wailing warcry that was like the screaming of the damned, inviting their fellows to join them as they surged forward.
"Give them hell boys!" the sergeant said, peeking out from cover to spray fire into the mass of enemy forces barrelling their way down the steel-truss bridge towards them, having used the majority of the shelling to cross it. A part of the marine's mind wondered why they didn't just swarm up from the waterline itself, but it was unlikely he'd live long enough for it to matter, so he put it out of mind. Guinto and Flores were already joining him, along with a few of the other squads that were alongside them. The BRATATATATATATATA of machine guns chattered as they poked out of the buildings their crews had taken cover in and hadn't been devastated by the shelling, while mortar teams further back started loading their own counter-fire to hit the bridge as a whole.
Fire and brimstone rained down in the form of shaped charge explosives and fragmentation rounds, along with a hailstorm of bullets that tore into the horde like they were running into a sandblaster. Yet for all the firepower being brought to bear, it only seemed to anger the Abyssals more. Every one they dropped was replaced by another, and while they WERE going down it wasn't going to be long before they moved up the heavy hitters. "Keep those ammo runners moving! We have to hold them here at the choke point or these bastards will overrun us!"
Another thirty minutes was spent fighting off wave after wave of Lovecraftian nightmares that Bautista KNEW he was going to have nightmares about, before a second round of shelling from the small island in the river pounded at them again. Two machine gun nests were obliterated in the exchange, as well as a squad's worth of men that had been caught out in the open. When the bombardment stopped, the marines immediately got back to work trying to reestablish their wall of fire, but it seemed that their luck had run out.
This time the first ones across were something like the destroyer ships from out at sea, shark-like monsters with gaping jaws and glowing eyes with guns protruding from between jagged teeth, only these monsters had a series of legs like a demented combination of crab and dog as they ambled forward, smashing pieces of cover with cannonfire as they moved ahead of the infantry. Flores booked it across the street in order to avoid getting blown up, with Guinto throwing a man over her shoulders as she followed on his heels. The sergeant followed them as they made to fall back into the furniture store, the little RC jeep driving backwards as its little gatling gun fired at the armored bastards in controlled streams that seemed to bite on occasion, but didn't do nearly enough damage to stop them. A cannon shell brought down the sign above the shop just as they all got inside, covering the entrance in dust and debris as the four humans, along with the attending fairy machine, kept going down the hall of the building to find the back exit.
Ramming it with his shoulder, Bautista gave a quick check to make sure the area was clear before waving the others forward, Dizzy moving up first to provide extra cover while Guinto hauled her patient along and the green-painted jeep-thing drove around her ankles to get into the clear and book it straight down the alleyway. Sadly for it, this turned out to be a mistake, as a cannonshell detonated right in front of it, sending the little machine flying and its crew scattered along the ground. As Bautista looked back, he saw something that caused his blood to freeze...
Standing in front of the alley wasn't an enemy infantryman, or even one of the destroyer things. This was one he hadn't seen before personally, but the more humanoid body was undeniable, even with the mask it wore over its face that only revealed one glowing eye and ragged hair. Intel had made a solid lead that the more humanoid an Abyssal was, the more powerful they tended to be. Given that this one looked almost human except for the post-apocalyptic armor and the cannon mounted on its arm, Bautista was willing to bet this was at least a cruiser... And it was staring straight at them.
Immediately they all started firing as they backed away, bullets deflecting and sparking off the Abyssal's skin and armor as it trudged after them, looking for all the world like a lineman who just spotted a lone quarterback in the open... Flores and Bautista were both firing in bursts as they fell back, but Guinto was having trouble and as a result was letting her frustration get to her. She swore in her father's native tongue as she added her own fire to the mix.
"Mira, PU-tos!" Crack, crack, crack! "¡Sus hijos de cien-mil putas!" Crack, crack, crack! "¡Andan por las conchas de sus madres y caen muertos!" Crack, crack, crack! "¡Toma esta flecha maricón!" Crack, crack, crack! "¡Sus mamas no tienen conchas, cabrónes!" Crack, crack, CLICK! This last sound caused the tirade to stop, and the medic let her carbine fall to hang by its strap as she went to haul ass along with the others, only to screech to a stop at the end of the alleyway. The horde had moved faster once the initial defence of the bridge had fallen, and so now had the block flooded with bodies as a group of them turned to face her.
Before Guinto could move though, her squadmates both went flying into her back, as they were all picked up bodily and flung through the air by a single shot from the Abyssal cruiser that was following them, landing in the middle of the street. Rolling onto his back, Sgt Bautista lamented for a mere second that his last moments were going to be in the middle of a bloody market, but scoffed at himself as he tried to stand, the cruiser stalking forward out of the alleyway towards them. If he was going to die, he'd die on his feet. Pulling his knife and pistol out, he fired a handful of rounds at the pale-skinned woman, who merely ignored it in favor of getting closer. 'It must not want to waste the ammo...' he thought to himself, as he gritted his teeth to charge.
...Only to blink as the cruiser stumbled, a small explosion going off on its back. Stumbling, the cruiser then turned around to see what had attacked it. Running forward on little legs, a lone green-clad spirit was hustling it double-time towards the beleaguered marines, his helmet and rifle a little oversized for something his size, yet nonetheless seemingly radiating defiance. As the micro-marine came within spitting distance, it looked up at the Abyssal with a scrunched up expression of disgust on its face as it pointed its little rifle up.
"OOO! OO OO RAH!" it said, thrusting the little weapon up as though threatening the cruiser despite the sheer difference in size. For a moment, even the Abyssals seemed to be confused, the grey metal/coral mask of the cruiser turning to give its one eye-piece a better view of the thing that was squawking at it... And then seemed to snort before lifting her armored boot. The little marine had only a brief moment to hold down his trigger and spray the Abyssal with little bits of lead, before a quiet CRUNCH ended its existence.
Grinding her foot into the remains of the strange fairy, the Abyssal then turned back to its normal prey. Flores was still trying to reload his carbine with one arm, the other visibly shattered, and Guinto was using her body to shield their yet unknown fourth, leaving only Bautista to face off against the enemy ship. Steeling himself to die once more, Angelo gritted his teeth and shifted the knife into an underhanded position, pulling back the arm to jab forward as soon as it got in range.
The Abyssal seemed willing to humor him too... It crouched down as if getting ready for a fight, cannon arm low and back ready to hit like a hammer as it stalked forward, and with a cry the sergeant darted in, slamming the blade forward to try and sever something within the Abyssal's neck and hopefully do some damage. The blade skittered off the side of the cruiser's mask as his wrist was caught in her free hand, and the she-witch used her cannon to ram Bautista's gut up into his ribcage, causing him to expel all the breath from his lungs before biting back a scream as his opponent casually crushed his arm between her fingers. One kick is all it took to throw him back into his comrades, knocking Flores' weapon from his hand after he'd finally reloaded it. With heaving breaths Bautista looked up to see the cruiser leveling her cannon arm at them, ready to finish them off...
Angelo had enough time to see the rifling in the cannon's barrel, to practically see the shell that would have ended his life and his comrades, before the Abyssal just seemed to come apart at the seams, round after round of tracer-like fire slamming into her and causing small explosions as they ripped her apart, pieces of flesh and metal mixing with rancid oil and blood as they flew away from their previous owner, leaving a pair of mutilated legs and bits of torso to fall to the ground. Head snapping to the side, Bautista saw something moving through the smoke, heavy thumps coming as something walked towards them.
This time the creature that stepped forth looked like someone had taken an Abyssal and given it a suit of power armor, or maybe one of the exo-loaders from Aliens... Black armor plating covering grey joints, turrets moving independently on its limbs as it stomped forward on massive, reinforced legs, torso wrapped in a thick plate that was both armor and harness. Even the toothy, shark-like grin on its head... No, TWO heads, if the one on that side cannon was an indication, screamed Abyssal... Yet it wasn't looking at the humans...
Leviathan gritted her teeth in rage. This whole fight she'd been feeling her aggression growing, and a part of her was getting worried about it, even though it was turning out to be useful. The sight before her now though would have gotten her furious even before that however. Four marines shoved into a pile for a battlefield execution by an inhuman enemy... It made her coolant lines boil and her reactor flare up, yet she'd been too far to be able to get an accurate shot in without hitting the marines.
And then her own marine... That beautifully defiant little bastard of a gremlin, had taken its one grenade and tried to get the attention of the enemy commander. He'd even succeeded too, letting Levi get closer to actually be able to see it with her own eyes... Just as the bitch went and stomped on him like a bug. In the corner of her HUD, one of the health monitors had flat-lined instantly, and the Marathon-class cruiser's vision had gone red. She'd tromped up further as the human engaged his enemy, fouling her chance to get a shot in yet again, until he was thrown off by the Abyssal.
Finally, she'd had a clear shot, and she'd taken it instantly, sending a long stream of HE rounds from her turrets into the Abyssal and turning her into swiss cheese. The whole battle had seemingly frozen as she stepped forward, marching up to where the enemy cruiser had been, before leaning down. There, on the ground, were the squashed, almost liquefied remains of her gremlin. With greater care than one might have thought her capable of, Leviathan scooped up the remains of the tiny soldier, his armor and weapon shattered and helmet caved in, and brought it up to her torso, letting a corpsman take the body and bring it aboard... He'd get the burial he deserved.
... But not until after she gave the enemy one THEY deserved! Turning to the horde around them, who were starting to get restless now and edging forward, Levi brought both arms up to point 20 of her cannon turrets towards them along her limbs, waist, shoulders and legs. Her eyes, glowing with righteous fury, landed on the human who was staring up at her.
"Stay down..." she said, before opening fire and unleashing hell upon their nightmarish foe...