Chapter 12: MALL!
"Wait, that's a mall?" said Johnston, her voice muffled by the tinted SUV window she'd smashed her face up against. "It's so big!"
Gale laughed, glancing at her hyper-energetic passengers for a moment in the rear view mirror. They'd been… honestly pretty awful on the drive, or at least Hoel and Johnston had been. Heermann just sorta… sat in the middle staring wistfully off into space.
"There's so many cars!" said Hoel, her flaming hair brushing against Gale's neck as the destroyer shoved her head between the front two seats.
"It's the day before Halloween," said Gale, turning off the road and into one of the vast—and filled almost to capacity—parking areas that surrounded the mall. "Parking's gonna be-"
Before she could finish her sentence she was interrupted by a rapid sequence of abnormal and worrying sounds. First, the oiled metal-on-metal thunk of a car door being flung open. Then a giggling woop coming from somewhere in the back row. Finally, the fleshy splat of meat against asphalt.
Almost like… Gale glanced over her shoulder, her face shifting almost instantly from 'worried curiosity' to 'long-suffering resignation.'
The door was open. Hoel was whooping with glee. Johnston lay in a heap in the middle of the parking lot, her feathers quivering as she skidded to a stop. And Heermann just had her face buried in her hands.
For a second, the universe seemed to freeze in place, almost as if reality itself was doing a double take. Then Johnston bounced to her feet, and flashed a cheeky thumbs up.
Hoel was the first to speak. "Gawd-dangit, Johnston!" she cried, undoing her buckle with one hand as she opened the door with the other. "Everyone, follow that destroyer!"
"Hoel, no!" Gale slammed on the brakes, trying to steer with one hand and restrain a hyper-energetic destroyer with seemingly no sense of self-preservation with the other. Not that it mattered, the redheaded little girl had already bailed out.
"I am so sorry," said Heermann, letting out an exhausted sigh.
Gale scowled, her shoulders hunching as she focused on simply finding a parking spot. The destroyers and their antics… she'd cross that bridge—that structurally unsound bridge over shark infested waters that was also on fire—when she came to it.
After several minutes of searching—punctuated every few seconds by Heermann calling out an "open" space that ended up having a subcompact Japanese car in it—Gale finally pulled the SUV into an open spot in the remotest corner of a multi-level parking strucutre.
"Heya, Gale!" said Johnston, bounding over the decorative shrubbery with a running leap, her feathers bouncing behind her with her hyper-energetic gait. Her clothes were scuffed up, and she had an oil stain across her chest, but the girl inside them looked no worse for wear.
"Took you long enough!" said Hoel, jinking around the shrub instead of just vaulting it as she came hurling towards the SUV. "Hey, Heermann!"
Heermann waved, smiling as she frantically side-stepped away from where Gale was standing. It took the sailor a heartbeat to recognize why the brunette destroyer did that.
Johnston came skidding to, not so much a stop as a semi-controlled crash against Gale, faceplanting hard against the sailor's chest as she grabbed Gale's waist in a tight hug. Hoel hit mere seconds later, using Johnston's body to cushion her deceleration. "thanks so much for taking us!" said Hoel, looking up with an incandescent smile.
"Yeah, we really appreciate it!" said Johnston, squeezing Gale's waist before letting go, "And uh… sorry if that hurt."
"Yeah, you're not as soft as Jersey."
"Hoel!" hissed Heermann, waving her hand across her throat as fast as she could.
"Oh…" Hoel furrowed her brow, her gaze slowly falling from Gale's expression of angry bewilderment down to the sailor's chest, which wasn't even close to Jersey's… displacement. "OH! SORRY!" she said, instantly releasing the hug and leaping away. "Sorrysorrysorry!"
Johnston just giggled, nuzzling up against Gale before letting her go, "We still love you, Gale!"
—|—|—
Gale tried to scowl, she really did. But in spite of her best efforts, she felt her cheeks twitching in a smile. "Okay… fine, but you girls owe me."
All three destroyers nodded in unison.
After a brisk walk though the food court in which all three destroyers eyed the slowly-cooking soft pretzels then vehemently denied they were hungry, Gale and her little cluster of sleeveless destroyer girls made it to the mall proper.
"Where do we wanna go?" asked Johnston, her hands on her hips as she stared down the mall directory, her eyes narrowed to slits as she all but challenged it to a gun duel at high noon.
"Dunno, Gale?" said Heermann, pivoting on her heel to see if the sailor had any input.
Before she could speak up, Hoel taped excitedly on the directory, "Ooh, it says there's a shop called 'Victoria's Secret'."
"Ooh, sounds classy," said Johnston, tugging her feathers straight and looking to Hoel for confirmation.
"Totally," said Hoel, bouncing on her heels as she nearly vibrated with energy.
"I wonder if they mean Queen Victoria?" said Heermann, bouncing over to join her sisters.
"Lets find out!" said Hoel, throwing her hand up in the air. "Taffy 3! CHAAAAARGE!"
The three destroyer girls bolted down the polished tile floors, effortlessly ducking and weaving though the crowd as they sprinted as fast as their little legs and sixty-thousand shaft horsepower could take them.
Gale didn't even try to follow them. On her best day she couldn't run half as fast as those little demons, and there was no way she could navigate the tightly-packed mass of humanity that was a Friday afternoon at the mall. That, and the destroyers could stand to learn a lesson or two on their own. She just walked over to a nearby bench and sat down, glancing at her watch and counting off the seconds.
"Why did we do that!" Hoel's voice showed up a few seconds before the destroyer did. Her mouth hung open in horror, and her eyes were unfocused as she stared into the distance.
"I feel so violated," muttered Heermann, clutching her hands to her small, but still substantial for a destroyer—chest, as she shuffled over to Gale.
"We have to take Jersey here sometime!" said Johnston, a smirk on her face as she bounced over, still bubbly and unaffected as ever.
"Lewd!" hissed Hoel, elbowing her sister in the belly.
Gale laughed, rolling her eyes at the squabbling destroyer girls. "Did you girls learn your lesson?"
"Yes, ma'am," said Hoel, looking at her shoes as she fiddled with her belt.
"Yes, ma'am," chorused Heermann, although she met Gale's eyes with hers.
"Ooh, what's that?" said Johnston, her head whipping around as she spotted…
Gale's face drained white. Across the junction was a small store with a neon sign proclaiming it to be "ANIME WORLD." Brightly colored costumes and posters Gale could only assume were from various anime were hung on proud display, along with a… with a…
"I.. think it's Naka?" said Hoel, her nose scrunching up as she looked over a life-size cardboard standup of Naka looking cutesy and holding a mic in her hand.
"Where's her stacks though?" said Heermann, standing on tiptoes to get a better view.
"No, that's definitely Naka," said Johnston, putting her head down like it was a battering ram and charging off though the crowd. "Follow me!"
Hoel was hot on her heels, panting as she tried to overhaul Johnston. And Heermann was… was still standing by Gale's side, staring blankly into the distance.
Gale bit her lip. She was thanking her lucky stars that at least one of her three charges had ran out of energy. But she could tell there was something wrong with the little destroyer. "You okay, hun?"
"Hmm?" said Heermann, snapping out of her daze as she looked up at Gale.
"You don't want to go play with your sisters?"
Heermann shook her head, stepping closer to give Gale a hug. "No, I'm okay," she said, her already quiet voice even softer than usual. The little destroyer sighed, her big hazel eyes slick with barely held-in tears.
Gale made a soft humming sound of concern, gently guiding Heermann over to a bench where the two could sit.
"I'm… I'm not really one of them," said Heermann, teetering over until she fell down against Gale's lap. "I'm not a taffy."
"Hmm?" cooed Gale, gently running her hand over Heermann's shimmering brown hair and stroking at her braid.
"I didn't go down fighting," said Heermann, snuggling up closer to the sailor. "I… I survived the war," she said, sniffing and rubbing at her nose with the back of her hand. "I even got given to the Argentinians after."
"So? Lots of ships survived the war."
"But not them!" said Heermann, waving towards the commotion occurring on the other side of the hall, "They… they went under when I was just plinking away! I spent ten minutes running!"
"Heermann, I've read the history books," said Gale, ignoring the odd questioning stare from a passerby as she tried to calm the destroyer, "You girls fought like lions. All of you."
"But they went down swinging," said Heermann, "Like Sammy B… I just…" she sniffed, and Gale frantically started digging though her purse for a pack of tissues. "What if they don't want to be friends with me."
Gale stopped, of all the things she was expecting… "W-what?" she asked, handing Heermann a kleenex.
Heermann took it with a smile, dabbing at her nose before continuing. "They don't… really have anyone else but me. And… I don't think they like me."
"Oh, honey-"
"I woke up one morning," said Heermann, "And they were just gone."
Gale bit back a curse. She'd caught Jersey cuddling with the other two taffies, but hadn't thought anything of it. "I- I'm not sure-"
"HEY!" the thunderously loud bark of USS Johnston shattered any sense of calm. "Hey, lookit!" she bounced over, Hoel and… a slightly shorter, slightly chubbier Naka wearing thin-rimmed glasses in tow. "lookit lookit!"
Heermann bolted upright, frantically stuffing the tissue in her pants pocket and putting on a rough-and-ready scowl.
"It's not really Naka," explained Hoel, waving to the throughly-confused looking girl.
"Yeah, her name's Hannah," said Johnston, "She's a- a what did you say you were?"
"Cosplayer," said the girl, looking to Gale with a timid smile. "Are- are these your girls?"
"Apparently," sighed Gale.
"You- you look really good," said Heermann, her voice only the tiniest bit softer than usual.
"Yeah," said Johnston, "You got her outfit spot-on."
"Hey, Gale," said Hoel, "Do you have one of those camera thingies?"
"You… mean my phone?" said Gale, glancing to 'Hannah' and and offering a questioning glance.
"Yeah, that!" said Hoel.
"You mind?" asked Gale.
The girl shook her head, putting her arms around Johnston and Hoel and slipping into one of Naka's adorably cutesy smiles.
"Hey!" Johnston barked, "We need all of the taffies! Heermann, get your scrawny butt up here!"
"We're… all Fletchers," said Heermann, sniffing quietly as she walked over, her face twitching towards a grin.
"Yeah, but she's" Hoel jabbed her chin towards Johnston, "a dummy."
Johnston smiled from ear to ear, "I really am."
Gale rolled her eyes, holding up her phone. "Say cheese."
"Cheese!" chorused all three destroyers.
"Thanks so much!" said Johnston, giving the costumed girl a hug.
"No problem!" said Hannah, spreading her skirt in a curtsy, "I really like your costumes too!"
Johnston looked to Hoel.
Hoel looked to Heermann.
Heermann looked to Gale.
Gale shrugged.
"We're…" Johnston looked back to Hannah, "We're not wearing costumes."
"Yeah," added Hoel, "We just dress like this."
Heermann smiled sweetly for a second before Johnston elbowed her in the gut. "Oh, right. 'cause we're awesome."
Hannah stared slack-jawed at the three destroyers, her head slowly pivoting back to Gale. "They-They-"
"They're Destroyers?" said Gale, smirking in spite of herself that someone else was getting drawn into the hornets' nest of hyperactive shipgirls. "Yeah. Johnston, Hoel, and Heermann," she finished, pointing out each girl in turn.
"OhEmGEEEEEE!" squealed Hannah, her voice going so high it almost fell off the audible register."CanIpleasepleasepleasegetapicturewiththem?" she said, frantically jabbing her phone at Gale.
"I love malls!" screamed Johnston.
Uploader's Notes: Some Authors notes for you guys below...
A/N: And thus, enter the world of insane DDs that is Yeoman Gale's life now. One of them is even a bit lewd! (not nearly as bad as the lewdmarine though, at least not yet...) And canonically, they went to the Alderwood mall, which does have an Anime World kitty-cornered from a Victoria's Secret.
They also have a forever 21, which is where I was
originally gonna send the girls, but the one-two punch of VS and Anime was too funny to pass up.