Moments ticked by as Iowa's world slowed to a crawl. Her eyes shut firmly in fear and the distant alarmed yelling and sporadic pops of anti-aircraft fire sounding almost as though through glass. Iowa hugged her arms progressively close to her face as he inevitable drew ever closer.

And waited.

A distant part of her mind noting that the sounds of the escorts outgoing fire had finally died down by the time she risked stealing a glance towards the torpedo's path, a confused glance backwards confirmed her observations, the torpedo was gone.

Iowa let out the breath she had just now discovered she had been holding in, taking a moment to calm herself down as her senses returned to her, registering the rest of the fleet conducting last minute scans for aircraft and pulling towards her position, a weak and reassuring wave towards the screen ships died in her arms as she felt a soft shape barrel into her chest hard at flank speed, knocking her briefly backwards and disorienting her further.

Taking a moment to recover herself, she found the small form of the USS Franks embracing her tightly and desperately around the waist. Iowa tried to smile disarmingly but the girl was squeezing ever tighter onto the battleship and her face was buried into Iowa's stomach and the grin and prepared dismissive rebuke fell flat when she felt the steady shaking from the Destroyers arms and the growing wet spots where her face was tightly pressed. The battleship's face softened and she lightly patted the destroyer's sniffling head.

Glancing over her shoulder, Iowa noted that Stewart was in fact the first of the others to arrive, standing in her trademark stiff position, her judgement filled glare drilling into Iowa's Harveyized Steel hull.

Iowa gave her an apologetic and not at all awkward nod. "I uh-" Iowa began, "I screwed it up there."

Steward simply returned her apology with a slow shake of her head, and turned around, sailing slowly away and leaving Iowa alone to administer apologetic and reassuring headpats to 2,500 tons of traumatized combat vessel.

Haggard was the first of the others to arrive, coasting smoothly to a stop alongside the pair, casting a sympathetic glance towards Franks before giving Iowa a cockeyed grin that barely masked her recovering worry. "We thought you were really fucked back there! Fran ran so fast when she saw the plane I'm surprised her boilers haven't ruptured. So how did you dodge it?"

Iowa opened her mouth to answer but found nothing, "hey bridge?"

A squeaky affirmative.

"Why aren't I sinking?" Iowa asked, regretting the words as soon as the tiny arms around her waist tightened in response.

A squeaky answer.

"Huh -" she turned to Haggard, administering a reassuring rub of the head, "Apparantly flying a burning plane makes it hard to drop a torpedo effectively, went right under my hull."

Haggard nodded.

San Juan and Atlanta pulled up, a cheery and clearly relieved smile from San Juan and the look of unfinished business and impending lectures from Atlanta were the only comments made to the affair.

San Juan skidded smoothly to a halt, optics trained on the horizon, towards the bombers origin, wordless to the others and complete ly focused.

Atlanta flipped out a small personal map, surveying intently the group's current and future positions. only when she seemed content with her survey did she turn to Iowa, Franks, and the newly arrived Hailey.

"Iowa what's your top cruising speed?" She asked suddenly.

"Um- about 15 knots, it depends on conditions?" Iowa answered questioningly, "why?"

"Those planes weren't land based, the markings were all wrong."

"Markings?" Iowa asked.

"Royal Navy." San Juan answered.

"And those were Gladiators." Atlanta added

Iowa raised a pensive eyebrow, rubbing the head of the slowly calming destroyer in her charge.

"I'm thinking we might have found Abyssal Princess Glorious."

"Fuck." San Juan muttered. "How do you figure that?"

"Map says we're pretty damn far from any islands and that means they're carrier based Gladiators, ergo, it's gotta be Glorious, no one else carried them in combat with Swordfish like that from my recollection."

Iowa continued headpatting Franks, "who's this Abyssal Princess Gloria?" she interjected.

"Glorious." Atlanta corrected, "Or at least the Abyssal Glorious, she's a Royal Navy aircraft carrier, got sunk back in 1940."

"So, she's a shipgirl firing Abyssals at us?"

"Well-no" Atlanta began, "Essentially summoning a warship's spirit is a weighted coin toss. The noble service and national pride on one side, sinking, prematurely or in ignoble circumstances, killing, and warcrimes on the other."

"When the ship is summoned the coin is flipped, it's weight usually drags it to one side or another, allowing either the good or the bad to escape and leaving the other behind wherever we come from, too weak to escape. In rare cases however both escape either separately or together. Kaga apparently woke up in the middle of the pacific with an Abyssal carrier princess right next to her." Atlanta' expression shifted from informative to inquisitive, "wasn't all of this covered in the briefing packet."

"Uh- probably-" Iowa began, "I was a tad busy."

"Well now you know." San Juan mentioned offhand still peering through her binoculars.

"What are you looking for?" Hailey piped up, "does she have more planes?"

"Escorts." San Juan explained tersely

"When Glorious left port in 1940 she had 4 battleships, 2 battlecruisers and a large concentrations of smaller escorts for her and her sisters." Atlanta began academically, "it's safe to say there's at least a battleship out there," catching Iowa growing smirk she elaborated, "it's far more likely than not to be a dreadnaught, the only ones with experience fighting those are the Taffys."

Iowa put a protective arm around Hailey, recollections the relentless pounding of 14" naval rifles coming to bear. "Right, but contrary to what you may think of me, I'm well versed in being on the receiving end of a dreadnaughts guns, so what's your idea?"

"Run and scream for help." San Juan replied tersely, still staring through her binoculars, her normal teasing attitude lost under the pressures of advancing battleships.

Atlanta sighed, "retreat and make contact with friendly forces yes."

"Right. I'm not sure I can outrun newer battleships"

"We'll address that when it becomes an issue. For now we just need to get moving, we'll settle details on the move," Atlanta turned to the group as a whole, "I want a tighter travelling formation, keep active sonar sweeps up though, I don't want some opportunistic sub putting a hole in our transport just because we stopped looking." Surveying the ships with an authoratative face Atlanta's serious expression softened when she reached Franks's, whose red, puffy, and tear streaked expression had extracted itself from a tear and snot filled crater on Iowa's chest. She sniffled pathetically still.

"Fran, you can escort Iowa, keep other planes and subs off of her, we'll have Haggard take up position up front, she's almost as good as you at hunting subs. Besides, this way we have someone who can help her with radios."

Franks nodded weakly and Iowa felt a small hand take her own in a death grip.

Atlanta gave Franks one last reassuring smile and moved out a flank speed, one by one the others began to follow, Hailey lingered for a moment before addressing the duo, "stay safe and take care of each other okay?"

"Sure!" Iowa replied.

Hailey sped off, leaving the pair alone, in, as far as Iowa was concerned, extremely awkward silence. Her hand once again gripped tightly by the destroyer's own extremely unsanitary hands.

After several minutes Frank's weakly broke the barrier, "Hey Iowa." she muttered softly

"Hmm?"

"Promise me you won't do that again? Put yourself in danger like that."

"I'm a warship Fran-," Iowa began before the vice grip on her hand intensified, "okay, here," Iowa began, taking a crouch to bring her face level to the pathetically distrought expression of Franks, "I promise I'll keep the odds in my favor and never attack anyone I don't know I can beat for sure."

Franks said nothing but embraced the battleship tightly around the neck.

"Hey, come on now, we've got too try and catch up with the others, I'm coal fired and slow enough as is."

Franks nodded and slowly released her arms, Iowa took her hand, slowly accelerating alongside the girl towards the rest of the convoy.