knock knock!" Zubian cheerfully called, finishing her circle around the destroyer patrol.
"God damn it." Muttered Ardent at the girl's pass, rubbing her temples underneath her sailors hat and desperately trying to avoid looking at the excited fellow destroyer.
"Who's there!" Fubuki answered to her flank with equal excitement.
"Um-" Zubian began, a finger to her mouth, pensively considering the question as if taken by surprise.
Ardent mumbled slightly under her breath and took the binoculars hanging on her neck up to her eyes, scanning the distant islands in a vain effort to both do her job and drown out the noises of Zubian.
"Oh! Pirates!" Zubian finally decided to answer, ascending again to flank speed loops around the patrol, the tassels on her sailors hat fluttering excitedly behind her.
"Pirates who?!" Fubuki asked, either ignorant or uncaring to the fact that Zubian was completely improvising everything.
Ardent binoculars did little to drown out the obnoxiously loud thinking noises Zubian made in her route, the younger destroyer sighed audibly as she scanned the thick jungles and the many inlets of the archipelago.
"Pirates are-" Zubian thought for a bit, slowing her speed dramatically while she thought, "pirates are fun?"
"I don't even get it!" Ardent began, pointing her binoculars accusingly at the older destroyer. Abandoning her efforts at reconnaissance, despite the patrol's intent.
Zubian slowed down, her Amber eyes giving a confused look at Ardent before offering a passive shrug, completely ignorant of the meaning of her own joke.
"Oh, wait, we've got it!" Zubian cried suddenly as she matching pace with Ardent and offered a sly smile, "pirates ARRRRR fun." She nudged the other girl in the ribs in a jovial manner, one eye closed and a finger curved in imitation like a hook "get it? ARRRRR?"
Ardent slowed, looking deadpanned at her fellow British ship. "I swear to God and country if you say anything like that again, I'm going to tell Glowworm you made a 'ramming speed' joke again." she shook her head slightly and brought the binoculars up again.
Zubian slowed slightly, looking slightly devastated about the comment and shifting to the side of Ardent with a pleading look, "come on mate, it wasn't that bad?"
"If Ushio were here she'd be crying." Ardent stated flatly to the aside.
"HEY!" cried an angry voice from the back of the patrol as Akebono let her hands previously gripping a radar set fall to her hips, "don't you dare talk about her like that! Especially behind her back!" she cried, staring daggers at the offending British ship.
"Issa joke mate," Ardent sighed through her binoculars, making effort to examine a particularly overgrown bay.
"It's about as funny as the last one was," Akebono cried angrily, eliciting joyful giggles from Zubian, "and stop picking on Ushio or you'll be sorry."
"Akebono please calm down," Fubuki pleaded disarmingly as she sailed in the narrowing gap between quarreling destroyers, "they'll stop."
"No! I'm tired of these British ships and their constant efforts to make fun of us." Akebono accused, angrily waving about her radar set.
"You need to learn the difference between good natured teasing and actual malice." Ardent called, dropping her binoculars again and anchored on her hips, "for instance, me telling Zubian her jokes are shit is teasing." She explained factually, "if I flipped her bed in he middle of the night because she wouldn't stop talking in her sleep, that'd be bullying."
"We thought that was Zulu waking us up?" Zubian muttered quietly with confusion, unheard of by the other ships.
"You're just a shitty boat and an angry person!" Akebono called pointing an accusing finger supported by a deck gun towards the British ship, "just leave Ushio and me alone and let us patrol, we never asked for this patrol and never wanted to accompany some dumb limey ships."
Fubuki sailed again in between the two vessels, kicking up a light wake as she coasted quickly into the gap, up a disarming gesture to compliment her alarmed and desperate expression. "Please stop fighting!" She pleaded.
"Oi, she's seems to like us just fine!" Ardent called around the newly arrived moderator towards her foe, "you're the only one who seems to have a stick up her arse!"
"She loves everyone, even if she doesn't like them!" Akebono called.
"Hey-uh guys?" Zubian called weakly from her place at the far right of the impending brawl. Her eyes trained on a distant landmass.
"That doesn't even make sense you nitwit!" Ardent scolded. "Besides, we invited her over for tea, we were going to do beer, but the admiral says heavy cruiser and larger only on that. The bastard." She added, with large gestures, "she had a great time, you might have too if you weren't such an insufferable arse."
"You still got her drunk!" Akebono accused even angrier.
Ardent threw her hands in the air, kicking up the patchwork red jacket she wore like a cape over her worn out sailor outfit, "who drinks tea without rum?!" she asked as though the answer was obvious. "and it's not like we slipped her liquor when she wasn't looking!"
Fubuki began mewing pathetically, completely overwhelmed and vainly attempting to keep both ships apart. Pleading desperately as she tried to get words past Akebono's anger fueled response.
"We see something" Zubian called louder, gesturing towards a distant island, prompting Fubuki to finally look away from the impending fight.
"What?" She asked curiously, still in her mediating position between the pair.
A distant island, partially hidden by the grooves of a closer landmass jutted out where Zubian was now repeatedly pointing and making excited emphatic noises towards, leaning herself behind her points and towards the island as if to make it more noticeable.
"It's right over there!" she called past the ridiculous gesture.
"Oh." Fubuki answered, setting her previously ready turrets down, "those are some old structures from the war. They're all around here," she answered shrugging.
"But we saw something!" Zubian wailed, not abandoning her pointing.
"Oh?" asked Fubuki, pulling a pair of binoculars from her rigging.
"I think it was an abyssal. It looked like a cruiser or something."
Ardent had stopped, grinning slightly from the joy she had over previous fight, "what's this about an Abyssal?" she called over her shoulder.
Zubian decided instead of answering, to continue pointing at the island and making emphatic noises. Lifting up one of her legs to bend into the point better, causing her sailor cap bearing her name to topple into the water.
"That doesn't help." Ardent answered, pulling her binoculars up to take in the scene herself. Mulling over the islands as she searched for the target, "which one was it?" she asked, still searching.
"The one with the grey building." Zubian continued, brushing water off her cap, "we saw it head behind the rock. We don't think it saw us though, but maybe it heard something." She added with a chiding tone.
"Bollocks." Ardent exclaimed as she searched the island, "I can't seem to-" she paused as a shape moved from behind the island, "there she is-".
"We told you!" Zubian began. Her soaking cap returned to its rightful place.
"Sodding brilliant, you earn a biscuit," Ardent began dryly, focused completely on the enemy ship in question. "She's a beauty- got a nasty set of guns, mixed calibers, hard to tell what exactly with these abyssals. But I'd like to see what she's doing. She seems awfully intent with that island." she finished, dropping the binnoculars to her chest.
"We'll give it our best!" Fubuki cried encouragingly.
"We're too far out of torpedo range, she'd eat us for breakfast." Ardent dismissed," best to call up and get a carrier or something out here"
"You're too far out of torpedo range because all you've got are your shitty stubby things!" Akebono lectured with personal pride, "Me and Fubuki have long lances, she'll have a hole in her side wide enough for you to sleep in before she even knows it, maybe if you weren't such a shitty ship, you could do something like that too.
"That's really gross." Ardent deadpanned.
Akebono just shot an angry look.
"Right. Afair enough, time and place." Ardent admitted, "where do you need to set?"
Fubuki, thought for a moment, rubbing her chin thoughtfully "Over there should do it." she finally decided, pointing at an intervening island, directly blocking line of sight towards the Abysaal.
"Right, me and Zubian will take the lead." Ardent decided, mentally checking her torpedoes, "fast and quiet Zube," Ardent announced before taking a steady pace towards the hiding area, giving tense glances towards the treetops she knew concealed the abyssals spot.
Slowing herself on the water when she nearedmthe ambush location a small wake formed at her front as she picked up the binnoculars again, heading towards the edge of the groove as she watched the Abysaal, more clearly now, angrily pacing back and forth in front of the cave's entrance.
"What is it you want?" Ardent asked the Abysaal quietly sizing it up."
It was cruiser sized and one of the more humanoid of the Abyssals, a grim assortment of armament and a particularly nasty belt accompanying an extremely displeased expression.
"What do you see?" Zubian asked in a loud whisper.
"Abyssals, and shut the hell up," Ardent answered, handing the binoculars off to the the more amicable of the Japanese, "she's got open water behind her, got to make the first spread count."
Akebono gave her an arrogant smirk, "Oxygen torpedoes don't make wake, we can shoot her all we want and she won't know." Akebono patted the launchers on her legs, drawing a similar grin from the British destroyer.
"Bloody brilliant, I love it," Ardent called, "me and Zube don't have anything on that, so if worse comes to worse I'd rather not make a charge."
Fubuki continued spying from her location, her face hidden partially behind a low hanging tree she crouched behind, "Looks like she's at anchor," Fubuki mulled quietly, "what do you think, Akebono? One spread each?"
"I'll do a wide, you hit her with a narrow, just to make sure she doesn't get too far." Akebono answered, her launchers quietly rotating into position and adopting a ready position.
Fubuki let out an enthusiastic fist in the air, "alright, let's go!" She called out quietly, but with no loss in enthusiasm. Until her face reddened noticably at Ardent and Akebono's confused expressions of response.
Zubian's response however more than matched Fubuki'sides enthusiasim. A loud cry of "huzzah!" coming from the British destoryer as Zubian double fisted her turret encased hands in the air.
The other destroyers gave a wide mix of, excepting Fubuki's case, angry and alarmed look at Zubian's outburst. Causing a sheepish look to take over Zubian, as her hands slowly lowered.
"Shut the hell up you daft bastard!" Ardent whispered with alarm, ducking down slightly, giving a brief and tense filled wait for incoming fire.
Non coming p, the destroyer moved to Fubuki'sides position, carefully attempting to conceal her movements. Until was greeted by a resounding shockwave and the heatwave of twin shells cutting through the foliage above her head, whizzing by until they splashed down in the distance behind her as the thunderous boom meet the now no longer hidden destroyers.
"Zubian you muppet!" Ardent cried through clenched teeth, screws biting into the water and torpedo tubes turning, "I'll fucking get you back for this one."
"You're the one who gave us away!" Zubian defended, as she took tried to gain steam.
"Look out" Fubuki cried, ducking into combat right behind Ardent, her own tubes turning and with a hiss of pressurized gas, the torpedoes flopped into the water behind her, "Destroyer Fubuki, tubes one through four expelled." she called loudly, any pretense of Ambush shattered by the exchange of fire.
Akebono grumbled slightly and took off behind Fubuki, giving her usual angry expression and leveling her torpedoes, delivering her own barrage of lethal torpedoes. "Destroyer Akebono, tubes one through four expelled." she called bitterly.
Zubian blustered her way past on unsure footing, turning the tubes hastily and firing her own torpedoes, the two steel tubes flopping at wide angle from each other, "Destroyer Zubian, tubes one through four expelled." she called with enthusiasim.
Ardent turned back, casting an angry glare at Zubian through the icing fire. "dammit Zube, you're out of range!"
"But the others-" Zubian began mortified, and clutching her pair of hip mounted torpedoe launchers protectively.
The conspicuous wake of Zubian's ill-advised barrage joined the faster and stealthier torpedoes of the Japanese ships, one heading at a far angle and the other surprisingly straight towards the Abysaal.
Her reloading finished, the Abysaal let out a savage cry of anger and frustration and fired again, missing Ardent narrowly. Odd shots began to open up as lighter, smaller guns began to join her main battery, the group of destroyers now closer for better shots at flank speed.
The arrival of the torpedoes however finally seemed to register to the Abysaal and broughterned look to her face, the warship began a wide right turn, eying Zubian's torpedoes. Tracking them as her firing became more wild and less aimed in the evasive action.
Ardent fired now, high explosive deck gun shots splashing uselessly near the lumbering abyssal, her guns joined by the sounds of Fubuki and Akebono and to no small surprise, Zubian's peashooters, nearly out of range.
"God damn you Zubian!" Ardent cried as another Cascade of water sprayed over her from a near shell hit, "she's going to dodge the torpedoes now!"
Zubian's torpedoes began to slow and soon the bubbles sigifying their presence dissipated entirely in the no man's land between the ships, with a sheepish grin from the destroyer.
The Abysaal however took on a more savage expression. Slowing her pace slightly she seemed to relish the time it took for her heavy turrets to train themselves firmly on Ardent.
It was then the long lance hit.
Impacting with a geyser of water across the Abyssal's bow and followed up with a hollow wail of anger and pain accompany by violent, rage filled thrashing.
"We did it!" Cried Fubuki, happily jumping on the water's surface.
The Abyssal let out another wail and made a last look of disgust and rage before turning steadily towards the open water behind her, letting out a thick and disgusting plume of black smoke, the only sense of her presence aside from the continously unearthyl rage and anguish filled howls from behind the choking smog.
"She's getting away!" Zubian called, turning her conspicuously empty tubes towards the Avyssal.
"Damn!" Ardent exclaimed in frustration, pounding angrily on her turrets. "She won't be hard to track and is slowed." She decided with biter resignation in her voice, "it's better to radio it in then risk open water." she turned toward the collapsed entrance of the sub pen, "Bucky, why don't you give it a look? Me and Zube will check around the back"
"I'm tired of these nicknames!" Akebono cried angrily. In response, throwing her arms up.
But Fubuki just let out an enthusiastic smile. And turned, heading toward the rubble strewn entrance at steady pace slowing shortly outside of it, all weapons at the ready.
Sensing the intent, Akebono turned too, training her remaining torpedoes at the entrance way and began steadily moving into a supporting position
Bringing herself to ΒΌ ahead Fubuki began creeping steadily toward the hole and then finally came to a stop just outside the entrance. The Gunboat ddestrpyer, hesitantly peaked her head in, finding the path too rubble strewn to see in, but noticing a thin area she could conceivably pick her way through, should she need to enter.
Deciding that blind entrance was a risky manuver the girl decided to call out. "Hello?" she announced in her native Japanese, voice echoing noisily through the walls.