Author's Notes
Happy New Year, guys.
It's been over a year since I started writing, and I'd like to sincerely thank every single one of you who either favorited or followed this story, and it doesn't matter if you favorited this story from the very first chapter, pre-rewrite or maybe just yesterday, I never would have made it this far without all of your support.
In fact, I'd also like to thank anyone who even gives my story a casual read, and a fellow shout-out and greetings to any other fellow authors who might be reading this right now and say 'let's do our best this year!'.
This story really has come so far since I've started writing in polytechnic and will likely go even further in my head, and I hope that more of you can join and/or stick with me in the years to come to see this story go even further and see where it leads us, and more importantly, derive some form of enjoyment from reading this story as I strive to write to the best of my ability.
Firing her left repulsor at Simurgh, Shigure saw that the Beast was far more agile than she anticipated as it spun out of the way in an acrobatic maneuver which even she would have some difficulty in pulling off, the Beast lifting its arm in order to return fire with autocannon rounds flying past her head, clouds and ground swirling around as if she were in a drying machine all while she strafed and looped.
Transitioning from a loop into a straight flight in order to pass Simurgh as her comet-like ultramarine-blue aura streaked out behind her in her state of absolute focus, her visor told her that Simurgh was transforming into its vehicle mode in order to keep up with her while locking another R-27 missile onto her signature,
'WARNING: MISSILE LOCK'
The chill running up her spine was no doubt attributed to the murderous aura being exuded by both the Beast and Princess working in tandem as she flew in a tight spiral in order to avoid a lock-on which could potentially one-shot her.
There were several Abyssal jet fighters joining in on the chase with fired missiles being the pseudo-hound dogs primeval hunters sicced on their fleeing prey, and she punched it to hit supersonic speed while her mind whirred in order to find a solution to her conundrum, eventually deciding on a course of action.
Pulling up and drawing in the flurry of missiles which inched closer to her and promised the oblivion that was an explosive death, she struggled to hit Mach 1.4 as she called out for an allied jet fighter to help her shoot down those tailing her since their powerful autocannons would do the job better than Fairy-piloted World-War-2-based fighter planes would, no offense to them.
"Um, H.A.L.O. here, is anyone free to take out the planes on my tail?
I'll be taking out the missiles, but upon pulling out, I'll need someone to cover me once I force them to scatter!"
"Got it, H.A.L.O..
We see you and the bogies on your tail; do what you have to do, we'll be there!"
Shigure's climb plateaued into a wide arc as she saw the ground and clouds located above her and the horizon seemingly flipped on its head since her back faced the distant earth beneath her, hair strands in her helmet pointed upwards thanks to gravity along with the attitude indicator showing her orientation respective to the earth as she fired her flares and suddenly cut power to her H.A.L.O. suit.
"Guh!"
Grunting as the flare detonated one missile which came too close for comfort, the blast wave enveloped her and allowed a wave of muted pain to slap her back profile and knock the wind out of her even as she exhaled from the relief, the remaining three missiles cornering and dropping altitude to target her as Shigure activated her H.A.L.O. suit again.
Allowing herself to fall while keeping herself upright with her microthrusters as she charged up another X-Burner, she held her breath as autocannon rounds flew past her courtesy of the Abyssal jet fighters while watching the missiles streak down towards her after correcting their trajectory as she unleashed her suit's wrath in two directions, killing two birds with one stone by shooting down the missiles with one repulsor and used the afterburner-like backblast produced by her other repulsor to scare off those chasing her.
Battling against the dizzying height and the unyielding ground rushing up to greet her, a terrifying sight induced a nauseous sensation in her guts which few ship girls had the dubious honor of experiencing, and seeing how this queasiness and anxiety affected her as she attempted to pull up, it was better that things stayed that way.
Besides, puking in her suit would really ruin her day and make the suit's insides smell for weeks, and since she didn't discount the possibility that it could occur in the future, a stray thought wondered if she could request for air fresheners in the H.A.L.O. suit.
She saw allied F-15J jet fighters make good on their word and chase down the Eurofighter Typhoons to give them a good run for their money despite the enemy planes being piloted by significantly superior Abyssal destroyers, she noted Simurgh pulling up behind her while also achieving supersonic flight as she addressed the airborne destroyer.
[A good show.
Now, shall we?]
Shigure, watching the rising bar on her visor reach its limit as she felt the energy drawn from her body gather within the arc reactor in her chest again, she utilized the next move which she thought up of on the fly by deploying all the air brakes on her H.A.L.O. suit in order to allow Simurgh to shoot ahead of her, the tip of its wing nearly cleaving Shigure's figure in the process.
Transitioning from a horizontal flight position into a vertical 'standing position', she tanked the g-forces warping her body and threatening to punish her for exceeding the limits what she believed herself to be capable of temporarily overcoming as she unleashed the unibeam at Simurgh's aft in its vehicle mode, a piercing shriek followed a transformation sequence to allow it to spin out of the way and minimize the damage to its main fuselage as another R-27 missile was reflexively fired at Shigure.
She successfully used her repulsors to shoot down the missile which approached her, but the fireball caused her to lose her balance as she grunted,
"Gah!"
The world was now spinning like a hamster ball around her and was made even more confusing by the wildly spinning attitude indicator which was going haywire on her helmet, steadily firing her repulsors and thrusters in order to cancel out her spin before pulling up and feeling the resulting g-force work its magic on her body despite the inertial dampeners doing their job.
Firing a repulsor beam at the Beast in order to discourage her from attacking her friends, she saw that Simurgh fired a S-13T rocket at her friends, yelling out to her friends down below,
"Watch out, everyone!
Evade!"
She knew that she was too slow and too far away to stop the rocket due to the limits of her H.A.L.O. suit, and she had to focus on her main target in front of her, Simurgh and Cynthia as she flew beneath Simurgh's current position and mimicked slipping on a banana peel to lie parallel to the dam surface as she pointed her arms up at the Beast and down at the dam in order to perform another X-Burner, her blue aura, and by extension, her mana output flaring up again as she mentally rebelled at the thought of Cynthia and Simurgh hurting and even outright killing her friends.
The vault door-sized pillar of light produced by her left repulsor felt as if its counter-force would cause her left arm to messily telescope, but the beam caught Simurgh's right arm as the Beast shrieked from having the armor on its arm scorched, jerking the smoking arm out of the way as it turned its attention squarely back on her.
That was good.
If it concentrated on killing her, it wouldn't concentrate on killing her friends.
Snarking into a public frequency for Simurgh to hear,
"Alright, Big Bird.
Catch me if you can!"
She went into supersonic flight as Simurgh followed suit and transformed into its Sukhoi-Su 27 form in order to give chase, Shigure wincing as one autocannon round bounced off of her reinforced armor but was still powerful enough to feel as if a battleship put way too much force into heartily slapping her in the back, rapidly blinking her watering eyes as everything started to streak upon going past the speed of sound.
Enemy missile batteries were now focusing on her as was several Abyssal-piloted F-22 Raptors and Eurofighter Typhoons, and she kept one eye on her radar and the dozen or so missiles flying towards her while the enemy fighters kept their distance and fired their automatic cannons at her, but in her defense, being a weak little destroyer (with emphasis on the 'little') meant that she was a hard target to hit, much like attempting to shoot down a fly with a machine gun.
Bullets whizzed by, but a little girl who looked as if she recently graduated from elementary school and possessed aerial agility on the level of modern jet fighters while darting around was a nightmare to hit with bullets, the chasing Abyssals eventually resorting to missiles with lock-on capabilities as her visor screamed at her,
'WARNING: MISSILE LOCK'
Aoba then piped up with a hastily-concocted plan on how to stop all these missiles before they caught up to and killed her,
"Shigure!
Do you think you can charge up a unibeam and spin around quickly at the last second in order to fire it along with your repulsors and detonate enough of the incoming missiles to cause a chain explosion?
I recommend flying at a slight downwards path so that it's unlikely for your beam to hit any of our allies!"
"Got it!"
She had a rough idea of how it worked, bracing herself against the onslaught of g-forces tearing her relatively frail body apart if not for the inertial dampeners upon turning around as she unleashed a unibeam and both her repulsors at the horde of missiles as they weaved in between each other to reach her first, detonating enough of them to set off a chain explosion as she was blown back by their combined payload going off at a distance far enough to not be lethal, but certainly gave her a good scare by making her believe it was as her insides twisted from the blast wave hitting her like a freight train, wondering if her Kai or Kai Ni body would have better luck of surviving this level of punishment which she assumed to be par for the course while operating in a H.A.L.O. suit.
Stumbling as she fell, she managed to right herself just before she hit the dam as her howling thrusters disturbed the surface of the rippling dam, lying parallel along its surface and looking up to see Simurgh screeching as it swooped down with jagged mechanical claws reaching out for her, forcing her to evade and weave in between the occasional autocannon rounds impacting the dam while attempting to lead the Beast away from her friends.
The Beast was now taking the more hands-on approach as it flew closer in order to swipe at her with its clawed forearms in its Beast mode, and Cynthia was stilled nested inside its chest to input commands and act as another pair of eyes since she likely had some kind of mental link with her Beast, managing to avoid an F-15J bearing down from above with rotary cannons spitting out white-hot rounds without even looking up.
Flying close to the dam's surface in order to split the dam water in her wake and splash it everywhere due to her powered flight carving a path onto its surface, she faced the sky while using her repulsors to shoot at Simurgh, auxiliary thrusters on her shoulders and back working in tandem in order to prevent her suit from spinning out as she made sure that she didn't collide into any particularly tall ship girls.
"Shigure, move out of the way!"
She didn't question the order as she used her repulsors in order to perform a right roll while watching a familiar caped figure of the 8th Fleet flying across the air with outstretched legs, and she pulled up to get the full picture of Akitsu Maru launching Kiso into the air with the tried-and-true method of having one launch the other with the explosive super-strength their legs possessed, Akitsu Maru pointing her drawn-in legs up like a launching platform while Kiso similarly squatted on the soles of Akitsu Maru's boat slippers before take-off.
Turning back out of concern that the torpedo cruiser would possibly end up as a smear on Simurgh's cockpit windshield, Shigure zoomed in to see Kiso plunging her sword into Simurgh before yelling into the cockpit for the J.O.A.N. pilot to hear as the world's most persistent preacher.
"Hello!
Would you like to hear the words of our Lord and Savior, Tatsuya Shiba?!"
Simurgh's flight path was thrown off as it spun out and climbed as it flew erratically away from Shigure, and the Shiratsuyu-Class destroyer spun around in order to catch up with Simurgh as it clawed itself to be rid of the Kuma-Class torpedo cruiser, Kiso tearing out her cutlass and leaving behind a present that was an armed torpedo lodged in its armor as she fell back into the dam while watching a raging fireball engulf the shrieking Beast.
Shigure did her best to shield Kiso from the falling armor plates which were dislodged from Simurgh's body, firing several shots at the rising Beast as she made sure the Kuma-Class cruiser was safe before turning her attention back to Cynthia, now feeling extra grateful that the Abyssal's unknown New Wave ability, whatever it was, wasn't used yet.
Allied squadrons of Reppuu Kai planes and a dozen Type 0 F.M. 21 fighter planes which were manned by Fairies were coming to her rescue after staying out of their fight in order to ascertain whether she was 100% on their side, and also because her fight with Cynthia took place at speeds which were too fast for their inferior planes to follow, but ever since slowing down after taking too much damage from the ship girls and the JASDF, it was now slowing down to a point where it was almost possible for them to hit Simurgh if they unloaded enough bullets and payloads in its general direction.
Simurgh then charged up another Hyper Beam in order to lash out at the ship girls on the dam, and despite Shigure's mind screaming at her to evade, she didn't want the beam to super-heat the dam water upon contact, spray it onto her comrades and scald them as a result, dropping altitude before angling herself and raising her arms with charging repulsors to stop that Hyper Beam as she yelled,
"X-Burner!"
And fired as her own beam met the Beast's beam halfway and resulted in one hell of a fireball erupting from the contact and would easily swallow up an entire house, forcing her to squeeze her eyes shut as she was flung into the dam and was thrust into a different environment all of a sudden, the water now enveloping and slowing down her every movement to a glacial pace as the dam stretched down into the murky abyss.
"Help!
HELP!"
Shigure suddenly found herself panicking as she fired her repulsors and thrusters wildly into the water, and instead of stabilizing her orientation like she intended, it just sent her spiraling out of control with no sense of up or down, the genuine fear of being killed by the rising water pressure pressing on every inch of this suddenly claustrophobic suit barely held in check by her rational mind and helped to avert a panic attack and mindless scramble for the surface deep in the pitch-black darkness of the treacherous depths, Aoba attempting to soothe her as a familiar voice remaining on the line.
"Shigure, calm down!
Our submarines are on the way to help you out, just relax until then!"
"W-Well, that's k-kinda hard to do when you're not the one drowning down here, just saying!
Does this suit have any kind of oxygen supply to be used to keep me alive in the absence of air?"
The uncomfortable silence which lingered over the radio could kill, and she did her best to keep her sharp breathing and thumping of her panicking heart under control upon learning that the air in her cramped, figure-hugging little H.A.L.O. suit was all she had before dying from asphyxiation down here in what appeared to be Hell for all she knew, isolated from civilization and human contact while being trapped with her increasingly grim thoughts as holding her breath accelerated her heartbeat much more than firing her thrusters wildly into the void did, attempting to calm herself down while in her meteoric downfall.
'Ok, calm down, Shigure.
The submarines are coming, but should you touch down at the bed of this dam before then, just remember to re-orientate yourself and just fly upwards.
I mean, if the water pressure at the bottom of this dam doesn't instantly crush my armor before killing me in my suit, and cause my bones to stick out from my body like a human pincushion while my lungs and eyes get popped like balloons in my rib-cage and skull respectively…
Ok, I really didn't need that image in my head.'
That thought of her dying another grisly death was only reserved for sinking ship girls to experience, in which most of them likely did so while hopefully unconscious and drastically elevated her heartbeat as her respiration rate similarly jumped and caused her suit to suddenly feel warm to be in, sweat forming on her head and face as the fact that she was looking into the murky water without any source of light to get a grasp of her bearings played with her frayed nerves in spite of escaping the pandemonium up above.
She really needed to have the engineers install a flashlight or something in here.
Her sonar showed allied units submerging in order to retrieve her, flinching at the physical contact of several hands grabbing her suit as she felt a chill dancing up her spine before relaxing upon seeing a funnel of light shine into her helmet as Iku was dressed up in an army uniform sans the army boots which would have bogged down even an Olympic-level swimmer like her, her twin-tails appearing weightless in the water as Shigure looked around to find Dechi (real name Goya) and Nimu clinging onto her H.A.L.O. suit before swimming towards the surface.
It took about fifteen seconds or so, but she broke the ocean surface as she looked around to orientate herself, looking up at the Sukhoi-Su 27 plane which was out of place in the midst of allied Mitsubishi F-2 fighters chasing it down, another F-2 fighter being forced to break off its pursuit as a missile battery locking onto it likely scared it into performing evasive maneuvers while Shigure checked her thrusters to see if they were working before turning around and expressing her gratitude,
"Thanks!"
"No problem, go get that Beast!"
Nodding in response to Iku's encouragement, she blasted off and hoped that her submarine comrades weren't injured by her move as she caught up to the Abyssal Beast that was disguised as a jet fighter with its blatantly obvious enemy signature on Shigure's radar, and she braked again as she raised a repulsor in order to fire at and expose her opponent's true form, the glancing blow enough to send it in a tumbling transformation as it fired another missile in her direction.
Flying towards the incoming missile in a heart-pounding game of Chicken as the missile headed for her at a dizzying velocity, she suddenly dived close to the dam until she could see her airborne reflection on its surface while making sure that she stayed far enough from the proximity sensors inside the missile to avoid detonating it and that there were no ship girls nearby before enacting her plan, the missile's attempt to perform a downwards loop and pull up causing it to crash into the dam and blow itself up while she pulled up with help from the her back thrusters.
Shigure evaded another Hyper Beam which was aimed at her, her heart stopping at how close it came to hitting her like her own X-Burner likely did to Simurgh's arm earlier as the thrown-up boiling water erupted and crashed into her, causing the inside of her H.A.L.O. suit to suddenly spike in temperature as though in a furnace and made her sweat while she saw that the Beast was now flying dangerously close to her in its humanoid assault mode to claw at her yet again.
One particular swipe which made contact akin to swiping a fly out of the air caused her to skid along the surface of the ocean as she felt several bones crack, if not outright break as though a bus collided into her at full speed, parts of her armor being scraped off by the Beast's slap as well as her H.A.L.O. suit repeatedly colliding into the dam surface as if she were a pebble skipping along its surface, finally managing to right herself just before starting to sink as she fired her thrusters to take flight, carving a rippling crater into the dam as she asked Aoba,
"Aoba-san, everything hurts and aches, so please tell me what's broken and what's not?"
"Um, well, four of your ribs are broken, and repairs are being done to the cracks lining your right upper arm and collarbone while you're suffering from several instances of internal bleeding.
You've burnt through over half your mana reserves, please consider either ending the fight quickly or retreating!"
She seethed while feeling the physical strain of prolonged combat in a weapon which ran on life force known as mana as its output was now shared between her body and her suit, and she was now grateful that the soul was one of their two main sources of energy as her body's fuel reserves were now used to power most of her body's functions, Shigure attempting to defuse the situation with,
"Well, we have, like a dozen pairs or ribs, so I guess that means we can stand to break a few of them since we have spares, hmm?"
"I'm not exactly sure if Akashi-san would agree, though!"
"Akashi-san isn't here now!
Let's go!"
Before punching it and buzzing Simurgh as well as Cynthia who was inside the cockpit as it shrugged off the somewhat ineffective bombs dropped onto its steel body to buy Shigure time before Simurgh took off in her direction, and she found herself unable to pump the same amount of mana into her suit like before as evidenced by the assault mode Beast inching closer even when not in vehicle mode.
She was then snatched out of the air as her back creaked from the stress of the Beast's palm slapping onto her, wondering if her hip was fractured by that move as she struggled and failed to pry the Beast's fingers which coiled around her body while her suit's ominous creaking complemented the growing pain in her sides, hips and thighs, wincing as she heard Aoba yell into her ear,
"Quick!
Fire a point-blank unibeam!"
She complied by immediately redirecting a large chunk of her remaining mana reserves into her arc reactor since pushing her thrusters to the max didn't do shit to break her out of Simurgh's ironclad grasp, hearing Cynthia addressing her over the public frequency.
[How silly of you, little one.
Did you think you could elude my Beast's grasp forever?]
The H.A.L.O. suit prevented her from being crushed like a Styrofoam cup in Simurgh's palm as the Beast's clawed fingers tightened around her legs and abdomen, but she could almost feel Cynthia's dawning realization and horror through Simurgh's eyes as Shigure blinked the sweat from her eyes, and couldn't help but break out into a shit-eating grin upon hearing an electronic whir on her chest reach a crescendo.
"Nope.
But try eluding mine now."
The blast from her arc reactor blinded her field of vision as it carved into Simurgh's body if its agonized howl was any indication, shoulder repulsors firing in order to counteract the force of her unibeam while Simrugh released her in order to clutch at its wound as red-hot steel and smoking compartments which contained fizzling wires were all evidence of their battle taking its toll on Simurgh in spite of the Beast's enhanced durability.
She wasn't really 'winning' by any normal definition of the word, but inflicting more damage onto the enemy than vice versa could technically count as she wasn't doing too well either, what with her body suffering from the strain of flying despite the suit's inertial dampeners minimizing the g-force's effects which would have likely killed an unprotected Shigure several times over, several broken bones whose effects she could temporarily shrug off due to her H.A.L.O. suit possessing the proper support systems which acted as pseudo-braces for her afflicted limbs and joints.
A figure shot out in order to jump Shigure as she evaded the ejecting Cynthia popping out like a Jack-in-the-box, flying out at her from the cockpit and almost managing to smack her out of the sky with her outstretched hands as she fell like a rock and would land on the battlefield like a meteor striking the earth, and Shigure managed to notice the Beast using the distraction to fire a R-27 missile in her direction as she used her repulsor to shoot it down before the resulting fireball caused her to stagger and lose altitude as a result.
Learning her lesson from her second test flight as she used her attitude indicator to level out and pull up, she yelled,
"Look out below!"
As she fired her repulsors and thrusters in order to cancel out the 'washing-machine' spin and regain her bearings, transitioning into a powered flight to avoid an annihilating Hyper Beam as she witnessed the dust cloud the Princess threw up upon landing.
"Look out below!"
Zuikaku shielded herself and Saratoga from the incoming projectile coming from above them, having previously ignored the Beast and the 'unknown' little allied unit which was doing battle in mid-air, but there was no ignoring the fact that a powerful enemy signature had landed before the both of them, and this was no projectile.
It was emitting the signature of an Aircraft Carrier Princess.
The both of them warily stepped away from the dissipating dust cloud, Zuikaku holding up her M24 SWS while Saratoga followed suit with her M4 Carbine as she was a spotter to Zuikaku's marksman, Cynthia bursting through and displacing the dust cloud as she knocked Saratoga over like a bowling ball which barely changed its trajectory as she sternly remarked with outstretched arms,
[Hello again.]
Before crashing into Zuikaku as her hands wrapped around the carrier's neck, having drastically closed the distance to render her sniper rifle ineffective while Saratoga was getting up after the J.O.A.N. unit sideswiped her, and the Shokaku-Class carrier could feel her eyes starting to bulge and roll up within her eye sockets while her windpipe was being agonizingly constricted to the point of being crushed in Cynthia's armored hands.
Letting go of her M24 SWS in order to claw at Cynthia's face and pry her armored hands from her neck while Zuikaku's mouth opened and closed like a fish gasping for air, her vision blurred as her throbbing peripheral vision began to fade to black while the Princess's piercing crimson eyes still shined with an unrelenting malice,
[And goodbye.]
But a shadow flinging itself onto her and causing the J.O.A.N. unit to loosen her hold on Zuikaku was Saratoga slamming the stock of her M4 Carbine into Cynthia's temple, whipping her firearm around to empty several rounds into the Princess and caused the Abyssal to stumble back from the unexpectedly aggressive assault from the meek American carrier.
Zuikaku hacked and coughed in order to to clear her throat as she wildly swung her feet about on the ground, tripping up the Abyssal as intended while peeking up to see that the allied flying ship girl who-was-totally-not-Shigure was flitting about and was blasting Simurgh, not that she was able to get away entirely unscathed as a Hyper Beam nearly grazed her.
Her own problems, however, were more immediate as Cynthia got back up and threw dust in her face, forcing her to shut her eyes as she heard the rushing footsteps of the J.O.A.N. unit running up to her and braced herself for impact which decked her in the cheek.
Another blow struck her in the gut and exacerbated her hacking cough, and her attempts to deflect incoming blows met with moderate success as what felt like Cynthia's heel slammed into her stomach and sent her flying while the nauseating wave of pain warped her digestive system and caused it to regurgitate her previous meal, crashing into and splintering a tree as she couldn't hold in her lunch anymore, doubling over in order to let nature run its course as her throat burned from the stomach acid stinging its walls,
"BLUURGH!"
And Saratoga was laying down cover fire in order to prevent Cynthia from giving Zuikaku a no-holds-barred beatdown as the Abyssal turned her wrath on the American, ignoring the firearm in Saratoga's hand and the bullets it spat out in order to close the distance and give herself a fighting chance.
Moving out of the way of the unidirectional line of fire which every firearm suffered from, Cynthia swung a raised right elbow towards Saratoga's forehead and would have smashed it like a watermelon in summer had the American not ducked in time, allowing Cynthia to lower herself and slip underneath Saratoga's rifle and trap Saratoga's arm as she shot up and slammed the crown of her skull into Sara's nose, spinning around as her snaking left arm wrapped tightly around Saratoga's firearm-wielding left hand while she had her back pressed snugly up against Saratoga's front.
With a stomp to Saratoga's right foot and swinging her head back to smash it into Sara's face again, Cynthia tightened her left arm's hold on the M4 Carbine and jerked it out of the stunned Lexington-Class carrier's loosened hold before putting some distance between the ship girls and field-stripping it by ejecting the magazine, easily popping both pins with sheer force before pulling out the bolt carrier from the upper receiver which she threw away, pulling out the firing pin from the bolt and similarly hurling it away along with the rest of the disassembled M4 Carbine.
Zuikaku was morbidly interested in the fact that Cynthia, despite possessing Herculean strength which could easily crush the rifle like a human would to a piece of paper, instead chose to utilize her technical knowledge to dismantle it once acquiring possession of the firearm.
"You know, no offense, but you really could have crushed that firearm in your hands with your Princess-level physical might instead of dismantling it and allowing us to reassemble it, as unlikely as it sounds with how far you threw those parts."
[Hm, that might be a good idea, but using raw strength so inelegantly isn't really my style.]
Great.
She was already terrified of any other brute-like Princess who had the strength to lift buildings, but did they have to go up against a Princess who knew how to utilize that titanic strength to terrifying effect?
Cynthia's gaze then blanked out as she ducked to a sniper round aimed for center mass, and Zuikaku struck once she saw an opening as she streaked in for a strike to Cynthia's abdomen, but the one thing she needed to get through her own admittedly thick skull was that Princesses were Princesses because they were tough fucking bitches.
The Abyssal barely flinched from her punch as Cynthia's expression morphed into one which contained elements of bemusement, amusement and surprise before she grabbed Zuikaku's arm and nearly broke it if not for a Tenryuu-Class light cruiser calling out,
"God-Killing Spear, revised!"
Cynthia's gaze snapped to her side after she instinctively evaded an extending glaive which was aimed at her head, and Zuikaku fearfully gripped her arm as she found that the Tenryuu Sisters were backing them up since it took someone with New Wave powers to even hope to stand a chance against another apparent New Wave user, discounting the fact that this was a Princess they were engaging in battle and how Cynthia hadn't even used her New Wave power, Tenryuu giving voice to their morbid curiosity as she asked the question which popped up in the back of Zuikaku's mind.
"Yo, just asking.
What exactly is your New Wave power?
The entire time you fought Shigure up there in the air, I didn't see you using it, are you even really a J.O.A.N. unit?"
And to everyone's surprise, Cynthia responded with an answer out of left field even if Zuikaku knew to take the words of an enemy with a mountainful of salt, since they would have nothing to gain by telling the other side the truth.
[ … It's not in place yet; I can't use it now.
Whether you believe me or not is up to you.]
"Wh-wha…?
You sure you can just reveal such things to us?
And don't you think you need your fellow J.O.A.N. unit Naka to help you out here, since you're outnumbered five-to-one here?"
Tenryuu disbelievingly responded in light of getting a plausible answer, and Cynthia didn't appear fazed in the slightest as she remarked coolly instead of being cowed by their superior numbers, Cynthia then exuding her pitch-black aura of death as she allowed herself to be consumed by the flow of battle.
[Hm, do you think you can completely crush me with sheer numbers alone?
I may not have my New Wave power set up right now, but my current power level is more than enough to take you all on.]
"But not win?"
Cynthia shot Zuikaku a death glare upon hearing the Shokaku-Class carrier talk back to her, but the J.O.A.N. Princess didn't lose her composure even as she remarked coolly,
[For that, I'll be aiming to kill you first.
Zuikaku.]
Brilliant, piss off the Abyssal who can literally tear her heart out of her chest.
She really had to work on Shoukaku's suggestion to think before she spoke, fought, or did anything in particular.
Bursting out in a sprint to meet Cynthia, the Tenryuu-Class name-ship was holding her sword out as if going up to bat in a baseball game before swinging and unleashing a flaming arc as she announced her attack's name only after executing it.
"Fore!"
The attacked worked at depopulating the forest, but Cynthia swiftly sidestepped the attack which had a common weakness of having a one-directional flight path which could be easily evaded once predicted, and predicting it was easy when Tenryuu's physical movements betrayed her.
Tatsuta shot out with her glaive extending in the blink of an eye, and Cynthia evaded it as well since Tatsuta's glaive only could extend or contract, and sidestepping where the glaive was pointed allowed her to run up alongside the retracting glaive, curling her right arm into a hook to slam into Tatsuta's abdomen and throwing her into a charging Kinugasa.
Jumping a concerned Tenryuu, Cynthia swung downwards at Tenryuu's sword with her left palm which had formed a blade as if performing a karate move, and Zuikaku saw an uncharacteristically panicked expression grace Tenryuu's face as she pulled her sword away from the Abyssal as if not doing so would cause her agony beyond measure, the Tenryuu-Class name-ship putting some distance between them as Cynthia glowered at the light cruiser.
[Hmm…
Yuubari-san really has you scared of losing another sword, no?
You are right to fear her.]
Tenryuu grimaced, but she didn't deny the insinuation as she wielded her sword a little tighter as the tension weighed down on them along with Cynthia's vengeful miasma that was her aura flooding the battlefield and almost repelling them with her laser-focused determination to take anyone out should they get within range to be slaughtered.
Ma'am Jackie's sniper round whizzed in again as the Demon Instructor managed to land a bullet on the evading Princess, even if it was a glancing blow as the large-caliber round demolished the armor on her leg and shattered it beyond any further usability, Cynthia visibly flinching as she expressed something resembling concern while getting into a crouch and was ready to evade the next attack.
Kinugasa's first few rounds impacting her was enough to have her blurring as she evaded the rest of the bullets flying her way, reaching speeds which veteran light cruisers and destroyers rivaled with their Shukuchi technique, and Tatsuta was taken aback by the Abyssal's swiftness but was able to dodge her left-handed clothesline, and in doing so, opened herself up to a kick to her abdomen as Cynthia used the momentum of her missed clothesline to continue to spin clockwise while raising her right leg for a spinning hind kick.
Leaning over a collapsed Tatsuta, a roaring Kinugasa tackled the Abyssal to buy some time even as her measly heavy cruiser strength failed to cause Cynthia to budge, and a sprinting Zuikaku left the ground for a drop kick which connected with Cynthia's collarbone, causing Cynthia's foothold to weaken just enough for Kinugasa to force Cynthia to bend her knees before performing an imperfect German Suplex as she let go at the last second to throw the Abyssal into a tree where Tatsuta extended her glaive to try and impale Cynthia.
But the Abyssal reacted in time to catch the incoming glaive with one hand, and as Tatsuta grimaced and attempted to free her glaive without breaking it, Cynthia unhanded the glaive to spin out of the way and evade Tenryuu's Blade Rush before throwing herself back at the ship girls, but not before she used her titanic strength to kick up a dust cloud with her slender legs, hitting Kinugasa in the face as the Aoba-Class heavy cruiser shrieked while slapping her palms over her eyes,
"GAH!
MY EYES!"
Cynthia slammed her shoulder into Kinugasa and sent her flying some distance away into a cluster of trees, performing a Matrix-level evasive move to dodge another sniper round as Tatsuta jumped her, the J.O.A.N. unit unfortunately catching her in mid-air with her hands on her glaive and a collar as she disarmed Tatsuta while swinging the clasped left hand to fling Tatsuta into Zuikaku, the Shokaku-Class carrier hitting the ground hard with the light cruiser weighing her down as they both scrambled to get off and out of each other's way.
Cynthia then turned about on the spot while spinning the handheld glaive into a reverse-grip before throwing it at Tenryuu, the glaive thankfully being deflected by the Tenryuu-Class name-ship in time but sent her falling back on her ass from the quick-release of Tatsuta's confiscated glaive being hurled at her.
"Khh!"
Zuikaku managed to remain driven yet cool-headed enough to quickly hold up her M24 SWS to shoot Cynthia, and as Kinugasa repeated her tried-and-true tactic of 'run up to and tackle the enemy' while coming in from a different direction to avoid being spotted and countered, Kinugasa managed to hold her in place as Zuikaku clipped Cynthia in the kidney along with Ma'am Jackie hitting her just beneath the collarbone, eliciting a response they'd been waiting to hear,
[Khh!]
Well, if it could be hurt…
The seething Abyssal twisted around to slam her elbow into the spot on Kinugasa's back in between her shoulder-blades, Kinugasa crying out in agony as she dropped like a bag of bricks while Cynthia raised a foot in order to break her back, but was stopped by an incoming Saratoga's leg shooting out beneath her heel to halt the downward stomp as the determined carrier yelled.
"No you don't!"
Tatsuta then let out a blood-curdling roar as she jumped the Abyssal with her glaive held in a backhand grip, latching onto the Princess's back and stabbing into her like a ship girl possessed while a surprised Cynthia attempted to shake her off.
Grabbing onto the back of Tatsuta's collar, wrestling with Saratoga's kicks and also evading Zuikaku's attempt to slam the stock of her sniper rifle into her temple, Cynthia swung her leg out in order to kick Zuikaku in the groin with the strength of a Princess's lethal and swift legs, her eyes widening as her gaze blanked out into a thousand-yard stare.
Everything was a blur after that.
Feeling the entire fight fade into the distance despite being in the thick of it, Zuikaku felt a fire, nay, an inferno spread in the afflicted area as nerves silently howled at her to remind her body that something was probably damaged and OHMYFUCKINGGODTHEPAINTHEFUCKINGPAIN.
She unhanded the M24 SWS and fell to her knees in order to cradle her private parts as her expression crumpled, tears formed in the corners of her eyes, her bladder threatened to unload its contents onto her army pants despite the Herculean effort on her part to prevent that from happening by squeezing her squeamish thighs together, chills dancing up and down her spine while her legs trembled like a newborn foal and her hips, overloaded by the pain, was now feeling rather numb as a stray thought wondered if she could ever have children again.
With Kaga.
Alright, not the time.
Tatsuta was thrown off of Cynthia's back, but Tenryuu came in by stabbing at Cynthia repeatedly and had a burst of her black flames shoot out from the sword's tip with every thrust, Cynthia putting some distance between them since even she was feeling the pressure now, and Zuikaku fell forward in her feeble attempt to get back up as her legs failed her, Saratoga helping her up while she turned around upon hearing the sound of crackling bark and shifting leaves.
Kinugasa was lifting a tree.
The fallen tree which one of them felled by landing on.
Which was now lifted like a mace, ready to strike.
Fuck.
The usually cool and friendly Kinugasa was now howling like a beast, grunting as she slamming the tree down on where Cynthia was at, but the slow speed at which the giant tree traveled was enough for the J.O.A.N. unit to evade in time as the ground quaked and the leaves shook in unison, but before Zuikaku could raise her M24 SWS to fire again, Tenryuu bounced over the heavy cruiser to unleash a vertical Blade Rush in Cynthia's direction.
And the Abyssal punched through the flaming arc and caused it to dissipate, barely suffering any side effects aside from minor burns to her arm and shoulder,
"Can you just fucking go down already?!"
[Not until the world is in ashes.]
Saratoga made sure that she was at least able to stand as she looked down at Zuikaku's private parts with a visible wince and an uncomfortable expression,
"Um, Zuikaku-san, I'm sure it still hurts down there, but can you still fight?"
"Y-Yes… kinda."
Her voice rising two octaves in pitch surprised even her, and Saratoga's attempt to set her down into a sitting position on the ground had her panicking as she frantically waved her palms to stop that course of action.
"D-Don't set me down!
I think my, um, parts touching the ground would pretty much kill me due to the pain, so please let me stand."
Oh god.
This felt worse than when she was on her worst period times a thousand, another wave of paralyzing pain radiating from her nether regions and precipitating a chill which ran up her spine and was felt even in her heart and lungs as she took in deep and sharp yet shaky breaths as if birthing a child in order to brace herself against the pain felt throughout her hip and shivering thighs, finally managing a hoarse whisper,
"Alright, I think I can manage.
I'll keep my distance and cover you with this."
She brought up the M24 SWS which had always been slung over her torso and cocked it to convince Saratoga, the American nodding tersely as she jumped back into the fray.
Kinugasa swung the fallen tree horizontally even as Cynthia single-handedly smashed through the tree trunk, Tatsuta flinching and shielding herself from the shower of splinters flying in every direction in a pseudo-fragmentation grenade detonating, barely evading Cynthia's reverse spin kick which was wildly thrown out since the J.O.A.N. unit was also closing her eyes to avoid getting anything in her eyes.
And upon Tatsuta strafing out of the way, a triple threat consisting of sniper rounds coming from Ma'am Jackie and Zuikaku along with a Blade Rush from Tenryuu meant that even Cynthia couldn't evade all three of them, choosing to evade the two large-caliber rounds in favor of tanking the Blade Rush from Tenryuu, the flames washing off of her to display Cynthia shielding herself with her arms forming an 'X' before her to shield her face from the attack, smoking steel gloves and singed arms lowering to reveal Cynthia's seething expression as she charged them again.
And right at Zuikaku, the weakest link in the chain.
Tatsuta and Kinugasa came to her rescue, but one more ship girl came in with a flaming sword held over her head before being brought down like a butcher's cleaver.
Vreen.
Both sides looked down with both surprise and horror respectively as Tenryuu swung down with her flaming sword and managed to sunder Cynthia's right hand from her arm, and the cross-sections were cauterized by the temperature of the flames as the Abyssal didn't even appear wracked by the pain; merely shocked at the thought of someone getting a hit in.
But from what Zuikaku saw in her eyes, was it something more?
The metal-gloved hand fell to the ground while boiling blood oozed from its exposed right wrist, and Cynthia shoved Saratoga away while her left hand shot out to retrieve her amputated hand, but not before Zuikaku's leg swung out to sweep it out of her grasp, feeling Cynthia slap her palm on the base of her spine to shove her out of the way before continuing her single-minded objective of getting her hand back.
Saratoga jumped on her back out of desperation and caused Cynthia to stumble forward and overshoot her objective before Kinugasa tackled her and nearly caused her to topple over while wrestling with two ship girls, Tatsuta slide-tackling the hand to kick it away as the fight now devolved into the five of them doing their best to keep whatever the Princess wanted out of her hands (or hand).
Reaching behind her to swing Saratoga into a recovering Tenryuu and send them both sprawling from the impact before wildly looking about for her amputated hand, she saw that Zuikaku had picked it up while everyone was occupied and was thus the recipient of the J.O.A.N. unit's ire as a result, Cynthia's expression souring even more upon seeing a ship girl in possession of her hand as she uttered darkly at the sight of Zuikaku holding onto her amputated right hand.
[Give. It. Back.]
Jumping her with an audible shriek, a bloody Kinugasa body-slammed her in mid-air in order to throw her off-course as they both crashed into a nearby mound of dirt which was erected in a line formation in order to deter the advancing Abyssals, Cynthia using her one working hand to pound Kinugasa's face and was about to break the arms which the Aoba-Class heavy cruiser held up to defend herself like a cornered boxer.
Tatsuta pointed her glaive at the Abyssal's back before shooting it since she had no qualms about shooting the enemy in the back, and Cynthia was slowly being overwhelmed by their numbers as the glaive penetrated her back's armor and caused her to grunt, the Princess spinning around in order to charge at Tatsuta with a left fist being winded back for a punch as Tatsuta retracted her glaive and prepared to block.
And Cynthia's right elbow shot out in the 'pretend to punch with one hand before shooting out with the other' feint as Tatsuta's light cruiser agility was what allowed her to evade the lethal elbow strike to her temple while exclaiming,
"Urgh!"
Tatsuta hit the ground since the elbow blow must've felt like a sledgehammer grazing her skull at that speed and would give her a splitting headache for several days, and Cynthia was also starting to look more and more fatigued due to the strain of battle taking its toll on her and also because the Tenryuu-Class's superpowers were an unorthodox yet devastating source of damage which couldn't be directly countered all the time, Zuikaku looking down her rifle's sights to fire again even as Cynthia strafed to avoid the incoming bullet by staring at Zuikaku's trigger finger to predict the round's timing.
Cynthia then also predicted Kinugasa's tackle from her blind spot to spin around and single-handedly grab and fling her into Tenryuu, then giving Saratoga an offhand-backhand-punch as Cynthia focused her attention and wrath on her, Zuikaku then wondering if this was where she was going to meet her maker.
And perhaps as an act of providence, a 'Great Angel' clad in metal armor flew in with the sun behind her back to blind anyone who laid eyes on her, a certain Shiratsuyu-Class destroyer's voice announcing her own presence.
"Incoming!"
Cynthia turned and squinted to find Shigure dive-bombing her, the Abyssal likely too obsessed with reclaiming her hand to communicate with its Beast and realize that Shigure was headed for her despite what her Beast likely told her through the mental link.
The duo crashed through several trees in the distance and felled them all as Zuikaku let out a breath of relief at the destroyer arriving on the scene while her frayed mind attempted to catch up with the fact that she survived the Princess's wrath thus far, and as both her legs gave out and wobbled in order to let her fall back on the corpse of a fallen tree.
A large-caliber round then drilled through the head of an approaching Ri-Class heavy cruiser, brains, blood cerebrospinal fluid and an eyeball splattering everywhere as the Abyssal corpse continued in its run in her direction for a split second longer, the lack of signals from her nonexistent brain reaching its grim conclusion as the Abyssal collapsed like a puppet with its strings cut as it slammed forward into the dirt, hearing Ma'am Jackie reloading over the radio as she spoke up in the most reassuring and encouraging way she knew how.
"Zuikaku, get your fucking ass back up."
She glanced over at the deceased Abyssal heavy cruiser, whose blood pooled around the neck which it erupted from as glossy, grayish-beige matter was stained with blood and scattered everywhere along with fragmented bone bits and an exposed tongue tucked inside a lower jaw remaining mostly intact, suddenly feeling grateful for Ma'am Jackie's timely intervention and for the fact that she was on their side as a chill ran up her spine at how Ma'am Jackie was with a sniper rifle if she could score a head-shot from far enough such that Zuikaku couldn't pick up even a muted crack even with her enhanced senses to suspect that a shot had been fired.
Looking down at the amputated hand which was encased in the Abyssal's steel glove, she shook off the throbbing pain in her likely-fractured hips and her sore private parts as she leaned down to pick up the amputated hand as it had already stopped bleeding likely due to releasing all the blood packed into the hand, remembering how desperately the Abyssal attempted to retrieve it.
The Princess didn't seem the kind to place any value in losing a limb since it could be replaced in typical Abyssal utilitarian fashion, but if there was something about it which the Princess valued so much, she would crush anyone getting in between her and the hand.
'Well,'
Zuikaku's shakily thought to herself as she stripped the hand of the cooling but still stinging-hot armor plates which made up its destroyed glove,
'I don't think it's so much something 'about' it as something 'on' it.
After all, what is easy to keep on you at all times, won't come off in a struggle like a necklace would, and would be protected or hidden by gloves which can already withstand your superhuman strength?
A tattoo, or perhaps - '
A ring.
Zuikaku observed the ring which adorned Cynthia's blackened ring finger, reminding herself that the seemingly charred flesh and crimson veins which made up Cynthia's hand was because of her alien origin, slipping it off while noting the steel ring's design, rectangular in its cross-section with tapered corners as she turned it around to notice a sun-like symbol etched into its interior.
Upon closer inspection as her regressed mind tuned out the horrors of war in favor of indulging her idle curiosity regarding the ring as a means of distraction, she noticed that the symbol inside was modeled after the top profile of a lotus flower, the engraving forming the outlines of the petals while the silver-colored leaves stretched out from its centralized bud, a sublime view of petals elegantly unfurling and breaking through the darkness to blossom like the sun chasing away the darkness in order to usher in the dawn…
Another set of crashing trees pulled her out of her reverie, jumping like a frightened child as she saw Kinugasa sliding down from a falling tree, said tree toppling with splintering cracks sounding out like its swan song before collapsing for good while Kinugasa, after landing on her back, struggled to get up as she clutched her bent back while Zuikaku hastily slipped the ring onto her right ring finger for the sake of convenience.
Crashing through the foliage as she threw Tatsuta to her left and Shigure to her right, Cynthia looked around to find who had possession of her hand as Zuikaku flinched from the Abyssal's searing stare, strangely characteristic for an Aircraft Carrier Princess but equally uncharacteristic for the oddly level-headed and meek Cynthia, she was joined by Simurgh shaking the earth even as it landed behind the J.O.A.N. unit, whose gaze roamed from the discarded hand to the ring on Zuikaku's right ring finger and focused on the latter as she snarled.
[You.
Why you, of all people…]
Cue audible gulp.
Was there something about this ring which made Cynthia despise the idea of Zuikaku wearing it?
Considering how most of them, like Amatsukaze and Yuubari, all had pretty shitty pasts, the very likely possibility that one of Zuikaku's doppelganger somewhere out there caused Cynthia some kind of grief which was somehow linked to this ring made her wonder if her curiosity in Cynthia's ring was going to be the death of her.
Cynthia's expression and demeanor shifted for the worse as the killing aura which blanketed her and reached out towards them in order to inspire fear in their hearts intensified threefold as it started to swirl around her both Cynthia and Simurgh like a hurricane, and Zuikaku felt another strong chill run her steel spine as a result.
The Abyssal was beyond beyond pissed off, and certainly didn't seem intimidated by the fact that this was now a seven-to-one, with Shigure, Tatsuta, Tenryuu, Kinugasa, Saratoga and Zuikaku with a sniper rifle-wielding Ma'am Jackie providing overwatch against Cynthia and Simurgh.
She was like the eye in the center of a storm, an Abyssal whose silent exterior no longer bothered to mask the incensed and simmering anger boiling beneath the surface and was threatening not to burst out into an overt display of rage, but allow the poisonous hatred to seep into every fiber of her being and grant her unlimited power which allowed her to push forward through sheer force of will.
In other words, they were fucked.
[That does not belong to you.
Give. It. Back.]
"Y-You want it, come get it!"
Zuikaku defiantly raised her ring-wearing hand to gesture in a 'come-on' move to goad Cynthia, and the J.O.A.N. unit retaliated in kind by allowing a damaged Simurgh to gently grab and slip her into its cockpit with one hand and shielding Cynthia against the large-caliber round and repulsor blast coming from Ma'am Jackie's sniper rifle and Shigure's armored suit respectively with the other hand.
Transforming into its humanoid assault form with horse-like legs used to stand on its hind legs but occasionally regressing into a gorilla-esque form with its clawed forearms, its steel wings folded back neatly so as not to encumber itself while on land while its twin thrusters on its back roared in order to disturb the air with its back-blast, Simurgh emitting a mighty shriek which blew leaves, dirt and dust away in a crater and even produced a miniature shock-wave as if giving voice to Cynthia's smoldering fury of having its sacred possession stolen.
It was on.