She was starting to miss real darkness.

As the sun set over Mill Creek, light from vehicles, lining the roads, and filtering out of buildings, reflected off the clouds above and air itself to create the unnatural glow that characterized human territory. Normally, having a rough idea of what the terrain around her looked like was a boon, especially when her island's lights were off, but right now she wanted nothing more than to crawl into somewhere small and dark and just… rest, for a few days.

That wasn't going to happen, of course, but she still felt like she needed it.

On the bright side, she probably wasn't going to be using the concrete vibrator tomorrow. They'd finished pouring the columns on that building, a speed that had surprised even her supervisor. Additionally, with the crane down it was going to take a while to get all the rebar, formwork, and other materials up to cast the next floor, meaning she had a good amount of time to come up with an excuse before the vibrator reappeared.

That's where the good news ended, however.

The light from her eyes illuminated the half-eaten hamburger in front of her, the meal feelingly oddly unreal in the dim, tinted glow. That was a shame, because she wanted to take a moment to admire the last hamburger she'd be making in a while. She'd run out, cooking the last ones in that bag for herself tonight. She'd done a pretty good job this time, the crisp burgers retaining their juices and mingling well with the sauces and cheeses she'd tried, but now she was nearly out of food to distract her, the other problem was starting to creep into her consciousness.

Tirto.

Eager to avoid thinking about the issue, she took another bite of her hamburger, musing on how the ketchup mixed with the blue cheese vinaigrette as she searched for a cookbook. When she went to sleep tonight, she would no doubt have to confront the issue, and the interruptions in her watch schedule caused by the vibrator meant she needed sleep tonight, but Trinitite didn't want to deal with that issue yet.

Opening to a random page in the notebook, she started to read through the recipe for a 'three cheese lasagna,' but it seemed like it needed an oven, which she didn't have on her. The abyssal flipped to another page in the book, but she didn't even bother reading the title. Trinitite did not have the mental energy to deal with an ingredients list that long.

Flipping through another set of pages, the Wo-class settled on one last recipe, at the end of the book.

No-Bake Cookies.

She already had a bunch of cookies in her hold, but she decided to give this a try anyways. Something this basic seemed like a good step up from hamburgers, after all, and skimming through the directions showed that she didn't need anything she didn't have.

Finishing her burger and licking the last sauce off her fingers, she brought the book closer to carefully review the directions. Thankfully, it was only a few sentences long, meaning it was fairly easy to memorize the whole thing. She'd have to guess what measurements like tablespoon and teaspoon were, but the pan she was planning to use had cup measurements on the inside, so she was guaranteed to get the recipe mostly right.

So… first she'd need sugar, milk, butter and cocoa. The butter packets were thankfully labeled with measurements, down to the tablespoon. The cocoa powder she poured atop the mix should roughly equal what the recipe wanted.

Opening the propane tank back up and lighting the grill, Trinitite started to stir the mixture with her finger. Now, she just had to wait for this mixture to boil.

…

She'd just discovered a problem with her plan.

As the sugar dissolved into the darkening milk and the cube of butter slowly grew softer and less defined, the abyssal's thoughts once again wandered to places she did not want it to. However, she was just busy enough stirring everything together that she didn't really have a way to find another distraction.

And so, despite her best efforts, the Wo-class's thoughts drifted back towards the events of today's lunch.

It was great news, really, which is why her attitude towards it made her feel even worse. She should be happy about what it meant for Tirto, his daughter, and her daughters, she guessed, but Trinitite instead couldn't help but think about what that meant for her, just like all those princesses she hated.

It wasn't even the thought that Saratoga might want her sunk that had her worried. Despite the initial burst of emotion she had grappling with that fact, it was a possibility she'd wondered about ever since she'd seen The Navy get to her princess. No, she could just… pretend that betrayal by Her Princess wasn't an option, because she already knew what she'd do if that was the case.

She sighed, watching the first bubble rise to the top of the warming mixture. Did that mean it was boiling? No… it wasn't constant yet. From the heat filtering into her hand through her stirring glove, it certainly was close though.

She would die, of course, and there wasn't any reason to dwell on that more than she needed to. Down that path lay more breakdowns like the one she'd had today.

No, what she'd been trying to avoid came from another thought she'd had, while carefully trying to reapply makeup in the low-quality mirror of the construction site's portable head.

Given that, somehow, everything from this point went exactly to plan, that she eventually tracked down Saratoga, confronted her without getting killed by the Navy, managed to get The Jellyfish Princess back, then miraculously escape from deep within the Navy base she'd slipped into, now with an abyssal princess in tow whose weather signature was very easy to track...

...Then what?

The mixture had started to boil happily, and The Abyssal removed her overheated finger, sliding her glove off and shaking her hand to help it cool.

If they went back to Bikini and started rebuilding the crossroads fleet, what the Wo-Class had originally considered the best outcome, they'd have a terrible supply shortage. What had survived Trinitite's spiteful sabotage had no doubt been picked clean by her deceitful neighbors. Deep, they might have recovered the corpses of her fleetmates before they'd deteriorated too much, breaking them down until they were just salvaged steel and machinery.

The shame of having to crawl back to those who'd betrayed her and beg for supplies would be bearable. Something like that wasn't too uncommon in the abyssal fleets, after all.

What was difficult to deal with was the realization of what helping other abyssals, even passive ones like the Supply Depot Princess, really meant.

It would mean more people like Alton or Sern, forced to flee their homes as punishment for just living in the wrong place. It meant more people like Tirto and his daughter, Fleets shattered like her own was. It ment many less lucky humans, sunk thanks in part to her efforts.

As a capital ship, she'd always been taught that at the end of the day, the most important ship to keep afloat was herself, but that didn't mean she wanted to help create more desperate situations like the one Tirto's daughter had been in.

She couldn't think of anyone she wanted to wish that kind of forceful separation on. The princesses who'd betrayed Jellyfish deserve something horrible, sure, but she doubted they'd care if they lost everyone around them. She wouldn't lose many tears over something like this happening to one of the ships of The Navy or one of the Firbringers who'd destroyed her fleet, but there were much more straightforward ways of getting back at them. For someone who hadn't, and probably wouldn't hurt her at all, like Alton, Sern, or Tirto?

Trinitite wouldn't blame herself for doing what she needed to to protect The Crossroads Fleet. Now? She wasn't so sure that was needed. She was surviving here, without hurting anyone else. It would be harder with Jellyfish's fog highlighting where they were...

Her chronometer marked that one and a half minutes had passed. Gladly taking the distraction, she shut the propane, allowing the stove's flames to die on their own. Shifting the pan so it was over a cold burner, Trinitite slid her glove back on, grabbing a few handfuls of peanut butter and dropping it in. After that and an equally-rough measurement of oats, Trinitite grabbed the vanilla extract, turning it over for half a second and hoping that equated to a teaspoon.

Compared to all her other problems, the lack of measuring equipment was a bit nice to have. At least this issue had an easy solution...

She started to stir the pot again, mixing the rapidly-solidifying ingredients together. Once the texture seemed to even out, she flipped the griddle she'd been using to cook hamburgers. Now with the clean side exposed, she took a pinch of the mix, plopping it down on the griddle. You were supposed to place it on wax paper, but she didn't have any, and didn't really know what it would look like anyways.

When she was done, the griddle supported a sloppy array of dark, uneven blobs, and her glove was coated with several layers of brittle, flakey cookie. That would be a pretty good place to start for a taste, right?

Sliding the food-encrusted glove off, The abyssal started at a thumb, grabbing it with her teeth and scraping the caked-on mix onto her tongue.

The taste was... surprisingly familiar.

Trinitite didn't immediately recognize it, considering it was still hot and the only other time she'd tasted the flavor it had been in cool and creamy food, but as the cookie material dissolved in her mouth, she finally pinned it down.

Chocolate!

Eagerly cleaning off another finger of her glove, Trinitite dove into the no-bake cookie's unique taste, comparing it to the ice cream she'd had earlier. That would always hold a special place in her heart, but this…

After the day she'd had, she'd needed this.

For some time, the Wo-class focused on her creation, the rest of the world fading into the night around her. Eventually, however, the exhausted carrier ran out of cookies. For a moment she debated trying the cookies she'd stolen from Fred Meyers, but eventually decided against it. What had made the no-bake cookies special was that she made them, after all, and she did need the sleep.

There was the issue of the pan and packing the materials she'd used back into her hold, however. The Pan itself was too caked in no-bake cookie to be used for anything else, and she wasn't nearly awake enough to scrape all the dried mix off. She didn't have issues putting away most of the materials, until she got to the opened bag of sugar, which didn't reseal for some reason? Unless she stationed someone in her crew to hold it together at all times, she couldn't really store it.

Hmm, those both sounded like problems for tomorrow's Trinitite. Content with what she'd accomplished, the abyssal leaned back, snuggling into the raincoat she'd bunched up under herself and starting to drift to some well-deserved sleep.

…Come to think of it, returning to Bikini and helping the fleets would also help drive humans towards using The Fire, wouldn't it?

No! She needed to rest, not worry about… anything! Couldn't she think of something safe while she tried to sleep?

Stupid, stupid Wo!

The man crept through the woods, enjoying the comfortable silence as he surveyed the trees around him. Despite avoiding any trail and being surrounded by thick, lush bushes, light from the town center allowed him to keep his flashlight off. Considering he just left the station, he wanted to give himself time to adjust to the darkness anyways.

Unlike most night shifts, Officer Martin Bevan was enjoying himself. Between the staffing issues they'd been having for the last couple of years and the influx of desperate refugees, he normally had plenty to do at night. However, there was still the occasional time where the world's chaos forgot about Mill Creek, like the sleepy Tuesday night he was currently enjoying.

Normally on nights like this, he'd grab a coffee and watch the traffic along a road, which was pretty dull work. Tonight, though, he had a refreshing change of pace in chance to spend some time outdoors.

It probably wouldn't take too long. Two days ago, they'd gotten a complaint from a resident on Third Drive, reporting lights in the woods between their neighborhood and the police station. Putting his hunting skills to work, he'd investigated yesterday afternoon, finding a bunch of broken branches, trampled leaves, and a cozy clearing where some small remnants of food packaging could be found, confirming his suspicions.

When it came to squatting on someone's private property, you could choose better locations than a quarter-mile from a police station, but he could see the reasoning behind it. Despite often arriving with nothing but the clothes on their backs, the war's refugees had driven rent prices even higher than they already were, and Mill Creek was a lot more pleasant than the swelling camps that were further inland.

The sound of the trickling creek warned Martin of the unsteady ground ahead, and he activated his flashlight to watch his footing. The bubbling creek shimmered as he started to wade through, careful of his footing as water soaked into his boots.

If NOAA was right, it would be swollen with new rain in the morning, becoming completely impassable. That was another reason he was moving now. Wednesday night had been too busy for him to check up on the squatter, but now he had to get him under a roof before the serious rain moved in and hypothermia became a problem.

Whomever they were, they seemed to do a decent job cleaning up after themselves, so he doubted he was dealing with anyone dangerous. Just… unlucky. Because of that, Martin wasn't going to be too harsh on him. Wake him up, give him a warning, then take him back to the station and give him a ride to a homeless shelter. There was a church about fifteen minutes away who'd opened their doors for the storm, and they still had open space when he called, so as long as this guy was okay with getting preached at and sleeping on a few blankets, he should be fine.

Hell, if he was nice enough on the drive over, Martin might point him towards the police academy!

Wishful thinking, he knew, but they could use whomever they could get.

As he'd suspected, someone was in the clearing. Resting the flashlight on his shoulder, he toggled it on, squinting to avoid spoiling his night vision too much.

His breath caught in his throat as the flashlight danced over the squatter. He was a she, and a pretty great looking one at that. Martin was still pretty young, just past twenty nine, and if he had to guess this woman was only a few years younger than that. He gulped as his gaze traced over her shirt. Pretty... healthy, too.

He suddenly closed his eyes, shaking his head. He was on the job, damnit!

The woman was tall, wearing thick work boots and dirtied jeans. Her European features and very light skin gave less of a clue to her origin then Martin would have liked, although the rough white hair was pretty unique. Did she bleach it? Her skin was remarkably smooth, cleaner than he'd expected from someone in this small patch of wilderness. Overall, for a woman who lived in the elements, she'd kept herself remarkably clean.

She was sleeping on her coat, something she would desperately need when the rain picked up in a few hours. Around her, a portable stove sat, a griddle and pan resting atop the dead burners. That would explain the lights, he guessed. At her side, a paper bag of sugar lay next to her, opened for the ants or rain to find. It probably had to do with the dark substance that coated the inside of the pot, but the lack of other cooking materials was… puzzling. He'd have to ask about it on the hike back to the station.

Speaking of asking, he needed to stop gawking at the squatter and get her moving. The storm wasn't going to slow down for him, after all.

"Hey." He murmured, nudging the woman's shoulder with a boot. "You okay?"

"Mmph." She groaned, shifting in her coat.

Making sure to keep the flashlight off the woman's face, the police officer waited for a few moments before nudging her shoulder again.

"Are you alright, Lady?"

"Hmm?" She drowsily replied, shaking her head. "Yeah."

Placing a gloved hand over her face, she groaned, before lowering it and looking up at him with a pair of cold, glowing eyes.

Martin's heart stopped, his mind skipping a gear as it suddenly shifted into fight-or-flight.

He'd just woken up an abyssal!

A few chapters ago, I heard people... accuse Trinitite's marines of competence. Let this incident and their complete inability to alert Trin reassure you that they are, in fact, terrible.

Yeah, didn't expect to get this chapter out so quickly. It was just that this is one of those scenes that I've been really exited to write, you know? Hope you enjoyed.

Anyways, no-bake cookies are great! It's one of the few recipes I can actually do! I highly suggest you look a simple recipe up and give them a try, if you have the required ingredients.