Rule by Grathryn

10424. Azur!Ikazuchi, we know you want your sister back, that doesn't mean that you can just run around Devonport without an escort.
10424a. The fact you got knocked on your arse by Megan is only part of it. Be glad she only cut your turret in half instead of you
10424b. You even saw her take a
battleship part in a practice duel, why did you think it was a good idea to draw your turrets?
10424c. Akatsuki, pulling your turret on the girl helping Inazuma was not only stupid in the fact that you had just rammed your sister, you did it in front of
both of Whelp's basilisks and unlike their land based cousins, Norwegian sea basilisks have highly corrosive venom and a very powerful electrical discharge, strong enough that they can probably stun a blue whale. Be glad it didn't use full force on you.

The pink haired oni darted out of the door to the room that she, her two sisters and several Royal Navy destroyer girls had appeared in through the swirling, multi-hued portal. Her sister was in trouble in this place, she couldn't hang around. She ignored the twin yelps from Akatsuki and Hibiki along with the yell from Comet.

It had been four weeks… four weeks since they had returned from a sortie to find her sister gone, anything could have happened!

Darting around a group of people in uniforms she vaguely recognised as Royal Navy, though not the type she was used to seeing, she ran for the big building. If they were keeping her sister anywhere, they would probably keep her close to the command area.

Bursting through the doors she barely managed to stop before tripping over a pair of kneeling destroyers watching as a blue-haired young woman took on a taller redhead with a sword.

"Seriously, Lion," the bluette commented as she batted the other's sword away. "You're using a broadsword not a rapier, stop focusing purely on stabbing and slash!" She went into a flurry of sweeping slashes that Lion was hard pressed to turn aside. "Protect your shoulders!" she snapped as wood cracked against wood.

Ikazuchi blinked as the bluette ducked under a slash from Lion, her wooden blade smacking into the padded armour of the vest the other girl used.

"And that's a kill," the girl said, stepping back and lowering her blade. "Seriously though, Lion, I know you were trained to fence, but the Sword of Omens is a broadsword in its full form, you need to use that, meaning you need to slash with it." She rested the point of her practice blade on the ground. "Take five then run katas on the pells."

"Aye, Captain," Lion responded with a salute.

The girl nodded before turning to the other girls. "Zodiac, start working on your axe, Blanc will probably be by in an hour or so. Zest, you get chopping wood," she ordered, sending the pair off before turning to Ikazuchi. "Captain Megan Jones and you are?"

"Looking for my sister," Ikazuchi replied stiffly.

"Good to know, but it doesn't tell me who they are," Megan pointed out.

Ikazuchi growled. One thing she had issues with was all the talking others did. It was hard to find words, and that this one wasn't using her language only made it harder. "You will take me to my sister."

Megan arched an eyebrow at her. "And here I thought Japanese tended towards being more polite than anyone else," she muttered, moving to grab a bottle of water before focusing on Ikazuchi. "I can't take you to your sister if I don't know who your sister is. There's something like three thousand people around here at any given time and even presuming she's a shipgirl, ifshe's on base, I still have a lot of people to go through."

Growling again at the response, Ikazuchi reached down, slipping her wrist through her turret strap and raised it to point at Megan. "Take me to my sister," she ground out, only to realise that Megan wasn't where she was pointing. A moment later she felt something scrape her forearm under the underside of her turret before the floor became the ceiling and everything spun.

Blinking when everything came to a stop, she realised there was a live and very sharp blade point resting against her throat and swallowed hard, looking up at glowing blue eyes. "Yield, yield! I yield!" she yelped, raising her hands only to realise that her turret wasn't on her wrist anymore.

"Good to know you know when not to be stupid," Megan said. "Now, what is your name?"

"Ika-Ikazuchi…" Ikazuchi replied, trying not to cringe from the odd eyes Megan now had, the pupils showing a glowing circle partially bisected by a line. "I come to find Inazuma."

Megan studied her for a moment longer. "Huh, the two of you remind me of Blanc's twin sisters." She stepped back, making the sword vanish in a flash of feathers before hauling Ikazuchi to her feet. "You know, if you'd told me the name first, you wouldn't have ended up on your back." She frowned for a moment, chewing the inside of her lip. "I think… she's out at the farm this morning." Reaching behind herself, she pulled her phone and called in her encounter while Ikazuchi was distracted.

"Farm?" questioned Ikazuchi. "How you…" she trailed off and made a gesture, "sword things?"

Cocking an eyebrow at the other girl, Megan frowned slightly. "You mean making it appear and vanish?" she asked, starting out of the dojo and leading Ikazuchi to where her car was parked. "Does the term 'karas' mean anything to you?" she asked.

Blinking, Ikazuchi looked at Megan. "You karas?" she asked, "Crow guard?" The pinkette shifted, pulling her kimono up higher over her shoulders at a chill breeze. "Never seen a Karas, heard rumours though, they fight akuma, protect their cities. How'd a gaijin become a karas?"

Megan smirked at her. "Japan… either version, doesn't have a monopoly on weird or on guardians. There's a few legends about crows and ravens around Britain and with the age of information we're in, things move around a lot." She shrugged; guiding Ikazuchi to her car and unlocking it, letting the girl get in on the passenger side. "By your left shoulder there's a strap with a buckle on it, pull it down and put it into the buckle by your right hip." She instructed as she started the car. "And if you stick around this dimension, be aware that some drivers are slow pokes, others tend to speed or drive crazily." She grinned at Ikazuchi's grimace before starting them out of the carpark.

Guiding them through busy city streets, Megan watched her passenger out of the corner of her eye, noting the way Ikazuchi kept fiddling with her kimono or dress. Pulling to a stop at a red light, she reached over and patted the girl's knee, making her jump slightly. "Hey, it's alright. If anything, Inazuma will probably want you girls to be giving her comfort. She was pretty much a worrywart the night my sister met her, mostly about you, 'Biki and Akatsuki running off on her."

Ikazuchi shifted as the car started again. "I… worry," she admitted, "Four weeks passed since she lost."

Megan glanced over at her again. "Not to sound rude, but do you have problems speaking?" she asked. "You sound more broken than your sister and it sort of sounds like it's not just because of speaking English."

She remained silent for a few minutes as Megan continued driving before nodding slightly. "Words are hard… words not… of my tongue are harder."

"I'd suggest having someone to talk to, just someone that'll let you ramble about anything and nothing if you want to make it easier to speak. Having someone that's multilingual would help with other languages as well." Megan shrugged as they turned off towards the farm having reached the city limits. "I pretty much grew up with it, had penpals in Japan, Jamaica and France, meaning none of us spoke the same language, so we all learned from one another, there were times where Mom and Dad would come to put Sally and I to bed and hear us rattling away in a bizarre mix of English, Japanese, French, German and South African, I think we had Norwegian as well, 'cause Kaylie's family came from somewhere around that way, and that's without the other things our relatives added to the mix." She smiled slightly. "It's been a while since me, Zeph, Willie, 'Buki, Naka, Shadewing, Mars, Lebe, Max and Gbahali managed to do a proper joint chat or stream. I kinda miss them," she admitted.

Akatsuki and Hibiki yelped as they were grabbed from behind by the Royal Navy destroyers, preventing them from following their sister out the door to the room they had appeared in. It was only when she managed to turn around to see the look on the green haired destroyer's face that she realised what she had almost done. They were here, invited, to someone else's military base. Even if their sister was here, they couldn't just go running around.

"We promised to help you find her, Akatsuki," Comet said, "but you girls shouldn't go running off. Even ifthis place looks like the Devonport at home… we don't know what might be where."

Akatsuki nodded before her uncovered eye widened at Comet giving her a hug.

"Come on, ninja," Comet smirked, stepping back slightly before leading the five of them out of the building they were in to where a girl was waiting with what looked like a pair of dogs almost bigger than she was. "Hello, I am the C-class destroyer, Comet," she introduced herself before motioning to the others. "These are my sisters Cygnet," the white haired Royal Navy destroyer girl with a purple skirt and hair ties, "and Crescent," this time it was the amber haired girl in white and pink, "along with Akatsuki and Hibiki of the Special Type III destroyers."

"Kempenfelt," Helen replied, offering her hand to each of the girls in turn. "This pair is Farkas and Aela, a pair of caragors I rescued a while back." She looked around the group and frowned. "I'm surprised Ikazuchi isn't with you, I would have thought she'd want to find her sister."

Akatsuki shifted slightly. "She… ran off," she admitted, giving a slight squeak as Helen turned her attention to her. "I-if Comet and Cygnet hadn't caught Hibiki and I, we might have as well," she admitted.

Helen shook her head and sighed. "Of course she did, because why wouldn't she?" she sighed again as she pulled her phone. "I'm going to have to call it in; if we're lucky she went to the training grounds not the offices, Megan can rein her in there." Waving the girls to follow her, she called Minotaur and relayed what was going on to her.

Hibiki and Akatsuki shared a look as Helen led them to a minibus and unlocked it so they could get inside. "Why are we using this?" Akatsuki asked, settling uncomfortably in a seat between Hibiki and Comet.

"The farm's inland," Helen replied, allowing the caragors in before shutting the doors and climbing into the driver's seat. "You five need to put on the seatbelts; they should be at your shoulder nearest the frame and need to connect to the buckle near your hip." Suiting actions to words, she put hers on before starting the minibus up. "We weren't really sure who would be turning up or when so Inazuma was going to spend the day at the farm helping out with the animals." She glanced in the mirror at the girls. "You five need to keep your guns down, there will be things that are freaky or monstrous, but we don't need someone setting off the boomalopes or causing a tarr outbreak.

Inazuma had to admit, if nothing else, the last few weeks had been interesting, occasionally scary or gross, but definitely interesting. She hadn't met her local namesake, but Sally and the rest of the Z-class had at least been willing to indulge her when she needed to sleep with others for comfort and it had been interesting seeing the girls change on the short escort run they had done out to Norway and back.

She smiled slightly, watching Wager handle the massive sea basilisks she cared for. It had also been interesting seeing the group party, even if her voice hadn't held up to the singing the girls had done that night.

"Hey, Inazuma," Sally's voice broke into her reverie as the other destroyer girl approached her, weaving easily through the flock of bird-like girls. "Just got word from base, it looks like your sisters are here, though we might need to track Ikazuchi down."

"Th-they're here?" Inazuma asked.

Sally smiled slightly. "Well, they're in our world," she replied, moving to lean against the fence near Inazuma. "Helen's bringing Akatsuki and Hibiki up along with a trio of Brit boats, Comet, Cygnet and Crescent from your world." She arched an eyebrow at Inazuma, who nodded.

"They're Royal Navy… I don't really know them," Inazuma admitted. "What happened to Ikazuchi?"

"She apparently ran off, hopefully she ran into someone in the know, otherwise we might have to extract her from the brig… probably the one we keep for Alex's 'specimens'," Sally said shaking her head. "Somehow, I doubt she'll want to spend the night bunking with whatever monstrosity Alex has got in there this time. The last I'd heard it was some sort of mutant corpse they'd dug out of god alone knows where."

Inazuma was prevented from replying by the ringing of Sally's phone (something else she wasn't used to yet) along with a fairly short conversation between Sally and whoever was on the other end.

A few minutes later Sally finished the call, slipping her phone back into its case. "Alright, looks like we won'tneed to pick Ikazuchi up from the brig, Megan's bringing her, though apparently your sister wasn't exactly the most helpful of people so Megan ended up putting her on her back in order to get through to her."

Grimacing, Inazuma sighed. "My sister… finds talking difficult at times. Add in language and it's possible she chose actions to words, wrongly."

"It's hardly the first time language has caused problems," Sally admitted.

Inazuma started to respond, only to be cut off by someone shouting her name moments before two bodies crashed into her sending her to the ground. "Owie!"

Sally moved to help the girl up only for Akatsuki scrambled off her sister, pulling her turret to point it at Sally, only to shriek in shock and pain as electricity coursed through her, making her muscles spasm uncontrollably for a few seconds as the air crackled and snapped, leaving her blinking and charred.

Sally smirked and pointed behind her, causing the masked girl to turn around slowly and shriek in surprise as a massive head lowered, dripping venom that caused the ground to smoke and bubble. The message was very clear.

"Okay… what is it with you Sakura Empire ships pulling guns on people you don't know and don't have a… disagreement with?" Comet asked as she and the other four girls arrived. "And what the heck is that?"

"Norwegian sea basilisk," Sally replied with a grin. "Her parents actually helped the ship HMS Whelp take down the Tirpitz in our universe, which was more luck than anything since the other universes we know of, Tirpitz was transferred to the Atlantic and sunk by carriers." She shrugged, looking down at Hibiki, who unlike their local version, had red hair and was currently staying very close to Inazuma, watching with wide eyes. "Whelp's crew practically raised the pair, so they're pretty protective of her."

Comet frowned. "We've… still got problems with Tirpitz at home," she admitted. "HMS Comet, my sister ships Cygnet and Crescent, and you've already met Akatsuki and Hibiki. We were asked to keep an eye on them seeing as from everything we got, you were closest to the Royal Navy of our groups."

Sally nodded, offering a hand to each of the girls. "Sally Jones or HMS Zephyr when I'm on duty, I'll take you up to the farm house so DesDiv Six can catch up," she gave the two new comers. "And two of them had better talk to their sister given she spent a couple of nights crying on my shoulder over her worries about them not caring for her," she added severely, making both Akatsuki and Hibiki swallow hard.