Rule by Grathryn.
7358. We don't know who did it, but whoever you are, you're in trouble… lots of trouble
7358a. Whatever you dust you tossed around at the Devonport Inn in Plymouth affected destroyers. Be very glad nothing bad happened.
7358b. Commodore Glenn is looking for a new test subject for her spells, and after that she's said you're all Raven's
7358c. Tenryuu is also… unimpressed by how your dust made DesDiv6 act
7358d. Why? You managed to make DesDiv6, half of the 10th Emergency Destroyer Flotilla (Z-class) and several American shipgirls act like dogs and cats, some more affectionate than others. Be glad it wasn't other types of affection; else you'd be in more trouble, if that's possible
Sally sighed as she leaned back in a booth at the Devonport Inn in Plymouth. It was, for her at least; honestly good to be home, granted more than half the Hurricane Recovery Team Alpha, being in Britain was well away from their home waters, but on the other hand at least they had actual time off now, after four major storms in a row.
"You look like you're about done with everything there, Zephyr," the voice made her look over at one of her booth mates from the group – the rest were spread around the inn, since they had pretty much taken it over for the evening – and arch an eyebrow at USS Nicholas, she still didn't know the girl's real name.
"I'm surprised you aren't considering you're basically the military leader for the US fleet elements we had with us," Sally commented dryly. "Well, what you couldn't dump off onto Kaylie after that mess with the abyssal fleet trying to take Houston." That particular brawl had been a rough fight, right up until the Japanese; British and American fleet reinforcements had managed to join in, with several airdropping from the British group. After Drake had managed to get himself stuck on a sandbar or island somewhere trying to intercept the abyssal in old sea-frames from the early part of the war and gotten most of his contingent killed while doing crap all damage – the planes and missiles from the carrier/LHD combined task group and their escorts had done most of the damage – the shipgirls had devolved leadership to her, Nicholas and Tenryuu as the highest ranked of those still around for their respective contingents.
"I'm surprised she didn't try to dump it on you, particularly given you were leading fine up until we found out about that fleet," Kaylie commented, sipping from her drink. "You know, this feels a lot better than last time the two of us were in a British pub."
Nicholas turned to her sister ship with an arched eyebrow. "What had happened last time you were in a British pub, Willie?"
"Fletcher. Volley. Supreme." Kaylie answered before nodding at the grimace on Nicholas' face. "Sally, Robyn, Kimberly and I went out to drink away the memories… well, Kimberly and I did, the other two were more local guides since I don't know my way around Plymouth well enough to find the destroyer dorms while drunk and as I mentioned before, Sally and I knew one another before we awoke as shipgirls. It was the pair's comments that did lead to me finding out about the fact MSSB giving us Mk15s though."
Sally snorted in amusement. "I'm still surprised you never ended up running escort to Devonport and looking me up before my awakening and Robyn showing up," she commented dryly.
Kaylie shrugged, taking a sip from her drink. "I'd only really been active myself a few months, maybe a year, before you and most of that was training and such, I didn't really get any proper sorties or escorts until after we'd found out about you and you'd actually come to us to train up."
"True enough," Sally replied, a grin quirking her lips before she looked up as someone else sat down. "Hey, Mutsuki, I thought you'd be hanging out with the rest of the Japanese group tonight, what brings you to our table?" she asked the green skirted destroyer.
"Needed a break from Kisargi for a bit," Mutsuki replied with a sigh. "She's my sister and all, but she gets a bit much, especially when you're stuck with her most of the time for months. Especially since she's been drinking and was going on about lewd things, which I really, really hope is the drink talking."
Sally arched an eyebrow at the other girl. "That bad, huh?" she asked, getting a nod in response. "Eh…" she shrugged one shoulder. "As long as she doesn't try forcing it on anyone, if someone wants to listen to her, then that's their choice." She looked up as one of the waiters who worked at the Inn came around with large plates of food.
"I noticed one member of your party has moved," the man said, "is Miss the young lady who ordered the scallops?" he asked Mutsuki.
Mutsuki nodded, "that's right," she agreed.
"The coarse pork and peppercorn?" he asked. Nicholas held a hand up in response, getting a plate put in passed to her, "And the second coarse pork?" This time Sally raised her hand. "Lastly I have the Devon red rib-eye steak."
"That one's mine," Kaylie said, taking the plate when it was offered to her.
"Do any of you want a refill?" on all four of them shaking their heads, he nodded. "Then, enjoy your meals, ladies."
The quartet did, at least until the door to the inn burst open to reveal a haggard looking person so wrapped up in clothes that it was impossible to tell anything about them, even their height or build.
Feeling her bed shift, Sally cracked open an eye to look over at the silhouette crawling into bed with her. Not an unusual situation considering her sisters were destroyer girls and her twin had a submarine girl as a girlfriend. A quick IFF query from her radar room got her an ID, USS Nicholas. "Nick?"
She didn't get an audible response, instead Nicholas butted her head against Sally's shoulder before circling around a free part of the bed on her hands and knees and flopping over, causing the springs to creak. "Great… ship animal girl…" Sally groaned tiredly. The last time something like this had happened it had been when Fubuki had turned wolf, or was that the incident with Yuudachi and the ball game? Muttering something under her breath, Sally shifted around as much as she could and buried her face in her pillow. She was far too tired to deal with her companions acting like animals.
It didn't help that she'd already gotten this same treatment from Argo already, who was currently sprawled across her legs like a puppy, and DesDiv6 were acting more like a bunch of puppies piled up than normal. She sighed, yawned and grunted as Argo's head settled in the small of her back. At least animal affection would be less of an issue than mating lust, she decided as she drifted off to sleep again.
A squawk followed rather quickly by a thump brought her back out of the land of dreams. Blinking, Sally raised her head, looking around for a moment before looking over the side of her bed. "Morning, Nick," she greeted, yawning. "I'm guessing whatever was making you act like a mute animal has worn off."
"W-what happened?" Nick asked, looking up from where she had fallen. "I didn't go to bed here."
Sally shrugged slightly. "Best guess, delayed effect from something at the Devonport. I think you, Argo and some of the others ended up caught in some sort of dust cloud when someone decided to be an idiot. Whatever the stuff was, it made you act more like a dog than a human. You came in here and stole part of my bed, but that was about it. I think I saw 'Biki and Inazuma having a bit of a growl fest before Tenryuu dug out some newspaper." She shifted, kicking her legs carefully in the air behind her since she could still feel Argo's weight against her back.
Nodding, Nicholas stood slowly, groaning as her vision spun, causing her to weave on her feet for a moment before she felt Sally catch her arm to steady her. "I… don't think it's worn off fully. Last time I felt like this was when someone was using those hell bears. That's with me getting lucky and only getting one." She shook her head, eyes closed.
"Well, you're not bolting for the loo like then, though I still don't know how those caused that," Sally commented before shifting herself out from under Argo and letting the cutter hug one of the pillows on the bed so she could get up herself. "I mean they don't seem to affect normal humans, but anyone supernaturally mechanical…?" she shrugged, shaking her head.
Coming downstairs, the first thing the two destroyer girls encountered on entering the lounge was DesDiv Six wearing night clothes, at bay from several of the Zulus, namely Hazel, Robyn, Lydia and Amaya or Zambesi, Zenith, Myngs and Zealous as they were known. All eight were growling like angry dogs or hissing like annoyed cats on opposite sides of the room, with all the furniture tipped over from the previous night.
Sally slapped her forehead and groaned in frustration at seeing her sister ships were still acting animalistic. "Bloody barnacles boiled in brine…" she groaned before taking a breath. "Hazel! Robyn! Lydia! Amaya! Gina! Ren! Valeriya! Shina! Down!" she snapped at them, only for the eight of them to turn on her with a growl. Cocking her head, Sally arched an eyebrow at the lot of them, not impressed. "I can always give you all a firehose shower, girls," she pointed out. The response was another set of growls from the group. Shaking her head, Sally sighed, starting to make her way towards the door leading outside.
She had just about managed to unlock it and open it when Lydia leapt at her. Hearing Nicholas' yell, she turned, grabbed Lydia by the front of her tiger print onesie and dropped onto her back, kicking the brunette in the stomach as she launched her into the garden.
Continuing her roll, and grimacing at rolling over the step, Sally was back on her feet in time to meet the twins, Gina and Ren, or Inazuma and Ikazuchi, both of whom tried to grab one of her wrists and were thrown backwards as she dropped to a knee and shifted her arms around in a circle.
Shina and Valeriya followed their sister shipgirls courtesy of Nicholas hurling them over Sally's head, the white blond Valeriya landing atop Ren while Shina slammed purple haired head first into Gina, sending all four back into a heap of tangled limbs.
A quick glance behind her had Sally smirking before she turned to face Robyn. Even animalistic, Zenith was probably going to be the one that took the most to take down if not taken off guard. Frowning, Sally narrowed her eyes as Nicholas sent Amaya and Hazel into the heap. "C'mon, Robyn, do ya want to end up on the streets again?" she asked. "Because I doubt people will approve of you being a pet."
The question brought Robyn up short, making her blink and shake her head a few times before with a hiss and a whoosh, she was hit with a stream of water from the garden hose, "Gah~ack! H-hey!" she exclaimed, coughing as water blasted into her face, thoroughly soaking her. As she raised her arms, the stream was switched lower, spraying her down for a minute before being turned on the group behind Sally, all of whom protested strenuously.
"Seriously, did you have to spray us with a garden hose, nanodesu?" Gina asked, glaring at Nicholas through a curtain formed of her still wet brown hair as she and the others sat, wrapped in towels, in the Zulus' kitchen.
Nicholas shrugged, looking up from her toast. "Considering you were still acting like dogs and cats, Inazuma? Yes, yes I did, or did you want to be taken out for a walk on a lead?"
Gina went to respond, only to feel Sally tap her head. "Don't," said Sally, looking between them. "Just seriously, don't, especially since I'm fairly sure some of this is that we've been stuck on one mission for practically half a year, not even getting into some of the other crap from it." She sighed as she took the remaining spot at the table and rested her head on her hands. "The Crushers are looking into what happened, hopefully someone will have managed to track whoever the hell it was decided to crash things last night."
"Crushers?" asked Shina, echoing what was in the thoughts of all five non-locals.
"Royal Navy Police, the Regulators or Crushers depending on who you ask," Robyn responded, wincing as rubbed her forehead. "Kinda surprised they didn't get involved last night."
Sally shrugged. "Apparently it was considered civilian since most of us weren't actively showing we were shipgirls or showing military ID. The fact that it looked like there was only stone dust thrown around and ruined drinks and meals means that the police were looking for someone, but we were allowed to go home and sleep things off. We're probably going to get a visit once we're on base, if they don't come here."
Laughing to herself, the Abyssal Destroyer Princess that called herself Zafiya rolled on her back, turquoise eyes closed to slits as she imagined all the issues the local shipgirls would be having right about now.
It had been pure luck she had heard them saying they were going to have a night out last night, much less that she had managed to get her hands on some drugs from wherever it was the Big Boss abyssal had come from. According to the Others, it wouldn't affect humans, but it would affect shipgirls and make them act strange.
Zafiya snorted again, grinning as she recalled a few days ago when she had used it on that absolute berk of a Ri-class in the North Sea. If shipgirls reacted anything like that feather wood, grass eating ice monkey had, then they were probably getting into all sorts of trouble with the coppers, which would serve the Kraut lovers right.
A crash from above brought her head up, making her blink and cock it. Hearing the thuds of metal boots on wood, she scrambled to her feet. Someone knew where she was, she needed to get out of here, fast.
Starting for the door, she quickly skidded to a stop as it was booted in by what looked like a knight in blue, raven themed armour, a massive, neon blue cat stalking behind her.
"Nope!" yelped Zafiya taking in the pistol and sword the knight held. Spinning on the spot and running for the other door. Looking over her shoulder as she burst through it, she laughed at the knight. "Hah ha! Too slow… woah!" Turning back, she barely had the time to realise that there was a black haired woman right in her path.
Even pulling her full weight, she kept going, only to slam to a stop as if someone had just dropped a cruiser on her. Looking up, she blinked then flinched with a whimper as she realised the woman she had nearly run over now had glowing, dragon like armour over her body, including flaming wings and eyes burning with bright flame.
Now she recognised the woman, and every instinct screamed at her to run, run and never look back.
"We need to talk, abyssal," Lauren growled, fingers tightening painfully on Zafiya's shoulders. "Starting with just why you decided it was a good idea to attempt to drug my niece," she continued.
Zafiya looked around for some way to escape. Seeing none, she quickly summoned her rigging only for pain to explode from her sides as a blade sliced it off her. Eyes widening, she looked around to see the raven knight from earlier right behind her. Looking back, she swallowed hard, seeing no mercy in either the glowing blue of the raven knight, or Commodore Glenn's flaming ones. "M-mommy…"
