Rule by Grathryn
6327. I don't know how found it, but please return the clawed gauntlet to HMNB Devonport for return to the Jones family.
6327a. "Stop playing with the damned thing! Do you have any idea how bloody hard it is to put the corpses you're raising back in the ground with small arms? Most of this lot are people's relatives and they're liable to be pissy if we have to turn their loved ones into chutney to stop them wandering around attacking manikins." - an annoyed Zephyr, covered in zombie bits
6327b. "We also don't need anything else that thing can raise, nor the WWI tech 40K-style dreadnaughts or scorpion tank. Give the gauntlet back and we won't evict you to whichever layer of hell the thing originally came from before granddad brought it home for lockup." - an equally annoyed Megan.
For Plymouth, particularly HMNB Devonport, it was actually a fairly quiet day. No strange houses, no escaped slimes, no carriers or submarines picking on one another. In fact the most notable thing for the last few weeks had been the Jones twins' trip to the Philippines and Corregidor along with the attempted (and squashed) siege.
Even the various marines and navy school were quiet.
Of course, that is when things went to hell as all around the base the PA started screaming the beat to quarters.
Scrambling to her weapons and armour, Lauren ran for her assigned station, where she was met with all of her subordinates. "Does anyone know what's going on?"
"Not so far," Susan replied for all of them.
"Ah, good, you're here," Commodore Shipperley's voice drew the group's attention to the older commodore and base commander. "This one is probably more your area, Commodore, particularly given the report on my desk from the local constabulary requested marine support mentioned walking corpses, ones that didn't go down even after being shot repeatedly.
"4, 6 and 9 Assault Squadrons of marines are deploying to the outskirts of the current trouble spots, which seem to be focused around Ford Park and Hoe Cemeteries, however it's likely that the perpetrator has already left and is heading for Western Mill Cemetery," he continued, leading the group through to where a helicopter was waiting. "We don't know much about what happened before, but one thing mentioned was that the person was wearing some sort of gauntlet on their left hand, one with spikes or blades between the knuckles."
Lauren glanced over at her nieces, both of whom were sharing horrified looks. "If it's the one our grandfather encountered in World War I, we might need to recheck our security."
Shipperley looked at her. "You know what caused this?"
"Possibly," Lauren replied grimly. "It sounds like a gauntlet my grandfather encountered in the First World War, one that had the power to raise the dead and was involved in a German attempt to use undead as an army." She frowned, checking her weapon. "If it is that particular one, it should have been in a vault owned by my family because we hadn't found a way to destroy it; even temperatures exceeding what is needed to palladium didn't work on the last recorded try. If we can capture it, we can see if it's made of tungsten, or if it will handle the equivalent to being on the surface of the sun."
Shipperley nodded. "Right," he replied. "We're sending you and your girls to Western Mill Cemetery since we believe that is the next target. Don't use any of the heavier weapons if you can help it, but take the person responsible down… alive if possible."
The group saluted before boarding the helicopter for the short ride to the cemetery.
Ducking under a swing from a rotting corpse, Lauren slammed a summoned hammer into its gut, sending the former woman flying backwards. "YOL TOOR SHUL!" Taking a breath, she unleashed a stream of flames on a cluster of skeletons, heat shattering bone made brittle by time.
"I find out who did this, I'm recommending they get shoved into an iron maiden for the next few years," snarled Megan as she took the head off another zombie with her blade, booting it away as it continued to claw blindly at her.
"Sis, focus on the undead fuckers in front of you," her sister growled, ripping a disembodied hand from her arm and hurling it away. There was a solid clang as another zombie slammed into her, only to find out that moving even something as relatively light as a destroyer was far out of its weight class. "Piss off, rots," Sally growled, tearing its torso from its legs before hurling it away.
Lauren grunted, as a rotted fist impacted her side while she was distracted. Staggering a step, she turned and belted the zombie away, spinning in a circle to clear a space. "Anyone see the necromancer?" she asked, wiping rotted flesh and gore from her face. Even with supernatural abilities, an understrength platoon still had trouble from several times that many untiring foes.
A series of negatives answered her question along with the sounds of the still ongoing battle.
"Commodore, more corpses coming in from the west!" called Kayleigh Collins, HMS Epona.
"Get your planes over there, Epona, see if you can get eyes on the cause," ordered Lauren before looking at the other girls. "Zest, Zebra, see if you can get a shot with a rifle, we might have to kill the bastard to stop this shit."
The two shipgirls nodded, Zest catching the old short magazine Lee Enfield that Megan tossed her before the other girl used a modified Colt 1911 to paint the rotted brains of one zombie over the one behind it. Unfortunately it kept coming, forcing her to cut it in half and crush it beneath her boots. "Fucking damned magical zombies never sodding drop when they're hit," Megan grumbled.
"You know," Helen commented, grunting as she hurled another skeleton into a wall hard enough to shatter its bones. "I'd hate to see what the horror film nuts think about this…" she paused, ducking a swipe and breaking another skeleton's knee with her foot. "The other horror film nuts, the ones that think Rising Dead, Evil Dead or Resident Evil is likely enough to plan for it."
Her sister ship grunted, booting a male zombie in the groin hard enough that he tore apart. "Probably should get those plans," Emma muttered, sending a number of icicles to pincushion a few zombies. "'Tween the… house… and this…" she trailed off, dancing away from another attack.
"Less talking, more fighting girls," Lauren cut any other exchanges off, suiting actions to words as she dismissed her hammer and conjured an axe to hack a pair of zombies apart.
Bodies and parts of them were scattered all over the field, several still where they were felled, attacking mannequins of all things, as Lauren stepped firmly on the hand of the person who had led them a chase from the cemetery to near the middle of Plymouth.
Panting and covered in gore, she lowered her sword to point at her captive. "Now, I believe you have something that you shouldn't be playing with." Her eyes narrowed dangerously. "I release you; you take it off and back away, got it?" Getting a scared nod, she let the other up.
As soon as the gauntlet was off, Megan grabbed it and checked it. "It's the one from the vault, or one of the same make," she said.
Sally and Helen grabbed the necromancer by the arms, forcing them onto their front long enough to tie their wrists together and haul them up, Helen taking a moment to yank the mask off to reveal the light brown hair of a girl, who, when her head came back up revealed herself to be HMS Tyrian, with an already developing black eye from where Lauren had punched her.
"You know," Sally said, "I'm fairly sure raising the fucking dead like this could be considered a terrorist action, if not treason, Tyrian." She narrowed her eyes at her captive. "What the ever loving fucking damned hell did you think you were doing?"
Tyrian started to answer, only to stutter to a halt as what had happened crashed down on her, looking around to see the Devonport shipgirls, their commander and the twin of their field commander covered in rotted body parts, bone fragments and assorted other gore and debris.
Lauren watched her for a moment. "Minotaur, Zephyr, take her to the brig at Devonport. Devonport, Umbra, get in touch with Admiral Cunningham and Admiral Graham; see if you can get her sisters temporarily assigned to us. They can help with clean up duty, and if they ask, tell them that Tyrian caused the trouble so they can clean it up, hopefully they'll make her work for it later. Megan, see if you can melt that thing down. The rest of you, go grab a shower and some food. I'll alert Commodore Shipperley that we're done and they can start picking up."
"Sir!" the various shipgirls responded.