Her boots had taken the worst of the damage.

Their soles had been worn down, their rugged tread ground down to a polished smoothness that made traction impossible. Scuffs and mud marred the toes from where she'd slipped and fallen, but thankfully the leather had held enough to keep the abyssal steel underneath concealed. The boots appeared to be coming apart at the seams near the back, several bits of leather jarred free and flopping behind her as she finally trudged into The Mill Creek Library.

That could have gone better.

Realizing her disguise had been compromised, Trinitite had needed to see a mirror as soon as possible. She'd seen one in the Library, and deciding she didn't have time to look for one elsewhere, Trinitite set a course there and ran as fast as she could.

Unfortunately, that hadn't been particularly fast.

Her shoes hadn't been designed to withstand the power when only one of her boilers had been lit, and in her foolishness Trinitite had activated all eight. Once they'd started contributing to her power, her run started to degrade fast. When her shoes did manage to find purchase, normally when she shifted from concrete to muddy grass, the very earth she'd run on failed. Mud and grass caked her coat, hat, and face, from where the ground had given out, a reminder that asking to light up all of her boilers was pure overkill.

It had been beyond frustrating. She knew how fast she could go, from her experience on the water, and had thought she might even be able to pile on more speed without having to deal with the drag from the ocean.

Unfortunately, she hadn't counted on how fragile everything was. She'd eventually settled into a kind of awkward jog, letting the terrain dictate her pace instead of constantly slipping and falling. Of course, when it started raining again, everything lost even more traction, and after a few more minutes of fumbling the desperate and frustrated carrier was forced to run at an even slower pace.

She had gotten fewer odd looks after that, though.

"Hello again!"

The Librarian spared Trinitite a quick smile as she looked up to see who'd come barging in, but as the day had been mostly dry she quickly returned to her work. Trinitite returned the polite smile, before adopting a swift walk to the restroom.

Once inside, she stopped, leaning against the door with a sigh. The run hadn't been physically exhausting, but since she'd been so desperate she needed a moment to regroup. She'd heard horror stories from Abyssals she'd talked to about fighting on land, how you had to run a physics problem through your head before performing any action in combat, but she hadn't realized how serious that problem was until just then. The traveling she'd done right after escaping to the shore had been across ground too rough for her to really try and move quickly, but this run had been across mostly unobstructed ground, and once she tried to use all her strength these hidden limits became painfully obvious.

Well, it was best that this happened now, and not with the enemy hot on her stern.

In the mirror, Trinitite got her first look at the damage to her disguise.

Her frequent falls had marred the makeup job Ineng had approved, smears of mud and grass staining her brow, nose and cheeks, so it was a bit difficult to tell where the light foundation had been rubbed off. That was probably a good thing, as her dirty face made the fact she was wearing a disguise at all a bit harder to distinguish, but it wasn't going to work everywhere. Trinitite leaned into the mirror, grasping the sides of the sink with both hands to steady herself, to focus on her upper lip. Yup, it looked like she'd wiped that clean hours ago, and now that she was looking it seemed blatantly obvious. Had no one noticed that?

Sern's odd expression drifted into Trinitite's memory, and she had to resist slamming her bow into the mirror. Of course they did.

That being said, no one had reacted that strongly, so perhaps there was a reason for a human to have white skin? Come to think of it, that State Trooper hadn't found her white skin that strange. That needed to go near the top of her research list. Until then, she needed to reapply her makeup. Her several hours' practice from yesterday was going to be put to the test, wasn't it? Really, if the Supply Princess was half as helpful as Ineng had been, the Abyssal fleets wouldn't be having so many logistics issues to begin with!

Despite herself, Trinitite had to smirk at that. Now that a few weeks had passed and the human forces didn't have to worry about real carriers guarding their precious transports, they were probably missing the Crossroads Fleet about now. Serves you right, you self-absorbed wastes of steel.

The final result probably wouldn't have gotten the human's approval, but it was leagues ahead of what her paint-and-chip detail had achieved. After washing her face with the sink, Trinitite had gone simple, with a layer or two of foundation, very few highlights, and another application of lipstick. If it wasn't for her eyes, she'd be sure the creature staring back at her in the mirror was a human.

Now, to quickly change her clothes into something without as much mud, and she was sure to blend in again!

A lot of these clothes were probably beyond repair. Her boots were the most obviously damaged, although the heat rising from Trinitite's feet told The Abyssal her socks were probably in much worse condition. The knees on her jeans had been rubbed white by her repeated encounters with concrete on the way here, while her coat had been torn in the front and her hat had been rendered useless. It always seemed to be carried away by the wind or folded and crunched when she fell. Maybe it could be repaired, but until then she'd have to seek an alternative. She hadn't seen anyone with a hat quite as large as what she'd been wearing, anyways, so perhaps something lighter was a better choice.

Instead of opting for another set of boots, Trinitite slipped on a pair of 'running shoes' over a new, less-destroyed pair of socks. She wasn't entirely sure how they were supposed to help her with running (they were lighter and weaker, for one, which seemed like the exact opposite of what she needed), but it was easier to put them on, and Trinitite was only going to be wearing them until she found some proper steel-toed boots, anyways.

She hadn't gone wrong with the jeans and jacket, so she replaced those with the closest items she had, but her original hat hadn't done well when she'd had to run. It would have to be replaced. She'd found a smaller hat with a floppy brim and a strap to keep it secured to her head. It didn't feel quite the same, but neither had the first hat. She could probably get used to it.

The door abruptly opened. Trinitite jumped, looking away from the mirror in panic. Had they always been able to do that? Why hadn't she wedged the door shut?

A very small human, perhaps a destroyer analogue, was looking in. The two froze, staring at each other, before the human suddenly looked away.

"Oh, sorry!"

The door closed again.

A moment passed as Trinitite looked back at the mirror. She'd been disguised, thankfully, but that could have happened at any time, couldn't it?

Next time, she'll have to remember to jam the door shut, somehow. Her cane could work, but that would mean summoning her rigging, and she'd have to experiment summoning and dismissing her rigging to figure out what that would do to her disguise before she could rule on the idea.

For now, the issue was avoided, though, and she had several other objectives in mind, such as more intelligence gathering. She'd made time by running to the library, but that close time wasn't getting any farther away.

This time, she'd brainstormed with her officers what kind of topics to research, and compile them onto a list in her log. It had been a bit tricky, apparently, to record items in the log with no lights in her tower, and her crew wasn't going to read it without retreating into her lower decks or asking her to shine a light into her eye, but it should keep her from getting lost in hundreds of wikipedia tabs, this time.

What a waste that had been. She'd already forgotten most of what she'd read!

The small human who'd interrupted Trinitite was waiting at the door, nodding to her and rushing in without a word. The library was less busy then it had been yesterday, the sound of the occasional button press or page turn combining with the book's aroma to create an oddly soothing atmosphere. Ignoring the books, Trinitite quietly made her way to the same computer that she'd used yesterday. This time, she had a strategy to avoid getting sidetracked. If she found something she wanted to know more about, she'd add the term to the research list and keep reading where she was at the moment. Hopefully, this run in should be more productive.

She had over thirty topics to investigate, after all.

First, Aircraft Carriers. She still needed to discover the identity of her princess, and if they had information on hostile warships from over a hundred years ago, they had to have details on her mother.

List of aircraft carriers of the United States Navy.

Unfortunately, that was not easy. While skimming the information in the opening paragraphs, her list grew by four terms. That didn't exactly inspire confidence, but some of these sounded fascinating. 'Revolt of the Admirals?' Didn't the article on the Civil War state the United States only had to deal with one rebellion? And what, exactly, did 'nuclear' mean, and how was a nuclear-powered carrier different from herself? Of course, there was also the war her princess had fought in, which was either World War II or the Cold War. Speculation on those would have to wait, because after looking below the text and seeing the list of carriers, the Abyssal's rangefinders settled on the third photograph.

CV-3. Saratoga. Class: Lexington. Commissioned: 16 November 1927. Decommissioned: 26 July 1946.

The unmistakable smokestack. The vertical stripe. Maybe the Aircraft on the deck were primitive biplanes. Maybe her guns matched Firestorm's 8-inch battery, rather than the 5-inches Trinitite remembered her with. The paint scheme was entirely different to her princess's, but it was her. Opening the picture in another tab, Trinitite sighed, leaning back in her chair. She was getting a look into her mother's past more detailed, perhaps more personal, than anything she'd seen before.

USS Saratoga (CV-3) landing planes on 6 June 1935 (8o-G-651592).jpg

There was so much information in this photo Trinitite never knew. Biplanes? Her sister's guns? Mother had never talked about this!

Was it wise, going through her past like this? Jellyfish, or Saratoga, as the humans were calling her, must have spent months of cumulative time talking about her past, but Trinitite never heard about stuff like this. The Wo-class couldn't shake the feeling she'd kept it secret for a reason. Was she not supposed to know this stuff?

She shook her head, changing tabs back to the list of Carriers. She could apologize when she met her again. Right now, getting her mother back was the most important.

Status: Sunk in Operation Crossroads as a nuclear test target near Bikini Atoll.

That kind of matched up with what she'd heard. That word, 'nuclear,' cropped up again, and she was tempted to relate that to The Fire that Mother had warned of, but how could something like that power an aircraft carrier? Another thing to add to the list.

Unfortunately, that didn't tell her anything about where she was now. Looking above and below Saratoga on the table had dates for when other carriers had been 'summoned.' Since those accompanied the fates listed, and since the dates mentioned were all within a few years of the present, that must have related to their return to fight this war.

Why weren't they saying anything about Jellyfish? Had this computer just not updated? No, the news articles had been dated today.

Was The Navy hiding her princess?

The Abyssal bit her lip, her limbs stiffening in frustration. Deep, nothing was ever easy, was it? She clicked on the blue text that led to info on Her Princess and skimmed through the headings, but there didn't seem to be anything about her after the 1940s either. Nothing mentioning her being a princess, nothing mentioning any kind of battle at Bikini, and nothing mentioning her joining the Navy at all, really.

Maybe she didn't? Trinitite didn't dare hope. Nobody would go through the effort to defeat The Crossroads Fleet and then take 'no' for an answer.

Trinitite shook her head. The fleet that maintained Wikipedia probably didn't get too many updates from the Navy, and Trinitite knew how slow news could travel if the circumstances weren't correct. She'd check back later to see if anything changed, or see if that news section in every search had anything about her.

The fact she had a name already was good progress. First, she'd give this article a full read, then ask the computer about USS Saratoga and see what else she could find. The list was probably going to grow out of control fast, but if she had to be honest with herself, that prospect felt a little exciting.

Ever want to keep writing, but get to a point where the chapter just feels like it has ended on its own? That was this chapter. I'll probably do another library chapter, because I actually did write Trinitite's research list, and some of that stuff would be fun to watch her learn about. Still, there are over thirty topics, so I know I'll have to skip over most of them to keep the setup of 'abyssal vs search engine' interesting. I'll post the list here to see which items sound interesting to y'all and focus on those, I think. It'll keep growing, of course.

Anyways, when I went back trough the last several chapters to build the list I noticed I've missed a lot of spaces between paragraphs. I'll go back and deal with the old chapters myself, but if I made this mistake here please grill me on it.

Not sure if I should finish this library segment next, or build a Nashville-focused interlude. She's got a day of leave too, and a few unresolved issues to bring up with her sisters...