Fixed continuity error! I forget to post this one!

I'm not scared of the dark, at least ever since my children days, But this time. It was different.

Have you ever wondered what it feels like to walk down a dark hallway, knowing that something is hunting you like some sort of horror game? It's a wholly different thing that has you on edge, nearly whining to yourself and being paranoid in fear, and it becomes so much worse when you can't see where that creature is, It was the same thing here, I was alone.

Several hours had passed ever since I ended up in this world, and now it was dark, The sun had set, and night had came as I pulled my hoodie tighter around my head, and i found myself mentally wishing I could turn on the RADAR arrays i had on me right now, If only I had bothered to go though the manual in my head on how to turn these on, let alone select frequencies or interpret all of this complicated data. Of course, One thing that helped was the fact that... for lack of a better word, I possessed night vision. I saw the world in gray and faint white, almost like that of a cat. Was it shipgirl biology? Who knew, but on the other hand. Sirens/Abyssals were also likely to possess the same thing, so it all leveled out in the end.

Big fat lot of good that would do if I were to get jumped by a full task force.

I took a deep breath, exhaling slowly and silently as I tried to calm my nerves. The sound of the waves crashing against my machinery was soothing to hear, and I tried my best to block everything else out of my mind.

My body was still cold from the chill of the ocean. I tried to keep my eyes sharp for anything strange, Any potential threat on the horizon, Or perhaps. more hopefully, Land that I could make landfall on to hide out, Just find a nice and warm island to wait until the UN or other equal organization for the coordinated effort against Sirens/Abyssals finds me. That would be what I want. I really don't want to die out here like this...

It felt like forever that I was just wandering along the water's surface without any real destination or goal in mind, and eventually. The little light that was going into my rod night cells dimmed into a dull gray color, and it wasn't long before it began to grow black and white. Might as well add a enemy submarine to the list of nightmare scenarios buzzing about in my mind. I didn't know what weapons were on me mostly yet, But if I had no depth charges, a ahead-throwing system or light torpedoes. then god, I was screwed-

Suddenly, my vision went blinding white like the light of the sun, Instinctively. I threw up my hands in front of my eyes to shield them from the light, trying to see where it was coming from as I felt my chest tighten up in panic, Next thing I knew. Senses I didn't know I had suddenly poured into my mind as I heard shouting and screaming over what I suspect could only be my radio systems, Alarms sounded inside me as my main batteries went spinning around in search of a enemy as I went up to full battle operations.

"What the fuck is that!?"

"Who fucking cares! Probably another one of them!"

As my eyes rapidly adjusted to the light at inhuman speed, my own searchlights activated, and I found myself staring at a white-haired girl, Around her were several single-barreled turrets and a pair of torpedo mounts, A face of panic and surprise with golden eyes stared back at me, her look almost seeming like she was a deer caught in the spotlight, My heart dropped.

Sirens, So there were no Abyssals. But it was sirens, and this was what a Siren Shipgirl looked like.

And with it came fear in my own heart as i immediately tried to get a idea of her distance and direction as I accelerated up to full combat flank speed, feeling the sensation of my main guns being readied, but too slowly. as the siren herself was obscured a moment later by the smoke and muzzle flash of her guns firing, Tracking her with what I guessed to be the shipgirl equal of a real rangefinder. I realized from the angry screaming on the radio that there was more than one of them out there.

More of my searchlights lanced out into the dark night as water kicked up around me. For what it was worth, their aim was terrible. but they were still not to be taken lightly as my searchlights revealed three more of them, I was facing four Sirens and I was just by myself, They varied in body build and shape of their machinery. But they were all terrifying to look at like the face of a angry chimp, In fact. they were so close that my inhuman vision was able to make out the expression on their faces, And they all appeared terrified or either frenzied in anger.

Just so as it happened, they were within hopefully secondary range. and these weapons would be much better for this kind of situation in a close-up brawl, I gave the order mentally as another barrage got dangerously close to my skin, water raining over me in the ambush. 'Shoot! Shoot!'

And I was treated to the view and sound of my own ears being deafened as my secondary guns, or whatever was there opened fire, Tracers lit up the night like fireworks as they missed, but already I saw a hit as I felt a shell ricocheting off me, Good god. It hurts!

The impact made me feel like someone just punched my chest with full power, And as soon as I realized what it was. I was in panic. My mind screamed at me that i needed to do something now!

I forced a hard turn, grimacing as I felt myself lurching left, trading shot for shot as I instinctively kept my arms up against any incoming shells that might hit my face, I was already getting bracketed even as I saw one of them turning into a human blaze, I felt my teeth almost grind in fear and ill temper. Was it my luck to end up with a siren squadron who would be a pain in the ass? Was I just gonna have to die here?!

"Goddamnit!"

But then, my main guns finally turned into position, armed and ready. I took sight of the closest one to me and started trying to crunch it in my head, Distance... Speed... heading... Accounting for night blindness... There!

And I pulled the metaphorical trigger, If these sirens had been looking at me. It would have looked like I just exploded, only for that to quickly turn out wrong as the nearest one was struck by a pair of 406mm shells as heavy as a Toyota, and much to my mental cheering had vaporized what looked like her smoke funnels and a good chunk of her hull, They weren't battleship guns for nothing!

But it was still one versus four shipgirls, Ghosts in the machine and 'virtual' fairies began to frantically load a new shell from the conveyer belts onto the hoist and propellant charges while my secondaries fired off a nearly constant cacophony of death, they were scoring hits on what I guessed to be a destroyer, And already she was on fire as she began to veer about erratically, clearly fearing for her own life more than whatever indoctrination was in her head.

I grunted under searchlight-guided return fire, I had suffered another hit. and while it must have been my main armor plates rather than something vital, there was no telling how long it would be before something critical got smashed up even with my systems all directing secondary fire, Another quick-firing enemy salvo had grazed within my head separated only by inches, threatening to knock me down. My engines were already running on full power, so the only way I could avoid taking a damaging hit here was to disable them as fast as i could, And even if i did get a chance, would the risk be worth the time?

And just as I was thinking about ways to force them to keep their distance, I felt my virtual crew screaming at me in my head that i had torpedoes.
And before I could interpret it let alone the absurdity of that question, I gasped as another shell splashed within a couple feet of my legs, but I looked down and there they were, A pair of torpedo launchers on my thighs! How!? I was a somewhat modern battleship, not a Kii or a Schlieffen or some other design. and yet... There they were, How had l missed them when i woke up!?

"Heavy torpedoes? Is that it!?"

Screaming out the question loudly, I decided i had no choice in the matter and aimed them toward the general direction of my enemies. At least I could hope they would work, And that maybe they'd just hit. But even still, with a series of loud screeches and air rushing out, my torpedoes fired in tandem with a loud blast as my main batteries fired off another heavy high explosive-FRAG salvo.

"For God's sake, Please hit!"

My torpedoes seemed to have found their target as I saw an explosion within a few miles away. And the voices of these enemy shipgirls grew increasingly panicked on the radio. Ahead of me, The two remaining sirens were desperately trying to maneuver out of my firing line, their eyes suddenly glued to the water, Well. that was at least a good start, They'd given me room to breath and broke up any accurate fire from these damned girls. No point in fighting here any longer.

The siren squadron, once clear of my torpedoes. turned and followed after me, and much to my stomach dropping. they were catching up. I turned around and fired, the sound of rammers and cradles echoing inside my mind as 16-inch cannons began their long loading cycle. All of this maneuvering was making my shots go long or either fly off into the horizon by a big margin, Once again. I cursed my awfully slow firing rate and wished that i had been something like the Des Moines or the Worcester-class;at least i would have autoloading cruiser guns, for fuck sake!

And as soon as I started reloading, I heard the familiar sounds of what sounded like wet-heater torpedoes on what l guessed to be my own hydrophones, and much to my horror, I saw the trails even in the dim. inky-black night, their torpedoes only seconds away from striking my hull.

"Fucking sirens, I hate you!"

And once again defying it either by sheer dumb luck or who knows what else, I barely avoided it as I saw the salvo of torpedoes pass just by me behind, Jesus christ. that was too close! And once again I was being bracketed by return fire, their aim also having been thrown off by my maneuvers, but looking at them. it wasn't going to take long for them to walk their guns onto me again, and in a battleship versus destroyer fight, destroyer-caliber guns of course were going to fire much faster.

And so I ordered my secondary batteries to continue their general barrage as I fired my main guns, hoping l could take out one of them, But they weren't stupid as well. The closer they got, the more accurate and deadly they became, but I still managed to get lucky when I fired. seeing a HE shell bullseye its mark, all the while i was pulling hard turns and going into sudden reversals at random, The only thing in principle here was to not let them get too close, The last thing i wanted was for a Hiei-Laffey situation to occur, or for one of them to shove a torpedo up my stern. Both of these would be horrible ways to go out.

But it felt like no matter how many shots were fired at them or how much damage they took, their speed and maneuverability seemed to defy even their own limitations, They kept dodging and twisting around until finally, they were coming alongside again, but my own actions had also paid off;Their formation, in an attempt to keep up with my wild maneuvers had completely fallen apart, My remaining two pursuers for the most part either weren't aware, or didn't seem to care about the fact they had left their crippled or sinking ship-mates behind. And that had given me enough of an opening to fire off another heavy salvo that sent them reeling back. secondary batteries adding to the weight as well as shells tore apart hull plating and gun turrets along with destroying torpedo launchers, With that. the two of them began to fall behind, either deciding that it wasn't worth it to die here or that their propulsion was down. I wasn't going to complain, I don't need a bismarck-esque situation happening. thank you very much.

...Oh, I almost forget about the damage report. Searchlights shut off, sailing away at full speed as I tried to slip into the darkness of the night. I took a good look at myself, both physically and mentally to see what sort of damage i had just took.

But at the same time, I remembered that these sirens were still out there, I still kept my engines at full speed, trying to put as much distance between me and my last known position as much as possible, Damage control can wait until then! If those fucking sirens catch up with me now...

I really hoped that i could just be able to lose them in the darkness, AND that they didn't pack radar, otherwise soon. I would have a full-blown enemy fleet near me, complete with carriers, You don't find a battleship out there on her own and send just a destroyer squadron on scheduled patrols after her, You reenact Operation Ten-Go. That's how you deal with such a threat.

That was the worst case scenario, and there were still multiple ways worse than dying here on the open seas like a sitting duck in the form of submarines, or literal death by a thousand land-based aircraft. So far i was doing okay, but I knew that it wouldn't take much for them to catch up, Time was ticking.

I was already getting tired, and i still felt something tickling down where I had been hit. It was a miracle that I hadn't lost any limbs yet, but I wasn't sure I'd make it if I had to do this for any longer.

And yet, I refuse to be the bismarck in this situation!