Of Ships and Girls and Shipgirls - a KanColle-RP (IC)

[The Assorted Saharan Outposts]

Halve would seem to stumble backwards as the shockwave hit. The bullets kept carving into her, causing blood to drip into the water. Occasionally, a seemingly random spark would come out of her wounds. Hull integrity took a big hit, and Halve felt like her eyes were going to crack like the windows on the ship. She let out another loud groan of pain as she put a hand to one of the bullet wounds on her arm. "Shit, you're an angry little bitch, aren't you? That's fine. I can handle that!"

Before Halve could activate her place of making a suicidal charge towards the ship, either to ram her or get way too up close to her, she was suddenly grabbed from behind. The Wafa ships fired still at Catherine, or sometimes any interfering ship. Halve would turn around only to see Starstruck trying to pull her away. "Halve, you're way too wounded to fight! Come on, we have to get you to somewhere safe!"
It took a moment for Halve's practically fractured mind to process what the former icebreaker was saying, though once she did, she shook her head. "I am not going to retreat! If this bitch wants me, she's going to get me! Now let me go!"
Though, despite Halve's confidence, Starstruck began to pull her away, the ship in question kicking, screaming and firing guns and torpedoes in practically any direction to try and scare Starstruck away from grabbing onto her. "Fucking let me go! I'll rip you limb from limb if you don't let me go right the hell now!"
"I'd like to see you try," Starstruck muttered as she turned around, moving Halve away from the bullets and risking getting hit herself. She was able to get a good look at the girl's face, and she didn't like what she saw. Blood trailed down her face, either from some sort of wound or she literally just smeared it on her face. Her hair was matted down with the red liquid and her kicking, screaming and using all of her energy made her look like some kind of abused POW, and that's without taking the gunshot wounds into account. "We'll get you out of here, though. We'll patch you up."
"No! Let me die if you have to! This bitch needs killing!"
Needless to say, this kind of arguing and struggling didn't make getting away easier.

[New Antonalia]

SPN Sergei Malinokov,
Open Waters, In Way Over His Head

The 8 inch shell slammed into Sergei's citadel and detonated inside his rig. To Sergei, it felt like he had been hit by an 18 wheeler as he spat out blood and knocked him silly long enough to feel one of the torpedo detonate along his port side. He felt the spray of water and shrapnel rake along his arm and face as his vision was slowly tinted red. In his ears he could hear the various alarms and sirens sounding as damage control rushed to repair the flooding sections of his rig. There was no two ways about it, any more hits and he would sink, so the only option he had left was to find a way to disengage and make it back to the fleet. But to do so, he needed to sink Tsuki and disable Riana and once his flooding was under control, Sergei leveled his 8 180 mm guns at Tsuki one more time and fired, aiming right above the waterline and hoping his shells would detonate instead of passing through like they did the first time.

SPN Fyodor Volkov,
Open Waters

Fyodor smiled as his Pe-2Ns laden with two 1000 kg bombs accelerated off the runway. His fighters and attackers were still rearming and repairing but he wouldn't have to wait long, especially if his planes could coordinate with the other fairy pilots for the ensuing attack on the Abyssal base.

[The Selkie]

Pursuing Fighters

-Snip-

Bermudian pilots were many things, but experienced was not one of them. However, they were in fighters, and the enemy bombers were trying to stay together, not all-too-successfully, "Another cabbage crate right in the how's-your-father!" Number 1 exclaimed as an Abyssal bomber's wing sheered off and it went spiraling down. "Watch your left!" A pilot cried out. "Remember, get them into a turning engagement!" Skipper called out, diving right between two bombers, peppering them with .303 British the entire way. A rookie pilot screamed as his Sea Gladiator, caught by a tailgunner in a turn, was peppered with tailgunner fire. The still mostly-intact Sea Gladiator, pilotless, slowly started trundling downwards into the ocean. One Sea Gladiator, hit in the roaring engine, burst into flames, the pilot barely managing to bail out before the plane was entirely consumed. Mistakes like that were not uncommon in the dogfight, but rarely were they as deadly. Regardless, entirely too many casualties for fighters attacking retreating dive bombers.

HMBS Spartan

-snip-

"Ahaha!" Spartan laughed at the exploding bunker complex, "They should thank me, for I have made them their own funeral pyre!" She was thoroughly enjoying herself despite- or perhaps because of- the 15-inch shells whizzing around her. Rhiannon spotted another target. Spartan's 6-inchers swiveled to the target. "Thank you, my friend! This is where they die!" Spartan called out, before opening up again, guns firing as fast as they were reloading. Blotting out the sun with 6-inch shells was always better than just one volley.

For one, it is less hot to fight in the shade.

snip

"No, it's not." Broadsword replied. "And it's alright. Try not to laugh again, okay? We Novayans aren't just for show." Broadsword added. "Broadsword, land the troops. They come equipped with landing crafts, ja?" Novaya said. "I know that, Novaya. Can anyone provide our landing fairies covering fire?" Replied Broadsword, who then deployed landing crafts containing infantry and vehicles. "And looks liked I misspoke having two tanks: I actually carried four: two Panzer IIIs and two Panzer IVs. Eeeeeehhhh.... okay." The supply-transport hybrid ship spoke, shrugging as the landing crafts of Novayan landing fairies were heading towards the shores.

Retreating Dive Bombers.
The formation held. Mostly, at least, it held.
The Gladiators were getting fewer and fewer, but so did the ammunition for the rearguns. It was now about making the last remaining shots count - not everybody could anymore. Of the remaining dive bombers, enough had lost their reargunners to the machine guns of the enemy or ran dry.
In the latter case, the gunners were still aiming at the Gladiators to shoo them away... with the empty clicking of their guns, which was inaudible even to them over the sounds of battle.
And another bomber fell out of the sky, towards the ground, another one veering off with the pilot killed by machine gun fire. The rest, around a dozen dive bombers, held fast.

Rhiannon. Landing Forces.
I begged to differ, I thought as I heard Broadsword's reply to Searc - for crying out loud, he was the modified LST, why the ruddy hell did he not know, how many bloody tanks he had onboard?!
Regardless, I replied: "Rhi, Broadsword, on it already. Tell them to go to Channel 19 and tell about any targets they spot.", I spoke into my radio, while my new friend to my side already filled the sky with shells - this time, victory did not come as easy, as no lance of flame shot into the sky as telling sign of another guns demise.
Instead, I felt the large shell pass right next to my face.
No time to dwell on anything.
I lifted my bow with High Explosive Shells and listened to what my own landing parties were reporting as targets, while I hoped, that Broadsword would tell his own landing parties, that they should do as I told him to tell them.
It took a few salvoes, but the large gun, that Spartan had shot at, fell silent.
I turned to her. "Might be a good idea to listen in on Channel 19 as well, lassie.", I told her with a grin, not bothering with using the radio, "The landlubbers need us beauties to pick up their slack, as usual!"

Empress Catherine
Open Ocean

Surprisingly enough, high explosive didn't seem to affect her superstructure that much. I mean, you need lots of steel to withstand the shockwave of 36 inch cannons. Catherine's grin widened. She was shaking from excitement- the fact that so much fire was being concentrated on her. "GO AHEAD AND FIRE AT ME MORE YOU HELLSPAWN! YOU ARE NOTHING BUT POSTAGE STAMPS TO ME!!" Catherine swung one side of 12 inch guns around at Lamia, launching 18 more 12 inch shells at her. And with that, realizing, hey, that's a fair deal of torps, it's about time she performed the full purpose of those 36 inch guns- annihilation.

All these tiny ships around her was just adorable. Catherine decided that they weren't worth her full tactical time, and with that, she turned herself directly towards Lamia, deciding to quickly start closing distance. She was actually charging straight for the battlegroup at this time. Seeing protest from Halve about her firing upon the cruiser prince, it seemed it was time to share the pain, no? Catherine rotated all of her 6 inch gun turrets on one side, and the 12 inch guns, upon Halve. An absolute hellstorm of fire erupted, with the 12 inch guns thundering out and the 6 inch guns acting like one destruction machine gun.

Now that her 6 inch secondaries were at work on one side, the 6 inch guns on the other side of her started unleashing upon Comet. Along with that, she pulled her full 36 inch gun broadside onto Comet. The guns adjusted their elevation for range, and then...
(Image)

Hell was unleashed.

Another 180 ton broadside was forced out of those cannons, fully unloaded upon Comet. And then... Huh. That's a lot of torpedoes. With this new encounter of metal fishes, she started turning once more, this time into the direction where most of the torpedoes were coming from. She smiled, bracing for impact as she took quite a fair deal of them right on the torpedo belt. Catherine flinched from all the hits she had taken. The torpedo hits were in such quantity that her list changed from portside to starboard side. Immediately, damage control fairies started work. Speaking of damage control fairies, the fires set by Lamia originally were getting contained. Though, her mental stability was dropping by the minute. This would only get better, for her, atleast.

PRNS Montgomery
Engaging enemy super say-I mean carrier.

The 16"/54 caliber gun was a derivative of the standard 16"/50 cal gun used on his sister ships, but with an extra bore liner, and 4 extra calibers of barrel, giving his shells just that much more speed and power behind them. Add the ever expensive, yet incredibly powerful Mk.9 mod.1 "Hyper velocity Kinetic penetration munition" or, as he preferred to call it, the world largest steel jacketed, Tungsten cored, APCR shell of Fuck you, with the enhanced, experimental propellant behind them...could throw the 3,100 pound shell nearly 36 miles and still have enough sheer force to shatter even the turtle back armor on Catherine with a direct hit...give or take a few.

Combined with the tried and true AM/N mk.21 mod 4, block 13 Radar gun fire control system, and he could hit his target wit a 150 foot margin of error up to 30 miles. What a beauty it was. "Catherine, your breaking formation and opening a whole in our firing line, recommend you reform and continue long range bombardment." His voice rang out over the radio, cold calm and calculating.

He moved quickly, his boilers nearly red hot but steady, his guns moving with a manufactured grace that came from both his own years of battle, and the famed Imperial steel works. He centered his guns, all 4 turrets, all 12 16"/54 caliber guns of Rome, on the princes as she morphed. If taking damaged healed her, then his only option, he figured, was to hit her with as many shells as possible, hoping to cause as much damage as possible before her ability could work, maybe even short it out.

He squeezed his trigger, and let loose his shells, the higher pressure propellant burning a bright blue, the shells them self streaking across the sky with speed unlike the 16 inch shells because, for the briefest moments shortly after the shells left the barrels of his guns, they broke the sound barrier.

Given his low dispersion range, and the high velocity of the shells, it was likely that 6-7 shots would land on target. As he moved closer, he reached the outer edge of his secondary gun range, and the numerous 127mm duel purpose guns opened fire, spewing 5 inch proximity fused shells that began to reinforce the wall of flack that had been formed.

The 24 fighters that had been escorting him had been steadily climbing to nearly 30,000 feet, their multistage turbo chargers keeping their speed will above 340 mph, even when laden with heavy bombs, gunpods, and even a few torpedoes. They knew well enough to stay clear of the furball beneath them, but that would soon change as they passed over, their mission had been chosen mid-flight: They were going carrier hunting.

He spotted Catherine in the distance, her large form slugging through the water at her full speed, dodging torpedoes and shell fire. "Surprisingly graceful for a a girl of her size." It took him a moment to realize he had left his Mic on, and blushing ever so slightly, pushed forward at 32 knots. IF she was going to get stuck in the middle of the enemy formation, so was he.

PRNS Adeline
She had been loungin in the shallows as she normally did, in full gear, taking in the sun during her day off. She hummed a tune to her self as she caught some what of a slight tan, hoping to get rid of her Volkstradi pale color. Then she heard them.

Getting to her feet, she extended her own radar mast, granted it wasn't nearly as long range as Monty's, but it had enough power to detect the incoming planes. Enemy planes.
She loaded her 30mm guns and sent a message to HQ
<Alert, Alert, enemy air formation inbound for attack to base, Estimated 45 seconds until attack run, not a drill!>

Empress Catherine
Open Ocean

Right now, Catherine could care less about planes. She was in the heat of battle. A thrill she wouldn't get for quite a while. So she was going to enjoy the hell out of it while she could. And you know what? "Enemy cruiser launched torpedoes!" Her command fairy would alert Cath of this. Finally. She could avoid taking some hits for once. Catherine's huge waterjet engines went full power on one side, and full reverse on another. Her rudder shifted around at the same time, allowing her to make a fairly sharp turn and lose a lot of speed. Her torpedo belt would be able to take the hit fine, but she's lost a few feet of freeboard. Her feet were slightly lower in the water, but that wouldnt affect her too much.

Her many secondary guns kept bombarding Halve. The constant stream of 6 inch guns [and somewhat 12 inch guns] was endless. And with that, her rudder shifted right back around, and she went to full power. Her 36 inch guns trained upon Lamia, raising up once more and shrieking out with a shockwave. Said shockwave was powerful enough to threaten Halve's integrity- it was guarenteed that windows would break, but any hull integrity damage is up to her. The 91.4 cm rounds flew right for Lamia. She wanted to sink EVERY abyssal vessel in this sea. No matter the cost.

Lamia-Caty-Battle.
To say, that Lamia was shrugging off the hits of both Caty and her little supporter would be... slightly wrong. But only slighty.
It would be an outright lie.
As Lamia was hit by both main artilleries, around the same instant, the breath was punched out of her lungs. While her own artillery continued firing as best as she could, she herself felt the hits, she felt them bad. She was not a battleship, as such she was not good at brawling such things out.
But here she was now, thanks to the enemy slipping past her patrols by what might as well be teleportation.
No, she would not gripe.
From the corner of her eyes, she saw Prince Comet retreat, being dragged away, as was most of his battlegroup. This was bad.
[Sire...], she breathed into her radio, calling Comet, [...my apologies, I couldn't serve you better then this...]
And with this, she took a deep breath... and turned around, her last remaining 5inch guns throwing out smoke shells and chaff as she showered their entire battlefield in them, to give them all a good chance to retreat, while she herself made off.
She swore revenge.

Miuil. Base.
I must have fallen asleep in the docks, thanks to the aftermath of a small ammunition mishandling... in my dream, there was this charming Lutetiian cruise liner, which I had kissed once, back when we had been of steel, and we danced the whole night to music played by the finest fiddlers...
...until said music was replaced by the wail of air raid sirens.
My eyes flew open and I flew out of my docking spot - this would be a total amount of suckage, I knew that as I ran out of the bath to throw on at least my shirt before gallivanting off to show those blasted fuckers what it meant to disturb a Silverport Pattern VI Freighter while she bathed.
"Miuil, Rauenfels.", I spoke into my radio with fear, speaking German, "What's going on?"
"Air attack!", she called back in English, "Can't talk, we're bunkering ourselves down!"
I was, for a moment, confused - 'bunkering down'? What did she mean? Now was not the time to load supplies into the own bun... oh. They really needed to work on their English.
But that had time.
As I stepped out, clad only in my shirt and with my three 40mm guns deployed on my shoulders, there were already a few of our fighters in the air... and larger planes as well. The advantages of fairy-sized planes on a full-size airfield was, that it was easier to get vast amounts of aircraft in the air at once, if need should arise, I guess.
But... as I thought, the first dive bombers were already diving for the base, their payloads strapped underneath them as the base's AA-guns began to open up...
...it would be a massacre, I thought as I watched a group of four dive bombers make an attack run on the place, where the supply convoy was still loading off.
There weren't many of them, though, just a few squadrons, so as much as we could open up on them from all sides, they needed to make every bomb count.

Open seas

As she waited for the injured to come to her, her sonars picked up a small ping from below her. "A submarine?" Her crew confirmed the ping as they cross referenced against the location of other allied submarines. "I'm sorry, but for my survival, I must." Starting her engines once again, the cranes went offline as a message was sent to the injured and the person towing the injured. "Submarine detected, I'm breaking off. Will return for official repairs once escort returns." After that, she screamed out to Kaifu.

"Submarine detected! Anti Sub escort requested!"

Upon hearing the sound of Kaguya's screaming, Kaifu quickly turned around and sped backwards as his guns now stopped firing as the sound of his sonars pinging resounded through his ears, the fairies preparing the depth charges as he determined the depth they were at. "Depth confirmed, adjusting for error, now sink to the depths!" Quickly turning as soon as he finished his calculations, he launched off 4 depth charges as they flew through the air towards the estimated location of the submarines, sinking down towards the expected targets.

"Interception wave, taking off!" Tokai quickly launched out another wave of fighters into the sky as the last one returned, before she looked up as her eyes zoomed in on something, enemy bombers flying past her. "No..." Quickly flipping a switch, she loaded in a cartridge as she began to release 10 cm shells towards them, each shot only having a 5 second delay as the fighters searched for any attack planes before seeing some in the distance. Upon confirmation they were enemy fighters, they sped forward as the first shot was fired, 20 mm shells heading fast towards them as the crew back on the mothership pinned the location down.

"Bamboozled once again!" Higashikawa shouted, turning around as he almost overturned from the speed and weight, anti air guns still firing with flak over precision firing as they waited for the aluminium to clear for the radar to begin working.

At main base, crew began to scramble as the ground crew triggered the anti air alarm, the sound of horns wailing in every corner of the base as fighters took off alongside improvised gun ships that were made form G8N1 bombers due to the lack of bombs. Although they were bombers, they could still hold their own with sealed fuel tanks and an improved metal frame along with heavy cannons as they slowly made their way towards the expected group of enemy fighters.

Prophet

Hearing Searc's transmission, Prophet shouted out in anger, realizing what the Abyssals were planning, though a bit too late.

"Prophet to Flag, the carrier group is in immediate danger, they need immediate AA support!" He broadcasted, turning sharply to flank speed toward the other carriers, hoping he could reach them in time. Those Abyssals made a fool out of him, and he was pissed as a result.

Salvation

Salvation could very faintly hear as the torpedo tubes opened, but he knew exactly what it was. Unfortunately for him, however, he had no real way to defend himself long enough to reach the island. Or so he thought, until he looked at Stilly's depth charge racks. Salvation was against violence, very strongly in fact, but he wasn't afraid to end a life if it meant saving one, and began to remove, arm, and drop the depth charges behind him as he pushed his engines to their limits, relying on the distraction of the charges and his raw speed to outrun the submarines.

SPN Sergei Malinokov,
Open Waters, In Way Over His Head

The 8 inch shell slammed into Sergei's citadel and detonated inside his rig. To Sergei, it felt like he had been hit by an 18 wheeler as he spat out blood and knocked him silly long enough to feel one of the torpedo detonate along his port side. He felt the spray of water and shrapnel rake along his arm and face as his vision was slowly tinted red. In his ears he could hear the various alarms and sirens sounding as damage control rushed to repair the flooding sections of his rig. There was no two ways about it, any more hits and he would sink, so the only option he had left was to find a way to disengage and make it back to the fleet. But to do so, he needed to sink Tsuki and disable Riana and once his flooding was under control, Sergei leveled his 8 180 mm guns at Tsuki one more time and fired, aiming right above the waterline and hoping his shells would detonate instead of passing through like they did the first time.

SPN Fyodor Volkov,
Open Waters

Fyodor smiled as his Pe-2Ns laden with two 1000 kg bombs accelerated off the runway. His fighters and attackers were still rearming and repairing but he wouldn't have to wait long, especially if his planes could coordinate with the other fairy pilots for the ensuing attack on the Abyssal base.

Searc. With Prophet and Higashikawa.
When the others turned, so did I, displaying the reason for me being called 'highly maneuverable'.
Still... Shite, shite, shite..., it chanted in my head as I sped off with the two carriers behind me (I had bigger problems then one of the two of them now being able to stare on my behind and I was quite sure, that they had bigger problems, too). The enemy was flying a strike mission against out carriers and I had missed them in the engagement with the decoy force.
FUCK!
I couldn't even be amused by another screwup of the Novayans - really, what kind of over-glorified freighter forgot what he had taken aboard?! - and concentrated on fighting as the first shells went up towards the attacking force, with little effect. My own followed soon after, a VT-shell-arrow...
At least I had a good excuse, the enemy was ... Who was I kinnding, I did not need any excuses, I screwed up. Big time. And others would pay for it.
Tears filled my eyes as I let loose another arrow.
Punishment awaited me for this, provided I survived this battle, I knew it. It was my fault and mine alone... next arrow. And the enemy was nearly on our carriers. At that point in time, I did not know, that they were armed with
rockets...

Riana and Tsuki versus Sergei.
That part of the battle raged on with a ferocity, that was hard to match, Riana's eyes having been taken over by bloodlust and rage. Her 8inch guns barked armour piercing and high explosive shells as soon as they were ready.
Tsuki, her light cruiser companion, was a bit more reserved. She had seen, what had happened to her sister and while she, too, was borderline enraged, she concentrated more on maneuvering then on firing... she was not a brawler, she was an escort.
To her, it came as even more of a surprise, when her enemy singled her out and decided to fire eight of his guns at her, not as Riana. Of the eight shells, five either splashed into the water or shattered. The remaining three hit her just above the waterline.
One went through.
The other two did not.
Tsuki howled in pain as one detonated in her forward fire room, subsequently disabling half of her engine power, while the other hit her rudder, which caused her right leg to limp. She was in no fighting shape - but still she had to fight to the death, because like this, she could not escape.
Riana would not.
Subsequently, Tsuki realigned her 5inch guns, which were ineffective anyway, and began to spit smoke shells and chaff behind her, to confuse anyone, who wanted to intrude upon the fun. And she launched another salvo of torpedoes at Sergei, her last, most likely - but that did matter little, as Riana was still pounding away on the heavy cruiser with her 8inch guns, aiming for his citadel.
She knew, that they would die here.

Beneath the battle.
For Yoanie and her submarines, the four depth charges being the first salvo were already expected, thanks to the pinging, and as they entered the water, the three of them scattered past them, upwards, but the second...
'Dropping of Depth Charges' was a bit too weak.
After all, the repair ship and his little charge dropped a whole lot of the bloody things into the water on their heads, and Yoelin, one of her submarines, ran right into them. She did not really like it, as it turned out. So much so, in fact, that her right leg was blasted off, as was the mask... tender features looked to Yoanie, struggling to keep air in, grasping for the mate with a hand blown in half.
Yoanie did not bother. She was dead.
The remaining two didn't escape without scratches either, but they still had a bit of life in them.
Without any preamble, Yoanie and her remaining submarine fired a swarm of dumbfire torpedoes, six each, towards him in a nice spread - they would be triggered by magnetic fuzes, under his keel, or at least close to it, and not by slamming into his side.
They were mean weapons... but, by their own depth, both Yoanie and Yoelin knew, that they were easy targets for any ASW-vessel in the area. They were even close enough to the surface to be hit by Caty's keel, most likely without her noticing, if she decided to ram them.
Adding to that, there was not much depth beneath them to begin with... it would be a hairy situation, but Yoanie swore to get out of it in one piece.

[Sleet Clans]

-snip-

As the battle raged around her, Nevlamas decided to poke her head out from under the thermal layer to see just what had developed while she was effectively blind. Slowly coming above the layer just as slowly as she had moved under it, the submarine's sonar was bombarded with a whole load of info being picked up. For one, the amount of Abyssals on scope had dropped, and two, her intended target was trying to flee of all things!

The latter made the Sleetavian's eyes narrow, her gaze now fully locked onto the fleeing Abyssal capital ship. Oh, no you don't you bitch! Never mind the fact that she heard the slight sound of flushing tubes and depth charges in her hydrophones, she just could not let this Abyssal get away!

Flushing her tubes and setting her torpedoes into a good, wide spread once they launched, Nevlamas's perception of time started to slow. In the middle of a hunt, right before taking the shot some hunters would find that time almost slowed for them. This was what Nevlamas was experiencing right now: The bullet time of a one-shot opportunity. She held her fire for a few more seconds, waiting until her instincts started screaming at her....

Now!

The underwater hunter let loose with all six of her front facing tubes, their launch stirring up both a racket and a flurry of bubbles as she launched them one after another. Right after this, she quickly closed her tubes and set herself back into a dive, slightly faster than before now that her daemonic opponents above most likely knew where she was now. Now, she could only hope that her targets and their ASW escorts were too busy with her surface-borne comrades to go after a submarine that had sneaked right into their formation and launched six torpedoes at one of their carriers...

[Sterkistan]

Battleships Diamantina & Whona
Dia looked on in disbelief as the Airfield princess 'entered her next form', the runways were like they'd never been touched.
She almost panicked, feeling her heart drop to her stomach.
"W-We've got a problem..."
She gripped Whona closer, who grimaced in pain,
"No reason to stop now..."
Whona was readying to fire when she saw her two floatplanes, stricken and battered, slam down into the water near them. Only the spotter of Bluebird escaping from the wreckage before it sunk below the waves.
She scooped up the fairy in her hands and placed it on the deck, a solemn look on her face.

Dia was looking around frantically at her battlegroup.
"What are we supposed to do!"

[Higher Japan]

Open sea

"Torpedoes sighted!" The crew scrambled around as they pulled out the machine guns that was stowed in the lower decks as Kaifu tried to out maneuver them. 2 were shot by the bullets and 2 missed but as 2 detonated, they luckily detonated at his front, sparing the depth charges but knocking one of his cannons out. "This is nothing...compared to the pain i once felt. Now then, let me show you real pain!" Quickly spinning towards the last recorded direction as the passive sonar guided him, he released 2 barrages of 4 depth charges as he prepared for the 4th wave.

"Shit shit shit, can't lose speed." Tokai quickly began to turn and maneuver, spinning around and somehow moving forward as she continued firing at the bombers which were now circling her like a vulture, fighters returning and almost reaching the point of interception as 10 cm shells filled the sky while Higashikawa still continued head strong, opening full on flak fire as the barrels soon began to turn read from how fast it was firing.

[The Cross and Davids Star]

Prophet
As he hurried to get to the carriers, Prophet saw as the Airfield Princess became good as new, as if everything done to her never happened. He had almost no planes left, as all his fighters and bombers were nothing but gone. With some minor reluctance, Prophet decided to take charge of the carriers, knowing full well that this fight would eventually bear no fruit.

"Prophet to all carriers, start falling back to base, I'll cover you from behind." He spoke, soon getting into range and opening fire on the bombers.

Salvation

Still making headway for the island, Salvation could see as the torpedoes sped toward him, noting that they weren't on the water's surface and figured that they had magnetic or timed fuses. With still a good amount of depth charges left, he began chucking them at the torpedoes, hoping that they'd cause the torpedoes to detonate if they had magnetic fuses. With less than a kilometer away from the island, Salvation's hope remained strong, even if he had two submarines on his ass. After a small calculation, Salvation knew that he had to hold out for a minute until he could hit the shores, but he didn't know how fast his pursuers could reload for another wave.

[Rustyal]

Empress Catherine
Open Ocean

Catherine grit her teeth tightly, staring at the smoke screen that was unfolding. She wasn't going to let them get away so easily. Catherine once more, launched her 36 inch rounds right off at where Lamia was supposed to be last. Catherine turned herself towards the smoke screen, hoping to be able to clear it before the Abyssals could make a retreat. In this time, she turned her many secondaries towards that airfield (Chill). Tons, and tons, and tons, of high explosive rounds were ready. The machine gun that is Catherine's secondary battery begun firing. A hailstorm of medium to large caliber gunfire plagued the skies, all thanks to that monstrosity ship.

Catherine's damage control fairies were working hard- locking off watertight compartments, draining water in areas it could be drained, putting out fires. The procedure was like clockwork aboard Catherine. Surely, they would get extra rations for their hard work, no? Well, all was fine, until Catherine's fairy commander alerted her of the many planes inbound. Well, that would be fine, no? All of Catherine's 37mm cannons were ready, waiting until ANY air target made its way into that magical 5000 meter effective range. She was ready, for ANY threat. Especially if it meant she could destroy more ships.

[New Antonalia]

Riana and Tsuki versus Sergei.
That part of the battle raged on with a ferocity, that was hard to match, Riana's eyes having been taken over by bloodlust and rage. Her 8inch guns barked armour piercing and high explosive shells as soon as they were ready.
Tsuki, her light cruiser companion, was a bit more reserved. She had seen, what had happened to her sister and while she, too, was borderline enraged, she concentrated more on maneuvering then on firing... she was not a brawler, she was an escort.
To her, it came as even more of a surprise, when her enemy singled her out and decided to fire eight of his guns at her, not as Riana. Of the eight shells, five either splashed into the water or shattered. The remaining three hit her just above the waterline.
One went through.
The other two did not.
Tsuki howled in pain as one detonated in her forward fire room, subsequently disabling half of her engine power, while the other hit her rudder, which caused her right leg to limp. She was in no fighting shape - but still she had to fight to the death, because like this, she could not escape.
Riana would not.
Subsequently, Tsuki realigned her 5inch guns, which were ineffective anyway, and began to spit smoke shells and chaff behind her, to confuse anyone, who wanted to intrude upon the fun. And she launched another salvo of torpedoes at Sergei, her last, most likely - but that did matter little, as Riana was still pounding away on the heavy cruiser with her 8inch guns, aiming for his citadel.
She knew, that they would die here.

SPN Sergei Malinokov,
Wounded and in pain

Sergie couldn't begin to describe what he felt. His body screamed in agony as his fairies clamored around his to keep him in the fight, but he knew that he could not win this without help. "Empress Catherine, I need assistance." He said, speaking in pained and ragged breaths as he fired another salvo of AP, firing one last time at Tsuki as he wanted to get the light cruiser out of the way. He watched the salvo impact the light cruiser, but didn't watch the aftermath, choosing instead to focus on the more immediate threat to his survival, Riana. As soon as his guns reloaded, he fired, hoping to drive the Abyssal cruiser out to a much more comfortable range. "Engaged by two Abyssal cruisers, one light, one heavy. I have sustained heavy damage and in danger of sinking if assistance is not rendered, targets are less than 11 km from me so watch your fire." Moments later, he spotted another salvo of torpedoes and began to panic, his vision was clouded by blood and he couldn't tell how fast they were going or if they were spread out or close in as he turned away from them, presenting his number 3 and 4 turrets as well as his lightly armored deck to the attacking cruisers.

Prophet
As he hurried to get to the carriers, Prophet saw as the Airfield Princess became good as new, as if everything done to her never happened. He had almost no planes left, as all his fighters and bombers were nothing but gone. With some minor reluctance, Prophet decided to take charge of the carriers, knowing full well that this fight would eventually bear no fruit.

SPN Fyodor Volkov
His last flight of fighters lifted off from his deck as he heard Prophets message. Fyodor thought of the Davidian carrier as a coward and an idiot from the training fight, and this confirmed it. "Prophet, you may retreat in shame but I will continue to fight, especially since I wasn't stupid enough to waste my planes and pilots like you." There was more than enough venom in his voice as he ordered his bombers and attackers to go after the renewed Abyssal carrier. "All pilots, target that floating bitch of an Abyssal. Do not turn back until you've emptied all your munitions on her or so help me, I'll shoot you down myself." He told his pilots, adding to their zeal in his own special way as his pilots and crews responded with a deafening "Hurrah".

However, the fervor among his crew didn't last long when Fyodor's radar picked up renewed flights of Abyssal dive and torpedo bombers. Undaunted, he ordered his faries to stand too and prepare to receiving the Abyssals and show them the might of Solkovian steel. Soon, his fairies were clamoring to their posts, manning the myriad of 100 mm, 37 mm, and 25 mm anti-aircraft guns that bristled along his rig and flight deck. As soon as the attackers were in range, they would be assured a fight.

[The Assorted Saharan Outposts]

Smoke shells filled the entire battlezone, and both Starboard and Starstruck knew this was the bets time to retreat. "Prince, if I may I'm going to give an order. That was rhetorical, though. Sorry, but you don't have much of a choice in it." Starboard then cleared her throats and shouted at the top of her lungs, "Battlegroup Comet fall back! Everyone fall back and get to safety! We're done here!"
"I'd stop you if I weren't so tired..." Comet muttered as he was practically limp in her arms. There wasn't much he could do to resist the girl dragging him away from danger.

Halve, though, was still raring to fight as her, Starstruck and the rest of the battlegroup slowly began to fall back. Blood was still leaking down from...seemingly everywhere, and the occasional spark came a few bulletholes in her face. "We are not done here I swear to god I'm gonna tear these kanmusu sluts apart!"
"It's more like they're tearing you apart," Starstruck muttered, but she could bearely hewrnherself over Halve's screams of protest and anger at their forced retreat. This girl really needed to calm down. Though, she could see why Comet likes her. Quite the fighter...

"No need to tell me twice. They're dropping charges down here. Scary." Anchor suddenly turned her ship around and quickly sped off to follow the rest of Comet's battlegroup. No way was she going to get sunk by everything here.

[The Selkie]

Empress Catherine
Open Ocean

Catherine grit her teeth tightly, staring at the smoke screen that was unfolding. She wasn't going to let them get away so easily. Catherine once more, launched her 36 inch rounds right off at where Lamia was supposed to be last. Catherine turned herself towards the smoke screen, hoping to be able to clear it before the Abyssals could make a retreat. In this time, she turned her many secondaries towards that airfield (Chill). Tons, and tons, and tons, of high explosive rounds were ready. The machine gun that is Catherine's secondary battery begun firing. A hailstorm of medium to large caliber gunfire plagued the skies, all thanks to that monstrosity ship.

Catherine's damage control fairies were working hard- locking off watertight compartments, draining water in areas it could be drained, putting out fires. The procedure was like clockwork aboard Catherine. Surely, they would get extra rations for their hard work, no? Well, all was fine, until Catherine's fairy commander alerted her of the many planes inbound. Well, that would be fine, no? All of Catherine's 37mm cannons were ready, waiting until ANY air target made its way into that magical 5000 meter effective range. She was ready, for ANY threat. Especially if it meant she could destroy more ships.

-snip-

As the battle raged around her, Nevlamas decided to poke her head out from under the thermal layer to see just what had developed while she was effectively blind. Slowly coming above the layer just as slowly as she had moved under it, the submarine's sonar was bombarded with a whole load of info being picked up. For one, the amount of Abyssals on scope had dropped, and two, her intended target was trying to flee of all things!

The latter made the Sleetavian's eyes narrow, her gaze now fully locked onto the fleeing Abyssal capital ship. Oh, no you don't you bitch! Never mind the fact that she heard the slight sound of flushing tubes and depth charges in her hydrophones, she just could not let this Abyssal get away!

Flushing her tubes and setting her torpedoes into a good, wide spread once they launched, Nevlamas's perception of time started to slow. In the middle of a hunt, right before taking the shot some hunters would find that time almost slowed for them. This was what Nevlamas was experiencing right now: The bullet time of a one-shot opportunity. She held her fire for a few more seconds, waiting until her instincts started screaming at her....

Now!

The underwater hunter let loose with all six of her front facing tubes, their launch stirring up both a racket and a flurry of bubbles as she launched them one after another. Right after this, she quickly closed her tubes and set herself back into a dive, slightly faster than before now that her daemonic opponents above most likely knew where she was now. Now, she could only hope that her targets and their ASW escorts were too busy with her surface-borne comrades to go after a submarine that had sneaked right into their formation and launched six torpedoes at one of their carriers...

Lamia.
Lamia retreated, her few remaining 5inch guns spewing shells to cover their retreat, hers and that of Comet. Smoke and chaff went up, hiding them...
...behind her, a series of very, very large shells went down, missing her completely. The wave caused by them did not. Neither did the shockwave. Lamia felt something important snap, felt something vital give out.
Her keel.
There were not only advantages to being compressed into human form, she noted while gritting her teeth in pain and missing the torpedo salvo completely. Of the six, two hit her side, causing further pain, causing flooding which made her howl in pain.
If she would get that bitch of a submarine, which had fired those, she would suffer, suffer, suffer!
She knew, that this was a dream, as the submarine was out of her reach.
Her guns faithfully spewed further shells, further smoke and chaff, herself limping further and further away, beginning an erratic pattern of movement to shake off any pursuers. This hurt, but it would be less then the shame and humiliation would hurt, she thought as she left the combat zone.

Battleships Diamantina & Whona
Dia looked on in disbelief as the Airfield princess 'entered her next form', the runways were like they'd never been touched.
She almost panicked, feeling her heart drop to her stomach.
"W-We've got a problem..."
She gripped Whona closer, who grimaced in pain,
"No reason to stop now..."
Whona was readying to fire when she saw her two floatplanes, stricken and battered, slam down into the water near them. Only the spotter of Bluebird escaping from the wreckage before it sunk below the waves.
She scooped up the fairy in her hands and placed it on the deck, a solemn look on her face.

Dia was looking around frantically at her battlegroup.
"What are we supposed to do!"

Amy. Approaching the battle line.
I am a destroyer tender. I am actually specialized on caring for vessels far smaller then that.
I knew, what to do with larger vessels, though, to get them stabilized until they could be docked. I had demonstrated that already, even under fire.
And yet, here I was, approaching the battle line as shells from coastal artillery dropped around them, only one thing on my mind: Miss Whona had been hit badly during the battle. She needed help.
We all did, if my reports were to be trusted.
I raised my hand to my radio, speaking calmly and firmly: "Amy, Battle Line. Approaching for assistance to wounded vessels from the North. Please do not fire on me. Who needs me the most?"
This was dangerous and I already had to shoo off a formation of enemy dive bombers, but... that was the moment, where everything went to hell in a huge boom.
I do not know, who fired those shots, but I saw smoke rising from the guns of Whona, I believe Miss Dia as well... and somewhere else. At the end of the day, it mattered little as someone had seemingly hit something important and the Airfield Princess on the Shipwreck Islands... judging by the howl of pain she emitted from her throat, I would say, that she was nearly dead, but I wasn't sure.
Still, I screamed into my radio: "Someone, shoot that fucking bitch!"
She hurt Stilly. She would pay.

Open sea

"Torpedoes sighted!" The crew scrambled around as they pulled out the machine guns that was stowed in the lower decks as Kaifu tried to out maneuver them. 2 were shot by the bullets and 2 missed but as 2 detonated, they luckily detonated at his front, sparing the depth charges but knocking one of his cannons out. "This is nothing...compared to the pain i once felt. Now then, let me show you real pain!" Quickly spinning towards the last recorded direction as the passive sonar guided him, he released 2 barrages of 4 depth charges as he prepared for the 4th wave.

"Shit shit shit, can't lose speed." Tokai quickly began to turn and maneuver, spinning around and somehow moving forward as she continued firing at the bombers which were now circling her like a vulture, fighters returning and almost reaching the point of interception as 10 cm shells filled the sky while Higashikawa still continued head strong, opening full on flak fire as the barrels soon began to turn read from how fast it was firing.

Prophet
As he hurried to get to the carriers, Prophet saw as the Airfield Princess became good as new, as if everything done to her never happened. He had almost no planes left, as all his fighters and bombers were nothing but gone. With some minor reluctance, Prophet decided to take charge of the carriers, knowing full well that this fight would eventually bear no fruit.

"Prophet to all carriers, start falling back to base, I'll cover you from behind." He spoke, soon getting into range and opening fire on the bombers.

Salvation

Still making headway for the island, Salvation could see as the torpedoes sped toward him, noting that they weren't on the water's surface and figured that they had magnetic or timed fuses. With still a good amount of depth charges left, he began chucking them at the torpedoes, hoping that they'd cause the torpedoes to detonate if they had magnetic fuses. With less than a kilometer away from the island, Salvation's hope remained strong, even if he had two submarines on his ass. After a small calculation, Salvation knew that he had to hold out for a minute until he could hit the shores, but he didn't know how fast his pursuers could reload for another wave.

Riana and Tsuki versus Sergei.
That part of the battle raged on with a ferocity, that was hard to match, Riana's eyes having been taken over by bloodlust and rage. Her 8inch guns barked armour piercing and high explosive shells as soon as they were ready.
Tsuki, her light cruiser companion, was a bit more reserved. She had seen, what had happened to her sister and while she, too, was borderline enraged, she concentrated more on maneuvering then on firing... she was not a brawler, she was an escort.
To her, it came as even more of a surprise, when her enemy singled her out and decided to fire eight of his guns at her, not as Riana. Of the eight shells, five either splashed into the water or shattered. The remaining three hit her just above the waterline.
One went through.
The other two did not.
Tsuki howled in pain as one detonated in her forward fire room, subsequently disabling half of her engine power, while the other hit her rudder, which caused her right leg to limp. She was in no fighting shape - but still she had to fight to the death, because like this, she could not escape.
Riana would not.
Subsequently, Tsuki realigned her 5inch guns, which were ineffective anyway, and began to spit smoke shells and chaff behind her, to confuse anyone, who wanted to intrude upon the fun. And she launched another salvo of torpedoes at Sergei, her last, most likely - but that did matter little, as Riana was still pounding away on the heavy cruiser with her 8inch guns, aiming for his citadel.
She knew, that they would die here.

SPN Sergei Malinokov,
Wounded and in pain

Sergie couldn't begin to describe what he felt. His body screamed in agony as his fairies clamored around his to keep him in the fight, but he knew that he could not win this without help. "Empress Catherine, I need assistance." He said, speaking in pained and ragged breaths as he fired another salvo of AP, firing one last time at Tsuki as he wanted to get the light cruiser out of the way. He watched the salvo impact the light cruiser, but didn't watch the aftermath, choosing instead to focus on the more immediate threat to his survival, Riana. As soon as his guns reloaded, he fired, hoping to drive the Abyssal cruiser out to a much more comfortable range. "Engaged by two Abyssal cruisers, one light, one heavy. I have sustained heavy damage and in danger of sinking if assistance is not rendered, targets are less than 11 km from me so watch your fire." Moments later, he spotted another salvo of torpedoes and began to panic, his vision was clouded by blood and he couldn't tell how fast they were going or if they were spread out or close in as he turned away from them, presenting his number 3 and 4 turrets as well as his lightly armored deck to the attacking cruisers.

Prophet
As he hurried to get to the carriers, Prophet saw as the Airfield Princess became good as new, as if everything done to her never happened. He had almost no planes left, as all his fighters and bombers were nothing but gone. With some minor reluctance, Prophet decided to take charge of the carriers, knowing full well that this fight would eventually bear no fruit.

SPN Fyodor Volkov
His last flight of fighters lifted off from his deck as he heard Prophets message. Fyodor thought of the Davidian carrier as a coward and an idiot from the training fight, and this confirmed it. "Prophet, you may retreat in shame but I will continue to fight, especially since I wasn't stupid enough to waste my planes and pilots like you." There was more than enough venom in his voice as he ordered his bombers and attackers to go after the renewed Abyssal carrier. "All pilots, target that floating bitch of an Abyssal. Do not turn back until you've emptied all your munitions on her or so help me, I'll shoot you down myself." He told his pilots, adding to their zeal in his own special way as his pilots and crews responded with a deafening "Hurrah".

However, the fervor among his crew didn't last long when Fyodor's radar picked up renewed flights of Abyssal dive and torpedo bombers. Undaunted, he ordered his faries to stand too and prepare to receiving the Abyssals and show them the might of Solkovian steel. Soon, his fairies were clamoring to their posts, manning the myriad of 100 mm, 37 mm, and 25 mm anti-aircraft guns that bristled along his rig and flight deck. As soon as the attackers were in range, they would be assured a fight.

Beneath the surface.
Yoanie grimaced.
This was not going according to plan, she thought as depth charges hit the water not too far away from her and Yoelin. Although they did not cause any real damage, they did feel the shockwaves. Additionally, her torpedoes missed or were, somehow, intercepted.
Except two, apparently, which hit that annoying escort.
The fourth depth charge did some damage on the two of them, but nothing for real concern. They were still alive, after all. And Yoanie turned towards Kaifu, waited for a moment, then released her last remaining torpedoes towards her, while Yoelin did the same towards Salvation.
Six torpedoes sped towards each, while the submarines used the hopefully soon beginning confusion to slink away at minimal speed and sound, deciding to take course deeper into the Shipwreck Islands, towards the Anchorage Harbour Princess.
They were out of ammunition - the only way a submarine could retreat honourably.

Riana and Tsuki versus Sergei.
Riana's life was hanging on its last threads, she knew that.
As Sergei fired on her again, she willed her very few reloaded guns, one of her 8inch Triple Guns, to fire, one last salvo out of spite - the shots went far and so did Riana as the shells of the enemy cruiser connected. She only felt a short moment of pain, then...
...sweet nothingness, absence of pain and other sensations.
As parts of her companion rained down around Tsuki, she stopped firing and turned to the heavy cruiser. [Well, if this is it, old boy...], she asked of the other cruiser, not expecting him to understand her, [...allow me to go out fighting.]
Seeing, that he had his (quite shapely, she had to admit) rear end presented to her, she spewed one last salvo of 5inch shells for confusion of the enemy, smoke and chaff - directly at him, not even hoping to hit him, but to miss so that he was surrounded by smoke and radar decoys, reloading to armour piercing while he would be confused.
She knew, that he would be ready to fire again before she was, but she promised to go out fighting and fighting she would.

Searc. With Prophet and Tokai.
Tokai made 30 knots maximum speed, Prophet 17.
I had a maximum speed of 34 knots, 40 during trials. I could have sped forwards and participated in the protection of the convoy from the enemy attack, I could have linked up with Tokai to escort that carrier... I decided to stick between the two, hoping to be able to give both of them a bit of cover as we sped towards the onslaught.
It was slaughter, to be honest.
The enemy had only bombers there, which released rockets and torpedoes without any focus onto our carriers, not singling out one and firing until that one was sunk. An easy tactic: Whittle the enemy down by putting strain on his ressources by not sinking ships, instead sending them to the docks - war of attrition. They tried that against us, they failed.
They would fail in the first stage as well, I swore as I raised my longbow to send another salvo of 135mm VT-shells towards them and another one as soon as it was ready. And one more. I do not know, how many enemy aircraft went down in those short, very few minutes, how many shots were fired (I had the feeling, that the yreply to both would be 'a lot'), but I know, that rockets and torpedoes went towards their targets, every carrier they could lay their eyes on in our great mass of them... slaughter. Pure and simple.
Who slaughtered whom, though... "Searc, Carrier Group - who's still alive and who isn't?!", I asked into my radio with fear gripping my heart.
This was my fault... all my fault... if I had spotted, that the 'wall of contacts' was a diversion, this would have never happened, I could have been with the carriers when they were attacked and... this was all my fault... every bloody scratch, every piece of misery, all of it...
At least one thing was certain: In that hailstorm, none of the attacking Abyssal Planes escaped, my radar told me.

Smoke shells filled the entire battlezone, and both Starboard and Starstruck knew this was the bets time to retreat. "Prince, if I may I'm going to give an order. That was rhetorical, though. Sorry, but you don't have much of a choice in it." Starboard then cleared her throats and shouted at the top of her lungs, "Battlegroup Comet fall back! Everyone fall back and get to safety! We're done here!"
"I'd stop you if I weren't so tired..." Comet muttered as he was practically limp in her arms. There wasn't much he could do to resist the girl dragging him away from danger.

Halve, though, was still raring to fight as her, Starstruck and the rest of the battlegroup slowly began to fall back. Blood was still leaking down from...seemingly everywhere, and the occasional spark came a few bulletholes in her face. "We are not done here I swear to god I'm gonna tear these kanmusu sluts apart!"
"It's more like they're tearing you apart," Starstruck muttered, but she could bearely hewrnherself over Halve's screams of protest and anger at their forced retreat. This girl really needed to calm down. Though, she could see why Comet likes her. Quite the fighter...

"No need to tell me twice. They're dropping charges down here. Scary." Anchor suddenly turned her ship around and quickly sped off to follow the rest of Comet's battlegroup. No way was she going to get sunk by everything here.

Torpedo Squadron 2, Battlegroup Baka-Prince.
Chiarra and her two fellow Chi-class Torpedo Cruisers were one of the two spearheads of the formation, the other being Torpedo Squadron 1, but those Ni-classes had nothing on them!
Still, as they got word of the massive battle between the Prince Comet, the Demon Lamia and the massive battleship bitch going down, they had, for a moment, entertained the thought of telling Baka-Prince to go and fuck himself, while they attacked the battleship.
But they did not do that. Teamwork would be the most successful course of action and with Baka-Prince coordinating himself with the vessels and installations in the Shipwreck Islands, the Kanmusu had the initiative.
And that was bad.
As the Abyssal forces retreated, Chiarra heard Baka-Prince speaking into his radio: [Prince Comet, Sire, change heading to North-West. You'll be met by Torp 2 there.]

[The Cross and Davids Star]

Prophet

Prophet didn't really mind what Fydor had to say, up until he spoke about him wasting his pilots. He wanted to get pissed, he really did, but he felt regret instead. The pilots that died here were ones he knew well, and he just threw them away like they were nothing. Snapping himself to reality, Prophet, resolving to keep fighting to not let his pilots die in vain, and remembering that he was wearing a suit of armor, he began to intercept the falling bombs and rockets, by moving in front of other carriers and letting them hit him instead, his armor plating denting and cracking with every impact, and one of his shoulder guards was blown clean off from an explosion.

Salvation

Quickly closing the distance, Salvation thought he had this evac in the bag.

"45 seconds, 30, 15, 10." He counted down, the shore coming tantalizingly close. Unfortunately, he wasn't paying attention as the torpedoes sped toward him, until it was too late. It caught Salvation by surprised as six explosions following one another hit his stern, rendering his turbines all but dead, as well as blasting a good size off it, causing Salvation to slow down. The pain from the blasts was near overwhelming, but he controlled himself as to not drop Stilly. As if a miracle from God himself, Salvation's speed was just enough to get himself to the shores, to which he went running as soon as he set foot on the sand, and setting Stilly down to properly tend to her wounds. Grabbing a first aid kit from a storage compartment in his rig, he quickly applied bandages to her hand, wrapping it tightly to prevent further bleeding, before tending to other wound on her, before getting to his own, especially his back, as it was torn up by shrapnel as he got bombarded by the torpedo salvo. Salvation had a sure feeling that Stilly will be unable to use that hand again, but he was gonna try and see if she could when they get back to base. Or if, rather, since he was stranded without any turbines to get him moving.

[Legatia]

LNS Coriolanus

---

At Sea, Sector CN-17|Operational Sector Wide Sea- Southwest|1800 hours

Coriolanus gritted as she saw the form of the island regenerate. This.. was incredibly bad. A second form. But she didn't have the luxury of time to act. Things were going to start tearing at the seams if she did nothing. The first thing she noticed was Prophet's wild gallavanting, ordering a retreat and then deciding not to, instead using himself as a target platform.

"Prophet, Flag!" She called quickly into her side. "What in the name of God has gotten into you? Stop being a target and use your anti air, avoid fire. We are not retreating, we have initiative." There would be a good deal of talking after this was done.

"Carrier group, begin evasive maneuvers. If you close your range to the capital group, you'll have AA cover in addition to your escorts from the capital ships. Whona, Dia, remain in formation with the group."

"Battlegroup Caty- flag. Pull back to the main formation and take a defensive position on the flank of the group. I will be joining you to engage targets directly. Ground forces, push your offensive immediately. You're the best shot we have at knocking the airfield out in quick order again. Raid pillboxes and destroy anything and everything." Pulling her rudder hard to port, the Legatian broke from the capital group and moved to rendezvous.

The cruise she took to Caty was one she did not like. She felt it entirely neccessary- they were facing the brunt of the firepower, and she was simply lobbing shells at ground targets. She was designed for ship-to-ship operations- and that, by God, is what she would be doing. As she came towards the group, she saw that it had already taking a beating. She saw Sergei in a duel with another cruiser, heavily damaged.

It was time, finally.

"Secondary guns, full broadside, fire!"

A hail of 6 inch and 5 inch guns roared from her side, armor piercing and incendiary shells soaring from her right side towards Tsuki before coming to about Sergei's side, moving and holding him up with an arm. "I'm not Catherine, sorry;" she offered a tiny smile to the wounded cruiser. "..but I hope I can do for now."

[The Cross and Davids Star]

Prophet

Crazy as it seemed, there was method to Prophet's madness. By getting the planes to start focusing on him, he had a much better shot at taking them down, at the expense of his armor, as well as keep the other carriers' flight decks in commission. As for using his AA fire, his guns were already going full throttle. Prophet wasn't even going to consider how much of a fool he made of himself, first using up his planes to try and get a quick kill, then leaving his group to take down a fake target, leaving the others vulnerable. He was sure that he was going to receive reprimands for that, but that was the least important thing right now. What mattered now is that he made up for his mistakes as much as possible. Another bomb struck his flightboard, getting past the armor and exposing its interior, along with all the unused munitions for his aircraft, from bombs to fuel, causing him to be more careful to not let it get hit again, lest he become a living grenade.

[New Antonalia]

Riana and Tsuki versus Sergei.
Riana's life was hanging on its last threads, she knew that.
As Sergei fired on her again, she willed her very few reloaded guns, one of her 8inch Triple Guns, to fire, one last salvo out of spite - the shots went far and so did Riana as the shells of the enemy cruiser connected. She only felt a short moment of pain, then...
...sweet nothingness, absence of pain and other sensations.
As parts of her companion rained down around Tsuki, she stopped firing and turned to the heavy cruiser. [Well, if this is it, old boy...], she asked of the other cruiser, not expecting him to understand her, [...allow me to go out fighting.]
Seeing, that he had his (quite shapely, she had to admit) rear end presented to her, she spewed one last salvo of 5inch shells for confusion of the enemy, smoke and chaff - directly at him, not even hoping to hit him, but to miss so that he was surrounded by smoke and radar decoys, reloading to armour piercing while he would be confused.
She knew, that he would be ready to fire again before she was, but she promised to go out fighting and fighting she would.

SPN Sergei Malinokov,
Tired, in pain, and weary

Sergei slowed his speed as the torpedoes harmlessly passed by him before turning hard to port in order to present his bow to the abyssal light cruiser. He couldn't see her through the smoke and his surface radar, though limited, couldn't detect the light cruiser through the chaff. "There is no point to this." He thought as he steamed forward at all ahead full, making a beeline through the smoke, hoping he could convince the cruiser to disengage and retreat. That was before he saw a reign of HE and AP shells pepper the smoke as he disengaged, not wanting to be a target of friendly fire. "Launch the spotter plane. See if you can find the damaged cruiser and drop leaflets. But do not report her position to Coriolanus." He didn't know why he was trying to get the wounded cruiser to flee, but there was something about her that made him feel like she earned the chance to fight him another day.

Sergei's scout plane launched from the hydraulic catapult and immediately spotted the wounded cruiser. The pilot certainly didn't like letting the cruiser live, especially when she had a hand in the deaths of so many Solkovian fairies, but he knew there would be hell to pay if he didn't follow orders and he flew low before letting the bag of leaflets go over top of the wounded cruiser before returning to Sergei.

[Sterkistan]

-SNIP-

Battleships Diamantina & Whona
Open Waters
Dia trembled into her radio.
"We're in tatters! That airfield is up again and I don't know if we can handle it!"
Whona's fairies were making a last ditch effort to save time for the sinking vessel, tossing ammunition from her number 2 gun overboard.

Dia looked on, knowing they wouldn't pull such drastic measure unless they needed to, the breaches must be worse than they seemed.
She steered them back into the group, and Whona spoke into her ear.
"You better destroy that goddamn airfield cause I'm not sinking like some loser!"

Dia took a moment to steel herself, her computers approximated the hangars and runway start to a terrifying degree of exactness. Almost down to the thousandth.
She turned slightly to port, her guns locking onto the trajectory,
"Full broadside away!"
The blast from all her guns firing at once slammed her trajectory and nearly pushed her backwards, and she hoped to god the approximation was right.

[Rustyal]

Empress Catherine
Open Ocean

Catherine's 6 inch guns fell silent for once. The battle was effectively won in her book. With the damage she took, this was an optimal scenario. Her massive waterjets on one side turned off, and her rudders turned towards the fleet. The monstrosity battleship swung around, closing her eyes and making a full high power scan with her radar. Wonderful- Targets!~ Except... their contact is fuzzy. Screw these abyssals. Catherine wanted to sink more of them. She HAD to sink more of them!

Almost like a well coordinated orchestra, her many guns turned in unison- the 6 inch guns stopped on Tsuki. Both the 12 inch and 36 inch guns were brought to bear upon Chill. All at once, every single artillery worthy of destruction shrieked out at once, there being so many guns that they lose unison about half a second in. The hailstorm of 6 inch gunfire was continuous, and the full salvoes from Catherine unleashed themselves upon the 2 targets. This is why she loved her own purpose. Her rig could cause so much.. death... at once. Her pupils shrunk slightly more, as she made sure the broadside angle was just enough to keep all guns on target, but all while staying on course towards the allied fleet.

Another spare Khorak was getting loaded onto one of two catapults. Having a carrier princess under her belt would be a very, very nice kill. And you can't quite kill something without seeing it. Well, you can, honestly, but its easier to fuck their whole day up at once than it is to vibrate them to death. The Khorak took off, quickly trying to climb altitude in the name of the motherland.

[Parcia]

Imperator Mongomory

He would be lying if he said he wasn't having fun. He had kept up the bombardment of the Carrier, and while he scored few hits outside the first salvo, it was down to a certain reason.

She was right next to him. The girl with the biggest guns in the fleet was sitting right next to him, unloading shells in multiple directions, hell he was surprised that he didn't eat a couple 6 inch shells in the process.

None the less, after having closed in on her, he moved to cover the few weak spots in her fields of fire, supplementing her own gun fire with his. For the most part, this meant just adding his own 16 inch shell fire to the few targets that weren't getting hit from her stupidly massive set of boom sticks.

To say he was smitten wouldn't be truthful. He would have to know the Russian better then he did already. He guessed that it was a familiar feeling he got when around her, one he hadn't felt since those sunny days on the beaches of Rome, all those years ago.

He bit back that memory, not wanting to let it get the best of him but not wanting it to leave either...

Back at base

Addy was having a hell of a day. She kept her self semi-submerged, leaving her firing radar and twin 30mm gun turrets firing as the enemy planes made their attack runs.

She had already swatted a few from the sky, and was now going after the slower, heavies bombers as they came in for runs. She circled the bay, spewing 30mm proxy fused HEFRAG rounds at a steady pace.

[The Assorted Saharan Outposts]

Prince Comet nodded at the instructions given to him and pointed towards the way they had Togo. Starboard looked at him for only a moment before nodding, understanding completely. She would redirect her course and move to the northwest. She was still going painfully slow. She hated to admit it, but the prince was damn heavy...
"Need some help?" Anchor suddenly appeared from underwater and supported the prince with her free arm, grunting as they tried to support the man, who was by now incredibly weak, either due to blood loss or just exhaustion.
"Thank you..." she muttered as she turned to the other ships following them. "Northwest, everyone! Just follow us!"

By now Starstruck had received help from one of the Wafa ships. Halve was still putting up a hell of a fight, but now she wasn't shooting torpedoes. Apparently a part of her still remembered to not hit Startruck or one of the Wafas. "Yeah, I'm trying, but the bitch is throwing a fit here."

[Novaya Equestria]

Naval Base

"Air raid!!!" A Novayan fairy yells as many Novayan fairies went to their aircraft and launch, while other Novayan fairies man the anti-aircraft guns to destroy the Abyssal aircraft. "Contact Coriolanus! The Abyssals are going to smoke this base and us out!" The Novayan fairy, Major General Tohka, yelled as Novayan anti-aircraft guns started firing. Meanwhile, Panzer Grenadiers, Assault Grenadier Heavy Infantry, and Tank Buster Heavy Infantry, under covering fire from AA guns and light vehicles, started constructing some or few 88mm Flak 36 AA/AT cannons and Flakvierling 38 20mm AA guns and also manmed AA guns around parts of the Naval Base.

"Shut them down!" A Panzer Grenadier fairy screamed as he and his team of threeblasted an Abyssal aircraft with a single shot from the Flak 88. A few more Flak 88s were manned or set up to help one-shot snipe Abyssal aircraft. As long as there is no MLG memes in this battle. Seriously, they're too old and repetitive, in the case of any Novayan fairies or ships.

Sea Battle

"Nopenopenopenopenope!" Novaya said as he sends out a third group of Messerschmitt fighters, which he kept for reserve, to destroy the Abyssal aircraft attacking the carriers he unleashed AA fire at the Abyssal aircraft. "Coriolanus, your plan had flaws, amd that our base got attacked! Also, you really need to think twice and make sure the invasion plan has now flaws BEFORE initiating it!" Novaya said to Coriolanus while he recalled any surviving Novayan aircraft to him.

[Suoji]

Jokosuka moaned slightly. His eyes slowly opened. Where was he? The last thing he could remember was the pain. The torpedoes. All of that seemed to be gone now. The sound of guns and explosions could still be heard in the distance, but it seemed far away. He could slightly recall someone picking him up, but he blacked out after that. He was repaired, but not in perfect condition.

He felt something in his pocket. The note back from Suoji. He read it again. Maybe it would cheer him up after his near-death experience. He saw something different though, something he hadn’t seen before. Written lightly was a small note underneath the letter. It read:
“I’ll see you there - Josura”
Josura? That submarine? He hadn’t really talked to Josura, but he knew he was kinda weird. Either way, that wasn’t the problem now. He started to move again. He had to help Catherine. He didn’t know what had happened after he left, but he hoped she was okay. She was flooding and was on fire when he got hit. Using what was left of his strength, he tried to find the remains of the battlegroup.

[Mestovakia]

Re-class, Prison Cell

"Oh dear." Re murmured to herself as she heard the base go to war outside. She has been lazing about in the cell for God knows how long when the Air Raid started. It was way more cozy than the ocean. "Yup, I wanna stay riiiight here-" She was saying when a bomb blew part of the wall into rubble, sending Re scurrying into cover. "Nope. I am NOT going out there." She said, peeking out from behind an overturned bed. As she hid behind the bed, she wound up thinking of what her life had been like before the Abyssal Princess had whisked her away. Summary: Boring, Boring, Irritating, Terrifying, Boring. "Yup, that about sums it up." she griped.

[The Selkie]

Prophet

Prophet didn't really mind what Fydor had to say, up until he spoke about him wasting his pilots. He wanted to get pissed, he really did, but he felt regret instead. The pilots that died here were ones he knew well, and he just threw them away like they were nothing. Snapping himself to reality, Prophet, resolving to keep fighting to not let his pilots die in vain, and remembering that he was wearing a suit of armor, he began to intercept the falling bombs and rockets, by moving in front of other carriers and letting them hit him instead, his armor plating denting and cracking with every impact, and one of his shoulder guards was blown clean off from an explosion.

Salvation

Quickly closing the distance, Salvation thought he had this evac in the bag.

"45 seconds, 30, 15, 10." He counted down, the shore coming tantalizingly close. Unfortunately, he wasn't paying attention as the torpedoes sped toward him, until it was too late. It caught Salvation by surprised as six explosions following one another hit his stern, rendering his turbines all but dead, as well as blasting a good size off it, causing Salvation to slow down. The pain from the blasts was near overwhelming, but he controlled himself as to not drop Stilly. As if a miracle from God himself, Salvation's speed was just enough to get himself to the shores, to which he went running as soon as he set foot on the sand, and setting Stilly down to properly tend to her wounds. Grabbing a first aid kit from a storage compartment in his rig, he quickly applied bandages to her hand, wrapping it tightly to prevent further bleeding, before tending to other wound on her, before getting to his own, especially his back, as it was torn up by shrapnel as he got bombarded by the torpedo salvo. Salvation had a sure feeling that Stilly will be unable to use that hand again, but he was gonna try and see if she could when they get back to base. Or if, rather, since he was stranded without any turbines to get him moving.

Prophet

Crazy as it seemed, there was method to Prophet's madness. By getting the planes to start focusing on him, he had a much better shot at taking them down, at the expense of his armor, as well as keep the other carriers' flight decks in commission. As for using his AA fire, his guns were already going full throttle. Prophet wasn't even going to consider how much of a fool he made of himself, first using up his planes to try and get a quick kill, then leaving his group to take down a fake target, leaving the others vulnerable. He was sure that he was going to receive reprimands for that, but that was the least important thing right now. What mattered now is that he made up for his mistakes as much as possible. Another bomb struck his flightboard, getting past the armor and exposing its interior, along with all the unused munitions for his aircraft, from bombs to fuel, causing him to be more careful to not let it get hit again, lest he become a living grenade.

Naval Base

"Air raid!!!" A Novayan fairy yells as many Novayan fairies went to their aircraft and launch, while other Novayan fairies man the anti-aircraft guns to destroy the Abyssal aircraft. "Contact Coriolanus! The Abyssals are going to smoke this base and us out!" The Novayan fairy, Major General Tohka, yelled as Novayan anti-aircraft guns started firing. Meanwhile, Panzer Grenadiers, Assault Grenadier Heavy Infantry, and Tank Buster Heavy Infantry, under covering fire from AA guns and light vehicles, started constructing some or few 88mm Flak 36 AA/AT cannons and Flakvierling 38 20mm AA guns and also manmed AA guns around parts of the Naval Base.

"Shut them down!" A Panzer Grenadier fairy screamed as he and his team of threeblasted an Abyssal aircraft with a single shot from the Flak 88. A few more Flak 88s were manned or set up to help one-shot snipe Abyssal aircraft. As long as there is no MLG memes in this battle. Seriously, they're too old and repetitive, in the case of any Novayan fairies or ships.

Sea Battle

"Nopenopenopenopenope!" Novaya said as he sends out a third group of Messerschmitt fighters, which he kept for reserve, to destroy the Abyssal aircraft attacking the carriers he unleashed AA fire at the Abyssal aircraft. "Coriolanus, your plan had flaws, amd that our base got attacked! Also, you really need to think twice and make sure the invasion plan has now flaws BEFORE initiating it!" Novaya said to Coriolanus while he recalled any surviving Novayan aircraft to him.

Carrier Group - Air Attack.
That carrier, who threw himself into the harm's way for his companions, had one big disadvantage: He was alone.
The Abyssal Planes attacking the carrier group, although receiving quite a few losses, were many. And as such, they focussed in many targets without discrimination, not giving a damn about any planes launched unless they hit them with their rockets.
How someone, like that carrier the identification charts said was Novaya, could launch planes in all of the AA-fire going up was beyong them, but they would not stop him. Instead, they allowed him to get between them and Prophet and the other carrier, hoping to make him aware of how much of a Bad Idea that was and thus leaving the planes at home. Or to make the AA-fire to stop, which was even more unlikely.
They had to give it to Prophet, though, he threw himself in harm's way of their fire - an honourable way to die, if he perished during this. They didn't let up with their rocket fire, blasting them away at more and more targets.

Stilly. With Salvation.
I was dimly aware of someone tending to my wounds, but as my eyes fluttered open and I beheld the blue sky above me, I was more aware of the sand... that brought back memories.
"The Archipelago...", I whispered barely audible to myself, remembering those days and times, both as a hull of steel and in a body. Playing at the beach after a successful hunt, playing with the fauna there, or simply lying in the sand and letting the gentle waves and calm breeze allow for rest.
I twitched as Salvation did something that required a bit of pressure, turning to him.
"You remind me a lot of Amy...", I whispered, remembering Amy and her calm, steady hands when she bandaged us up after battle, her firmness and her care. "...do you have a girlfriend?"
I will honestly admit, that I had no ruddy clue about why I asked that.
Unbeknowst to either of us, the two submarines got away.

Imperator Mongomory

He would be lying if he said he wasn't having fun. He had kept up the bombardment of the Carrier, and while he scored few hits outside the first salvo, it was down to a certain reason.

She was right next to him. The girl with the biggest guns in the fleet was sitting right next to him, unloading shells in multiple directions, hell he was surprised that he didn't eat a couple 6 inch shells in the process.

None the less, after having closed in on her, he moved to cover the few weak spots in her fields of fire, supplementing her own gun fire with his. For the most part, this meant just adding his own 16 inch shell fire to the few targets that weren't getting hit from her stupidly massive set of boom sticks.

To say he was smitten wouldn't be truthful. He would have to know the Russian better then he did already. He guessed that it was a familiar feeling he got when around her, one he hadn't felt since those sunny days on the beaches of Rome, all those years ago.

He bit back that memory, not wanting to let it get the best of him but not wanting it to leave either...

Back at base

Addy was having a hell of a day. She kept her self semi-submerged, leaving her firing radar and twin 30mm gun turrets firing as the enemy planes made their attack runs.

She had already swatted a few from the sky, and was now going after the slower, heavies bombers as they came in for runs. She circled the bay, spewing 30mm proxy fused HEFRAG rounds at a steady pace.

Re-class, Prison Cell

"Oh dear." Re murmured to herself as she heard the base go to war outside. She has been lazing about in the cell for God knows how long when the Air Raid started. It was way more cozy than the ocean. "Yup, I wanna stay riiiight here-" She was saying when a bomb blew part of the wall into rubble, sending Re scurrying into cover. "Nope. I am NOT going out there." She said, peeking out from behind an overturned bed. As she hid behind the bed, she wound up thinking of what her life had been like before the Abyssal Princess had whisked her away. Summary: Boring, Boring, Irritating, Terrifying, Boring. "Yup, that about sums it up." she griped.

Miúil. Naval Base.
I could watch in mute horror as the attacking planes did the simple thing: Drop the bombs and get the ruddy hell out. A few were shot down, a lot more were damaged, by the looks of it, but most got away, the few of our fighters, which got in the air, hot on their heels. As every aircraft had been needed to participate in the offense, those were not many.
The damages, though... I heard the howling of the fire engines belonging to the Base Fire Department, their sirens blaring as they went to work. Amongst the express delivery by our friends from Abyssal Dive Bombing Delivery Service had been several incendiary devices, which now threatened to make the damages even larger.
Small blessings as, apparently, none of the ammunition stores, freighters or fuel tanks had been hit.
That would have been catastrophic.
I reached up.
"Miuil, Flag.", I began to speak calmly over the airwaves, ignoring the screaming and yelling as I did so (especially the unbefitting comments of that Novaya-Person), as I walked towards the Admiralty, "The enemy conducted a successful air strike against the base, damage assessment has to wait for a bit. With your permission, I will take command of the situation and see to there being a base left when you return. Neither docks nor ammunition depots had been hit. Also..." I spotted something out of the corner of my eye, a wall blasted open revealing what looked like the Brig. And an Abyssal sitting there, behind her overturned bed in cover. "...Ma'am, do I want to ask why we have an Abyssal on base?"
Just around then, an Abyssal Dive Bomber crashed into the remains of the Brig before going up in an explosion as he apparently had still carried her bomb. Well, some problems solved themselves, but I would still love to know...

LNS Coriolanus

---

At Sea, Sector CN-17|Operational Sector Wide Sea- Southwest|1800 hours

Coriolanus gritted as she saw the form of the island regenerate. This.. was incredibly bad. A second form. But she didn't have the luxury of time to act. Things were going to start tearing at the seams if she did nothing. The first thing she noticed was Prophet's wild gallavanting, ordering a retreat and then deciding not to, instead using himself as a target platform.

"Prophet, Flag!" She called quickly into her side. "What in the name of God has gotten into you? Stop being a target and use your anti air, avoid fire. We are not retreating, we have initiative." There would be a good deal of talking after this was done.

"Carrier group, begin evasive maneuvers. If you close your range to the capital group, you'll have AA cover in addition to your escorts from the capital ships. Whona, Dia, remain in formation with the group."

"Battlegroup Caty- flag. Pull back to the main formation and take a defensive position on the flank of the group. I will be joining you to engage targets directly. Ground forces, push your offensive immediately. You're the best shot we have at knocking the airfield out in quick order again. Raid pillboxes and destroy anything and everything." Pulling her rudder hard to port, the Legatian broke from the capital group and moved to rendezvous.

The cruise she took to Caty was one she did not like. She felt it entirely neccessary- they were facing the brunt of the firepower, and she was simply lobbing shells at ground targets. She was designed for ship-to-ship operations- and that, by God, is what she would be doing. As she came towards the group, she saw that it had already taking a beating. She saw Sergei in a duel with another cruiser, heavily damaged.

It was time, finally.

"Secondary guns, full broadside, fire!"

A hail of 6 inch and 5 inch guns roared from her side, armor piercing and incendiary shells soaring from her right side towards Tsuki before coming to about Sergei's side, moving and holding him up with an arm. "I'm not Catherine, sorry;" she offered a tiny smile to the wounded cruiser. "..but I hope I can do for now."

Riana and Tsuki versus Sergei.
Riana's life was hanging on its last threads, she knew that.
As Sergei fired on her again, she willed her very few reloaded guns, one of her 8inch Triple Guns, to fire, one last salvo out of spite - the shots went far and so did Riana as the shells of the enemy cruiser connected. She only felt a short moment of pain, then...
...sweet nothingness, absence of pain and other sensations.
As parts of her companion rained down around Tsuki, she stopped firing and turned to the heavy cruiser. [Well, if this is it, old boy...], she asked of the other cruiser, not expecting him to understand her, [...allow me to go out fighting.]
Seeing, that he had his (quite shapely, she had to admit) rear end presented to her, she spewed one last salvo of 5inch shells for confusion of the enemy, smoke and chaff - directly at him, not even hoping to hit him, but to miss so that he was surrounded by smoke and radar decoys, reloading to armour piercing while he would be confused.
She knew, that he would be ready to fire again before she was, but she promised to go out fighting and fighting she would.

SPN Sergei Malinokov,
Tired, in pain, and weary

Sergei slowed his speed as the torpedoes harmlessly passed by him before turning hard to port in order to present his bow to the abyssal light cruiser. He couldn't see her through the smoke and his surface radar, though limited, couldn't detect the light cruiser through the chaff. "There is no point to this." He thought as he steamed forward at all ahead full, making a beeline through the smoke, hoping he could convince the cruiser to disengage and retreat. That was before he saw a reign of HE and AP shells pepper the smoke as he disengaged, not wanting to be a target of friendly fire. "Launch the spotter plane. See if you can find the damaged cruiser and drop leaflets. But do not report her position to Coriolanus." He didn't know why he was trying to get the wounded cruiser to flee, but there was something about her that made him feel like she earned the chance to fight him another day.

Sergei's scout plane launched from the hydraulic catapult and immediately spotted the wounded cruiser. The pilot certainly didn't like letting the cruiser live, especially when she had a hand in the deaths of so many Solkovian fairies, but he knew there would be hell to pay if he didn't follow orders and he flew low before letting the bag of leaflets go over top of the wounded cruiser before returning to Sergei.

Empress Catherine
Open Ocean

Catherine's 6 inch guns fell silent for once. The battle was effectively won in her book. With the damage she took, this was an optimal scenario. Her massive waterjets on one side turned off, and her rudders turned towards the fleet. The monstrosity battleship swung around, closing her eyes and making a full high power scan with her radar. Wonderful- Targets!~ Except... their contact is fuzzy. Screw these abyssals. Catherine wanted to sink more of them. She HAD to sink more of them!

Almost like a well coordinated orchestra, her many guns turned in unison- the 6 inch guns stopped on Tsuki. Both the 12 inch and 36 inch guns were brought to bear upon Chill. All at once, every single artillery worthy of destruction shrieked out at once, there being so many guns that they lose unison about half a second in. The hailstorm of 6 inch gunfire was continuous, and the full salvoes from Catherine unleashed themselves upon the 2 targets. This is why she loved her own purpose. Her rig could cause so much.. death... at once. Her pupils shrunk slightly more, as she made sure the broadside angle was just enough to keep all guns on target, but all while staying on course towards the allied fleet.

Another spare Khorak was getting loaded onto one of two catapults. Having a carrier princess under her belt would be a very, very nice kill. And you can't quite kill something without seeing it. Well, you can, honestly, but its easier to fuck their whole day up at once than it is to vibrate them to death. The Khorak took off, quickly trying to climb altitude in the name of the motherland.

Tsuki, all alone.
When the shells, all of them, came down around Tsuki, she saw herself already going down... and when the world had stopped shaking, she knew, that she was going down.
Not painless, in one large explosion, like Riana, but slowly flooding to death, her damage control unable to do anything against it. She exhaled.
No, she wouldn't go down so pitifully. She would die fighting.
Ignoring the message bag, she powered her engines up, one last time, not even reaching cruise speed, as her guns fell silent - loading armour pierching shells one last time.
[Once more onto the breach...], she whispered to herself, seeing one of her torpedo launchers still operable as she took on more and more water, [...dear friends, once more...] She broke through her smoke, aiming by eyes and sheer luck, firing her guns at both the heavy cruiser she had battled not too long ago and the fresh lassie of a battleship, Coriolanus, as the identification chart said, without any hope of sinking the latter.
Moreover, she released a salvo of torpedoes, one last time.
[...or close up the walls with our honourable dead!], she finished her quote.
She was sure, that she would die, but she would be damned if she didn't die fighting.

Lamia.
While her surface radar had to fight with her own decoys, her air search radar worked just fine and Lamia did spot the singular reconnaissance plane with hopes to find her. She wondered how to take it down, with her guns would tell that monstrosity where she was from the simple fact as to where the little plane had gone down.
She still spewed her decoys and smoke into every direction and...
...picked up the signals of a friendly fighter group coming towards her.
A moment later, they adjusted course, directly towards the reconnaissance plane, guided by Lamia and her radar, hiding in the clouds themselves before descending onto the small plane, that was still far, far away.
Lamia would not die here, not today.

-SNIP-

Battleships Diamantina & Whona
Open Waters
Dia trembled into her radio.
"We're in tatters! That airfield is up again and I don't know if we can handle it!"
Whona's fairies were making a last ditch effort to save time for the sinking vessel, tossing ammunition from her number 2 gun overboard.

Dia looked on, knowing they wouldn't pull such drastic measure unless they needed to, the breaches must be worse than they seemed.
She steered them back into the group, and Whona spoke into her ear.
"You better destroy that goddamn airfield cause I'm not sinking like some loser!"

Dia took a moment to steel herself, her computers approximated the hangars and runway start to a terrifying degree of exactness. Almost down to the thousandth.
She turned slightly to port, her guns locking onto the trajectory,
"Full broadside away!"
The blast from all her guns firing at once slammed her trajectory and nearly pushed her backwards, and she hoped to god the approximation was right.

Rhiannon. Supporting the landing force.
My point about the Novayans being a bad joke of a Navy was reinforced with every time one of them opened his bloody mouth. One did not question orders from a commanding officer until after the operation was over, not during it. Maybe before it, if there was time, but not during.
Most definately not during.
And as the combined landing forces stormed the beaches, under the protection of my guns, those of Spartan and of other vessels closeby, I scowled. I tried to worry about those Abyssals in front of me, about Novaya's lack of radio discipline, about the base... so that I wouldn't have to worry about Prophet.
He was a grown man, he knew, what he was doing, but that did not make it easier to hear the reports about him getting hit again and again as Searc reported... she sounded a bit like a radio-reporter at a game of football.
He was my boyfriend. If I were to worry about him, I would have to leave my post, rush over... I would take on Caty, if I were to do that, and I was sure, that I would emerge victorious.
I wouldn't.
Duty came first, even if it hurt and required every ounce of strength to stay focussed.
Just then, the island shook as the Airfield Princess we were attacking was surrounded by a lot and a lot of fire. Apparently, every larger gun we had left had fired at her and... she screamed in pain, rage, anger, her screams making my blood run cold.
This was not good.
This was really, really not good.
I raised my bow to release my next salvo, this time not in support of the landing forces, but to destroy the little bitch - even if my little shells didn't do as much damage, they would still smart. The coastal artillery, as well as our people, were stunned into submission by the massive amount of fire raining down, feeling like the most vicious earthquake ever felt by them.
"All vessels with a gun to spare.", I spoke into my radio, my expression turning vicious. "Kill that fucking bitch!"
And here I had been, griping about the lack of radio discipline of the Novayans...

Amy. With the Battle Line.
"Right.", I said and readied my own Emergency Repair Teams. This was bad, bad, very, very bad.
I looked to Whona.
"Miss Whona, permission to send ERTs and material aboard?", I asked with hope in my voice, seeing the gigantic plume of smoke from the island. My fairies paid no heed to it. "Also, can you beach yourself?"
It was not an ideal option, that much was sure, but it was better then dying, that was for certain. We would be able to make her seaworthy again, after all, and that was a good start. She would be able to hide until then.
If everything else failed, that would be the last option.
I had to admire both of them, they were not giving up. I might only be a support vessel, but I would not give up as well.

Prince Comet nodded at the instructions given to him and pointed towards the way they had Togo. Starboard looked at him for only a moment before nodding, understanding completely. She would redirect her course and move to the northwest. She was still going painfully slow. She hated to admit it, but the prince was damn heavy...
"Need some help?" Anchor suddenly appeared from underwater and supported the prince with her free arm, grunting as they tried to support the man, who was by now incredibly weak, either due to blood loss or just exhaustion.
"Thank you..." she muttered as she turned to the other ships following them. "Northwest, everyone! Just follow us!"

By now Starstruck had received help from one of the Wafa ships. Halve was still putting up a hell of a fight, but now she wasn't shooting torpedoes. Apparently a part of her still remembered to not hit Startruck or one of the Wafas. "Yeah, I'm trying, but the bitch is throwing a fit here."

Torpedo Squadron 2, Battlegroup Baka-Prince.
[Sire!], Chiarra called into the radio as the Battlegroup of Prince Comet came into sight. She was baffled - and enraged as to how a kanmusu would dare to attack such a fine...
The Elite Cruiser cleared her throat, mentally.
No time for this.
[Sire, relax, you're amongst friends now.], she spoke and had her two Chi-class Torpedo Cruisers took up covering positions around the battered vessels, taking them into their protective screen. She nodded to the vessels keeping Comet afloat, before she spoke into her radio: [Sire, we need the Support Group here, several heavily damaged vessels.]
[Understood, Chiarra, they're on their way. Meet them halfway.], came the reply from the one known as Baka-Prince.
Chiarra nodded and motioned to turn, adjusting speed to match with Comet and his vessels. It would indeed be alright from now on.

[Mestovakia]

Miúil. Naval Base.
I could watch in mute horror as the attacking planes did the simple thing: Drop the bombs and get the ruddy hell out. A few were shot down, a lot more were damaged, by the looks of it, but most got away, the few of our fighters, which got in the air, hot on their heels. As every aircraft had been needed to participate in the offense, those were not many.
The damages, though... I heard the howling of the fire engines belonging to the Base Fire Department, their sirens blaring as they went to work. Amongst the express delivery by our friends from Abyssal Dive Bombing Delivery Service had been several incendiary devices, which now threatened to make the damages even larger.
Small blessings as, apparently, none of the ammunition stores, freighters or fuel tanks had been hit.
That would have been catastrophic.
I reached up.
"Miuil, Flag.", I began to speak calmly over the airwaves, ignoring the screaming and yelling as I did so (especially the unbefitting comments of that Novaya-Person), as I walked towards the Admiralty, "The enemy conducted a successful air strike against the base, damage assessment has to wait for a bit. With your permission, I will take command of the situation and see to there being a base left when you return. Neither docks nor ammunition depots had been hit. Also..." I spotted something out of the corner of my eye, a wall blasted open revealing what looked like the Brig. And an Abyssal sitting there, behind her overturned bed in cover. "...Ma'am, do I want to ask why we have an Abyssal on base?"
Just around then, an Abyssal Dive Bomber crashed into the remains of the Brig before going up in an explosion as he apparently had still carried her bomb. Well, some problems solved themselves, but I would still love to know...

Cowering Re, Bombed Cell

So much for cover.

Aside from having its wall blasted in, a crashing Dive Bomber decided to go out with a bang and plow right into her, causing both to go up when its payload detonated. This caused what was left of the brig to collapse. Nothing stirred from the rubble for a few seconds, before a bit of debris shifted. "Owie...." A voice a bit softer than the deadpan and sarcastic Re could be heard, muffled by the rubble. "I-is anyone out there...?" The voice asked, definitely not the same voice as Re. "I....I'm in need of assistance..."

[Jebslund]

Battlegroup Hornissennest-hime, Sector DN-16, West of Battlegroup Bob-ouji

Hornissennest was not pleased, and the way she stormed into position let is show, her jet fighters taking off and buzzing angrily around her as she planned out how best to do her part in breaking up the enemy assault, the other ships of her battlegroup keeping pace (or doing their best) and watching carefully for enemy ships. Turmfalke had already launched both Fernglases, the recon planes flying as fast as possible toward the battle in the hopes of providing additional eyes for spotting, their flight paths carefully plotted to take them *around* the firing range of the massive fuck-off block of guns trying to sink Lamia and Comet, and the Fliegendeschweine, which raced to set up a steady link with the Harbor Water Demon by way of the Channel Water Princess and hold on-station, and was struggling to keep up and losing slowly, huffing and puffing slightly as she went.

Erika and Adelheid, both as fast as Hornissennest-hime, eagerly kept pace with her, hoping the enemy would send aircraft to attack the two Abyssal capital ships. As they waited, they sang a sea shanty*, though the shanty they sang was one translated into their native Kermanic, rather than its original language. Both Abyssals had their radars going, eagerly scanning the sky, and both had enough sense to sing off their radios.

Mary Read Kerman, by virtue of being the fastest of the group, alternated between leading and trailing the others of the main battlegroup as she used her sonar to hunt for subs, singing a different shanty* as she went.

Well behind the rest of the group, Kerriott ran as fast as she could across the water, panting like a dog on a hot July day in Phoenix, and worried sick about *her* destroyer. The other ships were big enough to look after themselves, but what would Mary Read Kerman, poor little Mary Read Kerman, do in the big, scary sea without her Kerriott to tend to her? What if she ran into that monster she'd heard about while looking for subs? What if she was alone and afraid and crying without her Kerriott to fix her and comfort her? What if she ran out of snacks? Those were the thoughts that spurred the destroyer-tender to wear herself out in a vain attempt to keep up, despite having lost sight of the others long since.

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As the main battlegroup arrived at their intended coordinates, Hornissennest-hime radioed Bob-ouji, "This is Hornissennest. I'm in position, planning a few strikes. Anything other than that tub of lard with the giant guns you want to stop floating, over?". As she spoke, Hornissennest-hime thought over her plan of attack a little more. First priority in breaking the back of the enemy's attack would be to sink the siege battleship, hopefully in time to save Lamia and Comet, if no one else. To this end, 10 Fliegendewaffels took off, joined by 20 Maschinenteufels, the former with bombs and the latter with torpedoes, and set off immediately, with the hope that the Fliegendewaffels' jamming equipment would let them get close enough to get at least half of the torpedoes and a few bombs off. Hornissennest-hime was under no delusions: The losses of that strike group would be heavy, and that they'd get their armaments off was a gamble at best. Second step would be to crush their landing force, with another 10/20 group of fighters sent to see to that. The remaining 20 Fliegendewaffels waited, armed, to be assigned targets as the final 10 Maschinenteufels were sent to maintain a CAP over Baka-Prince's battlegroup.

*In order: Randy Dandy Oh and Poor Old Man