28Of course, unless you are me, where it sucks worse than vaccum.
An hour ago (at least, around there-I lost track of time), I woke up to the nastiest surprise for Christmas- stuck aboard a platform, in the middle of some goddamned ocean. A platform, full of lovecraftian-horrors combined with broken naval equipment shaped in the form of girls.
Or rather, as they are known, Abyssals.
And I probably gave them quite a shock themselves, given that I was screaming to the high heavens when I looked at them-and no, they did not look like the cute moeblobs in those pictures that I had in my phone-to the point that I had been grabbed rather roughly by two cruisers (or at least, what they looked like to me-I wasn't that invested into KanColle in my home dimension or what ever sick god called it) and thrown into a cell.
Or at least, what looked like to me as a cell when I went tumbling in. It was more of a dorm-and almost looked as cozy as a real one from a human land-if it didn't have the Abyssal touches to it. It had the bed to the side of the room, a large window beside it which gave a rather beautiful view of the sea and the Abyssal platform on it. Opposite the bed and next to the door even had a nice wardrobe-with nothing in it though. Lastly was the carpet on the floor, as well as the light planted on the ceiling of the room. The bed itself was rather comfortable, and I had sat there all the while panicking like a moron for quite awhile, only managing to regain my cool after-like, half an hour? And then I haven't dared step out of the room-which was pointless, as it turned out, as it was locked. And lastly, the room was surprisingly warm-strange, given that this was an Abyssal outpost.
Out of curiousity, I decided to take a look out of the window. Strangely enough, it wasn't even barred or locked, and it slid open easily.
Guess I'm not a prisoner or something-or perhaps, any Abyssal could just suplex me to death on the platform if I attempted escape. Don't even need the weapons.
Taking a closer look, it turned out the entire deck was crowded with fairies-or at least. the abyssal version of them. There were Abyssals, but not many, and it seemed that most of them weren't the actual warships-they were static defenders, like the Air Defense Princess (at least trying to recall my very incomplete knowledge of the 'ship waifu game') and if there were any combatants, they were wounded-probably being transferred between repair docks-and a few overseers, including one battleship that had passed by me looking extremely worried.
What was going on, I asked myself. The Abyssals, having trouble? That can't be right-shouldn't it be the other way 'round, them trolling the shipgirl navies?
Pondering this question, I was though interrupted by a sharp knock on the door.
Immediately after that knock, a high-pitched, unnaturally sharp voice came through the door, "Excuse me?"
Did the Abyssals even speak English? Shouldn't it be some gobbledegook?
I came round, and opened the door, not exactly inapprehensive of what I would see.
Turns out, I didn't even have to fear. Opening the door, I saw two identical, scantily clad girls, one with a single ponytail extending to the waist and another with untouched long hair, both with the harsh bleached skin, missing their 'rigging', but with rather cute smiles on their faces. Well, cute if they didn't have such a creepy appearance and I wasn't so goddamn terrified of what they could do to me if they so willed.
It took me a few moments before I realized that they were the same two Ri-Class Light Cruisers that had brought me to this room. The one on the left, sweet as a teenage girl, told me, "Um, our acting commander would like to have a talk with you."
The one on the right piped up, "Though if you are still scared, the commander can wait for you a little longer, although she would prefer if this meeting was done as soon as possible."
Wow, this 'commander' wants a chat...most likely some questioning, one I can't refuse...or could I? I mean, they have been rather nice so far-
Yeah, no way.
"Yes, yes! I am coming!" I said them in a nervous, scared tone. Both of them smiled, and turned to the left, montioning for me to follow. Quickly, I walked thought the doorway, hurriedly closing the door behind me, and followed the twins as they made a steady pace through the hallway.
They soon reached a set of double doors, after walking past quite a number of empty rooms, and the occasional Abyssal-who had paid me the most brief of curious looks-wasn't a human on an Abyssal base supposed to be strange? They opened the double doors, which led to the open deck I was gazing at earlier. While I spied the Abyssal working like a bunch of nervous bees, the two Ris had reached a facsimile of a command post, which had the peculiarities of a Abyssal structure on them.
Climbing the set of stairs located in the middle of the structure, we had reached the second topmost level, and was now facing a door with a black polished plaque labeled 'Commander' on it. The first Ri knocked on the door, which received a curt response. "Enter."
The door opened, and we walked in to see a particularly stern Wo-Class standing and waiting for us. Despite her being a little shorter than me, I recoiled a little, mainly because of the fierce look she had on her face. She then begun to look me up and down.
Something definitely wasn't right at all. The Wo, seeing me slink back, softened that look a little, but when she spoke, she still had a commanding undertone to her soprano voice. "So you are the one summoned by that ritual we tried."
"Urrr...what ritual?" I guessed it afterwards- KanColle shipgirls had been theorized by fanon to be summoned by what ever religious ritual that was relevant to their origin countries-Shinto for the Japanese girls, and Christian for the British. Of course, there were many others, but at least that was the one I subscribed to.
Right now, though, I was confused by the fact that at least 3 Abyssals had talked to me without punching me of the platform, and why the hell would they be trying to summon more Abyssals? And why was I 'summoned'?
Argghhhh.
One of the Ris spoke up. "We tried that ritual because we were trying to make up for losses."
Wait what?
Losses?
"That's right." Wo added in. "The humans have been attacking our bases, our sisters, for a year already. However, they recently got...stronger, and now are winning."
Hold on a sec, the humans are winning?
"Wait...but...shouldn't they be losing a lot of shipgirls at the same time, not being able to keep pushing through! It can't be that bad, right?!"
Wo nodded her head.
"My sisters...a large number of them...recently sunk at the recent battle. The humans are now coming here, so we needed desperate measures...so we decided to try to copying the humans, doing rituals to call our sisters home."
Oh.
Oh fucking shit.
"So..."
"But you were the first to come out, so we decided to stop for now, and look at you before we continue."
I lost my mind at this point. "That's right, cause you got it wrong! You summoned a human, here! A human boy even! And what can a human boy do against all that enemy coming? Please tell me you are going to send me back now!" Dammit, a fleet of shipgirls, coming to bring thunder and the wrath of god on this place? Shit shit fucking shit! I found my self cursing and swearing across the entire room, completely forgetting whose presence I was in.
"A...human?" At that point, I heard the other 3 girls whisper to themselves.
"Yes! That's right! A human boy, useless to all of you, unless you parlay with the-"
"You...don't look human."
Huh?
"You look...like my sister. Just not of a familar...sex, is it?"
Wait what?
I took a look at my hands. Front and back.
They were bleached white, and had...had...
No. Nonononononnonnonononono...
I spied a mirror at the other end of the room, and ran towards it. All I saw was my face-but bleached white, hair now pitch black instead of brown, and with my eyes replaced with those of a cold blue colour.
An Abyssal.
Last thing I knew, were two figures rushing up to me as I collapsed into darkness.
I awoke, coughing and spluttering, as I felt something similar to liquid being dumped on my head.
"Wha-" I muttered as I looked up. Gazing upwards, I saw the Wo from before holding a bucket in both of her hands, the lower half of her expression hidden behind the high collar around her neck.
My mind took a inordinate amount of time to realise that she had just dumped a repair bucket (Abyssal version, no less) on my head. In the meantime, a hand was extended towards me, and I grabbed, using its owner as support to pull myself up.
Still shaken from my recent revelation and self-knockout, I put a hand against the wall to steady myself. Then, I heard my trembling voice murmur, "So...I am really one of you...?"
Wo, still staring at me, simply nodded.
Then immediately she questioned, "You say you were human?"
My brain immediately snapped to attention as she said that. "That's right."
"Then...can you help us?"
Hah?
One of the Ri-Class came over with a series of boards-hang on a sec, if they had time to get those, how long was I out?
Wo spoke. "If you know about us, it means you know about 'them', right?"
The Ri-Class holding those boards flipped the first of them over. On it I saw were what seemed to be very detailed sketched images of certain shipgirls-Akagi, Bismark among them.
"Yes, but-"
The moment I said 'yes', Wo's eyes seemed to brighten. Without waiting for my answer, she piled on, asking, "Do you know these?"
"Wait hang on-" Too late; another board flipped over, and I saw another shipgirl-
Wait what?
I grabbed the board, ignoring the protests of its holder, and studied it carefully.
Immediately afterwards, I freaked out for a second.
Because what I was looking at, if my eyes weren't fooling me, was the body of a modern destroyer, in a shipgirl.
'Modern' as in anything ranging from 1960s to post-2000s.
My mind now kicked into overdrive- firstly, how in the world did they manage to summon a shipgirl from that time-period? And normally Abyssals-either through the copious use of 'magic' or some other strange tech- had the ability to scramble and mess with any targeting or observation system. If this version of humanity had chosen to return to the more advanced technological base...could this mean that they had managed to circumvent it?
"What is it? Anything?" I was interrupted by an anxious Ri. I swallowed, and asked for the last board. Perhaps there was more about that strange shipgirl-
"Holy fucking shit!" I swore as I looked at it.
What the fuck?
What the actual flying fuck?
No way. No. Effing. Way.
Wo had to be messing with me, for what I had seen on the board, was a giant fucking flying battleship.
Humanity no way could have advanced to such a stage by 2015.
I looked back at the 3 abyssals, who were looking at me with rather expectant looks. If my heart had any hope going out that everything I seen up till now was fake, if was shattered simply by seeing them-for it pretty much confirmed that it was real, and had already long ago snarred their hearts in fear.
Still, part of me tried. "Is...this...real?"
Both Ri's nodded their heads rapidly, while Wo simply held her staff, waiting for my answer.
My response was to walk to one of the couches in the room and collapse upon it.
I'm really screwed. If humanity here had managed to create such things already, that posed the question-how many advancements would they have made by now, in other fields?
Did they have control of the 'magic' in this world already?
Was it too late?
How did they see Abyssals?
Dammit...so many questions, so little answers...