It's Deja Vu All Over Again!!

MUCH Later...

Not everyone had escaped the island that these Boomer submarines had been Summoned from, and there had been talking about "brainwashing" and "torture" to get the "uppity" ones onboard...

And when the name of the island where the Boomer subs are being imprisoned is mentioned, nobody was particularly HAPPY about it.

"Are you serious?" Firestorm blinked. "The Abyss has Her last trump card imprisoned . . ."

She just looks in askance at her sisters (not just the former Wo-class shipgirls) of the former Crossroad Fleet and shakes her head, stunned at the sick irony.

"What?" Georgia asked, perplexed. Yes, imprisoning nuclear submarine shipgirls on that place was ironic, but still! "I know that some nukes were tested there and around there in the '40s and '50s but. . . ."

"Operation Crossroads was conducted there," Saratoga said, shaking her head sadly. "At the Bikini Atoll, two atomic devices were tested. And while still a steel hull I sank there due to damage received from the second bomb. And returned as an Abyssal Princess, the Jellyfish. An Abyssal Princess who had been gifted the powers of the Abyss as a Princess, but had been so broken by what the Abyss had done to her mind and heart in the 'gifting' process that my former self . . .could never move on from where my steel hull had sunk. At least until a band of brave heroes came and brought me back to my senses, but that is a LONG and detailed story for later, dear."

"Ah my Gawd," Georgia blanches, reaching over and giving Saratoga a hug. "I-I didn't know! But it wasn't like I wanted . . . That's sick!"

Various muttered agreements and vile curses directed at the Abyss Itself could be heard by a distressed Georgia, what little humor she'd been harboring since escaping the Abyss's clutches drying up. At least for now, anyway.

Yes, the usually humorous sub felt that some tact was called for here, at least for now. Or at least she'd best be careful about the humor she uses with this group...

Not that she'd been in much of a joking mood, still rather PISSED at how she and her sister Ohio-class shipgirls --a feeling of sorority still surprising her in its intensity considering that she'd not even known her own name and had the oddest memories of being human before this--had been treated by this Abyss b*tch.

The eldritch monster had been almost beside itself due to the fact that whatever attempts of modification of mind and hearts beforehand on Georgia and the other Submarine Princesses had failed . . .miserably. Something about being a rush job on a style of shipgirl the Abyss hadn't done enough homework on beforehand or some such.

Georgia's heart bled for the Abyss!! Truly, a tragedy of the ages there, It's a failure!

The Russian Typhoons were even MORE livid if that was to be believed. The only reason why nobody had launched nukes at that island in spite of their escape had been because of the family left behind!

But anyway...

"The Abyss has a sick sense of humor," Saratoga sighed, shaking her head after reassuring Georgia that she understood that. "We all know that here in this Fleet especially for . . . Well, it's part of that long story we'll tell you later about."

Georgia and her family had been part of a major push towards bringing an END to this accursed Abyssal War. They had been combing the various islands found in the Marshal Island group but had been finding either empty bases . . .or traps.

"And we are heading back to the one island where our Princess and the rest of us least wanted to visit," Trinitite sighed. "But we'd best at least want to get on the horn and let Command know about this . . .development PDQ! And maybe Rear Admiral Zuikaku and her Fleet can give input on this as well."

Left unsaid was whether or not Admiral Zuikaku had found corroborating evidence to support the Ohio-class shipgirl's tale, or if the poor dear had been hoodwinked by the Abyss to lead them all into (yet) another deadly trap.

Traps, that had been getting old for a while now...

Later . . .or . . .earlier . . . Elsewhere/when

Trinitite just nodded woodenly, mortified that she'd mouthed off to a Princess.

"Ah, calm down you two, so, where did you say that you were staying?" Chitose asked.

"It's just down this road, on the right," the car slid into the apartment parking lot in silence, it wasn't until the Japanese woman had set the breaks that Georgia spoke up.

"So, she's cool, right?" The Submarine asked. Trinitite looked at the Seaplane Tender, who put her arm over her seat as she twisted around to look at her, they shared a long look into each other's eyes, and while she probably out-displaced the Japanese vessel by a fair margin, Tinitite felt like she was under the appraising eye of a Hime, deciding whether or not it was worth Jelly's anger and lack of services to sink her for some slight.

...

"Hmm, I think so, yes."

Trinitite sagged in relief.

"She's in Japan."

Trinitite un-sagged.

"WHAT!?"

Knock-Knock!

All the shipgirls jump slightly at the sound of somebody knocking on the side window of their car. The sight of some other shipgirl (an Essex-class) gives Trinitite the scare of her life, even IF some of that Rigging has some comforting and oddly familiar features. But when she gets a better view of the unexpected shipgirl's face as she steps into a better patch of light from a streetlight . . .

"Oh thank God!" Hypocenter muttered, looking at the gobsmacked shipgirls within the classicly styled retro-car (with realistic internal combustion exhaust from the decorative tailpipe). Those kinds of cars had been making a comeback with the nostalgic, but she'd never seen the appeal. "You're alive and you found Shortstack there!"

The shyer of the three shipgirl sisters of the former Jellyfish's Fleet thanked God that they'd survived that bloody battle there. With the Abyss Herself barging Its unwanted way into Earth's reality, Georgia had made the right call in launching a Mark48 ADCAP at the Summoning Pool, despite the damn thing being nuclear-tipped like EVERYTHING ELSE the poor submarine shipgirl had in her weapon's inventory!

The explosion hadn't been "nuclear" in nature, but something ELSE. Something decidedly . . .eldritch naturally. A green light/not light smelling of sulfur? A bitter taste of color pink? The sound of light? These and many MORE borked up senses the entire Fleet had felt before finding themselves HERE, somehow!

Thoughts as to why Trinitite had for whatever reason opted on going around in her "human camouflage" getup could wait. After they get the others on the Coms and a rendezvous point set up (somewhere in Seattle?!), then questions like that . . .

"Hypocenter!?" Trinitite whispered, shocked almost to mute silence before almost ripping off the door in her attempt to get out.

Questions as to why her sister should be looking like she does (like why she has light lavender hair and other decidedly NON- Abyssal features), THAT can wait!

Her sister was back!

"Hypocenter!" the Wo-class whispered, crying as she hugged the now slightly befuddled sister shipgirl. "You're back. You're back!!"

"What . . .is going on here?" Georgia blinked, not exactly sure what to make of this. She could be in SO much trouble right now! But . . .was not 'Hypocenter' the name of Trinitite's dead Wo-class sister back from the Atoll?

That meant that THIS couldn't be Hypocenter, since Fodder Abyssals . . . cannot be re-Summoned!

But that confusion for both Georgia and the others still inside the car increases when various OTHER shipgirls suddenly make the scene, crowding around the two aircraft carrier sisters hugging outside. Including . . .

1. " What the Hell?" USS Trinitite blinked, looking at a Wo-class shipgirl double in Hypocenter's arms, and then back at the USS Saratoga.

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