My Little Destroyermen: Walker on Water

by The Atlantean

Chapter 23

Twilight smiled, unable to keep pride from swelling within her as she watched her regiment of Lemurians, the 1st Royal Guards, drill in proper formation with a level of competency comparable to where Alden’s Marines currently performed. Her executive officer, Lieutenant Verun-Kanas (forever nicknamed Kansas due to Twilight’s initial name-butchering) stood next to her, her tail twitching nervously. The ‘Cat, despite Twilight’s best efforts, still acted off balance whenever she was around.

“Excellent work, Kansas,” the princess applauded, consciously making an effort to not clap and drop the fabric-wrapped thing in her hands. “I know I haven’t been here as much as I’d like, but you’ve done well.”

“Um, thank you, ma’am. If you don’t mind me asking, how much longer will we be training before our, uh, first combat?”

Twilight mentally gave up her friendship quest for the moment, figuring it would take something else for her XO to break out of her shell. “A few more weeks. I think Captain Reddy’s cooking something up for the Grik, but I don’t have any mind-reading spells up my sleeve, so Tartarus if I know what it actually is. Everyone getting antsy?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“There isn’t much I can really do to alleviate that. Have you familiarized yourself with my and Mr. Garrett’s experiments regarding magical weapons?”

“I’m afraid I don’t understand it very well, ma’am, but I did read it. They all know as well,” Kansas replied, gesturing to the ‘Cats in formation. They had split into smaller platoons and were now wholly focused on a drill competition. “They are anxious, but willing to try. If we can more easily kill Grik, then we will.”

“I won’t give them a mage weapon unless I personally know it works. Speaking of which, are they taking care of their spears and shields properly? Once we have mage-blades attached to spear handles, it won’t be as much of an issue, but I can’t trust people who don’t take care of their tools with better ones.”

“They are. Inspections every other day. The Marines do it once a week. Do we inspect our weapons more often because you expect us to wield magic weapons later?”

“Yeah.” Twilight opened the fabric wrap. Inside was a perfectly-crafted spear tip of pure magical energy, condensed into a solid form with a violet dual edge sharper than any sword made from metal. Opposite the deadly tip, a base suitable for fitting to a spear shaft completed an elegant, almost eerily beautiful design.

Kansas went slack-jawed with awe. Her eyes were instantly drawn to it. She gingerly ran her fingers along one of the edges, making sure she didn’t cut herself. The spear tip felt cold but tingled with energy.

“Is this your final design, ma’am?”

“The smooth version, yes. I’m currently working to barb the edges, but once I’ve settled that, it should be relatively easy. Maybe another month before I have enough for everyone in the regiment--at least until I figure out mage guns. The challenge is to keep the weight the same without losing structural integrity. Too much magic is like peanut brittle: it snaps apart with ease. Not enough, and it evaporates.”

“What if Cap-i-taan Reddy makes a plan before you have enough?”

“Then we’ll take as many as we can.”

-------------------------

“You mean to tell me that this… wreck… of a person is supposed to bring me vengeance against the Americans? Impossible!”

Commander Sato Okada, Executive Officer aboard the Imperial Japanese Navy battlecruiser HIMS Amagi, stood his ground even as his captain, Hisashi Kurokawa, seemed about to explode into a fit of rage. The captain, a tall man with a contorted cherubim for a face and a nearly-immaculate IJN uniform to adorn his volatile form, seemed to regard the collapsed orange-skinned woman propped by a pair of unlucky sailors with disgust and disdain. Okada himself didn’t see much potential in her, but the mysterious magician in the Grik palace had claimed she was extremely powerful.

“Yes, Captain, I do,” he treaded carefully. “There was a magician in the Grik palace when we came to pick up their American prisoner. She told me to tell you that this woman is our best chance at defeating the Americans. They have apparently acquired access to a magic that could easily destroy us. As long as she remains pure, she will follow our orders.”

“PURE?! And you take orders from a random self-proclaimed WITCH?”

“Captain, please! The magician--she is called ‘Nightmare Moon’--threw a bolt of lightning at my feet with ease! If you do not believe me, she can do the same to you.”

“I dare her!”

At the sudden declaration, a cloud materialized near the helm, scaring the helmsman shitless. The magician’s elegant, womanly form in full plate armor coalesced from the cloud, and her equally magical voice rang:

“I see that you creatures are much less capable of belief than even those Celestia-damned Americans you face.” She spat a small bolt of lightning from her hand, which scorched the metal near Kurokawa’s shiny boot. “Is that enough for you, or would you prefer I blow up your despicable ship?”

Kurokawa studied her for a minute before replying, his indignation having dissipated as soon as she had appeared. “Your current demonstration will suffice,” he answered with uncharacteristic calm. Okada looked at him with incredulity.

“But perhaps you would explain why I should care for the well-being of this woman?” he asked.

Nightmare Moon bared her vampiric fangs. “Would it suffice to say that a healthy mage is a live one? And if it isn’t apparent to whatever passed as a brain in your Earth-bounded monkey skull, you only have ONE MAGE to work with!”

“Why don’t you be the mage?”

Okada stood a nervous step back. His captain may have gone too far with this one.

“Because they will be expecting me to fight them, and the last time I participated in direct combat, I was banished to the Moon for a thousand years, and I have no intention of returning.”

“That is fair,” Kurokawa conceded. “The woman mage will be cared for as if she is one of our own. See to it, Commander.” At that, Nightmare Moon disappeared i a whirlwind of smoke.

“Yes, Captain. Do you want to use her name?”

“Well, it would certainly be useful if I were to give her orders.”

“It is ‘Sunset Shimmer,’ Captain.”

“Excellent. And you know what to do with the American. Squeeze every drop of available information from him. I want to know everything pertaining to those damned Americans and their puny destroyers.”

Okada held back a sigh of relief, recognizing that Kurokawa had dismissed him.

Author's Note:

I knew college was going to bite my time. Damn.

Comments

[Yutah123]

Oh ponyfeathers. It didn't enter my mind that the Amagi was a battlecruiser...

The destroyers really have to play to their strengths if they're to win against that. Torpedoes with magic, maybe?

And Sunset Shimmer, the poor thing. O hope word of her reaches Twilight, soon, and preferably not through a duel.

[Seawolf]

9827482

Except American torpedoes are spectacularly crap due to the fucking Mark Six Magnetic Fuse and a crappy contact fuse, with the exception of the Mark 10, additionally making 30-knots is difficult for Walker and Mahan.

[Yutah123]

9828641
Yeah, I've heard about that. In fact, aren't Japanese torpedoes better than American ones by leagues?

And a battlecruiser isn't as slow as a battleship...

[Seawolf]

9828727

Way better, the Type 93 was probably the best torpedo of WWII, it weighed 3-tons, had stupendously long range, produced no wake, and had a 1080-pound warhead.

That said, Amagi took two torpedoes from Mahan which miraculously worked, tearing open her boilers. Additionally oil isn't something that the Grik have in large supply, thus coal will have to do. She will loose a lot of speed but given that the mad bastard Kurokawa knows about Walker and Mahan, repairs will be made sooner thus she likely won't be as slow as she was in Maelstrom and Crusade.

[The Atlantean]

9829130
9828727
All of these are great points, but this is only the technological side of the discussion. Remember, both sides have magic at their disposal, and even if only one of them has it figured out for the most part, actual confrontation is still weeks if not a couple of months away. There's plenty of time.

Take the "flying destroyer" chapter for instance... and apply it to Amagi. How would that change the story?

[Yutah123]

9829130
9829200
Gosh, if only we had a plane and applied just about every enchantment on it: like invisibility or such.

If we can get past all the AA armament and manage to somehow bomb the Amagi, we might not even need the destroyers except for a coup de grâce. Won't be very exciting for the story if that happened, though.