Investigating the Airfield Princess

Before we could actually have Sally join the fleet, or force, Matteo wanted to investigate what happened earlier with the creation of Johnston Airfield's princess and asked me and Sally questions and consent for further examinations.

For me, he only observed my hand that emitted the mist, and as for Sally, he checked her eyes and touched her skin wanting to find out if it's cold or not seeing she popped out of a mist.

He did this as these didn't happen with the past airfield princesses. In fact, Matteo explained that he also patterned this on how the shipgirls are normally created in this world.

"I can't think of any explanation" Matteo started. "Unfortunately, the only clue we have is the cube seemingly tapping into your core?" Matteo continued and unsure of what I meant by my core.

"Ah, It's basically my heart acting as bio-power plant for generating energy for my abilities"

"For us, it's merged with our Central Nervous System, instead of the Circulatory" Akira added.

"In any case, the cube shouldn't have the ability it displayed earlier as this world doesn't have magic. The Siren's don't....."

Matteo paused, looking like he just had an idea.

"Sophia, what's the most basic of thing ice users can do?"

I got confused. "Huh? Freezing water should be the basic, but Ice manipulation is really complicated, even freezing a shot glass of water requires a lot of practice and patience"

Matteo scratched his head. "It's not that easy? Like in books, and T.V shows?"

"How is it portrayed in your world?" I asked.

"Like it's second nature for the person?"

Ahh is that what non-magic worlds think about magic? Kind of simplistic, but I guess that's how fantasy stories mostly work.

"Not really. We do feel it, but it's hard to transfer it to another---"

And in one corner of the room I spot Sally putting her finger inside a glass of water and, to my complete surprise, the water inside froze in an instant and the glass shattered getting the attention of everyone in the room.

"What?! How?!" To say I'm surprised is an understatement, and surprisingly, Akira as well

"Eh? I just imagined it and the water froze" Sally is as confused and surprised as I am.

"And you were saying?"

"No, it's really not as easy as that" I got flustered as Matteo looked at me with doubt.

I'm not lying. I mean it took me a week to learn to make the same amount of water ice cold, not freeze it entirely and I'm praised at being one of the fastest to learn it.

"Do you guys have time?" Matteo stood from his seat. "I want to test something"

"Depends" Akira answered.

"We still have a plan to create" I added.

"I bet it would involve Guam, so we can head there now. You can plan things on the way"

"You do know it's still dangerous being in the open sea in this area" Akira reminded Matteo.

Even though we are now mostly free to move about from one nation to the other, it's still pretty dangerous crossing the seas, especially in the Pacific Ocean where the Sirens can easily pass through gaps in the Eagle Union's security perimeter.

"You two are here, so it's fine. Let's go" Matteo walked out of the room leaving no room for negotiations.

Akira and I aren't really against it, but it's a long way to Guam from here and it's tiring travelling by ship.

"That man, he will do anything to sate his curiosity" Akira said,

We followed Matteo to the docks where some of the girls in my fleet are walking about.

I called out to a black-haired girl with long side-tails whom I call with a nickname since her actual name is too long for my lazy-ass to say.

"Penn, do you have time?"

"What' is it , commander?"

"Can you come with me to Guam"

She didn't even think for a moment. "Sure, why not?"

"Thanks" I then turned to the redhead girl with red eyes, wearing a skimpy sailor uniform. "Wichita, can you tell Cleveland and Enterprise to meet me at Guam?"

"RIght-o!" She obliges and ran off. Lively as always.

I then turned to Sally who's following behind us "Sally, you can equip the carrier planes for now and secure the seas around your island. Ask one of the girls here if you need assistance"

"Understood commander"

Once again, we boarded Takao's ship and made our way out to the open ocean towards Guam.

----------

Akira and I are currently in the mess hall planning our next move.

We already know that Matteo wants to commission the Guam airfield princess for his experiment so we took that into account.

As the Eagle Union can't supply the planes yet, the Sakura Empire will step in and provide the needed aircraft to support the operation.

Based on our intel, the Sirens have a huge amount of forces in the Caroline Islands, Micronesian Islands and Kiribati Islands. I can't quantify the number of ships but they have enough forces to blockade the ocean from Palau to Kiribati, which is about 7500KM apart. Pretty much twice the size of the one in the Atlas Ocean the alliance destroyed months ago.

It must have been hard for the people there to be blocked off from the rest of the world for years.

The first phase involves four task forces, two from each nation.

One of the Sakura Empire forces will go to Palau from the South Pearl islands. The other one will attack the blockade from Guam, aided by the airfield princess,

As for the Eagle Union, one of our forces will head for the nearest islands of Micronesia also aided by Guam's airfield princess. The other will come from Wake island and attack the Sirens in the Marshall islands.

"I think that will be our general plan, what's left is the composition of our forces" I breathed out a sigh and put down my pen after drawing many lines on the map.

"I hope this works. I have confidence since we have quite a number of skilled shipgirls in our fleet"

"It's unfortunate that most my fleets battleships are in the Atlantic, I guess we can manage"

"Ahh you haven't seen them fight, have you? Although firepower is important, the shipgirl's experience is crucial" He said, with his pointer finger raised.

He put his hand on the table seeming to remember something. "I suddenly remembered this line 'Sure it matters who has the biggest stick, but it matters more on who's swinging it'. It applies in this world's shipgirls"

Ahh now I get what he means, although what I meant is that I'm afraid the carriers won't be enough. From what I have been taught, planes don't do quite a lot of damage to battleships because of their powerful defensive barriers, thus carriers are mostly used against smaller ships and play a support role in task forces.

I guess I'm thinking too much from our world's perspective.

"Well we were mistaken in the beginning as well and we got quite a lecture from the girls" Akira said with a grin and a chuckle. "Some of them pride themselves in being in the frontlines"

"Um Sophia-san and Commander, we're almost at Guam" Takao announced via her ship's intercom.

"Let's go" Akira stood up and offered his hand.

----------

After we arrived on the island, the shipgirls from the Dragon Empery, Sakura Empire, and Eagle Union stationed here are surprised at my sudden visit.

The girls from the other two nations are quite used to Akira, and Matteo to some extent, but for a lot of them it's their first time meeting me so they swarmed me asking questions and other stuff as we walked towards the airfield. I feel like a celebrity.

"Well then, here's another cube." Matteo pulled out another cube from his bag, which I haven't noticed until now, after we stopped beside the taxiway.

Unfortunately, he can't reach me at the moment as I'm still surrounded by the curious shipgirls.

"Sophia can entertain you later" Akira tried to calm them down. "For now, we're trying to do something important"

The curious girls stepped back allowing me to walk to Matteo and take the cube. "Do the same thing earlier"

"Without the weird chant?"

"Haha you can if you like" He laughed and smiled. "We're still waiting"

Akira nodded in agreement.

I guess they're back to their playful mode. I smiled then walked towards the runway.

Here goes. I nervously held up the cube. Honestly, I'm still afraid of what might happen. I'm also nervous about the sudden jolt like the one I had when I commissioned Sally.

As with earlier the cube emitted light from the inside. It then shone brighter as it connected to my core.

I didn't notice this earlier because I freaked out, but there is an obvious flow of energy from my heart to the cube.

The cube floated from my palm. I stepped back until I am at least 4 feet from the cube and covered my eyes preparing for its blinding light as it spun around in the center of a number of rings.

After the light dissipated, we saw the mist that replaced the cube. A person then walked out of the mist without waiting for it to dissipate.

She has long black hair tied to a bun and blue almond-shaped eyes. She's wearing a white shirt under a dark grey vest, and blue jeans

She seems to have a and bubbly vibe in contrast to Sally that has a more serious and mature vibe.

"Hey!" She raised one hand and greeted me with a smile. "Are you the one in charge of my island? I'm Andersen, but you can can me whatever you like"

I thought of naming her Victoria, but Andersen is also a good name, I can shorten it to Andy.

"I'm Sophia. I'm fine with that, but can I call you Andy from time to time?"

"Sure, It doesn't really matter as long as it's a human name" She walked towards me and extended her hand. "I'll be looking forward to working with you"

"Same here" I shake her hand.

Matteo and Akira approached us holding a glass of water each.

"Here" Matteo extended his towards Andy.

"Eh? I'm not thirsty at the moment"

Matteo smiled "Can you dip your finger and try to freeze the water?"

Andy got confused "....Sure?"

I thought it's strange that she didn't find that request weird, but I continued to watch.

Andy dipped her finger in the water and closed her eyes. The water froze in an instant, but this time the glass didn't break.

"Sophia, can you make a target about 5 meters from where we are?"

I nodded and lightly tapped my right foot. The air around us blew a bit stronger.

I made use of the islands humidity to trace a line of ice from my foot to a small area a distance away from us where a thin ice column rose from the ground

Matteo turned to Andy "Ok next. Can you---"

Andy ignored him and looked at the pillars with excitement.

"Wow! I'll try doing that as well"

"Wait!" I stopped her for a sec "You're not surprised about you abilities?"

She tilted her head like my she didn't understand my question "Isn't it normal? You and I can easily use it"

It irked me quite a bit actually saying she can easily use it. And she was about to copy my ice pillar, which took me more than a month of practice.

Matteo wanted her to attack the pillars with icicles, but since Andy seems very used to using her ice abilities, he thought of another experiment.

"What's the hardest you can do?"

Andy pondered for a few seconds then materialized a crystal blue and arrow. The weapons are very similar to the ones I use for training, and competitions.

Do they get a copy of my abilities when they get created?

She aimed at the sky at about 45 degrees and released the arrow. After it reached a certain distance, the arrow turned to into mist and a fighter plane emerged from it complete with US Navy markings.

What the!? I got astonished not only with her arrow turned into a plane, but also the fact that she managed to do something straight out of fiction. Sure there are certain types of ability users that can do that, but Ice Manipulators surely aren't one of them.

The fighter plane turned around and blasted my ice pillar with its guns.

"I guess that's about it. I could only create P-51s and B-29s so it's not really that amazing" She said being honestly humble.

I'm speechless that she can actually summon aircraft and the fact that she said that it's not much. I can't even transform my arrows to mist, it just melts under the sun.

"Amazing!" Akira shouted with excitement. "How many can you create before you get tired?"

Andy got a little shy about the compliment. It seems she isn't used to getting praised.

"I still don't know my limits yet" She replied with a soft voice.

Matteo on the other hand is both speechless and amazed, and probably confused at the same time as he just uttered. "How?"

It's understandable as he was the one who created this and yet it did something he didn't even imagine.

I approached Andy. "I guess you can find out in the mission" I'm curious as well on how skilled she is with her abilities.

She immediately lit up "Are we going to fight soon?!"

"Yeah, although you will be supporting us from this island. We just need to finalize preparations and we're good to go"

"All right!!" She couldn't contain her excitement and jumped up and down like a child who's given the present she wanted. She somehow reminds me of Sandy, and Sara.

This is quite an eventful day. We suddenly got two powerful allies, I now know it's possible to transform an arrow mid-air and the fact that cubes have a lot of possibilities, and Matteo got more questions and absolutely no answers.