independent events may be out of order as I can't remember
- flashback: Mama originally belonged to a lost tribe which was able to tame and communicate with eagles, and they are able to read the winds/currents and tell the weather. Jean recruited her into Kioka to make use of her talents
- Mama wanted her own kid and keep f**king everyone she met, but after a year, she didn't get any and Jean concluded that she's barren. She was saddened but Jean consoled her and changed her thinking by telling her that she can play motherly role to her crew, who would become her children
- reason was many small countries like that of Mama and Jean were destroyed, and Mama basically recruited all her crew from the survivors and remnants of these destroyed states and they were orphans who were just as lonely and deprived of 'family love'
- thus Mama practically f**ked all her crew, sometimes 3 men per night
- only guy who didn't get laid was her subcommander, Mr. Unbeddable
(I know that it sounds weird and LOLworthy the way I described it but it's not that bad when you read the text
)
- on Empire side, there's a high level strategy discussion meeting
- Ikta had to stay in bed, he provided strat (as usual) and Yatori and Matthew would attend
- Matthew would act as the main strat provider partly because he knew more about boats than the rest of the heroes
- during strat call with all the ship captains/commodores gathered in addition to Yatori and Matthewl, Admiral Yurugus's subcommander, Mr Critic (again forgot the name lol), tried to convince Empire fleet to retreat
- why? because the scouting ship has cannons, and that makes it likely for entire Kioka fleet to have cannons, since they won't send a ship with cannon to scout if cannons are still rare. he also gave a bunch of other arguments and played on their fears after the rest of captains saw what happened to Polmy's ship when they passed by it while boarding the flagship; Polmy's ship is currently kept afloat by scooping water out
- Adm Yurugus didn't like to run away and was a little pissed but acknowledged Critic's points and his given role in shooting holes to their plans.
- Critic says it's quite dumb to carry on the expedition if the whole Kioka fleet has cannons just to preserve their admiral's face
- Yatori stepped in and say it's not just the admiral's face is on the line, but the land expedition as well.
- by running away, they not only lose the ability to reinforce and create a supply line to the land expedition, which will likely be caught up in a drawn out war as the mine is a highly defensible area, the Kioka will then be able to reinforce their own troops to defeat the land expedition
- she then invited Matthew to provide the strategy
- after all that, Admiral Yurugus smiles, says the strat is interesting, and after the navy has provided their expert advice on naval fights to make adjustments to the strat, he thinks that it might work given the skill of their fleet
- they are also going to give a sea burial to Polmy's ship, the crew is reassigned, and the heroes also reassigned
- before that, Yatori had a converstation with Ikta and asked why he got Matthew to stand in for him this time
- Ikta said he's the best for the job, and he has overworked during the northern retreat battle
- Yatori says 'yeah you even missed out on sleep and meals'
- she also grumbled that next time, she would be the one to give away the little finger and there was no argument about that
- Ikta smiled wryly and said if that's what she desired and she said that's what "Yatorishino" desired
- he then said, 'since that day, his desire is what Yatori desires'
- Chamille heard their conversation, was crushed, and ran back to cabin
- finally on ship reassignment: Ikta, Torway on separate ships, Matthew on another ship with geezer and Polmy, Halo and Yattori and Chamille will remain on flagship
- Ikta got everyone to bring 10 bottles of premium liquor, acquired by Chamille in advance, to their own assigned ship to build rapport with the captain and crew. This is to break down any barrier, possible misgivings with the land troops, and ensure that they can effectively fight alongside with one another. The fact the liquor is a product of a legendary discovery (or something to that effect) of Cpt Famed Explorer increased this effect
- on Polmy's ship, geezer and the captain are old friends, but the rest of the lieutenants jeered and bullied Polmy due to their jealousy of her skill and promotion to handle a ship previously, they made fun of her failure; fortunately Matthew stepped in and pacified the situation before it got out of hand with the liquor
- on the flagship, Halo was setting up field medical centers on the ship; Mr. Critic commended on her and her men's abilities.
- then as he passed by her, he whispered into her ear, greeted her and called her 'comrade', to which Halo stiffened
- back to Kioka POV, Mama was surprised by the sudden appearance of the Empire fleet, as she did not expect them until a few days later.
- she deployed 16 ships on external with side facing outwards (one of them was her flagship), and got 20 normal ships readied inside, closer to the harbor
- Based on Ikta's advice, Torway could tell that only 8 of the ships had cannons because their ship bodies were lower, the rest were faking
- through the clever use of upwind and downwind positions and slanted facing of their fleet (the details of the mechanics flew over my head), Kioka's effective cannon range was about the same as the air rifles' range
- Suuya was on lookout deck with Ikta who was monitoring entire situation at the highest possible point, she caught on to the mechanics at the end of the day before Ikta finished; and inside Ikta, he thought, 'hey this girl is growing and could grow further', thanks to her constant association with him.
- when Empire ships got close within cannon range, they fired their air rifles at the cannon operators
- anyway, it was a fierce fight between the 2 fleets
- Mama ordered her cannon fitted ships to run away first and act as support instead as the central 20 ships come to reinforce them
- but 3 of the Kioka cannon ships were caught up and overrun
- 2 were fighting and could be lost
- Mama knew that if she lost more than 4 of the cannon ships it was over for their fleet as she would not have enough cannon ships to implement her strat
- one of those fighting had Unbeddable heading to rescue (either that or he was it itself I can't recall)
- she ordered her flagship (also a cannon ship) to go save the other, she was confident of her ability
- the one she went other was engaged with the ship Polmy and Matthew were on
- can't really remember the sequence of events, but the Polmy-Matthew ship had both their geezers injured during cannon blasts; as the other lieutenants were against Polmy given command of the ship, the geezer asked Matthew to decide as it involved the fate of his men and him and also because Matthew was on the original Polmy ship previously and experienced Polmy's failure first hand; Matthew says based on his experience in the north where he also made a lot of mistakes, he rather trust his life to one who has made more mistakes than one who hasn't yet made a single mistake, thus Polmy becomes acting captain of the ship
- the ship they were engaged in got away, as the Mama flagship fought them
- meanwhile, I can't recall how, but Yatori was somehow on the ship that Unbeddable was on, he recognized her as an Igsem and saw how OP she was and called her a monster, knowing that they are just food folder, and with some kind of pride in him, he raised the negotiation flag
- Yatori stopped her forces, and asked for conditions
- Unbeddable challenges Yatori to personal combat, if he wins, they continue fighting, if she wins, whole crew will surrender thus there was no real disadvantage to them
- Admiral Yugurus agreed to conditions
- Yatori was too OP and defeated Unbeddable without breaking a sweat
- meanwhile, as she took the chains of command, Polmy first sung a song on/of Cpt Famed Explorer. This act greatly raised the spirits of the crew and removed all the ensued confusion from the cannon blasts
- she then ordered the ship to give up on chasing the ship that was getting away and turn around to engage the flagship
- she says if they conquer the enemy flagship, they will win and the fighting will stop
- Mama made a feint, and Polmy reacted properly and in time; Mama was impressed by the opposing captain's ability
- but Mama had cheat code because of her eagle which aided her ship maneuvers; in the end, Polmy got injured too, it was not fatal but she was losing blood and started losing consciousness
- Matthew realized something suspicious with the hovering bird making weird sounds and got his men to shoot it down
- Mama lost bird and was confused, and unable to give decisive commands to her crew and in ship maneuvers
- Matthew and Polmy ship crew boarded Mama ship and fought melee
- Matthew saw a lot of senseless bloodshed and suddenly recalled Ikta's words, "a war must be fought in a relaxed and easy manner. that's the correct way to fight a war" (something to that effect)
- Matthew then raised a flag of negotiation
- in the end Mama realized that they had lost and the harbor had been overrun and she surrendered
- in the end, with the captured ships, the Empire's force remained close to the fighting strength as before, and Admiral Yurugus was pleased
- Mama was captive, got to meet Ikta and realized why she lost (from what she learnt from Jean)
- Critic was talking to Yatori about her exploits, and before he left, Yatori exposed him as a spy and suddenly a bunch of armed men appeared surrounding him
- aside from the messenger pigeon caught, Yatori said that while debating and persuading the Empire to give up on the expedition, Critic knew too much about the inner workings of Kioka's ships and cannon tech, exposed him as spy; admiral Yurugus was disappointed in him and said that he was a good subordinate
- but what Yatori did not guess was that he was more than an Empire spy for Kioka, but a member of the phantom squad (a name give to a group of people in Kioka specially trained to carry out covert ops, espionage, propaganda and infiltration missions)
- while being brought away by soldiers, as they were passing by Halo, Critic took Halo hostage
- Yatori taunts him to kill Halo as she knew that he wouldn't do it which will lose him his hostage
- Critic taunts back and says he could cut a ear off to show how serious he was
- Yatori says when he did that, the window of opportunity is enough for her to cut off his head
- Critic then asked to be given horse and 3 days' food/water
- Yatori can follow him at safe distance before Critic releases Halo; safe distance being Yatori can't rescue Halo without risking her life while at the same time if Critic kills her, Yatori can catch up to him still
- after retrieving Halo, Yatori apologized due to her negligence; Halo shook her head and kept saying sorry. It can be inferred that Halo was apologizing for some other reason here and she might also be a spy.
- finally Chamille and heroes set off from harbor to link up with Sazaruufu and land troops
- Ikta also complimented on Matthew's decision to raise the negotiation flag and got Mama to surrender
- before they left, Polmy came to sent off Matthew; they exchanged some form of family heirlooms and set a promise to meet up again to return the stuff LOL.
- Polmy then suddenly kissed Matthew, shocking him, then scolded him dummy and ran back with a red face (Matthew x Polmy ship sailed LOL)
~ this ends the first part of v5 which spanned about 50-60% of volume 5 ~
not sure when I'll do the rest but definitely not today
2015-01-26, 06:42
