Her stumbling steps took her across the island. Past women, girls and monsters galore. Birds nested all over the place, and odd white trees mixed with the more regular palms and soft-woods. Alien structures doted the terrain and she soon emerged on the other side to find more sea. Taylor was on an island. She followed the shore, her steps light and leaking. And wasn’t that unnatural? Her footsteps were wet and left tiny ponds in the sand, before it drained away.

Hunger gnawed at her gut, burning like a flare. Absently her fingers traced pale, prominent ribs. That couldn’t be healthy. She was thin. Stick thin, not quite skeletal, emaciated, but under threat of becoming such if she couldn’t find food. Fortunately, that at least proved no trial. She saw several girls existing one of the cavern-like buildings carrying bars of black metal, nibbling on it like candy. Some emerged with cups of oil, while others carried steaming shellfish or barbecued fish. Her mouth watered at the sight and she picked up speed.

Yet when Taylor reached the door the woman standing next to it casual backslapped her away. She felt something in her cheek crumple as she face-planted into the beach. The pain helped center her, temporarily lifting the fog of hunger. The woman looked at her, her glowing green eyes blank with apathy and boredom. “No token, no entry.”

Taylor had missed her completely, vision tunneling on the smell of cooking food. She tried to explain and stumbled onto the fact she had no idea what the woman name was. She’d been sent like an errant child to fetch snacks and Taylor had no idea who sent her. She still tried, haltingly for it hurt to speak, but no amount of description and pantomime left an impression on the guard and the line of girls going by only drew amusement from her troubles.

She was damned if she was going back empty handed, and not delivering, promptly, seemed like a bad idea. Her sender was far too confident and smug to slight so easily. Which would have left Taylor in a bit of a problem, but she was raised by the sea. She might not know her hometowns name, but she knew some stuff. It didn’t take her long to wade into the sea and catch herself some shellfish of her own. It was easier than it should have been. The shores were teeming with life.

Taylor was just about to go deliver the crab as a snack when she discovered her hand halfway down her own throat. She swallowed, by reflex. She hadn’t even chewed just swallowed it whole, shell and all. For a moment she was disgusted, but a tiny spark hit the void in her belly and she nearly collapsed to her knees from the sheer relief. She was starving. Near a dozen crabs and clams later, she could finally think a bit. Taylor was still hungry, but she felt like she’d eaten a thin broth, the gnawing teeth pushed away enough that she could function.

And on the topic of teeth, she had entirely too many. Looking at herself in the reflection amidst the waves, the face was mostly familiar. More angular, more ragged, like she hadn’t eaten well in weeks, but still hers. Her hair was still curly, which felt important and precious, even if the pale, ash like color was foreign. It still felt like her, it felt right. Her hair hung to just below her shoulder, and was tangled and knotted from the sea and surf.

But the instant she smiled, or opened her mouth the mirage broke. Her teeth were pointed and jagged, in double lines more like a shark than a human. It was almost ludicrous that they all fit in her jaw or that she could speak at all. Her cheek remained dented from the slap, red and burning. She’d been pale once upon a time, but now her tan was more like a freshly dredged corpse, which wasn’t far from the truth really. More worrying was that everyone around her shared her complexion, so it seemed likely the development was permanent.

The final wrinkle was a rusted crane anchored on her left shoulder. It was tiny, like a toy, much like the naval armament, yet it felt right. Huge, but in a state of disrepair, rusted and dead. Yet it felt right, familiar, even as Taylor realized that some of the mass of pain constantly washing over her wasn’t just her body, but the crane as well.

“Shit” she snapped to. She still needed to get that snack, not ogle her new hardware.

By the time she made it back to the Ta-class Battleship with some live crabs she was hungry again. She brought the discarded sea-shells with her. It was a bit fashion of the island native from before the age of sail, but if food was so limited who the hell knew what they’d demand for decent clothes. She’d work something out from what she had available. No one might have cared, but Taylor did.

***

That first week had been… hectic and frightening, strange and just alien. In a way, Taylor was in a much better position now, even if she was near the end of her rope. It was an odd mix of good and bad. For one she knew where she was: an island in the middle of the Pacific called Midway. She couldn’t point to it on a globe, but at least she knew the name of the place and that there was nothing else anywhere close. Nothing but a few more islands and the Abyss. Shinigami had decided Taylor was hers now. Now, she still wasn’t entirely clear on the whole thing, but Shinigami was a Ta-class Battleship and somewhat important in the local pecking order. Strong ships named themselves, while weak ones got named. Which is how Taylor's name came to be Fat Bertha. It amused the others.

How a woman was a battleship wasn’t something Taylor was going to break her mind on. Powers are weird, fine, but again, why did everyone have the same, or similar powers? Weren’t powers supposed to be unique? Variable? Why were they related to naval warfare? How could giant sharks have cannons in their mouths and be called I-Class destroyers?

Who knows? It just is. Taylor just hoped there weren’t any alien parasites involved. And that? That right there? It was still frustrating. Why was she worrying about alien parasites behind the scenes? No clue. Taylor would get these flashes and impulses at times, and sometimes they made sense, and sometimes they were batshit crazy.

It was better not to ask. So positives and negatives.

Plus: Shinigami made sure no one else messed with her.

Minus: Shinigami and her Division were always messing with her or bossing her around.

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For: The Division was happy to give Taylor their leftover and scraps.

Against: They mocked her relentlessly for eating them and it was humiliating as all hell to feed on their scraps like some kind of scavenger or pet.

It wasn’t like she had much choice. Food helped, but the hole in her midsection only really responded to metal and oil. She wasn’t allowed into any of the meal rooms unescorted. And she still felt like she was missing other things. Taylor had to eat. It was like a biological imperative. She had cravings. It didn’t feel like eating. It was like she was dying of thirst and every bite that had real mass to it was a small splash of fresh water, more precious than gold. The hunger never really went away, but Taylor did get better at managing it, pushing past it to function even as it gnawed at her.

For another thing, the Abyss was lazy. That wasn’t strong enough. The Abyss was indolent. Not that they didn’t go on patrols or missions, but when they were off the clock? Absolute sloths. They’d order around the monsters to do everything for them and if the monsters didn’t have the brainpower for it, well that’s what all the girls beneath them were for. Why not? The little and big buggers were happy to help and everyone weaker than them could be persuaded, first gently, then firmly. Pampering and serving them. Her Division was no different from the rest of the Abyss.

Which is where Taylor made her first breakthrough. The monsters took their cues from the girls around them. Most were assigned to one Division or another and reflected the disdain their superiors carried for her. But a few? They didn’t have their own girls.

Even with serving as a personal maid, server, cook, messenger, object of mockery and general minion, Taylor still had four to six hours every day to herself. On the first day she’d figured out that she slept best when her feet were lapped by the waves and had trouble sleeping otherwise. On the second she figured out she really didn’t need much sleep. Maybe an hour a day, with four to six once every four. So when sunrise approached, she got ready for the work that mattered as most of the Abyssal not on duty shuffled off to sleep. That they didn’t need sleep, didn’t mean that everyone who could didn’t want to sleep in every day.

So Taylor spent that time combing the beaches. Turns out? Wicked shark teeth made for messy eaters. With how many girls came and went, and how many liked to walk and snack, she more than doubled what she got for her “service”. She set aside a few choice morsels, both in regular food and a precious few bits and bobs dug from the sands. And an hour before everyone waked, she fed her own minions. Finding them had been as simple as looking for the monsters everyone dumped on. Unclaimed, without an owner.

For Taylor was pretty sure they weren’t sentient. Not really. They reminded her of beaten and abused dogs and were about as clever. That always made her melancholy. So she cared for them, for some part of her told her it was what she would have wanted. She who? Who knew, not Taylor damn it. But it was important. Another brick, another piece of her past.

No, the true value of her bended neck was that to the rest of the Abyss, she might as well be invisible. With Shi’s token, a pressed piece of steel in her likeness she wasn’t allowed to eat, Taylor was just a freighter, unimportant. Which would be fine if Shinigami didn’t insist that Taylor call her Shi-shi-Oneesama. Which sounded odd to her English brain, but even worse in Japanese. Honorable Older Sister Shi was a mouthful and a ridiculous one. Worse when the battleship had decided to name itself form the Grim Reaper.

So now she was calling her temporary boss Honorable Older Sister Re-re, which just stuck in her mind and ground it down from within. That thing was no family of hers. And God forgive that she doesn’t say it right, or put the proper deference and warmth into the title. Like a simpering little sister that worshiped the ground she tread. Every time it made her want to puke, but the remonstrations started with being manhandled, proceeded into canings that left her butt bright red to “improve her crew morale” and the one time she threw a fit she got a whole bunch of bruises, a black eye, a concussion and several broken ribs. Subtle, the Abyss was not.

Which again, led to the positives. She was not powerless. She didn’t have her old powers, but brand new ones. She was strong, she could peel the bark right off trees with her fingers, or strip branches. If she put her back into it, she was confident she could uproot them entirely. The crab claws and sea serpents, the regular ones, were no threat. Her skin was steel, it felt like.

For another thing, Taylor healed. As long as she’d eaten enough, it was never enough, but enough, a good night’s sleep would do her well and the longer rests let her regenerate a bit. Ribs weren’t supposed to heal in two days. Of course, breaking several ribs set her back, but it was worth it. She’d realized that the battleship didn’t really consider her a threat. At all. She heaped abuse and toyed with Taylor because she was bored and that was the leadership style here. And that lack? The lack of directed, intentional, personal malice? It helped.

Shi would and did do the same to everyone else beneath her. Taylor was just a new toy and popular for it, but it was slowing down. The idea that if only she stuck it out resonated with her. Shi kept her sheltered from other threats. Taylor did not want to get the attention of anything that called itself an Abyssal Princess. Everyone who spoke of the ruler of these waters walked on eggshells. Including Shi. Taylor wanted nothing to with that in her present state. It was rumored she liked to eat those that failed her. Their ruler was a cannibal. She needed to get out of here.

Which brought her back to the end of her rope. She could deal with most of it. It was the loss of control that really hurt. It was why she threw a fit. She was starving and Shi expected her to cook for the rest of them. The cooking was bizarre, mixing boiling oil, not cooking oil, but black viscous oil oil and chunks of metal and seasoning it with seafood. Taylor could watch the other cooks and learn from them. She did. But being forced to cook for others while not allowed to eat any herself drove her mad. Taylor couldn’t control herself. The first time she was let into the kitchen she lost it. Tried to eat… everything. It got her the beating.

Worse, Big Sis decided that since her cute little sister couldn’t help herself from slobbering all over the food, she should be muzzled. To help her, you see. It was her own fault that she couldn’t control herself. And that one? That hurt because it was true. Yes, she felt like she was starving, but a week of this had proven she was surviving. Not just surviving, but sustaining herself and slowly healing. She could cope with that. But she couldn’t control herself with real food around and the humiliation of walking around in a head-brace that kept her mouth firmly shut while following the Division all around the island, where everyone could see, was almost unbearable.

The Baths were unbearable and Shi had taken to chaining her to the side of hers to stop her from running away. The Enemy was a common refrain among the Abyss. Some terrible force out there beyond the horizon that the Abyss was fighting to the death. Part of Taylor was cynically certain that the enemy would turn out to be humanity or something equally stupid. This was an island of sea-monsters after all. Yet every time the Enemy was mentioned, an animal part of her instincts growled and something whispered caution. Something whispering Master and filling her with disgust and loathing for those animal instincts. Her mind was supposed to be her own, sacred.

What mattered here was that some girls came back from skating around the sea blown up, riddled with holes or just missing parts. If they’d performed well, they’d get to go to the baths, a communal room filled with frothing pools that boosted the regeneration of the Abyss. Up to and including regrown limbs. But one armed Taylor wasn’t allowed in. She was just a freighter, as everyone kept telling her. A lame one, as she couldn’t figure out the trick everyone was using to stand on water like it was solid or skate around it like it was a street. Not worth the cost of repairing her the fast way.

So Taylor had to stand there, muzzled and crippled a step away from healing baths, still naked by the way, because the moment she finished a primitive dress from woven reeds, stripped branches and seashells one of the girls from the Division just took it, of course. They didn’t care about being near nudists, but stuff was valuable, wasted on a freighter. In this state, she was to feed Honorable Older Sister Re-re with choice morsels she’d cooked herself. That? That was unbearable.

Deep, deep in her heart, the spark of cold fire grew, feeding on her rage and hate. Oh she’d learned. There were cracks and factions and discord galore in the Abyss. Things no one was keeping an eye on and enough arrogance, ambition and stupidity to sink the whole island. For every day she served, she listened and learned. Every day she didn’t have broken ribs, she recovered a bit, grew stronger. She would use it, everything she had learned. For she would get out of this, away from this hell, soon.

One day, some fucking glorious day, she’d come back and they would sink and drown and suffer for this.