Maxine ducks instinctively, hugging Notebook-chan close to her body. What's going on??? She wanted a peaceful world, not this! Her body feels awkward, not quite what she's used to - she looks down and sees the notebook - squashed against her breasts??? She's wearing a completely different outfit too - 

A squishy weight presses against the back of her neck. 

<Focus, Maxine! You're in the middle of a battle! You've got to awaken your powers!>

Maxine lets out a high yelp and then grabs the squishy thing on her neck, pulling it out in front of her.

It is an incredibly cute pink tentacle monster! It wiggles at her in a way that is somehow a smile.

<You have to use your secret heritage! It's not too late to make a difference! Those monsters are going to destroy the whole city if they win!>

It swirls around her waist and gives her a firm hug. <You can do this, Maxine!>

Maxine blinks and makes a "bwuh" noise.

A stray shot from one of the monsters misses one of the shipgirls and blasts apart the rocks on the shore fifteen meters away from Maxine. Chips of rock spray into the air, whizzing past her face and through her hair.

Maxine screams really really high and long! 

Then she looks down at the beach in front of her and sees a couple fragments of shrapnel that seem to have... deflected off her body???

She looks down at herself again, and sees a small scratch across her left arm where a piece of shrapnel skittered across her... metal plating and embedded itself into the tentacle creature in her arms? 

The tentacle creature squirms, and the shard of shrapnel falls out of it. 

<Don't worry about me, I'm amorphous! Listen! Listen as hard as you can! You've got to awaken your inner heart!>

Okay??????

She listens as hard as she can, still hugging the tentacle creature and her diary to her chest.

[Keep that screen up, Morrison! I need those zeroes out of my sky, and my fighters are chasing them in against you and Fletcher.]

[Roger, Lexi!]

[Let's see how that Nu likes my sixteens. Nola, handle the Is.]

[Evasive action! I'm under fire from the cruisers!]

Wait, she can hear them?

There's a distinct crackle-y undertone, like static - 

Wait, she can hear radio?

<Yes! You're doing it! Just like I said! Now go out there and kick some ass! You can't be touched, remember? Just do your best and I'll look out for you!> 

A sense of warmth and adoration and affection radiates from the bundle of tentacles in her arms. 

- Right, Battle Angel! She can still lose, but - she's guaranteed to survive. 

She has no idea what she's supposed to do but she's going to stash the diary in a bookbag and vanish it and then, uh - 

It seems ridiculous but she's going to run down the beach towards the water and splash into the shallows and, uh, is she going to have to swim? 

As she steps into the water, it turns out she winds up stepping on the water, and as soon as she has both feet wet, and more than an inch or two of water under her, she gains a sense of propulsion. Her feet contain screw-propellers? Somehow? She can just intend to go forward, and her body skates forward on the water. It's like wearing jet-skates, almost.

The more-numerous type of monster seem to be turning a hail of lighter gunfire toward the tall, silvery-haired girl. Something in Maxine seems to insist that that's a heavy cruiser? And the monsters attacking her are destroyers?

The tallest woman there, a battleship according to Maxine's new senses, pounds into what seems to be a carrier, which staggers but keeps sailing.

In that case she is going to... skate towards the... destroyers??? 

<Um, tenta-chan, can you help???>

<Just toss me in the water! There's a bad girl out there, and I'm good at grabbing bad girls!>

Somehow the telepathy comes across as if tenta-chan is waggling her eyebrows.

She drops Tenta-chan in the water and skates towards one of the destroyers. If she doesn't suddenly develop new powers she will just punch it she guesses???

Tenta-chan swarms forwards through the water almost as fast as Maxine, getting bigger and denser as she goes. 

Nola turns and sails around past the destroyers as best she can, bombarding them. They keep managing to dodge enough of her fire to stay afloat, though she does land several good hits. She winces at a strike from one of the cruisers, then briefly scowls at the sky as a pair of tiny planes strafe her.

Morrison won't let that stand. Several quick bursts of anti-air rounds punch through the sky, and the little planes plummet into the water.