Chapter 1: Armed, Ignorant, and Angry

Title: Dangerous Amateurs

Author's Note's:This is a story I've had ruminating for a while, so I figured I'd take a swing at turning it into something for people to enjoy. So let's see where this goes. Enjoy.

Mitchell

I was pretty much fucked. Fucked, up shit creek without a paddle. The bill for all the good luck I've experienced came due and it wasn't in the form of a totaled car or a broken bone. No I was probably going to die soon and it was all my goddamn fault.

To understand why I was going to die, one would have to replay the chain of events that had lead me to the precipice of death. It all started in the fall semester of my junior year at MIT. Now mind you I wasn't one of those really really smart kids, you know the kind that are able to do differential equations in their sleep or memorize every single chemical interaction in the Krebs cycle in 15 minutes, but I was damn good at computer science along with being decent in math, electronics and mechanical engineering. The important point of this information was that I was pretty well suited to my field, so combining that with a decent work ethic I was able to open up a lot of doors.

One of which was a study abroad opportunity unfortunately only two places had the right selection of classes, one was in London and the other in Tokyo. Now a fun fact about me, I love to ski, camp, and hike. I was raised in Colorado, so these were things I held near and dear to my heart. The difference between London and Tokyo is that it's much easier to get to ski mountains in Honshu or Hokkaido than it is to get from London to the Alps. That rather stupid reason was why I chose to go to Tokyo instead of London. The world changed about two weeks into my adventure abroad.

When the Abyssals rose out of the depths and began sweeping the seas clear, I was mildly concerned. When they swept aside the modern navies of the world with little effort, I was worried. When magical girls representing ships from WWII rose to defend humanity against the abyssal threat, I stopped caring. In retrospect this was a mistake, what I should have done was get my ass on a plane across the pacific back to the good ole' United States. Instead, I kept living life as I had planned, I went to classes, I took weekends to go skiing, and I ate lots of good food.

I wasn't being willfully ignorant, it's just that my life was already jam packed with other things for me to worry about like advanced mathematics or database design and optimization. To my small world, a war for control of the oceans didn't really matter, I was just fine with getting my degree and returning back to the Rockies. My parents worried, but I did the usual young adult shithead thing by completely ignoring their advice. I now wish I hadn't been so dismissive of their advice.

It was a normal Thursday. I had gone through my daily routine of classes, work, and socialization and now it was around 5:25ish. I was sitting in a coffee shop eating a breakfast sandwich, because if there one kind of comfort food that is always good is breakfast food. Anyway, the trouble began when my phone vibrated, now this alone wasn't a bad thing, it was the fact that everyone's phone began to either vibrate or chime the special tone that is reserved for emergency notices. Before I could open my phone all hell broke loose.

The world exploded into chaos. I found myself laying on the ground face first, my ears were ringing. The world seemed to slow down as I pushed myself up and looked around. The sight that greeted me was one of pure insanity. A good portion of the wall opposite to me had been blown in. Outside debris littered the streets as people fled. It was chaos. Grabbing my pack I dashed out of the building.

I wasn't ready for what I saw outside fire, destruction, and even a couple bodies that didn't seem to be moving. Black splotches raced across the sky, indistinct and strangely shaped. People seemed to be running away from the bay. I was about to the join the herd when something caught my eye, a bus had crashed into a building and was covered in debris, but a hand was sticking out of the debris and was waving. There must have been survivors there! Looking around I saw no one else even giving a glance to the crashed bus, either no one noticed or no one cared. They had no one to help them.

I wanted to run, I really did. No one would know or could blame me for running away, no one would ever know. I could run away and live. Nobody could blame me for running, except for me, big dumb me. I began to fight my way through the crowd.

As I navigated my way through the crowd one of the black splotches dove towards me, as it got closer I was finally able to identify it, it was one of the Abyssal fighter planes. I had seen a couple on the news, and now one was diving right towards me. As it got closer I could make out another thing about it, it had a large bomb nestled to it, a bomb that looked aimed right at my face. Before I could even begin to say my goodbyes, the fighter disintegrated into a cloud of debris as another aircraft shot by.

My savior was a plane that sported two red dots on the wing tips, it was a shipgirl plane! The aircraft waggled its wings and sped off back towards the bay, where splotches of black, white and green danced above the water. If I squinted I thought I could even make out figures on the water, but another explosion brought me back into reality.

It took me an unnervingly long time to get the crashed bus. The waving hand was still there, I climbed up the rubble pile and took it. It jolted at first, but then relaxed. I let go and the hand stay there. The bus itself was covered in concrete and rebar chunks of varying sizes, some basketball sized some the size of car doors. I wasn't able to lift the larger chunks, but I could easily throw the smaller items off to give me leverage to move the large chucks away from the place where the hand was sticking out. I worked furiously, and after a good 5-10 minutes of furious work I was able to drag away the last big piece of concrete that was covering the area around the arm.

Moving it away I looked down to see several faces all looking up at me. The bus itself had been covered in rubble but inside the frame had held and all the passengers seemed alive. There was a small pocket outside one of the buses windows that had formed and that was where the hand-waver had been. They began to speak to me in Japanese, but I hadn't learned that much in my time in the country. I did know one phrase.

"My Japanese is not good," I said to them as I reached my hand down. Some stopped speaking, others kept speaking, and one business man started to speak in english.

"There is a boy with a broken leg, and several elderly," he said.

"Let me get out some of the stronger folks, and then you can help bring them up to me," I replied back as I helped a teenager climb out of the hole. The passengers of the bus evacuated quickly with my help, and the businessman helped me lift several elderly out and then a young child whose leg seemed to bent at an odd angle. He was sniffling but I was able to get him out of the hole and hoist him onto my back. The businessman was the last to climb out of the hole and onto the rubble pile.

"Where should we go?!" He asked me.

"I saw a bunch of people running that way," I pointed down the road. "All I know is that we need to get away from that!" I pointed towards the bay, where the raging battle had crept closer to shore.

"Good idea," he responded before saying something in Japanese to the group of people the had been fished out of the bus. The group affirmed before they began to make their way inland with all due haste. I followed them. I was panting and wheezing as I struggled to carry the kid on my back and keep running with the group. I had drained myself rescuing them, but if I focused on putting on foot in front of the other, I could make it. At least I thought so.

I had been making good progress hobbling forward with my cargo, so much progress that I began to think about what I would need to do in the future to be safe and I failed to notice a piece of rubble. This piece of rubble tripped me up and sent my sprawling to the ground, I heard my passenger let out a cry of pain. The rest of the group had already disappeared from my vision but the businessman had been looking back at me and when he saw me fall he began to step towards me, but then his face twisted into a mask of absolute terror and he stumbled back. Twisting around, I saw another one of those fighter flying towards me, bomb glinting in the sun.

For a moment I thought the aircraft would explode like its fellow had before, but this one was luckier. It dodged the fire of a fighter that tried to intercept it, then released the bomb from its belly. It only took me a moment to realize that the bombs path was straight for me, I was fucked.

I watched the bomb hang in the air as it fell towards earth. I thought my life would flash before my eyes, but apparently that was just another lie Hollywood told the public. Now the chain of events in my inauspicious death were complete all that was left was for me and the poor kid was the bomb to fall and turn me into a nice piece of modern art. Time seemed to have slowed as I waited death, each heart beat taking an eternity.

Things became strange when this slowed time continued to slow to a point where it seemed like time wasn't moving at all. When my vision began to close in I guessed it was my body finally giving into shock, I accepted my death. I had lived a decent enough life and even managed to save a couple people, I was happy. My vision went black.

I was annoyed when I woke up to find myself not dead, but sitting in a chair. In front of me stood a woman with curly brown hair and the deepest blue eyes I had ever seen on a person. She gave me a smile.

"Welcome stranger," she said in a voice to melodic and nice that it almost calmed me to my core, almost.

"Am I fucking dead yet?" I asked a tinge of annoyance leaking into my voice. She surprised me when instead of looking offended by my rudeness, she started to laugh. She laughed so hard she fell out of her chair howling in laughter. I wanted to be angry, but I was only confused. It took her several minutes to get her laughing under control, but eventually she composed herself and got back into her chair.

"No, your not dead," she said in between light chuckles. This confused me, because I distinctly remembered that I was about to be turned into a red mist. Seeing my confusion she continued.

"In fact, you are very much still alive, you are still staring dumbly at a bomb that is about to kill you, but right now you are not dead," she said.

"So what is this then?" I cut in before she could elaborate.

"I have an offer for you, if you take it you won't die," she stated flatly. I was stunned for a second, but the gears in my head began to turn and several things became apparent.

"What's the catch?" I asked immediately.

"Well to be frank I want you to become a fleet girl," she said. That I did not expect, I kind of expect giving first born child or maybe an eternal life of servitude for evil, but becoming a fleet girl? That didn't make any goddamn sense.

"What?" I croaked.

"In short, while nations such as Japan, Germany, or even Italy have managed to summon fleet girls, nations like the US have not. The reasons behind this are complicated, but it can be simplified to the fact that the method that works for Japan and others doesn't work that well with some navies such as the American navy. However, I have found a workaround to the problem. Instead of summoning an independent soul and body whole cloth, you can instead give a spirit to a person so that person may become the spirit of the ship. Basically, I want to give a person the ability, traits, and memories of a ship, but instead of summoning an independent body to embody those aspects, I will instead give them out as a sort of tool or weapon." I must have still be looking a little confused to her explanation so she added.

"To use a more modern metaphor the difference is that one is building a robot and giving a person an exosuit, one is a independent entity and the other is a tool to be used by the original human occupant." That made perfect sense. I nodded.

"So basically, you'd give me the ability of a fleet girl, but I'd still be me?" I asked. She clapped her hands.

"Yes! That's it exactly! You'll also gain my soul and memories," she said. That one bit worried me.

"Wait back up, when you mean soul and memories do you mean like as a dual occupant or more like overwriting my original soul and memories?" I asked.

"No no you won't be overwritten, and it wouldn't be like an independent person is also living in your body. Instead imagine it as being both me and you at the same time, but it's you. So in essence I will be with you, but you Mitchell Wainwright will still be you," She said.

"So basically, you want me to become a fleet girl and start fighting?" I asked.

"Yep."

"Wait, if I accept this and become a fleet girl does this mean I'll become a girl?" I asked worriedly. She laughed again.

"No, you won't have to worry about any drastic changes, there might be some small changes like you growing a bit so you can better channel the essence, but besides those you'll mostly remain the way you are," she replied.

"So, in short you want me to become a ship and start fighting," I said to clarify.

"I can't force you to fight, but from what I've seen motivating you won't be an issue," she said with a smile. Her smile did falter for a second and she added.

"I'm running out of time to explain things Mitchell, I'm going to need an answer now." she urged her eyes staring me down.

On the one hand I didn't want to die, but on the other fighting some magical aliens from the oceans didn't seem like a good use of my life. But, I also wouldn't have a life to complain about if I didn't accept. So that made the answer obvious.

"I accept," I spoke.

"I'm glad my choice of you was not misplaced. Now it is time to go. Good luck," she said as my vision began to blur again.

"What! Who are you and what's your name," I asked as I felt myself begin to go woozy. She smiled at the question.

"Nice of you to ask, my name is USS Midway CV-41. Oh, I also left you a little extra item that should help you along. Good luck Mitchell." My vision closed in again.

When I came to I was back in the street. The bomb hanging above me like an executioner's blade, just waiting to come down and put me out of my misery. The glacial pace of time began to speed up again, as I reacted by instinct. Raising my hand I pointed to the bomb, I wanted it gone. My body obliging me, the bomb exploded in midair. Looking down I saw myself covered in a golden light. This didn't worry me, I was Mitchell Wainwright, but I was also USS Midway. 45 years of memories flooded my head appearing as a jumbled mess, but I understood the meaning of them.

In my right hand was an M16, although where the sights should have been was a long flight deck, under the barrel of the rifle was a grenade launcher. Cover my waist and the edges of the flight deck were copious amounts of AA guns ranging from 5 inchers to 20mms. My belt also had loops for magazines and a pouch for the grenades. I was a goddamn badass. Looking around I saw the mouth of the boy and the businessman hanging open as the golden glow faded from me. I gave them a smile.

"Lets go kick some ass," I said before I turned to sprint towards the ocean. The pavement cracked around boots that looked remarkably like ski boots, but with little rudders parallel to the tendon, much like a sea kayaks rudder. It was a strange feeling, but I felt like both a person and a goddamn aircraft carrier. I eventually reached the seawall, hoping over the fence and dropping into the surf below. As my boots met the water I felt them bite into the water and begin to propel me forward. It was an odd feeling, and my human instincts were screaming at me that this was all wrong. Needless to say I was unstable at first, but I got the hang of it by pretending I was ice skating. I started to tear up the water.

As I sped towards the battle, I began to get a better look at what was going on, and it wasn't good. At the front, destroyers and light cruisers dueled their abyssal counterparts at knife length, battleships and heavy cruisers were slugging it out with their counterparts, and our carriers were getting hammered by abyssal air attacks. The carriers had little cover as what fighters they had were swamped by a deluge of bombers, the escorts of the carriers were trying their best to stem the tide, but it just wasn't enough. They needed help, and my dumbass was the cavalry

Raising my rifle I hammered off a burst that shot 60 fighters of some kind into the air. Order seemed not to be in their playbook as their formation devolved from well ordered into a blob of steel, nevertheless they sped off to aid the besieged carriers.

Loading another clip of fighters into the rifle I wondered why I had such a weird plane loadout. I didn't know shit about military planes, but something in me told me this was not the ideal composition. In theory I should be able to carry 137 aircraft although I never did, but right now I had a massive air wing of 120 fighters, and 4 bombers. This was a stupid loadout, but for some reason Midway had decided to give me this to start off with so I wasn't going to worry too much about it, unless it got my ass killed.

As my fighters closed on the carrier's, I got a better look at the carriers. It wasn't good. At least two were completely inoperable of either launching planes or landing aircraft, another two were heavily damaged and trying to stay alive, and the last 3 were dodging and weaving to avoid enemy attacks. Inbound was another strike group of abyssal aircraft that numbered at least 80 strong. In defense of the carriers was a measly 25 fighters and a couple destroyers. If that strike got through, then the carriers were as good as toast. It was going to come down to who ever got to the carriers first, the strike group or my fighters.

Fortunately, my fighters won the foot race. The mass of my fighters smashed into the mass of abyssal aircraft, splitting their attack formation up into vulnerable items that the defending aircraft of the other carriers pounced on. My fighters were sloppy in their fighting skills, but what they lacked in skill or quality they made up in quantity. The abyssal coup de grace had been foiled. This gave the defenders time to shoot down most of the enemy and evade the attacks of those that remained. After all the stragglers were mopped up, my fighters proceeded to orbit the friendly carriers and swat any incoming attacks. A side benefit was that my distraction had given me time to close the distance and join the group of carriers.

"Halt! Who are you!" A destroyed yelled at me, pointing her main gun straight at my chest. The carriers and their escorts turned to face me, the escorts moving up through the formation to point their weapons at me. It was kind of unnerving.

"Whoa Whoa!" I put my hands up in gesture that I hope showed I didn't mean any harm.

"I'm the guy whose aircraft just saved your asses. USS Midway CV-41 at your service," I answered giving a little theatrical bow. From the reaction I got, it seemed like most of them didn't believe me.

"Don't come closer! How do I know your not an abyssal!" One of the destroyer yelled aiming her torpedos at me. That really scared me, it scared a deep down part of me that I didn't know existed until that very moment.

"Okay slow down here first off If I was an abyssal why would my air group have saved you, secondly I do-," I stopped talking as I felt the tingle in my head return, this time to the rear of me. I snapped my head back to see a wave of black approaching me, at least 100 aircraft were bearing down on my position.

"Fuck me! Incoming!" I yelled. Putting my left hand in my mouth I let out a shrill whistle and pointed towards the black mass. I accelerated to full speed and went hard to port, but my yelling and movements must have spooked a destroyer cause a salvo of torpedos passed right behind me as I finished my turn.

"Goddamnit! Don't shoot at me shoot at them!" I pointed to the mass of aircraft bearing down on me. Doing some quick mental math, I realized my fighters would get over me, but with not a lot of time to help defend me. That meant I'd have to mostly rely on my AA. Fortunately for me, the Midway class had plenty of it. Sixteen 5 inch guns all trained their barrels skyward. They opened up in sync, and the effects on the incoming aircraft were devastating. At least 5 aircraft exploded in the first volley, and more kept dropping as my guns kept firing. The formation began to split up making my 5 inches less potent, but soon the enemy was in range of all the 40mm Bofors which began to open up. More enemy aircraft started to be splashed, but it wasn't enough to stem the tide of aircraft that poured down on me. I was starting to get a little worried, if even a dozen enemy aircraft made it through, they would be able to work me over badly. My fighters were still closing, but they wouldn't make it in time to stem the first wave. For the second time that day, I came to conclusion I was going to die.

That was until the flak of the destroyers tore into the abyssal aircraft. Then the white and green aircraft of the carriers sped into my flak and began to cut down the stragglers, these measure bought my fighters enough time to join the fray and by then it was over for the abyssals. It only took a small amount of time for all the aggressors to be driven off or shot down. I was not going to die today. One of the carriers came up to me and held out her hand.

"It's nice to have you on our side Midway-san, I'm Akagi." The name Akagi triggered several memories that finally clicked into place. Akagi was the carrier that was sunk at the Battle of Midway, and was one of the more famous carrier ship girls.

"Nice to meet ya Akagi," I took her hand and shook it. "So what can I do to help?" I asked as my eyes swept the field.

"Our main target has been a super dreadnought and a carrier princess over there. But we've been forced on the defensive, and don't have any weapons to handle her. Hiryu, Soryu, Shokaku, and Kaga have been badly hit on their flight decks, leaving Zuikaku, Taihou, and I to fight the remaining aircraft. We must strike the enemy before they can launch another strike," She said calmly.

"I think I can help with that." I say as I load a new clip of aircraft. I launched another group of 60 fighters, as my old group of fighters began to start landing on the flight deck. However, fighters weren't going to win this battle, we needed to take out their carriers. That's when I reached into my pouch where my grenades were placed. Pulling out one, I saw a symbol that sent a chill up my spine. It was a black and yellow circle with a symbol in the middle. I loaded the grenade into the launcher and fired. A single twin engine aircraft came out, in its bomb bay rested a very special payload a Mark 15 nuclear bomb.

"I'm going to attack the enemy carrier with what bombers I have. My fighters will cover whatever bombers you guys have left," I said. Aircraft from Akagi, Zuikaku, and Taihou all formed up with my aircraft. The 121 strong force formed into a spear that drove towards the Abyssal carrier princess. Of course she wasn't going to take this lying down so she launched as many interceptors as should could to try and blunt the spear that was driving towards her. Almost 100 fighters rose to face our force. The fighter escorts we provided did their best, but they were overwhelmed by the sheer amount of aircraft trying to destroy their charges. This combined with flak from the enemy fleet began to take its toll on our formation. Our bombers began to fall out of the sky with worrying speed.

When our force was in sight of the enemy carrier, we had only a meager 6 bombers and 25 fighters left in the formation, the rest were either fighting for their lives with abyssal fighters or were in the sea. However, the important twin engine bomber still was aloft, it looked like we had a chance to actually do some damage.

These hopes were snuffed out when a group of 20 abyssal fighters came out of a cloud bank and pounced on the remaining aircraft 4 bombers went spiraling down in flames. It was now or never for my bomber. It opened the throttled and engaged its trump card, an inlaid turbojet engine. The bomber jumped forward as its speed rose above that its fellow aircraft as it sped towards the target zone. This extra boost of speed saved the bomber as the last allied aircraft was blown out of the sky by flak. Abyssal fighters tried to catch up to the twin engine bomber, but in a footrace its turbojet engine gave it the edge it needed to leave its pursuers in the dust.

The bomb bay doors of the aircraft opened revealing a single massive bomb as it payload. For a moment, time seemed to slow to a crawl. A single aircraft delivering a weapon that had the course to change the tide of a war. The bomb fell out of the bay and the bomber dove and sped away at max thrust. As the bomb fell a thought came to my mind, at first two nuclear weapons had brought this nation to its knees, and now one was going to rescue it from oblivion, how ironic.

I think mankind had mostly forgotten the power of the atom. In that moment, I think we were all reminded why splitting the atom was such an epoch shift for humanity. The mushroom cloud billowing over the water was an image that was burned into my mind. I'm told that the nuclear blast obliterated both the princess and several battleships around her, with their heavy hitters neutralized their destroyers and cruisers were easy pickings for the rest of our fleet. What had seemed like certain defeat for humanity had turned into a decisive victory. I did my part valiantly by passing out after landing whatever of my aircraft had survived the melee. Ironically, the destroyers who had almost killed me with their torpedoes were the ones who kept me from drowning and carried me back to the naval base. I knew none of this at the time as I was locked back into my head.

"Sooooo," I trailed off as I sat in a chair across from the woman who was now in apparently in me or in my soul or something to that effect.

"Good job on the nuclear strike, you managed to really make quite an entrance, and probably violate the several treaties banning using nuclear weapons, the UN won't be happy hearing that," she said said with a smirk.

"Yeah great, I hope I don't get a strongly worded letter in the mail. Anyway, there's a lot of details you haven't filled me in on that are now important since it seems like I'm not going to die today," I shot back.

"Oh relax, we'll have plenty of time to hammer everything out. For now why not relax? You've just managed to save Tokyo and not die in the process. I'd say this a time for celebration," she replied.

"Look, I get you wanna play this whole aloof thing up to the max, but I just detonated a nuclear weapon. I feel like I should be a little more concerned about the hammer that's going to drop down on me when I wake up," I sniped back.

"And I'm saying you shouldn't worry that much, look you just saved everyone back there. You are a hero, and also an asset for humanity. You need to realize that you are probably the most valuable person in the defense of humanity at this point. So chill the fuck out, you need to be on your game soon to deal with the all the questions that are going to be thrown your way. So I'm gonna give you the answers you need to be able explain why a 20 year old college kid became the best beacon for humanity's survival. So shut up and listen."

"When did you become so flippant?" I asked.

"When I merged with you, dipshit. Now I'm a reflection of you." She shot back.

"Wait does that mean I'm just talking to myself?"

"In a sense yes, but now just shut up and listen. This is going to be important." Midway said to me, before she launched into a speech.

In summarization, I was a ship's spirit incarnate, but instead of being just a ship I was also a human at the same time. The reason this happened was because it was easier for some ships to join with an already living human rather than to be summoned whole cloth. This was due to the fact that the national character of some armed forces was different, the American one was heavily understood to be a citizen army. Thus, it was easier for these tools of battles to put themselves in the hands of ordinary citizens who were willing to fight, rather than rise out of the aether and be entities on their own. The path for finding this had been hidden until Midway found it, thus we could expect many more American ships to start appearing paired with regular citizens. She also hypothesized that we would start seeing more ships from other countries, since they now also had access to the new pathway. As long as there was a pool of willing people to fight, there would be new ships arising, the war had expanded from being a fight between humanities champions and the Abyssals to a full out conflict where humanity would play a pivotal role in combating the threat.

"This is going to be a massive pain in ass isn't it?" I asked her as she wrapped up her talk.

"Oh yeah, but it's either this or destruction. So what choice do we have?" She responded with a sad smile. I felt myself grow faint and the world went black again.

I jerked awake, and then slammed the top of my head into something hard and flat. I fell backwards clutching my head as it throbbed in pain. I managed to chain together quite the creative string of curses as I clutched my head. As the pain faded, I was able to glance around and notice the soldier sitting in the corner watching me and trying not to laugh. He saw me looking at him and he placed the book he was reading on a table nearby.

"Glad to see you awake. Can I get you a glass of water?" He asked. I noticed my throat was dry and I was able to nod a yes. He brought over a paper cup full of water and handed it to me. I snatched it and drank it greedily as it cool water soothed my throat. After I finished drinking I gave him back the cup

"Where the hell am I?" I asked.

"You are at Yokosuka Naval District, you were brought in after you passed out, do you remember what happened before that?" He asked.

"Yeah, I turned into a carrier and nuked some fuckers, or was that some kind of fever dream?" I replied. The soldier chuckled at my response.

"No, that is what happened. Let me say, you caused quite the ruckus, but don't worry about the right now. I have orders to bring you to the Admiral, so we can give you an orientation," he said. It was at this point I realized there was a problem, I couldn't feel my legs.

"Hey, uhh problem here. I can't feel my legs. Like at all," I stated.

This apparently was not what that soldier wanted to hear cause he went white and dashed from the room, a couple moments later a couple more soldiers were led into the room by a girl with pink hair who pushed along a wheelchair.

They interrogated me about my legs which I repeated I said I couldn't feel them at all. At this point the pink girl gave me a look over before saying I needed to be put into the docks. I was loaded into the wheelchair and then we were off to wherever the docks were. The pink hair girl started order the soldiers around to go talk to the Admiral. She introduced herself as Akashi, she said they had a plan to fix my legs, but it was going to hurt.

For my part in the matter I was calmly panicking and repeatedly asking if this was temporary and if I could "Please get my fucking legs working!" I'd say I was very composed during the whole affair. Eventually, I was brought into a building that look suspiciously like baths.

Akashi yelled that we were coming in before she burst into a room that was definitely a bath. In later examination, I should have noticed the multiple nude women in the room, but at that point I was in pure panic mode. She lead my wheelchair over to one tub and without ceremony tipped me into the pool of water face first. I fell into the pool and for a second I panicked that I wasn't able to breathe before hands grasped my shoulders and flipped me around before lifting my head above water. She stared at my face intently.

"Do you feel anything?" She asked with an intensity that kinda scared me.

"No, I don't think s-" I stopped speaking as I felt a tingly feel spread across my entire body. The tingling turned into a full blown numbness as my body went numb. I honestly can't say what I was thinking or doing during that time, due to the power of the experience. When the numbness began to fade, I felt different. I felt too big, and too lanky. Using what motor control I had at that point I was able to pull myself out of the pool and onto the tiled floor. My legs and feet were tingling, and were painful to wiggle, but I definitely felt them. I spent several moments on the ground panting before I was able to focus on the fact that my clothes were suddenly very constricting and tight, looking up I saw my feet, but everything seemed out of proportion and way too big.

"Well I'll be damned, looks like he grew at least half a foot," Akashi said.

"What the fuck was that?" I wheezed out. Akashi shrugged.

"If I had to make a guess, and I am guessing, because you are the first of your kind. But, your body might have been unsuited to containing the power, so it had to adapt," she said. That jogged my memory to what Midway had said about some small changes happening. I'd have to ask her if she was blind, because this was no small change.

"Let's get you out of here," Akashi said as I continued to lay panting on the ground. She and a soldier helped picked up me into a wheelchair that was now definitely too small for me and wheeled me out of the baths. I was brought back to my room where I was passed a change of clothes and a towel, I'd hate to say I had trouble changing, but my new longer limbs made all my movements imprecise and awkward. After having dried off I tried to walk, but my new legs buckled under me. I was secretly thankful when Akashi brought back the wheelchair. I was brought to a room that had three people in it conversing, who turned towards me when we entered.

"Here he is admiral and in mostly okay condition," Akashi said as she wheeled me into the center of the room.

"Thanks for your good work Akashi," one of the men said.

"Anytime admiral," she said as she left the room, closing the door behind her. Leaving me alone in the room with the three strangers. They looked at me, I looked at them. Two were clearly American, and the other Japanese.

"Soooooo? Is this where I'll get to sign away the rights to my story for a big fat movie deal?" I joked, hoping to break the awkward silence that had fallen over the room. The sitting american chuckled at my joke.

"No, this isn't for your movie deal. I'm Admiral Goto, I am the commander of all shipgirls in Japan," The Japanese man introduced himself.

"I'm Admiral Blackshear, I'm in command of the United States Navy program to summon shipgirls. This is," he pointed to the younger looking man to his side. "Captain Faulkner, he is the Navy liaison who has been working with Admiral Goto to help learn how to best use shipgirls." The captain nodded towards me.

"And how would you like to be referred to as?" Admiral Goto asked.

"Mitch works just fine for me," I answered.

"Interesting, so do you think of yourself as USS Midway first or Mitchell Wainwright?" Captain Faulkner asked.

"Well, when I was fighting I was thinking of myself as Midway, but now that I'm not in that form I guess I'm Mike. I'm not sure I have enough of a sample to say that I'll only have my human memories when I'm human and ship memories when I'm in the ship form" I answered truthfully. They seemed to nod at this answer.

"So how and why did you become a shipgirl?" Admiral Blackshear asked.

"First off, I'm definitely a man so the term shipgirl is a bit inaccurate. Secondly, it's a long story," I replied.

"We have time"

It took nearly two hours to explain everything that I knew about my transformation to the officers. They listened with laser focus and asked lots of questions, which I tried my best to answer in full. It was exhausting.

"So to conclude, it happened to you because you were willing to fight, and you were in the right place at the right time," Captain Faulkner reiterated.

"Yep," I said matter of factly.

"So we can also expect for more ships to appear, since Midway found the workaround to get summoned?" Admiral Blackshear asked.

"Probably, I can't give a 100% guarantee based on my conversations with Midway, but the current evidence would point to this outcome," I answered. The officers stewed on this information for a bit before Admiral Goto spoke again.

"Let's hope that the evidence is right, but now we must discuss your fate."

"My fate?" I asked confused.

"What will you be doing now?" Goto followed up.

"I'm going to fight, obviously. I mean it's not like I can go back to being a regular person anyway. So I might as well use what abilities I have to save as many lives as possible and end this thing quickly so I can go home. Plus, I doubt you guys would have given me much of a choice in the matter anyway," I said. The last comment causing them to wince a bit.

"It's good to hear that, we can hammer out the details of that another time. For now, I'm guessing you must be exhausted so you can go rest now, tomorrow we can get down to business. Is there anything we can do to help you get settled in?" Admiral Goto asked.

"Yeah, a couple things actually. I'm probably going to need to see a doctor considering the fact, I'm pretty sure I grew a couple inches an hour ago. Also I'm going to need some transport and help to go back to my apartment to get my stuff," I answered.

"That can be arranged along with a stipend for you to go get some new clothes if you've grown out of your old ones," Admiral Blackshear said.

"That would also be helpful."

"Mr. Wainwright, is it okay if I take you to the on base doctor or would you prefer one in Tokyo," Captain Faulkner asked as he stood up.

"I'm fine with a on base doctor, I'm pretty sure all the ones in the city are dealing with the injured from yesterday," I said. Captain Faulkner came around the large table and taking hold of my wheelchairs handles, wheeled me out of the office and started me off to what I assumed what the doctor's office. He silent for most of the journey, but once we were outside he spoke.

"You managed to impress both the admirals in there Mr. Wainwright," Faulkner said as he pushed me around.

"Call me Mitch please, I don't like formality all that much. Also how did I impress them, I just said what I thought?" I asked.

"You were articulate, you gave out what information you had, you didn't speculate beyond what the facts would indicate, and the fact is that you seem to be handling the situation with a steady hand and calm head. That's a way above the expectations for anyone else in your position," Faulkner answered.

"I'm no average joe, I'm used to stress and high expectations. I'm just doing what anyone else who had my circumstances would be doing," I replied.

"Even so, you're handling this quite well. If you can stay like this, you might even have a chance of seeing this war through till the end. I think we all can hope for that," Faulkner trailed off.

"That I can agree with," I said as Faulkner wheeled me inside a building.

After a very long and intensive set of almost every medical test imaginable, I learned several things. First off, I had grown from a respectable 5'9 to a gargantuan 6'6. Second off, that growth spurt hadn't only been limited to my height, almost everything about me had gotten bigger, so that would not only mean new pants, but new shirts, shoes, socks, and about every other article of clothing imaginable. Third, I was going to need to start taking supplements for about every single vitamin, mineral, and element that the human body required. It seems my growth spurt had mostly fed on my reserves of those item, and now the stockpiles of them were dangerously low in my body. Finally, I was going to have to start working out. My muscle mass hadn't grown in proportion with the rest of my body and now I was weak in several areas. Overall, this whole growth spurt was turning into a major pain in the ass. On the positive side, I felt good enough to start walking again, although the doc's demanded I use a cane for at least a week so that my body could adapt to its new size.

Cane in hand, I was able to walk out of the doctors office under my own power. Finding Faulkner, I got him and a couple marines to get in a van and head off to my apartment so I could get my stuff. Fortunately, my apartment wasn't in the city core, so it was easy to get to and it hadn't been damaged during the attack.

I hadn't brought much to Japan, so our packing load was light. The highlights of my items were, a set of skis and boots that were probably too small for me now, a desktop and a laptop, my travel documents and some speakers. With what remained of my old life packed up, we departed. Faulkner assured me he'd take care of all the things that would need to be done for me to be able to change my occupation from student to human embodiment of a fighting ship without getting a bill for tuition or an apartment that I was no longer residing in. It was at this point that my stomach rumbled, alerting me to the fact that I was starving. Faulkner even allowed us to stop by a fast food place for a snack. Maybe, he had orders to allow me to get some luxuries my first day so I wouldn't sour on the idea of becoming a human weapon, that or maybe he also wanted some greasy junk food.

Whatever his motive, I enjoyed the meal all the same, and by meal I mean an artery clogging five double cheeseburgers, matched with a large soda. Faulkner and the marines watched me with amazement and confusion as I inhaled my food at a record breaking pace. They had restricted themselves to a much more modest selection of culinary items. Our snack finished, we returned to the base.

By this time, the sun was almost fully under the horizon. Faulkner and the marines helped move my stuff into the room I had woken up in. After taking the new supplements that had been prescribed to me, I climbed into a sleeping cubby and passed out as soon as my head hit the pillow.