Exodus: Fire and Iron

Prologue: Girls on Arrival


Monday, December 7th 2018

City of Cagayan de Oro, Region 10 of Misamis Oriental, Phillipines

"Here's your fare, have a nice day!" the young boy says at the jeepney's driver as he hands him the fare for his trip, then turns around to face the gates of his subdivision district. As the jeepney goes away, the young boy, a teen around his 16th year of life, reajusts the slingbag's strap so that it won't be digging in his right shoulder, then opens the bag, producing from it a white Samsung Galaxy tab. Putting the password to unlock it, he presses the Google Chrome icon, which opens the app and loads the open tab he had left from previously. Opening the gates of his subdivision district, the boy slowly makes his way towards his home, reading the article on the opened tab.

"Oh, that's new," the boy mutters as he spots a link in the article he's reading, titled Uralmash-1 (SU-101). Pressing the highlighted words, a new tab with a Wikipedia article opens. "Hehe, I always liked how crafty the Russians were with their tanks during the war," he says as he keeps reading the article about the Soviet tank destroyer.

"Woah, it's armor was better than the IS-2?" he says in surprise, reading the part of the article detailing the tank's armor's performance.

Ping

As the tablet produces a pinging noise, a Messenger icon pops in the screen, with the message briefly appearing with white letters in a blue font, before receding inside the circular icon, which is the profile picture of someone.

Hey Vin, what's up?

Tapping the icon and opening the messenger discussion, Vin types his answer, then goes back to reading the article.

Fine, just came back home from school. You? he responds back, but as he keeps walking and reading his article, he notices the sky starting to darken.

Huh... That's weird. The weatherman said we'd have sunshine for the next few days, yet it seems like it's going to rain...

Paying it no mind, Vin leisurely watches his table's screen, and after a few minutes, he finally arrives in front of his home.

Opening its gate, a dog starts barking happily and Vin puts away his tablet in his bag for a moment.

"Hey boy, how have you been? Did you miss me?" he says at his dog, patting his head a few times.

"Woof-Woof!" the dog barks, its tail wiggling left and right continuously from its happiness. Having patted his dog's head enough, Vin goes in front of his home's door and tries to open it, before realizing it's locked.

A pinging sound is heard from inside the bag, probably the tablet, but he ignores it for now.

"Why is the door locked?" the boy wonders aloud, before remembering the reason. "Ah, that's right, I'm supposed to be alone for the rest of the afternoon. Why is my luck always so bad..." he sighs, then moves in front of the window besides the locked door. Taking a deep breath, he starts pushing the window, forcibly sliding it open. Putting his hand through the opening, he reaches for the door's lock and opens it. Entering inside, he unceremoniously puts down his backpack that's full with books for his school classes on a wooden sofa that's besides the door and makes his way towards the living room. Ascending the stairs that lead to it, he enters and unslings his slingbang, putting it on top of the comfy, brown sofa the room has, then goes towards his room to change clothes.

Reaching his room, Vin removes his school uniform, consisting of a white polo shirt and dark blue dress pants, and then throws them inside a hamper that settles next to his room's door. Changing to his casual clothes, a white, plain T-shirt and a pair of black and red jersey shorts, he makes his way back to the living room, lying down on the sofa and grabbing his tablet. Pressing on Messenger's discussion icon, he reads the unread message and then replies.

Sorry for the late reply, was chatting with a friend from university.

No worries. Anyway, how have you been?

Pressing the send button, he taps the discussion icon to close it, then opens a gaming app named "Azur Lane" and starts playing. After around half to an hour later, Vin pauses the game to satisfy his sudden craving for a few snacks and drink some water. Looking outside of the window momentarily, Vin notices that the sky has gone completely dark, green lightning swirling around a certain point in the distance.

"That looks ominous..." he comments, getting up from the sofa and making his way downstairs, towards the kitchen. Turning left to the stairs and entering the kitchen, Vin notices the fridge shaking a lot.

Crap, don't tell me something broke inside, he curses in his mind and approaches the possibly malfactioning device. But as he approaches the fridge, the edges of his vision start getting blurry, like he is trying to see under water. Weirded out by it, Vin tries to stop to check himself, but finds his body unresponsive to his commands, wobbly walking towards the fridge.

The heck... Why isn't my body responding!?

Slowly panicking, Vin tries to force himself out of this weird... situation, but his body refuses to respond. With each step, Vin's vision grows more and more blurry, until it's like he is looking through swamp water.

Stopping in front of the fridge, Vin slowly raises a shaky hand and grabs the handle of the fridge's door, getting ready to open it.

Come on body, move! Don't open the fridge door! he screams loudly in his mind, but it seems to have no effect whatsoever.

Click

Opening the fridge door, instead of finding food and stuff normally a fridge would contain, he finds an endless space of swirling colors, slowly rotating from left to right.

"What the hell is that!?"

Regaining control of his body thanks to the shock, Vin tries to close the fridge door as fast as he can, but air starts rushing inside the endless space, like a vortex of some sorts is trying to suck everything in the kitchen inside it.

"No, no, no, no, no!" Getting sucked inside, Vin manages to grab the edge of the fridge, trying his best to hold on.

Clang, Clang, clang

Hearing a clanging noise coming from the entrance of the kitchen, Vin sees a white tablet coming straight at him.

"Oh, you've got to be kid-!"

Before he can finish his sentence, the tablet crashes square in his face, knocking him out dead cold. As he gets sucked inside the fridge, its door closes violently, and then it stops shaking, as everything returns to normal.


At the same day, Petersburg, Virginia

"Hmm, that should be all."

Inside an apartment on the third floor in downtown Petersburg, a man is looking inside a backpack he has made with a thoughtful expression.

"But lets check just to be sure. We have my wallet, my cell phone, a notebook and a pencil case, some other miscellaneous stuff I might need, and of course, my trusty Bible. Our Lord's wisdom can be handy sometimes, and a very valuable companion," he says with a smile, then closes the backpack and goes toward the kitchen.

"Hmm, I guess I'll go to the local farm today after I've returned from work. Though I'll need to ask my friend if he'll be able to lend me his car, since mine is still in service; maybe I should start looking into buying a new one, with how many problems it has been having as of lately."

Entering the kitchen, the man stops in front of the coffee machine, grabbing the coffee pot and filling a mug with the brown liquid that dwells within it. Taking the mug with the steaming coffee back to the living room, he sets it on the small coffee table, then sits on the big sofa that is placed behind it.

"Let's see..." Grabbing the laptop that lies next to him on the sofa, he sets it on his legs and opens its screen, then starts it up. Opening Google Chrome, the man types FanFiction's URL on the search bar and presses enter, and so the page refreshes. Pressing the login option that settles in the upper right corner of the page, he enters his email and password, then presses the login button. After the page refreshes, the login button is nowhere to be found, instead the word "SeekerMeeker" in an orange font and underlined has replaced it. Pressing it, the page refreshes to his account's main page, with various clickable tabs at the left side. Pressing the one that says "Private Messaging (1)", the tab opens to reveal two options, Inbox and Outbox. Pressing the first one, the page changes to his PM inbox. From the several incoming private messages he has, only the top most stands out at the moment, its title being in a deep blue color, the sender's name right underneath it.

aGuestfromGreece45... What a weird username for someone to have, he thinks momentarily, then clicks at the message's title to open the message thread.

Good morning! the message says, and the man types his answer.

Good morning.

Sending his answer and getting back at the Inbox, the man grabs his mug and sips some coffee. Looking outside the living room's window, the man looks on the horizon, the sun already rising, its light pushing back the darkness of night.

Today's sleep was good, but I want to try to wake up earlier.

Looking down at the visible part of the street, he can see the small mounds of snow at its sides, the road having been cleared by a snow plow during the night.

It sure did snow a lot yesterday...and the road looks kinda slippery despite having been cleared... Maybe I shouldn't go out for biking today.

Looking back at his laptop and refreshing the page, the message thread that he had previously answered to is being blue once again. "Oh, he answered quickly. Makes you wonder if he's ever out from the internet," he wonders aloud and opens the message thread.

How have you been?

I feel refreshed. I slept more today. Sigh. You know, with all the GuP stories I've been writing lately, I've been wondering, how would it feel to practice Senshadou?

Sending his answer, the man grabs his mug and takes another sip. But as he sets it down, he notices his TV, that is set in a TV stand opposite from him near the room's wall, has opened, producing only a picture of static.

That's weird, I don't remember opening the TV, he wonders in his mind, leaning forward to grab the remote and close it.

Booooooooong

Suddenly, out of nowhere, a sound akin to a ship's horn resounds loudly within the apartment, and the staticky picture changes to one of swirling colors, slowly rotating clockwise. Air starts rushing into the TV, slowly at first, then more and more quickly, like it's being sucked in. Before he can utter a single word, his laptop gets sucked in the TV, passing through the screen and getting lost within the colorful vortex. Widening his eyes, he turns around and grabs the top of the sofa seconds before the vortex intensifies and starts dragging him towards the TV too.

"Oh dear Lord who watches us from the Heavens, please help your servant in this time of need!" he says loudly, barely holding out from getting sucked in. His backpack, that had been sitting at the edge of the sofa gets sucked inside the TV too, and like adding mass to a black hole, the vortex grows even stronger. Strangely, while every other item inside the apartment is shaking violently, it doesn't get sucked inside the TV.

Feeling his fingers sleeping one by one, the man closes his eyes in despair, before his hands slip and he flies straight through the TV's screen. As the TV closes, everything returns back to normal, silence falling in the apartment.


At the same time, Athens, Greece

"Phew, the class has finally ended," the young man sighs to him, grabbing his pencil case and notebook and stuffing them inside his black backpack.

"Don't forget that your assignments must be submitted in the E-class by the end of the week," the professor says from his desk.

Standing up from his desk and grabbing his backpack, the man goes towards another man who wears glasses and waits near the professor's desk to ask him some questions.

"Hey, we'll talk later," he says at the man after tapping his shoulder, and the man turns around.

"Don't forget to send me the notes from the previous class," he says back and the man just waves lazily his arm. Exiting the classroom, which is located at the end of a narrow corridor, he navigates through the people that are standing in the corridor, then turns right to exit the part of the building complex he finds himself in.

"Another class done, another day gone," the man hums, grabbing his phone and opening it. Navigating to Messenger, he opens the app and finds the discussion thread with a user named Vin.

Hey, Vin, what's up? he writes and sends the message, then closes the phone and puts it back on his pocket. Passing through the campus' gates, he stands at the edge of the road that passes next to university grounds, and after checking for any incoming cars, crosses to the other side.

Ping

Opening his phone, Messenger's overlay screen icon appears, so he taps it to open the discussion thread and read the new message.

Fine, just came back home from school. You?

"Hey, where are you going?"

Before he can answer, someone calls to him, so he turns around.

"Oh, hey. Didn't see you at today's class," he tells to a girl of the same age as him, who quickly approaches him. Tapping the icon, the discussion thread closes, but he doesn't close his phone, instead opening Google Chrome and refreshing the tab that was already open.

"Are you kidding? I was right behind you the entire time," she responds and stops next to him, matching his walking pace.

"Did you enter class after it started?" he asks as he checks the Fanfiction page he just refreshed, seeing one of the private messages being deep blue. Opening the message thread, he reads the most recent message, then responds.

Good morning.

How have you been?

"What are you doing?" the girl asks curiously, but boy sends he message and closes Google Chrome.

"Nothing much," he answers back and opens Messenger, but the girl doesnt seem convinced.

"Are you again at that site with the weird stories?" she asks and the boy pops a smirk.

"You make it sound so suggestive," he says and the girl just elbows him lightly. Navigating at the discussion thread with the user Vin, he reads his message again and types his answer.

Sorry for the late reply, was chatting with a friend from university.

"You just have a dirty mind," the girl answers, then follows up with a question. "Anyway, did you understand anything from today's lesson?"

"Actually yes," he nods. "I understood that thermodynamics is a whole different can of worms than hydrodynamics. Fucking hate both classes."

"You just say that because you are too lazy to study. They are both very easy."

"Says the girl that's a genius and has a boyfriend that passed on the same department like us in the National Metsovio Polytechnic School..." the man says dryly, and the girl just scratches her cheek awkwardly. "I really wonder how you botched up in the Panhellenic exams and passed here."

"I was sick, alright!? Do you know how difficult it is to solve mathematical equations with a fever?" she answers in frustration.

"You could have given the math exam at a later date. Plus, I'm surprised you even wrote that well."

"Luck, I guess."

"Yeah... If only my luck was that good." Sighing a little, the man turns his head to face the girl. "Sometimes I really wish I could just vanish and find myself to another world."

"Don't be like that," the girl says encouragingly. "I'm sure everything will get better if you wait a little."

"Or they could get worse."

"Now you are just being pessimistic."

"Nah, I'm optimistic. Else I'd say there's no light at the end of the tunnel."

Booooooong

Hearing a sound akin to a ship's horn, the man looks around to find its source.

"Huh, maybe a truck somewhere?" he mutters to himself. "Hey, I wanted to ask you... Ugh... What the hell?"

Turning around to look at the girl, the man finds her nowhere. Not only that, but every person and moving vehicle have completely disappeared from the face of the Earth as well. "Where is everybody?" Looking around again but finding no one, panic starts slowly creeping up his spine. Something's definitely not right here!

Crack

Hearing a cracking noise from above, he looks up to the sky, only to find space itself cracking, revealing an endless space of swirling colors inside it.

"Don't tell me what I said..."

The swirling colors start rotating more and more quickly and air starts getting sucked in the crack.

"...is about to come true..."

As the air starts rushing more and more violently, the man finds himself getting dragged towards the crack, his body getting lifted from the ground.

"Oh come on! The fuck's wrong with my luuuuuuuuuucccckkkk!" he screams as he gets dragged towards the crack at an alarming speed. Passing through it, the crack seals, leaving him alone within the endless void of swirling colors. Looking around with panic overwhelming him, his shock is so great that he can't even scream.

"I'm pretty sure this isn't a damn dream..." he squeaks in fear, his eyes quivering slightly. Suddenly, his clothes disappear, leaving him completely naked. "What the-!" he screams incredulously, and his body starts glowing so brightly, that he has to close his eyes. White engulfs his vision, before it changes to black and he finally loses consciousness.


Girls und Panzer universe

One day before the anime starts, 7th of April, 2025

Ooarai School Carrier, Dorms 2nd Floor , Room 45

"Uugh... My head hurts so much..."

Opening his eyes slowly, the man blinks a few times as he lets his vision focus, the throbbing headache he has slowly subsiding. Blinking a few more times, he notices that the ceiling above him is unfamiliar, while the light level in this space he has found himself in is low, like something is obstructing its source.

"Wait a minute..." he says aloud, widening his eyes as a question pops in his mind. Wait, wait, wait. Ceiling? Wasn't I outside just a moment ago with Maria? The hell happened? We were walking towards the metro station, and then...

A throbbing pain rushes in his head as his memories of what had happened flood back into his brain.

"Agggh!" He grits his teeth, grabbing the left side of his head with his hand, then sitting up on the carpeted floor. "Shit... Now I remember everything. That horn-like noise, then the weird crack in the sky, and me getting dragged in it..." Taking some breaths and looking down on the carpeted floor, he starts rationalizing about his situation. "Let's assume that what happened was real and not some kind of hallucination... Then it would mean most likely what I experienced was a spatial distortion that probably isolated me in our timeline and transported me somewhere random..." Continuing looking at the carpet, the man forms an empty smile. "The fuck I'm saying, this isn't a story... Things like that don't happen randomly." Sweat starts forming on his forehead as he notices his legs. He is a guy, right? Then why would his legs be devoid of any hair at all? It's not like he shaves. And his voice. It sounds more...feminine. As more sweat starts forming, his eyes start climbing from his shin to his thigh, then resting at the region between his legs.

"No... No, no, no, no, no, noooooo!" he screams and jumps up. "Where the fuck's my dick!" he shouts as he notices that in his nether region, instead of a penis, there's something else. "Why do I have a vagina instead!?" As panic starts taking over, he also notices that his chest is bulging quite a lot, which further chips away at his remaining sanity. To make things worse, something soft and colored light brown blocks his vision, so he quickly grabs it and pulls it, immediately feeling pain on his head. In short, he had just pulled his hair.

"This can't be happening!"

"Ugh... Can't you be less noisy? I'm trying to sleep here..."

Hearing a voice, the man, now a girl, looks at his right. Next to him he finds a very short, square table, but on the other side of it, he finds a Filipino girl sitting on the carpet and rubbing her eyes. If he, or rather she, could estimate her height, the unknown girl would be 160cm (~5.3ft) tall. Medium tanned skin that most people living in tropical climates have, light brown hair that reach a bit past her shoulders with her bangs swept left and a small side tail on the right side, golden-brown eyes that are half-lidded in boredom and angled eyebrows that make her look like she's a bit angry, all packed in a roundish face that really make her charming, a notable cup size adorning her fluffy and petite figure.

"Agggh!" the tanned girl shouts in pain and grabs her head with both hands. "It feels like someone is drilling a hole in my skull!" she grumbles with gritted teeth.

As the tanned girl looks around to see where she is, her gaze falls at the first girl , her half-lidded eyes slowly starting to open in confusion, then surprise. A soft but intense silence falls over the room, only the chirping sounds of birds from outside and the occasional car passing being heard. Both of them look at each other's eyes, like they are locked in an intense staring contest.

""Aaaaaahhhhhh!"" both of them suddenly shout and look away embarrassed.

"I-I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to..." the first girl stutters, more and more blood rushing in her cheeks and painting them red in coloration.

"N-No, I should be apologizing, I didn't know that..." responds the tanned girl, but she grows quiet all of a sudden. "W-Why..."

"Are you alright?" the first girl asks slowly, though she does not turn her head to look at the tanned girl.

"W-Why do I have the body of a girl!?" she shouts incredulously, and the first girl snaps her head at her direction. "I only went to the fridge to grab some snacks, not to get isekai'd to another world!" she moans in desperation.

"You were a guy too?" the first girl asks and the tanned one looks at her.

"Huh? How do you know about it?" the girl asks in suspicion, her half-lidded eyes and angled eyebrows making her quite ominous, despite the tears that stand on the verge of falling from her eyes and the depressing aura that surrounds her. .

"I got transported here by a weird swirl of colors, and before everything happened, I was a guy too," the first girl says and the tanned girl's expression softens, though she still looks the first one's amber eyes with slight suspicion.

"Then what about that girl?" the tanned one asks and points behind the first, who turns to look behind her. On top of a bed that is placed at the corner of the room the girls are in, she sees a gorgeous girl, around 170cm (~5.6ft), lying on the bed and sleeping soundly. With reddish-brown hair that go all the way down to her hips, a robust and shapely build to complement her height, and a very big chest that would ensnare every man's eyes, the former guy would've gotten a nosebleed if not for her current situation.

"Well, considering our circumstances, I'd say there's a pretty high chance of her being in the same boat as us," the first girl responds.

"So, someone who got transported here as well, huh?" the tanned girl wonders aloud, looking at the first one. "But then, is she like us, or is she a genuine girl?"

"Only one way, to find out," says the first girl and turns around, gently shaking the sleeping girl.

"Mmhhh..."

The sleeping girl stirs a little and wakes up, her eyelids opening slowly and her cobalt-blue eyes looking around cluelessly. Seeing the first girl, the sleeping one just looks at her in confusion, then notices she is naked and immediately yelps in surprise.

"Eek! I-I'm really sorry, I didn't see anything!" she shouts embarrassed as she turns around, her face reddening immediately. "...huh? Why is my voice so squeaky?" she asks, then she looks at her body.

"Aaaagghh!"

Like the girls before, she too screams in surprise and sits up on the bed as she notices her body, then in pain as her memories from her transportation flood back to her head.

"I guess that answers your...question..." the first girl says as she turns to look at the tanned one, then slows at the end when she notices a line of red liquid running from the tanned one's nose. "Seriously dude? What are you, a teenager?"

"They jiggle..." the tanned one says with sparkling eyes, as if in some kind of trance, then shakes her head and wipes the blood from her nose with her right hand. "Hey! There's nothing wrong with being a teenager!" she says loudly, angrily shaking a fist, but the first one simply ignores it.

"Look, I don't disagree, I was like you when I was a teen. But you've got to understand the shit we are into right now."

"Uhmm... W-Who are you?" the third girl asks with a blushing face while looking at her hips, having grabbed the sheet of the bed in an attempt to cover her body, though it does little to conceal the outline of the massive bulge her chest is.

"Let me make a guess. You got transported here by a swirl of colors out of nowhere, and like us," the first girl says and gestures at her body, "you were originally a guy. The headache you had suddenly was the memories of your transportation coming back."

The third girl looks at the first one with a hesitant face for a few moments, but then slowly nods.

"Y-Yes, that's what happened..." Cupping her hands together in a praying manner, the girl closes her eyes and raises her cupped hands in her face. "Oh dear Lord who watches us from Heaven, please help your humble servant in his time of need..."

"What do we do now?" the second girl asks, standing up and moving closer to the other two.

"First of all, we need to know where we are and what are our circumstances." Stopping suddenly, the first girl sneezes, which comes out as a cute, high-pitched "achoo". "And find some clothes. Ugh, I hate my voice being so squeaky."

"We probably got transported here by the same phenomenon, but why would our bodies be genderbent like this?" the second girl asks in thought, going and sitting at the bed next to the third one.

"Most likely. I was walking outside when this weird crack in the sky appeared, with a swirl of colors inside it. The weird thing is that the moment the crack appeared, everyone else disappeared. Then I got dragged in the swirl and everything goes black after it," the first girl says, explaining how she got here.

"Huh, I was at home when it happened. I went to my fridge to get some snacks, but as I got close to it, everything became blurry and lost control of my body. When I opened the fridge's door, there it was, an endless space with swirling colors. Sucked me in like a damn vacuum cleaner," the second girl sulks, looking at the open palm of her right hand. "And just as I got Akagi, too."

"Hmm, what did you say?" the first girl asks, haven't heard the last line clearly.

"Oh, nothing of importance," the second girl responds bored, waving her right hand lazily at the first one, then turning at the third girl. "What about you?"

The third girl doesn't respond, looking around the room and scanning its every detail.

"Uhm, hello?" the first girl asks the third, waving her hand in front of her. The third girl just pushes it down slowly, continuing scanning the room.

"Don't you think..." she says at first, but then see falls silent as her cobalt-blue eyes rest on the French window next to the bed, white curtains covering it. "...that this room looks familiar somehow?"

"How so?" the second girl asks out of curiosity, and the first girl nods in agreement too.

"You see, back in our world, assuming we are from the same one, there was an anime called "Girls und Panzer", and the dorm room of one of the protagonists looked quite similar too this," the third girls mumbles as she looks around one more time, and the other two look at her in disbelief.

"Are you serious!?" they scream in unison and the third girl yelps out in surprise, snapping her gaze at them with a fearful expression.

"D-Did I say something wrong?" she stutters and the first girl grabs her by her shoulders.

"You just said that we got transported in the GuP universe! In a fictional universe! Do you understand what kind of implications this is bound to create!?" the first girl shouts, slowly freaking out, but the second girl intervenes.

"Woah, calm down, calm down, panicking now won't help anyone," she says and drags the shorter by 5cm girl away from the third, who looks somewhat shaken. "So what if we are in the anime's world? Isn't that like the dream of every anime fan? Plus, depending on when in the anime we have been transported, we could already know the story and how things will develop."

"And here lies the problem! We could really screw up with the timeline and drastically change the chain of events that are supposed to happen!" the first girl retorts.

"I lost you after you said the word timeline," the second girl says and looks cluelessly at the first one.

"You know what, screw what I said," the first one responds with a deadpan expression. "At least now we know where we are. Anyway, I think we should introduce ourselves."

"I'll go first," the tanned girl says, quite cheerfully for her current situation actually. "My name is Vin F. Gere-"

"I can't believe it's you!" the shorter girl screams in surprise immediately and grabs the tanned girl's hands. "It's me, Dimosthenis! The guy from the FanFiction site!"

"Seriously!" Vin says, her eyes sparkling in delight! "Dude, what are the chances!" she says in surprise and Dimosthenis nods.

"I know, right! Though..." Dimosthenis takes a second to look at Vin with a serious expression. "Weren't you supposed to be shorter than me?" she asks with a raised eyebrow, at which Vin shrugs.

"Beats me how things came to be like this."

"Uhm...did you say FanFiction just now?" the third girl aks, and Dimosthenis turns around and nods.

"Yep. I was a fanfic writer. Actually, my first story was a GuP fanfic."

"Oh, I was a GuP fanfiction author too!" the third girl says in delight.

"Oh, really? What was your username?" the first girl asks.

"SeekerMeeker," the third girl responds, and both Vin and Dimosthenis develop dumb expressions, which makes Seeker feel uneasy.

"Hey, Vin, this girl is Seeker..."

"I know..."

"P-Please, stop looking at me like that, you're making me feel uncomfortable," Seeker says with an embarrassed expression, trying to cover her body more with the bed sheet. "A-And h-how do you know me, anyways?"

"I'm aGuestfromGreece45..." says the first and points at herself, then points at the tanned one. "She is E-50MasterRace, or Vin, call her however you want."

"Ah, it's you two!" Seeker says in surprise, letting the bed sheet that was covering her fall down and reveal her body. "What are the chances of something like this happening? The three of us who know each other... Why are you both looking away?" she asks innocently, and Dimosthenis points at her.

"Well, before we celebrate this weird coincidence, perhaps we should find some clothes first," she says with flushed cheeks, trying to cover her breasts and her private parts with her hands.

"Eek!" Seeker yelps in embarrassment, grabbing the bed sheet and covering herself, then turning to look at the wall next to the bed to spare herself from any more embarrassment.

Vin on the other hand has turned around, trying to find any signs of clothes and to prevent the rest from seeing her embarrassed face.

"Hey, I see a wardrobe over there," she says and points at a wooden wardrobe embedded at the side of one of the room's wall, then goes towards it quickly. Opening it, she finds three school uniforms hanging in hangers, and two sealed cardboard boxes underneath them. "I found some clothes!" she declares, pulling one of the hangers out to get a better look at the uniform.

"Lets open the lights to get a better look." Looking around, Dimosthenis finds a few light switches near a small kitchen area that the room has near its entrance, so she goes and flips them. The whole room gets filled with light, which makes even more apparent the similarities between it and the one in the anime.

"Wow, they look just like the ones in the anime," Seeker says and draws nearer to Vin to check out the uniforms. "White serafuku with green trim and a matching, pleated skirt, as well a black ribbon on the chest. Seeing it from up close, its design certainly is interesting."

"It reminds me of the uniforms the girls in my school wore, though they were less fancy," Vin says and puts the hanger back at the wardrobe. "They are all of varying sizes; guess there is one for each one of us."

"That's all well and good, but we also need underwear," Dimosthenis says as she approaches the wardrobe, then notices the two cardboard boxes and points at the left. "Let's open one of them and see what's inside."

Pulling the left box out of the wardrobe, the three girls place it next to the short table and sit around it, looking at its taped top.

"You think someone somehow transported us here? Cause this is an awfully lot of things prepared just for us," Vin says as Seeker removes the tape from the top of the box, having a surprisingly good amount of strength.

"I agree it's suspicious, but we can't do much about it right now," Dimosthenis says as Seeker opens the box. Grabbing something from inside and taking it out of the box, she looks at it for a few good moments.

"Pervert," Vin says with a deadpan expression, looking at Dimosthenis who is holding a pair of white panties.

"You are one to talk," she responds back and throws the panties at the tanned girl's face. "At least this covers our need for underwear, seeing that there are plenty of underwear and bras inside the box. There are also a lot of pairs of socks."

"I'm definitely not wearing one of these," Vin says and grabs the thrown panties, putting it back to the box. "I won't let my last scraps of masculinity just vanish into thin air!" Seeing inside the box a certain type of underwear, she immediately snatches it, and takes a closer look at it. "Oh, I'm saved! The box has spats too!"

"Whatever dude," Dimosthenis says as he grabs a pair of panties and a bra, looking at its cup size. "How I'm I supposed to know my cup size? I guess I'll just have to go with the trusty method of trial and error."

"D-Do we really have to wear these?" Seeker says with an uneasy expression but still grabs one of each.

"Aren't we taking this a little bit too well?" Vin aks as she wears her spats, then goes near the box to look for a bra that fits her.

"Would you prefer panicking and running around till we tire ourselves to sleep?" Dimosthenis answers as she puts her bra on, but finds it too big for her. "Dammit, this is way too big. Hey, Seeker, this must be for you."

"H-Huh?" Seeker says surprised as she sees a bra flying though the air towards her, deftly grabbing it. "Y-You think so?"

"You are the only one with tits as large as our heads," Vin cackles like a troll, and Seeker's face reddens instantly.

"Oh boy, won't this be a fun day..." Dimosthenis says as she grabs a different bra this time, ready to try her luck again.


Half an hour of trial and error, embarrassment, and sheer will later, the girls (former guys) have finally managed to dress properly and are now sitting around the second box, the first one having been pushed aside near one of the room's walls.

"Seeker, for the last time, stop being embarrassed," Dimosthenis says at Seeker, who is looking down on the carpeted floor with red cheeks.

"C-Can you blame me? I'm wearing girls' clothes... Th-They make me feel so uncomfortable..." she stutters and raises her head slightly to look at Dimosthenis.

"Dude, I know how you feel, I'm embarrassed myself, but we can't do anything about it. We have female bodies and there's no way, at least for now, to revert back to our former bodies," she says and gestures at her body, starting form her chest and ending at her legs, "and if you feel embarrassed that much, how the heck should I feel that I'm wearing stockings instead of socks..." Looking at the first box, she narrows her eyes at it in anger. "Whoever made this whole farce, supernatural or not, is going to pay hell when I meet them."

Vin on the other hand looked solemnly at the second box, sulking on his misfortune. "Why did this happen to me..."

"Quit crying, Vin, it won't bring your dick back," Dimosthenis says a little bit annoyed.

"Please don't use such vulgar language," Seeker berates the shortest of the three girls, who in turn sighs.

"Fine, I won't. Anyway, let's open this box and see what it's hiding in there."

Seeker nods in agreement and tears the tape that seals the box's top, then opens it. "Oh, this seems surprising," she responds as she finds three bags at the top of the box, a single black and red messenger's bag, and two light blue bags with white handles that look exactly like the ones used in the anime. Before anyone can do anything, Vin immediately grabs the messenger's bag.

"I'll use that one," he immediately says and opens it, finding a variety of notebooks inside and a pensil case. "Oh, it's even loaded with what we might need."

"Weren't you sulking for your long gone friend?" Dimosthenis asks with a raised eyebrow as he grabs one of the remaining bags and opens it, the inside containing some notebooks and a pencil case too.

"Yeah, but sulking all the time won't do any good," she responds as she looks inside the box. "No way..." she says with widened eyes as she sees a white tablet inside the side of the box. "My tablet! It's here with me!" he screams in joy and pulls out the tablet, opening it immediately. "Dammit, no signal or data. No Wi-Fi source nearby, too. Now I can't see if Azur Lane works or not, or even surf in the net... This sucks on so many levels!"

"Oh, my university schoolbag," Dimosthenis says in mild surprise and recovers a black backpack with green splotches of color all over it. Opening it, he finds inside a battered pencil case, a few notebooks and books, a grey scarf, a smartphone and a small, black umbrella. "Yep, even traveling through dimensions won't save you from assignments and homework..."

"Ah, my backpack!" Seeker says hapilly as she pulls out of the box a beige colored backpack, setting it down next to him and opening it. "Let's see... My wallet is here, my cell phone, a notebook and a pencil case I have just in case, some other miscellaneous stuff... Ah!" Finding a book with a dark blue, hard exterior, she pulls it out and opens it, looking through a few of its pages. "My Bible! Thank God it got transported here with me."

While Vin is looking at her tablet to see if everything is alright, and Seeker is reading her Bible, Dimosthenis peers inside the box and finds three School ID cards lying on its bottom. Grabbing them, he starts scanning them one by one, seeing what they say.

"Hmm, this looks like Seeker," she mutters, glancing at the ID's picture, then at Seeker. "Yep, they totally match. Brown-reddish hair, cobalt blue eyes, same facial characteristics... Hmm, that's strange. It says the name of this card's owner is Helena Newton. French-Polish and half Japanese in nationality, a transfer student on Ooarai Girls High School... So I guess even our names and nationalities have changed." Looking at the second ID, he immediately recognizes the picture as Vin." Huh, so Vin became Vanessa," she giggles, a sly smirk appearing on her face. "I bet he'll just start sulking again. Name's Vanessa Gerebise, from Phillipines, an exchange student to study art in Ooarai for some reason. And the last one is me," she says as she sees the picture, but freezes when she reads the name. "Elpida Papaioannou... Nationality is Greek, transfer student... Is this some kind of bad joke?"

"Hey, is something the matter?" Vin asks as she sees Dimosthenis' serious expression, then the ID cards she's holding. "Hey, what are you holding?"

"School IDs," Dimosthenis immediately replies and hands Vin her ID. "They have Ooarai's crest at the top right."

"Hah? I'm called Vanessa? And I'm an exchange student? Well, at least I'm from Phillipines," she shrugs, scanning the ID and looking at everything that it has written on it.

"We have school IDs?" Seeker asks and draws closer, putting her Bible next to her, with Dimosthenis handing her ID card. "Oh, I'm called Helena Newton, and I'm French-Polish and half Japanese. It also says I'm a transfer student from France..." she says and looks at the ID confused. "But I was from the US originally."

"What about you?" Vin asks Dimosthenis, who shudders a little when she hears the question. "What's you name?"

"Transfer student from Greece, named Elpida Papaioannou," she says quietly, and the other two fall quiet as well.

"You mean that psycho OC from one of your stories?" Vin asks and Dimosthenis nods. "Shit... Lets hope you won't go crazy, then. I'd hate to put you down."

"Like hell you could," Dimosthenis snorts and Vin pops a smirk.

"I-I'm sure nothing like that will happen! The name must be a simple coincidence," Seeker says immediately, feeling some kind of tension rising between the other too.

"Let's hope so. Anyway, that means we are students in Ooarai. Judging by our age, which says 16, we are first years."

"Hey, it might sound weird, but something's been bugging me for a while now."

"What is it?" Seeker, or rather Helena, asks Vin curiously.

"We are all from different countries, right?" Vin, or rather Vanessa, asks, and the other two nod. "Me from Phillipines, you from Greece, and Seeker, from the US, I think."

"That's correct," Helena nods and Vanessa continues.

"Then how do we understand each other..."

"Now that you mention it, we've been talking completely fine to each other this whole time," Elpida says thoughtfully, then looks at her ID card. "And we even were able to read the Kanji in the school ID... You think it has to do something with our bodies?"

"Dunno," Vanessa shrugs, then looks at her tablet. "By the way, it says here it's 7:30 in the morning, 7th of April... 2025."

"So that's when the anime takes place," Helena says and looks at her cell phone to confirm what Vin has said is true."

"No, I'm pretty sure the anime starts at the 8th of April, when Miho first gets transfered in Ooarai," Elpida corrects Helena.

"Oh."

"Hey, it's Monday today, so wouldn't that mean we have school?" Vin asks as he checks his tablet's calendar, and the others look at him.

"Shit, assuming school starts at 8, we have half an hour to go to school," Elpida says and grabs the school bag she has in front of her. "Do we even know where the school is?"

"I guess we'll just have to follow other students and hope they know where they are going," Vanessa says and stands up, grabbing her messenger's bag.

"We'll most likely have to report to the faculty room since we are transfer students and this is, I hope, our first day at the school," Helena adds, already having taken her bag and moving towards the room's exit, where three pairs of shoes are neatly placed.

"Then we'd need even more time," Elpida groans, grabbing a few stuff from her backpack and putting them in her school bag. "Puberty, here I come again..."

"This is somewhat exciting," Vanessa comments as she stuffs her tablet inside her bag and goes to the exit, where Helena is already waiting for them, holding in her right hand the room's keys.


A/N: Thank you for reading this little new concept of a story me, SeekerMeeker and E-50MasterRace had. The story is being co-authored by the three of us, but since I'm the one that writes and publishes it, expect grammatical mistakes here and there, since my native language ain't English (kinda obvious from my username). Anyway, I'd like to thank you again for reading this prologue chapter. If you like this idea and are interested in seeing where it'll go, favorite and follow it, and if you have any suggestions for it, don't be afraid to write it at the review section! Have a nice day!