Son of a Ship
AN: I'm keeping the suggestion pool open until a faction girl joins, then that faction will be locked out. Reminder, only 2 vanguards are needed (cruisers and destroyers) and one main (Carriers, battleships, and battlecruisers).
AN1.5: I will be completely ignoring any and all Royal Navy suggestions, as I had already stated that that slot is taken by Vampire, and set in stone.
AN2: I just remembered, Graf Spee is a sunk ship-girl.
AN3: another choice, which is just behind Odin for personal choice for Harry, Nurnberg.
Side note: I'm making tech grow much faster due to the constant, by now decades-long, war against the sirens.
Chapter 2: Settling in.
Harry was confused, what he knew, and what he knew were different, he knew the woman that brought him here was his mother, but he also knew that something about that was wrong.
The contradiction wasn't doing the last remnants of his concussion any favors.
Then the door to the infirmary opened and any doubts he had about his mother vanished as she walked into the room, followed by another beautiful woman.
"Harry?" the lead woman asked
"Yes mom?" came the reply, he, fortunately, didn't notice her flinch.
"We need to pick up some things for you since..." she paused and made a snap decision, that she would never directly lie to her new son. It would make things easier later when she can't tell him something due to it being classified. "Everything you owned was lost in the event that had you end up in the ocean, so we will need to do some shopping."
"Yes mom, who's that?" he asked curiously.
The other woman stepped forward and curtsied, "I am the light cruiser, HMS Belfast, please, call me Belfast. I'll be living with you."
"Umm, ok..."
"Let's get you checked out, and then some shopping."
It was less than half an hour later that Harry was looking around wide-eyed. This place he was in, his mother had explained that it was a naval base, as well as what a naval base was, but it looked more like a festival. (EN) Ninety-five percent of people that he saw were female, ranging in physical age between nine and thirty. It was discovered very quickly that 'ship-girls' have either greatly slowed, or stopped aging processes.
They stopped in front of a shore with what looked like a handmade sign stating it was Akashi's store.
"Let's go in, Harry. Her selection of male clothing isn't the best, but she'll have catalogs for more that we can get shipped here," the aircraft carrier explained.
The trio entered the shop, and Harry's eyes were immediately caught by the young-looking girl at the counter... the young-looking green-haired cat-girl at the counter.
Enterprise sighed and said to Harry, "let's get everything we need before waking her."
Harry nodded and went to the clothes rack and looked at it in confusion before he picked out a shirt. The shirt selection made his new mother's eye twitch. The shirt was big enough to fit Harry like a tent.
Unknown to her, Harry was picking the sizes based on what he could remember wearing, clothes from a child nearly twice his weight, and several inches taller.
Enterprise looked at Belfast with a hopeless expression. She knew what she needed to do, but had no idea how to do it gently.
Belfast giggled as she moved to the boy. Gently taking the shirt out of the boy's hands she deftly reached into the rack and pulled out a couple of various sizes that looked much closer to his size, and handed them to him. "Try these on, after we find your right size we will decide on what ones to get, let us look for some pants next."
Soon enough the boy was lightly burdened by several outfits worth of clothing and was shooed into the dressing room and told to come out after trying on each size so she could check the fit. After a quick glance at Enterprise and receiving an encouraging nod, he proceeded into the room.
He found it odd that what he tried on didn't feel like he was trying to go through the neck hole of the shirt, and the pants didn't feel like they were going to drop right off. He discarded a few sizes immediately as he couldn't get them on and/or were uncomfortable.
Walking out he stood there.
"Looks like we have your current sizes, lets pick out what clothing you want and then see about some other things for your room," Enterprise commented earning a wince from Belfast at her blunt manner.
He nodded and then walked towards the clothing rack, with Enterprise snagging the tags to use to buy the clothing, he passed by a display selling model ships, and he paused. His new mom waited as she was curious about what he was looking at.
Running his hands over the kits, a few seemed to call to him, pulling out a box, he looked at it, and then put it back, vague memories of his previous living conditions made him think that he wouldn't be allowed to buy much.
Enterprise snagged the box, and passed it off to Belfast to hide, she would buy it when the boy's back was turned and leave it on his new bed.
Harry, while choosing from the very limited selection, actually buying out what was available in his sizes, which still only netted him five outfits, was confused. Something was different from what he knew his life was like, but he ignored it, something that he was quickly becoming used to doing
After his clothing was chosen, and Enterprise picked up a catalog for later, she turned to Harry, and said, "Go pick out some toys and decorations, I need to pick some things out as well.
Harry frowned and put his hand to his head, something was wrong here, very wrong.
"Are you alright? A voice asked.
Turning he noticed the other woman, Belfast kneeling down to look him in the eye in concern, his headache got worse, but he controlled his reaction by dint of long practice. Long practice hiding his pain at least.
"I'm fine, just a minor headache," he replied, not knowing what was wrong himself, something just isn't adding up, and he's not sure he wants to find out what.
Belfast frowned at the boy's back. She knew he was lying, it was more than a minor headache, and it didn't seem like the remnants of his concussion acting up. She decided to keep her peace for now. Let the boy come clean on his own, as pushing him might make things worse.
Picking out what caught his eyes, he frowned at the fact that the ship model that caught his eye was gone. The others looked interesting but didn't really catch his attention, though he could tell there used to be more. He did notice one that had the same name that was on his mother's coat, so he picked it up.
He noticed the maid picking up some toys as well. She probably thinks I'd like them as well, he thought.
Which caused another stab of pain, that he quickly dismissed. Don't think about it, just don't.
Harry walked up to the now awake cat-girl who looked at him in curiosity but held off his mother had obviously finished before him since she had a bag near her, and a box near her bag.
"All done for now?" Enterprise asked, and at his nod she checked out his selections, chuckling at the model of her ship. Taking in the amount she spent that day, which ended up being well over a thousand dollars, she didn't even blink. (EN) She had literal decades of paychecks just sitting in her savings account, since she lived on base, ate either issued rations or in the cafeteria, and just never had a reason to spend her paycheck.
Harry had no idea why that particular model made his mom chuckle but since she didn't seem angry at him, he let it go as some sort of inside joke.
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Harry's headache was getting worse, and it was taking everything he had not to show it as his mother and her friend loaded up a borrowed jeep with his new stuff. A new wave hit, and he staggered. Enterprise noticed immediately and scooped him up and placed him gently in the back seat.
"We'll be home in about twenty minutes, rest now," she said gently and caught Belfast's approving nod.
Harry passed out almost immediately as his headache spiked to an almost unimaginable level... not that any observer would know that.
To the two warships, it looked like he just collapsed from exhaustion.
The drive home was uneventful, and Enterprise carried her new son into his new room, and put him to bed, as she didn't want to wake him since he seemed so exhausted.
She decided to wait to put anything away so as not to wake him but put the model she got as a surprise gift on his side table.
She knew that she would probably need to get him more furniture later, but that could wait until he was feeling better.
Gently closing the door, she turned to Belfast who had arranged the bags neatly in the living/dining room.
"How is he?" the maid asked.
"Sleeping, it might have been too early to take him out, I'll have to apologize to him tomorrow," Enterprise said with a sigh.
"No, it's not that. He was having headaches, and I don't think it's because of his injuries," the other woman stated.
"What?" Enterprise said flatly.
"I didn't tell you until now because I was afraid you'd unintentionally push him before he was ready to talk. I don't know exactly what was causing it, but I was afraid that he would get worse if he was confronted."
"I understand, I'll have to think about how to approach this. Now I have to make the commander's list."
Enterprise left the room, and sat at the desk in her new room thinking on who to choose for this, and decided to go all out, and make four lists, one for each faction, and placing the factions in the preferred order.
Taking a sheet of paper she started her list.
To Commander.
This is the list of people whom I would trust with my son as you have requested. I have chosen six from each faction and put the factions in my preferred order, contingent on individual agreeing.
Eagle Union:
Hornet
Baltimore
Vestal
Lexington
Cleveland
Shangri-la
Royal Navy:
Belfast
Queen Elizabeth
Prince of Wales
Vampire
Javelin
Illustrious
Sakura Empire:
Nagato
Atago
Akagi
Shinano
Ayanami
Souryuu
Iron Blood:
Friedrich
Nurnberg
Bismark
Prinz Eugen
Z23
Odin
These are the ones from each faction that I believe would be best suited to take care of my son should the worst happen to me, if they are unwilling, or unable to assume the responsibility, please use your discretion in choosing his new caretaker.
Sincerely,
USS Enterprise.
Nodding her head at the note, and double-checking her choices she forded the letter and placed it into an envelope. Noticing that it was past eight, she decided to turn in early.
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Unknown place:
"Well this is interesting, what do you think Observer?" a monotone voice asked.
"These readings are rather odd. I don't think I've seen this type of energy before, where exactly did you detect it?" Observer asked in her odd modulating voice. A voice that sounds like someone made an electronic voice and set it to randomly change pitch.
"Approximately one hundred miles from the Long Island Eagle Union base, a faint trace has been detected as moving from that base to the cooperative base."
"... perhaps we should wait a while then maybe to see if you can infiltrate the base. You are one of the few of us that has never been seen on the front lines, so you shouldn't have too much of a problem if you are careful."
"We shall see."
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Location: Undefined.
A pair of red eyes opens and mumbles, "Interesting, I wonder where this will go. Harry Potter, I will help you however I can, so as to make up for what my original did."
The red eyes close again, resting until it could make amends.
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Harry awoke the next morning and blinked. The first thing he saw upon awakening was a model kit, the very one he originally wanted. He knew that his mother had bought it for him, and hid it as a surprise.
Smiling he put it down to work on later.
The ship that the model was of, would be important to him later.
HMS Vampire.
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End chapter.
EN: looking in the anime the base seems almost like a festival at times.