If something exists,

Then it dosen't exist,

And if something dosen't exist,

Then it exists.

—Richard Scepton

Nagato was having a major league migriane. And by migriane, she meant an honest dammed migriane.

Less than a week had passed since the battlecruiser from the future had popped in, bringing with her memories of a massive war of genocide in which humanity fared far better than their genocidal oppoment (she literally gagged at the Covenant losing 4,000+ planets and quadrillions dead), when this came along. While no navy had a ship whose hull was laid down after 1945 until now, she had to remind herself that that was until now. For, there was a guided missile destroyer that just spawned out of nowhere.

Focus. Just damn focus.

She put on her headphones and began listening. Hopefully, this would clear her mind.

She stared at the pile of paperwork on her desk.

Well shit.

"Jeez, seriously, this size?" demanded Saratoga.

Akashi blinked.

"Definitely that size, Sara," she said, picking up the nickname that Lexington jokingly often gave. "2,500 meters long, 380 meters beam, 598 meters height."

"Two point five kilometers? We could lay her lengthwise on the runway back on Pearl Harbour and she'd still be longer."

"What about her other goodies then?" asked Prinz Eugen. Her eyes glanced across the detailed plans spread across the table, not quite understanding what they meant.

"Battlecruisers, like the Artermis-class, are extremely heavily armed. Even the UNSC, a force known for liberally blasting apart continents accepts that. They are powerful enough to challenge whole fleets of Covenant ships, and hold their own singlehanded. Not a position I would like to be in, but a hardball one nonetheless.

"Armanent consists of: Two 'FMJ-X-2556 Super-Heavy Coil MACs', thirty 'C66 Spree naval coilguns', one-hundred and sixty Archer pods, two 96-silo vertical launch systems for Stoski cruise missiles, six disruptor torpedo tubes, 36 launch tubes for Harpoon anti-ship ballistic missiles, and fifty-two M910 Rampart point-defense weapon systems."

"Point-defense weapon system?" asked Vestal.

"Basically, a weapon made for a last-line defense against guided munitions and fighters, think a scaled-up CIWS in every way."

"I heard she had nuclear weapons?"

"Sure. Harpoons are armed with HAVOK tactical warheads, Stoskis have SHIVA capital-ship grade warheads. They hit far harder than you may expect though."

"How hard, then?" asked Lexington.

"HAVOKs posess a tandem-charge shaped-explosive antimatter-boosted nuclear warhead at thirty megatons each, basically two thirty megaton nukes one behind the other," Akashi responded. "SHIVAS pack a scaled-up version of the same warhead that gives it sixty gigatons of punch, though, as explained, both are designed for penetrating energy shielding. They have been observed to penetrate the shields of Forerunner Sojourner-class dreadnoughts, or whatever they are, but according to her AI those ancient ships have shields that could soak up several thousand ninatons."

"Oh god..." Nagato muttered.

"Her armor plating, is quite thin for a ship of her size," Akashi said. She had more than her fair share of freak-outs at what the UNSC considered "lightly armored" and "lightly armed", which, if her memory served her right, meant "packing enough punch to slag continents in minutes" or "pulverising whole fleets in one particle lance hit".

"Two meters of Titanium-A battleplate, with zero-point-four reinforced Carbon-C armor plate, and sixty centimeters Titanium-F battleplate and one-point-two meters Titanium-C/Aluminum-F composite battleplate. Internal honeycomb armor scructure as well."

"Holy shit," mumured Missouri. "That's...as thick as my bridge is tall. And you say that's her outer layer, right?"

"Just as well that's correct," responded Akashi curtly. "Her armor is sufficient to readily tank her own SHIVA warheads."

"About her...MAC, that's a railgun, right? Just like the guns we put on our Zumwalts?"

"It's a coilgun, actually. Her AI was rather insistent on it. There was a detailed explaination about it, but I'll cap up by saying that her guns fire slugs weighing hundreds of tons at 40% the speed of light."

At first it didn't compute.

"What?"

"To be honest her guns are a lot bigger than what we'd expect. Her Sprees are triple 283mm turrets, each firing three 200-ton slugs at 0.4c once every fifteen seconds, and her MACs, or whatever they are, are 7600mm guns firing 3,000-ton slugs at the same velocity, with a three-round burst every thirty seconds."

"Which works out to be," Iowa said, frantically running numbers across her cell phone. "1.17 teratons per hit for her turrets, and 5.85 teratons a hit for her main battery. And they fire in three-round bursts you said?"

"Exactly."

"What about her fighters then? I heard she launched 36 at Alaska?"

"Nothing much to say, exept that they're just modded fighter jets on steroids. The Broadsword, for example, is identical to the Russian SU-57, and sported two 35mm autocannons each firing at 3,000rpm plus six AMRAAM missiles. The F-86 Sabre shares design similarities to the Space Shuttle, and at the core is just a biplane, four-engined exoatmospheric fighter with similar armanent to the Broadsword, but is much faster."

"And her 'Longswords?"

Akashi took a deep breath.

"Ever heard of a 110mm rotary cannon?"

"Another Cognac, please." Providence said as she placed her glass back on the table. The waitress simply nodded, and took the empty glass with her.

Providence then turned her attention back to the destroyers literally crowding around her, for some reason. It didn't matter much anyways, for she was already primed with the Cognac.

"So there I was, with this big ugly motherfucker right in front of me, and tried to shoot me, didn't work. We were both heading at sixty-plus knots, and ya all know, how much is eighteen million metric tons of a giant armored titanium tub, right? Can't turn, can't dodge, so I thought, 'I'm just gonna charge this bitch.' So I put my shoulder down, and ran right towards her! Should'a heard the scream it started making when it realized what I was going to do!"

Taking another sip of her drink that thr waitress just put down, she handed another glass towards Fubuki, already looking rather woozy with all the drinks at the party most Americans seemed to throw after a battle won.

"That motherfucker, tried to shoot me. Didn't know how dammed fast I was, wrenched it's turret at another Abbie before it could react. Could I forget the look on its face when it realized that I wrenched the turret to make it shoot it's friend? Then I just shredded it with SAPHE from my assault rifle, busted it open like a needle to a blown-up balloon. Then I took out a BR55 and shredded the next one in one 56-round magazine, you won't like to hear how it squealed when I dumped the whole mag at it. Remember the Abbie that tried to kill Fubuki? Just think how it thought when I basically tanked it's whole salvo, very funny indeed."

Taking another stab at her drink, she smirked at Fubuki, before promptly dragging her into the former's lap like it was the most normal thing in the world. Fubuki simply sat back and took in all the envious looks of her friends crowding around the larger battlecruiser. Certianly being the best friend of the hero of the day made her the most popular destroyer in town, wasn't she?

Aiming at the target in the distance, Providence took a deep breath, and fired another shot out of her MA5B. Switching firing modes, she fired again, sending a three-round burst at the target in the distance. Turning to focus on another one, she smirked. Aiming at a fast-moving drone, she centered the aircraft in her sights. Squeezing the trigger, she let out another burst of 7.62x51mm rounds at the aircraft, sending it into the sea in a display of smoke and flame. The SAPHE rounds certianly got their job done.

The bolt clicked empty. Flicking the assault rifle upward with her left hand, she pulled the charging handle all the way back, engaged the mag release, and replaced the magazine. Having done that, she slid the charging handle back up and reaquired her aim. Sending the entire 60-round magazine towards the target, she switched her MA5B for her M6 Magnum. Aiming at another target, she gripped the pistol in both hands, and fired. The 12.7x40mm Shielding/Armor-Piercing High-Explosive round flew out of the barrel at Mach 32, flying straight and true towards the target. The dummy had a neat little hole poked in the head due to the round, moments before the SAPHE round exploded and simply made the dummy's head cease to exist.

"Good shot." someone said behind her. Providence simply turned around on her heel, pistol in hand.

"Thanks. What's your name though?"

"Oberleutnant Scheer, Destuche Marinekorps. I heard you were the crack shot of town?"

By this point, there was over a dozen fleetgirls along with German marines gathered at the range. While under normal circumstances, they'd be paying attention to the bullseye rather than the exchange, this was rather...diffrent.

"She's a crack shot all right," said Hibiki. "Whoever seen her during Alaska could testify to that. Shot down a whole squandron of dive-bombers with an assault rifle with nothing other than iron sights. Nailed an Abbie heavy bomber several miles away with a pistol straight thro' its cockpit. Busted an Abbie battleship by literally wrenching the turret of another battleship to shoot it down—that's some fine marksmanship, correct?"

"How 'bout a quick challenge?" remarked a marine.

Providence simply smirked. She could hear her bridge and CIC fairies were literally screaming with glee as she retained her calm composure. Steadying her grip on her pistol, she engaged the safety as she pulled out a Glock from the rack.

"Give it a go, then, Oberleutnant?"

Already she could hear her bridge fairies banging their fists on the wall out of sheer excitement.

A/N:

First of all, some answers to the reviews:

Boyzilla:

Thanks. And yes, the inspiration for this mainly came from From Earth and Her Colonies. This story, though, also forms the prequel for the upcoming mod, whose platform has been moved to Stellaris due to gameplay limitations.

Hopefully, more of us may find this story and do some R&R. Because, that is the main way for me to improve my writing.

The mod has also been published on ModDB, though it hasn't been released yet. The name is Final Frontier: Scherzo of Iron and Blood.

Anyways, 'till next time!