000000 The night before 000000

"How's it going with the research, kids?" asked Akashi to the two sisters working in the research lab.

"We're making great strides in the overall progression," said Buri "but it'll be a while before anything concrete happens."

"We're also conducting experiments on Wisdom Cubes," said Puri "how the Commander managed to make them work is a mystery and we're trying to unravel it."

"Good, good," said Akashi, nodding "and should it be glowing like that?"

And just like that, the whole island was enveloped in a bright white light.

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"Master," said a soft, voice that almost didn't register.

"Master please wake up," said the voice again.

"Master."

'Belfast is never that nice when she's waking me up,' he thought, opening his eyes and turning around to find a little girl, dressed in the same maid uniform that Belfast wore.

(AN: Bel-Chan)

"Hello there," he said, calmly "and who might you be dear?"

"Master, it's me Belfast," said the little girl

"Are you Belfast's little sister?"

"No master," she said, determined to prove who she was "It's me, Belfast. I train with you everyday."

As he was about to say something, he heard someone shouting for him outside. The two waited as the voice grew louder and louder until a young Enterprise dashed into the room.

"Commander big trouble," said the young girl "I suddenly woke up and found that I suddenly became younger."

"Wait, what now?"

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He honestly had to pinch himself ten times to make sure he wasn't dreaming. This was the sort of scenario he imagined only happened in movies and anime.

As he walked out of the headquarters, Belfast holding his hand and Enterprise seated comfortably on his shoulder, he saw that everyone on the base turned into little girls. Oklahoma and Nevada were drawing on the ground, Phoenix, California and Tennessee were throwing water balloons at Brooklyn and Lexington, and Hornet had apparently built herself a throne and was now ordering Ranger and Pennsylvania around.

"Master, what do we do?" asked Belfast

"I honestly have no idea," he said, still not believing what he was seeing.

"This is a rather confusing way to start the day isn't it?" asked a voice from behind.

The trio turned around and the Commander saw a fully grown Z23, scratching her chin, looking just as confused as he was.

"Wait a second," he said, pointing to her "how did you grow up suddenly?"

"Beats me, I suddenly woke up and here I am all grown up."

'Just when I was starting to make sense of things,' he thought.

At that moment, he noticed one of the kids had come up to him. She had flowing brown hair, a set of bushy tails and a pair of ears sticking out of her head.

"Up," said Akagi, extending her hands out "Akagi wants to go up too."

Seeing as he had no other choice, the Commander reached down, picked up Akagi and put him on his other shoulder.

"Why is the stupid fox here?" shouted Enterprise, pointing an accusatory finger at Akagi.

"Tch, go bother someone else stupid eagle," said Akagi.

"Stupid fox"

"Stupid eagle"

"If you two don't stop fighting I'm putting you both down right now," he interjected and the pair became quiet instantly.

"At least we know someone here has a handle on things," said a familiar voice.

The group turned around and saw a young Yorktown coming towards them, carried by a grown-up Juneau, Spencer, Fletcher, Raleigh, Foote, Gridley, Thatcher, Aulick and Unicorn.

"Good morning Commander," said Juneau with a polite bow "you're doing well, in light of everything that's happened."

"Still trying to wrap my head around things," he said, examining all the women.

"Waaahh the Commander's got this weird look in his eyes," cried Spencer, hiding behind Raleigh.

"Commander we have some news," said Yorktown "this stemmed from an experiment Purin and Buri were conducting into wisdom cubes."

"Go on," he said.

"As a result of the experiment, all the adults have regressed into children and all the children and young adults have grown up."

"But you're talking pretty mature for a kid Yorktown," he pointed out.

"She always talked like that," said Enterprise "Yorktown was very mature from a young age."

"I see and what's the extent of the damage here?"

"It seemed like this incident is only contained to the Island"

"And how long will this last? It'd be really worrying if we're caught by an enemy attack."

"I believe that they'll have everything fixed by tonight," said Yorktown, recalling her earlier conversation.

"Then for now we'll have to work together to keep these kids from running off and causing all sorts of trouble."

"W-We?" asked Foote, raising her hand up.

"Yep," he said turning to Z23 "Z, gather up all the kids and bring them to the beach. There we'll divide them into groups for each of the girls to look after."

"Wait, why me?" she asked.

"Because you're pretty scary as my secretary."

"What?"

"There see, bring that scariness with you when you're gathering the kids."

Just then the Commander was hit in the face by a young Cleveland, swinging along the vine of a plant. He would have been knocked down, had Z23 not quickly reacted and pushed him back to his feet.

"Quickly my loyal horse," said Cleveland, standing on the Commander's shoulders and pointing to the beach "the thieves are running away with the treasure."

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The Commander's plan was a sound one in theory. Divide the work equally among those who are capable and that made the work easier overall.

In practice however, this plan proved difficult to accomplish. Since the fleet on the island had regressed in age and maturity, they were less careful with keeping secrets and openly expressed how much they'd like to play with the Commander instead of anyone else.

This resulted in him being pulled in a number of directions and playing at least three different games at once. The group of women that accompanied him tried their best to help him as much as possible, but their lack of knowledge in dealing with children and the kids being impossible to control if they were handled by anyone else, meant that the task of playing with them fell solely on the Commander's shoulders.

For a while, he thought he had the kids under control. Then he sat down to take a moment of rest. This provided Eugen the opportunity to sit in-between his legs and smugly remark to everyone that she had the best seat on the island. This resulted in nearly everyone fighting over who could take up the available space the Commander had. There was hair pulling, tickling and all other forms of playground fighting taking place all at once. The competition only ended when the Commander had no other choice but get up, seeing as he was not going to get a moment of relaxation.

He was honestly glad none of them could use their weapons.

While he was busy trying to keep the pace and keep from being pulled apart, Yorktown and her group were at the cafeteria working on lunch. Yorktown understood that if the girls were this rowdy on normal, they'd be impossible to handle if they were hungry.

Soon enough it was time for lunch.

As some of the girls were quietly eating, he noticed Enterprise grimace at her plate.

"Something the matter?" he asked

"I don't like veggies," she said, looking away "they taste bad."

"But sister," said Hornet, "veggies make you strong and powerful."

"She's right about that," he added

"Still, I don't wanna eat 'em,"

"Alright, how about I feed it to you, will you eat it then?"

"Maybe."

He took the spoon and scooped up some veggies and potato mash into a single helping.

"Say aahhhh,"

Enterprise looked at the spoon then turned away. She looked again then turned. Finally she came forward and ate her food but quickly turned away.

"There see, didn't that taste good?"

"It was only good because you were the one feeding me."

"Ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow," cried Akagi, dropping her spoon.

"What happened?" he asked, leaving Enterprise and going to her.

"Commander the soups really hot," she said, while she kept fanning her mouth "can you blow it and cool it down for me?"

He didn't say anything. Instead he took a spoon full of soup, blew on it a couple of times and fed it to Akagi.

"Better?"

"Better," she replied, her tails swaying in agreement.

Although the day got off to a rocky start, he was able to quickly adapt to the circumstances. After lunch, the girls were less vibrant and active as they were before and it wasn't long before they settled down for an evening nap.

He too took the opportunity to rest for a moment, but when he woke up, he found that Eugen, Wales, Illustrious, Cleveland, Hornet, Enterprise, Belfast and Akagi had taken up residence around him.

Afternoon became evening and evening became night.

The girls didn't put up much trouble having dinner. The problem came when he had to put them all into bed, one at a time. Once that was done, he went by everyone's rooms, making sure they were all asleep before heading to his room.

After a long, shower, he changed into his clothes for the night and was about to go to sleep.

Then he heard a knock on the door.

Curious, he went to open it and saw Belfast standing outside, looking concerned.

"Is something wrong Belfast?"

"I was more worried about you Master," said Belfast "I thought that because it was raining outside, you might get scared and wouldn't be able to sleep properly."

Half of that statement was true.

"As your maid, I should make sure you sleep well and are ready for duty come tomorrow Commander," she added.

"So you want to come in?" he asked and she nodded.

He gestured for her to come inside and closed the door afterwards. He took another step forward and heard a second knock on the door. This time, he saw Eugen, Wales and Illustrious standing outside, looking scared.

"Commander," said Illustrious "I heard this very weird noise outside my window. I think there's a monster there. Can I stay here tonight?"

"My room doesn't feel that comfortable right now," said Eugen "So I'm staying here tonight."

"Your room feels a lot safer than mine Commander," said Wales.

"Say no more," he said and gestured for them to come inside before closing the door.

The Commander stared at the door for a good two minutes, expecting there to be a knock. When there was nothing, he thought it was over. He turned around, heard a knock and silently cursed himself.

When he opened the door, seeing Akagi and Enterprise standing outside the dimly lit corridor, he had nothing to say. The trio exchanged looks for a good half a minute. He knew what they wanted; they knew he knew what they wanted. There was no need to speak. He silently let them come in and then noticed that there wasn't enough space on the bed for all of them.

Thinking that this might continue all through the night, the Commander decided to head to the broadcast room.

"Attention all members of the fleet," he said, pressing the intercom "if at all you are feeling uncomfortable sleeping in your room tonight then you can come to the cafeteria. I've decided to sleep there tonight and if anyone wants to join me, they're welcome to.

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"You should have seen how quickly this place filled up," said Z23 to the Commander who had arrived along with a small train of girls following behind.

"By the way," he said, while the train broke up and started talking to the others present in the room "why are you and Yorktown's students here?"

"Um well…." Said Z23, trying to hide the fact that she too wanted to get in on this opportunity "wait, where's Enterprise and Akagi?"

"They're right here with the…"

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"I hope you're happy now Akagi, we're lost and its your fault," said Enterprise.

"My fault? You're the one who thought she saw a ghost and ran away."

"Then why'd you follow me?"

"Because if anything happened to you then the Commander'll be sad," she replied looking away "I don't want him to be sad."

Just then they heard the sound of thunder outside and the pair yelped in fright then tightly hugged each other.

"We should head back to the Commander's room," stated Enterprise.

"Agreed," said Akagi.

The pair turned around and bumped into a tall imposing figure. Given that it was late in the night, the lighting in the corridor was a pretty bad and the pair were visibly scared, the sight of a tall person did not help calm them down.

"AHHH it's a demon come to eat my soul," screamed Akagi, forming small spheres of fox fire and flung them at the 'demon.'

"You're not eating our souls evil demon," shouted Enterprise, looking like she was ready to fight.

"I'm not eating anyone's souls," said the Commander, stepping into the light so the pair could get a better view of him.

"Commander," the pair cried out, dashing towards him then scrambling up his body so that they sat on either of his shoulders.

"Didn't I tell you not to break the chain?" he asked.

"We're sorry," said the pair.

"Well anyway, we should head to the cafeteria."

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Enterprise let out a long yawn, stretching her arms out then slowly rose up. She blinked a few times, as it took her a moment to recall that she wasn't sleeping in her room, she was sleeping in the cafeteria with the rest of the fleet.

She rubbed her head a little, recalling the events of last night. It was only now she noticed that she had returned to her regular form. She quickly looked at everyone else in the room and found that the same thing had happened.

"Looks like things are back to normal," she said, letting out a sigh of relief.

She then turned to her right and saw the Commander sitting against the wall sound asleep.

Ever since Akagi made that overtly romantic pledge to the Commander, Enterprise had felt very jealous of her and sought to spend more time with him than before. As she did, she started feeling different around him, but could not understand why.

It was only when she was a kid and could fully express herself, she understood what those feelings were.

Seeing as everyone else was asleep, she slowly reached out to the Commander's hand. As she drew closer, her hand was batted away by Akagi, who was staring daggers at her.

If that wasn't enough, Akagi then proceeded to take the Commander's hand, only to be batted away by Enterprise.

The pair glared at each other and it stayed that way till one of them backed down.

Sensing the tension in the air, the Commander slowly opened his eyes to see what was going on. While he was glad that Enterprise and Akagi were back to normal, he was not glad to see they were back to fighting each other again.

He quietly closed his eyes, thinking that he'll deal with this mess a little later.