DISCLAIMER: Concurrent with fair dealing clauses of the Copyright Act (R.S.C., 1985, c. C-42) of Canada and fair use clauses in copyright legislation in other nations, this is a work that was created solely for entertainment purposes. Furthermore, it is posted freely on the Internet without expectation or requirement of remuneration.


The End of the Circus: A Tale of the Yizibajohei
Shipgirl Short Stories: Hearts of Oak! The Lucky Woodpecker of Battle Recommissions!
By Fred Herriot

L'Amour est Bleu (Love is Blue), composed by André Popp with lyrics by Pierre Cour

Based on characters and situations from Kantai Collection, created by Kadokawa Games; Sister Princess, created by Kimino Sakurako and Tenhiro Naoto; Sherlock, created by Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss (based on Sherlock Holmes, created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle); Harry Potter, created by Joanna K. Rowling; Urusei Yatsura, created by Takahashi Rumiko; and normalman, created by Jim Valentino.

Also including characters and situations from Urusei Yatsura — The Senior Year, created by Mike Smith and Fred Herriot.


Somewhere in Time and Space...

It was so quiet here...

Like a calm and tranquil sea...

The sixth of her particular name, like other ship spirits who came Here after their time in the mortal world — regardless of what would befall their physical hulls once they were either sunk or dismantled; the living souls of museum ships hadn't come to this place as far as she could sense — had slept pretty much since the day she had finally surrendered to the tender mercies of the breakers, who had to come to her final resting place at Saint Michael's Mount near Penzance in Cornwall to do what the Kaiserliche Marine, the Kriegsmarine, the Luftwaffe and the Regia Marina had singularly failed to do.

Heh! "Grand Old Lady", indeed...!

Huh...?

Blue, blue, my world is blue;
Blue is my world since I'm without you.
Grey, grey, my life is grey;
Cold is my heart since you went away...

Hearing that beautiful voice — a Greek accent even if the words were clearly English — a pair of bright blue eyes opened as the once-formless spirit began to coalesce into something more human-like. And while ships had been called "she" since Time immortal as far as she understood — what made the captain of Kriegsmarineschiff Bismarck want to call that murder machine which had so easily destroyed His Majesty's Ship Hood near the Denmark Strait one bleak May day in 1941 "he", she would NEVER begin to understand — that her very spirit was assuming the form of a graceful woman in her twenties was something she personally hadn't expected since she had forever slipped the bounds of King Neptune's Realm for This Place...

Red, red, my eyes are red;
Crying for you alone in my bed.
Green, green, my jealous heart;
I doubted you and now we're apart...

While long hair as golden as the very Sun itself spilled into her field of vision, she felt her shapely body become draped in a glittering silver crystal-like bodysuit. It wasn't form fitting; actually, it seemed quite comfortable as the amassed memories of all those who had helped make the second Queen Elizabeth-class fast super-dreadnought what she had been for thirty years bearing the Royal Commission from the time of King George V through that of his completely love-struck eldest son King Edward VIII to that of his long-suffering second son King George VI immediately fell in love with the sheer softness of the fabric now cloaking her definite female form. Wondering what in God's name was making her be transformed into THIS, she closed her eyes...

When we met,
How the bright sun shone!
Then love died;
Now the rainbow is gone!

Oh, dear...!

Prussia Cove...

Yet...!

Wait a minute...!

Sea cadets...?!

And not just boys, but girls as well! Not just British sea cadets, but Australian, New Zealander, Canadian...

Oh!

Oh, my...!

Number 98 Royal Canadian Sea Cadet Corps...?!

The Crown actually allowed the sea youth service of the oldest of the Dominions to receive Royal patronage...?!

Then why didn't the United Kingdom's own junior sea service...?

Eh...?!

Er...?

No. 98 Royal Canadian Sea Cadet Corps "W-...?

Oh, my...!

Oh, dear...!

This was EMBARRASSING...!

This unit named itself after HER...?!

A ship's bell then rang...!

Black, black, the nights I've known;
Longing for you so lost and alone.
Gone, gone, the love we knew;
Blue is my world since I'm without you...

As the hearts and fondest wishes of HUNDREDS of brave boys and girls seemed to ring through her very soul, she then perked on sensing one particular lad, a native of Penzance whose grandfather had actually...!

Oh...!

Ah...!

She understood now...!

Yet why on Earth...?!

Huh...?

WHAT?!

When we met,
How the bright sun shone!
Then love died;
Now the rainbow is gone!

The souls of dozens, HUNDREDS of warships — and yes, the odd civilian ships — had done WHAT?!

Had...become HUMAN?!

No! Had become METAHUMAN...?!

Like those "mystery men" and "mystery women" in their colourful fighting uniforms whose deeds had been prime news from North America — and yes, even many places in western Europe and the British Isles as well — during the latter years of the Great Depression before the fifth round of the Great European Free-for-All began in 1939...!

Far more civilized than a tonne of those useless magicals hiding in the shadows of society since 1689 had EVER been...!

Love is blue, now I'm without you...

Sensing that lovely song ending, she felt herself rising, noting a point in this ghostly place off to starboard turning bright, such displaying an image on a cliff overlooking the final place where she had come to rest before the breakers came to end her...!

Love is blue, now I'm without you...

As bos'n calls shrilled the still and one cadet rang a ship's bell.

Well...!

No sense in just ignoring this...!

Standing — and marvelling that her living spirit could now actually do things normal people, men and women alike, could do — she moved towards that portal leading from This Place back to the mortal plane...

Tene lomher'buo, Charlene Victoria Boleyn...!


Marazion Beach (three kilometres north of east from Penzance in Cornwall), overlooking Saint Michael's Mount, the last Wednesday of October in 2012, noon hour (Tōkyō time: Mid-evening)...

"Nothing...!"

"Bloody nothing...!"

"You sure this could've worked...?!"

The current executive warrant officer of the combined cadet force based out of the Camborne Science and International Academy near Redruth on the Atlantic side of Cornwall from Penzance exchanged a knowing look with the coxswain of No. 98 Royal Canadian Sea Cadet Corps from Kitchener in southwest Ontario. "I thought that Grandpa working as part of her crew would do it," WOCDT John Blake — just a year's away from attending the Britannia Royal Naval College to follow in his family's long tradition of answering the Crown's call to become part of the Senior Service — breathed out as the heads of the cadet corps who had been summoned to this place ultimately by the new Sixth Sea Lord of the Royal Navy had their charges stand easy. "A lot of shipgirls did come back 'to duty' when someone of their crew wished them to come back from wherever the kami go..."

CDT CPO1 Marilyn Jones of Woolwich located outside the largest city of Ontario's Waterloo Region bit her lip. "What's the special ingredient we're missing then?" the soon-to-be freshman student at Wilfred Laurier University in the city of Waterloo beside Kitchener asked; she hadn't contemplated a professional career in the Royal Canadian Navy even if a new "stone frigate" naval reserve unit, HMCS Conestoga, had been re-established in nearby Cambridge. "We know there are parts of the captain's hull out there in the cove; the breakers didn't get to all of it when they got to water level by '55."

Here, she waved towards Prussia Cove in emphasis. "Don't the Specialized Warfare Regiment have cadet corps affiliated to it, Lynne?" WOCDT Patrick Lowell, executive warrant officer of Training Ship Leander in Auckland — whose namesake served in the Mediterranean during the Second World War alongside the "grand old lady" herself — noted as he gave Jones a hopeful look.

A snort escaped the Ontarian as she gave the Aucklander a weary stare. "The SWR and the 'old metahumans'..." — here, she made finger quotes to not mention the "M" term; the surgeon rear admiral who organized Operation: Woodpecker Hunt warned them that mentioning Britain's long-hidden magical population would definitely attract unwelcome attention from idiots under Northumberland Avenue in Westminster — "...keep that sort of thing under their hats, Pat! Thanks for the haka, anyway!"

"Best we could do, Lynne," the native of the city known to many in the Realm as Tāmaki Makaurau affirmed. "Any ideas you can give us, Lee?" he asked his opposite number from Training Ship Perth in the namesake capital city of Western Australia.

CDTCPO Lee Shannon shook her head. "Not a bloody thing, mate..."

Tene lomher'buo, Charlene Victoria Boleyn...!

Everyone jolted on hearing that booming male-like voice — the SAME voice that heralded the return of the most famous warship of the modern era a little over two months prior in the North Atlantic west-southwest of here — echo over the scene...

"Damn!" Blake breathed out as a point of very bright light appeared in the sky overhead to the south. "I think we did it!"

Immediately, the cadets all moved to straighten their ranks. "PIPE THE SIDE!" the CCF senior cadet then barked out.

One of the Canadian cadets grasped the rope tied to the small ship's bell which had been set up by his British counterparts right next to the stone memorial honouring the Royal Navy's most successful warship overlooking where she had finally surrendered to her fate after World War Two, while bos'n mates from all four countries forming a row raised their calls to their lips...

...just as the sounds of large sections of metal clanging against each other echoed through the local sky!


Somewhere under Northumberland Avenue in the City of Westminster, that moment...

"Oh, Merlin's Beard...!"

"What is it, John?!"

"It's happening HERE, Shack!" John Dawlish declared, pointing.

Kingsley Shacklebolt blinked before he looked...

...then he gaped on seeing the bright target icon appear on the map of the British Isles used by the Ministry of Magic's various departments to monitor significant magical events within their area of jurisdiction.

Said target icon now indicating something BIG was happening right near Land's End in Cornwall!

And given what the Ministry of Magic had learned from other magical governments over the last few months...

"What was there?!" the Grenadian-descent auror sergeant barked to one of the few people in this place who had gone to Canada to train at the Institute of Sorcery and Magic, coming back with considerable knowledge about muggle naval affairs.

Given that the crews of the eight monster-slaying magical battleships of the Dominion all trained at the end of the Sibley Peninsula where the Great Old One known as Nanabozho was rumoured to be resting...!

Whispering a spell, the retired auror now working for the Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes' office of misinformation — which really didn't have to do much these days when it came to THEM! — blinked as a ghostly parchment appeared before him. Gazing at the small list of names on said parchment — which also contained a quick note concerning the final fate of warships who had sunk at or near that part of Cornwall — he ran through them before gaping.

His Canadian teachers — all veterans of the Wars of Liberation from all eight of the Dominion's great monster-slaying battleships — had waxed poetic about THIS particular warship's actions during BOTH world wars...!

"It's Warspite...!" he then called out.

Shacklebolt — even if he was a pureblood, he was quite the expert in muggle matters and had forced himself through a crash course on the naval side of muggle military affairs in recent months thanks to the reborn sea spirits now known as "shipgirls" in English worldwide — blinked before he gaped as that name rang loud in his memory. "The BATTLESHIP?!"

"Same! She ran aground there when she was en route to scrapping after Grindelwald's War ended, then was SCRAPPED there!"

"Shack! Look!"

On hearing Dawlish's shout, the dark-skinned auror looked at the map once more...

...then he grimly nodded. "Her scrap metal's being gathered to be reassembled..." he concluded.

People stared at him, then turned back to morbidly watch as MANY streaks of light seemed to emanate from all over southern England and Wales to converge at the very point of interest now attracting the attention of the Ministry's magical sensors. "I'll warn the Minister," Dawlish then declared as he moved to leave. "He'll want to know about this..."

Shacklebolt rolled his eyes. "Do the words 'Magical Royal Proclamation' mean something to you, John?"

That made the known arse-kisser to Cornelius Fudge visibly wince as he gave his superior a wary look...


Near Saint Michael's Rock, a minute later...

"Bloody HELL, that's FAST!"

"It'd take YEARS to rebuild her the NORMAL way!"

"What the hell makes this happen, anyway?!"

"Only Father Ranginui and Mother Papatūānuku know that damned answer, Lee...!"

As the assembly of cadets from four Commonwealth realms watched in overwhelmed awe, crowds of people streamed from nearby homes and cars who had been travelling along the West End between Marazion and Goldsithney to the east and Long Rock and Penzance to the west began to gather in the park around the simple stone memorial to Britain's most successful warship, drawing out cell phones and even the odd professional digital camera to take photos of the second of the Queen Elizabeth-class fast super-dreadnoughts literally being REBUILT while hovering in the air about a half-kilometre above the waters of Prussia Cove. While there hadn't been any police presence at this gathering — given a shipgirl's power, the idea of someone actually WANTING to cause issues here had been waved off by the just-appointed Surgeon Rear Admiral Katharine Jones when she was appointed as Sixth Sea Lord/Commander Naval Specialized Warfare Forces a few months ago — two constables of the Devon and Cornwall Police soon drove up in their modified Ford Focus patrol car, parking in the lot next to the marker set up by the HMS Warspite Association in memorial to their beloved ship next to her final mortal resting place.

Soon enough, both constables threaded through the crowd of excited people to find themselves facing the aft-most row of cadets now standing at divisions awaiting the arrival of their namesake ship. "Excuse me! Who's in charge here?!" one called out.

The four senior cadets forming a row at the head of this crowd now facing the effectively half-rebuilt HMS Warspite looked over their shoulders, then the one in the recognizable uniform of the Combined Cadet Force walked between his gathered subordinates to come to attention, saluting the just-arrived constables. "Gentlemen, can we be of assistance?" John Blake asked.

The constables returned that courtesy. "When did THIS start, lad?!" one asked. "Do you have any authorization for this?"

Smiling, the native of Redruth reached into his dress jacket pocket to pull out a folded letter. "From the Sixth Sea Lord with her sincerest compliments, Constable," he said as he handed said letter over.

Taking it, the two men gazed on what was written there before they blinked on seeing the written note there from the future head of the United Kingdom's shipgirl forces; the surgeon from Chatham east of London had been assigned to her present post after spending two years as Director General of Defence Medical Services, the first woman promoted to such a position. "Look there," the junior constable then stated after noting what was written in a VERY familiar scrawl over the main body of the text:

We desire this. La Reyne le veult.
Elizabeth R

Both constables chuckled as the letter was handed back. "Would have been nice for someone to warn US this was happening," the senior of the pair commented. "Can't imagine what's happening on the A394 right now..."

A radio then squawked, making him pick up his portable set to answer his dispatcher over in Penzance. "First time this is happening," WOCDT Blake explained. "She was picked first since she's the most prominent of all Royal Navy ships from the second go-around with the Germans." Here, the handsome Kenyan-descent senior sea cadet indicated the rebuilding Warspite, which was now effectively complete to her upper weather deck, the eight 15 inch BL Mark I main cannon — among whose number one of the longest shots by a naval rifle had been fired on 9 July 1940 during the Battle of Calabria due east of Sicily, such a blow hitting RM Giulio Cesare in the aft funnel — awaiting their chances to be inserted into reassembling gun houses.

The constable nodded. "And with Bismarck returned 'to duty' thanks to that whole damned thing with the Marvel universe back in August, with a load of U-boats and minor ships finally following her without defecting to Canada of all places..."

"Aye, sir..."

"IT'S HAPPENING!"

Both men looked up to see Warspite now effectively complete, the whole hull moving to glow star bright; none of the witnesses on this at ground level could see the very tiny point of light marking the true "special ingredient" CDT CPO1 Marilyn Jones from the battleship's namesake sea cadet corps asked about when the assembled cadets moved to begin this summoning exercise.

"EVERYONE! COVER YOUR EYES! DON'T LOOK AT HER!" the constable barked after yanking out a megaphone.

As people turned away or shielded their eyes from the most magical part of this whole evolution, the reassembled mass of 33,110 tonnes of steel, regenerated wood and other elements that had gone in to make the second Queen Elizabeth-class fast dreadnought what she was then collapsed into a ball of raw power glowing with the up-front effect of a noonday Sun...!

Nesu...RIMKUTI!

Silence fell...

...before the ground suddenly quaked as something human-sized in dimensions came down about a couple metres away from the assembled cadets, nearly knocking down the row of bos'n mates ready to call the still and announce the reborn Warspite's arrival.

Fortunately, even if her just-transformed new "hull" was adjusting to human dimensions — including body mass — the woman now being hailed elsewhere as the Lucky Woodpecker of Battle, Rimkuti ("Warspite"), hadn't hurt anyone with her landing.

People blinked before a melodic West Country accent called out, "Oh, dreadfully sorry! Didn't mean to trip anyone up!"

Everyone moved to look...

...they then beholding the transformed and reborn Charlene Boleyn standing there in her forest green martial arts gi-like uniform. Such was a design common to shipgirls born of Great War-era ships as well as cultural traditionalists like a certain Japanese aircraft carrier who missed out on the whole Second World War until her transformation at the start of April this year. Charlene also possessed gold belt and boots, her ship's crest with its gold Elizabethan Era cannon on a green field over her heart and the pennant 57 — her original Great War hull number, the gathered Sea Cadets knew; the pennant 03 which Warspite used in World War Two had been assigned in the previous war to the light cruiser HMS Weymouth, name ship of her sub-series of the well-regarded Town-class cruisers — in white-bordered black on her upper thighs. Atop that, said costume was decorated liberally with frolicking European green woodpeckers trimmed in soft grey, dancing gaily all over the darker green background.

"Bloody hell! She's a damned LOOKER, that one!" one young man hissed from the assembled civilians nearby.

Perking as she tried NOT to blush at such a compliment — she really needed to see a mirror, for God's sake! — the reborn battleship then jolted as who appeared to be the senior British cadet present called out, "PIPE THE SIDE!"

All the cadets snapped to attention as the bos'n mate manning the bell rang it twice to announce the arrival of a senior officer. In response, the adopted native of Devonport in Hampshire (where she was personally built) and Deptford on the south bank of the Thames within the modern London borough of Lewisham (where the first ship named Warspite had been built to serve the navy of the original Queen Elizabeth and her successive monarchs Kings James VI/I and Charles I) immediately snapped to attention and saluted the unofficial "brow", she noting she had the four rings with Elliot's Eye on the top of a captain in the Royal Navy on her sleeve cuffs. "WARSPITE, ARRIVING!" the quartermaster of the watch beside the line of bos'n mates called out, saluting.

A minute pause followed, then the two-tone notes of the "carry on" was piped then by the bos'n mates off to her port. Then the senior British cadet — a transplanted colonial from Africa somewhere by the looks of him — approached her. "Captain Boleyn, welcome back, ma'am!" the fellow — whose rank insignia composed of the Arms of Dominion in red thread, something Charlene couldn't recognize now — greeted her after giving her a salute, which she returned. "Cadet Warrant Officer John Blake, executive warrant officer of the Combined Cadet Force unit at the Camborne Science and International Academy in Redruth, commander of Task Group 'W' assigned to complete Operation: Woodpecker Hunt, reporting with personnel from my corps, Number 98 Royal Canadian Sea Cadet Corps Warspite of Kitchener in Ontario, Training Ship Perth of Perth in Western Australia and Training Ship Leander of Devonport in Auckland, ready for your inspection and post-salvage briefing."

The blonde, blue-eyed battleship took that in, then she sighed, lowering her arm. "I assume there's a reason not just myself but hundreds like me worldwide are being salvaged and transformed into this?" she wondered, waving to herself.

WOCDT Blake smiled as he reached into his pocket to draw out a formal envelope, such sealed with red wax with a VERY familiar sigil keeping it closed. "From Her Majesty with her sincere complements, ma'am."

Her blue eyes went wide before she took up the letter, then snapped it open, revealing one folded sheet of paper. "I know the King passed away while I was being scrapped here, so I assume his daughter is the current Queen..."

"Has been since 1952, ma'am," Blake assured her. "It's Hallowe'en day in 2012 now, ma'am."

"Very good, Warrant," she noted as she opened the folded letter. She then smiled in delight as the lady with the Arms of Canada as her rank insignia and the ship's crest Charlene bore over her heart on her uniform jacket came up, offering her hand. "I assume you're a warrant officer as well, Miss Jones?" she wondered, noting the newcomer's name tag under her corps badge.

"Chief Petty Officer First Class, ma'am," CDT CPO1 Marilyn Jones answered as she took the empty envelope in hand. "Warrants in Canada are Army and Air Force — and Army Cadet and Air Cadet — rank titles. We don't mix them as they do here in old Blighty, much less Down Under." Here, she winked at her counterparts from TS Leander and TS Perth.

Both CDTCPO Lee Shannon and WOCDT Patrick Lowell laughed at that comment. "Leander and Perth, eh?" Charlene then mused. "Good ships, both of them. Heard that old Leander went to New Zealand; has she come back this way?"

"Both of our namesake ships, ma'am," Shannon answered. "Perth is Captain Helen Farncomb..."

"And Leander is Captain Wendy Rivett-Carnac, Captain," Lowell added before calling out, "Petty Officer Dyson!"

"Aye-aye, Warrant!" a woman with the crossed anchors and crown of a cadet petty officer in the New Zealand Sea Cadet Corps called back, taking one step forward from the ranks and saluting the reborn battleship, with she returned with a nod.

"Send an e-mail to Captain Rivett-Carnac and Captain Farncomb to inform them of the captain's return!"

"Aye-aye, Warrant!" POCDT Lois Dyson said before reaching into her jacket to draw out what looked like a slate of glass and metal the size of a pocketbook novel to the adopted native of Devonport.

Blinking as she THEN realized there was something tucked away in her new uniform belt pouch on her right — starboard? — hip, she then switched the letter from Buckingham Palace to her left hand to reach for whatever was there.

"Um, ma'am," Blake called out. "Before you pull that out, you best read that part."

Noting he was pointing to the letter, Charlene blinked before looking over, noting one paragraph all in bold print:

Charlene, please do NOT openly speak of where your new "hull" comes from. As to the "why", you'll be briefed on as soon as you're in a secure place by your new admiral. The safety of Earth as a whole depends on your silence!

Humming in understanding as she nodded thanks to Blake — the four senior cadets in charge of this operation had been given a more thorough briefing about how shipgirls became what they were and WHY such had to be kept secret from the general public given a certain situation occurring now just outside Tōkyō in Japan — she turned back to read the Queen's letter in full...

...before her cheeks reddened as her empty stomach suddenly and LOUDLY creaked!

Silence.

More silence.

Still more silence.

Then...

"Rations?" Jones proposed.

"Too early for tea time, Marilyn!" Shannon advised.

Charlene gaped. "Too early for TEA?! Tosh! Go get some food summoned up, Chief!"

The native of Woolwich smartly saluted her. "Aye-aye, ma'am!"


In the city of Westminster, the headquarters complex of the Ministry of Magic under Northumberland Avenue near Whitehall, a half-hour later...

"A shipgirl?!"

"Yes, Minister."

"A BRITISH shipgirl?!"

"HMS Warspite, one of the Great War battleships, Minister. She was at Second Dogger Bank."

Cornelius Fudge looked as pale as a ghost as he took a moment to absorb that blasting hex just delivered to him by John Dawlish and Kingsley Shacklebolt. Also in his office with the two aurors were Dawlish's and Shacklebolt's top superior Director Amelia Bones, chief auror Rufus Scrimgeour, Fudge's new junior undersecretary Percy Weasley...and, much to Bones', Scrimgeour's and Shacklebolt's personal annoyance, Lucius Malfoy; given that Dolores Umbridge was currently working at Hogwarts as this school term's "yearly sacrifice", she was currently in Scotland. "Oh, dear Merlin...!" the current Baron of Cotswold who had been elected as Minister for Magic — which he and many others like him often mistakenly called "minister OF magic", forgetting that the official title had been imposed by Royal Warrant in 1707 with the reorganization of the governing body for British magicals — as a compromise between "light" and "dark" factions in the Wizengamot could only breathe out. While the news of the reborn first-generation battle dolls from the third world of Kaeyu having merged with the literally kami of sea warships that had been occurring over many parts of Earth had been in general magical public circulation since the soul of the destroyer Fubuki became Fukushima Fujiko in mid-March, the Daily Prophet and most of the other major newspapers and magazines serving wizarding Britain had been encouraged to downplay such incidents, even after the shocking return of the legendary German battleship Bismarck in the personage of Luisa von Bismarck-Schönhausen a little over two months ago.

But with a BRITISH warship having been changed that way...!

"We must find a way to subvert these creatures to protect ourselves, Cornelius," Malfoy then warned.

"We can't, Lord Malfoy," Weasley then spoke up, making the "pro-shipgirl" magicals in the room — all save Dawlish, who was a fence-sitter when it came to the existence of such beings — perk at the junior undersecretary's words. "Her Majesty the Queen has issued a Magical Royal Proclamation forbidding Ministry interference when it comes to ANY shipgirl, especially if they come from the United Kingdom or any of the Commonwealth realms or the muggle government's allies in this NATO alliance. Master Mycroft Holmes will be in overall charge of them in his place as leader of the Specialized Warfare Fencibles."

Hearing THAT man's name made the Marquess of Avebury based out of the heart of Wiltshire openly wince as Bones and Scrimgeour exchanged knowing looks and Shacklebolt hid his own smile. Given that both laws passed by the muggle Parliament at the Palace of Westminster upriver from the MoM's headquarters complex and magical royal proclamations — the latter being the supreme law for all magicals in the United Kingdom no matter how much traditionalists sometimes loudly wished otherwise — had been in effect since Grindelwald's War ended in 1945 to prevent magicals from interfering with non-magical metahumans, the fact that a man like Mycroft Holmes had such control over such people made those like Fudge quake in their boots, they hoping NOTHING would happen that would force the man's hand against people such as they. Given Malfoy's true affiliations as a certain tattoo on the man's inner left arm loudly declared — he always wearing clothes to hide the Dark Mark from public view — the fact that MUGGLES had such power over MAGICALS was something he hated with all his being.

Such a view was shared by a certain dark lord and his other followers, who had managed to pull off a spectacular prison break earlier this morning at Azkaban in the North Sea east of the Shetland Islands...!

That alone made Fudge's day VERY bad, much to Malfoy's private delight!

But to have something like THIS drop down on people's heads at the same time...!

"There has to be a way around this, Mister Weatherby," Malfoy then snarled.

Weasley's eyes flashed his annoyance at the mispronunciation of his family name. Yes, there was the long-standing feud between the Malfoys of Avebury and the Weasleys of Ottery Saint Catchpole, but Weasley's decision to not follow his family's mad drive to warn people that He Who Must Never Be Named had somehow returned back in late May should have earned him respect with "darker" factions in both the Ministry and the Wizengamot. "There is NO way around this, Lord Malfoy. Mister Holmes is FAR smarter than that and we've NO idea if Lady Warspite is actually the FIRST shipgirl of the United Kingdom to have 'returned to duty' in this particular manner." As Fudge gargled in disbelief, he added, "Many warships of the Royal Navy were lost overseas during both the Great War and the Wars of Liberation; the chances are good that a shipgirl born from a vessel sunk in the Mediterranean Sea, the Indian Ocean or the Pacific Ocean basins could have come back earlier. Given how much Lady Saeru gets around on her weekend or holiday trips around the world thanks to Professor Thomas' floating umbrella..."

"She has to be stopped from doing that!" Malfoy snapped. "Cornelius, you HAVE to make a firm stand here!"

"If you're that hell-bound to be BEHEADED by Lady Yonaga of all people, Lucius, please go right on ahead!" Bones teased, making Voldemort's chief financier turn as white as a ghost; the news of THAT particular shipgirl and what she and her still-living crew had been doing in the hinterland of Siberia for over seven decades started getting around back in late April.

"Amelia, please!" Fudge urged. "There's no time for that...!"

A rapid knocking was heard at the door. "Minister!"

Said minister looked over. "What?! What?!"

The door flew open to reveal another auror, he quite wide-eyed. "Minister, a whole SLEW of shipgirls appear to be coming back! Scapa Flow — both IN the bay and outside it! — not to mention the English Channel and elsewhere...!"

As people's jaws dropped, Malfoy sneered as he HOPED that his master was monitoring things through the Dark Mark.

What happened on Monday night in Whitby couldn't be allowed to happen AGAIN...!


The Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry in the mountains of Perth and Kinross in Scotland, that moment...

"Oh, dear...!"

Hearing that mused statement from her prize pre-NEWT student, Professor Sybil Trelawney looked over. "What is it?"

The woman that the great-granddaughter of Britain's most famous Seer knew was ALSO a Gifted adopted Yizibajohei — and who knew the TRUE fate of the Boy Who Lived even if she was sworn to total secrecy over that matter — looked up from her crystal ball, it now displaying the image of a smiling blue-eyed blonde twenty-something being walked into a fish and chips restaurant somewhere in the United Kingdom by equally-smiling uniformed youth, everyone chattering away as many bystanders went and took pictures. The badge over her heart loudly declared who she had once been. "Britain's first shipgirl."

Trelawney came over to gaze on her, then nodded. "Warspite. Queen Elizabeth-class battleship, veteran of Second Dogger Bank on the muggle side of things," she declared, her voice exceptionally clear; both Hirosaki Chikage and Luna Lovegood had been on the older woman's case to stop drinking so much when she was in class, especially now with a certain "pureblood" senior undersecretary — who violated the tenets of Hogwarts' by-laws by working here while STILL being employed by the Ministry of Magic! — causing too much in the way of disruption, especially among students in the Defence Against the Dark Arts classes. "Most decorated warship of the Royal Navy as I recall you telling me when I asked about your sister potentially bringing back Her Majesty's warships as shipgirls thanks to the largess of the Healer of Destruction. Was Hinako involved?"

"No, she'll be preparing for bed right now, Professor," Hirosaki Chikage advised. "She only goes on 'shipgirl hunts' on the weekends when she can spare time from friends and homework. I don't recall Mycroft asking for her help in finding warship kami to see salvaged and Gifted to serve under Surgeon Rear Admiral Jones' new command." Here, the Dark Heart of Pure Chaos, Nosyo'or'bem ("Dragonheart"), took a sip of some welcome tea; she didn't have any classes for the rest of today, so she was spending time with Trelawney helping tutor junior students in divination. "Oh, Pansy, we need Dolores' floo portal blocked for the rest of today. Her 'dear Cornelius' might be persuaded by Draco's father to move directly against Charlene and whoever else might be summoned back to duty once they sense her Gifting's happened. No doubt, Tom might take offence."

The very shadows of the divination classroom seemed to stir at that statement from the native of the magical side of Tōkyō who had some VERY powerful relations...including the man-turned-woman who saved Pansy Parkinson's life years ago, thus seeing the daughter of the current Earl of Keerford in Lancashire eventually Gifted as the Shadow Hunter, Semtato ("Silhouette").

«Done, Chikage,» the dark-haired reality/shadow warper called back telepathically from the Great Hall. «What's going on?»

"Mycroft is getting a very nice Hallowe'en present," the high-level arch-mage sorceress replied.

«Oh, that's nice...!»


Scapa Flow within the Orkney Islands (north of John o' Groats at the northernmost tip of Scotland), that moment...

A fisherman busy moving to get some fresh catch from the waters of the old wartime fleet anchorage perked as the very calm waves off to the north and west of his current position began to churn wildly...

Tene lomher'buo, Jocelyn Daphne Dick...

Tene lomher'buo, Kimberly Rachel Maclachlan...

Turning to look as the waters over the wreck sites of the first of the Revenge-class super-dreadnoughts and the last of the Saint Vincent-class first-generation dreadnoughts (as seen by launch date) had been sunk, he then cackled in delight as streaks of energy flew across the sky from the south to see salvaged fittings and other parts of either HMS Royal Oak or HMS Vanguard fly into place, ready to reunite with the remainder of the hulls now rising from the Flow. "Ruddy about time...!"

Tene lomher'buo, Marie Charlotte mu Württemberg...

Tene lomher'buo, Catharine Ottilie mu Zähringen...

Tene lomher'buo, Augusta Victoria mu Preußen...

Tene lomher'buo, Joanelle Kamrie Tietgenns...

Tene lomher'buo, Wilhelmina Bathilda Schulz...

Tene lomher'buo, Loralei Constanze Kaulhausen...

Tene lomher'buo, Katrina Didrika Franck...

"Bloody hell! Even the German ships, too?!" the fisherman exclaimed before another delighted laugh escaped him.

Noting that the very hull of Royal Oak was now surfacing off to the north, he then shrugged as he sat back in his chair, setting aside his fishing pole as he moved to pull out a camera to get some decent pictures.

He wasn't going to miss THIS for the whole damned world!

To Be Continued...!


WRITER'S NOTES

The timeline of this particular short sets it happening on Hallowe'en in 2012, seventeen days prior to the start of the first part of the main story Boy Meets Girl Meets Metahuman.

Translation list and source language: Kaiserliche Marine — Imperial Navy, title of the German maritime warfare service from 1871-1918; Kriegsmarine — War Navy, title of the German maritime warfare service from 1935-1945; Luftwaffe — Air Force, title of the German aviation warfare service from 1935-1945 and from 1955 to today; Regia Marina — Royal Navy, title (and ship prefix) of the Italian maritime warfare service from 1861-1946; Kriegsmarineschiff — War Navy Ship, ship prefix for German navy warships from 1935-1945 in my stories (short-formed KMS); WOCDT — Cadet Warrant Officer (English abbreviation); CDT CPO1 — Cadet Chief Petty Officer 1st Class (English abbreviation); CDTCPO — Cadet Chief Petty Officer (English abbreviation); Le Reyne le veult — The Queen wills it (Norman French); BL — Breech Loading, the standard indicator for a non-muzzle loading or quick firing naval weapon in the Royal Navy (English abbreviation); POCDT — Cadet Petty Officer (English abbreviation); Mu — Of, equivalent of the German name honorific von (Yizibajohei).

Elder deity notes: Nanabozho is the trickster spirit of the Ojibwe (AKA the Chippewa) who once dominated territory from southern Manitoba through central Ontario to western Québec in central Canada. Ranginui and Papatūānuku are the divine creator couple (of sky and earth respectively) of Māori mythology in New Zealand; the latter was confirmed to be a Great Old One (the oldest sentient beings on Earth in my stories, averaging about two to three million years in age) in Part 38 of Boy Meets Girl Meets Metahuman. The Great Old Ones as a whole were first mentioned in Part Three of Magic and Canada.

The phrase Great European Free-for-All to identify a continent-wide war was coined by Shaithan in his very funny KanColle short story Germany Can(not) Into Navy, which is listed in the "Kantai Collection Fanfic Idea and Recs" snippet collection at Space Battles, post #24076928. According to him, the various "iterations" of the GEFFA are as follows:

First round: The Thirty Years War (1618-1648)
Second round: The Seven Years' War (1756-1763)
Third round: The Napoleonic Wars (1803-1815)
Fourth round: The First World War AKA the Great War (1914-1918)
Fifth round: The Second World War (1939-1945)

Surgeon Rear Admiral Katharine Jones was first introduced in the universe of this story in Part 35 of BmGmM; she first appeared in The Seventh Shipgirl. As a doctor, she is accorded the "surgeon" title prefix to her rank, such is short-formed Surg RAdm. As noted before, she was selected to the position of Sixth Sea Lord/Commander, Naval Specialized Warfare Forces (6SL/COMNSWF) due to her also possessing a doctorate degree in psychology atop her combined bachelors degree in medicine and surgery; this would help her better deal with all forms of shipgirl insanity. As an aside, there has never been a Sixth Sea Lord in the Royal Navy in real life; the First Sea Lord (1SL) is the professional head of the senior service, the Second Sea Lord (2SL) is the administrative deputy commander of the Royal Navy, the Third Sea Lord (3SL) was the chief of equipment procurement/management, the Fourth Sea Lord (4SL) was in charge of all naval supply issues and the Fifth Sea Lord (5SL) was chief of naval aviation services. Note that the titles for the Third, Fourth and Fifth Sea Lords were effectively discontinued by 1965 in real life; they were revised in the universe of my stories after shipgirls began to appear.

The Second Battle of Dogger Bank is the magical name for the Battle of Jutland on 31 May-1 June 1916. The involvement of magicals from Canada in that fight is described better in Part Seven of Magic and Canada.

Mycroft Holmes (from the BBC Sherlock television series first produced in 2010) is the Master of the Royal Specialized Warfare Fencibles; he was first mentioned in this series in Part 11 of BmGmM. A fencible regiment (from the term "defensible") was a home defence unit created by the British Army during the era of the Napoleonic Wars to act as its title states it should; such a unit is NEVER meant for duties away from the homeland. The Royal Specialized Warfare Fencibles (RSWF) was authorized by the Crown in the Specialized Warfare Act, 1949 which codified all rights and responsibilities for metahumans in the United Kingdom; this would bring together all metahuman military personnel in emergencies. Given "he IS the British Government" (according to his brother Sherlock Holmes), Mycroft's taking command of the RSWF both in peacetime and war makes sense.

As for the shipgirls introduced here (safe for who was being Gifted in the final scene; such will be noted in the following part), starting with the Commonwealth realms:

Captain Charlene Victoria Boleyn RN (His/Her Majesty's Ship Warspite [pennant 57, formerly pennant 03])
Captain Helen Louisa Farncomb RAN (His/Her Majesty's Australian Ship Perth [CL-20, formerly pennant D29], formerly His Majesty's Ship Amphion [administrative pennant C29])
Captain Julia Wendy Rivett-Carnac RNZN (His/Her Majesty's New Zealand Ship Leander [pennant C72, formerly pennant 75], formerly His Majesty's Ship Leander [administrative pennant C75])

Charlene Boleyn (HMS Warspite) and Helen Farncomb (HMAS Perth) both take after their Kantai Collection selves. Wendy Rivett-Carnac (HMNZS Leander) resembles her Azur Lane interpretation. Note that pennant numbers in the Royal Navy, due to their being reused during the world wars and afterwards, were reorganized into a single list; this is the reason Charlene went back to her original Great War pennant number. The Royal New Zealand Navy makes use of the same type of system; note that in both the RNZN and the RN, pennant superior letter "C" indicates a cruiser. The Royal Australian Navy used pennant numbers until the Vietnam War, when it switched to the American hull classification code system; the code CL means "light cruiser". Also note that during the World Wars, the Commonwealth realms did not use a type-specific pennant superior system, hence the reason Helen got pennant D29; pennant superior letter "D" in the RN and RNZN these days indicates a destroyer.

Note that all British-built warships are given an administrative pennant number if they're transferred overseas.

A quick note about the ship who originally had pennant 03 in the Great War...

Captain Evelyn Vanna Underhill RN (His/Her Majesty's Ship Weymouth [pennant C163, formerly pennant 03])

As I strongly doubt that games such as KanColle will ever get around to introducing shipgirl versions of Great War warships, there is no physical lookalike to Vanna Underhill (HMS Weymouth) I can personally reference to. As for cruiser pennant numbers, ships from World War Two get first pick of allotments (usually their old pennant number with the "C" superior), then Great War vessels would fill in remaining numbers from 00-99 (except 13, naturally) before going into higher numbers, then anything commissioned prior to 1914 who was either directly active or had sisters active during that particular conflict.

The opponents from the Battle of the Denmark Strait on 24 May 1941...

Captain Mary Sonia Hood RN (His/Her Majesty's Ship Hood [pennant 51])
Kapitän zur See Wilhelmina Luisa, Fürstin von Bismarck-Schönhausen KMDR (Kriegsmarineschiff Bismarck [pennant 62])

Luisa von Bismarck (KMS Bismarck) takes after her KanColle self. Mary Hood (HMS Hood) takes after her Azur Lane interpretation. Note that the German Navy (the service code here is KMDR, for Kriegsmarine der Deutschen Reiches ["War Navy of the German Realm"]) never used pennant numbers for anything above a destroyer in the Second World War; the pennant 62 indicates Luisa is the sixty-second battleship built in Germany. Like in Britain and elsewhere in Europe, capital ships do not receive a pennant superior letter. Being what she is and who she was named after, Luisa receives the honorary rank of Kapitän zur See ("Captain At Sea", short-formed KptzS) and the noble honorific Fürstin (normally translated as "princess").

Finally, the two Japanese shipgirls mentioned here are better explained in Part One of BmGmM.