It was dark and raining when she stepped out, collapsing inelegantly on the rolling ocean. Her chipper summer dress clinging, like her normally neat brown hair inelegantly to her body.
The weather was cold, she shivered slightly arms exposed to the cold winds and attempted to blink the saltwater out of her eyes. Blinking more rapidly when the action led her to discover that she In Fact did have eyes, the action was compounded by the discovery of legs and face, as she goped experimentally over her newfound body.
Recovering slightly from the she took a bead of her surroundings and noted little beyond the dark rolling waves, the sky too was coated by thick clouds and preventing her from finding her way.
She stood there for awhile, taking in her surroundings and looking for any sort of landmark, weather pattern, ship, or other feature that could let her know just where the hell she found herself.
Nothing.
She pulled up her compass, eyeing it warily as the needle made several rapid full rotations, before settling ramrod straight on a distant point, she frowned and gave it a frustrated shake, the needle once again steadying itself to a single point. Despite the logical parts of her mind telling her to the contrary, her instincts screamed danger to her, as though it was not north it pointed to.
Glancing warily over the ocean for any indication of path, the woman chose to follow the way opposite of her compass, unable to shake the feeling of unease it filled her with. She to use the bearing as a reverse azimuth at worst if she was wrong it would take her south and to the slightly warmer waters there.
Her engines slowly powered to life for the first time in decades as life course through her long unused systems, propellers steady gaining speed in the water. She took this time to begin a checklist of her systems, checking in with all of her system chiefs.
"Okay," she muttered softly, a nervous tone taking her normally chipper voice. "We need to figure things out. Firstly, where are we?" She glanced around, expecting and receiving nothing in terms of landmark.
"Bridge?" She asked turning her attention to her faeries.
A tiny cluster of maps was pushed off a table by stunty and adorable arms, followed by a frustrated squeak.
"It's okay, we're all trying to figure things out here."
"Okay," she paused briefly, "do we know what year it is? Based on my equipment and-" she gestured towards her body, "all of this mess, I think we're a fair bit off from when we started."
The faeries pointed at a calendar mounted on her bridge, filled with, to her embarrassment, erotic pin ups of herself.
"That's not helpful, it may not be accurate ninety years is a lot of time off after all-" she began, "also where did you get that?"
The crew was silent before a defensive squeak went off.
"Could you please take it down?" She asked hesitantly.
A squeak of protest went up.
"I am flattered," she answered, "it's just a bit odd to have scantily clad pictures of yourself inside yourself."
The squeak responded encouragingly.
"Fine, it can stay, but I better be fully clothed in it!"
Her journey continued at a steady pace, moving steadily through the freezing rain, though the girls in her fleets had always hated the rain and loudly complained whenever a storm brewed up, she found honest comfort in the cold downpour, it reminded her of home, filling her with bittersweet longing.
She continued on for a good half hour, the downpour unabetting, until an excited squeak sounded from her lookout.
"What is it?" She called, pulling out a pair of binoculars and noting the dark silhouette of an island in the far distance, probably outside the edges of the storm.
"Good spotting!" She called, bringing her binoculars about to the indicated direction, "that certainly is an island, let's go check it out!" She announced cheerfully, kicking her rudder to the far port side.
"It's pretty big too, maybe we'll find someone there to talk to, figure out what's going on."
A squeak sounded.
"You think other have returned too? Well I guess that make sense," she pondered, "either way, we-"
She stopped.
The compass point had moved, instead of pointing hard to the same fixed point, the compass angle had changed, as if the point had been maintaining a steady point behind her and was late in its turn. She glanced over the dark and quiet waters behind her, seeing nothing but blackness in the low visibility. She glanced nervously again at the compass, but the point was now consistent, again pointing directly behind her, despite her change in course.
Bringing her engines past cruising speed, she gave a last glance towards the compass point and with a slight feeling of dread, noted That a distant light had appeared from the area, a searchlight that scanned steadily over the ocean, dim and flickering slightly as it approached ever closer bouncing on the waves.
She accelerated further to full speed, warily eyeing her compass as the point steadily followed the light, now matching pace with her, several miles out.
The woman turned towards the light. "Okay, who- or what, is that?" She asked, suppressing an inward shudder.
The faeries stood simply in nervous silence for what felt to the warship to be several minutes before her lookout gave a nervous shrug.
"Again, I don't know either, but I think we all agree it's best to avoid." The woman hesitated briefly, "do you think engineering can give us some more steam?" She asked hesitantly.
A soot covered faery deep within her engine room looked apprehensive over the idea, before giving a wary squeak.
"Right, we probably should wait until whatever it is let's us know it's hostile."
The squeak agreed, though all hands still glanced nervously at the spotlight as it narrowly scanned the surface of the water, the woman, for her part, decided to ignore the light and focus entirely on the island, the faint outline growing clearer.
The light continued dancing in the distance behind her, well too far away to actually prove any use in revealing her location, though still contributing to her nervousness, especially as it's movements became more sudden, rapidly and desperately searching the night.
A hellish inhuman cry of desperate rage thundered through the night, causing the woman to shudder and glance backwards to her unseen adversary.
Bright yellow and intense flashes illuminated to light from their location, revealing her pursuer to be roughly the same humanoid brand of ship as herself. The sounds of naval rifles distinguished themselves apart from her thunder, not a half second later.
The woman froze briefly, before turning her own substantial armaments back towards her opponent. Holding briefly enough for the unseen pursuer to kill their light and vanish into the distant night. She noted with some odd mix of relief and unease that her compass appeared slightly shaky now, as though the point it indicated was now slightly less clear.
Though the rainstorm still hammered her hull, the relief of the island did draw ever closer and clearly revealed to her, were several large submarine pens, in stages of mass disrepair though still somewhat functional.
Creeping into the smaller entranceway of a partially collapsed pen, she carefully verified the pen as clear as well as checking the night beyond as best she could before slipping into the entrance.
The pen appeared spatious beyond the rubble and with some hesitation she activated her own searchlight. Revealing almost nothing aside from the concrete walls.
The concrete stairway leading into the pen itself gave her some trepidation, but giving her newfound legs a thoughtful glance, she mounted them uneasily and went further into he pen.
Most of he concrete structure was completely abandoned, stripped of everything from supplies, to even the pipes and wires of its infastructure and various lichens had grown in the cracking concrete.
There was little to be seen in fact to revealbthe original owners until a happenstance passing of her light revealed some faded writing. Japanese Kanji written in clear white letters, giving a look backwards down the hallway, her face flattened into a determined grimace as she brought herself to expect imminant danger for the second time that day.
Eventually, she felt she had safely mapped out the faucolity and beyond the metal door, long since appearing to have been welded shut, there was little risk of anyone entering from any path but her own. Having little to do, she wandered for near another hour before she realized the fuzzy vision and heavy eyelids must have been the result of fatigue.
Returning to the entrance, she found a concrete corner and sat herself down, back to the wall overlooking the entrance. The gentle sounds of distant rains brought her some comfort and relief and she was asleep before she her weapons could finish their turn to point themselves at the door.