As some of you may know, I have several favorites on my profile from Kantai Collection (otherwise also known as KanColle), the F2P, Japanese IP only browser/mobile game in which you command shipgirls from around the world to fight the forces of the Abyssals who want to wipe out humanity. Some of my favorites are "Belated Battleship" posted by Obsessed Nuker (id: 11574990) and the continuation "The Battleshippening" faithfully posted by CabooseHelpU (id: 12789762) on FFN as the original poster, theJMPer, exists only on the Spacebattles forums and gave these two individuals the right to post on his/her behalf on this website. These two stories are more serious tales with comedy interwoven in to help lighten the mood when it gets dark (not to say that it is a grimdark tale). Another series that I like is the "Things involving shipgirls that are no longer allowed" comedy series created by CV12Hornet. I recommend checking out all these fics as they are all enjoyable and recommended reads, but not required for this story.

But what is my story about? Something was interesting originally brought up in "Belated Battleship" which involves the spirts of some of the ships manifesting inside their still floating hulls (in the case of many current-day ship museums like Iowa, New Jersey, etc.) before they were summoned. This is the idea that came from that idea involving an OC commander who will help lead the charge with his eventual fleet to free humanity from their current land-locked status. Or, at least that's what I have planned in the initial story. But let's get the set-up out of the way.

Summary: Timothy Harper comes from a long line of Naval heritage and had the odd ability to "see" things as a child. Now, years later, he follows in his forefathers' footsteps to sail as they did in the Navy before Bloody Sunday aboard the John Paul Jones. Sometimes you find destiny; sometimes, destiny finds you.

Rating: I estimate no more than a rating of T+ at the beginning, but I have no idea if it will escalate from there.

Title: [None selected as of yet]

Disclaimer: I own nothing other than my desktop and my copy of MS Word. Kantai Collection belongs to Kadokawa Games. I only own this idea. See the foreword for the full disclaimer. I am not a part of the military and more than likely will never be. Any information portrayed in this story will be factual as the internet is able to provide me.

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"Auf zur Größe."

These were the parting words that my great grandfather had for me, the family motto, right before he died in my childhood. Auf zur Größe, or, on towards greatness.

They say that life is like a box of chocolates; you never know what you'll get. Or, something like that at least. Sometimes what you get is the intended thing you wanted, other times you get what you didn't, still other things that you don't want at all. Me? Well, I wasn't getting anything I wanted today. Currently, I was slowly floating to the bottom of Tokyo Bay with only my thoughts, the lights above the licks of flame on leaking oil from sunken Navy vessels. How did I get into this very particular position? I guess I have enough time to remember what happened before I die here. After all, I'm oddly at ease. It all started eight hours ago.

My ship, the Memphis, pulled into Tokyo Bay to rendezvous with the rest of the Pacific Fleet to refuel before heading out towards the grounds of the annual Pacific Wargames, of which the recently rebuilt JDSF Navy would be participating in. As we pulled into Tokyo Bay, I immediately spotted a familiar ship, the missile destroyer USS John Paul Jones, the ship my father commanded. My father, James Harper, was a third-generation military brat. His father served in the Korean and Vietnam conflicts, and his father Christopher before him in the Second World War aboard the USS Massachusetts as part of the command staff alongside his wife Gwendolyn nee Strauss who served in the WASPs. My great, great grandfather had served on the German side during the Great War and had immigrated to the United States after the signing of the Treaty of Versailles after being laid up in a POW hospital and caught the eye of a British nurse. That's right, my entire family is a bunch of mutts. After my great grandmother married into the Harper family, we adopted the Strauss family motto seeing as the Harpers didn't really have one.

"Lieutenant Harper, I leave you to pull the ship into harbor," Captain Smith said as he rose from his chair.

"Aye, sir," I reply without thought. My mind started processing all that needed to be done. Contacting the harbormaster and stating our intentions (although we were expected), getting the course laid out to pull into our assigned berth while avoiding commercial shipping vessels leaving the harbor, and organizing the crew for maintenance and rearmament for the wargames.

Once they berthed in port, preparations began. Jenkins, a member of the bridge staff in charge of communications approached him a few hours in and handed me a document. It was a summons to the John Paul Jones this evening. I knew why he was being summoned; it was that time of year again. The anniversary of my great grandfather's death.

"Jenkins," he perked up at his name being called. "I assume you can handle this from here?"

"Aye, sir. We'll keep the machine rolling along," he replied. I always was caught off-guard with his weird sayings. The ship was already docked with the pier and the gangway already extended for people and supplies to be carried to and from the vessel.

The entire dock was abuzz with activity. Docking crew moved in a quickened pace moving from ship to ship carrying manifest requests in their trucks and other machine aided things. I made my way to the John Paul Jones and boarded her. I was stopped and was asked for my ID, as was expected, and passed with a single ID flash. I knew the ship well since I served on the same class, and made my way towards the captain's quarters.

I knocked on the door and waited for the acknowledgment and the pending, "Enter."

I walked in, closed the door, and saluted. "Commander," I greeted my father.

"At ease, take a seat," he gestured in front of his desk. As I sat down, he pulled out a bottle of whiskey and two glasses. It was an old vintage brought from the Old World, saved for special occasions. He poured two fingers of whiskey in each glass and picked one up himself and passed the other to me. "To the old man," he held up his glass.

"To the old man," I parroted taking a drink of my glass.

"It's been twenty years since he passed," my father commented after taking a sip of his own drink.

"Yeah," I agreed. We continued to reminisce about my great grandfather who lived a long and eventful life. We were several drinks in when I had something asked that I had forgotten about.

"Do you remember that time when the old man took us aboard the Intrepid? How you thought you saw a girl that wasn't there?"

"No, not until now," I replied.

"You kept insisting that there was this girl there that wandered into the restricted sections of the museum."

"Yeah, and you never found them and you gave me a strong talking to about not making things up. Why do you even bring this up?"

"I don't know, but the old man found it funny, even when his memory started to go."

"Thanks," I deadpanned. "It's nice to know that the old man thought my moment of seeing something imaginary amused him."

"Not really, but it reminds me of the time he told me that all the old ships have a spirit in them."

"Ghosts?"

"No, more like a personality granted to them by their crews over the years. Something that seeps in and makes it into something new. I never did get what he was going on about."

Before I could make some other comment, there was an explosion. "What the hell?" I asked as I dropped my glass. Then the ship's klaxon started to blare out and the sounds of boots on metal as servicemen and women started to man their stations. My father and I looked at each other and made our way to the bridge.

As my father entered, he shouted, "Status!"

"Unknown, sir. Hostiles have engaged with multiple Navy vessels." As the weapons officer stated that, a Japanese destroyer went up in flames in another explosion. The Phalanx antiair system started to fire into the sky at the unseen hostiles. Bursts of high caliber, rapid-fire rounds came out and shot into the sky with their tracer rounds, but they didn't seem to hit anything. "We're tracking targets on radar, but all of our rounds seem to be missing."

"What do you mean?"

"We can see them and our sensors are picking them up, but the tracking software is having a bitch of a time calculating shot trajectory," the weapons officer replied as another ship, a Navy vessel exploded.

"What about the rest of the fleet?"

"Unable to raise them, sir. There's some kind of signal interfering with our radios," a communications officer reported.

There was the sound of jet engines echoing from the far-off carrier. "It looks like we've got some friendlies in the air now," someone commented.

Before any sigh of relief could be made, the John Paul Jones shook and personnel flew to the side as an explosion hit starboard. "Damage report!" my father shouted.

"Lower levels taking on water," the damage control officer stated as she looked over her console. "Engineers are already trying to evacuate and seal off compartments."

"What hit us?"

"No clue. Due to the location, my guess would be torpedoes."

"What does sonar show?"

"Nothing in the water that wasn't there before," another officer looking over that station contributed.

There was another explosion, this time aft of the ship. The ship was starting to list towards starboard. "We've taken another direct hit. Engineers are unable to contain the damage and are heading up to the crew quarters. The last hit landed between decks."

There was a long pause as more ships went up in flame from the unseen enemies above. "Abandon ship. All hands, abandon ship. Get to safety," my father ordered. Immediately the order came over the loudspeakers throughout the ship and everyone started to flee towards the mooring. The bridge crew still remained. "Send a message to NAVCOM the prepared package." The communications officer nodded.

"Sir, we have a ping on the sonar. Unknown fast-mover at the mouth of the port, doesn't match any known profile," the station officer reported.

"Lock all missiles on that target and fire at will."

The weapons officer nodded and started typing as fast as his fingers could until the commands were sent to the weapons system. By now the ship had been leaning close to twenty degrees to starboard and ten aft. The John Paul Jones was sinking. With great fire and fury, every one of the vessel's ninety-six Mark 41 vertical launch system missiles emerged from their bays and streaked towards the fast-mover. The few RIM-66 SM-2 missiles that had yet to be launched also streaked towards the target. There were a few seconds before the missiles reached their target before exploding in a fireball of repeated fury. Unlike films and TV shows, these missiles were mistakenly quite quick.

"Who else is remaining on-board?"

"At least half the crew."

"Outside of our shells and Phalanx ammunition, there's not much more we can do in this state. Everyone, head to shore." He then paused to look at me, "Including you."

With a quickened pace, the entire crew emptied out of the bridge. The last one out was my father. We reached the spot portside where the ship was once moored, but at this point, the bridge had fallen away and crew members were jumping across, using a rope to climb to the top. As the next group attempted to cross, I was hit in the chest with a blistering heat and pressure wave. The next thing I knew, I was on the deck and the port was on fire. I looked up to see the mangled bodies of the crew, including my father. I crawled over to his body and barely heard him whisper, "Go," before he closed his eyes.

Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted a flight of planes. They appeared to be jets of some variety and they were flying in formation. Turning my head further, I saw an M2 and made my way towards it. Mounting it, I started aiming towards the sky and started firing at the planes, leading them as much as possible; firing in short, controlled bursts until the lead was right. Then I let loose, screaming in righteous fury and indignation. The tracer rounds screaming into the sky. I saw as one-hit something and one of the planes exploded, taking three of its squadmates with it. I kept firing at one flight until the barrel of the heavy machinegun started to glow orange from the heat. There was gunfire coming from the planes. I felt impacts in my shoulder and abdomen, and I resumed firing once more, the adrenaline dulling the pain that was eventually going to hit me. More planes fell from the sky until one made a controlled crash with its payload, right off the bow of the ship. The explosion threw me into the air and into the cold port's waters.

My breath was immediately taken from me and I went under. The entire port was on fire, the glowing and burning ships lit up the water in an eerie orange glow. It was then I noticed that blood was streaming out of me, like little red rivers. Instinctively, l tried to cover it with my right hand, but noticed that it seemed to have wandered off. As I sank lower into the water, the eerie orange glow melting away into blue-black darkness, I knew I was screwed. My eyes started to close as my lungs filled with water and I was oddly at peace. I took down a few of those fuckers before I went out. Human attrition at its finest. As my eyes closed, I saw what looked like the figure of a girl reach out towards me. I then knew no more.

The next thing I saw? White, lots and lots of white. I stood in a room that was lit up similarly as follows as there's no other way to really describe it. Imagine a large room where every surface is radiating light, specifically white light. All the floors are white, polished marble and all the walls made of the same material. Now add 'god rays", lights coming out of nowhere for no good reason. That was the room I was in, and it was annoying my eyes.

"Well, heaven sucks if this is all there is to it," I mutter. I let out a sigh in annoyance as there isn't anything really to do. "I mean, it wouldn't be half as bad if there was something to do, or you know, hot women or something. I mean, it is heaven, right?" I ask no one. "I mean, how rude is it to die and not get greeted by someone. Saint Michael. Mia Khalifa. Adult Zelda from any of the iterations?" I paused for a moment. "Worth a shot," I shrug. As I do, my arm starts to itch. You shouldn't itch in heaven, right? "Maybe this isn't heaven, and maybe it's…"

As my mind concluded this thought, my mind started to get fuzzy and my eyes closed. The next thing I heard was what sounded like a news report on a TV. Sounded like CNN based on the anchor speaking. "It's been one month since the simultaneous attack on the world's Naval bases by the entity called the Abyssals on what is now being dubbed by many people of the world as 'Bloody Sunday'," the female anchor reported.

A month? Maybe I should get up. I slowly opened my eyes to see that I was in a hospital and that it was night. My head lolled to the side to see that this hospital was sea-side; well, not exactly, more like on a hill that oversaw the sea. As my head turned to look the other way, the same direction the audio from the TV was coming from, I saw a girl sitting in a chair. She kind of looked like that figure in the water. Now that she was not in the blue-black of the water, she looked a lot clearer now. Brown hair in a pony-tail, fair features that looked like she had some Germanic and English heritage if my genealogy guessing was right. Well, if I'm wrong, I can guess it on the painkillers as there is definitely an IV in my left wrist. She also wore what looked like a black sailor uniform with a blue tie and a tan knee-length skirt. And to specify, not sailor as in Navy, but sailor like a sailor suit. As in the ones worn by Japanese schoolgirls.

She looked towards me, probably hearing the shifting of material and whatever this mattress was made of; it was quite comfy. Memory foam or something like that. I should get a mattress like this. She immediately reached over to the remote by the bed and started tapping a button. A voice responded asking what was needed. The only thing she said into it was, "He's woken up."

The next few hours were filled with nurses poking and prodding at me. Taking readings and taking other tests. There had been a feeding tube that they removed. That was probably the most uncomfortable feeling I had, second to the catheter that they left in for now. The doctor wouldn't be in for a while, so I turned to the girl and asked, "Who are you?"

"I'm Intrepid," she responded.

"Odd name for a girl your age," I commented, remembering all the memes online of 'zoomer' names that were infamous online for how bad they were.

"Well, I'm not exactly a girl," she blushed as she fiddled with her skirt to try and avoid the topic as much as possible. "I'm what the public has been calling a Kansen, a ship-girl."

"Girl named after a boat says what now?"

She stood at attention and saluted. "USS Intrepid at your command, sir."

I could only stare in outright confusion. What the flying hell happened when I was out, because if I was just hallucinating all of this, these painkillers were some good shit. It's probably the reason I didn't notice that my right arm was gone. Apparently, it had been blown off by a .50 BMG round and I was also missing part of my large intestines that got stitched back together now. I guess I'm going to be on the pudding diet for a while. I have a feeling that it is going to get old quick.

The morning came and the doctor assigned to me woke me up mid-day to examine me. I had healed up nicely from what he had told me. He asked me a whole bunch of questions, most of which came down to I was feeling a dull pain in both places I was shot. He left and I was left again with the TV. Later on, in the day, the girl who called herself Intrepid came in with a Japanese Naval officer (uniform gave it away) who held a laptop. He opened it up and a video call was started.

The next face I saw was that of the Secretary of the Navy. I tried to salute him, but you know, missing right arm. He immediately said, "At ease." He paused for a moment before continuing, seeing that I slumped into the bed once more. "How are you feeling?"

"I've been better," I replied. I noticed that I forgot and added, "sir."

"I requested Admiral Goto to host this conference for three reasons. First, I wish to offer you my condolences of the passing of Admiral Harper, he was a good man. When his body is returned state-side, he'll be buried in Arlington with full honors."

I guess it still hadn't hit me, dad was dead. Hell, I almost died. "Thank you, sir."

"For your bravery under fire against a ruthless and unknown enemy, you've been awarded the Purple Heart as well as a Commendation Medal."

I blinked in confusion for a moment. I had expected the Purple Heart, but not a Commendation. "Thank you, sir."

"An official ceremony will take place at a later date, but for now, there is one more point of business to take care of and I ask that you keep an open mind on this." I nodded, not really knowing what he was going to say or request. "The girl next to Admiral Goto is the manifestation of USS Intrepid. She has distinctively requested to be under your command. Therefore, as the Secretary of the Navy, with the approval of the President, do hereby promote you to acting Commander of Kansen forces in the Pacific region for the United States. Due to the politics of the current world-state, you will be serving under the supervision of Admiral Goto until either you are brought state-side pending review or are replaced by another. The Admiral will read you into what your duties will be and what you should expect after your recovery."

I was taken aback. One didn't get fast-tracked from Lieutenant to Commander in what was essentially overnight. "Why am I taking orders from Admiral Goto?" I looked to the Admiral before adding, "No offense."

"None taken," he responded in accented English.

"We've entered an alliance with Germany, England, France, Russia, and Japan," SecNav started.

"And a tentative alliance with China and the Koreas," Goto added.

"To recover Kansen of resurrected Second World War warships and coordinate attacks and defense of coastal assets and convoys from the Abyssal threat," SecNav finished. "Being that Japan has the most Kansen out of all of the countries in the alliance, they have operational seniority."

"And in return convoys from the mainland are protected for food, medicine, and supplies from Korea, China, and the United States."

"As I said, politics of the current world-state. Congratulations, Commander. I won't lie and say that the next few months won't be hard, but they will be. Just be prepared to be open-minded with this as it took proof from what these Kansen could do before the Joint Chiefs and the President signed off on assisting the Japanese wholesale. Direct any additional questions towards Admiral Goto in regards to your new assignment. I will be in touch as needed," SecNav concluded as the call disconnected.

Intrepid bowed towards him and said with enthusiasm, "I look forward to working with you!"

To be continued…?

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Alright, that's what I've got for this idea. I do apologize for the lack of content recently, but I've been in the middle of Crunch for the last month due to a project my work has me tangentially working on that's left me emotionally and mentally drained. Dead serious, I get home and take a nap. I used to go to the gym but now have stopped during the duration of this project because of just feeling that tired. I'm starting to schedule time off, which hopefully will help me decompress and relax and hopefully be more sociable. I'll probably get a massage too or something. I'm pretty much playing it by ear at this point in time. But anyway, now to be back on topic.

I know I sort of jumped all around here in this story, and it's part of the above reason. But I wanted to set up an interesting idea here. You may ask why I used Intrepid, and it's mainly because in Kantai Collection there aren't many American ships, mainly because the game itself is region-locked to a Japanese audience, unlike Azur Lane which does have an English audience and server so they do have more American ships in that game. You may wonder why I didn't just go with a look or ship name from that game. I did want to, but I also wanted to not write myself into a corner. You may also ask why I decided to make Mr. Harper a Commander instead of an Admiral, the main reason is that he's only got one ship and he's under a more experienced commanding officer, regardless of how unorthodox it is.

I don't really have any other notes to add to this. I guess I want to explore a more American based story in the same universe. As mentioned in the opening notes, there are a few stories that have been written that do explore this and I really like them, it's just at this moment in time I don't have a roadmap on where I would want to go with this.

Let me know what you guys think in all the normal places. See you all next time on the next thing.