8569. Yes as it turns out Vanguard has a secret film career that she has kept quiet from everyone because she doesn't want anyone making fun of her, and no it's not what you just thought (get your minds out of the gutter people).
For once Admiral Collingwood wasn't contemplating reaching for a bottle of hard liquor, this was due to several factors ranging from most of the dimmer and troublesome shipgirls being away on assignment to Portsmouth, which Graham had asked for since he was having the Revenge sisters modernised following the Iron Duke incident some weeks prior, to the fact Sheffield, Edinburgh and Belfast had returned from their visit to Japan, and the former had already begun getting the cruisers and destroyers back-in-line, whilst the latter had dealt with the Battleships and carriers, sometimes he wondered about Belfast, namely why many shipgirls seemed to fear her and why everyone went out of their way to not push her too far, yet refused to answer why they did so, even Victory kept quiet, and she seemed like she had an axe to grind every time Belfast was mentioned in her presence, but Collingwood was sure he'd find out one day.
The main reason though for it being so peaceful was that Vanguard had disappeared entirely, now normally had it been anyone else, Admiral Collingwood would have turned the entire planet over looking for them, but Vanguard seemed to regularly drop off of the grid for a few weeks every once in a while, before turning up completely unharmed, and as she didn't cause any damage during this time, the Admiral had decided to not bother her over it, he had enough battleships anyway, more so now they had the Lions all worked up and operational, so there wasn't anything to worry about, or so he thought until an important sounding alert appeared on his screen, scanning it Collingwood reconsidered the state of sobriety; on screen was an automated notification informing him that one of his ship girls had appeared on a social media post, and by the image that appeared on-screen when he opened the notification, the girl in question, of course, was Vanguard, looking closer he noticed something odd about the post, in it Vanguard was being called 'Sophie Moore', which was odd as alias's wern't that common, and then there were the comments, which set off alarm bells in Collingwoods mind, normally posts regarding shipgirls normally contained people who hated them agruing with people who supported the shipgirls, normally servicemen and women, but the comments for ranged from people vaguly saying how good/beautiful she was, to some people professing their love for her, hell there were even some rather proverse comments from her so called 'fans' about what they wanted to do to her; all of which gave Collingwood a bad feeling, he'd seen this all before, Musashi had had the samething when she had been working in the 'adult film' industry, and when the media had caught wind of that, it had been a field day for the japanese press, and as poor old Goto hadn't known anything about Musashi's activites, he'd been torn to pieces becasue of it, only Musashi stepping in and annoucing her retirement from the industry had saved him from an early retirement, and now Collingwood was staring down the same problem with very few options to deal with this, all of which where equally terrible, what he needed was acurate information to go off of, and he wasn't going to go through her 'catologue', nor was he about to force someone too, luckily however he wouldn't need to.
"Lieutenant could you please summon Centurion for me," Collingwood asked over the intercom system, before snatching a half-empty bottle of scotch from the bottom drawer of his desk and emptying a tumbler's worth into a well-used glass on his desk, "It can never be just a quiet day around here!" he moaned before downing the glass and pouring another.
To say Centurion was excited was an understatement, she had literally been asked to watch questionable videos about someone she personally rated as a perfect 10, this was her idea of heaven; quickly she found a page listing Vanguards 'appearances' and selected the first one, not reading the title, she wasn't fussy about what she watched, quickly the Video loaded and began to play.
"Ok Vanguard, show me what you got!" Centurion exclaimed as she began watching, smiling with glee as Vanguard appeared on screen, wearing what had to be a very frilly Edwardian style dress, Centurion could only imagine what depraved scenes would follow, only for Vanguard to start speaking in a ladylike voice, about Edwardian ladylike things, which killed Centurions mood.
"What the hell kind of snuff film is this?" she wondered aloud, sighing she sat back to watch until things got good, surely it wouldn't be that long.
"So let me get this straight, every film she is in is either a romance film, a serial drama, and one occasion a dramatic/romantic war film?" Collingwood asked a clearly miserable Centurion, who simply nodded in return, "and she is never once nude in any of them" he continued.
"Yes, I mean the closest she got to have her kit off, was when she was wearing a bathing suit midway through some soppy romance film, and not even one that showed much, I mean come on I've seen some stuff that'll make your eyes water like that one with-" Centurion exclaimed only to be cut off by Collingwood's phone ringing, which prompted Collingwood to mentally thank god for this timely interruption.
"I'm sorry I should take this, you can go Centurion" Collingwood informed her, as he snatched the phone up only to see Vanguard on the caller id, Centurion meanwhile simply sighed and walked out, she still had the internet at least, "Hello Vanguard what can I do for..." He began, only for Vanguard to cut him off.
"Aaddmmirrallll!, why did you tell everyone about my film career" Vanguard sobbed on the other end of the line, confusing him somewhat, he'd never told anyone other than Centurion about Vanguard career, yet someone else had found out somehow, mentally he made a quick note to have the techs sweep his office for bugs before responding.
"Vanguard I didn't tell anyone, besides whats the issue, it's not like you did a Musashi, so whats the problem with people knowing about it?" Collingwood replied.
"Whats the issue!?, everyone's going to make fun of me, I'm going to be that nut-job scientist who appears in girly movies!" Vanguard snapped back, clearly, she was upset "I'm going to be a joke, I'm going to be a laughing stock, I'm going, I'm going..." she sobbed before breaking down into tears.
"Vanguard don't cry, nobody will make fun of you, I'll even have a rule made so they can't, hows that?" Collingwood offered, which prompted Vanguard to stop crying as hard as she was.
"You, you will?" Vanguard sniffled, Collingwood ordering everyone not to make fun of her was something, but an entire rule was something that definitely would work.
"Of course, despite all the headaches, explosions and havoc you cause, I genuinely care about you, I care for everyone under my command, Now why don't you go and sort yourself out, whilst I make a new rule for the list, ok?" Collingwood answered, he wasn't lying about caring for her, It was in his nature after all.
"Ok Admiral, I'll go now, I'm meant to be on set in 30 minutes so I better go sort myself out" Vanguard replied before hanging up, leaving Collingwood alone in his office.
"Well, that went well" Collingwood sighed reaching for a bottle of brandy, to most others, some admirals included, Collingwood might have had a drinking problem, but to him and a few others who knew about the nightmare that was Scapa Flow, it was a miracle he drank as little as he did.
