Thanks Grathryn, you're a doll!

11038. For those wishing to use the portal between KC and AL Devonports, please check to make sure it isn't in use or going to be used before you enter. The last time someone did ended up with the Jones twins, Umbra, RN-Javelin and SE-Inazuma & SE-Ikazuchi in some alternate Harry Potter world with the portal out of action
11038a. It didn't help that that event also resulted in our Naka, Iku, Hibiki, Kempenfelt and Blake in a different one that crossed Harry Potter with Five Nights at Freddy's due to randomly spawned portals
11038b. Suffice it to say that Raven wasn't impressed by the resultant mess, nor the muck around the Dimensional/Mirror Sea

Javelin sighed as she looked down at the sleeping form of Laffey. "Oh, come on! I know you're lazy, Laffey, but really? You'd rather sleep than take a look around the alternate Plymouth?" She shook her head, lilac hair whipping around. "Demon of Solomon my ass, you're more like the Lazy Bear of Solomon," she muttered, moving to the wardrobe in her room and digging out a fresh set of clothes for the day.

Pulling out a pair of black tights, a dark green skirt that would cover down to her knees, with a brown belt, a plain green t-shirt and a white woollen sweater, she dressed quickly before leaving Laffey to snooze the day away.

Making her way to the portal room quickly, and still muttering about her friend from the Eagle Union, she had to pull a short stop as she turned the corner and almost ran into Inazuma, who was with Ikazuchi and Z23, or Niimi as the Iron Blood destroyer girl was often called, all three out of their usual uniforms and wearing things more suited to the chill spring day.

"Guten tag, Javelin," Niimi said, with a slight bow of her head. "You wouldn't happen to know where the C-class destroyer girls are would you."

"Hey, Niimi," Javelin replied before nodding to the Akatsukis, "Inazuma, Ikazuchi. As for Comet and her sisters…" she frowned as she thought. "I think they were planning on using the portal. It is their day off so they went with Amazon and Hunter, I think, there might have been others."

Niimi blinked. "Portal?" she asked, "What is this portal you're talking about?"

The other three shared a look before Inazuma face palmed. "That's right," she muttered. "This is the first time we've all been stationed at one base since I took a trip through the Mirror Sea." She paused for a moment, thinking. "Well, after the Sirens stopped trying to break the portal." Pushing her hair out of the way, she looked up at Niimi, who was looking more confused. "Long story short a while ago I wound up in another world where the war actually ended instead of keeping on getting to a point and starting over with the attack on Hood and at Pearl Harbour. They had their own problems resulting in their own shipgirls, some of which helped me until they got a stable route here for long enough for my sisters to get through. Later they managed to make it permanent."

Ikazuchi nodded. "Those of us that go there or get things direct from there remember what's happening more, though the way some found out…" she trailed off, grimacing as she remembered the absolute mess that resulted in Kaga's discovery of things. Fortunately the other Devonport's fleet had people that could slap her down when necessary. "Inazuma likes going there to visit her girlfriend."

Inazuma flushed as the others looked at her before elbowing her sister hard enough that the other oni wound up on the ground clutching her stomach. "Do not, 'Zuchi," she growled. "Besides, you're a game addict, you were planning on running off to drool over the latest games they had over there."

Looking confused, Niimi turned to Javelin, who was shaking her head at the pair of Sakuran shipgirls. "Girls, please, this is supposed to be a day for relaxing, not fighting among ourselves, even if it is a twins' spat," she groaned before moving to help Ikazuchi up. Frowning for a moment, she looked over at Niimi before brightening. "Hey, since Laffey's being a lazy lump and Niimi wants to find Comet, Cygnet and Crescent anyway, why don't we take her with us? We can show her what's on the other side of the portal and get someone else to help prying the Sirens' grips off the Axis!"

"That's… a good idea," Ikazuchi commented, still rubbing the bruise from her sister's elbow as Javelin bounced in place. "Got to stop standing so close to Inazuma when I say things like that," she muttered.

"Yay!" exclaimed Javelin. "Come on, Niimi!" With that, she grabbed the surprised girl's wrist and started dragging her along.

Niimi yelped, struggling against Javelin's grip. "H-hey! S-slow down, Javelin," she stammered. "Scheisse, when did you get so strong?" she asked, her heels digging trenches in the ground as the Akatsuki twins followed.

"That's an effect of us remembering," Inazuma said. Pushing her speed up, she caught Niimi and tugged her into something resembling balance while her sister surged ahead to open the doors to a large building, leading the way down to where a large circular gate stood, looking like it was filled with water that was illuminated from within. "We stay stronger run to run," she continued, barely glancing at the gate as Niimi tried once again to stop them.

"Come on, Comet must have left the gate open," Ikazuchi called before taking a running leap into the portal, her sister and Javelin dragging Niimi in along with them.

Moments later energy burst out of the gate, rattling the walls and buildings of Devonport like an earthquake and the energy field winked out.


Megan groaned as she came to, pushing herself upright and looking around. "What the ever loving fuck?" she asked the air before spotting the light blue hair of Inazuma lying over what looked like a pile of games or consoles.

Moving to her, she shook the destroyer girl's shoulder, getting a groan in response before spotting another, much younger girl's body sticking out of an older model television.

Shifting around, she carefully extracted the girl and checked her pulse, breathing a sigh of relief as she found it present, if weaker than normal.

"W-what h-happened?" asked Inazuma as she picked herself up. "T-the last I remember was finding the portal open and going through it with…" she trailed off, casting around. "Where are Ikazuchi, Javelin and Niimi?"

Megan looked up at her from where she was placing the younger girl in the recovery position. "Wait, you said you went through the portal when it was already open?" she asked, getting a nod. "Well… shit…. I think Alex based the gates for the portal on star gates a bit more completely than we expected, because we opened the gate to visit you, having you come through at the same time must have knocked things out, meaning we could be bloody anywhere." She sighed, closing her eyes. "Vokunir knows what we ended up doing to the dimensional sea."

Neither of them spoke for several minutes before Megan's phone started playing Skillet's 'Rise'. Pulling it out, she accepted the call, "Hello?"

"Megan?" her sister's voice sounded from the other end of the phone.

"Yup, good to hear from you, Sally," she replied. "I've got Inazuma with me, and some little girl who's going to need medical attention, probably. Do you have anyone there?"

"I've got Javelin here; she started working herself up into a panic before I managed to calm her down." Sally said, frown audible in her voice. "I haven't heard from Anna or Arei yet."

Megan grimaced. "Hopefully the two of them are with Ikazuchi and 'Niimi', who were apparently with Javelin and Inazuma when they used the gate, probably right as we were starting through ourselves."

There was a groan from the other end of the phone. "We went and blasted ourselves somewhere didn't we? Two lots of us trying to travel in opposite directions must have thrown a wrench into the works."

"Probably," she looked down at a groan from the younger girl. "Hey, sis, think you can call Anna and Arei, see if they've got the others with them and if they've seen anything like a landmark for us to meet at? I'm going to see if I can get emergency services here now I know my phone works. Maybe the kid knows enough to ballpark us." Getting a confirmation, she hung up before turning to the younger girl. "Easy there kiddo," she said gently. "Anything feel particularly bad?"

"M-my head h-hurts," the girl whimpered, "A-and I s-see s-something funny."

Megan nodded slightly. "You remember your name, hon?" she asked.

"A-Ayana… Ayana Potter."

"And your address?"

"N-number 4, P-Privet D-Drive, Surrey," Ayana replied.

Megan grimaced, giving Ayana a quick look over before turning to Inazuma. "Inazuma, can you stick with her for a minute?" she asked, getting a nod. Swapping with the oni-like shipgirl, Megan dialled 999, asking for both an ambulance and a police patrol car to come to the address she had been given.

While Megan was busy, Inazuma sat with the younger girl. "You said you see something funny, Ayana?" she asked. "Is it my hair and horns?" She got a very slight headshake in response. "Can you tell me what it is?"

"I-it's l-like there's a-a g-game's HUD o-over m-my vision," Ayana said, wincing a little. "H-head hurts," she whined.

"What the devil is going on in here?" A new voice interrupted the conversation as a large, fat man made his presence known. "You Freak! I thought I'd gotten rid of you! I guess your freakishness brought you back, so I'll have to do better this time!" He yelled, not having seen either Megan or Inazuma before he roared and charged towards the downed Ayana.

Inazuma responded without thinking, while her sister was the kunoichi, she was still a shipgirl. Her first punch broke the fat man's jaw, snapping his head back harshly. Her foot slammed into his stomach hard enough to leave it rippling as he gave a strangled sound of pain.

Shifting out the way of his attempt at vomiting, she slammed both hands down on his back, knocking him to the ground before another blow knocked him out. "A-are human males all like that?" she asked, staring at him with wide eyes.

"Nope," Megan replied. "Hey, operator, you heard that right? The guy saying about getting rid of the girl I told you about?" she asked, pausing as she listened to the reply. "Yeah, well considering I found her with her head in a television, I think I can guess how he had 'gotten rid of her'." She paused again, listening to the people on the other end. "Okay, so we've got them on route? Thanks, hey, you mind doing me a favour? Could you ask the navy to have a representative available and ask your people to pass on where the local base is? I'm more used to Plymouth than London and some of the other girls are from Japan so they're less used to things here. Thanks," she said before hanging up.


Hikaru groaned to herself as she pulled herself out of the three body pile up and looked around; grimacing as she recognised the place the group had ended up on their unexpected trip. This was not going to be fun. Heaving herself to her feet, she looked around a bit more before spotting a tablet and flipping it up to check the cameras, finding one of them pointing at a stage where a trio of somewhat decrepit animatronics stood. "Shite, Freddy's… this is going to suuuck."

"W-where are we?" one of the other shipgirls asked before grunting in pain. "Iku… get off me," she shoved the submarine girl off her, causing the lilac haired girl to yelp before standing with a groan. "Where'd the ocean go?"

"We're in Freddy Fazbear's Pizzeria," Hikaru answered. "As for the ocean, I think we might have ended up hitting a portal or something."

Managing to gain her own feet, Iku flopped into the only available chair with a groan. "Isn't that the game you live streamed a bit before the Devonport girls came to Yokosuka for training?" she asked, getting a nod from Hikaru. She grimaced. "Can I just say that Iku doesn't like this?" she asked piteously. "I saw that game, and while it was amusing to see you screaming your head off… getting stuffed in a suit isn't my idea of fun."

Hikaru sighed and nodded before looking at the time on the tablet and sighing. "We've got about an hour before they become active, and since we just got dumped here, I'm guessing the doors are locked." She looked around before reaching over to test the doors, that slammed shut with a solid boom that made all three of them jump. "At least that works, and there are three of us, we're already technically 'animatronics'… I think."

"We're shipgirls, Naka," Iku said before turning to the last of their group. "You okay there, Hibiki? I mean, you're quiet, even for you."

"I… don't like this," Hibiki said softly, her usual Russian accent vanishing. "I-I want my sisters and Mama-Tenryuu back, I don't want to be here, or to lose them again."

The two older shipgirls shared a look before Iku pulled Hibiki into her lap, wrapping her arms around the younger girl. "Somehow, 'Biki, it sounds like there's more of a story there than just memories of your ship-self's time… and I know the Russian is something you choose to play up," Iku said as Hikaru released the doors to the room and moved to crouch near the chair. "Besides, isn't seventeen or older past the point most of us want our mothers for comfort… usually?"

Hikaru gave her an arch look. "Would you know?"

"Hey, I'm not the worst one for playing things up, Saito Hikaru, I know people are acting, in part because most of my life before I became a shipgirl, I did it the other way. I told Umbra… Anna, years ago, that I doubted any of us were actually summoned. Now I know the only 'summoned' shipgirls are those we know sank on operations and came back!" Iku snapped, making Hikaru let out a breath in a hiss at the use of her family name. "Actually, I wouldn't be surprised if Sendai's ninja fetish isn't something she plays up because people expect it of her, just like they expect you to be happy-go-lucky most of the time and me to be lewd all the damned time. Heck, even Hibiki's playing things; you saw how quick she dropped the Russian accent here."

"How do you even know my family name?" Hikaru asked.

Iku grimaced. "Ended up accidentally taking some personnel files with me after bumping into someone — don't even go there, Hikaru, it was pure accident and the guy was older than Admiral Goto, not to mention uglier than an Abyssal I-class. Ick. I really hope he wasn't in charge of our files, I don't think I want to know what he might have done with any of them that had pictures, and you know they took them for our medicals." She nodded as both girls made faces of disgust.

"Right…" Hikaru sighed, grimacing slightly as she recalled some things she had seen around the net. "I think right now, we've got a couple of more important issues, like what we call one another if we're going for civilian names, how we go about surviving the night… and getting back home." The last was said a lot quieter than the rest.

"Nakamura… Valeriya Nakamura," Hibiki replied, shifting slightly in Iku's embrace. "I… I'm part Russian, my… original mother was, but my dad was Japanese."

"Sakurai Kanae for me," Iku said before looking down at Valeriya. "I'm guessing, given how much you attached to the rest of DesDiv Six, your parents died somehow." She got a nod from the younger girl. "If you need to talk about it at any time… well, you'd be surprised at how many things I've learned and kept, as the English say, mum, about them."

Hikaru gave Kanae a flat look before turning to check the cameras again. "Right… Kanae, I'm sure you do. Right now though, we've got a bigger issue, namely we've got maybe half an hour before we get assaulted by literal murder machines and… what the fuck?"

Kanae blinked at the expletive since Hikaru usually filtered her language some due to her role as Fleet's Idol. "What's that for?"

"Some boy just turned up and let himself in." Hikaru frowned as she scanned the camera for a moment longer. "Seriously…? Harry ruddy Potter apparently works here? And the way he's acting… either he's got a death wish or something happened."

Both Kanae and Valeriya blinked at that before the latter frowned slightly. "I think… there might be a story about that, maybe? Ikazuchi doesn't admit it, but she likes reading about him, I think I saw a story where he worked at a Freddy Fazbear's, where his aunt was one of the animatronics, the ghost bear?" Valeriya said slowly. "Da," she answered her own question. "He had another aunt in that story; she was one of the children… st-stuffed."

"Damn… that'd be rough, finding out you've got a relation who's effectively a corpse in a robot that's after your blood." Kanae muttered before taking a breath and letting it out slowly. "I think, Hikaru, we should probably stay here, let him come to us and see what's happening."

Hikaru nodded, using the cameras to track the boy through the restaurant. "Maybe he'll know where there are some spare clothes, I doubt you'll get away with walking around in a swimsuit all day here the way you do in Yokosuka."

Nodding, Kanae frowned slightly. "I think I might steal a page from Anna's book if I can, see if I can get hold of a Japanese navy cadet uniform or something to wear," she murmured before looking over at Hikaru. "Might be worth you grabbing some spare clothes, that dress is kind of a neon sign," she commented dryly.

"At least it's not that pink monstrosity that Sussex found… or something the toad would wear." Hikaru shuddered in disgust.

"Toad, what toad?" a male voice came from the left doorway. "Come to that, who are you girls and what are you doing here of all places?"

Turning towards the voice, the three girls got their first proper look at Harry Potter. He was shorter than average, and skinny, though his uniform fit fairly well, an indigo cap covering his dark, wild hair and signature scar.

"I'm not sure if you'd believe us, even with everything you've likely seen," Hikaru started, waving a hand to indicate the office they were in. "My name is Saito Hikaru, my friends –" it might have been stretching the truth a little there, but they were at least colleagues "– Sakurai Kanae and Nakamura Valeriya aren't from around here, and by that I mean not from this universe rather than this country. We're not sure what happened, but at a guess someone was playing with portals or gate spells and managed to drop one right in front of us leading here."

Harry scowled. "You're right, I don't believe you. Why shouldn't I call the police on the three of you?"

The girls shared a look and both Hikaru and Kanae shrugged.

"You're Harry James Potter, da?" Valeriya asked, getting a slight nod from Harry. "Born July 31st 1980 to Lily Potter and her husband James, you lived at Godric's Hollow, Vales for few months under fidelius spell zat alloved Peter Pettigrew, Vormtale, to betray your family to Tom Riddle, resulting in him killing your parents on the eve of your konception, Hallove'en." She shifted slightly on Kanae's lap, watching the boy. "You're fourteen now, getting on for fifteen, youngest of your year… maybe month later and you'd be vith Ginevra Veasley instead of Ronald. Your first year at Hogvarts you, Ronald and Hermione Granger vere involved in incident involving philosopher's stone made by Nikolas Flamel and Riddle possessed Quirrell. Sekond year Lucius Malfoy slipped Ginevra diary holding part of Riddle's soul, it vas used to release and direct basilisk in attacks on students including Hermione. In your zird year, your godfather, Sirius Black, falsely imprisoned in Azkaban let himself out to go rat hunting, resulting in dementors being placed around school. Zey attacked you specifikally three times. Zat year also introduced you to Knight Bus and to Remus Lupin, verevolf who vas friend to your father, Sirius and Vormtail. Last year vas Tri-Vizard Tournament, Barty Crouch Jr on orders from Riddle put your name in Goblet of Fire. You had to face Hungarian Horntail dragon, merfolk and maze zat had acromantula, sphynx and one of Hagrid's mutants in it before finding Goblet and being taken to graveyard where Riddle and Vormtail used you in ritual after murdering Cedric Diggory of Hufflepuff. Since returning to your aunt's, you've been vorking here, where animatronics vere killing night guards, up until you survived veek, something not done since guy named Mike Schmidt, draving out puppet zing. Its attack on you managed to break spell on your other aunt, someone zat's been dead nearly tvo dekades and stuffed into Freddy springlock suit. Zis is your zird veek or later, and your aunt Rose is tormenting Ronald and Hermione bekause Hermione forgot non-magikal vays of getting messages to people or has her head up her backside about obeying Dumbledore. Veasley matron certainly keeps lid on her brood and Sirius is rather stuck… zough idiots forget zat zeir guards kould be more known to you and kould pass messages for people."

"Okay… that's the most I've heard out of Valeriya at one time since I've known her," Kanae commented, getting a nod from Hikaru and a raised middle finger from Valeriya.

Harry, for his part, stood stunned in the doorway. "H-how do you know all that?"

"It's a little hard to explain," Hikaru started, fiddling with the orange overdress she wore. "The short version though, is that what is considered fiction in one world can often be real for another. Where we came from your adventures are considered fiction… but even before we wound up here, we knew that those things could exist. We've got people that have the abilities of ships that are supposed to be fictional helping defend our world from monsters that would probably make Riddle crap himself."

"That's not even getting into what can happen on some naval bases. Corregidor is haunted to high heaven and Devonport, or at least the girls in the Kanmusu and Schattenjäger Fleet attract supernatural problems including demons," Kanae pointed out before nudging Valeriya off her lap and rubbing her thighs. "Need you to shift a bit, Valeriya, my legs are going to sleep and eleven year olds aren't the lightest things to sit on someone's lap." She frowned slightly as a thought occurred to her. "Actually… Raven… she's often experimenting with portals and gates; she might have mucked up and brought us here since we were heading to Devonport from Portsmouth."

She looked up to see Harry's confused expression and what looked like the rabbit and bear animatronics, Bonnie and Freddy if she remembered right. "Yeah, it's confusing, and we're only touching on things… right now though, you got any spare clothes around here? While Valeriya's okay and Hikaru can probably stand another couple of days in her dress, I doubt anyone wants to see me wandering around in a swimsuit, unless they're more interested in my body than me."

"Says the 'lewdmarine'," muttered Valeriya, getting a slight nod from Hikaru, who was close enough to hear it.

"Ugh… I wish I knew who first started that. I swear one of these days I'll pull being a nun out again just to creep you lot out." She sent a flat look at the other shipgirls before huffing out a frustrated sigh and running a hand through her hair. "Besides, do you two know how much all of us in the subpens hate having to hike around? They don't give us shoes and walking on concrete doesn't do your feet any good, even when our skins are hardened." She snorted before closing her eyes and sighing. "There's also the fact that the only Admiral that actually seems to give a damn about her subs is Vice Admiral Glenn, I mean would it be so damned hard to just give us honest praise once in a while?"

Anything that might have been said by anyone else was interrupted by the air itself tearing open to reveal what looked like the mouth of the river outside HMNB Devonport. "Hey, it looks like you were right, they're here!" A female voice called from the tear a moment before a girl's head topped with brown hair appeared in the gap. "You girls caused a bit of a scare when you vanished like that; it took us a bit to track down where the portal sent you. Hi, Robyn Stevens, Commander of the Kanmusu part of Devonport's fleet, sorry about whatever mess happened, the portal we had set up went into some sort of feedback loop and started popping rogues all over the place. We're only just getting things back together."

"Yeah?" Hikaru asked. "Well, we're actually lucky we hit this dimension considering where we ended up. Remember the stream you, Megan, Sally, Rika and I were involved in a few years back?" She asked, getting a cautious nod from Robyn. "We wound up in a version of that pizzeria. Fortunately after the bad shit stopped… at least mostly, it's a Potter universe, I doubt we missed all of it." She frowned, looking up at Robyn. "Any chance you can get us out of here now?"

Robyn shook her head. "Sorry girls, but this is a one-way portal unfortunately, seeing as we didn't know what might be here if we didn't find you. You're stuck for a bit. On the good side we can get things to you and talk to you, on the bad, you're not coming home until we've got a DHD or that dohickey from Sliders for you, these are kinda like star gates in that respect. The main one was designed off one and it went sideways for some reason."

The comment made Hikaru and Kanae mutter a number of choice curses as Valeriya grimaced at the implications.

"Yeah, the Admiral wasn't happy, we're down both captains, Umbra and Yuudachi as well because they were supposed to be going over to the Azur Lane universe when shit happened," Robyn shook her head and sighed. "Your admiral's been informed and the detached flotilla will be sticking around Devonport until you get back. We've got some packs being set up for you three so you can keep in touch and blend in a bit."

"Uh… excuse me? Miss Floating Head?" The interruption came from the yellow chicken animatronic. "What is going on?"

Anything that Robyn might have said in response was interrupted again, this time by a lot of loud shouting and growls from her side of the portal, resulting in her pulling herself back through to see what was going on, only for two more girls, one taller with black hair and cat ears, the other shorter, her blonde hair done up in a ponytail getting buried by a massive dog-like creature.

"Blake? Helen? You two okay?" Robyn asked as she stuck her head back through the portal.

"Mostly… ow… what the bloody hell got into the mutt, Helen?" the cat-eared girl asked, pushing herself up. All she got from her companion was a muffled grumble.

Everyone else looked at everyone else as Robyn sighed and shook her head. "Great," Robyn grumbled. "Now I have to tell the rest that we're down another two. It's a damned good thing the Japanese girls are sticking around until Alex fixes this bloody mess. Oh, and Helen, expect an earful from both Alex and Jennifer, your girlfriend won't be happy with you getting stuck in an alternate dimension and I'm fairly sure some of that stuff is more fragile than you are." That got another grumble from the girl buried under the dog as Robyn shifted to haul through a few packs and drop them to Kanae. "Here, girls, they should last a couple of weeks local, there should be something roughly your sizes."

So saying, the portal abruptly blinked closed, leaving several people blinking. "How… does this happen that often?" asked a stunned golden Freddy, who had just joined the crowd in the office.

Blake nodded. "Often enough that we've got bags ready to go. Any of those named?" she asked, turning to Kanae.

Kanae nodded. "Yeah, don't know how they would have gotten our measurements, but there's one here for each of us."

"We visit each other, how often, Iku?" the pained question came from Helen as she forced herself up from under the dog. "Get… off… Farkas," she groaned, shoving the brute away. "Ruddy thick skulled amarok," she groaned, curling up again as the giant wolf started snuffling at her.

Taking a bag from Kanae, Hikaru sighed, closing her eyes for a moment. "Well, since we're here, maybe we should go to the main dining room and figure out where to go from here. Buddha only knows how long it'll take Alex to make a way to open the portal from this side."

Valeriya nodded as she took her own bag. "Da and maybe we can avoid some issues coming up." So saying, she slung her bag over her shoulder and started out the opposite door to the one most of the animatronics were crowding.


Inazuma watched as Javelin threw herself at Niimi apologising almost as fast as she could breathe would probably have been amusing if it weren't for the fact they were stuck in some alternate dimension than either of the ones they knew.

"Does anyone know… where we are?" Ikazuchi asked, a frown on her face. "Because… I am lost," she admitted.

"You're worried as well," Inazuma commented. "I haven't heard you pause and trail off like that in a while."

Megan shifted slightly from where she was sitting. "From everything so far, I'm guessing a Potterverse, with a female Potter."

Anna nodded, snuggled into her girlfriend's side. "Ikazuchi and I wound up in a place called Gamer's Nostalgia with a Beth Potter and her niece, they're in there now." She indicated the hospital they were outside. From what I got, the girls were split up so at least one of them would survive if things went sideways but Dumbledore placed Ayana with the Dursleys, not sure why." She shrugged.

"Maybe we should ask him if we meet him," Sally suggested before looking over at the last member of their group, who was sitting quietly, seemingly just watching something in the distance. "Arei?" she asked. Getting no response, she moved to poke the girl, causing the blonde to yelp and jump in her seat. "What's got your attention, Poibote?"

Arei sighed, turning to them, "I just… how are you girls handling this so well?"

Ikazuchi cocked her head. "What do you mean?"

"Like, you're all, apart from Javelin who's too busy apologising, so calm about being stuck in another world. Who's to say we'll ever get back to our own worlds?" Arei asked, looking between the group.

Megan and Sally shared a look, communicating silently before Sally turned to Arei. "We're probably more used to this sort of stuff, but we're still worried, Arei, we're just better at covering it."

"Every time we use the area most of the supernatural dwells, we're moving about half a dimension over," Megan said. "Then there's the fact we've jumped to Azur Lane a few times and vice versa, and mine and Sally's mom is from another dimension. You know the song Tir Na Nog? The place is real; it's sort of half way between real Earth and the land of the Fae, where you wind up if you stumble into a fairy ring. We're fairly sure our parents are there or in the Faelands, which is where Mom's from."

Anna nodded, leaning up slightly. "There's also the Dream, my family have been dealing with that realm for at least a couple of centuries. A lot of Hunters wind up there if they've some Beast blood or Ancient blood in them and a lot of the area is still linked to another realm which is still in the Victorian period comparatively. My great-gran spent years bouncing back and force from it before she was killed."

Reaching over, Sally gave Arei's hand a squeeze. "There's also the fact we've got our aunt in command, and she won't leave us, nor will Alex or the others. They'll get us back. Might take a while, but it'll happen."


"Alright, so what's going on?" Freddy asked after the group had made their way to the dining area and claimed one of the larger round tables for themselves, not that it would have mattered since it was after one in the morning. "I mean, we saw that light show and two people came out of it, but the rest…" he trailed off.

The girls shared a look before turning back to the bear. "It's a long story, the short version is that we —" Blake indicated her colleagues "— are fighting a war against what is in effect undead or demon corrupted versions of ourselves. If anyone knows the specifics of what started it, they aren't talking, but around our version of Earth there is something like twenty-to-fifty thousand girls and women fighting dark shadows of themselves or others like them and that's not counting the girls in space.

"Some of the girls tend towards the sciences, some more than others. Alex is the girl at Devonport that focuses on science, often to do with other dimensions or supernatural beings, which resulted in her making a portal that led here, trying to track a rogue one actually." Blake shifted slightly, shrugging. "Beyond that, there's not much I can tell you."

"I could," Helen said, sitting next to Blake. "At least with regards to some of what might happen, this isn't what I know."

Valeriya frowned and nodded. "Our world… has fiction of yours; I remember some from when my sister read the story."

Harry looked between the two girls hopefully. "Please. Nobody's telling me anything this year."

Helen and Valeriya shared a look before Valeriya motioned for Helen to start. "Okay… I don't know how much applies, but what I do know is this," she started, explaining what she could remember of the movie series based on Harry's past, something that took them over an hour to get through even in as little detail as Helen could recall. "Which brings us to know, where I'm guessing things break off properly, the movies had you hanging around Privet Drive trying to get information from news services until a pair of dementors attacked you and your cousin in the park. They were sent by the Ministry to try to silence you and the one that sent them tries getting you convicted as an adult for underage sorcery before she takes up the position of DADA teacher and screws things properly until Vo…" she trailed off, glancing over at Valeriya. "Tom managed to get a vision through to you about Sirius being tortured there resulting in a fight through the Ministry's lower levels that got Sirius killed and Dumbledore finally reveals that there's a prophecy that Tom triggered that keeps him trying to kill you. It's pretty much standard hero stuff. Bad guy rises, causes trouble, does something that brings up a hero, they fight, one falls to the other, the end."

"That's… a lot to take in," Harry admitted, only to sigh as his aunt hugged him.

"Da," Valeriya nodded. "But this universe is different. The story I know, which seems to match what I recall of the beginning is that you worked here for two weeks, drawing out the puppet and you and Rose destroyed it." She frowned slightly. "With luck, we will see no more of them in our time here, but it is the puppet that changes things the most. Germany, in the Second World War, possibly in the first as well, tried to use undead as soldiers against their enemies. As big and powerful as they were, the more sensible members of the Reich knew that she could not fight the combined Commonwealth countries, the remnants of the European conquests, the Soviet Union and America at the same time, even with some forces diverted to other theatres such as fighting Japan in the Pacific or through Africa and Italy."

Blake nodded slightly, frowning. "Our world, Germany tried in the First World War. Captain Jones – both of them – and Vice Admiral Glenn had an ancestor fight zombies in the trenches. There's even video footage, and this is going back before makeup and effects could pull things off, even with old cameras accounting for some."

"Definitely wasn't," Helen put in. "Tyrian managed to get her hands on a similar gauntlet, if not the one that their great-grandfather locked up. We had to wade through undead to catch her, and the Commodore slugged her in the eye hard enough to make her hit the deck." She shook her head and snorted softly. "Fuckin' nasty, not to mention we needed long ass showers after. Rotted corpse is not something pleasant to have on you."

Valeriya nodded, "Da, but in this world, Hitler likely turned to Grindelwald for his army and Grindelwald came up with the puppet. After the war, it eventually made its way to the original creator of the Freddy Fazbear chain, and likely provided some of the method of making the animatronics, which accounts for their soul capture ability." She grimaced, taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly so she could focus. "Later it attracted the one that killed your aunt and her friends to its service. Not long after, Foxy was brought into action for some reason and ended up biting the day guard of the time. The cousin of a teacher, one of the students of that teacher is cousin to Sally-Ann Perks in your year at Hogwarts."

"Five Nights at Freddy's 2… the location there had these guys wrecked and the toys active," Hikaru said softly. "A lot of people speculated it was the guy you played there that got bitten, and there was a lot of speculation as to the biter, though most of the ones I found went with either Foxy or Mangle." She winced as Foxy grimaced at that.

"Aye, it were me," he admitted. "I thought he be the one that killed me an' the others."

Nodding, Valeriya shifted slightly. "Six years passed, roughly, then this place hired a guy named Mike Schimdt." She paused as the animatronics shivered. "His daughter is friends with Sally-Ann's cousin. Thing is, that's not all that's happened here. The guards are still around, mostly docile, but still here thanks to the puppet. Likewise this isn't the only place with animatronics, and a number are active similar to this group. Beyond that, Umbridge will likely be taking the open gap in Hogwarts, and she's likely already sent dementors to find you. Without controls, they're going to get hungry on route, resulting in more kids haunting the 'toys'. We can't stop it, because we don't know when they're let go or where they will travel."

"We can't stop it, but we can ensure that they never feed again once they get here," Helen put in grimly as Farkas growled. "I'd also say let Farkas eat the frog faced bitch, but I don't know if his stomach could handle her."

Valeriya smirked at that as the other shipgirls nodded. "Well, one dementor will be destroyed by the wards here, hence the toys being haunted. As for Umbitch," her lip curled up. "There's another with Rose's teleport trick, it doesn't agree with her, seriously doesn't agree with her."

"How bad are we talking?" Kanae asked, having been silent until know.

"Best guess? Like she'd been rotting for at least a few months to a couple of decades," Valeriya replied. "At least that's what I recall…" She grimaced. "My sister had a few nightmares about that scene. Undead woman teleporting in holding a skeleton that promptly falls apart and looks like it's been dead awhile. Not a pretty picture."

"Can't be any worse than that thing Megan took down a couple of weeks back," Helen muttered, "giant skeleton that bled literally everywhere that some idiot woke up in a barrow on a no-name island somewhere." She ignored the looks she got from everyone else as she leaned her head on her arms.

Freddy looked around at the other animatronics before sighing. "Is there anything else we should be aware of that's coming?"

Valeriya frowned, muttering to herself as she tried to recall anything else. "I think… a scar vision from Tom, followed by the undead guards evicting him from your mind and revealing that Rose and the other can find his anchors and that their movement trick is as bad for soul anchors as people."

"You know," Helen raised her head slightly. "We could possibly point some of them out now; maybe get Dumbledore to start looking into some."

"Do you remember what they are?" Blake asked, turning to look at her younger companion.

Nodding, Helen straightened. "Scar, which Valeriya said gets dealt with by undead, diary is already burned from basilisk venom, there's a locket at the Black home… Sirius is there; maybe he can order the elf there to hand it over to someone and tell the tale. Um… Sirius' cousin kept a goblet or something in her vault, there's a diadem in a room on the seventh floor of Hogwarts, the House Elves should know how to access it… the last is Tom's snake… no, wait, there's a ring as well at his mother's residence. You were near it when he ganked you for that muck the end of last year." She pointed at Harry.

"Also destroyed at Christmas if things go along the lines of the story Ikazuchi read," Valeriya commented. "Beyond that, Umbitch is useless and looking to cause you trouble so she can 'shut you up'. Russia has a history of political murders more recent than many." She shrugged her shoulders before pushing her white hair back over them and shaking her head. "I don't think there's much else, bar that you may well meet the daughter of the last person to survive for longer than a week here… and I think the father also has a guardian shade, another teen the puppet caused the death of."

Blake shook her head slowly. "It's a damn good thing that thing is gone… actually, what did happen to it?"

"I sent it to Sirius in an expanded box, hopefully he'll know how to deal with the thing and its 'Joy of Creation'." Harry shivered at the memories. "That thing was creepy to say the least."

"Probably a good idea," Blake commented as she shifted, grabbing a slice of pizza from the plate Chica had brought out at some point. "There's more than a few things that we've encountered that are either locked up or have been destroyed simply because they're too dangerous to be left around."

"Um…" Chica broke in to the discussion. "I have a question. What… are you? You talk about things that are straight up strange, and when you showed up earlier, you called each other different names, plus you're almost too accepting of things, like you already know about worse than haunted animatronics like us." She waved at herself and the others.

The group shared looks before Hikaru sighed. "We're what are called kanmusu, kantai no musume, daughters of the fleet or, for most, shipgirls." She grimaced at the confused looks from Harry and the animatronics. "It's not easy to explain, but our world… we're fighting what might be a losing war against ships from the world war period, ones changed into – mostly – humanlike monsters. Ordinary ships can't handle them, but there are those of us who…"

Kanae frowned slightly as Hikaru trailed off. "I think she's hit the 'difficult to explain' bit. Long story short, everything, every creature, place or object can in theory have a soul. Japan, where myself, Hikaru and Valeriya are from, still believes in that a bit more commonly than the Western World. There's a specific type though, a tsukumogami, which is an object that, if kept around for a century, particularly in the hands of people that care for it, will develop its own soul." She nibbled her lip for a moment, thinking things over. "Weapons of war, particularly warships, can actually develop them faster because there's more people involved and more likely high energy situations. Most actual ships have at least a hundred crew, so can become tsukumogami within a year or so, and most of us are from the world war period, making things more likely. Thing is… for us, we were born rather than summoned." She sighed, causing her breasts to bounce slightly. "I am Sakurai Kanae – in Japan, we still often use family or clan names first, so most people would refer to me as Sakurai, only close acquaintances or closer would refer to me as Kanae, and then often with an honorific – however, I'm also the soul of the IJN I-19 submarine. In World War 2, I was credited for sinking USS Wasp and USS O'Brien before being sunk myself thanks to depth charges from USS Radford, after that, I don't know what happened, but I was born and named Sakurai Kanae in 1998. Things happened that resulted in my attempted suicide, at which point I woke up knowing I was I-19 and that Japan needed me again, to hold against the Abyssal threat."

"HMS Blake," Blake introduced herself. "Or Blake Raikes, I'm probably one of the few that had a name that matched the ship and that was mostly because of these." She pointed to the black cat ears poking out of her hair. "My sister and I were among a group rescued from a genetics lab after we found out some people were mucking with things. The majority of the Minotaur and Lion-classes were among them along with a sister to one of the Fletcher girls."

"Helen Kerr, HMS Kempenfelt," Helen introduced herself.

"JMS Hibiki, though you probably should call me Valeriya."

"Saito Hikaru, or JMS Naka," Hikaru followed up from Valeriya. "We're probably mostly going to stick to our civilian names since I doubt there's any shipgirls here, and we'll probably get enough trouble just being here, much less bringing our ship selves into things."

Harry nodded slightly before blinking. "Hey, wait a minute. Why are you telling us this? I mean wouldn't it affect the timeline or something?"

Shrugging as she stood, Kanae turned to Blake. "This one's all yours, I'm going to get changed," she said, grabbing her pack and heading for the kitchens so she could get changed.

"Honestly?" Blake asked after rolling her eyes at Kanae's departing back. "Us being here has already changed things, and if there are changes to the timeline, time will probably attempt to devolve things to a predestination paradox or a grandfather paradox." She shrugged. "It's pretty flexible as long as you don't try to remove the reason for your travelling in the first place. At that point, well, either it'll stop the 'fix' from happening similar to Wells' Time Machine, remove you from the timeline or cause a break point where things split into two different lines, but likely force you to at least experience the original run before anything else occurs."

The animatronics shared a look before Rose asked, "So what do we do now?"

Valeriya frowned slightly at Rose. "Have you done your teleporting thing to your nephew's friends?" she asked, getting a nod from the undead bear. "It might have worked better if they weren't aware of that, but… she turned and pointed at Farkas. "What's say we give them a wakeup call they'll never forget?" Seeing confused looks from the others, she smirked. "Helen, remember that time that Alex managed to open a portal near the menagerie and some demons got out?" she asked, getting a blink followed by a slow smirk. "Farkas and Aela were on patrol, they woke up the whole compound when they found those demons and scared the hell out of a lot of the greenies."

"Scared the shit out of everyone, including you, Val," Helen commented, only to be waved off by the half-Russian shipgirl. "Probably be an idea to do it somewhere that's not going to disturb people though," she continued before turning to Hikaru, who was looking at the table and nibbling her lip. "Something on your mind?" she asked.

"Just thinking," Hikaru responded. "You and Valeriya mentioned a prophecy, do either of you remember the wording?"

Helen and Valeriya shared a look, both frowning slightly. "I think it went something like; The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches ... Born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies ... And the Dark Lord will mark him as his equal, but he will have power the Dark Lord knows not ... And either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives ..." Her frown deepened as she thought over the lines, "As I said before, pretty much standard hero stuff."

"Pretty vague too," Hikaru commented. "I mean there's been at least two 'dark lords' known in the UK in the last century, right?" She got a nod from both younger girls and Harry. "Not to mention elsewhere in the world or those that didn't really register. There's also the rest of it, what's meant by 'thrice defied him', without emphasis it could be as simple as telling someone off for being a brat or refusing to give them change. I know of four calendar variants that all have different 'seventh months', how does one not 'live' while the other 'survives' and what the heck is this supposed power?" She shifted slightly. "It sounds almost like this prophecy, if it actually is one, could fit a number of situations and only Tom being a twit resulted in it being taken to mean him and Harry here." Leaning back, she rubbed her arms under her long gloves, frowning at the table. "Is there ever anything that says that something has to happen within a time limit of a 'prophecy' being spoken?"

Blake frowned. "Now that you mention it… I've come across a few things with prophecies as part of the storyline, and more often than not it's said that prophecies are better recognised after the fact." Her ears flattened as she ran a hand through her hair. "Come to that isn't the most famous prophecy something that could have been completely ignored and probably wouldn't have done shit? I mean you look into the history of the term Oedipus complex and you'll find out about the actual character, or person, having been raised outside his family because some old codger rattled off a load of crap that eventually – if you squint at it sideways – could have been prophetic. Something about him killing his father and marrying his mother, which only came about because he didn't know they were his parents. If he'd been raised by them, he likely would have married some princess from another city state or something."

"God of War, the Eddings books that relate to Belgarath and a few others as well," Kanae's voice drew the group's attention to her as she came back in, wearing loose black jeans, black combat boots and a blue shark print t-shirt. "Hach has a massive library, so the rest of us steal them when we're bored. It's not really as if she reads them or at least not all at once." She frowned, slinging her pack under the table and taking a seat before pulling her hair loose of its usual style. "Actually, remember that whole mess with the four storms that we ended up dealing with clean-up for?" she asked, getting nods from Valeriya and the British girls. "About a month before we went out on the town, I didn't see where she went, but when she came back she threw a bag of second hand books across the room and went to scream into her pillow about people trying to force books on her. Can't honestly say I blame her. I think Devonport is one of the few places everyone gets to let off steam without having to wear masks." She snorted softly. "Actually when we were there after everything, while DD6 and some of the Yanks hung out with the Z-class, I hung out with Anna and Robyn, but went to bed alone." She smiled slightly, running her fingers through her hair. "Robyn's actually a pretty good girl, though she likes pinching ears for some reason… or doing that 'wet willy' thing."


"Any luck?" Lauren asked tiredly as she sat in the labs at Devonport, watching as Alex McAllister, or Raven as the silver-haired girl was commonly known tweaked various monitors and dials.

"We've found Admiral Goto's girls," Alex replied over her shoulder. "They're in what is apparently a cross-over dimension of some sort. The others are probably close to that, relatively speaking," she continued, scowling at her instruments. "The problem is the dimensional sea is a complete fucking mess thanks to whatever happened in the wormhole. We're honestly lucky that we haven't lost anything else so far and it's stuck with people, if it starts getting worse we might see countries being shifted around as bad as or worse than the Mage Storms that Lackey wrote about in her Valdemar series."

Lauren scowled at the response, her stomach roiling at the thought of what else could happen. Her brother was missing along with his wife, now both her nieces were stuck somewhere else for who knew how long.

"I'm going to probably need everyone on this one," Alex's voice cut across her thoughts. "Even if it's just to bounce signals so we can attempt to triangulate the girls' position in dimensional space, along with any notes on anything that might help us track them specifically." She looked over at her admiral. "Admiral, we'll find them and get them back, that I promise, but I'm going to need as much help as I can get, preferably from the Azur Lane girls as well, and access to anything we've got hidden away to do with dimensional space or travel."

Lauren paused for a moment before nodding sharply. "Do it, Alex, whatever you need. I'm not losing more of my family, or any of my best because of a fuck up we should have thought of sooner. Like hell am I losing this planet because of it." Getting to her feet, she stalked out of the lab to see what else she could do.

Turning to the monitors, Alex took a breath and let it out before starting up a multi-way conversation with the other science girls around the world. "Girls, drop whatever you're doing, we've got a priority one we need to get on before we start seeing dimensional issues up the wazoo," she said bluntly ignoring the surprised looks on the faces of the twin Yuubaris, SoDak, Phoenix, Vanguard and everyone else.