Things No Longer Allowed Involving Shipgirls Continued

by queenpearl

Picking up where CV12Hornet left off, the shenanigans of these girls are endless!

137. Rule 10,000

Rule 10,000: Phoenix has somehow managed to tap into various cultures' voodoo and summon volcano spirits as kanmusu. We don't know if we should applaud you or scrap you for this!

Lady Pearl

Phoenix and South Dakota were at it again. There was no need to describe what 'it' was. The two kanmusu generally stayed clear of each other in their experiments. South Dakota was often off enhancing the genius of Tesla, bringing to life some of the Serb's more outlandish ideas. And Phoenix... was Phoenix. Always blowing stuff up! It was rare for the two to come together for a specific project and even more worrisome for the Admirals who had suffered many a gray hair dealing with the aftermaths of such incidences. So this time, there were no chances taken. Handlers were deployed. Oregon, the more responsible of the science!shipgirl fleet and Edward, assigned handler to Phoenix and Columbia.

With the latter out of the lab for maternity leave, Phoenix was left on her own devices. Things around the lab had swiftly gotten boring without her partner around to act as the brains of the operation and/or test subject. And a bored Phoenix, was the worst kind of Phoenix!

Her current project, to bring to life certain aspects of Hawaiian culture. The idea had been circulating in her mind since the day she had first set eyes on the islands. If shipgirls could manifest as human, why not something far more important to a culture. Why not the spirit of a volcano? The Greeks had a name for it, Hephaestus the God of Fire and Blacksmithing. It was said that whenever he stoked his furnace, Etna would erupt. Phoenix, always a devout worshipper of the flame, fell in love with the idea and that of the Hawaiian's Pele. Volcanoes had a godly spirit inside them and it would be she who would summon them.

She made one last check of her materials before beginning the ritual. She had composed it out of several different languages for maximum results. First a chant in Hawaiian, an appeal to Pele. Then a song in Ancient Greek, a tribute to Hephaestus. Followed by a cry to Vulcan in Latin.

She did this for days while South Dakota continuously laid out fresh wreaths, repair buckets, anything that might entice a god or goddess to grant them this request. Edward stood by, ready to intervene should anything go, wrong. Although wrong might not be the right word when dealing with volcanoes. He wondered just who had authorized this before deciding that the Admirals were so tired of trying and failing to corral Phoenix that they had instead decided to just let her have her head and be ready to spare their energies for cleaning up the mess afterwards.

His attention diverted, Edward missed the circle glow as something began to happen within it. The water started to boil and froth, hot ash spewed forth from surface caused by the interaction between the water and something very, very hot below!

"Um, I think its working." South Dakota said as Phoenix paused in her chant. Then there was a bright flash that left all three kanmusu momentarily blinded.

When their vision cleared they could see three distinct shapes, all female standing at the edge of the pool. One was Hawaiian, the second European and the third was Native American. And all looked very, very pissed! "How dare you disturb us! Take us from our home!" Snarled one. "Who are you to make such a demand?" Cried another.

"My name is USS Phoenix, CL-46 of the United States Navy. This is USS South Dakota, BB-57. And Edward, a 440 Tender engine who closely resembled a D34." Phoenix hoped she sounded braver than she felt.

"Hmph. I, am Kilauea, home and hearth to the Goddess Pele." Said the first, a Native Hawaiian dressed in traditional hula garb.

"I am Etna, the Great Mother to the People of Sicily." said the second, a fair skinned blonde with eyes that matched the color of lava.

"And I am Loowit, Keeper of the Fire. I am the Wise Old Woman of Words. Ask a question child, and I shall have the answer for you." The older woman was very beautiful, despite the scarring on one side of her face. Phoenix was at a loss for words. Fortunately, Edward, ever the British gentleman like his ocean liner counterparts, stepped forward. "Would you like to join us for tea?" He asked.

None of the science team could know the effect their little stunt would have on the rest of the world. Phoenix's summoning had created a dimensional rift that was small at first, but it got larger and larger, and larger...

...

Rule 10,000a. No summoning God, that way lies madness!

Falkeno

Vanguard gave a satisfied sigh as she plugged the last cable into the machine. It had taken weeks to put the thing together, broken up with the odd breaks with Tirpitz, but finally, it was finished, a machine which would answer all of the questions that had emerged over the years.

"Ok, it's ready to go, you guys set?" Vanguard asked to the assembled shipgirls present, a mixture of the religious types, conspiracy theorists and the odd couple of people who were simply bored and looking for entertainment.

"Yeah, fire it up!" they replied, It wasn't everyday you met God after all.

With a low whine, the machine came to life, spewing purple lightning from its coils as its punched a hole in reality, shortly followed by a ball of energy forming in the centre of the room. At last a huge purple flash erupted from the congealed mass of energy, which then promptly dissipated, revealing a man in his early twenties, with short dark brown hair and a full beard, in jeans, a grey T-shirt, a peacoat, and wearing a pair of glasses. And he looked really confused.

"God?" Vanguard asked hesitantly, causing the man to jump slightly before turning to face them.

"Not exactly..." the man replied in an untraceable English accent, prompting a groan from one of the girls.

"Oh great, God's Southern!" Anson cried, receiving some indignant looks from those around her. Unnoticed, the man began scanning the room for an escape route.

"No, he isn't, he's Cockney!" Sheffield replied as the room descended into chaos, desperate to decode the man's indecipherable accent. Eventually, Vanguard put some order in place.

"Hey, shut the hell up!" Vanguard barked. "And can we get back to questioning God-" the battleship froze mid-sentence as she turned back to the man, only to find him absent. The only sign of him was that the door to her lab was ajar. "Where the fuck is he?!" she shouted.

...

The man stopped to catch his breath, mentally reminding himself that he really needed to exercise more. The man had few a names, some given, others chosen, but when it came to shipgirls, his name was Falkeno.

"Ok, so I've somehow ended up in a fictional place, with a bunch of nutjobs with really big guns," Falkeno muttered to himself before slapping his cheek "And I'm definitely not asleep, and that this is fucking real!" he added as he rubbed his now sore cheek. Before he felt a distinctive vibration from his pocket, and pulled his phone out; it had been vibrating constantly since he'd made his escape, and he wanted to see why.

It seemed that in his absence Discord had gone mad. There must have been 100+ messages, and all of them were about the same thing, duplicates of shipgirls seemed to be running amok back home. The weird thing though was that there were multiple different stories going on: some were saying that they were attacking, others that they'd had friendlyish run-in's with shipgirls (in the case of Sarge, he even encountered a duplicate of himself), and he even found some messages from himself that he definitely hadn't sent.

"Ok, this is getting weird," Falkeno mused. Any further thoughts on the matter, however, were promptly put aside as he heard the sounds of running behind him. "Oh shit, I need either a disguise or somewhere to hide!" he swore, only to then see a rucksack with a sailors uniform sticking out of it. That definitely hadn't been there before, nor the conveniently unlocked and empty office beside it. "Huh, guess I am God then!" he smiled as he grabbed the bag and ducked inside.

...

"C'mon he can't have got far!" Howe shouted as she led the hunt for the man, which had ended up in one of the office buildings around Scapa Flow. Unfortunately, the trail had gone cold and so it had now turned into a rather large game of hide and seek. Opening an office, she found a sailor halfway into a filing cabinet, searching for something.

"Excuse me, have you seen a guy running around the base? Grey coat, brown beard, look like he was in his early twenties?" she asked politely.

"Ey, I saw a guy like that about ten minutes ago, think he was heading for the warehouses." The man replied in a Scottish accent as he wrote something down on a piece of paper, before digging further into the filing cabinet. "I'd love to help, but I need to find this bloody file." Howe wasn't listening; she was already heading for the door.

"C'mon, he's at the warehouses!" Howe shouted as she led the other shipgirls outside.

As the last girl left, Falkeno surfaced from the cabinet. It was a good thing he could pull off a Scottish accent, better that than his Kenneth Williams impression. It also helped that he had literally written 'Falkeno put on a credible Scottish accent as he sent Howe and the others the wrong way, with Howe buying the whole thing, hook, line and sinker'. "Right, now to figure out how to get out of here!" Falkeno muttered as he collected the rucksack with his clothes, and began backtracking to Vanguard's now empty lab, arriving to find the place deserted. "Rignt, now how do I work this thing?" he groaned and started hitting buttons at random. His frown quickly changed into a smile, however, smile as the machine sprang to life. Only for a voice from behind to ruin his joy.

"Ha, found you!" Howe screamed in triumph and began charging him down. Falkeno, acting on instinct, quickly grabbed the first thing that came to hand, only to sigh when he saw all he had was a cricket bat. But better than nothing, he thought and so he swung at the charging battleship, only to send Howe flying high into the air and quite conveniently landing on the other attacking shipgirls, surprising him, Howe's unfortunate victims, and possibly Howe herself (not that anyone knew her opinion on the matter seeing that she had been knocked stone-cold). After his brain had computed what he'd just seen, Falkeno gave the bat a caring stroke before returning his gaze back to the task at hand.

"Oh, hello!" Falkeno purred as he turned to find the large red ACTIVATE button greeted him. He was on the brink of pressing it when he froze at the sound of the unmistakable click of a pistol being cocked.

"Drop the bat and get on your knees!" Collingwood barked, as he and a rather large force of armed soldiers advanced. The shipgirls who had been Howe's unfortunate victims had also recovered and were closing in as well.

"Oh come on! I'm just trying to go home!" Falkeno shouted as he turned, stealthily reaching for the button now behind his back.

"I don't care! You have a lot to answer for!" Collingwood growled back, as he took aim, "Surrender now, you've got no escape!". But the young man wasn't about to throw in the towel in just yet. He still had one trick up his sleeve, and he just hoped it would work.

"Yeah about that," Falkeno smirked as he pictured everyone's weapons falling to pieces and an invulnerable barrier forming between him and them. And as his wild imagination quickly became reality, confusion broke amongst the soldiers and shipgirls as they looked down at their dismantled weapons and then at him before rushing him, only to hit the barrier.

"What did you do!" Collingwood demanded as he pounded on the barrier, Falkeno, however, smiled before replying.

"Didn't you get the memo? I'm God!" Falkeno smirked before he slammed the button down "Now I'd like to say it's been a pleasure, but it hasn't, and it's time I bid you adieu-" he grinned turning, only for his smile to fade as he noticed a figure near the door, one who he had put through hell, and whose story he already had planned. He'd felt guilty for what he'd done to her, and she didn't deserve everything that was in store for her. Falkeno turned to her and opened his mouth in apology when there was a flash of purple, and he vanished into nothingness, leaving only a smoking heap of scrap where Vanguard's machine had once been.

"Ok, what the hell is going on?" Belfast asked, confused as to what she'd just seen, only receiving silence in response. Everyone was still in shock, and judging by the shrapnel about them, and that no one was in no condition to explain the madness that had just unfolded. She sighed before turning to leave, wondering exactly who the mysterious man had been.

Why had he'd given her such a guilty look? Just who was he to her? These were questions that she'd never have answered.

...

10000b: South Dakota's inter-universe portal machine is to be disposed of in the Marianas trench ASAP… Wait, what do you mean we're too late?!

TheBudgieAdmiral

The room was filled with mad, cackling laughter as the Americans' resident SCIENCE!lady South Dakota flipped switches and pressed buttons. The dimly lit storage space was drenched in blue light emitted by a frankly gigantic Tesla coil that was spewing out sparks longer than South Dakota's arm. She hasted from one side of the device to the other, flipping switches, checking dials and checking output graphs on the wall of screens around the device.

It was ready.

"Heu-!"

"SOUTH DAKOTA!" The voice of Admiral Holloway overpowered the sound of the tesla coil. Impressive, for a human throat. He was standing in the elevator door, the light of the coil working gave his eyes an evil shine. Or was it the anger? South Dakota could not tell.

"I DON'T KNOW WHAT THIS IS, BUT I WANT IT DESTROYED!"

"B-But Admiral, this could allow us access to infinite resources!" South Dakota wailed. The Admiral did not flinch. "Infinite shipgirls!" No flinch. "Infinite lewds?!" South Dakota was getting desperate. Don't blame her. More importantly, Holloway did not move.

South Dakota sighed. She had worked years to acquire the materials necessary to replicate the Philadelphia experiment! She had accompanied Eldridge on a trip to a parallel universe as training! She had seen things… Such things… And she would be damned if this all had been for nothing! This was the work of her life, and she'd do anything but let her Admiral oppress her again! She was going rogue! Maybe other Admirals would be more appreciative and supportive of her talents!

"FUCK THE POLICE!" South Dakota shouted, and flipped the last switch.

The tesla coil became blinding light as the sparks, now easily ten meters long, jumped to a spot in the middle of the room. Where previously nothing but air had been, there now was a… Window? Door? It was hard to describe with words.

A large, oval, purple frame that seemed to consist of pure lightning was hovering in the air. And South Dakota was running towards it.

"SODAK NOOO!" Holloway yelled, but it was too late. The SCIENCE!girl had jumped through the ring.

Unfortunately just in time for an alarm to go off. Fucking great. Holloway thought as he went over the dozen screens in front of his. All were flashing red warnings at him: "Containment failure!" "Power requirements exceeding specifications!"

And then the portal to his side began to grow. Yes, grow. It started getting bigger and bigger and bigger, getting faster as it went. Soon, the entire base saw the portal as it went straight through the main building. Not a minute later, Cape Canaveral was puzzled as to why the ISS crew could be reporting a purple arc over San Diego. And not a minute after that, an alien intelligence on the outer fringes of the galaxy had found proof of intelligent life in the universe, as the galaxy was split in two by a purple border.

[Time to harvest.]

v

Akagi stared in disbelief at the purple wall that separated her and Kaga. "What is this thing?" her muffled voice said. Kaga did not respond, for she had no answer. "C-can I walk through this?" she asked and took a step forward.

"Akagi-san, be careful." Kaga warned and eyed the purple wall with distrust. Akagi had now almost reached it. "Akagi-san!"

And then she reached it, the front half of her body disappeared, unveiling her intestines in a gruesome sort of cutaway section from hell, and then she took another step and was gone.

"Akagi-san!" Kaga cried, and looked around the room, panicking. Well… What did she have to lose?

Kaga took a deep breath, steeled herself – and stepped through the wall of light.

v

In another universe, in an insignificant town somewhere near Munich, I am busy typing out stuff on my computer. It's autumn, the cold air coming in through the windows necessitates wearing a nice cozy jacket. I pinch my itching nose for a second, then my fingers return to the keyboard.

Multiple tabs are open on the screen, one of them is Discord, where I communicate with other "enlightened people" on the matters of shipgirls. Another is an album I'm listening to for the third time in a row now. It's an album by the group "SPC ECO", and it fits nicely as a backdrop to writing stuff or just thinking about stuff. The third tab is pictures of Kaga. Tons of pictures of Kaga. Because Kaga is by far the best character to come out of KanColle, especially the anime. Anyone who opposes my belief shall feel the power of my angrily voiced essays. Hah.

"Are you once again being lazy and not contributing to society or advancing your career in any meaningful manner?" Sometimes I wonder why I bother defending her. She can be incredibly frustrating to deal with. And it's not as if she is wrong either…

I turn to look at Kaga. She's leaning against the wall, her arms crossed in front of her body, in her usual white kimono outfit. How she manages to keep that thing clean for months on end is beyond me.

"Yup." I say, smiling a 'hello' at the fleet carrier. Her expression doesn't change.

"Kaga, please be kind with him, he's just insecure, you know?" Zuikaku to the rescue. She is a nice person, except if you're called Kaga and secretly are Zuikaku's sempai. It's really hard to miss really, much harder than both of them know.

A Discord notification draws my attention away from the unfolding banter between the two. They really were adorable from time to time, unless they ran into a bad day. Then even New Jersey stayed as far as possible away from them. I smile at the memories, good and bad, of the two tsundere carriers.

Anyways, not long ago someone had asked the question where a shipgirl's fuel supply was located. Seems someone has answered that question.

1stSGTMagicalGeek Today at 10:33

Breasts?

PointlessArrow "StickmanReiter" Today at 10:33

I thought they were the belt armor?

jnfleetadmiral Today at 10:33

That's the belt, obviously.

jnfleetadmiral Today at 10:33

Nagato has an iron belt because of this and Shimakaze has a skirt.

PointlessArrow "StickmanReiter" Today at 10:33

Then why is Kaga so well endowed compared to the other carriers? Look at Zuikaku for example.

That makes sense. It would also explain why Zuikaku had furiously blushed when I asked her that question before. Anyways, time to make one's presence known.

The Budgie Admiral Today at 10:33

I still maintain that ZuiKaga does not work. I still ship it, but it doesn't work. They're way too tsundere for that.

PointlessArrow "StickmanReiter" Today at 10:33

Wasn't talking about ZuiKaga. Also, hi!

mendelevianDescendant Today at 10:33

Budgie is here! bless the budgie

also bless the Kaga and Zuizui

Zuikaku smiles while standing behind me. She looks absolutely adorable when she smiles like that. Kaga looks from her wall position, unfazed. Internally, she's probably thinking the same now.

The Budgie Admiral Today at 10:33

Kaga: "Thanks, blessing man."

Zuikaku: *smiles and does zuizui dance*

Zuikaku laughs and pats my shoulder. "Nice response." she says.

mendelevianDescendant Today at 10:33

hang on there's some noise outside, lemme go check

jnfleetadmiral Today at 10:33

?

mendelevianDescendant Today at 10:33

holy fuck

mendelevianDescendant Today at 10:33

there's gunshots outside

oh fuck.

The Budgie Admiral Today at 10:33

OH FUCK

1stSGTMagicalGeek Today at 10:33

Stay away from the windows, get to the ground so shots can't hit you as easily

1stSGTMagicalGeek Today at 10:33

If they come in don't panic, we can call the police from here

The Budgie Admiral Today at 10:33

Should we call the police?

Falkeno Today at 10:33

Guys?

Falkeno Today at 10:33

Turn on the news please.

I open Google and type in "news". "Very creative." says Zuikaku.

"Yeah, right?"

"Hey people, I just opened this news app thing you installed me and it tells me there is a shipgirl invasion into our world…" Providence comes in through the door, and what she says seems to match with what the guided missile cruiser says. It sounds utterly weird, but apparently it's true.

"Okay… Okay okay okay okay." I say. I am trying not to sound scared or worried or panicked. In reality, I am all three of these things.

"Don't panic." Kaga says. "It sounds worse than it is, you should have seen how bad Yuubari got on a bad day. It's only logical that the madness would sooner or later follow us to this reality." She sighs.

"So condition one?" Asks Zuikaku, now dead serious.

"Yes, condition one." Kaga nods. That's bad. "Get ready for arrivals, and alert New Jersey, Kii and Musashi. Tell them to get back here as soon as possible."

Meanwhile, I turn my attention back to the screen.

jnfleetadmiral Today at 10:35

What the actual fuck.

1stSGTMagicalGeek Today at 10:35

LOLWUT

The Budgie Admiral Today at 10:36

Guys… Kaga just called condition one. I think that's scary AF.

jnfleetadmiral Today at 10:36

Good. Check in every hour with a status update or we'll mark you as MIA and alert the police.

1stSGTMagicalGeek Today at 10:36

Guys, it's possible I'll cut out, base's going into lockdown and they're closing all external links in case of cyber attack. Don't worry about me, I'll be fine. Wo-chan is protecting me.

Falkeno Today at 10:33

Good, we're exempting you from the report thing. Please send update ASAP though!

Pen's Frustrated Cow Today at 10:33

Holy fucktiddies. Well, time to call up Warspite.

Jupi the Spook Today at 10:33

*Lurks invisibly*

mendelevianDescendant Today at 10:33

im fine, thanks for caring guys :thumbsup:

Olympic put down Iku in the streets before she could get here thankfully... OldIron bad time for Arizona to be working her donut shop eh?

OldIron Today at 10:33

Mutsu's with me, We'll be fine.

randompersonwithcomputer Today at 10:33

Reporting, I'm fine. Ronald Reagan (the carrier) is with me.

mendelevianDescendant Today at 10:33

The Budgie Admiral who is with you?

The Budgie Admiral Today at 10:33

Kaga, Zuikaku, Providence. More importantly, who's with Jupi the Spook?

Jupi the Spook Today at 10:33

I am fine. They won't find this spook.

Falkeno Today at 10:34

Okay, so we're all set and ready? Godspeed people!

ijnfleetadmiral Today at 10:34

Yeeup. Let's go meet them.

The Budgie Admiral Today at 10:34

Oh man this'll be a huge fucking mess.

I turn away from the screen as shouts erupt from downstairs.

"Somebody's in the house." Providence points out the obvious again. "How do we-"

The door's lock is thrown clear of the frame as an iron boot opens it forcefully. A woman steps in, a woman we all are quite familiar with, oddly enough.
"What." I say. Providence is looking from side to side with troubled eyes. Zuikaku is staring with an open mouth.

In the small room, two tall, pony-tailed carriers are facing each other down. Both wear almost identical clothing, have the same face and the same eyes. The new Kaga lowers her bow and her stance of threat changes to a curious appearance.

"Hello…" she says.

"Hello." says the other Kaga.

"You…are me?" the new arrival says, confused.

"It… It seems so."

"Where are you from?"

"From Yokosuka."

"That was not what I meant."

"I am aware, however I can't answer your question. I don't know how I came here, but it must have been a year ago or so that we appeared."

"Anyways, have you seen Akagi-san?"

"No." the elder Kaga says, and looks down. She misses her adopted sister, although she would never admit it. "Although… Considering there are two of us, is it not logical to assume that two Akagis now exist aswell?"

Zuikaku slowly sits down on the bed, and Providence follows suit as the Kagas descend into an odd sort of monotonous discussion.

"Two… Kagas…" Zuikaku stammers quietly, and a blush passes over her face. Heh. Always the sempai, isn't she?

...

Rule 10,000c. There are two Sergeants, two base and madness!

Magical Geek

1st Sergeant MagicalGeek is tired, university is hell and his men at base decided it was a good idea to mess the spirits again by trying to burned the tree down! Now all he wants to do is to shed his uniform and open the discord chat to talk to his friends of ships and general military madness.

But when he opens the Discord Chat… well either the spirit is mad and decided to haunt the base computers or something really bad is going on. The computer is sparking purple and then a purple lightning bolt crash out to the parade grounds.

"Great, another day of madness on this base." MagicalGeek sigh grabbing his Camo jacket and beret, times to be the Sergeant again.

Now, he was expecting a blacken piece of asphalt on the Parade Grounds, not a floating portal in the middle of said Parade Ground.

After gaping at the portal, he quickly went back to Sergeant mode. "GET THE RIFLES! SOMEONE GET THE ATGM AND MG OUT, NOW!" Men all around him quickly jumped into action some running to armory and some to the comms shack, a few who were leaving rushed back to their barracks. "Jesus Christ and every deity up there, why me?" MagicalGeek could only sigh as the controlled chaos around him immediately turned up a notch men carrying the DShK MGs and Mestis-M ATGMs out of the armory.

But before they could even set it up, the portal exploded in a storm of energy and a flash that blinded everyone on base.

When the flash subsided, he wasn't even going to ask, because there is a copy of him in 'full combat webbing' looking around in confusion, so in complete reaction, his first action is to draw his Pindad P1 Pistol at the lookalike, who in return pull out his pistol, a Pindad G2 Combat Pistol, only issued to Active Duty Units of the Tentara Nasional Indonesia or in english, the Indonesian National Armed Forces.

"Oh, that it so unfair!" MagicalGeek could only whine in complete jealousy at the newest line of Pistols from Pindad which they trained with but won't get. "Those are only for active duty units!" His lookalike looked at his in complete confusion.

"What do you mean for active duty unit? We got this since the Abyssal Wars started!" His lookalike replied in complete confusion.

He was not the only one, everyone around the base are aiming their rifles, SMGs and Pistols to their copies while looking completely confused at the situation, and the ATGM and MG crews are staring at each other in complete confusion, they are not dropping their equipment in fear of damaging the old Russian weapons.

"What the hell is going on?!" MagicalGeek could only shout in confusion.

"Uh, sergeant? What is going on, like your counterpart just said." A Women in what looks like combat exo-skeleton with carrier parts… wait a minute, there is two... Not wait four of them, two looks like an Amphibious Assault ship, one looks like a Nimitz supercarrier and one looks like a Gerald R. Ford-class aircraft carrier….

"Oh, god… Oh, god." Geek could only muttered in complete fear and growing dread. "Don't tell me, don't tell me." Geek muttered before lowering his Pistol. "Don't tell me, 1st Sergeant MagicalGeek?" Geek asked in complete fear.

"No, its Head Sergeant MagicalGeek now." His copy replied before the situation dawned on him.

From this day on, everyone will remember the day that two MagicalGeeks shouted in unison in both fear and anger

"SOOOOUUUUUTTTTTHHHHH DDAAAAAKKKKKOOOOTTTTTAAAA!"

Apparently the Alternate Indonesia didn't just get AH-64E Apache Guardians they also got license to build AH-1W SuperCobras, which means the Indonesian Army Aviation has more Attack Helicopter Squadrons with Apaches and Hinds but also Cobras in the mix.

The Incident also has an unintended side effect, the Tentara Nasional Indonesia or in english, the Indonesian National Armed Forces has exploded in size, with extra personnel from the alternate Indonesian National Armed Forces.

The Navy actually grew in size from 3 Fleet Command to 6 Fleet Command with the additional 2 Expeditionary Fleets, the Air Force didn't grow much, they only has two of everything.

Which is the Reason why all Reserve Elements are activated into Active Combat units and are immediately thrown into the fire...

Which is actually why there is an entire Battalion fighting on the Thousand Islands district, Land, Sea and Air which is ironic to both Sergeants. Apparently the differences between the two is simple, the Head Sergeant MagicalGeek had to takeover when his old CO was KIA, so he is used to commanding large formations, while the 1st Sergeant MagicalGeek is a believer of leading on the front.

Which is why there is currently a firefight on the islands.

"CAN SOMEONE TAKE OUT THAT CRUISER!" *BOOM!* "THANK YOU!" 1st Sergeant MagicalGeek is in the thick of it, apparently the SS109 Steel Penetrator Ammunition can kill an Abyssal, only the problem is that it takes nearly an entire magazine to kill one Destroyer.

Which is why no one is panicking… that and the Arisgator's 50. Cal is helping a lot on taking down the abyssals on the ground.

Thank the lord that they are in the alternate universe, apparently the Thousand Islands district was the first islands to be emptied because of its vicinity to the Main Island,

Above the skies, fighters from both carriers and assault ships are keeping the Abyssal Fighters away from them.

The flight of Cobras doesn't hurt too actually.

"MOVE UP!" 1st Sergeant MagicalGeek shouted as he advance with his Platoon up to their objective, the Town Hall. Just as they reach the tree line, machine gun fire open up from the Town Hall, in reply Head Sergeant MagicalGeek's Huey strafe the building with Hydra Rockets before a few Cobras came in and raked the place with 20mms and more Hydra Rockets.

"That's our boys!" One of the Troopers shouted in joy.
"MOVE UP! SECURE THE OBJECTIVE!" The 1st Sergeant shouted and advance, the remaining abyssals hurt and dazed by the airstrike was quickly dispatched by the Squad.

"SET UP DEFENSIVE POSITIONS!" 1st Sergeant shouted and everyone quickly set up the FN MAG and FN Minimis on the windows preparing for any counter attack.

"Jesus Christ." 1st Sergeant muttered and looked at everyone here. "How many?" He asked the nearest Trooper.

"Mostly wounded." The trooper replied. "Without Air and Armor support, it would be worst." The trooper added.

The battle for the Thousand Islands is a success with very minimal casualties, apparently the Abyssals stationed on the island wasn't even expecting a counter attack, which helps to the success of the counter attack. In fact the Abyssals were preparing to ambush the 1st Jayakarta Naval Squadron in charge of defending the Capital, they weren't expecting an all out counter attack from all sides.

Which is why everyone except the two Sergeants are celebrating the successful counter attack.

But what are the two Sergeants are doing? Well they are the DJ for the celebration and to commemorate it they are playing various songs from Sabaton.

"MIDWAY!"

Which is why everyone is having a blast with the music, the metal rock music got everyone into the party mood pretty quickly.

"Far from shore, a pacific war - bombs are falling from the skies" The song reaches this part when the crowd joined in.

"Its a bombrun day, it the naval way!" The entire base shouted joining the song. "A bloodred sun is on the rise..."

This lasted to the next morning.

...

10,000d Yes the Yamiprise family adopted a new pet, yes it's a Charmander they call Tricky

TrickyMander

Enterprise blinked at the orange animal that was being hugged, or rather crushed, by Yoshino. Yamato looked like she was about to squee out loud.

The legendary carrier finally spoke up.

"Honey, why is Yoshino squeezing a Charmander dressed in a Singapore army uniform?"

"I don't know, but I want a turn…"

E's palm met her face as she saw Hope returning with her...

Oh why...

"HOPE ANNA BEAUREGARD THAT IS A LIVING MONSTER NOT A SCIENCE EXPERIMENT SO PUT THE TOOL BOX DOWN," she snapped.

"Awww…." Hope let out a disappointed whimper but backed off slightly. Yamato meanwhile was now curiously shadowing the bizarre creature.

"Yoshino sweetie, can mom give the little Charmander-"

"-he's Charry-" Yoshino corrected.

"-Charry a hug?"

"NO!" Yoshino hissed, pulled the pokemon away from her mom...only for him to be promptly grabbed and tackled by Akemi as well.

"Hey Akemi, he is mine!" The angry mini battleship shouted angrily.

"No, he's mine!"

"Mine!"

"I SAID, he's MINE!"

Enterprise took one look at the hapless, half-strangled Charmander and huffed in annoyance. It was time to draw a line in the sand before there was no Charmander to speak of.

"Yoshino, Akemi, stop pulling on the poor thing now!" The fighting promptly subsided as she took away the creature with an almighty yoink.

"Mom, can we keep him?" Yoshino asked, giving her best bambi eyes.

Enterprise quickly saw what her daughter was doing and intercepted Yamato's answer. "Hold it! One, no using mom's love of pokemon to get an advantage and two, having a pet is a real responsibility. You have to feed him, care for him, play with him, and most importantly keep him away from anything flammable."

It was at that moment she felt the intense gazes assaulting her face as 4 sets off Bambi eyes (Yamato's included).

"Pleeeaaaa~aaase" they begged in unison.

"Alright fine," Enterprise sighed in defeat, "but Yams, you asked for it. I do have to say that charry is kind of cute..." she cooed at the pokemon as it promptly piqued up and hurled a tsunami of flame at her.

"No! Bad charmander!" Yoshino scolded as the fire died down to reveal a...gleeful, still-on-fire, Enterprise?

"We are keeping him." She said firmly as the carrier gave him an affectionate hug. "All decisions are final."

"Glad to see you agree," Yamato smiled appreciatively as she doused the flames off her spouse.

While E was getting an impromptu bath, 'Charry' had slipped out of her hug to huddle in a corner. After making sure he was unnoticed, he took some time to reflect on his situation.

"How did I end up here?" Tricky (which was Charry's real name) thought to himself. "On one hand, I have successfully integrated myself into the Yamiprise family, but on the other hand I am now a little Charmander. How does that even work?"

Any further musing was interupted as a pair of hands grabbed him off the floor. Shocked, the former human was now looking at Akemi's eyes.

"I found him!"

"No Charry! Tricky Charry!" Yoshino scolded the being in her hands.

"I think that is better a name, actually.." Yamato said and embraced the creature in a hug. "Tricky it is then."

...

Rule: 10,000e. Seriously, South Dakota, what have you done? We have CERN on the phone!

KaiYves

On the side of an empty street in midtown Manhattan, KaiYves was crouched against the side of one of the two famous lions that guarded the entrance of the New York Public Library.

The night had started out perfectly normally. She had done some homework in the library and then decided to check out Discord to check up on her friends in the various channels. There had been a new user on The Admiral's Backroom from China called WhiteHairedGirl, who Jmpr had been a bit insulting to. Kai had typed a "Don't be rude" message before suddenly feeling dizzy and off-balance. Deciding that meant it was about time for dinner, she had closed out of the Internet, packed up, and headed out the door–

And then a wave of purple lightning had suddenly shot out of the west, bisecting the library steps and coming just about a meter from where she stood at the doorway. As Kai had tried to take cover behind the library doors, there had been a blinding flash of purple light, and she had tumbled forwards…

When the light had faded, she had found herself alone on the other side of the door, sprawled on her hands and knees on the library porch, in front of doors that were now suddenly boarded up. The street, normally busy with cars and pedestrians, was now vacant, and all of the buildings around here were dark, with the only electric light coming from the streetlights. By their light, Kai had been able to make out scorch marks on the sidewalk and library steps and what looked like a bomb crater in the asphalt of the street itself.

Aside from the streetlights, the only other sign of current human activity had been the sound of emergency sirens, about one every five minutes. Kai had frantically pulled out her phone, hoping for some kind of alert from university security or her Red Cross app or just the police or government about what disaster she might have just witnessed (missed? awoken to?), but there were no alerts, no cell signal, and no Wi-Fi.

"Crud, crud, crud now what, now what? Think, think…"

As all of the front entrances to the library appeared to be barricaded, the most logical course of action had seemed to be to find a vantage point closer to the street and look to see what she could see from there. Kai wasn't really sure what she was looking for, this clearly didn't seem to be any "normal" sort of disaster.

So for somewhere around 15 minutes she had been crouched against the lion statue's body, scanning the street in front of her, half-expecting to see zombies or aliens who knew what else. The closest thing to a weapon she had was a metal water bottle that was quite heavy now that it was almost full, which probably wouldn't be much good at all against someone who had seemingly made everyone in New York disappear, so staying covered seemed like the best move. But in reality, she had seen no one at all, the street remained deserted and the only sound was the wind blowing through ornamental trees and bouncing trash along the sidewalk. The wind was cold, and so was the stone, and Kai was beginning to wonder if she should make her way back to the library and try to find another entrance. At least then she would be inside, and there might still be food in the café.

She leaned close to the lion's sculpted ear and whispered into it, "Hey, which one are you, Patience or Fortitude?" The statues had those names, but nothing to indicate which was which. She felt herself blinking back tears of despair. "You can't really come to life like in that book I read as a kid, can you? I'd feel a lot safer with a living stone lion to protect me right about now."

"Hey!" The sound of another voice jolted Kai out of her pleading so suddenly she nearly dropped her water bottle. A tall woman with short red hair was standing near the base of the statue, looking up at her. She looked familiar somehow, but Kai couldn't quite place the lady's concerned-looking face, although she certainly recognized her off-white waterproof jacket, with the familiar logos of Oracle, BMW, and the Oracle Team USA sailing team. And, well, apocalypse or no apocalypse, there were certain fangirl impulses Kai could never hope to restrain–

"Wow, cool jacket! Like in the America's Cup!" Even if the woman hadn't already seen her, there would have been no more hiding with how loudly she'd announced that.

"Right, exactly." The woman nodded and smiled. "Can you tell me how to get to the New York Yacht Club?" The accent reminded Kai of her friends from California.

It felt strange to be talking to another person, and even stranger for them to be asking for such seemingly-specific knowledge of hers. But if at least one other person was alive in New York, they had to stick together, and if they already happened to have such a highly-specific shared interest, it was practically a miracle. Most of the time the only people Kai could ever find who were interested in talking about sailboat racing were online, on Tumblr or The Admiral's Backroom chat, and even in the later, most of the users were more interested in military ships.

"Are you going there? Look, I don't know what's going on, there was a giant wall of lightning and a flash of purple light and suddenly I was on the steps all alone and nobody was around… but yeah, it's like two blocks north and then a few over west, I've gone by there a few times. Not in, of course, those guys are way too snobby to ever let some kid in jeans and fingerless gloves just walk in to look around, honestly for next time I like Luna Rossa better than them…" The words spilled out in relief.

The woman glanced quickly at a highly-sophisticated computer watch on her left wrist and then back at Kai. "Look, all I know is New York's under a state of emergency and my orders are to get up to the Club as soon as possible. If you can help me get there, I'm sure they'll keep you safe."

Kai clambered down from the statue, handing her water bottle to the woman for a moment to have both hands free.

"The Volvo Ocean Race? I guess you're a fan, huh?" The woman said, smiling again. Kai got to her feet and took her bottle back from the woman's hand. "Uhm, yes. I'm Kai, I'm a student here."

"Well, I'm USA-17, from Oracle. You ever meet a catamaran avatar before?"

An… avatar? What, like in those silly stories she was always making up with her friends online? Kai hadn't even written up a profile for any of the 17s yet, although she had ideas, and she knew Pearl did as well, since she'd even written them into a few rules. Come of think of it, the woman did match her mental picture, pale and redheaded like her skipper, but with a pixie cut where his head was nearly shaved, and then– oh, right, amber-eyed like in Pearl's other story!

"W-which 17? Are you Sierra? From 2013?"

The woman blinked a few times in shock. "Yeah, 17.3 or Sierra, little Apple joke with my sisters so we can keep each other separate. 'Met a dimensional counterpart who went by Black India once, though. How'd you know?"

Because I created you? No, that sounded all wrong, Kai wasn't God and she wasn't the engineers who had built the real USA-17, either. A god wouldn't be standing there wiggling her toes to keep them from freezing inside of her sneakers. If this really was the world of her stories, if it really was a parallel universe with its own history, then maybe they had all been receiving psychic impressions of true events that were happening elsewhere as they wrote.

"Oh, because… because Kyle Langford told me! He was on your crew and then I met him at the Volvo stopover in Newport when he was with Team Brunel!" Kai moved to take her backpack off "I have the pic I took with him in my phone!" Hopefully that sounded convincing. She really did have the photo, even if her expression in it looked extremely goofy.

Another siren sounded. "Why don't you show me later! If this is really an emergency, we should get moving."

The two women set off jogging down a north-south running street, passing more bomb craters and buildings with broken windows.

"How did this happen? Why's New York so trashed?" Kai gasped out, remembering she hadn't jogged on a regular basis since undergrad.

"Abyssal attack last month. Just like in the old movies– monsters and aliens love trying to wreck New York City. Fortunately, our forces offshore always stop them before they can do more than launch shells. I'm glad they didn't try to climb the Empire State Building– I always wanted to see it, and I was at the top when that purple lightning appeared and the emergency signal went out." Kai could tell 17 was deliberately slowing herself down to try to keep at a human's pace. As such, she was talking perfectly normally. "I was supposed to report to the NYYC later tonight anyway, this just moved it to ASAP."

"Report? So is that, like your headquarters or something? I thought you'd be in San Francisco, or in Virginia where your hull's on display." Kai said, trying to ignore an ominous growling sound from a nearby alley.

"Well, that's actually why we were supposed to be meeting, some of the higher-ups have ideas for making a more formal structure around us racers. And apparently some NYYC members did organize a sort of volunteer submarine patrol for the Coast Guard during World War II, which the modern folks think gives them some insight into how to–" 17′s sentence was cut off as a pack of gruesome, frog-like creatures suddenly jumped out of the alley ahead of them, making a horrible sound somewhere between a growl and a gurgle.

"WHAT THE HECK ARE THOSE THINGS?!" Kai had instantly discovered that surprisingly, she actually did still have quite a lot of fear left in her.

"Don't know. All kind of strange things coming out of portals these days. Piggyback!" 17 ordered.

"What? How are you going to–"

"Grab onto my back!"

Kai awkwardly tried to climb onto the woman's back, putting her arms around her neck– and then, found herself sitting much more comfortably on top of a trampoline net as 17′s rigging manifested. The net was stretched between two red-tipped black hulls, and the form of a miniature black wingsail was strapped, like an RPG protagonist's comically disproportionate sword, diagonally across 17′s back. "Okay, now grab the net. And hang on!"

She hung onto the netting as 17 accelerated, charging forward as fast as highway traffic. Through the gaps in the netting, Kai could see that the catamaran was moving like a speed skater on foils that extended from the bottoms of her feet, much like skates. One of the frog creatures jumped at them, only for 17 to send it rocketing away with a punch to the chest area.

As the other creatures gave chase, 17 altered her course, speeding diagonally towards the wall of one of the surrounding buildings, making a leap, and then–

They were foil-skating along the building's surface, perpendicular to the ground, at ever-increasing speed. As wind whipped past her face, Kai lowered it against the netting, scared her glasses might be blown off. The creatures jumped after them, but were too slow, squishing against the wall and then sliding down with angry-sounding gurgles. As terrifying as it was, Kai also had to admit that–

"THIS-IS-TOTALLY-AWESOME!"

17 glanced backward, her head now covered by a silvered crash helmet decorated with Red Bull logos. Seeing that the creatures no longer seemed to be pursuing them, she smirked, and shifted her weight, heading back towards the street. Another leap brought them back to the horizontal world, with 17 landing in one clean motion and continuing her flight down the street. "It's on 44th Street?"

"Y-y-yeah-yeah, i-it's 44th, turn right here and then like three down!" Kai was a bit too stunned to put the syllables together, but she could recognize the street signs. Lifting her head, she turned it back as far as she dared, but saw no sign of the frog creatures.

Soon, a barricade became visible up ahead, with a crowd of soldiers in what looked like combat gear standing with guns, carefully watching the empty street. That certainly hadn't been there the last time Kai had walked by the massive stone building to her left, decorated with ornate carvings of seashells, nautical ropes, and ship timbers. Even the projecting windows looked like the backs of miniature galleons rendered in stone. The Beaux-Arts elaboration of the yacht club's facade seemed a world apart from the plain concrete dividers of the barricade in front of it.

As they approached, 17 slowed, pulling a final turn a few meters from the barricade to burn off the last of her speed. She retracted her foils and reached up to remove her helmet. Kai finally released the death grip she had had on the netting, climbing back onto the street as she tried to wiggle her fingers, still tense and very white.

"AC-72 catamaran USA-17, reporting as requested." 17 announced, cradling her helmet under her left arm. "And an evacuee." She nodded in Kai's direction.

The soldiers waved them past the barricade, where the club door itself was surprisingly still guarded by a doorman in a far more formal uniform. "Traditions must be upheld, Miss Oracle." He said, noticing the bemused expressions on the women's faces as he held the door open for them. If he had a problem with Kai's jeans and fingerless gloves, he didn't show it. "Right this way."

A man in a suit led them through an ornate wood-paneled lobby and up a flight of red-carpeted stairs, questioning them about their arrival and the frog creatures. Kai turned her head furiously, catching glimpses of models and paintings she would have loved to stop and look at more closely. But obviously, they had to follow their guide, down hallways, up another flight of stairs, and then into a conference room where several large computer monitors displayed video-chat windows.

The room was mostly occupied by a few long and narrow wooden tables, with heavy chairs arranged behind them, facing the screens. It reminded Kai of the library reading room she'd been working in earlier, actually. The crowd filling the chairs were a strange mix of uniformed military officials, formally-dressed civilians, and other men and women in what she recognized as branded gear for various sport sailing teams.

"17! Ah, you've arrived safely, we were all starting to worry!" A French-accented voice said, from one of the video screens. Kai looked upwards to see another conference room, where a black-haired woman in a gray pantsuit was smiling in relief. From the red spiral painted around her left eye, Kai recognized her as Alinghi SUI-64.

"Some frog-like creatures attacked us, but I managed to escape them just fine." 17 answered.

"Yes, the other personnel in New York have reported fighting with them, but I am told that most of the population has sheltered without incident. All sorts of strange things have been happening since that glowing purple wave swept across the Earth. We have reports coming in from all of our facilities, not just there or here in Geneva, you see, but all around the world." Alinghi said. She turned to a slightly taller woman to her right who had blue hair with two long side bangs, wearing a labcoat.

The woman in the labcoat also looked familiar, but Kai couldn't quite think of where she'd seen her before.

"As I was telling the others, the wall or wave of purple lightning appears to have originated somewhere in the San Diego metropolitan area approximately 40 minutes ago. From there, it spread east and west at an exponential rate, growing in width and height equally rapidly, so rapidly as to seem almost simultaneous across the world." The blue-haired woman said, speaking with a slight Swiss-German accent. "However, based on the minute differences in the times at which the energy associated with the wave were first detected at our various research labs, we have been able to estimate the origin. According to the space probe data and our calculations here at CERN, the energy appears to have then continued on into space, at many times the speed of light."

Wait, CERN? Oh, now Kai remembered! The blue-haired woman looked just like the "personified Large Hadron Collider" that one of her Tumblr friends had drawn and turned into a cosplay several years before. Well, minus the glowing energy rings around her.

After the gasps in the room had died away, the supercollider-girl continued, "Based on the energies detected, and the reports of anomalous creatures and individuals appearing shortly afterwards, as well as several people from our own world disappearing, we believe that the purple barrier was a dimensional incursion on a scale never before witnessed, a brief moment of contact between our own universe and one or more alternate ones."

...

Rule 10,000f: The Logistical Headache, for the act of getting crap where it needs to be remains the alpha and omega of pains in the ass

Kras

"Step by step, the longest march…"

Absentminded was the croon out of a hard-hatted man in a dockside warehouse shifting boxes of disinfectant and cartons of band-aids onto a pallet, then jacking it up on a fork-hoist so the thing could be moved to the ready wrapping-stations.

Songs would usually get stuck in the worker's head this way, and usually he would see no reason to not sing them. It wasn't as if anyone could hear him over the noise abound - you damn near needed to shout into other guys' ears just to be heard when a forklift or a crane was operational.

"Can be won, can be won…"

It wasn't quite a serf's spiritual, but the steady cadence lodged itself in the skull of the working man, and managed to galvanize his arms to lift and move even with depleted energy stores after the ten-hour day.

"For all the unknown heroes, sing out to every shore…"

Today, the singer was filthy. This was not unusual, because properly operated docks with construction going on in the background were too dry and inhospitable to all plants but dandelions, whose tastes for potting were ecstatic at even the sight of a crack in concrete. Thus, the dirt and sand and filth that came from dusty tin-sheds pretending to be proper warehouses.

"What makes one step,"

A quarter-hour till the end of the workday. Two more pallets full of the bitch-materials; products scattered all over the warehouse. Because, of course, putting them to their own shelf would compound the problem.

"a giant leap,"

But of course, something going on in Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Australia's Northern Territory… the guy lost count of how many countries were on the stamps to go on the boxes. Something big went on, apparently. Something to do with war fleets.

Probably China.

Brief were the flashes of worry in an emotionally dulled mind which marked good days as having enough of a surplus of a fuck to actually feel something - but unlike the self, fucks were indeed in reserve to be given to friends he'd never seen.

He's called himself Kras to them - being unconfirmedly descended from Red Guards, before those ancestors were discharged from duty in the formation of the Reichsprotectorate Ukraine, he'd chosen his internet tag off a personalization of a romanization of the red guardsman title. Also it was made easy to shorten, as the stated term was literally just the Russian spelling of 'Red'.

"Is all the steps be-"

But then, he felt the world go still.

Something was there. Nowhere. Everywhere.

He felt it with his soul.

Divorced from his homeland he may have been - presently being across a ditch from a land which hunted to extinction the things that lurked in the night with spears and loincloths - he was still familiar with the notion that things lurked beyond the fire-light, that man hadn't yet forgotten.

The 'fore' to complete the lyric died in his throat as the Message came.

With that small 'click', the descendant of serfs and the son of a Captain understood where he was needed.

It was very easy. He simply closed his eyes…

…

…

Opening them, having moved to somewhere with warmer, saltier, more humid air… and not quite anywhere, at the same time.

He, as he should have been, in this place wasn't there. There could be only one.

Someone was looking at him. Someone with authority. Poor bastard.

The last one such man Kras had looked up to, four work placements ago, he'd relentlessly stated the leader was drunk at his workdesk. When questioned about this, Kras stated he wouldn't be in that position. Not with thirteen hours a day in an office, making sure a vegetable-preparation plant ran as needed.

"Introduce yourself." Came a curt order from the guy standing on water in front of him.

That wasn't a cause to give a shit, in itself. Alternatively, the pristine Dragunov in the officer's hands was very much one.

"You can't say my name without invoking the terms Hero, Orgy, Valour and Smug in English." Kras said. Right then, it seemed like a good idea to adhere to the same practices as online, where it was rude to call people by their real names when they preferred a pseudonym.

As the Japanese had said, may your movements be as mysterious as moonlight and strike as lightning. In a less heavenly mindset, this translated to fucking with their heads and kicking them in the balls.

The interrogating officer performed the universal response to this tactic. Closing the eyes, leaning back and looking skyward for salvation, taking a deep breath and manually resetting their brain.

"I am the name ship of the nuclear missile cruisers," said the capped man with delicacy, "Kirov. Do you have something to report?"

"I go where I'm called and do what I'm needed to. What do you need moved, where, and when?"

Kirov visibly experienced a similar mental 'click' of things slotting into place. "My fleet's about to move south to Japan, there's something big going on and they want damage control being run."

"How much?"

"That warehouse. All of it." Kirov turned to look, and the reason for his additional pointing seemed to be to make sure Kras couldn't possibly fuck up in finding it.

"Where?" asked the one who'd find a way in any case.

"Yes. А ну давай, бесталачь."

Suitably called a fool, the guy was at the warehouse in moments, and began running as soon as he manifested legs to do so with. There was a lot of work needing done - no time to fuck around.

...

10,000g. No, there is not a magical discord channel or forum where everything that gets posted, happens in real life. Stop asking!

Pointless Arrow

"Are you sure about this?"

"Oh, I'm very sure. Do you know how many CSI episodes I watched for this?"

"…that's not how any of this works, you know."

"Hey! How do you know?! Have you ever tried?! You know what Taffy 3 always said-"

"…please don't tell me you got the idea from Johnston…"

"-you never know until you try! Hey, how did you know it was her?"

"Oh, I so have such a bad feeling about this."

"Oh come on, worrywart, she's right! Let's get down to business~"

"Can I just say," Oakland burst out, her exhausted voice silencing the clatter of dishes and cups about her, "that this meeting came out far better than planned?"

"Better than planned?" A familiar black-clad pre-dreadnought raised an eyebrow questioningly. "You act as if we had never worked together before in that grand operation."

"Yes, but," the light cruiser dug about in her pockets anxiously, "but not like this. I mean, we're all on leave right now, aren't we? No abyssals to kill, no expeditions to do, nothing! You'd expect someone to do something crazy and-"

"Don't jinx it," Mikasa wagged a finger in warning. "The last time someone said that, the admiralty issued hundreds of new regulations."

"Oh jeez," Hai Qi rolled her eyes, "I wonder whose fault that was."

"I don't know what you mean," the pre-dreadnought tilted her head as she took perhaps too innocent of a sip of her tea. "Who could have possibly been behind that awful prank, and actually tried testing out of the Russian Baltic Fleet's claim of being 'too hot to handle' by—"

"AI YA!" a shipgirl cried out, pointing furiously at Mikasa, "her drink is possessed!" Uneasy murmurs echoed throughout the room as the shipgirl-in-question's teacup seemed ready at any second to simulate the Krakatoa eruption, shooting boiling hot tea geysers high into the air.

"What the hell?"

"Someone call an exorcist!"

"Relax," Mikasa smiled serenely, pulling the cup to her lips to take a sip of the ever-boiling drink, "for it is but a storm in a teacup." A shipgirl beside Hai Qi had other ideas, however.

"The river spirits have cursed your drink! Fortunately I know just the thing!"

"Jiyuan, no," Hai Qi sighed, feeling a headache coming on. "That's just a superstition. We're both better than that."

"But you're wrong!" The Beiyang cruiser laughed triumphantly. "Watch as I expel this evil demon from Mikasa's cup!"

As Jiyuan began chanting incoherently and gesticulating wildly, Hai Qi couldn't help but feel relieved that Anshan was busy elsewhere…

Badadadum.

"Greetings. You have reached the StickyNotes Storytelling Firm. Thank you choosing us as your writer of choice; we promise to deliver high quality chronicles and stories as our clients desire. We are sorry that we are unable to answer your call right now, but we will get you in contact with a human affiliate as shortly as possible."

"Damn bloated bureaucrats," she hissed. "Of course they would have a poor work ethic."

"If you are here to make a request for a story, please press 1. If you are here to conduct an interview, please press 2. If you are here to…"

"Of course, of course, they're going to make it the last option. Gotta make sure that the people as tired as possible before issuing a righteous complaint."

"If you are here to file a complaint or to ask a question, please press 4*CH*A*N**, in that order."

"Bureaucrats…grievances…people…" she mumbled furiously as the destroyer menacingly punched the cryptic series of symbols. At last, the phone issued a mellow series of tones, and a familiar tired voice came on the line.

"Hello?" the operator sounded on the verge of collapse.

"Is the Stickman?" Anshan snarled.

"Oh, Anshan?" immediately his voice sounded meek. "Hi, I was meaning to get back with you-"

"Yeah, like a year ago—"

"A year ago? Has it really been a year since I last talked with you all? I'm sorry, I truly am, it's just—"

"Where is the story?" she hissed.

"—and then an Avian and Hylotl made a request for a romance trope, I had to turn them down, and then, I know you won't believe this, apparently there's a world where there's this legendary hero who slays nothing but goblins. I don't know, doesn't that sound repetitive after awhile? Also, a Survey Corps Scout of all people made a request. Something about the times before the Fall. I was so tempted to take up their offer, but…

"WHERE IS THE STORY?!"

Even Genghis Khan would have turned tail and ran at her shouting. There was a long and awkward pause.

"I'm sorry, Anshan, I really am, but—"

"But. What. You. Incompetent. Idiot."

"You see," Stickman replied nervously, his sweat dripping audibly off his face, "I haven't been able to keep in touch with PointlessArrow for some time. And because PointlessArrow is my boss-"

"Oh, be quiet about you and your imaginary boss! He's just a tall tale you tell people to cover up for your buffoonery and procrastination!"

"But he's real! And he's from another dimension!"

Another dimension? Could this operator think her anymore stupid? Anshan resisted the urge to engage in another tirade, and instead decided to humor his excuse.

"Another dimension you said? So, what's taking him so long."

"Apparently he got into medical school, and it's really difficult so he has no time to peer edit my notes! I swear I'm telling the truth; I'd even bring you to him if I could!"

"Well then, tell him this."

"…?"

"If he truly is in another universe, he better hope I never meet him. Because if I do," she smirked, "I'm going to be airing a lot of my 'grievances,' to say the least."

"You're just literally inserting a series of numbers into a random textbox on the screen," Taylor groaned, unable to suspend her disbelief any longer.

According to the infamous, insane, and industrious author and Essex carrier Hornet (the Younger), the science shipgirls would make "the technological breakthrough of a lifetime" in the foreseeable future. Rather than being utterly terrified by this revelation, the international response to the prophecy was to accelerate it.

Especially amongst the Fletchers. They were not by any means immature, reckless idiots, but they were very determined to put their names and their country's flag on any new horizon there was to be found. Some found solace in the possibility of creating a never-ending food supply; others hoped more comically to turn shipgirl flatulence into fuel.

To her tried-and-true Tokyo Bay comrades O'Bannon and Nicholas however, that meant trying (and epically failing) to "hack" into the internet.

Taylor was pretty sure that wasn't how the internet worked, but when two sheep and a wolf are trying to decide what to have for lunch you just throw your hands in the air and give up. Nicholas especially wasn't having any of Taylor's cynicism.

"Remember that Pixar movie that came out a little back? The one where everyone got hypnotized by screens? It's clearly a sign of the future, and that we're on the right track."

"Yeah, the fantasy film where superheroes exist?"

"Are you saying we aren't superheroes?" O'Bannon protested, looking up briefly from her aimlessly typing. The computer was very clearly malfunctioning on them, flashing the classic "blue screen of death" intermittently.

"No, but are you sure 'borrowing' a napkin sketch design from Phoenix, South Dakota, and the others that they even wrote in the margins was 'unfeasible', 'impossible', 'wishful thinking' to use as a template is the logic of geniuses?"

"They simply didn't have enough faith," Nicholas tutted. "Which we have a lot of. Remember Taylor, the three of us once jumped off a multistory building without ruining the concrete parking lot below. Just because it hasn't been done, doesn't mean it can't. Besides, imagine the potential. Imagine if we could hypnotize Stalingrad into going on a lengthy rant and recanting her love of Sta-"

"I think I got it."

A very unofficial, extremely Microsoft-Paint quality textbox with the words "PLEASE TYPE IN THE PASSWORD HERE. YOU HAVE ONE TRY."

"One try? Drats."

"Hmmm…what could it be? 'THE PASSWORD HERE. YOU HAVE ONE TRY.?' Hunter123? Ilovecats? Urgh, I hate riddles…"

"Maybe it's the Nintendo cheat sequence?"

"I am surrounded by idiots," Taylor sighed, drawing the straps of her cap over her chin.

She failed to see the maniacal gleam in her sisters' eyes…

"DAODAODAODAO! Oh ye river gods, hear me now…!"

"I see your feudalistic, superstitious mannerisms are doing little else but getting on other people's nerves, eh?"

"Jiyuan is not reflective of the Beiyang Fleet's values," Hai Qi replied stoically, wincing as the Chinese cruiser made yet another pass at Mikasa's teacup. "I think she might be a bit tipsy too."

"Tipsy, at this time of day?" Anshan chortled. "Man, no wonder you guys brought nothing but shame and grief upon us. You're so incompetent."

Hai Qi turned beet-red as a flash of anger spread across her face, but a rumble in the destroyer's pocket commanded Anshan's attention. It was a notification from discord; she eagerly opened it.

"Your waifu gacha game is trash. Your game is bad, and you should feel bad."

Several people are typing…

"What are you smiling at, Anshan?"

The destroyer looked up to see the disapproving looks of Ninghai, Pinghai, and Hai Qi about her. Couldn't she enjoy a moment of peace and quiet without these pesky Nationalist shipgirls bothering her?

"Someone tried flaming my game, Blue Ocean, again," she smirked without skipping a beat. Anshan smirked even harder as Hai Qi's frown deepened.

"The one where Ninghai and Pinghai are little girls despite being young women?"

"Yep."

"And the one where Yi Xian has been called, and I quote, 'a MILF?' despite being actually half the size of Ninghai and Pinghai?"

"Ye~ep."

Anshan was about to brace herself for the inevitable (and hilarious) tirade when something else commanded her attention. In the blink of an eye her cellphone's screen went black, gave a notification warning her that there were no internet connections available nearby, and then finally returned to the discord app that she had open.

Except, where the list of channels should be, a new icon greeted her eye. It was a picture of a cruiser Anshan had never seen before labelled "The Admirals Backroom."

She certainly hadn't remembered being invited to any such channel, but it didn't hurt to check it out…

→ Welcome, the White Haired Girl!

Falkeno

""What was Germany smoking when they came up with this, and do they have any left?""

1stSGTMagicalGeek

We got new blood! Leave your sanity at the door!

mendelevianDescendant

salutes the WhiteHairedGirl! and blesses

Falkeno

Welcome, drinks are kept in the cupboard, look behind the monopoly set

The Budgie Admiral

Greetings!

Jupi the Spook

*Waves* :V

Eh, that superstitious mendel aside, it seemed like a bunch of boring ordinary people. True, there were some weird names on (IJNFleetAdmiral? The Budgie Admiral? Old Iron? Jmpr? What is a Jmpr? How do you even pronounce that?), but they seemed like classic degenerates. They even had a channel named "not safe for destroyers."

She was about to flip back to "Blue Ocean Official" when it happened.

Quizzes.

Oh gods, how he hated them. They weren't hard true and in fact they were extremely helpful, but they had an awful knack of asking what he had studied least and asking superficially what he studied most.

Why on earth didn't they ask about Ulrich muscular dystrophy? He even made an easy mnemonic to remember it affected Type VI collagen ("Ulrich von Junginen sounds like it has six syllables"), but it wasn't an option.

Not even the fact that Finnish people were vulnerable to muscle-eye-brain disease was asked…

Ah well, it was time to unwind for a bit before continuing with the studying.

PointlessArrow "StickmanReiter"

'lo.

mendelevianDescendent

bless dr stickman! and his OMAHA 5

Falkeno

Hey, Stick.

WhiteHairedGirl

The PointlessArrow?

Oh, someone still remembered him from his fanfiction writing days, before medical school came down like an anvil.

PointlessArrow "StickmanReiter"

Yes, that's me.

WhiteHairedGirl

Awesome :smile:

Something deep inside PointlessArrow stirred. Something was off about this encounter. He quickly checked his email, and then SpaceBattles. There was no one with that name recorded having subscribed to his stories, nor frequently haunting the Kancolle/Azur Lane threads.

PointlessArrow "StickmanReiter"

Do I know you?

WhiteHairedGirl

You could say that, yes.

I know who you are now though! :smile:

He clicked on her profile. It was an avatar of a Chinese actress performing the legendary Chinese Communist play of the same name. Not very helpful; it was an iconic play so undoubtedly many would use it. PointlessArrow then checked "Mutual Servers" and "Mutual Friends." No results.

It was interesting how fanatical she seemed to be about history though. Despite being a channel about a game based on popular history, most people had non-history orientated avatars.

PointlessArrow "StickmanReiter"

Where are you from?

WhiteHairedGirl

China. Qingdao specifically.

mendelevianDescendent

wait what, how did you get around the Great Firewall of China

Jmpr

Chicoms can't even censor properly.

PointlessArrow

Uh, jmpr, I don't think that's a good-

TheWhiteHairedGirl is typing…

Hai Qi was now very scared. On one side of the room was Mikasa, a shipgirl with a known evil streak, having an exorcism "conducted" on her.

On the other side was Anshan smirking like a girl at Christmas, which was a really fucking scary sight because Anshan didn't celebrate religious holidays. It didn't help either that the destroyer's fingers were moving at the speed of light.

"Hey Hai Qi…you were right."

"About what?" she demanded suspiciously.

"There is a god, and he has no mercy."

"Nooooooooooo!" A smol pre-dreadnought wailed, writhing in agony on the floor. "The internets is gone!"

"Not a big deal," Fuji rolled her eyes. "It's not like you lot were doing anything important anyway."

"But then how I am going to finish this episode?" Yakumo sighed in resignation as she emerged from her hiding spot beneath the kotatsu. "Now I have nothing else to do."

"You could, you know, ask one of the repair shipgirls, Admiral Gōtō, or the Captain what the matter is, or even heaven forbid try and find the router and reset it," Yashima scowled. "You did make the effort to find our kotatsu and lounge around under it, after all. Same with you Shikishima," she added, pressing her glasses in disgust at the battleship's childish antics. "Do grow up sometime."

"Nooooooo! It's too much work! Don't wanna!"

"What she said," the armored cruiser flicked a lazy thumbs-up in approval.

The Fuji sisters were about to give them the verbal beating of their life when Mikasa appeared.

"Is it out for you too?" she asked nonchalantly.

"Yes."

"Ah. Well then," the Barrovian battleship began hastily retreating for the doorway, "I guess I'll ask the lunatics in the repair department about-"

Whoopf.

Mikasa gulped nervously as she was reeled in like a fish until Fuji was mere inches from her face.

"What do you mean, 'you too?'"

"Weeee~eelll," she gave a weak laugh and tugged at her collar nervously. "Jiyua-I mean Saien, may have kinda, sorta, tried exorcising and I mayhavesaidapowerfulcountercasesinceyknowIhaveacertainconditionbutImayhaveoverdoneitsoyeahweirdthingsaregoingonnowlikeAnshanapparentlyisnolongernonreligiousandhasbeentalkingabouthavingthepowerofagodandeveryone'sreallyconfusedand-"

Fuji was illiterate in the esoteric tongue of Kongō-speed Vickersspeak, but all she needed to hear was "Saien" and "exorcism" to realize she was going to have a really, really long day.

At this moment, she was glad that Connecticut had taught her a very, simple, blunt American phrase.

"Ah, fuck me."

"The hell is SpaceBattles? I want to go to SeaBattles dagnabit!"

"Congratulations," Taylor droned in resignation. "Instead of 'breaking the internet,' you gave your computer a virus."

Much to O'Bannon's and Nicholas's disappointment, typing in the magical phrase "I am surrounded by idiots" did nothing. No secret intelligence agency database, no Skynet, no teleportation to another dimension, nada. Instead, it anticlimactically began redirected every single website search, from twitter to google, to a website called SpaceBattles.

Why Space Battles? Was it a website dedicated to veterans of space? But then why battles? You couldn't fight in space, at least not like a conventional battle, and last she heard, there were no space warships available yet.

"Maybe it's for space fans?"

Nicholas cast her sister a vicious glare. "No shit, Sherlock."

"But then why do we keep getting redirected to it? We have nothing to do with—"

"It's not about space!" Taylor and Nicholas nearly jumped as O'Bannon shot up an emphatic finger into the air.

"It's not about space," she repeated again, this time more softly. "There are weird things on here, like Worm," O'Bannon squinted, "Azur Lane, something called 'Kantai Collection…'"

"The hell?" Nicholas too began squinting furiously at the screen. "Isn't Kantai Collection Janglish for Fleet Collection. But what are they collecting?"

"Apparently fanfiction stories about us. Look, there's even a copy of New Jersey's fanfiction on here."

"I don't recognize that author name though," Taylor frowned. "Is this New Jersey incognito?"

"Can't be," Nicholas snorted. "Needs more 'fucks', 'donuts', 'eagles', or 'dragons' in the username. They don't even know her that well either. 'In Which We Eat Pie?' Come on, even the most oblivious serviceman knows that donuts are her mortal weakness."

"Unless this is Arizona incognito."

"There's another thread in here too," O'Bannon interrupted as she continued scrolling. "Things no longer allowed involving shipgirls…"

There was a long pause.

"Are you thinking what I'm thinking?"

"DEW IT."

"Man, 653 pages?" Taylor frowned and pulled her own, admiralty-issue copy of Things Shipgirls Are No Longer Allowed to Do, 3rd Edition. "Our latest edition is only 580. These fanfiction writers must have quite the creative facilities."

"Some of these rules are gold though!" Nicholas and O'Bannon howled in laughter as they skimmed the thread, passing over one rule sternly demanded to know "what was Nazi Germany smoking and if they had any left." Of course, to be fair, that was funny but still-

Wait a second, why were her sisters suddenly so quiet?

"Hey, uh, sis?" O'Bannon asked softly. "Can you go to rule number 2 in the book?"

Flip. Flip. Swap.

"I'm on it now. The 'Stop giving bottle rockets to younger destroyers' one because one of the ex-IJN carriers FUBARd and gave Ikazuchi a bunch with faulty fuses?"

"Yeah…do you still remember that incident clearly?"

"Crystal clear, even though it happened like what? Back in '15? '16? It was when we were all still getting used to the new model riggings."

"Then can you tell me," Nicholas gulped, "how accurate this is."

Taylor quickly skimmed the brief snippet. It wasn't very detailed, but it was accurate nevertheless.

"He missed out a few things, but yeah…that's basically how it went down."

"What about Rule 5?"

Flip. Flip. Swap. Huh, how odd, that username's post was also historically accurate.

"Also right. Must be just a coincidence."

"Rule 11?"

"Also correct."

"25?"

"Right."

"115?"

"Give me a higher number, maybe this guy was a serviceman or something. Like 268?"

O'Bannon turned beet-red and glowered furiously at Taylor.

"That was supposed to be our secret! I made you and Johnston swear to keep it with you to the grave!" she hissed.

"Exactly, so if it's there's a snippet-"

"And there is—" Nicholas smirked.

"He'll probably make something hilariously false, we can have a good laugh, and call it a day. This has been spooky enough."

"Aaandddd-" Taylor smiled hopefully.

"-nddddddd-"

"Oh fuck, he got it. It's true."

As was the next one, and the next one, and the next one. Eight thousand rules and sixty-seven pages of absurd and hilariously awkward encounters, and yet not one of them was false.

By now the destroyer trio were sweating bricks. They had fought terrifying behemoths up close and personal, dueled submarines with their pants down, and stood toe-toe with former foes at the negotiating table, but a group of anonymous internet writers sharing "fanfictions" of their accounts with pinpoint accuracy?

This was the true meaning of fear.

If the official Admirals' Rulebook only went up to rule 8263, which was approximately about page 576 in the thread, then that meant there yet another 1700 prophetically-described "incidents" in store for them. And if this thread could predict the past and future, there was nothing that could be done about them. They were just like puppets acting out a dance.

"Let's not get ahead of ourselves," Taylor said shakily. It had to be a prank, it just had to. Maybe this was the Admiralty's way of getting back for all the grief and misery they had caused. "As Phoenix used to say, correlation is not causation. How about we try an experiment?"

Nicholas and O'Bannon pivoted their heads slowly like owls, the disbelief etched in their faces.

"Experiment? With this? Fuck this shit, I'm out!"

"Are you crazy, Taylor?!"

"Do you want to just give up now and live the rest of our existence wondering if some random person on the internet is the cause of all our suffering and that we don't have any free will? What if this person is the source of all Abyssals? Imagine if we reason with them and end the war."

"Hmm…"

"You have a point," O'Bannon nodded in agreement. "And we have come this far…"

"So let's write a rule, and post on that thread. If everything that happens on the thread is true, then the worst thing that can happen is whatever we wrote."

"I want to say you're wrong," Nicholas scowled, "but I can't argue with that logic."

"In that case," Taylor raised her eyebrows expectantly. "O'Bannon, would you please?"

"Oh come on, why me?! I've never seen this site in my life!"

"One, you were the one who got us into this mess, so you should lead the charge, and two, it seems like it used your SeaBattles account and has already logged you in."

"If I die from this, Taylor, I swear I am going to haunt you forever."

Lucky'O 9965. Phoenix, please put down that teleporter. The last time you used it you nearly gave

O'Bannon a heart attack.

"And writing about Phoenix using a teleporter was considered safe why again?" Nicholas grunted in disapproval.

"Look at this way," Taylor began waving her hands in explanation. "Phoenix did try experimenting with
teleportation, but she never got anywhere with it. She simply didn't have the patience or willingness to gamble with unknown tech to that extent; that cruiser will stick her guns and make things she know more crazy. In fact, if I recall correctly everyone was so scared of her newfangled prototype that they ordered her to scrap it. Besides, where is Phoenix now?"

"In San Diego."

"Where again?"

"San Diego!"

"Exactly, so because Phoenix has no teleporter and is thousands of miles away from us, we know scientifically with absolute certainty that Phoenix is not by any means about to pop in here and—"

FWISH. SWUNK. THUNK.

"OW WHAT THE FUCK OOF!"

Someone far larger than the Fletcher sisters materialized and slammed to the floor with an unearthly boom. After a terribly long pause, the figure raised a hand weakly from the crater she had made into the floor.

"Uwuuu, my head," she whimpered, nursing a massive bump on her head, "What the hell did SoDak do to my tools…Huh, O'Bannon? Since when were you here? I thought you were in Yokosuka."

In that moment, the Fletcher-class destroyers received a grim reminder, that they lived in fear of an abomination called SpaceBattles, which could arbitrarily decide their fates with a single stroke of the keyboard.

Naturally, they did what anyone would do with such a revelation.

"AAAAAAHHHHHHH!"

"AAAAAAHHHHHHH!"

"Yiiiii!"

In a flash the three destroyers were out the door, screaming for their lives.

Phoenix merely shook her head in disappointment. "What a bunch of weirdos," she murmured. "What were they even doing anyway? Huh? SpaceBattles? What is this…"

"So let me get this straight," Gōtō sighed as he scrolled through what was definitely not a fan-made knock-off of SeaBattles. "O'Bannon, Nicholas, and Taylor tried 'breaking the internet' using a rejected idea from the science shipgirls. At the same time this was happening, Jiyuan was conducting an exorcism on Mikasa, who because of her...condition decided to utter a counter-countercurse back."

"Furthermore, a certain shipgirl who-shall-not-be-named," Collingwood glared bitterly back at the Japanese admiral, "decided to one-up Phoenix, and tried to summon God."

"And also break the 'Fourth Wall,' whatever that means," Briggs added stiffly. "South Dakota apparently…'perfected'...the Tokyo Bay trio's breakthrough." More groans ensued.

"In any case," Gōtō rubbed his temples in resignation, "this somehow caused a bizarre sequence of events that resulted in all naval base internet to redirect to a website called SpaceBattles. Whatever gets written on this...site, happens in real life?"

It seemed like a terrible joke really, that random strangers on the internet could come together, write random "what-if" rules that would nevertheless have terrible, headache inducing consequences in the real world. Yet here they were, admirals from continent to continent holding an emergency meeting on what to do.

"That's at least how I understand it," Holloway grunted. "Otherwise, how on earth did Phoenix get from San Diego to Yokosuka without anyone noticing?"

"She could have you know, not actually dismantled her prototype teleporter, stowed it somewhere, and then decided now was the perfect time to test it?" Admiral Suwabe replied evenly. "I mean, the science shipgirls aren't exactly known for not pulling off crazy stunts with stashed-away equipment."

"I can confirm it's real," Hartman sighed. "Someone had the genius idea to write a rule telling a shipgirl to stop punching herself. It's been almost a week now since the rule, and she's still punching herself."

There was the loud sound of unanimous thuds as several commanders began thumping their heads against the desk in frustration.

"Here's a simple idea," Briggs cut in, "why don't we just simply write a rule banning all abyssals from existence-"

"I RESENT THAT," Suwabe cut in sharply. "I keep my abyssals in line, and they are very loyal to the cause, mind you!"

"Okay, so what about a rule where all the abyssals revolt against the Director and join our cause?"

"Aurora and Gangut already tried," Admiral Makarov shook her head dejectedly, "and there was a firestorm of fury on the forum. They said it was too 'mary-suish' and it would 'kill the thread,' so someone well-respected there wrote a counter-rule."

Gōtō massaged his temples furiously. "So ending the Abyssal War is too far-fetched, but forcing us to deal the monstrosity called Aso for months on end, combatting Aoba's sensationalistic newsreporting, stopping Enterprise going on 'walks,' and constantly making my muffins as the butt of many jokes is fair game? Is it too much to ask for someone to give me an uneventful honeymoon with Kongō, or even merely an enjoyable vacation where the base isn't on fire? Will no one rid us of these meddlesome writers?"

"Careful what you wish for, Shinichi," Admiral Graham called out warningly. "The last king who said those lines regretted it." Most of his counterparts however nodded in agreement with Gōtō. All except one.

"Weidong, you've been pretty quiet this entire time. What say you about the state of affairs?"

"Well," Admiral Zheng bowed his head apologetically, "I'm sorry for not telling you all sooner, but there is a way to get to the...writers."

"What?"

"Apparently, Anshan showed me that they have a discord," at that moment he pulled out his smartphone and passed it around for emphasis, "and in this discord they plan and discuss prospective rules."

"What?"

"Not all of them are in there, mind you, but it's clear they all know each other and keep in touch somehow so they probably do approve-"

"What the actual hell, Weidong?!"

"Huh? What's the matter?"

"You not only kept the fact that you knew about this 'channel,' which could not only end this madness by letting us somehow reason with these people, a secret, but you let Anshan, not Taiyuan, not Chongqing, not Liaoning, but Anshan of all shipgirls, talk with them for a week?"

"Well, it's clearly a sign of how capable Admiral Zheng is if we're all still here," Admiral Makarov chuckled weakly.

"In my defense I was attempting to damage control the incident," the PLAN admiral smiled awkwardly, "you know Anshan is a very idealistic destroyer, and some of the people in that discord from what I can tell got into a political disagreement with her. Not to pick on the JMSDF kanmusu, but imagine if Aoba or Aso got in there. It would not end well. For any of us."

"Actually, I disagree," Briggs countered. "Here's what I think we should do."

Scroll. Scroll. Scroll.

Click.

Sigh.

"Littorio, get the cross."

"What?"

"Someone posted lewd pictures of Pola again in the 'Not Safe for Destroyers' channel. Apparently, it's 'part of my religion' or some nonsense like that."

Littorio gave Roma a comforting headpat.

"It's strange isn't it, how people with such great powers and potentials use it for such mundane things."

"Okay everyone, I'm about to post a new rule. Get ready!"

"3!"

"2!"

"1"

"0!"

Mighty Mo 9963. After due consideration, the Admiralty has decided that fanfiction contests are now

allowed.

Mighty Mo, Today at 3:13 PM

You, Catfish, BankAccount, and 3,169 others like this.

StickmanReiter But don't we already have a rule forbidding this?

StickmanReiter, Today at 3:15PM

No.

No.

"But that's where you're wrong," Missouri did a dramatic point at the monitor as the likes climbed to 4, 416 (the human poster had not even a single like, haha, and many were even rebutting him). "As one of my sisters would say, DEMOCRACY, bitch!"

→ Welcome, BambooHats!

→ A Wild The Fighting Sausage has appeared!

→ We've been expecting you, Nuke power bitch!

→ HMS Emerald has joined the party!

→ Welcome, GlowandPlunder! We hope you brought pizza!

→ A Onthedime has just spawned in the server!

→ It's Kommuna! Praise the sun!

→ Camouflage_Cruises has just joined! Everyone, look busy!

PointlessArrow shook his head as the list of greetings grew longer and longer. About a week after The White Haired Girl joined, there was a rapid explosion of newcomers into "The Admirals Backroom," and the once-empty channel was now filled with people spamming things from memes, historical tidbits, facepalm-worthy conversations, and heated political debates. It was a drastic change, really, and he wasn't sure if he quite liked it. He wasn't a fairly extroverted person, and the sheer number of people spamming everyone and causing his discord notifications to be bloated to 100 was getting tiresome.

But he supposed in a way that it was a good thing. There had been a lengthy debate on the English-speaking forums for Kantai Collection as to whether the franchise was dying, and some even cast doubt as to how stable its competitor Azur Lane would be a few years from now. Yet somehow, from somewhere deep in the abyss that was internet fandoms, there was a massive influx of new people who indiscriminately enjoyed the concept of shipgirls and were now flooding the place with new posts. The so-called "rulesverse" thread had 50 new rules alone in the past day; not only that, but they were also showering the posts of aspiring KC writers (even the ones he found less funny) with hundreds of likes.

They even gave his old pet story, "Z is for Zulu," some tender loving care.

I should really get back to working on it, he thought. It was supposed to be a very long story, featuring some older, overlooked warships divided into three arcs. Alas, honors thesis and medical school happened, and the story was now left before the actual first arc even got into full swing at 100k words. If only he could find the time...

Blip.

Huh, a new direct message on discord.

It was from The White Haired Girl.

The White Haired Girl

Hey, PointlessArrow.

Do you actually know who I am?

Did he really want to know who he/she was? On The Admirals Backroom, everyone respected each other's privacy. Even the slightest slip of another member's identity was promptly forgotten in the name of confidentiality.

Because I know who you are.

Was he misunderstanding this user? Hadn't they already made this clear before?

PointlessArrow "StickmanReiter"

Yes, I'm PointlessArrow.

The White Haired Girl

No, as in who you really are.

Was this supposed to be scary? Because it sounded like one of the older discord people trolling him with a roleplaying account. Only a month ago Budgie had "accidentally" gotten "hacked" by Providence, and Kras had his account momentarily "borrowed" by Kirov. A great conversation piece, but otherwise nothing serious.

PointlessArrow"StickmanReiter"

I'm a medical student who dabbles in history and had an interest in KC from history. What else is

there to know?

The White Haired Girl

You're not taking me seriously…

Do I need to pull BambooHats into this?

Man, how far were they going to go with this charade? It was funny yes, but they were clearly trying to be serious. And why on earth were they using Anshan's and Mikasa's handle from the Shipgirl Handle List from the cannons page?

The White Haired Girl

You know what? Screw this.

I'm going to deal with you myself.

She/he posted one final link before disappearing. It was a link to the rulesverse thread, and a new rule, number 9999.

The White Haired Girl 9999. Anshan is no longer allowed to harass PointlessArrow about what rule

10,000 will be.

The White Haired Girl, Today at 9:25 PM

BambooHats, The White Haired Girl, FatalLegalist, and 200 others like this.

Seriously? The beleaguered student was tempted to give the user a like just for the audacity of such a post. Then again, with that post, he decided that he had enough internet for a day.

He was about to turn off the lights and take a nap when he came face to face with a green-eyed girl with black pigtails, grinning at him like a maniac.

"I told you I was coming to deal with you myself," Anshan smirked in triumph.

"Let's not be so quick to jump to conclusions," he said hastily, eyeing potential escapes from the room. Unfortunately, she was conveniently standing in front of the only way into and out of the place.

"I agree, and by the way," her Cheshire Cat grin grew broader, "don't try and even think about escaping. We CCP gals know a thing or two about encirclements and trapping people."

"Second United Front," he groaned. "Chiang Kai-shek and the bathroom. I'm very familiar."

"Of course you are," the ex-Gnevny destroyer casually picked up an history book he had lying about, Jay Taylor's The Generalissimo. "I see you've read some interesting texts while in college."

"Don't get any ideas, we had to read some early CCP texts too."

"But quite conveniently this is the largest book," Anshan countered, "and also the most prominent one in your bookshelf."

"Of all the ships I intended to write about, why does it have to be you," he groaned.

"Because you're the only one writing about me in English as far as I know, and without all of that imperialistic pomp I so dislike."

"I do see you as bit of an idealogue, and people will probably see you the same way," he warned.

"And there's nothing wrong with that!" she beamed. "Hey, I'm not stupid, I know my country has its faults, but I'm thankful that you know, didn't make me 'Comrade Chinese One' or something else stupid. I'm simply someone who loves her country too much, and that's okay! I mean, if I'm going to be honest, New Jersey isn't that far from what that user has described her as either and no one complains."

"But still...you're a bit of a minefield to work with," he muttered. "Why not Mikasa? No offense against you of course, but that WIP story is basically her story."

Anshan gave him a funny look. "Do you really want Mikasa in this place, especially after you gave her back her suitcases?"

"Oh gods, she's actually using those improved suitcases?"

"Yes, what did you think she was going to do, hug them like how otakus attack their morally degenerate pillows? Be glad it's me. I don't burn people's houses down; I just complain about your ideological alignment and then offer you a deal," she drew a chair and rolled it over until she was right in front of his face.

"Let's make a United Front," the destroyer gave her right hand in offering. "Me and you. I'll let you go and pretend this never happened in exchange for the following. One. You promise to update Z is for Zulu, and soon. I want to appear now dagnabit! You'll be doing the other shipgirls a favor as well. Two. You convince the other writers to create a compilation of peaceful snippets. We're all getting tired of being blown up by abyssals and each other; can we just not have a wholesome moment?"

"That's going to be hard with, you know, the 2,000 plus writers in discord," PointlessArrow deadpanned.

"Do you really think there's 2,000 writers in discord?" Anshan sighed. "No you fool, that's us! Did you think I was the only one who bravely infiltrated your channel?"

"If you guys are really so helpless then you've been doing a good job changing fate by loading the rules in your favor with all those likes," he said stiffly, remembering the fairly-obvious warning Anshan had given on SpaceBattles not even a moment before.

"It's not the same...at first it worked, and worked really well," she wrung her hands in agony. "But there are still some things we can't agree on. Like no one wants to explain how Gōtō's vacation with Kongō went. It's just...awkward, you know?"

"So you want us to write the lewd stuff so you don't have to."

"WHAT? No! No! That's not at all what I was saying. Romance is something that's a bit of a foreign concept. At least to me. Romance of the Three Kingdoms? Great novel, tried and true classic, no problem. But human romance...eurgh."

"Don't you have Dream of the Red Chamber as a reference?"

"Excuse me, but I would hope that Gōtō doesn't end up becoming a monk."

"Fair enough. So you want all of us to write a grand, smashing success of a snippet without your help, and me to update my story that involves you in some role-"

"-we'll be watching too in case you don't-"

"-all of which sounds reasonable. Anything else?"

"Buy me some Begnets."

"Some what?"

"Begnets. I want to see if they go well with Qingdao Beer."

"You mean beignets."

"Yes, yes, whatever. I heard they were good around here, so I wanted to get some on my way out."

"...aren't you a bit old to have a sweet tooth?"

"These aren't all for me, you doofus. I'm planning to split them up with the other PLAN girls too; China isn't exactly known for its pseudo-French cuisine. Also, you can never be old enough to have a sweet tooth. Never forget that."

Falkeno

So Stick, what exactly are we doing again?

Oh gods, he could smell Belfast's anxiety and Vanguard's glee from here.

PointlessArrow"StickmanReiter"

What TheBudgieAdmiral said.

The Budgie Admiral

I'm just following what you were thinking, Stick. So a break-the-fourth-wall-snippet featuring our headcanons?

PointlessArrow tried not to think too hard that MissileMasterRace, one of Budgie's first OCs, had just responded to Budgie's comment with a heart emote. It was a bit of an out-of-this-world-experience, realizing that the people that they were around in chat were not even from the same universe.

Thank the gods radar didn't work through electronic devices.

PointlessArrow"StickmanReiter"

Yeah basically.

KaiYves

Sounds good to me. I'll start working on it later this week.

There was a bit of a heartwarming moment as Alvin posted a wholesome sticker to Kai's remark. He wasn't sure how many writers actually knew that their OCs were actually in-chat and not just random role-playing accounts, but all the same the shipgirls (and shipguys) were clearly very very happy with the results.

mendelevianDescendent

blesses the industrious doctor, falk, kai and budgie and their fleets

Even the ocean liners were taking after the chaplain chemist and offering supporting emoticons to everyone's comments. He hoped Britannic approved of him not studying to lurk at this moment, however…

As a side note, maybe he should ask them for party planning recommendations. They would need to have a party once all was said and done, and ocean liners were masters at that sort of art.

PointlessArrow wasn't the only one with that in mind.

IJNFleetAdmiral

Hang on a second, we should make this a rule to remember.

How about Admiral Gōtō and Kongō finally make it official and get married?

Blip. New message from BambooHats

BambooHats

Just so you know, between you and me, Kongō is squeeing like mad right now, and Gōtō fainted.

PointlessArrow

Oh fuck, did we mess up? Is he okay?

BambooHats

He fainted from joy.

PointlessArrow

Oh, awesome!

Falkeno

Sure, why not.

The Budgie Admiral

This has my approval.

BambooHats

There is literally an earthquake in Yokosuka right now. Please make sure that he actually writes the snippet; I'd be heartbroken if she is.

PointlessArrow

Will do!

Blip. New message from The White Haired Girl

The White Haired Girl

Remember your promise :)

PointlessArrow

I will.

...

10,000h: Mississippi is ordered to take an actual vacation, away from her lab, for at least a week. If anyone sees her trying to work on her projects down there, alert her sisters as they're concerned about her.

AngryAmerican

It had taken her months to assemble and in the last few days it had taken all of her waking hours, nearly sixty feet across and weighing several tons, Mississippi sat down at the control station in the center of her detector and began the startup. Shipgirls and Abyssals both were things of mostly magic, being the literal spirits of ships in the form of humans, and if it had an effect on the world then it should be detectable.

Hence the detector. Designed to measure the ethereal shifts of the formation of Abyssals and shipgirls anywhere on the planet. She cracked her knuckles, and set to work. The hours ticked past as Mississippi methodically carried out the procedures that she had drafted almost a year ago, before she had even started construction. At last, she entered the last command and turned the key.

Instantly every screen displayed the blue screen of death. Mississippi paused for a moment, then her eye twitched, then she snapped.

With a scream of undiluted fury she slammed her fist into a panel, ignoring the jolt of electricity as it ran though her. Mississippi withdrew her arm and felt her throat tighten, if anything was worth crying about in all her work, this failure was-

A screen came back online. The standard look of a Google document, she'd used them often enough when she collaborated with other shipgirls around the world. But this was different.

"Unofficial slash alternative shipgirls in cannons?" Mississippi righted her chair and pulled up closer, "This is a list of unofficial slash alternative designs for shipgirls that may or may not have a portrayal in Kantai Collection, Warship Girls, Victory Belles, Azur Lane, etc. Many authors have their own headcanons, and if the authors so choose they're listed in detail her. Feel free to borrow some of these for your own stories." What the heck is this even? Kantai Collection, Warship Girls? Stories?

On the right side in the outline, under the heading of Angry_American was-

"What the hell?" Mississippi read down the list, the names of her sister ships, all of them and then. Mississippi (BB-41) (New Mexico Class). With a trembling hand, she took her mouse and clicked on her name. As she read her entry, she felt a chill climbing up her back. This is me, it's an accurate me. Who the hell wrote this- On the right side, the IM box came up.

Anonymous Iguana: Howdy, who's editing?

Without really thinking, Mississippi typed out a reply.

Anonymous Kangaroo: USS Mississippi, who the hell are you?

Anonymous Iguana: What?

Anonymous Iguana: Angry_American on Discord

Anonymous Iguana: Who are you really?

Mississippi glanced over at her phone as it started to ring, she snatched it up, "Yes?"

"Hey sis," New Mexico said. "Have you seen the news lately? I'm glad you're alright, things are stranger than usual."

"How so?"

"Apparently, someone opened a sort of gate between two different realities. Don't know who, but I think I can guess who."

"That's great New Mexico, I'm going to have to call you back…" Mississippi said as she hung up, eyes locked on the text box. Could it be? I'm talking with someone from a different universe?

Anonymous Kangaroo: Angry, what is a shipgirl to you?

Anonymous Iguana: What?

Anonymous Iguana: They're a personification of a ship's spirit

Anonymous Iguana: I'd think we'd have been over this in the Discord before, how did you get this link?

Anonymous Kangaroo: That is a long story, how did you learn so much about them?

Anonymous Iguana: This document is for original characters, ones that we use in stories. I've done the most with the Standard battleships so far since I don't like most of the 'official' game ones.

Mississippi ran a hand through her hair, In that world shipgirls are from games? She grabbed a pen and started jotting down notes on a pad of paper, This is an incredible opportunity!

Inside the detector, a damaged wire bundle from when Mississippi punched though it fell down and landed atop one of the cooling cores. In a matter of seconds, the reaction spread through the entire machine, and into the support generators located below the control station. An arc of electricity blossomed though the room, throwing Mississippi away as the detector began to meltdown. Before she was slammed face-first into the solid concrete walls, Mississippi cursed more vividly than she ever had before.

Then the world went dark.

The only light came from a floor lamp as the man known online as Angry_American wrote in his journal.

Strange thing happened, someone calling themselves Mississippi showed up on the Shipgirl doc. They chatted for a few minutes, then went offline. No one on the Discord is owning up to it, but there are an awful lot of roleplayers on there all of a sudden. Mayhap I just missed something.

Putting the matter out of his mind, he turned his attention to the day's other events.

Mississippi crawled from under the rubble, her clothing and hair singed and torn, and her entire body covered in soot and concrete dust. She hammered the floor as she saw what was left of her machine, now a smoldering ruin of its former magnificence. After a moment she sighed and stood up,

Salvage the data I can, shower, then start reviewing it. Perhaps something useful survived yet, I wonder about that person though, that 'Angry_American' who knew about me, and probably all of us. Was he really from another universe?

With any luck, the data that went offsite to her backup server should be able to prove it one way or the other.

...

10000i: We've already prohibited portals that transport you into other universes, what made you think creating portals to look into other universes would somehow be okay?

TheBudgieAdmiral

"So you've let us down here." Yuubari number one shot an angry, tired look at South Dakota. "In the middle of the night. In the cellar of the base. To show us a computer?" Yuubari two sighed dismissively as her sister spoke.

"Just you wait!" South Dakota responded, and a triumphant smile developed on her face. "It's not just any computer, you see."

"If it's your newest gaming rig I swear to Azathoth I will shove a Long Lance up your ass so far you can taste the oxygen." the second Yuubari hissed.

"No. No, it's not my newest gaming rig. You really do have a low opinion of me, don't you?!" South Dakota shot back. "No, you are here because I have made a monumental breakthrough in information technology and dimensional engineering! BEHOLD!"

The mad American scientist opened a thick steel door to unveil a room filled with an apparatus of such mind-boggling complexity that any uninformed onlooker would simply have described it as a mess: Besides towering stacks of SSDs and a huge transformer on one wall, a pair of tesla coils caught the Yuubari twins' attention. A myriad of cables ran towards a desk to one wall of the room, on which two screens were positioned: One displaying a complicated set of graphs and dials, and the other one displayed a simple Windows desktop.

"The wallbreaker 4000 (trademark pending)!" South Dakota proclaimed and swung her arm around, indicating the room's contents in an overly dramatic fashion. "This is what I have been working on for over a year now!"

"Hmm. So I bet this is not, in fact, a completely ordinary server farm?" Yuubari two questioned. Her sister was more enthusiastic.

"Looks impressive. What are you doing here? You said something about dimensions, are you tapping into other virtual universes to get unlimited RAM or what?"

There was no universe in which South Dakota's smile was not scary. "Better." She said and laughed. "This device transcends the framework of our known universe and can tap into other universe's internets!"

Now, the Japanese science twins' jaws hit the floor.

"Well… Sort of. You see, it doesn't completely tap into them. Schrödinger has something against that for some reason. It just simulates them based on rough input coming from these universes. But the simulation is pretty damn accurate as far as I was able to tell."

The jaws closed. "That's nothing special! We've had inter-dimensional portals opened up in places before!" Yuubari one - or was it two? Anyways, she shouted and was about to turn and leave when South Dakota came after her.

"Wait! I found something during my searches! There is a universe where we don't exist!" Yuubari stopped. "And they theorize about our existence! Don't you want to know what they think about us? Where's your scientific enthusiasm!" South Dakota pleaded.

"Sister? I want to know what this is all about." Yuubari two (or was it one?) said to her clone.

"Fine. Let's see what you've got. I'm just sleepy… and when I'm sleepy I get grumpy… Sorry SoDak."

South Dakota did not respond, instead she sat on the chair in front of the screen and typed commands into a console. The hardware behind them slowly came to life with audible humming and crackling of electricity.

The screen turned black for a second, and then went back to the Windows desktop. Only now, for whatever reason, the house on the green grassy hills was gone. It was just the landscape and the sky. Huh. Weird.

"In this universe the house on the green grassy hills does not exist. They still rolled with the picture it seems. Weird, right?" Weird indeed.

"So… We are now viewing a parallel universe? Through a computer screen?" Yuubari two seemed doubtfilled to say the least.

"Yeah!"

"And… You say you can access the internet of the parallel universe from here?"

"Correct!"

"Well… Then let's go!"

South Dakota smiled one of her mad smiles with way too many teeth and her hand guided the cursor towards the Microsoft Edge icon. A click later a Discord server popped up. At first glance it seemed relatively normal, no weird glitches, no artifacts, no sign of a different universe at all, actually.

"Hmm. 'The Admirals Backroom', eh? Weird name."

"True. Well, I didn't name it. They did."

"They, as in, the people that theorize about our existence?" Yuubari one asked and gave South Dakota a sideward look. The battleship nodded.

"I haven't spent much time here yet, but apparently they're authors of sorts."

"Authors… of sorts?" Yuubari two said, dragging the last two words out like a piece of chewing gum.

"Well…" South Dakota said, and- blushed? "I-it'll be easier if I j-just show you."

mendelevianDescendant:
"so where do shipgirls keep their fuel then?"

MagicalGeek:
"Breasts? Like, that seems to be the established headcanon."

IJNFleetAdmiral:
"Would explain why destroyers have a smaller bust than, say, battleships."

The Budgie Admiral:
"Issue is, there'd be some inconsistencies with different designs for the same shipgirl. Take Belfast for example. There are two versions if I recall correctly."

Falkeno:
"We don't talk about about MAID!Belfast here."

The Budgie Admiral:
"Fair. We shalt also not talk about FURRY!Kaga, or else the perpetrator gets dive-bombed."

mendelevianDescendant:
"headpats for Belfast because she needs them, but also hugs"

"also headpats for Kaga"

"and Kii and Providence"

Yuubari did a double take at that. "Wait,who the hell is Kii?"

South Dakota meanwhile was seemingly out of answers, and instead went on to check multiple dials and graphs on the second screen. The chat however did not let up, and so both Yuubaris soon turned their attention at the main screen again.

The Budgie Admiral:
"Aww, thank you 3"

PointlessArrow:
"Maybe it's in the areas where a normal human body deposits fat? Hips, breast, legs, belly?"

mendelevianDescendant:
"sounds plausible"

The Budgie Admiral:
"I would say thicc… But I am not suicidal…"

Jupi the Spook:
"Heh."

"Also, I exist."

mendelevianDescendant:
"bless this intel officer"

Jupi the Spook:
"*pats the server chaplain in return*"

The Budgie Admiral:
"*also pats server chaplain*"

Yuubari one shot Yuubari two a worried look as the chat descended in variations of headpats, hugs and blessings. After a short while, the chat died down, seemingly, the one they called mendelevianDescendant had disconnected.

Falkeno:
"Mendel's MIA guys..."

Jupi the Spook:
":v"

The Budgie Admiral:
"NUUUU"

mendelevianDescendant:
"sorry guys, my laptop just Kaga'd"

"The laptop just what?" Yuubari shouted at her clone. What did Kaga have to do with anything?

MagicalGeek:
"RIP your overheated laptop:("

"You really should get a cooling pad, these things help and are dirt cheap"

Jupi the Spook:
"*pats laptop*"

The Budgie Admiral:
"You must appease the Kaga!"

Jupi the Spook:
"*retreats burned hand*"

The Budgie Admiral:
"Try ZuiKaga images!"

"Here:"

A link appeared on screen, a link to Danbooru. "Huh, what's this?" Yuubari said and clicked on the link.

"NOO DON'T-!" South Dakota shouted, but it was too late.

All three shipgirls gaped in awe and disgust at the images on the screen. Now, to be fair to the website's hosts, there were some phenomenal pieces featuring Kaga and Zuikaku: Some hilarious doujins, and some beautiful and heartwarming drawings.

But a large part of the images was porn. Very disturbing porn. Not only because of the content, but also because of the familiarity the three onlookers shared with the depicted characters.

"Oh dear SecNav, what has become of us…" Yuubari one whispered and her head banged against the desk.

Yuubari two was busy having a nosebleed.

...

10,000j. No, it's not the apocalypse, or a punishment for 'summoning God'. Also, please do not step into the multicoloured beams being fired into the 'hole in the sky'.

MendelvianDescent

The madness had started when the shipgirls had invaded the Admirals' Backroom server on Discord - a development the young man who called himself Mendel found incredibly bizarre but manageable, containable at least. Some days later the real trouble began, as fellow authors had reported some seriously insane reality-bending anomalies: shipgirls actually manifesting in real life due to what appeared to be a giant purple rift in the sky, and even he was not exempt as he had the absolute misfortune to find I-19 herself out in the street outside his house.

Old Reliable had shown up too and stopped her in her tracks, which was a damn good thing or who else knows what mayhem that lewdmarine could have gotten up to. Unsurprisingly, after messaging his servermates about the whole incident, he ran straight to Olympic, wanting to speak to the one he had written so much about in person.

Words failed him, and he did not know what to say.

How could they not, when he seemed so small and Olympic seemed so intimidatingly tall, more than half a foot taller than the lanky bespectacled fellow who now stood in nervous silence before him? Seconds pass, the taller regarding the shorter with curiosity and furrowed brows, and Mendel turned away to leave out of embarrassment before the spirit of the ocean liner spoke up, stopping him in his tracks.

"You're the one who's been writing about us, yes?"

His heart practically jumped at being called out like that, and almost unwillingly as if he was afraid to face the ensuing criticism, Mendel turned to nod at him. "Uh… yeah that'd be me all right."

He wasn't expecting Olympic to salute him, a half-smile gracing the liner's features. "Don't ever stop for good alright? It's nice to see our stories getting told alongside those of all the warships."

Mendel froze at those words, a lump rising in his throat. Hearing such a commendation from the subject of his own writings, which he kept up only irregularly and with a constant worry of backlash, was like a welcome balm to his anxieties, and slowly he raised his hand to give Old Reliable a proper salute, the other returning it in quick, snappy turn.

That had been half an hour prior. Now, in a different place and a different realm entirely, he stood face to face with another him who looked to be both priest and scientist all at once, and equally as madcap to boot.

"So let me get this straight." Two bespectacled fellows, lookalikes through and through, stood eye to eye with each other, one in jeans and a T shirt, the other in a cassock and labcoat and looking distinctly in need of more sleep. "You thought it would be a good idea to invite me out of my reality and into this one why exactly?"

Not that he had a particular excuse to make such accusations - he was the one who thought it would be a good idea to have a look into a portal shaped like a constantly-shifting closed spirograph curve, and apparently leaned into it far enough that he fell right fucking through it and into a universe where the things he and his fellow SpaceBattles nerds wrote about were very real and very dangerous.

"Firstly," Dr Mendel began, "you had every opportunity to not go down the rabbit hole, don't try and pin this one on me. Second of all, I would have thought you would have figured by now that after all the shipgirls making first contact with your universe, it was only a matter of time before the wall came down and shit started hitting the fan."

"Shit hitting the fan is an understatement," Mendel-the-author grumbled. "There's a great big fucking rift in the sky and it happens to be bright fucking purple and it's honestly a miracle nobody's flipping the fuck out about it apparently looking like the apocalypse? Sky being rent apart and all?"

The chemist-slash-chaplain nodded, brows furrowing as he led his alternate off down a hallway. "This reality has always had a porousness to the barriers between it and other dimensions," he explained, stifling a yawn as the pair of them stopped outside a locked door whose dozen locks took half a minute to open. "The trouble is, this time the breach is more severe than anyone's willing to tolerate, not since word got out that somebody tried to 'summon God'. Ripped a hole right through the stage's curtains, so to speak, and now the British fleet is wondering how the fuck they found themselves with a reality-warper on their hands."

"Which brings us to this." Yanking a curtain off the bulky pile in the center of the chamber they had walked into, Dr Mendel revealed a bizarre and complicated device that looked like somebody had combined a transmaterializer and a Stargate with serpentine motifs. The design of the twin snakes flanking the locked center portal was unmistakable.

"I thought I'd written that the blueprints for that were confiscated," the author mused, brows furrowing at the sight of it. "It looks… different from its canonical form."

The resident half-mad scientist chuckled, shaking his head as he started fiddling with the adjustments for the machine's settings. "That's because it's not going to switch the places of two people from different universes," he said. "Otherwise I wouldn't have needed to generate a Skaian gate to open the passage for you."

"Duly noted," Mendel answered. "So what does it do?"

"Once I have it properly calibrated and ready to g- aha." Stepping back, the scientist brought a dark green key out of his pocket, placing it on the end of some tongs before gingerly inserting it into the keyhole. No sooner had the end entered it did the key leap out of the tongs and wriggle its way inside the hole - very unsettling behavior to both Mendels. "I hate when it does that..."

There was the sound of clockwork slowly ratcheting into motion, the hiss of pneumatic pistons and the building hum of something charging up, as the lock on the portal disengaged to reveal what looked like an oversized record disk slowly beginning to spin in its place. The twin serpents were opening their mouths not long after, crocodilian heads raised ceilingwards - and then with a low boom that rumbled throughout the room, two beams of brilliant light flashing between different colors at dizzying pace erupted skyward from the gaping jaws.

"Is..." Mendel could only watch in aghast awe at the light show, comprehension slowly dawning. "Did you just fire the freaking clockwork majyyks into the rift?"

"Clockwork majyyks, temporal energy, raw and undiluted Time," the chemist chaplain rattled off with a nonchalant shrug. "Been working on this with South Dakota and Yuubari ever since the shipgirls found a way to link up with your internet, just in case a situation like the one up in the sky right now presented itself. But it's not for tearing things apart this time, surprisingly enough."

Dr. Mendel's eyes traveled up the path of the beams, up to the place where they pierced the ceiling. "It's for sealing up the rift — this is one dimensional breach that can't be allowed to stay intact. Who knows what other kinds of mayhem might ensue if other authors found their way here, or yet more shipgirls found their way into your universe. And don't even get me started on 'what if Abyssals got in here'."

"And this relates to me how?" Mendel-the-author retorted, raising a brow at his doppelganger as he tapped his foot. "I don't think you would've brought me in here just to show off your fancy dimensional sewing machine."

"You're an Author," the other replied simply. "As I've heard before, your kind tend to wreak havoc when brought into this realm so I figured you might be able to put your reality-warping thing to good use instead for a change. And not only that, you're Time-bound. If there's anyone who can fine-tune the clockwork majyyks, it's you."

Said author would fold his arms over his chest at the implication. "What would you have me do then?"

Dr Mendel drew a circle on the nearest piece of paper, and then a diagonal lightning-shaped line running through it. The meaning was obvious to both of them. "The majyyks, by themselves, are chaotic and highly unpredictable in behavior. What we need is for you to comb that unruly tangle, make the beams coherent, and reset the barrier to the point in time where it was still intact. The portal to bring you back home should open up just before the wall seals up for good, but after that it'll be up to the other shipgirls to bring the strays back home with their own portals."

The other Mendel nodded in understanding, lapsing into silence as he contemplated everything that had gone on up to this point. Writing about the fleets was one thing, but actually setting foot in their universe with all the power that came with being an author of it? What would you do if you were given the power to rewrite reality with your very keystrokes?

The author was shaken out of his reverie by a surprisingly prescient remark. "You don't have to be a god to this universe you know."

"Wait, what?" Now the dimensional intruder had a confused expression on his face. "What brought that on?"

"Just because you write about them doesn't mean they're slaves to your pen you know? Remember that quote?" There was a wry grin on Dr Mendel's face as he raised a brow at his counterpart. "'we dont have fuckin arcs were just human beings'. If this dimensional breach teaches you guys anything, it's that these folks are every bit as real as you guys, even if not in a reality or timeline normally accessible to you. Think of it as being divine scribes if you will, penning the exploits of the world's fleets as inspiration wafts into your minds from the ethers between universes."

Mendel looked distinctly confused at that thesis. "And those shipgirls who read our writings as prophecy and attempt to defy the happenings stated to come?" he asked, stuffing his hands in his pockets.

The chaplain chemist chuckled, shaking his head. "Why else do you think the Edit function exists? Futures are not and do not have to be set in stone you know. The pen of an author wields so much power over worlds, but it takes a special sort of responsibility to restrain oneself from abusing that power to screw characters - or the readers - over."

"I'm being lectured on abuse of authorial power by an alternate and technically fictional me," Mendel grumbled, stepping back to eye his doppelganger over. "I suppose back-and-forth with myself is part and parcel of being Timebound but it's still mighty jarring, even if you know me too well because you are me in a sense. But I get what you're saying alright? I get it."

There was a moment's pause, his hand hovering over the center of the large, spinning disc. "Do you think they'll remember us when the walls are up again?"

"Who can say." Dr Mendel shrugged, brows furrowing in contemplation. "The reset might make them forget as a side effect, it might make them imagine it was all a dream, or it might not. But just because you erase what you've written on paper doesn't mean the imprints aren't there anymore, you know? Whether they remember or not, you guys impacted them, touched them all the same. I pray, if they do remember, that their memories or dreams of you folks are good."

Mendel nodded, Olympic's salute to him still fresh on his mind. Taking a deep breath, he lowered his hand towards the disc as it slowed down to a halt so contact could be made. Do the Timey Thing…

In another universe still, he would have borne the title of Page of Time, and in a universe where magic was real and Authors could do almost anything, was it any surprise that the energies of time itself would be bent into serving him this one time? Slowly, surely, a bright golden line began to appear at the edge of the disc, creeping diagonally towards the center like a progress bar as the 'System Restore' for the wall between universes began.

...

10,000k. The SCIENCE!Girls are to fix whatever the hell they did that opened a gateway to another universe. It is MADNESS.

IJNFleetAdmiral

Admiral Goto sipped his morning tea and awaited his daily visit/tackle from Kongo. He'd received a message from Admiral Holloway late last night about Phoenix and SoDak doing something science-y that involved a lot of electricity, a gateway, and maniacal laughter that frightened anyone who heard it. Then, apparently, there had been a loud noise like a piece of cloth being ripped, followed by...nothing. Everything seemed to be in order - meaning there were no explosions, fires, creatures from other words rampaging through large cities, emotional breakdowns, and whatnot - so Goto remained cautiously optimistic that whatever had occurred over in the States was a fluke and would not affect operations in Japan.

The door opened, and Goto glanced up. He knew it wasn't Kongo, as there had been no thunderous footsteps and ecstatic shouts. He was therefore quite surprised to see an American man in his mid-thirties wearing an Imperial Japanese Navy uniform, complete with Fleet Admiral sleeve stripes and Gensui badge.

"Can I help you?" Goto asked.

"For starters, you can get out of my chair," the man replied.

Goto blinked. "I'm sorry? This is my office, and this is my chair."

The American glanced around. "No, this is my office and my chair. Who are you?" He glanced at Goto's chair. "And more importantly, what did you do with my chair? It's different."

"I'm Rear Admiral Isoroku Goto, Commander of the Kanmusu Naval Base, and this is the same chair I've had for years. Who are you?"

"Fleet Admiral Matthew Garrett Avers, Commander-in-Chief of the World Kanmusu Fleet and Commander, Rengō Kanmusutai."

Goto glanced at Nagato, Mutsu, and Oyodo, who seemed just as confused as he did. "World Kanmusu Fleet? Rengō Kanmusutai? I'm sorry, but I've never heard of either of those organizations."

Avers raised an eyebrow. "You've never heard of the World Kanmusu Fleet? The world-wide fleet that every shipgirl command belongs to? The group that eradicated the Pacific Abyssals and forced the Atlantic Abyssals into a truce due to depleting them to near-extinction?"

"Eradicated the Pacific Abyssals?" Goto looked astounded. "What are you talking about? The war's still going on!"

Now it was Avers' turn to look confused. "No, the war ended over a year ago when we delivered a MOAB directly into the Pacific Abyssal Mother's Royal Chambers at the bottom of Challenger Deep in the Marianas Trench, coupled with a massive naval battle in the Philippine Sea that rivaled Tsushima, Jutland, Midway, Philippine Sea, and Leyte Gulf all put together."

Goto was prevented from replying by the sound of the elevator. He knew what was coming next.

Oh, no! Not right now…

Sure enough…

"TEIII~TOOO~KUUU~!"

To Goto's surprise, Avers braced himself as well. Seconds later, the door blew open and Kongo burst in.

"BURNING LOVE!" The fast battleship announced as she did her standard flying-cuddle-ball leap…

...straight into Avers' arms. Even Nagato's jaw hit the floor at that development.

Goto forced down the sharp pain that lanced through his heart at the sight of the woman he loved nuzzling and making happy noises in the arms of another man. But it was Kongo's next actions that nearly did him in. The fast battleship paused in her ministrations to Avers and looked at him before asking Avers,

"Teitoku-des? Who's he?"

Silence reigned in the Admiral's office, save for Oyodo pulling out a small notebook and writing something down. Goto refrained from commenting when he saw the title on the cover as reading Goto: Observations by a Light Cruiser on the Psychological Impact of an Admiral's Long-Term Exposure to Shipgirl Insanity.

Avers saw Goto looking at him and Kongo as if the world had ended and life was no longer worth living.

"What?" the Fleet Admiral asked. "My wife's allowed to be as affectionate as she wants with me."

Nagato raised an eyebrow at that statement. Mutsu emitted a soft gasp of surprise. Oyodo winced and turned to Admiral Goto, who at that moment looked like he needed to be far, far, away from any and all firearms.

The surprises kept coming when another shout was heard.

"TEIII~TOOO~KUUU~!"

Kongo tilted her head adorably and put a finger to her mouth. "What?"

The door again banged open and a second Kongo identical to the first bounced into the room and launched herself at Goto. She was quite surprised when the Japanese Admiral not only caught her but returned her embrace and affectionate nuzzles.

"My, Teitoku! You're so affectionate today, Dess!" the fast battleship purred. "Perhaps I can persuade you to take a long lunch, hmm?"

At this point, Goto was so thankful he still had his Kongo that he was willing to forgo regulations, just this once.

"Anything you want, sweetheart," he replied, kissing the top of Kongo's head. The fast battleship squealed in excitement.

"Boy, did you just give a lot of leeway," Avers muttered, laughing softly.

Goto's Kongo turned to see Avers being cuddled by a mirror image of herself.

"What?" She did the 'cute-Kongo-thinking' pose. "Two Teitokus?"

"Yes, one of us for each of you," Avers replied, not wanting the other Kongo to decide to team up with his wife; he didn't think the other Kongo's Admiral would survive that emotionally.

At that moment, the door was flung open again, this time by Akashi.

"Admiral, I think we might have a problem resulting from that 'incident' in San Diego yesterday," the repair ship stated. "Look."

Not one, but three Yubaris walked into the office behind her.

"Oh, hey, Admiral," one Yubari replied. "You and Kongo are here, too?"

Goto whimpered and picked up the phone. Nothing is ever easy.

Three hours later, the two Admirals and the two Kongos were having tea together in Goto's office.

"So, you two have been married just over a year, yes?" Goto's Kongo asked her counterpart and her husband.

"Yes!" Avers' Kongo giggled. "Teitoku is mine! Here!" She brought out her phone, pulled up her and Avers' wedding photo, and showed it to Goto's Kongo, who squealed excitedly.

"Ahh! You two look so happy, Dess!" She turned Kongo's phone towards Goto. "Don't they look happy, Teitoku?"

Goto nodded. "They do indeed."

When her wrist was released, Kongo pulled up another photo. "And here are results of our BURNING LOVE! Dess!" She showed Goto and his Kongo a photo of Kongo and Tosh.

Goto smiled at the photo of what looked like a miniature fast battleship and an adorable little boy. He glanced at his girlfriend who – now that he noticed her – was vibrating in place and giving him DesDiv 6-level puppy eyes whose message was crystal clear.

I want that. Now, please.

Before Goto could speak, there was a knock at the door, and a Yubari poked her head in. "Hey, Admiral Avers, this dimension's Akashi said to tell you whatever was broken is about to be fixed, so apparently all you have to do is walk out this door and then walk back in, and you should be back in our dimension." When Avers looked like he was going to inquire, she added, "Don't ask me how or why…it's too complicated to explain."

Avers sighed and nodded. The less he heard about the SCIENCE!girls methods, the better. He stood.

"Thank you for your hospitality, but my wife and I must be off."

Avers shook hands with his counterpart as the two Kongos hugged each other goodbye, and Goto was surprised when the American leaned in.

"Three things I've learned while being in command of my shipgirls. One, destroyers can hit puberty."

"You, too?" Goto asked.

Avers nodded. "Not something I ever want to go through again, but yes. Two, no kanmusu should ever, under any circumstances, visit Walmart."

Goto thought about the implications of that and visibly shuddered.

"Yeah," Avers nodded. "I lived through that little adventure firsthand."

"What's the third thing?"

Avers smiled. "That life's way too short to deny yourself happiness. My advice to you, from one Admiral to another, marry that battleship and start construction of your own little fleet ASAP. You won't regret it."

Goto nodded. "I'll definitely think about it, Admiral…thank you."

Avers turned to go, then paused and murmured, "Also, November 21st is a good day for a wedding. Might make a day remembered for tragedy a day to be remembered for joy and happiness. Just a suggestion."

It took a moment, but eventually Goto got what Avers was referring to as the Japanese Admiral and his fast battleship watched their counterparts from another universe walk through the office door and back home. As Kongo left him with a kiss and a promise of a very fun evening, Goto walked over to his desk and pulled up the website for his bank in order to check his account balance. He glanced at the amount displayed on the screen, then logged out and texted Captain Yonehara.

Isoroku Goto had a ring to shop for, and perhaps the Captain would want to come along and make a similar purchase for a certain heavy cruiser.

...

A/N

It's been 10,000 rules. 10,000 instances of explosion, chaos, mental breakdowns, lewdness, rule-breaking, and insanity in general. And for that we just want to say:

THANK YOU FOR YOUR SERVICE. OUR LIVES ARE THAT MUCH BRIGHTER BECAUSE YOU'RE A PART OF THEM. WE LOVE YOU ALL.

(Signed)

All the Admirals (Authors) Worldwide