Chapter 0

- Eagle Union - somewhere in the upper northwest -

* July 24th, 2023 - Everything's on fire and everyone's gone... The Sirens, they... won... They won, and the world fell apart at the seams. *

* July 25th, 2023 - It hurts all over and it's a little hard to breathe, but I'm honestly amazed that I even made it to the secret port one of the Azur Lane soldiers back at the temporary shelter told us about, not that it did very much good-I mean in the end, I was the only one who made it there... Well, at least I can get some rest for a while. Still no clue what the fuck I'm gonna do from now on though. *

* July 27th, 2023 - It took a while, but I managed to get a wifi signal on my smartphone. There wasn't much in the way of 'good' news, but at least there were still updates. To be honest, I don't really know how to feel about that. I mean, on one hand, I was happy that people were still hanging in there. But, on the other, everything I found just kept driving home the point that tons of people died, that Azur Lane were beaten by the Sirens and fell into chaos, that the 'secret weapons' that Azur Lane were developing weren't ready in time for the Sirens' attack, that no one knew what to do next or the best way to move forward from now on... Nothing but bad news wherever I looked or scrolled through... I mean, I know it's stupid but a guy can only take so much fucking gloom and doom..! Well, at least I have this journal to write all these shitty thoughts down. You never know when my luck will run out so it's a good idea to leave behind proof I was here, even if it was just me bitching most of the time... *

* July 30th, 2023 - Been almost a week now and nobody else ever showed up. Dunno if they were all killed, found another way out or whatever else though. On the plus side, things outside finally settled down enough for me to go out looking for supplies and try to get this boat up and running. I'm just glad there was an operator's manual and some maintenance stuff lying around so I should be ready to go in a few more days. Assuming nothing goes wrong or Siren drones don't find and kill me first, that is. *

* August 1st, 2023 - Okay, so maybe randomly getting on some boat I have no experience piloting and setting out to sea with no clear goal or destination in mind either probably wasn't the smartest move on my part, but then again, it's not like I had anything left waiting for me back on land. I mean, my folks are dead, I have no clue what happened to my little sis, my apartment got shelled and my friends left my slow ass behind when the city evacuated... Yeah, fuck you guys too. Least the Siren patrol boats are leaving me alone. Not gonna lie-I almost pissed myself the first time I saw one though... Ugh. *

* August 15th, 2023 - Two weeks, and who knows how many Siren patrols, later... and still not a fucking port or sign of land anywhere in sight! And my smartphone finally fucking died too! Got so pissed off I just threw the damn thing overboard. ...Yeah. I, kinda regretted doing that like five minutes later, but then I remembered that all I did with it was just doom scroll or read. Fortunately I still have my tablet so meh, no big deal. And not like I had anybody left to call or even wanna talk to right now anyway... Man, I really hope I find a place to pull into or land soon... *

* August 16th, 2023 - ...Holy shit! What the fuck was that!? Optical camouflage!? ...That shit's real!? But, it looks like it covered the whole island... Seriously!? Man, either I'm legit hallucinating or I stumbled onto something really big... Well, whatever. Not like I can leave now anyway... *

The young man, Liam Archer, took one last look at the now sinking boat he unintentionally crashed into the hidden port before making sure he had a dry enough place to put his journal and whatever else he managed to salvage from it. After a few minutes of checking and double checking to make sure that he hadn't missed anything, Liam slowly made his way towards the group of buildings off in the distance.

'No clue where the fuck this is, but at least I'll have a roof over my head. Hope there's also a place I can grab a shower though, cuz I fucking stink...!'

xxx xxx xxx

A/N:

And that's the prologue to my 2nd story.

It's an AU so expect plenty of differences from 'canon' interpretations of the source material, y'know because I don't own the rights to Azur Lane or any other licensed IPS that may or may not show up int the future. That and because this is fan fiction. Y'know, the normal disclaimer stuff.

Right, I know that this was a REALLY short chapter, but I judged that, as a prologue, this was enough to get what I wanted across without writing too much or too little. I will be writing longer chapters from now on though.

Anyway, the main things I wanted to explore with this work was to further explore and develop the 'worldbuilding' rules I intend for all my stories and put the role of the 'Commander' in the hands of someone who 'isn't' even member of Azur Lane's military or supporting organization. He's just some guy. Boring and unoriginal I know, but it's something I don't see used in too many AL related fan works, so yeah.

Oh, there will be some other minor crossovers from other works in order to shore up worldbuilding consistency and to show that all my stories share some commonality/larger shared World setting.

Well, I hope whoever found and read this will enjoy it. If not, then oh well.

See you all next Ch.