5701. Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II is not the natural born incarnation of the battleship Queen Elizabeth that rumour dies here and now.
5701a. Ask Valiant Warspite and Malaya what happens when you try to get anywhere near the Queen without being vetted first. Those MI6 people are scary Valiant.
5701b. All royal palaces are now off limits since the W and Z class boats where found wandering the halls of Winsdor castle off hours.
5701c. To those boats where Princess Elizabeth was present during your service you must go along proper channels to meet with her majesty.
5701d. Even you Vanguard.

5702: The queen is also not the early incarnation of the Queen Elizabeth class aircraft carrier.
5702a. Thou shalt not speak of her Majesty's corgis.
5702b. Thou shalt NOT speak of her Majesty's corgis.
5702c. The Queen's corgis are not PT boats hiding their riggings.
5702d. The MoD officially denies that the Queen's corgis are not boats that hides weapons and gadgets as if they came out of Q's labs.
5702.d.i. That means they don't hide under the Coldstream guards bearskin hats as a surprise to any daring intruders that is sufficiently competent and equipped.

"Is it true that Queen Elizabeth is a battleship?" one of the younger looking W-class destroyers asked as the flotilla made their way through the public parts of Windsor Castle.

Zephyr sighed. "No, she's not. The ship was probably named after the last Tudor queen, not after our current one and I'm fairly sure they were around at the same time," she explained, waving her military ID at one of the MI6 agents hanging around. After what she had heard from Warspite, she wasn't risking their wrath. "And before you ask, she's not the incarnation of the latest fleet carrier either, they didn't even start building the carrier Queen Elizabeth until a few years back, a couple of decades at most, Her Majesty has been on the throne since… I want to say somewhere in or near the Second World War, but I need to check."

"Ma'am, are you responsible for this group?" the agent asked as he took her ID to check.

"Unfortunately. There should be three groups around, sir," Zephyr replied, turning her attention to him. "My Commander, Lauren Glenn should be around somewhere with some heavy weight kanmusu, as should HMS Minotaur with the medium weights."

"And how many people in your group?"

"Should be sixteen, unless my twin shows up, she said she was hitting museums though," Zephyr replied.

The agent narrowed his eyes as he looked around the room. "Then why do I only see four?"

Zephyr grimaced, turning around to look. Myngs was standing around in a pale blue blouse and skirt, looking over one of the paintings on the wall, Zenith, the first summon, wearing their usual combat clothing a medium blue shirt with dark blue trousers and beret – standard naval uniform – was crouching next to what looked like a corgi and Wessex, who was too busy staring around like someone had let off a flashbang in her face, a look completed by the frazzled, windswept blonde hair sticking out in all directions.

Zephyr groaned, raising her hands to her face. "Bloody impatient kids," she sighed, turning back to the MI6 agent. "Sorry about this, most summoned kanmusu tend to act younger than they look, particularly destroyers."

The agent arched an eyebrow at her. "Then how are you not acting that way?"

"You have my ID, sir; I know it includes my learner driving licence, which says that I'm eighteen, as does my passport. I do use it when I do go drinking and as a naturalborn I do know a bit more than most." Pinching the bridge of her nose, Zephyr sighed. "Look, can you just radio your colleagues; let them know about the others. Hopefully they'll have stuck together so we can grab a batch at once."

The agent gave her a flat look as she turned to organise the few remaining destroyergirls. "Oh, for the record, Her Majesty ascended the throne in 1952."

"Hey, maybe there's something cool down here," Whirlwind said, pointing out a random corridor to her sister Whelp, both brunettes having slipped away from their group a few hours ago at St George's Gate to explore the palace.

Whelp giggled as they slipped into the Military Knights' Lodgings, looking around at the weapons hung on the walls. This could be fun.

"Eep!" Wizard yelped as she dodged away from a corgi, barely managing to evade it as it ploughed into a bearskin hat that one of the guards had left out and disappeared. "Phew. What is with these PT boats?"

"Err, sis?"

The question from her sister Wager made Wizard turn around to see the other destroyer, red hair sweat soaked from their flight. "What is it, Wager?"

"I don't think they're PT boats?" Wager replied.

"Really? Huh?" The black haired destroyer frowned cutely. "Why do you say that?"

"Well, they don't have rigging for one thing, and I don't see anything to hide it either. PT boats can't summon rigging like us." Wager pointed out.

Wizard cocked her head. "Well… maybe they came out of Q's lab? I mean that one jumped us from under a hat. Maybe they were doing experiments or something."

The redhead just sighed, placing one hand to her face. Now she was beginning to see just how much of a problem Zephyr always had with them since Wizard was summoned after her and hadn't seen normal dogs before. "No, they aren't. I'm pretty sure they're just normal dogs… well, as normal as they get given they're raised to be the Royal Family's personal pets, particularly the Queen's. You just got unlucky and that dog liked bearskins or something."

"Oh," Wizard murmured, looking around. "Where do we go now? I'm lost."

"Uh…"

Kempenfelt and Zodiac sat on the rim of the fountain in the northern gardens of the castle, the pair of girls having spent several hours wandering, now watched the sun start to creep down beyond the castle as evening fell.

"It seems so peaceful here," Kempenfelt sighed, watching the shadows creep across the carefully tended garden, "So far from the war, the abyssals, and everything."

Zodiac nodded. "Yeah, kind of hard to think about it with this quiet, I…" she trailed off, looking over at her sister ship, well, closer to half-sister. "Kem?"

"Mmm?"

"What do you think will happen after the war?" Zodiac asked.

Whatever Kempenfelt might have replied was cut off as a pair of hands grabbed both of them by the ear, making them both yelp in pain. "I don't know about after the war, but you two are in trouble now," Zenith growled as she hauled the two wayward destroyers up by their ears. "Commander Glenn specifically said that we were supposed to stick to our groups and now Zephyr's pissed because you lot not only ran off, but also have been causing a ruckus in Her Majesty's home and we were supposed to leave three hours ago."

"Ow, ow, owowowow… siiiisss~!" Zodiac whined.

"No, you can explain to Zephyr why you left her in the lurch, now let's move." Zenith pushed the pair towards where Wessex was waiting somewhat nervously near the door.

Cringing near the door to the receiving room, Zealous, Zebra, Wakeful and Wrangler watched, wide eyed as a team of MI6 agent forced the much heavier Vanguard to the ground. While they had managed, mostly through being cute, to at least see the Queen through the crowd, the battleship had attempted to go up and greet her. MI6 had taken exception to that; even though the battleship was rather well known given she was one of Britain's last.

"Arrgh! Let go of me!" Vanguard snarled. "All I wanted to do was greet Her Majesty. There's no need for this."

"Oh you have got to be kidding!" Zephyr's voice drew attention away from the kerfuffle on the floor to her. "My apologies, Your Majesty, it seems some of my comrades either didn't get or completely forgot the memo sent around when we planned this trip." She curtsied in the direction of the Queen before turning to Vanguard. "Vanguard! You are a member of Her Royal Highness' Navy, act like it!" The snap in her voice was enough to bring out Vanguard's ingrained training enough that she stopped fighting the agents.

Turning to the others, Zephyr snapped a salute as she noticed Commander Glenn coming forwards, "Commander, HMS Zephyr reporting mission successful on locating the W- and Z-class destroyers." She narrowed her eyes slightly at the four cringing shipgirls. "My apologies for the mess, they're very much like young children, vanishing the moment you're not watching them."

"At ease, Zephyr, we'll sort this mess out when we return to Plymouth and get in touch with Admiral Collingwood." She turned to look at Vanguard, who was fiddling with her clothes, finally realizing just what a mess she had made, even as she lay on the floor, developing bruises showing on her face. "As for you Vanguard, I'm aware that you once carried Her Highness on your hull, but that doesn't give you any privileges regarding seeing her again, understood?"

"Sir," Vanguard responded.

Glenn narrowed her eyes briefly as the agents let the battleship up before turning back to the Queen and saluting her. This was going to be a long night.