This chapter takes Azur Lane Ajax and makes her a 1911 KGV battleship without changing her personality much. Warning: metric ton of references to Greek mythology, incoming.

The keeper's winking eyes began to fail,

And drowsy slumber on the lids to creep,

'Till all the watchman was at length asleep.

Then soon the god his voice and song supprest;

And with caduceus confirmed his rest:

Without delay his crooked falchion drew,

And at one fatal stroke the keeper slew.

Her boys called themselves the Eyes. Argus' eyes, just like in the myth. Admittedly, she didn't have the size to boast a hundred of them– the thought of a carrier that large sent a chill down her spine– but she was one of the finest scouts Canada had.

And it was Canada that had her, not Merrie England. Well, it was still the United Kingdom she served under and a British monarch she yielded to, but the whole matter had become dreadfully complicated. In fact, she'd go as far as to say that the whole world had become dreadfully complicated.

She was born into war, sure, but she was told of the times before. Her airmen would wax poetic about the way things used to be, the times before the war… but for her, these times were about as real as myth. Victoria, ancestor of both the King and the Kaiser… it felt like a myth, like the feuding families of gods in legend.

Someone else might have said that was overdramatic, but Argus didn't think so: the Weltkrieg was, in some sense, a Titanomachy, an apocalyptic conflict that saw the old rulers of the world exiled as new, strange powers came to take their place.

If one attempted to stretch the metaphor– which of course, Argus did– syndicalism was rather like Typhon. A beast born in the aftermath, its many heads glowing with red flames, monsters coming from its loins. (Ahem.) It was said the whole earth seethed when Typhon and Zeus clashed, dueling for mastery of the world…

(Their Typhon had not been cast down under Etna's fiery dome, but he still lurked under the workman's forges, his fury bubbling, just waiting to spring up wherever unions formed, to burn this new home of theirs.)

Perhaps they were writing the modern myth now, a story of a triumphant return to shame the Odyssey.

… Maybe she really was reading too much Greek myth. Even so, it was hard not to think of such tremendous precedents when so many of her comrades had a Greek myth naming scheme. Her fellow carrier was Hermes– although their relationship was a bit more amicable than the mythological figures– and other ships bore names like Ajax or Acasta.

Whoops. That was quite a tangent, wasn't it?

She was named for Argus Panoptes, the keen watchman who observed the woman-turned-heifer Io. That last bit wasn't particularly applicable unless the next batch of Japanese or German ships really took after cattle… The obvious joke came to mind, but she refrained from such crass comparisons.

(Could you have both horns and teats, though? She wasn't sure.)

Logistics of horns aside, her usual duty was keeping an eye on the Atlantic and training up the airmen who would one day retake Britain. Many were exiles, boys who had faint, fuzzy memories of the homeland left behind, but you'd see the occasional Canadian among their number, looking for something in the war. What it was, exactly…? Well, war had lost some of its lustre since the first Weltkrieg, but glory wasn't impossible to win. Perhaps it was just a livelihood, or a real belief in the monarchy…

(Canada was not composed of unfeeling Myrmidons who would the monarchy's orders forever.)

Or perhaps they just wanted the Exiles out. For all that Britain felt like Odysseus, separated from home by the broad sea, the exiles exploited Canadian hospitality like the suitors of Penelope. She had no idea how the government managed a balanced budget at this point, especially considering their trade network had its throbbing heart torn out with the loss of the homeland.

Well, that was probably the reason behind today's operation, her first break from puttering around Nova Scotia in a long while. The remnants of the Empire needed commerce to run properly, and ideally, they could get some money for doing practically nothing…

Imagine, say, a very lucrative ditch going straight through the Isthmus of Panama, which was no longer under American control after the country dissolved into anarchy. Control over the canal meant a very welcome income, strategic power, and a guarantee that the navy could go from one side of the country to the other without having to go all the way to Cape Horn.

But wasn't there something to the idea? A journey to a distant land with hopes of… well, plunder felt a bit strong, but honors and rewards won in battle? It felt properly mythical, the sort of bold move that an ambitious prince would make to seize destiny.

Hermes had stayed behind, serving as an observer for a sort of non-intervention patrol. There was a sort of quiet understanding that was probably going to be vain, but Entente commerce still needed to be protected, and this new frontier of modern warfare needed to be observed. Panama might prove a test-bed, but the Americans would show the world modern warfare on an unprecedented scale.

If worse came to worse, she would fight alongside British marines and battleships like Revenge, Ajax, and Warspite. It wouldn't be much of a fight. Like Achilles, cutting a swath through the Trojans, although the actual Achilles was mothballed and going positively insane because of it. Thinking on it, the Iliad would have been a much shorter tale if Ajax the Greater had naval guns…

A war like this– small as it was– would be on a scale the ancient Greeks couldn't even begin to comprehend. It would look like a battle of divines more than a war conducted by mortal men. Thankfully, while the battle they were to fight might have been mythical in scale, it didn't take mythical amounts of time. You'd have to be a real idiot to take a journey at Odysseus' pace.

Fortunately, they were going quickly, and whenever they tired of their fleet-footed travel, they could usually find a place to stay. The Caribbean was not lacking for friendly harbors, at least. (The West Indies were also a nice place to pick up some extra escorts, for a bit more gunboat in their gunboat diplomacy.)

There were other ways their expedition was like that of the ancient Greeks: their alcohol of choice was watered down. The Greeks of antiquity thought that undiluted wine was a path to madness, and undiluted rum would get you to the same destination very quickly.

Argus squinted at the glass, making sure there was just enough water inside… she was helped by it being an actual glass and not a cheap copper jug. That looked roughly like the six-to-one ratio that Revenge favored, with a very fair helping of lime juice.

Why six to one? Everyone, including Revenge, knew how much of a klutz she was sober, the thought of her drunk was sobering. No pun intended. In contrast, Ajax preferred a much stronger portion, and Warspite abstained from drink on principle. It wasn't as if anyone would refuse her for her age now– Kansen bodies didn't work quite like normal ones, and she was, by their standards, an ancient veteran– but she usually said something to the effect of "War must be faced head-on, not dulled or ignored."

"Thank you, Argus." Revenge smiled.

"You've got an eye for that sort of thing," Ajax admitted, accepting her own drink and taking a sip. "Perfect, without any measuring tools…"

"This is only a minor display of my mysterious power…"

"Urgh, lines like that…" Ajax sighed. "I can't imagine how your crew stands it."

Despite it being kind of obvious, no one tried turnabout and wondered how anyone could stand being in Ajax's crew. (At the very least, Ajax seemed to have a good eye for who would tolerate her treatment and who wouldn't. She also tended to be in a better mood during wars…)

A group of strong personalities, that was certain, but Argus didn't mind it too terribly. What was a band of heroes without will, without characters who stood separate from the great mass of normal men? And with such strength came equally powerful flaws, hamartia…

"Aren't you going to drink, Argus?" Revenge asked, "Your curfew is approaching…"

"Ah, thank you!" The curfew was self-imposed. In addition to avoiding any questions about any hypothetical activities– which she would never indulge in, of course– she just… struggled to fall asleep if she didn't set out rational times to stop.

(Perhaps that weakness came from the end of her mythical predecessor? Possible, but she couldn't imagine it being universal. Ajax did not seem the sort of woman to kill herself in a fit of jealousy, that was certain. Her discontent was usually inflicted on other people. Still, calling her the bulwark of the fleet did not seem too much of a stretch.)

It was very easy to stay up thinking if she let herself. She thought of the things she had seen, stretching all the way back to the shores of fair Albion. She thought of those things she saw… the cracks in the admiralty that only grew with time, the fall of England, the shores of Canada.

Could she have seen more? At times, she felt like she was the opposite of Tiresias, the sage of Theban fame. His mortal eyes could not see, but through divine power, he worked as a seer. She saw with eyes unclouded, but things had this dreadful way of sneaking up on her…

Perhaps that was why she had such trouble falling asleep. Even with her door locked, she always had this nagging fear that someone would chance upon her, defenseless.

One of her planes sat on her deck, the engine roaring. She could feel it resting against her newly installed catapult– giving her one of those was much easier than building a new carrier entirely– almost like a ball clenched tight in a hand. With one explosive movement, it could be shot away, but not quite yet.

She, along with two of her men, did some quick checks, watching as the ailerons twitched. It seemed good… and Argus would know. None of her boys could match her when it came to catching fine details. All three of them gave thumbs up, and after a moment, the catapult sprung into motion, and she felt her tension ease just a bit.

Well, as much as her tension could ease, when she was sending planes off to a fight. Panama had refused, deciding to risk conflict with Canada if it meant keeping the canal. And of course, they couldn't back down after a threat was made.

So her planes flew off to war, soaring over Colon to see where the enemy lurked. And this was when she truly lived up to the name of her mythical predecessor. Perhaps Argus Panoptes looked at the world with a hundred eyes, but those were attached to his body, restrained by the weakness of mortal flesh and bone.

Her eyes flew as the birds did, painted onto the sides of swift-flying planes. Instead of seeing a shark's mouth filled with razor teeth or a rearing horse that called to mind the animal's swiftness, her enemies saw grey-blue eyes, pale as her own.

(It was rather flattering, that her men took so much inspiration from her own eyes as they painted.)

As one flew away and the next plane was prepared, she waved goodbye. "Come back safe!"

She rather liked her role, really. The smooth operation of a modern warship reminded her, in some sense, of an ancient trireme, all the men moving in perfect sync to create perfect combat machine. And then there, were the pilots, who stood on the other end of the spectrum. They were like the great heroes of mythical renown, the ones who fought in duels, the ones who piled up slain foes by the score…

While admitting her own bias, she thought carrier warfare was perhaps the most romantic style there was. She hoped they would only grow more important with time.

Really, it wasn't much of a contest. Panama barely had an army at all, more a collection of military police. Hopes of avoiding tyranny aside, the lack of any defensive force left them open to be picked upon. Was it any surprise what happened when you were caught unawares?

Many-turning Hermes, the contriver, the dissembler… he slew mighty Argus by catching him unawares. You could always be seized upon in a moment of weakness. It had happened to Britain, it had happened to America, it had happened to France.

It seems like part of Argus' character is a low-simmer horny? That and a more general sense of... over-dramaticness? I hope I portrayed her well here. Perhaps the interest in myth is exaggerated, perhaps it's her coping method of choice.