This is a partial System Insert. Shipgirl fleet of the Prior System, this system, into Earth Bet. Bismarck, Taylor Hebert, Misato Katsuragi, Blake Belladonna, Pfennig Furchtbar, Winter Schnee, Petunia Evans, May Marigold, Neopolitan, and Summer Rose. Earth Bet, early 2011.
We're fictive-heavy. I know.
We're in the Pacific, most of us, and the Pacific is where most of the action happens. This is the prologue, here for... mostly feedback. There is a plan in place for the next two arcs, at least. Here, a prologue.
At the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, hundreds of miles southwest of Ireland, a shipwreck lay.
She was old, and rusted, barbettes empty of turrets, laying upright on the seabed. Faded symbols were still present on her deck.
For a long, blissful moment, all was silent.
Then, a groan of metal rang out. Then another. A black metal something started slithering within the hull.
Her decking tore and stretched, the symbols rendered into shreds. Tremors shook the seabed as something lifted her off the sea floor. Rows of enormous blunt, almost humanlike teeth grew out of the deck and hull, organic black metal growing to replace torn armor, smoky impressions of masts, turrets and cranes appearing, wispy but alive. Nine unusual tentacles grew from the stern, replacing screws and rudders with the same black metal. Three pairs of enormous, glowing eyes grew from the bowline, one after another, slanting downwards. Black flags unfurled from the masts.
On the tip of the bow, a woman materialised, her deathly pale skin in stark contrast to her black uniform. The faint, blue glow of her eyes cast strange shadows, making her face unsettlingly otherworldly.
Bismarck had awoken. And with a grim smile on her face, she promised to exterminate any trace of the regime she had once been forced to serve...
>>>
Across the Atlantic, in a port city, a different situation was unfolding. A mile or so from the seafront, in a run-down building nominally used as a school, a girl was in trouble.
Screaming.
She was trapped in an upright metal coffin, banging her fists agains the locked door, and begging for someone, anyone, to help her.
But nobody came.
People watched, from afar, but nobody moved to help. Even the instigators just leaned against the wall and watched in silence.
And then, suddenly, her voice cut off mid-scream. The two instigators looked at each other, puzzled. Had the girl choked on something? Was anything else wrong?
They didn't care, much, but neither wanted an obvious murder charge on their faces. The taller one finally shrugged, rolled her eyes, and unlocked the locker door.
Curious onlookers gathered to see what was inside, only to discover... almost nothing. A few bloody tampons rolled out onto the floor. Some cockroaches scurried away.
There was no sign of the girl.
The instigator who'd opened the door swore, long and hard, and finally excused herself to call it in to her bosses.
The locker stood empty, its occupant vanished.
But Taylor Hebert was not gone.
Over eight and a half thousand miles away, in the Pacific Ocean, east of the Solomon Islands, another shipwreck stirred.
5-inch guns swivelled on rusted mounts. Aircraft began appearing in the hangar as the ship started to rise from the sea floor. Barnacles and sealife detached from the hull as she began to rise faster, cutting through the water, faster and faster. The command island repaired itself. The flight deck straightened. A bell began to toll.
The ship surfaced in a great plume of water, settling in the ocean in a great splash. It was as if she had never sunk at all...
In the middle of the flight deck, just ahead of the recently manifested flight of Hellcats, a girl stood. Tall and lanky, and yet still fifteen, she looked out over the sea. Beneath her skin, she knew that she was the ship. She knew that she could collapse her entire hull into the shape of just a girl with armaments, but she didn't.
For now, USS Hornet just felt alive.
>>>
In a specific atoll of the Marshall Islands, the actions of the Americans decades ago had left an unnatural feeling, a shadow of the hellfire that was unleashed on the quiet island. But now, a total stillness came across the atoll.
The sea grew still, without nary a ripple disturbing its mirror-like finish. Beneath the surface, at the bottom of the lagoon, a third wreck stirred.
Sea life and contamination scored away from the hull as it slowly turned upright, under the surface. Turtles and various other creatures scattered from around her, as her bridge rose from the seabed and reattached itself. A faint glow was present, for just a moment, before it snuffed out.
Slowly, she began to rise.
The mirror-like finish of the sea didn't waver for a moment, even as the first mast pierced its surface. And the stillness persisted as the ship silently rose from the depths.
As the battleship settled on the unnaturally still waters of Bikini Atoll, a woman apperared on its bridge. Arms crossed, purple highlights glinting under the lamps, she stared silently out of the window.
The ship's screws churned through unresponsive water as she headed out to sea, leaving a faintly glowing trail behind her.
Nagato was awake. And she was not amused.
>>>
Fifty miles north of the topmost point of Kiribati archipelago, a ping echoed through the silent ocean. Then another.
A submarine lay on her side, a huge hole in her hull. Another ping echoed outward from within the wreck.
And then, the hole sealed. Metal groaned as water was forced out of the hull, suddenly pressurizing. And the submarine lifted from the seabed.
It let out another ping, stronger than the last, and collapsed in on itself.
The hull shrunk and shimmered away, leaving behind a young woman in a dark bodysuit. Still, parts of the submarine remained on her, high heels now sporting props and rudders, periscopes and snorkels now appearing as hairclips, dive planes emerging from the shoulders.
A pair of cat ears twisted as she opened her mouth and let out a final ping, before smirking and swimming away.
I-19 was back in the fight, and ready for the hunt.
>>>
If anyone was watching on Easter Island, they would have seen a slip of a girl appear from thin air.
They weren't watching, however. And so, not a soul saw a girl with dark blue hair, a captain's hat, strange armor, and an almost skateboard-like backpack walk into the sea and disappear. But any nearby fauna soon fled from the path of something they considered very large and very threatening.
Pfennig Furchtbar, the secret experimental submarine of the Mantle Navy, set course for the west. And if anyone had been listening, they'd have caught a mutter of "Nun, das ist eine seltsam vertraute Situation!"
Alas, nobody heard. And the submersible battlecarrier disappeared into the gloom of the Pacific Ocean, silent as a whisper.
>>>
New Britain was the largest island of the Bismarck Archipelago, and part of Papua New Guinea. The town of Rabaul used to be the capital of its Eastern province, until an eruption in 1994. Nonetheless, the town managed to thrive, being a popular tourist destination among volcanologists... even after Leviathan gave a major blow to shipping. That means that Rabaul is no stranger to the occasional odd occurrence... or so they thought.
Early in the morning of January 7th, a young woman was seen skating across the water in the Rabaul caldera. She wore odd, heavy boots, and some sort of exoskeleton, with strange rigging attached to it. None could approach the woman, as she was moving at a pace of over twenty knots, and nobody was willing to risk approaching the strange Parahuman without knowing if she was a threat.
The four large turrets attached to her rigging certainly would suggest that she was at the very least looking for a fight.
The woman circled the flooded caldera several times, before heading to the mouth of the bay and exiting onto open ocean. A radio tower caught a stray transmission from her fading form, but its content raised more questions than answers.
"Schlachtschiff Tirpitz, Anker lichten..."
There was no further contact.
>>>
Fiji was, despite everything, still a popular tourist destination. Its capital, Suva, boasted a blooming nightlife, and tourists were often found indulging in it. So when a young British woman stormed into a bar one early morning and asked in a slightly pleading voice what year it was, the locals just thought she'd been at a slightly too long New Year's party. So they just gave the light-hearted answer of "Been 2011 for a week already!".
People assumed she'd start swearing, or ranting, or something like that. What they therefore didn't expect was the rather thin woman to fall on her knees hard enough to crater the wooden floor and the solid concrete under it. "That's not right no matter how you put it..." she whispered.
"What's the last year you remember?" someone asked, even as the less brave were inching away from the strange Parahuman.
"1946," the woman replied quietly. "And 1976... and 2022... this is none of those years..."
The bargoers looked at each other, before the bartender sighed and called the local hero line.
The woman gave two names to the arriving heroes, each of them less likely than the other. "Petunia Evans" only pinged as a fictional character, although she was oddly knowledgeable on the early life of said fictional character.
And the other...
She finally introduced herself as "HMS Enterprise, D52." And when the heroes expressed yet more disbelief, she manifested a miniature six-inch double turret and pointed it at them, scowling, and threatened to shoot if they "didn't stop with the fucking disbelief horseshit already, I'm not a fucking fictional character you arseholes".
One of them, thankfully the brute, opened her mouth and proceeded to disbelieve that statement as well. She got two six-inch shells to the gut and was punched through several buildings as a result.
Needless to say, Petunia Evans was very quickly believed to be a manifestation of a WWII cruiser, and chalked up to be a variant on a Case 53.
And even with all that, Enterprise knew that her fleet was out there.
Coming for her.
She wasn't wrong, even though she had to go to them first.
>>>
Guam had diminished, over time.
The decline had started to creep in over time anyway, but after the destruction of Hawaii by Behemoth the year before, it had lost several shipping lines it used to support itself. As an immediate consequence of that, loads of people had left the island, given that it had barely any capacity left to support itself by its own. Still, quite a lot of people still persisted, especially the military base at the north of the island.
It was there, just past the cordon, that a Marine saw something unusual.
It was a woman.
He'd later excuse himself to hell and back, saying that it wasn't the woman part that was unusual, and that he had a girlfriend on the mainland thank you very much, but his initial report was still something he was mercilessly teased about.
What was unusual about the woman, aside from the long blue hair, was the strange metallic plates poking out from under her skin, as well as the occasional mechanical bits that somewhat resembled submarine parts.
She had been sitting on the grass, seemingly looking out over the cliff, towards the sea.
Even as the Marine watched, somewhat wary, the woman suddenly stood and turned to face him. She then proceeded to ask, in surprisingly clear English, "Excuse me? My satellite uplink isn't working right. Could you tell me, in which direction from here could I find Samoa?"
The Marine fumbled with his phone for a moment, before boggling at it. "Ma'am," he replied, haltingly, "Samoa is 3500 miles from here..."
"That's fine," the woman replied. "I simply need a direction."
The Marine paused. What he was dealing with was clearly a powerful Cape... he decided that he didn't need to resist over something like that. He squinted at the GPS directions on his phone. "Bearing... 122 degrees, I'd say?"
The woman inclined her head. "Thank you," she said, and walked off over the cliff face, landed amongst the rocks, pulverizing quite a few of them in the process, and waded into the sea.
The marine just watched her leave in bafflement.
Safely under the waves, JS Zuiryuu aligned herself on bearing 122 and headed off at flank.
She had a fleet to rendezvous with.
>>>
The Santa Cruz Islands were small, and fairly insignificant. Granted, not too insignificant, but lucky enough to be spared from most of the Parahuman nonsense so far.
So far.
Recently, a local shopkeeper saw a local girl walk in twice, stealing something the second time. The girl swore up and down that she only came in once, though.
The post office lost a newspaper for sale.
A villager saw a shadow with eyes, later.
Thirty miles away on another island, locals spotted a nondescript white man looking at them. Literally nondescript. Nobody could offer any other information than "perfectly average".
That's when the people started smelling a rat, so to speak. There was a Stranger afoot.
Of course, nobody could do anything about it - Strangers were difficult to deal with in the first place. Some people attempted to talk to them, but got no reply.
All the Stranger seemed to do was steal odd things. Aluminum. Oil. Newspapers. The villagers soon learned to sigh, roll their eyes, and accept it. Seemed that the Stranger was waiting for something.
A day passed, then another, and the Stranger's antics started to taper off. By now, the Islanders were thoroughly paranoid and annoyed. At last, however, in the evening of the second day, an indistinct figure in a small dinghy was spotted speeding away, and a sigh of relief was heard.
And out at sea, Lyndon B. Johnson, third and final Zumwalt-class destroyer, was heading towards the site of a distant ping she'd heard echoing from the east. Somewhere near Samoa.
As for the cause of the ping...
>>>
In a shallow bay north of Nuku'alofa, capital of Tonga, a presence was forming.
It was a presence that had never been there before, in any of her incarnations. But she decided that she didn't care. She didn't care about this place with no doubt about its rich history, or varied culture. All that she wanted was to...
Wake up.
A ghostly mushroom cloud erupted from the bottom of the bay, reaching hundreds of meters into the air. The ocean colored pitch black, dark waters lapping against the coast, and suddenly the bay seemed a lot deeper than it ever should have been. And from those depths, something started glowing.
An unearthly green glow shone upwards from the bottom of the ocean, growing brighter and brighter until it was almost toxic to see, the seabed lighting up with bioluminescence...
And a huge shape moved in there.
People who had run to watch only claimed to see huge glowing eyes later, as something that might have been a whale swam out of the bay, heading north and leaving the bay far, far deeper than it was before.
Passing fish took one look and fled, even sharks taking different routes in its wake. No fish were able to describe the horror, but if they were, they'd have spoken in hushed whispers of a monstrous metallic whale, with a pale not-woman riding atop it. Points of bioluminescence lit and extinguished as it passed through schools of fish, a few curious ones attempting to follow the glowing lights only to be snatched and eaten by either the rider or the steed.
On and on they swam, passing islands and villages, moving through hundreds of miles in silence.
A day had passed since its appearance, and the rider and steed reached its target area - a couple of dozen miles northeast of Samoa. There, the beast slowed, and its rider was revealed to have been connected to it in some fashion; tubes ran out of her back and into it, even while she sat against what looked like a vertical sail of a submarine.
And at last, the rider spoke. "My dearest fleet," she said, the reverb in her voice echoing through the sea around her, "Come to me. Come to where I dwell, come where I reside. So say I, thy flagship. So say I, Deep Submarine Princess!"
As she said those last words, a monstrous ping echoed through the ocean around her, echoes of it reaching thousands of miles. They reached Hornet, enjoying the fading sunlight as she cruised at a slow, steady pace of ten knots. They reached Nagato, heading past nearby atolls at flank speed. They reached I-19, cruising on top of the waves as it was much faster that way.
Tirpitz lifted her head from where she had been gathering fresh supplies on New Georgia.
HMS Enterprise suddenly stopped mid-sentence and stared through the wall at the police station at Suva, much to the confusion of her interviewers.
Lyndon B. Johnson, or Neo as she thought of herself as, suddenly froze mid-evening-snack, before whooping silently and running for the nearest beachfront of Utupua.
Zuiryu smiled as she corrected her course by only a couple of degrees, idly catching a fish and eating it whole as she headed unerringly towards her destination, modern radars and compasses only enhancing her accuracy.
Even Pfennig Furchtbar grinned as she heard the echo of the Abyssal's voice. She was on the right track! She knew it!
Only Bismarck failed to hear the message, due to sailing under the English Channel for the moment. But she wasn't deterred. Even though she had taken this detour for personal business, she knew her ultimate target port. And she knew that her fleet would meet her there, once they had gathered. She just needed to kill some Nazis first.
And at the point where she decided to wait for her fleet, the Deep Submarine Hime smiled. Her fleet was coming.
All she had to do now, was wait.
But she had experience with that. After all, when she had still been a ship, when she was still just TK-17...
It will be interesting to see Taylor start with no secret identity - well, from the PRT at least. And if Team Crimes Against Humanity (Cauldron) knows about a new System coming...
And that's saying nothing of the local forces. Is Sophia going to set the PRT against the USS Hornet?
I await more with bated breath. (so please hurry 'cause I can't hold my breath very long)
Bad idea on Sophia's part, Taylor as USS Hornet CV-8 has not only the loadout standard for a Yorktown class she also has access to 16 North American B-25 Mitchell's led by a certain General.
So! This is how it's going to go. First arc, each chapter focuses on one Pacific ship, followed by two interludes - Pacific reactions, and what Bismarck got up to in Europe. Next arc, we'll see.
And with that all out of the way, enjoy the chapter!
With Hornet
"Come to me..."
Taylor looked up as the voice echoed through the ocean. In her bones, she knew that it was calling for her, and she knew exactly where it wanted her to go.
Her screws slowed to a halt, waves lapping at her hull as she came to a halt.
What the hell was she doing? Was she seriously considering going to a mysterious voice from the bottom of the ocean? What would her Dad think?
...what would her dad think...
Oh gods. Dad!
She was... in the middle of an ocean! Dad would be going spare! Dad didn't... know where she was...
Oh no. Oh no no no no. She had to get home! Immediately!
...where was home?
Some sense twigged.
Something told her that she had been sailing roughly towards the voice that had been calling anyway. Bearing 100 degrees, absolute bearing? What did that even mean?
100 degrees clockwise from the magnetic north.
What did that mean? How did she know that?
...for that matter.
Why did she keep thinking of that old, enormous warship as herself?
Because you are a ship now.
What the fuck did that mean.
Just... feel.
Slightly concerned about listening to a stray thought that didn't sound like a stray thought, Taylor... felt.
Awareness spread through her hull. She felt the planes in her hangars, she felt the empty crew compartments... expect... No. No, she had crew. Ghosts, walking around, not relaxed, but not battle-ready. Echoes of crewmen past.
Pilots were inspecting their aircraft. Gunners were checking their AA. Her captain was in his quarters. And they were... all of them... awaiting her orders.
Was... was she a cape?
Actually, you're a ship.
And... who was talking to her? Was she hearing voices?
The only voice you're hearing is your own.
The voice managed to sound awfully sarcastic. Then again, she supposed that she was sarcastic too at times...
"Great, I'm talking to myself," she groused. Out loud, too, just for a change.
That you are, the voice agreed. For what it's worth, I hadn't intended to mix you up in this, but I suppose it makes things less confusing overall.
What the hell did that mean???
I didn't technically lie, the voice replied. You are hearing your own voice. I'm just not... quite you.
She could feel her captain opening her door and heading towards the deck. Let's talk face to face, shall we?
>>>
Taylor stared at her... local self, she supposed. Said self was currently pacing on her deck and fretting over... the new information. That is, the facts.
She supposed it was fair. She, too, had fretted when she had to come to terms with her new reality. She'd gone under, after telling Amy Lavere to modify her Corona when they'd run out of options, and woken up... elsewhere. In a strange new reality. A mindscape. Discovering that she was like a character from a book.
In a way, she was glad.
Someone else might think that a strange thing to feel, but for her? She found out that there was in fact a reason.
Granted, that reason was "to deconstruct a bunch of superhero tropes in a vaguely depressing and grimdark manner", and she wasn't very happy about that one. Still, being in a system was far better than... all of that.
She had given the local Taylor the cliff notes version. From the future (technically true), brought friends (also technically true) and, most importantly, her power now. That is, she essentially was her counterpart's power.
She kept quiet about the fact that, well, she could have done things a bit differently, to be honest. Truth be told, she would have just replaced her counterpart wholesale. But she... didn't.
It was a selfish reason. She missed Dad.
Or rather, missed what he had been.
She'd realised that subsuming the local Taylor would... he'd hate her. She couldn't risk that. And being this Taylor's power... She could at least partake in things secondhand.
It would be for the best.
>>>
Taylor was busy reeling. Time travel? sentient powers? This... this was insane.
"There's still much you haven't explored," her... Captain? Captain was the least mind-blowing option here, really...
...her Captain continued. "For instance, you can become..." She paused. "Smaller."
The words came, almost unbidden. "How do I do that?"
"Every ship does it differently," her Captain explained patiently. "In my case... imagine moving a slider. On the one end is 'full ship' and on the other 'full girl'. I think you might want to go halfway, lest you accidentally... sink."
Taylor scowled at what she was pretty sure was a slight against her. "And we don't want to sink, do we?" she snarked.
Her Captain rolled her eyes. "It's not like we enjoyed rotting under the waves, now did we?" she spat. "Now, leave your ship parts at least somewhat evident, or we won't be able to float, you foolish girl."
...Damn it all, she had a point.
In lieu of an answer, Taylor closed her eyes and felt again. She felt her hull, her hangars, her crew... and she suddenly became aware of another feeling. Some kind of... not quite a slider, but a toggle. Three states in total. So, shrugging mentally, she toggled it to the middle state.
Her hull vanished.
Well, not quite. It vanished from sight, but not from her awareness. It was still there, still her, but in a different... state, so to speak?
She was standing on the ocean surface, breathing the salty sea air, and suddenly realising that she was breathing again - somehow, she had completely missed that she didn't, before.
She looked herself over.
Her feet were suddenly clad in high heels, with the heels part having become rudders with integrated propellers. Her glasses were still there, but in a very different, rectangular style, and some things poking out from the outer corners. Rangefinders, her Captain supplied.
Slung across her back was something that, on closer inspection, turned out to be a quiver, and onto her belt was clipped a compound bow. Completing the ensemble was a pair of flat, angular plates extending from her shoulders. She examined them with minor confusion.
There was a sigh from within. It's your flight deck, her Captain's voice explained, a touch exasperated. It's where your planes land.
"...And launch?" she asked back.
Nope. That's what the bow and arrows are for, it's a metaphor for your catapult.
Oh. Huh. Well, what do you know?
"So what now?" she asked curiously.
Now, her Captain replied wryly, we'll go to the nearest island and stock up on supplies.
>>>
The nearest island was, in fact, the tiny volcano island of Tinakula, belonging to the Santa Cruz Islands. It was also covered in greenery, but it was getting dark, and neither Taylor was sure if anything was edible on it. As such, they sailed a dozen or so miles south-east towards faint traces of light pollution, reaching the island of Malo by nightfall.
"...do you think anyone can help us?" Taylor hesitantly asked as she navigated around the darkened landmass towards Nendo, not that neither of them quite knew what the islands were called.
They might, her Captain replied quietly, But I rather doubt that they have enough food for us.
That gave Taylor pause, even as she spied the lights of a... well, a seaside village. "What do you mean?"
We're a carrier, Taylor, her Captain explained patiently. We might be smaller than a modern nuclear carrier, but we're Hornet. Same class as Big Sis E. We'll still have one hell of an appetite.
"Oh."
Taylor stared at the approaching lights of the village, feeling mildly concerned.
"Whatever it is you came here for," she murmured, "I hope it's worth it."
And there we have it, chapter one! Featuring Taylor, System!Taylor, and ship shenanigans. Involving actual ships, and not relationships, though. Sorry.
She supposed it was fair. She, too, had fretted when she had to come to terms with her new reality. She'd gone under, after telling Amy Lavere to modify her Corona when they'd run out of options, and woken up... elsewhere. In a strange new reality. A mindscape. Discovering that she was like a character from a book.
In a way, she was glad.
Someone else might think that a strange thing to feel, but for her? She found out that there was in fact a reason.
Granted, that reason was "to deconstruct a bunch of superhero tropes in a vaguely depressing and grimdark manner", and she wasn't very happy about that one. Still, being in a system was far better than... all of that.
Our Taylor was introjected more or less moments before Khepri, and then discovered that she was fictional. She took it kind of oddly well, actually...
🕸️ I'm not a particular fan of John McCrae, if that's what you're asking. But I don't mind the general idea. -Taylor
Pardon my asking a (presumably) stupid question, but what's a System Insert? Is it like a self insert but using a major system of another IP's world building? Or is it meant as part of the title and not necessarily a description of a storytelling trope?
I'm excited to see where this story goes! Just starting from what's there, it seems like quite the novel take on a Worm fic.
Pardon my asking a (presumably) stupid question, but what's a System Insert? Is it like a self insert but using a major system of another IP's world building?
I suppose it was a matter of time before someone asked this. "System", in this context, means "plural system" - the condition of housing several souls, or consciousnesses, in a single body.
Oh, okay. So it's a system insert because the characters being inserted are systems, being more than one self in a single body: Taylor is two versions of herself and USS Hornet. Makes sense, definitely interesting.
The little Taylor who is from an alternate world, somehow knows she is a fictional character, is somehow fine with it, and time-traveled to possibly body-snatch her past self doesn't really appeal to me. I would've understood if she was a fairy that is an alter-ego or something like Katarina Claes' (Reincarnated as a Villainess) 'council' of multiple personalities. Sorry but the time-travel, alternate world, fourth wall break (I think it counts as that) made it complicated for me especially if the shipgirl part is the focus.
Other than that part, I would have been completely fine with it being a Shipgirl!Taylor fic.
Oh, okay. So it's a system insert because the characters being inserted are systems, being more than one self in a single body: Taylor is two versions of herself and USS Hornet. Makes sense, definitely interesting.
The little Taylor who is from an alternate world, somehow knows she is a fictional character, is somehow fine with it, and time-traveled to possibly body-snatch her past self doesn't really appeal to me. I would've understood if she was a fairy that is an alter-ego or something like Katarina Claes' (Reincarnated as a Villainess) 'council' of multiple personalities. Sorry but the time-travel, alternate world, fourth wall break (I think it counts as that) made it complicated for me especially if the shipgirl part is the focus.
Other than that part, I would have been completely fine with it being a Shipgirl!Taylor fic.
Taylor is a system, yes. Here, at the very least. But it's called a System Insert because they're from my system.
Specifically, my shipgirls as they were when I started writing. It was exactly ten back then. There's more now...
Anyway.
Taylor is Canon Taylor, more or less. She remembers everything up to Khepri, because that's the cut-off my brain arbitrarily decided she stopped being Taylor, I don't control how the introjection works. She knows she's fictional, because she's been in our head since... what was it, last April? Thereabouts.
She's here with the local Taylor rather than taking her over because, well, in her words...
Taylor said:
I wanted to see Dad again. I... didn't want him to hate me again, for effectively killing his daughter, so... I chose to work together with her. Instead of the other option.
On a related tangent, Katarina Claes' Council is also a variant on a system, specifically a median system- all of her aspects are made out of herself. We're a slightly different system, because we pick up identities from various fictional people we feel we connect with.
...anyway.
Anyway, there was no fourth wall break, that was just Taylor musing on her origins as the by now former protagonist of Worm.
...the "Hornet" part is new, by the way. People in our system have been awakening as sort of "natural-born shipgirls" for the last couple of months, gaining some new histories and spiritual weight as the ships they fit come into the fore...
Cinder: Okay. No main story update, because Misato says she's tripping over her metaphors, buuuuuuut... There's a sidestory now. Basically, Blake and I were having an argument, I lost a bet, and now I'm writing a side-adventure.
....Because the fleet was only ten strong when this story started being written, and now it's fifteen strong. And, basically? All of us who were originally from Remnant get to go back there. As ships. Here, a first chapter.
I
Sink with me....
Deep in the dungeons of Evernight Castle, a single silver eye snapped open.
Teeth were bared and sweat glistened on her skin as the owner of the eye struggled in their bonds of sticky Grimm liquid.
"No..." They whispered. "I... I refuse... no matter what you do to me... I refuse to..."
There's fight in you...
Good...
The Grimm liquid warped and rippled, twisting and writhing under... something... a force, unknown control. The silver-eyed person braced for what was clearly another bout of... torture.
Oh, you misunderstood...
The whisper sounded... pitying?
But I suppose I shouldn't fault you.
The Grimm liquid shuddered.
Allow me to show you.
The bonds withdrew, dropping the broken warrior to the floor. Only the dark liquid on their skin remained, pooling together.
In fact, the liquid on the floor pooled as well. Streams of darkness seeped out of the floor, adding to the writhing, almost glowing puddle.
But first... sink. Sink! Under the surface, into the burning shadows... Sink with me! To the embrace of the Abyss...
The liquid surged.
SINK WITH ME, SUMMER ROSE!
~~~
Darkness.
Silence. And within, light. Flecks of bioluminescence, drifting lazily around her, but in strict formation.
No... not formation.
Single dots of faintly glowing light, but on something enormous... and alive.
Swimming around her.
Strange, she'd have expected more pain from being consumed by the Pools of Darkness..
These aren't the Pools of Darkness.
The voice was quiet, but echoing, as if spoken by an evil robot from a Saturday Morning cartoon show. Who was also underwater.
Why wasn't she drowning, again?
Would a fish drown in water?
No, of course not.
Would a submarine?
...what?
"What is this place?" she asked, before pausing. Her voice was... different. Echoing, just like the other voice.
The Abyss.
The bioluminescence of the enormous creature appeared again, from under her. Summer suddenly realised that this was what was talking to her.
The deepest bottom of the ocean, where lay the wrecks of the ships who couldn't measure up. The Abyssals. The grudges. Us.
The bioluminescence became floodlights, and Summer wasn't staring at an enormous creature. She was looking at an enormous underwater ship, shaped like a teardrop or perhaps a cigar, but made of a black metal. Looming ahead of her.
Ships with scores to settle, be it with their builders, crews, or nations, or something else entirely.
Metal groaned as the ship twisted to look at her, once again moving like a creature of some sort.
You and I share a spirit, Summer Rose. The Abyss is giving us the tools to strike back.
A whale, Summer realized as the ship-creature's bioluminescence flared again, taking the shape of a pair of enormous eyes, flaring blue.
Let us USE those tools.
The beast quite literally cracked a grin, smiling with almost human teeth.
We are Arkhangelsk now. Let us have our REVENGE.
And Summer looked at this beast in front of her, feeling its name resonating on her soul, and nodded resolutely.
Then, AWAKEN.
~~~
"They see you small and helpless, they see you just a child, surprised they find out that a warrior will soon run wild-"
Whatcha listening to?
Somehow, Ruby heard the voice through the music, but her dad sure didn't raise her to be impolite!
"It's 'This Will Be the Day, it's a really good song," she said, turning off her headphones and turning around to talk to...
Nobody?
Only Mr. Shopkeep turned to look at her quizzically.
What?
Oh, cool, the apparently invisible voice said. We never really got much music back in the Tribe, I like this song.
Quickly, Ruby waved the shopkeeper off and turned back around. "Are you... in my head?" she whispered.
Yeah, kind of, the voice agreed. My name is Ruby Branwen, what's yours?
"I'm Ruby Rose," Ruby whispered back. "Are you related to my Uncle Qrow? He's a Branwen!" Was the voice from a long-lost relative with a Semblance that let them communicate with family from far away? That was so cool!
I think he's my uncle too, the voice, er, the other Ruby answered, hesitantly. But Mama doesn't talk about her brother much...
Brother? Oh! Wow... "I think you're my half-sister!" Ruby whispered excitedly. "Or maybe a cousin! Is your Mama's name Raven? My sister's mother's name is also Raven!"
Yeah! the other Ruby agreed. Wait, no, I remember now. I think you're my alternate universe counterpart! Did your other mom have silver eyes too?
Alternate... universe... counterpart? Holy crap that was so cool! Just like in the comics! "She did!" Ruby agreed, vibrating with excitement and forgetting to whisper. "Hey, what's your-"
"Hey!"
Ruby turned around. There, by the counter, were several identically-dressed men with guns, shovelling Dust into their bags, and someone who looked like he was their boss. Ruby blinked.
"Are you... robbing this place?"
"What do you think?" one of the mooks sneered.
Ruby grinned.
~~~
The last mook slammed into the wall, groaning. Ruby slammed the point of Crescent Rose, her scythe, into the street, barrel pointing towards the man just in case.
Shouldn't you have focused on the boss first? the other Ruby asked. Rule one of gang warfare, take care of the biggest threat first!
"Well when the mooks come at you first you don't get to ignore them, do you?" Ruby whispered furiously back. "Or... what?"
...Oh right. Forgot.
"Well, well, well," the boss drawled, sauntering out of the shop with a jaunty tilt on his hat. "If it isn't Little Red Fighting Hood, eh? Piece of advice, kid, stay out of business that doesn't concern you, yeah?"
Shit, I think he's a Spider, the other Ruby contributed. Jacko-something? Look, he's dangerous - can I fight him instead?
What could she do that Ruby already couldn't, Ruby wondered, before focusing on a more pressing issue. "Uh, how?"
Here, let me just-
There was a brief moment of disorientation, and suddenly Ruby was in the backseat of her own body... which, she suddenly realised, was dressed differently.
"Oh, what are you gonna do," the bad guy snarked, "change clothes at me?"
He raised his cane, a sight popping out from under it.
Other!Ruby grinned. "Nope!"
An almost imperceptible whine became a deafening roar as she moved, cracking the street as she launched off.
The Jacko-guy yelped, shooting what looked like a Fire Dust firework at her, only for Other!Ruby to just barrel through it and slash at him with a short, slightly curved mechashift sword-
"That's... not Crescent Rose!" Ruby exclaimed.
It's Blood Rose, Other!Ruby's voice replied even as the Jacko-guy blocked the sword with his cane. Don't get me wrong it's really really cool that you have a scythe but I never learned one so I'm using my baby instead!
So cool...
"Hey while you fight can I analyse you?" Ruby asked, not even bothering to keep excitement out of her tone.
Sure! Other!Ruby chirped, pushing off from Jacko-guy's cane and landing low on the ground. She tensed in preparation.
Jacko-guy growled. "I've had just about enough of you, Little Red, so if you would kindly scram I'd be very grateful!"
A Bullhead rounded the corner. Jacko-guy smiled a very unpleasant smile. "And that would be my backup."
"Oh, poo," Ruby said quietly. Her counterpart just grinned widely and gripped her weapon.
~~~
Cinder Fall swore explosively as she yanked the stick to the right, narrowly avoiding another massive explosion. Picking up an associate should not have ended with facing a clearly insane slip of a girl carrying anti-air missiles!
Actually, commented a little voice in her head, It's worse than that. Those are anti-SHIP missiles. Probably Moskits.
"I don't have time for this commentary!" she snarled. "I'm trying to- oh forget it and just shut up!"
She yanked the stick again, and the Bullhead lurched- straight into the path of another missile.
Time slowed to a crawl as Cinder stared death in the eye. Something was itching at her skull.
A heartbeat.
Another.
-there was a burst of staccato noise and the Bullhead's windscreen shattered outwards, the missile exploding before it hit the ship.
Cinder realised that she had an arm almost protectively in front of her. She didn't remember raising it.
Her back itched.
We need to tell her that we're on her side, the little voice commented idly.
"Like hell," Cinder snarled. "We're-"
Supposed to be free, the voice, sounding so much like her own, murmured. Salem isn't giving us that freedom.
"I'm not having this conversation," Cinder snarled at herself. "In fact-"
She was jarred out of the train of thought by the deafening sound of the Bullhead's engines scraping against the ground; it had drifted too low.
"Now look at what you've done!" Cinder growled, tugging the craft upwards. It failed to respond.
Saved your life from the missile? Of course we were blasted out of the sky, but at least we're alive.
Cinder paused. Something about that...
"Uh. Dastardly villain!"
She blinked at the loud exclamation from what sounded like a cheap megaphone. What?
"Come out of the Bullhead with your hands in the air, and I won't shoot you again! Resist and I'll be forced to destroy you!"
"...that's the crazy girl with the missiles isn't she?" Cinder questioned.
Yuuup, the voice replied. Hey, can I use your body? I'll, shall we say, give her our reply.
"...You're actually here," Cinder realized.
"Uh, are you injured in there? Because I can still totally shoot, I just don't wanna warcrime you..."
Yeah, I am. Sorry about the pretending to be your conscience thing, you were just running with the concept so I returned the favour...
"Do that again and I'll melt the flesh from your bones," Cinder snarled. She wasn't quite sure how to go about doing that to a disembodied voice, but she sure as hell was going to give it her best.
"I'm firing a warning shot! If you're still alive then indicate it please!"
There was an explosion above the downed Bullhead.
C'mon. She can definitely fuck us up right now, at squishy human levels. Let me deploy our rigging. Show them what the Black Dragon is made of.
"What the hell is the Black Dragon?" Cinder questioned with a rising sense of irritation. "Start making sense already!"
We have the soul of a battleship now. USS New Jersey, BB-62. The Big J to our allies. The Black Dragon to our enemies.
"What happened to being on her side?" Cinder snarked.
"I'm giving you a count of ten! Nine! Eight! Seven..."
Now, she must be shown that she does not want us as an enemy.
"Six! Five! Four..."
Cinder hissed. "Fine! But I better not regret this!"
Of course.
"Three! Two!"
Battleship New Jersey, weigh anchor!
"One!"
The Bullhead exploded with a tremendous force.
Cinder: So... yes. Ruby's a shipgirl now. And so am I. Ruby's the Lun-class ekranoplan, and oh yes, our Ruby is from an AU only she knows. Just. As a warning. You readers do read these notes, right?
Huh. This is interesting. Not our favorite set of fandoms, generally speaking, but we're more than happy to give it a read just for the plural rep. I think this is the first selves-insert we've seen.
Just thought I'd leave a link to the SV plural thread here, because we don't think we've seen you& there and because folks reading this without adequate context might benefit from a place to ask questions outside the scope of the story.
Also, we try not to be weird about anyone's source, but we have in the past wondered how a sufficiently source-accurate Taylor fictive would react to ending up in our world. Yours is the first we have heard of.
The small town of Laura, located in the Majuro Atoll, bore witness to a very strange set of events.
First, a warship appeared.
From the cover of the night, it emerged, eerie and ghostlike. Water around it was still, disconcertingly so. It made no sound as it glided through the complete lack of waves, its bridge dark and empty. It ran aground by Laura Beach by the early hours of the morning.
Second, it became a woman.
A small group of people had started gathering at the beach as the sun rose, gaping at the new and surprising addition to the local beachfront. Almost as if reacting to the gathering crowd - almost, but not quite - the warship suddenly became lensed in a way nobody could quite describe afterwards. It shrunk, parts moving and reshaping, until suddenly, somehow on top of the water, stood a woman.
She was Japanese, and had dark hair, not black but a deep purple, and wore a red leather jacket. The ship parts were connected to her, with four turrets placed on metal approximations of her hull, themselves connecting to something resembling a backpack. Rudders attached to high-heeled boots, an armored belt with anchors dangling from it, and metal spikes extending backwards from her hair, not dissimilar to horns.
She walked out of the water, stepping onto the beach as the shocked crowd rapidly got out of the way, and then asked, in clear Japanese, "Excuse me. Does anyone know where I can find a store?"
Needless to say, things got even stranger after that.
>>>
Walking along the road, taking care not to splinter the pavement with just her steps, Misato was lost in her thoughts. She was followed by a throng of people, chattering in... Marshallese, she thought it was called? She didn't speak it. Much. She absolutely could say "hey, where can I get a beer around here?" in twenty-five different languages, but... she honestly didn't drink that much anymore. She'd graduated to non-alcoholic beers.
...that was a tangent. She didn't need beer, she needed steel and oil. Barring that, enough food to fill her stocks, and let her internal magic get to work.
Granted, she wasn't quite sure if she needed it. She had come all this way with her ship-self's, pardon the turn of phrase, rusted corpse, after all. But on the other hand... She did crave the beer. And it was always wise to have a backup plan.
And so she walked on.
Straight down the road, and to a gas station. At last! Progress!
...On another topic... She finally figured out what language the people were chattering in, and at least half of that was just English. Whoops. Americans did occupy those parts in the War in the end, didn't they....
>>>
As she walked into the tiny gas station, the first thing she noticed was an admittedly small selection of items. The second thing was that a lot of the signs were in English. Well, most of the signs. All of them. Privately, Misato felt a little bit ashamed for assuming.
She went to the attendant, whose nametag marked him as Clarence, and leaned on the counter.
...and subsequently stopped leaning on it when it cracked ominously.
"So," she ventured, in English this time. "Do you happen to have any boat fuel around here?"
The attendant stared at her. "You da ship who walked outta de sea earlier?"
Misato blinked. "You're remarkably unconcerned."
The man, teen really, Clarence, waved a hand dismissively. "Dis Majuro, babe. We gets our own capes here, you ain't even da weirdest ding walked outta de sea lately, you get me?"
Misato eyed him. "Suuuure. Have any boat fuel around?"
Clarence eyed her back. "Shore, but ya cant really run on gas, can ya? Whats your poison, diesel?"
Misato gave him a flat look. "Oil. Coal if you have any."
The young man snorted. "Yea we ain't got dat. Diesel or gas, dats it."
Misato sighed. "The alternative is... enough food to feed the crew. I don't think you have that, either...."
The attendant hummed. "Yo ain't got any money either, do ya? Tell ya what. I'll give ya coupla crates of army rations, maybe even a beer, and I can direct ya to dis junkyard I know, how bout dat?"
"....What, out of the goodness of your heart?"
The man shrugged. "Figger you're down on ya luck, so basically. Why?"
"No such thing as a free lunch," Misato deadpanned.
Clarence fell silent and gave her a long, long look, suddenly seeming much older. "You's a good person. I jus' see someone in ova her 'ead, ya know?"
Just as suddenly, however, the look passed. "Just point one ov dese cannons at me and I'll say to da boss I got robbed, ya know?"
Misato repeated her flat look. "Robbing at naval gunpoint is overkill."
Clarence just shrugged. "Wat dey dunno won't hurt dem, I say."
Rolling her eyes, Misato let her turrets track. "Your food or your, uh, neighborhood, I guess," she drawled.
The teenager paused. "Okay yea dats overkill fo shore." He ducked behind the counter, emerging moments later with a wooden crate. "'Ere."
"...You had a box of old army rations just waiting under the counter of a gas station?" Misato demanded. "Who even buys them?"
Clarence shrugged with one shoulder, putting the crate down on the counter. "Got da 'mysterious shopkeeper' bizness from ma uncle John," he replied blithely. "So naw, ain't got any explanation left fo' ya."
Just in case, Misato kept her secondaries pointed at the by now slightly creepy kid, even as she packed the rations into her hold and backed out of the gas station.
Just in case.
>>>
Six hours later, Nagato was steaming through the ocean. Her funnel was belching thick, black smoke and her screws churned through the waves, but it was all just a little bit too smooth.
The waves were just a little too uniform. Too rigid.
The unnatural stillness that had followed the ship since she rose from the depths of Bikini had followed her.
But even as the dreadnought Nagato ghosted through the waves, on her bridge, her Soul was consumed with worry.
Misato Katsuragi. Soul of the Nagato. The power of the Big Seven.
A strategist from a far-off reality.
She missed her companions.
She'd heard the Call, earlier. The Call of the Deep Princess, Summer in a more casual setting.
Misato knew she wasn't alone here, but she missed the comforting presence of the system. "Just keep going," she whispered. "You'll see them again. Bet on it.
