Ugh… I probably should have had this one posted a week or so back, but the chapter I was working on was a pain in my rear. Anyway, we're getting through to the end of the first arc of the story, there's around six more chapters planned before the girls move into the next part of their training, some of which will be revealing things to the characters that you might already have figured out, others just giving them a chance to do things they're supposed to, and possibly bringing in a few characters that might show a few times. KC is large, KC with other things just expands, a lot, even when trying to focus on a certain group there's a number of things and people they'll encounter.

Speaking of, and not planned to be in the story, but for those that do know the series, how do you think a British 'muggleborn' from Winds (who grew up knowing about the supernatural/paranormal and having to maintain a level of both fitness and defence skills) would react to each of the DADA professors in the canon Harry Potter series? That can be from under one of three circumstances:

1) The HP universe was separate, until 2000, but something happened and the barrier collapsed causing the HP Wizarding world to drop into Winds Britain and manage to not get themselves piled on through stupidity.

2) The HP Wizarding World exists in Winds, but the British play along with their belief that everything is still as it was a century ago, mostly. SPECTRE still steps on the more stupid ones (Riddle/Voldemort).

3) The HP Wizarding World exists in Winds, and during the shake up of the 1920s, was re-integrated with non-magical Britain, including things like the Aurors disolving into SPECTRE, the Ministry for Magic being an actual department of the government and Hogwarts being brought into line with the majority of schools.


Chapter 14: Sunken Knowledge

Frowning slightly, Mariette looked around the walls of her new history classroom. Most of them were covered by posters or newspapers from years gone by, wrapped around like a very truncated timeline of the 20th century.

Quite a few of them were ones she had seen before, posters for the Space Race, Sputnik, IBM, Microsoft and others. Other posters she wasn't so familiar with like the one with a picture of a large set of towers seen over a grassy field that proclaimed 'Ham's Hall: the world's most powerful fusion plant, generating 24GW, opening 1928.'

Mariette shook her head. In a time when most power plants were running low megawatts, Britain was opening one in the low gigawatts.

"Only uses something like six tons of fuel a year as well," a voice said from behind her, making her startle and spin around to face the threat. "Ah, sorry, didn't mean to startle you there," the black haired boy said. "I'm Ted Wilson; you're one of the new girls hanging out with the Jones twins, right?" he asked, offering a hand.

"That's right, Mariette Soyer, visiting from France," Mariette replied, taking the offered hand.

Ted nodded. "Good to meet you then, Mariette," he said before turning serious. "Word of advice though, keep an eye on the Jones twins, they tend to pick out trouble faster than most. Saved the school about four years ago, and honestly, if you're with them, you're probably safer than anyone else, though they don't have as many friends as you'd think."

"They do seem to know their ways around trouble," Mariette commented. Frowning slightly, she glanced back at the poster. "You mentioned something about the power plant earlier, Ted?"

Ted nodded. "That's right, while I won't call myself a scientist; I remember one of my text books saying that on average a fusion plant needs about one ton of fuel per 4GW for every year," he explained. "That's compared to a coal plant that takes 10.8 million tons for the same output."

Mariette blinked a few times while processing that before slapping her forehead, "Fils de pute! Je suis un idiot!" she muttered.

"Pardon?" asked Ted, eyebrows raised.

Sighing, Mariette shook her head. "It's nothing, just remembered an essay I had to do while I was at school in France," she responded, remembering what she had been told about the incident at Brest Arsenal. "One of the things that came up was that most British ships didn't seem to refuel and had tiny fuel bunkers for the size of their engines. I should have remembered Britain started nuclear fusion, though I didn't think they used it that early."

"Oh no, Ham's Hall was just the biggest of its time, we've had fusion plants since around 1920," Ted replied.

Mariette stared at him in silence for several moments. "So… how did nobody else in Europe learn of this?" she asked finally.

Ted shrugged. "No idea, I know a lot of it was kept on the down low, but I don't know how they kept word from getting into Europe or maybe they just played things up so people thought they were fake."

Sighing, Mariette turned, scanning the posters on the wall again before spotting what looked like a blown up newspaper cartoon.

Frowning slightly, she studied the design. It was a simple, two by two panel cartoon, inked in black and white.

The top left panel contained a group of people surrounding a person on a throne, claiming they had sunk the infamous Enterprise while the panel next to it contained what was probably an artist's idea of shipgirls. Multiple women in Japanese clothing screaming as they ran from a sheet covered woman surrounded by planes.

Below the first panel was a similar scene, with an obvious caricature of Hitler on the throne, though this time though, the others in the scene were crying that they couldn't sink Enterprise or she was unsinkable. The last panel, like the one above, showed 'shipgirls', but this time most of the women were in German navy outfits and running from an armoured woman with twelve massive guns around her, an axe held in one hand, standing tall even though her armour was rent and torn.

Underneath, someone had scrawled 'do not fuck with Enterprise!'

Mariette snorted softly, shaking her head as the teacher arrived and called them to their seats. Given what she knew about the three British shipgirls, she could see their Enterprise being as badass as her American counterpart… if not more so.


Groaning softly, the brunette's eyes flickered open. Looking up, she could only see a white ceiling. Shifting slightly, she blinked, feeling liquid slosh around her body. What happened? The last she remembered… somebody whose face she couldn't recall calling her away from the arcade to the deck of the ship, getting there, then pain.

She bolted upright, patting herself down as she hyperventilated in panic. Moments later, she blinked, finding a normal bikini bottom covering her along with a string top, though not a particularly lewd one. That paled in comparison to the other things she found, which was clean, uninjured skin, no matter where she reached or felt.

Why was she uninjured?

Why was she wearing beach clothes, even if the top was more revealing than normal?

Why was she in some sort of bath part filled with liquid?

Looking down, she cupped her hands in the liquid, bringing some up to look at.

"I wouldn't drink that if I were you," a voice startled her into dropping the liquid. "It probably won't do you any good drunk, even if it is good for accelerating healing."

The brunette woman that came over made her blink at the navy uniform she was wearing. "Uh… I'm sorry?" the girl said.

The woman shook her head. "Not your fault, since you wouldn't know what it is," she said, crouching down. "I'm Angela Kilburn or HMNB Devonport, the base that is," Angela introduced herself. "And since everyone else woke up last night, you're Anna Howell, correct?"

Anna nodded. "That's right," she answered. "What… what happened?" she asked.

"What do you remember?" Angela asked in return.

"I…" trailing off, Anna frowned. "We were on a ferry, the Armour or something, after dinner, my parents returned to the cabin we had for the trip, I went to the arcade," she said, biting her lip. "At some point someone – I think he was a crewman, or he looked like one anyway – came and asked me to come to the deck. I don't remember why." She frowned, shifting uncomfortably. "He led me to a corner of the deck and… and stabbed me. I-I should be dead."

Angela nodded slowly, taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly. "You're not wrong, and there's no easy way to say this, but it's possible you did die, not long after, whoever your assailant was, they threw you overboard."

Anna shivered, blinking. "Then how-how am I alive?"

"Because in attempting to kill you, he woke something else," Angela replied. "You know of shipgirls?" Getting a nod, she met Anna's worried gaze. "You are a shipgirl, a British submarine, though we're not entirely sure which group yet. That's the good news," she said softly.

"And the bad?" asked Anna, wondering just how bad that would be.

Angela shook her head. "While you Awoke as a submarine girl, which saved your life both in keeping you from drowning and healing you enough to survive the wounds, when your ship reached port, several of the shipgirls you'll be working with boarded it." She swallowed. "I'm sorry to say that whoever attacked you also attacked your parents. They… were likely dead before you were attacked."

An icy boulder dropped into her stomach, making her gasp.

Her parents… gone…

Blinking, at the stinging burn developing in her eyes, she looked at Angela. "Do-do they know… who did it?" she asked, her voice shaking.

"They're still looking for clues," Angela admitted, shaking her head sadly. "You'll likely be interviewed by someone about it and about any possible enemies your parents might have had."

"Oh…" whispered Anna. "W-what's going to happen to-to me now?"

Reaching over, Angela placed a comforting hand on the girl's shoulder. "For now, you should probably rest, make sure that your wounds finish healing," she said. "After that, Commander Glenn will probably want a word with you about what happened, and about making sure you get to talk to people about this." She paused, frowning slightly. "I can tell you, you're not going into an orphanage, you'll be living with the rest of us shipgirls and learning how to use your new abilities."

"Rest of us?" asked Anna, looking up.

"The Commander, myself, Susan Wright, Christine Descombes, Sally and Megan Jones, Robyn Stevens, Mariette Soyer, Nikita Vernier, Liliane Robineau, Colette LaRue, Sonia Mallette, Katia Hachette, Jennifer Brian, Ilona Delon, Fiona Siegel and Nelle Ross," replied Angela, listing off the rather large group.

Anna sagged, closing her eyes in relief. At least it wasn't going to be all strangers that she was living with, even then though… it was just a cherry on top of a god-awful day.


"You have fusion plants," Mariette said flatly, causing blinks from both Sally and Robyn.

"They what?" asked Nelle, leaning forwards slightly from where she was sitting under a tree, the shipgirls having managed to gather for lunch in the playground rather than inside. "What do you mean?"

Mariette gave the German a curious look. "They have fusion plants for power," she expanded. "I saw a poster in the history classroom I was in; Britain opened Ham's Hall in 1928."

"So… what?" asked Nelle. "I mean yeah, a 24 MW coal plant was pretty big back in 1928 but…" she trailed off, seeing the look on Mariette's face, the other girl shaking her head slowly. "It wasn't a coal power plant was it?" asked Nelle.

Mariette shook her head. "Try a twenty-four gigawatt fusion plant, and apparently they'd been using them since about two years after the Great War," she replied, causing the other girls to gape at her apart from the Brits. "From what one of the boys in class said, it only needs six tons of fuel a year and Robyn found that she has a bit over that, which fuelled her for her entire service period. One ton for four gigawatts, meaning a quarter of a ton per gigawatt…"

"And we ran for fifty years off six tons, so one-point-two a decade, or zero-point-one-two per year," Sally muttered, running the numbers in her head. "Presuming metric tons, that's around a hundred and twenty kilograms, so we're running about four to five hundred megawatts." Her eyes narrowed slightly as she bit her lip. "Given most of our sensors that we've found are around two hundred miles range and our communications can reach ten thousand miles, we're power hogs, but super fuel efficient."

The other girls shared a look at that. "She says that, but eats more than we do," Colette muttered, shaking her head.

Megan snorted softly. "That's actually us as humans," she responded. "Four hours or more of training, plus PE and random pickup games tends to do that to your metabolism."

"I'd say you're insane… but I kind of remember Bulldog doing lots of training with Beagle and the others of their group," Nelle said, frowning. "I don't remember our Admiral really doing any training beyond being a submarine and that was mostly from the older girls," she continued, Fiona nodding along with her.

Nikita shook her head. "Mariette's the most trained of us, which… well, you saw how well that worked out."

"Even trained, there are things that beat us," Megan pointed out. "In terms of knowing what to do and how to do things, Sally and I are probably about the same as people that have been in the TA for a decade. But for raw abilities… well, even with our weird family tree, we're still teenaged girls, most grown men can out muscle and outlast us on a similar or even lesser regime, or they could before we Awoke." She shrugged, frowning slightly. "Even then, once Susan and Angela get up to speed, they can out muscle and out last Sally and Robyn in a straight fight, if there's any guys that are equivalent… they'll be beaten in that area. Heck, a good number of rhyfelwr can readily beat me just on physical abilities."

There was a minute of silence as each of the foreign girls digested that, but before any of them could comment on it, Lyrene faded into view, startling several of the group. "Anna's awake," the girl said. "She's… dealing with things right now, probably so she can get all the talking to authorities done. Your aunt is acting as her… council for now."

Both Megan and Sally closed their eyes, letting out a breath. "How bad is she likely to go?" Megan asked.

Lyrene shrugged. "She lost her parents, not missing like you two, but dead. You'll probably want to do the same thing tonight as last night, make sure she knows she's still got people that care for her, and expect to have sodden shoulders," she said before shaking her head sadly. "Girl's in a worse place than most."

Fiona grimaced, shaking her head, grey hair brushing over her shoulders. "I know how that goes, unfortunately," she muttered.

Nelle nodded slowly in response to her comment. "What is going on with her?" she asked.

"She's going to be joining us," Sally replied. "We know she's one of us and pretty much everyone here from France and Germany was put in this school in part to let us watch each other's backs," she pointed out, reminding them of the debrief the previous day, those that had been there.

Robyn frowned. "Speaking of, what are we going to be doing tonight?" she asked. "Well, I know it's going to be work or training, but is there anything set?"

Sally shrugged, leaning back slightly. "I've not heard anything, but if nothing else, presuming we're not told to take Anna out of there to give her some breathing room, we can probably do some martial arts or marksmanship, pretty much all of us will need both."

"I've got a different idea," Lyrene commented, drawing the girls' attention. "I'll have a few words with some people, including some of your father's workmates, Megan, Sally, and see if I can give you an overview of what supernatural beings should be here." She frowned, rubbing her chin. "Abyssals aside, there's not too many incidents that need putting down hard, but there are some that do need killing. I might need to see about talking to my counterparts in Brest and Roscoff to see if they know how these incidents occurred."

Megan nodded, cocking her head slightly at the sound of the school bell ringing. After listening for a moment to ensure it wasn't some type of alert, she got to her feet, dusting off her skirt. "We'll catch you later, Lyrene," she said. "Though, if you don't mind, could you pass on that we'll meet up with Anna later, and we'll be there for her if she needs us?"

Lyrene nodded. "Will do girls," she said, fading out as the rest joined Megan, heading back to the school.


Slumping into a seat after what had to be the twelfth time of going over her story, and finally dressed in one of the spare cadet uniforms, Anna groaned, rubbing her eyes.

As much as she understood why they were doing it, getting questioned repeatedly was tiring.

"Not comfortable enough to cry yet?" Lyrene asked as she faded in near Anna, making the girl jump slightly. "It shouldn't be too long before the others get here if you want your friends around you."

"Y-yeah," Anna responded. "I-I want to get this… o-out of the way…" she admitted softly. Reaching up, she rubbed at the inner corners of her eyes for a moment before shaking her head. "I hate this… it was bad enough with the attack on Dragon years back or the attack on the school, or the abyssal raid…" She clenched a hand into a fist, letting out a breath. "I-I just don't know what my family even did to-to be attacked," she sighed.

Shrugging helplessly, Lyrene hopped onto the arm of the chair and wrapped an arm around Anna's shoulders. "I wish I had something to tell you, but unless there's something your parents kept hidden… we're probably stuck waiting on finding the cowards that attacked you," she said softly.

Sighing, Anna leaned into the hug, nodding morosely. "They never said anything where I could hear them," she admitted. "Which I've told several people now," she sighed. "I don't know about anything else either, I mean yeah, I've been in situations before, but nothing specifically directed at me, more what I am as a student at Plymouth College or a Royal Navy cadet, or an inhabitant of Plymouth or whatever."

Patting her shoulder, Lyrene frowned, leaning back against the backrest of the chair carefully. To be fair, even accounting for her not being omniscient when it came to her territory, she just didn't know what might have caused this, and it worried her considering that it had to have been planned with the perpetrator not having been caught and not killing early on the trip. Biting the inside of her lip, she closed her eyes, Reaching for her Power briefly. It couldn't have been random, and it wasn't aimed at any of her Chosen… so why?

"Would you believe I almost want them to find something about my parents at this point?" asked Anna softly.

"For there to be a reason?"

Anna nodded, leaning into Lyrene's side.

Hugging the younger girl, Lyrene sighed softly. "I'll do what I can to help," she said. "You kids have all been through far too much that you shouldn't have."

"Thanks," Anna mumbled, shifting a little before closing her eyes, her head against Lyrene's shoulder.


WHOOM … CRACK … WHOOM … CRACK …

Sitting in the bleachers outside the school, Nelle watched the quartet below, on one side of the tennis net, Megan and Colette ran around, hair whipping in their own winds while they volleyed a shuttle cock back over the net at Sally and Robyn, who were equally mobile in sending it back.

A soft whistle drew Nelle's attention to the side where Mariette was sitting. "Maintenant, je vois ce que Megan voulait dire à propos d'eux mangeant tant d'êtres avant leur réveil," she muttered, eyes darting about as she tracked the shuttle from one side of the net to the other.

Shaking her head, Nelle sighed, "Mariette," she said, drawing the short-haired girl's attention, "sticking to English will probably help people," she pointed out. "Particularly as I don't know French well enough to follow a native in full flow yet."

"But you know English that well?" Mariette asked, turning to look at her.

Nelle rolled her eyes. "When two of the big superpowers use it for their everyday talks, it's pretty much a required language," she pointed out.

"Canada uses French, and parts of America use it and Spanish," Mariette pouted, puffing up her cheeks.

"Yes, but Britain is the leader, for good reason." Nelle shook her head, grey hair whipping around briefly before she turned to look at the girls below. "I… I actually wonder how much trouble Germany would have been in if they'd let loose fully."

Shrugging, Mariette leaned back in her spot. "I don't know," she admitted. "Considering those two alone?" she indicated Sally and Robyn on the court below. "If they had fusion, they probably could have just missile spammed Germany once Hitler started causing trouble, or sent a team in to snipe him before he got too far. I mean, Hiroshima and Nagasaki are pretty much the go-to examples of nuclear weapons on civilian targets and those were low level ones. If Britain could make power plants for ships that are half a gigawatt, or a civilian one capable of pumping out 24GW, high power missiles are probably not far away."

Nelle sighed, leaning back, listening to the steady rhythm of smacks from the match below. "I'm glad they didn't, but at the same time… maybe a few people in the right places would have saved a lot of trouble back then," she whispered. "That said… it was weird, floating near a British destroyer, knowing they had to know you were there, but were willing to let you be in spite of being enemies. Comforting too, more than being near the Zerst?rer-class," she admitted.

"You mentioned doing that last night," Mariette commented. "Was it that big a thing for you girls?"

Shrugging, Nelle shook her head. "No idea, just… would you believe one of the others remembers a story about a British ship sneaking into one of our ports, not being caught and doing something there?" she asked.

Mariette frowned slightly, shaking her head. "It sounds pretty fantastical to be honest."

Nelle shrugged again, looking up at the sky above them. "I don't know the whole story," she admitted, "but I heard the other German ships were staying away from the subs docked there and this British ship pretty much slid in among them. There was an attack that day, an air raid, not British and I don't think it was American either. The only part of the docks in decent shape after it was around that ship. After she left, one of the subs was following her because their routes intersected, and her crew mentioned that the ship seemed to ripple, her camouflage shifting, once they were out of range of the port. She disappeared into the mists after that."

"When was that?" Mariette asked.

"Back in World War One apparently," Nelle admitted. Frowning slightly, she tugged on her hair. "You know… I wonder if that was the ghost ship of the First World War," she muttered.

Mariette blinked a few times. "You mean the so-called 'Warrior'?" she asked, getting a nod. "There was a book I found on her that mentioned something about her fighting other ships that wrecked all others somehow, but after the war, she just vanished, not that she was well known before that."

Nodding, Nelle shifted slightly, looking down at the game. "I wonder if Warspite knows anything about her… they probably would have been contemporaries." She shifted again, frowning slightly at the sight of the four girls packing things up. "Looks like we're starting to move," she commented.

Nodding herself, Mariette rose and stretched with a grunt. "Good, hopefully we'll get to actually do something later; I'm getting a bit tired of just sitting around."


Taking her tray, Colette made her way around the mess hall to the table her friends were sitting at, putting it down with a sigh before sitting herself. Unlike yesterday, there seemed to be an undercurrent of anger pervading the room. "Anyone know what's with everyone else?"

"Anna is a cadet here," Nikita replied, picking at her chicken. "I get the feeling most of the sailors and marines are used to her and the Jones twins being around, that both the twins and Anna lost their parents (permanently for Anna) is probably a sore spot, particularly when it happened so close."

"It probably helps that she's finally getting to cry," Katia commented. "From what I've heard, she's been questioned by several groups already today and hasn't really cried." She shifted, shaking her head slowly. "I get the feeling the three of them aren't going to be joining us until we leave for the night."

Liliane frowned, pushing lilac hair out of her face. "What happened to her?"

Katia shifted slightly. "Someone, or probably something attacked her parents on the ship they were coming home on, killed them then attacked her and tossed her overboard. I'm not sure if she's lucky she's a shipgirl or unlucky given she's lost her family to this thing."

"Something?" asked Liliane.

"Claw marks on the walls of the cabin, plus a lot of blood…" Mariette replied. "I didn't get too close to the bodies, but they were pretty torn up and not the sort we'd cause. The place smelled as well, from something older than the bodies, but not old enough to stop smelling." She frowned, playing with her food for a moment. "Zombie level maybe?"

Chewing the inside of her cheek, Liliane frowned. "If it evaded the security and wasn't caught here… I'd think a werewolf or something similar."

"It's probably not a werewolf," Lyrene said, making the group jump as she appeared. "Born wolves wouldn't give the decay scent unless they'd been around death and corpses, and cursed ones can't choose when their transformations happen, plus even as humans a lot of cursed wolves show signs that'd likely catch the attentions of the local 'Spectre Patrol', particularly since Megan and Sally were attacked by a group a decade back."

Frowning, Nikita shifted slightly. "There's a story there, isn't there?"

Lyrene nodded soberly. "There is, but it's for Megan and Sally to tell." She looked around at the group. "When you're finished up, you've got a couple of hours with me in the conference room we used yesterday, after that you're going to be getting medicals." She gave those that had been most affected by the plant monster a steady look. "Commander Glenn wants to make sure you're physically over what happened at Brest. If you are, tomorrow will be physical training."

Mariette pumped a fist at that, grinning.

"You're also going to be visiting the local psychologist," Lyrene continued, drawing groans from the girls. "You're active military personnel who have been through a traumatic experience recently, completely ignoring what you fight," she pointed out flatly. "Believe me, getting someone to talk to about things helps. The reason the twins are functional is down to being able to work through traumas they've suffered." She looked around at the group. "I'll be there if you need me, and Lauren is willing to have you talk to her if you need it as well."

Colette raised a hand. "Does that include the others?"

Lyrene nodded. "Yes," she replied. "Even without the latest mess, they've reasons enough."

"Megan and Sally don't seem like they need to visit a councillor," Mariette commented, catching Robyn's attention as the blonde joined the table.

"They went before the Commander came here," Robyn said. "They've been going… probably weekly." She shrugged, frowning at her food. "I know part of it is the Battle of Plymouth… I've been going for that, but they take longer so I guess they've got other things as well."

Nodding, Lyrene shifted, cocking her head slightly. "If any of you ever visits their home, you may find out part of it. I can say that battle is not a good thing to be in love with and it isn't just the latest two fights or the werewolves that have had an effect on the twins." She looked around at them all. "Eat up girls, you've got a lot to do today, and remember Commander Glenn and I are both open to letting you talk about things."

With that, she nodded to them and turned away, leaving them to their thoughts and meals.


Watching the brunette as she made her way slowly from the office used by the on-base trauma counsellor, Megan's eyes narrowed slightly at the dejected way her friend stood, shoulders slumped, shuffling more than walking, her cadet uniform looking rumpled and unkempt. She hadn't seen Anna that bad since New Zealand, when they had all been hunting terrorists in a cyclone that threatened to kill them more readily than the terrorists would.

Getting to her feet, she moved to wrap an arm around her friend and fellow cadet, guiding her out of the office waiting area and to the recreation room they had taken over. Finding a seat on the couch, she pulled Anna in against her. "Did they say anything?" Megan asked gently.

"Mostly… to try to remember them as they were," Anna replied, leaning into Megan's side. "To-to grieve for them, but not to wallow in survivor's guilt, to talk to others and to write things down if there's something I can't say," she continued.

Megan nodded slowly. "Along with things like 'grief fades out enough that you're not always thinking about it over time' and such, huh?" she asked, getting a slightly nod. "Yeah, I kind of remember some of that from when gran and grandad died. We're here for you though, as much as you want us to be."

Anna nodded, sighing. "Yeah," she muttered, closing her eyes.

They stayed like that; Anna curled against Megan's side for several minutes in silence before Anna spoke up again. "Hey, Megan?" she started. "Who are the new girls? The ones helping the Commander and the foreigners," she expanded.

Megan shifted slightly, looking down at Anna. "They're our colleagues," she replied softly. "Angela is to the base what you are to one of the submarines and Sally is to Zephyr, she got caught up in the mess when the city was attacked. Susan's from out of town, but she's basically Minotaur, one of our cruisers. It's the same deal, but she's pretty much my aunt's secretary for the foreseeable future. As for the others… they're mostly French shipgirls, with a couple of German submarine girls in the mix. All of them were involved in a mess over at Brest Arsenal, so they're assigned here for a bit."

"And I'll meet them?"

"They're living at Aunt Lauren's place, same as us," Megan replied, "you as well before you say anything. You're probably going to be in with me, Sally and Robyn; though it's possible the others will join us if they have nightmares themselves."

Anna shifted slightly against Megan's side. "So… sort of like last summer when we went to New Zealand and got stuck because of that cyclone and bunch of jack holes?" she asked, looking up at Megan.

Megan shrugged her unoccupied shoulder. "Somewhat, though more for comfort than warmth," she admitted.

Nodding slightly, Anna closed her eyes, leaning into Megan's warmth.


Frowning at the image projected onto the board in front of them, Liliane rubbed her chin slowly. "So the supernatural is real… my parents were adamant that it wasn't… that it was all make believe. I had to hide most of my books on it so they wouldn't take them and throw them away."

Katia nodded slightly. "We found out the hard way about one type… there's got to be others, myths have to come from somewhere."

"Oh there are," Lyrene commented from the head of the room where she had set up a laptop and connected it to the projector. "Right in this room there's two supernatural types, plus at least four additional 'part-bloods' in this department, much less the rest of the base."

Several of the girls blinked at that. "Uh… what do you mean?" asked Robyn.

Lyrene smirked at them. "Well, all of you count as supernatural because you're shipgirls. While you were human, at least presumably, you're all now something different," she pointed out. "Also, hi, I'm Lyrene Tamar, as in the River Tamar. It took me… oh… three to five millennia, I think, to regain a physical body after my father pretty much buried me in the spring at the source of the river. It took a hell of a lot longer to end up spreading my influence to pretty much be the West Country."

That caused everyone else in the room to look at her, jaws hanging open.

Lyrene cackled taking a moment to whip out a phone and take several pictures as the shipgirls processed that. Once they had recovered, she dropped the other bomb on them. "For the 'part-bloods'… well, Megan and Sally's mom is a fae, but their father's line isn't exactly 'pure human'. No idea what's in there, but they've at least got something, since I've seen Tomas over power a couple of vampires in a test of strength. Lauren brutalised abyssals, and she's responsible for making a pair of dragons vulnerable for the kids to kill." She shrugged at their looks, a smirk still on her face.

"The other one I know is part supernatural is Susan, she's part dryad, probably a few hundred to a thousand years back now, but that's why her hair is like it is." Lyrene shrugged, half sitting on a table. "If she had more dryad blood, she might have leaves in her hair or get some of Poison Ivy's or the Swamp Thing's tricks, but she's too far removed for it."

"So what are we learning?" Robyn asked, deciding that maybe they ought to get things back on track for the lesson.

Lyrene shifted slightly, looking around at the group. "For right now, an overview of what supernatural creatures should be around," she said. "Most mythology comes from past encounters, and while a number are not strictly within this world any longer, there are still those that are and some are more able to walk the paths of humanity than others.

"All of you know two types of supernatural being, as I've already said," she continued, looking around at them. "That is without the specific ones I just mentioned, anyone want to guess?"

There was silence for several minutes while the group thought about that one. "Us," Robyn said finally. "Us… and the abyssals…"

Lyrene nodded soberly. "Exactly, there's also another one most of you have encountered, even if you don't recall it very well."

"…The plant monster…" Mariette sighed, getting another nod from Lyrene.

"Exactly, and I've already outed myself," the blue-haired girl added. "Though I'm not completely sure where I stand these days, I've been a number of things over the millennia. The ones you're probably familiar with would be nymph, water spirit and genius loci, though there's likely other things I've been." She shrugged. "I think the ancient Brits or the Romans worshipped me as a goddess, but that was a long time ago," she added after a few moments' thought.

Shrugging it off, Lyrene pulled up a PowerPoint file on the laptop next to her, moving to a slide showing various pictures of humans, wolves and things in between. "We may as well start with the one Liliane suggested for what happened to Anna and her parents, werewolves.

"There are two basic categories, though multiple subspecies of the werewolf," she started. "The first is the born werewolf, the other is the cursed. Born werewolves, as the name suggests are those that have the abilities inbuilt. While they are more vulnerable to silver than most other metals, they're not deadly allergic to it; they are also healthier in general, if somewhat more temperamental than most humans."

Watching the group starting to make some notes, Lyrene continued talking about the similarities and differences between werewolves. She had two hours to fill; the girls would need to learn a number of things if they were going to be part of this team, however briefly.