English, was, alright, I suppose. In my previous life, writing was something I a bit of, completely at the hobbyist level, admittedly. While doing so certainly helped my grades in the class, I hadn't done much of it this time around. Not too different from my old school, either.

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The wonders of free time. Given this early in the day when there was hardly any homework to be done? What exactly were they thinking? At least I knew how to keep myself busy and out of trouble.

Mostly browsing through the limited school internet access. Honestly, I was more than tempted to just continue with Latin as was. I'd sunk a lot of time into it, and dropping it now for any reason just seemed wasteful. However, that option was not without flaws.

Major among them being my foreign language skills were, well. Positively awful. Part of the reason I took it was up until that point, Spanish had been the only choice open, and I was terrible on that front, too. The only foreign language classes I ever passed with any degree of grace were my college sign language courses. And that was still very much within the sphere of the English lexicon.

Sure, I had a grasp on sentence structure, and most of the prefix's and suffix's, with their respective genders, that dominated Latin written language by this point. It was the simple fact I had nobody to spot check me, to be frank. Especially given how our class didn't just read Latin. Our teacher wanted us to be able to speak it too.

Yeah, calling Latin a 'dead language in her presence was the equivalent of setting off a nuke. A straight-up real-life berserker button if ever I've seen one. Still a good teacher though. I wouldn't have gotten nearly as far without her help as I had. Maybe she'd still be willing to help me self-teach?

I'd have to put a pin in that one. Probably a long shot at the end of the day, but putting in the effort to at least reach out and find a solution would be worth it. Once I had an answer, I would be able to plan things out a whole lot better.

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Where exactly was I going to sit? This wasn't typically a question I'd have to ask myself. Usually, there were at least a few people in my friend group somewhere during lunch that I would hang out with. It was oftentimes just a matter of finding them. Or them finding me, in some cases.

Being in a new school made that considerably difficult. Anong was so far the only student I talked with for any length of time. As for everyone else? I hadn't exactly gone out of my way to talk to many people. Everyone seemed to be set up in their groups as was. But it wasn't like anyone was approaching me, either. Honestly, it felt like more than a few people were avoiding me. Maybe I was being paranoid? I didn't tend to put much stock in gossip, but being able to ignore it entirely? Sure, I'd only heard little snips and bits of information.

It was enough, however, and somewhat enlightening. I'd kind of hoped to fall into the background when it came to shipgirls. We Conneticuts didn't do a whole lot during our lives. Sure, there were some operations during the First World War and the lead-up to that, alongside the military actions in Mexico. But as warships? Ironically enough, what we were most known for was being part of the Great White Fleet.

Yes, that fell under Teddy 'speak softly and carry a big stick' Roosevelt, but that was, at the end of the day, a peacetime operation. But beyond that? The simple lack of reputation alone made me hope I could simply slip under the radar. Even with my disastrous appearance making national news, it'd die down, eventually. Holding the status of first returned Pre-Dreadnaught shouldn't be that much more of a reputation booster.

But that didn't seem to be happening. So much for that idea.

Or maybe I was being overly paranoid. That certainly was possible. But that didn't change the fact I needed a place to sit.

"Hey! New Girl!" a familiar voice rang out from nearly the other side of the cafeteria. I noted more than a few people nearby were clutching their ears against their skulls, speaking to the sheer volume of Anong's voice. Hey, she had to get it above the noise somehow.

Navigating my way through the throng of people, I finally made my way through to the table. One comprised entirely of girls, I briefly noted, though it would explain all the sparkling aura's around everyone there. Hulls. It was impossible to tell exactly which ship was who. There was a static there. A fog. Anong was a little better on that front, compared to this morning, where I hadn't been able to tell that she was a cruiser at all.

Except for one girl. She was tall, taller than I was, with most of her hair being a deep brown, past shoulder length. There were two pink streaks in her hair, coming down around her face. Dyed? Or was it natural? Given shipgirl hair colors, either could be the case. Her hull was clear as day, but beyond that? Four twin turrets were kind of an oddity among American battleships. The Colorado's spring to mind, first and foremost, but that was about it.

But that didn't feel entirely right. Just, something in my gut told me she wasn't a Colorado. Was it the pink hair? Yeah, that was probably it.

"Thank you, Anong," I smiled towards Anong. I was quite thankful, and I meant every single bit of it.

"No problem. After all, we shipgirls should stick together," Anong wiggled her eyebrows a bit, before letting out a hearty laugh.

"So, you must be Kathrine," one of the girls, managing to get her words in under Anong's cackling. She was quite a bit shorter compared to everyone else at the table, with blonde hair and green eyes. I'd almost describe the girl as a mouse.

I am. And may I ask for your name?" I asked, meeting her gaze. She cracked a small grin.

"Laura. I'm one of the Fletchers," which would explain her stature. Then again, I'd been pretty tiny myself before I woke up, so that probably wasn't all there was to it. "Nobody is sure exactly which one yet. There's still a dozen or so that have either been born naturally or simply haven't been summoned yet."

A dozen out of the nearly two hundred ships that comprised the class wasn't exactly what I'd consider bad numbers. But that was potentially a whole lot of extended family just popping up out the middle of nowhere if every single one of that unsummoned dozen had been reincarnated.

"As for everyone else," Laura stated, waving her hands to the person next to her, signaling them to take over.

"Jesica," said the girl with long black hair and almost ghostly skin. Her hair matched her dress, just as dark. I would almost describe her as goth. But she seemed to lack the makeup or piercings that most people would consider goth. "Not exactly sure what ship I am, to be honest. Nobody has recognized me yet, anyway."

"I'm sure someone will soon," I offered, trying to sound comforting. That kind of sucked, to be honest. One of kind ships weren't exactly unheard of. Many unbuilt ship classes ended up being one-offs, like Georgia, for example. But hopefully, that wasn't the case. Sadly, all Jesica did was roll her eyes, returning to her meal.

"Yeah, that's always been a bit of a sore spot for her," another girl whispered on my right, nearly causing me to jolt out of my seat.

"That's Amelia. She's one of the submarines," Laura let out a sigh, as Anong and Amellia high-fived each other, laughing. That would explain the whole stealth bit, though it did nothing to explain where she came from. I didn't have sonar, sure. But if she wasn't awakened in the first place, then how would she be that sneaking in the first place.

You know what? Probably not worth thinking about for too long. Based on hearsay, submarines were generally attention-seeking. How exactly tended to vary nation to nation, at least from what I've heard. Which, honestly, given how a lot of nations treated their submarine cores back during the war? Not entirely sure I could blame them for trying to get attention however they could.

Amelia was fairly short, too. Taller than Laura, though that wasn't saying much. She was the only one of us that was blonde, even it if was strawberry blonde, nearly a faint red. I paused, smelling the air. She wreaked of chlorine, as if she'd spent hours upon hours in a pool. Was she on the swim team or something? Because that honestly sounds like cheating. Even if she wasn't fully awake yet.

"Nice to meet you!" Amelia turned around, offering me her hand. Was it worth taking it? I didn't want to seem rude or anything, but the girl had already surprised me once. For all I knew, she could have one of those hand buzzers. The ones that shock you when you shake someone's hand? The ones the Joker used in those Batman cartoons? I think it was the Joker.

Slowly, carefully, making sure to not only keep my eyes on Amelia but also the others, keeping a careful watch on their facial expressions. If they knew how this was going to end up going, they certainly didn't show it. I wouldn't be playing poker with this lot, that's for damn sure.

Still, my hand inched forward, doing my best to make it abundantly clear that if this was, in fact, a trick? That I could easily, well, I wasn't entirely sure what I'd do. After all, it was probably only a prank at absolute worst, so physical harm was just excessive, and quite frankly, uncalled for. But I'd do something.

Finally, my hand clasped around hers, Amelia's grasp fairly strong despite her small hands.

"Nice," she grinned, before releasing my hand. "And that over there is the worst coincidence when it comes to human-to-ship names, even worse off than you, Connie!"

Amelia waved her hands in the air, seeming to take over instructions from Laura, much to the reborn destroyer's dismay.

"Hey! I was going to introduce her!" Laura barked out, as the destroyer and submarine began to bicker. Thankfully, I was between the two, so they couldn't get physical without alerting me to their antics.

Connie, which was the tallest girl, with pink highlights and brown hair. She was blushing, head turned away from the rest of the table. Still, that was a bit curious. Amelia said something about her name being a coincidence? One worse than mine?

Really? Was Kathrine to Kansas really that bad? Sure, the first two letters were the same, but that's about it. It certainly wasn't that close. Enough to give someone some crap about? Absolutely.

But I was getting sidetracked. There were a handful of ship names close to Connie. Constitution was one of the first to come to mind. However, her hull was completely wrong for that to be the case. Plus, Constitution being summoned in any capacity would make news. Her summoning was not something that could just be swept under the rug. If they were natural-born, there might be a case for that? But otherwise? Too massive of a face, historically speaking, for the navy to somehow hide her from the public.

The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

Of course, she'd likely never see combat at all. I was probably reaching the cusp of what the navy considered as worth upgrading, and even then, I was probably toeing the line just a bit. Then again, I heard a few rumor's about her hull managing to sink an Abyssal. I'm not entirely sure how that would be even possible. Even if it was some sort of unintentional ramming, I didn't how that would do any real damage. Constitution would have gotten off worse in that exchange, I'd imagine.

"Yeah, Connie here is a bit shy," Anong gently elbowed the blushing girl, only for the blush to grow even deeper, as Connie turned more of her head away.

"I, see," there was a pause. What else could I say? I could have been considered whatever the male equivalent to shy was in my previous life. But that was more of me not being the most talkative, not wanting to engage in the current topic, or me just reading. Connie was different. Blushy was a word that I didn't think could be used to describe someone, but here we are.

Which was odd, given how she likely had me pretty easily beat in terms of firepower. I mean, she was pretty clearly some type of battleship. Maybe an unbuilt battlecruiser? But besides the converted Lexington and Saratoga, did we have any of those? There was the rest of the class if I do remember correctly. Six ships in total, I think.

"So, which ship are you, if you don't mind me asking?" I turned my full gaze towards Connie, as she peeked at me from between her fingers. To see someone taller than me acting this meek was kind of unsettling.

"Constellation," I could barely make out her voice, nearly as faint as a breeze. There was a moment of pause, as everything began to slide into place. She was a Lexington class battlecruiser? Oh. Oh wow. That's big. That's very big.

Immediately repressing the urge to ask for, say, an autograph or something, which would be rude to ask for out of the middle of nowhere. Still, unlike Kathrine, Connie sounded as if it could be used as a nickname. Amelia was right, that was a dumb coincidence.

"Where your parent's seers or something?" I turned my head slightly. Naming a kid Connie who ended up being the reincarnation of Constellation? Sorry, but that was a bit much. Even for me.

"Yeah, what exactly do your parents do, anyway?" Laura turned towards Connie, crossing her arms, her argument with Amelia completely abandoned. "You've never exactly been too clear on what it is, exactly, that they do."

Everyone else at the table piped up at that as I winced. While I was in part joking, how was I supposed to know that it was going to cause this?

"Construction," was the only thing Connie said, before hiding her blushing face again. Anong let out a sigh, rubbing her head as Connie's answer didn't seem to be exactly satisfying to everyone else.

"I can tell you that my father certainly was!" Anong declared, putting her food on the table in a triumphant pose. "On the day I was born, he saw writing in the stars, telling how I had a grand destiny before me!"

I think everything else just came to a pause for a moment. Even a few people from other tables were looking at us. If her goal was to take the heat away from Connie, mission accomplished, I guess. Then there was a bonk, as a box of milk bounced off Anong's head, her eyes immediately going to the source, a very smug-looking Amelia.

"You sound like an anime protagonist right now, you know that, right?" Amelia's face split in a taunting grin, as I noted the considerable mismatch between the two. Even without considering the difference between them as ships, this was a mismatched fight if there ever was one.

"I dare you to say that too my face," Anong let out a growl that almost sounded feral. Both glared at one another, almost ready to start a fight. Nope. Not going to deal with this right now. Not on my first day.

"My mother works as a nurse," Anong and Amelia both paused, turning towards me. "My father works as a firefighter. My cousin and his wife, who I'm staying with, works down at the San Deigo Naval Base."

And if that didn't work, I could easily just stand between the two. It wasn't like there was anything they could reasonably do to stop me.

"Realy? That's a bit of a surprise!" Laura jumped in, seemingly to help defuse the situation even further. "My father is a navy man himself. He was quite surprised when he found out I was a shipgirl."

"My mother works fashion design. You may have heard of her. Or you may not," Jesica shrugged her shoulders as if she didn't care at all.

"I don't think so, Jesica. Kathrine seems more of a shirt and jeans kind of gal," Anong teased, earning an eye roll from the darkly dressed girl.

"It's not like your any different, Anong," Jesica shot back, but Anong gave a hearty laugh in response. "Kathrine might be better than you. She might have some degree of taste."

"Hey! I picked out the dress for my sister's wedding just fine, didn't I?" this time, it was Jesica's face that turned crimson, lighting up her pale skin.

"That dress was an affront to good taste, modesty, and basic sanity!" Jesica practically squawked, slamming both her hands against the table.

"What is this they're talking about?" I whispered to Laura, trying to be discrete as Anong laughed again.

"I'll show you it later. The picture is, well, not exactly something one should wave around on school grounds if you catch my meaning," Laura whispered back. Now, that was curious. How bad could it honestly be?

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What could I say about history that hasn't already been said? The American education system really needed to work out exactly how to teach history. Sure, steps were being taken in the right direction, but it felt as if it was the same material over and over again, only slightly more in-depth each time.

I could get it in elementary school. Kid's weren't dumb, but they could oftentimes miss a lot of the more subtle details. But for middle and high school students? There wasn't an excuse on that front.

But I did enjoy history. Even more so now than I had previously. One of those, obvious in hindsight deals, I'd imagine. Of course, given how originally my primary desire was going into a field focusing on the study of things so old they've become rocks? Probably a bit less so.

However, I couldn't help as my eyes flickered back on the clock. The minutes were ticking by. Slowly, almost agonizingly slowly. The day wasn't even halfway over yet, and here I was, ready to get out of this place. At least the Navy had already arranged bus transport for the day. I remember Jesica mentioning something about practice?

But what practice could unawakened shipgirls do?

The minutes continued to tick by.

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I blinked once. I blinked twice.

Then all the blood came rushing to my face like a tidal wave, turning me red as a tomato.

"Anong! Really!"

"Shame is for the weak!"

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This wasn't a part of the base I'd been on. Sure, I recognized things from the tour, up to a point. But then we went through a set of doors. The smell of saltwater hung in the air, combined with? Was that? Incense?

"Your acting like you haven't seen a ritual site before," Anong elbowed me beneath the ribs.

"Because I haven't," was my blunt response, as I gazed at the architecture. Water licked the edges of the pool at the center of the room, a small canal running out towards the ocean, bringing in fresh saltwater. Somehow, it was clear as crystal, allowing one to see a mosaic eagle at the bottom. Arches rose along the sidewalls, towering overuse, inlaid with numerous pictures of American iconography.

"I'm not too surprised. Don't expect too much, though. This is more of a dummy summon, anyway," Laura nodded her head. I stopped looking around the summoning room, a place where most none members of the navy probably didn't even get to see, turning toward the reincarnated Fletcher.

"Dummy summon?" what exactly did that mean?

"Dummy probably isn't the right word. Placebo is much closer. It's more to get us used to summon rituals, than anything else," Laura's fingers rubbed the underside of her chin.

"They don't want us around for actual summons, as that tends to cause us to wake up fully instead. Kind of useless until we're actually of age to enlist, though. They've taken away most of the pull, too," Amelia skipped along beside us. "That was after the time they woke up Connie by complete accident."

That did answer the question at the back of my head. There had to be some reason why she was only one of them awake. The aforementioned Connie blushed, eyes avoiding a very specific cluster of bricks that looked damaged.

Admiral Kenneth was there, alongside several other officers I didn't recognize, each one standing tall and proud as we approached. He gave me a brief nod out of the corner of my eye, before turning towards the man standing at the list of the pool.

I wasn't sure what to do. Everyone spaced out mostly evenly, so I stepped into the circle where it felt appropriate. Then, it hit me. A pressure, a wall of energy materialized around me. First came the choir, singing faintly. Then the oath, the oath enlistment, was read by the admiral, with the choir slowly beginning to fade out, replaced, by another song.

There was a flicker, a brief flash of light in the pool. For a moment, I thought it was my eyes playing tricks on me.

"Sir, something is," one of the men spoke up, but by then it was already too late. Water began to spin like a whirlpool, the light beginning to glow brighter and brighter. At its apex, it exploded, saltwater erupting into the air like a geyser.

I barely got my hand up in time to keep the water from getting into my eyes. Surely, that couldn't have been a dummy summon. My eyes squinted, trying to find something to see through the refracting light. Slowly, as gravity began to reassert itself, I spotted a figure.

A girl was standing in the pool. She was a familiar girl. Her skin was dark, nearly matching the brown of her eyes. Her hair was completely black, done in a long braid that reached the small of her back. Her dress was similar to mine, but white instead of blue, lacking a handkerchief. Instead, her sleeves were long, nearly reaching her wrists, with blue lace around the edges.

She was familiar.

I felt my hands clasp around my mouth, to let a gasp from escaping.

"Lousiana?"

She smiled.