The light shines on Enterprise's hair as it blows in the wind. Thomas stands there bewildered of what he heard.
" That name, there's no way" Thomas stares at her. Enterprise shakes her head.
" I know it's hard to believe, but I am Enterprise. I'm your ship."
Thomas looks down trying to figure out what's happening. "There's no way. My Enterprise was a carrier, not a human girl." He thinks to himself. " Maybe that's why she feels familiar to me. That has to be coincidence." Suddenly he speaks out. " That can't be true!
Enterprise steps back a little bit, surprised by his outburst. " Please you have to believe me, I'm Enterprise. I can explain why I look like this."
" There's no way you are! I have to be crazy to listen to what you are saying. You are my carrier, that makes no freaking sense. None of it does! Thomas turns around and starts to head back in the treeline. The light falls from him as darkness of the shade covers him.
" Please wait!" Enterprise yells out in desperation. Thomas just ignores her and continues to walk away. Enterprise clenches her fist and yells out again. " Your name is Thomas C. Felt, locker number was 58."
Thomas stops and looks back. " What? How do you know that?"
Enterprise continues to talk. " You arrived on the CV-6 Enterprise/me December 29th. You were part of air group VB-6 at the start of the war. Later in the war you were put in air group VF-10 known has the Grim Reapers. You are responsible for 28 confirmed planes shot down and dozens of ships damaged or sunk including Akagi.
Thomas turns around completely and slowly walks out of shade. The light starts to cover him again as he gets closer to Enterprise. " I don't believe it."
Enterprise just continues to talk. " On the day you left, the day I thought you were killed you got in a scuffle with James because he was being impatient and kicking me. Every time you leave me you always tell me you'd come back to me."
At this point Thomas is face to face with Enterprise with wide eyes. "This is real right? Are, are you really Enterprise?"
She nods. " I'am, I know you might not believe it completely so please let me show you."
" Show me what? What else can you show me or tell me, the only one who could know the exact details of my service and what I did with that much detail is you Enterprise. I believe you are Enterprise, but how? I don't understand any of this." He slowly sits down to try to collect himself.
" Ok let me ask a question, where am I? " Thomas looks up at Enterprise.
" Well its a long story, I don't want to take to long with it, at least not at the moment." She's about to speak again when her eyes look down at his leg which still has a piece of metal sticking out of it. Her eyes widen. She bends down and takes a closer look at it. "Before anything, we need to get this treated first."
He looks down at his leg. " Oh, I guess all this information and meeting you made me forget about it." His body starts to relax and give way.
" Thomas!" Enterprise quickly catches him before his head fell to the ground.
" I'm sorry, I'm just really tired." He closes his eyes and passes out on her shoulder. Leaving Enterprise holding him. She lets out a sigh of relief and carefully picks him up. After picking him up she couldn't help but cry. Finally she gets to see the one that treated her as a person again, the one she loved. She walked back to the other girls who were just staring the whole time.
" Enterprise! What happened?" The purple haired girl quickly runs up to her. " Wait, who are you carrying and are you crying?" This comes to a shock to the girl because she's never seen the strongest carrier ever cry before.
Enterprise lets out sniffle before answering. " Javelin, this is my pilot from previous life."
Javelin's eyes widen. " There's no way, how is he here?"
Enterprise continues to walk and Javelin and the others girls fall close behind. " I don't know, I don't have an answer for this. One thing is clear though, he is my pilot. So I'm going to do whatever it takes to help him." She headed off towards the sick bay.
Seven hours later
" Start your runs and follow me in!" Everyone follows the squadron leader in on their dives on the Akagi. Thomas follows the leader and the two other planes in. As soon as they start their runs flak starts to open up at their planes.
" Altitude!" He yells out to his gunner.
" 3,000!" His gunner Derick yells out. He continues down as the plane quickly heads down to hell. " 2,000!" Thomas grips the stick tight as his SBD gets closer and closer with the Akagi. " 1,000!"
Thomas continues down passing the other SBD's. The closer he gets the thicker the black cloud of smoke got as it screamed against his plane. He gets as close as he can and drops the bomb and quickly pulls the stick up. " Come on!" He pulls up barley avoiding the flight deck. His bomb went straight through the far end of the flight deck and explodes. Thomas jolts up breathing hard. He puts his hand on his head realizing that he sweating really bad. He tries to relax his breath and calm down. " Damn, its the same thing again." He puts his hand on his face. " We lost so many men that day." He lets out a sad sigh.
He shakes his head trying to regain his composure. He looks around to find himself in what he thinks is a hospital or some sort of sick bay. He lifts up his covers and see his leg all bandaged up. He takes off the covers completely and swings his legs around off the bed. Before he stands up he hears a knock on the door. The door opens and what looks to be like a nurse or a nun walks in.
" Oh good your awake." she gives him a warm smile.
" Oh yeah, thanks. Umm who are you." he looks at her wondering.
She looks a him. " My name is Vestal, I'm the lead doctor here."
He stared at her. " Vestal?" She nods at his response. " Are you the repair ship U.S.S Vestal?"
Her eyes widen. " Yes I am, but may I ask how you know that?"
He takes a deep breath. " My name is Thomas, I was a pilot on the Enterprise during the Battle of Santa Cruz."
She looks at him almost perplexed. She snaps out of her daze and speaks. " You are Enterprise's pilot?" She grabs her pen and starts to click it. " That's not possible. There's no way someone form that time, that world is here besides us. Wait unless." She starts writing down notes.
" Umm you said " "This time, this world" just where the hell am I?" He continues to look at her as she jolts down notes.
She stops writing and puts her pen down. She takes a deep breath. " I probably won't be able to explain this as easy as some the other girls especially Akashi or the Commander, but I'll try to make it simple. This may be hard for you to believe but you are not in your world anymore. More you are in a alternate reality of it. The history of this world and yours is the same but different."
Thomas speaks up. " Wait what do you mean? How can it be the same but different but the same?"
Vestal continues to speak. " The countries and continents are the same. The history of the two are similar at least they were. There was a world war but only one. There was no second world war because the world itself was attacked by entities known as Sirens. The world its self was on the verge of losing to them. So in a despite attempt to fight back the countries banned together and found a way to summon us from your timeline."
" That's insane, how can I believe something like that?" Thomas put his hands on his head try to comprehend what he's been told. " I don't won't to believe this, there's no way."
Vestal continues to talk. " I know this hard to believe but its the truth. Me, Enterprise, and all the other girls are from your Earth, your timeline I guess."
"What the hell? I don't even know how to even process this, but I have to believe this. Enterprise knew everything about my service. There's no way some random girl with white hair surrounded by other colorfully haired girls would know that much detail about me." Thomas slouches over.
Vestal stands. " I know it's a lot of information to process. I'll leave you alone so you can come to terms with it. I'll let Enterprise know that you are up."
Vestal leaves the room, leaving Thomas with just his thoughts. " How is this even possible. Girls who are ships, who were summoned from my world? That is just ridiculous, but even still I cant ignore the fact that, that girl is Enterprise. I can't explain it but I know its her. It's my Enterprise."
He grabs the crutches that were left for him and stand up. He moves to the window and looks outside. " Am I really in a different world?" He looks down into the courtyard. " What is that?" He sees a long black wall with about a dozen girls in front of it. His curiosity gets the better of him and he quietly sneaks out of his room. He makes his way towards the courtyard. When he gets there he sees girls placing flowers at the base of the wall. " Is this a memorial?" He takes a closer looks and his eyes widen.
He looks at the plaque and reads it. " This memorial is dedicated to all the men who fought and lost their lives with these brave girls. No matter what the era, the time, or the world, the sea remembers it's own." Along the wall had all the names of ships who lost men. Ships from every country were on there, along with thousands of names. A thought then occurred to him. He follows along the wall until he finds Enterprise's name. He scans it until he finds his name. " I guess she really thought I was dead."
He lets out a sad sigh. He then feels a tap on his shoulder. He turns around to see Enterprise. " Yes, I really did thought I lost you."
" Enterprise, what exactly is this?" He' says this as he turns back to the wall.
She walks up beside him and looks at the wall too. " Well its probably what you think it is. This is a memorial of all the men we lost serving abroad us. We ships don't want to forget the men that fought with us. So Azur Lane agreed to make this for us. This wall has a strong meaning to us."
Thomas is about to say something until he hears crying. He looks over and see a girl on her knees. She's holding five beautiful lilies and five equally as beautiful orchids. He hears her talk. " I'm so sorry I couldn't save at least one of you. I'm so, so sorry. I promise I'll never forget you brothers. I won't forget any of you.
" Enterprise, she said brothers. Is that girl who I think it is?" Thomas stared at the girl.
She nods. " Yes, that is Juneau. This was a big reason why they made it for us. Some of us haven't moved on from the men we lost. Juneau and Arizona takes this especially hard." She points over to another girl further up who as long black hair. She resting her hand on the wall and crying. Under her was flowers. Red roses sit against the wall along with some more orchids.
" Is that Arizona?" Thomas looks at the crying girl who's in mourning.
Enterprise nods. " Yes, yes it is"
Thomas clenches his fists. " I can understand why some of these girls haven't moved on yet. I haven't fully gotten over all the friends I lost, including Luke. Wait, Luke?" He heads down the wall. He passes more and more flowers which cover the lower wall. He continued down until he found Yorktown's name. He than scanned down the name. Tears start to fall when he found Luke's name. " Luke."
Enterprise puts her hand on his shoulder. " I'm so sorry that you lost him."
He wipes the tears away. " It's fine Enterprise, it was years ago. What I experienced is nothing to the amount you girls experienced. It is sad to see all these names on here, but it also makes me happy."
Enterprise tilts her head. " Why's that?"
He turns around and lets out a smile at her. " It's because you guys didn't forget about us. I don't know the situation of this whole world, hell I don't even know if I'm going crazy. Even so, I'm glad you guys didn't forget about us. I know most of these men would be grateful for this. So thank you Enterprise.