Night starts to fall as a cold breeze follows, which sends a shiver down Thomas's worn out body. The light poles turn on, illuminating the black marble of the memorial wall. He stares at the wall, looking at countless names of the men who lost their lives.
Thomas clenches the handles of his crutches. " Enterprise, I need to know. Were all these sacrifices worth it? Did their sacrifices lead to a brighter future for our world? Was our deeds written in stone or were they written in sand to be washed away?" He turns and looks at Enterprise. " Were we... no were they victorious?"
She looks at him with a gaze of certainty, as if the words she is about to say are truly what she believes. " Yes, all these men helped lead the world out of war. Many men were lost on both sides. Allies or Axis it doesn't matter, they paved the way for a future where generations down the line can live in peace. Thanks to the efforts of good men, the war ended with the Allies winning. They paid the ultimate price to lead our world into a better future. Every man on this wall, be it Allies or Axis were doing their job for their countries. None of the lives lost on this wall were in vain. What they did, it will always be written in stone."
Thomas lets out a sigh of relief. " Thank you for telling me, I'm happy to hear it, that our sacrifices weren't in vain." He pushes the crutch under his arm and puts his hand on Luke's name. " You hear that Luke? We did it, we won." He closes his eyes and says a little prayer before reopening them. "Amen." He retracts his arm back off the wall. He turns back to Enterprise with a reassured smile. " So what now? I still don't know much about this world, and hell I still don't know if I've just gone stark mad or I'm just hallucinating everything. The only thing I really know is that warships from my time are here as human girls, and that this world is at war with something called Sirens."
" I'll explain everything to you later. Right now, I see you still have some doubt about this whole situation, and well I can't blame you for it. I'll explain what I can but before that I want to show you something. I want to put all the doubt behind you."
Thomas nods to her. " Well, if this "something" can help me make sure I'm not crazy then sure, but before that I noticed something..."
Enterprise tilts her head quizzically. " What's that?"
" Well, it's just that some of the girls here have been just staring at me."
Enterprise looks around and sees a handful of girls looking at them. " Well, the answer to that is kind of simple. There is only one male at this base."
" Only one male? Wait, why?!" Thomas looks at Enterprise bewildered. " It doesn't make sense for any military base to have only one male!"
" The only male here is the Commander. I'm not sure why that is honestly, but there being another male here does raise a few eyebrows. Especially if that male is dressed like a pilot from our world."
Thomas looks at his clothes. " I guess that kind of makes sense. Its still weird for me ,though."
" Well, it's only natural for them to be curious." Enterprise looks up and sees the sky has completely turned to night. " Well, let's get going before it's too late." Enterprise waves Thomas to follow her.
"Regarding my clothes though, I was in the sickbay right? So didn't they have any fresh clothes they could've changed me into?" Thomas asks while still looking at his torn pilots outfit.
"Since the majority of the people here are girls, we didn't really have anything that we could change you into. That's why I wasn't there. I was off trying to find you clean clothes. I could've got you something feminine that some of the other girls have, but I thought you wouldn't appreciate that. So, when I finally was able to find some clothes that would work for you. I went back you weren't there." Enterprise continues to move forward.
" Oh, ok thank you. I appreciate the none feminine clothes. I'll switch into those when we get back. So, what exactly are you going to show me, though?" Thomas continues to follow her lead.
Enterprise looks back at him. " I think it would be best for you to see for yourself."
She continues to lead the way as Thomas slowly follows right behind her. They leave what Thomas believes to be the medical area given how the buildings look with red crosses on them and that he was patched up there. They head into a huge courtyard with a big gold anchor in the middle of it. Around the gold anchor, which he guesses is a statue with different sets of flowers professionally sorted around in concrete plant boxes. The colors vary from red, yellow, purple, white, and even blue. Thomas also notices that this area is quite lively. There are a lot of girls sitting on blankets on the grass near light poles, while other girls hang out around the benches. They appear to be doing different things like having a picnic or just chatting. A few of the younger looking girls are running around chasing each other. The different hair colors really jump out to him though. Girls with blue and green hair is something he's never seen before.
He hears the laughs and giggles of these girls who seem to be in a really good mood. He continues to look around and notices five girls in the back corner of the courtyard under a gazebo. Even far away from them he notices they are quite well endowed. One of the girls has long beautiful gold hair and her outfit seems to be something straight out of a story, at least from what he can tell. Another thing that pops out to him is that two of them seem to be wearing what appears to be maid outfits. "Maids?" He thought. He ponders the idea of why they were there. "Are they the ones that keep the base clean or are the only for those girls over there." As he thinks of the possibilities of maids on a base, his thoughts are suddenly broken by a loud call.
" Enterprise!" Thomas looks over to see a purple-haired girl wearing a white shirt with gold buttons on the straps that goes across her shoulders with a small little crown on left side of her head. She was going across the grass with four other girls in tow. One has lighter purple hair than the one calling out to Enterprise and seems to be carrying a stuffed unicorn. He turns his attention to the other girl who has twin tails and had what looks to be a white, very light purple hair with a bunny ear headband. The look she had was something of pure exhaustion.
The girl following behind her has a purplish-blue colored hat with brown hair. She looks like the more of a serious type than the other girls and looks the most normal to him given her hair color. Her outfit didn't appear to be normal to him. It resembled a wetsuit for diving or something related to water. The last girl has a whitish-blonde hair with a grey tone to it. She wears a top that sort of reminds him of a navy sailors uniform, but more around the collar of it. She wears a yellow tie with a black anchor on it and her face shows almost no emotion. Thomas's attention was caught by the things on her head. " Are those horns?" He thought to himself.
All the girls make their way to Enterprise and Thomas. They stop in front of them and scan Thomas up and down. Suddenly the one that was calling out to Enterprise speaks out. " So, is it true?"
Thomas looks at her weirdly. " Umm is what true?"
She quickly responds. " Are you really Enterprise's pilot?!" She said in an uncomfortably loud voice.
Enterprise steps up. " Javelin, you shouldn't be shouting like that, it's going to draw attention."
It's already too late, though. Just like she said all the girls around in the courtyard heard Javelin's question. They all start to stand and talk. They slowly circled around Thomas and Enterprise.
Enterprise looks over at Thomas. " You don't have to answer if you don't feel comfortable." She whispers to him.
" It's fine Enterprise, if they are your friends, I don't mind answering some questions. They are just curious after all. Plus, I'm proud of being a pilot of Enterprise." Enterprise blushes when she hears that. Thomas smiles at her before taking a deep breath. " Yes, I am. I am the pilot of CV-6 Enterprise."
When he says that, the whole courtyard goes into an uproar. Everyone is so surprised that a pilot from their world is there at their base. " Uh-oh." Says Thomas. His words start a very unusual event. Girls surround him and start bombarding him with questions.
Questions are thrown at him like "How did you get here?" or "How many battles did you fight in?" There were more questions than that but those are the only two he was able to hear properly.
He takes a breath before he starts speaking. " Well, to answer the first question, I don't know. I was shot down over the Philippines and then next thing I know I'm here."
This got a little response from the girls. He heard one of the girls say "How interesting, nyaa. I'll have to look into this." He didn't think too much of it though. He knew that some of the girls might come up with their own theories on why he's here. He shrugs that off though and continues on.
" To answer the next question, I arrived on Enterprise on December 29th, 1941. So, I fought from the end of 1941 to 1944. I was also part of VF-6 when I got there then I got transferred over to VF-10" Those answers did get a bright response from the girls.
The purple-haired one who's name is apparently Javelin, raises her voice up excitedly. "You were part of the Grim Reapers! They were legendary! Even us in Royal Navy have heard of you guys. Victorious told us many stories about them."
"Victorious?" He stops and thinks for a second. " Wait do you mean USS Robin? " Thomas asks this because he knew there was British carrier in the Pacific but he only knew it as USS Robin.
" My, my that's a name I haven't heard in a long time." Thomas eyes along with Javelins gaze over to where that voice came from. The girl with the gold hair that he noticed early is slowly and elegantly walking towards him. Thomas can't help but look at her. He was right from what he gathered earlier. She has an appearance of almost fiction, like a goddess. As she gets ever so close, Thomas tries his best to keep his eyes up and focused on her face. He's never seen a girl dressed like this, so its quite difficult for him not to look down at her almost exposed body. Her white outfit looks to be very thin and exposes almost everything about her. Her black undergarments pop out, with the silk white dress.
He was failing at staring at her face, so he turned his head slightly and caught an ill-favored look from Enterprise. Her eyes were icy and cold. Thomas froze. " Why does she have that look? That's the first time I've seen this." Thomas thinks this as Enterprise looks down. She stares at her chest, then looks over to Victorious's chest. Enterprise's eyes go back to stabbing Thomas with her icy glare. Thomas looks back at Victorious as he tries to shake off the dangers being thrown at him. He tries focusing on anything that isn't something he shouldn't be looking at and notices the gold and ivy on her head. Desperately he locks his gaze on it.
She finally secures the distance between her and Thomas. She gives him a warm friendly smile, it's a smile you would give an old friend that you haven't seen in awhile. " If what I heard is true, you are Enterprise's pilot, no?"
Thomas snaps out of his daze and responds to her while trying his best not to stumble over his words. " Umm... Yes... I'm Enterprise's pilot." From an outside perspective he looks like a bumbling idiot who's trying to ask out his crush. He catches a few giggles from the other girls in the courtyard. He turns red as he tries to shake off the embarrassment. He takes a deep breath trying to regain his composure.
She gives him another radiant smile. " I heard that you were part of VF-10, so you were a Grim Reaper?"
" Yes, I was a Grim Reaper." Right when he said that, the gold-haired girl got more neighboring with her hands grasped together.
" I'm so happy to finally meet a Grim Reaper pilot. I got to see you guys in action for the short time I was in the Pacific. It left such an impact on me. You Reapers were amazing. Sadly, you guys never landed on my deck." She lets out a faint whine, but that quickly disappears. " I can finally ask the questions I really want to know." At this point she is almost leaning on Thomas.
Feeling really uncomfortable with how she's leaning in front of him, Thomas tries his best to steer her back off him. " So does this mean you are Robin?"
" Oh how rude of me not to introduce myself." She takes a step back and takes curtsy. " I am the third ships of Illustrious class aircraft carriers, my name is Victorious, but you may call me Robin." She's about to get closer to him again when a maid appears and whispers in her ear. " Oh, I guess it's that time already. I hope we can get a chance to talk again later Mr. Pilot." She smiles as she makes her leave.
As Thomas watches her leave, he still can feel the warmth and glow of his cheeks . All he can think about is how beautiful Robin/Victorious is. Suddenly, he snaps out of his thoughts when Enterprise speaks.
" I see you can't keep your eyes up." Enterprise say this with a cold tone that sends shivers down Thomas's body.
Other girls start to talk about Victorious and start saying stuff like a love triangle or something about a competition between women. Thomas burns in embarrassment. He didn't know that it was that obvious that he was struggling not to look at Robin's/Victorious's chest. Thomas puts his hand on his face trying to hide his beet red face.
Thomas say this with his hand on his head. He says a little prayer hoping that it will end this embarrassing night. Little did he know though is that the night has just begun and worse things than embarrassment will come to attack him.