Arpeggio of Ancient Steel

The voyage begins

Pacific Ocean somewhere south of the Medway Islands

It was a beautiful summer day out on the Pacific, despite the temperatures being fairly high combined with breeze from the wind that was occurring it was perfect weather for sailing.

Though it wouldn't just be human sailors who thought the weather was perfect, the abundant wild life that lived above and below the surface where clearly taking full advantage of it. Dolphins can be seen leaping out of the water as they traveled following the fish they fed upon to live. With younger members of the pod more actively playing around than their mothers. Seagulls and other ocean going birds where also around giving out their calls as they harassed others out of their catch, Gannets being their favoured target for such activities. If you where lucky a casual observer may even see a whale, be it one of the more common ones like humpback's or the more elusive Blue Whale the biggest oceanic vertebrate, such a scene is of course hardly unique with the it having occurred for thousands of years previously and probably thousands more.

As such the appearance of a group of capital ships sailing through the area wouldn't necessarily seem at all odd, after all ships having been plying these seas for centuries. No what was odd, or perhaps not so odd depending on when you lived, was the fact none of these ships who bore close resemblance to those of past wars should be sailing. For majority of them where battleships a type that had become obsolete even before the end of the last war they participated in, a war where air and sub power played a huge role in determining its conclusion. Of the ten ships sailing only three where not of that type, two being pure carriers and the third a hybrid that most thinkers at the time it was considered seriously for a number laid down ships, Lions, Iowas for example, viewed it as a incredibly stupid idea.

Nonetheless these ships are sailing these waters even though most current thought believes that missiles, air power and attack subs be a navies primary way of conducting naval warfare. What is perhaps not the most odd about these ships is not the colours they fly from their masts, be it of the Royal Navy or that of the JNSDF for there still are other ships that fly these flags. Nor are these two nations currently in hostile relations with one another to make it seem their ships sailing next to each other should be trying to kill the other. Rather what would be considered the most odd is the markings covering both the hulls and super structures of all vessels sailing in company with one another, that and the fact that all the colours seem to be glowing the average observer who didn't know what this meant would be forgiven if this confused them. Rather if they rubbed their eyes to check to see if they where seeing things and conducting other checks for it all being an illusion it be understandable since ships regardless of how view them do not have glowing markings on them.

However if you where aware then you knew that such markings indicated that these ships all belonged to fog, a fleet of ships resembling those of old and had frightening capabilities that allowed them to wipe majority of most navies off the face of the planet. To these observers their flying naval ensign's would be odder, since the fog are in effect their own faction, and where you see others you would indeed be correct, in the case of these ones as their flags make clear they are not.

Standing on top of the bridge of the leading battleship was someone who bore a startling resemblance to Kodai of space battleship Yamato fame. He appeared to be deep in thought as he peered through his binoculars, most would consider him to be the mental model for it, and they wouldn't be wrong nor are these hypothetical observers truly right either. For he along with all other members are hybrids of both ship girl, or in his and two others cases ship boys, and mental models. He is also their creator and also the reason for so many of the Fogs numerous toys. None of this was going through his mind, as he is also named Kodai and the name ship of his class, whose members HMS Enterprize, JDS Mori, and HMS Admiralty made roughly a quarter of their number.

The other members include his wife JDS  Yamato lead ship of Yamato class along side her two sisters JDS Musasihi and JDS Shinano and his children, JDS Atsuko, who also happened to be the girlfriend of their new Admiral, and her younger siblings JDS Sachiko and JDS Takeo, Takeo and Enterprize being the only other ship boys. Now whilst it may appear that Kodai was considering weighty matters, as he silently went about observing the horizon. What he was actually thinking about was the movements of the abyssals, who where currently in one of their periods of inactivity. Ever since he had come back and helped give the fog their true role, that of hunting the abyssal, the abyssal had made their presence known again though their reasoning remained as obscure as ever. Hence this voyage to the Midway Islands where a international meeting to discuss methods to finally find a way to put an end to their attacks for good. Due to this he remained oblivious to the purple and green storm clouds heading in their direction.

"Kodai", no response, "Kodai!", still no response, muttering a fairly vast set of swear words, Enterprize yelled "Kodai!!!!!!!". This jolted him out of his head, it turning this way and that trying to figure out who called, much to everyone's amusement. "Yes Enterprize?" He said turning to his brother who he could hear clearly despite the distance. "There's a weird looking storm coming in off starboard, should we try to avoid it?" He asked choosing to ignore how long it took him to attract his attention. Kodai pondered checking his sensors for the storms speed and course, the data wasn't good, their simply wasn't enough time nor space to avoid it, if speed was correct that is he corrected himself. Debating silently in his head silently for awhile he contacted Yamato.

Doing this through the internal coms*, that the Fog all possessed, 'Yamato' he called, 'Yes dear?' came the reply. Kodai quickly set about explaining the options he had come up with, first try and dodge around the storm, this would divert them off course temporarily whilst they navigated around it and there's always a chance it may catch them anyway which with the speed that it was bearing down on them. The second would still risk being diverted simply due to the storm driving them off by force of its effect on the sea currents however they could still mostly maintain their course so it wouldn't nearly delay them as much as the other method. 'I favour the second one, especially when you consider we should all be able to weather it well, even more so the Abyssals were unlikely to attack us in there, though I figure having a second opinion would probably be good idea.'

Yamato pondered a little bit, weighing what she could determine on the options, she turned to Musashi and had a debated with her a little bit, Kodai pondered what they might be discussing about the plan, before turning back to Kodai and saying 'I agree with  what you're thinking but we should be careful, considering how quiet it's been, we should be cautious which would lead me to favour the first option especially with the Admiral with us to be safe. However' Kodai could hear the subtle smile on his wife's lips, 'I doubt the abyssal would be stupid enough to attack unless they had superior numbers especially with multiple super battleships here, so yes I agree though we should be prepared for the potential of them attacking.'

Kodai nodded agreement, 'Very well,' he said,' all ships prepare for the storm and make preparations for us to be attacked the moment we exit the storm' all members of the fleet acknowledged this and continued their heading towards the advancing storm.

A/N
A few notes, whenever I mention communication systems I will be referring to them as coms simply due to it being easier, anyway whose looking forward to seeing how tough the enemies you first met in the prologue are?