"You know, being friends with all of you girls is dangerous to one's health and sanity." I said as I stepped through the portal from Equestria after our latest adventure.

It had been an interesting year and a half since that fateful Fall Formal dance.

Sirens from Equestria that gained power from creating discord amongst the people around them, a science project and unchecked curiosity going awry, dimensional duplicates, an attempted smear campaign thanks to social media (burned a favor from my friend Lilly to nip that problem in the bud. The Movie Club was still grounded as far as I had heard), power ups at summer camp, a crazy aspiring movie director, and now a jaunt to Equestria (nice place, if a bit colorful) thanks to a portal that happened to be on that the yacht ran aground on after someone decided to mess around with something called the "Storm King's Staff".

I had been the last one through the portal after making sure that everyone who had come through the other portal (gonna have to figure out where the hell that was so that portal can be closed) made it home.

"Sorry again girls." Rainbow Dash apologized again.

I lightly bonked her on the head. "Next time you wanna play the hero, please don't unless there is a clear and present danger, and you have back up." I said. "Egos get people killed. Be a Fletcher, not a Halsey."

"Wait, isn't Halsey like some big Navy Legend or something?" Rainbow Dash asked.

"He had good PR." I replied sourly. I raised a finger. "Typhoon Cobra. Lost three destroyers with almost all hands and twenty seven other ships were damaged, some to the point of having to return to the mainland US to be repaired." I raised another finger. "Task Force 34. Aside from denying us the ability to know for sure who would win between a Yamato class and an Iowa class, it is entirely possible that the Japanese Center Force would have turned around with that much fire power from the assembled American battleships rather than risk the flagship for no gain."

"Oh, didn't realize that." Dash said after processing that.

"Yeah, most people will jump up to defend Halsey, but for all the good he did in making sound tactical decisions, he also made a lot of screw ups that wasted the lives of a LOT of sailors for no reason." I replied. "Probably the only reason that he wasn't relieved of command was that he was winning and they were able to downplay the failures to the media. No admiral is perfect, but the ones who never should have been put in command of a fleet usually got put out of their own misery, unfortunately they usually took a lot of their own men with them."

"Hadn't thought about it like that." Applejack said from where she had been helping Fluttershy check on everyone.

"Is everyone okay?" Twilight asked.

"Yeah, a bit shaken obviously, but they are okay." AJ replied.

I sighed with relief as I texted my mom to see when she could get Sunset and I.

Soon enough, everyone's parents, guardians, older siblings, and other friends with vehicles that weren't on that ill-fated cruise were arriving and we all departed for home.

"So, I could have sworn I dropped you two off at the docks." Mom said as she drove us home.

"Well, unfortunately some more magic shenanigans happened, the boat ran aground, everyone got off okay and then we wound up taking a shortcut through Equestria, coming out at the school." I explained.

"Where was the yacht?" Mom asked.

"Not sure, however far you can get when sailing at five knots for two days." I replied, yawning. "My brain can't math right now, too tired."

Soon, we arrived home and after taking a hot shower, I was getting ready to collapse into bed, when a knock came at my bedroom door.

I walked over and opened it to find Sunset in her pajamas.

"Can, can I sleep in here tonight?" She asked nervously. "I'm worried I might have more nightmares and I don't want to be alone."

I smiled tiredly, gesturing for her to come in. This was something that she would occasionally do, especially after a really trying event that had something to do with Equestria. Honestly, even with her working to patch things up with her former mentor, I think she was going to stay on this side of the portal. She had friends and people who cared about her here, while over there all she had were a mentor she was still on shaky ground with, a friend who had unknowingly replaced her as said mentor's star pupil, and not really anyone else.

So, we both climbed into my bed, thankfully large enough to fit the both of us comfortably, and she nestled her back against my chest and pulled my arm around her.

I had found out that Equestrians were a very friendly and touchy race. Basically, despite the tough girl persona Sunset put on, she was a cuddle bug.

I managed to stay awake long enough to hear her breathing even out as she fell asleep, drifting off myself soon afterwards.

I was on the bridge of a carrier, looking out through the windows of the flight ops on the port side of the island.

It was definitely a supercarrier, two bow catapults and two waist catapults on the angled flight deck, but for some reason the hull number on the deck was blurred.

I suddenly felt the power from the reactors far below spike as the ship began running up to full speed to conduct flight ops, the sudden increase in power making me gasp, as my heart started racing like my system had been flooded with adrenaline.

Suddenly, I felt a searing, burning pain in my left side. Before I could even turn to see what had caused it, an explosion rocked the ship.

I looked towards the stern and saw a column of thick black smoke rising, and I ran towards the windows in the aft part of the section I was in.

Down below I saw crew starting firefighting and damage control efforts, and I felt, more than saw, the damage that the fire was causing as the fuel tanks on the parked jets ruptured, burning flesh and metal alike.

It seemed like an eternity, but finally the fires were put out, but the stern section of the flight deck, MY flight deck I realized, as I felt the skin on my lower back turn raw and scarred, was littered with burnt planes, equipment, and bodies.

Oh goddess, the bodies.

My crew, my pilots, some had been killed in the initial explosion, but some had been trapped and were unable to escape. And the wounded. My escorts, Benjamin Stoddert and Rogers had to send over some of their corpsmen to assist my own, there were so many wounded.

The three of us made the turn back towards Pearl Harbor so I could be repaired and the sailors taken to a proper hospital or to the morgue to be sent home to their families.

I awoke with a jolt of adrenaline and a quiet hiss of pain, thankfully not waking up Sunset.

I carefully reached onto my back and felt where the sensation was coming from, expecting to find burns, but the skin was as unblemished as it had been when I went to bed.

I settled back down, getting comfortable as I snuggled Sunset tighter. This wasn't the first dream like this I had had, but it certainly was the most vivid. I glanced towards the cube on my desk, now most definitely glowing for the last few months, but now it was slowly pulsing.

After our experience at Camp Everfree, I had asked Twilight, the human one that is, if she could check for radiation coming from it. Strangely, there was none, no matter the sensitivity of the detector she used, which baffled her, Sunset, and myself.

But, after a call to my cousin Sandy, I was assured that it was perfectly safe. But now? Now I was starting to doubt that, but something told me I needed to keep that cube close.

I closed my eyes, and settled down, Sunset's rhythmic breathing calming my nerves and easing the tension I was feeling. We weren't dating or anything, but I was being drawn to her for some reason that was more than just my useless lesbian self having a crush. I don't know why, but I always felt calmer, more at ease when she was around.

Author's Note

So, I decided to skip over the shenanigans of the Humane Seven and decided to start on the ship girl shenanigans. If you guess which ship Niamh is going to be from the dream sequence, keep it to yourself for now it will be revealed in the next couple of chapters. Also, bumping the rating up and updated the tags as we have now reached the point where there is going to be violence, a better safe than sorry approach.