After having everything from his history and fame to his two sisters stripped from him, USS Oregon was ready to accept his final scrapping. But something or someone determined that his story wouldn't end there.
Destroyed in his world by a freak of...
It was the end of the line for the old battleship. For some, it might seem about time.
For Oregon, however, it couldn't come soon enough.
Frankly, Oregon was tired of living. After all he had done and been through, the Navy had decided to just scrap him.
Oregon couldn't deny that he was old and outdated. After all, he was 60 years old. A long life for a ship launched in 1897. Newer ships weren't quite as lucky to have been around as long as he had, or see as much as Oregon had seen.
Oregon knew that sooner or later this day would come, and to an extent he was expecting it. It was the only thing he had left to expect.
His service in the Spanish-American War, the Boxer Rebellion, and WW1 was treated like nothing. His two dear sisters Indiana and Massachusetts were long scrapped. If anything, they were the ones who cared the most for their little brother, despite Oregon technically being the more superior ship of their class.
And Oregon loved his two sisters dearly. After all, they didn't make fun of him like most of the other ships did.
When the newfangled dreadnoughts arrived their favorite nickname for Oregon was "Coalregon" since most of the time he was dirty from coal dust while they strived to keep themselves all waxed and polished.
No wonder they were all scrapped. They didn't do anything worth keeping them around.
Oregon, on the other hand, wasn't afraid to get himself often quite literally dirty. His dedication to his job and his ability to make an impressive bow wave earned him the much better title as the "Bulldog of the Navy": small and often dirty but always ready for a fight. For a while, he was even the flagship of the entire Navy.
But it wasn't his fault that he got sent to the Pacific while his sisters were stuck with "training duties" in the Atlantic. He knew that it wasn't their fault that they were scrapped.
But as the years went on he didn't appreciate the younger, more modern ships labeling him things like "old-timer" or even "obsolete".
And woe to the ship that happened to call him by his old nickname "Coalregon" because the old bulldog would make sure to teach that ship a lesson they would never forget nor maybe even recover from.
But with all the name-calling and prodding Oregon received over the course of his life, he still often had the last laugh as his antagonists would fall under the scrapping torch while he'd quietly watch.
There were a few exceptions in the modern fleet that respected Oregon. The newer battleships considered him as their teacher, and the first aircraft carriers viewed him as a relic to a bygone era.
A relic, yes, but still not quite like Constitution, the oldest ship of all of them and still in active service.
Even at the end of WW2, with such powerful ships like Missouri and famous ships like Enterprise, they continued to view Oregon with no small amount of respect, especially since at this point Oregon was stripped of his superstructure, guns, and engines.
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A grim reminder that no ship, however famous, cannot last forever.
And now it was 1956, his sixtieth year. Sold to Japan Oregon was now by himself, bereft of even his name, for he had been designated as IX-22, for some unknown reason, but he refused to accept it.
As he languished in his drydock, thinking over these memories and wishing that his scrapping would be done soon and quickly, a tsunami was reported to be incoming.
The nearby workers evacuated the scene, opening the doors to all the drydocks on the theory that it would be better for them to be open rather than be closed and face serious damage.
"Tch. Damn Japs. Sometimes I wonder if they're actually thinking or not." Oregon muttered to himself. As if humans could hear him anyway.
He watched the tsunami approach. "Well, they haven't done anything to my hull yet, so maybe I can float this one out."
As the tsunami swept into the harbor, enough water came into Oregon's drydock to lift his ship off its supporting blocks.
This was no ordinary tsunami, however. It was unusually strong and powerful, and began carrying Oregon inland at a surprising rate.
A giant wave picked him up like he was a toy boat and hurled him into one of the few large concrete buildings around. Aside from practically leveling the structure, his hull was smashed to bits.
