With the release of the new batch of PR ships for Azur lane, I've found a good way to introduce the crossover which I'll now be sticking with. End of Story.
Hope you all enjoy.
Monarch had spent an unknown amount of time traversing the endless expanse of nothingness which was the realm of the neverborne, the place between the living and the afterlife where ships lived, biding their time until hopefully they would be called into action by the mortal realm, their immense power once more needing to be brought upon whatever enemy their masters and leaders had deemed necessary.
Many had already answered a call, or the call. Some great calamity had struck the world of the living which went beyond borders and political alliances. Humanity itself was at stake. Monarch did not know what it was, but since she had yet to be summoned, the prideful battleship thought nothing of it. If the mortal realm did not need her strength, then they would be able to survive without her.
And that was her life, traversing the endless land of shadows that was her realm, formless apparitions constantly flitting at the edges of her vision like predatory sharks. Though there was nothing to fear from them, they were certainly an irritation. It was a realm of almost complete darkness, only a dim and hazy white light coming from a star, high up in the realm which Monarch called home. It was a truly dismal place, filled with nothing but hopeful dreams tinged with the cynicism of reality. A place of broken dreams and unanswered requests for the shipgirls who called it home.
Of the others, Monarch had not seen another soul in days, perhaps weeks, if the passing of time had any authority over the realm of the neverborne. The battleship knew it was a truly vaste a desolate place, with the girls marking out their own lands like a predatory animal. As such, there was barely interaction, and what there was, was brief and more often than not, conversation was boring and uninteresting.
Monarch truly hated the place, and wanted more than anything for it to change. And change it would.
At the far distance of her vision, a light appeared out of the eternal darkness that was her realm, like the shine of a lighthouse during a midnight storm, or more simply, a bright light at the end of an endlessly long tunnel. Either way, it was suspicious, and Monarch eyed the thing with suspicion, even as a part of her unconscious bade that she advance towards the golden light.
Was this her calling, or was it simply a figment of her fatigued mind. Was it her soul playing a trick on her eyes to temporarily lift her spirits? Or was it something more substantial?
Either way, the light changed, expanding into a portal which could easily accommodate a person of her build and height. Out from the newly formed portal stepped a figure, tall, noble, and impossibly perfect.
An angel if there ever was one.
The figure was clad in gleaming golden armour, a single blood red teardrop adorning his chest above a gleaming spread eagle carved into his breastplate. White wings framed the man's head, golden locks streaming down past his neck and a stern but caring visage on the mans face.
It was not what Monarch was expecting. She was expecting a normal human, if any at all to first greet her, not a literal angel. The battleship was unnerved, even at the distance that she was from the gleaming golden portal. The eyes of the man were upon her, she felt him first scrutinize her form, before poking around in her mind, examining her thoughts and desires, fears and needs.
Still, Monarch kept walking, ever closer, the golden light starting to bath her body in a harsh light, as if purifying it for the coming journey through reality. Try as she might, she could not bring herself to stop and think, before committing herself to the goal that she had unconsciously set herself. Something about it felt intrinsically right, as if fate itself was guiding her hand and body towards her upcoming reality. The battleship was a firm believer in the power of fate, and as such, consigned herself to continue her march towards the angel standing beside the light. It was foolish, almost impossible to change the hand of fate unless one possessed almost immeasurable power, something that Monarch did not possess.
Eventually, she stopped in front of the portal, only a few feet away from her now, the light almost blinding in its intensity. Shielding her amethyst eyes from the light, she turned to her left to look up at the angel that now towered over her, also emitting a golden glow of his own. Slowly, and with a deliberate motion, he raised an armoured hand to point at the portal.
Again, Monarch obeyed the wordless order without question, having now fully realised that she was bound by the fate that the nameless angel had given her.
Taking one last glance back to the darkness of her previous home, where she had spent countless eternities aimlessly wandering the darkened wastes, waiting for her calling. Now that the event was upon her though, she embraced it willingly, understanding that she had to serve, no matter what her other desires wanted, and that is what she would do.
Wasting no further time, Monarch heeded the angel's command and stepped into the golden portal to begin her new existence.
Meanwhile, in another sub realm of the land between the living and the dead, Georgia was idly lounging around her mansion that she'd made for herself. The thing about the realm that herself and the other unsummoned girls inhabited, was that one could bend their surroundings to their liking using their minds alone. Georgia liked it, she always liked a good display of grandeur, and the fact that she lived in a sprawling mansion suited her just fine. However, the battleship knew that it was also completely false, not having been built by bricks and stone, rather by a figment of her mind.
Either way, it did not matter, for she was currently setting up her study for a little tea party with the light cruiser Atlanta. The little girl was a little bit of a handful sometimes, though Georgia always liked to spent time with the crowning jewel of her state. She did find it a little bit odd, that after a long period of silence - which Georgia thought signified the fact that the girl had been summoned to whatever war required their aid - the light cruiser had returned, and had immediately asked for a little chat and a meet up which they'd been doing regularly before Atlanta was summoned.
Perhaps she had died in the field of battle, or that she'd once more been decommissioned and sent off for scrapping now that her duty was done. Georgia didn't get to ponder the current events any further, as she heard a knock at the front door and a pair of feet striding along the plush carpets of the mansion's halls.
Quickly turning around from her preparations, Georgia strode to the door of her study to let Atlanta in, the food and drinks having been laid out to the battleships exacting standards.
"Hi" the light cruiser waved with a big smile plastered on her face, just like the many times she had walked down the corridor before.
"Nice to see you Atlanta, long time no see" Georgia smiled back as she let the smaller girl into the room.
Walking across to her well-worn seat, she slid a bottle of coke across her desk, knowing that it was a favorite of Atlanta, while she poured herself a steaming hot cup of herbal tea.
"What brings you back to this place then" the battleship continued after they'd gotten themselves comfortable. "I must admit, I am curious. I thought you were still fighting that war which most of the girls got summoned to."
"Yeah… about that…" Atlanta immediately started to stare down at the floor, a tell tale sign that Georgia had hit a nerve within the assertive light cruiser. "There was, is a war going on on Earth, but not against countries, but against an invader."
"Like extraterrestrial?" Georgia asked in between sips of tea.
"Yup" Atlanta started to nod her head, still staring intently at one of the table legs.
"So why did you arrive back here?" The battleship gestured to the pocket realm around her, deciding that it would be good to get the awkwardness over with quickly so that the two Georgian's could get back to friendly conversation.
"Well isn't it obvious?" Atlanta took a deep swig of her coke, a scowl on her face.
"So you did die" Georgia quitely sighed, giving the little girl opposite her a caring look. "Want to tell me how it happened?"
"Nope" the light cruiser shook her head. "Still not ready for it" she quietly said as she gave the battleship a brief sideways glance.
"Alright" Georgia nodded, deciding not to press the point. Seeing the usually proud girl reduced to a fragile thing, Georgia could hazard that it wasn't a particularly painless death. For a moment, she pondered what dying would be like, before quickly shaking the morbid thought from her mind. "Is there anything else you want to tell me?"
"I suppose there is" Atlanta finally decided to look back up at her friend and motherly figure, her blue eyes slightly glassy with unshed tears, an unsettling smile now plastered over the light cruisers face.
"Are you really alright?" Georgia worriedly cocked her head. "You have a strange expression on your face."
"I'm actually feeling perfectly fine, thanks" Atlanta leaned forward, the unsettling smile growing in intensity as she did. Unconsciously, Georgia shuffled back into the ample padding of her seat.
"The thing is, someone came to me with an offer just as I was dying" Atlanta set her empty bottle down on the table in front of her with an ominous clunk. "He made me an offer that I could never, ever refuse."
"And… and what was that? Georgia asked, a deeply dangerous feeling having settled in the pit of her stomach. She at least wanted to hear her fellow Georgian out before she did something rash.
"He told me how he plans to reshape the Earth, with a godly vision in mind. Throw away the old, rotting order, to bring enlightenment to that fractured and corrupted place."
"You believe all of that?" The battleship asked, nowhere near convinced. "Why do you need to come back here to this place when you should be on earth doing whatever is required of you?"
"That is a good question" Atlanta's voice started to change in pitch, morphing from the chirpy tones of a typical young girl, into a feral, guttural growl. Georgia was now seriously worried, but stayed her hand for the moment. She knew that if it came to it, she could easily kill the girl... thing in front of her quickly and sustain little to no damage in the process if it came to it.
"I quite liked him, the person I talked to" Atlanta leaned forward across the table, projecting a mental image two times larger than her own physical form. "That's a lie actually" the girl smirked. "I really liked him, and what he said made a lot of sense."
"You were dying though" Georgia sighed, giving Atlanta a very suspicious look with her heterochromatic eyes. "Why agree to something when you are in such physical and mental pain?"
"He said that he could make it all go away" the light cruiser simply replied as she started to skirt around the table.
"Of course he did" the battleship shook her head in disbelief, mimicking the light cruisers steps around the table, trying very hard to let her anxiety show in her body language. "Do you understand how utterly predictable that is?"
Atlanta shrugged, as she tried to close the distance, Georgia making 100% sure to keep the solid bulk of the mahogany table between herself and the girl that she no longer thought was the Atlanta that she knew.
"Enough sidetracking though" the girl continued in the same guttural, demonic growl. "I suppose you should know this much" a distinct air of finality in the light cruisers tone. "My master told me that to truly become one of his allies, I'd have to come to terms with my friends and loved ones." She spat the last two words out as if it were some vile poison. "And you're the only one left."
"So you've killed your sisters, your friends, and now you're coming for me?" Georgia connected the dots in her head.
"If you want to believe that version of events, then so be it" Atlanta shrugged, her blue eyes now aflame with balefire. "You won't live long enough to find out the answer anyway" she proclaimed as she launched herself forward with an insane turn of speed.
Georgia reacted just in time, but still got hit by a glancing blow from the things talons. Turning, she looked face to face with the demon before her, no vestige of the light cruiser Atlanta present on the things form.
Stabbing its gleaming golden sword into the carpeted floor, the many-headed bird emitted an ear-shattering screech as the pocket realm that Georgia had fashioned started to fall apart like broken glass.
The floor fractured and cracked, hellish purple light seeping through the cracks, an unseen and unheard explosion of untold power blew the mansion apart, blowing Georgia well into the immaculate gardens which surrounded her now destroyed home. Only now the lush green grass was dead and dying, the perfectly trimmed rose bushes now sentient abominations which tried to tie her in place.
For a second, the battleship thought that she'd been given a little bit of breathing space to come up with a plan. The thought only lasted for an infinitesimal amount of time though, for the demon... bird thing was upon her in an instant, bending the laws of the realm to suite its ends.
With another ear-splitting shriek, which knocked Georgia to the ground, the thing summoned a portal with its blade, pushing itself and the battleship through.
For Georgia, everything went black as the thing tore apart her mind.
Georgia screamed for what felt like an eternity, her mind being meticulously torn apart piece by piece, the demon… thing very much enjoying the whole experience. The battleship felt her mind unravel, her conscious thoughts slipping from her control like someone trying to stop a raging current with their bare hands. Georgia was certain that she would die to the demon that had taken over her friend Atlanta.
Forcing her head away from the horrible, demonic bird, Georgia was met with the inky blackness of the void, the darkness crowding in on her, her eyes itchy as half-formed faces silently screamed out at her from oblivion.
Just before her mind shut down from the sheer agony of the demons assault, a new voice - not the screeching, wretched voice of the bird, but that of another human - violently forced itself into her remaining conscious thoughts.
WIth a harsh and commanding tone, the voice practically shouted his first command. "Listen to me!" it said. "If you wish to live for more than the next few minutes, you will do exactly as I command."
Sending a mental affirmative back to the mysterious human who may just save her, Georgia focused her mind on the voice, and the serene calm it brought with it. The battleship let it wash over her mind, using the holy energy to retake portions of her soul which had been stolen away by the demon.
"That thing that assails you has a name. The first step in defeating an opponent, especially a servant of the Changer of Ways, is to know what it is called. This specific abomination is known as 'Master Darkeye.' Muster your voice, and scream out its name, do as I say!"
'Master Darkeye' Georgia rolled the name around her mind as she tried to regained control of her mouth. Having done both of those tasks, she opened her lips and screamed the things name at the top of her lungs.
It was as if an invisible force had been released from her mouth, as it knocked the demonic bird from its feet, momentarily stopping its assault on Georgia's mind to regard her with a tilt of its feathery head.
"It seems that you have found an ally in this fight of ours. I think I need to find out who exactly this unlikely friend of yours is."
Creating a ball of energy from its clawed hands, Darkeye thrust it forward into Georgia's head.
The battleship screamed once more, screamed so hard that all moisture left her mouth and her voice became hoarse. She felt her mind being dismantled with a previously unfelt determination from the 'Changer of Ways' whatever that meant. It seemed that Georgia had found herself a powerful ally if the demon was getting desperate to finish off its prey before it lost the advantage.
Georgia clutched her head, and collapsed into a fetal position, her eyes wide with horror as her sanity slipped through her fingers, feeling the last of her soul being siphoned away, feeling parts of her body shutting down as the battleship slowly turned into a lifeless husk.
However, once again, she was saved just when she was about to lose all her mental strength. But this time, it was not a voice, rather a shining beacon of blinding white light which shot out of her heterochromatic eyes.
It crashed against the demon's skin, charring feathers and blistering the thick hide beneath it. Again, the act was enough to give the monstrosity pause. Only this time, Georgia's saviour had thought about a follow through to the momentary advantage.
WIth neither conscious, or unconscious thought of her own, Georgia felt an energy push herself back up to her feet. Looking left and right to her arms and body, the battleship saw that she was now sheathed in a golden light, nullifying and deflecting the majority of Darkeye's now very concentrated assault. The attacks that pierced her new defenses now felt hollow and dull compared to the unimaginable pain which she had been in just a few moments prior.
The voice of the man once more returned to the forefront of Georgia's mind. "I have now granted you my power" it sternly said. "Use the weapon that I have given you to strike the demon down. If you do that, you'll give yourself, and by extension me, enough time to escape back to the mortal plane. Do your task quickly however, for I am mortally wounded and my powers are not inexhaustible."
As the voice of her soon to be saviour left her mind, Georgia felt the reassuring weight of a weapon in her right hand. Glancing over, she saw a gleaming, golden, ethereal sword in her hand.
Taking a calming breath, she focused her mind into a state of supreme calm as she roared the demons name.
"Darkeye" Georgia shouted the things name in a deadly challenge. Charging forward, she felt horrors trying to slow down her progress towards her prey, trying to buy their master sometime.
It availed them not, as the battleship used her incredible bulk to smash through the ethereal roadblocks with her forward momentum.
Gaining speed as she closed the distance, she locked heterochromatic eyes with the sinister purple slits of the demon of change, feeling a sharp pain flair up in her mind.
The battleship ignored it, her mind focused singularly on striking the horrific monstrosity down.
Raising the sword, Georgia took it in a two-handed grip, launching herself off the ground of her would be prison and tomb, to take the head off the gargantuan monster.
Screaming with unbridled rage, she cleaved downwards, shattering the demon's sword in two as Georgia cleaved the birds head in twain with one devastating blow.
Instantly, she felt the realm that she'd been trapped in collapse in on itself like a dying star, feeling the ground give in beneath her as she fell downwards through the warp. The golden aura shielded her from the horrors that assailed her and tried to pluck her from her fall to intern Georgia in a new prison.
Ahead of her, in the distance, out of the swirling mass of reddy purple energy, a portal opened up, fighting against the energy which constituted the accursed place which Georgia was falling through.
Knowing that she didn't have much time, the battleship angled herself towards the light, placing her arms in front of her head to make herself as streamlined as possible. Georgia didn't know if it was the change in her stance which allowed her to reach the portal, or if it was her sheer willpower which sped her forward.
Either way, she made it, as she landed hard on the floor of an apothecary, very much back in the realm of mortals. Human serfs turned around in utter shock, a number of heavily armoured figures cocked bolters and slowly advanced on her position, all while a bare-chested superhuman with a strange, supernatural energy about him sat bolt upright in his cot to look and stare directly into Georgia's soul.