A week later

The leader of the Royal Navy Peacetime Garrison stood at the helm of her ship, which was currently rounding northern Scotland and set to enter into the North Sea.

"I don't see anything," Edinburgh mused, the light cruiser screening in front of them dragging out her syllables.

"Keep checking. The Coast Guard have no reason to lie to us."

The Queen Elizabeth and Warspite cruised behind three light cruisers, the Edinburgh, Sheffield and Belfast. The quintet of ships formed a classic escort formation, the three smaller cruisers arranged in a pointed arrow, with the two slower battleships sailing side by side at the back.

"Your majesty, are you sure the intel you received was accurate?" Sheffield, the head cruiser in the scouting formation, asked. The queen gritted her teeth. "Yes. I'm sure, so please stop asking me that and keep pinging your radar. They might show up at any moment now."

Sheffield sighed into the telephone, causing it to crackle. "I hope you're right, majesty. God knows this would salve the wound of an irredeemably boring day."

Elizabeth groaned and walked away from the telephone. The Royal Maid Corps were the right hand of Queen Elizabeth's rule, and therefore had a lot more time to spend with their leader. Which therefore led to them being...like this.

"Majesty. There is a Category 2 storm approaching us. It will hit the formation in about 45 minutes. Please advise."

"Continue. If the enemy is somewhere, they will definitely be hiding there. Tell the Coast Guard at Aberdeen to prep their planes for launch-we'll get them in soon as the storm clears."

"Noted."

"Majesty be advised-storm has picked up speed and will hit us in 12 minutes."

"Keep sailing."

The sun was now beginning to set, three hours having passed since they sortied at three-o'clock in the afternoon. The biting Scottish autumn began to make its presence felt even to the resilient bodies of the KAN-SEN.

"I advise all of you to put on something warm." Queen Elizabeth retrieved the brown coat she brought and shrugged it on. "September round here can be very challenging, eh, Warspite?"

"Ah...yes." Elizabeth could hear the nostalgia in her sister's voice, tinged with memories of battles long past.

"Visual of storm obtained."

There it was, a gigantic grey pillar in the sky that reached up to the heavens, sundered by white lightning. A momentary pang of fear lanced up Elizabeth's spine, and a word that was better left unremembered reared its rotting head out of her subconscious.

Arbiter.

Looking over to Warspite, she could also see that the blonde's body was coiled like a spring, one hand clutching the greatsword that she just summoned into existence. With good reason, too.

The cloud, tall and imposing beyond ordinary dimensions, was an exact copy of the one that had appeared off the coast of Jeju, in Elizabeth and Warspite's first battle over three decades ago. The battle against one Siren that claimed the lives of over ten thousand men, the first two KAN-SEN of the Royal Navy powerless to do anything against the might of a god.

The Siren that called herself the Third Arbiter, Empress.

She wielded enough power to lay waste to the Royal Navy's entire fleet of mass-produced ships. The reality itself around her deformed and warped as she worked her arcane technology to call forward feats of destruction that had never, ever been replicated in the two KAN-SEN's long and illustrious history.

She can't be here. Not now.

The Sirens have been missing for nine years.

But this...this can't be anything other than their technology.

"Majesty?" Belfast snapped her out of her reverie. "Is something wrong?"

Yes, she wanted to say. Something is very wrong here-something that has not risen out of the sea for thirty years, something that has slept in the abyss for decades is here. And that something has the power to destroy us all.

But a queen does not show weakness. A queen does not have weakness. And although she was no longer a queen-never had been, actually-Elizabeth still carried the strength and tenacity of her namesake.

If the Arbiter is truly in there, we may be able to at least gather some information.

"We're going in."

And the 512nd Peace-time Patrol of the Royal Navy plunged into the unnatural storm.

Icy rain lashed at their faces and slicked their decks. The sea itself, whipped up into a frothing frenzy, churned the floor under their feet.

This was so much like Jeju that it was uncanny. The biting rain, the howling wind, and the ever-present undulation of the sea. The only thing missing was the inhuman woman and her black metal shark from thirty years ago, the soul of God in the body of man.

"Everyone. Proceed very carefully. If you see something that isn't a KAN-SEN or a normal ship, activate your rigging and extract as fast as possible."

"Yes, majesty."

Keeping balance in the stormy ocean was a challenge, with Elizabeth slipping and sliding across her deck more than once. She contemplated going up to her tower to shelter from the rain, but decided against it. There is no time to climb. By the time I get up there, we may all be dead.

An hour passed in the storm, then another and then a half, but nothing happened. There was no sign of Siren activity except for the unnatural gale and artificial-looking lightning splitting the dense clouds, which clouded any view of the sky. The entire thing felt like they were in a cage, a tank, put in a container with no way out.

It sickened Elizabeth.

"Elizabeth, we've circled this storm twice in a spiral and are now approaching its centre," her sister's voice crackled over the loudspeaker system. Elizabeth had stowed away the fragile telephone and opted to use something louder, anticipating the noise level of the storm.

"Proceed with utmost caution. If something approaches you, ask for identification. If they do not respond, eliminate them with extreme prejudice."

The sea churned.

And then twenty pillars of water shot up around them, into the sky.

"Battle stations! Activate rigging!"

The four shipgirls summoned their rigging in an azure pulse of blue light, plunging down into the craggy waves. With a whir, their rigging engaged, guns with barrels as wide as their bodies shifting on mechanical arms.

A cackle rang above the howling gale. Devoid of mirth, joy or even vindictiveness. It was just that, broken breath forced through a convulsing throat.

"This time it is a Royal… what a poetic sacrifice."