Akasha Bloodriver: Yes, Archer is difficult (just a little). He quarrels with his Master, the enemies of his Master, allied Servants, friends of his Master, enemy Servants, uh... he quarrels with everyone! He is mocking, cynical, unpleasant, ironic... yet he breaks hearts! Anyway, with Archer/Shiro, the girls who are looking to kill him and the girls who are looking to join him in his bed are... the same! And then girls try to make me believe they don't like bad boys. For Waver, nope! He's nostalgic for the time he was a professor, not the time he was a student.
Snickering Fox: Thank You. For the Moon Cell, it's true but gender is confusing for me in English, I have generally no idea if a thing is a "he" a "she" or an "it", and my translations are mostly automatics ones.
Xirons20: Thank. Yamato is going to find out how oppressive, stifling the Moon Cell can be... and she's a high-performance A.I. designed to run a war fleet... not to play extras in a reconstituted high school on... no... IN the moon.
True Darkness
The battleship Roma had been the pride of the fascist war fleet... until it was sunk by the Germans after the Italian armistice. The version created by the Fog looked outwardly like its model, a warship of the first half of the twentieth century. Yet, like all her peers, she was built of nano-materials and equipped with weapons of great sophistication.
Roma was advancing along the coast, raising a powerful bow blade, surrounded by the energy shield of his Klein's field.
Around her, there were cruisers and smaller ships making up her escort. This squadron blasted at good speed, preceded by other fleets of similar composition which surrounded the other battleships of the Italian fleet of the Fog: Conte di Cavour, Guilo Cesare, Leonardo da Vinci, Andreo Doria, Caio Duillio, Littorio, Vittorio Venetto et Impero.
In all, the Regia Marina brought together seven heavy cruisers, sixteen light cruisers and ninety-one smaller ships, distributed among the various wings.
By tonnage and firepower, this was the Fog's fourth fleet. It was completed by spreading in a circle to trap the force it faced... two hundred Greek triremes that advanced towards the armada by the force of the oars, their sails adorned with the sun - emblem of the kingdom of Macedonia- slamming into the wind. Above the bronze spur at their bow, eyes had been painted.
The naval battle that was about to begin seemed to have been imagined by an Hollywood writer in serious need of inspiration. Not only was it improbable but, at first sight, totally unbalanced.
For any combat force, the triremes were satisfied with ten hoplites and four archers while the ships of the Fog could count on the bristling turrets of many cannons that now turned to their enemies...
The battle promised to be short. How could ancient galleys fight against invincible alien ships even for the weapons of the twenty-first century?
Except that it was the war fleet of Nearchus of Leto, part of the Ionioi Hetairoi, the Noble Phantasm of Iskandar.
The main turrets of the Roma, nine 381 mm L/50 Ansaldo 1934 guns in three triple turret, turned to the enemy. The cannons opened up like origami before spitting out corrosive green plasma projectiles. The secondary armament, twelve 152 mm (6.0 in) L/55 Ansaldo Model 1934 guns in four triple turrets, drew laser beams. The fiery projectiles and dazzling beams are distributed between only three triremes.
Around the flagship, the escorts opened fire in their turn and each wing targeted the Macedonian warships.
The energy deployment was such that, all over the planet, sensors reacted, sounding the alarm.
Nothing seemed to be able to withstand that hellfire. The water boiled under the impact of the shots, gushing out in geyser as vapor benches as thick as in a sauna were born.
On the bridge of the Roma, the three Mental Models of the battleship - beautiful young brunettes in a Renaissance dress - as out of a painting by Sandro Botticelli - exchanged smiles. The battle had just begun.
However...
Roma III frowned, her eyes dancing around the virtual screens that formed a dome around her. On each of them appeared various sensor indications, radars, thermal cameras and...
- Impossible! The triremes were not damaged!
Roma I and Roma II jumped up and waved their own virtual screens. However, they could only see that their sister was right. Although targeted by weapons capable of sinking modern ships with a single shot, the pathetic wooden ships advanced without appearing inconvenient. No shields were protecting the triremes, but the shots give the impression to be only raindrops and water gun.
- How is this possible, says Roma I, who has become white as chalk.
The three A.I. exchanged appalled glances without being able to present an explanation. They did not of course know that a Noble Phantasm was a creation of magic and that what it created- like the triremes and the Servants who formed its crew- could only be destroyed by a still stronger magic, like another Poble Phantasm or a Servant.
- They are ghosts, say a strangled Roma II, ships pulled from the bottom of the ocean, with crews of drowned sailors coming out of the prisons of Neptune!
In fact, the Model Mental was not wrong... They were ships and crews returning from the dead, invoked by the Holy Grail. As such they were composed of prana and could not be affected by non-magic attacks.
One of the war galleys was advancing like a large spider with multiple legs. At the stern, under the canvas canopy, the master gave orders to the helmsman holding the two large oars protruding on either side of the stern and acting as the rudder.
Obeying the instructions he had just received, the helmsman had the trireme slanted so that it pointed its spur towards the destroyer Saetta. The Fog ship could not use her corrosives torpedoes because her sonar could not locate the galley clearly... because this sort of ancient warship doesn't have a clear acoustic signature. Her 2X2 - 120 mm (4.7 in) guns don't have much power, the plasma shots bounced helplessly against the gallery of the upper rowers while the laser shots of its 2X40 mm "pom-pom" AA guns swept the combats galleries, touching archers and hoplites... but without hurting them.
Devoid of Mental Model, the Saetta could only continue to fire, unable to find a backup plan without the ingenuity peculiar to humans.
The captain leaned over the drummer:
- Rate of attack!
The colossus with his bare torso began hammering his two drums covered with skin. The galley's crew bent over the oars, plunging them at a steady pace into the sea water. The Macedonian trireme leaped forward and the bronze spur struck the Klein's field surrounding the Saetta. The latter flushed for a moment and then collapsed!
The energy screen, capable of stopping an artillery barrage, had just been driven by a weapon as primitive as a galley spur! Far from being surprised, the archers took advantage of it to throw a volley of projectiles on the huge and high ship that was approaching. Before the Macedonian trireme struck its side, the arrows caused tears in the hull and destroyed a turret as if it were made of butter. The hoplites then rushed on deck, sweeping the robots made of nano-machines that tried to stop them, they entered the bowels of the destroyer, destroying its machines and eventually destroying the destroyer's alpha Core. The Saetta disappeared then, loosening herelf into a dust of nano-machines.
Ten or so similar clashes had taken place off the coast of Italy. In each case, the Servants had prevailed over the futuristic technology of the Fog. Heroes - even minors ones- had nothing to fear from beings without magical abilities.
Roma I had recovered somewhat from her surprise. From the bridge of the battleship whose name it bore, the Mental Model saw the battle turn into complete chaos. Everywhere Fog ships sank. Their weapons were powerless against the primitive ships that attacked them. They also could not use missiles or torpedoes because the galleys could not be locked by sonar and radars because they were made of wood and had no thruster.
However, Roma still had a weapon that could turn the course of the fight.
The noise on the battlefield was suddenly covered by a clamor similar to an entire orchestra of the brass family, completely out of tune. Torn from the surface of the sea, the battleship Roma rose several tens of meters above the waves while her front opened like a flower to discover... her Supergravitation Cannon. Simultaneously, she releases two spheres, which placed themselves on the sides of the ship. Hyperphysical phenomena appeared, fantastic glimmers or powerful electric arcs uniting the sky and the sea, while a sphere of energy pulsated and magnified before the mouth of the cannon.
Like the Red Sea before Moses, the Mediterranean opened before the Roma in a deep trench that uncovered the seabed between two walls of water. Torn from the waves, dozens of galleys were now floating in the air.
The wind had forced into a real hurricane that roared like a thousand demons. No one could hear each other anymore. Hundreds of kilometers away, the machines broke down without explanation, burned by the force of the electromagnetic impulses of the cannon loading, while thunderstorms broke out all over the Italian peninsula.
And then...
A glimmer more dazzling than the rising of a thousand suns blinded all who looked towards the Roma. Supergravitation Cannon had just fired a ray of pure destruction. The galleys seized by the gravitational forces disappeared in a moment. They were supposed to be invincible to anything that didn't fall under the most powerful exercises of thaumaturgy except that... not a Magus had imagined that technology could create a ray of energy capable of generating gravitational waves destroying matter to subatomic level.
Aboard the Roma, the Mental Models congratulated themselves. They had just destroyed a fifth of the enemy fleet in one attack. The other cruisers and battleships were now tearing themselves away from the waters, preparing to use their own Gravitational Cannons. With this weapon, the Fog could win against Velber...
- You are a bad civilization!
The three A.I. with the appearance of beautiful Italian women faced the two intruders who had taken advantage of the diversion of the Macedonian fleet to land on board. The woman who had just spoken looked like a teenage girl with bistrée skin, dressed in a white "garment" that covered her little more than a bikini. His snow hair was covered with a long veil of fine gauze and they pointed to the Mental Models a sword with a rainbow blade.
Behind her was a red-bearded colossus wearing antique armor decorated with bronze inlays, shoulders wrapped in a long scarlet and gold cape lined with fur. He held a black horse by the bridle. He burst out laughing:
- We cannot say that you are holding back. Will you not join my army?
Velber struck at that moment.
Above the naval battle, it was as if a giant fist struck the vault of the sky. Cracks appeared there. It was a shock to the A.I. of the Fog, creatures born of science. Like glass hurt by a stone that had been thrown, the sky now had a spider web pattern formed by cracks. Impossibility... a naive nightmare out of the brains of children or gullible primitives... Yet all saw this incomprehensible phenomenon.
An even more violent second blow preceded the breaking of the sky... opening a door on an otherwise unspeakable place. With their eyes up, the Mental Models saw a black and violet mist swelling on the other side of the tear.
For a human eye there would be nothing else discernible, but they were much more than human. This "mist" consisted of infinity of dark cubic crystals of all sizes. An abyss of Photonic crystals.
They had only a moment to question the phenomenon before the photonic crystals surged to form an octopus of darkness with multiple tentacles reaching towards the vessels that maneuvered to escape it. He was an even more incomprehensible new enemy than the previous ones. In any case, he was acting as such.
Forgetting Altera and Iskandar, Roma gave orders to flee what was chasing them and to stop them by making use of all their weapons.
In vain.
Lasers, plasma projectiles and missiles did not stop the advance of this miasma entity. One ship after another, the Fog's fleet was engulfed in the whirlwind of photonic crystals. For a while the Klein's field seemed to resist and then... the crystals phrased through the protection, becoming translucent before rematerializing on the other side.
Iskandar looked around at the black crystals swirling over the metal bridge. Recognizing him as an ally, they largely avoided him to jump inside the battleship or wrap up the three Mental Models of the Roma. The young women were rolling down, screaming with pain and terror...
The King of the Conquerors turned to Altera. The Scourge of God contemplated the scene with a calm face but as if carved in stone:
- What is going on?
- Velber takes possession of this Fog fleet.
The colossus retreated one step, as if struck in the face. His bushy eyebrows frowned. He had known war, battles, as a man, as much as a king before his death, and much more as Heroic Servant. However, what he saw seemed to him... how to say it... wrong... simply wrong.
Iskandar believed in fair confrontation against an adversary, strength against strength, intelligence against intelligence. He who was defeated submitted himself to the victor who spared him, benefiting in return from his strength.
His eyes swept the bridge and the structures of the Roma. The battleship blackened, metamorphosing into something else. The photonic crystals that melted into its mass of nano-materials transformed it into a simple extension of Velber. As for the girls who were in charge... he couldn't turn a blind eye to the fact that what they were going through was rape.
With a hard face, Iskandar turned again to Altera:
- Velber is evil.
The King of the Huns showed a tiny hesitation and then nodded before turning her eyes, as if shameful.
As for Iskandar, he had made his decision. He could not bear that Velber intervened in the fight against the Fog fleet. Moreover, he did not accept the way he had forced the Mental Models to serve him.
He was lucky to have been defeated by Altera, who had since treated him more as an ally than as a defeated enemy. However, whatever loyalty he felt towards her, it did not extend in any way to her creator.
The tyrant's iron fist always ended up yielding to the liberator's sword. He had seen it more than once. Especially when the benefactor in question had internal complicities...
As Iskandar rubbed his chin, absorbed in his reflections, the sky had regained its usual appearance. On the other hand, the Fog's ships, while retaining the same general look, had changed profoundly. Their hulls now seemed to consist of the multitudinous assembly of square crystals with a black, smooth and shiny appearance. Here and there, or could see keys of color: yellow, orange, green that emphasized the sinister appearance of the whole.
The Regina Marina had fallen into Velber's hands.
A new toy of destruction for the Umbral Star.
The image projected in the middle of the office of the Assistant Secretary of Military Affairs Ryujiro Kamikage was translucent and trembling, chopped by parasites. Reception was poor. In this, not surprisingly, she came literally from the other side of the world. However, the energy surges that appeared on the virtual screen probably generated disturbances that better explained the poor image quality than the distance from the transmitter.
Ships from the Fog were facing a storm of darkness. The ships were not being destroyed. The ships were not being destroyed. Nevertheless, a kind of crystal leprosy infected the ships, turning them into something else... foreign.
Gunzo Chihaya, commander of the Blue Steel fleet, had seen incredible things. However, there he reached the limits of his tolerance. A sky that broke like glass? An entity of photonic crystal?
He turned his eyes away from the holographic projection... to look at Iona standing next to him. Wearing a brown t-shirt and shorts, she looked like an ordinary teenage girl. However, the strange luminous tattoos that appeared by the moment on her skin referred to her as a Fog Mental Model. The A.I. of I-401 was quietly analyzing the situation.
- Iona, what do you think of all this? Is it a montage?
Gunzo knew that whoever was sending these images was listening, but he couldn't wait for the answer.
The Mental Model blinked with his pale eyes and nodded seriously, without answering. Iona was not the type to launch into long explanations. Within a few steps, So Oribe was activated on his graphic tablet, it was he who developed, showing him his analysis on an appendix screen:
- Images show no evidence of digital cloning. In addition, the I-401 aircraft identified large-scale gravity manipulation and time spatial distortions. Something is really happening off the coast of Italy... a catastrophe like we've never seen before.
In the foreground of the film screened in 3D appeared the face of a young girl. She has long wavy brown hair and eyes, and wears a brown female school uniform with a blue ribbon around the neck:
- But this is happening now.
Gunzo pinched the lips:
- And this Velber is trying to take over the entire Fog war fleet?
The girl simply nodded. Another girl of silent type, thought the leader of the Blue Steel force.
- What does Velber want? To take all the knowledge in the world? And for that, he wants to use the Fog fleet?
New acquiescence, this time, however, Hakuno Kishinami said:
- Velber often uses the natural enemies of his prey. He makes them stronger and takes control.
Kyohei, the Arming Officer of the I-401, intervenes:
- The Fog is just that for Velber? A weapon he can dispose of?
As Hakuno tilt his head as if asking him to repeat the question, the young man forgot everything he wanted to say. In fact, he thought only of his precious collection of manga heroine figurines and video games... He suddenly wanted to leave the living room to try to melt a new effigy to the appearance of the pretty Kishinami. Despite her monotonous look, she had something strangely adorable.
Gunzo Chihaya coughed in his fist to regain his capacity... in fact; all the occupants of the room seemed strangely affected:
- What do you think you're doing, Kishinami-chan?
- I have an agreement with Yamato, and together we will fight Altera and we would like you to join us.
The Blue Steel Force Leader stood up and shouted:
- You're not serious. You just saw what she did with the Regina Marina!
A troubled moment, however, Kishinami displayed a resolute air:
- I am not alone! I have friends and allies. I can also count on the support of the Moon Cell. This world is in danger of destruction. We have to stop Velber.
This was the longest sentence Hakuno has said since he arrived on this alternative version of Earth.
Gunzo smiled. Who was he to try to prevent someone from risking his life to protect others? He looked at his own friends around him. So, Kyohei, Iori, Shizuka... his crew, once again they were around him, assuring him of their support. And beside him, Iona nodded:
- I'm your ship, Gunzo.
The chief of the Blue Steel fleet turned to the screen:
- You can count on us.
