Chapter 21.

"Well, kid, my ships have spaced themselves out and cut any external lights. Time to show us what these ships of yours can do." Spence spoke through the radio.

"Good. My ships will be using a different frequency to communicate, but try to keep radio chatter to a minimum." I put the receiver down and turned to Warspite. "How we looking?"

"All ships reporting combat ready." She separated her gaze from the radar console, her face bathed in a dark green glow. "A benefit of not having any crew means we can seal off all our bulkheads and watertight doors, so flooding should be a minimal issue."

"Good." I took a deep breath to try to calm my nerves. "You got a radar contact yet?"

"Yeah. As Javelin said they're coming in from the south on course for a direct interception. Should be upon us in a few minutes now." Warspite said neutrally, but a click escaped her lips. "We're lucky Javelin detected them when she did. Dam navy just had to go and skip over me for a dedicated air radar refit."

"If we make it through this I'll see what I can do. Someone somewhere must be able to produce ship radars. But we can think about that later." I switched the radio channel. "U-556, you there?"

"Ja, kommandant." Came her chipper voice. "Air targets aren't really my thing but I'm ready to receive orders."

I could just about see her sitting on her rigging out on the ocean, the light of the moon bathing all the ships in a soft blue glow. Apart from her small deck gun there really wasn't much she could do against the siren aircraft, and her armour was even thinner than Javelin's.

"I want you to assist the convoy in search and rescue if any of the ships get disabled. Apart from that just keep your head down." I indicated.

U-556 gave her confirmation, and her silhouette disappeared under the waves shortly after.

It was now just a matter of time until the sirens were in range. I inadvertently found myself biting my tongue as the waves grew eerily silent.

"Are you scared?" Warspite's voice broke the silence as she moved to my side, her violet eyes shining with her usual confidence.

My hand wouldn't stop shaking and I could hear my heart violently thumping away in my chest. I had pinched myself to see if this was just another nightmare. But alas, there was no waking from this, and no lying to her.

"Yeah." I sighed, running a hand through my hair.

I felt her tiny hand pat me on the back.

"Good, anyone who says otherwise is either lying or stupid." Warspite consoled me, then gestured to the door leading out of the bridge with her other hand. "You have a choice: Remain on the bridge with me, or head down to a communications room in a safer part of the ship and lead from there. I will not think any less of you for doing so."

"I'm not about to go and hide away while you face danger. I'll stay." I retorted, at which she smiled.

"Good, I have but one condition, however." Her voice grew serious. "No matter what happens, you are not to duck. As is tradition, we are to face our fates unflinching in our resolve."

I felt tiny, which was funny considering our heights. I felt tiny in the presence of this girl who barely reached my shoulders, but I could also feel the weight of her words. I nodded silently, which seemed to be enough for her.

Warspite left my side and made way to the centre of the bridge, standing perfectly straight, shoulders squared, and hands resting on the handle and pommel of her blade. She then closed her eyes.

"They said the carrier would eventually surpass the Battleship. That aircraft was the future of warfare." Warspite cited, with her eyes still closed. "Well, that day has yet to come. For today I will show the world that the Battleships are still the most dominant weapon set to sea."

"Now prepare to witness the power of a Dreadnought!" She opened her eyes, taking her sword up and raising it towards the sky, against the approaching foe. "All cannons. Fire!"

And so did all eight of her main barrels simultaneously. A shockwave rocked through the whole ship, as if the world itself had quaked at the power of her guns. The booming rumble nearly deafened me, leaving my ears ringing for a few seconds afterwards.

I looked through my binoculars towards where she had fired. It was nighttime so I couldn't see the shells or their intended target. Warspite however let her sword fall, and calmly walked next to me. She leaned forwards to get a view of her own.

"Should be about… Now."

Far off in the distance the dark sky was lit up by eight explosions as the shells hit their mark. The flashing light gave me a view of the sheer number of aircraft that were heading our way.

Burning debris rained down from where the shells had impacted. The high explosive rounds had engulfed multiple aircraft even with how far they were spaced apart. Warspite had roughly destroyed about a dozen of them if I had to garner a guess, though there was still a sizable amount bearing down on us.

"Nice work, Warspite."

"I wouldn't break out the champagne just yet." She said, followed by a deep breath. "Prepare yourself, this is going to be a hard one."

For a few seconds the world went silent; even the constant hum of the ship's engine seemed to go quiet. All I could hear was the drumming of my own rushed heartbeat.

Only a few cannons opened fire at first, but more and more guns quickly joined in as the approaching aircraft entered range, and the sound of cannonfire slowly grew until it was a constant deafening drum. I could feel the difference in the constant vibrations through the hull. It felt as if it was shaking the foundations of my soul.

I could see the flashes from the other ships guns as the girls added theirs to the barrage. Constant streams of white shot upwards from the ships from their smaller calibre guns, occasionally joined by larger flashes as the bigger guns fired.

Javelin was the only ship in my fleet who was able to add her dual-purpose main guns to the fray, the rest unable to reach the high elevation or make the quick adjustments needed. Despite this the sheer amount of ordinances fired had created a nigh-impenetrable blanket across the sky that shredded any aircraft that tried to fly through it.

I knew it wouldn't last, however. One by one they started to slip through. As they began to circle around, the girls had to re-track more guns to bring them down, in turn allowing more to get within striking range.

"Damn these buggers, there sure are a lot of 'em." Warspite grunted with a strained voice. Sweat dripped from her bow and she breathed heavily. Each ship was now entirely focused on their own defence, unable to coordinate a combined response as waves of opportunistic aircraft tried to overwhelm the anti-aircraft guns and recklessly descended upon them.

Some primal sense in me could feel the danger even without the connection to the ships the girls had.

"Dive bombers coming straight for us, they've got my line!" Warspite shot her head up."Performing manoeuvres! Hold onto something!"

I did as instructed and grabbed onto a console, and soon the ship began turning violently. Hundreds of spent shell casings rolled off the roof and fell down from the guns above the bridge, a testament to how many bullets had already been fired in the seemingly short amount of time.

The hull creaked under the strain and the roars of the guns above me seemed to increase in intensity, as Warspite tried her hardest to destroy the descending foe.

A whistling sound then invaded my ears, and I knew what was coming even without seeing. My body froze up as the sound reached its peak. The world seemed to go mute for a moment as just off the port side, my eyes spotted a bomb falling into the water, followed by another, then a third one, and another…

The world was filled with a blinding blue light as Warspite screamed in agony. Her shield flickered as it struggled to contain the explosion.

The fireball died down and Warspite slowly recovered. I was able to give a hesitant sigh of relief as the damage mostly looked superficial.

But my respite was short lived, as Z23's hurried voice immediately came through the radio, "Warspite! You've got torpedo bombers coming in on your port side!"

Both of our gazes returned to the skies, and were unceremoniously greeted by yet more incoming aircraft. They were flying only a few feet above the water, with Z23 off to the side, her guns giving everything they had to try and bring them down.

Warspite grunted as she struggled to train her guns on the new foe. "Bastards! The dive bombers were just to slow me down!"

Warspite pushed her guns to the limit, trying to increase her fire rate, and though she did knock out several, it was already too late.

"Brace yourself!" She shrieked. I gritted my teeth.

There was a roar as the planes flew over the bridge before peeling off. Three torpedoes made contact a second later.

Warspite keeled over with a cry of pain as the ship rocked violently, the dim lights of the bridge flickering at the direct impact. Her hand grabbed mine like a vice and held firmly onto it as she struggled to maintain balance.

"That's going to leave a mark." Warspite panted. She slowly stood up straight again, despite the pain she was obviously in, her guns still continuing their relentless firing.

"Torpedo belt did its job and took most of the impact. There's some flooding, but it's minimal." She informed me through a ragged breath. Her grip on my hand relaxed a bit, but she didn't let go. She flashed me a strained smile. "Don't worry, I'm designed to take a beating. It's going to take more than this to lay me low".

"Just be careful, I don't feel like taking a swim." I darkly joked back trying to calm myself. I looked at the rest of my fleet, each of the girls were now stuck in their own personal fight.

There was a sudden bright light from behind Warspite's ship, closely followed by the sound of an explosion. It soon became apparent that several of the convoy ships from Spence's fleet were under attack, and their small deck guns were completely ineffective against the fast-moving targets.

"The convoy is taking a pounding." I noted grimly as another ship took a direct hit. Soon enough the fires engulfed its entire deck

"Aye, I feared as much," Warspite risked a quick glance, "with tonight being a full moon the ships are easy targets. I wish we had a cruiser or two, they would have made light work of all this."

One of the oilers at the back of the convoy went up, the resulting fireball was so large two Siren aircraft that had been flying over were caught in it and destroyed as well. It was obvious that none of the crew had survived.

I felt sick to my stomach. I was watching people die and couldn't do anything about it. "We need to do something."

Warspite returned her attention to me. She was in pain, but she did not let it stop her.

"I will uphold my oath and will follow your orders. We can move back and put the ships under the direct protection of our guns," She squeezed my hand and gave me a tiny but strained smile before returning her attention to battle "but the convoy is tightly packed; we will be unavailable to manoeuvre. But if that is what you want, then so be it."

"No, we're no help to anyone if we get disabled." My mind raced to try and find a solution, though both the adrenaline and the deafening noise made it hard to think. "There can't be many left, if we can just draw the siren's attention back to us…"

Just then a heap of burning wreckage fell into the sea just beside the ship, lighting it up as it fell. An idea finally came together in my head. I turned to Warspite again, and from the look she was giving me, I knew she somehow had the same idea.

"It's a stupid idea, but it's all I can think of."

"The best ones usually are." She shrugged. You want to go through with it?"

I nodded. "Do it."

Warspite picked up the radio with a grin.

"Girls, as you can see the Convoy is being ravaged. So enough of this scurrying around in the dark." The lights on the bridge switched from the dark red back to the normal lighting. All the lights on the ship's exterior also came on, fully illuminating the entire ship. Spotlights came alive and started tracking for nearby targets. My other ships soon followed suit by turning on all their lights as well. With everyone fully lit it didn't take long for the Siren aircraft to refocus onto the girls.

"Now! Fire until your barrels glow!" Warspite fiercely cried.

If the previous salvos had lit up the night sky momentarily, now it seemed like we had brought full daylight as the fight carried on. Both ships and aircraft could use the searchlights to easily find each other. Burning heaps of fuselage fell into the sea like rain while my ships took nigh constant hits to their shields and armour.

"Elizabeth!"

A bomb pierced straight through Queen Elizabeth's rear deck. Warspite's eyes widened in horror as she observed her sister's ship being rocked by the explosion through the window. Doing so drew her attention away from her guns, and she paid the price when several bombs impacted her ship's shield, with one more slamming into her rear funnel. Warspite recoiled in pain, and her grip on my hand grew so tight I felt she was going to break it.

"Warspite! You need to focus, we're no good to her if we go down!" I pulled on her arm. "Don't worry, she's your big sister. She can take a hit or two."

"R-right." Her guns redoubled their efforts. Warspite then began moving, making way towards the Queen Elizabeth to bring her into her anti-air bubble.

"That was rather unpleasant." Elizabeth's voice came unexpectedly calmly through the radio, and as if reading our minds, she continued talking unperturbed. "Don't worry, one's inner armour held and the fires are contained. However, there is some damage to one's drive shafts and one is starting to lose engine power."

Warspite quickly grabbed the radio. "Your Majesty, I am moving alongside you. If it's needed, reduce your ship to rigging and come aboard."

I had never seen Warspite so panicked before.

"It is quite alright Warspite, one is more than capable of protecting oneself. Please return to formation."

"Yes, Your Majesty." I saw the tension in Warspite's other hand as she curled it into a fist. Her duty conflicted with the desire to protect her sister

We returned to the middle of the fleet and resumed the fighting.

It lasted only a few minutes longer but it felt like hours. My ships took more hits but nothing overly serious. Just as suddenly as the battle had started it ended; all the Siren aircraft had been either destroyed, damaged or ran out of ammunition, and those that could peeled off and flew away.

Fire was all I could see around me from burning wreckage floating on the ocean's surface and the fires on the ships that were now being put under control.

I released an exhausted wheeze, allowing myself to relax if only for a moment. We had made it.

"Commander, I..." Warspite took me out of my trance with a rather thin voice.

A breathless laugh left my lungs, with a wave of disbelief slowly washing over me, then turning into ragged euphoria. It took us both a moment to notice we were still holding hands, a gesture at which Warspite blushed a bright red and quickly let go.

"Apologies, I had forgotten." She cleared her throat. "Anyway, the aircraft that got away are more than likely returning to their carriers. We should chase and destroy them before they can launch again."

"We're badly damaged, I don't think we can deal with another fight." I reasoned. "Wouldn't we be better off trying to slip away before they can strike again?"

"We can," Warspite looked over to the horizon; it was still dark but dawn would be soon upon us, "but outrunning carriers can be tricky; we don't know how far away they are. If we're right at the edge of their range then it would be easy, but if not then they can continue to attack us as many times as they like."

She gave me a severe look, and continued.

"And if we come under attack during the day then we have no way of drawing their fire away from the convoy," She clicked her tongue, "and we also have no idea of the composition of the enemy fleet, from the number of aircraft I would guess we're only dealing with two or three carriers, we can deal with them easily, just land a few hits on their flight decks and they won't be causing us any problems. However, there are humanoid sirens who use planes, if it's one of them we would be better off trying to get away."

"Never thought you would be the one to suggest running away." I said sincerely.

"It's not up to me what we do, I'm just giving you all the options." She gave me a smile. "However, running away from our first battle does not bode well."

I thought for a moment.

"You're right, it's do or die." I picked up the radio. "Spence, what's your status?"

There was nothing but static for a few seconds before his voice came through. "Alive, thanks to you. I think everyone in this fleet would like to buy you and your girls a beer when we get to New York."

"I wouldn't get the beer out just yet, unless we do something. Those Sirens will come back and do even more damage to us. We're planning on giving chase." I answered. "What is the condition of your fleet?"

"Give me a second." The radio went quiet for a while. I guessed he was communicating with the other captains of the fleet. "Three ships destroyed and two are unsalvageable. Several more are hanging by a thread."

"They'll slow us down. We need all the time we can get." Warspite commented.

"I know, but we can't leave them. If some slip past us then they'll have no protection." I responded.

I thought for a moment more before thumbing the button on the radio again. "Spence, I want your fleet to match our heading but move at half speed. I'm going to leave three of my ships with you to provide both assistance and protection."

"Aye, we will take all the help we can get. Godspeed, Dawson. The radio clicked and the ship started to turn. "And good hunting."

"You wish to leave Her Majesty and Z23 behind. Don't you?" Warspite sighed. "It makes sense. Her Majesty has a damaged engine and can't keep up, and Z23 has taken considerable damage amidships. Then it would also be U-556 to help with stranded sailors."

I could tell by her tone she was saddened by the fact of having to leave her sister behind.

"I'm sorry." I instinctively went to pat her on the head but held my hand back. "As you said, speed is what we need most right now."

She shook her head and walked over to a window where she could observe her sister's ship slowly fall behind. "No no, it's quite alright, my sister would be safer back here anyway. Why don't you go get some food and rest, it will be a small while before we reach the carriers anyway. I will relay the orders to the girls and keep watch,"

Warspite rarely referred to her sister as so, it was obvious she wanted to be alone for a moment.

"Aye, I'll grab you something too. Just hail me if anything happens."

"Will do."

I left the bridge with her confirmation.

The ship had definitely taken a beating. Pipes and panels hung loose in sections, the sheer shock from the ship being hit was enough to detach them. Out on the weather deck the air was filled with the smell of burnt metal and gunpowder. I could see and hear the spent munitions littering the deck, slowly rolling around and clinking together as the ship rocked.

As the first rays of daylight were starting to shine from the horizon, I figured about half an hour had passed and made my way down to the mess to make both Warspite and myself a cup of tea along with some toast.

"Heard or seen anything?" I asked as I walked through the door, carrying a tray with the cups and plates on it. I offered her breakfast.

"Nay, I've got no contacts on my radar and neither have Javelin or Hood- Ah, thank you."

I held up an old hip flask I had repurposed and offered it to her. It had bright red tape on it so I wouldn't mistake it for a normal one. "Do you want to try adding some oil to your tea? Might help give you some energy for the upcoming battle."

"Could have just gone with good old rum." She held up her cup with a smirk. "Go on, we'll give it a try."

I poured a small amount into her tea and she took a sip.

"The texture is a little weird and it's rather sweet. But it's definitely a step up from drinking the stuff raw." She offered the drink back to me. "Want a try?"

I waved my hand dismissively. "I'm good. Don't think oil would go down too well for me."

"Your loss. I think Her Majesty would like this; she has a sweet tooth and is always looking for something new to try." She took another sip with a sight, gaze looking out to sea.

It was obvious what was on her mind. "Don't worry, she'll be fine. We'll have this all done and be back before you know it."

"I know, I know." She leaned back against a console. "It's just…"

It was a bit strange to see her meander.

"After she took that hit, I felt sick to my stomach. I wanted nothing more than to bring her onboard and keep her safe." Warspite clasped her hands around the mug. "Some of my first words in this body were me making an oath to protect her. But how can I if she's miles away?"

"You protect her by defeating the enemy here, before they even have a chance to get near her." Warspite smiled at my attempt to cheer her up. "I haven't heard much about what you two got up to before you met us. Must be a pretty interesting story if you immediately swore an oath to her."

"If you want the full story, I'm not the ship you should be asking, I wasn't awake for most of it." Finishing her drink, she grabbed some toast and took a bite. "When I first came around, I was lying on a beach. I could see dozens of destroyed ships just off the shore, both human and Siren. The beach was slowly being littered by the debris as the tides shifted."

A finger danced around the rim of the cup.

"I would have started to panic, but I realised my head was resting on something soft, and a hand was gently patting my head. I looked up, it was Her Majesty, covered in soot and bruises. There was something instinctive within me, that I just knew she was my sister." A small smile grew across her face. "I asked her what happened and all she told me was that everything was going to be okay. Both my clothes and hair felt damp, but the sand was dry. I realised she must have carried me to shore."

"Something welled up inside of me. She had selflessly thrown herself in the way of danger for me. I got up from her lap and went onto one knee. My rigging appeared around me and I was filled with strength. I swore at that very moment to serve unconditionally and protect her no matter the cost."

It was the first time I had seen Warspite speak so fondly of anything.

"You really have this whole royal knight thing down, don't you?" I remembered what Walsh had told me when we met on the Endurance. "The ships that were transporting the cubes all came under attack. I had heard of a convoy transporting four cubes disappearing about a week before my ship was destroyed and I met Javelin. Were there any human survivors?"

Warspite shook her head. "Not any that we could find and Her Majesty won't tell me anything about what transpired before I awoke."

"That's strange. Did she give a reason why?" Knowing how boastful Elizabeth could be, I would have expected her to proclaim how she had single handedly destroyed a Siren fleet while saving her sister.

"She told me not to worry about it, and whenever I bring it up, she starts acting dismissive and tries to change the subject." She sighed. "Why won't she tell me? It obviously troubles her and she knows I would do anything to help."

"Because she's both your queen and your big sister." Moving to her side I put a hand on Warspite's shoulder. "I don't have any siblings, but I know she cares deeply for you. Elizabeth probably isn't telling you because she doesn't want to burden you. But don't think you're not helping, just being there and letting her be the big sister will help her get over whatever happened."

She was quiet for a moment while she thought about what I said. The smile eventually returned to her face. "You're right, I keep worrying about her while not realising she worries for me also. Thanks, James. These human emotions can sometimes be rather confusing."

"They can be. But life would be boring if we had everything all figured out." We looked at each other for a moment before something seemed to draw Warspite's attention. She looked towards the front of the ship. "Looks like duty calls."

I collected the now empty plates and cups, safely stowing them away so they wouldn't get damaged. "What are we looking at?"

"Seems that my hunch paid off. I've got both surface and air radar contacts; the distance is still too far to distinguish for me." A small flashing light to the ship's port side drew our attention.

A searchlight on the Javelin was signalling us with Morse code. It had been agreed to use them to communicate instead of radar to prevent us from being detected.

"Javelin reports thirty-eight aircraft circling around the carriers. Seems we caught them just as they were reforming their air wings."

I looked at the radar screen, there was a slight blip right at the top. "How long before we are in range. And have we been detected?"

"It's about 20 miles out so..." The ship kicked as it started accelerating. "Give me ten minutes. And if we can see them, they can definitely see us."

Time slowly rolled by. Warspite was the slower out of the three ships so we were limited to going around twenty-four knots. I could hear the engines through the hull working overtime to keep the speed.

The radar became more defined as we got closer, which showed what looked to be two large targets along with four smaller ones. We both breathed a sigh of relief at the apparent lack of humanoid Sirens out there.

"I see two carriers and four destroyer sized ships." Warspite noted as she looked through the window. I tried to confirm but even with my binoculars all I could see were faint black objects. "They're still sailing into the wind. Fortunately for us that puts them on an intercept with us."

"Why do they need to sail into the wind?"

Warspite turned to me and stared with a rather patronising look. "Did they not teach you anything useful in school? Carriers need to sail into the wind to help get the aircraft airborne. It's the biggest weakness those cowards have."

Hood's voice came through the radio. "Warspite, the aircraft have started coming this way, I'm counting fifty in total. We won't be in effective range by the time they arrive and the carriers will probably turn away once they make contact."

"Effective range." Warspite scoffed. "They're just under fifteen miles away, that's more than enough for me to..." Her brow twitched. "Damn, my fire control radar was damaged. Looks like we're doing this the old way."

"I need to focus." She said and grabbed my hand, only to put it on the helm. She grinned all the while. "Keep me steady and when I give the signal go hard to starboard. Then you can come join me and watch."

I wanted to ask what she meant but she didn't give me a chance to, as Warspite swiftly ran out of the bridge towards the gantry, which she stood outside of She closed her eyes and began turning to the left.

The guns went once again to their maximum elevation, and I could feel the slight adjustments through the hull. I knew next to nothing about gunnery, but it was obviously going to be a nigh impossible shot to make. Even the slight movements of the ship as it went over waves would send the shoot off its mark by miles.

I could just about see Warspite's face from where she stood, and she looked surprisingly calm.

I wondered what It must be like to be in complete control of an entire warship, of the sheer amount of power she commands. Is a radar just a normal sense for her like sight is for me? Can she feel everything that goes on onboard the ship?

The ship's horn blew and I realised that was the signal. I turned the wheel as fast as I could using all my strength. The ship slowly turned as the wheel locked out. And just as Warspite had instructed, I quickly left the bridge and joined her outside. When I did so, the ship had its broadside facing towards the Carriers. Warspite opened her eyes and looked at her targets.

"Once more unto the breach, fire!"

All eight of her cannons fired once more, and just like last time, I was temporarily deafened by the sound. By standing outside I was also hit by a wave of heat as the shells left the barrels. The ship stopped turning and I watched all eight shells fly off towards their distant target.

"How do you even know how to aim a shot like that?"

"I don't." Warspite shrugged. I felt my jaw fall a bit at the declaration. "It's mostly a guess, I just focus my mind entirely on my target and tell myself how important it is to make that hit."

There were several distant explosions on the horizon, and I had to fight every fibre of my being to stop myself from looking through the binoculars, but I just knew that Warspite's shells hit their mark. She just chuckled, while I stood awestruck.

"That probably didn't sink them, but the flight decks will be damaged, they're not launching any more planes for a long while." I felt her elbow joyously dig in my side. "Not bad for just eyeballing it, eh?"

"That was incredible, Warspite." I barely formed the sentence. "First you knocked dozens of aircraft out of the sky and now you just hit a million-to-one shot."

"Yeah, I am rather amazing, aren't I?" She looked up at the slowly approaching formation of aircraft. It was smaller than the one we had dealt with earlier, and now it was also daylight. "Hold the celebrations off for now though, we're not out of the woods yet."

The Siren aircraft descended upon us. Unlike how they had attacked last time it seemed to be more random and chaotic. Their formation was in disarray, and their gunfire was scattered.

"It seems that damaging the carriers has done something to them!" I yelled over the explosions and cannon fire. Even without any sense of unity my ships were still struggling to keep them at bay.

A bomb struck the water just below where we stood, rocking me back and drenching us in water.

"You should head back inside." Warspite said. "Things might get a little dicey out here, but we should be able to pull through. Radio the girls and tell them to turn back towards the convoy, there's no reason to stick around here anymore."

"Aye, will do. You just be careful out here; I wouldn't want anything to happen to my best marksman now." I flirted, to which she spared a quick wink before turning back to the fight.

Leaving her be I made my way back to the safety of the bridge. Despite the chaos around us I felt rather confident; we had done it, fought off a sizable siren attack and came out stronger for it, and now with all the sailors in the convoy seeing how powerful the girls really are, it should be easy to be left alone by the powers that be.

Just as I was walking into the bridge the ship was hit by a bomb. It rocked violently and I felt my head impact something, and my entire world went dark.

"Whew, that was a big one." Warspite spoke to herself after the bomb had hit her bow. She quickly refocused herself on the surrounding foe. It was hard tracking so many targets especially with how erratic they had become. Fortunately, being disorganised meant they no longer attacked in unison, making it easy to focus down attacking aircraft and destroy them.

She was on cloud nine, the praise James had given her had made her chest feel all warm and fuzzy. Right now she just wanted to get the battle over and done with to make him happy.

"Wonder what he's going to cook for us today?"

Warspite could feel the growing hunger pangs, even with the tea and toast James had brought her she was still hungry after all the fighting.

However, her thoughts were interrupted when something in the back of her head shifted, leaving her with an unexplainable feeling that something was now off. She tried to focus on it but couldn't find the source. Her mind then jumped on its own to a particular place, as her attention kept going back to where James was. "Come on Warspite, you're not some school girl who's head over heels for some ma-"

That was it, Warspite felt ice run down her spine as she realised what was off. James was at the door to her bridge, and he wasn't moving. quickly turned her head over to see what was wrong, hoping in her heart she was mistaken. But she wasn't, and the sight nearly made her knees buckle.

"No, James! James!" Warspite grabbed his shoulders, trying to see what was wrong, not even realising she had left her position and that her guns had stopped firing.

"Please, James. Don't do this."

Trying to pick him up with a single hand and move him further into the safety of the bridge, all the while calling his name and trying to wake him up to no avail. It was when her other hand moved to the back of his head when she felt it.

She tried to dismiss it as just water at first, but when the light of the rising sun finally shone upon them, she saw her hands and sleeves covered in a deep red liquid, one that was far too warm to be seawater. It was his blood.

"No! Please, James, I'm sorry! Please wake up!" Warspite's vision swam and blurred as tears fell down.

With the lack of counter fire holding them back, the Sirens dove in full force. Bomb after bomb begun to impact the ship.

Warspite yelped in pain, but a single thought occupied her mind.

"I won't... I won't let you take him." And tried as she did, Warspite just couldn't focus her mind enough to control the ship. Another bomb hit one of her smaller turrets and detonated the ammunition within.

The pain was unbearable, Warspite buried herself in James' chest and tried to find the same comfort that was always there when she was near him. It was hopeless, it was like someone had stabbed her in the chest with a shard of ice.

The will to fight vanished; she just wanted it to be over.

But through the noise of battle, she heard it. A voice rang out in her head. One that wasn't hers, nor was one she recognised. But with it came something started to well up inside of her, it grew and grew until she started to feel like she was on fire. Arcs of energy leapt from Warspite's body and burned the metal around her.

"Are you about to break your oath?"

Her mind became clouded. The pain of having her ship blown apart dulled out, leaving only the feeling of the ocean on her hull and James' body in her grasp. Just as the feeling inside felt like it was going to tear her apart, Warspite's mouth began moving on its own.

"I am Warspite." She spoke with a booming voice that she didn't know belonged to her, the scalding power rushing and growing by the second.

"I am Warspite." She repeated. "And by my sword, you will all be obliterated!"

The energy reached its peak, and everything went white.

Hood was panicking. She was so focused on dealing with the sirens attacking her that she hadn't noticed that Warspite's guns stopped firing until the aircraft around her left to attack the now undefended ship. She tried to hail James or Warspite on the radio to no avail and had to watch in horror as Warspite took heavy damage, all while she tried her hardest to get over to her.

The hair on the back of Hood's neck stood on edge as sparks of energy jumped around Warspite's superstructure.

And then it came. It was just a dull glow from the bridge at first, but it suddenly grew to a blinding light that encompassed the entire ship. Hood had to look away as it became unbearable. Even Elizabeth and the other ships miles away were greeted by a sight that could only be described as the sudden appearance of a second sun, the brightness causing several sailors to see after images for the next few days. Every electrical system around went haywire, lights popped and fuses blew out, Even the girls were not spared as their heads pounded with the electronic backlash.

When the light finally died down Hood risked a look. All the siren aircraft was now lifelessly falling down, the distinct red glow on them now absent. She didn't hesitate, and within seconds she was skating across the sea with her rigging, sometimes jumping to the side as an aircraft fell beside her

She could hear both Javelin, and the other girls far away on the radio asking what had just happened. Hood didn't reply, being solely focused on the ship she was coming up to. The Warspite was still radiating a soft blue glow but there didn't seem to be any signs of activity on the ship. There wasn't even any smoke coming from the funnel.

Hood leapt as high as possible, landing only a few levels down from the bridge, paying no attention to the tingling sensation snaking up her legs when they made contact with the deck. She ran as fast as she could to reach the bridge.

Practically ripping the door as she swung it open Hood gasped by the sight she was greeted with.

"Oh, Warspite. What have you done?"

Both Warspite and James laid motionless on the deck.

(A/N) Slowly creeping up on the 1-year Anniversary of Azur waves. I will leave all the reflection stuff for that chapter but I am very pleased with how this story is coming along.

This chapter may seem a bit different that previous, that is because it now has someone helping me edit, this should improve both my writing process and the overall quality.