After a thankfully eventless night I awoke to find Javelin was already awake, she had once again wrapped her body around mine, giving me barley any room to move. "Morning. How long have you been awake?"

She let out a yawn before resting her head on my arm. "Not long, you should know you have a very cute sleeping face. Unlike the constant scowl you always seem to have."

"That's just because my muscles are relaxed. You however have a very cute face, sleeping or otherwise." I gave her a pat on the head, the blush and smile I got in return was worth her embarrassment. "Anyway, how did you sleep?"

"I was fine. Thanks for letting me sleep with you. It's just, when I'm on my own in the dark, my mind goes back to the void I was in before. I start seeing memories of my old crew, right at the end. I…" she shook her head. "Nay. I mustn't foul this fine morning."

I moved my hand and gave her a headpat, a habit I noticed I was doing more often. But it seemed to have a calming effect for the both of us. "We all have bad memories Javelin. I can't begin to comprehend what you've been through. In the future if you do start to feel bad, don't hesitate to come find me."

She made her way out of bed and begun to tie her hair up. "Thanks. I will try and work towards sleeping on my own. Though, your body is really warm and comfortable."

"Like I said I'm fine with you sleeping with me. But I'm surprised you're not worried about us sharing a bed together and what it may imply to the others."

Javelin looked confused at what I said. "I don't get it, we're just sharing a bed, what's wrong abou…" she stopped, her face went bright red before she buried it in her hands. "N-no, I didn't mean to imply that at all. W-were just sharing a bed that's all, when I said you were warm, I just mean body heat. I..."

I sat up laughing "Don't worry I'm just messing about." I gave her a pat on the head and brought her into a hug. "I know what you mean. You needn't worry about it. Now do you want to come help me make breakfast, Apparently Her majesty wants it at eight and my presence has been requested."

She took a few steps back, her face still bright red. Scratching her chin she spoke. "Eh, well you see... Warspite moves too slowly and my legs could do with a stretch, I was thinking about walking along the deck for a bit. So, I'm going to go do that now bye." With that she stepped out the door and out of sight, I could her hurried footsteps quickly making their way down the hallway.

With a chuckle I grabbed the rest of my clothes, they were still slightly damp but were comfortable enough.

I made my way towards the galley, thinking in my head of what to make for breakfast.

Just before I opened the door, I heard a smashing sound coming from inside, followed by an angry. "Bloody useless." I looked, Warspite stood by a stove a haze of smoke surrounded her. Coughing she tried to waft away the smoke.

"Do I even want to ask?" I couldn't see any visible flames so I wasn't overly worried. I moved to open a small porthole as the room was filled with the smell of burnt toast.

Wiping some soot from her face she replied. "I am a Warship, not a chief." She turned to me, the calm look from last night was gone, replaced by the hard stare she had given me previously. "Maybe if Javelin wasn't warming your bed, you could have helped."

I just walked past her and had a look at her attempt at breakfast. "Nothing happened. That's all you need to know."

"It's my ship I have all the right to know." I looked at her, she stood looking directly at me with her hand on her hips. "I don't know how you do it but you seem to have all of them wrapped around your finger, even her majesty can't seem to go five minutes without talking about you."

"it's far too early for this." I let out a sigh, I started to get an idea towards why she acts like this. "Well, if you really must know, Javelin gets nightmares about being alone and for now needs someone to be with her. It's only been a few days but we've been through a lot together." her expression dropped slightly, somehow the tufts of hair on her head seemed to move downward as well. "Look, I will sort out breakfast, just go and get yourself cleaned up."

She went to say something but decided to just drop it and leave. I cleaned up the mess and begun to make some breakfast.

Later we all sat round the table, eating a meal of toast and porridge. We didn't have the supplies for anything more but nobody seemed to complain. Warspite and Elizabeth had entered together. Warspite had seemingly dropped her mood from earlier. "I didn't detect anything out of the ordinary last night and even right now the sea is surprisingly empty, back in our day these waters would be flooded with fishing and merchant vessels."

I finished the piece of toast in my mouth before speaking. "That's strange, merchants tend to hug the coast, but fishing ships should be in these waters. You really not getting anything out there, what's your radar range?"

"It's a jury-rig so it's not properly incorporated into fire control, but it should detect both surface and air targets at least twelve miles away, and right now it's..." she looked over to the side with a confused look on her face. After a few seconds she lightly hit her fist on the table. "Bollocks. the bloody thing is on the fritz again."

With a concerned look I asked. "How long has it been out for?"

"Don't worry I would know if anything got too close. I have secondary systems just with less range. It's just annoying how we battleships were passed for better equipment so the oh-so important carriers could get all the fancy new gear."

Sensing her mood beginning to sour Hood tried to help. "James, you mentioned being a mechanic. Do you think you could give the radar set a looking at?"

Scratching my head, I thought over it. While I had only had a small glimpse at the radar, it looked far more advanced than anything I'd ever seen before. "I could try, the radars I've worked on before have been old run-down models. Not to mention with how you girls heal, anything I do could just be undone."

Warspite shrugged. "Well, it's not doing me any good right now, so as long as you don't set it on fire there really isn't any way you could make it worse."

"I'll get onto it after breakfast then."

We finished up eating and each went off to do our own thing. Javelin was once again spirited away by Hood leaving me to work on the radar alone.

Thankfully the actual sensor looked to be in a good working order, it was apparent that the entire system had been bolted to the mast in a hurry. "The consoles wiring then perhaps?" I asked myself as I climbed back down. Finding the console in question I begun to look over it.

"Right then girl, what's wrong with you then." I realised I had fallen into my old habit again. Thankfully nobody was around to hear me, Unless. "You didn't hear that, did you Warspite?" I put my hand against a wall, it was still hard to believe she can feel whatever happens on her ship.

With no reply I begun to remove the panels and started looking through the wires and vacuum tubes.

Engrossed in my work I completely lost track of time, finding the task of following each wire and checking their connections a form of meditation. I hadn't even realised Hood had entered the room until she placed a hand on my back, causing me to jump in surprise and hit my head.

Rubbing my head, I got up from my work. "Ah that hurt, everything alright? You could have just called my name."

She moved closer and moved my hand away before tilting my head forward to look where I had hit it. "I did, several times. You didn't seem to notice." She let my head go, giving me a pat on the shoulder. "Everything seems fine, I am sorry for startling you."

"Don't worry about it." I noticed a plate had been set on top of a console. "Lunch already?"

"I thought it best to make yours, to ensure you had a proper portion." She passed me the plate. "You are to eat all of this." On the plate were several ham and cheese sandwiches along with an apple.

"So, how long before we arrive." I asked before taking a bite.

"By my guess, probably just over an hour before we reach our destination. You'll have to ask Warspite for a more accurate estimate. How goes the radar repair?"

I leaned against the wall. "Well, the actual radar looks to be in a fine working order, and I can't find any problems with all the wiring here. The system was definitely added in a hurry, so it may be that it's not receiving enough power, but apart from that it should be working fine."

Hood brushed her hand against the console. "And yet it isn't."

Finishing my sandwich, I scratched my head. "that's what I don't get. It's almost as if it doesn't want to work."

She moved to look out a window. "That may be the case. Warspite was laid down long before the invention of Radar. With the limited resources they had, battleships were passed for refit in favour of developing carriers. It was only near the end that we were given quick upgrades and sent out to try and stop the oncoming storm. Warspite may be subconsciously stopping the radar out of spite.

"Well, mechanical issues I can deal with. Emotional, not so much. I can definitely say I've never had the problem of a machine not working due to its mood."

"Give her time, even without modern systems her gunnery was second to none. Now, with you being finished up here, would you like to come enjoy some afternoon tea?"

I looked over the radar set, there really was nothing more I could do. "Yeah, tea sounds good. How were you able to get ahold of any, even with the money I had, it still would have been far too expensive." I began to pack everything away.

"That is something you must ask her majesty about I'm afraid, she was the one to Precure some."

Finishing up we made our way onto the deck. Using the shade of the forward turret, a table had been brought up. Elizabeth, Javelin and Warspite were currently sitting together. Javelin was recounting our engagement with the siren ships back when we first met.

"Is combat really a suitable talking point. Tea is supposed to be enjoyed over lighter conversation." Hood spoke as we approached.

"I asked. We need to know if sirens act differently now then how they did back then." Warspite replied. Two cups had been placed around the table; she must have known we were coming.

Sitting down I took a drink of my tea. Elizabeth stared at me intensely. As soon as I had finished my first sip she asked. "How is it? I was able to purchase it at a rather feasible price after some negotiations with a tradesman."

The taste was on par with the same stuff I had at the university. "Some of the best I've had in a long while, the fact you were able to buy this and still have change after speaks wonders to your negotiation skills. Going forward I might have to ask you to deal with all our dealings."

Elizabeth beamed; I could just glance her legs swinging happily before she stopped herself. "It is only natural for a queen to be capable of such trivial tasks. Bu-but don't think I needed your gratification or anything! I just needed to see if you are capable of knowing what good tea tastes like."

Warspite loudly placed her cup down. "As much as I am enjoying this conversation, we will be arriving at our destination soon. We need to discuss our plan of action."

"All I was able to find out was that there's a strange facility that nobody is allowed to go near. They've apparently made several breakthroughs in researching the cubes, but mostly keep to themselves. With all the unknowns, I think it would be best to have a few of us preform a reconnaissance to find out what we're dealing with."

"A reconnaissance would take too much time and runs risk of detection. We should just go in and demand they give over the cube to us. And if they refuse, I will demonstrate what my 15-inch guns are capable of." Warspite retorted.

The thought of using violence was one I had tried to ignore, yet some part of me knew it would probably be an inevitability. "But we don't know what's there. What if its heavily defended, or if they've somehow activated the cube and there's another one of your kind there."

Surprisingly she just smiled and shook her head. "If there is another ship there, then they will follow the authority of the crown above all else. And if they have built any kind of defence, well." she stood and opened her hand. With a blue shimmer her sword appeared. "No human fortification could withstand the fury of my guns."

I went to reply, only for Javelin to jump up. "How did you bring your sword out? I thought it was part of your rigging!"

She looked confused. Moving her sword around and testing its balance. "Uh, I just thought about it. Same as we do with our rigging."

Javelin moved away from the table. Her eyes closed as a serious look appeared on her face. As usual she made several small grabbing motions trying to only bring out her javelin. Eventually it appeared in her hand, Javelins face lit up in glee, only for the rest of her rigging to soon follow. "Bummer."

"Don't worry about it too much Javelin, you'll get it eventually. Warspite has her ship out so she probably can only bring out her sword. Maybe you just need to..."

I was cut off as Javelin spoke with a confused tone. "Hey miss Warspite, how many propellers do you have?"

The strange question confused everyone. "I have four, like most battleships. Why?"

Javelin looked out to sea, rubbing her ears a few times. "that's strange. For some strange reason I can her six, maybe my hydrophone is malfunctioning."

All of us stood still for a second, trying to make sense of what she had just said. A cold chill ran down my spine as I watched the colour drain from Warspite's face. "Submarine!" we both said.

"Where can you hear it?" I panicky asked. With a point I ran over the railing as the guns on the ship came to life, each moving separately to face different directions. I scanned the water trying to find the distinct wake of a torpedo, or any sign of a ship below the surface. Javelin and Warspite quickly joined me.

"There really isn't a dull moment with you is there." Hood spoke as she casually walked over. Elizabeth remained at the table enjoying her tea without a care in the world.

We all looked to Javelin to get more information on its whereabouts. "It's close, I can't tell exactly, Warspite your engines and propellers are too loud. Can you slow down at all?"

"The fact I don't have a hole in the side of my ship means It must be shadowing us while waiting for its friends to come, if I start moving erratically it will know it's been detected and attack."

Through sheer chance my eyes cached onto a small discoloration below the water's surface. "There!" I pointed. "That must be it."

The guns on the ship rotated and locked onto their target. "If we can get it to surface my guns can obliterate it."

"I have depth charges. Just give me a sec." Javelin raised her hands into the air, a large drum materialised in her hands, I had seen depth charges before, I was in awe at how casually she was holding it, they were easily the same weight of two men. "Just need to set the depth and time. Try to keep us still."

I looked back towards the sub. Thanks to the relatively calm sea, I was able to see more of its silhouette. It seemed to be running parallel to us. Something nagged at the back of my mind, I had only seen crude drawings of siren submarines before. They had been short and stocky ships, with the same glowing red lines the surface vessels had. This ship was long and narrow, and something else, right in the middle. A blue different from the rest of the ocean.

"Ok this should be good, firing depth charge!" I looked to Javelin as she brought her hands back to throw, my attention went to her purple hair. "Wait, could it be possible that..."

I raised my hand up to try and stop her. "Javelin wait!" it was too late, she looked to me as the barrel left her hands, I watched it fly through the air before splashing down just ahead of the sub. I felt my heart in my ears as I waited.

The ocean surface erupted as the charge detonated, spraying us with water. The sea had become too distorted to see anything.

A large submarine suddenly surfaced. It was a long and thin ship; its design was manmade and definitely not siren. Two small gloved hands poked out from the central tower. "Halt! Pease don't shoot." The ship had obviously been heavily damaged from the depth charge. Apart from a small cannon and some guns on the deck it didn't pose any threat.

"Show yourself!" Warspite suddenly barked with a heavy anger in her voice. I heard a quiet. "Here we go." from Hood.

The hands grabbed the edge as a head with bright blue hair shakenly appeared. Her chin only just reached the top of the metal before stopping. With a thick German accent, she spoke "I-I am U-556. A submarine of Iron blood, and I. Ah!" she was interrupted as one of Warspites smaller cannons opened fire. A blue shield barely held back the detonation rocking the small ship and sending the girl tumbling backwards.

"Warspite what the hell?" I shouted. My mind struggling to understand why she had fired.

She looked at me with a cold fury. "She is of Iron blood and cannot be trusted." she turned back to the ship I could see one of her hands was shaking slightly. "Iron blood! What business do you have in these waters. Answer truthfully or I will test just how much your shield can hold."

All we got in reply was a frantic "I'm sorry." repeated over and over. When she didn't give a full reply Warspite moved her main cannon towards her. "What in the world are you doing! Iron blood or not she's one of your kind, you can't fire at her."

"And? You humans kill one another all the time." I tried to retort, but couldn't find the right words. Javelin put her hands over her ears and turned away not wanting to see what came next. Even Hood looked away with a pained expression.

"Warspite! You are to apologise for firing and allow the young girl to come aboard. He is right in saying we are of the same kind, and I would like to see how our old foe has taken form." Elizabeth spoke, still sitting at the table.

Instantly the cannons begun to return to their resting positions as Warspite relaxed her body. She cleared her throat, the hostility already gone from her voice. "I formally apologise for firing my guns at you, I let our nations history's get the better of me. You are invited to come aboard if you so wish." I was a surprise to see how much Warspite could quickly change in mood at her sister's command.

She turned to face me. "You suggested a reconnaissance right? You and I shall be performing that alone once we arrive." with that she walked over to her sister's side and waited for the submarine to arrive.

After realising she wasn't in any danger the submarine begun to glow and break apart, leaving a small girl sitting on a large red mechanical shark. Unlike the other girls who had just skated across the water's surface she rode the shark as it swam through the water towards us. As she got close, she dived below the water before shooting straight up into the air, her rigging vanished just before she landed on the deck.

The first thing I noticed was that her size was smaller than Javelins, her large coat obviously serval sizes than her. Apart from the coat she only wore a small bikini that didn't leave much to the imagination. A large iron cross hung from the neck of the coat; its golden edges shone in the sunlight. Shaking off her body, water seemed to come off her clothing with ease barely leaving any evidence she had just been in the ocean. The shaking also brought attention to her hair that was tied up into two ponytails on either side of her head, it too also didn't hold any water.

I walked over and offered my hand. "Sorry for the misunderstanding. My names James Dawson, it's a pleasure to meet you, this here is Javelin and Hood. And over there is Elizabeth and Warspite." she looked over to her with a look of fear before shaking my hand.

"U-556, I am a type seven unterseeboot. I really am sorry for causing trouble, I was out at sea and saw your ship sailing on its own, I was curious as to where you were going so I followed. I didn't mean to cause any harm."

While her ascent was thick, she spoke English remarkably well. "I really am sorry for what happened, we originally thought you were a siren, by the time I realised, it was too late. I hope we didn't cause too much damage."

She waved her hand dismissively. "Don't worry about it, my hull was too shiny anyway. A Parzival with untarnished armour is just a coward anyway." Her body had serval bruises and I could see some parts of her coat had been slightly burnt. Yet she just happily smiled like nothing had happened.

I laughed slightly at the mention of Parzival. "Well, I'm afraid you won't find the holy grail here, but you are welcome to stay for a while. Could I get you anything to drink, Tea perhaps?"

"Eh tea really isn't my thing. Water would be fine; I'd take some juice if you have any?" I lead her over to the table. She introduced herself to everyone barring Warspite who glared at her when she approached. Javelin apologised repeatedly for hitting her with a depth charge.

We talked for a while finding that she had first awoken late last night in a small cove by the sea and set off at first light, finding us shortly after. Warspite was able to guess she had probably awoken somewhere near Edinburgh, ruling out that she was from the cube at Inverness.

"It would make sense that not all of the cubes have been found by humans." Hood added. "Though it begs the question. What caused hers to activate, and how many of us are already out in the world?"

Elizabeth nodded. "We also can't rule out ships from other nations. If one country is able to gather a sizable force of us, then they can act with impunity without the fear of repercussion."

"That makes recovering the cube at Inverness all the more important. After we should go to a larger port, some of the larger convoys that risk the Atlantic might be docked. If warships have begun to return to the world, they will know." I had been mentally kicking myself for not spending more time talking around back when I was on the Endurance.

Warspite stepped forward from where she had been at Elizabeth's side. "Speaking of which, we will be arriving within visual range of land shortly. We will need to make preparations."

"Ooh, I'm really good at stealth. I can easily get close without them noticing." U-556 stood excitingly.

She shook her head. "Nay. James and I shall take one of my small motor boats and make landfall with the rest of you remaining here. We shall gauge the enemy's disposition and combat capabilities before returning to form a plan of action."

"But why would you leave your ship behind, and why just the two of you? If your found you won't be able to defend yourselves." Javelin asked, not happy at the idea of me going off alone.

"We have no idea of their capabilities; a smaller force can act quicker without the risk of detection. As for leaving my ship behind, in the unlikely event of us being detected I can use it to signal to the rest of you." she tapped her sword on the deck. "And don't worry, I'm more than capable of dealing with anything humans could throw at me."

I wanted to disagree, but her actions earlier showed me that she wasn't in the mood anymore. Neither Hood or Elizabeth seemed to voice their concerns either.

We moved over to the side of the ship finding a wooden boat being moved onto the water. "Are you sure you should be doing this; it could be dangerous." Javelin pleaded as I moved over the railing and started to climb down. Warspite was already down, checking to see if she could fully control the boat like her ship.

"Honestly no. But she has far more experience in these matters than I, so I can't really complain." I stopped climbing and reached over to pat her on the head. Committing the feeling to memory. "Just stay here, we'll be back before you know it. Hood, keep everything under control while I'm gone."

She smiled and gave a slight bow. "I will await your return."

Elizabeth didn't seem to show any emotion towards the situation, she just looked over the railing at her sister. I made my way down; the climb gave me the unpleasant reminder of my injured shoulder.

As soon as I had both my feet on the boat it started pulling away, the sudden jolt almost knocking me over. We made our way over to the land at a fast speed, Warspite stood at the front the entire time while I held on desperately trying not to go overboard. Eventually reaching the shoreline the boat came up to an old wooden post at the mouth to the river. Tying a rope to the post I jumped off into the shallow waters and walked ashore.

"I was told the laboratory is just down this river, this entire place is supposedly a restricted area." Warspite didn't reply, after walking ashore she started walking upstream at a brisk pace.

We walked for a while, without a word said between us. Only when we spotted a large building did she stop and turn to face me.

"What do you think war is?" She asked.

"I don't follow."

She stood silent for a while, without the sounds of our footsteps I noticed how silent the entire area was. Eventually she spoke. "I want you to have a long think about what you're getting yourself into here. This isn't some sort of adventure that will be over by Christmas. The world is a dangerous place, and you have shown to me several times now your carelessness towards danger."

I went to speak, only for Warspite to put her finger on my chest. "Young boys like you always seem to just throw yourselves into things without even the slightest moment to consider the consequences. What if at the university Hood wasn't there to bail you out, or what about you going into a port that was obviously under attack. A ship can't manoeuvre in those shallow waters, had you come under heavy attack, Javelin would have been torn to shreds. Your untrained, and unexperienced."

She removed her hand and fixed her scarf. "I... I won't stop you. You are free to choose what you do with your life, no matter how much danger you are willing to throw yourself at. However, you need to think about the dangers you might put the others into."

The silence returned. I felt a lump in my throat as I realised, she was right. "You're a good man with a good heart. I just... I know that people like you don't tend to last long in this line of business. Now, we shall put this matter aside for the time being, our destination is within sight. I think that line of trees shall suffice as cover to get us close." with that she began walking again.

We walked for a while longer without a word spoken between us, eventually entering the edge of a small forest and following it around until we were close to the facility. As we approached, I started to feel an overbearing sense of dread come over me.

Crouching down behind a rock we had our first look at the facility in its entirety. It consisted of several large warehouses with thick overhead wires running between them, a large steel structure seemed to go out over the river, it didn't seem to have a front but we couldn't see what was inside. The whole facility was surrounded by a steel fence. "It's strange. I can't see anybody." I had looked over the courtyard and couldn't see a single soul.

"Maybe it's a day off?"

I pointed towards a large chimney; smoke was steadily pouring out. A web of wires came out of the building it was attached to. "See that, that's probably the generators. They are far too expensive to leave running when nobody is around."

"Yeah, you make a point." Warspite shifted uncomfortably, a drop of sweat ran down her brow. I guessed she was probably feeling the same as me. "This place isn't right; we should return to the othe... Ahhh!" Sparks of electricity leapt between the buildings as Warspite fell onto her knees, trying desperately to cover her ears. She writhed with a look of extreme pain.

"Warspite what's wrong!" I tried to comfort her; all I could hear was a faint wining sound. Blood dripped out between her fingers, I put my hands over hers to try and help block whatever she was hearing, receiving a static shock as I touched her.

Eventually whatever was happening ended and her breathing returned to normal. She removed her hands from her ears, the blood had come from inside them and the surrounding skin where her nails had dug in, staining her blond hair. "Warspite, can you hear me. What happened!"

Her eyes darted around before she quickly stood up. She looked directly at the facility. "Someone... Someone was screaming. I have to help her!" with that she took off running.

"Warspite wait!" I yelled, running after her.

(A/N)

gotta love those cliff-hanger endings. I hope you all enjoyed this chapter, with this one out i have reached a milestone 50k words, I haven't been trying to hit it or anything but it is a nice surprise.

As for why I got this chapter out so quickly since the last is both due to motivation for this project and because a personal friend of mine who reads this has his birthday today, so i set today as a sort of deadline for it.

I will strive to get the next chapter out quickly, but even the rough draft is turning out to be a convoluted one.

once again thanks to everyone reading and supporting this story.