As the fleet of siren ships came closer to the home port, Emir saw some of the shipgirls depart from the docks, armed with turrets and cannons.

"We have to defend our home port, everyone take aim." ordered a blonde woman wearing what resembled a red british gala uniform. She was one of the Royal Navy's battleships, Prince of Wales the second ship from the King George V class, a refined woman who is dutiful and focused at all times… for the most part.

All the shipgirls readied their guns and waited for the ships to get closer, when the fleet got close enough, the blonde haired shipgirl ordered to fire to which all the shipgirls responded by shooting a volley of bullets.

"My it seems you're quite busy." The blonde woman turned her head and saw her friend from the Ironblood faction, the Admiral Hipper class heavy cruiser, Prinz Eugen. Who much unlike her friend Wales, was a somewhat apathetic woman who enjoys teasing everyone around her.

"Have you come to help Prinz?" flicking her white hair, Eugen then readied her own guns which consisted of multiple turrets and two hulls that were like living serpents. Eugen fired several torpedoes towards the black ships, damaging some but not sinking any.

Seeing everyone in action made Wales smile a little before she too readied her cannons. As a battleship, her shots were far more deadly, when some had struck an enemy on its side, however, she noticed that her attacks only made dents. Wales then noticed that the opposing fleet stopped moving, anxious as to what that meant, she told her comrades to be ready for a counterattack. When she saw the turrets of the sirens begin to move, she quickly ordered everyone to move. Everyone slid across the waters, dodging and weaving through the large geysers that the sirens were making from their volleys; most were successful in this endeavour, some not so much.

Whilst the shipgirls were defending their home, Azure and Felix were dealing with the Siren Purifier. Felix demanded to know why they were back when they knew that they wouldn't stand a chance against Azur Lane. Purifier could only laugh at this and explained that they weren't going to go away so easily this time. As if on cue the three then heard an explosion from outside. This prompted Azure to rush to the hole made by Purifier to look at what was happening outside. Looking out of the hole Azure's eyes widened in horror when she saw a fleet of her ships in combat with another fleet.

With her eyes fixed on the shipgirls, Azure froze in place her mouth agape, "You may want to start commanding them, little lady." Purifier mocked, giving a little giggle before facing Felix.

"Your time is over Felix Regis. It's a shame I wanted to keep playing more, but now we Sirens have won." With that Purifier left the two commanders and returned to the sea where her fellow sirens were watching the ships of Azur Lane fight their fleet from afar.

Not hesitating, Azure and Felix promptly made their way to the command deck, on their way there they met up with the ships Javelin, Laffey, Z23 and Ayanami who escorted them to their destination.

During the world war when Azur Lane's technology was still in its earlier days, Felix commanded his fleets from his office with his flagship acting as his proxy to give commands to the others during commissions, though he needed to be constantly updated since all he had was a radar that showed their positions; this was different to exploration missions where he actively joined the girls. With the evolution of technology however, a command deck was built in Azur Lane where a large radar shows a live satellite view of the area where it was pointed. As well as the newly added earpieces that the ships were given, Azure was able to give commands to all her ships at the same time with the flagship only acting as commander on times where communication was not possible.

Azure booted her radar and linked with her ships, quickly asking for their status report. On the other side Wales picked up the call, she explained that the sirens were pushing them back with immense power. Quickly thinking on her feet Azure gave her commands, she told everyone to split into two fleets, one fleet would be defending the home port while the other would be attacking the sirens.

Following their commander's orders the ships quickly went to work leaving battleship class ships behind as well as heavy cruisers, while the light cruisers, destroyers and aircraft carriers all went forward to engage the enemy.

Seeing that the shipgirls were moving closer, the siren ships opened fire, sending volleys and salvos at them. However since the ships were much faster, due to their type, they managed to maneuver themselves around the attacks. Once close enough, the counterattack began: letting bullets and torpedoes fly at the sirens, explosions covered the front of the home port as the bombers of multiple aircraft carriers sent their devastating attacks down at the siren ships.

Defending the home port was no easy task, with many light ships heading their way, the heavy cruisers and battleships did their best at taking down as many enemies as they could. Despite the size of the siren ships, they were still quite quick, furthermore their armour managed to take hits from multiple attacks which came as both a shock and an inconvenience to the shipgirls.

Watching the fight was worrying for Emir, although he wasn't near the fighting, he was close enough to get a clear view of the situation. From what he could see, he could tell the siren's fleet was far more formidable than they looked. No ships were sinking despite the onslaught of attacks, going at them head first wasn't working; the girls were just getting more and more damaged just by trying to fight those monstrosities for a prolonged period of time.

"Young master!" turning to the call, Emir saw Belfast quickly making her way to him with a worried expression.

"Belfast, where are my sister and grandpa?" the boy asked anxiously.

"I would assume that they will be in the command deck. What about you? Are you not injured?" Emir shook his head in response before bursting into a sprint.

Calling out to him once again, Belfast asked where he was going to which Emir responded by telling her he had to go to his sister and grandfather since the ships weren't doing any damage to the sirens.

Purifier then reached the backline of the siren fleet where another siren, in the form of a young girl surrounded in black tentacles, was waiting for her.

"Have you sent everything in motion Purifier?" the siren asked and Purifier responded with a menacing giggle.

"Of course Observer, last time we experienced this in the other timeline it was quite the scene. But this world doesn't have her, it seems a different person was placed as the commander of Azur Lane." Observer alpha giggled as the tentacles around her began to move excitedly.

"Let us then see who is her equal in this timeline."

Rushing through the halls of Azur Lane's main building, Emir searched endlessly for the command deck. If it wasn't for Belfast catching up to him, he wouldn't have found what he was looking for.

"Azure, grandpa!" he bellowed as he shoved the doors of the command deck open, surprising everyone inside.

"Emir! Oh thank god you're ok!" Azure happily exclaimed running to her brother and clamping him in a hug.

"Glad you're ok too, but now's not the time for a heartwarming reunion. I don't think your fleet is damaging those other ships." Emir choked through the bear hug.

Azure let her brother go, her face showing shock and confusion at the information that has been shared with her.

She quickly asked Emir what he meant by the girls not doing damage to the sirens. Emir explained that whatever the sirens were made of was strong enough that the guns and bombs of the girls were barely doing any damage to them. Felix inserted himself into their conversation by lamenting the fact that the shipgirls may have been operating with guns that have become obsolete.

"I've been upgrading their equipment. How is it still not enough?" Azure questioned with a raised voice.

"Yes, but the sirens are no slouches either. They clearly knew that with time we would also evolve. So they prepared for it." Azure began to slightly shake at the hopelessness of her grandfather's voice.

Checking the live view, the three humans saw just how much of a struggle it was damaging the sirens. Emir was right, none of the attacks were doing much damage to the enemy ships. They were leaving scratches, but that was it; no dents, no holes. Just scratches.

Azure's confidence dropped at the sight of her ships' struggle, she hugged her arms and began to cower in fear for the worst. Her mind blanking out in process. Though she quickly snapped back into reality when her brother grabbed her and told her that it's not over yet, just because their guns weren't as strong, didn't mean they were useless.

"The armour of those ships are far too strong, the girls' bullets won't be able to penetrate through. So instead of going for the body we'll go for the one thing that's actually dangerous, their guns." Emir stated gaining everyone in the room's attention.

"How do we know that those turrets aren't hard to destroy like their armour?" Azure asked but Emir told her that they will be, but since they won't be as thick as the bodies of the ship they'll be able to damage it.

"That will have to be an extremely precise shot, especially since we don't know if those weapons have a weakness or not." Felix added.

"Yeah, which is why this plan has a lot of risks, we'll just have to put our faith in both the girls and their skills to shoot."

Talking through the earpieces, all the ships then heard Azure inform them of the plan that her brother had come up with. Naturally they had to ask what exactly the plan was for ensuring victory.

First step that was ordered was to send dive bomber ships in between the siren ships and send a hailstorm of bombs, which created pillars of water rising from the sea. At the same time the destroyers and light cruisers were told to charge into the pillars of water, then take aim at the siren ships' turrets.

The ships of Azur Lane were then told that when the pillars expose the sirens, they should open fire at their turrets. Needless to say, this plan worked for the most part because when the pillars did disappear the sirens were trying to turn their turrets in order to shoot at the shipgirls, fortunately for the shipgirls the turrets couldn't reach low enough to actually get a good shot at them. With the sirens rendered to sitting ducks the shipgirls fired away, destroying all of the siren ships' weaponry.

Seeing the tide in battle change came as a pleasant surprise to Observer. She ordered the siren ships to retreat much to the dislike of Purifier who now became riled up due to seeing the shipgirls suddenly push them back.

"We don't gain anything by staying here without attacking. We will return, I wanna see what this new commander can bring to the table."

"I don't like this Observer, I want my fun. But if you say so."

Several portals appeared out of nowhere which the siren ships backed into, disappearing from the sight of the shipgirls.

Before they left Azur Lane, Observer gave them a greeting of her own, plus her hopes that they will continue to entertain them and give them a lot of information for their experiments.

Seeing that they had survived the unexpected raid, a large smile appeared on Emir's face, while his sister who had all the adrenaline in her body go away, fell to her knees.

Not a word was said in the command room, just a peaceful silence.

"Move it over there!"

Moments after the attack had occurred, the shipgirls went to work trying to clear the rubble from the destroyed commander's office; meanwhile those that defended the home port were sent to be repaired.

Felix, Azure and Emir were sitting in the cafeteria on their own, discussing the siren's return. The elder Regis was crestfallen at the fact that his companions had been heavily damaged from the sudden onslaught, he criticised himself for letting the shipgirls become weaker over the time of peace they had. Seeing her grandfather be in a depressed state was hurtful for Azure, so she tried to shift the blame on herself, considering she was the current commander, so it was her responsibility to keep them up to shape. Emir quickly cut them both off, he stated that no one was at fault for the shipgirls' impaired skills, he exclaimed that rather than dwell on what they did wrong in the past, they should instead focus on what to do for the future.

Azure and Felix both stared at Emir in guilt before fixing their demeanors, they agreed with the young man and tried to move forward.

Emir went on to explain that the reasons why the ships couldn't fight back was probably because their gear were far too old. Time had not been kind to their weapons, with all the sorties they had been doing over the years, despite the maintenance as well as upgrades. Meanwhile the Sirens were clearly working with much more advanced technology and had evolved tremendously since then, even becoming more advanced than they were during Felix's time.

However their discussion was cut short when the cafeteria doors burst open and a man with a worried expression ran to them.

"Emir, Azure!" the two siblings stood up and were immediately engulfed in a large bear hug.

"Dad?! When did you get here?" Emir asked, choking.

Pushing his children out of the way, Zander Regis explained to them that he had only arrived moments after the attack. When he saw the damage, he quickly became worried and rushed to their location after he had been informed by Belfast who came to greet him.

Zander was quickly calmed down by his family before the discussion about the shipgirls' gear resumed. Though this conversation didn't last long due to the fact both commanders agreed that they would need to upgrade the old gear as well as retrain the girls in combat.

That would have been the end of it, if not for Azure bringing up her lack of skills in commanding a fleet against the sirens, which for her showed clearly during the attack. Emir and Felix truly wanted to ensure the girl that she was fit for the job, but they just couldn't lie to her. True, she fell under the pressure, but in her defence, she was never trained to handle the sirens; her training consisted of only commanding the fleet against other humans, nothing else.

"Azure is right, she cannot continue to command the fleet." Felix voiced causing Emir and his dad to snap their heads towards him in shock.

"Though this is mostly my fault. I thought the sirens were no longer going to return and had not prepared both Azure or the girls for an attack." the old man then looked at his granddaughter with soft eyes. "My dear, do not feel as though you are inadequate, you are not. It is me who has failed you, by not passing down all I know to you."

Azure couldn't look at her grandfather in the eye, her gaze dropped and fists balled in frustration at her failures. Her grandfather may have not passed any of his knowledge down, but she didn't have the incentive to learn about them either, to her that was her failure.

Felix then turned to Emir who had his eyes glued on his sister, "Emir." the elder Regis called gaining the young man's attention.

"How did you know that the sirens were working with new technology and that ours were old?" Emir began to sweat when he was asked, his eyes darted around.

Emir couldn't handle the pressure and confessed that he had gone to the depot when he told Belfast to leave him earlier. He saw the gears were well maintained but were also older models, when compared to the turrets that current warships were using. He then went on to explain that when he saw the sirens' ships, he saw their turrets from afar. Though he could only guess it was technology that was more advanced than theirs.

Felix had a small smile, next he asked about how he knew those were sirens and once again Emir was visibly nervous, but told them the truth.

"I've read your old diaries, so I know how they operated as well as how they look based on that." Emir's gaze dropped to the floor, he was ready for his grandfather to berate him for snooping around.

"Are there any other problems that you can see with the ships?" snapping his head back, Emir looked at his grandfather in shock, instead of anger his grandfather's tone was full of curiosity.

Emir shook his head before stating that he couldn't see anything wrong with them at that moment apart from the ones he had told him and Azure about from before.

Their meeting was cut short when Azure realised that it was getting late and that the ships were most likely going to come to the cafeteria for their dinner. Most of the Regis family made their way to the commander's office, with the exception of Emir who headed for the visitor's bedroom.

Over at the office, the three older Regis were continuing to discuss the new commander that should take over Azure's place. At first Zander suggested that Felix should take over once again if the decision was indeed final. Unfortunately, Felix refused, joking about how he was now far too old to keep commanding an entire fleet of over 300 ships.

"If only mother was here." Azure whispered sadly.

"Yes, you're mother would have been a perfect choice… however." silence then befell the group for a few seconds as they lamented the memory of the woman they knew was the greatest commander of the modern world.

Hello again everyone, here's the new chapter of the story. I was technically suppose to publish this chapter yesterday but I forgot so here it is, sorry. Speaking of updates, at the moment this might be updated every 3 weeks or so since I'm still finishing up another story. But once that book finishes I will focus on this more, hope you will all look forward to that.

I also kind of want to make character profiles for everyone, but I have no idea how useful that will be to you guys if I decide to publish it at the end of each chapter along with the ANs. Give me an opinion if it will be useful or not in the comments. Additionally, this story will only take characters that have been released up to Mikasa, any new ships that have been added since then will not be included (you can also put up the new characters that have been in the current rerun of Crimson Echoes in this category).

Also this story is following the game's canon. So if I'm doing this correctly, Yorktown and Amagi are not part of this Azur Lane. I'm slightly confused since the anime portrayed that Yorktown was alive, but the game portrays that she sunk because of Hiryuu, as in permanently sunk not like Hood who was then repaired. If anyone can correct me please do, that way I can make the necessary adjustments to the story.

That's it for the messages in this chapter, feel free to tell me all your thoughts or opinions on the chapter and I will see you all next chapter :D