Watching the storm from Akagi's hull, Bismarck held her hand to her forehead to watch for Parzival, her radio crackled to life and a distraught U-556 shouted from it.
"Lord Bismarck! We're being chased by Cleveland, the red box thing has changed her into a robot!" The German flagship raised an eyebrow, but didn't have any other reaction.
"Don't try to fight her, just lead her towards me and we'll deal with her together, you got it?" She ordered, doing her best to keep U-556 calm, she could hear the sub's near panicked panting over the radio, bordering on hyperventilation.
"O-OK...AHH!" Bismarck heard her scream before a metallic clang sounded over the radio. "Its got I-13! No stop!" U-556 yelled, the sound of a launched torpedo and then an explosion.
"Parzival? Parzival?! Respond!" Bismarck shouted, nothing but static from the radio. She grunted with frustration and threw the radio aside. "SCHEISSE!" She screamed before collapsing to her knees. Hearing the commotion, Warspite and Prinz Engen came over to her.
"What happened? Did they contact you?" Warspite asked, concerned with her fellow battleship's behaviour. Without looking up Bismarck replied grimly.
"Cleveland attacked them...Parzival mentioned her looking like... a robot."
"Robot? What the...we need to get them out of there!" Warspite yelled, she jumped into the sea from the deck, manifesting her rigging as she fell. Upon landing she aimed her cannons into the storm and squinted to activate her telescopic vision, looking for the silhouette of Cleveland on the waves.
"Wait Warspite, you're not actually going to sink Cleveland are you?" Prinz Eugen called to her.
"WHAT?!"
A new voice yelled from elsewhere, Enterprise, Atago and Akagi had both jumped into the sea after Warspite from the other end of Akagi's hull. Holding her arms to stop Warspite, Enterprise started yelling again.
"We don't know how far gone she is, we can still save her!" The American carrier argued.
"The submarines are in trouble NOW, if I don't get Cleveland off them, she'll sink them...or worse!" Warspite retorted. Making out Cleveland's cybernetic form in the squall, Warspite slowly adjusted her guns. "I'm sorry Enterprise, but I need to do this for the subs to have a chance, Cleveland is already dead." the blond battleship finished.
Enterprise clenched a fist, growling a little under her breath. She stepped towards Warspite aggressively, but before she could do anything, Akagi and Bismarck both held her shoulders.
"Enterprise stop! If you throw off Warspite's aim you could make her hit the submarines, I won't have you endangering fellow kansen for selfish reasons!" Bismarck scolded her.
"I'm sorry Enterprise, but it sounds like Cleveland is beyond recovery, the subs must come first, at least for now." Akagi added, trying to sooth her fellow carrier. Enterprise looked around frantically, looking for someone to back her up. Atago looked away, holding her shoulder awkwardly, Prinz Eugen just shrugged at her with a neutral face.
Enterprise slowly relented, backing off from Warspite, her head down in defeat.
KABOOM!
Warspite's cannons roared into life, blasting gouts of flame as the battleship fired on Cleveland's position. In the distance, geysers of water erupted around the corrupted ship-girl as Warspite's salvo straddled her, but one shell found its mark and detonated right on top of her. As the columns of water fell back down, Warspite's eyes widened in surprise.
"Where did she go? Theres no way she sunk that fast!" the battleship yelled, darting her eyes around the area for her target. Everyone else looked around too, wondering what just happened. They were all so busy looking for Cleveland, that they failed to realise she was already upon them. Shells and lasers suddenly started to pepper the waters around the kansen with explosions, Prinz Eugen and Atago both jumped clear of the blast while Bismarck and Warspite crossed their arms in front of them to block the attack. Akagi and Enterprise both zoomed away from the strike zone in opposite directions, the former manifesting her hull into her flaming red runway rigging.
As the barrage subsided, Bismarck looked up, she gasped in shock, not quite comprehending what she was seeing. It was Cleveland, now cybernetic and using rocket boosters that completely replaced her lower legs from the knee down, her cannons smoking from her attack.
"Shes flying?! Anti air now!" Bismarck ordered, firing a flurry of bullets and flak shells from her AA guns. Unfortunately since AA guns aren't designed to damage ships, the anti air fire barely made her flinch, making Bismarck curse at the lack of damage.
Enterprise raises her bow, preparing to fire, but before she lets go of the energy string, Cleveland turned to her, the dead look in her red eye persisting, despite it clearly still moving around in its socket. Enterprise hesitated, just for a moment, she thought there must be another way, something, ANYTHING to give her an excuse not to do this. But her soldier mindset kicked back into gear and she let go of the arrow.
She hit Cleveland, the bright yellow arrow slams into the cyber girl, exploding in a burst of sparks and smoke, but as the smoke cleared, Enterprise gasped at the sight: Cleveland's had blocked the attack using her tentacle arm, breaking off the tentacle in the process. Cleveland was completely unphased by her injury, simply glancing up at the now exposed wires sparking from her damaged appendage with the same non-emotional expression. The kansen were all shocked at the scene before them, tanking a direct hit from Enterprise's bow was unheard of, but despite the broken tentacle arm, Cleveland had barely registered the attack.
While the ship girls were still reeling from Enterprise's failed attack, Cleveland fired another barrage, this time at Enterprise herself. Dashing out of the way of the attack, Enterprise evaded the salvo easily, noting that Cleveland wasn't very accurate with her attacks compared to when she was uncorrupted.
"Whats going on here... i'm not moving THAT fast. Cleveland could shoot down my planes easily back in training, how is she missing me so much?" Enterprise thought as she readied herself for another attack. As Cleveland tracked Enterprise through the water, Prinz Eugen jumped onto her back. Her autonomous rigging jaws wresting with the remaining tentacle and Cleveland's claw arm.
"Cleveland snap out of-WHOOOAAAAA!" Eugen was interrupted by Cleveland's rockets firing away, sending the two of them careening through the sky. The German heavy cruiser holding on with her rigging jaws as she was spun and thrown around above the sea screaming the whole time. Unfortunately due to the frantic flying by Cleveland, Eugen couldn't hold on, and was throwninto Akagi's hull, knocking the wind out of her.
Warspite saw an opportunity and while she was distracted by Eugen, the battleship jumped towards Cleveland. With a shout of effort, she swung her great sword and sliced the other tentacle off Cleveland's back. The cybernetic girl barely reacted to missing another limb, instead simply turning to where Warspite landed and firing her cannons.
Warspite held her sword in a guard stance, blocking any shells that made contact with her. Though it was difficult to keep up with how fast Cleveland was shooting her, Warspite managed to avoid being badly hurt thanks to her manoeuvres and sword blocking.
Cleveland's cannons started to visibly overheat, a dull red glow emanated from the guns. After a lengthy barrage she finally stopped shooting and landed on the ocean's surface. But before the kansen could attack again, a massive flash of red lightning struck right where Cleveland was standing. The shock wave from the blast was enough to blow Warspite away, yelling as she careened through the air.
"What the...oh my god its HEALING her!" Bismarck exclaimed. The red lightning stream fed Cleveland more energy, rebuilding her tentacles and erasing the scratches on her rigging.
"We can't fight her if she's capable of that! Akagi you're our flagship! Do we retreat!?" Enterprise demanded, looking over at the kitsune. Akagi clenched her fists at the prospect of running away, then waved her arm to Enterprise.
"Find the submarines and get out of here, I'll hold off Cleveland." Akagi ordered, flaming paper planes appearing between her fingers. Enterprise's eyes threatened to pop out her head at Akagi's sentence.
"You can't fight her solo! Shes-"
"Thats an order Enterprise! Now GO!" Akagi interrupted, launching her planes. Enterprise hissed in irritation and called the others further into the storm. Cleveland was about follow when a fireball slammed into her back, knocking her over. Enterprise looked back to see Akagi smiling back at her. "I'll see you back at base Grey ghost." She giggled before launching more planes.
Enterprise nodded before saluting to her. "You better survive this, I'm not telling the Commander we lost you today...Red castle." She joked before following the others.
Akagi turned her attention back to Cleveland, who was getting back to her feet, her movements not too different from a puppet, only stiffer due to her mechanical components. "OK Cleveland, I know the real you probably can't hear me right now, but if somehow you can, we'll get you out of this, I promise." Akagi told her. Cleveland didn't response, still showing the same dead expression.
Akagi inhaled and exhaled slowly, fire swirled around her body as her runway became more active. Cleveland aimed her cannons and fired a salvo of laser blasts. The fire shielded Akagi from the lasers, with Akagi herself in a meditative state. A cloud of zeros and vals manifested out of the flames, climbing to higher altitude before diving towards the corrupted cruiser...
In the storm
Enterprise led the other ships to find the submarines, she felt useless with no way to launch her planes due to the storm, it only compounded the horrible feeling she had in her stomach, of seeing Cleveland as she was now. She still wondered why the cruiser had horrible aim and reaction times now, perhaps the Crimson cube was still trying to figure out their riggings, was she really trying, was Cleveland herself still in there somehow? She had no idea, he brain ached trying to figure this out.
Bismarck had Prinz Eugen's arm wrapped over her shoulder, the German cruiser was still dizzy and dazed from being knocked around during the fight. Bismarck was also still trying to contact U-556, but with no reply.
"Come on Parzival, you must be around here somewhere...please be safe..." She muttered, looking around for any sign of their submarine comrades. The far off sounds of explosions and falling bombs echoed from Akagi's fight with Cleveland. Due to the distance, no one couldn't tell who was winning, just that there was a lot of smoke and flashes from their general direction.
As the only vanguard ship left at full strength, Atago was scouting ahead of the main fleet, using her sonar to locate the wolfpack. She gasped as she picked something up.
"Large object 200 metres to our 11o clock, shape and sound composition match those for a Type IIVC U-boat; that has to be U-556!" Atago announced. "I'm not picking up anything besides idle engines, I think she's in trouble." She added.
Bismarck sighed in relief. "Sounds like she's too scared to surface, If you're picking up engine sound, then she must still be mobile... hopefully." She then got an idea and turned to Enterprise. "Can you hold Eugen for a moment? I need to do something." Enterprise nodded and held onto Eugen as Bismarck moved off. She then stopped slowly circled above where U-556 was submerged and started to speak.
"Parzival, hear my engine noise and come back to me." She repeated this mantra a few more times, almost like a chant. The other kansen, with the notable exception of Prinz Eugen, looked on in confusion.
After a minute of Bismarck's strange ritual-like behaviour, a low rumbling could be heard as U-556's hull broke the water's surface. Before anyone could react, U-556 herself burst out the hatch at the top of the conning tower and looked around frantically. She locked eyes with Bismarck, her face white, her eyes wild and her pupils the size of pinpricks.
"Parzival...what happened? Where are the others?" Bismarck asked her gently. Parzival barely reacted at first, she just whimpered a little as her eye twitched. After a few seconds she suddenly screamed at the top of her lungs, taking everyone by surprise. She took a few rapid breaths before shrieking:
"IT ATE HER!"
Her voice started breaking as she fought to get the words out, she sounded tired, like she had been crying for hours. "It...ate...her..." She stammered. "We...tried to hide...it caught her and...it...no no no NO!" She shook her head vigorously, hiding her face in her hands. Everyone's mouth went agape at the statement, Bismarck leapt onto the sub's hull and kneeled to U-556's level.
"What are you talking about? Ate who? Parzival what happened out here?" She asked the submarine frantically. U-556 didn't reply, her face screwed up in grief, like she was trying to talk but some unknown force kept her from speaking, all she could muster was some frustrated whimpers and sobs. Eventually she gave up and just buried her head in Bismarck's shoulder. The German flagship turned to the other kansen, confusion and concern on her face.
"It seems she's in shock, poor thing." Atago commented motherly.
"She must have seen something terrible happen to one of her squad-mates, not to mention the psionic field the Cube is generating." Enterprise added.
As they spoke they heard an echoed coughing noise from inside U-556's hull, Albacore slammed her hand on the deck of the conning tower and looked up at Bismarck.
"I-13...they got her..." She muttered before coughing again.
"Scheisse...what happened to you Albacore?" Bismarck asked, noting her injuries. The American sub looked annoyed for a second before replying.
"Forget about me...a Siren sub captured Albacore...it looked...wrong...like it was more animal than machine." She panted, climbing out the sub.
"No...she'll end up like Cleveland! We have to save her!" Enterprise yelled throwing Eugen aside to Atago, both cruisers yelped as Atago tried to keep her footing with Eugen's weight on her. Enterprise was about to tear off into the storm after the Crimson Cube before Warspite grabbed her arm.
"No Enterprise! If you go after her by yourself it will catch you too!"
"I'm NOT leaving her! We've already lost one ship to that thing I'm NOT losing another one!" Enterprise shouted, throwing Warspite's hand off her. She was about to leave when Bismarck jumped in front of her.
"Enterprise...we're outclassed by whatever this Crimson Cube is, we still have no idea what we're truly up against, our best hope now is to get out of here and warn The Commander of this threat." Bismarck reminded her. Enterprise growled in frustration, clenching her fists as Bismarck continued.
"Its too late to save Cleveland or I-13 right now, we need to meet up with Akagi..." She looked towards the horizon, the distant explosions had died down and the sounds of battle had gone silent. "...assuming she's still alive."
Azur lane base, the USS Dominatus
Commodore Jackson and the Commander were on the carrier's bridge discussing the current situation with the Crimson Cube. Both men were at a loss with how to proceed with the Admiralty currently MIA, they were still reeling from losing Fleet Admiral Riley.
"My god...I always thought the old man would make it through anything...and he dies to a fucking glowing box..." The Commodore said blankly. The Commander shook his head.
"I never actually saw him die, plus my task force reported no debris from his carrier, he could have done something to evade the Cube before it showed up." He pointed out.
"I'm not holding my breath man, some of the things the survivors have told us...Jesus...it creeps me out just imagining it." Jackson shuddered at the end of his sentence. "What about that maid kansen? Is she OK?" He added.
"Belfast? Yeah Vestal has said she'll recover, but she's placed her on medical leave until she does, she isn't taking it well though, the woman is a true workaholic." The Commander joked. Both men had a small chuckle at that, glad that the mood was lightened a little for both of them.
"Good to hear, at least someone is doing well, what is your plan for this... Cube?" Jackson asked.
"Not sure yet, my task force went out to recon the area, when they return we sho-"
"Sir!" A new voice interrupted. Both officers turned around to see one of Jackson's lieutenants frantically tapping on his console. "Internal systems are shutting down all over the Dominatus!" Before either man could question the lieutenant on what was happening, the entire ship suddenly shook, throwing the bridge crew to the floor.
Jackson groaned; winded from the fall. As he got up he could hear the sounds of gunfire and explosions outside on the flight deck. Both he and the Commander managed to pick themselves up and gasped upon looking out the windows.
The entire flight deck was covered in flames, from below explosions ripped the runway apart and planes rolled around the deck, knocked around by the showwaves. Men in black armour plating were firing upon the carrier's crew with assault rifles and LMGs, the crew fighting back with their handguns and whatever else they could grab
"What the fuck is happening?!" The Commander yelled, drawing his glock from its holster. Jackson pressed a button on a console and spoke into the intercom.
"This is Commodore Jackson to all stations! We're under attack! All hands man your battle sta-!" Before he could say anything else, a crewman suddenly whacked him in the side of his head with a fire extinguisher, knocking out the Commodore. He turned to the Commander and raised the extinguisher above his head to throw it, screaming in rage. But before he could throw it, the Azur lane officer fired his pistol into the attackers lower leg.
He cried out in pain and dropped his makeshift weapon, clutching his leg. He looked up briefly to catch a kick in his face from the Commander, knocking him onto his back. The Commander then put his shoe on the attackers chest and the gun to his forehead.
"Who are you?! Why are you doing this?!" He yelled into his face. The attacker just growled at him.
"I don't answer to ship fuckers!" He sneered. The Commander hissed and then pistol whipped the man in the face, causing an audible bone crack and a nose bleed.
"You have assaulted a fellow sailer asshole! Tell me who you work for or I'll end you right here!" The Commander threatened. The man laughed despite the pain from his fresh wounds.
"Fine...I work for Commodore Nico, and you and all your ship sluts are all traitors to the human race." He replied with an evil chuckle.
The Commander's angry expression melted into one of confusion. "Your boss is in a coma, you can't have been ordered to... do this..." The Commander trailed off, noticing the smug look on the man's face. He then turned back to the lieutenant and was about to give an order before:
"Sir...Its former Commodore Nico...sickbay says he's gone...the attackers have taken him!"
