Akagi found the two Ironblood ships and Belfast coming towards her, The kitsune felt a sinking feeling in her stomach upon seeing Belfast being helped along by Prinz Eugen, hoping whatever this cube thing was hadn't hurt her too badly. She then did a double take as she realised Cleveland wasn't with them, her eyes widening in shock. Akagi glided to a stop in front of Bismarck, who also slowed to a stop a few feet from her.
"What happened? Where's Cleveland?!" Akagi demanded, feeling slightly panicked. Bismarck just looked offside sadly along with Prinz Eugen. Belfast looked up at Akagi, her eyes puffy from crying, and the red fox woman gasped and covered her mouth at the implied answer. "Is...is she...?" Bismarck interrupted Akagi without turning back to her, her tone low and somewhat subdued.
"No...its worse than that..." She then glided over to Akagi and gestured for her to turn away from Belfast. As they turned away for a little privacy, Bismarck kept speaking in a hushed tone. "Thats not all, I think whatever this thing is has mentally damaged Belfast, she's far more distraught than I thought she would be by this." She explained. Akagi looked back at the German flagship confused.
"What do you mean? She just lost a friend its understandable." She argued quietly. Bismarck shook her head.
"If this was one of the younger, less experienced kansen I'd agree with you, but this is Belfast we're talking about; one of the most elite warriors in all of Azur lane, she's lost people close to her before and held it together pretty well afterwards, she didn't even know Cleveland that well and she's crying about it? No something is very wrong here." Bismarck pointed out. As the Ironblood woman spoke, Akagi was reminded of the sailers she saw.
"We found Admiral Riley's fleet; not only was it completely destroyed by whatever attacked them, but any survivors who saw it were terrified to the point of panic and tears by it. Most of those men had gone through multiple high class Siren attacks and come out wanting more, yet this cube thing...was somehow too much for them." Akagi explained.
Bismarck raised an eyebrow at her. "'Cube'? The attacker was cube shaped?" She asked.
"Yes"
Akagi and Bismarck both looked behind them to see Belfast pushing Eugen off herself, she had regained some of her old refined tone, but it was still quivering with fear as she spoke. "It looks like a... giant red wisdom cube, it had metal and... people flying around it, surrounding it like a ring, the people were...still alive...and being tortured..."
Belfast shook her head to clear up the image of the box shaped nightmare, she panted quickly, to the point of hyperventilating, reliving Cleveland's wisdom cube being torn away from her, and how she was still standing despite supposedly being dead.
"Belfa-" Eugen was cut off by Belfast holding her hand up to her, getting control of her breathing by herself.
"I'm fine, this...Crimson Cube, it kidnapped Cleveland and is somehow using her body, we MUST find it before anyone else suffers the same fate." She finished darkly.
The others were looking on in shock at her description of their newest enemy, but once she finished they all frowned and nodded at each other. As Akagi then lead them back to the others, she thought about Cleveland, and what this entity had done to her, the mental image she conjured up made her stomach churn, they needed to act fast before anyone else was caught by this thing.
Elsewhere in the ocean.
A high class Siren flew across the surface of the sea with a crazy laugh, Purifier had been tasked to purge the Crimson Cube from this simulation by Observer Alpha, while she was more than willing to pick a fight with this powerful opponent, since it would be fun to have a challenge for once, but she knew the Cube was their creation...so why did Observer want it gone? She had asked her superior that question, but Observer wouldn't tell her. She hadn't bothered to ask any further after that, so she had set off to find this Cube.
Purifier had been tracking its energy signature for a few hours now, slightly annoyed by how fast it moved since she wanted a fight, not a hunt. Then she was briefly confused when the signature split in two on her equipment, but she didn't care, the more the merrier as far as the bloodthirsty alien was concerned. So she had started pursuing the one heading towards her, giggling like mad at the prospect of a coming battle.
As she flew above the area this energy signature was located, she was puzzled slightly that she had been lead to an Azur lane kansen.
"Oh? A ship girl by herself? Well lets see how tough she is with this things energy flowing through her! WHEEEE!" She then ignited her boosters on her rigging and barrelled towards the girl from behind at full speed. "Hey there Azur lane~! I want to play~!" Purifier yelled in manic child-like glee. As she got closer to the unknown ship girl, her crazy laughter gave way to confusion.
She noticed this girl had way too much black and red metal all over her for a normal kansen, plus a pair of black, metal segmented tentacles coming out her back and her weaponry looked too alien to be from Azur lane. That didn't matter to the Siren however and she swung her fist forward to strike the girl in the back of the head. What happened next took Purifier by complete surprise.
Less than a second before her fist connected, the girl suddenly bent herself forwards, making the Siren's fist sail harmlessly over her. "Huh? How did you do that?" Purifier asked, impressed by the girl's evasion. She skidded to a stop on the ocean's surface and stood up straight, she then pointed at the girl and asked. "You're fast and fun, you know where the thing that gave you all that power is?"
As she spoke, the girl swung her body back up, acting like a puppet on a string, her arms and head flailed around like a doll's limbs as she righted herself. A lifeless glint in her one uncovered red eye. Purifier's smile faded a little as she recognised the girl.
"Cleveland? You ran into the Crimson Cube? Lucky you!~" Purifier giggled at the cruiser's current condition. When she finally stopped laughing she readied her main beam weapons. "Well you've had your fun with your new powers, time to-huh?" The Siren girl was interrupted by Cleveland rocketing into the sky, and fire red lasers at her from her tentacles, catching Purifier off-guard.
The Siren dipped forwards, using her hammerhead like rigging to block the attack. "Wanna play rough? I love playing rough!" Purifier yelled, jumping into the air after Cleveland, laughing crazily as she went.
The two of them slammed together, wrestling each other as they both struggled to aim their riggings at the other. Cleveland stayed silent the whole time, not a single grunt, groan or mutter of effort passed her lips as she grappled with Purifier, who meanwhile was growling with some effort as the two fought.
"You're...alot stronger now...I'll give you tha-"
CLANG!
Cleveland brought both of her tentacles down on Purifier's head, knocking her down to the water below, the Siren quickly bounced to her feet and skidded along the water, Cleveland opened fire with her cannons, peppering the area with laser blasts and boiling the water with each hit; sending huge clouds of steam high above the ocean.
Purifier did her best to evade the strange kansen's new weaponry, but she wasn't used to lasers being fired AT her as opposed to firing them herself. A blast knocked her off her feet, making her yelp as she tripped up, face planting into the water.
"This is not as fun when I'm on the defensive." She complained like a sulky child. As she started to get up, Cleveland grabbed her neck with her new claw hand, holding Purifier up, the Siren flailing and screaming in frustration. Her rigging blasting the sea in front of them both in a fruitless attempt to fight back.
"Hey! No fair! Let me go you-" Purifier was cut off by the sound of flesh being sliced, for less than a second she could feel a pinch in the back of her head before everything went black for her. Cleveland had shoved one of her tentacle spikes into Purifier's head, and an ominous red electrical pulse entered her brain...
Azur lane HQ
Once Task force Alpha had returned, Akagi and Bismarck went straight to the Commander's office, while Enterprise accompanied Belfast to see Vestal. Warspite, Prinz Eugen and Atago all lead the survivors of Fleet Admiral Riley's men to Commodore Jackson's carrier, USS Dominatus. In a meeting with the Commander, Akagi and Bismarck both explained what they saw to him, and their concerns about what happened to Belfast and Cleveland when they engaged this Crimson Cube.
"Crimson Cube...theres no reports at all of anything like that during the first Siren war." The young man mused out loud. "This must be a new Siren super-weapon of some kind, it has to be." He added as he started pacing around in front of the two ship-girls.
"I concur." Bismarck agreed. "Reminds me of that black wisdom cube Akag-" The German battleship trailed off upon seeing Akagi glaring at her for bringing that up. "...never mind."
"I don't get it though; This thing is clearly powerful, why bother attacking a weak human fleet when we have plenty of commission fleets out there right now? Sirens don't normally attack targets that can't put up a fight, we're missing something..." The Commander stated.
Akagi sighed and stood up. "Commander...may I asked what do we do about Cleveland? According to Belfast she's somehow still alive despite no wisdom Cube inside her...is she..." The Commander looked away for a moment and then walked to the window, looking out mournfully.
"Until we know more about what happened to her, I'm declaring her MIA, hopefully she can be saved from this...Crimson Cube." The Commander said with a determined expression. "Right now we need to know more about it; send out a few scout fleets to the area this thing was last seen, my newest general order is this: DO NOT allow this thing to get anywhere near you, we don't know what conditions need to be met for this 'Cube' to...kidnap you; if anyone finds it, just keep tabs on it and don't engage."
Akagi and Bismarck both nodded and started walking out, but before either could leave, Friedrich Der Grosse came running into the room with a map in her hands, almost knocking over the other two ship-girls.
"Commander! We have urgent communications from our commission fleets!" She yelled. Everyone went wide eyed at her declaration. "Every fleet currently engaged with the enemy has reported unseen activity from Sirens; their fighting each other!"
"What?! How and why?" The Commander asked, while pleasantly surprised that the Sirens seemed fractured right now, he had a bad feeling this was related to the Cube.
"No one knows, but for some reason the mass produced Siren models all suddenly shut down for a few minutes, then they rebooted and turned on their executer class leaders, When their leaders were forced to retreat or killed, the MP Sirens all changed course away from their targets." FDG explained.
"Do we know where their going?" Bismarck asked. FDG then lay the map down on the Commander's desk, revealing red lines criss-crossing it.
"I worked it out using the MP ships' courses to triangulate their destination...here." FDG then pointed to a small island. "That island is the only place they could all be going, its almost like something is calling them there." the larger German battleship pointed out.
Akagi raised an eyebrow as she looked over the map. "I've scouted that island before, my planes have never seen anything of note." She stated. "But if these mass produced Siren ships are heading there now, maybe I should take another look Commander?" The kitsune added.
"Go ahead my Red castle, just be careful; we don't know what this thing is really capable of." The Commander warned her. Akagi smiled and pecked the Commander on the lips before leaving with Bismarck.
Medical bay.
Akagi stopped by to find Enterprise and Belfast. She saw Enterprise leaving the Medical bay with Vestal, the two of them quietly talking. When they saw Akagi they beckoned her over, both of them looked crestfallen.
"Is... Belfast OK?" Akagi asked gently, noting how sad the two Eagle ships looked. Vestal sighed before looking up to meet the kitsune's gaze, still feeling dejected.
"Physically Belfast is fine; just a minor concussion, but she's experienced some kind of heavy psychological trauma, similar to PTSD. Also according to the Corpsmen on board the Dominatus, all the men you rescued suffered this too; Some of them have gone delirious, others are completely catatonic, not responding to any stimuli." Vestal explained, but a small smile made it to her face with her next statement.
"Most of them are fortunately just like Belfast: shook up and freaked out; But with rest they should recover, but that assumes this effect isn't permanent." She added
"My theory is that this...Cube must have psionic properties, that's the only way it could have done this much mental damage so quickly outside of conventional warfare." Enterprise theorised.
"Theory will need to wait, the Commander has a new mission for us." Akagi interjected. Enterprise nodded and turned to Vestal.
"Take care of Belfast." She told the repair ship. "Of course Enterprise, please be careful." Vestal told her motherly. The American carrier and Akagi both ran off to find the rest of their task force for the new mission.
Unknown island
The Crimson Cube was hovering above the island's volcano, the ring of metal and debris orbiting it looked more like a dirty black storm cloud, smoke from the wreckage inside the ring was caught by the same force holding the ring together, causing static discharge like lightning. The Cube itself illuminated the area inside the cloud like a sinister red star, bathing the whole island in an eerie red light.
On the horizon from every direction, mass produced siren ships were approaching the island at full speed, one fleet was accompanied by Cleveland and Purifier; the latter of which was moving robotically, just like the corrupted ship-girl. The Siren's eyes were also dark and life-less, her skin body had small metal implants in seemingly random places.
The Crimson Cube then flew away from its ring of metal to meet the two girls on the island's beach. Just like with Cleveland, the cube blasted Purifier's clothes away, but instead of shattering her rigging, the Cube's power started to augment it, wherever it glowed yellow, it now glowed red. The animal-like features of the rigging were replaced with more mechanical looking components by the Cube, the 'tail' was replaced with tentacle like Cleveland's own. Where the 'head' of the hammerhead shark would be was warped and changed into a giant four pronged claw.
Purifier's clothes were replaced with armour plating and just like Cleveland she was assimilated, the implants created new gadgets across her body, her arms had tendrils shooting from the top of her forearms like grappling hooks and she also had a new camera implanted over her eye. Her uncovered one now had a red iris. The newly corrupted Purifier then flew around the island, somehow silently ordering the Siren fleets to move towards them faster.
The Crimson Cube returned to its resting place above the volcano, watching over the island and surrounding waters in a way that would have impressed the Eye of Sauron. As the first mass produced Sirens arrived near the beach, the cube fired a blast of crescent shaped red energy at them. As the pulse passed over these ships, they started to change into new, nightmarish forms.
Their orange lights were replaced with a much more sinister, deep red glow. Some of the lights went out entirely, their hulls groaned and bulged as they somehow... mutated underneath the metal. Some of the bulges cracked and sprouted clawed tentacles from random areas of the ship, the innards of the Siren models glowed with the same forbidding red glow, which pulsed white like a heart beat every few seconds.
This process repeated with each Siren fleet that arrived, with each new ship getting a more horrifying form than the last, all while Cleveland and Purifier both watched from the beach, just standing with their heads hanging limply from their necks.
While this happened the Cube fired a red beam of light into the volcano, the metal surrounding it started to spiral inwards towards the Cube, it then was absorbed as soon as it touched the Cube's topmost corner. Each time a piece was consumed, the beam glowed slightly brighter, as each consumed piece of metal was fired as energy into the volcano, more siren ships arrived and while most were converted and corrupted, some were broken and crushed into wreckage to feed the cube's laser.
It wasn't long before all this activity started causing earthquakes from beneath the island, not that the Cube cared...