Mobile sighed, sitting herself on one of the numerous cement protrusions that dotted the edges of the docks so she could watch the comings and goings around her. Even this close to the water, the heat was still unbearably dry for the cruiser's tastes, and she couldn't even go explore or shop because she was stuck here waiting. That wasn't even taking into account what her mission was this time. "Escort the newly selected Commander to the Charleston Naval Base for training, then to New York," she muttered to herself. "Escort implies I wouldn't be doing this all by myself. …Not to mention she'll be at Charleston. Crap."
A moment later, she clapped a hand loudly against the cement and pushed herself to her feet, boot heels clacking on the pavement marking her departure. "Screw this. I'm taking it into my own hands, orders be damned."
Today was slow anyway. Having sat in the harbor for the last month, much of the novelty of her ship visiting the city had worn off by now since she'd offered it for tours when she found she'd be stuck waiting around. She could stand to give Midway the spotlight again for at least one day. And with that decided, she disappeared into the crowd to track down her target.
When ██████ had left the house to run errands, it wasn't any different than any other day. He was already drunk, her mother was at work, and she was finding any excuse to get out of the house or hide in her room. If the day ended solely with verbal lashings, she'd be able to consider it a win. And the less time she was in restraining order-distance from either instance of trouble, the better.
Never mind that the bottle she was carefully carrying in her arms would only serve as further fuel for a potential rage. Never mind that by bringing this additional bottle home she could very well cause a rage that would not have otherwise occurred. It was always about an additional thirty minutes, an additional hour, maybe even an additional day. Maybe this bottle would further encite a stupor that would enable some peace and quiet. Anything to space out the instances of the inevitable. Anything to kill off needless thoughts and focus on survival.
But it would be this concern that would cause a disaster in and of itself. ██████'s unfocused gaze failed to notice the incline between the sidewalk and the street, the split between the white concrete and the black asphalt. The toebox of her worn sneaker rammed into the short vertical surface, causing ██████'s body to lurch forwards at the sudden resistance where it expected none. A quick plant of her other foot prevented herself from falling forward, but the heavy glass bottle in her hands wouldn't share in this stopping of momentum, slipping out of the grasp in front of her chest and somersaulting across the air.
Already ██████ could see the impact of the dark glass shattering into a million pieces, the pale yellow liquid splashing into a colorful display before seeping into the ground and becoming inaccessible to human hands. A yelp of panic rose from her lungs as her hands frantically reached out to make a one-in-million chance of a grab. Even as her hands instinctively tried to reach themselves downwards to break her fall, ██████ did not believe for a second that any injury she could possibly receive would be worth the trade for the bottle.
Yet even she could tell deep down as the bottle flipped through the air that her reach wouldn't be enough. That it was moving too quickly and her intentional stopping of her momentum to prevent her fall had put her impossibly behind. All she could do was close her eyes and wait for the sound of the crash. She wanted to press her hands against her ears to shield herself from the noise and the meaning it would carry, but her hands were too overloaded to receive a third directive.
But even after she had fully steadied herself and pulled her figure back to a standing position, there was no crash. No sound. Fearing the worst, ██████ opened her eyes from their lowered position, only to find the bottle hovering in midair.
No, it wasn't the bottle, she was only seeing the bottom half of it. The bottle was surprisingly close too, for something that had somersaulted out of her arms. A hand was gripping the neck of the bottle, holding it out for ██████ to retrieve.
██████ reached out and gingerly put it back into her arms like a squirrel with its last acorn in the middle of winter. She quickly ran a few fingers over the smooth dark surface, checking the glass for any cracks, then the cap for any dents or leaks, of which there were none. It was only then that she raised her gaze to see who had caught the bottle for her.
The first thing perceived by ██████'s eyes was a pair of matching black pants and black heeled boots, immediately contrasted by the wave of silver hair hanging down to the woman's ankles, swaying ever so slightly in the breeze in the ponytail that was just barely preventing the ends from trailing on the ground. The crisp white of the belt tied haphazardly - not even tight enough to serve any purpose - and the tube top covering her torso contrasted to the deep black, as well as the splash of color provided by a patriotically-colored floral silk scarf tied around her neck and an identically-colored ribbon holding up her ponytail. A large piercing, almost sized like an amulet, dangled from her belly button, the design resembling crossed revolvers sprouting a pair of wings, its rhinestones glinting in the sun.
Amber eyes framed a relatively neutral expression, but ██████ could feel a sense of urgency within her gaze, as if there were things she needed to do but didn't want to express in the moment. Her posture was equally deliberate, the hand that had caught and returned the bottle now resting on her hip, as if expressing the tiniest bit of impatience, but as if nothing in the world could catch her off guard.
"Um… t-thank you?" ██████ managed to eek out after a few aborted attempts and swallows.
The woman didn't respond, but her amber eyes narrowed as if scrutinizing ██████'s face. ██████ instinctively shrank her posture in a well-entrenched fear response, expecting some level of criticism or reproach for tripping and dropping something as fragile as a glass bottle.
"Can I, um, help you somehow?" ██████ asked. It was a risk she would have never taken, but the woman's silence was metaphorically crushing, and her mind was already racing to interpret with pessimism.
The woman's eyes stayed in their narrowed stance, but eventually she opened her mouth. "I thought you looked familiar," she said. "Are you ██████ ██████?"
██████'s eyes briefly widened in shock at a stranger knowing her name, but she quickly drew in a shaky breath to calm her nerves. "Uh, yes. I am."
"Well then," came the non-directed response. "Looks like my day hasn't been a total waste."
"E-Excuse me?"
"Bit of a long story. Is there anywhere you have to be right now? Anywhere we can go to talk in private?"
██████'s brow furrowed, but her gaze drifted downwards and landed on the bottle still sitting in her arms, panic instantly flaring from its existence. "N-No! I, uh, I'm really sorry, but I have to get this to my house immediately, and I'm already late!"
"Mind if I follow you, then?"
"I- no, I have to come back alone."
The woman's eyes narrowed further in irritation and her lips parted slightly, as if to state a complaint but she sealed her lips soon after, seemingly having decided against it. "Fine then, but can you come right afterwards?"
██████ opened her mouth to express hesitation, but the woman's second statement instantly caught her attention.
"I can buy you lunch or whatever."
██████ felt her entire body perk up at the offer of food, and she quickly tamped down the urge to swallow the rapidly building saliva in her mouth. "W-Will you really?"
"Yeah, sure. If there's two things I have a lot of right now, it's money and sweat. And sweat doesn't get you very far in a restaurant."
██████ once again tamped down the urge to swallow hard, but her voice still let slip a sudden shift towards excitement. "Okay, I'll see if I can make it. If I'm not there after half an hour, it means I wasn't able to. Where will we meet?"
The woman flicked a thumb over her shoulder. "Back where you bought that wine. I'll be waiting at the intersection."
"...good grief," muttered the silver-haired woman as she witnessed the spontaneous black hole that was ██████ finish consuming her sixth plate of food, stacking it onto a pile like an addition to a war memorial. "As if every bite were meant to be your last. And I thought I was hungry."
Despite the rushed behavior, the muttered words were instantly perceived by ██████'s ears and she instantly stopped mid-chew of her barbeque pork sandwich, apology already budding in her eyes. "I'm- I'm really sorry!" she stuttered. "It's just… I was really hungry, and-"
"Yeah, yeah, don't sweat it," came the response as she took a bite out of her third hamburger. "Just surprised is all. Like I said, I have money, and I was hungry too."
"Well, thank you again for that, but…why did you want to talk? And I don't even know your name."
The woman casually threw the rest of her hamburger into her mouth. "Well, I think I can answer both those questions at once," she said, pulling out a printed photograph and placing it on the table. "Do you know what this is?" she asked.
██████ looked at the photo of a cube sitting on a steel surface. The cube was a translucent sky-blue, with little flecks of pure white light dotting its volume like stars. And at the center of it was a larger sphere of white light, almost like a miniature sun, slowly pulsating in emanation.
On its own there was little to identify the object, but even ██████ could identify something that had been dominating the scientific and technological advancements in recent days.
"It's a Wisdom Cube. Or an E-Cube."
"Exactly," comes the response as the woman pressed a finger against her crop top in the chest area. A soft blue glow, identical to the one in the photograph, trickled ever so slightly out of her chest, as if a door opened a crack to a brightened environment on the other side. "They're the things that make me me, because I'm not a person. I'm based on the information stored within, to create that which sails across the seas."
"So… you're a KAN-SEN? A shipgirl?"
"Bingo."
"Which ship do you represent?"
"USS Mobile, CL-63. 9th of the Cleveland-class."
"Oh…"
"What? Lame name or something?" came the response.
"N-No, not at all, I just… I know a little bit about the ships that are shipgirls, but I've never heard of you."
"'Course you haven't," came the snort. "Do I look like one of those big shots to you? I'm a light cruiser. Nobody remembers those unless your name is San Diego or something, but even then all anybody cares about is the big gals."
"Oh…I'm sorry I asked."
"It's cool, I've gotten used to it a long time ago," Mobile grumbled, clearly still having lingering resentment about a disparity in recognition. "I'm getting off topic. Let me answer your other question. I was sent here because you're being scouted for an important position."
██████'s brow furrowed. "What sort of position?" she asked cautiously.
"Acting Commander of Azur Lane."
"Comm-" came the choked-off reply. If ██████ had been drinking anything when she was told this, she likely would have sprayed it all over the table and Mobile.
"Surprised?"
"Of course I am! Who on Earth thinks I'm good for a position of that much importance? I've been stuttering in front of you nervously since we first met!"
"That can be fixed over time."
"A-And I've never been in the military. I've never even glanced in that direction for a job!"
"That's why I'm taking you to Charleston Naval Base for a crash course training."
"Then what about my mental state? Even I can tell that I'm a complete wreck of a person and I can't be trusted to take care of a household plant, let alone an entire military alliance!"
"Well, it's pretty rare for someone to admit that that's the case, but that doesn't disqualify you."
"And how on Earth not?"
"Because of this," Mobile said, tapping her chest where she had shown Apocrypha the crack of light from her Wisdom Cube. "Hell if I know why, but apparently you have some kind of affinity for these things. Helps you feel for us better than the average person, likely helps make you a more effective leader or something, I dunno. If they wanted me to think, I'd have been issued a brain at some point. Normally that kind of thing would have been scooped up for government work making fancy new technologies for their spy agencies or whatever, but something like, I dunno, fighting to maintain humanity's control of the seas and keep everybody connected has a way of changing peoples' priorities."
"But…" came the response. "But what if I can't?
Mobile shrugged. "There've already been people that have been scouted for this position. None of them lasted very long for one reason or another, and we've frankly gotten used to figuring out everything for ourselves. We can't know whether we've hit the jackpot until we give you a chance and an assessment. I'll introduce you to the gals trying to keep things afloat there, too, how 'bout that? Hell, won't even have to wait 'til we hit the Big Apple to meet a couple of 'em. We're not just throwing you to the sharks, so what do you say? You in, or you in?"
"So, even if this doesn't work out, I might still be able to use this affinity you say I have for other work?"
"Not exactly sunny optimism, but sure. I doubt they'd just dump you back home."
"Then count me in. Can we leave right away?"
"Woah woah woah, hold it there," Mobile exclaimed. "Like, now?"
"Yes, right now."
"You don't even want to go to your house and pick anything up? Say goodbye?"
██████ shook her head. "I think it'll be better for both of us, and depending on what happens, the entirety of Azur Lane, if we leave right. Now."
Mobile blinked at the insistence, then shrugged. "Okay, you're the boss. Or I hope you do become the boss."
██████ stared in awe as she followed behind her escort to approach the ship claimed to be hers, eyes roving over every inch of the warship. Even if she'd seen Midway before and the goliath carrier dwarfed this ship, the sheer size of the light cruiser was still overwhelming up close. At a raised eyebrowed glance from Mobile, she scrambled to explain her staring. "It's just… The ship, uh…"
Mobile grinned, her expression shifting to borderline arrogance. "Beautiful, ain't she? One of Eagle Union's finest. And unlike some, there's some fight to her." She reached out to affectionately pat the steel hull of the ship in passing. "I'm anxious to get gone, so on you go."
██████ shook her head, stopping just before the steel gangplank that led up onto the ship's deck towering above them. "One thing. Or two, or -"
Mobile sighed, leaning on the rail to observe her, somehow giving off a feeling of impatience and apathy together. "Second-guessing again? That's a good way to get killed where we're going."
██████ blinked, swallowing her nervousness. "No. I said I'm going and I mean it, but… I need you to be able to guarantee they'll never find me again. I don't want to ever see this place again."
The light cruiser pursed her lips into a thin line, brow creasing as she considered her options. If she agreed, she was making promises above her pay grade. If she denied the request, though, she'd be explaining to Naval Headquarters why she'd returned empty-handed after all the work that had gone into finding a Commander. And she could understand wanting to hide from the past. She could deal with the consequences later, but right now she had someone asking for her to save them, and she'd never be able to live with herself if she didn't do her damnedest to do just that. "Alright. So we'll just disappear you. Start fresh. Like witness protection. Ain't really my forte, though."
"That's fine. We could… We could write it off like I'm some new ship, right?"
That's a helluva leap, Mobile thought to herself, but shrugged nonetheless. "If you've got a name -"
"Apocrypha." No hesitation. For the first time, Mobile had the woman staring her straight in the eyes with steadfast determination. "USS Apocrypha. How's that?"
"Breaks pattern, but what the hell. Not the first one to do it. Allow me to do this right, then." Trying and failing not to grin, Mobile saluted the woman. "This is USS Mobile, reporting for escort duty of USS Apocrypha. All hands on deck and let's prepare to launch!"
Once the pair were onboard the ship, Mobile wasted no time in drawing away from the dock, though the direction the ship turned in would set it to cruise not out to the open ocean, but instead to the other side of the bay. Before Apocrypha could even ask, Mobile had already launched into an explanation.
"There's someone I need to say my farewells to. It won't take long, promise."
Apocrypha raised an eyebrow but said nothing, instead finding a place to lean on the rail and observe the water surrounding them while they cruised. It didn't take a genius to guess who Mobile had referred to - the only other warship in this particular area would be Midway, the behemoth carrier's silhouette visible even at this distance. In truth, Midway being here was the only reason Apocrypha was even remotely familiar with the concept of the KAN-SEN.
She observed Mobile standing at the very tip of the bow as they drew closer to the aircraft carrier, and when the ship's engines suddenly cut, allowing it to drift in close, she could see another woman standing on the carrier's deck. Despite Mobile's claim she was only saying her farewells, Apocrypha could feel the tension in the air around the two ships, and she could only hope she wouldn't be caught in the middle of whatever was about to happen.
"Leaving so soon?" Midway called out, trying to sound disappointed but unable to hide the cat-like grin that said she was all too happy to see the light cruiser departing. "Do be careful with those nasty Sirens out there now. Little girls really have no business sailing alone."
Mobile scoffed, glaring at the carrier. "You ain't done shit in this war, Midway. Don't lecture me as if you know a damn thing about what's going on out there."
Midway shrugged. "Sorry, sorry. It's just, well, everyone knows what happens when you get a special assignment. We wouldn't want that incident to repeat itself now, would we?"
Mobile gritted her teeth, flipping the bird and cuing her engines to rouse themselves again. Up on the deck of the carrier, Midway blew a kiss and then waved until the cruiser had turned away and she became obscured from sight. And with that, they set off into the sea - and for Apocrypha, a new life.