Enterprise screamed as I-13 grappled with her, now corrupted just like Cleveland and Purifier. The submarine had lost most of her clothes, her almost-albino like was skin covered in black armour plates in seemingly random places. Black, spiky segmented tentacles, grew from her rigging, whipping and thrashing through the air as the sub threw herself at Enterprise in a judo hold, an unresponsive, dead expression on her face. The American carrier screamed with her broken arm trapped in the embrace.
Realising Enterprise was too hurt to fight the sub off, Bismark and the other subs rushed over to help. Looking on in horror as the rope like tendrils slashed around Enterprise's body, wrapping around her limbs and gouging hundreds of small wounds across her skin; making the normally stoic carrier howl in pain.
"Help! Get her off me! HELP!" She was practically begging for any assistance, tears began to stream out her tightly clenched eyes, and the sea was already starting to turn red with her blood.
I-13 looked up, just as Bismarck's shark like rigging chomped down onto her own with two of its jaws. The German battleship punched her several times in the head, trying to dislodge her from Enterprise, but besides briefly snapping her head back from the force of the blows, I-13 didn't react, in spite the bruises forming on her face, she was still holding onto Enterprise, who was trying weakly to push her away with her one good arm.
"Parzival! Albacore! Get those... nrgh!... tentacles off Enterprise!" Bismarck grunted as her rigging jaws wrestled with I-13's tentacles. With the corrupted submarine distracted by Bismarck, the other submarine kansen worked to free the silver haired carrier from I-13's spiked tendrils. Enterprise and both subs grunted and whimpered as they touched the dangerous tentacles, trying to drag them away from the carrier.
U-556 and Albacore's hands were covered in scratches and cuts from the appendages, their own blood leaking from the wounds and mixing with the blood from Enterprise. After a few minutes of struggling, the subs freed Enterprise, Albacore manifested her hull and with Parzival's help, they brought a severely wounded and barely awake Enterprise aboard.
"B-Bismarck...shes...still in trouble..." The carrier told them weakly.
"U-556 go help her! I've got this!" Albacore's told her German counterpart. U-556 nodded and dived back into the sea to save Bismarck, who was still grappling with I-13. The corrupted sub had turned her full attention to Bismarck, whipping tentacle after tentacle at her. The battleship wasn't going quietly however, deflecting each attack with her flagstaff or with one of her rigging's jaws.
"Another one has fallen to the Crimson Cube...we can't fight it like this!" She thought, trying to back away as I-13 continued her tentacle attack. The sub then threw a single plane towards Atago, who had manifested her hull to take care of the wounded while the others fought Purifier. In the second it took Bismarck to aim her AA guns at the plane, I-13 tackled her the same way she did Enterprise, making the battleship scream out as she was ensnared in her spiky embrace.
"G-get off me!" Bismarck shouted, struggling to escape, thankfully she wasn't seriously hurt, and her rigging was still in the fight. She made her jaws clamp down on I-13's arms, attempting to peel her away, while the Crimson Cube had clearly augmented the young submarine's strength, she was still no match for Bismarck's raw power. With her arms freed, the battleship punched the submarine away from herself, sending her flying several feet away.
Bismarck panted and groaned as she inspected her wounds, just like Enterprise, she was covered in cuts and slashes, but since she wasn't injured beforehand, She could still move fairly easily. She looked back to I-13, who seemed to have been knocked out by her punch, her many tentacles limply laying splayed out in the water.
U-556 had watched in awe as one punch from her idol threw I-13 away. She glided over to Bismarck to guide her back to Albacore's hull.
"Lord Bismarck, you're hurt! Lets get away from here! Please!" U-556 pleaded. Bismarck groaned once more, about to protest when one of Akagi's paper plane's flew in front of her.
"Bismarck, go with Atago get the others out of here, me and Warspite will hold off Purifier until you escape." She ordered.
"Ja...I will...get them away..." Bismarck acknowledged, she nodded to U-556, who smiled in relief that her superior decided to retreat. The submarine then led the injured battleship to Atago's hull, helping her up once they got there. But as they arrived, they heard a piercing scream from inside the ship.
"Atago!" The two Ironblood ships cried out. They rushed inside the superstructure and into the medbay; A terrifying sight befell them.
Atago and Prinz Eugen were wrestling with the plane I-13 had thrown, some how it had mutated and grown tentacles where its floats would be, and its wings and tail had taken on a Manta ray-like appearance. It was screeching like a bat, trying to wrap itself around Atago's face and lashing at the German woman with its whip like tentacles as she tried to drag it off the Sakuran cruiser.
"Hold still!" Bismarck ordered, holding her flag staff above her head, Atago froze, whimpering as the plane creature poised itself for another attack, before it could however, the battleship slammed down her flag staff, knocking the beast to the floor and off Atago's head. It convulsed for a minute before fizzing and exploding in a puff of smoke.
"T-thanks for that..." Atago panted out, holding her chest as she caught her breath.
"Of course, Akagi has ordered us to retreat, set course to Azur lane HQ!" Bismarck's told her.
"Got it, I have Albacore on sonar, she's matching our course." Atago replied, as with a thought she guided her hull away from the battlefield.
Akagi and Warspite
The two remaining ship girls had their hands full trying to prevent Purifier from pursuing their friends. Warspite engaged the Siren up close while Akagi hovered in the air behind her, providing air support. The British battleship threw more energy waves with her sword as Akagi threw her fireballs.
Even when she was uninfected, fighting Purifier would have been an unsettling ordeal, with her constant insane laughter, powerful attacks and childish terminology in her taunts and insults. But now she was uncanny in far worse ways.
Just like Cleveland, Purifier was difficult to watch move around. Her limbs and head seemed to flop around as she flew across the sky, her manic grin and laughter replaced with a cold stare in her uncovered eye, and the silence from her lack of speech seemed to be more off putting than her old child-like tirades.
Most horrifying of all however, at least to Akagi, was that she was constantly watching the kitsune, ignoring Warspite completely, even when dodging her attacks the Siren didn't even glance at her, only focusing on getting closer to Akagi.
"Warspite she's after ME, get out of here!" Akagi ordered her, willing her planes to drop their payloads onto the Siren.
"And let you get captured again? Bollocks to that!" Warspite retorted, jumping towards Purifier with her sword raised, screaming a battle-cry. Without even looking, the Siren just fired a laser at the battleship, knocking Warspite back down into the sea. Akagi's eyes shrunk in horror seeing Warspite not moving in the water.
"No...get up...please get up!" Akagi pleaded quietly. She landed on the water and quickly glided over to her downed comrade, but Purifier beat her there, aiming one of her cannons at the unconscious battleship. The fox carrier growled and summoned paper planes between her fingers.
"Get away from her you bitch!" She yelled, trying to sound as intimidating as possible. But before she could throw a plane, she glanced something in the distance, an eerie red light streaking towards them, Akagi's heart sank and her blood grew cold upon realising what was coming:
The Crimson Cube itself.
Shielding her eyes as the Cube raced towards them, Akagi was thrown backwards by an invisible blast of energy, forcing herself to stay upright, the carrier hissed seeing the red box arrive. Its omnipresent orbiting rings of metal circling above her head. Akagi went as white as a sheet as it started to pick up Warspite with its powers, preparing to assimilate her.
"NO!" She ordered whatever planes were still remaining in the sky to attack the cube, but they were suddenly stopped in their tracks, hanging in the air just above the terrified fox girl. They fired their machine guns in a last ditch effort to attack the Cube, but even the bullets were stopped, like a scene straight out of a Matrix movie.
"You...you...gah! HAAAAA!" Akagi screamed with inarticulate rage, her tails and ears caught fire as she summoned balls of fire in her hands. "RELEASE HER YOU DEMON!" She roared as she charged straight for the Cube, Purifier stood in her way, but Akagi was too angry to care. The Siren attempted to charge for her too, but with an unceremonious back hand, Akagi swatted her aside as they collided, sending the Siren hurtling away from the battle.
Before the Cube could do anything to Warspite, Akagi leapt towards it and plunged punched the box as hard as she could. But instead of colliding, her hand phased straight through the Cube's crystalline surface, snapping her out of her rage.
"Oh no..." Akagi briefly thought, she glanced down and realised the Cube had released Warspite, but she didn't even have time to sigh in relief, as before she could even scream, the Cube yanked her inside itself, leaving no trace of the fox woman. It and Purifier then flew away, leaving Warspite alone as Akagi's planes simply fell out of the sky, vanishing into wisdom cubes.
Meanwhile
The human crewed submarine was towed back to Azur lane for a full inspection, the maid corps kansen explored inside and easily subdued the rest of the crew. They found Nico in the submarine's medbay and took him back to the Dominatus. Under the Commander's orders, he was now under constant guard, two of Jackson's men and at least one kansen were posted outside his room at all times.
Inside his office, The Commander, along with Friedrich der Grosse, were standing over his desk, looking over mugshots that were taken of the attackers and the sub crew.
"Roon is bringing the sub's command crew here, they should be privy to whatever their mission was." Friedrich informed the officer.
"Great, maybe now we'll get some answers, have you heard from Task force Alpha?" The Commander asked. Both women shook their heads.
"No, no one from that group has reported in." FDG replied solemnly. The Commander sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose as he straightened up. The dark haired woman placed a hand on his shoulder with a smile. "They'll be OK Commander, your best warships are in that group, they'll be fine." She soothed to him. "They'll be back before you know it my child." She added with a smile. The Commander smiled back, but before he could reply, he heard someone get shoved into his office. Looking back at the door, he saw three men being herded by Roon into the room.
"Alright alright! I'm going in! Jeez..." The last man told her, holding up his hands as he walked backwards into the office with Roon glaring at him. He looked past his two crewmates at the Commander and frowned. "So you're the Commander of Azur lane? I thought you'd be...taller...and older." He commented with a chuckle.
The Commander rolled his eyes at the remark. "I assume you're the captain of that sub?" He asked, gesturing to the man.
"Captain Jacobs of the USS Vixen, this is my XO Peterson and Mission specialist: Lieutenant Commander Watson." He indicated to the other two men as indicated, Watson awkwardly waved, a little intimidated by the kansen. Peterson just folded his arms, not bothering to acknowledge the Commander.
"Now...lets get straight to it: What the hell do you think you're doing attacking the one thing that's defending humanity!?" The Commander exclaimed, pointing accusingly at Jacobs. He was about to reply when Peterson stepped forward, pointing right back at him.
"Fuck you man! We don't little girly boats to protect mankind when we're fully capable of doing it ourselves!" He retorted. The Commander was a little taken aback by the man's audacity.
"You mean with water pounders? Those things are death traps and you know it!" The Commander pointed out. "One of your own guys literally exploded trying to fight my people!"
"Oh please!" Peterson argued back. "He only exploded cos the damn thing was damaged in the fight, every war machine has exploded at least once in its service life! You don't decommission a whole tank line just because one exploded!" He shouted.
"XO...shut up please!" Watson hissed. "You're making the blonde girl mad again..." Watson just watched in horror as Roon just kept grinning widely at Peterson, tilting her head as a murderous glint shone in her pinprick eyes.
"Commander~ is this man annoying you~?" Roon asked sweetly, though everyone could tell there was a low effort attempt at hiding the sadistic glee in her voice. Despite being angry, Peterson's blood ran cold hearing Roon speak, he glanced behind him at the girl, who was clenching and unclenching her hands in anticipation of the Commander's reply. "I would be happy to...remove him...hehehe!" She giggled manically.
"You know what; these other two need some idea of what will happen if they don't cooperate, go ahead and demonstrate what happens to 'guests' who annoy me Roon, have fun!" The Commander told her with a smirk towards Peterson; Who was shocked as Roon slowly advanced on him, cracking her knuckles.
"Whoa whoa wait! Y-you can't do this! The Geneva convention forbids this treatment of prisoners!" He desperately called out, backing away from the German cruiser.
"Since you tried so hard to hide from us on that sub, this looked like a clandestine operation to me, whoever you work for is more than likely going to try to deny you ever existed or operated her; the Geneva convention can't protect someone who doesn't exist, sorry." The Commander told him sardonically.
In an ill-advised attempt to defend himself, Peterson tried to punch Roon in the forehead. Unfortunately the difference in strength was so extreme, that Roon's head had felt like punching a brick wall. Clutching his hand with his uninjured one, he cursed out in pain. But without missing a beat, Roon just grabbed the man by his hair, making him scream in agony as she dragged him away on his back.
"Lets go...'talk'." Roon chuckled as she took the belligerent man away. Cringing as they imagined what the cruiser was about to do to their fellow shipmate, Jacobs and Watson both looked back at the Commander with worried expressions.
"OK uh...what did you want to know? Heh heh..." The captain asked pathetically.
The docks.
Akashi and Musashi was conversing with a Manjuu on the battleship's shoulder, who appeared to be the foreman of the docks. He was cheeping something to her about the USS Vixen, which they were walking alongside.
"I see, powered by wisdom cubes? Siren technology in the engines, another water pounder laboratory?" Musashi listed off the things the Manjuu told her with Akashi writing it down on a clipboard.
"Adapting Siren technology into normal ships nya? Thats already dangerous stuff, but another water pounder lab? How many of these things are there nya?" Akashi wondered, looking down in worry at how far the kansen hatred truly spread.
"Too many." Musashi blankly replied. "But we'll shut them down as we find them, we have to before more people die." As the kitsune spoke, Javelin came running over to them.
"You two...*pant*...Task Force Alpha is back...they're hurt bad...and Akagi and Warspite are missing!"