"Shepherd, Hood is on the line" Enterprise says standing next to Shepherd. Shepherd opens the comm link to Hood.
"It's been awhile since the last time we talked Hood" Shepherd says.
"It has been, my old friend, I hope we can have some tea after this small mess here" Hood says.
"Hopefully after this we can talk" Shepherd responds.
"That would be lovely Shepherd it will be good to see you again" Hood says before the link ends.
"You two seem close," Enterprise says.
"You could say that, when the Sirens first showed up, humanity had just finished fighting the Great War, hell, the High Seas Fleet was about to scuttle itself before the sirens came. We didn't have the resources to make many wisdom cubes, one of the first ships to be transformed was Hood, I can't even begin to tell you just how much those girls saved us during the first few years of the war, so many people were trapped, they controlled the oceans, went down rivers to destroy cities. It was-" Shepherd pauses for a moment, memories return to him of those first few years. Many friends and fellow soldiers were lost trying to stem the tide of the Siren advance.
"It was rough those first years, we lost a lot of good people. When Hood and many other first generation girls fought the Sirens with us, we started winning. For a while at least. It took years for us to get where we are today. Great successes and terrible disasters" Shepherd finishes. Enterprise is about to speak, but she notices something in the corner of her eye.
"SIREN" She screams as the Observer appears on the flight deck. Enterprise activates her bow and fires an arrow as Observer. The arrow however simply travels through her and explodes far off the deck, revealing that she is a hologram. Legion soldiers aim their weapons at Observer but Shepherd raises his hand stopping them from firing. Shepherd walks forward until he stands directly in front of Observer.
"Watching as always Observer" Shepherd says, his helmet open showing no fear in his face. Observer simply smiles at Shepherd. It's not the first time these two have met.
"Busy as always Shepherd, you have always been so interesting haven't you" Observer says.
"Have anything to say or just wanna talk to an old man" Shepherd says.
"You have always been rare in the other" Observer pauses for a moment thinking of the correct word to use.
"In the other sets, there are too many experiments to try, should be fun though Shepherd. You always were the favorite for us, this will be interesting" Observer says before disappearing. Shepherd, slightly confused, simply sighs and looks down at the ground to think. He sees something on the ground however, a card. Picking it up to get a closer look, it's a tarot card, but there's no number or image, it's simply blank. Enterprise walks up next to him. She looks at the card in confusion.
"It's a tarot card," Shepherd says, handing the card to Enterprise.
"For what?" Enterprise asks.
"Fortune telling," Shepherd answers.
"Fortune telling? Does that even work?" Enterprise asks.
"If you believe in it, then it always works, if you don't, then it never works," Shepherd explains, Enterprise hands the card back to Shepherd. Shepherd motions for one of his soldiers.
"Put this in a secure box with two guards," Shepherd says, handing the card to him.
"Yes sir" The soldier says walking away with the car.
"You and the Observer seem to know each other" Enterprise inquirers.
"We've run into each other plenty of times before, the first time I met the Observer was before the Wisdom cubes became a thing. We won a series of battles even destroying a major siren base near the channel. She wanted to meet the man responsible. It was only years later that we realized based on other campaigns done by the Sirens that they had underestimated our capabilities, they had estimated that the Great War destroyed our fighting strength. They made a mistake, not something their known for now" Shepherd explains. Shepherd and Enterprise walk over to the edge of the deck. A fleet of ships can be seen coming from the horizon.
"After this we'll be heading to the Med, we got reports that a Siren fleet was deployed along with a large base near the Suez. We have to make sure that the Suez isn't threatened. We'll be stopping by Rome and sending a request to both the Royal Navy and Ironblood, hopefully we can get some ships from both of them without the entirety of the Royal Navy's H Force, if I read correctly, we have some Eagle girls in Hamburg and Rome right?" Shepherd asks Enterprise. She thinks for a moment.
"I believe that New Jersey was sent to the Iron Blood and Massachusetts to Rome but I'm not sure if we have any more, I wasn't there when the Commander gave those orders back then, I don't know. The Commander usually always gave verbal orders to us and then wrote them down, the Commander usually kept copies of everything at the main Azur Lane bases"
"Which we haven't had the time to visit" Shepherd says. Shepherd and Enterprise look at the returning fleet led by Hood. Shepherd planning the next move.
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