"What?!" Observer Alpha shouted as Tester Beta gave her a report about the failed trap near Pearl Harbor. That was the last thing she wanted to hear. Yet another victory under the worm's belt. She was oh so tempted to activate one of the many superweapons to wipe this reality from existence, but she knew that it was too early to do it and all she could do at the moment was shout and glare.
Not only does the Shikikan have someone similar to Ash, but now he also got a tablet and subject n° 072, albeit damaged by Explorer's "experiments" on how much damage she'll take before breaking… she thought and snarled. This simply won't do!
"Get me those calling themselves 'Kaga', 'Akagi' and 'Zuikaku'. I have a perfect job for them to do," she said and smirked at the same time as her companion. After all, they won't be able to withstand an attack by three Queen-classes that aren't led by that useless Purifier
Meanwhile, Liverpool port
Winston Churchill stared with wide-eyed shock at the sight before him. A few days ago, he got a request to arrive at the Liverpool port to see something unexpected and he did so. But, he was not prepared to see that.
There were two diminutive blonde women just sitting next to a small circular table with an umbrella attached to it and they were sipping from their very fancy cups like they were some sort of royalty. They even dressed the part! And…
They even have a maid attending to them?! he thought as his eyes landed on a beautiful silver haired woman in a maid's outfit and she was looking back at him, her eyes measuring him as if he was a threat to them.
But then, someone bumped into him and Winston turned to see a girl with short purple hair and blue, almost green, due to the way the sun reflected on them, eyes sitting on the ground, massaging her forehead from after the impact. Winston offered her a hand and helped her stand up, before he ruffled her hair, barely missing the small crown she had there, and chuckled.
"Watch where you're going for the next time, young miss," he chided her without anger in his voice and she nodded in response, before running off to wherever she was heading to, a javelin of all things in her right hand.
"Ah, so you met Javelin… or rather she bumped into you, Prime minister, eh?" one of the dock workers asked as he passed him by and Winston blinked several times in confusion and he grabbed the man's shoulder.
"What did you say is her name?!" he demanded to know and the dock worker stared back for a few seconds, before answering.
"I swear on our Lord Almighty that her name is Javelin and she's a soul of the J-class DD going by the same name."
And with that, Winston released the worker and walked towards the trio under the umbrella, curious on what they'll say about themselves, noticing that the maid's expression changed to a more relaxed one.
To say that Takao was worried was the understatement of a decade. Not only did Atago disappear, but she was also branded as a traitor by Akagi for an unknown reason, along with Shoukaku. And if there was something she was sure of, it was their loyalty to the Sakura empire.
But, she also knew that Akagi's own loyalty was questionable at best. She and Kaga spent days being holed up in the Emperor's palace, that they claimed as their residence, only to reemerge after almost a week with Zuikaku of all people following them with the same mad glint in her eyes and muttering something about traitors.
And it was at that moment, when Takao realized that something was very wrong. But, she also knew better than to tell that to everyone, since there were a lot of those that took Akagi's words as some kind of a Gospel and would report her for "spreading treason", leaving only two of her kin that she would trust with keeping it a secret.
And so, she went to the pagoda shrine near the docks, owned by Fusou and Yamashiro, knowing that they're the only ones she could trust after Nagato, Mikasa and Shinano mysteriously disappeared.
Harvey patted the Bulins after he heard that they finished the repairs of the coastal defenses and made a modification that allowed him to control them with the device they called a "tablet" that he got two days ago. After all, they worked hard enough and if not for some of his men overseeing them, they would've worked non-stop.
"We'll build cranes next to pull the Arizona to the drydocks to start repairs on her, Buli!" their apparent leader announced and Harvey nodded at that. After all, it was the last thing to do after fixing up nearly everything on the base, including the Enterprise… again, but excluding most of the buildings.
She has that martyr mindset alright, he thought and sighed as his eyes found the woman in question standing about 20 feet away.
She was providing air recon around the base, while Cleveland was out patrolling with her sonar just in case that the enemy would be hidden in the morning mist that started appearing about two months ago. And at the time, he had ten times larger manpower under his command.
But then, he saw in the mist a shape slowly taking form. It seemed to be some kind of cruiser. So, he quickly opened the tablet and selected a random button, connecting himself to the base's comms to hail the arriving ship.
"Unknown cruiser, you are in the waters of Eagle Union's base Pearl Harbor. Identify yourself immediately," he called out and after a few moments of silence, he tried to repeat what he said, but…
"Pearl Harbor, this is IJN Atago. We come in peace," a male voice responded and were it not for the last sentence, he would've immediately used the ship as target practice. After all, the Japs sided with the Sirens and Harvey nearly jumped out from his skin after he heard what came next.
"We have two Kansen on board. Both them and us are willing to help you fight against the Sirens," the man continued and Harvey quickly gave them the permission to dock, drawing surprised stares from the men around him just as the cruiser finally docked and twelve humans - ten men and two women - stepped on the pier.
Harvey then blinked as a CV suddenly materialized next to the Atago and the white haired woman seemed to stand a bit straighter after that. And he tried his best not to ogle the black haired one's head, on which was something unexpected.
"Are they real?" he thought as he saw the dog ears, but he soon realized that he said it out loud after hearing the woman in question giggle and nod in response.
"Nishiyama Toichi desu. It's a pleasure to meet you, Shikikan," the apparent leader of the group said and bowed, the rest following suit and Harvey remembered that they put their surnames first.
"A pleasure to meet you too. My name is Harvey Baker," Harvey responded and outstretched his right hand, which Toichi shook with a firm grasp. And then, he led the newcomers to his office to formally accept their surrender.
Atago was slightly impressed with how the men from the Union managed to set up base in the remains of the Sirens' attack. But, when she entered the inframary, with Shoukaku following her closely, she saw a teenage girl with half of her limbs and an eye missing.
She was attended to by a woman in a lab coat, who was writing something into a notebook and didn't pay attention to anything else than the girl and the notebook.
"What happened to her?" Shoukaku asked with worry in her voice, but neither of them expected the answer that came from one of the three soldiers on guard duty.
"Downes was tortured by a Siren," he said and Atago felt disgust and rage, because anger would be too weak a word to describe it, at the damned monster, wanting to rip her into shreds for doing such vile act.
"The Siren was killed by Enterprise," the soldier added and Atago felt herself calm down by quite a lot after hearing it. While she didn't know what she should really feel about the Gray ghost, due to her conflicting thoughts and memories, right now, she was grateful for her doing it.
"Grey ghost? If Zuikaku was here, she'll do something stupid just to prove she's better than her at something… or try to kill her," Shoukaku exclaimed, the worry even stronger than before, and Atago did the only thing she thought of at the moment - hugged her.
And then, she saw a flash of white light suddenly erupt in the docks, leaving a fully equipped Union repair ship behind.
James was secretly following Fred Harper ever since commander Baker told him about his suspicions about the man. And so far they were spot on, but it was hard to spot, due to him acting like a normal person… only if you don't count pocketing the remaining cubes and walking away from the piers, but still towards the sea.
He wants to toss the cubes away, so we won't have new allies! he realized and sprinted towards the traitor, hellbent on stopping him from destroying the only chance to reclaim the seas from the Sirens once and for all.
But, he wasn't fast enough to stop him from tossing away four of them, wrangling the rest from his grasp and only now noticing the black cube that was placed firmly into Fred's palm, marking him as another one of those cultists and Fred couldn't stop the painful memory from resurfacing.
"James, Mark, Peter, Carl go! I'll try to hold 'em off!" John shouted as he took aim at the two dozen or so of their former comrades that touched the thing without any sort of protection and became - for the lack of a better word - thralls to the Sirens.
"You can't be serious! There's too many of them for you to handle with a single Garand!" Mark shouted back, but the quartet of marines still ran away, knowing that this was probably their last chance at getting to safety.
And not even ten seconds later they heard John scream in agony and a gunshot went off…
James shook his head to clear his thoughts, noticing only now that he had pulled out his M1911 and shot at Fred's palm, making an extremely foul black liquid to slowly flow from the wound and his mouth, but instead of doing nothing, the liquid seemed to tear the soul away from its host, quickly turning him into a lifeless husk.
And then, James spared one last glance at the traitor and walked towards the Vestal, placing two cubes into his palm and pressed it against the hull, but not before looking away, remembering just how intense the light was, thanks to getting a firsthand experience, when Enterprise appeared.
And soon enough, he felt the urge to remove his hand as the cold metal suddenly got hotter than before, the white light accompanying it.
Where am I? I have a feeling that if I don't get away soon, Enterprise would do something rash and get herself killed… I can't allow it! I must not fail her again! Huh?! Again?! Oh, I see… I'll work harder from now on.
A light? That might be my only ticket to go find Enterprise and give her an earful for sacrificing herself! It's my duty as a repair ship after all.
And then, she felt a light breeze on her skin and opened her eyes.
Harvey blinked several times, when he saw a nun/nurse walk down from the Vestal towards Enterprise and started saying something to her, but he was too far to hear what it was.
But, judging by her body language, it was some serious scolding about something as she ripped a MRE stick from the CV's grasp and Harvey couldn't help, but nod in approval at that. Enterprise ate only that stuff and somehow got a limitless supply of it and while it saved some food for the others, it also didn't do any good for her health.
"-onal value! I'll make sure that you are not eating that… stuff! And that you also have a proper sleep schedule as well!" she shouted and Harvey shuddered at hearing the tone in her voice. It reminded him all too much of one doctor he was visiting since he was only eight years old.
And then, he felt a bit of pity at seeing Enterprise's face being filled with some fear and was blushing. Not from what Vestal was saying to her, but from the tone she used. But, she stopped after a while as she finally acknowledged that nearly everyone was watching her.
Now, it was Vestal's turn to blush from embarrassment at the amused smiles of the humans gathered around the duo, some of which let a chuckle to escape their lips.
Harvey saw how the embarrassment was slowly turning into anger from being laughed at and so, he decided to step in, before it would escalate into everyone getting an earful.
"We have a patient that we don't know how to heal. Would you help us, please?" he asked as he was looking into her eyes and he sighed in relief, when she nodded and gestured for him to lead her towards the patient.
Vestal didn't know what to think about the commander as he led her to a warehouse, a part of her fearing that he was only tricking her, but when she entered the building, she saw that it was indeed a makeshift inframary of the Eagle Union's make.
It took her a few seconds to admire the banners with eagles and shields on them, before she finally noticed that they weren't alone. There were seven women, two of which she raised an eyebrow at. After all, she didn't expect someone from the Sakura empire to be here.
"Downes is on the bed. She sustained a lot of injuries and our nurses were only able to heal some of her injuries, but not the most serious ones," the commander explained and Vestal gasped as she finally saw what was done to her.
"Enterprise risked herself to kill the Siren that did it," he added and she felt the urge to give her another lecture, but it soon died out, as her 'doctor mode' kicked in and she clearly remembered what she needed to fix her up.
"I need one Wisdom cube and a knife to restore her missing body parts," she said and soon after that, one of the soldiers gave her what she asked for and she quickly got to work, completely ignoring the women around her patient.
She started with cutting the cube into four equal pieces with precision and speed that would make even the best chefs go red in envy and then put one of them on Downes' empty eye socket.
There was a flash of white light, which was replaced by an eye a few seconds later. But while her original one was red, this one was yellow. Not that she noticed it, as she was already concentrating on putting another quarter of the cube on the stump that was her left leg.
Another flash of white light happened and suddenly, the white thigh-high sock on her right leg suddenly turned black and the new leg appeared with a matching thigh-high sock.
Then, Vestal put the third quarter to the missing right arm and suddenly, a black leather jacket with short sleeves - that didn't cover her shoulders - appeared after the third burst of white light subsided, both hands also sporting the same black fingerless gloves.
And after the last cube was placed on Downes' forehead to reestablish the possibly broken connection with her ship, some strands of her white hair turned red. And then, Downes slowly sat up, examining the changes on her outfit and smirked slightly in the commander's direction, before jumping off the bed and started doing push-ups, leaving everyone speechless.
"Thanks, Vestal. If not for ya, I'll be forced to be in that bed until I die of old age, or them Sirens shoot me. Now, if ya excuse me, I'll finish the reconnecting," she said after finishing a set of fifteen push-ups and sprinted off towards her ship, before Vestal could stop her and the warehouse became silent once more.
"She sure is lively," one of the Sakura girls commented after a while and everyone in the room nodded in agreement at that. I only hope that she won't get on the same streak as Enterprise, Vestal thought and smiled weakly. Sometimes, she really hated that habit of her friend of rushing into battle and ignoring her own welfare in the process.
But then, the door burst open once more, revealing panting Cleveland as she tried to catch her breath.
"What is it?" the commander asked, a smidgeon of worry in his voice. Vestal couldn't blame him for it though, since it might've been an assault launched by either the Sakura or Siren forces. And yet, it was neither.
"I spotted a merchant convoy with one Brooklyn-class CL and one Benson-class DD and three troop transports as an escort about 5 NM away from us. They're heading here," she responded and Vestal noticed that the humans were trying their best to stay composed… until the commander ran out from the building in such a way that she almost saw Enterprise instead of him.
Please, don't be the second coming of Enterprise in that regard, she thought and sighed, before walking over to Cleveland to have a chat with her about sleeping arrangements and everyone currently present at the island base.