27th June, 1941.

Prinz Eugen makes her way towards Brest. It turned out that she didn't quite escape the fight with Wales and Hood completely unscathed. Her engines were having issues and Vice Admiral Brinkmann had ordered her to get there for repairs immediately. She hides it well, but she's racked with guilt for leaving Bismarck to die. The Battleship's final words to her echo in her mind.

"Danke, Prinz Eugen. Goodbye."

She heard the news on the radio that Bismarck had sunk some time after she left her. What terrifies her most is what may happen to Hipper and Seydlitz because of her failure. The Führer does not take such incompetence lightly and he has threatened the sisters of Kansen that fail him multiple times, and a couple of times has even followed through. She herself has some scars from when her sisters failed a task. She doesn't blame them, but fears for their safety even more now. She can't imagine what might happen to Tirpitz now. Hopefully nothing serious as Bismarck is officially dead and won't be able to witness the consequences of seeing her sister suffer for her failure—

"Eugen, we should be meeting up with the tanker Esso Hamburg tomorrow. After a refuel, we should make it to Brest. I just wish your engines weren't suffering from that fight." Brinkmann says, snapping her out of her deep thought.

"…Ja…"

"Are you alright?" Brinkmann looks at her.

"…I'm fine…" she leaves her bridge. Brinkmann hopes it's to finally eat something as she hasn't since the operation. He'd be wrong.

Victory and Bismarck enter the labs, much to the surprise of the Manjuus and the human scientist there. She adjusts her red-framed glasses to make sure she isn't seeing things. She says, "Commander! Oh, and… Bismarck?"

The Commander assures her, "It's alright, Doctor. Bismarck wants to help us."

Bismarck nods, "Ja. I want to assist in getting my girls to come here instead of living under the tyranny of those animals. I fear for them."

The lead scientist says, "Well, then. Allow me to introduce myself. I am Dr. Anzeel. With the help of the Commander here, I created the rest of the Royal Navy Kansen. Nice to meet you, even if you're the result of someone stealing my work." The last part she mutters under her breath.

Bismarck says, "What? You created us? Then… who created the Kommandantin?"

Victory says, "I'll explain later, Bismarck. First, Doctor, I'd like for you to show our new Battleship what you're trying to do and allow her to help. She says she's a scientist as well."

Anzeel is elated that a Kansen has such an interest in science. She comes over and takes her by the hands, "You're a scientist as well as a flagship!? That's awesome! Come, come! I can't wait to show you this! Commander! You come too!"

Victory eagerly follows, wanting to finally know what the idea Nelson proposed to Anzeel was. It's as if Nelson wanted it to be some sort of surprise in her own abrasive way. Anzeel directs their attention to a blackboard full of equations and hypotheses. Victory can't make any sense of it, but Bismarck reads it all as if it were her favourite book.

"Hmm… according to this…" Bismarck says, "…You can resurrect Kansen?"

Victory suddenly becomes very interested, "Wait, what?" She stands next to her.

Bismarck looks at Victory and explains the complicated board in a way most would understand, "Basically, if we can recover the Wisdom Cubes that we Kansen are created from after we sink, there is a chance that we can put them back into the machine and power them back up with a device that Dr. Anzeel hasn't quite cracked yet, but I think I know what she needs for it to work."

She grabs the chalk and uses a blank space to draw a rough picture of a Quick Finisher. "The lead scientist of the Iron Blood Schiffsmädchen-Projekt, Dr. Fritz, had managed to create these things to force Cubes to work faster and more frequently. They imbue Cubes with far more energy to speed up the awakening of Kansen. If we can recover some, or better yet, get him here to make them for us, we could make it work."

Anzeel hugs Bismarck, "Yes! Yes! Finally a mind as great as mine! Um… no offence, Commander, and Manjuus…"

The tiny little chicken things chirp as they're just happy to help her. Victory chuckles, "That's okay, Doctor. I never understood this stuff, anyway. So how do we get this Dr. Fritz here?"

Bismarck looks at her, "I propose that we should start planning that first."

Victory says, "Right. If we are done here, let's go plan. Doctor, you can let go of her now."

"Only if I can visit the cute Siren." Anzeel deadpans.

"Oh, for the love of… fine, just let go of her." She hands her the key to the cells.

"Okay!" Anzeel releases Bismarck and goes.

Bismarck looks at Victory, "…You have a Siren here?"

Victory replies, "Yes, but she's been very cooperative after some… forceful persuasion… Maybe I got too carried away and hurt her too much. I'm not proud of that. I promised myself never to treat a prisoner like that again, even if they are Sirens. If they are to die, they'll do so if they refuse to surrender on the battlefield. She's on our side now, but she doesn't like being disturbed by anyone who isn't Anzeel."

"If I were you, I'd keep an eye on Anzeel if she's the only one she's willing to speak to. By the way, the Siren's name wouldn't happen to be Observer Alpha, now would it?" Bismarck guesses.

Victory looks at her, "How did you know that?"

"I met her friend."

A few days later, Scharnhorst, relieved that Prinz Eugen had at least survived the hunt for Bismarck, is busy thinking of something that would give the Heavy Cruiser something to do in the port of Brest instead of just letting her sit alone on her ship worrying about her sisters. Her Admiral, Otto Ciliax, seemed to be either too preoccupied or uninterested to concern himself with this. The sun sets and her ideas don't seem to be getting any better than sparring matches in the gym. Her sister Gneisenau would have far better ideas than her, but she's busy with Secretary work right now. Just then, air raid sirens suddenly blare and smoke generators fire up to try and hide their ships from the RAF bombers, but too little, too late. Scharnhorst can only look up and try her best to control her ship from where she is. A hail of bullets rains upwards into the sky.

Eugen looks up, ready to aim her AA cannons, when she sees a bomb falling directly towards her. Instinct takes over and she dives out of the way as far as she can. She's saved from the initial impact, but the huge explosion caused by the bomb hitting her ship right below her bridge launches her off her own deck and head-first onto the port floor, knocking her out.

"EUGEN!" Scharnhorst yells. She runs over to her and picks her up. "Eugen!"

The Heavy Cruiser is unresponsive. The bombing raid ends after damage had been dealt to both her own and her sister's ships, but not as badly as Eugen's. She carries her to the base hospital.

After the skies have cleared, Gneisenau and a Destroyer board the now severely damaged KMS Prinz Eugen and analyse the damage done to the control centre under the bridge. "Schiesse… a very lucky shot, and very unfortunate for Eugen… her guns will be inoperable and useless until this is repaired… and that will take some time… she may be out of the war for the rest of the year… Z23, write this all down for me, will you?" The diligent Destroyer does so, hoping to do whatever she can to help. The Kansen docked at Brest are beginning to tire of being sitting ducks for the RAF, and Ciliax' patience is running very thin. Time and time again he has sent requests to relocate his fleet, but so far none have been accepted…