10th July, 1941.
"Finally, some bloody good news." Victory says to Nelson after putting her phone down.
Nelson looks at her, "What? You've finally had a good idea?"
Victory elects to ignore that and says, "Churchill and Stalin have finally reached an agreement to work together against the Nazis, which means I could try and reach out to Sovetskaya Rossiya again. At the very least, I could try to get in contact with Petropavlovsk for Hipper and Blücher." She picks up the phone and tries to contact the Kansen in question.
In the icy base of the Northern Parliament Kansen, the phone rings in the Flagship's office. She picks up the phone and answers, "Sovetskaya Rossiya. Govorit'".
"Rossiya! It's me, Victory! How are you?" The familiar voice asks.
"What do you want this time, you old relic?" Rossiya asks, unamused.
"Ouch? Well, now that Northern Parliament is working with the Royal Kingdom, that surely means you're working with the Royal Navy as well, no?" Victory reasons.
"Fine. I suppose in that case, we must talk." Rossiya relents. "I will call you when I am available."
"Wait, I- oh, she hung up…" Victory sighs. "Well, at least she's open to talks now." She puts the phone back down.
"That could help a lot in the long run, I guess…" Nelson admits.
"Finally seeing my genius, Nelson?" Victory teases.
"…yes… I suppose…" Nelson whispers out loud, red-faced.
Surprised, Victory just smiles and continues in with her work.
Petropavlovsk is called into Rossiya's office. She takes a seat and flicks her hair to the side. She still has the red highlight in her hair that her Iron Blood sisters have. Rossiya has been increasingly concerned with how loyal Petropavlovsk really is, considering where she came from.
After being asked about it, Petropavlovsk narrows her eyes and says, "Rossiya… you know that even should I get turned into a floating turret, as long as I am still able to fight, I shall fight until my last breath. That is my duty and my obligation, remember?"
"What if you have to fight your sisters?" Rossiya asks.
"They're no schwesters of mine. They'll sink like all the rest."
"This seems remarkably straight-forward for you…" Rossiya states.
The Heavy Cruiser sighed, "Look, they may miss me, I don't know them. The only connection I have to Blücher, Prinz Eugen, Seydlitz and Hipper is that they're the same class of ship as I. I've never even met them. I was Awoken here, remember? What reason would I have to aid Iron Blood? Northern Parliament is all I've known. Those bastards in Iron Blood not only sold me, but they gave my damn name to that impudent child Deutschland to cover it up!" She hits the stone cold table.
"You do know the newer Lützow prefers her original name, da?" Rossiya reminds her.
"That doesn't change anything." Petropavlovsk hisses. "The fact that we are now fighting Iron Blood was the best news I could've asked for. I'm more than happy to spill their blood."
"That's all I ask for. You're dismissed." Rossiya says. "But before you go, how is Tashkent doing? She's only joined us a few months ago from the Sardegna Empire. Has she been fitting in?"
"Ja. She's been fitting in. Far too well, if you ask me…" Petropavlovsk says the second part to herself.
"What was that?" Rossiya asks.
"Nothing important. Focus on your work. If you have the energy to ask about my loyalty, you have the energy for that." The Heavy Cruiser hisses as she leaves the chilly office. Rossiya slowly shakes her head and carries on.
"She has quite the attitude, doesn't she?" Her blue-haired Secretary asks.
"She does. The girls here are quite unruly, Belorussiya." Rossiya agrees.
"Next time, you shouldn't be so lenient with her, sister." The other Secretary on the other side of the room suggests.
"She barely listens to me as it is, Soyuz. I don't need any more tension between us. This war is already putting us in a very delicate situation…" Rossiya counters. "If only our ships were completed… we could take the fight to them personally alongside our non-existent sister instead of being stuck behind these damn desks…"
Soyuz reminds her, "We would be combat-ready, of it weren't for Iron Blood's invasion forcing the Navy to cancel us."
"Indeed…" Belorussiya agrees, sighing as she thinks about their cancelled ships and their fourth sister who never even got a chance to live.
A few days later, A portal opens near the entrance to Scapa Flow. Lurker approaches it and out steps another Siren Elite. Another woman with pale skin and yellow eyes, but unlike Luker, her rigging features battleship cannon barrels instead of submarine torpedo tubes.
Lurker bows down to her, "Tester Beta."
Tester says, "Situation report."
The Siren Submarine answers, "The entire fleet at Hamburg with the exception of Tirpitz have been turned against the Iron Blood. As far as I'm aware, the ships in Brest and other Iron Blood controlled ports are still loyal."
"Interesting… this has not happened in the other timelines… perhaps we don't give this Kansen Commander enough credit… none of the human Commanders in the other timelines had every even thought to do something like this. Bismarck surviving is even more rare…"
"That is not all. Anzeel is here." Luker adds.
"Anzeel? So… we've found her…" Tester looks at the Azur Lane base. "So we now have two big reasons to capture that base. Alpha and Anzeel… If Alpha has any intelligence left, she will be using her against Azur Lane in secret, with some kind of false promise of saving her from this simulation… I shall report to Zero and attempt to get access to an attack force. Keep spying on them."
Lurker asks, "Wasn't Anzeel taken from the by the METAs? Did they abandon her here?"
Tester snaps, "That is not for you to concern yourself with. Leave that mystery to Zero."
Lurker nods. She reactivates her cloaking, rendering her invisible and dives below the waves again. She's been here for so long that navigating around the anti-Sub nets is child's play. Tester steps back through her portal.
Zero sees Tester appear in front of her through a portal. "Tester. Report."
Tester kneels before her. "Observer Zero, we have found Anzeel. She is with the Azur Lane of Simulation MDCCLXV-17/5."
"…that's the same one Alpha is trapped in, is it not?"
"Affirmative. They are both at the Azur Lane base in Scapa Flow during World War 2." Tester confirms.
"…Interesting…" Zero rubs her eye as if she's just been asleep.
"I request an invasion force to take the base. We can kill or scatter the Kansen off that Simulation, capture Anzeel and bring back Alpha." Tester says. "I will give the Kansen Commander a true test."
Zero thinks and then replies, "This will have to be a big invasion force, but not too big. We can't let this Azur Lane know of our true might. They may just surrender and that would not be beneficial to this Simulation's experiment. Hmm… give Iron Blood these PR Kansen Cubes. I have programmed her data to be loyal only to the first human she sees."
Tester asks, "Loyal only to a human?" As she takes the Cubes, which appear gold instead of the usual blue.
"Yes." Zero clarifies. "Of course, you will make sure the human she is loyal to will be a human loyal to us. Otto Ciliax is a good contender. You will influence him. Just make sure his Kansen don't catch on."
"So this new Kansen won't be used in the attack?"
"No. Her time will come later." Zero lazily answers while rolling onto her other side on her bed-like jellyfish rigging.
"Understood. What about her Blueprints?" Tested asks.
"Irrelevant. The ship is already built. You will deliver it right to them. Just make sure the Cubes make contact with the ship's hull when it lands, just like we did with the Kansen Commander." Zero explains.
Tester nods. "Understood. Beginning next phase of the experiment." As she hops back through her portal. "… and far better than Alpha did…"
In Brest, Eugen stands with Z23, Scharnhorst and Gneisenau on the deck of her ship. The four of them observe the human crews working on repairing Eugen's control centre.
"Of all places to hit, they HAD to hit my citadel…" Eugen grumbles while nursing her banging head, which has mercifully spared everyone from her teasing for a bit.
Just then, her whines are silenced by the sound of a portal opening above an empty spot in the harbour close to them. All of them except Eugen, because she literally cannot, aim all their guns at it. Whatever it is, it doesn't look good. It's massive.
Eugen says, "What…?" As what looks like a huge Battleship, bigger than any they've seen, falls from the portal and lands in the water. It causes a huge wave that would've washed the Kansen off of Eugen's deck if they hadn't grabbed onto her railings. After getting the salt water out of their eyes, they look back at the huge ship and the portal is gone. In its place is what looks like a Kansen on a floating mechanical stingray. She floats down, holds out two Cubes, and drops them onto the ship, then quickly retreating through a smaller portal.
The Kansen get ready. Is this an attack? Just dropping a Superbattleship into their harbour for it to annihilate the place? Who was that floating woman? They questions only escalate when the Cubes emit a blinding flash of light as they absorb into the ship, which glows gold for a while.
Then its guns turn towards them.