26th July, 1941.
Anzeel welcomes the Commander, George and Bismarck to the lab. She says, "Thanks for coming. I need Bis to help me with this, and you two here just in case something happens."
"What do you mean by that?" George asks.
Anzeel says, "We're about to Awaken a Kansen whose ship has never existed. Not even on paper! We have no idea what she might be like! Plus, she's an Iron Blood about to be Awoken in a Royal Navy base…"
"So that is why I am here as well?" Bismarck asks.
"Yep! Is everyone ready?" Anzeel asks. They see that the machine has finished constructing the Kansen. Her hand hovers over the button to Awaken her.
"You didn't use a Quick Finisher?" Bismarck asks.
"This has never been done before. I didn't want to take any chances." Anzeel shrugs.
Victory says, "Alright, then. This better be worth the change in priority, Doctor. I wanted the resurrection project done first, remember?"
"Yeah, but I gave that experiment to Fritz. He seems to know what he's doing." Anzeel counters.
"…I suppose… Get ready, girls. Do it, Doctor." Victory sighs. George puts her hand on the hilt of her sword and Bismarck grips her holstered P38.
Anzeel presses the button and the machine doors open. After a few seconds, out steps the new Kansen. She opens her brown eyes and gives the three of them a very warm and comforting smile. Her grey outfit gives away pretty quickly that she is indeed Iron Blood and the metal parts on her head resemble demon horns. Despite her intimidating presence, her voice sounds rather soft and compassionate. She says, "Hallo, ich bin Roon. Ich kenne diesen Ort nicht sehr gut. Könnte ich Sie also bitten, mir eine Führung zu geben?"
George and Victory look at Bismarck, who sighs and responds, "Frau Roon, können Sie das bitte auf Englisch wiederholen?
Roon nods and repeats in English, "Hello, I am Roon. I don't know this place very well, so could I ask you to give me a tour?"
Victory smiles, "I'd love to, Miss Roon. But first, we need to check your vitals it make sure you're alright. No offence, but you're a very special case."
Roon blushes and puts her gauntlets on her cheeks, "The Kommandantin thinks I'm special~" as Anzeel inspects her.
Victory mutters, "She seems… surprisingly nice…"
Bismarck says, "Especially for a new ship who's literally just been built in her enemy's base."
George frowns, "I don't trust her…"
Deep within a Siren stronghold, a Kansen opens her eyes and steps out of a pod. She collapses as her legs don't seem to work properly. Falling to her hands and knees, she realises she's naked.
"Well… this is rather… immodest…"
With the struggle to move her legs properly and being somewhere she doesn't recognise, however, her lack of clothing is the least of her worries. She crawls over to what looks to be a desk and she lifts herself up, sitting on it. She takes another look around now that her vision clears. She's still covered in the strange yellow goo that filled the pod she had been floating in. She feels her legs and doesn't feel anything wrong, so why can't she walk properly? She finally realises she's in some sort of laboratory. "Where am I…?" She stands again and this time manages to find the strength and balance to not fall over, but she still stumbles a little.
"I… can't even summon… my rigging…" she says dejectedly. Seeing nothing of value and everything too scientific for her understanding, she sees another pod like the one she had been in. She makes her way over, steadying herself on the multiple tables, being careful not to knock anything over.
She gets to the pod and puts her hand on the glass, wiping the steam off the cold surface. She staggers back when she sees who's in it.
"Wales…?"
At the base, Roon is deemed as physically healthy as any other Kansen. Now they test what kind of personality she has. Victory, Bismarck and George all keep a close eye on her behaviour as she reacts to her new world.
Some Destroyers approach Roon because they like to meet new Kansen. They had a field day when the friendly Iron Bloods arrived with Fritz. George and Bismarck get ready to grab their weapons again, but are then surprised when they see that Roon is very friendly with them. Javelin says, "Welcome to Azur Lane, new girl! What's your name?"
Roon smiles and replies, "My name is Roon. Neither me or my ship have existed before now."
"Wow, really!? Wait… is that a good or bad thing?" Javelin asks.
"I… I'm not sure yet…" Roon looks to the side.
"So… you don't have any friends…?" Javelin asks.
Roon shakes her head and frowns. "Nein…"
Jupiter says, "You have nine friends already? You must be very nice and kind!"
Javelin laughs nervously, "No… Jupiter… she means no…" she looks at Roon who's smiling again. Giggling, even.
"Your sister is very funny… I like her." Roon says.
Javelin says, "Well, My name is Javelin. …would you like us as friends, Miss Roon?"
Roon replies, "That would be very nice, Frau Javelin." The Destroyers surround her and hug her as she crouches down to be on their level.
Ark Royal watches from the outdoor table she's sat at. She's glaring at Roon getting friendly with the little ones. Illustrious asks, "Ark, are you alright?"
"Perfectly fine, Illustrious…" She says through gritted teeth.
"Ark… are you… jealous?" Victorious asks.
Wordlessly, Ark crushes the cup of tea in her hand, then abruptly gets up and walks off, nursing her now bleeding, scolded hand. Victorious and Illustrious just look at each other and shrug.
Victory chuckles and jokes, "Alright, girls, let her breathe."
The Destroyers let her go and Javelin says, "It's good to meet you, Miss Roon! See you later!"
Roon waves as they walk away. Victory says, "It's nice to see you making so many new friends already, Roon, but we've yet to see how well you can summing rigging. George here will show you how to-"
She's interrupted by the sudden appearance of a giant black and crimson mechanical mantis shrimp with Battleship-tier turrets on its back and head. It stares at her with its empty eye sockets and opens its mouth to reveal a powerful-looking laser. Instinctively, George and Bismarck summon theirs. Roon looks at Victory innocently and says, "Like this, Kommandantin?"
Victory stares at the giant beast. "… that thing is your rigging…?"
Roon nods, "Ja. His name is Shrimpy."
Bismarck asks, "…Shrimpy?"
George asks the more obvious question, "How is it moving like it's sentient?"
Roon shrugs and says, "He is. He's my pet." As of it's completely normal for a Kansen's rigging to move independently of the Kansen's direct control. Even the four shark-like mouths of Bismarck's rigging are controlled by the Battleship as if they were another set of limbs, and Shrimpy dwarves them.
Victory says, "Well, then… um… would you like to have a training excercise?"
Roon nods, "I would love to, Kommandantin." Shrimpy growls and Roon adds, "He would, too."
Lurker uses her telescopic vision to spy on the new Kansen. She mutters, "Roon isn't supposed to Awaken until later in the War… interesting…"
A portal opens behind her again and out steps Tester Beta for a second time. She demands, "Lurker. You've sent an anomaly alert. I assume it's because of Roon being Awoken early?"
Lurker reports, "Yeah. You here to test her?."
Tester scowls, "Of course. I assume you've deactivated the sea mines?"
"Yeah, yeah." Lurker dives to hide.
Tester opens a much bigger portal and a Siren mass-produced fleet sails through it. Two Battleships, four Cruisers and six Destroyers start sailing into the harbour. Tester held back on deploying a Carrier as she only wants to test Roon, not destroy the base. She also summons a few lesser humanoid Sirens to aid in directing them.
The alarms of Scapa Flow sound again as Victory looks at the mouth of the harbour. She widens her eyes in shock as the Sirens seem to have once again taken the battle to them. The Kansen all look at the approaching fleet, whose Battleships take aim at the base and both sides start firing at each other. They see that their projectiles seem to not be able to break through the shields generated from the Battleships. Victory puts her hand on Roon's shoulder, "Miss Roon. You see those black ships with the red lights on them and the humanoids accompanying them?"
"Ja, Kommandantin." Roon answers innocently.
"They're the enemy. Can you help sink them?" The Commander asks.
She suddenly gives her a wide, sadistic grin, "Say no more, Kommandantin. Feeding time, Shrimpy!" Her robotic pet roars and charges for the Sirens with herself running after it.
George approaches Victory, who seems a little bit startled by the look Roon just gave her. "Commander! We have to get you to the bunker!"
"Sod that, George! I'm not hiding away while my girls defend our home! Plus, It seems she may have a way to get past those shields…" Victory says. They go with Bismarck to Victory's office to be in a safer spot at higher elevation.
The leading mass-produced Battleship takes aim a few metres ahead of Roon to lead its shot. It's about to fire, until the angry Kansen jumps at it and looks directly into the Siren's targeting camera.
"You DARE to attack my home!? YOU WILL ALL PAY!" She puts her fist right through it and tears it out, effectively blinding the ship, which then tries to fire, but its main turret gets ripped off by the Kansen's sentient rigging. It triggers a distress signal and the other mass-produced ships turn their attention to the Kansen tearing it apart. Having no protocols for how to deal with a Kansen actually using her hands to take apart a ship, they can only select the most logical approach…
Roon looks at the rest of the fleet to see them training their guns on her and, by proxy, the Battleship itself. She sadistically smiles again, then tears a hole in the ship and jumps in. She starts tearing it apart from the inside while the fleet pummels the flagship in attempt to scuttle it with her inside, its shields not coded to prevent friendly fire. When it's taken enough damage, the flagship is rendered inoperable and deactivates, making the red lights all over it shut off. With the electronic support the flagship was giving the fleet now gone, the other ships' shields vanish. Shrimpy blows a hole in the side of the sinking flagship for Roon, which she uses to jump out and charge towards the other ships.
The rest of the Kansen start to engage the now vulnerable Sirens while Roon continues her blood rage. She sees a humanoid-looking Siren and starts to focus on it. She jumps at the Peace Breaker and grabs her by the throat, surprising her. Shrimpy covers her by biting down the other Battleship's main turret while firing Roon's main guns at the other ships. Her Battleship-tier guns make quick work of them while the mechanical mantis shrimp itself drills into the Siren Battleship's power core with his mouth laser.
The Peace Breaker struggles to breathe while in Roon's vice-like grip. She quickly stops, however, as Roon shoves her armoured hand right through her chest and grabs hold of her Cube. Her eyes widen as Roon smiles with flowing red eyes. The Kansen says, "So… you do have hearts…" she tears it out, still connected to her body. She drops the Peace Breaker to the water and crushes the Cube in her hands. Yellow blood shoots out of it and covers Roon's hand and part of her face. The Peace Breaker dies and disappears with a horrified expression as the Kansen looks for any other humanoid Sirens. She doesn't have to look far as they now surround her, about to fire their guns…
Victory watches from her office, which has an elevated view of the entire harbour. She saw what Roon just did with her binoculars. "Bloody hell… what's wrong with her?"
Bismarck adds, "She charged right for that Siren before she could fire her weapons… brutal, but effective…"
George adds, "… and now she's torn the limbs off another one and is now using them to beat the others to death… we'd better not piss her off after this…"
As she said that, Roon suddenly looks right at them with an expression of half concern and half anger. She charges right back towards the base. Victory feels a shiver run down her spine as she feels something she hasn't felt in a long time. Genuine fear. "Sh… she's coming back! What's she doing!?"
"She will be too late. She can't save you." They hear from behind. The spin around and see Tester Beta herself, charging her massive guns. She's interrupted by Bismarck's quick thinking. She can't use her main guns as she'll destroy the office with them in it, so she uses her P38 to put a hole right between Tester's eyes, allowing George to charge at her and impale her through the heart with her sword. It delays her enough for Victory to also stabs her with her gun-sword, and then also fire both barrels into her gut. Tester angrily picks up both Victory and George, then throws them at Bismarck, knocking her down. The three of them see Tester tear out the swords and throw them to either ends of the room. "A bold effort, but not good enough!"
Bismarck stands in front of both her fellow Kansen and aims her gun again. Tester quickly fires one of her main guns at her and launches her through the big window behind them.
Victory yells, "BISMARCK!" While George moves to protect her. She prepares to do what they should've started with. She aims her rigging at the Siren.
Tester takes aim at George and says, "You're the leader of the Royal Knights?" How disappointi-AAAAAGGGGHHH!"
The Siren yells out as George and Victory stare in shock. Tester was just picked up in Shrimpy's massive jaws, torn from her rigging. He shakes his head from side to side, violently breaking the Siren's limbs while she screams in agony. She's thrown to the corner of the room and Shrimpy goes over to start tearing her apart, all while keeping her alive the entire time. Roon just learned earlier that humanoid Sirens only seem to die when their Cubes are destroyed or head severed from their body. Well, the ones she's killed so far, anyway, so she's having Shrimpy take his time.
The new Heavy Crusier walks in with her cute, innocent smile while Tester screams out in the corner. "Hallo, Kommandantin~, the enemy has been removed from life. Not only did they refuse to sink themselves upon seeing me, they even had the audacity to force me to sink them myself. They paid for that."
Victory turns her attention away from Roon and the still-dying Tester and looks out of the window to see Bismarck's unconscious and battered body being dragged hastily to the medical centre by a crying U-556. "Oh God… her arm…" Bismarck's right arm, the one she held her pistol with, has been blown clean off from her shoulder. The arm not being anywhere implies that it was vaporised by Tester's laser. Victory says, "George, help get Bismarck immediate medical help!"
George nods and jumps down to help the little U-Boat. Victory looks back at Roon, who is staring at Tester's now limbless, lifeless body as the Siren stares at Shrimpy and his yellow blood-stained teeth and legs. Victory sees Tester's Cube in Roon's hand and says, "Roon, that's enough, though I would've preferred having something left of her for interrogation."
"Sorry, Kommandantin… Shrimpy gets very excited when he gets to eat…" Roon apologises as she drops the heart.
Hesitantly, Victory approaches and puts her hand on top of Roon's yellow blood-stained head, patting her. "It's alright, Roon. You still came to help us. Your methods are a bit extreme, but you made me proud. Maybe tone down the violence a little next time, and we might have a new captive Siren to interrogate."
Roon gets excited and hugs her. "Jawohl, Kommandantin!~"
Victory says, "Yes, yes, alright. Now, Roon, I'd like you to take her body and rigging to the lab."
"Jawohl! Shrimpy, could you—"
They look at Tester's body which then falls through a portal that opened below her and it shuts immediately after.
Roon yells out, "NEIN!" She looks at Victory, "Kommandantin! I can track her down and bring her to you!"
"Hey, hey! It's alright, Roon. Just stay here on the base for now." Victory says. She looks around and sighs. "Just look at this bloody office… it's going to cost a fortune to get this fixed… luckily most of the original stuff survived… it's centuries old." She picks up the two torn halves of an old Royal Navy ensign.
"Centuries? Could you tell me about it all?" Roon asks.
Surprised that Roon has taken an interest in her history, Victory says, "I'd love to, Roon, but I should go see how badly Bismarck has been injured. Go with Shrimpy as he takes the Siren's rigging to the lab."
Tester's body appears back in the Siren HQ. Zero picks her up with the stingers of her rigging. She zaps her but gets no reaction. "Hmm… another Tester Beta body wasted…" she takes a memory chip out of Tester's brain then throws the body in an incinerator. She types into a holographic keyboard and a new Tester body and rigging is teleported to her. She inserts the memory chip into the new brain and Tester wakes up with a scream.
"AAH! …wait… wha…?" Tester looks at her new body. She looks up and sees a very unimpressed looking Observer Zero. "…ah…. shit…."
Zero simply says, "This is now your third body, Tester Gamma. Make sure I do not have to use a fourth. Is KMS Roon like her alternate versions?"
Tester shrugs, "Far worse. I had to portal straight to the Kansen Commander's office and pretend I was actually scared of her to get her to show her true side. There really is something about Victory that makes her different from all the Commanders the other Roons have had…"
"How is your mental state? Surely you still felt everything." Zero asks, being more concerned about Testers ability to do her job rather than her wellbeing.
Tester says, "I'm fine. She's not the first Roon I've tested."
"So, they didn't change her…" Zero mutters.
Tester asks, "Who?"
Zero looks at her, "We have someone working against us. They stole a copy of Roon's PR plan and gave it to the Iron Blood of this timeline, which is why I told you to give them one that could counter her."
"Friedrich Der Große?" Tester asks.
Zero confirms, "Affirmative. Now, we wait to see if Azur Lane does what I hypothesise they will and use both Roon and Freidrich Der Große together against us instead of doing the more foolish thing; making them fight each other…"
The naked Kansen has tried everything to get Wales to wake up in the pod, but she can't understand anything and the keypad doesn't respond to any inputs, so she can't even attempt to brute force it.
"Bloody hell… perhaps… there is a way to wake her up in a different room?" She leaves reluctantly and cautiously navigates the maze of a facility. It's unlike any place she's ever been.
Eventually, she hears a couple of voices talking. She instinctively presses herself against to wall right next to the open doorway to hide from whoever's in there. Without any clothing, equipment or rigging, she's defenceless.
"… I had to portal straight to the Kansen Commander's office and pretend I was actually scared of her to get her to show her true side. There really is something about Victory that makes her different from all the Commanders the other Roons have had…"
"How is your mental state? Surely you still felt everything." The first voice asks with zero emotion.
The other says, "I'm fine. She's not the first Roon I've tested."
The Kansen thinks, "Who's Roon? What does she mean by not the first Roon? And they're talking about Victory as well?"
"So, they didn't change her…" The deadpan voice says lazily.
The second voice asks, "Who?"
"We have someone working against us. They stole a copy of Roon's PR plan and gave it to the Iron Blood of this timeline, which is why I told you to give them one that could counter her."
"Friedrich Der Große?" Tester asks.
Zero confirms, "Affirmative. Now, we wait to see if Azur Lane does what I hypothesise they will and use both Roon and Freidrich Der Große together against us instead of doing the more foolish thing; making them fight each other…"
The voices go silent as their owners enter a new corridor and the door shuts behind them. The Kansen carefully enters and thinks about what was said.
"We have an ally helping us on the inside? Those two had to be Siren Elites… perhaps I can wake up Wales from here…" she finds a console and then is immediately confused by the coloured TV screen with what looks like small pictures of files and a small white diagonal arrow in the middle. "Alright… this may be a lot harder than I was expecting…"
She grabs the mouse and sees the arrow move, "Ah… so… if I do this…" she hovers over a file that says, "Kansen."
She looks at the mouse and sees to buttons. She tries the left button, but the file merely gets highlighted. She tries the other and a drop down menu appears. She then hovers over "open" and left clicks again. "Ah, there we go."
She sees a list of names given to the factions of Kansen all over the world in alphabetical order. "Hmm… I could use this to gain intel on the Crimson Axis later on…" she ignores the others for now and finds Wales' name within the Royal Navy file.
She opens it and sees a her picture and details.
"Ah, ha… wait…" she sees two dates. Launch day and… sinking day?
"What…? She's… no… that date… that hasn't happened yet, has it?"
She decides to come back to that and sees a set of options for Wales' pod. She looks in disgust at the "Terminate" option and goes straight for the "Awaken" option. She clicks it and then "Yes" on the "Are you sure?" prompt and rums back to the room, the strength i her legs fully returning.
"Hold on, Wales. I'm coming."
Author's note: This was a longer than usual chapter and I want to try and write longer ones. I hope you've been enjoying this one so far! Ive already got a new story in mind after this one, but I'm going to make sure this one is complete first.