1998.

Peyton Channel.

"Ah, to be back on the water again…" Empress says happily.

"It certainly does feel better than a dingy old castle, although we could've been on the water at the oil rigs." The Observer agrees, then counters.

"We had to be on that rig to tell the incompetent Rebels what to do. This time, we'll stay in the water and that will give our drone fighters a boost, allowing us to initiate an invasion of their base itself to see how Phoenix deals with a full-scale force beating down his front door. I've assembled some Rebel air forces together to this point to assist our own fighter force. They'll be here soon." The taller Siren explains.

"Ah, yes. The ace squadron. What was their name?"

"Beast squadron. I'm told they are the best among the Coup."

"Just like the other ones that said the exact same thing and we're taken down in one battle against Scarface Squadron? And every squadron that went up against Galm Team three years ago?" The Observer calls out.

"Galm Team had a Kansen helping them, and Beast Squadron won't make the mistake of underestimating Phoenix and his wingman. Plus, they have the support of our fully operational fighter-bombers." The Empress justifies.

"Very well…" the Observer shrugs. "I suppose we'll see how he reacts… hold on… I'm picking up the Rebels. They're close.

"Ah, yes. Here sooner than I expected. Excellent. "Deploy the drone squadron."

A full air wing of Siren drones takes to the skies and forms up with the Coup squadron, ready to take the fight to—

"Oh… this is interesting…"

"What now!?" The Empress demands.

"It would appear they knew about the coming attack. Scarface Squadron have appeared and have started intercepting our air units."

"WHAT!?"

"….and all the Rebel planes are gone. It's just Beast and our drones left now."

"OH, FOR THE LOVE OF—"

Keynote updates Phoenix and Edge, "All targets have been destroyed. We were able to deal a major blow to the enemy's air power. Scarface Squadron, check your aircraft's status, and then head ba— Bogeys…?"

Five F/A-18E Super Hornets enter the combat airspace. The leader of the squadron gets on the radio, "Listen up. You're free to engage once we reach the rendezvous point."

Another member replies, So… business as usual."

The leader cracks his neck before saying, "Give 'em hell. They'll be nothing but burning scrap heaps by the time we're done with them! 'Cause that's how Beast Squadron does it!"

The Empress contacts them, "Bring down Scarface or don't bother coming back!" She orders.

Top-Secret Gründer Industries research lab.

A pale and naked Kansen with a shaved head and glossed-over eyes wakes up once again restrained to the table she's spent so long on, being prodded and poked by curious humans ever since she was captured.

To her right is a board with mountains of notes on how Kansen work pinned to it, all learned from experimentations on her.

And how to make more Cubes artificially.

One on a table nearby is an entire document called "Project Falco Tinnunculus."

There are even paper copies on the board of deals with defence contractors and militaries, like the Erusean Navy, the Usean Allied Forces, the Yuktobanian shipyard that created the Scinfaxi-class sisters, the Emmerian Navy, the Osean Federation, etc.

Another is the document detailing the deal with the latter of creating a new pair of Cubes for Project Alicorn.

The severely debilitated Kansen struggles to even move her head as she looks over to her left and sees her separated rigging and her Cube in the next room. Outside her body. She remembers years ago when they cut her open and took it out of her. Being sustained by a life support machine, she feels too weak to even raise her arm to feel the cuts in her chest where they took her Cube out.

She's alone in the operating room as she glares at them, studying her Cube. Shocking it. Prodding it. Trying to find a way to break it open. They'll never manage it, but that doesn't mean she can't feel everything they're doing to it, like an exposed nerve. She can't even give them a sign that she's constantly in unbearable agony, despite the excessive amounts of anaesthetics being pumped into her body constantly.

Adding to the pain is the sight of her rigging completely dismantled, having been taken apart soon after her Cube was taken out and used to summon it.

She never trusted humans, but if she'd known that they were capable of such cruelty, she never would have helped them. The only thing keeping her going is the memory of her sister, and the hope that she's still alive.

The lead scientist enters her room. She'd already learned his name from his badge. With him is someone she never thought she'd ever feel relief to see, but to see anyone other than a human now gives her a strange sense of comfort, even if that person is a Siren.

The Siren looks her over and asks, "So, this is the Kansen, Morgy?"

Dr. Morgan nods, "That's right, Puri. The one that every one of the others can trace their origin back to. Well, hypothetically, of course. None of them know about it."

"So why'd ya strap her down?" Purity asks as she approaches the Kansen and puts her hand in her forehead. "She looks so weak…"

"Purity, know that we do this to secure our future as a company. The ZOE Project needs funding, and the militaries of the world are prepared to pay top dollar for Kansen Cubes. This one here has provided us with the means to make them at will, but the Cubes we've made so far don't seem to be as powerful as that one in there, even now that it's been out of the body for years."

"You've had her strapped down on this table for years…?"

"It's easier to not refer to it as a person. It isn't. That… thing laying there is just a weapon, just like the rest of the Kansen. The property of whoever gives them orders." Dr. Morgan says in a dark tone.

"…so… what does that make me?" Purity asks as she looks at him.

"What do you mean?"

"I'm not human. You know that. Does that mean I'm not a person, either?"

"Puri… come here…" he says as she walks around the table to her. He puts his hands gently on her hips and says, "Come on, it's looking at us."

The Kansen watches as Morgan and Purity walk out of the room to talk.

Was that… compassion? For her? From a Siren?

Peyton Channel.

The Empress demands, "Observer! I want more drones up there, NOW!"

With a serious tone for once, she reminds her of their dwindling forces, "Empress, we—"

"I SAID 'NOW!'!"

With a sigh, she obeys and sends out another squadron to help Beast Squadron surround Scarface.

Keynote warns, "Phoenix, we've got Rebel reinforcements."

"That's them! The mercenaries!" Beast 1 exclaims as his squadron engages Scarface. "Don't give 'em time to react!"

Phoenix and Edge have to dodge with more effort than against any other squadron they've faced thus far. These guys are good.

Or at least until Scarface 1 downs one with his gun. "Damn, I'm hit!" The pilot yells.

Beast 1 says, "You should've watched what you were doing. Now he's all mine." He chases after Phoenix while the rest keep Edge busy.

Phoenix locks onto Beast 1 and launches a missile, but the enemy ace throttles down and performs a post-stall manoeuvre to not only dodge the missile, but get behind Phoenix instead.

Seeing Edge busy with the others and now an enemy ace in his tail, Phoenix smiles. A challenge. He gets a missile lock alert and yanks his flight stick to the side, aileron-rolling out of the way and engaging in a rolling scissor dogfight with Beast 1, who stays glued to his tail.

Phoenix gets a missile fired at him at close range, too close for him to react. The missile detonates but it's just too far away to cause anything but superficial damage.

Taking this a warning to stop messing about, Phoenix then slams his throttle back, cutting power to his engines and pulling up hard, performing a Cobra.

Taken by surprise, Beast 1 pulls up as well, and the extra power from his engines causes him to suddenly find himself ahead of Phoenix, his plane's belly and missiles exposed to Scarface 1's gun.

With a squeeze of the trigger, Phoenix sprays a line of bullets all the way down Beast 1's Super Hornet, exploding his SP weapons and dealing severe structural damage.

"Dammit!" His plane smokes badly but is still barely flying.

Considering him no longer a threat, Phoenix goes to help Edge, who's outnumbered.

Keynote radios, "Listen, Phoenix, the Siren craft gave formed a zone in which to entrap you. You need to get yourself and Nagase out of that airspace. You have no chance of counterattacking surrounded like that. Get some distance from the drones and pick off Beast Squadron."

After Phoenix saves Edge from a couple of Beasts, they both split up again and fly it off the red circle that had appeared on their radars.

"You're not getting away, sucker!" A pursuing Beast yells.

Another, who is trying to lock onto Nagase, calls out, "Keep still, would ya!?"

Once out of the zone, Edge gets her revenge by climbing suddenly, then performing a split s manoeuvre and getting the Beast in her sights, and then firing a pair of missiles right at his cockpit.

"OH SHI—"

His plane is blown to pieces as Edge moves onto the next, gunning down Siren drones as they attempt to encircle them again.

"Not bad, flame-o. Didn't think I'd actually lose my entire squad." Beast 1 yells as her comes back in with his smoking plane. He knows he can't go back even his plane was able, so he targets both Scarfaces and fires his missiles.

"Ain't war grand? What do ya say, flame-o?"

Dodging them, Phoenix and Edge fly at him together and return the favour, shredding what's left of his plane and watching the now wingless front half of the fuselage fall towards the sea.

All they hear is him shouting, "You won't win the next time! This isn't over yet! Not by a long shot!" Before seeing him eject.

"All Rebel aircraft destroyed. The mission is a success. That's another victory for us. Those were some pretty fierce pilots, but you handled them well. You did some good flying out there."

"Thank you, sir. I'm sure Phoenix appreciates the compliments, too."

Scarface 1 rolls his eyes and turns for home, having successfully repelled the coming attack before it even started.

Beast 1 parachutes down to the Channel. Just when he's about to get his boots wet, a portal open under him. Unable to do anything about it, he goes right in.

The portal closes and cuts all the straps connecting to the parachute, making it drop gently into the sea. However, it means that Beast 1 falls the rest of the way into the room he was sent to.

"Agh… dammit…" he grunts as he picks himself up.

"I am very disappointed." The voice of the Empress booms.

The pilot turns around, "Oh, are you now, your worship? How the hell do you think I feel? I had that damn merc by throat until—"

"UNTIL YOU UNDERESTIMATED HIM! I TOLD YOU TO TAKE THE PHOENIX SERIOUSLY! YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO TEAM UP AGAINST HIM, NOT SEND YOUR COMRADES AFTER WINGMAN AND TAKE HIM ON YOURSELF!"

Unmoved by her outburst, Beast one pretends to yawn, earning himself a giggle from the Observer. He counters, "Don't tell me how to lead my own team. Also, I assume sending a five-men squadron and a team of your own dumb drones is you 'taking him seriously'?"

The smaller Siren gasps, "Oh my, I like this one~"

"BE SILENT!" The taller demands. She looks back at the pilot and says, "Luckily for you, your survival and commitment has earned you another chance to fight Scarface."

"How magnanimous. Your benevolence knows no bounds." Beast 1 sarcastically says with a roll of his eyes and overdramatic mocking bow, earning more laughter from the Observer.

The Empress responds, "If you fail the second time, if the Phoenix doesn't kill you, I will very much enjoy doing it myself!"

Delarus, Usea.

The Tower sits in her massive rigging overlooking the construction of one of the countermeasures to Ulysses. Situated in the middle of the desert and next to an existing air force base, eight rail guns arranged in a circle are currently being rapidly developed with a central radar system right in the middle, the whole network surrounded by a fortified circular wall, defending it from ground assault.

She crosses her leg over the other and sits back, gently brushing the mated hair out of the fur of the little chinchilla she found in the mountains before the Temperance asked her to keep tabs on the weapon being built closest to her location. She has the tiny creature sat in a dust bath on the coldest part of her freezing body, her leg, keeping it nice and cool in the heat stroke-inducing environment.

Perhaps what the Devil said about the little animals was true. They aren't so bad.

Analysing the weapon further, the Tower mutters, "No air defences… curious… I would've thought that would be the first thing they installed at least to protect the construction… there's a civil war raging on this continent…" the Tower takes notes for the Temperance.

2024.

Azur Lane HQ, Command Centre.

"Run that by me again… You want me to remove your rigging inhibitor?" The Fleet Admiral asks.

"Affirmative." The Compiler confirms, "It is necessary to test if my KRP program works. If it does, I plan on helping further by bringing back fallen Kansen. If it does not, feel free to put it back on."

"Bring them back?" He looks at Graf Spee.

The Iron Blood nods silently.

The man sighs, "Alright… but you're not doing it unless you're under watch." He grabs his phone. He calls a number and says, "Enterprise, gather the flagships and report to the secure bunker." He puts the phone down and looks at the Siren and the Kansen. "Come with me."

"You are wise to be cautious." The Compiler compliments.

At the bunker, the flagships from before once again surround the Siren as she, Graf Spee, the Eagle Union Cruiser sisters and the Fleet Admiral stand in the middle.

The man gets down and unlocks the restraining device on the Complier's ankle. He orders, "No tricks." He stands up and stands back. Enterprise instinctively gets in front of him, shielding him with her bow ready.

The Complier slowly summons her rigging to not alert anyone. Keeping her two side guns pointed at the floor, she looks down from her seat at Montpelier, "Please may I have the Cube?"

Hesitantly, she gets close to the jellyfish mech and hands it over. Enterprise grips her bow tighter.

"Thank you." The Siren politely bows. She closes her eyes and activates her program. She lets go of the Cube and to everyone's surprise, it starts floating. A thin, tentacle-like appendage emerges from her rigging and connects to the Cube. It injects the program into it and retracts, allowing the Cube to start spinning like one does when being used for the first time, reinvigorated with the same energy.

A massive flash of light engulfs the room, making everyone except the Siren shield their eyes.

Everyone hears the sisters all speak in unison.

"… Cleveland?"