Manfred von Richthofen was still in a tiny body, but she was at the point where she used that to her own advantage.

"Excuse me Miss?"

Midway looked down when she felt a tug at her dress and instantly melted.

Red eyes looked up at her with big, sparkling eyes, hands clutched cutely in her dress: "Can you please pick me up?"

There was zero chance for Midway to escape her newly born and fully activated maternal instincts, so she knelt down, picked the other carrier up and rose back up.

The little carrier immediately hugged Midway's neck.

"Is this alright?"

"Mhm", she smiled as brightly as possible.

Midway's meek voice sounded once more after she had put a steadying hand on the small back: "Did you want to look outside the window?"

Theoretically, if that had been the case, the redhead could just have used the one klein field hexagon granted to their kind and elevated herself, so no.

"I want to see your planes", Manfred accidentally slipped back into her actual persona, with those equally beautiful as intense eyes and serious voice.

That was something that frightened Midway. Manfred's eyes were piercing, seemingly capable of looking into your souls as if gauging whether she should devour it or not, as if constantly weighing your worth on a scale.

"Oh-oh… sure… Black Baron", Midway felt her hands shaking and her knees felt weak as well.

Manfred wouldn't hurt her – the carrier was undangerous to allies – and Midway knew that, but…

…It was an unreasonable fear, but it was still a fear.

As long as the carrier didn't look at her, she felt safe around her, Midway grounded herself with that thought as she made hasty steps towards her vessel, clinging to other random thoughts to calm herself with and then set her guest down after jumping on the deck.

The other immediately turned around and sprinted to the planes on the big carrier's deck, carefully touching the wings and flanks of them with glowing eyes.

Midway looked on with soft eyes – it seemed like planes were a genuine source of joy.

Ah, that reminded her: "Miss Black Baron?"

"Mhm?"

"If it's okay to ask, why do they call you that?"

Richthofen looked over at the mental model in confusion and a speck of surprise, before she remembered that the other nations had mainly just adopted the Black Baron nickname from their German peers: "My hull is dark and my lights are black", she explained as she walked back over, "just like yours, Miss."

"Ah… thank you…"

"You're very welcome, Miss."

Midway looked at the little person, the adult inside its body having apparently abandoned the child act for the moment: "You have never called me Miss before. B-before today, I mean."

The super aircraft carrier cocked her head slightly: "Would you prefer if I stopped?"

"No", she shook her head, "I don't mind, I was just…confused?"

"Understood, Miss", a playful smile accompanied the words, "let us fight together next time."

"That is not really something we can decide…"

Manfred von Richthofen looked at her with a blank expression and strong eyes: "I suppose."

Midway did her best to smile through the ominous reaction and shifted in her kneeling position: "Is there anything else you need my help with?"

Wordlessly, the German stepped closer until she could catch Midway's cheeks in her hands and tug her forwards, their faces close.

She kept them like that for a while, before releasing her captive, sighing and stepping back: "Not now."

"?"

A yawn escaped Tirpitz: "This is… boring."

Tirpitz had lost her voice as a follow-up cause to the tallboys ending her life, so she now communicated either by sign language or by stitching records together – she was also working on an audio package with her own voice (she still and it in the CCS and her second mental model wasn't mute either) that would allow her to "speak" in her own voice.

Standard wise, Tirpitz had only one mental model active, though, and the audio package proved to be more difficult than thought.

Scharnhorst thought it was probably because of the enormous amount of traffic running through her processor: "Better than actually fighting, you know?", Scharnhorst said, hands on her hips.

"You think?"

"Yes."

The two were out on patrol, fog completely blinding them.

Tirpitz pouted: "Don't act… as if you… don't like fighting."

"I like fighting, I just don't like war", she looked around, and shifted, "also, this weather reminds me of Norway…"

"Norway was nice", Tirpitz said in defense of the land that had housed her for the longest time, "This here… doesn't look like… Norway… at all, though!"

Scharnhorst scoffed: "'Norway was nice' she says, as if you hadn't been stuck inside its fjords all the time."

Tirpitz shrugged from where she was reclining on two of her main turret barrels: "See previous sentence", she snapped to attention when a shell was detected by her systems, "incoming… Scharnhorst!"

"Saw it!", she avoided starboards and ramped her sensors even further up than they already were due to the strong fog, "three contacts in front!"

"Two light cruisers and one battleship", Tirpitz added, changing position to the top of turret Bruno, "two… Belfasts… and… King George V."

"This really is like Norway…"

Tirpitz rolled her eyes as she fired from her foremost turrets, rubbing her hands in excitement.

The shells hit the mass produced King George V on her superstructure, some of them punching through her deck armour.

King George's B turret exploded in a fireball, some of the shrapnel hitting Belfast #1 and causing damage.

Scharnhorst and her flagship kept their distance from the cruisers in fear of their torpedoes, concentrating their fire on them while trying to get their own torpedoes into the action.

"Tirps, cover me as soon as George fires her next salvo!"

"Will do!"

As soon as the enemy battleship fired her shot, Scharnhorst turned in and dropped her torpedoes in the water, disappearing behind Tirpitz while the Lone Queen of the North sent her own out, their eels shooting through the water, one hitting Belfast #2, the others barely missing her and hitting King George V's fore- and midships.

Belfast #2 detonated in a with a loud BOOM!, the torpedo having been lucky and managing to impact her munition chamber.

"Well done", Tirpitz sped past her, choosing to ram the other light cruiser, her Atlantic bow cutting through the metal with a sickening sound of ripping, crushing steel, protecting herself from damage with her Klein Field hexagon when King George V tried to protect her escort.

Grinning like the madwoman she was at heart, Tirpitz stuck her tongue out at the battleship when a full, well-calculated broadside hit the vessel and made her explode as well, the ship beginning to sink below the waves.

Hahaha! Tirpitz was so proud of herself! With just a bit of maths, knowing her body well and the unfair advantage of Fog technology she could easily one-shot a whole battleship!

(Whether she would've been able to survive a full battleship broadside from absolute close range like she had just inflicted was another topic that she ignored for sake of ego.)

Scharnhorst and Tirpitz met up again, still on high alert, Tirpitz still grinning and eyes practically glowing.

Admittedly, Scharnhorst was also excited, but not nearly as much and still very much uneasy: "Less bored now?"

"Too fast!", she wouldn't have minded for this battle to be a bit longer!

"You're impossible", the blonde shook her head, but couldn't fight the slight grin, "almost like those younglings!"

Tirpitz winked, before starting one of her planes.

"You think you'll see anything?"

The fog was still extremely thick and made it impossible to see anything that was not almost directly in front of you.

"I don't need… to see… just need… my sensors… up there."

She had modified her planes to a certain amount, so now they could not only do usual fighter duties, but also scan the area – fog or not – to help in making 3D models of the area.

"Scan complete. Area clean."

Scharnhorst breathed a silent sigh of relief, then looked up to where the plane was: "We should stay on alert."

Tirpitz nodded: "Yup. I'm… scanning in… regular intervals."

Nothing really happened from there on, so they started chatting after a while:

"I take it there's nothing new on the Bismarck-Kongō front?"

The flagship waved the question away: "No way… in hell. Even if they were… torn apart by… a… dramatic war… they wouldn't… realize."

For everyone except the mentioned people, it was very clear that they felt… interested towards each other. Kongō was much more real around Bismarck and Bismarck was much more cheery in a way that not even her dogs could achieve.

Whether that was actual love was a much different matter, of course. In the end, it was impossible to tell flirting and normal conversation apart and romantic love could be very similar to platonic love – the fleet didn't know what it was, but there was something.

"Anyway", Tirpitz clapped into her hands, "when we're back… you'll have to give.. The report."

Scharnhorst's eyebrows raised: "Me?"

A nod: "Don't like that you… were reminded of Norway… just because of… cold weather and fog. Reminds me… too much… of other's… reports."

There had been multiple reports in the recent past about ships suddenly getting nervous because a battle that bore vague resemblance to one of their past had happened.

At first, they had attributed those happenings to coincidence, PTSD or similar because war was something that left traces on souls and minds alike, but with time it had started becoming… suspicious.

As a result of this, Sonne was gathering reports for research purposes to analyze the phenomenon.

Scharnhorst sighed and rightened her cap: "Very well, your Majesty, as you wish."