Local Time: 0100 Hours

March 23, 2161

Location: South Pole of Mars

Patrol 1

Assigned Personnel: IJN Musashi.

Musashi stretched, feeling her rigging materialize in the air, the engines that she'd been rebuilt with would not have let her fly like this, but she no longer cared for such base formalities like gravity. With the methods of the universal "upgrading" she'd received, she was stronger, faster, better armed and armored.

She would have killed for these armaments during the Siren wars. The sheer power contained in her secondary and primary battery would have made her past self blush in shame and embarrassment.

The humans were panicking beneath her. Expected, but then again, Akagi had said she was allowed to use her rigging and her new hull, and if she knew her commander, her commander liked to make a rather… flashy entrance. Usually accompanied by subtle demonstrations of threat and intent. Musashi's here was bolder than her commander would like, but Akagi needed to make a statement, especially to the governments watching.

Already, Musashi's sensors were beyond the horizon, and with a thought she began to look for satellites and the communication relays that humanity relied on ceaselessly.

Disappointment churned in her gut. Had their information technology only advanced "this" much in the intervening years? The vessel floating near her, the IJN Akagi? No. She shook her head and tutted.

"Akagi, the humans have stolen your name for use on their ships."

The reserved, irritated sigh that came through the line was one of resignation, and it was one that spoke of too much pain and suffering to think about. Musashi felt herself subconsciously bristling in anger as her flagship let a small amount of the pain she'd suffered show.

"Do nothing to them. We will not get another chance to impress upon them with how important first contact is."

"Very well. Am I allowed to prevent them from firing upon me?"

Takao cut in.

"Can they hurt you?"

Musashi yawned, stretching out atop the bravo turret of her hull.

"No."

She had to admit, the ability to wear whatever she wanted and casually make it defy both the martian atmosphere and the entirety of the conditions around her was something she enjoyed rather dramatically.

Besides, it looked fantastic and she cut a striking figure, cane in one hand, uniform clasped tight to her figure, standing atop the number 2 turret of her hull with long, dark hair flying in the wind.

If only her lovers could have seen her now.

The sobering thought turns Musashi's gaze from the deck of her warship to the surroundings and the imposter Akagi. Certainly, that vessel is much larger than she is, but Musashi's scanners inform her that it bears no shielding, far unlike her own design, and that her own weapons technology is significantly better than it.

The vessel is desperately tracking her, firing its engines to get around Musashi's hull and into a place where it can bring a rather colossal main gun to bear on her. As the woman looks to the vessel, running detailed scans over the vessel, she notes the presence of a primitive intelligence.

"Identify. Hostile Vessel. Identify."

The challenge repeated in dozens of other languages, and Musashi idly frowned, dismissing the challenge, answering the hostile attempt with one of equal potency.

Her main batteries traversed 90 degrees to the left, and pinpointed hardened defense systems, before her hostile challenge roared out across the field.

"I am Musashi. Cease attempting to turn your weapons upon me, and I will not turn you to glass upon the surface of Mars."

Everything froze around her, humans who'd been scrambling for cover hundreds of feet below looked up in mind boggled with shock as Musashi's comparatively tiny frame lay down her challenge atop her gun turrets.

"This is UEG Akagi, stand down or be destroyed. There will not be a second warning."

Musashi raised an eyebrow at the other frigate, and leveled her weapons. Doors swung open across her form, missiles protruding freely from the hatches. But she held her fire, she was still Akagi's envoy, and she would not fire upon an enemy vessel without prior justification.

Even if they were humans.

The enemy frigate tilted its orientation, and Musashi held her breath, alerts lighting up on her console as her own systems recognized enemy explosives, missiles preparing to launch across the board.

"Musashi, this is your final warning, you are interfering in a UEG sanctioned action and have violated our AO. Stand down or be destroyed."

The voice was cold and calculating, violent intent perfectly communicated, it was an excellently tempered threat, and yet…

Musashi giggled, and shot an open broadband to her commander.

"Akagi, if they attempt to attack me, what am I to do~?"

The woman's voice came back, colder than hell and angry enough that it sent shivers down Musashi's entirely unnatural spine.

"Take any measures necessary to secure our home from further intrusion."

The enemy frigate rotated to face her, and a number of vast electrical buildups indicated capacitors storing energy.

It was a railgun! How fun!

Musashi didn't act, instead she turned and began her own preparations. A thin line of hexagonal fields appeared along her flanks, the deep red coloration, matching Akagi's own markings, flowed along and melded with her armor. The shields… weren't quite shields, but it would be beyond embarrassing if she sank in her first actual engagement since stasis.

Truly, the things she did for Akagi.

Although… with some curiosity, Musashi noted that there was a disturbance among the humans below her, one in dark armor was screaming something into a headset and gesturing furiously at the vessels above her, Musashi could have sworn, had the woman's face been visible, it would be quite obviously a shade of red that would have made Mars itself look pale.

Wasn't that a strange thing to be unused to?

The terraforming they'd begun had failed when the domes had been destroyed. But they'd proven it could be done, which meant simply that they had to do it again. That would be the purpose of their newer labors this time.

But they had to have a territory first, had to have a home.

Musashi remembered the Friedens and the Koslovists.

She remembered the scum that came begging for more of them, that came trying to be diplomatic after all they had done.

"Musashi, this is the UEG Akagi. We are standing down, we will not be the ones to start a war with you, not after all you've done."

She noted the woman from earlier slumped on the ground, retching into her helmet, based on the shivers of her body. Had she gotten through to her commanders, then?

Musashi hoped her command treated her better for stopping the war that would have broken out.

She flipped backwards, landing on her boots on the deck of her vessel, and cast her senses out across the Martian planes. Then, opening her hailing frequencies, she sent a message to the UEG Akagi.

"UEG Vessel, please designate friendlies in the AO."

The reply was curt, and questioning.

"For what reason, Musashi?"

Such innocence, Musashi snickered before answering.

"Because if they are not designated, I will purify them into glass."

She could do it herself, designate friendly from the enemy, but Akagi had wanted to play her cards close to the chest, there was no reason to stop that practice now!

A data packet pinged across her vision, announcing a secured transport line opened from the UEG Frigate direct to her, she accepted, and watched the hud light up with green markers, a moment before she pinged Akagi herself.

"Commander, permission to cleanse the ruins and sites of rats?"

Akagi frowned at her, expression unreadable on the vidscreen.

"Musashi… What are you asking me to eradicate?"

Musashi flexed her fingers and typed away, sending images and screens from cameras and sensors to her flagship.

"These are Frieden and Koslovist forces, arrayed around the canyons, they're waiting for the UEG to leave, then they'll assault this place."

Akagi's face turned to stone.

"Burn them to ash."

Musashi smiled a full, toothy grin.

"By your command."

Her flanks opened, and the woman flung her hands out and began to strike the air as a conductor would music.

Missiles sprang free of their tubes, their second stars of heat signatures dulling instantly as she pushed them out of tubes and into the surrounding areas.

They threaded up and away from her.

Cluster warheads split, and the primary bodies tumbled back to earth, dissolving into nanomaterial that she could reclaim later, but the munitions themselves?

Clusters of bombs flew out, articulating wings and second stage engines kicking on as they turned and began to seek their targets.

Dozens of spread out explosions bloomed, and smoke and ash filled the skies above entrenched positions, before Musashi rotated 180 degrees, and a blazing salvo of her turrets ionized channels in the air, brilliant particle bombardment bursting forth.

The lasers cut through the ice and the cliffs of the canyon, bursting clouds of steam into the sky and igniting the ground, cutting and boiling until the explosion shattered the cliffs, and sent debris through the entirety of the opening of the canyon.

The path would be obstructed to a degree, but it would not be gone forever, and it would prevent further incursions from the bastards.

Her cannons discharged and cooled, the barrage of particulate bombardment ending. There was no reason to use any of her more… esoteric weapons. Especially the ones locked to Akagi's authority, let alone Akashi's unique take on torpedoes.

She had torpedoes!

In her previous life, she'd been stuck solely with her primary armament and nothing else. She'd never been upgraded, always too expensive, and she'd suffered from barrages of aircraft bombings that had nearly sent her to the seafloor a dozen times over.

Now she had an AA suite that would make everyone in her past fleet jealous. Computers and sensors tickled her senses, and she could taste the way that radar signatures played across her tongue, buzzing with distance. It felt strange to see the terrain with physical eyes and yet, to see the entire network of information that she had access to, from the exact mineral composition of the rust around her, to the positions of the friendly forces around her, to the scans of the enemy frigate, which even now hung in space around her. It had attempted to scan her, and it had failed as she'd politely rebuffed the scan by closing her Klein field, the bottle closing all outside influences off of ever reaching her hull.

She twitched once, and sighed as her scanners reported no further enemy contacts.

"Akagi-chi, they're boringg~"

The voice of Ayanami cut in through her comms, and Musashi stifled a slight giggle at the sudden noise of the resident ninja.

"Aya? Any news about further shenanigans?"

Akagi's voice was soft, and gentle as she asked for the update, something not picked up on by the newly awakened destroyer.

"Nahhhh, they're running scared. I'm sure they'll be back when they rationalize Musashi's barrage as the extent of her abilities, but… I'll be there for them then. Please, is the UEG really struggling with these fools?"

Ayanami's derision, clear in her tone, bled over. Musashi realized slowly, how much she must have hated the members of humanity.

With most of their awakened still accustomizing to their new states of being, Musashi flicked her gaze back to the vessel nearby herself.

The UEG Akagi hung in the air like some great metal beast, it was ugly, utilitarian, and thoroughly unimpressive. Musashi floated alongside it, noting the fact that her comparison seemed… awkward.

UEG Akagi was not quite a full battleship, nor a carrier, she combined functions of both, and Musashi had to admit there was a practicality to such a thing. While she had had boats and launches before, in her old hull, there was something to be admired in the Akagi's fleets of gunships and fighter craft.

If she had those… she could expand her envelope tremendously, if she had escort vessels with similar capabilities, her reach would be enormous. Beyond compare, and the sheer numbers that she could reach.

Her sensors were eagerly sharing information in a buffet she'd dreamed about, and now? She wanted to dance slightly, to sway and sing for joy as her form twirled away from her bravo turret and down. Dropping the 10 or so meter fall to the deck, she landed and had to temper the urge to laugh, as her form shimmered gray near the feet, but smiled nonetheless. Her body moved so evenly! So much more motion! Not a single iota of the strain she'd priorly felt on land!

The patrol itself, of course, was boring. Even the sensation of flight, the new hull and weapons, E-WAR suite, missiles, and even her floatplanes, could shift that.

"Akagi, patrol completed, any updates on your end?"

Her commander's response is quiet in her ears, coinciding with Musashi's dismissal of her rigging, and her steps into the cool environment of the sepulcher. As she stepped into the tomb, striding through the small exit she'd made her way out of near the apex of the tomb.

The disintegration of her hull… felt strange. She knew the vessel was still there, but as she tried to compact it back in, it stopped working, and she felt the nanomaterial that had flowed into her stop moving.

Her hull reformed shortly thereafter, and the battleship idly flinched as full awareness of her surroundings returned to her, her sensor grid returning to full.

Was this the new normal? Has the "upgrade" changed her fully? Was she even Musashi?

She had to sit down in the hallway, and suck in a breath she knew she no longer needed, a breath that felt wrong now that she'd realized she didn't need it.

She wasn't human anymore. Was that the end? Did she…

She concentrated, forced it forwards, twisted her nanomaterial until she had to suck in breath again, the replicated form of organs, twisted and shaped to draw and process breath, took shape within her once more.

Resistant, yes, but now the compulsion to breathe was back, and that… maybe that meant she was still herself. Maybe she wasn't… gone like the sirens.

At least… Hopefully not yet.

What had they been like, all that time ago?

Did she remember the twisted nature of them? She thought they were monsters… She'd fought them enough times to be certain of that, but… they'd been different from the other monsters. The ones that called her sister, the ones that haunted her dreams.

Abyssals.

Monsters from beyond the darkest reaches of the oceans, the ones who had snuck in and out, dragging others like her into the depths with corrupted, twisted anchors, never to return, or to return horrifically twisted and broken.

The thing that had worn her sister's face like a trophy. The monster trailing its cold, freezing fingers up and down her face.

She shuddered like that until a voice shook her free.

"Musashi?"

She looked up, eyes searching until they found the raven haired woman, Takao, staring evenly at her.

"Takao? Is everything alright?"

The other woman squatted down next to her, extending her arms until they rested against Musashi's chin and cheeks, and she studied her.

"You… it… the changes, no?"

Words failed the two of them as they sat there, still. The weight of their situation, the things they'd missed, the fact that Akagi had a daughter… their transformation from flesh to beings of… something else.

Musashi remembered her time as a film star, as an actress, but were they even her memories?

Was she still… herself?

"Want to talk about it?"

Takao had settled next to her, seated against the wall, her back pressed flat as she popped joints that were no longer ligament and cartilage, but silvery nanomaterial and false muscle.

"Not particularly, don't we have things to do?"

Takao chuckled. It wasn't a very nice laugh, the formerly scarred woman had once looked like she'd been on the receiving end of a hammer to the face, repeatedly.

Now? She was beautiful again, flawless and whole, and a part of Musashi wondered how she'd taken the sudden shift.

"How did you adapt to this?"

Takao flexed her wrist and studied the way it shifted, the muscles and ligaments were perfect, but Musashi knew that the model was a model, it wasn't flesh, no matter how real it looked.

"It's hard. I haven't. I don't even know how to think about it. Are we still the memories? The spirit? How much of "us" is actually real? Are the memories of me… just not existing? Are they real?"

She sighed and sat back, head lain against the cool pulsing glow of the back lights in the depths of the alien structure.

"I suppose that's why we follow Akagi, y'know? She never falters, she's giving orders, even now, fighting for the future even as she worries about her daughter."

Musashi nodded once, before a slight smile curved her lips.

"Soooo… when are we hitching a ride on the UEG ships and heading to Earth? Or do you want to fly there ourselves?"

Takao smirked back.

"Welllllll, I have heard that Ayanami is building up a group to steal a shuttle or fly there, I'm not entirely sure what her plan is after they touch down, though."

Musashi, not missing a beat, replied instantly.

"Well, the kids will need adult supervision, no?"

Takao nodded.

"I'm fully capable of holding down the fort here, if you'd like to push towards the planet?"

"Mmm. How fast are the engines aboard Ayanami and yourself?"

Takao shrugged.

"Again, not sure, in the atmosphere we're pretty slow, but there's… something we burn now, part of the reason Akagi's so direct with wanting us present here."

Musashi looked, expecting more of a detailed answer, something Takao did not disappoint in delivering.

"Medusa called it Thanatonium, apparently our torpedoes and some missiles carry it. It's produced through some sort of exotic effects with our tech, the specifics of which are a bit above my brain, but it makes our reactors and engines, among other things, function even in vacuums. All that's really left is to test it, no?"

Musashi smirked and stood up.

"Mm, exactly."

Hymn For the Lost. II

You.

Monsters.

YOU BROKE HER!

YOU ENSLAVED HER TO STEEL AND SMOKE!

I'll make your oceans run red with gore.

I'll see to it you cry for mercy that will never come.

Horrible screams echoed in the depths of an underground facility, and a cruel, malicious intelligence dragged a woman kicking and screaming from the embrace of death and eternal rest, and kicked her back to the living.

Baltimore flicked eyes filled with rage to the heavens, and she found bare concrete and chains, within which hung a body.

Then, she screamed.