"No unusual activity on this side," Avrora reported through the comms.
"Nothing over here either," Kirov reported as well.
Sovetskaya Rossiya hummed in acknowledgement. She was standing on the bow of her own ship, observing as her comrades inspected the waters around the island-sized iceberg that was once Omitter's base of operation. Even after so long, the facility itself was still there; its entrance was clearly visible even from afar, but it seemed devoid of any trace of life.
"Then we can start expanding the search area," she declared. "Spread out, comrades, and keep your eyes peeled."
She watched as they navigated their vessels through the freezing waters, broadening the formation with their other compatriots.
"Comrade, can we get out now?" Pamiat Merkuria came in next. "There's nothing here, and this place stinks!" She complained to Rossiya.
"You can if you are done, but don't let your guard down."
After the operation that the Northern Parliament conducted in partnership with Azur Lane, which saw the defeat and erasure of the aforementioned Elite, the place fell into disuse. At the time, they attempted to turn it into an outpost for the alliance, but given its unfavorable position and the harsh environment, that idea was promptly scratched. So, they just inspected the place from top to bottom, looking for anything valuable, and hauled away any piece of technology they deemed useful, leaving it as empty as a dry well.
And things didn't seem to have changed, based on Pamiat's report.
"I don't know what the Commander was hoping for us to find, but honestly, this was a huge waste of time," the light cruiser spoke up, jumping on Rossiya's ship after returning.
"Perhaps, but those Sirens can't have just disappeared into thin air," said the battleship. "It's in our best interest to find out where they went."
The previous day, they were informed by Ryan about everything he had found out after the capture of the Siren base. The mass mobilization of resources that the Sirens were carrying out, the convoys, their possible destination... The Commander didn't spare any detail, but while his concern was duly noted, the Northen Parliament, just like the rest of the factions, didn't have the capacity to conduct a proper investigation on such a large scale, especially on something that didn't seem like an actual emergency.
Any skepticism the Northern shipgirls might have held, though, was quickly dispelled, as some of the scouting planes they had sent to scout ahead sighted a small group of Siren transport vessels. Said vessels seemingly vanished into thin air when they arrived to intercept them. Such an occurrence would have passed as a coincidence if it hadn't happened again multiple times in a row.
That managed to set off alarm bells. A bunch of Siren ships filled with supplies disappearing in the most secluded waters of the Northern Parliament was proof enough that the matter was of much deeper concern than they initially thought. An investigation party was quickly put together, with the objective of checking on Omitter's abandoned base first.
Sovetsky Soyuz, being busier than ever to personally oversee the operation, assigned the leadership of the fleet to her sister. When they arrived at the location, Rossiya split it into smaller groups, with Avrora and Kirov at the head of each, then sent Pamiat's group inside to check the base itself.
"Well, in any case, Omitter's old place was empty," Pamiat said. "We can rule out the possibility of the enemy trying to rehabilitate it. What do we do now?"
"We got one check off the list, but our job isn't done yet," Rossiya said. "It's our duty to solve this mistery as soon as possible. We'll join the others in the search."
"Got it!"
With that said, Pamiat jumped off the vessel and summoned her own; she and the others fell into formation around Rossiya's ship, and then they departed.
"Damn, this is so convenient, Massachusetts," Ryan said to the battleship. "I could get used to it."
"Please don't, Commander," she deadpanned. "I'm not your chauffeur."
Ryan flinched and scratched his head sheepishly. "Erm, sorry. I know you are upset cause I'm taking away the little free time you have, but please bear with me just this time."
Massachusetts frowned at his attitude. "Commander, you know I was joking, right?"
Ryan turned to glance at her, confused.
"I'm not actually angry. I'm glad I could be of help," she clarified.
"Oh, er… Okay, then," Ryan perked up. "Wow, I didn't think I'd live to see you of all people attempt some humor; someone's rubbing off on you," he added with a grin.
Massachusetts didn't respond; she simply looked away and kept walking. She admitted that she was trying to emulate Freedom and his witty quips with her remark, but she wasn't expecting to do such a poor job and discourage the Commander. It seemed she still had a long way to go.
"Anyway, what did they call you about that made you come looking for me so urgently?" She asked him, trying to change the subject.
The Commander's face turned serious at that. "Aoste managed to revive Observer," he announced, the shipgirl's expression now mimicking his own.
A while earlier, the Commander had received a communication that the doctor had successfully completed Observer's new body. The only thing missing was implanting her Cube in her new vessel, and then the revived Antiochus would be able to speak. For when that moment would come, Ryan had asked Massachusetts to leave one of her beacons at the Siren base, and as soon as he had gotten the news, he had come to find her. Now, here they were, walking through the corridors of the underwater hideout, heading for the control room as they glanced around them.
The place itself hadn't changed much since the last time they were here, except now proper air vents and cleaners had been installed to make it more suitable for human presence; even the rooms and passages were much better lit, making it seem less like a dungeon and more like an actual secret base.
And all that was thanks to the bulins. Ryan had followed TB's advice and sent a sizeable squad of them to the base along with the Kansen who were supposed to guard it. The little ones immediately got to work, repairing the base and making it more habitable with their usual monstrous efficiency and zeal, which, paired with the newly acquired droid workers, made for quite the combination. Aoste was so impressed by their work that he asked Ryan if he could keep them there, to which the Commander agreed.
The little ones could be seen wandering around the place, sometimes alone, in groups, or even leading a bunch of droid workers along. All those they crossed along the way turned to wave their oversized tools at the officer and the shipgirl, smiling all the while, and the two of them were happy to reciprocate. The repairs to the base were completed, sure, but the need for maintenance was always there, especially now that the fabrication plant for the body of the Antiochus was up and running.
Speaking of, it was about time to speak with a certain Antiochus and get what they were here for—information.
When they reached the door that led to the control room, it opened on its own, allowing them to enter. Waiting for them inside the large, well-lit space were Aoste and Purifier, the doctor reading something on the palmtop he was holding, the Antiochus standing idly by the side, having recovered from the clash with the Humanoid-type. TB was also there; she had decided to remain behind to help Aoste handle the facility, at least until the completion of Observer's body, and was now back in her physical vessel.
But the Commander's gaze instantly fell on the incomer.
Observer was there, her unmistakable, shorter figure—even though not as much as TB's—standing out among them. Her octopus-like rigging was nowhere to be seen, making her look a lot less menacing than how she used to appear. That didn't seem to do anything to change her attitude, though.
She looked completely unbothered as she sat atop a metal crate, which allowed her to stay at eye level with everyone despite her stature. Ryan was beginning to wonder if physically placing herself above others was embedded in her program or if it was just a habit she had developed by floating around on her rigging to compensate for her short stature. Or maybe she was just that conceited, he thought.
"Ah, Commander, it's been a while." Observer greeted him with a smile and a haughty tone as he and Massachusetts approached the group. "I wasn't expecting you to keep your promise, but you actually managed to bring me back. I must say, I'm quite impressed," she added, then turned to glance at Purifier. "Also, it seems you've been taking great care of my subordinate here; I hope she didn't bother you too much."
Purifier let off an audible groan. "Boy, I really didn't miss you."
"Observer, you look... lively," Ryan commented.
"But of course! I could have never anticipated that you'd actually manage to track the Creator all the way to the Original Timeline." Her grin widened as she glanced at Aoste this time. The doctor cleared his throat and averted his gaze, clearly uncomfortable with her staring. "I remember when Zero told you about it. I firmly believed you weren't up to the task, but you are just so full of surprises."
"Well, I had lots of help," he retorted, ignoring her condescending tone. Then he turned to address Aoste. "Is she...?"
"You can rest assured, Commander, she won't attack anyone nor try anything fishy." He reassured him.
"That's good, but couldn't you do something about her personality?" Ryan inquired, exasperated.
The doctor shrugged. "Not without the risk of damaging her memory. I just altered a few lines of program; now she obeys our orders, just like Purifier."
"Don't fret, Commander; you won't have to worry about me backstabbing you," Observer chimed in. "We have a common enemy, after all, and I have a score to settle with the Original Sirens."
"You'll have your chance to get back at them," Ryan said. "But not before you keep your end of the bargain."
Observer shrugged, straightening up in her seat. "Alright, what do you want to know?"
"Lots of things," he declared. He wanted to know how much the enemy's influence had spread over the Antiochus' stuff, to how much their forces amounted, how much of that amount was originally from their ranks and how much from the Antiochus', how fast they could replenish them… Everything that could give humanity an edge in the conflict was welcome.
But there would be time to talk about logistics later. Right now, there were more pressing matters that needed to be addressed.
"I want you to tell me how many of yours are left," he finally declared, making the Elite tilt her head to the side. "Maybe you already know, but we have some of your comrades' Cubes, and we intend to use them to bring them back as well," he elaborated. "But apparently, your mainframes can support the existence of only one for each of you lot at a time, and unfortunately, we don't have a way to know if the Sirens have already brought some of your comrades back or otherwise." It would be a waste to invest resources into making new vessels for the Antiochus if it turned out they couldn't bring them back because the enemy got ahead of them.
"Oh, that's so considerate of you, Commander," Observer said, grinning at him. "But your concerns are misplaced. The first thing they did after taking over the seed was to destroy all our spare vessels and mainframes. They won't be able to exploit us to do their bidding from now on."
"Wow, they hate us that much, uh?" Purifier snorted. "Good thing the feeling's mutual."
"They see you as usurpers. It's in their nature to refute your programs so strongly," Aoste commented.
"Well, maybe they didn't like you tampering with their seed, but they certainly didn't mind using their Flayers to force you to fight for them," Ryan said. "So, how many Antiochus are still in their clutches?"
"Just Zero and Tester," Observer stated. "And Tower, now that I think about it," she added after a second of musing.
A clatter drew everyone's attention, and they turned to glance to the side to see that Aoste had dropped his palmtop.
"You mean... The Tower XVI?" The doctor asked with a trembling voice.
Ryan tilted his head in confusion at the name. Another Major Arcana, an Arbiter, then, but one they had never heard of before; or at least, he didn't, but he was sure her name would have popped up somewhere in other people's reports…
He didn't know what to think of it, but then his gaze settled on Aoste's face. The doctor's eyes were as wide as searchlights, his expression showing disbelief and dread.
And then he mumbled a single word.
"Goddammit."
After many hours of unsuccessful searching through the familiar waters of the Northern Parliament, the shipgirls began getting restless.
The matter, though, was too important to quit so soon, and Rossiya, unwilling to return empty-handed, decided to push the fleet further north, out into the most remote and uncharted territories of the Northern Hemisphere.
If the Sirens weren't hiding in the familiar waters of the Northern Parliament, then extending the search to international waters made more sense to her.
And eventually, that call paid off.
"Comrade, we found something." Avrora's voice reached Rossiya's ears through the radio.
"What is it?" Rossiya asked from the bridge of her ship. The cruiser sounded strangely unsure.
"I'm… not sure," Kirov said. "I'll send you the coordinates."
Rossiya frowned at the numbers she received. The coordinates her comrade just gave her led them to an even more secluded area, far from even the most off-the-beaten-path trade routes. No icebreaker ever crossed that path, which meant the way wasn't free from the ice, so how did they even get there?
She didn't have to wait much to get her answer. In fact, much to her own surprise, the path was clear. An open route had been carved into the vast expanse of ice around them, allowing them passage.
"This must be the work of the Sirens," she thought as she sailed through it with her escort; the deeper they went the more she felt concern creeping over her.
It took them a while, but eventually they left behind the expanse of ice, the path widening to the open sea, with only a few smaller ice bodies scattered around the place. There, Rossiya noticed both Avrora and Kirov standing on the water with their riggings out, but with the rest of their comrades nowhere to be seen, and her heart sank.
"Comrade, you are here!" Avrora waved at her as Rossiya dismissed her ship and summoned her own rigging, landing on her feet beside them.
"What happened? Where are the others?" Rossiya asked them, barely able to hide the concern in her tone.
"They are fine, comrade," Kirov said. "We sent them to inspect our surroundings."
"Inspect what, exactly?" Rossiya inquired, looking around her expectantly, only to see nothing worth their attention. Then she noticed something—an inconspicuous ripple in the ether that she almost missed, barring their way like an invisible barrier. "Is that…?"
"It's not a Mirror Sea, comrade," Kirov cut her off. "I ran into it by chance earlier; the radio kept working, and as you can see, it didn't trap me inside."
"Then what is it? How did you find it?"
"We ran into another Siren convoy," Avrora explained. "We tailed it from a safe distance for a while, but eventually, we lost sight of it."
"Then we found the passage in the ice, the same one you took, and decided to follow it," Kirov added. "I went too far ahead, and before I realized... Well, you should see for yourself."
"Very well, then; show me," Rossiya declared, shifting her gaze ahead between them and frowning. Impatience was now taking hold of her, but she knew that she had to remain vigilant, so she stepped forward cautiously.
She was expecting a trap, another Siren base, some kind of defense mechanism; heck, even the lost Siren vessels huddled together in a safe spot... Instead, what she found beyond that point left her dumbfounded.
It was ice. A veritable wall of ice; a plateau like those you'd expect to find much further north, straight around the North Pole, not at these latitudes. And yet here it was, standing before her in all its magnificence.
It was so tall that it dwarfed their own ships, and it was so large that it continued left and right as far as the eye could see.
Rossiya turned in a flash. The scenery behind her hadn't changed. The massive expanse of ice had simply appeared in front of her out of thin air after she moved a few steps forward. It was like she had crossed through some kind of illusory curtain.
"I wasn't expecting this," she said, her eyes wide and a bemused expression on her face.
"Neither did we," Kirov said, flanking her. "We sent the others to check around it, but we haven't heard from them yet."
Rossiya hummed in acknowledgment, still trying to process what she was seeing. She couldn't shake off the feeling that something was wrong, and the more she looked at the towering ice structure, the more she was sure of it.
Its sheer walls, as one would expect, sported a rugged and chiseled appearance, but the water was devoid of the smaller chunks of ice one would expect to find floating at its feet after being detached from the main body. The ice itself, on second glance, seemed to gleam with a soft, unnatural glow coming from within.
They all came to the same conclusion. While they were fairly certain the polar cap was of natural origin, the light definitely wasn't, and the illusory barrier was clearly being used to hide it from the outside.
"Do you think this could be the destination of the convoys?" Avrora inquired.
"It might be," Rossiya said. "It would certainly explain how they managed to slip under our noses so easily." It wouldn't be the first time the enemy used some kind of camouflage to disguise their hideouts; who's to say the Original Sirens didn't extend the trick to their vessels to make them slip past them?
But that begged the question. Why would the Sirens be hauling all those supplies all the way up here? Why not their main base? What was so important about this place that required so much attention? And why now of all times?
"What do we do, comrade?" Kirov asked Rossiya.
"We need answers," Rossiya declared. "We'll reconvene with the others and try to find out what the deal is with this thing; maybe find an entrance, if it even has one, and then we go back to report to my sister."
Before the others could acknowledge her orders, a loud snap resounded in the air. They all paused in their tracks at the foreboding sound.
"What the hell was that?"
Another louder snap was heard, like that of fracturing ice, then another one, and then another one. The noise kept spreading until it turned into a deafening rumble.
The shipgirls turned in alarm toward the ice cap. Its inner glow began pulsing brighter with each passing second, and chunks of ice began falling down its structure as cracks and chinks spread all over its surface.
"Everyone, stand back!" Rossiya shouted, sprinting away from there, her subordinates following suit, where Pamiat's vessel was waiting for them.
As they tried to put as much distance as they could between them and the collapsing structure, a long, spine-chilling, low bellow resounded in the air, making even the water at their feet ripple.
And then, like a volcanic bomb blasting off the cone during an eruption, the ice cap exploded behind them with a loud boom. Chunks of ice of various sizes were sent flying, some of them falling around them.
"Kirov, watch out!" Rossiya yelled, launching herself at the cruiser and pushing her out of the way, right as a truck-sized ice chunk reached her. She managed to shield herself with her rigging, but it was easily torn away by the sheer force of the impact. A launching pain shot through her as she felt her bones twist and crack under the weight of the boulder hitting her side and knocking her back down to the water.
"Comrade!" Kirov and Avrora were immediately by her side, crouching down next to her to shield her with their rigging. She clenched her teeth, barely holding back a scream of pain as more, smaller chunks fell around them.
Then their gazes fell on the structure, and their eyes widened in horror. The illusory curtain seemed to have been lifted, as they could clearly see it even from afar, but what made them freeze in fear wasn't the ice cap being torn apart from the inside.
It's what was coming out of it.
A gargantuan, dark gray shape with azure energy coursing through its body arose from within the ice. Slowly but surely, it emerged from its icy confines, taking to the air, its sheer size casting a shadow over the shipgirls as they looked up at it even from that far.
And with another drawn-out bellow, it was off.
"Tower was my most ambitious project. An Antiochus that sported the largest rigging ever created, capable of annihilating entire hordes of Sirens on its own. A true sentient weapon of mass destruction." Aoste brought his arms behind his back and began pacing around slowly as he talked. "When I presented the idea to my superiors, they were thrilled, initially, but then they realized the sheer use of materials and the time required for its completion were unsustainable and decided to put it on hold. Ultimately, the war ended without the project seeing its completion." The doctor paused and let out a wistful breath, reminiscing about those times with remorse plaguing his mind more than nostalgia. "When I sent Zero into the seed to hack into it, I did so after giving her the guidelines to construct the mainframes for the Antiochus' programs and their rigging, so that they could support her in her endeavor. Among those projects, there was also Tower's."
Silence fell in the room as everyone processed his words.
"How large are we talking about?" Ryan inquired.
"To put it in perspective, and assuming Zero hasn't made any adjustments to the blueprints, there's enough space for a whole football stadium inside its mouth," the doctor said.
The Commander felt his blood run cold in his veins.
"Why would you give her the project for something that couldn't even be possible to complete?" He asked.
"Because I figured having the seed and an entire timeline worth of resources at her disposal would make it doable. Perhaps she could have completed it and used it against the Sirens at the right time," Aoste said. "That was my hope, but I didn't expect her to actually follow through with it."
"Then you'll be glad to know that she succeeded, to a degree," Observer declared, making them both turn to stare at her. "In all the timelines, Zero managed to complete and activate Tower only four times."
Ryan was almost too scared to ask, but he did it anyway. "And what happened then?" He gulped in preparation.
"Tower's deployment resulted in humanity's utter defeat and the fall of its civilization, marking the failure of the simulation all four times," she replied, making Ryan drop his jaw in horror. "Zero then vowed to never do it again. She deactivated her and disarmed her rigging. Then she hid it in the remotest part of the North and left it there."
"Wait, did you just say the North?!" He exclaimed.
"That's right. She put Omitter up there as a red herring with the sole purpose of not letting anyone find it. It worked wondrously since you didn't know about it," Observer said. "I bet Azur Lane never even bothered looking much past her bastion after defeating her."
That was true, Ryan had to admit. After the matter in the North was settled, the alliance decided to shift their attention to more pressing matters. The same went for the Northern Parliament. After Omitter's defeat, they could finally turn their attention away from there and focus on strengthening the trading routes with the other factions. Routes that were much easier to navigate than the harsh environment of their northernmost regions. All of that made them neglect the remotest sections of the North Pole.
But dwelling on the past wouldn't help here. Ryan had to focus on the present.
In the best-case scenario, Zero had managed to delete the data on Tower's position from the seed before falling under the Sirens' control, preventing them from finding out. Worst-case scenario: the Original Program had failed, the enemy knew about Tower, and even worse, they had already determined her a useful asset and decided to complete her rigging.
And as much as Ryan wanted to hope for the former, the latter was the only explanation for the intense traffic of Siren convoys heading up north.
It was a harrowing thought, but at least now he had something more concrete to relay to the Northern shipgirls. With Observer's new information, he knew where to send them to look.
As the Commander pondered, TB spoke up, and everyone turned their attention to her shorter figure.
"Why wasn't I aware of it?"She inquired, dejected.
"I told you, TB, Tower has been activated only four times in the past. You are too young to know about her," Observer told her.
"But why didn't mother inform me about this?"TB insisted.
"You can't expect me to know what goes on in Zero's head, but if I had to take a guess, she didn't give you that information because it was too risky," Observer said. "Purifier could have failed to bring you to Azur Lane. You falling in the hands of the Original Sirens would have been the worst possible outcome."
TB remained silent at that, not knowing what to say. Once again, she was found lacking. The first time was during the missile attack; she had failed to inform Azur Lane about the weapons, and only because she had trusted the data she had, which led her to mistakenly think that the warheads had been disarmed. And now the whole matter with Tower, which she knew absolutely nothing about.
Zero had created her to assist humanity against the Sirens, and yet by now she had been caught unaware of things that were supposed to be her expertise not once but twice.
A bunch of new, unpleasant feelings began churning in her digital mind, with shame and frustration at the forefront. If she couldn't even fulfill that task properly, then what was the point of her whole existence?
"What about you, Purifier?" Ryan turned to look at the other Elite, an accusation evident on his face. "You should have known, so why didn't you tell us about this sooner?"
Purifier raised her hands defensively. "Hey, don't look at me like that. Zero didn't tell me shit. I thought she had gotten rid of that thing for good."
"Well, she didn't, and now we have to deal with that," Ryan exclaimed. He blew hair through his nose to calm himself, and after gathering his resolve, he turned to address everyone in the room. "Okay, listen, this matter has just reached top priority. From now on, our focus will be on hindering the Sirens' movements to prevent them from completing Tower's rigging, but in case we are too late, we are going to need a plan," he declared. "Doctor, I want Tower's specifics asap—her weapons, her weak points... Everything that might help us against her."
"Very well, Commander." Aoste nodded.
"Observer, I want a detailed report on everything you know about the Sirens. Give me everything you can remember while you were under their control, and don't omit anything, not even the smallest bit."
"As you wish, Commander," Observer responded with another smirk.
"TB, see if you can make an estimate on the state of completion of Tower's rigging. I want to know how much time we have… TB? Hey, TB?"
"Uh? Oh, r-right." TB caught herself spacing out and chastised herself internally before responding, "Leave it to me…"
Ryan's eyebrow shot upward as he seemed to catch a glimpse of her dejection, but she immediately hid it behind her poker face.
"That'll be all, for now," he declared. "Let me know when you are done, and I'll send Massachusetts to pick you up."
"And what are you going to do?" Purifier inquired.
"I have to go back and let everyone know."
Amagi opened the window to her room, the light of the sun blinding her for a second. She took a deep breath, and the crisp air of the morning tickled her nostrils, traveling down her throat, filling her lungs.
She was feeling good, very good; actually, she had never felt so good in her entire life.
The shadow of a smile made its way to her lips as she thought back to the day of the operation, when she and Sparviero were brought inside together. Then a barely contained chuckle escaped her lips at the thought of Akagi and Kurama making a scene at the hospital to decide who would get to go first, only to find out that the Reality Lens had enough room for two bunks and thus for two people at the same time. In the end, much to her hilarity, arguing like that had been completely pointless, but now that she thought about it, Anzeel was only one; she wondered who went first in the end.
But that didn't matter anymore. According to the woman, the operation had gone off without a hitch for the both of them, and that's what mattered.
In the beginning, she couldn't tell the difference between before and after. Her condition was much less conspicuous than the one afflicting the shipboy, but Anzeel had assured her that her Cube was now as good as new.
She noticed the first sign of change only the following morning. She had woken up in panic, not because of a bad dream or anything, but because she almost couldn't believe that she was actually able to get a good night's sleep.
She couldn't remember the last time she slept through the whole night without interruption. The other times, she would either have difficulty falling asleep in the first place or simply wake up in the middle of the night, shaken by a sudden coughing fit that would cut her breath short.
Only then did reality catch up to her.
She was finally cured. Goodbye coughs, chest pains, and asthma. Her breath wouldn't leave her all of a sudden mid-conversation, and she would finally be able to walk a full mile without any help.
And most importantly, the boom of her cannons wouldn't painfully shake her body like a rattle anymore. For far too long, she had permitted her sisters to care for her as if she were a fragile, bedridden patient. For far too long, she had endured the pitying glances from everyone around her. From now on, no one would treat her as though she might break at any moment.
But she knew that even if she now had the possibility to enjoy life to the fullest, it still wouldn't be entirely possible, not while the Sirens were still around. For that reason, she had decided to put herself under the orders of the Commander, not just in the same role of tactician she used to cover at the Sanctuary but as a frontline combatant.
Finally, after so long, she could go back into the thick of the fray alongside the rest of her comrades.
But today wasn't a day to fight. Today she was asked by the Commander to attend a gathering at the Royal Navy dorm, and for a very specific reason.
With a happy and determined smile, she turned to the center of the room, only to notice that the futon beside hers was empty. She figured that Akagi must have left earlier without her noticing.
Then her gaze settled on the wall clock, and her expression fell.
"I'm late!"
AN: One last hurdle to overcome before we get into the proper endgame. Too bad this one's the size of a Kaiju.
Next Chapter: The Calm Before the Storm