Rolling waves. Gentle breezes. Faint moonlight. Another sleepless night. Though He usually didn't need any, tonight was particularly restless.

It always happened when they went through the portal, into the new world. A noise within His mind. Faint and quiet, only just noticeable enough to elicit concern.

Perhaps a quick diagnostics would help.

Initiate diagnostics…

Processing…

Report: All systems online. All systems nominal.

Odd.

It kept buzzing in the background. It felt… familiar, somehow.

Perhaps it was best to ignore it.

It was midnight, and they still hadn't found anything yet.

Brest used her comrades' spotlights and the moon's glow to sweep her eyes over the dark seas, looking for anything unusual. According to the mission laid out by Cardinal Richelieu, she and her squadron should be searching for some kind of offshore station that had mysteriously appeared a few days ago in the Atlantic.

Le Triomphant, with her regal cape and frilled dress, led the charge alongside Le Terrible, whose white coat and hat fluttered about at high speeds. Béarn toyed with her monocle as another patrol of her aircraft came back to report nothing sighted, eliciting a scowl from the aircraft carrier. Marseillaise wore an extremely focused look on her face as the halo of her rigging bobbed up and down in the wind. Brest was just behind her, with her usual white robes fluttering about as she kept up with the rest.

Brest suppressed a yawn as the wind bounced off her face. Even if the moonlight was beautiful, and the fresh, cool winds were a nice break from the wooden smell of the cathedral, they all became a little stale after a while. Soon, she found her mind wandering to other things, most notably her artistic pursuits.

As Brest gazed pensively at the vast expanse of the ancient ruins, her mind was consumed by the possibilities of the untold treasures and dark secrets waiting to be discovered. With a determined expression, she clasped her journal and fervently scribbled down her thoughts, ensuring no single detail escaped her. Her excitement was palpable as she visualized the brave band of adventurers embarking on this captivating quest, their every step stirring the echoes of a forgotten empire's ruins. With a sense of urgency, Brest reminded herself that she must unravel this idea further upon the squad's return, knowing that this moment of inspiration was too precious to be forgotten.

Then suddenly, the radio activated, bringing Brest out of her daydreaming.

"This is Béarn reporting in, my squadrons have spotted something in the distance,"

"Copy that. What do you see?" Marseillaise responded.

"I'm not entirely sure. It's sitting on the water and massive, but it's obscured by fog," Béarn informed them.

"Hmm, seems strange. Alright, we'll go check it out, where is it?" Marseillaise questioned.

"A few hundred kilometres west of here," and with that, Béarn closed her communications. Marseillaise and the rest of the squadron quickly headed toward the sighting.

Le Terrible began chatting with her sister, "So, what do you think we'll find when we get there?"

"Hmm? Ah, well I guess, they don't seem like Siren facilities at least," Le Triomphant responded.

"Well, the Sirens are known for being… mysterious, when it comes to their style. I wouldn't be surprised if this was part of some new plan they're working on. Especially after the events of the World Expo," Béarn chipped in.

"But this certainly seems unusual, even for them. Why would our foes simply show themselves like this?" Brest asked.

"Maybe it's some kind of trap?" Le Terrible said, with a smirk on her face as she gazed at her sister's reaction.

"Don't be ridiculous, soeur. From what I've heard, none of the other factions have been attacked when investigating, so I'm sure we'll be fine," Le Triomphant scolded.

"Regardless, we should exercise caution, comrades. Siren or not, we still have no idea what we're up against," Marseillaise reminded everyone. Everyone nodded in agreement, and the chatter died down after that.

Then, the radio came back on shortly after, punctuated by Le Triomphant's voice.

"Everyone! I think I can see something," she said, with a hint of excitement in her voice.

With that, everyone trained their eyes forward and caught a glimpse of it beyond the spotlights. They cut the light, and as their eyes slowly adjusted to the darkness, the shipgirls could all see some sort of massive hulking station, looming over the water.

Marseillaise signalled for them to slow down, and they did so while letting the sights sink in. Even though it was barely illuminated by the lights present on its structure, Brest could still make out plenty of details.

It seemed to have a central station, and multiple other smaller stations circling it, all connected by a series of bridges. Each station had a massive antenna on top, with the central one having the biggest, and they all had blue sparks emitting regularly. It was a wonder nobody saw this sooner.

"I guess we should report this to the Cardinal, no?" Béarn turned to Marseillaise.

Marseillaise nodded, then turned to the rest of the shipgirls. "Everyone, let's split up and gather some clues about this place. Our comrades back home are counting on us to solve this mystery!"

With those final words and one last affirmation, the shipgirls started to probe around the structure. However, before Brest could set about her way, she went to ask Marseillaise something,

"By any chance, are we allowed to explore within the structure?"

"Not right now, I would say. Perhaps if we fully explore the outside, we can start venturing inside," Marseillaise responded.

Brest nodded and decided to head for what looked like a docking bay area. As she got closer, she noted the relative pristineness of the structure, in stark contrast to the lack of any human presence. The smell of the seas and saltwater slowly transitioned to a strange mix of burnt plastic and ozone, and she noted the sudden taste of metal as she passed through the doors leading into the bay.

Having found a place to land, Brest deactivated her rigging and slowly strolled around, noting all the tiny details she saw. Whatever this was, it looked advanced. The walls and floors were in shades of light grey to silver to laboratory white, with blue tones punctuating the futuristic feel. It honestly reminded her of some of the Eagle Union's riggings, and Brest wondered if they had some part in this.

As she continued across the bay, she caught a glimpse of a massive logo on one of the walls. It was the Greek letter gamma, in lowercase form, in some kind of blocky font. Perhaps some kind of designation for this area? Brest also saw some vehicles parked nearby, with the same Gamma logo on their decrepit, broken-down bodies.

It wasn't until she approached one of the entrances to the facility did she found some clues as to what the logo meant. A sign, though faded, still had discernible text. It read:

"Caution! Stay Clear Of The Dock During Arrivals and Departures.

From, Your Friends At GammaCorp!"

Very curious. Looking at all the unchanged signs and logos and the degraded yet relatively untouched nature of the facility, Brest figured that there was no owner of this place anymore, and hopefully no threat anywhere inside too. So she took a deep breath, entered the doors opposite the docks and headed in.

The room looked like a lobby, and the lights soon switched on automatically. Some kind of message was played over the intercom, but the speakers were too damaged for Brest to make out what they were saying. The lobby was in considerably better shape than the outside, that was for sure.

There were posters on the wall and notes too, and even a few magazines in a box under one of the seats, all of which had discernable text. A glance over the articles revealed that this was a private research base. A prosperous one too.

Brest decided to explore around, choosing a random door in the lobby and heading through. She found herself walking along some kind of glass bridge connecting two compartments. The outside view looked a lot less stormy, and she could see some of her comrades making their way inside to investigate too.

When she made it through to the other side, Brest could only note the broken lighting that was present in the new compartment. She headed down the stairwell, made it to yet another hallway, and uttered a sigh as she continued further into the labyrinthine facility, all the while noting down small details to not get lost.

She saw rooms filled with shelves of servers, some ruined and battered, but most surprisingly intact. Brest's curiosity was piqued as she saw a set of consoles next to a vault door. She went up and pushed some of the buttons. Access denied.

She decided to leave the consoles alone for now. There were shattered display panels that flickered and buzzed, pieces of equipment sitting snugly within boxes and containers, and the faint taste of metal that accompanied her since she entered.

Brest kept wandering about, hungry for the secrets buried within. Her mind kept stirring the pot of inspiration. She continued further into the depths, as the allure of mystery kept dragging her down. As she kept exploring, the overbearing and cold steel architecture began to weigh in on her. The dizzyingly complicated compartments made her step uneven and unsteady, as she tried to work out where she had been and where she was going.

She soon began to lose track of time. The decrepit hallways, the broken-down laboratories, and the quiet humming of the lights made her feel like she was walking through a maze. And it wasn't the only thing she was worried about, as Brest consciously tried to quiet her footsteps to match the silence around her.

Despite not seeing a trace of life since first heading in, Brest kept looking over her shoulder with a startle, scanning her surroundings as she tried to suppress the creeping feeling around her. She kept pushing through, even while her ears perked up at every sound including her footsteps, and her heart began to pound through her chest.

She got to yet another hallway, to which Brest then noticed the glass door that was unique to this one. It had no clear handle and a pin pad on the side. There was a closed door at the end of the hallway on the other side of the glass. A dead end, it looked like.

Suddenly, an ear-piercing alarm startled Brest and activated a series of blinking lights throughout the hallways. She rushed back to the way she came from, only to find that the door had locked shut. She heard an industrial grinding sound, and her eyes darted to the end of the hallway, where the door began to open slowly.

Brest froze up as a man walked up to the glass door separating both of them. He was slightly taller than her and wore a uniform matching the blues and light greys of the facility's interior. His face was locked in an emotionless state, and his eyes were a brilliant blue with intricate patterns that Brest couldn't look away from.

The most striking detail, however, was directly behind him. A floating piece of equipment that resembled a hull, and contained several strange-looking weapon mounts. There were arm pieces that had a long gun on one side and some kind of device on the other. Despite the alien design, its fundamental form was unmistakable. It was a Kansen's rigging. The hull was metallic, with intricate designs etched into its surface. The weapon mounts had small blinking lights and intricate engravings, giving them an otherworldly look. The entire rigging emitted a faint, pulsating glow, adding to its mysterious appearance.

Before she could ask who he was and what he was doing there, the man turned his eyes over to the panel on the other side. Looking back at Brest, who was still locked in place in fear and curiosity, he went over, pulled out some kind of card and unlocked the door with the wave of his hand. As the glass door slowly pried itself open, Brest finally moved as she prepared herself to fight.

Then, the man turned around in the opposite direction and walked back the same way he came. Though not before giving one last look at Brest, and locking eyes with her before departing into the hallway. The glass door finally opened, and the man was gone, seemingly disappeared around the corner. She heard a grinding noise in the distance and a light shined through the end of the hallway.

She walked forward cautiously, turned the corner at the end, and saw moonlight enter as the door exerted itself to keep from closing. Her shoulders relaxed and relief swept over her as she returned outside, savouring the smell of fresh air and the natural wind blowing over her. She looked around and saw Marseillaise heading over, gracefully skating over the water's surface.

"Did you find anything?" Marseillaise asked.

Brest hesitated, still trying to process what she had seen.

"I-I, there's someone in the facility, a man,"

"Oh? There are regular civilians, all the way out here?" Marseillaise responded.

"Not quite. He was wearing something. It looked like… a rigging of sorts,"

"A rigging? On a man? Are you… sure you saw right?"

"Yes. Quite sure,"

Marseillaise fell into deep thought, as Brest nervously looked back to the facility, Finally, the light cruiser accessed her communications. With a few words, she ordered the squadron to rendezvous and start heading back. Marseillaise looked back at Brest.

"We must report this to the Cardinal. Hopefully, we'll get some answers soon…"

Marseillaise clasped her hands in prayer and contemplation while Brest watched as the rest of the squadron gathered. Together, they set sail away from the facility. The others were curious, wondering and asking why they were being sent back so soon. Brest and Marseillaise declined to answer, a looming feeling of apprehension settling within them both.

They hurriedly sailed away, out of the darkened waters to find that the storm outside had cleared. Brest looked back and saw a veneer of darkness of where the facility once was. She squinted, then saw something looming on one of the towers. She turned forward, feeling her heart race and her blood freeze. Finally, everything faded into the distance, and they were far from the facility at last.

The meeting started as soon as the Commander walked in. It was a meeting between nations, specifically all the ones who had played an active part in the events of the World Expo—or at least, most of them.

Curiously absent were the representatives from the Sardegna Empire and the Iris Orthodoxy. No doubt, they were likely recuperating from their efforts: Sardegna from Marco Polo's disappearance, and the Iris Orthodoxy from their recent reunification.

Although, one faction was a bit peeved at their absence. Sat next to the Commander, was Queen Elizabeth of the Royal Navy, flanked by Warspite. And she was currently in a bad mood.

"Clemenceau… The nerve of that woman! First the World Expo, now this…"

The Commander tried to reason with her. "Now now, we've already established that she did what was best at the time."

Queen Elizabeth pouted. "Still, it doesn't mean she can just bail on us like this."

"I know we have our reservations about Clemenceau, but I feel the Iris Orthodoxy gets a pass this time. They've still got a lot of work on their hands after what happened," the Commander argued.

That seemed to work, as Queen Elizabeth sat back down while the rest of the factions nodded in agreement. They began to move on to other, more urgent topics—namely, the numerous anomalies spotted in the Atlantic.

Despite the differences in each faction's descriptions and choices of words, they painted a clear enough picture for the Commander. They were facilities, floating stations, and naval bases of unknown origin, all scattered across the ocean.

Briefly going over each faction's discoveries, the Commander realized how embarrassingly little they knew. To start, despite being visible, they didn't interact with radar or any other search device. The only way to search for them was to have planes conduct reconnaissance on every square mile of the ocean until they were found. It was a bummer for anyone who wasn't a carrier or didn't have seaplanes, although a certain Zuikaku was fired up at the chance to improve her skills further.

Once one was found, and a fleet was dispatched to investigate, even more questions arose. A consistent pattern among the factions' descriptions is that these facilities are locked down airtight. Doors remained firmly closed, and it was anyone's guess as to what keycard they'd need to open them. Hatches were sealed shut, and the only indication of an owner came with a gamma logo plastered upon the towers.

Some, like New Jersey and Sovetskaya Belorussiya, opted to try and blast the doors open with their firepower. They stopped after a few salvos when they realized that their shells hadn't even made dents within the structure. Akashi and some others had suggested hacking into the facility, which took an unceremonious 5 hours before they gave up. Whatever firewall these facilities possessed was quite frankly, impenetrable.

The Commander rubbed his temples. It seemed the only thing they knew at the moment was how much they didn't know. And there was still the question of how these new facilities tied into prior events, chief among them being the Sirens or even Deus X. The shipgirls around him exchanged worried glances, their resolve waning with each passing hour.

Everything felt so separate and disconnected, yet there was also the feeling that one piece of information would tie everything together. The Commander sat back in his chair, and let the conversation flow as he slipped into his mind. The representatives continued debating, throwing all sorts of theories up in the air: that the Sirens had set this up as a trap or a new kind of test, that this was the first stage of Deus X's invasion after the World Expo, even insinuating that the Iris Orthodoxy and the Sardegna Empire were a part of this somehow.

On and on it went, until the fire of speculation died out to reveal the ashes of ignorance. With that, the Commander called the meeting to end and dismissed the shipgirls. Determined to see this situation through, he straightened up.

"We'll figure this out," he said, more to himself than anyone else. "Hopefully…"

—

The Arbiters Hermit, Strength and Temperance sailed along, scouring the ocean as they did so. They tended to their sensors and other equipment, using their knowledge of dimensional quirks to help them with their mission. So far, it had yet to yield fruit. In any direction they looked, they saw nothing of note. Nothing like the dimensional oddities that had recently been noted.

Deus X, or some other unknown variable to play, was causing subspace fluctuations that warranted concern among the Arbiters. Regardless of the threat level they posed, the facilities and their elusive nature were enough that several Arbiters were deployed to gather information.

It wasn't long before the three passed through a strange fog, one that emanated a smell of burnt plastic. Suddenly, Strength spotted a glowing sphere on the horizon. The Arbiters had seemingly found their target.

Soon, their sensors began to spike with activity as they moved closer. It was a glowing sphere of complete blackness, emitting an ominous low hum. The waters around the sphere swirled about, and the air around it felt cold.

The sky around them grew dimmer as they approached. Temperance opened up a hologram to check, and sure enough, this was one of the dimensional anomalies reported. A particularly nasty one, at that.

They circled the sphere, carefully debating their possible moves. On one hand, whatever this was, it didn't seem like something to be messed with. The risks posed by a direct investigation were more than what were comfortable for the Arbiters. On the other hand, they certainly weren't going to get information any other way. If it was elusive enough to bypass even the Sirens, standing around and scanning it over and over again probably wouldn't help at all.

"Ahh come on… We're going to let some mysterious aura stop us from investigating?" Hermit pestered as she kept sailing in circles around Strength.

"Stop it. We're just here to scout things out, not throw ourselves into a potentially deadly situation," responded Strength.

"No, we aren't! We're supposed to be investigating this place and seeing if it's part of the X phenomenon or not. And we won't be getting any of that done while we're just wandering around out here," said Hermit. Temperance looked contemplative.

"Our resources are already tight from X's arrival. We can't afford any losses of our backup bodies,"

"Oh please… If anything, this could be considered part of the X issue. Besides, I can hold my own. This doesn't scare me one bit,"

Suddenly, Temperance pitched in. "Well, if you're so sure… Perhaps it could be justified to Empress,"

"Temperance. You better know what you're doing, 'cause this seems idiotic," Strength responded.

"There's no other way to collect information. It's masked from almost all sensors. Besides, better safe than sorry. If this was X's doing, we'd arguably be doing a favour,"

With that, the Arbiters decided. Hermit would be the one to brave whatever was inside, much to her delight, while Strength and Temperance guarded from the outside and kept contact with her. With one final motion, her rigging activated, and she dove into the sphere.

Once she passed the barrier and watched as the world faded behind her, she noticed the darkness inside. Hermit squinted her eyes, and she caught a glimpse of something on the horizon. Something was floating on the water, only illuminated by the admittedly unnerving red glow behind it.

But that didn't deter Hermit, who kept sailing towards the mysterious object. As she did, she started to hear something around her. Fragmented pieces of noise around her, garbled beyond her ability to make out. She tried to open her hologram screen but to no avail. Nothing on her rigging worked, not her comms, not her computer, not even her corrosive mist would summon anymore.

Then, her movement began to slow. It felt as though time itself was slowing down, preventing Hermit from going any faster. She tried to increase her speed, but eventually, she ground to a halt, with the object in the distance not seeming any closer. Suddenly, a voice from directly in front of her said something.

"Leave."

Before Hermit could respond or question, she felt herself get pushed in the opposite direction with immense force. Despite her best attempts, the current was too powerful and she was sent rocketing out of the sphere.

"Oh? Already had enough?" Temperance quipped with a slight smirk.

Hermit dusted herself off. "Gah! What was that?"

"Why are you asking me? You're the one who seemed so eager to explore," Temperance continued to jab.

"Well, whatever the hell this is, it doesn't want us to know… I got pushed out of there by something…"

"Oh really? That wasn't just you running away with your tail between your legs?"

"Shut up. We gotta report this to Empress. If it's strong enough to kick us out, it might be trouble,"

"But of course. I'll tell her that you got crushed by some unknown threat and that we need backup,"

"Why you…!"

Before Hermit could give Temperance a piece of her mind, she felt a tap on her shoulder. Turning around, her throat dropped to her stomach when she saw Strength, glaring holes right through her.

With a bruise on her arm and cheek, and a voice full of ice, Strength said, "We are leaving. Now."

—

Atop the facility tower, the figure watched as the shipgirls from the Iris Orthodoxy left.

Accidental contact had been made. The First Seal had been broken. The operation would need to be modified.

His mind began to hum. All units would have to be notified.

774();

SFOCNQ7: COMMUNICATION LINK ONLINE

It was time to show themselves to these shipgirls.

AN: Hooray! I actually wrote something! And I finally figured out how to write author's notes in