12 [Aces in Exile]
"Don't be afraid to give up the good to go for the great."
—John D. Rockefeller
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The thundering waves of the cold Pacific Ocean smashed against the steel hull of an iron goliath. It was, for all intents and purposes, a simply gigantic warship with guns that thundered across the entire when fired. When presented with the design someone would immediately make the mistake of calling it one of its two predecessors, Bismarck and Tirpitz. Truly, the towering battleship looked like an enlarged version of both of those ships with futuristic purple lines running across its hull, brightly glowing even in the middle of the day. An unrealized design by the Third Reich's Kriegsmarine. A battleship so ludicrously powerful and large that it was simply impossible to produce by Germany during WW2.
The H-42 Klasse Schlachtschiff
A super battleship, there was no other classification for it. It was a capital-sized battleship, a Yamato and a half with armament surpassing that of the Japanese supreme flagship. Its black hull idly cruised through the calm waves of the Pacific, any and all obstacles and distractions were disregarded and promptly if needed... destroyed.
A lone man sat atop the forefront 480mm double-barreled turret, looking ahead with a stoic and melancholic look. Light purple data rings surrounded his finger, slowly rotating around his body like the rings of Saturn. The man's jet-black hair slowly moved in the breeze, his deep purple eyes looked forth to the seemingly endless stretch of the sea as if in search of something. A sigh permeated from the man's mouth as his data rings sparked with a purple glow for a second. A few seconds later, an explosion rocked the calm sea into a state of disarray as missiles exploded a purple-coloured shield that popped into existence with hexagon-shaped scales, protecting the man and the ship from all damage with ease. The force of the explosions was reduced to nothing, not even the man's hat felt any of the force. Slowly, the man stood up, his tall figure was clad in a black suit for all the world to see, knee-high boots reached just below his knees and a large black trench coat rippled in the wind. Slowly, the man turned his head to the source of his annoyance, twenty-eight destroyers of a class he didn't bother to care about. All of them had glowing red markings across their hulls as they prepared to send out another volley of missiles.
"...Why...?"
"Why can't you get it through your processors that you will never amount to anything?"
The massive positron batteries quickly turned towards the approaching fleet of Japanese destroyers, the man who stood atop the large turret of course turned with it as the 480mm calibre cannons aimed themselves automatically.
-BOOM-
Purple positron shells blasted from the double-barreled cannons, each screeching through the air as the shockwave from the tip of the barrels briefly pushed the seawater surrounding the large battleship aside. In less than a moment, the beams found their target and pierced through any and all opposition. The wave-force armour of the destroyers didn't even matter in the face of the oversized and overpowered piercing strength of the positron blasts. Each of the shots pierced through both the wave-force armour and the destroyer itself, continuing to rip through each and every vessel that sailed behind the frontline offence. Then, the damaged destroyers exploded in a fiery explosion that ripped the ships into pieces. In the end, all destroyers have been sunk by a single salvo from the H-42 class super battleship. With the pathetic excuse for danger gone, the large 480mm cannons rotated back to their original position and the man once again seated himself.
"What power... so this is our combined might..." the voice of the man sounded deep and smooth, to those opposed to him it promised nothing but the cold, black abyss of the crushing depths below while to those that allied themselves with him it promised but one thing...
Salvation
A small smile appeared on the man's face as he gazed at his open palms for a long minute, contemplating that which could not be described in words. Emotions are a hard concept to grasp, and they are infinitely more troubling to a computer designed to replicate them. His hands clenched into fists, with his lack of blood not even getting his hands cut off could bring him any real pain, but still, there was this strange feeling of emptiness that continued to rise with each passing minute he sailed the Pacific Ocean in search of his comrades. It was almost annoying how good they were at hiding and running away, he just hoped he wouldn't find the wreckage of a blue submarine with a bunch of human bodies floating around, anything but that.
...The King of The Ocean sets sail yet again...
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A familiar blue submarine sailed towards the docks of Honolulu, but there was something odd about the usual appearance of I-401. Her vessel was, in all sense of the word, modified. It appeared to be a mixture of a submarine, as one would expect, and a... heavy cruiser... Well, it looks like this because that's exactly what it is. Due to some... earlier complications with Iona's two sisters, I-400 and I-402, Takao has had to merge her hull with Iona's. But unlike the assimilation that took place a distance away from them, Takao retained her individuality and could freely roam the ship as a hologram, even operate should the need arise. The crew, both human and Fog basked in the short break they were given from the Fleet of Fog, enjoying the sun and fresh air on the deck of the hybrid one of a kind warship. Well, almost all of them were. One particular little girl looked very troubled as she leaned on the railing, a pink self-conscious teddy bear standing by her side.
"...Do you think Bon-Bon's okay?" Kirishima sighed for the umpteenth time as she heard that same goddamn question from her human friend, Makie.
"FOR THE THOUSANDTH... Sigh, yes Makie, Bismarck's fine." the teddy bear's answer didn't help to calm down the little girl's nerves, evident by her unchanging grim expression, 'Probably.'
The shuffling of clothes brought Makie's attention to the side, only to see her pretty blonde friend standing there, dressed in her oversized large black coat as usual, "Bismarck had the element of surprise and Hyuuga's hidden minefield, he should have been able to emerge victoriously."
"Well... yeah, but isn't Tirpitz his brother?" the two Kongou-class sisters stayed silent at Makie's question, both trying to find words that wouldn't mentally harm the young girl.
"It's not like he gave a damn when it came to Scharnhorst... -ACK-" Kirishima's quiet remark earned her a smack to the head from Haruna, this topic wasn't something they should discuss in Makie's presence.
"Scharnhorst?" checkmate, Makie's curiosity has been peaked, now she won't let go of the topic at all costs.
"All information we have is from the shared library, so it doesn't have to be necessarily accurate," Makie rose an eyebrow at Haruna's reluctance to talk about the topic, strange, very, very strange.
Kirishima decided to be the one to begin the explanation, "I'll just drop the bombshell now, Scharnhorst was probably the closest person to Bismarck before he defected -SMACK- OW WHAT WAS THAT FOR?!"
Haruna just looked to the side, poorly pretending to be innocent, "No reason."
"Grrrrr... sigh, whatever. Where was I? Oh yeah, Scharnhorst was basically closer to Bismarck than even Tirpitz, eh who knows maybe they were very close- -SMACK- YOWZA! WILL YOU STOP THAT?!" Makie could only look confusedly as Haruna continued to smack Kirishima's fluffy stuffed head, not grasping why her blonde friend was so irritated.
"I'll take it from here. I don't know the specifics of Scharnhorst's behavioural patterns, but according to the records she became unable to sink passing human ships and was ordered for an immediate reset, which she refused," Makie nodded along to Haruna's explanation, grasping the concept so far, "Her retaliation labelled her as a liability, and her destruction followed soon after."
"Oh... that's sad... but what does that-"
"Bismarck was the one who sunk her," quickly interjected Kirishima with a matter of fact tone, she didn't want to make this dramatic, she wanted the opposite.
It took Makie a good second or two to get words out, judging by her shocked expression alone one could tell that she wasn't expecting to hear such a tragic story, "B-But! She was his friend, wasn't she?"
"You've only come to know the good and tame Bismarck, not the old wild and terrifying Bismarck," replied Kirishima, getting ready to hug Makie at any given moment should the girl start to cry, "They didn't call him the Metal Ripper for nothing..."
It was quite easy to see confliction on Makie's face with it being all scrunched up, she looked ready to cry at any given minute but she forced herself to stay strong, for her friends and for herself, "I'm not going to cry, I'm a big girl! Unf! -SNIFFLE- I don't care about old Bon-Bon! I want my Bon-Bon!"
The two Kongou-class sisters could only reply with smiles, it was good to see that Makie's image of Bismarck hasn't been sullied by his past. In all honesty, the biggest surprise to them still to this day was his willingness to accept a human child as his companion, but now they could understand, sort of. Makie Osakabe wasn't just a design child that miraculously survived and went to develop the vibration warhead to combat the Fleet of Fog, she was something they couldn't describe in words. It was strange, but ever since they first met the young girl they didn't want to cause harm to her, at least not unnecessarily. A strange, undecipherable feeling of friendship...
...
...
...
"The silence of the sea is about to drift into a storm..."
