Unstable Loyalties

Chapter 29

Lightning shifted uneasily as she stood below the podium, gazing up at Devastator. The leader had decided to unveil their plan today. The plan for Project Hakai. The missile. It had been two days since she had went to the meeting, a week and a half since  "Storm" joined the Sirens. Lightning had been continuing her experiments, and so far, she had made much progress. In another few days, hopefully, she would have a countering material ready. As far as she was concerned, the Sirens' missile would take another month at least. 

This pressed Lightning to complete her experiment as soon as possible. There was no way she was going to fail this time, she could not afford to let anyone else die. Turning her attention back to Devastator, she listened halfheartedly as the  Sirens' leader explained the plan. She already knew what was going to happen, so she just listened for any changes in the patrols. Sure enough, Devastator stepped up patrols and watch duty. Lightning had to be even more careful. Devastator kept her voice neutral as she spoke, hiding her emotions.

Lightning realised that they actually had a lot more in common than they expected. Perhaps this was the reason why Lightning felt so reluctant to be Devastator's enemy. Once Devastator had finished speaking, most of the Sirens left and Lightning quickly turned around, intending on leaving as well. But Devastator just had to call her back. 

"Do you think that we will be able to defeat Azur Lane with this?" Devastator questioned, some doubt in her voice. Lightning sighed softly. For Devastator to handle all these major plans when she was just an inexperienced leader... that was hard. 

"I believe with the right amount of planning and preparation will allow the plan to succeed," Lightning answered carefully and Devastator nodded. Lightning could tell that she was trying to convince herself that it was true. Again, Lightning could not help but feel sorry for her. Perhaps, in another universe, they could have been good friends. There was no point in daydreaming now. Shaking her thoughts aside, Lightning left after Devastator allowed her to do so. 

Closing her room door softly behind her, Lightning sat down on her bed, thoughts racing through her head. To say that she was not scared about doing this was untrue. To be honest, she was actually quite terrified. Not for herself, but for the others if the Sirens' exposed her. She didn't find being injured herself, she could handle it. 

But knowing that she caused others' suffering, that was something that she could not forgive herself for. She was weak in that sense, but knowing how to build up strong mental walls helped. Most of the time, she remained indifferent uncaring. She would lock up those voices in her head, instead focusing on what she needed to achieve. These mental walls of hers, they hardly crumbled. If they were let down, it was only in front of people she trusted or for the tiniest of moments. The walls were strong, coming from her past struggles and blocking out herself. She had built them up over time, slowly, to the point where they were solid and firm. 

Yes, it was hard having them out all the time, it was just like a dam, once opened, the torrent of emotions would gush out, leaving her weak. Lightning hated these moments, but she had no choice but to let the walls come crashing down sometimes. All that emotion that she needed had to have an outlet after all. But she hardly opened up those walls trying to limit the outburst to as few as possible, channeling her anger, grief and sorrow into other things such as fighting and training.  

Lightning closed her eyes briefly, imagining her mental walls, reinforcing them and watching as the water behind the wall grew. She sighed as she opened her eyes, allowing a few tears to trickle down her face, wiping them off shortly afterwards. She picked up the shard of Argenibus, heading to the lab once she had put on her gloves. Sitting down at one of the workbenches, she gazed at the clock. Due to the increased patrols, there were less Sirens at the lab compared to a normal day. Grabbing a few samples of various metals, she started experimenting, gazing at the Argenibus intently as time flew by. 

By the time she stood up and stretched, three hours had passed. Unfortunately, there were still no satisfactory results. A flitting expression of frustration crossed her face before she reined in her emotions, heading back to her room. Once she had put the sample back in its place, she called Avenger, passing him a message to send back to Azur Lane concerning the increased patrols. She also added the date of an oncoming attack, possibly in a few more days. Watching as Avenger disappeared from her view of sight, she dropped her gaze, turning away from the window. 

She picked up some paper. Lightning had been drawing a map of the Siren base, trying to make it as detailed as possible. The reason why Azur Lane's shipgirls never attacked the Siren base was due to its location. It was hard to reach, carriers being the only few to fly up there. Even so, they also had to pinpoint the entrances of the base in order to enter and these entrances had quite sophisticated cloaking technology. She picked up her pencil, adding a few more details to the map. It would be completed soon, hopefully. 

After that, she headed to the Siren base's training room, which was much like Azur Lanes. She pulled out her bow, shooting at a few of the targets there, hitting all of them accurately and watching as they fell to the ground. Next, she unsheathed her katana, slashing the air, flipping, dodging as she timed her blows, the sharp tip of her deadly weapon glinting as she practiced. Twisting left and right, she sliced the katana through the air, rolling to the side. As she trained, she could not help but hope that she would accomplish her mission as quickly as possible. She missed Bismarck and the rest back at Azur Lane. Sighing, she sheathed her katana, heading back to her room to continue her experiment.

Another chapter done! Finally! *gasps* Hope you  all liked it!

~Lightningstar out