author's notice:
i was gonna redo this story but decided not to, because of how much this burned me. now the ashes themselves will make an appearance after hearing the siren's defeat against an unknown being, so how will they respond to this?.
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After he walked several hundred meters from the shore and he barely see them from where he's standing, bismarck called out to him via thought feedback.
Bismarck: (v'lex! what's the meaning of the difficulty level you just set up?!
V'lex: (bismarck. this is hardly on the same level to the ones that i had fought before, and you already know that this is a simulation.)
then bismarck is embarrassed on her outburst after knowing it is only a simulation, so he contacted odin too after he sensed her confusion on how her leader is acting.
V'lex: (she's speaking to me, odin.)
which he heard her cute yelp.
Odin: (v-v'lex!?, o-oh mein gott!... so it's true that you can actually speak directly to our mind?!)
V'lex: (yes and before i can further brief you about it. bismarck you can join me with this little training i have.)
Bismarck: (even if you don't have to say it. and also sorry for my outburst, as i had a bad experience with the mirror sea before...)
that one time bismarck was subjected to a nearly unwinnable fight within the mirror sea before, along with her sister after they got separated and trapped within the dimension before she managed to win the fight and escape barely hanging to their life, and the retreating girls brought along reenforcement just in time.
V'lex: (i shall help you with your mental trauma, we'll be with the enemy, as it is on it's way. and also, you need to ready your mind as this particular difficulty are similar to what you experienced.)
this stunned bismarck as he already knows about it, but she apologize for not telling about it.
Bismarck: "i'm sorry for not telling you v'lex, as that memory inflicted a wound to my mental state after my sister was nearly got killed, after we got trapped inside such dimension before, i never told anyone about this as it would affect their respect to me, even Friedrich der große."
odin was surprised hearing this from her leader as she always kept a serious and dedicated expression.
V'lex: "even as an AI before, we cannot express genuine emotions, but we know, our decision means we will likely to lose what we had and such thing had been accompanying us during such times."
she remembered the war of annihilation and the hardships they had suffered, sighing about those events from what she had seen from the memory keystone.
Bismarck: "good grief..."
she then teleported close to him and summons her riggings.
Bismarck: "thank you v'lex. and odin watch, as this is the new might of ironblood."
he nodded to her along with odin who desired to see the reborn leader and bismarck readied her pole, the simulation empress then summoned her siren fleet and they immediately fired at them bismarck was about to warn him because he didn't summoned his riggings but was surprised he didn't get hurt.
V'lex: "i had another protection against such attacks bismarck."
Bismarck: "showing such another shocking thing again huh."
she sighed and launched her four starfighters and they ascend at ridiculous speeds which surprised her again.
Bismarck: (jeez... the planes themselves are incredibly faster than the jet fighters that we currently have, No... their speeds are incomparable to the ones we had and im sure they are much faster than the future generations of jet fighters.)
she saw her four starfighters doing ungodly maneuvers against the hoards of incoming siren jets even if the sirens themselves are speeding at mach 2.5, her fighters are slaughtering them so easily in one-sided battle, she then focused her attention to the large siren fleet infront of her while she's dodging and blocking several hits with her shield and she then returned fire with her rigging's primary turret heads, accurately hitting each of several siren ships and instantly destroying them, she checked the shield level on the projected holo display which shows that their attacks didn't even dented her shield.
Bismarck: (i swear. the power he bestowed to me is already powerful enough for me to defeat the simulation empress that's actually based on the empress he had fought and which i myself cannot hope to win before i received this upgrade, and now this. they didn't even scratched my defense.)
she was musing on the changes on her while her rigging's head turrets kept on accurately hitting their targets even on the furthest ships, she then launched her high mobility lancer missiles and after they have gained a distance they broke off into three submissiles each main body and the total number of submissiles that speed off to their target ships was three hundred and thirty missiles and a whole lot of enemies was instantly destroyed all at once which shocked her because she didn't expect a missile which is the same with the current experimental weapon they had, is capable of splitting itself into three smaller missiles but with destructive power greater than the royal navy's tall boy bomb.
Bismarck: "mein gott..... this destructive power is beyond what i could imagine..."
the whole scene was being recorded by gneisenau, while prinz Eugen and peter strasser was looking at the huge and successive explosions at a distance.
Prinz Eugen: "that was... much more destructive than our V2 missile.... no... not even close at all...."
Peter strasser: "i am as well... I don't want to be at the receiving end of her attacks as it's a death sentence already..."
they saw bismarck weaving in between enemy ships cleaving through their hulls like hot knife to a butter with her new pole while targeting farther ship with precision shot of her rigging's head turret pulverizing the unfortunate ship in one shot while launching a few salvo of meteorite missiles from her other cells, the siren jets attempted to shake it off and others deployed decoys but the missiles came straight to them ignoring their attempts and ultimately sealed their fate in an explosion of debris and fire, she took a hit and her shield flared up but still didn't even dented her shield and it remained 100 percent.
the three onlookers who had just finished their training had came to watch after seeing huge cloud of smoke and hearing several huge explosions, even odin who was on another side can't believe on how Bismarck literally trashed the supposedly siren enemy who was much stronger than the empress that v'lex had fought before.
Gneisenau: "i swear... her shields didn't even break after taking multiple shots even the orochi's shield would get destroyed if it took the same amount of hits."
they then looked and record at v'lex who simultaneously parrying the simulation empress's high speed attacks and shooting down incoming siren jets, even the missiles they launched get shot down by his four floating pulse cannon battery, every attack he parred he returned three times, his gauntlet fist then connected with her stomach and sent her flying several meters, she managed to land upright but before she could look at his position he was already behind her and kicked her up several hundred feet high and blasted her into oblivion with a salvo shot from his four pulse cannon battery, he proceeds to punch a hole on a nearby siren ship by ramming himself towards the said ship who was about to fire a shot at him and splitting the ship in half followed by several pulse cannon shot towards another wave of siren jets, he instantly lunged at the nearby battleship and plunged his hand on it's hull and lifted the siren battleship with one hand and throws the warship at a distant carrier, the impact had literally blown both warships into hundred bits of mangled metal.
his four floating pulse cannon battery is vaguely similar to this, and it has glowing blue ridges.
they just can't believe that the supposedly peaceful individual is literally brutalizing the poor warships, like they are nothing but paper mache.
Prinz eugen: "despite being kind.... his battle prowess is quite terrifying"
Peter strasser: "indeed."
Gneisenau: "i was near deutschland when she's about to say something rude to him, luckily she was silenced by her sister, or else she'll end up like that simulation humanoid siren that got sent flying somewhere after taking that punch from him....."
the words she said literally made them tensed. gneisenau saw what happened to that simulation humanoid siren after taking that punch from him.
Peter strasser: "that girl..... i should've done it myself if I'm not occupied...."
she sighed on what trouble deutschland had almost pulled if not for her sister and other of their companions considering to someone who gave them this training unit.
Peter strasser: (i never imagine that the dashing person himself can actually be that terrifying.)
meanwhile bismarck had been parrying shots after shots redirecting them towards another siren ships with the help of her energy shield cladded pole which made it extremely tough, she had been overwhelmed several times now but her strength, surrounding awareness, thought process along with her speed that had drastically increased, turning this multitude of enemies into an easy preys for her.
Bismarck: "my abilities had increase greatly compared to before."
she looked at v'lex from her scout drone via hologram display after leaving behind dismembered siren ships, destroyed siren jets and defeated humanoid sirens around her area and saw how he systematically destroyed each one of them.
Bismarck: "good grief... despite being someone who always on the defense. his attacks on the simulation enemies are pure and unfiltered brutality."
she saw him throw a siren battleship at a carrier on her monitor.
Bismarck: "and also the simulation enemies had mass and can actually be interact with as if they are real."
*meanwhile on a different place*
Enterprise alter: "repeat what you said hiryu?!"
Hiryu alter: "t-the sirens had gone silent after an unknown third party had joined in the fight, and also after it's appearance we begun detecting high energy signatures not known to us and it's not even of siren origin."
Helena alter: "it seems there's also spatial fluctuations that had been happening all over the place as if the sirens had been deploying mass produced ships all over the world on a daily basis."
Enterprise alter: "strange.... well then... keep on monitoring the azur lane and the sirens, if anything else you notice, be it the sirens, azurlane or this unknown party report it to me."
the two girls nodded to her and left.
QE alter: "you think it has something to do with that spatial anomaly we detected from beyond our world?"
Enterprise alter: "this is just my guess but. both such things are possibly related."
they are always being eluded by this mysterious party ever since they took down the orochi and silenced the sirens completely, and there is a branched off renegade sirens that they are in contact with that didn't get affected, which is how they manage to know the siren's predicament.
*back to the training unit*
the other girls who are done with their training are currently watching both bismarck and v'lex's training.
Graf spee: (this is why, I'm telling you sis not to say anything rude about him.)
spee and her group was finished training on a siren submarine hunting simulation while trying to protect another simulation supply ships.
U-101: "aside from the fact he destroys those enemies with his fist, he also precisely hit to where it gives a maximum damage he can inflict along with the fact his weapons automatically shoots down every siren jets and rockets that comes."
Z23: "and also doing it in a flashy way too."
Graf spee: "isn't the enemy ships a bit too accurate? and also the siren jets are faster with their rockets that never miss as I've seen with lord bismarck's fight even though she keeps destroying them along with shrugging hits after hits as if she's testing her shields."
Z1: "she's surely testing her shields, i mean back then she did parry multiple shots, it was quite a sight to see."
everyone hums in agreement.
after the training, v'lex, bismarck and odin exited the said dimension, the trio had noticed before that there are new girls from other factions who had been in the base interacting with the ironblood girls specially with their former enemies, two in particular, duke of york and illustrious that are talking with scharnhorst and Königsberg, then scharnhorst saw the trio nearby walking to the main office and the two girls saw the person whom they know from the report and also from the video film that had arrived yesterday saved for illustrious as she had meet him on his armor form and not his appearance beneath which also gave them a mixed of reaction from amazement to shock, specially how old he is and also his look received a blushed reaction from few girls who now get to see their savior from the dangers of the orochi.
Scharnhorst: "it was a god sent blessing that he came."
Illustrious: "i agree, and also congrats for bismarck's upgrade.
Scharnhorst: "danke illustrious."
Königsberg: "is there something that caught your attention?"
everyone on the group stared at duke of york who was staring at v'lex after they exited the training dimension.
Duke of york: "he's taller than what I'd assume and also quite a handsome man."
Illustrious: "i can agree, but remember duke of york, he can sense presence, thoughts and emotions. multiple times he had demonstrated it, and the video that warspite and her highness had brought from their visit about him showing his abilities."
Scharnhorst: "and also him being older than our history is quite hard to believe."
Königsberg: "one of our girls who tried to use the training unit says the the enemy list contains, varying enemy selections that doesn't exist on our records and also that includes the plague itself."
everyone who hears it flinched after hearing the name considering after they saw it from the memory keystone who also included such event was quite unnerving and tragic, as they could see v'lex had no choice but to cleanse a planet to slow or outright stopping the entity's advance and even going as far as to kill escaping civilian ships tainted with traces of infection.
Illustrious: "it was a saddening fact but. the reality remains is that they are fighting a war for survival, he had to sacrifice to save billion more along with the sacrifices of his fallen comrades."
everyone hums in agreement, as they themselves would be forced to take such choice if they are fighting such things.
They are entering the main office building of ironblood after being notified of other faction officials who wanted to know about the said training unit, and odin noticed how he always had to bend himself just to get inside the door way.
Odin: "is it possible for you to adjust your size?"
V'lex: "not yet, as i have yet to manifest such ability."
they had noticed his markings are now constantly glowing and his eyes that glows in iridescent color intensifies, the changes are noticable to the girls.
Bismarck: "it seems, whatever changes you experience had triggered after our little sparing."
which he hums in confirmation, they open the door and the girls from multiple factions and their human officers greeted them and the new faces even those he had met was surprised about his appearance and the changes.
QE: "v-v'lex? what happened to you?"
V'lex: "i have acclimated to this form and begun manifesting abilities i have yet to earn."
QE: "you have other abilities you manifested?!."
this caused everyone to murmur amongst themselves, and Bismarck answered.
Bismarck: "he told me, there are other traits his creators or should i say evolved humans had and that is..."
he manifested tendrils of pure energy that glows a white light behind his back just below his nape, and it was 24 of them, the sight reminds them of the obscured humanoid figures whom they saw a brief moment from the memory keystones themselves and all had the same traits as v'lex, which made them realise, those are indeed humanity if they are highly evolved, he then dematerialize the tendrils after showing them.
after a moment of stupor bismarck then speaks to the humans and their girls that are present.
Bismarck: "ladies and gentlemen, this is v'lex an explorer type ship and formerly a command ship belonging to a highly evolved humanity from another universe and also the provider of the futuristic technology we currently had."
this woken them up and the first to greet him is the man named Mr. churchill.
Mr. churchill: "i am Mr. churchill the prime minister of the royal navy nice meeting you v'lex and i saw the memories from the memory keystone about you."
V'lex: "as i am prime minister.'
he offers a handshake and v'lex crouch down for a handshake, mr. churchill noticed how large v'lex's hand is compared to his that it looks like an adult's hand to a baby in comparison, he nodded at him, the next one to introduce is, Mr. sun yat sen
Mr. sun: "i am also Mr. sun of dragon empery and this is my premier Mr. shaoyi"
his colleague bowed to him which v'lex responded.
the other one to introduce next is the chancellor of ironblood himself Mr. hitler and the sardegna empire's leader Mr. Mussolini along with Mr. stalin, Mr. pétain of iris orthodoxy and Mr. hirohito of sakura empire and last is Mr. roosevelt.
Mr. churchill: "before we start discussing our main topic. v'lex what are the composition of your glowing tendrils?."
V'lex: "they are composed of condensed mental and spiritual emissions in nature that exists in both physical and higher plane of existence."
everyone is murmuring among themselves after hearing this, and Mr. pétain spoke.
Mr. pétain: "i guess that quenched our curiosity?"
they then nodded.
Mr. pétain: "v'lex we sincerely requested for you to also establish these training units and also for the upgrades of our ship girls to other factions as well, as they are a great help to our cause on repelling these invaders and i know this is too much for us to ask but please..."
V'lex: "Mr. pétain i am already on my way on establishing them and also the upgrades can become a poison to those who weld it's power if the individual is not worthy, and you already learned it from the memory keystone which is why you must carefully choose whom you want to receive it."
several human officials are contemplating on what he said after seeing their counterpart doing horrendous actions such as genocide against innocent civilians even the other officials knew that it's gonna poison the mindset of a person if he/she was given a power like bismarck had.
V'lex "as my creator's ancestor, i wanted to help you achieve what my creators had achieved, the memory keystones serves as the reminder of the sufferings i had witnessed from several weak and young civilizations at the hands of power hungry civilizations to the tragedy of war of annihilation. the mishaps that your future generations would suffer will become my responsibility for giving you technology beyond your mental understanding and as someone who witnessed alot of destructions for eons. i hope you won't follow the examples of these power hungry civilizations.
Mr. hitler: "it's still unnerved me seeing my alternate self being hell bent on genocide not sparing even children and the gamble i took for siding with the sirens was out of desperation. i know it was idiotic of me but the sirens are slowly gaining an upper hand, until you came it gave me hope that someday we will reclaim what they have taken from us.
Mr. hirohito: "i am as well on the same page as you Mr. hitler and it soiled the honor that our ancestors had established for us."
sovetsky soyuz: "comrad stalin, what's gotten in your thoughts?"
Mr. stalin: "my alternate self, he misinterpret what equality means, and i mean the north korea and the communist china for example they subjected their civilians to alot of suffering, isn't the populace the engine of a nation?."
they agree to what he's saying as the engine is damage, you'll be unable to move forward, and after the meeting all the participants are returning to their respective places after gaining satisfying answers.
on a certain parts of the ocean a group of mysterious ship girls and two supposedly sirens was sailing together.
Dreamweaver: "what can you make of the one that's wrecking havoc of the siren network?"
Observer zero: "it is impossible to get a detail on the culprit as every attempt to get one is always met with failure as this supposedly malicious program won't leave behind traces and it can breach highly secured areas of the network so easily."
Dreamweaver: "and this malicious program won't even touch our network, as if whoever sent it knows our intentions and our opposition of our brethren's way...."
Ark royal alter: "it feels like, it knows who we are and our cause."
after hiryu and helena confirmed about a giant that had visited on the main base, they then sent an expedition to make contact with the said being because they realised it was the being who destroyed the orochi and severely hampered the sirens.
Fusou alter: "even if it knows us, it's not that we had any bad intentions, we simply wanted to talk to it."
sheffield alter was quietly listening to the conversation until.
?????: (i heed your call fusou.)
the resounding voice of the overlapping voices of male and female spooked them and they went on high alert because it suddenly speak to them directly into their head.
Fusou alter: "w-who are you?!"
Observer zero: "i can't tell whenever this being is a male or female and I can't pinpoint it's location."
dreamweaver was listening to what this voice is gonna say next.
?????: (you already have an idea on who i am.)
Sheffield alter: "that giant being on the report of helena and hiryu.."
both helena alter and hiryu alter stared at sheffield, they questioned on how it knows they are sailing towards the base and also how does it know their intentions?
?????: (i can sense your intents and emotions, as well as your presence.)
this unnerves them as he can peer through their minds, Dreamweaver then questioned him.
Dreamweaver: "we ourselves are sirens, but why? why our side was never affected?"
?????: (you never thirst for power, you seek power to save humanity from the true nemesis.)
this shocked them as it knows their goal as well.
suddenly the space infront of them quickly distorted and what came out of it is v'lex and he was floating a few feet above the water, his eyes is glowing in iridescent color with markings is now glowing constantly, his appearance was quite a shocking sight to them specially to the two sirens, and his looks seems to have flustered the girls too.
Observer zero: "you look like a siren but you're not."
V'lex: "i am a human, but in it's highly evolved state."
his towering presence and menacing aura froze the ashes girls in place.
Dreamweaver: "so you know about the leviathans."
V'lex: "the data i had acquired from the remains of the empress along with fragments of past and future events confirmed my suspicion."
he then added.
V'lex: "your brethren had strayed away from their path and had aligned themselves with the enemy they had sworn to defeat, much like how the crimson axis did the same."
Dreamweaver: "the irony of such actions..."
Helena alter: "h-how did you manage to fly if you didn't equiped your riggings?"
v'lex responded by teleporting purifier's head and levitated her above his hand, and this feat terrified the ashes even the two sirens.
Purifier: "w-wait. where am i?!"
The ashes girls: "purifier!?"
Purifier: "and oh... hi guys! it's not nice seeing you in this state, hehehehe."
purifier noticed v'lex's hand and she yelp in surprise noticing she was floating on a giant's hand and she also tensed up after sensing an ominous aura behind her and the little show gave helena alter the answer.
Purifier: "whoever you are, this is not cool!, i got my body torn apart by an invisible attacker and my comms are down too!"
Ark royal alter: "an intercepted transmission back then talks about how the giant being is able to teleport everywhere and can manipulate objects with his thoughts, but the transmission regarding his appearance was cut off after a mysterious interference hit."
this realisation hits them.
Helena alter: (so he has an ability not just flight and teleportation but also telekinesis, so that means. he also has other abilities as well..)
V'lex: "it was during when i interefered with the attacking siren's network, i had to silenced them from conjuring up another fleet."
Purifier: "that time i was confident about fighting this guy here but. i chewed more than i can. literally."
he then restored puri puri's whole body and she was giddy about her body returning back.
Purifier: "yehey! i finally got my body back! thanks buddy!"
she was jumping in joy after getting her body back.
Both Dreamweaver and Observer zero facepalmed on purifier's antics, while the ashes was wordless on how he effortlessly repaired her body like it was nothing.
V'lex: "now then."
this brought their attention back to him.
V'lex: "you have alot more of questions you wanna ask."
Sheffield alter: "who are you, where did you come from, what's your objective and are you related to the spatial distortion we detected far off this world?"
the question of sheffield alter sums up everyone's and the siren's question, and he replied to the question.
V'lex: "i and the rest our civilization are a mirror of this planet's humanity and also had long been a space faring race for eons, i was travelling after finishing my recent task and on my way to the destination but during my travel i suddenly blackened out and by the time i regained my consciousness i now had a physical body."
this shed the light of who was the mystery third party that took down the siren's singlehandedly.
Purifier: "i tell you guys, he's terrifying, i am crazy enough to take on the entire azurlane alliance but him? no uh ,thank you!"
Dreamweaver: "she's someone who's bit loose, but her words had truth backing it."
dreamweaver's description of her, made puri puri pout.
V'lex: "as for my objective, it was to protect."
Ark royal alter: "it was given to you by your creators?"
V'lex: "i shall give you a memory keystone for you to fill in your questions, as yorktown and amagi along with few girls are en route to our location."
this tensed up the girls and the sirens, hiryu alter didn't express her shock but deep inside she was shocked that both amagi and yorktown has returned.
fusou alter: "how did they know?! this part of the ocean is beyond what their radars are capable of reaching!"
Observer zero: "fusou we should heed his warning, we can get more answers if we can have another chance and also the keystone will provide some insights."
the ashes and the sirens teleported from the area, v'lex had stayed behind to meet up with the girls, and the girls arrived.
Amagi: "did the sirens return v'lex san?"
V'lex: "the ashes had attempted to contact me and was en route to the main base."
Yorktown: "it must be related to how the sirens was literally silent for a month now."
Enterprise: "can you explain what happened to you v'lex? you seems to have changed."
v'lex filled them in on what happened after he had a little exercise with bismarck in the training dimension.
meanwhile the ashes at their base somewhere.
Enterprise alter and several others had touched the keystone and saw memories of intergalactic conflicts and the subsequent war of annihilation, the memories they saw far outweighs their tragic memories as they could hear screams, wailing voices of countless doomed souls along with how v'lex had to sacrifice innocent lives to stop the ruinous entity from consuming all life within the galaxy, even the sirens with them can't help but horrified by the tragedy they had suffered and also realised this abomination won't wait and he had taken drastic measures to stop it.
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additional notes:
I'm about to run out of ideas, so i might as well slow the updates down to refresh my head.