Chapter Text
After the debriefing had taken place, the news had quickly spread around the base about the findings as well as the new powers that Akagi had achieved.
The commander would have preferred to have everything done in a more controlled manner, but he had to admit, by just taking a look at the myriad of reports and requests on his desk as well as those of his secretaries, all of which had been working full throttle since then, Akagi’s demonstration had stirred everyone in Azur Lane in some manner or other.
He now could fully understand why the debriefing had been organized the way it had. Akagi had set up a dramatic way to showcase herself, in a way true to Akagi’s usual methods, she inflamed everyone’s imagination and fighting spirit regarding what could be done to reach a breakthrough concerning what Kansen were capable of doing.
Although Commander Anderson was a rather secular man in most aspects of his life. The only exception being most things pertaining to the series of events that lead him to his current married life. He felt like the most blessed person on the planet everytime he thought about being married to both Enterprise and Belfast.
As such, he had spent several hours talking with some of the more religious inclined girls, hearing their opinions on the matter and what they thought could be possibly done as well as what steps they could perform as a military organization in order to provide both help as well as setting reasonable limits regarding the ideas that Akagi had brought regarding things such as, requesting help from higher powers, using ancient relics for power, and inviting the souls of fallen warriors to assist them.
As to what they should be limiting, the commander had no idea, the subject truly felt like it was going over his head. Which was the reason why he was discussing it thoroughly with others that had more knowledge in the subject.
As such, when he was suddenly called by Chkalov to the research building, he was glad he could change the direction his day was taking. Leaving the task to everyone who had been present with him to help him prepare some base groundwork with which they could work with.
With TB’s assistance, a car driven by regular Azur Lane personnel, took him from the debriefing room to the research building. He saluted the guard at the entrance to the building and made his way inside. Once he opened the door to the room where Chkalov had requested him to arrive at, he was greeted by a rather peculiar sight.
“A… bear?”
What seemed like a bear was right in front of him, sitting right by the entrance to the room looking bored, if that was even possible. Calling the creature in the room “a bear” was already kind of an exaggeration, rather, it was his mind trying to find a resemblance with some living creature based on the body proportions and general shape.
What was actually in front of him looked much more like a rigging from the Northern parliament. Its head held that distinctive fierceness and shape commonly seen on the riggings of the Northern parliament, with metal plates creating angles and shapes that gave the idea that one was looking at a muzzle, two slits with a glowing white light pouring out of them evidently the eye’s of the creature and two small round, almost comical, discs playing the part of it’s ears on top of its head. After looking at its head for a while, it reminded him of the heads of Kronshtadt’s Rigging, just with a shorter snout. It’s body was made almost entirely out of dull gray metal which was the most predominantly color on the creature, with the exceptions of its two glowing white “eyes”, a shared characteristic of the riggings from those of the Northern Parliament, as well as white ice and frost building under its nuzzle and around its neck, which gave the impression that it had a beard as well as a coat of sorts.
At some point the commander realized that he had been gawking too much for too long, as the Bear-rigging was looking at him back, its head slightly tilted to the side as if confused by his presence here.
It got up, the metallic paws clanking against the concrete, making the solid pang sound of thick metal hitting concrete as it moved sluggishly towards him. The moment it stood, the commander realized that the metallic-bear was almost as big as other riggings were, being as tall as him even though it was walking on four legs, as such he imagined that if the rigging was to stand on its hind legs it would easily be twice his height.
“Oh! Comrade commander, you arrived!” Chkalov’s voice was heard from within the room, somewhere behind the hulking bear.
The commander had spared a moment to try and look for Chkalov, a moment in which the metallic-bear simply stood by his side and unceremoniously sat, apparently content with being closer to him.
“Er… ok, then” The commander said as he looked at the bear sitting at his side.
He decided that if the Metallic-bear was keen on keeping him company, he might as well take his time observing its movement and measuring its temperament. Riggings would often have a temperament similar to those of the Kansen they belonged to, with the biggest difference being that the riggings tended to be much more honest about what they wanted, while some of the ladies of Azur Lane could get flustered when it came to asking for praise or head pettings.
Chkalov and the others were there already, so he figured he was not in any sort of immediate danger. Or so he really really hoped. Looking for them, he came to realize the room was actually connected to other smaller rooms, a few were in the middle of the room, each one separated as if intended to have several people working on different things at the same time, not too different from the arrangement of some of the bigger rooms dedicated for the maintenance crew. Looking around he realized that Chkalov had come out from one of the multiple doors surrounding the room.
“Oh? The commander is here already? But the others haven’t arrived” Someone else said from somewhere else within the room.
“Well, it might be for the better, so they get to know each other more. That ought to help to some degree.” Some other person sounded like it came from the same room that Chkalov had come out from..
The commander was listening, but in reality he was more focused with the bear at his side, looking intently at it. There were several thoughts on his mind right now. Foremost was that in the last few days many things had happened that had taken a lot of his time, especially now that he was seeing a brand new rigging beside him.
He liked to make a point about being personally involved whenever a new Kansen arrived at the base. The last few days had been so filled with events and paperwork that it would have been possible for him to miss the arrival of a new face. But then again other people at the base would have let him know, since he had made known his preference regarding new arrivals.
Then again, he did leave the base for almost a whole week in order to arrive at Doctor Bethencourt’s facility, as such, someone new could have been sent to Azur Lane, given the information to either Helena or Saratoga, and one of them could have misplaced the information or forgotten about it, specially if it was someone from the Northern Parliament, which were known to keep their inner issues closely guarded.
It was not really a great explanation, especially since it involved a few failures of miscommunication, as well as implying a few mental slips from himself as well as his own secretaries. But it was sort of an explanation that would bring light to why there was an unknown rigging beside him.
“Ah that’s great, seems to have no issues being with you.” Chkalov said, now standing in front of the commander, after she had arrived in front of him, drawing his attention to her..
“Well, I am grateful for that too” The commander agreed with a wry smile on his face.
“Hey Chkalov, whose rigging is this? I need to make amends for not being present on a new arrival.” The commander stated, signaling with his head towards the bear rigging.
“Rigging…” Chkalov parroted, coming to a complete halt, staring at the commander and then at the metallic bear beside him.
“What is wrong, Chkalov? Do not simply stand there, let us continue further with the tests and call the agreed people again” Yuubari had arrived now and was standing beside Chkalov.
Or at least the commander thought it was Yuubari. The usually composed and elegant Kitsune was barely there, with dark circles around her eyes, messy hair instead of her usually well-kept elegant arrangement, her clothes were also found in a sorry state of affairs, although her dress would usually look purposefully short on some places, currently there was some serious risk of seeing much more of the black haired kitsune if she were to simply move the wrong way.
“Ah commander, good that you are here! We have so many ideas and possibilities to thinker about!” Da Vinci said, appearing behind Chkalov with a cheerful jump.
A tad too cheerful and jumpy in fact. Moving a little bit too forcefully here and there. Now that the commander paid closer attention to her, he realized that she not only had dark circles around her eyes, she also had ink stains on her fingers and her coat, which was unprecedented for her, there was also an espresso cup on her hands that was shaking slightly.
“Are you all alright? You look like you all could use some sleep.” The commander said.
“The commander thought it was rigging!” Chkalov said, turning to look at the other scientific Kansen around her.
“a rigging…” Yuubari mumbled.
“Like a rigging…” Da vinci repeated after coming to a full stop, only her hand holding the espresso cup slightly shaking.
“Like a rigging!!” They both repeated loudly as they looked at each other.
“That’s a great idea commander! A truly inspired one!” Da Vinci said excitedly as she rushed back somewhere onto a different room, disappearing behind piles of papers and boxes.
“Your inspiration is truly appreciated, Master” Yuubari said, bowing at the waist towards the commander.
Her attire was in such a disheveled state that she unintentionally managed to give him a glimpse from under her clothes. As a married man, the commander simply tried his best to pretend he hadn’t seen a thing and focused his eyes on the kitsune’s head. He was not going to make a fuss about it, as in reality clothing misshapes was something that could and would happen within Azur Lane, even to the human personnel that interacted with the Kansen, those that allowed themselves to participate in their festivities and gatherings often found themselves also wearing clothes prepared by the Kansen. Some of those clothes while being luxurious, exotic, and even glamorous were also one strong breeze from showing much more than most were prepared to openly -share- about themselves.
He made a mental note to mention it to Chkalov, the ladies in the research department knew each other enough so that they were able to point out such a clothing mishap without turning into some romcom scenario.
“Ok, that changes things somewhat, but we were more or less on the right path, I think.” Chkalov said, taking notes on a clipboard she was already holding.
“You are correct, we can make a few calls, but their presence would not be needed for the first part of the experiment.” Yuubari said to Chkalov as she herself brought forth her cell phone from somewhere within her clothes, typing something in it even before she was done talking with Chkalov.
“But please, Comrade commander. Take a seat, this certainly pushes our plans back, but not in a bad way, so there is nothing you should be worried about.” Chkalov said.
Chkalov left the commander along with the metallic bear in order to grab the chair, leaving along with Yuubari, the two the talking some of the finer points of their plan, both of them obviously too tired and preoccupied with what they were doing to even consider resting.
The commander stood there, sightly confused and concerned, being startled as the metallic bear by his side seemed to grunt in response, it sounded somewhat guttural and metallic, to the commander’s ears it sounded almost as if the bear was also feeling concerned about what was happening but couldn’t do anything about it either.
“Hah, me too buddy, me too.”
--
Chkalov didn’t take long to come back with a folding chair for the commander, but once she had delivered it and made sure the commander was sitting, as well as offering him a drink, she promptly left him in order to make more arrangements for whatever was going to take place even before the commander had enough time to formulate a question.
The commander didn’t wait for too long before more people started arriving at the room. The very first one to arrive was a friendly face, although a somewhat unexpected one.
“Yannis? What a surprise seeing you here!”
On the door to the research room now stood a tall man with short black hair, a tanned olive complexion, tall and well built despite being in his mid forties. A man with which the commander would sometimes go and share a drink with.
“Commander! Glad to see you!” The middle-aged gentleman said.
“Oh please, we can drop the formalities when we are alone” The commander said as he shook Yannis’s hand.
“I do try, -commander-.” He said, winking this time, making it obvious that at this point he was just teasing him by the usage of his official title. “But it is sort of a bad habit one picks when talking with superior officers.”
“Plus, now that you are a married man, I figure you prefer your proper name being called only behind closed doors” Yannis teased.
“Heh. I won't deny that.” The commander chuckled in response.
“Speaking of, I see they finally sent you to the dog house.” Yannis said pointing at the metallic bear that had stood up made its way to stand by the commander’s side.
“How do you even figure it is a dog?!” The commander asked in disbelief as the bear calmly sat by the commander’s side.
“I figure it's either the fighting ladies or old sea dogs like us in this base” The man replied merrily.
“Wouldn’t that make the male dorms the true dog house here then?” The commander crossed his arms over his chest as he gave a wry smile at that idea.
“And ain’t that the truth!” Yannis guffawed.
They made some more small conversation then. Once they realized they were truly meant to be there, for whatever sort of test the more scientifically inclined ladies had in mind, they decided they could take the opportunity to catch up on what each other was up to. They continued as such for a couple more minutes until the door to the room opened revealing yet another well known face.
“Ah! Eric, you are here.” Enterprise said as she entered the room, slightly startled once she saw the Mediterranean officer beside her husband. “Lieutenant Sakellariou! Sorry, I didn’t see you- I didn’t know.”
“Don’t you worry, Enterprise.” The man said as he extended his hand for a handshake. “It's only the three of us here so far, so there’s no need to be so formal.”
After shaking her hand, the old gentleman’s grin came back to his face as he looked at Enterprise.
“But it sure has been a while now.” The Sardegnan officer said “How’s married life treating you? It’s been more than a year now, don’t want to be pessimistic about it but I reckon by now you should be out of the honeymoon phase of it, so you should have a much more keen insight on the reality of marriage. And I mean, it’s tough having a seaman as a partner, and doubly so if it’s an officer, but you went and married both of ‘em!”
Even though his words sounded like jokes, there was genuine concern to them, something that both Enterprise and the commander had learned to pick from their conversations with the Sardegnan officer.
“Hah.” Enterprise chuckled nervously “I won't lie, it is no “fairy tale” walk at all, and things are not entirely about only myself as some would believe. Marriage is much more about mutual compromises than satisfying only one of us, but at the end of the day we wish to support each other.”
“Hah, well said. I am glad you can support each other and be happy about it.” he answered with a gentle smile on his face.
They continued holding a somewhat meaningful small conversation, with a couple questions being thrown regarding the owner of the bear-like rigging, until the door to the research lab opened again, this time revealing both King George V as well as Belfast.
“Commander, it is good to see you.” King George saluted the commander. “And you too, Enterprise.” She said with both of them nodding in acknowledgement at her greeting.
“Ah, your excellency. It is a joyous occasion to be able to see you on this day.” The Sardegnan officer said, bowing deeply in a well practiced and elegant manner, before anyone else could say much.
Regardless of the thick layer of flattery to it, King George gave a proper regal salute in response. But once she was done with it and gave a brief look at the room, realizing it was only the five of them, she sighed almost in relief.
“Goodness, Lieutenant. You sure go out of your way to tease me like that. You had me thinking there was some more audience than us in the room.” King George said as she gave a minute, almost imperceptible shrug.
“Truth be told it is a level of etiquette I don’t feel adequately prepared to handle, so I might as well do it every time I can, if just to get a better hang of it” He replied with an obvious hint of humor to it.
“And you too, Belfast. It is nice seeing you.” The officer said amicably.
“Lieutenant, it is good to see you.” The Royal maid responded, nodding at him in acknowledgement.
They couldn’t quite continue with their banter as Leonardo Da Vinci came in a rush and stood in front of them, she nodded twice looking at their numbers.
“Ah, some of you have already arrived. Good! I can explain things to you and you can explain to the others that will be arriving. After all, timing is important.” Da Vinci came in a rush and kind of mumbled some of the things she was meaning to say as she grabbed a few folders she had been carrying, handing one to each person, without even giving them time to respond or even question what was happening.
“We completed the revision on the plan we had originally created, it wasn’t that hard of a thing to do, but it required us to double check the documents we had already prepared and print new versions as well, but somehow we are still within the threshold of our first schedule.”
Da Vinci stopped in front of the bear, she was grabbing a blue folder, much like she had given to everyone and she seemed to think about giving one to the bear, then she shook her head and pointed at the bear.
“You should have the information given to you by the commander. I think it would be the best way to do this.” Da Vinci winked at the bear and left giggling, heading back to some other part, looking more like a sugar powered destroyer than her usual self.
For their part everyone was baffled at what just had happened, with Belfast being the first to break the silence.
“She looked like she should be considering a few naps for something more than beauty sleep”
“Commander, do you have an inkling about what we just saw?” King George V questioned.
“I don’t think I do. Last I heard from them was on the weapon test 2 days ago” The commander answered after he had pondered the question himself.
“She looked worse for wear… They are likely to go to bed later than most, but to look like that she might have spent the last 2 days awake then.” Enterprise pondered quietly.
“Oh, now that you mention it, while Chkalov seemed very tired, much in her usual ways, Yuubari didn’t seem to be her normal self.” The commander said out loud to no one in particular. “I think it is time we go ahead and ask them properly what’s happening.”
“I think I might have an idea of what is currently happening.” King George said, making everyone immediately turn to look at her.
King George had opened the folder they were given and she briefly flipped a few pages before she flipped back to a page somewhere in the middle of the folder, putting her finger against the paper almost as if to make a point having everyone know where she was looking at, or perhaps even to make sure she was reading the right line she intended to.
“ -Praetor cube experimental phase four. Bonding the untethered <Praetor Rigging> with the Commander- ” She read the title of the section she had found. Making everyone in turn look at her as if they were deer caught in the headlights, only for them to look in perplexion at the folder she was holding and immediately open the copies each one had been given by Da Vinci.
They all refrained from saying anything else as they quickly browsed through the papers they had been given. Until the commander himself closed his folder, a thoughtful look on his face.
“I think it’s better we get the information out of them. The more I read this the more confused I get regarding this.”
“I concur with that.” King George added. “Perhaps we will have to force them to take a rest as well, even if this was more coherently worded, it seems like sloppy work for them.”
For his part the metallic bear simply grunted in agreement as it remained sitting beside the commander.