Azur Lane: Savior

After Greynar ordered the fleets to prepare, he went up to his command ship as Saratoga also joined inside the ship. To ensure the protection of the command ship, Enterprise placed several girls under his wing. With most of the NY fleets gone, Helena was assigned to protect the harbor along with several ships and repair ships. With the Sirens jamming, her SG Radar won't work on the battlefield and they couldn't relay information using it. 

Initially, he was relucant to take Volga to the battlefield due to what Observer said, but he could assign her to a different fleets as long she doesn't meet the Ashes. Volga was taken under Essex's fleet as the carrier fleets and air protection. Enterprise leading the fleets formation as she is on the front of the formation. Victorious also sailed alongside her as someone who knowledgeable with the Winter's Crown to see any potential hint about the Crown's location inside the black swirling storm. 

"Everyone we're entering the storm ETA 5 minutes, be aware of your surrounding and communicate with the fleet around your location." The Commander announced.

The girls prepared their weapon as they closing into the storm. Enterprise was the first one to enter it and then followed by the fleets behind her. Inside the storm, it was like a big different world, what they expect to be a storm was something rather calming. It was like entering a different dimension similar to a mirror sea. The calm sea with limited vision made Greynar' skin shriveled. 

"Essex, Baltimore, spread out." Greynar ordered.

Both fleets moved to a different direction as they circled the big storm inside. Enterprise nodded to Victorious and launched a recon plane. The recon plane went first to pinpoint the enemy location but they found several fleets roaming around the area. 

"There are six... Seven, no, even more Sirens are closing in on us!" Victorious said while looking at the vision of her recon plane radar. 

"They must have expected us to be here." North Carolina chimed in.

"The Singularity has the ability to alter the course of the war. If this is true, then it must be heavily guarded." Enterprise shot her plane to the Siren fleet on the distance. "Enterprise, engaging!" 

The hero of Eagle Union charged forward as she draw her weapon again, this time shooting an arrow to a nearby Siren destroyer. Washington assisted her in the fight as she aimed at the battleship in the distance then destroyed it in an instant. Suddenly, a humanoid enemy appeared, it was their copy of themselves. The humanoid shipgirl attacked Enterprise with a lifeless-robotic expression. It wasn't a recent news for them because the news of shipgirl's copy was spread throughout the world when the Winter Crown's incident happened. Dragon Empery was the one who haven't encountered any of the shipgirl's copy since they are on the middle of the eastern continent, far from any Sirens stronghold.

"There's a lot of them, but they're merely production-type models." Enterprise hold her bow to the sky and shot several arrows that rained down upon the Sirens fleet. "We haven't even seen a single humanoid-type Siren, let alone an elite." 

"Instead, it's just been crude copies of us..." Victorious nodded in agreement. "No matter how similar they look, they are still fakes without souls."

"Looks like they really are not playing around." Washington also commented as she shoots another barrage of bullets on the shipgirl's copy. 

"Ahhh! Trying to make the Sirens have normal aesthetics is even more difficult than asking them to surrender on the spot!" Victorious scratching her head in frustration as she stomped the water. 

"Eh?" Enterprise blinked, hearing Victorious' strange obssession with her weird taste. "Ahem," she decided to ignore it and went to the command ship. "Commander, the rest of the fleets are operating smoothly now, so let's continue advancing."

"Alright, but let's go slowly, we don't want any ambush to get us." He nodded and begin checking other fleets status. It was clear as day that they also manage to take down the enemy from other side.

After that they went deeper to the storm as they encountered more enemy inside. There's nothing more unsightly than watching the shipgirl's copy being destroyed by own hands, it disgust the fleets more than anything. Victorious also destroyed the enemy they encountered as they are being cautious.

"Accursed puppet, sink to the bottom of the sea along with your nasty creators!" Victorious put out her tongue at the destroyed Baltimore's copy.

"Hehe~ Looks like the way forward is clear now, Commander~" Victorious said as she turned to the command ship, there was no response from him. "Commander?"

The Commander was putting his hand on the forehead. 'Damn it! Why now! A headache similar to this scenario.' 

It was a painful headache for him as he could hear a muffled voice inside his head. 'This fucking... headache.... this place making me very uncomfortable to my core.'

"Commander? What's wrong?" Saratoga asked in concern. 

"No, don't worry... just a small headache due to thinking about stuff. This place is making me uncomfortable." He sat down on his chair while still keeping his palm on the forehead.

"Ah, Commander, perhaps you've been bewitched by a Siren's song? In that case, Sara will bring you to your senses with a song of her own!" Saratoga begin to sing to calm him down. 

"I'm okay, thanks. Moreover, this mission is important, i can endure a small headache for this." The Commander put up a tough act, but he could still hear a muffled of voices.

Saratoga backed down and shrugged, "Alright just tell us if you are not feeling well. Your health is important." 

"Yeah, i will be." The Commander closed his eyes to calm the headache down. 

'I can hear those muffled sound, but why is it very familiar.' He thought about it silently in the chair. 'This is not the usual headache, even i can hear that S.A.V.I.O.R's ringing sound inside my head. The META and the Singularity, what are their relation to me?'

※ ※ ※

At the moment, another fleet was still fighting the Siren fleets. Third fleet led by Essex was on the other side of combat zone. The carriers are bringing in more enemy as a bait to get the main force deeper into the storm and lure the enemy out. Shangri-La took out an enemy from the distance as her recon plane did a spying on the enemy fleets.

"According to the photos taken from the air, there are two Siren fleets patrolling this area." The nerdy girl gave Essex the picture she took. "In terms of numbers alone, we are in a very disadvantageous position in this battle."

"Let's see..." Essex took the picture from her hand and watched closely as she counted the enemy ships. "We're clearly just a decoy, but to think that the Sirens are still willing to face us with such numbers. I wonder what kind of enemies Enterprise is fighting right now..." 

Shangri-La begin to take out a notepad and scribbled with a fast movement. Volga was interested on what she writted, she took a peek behind her. "What are you doing?" 

"Don't worry, it's just a regular old naval records.." Shangri-La dismish it smugly while glancing at Essex. 

"Really, what even is it?" Essex raised her brow in question.

"Let's see..." The Northern Parliament carrier read it out loud. 'Essex is getting all dreamy thinking about Enterprise even when completely surrounded by the enemy.'

"W-w-w-what! Shangri-La!!!! I was merely considering the best way to minimize our losses!" Essex frantically tried to snatch the paper off from her. "What kind of naval records are these anyway? Jeez, don't get distracted with this kind of stuff!" She eventually gave up since she couldn't grab the notepad.

"Of course I won't. After all, it falls upon me to record Essex's flustered expression for posterity." Shangri-La smirked. "Jokes aside, I personally could use a bit more time to prepare, but you know how the saying goes... A soldier can't choose her battlefield..." 

Volga chuckled, "That's true, we can't choose what we wanted in battlefield, so we must do our best to stay alive here. A little tipsy of joke is fine for your emotional state~" 

Essex sighed, finally gave up on it. "Fine! Then let's go drop some bombs on them. Intrepid anything you're seeing?" She calls out to her other ally on the far distance.

"None of yet- wait i got some reading. Siren fleets coming to your way at 2 o'clock!" Intrepid answered.

"That's our signal, all fleets we're clashing head on with them!" Essex warned everyone on the surrounding area. "Prepare the Corsair squadron!" 

Essex walked to the front with a full confident. "Now let's crash a party for them." 

She launched her plane up above to the air followed by more carrier ship to control the air around them. At the same time, the enemy Siren also launched their plane on the sky. On that moment before clashing head on, Essex signaled everyone to dive their plane below to the Siren fleets. 

"We're going to attack the carrier first! Everyone be aware of your surrounding and don't be caught off guard by the enemy." She ordered. 

The enemy plane chased down the Corsair squadron by diving on their tail. They started open fire their gun as some of the plane exploded on the air. Before they could finish the squadron, another plane appeared as the Corsair squadron passed below them. A Wildcat squadron from Shangri-La was protecting Essex's squadron.

The dogfight happened as soon the Corsair squadron escaped from the Siren's plane. Evading the barrage of bullets from the Siren plane, a Wildcat separated from its initial formation and straight went to the Siren's plane and shot their gun. Shangri-La controlled the plane meticulously as she control sole plane while having the squadron to be the main target of the Siren. 

Another squadron joined the dogfighting with Volga's hellcat attacked the fighter plane before the sole plane crashed to the Siren. She successfully exploded the plane midair with her squadron as the Siren was caught off guard by the incoming squadron. Volga and Shangri-La nodded to each other and moved their squadron to assist Essex in breaching the enemy's line. The line of the planes was perfect as more and more enemy plane closing in on them. Essex's Corsair decided to puff out a smokescreen and immediately lifted up to the air and dove in again to the Siren's carrier.

Essex signalled the carrier fleets to keep distracting the enemies as her squadron closing in to the Siren carrier. The sky started to rain, lightning hit one of the plane on the squadron as they are almost near at the tip of the carrier. Essex immediately dropped her bomb on the ship and immediately lifted up again to avoid getting caught on the blast. Droplets of the water started to increase as a huge rainstorm poured on the task force. 

The rest of the fleets managed to deal blow to the massive Siren fleets, it took some time to clear the enemy line since most of the Siren fleets are the upgraded newer version of the mass-produced type of fleet. Essex launched a recon plane to detect any enemy but there's no reinforcement from them. Essex huffed to calm herself down.

"Haah… it’s finally over!" She groaned.

"I managed to collect a lot of combat data in this adverse weather. Once we get back, I'm going to have to analyze it." Shangri-La said. 

"Huh? Oh yeah, please do..." Essex gave her a polite smile before glancing at the notepad. "Hold on a second... How did your notepad didn't get any droplets on it?!"

Shangri-La tilted her head in confusion before she connected the dot. "Oh, this? I designed it myself, isn't it convenient?" She gave her a smug smile by adjusting her glasses.

"Sure..." Essex stared at her in suspicion.

"Right, come to think of it, Essex, you know how the Bermuda Triangle has always been notorious for its extreme and sometimes unexplainable weather?" Shangri-La changed to more serious topic. "Some of humankind's earliest encounters with this area are filled with reports of a sudden storm that filled the entire sky. Furthermore, these storms would persist for several days at a time. Only the most skilled navigators could hope to weather these terrible storms." She pointed to the sky.

"Hmmm... Do you think that the Sirens have been lurking here for hundreds of years?!" Essex immediately responded, "Wait no... That's way too far-fetched." 

"Perhaps. But maybe we're looking at it from the wrong angle." Shangri-La hummed. "The Sirens took advantage of existing strange phenomena and stories and legends to disguise their movements," she continued. "Ghost ships, sea monsters, UFOs, all kinds of legends and strange stories at sea may have been exploited by Sirens. We know that the singularity is capable of causing widespread anomalies. The Mirror Seas can manifest illusionary landscapes into reality, and the Sirens are known to possess rigging in the image of mythical sea creatures."

Essex thought about it for a second. "Sirens... What are they even?" 

Volga chimed in from behind. "Why do i felt like they feel futuristic?" 

Both girls turned to the Northern carrier. Essex decided to ask her. "Do you have any clues on what are they?" 

"Umm... I don't know the exact answer, but i feel like we've been fighting an advanced technology that is far from our time that could even outperform the current technology of this time." She answered.

Shangri-La silently nodded, "That seems to be also a plausible answer too. We've been fighting them for our life and they have countless of numbers. If they came from the future then it make sense to easily mass-produced the Siren fleets. But why did they attack the past?" 

"Perhaps they are searching for something." Essex commented and shook her head immediately. "As i thought, i should discuss this with the Commander regarding this thing."

"Anyway, we still have things to do." Shangri-La glanced at the leader. "Essex, should we go?" 

"Yeah, let's go continue to follow the original route and head towards the center!" She ordered.