Rowan walked toward the staging grounds like a man marching to the gallows, eyes hollow, shirt collar limp, and Lightning floating solemnly beside him like a spectral pallbearer.
The marble courtyards and leafy walkways of Avalon Naval Institute had never felt so long.
Nor so loud. Not with footsteps. But with whispers.
"Two freshmen are gonna duel."
"Today?! That's nuts."
"Like, official? On orientation day?"
Rowan winced and tried to keep his head down, but the tide of murmurs was rising, following him like a wake.
"I heard he broke into her room."
"No, no, he jumped through the window. Like some kind of maniac!"
"Wait, is that even allowed?"
"Apparently, nothing he did was allowed."
"Who is it? What ship is he?"
"Lightning. The Lightning-class prototype."
"That ghost AI? The one that people say that they can see sometimes."
"Yes. I saw her! Just for a second. At the announcement formation. She's kinda hot, not gonna lie—"
Lightning preened for half a second before remembering they were walking to a duel for their survival and immediately resumed frowning. The whispers continued.
"So wait, he tried to peek on Bismarck? Bismarck?"
"Yeah! Caught her in her underwear—just stood there!"
"What a creep."
"Gross."
"…But also, kinda brave?"
"...And he cute though. Like for real."
"Right?! Those eyes? I'd forgive him."
Rowan groaned audibly and rubbed his face.
"I'm dying," he muttered.
"You're famous," Lightning corrected. "You'll be remembered forever. In memes."
A group of upperclassmen sitting on a low wall watched him pass. One leaned over and whispered:
"Dead man walking."
Another saluted him mock-seriously.
"It was an honor, Captain."
Rowan didn't reply.
He just kept walking toward the field of honor.
Where a girl with knives in her soul and fury in her posture waited to break his spine and take his ship.
---
The ready room echoed faintly with the soft click of sealing clasps as Rowan adjusted the bodysuit over his chest. It fit like a second skin, exposing the glowing thunderbird seal above his heart and the circuit traces spidering down his limbs—bare, vulnerable. Every Captain wore one. But this was his first time putting it on outside a test chamber.
The room was stark. Just a locker. A mirror. A bench.
And a whole storm of nerves.
He stared at himself.
"This is insane…"
SLAM.
The door burst open without warning.
Rowan spun, clutching the front of his suit. "What the hell—?! I'm getting changed! Have you people never heard of knocking?!"
The woman who entered didn't flinch. She leaned in the doorway like she belonged there, her coat flaring behind her with the movement, one gloved hand resting idly on the hilt of a saber. A tricorne hat perched coquettishly on her head, her blue hair was pulled into a perfectly sculpted braid, and her eyes—cool, appraising, far too amused—narrowed as they scanned him.
"So," she purred. "This is the foolish new boy." Her accent was thick with British nobility. It made Rowan's ears tingle with the dangerous pleasentness of it.
Rowan gawked. "Who the hell are you?"
She stepped closer, head tilted, curiosity gleaming behind the noble mask. "A boy. How strange. And so brave. Did you really peep on her? The Iron Bitch herself?" Her smile curved like a knife. "Too, too bold, dear boy. I hope she squealed."
Rowan looked like someone had just thrown a thesaurus at his skull. "Wh—what the fuck are you talking about, lady?! You can't just come in here monologuing like some villainess!"
That made her laugh.
A low, purring, positively aristocratic laugh.
"Villainess?" she repeated, savoring the word. "Excellent choice. I like that. Perhaps we'll be friends after all… if you sink her."
Rowan's mouth opened. No words emerged.
She crossed to him in two precise steps, gaze flicking across his sync seal, then rising to meet his eyes—measuring something unseen.
"A word of advice, Captain," she murmured. "Her turrets rotate slowly. Stay mobile. Nobody survives her full broadside. Don't get caught."
And with that, she turned on her heel and swept from the room.
The door clicked shut behind her.
Rowan stared after her, deeply, profoundly rattled.
"…Okay. Nope. I'm hallucinating. I've died. That's the only explanation."
Rowan stared after her like the laws of reality had just briefly stopped applying.
Then—
SLAP.
"OW! What the hell?!" He jerked and rubbed his cheek.
Lightning hovered beside him, her small translucent palm still raised in midair, smug as sin.
"Just checking to make sure we aren't actually dead," she said sweetly. "Because that lady gave serious 'elegant executioner' vibes."
Rowan scowled. "Why can you hit me?! Other AIs can't do that!"
She twirled a lock of glowing blue hair and shrugged innocently. "Because you're awesome."
He glared at her.
She beamed.
"…God help me," he muttered. "I'm going to die surrounded by beautiful lunatics."
"Better than dying alone!" Lightning chimed, chipper. "Suiting synch protocol," Lightning said softly, her teasing momentarily replaced by something ceremonial. "ICS Lightning accepting Captain Rowan Takeda."
The moment the bodysuit activated, the seals across his skin pulsed to life—electric, resonant. He exhaled through gritted teeth as the last of it settled into place and the neural spine contacts clicked. It always hurts, every time.
He was in.
He was the Captain.
"Vitals good. Muscle tension… elevated but within range. You're nervous." Lightning's voice was lower now, wrapping around his thoughts like silk. "Want me to flood your synaptic responses with a combat suppressant? Just a smidge of juice?"
"No," Rowan muttered. "I want to feel it. Even if I get my ass kicked, I want to remember it."
"Oooh," she purred. "Spicy."
A panel slid open before him, revealing a long bridge of light leading to the personal dock chamber. The cradle extended. Beyond it, the warm light of the afternoon filtered in over the water.
Rowan took a breath—
—and paused.
Lightning was humming.
He narrowed his eyes. "What?"
"Oh, nothing," she said, far too quickly. "Just… noticing Hood's baseline lymphatic levels were elevated during that little villainess monologue. Not dramatically—but for a girl that regal? That's basically screaming."
Rowan groaned. "Can you not?!"
"What? You're cute when girls threaten your life!"
"You've been trying to hook me up with anything in a skirt since I graduated!"
"Correction," she said, smug. "Since you almost graduated. We were bonded two weeks before. The moment I activated, I knew my job was twofold: protect your life, and enrich it."
"You're not my mom, Lightning." Rowan groused but there was no heat in, instead he was smiling. Lightning was a pest but she was his pest. He playfully pushed her away from him with his shoulder.
"I could be your sexy ghost stepmom if you'd just believe in love, Rowan." she giggled and draped herself over his shoulders.
"I'm stepping onto the bridge now and if I trip, I swear to God, you're getting a factory reset."
"Promise?" she cooed.
He rolled his eyes and walked forward, the drydock humming around him. The light pulsed with every step—matching his heartbeat.
---
Bridge of the GNS Bismarck
Subsurface. Drydock.
The chamber was vast—cathedral-like in its precision. Cold steel ribs arched overhead, framing a command throne mounted on rails, coiled in hydraulic fury. The space felt like it had never known warmth, only purpose. Only war.
Bismarck stood alone on the platform, her boots clicking softly on the glassy floor, clad now in her full sync armor—dark, gunmetal-black layered over pristine white. A ceremonial cape draped one shoulder, her silver hair bound in twin braids that framed her neck like imperial cords.
Before her, glowing faintly in the air, was her AI.
He was tall, severe, with a face carved from centuries of seafaring legend. One eye was a lens, glowing dim red behind an old-style eyepatch. The other was ice-blue and furious. His officer's cap bore the faded insignia of the Kriegsmarine. His nameplate read:
Otto.
"Captain," he rumbled in a voice like distant naval guns. "The boy approaches."
"Let him come," Bismarck replied, rolling her neck once with a satisfying crack. Her voice was cold, composed—only the tiniest tremble in her fingers betrayed her excitement.
Otto tilted his head. "Are you ready?"
"Jawohl."
"Will you fight?"
"Jawohl."
"Will you defend the name of our ship, our nation, our legacy as the pride of the seas?"
Her eyes blazed. Her back straightened. She shouted:
"JAWOHL!!!"
Otto's face split into a wolfish grin.
"Then let us speak the oath."
They spoke together now, as flaring circuits lit across the walls in response to their synchronization. Power bled into the air.
"We are iron. We are sea."
"We rise not for glory, but for wrath."
"Our name is thunder. Our bones are steel."
"Let the oceans tremble beneath us. Let the skies split in fear."
"We are Bismarck. And we do not yield."
Otto's voice roared as Bismarck slid into her command throne like an empress.
"THEN LET THUNDER THE GUNS OF THE KING OF THE OCEAN!"
Sync: Complete. Status: Combat-Ready.
Bismarck sat back into her command throne, her spine pressed to the sync-plate as lines of light crawled up along her skin-tight armor. Circuit seals shimmered with power—iron sigils etched across her shoulders, spine, and wrists now pulsing with warlike rhythm.
Otto stood ghostlike at her side, hands folded behind his back as if he stood on some ancient deck of wood and salt.
"All systems green," he intoned. "Shall I release her?"
Bismarck didn't smile. She didn't blink.
She gave a single, curt nod.
The drydock shook with a rising tremor.
WARNING. DOCK RELEASE IN PROGRESS.
MASSIVE DISPLACEMENT—STAND CLEAR.
Far below the bridge, the cradle arms of the docking gantry groaned and slid back, clunking loose their magnetic grip. The bay beneath her surged, and water thundered in from floodgates, spraying upward in twin white geysers as the locks cracked open.
The beast was waking.
Bismarck's shipframe—her true body—trembled once, then rose like something reborn.
Fifty thousand tons of gleaming, modernized warsteel. Railguns mounted where once sat archaic turrets. Her hull cut the water like a scalpel through flesh. Twin lines of hexagonal plating shimmered down her flanks as her shield arrays activated, light rippling like oil across chrome.
She bore no rust. No rivets. She was pride made manifest. Nuclear-fueled, rail-propelled, divine.
And still—still—her steam stacks remained. Not needed. But never removed.
A monument to history.
She slid out from her berth, prow first, her engines low and growling with latent wrath. Her wake split the inlet like a scar.
Bismarck had taken to the sea.
The duel would commence shortly and she had no intention of letting that boy get the best of her.
----
The wind whipped hard across the open platform, the ocean stretching wide and glittering like glass under the sun. Below, the surf roared. Above, distant railgun towers hummed with latent energy. And at the edge—facing all of it—stood Rowan Takeda.
He exhaled.
"You good?" Lightning hovered beside him, flickering softly with a faint electric hiss. Her small, translucent form danced on the breeze like a guardian spirit from some ancient myth.
"Yeah," Rowan said, jaw set. "I'm good."
"No really," she said, cocking her hip and folding her arms across her barely-there toga. "Because it's my glowing blue butt on the line too if you screw this up."
"I know that," he muttered.
Lightning floated closer, narrowed her eyes—then slapped him again.
Lightly.
Rowan rubbed his cheek. "Ow! What was that one for?!"
"For dramatic effect," she smirked, then ruffled his hair with surprising tenderness. "I know. We got this."
The wind calmed for just a moment.
"You ready?" she asked.
Rowan nodded.
"Then it's time to say the oath."
He inhaled, bracing himself as the deck panels behind him began to shift, parting like petals. A deep rumble echoed upward as Lightning's true body stirred beneath the waves—her berth glowing with blue fire.
"Right..." he whispered, placing a hand over his heart. The circuit seals along his arms began to glow.
And slowly—solemnly—he began the words.
"I, Rowan Takeda—
Captain of the ICS Lightning—
swear upon steel and sea,
upon honor unbent and burden unbroken,
to guide her with hand and heart,
to shield those who cannot shield themselves,
and to strike like judgment
when the time of reckoning comes.
Where she sails, I follow.
Where I fall, she rises.
Until our keel breaks or heaven calls us home—
we are one."
---
Lightning's light flared in answer—brilliant, electric, alive. Circuit seals across Rowan's arms surged with radiant pulse. The sea itself seemed to answer the words as her hull began to rise.
With a shuddering hiss of rising platforms and magnetic locks disengaging, she surfaced—the ICS Lightning, reborn into open sea.
She was beautiful.
A sleek battlecruiser, low-slung to the waterline like a predator skimming just beneath the surface. Her hull shimmered in cobalt alloys, pulse-lines of energy tracing the seams like veins. Not made for brute force—but for precision. For speed. For victory earned in inches and milliseconds.
Six guns crowned her forward deck—two turrets, each a different beast. The first, a gleaming array of railgun barrels, humming faintly with the charge of absolute focus. The second, sleeker still, a rotating set of directed energy emitters, designed not for splash, but for erasure.
A single rear turret stood sentinel at her aft, a railgun nested like a sniper's perch—silent, lethal, final.
Flanking her prow, barely above the waterline, two torpedo tubes blinked online—low-profile but deadly, waiting for the signal.
Down her sides, light anti-aerial batteries bristled—compact, fast-tracking, built to swat down anything foolish enough to challenge her from above.
Compared to Bismarck, she looked underarmed.
But one look told the truth: Lightning didn't need to outgun you.
She just had to hit first.
The sea beneath her surged, circuits lit in spiraling blues and ultraviolet. Her shield array shimmered into existence—a thin shell of hexagonal facets tracing along her flanks, silent and seamless as breath.
And then—she purred.
Not a roar. Not a growl.
A sound like a whisper behind thunder. A promise of speed. Of storm.
Rowan stepped onto the bridge of the ICS Lightning, breath shallow but steady, heart pounding somewhere in his throat.
The command throne rose from the deck, sleek and dark, shaped to support him like it knew him. He slid into place, fingers curling against the interface grips. The seal at the base hummed to life—his bodysuit syncing with the console in a ripple of pale light. Circuit seals across his arms flared bright white-violet.
Lightning perched behind him, half-sitting on the back of the throne like a smug little gargoyle made of static and beauty, arms crossed under her chest. She wasn't flickering now—she was solid enough to feel real.
"Lightning—full steam ahead," Rowan said, tightening his grip. "Make for the cover of the nearest island. Don't let this bitch think we are about to fight in open water "
Her grin turned razor sharp. "Now you're talking like a Captain."
With a shudder and a hiss of drive engagement, Lightning surged forward—water splitting at her prow like the sea itself recognized the urgency.
Rowan pulled up a holographic map from his right panel—terrain, depth readings, elevation lines. A cluster of rocky islands dotted the near quadrant, just enough cover to force line-of-sight repositioning.
"Time until the starting announcement?" he asked.
"T-minus seven minutes," Lightning replied, eyes flicking blue-white as she scanned alongside him. "It's gonna be tight, but we might make it."
"Good. We need to be close enough that she can't lock us with missiles from her launch arc. If we're still in open sea when this starts—"
"She'll flatten us like a pancake at Oktoberfest," Lightning said cheerfully.
Rowan swore under his breath, zooming in on a craggy outcrop that might give partial visual cover.
"We're not winning an open slugfest," he muttered. "So we don't let her start one."
"Now that," Lightning said with a purr, "is the spirit of a battlecruiser."
Captain and ship sped forward. The game was about to start and Rowan was putting everything on this opening gambit. And it actually all depended on if he had read Bismarck right. He was a new Captain closest he had come to naval combat was playing World of Warships. He'd never even fully helmed Lightning outside of three trial runs. And he hoped against hope that it was that fact that would give him a slim chance of victory. C'mon, Bismarck. Let me show you what we're made of.
----
The bridge of the GNS Bismarck was a cathedral of cold steel and discipline. Her command throne sat elevated, flanked by brass-paneled support columns and red velvet trim. From here, she looked down upon the instruments of war as if surveying her dominion.
Bismarck reclined with one leg crossed over the other, the posture of a queen already bored with the opening act.
Her gloved fingers tapped against the armrest as holographic displays swept across her vision—terrain maps, water depths, satellite overlays. The Iron Shoals were her theater today.
"He'll make for the island in this sector," she said flatly, lifting one elegant finger to a rocky cove to the east. "It favors his class."
Behind her, a deep voice rumbled like a diesel engine.
"You are certain, Kapitänin?"
She did not glance back. "Of course. He's green. Very green. And lightly armored. Any child could tell you a battlecruiser will attempt to leverage speed, hit-and-run tactics, and natural cover."
She exhaled through her nose, almost bored.
"We don't know her top speed," she added, finally narrowing her eyes at the pulsing icon of the ICS Lightning. "She's too new. Barely out of drydock. No official test logs. Her Captain is unranked."
A long pause.
"But," she said at last, tone sharpening like a scalpel, "what's your guess, Otto?"
Otto materialized beside her.
"I estimate top cruising speed between 48 and 53 knots," he said. "Her build is sleek—an emphasis on speed, not armor. But if she overcommits—"
"—She dies," Bismarck finished.
Otto smiled faintly. "As she should."
Bismarck rose from her throne in a single elegant motion.
"Then let us oblige her, Otto," she said, voice like chilled wine. "Let us draw her out. And when the little princeling makes his move, we will teach him the meaning of naval superiority."
She raised her hand and snapped her fingers.
"Battle stations. Load all tubes. Lock all batteries. Prime the main gun."
She turned toward the glowing sea, where the horizon shimmered like a mirror waiting to be broken.
"Let thunder roll," she whispered, "and let him learn the sound of God's disapproval."
-----
T-minus 01:12 — The Iron Shoals Combat Arena
In the command tower overlooking the bay, thick panes of reinforced glass gave a panoramic view of the Iron Shoals. The water gleamed with projected overlays and tactical markers. Two glowing outlines traced across the sea—one angular and heavy, the other lean and darting.
Bismarck was already rotating into prime bombardment position.
Lightning was surging full steam ahead toward the closest island, cutting the water in a tight vector. But it wasn't going to be enough. Not in time.
A low klaxon echoed once, a reminder to all observers: one minute until the battle began.
HMS Ark Royal stood with arms folded, her dark coat catching the blue tactical glow from the readout table. Beside her stood USS Barb, a sleek and commanding looking woman with arms