"The great questions of the day will not be settled by means of speeches and majority decisions but by iron and blood."
—Otto von Bismarck
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The black-clad silhouette of Bismarck's mental model calmly stood on the very top of his fore superstructure, a bored look adorned his features as loud explosions echoed all around him. His Klein-field doing an excellent job at protecting every inch of his body from the oncoming onslaught of shells, rockets and torpedoes. A few weeks have passed since his fateful encounter with the bold British admiral, and her words still echoed in the back of his mind. The disrespect she has shown towards him was beyond infuriating, but perhaps the most curious part of the whole encounter was her lack of fear. He was still far from understanding how humans think and in what situations are the most vulnerable, but the level of bravery that the female admiral displayed was commendable. Perhaps she made her peace beforehand and simply accepted her fate, but refused to die quietly. He'll never know now. Diverting his attention back to the matter at hand, he merely scoffed at these pitiful attempts to cross the Atlantic Ocean by a cruiseliner of all things. A badly refitted cruise liner with missiles and small destroyer calibre guns. Its engine was fast, 50 knots was fairly impressive for a manmade vessel, but it paled in comparison to his speed. Like a game of cat and mouse, except the cat had chainsaws for teeth and blades for claws. Bismarck didn't even regard the terrified civilians in the ship as he aimed his photon cannons at the ship and fired. Only the two fore turrets had the angle to shoot at the vessel, but even so, the damage they caused easily dealt critical damage to the cruise liner. While it was armed and outfitted quite well, its structure remained the same. In the end, a cruise liner is a cruise liner and not a warship. Because of its weak frame, the ship split into two before exploding in a fiery cloud of doom, killing pretty much everyone on the ship in an instant.
"Why am I left to do these mundane tasks? Where are the patrol fleets?" annoyedly grumbled Bismarck, clearly not happy with his current predicament of acting as some manner of a patrol boat.
He is a flagship for crying out loud, not some clanky destroyer! It wasn't a position he chose for himself, the Supreme Flagship was meddling around with everyone's formation. First, his brother Tirpitz was ordered to patrol the waters of Greenland of all places while he, the damn flagship was stuck doing loops around Ireland and the United Kingdom. Sometimes, Bismarck truly couldn't understand what in the world was going through Yamato's head. She must have a reason for this, right? Surely she isn't just doing this for the fun of it, that would be ludicrous. The fact that he didn't know what that bitch -AHEM- ship was plotting really rilled his reins. He could always just ask her through the Joint Tactical Network, but just being in her presence irritated him.
"Hmm? An update? Finally," angrily ranted Bismarck as he accessed the newly provided information, but what he saw didn't please him, not one bit, "USA?!"
This was outrageous! The Supreme Flagship had to be pulling his nose here, there is no way that she would just drag him from one end of the Atlantic to the other for just patrol. Bismarck's fury was not something one wanted to incite, but this was Yamato. The supposedly, no, most certainly strongest warship in the Fleet of Fog along with her sister Musashi. What a load of bullshit... So the flagship of the Kriegsmarine made its way to the east coast of the USA, only to raise an eyebrow when he was greeted by a small group of destroyers accompanied by a considerable group of U-boats. None possessed mental models of their own.
"What is the meaning of this? Why was I not informed about this?" Bismarck wasn't one for unannounced surprises, which really is what surprises were all about.
Just then yet another notification had been posted, this was appeared to be addressed to him and the group he had met up with. It was a rather simple command, eliminate an American fleet as swiftly as possible and return to their original post immediately. A thick vein bulged on Bismarck's neck from the sheer frustration he was feeling at that moment. Did Yamato call him here for THAT?! A single wolfpack of U-boats would be enough for this job! Hell, a single submarine could do this all by itself! Pushing his anger aside, the mission took priority. He could curse at Yamato later. Now, it was time to sink some idiots in metal coffins.
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The battle, if one could even call it that, went just about as well for the Americans as one would expect. Their aircraft carriers sunk before they could even get more than two planes off the deck, the destroyers didn't last long either and exploded from one shot of a destroyer's photon cannon. The U-boats fired off a few torpedoes, each of them having enough firepower to sink a warship, and that's exactly what they did. Despite the USA's impressive fleet size, their display of might was rather pathetic. Bismarck, throughout the whole ordeal, didn't even fire one of his guns, not one muzzle flash could have been seen on his vessel. That is how unimpressed he was. His unimpressed gaze didn't change at all as he gazed at the burning and still sinking wreckage of their beloved aircraft carriers. No survivors. Good, that meant that the rest of the fleet did a thorough job.
"Now to find out what that floating hotel was thinking," his furious grumbles were unheard by everyone, not wasting any more time his consciousness was transferred to a different place.
His body, both the vessel and the mental model were still in the same place they were before, only his mind had been moved. In an instant, he found himself in a place all too familiar to him, despite how little time he actually spends here. The Joint Tactical Network was a communication used to... well, communicate. Sharing information was pretty much a given to a collective such as Fleet of Fog, and this unexplained quantum bullshit provided a way to share that information. It even had its own aesthetics, a seemingly completely different world. Beautiful fields of green as far as the eye could see, tall trees in the background, numerous types of flowers all around, clear blue sky with the sun shining from above. But Bismarck is not here to sightsee nor is he here to exchange pleasantries. No, his one and only reason for coming here are to find out why he's being dragged across the Atlantic.
"Get over here, Yamato," he didn't bother hiding his irritation in the way he spoke to his supposed superior.
He is a king who fears nothing, he is a king who desires nothing. But his presence alone demands the utmost respect. He ignored the table and a couple of comfortable-looking chairs around it and simply chose to stand. So Bismarck waited, but the person he called to didn't answer. His patience has run out, and he grit his teeth as a vein nearly popped on his neck.
"Dieses verdammte Miststück..." and with one final swear at the absent super battleship, Bismarck logged off the Joint Tactical Network.
His anger didn't dissipate, not in the slightest as he found himself back in his original position. Bismarck's fists clenched with enough force to bend iron, and he let out an audible growl of fury. He completely disregarded his surroundings, instead, he mentally continued to analyze the situation despite his fury reaching its peak. It didn't matter what excuse his processor tried to come up with for the absence of the Supreme Flagship, his emulator was strong and advanced enough to cloud his judgement with anger. Anger that he was ignored. Yamato was dragging him around by his nose, and there were very few things that pissed him off more than that. Bismarck forced his facial expression out of its teeth-baring snarl and into a harsh glare as one of the unimportant destroyers passed by his stationary hull.
"Hmm..." a low hum, and not a second later Bismarck's harsh glare turned into something much more... sinister.
A smile that could only be described as something one would see when they first enter hell, and the devil sets their eyes on them for the first time. And then... across the calm waters of the Atlantic Ocean echoed the thunder of guns for miles on end...
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"I'm coming for you~"