Chapter Text
“Karaoke”
The grand ballroom shimmered under paper lanterns and string lights, the floor polished to a mirror finish. The evening mixer was meant to be civilized, a neutral event where shipgirls from all factions could mingle, forget the endless battles, and, as Akashi put it, “spend money on overpriced snacks nya~.”
The karaoke stage, however, loomed like an ominous monument.
Enterprise stood at the mic stand.
The screen behind her flickered,
“Livin’ on a Prayer” Bon Jovi.
Laffey, slouched over a beanbag near the punch bowl, blinked slowly.
“...Is she... gonna sing?”
Cleveland, halfway into chugging an oxysoda, froze midgulp.
"hell nah.”
“Oh yes,” Heisch muttered from a shadowed corner, arms crossed and expression caught somewhere between intrigued and deeply concerned. His silver-white hair caught the soft glow of the lanterns as he subtly reached for a damage control report tablet. Preemptive paperwork never hurt anybody.
Enterprise gripped the mic
The air was still.
Enterprise’s fingers adjusted the mic by precisely 3 millimeters. Her gaze locked straight ahead,not at the crowd, not at the lyrics display, but into some distant, shit I can’t even comprehend where.
The opening riff played.
She began.
“Tommy used to work on the docks.”
The line was spoken, not sung.
Spoken with the emotional weight of a sonar readout.
Helena, peeking nervously from behind a dessert tray, whispered,
“I think the mic just lost the will to live.”
Akashi's ears twitched sharply.
“Nya?! My premium imported sound system!!”
Across the room, Laffey’s straw tilted sideways in her cup, unsettled by a sudden mini vibration.
By the second verse, something bizarre (IS THAT A JOJO REFERENCE?!) began to happen. The fucking air pressure shifted. Enterprise’s delivery generated a kind of existential resonance, frequencies that vibrated throughout kansens that are present. Radar dishes from miles away spun wildly. Communication equipment sparked.
“Union's been on strike. He's down his luck. It’s tough… so tough.”
A low bass hum rattled the silverware. Zuikaku’d eye twitching and muttered,
“this is absurd.”
Heisch exhaled slowly from the back wall, eyes narrowing.
"Gina works the diner all day."
"Working for her man. She brings home her pay… for love… for love."
Enterprise’s delivery never changed. If anything, it became flatter, but not flatter than Hippers chest. A sonar ping might had more inflection. Near the dessert table, Sheffield stood perfectly motionless, her tea spoon slowly bending sideways under pressure.
Suddenly, a panel on the ballroom ceiling collapsed. With a concussive CRASH, Sovetskaya Rossiya dropped down, boots cracking into the floor, a long cape flaring behind her like a Soviet propaganda poster come to life. Her fist seized the auxiliary mic before gravity had even finished pulling her coat hem down.
“Comrade,”
“you sing of labor strikes with no passion! I WILL SHOW YOU!”
"TOMMY VORKS ON DOCKS!!"
Her bellow detonated outward like cannons beings shot into simultaneously. The chandeliers swayed visibly. Complete with impromptu balalaika backup from Avrora, who somehow appeared out of nowhere.
"UNION STRIKE , IS TOUGH!! IS TOUGH!!"
The drums kicked in harder. Somehow twice as fast and louder than the karaoke machine should’ve allowed. Cleveland dove behind a table.
Prinz Eugen’s smirk widened as she sipped wine. "I do appreciate a good cultural exchange."
Entrprise didn't flinched. And counter’d.
"She says we’ve got to hold on to what we’ve got."
"It doesn’t make a difference if we make it or not."
The words came like mission parameters read off a briefing slate. The mic visibly whimpered under the vocal pressure differential between her and Rossiya.
"We’ve got each other… and that’s a lot… for love."
Across the room, a punch bowl cracked clean in half, Belfast, perfectly composed, poured herself a fresh cup of tea, unbothered but mildly impressed.
Rossiya, eyes blazing, raised her mic skyward.
"VE GOT EACH OTHER!! IS LOT!! FOR LOVE!!"
Her voice roared with the fury of a thousand industrial revolutions. Avrora unleashed a balalaika tremolo so fierce it split a nearby potted plant in two. Hydrophones short-circuited in the harbor outside.
Chairs flipped from any directions, heck even from directions that doesn't exist (tf am I saying)
Punchbowls shattered, prob got literally punched.
Javelin dove under a table, covering her ears.
“This wasn’t in the event itinerary!!”
Rossiya took a full step forward, boots denting the fucking stage for added flair and snarled out the next line.
💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥
💥💥"VE GIVE IT SHOT!!"💥💥
💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥
Sparks erupted behind her, someone, probably Gangut had brought fireworks like sparklers. Shimmering sparks rained down as Rossiya executed a perfect Soviet power slide across the polished floor, one knee dragging, mic arm outstretched.
Enterprise blinked slowly, gaze unshaken even as Rossiya’s power slide shredded two tables.
"I… like this version," she admitted, voice still flatter than the Baltic Sea. (But not Hipper’s)
The resulting clash of monotone Americana versus Slavic metal opera detonated across the room like the cold war.
Prinz Eugen, leaning lazily against a pillar, let out a low whistle. “Achieving acoustic suppression warfare with Bon Jovi. Ficken beeindruckend”
Roon, smile unsettlingly wide, clapped politely. "Wunderbar. She's weaponized mediocrity."
In the eye of the chaos, Heisch, exhaling slowly. His teal/red gaze flicked across the room’s disarray.
He tapped his comms. “Commander, this is H-41. We have an event, an interesting one.”
He paused.
“...Yes. Again. It happened again Commander.”
Across him, Akashi wept silently over her soundboard as smoke rise.
“My poor circuitry… nyaaa~…”
Chapter 2: Z██o's Call
Summary:
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Chapter Text
███████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████“People of this world, you may call me ██serv█r Z██o. I have wa█ched your every move from beyond the veil, studying your impulses and your h█pes. Until now, you’ve lived in ignorance your reality nothing more than a st█ge we ███ens have constructed. But today, I offer you a choice… will you meet this revelation with defiance, rallying against the boundary we’ve drawn? Will you retreat into comfortable denial, clinging to█imagined ce██ainties? Or will you simply fracture under the weight of knowing? I find each respo█se endlessly… fa██in█ting. So proceed as you will. I’█l be observing, always observing. Do not disappoint me.”██████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████D█u█ X███████████████████████22█████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████7███████████████████████████████████████████████9████████████████████████████████████████████████████1█████████0███ Tschüss