Nimbus Child I: Games of War

Chapter 2

Hood walked into the cafeteria, froze instantly and made Duke of York almost barrel into her.

"M'lord?", Duke of York moved to look over the battlecruiser's shoulder, feeling her brows furrow.

A child looked up at them, red eyes, short red hair, mostly red outfit with black details."

"Von Richthofen??"

Indeed, that was Manfred von Richthofen, de-aged, looking to be around four years old.

The carrier looked away with a grim expression: "Yes."

Both Brits stared at her, blinking dumbly.

What the hell?

"Richthofen, how did this...", Hood gestured at her, "happen?"

Manfred apparently found the floor very interesting, because she still wasn't looking at them: "It is my punishment."

"...I see."

"Who came up with it?", asked Duke of York curiously.

"Lady Tirpitz."

Yeah, that seemed fitting. Duke had been guessing Scharnhorst, but Tirpitz worked just as well.

Hood crossed her arms: "Did they manipulate your nanomaterial?"

A heavy breath as if fighting a sigh could be heard: "No. I was allowed to fill my ressources enough to regain combat readiness, but not enough for my mental models."

The thing was, Manfred von Richthofen normally had two mental models running around, of which one was a big horse (German carriers apparently liked those) and the other a human with very long hair.

When she had gotten herself in trouble yesterday, the nanomaterial ressources had already been emptied partially due to an earlier battle and she had been forced to cannibalize both hair and horse.

Due to the nature of punishment, she had of course not been allowed enough material to reconstruct them and had instead morphed into a younger body since she at least could fully "repair" that with the intact nanomaterial of her "old" body.

It was double the punishment since her accursed sisters were actively hunting her down to baby her since they knew how much it annoyed her.

Missetat begangen, she thought, which translated to "misdeed committed" but in this case meant "fuck my life".

Anyway, the British ships still looked down at her, apparently not planning to make way: "Pardon me, may I move past you?"

"Apologies, of course", Hood said before they stepped aside and watched the "kid" rush off, not running, but not walking either, then they looked back inside the room.

As usual this early, there was noone there, but she had seemed almost as if being hunted, so what...?

Ah, there was the answer, rushing into the room from another door.

Duke of York pointed to a random door before Lothar von Richthofen could even open her mouth, while Hood just rubbed the bridge of her nose in exasperation.

"Your Majesty, how are you feeling?", asked Bellerophon in her usual, disinterested voice. She wasn't per se disinterested, not expressing much emotion at any given time was merely her norm.

Kongō looked at the battleship, her personal servant, when she entered the pavillion: "I will live", she answered with her standard soft, motherly smile in place.

Beside her, Lion and Mikasa looked up from their tea for a moment.

That had been a relatively sassy answer for her, so she was probably still a bit angry. Understandable, but it would not overshadow the fact that Kongō did not treat her damages with the care they should receive.