Arpeggio of Blue Steel: Butterfly Effect

• Chapter Five •

Arpeggio of Blue Steel: Butterfly Effect - A Dreadnought's Awakening

The United States of America once controlled the Pacific Ocean with her massive fleet and had always showed her great prowess in terms on naval strength. That is, before the bombing of the naval base in Hawaii, Pearl Harbor.

After the Great Battle against the Fleet of Fog, the United States Navy have struck many of it's ships from service because of their destruction or irreparable damages. They were now desperate in retaining their status in the Pacific caused by the Fleet of Fog's advance, following the attack on Midway and the fall of Guam; holding a US naval base as sanctuary for the few ships that survived.

Midway Island

A wake slowly appeared as a blue steel cuts through the water while the whole structure surfaces gently, revealing the hull of the submarine I-417. It's main hatch opened and the Captain climbed out, with a binocular in his grasp.

"Midway. We're close to Pearl Harbor." he muttered, looking through the binocular for any signs of enemy patrol or allied ships.

He finished his observation and entered the submarine from the main hatch, "Lock all hatches. Dive down to 40m and keep our speed at it's average capability."

Hiyou informed his crew through an earpiece, as he took his time walking back to the Bridge.

The submarine speeds up before submerging back into the depths, sailing past the island of Midway which was now set ablaze and thus created a thick smoke visible for miles away.

The force responsible for the attack on Midway was now right before the US naval base and the US ships were already engaged with the Fog destroyers and cruisers. The battle was in its climax, and the Fleet of the Fog was fast approaching the battered remnants of the US Navy. A young admiral stands in the control center of his South Dakota-class battleship, surveying the wreckage of his forces. Out of 56 ships that were deployed, he was left to a mere 16 remaining, and even then only four were still able to even fire back. To add more nails to the inevitable iron coffin he was standing in, his fleet was in Pearl Harbor, the same site where the Japanese sank the nation's most powerful ships at that time.

It was all a loss for him, and he knew it. As if giving up, he removed his hat from his head and rested it over his chest, staring down the approaching Fog ships that were identified as the Fletcher-class and Omaha-class, relatively small ships compared to what he was manning, but nonetheless they were more than enough to overwhelm his fleet. Everything seemed to slow down drastically, as he was about to accept his fate.

The Fletchers were caught off guard when columns of water erupted from where they were struck, crippling their ability to maneuver. The Omaha light cruisers sailed right into a hailstorm of underwater torpedoes from below and met their ends with corrosive warheads detonating against their superstructure.

The stricken Fog ships fired their primary guns into the sea and unleashed hundreds of missiles, whirring the depths into chaos with explosions. They were picked off one by one and the American admiral could only watch in silence, yet he felt curious who would be helping him and what would the reason be.

"All ships, focus fire on the Fletcher-class destroyers!" he ordered his fleet to advance and open up on the enemy.

Just as they were moving up, a single photon beam strikes a nearby Aegis destroyer and it was utterly demolished. Another Fog ship appeared over the horizon and it adorned green malevolent  markings on it's black themed hull.

"Just how hard is it to beat such a small force?" a brunette girl in her mid-teens stood on the ship's bridge exterior, she waved locks of her hair with a single swing of her hand as the main guns sent another barrage of photon beams.