Lightning, of course, was silently losing her mind.
Yes! Get it, Cap! Right below the waterline! Come onnnn, don't leave her with torpedoes unfired!
Rowan didn't hear her. He couldn't. His whole world was Catherine Wren's breath, just barely brushing his cheek. Her voice a silken thread wound around his neck. Her lips—those lips—less than a hair's breadth from—
CLACK.
The rooftop door swung open with a hollow, unassuming thunk of metal on frame. The sound split the moment like a depth charge.
Rowan exploded backward like he'd just been seated on a sea mine. His elbow clipped the teacup, the thermos went sprawling and his spine went rigid, and his entire posture reset so fast it looked like he'd been yanked by an unseen cord. "Gah—uh—I mean—!" What the hell had he been about to do?! Christ and all the saints!
A voice followed the sound of the door. Soft. Measured. Polite.
"Herr Rowan?" the girl said, tilting her head just slightly. "I was hoping we could have lunch together."
She stepped fully into view then, and the atmosphere shifted as if the temperature had dropped ten degrees.
Bismarck stood in the doorway, her presence like a perfectly drawn sword. Silver twin tails hung like banners of ice down her back, swaying gently with each controlled step. Her uniform, midnight black, was immaculate. The brass trim shining even in the overcast light. The iron cross on her chest wasn't worn—it was declared. Her gloves were tight. Her bearing tighter.
Her silvery eyes swept the rooftop, pausing only briefly on Hood, then returning to Rowan with the cold precision of radar lock.
"Bismarck!" Rowan said, voice climbing half an octave in panic. "Hi! I—um—hi! I was just—uh, having lunch with a friend!"
He gestured weakly at the teacups like they could somehow defend him. "Have you two met?"
Catherine rose with elegant finality, every inch the noblewoman once again. She dusted the front of her coat, smoothed her gloves, and turned to face the German girl with a faint smile.
"Oh, Rowan," she said gently. "You know we've met."
Rowan blinked, then nodded quickly. "Right, right. I mean—yes. But have you actually met?" He looked between them. "Like… as people?"
The moment froze.
Bismarck narrowed her eyes. Her voice came clipped, formal. "What is she doing here?"
The tone wasn't angry. Not overtly. But the disapproval in her question could have dented steel.
Catherine, ever the picture of poise, folded her gloves neatly in one hand and tilted her chin toward Bismarck with calm detachment. "Well," she said, tone as smooth as ever, "Master Takeda and I were in the middle of intercourse when you barged in."
Rowan choked.
He actually choked. Not on tea. Not on crumbs. On air.
His lungs betrayed him. His brain blue-screened.
"Gkk—!"
Bismarck's eyes went wide.
Visibly. She flustered—cheeks coloring faintly beneath the cold professionalism of her expression as her eyes flicked to Rowan, then to the teacups, then to the way Hood was still standing just a little too close to him.
"Was?!" she repeated. "You were—you were having intercourse—"
POP.
Lightning burst into being midair, a tiny glowing gremlin of uncontainable mirth.
"Bad time to use proper English, Lady Hood!" she howled, clutching her sides in barely-contained digital glee. "Oh my God. You just told her you were screwing on the roof!"
Hood blinked. "I… what?"
Lightning spun in the air, laughing like a banshee in a tiara. "Oh, I love this timeline."
Then vanished with a sparkle and the tiniest "wheeeee!"
Catherine startled slightly, then cleared her throat, brushing an invisible wrinkle from her coat. "Intercourse," she repeated coolly. "As in conversation. Discussion. A meeting of minds."
Bismarck, already marching forward, did not stop.
"Oh, so you decided to have intercourse on the roof?"
Catherine's brow arched like the blade of a saber. "Yes. And I would have appreciated not being interrupted by a Teutonic brute who cannot parse the Queen's English."
The air cracked.
Not with sound—but with presence.
Bismarck stopped just shy of Catherine, their eyes level now. Silver on red. Steel on fire. The salt wind picked up, tugging at their coats, flaring long hair like war pennants in a brewing storm.
Rowan could barely breathe. "Maybe we shouldn't insult each other..."
Two pairs of eyes cut to him and two voices spoke in unison "Quiet, Rowan."
And suddenly Rowan was very aware that this wasn't even about him anymore.
"So..." Bismarck growled. A single syllable. Low. Measured. But it cracked like a gunshot across the deck.
"You cannot sink me," she said, voice like grinding turret gears, "so you resort to niceties on rooftops."
Rowan opened his mouth—"Okay, everyone just—"
But he might as well have been a deck chair for all the attention they gave him.
Lightning reappeared beside him in a shimmer of blue static. She didn't even speak—just grabbed him by the collar and yoinked him backward like an ensign being hauled off the command deck.
"You may wanna take cover, Cap," she whispered in his ear. "This is gonna get spicy!"
Bismarck's silver hair whipped in the breeze like a war banner.
Catherine didn't flinch.
"I failed to sink you once," Hood said evenly, her gloved hands at her sides, "but that was at sea."
She stepped forward, coat tails snapping behind her.
"On dry land… I am better than you."
"Really?" Bismarck sneered, her mouth twisting. "Shall we play out the Battle of the Atlantic here, Schlampe?"
Hood's eyes narrowed, her calm cracking just enough for steel to show through.
"I do not know what that word means," she said, chin tilting high. "But if you have insulted me, you over-engineered harlot, I will not stand for it."
They both stepped back, synchronized in fury.
And then the air ignited.
Bismarck's aura flared scarlet—raw and molten, the color of war-forged steel and sailor's blood. It bled off her like waves of heat rising from gun barrels, pulsing with the fury of a nation scorned.
Hood's aura ignited cold and regal, a perfect Royal Navy blue, sharp as dress uniform lines and dusk light on battleship armor. It moved with her—not wild, not storming—but with the terrifying discipline of empire.
The rooftop trembled.
Rowan's sandwich was absolutely vaporized.
Lightning dragged him behind an HVAC unit and conjured a glowing bucket of popcorn from nothing.
"Oh this," she whispered, eyes wide, "this is gonna be so hot."
Rowan gawped at his AI. "We need to stop this! One of them could get hurt!"
Bismarck's weapon arrived in a scream of red light—not conjured, forged. The hardlight blade shuddered into being with a low hum, its crimson glow pulsing like a heartbeat under pressure. The zweihander was a weapon of battlefield brutality—long, heavy, and viciously curved in that signature flamberge wave, designed to tear and shatter rather than merely cut. Its crossguard swept wide like the wings of a black cross, and the handle was long enough to demand full commitment with every swing.
Hardlight plates snapped into place over her forearms and shoulders—practical armor. Ugly. Efficient. Ruthlessly German.
Bismarck brought the blade to vertical guard, centered just before her—wrath guard, the old knightly term. She looked carved from iron.
And she did not move.
Hood, by contrast, moved like the drawing of a breath.
She stepped back a pace, lifted her chin, and let her own circuit seals bloom with blue fire. From nothing...from discipline, from lineage, from the calm cold of inherited command...came her weapon.
A rapier.
Slender. Royal Navy blue. Every curve and angle drawn with Elizabethan elegance, its basket-hilt forged with filigree that gleamed like starlight. It was not made for war, not in the way of Bismarck's—but for duel. For honor. For precision. For truth.
In her left hand she conjured a small circular buckler, marked at the center with the proud crest of the Royal Navy. And though it was the smaller shield, it radiated defiance like a banner still flying after a ship has been hulled.
She moved to stance—open form, high line, shield forward. The classical duelist's posture. Measured. Untouchable.
Below a rusted rooftop flagpole, Rowan stared like a man witnessing a civil war break out in a cathedral.
And then—
The exchange began.
Bismarck struck first.
A downward cleave, thunder in its descent—but it stopped halfway, feinted low, and twisted into a sudden thrust. Fast. Aggressive. A strike meant to punch through lines and guts alike.
But Hood was already there.
Her buckler met the blade with a sharp snap—not blocking, guiding. She let the edge kiss the shield and then slid it sideways, diverting the momentum off-course with barely an effort.
Then came her answer.
A precise thrust, as if drawn from a fencing textbook. Straight at Bismarck's unarmored side—perfect geometry.
But Bismarck slapped the tip away with a twist of her bracer, red sparks flying. Her zweihander retracted smoothly into her guard.
Neither had landed a blow.
But both were smiling now.
Not with mirth.
With clarity.
They craved this conflict. Somewhere deep in their souls. Nearly a century of having their stories told in blood and seaspray now clashed on this rooftop.
Bismarck came forward, delivering a powerful thrust, attempting to leverage the length of her weapon against Hood's shorter blade but the buckler intercepted again. Hood stepped in flicking the blade forward, forcing Bismarck to lean back to avoid a cut across her face.
Bismarck took one gauntleted hand and snapped it up, grabbing Hood's blade before she could retract it. Then she raised a booted foot and, with the power of a pneumatic piston she planted a kick right against Hood's chest. Hood grunted and flew backwards. Off the edge of the roof.
Rowan screamed "Lightning! Shield!" But he needn't have bothered. Hood had already raised a step of her own. And she landed on it in a perfect stance and rushed forward. She ran across open air on hardlight steps, the color of ancient seas, forming under her feet. And she was grinning like a pirate.
---
Hood could feel herself grinning. Bismarck was as good a duelist on land as she was at sea. And on a normal day, Hood wasn't sure which of them would be the victor. Yet, there was a problem. Bismarck was angry. And Hood could feel it. That little kick? She was just trying to hurt her. She was in a full jealous rage. And that? That was making her sloppy.
Hood stepped across the air, giving mental commands to her AI as simple as breathing. Time to prod the German wench. She landed on the roof sliding across loose pebbles, greatcoat flaring like some adventuress in an old novella. Then... she bowed and blew a kiss at Bismarck. Silver eyes flashed in hatred and Bismarck rushed in.
Every strike was nigh perfect. Crushing overhands retracting into sweeps and sidesteps to avoid Hood's retaliatory thrusts. But Hood could feel the frustration mounting.
Bismarck was taking bigger and bigger risks. Had anyone ever pushed the German girl like this, Hood found herself thinking. Probably not. So, not only was the ice queen jealous because someone had tried to claim her war trophy...she was being pushed to the limits of her endurance.
A dagger flared to life in Bismarck's hand and she threw it with perfect accuracy but Hood simply interposed her shield between her face and the projectile. And then Bismarck made the mistake Hood had been looking for. Bismarck lunged forward, a sweeping blow meant to batter the buckler aside and stun Hood's arm from the impact.
But the poor dear had forgotten to watch her footing. Bismarck stepped on the now empty tea thermos and lost her balance. Her arm flailed out of position, and her right side was open.
"Goodbye, Bismarck." Catherine said and drove her blade forward. She aimed for Bismarck's lung. Not to kill, but to disable. Hood was no murderer. But without warning a rush of blue jacket and a flash of red hair.
.
"Stop it!" Rowan shouted, suddenly between them, green eyes worried. Neither girl had time to react. He was just...there! So fast, Hood thought.
Then he grunted. Hood looked down in horror as she felt something wet run down and soak into her velvet glove. There, just above his right hip. Hood's sword had run him through and his lifesblood was running over the handguard. "That doesn't feel too good..." He murmured and collapsed.
Bismarck let her hardlight vanish, her duel with Hood completely forgotten as she caught Rowan. Hood looked down at them and her own hard light fizzled into nothing. "Herr Rowan..." Bismarck said, her normally steely voice had just the barest hint of a shake "Why?"
Rowan just smiled up at the two of them, tiredly like someone on the edge of sleep. He looked from one to the other. From Bismarck then to Hood. He didn't look angry at all. "I didn't want you to hurt each other." He told them, "I should have stopped it sooner..." And then he closed his eyes.
And Lightning screamed.