A shattering explosion boomed across the water. A white cloud of roiling steam erupted in the distance. The surrounding ocean rocked and waved, a shockwave driving away the surrounding waves.
It was so powerful that the clouds above the blast were either forced away or instantly evaporated.
Hornet and the other shipgirls were thrown to the ocean surface from the sheer force of the explosion. The few elite Sirens were hurled from the sky.
Picking themselves up, everyone stared at the cloud. It was beginning to sink back down, but this also meant it spread over the ocean surface like fog, creating a giant white wall.
"What...was that...?" The shipgirls asked each other. They all had a sinking feeling that something tragic had just occurred.
As the steam cloud finally began to dissipate, various ships of the Azur Lane, including Hornet, Cleveland, Enterprise, Wales, and Laffey cautiously entered it.
The temperature of the steam was high, hotter than the inside of a sauna. Smoke could also be smelled, along with the striking (and to some, familiar) scent of burned metal and gunpowder.
Various parts of a ship floated in the water. Who they belonged to, however, was indeterminable.
After a while of slow, cautious investigation, a reclined figure appeared in the cloud.
"Oregon...?" Hornet shakily asked.
Indeed it was. The pre-dreadnought was propped up against the melted mass that had been the Siren Empress. His riggings were hopelessly shattered and mangled, with various parts and pieces scattered around.
Wisps of steam and smoke seeped from the countless cracks and holes in Oregon's riggings, as did blood, oil, and other mechanical fluids.
His body was covered in similarly fatal wounds. A single giant hole in his upper body revealed not just human organs, but mechanical parts as well, pipes and the like. The edges suggested that the hole had been formed from the inside.
His clothes, or what was left of them, were drenched in his oily blood. They were smoking and burned, the once-bright golden trim tarnished and decolored.
His hat, the one Hornet had made for him long ago, was more like a tattered fish net now. His cape was over half gone, and the remains burned and shredded.
His golden frying pan, loosely held in Oregon's right hand, was rapidly tarnishing too, returning to its original cast-iron black color, which then in turn began quickly rusting.
His left arm was still covered in the metal of his former shield. It was a wonder how he didn't outright lose his arm.
Stiffly Oregon raised his head, indicating he was still conscious, but it was jerky, like a rusty hinge. His face was covered in various wounds and injuries.
His eyes were dark and hollow, and barely open. An ugly black liquid, nothing like his blood, seeped from them like tears.
His voice was weak and barely audible, little more than a loud, hoarse whisper. It was a wonder he was able to still speak at all.
"Hey...Hornet...guess...guess that's it, huh? My purpose h-has been fulfilled..."
"No...please...no..."
"I'm s-sorry Hornet...but the time loaned to me has f-finally expired. I can...f-finally rest...k-knowing I wasn't useless this time..."
Oregon's voice, while still faint, grew slightly stronger. He spoke slowly and deliberately, with defined pauses between words. After all, it's hard to speak when your chest has a giant hole in it.
"It's...funny,...really....I saw multiple eras rise and end...Monitors...ironclads... dreadnoughts and pre-dreads... destroyers and cruisers...giant battlewagons...aircraft carriers. The power...of the atom..used for death.
"All things must...come to an end eventually...my end was both sooner and later than most....This body was... never meant...to be permanent... anyway..."
Oregon chuckled weakly, then coughed. A dark mixture of blood and oil came up.
"I outlived my sisters by over 100 years...I think...they've been waiting for me...long enough..."
Oregon raised his right hand and gently cupped Hornet's cheek with it. She supported it with her own hands as tears fell.
"But I won't be...leaving you, either. I may be gone physically...but I'll still be here...in other ways..."
Putting his hand to his chest he produced his Wisdom Cube, with the two smaller upgrade cubes orbiting it. The main cube was beginning to crack.
"I may have been human for only a short while...but I've learned...what these are...and what they can do.
"Take my cube...before it's lost...and make from it something you'll best remember me by. But don't try to bring me back...I've waited for this end a long time."
Not fully understanding what he meant, Hornet took the cube and its companions and held them close.
"Now...help me stand..." Oregon insisted on standing up, which he was barely able to maintain thanks to his battered flagpole. His wrecked riggings hung limply from his back.
Slowly he began to stagger away, head bowed, limping heavily with each step he took. His riggings straightened up as he progressed.
His next words were raspy and faint. "Welp, I'm heading home. Indiana...Massy...do you want anything?"
With a sound like a quiet but drawn-out sigh, Oregon slowly turned into dust and disappeared.
His flagpole, devoid of its owner's hand, fell to the surface of the ocean.
His riggings, left behind by his body, also collapsed onto the ocean surface, but then began glowing blue, as did all the parts floating around.
They turned into small blue cubes, which slowly coalesced into a large cloud. With a flash of light a heavily damaged pre-dreadnought was revealed. The guns, initially straight and true, then drooped limply from their turrets, and no smoke even wisped from the holed funnels.
As the human manifestation was dead, so was the original ship. Now it was a truly empty shell, devoid of all life and purpose.
"He's...gone..."
Hornet fell onto her knees, crying. Enterprise, on the verge of tears herself, knelt next to her little sister and hugged her tightly. The others present simply stared, trying not to cry themselves.
"He is dead, then. Maybe he will finally be able to rest in peace." A quiet but hoarse voice spoke, somewhat resembling Oregon's.
Erroregon appeared next to Hornet, staring at the pre-dreadnought. "I'd offer what you would call my condolences, but considering that I'm the manifestation of years of his built-up negativity and self-hate, it wouldn't really amount to much."
He paused for a moment. "You must understand that he was not exaggerating with the way he described his past. It was horrible, the way he was treated. Even I couldn't even begin to describe it for you, and that's saying something.
"I think getting to meet all of you saved him. From himself. Being here...it gave him a defined purpose. You accepting him as one of your own provided a long-needed distraction from his own mind. Of course, he could never escape it for very long, but I think that in the long term you helped him more than you know.
"All he wanted was to be recognized. He had done so much in his previous life, but he was just thrown away like garbage. And even though he's finally passed now, it would give him further closure if he was properly remembered here."
Erroregon straightened up. "I wish I could stay here longer, but I have my own mission to fulfill before I am satisfied. And don't worry about what it is. All you need to know is that it involves Sirens...and revenge."
YOU ARE READING
A Bulldog's Legacy (USS Oregon in Azur Lane)
FanfictionAfter having everything from his history and fame to his two sisters stripped from him, USS Oregon was ready to accept his final scrapping. But something or someone determined that his story wouldn't end there. Destroyed in his world by a freak of...
