Chapter 4:

"Nepu!"

Something big and black, and no I'm not giving any innuendos here, dived from above at sonic breaking speeds towards my lilac-haired wife. Instinct took over my body immediately and I dashed forward. As soon as I'm within sliding range, I immediately slide towards her while apologizing to my pants in the process as well. I swept her off her balance with my feet and caught her with the rest of my body. The giant black thing missed Neptune by a hair.

"Goodness!" the thing also tried to tackle my little sister-in-law but she dodged it out of surprise from the thing.

The black giant thing rises up in the air after missing two targets. It reaches its peak altitude and starts descending ominously as though mimicking itself as last main boss in one of Neptune's games. And I think I remember I haven't finished that one yet.

"Are you two okay?"

"Nepu! What is that?"

"It seems like a..."

Pulling myself up and Neptune, Nepgear regroups with us as the black being turned towards us as it descends with strong beats of wind accompanying it. It's a…

"Oh, it's just a… Uh…" my head hurts trying to classify this thing... I mean, it looks like it's the Spider-Man that I hated back when I first came to this place that guarded those Keys. Oh gawd, remembering it makes me remember the pungent smell that I have to sacrifice almost 1 sack full of lemons rid me of it. Plus a shit ton full of body wash.

In any case, we have a typical humanoid top, I say humanoid because it has 2 arms, with 3 fingers, a chest and stomach area, and head and shoulders that tells me it's a humanoid. The bottom of the waist is the abdomen of the Latrodectus hasseltii with its colors swapped. It has wings of a Calliphora nigrithorax. From the back of it's waist, dangling towards the front like a loose belt, are the tentacles of an Amphioctopus marginatus. It has about 8 claws in total that is coming from the back. 2 of those are wrapped to it's shoulder, 4 of those, gold in color, are stretched and pointing to his sides, and the final 2 is just growing to the bottom.

-Also it's face looks like it's straight out of what Neptune is watching almost every morning. Of course I also don't recognize those claws anywhere, it might be unique to this thing.

Now you see why I can't describe this thing, it's a mishmash of 3 species. Or more if I did a thorough study on it.

"Why are you rubbing your temples, Big Brother?"

"Oh nothing Nepgear, I just feel like that I need to go to college again and take up Biology as my specialization again" is this thing even possible? Has science advanced too much for me to keep up?

"Well, it's just your run of a mill monster. No need to sweat the small stuff" I'm sorry woman, I can't. I need to practice what I learned or my brain won't be in tip-top shape.

"Well whatya say Nep Jr.! My protag ruleset has found local person number 1" who in the right frame of mind would consider this loud obnoxious thing that is floating in the air staring ominously at us as local person number 1!? Oh right, my wife.

"No, Big Sis! No matter how you look, I don't think we can converse with it! It's full of murderous intent!" see!? Even my little sister agrees.

" Uhhh… I guess so, huh?" you just realized it now!?

"rrrrrRRRRRRRROOOOOAR!"

"And here I thought we'd finally run into someone else besides us..."

"Hmmmmm..."

"What is it Big Brother?"

"I change my mind. Maybe this thing can actually speak?" it's really a question.

"Eh?"

"Ooooh!"

"I mean, if we consider it like any other animal, sometimes some animals show their dominance so to get us off their territory. And in other religions such as zoolatry, gods live among animals and therefore they are wise..."

"Eh so... ? What do you mean?"

"Riding on that idea, how about speaking its language?" it's a question really.

"Oooh! Good idea, Jared! Try it out!"

"Why do I have to do it?"

"Coz you're the one that suggested it"

"No no no no no! Speaking its language won't make it converse to us at all!"

"How rude… Let me tell you that I'm almost a native speaker on every language known to man"

"No no no no no! Remember the last time you did that?"

"Huh…? When did that happen?" I play dumb.

"You tried conversing to a dragon and then spit fire at you!"

"The dragon was just cranky" yeah, I tried it sometime when I was doing some quests. It was an experiment after some thorough research about monsters during my break time between work. The research failed to make any breakthroughs about communicating with non-homo sapiens. That research is still alive and kicking.

"No it's not! Jeez, Big Brother is just like Big Sis now!"

"Such blasphemy, I would never eat pudding in them middle of the night"

"Yeah, only I would do that!"

"...Ugh. I give up. Just do what you want to do..." I got my approval from my little Sis.

"Alright. Wish me luck" I step forward to it.

"Ask for the nearest pudding store okay?"

"As always"

The being takes a look at me as I go near it. The wind beats harder and harder as I get close. Its eyes locked onto me, gauging at my intention. My eyes meets it's gaze. It's mouth opened and exhales its bad breath at me. Telling me of its egotistic personality that its on top of the food chain than me. Jaysus mate, I have some great mouthwash for that.

"~roooooar" I mimicked it's roar.

"...*Sigh*" it opens it's mouth again and exhales even more bad breath at me. Holy shit that is so bad.

"Neptune! I don't think it's working"

"Try again! It's must be like Noire!"

"Oh right right. Some are dishonest by nature..."

"I really don't think-!"

"..." I said to it as I 'stare' back its gaze.

Translation: Attempt to kill my wife again and I'll tear you apart limb by limb.

"RRRRRRRROOOOOOOOOAR!" well that got his attention.

"I don't think it wants to converse with us anymore!" I shouted at them at the obvious predicament.

"Well, there's nothing we can do if the enemy's rarin' to go! Nepgear, let's transform and stomp it!"

"Right!"

"Take a look!"

"Processor Unit, set!"

Both of them stand confidently at the monster, transforming into their…

"..."

"..."

"..."

...non-transformed selves.

"...Um…"

"...Aa… Huh…?"

"Oh gawd..." I facepalm well we're in a serious bind alright.

"Nothing… happened…?"

"rrrrrRRRRRRRROOOOOAR!"

The monster beats its wings once and a huge gust of wind that is as strong as category 5 hurricane hits us like a truck. I use the wind to carry me to the two, regrouping with them.

"Gah?! Hey, that's dangerous! Oh, I see, you don't know it's against the rules to attack during a transformation sequence!" Neptune complains.

"I don't think a monster will understand even if you tell them that..." nah, I can translate it for you if you want. But I don't think it's in a listening mood.

"I don't know why we can't go HDD, but we have to take care of the enemy in front of us first!"

"Try summoning your weapons, you two" I make a gamble of a request. We're screwed, probably, if we don't have weapons.

Suddenly, a katana that I'm all too familiar with appears in front of me. My arm moves automatically to it and catches it before it falls. I take brief glances to both of my sides and see that both of them have their weapons out.

"Convenient that you can summon your weapons..." I said as I familiarize myself once more with the weapon.

"Thank goodness that we have some sort of self-defense" Nepgear sighed in relief, before turning towards the monster in all seriousness.

"Let's go, Jared! Nep Jr.!"

"Right!" we scatter.

"RRRRRRRRROOOOOOOOOAAAR!"

I guess I'll be having a good work out today.