I made a mistake in the previous chapter. It is Gigantar's upper-right portion of his head that is made of machine, not the upper-left. It's been corrected now.

Chapter 7
Grand Entrance


Plunging her sword into the floor, Tenshi caused a magical circle to appear on the floor around her, and then slabs of rock pointing diagonally sideways came out of the former and pushed away the Cybroxes who were in their way.

"There is no earth here! How is it possible that she can use that attack?!" a Cybrox asked in surprise at the sight of the rocks.

"If you cannot explain something using logic, then it's magic!" Tenshi said as she pulled her sword back out of the floor to make the rocks retract into the magic circle, which then disappeared. That Cybrox pointed his arm cannon at Tenshi and fired an energy blast, but she stepped out of the way and allowed a Cybrox behind her to get blasted by it.

Iku wrapped the arm of the Cybrox who tried to shoot Tenshi using her ribbon and then swung him across the air. When the ribbon let go of him, he flew face first into the wall.

CRASH!

"That's the last of them," Iku said as she pulled back her ribbon while looking at the Cybrox falling onto the floor.

"You kept your promise!" Tenshi said with a smile while looking at Iku. "You didn't take the fun from me this time!"

"More like you took out several of them before I had the chance to do so…" Iku told her.

Tenshi then looked at the ceiling and said, "Reimu and the others should be very high up there by now. They may need our help, so let's go!"

Iku noticed a map on the wall, so she studied it. "There are several passages that can lead us to the top," she said. "The way there seems to be quite a bit of a maze, though…"

"Who cares? We'll never get anywhere if we don't move now, so let's go!" the celestial impatiently said, and then she ran into a random passage.

Iku turned and called out loudly to her, "Wait! That one doesn't lead to the top!"


"Ugh… Completely forgot about the language barrier…" Nitori groaned while looking at the labels on the control panel of the engine room. "How am I going to make the engine overload on power and blow up this way…? I can try messing with the switches and levers until that happen, but it would be nice if I know what to touch…"

Still with her turtle shell-like cloaking device attached to her shirt like a badge, Nitori turned and approached the towering engine. "Perhaps I'll have to make it blow up using another method." She walked around the engine and carefully inspected it until she found a panel. After making sure that there was no one entering the room, she opened the panel and found several circuits inside, and then a smile appeared on her face. "Yep! I believe I can do it now!"


Reimu, Flandre, and Rikako ran up to the throne located close to the back of the room, and they noticed a control panel with a screen attached to the top of it situated next to it.

"That computer may be what we're looking for," Rikako said while looking at the computer.

"What makes you sure about that?" Reimu asked her.

"Well, a computer that controls the lives of the subordinates should be something that only a leader has access to," Rikako explained. "We are in his room, and there happens to be one next to his throne, so chances are…"

"Likely that you will never get anything out of it!" interrupted a monstrous voice. The three girls turned to the door and saw Gigantar and some Cybroxes standing there.

"Curses!" Reimu angrily said.

"You may have sneaked in here without us knowing, but once you're in here, you cannot hide anything from me!" Gigantar told the girls. "This room is designed to be linked to my brain, so whatever is happening here, I know!"

"Well, that's very convenient, isn't it…?" Rikako commented.

Flandre pointed at Gigantar and asked Reimu, "Can I break him? He's threatening us, so we should do something!"

Reimu looked at the young vampire and then nodded. "Sure, why not?"

"Yay!" Flandre happily squealed. Gripping her Laevatein tightly, the vampire took off in the leader's direction at a fast speed, and the Cybroxes told him to watch out. Gigantar simply raised his left hand in front of himself, and when Flandre came close to him, she crashed into a green barrier that appeared out of nowhere and fell back onto the floor.

"Ow! What did I hit?!" Flandre cried while rubbing her nose. Gigantar then picked her up and flung her to the side before firing a green eye beam at her. The vampire quickly swung her Laevatein at the projectile to get rid of it.

Gigantar noticed Reimu throwing several paper amulets at him, so he fired an eye beam at one of the amulets, which resulted in a green explosion that destroyed the rest.

"Get them!" Gigantar shouted at the Cybroxes.

Obeying their leader's command, the Cybroxes changed their hands into swords and then charged at Reimu. One of them thrust his sword at the shrine maiden, who stepped to the side and then kicked his arm from below before elbowing him in the abdomen hard. She dodged the sword thrust of another Cybrox and then smacked him away by the head using her gohei hard.

As the rest of the Cybroxes closed in on Reimu to attack her, the shrine maiden shouted at Rikako while taking on her enemies, "Rikako! You go on ahead and do what you have to do! Flandre and I will hold them off!"

"I'm on it!" Rikako said before running towards the computer next to the throne.

"You're not getting anywhere near there!" Gigantar angrily shouted. He suddenly sensed Flandre flying at him from the side at a fast speed, so he quickly raised his arm to create a barrier that protected him from the vampire's Laevatein strike.

"My friend has something important to do, so you shouldn't mess with her!" Flandre said to him.

"Get lost, brat!" Gigantar angrily said to her. He thrust the same arm in Flandre's direction to cause the barrier to "burst" and blow back the vampire. Flandre came to a skidding stop and then flew at him again to strike with her weapon, only to get blocked again by the same barrier. "You're annoying! Get lost already!" Gigantar fired an eye beam at her, but she quickly flipped over him and tried to hit him from behind, but the cyborg spun around in time to protect himself with the barrier.

"You can't hide behind your barrier forever! I'll break it!" said Flandre, starting to get annoyed by it.

Meanwhile, Rikako climbed onto the throne and then onto its arm to get a good look at the computer. She pressed a random button to make the screen display something, and then her mouth "dropped down". "How… How am I going to understand what is written on there…?" she asked, flabbergasted by all the unfamiliar symbols on the screen.

PING!

"Huh?" Rikako looked around for the source of that sound. Although it was a simple sound she heard, a message that asked her if she would like to be assisted appeared in her head.

PING!

It was that sound again, and this time, Rikako received a message telling her to look at the throne's arm. She did so and saw the iPhone-sized device lying there. Once again, she heard that sound, and then she asked the device, "You… You're talking to me…?"

After punching Flandre away by the head, Gigantar turned to the throne and looked at Rikako. "The Mother Box… It's communication with her!" he said in surprise. When Flandre came back and jumped at him, he caught her by the body and then flung her away. "Mother Box! You must not listen to her! I am your master! Do not listen to whatever she tells you!"

The device Gigantar called the Mother Box made the "PING" sound again, and Rikako asked it, "You can help me translate the language on the computer? Really?"

Gigantar growled in anger. "How dare you betray me?!" he said. "Is your programming so faulty that you cannot tell who your master is?!"

The circles and lines on the Mother Box flickered with blue light, and then Rikako saw the words on the computer screen changing into Japanese one by one. "In… Incredible…!" she said in disbelief.

Gigantar growled in anger as he began moving towards the throne. Flandre jumped at him from behind with her Laevatein raised into the air, ready to bring it down on top of him. She was suddenly caught from behind by Gigantar's tail, whose tip had become a claw. The tail swung Flandre to the side before changing into a turret that fired a thin green beam that burned through her abdomen.

As Gigantar was approaching Rikako, who had begun typing away on the control panel, Reimu appeared in front of the former with paper amulets in her hand. "Your opponent is me!"

"Step aside!" Gigantar shouted as he changed his hand into a large blade to swing at her, but she performed a back flip to avoid it before throwing the amulets at his face. They blew up and made him take some steps back, but he stepped forward again while growling in anger. "I'LL KILL YOU ALL!"


A "wave" of rocks traveled down the hallway, knocking away Cybroxes that were in the way and crushing some against the ceiling. With the path cleared, Tenshi and Iku ran down the hallway, and when they saw the option to take either the left or the right, Iku told the former to take the left. The former did so, and the moment she did so, she bumped into something invisible and fell back.

"Ow! Who's there?!" Tenshi said as she readied the Sword of Hisou to attack whoever it was that bumped into her.

Nitori suddenly appeared out of thin air and said to her, "It's me!"

"Oh, it's you," Tenshi said, lowering her weapon. "Are you alone? Where are the others?"

"We came across the engine room and came up with a plan to blow up this entire spaceship," Nitori told her. "However, the explosion may end up destroying Gensokyo, so we plan to move this ship back through the portal and to their world first before doing that."

"Ooh, so you're going to make things go out with a bang in their home turf? Sounds neat!" the celestial commented.

"Because of this, I stayed behind in the engine room to wait for the signal to overload the engine," Nitori continued. "However, due to language barrier, I cannot understand anything on the control panel and thus don't really know what to do, so I planted some explosives inside the engine instead. Since I can detonate those explosives using a remote control from anywhere, I've decided to go to the cockpit to pilot this spaceship back through the portal."

"Let's hope this plan works," Iku said.

Nitori looked at Iku and said to Tenshi, "You managed to rescue Iku! Where are Marisa and the other prisoners?"

"She's taking them out of here," Tenshi replied. "I've decided to stay behind to help you guys. Iku wants to stick around, because that's what she does best." Hearing the last part made an annoyed expression appear on Iku's face."

"Well, then let's head to the cockpit," Nitori said. "Maybe I should contact the others first."

"Hey! Over there!" a Cybrox standing at the far end of the hallway on the right shouted while pointing at the three girls.

"We're spotted!" Iku said with a surprised look, and then she turned to Nitori and Tenshi. "Quick! The way to the top is that way!"

"What?! You mean I was running down the wrong direction the whole time?!" Nitori asked in surprise.

The three girls quickly ran down the left hallway, while the Cybrox who saw them called for help in stopping them. Several Cybroxes showed up at the end of the left hallway, heading for the girls. When they looked back, they saw Cybroxes approaching as well.

"Don't worry, folks! Leave this to me!" Tenshi said before stretching out her hand to make a keystone appear, levitating in midair. She pushed the keystone and ran forward a bit before jumping onto it with the Sword of Hisou pulled to the side. "Spinning World!" The celestial then performed a spinning attack with her beam sword that caused the keystone to spin as well.

When the Cybroxes saw the celestial and the keystone moving in their direction, they quickly ran backwards. Some of them fired at her, but her beam sword managed to deflect them with its spinning motion.

Iku and Nitori went after Tenshi, and the latter asked the former, "Won't she get dizzy spinning like that?!"

"Don't know… Never saw her doing something like that before…" Iku replied.

Tenshi chased the Cyrbroxes down the hallway until they came to the end of the path that had a staircase at the side, so the latter quickly ran up it. When Tenshi hit the wall, she came to a stop. Getting off the keystone, she placed her hand on her hat and shook her head. "Whoa… I feel really dizzy…"

The other two girls caught up with her, and Iku said to her, "You shouldn't have done that… See what you've done to yourself…"

"At least it did something productive," Tenshi told her. "All right, let's continue going upwards!"

They ran up the staircase, but ran back down and hid behind the wall next to it when energy shots were fired at them by the previous group of Cybroxes. Nitori looked at the other side of the hallway and saw Cybroxes running towards them, so she quickly pulled out some cylinders that were attached to the belt strapped around her waist and flung them in their direction. At the same time, Iku fired a trail of electricity that flew up the staircase. "Swimming Thunder Shot!" she shouted before it left her hand.

The Cybroxes running down the hallway backed away from the cylinders, fearing that they might be explosives. It wouldn't be wrong to say they were right in assuming that those were explosives, but instead of exploding into flames, those cylinders exploded into drops of water. However, the force of the explosions was still strong enough to send the Cybroxes flying backwards.

Meanwhile, the trail of electricity Iku fired went after the Cybroxes upstairs, going through them and zapping them one by one. Its homing capability and speed proved to be a dangerous attack that was hard for them to avoid, and all of them got badly electrocuted and then fell unconscious.

"Great job, guys!" Tenshi said to the two girls while giving them a thumb up. "All right, let's move on!" So they quickly ran up the staircase to get to the higher floor, and Tenshi kicked a Cybrox who still had a bit of consciousness in the head to knock him out on the way.

The three girls exited the hallway and came into a large room that appeared to be for relaxing, as there were sofas, televisions, and what appeared to be food dispensers. There were only three Cybroxes hanging out there.

"They're here! Get them!" one of the Cybroxes shouted, and then they ran towards the girls.

"Big mistake!" Tenshi said as she ran towards them with her beam sword ready. When she took a swing at them, all three of them jumped over her. One turned around to face her when he landed, while the other two headed for Iku and Nitori.

Iku released a blast of electricity at her attacker, but the latter formed his hand into a lightning rod to absorb it and even laughed at her afterwards. He then gave Iku a taste of her own medicine by firing electricity from the lightning rod at her, only to be surprised by the sight of Iku not feeling anything at all from getting zapped. Iku quickly lashed out her ribbon at his arm, caught it, and pulled him over. She caught him by the neck and then zapped him until he passed out.

A mechanical arm appeared from the side of Nitori's mecha backpack and quickly rearranged itself into a hammer before taking a swing at another Cybrox, but he jumped over it and then pointed his arm cannon at her from above. Suddenly, a rocket shot out from the top of the backpack and blasted him with an explosion of water that propelled him upwards. The Cybrox hit his head against the ceiling, fell back down, and was caught by the mechanical arm. Another mechanical arm appeared from the other side of the backpack to punch him across the room.

POW!

Only one Cybrox was left, and Tenshi was still fighting him, clashing blades with him nonstop. Tenshi eventually hopped back from him and produced a long and pointed rock that shot straight at him while spinning like a drill. The Cybrox cleaved it in two with his sword hand and then dashed at her, and she responded by leaping over him. When she was above the Cybrox, she quickly produced a keystone out of thin air underneath her feet, and it fell on top of his head.

BONK!

The Cybrox was knocked silly by the keystone and spun around, and then Tenshi slashed him diagonally across the chest to make him fall on his back. When he was down, the celestial walked up to him and planted one foot on his chest. "Hey, you better speak up if you want me to spare your life!" she said to him in a threatening manner. "How long until we reach the top?"

"If I remember correctly," Iku told her as she walked towards the center of the room while looking at the ceiling, "the throne room should be right above us."

"Oh, so the leader is right above our heads? I'll teach him to put his feet over my head!" Tenshi said with enthusiasm while looking at the same spot, and then she looked at the Cybrox she was stepping on. "A change of question, then! What's the quickest route to the top?"

"There are stairs leading to the top, shouldn't that be obvious?" the Cybrox replied in an angry voice. Tenshi didn't like his attitude, so she stomped her. "Yeow!"

"Watch your language! Know who you're talking to!" the celestial angrily said to him.

"There's a staircase over there," Nitori said while pointing to one at the far of end of the room. "That should…" Before she could finish speaking, several Cybroxes ran down from it and into the room.

"There they are! They're going to go for our leader! We must stop them!" the one in lead said.

"As if you can stop me from getting to where I want!" Tenshi said as she readied the Sword of Hisou. She then jumped forward and plunged her beam sword into the floor to make a series of rocks "grow" forward at a fast speed, but the Cybroxes quickly jumped out of the way before firing energy blasts at her.

The celestial either dodged them or used her weapon to deflect them, and then she ran towards a group of Cybroxes to attack them, but they quickly jumped back. The moment they landed, they were electrocuted by Iku.

"Don't let them go up this staircase!" a Cybrox shouted to another one, and the latter nodded before pressing the keys on a keypad next to the staircase to make a door close down in front of it.

Seeing this, Tenshi pointed the Sword of Hisou at those two Cybroxes and said, "You better open that door for me to go through at once! I have the right to go wherever I want!"

Suddenly, there was the sound of impact coming from above, so everyone looked up to see what it was. "What's happening up there?" a Cybrox asked.

The sound of the crashing continued, and it seemed like the ceiling would be destroyed soon. Suddenly, a small portion of the ceiling burst open, and a drill came down from it slightly, much to the surprise of everyone. The drill pulled back into the ceiling, and then Tenshi ran underneath the hole and looked through it. She wasn't able to see what exactly was happening up there, but she could occasionally see things passing over it, and there were cries of anger heard too.

Hearing female voices made Tenshi think that Reimu and the others were up there, and this made her want to join in on the action. An idea came to her, and then she plunged her sword into the floor to make a towering rock grow out of a magic circle there and hit the ceiling.

BANG!

"What are you doing?!" Iku, surprised by her action, asked.

"Making a grand entrance!" the celestial replied as she plunged her sword into the floor again to make the rock reappear and hit the ceiling.

"You will not vandalize our ship nor get to our leader!" a Cybrox shouted as he ran towards Tenshi from behind with his hand as a sword. Tenshi quickly spun around to clash blades with him, and while they were trading blows with each other, Nitori fired drill-shaped projectiles from her mecha backpack, and they drilled into and latched onto the area around the hole.

"You want to make a grand entrance, right?" Nitori asked Tenshi as she took out a remote control with several buttons on it. "I'll fulfill that for you, then!"


The rock hitting the ceiling could be felt and heard from the room above. Due to Hive Minded Mode, Gigantar and his subordinates knew what was happening. "They dare do something like this?!" Gigantar angrily said while looking at the hole. Suddenly, an explosion occurred there.

KABOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!

Nobody was close to the hole when the explosion occurred, so there were no casualties. As everyone kept his or her eyes on the column of smoke created, Tenshi suddenly jumped out of it. With the tip of the Sword of Hisou placed against the floor and one hand placed against her waist in the form of a fist, the celestial said, "Now this is what I call a grand entrance!"


TO BE CONTINUED