Ch 9: Réalta Nua
Ram's heroic declaration was met with only stunned silence. After a rather awkward length of time, she finally dropped her pose and rubbed the back of her head with her non-bandaged hand.
"Eheheh. Maybe that was a bit too cheesy even for me," she said, sticking out her tongue with a mildly embarrassed expression.
It was at this point that Rom finally snapped out of her reverie as a fresh wave of pain hit her. Her twin's overly-flamboyant entrance had caused her to momentarily forget about the serious physical injuries she had sustained while fighting Uni. Unfortunately, both her physical and mental shock had worn off by this point causing her to become all too aware of her multiple broken bones.
"Oh," Ram remarked, apparently noticing Rom's pained expression. "Guess I probably should've healed you up first before doing my little hero bit. Er... hang on."
Ram quickly reached into her inventory with her right hand as she said this. After a bit of digging, she pulled out a plate holding a single slice of pie.
"Aha! There we go!"
Crossing the distance separating them in a surprisingly graceful leap, Ram landed next to Rom with a mischievous grin.
"Open wide."
That was all the warning Rom got before her twin happily shoved the pie into her face. Through some bizarre video game logic, the pie seemed to magically phase into her – plate and all – before disappearing. Even more strangely, she immediately felt her pain disappear as her body seemed to somehow heal itself. A few seconds later, she was back on her feet again as she stared down at herself with an utterly baffled look.
"Wha-? Pie? How-?"
"Heheh. Never underestimate the healing power of a Butterscotch pie!" Ram cheerfully replied, giving out a thumbs-up with her now-empty hand.
Rom probably would've questioned this even further if she had been given the chance. Of course, Ram never gave it to her as she instead turned her attention towards her captives.
Throughout all this, the bandages stemming from Ram's left arm had lifted Uni and her followers several feet into the air to keep them completely immobile. Of course, the prisoners had tried their best to break free but it was clear that the bandages were far stronger than they looked. Even Uni and Brave were unable to escape with their superhuman strengths as the deceptively thin strips of cloth held them firmly in place.
After walking over to her prisoners in a relaxed gait, Ram stopped to look up at the gargantuan aerial battleship that still loomed overhead.
"Huh. So you're the one who excavated the ancient crash site in East Lastation. I was a bit confused when I warped over and found that the old Battlecruiser had been dug up. Still, I'm rather impressed you actually managed to reverse-engineer that tech and even built yourself a working battleship with it."
Uni finally stopped struggling for a minute as she gave her captor a piercing glare.
"How do you know about that?"
Ram waved her off with a light-hearted grin.
"Eh that's not what's important right now. What is important though is figuring out how I should deal with all of you." Her smile widened as the bandages holding up her captives tightened slightly causing God Eater and the reformed thug to wince a bit in pain. "So," she said sweetly, "which one of you wants to try and explain to me why you were trying to kill a little girl?"
All three of Uni's followers instinctively looked over at their leader to answer this rather uncomfortable question. Uni, for her part, did not seem in the mood to answer as she simply let out an enraged growl and began to struggle again.
"Aw, don't be like that," Ram said, her tone still as cheerful as ever. "We're all friends here. Now why don't you start from the beginning and tell me-"
The younger twin cut herself off mid-sentence as her form suddenly blurred. Or at least, that's what it looked like to Rom. All she managed to catch was a faint haziness over Ram's features before her sister solidified again looking hardly different.
"Huh," Ram muttered, her smile replaced with a thoughtful frown. "This is... troublesome."
It was at this point that Rom finally noticed that her twin was holding something in her bandaged hand that she had not been moments before. At first glance, the object looked like a violet-colored bolt of lightning. However, a closer inspection with her magical senses revealed to Rom that what she was actually looking at was the raw energy of an unformed spell.
No way, Rom thought, her mouth dropping open in shock as she belatedly realized what exactly Ram had just done. Did she... detect and catch a spell before it could even properly take form?! That... That's impossible! The average spell takes less than a tenth of a millisecond to convert from energy to physical matter once it's cast! There's no way anyone could possibly even perceive something like that in real-time, let alone catch it!
Despite all sensible logic though, it seemed Ram had done just that. No, not only that. Somehow she was also managing to contain this extremely volatile mass of energy in her hand.
Is... Is this really Ram? Rom thought, gazing at her twin with increasing wariness and suspicion.
Ram did not provide much in the way of an answer as she simply looked down at the violet bolt of energy with a critical gaze. Continuing her trend of surprising everyone, she tightened her fist and dissipated the mass of energy into complete nothingness.
"So," Ram called out, looking over at a seemingly empty patch of the sky, "what brings a janitor like you to this neck of the woods?"
An amused giggle echoed out from seemingly nowhere in response. Rom immediately tensed as she recognized it as the hidden enemy that had instigated her fight with Uni. However, she did not get a chance to say anything as an oddly familiar voice spoke up.
"Goodness. I didn't expect to be recognized by anyone here."
There was no dramatic fanfare to announce her appearance. No flashes, no music, no massive surges of power. One second the space that Ram was looking at was empty, the next it was occupied.
As Rom recognized the newcomer who had spontaneously popped into reality, she could not help but feel her headache starting to return.
This day just keeps getting weirder and weirder...
Nepgear had a thoughtful smile as she sat in midair with her legs crossed.
"My, my. Now this is an interesting little development. Hmm... I wonder how I should deal with this?"
She looked over to her side where an enormous bucket of popcorn floated in the air with the Gehaburn submerged hilt-deep inside the buttery snacks. After a few seconds passed, she rolled her eyes and lightly slapped the handle of her sword.
"Diet," Nepgear reminded succinctly.
She lowered her gaze again to look down at the pink killjoy who had interrupted her amusing little death match. At the moment, she was busy releasing her prisoners while saying something to them with a serious look.
"Hmm... Is it just me or have we run into her before?" Nepgear muttered.
There was another pause before she gave a dark chuckle.
"No duh you've eaten an alternate version of her. And telling me she tasted like marshmallows isn't all too helpful. No, I'm asking if we met this one in particular. Something about her patched-up soul really sticks out to me."
...
"Of course I know that I can just use my powers to figure everything out. But where's the fun in that? You and I both know that complete omniscience is a total bore."
Saying that, she returned her focus onto the pink marshmallow again. She furrowed her brows in concentration for a minute before she snapped her fingers in realization.
"Ah! Now I remember! She's that one-armed protagonist who's-"
"Spoiler warning," the pink marshmallow interrupted. She had apparently finished talking with her far-less-interesting companions and was now looking back up at her with a small grin. "It wouldn't be much fun if you gave away such an important detail this early on now would it?"
Nepgear chuckled. "Ah, you're right. It'd be much more amusing in the long run to slowly torture the audience with it."
"Not the way I'd phrase it but true enough." The pink marshmallow kept on her easygoing mask but Nepgear could easily see the gears turning in her little head. "So... I'm guessing you're off-duty at the moment?"
"And what makes you think that?" Nepgear asked, folding her hands in front of her.
The pink marshmallow shrugged. "Just a hunch. The lack of screaming and apocalyptic destruction kinda points towards that conclusion."
"Heh heh. You're a perceptive one, aren't you?" Nepgear leaned forward and rested her head on her clasped hands. "Well, I won't outright confirm or deny anything but I will tell you that I'm currently in the mood for some fun."
"Oh? Then how about a game of Uno?"
Nepgear laughed. "No, no. Nothing like that." She tilted her head a bit as she looked over at the magic loli and gunslinger girl. "These two gave me quite the show with their adorable little battle. I was hoping you could entertain me in a similar way."
The two minor goddesses visibly flinched at this. In contrast, the pink marshmallow simply put on an exaggerated thinking pose for a while before shaking her head.
"Nah, don't feel like it. Besides, I'm just a little kid with some fancy items. It'd be rather boring getting a weakling like me to fight."
"Awww," Nepgear whined, feigning disappointment. "And here I was hoping you'd give me a good show during my break." She gave a theatrical sigh as she lowered her hands. "Oh well. Guess I'll just have to get back to work then."
Things happened rather quickly after that.
The Gehaburn flew. The mundane crowd remained still. The pink marshmallow moved. And Nepgear laughed.
Rom barely managed to catch what was happening even with her magically-enhanced vision.
In the span of less than a second, the Gehaburn levitated itself out of the bucket of popcorn, aimed itself at CFW Brave, and flew. That last part was kind of hard to make out though as all Rom managed to perceive was a flash of violet before the cursed sword seemed to simply disappear.
And that was when things got weird.
In one instance, the sword found its mark as it slammed directly into CFW Brave's chest. The robot knight did not even have a chance to express his surprise as he fell backwards as if in slow-motion. By the time he hit the ground with a resounding crash, he was already dead.
In another instance, however, a vastly different outcome occurred. Teleporting herself in front of CFW Brave, Ram pulled out what appeared to be a plain white block before swinging it against the oncoming sword. Impossibly, the cursed sword was halted as a massive explosion rocked the area from the clash. For a moment that seemed to last an eternity, the unstoppable sword struggled against the immovable block as the world shook in response. Then, with a loud yell, Ram dug in her heels and swung forward. In a move that defied all logic, the white block caused the overwhelming energy of the Gehaburn to rebound back onto itself as the sword shattered into a million pieces with an inhumane shriek.
Two different outcomes. Two separate fates.
From Rom's perspective, it was like watching a pair of movies playing on the same screen. Each scene seemed to struggle against the other as if vying for dominance over reality. Just as Rom felt her consciousness growing faint from the enormous strain of trying to comprehend this paradox, the world suddenly went dark. This only lasted for a millisecond though before Rom found herself back in the wasteland. She blinked in confusion for a moment before she quickly noticed a few key things.
First, the Gehaburn was back in its bucket of popcorn. Second, CFW Brave was still alive. Third, Ram was standing in front of the confused robot with a charred and smoking white block in her hands.
Before Rom could piece together all this information, a loud laugh echoed across the sky.
"Now that's what I wanted to see!" the deranged version of Nepgear said. She continued to laugh like a lunatic for several more seconds before finally looking down at Ram with a wide smirk. "Heh. That was rather impressive for a supposed 'weakling'. Reflecting a predestined strike with a Pong block and forcing out a paradox. Even I wouldn't have thought of a solution as unorthodox as that."
Ram did not immediately reply as she instead dusted off her beaten up item before putting it back into her inventory. After doing so, she looked up at Nepgear with a pointed look.
"I'm fairly certain it's against policy for you to directly harm an innocent person like that," she said sternly.
Nepgear let out an amused snort to this. "He's neither an innocent nor a person. Your robot friend's a fragment of the Deity of Sin. And since that old lump of evil is something I'm authorized to destroy, I'd say that makes him fair game for me as well."
Ram did not get a chance to speak as a voice suddenly shouted out from behind her.
"I'll kill you before you try to hurt him again!"
Everyone on the ground looked over in surprise as Uni pulled out her old-fashioned handgun and opened fire on Nepgear.
Rom perceived an odd blur over the Planeptune CPU Candidate just like she had with Ram earlier before. Nepgear's form solidified an instant later as she tauntingly held up the fired bullet between her index finger and thumb.
"Aww how cute," Nepgear cooed, ignoring the stunned looks coming from most of her audience. "The little CPU Candidate has feelings for a servant of the Deity of Sin. How romantic." She casually twirled the bullet in her fingers as she continued. "But you know, romance isn't exactly my thing. I much prefer tragedies myself."
That was all the warning they got before she suddenly flicked the bullet back at Uni with more force than the gun it had originally fired from. Before Rom could even think to raise a barrier, a sudden flash of white crossed her vision. A dull thump was heard a second later as the bullet buried itself into the ground just a couple feet away from Uni.
"I told you to stay out of this."
Rom looked over to find her twin giving Uni a sharp look as a small length of her bandage wound itself back across her arm. It did not take a genius to figure out what had happened as Uni looked at her savior with a look bordering between shock and indignation.
"Don't tell me what to do," she eventually growled, making it clear which of her emotions had won out.
Rom fully expected her sister to get angry at this ungrateful response. Instead, Ram continued to subvert her expectations as she simply put on a grim smile and shrugged.
"Suit yourself. But don't come crying to me when you piss her off and all your friends are screaming in agony as their entrails are being pulled out through their ears."
"Ooh! That sounds like a great idea!" Nepgear chimed in from the background.
Uni paled considerably at this as her eyes darted worriedly towards her followers. Apparently satisfied with this response, Ram gave a small nod.
"Good. Looks like you're finally starting to understand the situation a bit." With her dark smile still on her face, she shifted her gaze back towards the floating Planeptune CPU Candidate. "I hate to rain on your parade but you're not going to be disemboweling anyone here."
"And who's going to stop me?" Nepgear asked, grinning widely.
Ram rolled her eyes as she stepped forward. "Me, of course. I'm going to defeat you with the powers of love, friendship, and blah, blah, blah. Look we both know the routine. So why don't I just skip ahead to the good part?"
Nepgear leaned forward with an intrigued look.
"I'm listening."
"You obviously want a fight so I'll give you one. We'll use standard dueling rules from my timeline." She paused to give Nepgear a sharp look. "That means you can't drag anyone else into our fight."
"Booo," Nepgear whined. Seeing the uncompromising look on Ram's face though she gave a loud sigh. "Fine, fine. As long as they don't intervene of their own accord, I won't purposefully aim for them."
Ram gave a nod before continuing. "As for the terms, if I win you'll leave the entire Deity of Sin matter to me. Also, I want your word that if what you're actually here for does occur, you'll minimize the amount of collateral damage you cause."
Nepgear gave a chuckle. "I can agree to your first condition easily enough. But the second... well, you know as well as I do that I can't make any guarantees. Still," she added, seeing the deadpan look Ram was giving her, "I suppose I can try not to have too much fun while on the job."
It was Ram's turn to sigh as she gave a shrug. "Guess that's the best I can get."
"Heh heh. You're welcome. Now then, I guess I should think up some conditions of my own."
Nepgear drummed her fingers on her chin for a bit before perking up enthusiastically.
"I got it! If I win our little duel, you'll have to..." There was a pause as she grinned wickedly. "Invite me to a really nice hot springs resort!"
Everyone blinked in surprise at Nepgear's declaration.
"Huh?" Ram said aloud, echoing everyone's thoughts.
"You heard me," Nepgear said. "My physical body's been hanging out like wet laundry for a couple years so it's understandably a little stiff. I figured a nice dip in a hot spring would fix that."
Ram recovered the quickest out of the stunned group as she put on a smile of her own.
"Fair enough. I-"
"Oh, just one second," Nepgear interrupted.
The Planeptune CPU Candidate suddenly looked over at the popcorn-submerged Gehaburn before seeming to engage in a whispered conversation with it. Any lingering doubts in Rom's mind about this Nepgear being completely insane flew out the window as she witnessed this bizarre act.
"I get that you're angry at her but I'm not making any exceptions!" Nepgear suddenly shouted. "Besides, don't you know that stuffing yourself with sweets when you're upset is the fastest way to get fat?"
After continuing to bicker like this for a couple more minutes, Nepgear finally threw up her hands in exasperation.
"Alright, fine! As long as you don't eat her, I'll allow it!"
Her annoyed expression immediately morphed into a pleasant smile as she looked back down at Ram.
"Sorry about that. Unfortunately, I'm going to have to add in an extra condition of my own. Seeing as how you've made two yourself, I hope this won't be a problem?"
"What is it?" Ram asked, eyeing both Nepgear and the Gehaburn suspiciously.
"Oh nothing much. Just that if I win, my chubby little friend here gets to play with you for a whole day."
Even as a bystander, Rom could not help but give a fearful shudder. Even her sadistic side was reluctant to find out how a cursed sword would 'play' with its victim. And if the Gehaburn was not sentient and Nepgear was just projecting herself onto the weapon like the lunatic that she was... well, that only made things even more worrisome.
Ram, however, hardly seemed daunted by this as she shot the cursed sword a taunting smirk.
"Looks like someone's still sore about our clash earlier."
It was hard to tell if it was just a trick of the light or not but the Gehaburn seemed to momentarily flare up with a dark light.
"Heh. I take it you agree to my proposition then?" Nepgear asked.
Ram answered with a light-hearted shrug. "Sure. Not like I can just refuse it at this point."
Nepgear gave another chuckle before putting on a thoughtful look.
"Well, seeing as how you're only half the person you normally are, I'll limit myself a bit as well." A violet-colored health bar extended out around her until it eventually encircled her entire body in a full circle. "One spell card with increasing difficulty sounds fair, no?"
Ram gave an amused snort as two chibi icons of her appeared next to her side. "How generous. I don't suppose you'd lower your difficulty to easy mode as well?"
Nepgear burst into laughter. "Kya ha ha ha ha ha ha! How lame! Only kids play on easy mode!"
"But I am a kid," Ram countered, pointing at herself with a smug grin.
"Heh. Nice try but no dice," Nepgear waved off. "There's only one mode fitting for a pair of lunatics such as ourselves."
Rom let out an involuntary gasp as she suddenly sensed an absurd level of magical power radiating off of Nepgear. The power easily eclipsed anything Rom had witnessed in her entire life as the ground itself shook from its mere presence. Even more terrifying though was just how calm Nepgear appeared despite channeling more energy than what was probably available in all of Gamindustri combined.
"Alright," Nepgear announced, grinning wickedly, "let's-"
"Wait. Hold up."
Nepgear seemed to visibly deflate in disappointment as Ram suddenly turned away from her. Seemingly unaffected by the monstrous power her opponent was exhibiting, the pink twin casually faced the remaining onlookers with a cheerful grin.
"You're free to stay and watch but make sure to stay where I send you if you do. Oh and don't even think about interfering unless you want to know what it feels like to be completely vaporized. And trust me, it's not a pleasant experience."
Neither Rom nor the rest of the group had a chance to say anything before a flash of pink covered their vision. Once it cleared, they found themselves standing about a mile away from their starting position.
Rom recovered the fastest from this sudden teleportation as she magically enhanced her senses and focused on the distant specks that were Ram and Nepgear.
"Can we get started now?" Nepgear asked, still seeming a bit put out at the interruption.
"One sec."
Ram pulled out a small gourd before taking a long drink from it.
"Are you-?"
Ram halted Nepgear with a raised hand while continuing to chug her mystery drink. After a comically long time, she finally seemed to have her fill of the clearly self-refilling gourd as she lowered it with a satisfied sound.
"Aah, that hit the spot!" she said, her words starting to slur slightly. Putting away the gourd back into her inventory, she took on a rather shaky-looking fighting stance. "Alrighty! Now I'm ready! Heh heh. Let's get this show on the road!"
Nepgear rolled her eyes as she sat up a bit straighter.
"About time. I just hope you were worth the wait."
As her crazed smile returned, Nepgear raised her hand and unleashed her terror upon the world.
"Death Sign 'Conquest Massacre'!"