Ch 10: Wily Spirit and Weakest Goddess
Uni had seen her fair share of destruction during the Console War of her time. But this? This was just devastation on a whole other scale.
The space around the psychotic Nepgear had become a glowing kill-zone as thousands upon thousands of different projectiles flew about her in a frenzy. An endless barrage of purple katanas and black short-swords, rains of green-colored spears, giant spinning hammers tearing through the air, pillars of razor-sharp icicles erupting out of the ground; it was honestly like seeing a scene straight out of the end times. The only reassuring thing was that this apocalyptic destruction was seemingly being contained as the projectiles dissipated into nothingness once they either touched the ground or came within a couple hundred feet of the onlookers' location.
"C... Commander," God Eater said, her fearful voice snapping Uni out of her shock. "W...What... what should we do?"
Uni was still trying to figure out how to respond when she spotted a pair of stray short-swords. A couple of these projectiles had managed to fly a bit further than the rest but most of them had flown far off to their side before disappearing. These two, however, were headed straight towards God Eater and 643 while showing no signs of dissipating anytime soon.
Uni moved without thinking as she placed herself in front of God Eater while Brave followed her lead and did the same for 643. However, that was when Uni realized that she had made a terrible mistake.
It was only when the glowing weapons were just a couple meters away that she managed to sense the terrifying amount of energy that they actually contained. She instinctively knew that neither her share energy nor Brave's reinforced metal plating were going to protect them from being instantly vaporized if they came into contact with these swords. Not only that, if the projectiles ended up detonating upon hitting their bodies, then the resulting explosion would most certainly kill her younger officers as well.
Too late she realized that the proper course of action would have been to tackle God Eater and 643 out of harm's way instead of trying to body-block the shot. Instead, she had acted in a blind panic and now her mistake was about to cost everyone their lives.
Pathetic, a voice called out from Uni's darkest memories. After all that talk, you ended up achieving nothing. A worthless failure like you doesn't deserve the title of CPU.
Uni grit her teeth as tears of frustration and anger filled her eyes. Her promises, her ambitions... her revenge; they were all about to end here. Just as she had lost her friends during the Console War, she could do nothing but watch as-
"Oh for fuck's sake!"
Uni was unsure what surprised her more: the sudden shout or the fact that a dome of glowing blue energy suddenly appeared around her group. There was not much time to think about this though as the two swords slammed into the shield an instant later. A massive flash lit up the area as the projectiles seemed to explode with the force of a mini-nuke. And yet, almost impossibly, the barrier held strong. In fact, all Uni experienced from the explosion was an extremely muffled boom as even the light and sound seemed to be filtered out.
"Damn," a childish voice grumbled. "No wonder Ram's trying to just dodge these things. They're clearly not meant to be blocked."
Uni turned her head and was surprised to find the fake Rom. No, that wasn't right. Based on everything that had been going on so far, it was probably more likely that this was simply a Rom from a different dimension. Or something like that. Either way, Uni's surprise didn't come from the fact that the Lowee CPU Candidate was the one behind the barrier (the blue glow had been a rather obvious giveaway). No, it was from the fact that this spell far surpassed any of the other defensive techniques that she had shown during their fight.
Just how much was she actually holding back if she could nullify an attack of this magnitude?!
Uni's troubled thoughts were cut short as Rom dispelled her barrier and approached her.
"Are you alright?" she asked.
The logical part of Uni knew that the younger girl was most likely asking this out of genuine concern but her damaged pride could not help but interpret this as a mocking jab at her.
"Don't think this changes anything between us," Uni snapped, turning away from her with a huff.
A sharp wave of killing intent radiated off of Rom causing Brave to instinctively raise his sword. However, this soon vanished as the young girl took a deep breath. After slowly letting it out, she addressed Uni once more.
"Look, your royal bitchiness. It's obvious we both don't like each other but right now we have bigger things to deal with. Namely, that fucking nutjob who looks like Nepgear."
Uni could not help but look back at Rom with an open mouth. Hearing such a small kid swear like that was rather shocking even to her. Though considering who the kid's older sister was, perhaps it was not too surprising that this alternate version of Rom had ended up with the speaking habits of a sailor.
"Tch. It's not like we can do much about her," Uni eventually said, her look of disdain back on her face. "And your twin wanted to deal with this by herself, remember?" She paused as she looked over at the carnage taking place in the distance. "Not that it really matters at this point. There's no way that brat survived through all that. She's probably dead already and that psycho is just turning her body into dust."
Instead of getting angry like expected, Rom instead just gave a scoff of her own.
"Trust me, that idiot's still alive," she stated. "Grab a pair of binoculars and see for yourself."
Uni glanced at the young girl skeptically before turning back to the action. Rather than doing as Rom suggested, she instead mentally activated the high-tech contact lenses she was wearing. As it zoomed in on the distant devastation, she saw something that made her wonder if she were simply having some sort of bizarre hallucination.
Ram, or the weird alternate version of her, was somehow still alive just as her twin had claimed. At the moment, she was mirroring the psychotic Nepgear as she somehow flew through the air without transforming or using any sort of advanced flight processors like Uni's. With what looked like a drunken smile on her face, the pink twin impossibly dodged past the veritable wall of projectiles and lasers that Nepgear shot after her.
"Wait, what?!" Uni exclaimed, spotting one of the glowing katanas harmlessly pass through Ram's head without any sort of reaction.
"Yeah, that shocked me when I first saw it as well," Rom said. Apparently noticing the utterly baffled look Uni was giving her, she elaborated herself. "I don't know how she's doing it but I believe she's reduced her hitbox into a tiny dot at the center of her chest. That's how she's been able to survive this massive shitstorm."
Uni found herself at a loss for words as she continued to watch the insanity taking place in the distance. Just like Rom had said, it seemed the pink twin was only focused on keeping her chest area safe as she dodged through the deadly maelstrom.
"How?" Uni once again asked aloud. "Even with a smaller hitbox, there's no way anyone could react fast enough against that many random projectiles!"
Rom shook her head. "It's not random. Ram's clearly figured this out before me but there's a definite pattern to Nepgear's attack. Those spears for instance are being aimed at Ram's position while those icicles are coming out at timed intervals. The hammers and katanas also seem to fly in a set path. Only the short-swords are random but they always seem to provide an extremely tiny gap for Ram to get through."
"How did you-?"
"It's just simple observation. I bet even you could have figured it out after a while."
Uni scowled but said nothing. Instead, she focused on the psychotic Nepgear who appeared to be saying something to her opponent. Uni quickly activated the advanced audio enhancer in her earpiece to eavesdrop on the conversation.
"...managed to survive this long," Nepgear said, not letting up in her attack. "Still, we're not going to get anywhere if you don't attack you know."
"You're *hic* shooting too mush shtuff," Ram slurred, pointing a wavering finger at Nepgear as she continued to weave through the projectiles. "Plush there's *hic* four of ya."
It was clear to Uni that whatever had been in the gourd earlier was very much alcoholic as the pink twin seemed drunk out of her mind (which only made her survival up until now even more remarkable).
Nepgear, however, gave a giggle to this. "Oh drop the act already. Unlike your usual enemies, I'm not going to underestimate you simply because I think you're intoxicated. And besides, I can guarantee that you'd already be dead if you were actually drunk right now." She casually flicked her wrist and launched several more spears to highlight this.
Ram expertly streamed past the projectiles as her drunken demeanor promptly vanished.
"Sheesh, what a killjoy," she muttered, her slur having vanished as well. "Couldn't you have at least let me get in a single hit before calling me out like that?"
"Heh. I've seen firsthand what you're capable of at close range. And I don't want you ending my fun too quickly."
Ram gave a sigh as she narrowly dodged a dense cluster of hammers and short-swords.
"Fine. Guess we'll have to do this the long way then."
An item suddenly appeared in her bandaged hand as Ram most likely pulled it out from her inventory faster than anyone could see. Uni barely had time to identify the item as some sort of octagonal wooden charm before Ram aimed it at Nepgear.
"Alright, let's see how you like this!" Ram declared. "Love Sign 'Master Spark'!"
A rainbow-colored laser far greater than anything Uni had seen before blasted out of the deceptively small charm as it scattered the surrounding weapons. Even Nepgear seemed surprised as her eyes widened in shock before her entire form was instantly engulfed by the prismatic beam. Unfortunately, the distant onlookers were also affected by this overpowered attack as they were blasted off their feet by the resulting shockwave.
As she struggled to right herself, Uni noticed the laser continuing to travel beyond the wasteland before there was a distant flash and an entire mountain suddenly ceased to exist.
"What the fuck Ram?!"
Uni looked behind her at the crude exclamation. Rom - who had been sent flying a bit further than her due to her smaller size – was currently staring at the vanished mountain in disbelief.
"Ram, you Blanc-damned idiot! Do you have any idea how many rare fossils were going to be found there in the future?!"
A mass of questions rose in Uni's head at this but was quickly forgotten about when a distant voice was picked up by her audio enhancer.
"Bravo. Even I felt that one."
Uni barely even felt any surprise at this point. The dust that had been kicked up by the laser was magically dispersed to reveal Nepgear's smiling form. Despite the gigantic furrow carved across the ground below her, the crazed Planeptune CPU Candidate appeared completely unharmed. Well, perhaps not entirely. There were a couple new singe marks on her sailor uniform and her hair was smoking in a few places. More importantly though, nearly a fifth of the health bar encircling her had vanished from the blast.
"It seems you stole quite a few things from that world," Nepgear casually remarked.
"Borrowed," Ram corrected. The fact that Nepgear was still standing hardly seemed to bother her as she pocketed her destructive laser charm. "I'm going to return all of them eventually so it's not technically stealing. Plus, I made these clothes myself. Even if I did borrow my friend's design a bit..."
Nepgear laughed before glancing over at her health bar.
"Hmm... impressive but hardly enough to actually make this a close fight." She gave a smirk as her eyes wandered back to Ram. "It might be against your standard dueling rules but I'll allow you to use any items you have at your disposal in place of your basic attacks. I know your ranged game is a bit weak so this should help make up for that."
Ram seemed to think about this for a moment before raising her eyebrow. "You sure?"
"Of course. Feel free to hit me with everything you-"
Nepgear did not get to finish as a large red bird smacked right into her face. As the bird fell to the ground with an angry squawk and disappeared, Nepgear slowly glanced back at Ram with a couple feathers still stuck in her hair.
"Really?" she asked, clearly not impressed.
Ram shrugged with a large slingshot in her hand. "What? We're in the past. It's not like that nation had much else for me to borrow during this time period."
Nepgear rolled her eyes as she vanished the remaining feathers off of her.
"You can at least try to take this a bit more seriously. Perhaps I should-"
A triangular yellow bird crashed into her face this time.
Uni lost sight of what happened next as Nepgear's projectile hurricane started up again. However, it was clear she was less than pleased about Ram's attack as half a dozen rifles were added into the mix as well. Similar to the ice crystals Rom had used during their own fight, the firearms formed a circle around Nepgear and began firing off blasts of energy as they orbited her.
"That idiot," Rom muttered. "Why would she piss off that nutjob? Now she's just made things harder for herself."
"To be fair, that crazy Planeptune CPU Candidate did say she was going to increase her difficulty as the fight went on," 643 noted.
"She still shouldn't have- Oh shit."
Rom suddenly raised her hand upwards as she channeled an enormous amount of energy. Uni had just enough time to follow the kid's gaze before seeing one of the randomly flying short-swords headed directly towards the Imperius. Luckily, Rom's barrier appeared just in time to save her ship. However, without a protective barrier around themselves this time, Uni and everyone else around her felt the full force of the resulting explosion.
Uni's previous assessment about the swords detonating with the force of a nuke seemed to have been a bit of an overestimation. However, the blast was still nothing to joke about. Even though she had a half-second to brace herself, the shockwave still managed to send her tumbling several hundred yards before she finally managed to regain her senses. Reinforcing her right arm with share energy, she reached down and dug her hand into the ground. A long swath of land ended up being carved up by her before she finally managed to slow her momentum enough to safely flip back onto her feet.
"Brave, God Eater, 643!" she shouted, wasting no time in trying to determine the status of her allies. Unfortunately, the newly created cloud of dust made it hard to see much of anything.
To her immense relief though, Brave's voice immediately sounded out through her earpiece.
"We're unharmed Uni! I'm sending you our location now!"
Uni quickly ran after the icon that popped up on her contact lenses' display. After a few seconds, the large form of Brave became visible through the debris followed shortly after by her two junior officers. She came to a halt next to them as she found to her immense relief that the three of them were only covered in some dirt.
"Thank goodness," Uni let out. After calming herself down a bit, she looked over to Brave. "How were the three of you not blown away?"
"I'm not really sure," God Eater said. "I just saw Mr. Brave trying to shield us before the blast hit. It was hard to tell what was going on after that but I felt as if I was... I dunno, heavier? It was sort of like something was pressing down on me from above. It disappeared once the blast died down though and we found ourselves still standing here."
"You can thank my gravitational spell for that."
All four of them immediately turned to find Rom walking over to them with her usual annoyed look.
"I managed to root myself and the three of you by increasing the gravity around us by several times," she further explained upon reaching them. "Not the most elegant solution, I know, but I didn't have a lot of time to come up with something better."
Uni narrowed her eyes at her. "And why didn't you do the same for me?"
Rom returned the glare in equal force. "Because I don't like you, that's why."
Uni felt her eye twitch in annoyance but was quickly distracted by Rom channeling her magical energy again. Uni immediately tensed but it turned out there was no need as Rom simply activated a powerful wind spell to blow away the remaining debris.
Now that her vision was clear, Uni immediately looked up and saw to her relief that her ship was still intact. Rom, meanwhile, looked over at the deadly duel that was apparently still going on.
"This is some Neptune-level video game logic for sure," Rom muttered, apparently noting the fact that neither fighter seemed to have been affected by the recent explosion. "Still, it's good to see that Ram's continuing to put up a fight."
Uni focused her augmented vision on the action as well and saw that the kid was right. Nepgear was now down to just a little over half health as Ram continued to fly through the glowing blender of death with expert precision. In fact, she appeared to be on the offensive at the moment as she fired off a bunch of frozen arrows from an elegant bow. Apparently the rules of their insane duel allowed Ram's attacks to safely interact with Nepgear's own projectiles as the two simply phased through each other without detonating.
Rom was the one to turn her eyes away from the action first as she shook her head.
"Dammit. Being unable to do anything is pissing me off. Surely there has to be some way to help."
She momentarily glanced up at the Imperius before shaking her head again and turning back to Uni.
"Tell your ship to get out of here," she ordered. "I don't see it being useful in any way and I don't want to waste more energy trying to keep it safe from stray attacks."
Uni grit her teeth but found that she could not outright dismiss the brat's words. Her prized capital ship was essentially nothing more than just a giant target at the moment. Even if the brat had not destroyed most of the ship's turrets during their fight earlier, Uni probably would've been hesitant about using them against Nepgear. Asides from the fact that it would probably do nothing more than annoy the impossibly powerful psychopath, carelessly firing into that storm of deadly projectiles was just asking for trouble. If just a single one of those swords exploding had enough force to blow her away, Uni really did not want to imagine what would happen if she accidentally set off a bunch of them. For that same reason, she was not willing to call down any of her jets, tanks, or even Alloy Gears into the fight.
With a frustrated growl, Uni mentally activated her communication device to contact the ship's bridge. To her confusion and worry, however, the call failed to go through.
"Uni, is something wrong?" Brave asked, quickly noticing her troubled look.
"I can't get through to the Imperius," she said, trying once again to establish contact.
"M...Maybe the communications array was damaged by the explosion?" God Eater nervously provided.
Figuring her friend had a point, Uni attempted to contact Affimojas directly. However, that too failed as she felt her heart race in fear.
Was it possible something had happened on board the ship? Now that she thought about it, there hadn't been any word from them since the psycho Nepgear made her appearance. Was it possible the nutjob had done something to them?
Just as she found herself panicking once more, Brave spoke to her.
"Uni, I've established contact with Steamax. I'm transferring over the call to you now."
Uni could not fully keep her distress from leaking into her voice as she spoke up.
"Steamax?! Report! What's going on up there?!"
The robot ninja wasted no time in getting straight to the point. "We've lost all of our Fusion Cores commander! The back-up generators are still holding but it's barely enough to keep us afloat! The Admiral's been tied up directing the remaining technicians in reallocating any available energy from our auxiliary systems to our main ones!"
Uni felt her panic well up again.
"You said remaining technicians? What happened? Were you attacked?!"
"It's... hard to explain. All of our surveillance cameras suddenly shut down moments after we saw you pinning down that impostor Lowee CPU Candidate. We were still in the process of trying to fix them when all the power cut out as well. The crew in the engine rooms failed to respond to the Admiral's calls so we sent down a squad to investigate. Once they got there though, they found all of the technicians and guards collapsed on the floor while the Fusion Cores appeared to have been cut apart by something."
Uni's eyes widened as she immediately looked back in the direction of the psychotic Nepgear. As she feared, the floating bucket of popcorn containing that creepy sword was nowhere to be seen.
"The technicians and guards, are they okay?!" Uni shouted.
"They're fine," Steamax replied, causing Uni to let out a massive breath of relief. "Whoever or whatever attacked them only knocked them out. They also didn't touch any of the back-up generators for some reason."
Uni actually had a pretty good idea why that was. That damned sword most likely didn't want anyone on the ship interfering with its master's "fun" and had effectively crippled the entire vessel to do so. However, it obviously didn't want the ship crashing into the fight either which was why it had left them the bare minimum amount of power needed to stay afloat. Uni did wonder why it didn't also kill anyone onboard but she was not about to look a gift Horsebird in the mouth.
"Are there any signs the attacker is still on board?" Uni asked, deciding to make sure just in case.
"Negative, Commander. The Admiral had us run a full sweep the moment we found out what happened to the engine rooms and we found nothing."
With a relieved nod to herself, Uni quickly thought up a plan for what to do next.
"Steamax, tell Affimojas to perform an emergency jump to rendezvous point Omega. That should be the nearest place you can safely land and commence repairs."
"What? But we don't have the power to-"
"You have my permission to use the Alloy Gear Ray's power cells. It's a rather hefty cost but eight or nine of them should be enough to allow you to make the jump."
"...understood. But what about you Commander?"
Uni glared over at the distant figure of the psychotic Nepgear with a look of pure hatred.
"I've got some business to take care of here first." Sensing Steamax's continued hesitance, she let out a sigh. "Brave, God Eater, and 643 are here with me as well. We'll be fine. Just get yourselves to safety."
Steamax seemed to be satisfied with that response as he gave an affirmative.
"Roger that. I should also remind you that there's still a small contingent of our soldiers at the nearby town as well. It's mostly just a couple medical teams and their guards. They were looking over the wounded who needed immediate care from their battle with the ASIC extremists and couldn't be brought up on our shuttles."
"Got it. I'll make sure to bring them with me once I finish my job here."
"Good luck commander. For the glory of the Empire!"
With that final salute, Steamax ended his call.
"Is everyone okay then?" God Eater immediately asked.
Uni simply nodded before gazing up at her ship. The group fell silent as they waited for Affimojas and the emergency crew to do their work. Rather impressively, they seemed to get the job done in record time as a ground-shaking hum of power was heard from the Imperius just a few minutes later. A massive boom that eclipsed even the sound of Nepgear and Ram's battle resounded across the area soon after as the capital ship warped away from the sky.
Blinking her eyes from the sudden influx of uncovered sunlight, Uni turned towards Rom. The Lowee CPU Candidate had been busy staring at her twin's duel this entire time as she seemed to be deep in thought. She did seem to notice Uni's presence though when she walked up next to her.
"Everything's taken care of then?" the younger girl asked, refusing to take her eyes off the battle. It was clear to Uni that this version of Rom had a bit of a one-track mind considering she had failed to notice even the Imperius retreating from the sky.
Uni did not answer as she instead stopped next to her and silently gazed at the battle as well. After a moment, she looked back down at Rom with a glare.
"If you have some kind of plan, then spit it out."
Rom blinked in surprise as she finally turned away from the battle to face Uni.
"Are you saying you're going to help me?"
Despite herself, Uni could not help but leak out some of her old tsundere personality.
"D... Don't get the wrong idea you little midget! I don't care one bit what happens to your idiot sister. I just have a score to settle with that psychotic Nepgear. Not to mention, she's probably going to try to kill Brave again if she wins this game so it only makes sense that I try to stop her."
Uni mentally cringed in embarrassment as Rom continued to stare at her with wide eyes. Luckily, the younger girl seemed to get over her surprise rather quickly as she cleared her throat.
"Ahem. Well, I suppose that makes things a whole lot easier."
Uni was all too glad to move on from that uncomfortable situation as she crossed her arms.
"What are you talking about?"
Rom did not directly answer the question as she instead looked back at the battle.
"I've been observing Ram for a while and I've picked up a few key things." She started pacing as she went on with her impromptu lecture. "Firstly, she's obviously limited in the number of times she can clear away Nepgear's projectiles like she did with that giant laser. Otherwise she would have spammed the hell out of it by now. Secondly, I've seen her take out several weapons after clearing away all the projectiles but she never got the chance to use them as Nepgear counterattacked too quickly. If my guess is correct, then its very likely that Ram possesses several high-level items that can deal an enormous amount of damage but are hindered by a lengthy charge time."
"Just get to the point already," Uni said impatiently.
Rom rolled her eyes but complied.
"Fine. What I'm saying is that we can help Ram win this bizarre duel by providing her the opportunity to use one of her ultimate weapons."
Uni quickly caught onto what Rom was implying.
"A distraction," she surmised, getting a nod from the younger girl.
"Exactly. I highly doubt we'll be able to outright kill that psychotic Nepgear but if we hit her with something powerful enough, we might be able to incapacitate her for a few seconds. Hopefully, that'll buy Ram enough time to end this duel in one blow. "
Uni, however, immediately saw several glaring flaws with this plan.
"How do we know that we're not breaking the rules of their duel by interfering directly like this?" she asked, voicing the biggest concern she had. "What if that lunatic decides our attempts at a distraction invalidates their game and decides to just kill everyone as punishment?"
Rom shook her head as she continued pacing. "Ram only suggested that we shouldn't interfere. She didn't say it was against the rules or anything. Also, don't forget what Nepgear said while they were establishing their rules. She said she wouldn't purposefully aim for us as long as we didn't intervene of our own accord. This implies that we're free to join this game ourselves as long as we're prepared to face the... consequences."
Uni gave a wince. Consequences seemed too light a word for the situation. Massacre, slaughter, whole-sale annihilation; those seemed a better way of describing what would happen the moment that crazed Nepgear turned her attention on them. And while Rom's barrier might have successfully blocked a couple stray shots, Uni highly doubted it would hold up against a focused assault.
"Don't worry," Rom said, even though she did not exactly sound all too confident herself. "We can probably count on her wasting a couple extra seconds monologuing even if our distraction doesn't fully incapacitate her. Based on what I've seen, it's clear that she's the type to toy with her opponents. Hopefully, Ram will be able to finish her off before we come under any fire."
Uni really did not like the way this plan was shaping up. All these hopeful assumptions aside, it really chafed her pride to place her fate in someone else's hands. Unfortunately, the only other option for her at this point was to either continue watching from the sidelines or to try and run. Given those choices, it was clear what had to be done.
"Alright, fine," Uni let out. "It's the best we can do at the moment. But how are we going to actually attack Nepgear in the first place? Those projectiles of hers prevents us from getting close and I'm sure our own long-range attacks aren't going to have the same explosion-immunity that your twin's attacks have."
Rom raised an eyebrow at her. "You're a gun enthusiast aren't you? Surely you have a sniper rifle for this sort of occasion."
Uni answered this with a scoff. "And what do you expect me to do with it? I might be a good shot but I'm not a miracle worker. I mean, I'd have to make sure the bullet makes it through all those projectiles, hit Nepgear, and then travel back out into the open without once coming into contact with a single one of those weapons or lasers. It's practically impossible."
Rom stopped pacing as she faced Uni with a tiny smirk.
"That's what we have magic for."
"You know, I think I'm going to call you 'Flan'," Ram said, firing off her Super Scope as she swerved out of the way of a rifle laser and a cluster of katanas.
The newly-nicknamed Flan barely seemed to notice the small bolts of yellow energy pelting her as she gave a giggle. "May I ask why?"
"I figured it was fitting seeing as how you were originally Pudding's younger sister." She narrowly dived past an oncoming barrage of green spears. "Plus, you remind me of one of my acquaintances with the same nickname." She sidestepped another rain of short-swords before flying back up to avoid an erupting icicle. "She's nice but also a bit crazy. Kind of like you."
Another wave of those curving ice lasers that Ram absolutely hated shot towards her. Luckily, there weren't too many other projectiles mixed in with them so she was just barely able to avoid them all.
"Well, I don't mind," Flan causally replied. "In fact, I think it goes quite well with what I think of you as."
Ram spent a few seconds getting clear of the nearby hammers before getting the chance to respond.
"Oh? And what's that?"
Flan answered with a grin. "The pink marshmallow."
"Huh, that's actually rather cute," Ram said, keeping her main focus on dodging the incoming rifle lasers. "It really captures my adorableness. To be honest, I was expecting you to call me something like 'fresh meat' or 'Dogoo food'."
"Oh don't misunderstand. I actually call you that because apparently your alternate version's soul tasted like marshmallows."
"...why am I not surprised."
After emptying the last of her Super Scope's clip at Flan, Ram quickly put away her spent item and took stock of her situation.
All things considered, things were going... not so well. While Flan did only have a third of her health bar remaining, the massive spike in difficulty was making it hard to get much else done. Just staying alive was proving to be a challenge as the addition of the curving ice lasers made it impossible to stay still for even a second. Speaking of which...
Ram narrowly avoided a combination of the aforementioned lasers and flying katanas before continuing her thought.
The point was, she was in a bit of a bind. She was down to her last life (a sad reminder that she was not as mentally spry as she used to be) and rapidly running out of resources. She only had one more bomb usage left and it was clear by now that none of her hard-hitting items would charge fast enough for her to take advantage of the brief reprieve.
Dodging another cluster of hammers, spears, and rifle lasers, Ram reflected on the final key point in her massive mountain of issues.
Once she chipped down Flan's health to its last quarter, she was sure to increase her difficulty yet again. It was unlikely she could stay alive for more than a few seconds the moment this happened. Her only option at that point would be to use her final bomb and pray that she could gun down the last of Flan's HP before she was inevitably overwhelmed.
"What's the matter?" Flan taunted, launching another flurry of short-swords and spears. "Don't tell me you're running out of steam already."
If Ram wasn't busy tracking all of the incoming projectiles, she probably would've rolled her eyes. Still, her opponent did have a point. Her mental and physical exhaustion were starting to pile up and she needed to end this fight quickly before she made another fatal slip-up.
As she mentally went through the dwindling list of rapid-firing items she had left, a faint voice was suddenly heard in her head.
"...can... hear me?"
Ram barely managed not to fly into one of the hammers in surprise. Getting a hold of herself, Ram swiftly flew into a relatively less crowded section of the battleground as she tried to make sense of what she had just heard.
The voice had been channeled directly through her soul-link which meant that there was only one person it could be. Hope fluttered in her chest as she wondered how-
An oncoming barrage of curving ice lasers put an end to her fanciful thoughts. As she danced between the deadly beams, she slowly realized that there was actually one other person that was capable of contacting her in this way during this time period. Well, two but she kinda doubted that past-Blanc was in any state to be contacting her at the moment.
Keeping most of her focus on the threats around her, she strengthened the link she had with her old share crystal. The voice that had been continuing to call out to her became a tiny bit clearer but it was still fairly distorted and broken up, most likely due to the abnormal state of Ram's own soul.
"Ram... can you-"
"Not the best time for a call, kid," Ram sent back.
She immediately felt a surge of indignation across their link.
"Who... calling kid?! I'm... older... you!"
"Get to the point." Ram knew she was being a bit of a jerk to the mini-version of Rom but she really could not afford to be caught up in idle chatter at the moment.
A tiny tinge of irritation lingered through their link but mini-Rom thankfully obliged.
"We... distraction... Get ready."
"Distraction? What-" Her eyes widened as she figured out what mini-Rom was planning. "Wait, stop! You don't need to-"
Unfortunately, mini-Rom shut down their communication link before she could finish.
Ram let out a tired sigh as she continued to dodge the weapons and lasers around her. If she had been a couple decades younger (mentally speaking of course), she probably would've raged about the fact that a bunch of nobodies were trying to butt in on her spotlight. Thankfully, she had long since grown up from being such an egotistical asshole and thus was actually capable of seeing the bigger picture now.
Based on her observations, it was clear that mini-Rom and mini-Uni were major characters in this crazy time-traveling plot that they were all wrapped up in. And while Ram had expected to take on the burdens of being the main protagonist (like usual), her intuition had instead indicated that the title most likely belonged to one of the other two Candidates. The fact that Flan had taken an interest in the pair only served to reinforce this assumption. Given all that, Ram was not exactly surprised that the two would eventually become involved in taking down the current "villain" of the show.
Still, I would've preferred it if they didn't have to risk themselves, Ram mentally sighed. It just doesn't sit well with me having a bunch of inexperienced juniors being forced to pick up my slack.
As a spinning hammer forced her to make a last-second dodge, her bandaged arm crossed her vision causing a stern yet caring voice to echo from her memory.
"Stop thinking you have to solve everything yourself and have some faith in others for a change... you big dummy."
Despite the situation, Ram could not help but give a fond smile at that.
Geez, even when you're not here you're still managing to talk some sense into me.
With her mind made up, Ram flew past a barrage of katanas into another relatively safe patch of the sky.
"Come on now," Flan remarked. "Running isn't going to win you the game you know."
Ram ignored her as she rapidly came up with plan after plan in her head. She had no idea what sort of distraction that mini-Rom and mini-Uni were planning so she had to be prepared for all the different ways that Flan could react. To start, she rapidly began to categorize all of her remaining items based on their power and their charge times. Depending on how things turned out, she would need to be prepared to immediately bring out the appropriate item to take advantage of the situation.
Assuming, of course, that mini-Rom and mini-Uni didn't accidentally kill her by detonating all of Flan's weapons.
Pushing aside that doubt, Ram continued to formulate her plans while also keeping herself alive from the barrage of projectiles.
"Hmm... are you giving up already?" Flan asked, her tone one of mock disappointment. "I have to say, I expected much better from you."
"Don't worry, I've still got plenty of surprises," Ram replied, hoping to stall for some time. "I'm just having a hard time deciding which ones to use."
"Heh. There's no need to lie. I can tell that you're-"
And that was when the distraction hit.
Flan's chest was suddenly blasted apart as something seemed to tear straight through her. Ram barely managed to identify the cause as an enormous armor-piercing bullet before it magically vanished into motes of blue energy the moment it cleared its target.
"H... Huh," Flan uttered, a mixed look of curiosity and surprise on her face. Perhaps it was due to her powers but she was somehow managing to speak despite the gaping hole in her chest as blood leaked from her mouth. "T...That was... unexpected."
All of her weapons suddenly drew back to form a deadly barrier around her. It was clear she was still aware of the threat Ram posed to her at close-range and was trying to prevent her opponent from sneaking up on her while she was healing back up.
Unfortunately for her, Ram had other ways of winning besides her signature fighting style. With a mischievous grin, she flew back to the ground unnoticed as she enacted her chosen plan.
"Did it work?"
Uni scoffed as she looked up from the scope of her massive anti-material rifle. The glowing array of blue space-alteration glyphs continued to rotate around the smoking barrel of the gun as she spoke up.
"I think the lack of any giant explosions speaks for itself," she said haughtily.
Rom crossed her arms and gave her an unimpressed look. "You could've still missed her."
Uni felt her eye twitch as she got up from her prone position.
"She has a giant hole in the middle of her chest! I'm pretty sure that means I hit her!"
"Well, excuse me princess! There's a giant cluster of weapons around her right now so it's kind of hard to-"
The rest of her words were lost as a flash of violet lit up the entire wasteland.
Nepgear playfully poked at her newly reformed chest as the glow of her power subsided (she really didn't need to add in the flash but she figured it'd look impressive to the onlookers).
"Everything seems to be back in order. Though, I'm not sure if I got my chest size correct. Hmm... maybe I should enlarge it by a few cup sizes just to be safe."
After doing just that, the noticeably bustier Nepgear glanced over at the petrified minor goddesses that were just barely visible through her orbiting sphere of weapons.
"I have to say, that was actually rather impressive," she said to herself. "It never ceases to amaze me what these CPUs can do when they decide to work together."
She turned around to fully face the magic loli and gunslinger girl as the glow of the low-hanging sun illuminated her ominously-smiling form.
"Still, that was a rather poor decision." She raised the character voice setting of the world to make herself heard to her stunned audience. "I had hoped you'd have learned your lesson about attacking me directly like that. Sadly, it seems you didn't."
She dramatically snapped her finger as all of the weapons rearranged themselves into a veritable wall of death flanking her sides.
"Oh, but I suppose I should factor in the damage you dealt to me. It's the least I can do to mark your final action in this world."
With a wave of her hand, her health bar dropped down to its last quarter in response. As it did, dozens of giant Nepgeardams were summoned into the fray as well as they joined the countless floating weapons filling the air around her.
"Heh heh. Any last words before I-"
Her words were halted when the glow behind her suddenly intensified. She swiftly turned around before realizing with a fair amount of surprise that the light hadn't been from the sun at all.
The pink marshmallow was standing on the ground several meters away as a maelstrom of various items swirled about her. Chaos Emeralds, Power Stars, Materia spheres, her last Bomb-block; there were countless others but those weren't the main concern. The thing that captured Nepgear's attention was the fact that the energies from all these items were being channeled upwards into the golden two-handed sword the pink marshmallow was holding up. A holy sword beyond all doubts, the blade seemed to shine with the light of hope itself as Nepgear instinctively raised a hand to shield her eyes from its radiance.
"Fate Sign..."
The pink marshmallow's whisper carried across the distance - probably due to the increased character voice volume - as she slowly shifted her stance. She made eye contact with Nepgear as she simply gave a cheeky little smirk. No other taunts were needed as she swung down her super-charged blade and called out its true name.
"Excalibur!"
A blinding ray of unbelievable power surged towards its target. In response, Nepgear directed her hand forward as her own weapons shot down like a storm of deadly arrows.
None of them made a difference. To her shock, all of her weapons and Nepgeardams were immediately broken down to their base particles as they were consumed by the light.
"W... What?!" Nepgear cried out, panic suddenly filling her voice. "This... this isn't how it's supposed to go! I... I'm supposed to win here!"
In a last ditch effort, a cluster of building-sized Nepgeardams moved to form a wall before her. However, they too were instantly vaporized before Nepgear herself was swallowed by the blinding ray of hope.
"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"
Her dying scream pierced the air as her health bar plummeted to zero.
As her body began to disintegrate into nothingness though, she secretly gave a satisfied smile.
Heh. Maybe these kids have what it takes after all...
And with that final thought, the Destroyer of Worlds was no more.