Blanc stumbled a little, when she glanced downward and saw nothing but empty air beneath her feet. Even though she could feel the solid surface just alright.
Ryll's HDD Form was floating in front of her, beetle-like wings shimmering under the faint sunlight, and another flying silhouette was approaching them at a breathtaking speed.
"...Venus."
Up until now, Blanc was pretty sure that "monster" was just a metaphor. One that Venus totally deserved, sure, but only a complete idiot would take it literally.
She was finally seeing just how monstrous Venus's HDD Form was.
The sheer size and numbers of those Processor Units almost made her body look like a tiny figurine, taped onto some giant futuristic robot abomination as an afterthought, but the glitter sprinkled all over her body suit, the golden rings of aurora around her body, and the fuchsia crystals on her jagged mechanical wings were still unmistakably Venus.
Ugh. Her eyes already hurt like a bitch, after looking at Venus for five seconds. Maybe that was what her opaque visor-helmet-earphone thing was for—to shield herself from her own friggin' light pollution, now turned up to eleven.
"Before we begin, I have a question for ya'." She snapped her fingers. With those elongated metal joints and the radiant gem embedded into the back of her palm, these might not even be real, flesh-and-blood fingers. "Are you powered by love, or hatred right now?"
Without a word, chains shot out of Ryll's hands, spinning so fast that they became a blur, as she charged towards Venus.
"Well, that speaks for itself."
A golden glint cut through the air. Broken chains, more chains, Ryll was throwing them around like a web, was Venus holding a weapon now—?
Dammit, with all those huge, cumbersome Processor Units, there was no way she should be moving this fast!
"Only dumb lil' kids think that love's always good, and hatred's always evil, and these two can never mingle. But wait! The more you love a hero, the more you hate the villains they fight, isn't that right?"
She couldn't even see Venus now, just a black and fuchsia blur, zooming around the air like a mini whirlwind. After another burst of rainbow light, crystal shards rained down on them, which was quickly intercepted by laser projectiles shooting out of Venus's Processor Units.
That was the last thing Blanc saw before covering her eyes, because the searing brightness and frantic high-speed motions were starting to give her a hell of a headache.
"Faith isn't just 'bout love and hatred, but loving and hating the right things with an equal passion. One fuels the other." Venus still sounded like she was just having a casual chat, in between the clashes of metals. "That's why heroes like me are never short of opponents. As the hatred towards them grows, so do my people's love for me."
"No way," Blanc exclaimed. "You are just...lying to yourself, to them!"
So are you, a less pleasant part of her mind retorted. You know how a CPU powered by Negative Energy looks like, and she isn't one. No evil corruption, no cursed power, no. She is sustained by faith, despite the underhanded methods she used to get them. She is loved.
"You know that too, don't ya'? Your new friends hate you now, 'cuz for all your big words and grand dreams, you can't get anything done, and then you have the guts to turn back and threaten them. So you need a villain," A chuckle, "A common foe can bring even the biggest archenemies together for the time being, after all."
A sharp screech cut through the air. Blanc uncovered her eyes, just as the two CPUs scattered at the same time. Ryll was glancing around frantically, as if searching for something. The next second, a giant ring of energy closed around her, holding her in place, binding her arms to her side. While she was spinning around in the air, struggling furiously, Venus pressed her fingers against her lips and whistled.
An ice arrow slammed into Ryll's wing and punched right through it, followed by another. She screamed. With two holes in her wings, she was rapidly losing balance, tumbling through the air at a dizzying speed.
"You despicable—"
"—Monster? Oh, war's never 'bout chivalry. I just gotta' do what I gotta' do, for the sake of my nation." Venus laughed, just as a third arrow connected with Ryll's back. "And ain't you doin' the same thing? To fight 'monsters' like me, like her, you'd have to become a bigger one than the both of us. Unfortunately, you ain't nothin' but a naïve slowpoke, despite the progress you've made over the years!"
The ring of energy dissipated at the same time the next arrow exploded into ice shards, but Ryll was already plummeting towards the earth below, like a kite with its string cut. Everything around them became a blur of colors, leaving only Venus's sharp, ominous silhouette against the sky, which was rapidly fading into a tiny black dot.
"Now, if you'll excuse me..."
Right after Ryll slammed into the rocky ground, a golden object flew out of Venus's hands, shooting straight towards her. Still stunned by the impact of the landing, she didn't get up in time, and the hand axe punched right through her stomach—heavens, just looking at it was enough to give Blanc second-hand agony—
Another arrow. This one was nothing like the ice arrows fired at Ryll, but a blinding beam of light that cut the sky in half, and engulfed Venus entirely.
Or so Blanc thought.
"Too slow!" Her cheerful voice rang through the air. There was a humming noise, as her Processor Units began to rotate and extend, reassembling themselves into even more formidable, menacing forms.
The next arrow hit an invisible barrier. Seconds later, laser beams rained down on the forest in the distance. In a cloud of dust and smoke, the hidden sniper took off into the air, still holding her giant asymmetric compound bow.
Blanc bit into her lips when she saw the pale grey hair and white jumpsuit, decorated with a sprinkle of light purple. This third Goddess was a young teen, not a kid, but the aura of serenity around her, and her, ahem, flatness...
"Can't even do a sneak attack right without ol' Rubis naggin' over your shoulders, ey?"
Blanc was never so disheartened to have her gut feelings proven right.
She was a CPU of Lowee. Not just any CPUs, but this world's Dameko, in her HDD Form.
And she teamed up with Venus to shoot Ryll in the back.
The second she opened her mouth, however, Blanc almost thought she was hearing Rubis's voice. "This is an honorable duel, between the two of us. As much as I do not appreciate being dragged into your scheme, I could do with one less distraction before the real battle begins."
"Ahahaha! Honorable? You are such a riot, Mauve Heart." Venus clapped her hands together. "If you told that joke in Lastation City, I bet the entire crowd would be hollering!"
Blanc felt herself choking up at that statement. Right. How could she forget what kickstarted this whole mess in the first place.
"Tell her it wasn't you," She mumbled, which quickly turned into a yell, "Tell her that Filina bitch wasn't under Lowee's order! That it was Rubis's idea, for fuck's sake, and she forced you to agree with her, and you never would have gone after innocents for such a shitty reason!"
Her voice was breaking, as she struggled to get the last sentence out. "Tell her...you are better than that, a CPU of Lowee is better than that..."
Instead, Mauve Heart just drew her bow once more, her tone as calm and unfazed as before. "They are the dishonorable ones. Lowee had been lenient enough towards these heretics, who tried to play it both ways, and were all too eager to fan the flames of their poisonous ambition. They deserve no mercy, and neither do you."
The cloud above her began to swirl and churn violently, as a glowing blue arrow materialized on her bowstring, aiming straight towards the sky.
"Super Frost X."
The moment the arrow flew out of her hands, the wind around them became a howling storm of pure destruction. Giant shards of ice rained down from above with each flash of light, as if the sky itself had been shattered into pieces. They were homing in on Venus, whose form was almost entirely obscured in the swirling ice and snow.
"Chilly as ever, I see," she teased, before golden flames flared up around her Processor Units. "Mark of Venus!"
Blanc glanced away from the sky upon hearing a pained gasp. Ryll had gripped the handle of that hand axe again—she was back in human form now, trying to yank it out with a renewed desperation. After several more tries, it finally came loose, just as a bright light erupted from above.
A ring of golden flames was rapidly expanding across the sky, engulfing everything in its path. The ensuing shockwave created a wall of rolling dust on the barren ground below; fiery sparks showered upon Ryll, as she scrambled up and ran for her life, burning holes through her tattered vest.
When the darkness faded away, it revealed an indoor space. Not a medical quarter, just an office room of some sorts, though the bandages on Ryll's arms made it clear that not much time had passed since the previous battle. She reached for the remote control lying on the table multiple times, but her hand was shaking so badly, her last attempt only knocked the object onto the floor.
With a thud, she slammed her face against the table, clutching her hair. Behind her, the CRT television in the corner kept playing.
"On the war-torn plains of the east, the Radiant Rebel of Planeptune scored another victory for her nation. As always, her Golden Axe shall come down on barbaric despots who try to herd their people like cattle, whether with sweet lies or brutal forces!"
The host almost sounded like an overly enthusiastic sports fan, as grainy footages of a cloudy sky appeared on the screen. "Unlike what our detractors might suggest, she had acted solely in self-defense, after she was ambushed on her way to negotiate with Lastation City—"
"Liar," Ryll mumbled, without looking up. "Her robots were already on the move."
"By whom, you ask? By the Goddess of the so-called Coalition, built upon the foolish whims of a long-dead traitor, a greedy war profiteer from the PC Continent. Despite all these grand talks about respecting the freedom of the eastern settlements and not letting a Goddess lord her will over the people, they were all too happy to threaten Lastation City into submission by force, the moment the citizens had seen through their lies!"
The display quality was awful. All Blanc could see was a bunch of black dots moving at high speed, in complete silence. On second thought, maybe that was intentional.
"She was assisted by another would-be subjugator of Lastation City, the frigid tyrant who had taken over her sister's mantle as a champion of the northern barbarians, and ruthless oppressor of the free." The host's tone, previously seething with spite, took an abrupt 180 degree turn, "But her treacherous nature got the better of her, and Mauve Heart turned on her partner-in-crime with a cold viciousness, before unleashing her sneak attack on her arch-nemesis!"
Damn. Despite knowing the...terrible things Rubis and Dameko had done in this world, hearing all these shit-talks about Lowee still made Blanc's blood boil.
"Alas, our beloved Lady Venus is too smart to fall for such a trick. Even the deadly hail, embedded with the fury of the most brutal winters, and the northern barbarians' love for tormenting their foes with foul magic, could not smother the light of Planeptune's passion! Behold!" The ring of flame appeared on screen for a brief second, before being entirely drowned out in a blinding flash of white light.
"After witnessing such a magnificent display of power, it was of no wonder that her two foes would flee like the dirty cowards they are. But one thing is certain," The host took a deep breath, "Lastation City has seen the same light, too, and has officially decided to join the righteous force of PROGRESS! A salute, please, for our brave Lady Venus, and FOR PLANEPTUNE—!"
Before he could finish his exclamation, Ryll lunged up from her chair. With a single whip of her chain, she sent the television crashing into the nearest wall. Its screen blacked out instantly, and the host's voice was dragged into a long, dissonant screech, before fading into static noise.
For the next few moments, she just stood there, panting, at a complete loss of what to do, until the door opened behind her. She put a hand to her mouth when she saw the person's face.
"Mr. Sanyo?" She gazed at the broken television, then at him, then at the television again. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to, I, I'm about to clean it up myself. Unless...you need me for something urgent?"
"No. Just a few words." He cautiously took a step backwards. "Though, from the looks of it, we should leave it to a better time."
Her confusion was quickly replaced by dread, then anger, then resignation, as she let out a small laugh. "Oh. You are leaving too."
The man nodded, without a word.
"May I ask why?" Ryll whispered, before he could turn and walk away. "The others, they want out as soon as possible. Was I that awful as a Goddess? Were their fellow citizens just scared? Or was it because I lost?"
There was something akin to pain in his eyes, as he met her gaze. "Even if you won, I wouldn't have stayed."
"...Because of my outburst back there?"
"No. Because you'd only spoken up, after it was already too late." Sanyo shook his head. "Too little, too late."
"What do you mean."
"I joined Mr. Hawkens because I was sick of the unending wars, yet all the Coalition ever did was getting into wars after wars, after Lastation City made their first demand. For what?" He shook his head. "You and my fellow Oracles couldn't even answer that question. Yet you kept placating Lastation City, kept sacrificing Mr. Hawkens' ideals bit by bit, until there's nothing left but a hollow shell."
Both of them fell silent. Sanyo headed for the door again, but stopped mid-step and reached into his pocket.
"One last thing. I got a letter this morning," he said. "From Elizabeth A. She couldn't come back here now, for obvious reasons." A sigh. "Which is a shame. Had she stayed in the Council, things might not have turned for the worst. I could only imagine the troubles she had gone through to deliver it, but she really wanted you to read the whole thing."
Ryll just stood there, unmoving, like she hadn't heard his words at all, so he put the envelope on the table instead.
"Farewell, and good luck." With that, the door clicked shut behind Sanyo.
After what seemed like an eternity, Ryll finally made her way to the envelope, and tore it open in one swift motion. Blanc quickly closed in, trying to catch a glimpse of the letter inside, but Ryll was practically pressing the paper up to her face. All she could see were a few words, blurred by the increasingly violent shaking of Ryll's hands, before she crumpled the paper into a ball and held it to her chest.
"I haven't...haven't betrayed Mr. Hawkens' vision." Tears were streaming down her face now, but, for some bizarre reason, she was smiling. "She knows it, she knows I only want to do the right thing, if she's coming back, everything will be alright...I won't give up, of course, I won't give up, there are people who still stayed, and I can't fail them again..."
Before Blanc had the time to grasp just how wrong Ryll's reaction was, the darkness came, and swept them into a new corridor. The walls were plain in appearance, gaining a bony white shimmer under the light of the old glass bulbs on the ceiling, but the doors were made of thick black metal and clearly reinforced.
This place looked like an underground bunker, and Ryll was anxiously pacing around the largest door, her gaze fixated on the other end of the corridor. That unsettling mixture of excitement and nerve-wrecking anxiety was radiating off her with each movement, and, to Blanc's displeasure, it was rubbing off on her too.
She almost wished Elizabeth would appear soon, just to break this dreadful silence. Even though that bitch was probably going to swindle Ryll into doing some other horrible stuff to the people of Planeptune or Lowee, in the name of saving her nation—
The light on the ceiling flickered and died. Blanc let out a curse at the sudden darkness, which was drowned out by Ryll's bloodcurdling shriek.
She didn't stop shrieking, even after the light had gone back on. Curled up in the fetal position, her entire body was twitching and shaking violently, like she was being electrocuted. But there wasn't a single person in sight, no matter how frantically Blanc was glancing around.
The hell? Was there an invisible assassin? Had her mind just broken down completely from all the stress—
With a clicking sound, the giant door behind Ryll slid open. The first thing Blanc saw was the sparkling crystal shards, scattered all over the floor.
No, Sharecite shards.
Under their eerie glow, a figure stepped out of the shadows. Blanc caught a glimpse of a spinning sphere, suspended above their right hand, which disappeared within seconds as they stepped towards Ryll, shards crunching under their boots.
"Well, since my father loved his 'real' daughter so much, I may as well do him a favor, and make his afterlife a little less lonely."
The moment that smooth, chilling voice echoed through the empty space, Blanc felt like she had forgotten how to breathe. Even Ryll stopped twitching, her face frozen in a half-scream of pain. Then, she slowly rolled to face the open door and propped herself up on one arm, staring straight into Elizabeth's eyes.
The woman was smiling. The perfect, unmoving smile of a plastic doll.
"Panason's..."
"Don't give me that look. You should've known your days were numbered, the second you refused to be a mindless tool." She spoke the next sentence with a cold, deliberate slowness. "Yes, that's what you are. They made you that way, didn't they?"
"Bullshit! None of these would have happened without you," Blanc's breathing was getting shallower and quicker, even though she was more or less expecting this bitch to pull some horrible shit, "You lying bastard!"
"And now they were tossing you to the side, leaving you to die a slow, lonely death." With a light zapping sound, electric sparks began to dance around her gloved fingers. "Such is the 'will of the people'. I'm putting you out of your misery, and any one of your smarter Oracles would have done the same thing."
Ryll lunged up at her, screaming. A short blue chain was in her hand before Blanc realized it, but she only saw Elizabeth grabbing it with a frightening ease. The next second, the electric sparks burst into blinding arcs of blue lightning, sending Ryll flying into the opposing wall.
She was still struggling to climb up, when the second lightning strike hurled her up against the ceiling and sent her slamming against the floor. After that, there was only weak groans, as Elizabeth approached her and stomped down on her arm, that damned smile still plastered on her face.
She didn't stop at the first sound of bones cracking. Blanc's stomach churned with each gurgled scream that died before they could leave Ryll's throat. This sadistic bitch, she was being methodical, breaking the limbs first, knowing her victim had no way of healing so many fractures in time to strike back at her again—
"Still clinging onto the little bit of Shares you have?" Finally, she stopped, shaking her head. "Man, I pity the sorry fools who actually believed in you, who couldn't accept that the very brutality and shrewdness of their so-called tyrants...were the reasons they won wars."
"...Traitor."
"Oh, don't you start blaming your mess on me." Elizabeth shot her a sideway glance. "What did I do?"
The sheer audacity of these four words almost made Blanc think that Ryll was hallucinating in this memory fragment. She couldn't really be asking that question, believing in her own innocence, that fucker—
"No, really. I'm surprised by just how little I needed to do. Without him, the Oracles he left you are just a bunch of fools, who'd eventually tear the whole nation apart on their own." A trace of disdain crawled into her voice, even though her smile remained. "They want to keep the freedom of their respective cities, yet also create a unified nation that could go toe to toe with Planeptune and Lowee, and these two goals can't coexist."
"Freedom means," One by one, she held up three fingers, like she was lecturing to a toddler, "Disagreement, inefficiency, lack of control. The last things you need in a prolonged war."
"But, because of you, I don't even have to put most of my plans into motion. You decided to throw a tantrum in the Council. You picked a fight without checking for ambushes. You thought the most ambitious and battle-hardened CPU on this continent was a cackling cartoon villain who'd fight you on your terms." Elizabeth wasn't even hiding the spite in her voice now.
"Bullshit! Bullshit bullshit BULLSHIT, that's all that ever come out of your mouth!"
She called it, she fucking called it, from the moment she met Ryll, this bitch hadn't spoken a single line of truth—she was a traitor long before she lured Ryll to this place!
"Really, are you expecting her people to cheer and rejoice, once she's dead, instead of keeping their war machines rolling in the name of their martyred Goddess? Bringing an even more ruthless successor into existence? You truly know nothing about the terrifying resilience of love and faith."
"Fuck you! How dare you call that...love and faith! No one could believe in the likes of her, once they see through those bloody lies!"
But they clearly did. Just like they believed in Rubis and her caste system, in Dameko and her underhanded tactics against Lastation City. In not taking prisoners.
Nothing is too dishonorable, if your opponents are pure scum, hell-bent on destroying everything you care about, right?
The power of love and faith allows you to defeat the likes of ASIC and Kurome. What's stopping it from being used against the...other enemies of your people? Against the heretics and their Goddesses? If your people think they are just as bad?
Blanc shuddered violently, when she realized how much her inner voice sounded like Venus at this moment.
No, these...these bitches, they were getting to her head, trying to get her to fall into...a worse kind of delusion! Love and faith wasn't supposed to...power such terrible things...
"You are no beloved liberator, a hero of the masses. You are just a gullible, weak-minded child that never has the iron will and cunning it takes to survive. Even without following his sham of a vision, you'd have been a lousy Goddess." Eyes closed, Elizabeth shook her head. "And Lady Venus only had you to thank for making this so easy."
"Hell! You are one to talk! You and that glitter bitch—" Blanc gritted her teeth. Of course. The time she spent in Planeptune's Basilicom, the whole 'exiled' sob story, it all made sense now, "—are all horrible bastards! You don't get to tell anyone—"
Elizabeth's eyes snapped open again, glowing bright gold. Seconds later, a sphere of swirling blue and white energy appeared above her outstretched palm, which quickly morphed to a prism, then, a cube. It was emitting a shrill buzzing noise, growing louder and louder.
"No! Don't you dare, don't you motherfuckin' dare!"
Before she knew it, she felt the cold metal of her hammer's handle, clutched tightly in her palm. With a yell, she charged forward, blindly swinging it in Elizabeth's general direction without hitting anything. But she didn't care, couldn't care less—
The plastic smile on the woman's face was gone now, replaced by a genuinely gleeful grin. "Farewell. For Planeptune, and for Progress."
"Progress?! Well, you can go shove your 'Progress' up your ass, you—" Three more swings that went right through her, "Giant scumbag! Worthless excuse of a human being! Backstabbing PIECE OF SHIT!"
The buzzing noise of the cube suddenly became a high-pitched screech.
"I'll kill you, I'll kill you, I'LL KILL YOU—!"
The soundwave seemed to be distorting the very fabric of reality around it, creating a web of cracks on the floor beneath Ryll, whose body was spasming like crazy.
"Even if you are in another dimension, even if you are already dead—"
As the soundwave became a full-on blast, waves of stabbing pain were assaulting Blanc's eardrums too, blending together with her own furious screams.
"—I'm gonna find you, and make you PAY for every single horrible thing you've done in your sorry life! YOU WON'T GET AWAY WITH IT, YOU FUCKING BITCH!"
With all the forces she could muster, she slammed her hammer into the ground, just as everything was drown out in a swirl of rainbow colors.
But this time, when the colors faded away, and she opened her eyes, still panting heavily, she could see again.
A/N: I guess you could say she is a victim of...Ryllpolitik?
I'm sorry. These three chapter broke me, and all that was left was a horrible, tasteless pun that wouldn't go away.