Ch 6: The Whereabouts of Madness
Okay, this is new.
Rom was currently hovering in the air in her HDD form as she inspected the enormous wall of energy that barred her path. Appearing almost completely transparent asides from a pale blue shimmer, the enormous barrier extended above the clouds and stretched on from one end of the horizon to the other.
Why is there a random energy shield in the middle of-
Something suddenly clicked in her head as she checked the mental map of Gamindustri that her tracking spell provided. A quick look confirmed that she was indeed at the Lowee/Lastation border.
This can't be right. There was never any sort of barrier like this in my own past... was there?
Once again, Rom could not tell if she was simply forgetting about the minor details of her past or if this really was a new development.
I … suppose it's not improbable that Kei sealed off the nation like this at one point, Rom theorized, trying to see if she could give this odd instance the benefit of the doubt. Plus, this would explain the recent lack of news coming out of Lastation. Though of course, I don't remember if Lastation actually did cut itself off from the rest of the world in my past either so it's hard to judge anything based on that.
Her suspicions continued to grow though the longer she stared at the barrier. Asides from its dubious existence, something about the energy she sensed from it just seemed... off to her.
Deciding this warranted a closer investigation, Rom quickly flew down to the ground before dispelling her transformation. After straightening out her cherished muffin hat, she raised out her hand towards the energy barrier before casting a simple analysis spell.
Alright, checking its structure and basic- What the fuck?!
Rom physically flinched in surprise as the results came flooding in.
What- How? This thing... it's nearly as strong as one of my minor shielding spells!
Considering the fact that even her weakest magical shields could take the full brunt of a nuclear blast and remain unscathed, this was no small feat to emulate. In fact, the barrier's strength and durability was one that honestly should not- no, could not exist with any of the technology available to Lastation during this time period.
How is this possible? Did I do something to alter the timeline this much already? Or maybe... did someone else follow me into the past?!
Rom could not help but feel a slight tinge of fear as she imagined one of her present day villains appearing in this timeline. Even the most pathetic of her enemies, such as Underling Jr. III, could pose a serious threat to the current world due to the massive power disparity between the past and present (she heavily blamed power creep for that). And with her own powers cut down to a fraction of its full strength, she was not sure if even she could stop them.
Okay, calm down, she mentally scolded herself. There's no need to get yourself worked up over hypothetical scenarios. Besides, I haven't even finished analyzing its basic energy components yet. Figuring that out should probably clear up a few questions about its origins.
After taking a deep breath, Rom once again activated her analysis spell. Unfortunately, the results she got only served to increase her questions rather than answer them.
This doesn't make any sense! She unconsciously brought up a hand to her chin as she assumed her usual thinking pose. This energy reading... it doesn't match anything found in Gamindustri, past or present. And yet... there's something strangely familiar about it. The problem is, I can't put my finger on exactly why or how.
She continued to ponder about this for a few more minutes before eventually giving a sigh.
As intriguing as all this is, I probably shouldn't waste anymore time here. There's no telling when Ram will teleport away from her current location.
Forcefully setting aside her curiosity, Rom instead turned her focus towards simply getting across the barrier.
Blasting through it is definitely out of the picture, she quickly surmised. If it's even half as strong as my analysis spell indicates, the amount of force required to shatter it would probably garner the attention of the entire northern hemisphere of Gamindustri. No, I need a more subtler approach here.
After a bit of thought, she dug up a small pebble from the snow-covered ground before casting an intangibility charm on it. She then tossed the pebble forward only for it to solidly bounce off the shimmering blue barrier.
Damn. It looks like it's structure is too dense to slip through. Despite the situation, Rom could not help but feel a tiny bit of scholarly respect for whoever or whatever had designed this thing. Hmph. If one of my students at the university had submitted something like this for their midterm project, I would've definitely given it a passing grade.
Putting aside her admiration, Rom turned back to the issue at hand. Luckily, it did not take her long to come up with a solution.
Well, I suppose I'll just have to do as Ram did and teleport myself across.
In all honesty though, Rom was not particularly thrilled with this idea. Though not as difficult to grasp as time or reality, manipulating space required a ridiculous amount of control and focus to safely utilize (one of the many reasons she found Ram's sudden mastery of it to be utterly bizarre). Teleportation in particular was one of those deceptively simple-looking spells that could easily end up going wrong in a large number of bloody and horrific ways. Rom herself had witnessed one-too-many of her students botch up a teleportation spell and accidentally end up inside active volcanoes or displace several of their body parts.
Ugh. I really hope I don't end up leaving behind an arm and leg like that one kid from the alchemy department...
With that unpleasant memory in mind, Rom took extra care while constructing her spell. After double-checking every last detail for nearly a minute, she finally took a deep breath before activating it.
There was a brief unsettling sensation of vertigo before Rom quickly found herself on solid ground once again. Taking a quick look around, she found to her relief that she was on the other side of the barrier with all of her limbs still intact.
"Whew. Looks like all that spell control training with Mina paid off," Rom remarked, a small smile on her face. "Alright, now that that's taken care of, it's finally time to go capture my idiot sister."
Feeling just a tad bit less annoyed than usual, Rom activated her HDD and flew off once again.
"According to the tracking spell, Ram should be somewhere around... here."
Rom looked down expectantly only to find no sign of the rambunctious pink troublemaker in the wide-open snowy field below her. What she did find, however, was a completely different pink-colored object.
"What in the-? Is that... an anchor?"
Despite all logical sense, a large metal anchor – like the sort typically found on ships - was lying conspicuously against the white background. Even stranger though was the fact that it was glowing with a soft pink light.
Confused as all hell, Rom dropped down next to this severely out-of-place object. After turning off her transformation and taking a closer look, she noticed that the anchor was not the only oddity around. Right next to the glowing slab of metal was a strange distortion hanging in the air. It was barely visible but a large section of space seemed to be rippling slightly as if some semi-transparent curtain was gently swaying in the breeze.
Having spent most of her life in the presence of Neptune (and later on Nepgear), Rom immediately recognized the telltale signs of a recently opened dimensional rift.
"It must've been an extremely powerful rift to have created a spatial imprint this large," Rom deduced. Assuming her thinking pose again, she took a closer look at the nearby snow. "Looks like it must've been closed off rather quickly though seeing as how the surrounding area seems relatively unaffected."
Of course, Rom didn't have to be a genius to guess who the most likely culprit of this dimensional rift was. The fact that her tracking spell was pinging the exact location where the distortion was only made it even more obvious.
"Well, I suppose she did suddenly learn how to teleport across the entire world," Rom muttered, crossing her arms as she said this. "I guess it isn't completely impossible that the little shit somehow gained the power to open up portals to different dimensions as well."
She gave a large frown though as her eyes strayed over towards the glowing pink anchor lying on the ground next to the spatial distortion.
"I still have no idea what this thing is supposed to be though. Ram clearly left it here but why did she-"
Rom suddenly facepalmed as the obvious truth dawned on her.
"You've got to be kidding me..."
The object in front of her was, more than likely, a dimensional anchor. If Ram did in fact leave for another dimension, it would make sense for her to secure a way for her to return back home. Of course, most dimensional travelers would have simply chosen a nearby rock or tree as their anchor rather than a... well, literal anchor.
"Leave it to Ram to make a stupid pun even when she's not here," Rom groaned. "Ugh. Why do I get the feeling that one of her earlier stops was just to pick this thing up?"
It took a while for Rom to get over her exasperation but she eventually settled back into her thoughtful pose.
Despite having no clue as to where Ram was at the moment, she now knew where her twin would return to. All she had to do now was to lie in wait before ambushing her wayward sister when she inevitably showed up.
"Still, I have to wonder what sort of dimension she's in right now for my tracking spell to still register her as being in Gamindustri," she mused. "Maybe some sort of dimension that somehow overlaps with ours?" She entertained this notion for a bit before discarding it with a shake of her head. "No, that's impossible. If another dimension existed that close to ours, then Neptune would have definitely ended up there by accident ages ago."
Deciding the matter was unimportant for the time being, Rom instead turned off her tracking spell to conserve energy before taking a seat on the ground.
"Well, at least my search is finally over," she sighed in relief. "Now I just need to wait for the moron to arrive."
With that, she crossed her arms and waited.
...And waited.
...And waited some more.
…
"I really wish I brought a book," Rom sighed after several long minutes of nothing.
Deciding she might as well get comfortable, Rom got up and projected a large cushy lounge chair for herself.
"Much better," she said, sitting back on her new magical creation with a satisfied smile.
And thus her waiting began once more...
Fifteen minutes later, Rom had ditched her chair as she was busy painting out a complicated runic array around Ram's anchor.
"...and that should do it for the paralysis rune." Raising her large paintbrush, Rom looked down at her handiwork with a scrutinizing gaze. "Hmm... acceptable. Certainly not perfect but it's a lot better than what I expected from my clumsy child hands." She gave a satisfied nod before quickly realizing that she now had nothing else to do until Ram appeared and triggered her trap.
"Well... I suppose I can add in another layer of effect while I'm waiting."
Several seconds passed by as she pondered what to add before an ominous smile appeared on her face.
"Oh, yes. I think I got just the thing."
With a sinister giggle, she began painting out a modified flame suppression rune.
Half an hour later, Rom stood up from her completed runic array as she vanished her paintbrush and dusted off her hands.
"Okay... now what?"
"...and checkmate."
The clone of herself that Rom had created to play chess with suddenly began crying as Rom (the real one) looked on in disbelief.
"Oh for- it's just a game!" she shouted in exasperation. "There's no need to cry over something like this! Great goddesses, was I really this much of a crybaby as a kid?!"
This only made the clone cry harder as Rom began to feel a strange sense of guilt as if she had just kicked a small puppy. Not knowing how to deal with the situation, the real Rom simply snapped her fingers causing the crying clone to disappear.
"Ugh. Note to self: Clones take on their caster's physical age rather than their mental one." Her eyes wandered over towards the conjured chessboard as she gave a large sigh. "Also they make terrible chess partners."
Rom was completely motionless as she stared intently at the rock in her hand. After several long, unblinking seconds, the rock suddenly morphed into a large rice ball.
After closely examining it from every single angle, she cautiously took a bite out of it. A look of confusion quickly followed though as she looked back down at her transfigured food.
...why does it taste like a jelly doughnut?
Rom brushed aside the excess snow as she finished building her extremely detailed snow Dogoo.
After looking it over and giving an almost weary nod, she moved on to gather up a fresh batch of snow for her eighty-fifth Dogoo.
"AHAHAHAHA! YES! COWER BEFORE ME!"
Laughing maniacally, Rom hurled another fireball at the fleeing snow Dogoos that she had charmed to life.
Huh. So that's what happens when you add an extra pentagram to a demonic summoning circle.
Rom stored this information away in her mind while casually setting fire to the Eldritch abomination in front of her.
"A hundred bottles of rum on the wall. A hundred bottles of rum..."
"It won't be long now," Rom muttered, absentmindedly making a snow-angel on the ground. "Ram's gonna show up any second now. Yup. Any second now..."
"AHHHHHHHHH! HOW MUCH LONGER IS THAT IDIOT GOING TO TAKE?!"
Rom finally cracked as she crushed the living ice-cream cone she had just created.
"I've had it! If she doesn't want to come back, then she can stay in her stupid alternate dimension forever!"
Rom raised her hand as a massive ball of energy gathered before her. Just as she was about to hurl it at the magic anchor, her rational side managed to break through to her.
Calm down! Leaving Ram stranded isn't going to help anyone! Besides, you need her to return if you want to personally strangle her!
The madness slowly faded from Rom's eyes as the large ball of energy dissipated. Breathing heavily, she forced herself into a meditative exercise she had learned from Blanc to help control her temper. After several long minutes, she finally looked back up and gave a weary sigh.
"I never expected boredom to be my greatest enemy in this time period," Rom muttered tiredly. "Ugh. I just wish something interesting would-"
Her words were cut short when a distant boom suddenly echoed out from the distance.
Swiftly turning around, Rom managed to spot a far-off flash of light before another similar boom sounded out once more.
"Is that artillery fire?" Rom questioned aloud. "But why would there be-"
She immediately shut herself up as she realized she had just gotten her wish. Deciding not to look a gift horse in the mouth, she eagerly activated her HDD as she prepared to go take a closer look. However, she paused to look back at the anchor once more.
It'll be fine, she told herself. Even if Ram chooses to show up while I'm gone, the runes will keep her from going anywhere.
Just to be safe though, she cast a notification spell that would immediately alert her if Ram reappeared.
Satisfied with her precautions, Rom quickly zoomed off towards the distant artillery fire with perhaps a bit too gleeful of a smile.