A small note to all the new readers: I was on a five month hiatus before releasing this chapter. Hence the brief recap and all the jokes about the long wait.
Previously on Greenlit Trouble:
Noire: Contact our technicians! We need to get the Tsun Disruptors online if we want to have any chance of defeating the Swarm!
Generic Lastation Soldier #343: Sir! We've just got a report that all of our computers have been replaced with giant cheese wheels!
Noire: What?!
Scene transition to a dimly lit interrogation room with Ram slamming her fist onto a table
Ram: Where's the location of the rebel base? Talk!
Uni: You'll never get anything out of me you traitor!
Scene transition to an ice cream truck dramatically exploding
Blanc: You maniacs! You blew it up! Ah, damn you! God damn you all to hell!
Sync: But I don't want to damn anyone to hell.
Blanc: Shut it you brat!
Scene transition to Nepgear and a Nepgeardam playing a children's card game on flying motorcycles
Nepgear: Now I activate the effects of my "Screw the rules!" card! With it, I can give my Stardust Umio infinity attack points and prevent you from activating any other cards this turn!
Nepgeardam: Error! Error! Does not compute!
Scene transition to IF and Compa standing on the veranda of Planeptune Tower
IF: Compa. I need you to stop lying to me. I know about the affair you're having with my secret twin sister.
Compa: *Gasp!* It... It's not like that... desu!
Scene transition to Vert and Neptune standing before a giant, evil-looking pudding cup
Vert: Neptune! By the power of my command seal, I hereby order you to destroy the Holy Pudding Grail!
Neptune: NOOOOOOOOOOOO!
We now return to Greenlit Trouble (already in progress)
Ch 11: Whispers of Madness
North Lastation Broadcast District
Southern Perimeter Entrance
"Is it just me or does it feel like we've been stuck in this battle for several months now?"
The Lastation soldier asking this rather meta question momentarily paused in his shootout against the fans as he glanced at his nearby partner for an answer.
At the moment, the entire outer perimeter of the district was an all out war-zone as the full might of K-Sha's Swarm relentlessly assaulted the main roads to the north, south, and west. Luckily, Rom's defensive measures were holding up quite well as the heroes were able to readily hold back the terrifying masses from their superior positions. As the fans tried to squeeze in through the large piles of scrap metal acting as barricades, the soldiers stationed on top of strategically placed metal scaffolds easily shot down the invaders with their numerous riot suppression gear.
After gunning down what felt to be his millionth fan of the day with his taser rifle, the second nondescript Lastation soldier finally turned his attention to his teammate on the scaffold.
"I'd take it easy with the fourth-wall breaking if I were you," he warned, giving a worried glance around him that had nothing to do with the legion of crazed fans trying to rip his limbs off. "You know about the boss's policy regarding meta nonsense. I mean, the last guy she caught breaking the fourth wall was immediately fired and deported to Planeptune."
The first soldier raised an eyebrow at this as he absently shot down a large screaming fan that had been racing towards their position. "Um... are you talking about the guy who ended up starting a chain of pudding parlors and is now making ten times the amount of Credits we are while doing less than half the work?"
A rather contemplative silence filled the air between them as the sounds of the widespread battle continued to rage on around them.
"On second thought, maybe getting deported from here isn't such a bad thing after all." Just as the second soldier said this, a massive horde of fans suddenly broke through the barricaded chokepoint and raced towards them on all fours like a pack of crazed beasts. "Holy- ! Okay, that tears it! I'm moving out of here the first chance I get!"
Before the enormous swarm could reach them however, a volley of tranquilizer darts suddenly rained down from the skies and effectively dispatched the entire attack wave.
"Aw, don't be like that," a playful voice spoke up from behind the two stunned guards. "My dear waifu would be real sad if she found out you'd leave her nation over a small fan incursion like this."
Both of the soldiers' expressions took on a decidedly unamused look as they turned around to find none other than Sync standing before them.
"Sir," the first soldier eventually greeted in a curt tone. Around them, the rest of the soldiers on the surrounding platforms turned to regard the troublesome CPU Candidate with equally unwelcoming gazes.
While most of Lastation's forces were... less than pleased with the trouble the kid had caused (and that was putting it mildly), there was also the fact that he had helped rescue them all during the initial chaos to consider. As a result, most of them had opted to grudgingly abide by his presence for the time being rather than trying to lynch him on sight like the fans were.
"Do you really need to keep calling the boss your 'waifu' even now?" the second soldier remarked disapprovingly. "Haven't you caused enough problems with that stupid prank of yours already?"
Sync hardly seemed fazed by this cold reception as he simply answered with his usual carefree grin.
"Hey, Noire's the one who started it all by randomly claiming me as her boyfriend. All I'm doing is playing by her little game."
As all the soldiers around them raised a skeptical eyebrow at this, another wave of fans charged in through the ruined barricade and made a beeline towards the defending forces. Sync, however, simply used his spatial powers to pull out another plethora of darts from his inventory before casually shooting down the fans.
"No, seriously," Sync continued, not missing a beat even after being interrupted by a bloodthirsty mob. "I showed up at your guys' Basilicom to pick up my sister when Noire just latched onto me and suddenly declared me to be her boyfriend. If you don't believe me, you can simply ask her whether it's true or not when she gets here. Just remember that in the Tsundere language, a flustered reaction means a 'yes' no matter what else she might say."
Despite their overall desire to call out the boy's ridiculous claims, none of the soldiers seemed too keen on the prospect of actually confronting their boss with this topic. If the kid was actually telling the truth, as unlikely as it was, then it was more or less a given that Noire would display her embarrassment in the most Tsundere way possible: by dishing out a healthy dose of rage and violence to whichever poor soul had set her off. Considering that the soldier who had foolishly asked her in the past whether or not she was actually dating Neptune was now filed as MIA, it was probably not conducive to anyone's health to be poking the metaphorical twin-tailed dragon.
"Where is Lady Black Heart anyways?" the first soldier asked, quickly shifting away from the rather dangerous topic. "I thought she and Lady Vert were supposed to be the ones heading the base defenses."
Sync gave a smug grin at the obvious subject change but played along with it anyways. "Noire's stuck with my usual task of retrieving my wayward sis," he explained. "I told her where to find her though so both of them should be making their way to the frontlines soon enough. In the meantime, I figured I'd do a brief sweep of our positions and help shore up our defenses as needed."
"Hold on," the second soldier interrupted. "If you knew where your sister was, couldn't you have just used your fancy teleporting powers to bring her over here rather than sending our boss to go fetch her?"
Sync just gave a casual shrug. "Yeah, I probably could have."
All of the soldiers waited for him to say something more but all they got was a large mischievous smile instead.
After a rather lengthy silence, the first soldier spoke up again with a large sigh. "You really have something against Lady Black Heart, don't you?"
"Not at all," Sync replied, his devious grin still on his face. "I love my dear waifu very much. I just figured she could use the extra exercise. All that sitting around in her office can't be good for her health you know. And besides, I'm sure my lovely Noire wouldn't want me to overexert myself like before. I'm still just a novice when it comes to using my powers after all." As he said this, he summoned up another volley of darts to shoot down nearly fifty approaching fans with pinpoint accuracy before telekinetically moving the scattered piles of enormous scrap metal back over to the chokepoint with absolute ease.
None of the Lastation forces seemed to be able to figure out how to respond to all of this before the second soldier eventually buried his nondescript face into his hand and let out a tired groan.
"We're gonna be stuck with you for a while, aren't we?"
The only answer he received was another cheerful smile.
North Lastation Broadcast Tower
28th Floor
If there was one thing Noire was extremely proud of besides her work ethics (and Uni but she would never admit to that out loud), it was in her nation's architecture. While she was not quite as devoted to the philosophy of 'bigger is better' like Vert was, she did agree that making all of her important buildings into monumental skyscrapers was a worthwhile show of her power and majesty. In her mind, the towering structures that reached to the heavens would leave an awe-inspiring impact on anyone looking at them and prove that Lastation was undoubtedly the greatest of all nations.
Unfortunately for her though, she was starting to come to the sad realization that presentation and practicality were very often two completely different things.
"Why... are there... so many... stairs?!"
Even for a CPU, the arduous journey up the seeming endless flight of stairs was nothing short of physical torture. With all of the elevators being shut down to power up the communication relays, Noire was forced to manually climb up to the twenty-ninth floor where Vert was supposedly lounging around in. What she was doing up there was a mystery to the Tsundere goddess but that was all the brat had been willing to tell her before warping away with the Lowee team to their respective battlefield.
"If I knew... how annoying... this was going to be... I should have just... told the brat... to pick up... his stupid sister... himself!"
With that winded complaint, Noire dragged her aching feet up once more before noticing that she had finally reached her destination. Unable to stop herself from breathing a huge sigh of relief, the tired and thoroughly annoyed CPU took a moment to catch her breath and look down at the spiraling abyss of stairs that she had just traversed. In hindsight, she realized she could have made this a lot easier for herself by simply flying up to the target floor in her HDD form and just breaking in through a window. Of course, she had severely underestimated just how much of a task this was actually going to be and her poor legs were now paying the price.
"Ugh, I really need to get back into shape," Noire begrudgingly admitted to herself. "I'm going to end up like that purple-haired blob if I continue to stay inside all day."
Already coming up with a strict work-out schedule for herself in her mind, Noire stretched out her tired legs before exiting the dreaded stairwell.
"Sheesh, what the hell is Vert even doing all the way up here at a time like this?" Noire grumbled, peering inside each of the rooms she passed by in the hopes of locating her query. "The least she could do is put some more effort into cleaning up the mess that her stupid brother created."
Even as she said this, Noire found herself still having a hard time believing that the annoying little brat was actually related to the blonde goddess. Asides from their physical appearances, there really did not seem to be much of a similarity between the two supposed siblings. Sure, Vert could be just as annoying at times with her incessant bragging about her stupid over-sized breasts and all, but the little brat took things to a whole other level with his knack for driving everyone around him insane. That was not to say that siblings had to have the exact same personalities as each other (the Nep sisters were a prime example of that), but it was still strange to see just how different the two blondes actually were.
"Well, I guess I can understand why Vert's been acting so stressed lately," Noire said in a rare show of empathy. "I know I'd probably be going crazy if someone like him ended up being my-"
"...death flag?!"
Noire froze as Vert's unexpected voice suddenly shouted out from what appeared to be a large storage room several doors down. Quickly getting over her surprise, the Lastation CPU cautiously moved towards the source of the exclamation as she tried to hear what exactly was going on.
It was not until Noire reached the wide-open door of the storage room that she managed to hear Vert whispering furtively as if she was having a secretive conversation with someone. Her curiosity getting the better of her, Noire quietly approached the doorway before peeking her head into the room.
To her confusion, all she found inside were a few old cleaning supplies and tools with Vert pacing back and forth in the middle with a serious look on her face. As Noire continued to watch this bizarre proceeding with a raised eyebrow, the blonde CPU began to mutter incomprehensibly to herself once more as if she was having some sort of heated debate with herself. This continued on for a few minutes before Vert finally stopped in her pacing and gave a large sigh.
"Fine," Noire heard her mutter in a resigned tone. "If this really is following a standard formula like you proposed, then I suppose I'll just have to keep an eye on him. As troublesome as it is, I won't just sit by and- WILL YOU STOP BURNING MY BREAD ALREADY?!"
Startled by the sudden and bizarre outburst, Noire jolted from her unstable half-crouch and ended up tumbling right through the doorway.
"What the-? Who-?" Vert's exclamation was cut short as she quickly recognized the person sprawled out on the floor in front of her. "Noire? What are you doing here?"
The twin-tailed goddess in question found her face rapidly reddening as she looked up from her rather compromising position. For a long awkward moment, the two CPUs just stared at each other with looks of intense embarrassment and confusion respectively. Noire eventually broke the silence though as she loudly cleared her throat before pushing herself off the ground with as much dignity as she could salvage.
"Sheesh, don't you realize there's a war taking place outside right now?" Noire said, quickly taking the offensive before things could get even more awkward. "I just came here to drag your lazy butt back onto the battlefield where it belongs!"
Vert blinked a few times before she finally seemed to comprehend what her colleague was talking about.
"Oh... right. The fans. I admit I'd fully forgotten about them."
Noire found her earlier embarrassment rapidly fading away as she crossed her arms and gave Vert a look of exasperated disbelief.
"You're kidding right? How could you just forget about a swarm of deranged fans that's trying to kill us all? Well, kill everyone except for me I guess. But seeing as how K-Sha's the one in charge, I think getting killed is a much better option then being kidnapped and imprisoned by her. I mean, I've seen enough Yanderes in anime to know how that usually ends up."
For some odd reason, Vert did not bother to reply to Noire's rather lame attempts at humor. Instead she simply started to zone out again with the same severe look as before.
Even with the stress of everything that was going on, Noire could not help but start to feel a little bit worried about her somewhat-friend's odd behavior. "Um... hello? Gamindustri to Vert? You okay in-?"
Noire's words were abruptly cut off as an enormous explosion rocked the building. Luckily, it seemed the building had only been buffeted by the unknown blast's shockwave as the tremors quickly subsided with no additional sounds of structural damage following afterwards.
Snapping out of her stupor, Vert quickly shook her head and focused back on the main issue at hand. "My apologizes. I just... have a lot of things on my mind right now. Anyways, we should probably get going. We need to neutralize those fans before we do anything else."
Noire tried her best to look annoyed as she and Vert both turned towards the door. "Hmph! Don't start acting like you're in charge now! Just so you know, I'm the boss of this entire operation, understand?"
This finally managed to crack through Vert's uncharacteristic stoicism as she gave a wry smile at her colleague. "Of course. Whatever you say, oh-great-and-mighty Commander Black Heart."
Noire just gave a mild growl in response as the two made their way into the main hallway. As they ran by, the twin-tailed CPU tried to see how the battle was progressing outside but was unable to do so due to all the windows facing towards the empty expanses to the east.
"Noire," Vert suddenly spoke up, her voice becoming serious again. "Do you know where the... boy is right now?"
Noire raised an eyebrow at this. "He was warping over the twins and C-Sha to fight the Alloy Gears the last time I saw him. Knowing him though, he could be just about anywhere on the battlefield right now looking for even more people to annoy." She turned her head to face the older blonde with a questioning look. "Why? Are you worried about him?"
Rather than vehemently denying the claim as expected, Vert instead lowered her head so that her eyes were covered by her bangs. "I suppose you could call it that," she muttered in a tone that somehow ended up sounding both resigned and troubled at the same time.
Noire would have screeched to a halt in surprise if she had not been more worried about getting down to the battlefield as quickly as possible. Even so, she could not help but significantly slow her pace as she stared at the grim-faced CPU with a befuddled expression.
"Wait, what? I thought you-"
Vert interrupted her with a quick shake of her head. "Let's not get into that right now. We already have more than enough trouble to deal with at the moment."
Noire was highly tempted to argue against this but another far-off explosion made her decision for her.
"Fine, fine," she waved off, turning her head back towards the hallway. "It's not like I even care about your stupid relationship with your brother anyways."
Again, worryingly enough, Vert did not bother to offer a rebuttal to the statement and simply remained silent. Noire followed through with her promise though and did not press for any further information. Instead, she simply turned the topic back to their current task at hand.
"By the way, all of the elevators are currently down to power up the communications system. We'll have to take the stairs to-"
The moment the word 'stairs' was uttered, a HDD was heard being activated followed immediately by the shattering of what was presumably a very large window.
Barely suppressing the tic in her eye, Noire turned around to find a large gaping hole leading outside with Green Heart's flying form disappearing around the corner of the building.
"You're paying for that!" Noire belatedly screamed out before activating her own HDD to follow as well.
Inwardly though, she breathed an enormous sigh of relief at avoiding another confrontation with the embodiment of pure evil known as the stairs.
North Lastation City Limits
Outskirts of Northern Forest
"RULES OF NATURE!"
If robots could sigh, then that was probably what the bipedal tank would have done right before it was turned into sashimi by a gigantic ice blade. As the Alloy Gear's remains joined the ever-increasing pile of scrap metal on the ground, the pink-hatted loli wielding the unorthodox sword triumphantly cheered before rocking out to some imaginary heavy metal song playing in the background.
To say that Ram was having the time of her life would have been the understatement of the century. Being free to cause as much destruction as possible while also having an army of killer robots to recreate the scenes of her latest favorite game was practically a dream-come-true for the rambunctious rascal. Putting aside the tiny detail of how the little girl had managed to get her hands on that particular game (a certain blond shota may or may not have been involved), Ram was surprisingly doing a fairly reasonable imitation of the game's main character.
Well, the robotic destruction part at least.
"Yeah! Woohoo! Take that you dummies! Rules of Nature!"
Off to the side, Rom destroyed a bipedal war-machine of her own by crushing it with a giant ball of ice before facing her exuberant sister with a frown.
"Um... Ram? I'm pretty sure there's more to that song than just that one line."
The pink sister did not seem to hear her though as she simply continued to strike poses with her large Icecalibur blade. Knowing from experience that trying to get Ram's attention at the moment was a pointless endeavor, Rom instead just gave a sigh and kept her eyes on the nearby woods for the next wave of robotic victims.
Meanwhile, standing a safe distance away from the destructive duo, C-Sha was busy keeping tabs on the battlefield with a watchful eye. So far, she had managed to keep the inevitable collateral damage to a minimum but there had still been a few close calls. During the last several skirmishes, several of the Alloy Gears that had been equipped with missile launchers had haphazardly shot out their payloads right before Ram had unleashed her revengeance on them. While C-Sha had shot down most of these wayward projectiles with her iconic Mega Buster cannon, some of them had still managed to slip by and spiraled off in the general direction of the broadcast tower. Luckily, it seemed as if all these missiles had detonated in the air before reaching the tower but it had been hard to accurately tell due to the distance. The lack of angry calls from Noire though added credence to the assumption that the base defenses had not been compromised.
"Hey Rom!" Apparently having gotten bored of doing random victory poses, Ram finally turned her attention back to her sister. "Wanna see who can destroy the most Alloy Gears during the next wave? The winner gets to choose which one of Blanc's books to draw pictures in!"
Rom responded with an eager smile that juxtaposed her usual quiet demeanor. "Okay! I really want to illustrate that book about the glittering werewolf girl!"
"Aw, that one's boring!" Ram argued. "If I win, we're drawing in that story about the short, flat-chested girl who ends up marrying all those pretty idol boys!"
C-Sha barely managed to stifle a laugh at the twin's conversation. As irresponsible as it was, the unofficial babysitter could not find it in herself to chastise the two kids for their plan while they were obviously having so much fun. Plus, it was also hard to deny the fact that watching Blanc going completely apeshit at times was more than a little entertaining.
Before the buxom fighter could decide whether or not to loan the twins a box of colored permanent markers again, the next batch of Alloy Gears finally burst through the treeline.
"About time!" Ram yelled, her staff-turned-sword immediately held up into a combat stance. "Now I'm going to show you why they call me Ram the Ripper! RULES OF NATURE! YEEEEEEAAAAAAH!"
Rom gave a sigh at her sister's nonsensical war cry before raising her own staff with a determined look. "I'm sorry, but in the end it has to be this way."
As the loli brigade charged forward and redefined the term 'overkill', C-Sha could not help but get the feeling that their battle against the robot menace was just a bit too easy. For all the worry that Noire had expressed about the Alloy Gears, the walking battle tanks that they had intercepted had turned out to be little more than a minor nuisance at best. Even considering that these were merely knock-offs made by K-Sha's former mercenary group, the Alloy Gears' poor combat effectiveness made it seem odd as to why the Yandere Queen had bothered to activate them in the first place. The Swarm was powerful enough as is and C-Sha highly doubted a couple of these robots would have made much of difference even if they had joined up with the main army. It what they had fought so far was supposed to force out Noire into open combat and tire her out, then K-Sha had either severely underestimated her opponents (which was about as likely as Blanc becoming Lowee's best-selling author) or...
The main attack force had yet to appear.
Just as C-Sha came upon this epiphany, all of the remaining Alloy Gears suddenly froze as if receiving some kind of transmission before swiftly turning tail and retreating back into the woods.
"Hey!" Ram angrily shouted. "You can't just run away like that! Me and Rom haven't finished our contest yet! Come back here so we can destroy you some more!"
"Um... I'm pretty sure I would have won even if you destroyed all of the remaining ones," Rom said. "You were spending too much time slicing them up even after you destroyed them."
Ram gave her sister a petulant look. "No, I was the one winning! I get bonus points for looking more awesome while I was kicking their butts! You were just using boring old ice magic to-"
Thankfully, the budding argument was cut short as an enormous tremor suddenly shook the entire clearing.
"Um... What was that?"
Rom's question was simply answered by yet another large, booming quake. Quickly gathering themselves together in a defensive formation, the trio apprehensively turned towards the forest in front of them as the shaking got progressively more frequent. Soon, something that sounded like hundreds of trees being toppled in the far distance became audible as well.
"Are these... footsteps?" C-Sha murmured in disbelief. However, she noticed that there something slightly off about the timings of the tremors. The supposed footfalls were highly inconsistent, almost as if there were more than just one set of feet making them. In fact, it almost felt as if there were at least three.
At this thought, the Gold Third leader vaguely recalled the intel about the exact number of Alloy Gears that their Hunter scouting party had provided for them several months ago. Or at least, that's how much time C-Sha felt like had passed since the meeting took place even though it could not have been more than just a few minutes prior. Ignoring the strange sound of a certain wall breaking somewhere, the buxom fighter instead focused on remembering the info she had forgotten about due to the bizarre passage of time as well as all the craziness that had taken place since then.
"Oh... right." Just as C-Sha finally recalled that critical piece of information and realized what exactly was going on, the ominous shaking suddenly came to a stop.
"Well... this can't be good."
As if to confirm C-Sha's statement, three enormous metal heads dramatically rose out of the towering treeline before letting loose a collective earth-shattering roar.
Western Perimeter Secondary Defense Line
Several minutes prior...
Following their brief interlude in the tower, Noire and Vert had done a quick aerial reconnaissance over the surrounding area and found that things were much more dire than they had imagined. Even while dodging an endless rain of body pillows and poster tubes that were thrown at them, they still managed to see that the entire outer district, and possibly the whole city, had been completely occupied. In fact, the only real gap in the staggering mass of bodies they saw was to the east; an area that was completely blocked off by a large mountain bordering the sea. They were very much trapped between a rock and a hard place by this point and their only hope of survival now hinged on what Noire believed to be an extremely foolhardy plan.
Still, this did not stop the Lastation CPU from continuing to fight back against their almost inevitable demise. With their sweep complete, Noire and Vert headed towards the western main road which they had seen being under the heaviest pressure. With most of K-Sha's broods convening in from their aborted invasion into Planeptune, it made sense that most of their forces would be concentrated there. Rom had already accounted for this and had stationed extra defenders there but the overwhelming numbers were beginning to take its toll. By the time the two of them arrived, the soldiers had already fallen back to their second defensive line with even that being on the verge of collapse as well. Thankfully, the two goddesses were more than enough to turn the tide of the battle and prevent that from happening.
"Ugh! Just how many of you idiots are there?!"
With a frustrated yell, Noire, back in her human form, swung her stun baton up just in time to parry the wooden sword that had been aimed for her head. The fan wielding the cheap cosplay prop did not answer her as he instead tried to disengage from the unexpected block. Noire was not having any of that though as the instant the armed fan began to pull away, she lashed out and smacked him in the face with an open palm strike. Though the blow was hardly more than a mere poke for the goddess, it was still strong enough to bodily stagger the fan which gave her ample time to jab him in the chest with her electrified weapon.
Noire paused out of habit to give her fallen opponent a contemptuous huff when nearly thirty nearby fans leaped towards her in an attempt to dog pile her. The CPU barely managed to notice the threat in time and was just about to leap out of the way when a blast of green-tinted wind magic flew in from behind. The unexpected gale swept aside Noire's would-be assailants like a bunch of dead leaves as well as knocking down most of the reinforcing fans. Using this opportunity to jump back behind her riot shield squad for some breathing room, Noire looked around and spotted Vert standing next to the taser squadron. The blonde goddess returned her gaze with a rather distracted look as she lowered her hand that had been covered in residual green share energy.
"This isn't the time to be showing off, Noire," the blonde goddess reprimanded, her usual serene smile replaced with a tired frown. "I'd appreciate it if you kept your theatrics to a minimum and focused on dealing with this threat. The sooner we deal with these fans, the sooner I can... well..."
The rest trailed off into a quiet mumble but Noire could easily guess what she was talking about. More than likely, her companion's odd behavior was due to her worry about her missing brother (whatever the sudden reason for that was). During their scouting sweep, the two of them had learned from the soldiers at the southern entrance that the annoying little brat had been helping defend the area until just a few minutes before the two CPUs had arrived. Apparently, he had received a call from someone before immediately teleporting away. Though Noire had simply dismissed the info, Vert was still clearly bothered by the news of the kid's absence.
With a small mental sigh, Noire decided that she would need to help lighten Vert's anxiety. Obviously, this was just to ensure that her ally could fight more efficiently in battle and nothing else. It most certainly was not because Noire was concerned about her close acquaintance or anything like that. That would have been simply ridiculous.
"Hmph! It's not considered showing off if everyone already knows how great you are!" Noire declared, trying her best to sound as obnoxious as possible. "I'm just giving my audience the show they deserve!"
If there was one thing that Noire could count on to distract Vert from her worried thoughts, it was offering her the chance to tease her. As annoying as it was, Noire knew that there was no way that Vert would let such a prime opportunity slip her by. Just to sweeten the deal a bit further, Noire also decided to take a light jab at Vert as well. "Besides, at least I'm not lounging around in the back and then jumping in at the last minute to steal all the glory like you."
For a second, Noire was afraid Vert would not take the obvious bait but it soon turned out that her ploy had succeeded as the blonde's troubled demeanor slowly cracked.
"Oh? Is that how you see it?" Vert's fondness for teasing Noire seemed to be a lot greater than expected as her frown melted away into a sly grin. "It figures you would be starving for attention even with all these fans after you. I do suppose it really isn't all that surprising considering that this is you we're talking about here. And for the record, I'm fairly certain that I've taken down more than twice the number of fans you have with just my spells. I believe that constitutes as far more than simply 'lounging around' as you put it."
While a small part of Noire was relieved that Vert was back to normal, her Tsundere side could not help but become angrily flustered even from the expected taunt.
"Oh, shut up," she snapped back. "If you're so great, why don't you come join me out here instead of hanging out in the back?"
Vert just gave a small chuckle at her successful goading. Finally looking more like her usual cheery self, she pulled out the electric-tipped stun pike she had picked up during their reconnaissance mission and jumped to the frontlines in a single graceful leap.
"Shall we make it so that the person who takes down the most fans gets treated to an all-you-can-eat cake buffet?" Vert challenged, flourishing her spear with absolute confidence.
Noire answered her with an irritated growl. "You still owe me several billion Credits from when I let you stay at my place, you know." Even while saying that, she twirled about her stun baton in her hand to match Vert's theatrics. "Still, I'm not going to say no to some free cake. I just hope you have enough money to cover everything when I win."
Vert simply smiled as the two of them got into their respective combat stances. With one final nod towards each other, the two goddesses dived into the action for real.
The riot shield squad that had been holding back the fans until now quickly noticed their approach and stepped aside to let them pass. Moving as a barely perceivable black and green blur, the heavenly duo rushed in and slammed into the fans that had been trying to take advantage of the supposed opening. The unexpected charge caught the fans off-guard and immediately sent the entire group flying into the center of massive crowd behind them. Bodies literally went flying into the air from the impact while Noire and Vert wasted no time in mopping up the unaffected fans standing to the sides of the main road.
"Fall Slash!"
"Rainy Ratnapura!"
The fans on the left found themselves blasted away by an enormous wave of electrical energy that emanated from Noire's baton. Meanwhile, the fans on the right were felled by the dozens as Vert delivered a flurry of lightning fast strikes with her stun pike. In less than five seconds, the entire front squadron of fans had been decimated with the rest scrambling to regroup themselves with their allies in the back.
"Fifty-three," Vert declared, her eyes remaining on the reforming crowd of fans. "Eighty-three if you include the group we tackled together."
"Those don't count," Noire replied with a rare smile. "And fifty-seven for me. Looks like that cake buffet is as good as mine."
Vert gave a small laugh as she shifted her weapon. "Oh, I'd say there's more than enough fans heading towards us right now for me to even up the score."
Right on cue, the second wave of fans swarmed towards them en masse. The two CPUs charged in without missing a beat as they soon became lost within the mob around them.
"Fifty-four, fifty-eight, sixty, sixty-seven..." The stun pike Vert was holding began to look more like a gray-colored blur than anything as she swung her new weapon about with stunning skill and grace. Those who were not being struck down by the pike's electrified tip instead found themselves flying through the air as Vert deftly swatted them aside with her weapon's shaft. As for the few that managed to get past her devastating strikes, they were hurled aside by the miniature green cyclone that Vert summoned to shield herself. Against the large group of low level enemies, Vert's usual battle style of delivering a multitude of relatively weak attacks worked absolute wonders as she utterly decimated the fans' ranks.
As she counted out her ninety-sixth fallen foe, Vert looked over to her partner to see how she was doing.
"How many fans are you up to Noire?"
The twin-tailed goddess did not immediately answer as she kicked aside an approaching fangirl before briefly charging up to unleash one of her SP skills.
"Lacy Dance!" As her whirling strikes came to a close, Noire quickly tallied up the mass of unconscious fans that fell to the ground around her. "Eighty-five, eighty-nine... Darn it! Only ninety-two!"
Vert let out a satisfied laugh at that. "It seems the cake is going to be nothing more than a lie for you."
All the adrenaline pumping through Noire seemed to dampen her usual Tsundere attitude as she answered with a teasing grin instead. "Really Vert? You're using such an outdated reference like that to taunt me? Honestly, I think you're starting to lose your touch."
The two shared a brief grin at their banter before the mass of fans pressed forward once more. With a pair of rallying shouts, Noire and Vert eagerly returned to their little competition with smiles on their faces.
Their enthusiasm lasted the whole of five minutes.
"Five hundred twenty four... Five hundred twenty- HOW MANY MORE ARE THERE?!"
Noire's frustrations quickly set back in as the endless tide of fans continued to surge towards her. Even with Vert's direct help, they barely seemed to make a dent in their enemies' numbers. If anything, there appeared to be even more fans than before as they attacked not only the two CPUs but also the soldiers in the back as well. Apparently, K-Sha had learned from her battle with Sync that taking out the long-range support was a top priority as she diverted a large number of her swarm to directly assault the taser and tranquilizer squads. Noire and Vert tried their best to hold the fans back but the large width of the main road meant that more than a fair share of them managed to make their way around them. As such, the riot shield squad had been under a lot of pressure as they valiantly tried to hold the line and protect their gunners.
"Lady Black Heart!" the captain of the shield squad shouted out. "We can't maintain this position for much longer! We need to-"
The rest of his words were drowned out when several ear-splitting roars suddenly echoed out from the distance. Both warring parties froze at the unexpected interruption as the once chaotic battlefield fell into a rather unnatural silence. Noire, Vert, and the soldiers disregarded their enemies for a bit as they looked around in surprise for the source of the sound. Meanwhile, the fans were all staring ahead uncertainly as if they were waiting for their Queen to tell them how to proceed with this new development.
Eventually, it was Noire who broke the unsettling stillness around her.
"What... was that?"
None of the nearby soldiers bothered to answer her as they were too busy staring towards the direction of the northern forest where they had traced back the sound to. Unfortunately, the city's towering architecture once again turned out to be a source of annoyance as the skyscrapers obstructed the entire view of the outlying forest.
Before anyone could say anything else, the mass of fans suddenly snapped back to attention once more. It seemed that whatever had made the sound was either on K-Sha's side or of no concern to her as the fans resumed their attack with even more fervor than before.
"Noire! Behind-!"
Vert's warning did not come out in time as a trio of fans slipped past Noire's momentarily relaxed guard and latched onto her arms and back. The CPU quickly spun around with immense force, sending the fan on her left arm flying, but the other two managed to hang on and began dragging her down. While the attacking pair did not pose much of a direct threat to Noire, they managed to slow her down enough for the rest of the swarm to move in and grab onto her like a horde of ravenous zombies.
"Kyaaa! Where do you creeps think you're touching?!"
The fans paid no heed to their victim's distress as more and more of them latched onto her body. Even with her strength, Noire could not dislodge herself from the sheer number of fans as their weight firmly held her down in place. In a last-ditch effort, she even activated her HDD to try and fly out but that too was quickly foiled when a fan suddenly bludgeoned her across the head with a wooden bat. With the goddess momentarily stunned, even more fans began to pile in around her until only the top of her white hair could be seen amongst the literal mountain of bodies covering her.
"Hold on Noire! I'm coming!"
Vert had flown into action the moment her friend had been grabbed and tried her best to cleave through the fans separating the two of them. Unfortunately, the fans fought back with a previously unseen ferocity as they relentlessly threw themselves forward to protect their claimed prize. Even with Vert knocking out dozens of fans at a time with her weapon and spells, the distance between her and Noire refused to get any smaller. The soldiers in the back also tried to aid their captured goddess but the distance between them meant they could do little more than drop a few wayward fans with their long-range weaponry. As the heroes watched in horror, the last remaining vestige of the Lastation CPU began to slowly sink from view as the fans began to fully drag her down into their midst.
"Noire!" Vert desperately tried to activate her own HDD as well but the fans did not give her the opportunity to do so. Suddenly finding herself on the defensive against the aggressive onslaught, Vert could only hold out her hand in a futile gesture to reach her friend. "NOOOOO! Noire! I still need you to buy me cake!"
Just as it seemed that all hope had been lost, the heavens themselves suddenly spoke up in an irritatingly cheerful voice.
"About to be captured by the fans again, dear? Honestly, people are going to start thinking that you actually enjoy being kidnapped."
Everyone looked up in surprise to find a Lowee airship flying high above the battlefield covered in a rapidly fading green glow. While the fans and the soldiers were busy trying to figure out where the ship had come from, Vert's attention was drawn to one of the ship's side hatches as it opened up to reveal a familiar figure. Even from the distance, she could still make out the signature green coat as it flapped about wildly in the breeze while his distinctive golden hair seemed to gleam with the rays of the setting sun.
"Sync?"
Almost as if hearing her, the boy turned his head towards her while continuing to hang out from the side of the airship. The next thing Vert knew, she was covered in a familiar green shroud of share energy before suddenly finding herself falling face-first onto a cold metal floor.
Thud!
"Owww... What-? What just happened?"
As Vert slowly picked herself up, she heard a muffled groan echo her sentiments from her left.
"Ugh... that's what I'd like to know."
Looking over to her side, Vert spotted Noire sprawled face-down before her once more while still in her HDD form. Seeing this, the Leanbox CPU had to momentarily debate whether or not to snap a picture of her friend/rival in her humiliating position before eventually thinking better of it. As great as it would have been to have some future blackmail material, Vert was not such a terrible person as to kick her friend while she was already down.
"Here," Vert said instead, offering her hand to Noire. "At least get yourself off the floor first."
Noire accepted the help while uttering a barely audible 'thanks' under her breath. Meanwhile, Vert quickly took a look at her surroundings and realized that she was somehow inside the bridge of their airship. Factoring in the green glow from before, it was not that hard to figure out what exactly had happened. Before Vert could address one of the four Hunters who were currently focused intently on their respective control panels, the passage door behind her slid open.
"Alright, I've closed the outer hatch," Sync announced to the crew, acknowledging the two stunned goddesses with only a brief nod. Before either of them could speak up, he purposefully stepped forward to the main viewing port with his hands clasped behind his back. He straightened up once reaching his destination and silently gazed down at the sea of fans below him. The imperious atmosphere he set up for himself was slightly marred though by the childish grin still on his face. "You may fire when ready."
"Aw, yeah!" the head pilot shouted out. "It's high noon, bitches!"
The rest of the Hunters simply gave a loud sigh at their leader's antics before activating the ship's weapons array. The bridge itself actually shook a bit as more than forty different turrets all fired simultaneously. Directed by the ship's targeting system, the hail of tranquilizer darts, stun grenades, and taser bombs mowed down the fans with pinpoint accuracy and efficiency.
"You should tell your men to retreat to the final defense line, dear," Sync suddenly spoke up, not taking his eye off the devastation below. "I've already told the northern and southern forces to pull back and we don't want our soldiers here to end up being surrounded."
It was a good thing the Lastation CPU was a lot less of a Tsundere in her HDD form as she quickly moved to follow his advice rather than wasting time getting flustered at his minor tease. She did, however, spare some time to walk up and roughly smack him on the back of his head before stalking over to the Hunter offering her the ship's speaker controls.
"Attention all units!" Noire called out, doing her best to ignore the cheeky grin Sync sent her way while rubbing his sore head. "This is Lady Black Heart speaking! Fall back to our final defense line immediately! We'll cover your retreat from here so get moving!"
The soldiers below spent a few seconds letting out a loud cheer at finding out their goddess was alright before dutifully following through with their orders. With the soldiers safely evacuating and the airship continuing to rain heavenly judgment on the fans, Noire finally had the opportunity to directly address her savior.
"Where in Celestia's name have you been?!"
The lack of gratitude hardly seemed to surprise Sync at all as he simply relaxed into his usual carefree pose and turned around to face her with a smile.
"Why are you asking? Did you really miss me that much, dear?"
Rather than flying into a frenzy like in her human form, Noire simply moved in to smack the boy over the head once again with her gauntleted hand.
"Ow..." Despite the rapidly swelling bump he sustained, Sync still managed to maintain his smile. "Heh heh. You really get more straight-forward when you transform, you know that?"
Noire let out an irritated growl as she crossed her arms. "I wasn't asking where you were for my sake," she clarified. "I'm just asking because this idiot right here," she pointed at Vert, "wouldn't stop fretting about you."
Vert made a small choking noise to this while Sync raised an eyebrow at his sister as his smile momentarily faded. The Leanbox CPU seemed to immediately notice the change in his expression as she quickly recovered from her shock and stared back at the boy with a critical look of her own. The bizarre stare down only lasted for a second though before Sync let out something that sounded vaguely like a barely audible sigh. Abruptly turning away from his confused-looking sister, he instead faced Noire with a smile back on his face.
"Thanks for babysitting sis by the way. It's good to see that you kept her from wandering away like a lost puppy again."
"H...Hey!" Vert indignantly interjected.
"Anyways," Sync continued on, his smile widening just a bit further. "The reason I disappeared for a bit was because your mechanics needed some help fixing up this airship. Some of the damaged components needed to be replaced entirely so I had to teleport out into the city and raid a few hardware stores. And let me tell you, performing a stealth retrieval mission is not easy when almost every street is crammed full of enemies."
Noire silently took in all of this information before giving the boy an admonishing glare. "You better not have just stolen those parts, you know."
"Of course not," Sync replied with a smile. "I left them all a note telling them to bill everything to your Basilicom."
Noire looked very much like she wanted to cave his skull in for good this time but eventually seemed to decide that he was not worth the effort. Instead, she just let out an enormous sigh as she massaged her temples with her right hand.
"You two idiots are definitely related," she muttered irritably towards the blondes. "Both of you are obsessed with making my life miserable and want to bankrupt my entire nation."
Once again, Vert just looked over at the boy with something resembling an inquisitive look instead of loudly protesting against the remark. Sync refused to meet her eye this time though as he simply turned to stare out the nearby window as if seeing, or more likely, sensing, something the others could not.
"Hmm," he eventually mused out loud, completely ignoring his sister's increasingly intense gaze. "Looks like the three of them are having much more trouble with those Alloy Gears than I thought."
Noire snapped back to attention at this as she looked up with a frown. "Alloy Gears? Oh, that's right. The ones that Ram, Rom, and C-Sha were dealing with. Then those roars we heard earlier were-?"
Her question was interrupted when Sync suddenly moved over and grabbed onto her arm.
"Hey! What do you think you're-?"
Her indignant cry was cut short again as he began to drag her forward until he was close enough to grab onto his sister's arm as well.
"What are you-?"
Still refusing to directly acknowledge his sister, Sync instead turned his attention towards the Hunters.
"You guys should start moving the airship back towards the tower," he suggested. "K-Sha might decide to personally move in and take down the ship if you stick around here for too long."
"You got it," the pilot answered before giving him a thumbs-up. "Good luck with your hunt!"
"Oh, I'm just acting as the taxi service for this fight," Sync answered with a smile, a faint green glow beginning to cover him and his passengers. "These two are the ones that are going to be doing all the heavy lifting."
"Huh?" Vert intelligently inquired.
Sync did not bother to answer her as he simply closed his eyes and seemed to concentrate on something. After a few seconds, he lazily opened his right eye and addressed both goddesses with a wide grin.
"I'd tell you two to prepare yourselves but we're more than likely going to end up face-down in the dirt either way. Well, here goes nothing!"
With that reassuring statement, one smiling CPU Candidate and two extremely worried-looking CPUs vanished from the airship in a flash of green.