Hey guys, sorry for not uploading on schedule, again. They switched me to a new team and my schedule has been pretty sporadic lately.
Also, hopefully, you are reading this after this site is done doing its yearly hissy fit where it decides to stop notifying people of fic updates.
If not, kudos for checking.
"Talking"
Thoughts
'Mental Communication or using a magic item'
[Debuffs]
Skills/Systems
Chapter 26 – Into More Ruins, Pt. 4
Pilot, Crescent Rose
It was honestly a very tough call.
She truly couldn't make up her mind.
On one hand, she was in a flying giant robot fighting another giant robot. A dream she had since she was old enough to read her first comic book her mom had introduced her to.
And while she was still a work in progress – her Red Rose Magingear was no RX-78-2 (1) after all - it was still the most awesome experience of her life!
She was fighting in an actual factual MECH FIGHT!
It was like she was living her childhood all over.
However, the only thing in her mind, which was deadlocked in her mind with such an amazing experience, as she dodged through a scattershot of magic projectiles, was all the upgrades she was going to make to her Red Rose.
Between the tech she got from those monster-controlling robots, the terminal, combat data, and what she was going to…what was that thing Yang liked to say she was doing when she skimmed a little off of the grocery money to save up for her hair care regiment again…oh yeah, invest the technology from the giant mechanical moth into her sweetheart.
'I thought I was your sweetheart?' Wotan mentally communicated as Crescent cheered pulling off her first barrel roll.
'You're more than that Wotan, you're the best Embryo EVER!'
'Flattery will get you everywhere Mas- DODGE!'
Taking her Embryo's advice, Crescent just barely avoided a vertical sand twister.
Was there a Mage job relating to sand?
As she pondered that, the dark-skinned, red-haired girl with green eyes and tribal tattoos sent several crescent slashes of energy at the moth forcing it to dodge before returning fire.
This was a distraction from the guy in blue with the gauntlets as he landed a solid hit to its face causing some of the lenses on the left side of its head to crack or go black.
The giant moth seemed more geared towards AOEs but needed all of its wings to do so. With a third gone, it was having trouble stabilizing its AOEs and was forced to focus on smaller-scale spells.
Well, she said "smaller scale", but a few of them were probably on par with a Superior Mage job's ultimate skill.
Case in point, the giant crystal woman had to block a giant ball of fire that looked like a miniature sun.
Even with its MP usage and the Bahia's special reward slicing into its MP directly, it was still over 400 million.
If this thing didn't count as an endgame boss, she had no idea what did.
As Tusk drew its attention as it continued to shoot lightning bolts at him which he was somehow able to tank, Crescent loaded another blade into her sniper scythe before swinging it back, holding it as she used Runic Scrawling to charge its power before, "Runic Script!" as red runic lettering ran along the blade, she flung it forward.
It didn't have time to dodge and the power behind her attack would easily cut through most of the attacks it could charge in that instant.
It knew it and she knew it.
Even if her attack didn't finish it off, Tusk and Seventh Star's Gem golem were coming in for a three-sided attack.
They had it!
…or so she thought.
For a brief instant, the area around the giant metal bug shifted in a dark purple light.
What should have been a three-sided attack instead became Tusk shattering the arm of the Gem golem before being beheaded by her flying scythe blade.
As stunned as they were that the Vidos Granziella, as her Identification showed her, had turned what was supposed to be a sure kill, its wings glowed like it was going to cast a spell only for the energy to suddenly converge into a single point in front of it before it unleashed a superheated ray that vaporized the top half of Seventh Star's golem.
"Well, that can't be good."
"Could it always do that?" Crescent asked through her speaker. Previously it had only shown AOEs and smaller scales, now it was focusing the power of an AOE into a single attack.
She honestly didn't know whether to geek out or call hacks.
"A common misconception young miss." The red-headed pilot was starting to get used to his personality changes already, "In a game as real as Infinite Dendrogram, just as you can grow and adapt to monsters, so can they to you. Given that this thing seems to have a rather advanced processor, it might as well be classified as a UBM."
"I would say at least Ancient Legendary, possibly Mythical if it had all of its wings and was in perfect shape."
"Do they have processors like that? This thing could pass for an Atlesian AI from what I've seen." Crescent asked, not doubting his words, but more genuine technological interest.
she might be a mechanical engineering student in real life, but that didn't mean she didn't like to stay up to date on the electrical and software side of things.
"Pre-ancient civilization processors, those that didn't become UBMs anyway, are a cut above even Atlesian tech, at least in terms of capabilities." Seventh Star answered as he used wind magic to propel himself away from another death ray while Bahia was desperately trying to cut down its MP.
"And that means he can use spatial magic?!" Bahia chimed in sending more slashes of energy at the moth mech.
"No", Seventh said tossing several Gems into the air forming smaller, single colored, female-themed Gem Golems. Each spread out from him and unleashed their magic attack.
"That was gravity magic."
""This game has gravity magic?!"" the two women said in unison, Bahia in surprise while Crescent had settled for geeking out.
For the first time, Crescent saw a frown on Seventh's face. "There is an independent Master who can use gravity magic, supposedly it's a lost magic, but apparently both he and this rust bucket can use it."
That was interesting in two different ways.
Not only was gravity magic a thing, but there was even a Master who could use it.
Rather than use her scythe, she leveled her Magingear's left arm while flying, as it opened, a set of small mechanical arms loaded into her Magingear's hand, a modified version of the Jackal she had previously used, this time outfitted with a double barrel.
She opened fire as the Vidos Granziella erased her shots with what looked like a literal plasma beam!
Crescent was about to ask about how it suddenly started shooting literal beams of the fourth state of matter, but then she remembered something about magic in this game.
Chants didn't mean anything, they were just ways to focus the mana and shape the spell. She had heard that Mages who were skilled could alter the range, shape, or power of their spells, even fire off multiple versions of the same skill at once through concentration. While the best could create their own unique spells.
With that in mind, she could very easily imagine manipulating heat and energy to create a literal plasma beam.
Was this what the machine was doing? Using a processor to create custom spells?
Because it if was…SHE. WANTED. IT!
Her mind was suddenly awash with all kinds of ideas and cool things she could do to upgrade her precious Red Rose.
'Master your MP!' Wotan reminded Crescent as she was forced to dodge a super-focused wind lance which sliced through the ground – and the sky above- as it swung the attack upward trying to cleave Crescent in half.
One good thing about her build was that her MP had improved a lot since she started getting more jobs.
Unlike Remnant, they didn't have Dust to act as a constant fuel source. Instead, most machines ran on MP.
However, her Magius Jet Thrusters consumed a LOT of MP. Despite her reserves now a little over 1,200, she was burning through nearly all of it after only three minutes of combat…
…wow, it was crazy to think we'd only been fighting for about three minutes.
'Master, focus!'
"Right!"
She tried taking out an MP Potion from one of her pocket inventories, but it was hard to work two controllers with one hand.
'Dodge Master!' her Embryo shouted causing Crescent to drop the MP Potion to grab the controller to avoid a beam of what she could only describe as super-heated, super-concentrated plasma.
"Damn!" she cursed when she saw the MP Potion had broken on the floor of her cockpit.
"There goes 10,000 lir down the drain."
'Told you, you should have gone with the shag carpeting.'
"Not the time Wotan.'
Trying again she was forced to dodge a torrent of water that sliced clean through the right thigh of her Magingear causing her to lose balance.
"It cut the powerline to the left leg thruster!" Crescent felt her avatar straining trying to rebalance her flight path.
"Wotan get in the cockpit!" she screamed.
'But if I do, you'll lose Master the Swaying Weapon.'
"That's one level in Piloting, if I can't replenish my MP we'll crash anyway!"
"Good point," Wotan said manifesting on Crescent's lap. Her furry gloved hands took the controls.
"Weeee!" Wotan cheered doing a barrel-roll. She didn't know how, but Crescent could feel Wotan's wolf/raven pajama tail wagging against her stomach.
Keeping in mind that the tail slapping her was part of a costume and not an actual tail.
One of these days she would have to ask her Embryo how that was even possible.
"W-Wotan, keep it steady!" she shouted, choosing to ignore the weirder parts of her Embryo in exchange for trying to drink another MP Potion.
"Aw, but you never let me drive." Her Embryo whined before doing a sudden nosedive causing Crescent to drop her potion.
Again.
"And this is why!"
Contrary to what a lot of people would assume Wotan was not a good pilot. The fact her Red Rose was now bouncing around like a pinball was proof enough.
Sure Wotan had good DEX when it came to firearms, surprising everyone, but when it came to piloting- "WOTAN WATCH OUT!" Crescent screamed as her Magingear collided with an earth lance the size of a mountain from earlier in the fight.
With a crash, the Magingear broke off the tip and ricocheted off of a speeding Gem golem before hitting a cliff face at an angle that caused it to bounce again before hitting a red Gem golem that had been damaged in the last round causing it to explode. The force knocked them back into the cliff where the Magingear embedded itself into the wall.
Her head was rattling so much that Crescent could have sworn she heard someone screaming before her eyes widened like saucers as a massive beam of heat just barely missed them, mere inches above the head of her Magingear as a circular gouging half tunnel of glass formed from being carved out of the quarry wall.
"At least it's over." Crescent sighed…before the Red Rose began to lean forward.
[Party member "P-M374" has Died]
[Resurrection Period Expired]
[Due to the Death Penalty, "P-M374" was Logged Out]
Wotan sighed heavily, a few stray strands of gold covering her face, "You just had to jinx it, Master."
Her Magingear lurched forward as they fell, Wotan screaming while holding Crescent in a death grip for all she was worth.
The two of them rattled somewhat, but Crescent's seat belt stopped them from bouncing around the cockpit as her precious baby created a descent-sized crater in the ground.
"Uh, you know," Wotan groaned from her position of looking like Zwei when he lay on the couch bending his head back to look like an "L". "You could have kept piloting and I could have just fed you the potion." She said somewhat weakly as she was still trying to adjust to her world not bobbing.
At that moment, Crescent could have cried.
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Burst Gunner, JAnz
Nebula, as she was known IRL, had known the very moment she got the [Fainting] debuff that she was going to miss a lot in the fight.
Anytime she partied up with Crescent and Kelly it was chaos.
She still refused even to acknowledge the Milk Incident.
How they managed to screw up a literal milk run she had no idea.
But one thing could be certain, if those two could screw up getting milk, they could screw up a multi-nation party battle over what was likely a pre-ancient civilization superweapon that had been activated after thousands of (in-game) years.
Just freakin' perfect.
She had woken up to the sound of eight identical people dismantling machines like it was an Anti-Atlas rave at The Mirage before seeing a giant game of pinball with the ball being a red robot, ending with it embedded in a cliff face before falling face first into the ground making a small, for its size, crater.
After – she might note – that Meta sacrificed herself to save Crescent.
That girl wouldn't last two minutes in Vacuo. Just too nice.
She then observed as the dark-skinned woman with the tribal tattoos dodged a giant beam of super-heated energy that left a trail of molten glass behind as it carved through the landscape.
Oh, and there was still the matter of the giant mechanical death bug.
It's a good thing you can get drunk in this game because she was planning to blow all thirty million lir of her share on getting as shitfaced as was physically possible.
Even if it would likely end in the death penalty.
There are worse ways to die after all.
*BOOM*
As if to illustrate that point she saw one of the butler's Gem golems obliterated with a small, but highly compacted rock fired at a speed capable of producing a literal sonic boom before proceeding, with seemingly no reduction in velocity to shoot through three hills and a medium-sized rock wall before disappearing into the horizon.
Part of her wanted to just "nope" out of this, but she'd said she would do this, and she was going to see this quest through to the end.
Get her money.
Get drunk.
And demand Crescent give her compensation for all these headaches in the form of cuddling Wotan and that limited edition Cheshire plushie that sold out while she was logged out attending to her family's restaurant.
It even talked when you hugged it.
SHE WANTED TO CUDDLE IT SO BAD!
Taking a deep breath, she refocused, she still had something to do and started running towards her downed party member…who was inside of a robot, not the two still on the ground.
/-/
King of Gems, Seventh Star
He watched as the young girl with green eyes and bright orange hair sacrificed herself to deflect the moth's attack from her friend.
They might have been on opposing sides, but he genuinely held respect for the young orangenette.
Yet, even when his semblance made his anger flared -rarely actually more than a case of grumpiness - did he have as much trouble restraining his temper as he was currently doing.
Still…
This was shaping up to be a rather sticky situation.
Part of him chuckled at the fact his IRL profession would require him to clean up such situations.
be it stains, spills, or whatever the…master – the amount of venom he put into that word would outstrip anything even the young miss could conjure up - of the house he served did, he would clean it up with ease.
"Smile, obey, and ignore anything you're told to." The servant's creed. Or at least the new one once the pompous asshole moved in.
The old master was a man Klein had been all too happy and even felt honored to serve.
Sadly, the old master is not long for this world and can rarely get out of bed.
Despite this, the clever man that he is, the old master proposed a way to not only help the mistress of the house regain some of her vigor but steal the SDC back from right under that blowhard's very own nose.
While he didn't know the exact nature of the deal, it had something to do with Infinite Dendrogram.
In addition to the quite frankly astounding time dilation of the game literally TRIPLING play time, it allowed the old master a new - secret - avenue to communicate with those board members he could still trust as well as somehow got him connections to Lewis Carroll himself.
Now most would ask how would playing a video game help take back the SDC?
To be honest, Klein, his real name, had no idea.
But that was the kind of man Nicholas Schnee was. You felt as though you were listening to a man who had made himself a true king. Like it was your solemn duty to assist him when he asked for help.
And that is just what he, and many of the servants still loyal to him, did.
They were working hard in their spare time to grind their Embryos to their seventh form.
None of them would be paid for this extra work, and to be honest, no one had ever actually complained.
Even if the man they revered was not long for this world, they could at least ensure his legacy did not become any more tarnished than it already is.
Human, faunus, it didn't matter, he was a man whom both could rally behind.
The fact he could imagine every enemy he blew up as that snobbish snake oil salesman was just a bonus.
Which led to his current situation.
Their current forces, though still holding strong, had dwindled quite a bit.
Originally, this had been a simple quest to obtain whatever was inside of the ruins. However, it had quickly morphed into a battle between two parties of Masters, then the two parties and a legion of robots, and now two parties of Masters, a legion of robots, and a giant mechanical moth that was firing off Superior Mage job ultimate skills like they were going out of fashion.
Out of context, it would seem just like a plot from one of those Cowboy Blues (2) shows Master Whitely likes so much.
Thankfully a Master from Altar was handling the legion of robots.
Though why Tom Cat was here he had no idea.
Probably the same as them or at least similar.
Now the main problem was the giant robot moth.
Thus far he had been using his Gems sparingly. Firstly, because any good gamer knew you didn't just spam your ult like a noob, you assessed your opponent, learned their attack patterns, and then exploited any weaknesses you managed to find.
Gaming 101 really.
Secondly, he looked at the dark-skinned woman with red hair and white tribal tattoos that seemed a mix of Mistralian and Vaccuan.
Only he and one other of his party had survived this far. With Tusk around he could have been less frugal with his Gems when he made his move, but as it stands, not so much.
As it currently stands, their opponent, though no longer able to use any AOEs, has since adapted to hyper-focusing them into magic death rays.
Additionally, it seemed to have roughly 270-degree vision. The only plus to that is that it isn't particularly fast. Even a high-rank job focused on AGI could outpace it.
However, its greatest strengths are the wide variety of spells it has, its ridiculously huge mana reserves, the magical resistance a high MP stat grants you, and the fact it can float on its own and only uses its wings to focus its spells.
After bombarding it with different elemental Gem golems, his Pleiades, as he likes to call them in his head, it appears that unlike Tusk, this thing can't use resistance magic and while durable, it was proven to be able to be damaged.
This meant they had the choice of a battle of attrition or narrowing their attack targets to focus on its weak points.
Given its ability to adapt and that its MP reserves eclipsed BOTH parties when they were full, that basically meant there was one option.
So, their best options are either to destroy its main processor or to clip all of its wings.
The problem with those options was that he didn't know where the processor was located, on one hand, most would say the head, but he had fought pre-ancient civilization machines before only to find it located in the chest or wirelessly controlling the mechanical body from afar.
The second problem was that it was now constantly using one of its wings to create a small gravity field to deflect attacks that got too close.
This meant, that in order to clip its wings, they either needed to hit it with a powerful enough single target or AOE attack that it couldn't deflect it or a fast enough attack that it couldn't redirect it.
Decisions, decisions.
As he channeled MP into one of the Gems he concealed in his uniform, he flew via a wind spell dodging a lightning blast that tore through a nearby rock face.
A little trick he picked up from the real world. While he had no aptitude for Dust IRL, let alone the ability to wield humanity's saving grace beyond turning on a light switch, ID had given him a chance to live out that childhood dream.
Then he suddenly heard a gunshot and a large blob of clay was now glomped onto the side of the mechanical moth's head.
Turning he saw pril had woken up.
One less thing to worry about then.
Her sand-colored cloak was a special reward, not from a UBM, but a boss monster that specialized in ambush tactics; The Demi-Sand Dragon.
While it was barely Demi-Dragon class in stats, its camouflage ability and ability to disappear into the sands made it a troublesome grind even for Superiors if their Embryos could not counter its abilities.
Due to said abilities almost no one had the cloak they dropped which granted them a similar ability to the boss monster itself.
The only ways to counter it were high-level detection skills or to defeat it faster than it could retreat. Signifying just how skilled of a sniper the young woman was.
As she vanished into her surroundings he smiled a little.
Blinding it was a clever tactic and one he could help with as he withdrew two fire Gems from his inventory and used them to summon two Fire Pleiades.
While their fire wasn't particularly strong, especially considering the giant Pleiad he had summoned earlier.
But then again the point of summoning them wasn't for damage, but to harden the clay pril was continually shooting at its face.
Sadly, the poor girl's ultimate skill wasn't suited for this type of combat.
Still, the was at least a step in the right direction.
Speaking of steps, he noticed the blue-haired girl, Reveal said her name was JAnz moving towards her downed party member in the Magingear.
He was going to inquire as to what she might be planning as he saw the young man who used lightning magic speeding towards the moth.
The last attack he used, which had destroyed one of the moth's wings, was probably his Embryo's ultimate skill. Given that he hadn't used it again, he would assume there was some sort of limitation to using it, such as once per day or some other restricting factor.
His skill showed him that the young man's MP was back up to full – probably from potions. So that wasn't it.
"Sir." He heard from off to the side as she saw the red Magingear getting back up. "Would you mind listening to my plan?"
At that Seventh could only smile and nod.
/-/
King of Lightning, Regal
Using his embryo he accelerated his speed in a quick succession of thrusting tosses and catches to allow him to maneuver in midair as he dodged the giant robotic moth's death rays.
Since when could it do that? He pondered as he shot it with another lightning bolt.
He had heard UBMs could develop new attack patterns mid-fight if they were smart enough or strong enough.
Was this something like that?
He didn't know.
Despite being a Dryfean PK, he was still a Vacuan at heart. Meaning he barely knew how to work his scroll. So, a giant robot moth was outside of his wheelhouse.
Despite what he and Bahia were doing to it, that thing's MP wasn't even halfway down yet.
Which for him was a first. Typically, his Embryo could drain the MP of anyone but a Mage high-rank job or with an MP-focused Embryo after a few hits. But there was still a limit on how much Haietlik could absorb with each strike.
Each strike only netted about 2,000 MP.
How many hours would it take to put this thing down for good?
As much as he would love to use his ultimate skill right about now, he wasn't able to. To invoke it, he needed to not only have more than half his MP but also have absorbed MP and/or SP equal to or greater than twice his base MP stat in the last 24 hours.
…and since he already used the skill, the amount absorbed reset to zero.
A weird restriction, he would freely admit, but it had worked for him so many times in the past that he rarely questioned it anymore.
Having said that, he wasn't alone in this either.
Bahia, the girl with the disappearing cloak and sniper rifle, and the Gem golems.
Speaking of which, where was the guy who made them?
Was his Embryo able to make golems that continued operating even after their Master was taken out?
Nah, there's no way an Embryo like that exists.
…maybe.
He tried checking on his party and saw that Kelly was with a now awake, and one-armed, Pinetree along with a group of eight eerily identical guys.
Was his Embryo's ability cloning or something?
It was when he was distracted by this that he was too late to notice the robot's line of attack. Before it magically created a massive bolder and hurled it at the trio(?)…decet(?)
The one with the clones seemed to be an AGI specialist if his speed was any indicator, grabbed the other two and began sprinting but just as it seemed they managed to clear the attack, the moth sent a blast of wind so focused it was able to cause the bolder from before to shatter into thousands of pieces.
Stone acted as jagged shrapnel tearing into the group.
[Party member "Kelly Hawks" has Died]
[Resurrection Period Expired]
[Due to the Death Penalty, "Kelly Hawks" was Logged Out]
[Party member "Pinetree" has Died]
[Resurrection Period Expired]
[Due to the Death Penalty, "Pinetree" was Logged Out]
Pissed off, Regal charged forward, using his Embryo to propel himself far faster than even an AGI high-rank job could before drawing both weapons for his attack.
Letting the momentum carry him, he began releasing a series of strikes as he was moving along the surface of the machine.
Managing to land sixteen consecutive strikes (a new personal best) he used his attack to pull aggro to distract the moth as the others attacked it. All while bobbing and weaving between a barrage of stone bullets the size of his torso before he received a message.
'Regal, hold out for another three minutes then I need you to get the others to lure it closer to the rock quarry wall.' JAnz ordered.
'Why? Do you have a plan?'
'Of course dumbass' she snarked back, 'now don't get your pansy ass killed.'
Mentally he shrugged, if she was cursing like a Vacuan dock worker, or Sunday school teacher, then everything was probably fine.
/-/
Burst Gunner, JAnz
"You do have a plan, don't you?" the bluenette asked Crescent who was out of her Magingear tinkering with a bunch of components and parts she took out of her inventory.
…along with a small mound of Gems from Seventh Star.
Said pile alone could fetch around 300,000 to 450,000 lir easily. Even more, if she sold them on the black market.
The only reasons she didn't consider doing so were one; this quest was probably sponsored by someone high up in the Dryfean government, and she didn't want to try running just yet. And two, Seventh was right next to her.
While he wasn't a melee combatant, he had proven himself more than capable of fighting like a Pre-Superior. One she didn't want to fight.
"Of course, we just need to blow everything up!" she hummed in a joyful manner that in any other situation would have been adorable, but in this current situation was outright terrifying.
Rather than ask the mad woman (the one still fiddling with explosives) she decided to talk with the only rational one of the duo – Wotan…who had somehow captured one of the Gem golems and was now cuddling it like it was a baby.
She was so JEALOUS!
"Please explain."
"Master is going to use my last charge of Runic Script to set up the robotic moth for a series of attacks that will keep it pinned long enough for you to use your and Seventh Star's ultimate skills to finish it off." She explained as though she was talking about how to work a mailbox.
"But I don't-" she went to say only for Crescent to hold up a rough schematic of the robot, including where to shoot. It was both well done and easy to read.
Hell a toddler could probably pull this off with instructions this clear.
"H-how?"
"Machine Analysis." The redhead with blonde tips replied absently.
It was a skill from the Mechanics job, but could a low-rank job skill do something like that?
'You must have quite the Sense Skill young lady." SS said conversationally.
"Ready." She beamed, "Help me set these up." She cheered with a bright grin that for a moment made JAnz feel a faint chill down her spine.
/-/
Clay Princess, pril
She had been using hit-and-run tactics on this thing since she woke up.
After nearly four minutes – and having to down all of her HP Potions - she managed to damage or at least interfere with about half of its visual sensors.
On both sides of its head now less.
She hoped the things that looked like eyes were used for that purpose.
So far it didn't seem like they had done a critical amount of damage to it. She preferred snipping monsters and players, so she chose Scout over Appraiser and as a result, couldn't see the stats of the machine which counted as an item instead of a monster. Instead of her Reveal skill, she would need Identification instead.
She could, however, see that her party members – well member – was at about half his HP and suffered from a few [Broken Bone] debuffs, but nothing major.
The people helping them, who she didn't want to fight against afterward, were a mix of thirty to sixty percent HP.
After SS had contacted her to keep holding for three minutes she thought he was insane.
Still, she would admit she was impressed by the two helping her alongside SS's Pleiades.
They had managed to survive an extra minute.
Still…
She knew PK's when she saw them. The way they attacked and moved told her they were used to ambush tactics as well as fighting sentient opponents.
Part of her idly wondered if it would be better to snipe them now and get it over with.
The only reason she did not was simply she wasn't confident she and SS could handle the giant robot moth by themselves and probably what was left of the Dryfe party. Possibly at the same time.
'It's time, I'm going to move it now. Ten seconds until casting.'
The sudden message prompted the cloaked Master to start fleeing away from the machine.
SS's Superior job was King of Gems, it not only up'd his ability to make Gems and store higher level spells into them, but turned him into a pseudo caster.
Combined with his high-rank job as Sage and that his Embryo basically made him equivalent to a Superior Mage job, he was considered one of the most powerful magic casters in ID alongside Granvalao's The Ocean, and Huang He's Map Changer.
He'd be Caldina's top magic caster if not for the King of Libraries.
Strange how, for some unknown reason, she recalled that on the way here could have sworn she saw a giant worm pass them on their way here.
But then again, it was Caldina, most places got things like wolves and goblins, and Caldina got giant sandworms.
She saw in the distance as several Gems, charged with wind magic rotated in front of him before being fired all at once releasing a sideways tornado.
The robot tried to counter, but the black-haired guy shot lighting at one wing while the redhaired woman sent slashes of energy at the other side, not stopping the spell, but stalling it enough for Caldina's Bejeweled Butler to slam into it as the sound of gale-force winds trying to rend metal caused everyone to cover their ears at the grinding and grating sound it made.
Despite its best effort, the moth was slammed into the quarry cliff face, what she hadn't expected was the red Magingear to be atop the cliff face…or to pull what looked like a rope…that was glowing red…connecting to several equally glowing red round things imbedded into the side of the cliff.
*BBBBBBBBBBOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM*!
The explosion was so loud that despite her sense of pain turned off, she could feel every bone in her avatar's body vibrate violently as the explosion was so great she couldn't hear anything before it all went silent.
[Deafened]
For once she was actually happy to get a debuff.
The giant moth was covered in rubble, its eyes and wings still glowing.
Though it might not be the case for long.
Despite not being able to hear, she knew what was being said by The World's Richest Butler as seven celestial maidens, each a different color appeared above the pinned moth. Each holding a sphere of pure elemental energy.
Out of awe and admiration, she mouthed the name of the most beautiful ultimate skill she knew in Klein's native proto-Mantle (3), "In die Sterne gemeißelt, um sich am Himmel schön zu machen – Nebra Sky Disk"(4)
The only true weaknesses of this skill were the massive amounts of Gems it required to use it and the casting time.
Just as it looked like the moth was going to try to cast a spell, something in it seemed to short-circuit and it lost the glow in its left eye.
Before it could compensate, a massive rainbow pillar of energy, like a weaponized aurora, rained down on it in a Remnant-shattering display of power.
The ground shook and convulsed like the world might break before the beam died down a full minute later.
Weapon drawn, she approached the deep hole cautiously.
As she looked on to see the nearly ten metel deep crater where the remains of the machine were still there. Damaged, broken beyond what she believed could be repaired, but thankfully it seemed that it had finally deactivated the mechanical moth.
She let out a sigh of relief that she hadn't realized she had been holding.
Before she could even finish breathing in, she received a notification.
[Party member "Seventh Star" has Died]
[Resurrection Period Expired]
[Due to the Death Penalty, "Seventh Star" was Logged Out]
Before she could even process what she had read, from the corner of her eye she saw a flash of lightning mere inches from her face.
And then…
[Fatal Damage]
[Party Eliminated]
[Resurrection Period Expired]
[Death Penalty: 24 Hour Login Ban]
At that moment she had realized she had forgotten a golden rule of RPGs: don't trust the PKs to not stab you in the back.
(1) The first Gundam.
(2) A pun on Cowboy Bebop. I wanted to make a color naming pun given the color scheme in the anime, but couldn't make it work, so I went with an alternative form of music (bebop to blues) that fit RWBY's color naming rule.
(3) Proto-Mantle = German
(4) Sculpted in the Stars to Rein Beautifully in the Heavens - Nebra Sky Disk
I get what some people might say, but both Bahia and Regal are notorious PKs and to be fair they were still technically enemies.
We also got to see a little into what Klein is up to.
Crescent Rose = Ruby Rose
Kelly Hawks = Reese Chloris
JAnz = Nebula Violette
P-M374 (Meta) = Penny Polendina
Regal = Nolan Porfirio
pril = May Zedong
Tusk = Ivori
Seventh Star = Klein Sieben
Bahia = Emerald Sustrai
I know I'm a bit late in saying this (nearly a month), but to Rooster Teeth all I can say is thank you for all you have given us…and you will be missed.
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