Quick Author's Note: So, this is another multi-parter arc, this time but with three parts, made up of Chapters 19, 20, and 21. Parts 2 and 3 (Chapters 20 and 21) will be posted shortly after this story, so look out for that!
Chapter 19: Parallax
Uni had never been so afraid. Not even when her sister was trapped in the Gamindustri Graveyard for three years, or when Noire was corrupted by Kurome's delusions. But now... she was weaponless, facing down a strange, yet cruel robot with unknown abilities and weaponry.
At the same time, however, Uni had also never felt more angry. Yes, she absolutely despised Venus before, heck, she even despised Nepgear once. But never, NEVER would she ever think about calling them false CPUs. That was an insult that she wouldn't dare to levy on a fellow goddess.
But at this moment, there was little she could do about it. She was powerless, and Venus was still sprawled on the ground. Uni didn't know if she was awake or knocked out. Not that it would've matted, since Venus was too upset to act before, so Uni wasn't sure if much would change now that this... Parallax, was on the assault.
So with no other option, Uni stumbled back, standing in front of her friend. If anything, she could protect her friend.
"Move, Lastation Candidate," Parallax warned, his floating energy blades flicking in the dark corridor. "This does not concern you."
"She is my friend, so it very much concerns me!" Uni barked.
"This is your one chance for clemency, Lastation Candidate. Move, and allow me to execute the False CPU. Or else, you too shall forfeit your life."
"You kill Venus, or me, and the CPUs will descend on you with all of their fury, and they will show you... No... Mercy!"
"I was made to learn from the CPUs, to fight them. If they dare face me, they too will be exterminated. Just like you, who has now just forfeited your life."
Parallax's blades raised up, poised to rush down Uni and tear her to shreds. But just as they began to fly towards her...
A massive shuriken flew out from behind the Candidates, forcing Parallax to pull back his blades to use them to block the surprise attack.
"UNI!" a voice shouted behind her. It was Steamax. He looked a bit worse for wear, his armor covered with cuts and burns, likely from Parallax's strange blades. "Get Venus and go!"
"Steamax..." Uni sounded.
"GO!" Steamax shouted, as he rushed past the Candidates, his sword drawn.
Uni, tears in her eyes, began to pick up Venus, and make their getaway. It seemed Venus was awake, softly sobbing. She was barely holding onto her sword, and her shield arm hung at her side.
"Come on, we got to go," Uni said, and Venus just silently followed Uni's order.
"You!" Parallax growled. "You were meant to die! A supporter to the False CPU. You dare-"
"I am loyal to Uni and her friends, and you are a fool," Steamax interjected. "And your foolishness has ignited a fire in me! Should I die here, then I'll do so to make sure they escape your unjust wrath."
Parallax let out a mad laugh. "You won't die, not yet. No, you've proven yourself a plague on our nation. So, I'll torture you, make you scream, until you realize the crimes you have committed. Only then, when you beg for mercy, will I free you of your mortal life."
"No amount of torture will break me, not when you're the one who deserves punishment."
The exchange ended as Steamax rushed at Parallax, while Uni could only cry as she heard this behind her, making her escape. It didn't help that Venus was also upset. And knowing why she was upset only fueled Uni's frustration.
They made it back to the main room, while they could still hear the battle faintly echoing from the hallways.
This is when Venus murmured, "am I really a false goddess?"
"No!" Uni growled. "You are one. Ask Neptune. Ask Histoire. H***, ask Noire. You are a real goddess!"
"D-don't lie to me! You were looking for Nepgear right? You're looking for Nepgear because she's the real Candidate, r-right? I'm just fake, meant to replace her..."
Hearing this, Uni knew that the moment she got her and Venus out of there, she was going to personally order the hunt for Parallax, alive, so she could throw him into a volcano. No use in even saving the materials from his parts, when they were clearly imbued with pure delusion.
Uni, Neptune, Noire, they all contributed to trying to help Venus understand herself and become her own person. Uni even lambasted the other CPUs for seeing Venus as the new Nepgear, after recognizing that she fell into that trap herself. But now all of that had been undone by a single lying robot, who insisted everyone else was the liar. And this would not stand!
Uni grabbed Venus's shoulders, and pulled the purplette in front of her. "Venus, listen to me! Who do you believe more? A robot you've never seen before and wants to kill you!? Or somebody who stood by you, when everyone else wanted you to be someone you weren't!?"
Venus was silent. She... hadn't thought about that.
"Histoire calls you a goddess, and she doesn't lie. Neptune, CPU Purple Heart, calls you her sister, and SHE doesn't lie!" Uni continued. "And as for Nepgear, I'm looking for her because she is my friend. And I HELP my friends. ALL of my friends. Because that's what friends do. And YOU are my friend, so I'm going to help you, too! Understand?"
"Yeah... we're friends..." Venus sounded.
"Look, that dumb robot was programmed to lie. Maybe he believes that you're not a goddess, or whatever! But he is WRONG! And when our sisters find out about this, you KNOW that they're going to find him, and dismantle him without a second thought for such blasphemy. Assuming I don't find him and end him first."
"I... I'm sorry..."
Uni's expression softened. "It's okay. We both know that you have a hard time understanding everything you hear, but you can trust your friends. And you can trust Neptune, most of all. And if someone says something that doesn't match up with what we are saying, then THEY can't be trusted. Understand?"
"Y-yeah," Venus replied.
"This Parallax guy, he is a liar, and he wants to kill us because he doesn't believe you deserve to exist. And anybody with common sense would not trust him, and they would try to stop him. And he doesn't get to tell you who you are supposed to be. You are Venus. Not just the CPU Candidate of Planeptune, and a goddess, without a doubt. You are somebody people care about. And you are somebody who will always be there to help those who need it. Neptune needed your love and support. I needed your friendship. Don't throw that away over some lie, okay?"
"Y-yes! I'm... I'm Venus!" the Candidate repeated. "I'm Neptune's little sister! I'm a goddess of Planeptune. And I help my friends!"
"Atta girl," Uni praised. "Now, we need to get out of here before..."
Uni trailed off, as she realized the distant sounds of the battle between Steamax and Parallax had stopped, and were replaced by the heavy thuds of metal on metal.
The girls turned to look back at the hallway entrance, watching as the glowing indigo eyes stared them down.
"Oh- oh no, Steamax..." Uni squeaked in distress.
"The ninja will be dealt with later," the mechanical voice responded. "Punished for assisting in the denial of your executions. Now, False CPU, time to accept your fate."
"NO!" Venus shouted at Parallax. "You're a liar! I'm a goddess! And you want to hurt my friends! And I won't let you!" And she raised her sword and shield.
"The only liar is you, and those who believe you deserve a place in Planeptune. You... deserve nothin-"
"Shut up, you stupid robot!" Venus raged, unleashing a wordless Sonic Sever, sending out a magic slash at the killer android.
Parallax immediately jumped incredibly high into the air, almost two-thirds of the way to touching the ceiling of the large room. His blades activated, and to the surprise of both girls, arranged themselves into something resembling a gun with two long rails.
"Brave Cannon!" Parallax called out, as he fired a powerful beam from his makeshift railgun.
This time, however, Venus was quick to react. "Aurora Reflect!" she shouted, using her shield to redirect the beam away from her and Uni. Unfortunately, the beam's power was too great for Venus, so she couldn't direct it back at Parallax, instead sending it towards the ceiling.
The blast tore apart the metal plating, large chunks of rock falling as the weight of the cavern came down. Luckily, the whole room didn't cave in. Even still, Uni and Venus had to rush to avoid the collapsing ceiling.
As the two of them retreated behind debris to use as cover, and caught their breath, Uni angrily remarked, "th-that... That was MY move! I-I got that move from Brave! H- How!?"
"Come on, we can take him!" Venus told her friend. "We're CPU Candidates! We can show this liar-bot that we're BOTH real goddesses!"
"As much as I want to tear him limb from limb, I can't. The bastard broke my gun."
"Well... Maybe you can use your goddy form!?"
Uni sighed. "I know you probably don't realize this, since you can't transform yet, but our weapons transform with us. Without my gun, I simply don't have a weapon, HDD or not. And without it, I don't have a chance of overcoming the range and area coverage of those freaking blades. Sure, I'm stronger in HDD, but I'm not exactly trained in hand-to-hand combat. I'm not Uzume or Tekken..."
"Who...?" Venus asked.
"Oh, right... you've never met them. Um, never mind, it doesn't matter!"
Then they heard Parallax speak, from behind the rubble. "False CPU, I can hear you and your friend. You can't hide, you can't run, you can only accept the end."
"If he says 'False CPU' one more time..." Uni grumbled. But then she felt the broken sword on her waist. She grabbed it, and just looked at it with sadness.
All she wanted was to find her lost friend, the girl she loved. But now, she was hiding from something that ceaselessly wanted to destroy her new friend, was powerless to stop him, and all she got for it was a broken, useless, beam saber-
Uni thoughts paused that one word. "Saber". A sword... a weapon. Could... could that work? Share Energy could do a lot of things, but... could using HDD restore the sword?
But more importantly, if it did work... what would she get? If... if this sword was exactly what she thought it was... would it become THAT weapon?
It- It couldn't be right? Neptune and Noire both used swords, but if they swapped swords, and transformed, they'd end up with their HDD weapons. Right? But... Uni never used HDD with a sword. No, she had to be overthinking this. She had to be!
...Could her thoughts, her wishes... affect the outcome?
Uni hadn't realized it, but she was crying. Venus had noticed, however, and looking over their cover, she could see Parallax, scanning the area, looking for them. Steamax wasn't anywhere to be seen. And then there was Uni, Venus's friend, upset, powerless, angry, possibly scared.
But she remembered what her sister had said. I think you're here to help us. We all need someone to help us feel better. That's what Neptune had said.
And Uni, moments before, gave her such a stirring speech, inspiring a confidence in her that she'd never felt before. Now, she was upset, and Venus needed to make her feel better.
And it had to start with this robot. This robot that lied about who she was, and wanted her gone.
"Uni," Venus said, with a sureness that was very unlike her. "You need to go. I can handle this!"
Uni looked back at her friend in shock, "wha- Venus, are you crazy!? Look, I've got an idea. Don't-"
"You can't stop him without a weapon," Venus countered. "Don't worry, I'll be fine. I'm strong, and besides, friends help each other, right?"
"Unless you're doing something reckless and stupid!" But Uni's plea fell on deaf ears, as Venus leapt over their cover.
"Para... person!" Venus called out, as she charged the robot.
Uni looked over, watching as the robot turned to the reckless Candidate. He gave a gleeful but dark laugh. "Finally," he said, "You accept your death."
"I'm not accepting ANYTHING! You've threatened my friends! And you called me a fake goddess! I'm not letting you get away with this!" Venus shouted back, raising her sword as she made a leaping slash at Parallax.
The Gizoid simply jumped back, avoiding the attack. Then his blades arrange them into a sort of spine-like formation, with him holding onto one of them like a sword grip, as energy flowed between the segments.
Well, the reason Parallax held it like a sword was because his blades were now acting like a full sword, a whip-sword in fact, as he swung his new "blade", the segments splitting up with an energy tether between them, and lashing out at Venus.
The Planeptune Candidate held up her shield to block the strike, but Parallax unleashed several more strikes at her with his imitation weapon. She held her guard, but she could do little more than block the fury of slashes.
Until Venus made an aggressive push, bouncing the blades off her shield, and following with Stardust Saw, making a thrust with her now spinning magic-bladed shield at Parallax. She attacked with such force, that she swore her whole body was glowing, not just the magic on her shield.
However, Parallax managed to force the shield off-course with his imitated weapon, but he still staggered back. Despite this, he seemed unfazed.
"Impressive, but did you think a False CPU like yourself could defeat me?" Parallax mocked, but with complete surety in what he said.
"I am not a 'Flase CPU'," Venus countered. "I am Venus! Candy-date of Planeptune!"
"You... are a lost cause," Parallax concluded. "Though that does not change your fate! Fighting Viper!" He then flew at Venus, and unleashed a powerful slash at her. She managed to hold up her shield to block the attack, but the power of the blow still knocked her onto the ground. And then she felt a massive aftershock from the blow.
Uni watched in horror. First, this robot mimicked her, but now... That was an Iris Heart move. How did he learn that?
Uni desperately wanted to help Venus, but Venus was right, she didn't have anything to fight this robot with other than a broken sword and an idea. But it was looking as if she'd have no choice but to-
"Now... it's time to die," Parallax exclaimed. "Drive Stab!" As Venus was trying to get back up, Parallax seemed to disappear and reappear closer in front of the weakened girl, before unleashing a rapid flurry of slashes at her, and then finishing with a high jab kick.
...A kick with enough power to send Venus flying into the wall with such great force, that it caused the already fragile structure to collapse further, falling on top of Venus.
"VENUS!" Uni cried out. That... idiot. She shouldn't have...
Uni collapsed on her knees. Maybe she is still okay under there? The falling debris could have missed her, right?
But... there was no movement, no sound.
Parallax approached Uni, malice emanating from him. "There will be no mercy for those like her. And as for you, you have already forfeited your life, choosing to defend such vermin. You claim that the CPUs will descend on us with their fury, but if they are wise, they will understand that your death was punishment for daring to oppose Planeptune, and they will not interfere, lest they be terminated themselves."
Uni's grip on the broken beam saber tightened, as vapers of white light began to flow off of her. "How dare you..."
"Excuse me? How dare I?" Parallax replied, as if there was nothing wrong with what he said.
"HOW DARE YOU EVEN THINK YOU GET DECIDE OUR FATES!? How dare you decide that Venus isn't a Planeptune Goddess! How dare you decide that we deserve to be punished for supporting her! Who said that YOU get to be our judge and executioner? You called us delusional, but look at yourself! Too blind to see a true goddess when they're standing RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOU!"
Uni was enveloped in a bright white light, as she transformed into Black Sister. Rage covered the CPU's face, until she lifted her weapon in front of her.
Luck was on her side, as her theory proved to be true. The broken beam saber had transformed with her, and furthermore, it appeared to be a fully functional weapon now. But the weapon she now had...
A gunblade. Just like the one Purple Sister used to have... just black in color, with a blue blade-edge.
So, was it because of her... unspoken wish for the sword to become this, or did this mean that the beam saber really was...
Black Sister's thoughts were interrupted, as Parallax's blades hissed as they activated, arranging themselves in a circle behind him. "It is such a shame that you are so incapable of understanding the truth. But it doesn't matter what you do, I will end your life all the same."
The transformed Candidate glared at the robot with great intensity. "You are a blight on Gamindustri, and a disgrace to the memory and legacy of Planeptune's CPUs," Black Sister exclaimed, tired of this robot's vile comments, as she readied her new gunblade. "I don't care if I'm a Lastation goddess, I've lost enough of my friends! Neptune, Venus, ...Nepgear. This is for you. For Planeptune. This... is FOR MY FRIENDS!"
Author's Note: So, I was planning on making another two-parter set of chapters, but now I think this is going to be a three-parter instead, as the ending of this chapter was meant to be the middle of the "part one chapter", but as I actually started writing this, this felt too good of a place to not end things here.
With that said, I think this will also make the next chapter very short, as the battle with Parallax is meant to be covered by all of the now three parts, ...and I didn't think this far ahead. Even still, as usual, I plan to post all three parts on the same day, so expect the next chapters to be up very quickly.
So to start, I just want to say how much fun I had with writing Uni's emotional moments in this chapter. Her long spiel to Venus to convince her that Parallax was wrong (I did say in the last chapter's Author Note that Parallax was wrong, as not to be misleading), as long as it became, I really enjoyed putting it together. I didn't plan for it to get that long, but as I was writing, it just came out, and fit together nicely.
Also, coming back to the chapter for grammar checking, and re-reading what Uni says before transforming... I didn't realize just how RAW that line sounds, and I love it. All of Uni's emotions, dealing with this cruel, uncaring machine that seemingly destroyed her best friend, someone that she was trying to do right by, now pours out in righteous fury, as she just wants to end this robot. It's fantastic!
Not to mention her last sentence. I had made that the name of my pre-written excerpts (sometimes, I really just want to write something that I am not even close to in the story, so I write it as an except to fix later when it's time to use it), but didn't know if that name would stick until now, as it is going to the next chapter's name. The perfect way to end off the chapter.
Next, I want to talk about Uni and her new gunblade, as I'm sure that everyone has realized just what this means, the same as Uni has. This has been a minor plotline that I've been wanting to write for so long now. So let me tell you how I came up with this idea.
This is based on something... interesting, that I noticed while playing Re;Birth 1. I had unlocked Uni (actually, I was able to unlock all of the Candidates on my first run. Seriously, the Shares Quests DLC is way too useful) and I had equipped her with a new weapon... sometime before the final boss, I don't completely remember. What I do know, is that I used Uni during that boss, and I noticed her HDD railgun... was white. Sometime after I beat the game, I looked at it closer, and yes, the specific weapon I equipped to her did in fact change the color of her HDD gun. It was already a red-recolor of one of Uni's previous weapons in her base form, it just changed with her HDD form as well.
This gave me the impression that the weapons the goddesses use in human form do have an effect on the weapons they have in HDD. It's a minor detail, but because of this, I feel that the weapons a goddess is using when they transform are carried on throughout the transformation.
This is why I wrote the chapter where Venus was picking out her weapon early in the story. Lots of people seem to think that goddesses are born with their weapon of choice, but I disagree, as the evidence suggests otherwise. This entire small detail ended up being the inspiration for Uni's discovery of the broken beam saber, and the subsequent transformation of it into a gunblade, and I wanted to establish this rule in the story early on, sans the HDD side of things.
However, I ended up deciding to leave up to interpretation about whether the beam saber became an HDD gunblade because of its origin, or if Black Sister subconsciously willed for the saber to become the weapon she thought it would become. Even though I am establishing this rule based on my own observations of the games, I still feel that I am covering uncharted waters for Hyperdimension fanfiction, as no other writer has really covered this concept of goddesses using weapons other than their own (except for Gehaburn, maybe, and one time I read a story where they gave Neptune an extra sword for like, one chapter). So I want you, the readers, to reach your own conclusion on this.
And that's all I got for this chapter. There is more I have to say, but all of that is for the next two chapters. Remember, this is a three-parter. The moment I post this chapter, I will already be working on getting the next two chapters up (unless something comes up). So, I'd ask you to hold off on your comments and reviews until those chapters are up in the next half hour or so, and keep an eye out!