Hyperdimension Neptunia Third Sister: Darkness

by Somedudeonline

WARNING: This a direct sequel to 'Light', read that first if you don't want to be confused. After having died, Bios is reborn with the energy of Despair running through her, now the opposite of a Goddess. In spite of what fate demands of her, she gathers a group of vigilantes to save Lowee from a sinister group of organisations known as, SCJP

19. Chapter 17-1: The Turtle Waves

Hyperdimension Neptunia

Third Sister; Darkness

Chapter 17.1-Side Dragonette

The Turtle Waves

The sun brightens the entire sky, even a few hours before noon its heat makes for a comfortable time on this beach. The waves crash into the sand as kids play with the water and men and women run over the sand, some play sports others go for a swim. Looking out to the blue ocean, I sit on this comfortable chair, my eyes unbothered by the sun's harsh light thanks to my shades. As I hold this cocktail in my hand, I listen to some uh…Beach video game OST that is actually loudly playing all across the beach from the heavens.
"Dragonette? Shouldn't we gather information or something?"

Ah, this lovely beach really helps relax me. I rarely have the time or am in the mood for time at the beach after all…It has been two years I think?
"Oh, my dear Theresa, this is information gathering"
As I lay down, I see many run by me…Some are adventurers that also take a break or hold competitions against each other.
That's right, this is… THE SWIMSUIT BEACH RELAXATION INFORMATION GATHERING ADVENTURE KEIKAKU!
For the record, Keikaku mean plan.

We entered Leanbox not too long ago. It was pretty easy to board the top of a large ship where they couldn't see us. Theresa teleported us to the ship, and once Leanbox was in sight, she teleported us to some random shore. At that point, everything was as easy as finding a hotel, and thanks to this event, many stores stayed open during the night. We got everything we needed…Including swimsuits.

I told Theresa we should go to the beach first. She doesn't really understand, she's never had the chance to go to one, this whole culture was unknown to her. Honestly, it was only more reason to go. Now I sit here, with my purple top and purple bottom that has a fancy see through veil.
I bought something normal for Theresa, a red one-piece swimsuit with yellow flowers and white frills, it had a thin skirt around it as well. Of course, I gave her the summer hat for extra cute points.
it goes without saying, I did actually come here to gather intel as well. Plenty of adventurers get too relaxed and speak of their plans loudly to each other.

As far as I have gathered, the monster they are looking for leaves large prints in the jungle, it may be a turtle or elephant. They are planning to gather in the jungle.
Bios did say we should look for the Golden Tower first however. Is it in that direction?
I raise my shades as I sit straight up to look at Theressa, who is staring at me with questioning eyes.
Then she responds to my last comment, "If you say so…It's fine…I think."
She takes this job very seriously, despite her age.

But I did also want her to relax a bit. From what Bios told me, she's been trapped her entire life.
"Besides, aren't you happy, your first time at the beach? You're even happily making sand castles aren't ya?", I say to her smiling.
She looks to the ocean as she just finished building a large sandcastle.
"Yeah…I've seen it before, but the sea is beautiful…And the sky here is even more blue! And…The sun is so warm. Even though I wear something thinner, I'm still warm.", she speaks in delight.
The entire walk towards here and the trip at the beach has her eying everything. All of this is new to her.

Even this heat is a new sensation for her.
"It must feel surreal, right? After coming from a cold climate, you are now in a warm nation, oh, but even summer feels like this anywhere outside Lowee.", I tell her, leaning on my right knee.
She looks back at me. Her eyes go up and down, I feel she's carefully analyzing me.
"But…Isn't it still somewhat cold for you…? You're only wearing a little bit.", she asks concerned.

"Hm?", I raise my head, the question sounds off. Ah, but she must not fully comprehend the warm sun.
"It's all fine. I'm actually the type that prefers less clothing, makes moving around easier.", I tell her.
"Eh?", she looks puzzled at me, she then asks, "How does less clothing feel better?"
Huh? Did I stumble into some weird kind of disagreement?

"Well, clothes do weigh something, and if they are tight they kind of slow you down, but if they are loose you might make mistakes within your movement…And honestly. I just feel better with less clothes on. I would even go as far as say that if it weren't for the feeling of shame and other reasons, I would actually prefer being naked!", I say before laughing. I kind of slowed down until I stopped laughing when I see Theresa's mouth agape.

She breaths in and then tells me in a relaxed tone, "I understand. So some people feel better with less clothes. I prefer more. I like looking cool and…It is nice, comfortable and warm…"
She gives me a smile as she says that.
Oh…I guess we just have different feelings. Maybe it just comes down to preference.
Theresa looks out to the sea and says, "There are many different types of people…Huh?"
Why does that somehow sound like she's pinning me down as crazy?

"Well, that aside. It is time to get down to business.", I say as I take off my glasses and stand up. Theresa looks with me to the same direction. A sea monster with tentacles was causing a ruckus. It's actually been there for about ten minutes, we've been ignoring it. It just got close enough for the surrounding people to run off. Adventurers had been fighting it for a while. They were competent enough to hold it back, but it is clearly a little too strong for them. I see them jumping around, desperately avoiding its tentacle slam attacks.

"Theresa, would you be so kind as to give me an opening.", I request from her as I walk forward.
Without skipping a beat or showing any emotion on her face, she gets up and takes her staff out of her inventory.
We split up, giving her room to do her special attack. Some adventurers are looking at her curiously.
An ice magical circle appears under her feet as she chants, "Raise water, and burn my enemies with ice…", then she summons a fire magical circle underneath the tentacle monster.

"Ice Geysar!", she shouts, the water shoots up into the sky before being frozen, freezing the monster within. It's magical power can be understood even by a physical fighter like me. The adventurers stand back, understanding whatever comes next could put them in harm's as well.
"Tatsumaki Arashi!", I shout, flying at the monster with my spear, with wind magic, it has turned me and my naginata into a tornado drill that pierces through the frozen monster, shattering it into pieces. I look back at its breaking formation with a grin, I can't help but snark, "Heh, if it breaks so easily from ice magic, it must've never been so strong.", before inevitably falling into the ocean.

I launched myself somewhat far, but the water wasn't too deep. I put my naginata back into my inventory and swam back to the shore. Everyone was already praising Theresa, but they also clapped for me as I walked out of the water. Many excited voices gossip over us. They can't make out any features of us due to the masks on the sides of our faces.
"Hey! You're participating in the hunt, right?! Do your best for us, okay!", someone shouts.
"We can't compete when we can't even defeat a weak boss, right?", I hear one speak to another.
Us adventurers love competition, but just one group of adventurers hunting the monster will do good to the overall reputation to adventurers. In a sense, we are all friendly rivals.

It would seem the adventurers around us are planning to give up on competing, preferring to just enjoy the overall excitement and news coverage. If that means only having to compete with strong adventurers, that may be fine, I prefer skipping warm ups to be honest.
"I doubt we can find any info here now.", I tell Theresa.
"Where do we go next?", Theresa asks me.
"Plenty of information comes and goes at places that serve drinks and food. There should be some type of food place nearby, Leanbox has many stores nearby the beach after all.", I give her an idea of where we're going next.

After walking for a few minutes, we enter a quant wooden bar that is ventilated by ventilators and has a friendly looking guy doing the cooking. It's actually quite big for a beach bar. I like wooden eating places, it feels more familiar and usually the staff are friendly, especially in Leanbox. We sit down after getting greeted and greeting the man back. I just order some kind of fish whilst Theresa is getting some fried food you'd only see in Leanbox. Theresa eats it with wonder, like it is a discovery of the ages.

Despite the food tasting good, the TV being at a nice volume to follow the hunting event and the pleasant air, nobody is sitting here.
Worried, I feel I have to ask, "How come it is so quiet here? This place is pretty nice"
"Hoho", the guy gets up from checking some of his inventory and says, "I appreciate the compliment. I actually had many customers today before you arrived, but I used to have a lot more all day."
"I'd think so. Even the location is great. What happened?", I ask him.
"Are you ladies from outside Leanbox? Cuz' I'd have to explain more.", he asks me in a friendly tone.

"Oh, we are from Lowee.", I tell him. I point to Theresa with my thumb and say, "She's actually never left Lowee before, this is all new to her."
The guy leans over the counter and happily comments, "Ho…Her first time. Lowee is quite far from here, it must be quite the trip. Well I'm happy you're enjoying your stay here. But um…May I ask what your relation is with this child? You don't look like her mother."
"Ah, I am her older sister.", I tell him. He can only tell our sizes, our features are overshadowed by the mask's effect, he shouldn't be able to discern our differences.

"I see, I see. Well, today my customers had mostly been adventurers, they have all gone out by now. I expect more at noon or in the evening. But we've been empty for most days outside of parties and events. Folks usually don't visit places without subscription models nowadays.", he tells me.
Theresa immediately perks up, she stopped eating to instantly ask, "Subscription Models?"
I only know about Leanbox's mass adoption of subscription based services because of my previous job. I guess it has caused some problems for a handful.

The owner looks slightly dismayed, he hangs his head in his hands and speak in a lower tone as he explains, "I suppose those in Lowee don't know too much about it. The economy was struggling and people wanted everything in one spot. So many cards were made for services paid by subscription. Everyone now has a bunch of licenses they pay around 1500 credits a month for, especially games and movies. But it has now been popularized to the point everything and everyone uses subscriptions. Cars, restaurants, barber shops, grocery stores, gas stations, Libraries and so forth. I believe only the airport is still Macro transaction based only."

He sighs and continues, "Sadly, this only made things worse. Leanbox is getting quite a bit of money, and some of it is a good deal for the citizens. But I knew us bar owners would see little in money. I have friends in other culinary sectors, and many just don't get much out of the cut of subscriptions, it's just not a profitable market for all participants. Only Leanbox and some of the big subscription companies get money due to them collecting from various sources. Let's say you split the 15 in half, the bar would get 7.50 per customer, but Leanbox or big corpo gets 7.50 per customer per bar. It's just not feasible."

I am listening attentively, even if I don't have much of an understanding on economics. Bios would probably find this a lot more interesting.
"Some folks like me stay macro transaction based, but because a lot of people prefer to pay monthly and just get what they ask in any place, it is hard to have consistent customers.", is basically his answer.
"Can the Goddess not fix it?", I ask him.

"Ah. Lady Green Heart was an early adopter of subscription services, but indeed, now they've gone out of control and she is opposed to this new system. Unfortunately, it's hard to stop this without infringing on rights. On top of that, she's been busy fighting that Blue Screen fellow.", he answers.
"Blue Screen?", I ask him.
He looks at the TV and says, "Yeah, he has been on the news often. The Blue Screen of Death. As far as I have been told by patrons, he is an A.I that can install his O.S on any device and create infinite clones that can build machine bodies for it to take over, it is like fighting an infinite army. All Goddesses have to deal with him.", he says.

I've definitely heard of him, and I am immediately reminded of Yellow Light of Death, the bastard that hurt my sister but was defeated by Bios.
"Of course, our occasional problem is monsters coming from sea. Normally the one that was just killed gets dealt with by the army, but they have left to go hunting as well.", he says.
"Leanbox's soldiers are participating in the event?", I ask him. That seems odd to me.
"Oh yeah. Soldiers here normally are bored and just end up joking around here and there. But many from Leanbox come from a lenience of adventurers, so even the soldiers love an event like this.", he tells me with excitement.

"Really now?", I ask, I like hearing about stories of adventurers.
"Of course! Leanbox is the youngest nation. The people here all came from adventurers who had gathered here, their wishes for a free nation created a free spirited Goddess, that is the origins of the one that came before Lady Green Heart.", he tells me.
Theresa looks at him funny, she asks, "Leanbox only has two?"
He laughs at her and says, "He he! Must be surprising to someone from Lowee, eh? You have three generations before White Heart after all! Yes…Green Heart still follows the free spirit, she joined the adventure as well after all."

I lean forward reacting like a fool, "Eh! Green Heart is also participating in the hunt!"
"Haha! That's right!", the man answers with glee, now he says, "She may be busy, but knowing the event wasn't legal, she decided joining it herself is the fastest way of coming to the truth…Or so we think! Well. I'm sure she has a plan. I always have faith in our Goddess after all.", he says.
Theresa giggles and tells him with a smile, "I belief in my Goddess as well."
Happily, the man responds, "As you should, young lady!"

Hm…I don't think they're BOTH thinking of White Heart…But oh well. They're happy.
But Green Heart joining is a problem for us. Even if we're only criminals in Lowee, there is no reason not to think A Goddess of a different nation wouldn't approach us. I love fighting, but I need to put everything into getting the treasure first.
"With that said. You two are in this event as well, are you not?", he asks us.
"How do you figure?", I ask him, leaning on my chair.
"Well, word has spread like a wildfire. That girl froze such a large monster with ease. It's inconceivable to some, but I think it's amazing.", he says.

News has gone so far in no time, huh?
"Do all kids in Lowee know magic like that?", he asks.
"Well, kids in Lowee do get taught about magic, only a few are as talented as Theresa. Fair is fair, all young magicians came from Lowee first.", I say before doing a shrug motion.
"Oh…So it is like how in Leanbox there are a few children that are gun experts, I see.", he says.
"Kids use guns in Leanbox?", Theresa asks.

"Just like Lowee loves magic, Leanbox has a thing for guns. Rest assured, we don't just sell them to a child. Just like the guild will let children do quests, if a child shows proper skills and etiquette, they get to use a gun. Most powerful guns for consumers are made in Leanbox after all.", he answers. He whispers to us, "I've even heard rumor a certain Goddess Candidate of Lastation flies over here to buy some of our weapons, can you believe that?"
After he walks to his inventory to continue working, I ask, "Is that why Leanbox has such a high military budget?"

"Yep. Planeptune may have the most advanced weaponry thanks to their technology, but we have an army that matches them. Planeptune's development on energy weapons is just one way, we took the road of advancing analog weaponry, rockets, railguns, gatling guns, you name it. Honestly, we do it because we just love firing off some good old lead.", he talks enthusiastically. "Guns and melee weapon stores are also the only ones mostly macro transaction based. Most owners are stubborn like me after all, and adventurers have more money.", he says whilst preparing the bill.
"Here. I've even thrown a free coupon for ice-cream for the girl.", he says.
"Thank you very much.", I reply to the man, paying him with the credits we've split for this job.

His quick shift to viewing the TV had us quickly turn our heads to watch it as well.
Some adventurers have engaged with Leanbox's monster, but were quickly wiped out. Indeed, they fought him in some jungle south-west of Leanbox.
I guess our time on the Northen beach is over.
"Ho…They found the bugger. Used to be a desert over there too, I can't comprehend the sudden shift in environment.", the man just blurts out.
"Theres, we're leaving.", I tell Theresa.
She nods and follows me out. We wave the man goodbye.

As we walk out way back to the changing rooms near the streets, Theresa is devouring her ice cream.
"Hm…I don't like sweets as much as Leader…But the cold ice cream tastes better here.", she says.
"Probably because it reminds you of home?", I ask her.
Instead of her usual neutral thinking face, she looks quite happy thinking about it. Then she says, "I think so…Maybe I like the cold better."
It's funny, I recall Bios telling me she prefers warmth instead, be it food, weather or otherwise.

Changing our clothes takes no time at all thanks to the inventory system. Our clothes are quickly replaced and mostly is put on by itself, we just have to adjust it a bit, fidgeting with its ends. Theresa looks comfortable with her robe, I do some stretches after the small work-out of killing that monster, also preparing for our long walk.
We walk up a lot of stairs to get back to the urban city.
"What is our next stop?", Theresa asks me.
"Well, I think we have all the information. That man said something about the jungle being a desert at first. Bios said you, her and the other two went to the shattered Golden Tower Location and how it all changed because of its collapse, right?", I tell her.
She picks up on it, saying, "Mhm… I see. So Leanbox's tower was there."
"Yeah. And there was a mist in the footage as well…And a bit further from there, they recorded Green Heart flying by. It's dangerous, but going South-West is our best shot.", I tell her, trying to hide my excitement in my voice.

We walk around deeper into the city. Theresa is just busy observing everything.
Leanbox is definitely difficult to describe. The lower area look like any other city, many tall apartment complexes or flats build alongside the beaches and cliffs. But the higher area holds many high ways and dozens of spaces for homes and walkways. Every street had a row of the same tree on the left and the road for cars on the right, across that road would be the shops and other facilities. There are high speed elevators all around.

"Leader is right…Women are big…But…Everyone here is bigger. Do you know why?", Theresa asks me.
"Perhaps because of what they eat?", I answer, although, I never really cared to think about it.
Before we could continue any discussion, a few cars drove by us at blistering speeds, they even crashed through lantern poles and left track tire marks.
"Is that normal?", Theresa asks.
I hear someone shout, "More illegal racers? Can those God Damn adventurers not have normal competitions?!" And right after, Leanbox's police force go past us.

"I don't think so.", I reply.
I have heard Adventurers compete with each other during the event, the loser would have to quit for six hours and the winner gets some kind of prize from the loser.
"I heard races are normal in Leanbox, though.", I said.
"hm…Maybe they were doing it without permission?", Theresa asks.
"You think they run on a permission system?", I ask her.
"I dunno.", she replies. Fair, I don't quite know all the rules here. Oh well, we'll just have to be careful from now on.

… …
Wherever we walked, illegal street racers would come by, some even directly coming at us by accident. Luckily I could jump over them all. Theresa and I both sit on a bench, exhausted.
"I love excitement, but I really want to get to our goal now.", I say.
"Leanbox is too big…We walked for an hour.", she says.
I lean back on the bench with both arms and my neck, saying, "Argh…We just got past the main building! Where is the train or whatever?!"

"Excuse me, Dragonette…Haven't you been here before? How did you travel here?", Theresa asks me, she looks at me with hopeful eyes.
Well, as a Ninja, we do a lot of roof running. That will be pretty obvious during day time now, wouldn't it?
Theresa doesn't know enough about Leanbox to teleport us around, she may teleport us to somewhere dangerous by accident…
"…Shouldn't the bus work?", I mentioned. Just as Theresa brightens up, we hear an announcement, "All busses have been canceled for the safety of the public due to the wide spread illegal races." Now we both sink into depression.

But I see hope in the Horizon, if we get on top of the biggest building, maybe Theresa CAN teleport us, to at least a road that leads to the jungle.
With that in mind, we head for the Basilicom.
As we walk, we had plenty of conversation.
"Do you think Leader already defeated Planeptune's monster?", Theresa asks me.
"As great as she is, I doubt she found it yet. From what I saw, Planeptune's monster has been seen many times and no clear footage of it exists even with Cameramen present.", I reply.

I strongly moved my limbs as I am annoyed by the amount of walking we're doing. I end up saying, "Acclaim and Silicon have worse luck, their monster hasn't even been found once. And then I heard of the news of that one building just exploding and them getting blamed for it, so they have even more trouble now!"
With Theresa reacting, "Hm…This mission is rough. How will we contact each other?"
"Yeah, and on top of that, Green Heart is going to be nearby…Well, at least it wouldn't be too bad if she got the treasure, but she may give it to the wrong person in the end.", I add on top of that.

We made a mistake.
"Leader. Mission. Green Heart giving the treasure to the wrong person, Acclaim. These are interesting terms.", I hear from right behind me.
I use my toes to quickly turn around, I place my left foot close to my right, ready to move anywhere at any time. Behind me was a girl with red hair, a poker face, and what looks like an outfit for a magical girl or something.

Theresa turned around with me, she may be as cautious, but I can tell her reflexes are lacking. I'll just make up for it. Either way, what scares me is that I didn't notice her at all.
"Who are you? How long have you followed us?", I ask her.
"That was an amazing spell at the beach. I was about to kill the monster, but you came before me. At first, I simply thought you two to be remarkable adventurers. Then you left the beach and I got curious. I overheard many things you've said, including you not coming from Leanbox. When I asked the border agencies of any great adventurers coming here, none of the A rank parties were under the name Suno. You instead, say leader as well.", she explains.

She's been following us for a whole hour without me noticing?!
Sneaking up on a ninja, even one as unhiding as me is a high feat. This woman isn't ordinary.
"Do you work for Leanbox?", I ask her.
"I am Cave, of the RRoD special forces. And you two are…Phantom Crusaders?", She says.
Immediately we take on our masks. We know we've got ourselves into a fight.
She brings out some kind of…Large pair of scissors.
"You may or may not be villains, but surely, your presence isn't welcome either.", she says.

Cave is an above average height woman with long off-red colored hair worn in short, shoulder length pigtails held with black ribbons attached to a white, maid/nurse like cap. Her eyes are bright emerald green while her skin is fair in coloring.

Cave wears a somewhat revealing outfit looking to be a mixture of a nurse, maid, and magical girl uniforms. It's white with red lining and golden bands further above and below her elbows. At her chest support was black and so was the clothing between the rings and her panties that are easily visible from the front. At her neck is a red ribbon with a green gem in the center. Her gloves and boots are long with small red lining near the end and black, and just like her arms, above the boots is the same golden bands and black in between clothing. While the front of her dress is short, the back of it is longer with light orange coloring inside, the sides of the inside sticking out like coat tails that are orange with white patterns. She has pink ball/orb earrings. The upper arm on her outfit also sports a Cave Co. "C" logo.

Name: Cave
Age: Older than me I assume
Height: 159 CM
Occupation: Member of Leanbox's Regal Regiment of Defense(RRoD)
Residence: Leanbox.

Taking no chances, I've gotten my naginata out. I can sense danger, she's not a weak opponent. I thrust myself forward with my spear, the blade getting stuck between the scissors she has thrust back. From just pushing, I can feel my strength is greater at least, but her skill with some large scissors is something else, I can't fathom using it as a weapon. I'd be engrossed in it, if it weren't for the fact we have no time. I shove my Naginata's blade to my left so I can swing it at her with a step forwards, but she blocks the staff with her scissors as she runs up to me, she is close enough to detach one scissor, her blade close to reaching my neck.

I barely manage to bend to my left, now I jump away so she can't possibly cut me. I use Stealth Speed to get to her back, but, I already saw her eyes tracking me, her observation must be good. Once behind her, she leaps away from my slash, crazy enough, it almost looked like it went through her. She rotates around as she steps on the road like she's dancing in mid-air, her footwork is almost hypnotic. Either way, I won't let up. I go further in, jabbing my Naginata at her at high speed. But I always just barely miss as she makes small adjustments to her pose, before deflecting my last thrust, then she tries to run at me. I surprise her with wind magic making me spin faster as I do a spin-slash, forcing her to hop back, but that was intentional, my spin-slash was only a wind up for a wind infused attack on her flank, block it she may, but it shoved her onto the street none-the-less.

Her eyes only opened a bit wider, she was no less composed as she slowly walked up the street, with me silently moving at her pace backwards.
There have been no cars on this road for a while… I had noticed this, no car has passed us in minutes. Not a single one. We are alone here. And she walks on this street like no car will come here. Did she shut off this road? Can the RRoD do that?

I charge at her, making it seem like I'm going to brute force my spear onto her, but the moment she got ready to block my blade, I turn the naginata vertically, slamming the staff into the blade as I move around the naginata like a pole dancer ready to kick her in the face…Huh? Did my leg go through her? I somehow missed, and she ends up jumping away from me before running to my right ready to stab me. I knock her scissor away from me with the pommel of my spear before moving my blade right with my right hand, getting close to her neck. Of course, with her agility, she easily escapes that extra attack of mine.

"Tailwind!", I shout, using my special skill that sets up winds that speed me and Theresa up but slows all enemies down.
She runs towards me like she's tap dancing, I do a slower sprint her way instead, thinking of receiving her attack to counter.
She thrusts her scissors five times in short succession, each time I intentionally get it stuck on my staff, the last time her weapon has my staff between the blades, I use wind to do a forceful spin on my Naginata, forcing her arms to twist with is.

With her stumbling, I moved with my naginata to get right above her head, giving me a free kick to her face with added wind magic. Her feet are dragged through the asphalt, she's looking slightly hurt. She does shrug it off, which is a bit worrying.
"Awakening!", she shouts after waving her glowing hand. It's a boosting skill, I'm certain. Now she exchanges her scissors for a…What the heck. It is another pair of scissors, but it has a staff handle between the now soldered scissors handle with a skull on the hilt. Its two blades can't be detached like her last weapon.

We dance around each other. Her agility has gone up, I can barely hit her. Sometimes she even has the nerve to show off by jumping on my spear before trying to slash me, of course, my speed is beyond her as well. It's like she knows exactly where to be to avoid damage. But what is even more absurd is my last thrust has my spear clearly stabbed into her side, or so it looked like to me. But no, it misses? I don't know, I can barely dodge her next attack, a quadruple slash that creates a shockwave which blows me back. it feels rather painful for a rush attack.

Cave kisses two of her fingers, a flame blazes over said fingers as she moves them up.
"Time to kill…", she says as she uses her SP move to barrage me with fire balls as magical circle after magical circle appears behind her back shooting them at me. I scurried between the flaming balls with Stealth speed as they exploded. If it weren't for Tailwind I'd probably be too slow to avoid their residual heat. I don't even think she predicted me coming straight at her, once in front of her, the two of us had a desperate clash, I end up jabbing her in the face with wind whilst she returned fire with a slash that actually flings a bomb into me. We both ended up getting knocked back.

I look at her, she only looks a little pained. With the little damage I do per hit versus the painful attacks she does, it is clear her stats are higher. Maybe she's around level 90. So even though I am physically stronger, I could still be defeated by her hurting me more. I prepare to receive her next attack as she runs towards me, but to my surprise, she seems to hide some kind of fire-arm on her arms or something. She blasts some kind of pixelated energy projectile at me. I can dodge it easily, but she changes directions whilst easily firing off more at me.

She almost predicted where I'd run next and explodes the ground where I was about to jump to next, that is the second of pause she needed to get close.
"Fire Wall!", I hear from my good friend. A flaming wall around me forces Cave to jump backwards on and off her hands.
"Fire Beam!", she shouts, curving the wall to turn it into a flaming beam, even the regular sized one is as a big as a person. Cave jumps high into the air to avoid it.

"Thunderbolt!", Theresa shouts, doing a quick combo move, and yet, the slight movement Cave makes in mid-air has the thunder strike right beside her, almost looking like she was graced. I see cave aiming at Theresa from up there, to stop her, I use my air-slash technique to shoot three wide horizontal air blades at Cave. She ceases fire to go right between the blades, which I find very impressive with her size being twice Bios' who was the only one capable of that so far.

Cave lands on the ground and immediately shoots a regular blast at Theresa, but she can use a barrier to shake that off, not that it helps her if Cave decides to hit her physically after. I see cave already making a dash, I shoot another three air-blades at her. She jumps through the gap into a roll, now I have her attention instead. I shoot more air-blades at her, which I do quickly by constantly spinning around with wind magic. But no matter what, even if I angle them differently, I can't hit her.

So as she gets close to me, I figure to do my air-blasting-kick instead, she cannot dodge a whole wide forcefield of wind, it doesn't do any damage but it blows her back. She barely holds on to her feet, and the moment my wind passes her, Theresa fires a beam of light at her. Yet again, she steps aside it and makes a run towards Theresa.
"Comet Shower!", Theresa shoots twelve small red comets at Cave, but she weaves every one of them without stopping. I force her to end her dash as I appear in front of her, thrusting my spear to my left, a tactic that makes the enemy feel like they are about to be stabbed by a spear from the left despite the somewhat wide gap between us.

This gap is quickly closes as our weapons clash.
"Extension!", Theresa shouts, forcing Cave to dodge it with a leap, giving me the opportunity to lunge at her. She barely dodges the spear thrust, but in the end, she has moved too many times to be able to dodge my kick to her gut. Flung back, she gets ready to dodge an onslaught of Theresa's combo techniques. A thunder bolt, multiple icicles, fire, ice wind rush attacks. No matter what Theresa throws at her, she dodges it. Even when I attack her, she can parry me while side stepping Theresa's attack, however, I still am able to get multiple kicks in.

Two on one is unfair, as much as I dislike it, we really don't have time to fight right now. Well, I suppose I get what I deserve. Theresa gets blown over by an attack from an approaching mage.
"Shiver Beam.", is what I heard as Theresa was knocked over by rays of light from above.
I see Cave looking back as the attacker approaches, "MAGES.", she says.
Mages?

A girl with a black witch hat and wand appeared. Her blue eyes and long blue hair compliment her smile as she struts up to us with confidence.
Under her left eye was a mole. She wears a black dress with a pleated skirt and a red tie, but it is hard to see because she wears a white overcoat. The top was folded, revealing the inside of her coat to be grey checkered. At the ends of her coat was a more skirt-like design, that was also the same checkered pattern ending with black cube-like frills, the ends of her sleeves looked the same. Otherwise, she wears black shoes and grey thigh-highs with black ends and a black belts under the shoulder area of her coat.

Name: MAGES.
Age: Same as Cave I guess.
Height: Perhaps around 157 CM?
Occupation: Being a Mad Magician.
Place of residence: The organization must not know.

Theresa stands back up.
MAGES. raises her want and says with a smile, "Ho! My salutations, you withstood my lights of annihilation. You have my respect!".
Cave has backed off from me, asking MAGES., "You've come to help?"
"I was merely in the area. These festivities are but an opportunity to get the holy drink, Duc Tear Popper. As fate would have it, a whisper in my ear had guided me to a friend of my friend and my cousin. Now, shall we fight for justice?", was her reply.
Cave did not flinch, quickly stating, "You just saw some lights and headed over, didn't you."
"I must not answer, for a mad magician does not state her source of knowledge.", she replies.

I don't understand half the things she's saying. I even have to ask Cave, "Do you know this girl?"
"She's a cousin of a friend of mine. This is our first real interaction. I saw her fight. That is about it.", Cave answers.
"A friendship borne minutes ago in battle is worth more than a year long friendship forced by the shackles of society.", MAGES. says.
After a long silence, Cave says, "I'm certain she only talks like that during battle."
"Are you sure?", I ask her.
"No.", a quick and short reply without her even blinking.

"Corrupt Cocytus.", MAGES. calls out as she does a high level ice spell at Theresa, which she stops with her "Great Fire Wall!", melting the ice with the giant wall of flame she made.
"Great Fire Beam!", she curves it until it bursts into beam, but MAGES. doesn't even react to the flame's light. She simply shouts, "Conflagration Dust!"
She uses an offensive version of fire wall, a cross of flames on the ground that absorbs the great fire flame into a giant pillar.
"Let my black flame consume all!", MAGES. shouts as she converges the flame into a spiral, curving it straight onto the ground to shoot towards Theresa.

Theresa looks afraid, but she has a spell to counter it.
"Great Tornado!", summoned from a magical circle, a giant green tornado takes the flames upon it, turning itself into a flaming tornado. With all her effort, she manipulates the wind to force the flames high up, the tornado explodes. Even if it nearly blows Theresa away, she manages to keep standing. But I can see her panting and sweating, it was a tough on her.
"Theresa!", I shout, running her way. It can quickly tell, this MAGES. is definitely a stronger mage. At least one with way more experience. She must be level 90 alongside Cave.

Cave dashes right alongside me, her shooting may miss me, but it slows me down enough for her to run past me, that is when she threatens me with a sweep of her sword. I leap backwards, focusing on her. Too bad I can't help Theresa, Cave is no less of a threat.
Fortunately, Tailwind increases her casting time as she can move her limbs quicker to activate magic. MAGES. would've outsped her otherwise. The two do the exact same combo moves from flame rush to ice storm, thunder storm, wind blasts. Any projectile is mirrored and cancels each other out. Thunderbolts and other attacks that are summoned from another direction are barely dodged, the only difference is, MAGES. evades attacks comfortable whilst Theresa almost panics each time.
My dance with Cave would be more exciting if not for this predicament. She's really fun to fight due to how agile she is.

I am once again put into a position where I do multiple thrusts at her which she either weaves or blocks. But then I thought of hitting her with the pommel instead. I threaten her with my blade, forcing her to block, but then I push her sword-knife down as I twist my back her. Even if she avoid my staff, I am still in the right alignment to shove the pommel into her chest, knocking her away.
As she steps back in recoil, I notice tiny green magical circles appearing for a second with each step.

"Malicious Heaven!", She shouts shooting multiple large spheres of wind my way. I take the attack in full, but my naginata absorbs some of the element. The spheres converge into a large green tornado…But then I spin my naginata within the same direction and unleash the magical energy it has absorbed.
"Thanks! Now I can counter you with MY SP move!", I shout as I pull her into my tornado. A sphere of wind surges over the blade of my naginata as I thrust it into Cave, who was helpless by the wind's strength to dodge it.
Unlike leader and sister, you have never seen this move and can't possibly have a counter measure!

"Tornado Spear!", I shout as the huge wind blast accompanied by my thrust cannons Cave over the ground. She rolls as she falls, which looks painful. I'm certain that had to do some damage. She gets back up and looks uncomfortable. But She is far from done.
Theresa and MAGES. shout, "Extension!", using their strongest regular combo move, the collision of their light explosions has Theresa land on her butt and MAGES. pushed back.

Even if it looks like Theresa is weaker, her magic is no less a match for MAGES. She gets back up. Now I just have to do my part. What's this…? A song? I can hear singing. The sound comes closer despite the source staying in the same location. Up in the air, on top of a building was another blue haired girl.
"You've come, 5pb.", Cave says.
5pb.?! Leanbox's idol?! Why is an idol fighting us?!

5pb. is a girl with white skin, long blue hair, and magenta eyes, there is a black mole under her left eye. On her head she wears a pair of Speaker-embedded headphones made in Planeptune that receives sound from a guitar wirelessly. On the left side of her stomach she has a treble-clef tattoo with a pink heart attached to it. Her outfit is a handmade stage costume with a black base and pink accents which consists of a top that only covers the chest area and bottom that is a skirt. Around her neck is a choker with a pink heart pendant attached, and the black and pink belt around her waist has a pink checkered box on the back, lined with black. A little beyond her shoulders are pretty lengthy black bands over pink frilly parts. The top of her right black legging is intentionally ripped whereas the left turns into a fishnet design around her thigh. Her black shoes have elevated soles that are white and dark grey in color. She has two small loose wristbands around each wrist.

Name: 5pb.
Age: Somewhat young, some years kinda past in the game lore but no one ages in anime land.
Height: 157 CM.
Occupation: Idol.
Place of residence: Leanbox.

As 5pb. sings, I can see an aura emitted from Cave and MAGES.
"5pb.'s song powers the good whilst it weakens the wicked. Prepare yourself.", Cave says.
I don't feel any different though?
She runs towards me, and easily evades my wind slashes. I can tell she indeed has gained a minor power up. I am more worried about Theresa, she was keeping up with MAGES., but only by a little. I just upped my tempo fighting Cave, our dance has only gotten more ferocious.

To show off, I actually leapt onto her arm as she went in for an attack and then pushed her with my feet on her back as I jumped away. Quickly, I turn around to thrust my naginata at her whilst she blocks the side with her scissor sword. I see her face, she looks slightly bewildered at me, I think she may be even more shocked than she shows with how stiff her face is.
She's physically stronger too now, so pushing her away is a bit more difficult, but I put my foot forward and manage to force her back anyway. After she jumps away from me, I hear her mumble, "So they really aren't bad people…"

I'm going to take advantage of her confusion by throwing my naginata at her shouting, "Wind Saucer!", the Naginata turns into a buzz saw of wind that continuously flies into the enemy directed by my wind magic. Cave easily jumps over it as I would expect, but she is less expected to think I would simply throw punches at her. She blocks my fists with the sides of her blade, but she's still looking at me like she's not sure how to handle me now.

My wind saucer comes back to her from a different direction, forcing her to dodge it, with me jumping right onto her next, even so, my punches and kicks look like they go through her. Unfortunately, for Theresa it is a rougher battle. Now with Tailwind only slightly evening the odds, she had to move a lot more whilst casting magic. MAGES. attacks hit her first before she can cast them. Theresa can dodge a few and hit MAGES. back, but she deals less damage than MAGES. On the other hand, MAGES. doesn't take as much effort to dodge her attacks, meaning the fight is still somewhat close.
A thunderbolt from Theresa is stopped by a barrier MAGES. uses. MAGES. shouts, "Causality Flame!", which shatters Theresa's barrier, albeit, dealt no damage.

Fire attacks from MAGES. got further cancelled out by Theresa summoning two tornadoes around her before combing them and blasting a bunch of wind blades her way.
MAGES. blocks them with a barrier, than casts a light magic spell called, "Flash Judge!"
Theresa blocks some of it with, "Great Ice Wall!", but gets hit by the few light rays from the sky. It didn't matter, she uses her SP attack, "Prism Rain", blasting a beam of light at the ice wall that shatters it, turning it into thousands of icicle projectiles that reflect the powerful light magic constantly, powering up the barrage.

MAGES. looked serious for a second. Then she does a pose before shouting, "Mechanical Paradox!" This spell looks like she summons a bunch of gears that throws out purple blasts that clashes with the ice, then the purple blasts combine together to create a pillaring explosion of purple, stopping Theresa's attack. Immediately, Theresa waves her staff to her right with one arm and shouts, "Great Explosion!"
Cave and myself turn to look at her with shocked eyes. The explosion forces Cave to back off from me, but a part of it still damages her slightly. Either way, it was the perfect distraction for me to get closer. I see Cave is somewhat panicked, so I shout, "Nice job, Lion!"

MAGES. tried to stop me, but her arm got hit by a smaller explosion as Theresa casted the weaker version of that spell on MAGES. with her left hand, she had already prepared for that moment beforehand I think.
Cave already has trouble with disorientation from the explosion. The saucer forces her into an evasive stance, now I jump and force her to receive my series of attacks. Using the Tatsumaki martial arts, I do continues blows of spin kicks and arm swings with wind magic.

Normal she would dodge them, but now she is too tilted to find the right timing, forcing her to block, but even with her sword out, my attacks are made to create an eventual opening, she will be pushed around until I can get a clear hit. Even with my spins, I can rotate around to her side. Finally, the winds that I had set up creates a gusts in multiple direction, causing her to stumble. Now I suck her in as my fist is enveloped in a condensed wind sphere.
"Tornado Punch!", my former special move has me punch her into the air. It definitely did something, and yet, I see her land on her feet. She almost stumbled forward as her right knee bent, but still she managed to stay up.

However, I timed this with the saucer. I jumped after her whilst my saucer appears askew behind her. Yet, this tight spot meant nothing to her, she somehow jumps between my fist and the saucer, almost like it went through her. Then she forces me to block a series of slashes before knocking me over with a magic infuses slash. I drop on the ground with my back.

"For a fledgling, you hold your own well against the mad magician. Congratulations. I do not want to eliminate such a wonderful bud, however, a seed not grown in advisory is a seed with wasted potential. I must use my strongest attack.", I hear MAGES. say. I look to my left as I watched their battle unfold. Theresa was already struggling, she's breathing heavily now.
"EXE Drive Skill!", MAGES. shouts, the air gets too dense to move by others.
A purple light shines from the ground beneath MAGES. before she does a pose. Her pose changes and the purple circular light disappears, turning into multiple purple magic rings floating around her from different directions.

"Blasphemous Theoretical!", she shouts as she holds her hand out. The rings disappear. In the next second, a magical circle traps Theresa with four purple spheres with gears over them next to the circle. Purple energy rains down on her doing damage, next moment, MAGES. has another purple circle glowing under her as she raises her wand, causing the circle under Theresa to shoot up a pillar of light that could topple a building.
For a moment, it looks like MAGES.'s left eye turned red. As she holds out her wand to her left, a purple orb that sucked itself in until Theresa got stuck in a purple vortex that was like witnessing the dimension being sucked into a void.

The EXE Drive skill was over, an explosion knocks Theresa down. I don't know if she's all right, but I'm trying to get up. She's getting up before me?
Theresa leans on her staff as she is slowly getting back up.
"Outstanding. To withstand such a mighty spell, you are equal to a mad magician.", MAGES. says.
"Leader doesn't back down…No matter what. That is why. We won't lose.", Theresa says, her trembling slowly fading as she takes a stance, ready to fight.
"Your leader must be of extraordinary ability. But the virtue of your courage and tenacity is naught but a prelude to your defeat. For fate has given me more powerful magic.", MAGES. says, doing some weird poses.

If she can stand up like her pain is nothing, than you're damn sure I can too!
I feel motivated. As Cave comes near me, I get up. My next plan is to stop my naginata behind Cave. Its spinning will stop, all the kinetic energy and wind magic absorbed into its sudden halt. Then with powerful wind, it shoots towards Cave at high speed. She must've heard it, because she quickly looks over her shoulder and barely dodges it, her side is scraped. Dodging it means nothing, I merely need to grab it and use its strength to spin myself into a thrust forward.

Even with half the speed, I am quick enough to reach her. It is no surprise my thrust misses her, but I let go of the spear, do a feint punch into a sweep kick into her stomach. As my kick connects, I put force further into her collecting wind into a sphere through magic. I compress the wind until I can release it with a mighty push to blow her away. As she drops on the ground, I get up high into the air whilst casting an air-blast below my spear to send it back flying to me. Whilst she is getting up, I prepare a powerful strike.

Within that time, Theresa avoids another powerful small explosion from MAGES. with short distance teleportation. MAGES. did not predict her teleporting right next to her, she looks to her left with wide open eyes as Theresa appears next to her with her staff gathering light.
"Holy Light Beam!", Theresa shouts, only somewhat connecting with her beam as it blows a hole through some trees and railing in the distance. MAGES. had stepped back and used a quick barrier to lessen the damage.

But as MAGES. moved, Theresa had let go of her staff with one hand to directly hit her with "Thunderstorm", breaking her guard. MAGES. casts extension, but Theresa takes the hit and charges though, about to hit MAGES. with her staff. A pure magician such as MAGES. would not comprehend why another mage chooses to get physical. But despite her weak strength, Theresa's staff can hurt MAGES. enough to make her flinch, even if it only barely hit her face.

Theresa crouches down, she looks like she's at her limit, about to self-destruct as her staff swirls with explosive magic. MAGES. only action is to quickly cast explosion in an attempt to stop her, except, it was an act. Theresa had a teleporting circle prepared as she got back up and she teleports herself back to it. MAGES.'s explosion only hurt herself as it blew up in her face.
"Archive of Magic!", Theresa shouts. While she sets up her SP move, I spin vertically into a powerful strike that vibrates through Cave's blade, knocking her away. She's extra weary as a bunch of magical circles fly past us.

From the times we've done questing, I know her move is going to create a hellish hallways of magical circles shooting out a huge elemental attack for each circle, except she's learned to better control this move and can slightly alter the circles' position. Either way, I need to make sure 5pb stops singing. So I do quick air-slash her way. 5pb. sees it and jumps off the building. Cave hurriedly ran to catch her. MAGES. also backs off as fire, wind, lightning, ice, light and darkness is barraging their whole party. They are backing off into a group so MAGES. can barely defend them with her barrier. Either way, they take plenty of damage.

"Healing Song!", those words alone bother me. I see 5pb. using her guitar, her song is healing the wounds of all three somewhat.
There's no way to beat them here and now.
I use Stealth Speed to quickly get to Theresa.
"Prepare a group teleportation, escape is our only option.", I whisper in her ear. She nods to me and prepares the circle.
"Well, it has been fun. You three are powerful. Level 90? I don't think we can beat that. I'd love to fight more but…It's time to end this.", I trash talk them.

All their attention must be on me.
I gather wind magic, eventually enveloping my forearms, legs and naginata with green sharp tornadoes, I call this, "Tornado Armor…"
"Conflagration Dust!", MAGES. shouts. I jump into the sky, the tornadoes around my feet enhancing my jumping height to go beyond the tallest building, the formation of flames beneath me can't even reach me. I dive kick towards them. 5pb. and MAGES. run back with Cave willing to stay close ranged. I hit the ground in front of her, missing her by a hair's breath. She tries to slash me, but I simply thrust my spear forward, her block meant nothing, for the tornado grinded against her sword until it knocks it away.

She's sent flying close to her friends. They turn around as I do a spin into a slash that sends a whirlwind of razor blades towards 5pb., hitting her directly for some decent damage. She attacks me back shouting, "Heavenly Sound!" Out of her guitar fly notes of electricity hit me directly. But I let them hit me to let my naginata absorb the element. I take damage, but…
"5PB.! STOP!", Cave warned loudly, she's too late.
I put one step forward, the tornadoes spinning harder as my naginata crackles with energy.
"Lightning Thrust!", I shout as I almost visibly turn into a lightning strike flying into 5pb. with a thrust, knocking her onto the ground.

Cave tries to run up to me for a slash, but I gracefully jump over her, I quickly avoid an explosion spell from MAGES. and twirl around close to her after. With the end of one spin, I do another spin to smash the tornado blade of my naginata into MAGES., knocking her into 5pb. as she was trying to get back up.
Cave shoots some kind of green laser beam at me, multiple at that, from floating devices. Either way, I escape them too twirling around with my quick steps.

I head over to her, ready stab her. Even though I miss, the tornado still grinds onto her skin hurting her enough to make her cringe. I try to hit her with a kick, but she jumps over it, her landing not as smooth as usual thanks to the winds hitting her. I turn around, swinging my naginata at her in the process, she blocks the staff area that has no tornado on it to get close to me without being flung away, but my punch is no less powerful now. She's forced to flee, my fist barely missing her, again, the winds grind past her face.

The pain makes her look sour as she passes me by, she couldn't even attack me right after. Now she tries to strike me as I thrust my naginata into her, but she knocks it onto the ground. I almost get stabbed in the face by her scissor blades, but my arm is perfectly suitable to block her attack now, I easily push her arm up, making an opening to do a thrust kick into her gut, the winds swirling over my feet causing her to fly in a spiral towards her friends.

… …
I've held them back for long enough.
"Acquire! It's ready!", Theresa shouts. I jump backwards to Theresa, almost falling on her. No matter what that trio did, they could not catch up to us. Theresa teleports us quite a far distance from them.

We land in a canal near the ground floor. It's a good thing my ninja training involved increasing my lung capacity because getting back up is going to be rough. We practically crashed down. I make sure to grab Theresa as I swim us up. It seems we are pretty close to a forest of some kind. We cough as we crawl onto the dirt. Theresa sits down, whereas I can't help but stand up feeling uneasy. I first needed to know where we are. I can still see Leanbox, but from quite a distance. Theresa doesn't know the terrain fully, otherwise we would've been teleported on the ground. Still, this outcome isn't too bad.

"Lion, you alright? Can you tell me where you teleported us?", I ask her.
After taking some deep breaths, she tells me, "I've tried to teleport us in the western direction. I saw this river stream to the south."
I look over at the canal. It appears to be way wider. Yes, I recognize it.
"I believe this river leads towards a yellow forest. That would be the entrance to the newly formed jungle.", I say what I think.

I give Theresa a hand. As I get her up, I say, "I know we're hurt. But we have to move quickly. I doubt those three are fine with us escaping. With the Goddess after the monster, we may be too late as well.", I tell her.
"So we have to exert ourselves. Running…Maybe teleporting?", Theresa suggests.
"Yeah. Leave out the teleporting for now. Get on my back. I'll try to use wind and Stealth Speed to get us to the jungle.

With Theresa on my back, I ran alongside the river. We enter a yellow forest which seems to have a small village contained within it. We avoid contact with the locals, we still have our masks on after all, and outside is battle territory due to the event. We can't say where a camera is placed by Justit Info. The Jungle was close enough.

We had a large scale adventure in the jungle, but not much time to take it in. Normally, you'd get a compilation or something, but this isn't an anime so uh…
Traveling in the jungle was a bit rough, but since it spawned out of nowhere, its climate hasn't produced the worst aspects of a jungle, like horrible insects. Were there insect monsters? Sure. But they are big, thus easier to hit and less likely to sneak up on you. A lot of streams occupy and separate the jungle, but they spawn some type of raft every so often, making them an easier way to travel…

But it is also the most likely way to be attacked by monsters. The monsters here are tough, ranging from larger bugs using crystal wings or scythes, crystal birds with giant crystal beaks, and there is an occasional mammal type monster with crystal features. Across the jungle, some tree vines hold onto huge crystals, other vines somehow have a will of their own and swing the crystals around, they are actually aggressive and attack anything in sight by either smashing the crystal into their agitator or shooting a beam from the crystal.

Occasionally, there is a crystal tree with glowing blue vines. After a bit of walking, we had decided to take the river path. Indeed, we are attacked by a large swaths of insects and birds. Never mind the crystal fish lunging at us from the river. None of that was bothersome. Sometimes it felt rather relaxing. We looked to our right and saw regular monkeys swinging on vines instead. Except they are evolved and are mocking us from over there, flipping the bird with their devious smiles…

But the real issue was the boss level crystal sea-serpent that came after us. It's high pressured water beam destroyed our raft. Otherwise, me and Theresa killed it with some heavy moves. For our next action, we decided to move on land. Hopping over the many vines and tree roots. There wasn't much in bushes or other dense fauna. Now that I think about it, the only fauna we'd come across were crystalized.

Of course, we aren't alone here. A lot of people search for the monster in this location. We definitely found a party wiped by the monster with all the trees knocked down and their roots burned to the ground. Many adventurers also fight here and…Even here races are being held. They were held across the river prior to this forest as well. Occasionally, we saw Green Heart flying far above us, but she looked to preoccupied to notice anything below her. Too many adventurers causing chaos I guess.

Either way, we hid our presence whenever others are close. Or rather, I grab Theresa and shut her mouth from time to time as I use my ninja stealth skills. The jungle is perfect for someone with my skill-set. The further we go in, the more the amount of people around us diminishes.
"Do you think we're close?", I ask Theresa.
"I think we'd see more crystal if we did…Like last time in Lowee.", she replies.
"You said a mist wall protected it too. It should not be so hard to find…I just hope we're walking in the right direction.", I think out loud.

We get into a small clearing and hear the sound of something robotic.
"Stand guard. We don't know what will come for us.", I tell Theresa.
Giant white robots appear from within the trees surrounding us. They look rather basic. They must be mass produced units. They kind of have a forklift design to them, like their hands are flat in order to scoop things up. But they are heavily armed.

There are about three of them.
"Theresa, light one of them up with electricity.", I tell her.
She nods. Immediately she attacks the one behind us shouting, "Tenchi Raigeki!", her special thunderbolt move quickly fries its system. They are weak to lightning. While she spams weaker spells onto it to make sure it breaks further, I run up to the other two machines. Their rockets and bullets I easily dodge and deflect. Their arms are heavy and strong, but slow. I easily jump onto one of them as they get close to the ground.

High in the air, I vertically spin gathering wind magic before splitting the mecha in half with a strike of my Naginata. The other one, I dodge a sweep from its arm before poking multiple hole into it. I finish it with my naginata enveloped by a sphere of powerful wind. I launch myself forward into a spin to turn into a drill, piercing through the robot. With a giant hole inside, it shuts off and falls down.

As I inspect it, Theresa comes close to me to get a look in as well.
"It has Lowee's logo.", Theresa mentions.
"Yeah, it is real odd. No military unit in Lowee has one of these licensed.", I respond.
I crouch down as I hear Theresa say, "Something seems familiar."
"The metal used…It is from Lowee but…These designs are off.", I think out loud.
"Hm…", I hear Theresa think, then she suddenly jumps up and goes, "Oh!"
I look at her as she tells me, "They were used by Socia-entertainments…I believe leader said they were originally designed by Plagia-Arts?"

Plagia-Arts? I've only known about them recently due to my ninja business, but before I could really learn about them, they were disbanded as a group, probably because of Bios.
"But these designs seem rather new. They can't just be leftovers…", I mention.
I hear the rustling of fauna.
"We have no time to check. Let's hide.", I say before grabbing Theresa and using Stealth Speed to hide.

Before we knew it, another one of those machines was pushed into this spot. Green heart flies in and shatters the machine with many spear thrusts.
"Nothing special as usual…But there are so many of them. How did they even get here?", we hear Grean Heart talk. She looks rather done with fighting. She must've encountered a lot of these. Oh no. It gets worse. The three we fought before now run into the clearing.
"Oh, it's Lady Vert?", I hear from one of them.

As they walk close to her, she looks their way and says, "Oh my, if it isn't Cave, 5pb. and…MAGES.? I haven't seen you in a while."
"My presence was not needed, but when fate wants me to be at the event is when I roam the living…", MAGES. replies with her usual smile.
"It's nice to see you again, Lady Verty.", MAGES. says after a long pause.
"It's good to see everyone in good spirits. But what brings you here? I thought you didn't have any interest in this event, Cave, 5pb.", she asks them. She slowly lowers to the ground and relaxes.

"We were chasing after two individuals we believe to be the Phantom Crusaders.", Cave states her business without beating around the bush.
"They are very strong. We are pretty careful trying to look for them.", 5pb. says.
"My. The Phantom Crusaders? Are they trying to get the treasure as well?", she asks them.
"Seems like it. I overheard them saying something aching to the treasure being more valuable than we thought. They don't want you to hand it over to the wrong hands if you were to get them, is exactly what I heard.", Cave explains.

"That's quite a peculiar thing to mention. Why would they be worried I hand it over and not keep it? Wouldn't they not retain that treasure regardless?", Green Heart asks.
"I cannot say for sure.", Cave says.
"Would you aid us on our quest to punish them.", MAGES. asks whimsically.
"Um…MAGES…. No offense…But…Do you even know who they are?", 5pb. asks.
"The knowledge of their existence has escaped me… Um…What did they do, if I may ask.", MAGES. responds, at first speaking in her regular weird tone, but switching up for a very confused one.

"Well, in Lowee they have been said to commit various crimes, close to vigilantism.", Cave says.
"R-r-regardless.", 5pb. struggles speaking, then but she says, "We need to stop them!"
Green Heart crosses her arms. She says, "If you find them, you can arrest them if you want. but if I may be so honest, they are very low priority. I'm not even sure if they are so bad, not even Blanc is so sure after some recent incidents. I have other priorities."

Green Heart looks at the machine she decimated. The other three switch their gazes to it as well.
"A machination of evil. What could it mean?", MAGES. asks.
"It has Lowee's logo on it…However…", Green Heart speak slowly, examining the machine.
"I doubt White Heart would let anything like this run free in another country on purpose.", Cave says.
"Yeah. Certainly, she doesn't have a motive to invade us…And something similar has happened before. Someone might be trying to get us to fight, albeit, a poor attempt.", Green Heart says what she thinks, poking her finger against her cheek.

"So, the mission is finding the perpetrator?", Cave asks.
"I would prefer you'd help me with this. There are many of them spread around Leanbox lately, a lot of them entered this jungle today. I doubt it is a coincidence. Whoever send these robots here might be nearby enough to receive the treasure.", Green Heart says.
"Is that why you joined the event?", Cave asks.
"Joining my fellow hunters boosts my shares…But I had quickly gotten reports of these machines heading over here. I figured it would be hitting two birds with one stone.", Green Heart answers, readying her spear.
"Well. There is plenty of experience to be gained from fighting. Many invaders are still in this jungle and I refuse to let them run amok.", Green Heart says before flying off.

"We should search for the one behind the Mecha.", Cave says. The other two agreed and left the area.
"This is troublesome. I'm sure they will still attack us the moment they see us regardless of their priorities.", I say to Theresa. She pats my hands. Right, I should let go of her.
I release and see her catching breath. "Sorry.", I apologize.
"It's fine… Hey. Acquire?", Theresa responds to me, then she asks a question.
"Hm? What's up?", I ask, and I see her pointing north saying, "I think I've spotted more crystal in the distance."

We walk forward and notice crystal structures and crystalized tents around here.
"You said crystals are a sign we're getting close to the source, right?", I ask her as we keep walking.
She nods. Now she says, "I feel like we're close…"
After walking for about ten minutes, we finally reached it. A barrier of mist. The fog is so deep, I can't even see a shadow beyond it. It is too tall to jump over, in fact, it only gets taller with my attempt to jump over it.

I place my hands on the mist barrier, it is like a solid wall.
"So, how did you guys go through this?", I ask Theresa.
"Hm…Leader said share energy would disperse the barrier…Hm…Maybe it goes away if the monster enters and leaves?", Theresa answers as she thinks.
That's just great. We can't go through without share energy.
"So basically, we either have the bad luck of Green Heart finding this trick out, or we have the pleasantry of fighting the monster outside here.

I hear someone jump from a tree, I turn to my right instinctively blocking whatever attack was coming at me. I ended up blocking Cave before pushing her back. Dang, they found us. An explosion goes off between me and Theresa. MAGES. has appeared in front of us as well. She forces Theresa into a short distance teleport. But this was part of her plan it seems. They are separating us. As MAGES. barrages Theresa with attacks, she forces her into the dense trees to our right.

I try to follow her, but then 5pb. comes out from within the trees and shouts, "EXE Drive Skill!"
"5pb. Live!", she shouts. It was like she summoned a concert stage behind her, her massive speakers blasting music into my ears as she plays on her guitar. I am stunned, not even a muscle can be moved. A pink magical light flies up from below me, hurting me greatly. Then she finishes it with one more guitar riff that blasts a bunch of talisman my way, exploding with neon hearts as they hit me. I feel disturbed, it gets hard for me to move. I think the mental stat is down, meaning magical attacks will hurt me more.

Cave dashes in front of me from my left. She swings her scissor blade at me infused with wind magic, I can only meekly block it as I still feel weirded out. I almost hit my back against the fog wall after Cave pushed me a distance away.
"Full Burst option.", Cave says as she summons five drone-like things that float around her hand aimed at me in a star formation. Together with her hand, the drones shoot green beams at me.
A quick breath and twitchy eyes, I feel I woke up a little and jumped to my right avoiding it with a millisecond to spare.

"Tailwind!", I set up a Tailwind before running around Cave and 5pb. Cave tries to shoot me with her hands, but misses as I side step within my run. Now her drone-like things spread around shooting green beams at me. I use Stealth Speed to zigzag around them. Cave is slowly following, which is what I want. I jump onto a tree and blast myself off towards her. It is no surprise she blocks my hit, although, she easily blocks it and locks my spear between her blades. Even so, I push her and use wind magic to kind of twist her to my left. Either way, she jumps back to dodge my kick, and the following ranged air-slash she dodges as she usually does.

I try to clash with her, but 5pb. creates a massive soundwave out of her guitar that can easily damage me, so I back off and follow her closer to the trees. She avoids one spear slash and jumps onto the side of a tree, I deflect her jump slash, and right after, she's onto another tree. So I ape her and get onto a tree as well. We clash blades each time we pass as we jump up from the threes. Higher and higher we got until we reached the top of these tall trees, blowing each other back with our last clash. On top of the trees, I activate, "Tornado Armor!", which has her take on a defensive stance.

5pb.'s guitar play causes some kind of implosion near me, so I jump away as I fight Cave on the three tops. She's very much trying to keep her distance, but the long range of my naginata allows me to easily close in on her. She blocks a weak swing I made just to keep the pressure up. Due to the tornado, Cave was flung over to the last tree before the clearing. I jump towards her, almost thrusting my Naginata at her, but instead, I push my lower back to do a drop kick with my left leg, forcing her to jump to my right, but at that point, I have already got the blade aligned with her, I am able to knock her off the tops.

As she falls towards the ground, I follow her. Or rather, I pretend to. As she lands bracing for my strike, even shooting with her other hand to try and stop me, I make a sudden dive towards the ground and blast myself towards 5pb. instead. Cave is too late and slow to follow me.
I did not expect 5pb. to stand her ground and fight back, however. She shoots some kind of electrical orb at me shouting, "Plasma Oven!" I easily dodge it and get close to her, and then she surprises me again by advancing to smack me with her guitar into the orb, which had stood stationary after passing me by.

My back goes inside it, and because of that, I get microwaved before my Naginata could absorb the element. Of course, once inside, My Naginata is absorbing it and reducing the damage. Cave thought to hit me before I could use it, but quickly bolt out of her slash like lightning, and immediately go back to stab her. Well, I tried to, but she somehow got my sparking spear stuck into her knives as my strength forces us both closer to the mist wall. Eventually, the tornado of my spear will fully reform and twist her blade out of the way, knowing that, she ducks and blasts me with a green beam, simultaneously, I thrust my foot into her chest and block her beam with my arm. It still hurts but the damage is lessened. We both get flung away far by our moves, however.

Fighting two enemies is tough, but I can win it. I only need to make sure I pay attention to any healing magic 5pb. can do. Otherwise, Tornado armor has my strength put above them. I even used the fog wall one time to surprise Cave be running over and jumping off of it, knocking her back. Fighting her really is fun…But the mist disappears and what comes out of it reminds me exactly why I can't just have fun fighting her.

Out of the mist walked a giant turtle monster. Its coloring was green skin and a yellow shell, but some of its parts looked like it was made out of metal like its lower jaw. Its teeth however was crystalized and golden in color. He also had a curved golden crystal spike coming from under its jaw. His eyes were glowing yellow, giving us a nasty glare. It had some kind of crystal mohawk over its head. Its limbs were way longer than that of a turtle, however, they even look like they have circular gaps between them. Its actual feet were crystalized. It had an golden crystal for its spike. Instead of just a shell, it had multilayered armor onto it, the belt around its belly looking blocky…Now that I look closely, it has a lot of blocky armor on it alongside random crystal spikes.

It opened its mouth and sucked in a lot of air. I can immediately see a light within its mouth. I see Cave panic for the first time and I can't blame her, my heart has stopped too. At least it is easy for me to jump away as it fires a wide cyan beam out of its mouth that decimates the trees in front of it. No wonder the first few parties that found it got wiped out. It shows up with an insta kill move like that? Dealing with this at the same time as the other two is going to be a pain.

"All right, I am getting you out of the way quickly!", I shout, gritting my teeth and letting the adrenaline take over as I spin around like a drill shooting myself its way. Despite its tough defense, with the current buff on, I am able to shove it by a few inches as I drill into him. Then I am flung back as my action creates a reaction of force. I back off, knowing his next attack must not be taken lightly.
From its side, it unloads a bunch of large rockets. There were speedy and number in the dozens, each impact creates a large scale explosion that could damage a highly armored tank. I would've been hit despite my acrobatics if it weren't for Tornado Armor.

"Full Burst Option!", Cave shouts, shooting it in the side. It does okay damage I guess, but aside from budging it slightly it doesn't seem impressed. Rather, it is slightly annoyed and starts up some jet engines from between the gaps of its shell and limb sockets to fly and ram its side into Cave. With no way to dodge it, Cave tried to attack it with her blade instead. She is quite strong, but with the speed, weight, and size of this monster, her getting knocked on her butt was inevitable.

It slowly retracts its limbs before jumping high in the sky as it extends them like spring feathers. It remains air-borne as it shoots rockets and activates machine guns on its belly, shooting crystalized bullets. I can slice most of the rockets in the air with air slash. Cave had another idea and simply jumped from one rocket to another in order to reach the monster. Near the turtle, she hacks away at him with multiple wind infused slashes, but then the weird thing happens. The turtle retreats in his shell, but flames exhaust from the holes. It starts spinning before creating a sonic boom as it flew away.

Cave barely dodges a spinning ram attack from the turtle, but with its speed, it easily u-turned and knocks Cave into the ground. Blocking or attacking him did absolutely nothing for her. 5pb. calls for her, but Cave seems fine enough. She's slowly getting up. In the meantime, the turtle is moving close to 5pb. She tries to do some kind of sonic wave attack, but it easily curves around and gets behind her, knocking her close to Cave. Now it flies to me, and with my buff having the rotation speed to scratch Nintendium, I am not afraid of this guy.

I jump forward and strike him with all my might. My arms are getting sore for sure, but in the end, I manage to stop the turtle's rotation. As it flops back on the ground, I land on one knee. I can tell 5pb. and Cave are looking at me with astonishment. It doesn't last long for Cave to look at me like that, though.
While 5pb. runs back to stay as support, Cave launches a bunch of fire balls at the turtle while running towards him. As the fire balls hit him, I cut him a few times with air-slashes on the opposite side. Cave jumps above it, ready to slice it with the opening she created from the damage she dealt to it with the fire balls.

It did not turn out as we had hoped. The turtle extends a bunch of crystal from its shell and jumps right into her, sending her into the air. After she drops on the ground, the turtle look around, observing us closely. I don't want to stand around, so whilst Cave gets back up, I run at the turtle to attack him, but then he jumps high into the sky again. I thought we'd have to find some annoying way to reach him, but he quickly drops back down… At terminal Velocity…With crystal stabbing out of its feet. Oh no.

I hop back once and prepare to jump as he stomps its feet into the ground, creating a circular thick wave of tall crystal spikes. Me and Cave are capable of jumping over it, as for 5pb. she climbed up a vine and is screaming in fear, her eyes widened and her pupils comically gone for now. The shockwave ends as the crystal declines in size further away. We land down, but of course, we're not save. This turtle attacks us again. A bunch of holes open up on its shoulders, armor, and shell. Its launches a bunch of shells into the air. The shells open and thousands if mini missiles fly onto us.

Taking advantage of this, Cave sends one of her drones to blast me, but I heard it in time and avoided it. Whilst dodging missiles I also have to run around to avoid five lasers firing at me, and Cave runs towards me in an attempt to cut me. She easily avoids the missiles like she knows where they land. But hitting me would proof to difficult, I can use wind to knock the missiles away and blow her back. After the attack ended. Me and Cave run at each other intending to knock the other away, but we noticed a muzzle shooting out of the turtle's mouth. With it, a huge wave of flame shot at us, forcing is to separate by jumping back.

How annoying! Take this! I jumped on top of the turtle, stabbing its shell with my Naginata which is more like a drill at this point. I think I am hurting it well enough, but it has a counter for this attack. A bunch of antenna that look like they are part of a radio tower sticks out of the sockets around each limb and the middle of its back behind me. I see electricity charging and figure being closer to it would damage me more. So I jump as far as I could. It unleashes a huge discharge that hits everyone. Even then, I'm pretty sure my naginata absorbing part of it decreases the damage for everyone, not just me.

With an electrified spear, I shoot myself into the turtle, knocking it back slightly, before, going near Cave and tricking her with a feint attack before zooming above and spin kicking her, my foot pushes her face into the ground. 5pb. tries to attack me, but I jump away from her magical implosion attack. Just as I thought I was doing well, the turtle suddenly appeared behind me at a crazy speed, having used his jet engines from what I can hear. He had a cannon charged up within its mouth. Thanks to Tornado Armor I can jump sky-high, dodging it entirely. Looking down, the beam seems somewhat different. It wasn't made of light like last time. I spot a trace of water. It was a Hydro cannon. Right after, it fires a bunch of rockets at me in mid-air, which I don't think I can dodge.

Stepping on them like Cave is impossible, the drilling tornadoes will explode them. I only managed to blow a few up before getting reached by other rockets. Exploding into me, I shouted before falling limp onto the ground. Smoke coming off of me. Pushing my head from the ground with my arms, I see the turtle flying back to position with a burst from its engines. Its mouth is still wide open.

A minor tidal wave comes out of its mouth. I desperately jump into the sky as water submerges the arena. Cave helped 5pb. up the trees. The water is not nearly as damaging as an actual tidal wave or tsunami, but it added electricity to the water, which seemed to be staying for now. I take advantage of this, as Cave is busy dodging a few rockets fired at her, I dive behind her, kicking her back into the water. She falls in the electrified water, taking plenty of damage. But in my excitement, I forgot about 5pb., she blasts me in the water with two giant speakers summoned by her guitar. The water disperses before I hit the ground, but thanks to the last explosion, I feel pain nonetheless.

Both me and Cave are out of breath. I am so done.
"That's it, you freaking beast! I'll take you on! Getting in the way of my fight out of nowhere will be your greatest regret!", I shout madly at him. I was saving the EXE Drive for Cave, but this guy sucks!
"EXE Drive Skill!", I shout, making the air around us dense.
In quick summery, I summon a huge tornado that assimilates into me as I drill it into the sky, my naginata thrown and turned into a dragon that knocks the turtle around with me jumping between the sides of the long serpent dragon to constantly hit the turtle before punching him towards the ground, that is when I repeatedly throw air blasts from punches and kicks as I spin. In the end, I grab the naginata, including the wind Dragon that forms around it, and I stab it into the turtle, the Wind Dragon exploding on it.

I hop back after my finisher and see I did quite a lot of damage to it…But it is highly defensive as you would expect from a turtle. I don't even think I got rid of a tenth of its health. It just gets back up.
At least it felt good. We brace for another attack, but it is stunned by a barrage of missiles. Dozens of explosives go off one after another, twenty explosions a second as the turtle is writhing. Mecha are flying all over us, adding machine gun fire to their explosives. One big mecha drops behind the turtle, creating a dust cloud. And to the right, I see a human-sized black mecha with a dark aura surrounding it.

We are now encircled by various mass produced robots.
The huge round mecha with thick white armor plates was driven by a human who looked like Pill Sphencer, one of Leanbox's presidents. From the looks of it, it is coincidence.
"More competitors? With an army of mecha…", Cave comments on the new arrivals.
However, they don't just simply shoot at the turtle, we also have to dodge energy blasts and missiles.
"Haha, I must thank you ladies for damaging him so much, we'll take over from here.", the man in the mecha says in a condescending tone.
"Justit Info B.V, I assume?", I ask in a confident playful tone. I think he will answer me quicker like that.

"Ha! I suppose your ilk would guess as much!", he responds.
"Justit Info? The organizers of this event? Why would they participate themselves?", Cave asks me.
"The event is just an easier way for them to get the treasure, they probably have armies of robots ready to procure them just in case adventurers won't give it to them!", I shout.
"Ouch! The accusations hurt! But you are correct about us wanting the treasure for ourselves. Now beat it! Before I use deadly force…", he responds.
"Adventurers are allowed to fight in competition, but not kill.", Cave says, taking a fighting stance.
"They are evil and most likely plan to use the treasure for something sinister.", I tell her.

I can't tell if she's listening, oh well.
Overwhelming it with numbers isn't a bad idea, certainly, it has less attacking options from the back. The guy in the big mecha easily blasts him with weaponry or simply uses the palm of his hands to damage him. But we can't just accept them killing it and taking the treasure, now can we?
"Tornado Armor!", I reuse my buff to fight a bit more.
5pb. adds onto the damage of the turtle with, "Heavenly Sound!", doing decent damage.

Me and Cave attack it from the front, slashing and stabbing it until it tries to hit us with the huge flamethrower. We get on top of the turtle. We stab it first, but then I think she may attack me at any time, so I kicked her away from me. In response, she swings her scissor-sword at me. Rockets are shot at the human-sized robots in the air. The robots are capable of shooting some of them down and a few even carry multi-rocket launchers with them, even then, a few rockets from the turtle come through and blow them up in one shot.

On top of the turtle, we fought with agile movement, always turning around to destroy incoming robots trying to assassinate us. Every so often, we stab the turtle. It goes without saying it won't take this for long, as it prepares another discharge. We both jump high in the air and prepare ourselves for the pain, much to our surprise, Cave gets shoved towards the ground in front of the turtle by the dark aura mecha. The following event has more than half of the robots surrounding us being deactivated by the discharge.

I shoot myself towards Pill Sphencer like a lightning bolt, tilting him slightly. Since I am quicker, I easily avoid his weaponry and palm thrusts, stabbing multiple superficial holes through its armor thanks to the drilling tornado.
"Magnet Disarm!", he shouts, creating an electrical forcefield that takes my Naginata out of my hands. But my arms are spiraling with tornadoes no less, so punching him rapidly still slightly damages the armored plate. It's not made of Nintendium after all. After dozens of punches, I blow him back with one heavy attack using two fists as once. When he is knocked back, the Naginata falls out of his hands, letting my catch it.

I notice a bunch of laser pointers aimed at me. Once they brighten up, I'm sure they fire highly dense lasers at me. I jump backwards into a flip away from them, and the ground that I was standing on was incinerated by powerful explosions. Below my back as I am still airborne, the turtle was ready to jump against me with its crystal spikes. I crawl into a ball formation as I am flipping over backwards, barely eluding his skewers. Once I land on the ground, I see it skewering machines flying above it, then raining machine gun fire down. Now he will do the crystal shockwave attack again. Of course, knowing his move set now, me and Cave easily dodge it. 5pb. was also prepared this time, climbing up the tree.

Cave had been fighting the dark aura mecha the entire time, and it would seem she didn't even manage to scratch it.
"It can use fake share energy for beam attacks and that crystal sword is not an ordinary weapon… What is its energy source?", I hear Cave mumble.
The turtle retreats into its shell again, flying around in the sky to smash airborne robots into pieces. It stops for a moment to blast us with another cyan beam of light. We take cover, regardless of doing so, we end up getting knocked over by the harsh winds that comes from the impact anyway. Right after, he flies towards Pill Sphencer spinning like a top. Pill Sphencer shouts, "Magnet barrier!", using some kind of force to grab the turtle despite its spinning.

Looking closer, he doesn't actually physically touch the turtle. He is being pushed back, but in the end, the hands created some kind of forcefield, which he uses to push the turtle back. On the ground, it does one more spin, before unleashing a bunch of missiles into the air. Thousands will rain at us. This time. Cave and I are too busy fighting Mecha's trying to kill us whilst the missiles fly down towards us. After what feels like a minute, The dark aura Mecha flies in, blasting Cave away with his left arm canon, and then flying to me with its blade.

I try to parry his crystal blade, but it emits some kind of impulse as he knocks me over. I bend my left knee in order to land on my feet. Knowing I can't dodge more, I spin my lance above my head to take as little damage as possible from the missiles. I am already exhausted from taking so many missiles, but then the dark mecha charges into me. I can barely dodge roll out of the way. As it passes by me, I shoot an air slash at it, but it protects itself with some kind of barrier.

Stabbing its blade into the ground, it unleashes nearly unbreakable crystal from within the ground. It's like a wave headed my way. I jump up, but it will fly towards me for an attack for sure. I get shot and knocked onto the ground. But I wasn't out of luck yet, Cave blasts it with "Full Burst Option" It responds by attacking with the blade, its dark aura growing denser. In the end, it only backed off when the turtle shoots rockets at the two. Cave easily avoids said rockets of course, but she is still under fire from the other mecha.
"Why are you so determined to kill us?", Cave asks Pill Sphencer.
"Hahaha! Can't have any witnesses of us obtaining the treasure!", he says.
So that's it then. That's why there are no machines carrying camera's like usual.

Now that I think about it. My fight with Cave and the turtle was being recorded, but just a few moments before they showed up, the recording drones left the area.
"That black robot…It is powered by an anti-share crystal, isn't it.", Cave says, her stare becoming more intense as does her frown, looking at Pill Sphencer.
He lets out a quiet laugh. He responds, "Close. It is an artificial copy. But it works no less."
"Only crimes can be the intend for such a weapon.", Cave says.

The remaining mecha close in as such.
"I'll take care of all of this. EXE Drive Skill!", she says as she walks forward, each step creating a magical circle below her that disappears right as she moves her feet.
She back hands her left pigtail as she says, "Black Label", a fiery aura appears around her with a larger green magical circle below her. She spins around like a top, shooting projectiles that look like they've been taken from an arcade game.

It hits everyone it touches except for 5pb. With no concern for me, she does a move that destroys all the mecha on the ground. I jumped high to avoid it and desperately use Stealth Speed when landing to side step the rest. After she's done spinning, she bends backwards, moves her fingers over her torso before raising her hand and snapping, causing the existing projectiles to explode. A giant explosion hitting everyone and everything except for 5pb.

But she's not done. She jumps to the sky. She summons two robotic wasps before creating an orange magical circle to stand on. From atop, she and the wasps spin around, raining projectiles down onto us, destroying every mecha except for the dark aura one and Pill Sphencer, albeit, they took a somewhat large amount of damage, same as the turtle. After she's done, she aims the two wasps together, firing off two flaming beams down near the turtle, they rotate around the turtle before exploding in a…Not a smoke mushroom formation, but a FLAMING one. I barely got out of there…

She lands next to me. The turtle got damaged the most, not being able to avoid anything. Pill Sphencer's mecha has a bunch of burn marks on it, and the dark droid only looks somewhat broken.
"May I suggest we cooperate? These enemies are a problem for the both of us.", Cave asks me.
I crack a smile. "Bold of you to ask after including me in your crazy attack.", I say before spinning my naginata around my back. I place it on my shoulder and say, "But that works for me, too. I don't even have a reason to fight you. I definitely don't want them to have the treasure!"

"Then we are in an agreement.", Cave says before looking back at 5pb. and shouting, "5pb.! We're working together now!"
5pb. nods and says, "Got it!" Now her songs power me up as well.
"The fact that that song powers you and never decreased your strength proves you are a good person…The song is decreasing the strength of our enemies, however.", Cave explained.
"If you know that I am not bad, why did you attack me?", I say, still grinning. At this point I find everything funny.

"I was going to talk first after talking to Vert…But you attacked us first, and since we weren't planning to abstain from fighting, we had to go with plan B immediately.", Cave explains.
"I see. Guess that is my bad…", I say. Now I point my spear forward and shout, "Either way, I am sick of you people! We're going to beat you all up! Get prepared!"
The fight would take quite a bit longer. Their mecha were tanky, the dark aura mecha barely lets itself get hit and it resists all elements except for light and dark, he switches resistance and weakness with those two. The turtle is even more defensive, I swear we've attacked it dozens of times with strong attacks and EXE Drive skills.

Eventually, the sun is beginning to set. The turtle knocked us deeper into the jungle. We are panting. The guy in the mecha barely does anything, the big guy is hiding behind the turtle, using its back as its blind spot, letting the turtle focus on us instead. We can't get past the turtle either, it is too strong. But, we have definitely worn the turtle down. It doesn't look nearly as healthy.
Suddenly, the dark robot's eyes give off a red signal as he makes a beeping noise.

"Beep Beep. Information from Network.", Saying this got Pill Sphencer's attention.
"Radeon 6800 Planeptune unit, defeated. Failed to defeat Phantom Crusaders Leader.", The droid says.
"What?! Can't she transform?! How does she defeat an anti-share weapon?!", Pill Sphencer shouts.
"Heh, you think our leader would lose to such a thing?!", I say, intending to mock this man.
"It was made specifically to counter her! How did it lose?!", Pill Sphencer says.
"Interesting…She can transform? What does this mean?", Cave mumbles.
I am too overjoyed to care. Yes, Bios can easily deal with you scum!

Pill Sphencer seemed frustrated and wanted to retaliate either physically or verbally, but in the end, he backs off. It quite visible that the turtle is up to something. A new move? Right now? Parts of it is glowing. It unleashes a bunch of mechanisms… Then suddenly, in a blinding white light, it explodes. It doesn't hurt a whole lot, but it feels like a truck of air slams against me. I had to guard and plant my feet firmly on the ground. When it was over, I slowly relax my arms before looking forward. Everyone seems alright, but the turtle has disappeared. He isn't destroyed. There is no trace of him, and I don't feel like it self-destructed. There is no treasure either.

"Tch. Damn thing got away.". Pill Sphencer laments.
"Cave, Let's do this.", I tell her.
She nods, moves forward for a bit before casting magic. The second she summons a green magical wind circles and shoots green wind orbs out of a tornado, I dash in. Her attack would partially be absorbed by my spear, whilst another halve would collide into Pill Sphencer, slightly distorting his machine as I get close. I do a few spins before ducking under his sumo arm press, then I cut his machine in half with a horizontal slash filled with sharp wind magic.

Even if he is tilted like he's about to fall, he uses a special magnetism function to float. I barely avoid getting pummeled into mush, jumping far back as Cave runs our way.
"Give me a boost.", Cave commands. With Tornado Armor on, I let Cave land on my naginata and launch her with a swing towards Pill Sphencer. Breaking its armor apart with projectiles, Cave has weakened the machine enough to allow her to thrust her blade through the cockpit, knocking Pill Sphencer out. He himself had some mind of machine frame on, making himself almost a combat unit.

Before he has the chance to use it, however, Cave gets away as I make him flinch with a direct hit from an air-slash, I follow that up by flying towards him like a drill with Wind Magic. "Arashi Daigeki!", I shout, drilling into him before the winds explode, blasting him through many trees out of our vision.

I take a breath before turning to the dark machine. It was held back by 5pb. mostly. Now, he isn't even attacking. His eyes bleep red again.
"Mission confirmed through Network. Lastation unit destroyed. Failed to damage Black Heart. Failed to kill the Claimer and the Silicon Knight. Leanbox unit in combat with Green Heart. Destination set: Lastation.", it said.
"What was tha-", before I could finish my sentence, I got flabbergasted by its use of Bios's Light Step, quickly shooting off into the sky before flying away. It's flight isn't too fast, I may be able to follow it.

I look over to Cave, who seems deep in thought.
"Cave, right? Listen. I know I may be considered a criminal, but I must follow him. I do not know what they're planning, but something is definitely going on in Lastation as well. Can you help Theresa beat that turtle asshole? The moment Justit gets its hand on that treasure, there's no telling what they'd do. I don't care if Green Heart keeps it either, just don't give it to them! You've seen for yourself right? They have anti-goddess weapons.", I basically plead to her.
She nods, and she tells me, "Don't worry. I will tell MAGES. to stop fighting your friend. I believe this treasure may be more important than we thought. We will obtain it without fail."

I nod to her before desperately hopping off. I use tornado armor to do long fast jumps, the trees help a lot with this. I should be able to follow that machine. Something better not have happened to my friends in the meantime…

To Be Continued…