Hyperdimension Neptunia
Third Sister; Darkness
Chapter 18.2 POV-Acclaim
Found the Mole.
Silicon and myself have entered the wall of mist. It opened to unleash a horde of monsters. Now that we have gotten inside, it closes behind us.
"Welp, no way back now.", Silicon says, I've noticed he usually speaks like that when he is anxious. Well, the combat prowess of our potential opponent is quite alarming. The plan is to hold him off until we are capable of grouping up. Being stuck in the fog wall would make that more unfeasible than I'd like.
We walk around, looking for the monster. I do get a signal on that device given to find a rare monster. In spite of that, not even a regular monster is within our vision. Around us is the signs of an older civilization. Buildings of marble with high quality pillars, some of which are designed to float in water or take damage from water and the pressure that comes with it…However, it isn't realistic. Lastation has historically been built on dryer land. There would be no civilization build with large quantities of H2O.
Just like the city in Lowee, this place must be generated by the Golden Tower. It doesn't quite compute with me. The both of us keep walking. We walk inside a center piece, similar to the one Leader and The Samurai fought in. This place is a clashing mixture of metal, old marble buildings with oil flowing through them and dirt ground.
"Man! Where is this thing?!", Silicon complains. I did not answer, I looked at the tracker.
I am staring at it in caution.
"What's wrong, Claimer? You're staring at that thing but…It's not close, is it?", Silicon asks me.
"It's right here!", I warn him.
"Huh?! But I don't see anything, not even in the air?!", Silicon shouts looking around in a panic.
This thing was never found, unlike the other two monsters. The sky, the ocean, or just on land, someone should've seen it by now. There is only one place people can't easily spot living beings in…I figured it out.
I shout, "Silicon! It's below us! Get away from here and assume battle position!"
Silicon and myself back up to safety, as the ground below us is dug out. From below, a large monster emerges. It looks like a mole type enemy. Over its eyes was a red vizor, under that, a long nose drill. Its mouth was wide open and revealed the most crooked red crystal teeth. It's main colors were black and grey with red crystals and lights. It had many types of drills and saws on its back, its back almost looked like a backpack of tools with the top being mostly exhaust fumes, the same can be said for its shoulders.
Its hands had big drills for fingers and flamethrowers attached to its wrists. Alongside most of its mechanical parts were tubes filled with flowing oil.
"This must be the monster of Lastation. No wonder no one found it, it was underground the entire time!", Silicon points out. So was my estimate.
Now in his territory, it will do everything to defend itself. It launches its drills, even extending more drills out of its body to shoot at us alongside rockets from its back. Naturally, Silicon is able to catch them all in his web, with his expert weaving skills, even the drills eventually get stuck with the right amount of thread in the right places moved the correct way.
Silicon uses his string like a slingshot for the rockets and spun the drills around to return those weapons back to sender. Alas, the mole is well prepared to stop its own attacks. It makes the missiles blow up with its flamethrower, and fully turns one hand into a literal drill enlarged to bounce the other drills off of it. I sense this skirmish is going to last. It digs into the ground and speeds our way over to us. While I can't deny its speed, I question how its holes seem to fill nearly instantaneously.
Silicon and myself reach into the air, both of us can easily stay up with string. The monster's first action is to shoot missiles before getting back up. A decent tactic to lower the amount of actions we are capable of and keep up the pressure, but once more, Silicon can easily catch them and return them, this time hitting the monster as it just got out of the ground. It appeared unbothered by the attack, I can tell its HP is so large, minor explosion are the equivalence of a bee's sting.
It turns its hand into a drill again and has it spin faster and faster, it turning red from friction. I see a flaming ring around its wrists that ignites and blasts the drill towards us beyond the speed of a bullet. It is my mind reading that leads me to dodge it before it is fired, I assume Silicon had a gut instinct he followed instead. The drills flies past us and hits a building in the distance, creating a clean hole as it goes through.
After we both landed on the ground, the mole digs itself deeper before launching itself from the ground almost onto Silicon, he was barely swift enough to move out of the way. Upon landing, the mole instantly submerged. Only thanks to my senses could I know it was going to expel itself below my feet, I dodge its attack with Light Step and block a follow-up as it tried to land on me next, now he dives into the earth like it is liquid.
"Claimer, do you know where it will shoot out of the ground?!", Silicon asks me.
"Twenty meters north-west from you.", I answer.
"That's good enough!", Silicon says with a devil-like smile. He places himself behind the mole as it comes out of the hole, only to be entrapped by string. Even the drills are perfectly stopped by Silicon as he says, "Like I'd let you move freely! Get ready, Claimer!"
I see, he will allow me to get a powerful hit in.
Silicon jumps up attaching all strings onto his sword, then he swings his blade over his head plunging it down onto the ground to throw the mole over him at the edge of the arena, some iron pillars bend by its crash. To continue the onslaught, I jump into the air with my sword alit by white. "UnionStar Light Slash!", I shout after shooting a blade of light, then I add, "And…Great Explosion!", thrusting a staff wielded in my other hand to push the light blade further into the mole combining it with explosion magic to create an even more powerful move.
My head transmits a painful feeling temporarily and my arms heat up slightly, but otherwise, I can combine a few moves at a given time fine enough. The mole does shake it off, immediately jumping towards Silicon trying to attack him, yet again, it gets trapped in string. Cocky, Silicon taunts it showing the large web of string he made himself. Then it aimed its hands forward as flames slightly emit from the flame throwers. After three charges, Silicon is forced to escape as two flames get thrown through the strings before they crash into steel and disperse, not before leaving a burn mark, just melting all surfaces.
These intense flames are almost physical objects. Silicon too caught up with all his traps almost turned to cinders, he was unable to dodge the Mole as it shoots itself with a ignition from a flame on its back.
"Silicon! Get away from here, you can't do anything against someone with fire!", I have to be blunt with him. He has had bad luck running into flame users every time. Alas, he could only block the incoming attack, the strings on his swords getting burned before he is flown inside a building with missiles following him right after.
"CombinationStar Light Slash!", I say as I attempt to hit the mole, but he digs down into the ground. I sense a hole appearing below me, but I can tell after jumping the mole is not there, instead, a spiraling pillar of flame shoots out of the hole, and currently, the Mole jumps out another hole behind me. I cast explosion magic to barely get away. Now I see the polluting black smoke erupt out of its exhausts as its activating thrusters. It shoots itself as a fiery drill my way, I shall counter him with Dragonette's Tornado Armor and Dai Arashi Kogeki.
My drill of wind goes against his of fire, bouncing us both back as I had computed.
It immediately gets back under ground. I can already read in its mind that it will keep up its speed even underground. I already prepare to abuse Light Step and on top of Tornado Armor, I grab two swords and set them ablaze with white light. One foot budges an inch, and then I launch myself away, for the Mole shoots out sky high the speed of a bullet, no, he is faster according to calculations. It dives down me at just as much speed whilst also launching missiles. I dodge all of them thanks to Light Step. It sometimes create multiple holes that expunge flames, and it sometimes dives down but not into the ground, but it rather stays above ground and uses its thrusters to get behind me. If it manages to corner me, I can block its drills for seconds before escaping its reach.
If it gets me in the air, I can let it scrape me from the side with the protection of tornado armor. I am fortunate whenever I can side step and then leap past the Mole to cut him for slight damage. After halve a minute, it shoots a few drills at me. I didn't see them as anything special, but I have sensed they will rupture. It has heat elements inside it that once freed, will shoot towards me like a shotgun blast. They go off in a rhythm as I evade hot particles melting through me with Light Step. They were loud like fireworks and make perfect holes through steel.
The mole lands and looks at Silicon running out of the building he fell in. It aims its flamethrowers at him.
This thing isn't of mediocre intelligence as I had thought! Silicon won't see it coming, so I light step in front of the flames to take its attack. Them turning half-physical is in my favor, for they won't go through me. It hurts, but the damage wasn't as high as I had imagined. The mole's strength lies more in damage over time attacks rather than big hurtful attacks.
"Ice Coffin!", to counter the flame attacks, I attempt using something cold enough to weaken it. In my favor, the ice stops it in sacrifice of the attack melting, the water is close enough to the mole. I can push it onto the mole whilst electrifying it using, "Thunder Storm", a basic spell creating a small lightning tornado that sends the now electrified water onto the mole. I cast regular combo lightning a few times until Silicon returns and flung himself over the mole to get behind him. He stops him with threads again.
The mole figured to just burn the threads off again, but they were oiled up and meant to be set ablaze. The Mole was resistant to fire, so it did little, but it would appear Silicon merely planned a distraction so he can safely use his strongest attack.
"EXE Drive Skill! 2 bars!", he shouts, about to use an extra bar of EXE Drive to power up the attack.
"RED STRING!", Screaming in pain, he sacrificed half of his health to summon blood-red strings from his mechanisms.
Similar to his previous skill, Silicon wraps the enemy up in red strings whilst whipping them with other red strings magically coming from the air in various directions. He thrusts through the enemy, but doesn't stop there. "All my blood sweat and tears goes to my enchanted sword. No more is it entrapped for its prison had now become its entire being."
"Become free and devastate the world!", he says before the sword is covered in so much red strings it turns into a glowing red blade of crimson. He does another thrusts that unleashes a cyclone of red that acts like a blender before Silicon finishes his attack shouting, "Hades' Crimson Blade!" With one red slash, a red tear appears over the mole that blows up in red.
The mole is knocked back, and I can sense that Silicon's attack is uber-powerful due to the massive sacrifice to pull it off. Still, the Mole gets up without a single visible wound.
"Damn it…", Silicon says as he lands on one knee, only slightly returning to posture using his sword. He continues, "Is his HP that high? I understand why Leader told us the danger of these guys. This is an S rank, huh?"
The mole gets back into the ground. This time, it stays underground. I see parts of the ground turning orange from heat. "Silicon, avoid the hot spots on the ground.", I warn him.
If I were to be truly forthcoming, I'd say he would see it too late and get hit, but Silicon seems more active when hurt and steps between the erupting blazes that shoot out of the ground. Multiple times in separate locations, we barely fit between flaming pillars.
Now it shoots itself high into the air again, this time it floats for a few seconds as it summons steeams of oil from the oil rivers. Serpent like movements towards the Mole is what these streams make before they are flung towards us. They slowly catch aflame as they reach the ground.
"Prepare yourself!", I call out to Silicon, the two of us are overwhelmed by flame as the center explodes after the oil combined. The two of us are burning even after the attack is done.
Yes, alongside damage over time, it hurts us with status effects. His attack should've done more damage otherwise.
Silicon is kneeling. His HP is dangerously low.
"Silicon, heal yourself. Allow me to garner his attention.", I tell him. I myself eat a fruit given by the adventurers that should stop one from burning. Magical food is one of the few that actually are rich in taste for my buds, I feel a little better. I use Light Step and shoot string at the Mole to annoy it. I jump over it flamethrower, and it is then I pull out two swords. My arms heat up slightly and my head starts hurting as I say, "Tornado Sword! And Light Blade!"
One sword is turned into a large rainbow one whereas the other sword is bursting with light. I shoot one blade of light at it before diving down towards it with explosion magic cast from my feet, then I blow it back with the tornado sword. It tries to hit me with the ultra-fast burning drill that could go through everything, but not the crossing of these two powerful blades.
The Mole digs under me and gets behind me to try and drill me from close up, but I block it with the tornado sword and knock it back with the light blade all charged up. I instantly Leap right after it and hold the bladed together to strike them with both, the explosion of rainbows and white dealing decent damage to it. Yet, it still shakes it off and unloads drills and missiles on me that I can't dodge. My body has stiffened a bit. Not only is fusing skills hard, but using both Light Blade and Tornado Sword simultaneously is impractical, they don't last long.
"Claimer! Use lightning!", Silicon shouts, he has been fully healed and snuck behind the mole to capture it in wires that conduct electricity.
I use Theresa's, "Tenchi Raigeki!", to damage and stun the mole.
"Silicon, stand back. It is my turn to do my ultimate.", I give him the head up.
Before I do so, I stop the Mole from using its flamethrowers, this time, I cast Ice coffin right below its stretched out arms to encase them before a single blaze could spark.
"EXE Drive Skill, Unlimited Arsenal!", I declare my attack's name before flying towards the monster, my arms dismantling to let go of all weapons I contain. I fly around it casting spells whilst it is assaulted by thousands of projectiles, from rockets to grenades to missiles to shuriken to cannonballs. All skills I've learned go off at once until I reach the sky.
Thrusters activate behind my back whilst my right arm spins like a drill.
"Armory Combustion!", I shout before I plunge myself into the monster at high speed, my attacks combined with the leftover weapons concocting an explosion that used to blow me away, but now I am capable of stepping away instantly. My arms return to normal after. The damage should be big, but I see the Mole has not even lost a quarter of his health during this battle.
This battlefield would stay a hazard zone for more than half an hour. The mole added rare earth magic like quaking the ground or summoning large spiked boulders that explode. It also uses Oil bending to do various fire attacks. The last thing it did is spout oil fountains out of the holes it dug and set them aflame, splattering us with burning oil we couldn't avoid. In pain and our oxygen escaping us. We stand before the monster worn out. The worst aspect of this fight is that it could stay underground to keep attacking us. I can't even shoot fire inside the holes since it would do close to zero damage.
It now aims its drill hands at us, they rotate, but instead of shooting it towards us, it sets it aflame using oil and then with its rotation creates this snake-like flame tornado that flies over to us. Silicon and myself split as we go around the arena. Silicon requests something, "Claimer! Could you get him airborne?!" Since it used earth techniques, I might be able to, so I nod to him.
Having run half a circle, I shout, "Great Earth Spike!", using magic to invert the ground underneath him, forcing him into the air.
"Flatten the ground!", Silicon asks. odd command, but I'll follow. I undo my magic.
Silicon uses string to cover the whole ground, turning it into a web. The mole tries to dig, but it is impossible.
"HAH! How do you like that, stupid! I am so done with your digging, and now you can't!", Silicon shouts before throwing a laughing fit. Indeed, we got to hit him a few time with him fighting at less power. But it soon figured out how to turn this around.
It uses its magic, but thanks to the string, its ground raising skill splits into a thousand spikes. I urge Silicon to get sky bound. With string we get ourselves up to avoid the new bed of spikes, however, they heat up. After exploding, we are under an eruption of crystalized meteorites. I can easily break them, but Silicon's string will be burned through. I watch over him concerned, but then I see what his next move is.
Sacrificing minimal HP, he summoned a net of red string shouting, "Crimon String, Net!", which cuts every meteor that crosses it apart. The Mole burns through the threads with flames, then it launches itself towards me, I barely elude his body, but now he shoots this huge red crystal, which explodes into a red beam that sends me flying onto the arena. Feeling worn out, I find it tough to get back up, but do so regardless. It's staying underground now. But I should be able to copy him with my own skill.
I go underground myself. I run into the mole, it somehow appears dumbstruck as it clashes against me, unable to move further. It knows it can only ascend onto the surface together with me.
"Your skills are analyzed and copied. You have no way to stop us now.", I tell it in vain.
Our new strategy was for yours truly to counter every move with its own move whilst Silicon does cheap damage against it in the back. We seem to have seen all its moves.
The sky turns orange with the sun setting. We still haven't taken half of its health.
Silicon is certainly close to his limit, as for me, I'm uncertain of my endurance currently.
Just as we had thought to have an impossible task on our hand, a fair lady flies from behind us and shouts, "I've finally caught up with you, Phantom Crusaders!"
We look behind and slightly up to see Black Heart floating above us.
"Oh my goddess, we are soooooo screwed!", Silicon exclaims his feelings.
There is no real way to get out of this on top of fighting this monster. I can only assume we could pit the mole against the goddess and retreat, or split out and hope help arrives.
Most likely, we could move to Planeptune where Leader is. The question being how we would transport this huge Mole monster…
"I don't know what you two are planning, but don't think I'm letting you go free.", Black Heart says. Then she looks at the mole, her eyes twitches. The Mole shoots flame her way. She easily flies around and performs a spin slash with "Tornado Sword!", knocking the mole around twenty meters away.
Her strength is far beyond us. That would've taken all our efforts.
Black Hearts slowly moved close to us. There might be a chance she's willing to work with us to defeat this Mole first, as is a Goddess' duty to kill monsters first. However.
Silicon turns around and points at the Mole shouting, 'Claimer! He's escaping!"
All of us take a garner at the mole who is planning to dig down and go far away.
"I'll chase after it! No matter what, I won't let go! You deal with Black Heart!", Silicon says before jumping towards the mole and using little string to wrap it around its leg. Like he's wake surfing, except over the ground using his string.
Deal with her? The most I could feasibly do is flee.
"So. Your friend ditched you. You should understand there is no way to go against me now. Just give up and tell me everything you know.", she demands.
"I apologize, but we all have a mission to fulfill. My friend has not ditched me, his task is no less arduous. As for me, I have faith my actions will bring me back to my friends.", I tell her.
Logical or not, it is sentiments like that that gives one strength.
I need to get past her. She most likely cleared to fog wall using share energy. A quick move is all I need. I hold a blade over my left shoulder, with a swing, my SP increased my speed as I cut through Black Heart twice, now I am behind her.
She looks shocked as I say, "Tornado Chain!", using her own attack against her. After snapping my fingers, she's pushes back my invisible blows. I take that time to use Light Step to shoot myself far away.
Far away is a relative term, she quickly flies right over me, keeping a high altitude to make sure I can't escape. She comes down a few times to hit me, I launch missiles and those flying drill rockets at her, but she can dodge most of them. I already have to use one of my few remaining healing items. The fog wall has been passed over, now I jump over the canyon between to reach the oil fields.
"Fall Slash!", Black Heart shouts shooting down a blade of energy at me that explodes into a rift upon hitting the ground, the after-effect nudging me from my feet.
"Volcano Dive!", she shouts, I make an attempt to back away, but for my lack of balance, I am pushed by a sword strike that creates a small volcanic eruption under me, the lava burning me slightly. Through the lava, Black Heart thrusts her blade forward shouting, "Paralysis Fencer!" She shocks me to stop my movement after I am thrust next to an oil field. Black Heart flies to my left, about ten meters away. Now she goes straight at me whilst I have trouble moving.
"This is the end of the line!", she shouts, about to hit me.
"String.", I say, with my limited movement, I prepare a net of string. Black Heart laughs at me and says, "That won't work anymore! Flame Edge!", before summoning fire from her blade. But she gets captured regardless, and the string is set aflame. It was the oil string that can resist fire for a few seconds. She makes pained noises before saying, "Don't you know using fire is forbidden here?!"
You used it half a minute ago…
"Hya!", she shouts as she cuts the string apart. My eyes widen, the flaming string is falling into the oil. Black Heart herself gets a panicked look, watching the string fall.
"NNNNNOOOO-", her cries get overtaken by the rising flames that burst from the oil. The skies turn to smoke as the entire zone is burning. I stand face to face with an angered Goddess. Even if it is her own fault, she will hold me responsible.
"I underestimated your strength…I will prevail!", is a line she says. Is this what Silicon would say is the type of line to sound cool?
I fight with her surrounded by fire, the heat having us both sweat profusely. A minute is enough for me to tell I am no match. Even if I mirrored her attacks, her share energy overpowers me. I can't copy that. I use many SP skills, but I am now running dry because of that. The damage to her was minimal, never mind she avoids most of it and knocked me around.
It isn't possible to jump through these flames…But I could dig. I use the Mole's digging power to go underground. I heard Black Heard shout something in an annoyed tone but I do not care to listen. The only difficulty with digging is ending up in some random areas. Burning oil is rooted under here too, fortunately, I can feel them out due to their heat. I notice a canal of metal pipes, above me must be a refinery. I am able to dig from under it. I take a few minutes of respite.
I calculate around half an hour of digging. The sun has mostly lowered. The flames are dying down as well. As had been foretold, the oil respawns magically. The logic of it is absurd, but that is the nature of magic. I see Black Hear flying around and hide. I can hear her, "Don't think you can hide! This field is open enough for me to find you." A moment later, I hear a crash. She's destroying objects where I could potentially hide in.
I think it is wise to keep relocating.
I go back underground. Unfortunately, Lastation is a mining nation and is home to a large quantity of caves. After fifteen minutes of digging, I ended up in one. The cave was dark and large, it is a natural one. The monsters roaming below look strong, they themselves give off light sources. I am too spent to fight that many, and if I go too deep below Lastation's cities, I wouldn't be able to pierce their steel foundation. If I go straight to Planeptune, there is a possibility of bringing Black Heart with me, not to mention the road to Planeptune would have less hiding spots than a city at night…
Thus, I made my choice and returned to the surface, where Black Heart was awaiting me. Out of sheer ill-fated timing, she could fly to my too fast for me to react and knock me over.
"Hehe. You can't escape me! Now surrender!", Black Heart says excited. I keep running and running, with her trying to block my way or assault me from behind, I refuse to surrender. Eventually, I am knocked into the city. We are in a more industrial area with refineries, some old, some new. I fought my hardest, the metal structures around us bending, but it is no use.
Backed into a corner, I do a last ditch effort.
"Tornado Sword and Light Blade!", using the two strongest sword transforming techniques, I attempt to counter her. Our blades clashes and we are almost equal. The wind violently crashes into surrounding buildings. There are some onlookers watching us, a few cheering for Black Heart. Eventually, she says, "Enough already!", and knocks me on my back.
Even she is panting, irrelevant to me, for I am worn out. It's been hours and I lack the healing items to restore my vitality.
"You are truly one of the most difficult people I'd had to fight. Maybe that is worthy of praise, and maybe your group may even be admirable. However, I refuse to let you do as you please! We are bound by laws! They are there for a reason!", she tells me.
I do not fault her logic, however, I have my own conviction. So I stand up.
"You want to go that far…Fine. I'll knock you out.", she says pretty quietly. She flies over to me, prepared to finish me off. But then, the sound of a large explosion rings behind me, I turn around to see an abandoned factory crumble before a spear comes flying. It passes me and knocks Black Heart a distance away.
A naginata. It is the exact same as Dragon's….
"Aaha…", a tired voice looms around us as footsteps approach me. I don't need to look. Dragon(Dragonette) walks past me as the head of a dark droid rolls past Black Heart. She observes the droid and knows it is no easy feat to beat. Dragon stands before me and says, "That thing was a major pain to deal with, and now a Goddess is here? Talk about working overtime. You better pay me some vacation time, Claimer.", Dragon tells me.
Looking behind me, she has scrapped a droid similar to the one Silicon and I had found.
"Another member?! And that droid…Did you destroy it?", Black Heart says.
"Sure did. It really was a handful. First I had to chase it all night to Lastation, and then it happens to be resistant to most elements. It took me a while, but thanks to the explosives left in that factory I could tear it apart! You should be grateful and let us go, to be honest.", Dragon tells Black Heart with much bravado. I can't imagine the Goddess not getting infuriated.
Though it would appear Black Heart is too tired to care.
"Listen. I just want you two to stop hiding your identities and tell me what your goal is. If you aren't bad I won't even punish you…Well, except for pay some of the damages.", Black Heart argues.
"Yeah, sorry. We kind of picked up a mantle of mystery and refuse to let go until we're done. Maybe we'll talk later!", Dragon tells her in a playful tone.
"I refuse!", Black Heart shouts before dashing at Dragon.
"EXE Drive Skill!", Dragon shouts, stopping Black Heart for a moment. She uses an altered version of her EXE Drive, flying straight into the goddess summoning a dragon of wind as she pushes her into the sky. The dragon manifests and shortly knocks Black Heart around spiraling over her until Dragon does a back flip kick to knock Black Heart down. Then her dragon goes down to her, letting Dragon grab ger Naginata to plunge down with the dragon onto Black Hearts before an explosion of winds separates the two, thus concluding her attack.
"Tornado Sword!", despite looking hurt, Black Heart flies back to Dragon, calling out her attack name before knocking Dragon back a few meters.
Dragon winces, despite blocking with her naginata, the attack hurt her. Yet, she laughs.
"Thanks you. That last bit was all I needed.", she says before opening up a large opening in the Naginata. That part is used to absorb an element, now it is filled with Share and anti-share energy.
"You see, getting the right elements for Purple Flame is hard, it needs more spice than regular elements to be effective. It's going to hurt not using the actual flames as fuel but…Ah, who cares. Risk is the cornerstone of adventuring.", she boasts.
She swirls her spear around before summing purple blazes shouting, "Purple Flame!"
I imagine it harder for Black Heart to perceive with Dragon having her mask, but I can see this form does somewhat resemble a goddess, albeit, with purple flames instead of metal pieces.
Black Heart seems to be out of SP as well, that Tornado Sword being her last attack. But she may have an EXE Drive Skill ready. Regardless, she flies over to Dargon, but misses her, only cinders left behind. It was like Dragon teleported behind Black Heart with her new speed, she cannons her into the sky with a thrust of her flaming spear, despite Black Heart having blocked it.
Shooting off after her, Dragon clashes with her, their blades unleashing large sparks, yet the Goddess cannot push her back, they turn until Dragon shoves her off. Black Heart attempts once more to hit Dragon, but with her speed, she easily curves around her, right after she penetrates Black Heart with a straight burst leaving a purple flaming trail behind. I watch them speed around each other with Dragon outperforming her. I can only imagine it is because Black Heart is exhausted. Dragon on the other, hand, if she were tired, I can't see it, her smile is bright. I am knowledgeable of her love for excitement, and I assume a Goddess has her at her height.
As if teleporting, Dragon avoids one fencing attack before appearing behind Black Heart and flinging her backwards with a flaming thrust.
"It is unfortunate I can't hold onto this form…". Dragon says, her smile not saying much about her status. In reality, this form is normally hard to maintain, without the proper material, it could threaten her life.
"EXE Drive Skill!", the two of them shout at each other.
Flying towards each other, it takes a few seconds for them to appear as if they vanished. Over and over again, they fly past each other, Dragon often knocking Black Heart over with Black Heart Occasionally scratching Dragon as her blade passes her a number of times. Black Heart uses Tornado Sword against Dragon, only to be stopped by her great charge attack. Dragon sweeps Black Heart away, her naginata emitting a flaming purple dragon that grows to the point it overtakes the sky before exploding in a purple explosion with Dragon shouting, "Murasaki Ryuhoshi" Her attack leaving a system of stars shaping a dragon in the sky.
Dragon slumps her shoulders down. She laughs meekly as Black Heart comes back, just before getting hit, Dragon reacts with, "Hehe…Well, I guessed a Goddess wouldn't be defeated by my attack…"
"Infinite Slash!", with a snap of the fingers after passing Dragon, a network of visible slashes tear the sky that shoots Dragon into a building, her form reverting to normal.
Now it is my turn to save her. With the Goddess tired, even this should hold her back.
"Great Explosion!", I shout, using the SP I was bundling up to knock her back.
With Light Step, I go into the building, almost falling over as I land. I raise Dragon, who looks at me with tired eyes. She's been at her limit from the very beginning…
I use the Ninja's smoke bombs to make a curtain of smoke. As long as we can heal a little, we should be able to sneak around the city with Stealth Speed. As for Black Heart, I don't see her following us. I should count us fortuitous to be able to escape.
In a different building we hide. Dragon sits against the wall, catching her breath. I myself try to find anything that can heal our wounds.
"It may appear we have to rest in full…", I tell her.
"I think we can board a plane in secret. If we rest in Planeptune, we can get back to Bios faster.", she tells me. She is too debilitated to use codenames.
The two of us exchange information. The monster in Leanbox has been encountered by her and Theressa. Dragon actually tells me that she heard news of it actually having been beaten.
"That Sili-guy really has some rotten luck, huh?". Dragon tells me.
"Rotten luck or not, he is holding on so we can get the treasures. I am certain we can find him and Leader in Planeptune.", I tell her. We've come to an agreement and take our time to use Stealth Speed to get to an airport. With our masks to our side, they won't find out we are Phantom Crusaders. Although we still have to sneak onboard the airplane, that is as easy as getting on top of it or stick on below and holding on as it flies. We just need to prepare for the fall. Our next directive, meet up with Leader in Planeptune.
To Be Continued…