As a note guys I realized that there’s one chapter in there THAT HAS NO CONTENT. I don’t know why there was an extra chapter in my planning. Meaning Monday the 26th will be the last decision of Arc I. You guys may want to start swapping ideas for how you’re going to take on the latest challenge!

The TL;DR is back and updated! Find it here!

Chapter Twelve: Beggining of the end

OPENING THEME CHANGE:

Uzume Tennouboshi

“We play this offensively. Evesy, you and Slivsy will try and keep Zer0 busy. Nepsy, you and I will deal with Gearsy. Kurome and Ramsy you keep Unisy occupied. Yomisy, do what you can to use that Blackvoid crystal so we can all go home!” Uzume flung out mental orders as this false Zer0 drew his own weapon - a forty centimeter metal pole with a massive spiked ball on the end. Zer0 twirled the mace in his hand with a smirk.

BGM: Into a Dark Dawn

“This isn’t the Zer0 I know from the Crystal Dimension.” Yomisy warned right after spotting their opponents weapon. “Be careful you two, I don’t know what kind of powers he’s has.”

“Noted.” Slivsy responded, pulling out her gun, shield up.

“How long are you all gonna sit there and scheme?” Uni complained.

“Eager to fight are we?” Kurome smirked at Uni.

“Eager to shoot that smug grin off your face!” Uni shot back, snapping her gun towards Kurome, finger less than a second away from pulling the trigger. Yet Evesy was faster, turning her own rifle on Uni and shooting her in the side, causing the corrupted candidate to start bleeding as well as turn her attention away from Kurome.

“You bitch!” Uni screeched while adjusting her aim. At that moment the battle exploded, Uzume and the others all launching out at their selected opponents almost simultaneously. Uzume shot forward towards Nepgear, right hand charged with an orange spiral drill aimed at Gearsy’s chest. Unlike her friend however, Nepgear had a much clearer head and easily saw the move coming, dodging to the right before slamming the the top of her weapon against Uzume’s backside, sending her crashing into the dirt.

Nepsy quickly followed up, bringing her sword in a downward slash towards Nepgear. Unable to dodge the second blow, the Planeptune CPU was forced to block the attack, her blade meeting Nepsy’s mere centimeters away from her head.

“Come on sis! Come to your senses already!” Nepsy pleaded.

“I have come to my senses Neptune. I can’t let myself stay in the shadow of a Goddess who is too lazy to take care of her own city. You barely lifted a finger when Chara’s troops arrived in Planeptune!” Nepgear growled, shoving Nepsy off of her.

Now back on her feet, Uzume charged Nepgear once more. Turning quickly to meet Uzume head on, Nepgear tensed her body, ready to counter whatever attack Uzume threw at her. With a grin, Uzume angled her direction to the left, shooting past Nepgear just before she got into range. As she flew passed, Uzume screamed into her megaphone. Orange shockwaves slammed against Nepgear, sending her skidding backwards.

Uzume only touched the ground for a moment, sending herself flying forward again, this time with the intention of taking Nepgear head on.

“Not today you don’t!” Nepgear declared before firing a beam of light that crashed into Uzume, sending her flying into a nearby tree.

“Cross Combination!” Nepsy shouted, charging her younger sister. The two locked blades again, Nepgear able to parry every single one of Nepsy’s attacks. When the last attack of her trademark combination attempted to finally land a blow on the candidate, Nepgear managed to twist Nepsy’s blade out of her hands and send it spiraling into the air until it pierced the ground behind Nepgear.

Slowly picking herself up off the ground, she realized that there was no way for the pair of them to take on Nepgear while they were still in their human forms. Uzume didn’t want to do it, but she would have to use some of her shares to go HDD.

“Nepsy, give me a moment!” Uzume shouted, summoning the share energy within her, calling upon her HDD form. In a flash of light Orange Heart floated where Uzume had been standing a moment before. The first thing Orange realized was that her strength would still pale in comparison to Nepgear, but even so every little bit helped.

“Alright Nepsy let’s do this!” Orange declared, charging at Nepgear once again.

Sliver Aina

Zer0 was far weaker than Sliver had expected.

Considering he was a Soul energy user she had expected him to at least be on a level comparable to Rock or one of her alternate incarnations from that region of the multiverse. Yet the man she and Eve faced was pathetic. His physical resistance was lacking, his attacks were slow, and he couldn’t keep up with the perfect teamwork against him.

Sliver repeatedly blasted Zer0 with her shotgun, forcing him to take a defensive stance and deflect the shots before they reached him. Eve kept the man from escaping her attack by firing warning shots whenever he tried to break away. Granted it wasn’t a winning strategy, but it was giving Sliver a good idea of Zer0’s limitations.

“Enough of this!” Zer0 growled, his mace glowing with a dark red energy as he slammed it into the ground. The ground in front of him cracked and exploded with a red energy in a cone headed right for Sliver. Jumping forward in an arc, Sliver flew up and over Zer0’s attack, landing directly behind her opponent while pointing her shotgun at his backside.

“Considering how pathetic you are compared to your minions, I wonder why Chara chose you to be a general.” Sliver sneered. “Guess I’ll never know.” Sliver pulled the trigger, only to find Zer0 no longer in front of her. Perhaps not as weak as I thought. Yet Sliver had seen this move before, disappear quickly and then reappear when she least expected it. It was a rather cheap tactic, but it was only going to work the first time.

Sliver waited patiently. Relying on her Biohelix to track Zer0 would only lead to openings later on in the fight. She needed to learn how Zer0 moved, what his tendencies were. Where could she exploit his weakness.

Without warning Zero appeared right in front of Sliver, a move she hadn’t been expecting. Bringing up his knee, Sliver felt a sharp pain in her gut and she crumbled to the ground. Zer0 smirked and disappeared again.

Sliver slowly got to her feet, forcing herself to ignore the pain in her gut and keep her senses alert for Zer0’s next appearance. Another sharp pain - this time in her backside - sent her back to the ground in pain. While Sliver had already healed herself from Zer0’s previous attack - this once had been a horizontal strike from his mace. This wound was going to stick around for a while, but taking that blow gave Sliver a good idea of where Zer0 was going to appear next. Flashing Eve a look, Sliver stood up once more and picked up her shotgun.

Both times Zer0 had appeared a small whizzing sound had echoed in her ears, giving Sliver a slight clue as to when he was going to appear next. Closing her eyes and opening her senses to the flow of Biohelix energy around her, Sliver waited for the third attack.

What a moron. Sliver sighed. He’s playing a war of attrition instead of looking for a way to use his best tactics. Playing some half-assed adapted style won’t work against us. Hearing the whizzing sound again and confirming Zer0’s location with her Biohelix senses, Sliver’s eyes snapped open.

From above! Sliver shot herself into the air, shotgun raised directly above her. Zer0 descended towards her mace raised high above his head. A single bang of Eve’s rifle rang out, slamming into the spherical weapon. The force of the impact threw Zer0 off balance, sending him spinning clockwise. Sliver pulled the trigger on her weapon.

Ram

Ram had expected Uni to be an easy opponent. Sure she was strong and pumped up with Soul energy but she was still a mid to long range fighter. Once Kurome had a chance to get in close there should have been no way for Uni to escape her.

At least that was the idea.

From the moment the fight had started Uni had darted around the battlefield, spraying both of them with a hailstorm of bullets. It was all Ram could to to intercept with chunks of ice so they didn’t turn into swiss cheese. This is so stupid stupid stupid! Ram screamed inwardly, trying to keep track of all the bullets flying towards her.

“It would appear that we need another strategy.” Kurome pointed out, stating the obvious. Honestly did this girl have to be such a dummy!? Of course they needed another plan!

“Well if you’ve got any ideas I hope you’re not holding back on me!” Ram spat, looking for an opening in Uni’s barrage.

“Based on how she’s been attacking non-stop from the beginning of the battle, it’s safe to say that her weapon won’t run out of bullets.” Ram’s level of annoyance was increasing rapidly.

“You don’t say? Any other obvious observations you want to tell me!?”

“Is everyone from the Crystal Dimension as hot tempered as you are?” Kurome shot back.

“Oh shut up!” Ram shouted, turning her staff into a sword of ice and slashing through another line of bullets before charging forward. Almost right away she was sprayed from a hailstorm of fire from above her, forcing Ram to stop and shield herself.

“Perhaps I should give it a try.” Kurome raised her megaphone, and similar to Uzume’s speaker cannon's, who speakers of dark energy appeared on either side of Kurome. With a single scream both cannons fired directly in the path Uni was travelling in. Spotting that she was in trouble, Uni broke off her attack and darted in the opposite direction.

Spotting an opening, Ram turned her staff into a sword once more and charged her opponent. Without time to make another quick movement, Uni blocked the attack with her gun, a deep gash running down the middle of it. In a rain of sparks, Uni’s weapon exploded, sending both her and Ram flying in opposite directions.

“You bitch, you’ll pay for that!” Uni cursed, a new cannon forming in her hands.

“We appear to have made some progress.” Kurome joked.

“Oh give it a rest would ya!” Ram shouted, spinning her staff high above her head before slamming it into the ground and sending a wave of erupting ice towards Uni - who simply blasted the attack away with her cannon. If only the Uni back home could have been this strong! Ram cursed. Ram didn’t want to do it, but it looked like she herself was going to have to go HDD if she wanted to close the power gap between herself and Uni. Ram summoned some of what little share energy she had in preparation to transform.

However a pair of explosions caught her attention before she could.

Uzume Tennouboshi

Uzume charged Nepgear head on, flipping herself and spinning rapidly - turning her body into a living drill. Naturally Nepgear saw this attack coming the moment it started, however Nepsy wasn’t about to let an attack as cool as this one get away. Jumping forward, Nepsy slammed herself into the clone of her sister as she tried to get away, sending her flying into Uzume’s powerful spinning attack. Nepgear skidded along the ground as two powerful explosions rang out.

The first came from the middle of the clearing, where Slivsy had just blasted Zer0 in the center of his body, tearing the man in two. Slivsy landed hard but gracefully, a scene which would have been totally awesome if it wasn’t accompanied by a short shower of blood.

The second explosion came from the direction of the Planeptune capital, where a giant was seen rising from the city’s edge. Uzume recognized this beast as a Soulbot, but one that stood twice as tall as any other Soulbot and looked like an adult version of Romsy. Uzume’s eyes widened as she realized what was happening.

BGM: Paradise

“Everyone, get over here quickly! The crystal is ready to teleport!” Slivsy and Evesy ran over towards Kurome and Ramsy, who seemed to be having trouble breaking away from Uni. Uzume started flying over towards Yomisy herself, but stopped when she realized that Nepsy was now kneeling down next to Nepgear.

“Come on sis get a grip! Come back to us!” Nepsy pleaded.

“Ughh, Neptune!?” Uzume’s eyes widened in shock. *No way, could this clone actually be the real Gearsy? But how!?” Uzume floated over to her stunned companion, who seemed to be in a great deal of pain - not from the blow she just took, rather she was fighting to stay in control of herself.

“Please Neptune, you have to stop Chara! He’s going to destroy everything!”

“Gearsy, please hang on! We’ll get Evesy over here and them maybe-”

“There’s no time!” Gearsy shook her head. “I can feel it - the darkness inside of me is too strong for you to beat.”

“Don’t say that Nep Jr.!” Nepsy pleaded. “We’ll save you!”

“Please Neptune, just leave me here! There’s no way to help me this time, so just go stop Rom and save Gamindustri!”

“Gearsy…” Uzume felt her eyes begin to water.

“Come on you two! If you don’t hurry we’ll teleport without you!” Yomisy pleaded. Uzume looked over her shoulder and realized that the group was already starting to disappear. There wasn’t even time to take Gearsy with them - they would have to leave her here.

“It’s okay Uzume.” Gearsy smiled. “I’m already dead remember? So just go, It’ll be okay.”

“I promise, I’ll bring you back Gearsy!” Uzume promised as she started dragging a flailing Nepsy away towards the group.

As the teleportation finished, Uzume ended her transformation and spotted Gearsy’s eyes darken once more. Grabbing her weapon, she loud out a howl of rage and fired a beam at the group. It was the last thing Uzume saw before the edge of camp Tennouboshi.

Uzume immediately rounded on Slivsy. “You knew didn’t you!?”

Slivsy paused for a moment before letting out a long sigh. “Yeah. I knew right away.”

“Why the hell didn’t you tell us!? We could have saved them! We could have brought them back!” Uzume screamed, her fury building.

“Wait, what didn’t she tell us!?” Evesy looked at Slivsy in confusion.

“That those two were the real Gearsy and Unisy!” Uzume explained, keeping her gaze locked on Slivsy. Several gasps of surprise rose from the group. Nepsy simply sat on the ground in tears.

“To think that they’d be used like tools…” Nepsy sniffed. “I thought the writers were done mistreating little Nep…”

“Why the hell would you keep that from us Sliver!?” Ramsy demanded.

“Because we didn’t have the resources to try and save either of them.” Slivsy snapped, glaring at Ramsy.

“How the hell would you know!? We didn’t even try! At the very end Nepsy and I managed to bring Gear back, even if it was just for a moment!”

“That’s because you slammed into her in HDD form with a high concentration of share energy combined with your purification ability.” Slivsy countered. I imagine that attack was the strongest one you could muster without risking yourself. We don’t have the shares to try and cure them yet, but the fact that they’re with Chara and not in the Overworld is something we should be thankful for.”

“Why the hell should we be thankful for something like that!?” Uzume screamed.

“Because it means the Guardians aren’t hunting them down!” Slivsy spat. “Use your head Uzume! This isn’t like when you fought Kurome and you could just overcome any obstacle with willpower and friendship! If we-” Slivsy stopped when Evesy placed a hand on her shoulder and gave her a hard look.

“I understand how you feel Uzume, I went through the same situation as you did with Zero.” Evesy explained, giving both Uzume and Nepsy sympathetic looks. “We had to give up on a chance to save her because a large population was about to be attacked.”

“We still could have-” Evesy quickly cut off Uzume.

“You saw that monster of a Soul CPU. As we speak Rom is on her way right now to wipe us all out. Considering our limited resources it’s going to take every second of spare time we have to come up with a plan to stop her.” Evesy glanced at Uzume, then at the crying Nepsy. “I’ll arrange for Vert to meet us in the Basilicom in an hour. You two take a moment and get some rest, you both need it.” With everyone still mostly shocked, Yomisy, Slivsy, and Evesy were the only ones to move toward the Leanbox capital.

Uzume was furious, she knew she could have saved Gearsy if they had come up with a plan! But at the same time she had to admit that Evesy was right. That one attack had taken most of her share energy, and Uzume was lower than ever on shares. Even if she’s been able to save Gearsy they wouldn't have been able to save Unisy. On top of that their priority was to revive Eden, and if they did that then Gearsy would be saved regardless. Letting out a long sigh, Uzume turned to the remaining four members of the party.

“Alright everyone you heard Evesy, take an hour to get some rest then meet up with everyone at Vertsy’s place.”

“Are you sure that’s okay? I mean Sliver deceived us!”

“No, she’s right.” Nepsy defended, slowly standing up. “And it’s what Nepgear wanted. Besides, it’s not like we won’t have another chance to save her!”

“For sure!” Uzume agreed. “The next time we see Gearsy, I know we’ll be able to save her! We’ll fight it out, putting our hearts and souls into saving Gearsy! Then, once we’ve bested her meanie evil form, Evesy and I will totally be able to rescue both Unisy and Gearsy! Then we’ll stop Romsy, and everyone in Leanbox will be saved!”

Ramsy stared at Uzume, totally shocked by what she had just witnessed. Realizing what had happened, Uzume managed to get control of herself.

“Oh man just kill me now.” Uzume muttered.

ENDING THEME: RE: RE: - AMALEE

I’m cheating the schedule again because I want to. Monday I’ll be releasing the events of the meeting, for now you guys have free wandering inside Leanbox.