Yeah, this place was creepier than I thought it would be. How did a place look so mechanical, yet so rotten at the same time? And the sky wasn't helping either. I don't even think I could consider it a sky. Just. Everything about this place was all sorts of wrong.

  "Betting you wished you tried to bombard the place while you had the chance," Uni was being snide, but I didn't entirely disagree. This place was rapidly growing on the list of places I wanted to erase grid square by grid square. And while there was no doubt in my mind that such a move would bait away Judge, I doubted Magic wouldn't have some type of contingency. Not after last time where Compa and IF were able to stroll into the place after I grabbed Judges attention.

  And I'd rather not find out what the contingency was until we were clear of this place, thank you very much. Judge at least was predictable. Magic I had next to nothing on, and Nepgear didn't have much to say about her other than that she was overwhelmingly strong.

  "It would have its upsides," I admitted. "But our sisters are here." So no matter how much I wanted to see this place burned from orbit, it simply wasn't going to be in the cards. Exterminatis wasn't going to be the call until we got them back. After that? I'd feel perfectly fine throwing this place straight into hell.

  A difficult task, given that it was trying to be hell. That's the feeling I got. As if someone was trying to make this place a legitimate hell. Just replace flames and torture with decay, rot, and burnt out electronics. Honestly, this was about as close to Phyrexia as I ever wanted to get, and this shit was straight up their alley.

  Yeah, when I was thinking about the oily shit stains from that one set of magic that I hated because the bad guy's won so cleanly and utterly it was kinda sad to think about? That was a sign that this was getting under my skin. First moment I could, I swear I was going to put this creepy place to the torch.

  I felt Ram pull on my sleeve. "You don't like this place, do you?"

  "Is it really that obvious?" I frowned slightly, but it probably was. This place gave me the creeps. It shouldn't exist, period. The place felt, wrong. Completely devoid of not just life, but, anything, really. There was nothing here. I couldn't even call it a graveyard. There were no markings, no tombstones. Just a mass of wires, cables, broken plastic, and other game-related debris.

  It wasn't a graveyard. It was a mass, unmarked, open-air, grave. A grave of something that by my logic and reasoning, really didn't live. Yes, games were important, a fair bit more than they were back home, but it just felt, wrong. This entire place was wrong. Thankfully, the Sharicite crystal carried by Nepgear repealed some of the feelings of utter wrongness.

  "We're getting close," IF said, holding up a hand as we slunk through the area. There was no way that Judge wasn't around here somewhere, either. Having eyes in the sky would be somewhat useful right now, but part of me was terrified by what I'd see. Just an endless expanse of cables, wires, and decay?

  The fact that IF could even tell where we were in this junkyard sea of scrap and trash was impressive in its own right. I had no idea how. Everything looked the same to me. If I wasn't following IF right now, I'd have long since been lost. This place wasn't just a maze, it was one that looked exactly the same.

  Then we saw it. We all saw it. It was hard to describe. Nepgear had given us a heads-up on what to expect. But there was a difference between being told what to expect and seeing it for yourself. My blood felt as if it went cold, yet hot at the same time. I balked at the sight, stepping back, but my eyes were burned with bubbling anger and disgust.

  This is what they were doing to them? To her? I felt me nails dig into my palms as my knuckles whitened. And yet, there was still no Judge. Had the really left our sisters unguarded? Again? Surely not. There had to be more protection than this. It couldn't just be this straightforward. The ASIC had to have something planned in this little hellhole.

  THUM!

  Before we could get closer to our sisters, something hit the ground hard, sending up a plum of debris as what I could only hope was just plastic.

  But I don't think anyone would be surprised by the fact that it wasn't. The body that loomed out of the dust was more than familiar enough to me.

  "Judge," I let out a growl, my body coiling like a spring, ready to transform and release my power outwards.

  "I was starting to wonder when you insects would finally crawl back into my domain," he rumbled, glaring down at all of us with his armored frame. Judge was even more imposing up close, especially without any wounds from when I hit him from afar. "I will enjoy killing you all."

  He seemed to look at us with the same contempt as insects. But I wasn't buying that expression. You didn't enjoy killing an insect. It was just something that happened. Then again, Judge was a battle-hungry psychopath who would enjoy just being let off his chain and running completely wild.

  "You really think you can take us on!" Uni shouted though I could tell there was a slight waver in her voice. I'd told them about my encounters with Judge as well, letting them know what to expect. I'd driven him off a few times in the past, but I always weakened him first. Judge was a powerhouse, but by this point, we should be more than strong enough. I doubt it would be easy, but it was well within the realm of possibility.

  "You're barely worth my time!" Judge's voice boomed like thunder, swinging his axe above his head as we transformed and scattered.

  We had a plan, of course. There was no way I was doing this without some type of plan, even if the plan lasted all of three seconds because that's how plans tended to work. Though, in truth, it was the same thing we did with Brave, just with more people. RED, IF, and Compa would break for cover, mostly to act as support.

  Judge and Brave were completely different combatants. Brave, while I would never call him soft or squishy by any stretch of the term, didn't have Judge's defenses. Brave had to make an effort to dodge or block attacks. Judge? Judge was like a freight train. A bull in a china shop. He was going to zero in on a target, and he wasn't stopping for anything. He certainly didn't in my fights with him.

  The difference is, Judge could absolutely take hits that I had no doubt Brave couldn't. Including my opener. And that was the biggest problem. We couldn't lead off with that. Hell, I couldn't even make use of it. Meaning we had to break through his armor and whittle him down the hard way. The hard way.

  And that wasn't going to be fun. I hoped to be able to confuse him, surround him, and act like an annoying swarm of flies to overwhelm him, as he tried to go from target to target in anger. Piss him off and prey on that anger. I even planned for him to hyperfocus, faking a worse hit and falling out of the air, right towards Compa, who would patch us up to good as new.

  The opening seconds were glorious. Arrow's slammed into his armor, Uni's rifle unleashed a barrage of lasers into him. Rom and Ram's magic bathed Judge in sheets of ice and flame, steam erupting where the two met in a violent eruption. Judge's body disappeared for a brief moment into the cloud of steam, as we continued to launch shot after shot into him.

  If he wasn't dropping out of the sky, then he wasn't unconscious. And if he wasn't unconscious, then Judge could still fight.

  "Truly," Judge's voice rumbled from the cloud of steam, an almost nondistinct blur as we continued to hammer into him. "Pathetic!"

  Shit! I forgot how fast he was when he wanted to be! I shot upward, opening the range as Judge surged forward, nearly on top of my position. I pulled back my bowstring, firing a few more shots into him in the time it took for him to stop. Thankfully, all that mass meant he couldn't bank worth a damn. Another upside. Fly like a butterfly and sting like a bee, all that jazz.

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  Judge launched himself towards me again, forcing me to fly upwards, spiraling as I went as his axe missed me by mere inches. I launched a few more arrows at him as he came around again, continuing to force me to climb upwards. Uni, Ram, Rom, and Nepgear were all following behind him with their attacks landing, but it wasn't doing much against him. I wanted to dive, to bring me closer and to get an interlocking field of fire going, but.

  I may have had speed, but Judge had mass. Judge had a lot of mass. Something like that in a dive was not a thing I wanted anything to do with. Gravity pulling him along on top of his usual force? No, thank you. I'd rather play chicken with a train doing a stop sign violation.

  "All you've been able to do is run away, fly!" Judge bellowed. "You're nothing without that attack of yours!"

  It was bait, and it couldn't even be more obvious if he tried. Then again, I highly doubt that Judge even had the slightest idea of what the word subtle meant. I didn't respond verbally, or turn around to fire a few arrows into his face in retaliation. Not with him right on my six like that. Too risky. Too stupid.

  So I flipped him the bird instead. I didn't know if he could see it, with us moving the way we were. But the bellow of anger seemed to confirm that he had seen the gesture. Or maybe one of the others managed to find purchase with their attacks. But at this point, I found the middle finger explanation far more likely.

  I weaved around him as he overshot me, as I scowled. I didn't want to have to do this, but by this point, it was increasingly necessary. I needed to dive. I couldn't keep increasing my altitude.

  I rocketed downwards, doing my best to keep myself from coming down at a straight angle. It was going to take a second or two for Judge to get himself turned around, that would give me just enough time to get back down to a reasonable level and try to regroup.

  Only for Judge to be there, like a rocket locked onto my hindquarters. Like a demented heat-seeking missile.

  I managed to spin around him, hitting the brakes as he passed me by, me taking the time to line up a few more arrows into him.

  "This isn't working!" I heard Nepgear shout, a twinge of fear in her voice as Judge quickly charged me again, shouting angrily as he did so. I couldn't catch the rest of the conversation, but Nepgear wasn't exactly wrong here. This wasn't working. It was taking way too long to chip through his armor like this. We had to come up with a different approach.

  I could try and open the range, to lure him away. Drop the hammer on him while nobody else would be affected by the fallout. But I never liked tanking my own fallout in the first place, the few times I'd had too.

  Then a shadow appeared above me, like a monster out of some myth.

  Oh, this was going to suck.

  "Hinum!"

  x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x

  She was going to get hurt. The way Judge was positioned, Hinum might even die.

  They'd done everything they could hit Judge with, and it hadn't been enough. Nothing she had done had been enough. Still, it wasn't enough. She'd gotten stronger, and yet she was still as useless as she was before. Why was her best still not enough? Nepgear watched in slow motion, Judge's bellows as the weapon hands came down, Hinum trying to raise her guard.

  Nepgear knew that she wasn't going to be able to get there in time. And even if she could, she wasn't strong enough to stop him. But she had to try. She was stronger. She should be stronger. Hinum believed they could win. That they would win, no matter what.

  As Nepgear rushed forward, she felt a warmth inside her. They needed to win. She needed to win. No. She would win. Not because she needed too, but because she could.

  "At last, you understand. May the full strength of our power flow through you now," The black mascot disk said.

  "May you be successful, no matter what!" The green followed, as the heat in Nepgear's chest only began to grow.

  "Take it. All of our power," the purple continued, as the heat bloomed in full, like a raging fire inside her. Then in a moment, she was there, between Judge and Hinum, swinging her sword. Judge let out a mighty yell. This time, it wasn't out of anger.

  It was out of pain.

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  I, was not going to question that. I wasn't going to question that in the slightest. I don't know why Nepgear was suddenly wearing what amounted to a black two piece swimsuit. Or why she was suddenly a lot stronger than she was before. What I did know was that she saved my bacon, and that she managed to make Judge hurt.

  "Finally!" Judge roared. "A challenge!"

  His joyful shouting ceased the moment I took the time to put an arrow through the gash in his armor. I immediately began to create space, making sure to continue to put arrow after arrow into Judge's new weak point. Not that I and everyone else needed to be picky. Even if Nepgear's sword lacked the same impact of that initial swing, she was still doing a number on Judge's armored plates.

  "You are rats!" He shouted, as Uni got a shot in with her rifle, quickly followed up by yet another blow from me.

  "Come on! Just die already!" I shout back, releasing more arrows of various potencies into him. We were hurting him now, but the man just, refused to die!

  "I'll kill all you insects! Crush you beneath my heel!" Judge roared, as flames burrowed through the gaps in his armor.

  "You will do no such thing!" Nepgear shouted back, bringing her sword around, landing another massive gash along Judge's frame.

  "No! I, cannot lose! It's impossible!" Judge roared as his body underwent a massive detonation.

  We won. It was over. Holy crap, he, I underestimated him. Damn, he really have been pulling his punches that much?

  "We did it! We won!" Nepgear cheered, floating there in her new suit of armor. I now had time to wonder the origins of such a thing. But that wasn't important right now.

  We had sisters to wake up.

  x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x

  My lips were creased in a thin line. Vert looked as if she was in pain. So much pain. I couldn't believe it. She, didn't deserve that. Nobody did. Now that I could see her, my blood boiled even more. How dare Magik do this to her. How dare Arfoire and the ASIC do this to her! The damage I was going to do to the ASIC in particular was going to make the lose of Judge look tame, mark my words.

  As the light began to glow from the Sharicite, the look of pain on their faces began to fade. Slowly, each began to stand up. Each sister faced their sister. I wasn't sure what the others were saying. The blood pounding in my ears was deafening. My feet shifted against the ground, unaware that I'd let my CPU form drop in that moment.

  "Vert. I," fuck, what was I supposed to say? What had I planned to say? Three years I'd dreamed and feared this moment in equal measure. What to say, how to say it. To be convey my emotions too her. Just my, everything.

  But now? In the heat of the moment? My tongue was tied. Twisted. Bend around and unable to speak. I could do nothing but stammer, trying to put into words of how sorry I was.

  But whatever slights I had committed against her, Vert seemingly forgave a long time ago. Before I could get any further a pair of arms wrapped around my body, pulling me into an impossibly tight embrace.

  Part of me wanted to protest. That I didn't deserve it. That I couldn't. But my mouth didn't want to move.

  So I cried instead. I cried in Vert's arms as she held me close.