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987. Did Someone Call An Electrician?
🕑 Added 2025-04-24 23:35:50 +0000 UTCMoments earlier…
“… I’m…” A Rogue Moon uttered mid clash with a Vermilion Moon.
She had recognized what they were doing. But she couldn’t fathom why they’d allow themselves to take so much punishment for their sake. Not only that, but they weren’t even finishing them off.
“Why?” She asked.
The Vermilion Moon – Argon – Only smiled.
In the past, she’d frown upon such a question.
She had seen many mothers ask the same thing.
“Why did you save us?”
Children who asked:
“Why are you holding our hands?”
The reason was not from the goodness of her heart.
The mother who wept at her shoes would become tonight’s dinner.
The child who clasped their hand would become biomass for the Queen.
Argon was not free of sin.
Far from it.
She had lived life of death longer than she could remember when she first realized that the ocean was blue. That there were twenty-four hours in a day. To this day, she still didn’t know how to tie her own shoelaces.
Death was always on her mind. It was the type of world that she was brought up in. It demanded that only the strong could survive. That in order to find happiness, one must take it for themselves no matter the cost.
But Argon couldn’t achieve that no matter how hard she tried.
The one thing she had was her dog.
And when it died…
“Do you remember when you first became a Moon?” Argon whispered.
“… I don’t remember anymore. Who I am. What I am. My own name…”
“I lost something precious to me. I thought that nothing mattered anymore. I grew to hate the world. And in my hatred, I joined Scarlet Logic. I reveled in the misery of others. I thought it was justified for what I lost.”
Argon confessed between each clash. She bounced from Rogue Moon to Star, then back to this same Moon. She had beautiful emerald eyes, which were washed out by centuries of suffering.
It was to the point where the Moon did not even know what their original sin was, aside from betraying the Nexus. Their suffering, their lament – it was all so normal to them that they had long stopped questioning it.
All they could do was work towards eventually being forgiven.
“I did worse. I set my heart aside from the Nexus. But She didn’t hate me for that. She despised me because I turned my back to people.” Argon winced.
“Why are you telling me this?” The Rogue Moon sought high and low for what this was supposed to mean.
No one had ever spoken to her like this before.
Why was this Moon… This Blood Moon of all Moons telling her this?
“Because you’re salvageable. As were we in her eyes. Like you, we are harrowing our own hell to make amends for the Nexus… And for ourselves!”
She threw the Rogue Moon away when the last seconds of the five-minute countdown ended.
“Break them once they’re close. But avoid killing them. They are still Stars. We must not let their HP drop to 0 and cause a supernova.”
The Stars dove in as they stood in place to lure them in. The Rogue Moon didn’t know any better, and because of this, she inadvertently squeaked:
“Run…”
They all heard it. The Stars were no exception. Despite the orders she was given, she rebelled and clung to the faintest strand of hope. Even if it wasn’t her who’d be saved, then maybe that Moon would be able to return safely… through that blue portal.
The Rogue Moon stared at the portal.
She wondered if it would be as painful to walk through it as the red ones.
Powerful explosions rang around them.
Now that the Vermilion Moon’s DEF was supposedly cut in half, the Desolate Stars used everything they had to cripple them.
“Thou shall know the love of the Nexus!”
The claws of the Star dug into Argon’s shoulder.
But it never penetrated through her flesh.
“That can’t be–!”
“Five minutes?” Argon’s wince turned into a look of scorn.
She thrust a fist into his chest and collapsed it with Serum V. Her eyes pierced into his, and she forced him down to his knees. The Stars didn’t know what was more shocking. That the Moons hadn’t been crippled yet, or that they were looking down at them.
“It’s you that hasn’t changed at all. The Head will want you.”
“Initialize Serum T – Traumatic. We must prepare them for the Head.”
*
Bullets, Qliphoth attacks – the darkness… Nothing worked. Their DEF was still far too high.
No, even with high DEF stats they should have still been in pain.
The Stars refused to believe that they were suddenly immune to it. Powerful strikes threw them across the battlefield. The sheer speed of the limit broken Vermilion Moons made it impossible for them to track.
It took them another minute to realize what had happened.
“We were tricked…? Thee hath used such an underhanded method!?”
That same Star’s jaw was joined with the rest of his skull. The Vermilion Moons were in an awful mood, and the Desolate Stars became their outlet.
“Assist… ASSIST US AT ONCE OR SUFFER THE CONSEQUENCES!” One ordered.
The Rogue Moons flinched.
They raised their arms again by instinct.
“Don’t you dare!” Argon cried. “Would you rather serve these fake Stars, or the Nexus itself under the Head! Remember who offered you their hand first!”
“… She didn’t kill us…”
“She tried to spare us…”
“Mm… looked at us… like we were here.”
“INSOLENT WORMS! YOU ARE NO MOONS OF THE NEXUS! YOU ARE–!”
The chatter from the Stars subsided entirely. Their voices were caught in their throats. Suddenly, a wave of terror paralyzed their bodies as their limbs were rearranged, hacked, and then stabbed with rods filled with Serum H to preserve them.
Then–
Bang!
“… A Moonshot!?” A Rogue Moon stared at the smoking barrel of a tiny, handheld weapon in Argon’s possession. “But it’s tiny. How… Did the Nexus… It’s been moving… all this time while we’ve been down here?”
Moonshots were the strongest kind of firearm. But these were incredibly bulky and prone to injuring the user more than their target. Yet what Argon possessed was a tiny firearm that surpassed the destructive power of a full-sized Moonshot.
“Impossible… Smaller. Faster… Stronger. The Nexus has been progressing…?”
“You low lives never received the memo.” The 4th Division’s Captain spoke up, patting her rabbit-shaped ears. “Heh. Had we wanted to kill you, then we would’ve settled on these.”
A red, bulky firearm was cradled in her arms.
She dropped it on the arms of a legless Star, pulverizing it instantly. Then, she plucked it back up with just two fingers, revealing a hidden Patent.
Patents were mechanisms that ensured products of a Gift or an invention could not be used in unauthorized hands. Scarlet Logic for example had a Patent on their Mana Repeaters that would cause the handles to eject blades and shred the hand of the unauthorized carrier.
“Anti-personnel Patent. Gravitationally enhanced… by Caldera Industries? A Justica Arms weapon!? Those two Ateliers – AAAAAGH!”
“Your age is showing.” The bunny-girl sighed. “Justica Arms and Caldera Industries are working together. I guess they don’t tell you because if you knew, then you’d think twice before fighting the Nexus. Better to keep you in the dark. Goes to show how much they trust you.”
“Enough Unagi.” Argon ordered.
“But it’s fine, right? Serum T’s got their magic acting all sorts of unstable. They can’t disappear back to their caves anymore. Lookatchu. Cat got your limbs?”
“Neither will we be fit to continue fighting. They’re all beginning to look the same.” Another member spoke, pointing at the Rogue Moons and the Stars.
Serum T’s side effect caused the user to become incapable of differentiating friends from foe.
Even a small dosage was enough to severely impair the user.
But that didn’t matter anymore.
They were done here.
The Stars had been captured.
All they had to do now was wait.
“Hah… Hahahaha… Thou… Hath made one fatal mistake.”
The ground shook. An unholy power surged from the red portal.
Sins ceased marching through the portal.
“Fuck… Manager! Orders!?” Unagi exclaimed.
The paradise quickly came to an end as the black boot of a blue-haired figure emerged.
“… This feeling. This isn’t a Star or a Moon. What the fuck is that…?” Even Argon’s instincts couldn’t help but fear this person.
It was woman whose lower body resembled a blue skeleton. An azure heart laid within. Each heartbeat caused blue lights to travel around an invisible circulatory system, and they terminated at her extremities.
A pair of blue orbs were in the place of her eyes. They flickered like a flame within those empty sockets.
She was decorated with an assortment of blue armor, boots, gauntlets, and a mantle. The metal itself was animated, like they were looking at the surface of a disturbed lake.
Her ribs opened.
“Moons… Here… How… Come…”
They pronounced her words.
Those ribs were her mouth.
She spoke slowly. Carefully even, as though warry of them. But that couldn’t be further from the truth.
Argon knew, then and there, that they were no match for this person.
“Answer… or… perish…”
She disappeared, only to reappear right in front of Argon.
Her ribs were pried wide, ready to devour her in one fell swoop.
There was nothing she could do.
Not against a–!
“Huh. I heard that I’d be dealing with Moons and probably Stars.”
Cackles of electricity surrounded her. A fierce impact sifted the sands and sent the woman flying backwards.
“But not a damned Beholder!”
Thunderstorms then brewed within the sands before they were dispersed by a seismic clap.
Standing in place of the Beholder was the back of the Nexus’ strongest Moon.
“Hey~! Heh. Bet you think how cool I am, huh!? Truth be told, I could’ve jumped in earlier, but I was thinking about what entrance would be the coolest.”
It was Cer.
The Fang of the Head.
“Why… Does… that… one… shine… like… a… star…?”
The Beholder – who Cer recognized as a ‘Fallen Beholder’ – was not the only one shocked by Cer’s existence.
She was a Moon, and yet, she radiated a light that no Star of the Nexus could dream of possessing.
It went beyond that, and before long, the light of the orange Star Sigil above faded away.
“A Moon… with its own light?” A Star choked in disbelief.
He refused to believe it.
He refused that this grinning wolfwoman had more light than he did.
Cer cracked an electric grin and playfully spun the golden halo above her ears.
“Your stats aren’t half bad. But pretty low for a Beholder. I guess that’s why you’re called a Fallen Beholder! Piece of cake. So–!”
Both figures disappeared.
They clashed somewhere in the battlefield.
Dozens more invisible clashes echoed around them.
No one had the AGI to even perceive what was happening.
Dust storms formed only to be dispered in the blink of an eye.
A stray Sin wandered off from the last of the parade, only to be utterly annihilated.
The poor Sin was caught in one of their clashes.
“No one move an inch! We’re… at their mercy now.” Argon watched the sand sift around her.
If she happened to take a step in any direction, then she had no doubt that she’d disappear.
They then heard Cer’s voice one last time before they were engulfed in complete silence.
“Show me how fast you can go! Heh. Just by looking at your name, I can tell that you’re where Serum S comes from!”
“Why… Is… This… Wolf… Able… To… Keep… Up… With… Me…?”
