[Back at the Factory]
"KYAAAHH!"
After bullets flew in a constant succesion while being reflected, Black Sister fell to the floor as she was sent flying away by the last attack delivered by CFW Brave, one of the four fellons.
"Give it up, CPU Candidate. Uou hold no chance against me by yourself."
'Damn it, he's right…I need to hurry up and find Big Sister!'
It had been already quite a bit of time after the ambush.
The Lastation Sisters fought back as best as they could, but the endless amount of robotic enemies was overwhelming, and they eventually got separated during the chaos.
Black Sister got away from the core of the battle, but soon was chased by a group of robots that forced her to pull back.
As the CPU candidate eliminated her enemies, she encountered CFW Brave.
Brave was a large robot resembling those from animes carrying a large flaming sword.
Brave was also one of the remaining members of the Four Felons.
He was watching over the factory as he had the feeling the CPUs would eventually try to destroy it, and it seems his hunch was right after all.
"CPU Candidate. I despise senseless slaughter, so I'll give you one last chance..." Said the warrior while walking closer to her. "Leave peacefully and never return, or I'll be forced to slay you where you stand."
Despite being one of the four felons, which were regarded as criminals by all of Gamindustri, Brave was a warrior at heart, someone that fought fairly and believed in principles.
He genuinely believed that the ASIC was doing the right thing since through its methods, all kids poor and rich had equal access to video games that otherwise would be nearly impossible to obtain for them.
"I won't leave just because you overpower me!" Said Black Sister as she tried getting up. "The ASIC's acts have hurt many people already…I won't allow that to happen to Lastation as well!"
"I see. Even if your logic is flawed, that's an admirable resolve."
As he said that, Brave raised his sword higher and engulfed it in flames. "As a sign of respect towards it, I won't hold back!"
The robot swordsman lowered his sword, ready to slice Black Sister in half, until someone jumped into the battle and parried his attack using a flaming sword as well.
"What!?"
Brave's attack was countered, forcing him to take a step back.
As he looked at his new foe, he saw it was a young boy.
"A-Alex!?" Said Black Sister, who didn't expect him to make an appearance.
"Hey there." Said Alex, who looked at Uni for a moment as he got his first look at her HDD Form.
Black Sister's hair stayed in pigtails like her human form but now they were white and formed curls while her eyes become a bright green.
"Nice hair."
"Oh…erm...thanks?"
That was probably by far the only thing the young boy could come up with at this point.
'Are over sized weapons a trend or something with these girls?' Thought Alex. while sweat dropping 'Also, how the hell do you even pull off hair like that?'
"Who are you!?" Asked Brave while looking at the young boy.
After hearing the demanding question, the young man turned his head to look at the towering robot.
"Lastation Mercenary. Alex Mustang." He said.
"That appearance…" Said the warrior while analizing Alex's appearance, as he eventually recognized who he was. "I see. You must be the ally of the CPUs that slayed my fellow felon comrades."
"Fellow felon comrades? So you're one of them?"
"Precisely! I'm CFW Brave of the Four Felons!"
"Okay then, that's enough info for me" Said Alex while taking an assault stance.
"Wait Alex. That guy is too strong to fight alone."
"I fought two of them already. I can handle this one."
Though Alex said that with confidence, he knew that the last two times he fought a felon, he did it with the help of the CPUs.
As he surveyed the current situation, it was apparent that Uni didn't seem to be in a condition to fight right now and to top it off, just from appearance, Brave did seem stronger than Judge and Trick.
"So you'll fight me by yourself? A brave choice, young one. You have my respect." Said Brave before his sword got engulfed in flames again.
"To avenge my fallen comrades and to protect the smiles of children, I won't hold back!"
The young boy was slightly confused by what Brave mean when talking about children's smiles, but there wasn't exactly a lot of time to think either.
"Fine by me! I wasn't planning to go easy on you either!" Said Alex as he prepared to fight.
In a split second, both warriors dashed forward and clashed swords. Flames and metal clashed countless times, as both sides attacked and parried non-stop.
Despite his large size, Brave could move quite fast and swing his sword swiftly but Alex's strength didn't lag behind.
The fight was evenly matched and lasted quite a long time, both fighters managed to land blows on each other throughout the battle but during the final clash, Alex managed to win by striking Brave with a flame slash.
"Argh!" Said the robot swordsman as he fell to his knees. "No...no way...how could I lose!?"
"He did it!" Said Black Sister, who watched as the felon fell down to the ground.
Putting the fact he managed to defeat him by himself, it was a rather grueling battle.
This could be easily seen in the young boy, who was just as battered as Brave, but somehow managed to keep standing.
Alex looked at the robotic warrior lying on the ground for a moment or two before turning his head and looking at the CPU candidate, who had reverted back to human form.
"Let's go, Uni."
"Wait, what about him?"
"He won't be able to move for a while. Right now we need to find Noire."
"Y-Yeah, you're right."
The CPU Candidate thought leaving one of the four felons without capturing or destroying it, but finding Noire was more important right now.
With that in mind, both of them moved past the defeated Brave and went to find her.
In the corner of his mind, Alex had the feeling Brave wouldn't be there by the time they came back to either finish him off or put him in jail, but something stopped him from landing the last attack.
He wasn't really sure what it was, but after clashing swords with Brave, the young boy just couldn't bring himself to kill him.
"Over there!" Pointed Uni.
The CPU Candidate's voice and sounds of the raging battle interrupted Alex's train of thought, causing him to snap back into reality and see Black Heart in the distance, seeing Noire's CPU Form for the first time.
As Black Heart, her eyes were cyan and her hair was pure white and went down below her shoulders somewhat.
Her suit is black and white in color and the mechanical appearance is much more visible. It also exposed a mild amount of her cleavage.
Her sleeves were pure black, with silver patches in the bicep and triceps area and her gauntlets were black with silver protrusions on the knuckle.
She was surrounded by countless robots as they moved in to attack by dashing forward or jumping at her.
The CPU sliced them to pieces with her massive sword but despite her impressive stand against this army, the exhaustion was starting to get to her.
"These guys are endless…Just how many did I take out already!?" Said Black Heart to herself while taking deep breaths.
"Big Sister!"
Hearing the voice of her younger sister, Black Heart turned around to face the direction where it came from.
"Uni!?"
"Noire!"
The second voice was what she truly didn't expect.
"Alex!?" She said with surprise in her tone "What are you doing here!?"
"Just gimme a sec! I'll be right there!"
"Right there?" Asked the CPU with a confused tone. "There's probably dozens of robots in between! How are you even going to-!?"
Before Black Heart could even finish her sentence, an explosion on the outer layer of enemies occurred where the voices came from as a fire began to burn in that area.
In a split second, countless robots were ejected into the air as Alex quite literally tore through the massive hordes of machines, cutting them down one by one.
"Th-That kid is crazy…" Muttered Black Heart to herself while sweat dropping.
'He really likes doing things the straightforward way, doesn't he?' Thought Uni while smiling weakly and sweat dropping too.
It took a few minutes and a few dozen robots sent flying, but Alex finally managed to fight his way through the hordes of machines and get to stand right in front of Black Heart, who was baffled by what she just saw..
"Hey there." He said rather casually after looking at the shocked CPU.
"Don't 'hey there' Me!" Snarled the CPU as she pointed at the waves of robots behind Alex. "What kind of crazy stunt was that just now!?"
The young boy turned his head to look behind him, then looked at her again and shrugged his shoulders.
This crude and completely mindless respones made the CPU lower her head and close her eyes while sighing.
"Seriously, you need to think a little before you act…" She said to him in a somewhat scolding manner. "There's only so much a person's body can withstand, you know?"
"By the way, I have to tell you something." Said the young boy, who seemed to ignore what she just said.
"Hm? What is-"
Before she could finish her question, Black Heart was interrupted by Alex grabbing her by the right shoulder and making her get her face closer to his. So close, in fact, that they could almost kiss just by getting a few inches closer to each other.
"E-Eh!?" Said the CPU with widened eyes and a bright red face. "Wha-What are you doing!?"
As the shocked CPU stuttered while trying to make sense of this, Alex looked at her straight in the eyes and made sure she did the same with him as well.
For a moment, it seemed as thought Alex would get over that slight distance needed for the kiss. Black Heart was so sure it would happen that she even closed her eyes, but that suddenly changed after she heard him speak.
"You're fine the way you are."
"Eh?"
Confused by those words, Black Heart quickly opened her eyes and looked at him before blinking twice with utter confusion as he went on.
"I've been thinking about it, and I realized you're the way you are because you've got a lot of people counting on you." He explained while making sure to look at her. "I unfairly judged you on the outside without even considering your perspectiveon things. I think the real you is fine, and if people don't like it, that's their damn problem, not yours."
The CPU didn't say a thing as she simply looked at Alex in silence before he let go of her.
"That's all I had to say. Think whatever you want later."
"Wait...You came all the way from Lastation just to tell me that?" Asked Lastation's CPU, who was still bewildered by this.
"Yeah..."
Another moment of silence ensued before Black Heart began laughing.
She wasn't sure why, but something about this whole situation was really amusing to her.
"Seriously! you're really crazy, you know that!?"
"Yeah yeah I know." Said Alex as he also understood where Noire was getting at but there was something oddly pleasant about seeing Black Heart laugh in a way that was genuinely amused.
"I see. Thank you, Alex." She said with a smile before opening her eyes again and looking at him. "So, what's the plan?"
"Plan? What plan?"
"You know, the plan to defeat all of these robots."
Alex looked at her before looking around, seeing that they were completely surrounded.
As he noticed this, an idea formed in his head.
"Well, small fry like them ain't that much of a big deal. There's only one fitting way to deal with this." Said the young boy as he grabbed the CPU by the shoulder, moved past her and got the two of them back to back with each other.
"Whenever you're outnumbered, back to back is how you do it!"
Black Heart looked at the young boy over her shoulder for a moment while thinking about his sudden idea before looking forward again with a smirk.
"I see...Works for me, I guess!" She said while raising her sword and getting into a fighting mood again.
As simple as it might sound, that was by far the best plan she heard so far.
Besides, the little rest time she had by talking with Alex helped her regain some of her stamina back, even if it was mentally exhausting.
Without anything holding them back, both of them resumed the battle.
The two tore through the armies of robots like if they were made of paper while making sure not to lose sight of each other. Otherwise, the back to back strategy would have lost all meaning.
By herself Black Heart managed to hold them back, but with the young boy's help, the robots were falling like flies.
It took but ten minutes or so before all the robots were defeated, and nothing but mountains of scrap metal and broken electronics remained.
"I think that's the last of them." Said Black Heart as she sliced down the last one.
"See? Back to back works."
"Fine, I admit it, your idea worked." She said with certain reluctance while reverting back to human form. "Let's just go back for now."
With both the ilegal production machines and the ASIC's robot armies destroyed, the three of them went home after looking for Brave who, as Alex had suspected, had already left while they were fighting off robot hordes.
Noire gave Alex an earful about this on the way back, but stopped surprisingly fast.
Even if it was a grave mistake on his part, things would have gone far worse if he hadn't shown up when he did, so the CPU decided to cut him some slack.
And so, the last two weeks went by smoothly without any incidents after this event.
The ASIC's presence on Lastation dissipated at an astounding speed and CFW Brave didn't appear again either.
This surely meant he left the nation peacefully after his defeat.
But the important part in all of this was that, with the three weeks of his brake now over, Alex headed towards Planeptune, ready to begin the final part of his Gamindustri Tour.
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Chapter 29: Complete
Neptune: Okay! It's time for what the readers at home have been wanting! *points at the reader* It's time for the Planeptune Chapters!