Part Twenty-Five: A Queen of Demons

"You talk a lotta shit for someone who can't face us together!" Nozomi yelled, his anger rising.

"Such vulgar language…" 004 shook his head and sighed, putting his fingers to the bridge of his nose as he closed his eyes, "You realize complaining will do nothing to ease your situation, correct?"

"You're no copy of Tamashi…" Nozomi shouted, ignoring the doppelganger's previous statement, "You're nowhere as powerful or intelligent as him!"

"What…?" 004 looked up, opening his eyes and revealing a shocked expression, "What did you just say…?"

"I said you're nowhere near as strong or smart as Tamashi!" Nozomi repeated, pulling out his pearl samurai sword, "And we'll take you down!"

"I… you…" 004 stammered, his grimace growing by the minute, "You incompetent fool! KEY, set threat level to Deity! Kill him at all costs! You're dead, 000!"

Just then, Roboco's eyes suddenly flared and she began to turn her arms into guns. Running and attempting to avoid the bullets, Nozomi ran around the room with his sword unsheathed. One bullet wound up grazing him against the head, shaving off a small amount of hair. He charged towards Roboco, kicking her to the ground and putting his sword up against her throat. But he couldn't bring himself to do anything beyond that. She attempted to get away from Nozomi's embraces, but just then her eyes flashed back to yellow, a worried and frightened expression covering her face. Startling Nozomi, he jumped, and Roboco was able to make use of that moment of weakness, her eyes turning back into purple and kicking the boy off of her. Both of them standing to their feet, Roboco transformed her arm into a blade of some sort, almost looking like a fencing epee. Pointing it at Nozomi, they charged at each other for battle.

Meanwhile, in the next "room" over, Izuru and Ran were holding off Rikka, who had transformed his hands into guns similar to what Roboco did. Izuru plucked at his guitar, attempting to strike Rikka with his lightning spells. What Izuru wasn't expecting, however, was Rikka's incredible speed, as he dodged each and every blast Izuru had sent his way. Angered by this, Ran charged at Rikka, attempting to stab him with her trident. Rikka reacted in time with this, blocking the strike with his arm. Taking this opportunity, Izuru took a large strum at his guitar, sending a large blast of electricity hurling towards Rikka. However, instead of hitting Rikka and hurting him, the pink-haired robot caught the blast and it dissolved within him. Then, kicking Ran off of his sword, he transformed his gun hand to one closer to a blaster and unleashed the blast onto her, sending her flying and hitting the nearby barrier. Running over and helping the demon girl up, Izuru grimaced at Rikka. Ran stumbled to her feet, dusting off her black dress and readying her trident.

While this went on, Hatotaurus plowed through around 3 Iofifteen duplicates, attempting to put a stop to the horde. Whenever the horde began to become smaller, however, 004 would merely snap his fingers and more copies would appear. Closing her eyes with a sad expression, Risu sent forest vines at one of the duplicates' heads, piercing it and putting an end to that specific copy. Knightley also put in some good work, sending bloodthirsty bats towards the copies and mowing down their numbers. And yet, the same thing happened again, with 004 simply snapping to "refill" the Iofifteen duplicates.

004's attempts to draw out Thanatos were struggling, as J-chad proved to be much faster than he had thought. He clapped his hands, summoning a large floating blaster. It sent a massive energy wave towards J-chad, which she front-flipped to avoid, and landed atop the blaster, punching it and destroying it. However, above her was a second blaster, which sent a large blast towards J-chad, sending her to the ground. Creating a small crater in the ground, she stumbled to her feet as a small amount of blood came out of her mouth.

"Such durability…" 004 pondered, fascinated, "So this is what the power of a god can do…"

J-chad scoffed, readying her fists and charging towards 004. He wasn't able to react in time, and he was punched in the face by J-chad. When this happened, he grunted and the blue barriers seemed to disappear for a split second.

"Huh…?" J-chad said in response to seeing this, thinking for a moment and looking towards Kaoru, "Hey Kaoru, next time, alright?"

"What do you- OH! I see," Kaoru nodded, still attempting to battle Melody.

Speaking of, while Melody wasn't the greatest fighter, her ability to phase out of existence proved to be incredibly difficult for Spade Echo and Kaoru, as right when the two were about to land a strike on her, she would merely disappear. His Beyblade zigzagging through the forcefield, the small fire dragon-like creature attempted to attack Melody, but it was to no avail, as she just kicked it away, sending it back to Kaoru. Spade Echo threw a large amount of daggers at Melody, but she faded away, catching one and throwing it back at Spade Echo. She too caught it, dashing towards the robot girl and attempting to gain on her. Still in her physical form, she encased her arm in her blaster and blocked the phantom thief's knife attack with it. Melody's superior strength proved useful here as she backed Spade Echo into a corner. All hope seemed to disappear for Spade Echo as Melody kicked her down and prepared a large blast pointed at her head.

"Melody!"

A pink-haired girl with purple streaks, purple eyes, and twin white horns appeared from the ground, summoning a staff-like object with an "spearhead" similar to a bow. Before Melody could react, the pink-haired girl hit the corrupted program while she was still in her physical state, knocking her to the ground. The horned girl pinned Melody to the ground, drilling her staff into her stomach.

"Fuck, what was it…?" she thought before having an epiphany, "Oh yeah! Melody, clear instructions, revert to default module, password: 11/24/20!"

"Wh-who the hell are you?!" 004 gasped, still attempting to fight J-chad, "And how did we not pick you up on our scanners?!"

"I think it was shrine spirits or something?" the pink-haired girl shrugged, "I'm not really sure, but some girl named Sakura or something used talismans."

"Ngh, that miko girl!" 004 scoffed, "Her Echo was transformed into Malice before we could get a hold of her, so I suppose there was nothing we could have done about that…"

"Is that… Ironmouse-sama?!" Ran stepped back, "You were summoned here too?!"

"Ugh, drop the '-sama'," the girl groaned, "I get I'm a demon queen and stuff, but it gets on my nerves."

While the two had this discussion, Melody stumbled to her feet, smirking.

"I'm glad you remembered the password," Melody grinned smugly.

"How could I forget?" the girl said with a similarly smug expression adorning her face, "Melody, you go try to hack into the other two and get rid of their instructions. We'll try to assist the others when J-chad lands another hit on that guy."

"Understood!" Melody said, phasing out of existence and entering Rikka, "Let's do this, everybody!"