Have Omake Now
It seems that every time you enter the command tent, it gets more and more crowded. There's the commander for which the tent is named, of course, and there's Rei standing right next to him. She has an unusually satisfied smirk on her face -not that her smirks don't usually look satisfied, or pretty- BUT! She generally looks more infuriated and scary around him. Your maybe-honorary big sister San slouches in the corner, to the extent that the tent has a corner. You're honestly not sure where you stand with her, though you've been making an effort. She's been really distracted recently. You suppose it's understandable.
Then there's everyone else. Team GEAR, as always, stands beside you, and Carnage is nearby since you were just talking with her. Then there's Truth and Blue Sky and Judgment Core and her sister and Red Rose and White Knight and a War Angel and a couple human soldiers. Their uniforms indicate tank guys.
It's pretty uncomfortably hot in here, really, and not just because of Sam's sexy, sexy-
MOVING ON
The commander inhales, and JC stops poking people.
"Team GEAR," he says without preamble, "The cameras have caught sight of six demonic foot soldiers approximately fifteen miles west of here. Your mission is to destroy them."
You tilt your head. "Understood, sir. But… you mean the
foot soldier foot soldiers?"
"Those ones, yes. Go kill them."
You haven't actually had much time to build up anything like 'pride of the magical girl,' but you feel it shatter just now. "Is this really a job for all five of us?"
As the commander begins to speak, Rei Rei-ses her hand and steps forward. It's a small step since Blue Sky is like a foot away from her, but it's the gesture that's important. "No. All-" Her eyes flick around the room, she totally had to count them. "Twenty of us. We
should be able to handle this, and if not-"
Rei stops.
Your hand jerks towards Purifier Beam the instant before you see the woman appear in the tent, but you soon relax. It's only Gaia, after-
Why is Gaia in the command tent?
"Twenty-one," the personification of six times ten to the twenty-fourth power kilograms of rock and metal says.
"Fuck it, twenty-one. If anyone else would like to come along, please teleport to the outside of the tent," Rei says. Everyone else starts chattering too, since discipline has obviously become a foreign word by this point, but you tune them out.
Nobody seems to take Rei up on it, which is… good? You actually think the sheer concentration of dakka in this tent approaches
enuff, and by this point you just want the day to be over.
Gaia strides towards you dramatically, but she stops three steps later. She grabs White Knight under her arms before the poor girl can react, lifts her up, turns around, and deposits her gently on the ground. Headpats occur.
You suppose if anyone has the right to unlimited headpats, it's Gaia.
Before Gaia turns back, everyone else has cleared a path between her and you. Traitors.
This time, Gaia's dramatic stride actually looks dramatic, and she soon comes to a dramatic stop in front of you. "Magical Girl Nepgear," she says dramatically.
Solid Core, it's Solid Core! dramatically
She suddenly has an arm around your shoulder and it's actually kind of nice. "So." She squeezes you, and you squeak because that's a thing that happens now. "I was watching this show, a good one, not that formulaic trash, and it was just adorable so long story short I wanna be on your team now. Powerup please."
"Right," you say. You're not really sure how this is going to work. You don't really know her all that well, but on the other hand you had didn't know Gabriel that well either. There's also the kissing thing, but you've been traumatized enough so you would like to, you know, not. You focus on the connection between yourself and Gaia- both the physicality of her arm on your shoulder and the emotional ties. You know Gaia. She helped you out before, and even if the scorpion was hilariously unhelpful you liked the WEAPONS. She tried to warn you about the kidnapping. Literally every human is a part of her, and what closer connection can there be than that? Just thinking about it you can feel the POWER of… wishful thinking. You open your eyes to see an unconnected Gaia an inch away from your face. With her lips puckered.
"I need an adult," you squeak. Your voice squeaks, that is.
"Oh, Anastasia," she breathes. "You can't get more adult than me. I am literally as old as dirt." How attractive. She leans in-
-and Gabriel punches her in the side of the head, sending her to the ground. "Sorry, no. Actually I'm not sorry, still no."
Gabriel is the best.
You need to get this over with, so you lean down and give Gaia a kiss on the forehead. You're so done with this shit, and if it doesn't work you'll just kill the monsters and move on with your life.
Gaia starts to glow. She stands up, giving Gabriel a grin.
That worked? Does that mean I didn't have to- but then I wouldn't have been able to-
Being a teenager is hard.
Gaia continues to glow, and it's actually starting to hurt your eyes.
Mike pats you on the back. "Looks like you've got competition, nightlight." Two syllables. They rhyme. It's snappy. Please don't let this be another nickname.
"And now the ground is glowing," Red Rose says. "In my experience… this has never ended well."
"Not again," says San.
The ground
is glowing, but more importantly the ground seems to be growling. You actually should have expected something like this, considering that you just hooked up an infinite magical nuclear reactor to a planet. A+ planning there, but it's not like any of the supposedly responsible adults stepped in. Except Gabriel, who is best girl.
"I feel… really good," says Gaia.
That's when the earthquake starts. And
maybe that's some kind of metaphor, but also a lot of people probably are about to die. So.
Rei- Goddess Gold hurls her chain through the ground, and the shaking seems to subside. She probably just bound the Earth or something cool like that. Then the quake comes back twice as violently.
San sighs.
You flail your hands, you poke Gaia, you try to do something with your magic, but nothing helps. The tent collapses, but while the crowding was amusing before nobody is in the mood to deal with it, so somebody teleports everyone outside. The base is surprisingly still standing despite the distant crashes you're beginning to hear. The Counter Force builds to last. Or they use tents. It's a sliding scale.
You're not sure, but it seems to be heavier.
One of the soldiers falls to the ground, and not from the shaking. It's definitely heavier.
"Well," Gaia observes. "This is absolutely no fun at all. I might even say that it's an absolute clusterfuck."
The commander is barking orders, but you can't hear anything but the planet beside you and below you."
Rei raises her sword, but San covers her hand with her own. "It's okay."
"People are dying! We
just had this-"
Gaia interrupts. "There's no need to let this continue; I have everything I need. Do it now, White."
The sky cracks to match the shattered earth. And holy shit Goddess White just ran Gaia through.
Gaia blinks. "it didn't take?"
San shakes her head. "You're too strong, now. This better be worth it."
The first fallen soldier, now being supported by James, begins to emit a familiar glow.
"We'll figure something out. Every little bit helps."
San shakes her head. "I get it… but this is the twelfth time this week."
Rei looks like she's about to murder somebody, and it's going to be Gaia.
Gaia smiles. "What you're asking for… it's not easy, you know?"
"Hmph."
You're kind of feeling ignored, here. Most everyone else is running off to do damage control, but you're still in Gaia's arms. Everything is
wrong and you can't even move. Then San walks in front of you and presses her lips to yours.
What the-oh. This is kind of nice.
Your pink mingles with San's white as Gaia accepts the sword through her neck and time and the world break.
XXXXX
San jerks.
Your hand jerks towards Purifier Beam the instant before you see the woman appear in the tent, but you soon relax. It's only Gaia, after-
Why is Gaia in the command tent?
"White," the personification of six times ten to the twenty-fourth power kilograms of rock and metal says, "That never happened."
The goddess of time nods shakily. There's something about her mouth.
You consider asking, since they seem a bit upset- but since whatever it was never happened, there's nothing to worry about. Right? You finally tear your eyes away from her lips.
You simply give Gaia a cheerful wave and refocus your attention on the matter at hand; namely, the monsters or gods or universes you're about to meet on your upcoming mission.
Gaia seems to regain some of her composure "Right, let's do this thing, everyone." She teleports to the entrance of the tent (dramatically) and walks out. Nineteen people of varying genders, species, shoe preferences, and levels of comprehension follow.
"I was supposed to say that," you hear the commander grumble. He gets out of his chair and brings up the rear.
So, after the tanketeers were en-tanked (you don't know how tanking works), you all drove/flew/ran to the place with the thing, and what you did to those six unfortunate demons was, well… they probably welcomed being sent to Hell. You seemed to have avoided the C-rank curse this time, so everyone felt a little silly about the whole thing. You can't help but feel like you dodged a bullet.
You got to help an old lady carry her groceries, too, so that was nice.
you know that thing where you do a recursive call and forget to put in an exit condition, and then it goes on forever (Or well more accurately until either CPU turns off, memory runs out, or compiler ends it early).
