Chapter 135 - Stupid Rivalry
So anyways, we started blasting.
The mont I activated the WEEB System, a surge of energy coursed through my body. My left arm lit up with glowing blue circuit lines, pulsing like living veins of lightning. Without hesitation, I thrust my arm forward—first toward Myrrh, then toward Michelle.
“Rail Cannon, Equip!”
With a chanical hum and a burst of digital particles, twin cybernetic circles shimred into existence in front of their Fra Units. From within those glowing glyphs, Myrrh and Michelle each drew a massive Rail Cannon—identical in design, their movents perfectly mirrored. The synchronicity of their motions made them look like sisters forged for battle.
“Fire!” Michelle commanded, her voice sharp and commanding.
An instant later, the sky lit up in a symphony of destruction. Rail bullets scread into the heavens, a furious storm of tallic light. The rapid-fire blasts painted brilliant streaks across the skyline, like an otherworldly fireworks display—only deadlier.
The Archonlight Barrier, designed to repel Cosmic Beasts from breaching Xyraxis tropolis, didn’t hinder Fra Unit artillery. Their projectiles soared unimpeded through the barrier, disappearing into the upper atmosphere in streaks of fire and plasma.
Then—detonations. Countless Cosmic Beasts erupted above like dying stars. From the ground, it appeared as distant flashes, like a cosmic war unfolding behind a velvet curtain. But through my WEEB System’s cara feed, I saw everything from the bullets’ point of view. The magnetic rounds sliced through the void with deadly precision.
Myrrh’s shot struck a cockroach-type Cosmic Beast dead center, reducing it to a cloud of fragnted exoskeleton and glowing green blood. Michelle’s target—a monstrous stag beetle-type—took a direct hit that punched a smoldering crater clean through its armored shell.
“Fire!” Michelle signaled once more, her voice crisp over the comms.
A second wave of rail bullets scread into the sky, carving glowing blue trails through the clouds. Each shot was a precise, magnetic lance of death. With every volley, hundreds of Cosmic Beasts burst apart in midair, reduced to charred fragnts and streaks of ichor that rained down like cursed snow.
“Keep shooting them! Reload at your own pace—don’t follow my rhythm if you can't!” Michelle barked through the comms, commanding both clarity and confidence.
“Yes, Ma’am!” ca the resounding reply from the Support Units and WAIFUs, their voices full of adrenaline and focus.
For the next five relentless minutes, a storm of steel and plasma dominated the sky. Barrage after barrage of rail bullets lit the upper atmosphere like a thunderous teor shower. Thousands of Cosmic Beasts were annihilated—reduced to little more than starbursts of gore and vapor.
Despite the Rail Cannons being quieter than traditional artillery, the constant, sharp thrumming of magnetic discharge was grating. My ears began to ring. Each round fired was like a hamr tapping against my eardrums, rhythmic and painful.
By the ten-minute mark, just as the rhythm of battle had settled into sothing almost chanical, Myrrh and Michelle pulled off a perfect simultaneous shot. Their bullets collided at the exact sa mont, slamming into a grotesque eagle-type Cosmic Beast with a squid-like face and elongated, twitching tendrils. The synchronized strike vaporized the abomination instantly—nothing remained but glowing embers drifting like ash.
“Hey! That was my target!” Myrrh protested over the comms, her voice sharp with mock outrage.
“I’m your Commanding Officer. That was mine,” Michelle replied in a deadpan monotone, not even sparing the mont a flicker of emotion.
“You’re really a showoff, you know that?” Myrrh said, a smug grin tugging at her lips as her Rail Cannon fired once more with a resounding hum. The beam lanced into the sky and ripped through another hapless Cosmic Beast in a burst of fluorescent gore. “I’ve already downed thirty-two, so don’t ss up my rhythm.”
“Thirty-five,” Michelle replied coolly, her voice as unshaken as ever. She didn’t even flinch as she fired her own Rail Cannon, cleanly blasting a serpent-like Cosmic Beast coiling through the upper stratosphere. “You’re leagues behind .”
“Thirty-eight!” Myrrh shouted triumphantly, her cannon roaring again. “Your kill rate is just as flat as your chest, Commanding Officer.”
“Forty,” Michelle returned calmly, dispatching another beast with a calculated shot. “Unlike sobody who has boobs and no brains, I value finesse and precision.”
“I have brains!” Myrrh yelled, unleashing another powerful blast that ripped through the sky. “Forty-five! Top that!”
Michelle’s side bood with yet another Rail Cannon discharge. “Fifty. You can’t possibly keep up.”
A short distance away, Fei—who had been quietly firing her own shots—finally snapped under the two’s incessant bickering.
“Umm, this is not a competition! Could you two please take this seriously!?” she cried, her voice desperate, cheeks puffed in frustration.
With a dramatic sigh, Fei fired her Rail Cannon toward the clouds. Her beam arced with deadly elegance—and, by sheer chance or divine luck, pierced through four Cosmic Beasts in a perfect line. One by one, the monsters exploded like popping bubbles, their deaths sudden and spectacular.
“Yes! Sixty-four!” Fei shouted, her Fra Unit pumping both fists in the air with uncontainable glee. Her voice was filled with childlike excitent, and for a mont, the battlefield felt like a playground. With that, Fei officially joined the chaos—another competitor in the absurd kill-count war.
I couldn’t help but smile. Watching these three maniacs argue and boast in the middle of an interstellar extermination campaign was… oddly comforting. At least they were motivated—and for now, that ant more dead Cosmic Beasts.
“Hey, Zaft,” Michelle called out over the comms, still calmly picking off targets with each rhythmic blast of her Rail Cannon. “Can you lend one of your super weapons? And please don’t give any to Myrrh.”
Her tone was so flat, it was impossible to tell whether she was joking or deadly serious.
“U-uh… sorry, Mich,” I said, scratching the back of my head, “I can’t activate the WMD Series unless my WAIFU’s in a pinch. It’s a built-in limiter.”
“Bumr,” Michelle muttered without missing a beat.
After three more precision shots, her Rail Cannon let out a dull hiss—it was out of ammo. Without hesitation, she disengaged the weapon, letting the enormous cannon fall away in a burst of hissing steam and tal clanks.
I was just about to materialize a fresh one for her—fully loaded—when she turned to again, eyes gleaming behind the HUD.
“So… it’ll work if Myrrh’s in serious trouble, right?”
“Most of the ti, yeah,” I replied, already wary of where this was going.
Without warning, Michelle picked up the empty Rail Cannon with both chanical arms, spun it with eerie calm, and hurled it across the battlefield like a javelin.
“Yah!”
“Eeek!” Myrrh shrieked as the oversized weapon whizzed past her Fra Unit, barely missing her by a few ters. She jerked to the side and spun midair, completely caught off guard. “Are you nuts?!”
“I wanted to test the WMD Series,” Michelle said, her tone as flat and neutral as ever. “And I figured damaging your Fra Unit would trigger it. You’re not doing much good out here anyway.”
“The audacity of this bitch!” Myrrh roared, her voice cracking through the comms like thunder. With a wild burst of strength, she hurled her now-empty Rail Cannon toward Michelle like a missile of pure spite.
But Michelle, ever composed and calculating, sidestepped the incoming hunk of tal with ease—clearly expecting Myrrh’s hotheaded retaliation. The cannon crashed into a nearby tower, cracking steel and sending debris tumbling, but Michelle didn’t flinch.
Myrrh’s furious glare slowly curled into a wicked smirk. “Did you know? The WMD Series will also activate as long as any WAIFU linked to Zaft’s WEEB System is in a critical situation,” she declared. “So if I wreck your Fra Unit… that’ll work too.”
Michelle blinked, her expression unreadable. Then she casually began walking forward.
“Oh, okay. Get ready to be incapacitated then.”
“I’ll throw you off this skyscraper!” Myrrh shrieked, charging to et her.
Their Fra Units collided with a chanical crash, grabbing each other’s arms—fingers interlocking, joints straining as both units locked into a brutal test of strength. Sparks flew from their servos, and the building beneath them groaned from the sudden weight of their clash.
The battlefield above was montarily forgotten. The threat of Cosmic Beasts faded into the backdrop as Michelle and Myrrh threw themselves into a full-blown grudge match, their rivalry boiling over.
It was no longer Michelle and Myrrh versus the monsters—it was Michelle versus Myrrh, and pride was now the weapon of choice.
I stared at the two of them, dumbfounded. I could barely believe they were both young adults. I knew Myrrh had a temper shorter than a plasma fuse, but Michelle? She was supposed to be our senior. Our Commanding Officer. The voice of reason on the battlefield.
Apparently, that mo got lost in orbit.
“Hey, hey! Cut it out, you rascals!” I cried, trying to break through their war cries. “We’ve got actual monsters to kill, rember?!”
But they didn’t stop. They just shouted louder, completely ignoring :
“Zaft, use my Chaos Drones!”
“Zaft, activate my Blade Wing!”
Both voices rang in perfect unison, yet loaded with mutual venom.
I sighed. This was going to be one hell of a report to file.
“Are you guys serious right now?! You’re fighting each other in the middle of a war?!” I shouted, practically yanking my hair out.
Frustrated, I turned to the only reliable person left. “Fei! Help out here!”
Fei, still calmly gunning down Cosmic Beasts with sniper-like precision, nodded without missing a beat. “Got it!”
Just then, Kian chid in on the comms. With swift, practiced motions, he tapped into his WEEB System, the holographic interface glowing in front of him. His arm surged with orange circuit lines as he extended it toward Fei.
“Divine Fist, Activate!” Kian bellowed.
Instantly, both of Fei’s chanical arms ignited with radiant golden flas, trailing sparks like cot tails. Her Fra Unit dashed forward, cutting across the sky like a bolt of divine fury. She zeroed in on the two grappling WAIFUs—still locked in their ridiculous wrestling match like drunk gladiators.
“Haaah!” Fei cried, unleashing a synchronized punch to both of their armored faces.
The impact echoed like thunder.
Both Fra Units’ heads exploded off in opposite directions, spinning through the air before crashing into the ruined skyscrapers below like discarded helts. Sparks and twisted tal rained in all directions.
With their visual modules destroyed, Myrrh and Michelle were forced to disengage and revert to their humanoid forms—grumbling, dazed, and still glaring at each other like rabid cats.
Without hesitation, I marched toward them and—THWACK! THWACK!—brought my fists down on both their heads with the full authority of a fed-up squad leader.
“Ow! Owowow!” Myrrh cried, clutching her head. “This is harassnt!”
“It hurts, Zaft…” Michelle whimpered, her voice suddenly tiny and pitiful—like a wet puppy scolded for chewing on furniture.
“You stupid bitches need to stop this rivalry already!” I roared, veins practically bulging from my forehead.
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