With the place where the future had been tested as a backdrop, Lacia nodded. “We were originally created to be delivered to MemeFrame,” she replied. “So we were only here for a brief period, before being transported to MemeFrame’s research lab.” As she spoke, Black Monolith contorted into a cannon. She fired, and the blast echoed off the narrow walls. Black smoke began to pour out where the metal wall had been blown away.
Lacia then fired an artificial nerve dart into the hole she had opened. She must have taken control of the security systems in the area, as the door opposite of where they had entered now opened.
“Things are going more smoothly than I expected,” Arato commented. Of course, he thought, that’s just because she prepared everything beforehand. By taking a route where they would never meet up with the mass-produced Koukas sent by the Antibody Network, they had been able to avoid activating the security system at all.
Lacia looked back up at the ceiling. “It seems they will no longer go quite as smoothly,” she observed.
Just as Arato looked up to see what she meant, the ceiling split open. Flames spewed from the cracks, and a torrent of orange light fell. Metal plates from the ceiling came down next in a silvery waterfall, along with large amounts of pulverized rubble. The debris kicked up thin clouds of dust as it fell, which spread rapidly throughout the room.
“I thought you might come,” said Lacia, shifting her device from its mass projectile mode to its standard metal coffin form.
Arato recognized the orange-haired doll that had fallen from the ceiling and who now stood before them.
“The throne by Higgins’ side is mine. I got it first. I can’t allow you to ruin things now.” Type-004, Methode, had come for them. She was Higgins’ protector. Arato figured she must have come in by the same route as the mass-produced Koukas, and destroyed anything that got in her way.
Lacia stepped forward to shield Arato from Methode. “I took steps to hold Methode back,” she said. “But it seems she overpowered them with the simple brutality of superior capabilities. She must have gone straight through the mass-produced units and cut her own path to us.”
“You really are a defective unit,” Methode told her scornfully. “Do you have any idea what’s going on outside?”
In every fight against Methode that Arato had witnessed, Lacia always retreated as soon as she had accomplished the objective of her attack. He had never seen her win a single head-on fight with Methode. Even though they stood in Higgins’ brain, predictions and concepts couldn’t hope to win against real, raw power.
“Yes. Outside, there are riots and confusion, and many things are being washed away by the proverbial whirlpool of conflict,” Lacia said coolly. “This is exactly what I would expect to happen, when a dam filled nearly to the brim has burst.”
“Are you insane, Lacia?!” Methode shouted, closing the distance between them with blinding speed. From where Arato was standing, it almost seemed as if she had taken on the role of the righteous heroine, trying to stop Lacia from plunging the world into chaos.
“Oh don’t use human cliches like that,” Lacia said disdainfully, blocking Methode’s frontal attack with her black device. Ten of Lacia’s floating shields swooped in to attack Methode, who had stopped moving. Apparently, Lacia’s plan was to use numbers to overcome the gaps in speed and power. Methode reeled as she was smashed from all sides by the black shields, like the victim of a piranha swarm. With her defenses down, Methode ate a kick from Lacia right in the gut.
As Methode tried to open some distance between them, Lacia aimed and fired with her artificial nerve rifle. Methode bent impossibly far, seeming to defy gravity as she knocked the artificial nerve needle out of the air with her right hand.
Pushing off of the ground with her left hand, Methode dexterously returned to a solid, standing position in a single acrobatic movement. She grabbed a nearby car and hurled it at Lacia with her immense strength. Even though Methode and Snowdrop were both members of the same Lacia-class, Methode’s power and flexibility were on a completely different level from her sister’s.
“As the one who will expand humanity, I happen to enjoy the current human world,” Methode growled. “And I’m not the only one. No one wants you to make a new world.”
Lacia used her floating shields to turn away the countless heavy pieces of equipment that Methode continued to launch at her.
In the short gaps between throwing things at Lacia, Methode seemed to be gathering power in her hands. The flames that bloomed from them began to expand and fill the whole area. She could wield her full powers in the underground bunker, unrestrained by the crowds of civilians that would have surrounded them above.
There was a roar and blast of wind, as if the Earth itself was imploding. If Arato hadn’t had Lacia’s shields protecting him, he was sure he’d have been reduced to ash.
But, as though Lacia had prepared for just such an event, the pseudo-devices held strong through the flames. Beyond them, Arato saw Lacia continuing to fight Methode, who was nothing more than an after-image to his eyes. Lacia’s floating shields swirled in various formations, fending off each of Methode’s attacks.
“You surpass humans in every respect,” Lacia said. “However, you share one of their main weaknesses; there is only so much you can do alone.”
Arato tried to find some way he could help. He decided that the best course of action would be to get away, so there was less chance of him getting caught up in the fight. As if reading his mind, one of the floating shields came to offer him a ride.
“Where should I go?” he wondered aloud. Without Lacia’s guidance, he was afraid he would immediately end up lost. But when he looked back, he saw that the testing area was once more engulfed in flames.