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Rosalina rubbed her temples while the report was read to her.

Of the thirty remaining protagonist zones, 26 of them were in open rebellion. The local leaders had declared themselves autonomous the second it became apparent that Loquat and the top brass were dead.

The remaining four zones would probably have done the same if their high-level members hadn't rushed to the mech factory and tried to seize control.

Sixty level fours and almost two hundred level threes had come knocking and started a dick measuring contest to see who would be in charge.

Rosalina had still been lying low at that point and had secretly controlled five of them to try and make a new puppet government, but… Who could've known that one had two phones? A text message later, and she had a whole swarm of high levels wanting her dead.

With the jig being up, she had no choice but to start being a bit more heavy-handed…

She used her puppets to demonstrate her control and tried to talk them down, but seeing high-levels bossed around like that just pissed them off more, and the situation spiraled out of control. She had no choice but to order her attackers to kill each other or themselves one after another. Despite the mounting losses, the carnage didn't stop until the mech factory was turned into a sea of blood.

In the aftermath, over half of the attackers were dead, and the other half either surrendered or retreated.

The mech factory was a critical asset, however, and the other protagonists were far from satisfied with letting a lowly level 1 control it. Rather than directly attacking, they had transitioned to numerous assassination attempts.

So far, the assassins had failed to even get close to her. After Loquat and the others had been killed, she had prioritized their defenses, so she had multiple checkpoints and people monitoring for anyone suspicious entering the area, even going so far as having multiple layers of inspection to catch any teleporters.

The other thing helping her was the rabid loyalty her low-level followers were displaying. As it became more and more known that she was the one who had saved them from being massacred during the special zombie outbreak and that she was also responsible for the mass construction of combat mechs, there was a surge of volunteers cementing her position.

Unsurprisingly, most people were sick of high-level actors like Irvine swinging their dicks around and were more than happy to rally behind a more sympathetic alternative. This populous movement didn't extend beyond the four zones under control for the simple reason that anyone suggesting a level 1 should be in charge was immediately executed in the other zones.

The one surprise was the man in front of her now. Carlos. The broad-shouldered and mustached hunk of a man was level 4 and didn't seem at all bothered being ordered around by someone lower level than himself. She'd been suspicious at first, but he had simply stated that he didn't think levels were an indication of command ability. She would have distrusted him further, but he had a ragtag group of low-level actors that loyally followed him, and by all accounts, he treated them as friends rather than underlings.

All of this amounted to her walkie-talkie currently not being in use. It could control five people, but long-term, the geass was finicky and unreliable. Having loyal people under her was far more useful than a handful of chained dogs.

Carlos was still talking, and she forced herself to focus back on his report. It had been another late night at the bar last night, and she was feeling thoroughly worn thin.

"The remaining zones are struggling to coordinate, and Zone 35 has already been nearly overrun by the antagonist incursion. The enemies are using a bizarre mix of super weapons, including the laser that destroyed the dragon nest, a tornado, and a giant spider, all of which appear to be coming from the UFO. High-profile figures such as Solomon, the pink flamingo, and Frank's trawler have been spotted in the area. Terry's collection of special zombies, the Fortune Wardens, and the one who destroyed the quarantine wall, Gen…" His brow furrowed slightly at the name, hinting at some personal history, but he continued. "They have all gone dark, and we suspect the lich eliminated them. We cannot confirm this, as the lich has also been systematically removing any scouts sent beyond the central zones."

Rosalina frowned. The lich had eradicated hundreds of antagonists so far, so it hadn't been useless, but it unsurprisingly was hell-bent on killing anything it could. The limitation of her command wasn't lost on her, as it blatantly ignored the UFO that had invaded the central zones. The lich was focused on mopping up the remnants of antagonists still outside the area, but once it finished, she suspected the geass would cease to be effective. She had countermeasures in mind, but for the hundredth time, she wondered if a different command would've been more effective.

No matter how much she reflected on it, she couldn't think of a better one. The lich was smart and powerful enough to break any nuanced command, and any simple one, like kill all antagonists wouldn't prevent it from killing all her allies and using their bodies as tools to complete the mission. No, her original command was the best because it prioritized keeping the lich as far away from her people as possible…

Carlos cleared his throat, and she refocused on him, "Is there anything else?"

He hesitated, but said, "Do you have any intention of moving against the other protagonist zones? They are not unified yet, but they won't allow us to monopolize the mech production indefinitely."

Rosalina sighed, "Do you think they would ignore us if we kept sending them upgraded mechs and ignored them?"

She didn't technically care whether or not they followed her orders directly. Her only objective was to maximize her contribution to a protagonist victory. To her, the path forward was obvious; the zones needed to cooperate and destroy the UFO as soon as possible. After that, only the lich would remain as a threat, but with the sheer amount of actors and mechs at their disposal, it wasn't a true threat.

The only way they would lose was if they destroyed themselves. Even if she ran away, she had no doubt they would start killing each other to make sure they were the ones in charge. Her being level 1 was just a convenient excuse to refuse to bend the knee. Without any level 5s or higher, there was no one they were obligated to obey.

Carlos shook his head, "Sending them mechs might delay them for a moment, but more than likely one zone or another will start intercepting shipments to other zones, and they won't stop trying to be the biggest dog."

She groaned, and Carlos chuckled. Complaining, she said, "You're telling me my choices are to fuck everything up, or let them burn it down instead?"

Whatever he was about to respond, she missed as her poll completed.

Ding~!

Her eyes narrowed, her walkie-talkie that had taken a necrotic look after the Ghost Line reward now also gained dozens of chains wrapped around it.

Chain Gang: Piss trickles down just like responsibility! Your walkie-talkie can appoint five subordinates, giving them their own walkie-talkies! Each subordinate can also appoint their own subordinates! Just like a real pyramid scheme, it sucks to get in late! Each level of subordination reduces the number of actors that can be controlled by one and the number of subordinates that can be appointed by one. Those lower on the hierarchy cannot command those higher up!

Her eyes widened. She could appoint five people, and each one could appoint four people, and then each one could appoint three… Using her math skills, which were usually reserved for calculating interest payments, she arrived at a conclusion.

325 control slots… The description didn't say anything about the maximum level of control being reduced, so if they outfitted the maximum five levels of subordination, they could control 325 actors level 5 or lower. As far as she knew, there were fewer than 300 remaining level 4s in the event. The limitation of only being able to control protagonists was annoying, but it was more than enough for what she wanted. Whoever these viewers were, they were clearly giving her everything she could hope for!

Feeling an almost hysterical surge of giddiness, she looked at Carlos and asked, "Are you ready for a revolution?"

Switching perspective~…

***

Nissa scowled at her death knight. Questioning was not going well.

"So Solomon is the leader of the antagonist forces?"

"No."

"What do you mean, no?"

"I mean a great many things by saying no. If you would like to know something more specific, then phrase your question more appropriately."

Nissa groaned, "You told me Solomon is the one who owns the UFO and is the highest level actor remaining. But now, you tell me that he wasn't the leader, so who is the leader?"

The death knight, who had grudgingly revealed his name to be Jasper, managed to look condescending despite having no eyes or flesh, and responded, "I am the leader."

"I find that hard to believe, but my magic should be compelling you to tell me the truth… Even if somehow you were the leader prior to your death and conversion, surely you can't consider yourself the leader even now."

Jasper's sunglasses glinted in the light of the necrotic life detection spell. The small sparks of life in the event map were almost fully extinguished now. All that remained was the brightly shining blob in the center of the map.

Jasper's voice was patient as he said, "My demise or current circumstances are irrelevant. I slew Gen and inherited her kingdom, and Solomon is my subordinate. No one else exists to rival my control; only Chuck dares to speak ill of my name."

Nissa would've rolled her eyes if she had any. She still had no idea who Chuck was, but she had wasted over an hour questioning Jasper about his mysterious nemesis before finding out that the man had been killed in the event on the first day!

She refused to get distracted again. She had roles before that demanded comedy, but this was not one of them! Her viewers had voted for a serious and heartless monster whose only joy was destroying the living. She'd wasted enough time already, and if she kept this up, she would be forced to kill the death knight to preserve her image, and he was too useful to waste like that…

She had to admit her performance thus far had been a mess. Sure, she'd killed hundreds of actors, but there had been almost no dialogue with her only conversation partner being her own deathknight, who clearly was mocking her rather than actually trying to perform!

All the antagonists had either retreated to their UFO or attempted to run and hide from her, giving her no plot development to speak of! How was she supposed to establish herself as the main character when there was no one to talk to!?

Belatedly, she realized that the geass's compulsion was gone and looked at the map. Her minions had finished their mission. While the antagonists had been useless so far in terms of conversation, their tactical retreat had greatly aided her primary goal of circumventing the geass as fast as possible.

From a sheer power perspective, she couldn't have hoped for a better outcome. The antagonists had already collected an insanely large horde of zombies, and she'd even stumbled upon a bizarre hatchery that infinitely produced thousands of zombified iguanas. The connection between her massive undead lizards and the hatchery wasn't lost on her, but Jasper had failed to give her any tangible details despite direct questioning.

Collecting herself, she prepared a speech. She might not get the interpersonal drama she was hoping for, but at the very least, her viewers would get the satisfaction of watching her slaughter every last actor left in the event!

Switching perspective~...

***

Gen was breathing heavily. Why couldn't she just be made from plastic again? Having lungs was awful! She'd been flying around shooting gnomes out of her butt endlessly for two whole hours, and she needed a break. Collapsing next to the pilot chair where Solomon was sitting, she asked, "Can I just take fifteen minutes, please?"

Solomon looked grim and scowled at her as usual, "This is your hairbained plan, and you want to take a break!? We've got mechs all over down there, and Frank needs support!"

She groaned, "Why don't you go!? Piloting the UFO is easy, I can do that, and you can go laser things!"

He gave her a measured look, "My ability is telling me if I let you into the pilot's chair, then we're absolutely fucked."

She glared at him, "How often do you lie that it's your ability telling you something when really you just don't want to do it?"

He looked away and said, "I don't have time to argue with you. We're out of summon abilities, so we need to start reading through abilities again!"

She groaned and pulled up the interface. Their summon strategy had worked beautifully. They started with a giant spider, then a giant chicken, a giant slime, a giant zebra… There were a lot of giant summons. The army of kaijus had devastated dozens of headquarters and made mincemeat of the defending protagonists.

They'd cut through zone 35 and zone 45 in record time, meeting little resistance. The protagonists seemed scattered, barely working together and in some cases even fighting with each other, and each zone fell with ease. She planned to push straight to the mech factory in Zone 55 and cut off the supply of new mechs. But just before they reached it, everything changed.

The protagonists surged back in force, moving with sudden coordination. Dozens of level 4 actors hurled themselves into suicide attacks. Gen had barely survived the surprise reversal, and half her feathers were gone, burned away by some kind of black nightmare inferno. Morna had saved her by dropping like a meteor and crushing the pack of rabidly aggressive protagonists.

Her feathers were regenerating, but their summons hadn't been so lucky. Solomon had ordered the kaijus to cover the retreat, and they'd taken out many of the high-level protagonists, but it wasn't enough.

Ever since they'd lost their momentum and had been forced to retreat all the way back to zone 35. They didn't dare reenter the exterior zones where the lich lay in wait, so they had to keep circling the wrecked zone as protagonists slowly boxed them in with more and more mechs.

She didn't miss the irony of being on the opposite end of the UFO hunt this time around. She almost missed the initial event days where she had infiltrated Carlos's unit and helped track down Solomon's UFO. She assumed Carlos had died initially, but a quick inspection of her Remember the Fallen receipt list had his name notably missing. Whether or not that was because he had survived or because LEO had arbitrarily determined his death wasn't her fault, she had no idea.

Regardless, they were living on borrowed time before the protagonists finished both them and Frank's fishing trawler off for good. The UFO had sustained damage, but its auto-repair was working overtime to repair the damage. Solomon was wearing the Watt-a-Waste gloves and creating a steady supply of gremlins, but in the face of millions of mech bullets, they were little more than cannon fodder.

Frank's fishing trawler was surprisingly mobile with its monster truck wheels, but it was still even more vulnerable than the UFO. Frank had received multiple polls to upgrade the trawler, but it was still hemorrhaging crew at a steady rate.

She didn't have an exact headcount, but they had managed to evacuate almost 5,000 antagonists on the UFO, and half of them were already deceased. Between the protagonist's suicide attacks, the difficulty of assaulting fortified headquarters, and the frequent personnel transfers to the trawler, they were running out of allies.

Gen recognized they were living on borrowed time and prayed that Jasper would wrap things up on his end as soon as possible. She checked her contribution points again and saw they had dipped to 300,000 after all the penalties from Jasper and his brethren slaughtering antagonists, but the number had finally started holding steady, hopefully foreshadowing that almost all the antagonists in the outer zones had been eliminated.

She eyed her receipt list again. She hadn't used any more names and was keeping it as a last resort, but the time was quickly approaching where she might not have any other options…

Sighing, she focused on the UFO upgrade menu. All four upgrade slots weren't being utilized currently, as they'd been used for the most recent set of now-deceased kaiju summons.

As usual, it was hard to determine what would be useful, and they only had a small window before the mechs caught up and they'd have to get back to fighting. Scrolling through options, her eyes briefly stopped on one titled "self-destruct", and she resolved to keep that in her back pocket as a last resort.

Solomon spoke, "I'm adding one called clairvoyance. Might as well gather information while you're being lazy."

Gen ignored his hurtful comment as she inspected the new ability.

Clairvoyance: Adds a mirror room that gives magical visions of important nearby events.

Gen tried to whistle, but it came out as more of a squawk. Flying through the massive corridors of the super-sized UFO, it didn't take long to locate the new room. Inside, as promised, there were three mirrors all showing different scenes from the event area.

The first she looked at showed Frank's trawler facing a blockade of hastily assembled scrap metal with dozens of mechs on top firing madly at the ship. One of Frank's poll upgrades had turned the bow of the ship into a giant mechanized shark, and he accelerated, crashing directly into the barrier as the mechanized maw chomped its way through and tore an unfortunate mech asunder.

Moving to the next, she saw many images of protagonists' movements. They were blockading streets and moving mechs into position all over the city as they sought to corner the trawler. Her eyes widened as she saw A-series and S-series mechs being positioned. Following the simple naming convention, the two new additions were artillery and sniper, respectively, and would give the protagonists much-needed firepower to blast through the heavily armored UFO and trawler.

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Cursing, she moved to another mirror and saw Jasper in all his skeletal glory while riding on Beryl. He was still wearing his overpowered armor and even somehow his sunglasses. Without flesh, he had no ears to hold the sunglasses up, but they somehow stayed attached to his head regardless.

It took her a moment to orient herself, but she grinned as she saw Jasper leap off of Beryl and use his grappling hook to scale the defensive wall of a headquarters. Behind him were thousands of human and iguana zombies as the horde began to assault the first protagonist target.

Relaxing slightly, she watched as Jasper pulverized a defender with his flesh-crater hammer. He was at a disadvantage against mechs, but he was also highly mobile as he used his grappling hook to swing past the defensive line and crash into the backline of unmechanized protagonists. An explosion erupted as he stepped on a landmine, but his blast boots activated, absorbing the explosion and glowing red.

He didn't miss the opportunity as he rushed the closest mech and used the stored energy to smash the armored vehicle like a tin can.

As he and the zombies overran the headquarters, she saw her contribution points start ticking back up. She was happy to see the numbers increase, but with no nearby antagonist headquarters, there wasn't anything to even use them on.

Ding~!

LEO's voice entered her head.

"Money burning a hole in your pocket? Nowhere to spend it? Well, have I got the reward for you!"

Her eyes narrowed as LEO's voice cut off. He almost always gave her rewards sarcastically, and at best, they were thinly veiled backhanded compliments. This time, however, he almost seemed genuinely helpful…

The sound of combat from Jasper's mirror abruptly stopped, and she looked at it. The full-on assault by the lich's forces had abruptly ended, and they appeared to be in a full retreat. Dumbfounded, she tried to make sense of what happened, but the video only showed thousands of zombies rapidly moving away from the headquarters and giving up the assault.

Shifting her focus to the other mirrors, she saw that the one showing the protagonists' movement had transitioned. Unlike before, where it showed active combat or mass troop movements, it now showed just one lone highly mobile mech. It was an R-series, which specialized in evasion and reconnaissance, and was just moving through an empty street at high speeds.

Her confusion was resolved when the dragon lich crashed into the ground in front of it and wrapped it in runic chains. The image blurred, and she was now looking at a different R-series in a totally different area of the event map.

She cursed. Their plan hinged on removing every antagonist from the exterior of the event map so the lich could circumvent the geass, but the protagonists evidently weren't as stupid as they looked. They were sending out their own people as bait to keep the lich from shifting focus back to them! With how mobile the R-series was, the lich would be stuck in a perpetual cat-and-mouse game for the rest of the event!

Her inner turmoil was cut off abruptly as the walls and ceiling around her rippled and turned into pulsating flesh. Disoriented, she tried to understand what had happened, but upon opening the UFO settings, she saw that Solomon had added another upgrade.

Fleshify: The UFO is now an organic vessel! This shifts the behavior of several functions. In addition to self-repair, the UFO now has self-healing as well, increasing its regenerative abilities!

Activating her boots, she rushed back to where Solomon was. En route, she saw several antagonists panicking about their new surroundings, but she ignored them.

Reaching Solomon, he had a disgruntled expression as he looked at her, "Leave me be! I thought it would be a weapon! Something to like melt the flesh off the damn protags, not turn my ship into an oversized meatsack! Gimme a second, I'll discard it!"

She held up a wing, "Wait!"

He looked at her, "The self-healing isn't worth it! We need something to blow up those damn tin cans outside, as I guarantee you that this ship isn't going to heal its way through a million bullets!"

She shook her head, "N,o that… I have an idea, but first, message Frank. They've got new mechs joining the fight, artillery and sniper specializations."

Solomon groaned, "Great, as if we didn't have enough problems. Where the hell is your damn lich? We need backup hours ago!"

Not mincing words, she said, "Help isn't coming. They are a step ahead of us; they're sending out suicide units as distractions, and the lich is chasing them around instead of helping."

Solomon cursed and opened his menu, "Godamnit, where's that self-destruct ability I saw? Might as well go out with a bang!"

Raising her voice, she yelled, "Shut up! Let me think for a second!"

Still grumbling to himself, he stopped ranting and stared at her.

Taking a deep breath, she said, "Do you still have the saddle?"

He rolled his eyes, and the saddle clunked onto the ground. It was a mangled heap of scrap as a result of his fight with the Gundam, but she could still vaguely make out the cross shape.

He kicked it and said, "It's useless, trust me, I thoroughly checked it."

She shook her head, "Yes, but the self-repair of the UFO might apply if we connect it."

"It won't work, we tried using it before, and it doesn't work on non-organic mounts…" His eyes widened, and he grabbed the saddle, shoving it into the fleshy floor. The cross sparked and vibrated for a few seconds while they held their breath, but then Gen saw one of the bent sections of metal start to straighten itself and cheered.

Solomon looked a little excited, but he still stayed serious as he said, "Moving quickly isn't going to be enough; we've got a thousand protagonists left for each one of us."

Gen laughed as she pulled out her blowgun, "Good thing we're in the business of min-maxing."

Switching perspective~...

***

Nissa mentally cursed again and again. Every time she managed to track down one of those jittery robots, another one would start scurrying around the event map, and the geass would yell at her like an overbearing mother-in-law to drop everything and go hunt it down.

The geass was stupid, LEO was stupid, and this whole event was stupid. She'd been reduced to a clown show chasing around gnats when the holy grail of viewer ratings, the climax of the whole event, was happening without her!

She had thousands of zombies and had encircled the center zones to try and keep more mechs from slipping out, but the stupid undead couldn't manage to catch the slippery little robots without her direct attention and intervention. She was going in circles, and the geass was constantly distracting her and breaking up her train of thought, making it impossible to come up with a focused plan.

Kill everything outside of the center 30 zones.

The geass sent another pulse through her mind, and she howled in frustration, "Fuck you, Rosalina! I will torture your soul for eternity!"

Cringing, she realized she'd spoken out loud. She shouldn't be breaking character... She had to channel her inner lich! She was an ancient infernal creature! She was a master of magic! There surely was some sort of spell that could get her out of this! She conjured her grimoire that had come with the character sheet and started flipping through the spells for the hundredth time.

There were literally thousands of spells that LEO had provided her, but the majority of them honestly read like jokes.

Bone Appétit: Summon an assorted collection of undead fruits and vegetables

Death Metal: Empower a band of undead to unleash the true power of ROCK N ROLL

Spooky Ambiance: Add theatrical effects to make yourself or your surroundings look extra evil

The last one she'd actually used to spice up the interior of her lair, but otherwise was completely useless. She knew there were gems in there, but filtering through the noise was impossible when the geass kept yelling at her and the event day was already a third of the way through!

"Might I offer my advisement services?"

Broken out of her concentration, she turned and saw her death knight standing there.

"Not that I believe you have any useful advice, but why would you help me?"

Jasper clacked his teeth and said, "I have a vested interest in seeing the protagonists fall and…" he looked at the grimiore, "My brethren and I are also interested in what exactly an undead fruit tastes like…"

Switching perspective~...

***

Rosalina looked at the projection of the event map as she listened to reports. One of Carlos's followers was a level 2 woman named Carla. She could project other people's interface abilities, and they had gathered a collection of protagonists with mapping abilities to combine together to create a real-time view of the event map.

She could see all the central zones and even zoom in on specific locations to see people and mechs moving around. Her smile was bright. Her takeover of the protagonists had been absolutely thorough, and morale was very high. Many of the high-levels had died taking down the kaijus, but she didn't mind the loss as walkie-talkies weren't terribly useful for long-term control.

They were perfect for suicide missions, however. Another reconnaissance mech drove away at high speed. Those protagonists who didn't have useful abilities and weren't interested in cooperating had been collected and were being sent out one after another to be lich-bait at a steady rate as more R-series were produced.

The cost of the lost mechs and people wouldn't be sustainable forever, but she only had to get through another eight hours, and they would win the event! Every zone was under her control, and they were all seamlessly aligned on the objective.

The artillery and sniper mechs were getting into position, and the trawler would be removed from the playing field in the next few moments. After that, all that remained was the UFO. It had intimidated her at first when it summoned a horde of giant creatures and destroyed two whole zones, but whatever ability it had been using was apparently exhausted, as it had been running scared ever since.

Carlos was observing the projection, and his eyes narrowed. "What's happening with the UFO?"

All eyes turned to look at it, and there was a mix of puzzled expressions. The projection wasn't perfectly detailed, but it was high-definition enough that they could see the UFO had shifted its appearance, where before it looked like a sleek metallic machine, now it looked… fleshy.

They all watched as it kept transforming and turned darker with black veins spreading along its surface and purple crystals sprouting at random intervals.

Rosalina broke herself free from watching and yelled, "Assault the trawler! I don't know what the hell is going on with the UFO, but we need it off the field before anything else happens!"

Messages immediately began being sent, and everyone tore their eyes off the UFO and forced themselves to focus back on the surrounded trawler. Their people weren't fully in position, but Rosalina had a feeling she'd regret it if they hesitated a second longer.

With the order sent, the response was immediate as dozens of mechs collapsed in on the trawler from all sides and started distracting it. Abilities were activated, oil slicks were launched, and for a critical second, the trawler was locked into place.

Frank himself was seen on the prow trying to activate some sort of device, but the sniper mechs targeted him directly, firing shot after shot and critically wounding the man before forcing him below decks. The remaining crew was likewise either gunned down or forced below as high-powered rounds laid down suppressive fire.

Rosalina watched grimly. If they'd managed to kill him, it would've been convenient, but that wasn't the main goal. As planned, the artillery shells started landing one after another a second later.

The heavily upgraded trawler could take a beating, but they'd concentrated mechs from all the remaining bases for this, and it couldn't withstand the continuous bombardment indefinitely as its tires melted and its hull crumpled. The whole vehicle was reduced to scrap and molten metal within a few minutes of a continuous bombardment.

She saw a notification of her contribution points increasing for her part in directing the offensive, and she breathed a sigh of relief. One down and only one left… Turning back to look at the UFO on the display, it was gone.

Worried, she frantically zoomed out and tried to locate where it had gone. She relaxed slightly when she found it hovering over the center of the map, but then her heart stopped. Turning away from the projection, she looked directly up and saw the massive UFO blocking out the sky above.

Switching perspective~...

***

Gen raised the blowgun and shot a section of flooring with a fusioncrack mutagen. The reaction was immediate as black veins began to spread from the point of contact, and the walls and ceiling began sprouting purple crystals from rotten flesh. Gen was sure that elsewhere in the ship, if people hadn't been panicking already, they definitely were now.

Solomon shouted, "What the hell! Min-maxing my ass! Why'd you turn my ship into a zombie!?"

Gen shrugged her wings as she squinted at the transformed ship, "I don't know? Fusioncracks are strong, so I figured it would make the UFO stronger or something?"

Solomon was grumbling to himself as he inspected the interface. Gen joined him as she held her breath. It had been somewhat impulsive to infect the UFO, but it had seemed clever at the time…

The UFO's interface had become corrupted and was incredibly difficult to navigate, but she was experienced from dealing with the hatchery before and pushed her way through the menus, trying to find out what, if anything, had changed.

Finally finding the section, she saw the fleshify ability had been renamed.

F̵̙͖̋̈́͝ű̷͆͠ͅs̸̩̗͂͜i̵̯̼͚͐̒̕o̶̫̩̖̓̌n̸̲̖̿͊c̷̡̟̠̎̀̍r̴͖͋͑͘ä̴̞̪̲́͝͝c̸̛̗͖̩̀͗k̴̛̜̓͐ ̵̠̈́͑̓F̴͖̍̿̇l̵͎̯͒̐͘ë̶̡͓́̀s̷̜̯̑̓̚h̷̡̡̪͊͛̀ify̶̡̳̟͋͝:̵͓̙͗ ̸̛͚̫̜̈́T̷͓͗̏̾h̷͉̤̥̑̀ȇ̵̺̜͘ ̵͉͛̐m̷̜̏o̵̩̩̊̽͠s̷̮̲͓̑t̴̢͓̓͘ ̸̻̯͋̄͂a̴̻͈͈̔d̴̜̯͌͐̓v̷̲̈́a̵̻̟̫͆̀n̴͈̄̇͒c̷͉͎͉̊̄͝e̷̫̬͑̒͘d̷̨̲̅̆ ̷̛̪̖̈́̈́t̸̟̙̜͝e̶̜͋̆͘c̸̰͠ḣ̵̦͙̑͋ ̷̛̰̃͝ḯ̵̬̋ń̸̹̠̙̐ ̸̨͚͐̆ť̸͓̠h̷̤̫̎ḙ̷̛͊ ̶͙̅g̶͇̍̀̓a̵͉̳̦̓ĺ̸̅ͅą̶̪͌̈́x̷̨̢̌y̵͔̓͘ ̴̎͘ͅw̵̯͆̈́͗a̸̦͎̼͆͂s̵̹͋ ̵̱̪̪͗ẗ̷̯́u̶̜̮͋͜r̷̯̳̓̃n̶̢̬͈̋͐͝e̷͙̔d̴͖͊̄ ̷̢̤̊͠í̶̡̠ṅ̴̜t̴͙͐ȯ̶͈͂ͅ ̷̢̝̓̎ǎ̷̛̹̽ ̸̢͉̓l̷̰͓͝i̶̼̝̓v̶̛̻̙͍͒͑ḯ̶͇͛n̸̞̊̑ĝ̵͎̥̓ ̶̟͍͚̌́b̴̳̪̑r̵͋̆ͅe̵͉̫͛̈́́a̴̳͌͆͘t̷̡̰̅̓h̷̳̍ȋ̵̛̳͗ń̴̨͔͘g̷̯̳͗ ̴̛̤̄̔c̸̰͔͇̊͛r̵̛͔͌e̴̠͊a̸̤̙̾͝ͅt̴̙̓̋u̴̡͉̅r̷̟͈̥̅͂͐ẽ̶͔̋ ̶̟͙̚a̷̺̲̓͠n̵̟͊d̷̨̨̟̅̀͘ ̶̨̫̙̌̍i̷̬̊͂̇n̶̩̯̄͆ș̴̓̓ť̶̛͓̖̄ͅė̷͉̰̜a̶̺̩̩͆d̷̯̑ ̸̘̙̃͆͝ò̴̪͖̱f̷̡̙́ ̸͍̏̅͂b̸͖̟͋̇̈́é̵̱͒f̵̖͎̳̌̏̅r̷̫͊i̶̳͓̒̿e̷͍͆̽̀n̶̞̄̓̅d̴̼̂͗i̴̠͉̓̇̍ñ̸̳̯̜g̵͇͈̫̅̆ ̷̦̎̓͝i̴̩̋̓͐ͅt̴̳̍͛ ̸̻̜̑͑y̶͇̪͗̽o̴̯̍ų̴̇̿ ̴̬͙͐̈́̀t̸̡͝u̸̖̳͌̆ř̶̤n̷͚̲̻͆ḛ̷̍́d̸̟͌͐ ̷͙͎̒̆i̸̻̇̆͒t̷̟͒̅ͅ ̶̨͖̎i̷̞̎̒n̴̛͇̬̄̏t̴̹͝o̶̹̿͘ ̷̢̮̟͗͒a̷̛͇͌̚ ̷̜͔̓͝ḧ̵̜͎́ö̴̳̹̠́̿r̴̻̬̓̑͒͜ř̷͖̻͉͆i̴̱̚b̸̲͚͐l̸̹̩̜̈́͆͂ë̶͔́ ̵͇͛͊̎ͅa̶̡̩̠͒͝b̷̲̲̈́̋͐o̸̼̬̱͛̓m̷̩̪̎͐ī̷̫̠n̷̳͚̋̆ä̵̖͙́̔t̵̤̄į̴͗ō̶͕͒͠n̷͔͇͋͗.̴̳̟̩̏̇ ̵͈̫͈̓͗̿C̸̨̱͑̎͜͝o̶̢͙͓̓̇n̷̡̩͐g̵̪̝̦͠r̶̙͎̒á̸̺̙̿ț̷̀̓̎ű̸͔͎̈́̽l̷̦̪̀̓̄a̴̢̛̻͛ẗ̷̝̻̟́͑̄i̷̳̪͚̓̓õ̴̡̩ǹ̸͔̀͆s̶̬̒,̸̯̠͗ ̵̛̙͌͠h̸̳̪̆u̴͚̚m̴͓͝a̵̤̮̓͝n̷̪̪̍̈́͂ī̵̹͑͜t̵̲̗̟́͐͘ý̶͓ ̶͓̤̜̃͗́w̴̯̙̄͗à̴̡͈s̷̲͑̍͠ ̵̢͓͗a̵̛̦͊͐ ̷̺̲̓̇m̵͈̋͛͝i̷̱̰̓̃͘ș̸̨̲̅ẗ̸͈́͝a̶̤̤̎ǩ̵̹̫̹͌e̸̠͍͚͒.̶̫͚̂ ̶̡̜͈͊͛F̵̡̿̆̔u̴͍̩̼͋́͐s̸̜̰͋̿̌ǐ̴̻̤̏̈́o̶̯̊ṅ̴̻́̈́ͅc̸̝̲̏̓̚ͅr̸̪̎ȁ̵͈͊ć̷͎͝k̷̳͔͝ͅ ̴͉͇͗̓b̵͓͐͛ō̶̜̤̔̍m̴̫̱̈́̈́b̵̙̝͆̇s̴͔̜̃̓ ̸̺̼͍̍̌ā̶̩̩̄͐r̸̩̗̎̚͝e̸͔̙̗̓ ̶̳̯̿̓y̵͙͆̔o̵̼͛̅̚u̷̫̦͛̏r̷̯̰̿́ ̶̯̤͇̽̈́r̷̡̫͍͋͘e̸̗̬̋̈́ẅ̸̯́̋̄à̴̝̰r̶̰̲̀d̷̹̳͗.̵͉͗͠.̶̙̐.̶̟͐͜ ̴͔̜͙̇͛Y̸͉̤͠ö̷̠͍́̍u̷͔̫̦̇̚ ̵͔̃̓m̴͈̩̊̎o̶̦̬̔͝n̷̙̦̓̓s̵̫̩̀t̷͚͇͊e̵̦̬̬̅̅r̵̻̋͜.̴̢̖̇̄

It took her a minute to read it, but when she finished, she relaxed, "We've got bombs! See, Sol, it was totally worth it!"

Solomon didn't look pleased, "Don't call me Sol. The interface is completely unreadable now. How are we supposed to choose the rest of the upgrades?"

Gen shrugged, "It's not that hard, you just need to squint just right!"

Solomon pulled out his phone, "You do it then, Frank is texting me up a storm seems like he's in trouble, so we've got to help him ASAP."

Working quickly, Gen started parsing through the corrupted list of abilities. She'd been going about this all wrong! She'd been on the right track when she combined the crown with the UFO, but she'd lost sight of the true meaning of min-maxing! Rather than finding a bunch of useful abilities individually, they should've been trying to find ones that synergized optimally!

With the saddle, they had speed, and with the fusioncrack fleshy, both a means for offense as well as regeneration. Now she just had to reinforce those qualities to make the UFO into an unstoppable menace!

Trying to utilize the speed aspect, she searched the list for anything that sounded like a ramming ability. She didn't find what she was looking for, but did find one called Ramification. With two free ability slots, she was open to experimentation and added it.

After translating the glitched text, she read the new ability.

Ramification: Does anyone really fully comprehend the consequences of their actions? You certainly don't… Amplifies all UFO abilities to have branching shockwaves…

Jackpot! She had no idea how that would affect the clairvoyance room, but she was more than happy to take it for the fusioncrack bombs. With one ability left, she tried to think what would pair well with their setup and settled on defense. Their ability to heal and self-repair was useful, and their speed made dodging easy, but it would all be over in a moment if they got hit by another lucky shot like the Gundam from before!

Thinking through options, she tried to find something defensive, sounding like steel, barrier, or armor, and was struggling to find a good one. Looking at a fusioncrack crystal thrumming with energy next to her, though inspiration struck. Diamonds!

Fate itself seemed to reward her as she located an ability called Diamonds are Forever, and she selected it immediately.

Diamonds are Forever: This UFO just got more fabulous! The interior and crew will gradually become more bedazzled! Bedazzling provides physical defense.

Gen sighed, not exactly what she was hoping for… She was about to find a replacement when Solomon cursed. Looking up, she saw him staring at his phone, "Frank's dead in the water! He's pinned, and I think those artillery mechs you mentioned are about to blow him to hell!"

Solomon mounted himself to the cross saddle and prepared to pilot the ship when Gen yelled, "Stop!"

"We don't have time to play around with upgrades! We've got to move now if we want to save him!"

Gen shook her head, "Save him with what? He's disabled and surrounded, our only weapon is fusioncrack bombs, which I don't think are going to be the type for surgical strikes, so unless we want to blow Frank up ourselves, our only option is to send out the crew, which isn't going to end well!"

Solomon took a breath and held still, "...You're right, but it doesn't sit right with me to just let him die. Maybe if you summon Trank and Daryl, we would be able to make a big enough distraction."

Gen hesitated, but she knew there was no time to second-guess themselves.

"We can't keep reacting to them. They're busy with Frank, so they'll never expect us to go on the offensive at this moment. With the speed of the UFO, we can hit the mech factory before they know what's happening. It won't win the event, but at least it will stop things from getting worse."

Solomon's expression was steely, and Gen tried to ignore the rhinestones spreading across his face like acne as he nodded, and with a jolt, the demonic saddle activated, pulsing the ship with red electricity and shooting them to the center of the event map.

With no time to waste, she shot to the clairvoyance room to see what was going on.

The effect of Ramification was immediately obvious as the three mirrors now had dozens of smaller mirrors covering the walls. She ignored the small ones for now as her eyes locked on the big ones.

One showed their UFO, and another showed the ground level of the mech factory and the unaware protagonists. The mech factory was a soulless metal box with dozens of unmanned mechs lined up around it and new mechs emerging from a conveyor belt every couple of seconds. She had no time to take in the details before she saw dozens of large purple crystals drop from the UFO.

Each one exploded upon contact with the mech factory and shot out arcs of chaotic purple lightning, triggering secondary explosions and even more branches. Same as the fusioncrack special zombies from before, anyone unlucky enough to be hit by a blast of lightning was instantly killed and transformed into a fusioncrack zombie.

What Gen didn't expect was that the resulting fusioncrack zombies were fully bedazzled.

Chaos erupted below as the fusioncracks mindlessly attacked everything around them. Gen's excitement was momentarily high before she noticed a glaring issue. The mech factory was damaged, but still standing.

"Susan blew up my hatchery in one hit! Why is it so armored!"

The bombs were regenerating continuously, but Gen could see that it wasn't going to be a quick victory like she had hoped. Not only that, but the protagonists were rallying as both mechs and foot soldiers rallied against the zombies and opened fire on the UFO.

With superspeed, Solomon dodged many of the attacks, but he couldn't retreat far unless he gave up on destroying the mech factory. Cursing, she flew back to the control room and burnt a receipt name.

Hon appeared looking slightly disoriented.

Before she could even explain, he spoke quickly, "Francine contacted us! I understand the situation. I have five minutes, what do I need to do?"

Solomon was quick on the uptake as he rapidly disengaged from the saddle, "Take the wheel, boy, and bomb the shit out of the factory! Me and the bird have work to do!"

Gen used her wing to high-five Hon at the same time Hon accepted the Watt-A-Waste gloves from Solomon and attached himself to the cross.

The two of them flew and ran respectively to the tractor beam room. Solomon was yelling orders as he went, "This is it, you slackers! Time to earn your room and board!"

The antagonists on standby didn't have a full understanding of what was happening, but they didn't hesitate to rush behind Solomon and enter the tractor beam. The UFO was moving at high speed as Hon used his abilities to further enhance the already insane speed, but luckily, the tractor beam itself negated all momentum as those inside were lowered to the ground.

Gen herself flew clear of the beam and opened the good ol' butt-flap as she started a gnome barrage. She didn't know what the hell the mech factory was made out of, but she knew that it would be a lot less bomb-proof once it was turned to plastic!

Her burnt feathers had regrown, and she was back to full-floofiness by this point and even had a small amount of bedazzling across her feathers, further heightening her defensive ability as she dove headfirst into the barrage of bullets from below and started painting the factory roof with gnome-sparkles.

The assembled mechs took heavy losses as Solomon entered the battlefield and his heatvision raked across them. The second she saw he'd landed on the ground, she swooped by him and burned the receipts for both Daryl and Trank. Her collection of high-level receipts was limited, but they had no choice but to succeed here.

Leaving Solomon to explain the situation to his friends, she started targeting the reinforcing protagonists. There were literally hundreds of them swarming the area like ants, and she felt herself losing feathers left and right as abilities and bullets smashed into her continuously.

Staying low, she used buildings as cover as she plasticfied one protagonist after another before turning a corner and abruptly finding herself face to face with an old friend.

Squawking in surprise, she yelled, "Carlos!"

He had a shotgun and didn't hesitate to shoot her at point-blank range, sending a collection of feathers flying. While tumbling through the air, however, her eyes focused on a woman behind him. She'd never seen her before, but something stood out and made her eyes lock onto the name.

Rosalina!