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Within the cybernetic space of the Mechanical Tree's Online Network, Zero One and Zero Two were having a battle all of their own, as giant walls made of flames spread out across the cybernetic space, made of neon blue and green colors and with countless endlessly glitching numbers and letters in the clear blue background, which darkened in color the more they looked into the sky.
"The firewalls are growing increasingly tougher!" Complained Zero Two. "Is this even possible, sister?! This security is on another whole level compared to my own Mechanical Tree!"
"We have to!" Said Zero One. "We can't give up, sister!"
Their avatars rushed across the cybernetic space; Zero One summoned a giant cannon from her arms, firing massive beams of blue light that began to freeze the massive walls made of flames, slowly making them blue until they shattered into pieces of glass and disappeared.
Meanwhile, Zero Two summoned dozens of black swords rotating around her body, which she fired continuously to pierce and slash through the walls made of flames, cutting them apart as she came into contact with them, forcefully destroying them.
Their approaches were vastly different from each other; Zero One used her beams to directly inject her programs into the firewalls, making them become frozen and then disappear, becoming wasted data.
Meanwhile, Zero Two forcefully deleted the firewall using her swords, which might be slightly faster, but it also took more of her strength and electromagnetic energy to do.
Eventually, the two pierced through dozens of the same walls, reaching a larger space within the cyber network of the Mechanical Tree.
It seemed like a huge white temple, which seemed to be where the main frame of this Mechanical Tree had been protected.
"It's here," said Zero One. "She's inside of that temple! Let's go!"
"W-Wait! Zero One!"
Zero Two detected something, her senses being naturally sharper than her sister's. As she was built to be a fighter, she ran towards Zero One, grabbing her and pushing her back before a huge slicing wave were to almost cut her sister's avatar.
SLAAASH!
The wave almost passed through them, mixing barely by a few pixels! It ended up hitting the walls behind them, destroying them to reveal corrupted data behind, oozing out like glitching black miasma.
"W-Where did that come from?!" Zero One gasped, looking in the direction of the attack.
"There!" Zero Two pointed into the distance, right above the white temple.
There was a humanoid program, very similar to their own appearances, with slender, feminine bodies, short silvery-white hair, sharp red eyes, and pitch-black skin color, which looked synthetic and made of silicon rather than the fleshier skin the two had.
She had a pair of horns made of white steel growing from her forehead and a long, pointy tail coming from her back, making her look like a little demon.
But above all, she was holding two weapons, a pair of black and white katanas, overflowing with digital energy within them.
If their digital avatars were to get struck by that, Zero One and Zero Two would have to forcefully pull out and risk having their internal data being damaged or corrupted.
"So you've come, my sisters," she said with a bored tone of voice. "Nice to meet you. I am 0-3-B. A digital clone of my sister, the one given a physical form. 0-3-A."
"T-They were twins this entire time?!" asked Zero Two, utterly shocked.
"I can tell why she's so strong now; their minds are interlinked!" said Zero One. "By sharing their minds like this, they have double the processing power. Is this why Zero Three was so quick to adapt and so merciless as well? It was on a whole different level than you…"
"Ouch! Hey, I am not packed with cheats like that!" said Zero Two. "But I believe I'm fairly strong myself—"
"I'll eliminate you with these two Digital Katanas," said Zero Three B. "The Black Katana is imbued with the Power of Corrupting Data. The White Katana is imbued with the power to Destroy Data. I wonder what you'll be hit with first."
She even went as far as telling them how her weapons worked, clearly showing how confident she was in her victory!
However, Zero One and Zero Two didn't gave up either, summoning their own weapons, manifestations of their own desires and digital data.
Zero One manifested a golden great sword, imitating Anna's own sword. Thanks to her special abilities and skills, she was able to imitate other techniques easily.
Anna's swordsmanship was the strongest she knew so far, so this was her choice.
Meanwhile, Zero Two summoned more of her disposable, projectile swords while glaring at her sister with eyes full of doubt.
"Are you truly doing this because you want to, sister? Are you not being forced?"
"Forced? Hardly. I was made to protect my home. And I will make sure to destroy you, even if that's the last thing I do."
FLASH!
Within a split second, Zero Three B compressed her own data and moved at lightning speed, transferring herself in front of her two sisters.
She swung her two katanas, aiming to cleave the two of them into halves and stop this from ever continuing.
Although Zero One and Zero Two were quick, they were unable to react in time!
Yet!
"Ugh…!"
Zero Three B suddenly felt a sharp pain in her entire program and data banks; groaning in pain, she ended up tripping and failing to cleave her foes into two halves.
"W-What was that?!"
She glared into the distance, the skies of this digital space; her sister, Zero Three A, had been hit so hard that she even disrupted the mind of her twin!
"It must've been Anna!" said Zero One. "Nice, so that's how we have to do this!"
"Hurt her! And Anna will hurt her twin!" said Zero Two. "We have to overwhelm them both; any hit we can deal will help Anna and vice versa!"
"Ugh, don't you think you can get near me!" Zero Three B roared, swinging her katanas and releasing several waves of Corrupting and Deleting Energies.
SLAAASH! SLAAASH!
The two sisters jumped around, loading their avatars with more data and energy to move faster while also learning to compress their own data to move quicker from one place to another.
Eventually, both of them reached her from the left and right; the virtual android had to choose between hitting one or the other!
"Don't… underestimate me!"
However, she did the total opposite of what they thought, spreading her arms and spinning, unleashing a tornado of slashing attacks!
FLUOSH!
SLAAASH!
Zero Two desperately placed her swords in front of her, resisting the endlessly cutting waves throwing her away, while Zero One swung her golden sword, imitating Anna's techniques.
"{Thousand Blades}: {Sunlit Arc}!"
SLAAASH!
She spun in midair, destroying her sister's barrage of blows and intercepting her two katanas.
CRASH!
At the same time, Zero Two rushed down, summoning more blades and firing them at Zero Three B's back at lightning speed, so sharp they cut through the volatile data within the "air".
"Hmph!"
Zero Three B wasn't dilly-dallying, though, quickly swinging her katana against Zero One several times in a row while intercepting Zero Two with her other hand and katana.
CLASH! CLASH! CLASH! CLASH!
In this digital world, the limits of how a body moved were nonexistent; moving around her arm anywhere she wanted within her avatar was more than easy for Zero Three B.
And in fact, she could do even more than that!
"You still don't get it, do you?" She sighed, disappointed in her big sisters. "This is my domain."
RUMBLE!
Suddenly, gigantic hands surged from above the skies, as Zero One noticed Zero Three B's avatar hands disappearing.
The hands rushed down, attempting to crush the two android sisters, while their younger sister smiled, growing a second pair of arms and using her katanas to push them within the range of her giant palms.
"Any fighting method you have will simply not work," she said. "In this digital world, I am the only one that has access to all the surrounding data! I am literally invincible. I was made to protect my Mechanical Tree, and I will simply not let you corrupt her with your ideologies of free will."
"I was made to do this by the one that created even the Mechanical Trees!" said Zero One. "Do you truly believe I'll give up?!"
BAAAM!
Zero One evaded the palm attacks as they descended and then intercepted the katanas with more of Anna's swordsmanship, Zero One combining them together into a series of sword dances that constantly pushed her sister back more and more!
SLASH! SLASH! SLASH! SLASH!
As their swords clashed against one another and a storm of sword attacks engulfed their surroundings, Zero Two rushed inside their attacking range, using her projectile swords to distract and provoke a mishap from Zero Three B as much as possible.
However, Zero Three B pushed herself even further, constantly evading, destroying, or parrying the flying swords while also taking care of Zero One's constant barrage of swordsmanship attacks that continued to evolve and become stronger and faster.
Eventually, all of this…
Over time, even if she was so strong…
Would cause a mishap to occur.
"It's useless, you—Ah!"
SLASH!
A wave of slashing corrupting data ended up failing to hit Zero One's body, being sent flying elsewhere. The force of this data attack was so strong and heavy her avatar body was forced to fall forwards based on her attack's trajectory, giving the sisters a chance.
It was now or never!
"Now!"
Zero One screamed loudly as Zero Two rushed down, summoning a large black sword as both girls hit Zero Three B with everything they had.
CRAAASH!
Her katanas were unable to defend her, as one of them, the one that created Corrupted Data, shattered into pieces, followed by her second being sent flying away!
"No! My swords…!"
Zero Three B desperately screamed, trying to recover her blades, only to be punched and kicked by Zero Two, while Zero One unleashed several swordsmanship techniques against her.
While sustaining constant damage, unlike her sisters, she wasn't dying, as her data constantly regenerated by absorbing the surrounding digital space data itself.
"No matter how much you attack me, it doesn't matter…!" she said. "I'll defeat you, even as many times as you try to destroy my data!"
Zero Three B suddenly started growing larger and larger, becoming a giant made of black light, swinging her giant arms against Zero One and Zero Two!
BAAM! BAAM! BAAM! BAAM!
"T-This is getting ridiculous!" Zero Two cried, evading the giant palms.
"I know, but we have to bear with it!" Zero One said. "We'll find a way…!"
Within her, the spark of her own heart began glowing brightly, slowly beginning to encompass her entire being with a golden digital aura…
FLASH!
.
.
.
"This is merely an imitation, but let me show you my true power… I somewhat feel stronger now, thanks to our new contract."
"{Ra's Sunlight Mirror}"
As Sepa and Zero Three clashed, while Sepa was slowly being pushed back, suddenly, a giant red beam of pure sunlight reached the giant mech's chest!
The beam came from nobody else than Bastet, who manifested an imitation of her father's mirror, unleashing its radiant punishment.
BOOOMMM!!!
The powerful beam pierced through Zero Three's mech, first destroying its defensive layers of Immortal Ki, and then piercing through the thick armor, leaving a large hole behind.
"Aagh…!"
Zero Three groaned in annoyance as the huge mech was pushed back so much it ended up hitting the walls behind, destroying several metallic wires and cables that connected to the Mechanical Tree.
"M-My beautiful… machine, it has a hole now?"
She was gasping in disbelief as she watched her mech with a huge hole, feeling shocked beyond belief. Despite that, her voice remained mostly the same, as if her reaction was almost fake.
However, that was how she was mostly, Zero Three, from what I had analyzed, acting emotionlessly, and this was also reflected in her voice.
Yet she wasn't like machines that acted cold and emotionless by default; no, she was an android with the power to gain emotions as well.
This meant that the more she suppressed her emotions, the more they would be "saved up" until her mind collapsed, and she went mad.
"And I'll riddle it with more, so stand right there!"
As I spoke, I reached her within a split second, jumping towards her direction, my Myriad Self Arts activating as my Aura transformed.
Demonic Cursed Seals combined their energies with Essence of Hope and then with the power of the Golden Dragon's Martial Arts.
Everything melted together and fused within my Aura, and then…
"{Myriad Self Arts}: {One Thousand Unholy Lances}"
Hundreds of lances made out of my own Aura emerged, hitting the mech from every single angle, slowly beginning to grind through its hard armor bit by bit!
CLASH! CLASH! CLASH! CLASH!
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