"Let's go, Zero Two."
Before the unit under maintenance could even deploy, Hansen had already taken the young girl's hand. "After practicing for so long, the moment for real combat has finally arrived."
"I've been looking forward to this day for a long time," Zero Two said, a dangerous, eager smile appearing on her beautiful face as her snowy-white fangs glinted coldly. "Darling~~"
Not far away, a massive mecha with only an upper body and a hideous appearance stood silently; it looked both clunky and ridiculous.
"The initial form is a bit ugly, but fortunately, it won't stay this way forever."
Hansen curled his lip and complained dismissively; the mecha aesthetics of this world were truly baffling.
"W-Wait! That's 'strelizia'! Final adjustments haven't been made yet!!" Dr. Franxx shouted, drenched in cold sweat.
No one responded to his anxiety. In the next second, his voice was drowned out by the roar of the engines.
No tedious activation ceremony was needed. As the two of them levitated into the air, the cockpit of the strelizia opened instantly, as if welcoming its long-lost masters.
Zero Two clearly didn't care what the mecha looked like. She licked her lips excitedly and pulled Hansen as they leaped into the cockpit.
"Darling, here we go~"
The hatch closed.
The narrow cockpit was filled with the scent of biological fluids.
"This posture... that old pervert Franxx definitely did this on purpose."
Looking at the control console in front of him, which required leaning forward like riding a motorcycle, and the bizarre position where the Pistil had to lie prone while the Stamen controlled from behind, Hansen's lip twitched.
However, when in Rome, do as the Romans do.
"Is this where Darling drives from?"
Zero Two didn't mind at all. She took off her cloak, her graceful body tightly wrapped in a form-fitting combat suit as she nimbly lay prone in the pilot's seat.
She turned back and winked charmingly at Hansen. "Darling, please drive me well! It's okay even if you break me..."
"Cut the crap."
In front of Hansen, the red combat suit on the girl's body, constructed from divine power, automatically extended and instantly interfaced with the unit's nervous system.
Normally, a Stamen needs to connect through a Pistil to control the unit.
In the original work, Zero Two was known as the "Partner Killer" because her mental strength would frantically devour the Stamen's life force, causing severe erosion.
But this time, the situation was reversed.
The moment Hansen's palms pressed onto the control levers, a vast, sea-like surge of energy violently poured into Zero Two's body through the connection circuits!
Zzzzt—!!!
At that moment, all the instrument panels in the cockpit redlined. Red warning lights flashed frantically before finally exploding.
"Aaaaaah—!!!"
Zero Two threw her head back and let out a high-pitched scream.
It wasn't pain, but pleasure.
It was an infusion of immense energy, enough to wash one's soul blank!
Her consciousness instantly merged with Hansen's. That feeling was like a drop of water merging into a boundless ocean, being enveloped and filled from all directions until reaching sublimation.
Outside.
strelizia, in its Iron Maiden Form, suddenly stopped moving.
Then.
Crack— Crack—
The thick outer armor began to shatter. Instead of revealing an internal skeleton, it gushed with a platinum radiance so blinding that it was impossible to look at directly!
"W-What kind of reaction is this?!"
Having rushed to the monitoring room, Dr. Franxx was so excited his prosthetic eye almost popped out as he looked at the energy readings on the screen that were simply off the charts.
"This color... this frequency... This is the ultimate! This is the perfect life form!!"
In the center of the battlefield.
The light dissipated.
The originally ridiculous mechanical doll had vanished, replaced by a combat weapon with a complete platinum color scheme, looking like a deity descending upon the world.
It possessed feminine yet powerful lines. The original human-like face mask was replaced by an ice-cold queen's face, and the single horn on its head had transformed into a burning platinum crown.
Behind the unit, three pairs of wings of light composed of pure energy suddenly unfurled!
The massive wingspan exceeded three hundred meters. With a gentle flap, it whipped up a visible energy storm.
"This is... strelizia?"
Hiro looked up at the beautiful unit suspended in the air. His heart pounded violently, and a certain instinctual longing made him almost suffocate.
It was too beautiful!
In comparison, the roaring hundred-meter Klaxosaur seemed incredibly hideous.
Inside the cockpit.
Zero Two's eyes had turned completely into a brilliant platinum. With a feverish flush on her face, she felt excitedly that she was omnipotent.
"Darling... I want to... tear it apart."
"Granted."
Hansen's voice echoed through the mental link like a divine decree.
Zheng—!
The giant spear in strelizia's hand shook violently. The originally solid spear tip drew a hundred-meter-long blade of scorching magma light, mixed with crackling, intimidating bolts of lightning.
With just a single starting thrust, strelizia's figure pulled a platinum afterimage through the air, piercing through the battlefield in an instant.
Puchi—!
Time seemed to stand still.
The large Klaxosaur, which had been flaunting its power, froze in place with stiff movements.
In the next second, a hole as smooth as a mirror appeared in the center of its dark blue torso.
The hole rapidly expanded. Magma, carapace, core... everything was decomposed, annihilated, and turned into nothingness under the erosion of that overbearing divine power.
Boom—!!!
Only then did the massive sound of the explosion finally arrive.
Several mountain peaks behind the Klaxosaur were instantly vaporized as if erased by an eraser, leaving a charred canyon dozens of kilometers long on the earth.
One strike, land-sinking!
[Ding! Detectable target 'Klaxosaur: Gutenberg-class' identified.]
[Ability: 'Magma Energy Manipulation (SSR)': Capable of sensing, extracting, and manipulating the magma thermal energy within a planet, converting it into high-destruction energy beams or shields; capable of altering terrain through thermal control and even creating miniature volcanic eruptions.]
[Ability: 'Biological Armor Proliferation (SSR)': Cells possess extremely strong adaptive evolutionary capabilities; after being attacked, they can instantly generate targeted high-density biological chitin armor. This armor features self-repair, energy absorption, and reflection properties, and can proliferate and reshape infinitely according to the host's will.]
Inside the cockpit, Hansen felt the tremors in the girl's delicate body that had yet to subside, and the corners of his mouth curled up slightly.
Outside, the dust settled.
The children of Squad 13 stood at the hangar entrance, staring blankly at the platinum unit standing before the Klaxosaur's corpse.
The helmet in Ichigo's hand fell to the ground with a crisp clang.
She looked at that beautiful yet terrifying mecha, a strong sense of powerlessness rising in her heart.
That was the most instinctual awe and despair felt when a mortal gazes upon a god.
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