MTA-XXX Pandora Nemesis 

A lone girl drifted, sleeping in the dark sea of chaos. Her body was pale like porcelain, with a delicate beauty as if she might shatter at the slightest touch. And yet, the massive gravestone-like object chained behind her showed that she would not be destroyed. Rather, she was the one destroying and annihilating.

"I hear it today, too. A voice, beckoning me to destroy..."

With a sigh, she slowly opened her eyes. One of her eyes gleamed crimson, colored with the deep darkness of peering into countless hells.

The girl's name was Pandora.

She was once a Mainframe program ordered to manage the terminal worlds of the Metaverse. Her duty was to use VOX, the Mainframe's territory management device, to establish the coordinates of terminal worlds for the Metaverse's expansion, and temporarily manage them until formal administrators were appointed.

However... One day, the world she was in was suddenly swallowed up by the dark sea, and vanished. Even so, Pandora's VOX did not disappear. She was corroded by tar-like darkness and began to function as a new program. The darkness encroaching on her mind and body, called "Nemesis," was filled with hatred and a desire for destruction toward the Mainframe, the world of order that acted as protectors of humankind.

Her code was later defined as "Metaverse Trivial Admin-XXX." Commonly known as "MTA-XXX Pandora Nemesis."

Pandora Nemesis, swallowed up and transformed by Nemesis, felt something she never had felt before, emotions like magma taking root within her.

LAY WASTE TO ALL, BURYING IT IN DARKNESS... DESTROY THE METAVERSE!

...What? That voice...who is it? ...No, what is crying out to me?

Pandora Nemesis didn't know the identity of the resentful voice surging within her. What she did know was that she was powerless to resist that voice now, like human instinct. Moreover, she was a former terminal administrator. Obeying such absolute power was like second nature to her.

Me, destroy the Metaverse? But...how?

Pandora Nemesis looked at her VOX, the only thing she had left. Before its transformation, she had used the VOX only for establishing territory in the far reaches, managing it, and keeping records. Any other uses were restricted from her authority.

The VOX is a Metaverse territory management device—if I can unlock all of its functions, then I can create and destroy worlds within the Metaverse at will... Then, how about this...

With that thought, Pandora Nemesis began to analyze the VOX...but in her mutated state, it would not respond to her.

One day, as Pandora Nemesis was analyzing her VOX like always, a program appeared nearby.

"Oho. A program living in this place of chaos... How fascinating."

The knowledge left within her told her who he was.

He's from the Mainframe... KILL, KILL KILL KILL!

Hatred seethed within her at once, and she tried to tear apart the man before eyes with the key-claws of her left arm, but...

"Rather rude to attack so suddenly, is it not? Hm...? Could it be? Are you...?"

The man had read her data in that brief exchange of blows, and made an expression of astonishment.

"Incredible... Unbelievable! A fusion, corrupted by Nemesis! How wonderful!"

"Who are you?"

"My name is Old Blue... You might call me one who studies the evolution of the world..."

"World...evolution?"

"Indeed. And you are quite close to the form of evolution that I seek. A wonderful research subject...but still not enough."

Old Blue noticed the silent VOX that Pandora Nemesis held, and continued talking with a gleam in his eyes.

"...Would you like to master that VOX? Then allow me to unlock some of its functions."

"Aren't you from the Mainframe? You know I'll use this VOX to bring the world to ruin?"

"Destroy it or don't, it makes no difference to me. All I am interested in is what kind of evolution the life-forms of this world can achieve."

"...What a strange man you are."

And so, Pandora Nemesis succeeded at unlocking some of the VOX's functions.

Old Blue greatly expanded the functions of Pandora Nemesis's VOX. Now, as the VOX's user, she could create worlds and meddle in neighboring territories.

With this power, I might be able to destroy the world.

The voice inside her grew stronger, as if to convince her of that.

DESTROY. ANNIHILATE... DESTROY THIS METAVERSE RULED BY A FALSE GOD!

...Who could that voice be?

The voice seemed to be one, but many. Sometimes, it sounded like an inhuman beastly roar. She tried asking Old Blue about the hateful voice, which seemed to belong to no one in particular.

"Well... They say that here at this outer edge lie the collected remains of programs. It is a different graveyard from the Abyss of Demise ruled by a certain god of death. It wouldn't be unusual for all sorts of programs to drift here, and perhaps it's a glitch resulting from fusing with you... But your hatred for the Metaverse is, perhaps..."

Old Blue shook his head.

"...No, that is merely conjecture. As a researcher, it is not my place to speculate... Besides, regardless of what you fused with, that does not change what you ought to do, does it?"

"I suppose. There is only one thing I must do... Destroy the Metaverse."

Using her upgraded VOX, Pandora Nemesis began invading worlds. When she saw the beautiful old scenery of the Metaverse's far reaches and the programs living peacefully there, she set it ablaze all at once with the flame of hatred inside her.

At first, she thought that if she destroyed those worlds, that flame would gradually die out.

I was wrong... The first world I destroyed became kindling that stoked the flames hotter still. Maybe this hatred cannot be exhausted.

Pandora Nemesis did not resist her inner voice. She accepted her transformation into a puppet of hatred and madness that could not control herself. She corrupted the worlds at the outer edge, the places closest to Nemesis, destroying all according to her desires and claiming each one as her domain.

Overlooking her chaotic domain, crimson eye gleaming on the icy moon of her face, Pandora Nemesis reigned over the depths of the outer edge as an empress of death.

No one lived here but her. When the worlds were corrupted, mutated monsters and transformed programs were created, but none of them possessed an advanced ego like her.

I have no one else... Only this dark VOX and my inner voice of destruction.

Old Blue showed up on occasion, picking up "samples" of programs who had become monsters, but in the end he was just a guest, not someone who truly understood her.

There was a voice of hatred and madness within her. Pandora Nemesis was not lonely...but she was alone.

One day, strange visitors arrived in Pandora Nemesis's kingdom at the outer edge. Normally, all sorts of sensors stopped working in the outer edge. But she was the empress here. Only her VOX could control the area at will.

Pandora Nemesis detected that her visitors were emissaries from the Mainframe, and grew to hate them. Once more, her inner voice set her heart burning.

DESTROY THE MAINFRAME!

"...I know."

She locked down the depths. That would force the Mainframe's emissaries to show themselves to her whether they wanted to or not.

"Come, o detested ones... I will destroy you all."

The visitors were girls of her same generation. As the ruler of this area, their attacks were as feeble to her as the gentle breeze.

But there was something nostalgic to her on that breeze.

"...You and I are the same... Twisted beings..."

Just like her, the girls were programs fused with something else. Furthermore, it would seem the Mainframe had not informed them of that fact.

Ah, we finally meet! Someone who can understand me!

Pandora Nemesis gently murmured, "Like me, your former existences were erased, discarded as the foundation of evolution. Then why do you fight? Why not destroy the Mainframe...together?"

"I was reborn from the erosion of Nemesis. Stolen and rewritten, just like you. Reason distorted, regardless of my own will..."

That was why they would surely understand her and the hatred and sorrow in her heart.

No one but us can understand the pain of your former self being disgraced, trampled over, made as if we never existed.

Pandora Nemesis murmured again, "We are alike, so we should walk together... Come, take my hand. Together, we can destroy the Mainframe and take our revenge on this twisted world."

The Nemesis empress looked fondly on the girls of pure white in front of her, and tried to bestow on them the blessing of darkness.

But the girls' answer betrayed the empress's expectations.

"You are spreading disaster through this world, so we will destroy you... We sisters are the protectors of humankind!"

No... Why? You are hybrids just like me—why do you try to defy your fate?

Pandora Nemesis's voice could not reach them. Seeing the girls trust and support each other, she thought, How foolishly beautiful and radiant... I envy you!

A wave of hatred surged through her. It was not the beckoning of her inner voice, but true hatred that she felt for the first time.

"Fine. Then perish!"

As the ruler of this darkness, Pandora Nemesis decided to grant the girls a merciless death.

"As a former terminal administrator, I don't want to fight you, but my instincts will not permit it."

Indeed, I truly don't want to fight—to kill the same kind of beings as me. But I hate you. We're the same, but you oppose me without trying to understand me... That is why...!

YES... DESTROY THE EMISSARIES OF THE MAINFRAME!

"ALLOW ME TO DESTROY YOUR FALSE LIVES!"

Using her VOX, Pandora Nemesis gathered the energy that made up her domain into herself. She compressed it into an extraordinarily hot sphere of light that would be more than enough to evaporate those girls.

"Alternate Surge! I will purify you!"

However, when she unleashed the sphere of light, the girls were slightly faster.

"Trinity Vertex!"

One of the girls leapt from the smoke in a burst of crimson particles, her body becoming a red-hot mass of compressed energy. Like a shooting star tearing through the night sky, she thrust her blade forward at ultrahigh speed and stabbed through Pandora Nemesis!

The next moment, tremendous energy flowed into her body, and she let loose a cry of anguish.

Gah!? I-It's...too much for me to handle now!

She had accumulated a vast quantity of energy, just barely enough for her processing power to handle, via her Alternate Surge. Then, with the added heat from the girls' attack, it became too much for even a Nemesis empress to control.

Her body was torn apart, plasma-covered particles scattering from the wound.

Unable to withstand her own power, she vanished before she could let out her death throes.

Pandora Nemesis was defeated by the three girls from the Mainframe, and suffered heavy damage.

Most of her body crumbled away into thousands upon thousands of dark particles, flowing into the sea of chaos. Her will remained only in small fragments around the VOX.

Ah... So I've lost. Destroyed by those hybrids—those fakes—who wouldn't acknowledge me... Just a little bit more, and I could have killed those detestable Mainframe emissaries...

Pandora Nemesis's fragments and her VOX sank together into the dark sea of chaos. Likely realizing they could not retrieve the VOX, the Mainframe emissaries had left the outer edge now that the area was no longer locked down. They would probably return to the Mainframe...forget about her, and leave her behind.

I'm all alone in the end...

Then, her consciousness stopped, and her fragments sank deeper and deeper alongside the VOX...

Pandora Nemesis ceased functioning, and before she knew it, she was embraced by the warmth of darkness.

...DESTROY THE MAINFRAME. OVERRUN THE METAVERSE.

A nostalgic voice of hatred came from the darkness, louder still.

Yes. In the end, all I have is this voice.

She should have known that from the beginning. But she was made aware of her own weakness, the loneliness that made her wish for someone other than herself.

BUT YOU WERE REFUSED. YOU WERE DESTROYED BY THOSE HYBRIDS JUST LIKE YOU.

Yes, we were the same, but those girls wouldn't understand me...

YOU ARE ALONE.

I am alone.

YOU HAVE NOWHERE TO BELONG IN THIS WORLD.

I have nowhere to belong in this world.

THEN...

...All I can do is destroy it.

Pandora Nemesis was all alone in this world. But a ruler always stood alone. They were someone who did not need others.

...I'll destroy it all with my own hands!

As her consciousness awoke, her VOX came into contact with something in the depths of the sea of chaos. Then, her body was gradually restored, like putting puzzle pieces together. In the chaotic darkness, there was no way to tell how much time passed. And, as if to grant her wish, a new destructive power flowed into her. Perhaps from the negative waves' influence, the VOX shone again with a dark gleam, its characteristics drastically altered.

Thousands of cycles passed, and the empress of destruction was restored, once again commencing her invasion of the world.

The evolved Pandora Nemesis suddenly rose to the surface of the sea of chaos. A beautiful, glorious world awaited her there. The scenery of order hadn't changed, regardless of how much time passed.

Ah, how precious. My world. ...Wait for me. I'll destroy you myself, right away.

Pandora Nemesis traced her pale, slender fingers over her VOX. As if responding to her caress, the VOX emitted a dark light and trembled slightly.

DESTROY THIS WORLD. END THIS FALSE PROSPERITY!

"...Yes. I know. I'll lead this world to ruin for you."

Her evolved body was formed largely from chaotic darkness. Her destructive inner voice had become her own desire.

Good. Very good. I can feel that my body is satisfied... I am alone. And I am complete on my own.

Pandora Nemesis, the empress of chaos. Her country had no need for the living...only destruction. Now, the world was her plaything. She could play with it whenever and however she wanted, and break it if she grew tired of it. That was what it meant to rule.

"Now... Where shall I put my new VOX to the test? Hehehe... I want to destroy as beautifully as I can."

And so the calamity born from the darkness of hatred was scattered all across the world. A beautiful, evolving, willful calamity, whose end no one knew.

"Pandora" is of course named for the figure from Greek mythology. Pandora was the first woman, said to have opened a jar containing all the world's evils. The jar is commonly referred to as a box instead, so from Pandora's box, we get Pandora's VOX!

The voice in Pandora's head speaks entirely in katakana, giving it an inhuman, unnatural feel. I tried to format the English text accordingly.

Old Blue makes a brief reference to the Abyss of Death managed by Cicatrice!