Hera Goddess

The **Hera Goddess** is an ultimate Mech Armour that first appears in Stage 88 of Stage Mode, under the Aquarius Guardian Meier. In Endless Mode, it is only encountered at level 90 bosses and above.

## Appearance

### Pre-battle

2 magnetic suspension cores will appear out of nowhere, spin around and stop side-by-side. They will then move further left and right, where a "wing" will materialize from each one. A dark shape appears between them, and the body of the ship appears. This little animation is cut out from Endless Mode.

### First Form

The whole ship is designed like a humanoid/godly entity, colored green with blue and yellow highlights. It has 2 wings which float beside it via magnetic suspension cores, which are also capable of summoning attacks. The pronged nose of the ship acts as a suspended railgun.

### Second Form

When its blue health bar is depleted, the Hera Goddess' wings will attach to its body, and 2 arms will appear out of its maglev cores, which will float by its side. A faceplate slides open in its fuselage, revealing a yellow mask with red eyes.

## Attacks (as scary as it already sounds, there are more)

### First Form

1) It can fire a spread of bullet streams from its fuselage while using its powercore to fire any of the following attacks:

* A six-pronged star of bullets
* The Native Evolutional Species' double star attack.
* The Phantom's bomb discharge
* The Golden First Light's spiral bullet attack

2) It will fire a row of red and dark orbs from its powercores which slowly move away from each other, the red orbs moving to the right and the dark orbs moving to the left, similar to the Lancet Thunder.

3) It will use its suspended railgun to charge a ball of red energy and fire 5 red OHKO lasers in rapid succession. This attack is usually used after the second one.

4) It can fire a spiral of bullets from either, or both, of its powercores.

5) Small bullets will start spinning around one or both of its powercores, which slowly swell after a few rounds and are spirally released at the player.

6) The Goddess will fire a loose stream of red orbs from both of its powercores, while firing a few quadrilaterals of bullets from its fuselage marked at the player's current location.

### Second Form

1) The Hera Goddess can use any of its First-Form attacks. However, these attacks now hit much harder. There is also a new combination added to this, which is the Lancet Flame's double-orb spiral attack.

2) The Hera Goddess can move its arm along the length of the screen, materializing yellow cholera bullets as it goes.

3) The Hera Goddess can use the Native Evolutional Species' double-reuleaux triangle attack from its suspended railgun, just that the bullet formations are more quadrilateral in shape and there are more waves and more formations involved every time it uses this attack. This attack may be used in conjunction with any other attack.

4) The Hera Goddess will send its hands into space, while the shadow of a hand will suddenly appear behind your ship, just before clamping down and instantly killing your ship if you are unable to dodge it, doing this twice.

5) The Hera Goddess' OHKO Laser has turned into a beam, and the charging ball has been removed as well, leaving much less warning for the player.

6) The Hera Goddess' double orb line attack has now 3 lines, one from each powercore and one from the suspended railgun.

## Strategy

If you meet this boss in endless mode, you should curse your luck. Consider yourself lucky if the one you meet is at level 90. This boss' attacks do top-of-the-line damage, and are, more often than not, combined with one another. This means that the chance of dodging this ship's attacks are reduced over time, if one allows it to throw more attacks into the fray.

With a recent buff, this boss has been given a very annoying buff, in exchange for a great weakness. Previously, the ship's hitbox was confined to the main ship, attacking it maglev cores or hands have no effect, hence only attacking the main ship will do any real damage. However, this buff has further reduced the hitbox to the helmet, or would-be head, of this Mech Armour, making it extremely difficult to deal damage to and renders ships like the Glory Series, Blade Series and even the Night Vanguard to a certain extent, near useless. One is recommended to bring along the EMP Cannons or its God of War, as its curved shots can negate the small hitbox of this boss, or the Laser Series which will eliminate the problem.

However, in exchange for this tiny hitbox, the Hera Goddess takes more than 7 times the amount of damage from the peacemaker than Ruler X, making the Peacemaker a valuable asset when fighting this Goddess.

Another noteworthy point is that its OHKO laser/beam takes almost NO TIME to charge. To make matters worse, it is fired rapidly AND usually fired after other attacks which take a long time to dissipate. There is still some warning that the Goddess is about to fire its laser during the First Phase of battle, but the charge ball has been eliminated in the Second Phase, Leaving the player very vulnerable to the moment when the Goddess takes aim and destroys you without warning.

To make matters worse, its sudden hand attack not only appears out of nowhere, but also positions itself conveniently behind your ship, which itself would be blocked but the fat fingers of the player (no offense), leaving him completely OBLIVIOUS to the threat, but also pauses briefly to savor the moment when it wraps its fingers around your frail and brittle ship and crushes the life out of it and the pilot. Sadistic, indeed. Oh, and if you happen to dodge the first hand, it always has another to rain on your short-lived victory.

Needless to say, the Hera Goddess, with its combination of attacks from previous bosses, coupled with its own overpowered and broken attacks, AND a ridiculously small hitbox make this boss hellishly difficult, and if you want to overcome it, you need to be unbelievably skilled, come with a good loadout, keep your mind calm and sharp and pray that the Gods shine on you. Which they will, given the nature of this battle, but probably not in a good light.

Good Luck!

(Authors Note: Or, you could always exploit its one unconfirmed weakness and blast it repeatedly with Peacemakers until it explodes in an inferno of flames, assuming you can survive this hellspawn)