Nightmare Ascendant

Energy
 Armor
 Evasion
 Move cost
 Missiles
 Rockets
 Kill reward

"*All the ships of PACT are disposable. For the Nightmare alone can rule the galaxy.*"
— Alice
The **Nightmare Ascendant** is an ancient Ryuvian ryder. Also known as the legendary **Myr'lan'dur**, it was the personal ryder of Sharr Myren, who disappeared mysteriously 2400 years ago. In the modern era, the owner of this ryder was Alice. How Alice or the Prototypes managed to acquire it is unclear.

Feared even amongst the Ryuvians of its time, the Nightmare Ascendant, despite only being a ryder, had tremendous firepower and defenses which surpassed that of entire fleets. In ancient times, it was said to have "single-handedly destroyed a Farari fleet a thousand strong".

At the time of Liberation Day, it was by far the most powerful warship in the galaxy, surpassing even the PACT flagship Legion. It was only barely defeated with the combined firepower from nearly all of humanity's warships at that time, including the Sunrider, the Combined Fleet of the Solar Alliance, and the Second Fleet of PACT.

The Nightmare Ascendant serves as the final boss of *Sunrider: Liberation Day'*s penultimate mission, and defeating it wins the mission. It is immune to Liberty's Disable, and other debuffs only have half their usual effect. It also has the highest HP of any ship in the series, surpassing even the Imperium and Legion, both which are massive, heavily armed capital ships that dwarf the Ascendant in size.

In [RE]TURN, depending on the choices the player makes, one of the outcomes regarding the Ascendant will happen:

* The Ascendant is defeated with Chigara's help just like the original timeline, making the Liberation Day massacre inevitable unless Chigara is stopped
* Present day Kayto manages to warn Fontana in time about the Prototype virus infecting his ships so they can defeat the Ascendant without Chigara's help
* The Ascendant manages to destroy the Sunrider while it is unpowered and defenseless, causing Kayto to be ejected into space and die
* Kayto convinces Past Claude to destroy the Ascendant with her powers but the spacetime continuum collapses as a result of this, threatening to end all life in the universe

## Weapons

The Ascendant initially only has one weapon, a (relatively) conventional laser. After Alice's Awakening, it has three: a piercing super laser, multi-rocket, and melee attack.

### Laser

Considerably more powerful than most ships' lasers, but otherwise not particularly remarkable. Almost as if the Nightmare Ascendant has yet to unleash its full power...

* damage: 400 x 1
* energy cost: 60 EN
* base accuracy: 120

### Boss Laser

Awakened Alice's most common attack. Hits all targets in a line (like the Vanguard Cannon), and ignores 50 points of shielding.

* damage: 400 x 1
* energy cost: 60 EN
* base accuracy: 120 (actually unevadable)
* shield ignore: 50

### Boss Rocket

A spread of three AoE rockets, more powerful and flak-resistant than the PACT Destroyer's, and backed by near-bottomless magazines. Will target three hexes; can cause friendly fire damage.

* damage: 600 x 3 (50% to surrounding hexes)
* energy cost: 70
* base accuracy: 999
* enemy flak reduction: 25

### Boss Melee

Alice will use this when next to a player ryder. Not actually as powerful as the Nightmare's melee attack, but still does enough damage to kill almost any other ryder. Push her away with Bianca's gravity gun if needed.

* damage: 800 x 1
* energy cost: 40 EN
* base accuracy: 130