Ch 7: Return From the Different Dimension

Though it took far longer than expected, Sync and his little rescue team eventually managed to set out on their mission with a fancy, new airship in tow.

True to her words, Blanc had managed to procure a small yet highly advanced transport for the team to use. Though the vessel resembled a basic blimp on the outside (as all Lowee airships tended to do), it was actually a veritable flying fortress with its 360 degree turret coverage, armored hull, plasma shield array, and state-of-the-art navigation and targeting system. To top it all off, the whole thing was propelled by a series of Halberd-class jet-engines; capable of propelling the airship to near Mach speed at full capacity.

In short, it was clear that Blanc had spared no expenses in getting the best airship possible for her sisters.

Speaking of whom, the twins were currently standing next to Sync on the airship's bridge as they practically buzzed with excitement. The two of them had changed into their usual blue and pink winter outfits for the mission and were eagerly looking forward to 'kick some fan butt' (as Ram had so eloquently put it). Also accompanying them were C-Sha - who was wearing her seemingly never-changing blue attire - as well as four goggle-wearing Hunters in matching red samurai armor. Despite their rather generic looking appearances, they were apparently some of the best Hunters in Lowee and had been hand-picked by C-Sha to act as emergency bodyguards for the twins.

As for Vert, she was busy being unconscious in the ship's cargo hold where Blanc had dumped her prior to leaving.

With (almost) everyone prepared for the mission at hand, Sync had immediately set about to locking onto Lastation's coordinates as their ship took to the skies. After charging up his energy for a few minutes, he instantly warped away the airship and its crew in a flash of green light towards Lastation.

...or at least, that had been the plan.

"Um... Big bro? I don't think we're in Gamindustri anymore."

"Hm? What makes you say that Rom?"

"Um... it's just that... I don't remember Lastation looking so... uh... live-action-y before."

Sync did not immediately reply as he followed Rom's gaze and looked down at the strangely realistic city below them.

"Huh. That's weird," he eventually commented. "I'm pretty sure I locked onto the right coordinate points before warping us here. Maybe K-Sha just decided to remodel the whole place while we were away?"

Before anyone could answer, a nearby office building suddenly blew up with a gigantic fiery explosion. With rather impeccable timing, a random woman suddenly began to scream in a rather over-the-top manner as the local populace of non-animated civilians immediately began to evacuate the area. Amidst the flames, debris, and running people, C-Sha managed to spot a rather conspicuous figure laughing maniacally far below them.

"What in the-? Is that some kind of monster?"

One of the Hunters took a moment to take a better look at the obvious villain before making an extremely confused face. "Er... It looks more like someone wearing a giant rubber turkey costume than a monster."

After confirming this with their own eyes, everyone simultaneously turned to face Sync for an answer.

"Um... Maybe it's just one of Noire's fans from the Lowee convention?" Sync said with a half-hearted shrug. "I'm sure there were plenty of weird cosplayers there and..."

His words died out however when four figures in full-body power suits suddenly leaped out from the evacuating crowd to confront the bizarre turkey/man/monster thing. While the newcomers were all wearing helmets to hide their real identities, the all-too familiar color palette of purple, black, white, and green on their costumes made it rather easy for Sync and the gang to guess who they really were.

"Nepu Rangers, assemble!"

With that group shout, the four costumed heroes began to do battle with the turkey villain in a series of highly-choreographed stunts. As the epic fight got under way, a rather catchy theme song began to play from seemingly out of nowhere.

Go, go Nepu Rangers!
Go, go Nepu Rangers!
Mighty Morphin Nepu Rangers!

As this scene of complete and utter WTF-ery played out before them, the airship crew once again turned to face Sync with confused looks.

"Okay... I admit there's a slight possibility that I might have accidentally brought us into another dimension," Sync said. There was a brief pause as the entire group turned to watch the turkey villain throw what seemed to be cranberry sauce grenades at the Nepu Rangers. "...Either that or we somehow ended up in one of Neptune's fever dreams. Look... um... just give me a few minutes to try and fix this. I'm sure we can't be too far off from the Megadimension... I hope."

With that, Sync quickly left the main bridge to find a less crowded area to work in. As for everyone else, they simply remained silent for a few more seconds before finally giving a collective shrug. With nothing else to do, the dimensionally-misplaced group sat back and enjoyed the corny yet highly entertaining battle playing out before them. Ram and Rom clearly enjoyed the show the most though as they cheered loudly for the White Ranger the whole time.

On that day, humanity received a grim reminder. We lived in fear of... the Dogoo Men.

"Did a Colossal Dogoo Man just kick down the wall surrounding that retro-looking Lastation?" Sync asked, deciding to ignore the bizarre narration that had just occurred.

"Uh huh," C-Sha answered distractedly, keeping her eyes on the chaos taking place outside.

"And is that a horde of other large Dogoo Men swarming into the city through the newly-made hole?"

"Yup."

"And now they're going around the city eating people like Neptune at an all-you-can-eat pudding buffet."

"Seems like it."

"... ... ..."

"... ... ..."

"...I'll get back to work then. Hopefully I can get us to the proper Lastation this time."

"You go do that."

"Get in the fucking robot Uni!"

"I don't want to! I... I'm too scared to do it!"

"Oh, oh, oh! Can I pilot the robot instead, Noire?! I love giant robots!"

"NO! HOW MANY TIMES DO I HAVE TO TELL YOU, NEPGEAR?! STAY AWAY FROM OUR EVAS!"

"Um... What exactly are we listening in to?"

The Hunter in charge of the ship's long-range radio scanner just gave a shrug in response to Sync's question.

"I don't know but that giant monster wrecking Lastation looks totally awesome!" Ram interjected cheerfully. "Hey, Rom! Why don't we go outside to fight that thing? Maybe we can even steal... er, I mean borrow, that giant robot they're talking about over the radio!"

"Um... I don't think that's a very good idea Ram..."

Sync wordlessly walked out of the room again as he left C-Sha and the Hunters to keep the twins in check.

"You were expecting Nepgear, but it was me, Nepugia!"

"Even Noire is afraid!"

"ORA ORA ORA ORA ORA ORA!"

"ZA WARUDO! MUDA MUDA MUDA MUDA MUDA MUDA!"

"You know," Sync said to no one in particular as the steamroller that Nepugia had seemingly pulled out of nowhere and started punching exploded, "I get the strange feeling that Ms. Neptune would have loved this dimension."

Another flying steamroller narrowly missed the airship as he finished saying that.

"I promised Peashy that I would bring you back Blanc! Come back to the village with me!"

"You could never understand me! I need to get vegeance on Rei for killing my entire fandom!"

"Blaaaaanc!"

"Veeeeeert!"

"Um... hey, Ninja Sis?" Sync called out, amplifying his voice with the ship's external speaker system. "Could you please take your highly explosive wizard battle a little further away from us? I'm trying to pinpoint our spatial location and I can't do that if we have to keep moving around to dodge your fireballs and shadow clones."

The orange-clad Vert looked up at the ship in annoyance as she created a swirling blue ball of energy in her hand. "I thought I told you people to stop interrupting our season finale! And for the last time, stop calling me sis!"

Sync could not help but give a small smile at this. "Well, I'm glad to know some things never change."

His amusement was short lived, however, as he spotted Ninja Blanc filling her own hand with a large amount of blue electricity a little distance away. Deciding that it would be a smart idea to leave before the two 'ninjas' used their ultimate attacks on each other, he began to gather up his own energy.

"Okay, looks like I'll have to make an emergency warp then. Hopefully we'll end up someplace with some friendlier locals this time..."

"They're not friendly! Definitely not friendly!"

Sync's yells were lost in the cacophony of extreme violence taking place outside as the Hunter piloting the airship tried his best to lose the Nazi vampires chasing after them.

"Activate our auto-turrets!" C-Sha quickly ordered, making sure to firmly keep both hands over Ram and Rom's eyes (a rather difficult task considering Ram's continuous attempts to take a peek at the bloodbath outside).

In an instant, all of the vampires that had been using the nearby rooftops to chase after them were brutally mowed down by the turret fire as they exploded into a shower of excessive blood and gore. However, the airship crew barely had a chance to celebrate as an even larger horde of blood-thirsty vampires appeared on the rooftops to replace their fallen comrades. Seeing this, one of the Hunters could not help but scream out in abject terror.

"I don't care where we end up, just get us the hell out of here!"

Sync was only more than happy to comply.

"Share Prism Powers Activate!"

As Magical Blancella finished her lengthy transformation sequence, Sync could not help but let out a low whistle.

"Dang. Blanc looks amazing in that short frilly skirt."

The four male Hunters all nodded their heads in agreement as they too kept their eyes glued onto Blanc's revealing outfit. Their staring came to an abrupt end however when a blast of freezing cold ice magic hit them all on the head.

"Stop staring at big sis like that you pervs!" Ram shouted out, glaring daggers at the sheepish-looking male group.

After brushing off the layer of frost on the back of his head, Sync gave the younger twin an embarrassed smile. "Eh heh heh... Sorry about that. But to be fair, what guy wouldn't stare in a situation like that?"

"T...Those naked boys who are always k...kissing each other in Miss Vert's books probably wouldn't," Rom pointed out while reddening slightly.

All of the older people in the room were suddenly wracked by a violent fit of embarrassed coughing at this.

"What in the world has Vert been showing to these kids?" C-Sha commented disapprovingly after finally recovering.

"Note to self," Sync muttered seriously, "Never let sis plan any actual arranged marriages."

All the way back in the ship's cargo hold, Vert unconsciously let out a disappointed groan in her sleep.

Multiple dimensional jumps later, the airship crew found themselves flying over an unfamiliar yet relatively futuristic-looking city. Relatively because most places would have looked retro compared to the techno-haven that was Gamindustri. Regardless, the skyscraper-filled city looked safe enough - aside from the presence of a strange floating rock/island/city thing hovering over the sky a little distance away - so the group decided to take a brief break and discuss their current situation.

"Okay, not counting that empty void where we we all stopped to rest, I'm pretty sure this makes it the eighty-seventh alternate dimension we've ended up in so far."

"Eighty-sixth," one of the Hunters corrected C-Sha. "We revisited that dimension with the demon king part-timer to get some burgers for lunch."

"Oh yeah. That guy was pretty nice. It's too bad he's not getting another season for his show."

There was a brief silence broken only by the sound of Ram munching on a bag of potato chips.

"Heh heh. Sorry again for the trouble everyone," Sync apologized for what seemed to be the hundredth time that day (at least it felt like a day; it was kind of hard to tell with all the sporadic dimension hopping). "I'm guessing I'm just messing up some minor yet crucial detail while trying to lock onto our Lastation's spatial coordinates. In hindsight, Ms. Neptune and I probably should have finished going over dimensional travel theory instead of visiting that pudding parlor."

"Meh. I don't really mind," Ram dismissed cheerfully as she finished her snack. "I think this is actually really fun. Most of these different dimensions are really cool and the food is pretty good too. Speaking of which, do you have any more of these potato chips?"

Sync immediately pulled out another bag from his inventory and handed it over to her with a playful bow. "Is there anything else you need milady?"

"Nah, I'm good." Ram opened up what was now her fourth bag before turning to face her sister. "What about you Rom? Do you want any this time?"

Rom just shook her head. "I'm still full from all those cheeseburgers we had."

"By the way, where exactly did you even get all of these potato chips from?" one of the Hunters asked as he too munched on a bag of chips.

Sync gave a small smile as he decided to take one out for himself as well. "I snatched them from the Nepgear with the creepy black notebook a few dimensions back. She had quite the stockpile in her home so I figured she wouldn't mind if I teleported a few of them with us."

"Ahem," C-Sha suddenly interrupted. "I hate to be the one to get all serious here but we do need to figure out how to get back to our own dimension soon. Hopefully we still have enough time to rescue Noire and stop all of her fans."

Sync casually waved aside the concern as he finished munching on his own handful of chips. "I'm ninety-nine point three percent sure that all of the different dimensions we've visited so far have different time rates from our home dimension."

"Er... why ninety-nine point three?" C-Sha asked.

Sync gave another shrug. "Dimensional time estimates have a weird margin of error."

"Okay..."

"Anyways, the point is that we've practically got all the time in the world to get back home." Sync suddenly paused as he seemed to think about this for a few seconds. "Actually no. We probably have forty-three thousand years, eight months, three days, twenty-eight minutes, and sixteen seconds to get back before a full day passes in the Megadimension. Of course, that's only considering the average time discrepancy throughout all of the dimensions we've gone through so-"

"AHHHH! Stop saying all those numbers!" Ram cried out angrily. "I hate math! Math is stupid!"

Sync stopped his overly-technical monologue as he faced the younger twin with a smile. "Sorry. I tend to get carried away when it comes to calculating things. I might not be the strongest CPU Candidate around but I'm pretty sure I can calculate things better than anyone else. Well, except for maybe Nepgear. I'm pretty sure she can out-math me when it comes to one of her little 'experiments'."

Rom seemed to take particular interest in this as she faced him with a quizzical look. "Um... just how strong are you big bro? I mean, battle stats-wise. I don't think I've ever seen you fight before."

Ram immediately perked up at this as well. "Oh hey, she's right! We never did get to see you in action! Just what kind of special attacks do you have? Because it'd be embarrassing for me to have a personal servant who only has lame abilities like boring support buffs!"

"Support buffs can be useful..." Rom, the resident white mage, muttered dejectedly.

"Ah! I didn't mean it like that Rom!" Ram quickly backtracked. "I meant people who can do nothing but use support buffs are lame! You have really good healing spells and awesome offensive magic too so you're definitely not lame! Besides, you're my sister so that automatically makes you awesome by default!"

Rom quickly cheered up at her sister's words while Sync just gave a small smile at their interaction from the side. Seeing that the situation was properly handled, he decided to offer up an answer to Rom's earlier question instead.

"Well, I'm not going to just spoil everything and list all of my abilities right now but I suppose I can at least tell you about my ultimate secret move."

As expected, this immediately got Ram and Rom's attention as they turned to face him expectantly. Even C-Sha and the Hunters seemed curious as they too faced him with interested looks.

Seeing their reactions, Sync could not help but smile a little. "It's really nothing that special. I mean, it does have the same destructive power as about ten Blue Shells going off at the same time but that's hardly anything impressive." His audience seemed to beg to differ however as they stared at him with increased anticipation.

"Well, I guess there's no point in beating around the bush then. Alright, here it is. My ultimate secret technique." He paused for dramatic effect before finally speaking up with a large grin. "I teleport several body pillows of sis on top of my enemy and then watch as Chika appears to tear apart the target in her mad attempt to get the pillows."

An extremely long bout of silence covered the room following this 'big reveal'.

"Hey! That's not a real attack!" Ram eventually shouted indignantly.

Sync could only laugh in response to this as he took in the disappointed looks on everyone's faces. This continued for almost a full minute before Ram finally had enough and punched him on the arm.

"S...Sorry," Sync managed to choke out while still trying to stifle his laughter. "But you have to admit, it really is quite an effective ultimate attack."

"No it isn't!" Ram pouted. "Your ultimate attack should be something like your EXE Drive or a Formation Skill! Not some weird tactic like that!"

Sync gave another short laugh in response. "You should tell that to the poor S-Ranked Dragon monster I tested it on. I'm pretty sure this story's rating would have jumped to an 'M' if it had happened on-screen."

Stunned silence answered this statement as everyone stared at Sync with an open mouth.

"You... You took on a S-Rank mission by yourself... and completed it?" C-Sha eventually managed to ask.

Sync took a potato chip and ate it before replying. "Not exactly. The guild said that Chika was the one who killed the monster so all of the credit went to her. Apparently, she didn't count as my summon since I didn't use any actual spells or rituals to bring her into battle."

The ship's bridge once again fell silent as everyone made a mental note to never mess with the Leanbox Oracle ever again.

"Well then," Sync eventually announced, crumpling up his now-empty bag of chips, "I think we've rested here long enough. I'll get back to trying to get us to the proper Lastation then. Also, that giant floating island thing in the sky is starting to fall towards the city."

Everyone turned to look outside and saw that Sync was indeed telling the truth. However, their attention was quickly diverted when they saw something so completely bizarre that it actually managed to put everything else they saw that day to shame.

"Is that... Lady Nepgear and a Nepgeardam playing card games on flying motorcycles?" the pilot Hunter asked incredulously.

"Uh huh," C-Sha responded distractedly while keeping her eyes on the absurd airshow.

"And did that Nepgeardam just summon a mechanical time lord with Lady Histoire's face on it?"

"Yup."

"And now Lady Nepgear just summoned a giant fish/dragon that looks an awful lot like Sir Umio."

"Seems like it."

"... ... ..."

"... ... ..."

"This dimension is weird."

"Ohhh... So I was just locking onto the wrong tenth dimensional spatial variable while trying to get a fix on my target location. Now I get what I was doing wrong. Well, thanks for the help, Ms. Phantom."

"...You're welcome. Now please leave before my... associates take notice of you."

The static-filled image that was on the communications screen disappeared as their mysterious helper ended the call.

"Whew. Glad we finally ran into someone who could help us," Sync let out as he immediately began to home in on their intended destination. "I still can't believe we had to go through more than a hundred different dimensions before we found one though."

"You got us some cool souvenirs so I'm not complaining," Ram declared, twirling about her new wooden staff that seemed to have a strange affinity for explosion spells. "Heh heh heh. I can't wait to test this out on all those crazy fans in Lastation. Let's see how those dummies like being frozen and exploded at the same time."

"Um... Ram? Could you please try not to use lethal force when we actually fight the fans?" C-Sha said with an uneasy smile. "They might be crazy but they're still people after all..."

Ram did not seem to hear this as she simply continued to plot her enemies' demise while laughing diabolically.

Meanwhile, on the other end of the twin spectrum, Rom turned to face Sync with a shy smile.

"T...T...Thanks for the gift, big bro," the older twin said, hugging a plushie of a large rotund panda that the locals apparently called an Oopa. "I really love how cute and fluffy this is."

"Glad you like it," Sync replied with a smile of his own. "It's the least I could do after dragging you through all of this."

"Heh heh. It's okay. I like spending time with you big bro."

A loud scream echoed from the cargo hold at this statement but was promptly ignored by everyone on the bridge.

...well, almost everyone.

"Oh, right," Sync said with a look of mild surprise. "I almost forgot about sis. Hey Ram, could you do me a favor and go wake her up? I've locked onto the coordinates so we'll be arriving at our destination in just a few seconds."

"Leave it to me!" Ram responded enthusiastically, quickly running off with her explosive staff in hand.

"Ah, wait up Ram! I want to help too!"

After carefully depositing her new doll into the safety of her inventory, Rom followed after her destructive sister to the cargo hold. Meanwhile, C-Sha turned to face Sync with a rather weary look.

"Are you sure you have the right coordinates this time?"

Sync gave her a smile as a faint green glow began to cover the airship. "Positive. I'm even detecting energy signatures that correspond with Noire, the resistance, and... oh. Well, that's not good."

"What's not good?" C-Sha asked, not liking his sudden change in tone.

Sync managed to maintain his smile but there was definitely a hint of worry in his eyes. "Looks like the fans have finally found Noire and are attacking the resistance as we speak. I can't really make out the specifics from here but I'm pretty sure the fans are slowly overwhelming Noire's forces."

An ominous silence fell over the bridge as C-Sha and the Hunters were stunned silent at the news.

The bleak atmosphere continued to hang over the group for several long minutes before the pilot Hunter suddenly cleared his throat and spoke up.

"Ah, what the hell. I was starting to get bored of this little road trip anyways." He gave a wide grin to the rest of the party as he adjusted his goggles. "What do you say we go rescue Lady Noire and put an end to this fandom menace once and for all?"

As the other three Hunters gathered up their courage and gave a loud cheer to this, C-Sha and Sync could not help but feel their own spirits rise as well.

"Glad to know our morale is high at least," C-Sha said with a smile. "Well, you heard the man! Let's resume the mission!"

Sync gave a smile of his own as he finished prepping the ship for the dimensional jump. "Heh. With any luck, my lovely little waifu will still be alive when we get there. Alright! As a certain famous plumber would say: Here we go!"

And with that, the airship teleported away from the skies of Tenguu City in a flash of bright green.