Ch 18: Never Should Have Come Here

"Zzzz... Five more minutes Umio... let me just- Uwaagh! "

Uzume was jolted awake as the ground beneath her suddenly lurched upwards. Years of survival instincts immediately kicked in as she steadied herself and swiftly took in her surroundings. To her surprise, she found that she was sitting inside a Horsebird-drawn wooden cart that was traversing across an unfamiliar forest path. Several other carts were seen ahead of her's as they appeared to be traveling in some sort of convoy. Apparently, the cart she was in had hit a bump in the road earlier which was the cause for her rude awakening. Before she could question any of this further, though, her attention was drawn to the fact that her hands were currently bound together by thick ropes.

"What the-? Where am I?! What's going on?!"

"Hey, you. You're finally awake," a deep voice answered her panicked shouts.

Snapping out of her shock, Uzume took a closer look at her surroundings and realized that she was not alone inside the moving cart. A bizarre group consisting of two Dogoo Men and a gagged girl that looked a lot like IF were sitting besides her with their hands tied up as well. Deciding not to question why a lookalike of one of Neptune's friends was here - or how the ropes were managing to restrain the two jelly-like monsters - for the time being, Uzume instead focused on the Dogoo Man which had just spoken to her.

"Hey, what's going on here?" she asked. "And what happened to the dragon that-"

"You were trying to cross the border, right?" the Dogoo Man continued, as if unaware of Uzume's interruption. "Walked right into that Imperial ambush, same as us and that Horsebird thief over there..."

'Oh, they're just NPCs,' Uzume quickly realized as the other Dogoo Man joined in on the scripted dialogue. With that in mind, she tuned out the rest of the NPCs' conversation as she tried to remember what had happened before she had woken up in this situation.

After a bit of concentration, she recalled that she had been chasing after the giant doomsday dragon across the uncharted ocean west of Planeptune for what seemed like an entire day. After that, her memory became a bit hazy – probably from her exhaustion – but she vaguely recalled seeing a bunch of multi-colored lights surrounding her and the dragon before experiencing a brief falling sensation. If her various travels with Big Nepsy were anything to go by, she had most likely followed the dragon through some sort of dimensional wormhole (they turned up frequently enough in Gamindustri) and had passed out shortly afterwards from exhaustion. Following that, she guessed that the dragon had made its escape while she had been found by these 'Imperials' that the Dogoo Man just mentioned and had been accidentally lumped in with all the other prisoners.

"Shut up back there!" the Imperial guard driving the cart shouted, putting an end to the two still conversing Dogoo Men. Uzume, meanwhile, took a closer look at the guard in question and quickly noted that he looked nearly identical to the Lastation guards in the Hyperdimension.

"Yup. Definitely in some kind of alternate dimension Gamindustri," Uzume confirmed with a nod. At least now she knew why there was a clone of IF sitting in the cart with her. More than likely, there were more lookalikes of her friends and acquaintances somewhere out in this world as well.

"Hmm... I wonder if there's a clone of me in this place as well?" she thought aloud. Without really thinking about it, she crossed her fingers together as a dreamy expression fell over her face. "Heh heh. I bet this world's Uzume is a totally amazing and super awesome hero who-"

Before she could finish, the cart hit another large bump in the road which snapped her out of her trance. Shaking her head, she immediately returned back to her usual personality.

"Ack! This isn't the time to be daydreaming! I need to get outta here and find that stupid dragon!"

With that said, she began trying to free herself from her binds. To her surprise though, the ropes were far stronger than she had anticipated and refused to budge even with her augmented strength.

"Gah! What are these things made of?!"

After struggling to free herself for several minutes (even going so far as to try and chew her way through the ropes) and not getting any results, she decided to switch tactics and bypass the entire situation altogether.

"HDD activate!"

Her hopes of transforming and flying away were quickly dashed, however, when nothing happened.

"Huh?" Uzume uttered, half-standing in the awkward heroic pose she had tried to make with her hands still tied together. "Why can't I transform?"

Getting no outside answers, she thought about the issue herself before coming to the conclusion that the distance between this world and Zero Dimension was probably what was preventing her from accessing the full extent of her share energy. That was as far as she managed to get though before the cart she was in came to a sudden halt. Barely managing to stop herself from tumbling over, she saw that the carts had arrived inside the middle of a small rural village while she had been preoccupied with her attempts to free herself.

"Looks like this is it," the Dogoo Man that had first spoken to her said, slowly filing out of the carts with the other prisoners. "End of the line."

Seeing no other option left to her at the moment, Uzume forced herself to walk off the cart and stand next to the grim-faced IF clone.

'Maybe I can just run away right now,' Uzume thought. 'They're only NPCs and they probably won't-'

"You'll never take me alive!" the Horsebird thief Dogoo Man suddenly yelled as he made a break for the village exit.

"Gunners!" the apparent captain of the Imperial guards yelled out.

As Uzume watched with wide eyes, the Dogoo Man was shot down by a dozen of the guards' rifles until all that remained of him was a sad little puddle of blue-colored goo.

"Anyone else feel like running?" the guard captain asked.

Uzume furiously shook her head with a terrified expression even though she knew that the NPCs would not respond to her.

Everything after that dissolved into a panic-filled blur for Uzume. The most she could recall was giving her name to a guard that asked who she was, being corralled in front of a large wooden block with the rest of the prisoners, and watching an androgynous-looking girl - who was apparently the Imperial general - giving a speech about how IF had started some sort of civil war or something. The lost CPU only snapped back to attention when she realized that one of the Dogoo Men had stepped forward and was kneeling in front of the wooden block with his head placed upon it.

"Huh? What's-"

Before she could finish, one of the Lastation/Imperial guards walked up with a gigantic ax before mercilessly bringing it down onto the Dogoo Man's neck.

"HOLY FLYING UMIO!"

Uzume's exclamation went unheard as the crowd instead watched as the Dogoo Man's decapitated head fell to the ground... only for it to hop back to life as a regular Dogoo seconds later. Before the dumbfounded CPU could figure out how to respond to this, the newly formed Dogoo tried to make a break for it. Unfortunately, the guard captain was quick to respond.

"Gunners!"

To its credit, the hopping Dogoo actually managed to make it further than the previous escapee before being vaporized into a puddle as well.

Before Uzume could even think to compose herself, the guard captain pointed directly at her.

"Next, the red-haired valley girl!"

"Valley girl?!" Uzume repeated, half in shock and half in indignation.

When she refused to move, two of the nearby Imperial guards came up and grabbed her by her arms.

"W...Wait!" the CPU cried out, trying and failing to stop herself from being dragged over to the chopping block. "This is all a mistake! I'm not one of the rebels!"

Her panicked shouts were completely disregarded as she soon found herself being forced to stand above the large blue puddle that the decapitated Dogoo Man's body had melted into. When the guards tried to force her down onto the slime-covered chopping block, Uzume began struggling twice as hard as before.

"Ahhhh! Stop! I don't want to get slime all over my clothes!" There was a brief pause before she remembered the more pressing matter at hand. "Also I don't want to get my head chopped off!"

Luckily for her, a strange distant noise suddenly echoed out from the skies, pulling everyone's attention away from her.

"What was that?" one of the guards restraining her asked.

"It's nothing," the guard captain dismissed. "Carry on."

Once again though, the strange sound came from the skies above. Managing to focus on it this time around, Uzume identified the sound as some sort of... whistle?

Before she had a chance to ponder about it any further, the source of the bizarre sound dropped out of the clouds and made its appearance.

"What in the Underworld is that?!" the androgynous general from before exclaimed.

Even Uzume, who had seen some pretty weird things during her life, found herself at a complete loss for words.

Flying across the skies and heading directly towards them was an old-fashioned train engine with a creepy smiling face on its front.

'Choo choo!'

With another cheery whistle, the giant flying train landed on top of a nearby stone watchtower. As everyone watched with various bewildered and terrified looks, the train's smile widened wickedly before it let loose its loudest whistle yet.

The next thing Uzume knew, the once clear sky was transformed into a raging maelstrom of fire and death as gigantic train cars filled with coal began to rain down from the heavens.

"Guards! Get the townspeople to safety!" the general yelled, her words barely carrying through the train-pocalypse that was occurring. "Someone get the battle mages-"

That was the last thing Uzume heard before a green glow covered her entire body and she disappeared with a faint 'pop!'.

"AHHHH! DEMON TRAINS!"

Uzume's belated cry of terror came to a quick halt as she somehow found herself inside a large cave before being dropped face-first onto the dirt floor.

"Owww..."

To her surprise, her muffled groan was answered by a very familiar voice.

"Aha! A wild Uzume has appeared!"

Looking up, the CPU found none other than Big Nep pointing at her with a triumphant smile.

"Big Nepsy?" Uzume asked in confusion. "What are you doing here?"

Big Nep did not immediately answer as she approached to help her friend up first. Seeing that her hands were bound, Big Nep pulled out one of her swords to cut away the ropes before facing Uzume with a wide smile.

"I was looking for you, duh. You were gone for a while and I was getting worried."

Uzume could not help but feel touched by her friend's concern for her. "Aw, Big Nepsy," she said, rubbing the back of her head in embarrassment. "You didn't have to-"

"Also my little teddy bear really wanted to go on a dragon hunting field trip and I couldn't say no to him."

"Teddy bear?"

Big Nep answered Uzume's question by simply pointing behind herself. Peering over her friend's shoulder, Uzume was surprised to find a blond-haired boy wearing a large green coat slumped over on the ground.

"Zzz... Bring me... the liquid-activated explosives Ram," he mumbled, quite clearly fast asleep. "Let's put it... zzz... in sis's cereal..."

Big Nep seemed rather surprised to find the boy asleep as she turned around to approach him. Ignoring Uzume's baffled expression, the older Neptune pulled out a Life Fragment from her inventory and used it on him. As the item's glow faded, the boy slowly blinked awake before lethargically raising his head and glancing over at Uzume.

"Oh, hey. Looks like I successfully managed to teleport you here." The boy paused to give a loud yawn before looking over at Big Nep with a sheepish expression. "Heh heh. Guess I'm not as fully recovered as I thought if a minor warp like that managed to overtax me."

"You said you were completely fine before coming here," Big Nep chided, putting her hands on her hips like a disapproving parent. "You should have taken an extra day off to rest if you were still feeling this exhausted."

The boy waved off her concern with a weak smile. "I'm fine. Besides, this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity... and I wouldn't miss it... for... zzz..."

Big Nep shook her head with a sigh as the boy nodded off once again. Despite her outward show of exasperation though, an amused smile could still be seen on her face. Pulling out an Exuberant Fragment this time, she began to playfully poke him on his cheek as she used the upgraded item on him.

"Wakey, wakey," Big Nep said teasingly, causing the boy to give a sleepy yet disgruntled groan at her pokes.

Seeing the two interact, Uzume got the distinct feeling of watching a caring yet mischievous older sister looking over her younger brother.

"So..." the red-haired CPU eventually said as the boy got back up. "He's your... teddy bear huh?"

Big Nep gave an energetic nod to this while her charge just gave another groan.

"I told you to stop calling me that in public, Ms. Neptune," he complained. His tone, however, lacked any real resentment in it which Uzume guessed meant that he was not as annoyed by the title as he let on.

Whatever the case was, the boy obviously wanted to change the subject as he quickly turned to Uzume and properly introduced himself.

"Ahem. My name is Sync and I'm the CPU Candidate of Leanbox," he announced, giving a polite little bow to accompany his words. "It's a pleasure to meet you."

"Awww... isn't he adorable when he acts all formal like this?" Big Nep cooed, squeezing the poor boy like a... well, teddy bear.

Uzume just gave a brief, uncertain laugh at her friend's behavior before crossing her arms and focusing on the smothered boy.

"So you're Vertsy's little brother huh. That's a bit of a surprise. I don't think I've ever heard about a guy being a CPU or CPU Candidate before." She paused as an old memory surfaced to her mind. "Actually, no. I think I kinda remember hearing about Leanbox being founded by a guy as well. Of course, this was just a rumor I heard way back when I was the CPU of Planeptune."

"Wait, there were others like Sync before?" Big Nep asked, still refusing to let go of her cuddle toy.

Uzume tried to recall her past a bit more before giving a noncommittal shrug. "Eh, can't really say for sure. This was during the end of my rule and things were a bit... crazy for me. Anyways, I just remember this cause a lot of Planeptune's scientists back then came from the island that became Leanbox. They're the ones I heard the rumor from but I never had the chance to check it out for myself. For all I know, the founder of Leanbox could've just been some really buff chick that everyone mistook for a dude or something."

Big Nep gave a laugh to this while her crushed victim used this chance to slip out of her grasps.

"Yeah, well, you can't really trust rumors," Sync casually dismissed, looking remarkably fine considering the smothering he just went through. Straightening out his clothes, he turned to Uzume with a small smile. "Anyways, why don't you introduce yourself as well? I already know who you are thanks to Ms. Neptune but we might as well do it for propriety's sake."

"Pro- what now?" Uzume shook her head as she dismissed her own question. "Never mind."

Taking out her megaphone with a dramatic flourish, the CPU faced Sync with a smile.

"I'm Uzume Tennouboshi! I'm the former CPU of Planeptune and the current ruler of Zero and Heart Dimension!" She struck her V-II victory pose as she stared at the boy expectantly. "So waddya think? Pretty cool huh?"

Sync brought a hand up to his chin as he gave her a judging look.

"Hm... seven point eight out of ten," he eventually said. "Too much orange."

Uzume immediately drooped down in disappointment and disbelief. "What?! How's that a bad thing?! And I'm not even wearing a lot of orange right now!"

The boy seemed greatly amused by her reaction as he simply gave a mischievous smirk.

"Heh heh. Come on Sync. Just tell her she's cool already," Big Nep said. "She won't stop bugging you until you admit it."

"Now you're just making me sound desperate," Uzume grumbled.

Sync ignored this as he answered Big Nep with a shrug. "Eh, I'll reserve further judgment for now. Besides, I'm sure there will be plenty of opportunities for her to try and impress me while we hunt down this dragon."

"Oh yeah." Big Nep turned to her friend with an inquiring look. "Where is that big bad dragon anyways?"

Uzume gave an embarrassed cough to this before recounting her failed chase and all the bizarre things that had happened to her afterwards. When she got to the part about the flying demon trains though, an unexpected voice suddenly spoke up.

"Ugh. Not this dimension," the disgruntled voice of Croire said, her muffled comment echoing out from the pocket where Big Nep kept her Nep-Note.

"Crostie?" Big Nep asked, pulling out her magical notebook. "You know something about this dimension?"

The captive tome-fairy muttered something that sounded like a curse before answering. "Yeah, I've been to this crazy place before. And I really don't want anything more to do with it ever again. You idiots can have fun dealing with this place on your own."

With that, Croire turned silent, obviously intent on ignoring them.

"Well, she's as helpful as ever," Uzume said with a roll of her eyes.

Sync, meanwhile, had a look of concentration on his face as he seemed to be focusing on something else. After a few seconds, he shook his head with a small sigh.

"Well, I can definitely sense the flying train Uzume mentioned but I can't find anything resembling a giant dragon anywhere around here," he reported. "On the other hand, I did notice that time seems to run a bit faster here relative to our home dimension." He crossed his arms as he looked to Uzume with a calculating expression. "I suppose that means you must have been knocked out cold for longer than you originally thought after arriving in this world. Ms. Neptune and I followed you about two days since you started chasing after the dragon and even factoring in the full day that you spent following it in the Hyperdimension, we're looking at a time gap of nearly a week since your initial arrival in this dimension and our meeting right now."

"Um... can you repeat that again?" Uzume asked.

Sync gave a smile as he simplified his explanation. "Long story short, a week here roughly translates to about a day in the Hyperdimension. Since Ms. Neptune and I came to this dimension a day after you did, you must have been lying unconscious for nearly a week before you got captured and woke up in that prisoner cart." He paused to give Uzume a critical look. "I have to say though, you must have quite a bit of plot armor in this world to have avoided being attacked by any sort of wild animal or bandits while you were knocked out. Not to mention, I'm kind of surprised you're not feeling sore from sleeping out in the wilderness for that long."

Uzume gave a small laugh as she rubbed the back of her head. "Eh heh. Well, I don't know about the plot armor bit but I'm probably feeling fine cause I'm used to roughing it outdoors."

"Yeah, you can sleep just about anywhere from what I've seen during our travels," Big Nep agreed. Laughing a bit at her friend's embarrassed look, she turned to Sync with a questioning expression. "So what do you think happened to the dragon during all this then?"

Sync gave a shrug. "I'm guessing it ran off somewhere to recover. You told me Uzume beat it up pretty badly before it tried to escape so I doubt it could have wandered off too far."

A brief silence fell over the cave before Sync cheerfully clapped his hands together.

"Well, we might as well get started on our dragon hunting quest then. I can sense the demon train thing flying away and there's an untouched village nearby that we can visit to try and gather information from."

Uzume eagerly agreed to the plan as she dramatically pointed forward with her megaphone.

"Alright! Operation Dragon Quest is a go! Let's head out Big Nepsy and Syncsy!"

"Syncsy?" Sync repeated with an amused look. "Well, I guess it's better than the nicknames all the other CPUs had for me." He gave a soft chuckle before addressing Uzume and Big Nep in a slightly more serious tone. "By the way, I'm sensing a large animal blocking our path to the exit. I think it'd be better if I just warp us out of here without-"

"A wild animal? Pffft. There's no need to worry about something like that," the red-haired CPU waved off. "Just leave this to good ol' Uzume! I'll take care of this in a flash and then you'll see just how cool and awesome I am!"

Without waiting for a response, Uzume enthusiastically charged off ahead by herself.

"Um, Sync?" Big Nep asked after a moment. "What exactly did you sense out there?"

Sync answered with an innocent smile. "Oh, just a bear. A ten foot giant cave bear to be exact."

It did not take long for Uzume's terrified screams to echo throughout the cave.