Zero Arc; Chapter 1; The Zero Dimension, Uzume and Iron Dragon Slayer X
"I think it came from this console." Ruby says walking up to it and pressed the button with the swirl mark on it which it suddenly glowed and it forms an orange vortex portal from it
"Yikes! What in the what is this!? Why are we getting swallowed in our own room?!" Neptune asks in shock as each of them tried moving away from the orange portal but their bodies couldn't respond
"Why does something like this have to happen with a strange looking portal!?" Jeff asks trying to resist the pull from the portal
"Oh no! W-what should we do!? I can't move! Neptune!" She shouts to her worried about what will happen to them
"We're getting sucked in! Aaaaaaaaaaah!" All five of them shout out as they and the portal disappear leaving no trace of them except the console still on the table
-Unknown Area-
From the sounds of what seems to be a storm Jeff stirs up and slowly gets up having a headache, he opens his eyes seeing that he is on a street. What made him shocked was the scenery when he looked up. He notices Adam, Neptune, Nepgear, and Ruby also unconscious, although all the buildings around him and the ground looked like ruins and there are large cracks in the ground, he looks up seeing a purple cloudy sky and cracks forming from it also. He stands up looking around which everything seemed abandoned. He goes over to wake the others up starting with Adam.
"Adam, get up!" He shakes his brother and he sits up
"Ow, bro what happened and where are-" when he saw the scene he looked around shocked "where are we? What is this place?!" He asks his older brother
"I don't know, I just woke up and saw all this… I just hope that wherever we are, we can find a way back home. Wake the others while I check anything here… hopefully." He tells him and Adam wakes Nepgear, while Ruby wakes up on his own and they saw the scenery around them
"What could have happened to this world?" Ruby asks worried as Jeff opens the menu on his gauntlet and looking through it
"Not sure but we gotta be careful, we don't know what is out here." Adam tells them as Nepgear goes over to Neptune to wake her up
"Neptune… Neptune… please wake up…!" She says shaking her with a moan coming from Neptune stirring a bit her eyes slightly opened now "Neptune! Please!"
"Oh, c'mon, Nep Jr., gimme ten more minutes…" Neptune says groggily
"This isn't the time to be sleeping! Look! Look around!" Nepgear tells her with a worried expression and Neptune sits up
"Urgh, you're so noisy… wait. Did Histy find out we're slacking off to fix that console? Has she finally morphed into a blood-thirsty demon?!" Neptune asks
"What the hell?! No you idiot, look at where we are!" Adam yells at her and she looks around them seeing the destruction placed on this city by who knows what
"Oh, riiight, right, right, this is a dream. Okay, well then, 'night Nepgear, turn the lights off on your way out, 'kay?" Neptune says laying down again
"This isn't a dream Neptune! Come on get up!" Ruby says pulling her up on her feet
"No… no, no, no, this can't be possible. I mean, we were just in our room, right? Why would we suddenly be in a place like this?" She asks them
"Not sure, when we woke up… we were suddenly just… here. What could have happened?" Adam explains and looks at his brother as he checked their location, however there was an error signal on the gauntlet
"... wherever we are, it seems like the gauntlet has no info about this place. We might have traveled to a new land, or maybe through time." Jeff suggests, however he believes that those ones aren't true "I am gonna have to be sure about our location, however with all this being destroyed it's gonna be hard to get around the place." He thought to himself
"Well, I don't really know where this is, but I don't think it can be helped." She says and they look at her confused "the city's collapsed, there are weird cracks in the sky, but, you know, this is totally a normal occurrence in fanfictions!" She explains breaking the 4th wall
"Could you not break the 4th wall at a time like this?!" Jeff shouts at her "we are somewhere unknown, we don't even know what is inhabited around here."
"Yeah, yeah, but let's not sweat the small stuff, alright? Hey, there might be some people out and about… let's go for a walk!" Neptune says as cheerful as always "I'm sure that'll be ten times better than moping around in a place like this."
"Where does she keep the cheerfulness?" Ruby asks and Jeff shrugs unsure
"Who knows, but she is right. We should explore around the place and find out where we can go." Jeff tells them and they agree and Ruby lands on his shoulder. They start walking forward a bit and see more of the destroyed city, it was completely abandoned. "The area seems completely abandoned, no one is around."
"Hmmm… that's pretty weird. You'd think there'd at least be a cat, a hologram or something…" Neptune says looking around then takes a deep breath "Hey! Anyone here?!" She yells out, but nothing
"There's something really eerie about this place, Neptune. These cracks running through the streets and buildings don't seem like regular cracks." Nepgear explains looking at the large cracks with some strange energy flowing out of it
"It might be like one of those distortions where something is making everything unstable." Adam tells them looking down one with curiosity "both from the ground and in the sky have the same cracks, you would think that everything might be destroyed at any moment." He looks up at the sky while Jeff was noticing something around them
"Hey, is it me... or do some of these buildings like exactly like the ones back in Planeptune?" Jeff asks and the others noticed this also
"Hmmm… would Planeptune look like this if we were to enter an apocalypse?" Neptune asks
"D-don't say things like that! That's bad!" Nepgear yells at her "When I look more closely, I don't recognize any of these areas, so I don't think it's Planeptune…"
"We can't be certain if this is Planeptune or not, the only thing we can do is-" before Adam could finish his sentence
"Look out!" Jeff grabs the girls away from an attack by a large demonic bug monster "that was close, what the hell is that thing?!"
"Some kind of Demonic insect possibly?" Adam asks unsure about this thing "This isn't of Jexon's creations… so I doubt I need to use my devil slayer magic."
"Uh guys we got a problem…" Neptune gets their attention
"We can't transform somehow…" Nepgear tells them which the boys were surprised as Jeff noticed the monster going to attack which he moves the two away
"Worry about that later, we are gonna have to fight this thing first!" Jeff tells them and Ruby flies off his shoulder to watch and see what it is capable of and the girls summon their weapons.
"I've never seen this monster before… it looks strong… I'll have to focus…" Nepgear says readying her saberblade
"I hope you both haven't gotten rusty over the past years so you better get some exercise in the art of battle." Adam tells the girls and Neptune starts jumping at it with a horizontal slash and Nepgear goes for a diagonal slash at it. The guys could tell it was not a strong monster despite its size and it tries hitting them, the girls finish it with a double hit which it bursts into cubes. While doing so Jeff took a look at share ratings for them and when he did the results were unbelievably, the display screen showed an -Error no signal-
"I'm not getting any readings on shares at all!" He tells them in complete shock "how is this possible? Did the place we come to had us travel through time? And if so then we might not be able to go back to our original time… no I can't think like that, I need complete proof on where we are." He heard Neptune starting to panic so he smacks her to snap her out of it. "Calm down! Panicking is not the answer here! There could be many solutions of where we at. First of was that monster, I have never seen anything like it. What about the rest of you?" They shook their heads who never saw one like it "so unknown monsters, unknown area, and without some kind of energy I won't be able to contact Histoire with the gauntlet… and looks like I will have to map out everything the old fashioned way." He opens the map and change the setting as -mapping new lands- and starts heading onwards as Ruby flies back down to them and they head onwards. They find a familiar enemy being a Pixelvader. They then reach a slanted building which can be used as a platform.
"Ooh, check this out. I wonder what happened here.., hey! Guys! Let's try climbing to the top, maybe we can figure out where we are!" Neptune tells them and starts going up the slanted building
"Whoa! Wait for us Neptune!" Jeff tells her as Adam and Nepgear follow. When they got to the edge the sight of what they could see was unbelievable. Almost everything was destroyed "Wh-what the hell?!"
"This can't be… where are we…?" Adam asks unable to take in the sight of the destruction when Jeff's sight picked on some fight going on
"Huh? Hey wait I see people over in the distance! It looks like both a guy and a girl fighting a bunch of machine like enemies!" Jeff tells them
"Yea, and I can see another with a large sword with them!" Ruby says getting a bird's eye view
"There's no way locals could fight against that many! Let's go, everyone!" Neptune tells them as Jeff and Adam carry the girls and jump off landing on the ground safely and make their way to where they saw the fight happening and taking out the new kinds of enemies that get in their way.
At the spot with the trio, there was a girl, a guy, and a tall animal warrior who has the face of a lion and a dark grey mane. The girl has red-orange eyes, dark red hair worn in pigtails near the bottom of her head, held by hair that is knotted. Has a few black clasps and a pink gradient nearing the bottom. Wears a very small black tube top under an opened white jacket with a bright orange, black, and white tie. She wears a pair of pleated shorts worn with a pair of thin black suspenders, which is slightly opened to reveal her orange underwear. She wears black fingerless gloves over a pair of orange and black sleeves, matching socks, black shoes and a pair of black leg warmers with buttons on them. The guy has Orange eyes, shiny black hair (think the Style like Axel from Kingdom hearts), wears a black trench coat, that reaches down to the upper calves, with a dark orange short sleeved shirt worn under it, wearing black pants, black boots with the bottom part having metal, black fingerless gloves with metal pads on them, has an Orange headband covering his forehead. The humanized black lion cat has a muscular build similar to a human's. He has red eyes, his weapon is a sword that grows to the wielder's personal style of fighting. He wears black and grey pants and has a spot for the tail to come out of. Each of them has a communicator device on their left wrist.
The girl punches one of the machine enemies and is knocked away from amazing strength she has, the human lion cut one in a diagonal slash, and the guy was eating the metal of a destroyed machine
"Tch, these pricks are still crawling outta the woodwork…" the girl says annoyed with the enemies around them when her communicator beeped
"We're about halfway through evacuations. I'd advise you start heading back now." Someone speaks through sounding like a male, as the guy eating the metal swallowed and looked at his communicator which is also connected
"Are you kidding me?! HALF?! We need to get everyone out of there! And besides if we leave these leftovers here they'll just keep tailing us! It's gonna end right now, Iron Dragon's club!" His arm turns into iron with a flat end and completely destroys one that was getting close to the girl
"Dear me… just don't overdo it." The person through the communicator tells them
"We hear you!" The human lion tells the person and stabs another machine as the call ends
"... We are the only ones who can fight, anyway…" the girl says quietly when suddenly
"Fire Dragon's Iron Fist!" Jeff suddenly arrive punching one machine and causing it to fly into another one destroying them both which gets the trio's attention "looks like we got here just in time!"
"People…?!" The girl asks shocked to see other people as the guy stared at Jeff
"Is that guy what I think he is?" He asks in his thoughts with a slight smirk
"I was certain there were a lot more enemies before getting here, did they take them out by themselves?" Ruby asks with his wings and the humanized lion saw him with a surprised expression
"Man, I'm just glad we finally ran into someone! Hey, lady, could you tell us where we-" before Neptune could finish
"Ugh! Reinforcements now of all times?!" The girl says annoyed which seemed to give her the wrong idea as she held a black megaphone with orange as well with the same swirl symbol that was on the console. Before Jeff could speak up he blocked an attack from the guy getting off the machine
"What?!" He saw the guy has his arm formed of iron and it stretched out at Jeff "the hell is with you?!"
"You ain't half bad kid! The name is X, I'm an Iron Dragon Slayer! Remember it well!" He tells them and he hears the girl calls herself Uzume Tennouboshi. "From what I saw you did there, you must be a Dragon Slayer also!"
"Heh you got that right! Fire Dragon's Talon!" Jeff dashes towards X and kicks him with a sideways hit and making him skid across the ground "so Fire and Iron huh? Might as well have a bit of fun! Before I forget I'm Jeffrey, but just call me Jeff instead."
"Alright then hothead, show me what you got! Iron Dragon's…" X starts taking a deep breath and Jeff knew what he was trying
"Fire Dragon's…" Jeff breathes in also preparing his roar
"ROAR!" Both do their significant roars with Jeff's being a stream of flames, and X's being an iron twister with metal shards inside. The two attacks collide and cause an explosion as they jump away from it getting distance from each other and they both smirk
"Well I guess I can't be surprised with someone like you being a Dragon Slayer, I'm actually excited about this." X tells him
"I could say the same thing about you." Jeff says with a smile and looked like they were about to go for more action
"Hey X, can you wait later? We still got these surrounding us." The Humanized Lion told him which he almost forgot about the machines which looked annoyed being ignored and there were only 7 left
"Crap Leon is right, alright whoever you all are we gotta deal with these firsts!" X tells the group and each goes for one themselves
"Alright, step right up, you ugly sacks of flesh. My name is Uzume Tennouboshi…" she says ready to fight
"And I am X, and you guys are already dead! Iron Dragon's Sword!" X's right arm changes to a sword with spikes and the spikes move being like a chainsaw. He charges towards his target and stabs in the chest destroying the machine greatly, Jeff uses his iron fist attack and causes the machine to crash into a building and fall down no longer active, Adam uses his Cold Excalibur and sliced through his target exactly like Leon Lion did. The girls used skills to take down their targets in one shot.
"Looks like that is all of them taken down, alright now we just need to figure out where we are at." Jeff says looking at Adam who nods in agreement and they turn to X and Leon, they were surprised that Leon shined and turned into a smaller form exactly the size like Ruby, with the big eyes since in the humanized form his eyes were smaller and sharp
"They do smell like humans from my Dragon senses, but are they really survivors to that giant that ruins this world?" X asks himself in his thoughts "you are a pretty strong bunch, where did you all come from?"
"Well, we aren't sure how to put it exactly. We are just trying to find who was around and we found you three…" Adam explains to him and Leon was looking at them curiously
"They don't seem to be in leagues with "it", perhaps we can acquire some help possibly." Leon tells X and he looks down at him
"Seems like it, but we can't be totally certain of it." X tells the lion cat and the brothers were confused at what they meant by "it" until they were about to get their answer when the ground started shaking violently
"Whoa, what the heck is going on?! What is causing this shaking?!" Jeff asks shocked and trying to keep steady
"So it finally decides to show itself." X says and turns to a direction to see a purple light crash far away from them in the city, once the light died they could see a large being looking like a giant human with mechanical gear on it as well as a visor covering the eyes and has large wings
"Whoa! What is that giant?!" Adam asks completely awestruck at the size and appearance of the giant
"Could it be possible that this giant is what caused the destruction in this city?!" Jeff asks also shocked and can actually a very powerful energy source from it
"You got that right, I'm not certain what that thing is, what we do know is that it made this whole world into a complete wasteland…" X explains to them "if you have noticed the strange cracks on the ground and in the skies, it is the one that did all of it."
"You wanna fight against that thing?!" Adam asks in disbelief
"You got that right, me, Uzume, and Leon have fought with it for a long time." X tells them looking confident
"Alrighty! Now I'm getting all fired up too!" Neptune says excited
"Hey that's my line!" Jeff yells at her, but lights his whole body on fire "but you gotta admit, to fight something this large! I'm seriously Fired up!" His fire grows large and it slowly melts the ground below him "I'll take on any large enemy that dares to face me and my friends!"
"Bro are you nuts?!" Adam asks in disbelief
"With dad's power there is nothing that can take me down!" Jeff says with a smirk
"Sorry to interject, but as a CPU, it's my sworn duty to deliver justice upon the one responsible for ruining this city!" Uzume tells them which gets their attention
"Huh?! Hang on a sec! Did you just say you're a CPU?!" Neptune asks her and Jeff looked at X wondering if he was her Protector
"Oh yeah, I guess I hadn't mentioned that yet. Well, that doesn't really matter right now." She tells them "This place about to become a battlefield. If you're not prepared to get your hands dirty then… run… far away."
"Sorry, but I am not the guy who runs off leaving a friend behind! With how you are now you might not stand a chance, it's better to be at full strength and give it everything we've got!" Jeff says and carries Neptune "by the looks of things I am sure something that big won't get here as in a small amount of time."
"I'd agree with him, come on let's go forward to the small base we have." X carries Uzume as Adam carries Nepgear and both Ruby and Leon use their wings and follow X to the base they have in the town over a long distance but with the three guys were able to run faster than both Neptune and Nepgear expected, possibly from being away for so long they trained and gotten really strong since they last saw them and the other protectors. As they were making their way to the base, a small group of enemies got in their way and Adam used his ice make magic to freeze them.
Once they get to the temporary base Uzume and X set up, the girls have their conversation and the guys sit at their own spot to talk. Jeff and Adam learn that the giant was responsible for eliminating the citizens in the city, and that both X and Uzume have tried many attempts to take it down but couldn't put a scratch on it, however they were devising a plan actually stand a chance against the giant. Suddenly they get a call from a mysterious male telling Uzume and X that only 70% of them were evacuated by now, so they had to get themselves ready for the battle ahead.
Jeff and Adam searched and found a store that still had items which seemed odd since no one was running it, they also find a place with equipment to combine items into stronger weapons or equipment. Once they think they were set they make their way barely to the dungeon area where they all met.
"Now what is our game plan gonna be?" Adam asks X
"So at the current moment a horde of monsters will be approaching the city before that giant does… we all gotta get rid of the horde first." He explains
"Sounds simple enough, with our abilities we can take them out!" Jeff says cracking his knuckles ready to fight. Then he heard Uzume call the sisters Nepsy & Gearsy.
"Nepsy? Gearsy?" Adam asks a bit confused
"For some reason that sounds really cute." Jeff whispers to himself though X could hear him with his incredible hearing. Then they notice a large group of monsters heading towards them "Alright no time to talk! It's time we take these freaks out!" They take out the small enemies that get near and large fish like monster called a Serpenlis came at them and the girls took care of it easily. Then a large dog like monster walk to them.
"So even this one decided to show up huh?" X says with a smirk
"You know this one?" Jeff asks him
"Oh yea, whenever we get a chance to face that giant this guy just loves getting in our way. I completely lost count how many times he has stopped us. Alright must you are going down once and for all!" He says and Jeff notices a Share Crystal in Uzume's hand. "Now this is gonna be completely different, cause now I got some friends on my side who will love to see you meet your end, along with that giant once and for all!"
"Share Crystal! Transform!" Uzume holds up the Crystal and moves it into her chest, as she glows her form changes into a new appearance before their eyes "Transformation complete~!" The others were completely awestruck from the sudden change and as well her voice sounding more girly than deeply from before, her new look changes her hair changes to a bright orange color and at the base, is looped in a loose circle, resembling a ribbon, while the rest of the hair runs loose. The hair surrounding her face elongated and her eyes become light blue. Her outfit is white with some places having orange, she still wields a megaphone. Her left arm has a device that looks to be a shield.
"W-who are youuuuu!?" The two girls and Ruby ask her
"Aww, so rude of you three, asking who I am. It's me, Uzume! U-zu-me. Let's do our best together, everyone!" She tells them and they decided to ask later since they got an enemy to deal with that is called a Mega Slaymon monster. Jeff noticed that the beast has a health bar with two squares under it which looked similar to how Alex and Seth's duel monsters have life bars. Adam starts by firing his Ice cannon knocking the beast away and "Uzume" not sure what her name in this form if, but to Jeff's and Adam's thoughts they expect she would be called Orange Heart. She flies hitting the beast with her feet and then shouts through her megaphone and both Jeff and X had to cover their sensitive ears. The two Dragonslayers strike the beast with their punches and it tries breathing fire but Jeff consumes the fire giving him strength and he kicks the beast at the side causing it to crash into a building and the two girls go and strike with a Cross Combo and Mirage Dance, causing the beast to fall down bruised and badly damaged "Aww… I finally won against doggie…!" Orange Heart says really girly like
"D-doggie…?" Nepgear asks with a sweat dropping expression
"But it's totally because of you guys that I defeated it. Thanks so much!" Orange Heart says happily with a bright smile
"That's what friends do! We all help each other!" Jeff tells her with a happy smirk glad they were able to lend a hand for them "so what do you go by in your CPU form?"
"It's Orange Heart!" She tells them with her still happy tone
"That's so cool! I was really surprised by your transformation, Uzume." Neptune says "I thought you'd get even more aggressive in HDD form, but you're completely the opposite!" Jeff smacks her head "ouchies!"
"Don't be so rude, not everyone would be like one of our friends back home." He tells her "mostly everyone would have personality changes when they turn into their CPU forms."
"...huh? Jeff, Nepsy, why do you both know about CPUs…?" Orange Heart asks confused
"Oh I guess we never mentioned it, but these two girls are CPUs and we are their Protectors!" Jeff tells her
"...what?! Like, for real?! Don't play with me, Jeff…!" Orange Heart says surprised
"Well if you want proof of that, then here you go!" Jeff says revealing his gauntlet as Adam reveals his also "I'm the Guardian Protector of this little one whose is Purple Heart, we watch over Planeptune. For my power I am a Fire Dragon Slayer taught by the Dragon Igniaus."
"So you are like me, I was trained by the Iron Dragon Metalicon. He told me that he is a descendent of the previous Iron Dragon." X explains to Jeff
"Same with Igniaus, he is a descendent of the previous Fire Dragon, but reborn into the world." Jeff says "I am also not the only Fire Dragonslayer, you should meet my girlfriend."
"You have a girlfriend? Didn't expect that to be said from you." X says slightly surprised, then Orange Heart shined and returned back as Uzume "looks like Share Crystal was finished now."
"Meaning when using a Share Crystal she can only stay in that form for only a small amount of time. If she had shares radiating from living people then she can transform whenever she wanted." Adam says understanding this "so I am guessing you are limited with Share Crystals that you gathered." Then they noticed the beast they fought standing up again
"What the?! That beast is still standing?!" Ruby says completely surprised
"No wonder it didn't disappear instantly, that enemy is a tough one to keep going." Jeff says ready to beat completely
"Damn it… you're a resilient bastard, aren't you? Do you want another beating, you idiot?!" Uzume shouts at it and they readied themselves until it started going the other direction "it… ran away…?"
"Must be because of the heavy damage we caused to it." Adam says but Jeff felt an attack coming at them
"Get out of the way!" He tackles Adam and X into a spot away from the explosions as Neptune did the same with Nepgear and Uzume to the other side the look and see the large being using its powers to attack them.
"Piece of crap! That asshole is going for a sneak attack on us!" X says angry "Get up you guys let's take it d-" before he could get out to face it he flinched from his side actually getting struck by it when the surprise attack hit
"Careful, you can't go out with a wound like that!" Adam tells him
"Heh, no need to worry it takes more than that to bring me down." X says to them and realized something "Hey! Did they all make it out!?" He asks Uzume who had just contacted the guy from before and she gave him a thumbs up indicating they got everyone out in the next town
"Alright good, Adam let's do this and get somewhere safe!" Jeff tells him and he nods and the two grab X as the two girls grab Uzume and they run out of there to get away from the large enemy and returning to the base Uzume and X have set up.
-End of Z Chapter 1-
Jeff: we were able to evacuate the group Uzume and X talked about giving them time
Adam: but it looks like their friend who is named Umio is in a dungeon and we gotta rescue him
Ruby: whoa look at these monsters, they're talking like actual people!
Jeff: wait and it looks like their friend Umio is a…
All three: A freakin' Fish!?
Next time; Rescue Mission underway, Umio and the talking Monsters!