===CH 4===

Hyperdimension's last hope

'Thoughts'

"Speech"

"Skill"

Highlighted/other

1 month after Alex returned to Alphadimension

Kurome returned to Zerodimension with an army of Dark CPUs and unknown creatures. The CPUs from Hyperdimension have joined Uzume in defending Zerodimension, forming a last stand to prevent the army from invading Hyperdimension.

Uzume, adult Neptune (Now a CPU), Neptune, Noire, Blanc, Vert are guarding the near area of the stabilized portal back to Hyperdimension. Slaying all enemies that manage to get past the Candidates, who are providing ranged support.

All members of gold third are stationed on the other side of the portal, leading the nations combined military.

They were quickly getting overwhelmed even with their combined efforts. The only notable accomplishment they have archived so far is the taking down of two dark CPUs and some weaker monsters from the horde.

Uzume's voice was shaking when the sky suddenly got darkened by a large horde of dragons, all heading for them. "E-everyone, I-I think we're done for."

"There's still hope! We just have to buy Histoire enough time to bring the only person that could turn the tables for us here." Stated Neptune with confidence and hope.

"Everyone!" Histoire's voice reached them over Nepgear's N-Gear. "I've established a connection to Alphadimension! I will open the portal near your location!"

A large white beam suddenly came from the sky and landed in-between the monster army. A large cloud of red mist seeped out of the portal and spread across the battlefield, forcing the monsters to open up a large clearing in their army. 5 streaks of light shot out of the portal, a Purple one, a White one, a Blue one, a Green one and lastly a Black one. The first four got thrown into the monster army while the last one landed in front of the CPUs.

Alex quickly recovered from his harsh landing and managed to stop himself just in time from wiping out the group of beaten up girls in front of him. "You guys again?" he asked while lowering his weapon, recognizing both Neptune's energy signatures and Uzume's.

Everyone took an involuntary step back at his appearance. His entire body was covered in black dragon scales, two matching wings were on his back together with 4 smaller mechanical ones. In-between the scales was a red energy pulsating and in his hands was a large mechanical Scythe.

"Alex?" Neptune asked unsure if they got the right person.

Alex took a deep breath and let his dragon force form fade, reverting into his Shadow Drive form. The now released negative energy emitted from his form caused everyone's transformation to revert as well. A flash of black light concealed him once more and left him standing in his human form. "Yeah, it's me." his tone wasn't friendly at all.

He turned away from them and faced the army of all too familiar looking monsters."...so that's where all the monsters from my Dimension went."

The CPU candidates landed near their Sisters just in time to see Alex calmly raising his right hand towards the army and a black magic circle began forming.

"Art of Destruction: Singe blade Cremation" A huge black fire sword erupted from the magic circle into the army of monsters and an oversized handle appeared in front of Alex with the magic circle acting as the guard.

He made a half circle swing with the oversized sword to clear out a few hundred monster before he spoke up, the sword now casually leaned against his shoulder. "You know, I still have a telephone back in Alphadimension. You could have called me if you needed assistance... But I guess taking me and my fight here is also an option."

He noticed the dragons in the sky and lifted his magic sword again and charged even more energy into it. "Slash Wave!" He swung it across the sky and left a trail of black energy in its wake. The energy trail shot up into the Sky, expanding all the way and cremated almost all of them. Effectively converting them into an ash storm.

The giant sword then faded and left Alex wavering slightly. "We should retreat and recover. You guys look like shit and I wouldn't be against a short break after an entire week of fighting without rest."

"If we leave now, all of these monsters will follow us into Hyperdimension!" objected Noire

"I'm no stranger to their behavior, I've fought an all out war against them for over 250 years now. I will close the portal behind us, we can deal with reopening it when we decide to return." his voice held an commanding undertone to it and everyone felt intimidated by it.

"R-right!" they all said and entered the portal. Alex was about to enter when he felt the presence of his Dark CPUs at the frontline of the monster army.

All of them were beaten up and back in their Human forms, but none the less staring daggers at him.

"This isn't over. Next time we face each other, I'll take you down." Alex said and stepped through the portal, making sure to destabilize it with dense anti-share energy.

Everyone was already awaiting Alex's return and they got concerned when the portal suddenly destabilized and radiated dense anti-share energy. The portal eventually spat Alex out just moments before it collapsed.

"This... should hold them back for the time being" Panted Alex as he quickly let up on the negative energy he's releasing.

It was too late though, all of those that depend on share energy had long since passed out from it. Sleep didn't sound too bad at the moment and now that the constant adrenaline rush of the past week was over, Alex simply followed suit and joined the others on the floor.

Next day

Everyone had been brought to the Planeptune Basilicom to rest properly and receive medical treatment.

It was early noon now and everyone except Alex was awake and going over the events of the last day and their plans for the next day.

"How are we going to get back into Zerodimension?" asked Neptune into the group

"I could warp us in there either with Crostie or my HDD's ability." offered adult Neptune

"Maybe Alex can open a portal there. Or we could try to reach the teleportation station we used to escape from there the first time Neptune and I were stranded." suggested Nepgear

"You all appear to know him. How can you be so sure that he won't turn on us? I mean, you did pull him out of his dimension against his will. and have you felt the amount of Anti-Share energy coming from him!?" asked Noire

"You should be more worried about the other four you dragged along with me." Alex said calmly as he walked up to the group.

Rom and Ram both took cover behind Blanc. Noire, Uni, Vert and Blanc were on guard the moment he entered the room and made his presence known.

"RGB Project" A wave of his hand caused a red/green/blue magic circle to appear on the table with a detailed holographic image of the army in Zerodimension above it. "If it were just the army we're facing, then this whole thing wouldn't be more than a small nuisance. Granted, for your worlds standards it was already an apocalyptic threat as it was."

He reached out with his hand and made the projection zoom in on four individuals that looked like Neptune, Noire, Blanc and Vert. These four were beaten up quite good but didn't appear to mind it much. "These four are the Dark CPUs from my dimension."

The room instantly went dead silent from the implications of that.

"A single one of them would be more than enough to wipe out your world's population, you guys included." Alex stated as a matter of fact. "We're facing all four of them. I'm able to fight them to a standstill, but not even my power can take them all down"

"How are we supposed to fight them like this?" asked Uzume

"If you go up against them then you can just take a gun and shoot yourself here and now. If they get you, they will turn you into one of them. The process is called assimilation, they tried it with me once but I managed to escape in time and it only made me stronger in the end... My dimension's Histoire could probably explain more about this, but she's no more than a pile of scrap metal by now."

"Then how do we get strong enough to fight them? We all have people to defend so we can't just stand by and watch from the sidelines" said Vert

"I could look into the matter of this so called assimilation. perhaps I can find a way to undo whatever has been done to them." offered Histoire "It would take me around 3 months to find a solution"

"We don't have that much time, the problem is in the here and now." Said Alex

"Histy always takes 3 something for whatever she does. 3days, 3hours, 3 minutes and so on..." Said Neptune

"I know that already. My dimensions Histoire had the same habit, the three days it would have taken her to find a solution sealed her death." Said Alex

"...You said that your world's Histoire had been destroyed. If you still have the parts we could try to fix her." offered Nepgear

"Nepgear is what you could call a genius mechanic and we already managed to fix our Histoire once. Maybe not from the kind of problem yours is experiencing, but we could try." added Neptune

"I still have the parts in my inventory since we couldn't afford her falling into the wrong hands. Give me a moment and I'll bring her out." A ripple formed in the space before Alex's feet and a large cardboard box appeared.

Alex opened the box and revealed a severely damaged teenager version of Histoire. most of the limbs were torn from their sockets and wires and joints were sticking out everywhere, the only thing still attached to the torso were her head and right leg.

"My goodness..." Nepgear said as she covered her mouth at the horrific condition.

Alex closed the box before he spoke up again. "These are all the parts my people were able to recover. Sadly we were lacking the time and technology to attempt fixing her ourselves. I'd be in your debt if you can fix her."

"I'll start right away" said Nepgear and vanished with the box into her Lab before anyone could stop her.

"Now we've got a plan B, time to create plan A." he said as the hologram cleared out again before three-dimensional black runes appeared. "These are special magic runes, they were used by my military to allow ordinary humans to fight against the monsters with a chance of winning. I could engrave your weapons with them, but they come at a price. All weapons with these runes deal absolutely no damage to the dark CPUs."

"This would give us a great advantage against the horde of monsters." stated Neptune as she thought about a possible strategy.

"...I have an Idea." the entire room grew silent and everyone looked at Rom

"Out with it then. You are all free too state your Ideas on this matter." said Alex as he stepped away from the projection circle to make space for Rom.

"If they are your Dimensions counterparts of our sisters... can't we try using their weaknesses against them? Like pudding against Neptune, or those adult magazines against Vert..." she trailed off towards the end as respective images showed up above the circle

"That's... not half bad of an idea. Back in my dimension we've tried everything against them, but that's so ridicules that we've never even taken it into consideration... what about the other two?"

Ram joined her twin at the circle for additional confidence "Blanc likes writing Novels and Noire is a secret cosplay-."

Ram got interrupted by Noire impacting against a large black magic circle. "Shield.This is a serious subject. I expect it to be treated as such!" commanded Alex in a tone that demanded obedience.

The black haired CPU in question quickly fell back in line without another word as the circle vanished.

"I can see the first two working, hover the other two will be harder." The twins stepped away from the circle as Alex walked up to it again. "Now remains the question for the tactic against them... all four at once results in a draw. separating one results in the death of the group facing it with the possible defeat of the remaining three."

The projection suddenly changed to a chibi version of adult Neptune creating a giant pudding on top of dark purple to separate her from the group. everyone else appear then to take down the remaining dark CPUs while dark purple eats herself out of her pudding prison... which adult Neptune keeps restoring.

Alex then takes notice of who is making the projection. Surprisingly it is Rom doing it with her entire focus on it.

In the projection, everyone returns after having defeated the three dark CPUs to finish off dark purple.

"That could actually work..." Alex joined in with the projection, raising the quality to life like again as the projection rewinds to the fight against the three. During the fight, magazines can be seen flying at dark green before the Projection splits off into two branches. One in which dark green dismisses the offending paper and charges the thrower. The other showing her offering a large opening from the distraction.

Rom has left the active projection connection and joined her sister again.

"You're somewhat of a tactician, Rom, aren't you?" asked Alex after the impressive yet simple strategy.

Ram answered for her sister."You bet! Rom managed to beat all knows strategy games on the highest difficulty without saving on her first try!"

all of the Hyperdimension CPUs looked at Rom with surprise and some shock.

"then it is decided. we will use Rom's tactic as Plan A. Nepgear is preparing Plan B. Plan C will be to seal off the Dimension to come up with a proper plan C."

The projection circle faded away with Alex's last statement. "I suggest you finish up all your left over open businesses tomorrow. The day after that will be the storming of Zerodimension. We'll meet up here around this time. If any of you are talented in the art of magic, I'm willing to offer tutorage tomorrow."

"We're the best with magic!" stated Ram and pulled her sister close. Both of them summon their staffs shortly after.

"meet me here tomorrow morning at 10:00." Alex turned away from the group and a wide grin formed on his face as his body began to fade into the shadows. "This'll be fun..."

Everyone, especially Blanc, were feeling dread at what he'll be teaching the two Candidates after his display of skill in Zerodimension.

'I have a bad feeling about this...' thought Blanc

"Tomorrow is going to be super awesome!" cheered Ram excited about the idea of learning strong magic.