===CH 11===
CPUs Captured
AN: No new reviews since my last upload.
Gamindustri Graveyard.
The teleportation magic circle faded away and left the four person rescue team standing at the entrance area of the Graveyard.
Alpha Histoire and Alex were leading the team since they could sense the direction from which the anti-share energy originated.
"An Oracle, two Humans and the last free CPU." called out a feminine voice ahead of them. "Do you really think that you'll be enough to free the others?"
A pink haired woman wearing processor like clothes and wielding a large scythe walked up to them.
"And who are you supposed to be?" asked Alex, not intimidated in the slightest by her appearance.
"I'm the temporary leader of the Four Felons, CFW Magic. I was the one who captured the Planeptune CPUs." stated Magic proudly.
"That's good to know, now step aside before you get hurt." said Alex and walked past her, ignoring the charging magical energy around the CFW.
"I cannot let you interfere with the work of our goddesses!" she shouted and slammed her scythe into the ground in front of Alex.
Alex let out a sight and walked around the scythe with the words. "I'll leave her to you, Histoire!"
Magic was about to land a decapitating blow on him when her scythe got interrupted by a red short sword.
"I'll catch up with you later." called out Histoire as anti-share energy gathered around her in form of a red aura. "Access, Shadow Drive!"
Compa and IF were quick in catching up to Alex and the three continued walking further towards the center of the graveyard.
"Are you sure big Histy is going to be alright?" asked Compa concerned.
A few shockwaves and explosions could be heard not too far behind them.
"I'd be more worried about that Magic woman. She might not make it out of here in one piece today." laughed Alex accompanied by a pained scream that didn't belong to Histoire.
Gamindustri Graveyard; Center
A large blood red energy pyramid marked the center of the graveyard, radiating an aura that practically screamed: "Evil" and "Unholy"
Within said Pyramid were all the CPUs of Gamindustri, unconscious on the floor. All except for one. Nepgear was still very much conscious and beating onto the energy wall with her beam saber.
"How are you still conscious, Girl?" asked Arfoire from a control terminal.
"I don't know! But I will find a way to get the others and me out of here!" Shouted Nepgear and caused a small shock of negative energy to be send into her from the barrier. The negative energy combined with the complete absence of share energy within herself was enough to send her to her knees.
"This is ten times the lethal dose! How are you still awake!?" raged Arfoire and kept beating on the console, smashing buttons at random.
"You'll break it if you keep hitting it, chu." added Warechu, filming the Goddesses inside the Pyramid.
"Why won't they die!?" Arfoire finished her tantrum with one strong final hit on the console, said hit caused another shock to go through Nepgear.
Nepgear was about to strike the barrier again when the shock hit her and send her falling against the barrier instead of striking it. Negative energy was flashing across her body like electricity.
It should have felt to her like dying a million times per second, yet contrary to how her body was reacting to it, it only hurt as much as a minor shock you'd receive from a static electricity discharge.
'What the goddess is wrong with me!?' thought Nepgear in shocked confusion. She couldn't exactly move while the energy was dancing across her body, it didn't feel too much unlike share energy, just cold instead of warmth. A stray thought invaded her mind the moment she realized this 'maybe I can...'
She forced herself to relax as much as she could. Nothing happened at first, until the pain from the energy around her suddenly vanished entirely. The small arcs travelling over her body turned into an evenly spread red aura.
She could feel the energy of the tainted atmosphere coursing through her body much like the share energy used to do while she was in her HDD form. Nepgear carefully stood back up and bend over to pick up her beam saber. The moment she touched the handle and activated it again the blade appeared red in color instead of purple.
She dismissed it for the time being and faced the wall of the pyramid again, ready for round two. If one were to look at her more closely now, one could see the tips of her hair gradually turning red as more and more energy gets absorbed by her.
With Alex, IF and Compa
The trio had taken cover behind a pile of broken electronics to listen in on Arfoire's yelling.
"What's going on in there? Why is Gear the only one trying to break free?" asked IF after the yelling ceased and Nepgear began to beat onto the Pyramid again
"Something's wrong here." Stated Alex while monitoring the energy signatures coming from the Pyramid and surrounding area.
"What's wrong with Ge-ge?" asked Compa worried.
"She should be dead, that's what's wrong." this shocked the two humans but Alex spoke up to further elaborate before they could say anything. "Right now she's absorbing all of the anti-share energy within the pyramid, that's what's keeping the other Hyperdimension CPUs alive right now... Kurome isn't with them, otherwise I'd have told her to do just that in order to destabilize the construct..."
Alex then stood up and left their hiding spot
"What are you doing?" asked IF urging him to return.
"I'm going to destabilize and break the construct. I'm more or less the personification of my nations Anti-Sharicite, so I should be able to store it all for later use... You two, stay covered and search the area for where they could keep Kurome, I'll deal with this."
"Alright, we'll do our best." replied IF and sneaked away with Compa following her.
Alex meanwhile transformed into his SD form and snuck over to an electronics pile behind Arfoire.
A spear suddenly pierced through the pile and Alex was only moments too late to dodge. The spear cut through the right side of his stomach and a second Arfoire revealed herself to be holding the spear. His worlds Arfoire.
"Did you really believe we wouldn't expect a sneak attack from you?"
"Arfoire..." grunted Alex and freed himself from the spear, covering the injury and all exposed vital parts with black dragon scales. "Should have known you wouldn't be far from here either. This worlds you wouldn't stand a chance against a CPU from our dimension." He then summoned his serrated sword and took a defensive stance.
"For once I agree with you." replied Alpha Arfoire.
"Hey!" called out an offended Hyperdimension Arfoire.
Alpha Arfoire rolled her eyes. "Although I guess her handy gadgets and contacts make up for what she is lacking in terms of raw power and magic."
"She managed to stay alive 'till now somehow I guess... Enough talk, let's fight!" challenged Alex
"That's how it shall be done!" replied Arfoire and started stabbing at Alex in rapid succession.
Most of the strike were promptly parried or simply bounced off of the dragon scale spots on his skin.
"Take this, Slash Wave!" chanted Alex and released a wide burst of magical energy at Arfoire.
Arfoire easily dodged the attack and charged him again. "Too slow!"
Alex parried the charge attack and landed a shallow cut across her arm. "I wasn't really aiming for you."
"What!?" Arfoire turned around just in time to see the attack hit the energy pyramid.
The attack hit the pyramid undisturbed and caused a considerably large explosion that send countless cracks running across the pyramid like a spider web like pattern. But it remained standing and was slowly regenerating.
Nepgear meanwhile was also hitting the pyramid with her own weak energy attacks from the inside. The attacks were weak at best, but they were gradually becoming more powerful each time she used them. It worried her, but she had more important matters to worry about at the moment.
"It'd say it's about time to get some more magic involved." stated Alex and created some distance between himself and Arfoire, arranging it so that Arfoire was the only thing in between himself and the pyramid. "Art of Destruction: Raging Lighting Fang!"
Dozens streaks of green lightning were send flying towards Arfoire's general direction, she was a target, but not the target.
Arfoire was having a hard time deflecting all of the lightning fast energy attacks, she could have easily moved out of the way of the attack, but that would mean all of them hitting the pyramid behind her.
Nepgear meanwhile used the attacks from Alex that did get through to assist her own and matched their timing. More and more cracks formed within the pyramid, and with each new crack she felt herself getting stronger from the energy around her.
It was Anti-Share energy in its purest form. She knew it, yet she couldn't do anything against it even if she wanted to. It was flowing into her like water into a dry sponge.
"Time to end this!" shouted Alex and aimed his palm at Arfoire, a blue magic circle hovering in front of it. "Blue fire Cannon!"
A large stream of dark blue fire laced with red tendrils of negative energy shot towards Arfoire and overwhelmed her entirely, dragging her along its trajectory and slamming her into the Pyramid.
The resulting explosion shook the graveyard and a giant blue tinted cloud rose into the sky from the explosion.
Everything was silent during the first few moments after the explosion. The faint wind slowly began to clear away the smoke when a blinding red light pierced the cloud and the anti-share energy in the area rose to crushing levels, physically pressing down on everyone.
"Damn it! This isn't good!" shouted Alex and did everything to absorb the ambient anti-share energy. A red aura formed around him and the atmospheric energy moved towards him.
"Not enough!... I need to contain more! MORE!" the air around him began to distort and the red aura around him quadrupled in size and turned pitch black.
Nepgear meanwhile was being pressed into the ground by the ambient energy alone, spotting the same aura Alex had just moment prior. Her entire body felt like it was burning from the inside out. Everything hurt, and she couldn't even scream.
Unnoticed by her, she was absorbing just enough of the negative energy around her to ensure the survival of the other CPUs.
Alex on the other hand began to laugh out manically, all the energy flowing into him pushing him to the brink of insanity. "I've never felt so strong before!" the aura around him doubled in size again and began to disintegrate the ground beneath him with its sheer intensity. "Kurome! Where are you!? We need to have another round right here! right now!"
His laughter combined with the challenge send a cold shiver of foreboding down everyone's spine, even those who haven't heard about round one.
A few seconds later two beacons of energy shot into the sky of the Graveyard, and the air became heavy with energy again.
Both Arfoire's were standing side by side, each holding their spears at the ready. One, the Hyperdimension one, was a little bit cut up from the explosion. The other one, the Alphadimension one, looked about medium rare done if she were a steak. Her clothes were charred and partially still spotting embers from the fire, her previously purplish skin now had a nice black charred color to it. But even in a state like that, she held herself upright and as ready as her injuries let her.
The beacon around Nepgear vanished first, and revealed someone that didn't look much like her. Her hair had taken on a mostly dark red color. She now wore a CPU suit that looked similar to her MK2 processor units but with red highlight where there had been purple previously. She now had four thin, sharp red wings behind her back, black circuit like lines running through them and pulsating with energy. The beam saber she usually had in her HDD form was now entirely black in color and had a red chainsaw like edge circling around its cutting edge. Her eyes now spotted a red upside down power symbol in them as she glared at the Arfoire's in front of her.
The beacon around Alex didn't exactly vanish, rather it exploded outwards and cast a black fog like smoke over the battlefield as it revealed him with a changed appearance. The Processor units he wore in his SD form swapped colors, what was once black was now red and what once was red is now black. His total wing count rose up to 8 razor sharp serrated wings with black lines running through them and black particles flaking off of them. The gauntlets on his hands and feet gained a set of black plasma claws. His weapon now consisted of a scythe made up entirely out of black fog like energy.
He was standing quite the distance away from their opponents, so he rested his scythe on his shoulders and began walking towards them. Almost singing the line that made Goosebumps appear on both Arfoire's skin. "Arfoire~ I want to play a game~"
IF and Compa were watching the scene from a presumably safe distance away. IF was holding on to Warechu while Compa was healing Alpha Histoire's injuries. But at the moment the two were asking themselves who the real enemies were at the moment. Neither of the two CPU currently bore a rather "divine" or feeling to them. Even the usually shy Nepgear was radiating killer intent and bloodlust in waves right now.
Both Arfoire's didn't need words to confirm the others suspicion about the outcome of this battle. No, it wasn't going to be a battle...
...This'll be plain murder.
Both of them knew that neither of them would leave this place alive. The Gameindustri Graveyard would be its namesake for them and whatever remained of it their thumb stone.
They rose their spears with trembling hands and attacked.
Arfoire vs Nepgear (Shadow Drive)
Alpha Arfoire vs Alex (Super Shadow Drive).
AN: Next chapter is definitely going to be fun... but not for Arfoire.