Disclaimer: Idea Factory and Compile Heart has the rights to HDN, as well as Kenji Kaneko composing the track Let's Bake the Cookie! from Victory-II's soundtrack.
Let's Bake the Cookie!
Pudding.
Pudding was the only thing on the mind of a certain CPU all day, but there had been no opportunities to get that precious sugary treat because of work. Well, normally there would be plenty of time to sneak through at least one cup of pudding, but today Histoire was having none of that. Both Neptune and Nepgear had their own fair share of pudding indulgence and slacking off at times, so Histoire had separated the two to actually get some work done today.
Entering the basilicom was Neptune, who had finished up yet another quest and was ready to pass out for the rest of the day due to how tiring work was (well not really, since the lack of energy was more due to lack of pudding in life), and Histoire awaited her with more demanding tasks no doubt.
"No moreeeee Histy, I am gonna die~" Neptune complained, having done just one quest more than usual.
"Now listen Neptune, both you and Nepgear have done quite a fair share of work today, so we're almost done. However, there is one thing that needs to be done," Histoire replied, revealing a small brown box in front of her.
"What's that?"
"This is a package that was supposed to be delivered to Lowee, but due to technical difficulties it ended up here. I have already contacted them and told them that we will deliver this to them today, so if you would do this one last thing for today..."
"Oh! That's easy, that means I can have my pudding, right?"
"Do complete the task at hand first, Neptune."
"Okay..." Neptune replied, taking the package and preparing for a short journey off to Lowee for mail delivery. Even though she thought it was strange why Histoire did not just redirect the package, but then maybe it was important, seeing as the package was addressed to Blanc.
The trip to Lowee was uneventful, even though Neptune wanted to meet up with her sister somewhere, she had no idea where Nepgear was and delaying the last task of the day from Histoire might be a very bad idea, so she headed straight to Lowee. Thankfully, Neptune had been wearing her Parka Dress today and the white colours allowed her to move about Lowee without too many people noticing, lest people think that Planeptune's CPU came over to start a war or something when all Neptune was doing was delivering a package.
Neptune got to the basilicom without an incident, which was of course, a miracle. Now the problem was getting into the innermost part, most likely where Blanc and her sisters were. Ringing the doorbell, Neptune waited for 10 seconds... and then she proceeded to press the bell again and again. After waiting for an impossibly long 30 seconds, Neptune began to go rapid fire on the doorbell, maybe Blanc was too busy reading or something, so this ought to get her attention... maybe.
As Neptune was going about with her shenanigans, the door suddenly opened up quickly, but instead of being greeted by somebody, something greeted Neptune instead:
"Eternal Force Blizzard!"
A large field of ice rose up from where Neptune was standing and encased her in the ice before shattering, causing a rather uncomfortable feeling all around. "Whoooooa!"
"Geez, I knew it was you dummy! What you're doing here anyway?" Asked the CPU Candidate Ram, clearly annoyed from the doorbell ringing nonstop.
"Oh, hello Ram! Histy asked me to deliver this package to Blanc because somehow it ended up at our place," Neptune responded while slowing getting up and presenting the box.
"Huh, a package? Oh, it's that..." Ram replied, knowing what it was already and motioning Neptune where to put the box.
"That? What's exactly is this stuff anyway?"
"Books. Certain type of books, Blanc thinks it will make her write better if she reads them..."
"Oooh, I get it... So, is it just you here?"
"Uh huh, I slept in after playing games until late last night. When I woke up, Blanc and Rom already went out for quests."
"Atta girl! But hey, since I'm over here already, why don't we get some pudding?"
"We have no pudding over here! Just go back home already!"
"Oh com'on, I came all the way over here, and find you all alone by yourself, why don't I keep you company until then?"
"Mmm, fine, but we're not having pudding today."
"Awww..."
"Instead, we're going to make some cookies!" Ram declared, having gotten out one of her books with the recipe.
"Cookies? I guess they are sweet like pudding."
"Exactly, this one is Mina's secret recipe, I have most things and just need some flour and sugar, so go get them from the nearby store."
"Okay, I-wait, why do I have to go out and buy them?"
"Because this is my place, you want the cookies don't you?"
"Hmm..." Neptune sighed as she went out to a small shopping trip. She had no idea how she got roped into this, her initial idea was to stay Lowee's basilicom to cause trouble (as usual) until Blanc shows up. Of course, this was not bad at all either, having gone almost an entire day without pudding or something sweet, even cookies sound very delicious. After all, if the cookies were made from a recipe Mina left behind, no doubt it would be magically delicious for sure.
Having entered the small store near the basilicom, Neptune went to search for the ingredients that Ram needs. After thinking a bit about cookies though, Neptune also had some ideas of her own and got a few extra ingredients (Thank goodness that Histoire made Neptune do some quests earlier and got quite a good amount of credits for all this). As Neptune lined up to pay for the groceries, somebody had recognised her and spoke up.
"Oh my, it is you, Lady Neptune."
"Wait, what? Somebody recognises me in here!" Neptune said in response, looking around but seeing just rather regular people with the exception of the blonde next to her that stood out a bit more than the rest.
"My apologies for startling you, but I am Financier, and I work in Lowee's basilicom."
"Oh, so one of Blanny's friends. I gotcha. I was just visitin to drop off a mis-delivered mail earlier you see."
"Yes, Histoire told me about it in a call earlier. Thank you, and... you wouldn't happen to be buying groceries to make cookies right?"
"Whoa! How did you figure that one out?"
"I saw you exit the basilicom after delivering the package, so it must have been Ram trying to make cookies again."
"Yup, that's exactly it..."
"I knew it, Blanc and her sisters have been making them quite a bit lately, C-Sha is also quite fond of them too."
"Oooh I get it, they really are that good huh? Can't wait to try them out then!" Neptune finished while paying for the groceries and heading back to the basilicom quickly (And she had forgotten that she could have bought some pudding in this shopping trip).
Meanwhile, Financier had just realised that in addition to sleeping in today, Ram had also been too lazy to shop herself and got Neptune to do it, which was not good. However, for some strange reason, this might just work out seeing as Ram and Neptune... seem to compliment each other in strange way. When Neptune got back to the basilicom, the door was locked, so she went rapid fire on the doorbell again. Shortly afterwards, Ram opened the door and Neptune smiled.
"I'm home! I got everything you asked for," Neptune declared, holding the bag of groceries.
"Oh yeah, that's great..." Ram replied, receiving the bag then began to walk inside with Neptune following. However, part way through Ram spun around and held out her staff, "Ice Coffin!"
"Nooooooooooooooooo!" Neptune yelled as she is encased in ice again, clearly Ram is not fond of Neptune's antics with the doorbell. Naturally, the Eternal Force Blizzard from earlier and the Ice Coffin were very weak casted spells that Neptune broke free without trouble or pain. If anything, Neptune could tell that Ram took after Blanc a little bit in regards to responding to her.
After finally having everything gathered in the kitchen, Ram and Neptune could finally begin to make the famed delicious cookies, except that Neptune was not sure where to start with this one.
"So umm, I've never actually made something like this before. Or, maybe I have but I burned everything last time..." Neptune admitted, remembering a time she blew up half of Planeptune's basilicom trying to make her own pudding.
"I didn't know how to make these at first either, but I made it a few times with Blanc and Rom already, it's pretty easy. Here, cream the butter together with the white and brown sugar and some salt," Ram replied, handing a huge mixing bowl over.
Neptune began to smash the butter in with the sugar, but it was more difficult than she imagined as the block of butter was uncooperative. Meanwhile, Ram had cracked the eggs and began to cut a vanilla pod in half to take seeds out. Of course, even Neptune knew that typically cookies just use vanilla extract and it would be fine, but to see Ram using a vanilla pod must mean that these cookies were worth it (or that Blanc was just rich). After struggling a bit more with the butter block, Neptune finally broken it down and creamed it with the sugar.
"Okay, so what now?" Neptune asked, excited to see that things are finally going well.
"Just take a whisk, and get ready as I pour in all the liquid measurements..." Ram replied, as Neptune began to stir and she poured in the beated eggs and vanilla. After mixing a bit, the brownish colour of a dough batter began to become apparent, and Neptune began to get excited again, surely all this effort was worth it.
"Oh wow, it really does start to look like cookies!"
"It's not done, here comes the fun part!" Ram said, taking some measured out flour and pouring it all into the large bowl. However, the height which she poured it from was way too high and the flour flew everywhere. "Oopes..."
"Whoa! I wasn't expecting this..." Neptune said, noticing that her entire face was covered in flour and that it was also the same with Ram.
"Ahahaha! You look funny Neptune!"
"Well, you look the same way... Here, stay still," Neptune responded, reaching out for a cloth and rinsed it in water before beginning to wipe down on Ram's funny face.
"Hey! I can take care of this," Ram protested, but Neptune did not budge.
"Ah, don't worry, I've got you," Neptune said, cleaning off the flour from Ram's face. Of course, once Ram was cleaned up she immediately snatched the wet cloth from Neptune and drew closer to do the same for Neptune, only that Ram wiped down too fast and did so in a rough manner unlike Neptune (Which was probably on purpose too).
"Ow ow ow, hey Ram, can't you slow down a bit?"
"Nope, you're all cleaned up, let's continue!" Ram said, smiling mischievously, and Neptune returned the smile because... well, she knew this is just how Ram was.
Once the two of them finally mixed the flour in with mixture, Ram also added some processed Premium Jelly, which was more like candy bits than jelly. At this point, Ram had set up a giant cookie sheet while both of them began to form cookie dough balls from the dough batter. To Neptune's surprise, the batter yield made numerous cookies, but thankfully the cookie sheet was more than enough to house all the cookies. Since Ram had preheated the oven before from earlier, they were able to immediately start baking the cookies.
"Phew, that was a lotta work, glad we are finally done with that..." Neptune sighed, as creaming the butter and then incorporating all the flour in the final mixture was a bit of work, especially with that batch.
"Uh huh, but... what's all this other stuff you've bought?" Ram asked, seeing there was more things in the bag that Neptune brought back.
"Oh right, when I was thinking of cookies, I thought that maybe it would be cool to you know, make some frosting, put it in a bottle, and then 'draw' something interesting on the cookies!"
"Like Blanc's face to make it look like a Blanc Manju?"
"Yeah somethin like that."
Due to the shorter and easier recipe to follow for the cookie frosting, there was no flour incident this time and everything went smoothly (for once). After all the hard work of cookies and frosting, the two of them decided to take a small break as the cookies continued to bake. Neptune had gotten thirsty and went to the fridge for some cold water, but when she opened the door, she saw a cup of pudding right in the dead centre of the fridge!
"Waaaait a minute, there was pudding here all along!" Neptune exclaimed, because clearly before Ram had said there was no pudding...
"Well, it looks like there is..." Ram said, trying to shrink away now that Neptune had found her out.
"Mmm, I could have had pudding an hour ago..."
"I... I'm sorry. I just wanted somebody to help me make some cookies..." Ram apologised.
"Ohhhh well, that's fine I guess. I mean, I did have quite a bit of fun there making those cookies. So don't make that face all right?" Neptune responded, going over to pat Ram on the head because it looked like Ram was making a sad face of some sort.
Naturally, Neptune was still going to eat the pudding while waiting for the cookies to bake, so both herself and Ram just sat down a large sofa just next to the kitchen area because it was rather a long day. Of course, even knowing that Ram had no ill intentions hiding things, Neptune still caught a few awkward glances from Ram while resting, which then she probably knew what was going on.
"Hmm, did you plan to enjoy pudding as well?" Neptune asked, smiling over at Ram, who was just rather a bit quiet.
"Umm, nope, I just-" Ram got cut off when Neptune just straight up pushed a spoonful of pudding through her mouth. It was pretty sudden, but Ram's first reaction was to eat the pudding. Afterwards, Ram's second reaction was blushing profusely, she had no expected Neptune to pull something off like that so suddenly and she was also at a loss for words.
"Aha! I got you! You've been a bit quiet, so you do enjoy pudding!"
"T-that's not it..."
"Are you sure? You really seemed like you had something to say. But hey, relax. I won't turn into an angry final boss like Blanc and eat you. Speaking of eating, why not have some more pudding? Open up~" Neptune said, pushing another spoonful of pudding towards Ram.
Ram wanted to protest, but then she was already embarrassed enough the first time Neptune fed her pudding. Surely something so embarrassing was something only couples did, so why in the world was Neptune just so open to something like this? Then Ram realised the answer: Duh, it was Neptune, that was all that was needed to be said. Nevertheless, ever so reluctantly, Ram leaned forward and received the pudding, except this time she closed her eyes and was still shaking in embarrassment, as she wished that Neptune knew that this was oh so ever embarrassing as evident by her blushing.
Thankfully there would not be an awkward silence because the timer for the cookies just went off, both Neptune and Ram carefully took the giant cookie sheet out and saw the perfectly baked cookies now expanded along with the pleasing aroma filling the room. After the cookies cooled down a bit, both Ram and Neptune began to squeeze their cookie frosting out of the bottles to draw faces on the cookies. For whatever reason, Ram had made a ridiculously large batch of cookies, and so the two of them drew faces of not only CPUs on the cookies but also faces of Oracles, Seven Sages, Dogoos, AffimaX, and even... Linda, whoever that is.
After decorating the cookies with faces made from frosting, the two of them began to indulge in the freshly baked cookies of delight. Of course, with Ram measuring out such a huge batch, there was no way they could ever finish all of them, and so they just piled the leftovers on a big plate on the table. Having their fill of sugary goodness, both Neptune and Ram retreated back to the sofa and was more than happy to just sit still for the time being. Even though the amount of sugar consumed should have both of them blasting off into the Ultradimension, neither of them moved, they were just that content after consuming those cookies.
"Mmm, that really was way better than expected..." Neptune commented, having enjoyed both some pudding and delicious cookies in the same day.
"Of course! We found the recipe Mina left behind in one the books, it's simply the best, and... now I feel sleepy..." Ram remarked, clearly having had quite a bit too many cookies to almost send her into a food coma.
"Yeeeeah, that doesn't sound bad..."
Slowly but surely, both Neptune and Ram began to nod off, it was just too peaceful of a scene to not sleep after all. Especially when Neptune did everything Histoire asked today and so she had no worries even if she got home late today. Just before passing out for good though, Neptune felt Ram snuggle up beside her.
"Ram?"
"Thank you for making cookies with me..."
Neptune smiled at the remark as Ram drifted off to sleep, as Ram was pretty similar in Blanc in one part of her personality that made it easy to tease the little one. However, right now Neptune was feeling too sleepy to respond, and so she just held Ram closer as they both fell into sleep with silly grins on their faces. Naturally, this might not have been the best thing to do, because if Blanc were to come home right now and see Neptune purposely spoil her younger twin sister and fall asleep on the sofa like a second home, there might be some pain... Still, Neptune did not care, the joy of eating cookies had satisfied her.
The day had taken an unexpected turn for sure, Neptune originally wanted some pudding when she finished work and headed to Lowee. Along the way, maybe meet up Nepgear, and then make themselves right at home with lots of pudding. However, even though it was not her first choice, Neptune had to admit that cookies were indeed something great too, mostly because she made them with Ram of course.
"Mmm, pudding is good, but so are cookies..." Neptune said, while dreaming away with sweet dreams. No doubt that in addition to pudding, there are also the other delicious treats...
Cookies.
And so I was playing through Victory-II and got to the dungeon with Let's Bake the Cookie! track, listened to it for awhile, and then... this idea came up. That is all.