Multithreading
Prologue: Don't pet the Animals!
Disclaimer: Hoh boy, what am I getting myself into? Last I checked, I'm neither !F Idea Factory, Compile Heart, Felistella, Criware and everyone else who has the slightest bit to do with the Hyperdimension Neptunia series, of which I claim no ownership whatsoever of. I'm just a crude guy who happens to quite enjoy the series because of the memes, fourth wall breaks and the absurd amounts of game-related references added into it. That and because the series has Blanc.
"Ugh, my head..."
Well, that's definitely a great start into the day. The sun bombards innocent life-forms with its deathly UV-rays, a bunch of pesky oxygen synthesizing wooden trees are busy being assimilated by a colony of termites, countless innocent worms fall prey to the deathly predators of the sky, a lonely river carries various items once cast aside by careless people away into the deep parts of an ocean and it is far too early in the afternoon to be awake.
But seriously, why am I outdoors? All things concerned, this is not the natural habitat of a self-proclaimed hobby-gamer and I have better things to spent my money on than on alcohol, energy drinks or cancer sticks... or a G-F, if we are at it. Also, I sincerely doubt that I had consumed any of the three former - or been slapped by the one latter -, so what's the origin of that gigantic headache? It feels like a mammoth had pooped on me before turning me into a poor impression of modern art!
By the goddess of friggin' RNG, had a friggin' truck driven me over?
Ugh.
...
Okay, okay, being mad equals more hurt for my head. Which is bad. Being calm equals less hurt for my head. Which is good.
... I'm not making any sense, am I?
*sigh*
Alright, boot up that darn body-control-algorithm or whatever you call 'get your darn rear in gear' nowadays. So, opening the eyes, there are three things that became quite interesting quite fast:
The first thing that comes to the immediate attention is that I'm lying on my stomach, my lower body covered by the water flowing through a rather shallow part of the aforementioned river while the upper body lies on a rather uncomfortable gravel 'shore'... or a dry part of the river bed. Probably the latter.
The second thing of interest had something to do about the greenery... or, to be more precise, the... augmentations. Circle-y 'bands' of some form of white metal hovered around lush, lively giants of trees and emitted light in various colors of the rainbow, a metal bridge with... holograms substituting for railings connected one river bank with the one on the opposite side...
And third: The general temperature more than likely exceeds twenty-seven Celsius and the sun is directly shining on my unprotected body. I'll more than likely get a major case of sunburn if I proceed to lie here like some fish who's incompetent enough to drown in its supposed-to-be natural element.
...
Aaand there's a forth thingamabob: My hair is longer than it used to be and changed its color from red to blond.
...
Also, there's a Dragon-Quest-Slime-lookalike with dog ears, -snout and -tail wobbling along the rim of the river with no care whatsoever in the world. A walking red-tulip-flower-thing with a pair of stubby feet and arms chased after it, hell bent on tackling the slime's tail from what could be seen. Shortly after, a pair of Skunk-Tail-Cats with likely-but-unlikely swollen forepaws were rudely interrupted by the duo of blob and plant, mercilessly plowed away and launched into the water. Their combined screeching of indignant death threats startled a flock of yellow, overgrown chicks (the variant with feathers, not the human kind) out of their nests within the nearby trees and also lured a big, bad, blue-ish furred wolf with... some kind of metal blades strapped on its hind legs towards them. A mighty pounce of truly epic proportions, two infuriated screams of overly crude swearwords as well as a cloud of bluish-white square data packages later and the wolf found himself in the presence of two mighty chunks of ham with stereotypical bones rammed through.
... Well, this sight either confirms that I'm dreaming... or I became insane... Well, more insane than before, in any case.
Aaanyways, I think the wisest action to do right now would be to quietly get up and as far away as humanly possible from the big, carnivorous, hungry wolf over there lest the beast may seek to turn my lonesome self into a simple dessert and, considering the circumstances, that would be very, very suboptimal towards the preservation of my insignificant existence.
Though I'm a dog person, I highly doubt this beast would be brought to subservience through excessive belly scratching... and I am not quite in the right state of mind to verify my hypothesis by actually doing the deed. These long claws it claims ownership of are definitely able to pierce through flesh like a hot knife through liquefied butter.
And I quite enjoy living, thank you very much.
Well then, in this case it is of the utmost priority that I get my mortal shell up and running, if one may excuse my rather unusual choice of words. To do so, to get myself to a sitting position beforehand would be the best course of action, something that requires me to get my arms operational and push myself up. So with that time and space delaying thought, I move the keyboard-murdering body parts of mine next to me and into the field of vision-
...
What in the seven frozen hells?
There are hands in my field of vision and they feel like mine, alright. A definite plus, I can't argue with that. What I can and will argue about, on the other hand (pun SO NOT intended), is the very simple, unavoidable fact that they are most certainly not the set of hands I had yesterday evening... or ever before now. Don't get me wrong, these hands I see right now are most certainly quite beautiful and dainty and delicate and pale and whatever else I can't wrap my head around right now.
However, and this is the main concern right now, they are almost exclusively found ON GIRLS!
On the plus side, my old headache makes a run for the hills. Unfortunately, it runs away from its evil big sister migraine.
I had just realized why exactly the gravel digging into my upper body itches so badly.
...
This train of thought ends now. I can always bitch about the quite literal exchange of perspectives at a later point in time, preferably when that giant wolf isn't charging at me!
Move, move, move!
Gods friggin' darn it, I will kill whoever decided to cram me into this body! There will be blood! There will be gore! I will sacrifice that sick, profanity filtering dastard to Skorne!.. whoever that is.
Maybe I should sacrifice them to the Fell Dragon instead.
Less death threats, more survival! Assess the darn situation!
I'm upright and running. I'm running quite fast, despite the fact of certain... balancing issues. GODS! There's a quarter-ton big, bad, blue wolf chasing me, a look of seemingly insatiable hunger in its... yellowish glowing eyes... and it is grinning... and staring... and... leering?
It's staring at my darn behind!
Aaand... apparently I'm not running anymore and, instead, glare vividly against the definitely perverted animal while standing around on a dirt path like a complete moron. In my defense, the wolf-thing is also just staring at... well, my... things. Like the pervert it is... or, at least that's what I presume how a pervert would be staring at one if... you know... Well, considering that the familiar feeling of (soaked) clothing against skin is projected to that brain of mine, there is an abysmally low chance that the body I seem to inhabit (hopefully temporarily) from now on would turn the heads of human males around. I sincerely hope that is not the case. Maybe it just smelled something-
...
No, that is something I want to think about even less.
The dirt path moves along the somewhat rather familiar river to my right. To my left, there's the underbrush and lots of trees in close proximity to one another.
If I follow the path, the chance to stumble over signs of a random, possibly human, civilization are rather high, but the wolf will most certainly catch up to me and do horrible, M-rated things before filling that bottomless stomach of his... it is a male, right?
If I abandon the dirt path and jump into the thick underbrush, the pervert wolf won't fit through, but the chances to find a village or something like that are drastically reduced... provided this is some kind of natural resort or something ridiculous like that. I will be able to increase my immediate chances at survival, but might run into smaller, equally dangerous adversaries along the way.
Certain death filled with unfathomable humiliation or potential death through the claws of whatever creatures lurk within the underbrush?
... The wolf ran past me, not looking back.
...
Instead, he/she's running into the far distance, howling out loudly into the sky.
Another howl answered, faintly heard from the direction the original one was charging to.
...
Well, that's a thing.
Roughly an hour of endless walking later
Okay.
I'm on a simple dirt path on top of a hill, just outside the unbelievably huge forest. The sight in front of me is filled with an ocean of green pastures. Weird badger-cats with knight-like helmets run around with seemingly no care in the world and green slime-dogs huddle together and doze the day away, unaware of the bipedal tulips of varying sizes and colors dancing in their vicinity. Truly, whoever decided to uproot every single tree to create this literal sea of grass never thought about the effect it may have over the intensity of the wind, but not everyone is graced with the power of foresight.
In the far, far, far distance one can see the first real signs of a settlement, namely the vague shape of gigantonormous skyscrapers of some kind... And yes, 'gigantonormous' is a truly legitimate word now. Anyway, one of said gigantonormous skyscraper had the vague ellipse-like curve like that one opera house building in Sydney I can't quite seem to grasp the name of right now, but it was more... the curve wasn't as strongly pronounced. Also, for some odd reason, the citizens had painted their buildings purple.
Heck, if my eyes don't betray me, there are even skyscrapers placed on the sides of the biggest skyscraper!
I'm not entirely sure how exactly I could recognize the color and shape of the buildings on the far, far, far horizon, but it is none the less a sight to behold. Truly a fortunate find.
Unfortunately, it was on the other side of an actual ocean... Or, well, an actual sea.
There's a lot of water in the way, let's go with that.
The city also looked vaguely like Hamburg.
Kinda.
Sorta.
You may have to squint a bit, I guess.
Or a lot.
Okay, okay, it doesn't look like Hamburg.
But it is a city of a civilization, so that is a plus... right? I just have to punch some trees, build a crafting table and craft a boat, right? Or, alternatively, get a lot of fallen branches together, bind them together with some long ropes made of grass, build a raft and use a good branch as a paddle, right?
...
So, let's search for another, more accessible settlement, one that is preferably on this side of the unpredictable seas.
*grroarrm*
And maybe find something edible along the way. There has to be something out here, right?
Right?
Roughly three hour of seemingly pointless walking later
"Dogoo!"
I am on another hill this time, overlooking the glorious sight in front of me for the first time.
It turns out, there is at least one settlement on this landmass. A port town, to be precise. A large port town with housings, industry districts, shopping districts, hotels, museums, internet Cafés, tons of game shops, slums, a red light district, bars, bar fights, taverns, tavern fights, radio towers, a giant, boxy, arch-like, white building that almost reaches from one end of the city to the other... and, most important of all, restaurants and food stalls. Lots and lots and lots of restaurants and food stalls.
Which came hand-in-hand with the rather important realization that I am completely, utterly broke.
As far as I know, I don't have a wallet on me... or a money pouch... or any of my... actually, I don't have actual pockets on my clothing. Apparently brown sandals covered in mud, white socks covered in mud, underwear, a long, white... skirt partially covered in mud, a green T-shirt not covered in mud and a hungry body seem to be all the possessions I can safely claim ownership of right now.
Long story short: A certain device that connected me to the civilization at large failed to remain within my possession: My Smartphone.
And thus I found myself sitting on top of the hill, idly watching from afar wherever the crowds of citizens walked to and from on the city's streets.
Actually, I lied. I just lay there in the grass, staring at the sky, waiting to starve to such a point that a passerby or three would haul me to the next hospital, at which point I might be able to get some sustenance. Sure, the plan wasn't without its faults, but it sounded indefinitely better than searching for food in trash cans, getting a low-paid job, selling my organs, commit to stealing, asking a passerby, go to the town hall or an information booth for tourists, a police station and, most importantly of all, walking through the crowds!
Sure, less-than-savory folks could find me lying here and do whatever they wish with me, but... I better don't think about it. Yes, that sounds like a very good thing to do.
"Doo-goooo."
Unfortunately, these lands' critters proof to be quite interested in the random person that decided to go through with a ginormously stupid plan of epic proportions and, in the case of this particular, annoying dog-slime, found quite a lot of amusement in poking the left side of my head with their muzzle the entire time instead of leaving me alone. The poking alone I could tolerate to a certain extent, but this kind of amorphous mammal had the particularly irritating side effect of leaving behind blue goo whenever it touched something with anything that wasn't either it's muzzle or other furred body part.
My stomach rumbles.
I sigh.
"Dog-oooh?"
Well, I won't get any sleep anytime soon it seems. Getting back up to sit cross-legged, I shift my attention to the little mammal-wannabe and, simultaneously, scrub the slime off my face with the help of a handful of grass... and by the RNG-Goddess Anna, I wish I hadn't gotten up.
That little guy managed to project the 'I-haven't-gotten-anything-yet,-please-feed-me'-look with such an intensity and mastery that it gave brown Labrador pups a run for their money.
In other words, it was absolutely adorable.
Within mere seconds, the little critter found itself sitting in my lap, cheerily coating my... skirt in blue slime as it got it's ears scratched. Yes, yes, I know, I have no idea what kind of garbage piles this thing has pillaged and what kind of diseases it may spread, but I don't care right now! I'm a god-darn dog person and this thing is the next best thing to a dog. Situations like this are to be expected.
Aaand now it melted. Great...
"Dooo-gooo~"
... I have to admit, that little fellow does manage to worm it's way into people's hearts just by smiling - yes, smiling - like a total, adorkable idiot. Either that or I'm just not mentally fortified enough to kick them away. Probably a mixture of both.
"Goo?"
"Dogoogo?"
"Goo Dogoodo!"
Aaand it has friends.
"Googoogoo!" "Goodooodogoo." "Veee!" "Splurp." "Gooey?"
LOTS of friends. Also, why's there a blue, bipedal tulip mixed into the crowd?
Do they expect me to pet them all?
"Goeydoey!"
Hours later - Evening
As it turned out: Yes, they expected me to pet them all. And though it is hard to properly placate nine slime-dogs and a bipedal, blue tulip, which, in turn, thinks it is a slime-dog, it becomes plain-out impossible as soon as the attention of more and more creatures had been piqued.
At first, just a few more small, blue slime-dogs had shown up, apparently curious about the strangely formed ear-scratcher in the midst of the pack of slime-dogs and the lone, walking plant, decided to give the whole experience a try and integrated themselves into the merry band of (mostly) amorphous creatures. This, in turn, grabbed the attention of small pink slime-dogs who, unfortunately, turned out to be very needy when it came to excessive pampering. This, in turn, seemed to upset the blue slime-dogs quite a lot and they decided to gang up on the red ones... by merging into Slime-Dog-Stacks and Giant Slime-Dogs.
Secretly. I was quite proud of my name choices since they described exactly what these creatures were. Three Slime-Dogs stacked on top of one another would turn into a Stack of Slime-Dogs, meaning they were (properly) thrice as strong as one alone. Not only that, but apparently you could substitute the uppermost Slime-Dog with a bipedal, blue tulip. Giant Slime-Dogs on the other hand were a combination of a lot of tinier Slime-Dogs and, as the name suggested, gigantic. Well, at least as big as a one story tall building, in any case.
So, yea... Three Blue Slime-Dog-Stacks (plus one Tulip) and a Blue Giant Slime-Dog were about to engage four red Slime-Dogs and guard their ear-scratching-privileges. However, before a proper skirmish could take place, reinforcements arrived for the red army... in the form of Red Slime-Dog-Stacks and Red Giant Slime-Dogs. This, on the other hand, caused to pique the interest of other Blue Slime-Dogs in all shapes and sizes to appear and thus the stream of fortifying forces never ceased for both sides.
Until now.
With my back to the city, I observed the two opposing forces, blatant disbelief visible on my face.
"Where did they all come from?! "
Two armies. Red and Blue. Dawn and Dusk. Pirates and Ninjas. Sith and Jedi. Marvel and DC. Battlefield and Call of Duty. Plants and Zombies
"How did it end like this?"
If I had to guess, both sides had a dozen times a dozen Giant Slime-Dogs each, a few of them even stacked on top of one another to form Giant Slime-Dog-Stacks. Wobbling around them were a dozen times more of the 'normal' sized Slime-Dog-Stacks. They, again, were apparently outnumbered a dozen to one by the 'normal' Slime-Dogs. Multiple members of The Red Army wore pirate hats, straw hats, marine caps, Skyrim-style Viking Helmets and eye patches of varying sizes and styles while a few members of The Blue Alliance had donned samurai helmets, knight helmets, ninja masks or, in one case, had apparently swallowed a lot of oranges to turn its color from blue to orange. Hell, even the blue Tulip from before had somehow changed the color of its petals to pink! PINK!
"Dooogoooooo!"
But the spotlight of this madness took the two... I think I'll call them Emperors for now. I think a dozen of the Giant Slime-Dogs in each army had fused together to form two ridiculously large Titanic Slime-Dogs! They wore a Straw hat and a friggin' Hokage Hat respectively!
The only creature that stood out of this madness was the one Slime-Dog that had triggered this madness in the first place. Heck, it's still sitting in my lap for crying out loud!
Yet I couldn't help but wonder if all of these Slime-Dogs knew why they were about to start a fight in the first place.
On the other hand, if they decided to sign a Truce and shift their sights on the city behind me... or on me...
...
I JUST SCRATCHED SOME EARS! WHY IS THIS HAPPENING?
"My, my, that could be heard from miles away and you hadn't even voiced it out. I'm impressed."
I allowed myself a small glance backwards, caught a glimpse of bare skin... and promptly focused on the madness in front of me again. "GODS, don't you have any kind of common decency?!" Seriously, whoever that woman behind me is, she should be ashamed! Barely five percent of her body is covered!
... Why am I complaining about that? I... was a darn guy, I should've passed out instantly with a massive nose bleed!
She chuckled. Chuckled! "Quite the temper, too. For a moment I thought a certain, ill-tempered someone had finally reached her growth spurt and came to pledge her eternal loyalty to me." She sighed sensually and I don't have to turn around to know how that breath had moved her assets around. "Oh well, it was not meant to be. Instead, it is of the utmost priority to quell this little commotion, ensure the safety of my dear citizens and prepare myself in a timely manner for the raid on the bandit holdout of the Fire Breathing Turtle Bunnies of Fell Mountain."
... What?
The woman walked to the left side of mine and I redoubled my efforts to focus on... the cosplaying Slime-Dogs in front of me... who were still too preoccupied with staring each other into submission. She sighed theatrically. Again. "Such ill temper. Tell me, how did two species of otherwise peaceful Dogoo end up going for each other's gel? And why are some stacked on top of one another? Also, Grandogoos were already big, but these two titans truly take the cake."
... Well, no reason to not tell her the truth. I pointed to the... Dog-goo in my lap and started to talk... and, apparently, failed to put any emotion into my voice. "I scratched this fellow's ears." The inevitable silence that followed told me everything I needed to know: That indecent woman didn't believe me or didn't connect the dots. Oh boy, may as well elaborate. "I'm sorta, kinda broke and thought the best kind of action to take was to starve myself into a hospital to get food. To do that, I took a nap, but the little one here poked me awake and begged for food itself. To placate it, I scratched his... its ears instead."
"I... see..." She clearly did not. Troublesome woman.
I continued, an eeny, tiny tint of exasperation worming its way into my voice. "Somehow, that garnered the attention of multiple more representatives of its species and before I knew it, eighteen additional Dogoos and a bipedal tulip-"
"Dogoo!" "Vee!"
Wow, both armies and the tulip in question didn't take the word 'tulip' that well... so... "My bad, a honorable member of the legendary Blue Dogoo Tribe," no objections... interesting, "had joined our company and decided to get their heads scratched, too. Then members of the Mythical Red Dogoo Syndicate," again, no interruptions, "also started to demand scratching, albeit a bit more aggressively than the others. The blue ones, suddenly entirely bereft of pampering, obviously didn't like that very much and decided to protect their ear scratching rights..."
I exhaled in more noticeable exasperation this time. "Then things escalated into this."
Clearly, this statement didn't seem to satisfy the woman in highly provocative 'clothing'. "... All this is happening because you scratched a Dogoo's ears? Forgive me, but I find it quite hard to comprehend."
"That makes two of us."
The woman let out a true sigh this time as she stepped forward, giving me a far too good view of her rear, bare back and her long, green ponytail... Wait, what? "Considering your current... slime covered state of being," she began... "I feel inclined to believe your explanation... For now, at least." Well, darn you, too! She brushed her green ponytail back with her right hand, glanced sideways and flashed a... confident (?) smile towards me. "Let's continue this chat after I have dealt with the Dogoo Horde, shall we?" With these words, she raised her right hand towards the sky and... materialized a giant, white and green spear out of midair.
Ignoring the blatant violation of the laws of physics, I raised an eyebrow. "Do you always resolve all your problems with extreme prejudice?"
Her voice... hardened. "These creatures threaten the dear citizens of my nation and, as the CPU of Leanbox, I'll not allow those under my protection to be endangered."
... Leanbox? I'm pretty sure I had heard that name somewhere... possibly... maybe... Also: "CPU? You are a Central Processing Unit? You don't look like some kind of automaton, that's for sure."
She chuckled, but didn't averted her gaze from her enemies-in-the-making. "Console Patron Unit, silly. You must be quite... delirious to forget such a simple fact."
Gods, does she have to be so... patronizing all the time? And had she forgotten why I sit here in the first place? But just as I was about to verbally retaliate...
She had vanished. One blink with the eyes and she was gone.
Another blink later and a green shining something crashed through the lower ranks of the Red Pirate Dogoos and exploded!
... Which caused the entire area to be covered in red slime.
Myself included.
One angry swipe at the gelatinous corpse covering my eyes later I'm able to lay my eyes upon the result of whatever had happened. Every single member of the two hordes apparently shared this intent and gazed upon the sole, pristine person in the middle. "Hmhmhm. My charming smile and unrivaled breasts are certain to grab the enemy's attention."
"ARE YOU SERIOUS?" These words escaped me faster than my brain could even begin to think about coming up with a proper answer.
I couldn't see it, but I know she was smiling. "Well, of course. After all, not everyone has the pleasure to be as gifted as me." There was definitely a tick-mark growing on my head now. How can someone be this... this... "I would gladly prolong our little chat, but it seems these monsters won't wait any longer. Brace yourselves," her weapon began to glow in a bright green light, "Sylhet Spear!"
Slime covered the world...
- Ten Minutes later -
Little, extremely-recently-and-without-consent named Gordon the Dogoo was shivering in fear, utterly and thoroughly paralyzed through sheer terror. I couldn't fault him... it for that. The carnage in front of us was more than a little... messy.
The woman that was as ridiculously overpowered as a Norfleet-firing Mechromancer on 600 Anarchy Stacks (... well, maybe not that powerful) had decreased the... numbers of creatures from both armies down to... an orange, clone generating slime, a red, straw-hat wearing Grandogoo, the two Lordogoos (name still pending) and an unconscious, slime-covered tulip. Somehow, Dogoos dissolve into bits of friggin' data when they... die, but they also 'drop' globs of slime.
Globs that instantly explode in all directions because the barely covered and still miraculously clean nutcase flying through the air uses such powerful... skills that these 'drops' are always caught in the crossfire. And given the sheer, absurd amount of those splattered 'glob drops'...
I am so far past the point of caring it isn't even funny anymore. I'm more irritated at the fact that the forecast hadn't mentioned a darn slime rain.
Little Gordon's base-blue color had changed into iris purple! That's how much red and blue slime has fallen on top of us!
Both lords... had seen better days. I'll never quite understand how amorphous beings like them could get bumps on their... head, but they had. Numerous energy spears were sticking in their bodies and they looked to be on the verge of liquidation. The Straw-Grandogoo and the Orange Nuisance stood in front of them, dead-set on protecting their bosses with everything they got. Everything they had left.
The green haired woman, on the other hand, hovered in midair, six pink, holographic, peacock-like wings moving to the beat of an unknown song, a 'charming' smile on her face.
She looked far too familiar for my tastes. The city behind me looked far too familiar for my tastes. The... Dogoos looked far too familiar for my tastes.
'I know this place!' something inside me chants with the general intensity of exploding dynamite. 'I just can't wrap my head around this...'
The amorphous creatures were outmatched and they knew it. Whoever this woman was, she had turned a square kilometer of once green pastures into a slimy wasteland. Without breaking a sweat.
"... Goo."
... This call from the red Lord jolted little Gordon back to awareness and... grabbed everyone's attention.
"... Goodo?" That was the orange one...
"Goodododogoo!" an agitated Red... Grandogoo shouted at its superior.
"Googoo." Blue Kage-Slime-sama had spoken and it became still once again.
Gordon jumped out of my lap, paused, gave me a sad look and then bolted away. The lords jumped high into the sky. The orange one vanished. The Red Dogoo with the Straw hat, on the other hand, simply wobbled away, never letting the woman out of its sight as it retreated inlands.
Only the tulip, I and the woman were left.
"...chest has grown larger, too!~"
Great... not.
Alright, it is time to stand up for a change. Get into a crouch, sit up, don't slip on the darn, slippery ground, wipe some more slime off my... everything... squeeze the hair out, swipe the gelatin away again... Darn, I definitely need a bath. A long, long, hot bath. And a change of clothes, too.
And food. And money.
And access to the internet.
And sleep.
Good to know that my priorities are still straight.
...
*sigh*
Might as well grab the tulip and... I dunno, plant it somewhere I guess. It just lays a couple steps away from me... shouldn't be too hard, right?
- CPU Green Heart (Vert) -
CPU Green Heart, also known as Vert, masked her unease with a cheerful smile.
What made her uneasy?
Well, that slime covered girl of course.
Blanc mk2.0 (name still pending), for the original had no real assets to speak of, felt... strange. It wasn't the fact that her hair was pinkish red, sky-blue and bright purple colored (though the CPU believed the slimes were responsible for that), that her eyes were of an equally deep blue as Vert's ones in human form or that she didn't seem to wear any shoes, no, it had more to do with her...
... well, she didn't feel right and Vert didn't knew what made the teen so... unnerving. It was like you accidentally stumbled over the entrance to a secret passageway, realized you found a secret passageway, but you just couldn't find the trigger to make the wall move aside. Then you backtrack through the entire fortress, only to find out that the lever to open the secret passageway had been hidden inside another hidden passageway, which, in turn, had been masterfully disguised behind an unassuming painting inside a hidden room you could only access by jumping into the town's collective latrine and lowering the sewer's water level to open another secret passageway that led to said room! And in the end, the reward wasn't even worth it. Only a million gallons of Gold? Vert could grind that much in her sleep! Literally!
But Green Heart digressed.
As she already notified within her thoughts, Blanc mk2.0 was weird. She looked weird, acted weird, smelled weird, had apparently no idea what the divine kind of CPUs were (something which led Vert to believe that the teen might suffer under selective amnesia), most likely lacked basic survival instincts, somehow lured an army of slimes in front of her city without realizing it and had apparently gone into the wilderness without a weapon.
And, well, again, she felt weird.
Yet when she tried to investigate further into it, the feeling eluded her notice.
It infuriated her to no end!
"YIKES!"
Green Heart cringed, both mentally and visibly. 'By the might of The Developers- that was louder than it had any right to be!'
The source of this shout, as expected, happened to be the aforementioned girl. The mystery behind reason as to why she had yelled in the first place also unraveled itself rather quickly: The artificially red, blue and purple haired girl had slipped and, consequently, fell flat on her face. Not only that, but if the blue data-blocks rose towards the sky were any indicator at all, then Vert assumed that Blanc mk2.0's head had impacted with a weakened monster and, as a consequence, crushed it.
Green Heart couldn't help herself: She had to giggle.
This, in response, earned the goddess one of the most condescending glares a seemingly sixteen year old teen could project. However, if you look at the big picture and perceive her current slime covered, bedraggled and disheveled appearance, the glare loses the majority of its severance and, instead, only aides one's imagination in creating the picture of a cute, little Tsundere in distress.
Weird presence or not, observing the teen turned out to be quite the amusing affair.
But it didn't stop the nagging... feeling...
This was like one of these extremely hard Puzzle-Locks on Rare Loot Chests or Hidden Doors she would obsess over so long until she managed to crack it, right? The problem with this train of thought was that Green Heart wouldn't have easy access to guides on Geargle or U(ni)-Tube. Was this predicament really worth the potential effort?
Maybe, maybe not.
In the end, the goddess could always ask the source of this uneasy feeling herself, preferably after consuming some food. Even though the girl's actions were incredibly, mind-bogglingly stupid, the fact of the matter was that the teen seemed to have no money to provide for herself. In the case Blanc mk2.0 truly suffered from (selective) amnesia, it would slightly hamper efforts to make contact with her relatives... She should have parents or, at the very least, a legal guardian, right?
What kind of Side Quest is Vert going to be involved with?
"Uhm..."
Green Heart blinked. It seems that in the amount of time she had been lost within her thoughts the slime covered girl had walked in front of her. Focusing her attention on the younger female, Vert noted that the... bluette tried her absolute best to keep her gaze at the Goddess's nose - not into her eyes, not on her breasts, not on her perfectly shaped body, not anywhere but on her, no, it was locked on her nose - and looked visibly pained while doing so. Her obvious nervousness became even more apparent when she began to fidget with something in her hands and when she started to restlessly... hop in place over and over again.
Seeing this, Vert couldn't, in good conscience, call her 'Blanc mk2.0' right now. She had never seen the other CPU act like this girl did now... and doubted she ever will. Yet Vert couldn't help but wonder why exactly her nose would cause such a rapid change in the teen's attitude.
"Do you have a flower pot?"
...
What?
Author's Notes
Heya.
As mentioned earlier above, what the hell am I doing?
This plot-bunny just wouldn't leave me alone and there wasn't a sharp axe within reach to violently slaughter it with, so it got to live for another day and shamelessly multiplied itself. As one may already suspect, it is a shameless semi-self-insert with one hell of an attitude who will, knowing me, either be totally useless or become a Mary-Sue. While I try my best to avoid the extremes, it is better to forewarn potential readers in advance, don't ya think?
This warning goes double since the insert kinds breaks one of the most important rules in our current society AND follows certain cliches commonly found within this fandom.
Also, knowing me, I probably made Vert a bit OOC, in addition to overlooking obvious grammar and pacing mistakes. Sorry, guys. :/
With that outta the way, let's answer some questions that undoubtedly will be asked at some point or later:
Does the Insert know (s)he's in a fictional Uni-verse? (I'm so not sorry about that one.)
Short Story: Aye. Sorta.
Long Story: Most certainly yes, but the insert has some large gaps in her memory. You see, when the idea decided to worm itself inside my head (like the parasite it is) I had already forgotten a good chunk of mk2's (and the sequels') story (and how some of the CPU's transformations looked like, including Green Heart) and decided to base the Insert's own knowledge on that. So while I myself had, after starting this chapter, re-freshened my knowledge of the story, the Insert has to work with information gathered from the original second game, information that is around four years old. Ya know, that one with the 3-D-models? That one.
In other words: Aye, she'll eventually find out where (s)he got thrown into, but only knows the bare-bones of the plot (and that there's a Conquest-Route to avoid).
Romance? Pairings?
Don't get ahead of yourselves. Aside from (maybe) throwing Uni ans Steamax together (again, big maybe (to make it two-sided)), I'll make no promises. There will be hugs though.
Definitely no harem though. Sorry guys, but I highly doubt I could ever write an acceptable one, or good ones for that matter.
Why are there Dogoos stacked on top of another? And what's it with the Pirates and Ninjas?
The Doogoos are, in essence, both a homage to the Dragon Quest Slimes and somewhat represent other slime-mobs found in other games, so I thought 'why not go all the way'? Stacking Dogoos on top of another seemed to be the 'logical' thing to implement when DQ9 did it, too. Then I had the 'Pirates vs. Ninjas' - clichee stuck within my head and couldn't help myself.
Sorry, guys.
Well, for now, that's it from me for now. I don't know when an Update will hit this story, but I'll try to post a chapter within six months.
Yes, I'm that unreliable. -_-'
In any case, I look forward to reading your reviews. I'm unable to directly answer Guest-Reviewers, but be assured that I read all of them. I especially like to read constructive criticism and 'talking meta' with other users. You never know what kind of craziness will come forth from long discussions and how many of these crazy ideas find their way into the actual story. It's awesome. :D
Well, then, the Author's Ramble seems to be big enough now and probably add another thousand words to the already existing 5.8K, so I'll wrap this up with... yea, I'll give you a little question to guess on:
What will the Insert use as (a) weapon(s)?
Tip1: It is nothing conventional.
Tip2: One of it's kind had been destroyed in 'The Hitchhiker's Guide through the Galaxy'.
Tip3: It's effective vs Zombies.
I know, this is a mean question, but that last tip might be a dead giveaway. ;)
Thank you for reading my ramble.
Edit 2018.02.28: Fixed some grammar mistakes, worded some things differently, added one or two sentences and generally did stuff. :D