"Ugh..."
When she spoke, she subconsciously noted that her voice seemed to drawl on and was rather weak in volume. Not only that, but her entire body felt numb, yet she could still feel incredible warmth. Though she could definitely move any of her limbs if she wanted to, it was like her brain was actively trying to stop her from doing so. Not by making the act of actually moving her leg or her arm uncomfortable or painful, but by making the sensation of her being sunken into whatever she was currently lying down upon feel like an absolute dream. Despite the rather short amount of time she had to take this in, she almost immediately caught on to what was happening to her.
She was lying down in a bed.
Rest. It's a very easy action to perform with the results usually being fantastic. And she was experiencing those results first-hand. She legitimately felt as if she was in a trance. In fact, despite the mountains of questions on her mind about her current situation; such as where exactly she was, who brought her there or how she woke up from her deep slumber, she had internally decided to forget about it and continue to rest. Her awakening had only been for a minute or two, so if she were to cut off her thoughts and sink deeper and deeper into the bed, she'd be able to easily fall back to slee-
"Nep-Jr! Can you fetch me some cups of pudding!?"
"Yes! S-sure!"
At that moment, she heard two voices, both female from what she could tell, yelling to each other quite loudly and resounding through wherever she was. The sudden burst of noise managed to cause the girl's eyes to quickly open, as well as rouse her from her attempt of falling back asleep. Now with almost no way to fall back into her slumber, she groaned. She knew that she was better off just getting up at that point. She hesitantly lifted up her arm, which had regained its vigor as soon as it was moved, and grabbed the rather thick blanket that was covering her before throwing it to the side. Shivering slightly from the sudden breeziness, she forced herself up, her previously limp arm and legs waking up at about at the same time. She then turned to the edge of the bed and placed her feet on the ground. Now more attentive, aware and vigilant than she was a few moments ago, she decided to take a good luck at her surroundings.
She seemed to be in a bedroom and it looked rather futuristic. The walls looked as if they were made of metal and were mainly colored purple and pink. There was a good amount of furniture in it too; a small table next to the bed, a rather expensive looking lamp on top of the said table, a desk that sat across the room along with a chair to accompany it, a couple of drawers, a mirror and an incredibly large and high-tech television that was attached to the wall.
"I don't think I've been here before... although it does look similar to..." She began to say, before she shook her head as if trying to get whatever she was about to say out of her head.
'No! I can't keep thinking about her! I-I'm better than her! She's not important!' She resolutely convinced herself in her head. After a few seconds, she managed to get who she was thinking about out of her thoughts.
"...Anyways, I should hurry up and get back to my work. I don't have time to laze around." She decided. She stood up from her bed, stretching her back as she did so. She began to walk towards to exit of the room. A smile slowly crept onto her mouth.
"Heh. If whoever owns this place brought me here, they must still be a follower of Lesteem! Haha! I knew that there would still be people waiting for me!" She celebrated. "Maybe I have more time than I thought!" While walking towards the exit, she noticed the mirror.
"Now that I think about it, I haven't checked myself out yet. Hopefully my clothes aren't that dirty or anything." She said to herself, approaching the mirror before observing herself.
Luckily for her, her clothes were relatively intact. Her blonde medium-length hair, while a bit disheveled, was fine and her red oversized hair bobbles were still on the top of her head. Her yellow shirt that left her breasts exposed accompanied by with star designs on the lower half and yellow unzipped sweater were both relatively fine and weren't ripped. Even her yellow and black striped thigh high socks were in the state they were in prior to her ending up in the bed. However, she soon noticed that she was missing something. Something incredibly important.
"Huh? W-where's my belt!?" She exclaimed upon realization that it was no longer with her. She quickly turned around and started to inspect the room, her eyes darting around every inch of it. However, she was out of luck. "Darn it! Whoever brought me here might of lost it when they brought me here, or even hid it somewhere! I need to get it back!" And without a moment's hesitation, she ran out of the room.
Nepgear felt at the top of her game. Although it had taken her two full months, she had finally completed the blueprints to the Nepgeardam II Mk2, her newest pride and joy.
'Well, I didn't really finish it so much as I edited it from the first one...' She thought to herself, before shrugging that self deprecation away. "That doesn't matter anyways; this should work!"
The first Nepgeardam, which was her first ever major project, had actually worked fine when she first built it, to the point where she could actually use it in battle. She could control it with her own hand motions, it was strong, responsive, large, could shoot lasers, and was even compact since Nepgear could summon it at any moment! However, as time went on, Nepgear began to crave more. The Nepgeardam wasn't weak or obsolete; quite the opposite, actually. It's just that Nepgear felt as if, no, knew, that she could do better. So she began work on the Nepgeardam II, an even more advanced version of the original Nepgeardam. Sleeker, faster yet just as if not more powerful than the original, along with even more skills, such as being able to shoot stronger lasers from anywhere on it's body and being independent so that Nepgear could fight with the Nepgeardam II and not worry about controlling it, the Nepgeardam II was truly a sight to behold. However, when it was time for Nepgear to finally test out her robot...
'Alright, Nepgeardam II, go!'
'…'
'…Huh, why isn't it responding? I didn't mess anything up, did I? There wasn't any bugs in the AI when I last checked...'
'Enemies detected. Location: Planeptune. Enemies: Citizens of Planeptune.'
'W-what!?'
'OBJECTIVE: DESTROY PLANEPTUNE'
'AHHHH!'
It took both her and her sister Neptune transforming into their HDD in order to stop the Nepgeardam II from continuing its rampage. And even then, it took a lot of time to take down, and in that time, her robot managed to destroy a couple of buildings in Planeptune and injure a few citizens, including Neptune and herself.
'Being honest, I think I may have felt a little bit proud at how strong the Nepgeardam II was...' Nepgear thought, chuckling a little at her inner monologue.
After the Nepgeardam II was destroyed, Neptune went to help the citizens of Planeptune. Nepgear, out of her own guilt, attempted to follow, but she was soon caught by Histoire, who looked incredibly annoyed, and more worryingly, furious. Once she realized what would probably happen to her, Nepgear turned to where Neptune's fleeting figure last was in desperation, hoping that she hadn't gone that far and that she would help her, only to realize that Neptune had already long gone, most likely out of the same fear Nepgear was feeling. Histoire then dragged Nepgear back to the Basilicom and proceeded to give Nepgear the lecture of a lifetime.
'I think my mind blocked may have blocked most it out as a result of trauma, but I think the lecture quite literally lasted three days...' Nepgear remembered, a sudden chill running down her spine.
As a result of the rampage, Nepgear was prohibited from any major technological projects for the next year. She was still allowed to use the original Nepgeardam, though only after three months had passed and three hours of begging to Histoire about it. And though this wounded Nepgear's creative and passionate side immensely, it also allowed Nepgear's ideas for the Nepgeardam II Mk2 slowly but surely build up. So when she was finally allowed to work on another project, Nepgear immediately set work on the Nepgeardam II Mk, all of her ideas from the past year appearing on its blueprints.
"And now, they're finally complete!" Nepgear stated in glee, grabbing the blueprints and holding them as close to her as she could. "I'll move immediately to the construction... if I don't sleep and don't stop working at all, I should be able to have the Nepgeardam II mk2 built by next week!" She giggled to herself. "I wonder what color it should be? Maybe magenta with white highl-"
"Hey, you!" Suddenly, Nepgear heard a voice. It wasn't Neptune, Histoire, or even anyone she knew. Not only that, but she highly doubted any of the Planeptune Guards would address her in the tone the voice spoke in. It sounded too rude, too casual. The Guards would usually always treat her with the utmost respect, being the CPU Candidate of Planeptune. Of course, Nepgear preferred when others would talk to her more casually, since it distracted her from her duties as CPU Candidate and made her feel more normal. Either way, since the voice she heard didn't fit into either of those categories, she had no idea who it was. However, she didn't have to wonder for too long, because moments later, the owner of the voice came into view; a teenage girl with blonde hair and yellow clothes, looking quite stressed and marching towards the CPU Candidate. Upon seeing her, as if ignoring the obvious signs of the blonde girl's annoyance and possible anger, Nepgear smiled.
"Oh, it's you! I'm so glad you've woken up! I mean, I haven't exactly been keeping track of time, but I know it's been a couple of days since we've found you unconscious an-" Nepgear was then cut off by the blonde girl, who grabbed her by the collar of her shirt.
"Hey! Tell me where you put my belt! I know you moved it somewhere!" The blonde girl yelled, continuously shaking the girl in hand back and forth.
"Huh, y-your b-belt? A-and can you p-please s-stop shaking m-me!" Nepgear asked, her voice tremoring as the blonde girl continued to rattle her.
"Yeah, my belt! Are you deaf or something!? I need the belt!" The blonde girl replied back rudely. She did, however, stop shaking Nepgear.
"You did have a belt with you when we found you, it's right over there." Nepgear pointed to a nearby shelf, which atop it laid a yellow belt with several small bags attached to it. The blonde girl immediately went towards it before taking it and putting it on. Afterwards, the blonde girl started to check for the contents of each of the bags.
"Please, you don't need to check all of your bags. I assure you, we didn't take anything." Nepgear tried to reassure, only for the blonde girl to completely ignore her. She continued to check through the contents of each of the bags, revealing discs, some tools and a phone among other things. Each time she checked through one, her face showed small signs of relief. However, while checking another one of the bags on her belt, she pulled out a rather large medicine bottle. It was translucent, so Nepgear could see that there was weird, yellow crystals inside. The blonde girl stared at it intensely.
"Um, are you alright?" Nepgear asked in concern. But once again, the CPU Candidate was neglected.
The blonde girl continued to stare at the bottle, until it seemed like she decided. She opened it up and pulled out one of the yellow crystals. The blonde girl looked at it before ingesting it; the uncomfortable look on her face telling Nepgear that the crystal was far from being 'good'. Nevertheless, after the girl had swallowed the crystal down, she closed the plastic bottle and put it back in the bag. The blonde girl sighed.
"Well, that's a relief. Nothing's gone or broken." She said, placing both hands behind her head and smiling a bit before turning towards Nepgear, getting a good look at her for the first time.
'A purple sailor uniform, an 'N' on in the center, long purple hair, a D-Pad clip... Of course I end up with a … Neptune fangirl in Lesteem. Or maybe I somehow ended up in Planeptune?' The blonde girl looked considerably more irritated and angry after that thought, with her eyes lidded and her previously small smile that had turned into a frown. Still, it seemed the blonde girl suppressed her feelings of annoyance as she said nothing about the topic on her mind.
"Look, I don't have much time to spend just talking. I'm not going to thank you since from my perspective, all you did was kidnap me. But I want to know where exactly I am and how I got here." She blinked before continuing. "And take off the Neptune cosplay, it's really annoying me." The blonde girl quipped.
"Oh, no! I'm not cosplaying as Neptune or anything like that. I'm dressed like this all the time. I'm honestly kind of surprised you don't know who I am, but it's fine. I'm Nepgear, Planeptune's CPU Candidate." Nepgear introduced herself, giving a small courteous bow to girl in front of her. The girl in question simply rolled her eyes.
"We both know there's no such thing as a CPU Candidate, but if you're stuck in your roleplay fantasies, I could care less." The blonde girl said, shrugging. Nepgear would've responded, but the blonde girl continued. "Anyways, like I said before, tell me where I am and how I got here."
"Um, sure! W-would you like me to prepare some tea and snacks first?" Nepgear quickly asked. The blonde girl looked confused for a moment but nodded her head.
"That would be nice, thank you. " She thanked, before adding. "Oh, and make it green tea, if possible." Nepgear, for some off reason, looked a lot more determined than she did moments ago.
"Alright, I'll be back in a moment!" Nepgear answered, before leaving the room at a hurried pace. After she left, the blonde girl glanced to the side and noticed some blueprints, which were previously in Nepgear's possession. With nothing else to do until Nepgear came back, the blonde girl began to study them. As her eyes flew across the prints, looking at the materials, details and other things, time seemed only to have sped up.
"Hey, I got the sn- Please don't the blueprints! They're very important!" Nepgear suddenly yelled, the contents she was currently holding almost dropping on to the floor. It had only been a minute or two. Nepgear made some green tea and had fetched some cookies to go along with them. However, upon returning to her workshop, she saw the blonde girl; she still didn't know her name, closely inspecting and examining something on her table. Now, ordinarily this wouldn't be much of a problem. In fact, Nepgear would be ecstatic since she loved when others took notice of her projects. But, what the blonde girl was looking at was far more delicate than any robot. It was the blueprints for the Nepgeardam II Mk 2.
After hearing the CPU Candidate shout at her, the blonde girl stopped inspecting the prints and turned around to face her. "Huh? You don't want me touching these prints?" She inquired, pointing to said prints. Nepgear placed the tea and cookies on a nearby counter and rushed towards the table, before grabbing the blueprints.
"S-sorry! It's just that these took a really long time to make and they're really delicate and I would rather no one but me touch them. It's nothing against you, really." Nepgear clutched the prints as close to her as possible, which signified to the blonde girl just how much they really meant to her.
"Don't worry, I can relate to not wanting to have an new invention possibly be destroyed in some way. Sorry, should've known you'd probably feel the same." The blonde girl assured, looking to the left as to not look at Nepgear. "On a related note, I have to say; those blueprints look pretty good. There seems to be a lot of details in it too. Whatever you're make it should come out fine."
Nepgear blushed a little. "Heh, I hope it does. Honestly, I can't say I'm 100% sure of the Nepgeardam II Mk II coming out okay, considering that the last time I tried making it, the blueprints looked completely fine yet it ended up malfunctioning." At this, the blonde girl's eyes widened and her fists clenched.
'Darn it! Why didn't it work!? It should've worked!'
"Huh, are you okay?" Nepgear snapped her out of her stupor with a concerned question. The blonde girl shook her head and attempted to get the memory out of her head, but it refused to leave.
"Yeah... yeah. Can I please just start asking you a couple of questions?" The blonde asked, now staring at the floor. Nepgear noticed that her voice sounded rather empty.
"A-alright, right this way. You can sit and that chair over there, I'll just get the tea from the counter." Nepgear said, pointing towards a couple of purple chairs surrounding a table, before putting the blueprints in her hand back on her workplace and getting the tea and cookies. The blonde girl went to where Nepgear directed her to and sat on one of the chairs.
"… It's comfortable." The blonde girl finally commented, putting one of her hands on the arm-rest. Nepgear rushed over to her and handed her a cup of the still-warm tea, which she gladly accepted with her free hand. Nepgear then put the cookies on the table and sat on a seat across from the blonde girl's, her own tea in hand.
The blonde girl took a sip of the green tea. Immediately, it's strong but subtle flavor practically exploded across her taste buds, sending a wave of pleasure coursing throughout her body. Saying that the tea was 'good' would be the understatement of the millenia. However, the blonde girl didn't let her true feelings show on her face. After having fully taken in the flavor of the tea, she placed it down on the table and said:
"You make good tea." Despite her attempt to, the blonde girl couldn't hide her joy for the tea in her comment. Luckily, Nepgear either didn't notice or ignored it. She brightened up at the complement.
"Heh, you're exaggerating, really." She said modestly.
"You believe what you want to believe." The blonde girl answered, now staring at the CPU Candidate. "Now, please tell me how I got here and where I am."
"Oh, right. Sorry about making you wait." Nepgear replied, before taking a sip of her own tea. Her lack of any particular reaction implied to the blonde girl that Nepgear was used to such good taste already.
"Anyways, to start off, you're currently in Planeptune's Basilicom. My sister Neptune and I had accepted a quest to eliminate a horde of Dogoos that were lurking around outside the city. But, as soon as we clear them up, we saw you under a large tree, unconscious but otherwise okay. Seeing as we didn't want to leave someone in a place where monster could spawn, Neptune suggested that we just bring you to the Basilicom to recover. She said that you seemed important to the plot, or something." Nepgear briefed, pausing to take another sip of her tea. "It's been a couple of days since we've found you. I can't say the exact time since I've been too busy to keep track, but you could probably ask Neptune about it." She concluded, placing her now empty cup of tea onto the counter, before looking at the blonde girl for a response. Oddly enough, she didn't seem to be reacting much. She simply continued to sip on her green tea.
Moments later, the blonde girl slammed the tea cup onto the table, it luckily not shattering.
"Alright," The blonde girl sounded like she was holding in a lot of anger. "How about you actually tell me the truth?" Nepgear was a bit baffled.
"H-huh? What do you mean?" Nepgear asked. Suddenly, the blonde girl leaned in close to Nepgear's face from across her seat, the girl's expression being one of anger.
"I've had just about enough of your dumb lies. The last place I was before ending up in here was in Lesteem. And I'm sorry, it's impossible for me to have ended up in Planeptune in that amount of time. If someone were to bring me to Planeptune from Lesteem, they'd had to have knocked me out somehow, sailed from Lesteem to Planeptune and then for some reason decide leave me under some tree. Not only would I have definitely woken considering that would have taken at least a few days, but it'd make no sense for someone to just leave me there after making such a long journey. If they'd want to kill me, they could have done it themselves!" The blonde girl explained, leaning even closer to the CPU Candidate's face.
"And that's not even the scratching the surface of it! There's no way we could be in a Basilicom right now! The only ones that are allowed in one are CPUs and those that they trust! I highly doubt that you happen to be close to a CPU!" The blonde girl continued, her voice rising with every word. Still, Nepgear felt more confused than worry. Though saying she wasn't worried was a lie.
"W-well, the CPU is my sister..." Nepgear attempted to reason, only to be cut off by the blonde girl poking her chest repeatedly.
"And that! Why do you keep saying that!? There is no such thing as a CPU Candidate and you aren't sisters with that dumb, cheating Neptune!" The blonde concluded, her voice now a harsh yell.
"Hey, are you talking 'bout me?"
Suddenly, the blonde girl heard a voice. It was a familiar voice. A voice she really didn't feel like hearing.
"Oh, hey there Neptune!" Nepgear greeted, getting up from the seat and walking to her 'sister'.
"Oh, hey Nep Jr.! How's it goin'? I decided to check up on ya since that last time we've seen since our last quest is only when I ask for some pudding! You've been holed up in your workplace like a mole with a wrench!" The girl, Neptune, said, pointing accusingly at her 'sister', who blushed.
"Well, I've sorta been bus-"
"Hey, who the heck are you!?" The blonde girl shouted, getting up from her own seat and marching up to Neptune with a frown on her face.
"Oh, me? I'm Neptune, Planeptune's CPU!" The lilac haired girl introduced herself, smiling proudly. However, it seemed that the blonde girl wasn't exactly happy with her answer; in fact her scowl only deepened.
"No, you aren't." She practically growled. "I've seen the real Neptune, and while she's nothing but a cheater, I know she isn't some midget kid." Neptune over-dramatically gasped at the remark.
"How dare you! That is not only an insult to me, but to all of midget-kind!" Neptune rebutted, trying to come across as serious though horribly failing. The blonde seemingly ignored this comment.
"So, tell your 'sister' to tell me the truth about where I am and how I got here. I can't spend more of my precious time with you when I could be using it to continue my work." She practically demanded, her anger only continuing to grow.
"Hold it, sister! No need to get excited. Now, I was with her the whole time, so I could just explain it for you." Neptune put a finger to her cheek as she recalled the events from a few days ago. "Let's see... Histy forced both me and Nep Jr. to take on a quest since apparently we were being too lazy. So, naturally we took the easiest quest the Guild had, which was to eliminate a swarm of Dogoos or something by the outskirts of Planeptune. Fast forward an hour later or so, the Dogoos were pretty much all wiped out. But then we found you unconscious under a tree. You looked important to the story, so we brought you to rest at the Basilicom, which is where you are right now!" She recalled.
The blonde girl couldn't help but open her mouth in shock.
'Their stories... they completely match up!' She thought.
"From your reaction, I'm guessing my story was pretty much as Nep Jr.'s, huh? Well, now you know we weren't lying!" Neptune concluded, slinging her arm around the blonde girl's neck as if they were best friends. "Which includes the fact that I'm a CPU!" At this, the blonde girl backed away from Neptune's 'grip'.
"No! Like I said, you aren't Neptune! I've seen her in both her human form, and you don't look like her! You aren't Neptune, and you aren't a CP-"
Suddenly, a bright light encapsulated the supposed CPU, blinding both people there. Both Nepgear and the blonde girl knew what it meant, but the latter simply couldn't believe it.
'No, I can't be!'
After a few moments, the light died down, revealing Neptune. Except, the person they saw didn't look like Neptune. The person was taller and look a lot mature and than Neptune. She wore a black leotard-like suit, and held a long sword in her hand. Her entire figure imposed immense power. The blonde girl recognized her immediately.
It was Purple Heart, the goddess form of the CPU of Planeptune.
"Now do you believe me?" Purple Heart inquired quite smugly, pressing her body against the blonde girl. "I do believe that I'm the splitting image of a goddess right now." The blonde girl pushed herself away from the now confirmed goddess and pointed a shaking hand at her.
"Y-you! H-how can you go HDD, much less into Purple Heart!? You aren't Neptune! You aren't!" She tried to convince herself. The goddess sighed before transforming back to her human form.
"I showed you my goddess form, what else could ya want?" Neptune asked somewhat rhetorically.
"B-but, I've seen Neptune in her human form, and you don't look like her! A-actually, you do have the same hair color... and the same hair pins... and even somewhat like her now that I look at you clearly, but Neptune is taller and wears different clothes and stuff!" The blonde girl reasoned, though rather poorly.
"Huh, what do you mean, I was taller? I've always looked like this! How could you ever forget how my cute Neppin' self looks!?" Neptune questioned.
"I-I didn't! I know for a fact how Neptune looks like!"
"Well, that's weird. I would get if you were made a small mistake on how I looked, but you seem really sure that I'm not the CPU, even though I've been in like a dozen games as of now!" Neptune said. Recently, Neptune has been making a lot more appearances in the public. For speeches, during quests, epic adventures and just hanging out. It really baffled her that this girl didn't recognize her. Not to brag, but it was almost impossible to avoid the Nep!
"Oh, I have an idea!" Nepgear exclaimed, breaking Neptune from her train of thought. "How about we talk to Histy about it? She might be able to figure out why this girl doesn't recognize us!" Neptune lit up like a lamp at the idea.
"That's a great idea, Nep Jr.! I'm pretty sure she'll be able to fix this problem up in no time!" Neptune agreed, before approaching the blonde girl and grabbing her hand. "Come on, let's go!" It seemed that most of her anger. She sighed.
"You know what, fine. A part of me... is starting to believe your story now that you showed me your HDD. It still doesn't make sense, but I'll go with it." The blonde girl admitted, before breaking into a small smile.
"And that's what I wanted to see!" Neptune smiled after seeing her finally show some signs of happiness. "Anyways, can you tell us your name? We've already told you ours, so it's only natural for you to do the same!" The blonde girl considered her decision for a few moments before grinning.
"Sure! I'm the CPU of the best nation in all of Gamindustri, Lesteem! I am Peashy!"
Those eight simple words somehow managed to cause both the CPU and the CPU Candidate to freeze. In confusion, Peashy waved a hand in front Neptune's face to no reaction. However, she continued to wave her hand, and after a few moments, the silence was shattered by Neptune and Nepgear shouting:
"WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAATTTTTTTT!?"