It's really hard to balance writing and games when you have several fun ones to play for once, the main one being Re;birth1. I'll stop there because I don't want to rant on and on about how it improved several things over previous games and get back on topic...although that's one of the reasons I'm going so slow. Again this is written with nothing but an idea in mind and from the heart, this time with the focus being Noire and her bonding with Nepgear, who seems to be off but that will be explained in due time. I will say this though, stress balls seem more appealing to people who are well, stressed. Oh, and let me know how you felt about this event because I plan on getting more creative with other things in Gamindustri.

Rin Satsuki - It's been a while since I've uploaded something and I only did a few proofreads, and I think I might've auto-corrected things in my head without thinking. If you see anything that stands out a lot feel free to pm me because I can be pretty blind sometimes. This goes to anyone else if you want to lend a helping hand.


"Hyaah!" Nepgear was already clearing out the pitiful creatures by the time I caught up and she was really getting into it. "Here's another!" Three more Dogoos fell to her in a circular swing that also gravely wounded two others and forced them to retreat. She's a little too into it, I don't remember hearing about this kind of aggression from Neptune.

I silently cut through a small group of my own and brought the number of Dogoos down to a mere handful. I carefully looked at each of them in order to try and find the slippery one that keeps getting away, but with no luck. They all looked exactly the same as they bounded around with their tails wagging while they defended themselves. All but one, who sat perfectly still...waiting...watching our every move through its beady eyes. "Nepgear, slow down for a minute."

She unleashed a clumsy two-handed downward strike, sending a wave of energy in a line through the ground that wavered near the end, destroying all but two Dogoos. "Hah...hah..."

"Nepgear!"

"Yes?" I can't tell whether or not it's the adrenaline coursing through her that's making her act this way, but she needs to calm down.

"There's something wrong with that Dogoo, look." I pointed at the one that had been biding its time, as opposed to the other one that was slowly cowering away from us. I took a quick step forward, making it turn tail and run away whimpering. "See? That one's-"

"An easy target!" I jumped in front of Nepgear and tried to get her to settle down while holding her back. "Ngh...why are you stopping me?" She stopped struggling after a few seconds when she realized I wasn't going to let her go until she stopped and listened to me.

I eased up on her and explained why she should exercise a little caution. "This thing has been a constant occurrence in your reports, right? Think about it for a second. Why are you so anxious to attack?"

"It's nothing..." She said quietly before suddenly breaking into a sprint towards the immobile monster. What in the world has gotten into this girl...and why is the ground shaking?!

"BOWOOOOO!" A large snout quickly jutted out of the ground, stopping Nepgear in her tracks before a large mass of blue goo followed suit, sending Nepgear into the air.

I transformed and launched myself as high as I could in order to catch her while she did the same in an attempt to slow her descent. Grabbing her by the waist I carefully guided us back down, ending up behind the slime duo and catching our breath before speaking. "Th-" I had second thoughts on giving Nepgear a little scolding for recklessly charging ahead, but she already looked frustrated enough with tears welling up in her eyes. "Let's be a little more careful from now on. I'll go in first this time and you follow up from behind." Her whole body is shivering now but she nodded her head in response. The enemy hasn't even turned to face us, so they're either stupid or arrogantly waiting for our next move. I counted down from three for Nepgear to get ready and I lunged forward, sword at the ready for anything that could be thrown my way.

"BOHOO!" The massive Dogoo, who was larger than the average bi-pedal dragon, began quivering and arced over the smaller one with sounds so disgusting it was enough to make my stomach churn. I didn't falter and drove my blade deep through the giant's smooth exterior as it regained its original form, all the way to the hilt, and continued to pour on the pressure as Nepgear soared above me to slash the giant's face multiple times.

I lifted myself off the ground for even more force and plunged my sword arm deeper into the beast, but it showed no signs of pain whatsoever. Empowering my blade with flame I slowly worked my way through its gelatinous insides horizontally. "We're going to need...to come up with a plan for this one! Haaa!" It felt absolutely disgusting as I freed my arm from the blue devil as I also took a chunk of blue goo with me and soaking the ground with it. "Yech..." Watching the jelly settle on the ground sent shivers down my spine and distracted me for a moment, only to have my attention brought back by an oddly excited voice.

"I-I think I'm doing it!" I looked up to see Nepgear furiously attacking the monster's face, caving it in as even more blue jelly splashed down from above. "Ahaha, this...this is amazing! I can't remember the last time I've fought something so big!"

Nepgear's joyous flurry would've been a relief, although disturbing, had I not noticed that there was a small hole where the main Dogoo was. I looked all over the place except...behind us! I turned to see the tiny creep staring at us when suddenly a strange sound started up, as if something was hissing like a balloon being inflated. The giant didn't bother defending itself as it shrink, with that odd noise getting louder and louder, which could only mean one thing. "I think we need to back up, this isn't looking go-"

"BOWOOOOO!" A thunderous bark boomed before the giant Dogoo exploded into a mass of blue orbs, knocking me backwards and forcing Nepgear to the ground. We were stunned for a brief moment but the both of us were able to dodge an orb flying by us at alarming speeds before the rest of the pieces did the same.

"Split up!" I rolled to the side and boosted forward in an attempt to evade the barrage, but the pieces somehow tracked me and made a single pass before going to lone Dogoo. Nepgear was doing fine evading the shots flying at her, but I think that may be due to the surge of excitement that she's going through. We ended up dodging in a circular path and met even further away from the menacing Dogoo as it stood there studying our every move. "You don't have any info on what just happened?"

"N-no, there was nothing special in the reports I've read. I mean, no one's confronted the one that got away either so it might not have had a reason to go this far. I-oooh..." She went limp mid-sentence and dropped her sword, but I dashed forward to catch her as she fought to speak up again. "G-goodess...sorry, my legs are feeling rubbery all of a sudden. What's that noise?" I stared intently at her to see if she was alright as I heard something strange as well.

We both stayed silent and focused on the clanging noise that was growing distant with every second. Nepgear wasn't doing so well and was barely hanging in there thanks to fatigue, and to make matters worse the big one had gone missing and...the main culprit was getting away. The small Dogoo isn't even real, it's...metal!? Is such a thing even possible? And where'd that large one go? There's no way it could've escaped without being noticed, I only looked away for a few moments! I scanned the horizon, staying in my transformed state and vigilant, wondering where it could've bounced to when I felt a change in temperature thanks to...shade. In one quick motion I held my sword above our heads and stopped a potential disaster from happening! Rather, I only slowed down the giant Dogoo's fall and with only one hand I could only hold it up for so long. "Nepgear!" She responded groggily, the last thing we needed with threat of being smothered under something so...humiliating. "Nepgear, I need you to wake up!"

"Huhn?"

"I need you to blast through this thing before we-gah!" My wrist! This monster is getting heavier by the second and I don't know how much longer I can last! How did we end up coming across something silly yet so fierce? How is this damned thing so heavy? I looked down to see her helplessly reaching for her weapon, which was lying by my feet. "Gah...grab your...kh..." Lowering myself so she could retrieve her weapon put even more strain on my body but I refuse to let something like this get the best of us. I managed to support her back with my knee and she was able to re-equip herself after feeling around for our only hope.

"I just...need a few seconds...charge..." Her eyes were getting droopy as she pointed her sword at the ceiling of our blue prison, with a low hum filling the confined space as a small light shined in her weapon, slowly getting brighter as we lost more and more breathing room. "Uhh..." The light flickered as her aim wavered, but I gave her a quick shake and started talking in hopes that she'd stay awake long enough to take the shot.

"Keep it together Nepgear, you have to stay with me. Think of how sad Neptune would be if something happened to u-you." I'm going to have to leave myself out of this for the time being, there's something she's hiding from me and Neptune and now isn't the time risk upsetting her in any way. "She and Histoire would be devastated if you let this thing get the best of you." The light had regained its initial glow and began intensifying. "What about the other candidates? Who's going to be around to play with Rom or distract Ram for Blanc? Who's going to keep Uni on her toes and motivate her to do better?" If what she told me is true, she's going to need a lot of catching up just to be on par with Uni. But...I need to tell Neptune about this first before I can even think of trying to help. At least she looks like she's ready to fire, just a little more... "We all need you to pull through this. Just-"

Without warning she let loose a charged beam, nearly blinding me and piercing through our captor with ease. "N...Noire..." She fainted as she finished channeling her attack, clutching her weapon as blue goo splashed and scattered around us one final time. "S-sorry..." She reverted back to normal, leaving me to heave her on my back and trudge through the mess we've made.

We left the monster debris behind and I wasted no time in getting contact with Neptune through my digital phone. "Neptune...we need to talk."

There was a lot of noise going on in the background but it quieted down shortly after she shushed it. "You guys barely left, what's up?"

I don't know how to break the news to her so I guess I'll get right to it. "We decided to try our hand at a quest that Nepgear's been wanting to do with you and well...the unexpected happened. Turns out the main culprit is more than a simple Dogoo and we were nearly de-um, it...it got away." I waited to see if Neptune had anything to say and after a few seconds of silence I went on. "I'll be on my way back to Plane-"

"Don't." The serious tone in her voice made me tense up and I bit my tongue as Neptune began speaking. "I know I may not be the greatest sister in the world, and that I might've been a complete slob before we happened, but I kinda think she needs this. Not the attack but experience and she won't get a lot of that with me. I've let her spoil me for too long and she hasn't realized that we've both...started sucking. I've been trying to do some things on the side myself because Gear's gotten so used to taking it easy for my sake and I don't want to disappoint her by doing something she doesn't want to do so...yeah." It sounded like the phone moved away from her and I could've sworn I heard her sniffling for second. "You kind of whipped me back into shape and got me wanting to better myself again. I need you to do the same for my sister...please?"

I knew Neptune had no motivation to improve more than necessary, but her sister was on the verge of ending up the same way as well? That would explain how she ended up doing less and less with Uni and the twins. I didn't need to give it a second thought and nodded to myself; Neptune's teary request wouldn't go unanswered. "Of course. Don't worry, she's only fainted from all the excitement but if you and Uni ever find yourself wandering outside Planeptune, watch out for a pack of Dogoos. There's some a monster among them and-"

"Don't worry, Noire," Poor girl sounds like she's on the verge of breaking down now. "we won't be wandering outside too much. We're going to be too busy having fun inside and eating snacks!" Her sniffling and sobs immediately turned to laughter as the noise in the background came back on. "Seriously though, a pounding has done each of us some good. Gear's a tough girl, don't worry too much about her! I'm gonna soften up your sister and show her a good time, later!"

"Neptuuuuuune!" She hung up abruptly and left her sister and I in complete silence as I hovered my way towards Lastation. If I hadn't gotten to know Neptune as well as I do now, I'd be furious with how she ended our conversation. I've somehow come to understand how Neptune thinks and I know Uni is good hands and she believes the same thing...I just hope her sister feels the same way. Hm, I should probably give Kei a ring, the last thing I need to hear from her is concerns regarding 'unexpected changes to her work schedule'. "Good afternoon Kei. I need you to get Uni's bed ready for our guest."

"Nepgear, I presume?"

I can always count on her to be on the ball as usual. "Correct. She needs to rest up after our little ordeal. Could you get a wrist brace ready for me as well? I should probably take up another regimen soon..." There was no way to carry her without putting strain on my right hand, but I'm sure I can endure the trip back to Lastation. Have I been slacking off too much? I can't wrap my head around how Blanc is the most able-bodied one out of everyone when she's so small...maybe I should-

"Lady Noire?"

"Hm? Sorry, I was letting my thoughts wander."

"I was asking whether or not I should prepare a bath or a change of clothes as well. I assume she's coming here with none of her belongings with how sudden this happened, and it wouldn't do her any good to stay in those clothes she's working in."

"Oh, of course. I don't think she'll be awake in time for the bath so don't draw too much water. Nepgear's barely taller than my sister so her borrowing clothes shouldn't be a big issue." That and being the good friend she is already gave Uni permission to go through her things for an outfit.

"Very well, I'll have a hot bath ready by the time you both arrive." I nodded and grunted a little for confirmation. I began focusing on the journey at hand until Kei spoke up again. "Since it's just you taking a bath...would you prefer I use the special bubble mix?"

"H-how did you find out about that?" I thought I did a good job of keeping that concoction a secret! N-Neptune was goofing around one day and ended up making her own silly brand of bubble bath for me to try on my own and...it was surprisingly smoothing. Sure it reeked of strawberrys a little and she made too much of it, but I didn't want it to go to waste...

"I-I was only trying to lighten the mood. Forgive me, I shouldn't have joked around like that. I'll get started immediately and await your arrival."

"Wait, Kei!" I called out in a panic. "Before you go I just want to say...thanks." I must sound more exhausted than I thought if Kei is trying to joke around with me, and that's worrying. "Don't ever change, Kei."

"You couldn't pay me enough to." She smirked and hung up shortly afterward, leaving me back to my thoughts once again, although in a better mood. I don't know what I'd do without her, but I'm glad she ended up becoming my oracle. Well, she's the only one that was able to keep up with 'insane demands', according to the other women who failed to do so. I should've asked her to get some food ready as well but that may have been pushing my luck.

"I hope Uni knows better than to let Neptune have her way or else they'll never get anything done. No, course she does. No doubt she's keeping that pudding fiend on her toes, although I'll save that call for when I finally-tch, ow-when I get back though."