Chapter 0.5: A Stream of Tears
(Dimension: Hyperdimension)
(Time: 3:30 PM)
(Location: Guild Hall)
(Point of View: Unspecified)
So I got a quick question for all of you boys and girls out there who probably shouldn't be reading this. What do ya think happens when you enrage a little fairy who's stuck on running Curtains Vista? If you answered, "She kicks you out the house" then you deserve to eat as much candy as you want!
Our oracle or caretaker, or whatever you want to call her kicked me out of the Basilicom and wouldn't allow me to come back until there's proof that I did something productive. Can you believe that?...Hey, what do you mean that she has a point! She can't just do that out of the blue!
Since I've got nowhere else to go, I sadly trekked my way over to guild with giant storm cloud hovering over my head. I will never forget those painful words she told me, oh how painful they were indeed! It fills my heart with nothing emptiness and sorrow…
"Umm…Neptune?" The sweet angelic voice of my little sister brought me back to life and gave me hope for humanity. "Are you sure that you don't need to see a doctor? The way your acting is kind of worrying me…"
"Oh Nepgear, you always find ways to worry about my self-being!" I responded to her shortly after. If it's one thing I gotta worry about, it's that I have to keep an eye on my baby sis, otherwise she'll destroy the whole nation with Nepgeardam V5! "I'm fine! I'm just trying to have a conversation with the readers before we continue with the plot."
Oh, darn Nepgear! I was about to make it a dramatic reveal on who I was…Huh? You already knew who I was? Well, why didn't ya say anything, man/girl?! I was running out of things to say! Whelp, might as well get to that part of the prologue where the main character introduces themselves.
I'm Neptune! I'm the CPU of Planeptune, while I ask my citizens to call me Neptune, they just go ahead and call me Lady Purple Heart. My age is…well if I told you, you'd probably think twice about looking at those naughty pics of us Goddesses on the Internet~. Oh, I'm only joking! Just picture me as some 16-year old who has the power to transform into the world's sexiest Goddess.
Now you all must be surprised to see me actually narrating and that type of stuff. Well after having a little "chat" with Acky, he promised to give me screen time whenever I wanted! Who knew showing a bit of skin to a 14-year old could get you anything you desired? I should probably do this a lot more often.
Anywho! Might as well give the full story of why we're here. So lately Histy has been getting all riled up with my sis and-oh I almost forget! How could I forget to introduce my adorable baby sister to all of you lovely folks reading this right now? I should feel a little ashamed for almost forgetting!
"Alright Nepgear, give the readers a cute introduction!" I nudged Nepgear in the side. Nepgear then proceeded to give me one of those looks, it meant that I was saying something I wasn't supposed to be saying. "Oh come on Nepgear! You know breaking the fourth wall is my specialty! Just like those two guys, Deadpool and Pit!"
"Neptune! I think that's going a bit too far in terms of breaking the fourth wall!" Nepgear saying that had reminded me of the universal code of fourth wall breaking. It went something like, "Thou shalt not mention fourth wall breakers of other universes" or whatever. I've done that too many times, as well as the other Neps from the different dimensions. I guess Grandpa Fourth hasn't caught up to us yet!
Anyways, back to what I was saying before, this is my baby sister Nepgear. Nepgear's the CPU Candidate of my nation, and looks up to me, (if you want to get technical, she looks down at me cause she's taller) as well as looks out for me since I've lost my head many times in the past few decades.
I don't think I need to explain what's been going on for the past few years since I feel like someone out there has done their half of the job. So let's just say that me and everyone else has been continuing our lives as if no guy had emerged from a meteor a decade ago and turned out to be a God as well as my cousin. Yup! Nothing like that happened at all!
Back to the explanation (man, we are really getting sidetracked and it's only the second part of the prologue, step up your game Acky!). Histy decided to kick Nepgear and I out of the Basilicom for two reasons. The first reason being that I haven't done any work in forever, in which I say that I have done SOME work, but haven't exactly finished it.
The second reason being…umm...wait, what was the second reason? "Hey Nepgear, do you remember the other reason for Histy throwing us out?" I asked Nepgear, hoping that she remembered despite her talking to the TV most of the time.
"I think It that it had something to with the spread of those protesters who were protesting about CPUs not being needed," Nepgear said, which kind of surprised me since Nepgear was basically talking to the TV screen during Histy's lecture. I would say it's embarrassing, but this is one of Histy's lectures we're talking about, I have every right to block her out!
"Oh yeah, that does sound familiar," I responded. So yeah, she kicked Me and Nepgear out of the house for all that type of jazz. So we did a few request for the guild (I still wonder to this day, how they got my clothing) and now we just finished turning them in! "Whelp, time to head on home Nepgear! Once we do, we can crash and play video games all night!"
"I don't know Neptune, it feels as if we didn't really do anything aside from the quest we just took on." Oh Nepgear, always having doubts about the smallest of things, no wonder you're a fan favorite character (or uh, boring to some critics). "Maybe we should go and find out what the deal is with those protesters, Histoire will most likely ask about them when we go back."
"Aww man, more work to do?" I knew that this was gonna suck! I felt like it was going to be one of those quests where we have to ask everyone where the leader is, and eventually we find out that the leader was the first person we talked to! "This is seriously going to be lame…"
(Location: Planeptune (Populated District)
Despite my efforts to get out of this situation, we ended up running around the whole darn nation, and acting like an Ace Attorney who shouldn't be poking their nose too far into things. While we asked around, there was always those guys who would start hitting on you even though they're terrible with pickup lines (not gonna lie, Some of them ain't half bad…the pickup lines I mean, not the guys). I think we need a counter on how many times some dude has hit on Nepgear, cause she would've been in the middle of a…uh…"party" if I wasn't around.
"Well, we asked most of the citizens in the nation." Nepgear and I walked were walking down the sidewalk. Ooh! Before I continue, can I ask that you readers picture a real beautiful sunset, no clouds in the sky, just the beautiful yellow sun that's floating up in the bright orange sky…By the way, thank those visual novels Vert has been sending me for that type of description! "They strangely don't seem to know anything about the the group of protesters…"
"Yeah, you expect them to know some information instead of basic tutorial type things since their NPCs and stuff." So uh, I know we're supposed to be talking about the protesters but uh…my legs are about to give out...just wanna let you guys know. "But all we got were few items and lots of phone numbers."
"Yeah…" Nepgear decided to turn the volume down on her voice for some reason. With my personality and all, I just thought Nepgear was tired from walking all over the nation. Nepgear and I decided to take a seat on a bench we were just about to pass by, she was very quiet, though. "Sis…can I ask you something…?"
"Of course Nepgear, you can ask me anything…well uh, except for a guide on how to beat the "Great Wall of Lowee", I'm still stuck on that boss." Who knew that since the boss was insanely flat, it's stats would go through the roof?! Fighting it is like trying to restrain Rom and Ram when they're hyped up on Ori-Ori bars!
"Do…do you ever miss something so much that…it starts to hurt you physically?" It was then I realized that Nepgear was starting to shake while holding one of those pieces of paper with a number on it. So if we add up what Nepgear said plus the piece of paper with a random dude's number, we get…
"Nepgear is this about-" Nepgear slowly shook her head. I guess at this point of time, my responsible big sister senses started to kick in. I scooted over to Nepgear just a little bit, right when I least expected it Nepgear darted towards me and began crying into my clothes. Whelp, guess the hard part is out of the way, now for the easy part.
"I-I'm sorry…I just miss him so much!" Good thing Nepgear didn't decide to start bawling when there were still people around, otherwise she'd be a target to all those creeps who hide in the shadows. "It's…my heart…I can't take it anymore, I want to see him again, Neptune!"
"Easy there Nepgear, everything is going to be alright…" I began to caress the back of her head. Ever since Nepgear's boyfriend (who's also our cousin) left, she seemed to have gotten emotionally fragile. The poor girl has been getting nightmares almost every night a few weeks after he left, giving me the job of the human teddy bear and sleeping with her until she calmed down. "I'm telling you Nepgear, he'll come back when you least expect it! Just like all of the other guys!"
"Neptune…I don't want to you to get mad at me for saying this…" Oh, come on Nepgear! You should know that I'm completely chill and would never get mad at you for asking me questions that would normally offend anyone else in Gameindustri.
"Nepgear, you know that I'm a chill main character! Its like I can't get mad at anything or anyone!" I'm only speaking the truth after all. I've never gotten mad at anyone for that type of stuff if I did then I probably can't remember. "So go ahead and ask away, I promise that I won't get mad at you."
"You promise?" Nepgear asked. I shook my head in response. Nepgear began to wipe off the tears that were about to have a race down the side of her face and rested her head on my lap. I would say that there was complete silence, but the sound of Dogoos howling in the background sort of ruined it. "D-do you miss Tamazaki? Ever since he left, your rarely ever talked about him."
…Uhh…Things kind of gotten a bit...awkward. I'm not gonna make any jokes here, but for the first few months of T leaving, my thoughts of ever seeing him again started to slowly fade away. Sure we'd mention him and everyone else occasionally, but I never really thought about that too much cause I knew I'd kind of be like everyone else and sort of lose it every once and awhile.
"Well uh…I really wasn't expecting that from you Nepgear." I could tell that I might've accidentally made Nepgear and even more sad when some tears start to stream down her face again. "Whoa! Close the floodgates! Nothing's wrong with that question, it was just kind of unexpected!"
Nepgear looked up at me, she was still able to put on a cute face of curiosity while crying. "That little connection that I felt like I had with T when I first met him sort of faded away. I guess it's because our relationship didn't really feel like a relationship." I told Nepgear. "When T left, I didn't really feel…anything towards him…It just felt really weird and-"
Nepgear wanted to play the touching game and placed her thumb under my eye. Nepgear proceeded to look me directly in the eyes before saying: "Neptune…you're crying."
"Eh? Really?" Now that Nepgear pointed it out, I felt a few tears roll down my face. I quickly wiped them away and began to get up from the bench and stretch. Nepgear looked seriously confused when I did this. "Whelp, we should be getting home now. Histy wouldn't want us out too late, she would think we were sent to another dimension!"
"Neptu-" I didn't really want to stay out here any longer, so I began to walk down the sidewalk. It wasn't long before I heard Nepgear's footsteps from far behind me, but not before she shouted out: "Neptune, look where you're going!"
As I receive the message, I walk into something. I end up falling on my bottom and notice that papers were flying all over the place, matter of fact, these papers look like the same type of paper that those dudes wrote their phone numbers on. "O-Ow, that hurt…"
I look in front of me to see a young lady with Cyan blue hair, rubbing her head before acknowledging the papers that were scattered across the pavement. "M-my fliers! There everywhere!" The lady shouted.
"Whoops! Real sorry bout that, although to be fair, you weren't in front of me like 5 seconds ago." I apologized as I help pick up all the fliers as hand them back to the lady who was still sitting on the floor by the time I finished. "Here ya go! I'd suggest you stand to receive your package."
"O-oh, um, t-thank you very much!" The woman scrambled to her feet to take the stack of papers. I'm kind of wondering why a lady like her is carrying so much paper in the middle of the city. "I-I'm sorry for bumping into you, I just wasn't looking at where I was going and I was in a hurry."
"Nah, it's fine, one of us important characters had to use this method of introduction at least once!" I just realized that Nepgear finally caught up to me in the entire time it took me to pick up those papers, doesn't she have like…a high-speed stat? "What took ya so long Nepgear?"
"Umm…a group of boys wanted to give me their phone numbers…" Nepgear sweatdropped. Huh, so that explains the ruckus and Nepgear calling my name. "I had to decline them thou-huh? Excuse me Ma'am, but you look really familiar, have we met before?"
Talk about changing the subject! Nepgear was suddenly talking about some guys who weren't there a minute ago, to suddenly asking this lady if she's seen her somewhere before! "Oh! I guess my name is getting out there after all!" The lady said, "I'm Rei Ryights, I lead a protest group that wishes to get rid of CPUs…but that hasn't been going so well lately."
"Rei Ryights? Protesting?" It looks like Nepgear was on to something, but I was clueless as a Goldfish, wait…uh…on second thought, I was clueless as any generic protagonist who loses their memory (pretty much me in a nutshell; no differences here!). "Neptune, I think this is who Histoire has been telling us about!"
"Oh yeah, now that does sound familiar…" I placed my finger on my chin. Alright, ladies and gentlemen! We've found the mob boss, time to make a decision that will affect how our ending is! "Guess she wasn't the first person we talked to!"
"W-wait a minute, d-did she just say your name was Neptune?" Rei started getting all shaky and stuff, she even dropped the papers I took like a minute to pick up! Come on girl! "N-Neptune as in…C-CPU Purple Heart?"
"Yup! You got that right!" I took a single step towards her and she was already cowering in fear, I mean come on! Why would you be afraid of a girl like me, with this cute of a face? "Now I'm gonna have to ask you to-"
"N-no! Please don't hurt me!" Rei started to scream, and she pretty much did it for no reason since we were the only people around. Nepgear and I looked at each other before looking back at Rei who was halfway down the street! "CPU are so scary!"
"…Well…that just happened."
(Location: Neptower)
(Time: 7:04 PM)
"We're home from fighting monsters with me having a 9 level difference from Nepgear!" I shouted as we walked out of the elevator and into the Living Room, and man did it feel good to be back in your humble abode, it's like all this time the sofa was calling for me, so guess what? Mama's home!
"Arf! Arf!" The response I get is from a wolf who comes out of nowhere, tackles Nepgear, and proceeds to lick her like she was lollipop that somehow tasted like beef, but was a girl instead. "Rawrf!"
"Yes Rult, we're home finally. I'm sorry if you got lonely without anyone playing with you." Nepgear scratched behind Rult's ears, causing him to lick her even more. "R-Rult, that tickles!"
Well, everyone, you know how these guys from different dimensions have Dogoos as their companions? Well, we've got a fricken Fenrir as a companion! (Apparently, Acky wants me to put a disclaimer up saying that he's not trying to make fun of people who have Dogoos as companions, since their all badass!)
This big guy is Rult, he was a little pup when Nepgear and her boyfriend found him. Since then, the little guy has grown to be the size of those things from T's world, what were they called: "Mogs" or Something like that? Oh well. Since then, he's basically become a part of our family. Histy used to have some problems with him and wanted him out of the Basilicom, but she's learned to like the guy.
"Aww! Where's my affection?" I asked, a bit salty from the fact that I'm the one who gave the announcement yet I didn't get anything from it. Rult and I are alright, although he doesn't jump on me like he does with Nepgear and other people, we don't have one of those relationships where the pet likes the little sister but hates the older sister.
"Oh quit complaining Nep, I don't think it's a good idea for you to be asking for affection. People could take it the wrong way." Said Iffy, revealing herself from the shadows of what we like to call, "The Hallway." "Nepgear won't be the only one getting surrounded by random guys on the street."
According to Acky, he says that I'm not supposed to give an introduction for Iffy, Compa, and Histy for whatever reason. My theory is that he's plotting something for the future and that when they get introduced, it's going to be at one of those times where all hope is lost and humanity is on the verge of extinction!...Of it can be something completely different, but hey, that's just a theory; A Nep Theory!
"Oh Iffy, you should know that I don't need to beg for affection! I already get tons of affection from everyone in the whole nation (excluding Histy, she's a tricky one)." I told Iffy who only shook her head and sighed. Throwing everything aside, I wonder where Compa is. The only place that she could be is-
"Nep-Nep! Ge-Ge! Welcome home!" Compa happily skipped out of the…kitchen/Dining Room. Alright, Acky, this was the case in the last story and now it's gonna become one in this story too? Why the heck is Compa always in the kitchen?! She doesn't really need to be in the kitchen!
Acallaris: U-Uhh, Neptune? Could you please not do this right now? People are waiting for-
The next scene can wait man! You can't just land poor ol' Compa in the kitchen all the time, that just ain't right! Seriously dude, just because she's a woman, doesn't mean she has to be in the kitchen 24/7, that just ain't right man! I'm pretty sure even the readers could agree with me on how she always walked out the kitchen in most of her appearances in the last story!
Acallaris: Alright Neptune, I get the point…could you please stop talking to me now? I have like a 8 dollar deposit on the fourth wall, and I may not be getting it back after this.
Oh, alright! Mission Accomplished then! I'll let the readers handle the rest!
Acallaris: What did you just-
"Wow Compa, you're looking more cheery and giddy than you usually do, and I thought that the gauge couldn't go any higher than maximum overload!" Compa's really excited about something, especially when she has a present for someone. I'm kind of thinking that Compa got a boyfriend or something…Nah, that couldn't be. "So, what's the occasion?"
"There are people waiting to see you and Ge-Ge in the dining room! They're really excited to see you both!" Compa told us. Visitors, huh? Well, I totally wasn't expecting to get any visitors at this time of night, but oh well, special guest are always a nice touch to our home.
"People are waiting to see us? I wasn't expecting anyone to come at all today. Were you expecting anyone today, Neptune?" Nepgear asked me. If I were expecting people to come, we wouldn't have gone outside today!
"Nope, no one in particular." I started to walk into the dining area while looking back at the others. So everyone knows what's about to happen right? Good, cause I'm pretty clueless right now. The moment I walk into the dining room, I'm just gonna get a pie thrown in my face, followed by the words of, "It's just a prank bro!" While I'm being filmed. "Well, let's see who has decided to-"
As I turned my head, my heart immediately stopped beating for 5 seconds. My legs started to become very numb, and I just stood there with a blank expression, while on the inside, I inserted a fork into a toaster and was shocked. I looked directly at the two guys who sat at the table. I recognized both of them, with one of them being someone k was supposed to be VERY close with.
"Neptune, is something wrong?" Nepgear stepped into the dining area and stood beside me. She proceeded to look at the two guys who were sitting at the table before falling on her knees. "A-Alex? T-Tamazaki? I-is t-tha-that…are you?"
Nepgear couldn't even form sentences properly, it's like she was having a brainfart! (I was too, but let's not talk about that). Wow, I've gone out of character a few times this chapter, but so far I think that me about to have a breakdown takes the number one spot on the list of the times I've gone out of character.
"I…think we might've broken them…" T said, just hearing his voice again made me want to keel over and stay on the ground until the day the next CPUS came along and threw me out from the window. "Do you wanna…do anything, in particular, Alex?"
Alko nodded at T, it was kind of weird how he was awkwardly silent, he could really sneak up on someone and assassinate them if he wanted to. Alko got up from his seat and made his way over to us (well, mostly Nepgear). Right as Alko was going to help Nepgear up, the girl shot up to her feet and smacked the living daylights out of him!
To me, it looked like Alko wanted to say something but he couldn't. He placed his hand on the side of his face and began to rub it before Nepgear hugged him and started another round of crying (except, this time, she has a reason too). "Where have you been all this time?! I was s-so worried and…and…waaaaahhhhhh!"
Alko closed his eyes and started to comfort her the same way I did by caressing the back of her head. I could see Compa getting a bit emotional, wiping away the tears that were forming in her eyes, while Iffy gave her a back rub. Iffy isn't really the best in these types of situations, but meh, she tries.
T began to get up from his seat, although I was going to make him go even lower. Right as he took a step, I charged at him and sucker punched him right in his stomach. I didn't even realize how hard I must've punched him until I noticed that he coughed out some blood and everyone's gaze was on us.
"Al…Al-alright, I deserved that…I definitely deserved that…" T began to sit up while looking up at me. I looked down at him, although my hair was shadowing my eyes so he couldn't really directly look at me. "It's weird…but…I've been waiting for that to happen for 5 yea-"
The moment he sat up, I tackled him and sent him back to the ground with no way of getting up since I was on him. "What…what were you thinking, you…idiot!" T was surprised by my tone of voice. "You…You had me thinking that…that you died somewhere! I thought that I was need gonna see you…ag…agai…." That's when it happened, that's when that one single tear that rolled down my face, might as well made me responsible for the ocean and it's saltiness. I finally let out everything that I've been holding back for decades. "Waaaaaaahhhhhhh!"
"It's okay…it's okay…" I felt T's arms wrap around my back, I began to cry into his shoulder as he pulled me towards him. "Everything's better now…I won't ever be leaving you alone like this, ever again…I promise."
Acallaris: What's going on everybody? My names Acallaris, currently tearing up a bit from writing that ending (damn, it's only the end of the prologue yet I'm emotional), but I hope you all enjoyed this chapter as it marks the end of the epilogue!
Before I move onto anything else, I'd like to say that all of you guys are fricken insane! I uploaded chapter 0 on Sunday, now it's Friday and this story already has 16 Favorites and 19 Followers, my God!
I just want to thank everyone who has read the first chapter and gave lots of support for this story, it really means a lot to me. Although I don't really feel comfortable talking about favorites and followers, I just feel like I had to address this in particular.
Anyways, on with the announcements. I would like to say a few things, the first being about author's notes. I feel like these author's notes haven't really felt special and all, and I want the end of every chapter to be unique. So that's why starting Chapter 4 (Fanfiction wise), you will see a segment that everyone is familiar with.
The next announcement is about OCs in this story. At the moment, I already have things planned regarding OCs. I will not be naming any newcomers, but I will assure you that Veteran OCs (OCs that were in the last story will be returning in this story (although things will be…different).
(Did I just call these guys Veteran OCs? It kind of makes it look like they served in World War OC (And I'm pretty sure only one of them would be considered a veteran if they were in their world any longer…you know who you are)
Finally, the last thing I would like to address is Arcs. The thing about Arcs in APLA is that they were mostly limited to 4 chapters until it got to the end when I started to do whatever I wanted. There will be no Arcs in this story as I want to have freedom in what I write instead of being restricted to what I write. This will be much easier for me and will be more entertaining for everyone.
Phew! That was a lot! But I guess it's time to end the chapter. Next time on Ultradimension Nepzaki, problems will arise and a whole new world to explore. See you guys later!