Chapter 2: Where in the Nep is this
Lola had plundered whatever she could find from the ruins, and among some items she gathered were a stone tablet with writing she could not read, a diamond shaped stone with a power symbol on it, and a few more nonperishable canned foods. The loot here was decent enough to probably sell for some good money, as there was nothing else valuable within the ruins. The whole place only had two large floors, the first floor had four chambers and a stairway that lead to the upper floor with a circular space. Some sections were inaccessible due to debris, and inevitably some good artefacts were too broken to salvage.
Lola began to backtrack from the depths of the underwater world, but as she got near the large area with the fork, she noticed the diamond shaped stone that she picked up from the ruins had started to emit a strange glow. She pointed the stone in the direction to the tunnel that lead to a dead end and the stone reacted, so she swam forward to the dead end tunnel again. Upon reaching the oddly square-shaped floor again, she noticed that the square had markings that divided it into four quadrants and in the middle of the square was a diamond shaped opening that had the exact same shape of the stone she looted. Having no real other choice, she placed the stone in the centre of the circle and then waited. And waited.
Finally after waiting for a little while and seeing nothing happening, she wanted to go and reclaim the cool looking stone, but it was lodged in shut and so she could not do anything about it. Still, at least she had the stone tablet and canned food to sell from this adventure that she was sure to be able sell for some money later. Lola began to swim away from the good-for-nothing dead end to return to the surface, but by now the square was starting to emit lots of energy and there were also a ton bubbles.
Upon reaching the surface, Lola changed back to her normal clothes and gathered her loot and was ready to head back to Zelwinds to see if she can attempt to scam Fang of his money with her canned food. That was when she felt a strange shaking beneath her feet, and after the rumbling stopped, the water entrance that she came out from glowed strangely purple, and then all of a sudden this beam of purple burst out from the water and flew right into Lola's area with a big loud crash. Once the dust settled down, Lola surveyed the area and saw a person planted head first into the ground with only white and light blue stockings on the legs visible. After a short period of time, the head planted person dislodged herself and took a deep breath after being coming back alive again.
"Ahhh, I am alive! That was soooo crazy. I wonder where I am?" Neptune said as she surveyed the unfamiliar land of Sol Plains.
"Why hello there, falling from the sky was the most unusual way to show yourself, but who might you be?" Lola said as she slowly approached Neptune.
"Huh? Oh, I am Neptune, CPU of Planeptune! I was having some fun with a friend when suddenly I got transported here... so, where am I?"
"CPU? What's that?"
"Hm, you don't know? Those are the Goddesses of the nations, we take care of everything in our nations and..." Neptune trailed off, before remembering that her older self had said they were going to entirely different dimensions, and so there may not necessarily be four nations or even CPUs in this place that she ended up in.
"Hmm, never heard of them. Still, you mentioned Goddesses? Does that mean there are more than one of you?"
"Umm yeah, from where I came from. But this place is completely different isn't it? Say, where am I in the first place?"
"Well normally I would have you pay for explaining this, but since you just told me of the other Goddesses, I can give you a fair exchange," Lola replied, while going on to explain Zelwind, Fencers, Fairy, herself, and the two Gods to Neptune; additionally, Lola also mentioned going under water hunting for goods to sell as well. Just as equivalent exchange, Neptune also diverged more information about the Hyperdimension and the CPUs. Lola had gotten excited after hearing about the world of Gamindustri.
"So that's basically it about my world, anything else you would like to know?"
"Hmm yeah, would you be able to take me there one day? Because it sounds like a great world of opportunity to earn lots of money!"
"Oh... all about the money with ya huh... Well, I don't have a problem with that, but... I think I may need your help in the meantime. I don't know how to get back to my own dimension because I was borrowing powers from a certain tomb and something went wrong and that's how I ended up here."
"All right then, I will let you come along with me while I search for more treasures to sell for money. Of course, I expect you to help out with the monsters, so that you can earn me some more money to pay your way in this party."
"(Hmm, I feel like I am meeting B-Sha for the second time... oh well, she's all I can rely on for now until I get into contact with my older self again...)" Neptune thought as she agreed to terms with Lola.
"First things first, let me go back to town and sell some of my things here, I have some regular customers that will for sure buy my goods!"
Lola and Neptune headed to Zelwind city, and after checking in at the Inn, Neptune took a rest while Lola went out to the town square to wait for Fang and his party to show up.
As expected, Fang and his party did show up in the usual place while Lola has her goods ready. Of course, the real thing that Lola was concerned about was the smell of money that Fang had in his wallet. Having no other choice but the expensive yet realiable Lola, Fang and his party came to her once again for information on Furies, in which Lola directed them to Sol Plains again and then proceeded to sell the exotic food.
"Thank you for your patronage! Now, I have something else that will be of interest..." Lola said, but Fang was already ready to leave the place.
"Oh no thanks, not another crappy Dorfa product..." Fang replied, knowing what was coming.
"No, this time it is not a Dorfa product, it is a food item from a faraway land."
"Really? Does it taste good?"
"Yes, this is... Nep-tuna from the continent of... Planeptune," Lola lied, holding out two cans of long expired food.
"Well, I like fish, so I'll take it!" Fang said as he dropped 1000 gold to Lola and took the two cans of "Nep-tuna".
With that, Lola returned to the Inn and got ready to move for the next place. Seeing as how Sol Plains had a mysterious underwater cave, her next destination with Neptune was the Kravisse Cave. Upon arriving, Neptune began to wonder what they would be doing in some damp place.
"Sooo, what's happenin in this kinda place?" Neptune asked.
"I have recently begun searching under water for some goods to sell, looks like there are lots of ancient things that people want to buy up all the time. Besides, you can take care of any monsters that appear as payment for all the accommodations," Lola explained, with huge emphasis on the payment part.
"Oh right, the money..." Neptune trailed off as monsters appeared in front of them and she had to fight them all in order to generate money. Somehow, travelling between dimensions made Neptune lose quite a few levels and as a result, the fight was really good for her to gain a few levels as well as the money. Despite the initial exhaustion, Neptune fought through all the battles (While Lola just took it easy in the back of the party, still getting experience) and eventually they arrived at the centre of the cave with a cavity that was open enough to fit through.
"All right, this seems to be a good entrance, let's change it up now~" Lola said as she waved her lance again and magically transformed into her swimsuit while Neptune was changed into her Citrus Frill.
"Whoa, how did this happen so quick?" Neptune asked, amazed at how fast she changed.
"Magic of course, this will let us move easy and breathe under water. -And so you can pay me more money-" Lola replied as she whispered that last part out loud.
"(Yeah, I should totally introduce Lola to B-Sha sometime!)" Neptune thought as they both jumped into the cavity and fell deep into the cave depths underwater.
Once underwater, both of them moved forward and followed the tunnel that turned right, and then left. The open space at the end of this path had two paths, but there were also a few sharks in the way. Thankfully, Lola had enough light magic to illuminate the room while Neptune struggled to fight the sharks. Having to provide the light source meant that Lola was unable to battle, which was fine because she was getting money from Neptune battling anyway.
After a brief fight, the two travelled to the path on the right, and at the end they found a flat square surface similar to the dead end at the underground of Sol Plains. It was here that Lola picked up a tightly sealed lunch box and an underwater herb, both of which can be sold for scamming prices.
"(Well, these things can sell for a bit, good job!)" Lola communicated with her magic.
"(Hmm, this is what you do all the time huh, it actually isn't bad to gain money like this...)"
"(Yep, and with your help, I can just think of how much I can get! Let's go back and go deeper in.)"
Backtracking to the earlier open space, the two of them swam through the left path this time, and they travelled for a little bit down a narrow path before reaching another open space. The area here was huge though, and one thing they both noticed was in the very centre of the space was another diamond shaped stone, very similar to the one Lola found from before. Before going back to the square at the end of the fork, they plundered the area of all sorts of treasure they can find. Among their findings were:
5 Tonics (Disposable)
2097 Gold (Money for Lola)
2 Gas Canisters (Scam item to sell)
Worn out piece of armour (Junk)
Lola was satisfied with just the Gas Canisters because they had already dug up some money, but now they had begun to return to other empty room and to fit the stone into the centre.
"(So what's going to happen once we set the stone in place?)" Neptune asked.
"(I think you came out from nowhere the last time I did that, so maybe somebody else will come and I can get some money from them.)"
"(Gee, I wonder if Lonely Heart Noire will be summoned this time...)" Neptune thought as they neared the room.
At the same time, within the Hyperdimension in Lastation...
"Achoo!" Noire sneezed, having no idea what was going on.
"Oh my, did you catch a cold?" K-Sha asked, who was just visiting Noire at the moment.
"No, but I feel as if somebody is saying something about me..."
"Oh my, could it be an enemy?"
"No, but..." Noire managed to say before a trembling occurred on the ground they were standing on.
"What's happening?" K-Sha asked as a magic circle formed underneath their feet, and after a short moment, both Noire and K-Sha disappeared. Uni opened the door to look for Noire but found it very strange that nobody was around, despite hearing voices inside the room earlier.
The next time Noire and K-Sha opened their eyes, they were at the clear grasslands of Sol Plains, though they were confused why they were at such a place in the first place.
"Where are we? I don't recall such a strange place in Lastation..." Noire said, observing the environment around her that was vastly different than any field she knows in Lastation.
"(Oh my, all alone with Noire in a quiet place, this is exciting!)" K-Sha thought, completely in her own world.
Around this time though, was when Fang and his party was travelling through the Sol Plains in search of their Fury. Fang had been rushing forward because he did not want anybody to interfere to claim his fury.
"Fang, wait up!" Eryn called out to her partner but to no avail because Fang was really running far ahead. So far ahead that Fang had already turned the corner, and leaped straight into the supposed area where the fury is supposed to be.
There was one slight problem though, as Noire and K-Sha happened to be walking around the same corner and with Fang not thinking about anything as he reached out to grab the fury, his hand landed on... something round and soft on Noire's body.
"Huh, this doesn't look like a Fury..." Fang said, right before K-Sha brandished her gun and Noire released a shriek. The next few moments were chaos as gunshots were fired and Noire's sword being swung along with Fang's anguished shouts filling the area.
When Eryn and Tiara finally caught up with Fang after hearing his shouting, all they could see was an enraged and embarrassed Noire and a full yandere K-Sha still continuously beating up Fang.
"Oh my, are those supposed to be monsters guarding the fury?" Tiara asked, seeing Noire and K-Sha's clothing to be very elaborate for just mere guard of a Fury.