Here's the next chapter! This one will be much more heartwarming, I promise...
ON WITH THE SHOW!
Mother's Day, Ultradimension Style
A Hyperdimension Neptunia Fan Fiction
by Derald Snyder
Part 3- Blanc-Mom
*Lowee Basilicom, Ultradimension*
Blanc was typing furiously at her keyboard when there was a knock at the door. "Who is it?! I'm kinda busy here..."
*Ga-thunk!* went the door as it was slid open. "Sorry, Abnes. Yoo-hoo! Neptune's in the house!"
"Gah! Go away! I was just getting to the best part!" Blanc growled with a blood vein visible on her forehead.
"You mean your lame fan fiction?" Neptune guessed. "C'mon, Blanc, don't you have anything better to do on Mother's Day?"
"Mother's Day...? What does that have to do with anything?" the Lowee CPU asked in confusion.
"Well, ya know, you used to be human before becoming a CPU in this dimension, right? So I thought maybe we could... reminisce about your mom or something. I know it's probably been a couple centuries since she passed, but still..."
Blanc blinked a few times, her earlier anger all but forgotten. "My mother... I haven't thought about her in a long time. But now that you've brought it up, the memories are coming back, clear as day..."
"Sweet! Then I'll shut my mouth so you can narrate, okay~?" Neptune said with a big smile.
"...My mother, Hana... she was the head of a small village known as Tendo Town. Bandits and monsters alike feared her battle prowess, with the former referring to her as 'the demon woman'. It was her efforts that single-handedly kept the village from being overrun in those barbaric times."
"However, she could just as frightening to her own village people, especially when she got drunk... she never raised her weapon against them, but an angry rant from her was more than enough to keep them in line. This of course, also meant that she really had no potential suitors... save a lone blue-haired tangerine farmer who showed no fear in front of her whatsoever. ...Not to mention the only one who could beat her at card games."
"I see where this's going," Neptune interrupted. "They got married, then got jiggy in bed together, and nine months later- Ta-da! Our one-and-only Blanc is brought into the world!"
"...Actually, I'm not sure if they ever got formally married," Blanc demurred, "but other than that, you nailed it. Thankfully, there was a lull in bandit activity when Mother's pregnancy became debilitating, but it started back up again not long after I was born. Some even said at the time that the bandits were simply showing respect to Hana by not attacking while she was pregnant."
"Anyway, as a result of having to defend the village, Hana didn't have much time for me... it was Father who raised me through most of my early life. I kind of grew to resent Mother as a result, though Father always told me she had her reasons... the only times I interacted with her back then was when she was teaching me how to defend myself, and she was very strict in that manner. Didn't help that, due to the squalid conditions of the village in those days, the only weapon I could scrounge for myself was a hatchet that Father used to cut down tangerine trees that weren't producing fruit any longer."
"Still, despite her drawbacks, she was admired and looked up to by everyone in the village, to the point that some said that if there were any woman capable of becoming a CPU, it would be her. Keep in mind, no one knew just how a CPU came into being back in those days, though everyone knew the legend of the fallen nation of Tari."
"I guess it was kinda ironic, that you ended up becoming a CPU instead, huh?" Neptune stated.
"Indeed," Blanc nodded. "Honestly, I had no idea what had happened to me at first, after consuming that CPU Memory... But when Mother saw my HDD form... she knew."
"Soooo, were the village people mad at you for that?" Neptune asked.
"Not exactly mad... more like in disbelief," Blanc muttered. "They wondered why fate would do this to me and not Mother, what kind of madness was this, and the like... but then..."
("SILENCE! Is this how you pay respects to your new ruler?!")
("L-Lady Hana...?!")
("'Tis not for us to question why the powers that be have deigned my daughter worthy of being a goddess, and not I! You should be ashamed of yourselves!")
("M-Mother...")
("Lady Blanc. I hereby pledge my eternal loyalty to you, my goddess...")
("S-stop that! D-don't kneel before me like that, dammit! I don't even know what to do!")
("Do not worry. As your mother, I will do whatever I can to assist you in establishing your nation. And I expect all of you to do the same! Now kneel and pay homage to your CPU!")
("All hail our goddess! All hail Lady Blanc, our new ruler!")
("That's more like it.")
"You know, it's funny..." Blanc smiled, "Mother and I ended up becoming closer together than we ever had when I was human, while Father seemed to fade into the background... I remember him saying, 'I have done my duty as a father. Now it is time for you to do your duty as a CPU...' So Mother and I went around the land, subjugating the neighboring villages... even several of the bandits that attacked us in the past immediately dropped their weapons and pledged to reform their wicked ways upon seeing my HDD form..."
"But thought Mother had pledged her assistance, she was hopeless with any sort of technology, forcing me to pretty much work on my own to develop games for Lowee... on that note, do you see these cards hanging on my uniform?"
"Of course!" Neptune replied, nodding. "Those are hanafuda, right? Japanese playing cards?"
"Right. Hana may have been hopeless with tech, but she knew her cards. The hanafuda business that she and I started together helped to establish Lowee's financial base while I tried to develop game technology. And that was no easy task, believe me... at first, it was just light-gun toys and LCD games... But thankfully, there were some bright aspiring minds that helped me to create some decent arcade games..." The flat-chested CPU chuckled. "Which calls to mind this one time, where we accidentally manufactured far too many monitors for our arcades due to an oversight. I remember venting about it to Mother one night while she was drinking, and she said something along the lines of, 'Well, if you have too many screens, why not just make a game that uses multiple screens or something?' So I proposed that to the arcade game producers the next day, and they all called me brilliant, even though it was my mother that came up with the idea... We managed to create a two-screen boxing game, and it sold well enough for us to get rid of most of our surplus stock. I never said a word to anyone, and Hana never took credit for it, either... of course, the fact that she was drunk at the time means she possibly didn't even remember saying that..."
"Anyway, Mother continued to support me however she could, even to the point of death... her last words to me were, 'Blanc, my daughter, I may be passing from my mortal shell, but my spirit will always be with you. I have confidence that you will continue to make Lowee prosper and flourish, even after I am gone...' I tried to keep her words in my heart, but her and Father passing on still left a hole in my heart..." Blanc then opened her eyes. "Actually, did you know that this Basilicom was built over her gravesite?"
"Really?!" Neptune gasped. "You mean, your mom's bones are resting beneath our feet here?! Er, well, several stories down, anyway..."
"I could think of no better way to honor her," Blanc smiled... which then quickly faded. "But I'll bet she turned over in her grave after I was mislead and tricked by that bastard Mr. Badd... I can almost hear her scolding me now..."
"Aw, don't sweat it," Neptune disagreed, "That Mr. Badd played us all like fiddles. Good thing Vert was there to bust us out... but hey, even if your parents are gone, and your old village is dust and ashes, you've still got us other CPUs! So you're not alone anymore! I'm sure Blanc-mom would be happy that you made new friends..."
"...You're probably right," Blanc nodded. "I never was the most... sociable girl around, even back then... of course, being that I was Hana's daughter, and then the CPU, everyone ended up putting me on a pedestal, in one way or the other... I never seemed to have anyone that was 'equal' to me... until now." She then suddenly gasped, looking around a bit...
"Hm? What's up, Blanc?" Neptune queried curiously. "You think someone's listening in on us...?"
"Wh... No, it's..." The goddess stammered. "I... thought I just heard someone say, 'I'm so proud of you, Blanc'..."
"Huh?" Neptune's eye shrunk to circles. "But I didn't hear anything..."
"Really...? But I could have sworn..." Blanc then gasped as something clicked. "Wait... was that... Mother's voice I heard just now?"
"Ah-ha! See?" Neptune smiled triumphantly. "Looks like Hana's spirit is watching over you after all, just like she promised!"
"I... I guess so..." Blanc smiled, looking almost at the verge of tears. "Thank you, Neptune. You may be a ditz sometimes, but you really are a true friend..." Taking a breath to calm herself, she then said, "If I might ask... what led to this in the first place? You said CPUs in your dimension are born from Shares, so you don't even have a mother..."
"We~ll, it started when I ran into Big Nep's mother, yadda yadda yadda, and here we are," Neptune explained. "So, that means Vert's last on the list, so I'm gonna go see what she's up to for Mother's Day! Bye, Blanc! Good luck with your fan fiction, hope it doesn't totally suck!" With that, she skipped out the door.
"It's not fan fiction, and it does NOT suck, dammit!" Blanc growled with a blood vein on her forehead. But then, something else occurred to her... "Wait a minute... she said 'Big Nep'... as in Big Neptune?" One of her eyes suddenly glowed red.
"THERE ARE TWO NEPTUUUUNES?!"
Her voice caused a 3.0 earthquake through the entire nation of Lowee, prompting the Planeptune CPU to transform and fly out of there as fast as her processor wings could carry her...
To be continued...
Three CPUs down, one to go! Review, please!
