Alright...the authors aren't quite here yet...so...we've still got You-Know-Who here.

Plutia: Hey, that's not very nice, you know…

True. And we do apologize. But...we're still surprised that you haven't transformed yet.

Plutia: Oh. Hmm...

We wonder...how bad can it be anyways?

Plutia: Ooh! Want me to transform?

Sure. What the hell.

*About ten minutes later*

Alright, Lio, we're here now. How's Plutia…Hey, where's Lio?

Forget about Lio, worry about your insurance on this place!

I'll have to look at it later...let's look around a bit…

Little help over here...

Lio? Where are you?

Over here.

We're on a bloody screen for god's sakes, give us directions instead of "over here".

...I think he's the red globe over there...wait, red globe? *runs over to Lionelis, who is apparently made to resemble an Atlas globe* Okay, Lio, why are you a globe?

We didn't ask to be one. Anyways, we're glad she didn't use a needle to hold us in place..though these holders aren't giving us any comfort...

Hold on, first off, who? And second, what do you mean?

Please tell me you didn't ask Plutia to transform...

Depends. You think Iris Heart knows how to make a globe out of a Neuroi core?

He asked for it...and I never thought Judgement day would come...

Oh, it can't be too bad…

Welp, guess you could say Lio had a "Global Revengeance"

…

*cough*

Okay, that was bad…I blame Yang for that...

Iris Heart: Sorry to keep you waiting~!

EEKKK!

Jesus, man. There are no mice around here. Besides, I've used Plutia in Re;Birth1 and she didn't seem too bad-and she's right behind me, isn't she?

...D-d-do I even need to answer that?!

...Your choice?

Iris Heart: How cute. Someone who's not concerned with the fact that his friend's afraid...

Ma'am? I've dealt with four CPUs, a Neuroi core, and one of my OCs. I doubt you're much harder...

Iris Heart: Hmm...we'll see about that.

I wish you the best of luck, Dilnos! *Runs away*

...Okay...well, before you do anything you've potentially got planned, can I at least handle my reviews?

Iris Heart: I guess that would do. But know that I'm going to take great pleasure in this...

*gulp* Welp...for comedy or horror...I will accept my fate at this point...but before I do, let's handle the reviews:

kineke13: To be completely honest, it was a bit difficult to figure out how to get that particular character in back when I was working on the drafts, but this seemed to be the best way to do so given that the DLC didn't really include her or the others as part of the storyline (well, except for one, but we won't get her to join until Chapter 7 (arc) material. Anyways, I'm sure the group needed a bit of a break before they go into Lastation and deal with Avenir. Apart from that, thanks for the review, and I hope you enjoy the next chapter.

Alright...while I either figure out how to placate Iris Heart here or fail to do that, you guys just enjoy the next chapter. And maybe just in case, I leave all the points I've ever had in you guys' hands. You know the drill.

XXXXXXXXXX

Chapter 9: Plutia and Peashy Join the Party!

"How do you know Neptune?" I asked the little girl. She seemed to know Neptune from somewhere...

"She helped me get my memories back along with Plutie and the others," the little girl explained.

So this "Plutie" person knows Neptune as well...wait, others?

"Well, this is a bit embarrassing..." Neptune said nervously. "Are you sure you know me? I mean, it's not hard missing little old me, but I'm pretty sure I'd have had something trigger in my mind if I knew you from somewhere."

"I'm pretty sure," the little girl continued. "Though...to be fair, I really don't recall you having worn that sort of outfit before."

Okay, I'm confused...what outfit did this little girl see her in? "If you say so...anyways, did you want to play for a bit?"

"Yeah, but I lost Plutie around here and I don't really know where she is at the moment. Do you mind sharing your coins until we find her?"

"Well, we could always go look for her really quick," I tried. "Do you know what she looks like?"

"Hmm..." the little girl pondered on the idea. "I don't know if I can actually describe her without a picture or a reference, but maybe she'll find us. Plus, you'll probably know her when you see her. She looks a bit like Neptuna."

"So a copy of me?" Neptune asked next. "Sounds weird...I mean, I know fighting games will have different costumes for each character in case your opponent liked the character you chose, but in real life?"

"Not sure if I should be reacting good or bad right now..." I noted before sighing. "I can take a break. Plus, I can keep an eye out for the others just in case. They should be looking for us by now..."

XXXXXXXXXX

Rosalina's POV

"Are you sure we have enough credits to be gorging on velvet cakes at the moment, IF?" I asked the brunette as she was busy eating her third slice of red velvet cake. Apparently, Compa asked her to try it as it tasted good and, when IF refused on the grounds of being too tired to eat had it fed to her. This gave her a positive reaction as she promptly asked the nearest waitress to bring her a slice. And then another. And then two more in take-out boxes.

"I'm not gorging on them," IF explained halfway through the third slice. "They taste great. Besides, I can treat myself to something special, right?"

"I think Iffy's stressed enough to gorge," Compa pointed out.

"Am not!"

"Anyways," I decided to say, "What's an arcade?"

"An arcade is...well, in the sense we're using, an arcade is a place where you can go and play some arcade cabinets, which have games in them. 'C-Bert', 'Detris', 'Spirit Calibur', things like that."

"Oh. That sounds oddly complicated..."

"It's not as bad as you think. It's not like there's just those three games in there. I heard that there was a game way back in the day that was played so much that the change in it started messing with the cabinet or something. I think it was 'Ping' or something..."

I blinked. "Oh. So...change is bad?"

IF must have thought about it a bit. "Huh? Not like that, Rosalina."

"Maybe it's best that we just show Ro-Ro," Compa said.

"Right." IF finished off her cake and stood up. "It's a bit down the street, if I remember correctly."

"Excuse me?" someone asked us in a slow manner. No, really, it was spoken rather slowly.

"Huh?" I asked as we looked around. "Who said that?"

"There's someone behind you, Ro-Ro," Compa said as she pointed behind me.

"Really?" I turned my head around and saw someone in the corner of my eye. "Oh, there is." I then turned around completely and looked at the person, who was a young girl.

She seemed to look similar to Neptune in some areas but seemed to look like she wore pajamas for normal clothes rather than a hoodie. Her long light purple hair was braided down to her back, the rest reaching around her rear. A pink frill ribbon tied the braid together. She had a white choker around her neck, and her magenta eyes were looking at us as a whole. Her dress (I'll just call it that for now) was teal with a mixture of pink, white, and light orange, and accompanying them were socks reaching up to around her mid-thighs, the socks missing the teal part but having stripes matching the other colors in alternating order. On her feet were a pair of pink bear slippers.

"Hello, miss," Compa greeted. "Did you need something?"

"Yeah," the girl started. "I'm looking for someone. Did any of you see a little girl wearing a bee-themed costume with a tail and cat paws?" The slowness of her speech was a bit...hard to follow. Probably because I didn't think someone could speak slowly. At least, not normally.

"Not from what we recall, no," IF told her. "We're looking for some people as well."

"Have you seen Nep-Nep and Hikari anywhere?" Compa asked.

The girl's eyes seemed to light up for some reason. "Neppy?"

"So I guess you've heard of Neptune," I said. Though...Neppy? I don't think that was an option Neptune presented to us back when Compa found she couldn't pronounce the name well (something that seems to have been repeated by the guy in the Basilicom).

"Yeah! Well...I'm sorry, but I didn't see her yet. Or this Hikie person."

"...Hikie?" I'm really baffled.

The girl seemed to give it some thought for a few seconds before she got an idea. "Why don't we look for them together?"

I looked at my companions, IF shrugging her shoulders.

"I don't see a problem with it," she stated. "It'd certainly help out with finding them. If we find this girl she's looking for along the way, then bonus points, right?"

"It's good to help strangers," Compa agreed. "Plus, we do need to replace Nep-Nep for the moment."

"Sure, we can help," I told the girl finally. "We were going to head to the arcade for a bit, so if she's interested in games, we can find the person you're looking for."

"Thank you!" the girl said happily.

"We do need a name, though. We're not sure who you are, so..."

"Oh, that's fine. My name's Plutia, but you can call me something else like Plutie, Plu-Plu..."

"That's fine, Plutia. My name's Rosalina Dietlinde-Trude Sage, and these are IF and Compa."

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Ro-Ro." I think she picked up that nickname from Compa just now. "Though...I didn't realize that you had Iffy and Compa around here too."

"...You know them too?" When did those two meet her?

"Yeah."

"Sorry, but I've never met her before," IF said quickly.

"Same here, sorry," Compa added.

Maybe it's a dimensional thing, a voice in my head said.

"Dimensional thing?" I asked aloud, replying to the voice.

The others (including newcomer Plutia) looked at me, perplexed.

"Are you okay, Ro-Ro?" Compa asked me.

"Yeah," I told her, "though...did I just say that out loud?"

That last bit? The voice asked. Yeah.

...Am I going crazy?

No, it's just a side-effect of waking up the core inside you. Well, tapping into it. Your father has the same issue with his, though it took a while to get his to talk.

...What?

I'll explain later, but for now just know that I am the core inside you.

Core?

*sigh* Neuroi core.

I blinked.

"You sure you're okay?" Compa tried again, looking really concerned.

"Just dandy," I said. "Just...thinking, that's all."

[Plutia has joined your party! Also, A Voice has joined your narrative!]

XXXXXXXXXX

Hikari's POV

"Aw man!" Neptune said in shock as she somehow lost to the new girl. "And I was doing so well, too!"

"Ha ha, I win!" the girl said cheerfully, perched on a small step stool given to us to accommodate her height.

"I wanna rematch!"

"Okay! This is really fun!"

I sighed as I sat down next to the machine and waited a bit. My rifle...

Hang on, where did my rifle go?

Wait, I remembered now: the guy at the front asked me to hand him it due to this place being a violence-free zone. Which apparently applied to everyone with a weapon visible.

"There you are, Nep!" I heard IF's voice call out.

Neptune (who was busy in her next game with the girl) looked to her left and saw someone coming because she got rather happy.

"Hey, Iffy!" Neptune replied. "Glad to see you guys got here!"

"Yeah, no thanks to you," IF added as I stood onto my feet and turned to face the brunette. "Hey there, Hikari."

"Hello, IF," I said nicely as I added a quick bow.

"Anyways, you two should be glad we thought to come to the arcade...but for a completely different reason."

"Oh. Neptune kinda just dragged me away a bit...Where are the others anyways?"

"Rosalina apparently never played one of these things before, so when she found one to try she went to go play it. Compa and Plutia are with her."

"Plutie?" the girl asked quickly. "Where?" She even looked at IF excitedly.

"What game is she playing?" I asked.

"One of the shooter games, 'Temporal Panic'," IF replied.

"...'Temporal Panic'? Shooter?"

XXXXXXXXXX

It took a few more minutes (as Neptune and the girl had to finish their current Detris game), but we went over to where IF had left the others...in order to see a crowd formed around the area.

"Okay, what's with the sudden crowd?" Neptune asked. "Isn't it a bit early for that?"

"I'm curious about that as well," IF admitted.

"Oh dear..." I said quickly.

"What is it, Hikari?"

"I think she's doing extremely well."

If looked baffled. "Huh?"

"What do you mean?" the little girl asked.

"Well," I tried explaining, "Rosalina's mother and father were soldiers, her mother being one of the top aces and her father having a good aim with a pistol. If I had to take a guess, she's playing it like an actual war."

"I think you're just over-exaggerating," Neptune told me as she started making her way through the crowd. "Excuse us!"

"Pardon us!" I added.

It took us a few seconds to get into the middle of the circle but what we found was...well...

"Oh, hey, you guys," Compa called out. She was with a girl I didn't recognize, and the two of them were off to the side as they watched Rosalina play the game...which she seemed to be winning. I couldn't tell.

"What's going on, Compa?" IF asked.

"Well...Ro-Ro's been playing this and seems to be really good at this game despite playing it for the first time."

"Not sure if good or bad."

"I'd say it's good. She apparently hasn't been hit once."

IF then looked at me. "What did your parents teach you exactly?"

"You know, the basic Witch stuff," I replied, counting off the things I learned. "Contracting with a familiar, operating a Striker Unit, how to deal with personal issues on the fly, shooting guns and gun safety, how to do a proper push-up, shield-making, utilizing your powers to your best abilities, controlling said powers, learn the names of all your comrades...you know, basic stuff."

IF and Compa both looked at me strangely.

"...What?" the brunette asked.

"You asked," I told her.

"...How old are you?"

"Fourteen."

"And they actually train you for that sort of thing?"

"Well, Witches are considered humanity's trump card, so we're usually recruited when we're young. About...ten or so."

IF blinked. "Okay, you can't be telling me they're training a girl barely going through...well, changes how to shoot a gun."

"They do sound like they're preparing you for facing Mister Monsters," Compa noted.

"Pretty much, I guess," I replied. "We do have male Witches, or I think the better term might be Wizards, but since there's a difference in their biological clock they wouldn't start until a little later."

"...Child soldiers..." IF mused.

"It's not as far-fetched as us learning how to defend ourselves when we were younger," Compa told her.

"I know, but...we volunteer to do that sort of thing. We don't exactly get drafted into an army at the age of ten or eleven."

"Well, we're not forced either," I explained some more. "It's just that as we're the trump cards we're useful on the field. The only problem is...there are extremely little amounts of Witches maintaining their original power levels past the age of twenty, and I've only known of three instances where a Witch burned his or her magic supply. Plus, we're usually at our best up to that age, so...it's also not like we don't have to get permission to be recruited if we're not adults. It wouldn't be fair for the families, right?"

"Good point."

"Done," Rosalina said as she completed the game and placed a plastic pistol she had been using into a compartment on the cabinet. "I really don't see the fuss about that sort of game." She then looked at the crowd that had gathered. "Oh...is it that much of one?"

"Not quite," IF told her as the crowd started to disperse. "Just that not a lot of people can actually play it like you did."

"Well...it's not really too difficult. Just look at your surroundings. That's what my mom taught me...I think."

"Right...Anyways, we found our missing teammates."

"Oh. Erm...good job, IF. You didn't happen to find the little girl Plutia's looking for, did you?"

Speaking of little girls, the one with us ran over to Plutia and gave her a hug.

"Plutie!" she cried out.

"Hello, Peashy," the girl, who I can guess is Plutia, replied. "You didn't cause any problems for Neppy or Hikie, did you?"

Neptune looked at IF and Rosalina.

"Neppy?" she asked.

"...Hikie?" I added, confused.

XXXXXXXXXX

Rosalina's POV

"Oh, that explains so much," Neptune told me once I explained to her the idea of dimensional travel. Well, to my best abilities. "I was wondering how a complete stranger knew me."

"Erm...yeah, you could say that in a sense," I replied. "Plutia and...Peashy, was it? Anyways, they know you because an alternate version of you met them. It's also why they know IF and Compa."

"Yeppie," Plutia added. "Compa and Iffy were raised with Peashy since they were babies in our dimension, so we know them from that."

"It's really hard to believe that they were all together at one point," Neptune said. "Here, we met Iffy in a cave, and Compa was the one who helped me out."

"How old are we right now back there?" Compa asked.

"Erm..." Plutia started as she gave it some thought. "I think about your early twenties..."

"Oh."

"Wait...early twenties?" I asked as I looked at Peashy. "If that's the case, then why is Peashy...?"

"Oh, that one's easy!" Plutia said cheerfully. "A goddess doesn't age, so whatever age they were when they became one is preserved."

"Ah." Okay...when Peashy became one... "Hold up. I'm really confused...who made a little girl-no offense, Peashy."

"None taken!" Peashy replied.

"But who made her a goddess?"

"That's a story for a different time..." Plutia told me. "Histy would be a bit upset about you not remembering us..."

"Histy?" Hey, how does Plutia know about Histoire?

"What's wrong?" Plutia looked concerned...or as much as a girl who looks really docile can get.

"We're looking for her right now. Trapped for some reason."

"Oh...well, can we come along?"

I blinked. I know that we let her join the party, but... "How come?"

"Well, the more the merrier, right? Plus, we can hang out with Neppy, Iffy, and Compa. Speaking of which...did you want to be friends?"

"Sure. Hikari and I are still new here, so more friends means we'll be more comfortable here."

"Yay!" Peashy cried out as she decided to jump onto me and give me a hug. "I wanna be friends too!"

"Peashy, you've got...a good grip..." She really did: it was like I was getting a really tight hug...wait, I am!

"Definitely a good thing to have more to help us fight," Hikari added.

"I hope we can have lots of fun along the way!" Neptune concluded.

[Neptune and Hikari have rejoined your party! Peashy has also joined!]

XXXXXXXXXX

...So...apparently, we've got the main author here huddled into a fetal position, mumbling something to himself...the other author doesn't seem to be coming back right now...and now we're able to show you where Madagascar is...is this considered a good day?

Iris Heart: It is for me~

And now we're regretting asking you to transform...thankfully, you're not this bad canonically...are you?

Iris Heart: Depends. Would you like to see what else I can do?

No thank you, Madam Goddess!

*Peeks around corner* Hello? Lio? Dilnos? Has she transformed back yet?

The wheels on the bus go round and round...

Not quite. Though...

Iris Heart: Oh, there you are. Ekiro268, correct?

Neptune, I need your help now! And yes, that's my name, Madam Goddess...

*A few seconds passes*

...You know, we think she's too busy either playing a game or exploring this place still...

[Insert blinking outline of Co-author here]

...Also, we wonder if he's got Run specialized...then again, you can't really do that...

Iris Heart: Well, that was disappointing.

To be fair, though, we think we've dragged this...joke or whatever way too long. It's the end of the chapter, so...

Iris Heart: Ah. It does take energy to be in this form, so...before I go, I should at least take over for the author and his...friend.

Be our guest. We'll help...from our new home at the moment, but we'll still help out.

Iris Heart: Alright. It seems that this chapter has ended.

We do want to point out just in case that, yes, this is a crossover between HDN and SW, and yes, there will actually be Neuroi involved. Arfoire already seems to have some of their powers, so it's possible for other things to happen. Also, we do know that we still have three more Witches to get in here, but one will be coming in this arc. So please don't fret if you happen to be.

Iris Heart: Do whatever you guys do for this story and let the author know what your thoughts were on the chapter as well as if there are any mistakes.

We're Lionelis the current globe, and for Dilnos521 and Ekiro268…

Iris Heart: We thank you, the readers, for reading, and hope to see you guys in the next chapter. Now, to go try finding the other author… *leaves*