Neptune ran down the corridor, following the girlish laughter towards a fork in the road. She paused and glanced at both sides. The two paths were identical save for the lighting conditions. She took a few deep breaths and then continued down the dimly lit path, still following the saccharine laughter. She ran for what felt like miles into total darkness before arriving at a purple door. It was simple, hardly more than a slab of metal with knob, but it looked familiar. Turning the knob, the laughter ceased and the door slowly creaked open on its own. Ignoring the clanging noise her feet made as she stepped on the grating, she saw very clean walls. Elaborate designs etched in purple flowed across the white slate and around large monitors. As she took a few cautious steps forward, the door suddenly slammed shut and the screens flashed to life. Neptune shielded her eyes until they had readjusted and was greeted with the faces of hundreds of people. Each screen had a image of a person wearing Planeptune themed outfits, but something was quite wrong. They looked worried and were staring at Neptune as if their lives depended on it. The hallway seemed to stretch forever, Neptune could see her target standing about 100 meters away. Nepgear stood, smiling innocently as always, and beckoned for Neptune to follow her. As Neptune started walking, Nepgear turned to continue down the hallway and broke out into a sprint. Neptune followed suit, but as soon as she started, there was a unanimous cry from the monitors.
"Help us." Each screen pleaded.
Neptune ignored the pleas and continued to run after Nepgear. The further she got, the more frequent and forceful the cries were.
"Help us!" The monitors were no longer perfectly synced up.
She kept going until the walls started bending in towards her, and the voices were far too loud. She covered her ears with her hands and fell to her knees.
"YOU PROMISED TO HELP US!" They screamed at her.
Without warning, the floor suddenly gave way and Neptune found herself falling into an abyss. She screamed as she fell, feeling weightless and helpless. Squinting, she saw a small green dot farther down. As she continued to fall, it rapidly grew in size, now appearing as a glowing green square rushing up to meet her. Neptune closed her eyes and braced for the worst.
"Nep..." She heard a voice.
"Neptu..."
"NEPTUNE!"
She shot up quickly, out of breath and still in a panic. She took a moment to calm down and take in her surroundings; several beds, desks, windows with light pouring in. She was back in the dorm room at Beacon, evidently sleeping in after a long day.
"Are you alright?"
The purple girl realized she wasn't alone, the one detail she had missed, was Noire standing by her bed with a very concerned expression. Neptune ran her hands through her hair and sighed.
"Sometimes I'm not really sure." She replied.
"Do you want to talk about it?" Noire asked.
"Do you ever think of what might happen if we were gone? Like when Rei tried to attack, what would have happened if we weren't there to defend? Or the people we have to go save from monsters? What to they think when we vanish like this?" Neptune monolouged.
"Of course I always think of Lastation's citizens, that's normal for a leader." Noire stated.
"I know, it's just... what if that's all we're here for? To just shield our citizens from danger? If we aren't there, what is going to happen to them?" Neptune sniffled as tears started to well up in her eyes. "What if I can't save them Noire? What if they die and it's my fault?"
"Stupid." Noire muttered as she hoisted herself up to the hanging bed. Neptune felt arms embrace her and rested her head in the crook of Noire's neck. "None of this is your fault Neptune."
They stayed like that for a few minutes, Neptune softly sobbing into Noire's shoulder and Noire silently supporting her. Neptune was thankful to have someone there to help her. Truth be told, she had times like this but usually had her sister or Histoire to help her through it. She did her best to hide these feeling from everyone else, lest she sour the mood or drag anyone else down with her. Eventually she was able to calm down and at least partially return to her chipper self.
"Man, this is pretty embarrassing for me right now. Sorry you had to see all that." Neptune said sheepishly.
"It isn't anything to be ashamed of. Everyone has times like this." Noire reassured her.
"Even you?" Neptune asked. Noire nodded in response. "Well maybe I'll have to help you at some point."
"No you won't. I just work through that on my own." Noire informed her.
"Hmmm. Then I guess I'll have to find some other way to pay you back." Neptune said in a salacious voice and threw in a wink for good measure. The sable haired CPU was quick to blush: Neptune knew she had hit her mark.
"W-wha-at? What's with the face?"
"Oh you know." The smaller girl took advantage of Noire's stunned reaction, climbing on top of the bed and straddling her. "Teammates first, and yourself second right?"
However as luck would have it, Neptune never got the chance to retreat and laugh at Noire's reaction. Instead all of her attention turned to the unlatching and creaking of the door. Time slowed down as if they were in an epic battle, as the CPUs watched Yang walk into the room.
"Hey you two, we have... a... mission..." Yang slowed and froze mid-step. "I'll just ahhh, let you two get back to... whatever you were doing." She slowly walked backwards out of the room, but not before grabbing a stray sock and placing it on the doorknob.
"So I take it you guys are settling in?" Yang asked the two new girls who were fidgeting about the room, trying to forget what had just happened. After catching them in "the act" she couldn't help but tease them. Noire blushed furiously in response while Neptune had a much more subtle reaction. Her face morphed into a more somber version as she stared vacuously. However this only lasted for a second and she returned to her normal expression. Yang knew something was up but decided not to press the issue for now.
"That wasn't what it looked like!" Noire protested, still red in the face.
"I'm not judging, I'm glad you two are comfortable."
"So why'd you interrupt our quality time anyway?" Neptune asked, ignoring the glare she got from Noire.
"Oh yeah. We've got a proper mission now. I guess Ozpin is confident after our training session. We should probably get to his office now, Blake is already waiting there."
After they had all grabbed their respective gear, they set down the familiar path to the headmaster's office. Yang, once again, had to stifle a laugh upon entering the room. No matter how long she was at Beacon she couldn't escape one thing. Professor Ozpin's chair had a certain... phallic shape to it. Blake was keen to pick up on her reaction, throwing her a slight scowl.
"Ah, glad you could make it girls. A rather important mission has come up." Ozpin said in his usual tone.
"What's happening?" Noire questioned.
"It might be nothing, but I have a feeling it is vital. There have been reports from several remote villages concerning what appear to be meteor showers. We have a map of all reported sightings here." He pressed a button on his desk, activating a holographic display. The map showed a region southwest of Vale, relatively close to Vacuo. A cluster of 6 small towns formed a crude ring around a seemingly deserted area. However the blue dots that represented the "meteor" sightings were all contained in this empty space.
"These objects follow no previously known astronomical patterns and, as you can see, are clustered in this one place. I don't suppose any of you would know the historical name of this region?"
"It's the Catacombs, the site of the biggest defeat in the Great War. A group of faunus lured a battalion into the undergroud cave network. Only 18 humans survived." Blake answered in a somber tone.
"Very good Ms. Belladonna. More recently those caves have been known as The Nexus, a haven for criminals, gangs, or those wishing to disappear. Strangely, it has been completely silent for nearly a week. These unexplained meteors started two days later. The arrival of Misses Neptune and Noire, the meteors, and the lack of activity are all quite close and I suspect they are all connected somehow." Ozpin stopped his explanation to take a sip of coffee. Or at least Yang assumed it was coffee. Everyone had their theories about the headmaster and his coveted brew.
"So you want us to walk right into a criminal hideout?" Neptune asked.
"Believe me, I would rather you not bu-" Ozpin started.
"Piece of cake. We've done this plenty of times, right Noire?"
"You could say that. It's become a sort of specialty of ours."
"Very well then. I have sent all of you a full mission log along with priority 2 requisition permissions. Go to the office and pick up any supplies you need in addition to the usual kit. As for the two of you." He gestured to Neptune and Noire. "You should look in the armory for different weapons. A sword alone isn't going to do you much good here. You can work on making your own custom weapon after this mission." The headmaster concluded. They nodded and the quartet departed the office, making for the basement levels that held the armory and requisition office.
"So what did he mean about a sword not going far?" Noire inquired.
"Well, it's hard to be purely melee unless you are really fast." Yang clarified. "Pretty much everyone around here has some sort of ranged weapon in addition to melee."
"Such as?" She pressed.
"You've seen Blake with her weapon. That's a pretty good example of a typical sword. I've got shotguns and punching, Ren has bladed sub-machine guns, Nora has a hammer grenade launcher, Pyrrha has a rifle/spear/sword. As for the people you haven't met, Ruby has her scythe/sniper, Weiss has a sword that uses dust magic, Penny has a bunch of swords that can shoot a huge laser."
"I guess I see your point."
"Only person around here who just uses a sword is Jaune, but he has a shield to get close. Plus he couldn't really do that much better with a gun."
"So I can make my own crazy weapon?" Neptune asked excitedly.
"I guess you'll have to wait until we are done with this mission. For now you can make do with what's in the armory. We can help you train and test out anything that catches your eye." Yang said. Truth be told, she had never been into the armory, most students never went there. It was mainly used as a reserve for situations like this. There was also an unspoken tradition that held true in all of the academies. The armory was a shine that held the weapons of fallen hunters. These were off limits to anyone aside from the hunter's family and the staff.
"You guys go on ahead, I'll go to the req office and put our order in." Blake said. "Anyone have any special requests?"
"Pudding." Neptune cut in before anyone else could speak. The girl really must love that stuff.
"Anything else?" Blake sighed.
"We should take some of those super flashlights and a strong laser pointer." Yang said. The flashlights would prove useful in the cave and the laser pointer could be useful for signaling. But Yang also had other, more feline ideas for it.
"Okay then. I'll meet you guys afterwards."
Yang lead the remaining girls to the armory to check out the standard weapons that were in stock. There were quite a few basic ones here, sword guns, rifle spears, sniper halberds, railguns, flails, flails that launched bombs. Hopefully there would be something that fit the style of these two. Noire started meandering around the energy weapons section while Neptune was browsing traditional swords. Yang left them to look around while she went to stock up on ammo for her gauntlets. She grabbed a handful of clips for Blake before she heard Noire call her name.
"Yang, what is this thing?" Upon investigating, Noire was holding a plasma projector. Hardly looking like a weapon, it was a small U-shaped piece of metal with various buttons and vents on it. However Yang knew just how powerful these could be.
"Aww man, I love these things. You basically just hold it in the middle and use the buttons to activate different modes. Here, I'll show you." Yang took the device from her and strapped it onto her forearm. Pressing the power button, it defaulted to its standard form, a triangular shaped blade made of blue energy. It cast a bright light and a soft reverberating hum was emanating from the vents. Testing out the other buttons, Yang demonstrated that it could turn into a shield, sword, boxing glove, or a pistol that shot energy bolts.
"That's certainly more advanced than I was expecting." Noire stated with surprise.
"They're a fairly new technology. If you fancy yourself a tactician, they mainly rely on switching between modes very quickly to outmaneuver your opponent. Only real downside is that they aren't very good for stealth." Yang summarized.
Noire seemed pretty set on the plasma projector so they went to check on Neptune who had been browsing the swords. She was currently examining a pair of wrist mounted weapons that upon inspection, seemed to be short swords with built in pistols. Everything was contained in a armored bracer with a small winch and coil of steel cable. It appeared that the blades could be shot out to act as a grappling hook to hoist the user up, or to pull enemies closer. The blades were also retractable so the user could pass as being unarmed.
"I feel like I need to be wearing a red and white hoodie to use these things." Neptune said sarcastically.
"You guys good to go then? Or do you want to do some training?" Yang asked.
"Nah, we'll be fine. Let's go check this place out." Neptune rushed out of the room.
"Wait Neptune, you don't even know where you're going!" Noire said as she took off after the smaller girl. Yang smiled: they reminded her of Ruby and Weiss.
"Don't worry Rubes, we'll figure out a way to get to you."
Author's Note:
Sorry about the long wait, I really had no idea what I was doing with this chapter until recently. Now I've got a new proposal for all of you. Neptune and Noire are going to have to make their own weapons soon and I think it would be great to get your input on it. If you have an idea for one of their weapons, send it my way and it might end up in the story. I've also realized that switching between everyone like I've been doing is going to really limit how much I can get across, so I'm switching that up. From now on, I will stick with the dual perspective chapters, but they will stay focused in one world until that arc is finished.
As always, thanks for reading and don't be afraid to offer some constructive criticism.