Ram's secret hideout, if it was anything at all, was at least something Neptune felt safe calling "secret" and "hidden out."

It was turning out to be quite a bit of a walk, but after getting towards the outskirts of Lowee, Neptune had gotten the distinct feeling that there weren't as many people around. Maybe there weren't any at all, actually. It was a sort of sixth sense she attributed to her experiences as being the best protagonist ever. When there were people around, you could tell. It didn't matter whether or not they were there looking at you, you were still gonna smash their stuff and see if there was money inside (well, Neptune didn't personally do that, being a goddess and all, but she liked to think Falcom or some of her other friends did when they were short on money and couldn't get a quest), but you knew. Likewise, when somewhere was totally deserted, you just knew that too.

The weird thing about it all was that there were still a lot of buildings around. Neptune had noticed earlier how weird some of the architecture of Lowee was, how it had seemed designed to look like something it wasn't, but this area took it to a whole new level. It was like an entire section of the city had been built just so it looked good from an outsider's perspective. Once you were up close, Neptune could tell without issue that it was deserted. The buildings were empty, in many cases the insides of them weren't even finished... It was really creeping her out. It was kind of upsetting too. The people in that town could have easily been living happily in this space without bothering anyone, but instead they were stuck where they were while this place just sat around like a ghost town.

And Ram had led her along as if all of this was normal.

It was this drastically contrasting view to her own, once again, that made Neptune think twice about commenting on it. The fact that Ram probably normally just flew here (Neptune would have bet on it) given how out of the way it was, and was only walking to appease Neptune, was another reason to not comment on what Ram probably considered to be "normal" and "good." At least not now, anyway, if at all.

Then again, as Neptune watched Ram skip ahead of her, considering how Arfoire clearly viewed this place, Neptune supposed her reaction as an outsider wasn't so abnormal after all. Maybe that was why Lowee was putting on this charade in the first place.

In that moment, Neptune was struck with a strange sense of camaraderie towards Arfoire. It was unexpected and took her completely off guard, causing Neptune to actually stop walking and bring a hand to her chest as other feelings associated with the woman, feelings she had been trying to ignore, quickly rose to the surface.

Ram continued on ahead of her for a moment, but Neptune just watched her, caught up in her thoughts. They had ceased holding hands a while back, Ram content to lead the way. She seemed so strangely content just in being in Neptune's company that it had just made Neptune wonder. What kind of relationship had she had with the other Neptune? For that relationship to even exist in the first place, what kind of person was that Neptune? She had heard from Arfoire, but she could also tell Arfoire had (hidden) reasons to be biased. That someone else thought so highly of this other Neptune, though... It really made Neptune think. Her thoughts quickly started shifting into another direction, however, as she realized that they weren't so alone after all.

"Ram, watch out! There are monsters coming! Don't worry, I'll get 'em!"

Instinctively, Neptune pulled out her sword and started running towards Ram and the two monsters that were quickly approaching the small girl. Large and ferocious looking, Neptune was all set to chop them up into a million pieces. There were the kinds of monsters that typically appeared alone and got their own song on the soundtrack they were so tough, there was no way Neptune was letting Ram get surrounded by a pair of them alone!

... But hold on.

Ram didn't seem to be too alarmed by the monsters...

In fact, rather than attacking, they were coming up next to her. She was even patting one of the enormous things on the head... And it looked like it was liking it! It wasn't looking like it was going to attack her at all! Then, not a moment later, she was slowly turning towards Neptune, a strange, hurt expression on her face. There was surprise there too. And was that denial Neptune saw? The slow head shaking certainly looked like it.

As Neptune skidded to a halt a few yards in front of Ram and the monsters, a duo that clearly apparently meant no harm to Ram at least (they were eyeing Neptune in ways that made her quite uncomfortable), Neptune realized something was wrong. Very, very wrong.

Had this been a set up after all?

No, that couldn't be right. From Ram's expression, it looked like she felt like she, Ram, had been the one set up by Neptune. Over some monsters, though? Monsters, really? Why in the world would some monsters of all things change anything?

Though come to think of it, these were actually the first monsters Neptune had seen up close since coming to this world...

Before Neptune could say or think anything further, the large wolf-like creature let out a low growl. Ram, as if she was suddenly scared of whatever this growl meant, took a step backwards.

A step away from Neptune.

Neptune held up her hands defensively, a worried frown on her face. Whatever was going on, it was bad, it was something she didn't understand, and it was something she didn't like at all.

"Hey, Ram, what's going on? I thought-"

"Who are you?!"

Once again, there was no doubt in Ram's voice. There was no question in her mind. She was, once more, sure of who she was talking to.

Or, in this case, who she wasn't talking to.

With Ram like that, Neptune froze. It drove everything to a halt. She had gone over plenty of ways to break it to her, lots of scenarios where she was the one doing it and could calm the girl down herself. At this point, alone with Ram, she had been sure she had escaped the possibility of Ram figuring her out herself before Neptune had a chance to explain.

Obviously she had been wrong.

And Ram? Ram was clearly forcing herself to so much as look at Neptune, her voice and expression accusing. Betrayed.

"What are you..." Neptune paused. Yeah, she couldn't deny anything now. She had been found out. Her reaction to these monsters must have given her away. Had the other Neptune known them? Which meant... Did Ram know them? Now that was an odd combination, but Neptune didn't really have the time to dwell on it now. Ram looked ready to explode at her, either into tears or into furious words or maybe both. No matter what, Neptune already knew that she absolutely didn't want to be the cause of any more hurt for this girl, but now that seemed impossible. "I... I'm Neptu-"

"You're not!" Ram pointed a finger, a shaking, damning finger towards Neptune. The CPU flinched at the act, looking away despite herself. What else could she do? To Neptune's surprise, and concern as well, Ram slowly fell to her knees, no longer looking at Neptune. "You're not... I knew they said she was dead, but I always... I always hoped..."

Neptune's heart immediately went out to the girl. She couldn't imagine what she was feeling right now, especially when she had no idea what kind of relationship the other Neptune had had with her, but she had seen enough of this Ram to know that hurting her just made her feel terrible. She knew this had been inevitable, but she had been really hoping she could have eased Ram into it, exactly so she could avoid totally shattering her illusions (or worse, the girl herself) like what was happening right now.

Tentatively, Neptune took a step towards Ram. The wolf growled and the dragon tensed, but Neptune paid them no mind. Her level may have been down, but she could take them on without hurting them too badly if she needed to. Wiping them out was out of the question, though, not if she wanted any chance of getting through to Ram.

"Hey, Ram, listen..." Neptune started slowly, taking another step towards Ram. She didn't want to hurt the girl any more than she already had. She had wanted to help her, darn it! Why was this place so screwed up?! "I'm just... I just-"

"You just tricked me." Ram's voice was harder now. It was still accusatory, but now it held some kind of conviction, a conviction that Neptune immediately knew was bad news. Neptune quickly started to try to explain herself, but she was cut off by Ram standing up and summoning a small staff, pointed right at Neptune.

Despite the tense situation, seeing Ram holding such a familiar looking weapon, Neptune found herself sighing in relief, a weak laugh escaping her lips.

"Y'know, I don't want to kill the mood here or anything, but can I just say you have no idea how happy it makes me to see you using that instead of something like a sword or a gun?" Neptune joked weakly, taking a tentative step backwards. She had been fine taking on the monsters, but Ram herself? This called for a serious reconsidering of her strategy. "Not that that'd make any sense to you, but seriously, how about we just talk, maybe we-"

"I'm not gonna let myself be tricked any more!" Ram declared angrily. Tears had finally started to spill, and her expression was one of indignation and betrayal. Neptune felt ashamed, even though she knew she hadn't really done wrong. "I... I won't let anyone walk around pretending to be her! You're gonna pay!"

Neptune had intended to say something like "Now you sound more like the Ram I know." under her breath and maybe take some kind of defensive position and try to figure out what she could say to convince Ram she wasn't the bad guy. Her mind had been running a mile a minute and there wasn't nearly enough time to process anything that was happening. She had intended to start throwing out every excuse that came to mind as she figured out the proper thing to say. She had intended a of things, right then, though it was clear her intentions weren't working out so well today.

When she saw what happened to Ram next (because Neptune couldn't even comprehend the idea that Ram was doing it to herself), everything stopped. She stopped talking, stopped moving, stopped thinking, she even stopped breathing. She could only stare and watch, transfixed and horrified by what she was seeing.

A thick, inky pillar of darkness quickly surrounded Ram, encasing her and swirling around her as if it was trying to consume her whole. Tendrils of cloudy blackness lashed out from it, as if what was happening inside was violent and it wasn't able to completely contain it.

As the darkness began to fade, Neptune immediately understood why Arfoire had scoffed at her own transformation into Purple Heart.

If what she was seeing was typical for transformations of CPUs and Candidates of this world, her own transformation was going to look like a joke in comparison.

Ram's new form was still relatively petite, not unlike the White Sister Neptune was used to. There was still a heavy focus on white too, in a way. From there, though, there just weren't any similarities at all.

Rather than having simple gloves, Ram's hands had transformed into or been covered by sharp, metal claws of some kind. From where the claw "gloves" ended, just past her elbows, metal ran up the sides of her arms and shoulders, before wrapping around her neck and forming some kind of... thing on her back. Her left arm, right from Neptune's viewpoint, was almost entirely covered in spiked armor, whereas the other arm was somewhat bare in comparison, sans the claw and metal strip going up her arm. Her legs were in a similar state, the left more armored than the right, but both with trails of steel snaking their way up her body to her back, and where it all met, metal wings burst from the "thing" on her back. The "thing" began reaching around her torso, wrapping around and covering much of her exposed skin until it formed some kind of armor there as well. As the armor finished forming, a dull light shone on parts of it as red highlights formed all across it, not unlike the pink highlights on the plug suit of the White Sister Neptune knew.

It wasn't as though it was truly a tremendously spiky or jutting affair. It was just so... different than what Neptune was used to that it stood out all the more.

And it was all so wrong.

But what truly finished this transformation, from sweet lookalike to something that would give the twins Neptune knew nightmares (it was sure going to give her a few), was her face.

It was very much the same face Neptune knew Ram took when she transformed, save for one haunting difference.

Her eyes.

Where her eyes should have had whites surrounding them, they had foggy gray. Where her eyes should have had a familiar glowing symbol for a pupil, there was a barely a flicker.

It was like someone had turned off the power and drained all the goodness from them. It was... creepy. They were still clearly Ram's eyes, still clearly capable of doing what eyes did, and yet... Neptune shuddered looking at them.

At last, Ram was finished transforming. Her staff took on a similar transformation, though it was much quicker and much less traumatic than what Neptune had seen Ram just go through. It seemed like it had taken forever, but it had probably only taken a moment.

The newly transformed Ram floated a little off of the ground as transformed CPUs and Candidates tended to do. She looked at Neptune expectantly for a moment, as if she was waiting for something, then shook her head.

"Right... There's no way a dumb faker would be able to transform." Neptune wasn't sure if Ram was talking to her or herself, but it didn't matter. Maybe Ram was having doubts, maybe she wasn't. Whoever she was talking to, Ram not attacking straight away gave Neptune the chance she needed.

Neptune needed to transform too.

Unfortunately, as before, it wasn't instantaneous. It didn't come at all for a few moments, but Neptune didn't dare break her focus. Ram was about to go all out on her, maybe even try to finish her off, and she honestly wasn't sure if she could put up her best fight without transforming. Maybe she could not fight at all. She wouldn't know if she was in a state where she couldn't even defend.

The transformed Ram didn't seem to notice Neptune was doing anything, thankfully it seemed like she was talking to the monsters about something instead of paying attention to Neptune. That quickly became something Neptune soon found herself incredibly thankful for, because it was becoming very apparent that this wasn't coming to her as quickly as it had when she had transformed for Arfoire. But as she started to feel like maybe giving up was a better option, like maybe she should try talking again, she was once again enveloped by a sticky, foggy sensation.

In that moment, it was as though the entire world around her had been covered in a thick fog, a fog that clung to her no matter where she went or what she did. She could feel the Sharicite somewhere in the fog, but it was even further away than it had been before and it felt even weaker than it had as well. Was it because she had spent more time in this world? Or was something going on in hers?

Neptune didn't think on it. She pressed forward, almost swimming through the sickly, sticky fog. This was taking longer than it had with Arfoire. That wasn't good. If it wasn't so clear in her mind that she needed to transform right now, then...!

That urge, that need, that desire; that was what gave Neptune the shove towards the Sharicite that she needed. The desire to help this world, to help Ram, did it for her. As she reached it, it felt like it was a breath of fresh air after she had been drowning for so long.

And just like that, Neptune was back in reality, finding herself surrounded by a familiar shining light.

"What is...?!"

She could hear Ram's voice, and she sounded like she was fairly surprised. It was closer than Neptune had thought Ram had been. Had Ram moved while Neptune had been zoning out trying to transform? Was time moving for all that time Neptune had been zoned out? It didn't matter.

As the light faded, Purple Heart was surprised to find herself kneeling. She quickly came to the conclusion that she must have collapsed to her knees while she had been trying to transform, but having not been mentally there, she hadn't noticed. That... was unsettling. It meant she couldn't rely on this power as much as she thought she could. If she even could at all.

Panting, Purple Heart raised her head... and found herself smirking at what she saw before her.

The transformed Ram had indeed gotten closer, but gone was the antagonistic attitude that she had been previously displaying.

Though she was still in that monstrous form that still was completely alien to Purple Heart, that form that even now unsettled the goddess, Ram's face and body language were another story entirely. She was extremely close to Purple Heart, for one thing. It looked like she had been reaching for her and had just withdrawn her hand (could it even be called a hand anymore?) only seconds ago. Her expression was one of worry, one of concern, one of guilt, and of course, one of confusion. It was those other emotions that interested Purple Heart, however.

She stood to her feet, wiping her brow with the back of her hand, still smirking playfully at the stunned form of the transformed Ram. After a moment, more as a show of proof than anything, Purple Heart let herself begin to float off the ground, hovering just a little bit off it as she normally did.

"You... You actually..."

Purple Heart crossed her arms.

"For all of those mean old accusations you were making before, you actually look pretty worried about me now." Purple Heart's smirk shifted into a small smile. If she could avoid this fight, even if it meant putting up with whatever issues she was having with transforming, she would happily take that route. "Can't we settle this peacefully? I never intended to lie to you. My situation is simply... complicated. I would be more than happy to explain it if you're willing to listen."

Ram surveyed Purple Heart as she straightened herself up. First, she took a moment just to get a little distance between them again, though right now she didn't look nearly as certain as she had in herself a few moments ago. She seemed to be dealing with the shock that Neptune could in fact transform well enough, but the expression on her face still held some kind of hostility to it. It was growing redder still, as if just looking at Purple Heart made her angr-

"W-What is that transformation even supposed to be?! Your boobs are practically hanging out! It's totally gross!"

... or not.

"You think so?" Purple Heart fought back a laugh. It wasn't hard to, considering she was finding herself being filled with relief that it appeared the tension in the air had lessened drastically. "I could say the same thing to you. You're much less covered up than I am, and look at how pointy that is. Isn't it uncomfortable? And having metal like that all over you, covering you like that, I can't imagine it doesn't poke into some really awkward places-"

"S-Shut up!" Much to Purple Heart's growing amusement, the transformed Ram didn't look like she was offended by these observations. If anything, it was as though for the first time in her life, she had realized how... blatant the form was. She was covering the more exposed parts of her body with her arms and glaring at Purple Heart, a furiously deep blush staining her cheeks. It was almost surreal, that hilarious Ram-like expression combined with those haunting definitely-not-Ram-like eyes. "T-This is what we're supposed to look like! Neptune looked like it too when she transformed, you dumb faking fake faker!"

That was certainly sobering, for Purple Heart at least. While her amusement at the situation lessened quickly as she let that sink in, Ram seemed to still be preoccupied with Purple Heart's comments, shifting awkwardly and trying to cover as much as she could to little avail. It wasn't as if Purple Heart had really been bothered or anything, Vert and Plutia easily showed off more when they transformed and she saw that regularly. But the fact that it lightened things up like this, sort of, that worked for her.

"You must at least be able to realize that, if I can transform, I am a CPU, right, Ram?" Purple Heart offered tentatively, after waiting a few moments for Ram to eventually decide she didn't care what Purple Heart thought about her appearance. It had broken the ice, at least. "Shouldn't that at least warrant you hearing what I have to say? If I had wanted to hurt you, I could have done it easily. Repeatedly too. In fact, didn't you only figure out I'm not who you thought I was because I was trying to protect you?"

Once again, Purple Heart was struck by how... human this form of Ram's was capable of looking. Despite how such an aura of wrongness continued to surround the girl, despite how everything about how she looked just made Purple Heart want to shake her until she turned back to normal, those expressions were so... real. It really made her realize, different as they were here, there was a lot to be found that was the same too.

Ram was torn, clearly. Purple Heart was obviously right, but Ram was being stubborn for some reason. She didn't want and wasn't going to let someone "impersonate" the Neptune she knew while she was on watch. But she wasn't dumb, either, and Purple Heart's logic was sound enough for even the stubborn Ram of her own world to pause.

It took a little, but finally, Ram lowered her shoulders somewhat. She looked suspicious, incredibly so, but at the same time... Purple Heart could tell there was some genuine curiosity there.

She could also tell that Ram was using both of those things to hide what must have been overwhelming her from the moment she realized the truth. She had gotten her hopes up and they had been smashed to pieces, and despite that, she was still doing a fairly decent job of keeping her composure, all things considered. Arfoire hadn't even been this good about it, come to think of it!

"Fine... But I'm still gonna beat you up if I think you're lying!" Even though her words were clearly a warning, her voice said better. She wanted something out of this. Maybe she couldn't have her Neptune, but perhaps she was in such a state that...

Purple Heart pushed those thoughts, assumptions really, away, feeling rather ashamed at herself for considering them. She didn't know this Ram nearly well enough to jump to any sort of conclusions, and the one she had been heading towards had been particularly cruel.

"I'll let you go first if it comes to that, but you won't be beating me up." Purple Heart responded, hoping to sound both stern and playful at the same time. The message seemed to get across, at which point she deemed it safe to approach Ram.

And once again, Purple Heart found herself explaining everything. It seemed to come easier the second time around, perhaps in part because Ram was someone she "knew," but also perhaps because she was acclimated enough to this world now to know just the sort of things to avoid saying. She just hoped that when it came time to tell a third person her story, whoever it might be and whenever she did it, that no troubling transformations or almost fights would be involved.

Little did Purple Heart know that a third person would be hearing her story much sooner than she had anticipated, and, after tailing Neptune for the better part of the day, was currently hearing everything loud and clear.