"Looks like a shorter one, guys." Compa stated when she saw the next chapter about to play. Blanc, Vert and the others all watched, eager to witness what would be happening next.

Chapter 13 - Lastation-Goddamnit, Neptune!

'Huh? what the heck, am I tripping just now?' Nico wondered. Just before he and the others went to the Gate after leaving the Basilicom and that rather creepy man, the male had frozen, well, his body did while his mind… he didn't know. He blinked, and found himself inside some blue futuristic-looking room. It gave him the impression of a cage however, something that didn't sit well with him. He had no idea what this was, nor if it was real or not, but didn't have time to ponder because he heard footsteps. 'Oh shit, gotta hide!' the male thought, paling. One of his special mods to his armour was a Cloaking Module that gave him the ability to camouflage with his surroundings, allowing him to merge with the environment and not be seen.

"Oh-Oh-Oh! I know this part, I know this part!" Neptune chimed excitedly, pointing at the screen. "This is that ol' boasting thimamabob that arfie did way bac when!"

"I always wondered why you didn't show that much surprise when we learned of her name..." IF remarked, remembering how n that particular adventure, Neptune hadn't shown as much surprise at learning of Arfoire's name. She knew the girl liked to break the fourth wall, and she should have suspected as such, but she had attributed to her HDD self in the end.

"That woman causes all sorts of problems, I swear..." Noire muttered whilst shaking her head in annoyance. She remembered how much of a pain in he butt that old had had been.

Blanc's eyes, the moment they caught sight of her, narrowed into that stare she gives only when she was about to let loose the berserker rage inside of her. "That bitch stole my thunder back then..." she muttered, her tone pretty much sending chills down everyone's spines.

Vert on the other hand, chuckled behind her hand. "How quaint. Now, lets continue before Blanc explodes, shall we?"

Without that, he didn't have a lot of options, until he noticed the ceiling and swiftly jumped upwards, flipping his body around and embedding his hands and feet into the ceiling. It was not a second too soon, for the source of the footsteps entered the room and walked to where there was a pedestal, although he couldn't see what was on top of it due to it being blurry.

His eyes soon narrowed however, when he noticed the familiar witch hat on her head and the ghostly skin. 'Its… her… that woman, who nearly killed me…!' he thought, rage overtaking him. His teeth gnashed heavily, his hands gripping the makeshift grip on the ceiling tightly while veins popped over his forehead. However, he didn't move yet, despite his instincts telling him to go down there and shove Rebellion down her throat, another part of him told him to wait and see what she was doing.

"It has been a while, Histoire." That part finally won him over when he heard the woman talking to the blurred space. More specifically when he heard the name in that sentence. 'Histoire? These two know each other?' Nico wondered, his anger replaced by curiosity. He wouldn't hesitate to admit that this new information intrigued him, enough to suppress his rage against the woman for a moment.

Histoire, the name of the voice that had asked them for help, told him about his DPU powers, knew the woman known as Arfoire. That alone raised some serious questions about the relationship between the two, and if anything Nico was observant. Thus, he decided to wait and see what he could learn about the two of them with this encounter. Hopefully, none of them would sense his presence up here, or things would become awkward faster than Neptune devouring Pudding.

His eyes widened in realisation as he remembered the other girls. It looked like he wasn't anywhere near them for now, so what the heck happened? Were they alright? Did they know where he was? Were they coming here? So many questions pounded away at his skull, almost giving him a migraine. However, he made sure to push them aside in favour of learning all he could. Information was power, something he learned early on in his days as a Guild Rookie.

"True, so very true..." Vert commented as she remembered a few dozen Guild Raids she had partaken in which went to hell, LITERALLY due to lack of solid information. The results had been... less than favourable.

As a fellow gaming Goddess, Neptune bobbed her head up and down in an exaggerated manner, having switched to a Japanese sitting position with her hands clenched into her fists upon her lap.

Noire thought back to when, in the Ultra Dimension and her own in the anime timeline, her own security networks got hacked and nearly ruined her Nation as a result... before she shuddered at how true that statement had to be.

The blurred space, in which he guessed Histoire would have been if he could see her, seemed to thrum with contained energy. "Arfoire…" she said, and it was said so neutrally, meant to hide emotions from those the user is talking to. "No matter how often you come, I have no intent to help you."

'So, Arfoire is her name, huh? And she has been trying to get Histoire's help before? why wouldn't she give it? Sure that woman's a bit of a psycho with a bad fashion sense…' Nico thought, grimacing. While he respected women in general, this one seemed to rub him the wrong way, especially after what she did to him and his comrades. The fact that she had been responsible for the Banshee infestation was another point deducted from her in his books.

If he expected her to be annoyed by this information, Nico was wrong when the woman known as 'Arfoire' simply waved it off like it was of no importance. Odds were whatever she was planning required Histoire in some form, but with how she was things wouldn't progress to the stage she wanted, he guessed. A part of him wondered if they should be collecting the fragments at all if that's the case. "I know. I came to ask you about Neptune."

That caused the space to jump for the briefest of seconds, but both Nico and Arfoire noticed. "Did you… meet Neptune?" she asked with slight hesitation, but it was enough for him to realise she was nervous. Nervous about whatever plans Arfoire had for Neptune. The mere thought of this woman hurting one of his comrades in the future was enough to incite his rage again, to the point where he was one step away from activating Demon Drive Demonica to ascend into his DPU Form and ripping that bitch to shreds.

"Edgelord alert, Edgelord alert!"

"Hush, Neptune. There's a difference between Edgelord and overly protective."

"Meh, what's the difference?"

"..."

Unaware of the observer, Arfoire's tone took on a sinister, more evil tone while her eyes narrowed darkly. "So, it was you after all…" she said as if she had a hunch about her actions all along. Nico's eyes also narrowed, but for different reasons. "You're the one who's been guiding her."

Despite seemingly being found out, Histoire still did her best to sway Arfoire from the truth. "What can I do?" she asked, hoping she would believe her. Nico fully believed her attempts would be futile, especially with the way this woman acted. 'Despite what she may seem, she seems to be a tactician of sorts, a planner. She tries to tackle problems with one plan while having several backup plans. A final villain if I take words from Neptune…' the male mused in his mind. "I am sealed and unable to do anything."

Like he thought, Arfoire didn't believe her one bit, though she didn't do anything to her. She turned away from the blurred tome and spoke "Hmph. What a liar." She then began to walk away toward the exist she used, slowly. Before she could leave for good however, the woman turned her head back to face the blurred form of Histoire, an ominous, twisted malice in her voice when she spoke. "No matter. I will defeat her, and that boy toy she has, another time."

"Okay, one 'eeewwww', and two: is it even more gross that I can ACTUALLY imagine Arfie saying this?"

"Nep, i'm pretty sure she probably WOULD."

"You and me know her so well, Iffy."

It got harder and harder for him to not go down there and beat her to a bloody pulp. He was NOBODY's boy toy, damnit! She was lucky he was curious about her connection to Histoire otherwise Nico would have shredded her to pieces even without his Plasma Claws! Soon enough, she was at the entrance, her voice fading into the distance, as well as his mental consciousness. "The Goddesses are in my control. They shall fight by my will! Hahahaha!"

With a Gasp, Nico's eyes opened wide when he felt himself return to the real world. He stumbled back, clutching his head with a groan while trying to make sense of what just happened. "Ugh, my head…" he moaned in discomfort, feeling a pounding sensation on his skull. 'What the hell was that just now? Was it some sort of vision?' he wondered with bafflement, despite the lack of comfort he was in.

Nevertheless, there were more important things to think about, for example Arfoire's last sentence. The Goddesses are under her control? What did that mean? Did she have some form of connection to the CPUs? Whatever happened revealed to him a truck-load of information, information that Nico was unaware of beforehand which needed serious thought put into. This possible connection to the other CPUs sounded dangerous, and if that were the case then they might have to fight them all one by one or even together in the worst case scenario. That thought alone troubled him, as even with the powers of a DPU and CPU on their side, they would be hard pressed against 3 deity-class enemies.

"Hmm…" Blanc muttered under her breath, cupping her chin in thought. "So, this guy's apparently someone who tends to think a lot and asks questions people normally wouldn't ask. Must have been a by-product of his upbringing as a soldier in the Guild, though I wonder if he would ever talk to IF about it. Then again, he's turning out to be quite the loner..."

Everyone glanced over to the secret (not really) bookworm as she became immersed in the story, pretty much muttering incoherent babble. Each of them sweat dropped as a result. "And there she goes, Blanc's gotten herself into author mode again..." Neptune chirped, chuckling.

Noire and IF rolled their eyes, but kept smirks on their faces as well whilst Compa beamed happily. "Blanc's just REALLY getting into this story." she commented.

"Noire, Neptune." Vert started, getting said girls' attention. "I'd like to bet with you. 500 Credits says Blanc will get like that young boy who got strong lby eating hair at least 5 times by the time this Lastation Arc ends. What do you say?"

"5000 Credits."

"Done."

"Whaaa? No Pudding? Poo..."

"You can just use the Credits to buy some, think about how many you could have in your fridge, Neptune..."

"I'm in, I'm in!"

His actions did not go unnoticed by the girls, however. "Hey, um, Nicky, are you alright?" Neptune asked with worry when they turned to see what the sudden groaning was. Compa walked up to him, her concern even greater because it was combined with her instincts as a Nurse-in-Training. "Nicky, are you feeling okay? Do you need some shots?" she asked worriedly, though Neptune paled when she realised just HOW she would give those shots to him if he said yes.

Fortunately for her, and for him, that wouldn't be the case, as Nico looked up after his pounding had subsided, a small smile on his face as he rubbed her head affectionately. "Yeah, I'm good." He replied. "Just got lost for a moment there." He wouldn't tell them what he had experiences just yet. hell, he didn't even know himself. All Nico was certain was that they needed to find the Key Fragments before Arfoire did, and FAST. It seemed like she was a skilled planner, so they had to be careful. The only one who remained suspicious was IF, though she didn't say anything as they continued their way to Lastation.

Finally, the party of four reached Lastation's Capital after they left its Sky Harbour. When they arrived, they saw that Lastation was QUITE unlike Planeptune, its complete opposite one would say. 'Huh, so this is Lastation… still as grey as I remember from my last mission outside Planeptune…' Nico thought with narrowed eyes. 'Although, the people seemed to be sadder than they were before, what happened?' he noticed the looks on the locals faces as they passed by. It was hidden, but Nico could see that they were in various states of depression, and that unnerved him.

The last time Nico was in Lastation, the people had been in joy when he left, so what changed?

"Avenir, that's what..." Noire grumbled irritably, whilst crossing her arms under her chest and clutching her elbows, getting looks of agreement and sympathy from the others. It wasn't like she needed that or anything, she could do well just fine as she was, even back then. Still, she'll let them think she needed it. "They really messed Lastation up back then, you have NO idea how much I had to go through to fix things."

Neptune, ever the oblivious one didn't notice as she was too busy going starry eyed as she looked around at the new sights. It made sense, with her lack of memory this would make it her first (?) time seeing another city from Planeptune. "Wow, this place is all steampunky! Iffy, what's this place called again?" she asked, turning towards the brunette who was still on her phone.

When asked that question she looked up and smirked when she saw how excited the preteen looked. "Lastation, ruled by CPU Black Heart. Its obscured by various industries." She explained before glancing to their sole male member who was lost in his thoughts again. "Got something on your mind."

He answered without stopping his thinking, in laymen's terms he did so on instinct. "Yeah, but I'm waiting for more solid evidence before I form a solid opinion." He replied vaguely. It was enough to rouse her suspicions, though not of him. She doubted someone like him would make something up unless it was for a good reason.

"So, um, does the "theme" of each Land match with the Goddesses preference?" IF, now that she had her thoughts interrupted for the second time although by now she kind of figured it would happen a lot on this journey, turned once again back to Neptune who had asked her another question.

Raising a brow at her, IF shook her head after reminding herself that even if she seemed all-knowing, Neptune still had amnesia. "No. The CPUs are here to protect us. It's us humans that shape the Land." She explained, before she heard a scoff from Nico. Turning to him, she saw that he was out of his thoughts for now, but with an irritated scowl on his features which looked intimidating even when he wasn't in his armour. "What's with you?"

"They say they're protecting us, but they don't deal with the Abnormals." He replied simply with his arms folded in front of his chest while growling. His hands clutched his forearms tightly to express his irritation. "Humans formed their own means of survival in the form of Spec Ops, formed by people who didn't wait for the divines to protect us, we saved ourselves."

"Oh yeah, that's a thing..." Neptune mused, now a bit more concerned than she had been before. "Looks like Nicky's kiiiinda not liking the CPUs right now..."

"Well, what do you expect?" IF responded, cupping her chin. "Back then, you, Lady Vert, Noire and Blanc spent centuries up there and we didn't hear much if anything from you all. It just seems like this Autor's trying to make the possible implications much more confirmed in this take than in the original."

Histoire, upon hearing this, sighed regretfully. "If his words are what he feels, then I don't know if I will be any better. If it weren't for me being sealed back then, perhaps I could have prevented that pointless war..." she whispered quietly, though the others heard her.

"Its okay, Histy." Compa chirped, getting up, walking over and reassuringly patting her softly on the small form of her back. "You did your best even back then, besides I still think of Nep-Nep as Nep-Nep." she stated. "Plus, Nep-Nep even now isn't much of a CPU to begin with, so nothing to worry about."

"Heeeey, Compaaaa…! I get the feeling you were backhandedly insulting me back there."

"Hm? Was I?"

Neptune looked at the two as she took their opinions in. While slightly worried about Nico's apparent hatred of the CPUs, she also took in his thoughts and gave a look of wonder as she placed an index finger on her chin. "Aw, that's so realistic. Compa, what are your thoughts on this land?" she asked, turning towards the sole party member who hadn't spoken yet.

Turned out she wasn't as happy as Neptune had been when they first entered the new Land. She turned to her and smiled tough, not wanting to sound glum. "These factories and chimneys remind me of an industrial revolution." Her smile then faltered slightly as she continued. "But, I'm not into this kind of thing."

'Yeah, Compa never was one for all this… I remember when she was young that she would always like to bask in the warmth of the sun in the Garden with either her grandfather or me.' the Spec Ops Agent thought, glad that they had moved on to a different topic. People say the CPUs were their protectors, but those in the Spec Ops have done more than they ever had thanks to them fighting in Celestia for so long. He hated when their hard work was undermined by religious fanatics, it felt like they were being cheated.

IF shrugged her shoulders, not minding Compa's statement in the least as did the others. "It's not for everyone, but I think it's nice. Now, let's go to the Basilicom." She told them, they had to get on track for the mission. The others nodded their heads in agreement before they began navigating the streets to Lastation's Basilicom.

Just 10 minutes into their journey however, Nico noticed that Neptune was no longer with them. When he looked around, the male tried to find her but there was no sign of her within the vicinity. A spark of worry formed in his chest as he hurried to inform the others. "Oh, shit guys, we've lost Neptune!" he called out.

Compa and IF looked around after pausing to make sure they wouldn't run into someone. Looking around, the latter remarked to herself, "Wait, you serious? Damnit Nep, what are you thinking getting lost like this? Are you a kid that needs to hold onto their parent's hand every time?" she asked with frustration, before she blinked owlishly, realising the truth before doing a mix between a sigh and a groan as she palmed her forehead. "Nevermind, this is Nep we're talking about."

"Oof!" Vert mimicked being punched in the gut, stifling her smirk whilst doing so."

"Sick burn..." Blanc, having just gotten out of her 'MHA' phase for the time being."

"But not an untrue one..." Noire stated with an aggressive smile, already joining in on the mocking Neptune bandwagon.

"Heeeeeeyyyyyy….!" Neptune proclaimed, standing up from her seat and glaring up at the other three CPUs. "Don't be mean! I'm no child!"

"Hours of game, anime ad manga content disagree with you, Neptune." The blackette responded sassily, eyeing her with her crimson eyes. "Besides, I DISTINCTLY recall a few times when you wandering off on your own got you into trouble to begin with, remembering the beginnings of rebirth 3 and victory?"

"..."

Neptune had no comment.

The former looked around, noticing how crowded the streets were. "Well, it's kinda easy for Nep-Nep to get lost here, since the crowds are so big." She pondered, trying to defend Neptune's actions, though it did sound weak.

With a sigh of frustration, Nico began stepping away from them, "Alright, you girls wait here. I'll go see if I can find her." He told them before bolting through the streets like nobody's business. He could hear IF calling out to him, but ignored it in favour of finding Neptune.

Making his way through the crowd was proving to be a chore to the male. It wasn't because of his lack of skill, Nico could have just breezed his way through if he wanted to, but right now he was on a strict time limit, and Neptune could be anywhere. It would make sense for Nico to be extremely worried for the preteen. She acted so childishly for goddesses' sake, anyone would try to take advantage of her!

"Awwww, look at him, acting like a prince charming worried for his wifey, hehehehe! Unlike a CERTAIN group of people I know..." Neptune remarked, before pouting at the rest of the CPUs who looked away from her.

IF rolled her eyes at this though. "You can't deny that this Author knows how you work quite well, Nep. He must have played a lot of our games to do all this."

"I actually asked that friend of mine that I mentioned in the first chapter, Iffy." Compa then perked up, getting the others attention. "She says that the Autor writing this actually played the first few rebirth games whilst watching playthroughs of the others, even the spin-offs."

"Huh, so he likes ma Nep-bad huh? Well, can't blame him, since I like my bod too, ya know... and Pudding."

These thoughts plagued him constantly, until he eventually decided 'screw it!' and jumped onto the side of a building before leaping off onto a rooftop. He landed in a crouch and ran along the edges, looking down the streets from above to see where he could find any blob of purple.

He did this for what felt like hours, and every time he came up short Nico's panic increased bit by bit. One time however, this panic proved to be his undoing as he misplaced a step, thus he fell off the side of the building he was running along the rooftop of, and fell towards the ground. 'Whoa, oh shit, oh shit, oh shit!' he cursed repeatedly. His instincts quickly acted as he flipped himself to the right position and he landed in a crouching position, one hand on the ground while a small circle of dirt was released from the impact.

"Kya!"

What Nico didn't expect was for a feminine cry to sound out, breaching through the shockwave and reaching his ears. Reflexively after cursing a storm, Nico snapped to attention by shooting forwards and grasping the owner of the voice, homing in on her through sound, and grabbing her to stop her from falling. "Whoa there, sorry about that, you alright?" he asked with worry.

"Whhhoooooooaaaaaaaa…!" Neptune exclaimed, her eyes white circles with black outlines. "This guy knows some Parkour, Nepu…!"

"That looks so cool...!" Compa exclaimed, stars taking the place of her eyes as she began to fantasize in her head.

"Didn't he also break some kind of first meeting trope? You know, with the two main characters colliding with one another?" IF wondered thoughtfully. "But seriously, wish I was allowed to do that."

"Oh yeah, I don't think the Devs let us be so fit with parkour either..." Neptune mused, pouting a bit at the design choices for the Neptunia franchise developers. "Hey guys over at Idea Factory, maybe that could be a good spin-off!"

At that point, after trying NOT to gush about the parkour skills Nico had shown just then, Noire blinked when she realized something. "Wait, isn't that...?"

The girl he had just stopped from taking an unfortunate tumble to the ground and likely getting a concussion was fair in skin tone like his companions. She had very long black hair about waist length, worn up in long pigtails with two-piece black and blue ribbons. Her bangs were neatly combed, framing her face and she had very noticeable red eyes. It was obvious that this girl paid lots of attention to her personal image.

She wore a fancy dress consisting of dark blue, white, red, and small amounts of gold lining and buttons. The dress part covered a red with black spiked lining cloth while the breast part was white, along with the multi-layered skirt which had black lining on both layers. Behind her skirt was a blue bow, matching a smaller one worn around her neck attached to a black and white collar. In the centre was a gold piece. On her legs, were a pair of thigh high boots with silver medium heels, as well as a pair of white stockings connected by a Garter Belt that went inside her Skirt.

This girl also had been staring at him in anger and embarrassment for more than a few seconds. "I'm fine, so would you get off me already?!" she shrieked, and he quickly complied, swiftly pulling her into an upright position and stepping back a few paces. Once she had regained her balance, the girl had taken a few breaths to calm her racing heart before she glared at the male in question. "What the heck were you thinking, jumping down like that?! What if someone got hurt?!"

"Oh, look Noire! That's you!" Neptune proclaimed, dramatically pointing towards the scene shown on the projector. "That's your other right there!"

"So, Noire and Nico meet in this way, unlike in canon when she tries to murder Neptune..." Vert queried thoughtfully, cupping her chin before nodding to herself in silent approval. "I approve."

"W-Wait, doesn't this mean that he broke that gag with me?!" Noire proclaimed after a moment of thinking. She referred obviously, to the gag with people falling on top of her, though it wasn't like she had relief in her wen he stopped her from falling just now, nope not at all. "That one from Victory?! Yes, whoo hoo!"

"Well, this isn't victory or rebirth 3 just yet, so lets hope!"

"Neptune, I swear to Goddess..."

"Sorry, sorry!" Nico exclaimed in embarrassment. He wouldn't behave like this normally, but right now he was in a panic and struggling to form decent sentences. He didn't have enough time to recover from the accident he nearly caused. "It was an accident I swear! I was looking for someone in the Party I'm in using the rooftops, but I mis-stepped and fell!" he hurried to explain.

After hearing his explanation, the girl huffed and crossed her arms "Hmph, not like I care or anything, your friend must be stupid to get lost in this crowd, it's rush hour after all, and this is a residential area." She told him, gesturing to the vicinity. Now that he looked about, Nico realised that indeed there was a significantly less amount of people about and the buildings looked more like homes than business shops.

Nevertheless, it didn't stop him from gaping at the explanation 'So THAT's why! I've been looking in the wrong area! Shit, what is wrong with me?!' he cursed his carelessness. This wouldn't have happened if he had his armour on, it always had a calming effect on him. The thought of being protected from most conventional attacks always calmed him down when he was in a panic, or at least helped. He missed it so much…

"O-Oh, thank you Mrs, you've been a major help to me." The male thanked her while lowering his head in a bowing gesture. He may be in a hurry, but Nico never forgot manners when in front of a lady, and he could tell this was a lady. He then stood up and asked her, "I know I'm in a hurry, but I can't let a debt go unpaid, so is there anything I can do for you in return?"

Her mind registered those words, and the girl jumped slightly in surprise. She had been expecting him to just run off, leaving her in his dust. However, this was not what she expected. "I don't need any help from you! But, um… if you're asking then could you tell me if you've seen any Basilicom staff parties near here?" she asked him, making the male raise a brow in curiosity. Why was she fleeing from the Basilicom? Did she and the Basilicom not get along?

Before he could ask her or before he could do anything even, Nico heard a bell ringing, and looked down at his Bracers. Both were still downloading data, but the right one had a notification on it. 'Huh? what's this?' he wondered, before he tapped the notification. A holographic screen popped into existence above the Bracer, floating there for him, and it read as follows:

Downloading of Lastation data complete.

Data assembled into Bracer Database.

Continue? Yes/No

Note: if no, then the downloading process will pause,

and can be set once more in the settings menu.

"Downloading Dungeon data..." IF muttered, surprise evident on her features. "My guess is THAT is how he gets maps for the Dungeons, unlike in the games where they're automatically available to the player when unlocked."

"Mou, why does Nicky have all the cool gadgets...?" Neptune whined. "He could at least share some with mwah, the ACTUAL main character."

"But Ni-Ni did give you that sword and Armour in the beginning, didn't he Nep-Nep?"

"..."

A wide grin spread across his face, things were looking up again! 'Pause the download? Hell yes! It may take some processing power, but it's better than nothing!' he thought to himself before commencing his actions. Pressing the 'No' on the message, a smaller one appeared in front telling him that it was paused before the two messages vanished with a BLIP! He then saw both Bracers return to their normal screens, nearly making him squeal like a fangirl.

"Uh, what are you so happy about? And what's with the Bracers?" the girl asked, having remained silent as she watched him. From annoyance to happy borderline gleeful, she had seen his emotions on his features. It was like he was a child getting a new toy for Christmas or regaining the use of one when it was taken away.

Blinking, Nico almost didn't catch her question, however he did and thus he nearly face-palmed once again for losing himself, in front of a stranger no less. 'This must be what it's like to go without my armour!' he screamed mentally, almost losing it right there and then. Fortunately, the male distracted himself by responding. "Oh, these babies have a variety of functions, ones I lost access to when they began downloading Data about the other Nations. They have quite the processing power, but this is still a lot of data to swallow, even for them. One such function is a Map." He explained.

The girl remained silent as she watched with slight fascination as she saw him manipulate the screen to show a holographic Map of the Landmass Lastation was on, before Nico zoomed in on the capital city, then to the area they were in. There were several white dots around the street hologram, while Nico himself was a blue dot. The male looked at the street thoughtfully for a moment, before his gaze shifted back to her. "Whelp, from what I can see it seems that there's no Basilicom parties within the vicinity." He told her, much to the girl's relief if the deep sigh is anything to go by. "Why are you avoiding the Basilicom, and why would they send parties after you? You a political figure they want to keep close or something?"

That was the best reason Nico could think of for why the Basilicom would want to keep a lady like her under watch. Her state of dress looked posh and expensive, indicating that she had a lot of money, which also indicated she was either rich or in a high position of power. If that was the case, then he could understand the need for secrecy, though he wondered why she would think they'd go so far. Nonetheless, it wasn't his business so he wouldn't pry, plus he was in a hurry. At his question, the girl sweated slightly with nervousness. She turned away from him while scratching the side of her jaw. "Well… something like that, but don't be fooled! I'm plenty strong, I just don't want any unnecessary conflicts on my way outside!"

Upon hearing his thoughts and seeing his deductive skills, Noire had to admit to herself, she felt impressed. Not many people would take those things into consideration, and if this would be a harem fanfic, the protagonist seemed to show he wasn't like a typical dumb male lead either. Though, she wouldn't admit it to the others, no way in hell otherwise Neptune would tease her endlessly.

"My, what a detective, this young man is." Vert cooed, hands clasped together with excitement. "Detective novels aren't as good for me as BL Games, but they're a good second place if you know what I mean." Though what she DIDN'T mention was how she began to imagine Nico in a butler outfit servicing her in ANY way possible... he, she liked 2D Men, alright? This is 2D enough for her!

Blanc's eyes though, they remained glued to the screen, staring intently as she waited for the next scene to play. From the moment that she first began to watch it she had already begun making notes about what to do for her next feature novel entry.

With that out of the way, Nico nodded in acceptance. "Yeah, I'll go with you on that one, women tend to have more guts than most guys anyways. Anyways, I gotta hurry, if I don't find my friend soon I worry for what may happen to her." He told her before quickly leaving the area.

"H-Huh? hey wait!" she tried to call out for him but he was too far to hear for her. The girl pulled her arm back and frowned in thought. "Wow, that guy was fast… though it's not like its impressive or anything, he'll likely get into another accident and in the end, it'll be for naught." She remarked. The girl then realised something that she had neglected to inquire of him. "I didn't even get his name back there… well, not like I'll see him any time soon. I better go, the Basilicom might have already noticed I'm gone, although thanks to that guy I know they haven't caught on yet." Confirming that to herself, the young woman continued her way to the outside of Lastation.

Nico jumped over the rooftops, now a lot calmer than he was before. The fact that his Bracers were working again was a major boost to his state of mind, calming him immensely. With them active once more, he could search the City more thoroughly, due to the dots varying in colours to represent different people. The white dots were civilians, blue was himself, red were his enemies, and green were the other party members. It didn't take him long to use the Holomap to navigate the city and find Neptune's location, he figured out where she was based on where there was a lone green dot in the middle of so many white ones.

"I get the feeling that those Bracers could serve a great purpose in this Adventure." IF remarked. "It'd be nice if we could avoid some of the hiccups we encountered with them, like whenever we got lost on jobs... mostly because of Nep."

"Iffy, that's mean! I'm not THAT bad, am I right ladies? Eh? Why's everyone looking away from me right now? eh? Guys?"

Soon enough, the male landed on a street that was crowded significantly, yet nobody seemed to bat an eyelash to him jumping from a tall height. That was a source of concern for the male, but he didn't pay it heed for long. His eyes searched through the area until, at long last, his eyes laid their gaze upon the person whom he'd been searching for this whole time. "Neptune!"

Upon hearing her name, Neptune, who had been seated at a café eating what appeared to be some form of candy, looked up and saw him. A bright grin formed on her face as she waved at him merrily, "Hey there Nicky! How ya doin?! These candy snacks are delicious ya know, so hard and crunchy! Wanna have some, I have several!" she offered, oblivious to the ominous aura that the male was wearing.

She had vanished… leaving them to worry about her… caused him to get into an accident… for food?!

"You know..." IF began in a deadpanned voice, everyone giving the liliac haired Goddess deadpanned looks just like she did. "I can TOTALLY see her doing something like this whenever she tries to run from Histoire and her paperwork."

"Normally I would not say such things, but I wholeheartedly agree with you, IF."

"Thanks Histoire."

"Pft, RUDE much guys?!"

"Nep-Nep.. they're not exactly wrong, look at rebirth 1's normal ending for proof..."

"Eh?! Compa too?! Don't betray meeeee…!"

He uttered her name again in a low tone of voice, the anger unmistakable in it as well as in his eyes. It was at this moment that Neptune saw it, and that moment Neptune knew, she'd fucked up. A nervous sweat rolled down her features as he advanced towards her, sounding more like a giant than a human. "Ahahahaha, uh, you okay there, Nicky? Your face, it's scary." She asked him worriedly.

Once he reached her, Nico's hand shot forth like a blur and grasped onto one of her ears, pulling it roughly as he glared down at her. "You little missy, are in a LOT of trouble. when we get back to the others, you're getting scolded!" he scowled at her, before proceeding to drag her out of the café area not caring about any eyes that were drawn to them. He didn't give a shit about any of that, just wanted to get back to the girls and give Neptune a proper scolding once the time was right.

"Owww, owowowowowowow! Nicky, your pulling to hard, my ear!" Neptune complained as she struggled to free herself from her companion's grip. Any struggling she made however only made him pull tighter though, while he remembered the way he had come from but applied the knowledge of the streets to recall where Compa and IF were. They were going to want to hear this, so first finding them. Then head to the Basilicom, find a hotel then give Neptune the scolding of a lifetime.

"Ni-Ni looks kinda like Histy does whenever she's gonna punish Nep-Nep for being a slacker..."

"Compa my dear, I will completely agree with you on that."

"Thanks, Vert."

"Owowowowowow-huh? No, my caaaaaaaannnnnnnnndyyyyyyyyyyy!"

"Too bad, Neptune! Think of it as part of your future punishment for making us worry!"

"NEPU!"

Bystanders could only watch the situation as the male dragged Neptune by the ear and out the shop. They could only think to themselves: what the fuck was that about?

There, the chapter finally concluded as the screen faded to black. In that moment, everyone began to discuss it, mostly about the things they liked about the chapter. "Now THAT was a good chappie, guys!" Neptune proclaimed. If a fanfiction which could grab her attention for as long as it had like this one had, then it HAD to be worth somewhat of a read. "Wonder what candy my other had tasted though... maybe i'll just sne-ah, I mean visit Lastation sometime to try it." she proclaimed, shuddering at the evil glare that Histoire gave her.

A glare which got supported by IF whilst Compa smiled weakly, not saying anything.

"You'll do no such thing, Neptune!" Noire heatedly spat, mimicking what the Oracle for Planeptune thought inside her mind. "I have enough on my plate without you lousing about not doing your job like you should be!" She didn't like the idea that one of her rivals would be trying to slack off in her own Nation, even if it was Neptune. She wanted to win against Neptune fair and square, to prove that Lastation was the superior Nation to the one her... friend... had. Plus, whenever Neptune launched those surprise visits of hers, it usually ends in chaos which increased her already stacked workload.

Vert meanwhile, began going down a different thought process. "This chapter is excellent, and here I thought I had been invested before. Hopefully the Author makes this even better in the later chapters. He should, this has over 100 Chapters already..." She couldn't imagine what kind of dedication this Author had to make this Story as long, detailed and large as it was, part of her even wondered if it rivalled the dedication she herself had with her videogames. Maybe she could find out who it is that makes this and possibly invite him into Leanbox as a story writer for one of her Gaming Companies... maybe just another gamer in 4 Goddesses Online, instead.

Upon seeing that the chapter had finished, Blanc stared intently at Histoire, stating the following with a hard edge to her tone. "Next... Chapter."

"E-Eh? Um-"

"NEXT CHAPTER!"

"O-Ok!"

Chapter end

Here you go guys, the next reading chapter. Expect inconsistent updates since I have other projects in development, but I'll still try to deliver on this story too. I'm open to ideas and suggestions for funny scenes with the Neptunia cast, either in the reviews or PMs, so don't be afraid. Also, I'm curious do you guys wish for, when I reach the point, to divert to the Side Story I have in development for Noire? Then divert back to the crossover arc in the works? No matter what fic I write, I do make sure to put the effort into it, so no worries are needed there.

Lemme know what you guys think!

Peace Out!