Noire was not a person with many real vices in life, believe it or not. As somebody who can "only do everything", as she proudly states, she never really had many things that got the best of her. True, this only made her easily frustrated when she had things get out of order, but you couldn't deny the fact that she was competent.
As its CPU, Noire governed her country, Lastation, capably and efficiently. She continued to ensure everything ran like clockwork. And while this made her a despicable perfectionist, gave her a severe case of OCD, and made her every kind of paranoid, it seemed to pay off.
But there was one real vice that she did have in life. One thing she could never seem to get over no matter how much work she put in. And it happened to be a lazy, immature, purple thing by the name of Neptune.
Neptune took pride in three things in her life: Mastering video games. Having powerful friendships. And bugging Noire.
For some reason, Neptune seemed to really enjoy pulling Noire's chain every way to Sunday. More often than not, it really seemed like it wasn't to try and get her to loosen up and enjoy herself, but really seemed to be just to frustrate her and instigate a fight.
This time may not seem to be any different, though looking between the lines painted a different picture. Like many times before, Noire was massaging her brow, doing everything she could to repress an almighty scream of anger that was steadily building up inside of her. At least Neptune seemed to realize she had done something wrong, which was a rarity and made this occasion different from the rest, as she stood in front of Noire with her hands tucked behind her back, a nervous smile on her face and beads of sweat on her forehead.
What caused this particular situation? Well, it probably had something to do with the large line of unlisted Miis standing nearby.
"So..." Noire uttered slowly. "Care to explain?"
"W-well..." Neptune replied. "I may have done... a bad?"
"A bad," Noire repeated. "Can you elaborate on what that 'bad' is?"
"Well," Neptune said again, "let's just say that this is what happens when a Mii character gets too much power."
Noire raised an eyebrow. Miis were odd little buggers. Most of them existed purely as staff-workers for Master Hand, and every once and awhile he used them as puppets and vessels for different characters to have a presence in the Tournament, even if they weren't Fighters, guests, or Assists.
For some, they eventually became means for the characters they represented to actually end up in the Tournament altogether, or have them arrive as guests. And it would appear that was what was happening now.
"Neptune," Noire said, "you know that when Blanc gets wind of this she's going to have a coronary, right?"
"I am well aware of that!" Neptune replied. "That's why I called you and not her! So let's handle this before she gets here!"
"What are they all even doing here?" Noire asked.
"I think I may be able to help with that," a new voice said. The two goddesses turned to see fellow goddess, Viridi from Palutena's world standing nearby. "It would appear that one Mii that was used as the vessel for a new guest arrived and decided to set up a shop so other unlisted Miis could allow their respective characters admittance into the Tournament."
"You're kidding me," Noire said. "That's totally ludicrous!"
"That's what I'm saying," Viridi replied. "It's not really my place to get involved, nor do I really care to, but I couldn't deny that this was somewhat entertaining to watch."
"You're a real menace, you know that, Viridi?" Noire asked.
"I have been referred to as such before," Viridi replied.
"And what Mii would that be?" Noire asked.
"I believe his name was... Sans," Viridi replied.
Noire felt her eye twitch. "It would be that one," she said.
Neptune tried to edge away, before Noire grabbed her by the hood of her dress! Turns out, Sans was a character that Neptune had personally vouched for in the past, wanting him to be welcomed to the Tournament as a guest. The others saw no problem with that, as every bit of evidence they got accounted for Sans himself being harmless. From there, Sans's Mii allowed him access to the Tournament, and he seemed pretty unassuming on the surface.
He would often be found popping in and out across all of Gamindustri, being in Planeptune one minute before just appearing in Lowee the next. While he was a bit of an oddball, most every Fighter or such seemed pretty cool with him. He was a bit lackadaisical, but he was a good guy and it quickly became obvious why Neptune wanted him to gain access to the Tournament. Only now it was apparent that he would indeed find the means to get himself into trouble.
"Really?" Noire asked. "Neptune, did you know something like this would happen?"
"Well I didn't know it would!" Neptune replied, turning to face Noire.
"But you had an idea, didn't you?" Noire said.
"Well, maybe," Neptune replied. "But you can't blame me! I needed him to get here! He's the only person I have found that I can relate to!"
"Just goes to show what happens when you let an idiot off the leash," Noire said.
"Nepu!" Neptune said with an offended tone.
Noire dragged Neptune up to the booth, where they saw the skeleton in question having fallen asleep, the line of Miis obediently waiting for him to wake up.
"Sans! Wake up!" Noire said firmly.
The skeleton popped awake, spotting Noire standing in front of him. "oh hey noire. what's up?" he asked.
"That's 'Lady' Noire to you!" Noire replied. "And what I would like to know is, what in the world could've possessed you to try getting all these Miis as their respective characters?"
"well it seemed like a good idea, you know?" Sans replied.
"No! No I don't!" Noire replied. "Look, I respect the game you come from. I can respect that you're here, and will happily permit it. But I would like to know you're not taking advantage of this privilege by getting into trouble!"
"well depends on what you mean by 'trouble'," Sans replied.
"By not trying to make a profit by sneaking characters into the Tournament!" Noire replied. "Even the villains like Bowser and Ridley know that can get you banned!"
"Just, please, do us all a favor and don't pull crap like this again?"
"okay," Sans replied simply.
From there, all the Miis were returned to their proper places and everyone went about their day. From there on, it was hoped by Noire and surprisingly Neptune alike, that Sans would not get himself into trouble again. And sure enough, he seemed pretty relaxed the rest of the day.
The same could not be said for the next day. Sure enough, Noire found herself called to Planeptune once again by the nervous CPU, and a very similar routine could be spotted. Neptune was standing awkwardly in front of Noire with a nervous smile, hands tucked behind her back and forehead sweating, while Noire herself was rubbing her brow and repressing an almighty scream.
"Let me guess," Noire said, "he pulled similar crap again?"
"That he did," Neptune replied.
"What would it be this time?" Noire asked.
"A shipping booth," Neptune replied.
"Oh for Sony's sake!" Noire yelled.
She took a cursory glance around, her crimson colored eyes seeming all the more dangerous now with this annoyance on the surface. A surprising amount of Fighters were gathered up, each one taking advice from the skeleton behind the desk. Noire did get a surprise at the sight of the figure sitting beside him, before it quickly turned into a look of anger and annoyance as she realized that Joker had somehow gotten in on this scheme.
"Oh, hey Lady Noire," Shulk's voice could be heard. "How's it going?"
"It goes badly," Noire replied. "This idiot skeleton just can't seem to keep his nonexistent nose out of trouble!"
"Really?" Shulk asked. "Huh. I would've thought you CPUs would be okay with this."
"Well we're not!" Noire replied. "Or at least I'm not! And Neptune here just wants to make sure her precious Sans doesn't find himself getting banned!"
"This is true," Neptune conceded.
"And come to think of it," Noire added, "what're you even doing here, Shulk? I would've thought you were better than this!"
Shulk crumpled under her gaze. "He... he's very convincing!" he replied.
"I've had enough of this," Noire said. She quickly made her way over to the front, slamming both hands on the both! "Sans!" she yelled.
Joker leapt a foot in the air at the sight of Noire! "Oh crap," he said.
"You! Stay!" Noire promptly said to the Persona character. "I've got choice words to say to you when this is all over! And as for you!" she added to the skeleton.
"what can i help you with, nowa-chan?" Sans asked calmly.
"Don't you 'Nowa-chan' me!" Noire replied. "You're seriously getting yourself into trouble only a day after your last incident! You are on severely thin ice now, sir!"
"i fail to see how this constitutes as 'trouble' either," Sans replied.
"You're still trying to make profit off of other people!" Noire replied. "Just... just stop doing that! You're actually going to get banned if you keep profiting off of other people!"
"okay," Sans replied.
"I mean it this time," Noire said.
"Are you saying you didn't mean it last time?" Neptune asked.
"I did mean it last time!" Noire replied. "But now I'm just making my point even more clear! Sans, don't do it again!"
"okay," Sans said again.
The crowd promptly dispersed, and a stealthy Joker tried to make his way away. "Oh no you don't!" Noire said, grabbing Joker by the back of his jacket and dragging him away! Joker tried uttering any number of apology he could, but it was rather apparent that Noire was not hearing any of it.
"Oh I gotta see this," Neptune said happily.
Joker found himself shoved into a random building as Noire pinned him against a wall! "Okay Joker," she said, "you really seem to like getting yourself put into positions that would have to cause me to remind you of where you are and what your position is. So," she said this as a large cloud of energy surrounded her body, "any last words before I make it explicitly clear what is to happen to you should I find you like this again?"
Joker's eyes were wide as his body turned bleach white. "#noregerts...?"
That did it. Noire turned into Black Heart. "Now here's what I'm gonna do!" she said. "I will shove my sword right up your-!"
Sans suddenly appears in the office.
"we interrupt this fanfiction segment due to the fact that noire went into great, excruciating detail about what she would do to joker, which the author and even the perverted Neptune found to be too graphic for the public to view. but the most you need to know is that it ranged from things like nut-busting to things being shoved into orifices they really shouldn't go. so for the benefit of everybody, i'm just gonna skip to the point where it stopped."
The sound of the door opening and accidentally slamming against the wall caught everyone by surprise that everyone's pulses skipped a beat at the noise, shocking them from their current states! "Oh, sorry about that!" Nepgear said innocently. "Hey, Neptune, I was looking all over for you! Pit and I found this great-!"
She cut herself off as she saw the awkward situation that everyone was currently in. Black Heart still had Joker pinned against the wall, and Neptune was standing off to the side with her face as red as a tomato.
"Uh..." Nepgear said. "I-I'm sorry, was I interrupting something?"
Noire seemed to slowly pull herself together from her previous ranting, only now seeming to take in where she was and what she was doing. It was as if she had been caught in a daze before, not even comprehending what she was doing. She slowly let Joker go as her face was overtaken by a strong expression of embarrassment or shame.
"I... I'm sorry," she said, rubbing her head. "What... what was I doing?"
"I'm gonna be real with you," Neptune said, "even I have no idea. But for the past several minutes I have no idea if I was looking at you or Sadie. Joker, how you doing my guy?"
Joker himself seemed to pull himself from a daze. "Well..." he said. "I now have many things to ponder about in terms of my kinks."
"I... I'm really sorry," Black Heart said, continuing to pull herself together.
"What happened?" Nepgear asked.
"Ask your mother," Neptune replied.
"But Neptune we don't have a-" Nepgear replied, before getting cut off.
"Just ask her when you're older! Go!" Neptune said. Nepgear quickly scampered off.
"Pray tell," Neptune then turned to Black Heart, "how sexually frustrated have you been lately?"
"Want me to turn my previous ranting on you!?" Black Heart demanded.
"You know Noire," Joker said, tugging on his gloves, "it's not healthy to be stressed so often. Every now and then you need a reprieve."
"Leave. Now," Black Heart said. "You're off the hook. I'm way too confused right now to bother punishing you."
"Will do," Joker said, giving a casual salute as he left.
"You sure you don't need anything?" Neptune asked.
"I'll be good," Black Heart replied.
"Then are you gonna change back?" Neptune asked.
Black Heart only realized she was still HDD, before changing back. "Let's go," she said. "We've got work to do. Oh, and by the way, if you tell anybody about what you saw today," she promptly turned her blade on Neptune's neck, "I will stab you."
Naturally, everybody tried to forget about that day's antics and went about as normal. And as it happens, things quickly took a turn by the following day. Yet again, Noire was called to Planeptune by the CPU, and they were once more thrown into their positions from the days before. Neptune: innocent if guilty smile with her arms tucked behind her back, now sweating even more profusely than before. Noire: massaging her brow, stifling a scream that was leaking through her clenched teeth.
"What is it this time?" Noire asked.
"Well... souvenirs?" Neptune replied.
"Pardon?" Noire said, looking at the booth for the first time. Sure enough, the booth was stocked full of different souvenirs including Spirit trading card packs, Amiibos, or even costume materials.
"Huh," she said. "Well, at least this one seems more innocent than the last two. Let's just make sure."
The two walked over to Sans's booth, the skeleton turning his perpetual smile on them. "Business doing well?" Noire asked.
"yup," Sans replied. "figured if I was gonna make a profit around here, might as well make it an honest business."
"You know," Noire replied, "people typically try that before moving to the more morally questionable stuff."
"well, i mean," Sans said, "if i could've gotten away with it, it was worth a try."
"Whatever," Noire said. "Just so long as you're not doing anything illegal or immoral, we'll allow it. Just try to keep flying straight, okay?"
"okay," Sans replied.
"Set myself up for that one," Noire said.
"Hey Noire! Lookie!" Neptune said. "I got a Papyrus costume! Nyeh heh heh!"
"When did you even buy that!?" Noire said in annoyance.
A/N: And the skeleton boy is here! Expect to see more from him in the future.
Yeah, given how the internet exploded upon Sans being announced as a Mii Fighter Costume, it would have been impossible for me to not feature Sans as a character in some capacity. I chose to go down the avenue of explaining how Sans could exist as his own character, while also explaining the factor of Miis themselves involved as well. And I think I did a pretty good job.
I thought that Neptune and Noire would be the most appropriate characters to have featured in this chapter to fall victim to Sans's antics, with Noire being the one who would naturally be enraged over... well, practically anything that Sans would do, and Neptune being a character that would actually be able to, as she says herself, "relate" to Sans as a character.
Also, as for the bit between Joker and Noire, I did that mainly just for the lols. I had Joker teasing Noire for quite a bit throughout this series, and this was the perfect opportunity to showcase that Noire has been planting a lot of stress on herself throughout this tournament, though not as obviously as Blanc. Did I go a bit overboard, maybe, but it's not like Noire doesn't typically find herself being enraged or taken advantage of in every Neptunia game.
Overall, this was a chapter that I had a lot of fun writing, if it wasn't present in the writing itself, and did its part in terms of introducing Sans, who like I said, will be featured more throughout other chapters in the future.
Review Time!
To ptl: Thanks for the like! Glad you enjoyed. I figure a beach chapter is a possibility, and I can't deny doing an inverse of what I did in Cross Tag Character Collision would certainly be funny given the male to female ratio of Smash as a game. And I certainly do enjoy putting more attention on supporting characters from each franchise featured and hope to do more like that in the future. And regarding the great Segata Sanshiro, oh don't worry, I haven't forgotten him. I actually purposefully left him out of the previous Stage because I had plans for him in the future. Stay tuned. ;)
And to ChimaTigon, this is actually going to lead into a tangent.
I have not done a poll before reading this post, but I now currently have a poll going on right now that you can read on my profile. Please give me feedback, especially those who have read and enjoyed Cross Tag Character Collision - namely the RWBY fans. I have not gotten much traffic on it so far and am eagerly waiting for more responses, so please check it out if you want to see me write a more story-driven/novel style series in the near future!
With all that said and the shameless plug set aside, let me know your thoughts and what else you'd like to see! Thank you all so much for reading, have a wonderful evening, and I'll see you all later!