Chapter 29: Good News, Bad News
At Leanbox, the war that had been started has been settled for the most part as the CPUs have defeated and emerged victorious over the Leaders of Leanbox.
"This war is already on the verge of ending and the CPU are clearly victorious." Cave figured as the amount of monsters was slowly diminishing thanks to their immense armies defeating them.
"Even at this point, we won't give up." CDR and MSD declared as some of the only ones left by the battle, their troops of monsters were reduced to nothing and the soldiers of Leanbox ran away after being put into the losing situation.
"We refuse to accept further defeat." Both of them declared as they fired off simultaneous powerful windblasts, designed to cut through enemies like a knife.
"Not this time!" Rom and Ram teamed up, froze the wind and threw it back as projectiles alongside the soldier's gunfire.
"How could we be on the losing end? We had a far more superior and vast army than these you!" CDR wondered as their armies were decimated.
"Maybe it's because you aren't good strategists?" Ram figured as she charged forward and immediately whacked CDR over the head and knocked her over.
"And that's for stomping on me, you meanie!" She proceeded to kick her in the leg.
"You brat!" CDR yelled as she tried to get up, but Rom was slowly freezing her legs.
"Superiority and vastness does not give you the absolute edge in war and battle, the two of you should have known." Cave declared and had soldiers corner and surround the enemy.
"Enemies, especially former members of ASIC, do not receive any mercy." Cave demanded and commanded the soldiers to aim.
"Over my dead body!" CDR's face grew erratic before she launched a powerful fire blast from her hand, causing a huge explosion underneath her.
"Whoa! Explosion!" Ram was knocked off of her, but Cave caught her in time.
"You two are to be eliminated and killed for Gamindustri's peace." Cave declared to them.
"If that's the case, then why not come up here and try?" MSD mocked her.
"As you wish." Cave took out a blade and struck both of them while they prepared to use magic, distracting them before Rom and Ram countered with powerful swings from their staff, knocking them to the ground.
"And another one to follow!" Ram and Rom ran up to them and prepared to hit them with powerful ice magic, but suddenly their attacks were blocked by a black blade that intercepted their attack.
"We're leaving. This isn't over, CPUs." Leader appeared in a blackish form as she took CDR and MSD with her and quickly left.
"They got away..."
"Still, we managed to achieve victory." Cave remarked to cheer them up.
"Coming through!" Someone yelled, everyone looked for who it was.
"Nepgear?!" Rom and Ram noticed her in her HDD Form with Big Neptune carried by her as they flew towards the battlefield and arrived in front of them.
"Rom, Ram, where are the others?" Nepgear landed before them, transforming back and asking them.
"They are about to end the war, we defeated almost all the bad guys and no one important got injured. As you can see, there are no problems." Rom responded, giving Nepgear a detailed report. "Is something wrong? You two look angry."
"Things didn't go too well on our side, let's just say that for now." Nepgear replied.
"Someone's coming out from inside Leanbox!" Cave alarmed them and pointed to the entrance of Leanbox opening up. From inside emerged Chika under observation of the CPU and IF who kept an eye on her.
"People of Leanbox, hear me!" Chika yelled out, the rebels and the citizen of Leanbox listening to the oracle.
"This unneeded rebellion has gone on for long enough, it is time for the four nations to band together against the true threat and end the scheme we were made a part of. We were manipulated from the start!" Chika declared to the citizen as the walls of Leanbox fell and the nation slowly came free of their rebellious attitude they had adapted due to Kurome's manipulation.
"She's actually ending this conflict for real, out of her own will?" Nepgear was surprised at the oracle's willingness to end this, it felt contradicting to everything up until now.
"Citizen of Leanbox, band together and thank these CPUs of another dimension for ending this conflict. If it wouldn't have been for them, then Gamindustri would have permenantly thrown into uproar." She told them, the citizen proceeded to cheer and celebrate their guests.
"Now, please return to your lifes as normal and put your faith into nation and even...into our CPU. We need to protect Gamindustri!" Chika finished her speech, the people cheering, some disappointed, but mostly supportive to this.
"Everyone, Nepgear and Big Neptune are back!" Ram yelled out to them. All of them immediately jumped down to greet them.
"Nep Jr., Big Me, it's good to see you all still in one piece...wait, why isn't she with you?" Neptune wondered, the energy in her voice notably fading.
"Kurome took her, I couldn't stop her." Nepgear simply responded, frustated that she couldn't do anything to help her other self. "After we defeated Magic, she suddenly appeared and took her and the Gehaburn. If it wouldn't have been for Big Neptune, then I'd have been a goner aswell."
Silence enveloped the atmosphere as the CPUs realized this.
"So our suspicion was always true..." Uzume figured, as their worries proved to be true.
"This is a living nightmare...she will for certain try to manipulate her and then, she is likely to try the same she did with us." Noire thought to herself as anger and fear enveloped her mind. "It will make things even worse than they've already been for her and this world!"
"We have to do something, we can't stand here like nothing is happening while she is captured!" Big Neptune yelled out with anger.
"Calm yourself, this is not the time or place to cause arguments between each other any further!" Histoire commanded, her eyes glowing as she gave off a menacing presence. Everyone was distracted by it and quickly returned to a more aware and calm demeanour.
"This is no time to be hesitant, slothful or angered, but if you let your emotions get the better of you, then you'll be of no use to her or everyone else whatsoever!" Histoire told her with a forceful tone.
"Histoire is right, we need to move to Planeptune and mobilize whatever we can muster to save her." IF suggested while Histoire opened a portal in front of them.
"You're right, Histy. We gotta prepare as much as we can like our little sisters did in the past to save her." Neptune figured as she remembered the time, where their sisters saved them from Kurome. Everyone saw the reasoning in that and silently agreed.
"Everyone, follow us. I will seek assistance from all the oracles and as much of our shares as possible to ensure victory!" Histoire demanded before she and the others slowly entered through the portal, leaving only Cave and all the rebels and soldiers that stopped fighting.
"You've heard the oracle, go home and put your faith in the CPU!" Cave declared to everyone before they started leaving.
"At least the war is finally over and the conflict is resolved." Cave figured as she looked upon Leanbox's state.
Back in Planeptune...
"Here we are, back in Planeptune." Histoire said as she and the others exited the portal and immediately activated her call abillity. "I'll be giving out calls towards the other oracles to support us and keep the nations safe during our absence."
"Because of Big Nepgear's abduction and our need to save, we will leave Gamindustri defenseless to any threat from Kurome. The other oracles will deal with keeping the nations in check along with any other allies I can muster." She explained to them, quickly sending messages to all and asking for anyone's help.
"Chika, you have comitted many crimes out of unknown reasons. But I am willing to let these mistakes fly if you keep Leanbox safe with all your will." She asked of her.
"Very well, I will do so for Gamindustri. I need to repent for the many mistakes I made in the past." Chika responded and bowed as a sign of truth.
"I offer my thanks for your assistance, you will give us your knowledge about everything once I finished informing the others about the plan." Histoire bowed to her and proceeded to create a portal to Leanbox, Chika walked over to Vert first.
"I hope that you and I could share a moment once this is all over, but I'm not counting on it."
"Of course, I look forward to it, my dear. Try your best, not only for my sake, but for Gamindustri's sake too." Vert comforted Chika and encouraged her.
"Alright, time to go to Leanbox. I'm still keeping an eye on you." IF followed Chika as their both stepped through the portal.
"Hard to believe that she was responsible for technically causing part of this big rebellion, she was maniplated, but still I wonder if I could help her." Vert pointed out as Chika went from their expected enemy to an unexpected ally.
"I still can't believe I've failed, even though I was so determined that we could end this mess...only to have that success slip through my hands." Nepgear was angry that she wasn't able to save her other self, even after all the encouragement she had received back then.
"Nepgear..., don't beat yourself up about that. It is important that you realize that you can always improve on your mistakes, we all made ones in the past and improved on them." Uni told her to calm her down, she was able to relate since she also had issues back when she and Nepgear first met.
"I just sorta feel disapponted with myself because she outright praised my kindness and skills, it made me feel strong and ready to face any threat and yet I failed." Nepgear explained to them.
"It's fine, alright? You'd have plenty of reason to be proud of yourself instead, you defeated Magic alongside her and you've shown that you're a strong person! That's something none of us would have been able to accomplish!" Uni continued to tell her, telling her of her achievements. "Let's just do our best to save her, once we do, you can feel proud that you managed to succeed!"
"You're right, I just always feel useless after bad times like this. I'm not a very prideful person after all." Nepgear cheered up, encouraged by Uni.
"Since when did you play the role of cheering Nepgear on so much?" Noire asked her.
"I guess as of now, but that had to happen just now." Uni answered with a mild blush on her face.
"How enjoyable. We certainly need to take our time, being too quick in our decisions will cost us in the longrun." Histoire explained and turned to Nepgear. "Did she leave you with something before she was taken?"
"Yes, I received my other self's N-Gear before she was taken. Do you think you could do something with it?" She asked her and offered her said object.
"Her N-Gear? Hm, I believe I know what she wanted to achieve by giving you that." Histoire realized and proceeded to warp them somewhere downstairs, where there was a door with a strangely shaped lock.
"Down here is one of her secret labs that served a special purpose, you can't unlock these without authorizaton, and the only things that count are direct physical scans like fingerprints or the N-Gear." Histoire inserted the N-Gear into the lock and sucessfully opened the door, letting them enter the room.
The interior of this room was vastly different from the original lab that Nepgear and Uni saw. It was all dusty, spiderwebs and dust were spread across the room and hanging around the entirety of the lab as if it had been abandoned for years. Although whether that was true or not, none were able to truly tell.
"Histoire, what is this old, dusted place?" Blanc asked.
"This is Nepgear's old lab, most of the structures in the Tower were changed after the first rebellion, but this one was left because she didn't want to abandon it despite her past here." Histoire generated bright light to make the room fully visible.
"She thought a lot about whether she made the right choice or not, she kept designing and idealizing whether there truly was a way for them to defeat the Deity of Sin without sacrificing anyone." She told them and handed Nepgear some of the sketches and concepts that were made.
"Those are concepts about different weapons and technology like the various robots we use. Nepgear always wondered whether her original plan would have worked or not, the idea to channel all the shares into one nation to empower her and Neptune. Some time after becoming CPU, she completely drowned herself in perfecting her mistakes to the point where she was slowly ignoring her own well-being." Histoire explained about her, she couldn't stand how obsessive Big Nepgear became about Gamindustri's well-being to the point where she'd often make mistakes due to that.
"Are you actually going to tell us what happened with her during that time?" Neptune asked.
"Under these circumstances, I see no other choice, but before that I need to ask one more thing." She answered and flew over to Nepgear.
"Since you and her are technically the same person, am I right to assume you can handle a similar weapon to hers?"
"Yes, I even wielded her Gehaburn for a short time during the battle. But my Beam-Saber broke during my battle with Magic." Nepgear responded which caused the others to stare at her.
"That won't matter, I intend to make a weapon that can at the very least match the Gehaburn in power." Histoire explained before showing them another one of Big Nepgear's concepts.
"After going through her methods many times, she modified her original concept of transferring all the shares to one source and developed it to blade that can tap into the world's shares to achieve similar striking strength. However she abandoned it because she never found it practical enough compared to the Gehaburn, but I will create such a weapon for you to wield in order to defeat Kurome." Histoire explained, intending to create a new powerful blade to confront Kurome. All she had to do was connect a Beam-Saber with the four sharicites to create it.
"So in comparison to the cursed sword, it'd be a holy sword? The exact opposite to the Gehaburn?" Vert asked.
"Precisely. A hand-crafted weapon of similar strength, if this Kurome truly is as powerful as you stastate, then we need a powerful weapon in return. Seeing that it's in the realm of possabilities, I will try." Histoire responded to her.
"That sounds good and all, but we need to know more about her past in itself and anything important!" Uzume exclaimed. If they remain unaware of what has been happening in this world, then they will find themselves completely unknown when trying to save her.
"She has a point, Histy! We finally need answers, there's a lot that hasn't been told to us!" Neptune asked of her.
"I understand your reasoning, it really is no time to mess around anymore." Histoire responded politely. "Since you desire to know, I will tell you everything that I am aware while finishing my preperations."
"That's appreciated, Histoire." Uni answered.
Histoire went on to retrieve other prints and sketches before all of them left the room once more, on their way she started telling them about the following events:
"After Arfoire's defeat, the world became restless and asked for where the CPU had disappeared to. Naturally, we couldn't tell them the truth or else something like this would have occured much earlier. Instead we fed them the lie that all of you perished during the battle against Arfoire and that Nepgear was simply the last one that managed to survive."
"That lie must have deeply hurt all those who solely believed in one of us, luckily there were none among them like Chika." Vert figured.
"During all that time Big Nepgear tried her best to work as a CPU, that was the beginning of her overworking herself and ignoring her own physical and mental exhaustments.
"So she became a excessive worker like Noire was, I assume she always did all of her paperwork and quests?" Neptune asked, assuming that.
"A little too excessive, she does every new quest and each piece of paperwork as soon as she can. Not to mention, she worked excessively on technology and design for each nations." Histoire told them with a saddened face. "But at that point, she still did it out of wanting to help and was still very much like before. But as a side-effect, her behaviour grew unstable and her choices more unreasonable."
"Is that what changed her so much that she became so cold and distrusting towards everyone else?" Uni asked.
"I'm afraid, it's not that simple. It merely served as a factor in her change." Histoire suggested.
"Well, I believe many of you have grown acquianted with various individuals like Azna=Leb or Anonydeath. They were part of a initial rebellion that was opposing Nepgear and sought to overthrow the new world she had created by killing her and enforcing new laws to permanently change Gamindustri's future." Histoire told them.
"Now that you mention it...Kei told me a bit about that. It was the first rebellion, right?" Noire asked.
"Correct, though the name is moreover something that only we oracles used. There have been many rebellions earlier, but me and Nepgear have prevented them from being possible by banning laws or even throwing them in jail. However this time, they worked as a intelligent army and slowly overwhelmed the few defenses we had aswell as the Makers." Histoire explained and showed them several pictures of when it happened, they witnessed the immense hate and anger of the few people that caused hazards. But one of them stood out in particular, immediately shooting into Neptune's memory.
"Is that...Rei?" Neptune pointed out as she saw the blue-haired CPU on the frontlines with a devilish grin, leading the entirety of the rebellious citizen against the gates of the Basilicom.
"She led the charge against us back then, I didn't expect her to re-surface during these times to oppose us. An ancient CPU out of all beings that could have opposed us." Histoire explained. "However, not even her tenacity was enough to defeat us. But her defeat seemed to have lasting impact."
"What happened then?"
"I'm afraid this is where I am of no more use to you, for you see there are notable gaps within my memories and history itself. The events should have been within any type of media or history book and yet, there are no more records of anything. It's almost like someone...erased it by force."
"Let's hope it wasn't a giant whale, I'd rather fight a robot or an evil demon than a freakin' whale or an orca." Neptune said.
"Nonetheless, I firmly believe that Big Nepgear is aware of the erased history because after these events she behaved much more stern and strict. That new personality of hers has firmly become the way she acts towards anyone, and only she knows why she acts like that." Histoire told them, despite other factors her personality suddenly changed to this.
"Is it really impossible to access the erased history?" Noire asked.
"I've tried retrieving it, but the process is...not exactly easy and quite frankly not safe for Gamindustri as a whole. Once gone, the history is unretrieveable by ordinary means." She answered towards them.
"I see, if that's the case...then we have no other choice than to start fighting against her without holding back!" Uzume figured.
"Now I ask of you for this reason, do you have any idea where Kurome could have taken her?" Histoire asked of them.
"Hm, if I had to think of anything...then she is probably in the Heart Dimension. But that's where the problem is, as there is no feasible way for us to arrive in her world unless we try something outlandish." Noire responded, Kurome could easily prevent them from ever arriving there.
"That's always the problem when trying to invade an enemy's territory, you are never truly aware of what the enemy could do. But maybe someone else can do it..." Big Neptune pulled out her Nep-Note and started asking.
"Oi, Crostie! Can you get us to Kurome's dimension?"
"Sure, but you better prepare yourself because if not, then more than this dimension are doomed." Croire responded much more level-headed than usual.
"Whoa, where did that level of carefulness come from?"
"You are aware that if you can't even defeat Kurome, then how do you expect to have your own dimension survive? If you fail here, then she is going to destroy your dimension too!" Croire told them.
"She's got the means to invade your world too, y'know. I'm not doubting ya, but I really don't think you guys can win even with that sword. Remember that she's been playing all of this from behind the shadows and just think about the fact that she's still not at the final phase of her plan by the looks of it."
"And to make it worse, she's probably got the leftovers from this Rei's powers along with some energy from that Deity of Sin. You really couldn't have it worse in this situation." She told them.
"Speaking of which, do you perhaps know something about the Gehaburn's origin?" Blanc asked, her curiosity about it wasn't stilled yet.
"Not about this one. The sword pretty much exists in every world I've seen, but I've never seen it being used. Especially not like in this world, it really gives off a omnimous aura that I've never felt before and it's appearance is completely different." Croire explained to them. "Say what you want, but I'm not dumb enough to let you go die."
"Alright, take your time. We have to get the nations ready and face Kurome with all we have." Histoire answered. "Prepare and do what you need for now, I'll require a few hours to create the blade."
"And that means that we have to be able to use our HDD forms without running out from energy. So everyone, let's go and see what we can do!" Neptune told everyone as they got to work with their preperations by leaving for their nations, but deep within she felt anger.
"Again and again, first Arfoire and now Kurome...why does everything always seem to want to torture my friends and my dear sister?"
Meanwhile in the mysterious dimension...
"Isn't it beautiful, Nepgear? This enjoyable chaos that is about to falter upon your world..." Kurome watched as she looked down upon the endless abyss of the dimension she resided in, a disturbing dark abyss that reached into nothingness.
"This won't be enough to satisfy my crusade, I require more malice, more destruction..." She pulled a dark cocoon from underneath the dimension's ground.
"...more of the precious darkness within your heart."
Within it laid Big Nepgear, motionless and seemingly unconcious.
"I'm curious to see your friends save you, I wonder how their odds at saving someone from my grasp this time?" She whispered to her, but received no response from the silent CPU.
"How rude not to answer, but it doesn't bother me. After all...
...it's all for you."