Hyperdimension Neptunia is owned by Sega, Compile Heart and Idea Factory and everyone else who worked on it.

So I should mention that the events that are going on are pretty much happening concurrently, so if it feels like I'm jumping ahead a few days, then back a few days at a time, that's because I kind of am. It'll be another couple of chapters of that happening before we move forward. I just wanted to clear up any confusion any of you might have.

Chapter 16

Walking around Lastation in what was known as Ultradimension was a bit of a pain. While the nation itself was fairly advanced, especially compared to what it was like when it was first founded, the city was still large, dirty, and it took time to get around.

"And this is why I said we should have gotten a car." Tence grumbled and looked at Acti. She grumbled about the fact that other than his heavier than normal breathing, he seemed fine while she felt like hell. It had taken them more than an entire day to get over that blasted mountain range as they hadn't set up teleportation portals just yet in this dimension. It didn't help that the two of them had gotten lost while trying to get through the mountains.

"Getting one without proper identification is near impossible." Acti pointed out and ignored the glare she gave him. "And I told you, didn't I? That if we went through the more well-traveled pathways through the mountains between Lowee and Lastation that people we don't want seeing us might spot us, our photos would be taken and someone would put two and two together."

"That won't matter in a bit, will it?" Tence pointed out and Acti shrugged. "What is with the matter of secrecy?"

"To keep our future enemies guessing." Acti told her. "It won't matter soon, sure, but we don't need them to figure us out too easily."

Tence scoffed and looked up. "There aren't even cameras on every corner, you're over-reacting. So where is Erika?"

"Probably playing some sports or..." Acti trailed off as they rounded a corner and found heavily damage chain-link fence surrounding a combination basketball and tennis court with some kids standing around a girl who was of average height with short, blue hair and was wearing a pair of black track pants with side clasps on the legs for easy removal. Interestingly, to anyone who looked, the bottom of her pants were red and done in a flame design while the center of her pants had two thin white stripes with one big orange stripe between them that was on both the front and back of her pants. Embroidered onto the back of her pants, over her butt-cheeks was a giant E on her left side and an A on her right side. She was wearing a black sports bikini top that had a flame pattern on them.

"Big sis Erika, can you fix this?" One of the boys asked and Erika giggled while looking nervous.

"Yeah, sorry about breaking it." She laughed and rubbed the back of her head. "I know that it's all in the game, but I got too into it." She then pulled her hand out from behind her head and clapped her hands together. "Well, I better fix this then. I'll just have to reorganize this."

Before anyone could ask her what she was going to do, she grabbed the fence and to the astonished eyes of everyone watching, the fence mended itself back together, as did the cracks in the courtyard, which had been there for a long time, the metal net that made up the basketball hoops was repaired.

"Wow!" One of the boys gasped in surprise. "How did you do that?"

Erika smiled at him. "Simple, I simply used my ability to acquire the materials I needed from the existing materials and reassessed and readjusted them to the proper places while removing the bad elements." She giggled at his confused look so she decided to simplify it. "I used the broken parts of the ground, the rocks and other parts in the area and turned them into material to fix this."

"AH!" The children all let out a sound of understanding and Erika smiled as she looked around before seeing Acti and Tence.

"It seems like my friends have come for me." Erika told them and the children let out a disappointed sound. "But don't worry, you'll see me again, especially if you desire the freedom to play your sports in your way." The kids all nodded and Erika handed them a basketball. Smiling as they ran in to have fun, Erika walked over to where Tence and Acti were at. "I was told that we weren't meeting up unless..."

"We're about to make our move. Boss wants all of us, save for Tyger and Matz to meet up in Hyperdimension." Acti told her and Erika tilted her head in confusion. "Tyger and Matz will stay in Lowee in this world for a little bit. I think GBox is in Leanbox right now, but otherwise..."

Erika smiled and nodded, though it wasn't as friendly as before. "I can't wait to start having fun."

"You can seize assets soon enough." Tence told her and giggled softly. "Anyway, I'm hungry, we should eat."

Both Acti and Erika gave Tence an annoyed look. "You mean you want to swipe everyone's food if they look away for a moment, don't you?"

"What's theirs is mine, as the saying goes." Tence giggled while both Acti and Erika rolled their eyes while the brunette just grinned. "Come on! Come on!"

"Alright." Acti shrugged and followed after Tence as she ran off in a random direction. As he and Erika followed after Tence, he gave her a sideways glance. "You know, for a native of this world, you never told me why you joined us."

"Our glorious leader is the only one who needs to know." Erika told him coolly.

Acti shrugged and the two continued to follow after Tence.

(-)

Back in Lowee...

When the first reports of hospitals having a lot of people being admitted for sudden stomach pains came in, Blanc was concerned. When her own staff were calling in because they were sick, she was really concerned, when Ram suddenly threw up after having a glass of water, she immediately made an emergency announcement that no one was to drink the water unless it had been purified ahead of time.

"You know it won't stop people from getting sick still." One of her advisers told her.

"I KNOW THAT!" Blanc yelled at the poor adviser. "Find out what's going on and get the distilleries working overtime." She pointed at another adviser. "And you! Make sure to round up any clean water you can and get it to the hospitals and stores! The last thing I need is people dying from dehydration!"

Growling, she spun to leave when she ran face-first into Compa. "Yes?" She felt her eyes twitching before she took a deep breath to try and calm down and get the twitching to stop. "Can I help you?"

"Ram's okay, her stomach feels upset, but that's normal, she'll recover by tomorrow morning." Compa smiled at the look of relief that came over Blanc's face. "I know they aren't your real sisters, but you do love them, huh?"

"Of course I do." Blanc told her, her voice soft. "Maybe love is too strong of a word, but I really do care for them. Anyway, where's Rom? I was going to ask her to do a run across the city with me to keep everyone in check."

"She left already, saying something about making sure you didn't have to worry." Compa told her and Blanc smiled softly before a flash of light engulfed her and White Heart stood in front of her.

"Good. I'd hate to lose my citizens or have them turn against me a second time." White Heart told her and ran off. "Please make sure Ram is okay, I'll find Rom and figure out a plan."

"Of course." Compa smiled as White Heart flew off.

(-)

Meanwhile in Lowee City...

Running around Lowee and making sure that no one was using the tainted water while simultaneously making sure to reassure everyone that they would find out the reason for the suddenly contaminated water wasn't Rom's idea of fun. She wondered how Ram was doing, but knew that her sister was tough enough to handle an upset stomach from some sort of poison. Walking around a corner, she bumped into a familiar-looking person. "Oh!" Rom's eyes widened as she looked the person over. "You're that person that was asking for money. I hope you're okay."

"I'm fine..." The person smiled at her and Rom felt her cheeks turn lightly red at the smile. "Do you know what happened to the water? I suddenly heard from White Heart that drinking the water was bad."

Rom frowned softly. "No, I don't. It's so weird, the water was just fine yesterday." She tilted her head at the person. "You know, I don't know if I ever got your name."

"Ah!" The person, and Rom was still unsure if this was a boy or a girl in front of her, smiled and rubbed the back of their head. "My name's Matz."

"Okay, Matz," Rom smiled at the other person. "I hope you're okay though, but I need to go."

"Sure, I hope you stay safe." Matz smiled at Rom, who blushed softly. "Bye bye, cutie." Matz ran off, laughing while Rom stood there sputtering and unsure how to respond.

"That was fun." Matz giggled and turned into an alleyway between buildings.

"Really?" Tyger growled softly as he came out of the shadows. "You got a soft spot for that CPU Candidate?" Matz looked at him in confusion and Tyger snorted. "Please, I can smell the desire rolling off of you. I bet that she's pretty confused as well."

"Well..." Matz just smiled while scratching their cheek. "She is cute, but we have a job to do, so it doesn't matter what I think about her."

Tyger nodded at Matz. "Indeed, it won't take them long to figure out that this will run its course in a couple of days, so we need to hurry and sell this stuff before that bitch's contamination is purged."

"Right." Matz nodded and grabbed a crate that had been stashed away before sliding it onto a sled. "Let's go, Tyger." The tiger rolled his eyes and helped move the crate out onto the street, though he stayed hidden as he didn't want to deal with people screaming in fear just because he was a big tiger.

After getting the crate into position, Matz opened it up and pulled out a bullhorn. "Attention everyone!" The people walking past Matz suddenly pulled out a blue box that had a hole on the top and on the bottom. The blue box had what looked like a black paw with four red slash marks in the center as a logo. "You've heard about the order to not drink your water and I understand why, but that's why I have this awesome water filter. It'll block the bad stuff out and give you nothing but clean, drinkable water again. Who knows how long it'll take for officials to make sure that you can have clean water again? Why not use this moment to prepare yourself so this doesn't happen again?"

It didn't take long for people to quickly crowd Matz and give their money for the filters before running home to attach them to their sinks and test them out.

Matz knew that the water filters would work. That wasn't the question. The question was, how long would they last before they broke?

That was always the problem with the stuff Matz made. 'Oh well, I sell it to them cheap, so they can't complain.'

Idly, Matz wondered just what the glorious leader's plan was and why he wanted to cause problems in both dimensions at the same time. 'Oh well, I'm not going to question it, he gave me and Tyger a second chance at life.'

And Matz wouldn't let the glorious leader down.

To be continued...

I'm going to do this as an omake because I can't contain it anymore.

There was a confrontation happening in one of Lowee's larger alleyways. It was one that neither Matz nor Tyger were prepared for, at least not this soon.

Rom stared.

Ram stared.

Matz stared at the CPU Candidates.

Tyger growled and got into a defensive position. "Stupid little..."

"KITTY!" The twins suddenly screamed out, shocking both Matz and Tyger, before they rushed Tyger and pounced on him, hugging, petting and nuzzling him.

"Wait, why are they doing this?" Tyger asked in confusion while Matz giggled. "What's so funny?! I hate humans!"

"Technically," Matz giggled at the confused Tyger, "they aren't humans, they're Goddesses."

"Dammit!" Tyger growled out, though he flopped onto his side when Rom started scratching his ear and Ram scratched his flank in juuuuust the right way that would have made him start purring...

...If he was capable of it as tigers lacked the ability to purr.

...Well, that was silly and wholesome.