Hyperdimension Neptunia is owned by Sega, Compile Heart and Idea Factory and everyone else who worked on it.
Sorry for the delay, just had to work lots of hours the past few days.
Chapter 27
It was starting to get late in the day and people in Lastation were starting to get off of work and head home while their children were hanging out at the many playgrounds.
Near one fenced-in basketball court was a group of ten teenagers passing the ball back and forth before one of them took a shot at the hoop. "HA! Three points!"
"Lame!" One of the others, who had been trying to guard him, called out. "That's what? Twenty to twenty? Next score wins?"
"Hey!" A third teen yelled and pointed at the edge of the fence where a blond man in black pants and a button down white shirt on. "You kids want to make some quick credits?" He smirked as they looked at him curiously and walked over. "Alright, here's the deal, I need one of you to call the Basilicom and read off what's on this piece of paper here." He pulled a folded sheet of paper out from his pocket and waved it around. "How about it?"
"How much?" One of them asked the man.
"Ten thousand." The man grinned at the utterly shocked looks on their faces. Behind him, a woman with short, brown hair and sunglasses over her eyes walked up behind him with a briefcase in her hands. "For each of you."
The woman opened the briefcase up and they all gawked in shock at the amount of money in it. Before they could do anything, she slammed it shut.
"Well?" The man asked and smirked as the one closest to him grabbed the paper and ran to where the group's pile of clothes and backpacks were at.
"Don't you have a cell phone, old man?" One of the teens asked and the man smirked at him.
"Left mine back in Planeptune." He shrugged and waited for the teenager to hang up his phone and come back. When the man saw the visibly shaken look on the kid's face, he chuckled. "I suggest you all clear out, this place will become a war zone soon enough. Beth, give them the money."
Beth nodded and tossed the briefcase to the teens, who, upon urging from the one who made the call, quickly fled the scene. "So how long until the CPUs get here, Acti?"
"A few minutes at most, I suspect. Let's get ready." Acti smirked and looked around. The brick buildings that made up the businesses in the older part of Lastation would be a perfect place to have their showdown. "Of course..." Acti turned around and saw the residential area a few blocks away. "Well, not much we can do." He shrugged.
"I'll try not to allow the fight to destroy the residential areas." Beth said to him.
(-)
At the Basilicom...
Uni, who had been working in Noire's office going over some paperwork, looked up as the door opened up. "Oh! Nepgear!" She smiled as she saw Neptune's younger sister walk in.
"Uni!" Nepgear smiled and walked over to the other girl. "How's being grounded working out for you?" She asked, smiling nervously as Uni grimaced.
"I don't see how it helps anything." Uni muttered and shook her head before standing up and walking over to Nepgear. "So, do you have it?"
"Yep." Nepgear nodded and opened up her inventory while Uni did the same. "Here." She sent the item to Uni, who had a happy gleam in her eye. "I had Uni help with the specifications since I modeled it after her gun, I thought she'd be the best person to consult on it. I made some changes so that you wouldn't feel like you were a clone of her based on what you requested of it." Nepgear smiled while Uni looked the gun over and nodded.
"Good, I was tired of only having a tail to shoot with." Uni blushed as she thought about her HDD form. "I mean, seriously, whenever I fire a blast from my tail it look like I want someone to do lewd things to me from behind!"
"Well," Nepgear tapped her chin, "Peashy has a new processor, maybe you should see about getting a new one too?" She giggled at Uni's dumbfounded look. "You didn't know?"
"Of course not." Uni pouted. 'Changing my processor, huh? Might be nice to not flash my ass off to everyone when I'm in HDD.' It wasn't like Uni was a prude, after all, there were plenty of images of her in HDD floating around in Lastation and online with a heavy focus on her rear-end.
The attention was nice though.
"Oh, Nepgear..." Noire said as she and Steamax walked into the office. "I didn't see you come in. I assume you gave Uni what she wanted?" Nepgear nodded and Noire looked at Uni. "So, I was thinking, about the order I gave..." She trailed off as Uni perked up and looked interested. "Another week and I'll let you go out without supervision, okay?" Uni nodded and Noire gave her a small smile. "Well then, about that..."
"Lady Noire!" Mr. Badd yelled as he burst into the room. "Ah, Lady Nepgear, hello."
"Ah!" Nepgear pointed, her eyes wide. "It's the man with the weird mech suit!"
Mr. Badd gave her an annoyed look. "Is that all you remember me for?" He asked before shaking his head. "No! I mean! Lady Noire! There was an anonymous call today." Noire gave him an annoyed look and he continued. "It was from someone saying that they knew where the man who shot you was at. And where the woman who fought against the CPU Candidate of Planeptune was."
"Huh?" Nepgear stared at him. "Wait... How does anyone know about that stuff? This hasn't been made public knowledge yet."
"It's a trap." Uni said, her eyes narrowing. "The only ones who know about that are the people who did it, therefore..."
"It's likely that the call was from someone who is either working for them or was from them directly." Steamax finished. "What should we do, Lady Noire? If we do not go, there is no telling what they will do to the people of Lastation."
"If they're behind what happened in Lowee, I suspect they'll do something similar here." Noire said while crossing her arms. "Nepgear, you have experience with them, what do you know?"
"I only know of two of them," Nepgear said, "one of them was named Ubi and she has a royalty-free energy sword." The others nodded, knowing what kind of energy sword Nepgear was referring to when she put it in those terms. "She also has the ability to teleport herself or objects around. I'm not sure about the other woman, but she can forcibly cancel out HDD transformations."
"That's a fun bit of information." Noire muttered and looked at Uni and Steamax. "You two are going to come with me."
"But they're obviously trying to get Uni's Fearicite." Nepgear pointed out.
"I know that." Noire told her. "But it seems like leaving Uni behind would only be a bad thing since I'm pretty sure that doing so will just have one bad guy sneaking in here when we're distracted or Uni would sneak out and get captured in that way."
Everyone sweat-dropped as they looked at Noire.
"...What?" Noire asked while looking around in confusion. "That's how these things go." She gave Mr. Badd a pointed look. "After all, that's how your old group worked when you were bad guys."
"Goodness," Nepgear's eyes widened in surprise. "That's actually a good point coming from Noire."
"Of course, it's..." Noire trailed off and spun around, glaring at Nepgear. "HEY! What was that last bit for?!"
Nepgear smiled nervously and poked her fingers together. "I mean, you're pretty reckless and you don't always figure out bad guy plots too quickly. Even Neptune and Plutia were teasing you over failing to figure out the bad guy's plan in the past."
Noire grunted in frustration and made a fist as she recalled when Anonydeath, Neptune and Plutia teased her for her supposed lack of intelligence. "Those two are the very, very, very, very absolute last people I want to hear about my lack of intelligence over."
Uni started to giggle, causing Noire to pout.
"Everyone always laughs at my suffering." Noire grumbled.
Steamax let out a coughing sound to try and get the topic back on track. "Yes, well, there is still the fact that this is a trap set for us to either leave Lady Uni alone or to pull her out where she can be vulnerable."
"And the other me had her Fearicite taken because someone disguised themselves as a Basilicom member." Nepgear informed them. "So leaving Uni here wouldn't do us any good."
"Maybe it could." Mr. Badd pointed out. "I still have my mech suit and it's been upgraded several times over. If anything, I could act as a decent meat-shield."
"No." Noire told him flat-out and Mr. Badd jerked in surprise. "You're too valuable to lose," she flicked one of her twin-tails back and smirked at him. "Besides, I'd hate to have to explain to your daughters why their daddy is hurt or dead."
"Lady Noire..." Mr. Badd smiled at her. "Thank you for your concern, but I..."
"No." Noire shook her head. "I don't want you to, okay?" She huffed softly.
"But maybe we could lay a counter-trap?" Mr. Badd suggested.
"It's unlikely they'd give us enough time to set such a thing up." Uni pointed out, narrowing her eyes. "If it's me they want, then I..."
"Lady Uni," Steamax spoke up, "I refuse to allow you to put yourself in harm's way without being there to support you. I refuse to lose anyone else in that way."
"Steamax..." Uni blushed softly. "Thank you, I..."
"Yeah," Noire interrupted Uni, "I would have said something similar if he hadn't said anything." Uni gave her a surprised look. "What? You're my sister, you think I'm going to let you go and walk into an obvious trap without some way to support you?"
"I... Might have an idea..." Nepgear spoke up and everyone turned to look at her. "Well, this thing actually happened to me. Back when we were facing the Deity of Sin, one of her followers captured Histoire and laid a trap forcing me, Uni, Rom and Ram to go face her. It was an obvious trap and we still went because we didn't want Histoire to get hurt. Our big sisters followed us in secret and saved us at the last minute..."
"I see," Noire nodded, "having some hidden back-up, huh? That wouldn't..."
"Lady Noire!" Another Basilicom member rushed in, looking spooked. "There's been a monster outbreak in the city!"
"WHAT?!" Everyone gasped in shock.
"And, these monsters..." The staff member looked bothered and shivered. "They're odd. Not even Viral Monsters, they're shambling around like they're zombies and there's Fenrir and even Ancient Dragons in the group."
"Lady Uni! Lady Noire!" Steamax suddenly spoke up. "This has to be..."
"Yeah." Noire nodded as she understood what Steamax was saying as well. "...Steamax, get Brave and help Lastation security forces destroy the monsters."
"But..." Steamax tried to protest.
"The life of a CPU is secondary to the lives of her people." Noire glared at him. "Even if it costs me my life, I won't give up protecting the people of Lastation."
"Noire..." Uni whispered softly and looked at Steamax with determination. "Steamax, do it. If there's monsters, we must protect the citizens."
"Noire?" Uni looked confused.
"We'll be clearing out the monsters..." Noire gave Nepgear a look. "Will you join us and help?"
"Of course, you don't even need to ask." Nepgear told her and Noire smiled at that. "It wouldn't matter to me if we weren't friends, Noire. People are in danger, I'm going to help."
"Thank you." Noire told her. "Listen, Uni, Nepgear, Steamax, I need you three to keep an eye out for anyone who looks out of place. Mr. Badd, I want you to stay here and relay any and all information that the Basilicom gets."
"Of course." Mr. Badd said as Noire was engulfed in a flash of light.
The white-haired, twin-tailed CPU smirked as she looked at Nepgear and Uni, both of whom were transforming. "Then let's go. We need to have Brave..."
A screen popped up in front of her just as she said Brave's name and the robot in question appeared on the screen. "Lady Noire, forgive me, but when I heard there were reports of monsters in the city, I moved without waiting for deployment orders."
"No, that's fine." Black Heart told him. "Good job, Brave. Coordinate with security forces to eliminate the monsters and protect the citizens, Steamax, myself, Uni and Nepgear will be joining you."
"Let's go." DS Sister Black said as she held up her new energy rifle. It was a large cannon that was similar to Black Sister's cannon, but there were some differences. The first difference was that Black Sister's cannon had a cylinder on the bottom that could double as a stock if it needed to. The handle that connected the top of the cannon to the stock so that Black Sister could grip and fire her cannon was also at an angle because of it. On top of that, Black Sister's cannon barrel was long, but standard for an energy rifle.
DS Sister Black's cannon rifle, on the other hand, had its handle straight up and down, but this was for a couple of reasons. The first was that DS Sister Black's cannon had a shoulder shield as the white-haired CPU Candidate held it. Another thing that was different was that the cannon itself was similar to a tuning fork and at the center of the fork was a green gem that glowed with power while energy crackled between the top and bottom prongs. The very edges of her gun, running along the length of the cannon, were two emerald green blades.
DS Sister Black chuckled softly as she looked at the final design. "Thanks, Nepgear. Now I don't need to worry as much in case someone gets too close to me."
"I have one order for all of you, that includes you, Brave." Black Heart said to the communication screen. "While dealing with the monsters, if you find someone acting in a way that seems out of place, you contact me immediately." She narrowed her eyes at the group. "I don't want any mistakes here. We have dangerous enemies in the city and the last thing I want is for any of us to be isolated when they decide to make a move."
"Right." The group said and left through the open window out into the city.
"Good luck." Mr. Badd said as they left and turned to the Basilicom staff member. "Lady Black Heart wants us to keep her abreast of what's going on out in the city." The staff member nodded. "So I want you to coordinate all information to give to me so I can relay it to them."
"Of course. Just leave it to me." The Basilicom staff member said and left the room.
(-)
Flying through the air, Black Heart narrowed her eyes as she saw several monsters that were on the rooftops of buildings. "Heavy Dragoons, huh?" They were fat-looking dragon-like creatures that were primarily red. They had fairly short tails and wings that weren't too big. In fact, the wings, from the front, looked almost like the top of a cape. The creatures had one-handed double-edged axes in their left hands and shields on their right hands and could be pretty dangerous. The only bright side in all of this was that Heavy Dragoons were native to Lastation. Had they been monsters from other nations, she would have been a lot more concerned.
Even so, the mere fact that these monsters felt like they could even come into her city was troubling. "Nepgear! Uni!"
"I see them." DS Black replied. "I'll deal with them." She looked at her cannon and grinned. "Time to test what this bad boy can do."
"Just don't go all out and fire it at full power." Purple Sister warned her. "The beam at full strength might destroy a few buildings." Or, more accurately, most of the city, but she didn't want to freak either of them out at that point.
"And why did you give her a weapon so powerful?" Black Heart asked Purple Sister, who smiled nervously.
"In case we have to face thirty meter tall giants again. Don't worry, the gun has a normal mode for things that don't need..." Purple Sister trailed off and sweat-dropped. "Neptune said something about "zenryuko zenkai" when I explained the full-power mode."
Black Heart and DS Black both sweat-dropped heavily upon hearing that. "Full power, absolute destruction?" They asked at the same time.
Purple Sister shrugged. "I have no clue. Anyway, we should take care of the monsters."
"Right." DS Black nodded and flew towards the Heavy Dragoons.
"Nepgear, go with her, just watch her back." Black Heart said and looked around as she saw several dogoos of various types on the city streets. "I'll deal with them."
"Of course." Purple Sister said and flew after Uni.
Black Heart flew at high speeds towards the ground and glared at the dogoos. "You want to invade *my* city?!" She growled as her over-sized sword appeared in her hands and started to glow. "Then eat my Volcano Dive!"
When her blade slammed into the ground, several pillars of heat and power erupted around her, destroying the dog-faced slime monsters. Glaring at the remaining monsters, she rushed forward, her sword glowing. "None of you will get out of this alive!"
(-)
Meanwhile...
Standing on a tall building, Acti smirked as he watched Black Heart, Purple Sister, DS Black, Brave and Steamax confront the monsters he had captured and released into the city. "I really am thankful for my sniper eye ability." It was part of the reason he could see so much of everything. While none of the monsters he had captured would be too much of a threat to a CPU, he wondered just what they would do when his special surprise triggered. He pulled up a screen and looked at Beth, Ubi, Tence and Erika appeared. "Alright, the target's out of the Basilicom. You all know what to do."
"Roger!" They all nodded as the screen turned off.
(-)
Back with DS Black and Purple Sister...
DS Black let out a yell as she cut into a Heavy Dragoon, causing it to fall back, twitching. "You know..." She looked at Purple Sister as her tail curled around her and fired at three other Heavy Dragoons, piercing through their skulls in a single shot. "I might be wrong, but I thought enemies turned into data when they were defeated."
"They should!" Purple Sister commented as she cut down another monster and shot two others behind it. "But it's like they aren't dead, but I swear that they should have, EEK!" She flew back as the first monster she killed suddenly jerked to life and swung its axe at her, almost chopping into her leg. "What the goodness?!"
It was... Disturbing to see a monster getting back up, the wounds on its body seemingly both disappearing and rotting at the same time. Which didn't make sense, but the cut wounds were healing up, but the flesh at and around the cut wound was beginning to rot.
Both CPU Candidates had disturbed looks on their faces as the rest of the monsters did the same.
"I really wish I had taken Blanc up on that offer to watch Night of the Living Dogoos awhile ago." Purple Sister grimaced. "I hate Zombie movies."
"Well..." DS Black looked at the Heavy Dragoon that she had taken out before the monsters had started to recover. "Let's try this then!" She pointed her cannon at the monsters and pulled the trigger, aiming at the head of the creature.
An emerald green blast ripped through the air, surprising DS Black with how big it was, as such, she was slightly off with her aim.
As such, she only blew away half of the Heavy Dragoon's head instead of all of it.
Both CPU Candidates grimaced as they saw half of the Heavy Dragoon's head explode. When the creature let out a scream and they watched, in disgust, as the part that had been destroyed regrew, though the flesh was rotting and decayed, very rapidly.
"This isn't good." Purple Sister muttered and her eyes widened as an idea came to her. "Uni! With me!" She flew away from the building as the zombie monsters tried to swarm them, followed by DS Black.
After a few feet, the two turned around to see that the zombie Heavy Dragoons were flying after them.
"Let's launch a combined beam wave from here." Purple Sister told DS Black, who nodded. "Just don't hit anything."
DS Black felt her eye twitch in annoyance as both of them aimed their weapons at the oncoming horde of flying zombies. "If you keep that up, I'll hit you with my tail."
Purple Sister let out a little shriek of surprise and fear. "I'm sorry! I'll be serious now." A sigil formed in front of her gunblade and DS Black's cannon. "Multiple Beam Launcher..."
"Hyper Cannon..." DS Black took aim along with Purple Sister.
"FIRE!" Both CPU Candidates yelled at the same time, firing a purple beam from Purple Sister and a green beam from DS Black. The two beams wavered and started spinning around each other before merging into a blue-gray energy beam that engulfed the flying enemies at once, causing a massive explosion across the sky and when the beam subsided there was nothing but body parts crumbling to the ground. The body parts didn't fall for very long before bursting into data and both girls sighed in relief.
"At least they're we can kill them." DS Black muttered and called up a screen. "Noire! Steamax! Brave! Nepgear and I have just killed several of the Heavy Dragoons."
"Lady Uni, I am currently busy with some Fenrir! No matter how many times I kill them, they get back up."
DS Black looked at Purple Sister, who nodded. Turning back to the screen, she addressed the group again. "I don't know why, but they seem to have been turned into zombies, the best thing that I found was to destroy the body in one shot, if you give it a chance to recover, then it'll get back up."
"Good to know." Black Heart said and let out a grunt of effort as she swung her sword through several dogoos. "Urgh, stupid dogoos." She grimaced as she was covered in slime after several of them had exploded. 'Stop complaining, Noire, it won't make the fight go any faster, just focus on killing them and figuring out how they got into the city.'
(-)
Several blocks away, Brave was battling an Ancient Dragon that kept getting up over and over again. "Nnngh!" He fired his shoulder blasters, destroying several boxbirds. When the Ancient Dragon opened its mouth and a black mist started leaking from the mouth of the creature, Brave quickly ignited his back boosters and flew away just as the creature unleashed a stream of corrosive gas from its mouth.
If Brave were human, he would have grimaced as he watched the gas cover several light poles, cars and other assorted metal objects, causing them to turn to rust before collapsing into a pile of dust and rust. "Well then..." He fired his shoulder cannons several times, blasting the Ancient Dragon, destroying its limbs and forcing it to the ground. His sword started to glow brightly before erupting into flames. "Now! FLAMING JUSTICE SWORD!" He dived down and slashed the Ancient Dragon in half, right through its head. However, as his sword hit the ground, there was an eruption of energy that engulfed the monster, causing it to explode into data, even as Brave jumped away from where the creature had been as its corrosive mist started to leak from where the body had been a moment ago.
Seeing as the mist wasn't moving and was, in fact, dissipating, Brave looked at his sword and narrowed his eyes. "Even that much, protected by energy, did not stop the corrosion from getting to this blade, huh?" In a way, he was glad that it was him who had to deal with this monster and not Steamax, Noire or Uni. He knew they would have been fine, but he didn't like the thought of them being hurt if he could take their place. "Yes, I'd rather take the blows for them."
"Aww, how nice." A female voice had Brave turn and look to the side. "Not bad for a giant robot that was designed to kill a CPU, huh?"
"You..." Brave narrowed his eyes. "I take it you're one of the people involved in this, miss..?"
The woman grinned at him. "Name's Ubi, sorry, but I can't let you interfere with what's going to happen." She held her hands out and power arcs of lightning erupted from her fingertips and slammed into Brave, causing him to cry out as he was lifted from the ground. "Don't worry, I won't destroy you, I'm not Erika, but I can't let you..." Ubi trailed off and shrugged. "Well, I suppose you probably can't hear me, and I would kill you, but the boss said if I kill anyone else that he'd kill me, so..." She stuck her tongue out at Brave before finally stopping the lightning attack and allowing Brave to fall to the ground, where he toppled over while lightning crackled over his body. "Hmm, that should only hold you for a little bit." She ran up to Brave and pulled out a magnetic plate and slapped it onto Brave's head. "There. That'll keep you from rebooting while we're here."
Acti's face appeared on screen in front of her. "Well?"
"The big robot's down." Ubi told him. "He's not destroyed, just out of it." A grin came to her face and she chuckled. "I'm making enemies out of all the CPUs."
Acti narrowed his eyes. "Which wouldn't have happened if you hadn't decided to try and kill Purple Sister, which caused you to kill a friend of hers. Speaking of whom, Purple Sister's in Lastation, you should be careful."
"Right." Ubi nodded as the screen turned off. Looking at Brave, she smiled and waved. "Bye bye!" She quickly jumped away, leaving the robot on the ground and unable to move.
(-)
Black Heart huffed softly as she finished up the Dogoos. "Mr. Badd!" She yelled as a screen popped up in front of her, showing Mr. Badd's face. "Any new reports?"
"No, Lastation Security is handling most of the monsters. I saw how some of the monsters were coming back to life and it looks like not all of them are becoming zombies."
Black Heart nodded, mentally sighing in relief as that meant that the situation wasn't going to get worse immediately. "Thank you. Keep me informed on the situation."
"Of course." Mr. Badd nodded as the screen turned off.
"Well, well, well..." A new voice spoke up and Black Heart turned her head and slowly turned as she saw a woman with short, brown hair and matching eyes wearing a short light blue dress with flower designs on it while holding a folding fan in her left hand, right in front of her face, concealing the bottom part of her face.
Personally, Black Heart wanted to get a dress like that, if nothing else than to see how she'd look in one.
"To think that I get to face the fake CPU of Lastation."
"Who are you calling a fake?" Black Heart growled as the woman giggled and closed her fan.
"The mere fact that you got so upset over that leads me to think that you know of the other version of yourself and you know..." She smirked at Black Heart, who was glaring at her. "That you don't compare to her, hmm? Am I right?" She opened her fan again. "Ohohohohoho!"
"Are you responsible for these monsters?" Black Heart demanded and the woman chuckled, shrugging.
"Not directly, if that's what you're wondering." She grinned and snapped her fans shut as she made them disappear and a yellow, rotund teddy bear with a red shirt with a yellow hammer and sickle in the center of it. "Don't worry, Xinnie and I will take GOOD care of you."
Black Heart narrowed her eyes and took a defensive stance. Years of knowing Plutia was the only reason she wasn't mocking the woman for having a teddy bear in her hands for a weapon. "At least tell me your name."
The woman grinned at Black Heart. "You may call me... Tence."
To be continued...
So, if I disappear and never post an update again, you can probably figure out why.
Anyway, this was getting long enough as it was, so I decided to end it here. Plus I wanted to get the chapter out before it got too long.