ive come back from the hole i buried myself into to deliver you this chapter
tbh i wouldve given an excuse if i even knew in the first place of any; i think i just suck
anyways
here u go
"Damn it...I never let anyone who touches those papers get away..." White Heart scowled. She was chasing an incredibly quick and annoying trespasser, only for her to seemingly disappear from reality the moment she left her sight. Her elusiveness was even more perplexing when no one on any of the Basilicom's many floors hadn't seen or even heard anyone running around.
White Heart flew down the staircase to the ground floor and shouted, "Where the HELL is she?!"
All of the staff members turned their attention to her and instinctively recoiled, already prepared for the worst of her wrath. Even if they didn't know whom she was talking about, they knew it was better to guess than to ask questions back at her. The general answer was "Th-they just arrived, Lady Blanc…" and a few pointed fingers towards the entrance.
"'They?' What?!" A confusing response led White Heart to see who had "just arrived."
In the place of the intruder were two figures. One of them was Rei Ryghts, barely holding on to her composure as she stood still in front of the door. While keeping it together better than what others might have been accustomed to, she was nevertheless fearful of White Heart's fury as anyone would be. "I-I'm sorry if I was late!"
The other was Noire, crossing her arms under her dark top, unfazed by her fellow CPU's outrage. "We weren't late, I'm pretty sure. Just Blanc being her usual self."
"No, no, no, I meant that-!" The transformed CPU let out a loud frustrated groan. "Did no one, NO ONE even see or hear that weaselly bitch run across here?!"
Both yes and no seemed like bad ideas, so everyone remained silent.
"What even happened to make you that heated, anyways?" Noire was first to speak up.
"Um…" Rei was holding up a folder. "I wouldn't mind if you wanted to postpone our meeting, if you'd like. Y-you seem really busy."
As much as she would love to grind that pest into dust with her bare hands, White Heart's sudden remembering of her meeting with Rei made her let her go now, as searingly infuriating as that was. "It's...it's fine," she assured her with grit teeth while de-transforming.
Rei felt more relaxed. "Are you sure?"
Blanc took a lengthy deep breath to calm herself. "Even if I wanted to chase her down, I would probably be wasting our time." Pretending as if she just didn't yell at everyone else, she started walking back up while beckoning Rei and Noire. "Come; let's have our meeting in my office."
"R-right…"
(-)
Though she was barely prepared, having finished her papers for their talk right before that second distraction of the day, her business with Rei and Noire went relatively smoothly. "That should be everything we wanted to talk about, right?" Noire asked. "To be honest, I'm not entirely sure if you two needed me here."
"Because it's the Seven Sages, remember?" Blanc flatly answered. "You already saw what happened the last time I worked with them."
"I mean, I guess I'm fine with being a notary of sorts," She supposed with a shrug. "Though, you're really gonna say that right in front of her?"
"It's fine, really!" Rei assured. "It's good to be cautious after everything I did. I'm just glad that we can do something like this."
"You guys haven't been doing anything dangerous for the past few years while always staying within public vision," Noire casually explained.
"Yeah. Even with my distrust, I still need some sort of group to help with all of the complaints and business problems suddenly popping up in Lowee."
"So much for being the strongest CPU in Gamindustri, huh?" Noire teased.
"If the same thing happened in Lastation, it would've imploded before anyone else could notice or take pity," Blanc quickly returned.
"As if. I'm not running some sort of outdated circus show. Lastation is all about having the best nation for businesses," she proudly boasted.
"Those are some choice words for someone in MY Basilicom," Blanc warned.
"I mean, you were fine with throwing shade at Rei in front of her, so…"
"You two need to stop," Rei spoke up, which came off as surprising to them. "We shouldn't be attacking each other like that…"
Blanc and Noire instinctively wanted to fire back at her, but they knew she was right.
"Anyways, there's a little more for you to do than being a notary, Noire," continued Rei. "Blanc wanted you to send resources to help us investigate these three names that pop up a lot in these problems; two of which seem to come from Lastation."
Noire turned her head at that. "What? Where did we agree upon that?"
"Here." Blanc held up a page from the many on the table.
"Gimme that." She took a quick read, then signed when she found the detail. "Why can't you send your Seven Sages goons to do that?"
"Because: if Lastation is all about having the best nation for businesses, they'll have the best people to catch any corrupt ones," Blanc answered for Rei.
Noire had to concede Blanc's twist on her words. "Jeez, you're really gonna have to owe me one later, Blanc."
"Yes, as we have agreed upon on this page." She held up a different paper.
"It'd be nice if we CPUs could do favors for each other for free. Because, you know, we're friends!" Rei suggested optimistically.
The other two shot mildly disgusted looks at her.
"I heard that the CPUs in the other dimension do that kind of stuff, so I thought we could, too…" she tried to explain.
"Yeah, fat chance," Blanc assured.
"I'm not particularly interested in what they're doing over there," added Noire.
That extra part reminded Blanc about how Rom and Ram coming back to pester her about their sister soon. With all of her urgent tasks done, she didn't have an actual excuse for them. "Ugh."
"Hm? Is something wrong?" worried Rei.
"It's nothing important." She stood up to clean the desk of the papers. "You remember Rom and Ram from the other dimension, right?"
"Vaguely," responded Noire, picking up her own pages.
"I think so."
"They stopped by to tell me they'll need me to help them later. I'm not entirely sure if I should."
"Didn't you say you've always wanted to spend more time with them?" Noire pointed out.
Blanc frowned at that. "What? When?"
"At least once every other time we talk, as infrequent as that is."
"That...that doesn't sound right." She was going to make an effort to catch herself from mentioning that in future conversations. "Either way, I still feel like they're just exaggerating their problem and are going to waste my time with something that they could've done by themselves."
Rei smiled as she started to offer her input. "Well, I think-"
Blanc sighed. "Yeah, we get it. CPUs should help each other. That won't be enough to convince me."
Rei thought more about her situation. "I just thought that, you know, they came all the way here, so it must be important, seeing that they rarely come here."
"They were just here yesterday..." Blanc trailed off as she began to reconsider exactly how odd it was for Rom and Ram to come all the way here two days in a row, and that maybe she really was the only person to help. Even if it wasn't her business, she started to feel the need to help them out.
In the middle of her thinking, a distant but noticeable boom stopped everyone from whatever they were doing.
"...Looks like I need to investigate that," Blanc quickly decided.
"I'm glad I wasn't the only one noticing that pattern of explosion-like sounds…" said Rei with a sigh of relief.
"Why didn't you tell us earlier?" Blanc threw out as she headed towards the door.
"I-I thought I was just imagining them…" Rei stood up from her seat. "But, um, do you need help?"
"It's probably nothing. You two said you had something after the meeting, right?"
"I'm just about done for the day regarding business stuff," corrected Noire. "I guess I could help out."
"Yeah? Since when did you want to help someone like me?" asked a suspicious Blanc.
"Hey, if this turns out to be something big, people are gonna think it's weird that that happened at the same time I came to Lowee; that's all!"
Blanc could see the logic behind that. "...Fine." She turned to Rei. "And I'm assuming you're coming too, right?"
"Well…I'm not entirely sure I can help. You see, I'm trying to get better with combat with my staff, but I'm still unsure-"
"Whatever. Come on, Noire; I'm leaving now," beckoned Blanc, who was already exiting the room.
"Right."
"Hey, I didn't get to finish…" The two goddesses were out of her earshot. "Oh...I guess I could start on this project then…"
(-)
The two flew straight towards the growing smoke pillar at the opposite side of the city. "Looks like it's just some idiots fumbling with dynamite," White Heart mumbled while closing in on a mine inside a cave. Its entrance is nearly obscured by all of the smoke.
"That's still something that can't be left alone, you know," scolded Black Heart from behind.
"I never said it was, smooth-brain," she brusquely returned as they flew straight in.
From outside, there wasn't much noise outside of the low growling of the smoke, but as they flew farther inside, the sound of yelling and fighting gradually became more apparent. "I'm going in," announced a curious Black Heart, flying faster towards the source.
"Hey, wait!" Though not as quick, her colleague caught up to her.
Both of them idled in surprise at the scene in front of them: Rom, Ram, and some other girl were fighting Copypaste, who had a pile of dynamite barrels behind him. "Oi! What's going on here?!" White Heart yelled out to no one in particular.
"Blanc?!" The transformed CPU Candidates impulsively turned around in excited surprise, which simmered down upon realizing she wasn't their actual sister.
The young woman accompanying them was dead-on focused on Copypaste, but immediately turned around upon hearing her CPU's name. "Wha- Lady Blanc!" Taking a knee, she answered somewhat shakily, "Sir Copypaste had gone haywire during his rock blasting job, and we are suppressing him while trying to separate the barrels of dynamite away-"
"Got it." That was enough for White Heart to jump in the battle. "You in, Noire?"
"Of course I am!" Black Heart replied, almost insulted by that while drawing her blade.
"Yay, we get to fight with Blanc again!" cheered Rom.
Ram was a bit distracted with C-sha's demeanor towards Blanc. "Jeez, why does she only act moody and mean to only us?" she wondered as she readied her staff again.
"Oh, Lady Blanc!" greeted Copypaste at the back. "I see you've come to join my demonstration on the wonders of explosions! And you even brought a friend to watch? How fun!"
"Damn it, what the hell are you talking about?! Didn't the miners teach you how to use that crap properly?" angrily reminded White Heart.
"Yes, but I quickly saw that they were merely TNT tykes compared to my proprietary technique, I'll have these rocks blasted in no time flat!" boasted Copypaste.
"Exactly why do you keep this garbage bin around?" whispered Black Heart to her fellow CPU.
"Then, I'll blow up the rest of Lowee, and then the rest of Gamindustri! Yes!" He heartily laughed, everyone heard the cave faintly vibrating. "A stellar plan to show everyone the magical world of explosions!"
"Hey, didn't Vert show us a cartoon with a girl that talked like that?" pondered Ram.
"Uh huh, uh huh-"
"I have NO clue how he got like this." noted an exacerbated White Heart.
"Not the first time you were clueless around these guys!" remarked Black Heart.
White Heart abruptly grabbed her arm. "Enough talking; combat time!" In one swift spin, she threw her rival goddess directly at Copypaste.
"Whoa- hey!" Black Heart reacted quickly enough to adapt herself to this "cooperative" launch to land a stalwart stab at the robot.
She also reacted quickly by dodging upward to White Heart flying towards her, delivering an upward swing with her signature axe. "Hyah!"
"I'll cast this stuff to help." Rom raised her staff, and a warm and strengthening light Popped Out and surrounded White Heart.
"Yeah, yeah! We gotta help out!" Her twin pointed her staff at Copypaste. "Ice Coffin!" From a spell circle below him, ice spikes drove into him, and while most of it broke off, the leftover ice easily stuck around his treads.
"Hey, I told you that we need your flight to extract the barrels!" shouted out C-sha from below them.
None of the twins seemed to hear her. "Remember, Blanc, Noire: I can heal you!"
"Yeah, yeah."
"Got it!"
Hearing those two CPUs, C-sha acquiesced to taking that role of slowly carrying the barrels of dynamite one at a time.
"Hey, check this out!" shouted Copypaste as he held up multiple lit barrels in each claw. With one quick rotation of the arms, he chucked them all in the CPUs' general direction.
"To the side!" Black Heart yelled as she flew to the left of Copypaste.
White Heart, though, was too slow and only barely escaped the blast radius. Either way, she lost focus for a moment when a wood plank from one of the barrels smacks her square in her chest, but she was able to recover quickly. "Damn-!"
Rom and Ram were at ease, knowing they were far enough from the explosions, which made the rocks falling from above more painful as they landed on Rom. "Oww…"
"Rom! Here, let me heal you."
"Thank you."
After a quick spell, both of them didn't have enough time to fight back when Copypaste immediately launched another armful of dynamite, unfazed by the stalactites landing on his head. "I can do this all day!"
Everyone anticipated his next attacks and was able to dodge the explosions and debris. The falling ceiling was also avoidable, but adding that left no time for executing any attacks. Black Heart attempted to swing around to his back, but quickly circled back when he almost hit her with a barrel while behind him. On further inspection, she noticed that he wasn't aiming at anyone in general; his hectic throwing speed simply covered all of his angles fairly well.
Flying back far away, Ram was able to throw some fireballs at the boss. "Jeez, I never knew he was this difficult to deal with."
Copypaste slowed down for a moment to say, "Whoa, little girl. You might want to watch out where you're throwing those flames!"
"Maybe he's weak to fire damage." Rom joined in with her sister in launching fire attacks at him. While most of them landed with remarkable damage, they were bound to miss their mark on some of them. One in particular hit a mid-air barrel, leading to a premature explosion right in front of Black Heart's and Copypaste's faces.
The former flew back from the increased shockwave, landing on the ground next to Rom and Ram. "Really? You're going to use fire in a room full of explosives?"
"It was the easiest attack to land…" said Rom guiltily.
"Nah, it could work! We just have-"
Ram instinctively shut up when she heard White Heart yell out, "Screw this!" She raised a glowing hand to provide Defense Support to her and her teammates. Then, they watched as she flew straight into Copypaste, axe wound back and ready to swing. When a couple of stones flew in her path, she didn't falter and simply allowed it to hit her. The same went for the explosions from below given her raised defense; she was dedicated to reach him and deploy her reliable tank strategy of drawing aggro.
Once she reached her destination, she started hacking away at the robot. She didn't care if it didn't feel like she had an immediate impact; she knew her allies would follow up now that he wasn't attacking them. Yet, not hearing any sign of them for more than ten seconds irritated her. "Don't tell me you all are sitting on your asses sucking your thumbs! Attack him already!" She shouted without turning away from Copypaste.
"What do you think we've been trying to do, idiot?!" complained Black Heart while she was still dodging barrels.
"Then why aren't you attacking him, HUH?!" She shouted back. "I'm out here trying to get his attention; don't you see that?"
"I see that you're doing a pretty crappy job," White Heart heard immediately to her left.
"What the-" She instinctively lurched to the right and saw Black Heart joining in close quarters combat.
"I thought you were smart enough to realize he's not targeting anyone; just throwing barrels at random," her fellow CPU smugly scolded. "And, because of that, it's ironically safer up close to him than afar."
"Why you…" White Heart grappled her from her sides and smashed her head first into Copypaste, then started hacking away at him.
From afar, Ram pointed out to her sister, "Did you hear Blanc? We're safer if we're close to him."
"It's hard to hit stuff when they're up close, though."
"Aw, come on. He's building-sized; we can't miss someone like him!"
"I don't know…" Rom still did not like the idea of getting too close.
"Woah, hands off my new treads, Lady Blanc!" they heard from near White Heart. "They let me do stuff like this!" With little windback, Copypaste quickly rotates in place, sending both CPUs flying off.
"Damn, he's no weaker than the last time we fought him..." White Heart cursed while standing back up.
Stumped at the situation, the twins wondered if they could brew up some sort of clever tactic for this boss fight, with Ram looking around for some sort of weakness.
Behind them, C-sha was still silently carrying barrels out of the arena. She looked back to check on the fight with a nervous and uneasy frown, hearing how much trouble her CPU was having, but immediately put on her usual determined glare when she saw Ram looking at her. "What are you looking at?"
Remembering how Rom blew up a barrel mid-air, her sister immediately hatched a new tactic. She flew down to C-sha and grabbed the barrel in her hands.
"Hey, what do you think you're doing?!" She shouted while trying to wrestle it back.
"We should be using these barrels to blow him up!" answered Ram.
"Are you crazy? That's going to cave us in!"
"He's already throwing a bunch of them, so it doesn't matter! Rom, help me out with this!"
When Rom heard them fighting, she flew over and, with the two of them, they easily took the dynamite out of C-sha's hands, then flew upward out of C-sha's reach.
Now looking for White Heart, Ram asked, "Hey, Blanc! Can you throw this at him?"
She had a similar hesitance as C-sha, but felt more trusting of her in her desperation. "...Sure." She promptly did as she said, hurling the barrel at Copypaste with an overhead throw.
He didn't seem to notice the barrel heading towards him, giving Ram the perfect opportunity to spray a flurry of fireballs at the projectile. "Here I go!"
With perhaps perfect timing, one of them hit the barrel as it was right next to him, leading to maximum damage. "Ooh! That one stung," he loudly remarked while recoiling.
Rom and Ram both gasped. "It worked!" They looked at White Heart, becoming more elated when they saw her surprise to their idea's success.
"Yeah, it did. Let's keep at it." She looked at a recovering Black Heart. "You too; help me out with throwing barrels!"
"...Fine," she begrudgingly growled while taking another barrel from C-sha.
"U-um…" She normally didn't like being proven wrong, but she still didn't want to defy a CPU and weakly let go of it.
White Heart also flew over to pick one up. "Alright. Just keep throwing these barrels at him; Rom and Ram will take care of the rest."
"Yep!"
"You can count on us!" The two looked forward to showing off their magic.
"Let's get to it, then!" Black Heart started the combo by throwing her barrel at him.
White Heart quickly joined in, and the two together quickly became a well-oiled throwing machine.
Then, Rom and Ram shot fast fire bolts at each barrel as they neared him. Being wise, they were careful with each projectile and made sure to hit each one only when they were close to him.
"Ow! Ooh!" Copypaste had gone from enjoying his barrel throwing to being in a world of pain. He was far too distracted from the damage to retaliate at this point.
"Keep at it, everyone!" cheered Ram. At this point, each pair got into a rhythm with the other so that no barrel was missed; each one exploded exactly where they wanted them to. Not even the smoke from all of the explosions could stop them from reaching max DPS. Plus, with the barrels exploding mid-air, the cave was at a much smaller risk of collapsing.
Rom and Ram didn't notice for a while when the barrels stopped coming. "Hey, what gives?" Ram asked the other CPUs.
"We're out of dynamite!" exclaimed White Heart.
"Doesn't look like we'll be needing any more," said Black Heart, pointing to their enemy.
After the smoke cleared, they found Copypaste sitting still, his exterior mostly destroyed and smoking. "O, how I have mistaken so sorely…" he uttered before his voice cut out and he completely stopped moving.
"We...did it?" muttered Rom.
"Heck yeah we did!" shouted Ram, holding up a hand.
"Yay, we did it!" Rom returned the high five, and they both flew towards White and Black Heart to high five them.
"Did you see how awesome that plan was?" boasted Ram.
"...I guess so," White Heart half-heartedly complimented.
"Definitely made quick work of him; that wasn't as much of a waste of my time than the last time we fought him," noted Black Heart. "Actually, there's one last thing left I need to do." She looked towards the other CPU.
"Yeah? And what is it?" asked an unknowing White Heart.
Without warning, she managed to catch her off-guard with a payback attack, strong-arming her cheek before walking away. "That should even it out." Before White Heart could strike back, she started flying away. "Oh, and don't be surprised if you see some of your shares rightfully flowing into Lastation from my work."
"Hey!" Obviously irate, she was about to chase after her as she exited the cave.
"Wait, Blanc!" Rom shouted to stop her.
She complied and turned around. "What is it now?"
"You said you'd be done with your boring stuff by now. So...are you ready to come with us?" Ram asked, almost shaking in excitement for her answer.
"…Hm." As much as she knew that she had no reason to not say "no," something in her recent memories spurred her to do something about her Hyper Dimension counterpart.
"You said you would…" pleaded Rom.
It quickly overcame her sense of reasoning, and after a deep sigh, she let out a deft and reluctant "...Okay."
"Yay! Other big sis is coming with us!" Both of them went for a hug.
"Oi, back off, you monkeys!" Not giving them even a second, she peeled the two off of her. "Let's go before I change my mind!"
"Okay!"
"Yeah!" They already seem rejuvenated, showing no wear from the boss fight they were just in, and were ready to fly home.
"W-wait, Lady Blanc!" From below them, C-sha was waving to catch her attention.
"What?"
"What should we do about Sir Copypaste?"
"I won't be gone for long; I'll deal with it later." Gauging her unsatisfied, though still non-assertive look, she added, "What, do you want to do something about it?"
"Yes! Something, or someone, clearly made him go berserk!" C-sha declared, eager to serve her goddess. "I will definitely get to the bottom of this!"
"Uh...sure." A bit put off by her enthusiasm, she approved her offer while turning towards the exit, not noticing C-sha's salute to her. "Let's go, you two."
"Mhm!" They both agreed, already taking off.
(-)
"Who was that girl, anyways?" As midday was approaching sunset, the three were on their way to their destination of Hyper Dimension's Planeptune.
"Um, do you remember C-sha? The tall woman with blue clothes who came with us yesterday?" started Rom.
"And how we were trying to find out if there was a copy of her here?" said Ram.
"I'm guessing that's her, then," assumed White Heart.
"Yep!"
"Uh huh, uh huh. She's...kinda mean."
"Really? She looked like the obnoxiously helpful but not particularly mean type," she noted.
"Yeah, but only to you!" said Ram. "She just acts all edgy and pushy to everyone else when you're not around, including us."
"Really, now." She would keep that in mind the next time she saw her, and she had a hunch it was going to be soon.
"Hey, Blanc?"
"Yeah?" White Heart answered Rom.
"Was there, you know, any reason you changed your mind?"
"What? You want me to turn around or something?"
"No!" For a moment, Ram was alarmed, thinking she really was going to do that. "Rom, what are you doing?"
"I-I was just curious; we really do want you to talk with our big sis!"
Thinking in retrospect on her decision, she knew that it was caused by a thought she had earlier in the day. It was obviously before the fight with Copypaste, and it was probably after Rom and Ram came by in the morning. "This trip is a nice break after sitting on a desk for an unbearable duration," she half-truthfully answered. At the moment, though, the reason was less important than what she was going to do. "Anyways, you still haven't made it clear: what do you want me to do to her?"
"Just, talk to her!" answered Ram. "Like, convince her that her old self is not all that bad!"
"And, as you've mentioned, she thinks that because she didn't like...me?"
"Uh huh…" Rom didn't understand where she was going with this.
"So if she doesn't like me, why would she listen to me?"
That sole point made both of them stop flying. They both needed to in order to consider both the answer and why they hadn't thought of that sooner. Yet, the longer they took, the more they rapidly became overshadowed with despair. "I...don't know," Ram quietly answered.
"We...we...you're the best person we know to help us," Rom weakly added.
"Uh huh." White Heart didn't even feel like chastising them; they looked rather pathetic floating there in uncharacteristic silence.
"P-please...we just really want to see our old sis back," pleaded Ram.
"It's all about that, isn't it?" She was getting somewhat sick of hearing them say that. "Can't you, like, visit me more often if you two are so obsessed with your past Blanc?"
"You're not our big sis though," said Ram. "And besides, it always takes too long to fly here, too…"
"U-um…" Both of them had been too afraid to ask, but Rom mustered up enough courage. "Are you sure that's okay with you if we come over more often to play?"
"...Ah." On one side, she really would like to spend more time with them, but on the other, she knew she didn't exactly know how to deal with younger sisters. "I...uh, wouldn't mind, assuming you don't overdo it." The three were left with an awkward silence until White Heart resumed flying towards Planeptune.
Both of them were in an unpronounced surprise at that. "Hey, where are you going?" asked Ram.
"You still want to help us…?"
White Heart looked back. "I just remembered: I should probably fix my crappy first impressions." There was something more on top of that reason that she couldn't parse, but she figured it would come to her in due time. "That's all."
But, Rom and Ram both had a feeling that she really did want to help them; she just didn't want to say it out loud, as per usual for a Blanc. After all, once she made up with their Blanc, she would have an easier time to convince her. They didn't know what else she was thinking, but they certainly didn't want to accidentally say something to change her mind. They were simply relieved that she was on their side and silently followed her.
(-)
After that, Rom and Ram were relatively quiet for the rest of the flight. "Is something up?" White Heart spoke up.
"It's nothing," Ram quickly answered.
"Just tell me already. It's written all over your faces," she commanded back.
"I was...just thinking…" Rom said shyly.
"About…?"
"...About seeing you more often."
"Yeah, me too. Maybe…" Ram paused a bit for this admission. "Maybe we don't need to get our old big sis's memories back."
"I see." White Heart sighed. "You two really have a rigid specific idea of what you want your Blanc to be, don't you?"
Neither of them answered that.
While her morals told her there was something inherently wrong with what her suggestion could eventually lead to, she couldn't help but mention, "Maybe every so often, I'll come to visit you instead. You know, just to check up on my other self to make sure she doesn't screw up anything."
"I thought you said we were enough…" Rom quickly stopped herself.
"Hm?"
"N-Nothing."
"We can show you all the new stuff we've done over here!" Ram happily said to change the topic. "There's a new theme park we just built in Lowee, we can show you stuff from our latest adventure, more of our new friends; it'll be great!"
"Yeah, that does sound nice," she said as they landed at the portal to Hyper Dimension before stepping in.
As they crossed the portal, Rom and Ram heard both of their phones ring as they entered their reception range. Pulling them out, they found a multitude of messages from various apps and missed calls. "A lot of these are from Mina," observed Rom.
"Your Blanc lets you have phones?" wondered White Heart.
Before they answered, another ping came from Ram's phone. "And she messages us the moment she sees we're online…Isn't there some way to make yourself look offline?"
"Can you ask her where big sis is?" asked Rom.
"She's probably still at Neptune's place." She still forwarded the question and, after a few seconds, she exclaimed, "Yep, she's still there." The two of them flew ahead from the portal's exit towards said Basilicom's balcony, which was in sight from where they were. "Over here!"
"What's she doing there?" White Heart wondered as she flew behind them.
"I don't know; probably something lame."
After landing, the three de-transformed. "Looks like there's a lot of people," Rom pointed out the multiple people from behind the window. "Is there a party?"
"Hopefully not." Despite her dislike of crowded and loud spaces, Blanc reached for the balcony door's handle.
"Wait!" Ram stopped her. "Do we know what we wanna say to her?"
"I know what I want to say; not sure about you guys."
"...Hm." Though discontent, Ram had trusted her to say the right stuff.
Without further questions, Blanc opened the door. "Excuse us." After the smell of savory cooking blasted her face and escaped outside, she saw the many but mostly unfamiliar faces inside turn to her.
"Hey, that's a nice new outfit you're wearing, Blanc. Where'd ya buy it?" complimented a short blonde girl.
"Hey, Blanc, Rom, Ram," greeted a tomboyish twin-tailed girl with red hair and a confused look. "Say, Blanc, weren't you in one of our rooms, or something?"
"Yay, now Blanc and her sisters are here to party!" exclaimed another red-haired but much shorter girl.
"Ooh, Blanc, did anyone tell you what we were having tonight?" asked…
"Neptune?" Blanc frowned, doing her best to hold in her shock and perhaps jealousy. "What the hell happened to you? When did you get so tall and-"
From behind the significantly older-looking Neptune popped out the much more familiar one. "Hm? Whoa, it's Blanc! What are ya doing here? Changed your mind about mentoring Blanny?"
"U-uh…" Understandingly, the sight of those two next to each other kept her stunned.
"Yeah, we meant it when we told you we made a lot of new friends," reminded Ram.
Another familiar face in the form of a more mature blonde stepped up. "Oh, Rom! Ram! Where have you…" She stopped herself upon seeing Blanc. "You went to Ultra Dimension again?"
"Um...yeah," Blanc responded to Vert's question. "Can we talk about there being two Neptunes?"
"Later. We wanna talk to our big sis now; do you know where she is?" interrupted Ram.
"It's like Uzume said; she's in one of the guest rooms. It's down that hallway to the left," Noire pointed out. "Is there something going on? Other than, you know, the whole memory loss thing?"
"No, not really; just wanted to talk. It shouldn't take long," Blanc answered back in a manner that made no one question it. As she led Rom and Ram down the hall, she looked back, pointed to the two Neptunes and said, "Though, I WILL want an explanation for...this anomaly afterwards."
Rom and Ram quietly followed her, with the latter taking out their older sister's hat.
"What was that about?" The larger Neptune asked once they were out of sight. "Did Blanc really just pull off some secret teleportation technique under our noses?"
"Do...you not know that she's the CPU of your Lowee?" asked Uni in disbelief.
"Nope! Wait, there's a Blanc in MY home dimension?!" she asked in genuine shock.
"Yep!" Her smaller self answered. "Though, did you see how Ram pulled out Blanny's hat? Super dramatic, ooh."
"I'm at the very least glad that Rom and Ram are ready to talk with her again after that squabble," mentioned Vert. "Though, I feel that we should follow or check in on them."
"Nepgear and C-sha's already in there, that's fine enough. Give them some privacy!" said Noire. "They'll come to us when they're ready."
"I...suppose you're right." Vert had a reassured smile. "Those two with the other Blanc should be more than capable in reconciling these sisters."
ill probably take less time to get the next chapter done, but ive begun trying to balance another project with this , and, as much as i want to eventually finish this fic (which is far from coming close to an end), i have larger sights with this other project
tho it should almost definitely take less than almost two months for the next chapter :/