Hyperdimension Neptunia is owned by Sega, Idea Factory and Compile Heart and whomever else worked on it.
Wow, my muse cranked one out in only a few days! I'm in shock! SHOCK I say!
...
SHOOOOOCK!
Okay, I'm done, enjoy the next chapter.
Chapter 72
Uzume looked up as Neptune and Sobar walked into the room. Neptune's face was damp and her eyes were red, but she looked... Relaxed and somewhat happy. "You okay, Nepsy?"
Neptune nodded. "Yeah," she sighed softly, "I only cried my eyes out for nearly an hour and I just washed my face."
Uzume nodded, but looked concerned. "Hey, Nepsy, if you need to talk..."
"Yeah," Neptune nodded to the two-toned girl, "but we have those Angels coming back soon." She tilted her head in confusion, "what about you? When if your hair going back to pure red?"
"Huh..." Uzume grabbed her blue pigtail and looked at it. "I dunno." She shrugged at Neptune. "It might fade in time or be permanent, who knows?"
"Probably the author." Neptune giggled before she yelped as she felt something hit the back of her head. "Mouuu... Mini-Histy! The system you set up is still hitting me!" She gave the book that was on the floor a dirty look.
"Stop being so meta then." Histoire shot back as she came into the room with a stern look on her face. "Then again," her look melted into an amused expression, "it's been a few hundred years since you were meta like that. I kind of missed it."
Neptune rubbed the back of her head and giggled softly. "A lot happened while I was away." She looked a little worried. "H...How long was I gone for?"
"Less than a year." Histoire told her. She looked at Uzume and shrugged. "Well, I dunno why she looks different, but when she was wearing dark clothes and had completely blue hair, she synched up this dimension to Zero Dimension and thus our time slowed down."
"Oh..." Uzume blinked as her eyes glazed over. "Ah, right, Kurome did that. Yeah, the dimensions are still synced up. I fixed that problem that kept this dimension and our dimension split up."
"Wait!" Both Neptunes yelled at the same time as they suddenly got in front of Uzume. "You mean we can cross between dimensions at any time?"
"Well..." Uzume chuckled nervously and rubbed the back of her head. "I think so. I just kind of have the anchor points between the two Basilicoms. But, Nepsy, why are you concerned?" She asked the bigger of the Neptunes.
"Well..." The bigger Neptune smiled and rubbed the back of her head. "I've been traveling a lot the past six years, you know? I'd like to have a place I can call home, but I don't want to be limited to where I can go."
"That makes sense." A new voiced spoke up and everyone turned to see Flonne and Artina walking into the room. Artina looked admonished while Flonne was smiling. "So, how about we get this meeting going huh?"
"Let's call the others." Neptune sighed as she pulled up a vid screen. "Noire, Vert, Blanc, Nep Jr., if you four aren't too busy, the Angels are back."
"Right." The four said at the same time.
(-)
A few minutes later...
Flonne had suggested to have the conversation in the living room. Both because she didn't like hard chairs at a round table and because she wanted everyone to be more relaxed.
Laharl, who was sitting next to her, didn't care, he was just there for the fireworks. That and the ice cream. "How'd you get grape-flavored ice cream?" He asked, curious as he took another bite of the ice cream. "HOOO! Sweet!" He grimaced as his eyes screwed shut from the sudden rush of flavors.
"Lots of hard work." Histoire told him. "Also, we're the only people in Planeptune with it. It's just too hard to make in large quantities." Mostly because even synthetic grape-flavored ice cream was just hard to work with. The chemical make-up of grapes and ice cream made bonding rather difficult.
On the other side of Flonne was Artina, who was looking more meek and quiet than the CPUs had ever seen her.
Nepgear, Rom, Ram, Uni, Ouya, Stadia and the larger Neptune all sat in single chairs off to the side while Vert sat on the edge of the couch with Blanc, Noire, Plutia, Peashy, Neptune all taking up the couch. Next to the couch, Sobar sat on a chair while Histoire floated in the center.
"So, now that we're all here." Histoire began, "how about we clarify some things?"
Artina sighed. "Fine, in regards to your baby daddy," she gave Neptune an annoyed look, who returned it with a vengeance, "I merely told those Angels to keep an eye on the Basilicom for when you came back so that we could collect our payment. They decided that since you two were close, according to what we knew, that you would come back if they captured him and held him hostage."
Neptune opened her mouth but stopped when Sobar grabbed her shoulder. "...Honey?"
Sobar smiled at her. "It's okay, Neptune, they really didn't mean me any harm and got me into the shade as soon as they realized that I was getting sick from the light exposure." He looked at Artina, "and I'm sure that making things worse between our two groups wasn't what she intended."
Neptune sighed and nodded. "Fine, I'll accept it. But don't call him my baby daddy!" She snapped at Artina.
"Should I call him your rapist?" Artina asked, her voice starting to get heated. "Maybe you're his slave, huh?"
"He's my husband, darn it!" Neptune yelled as she stood up and nearly lunged at Artina, but was held back by Sobar and Peashy. "And what would you know about love?! All you care about is money!"
"That..." Artina growled.
"Artina..." Flonne gave a warning to the pink-haired Angel. "I told you to behave."
"But Lady Flonne!" Artina protested and pointed at Sobar and Neptune. "What she feels towards him is a perversion of the love you keep preaching to all of us! It's wrong and bad and shouldn't be..."
"Oh great, she's a love freak too." Laharl muttered as he felt his eye twitching in annoyance. "Only she loves money like Flonne loves sentai shows."
"Um..." Ouya spoke up, drawing everyone's attention to her. "I was created to take over this world, to control it for the Mole People and when we took down the leaders of the Mole People, I was forced to fight against mommy, aunt Plutia and the other CPUs. I was created in a lab, I wasn't even born normally, I was created to be a weapon. I'm just a perversion against nature." Her eyes watered up. "I wanted to die so many times in my life, but mommy never let me die. Am I wrong and bad too?"
"What?!" Artina yelled, her eyes white and blank, "no! That's not the same thing! You're a living person who has a chance to grow and become her own person!" Then she pointed back at Neptune and Sobar. "What your mother went through because of the Mole People... How can she call that love?!"
"You're not completely wrong." Sobar spoke up, causing Neptune to gawk at him in surprise. "It's something that's gnawed at me for centuries, how I took you as mine without your consent." He smirked and let out a soft snort. "We never even had a wedding, you know?"
Laharl coughed into his hand. "You know, as FASCINATING as all this lovey-dovey crap is, I think we're here for something else."
"Laharl is right." Histoire said with a nod. "It's about the payments of money and Shares that we've been making because of us needing to borrow your giant robot."
"...Wait, you've been paying with Shares too?" Flonne asked and Artina went stark white as Flonne gave her a confused look. "So all the Shares that Celestia's been getting..."
"Ah heh heh..." Artina gulped at the looks she was getting from the CPUs. "Well, if I didn't, they'd be paying for over two thousand years. Really, the Shares cut the price in half."
"Actually, about that," Nepgear spoke up, "just what kind of power supply do you use for your robot?" She sat up more straight as she pulled out the contract. "Because if the costs on this are right, you're either powering it with gasoline or the whole thing is held together by bubblegum and paperclips."
"Huh?" Flonne blinked as she took the contract and looked it over. "...Artina, these prices are way too high."
"T-that's the current contract!" Artina pointed out as she could feel animosity coming her way. "It's all because a certain someone!" She glared at Neptune, "decided to act like a queen bitch and start snapping at me the moment I showed up to collect my payment."
"Oh, like you gave her any reason to act any other way." Blanc glowered at Artina. "You made us pay interest on the back payments when we were brainwashed, you stupid bitch!"
"Hey! You think I'm not going to collect what I'm owed when you owe me stuff?!" Artina shot back.
Before anyone else could start yelling, a high-pitched whistling sound was heard that had everyone covering their ears.
"Thank you, Uni." Nepgear smiled at her friend as Uni pulled her pinky fingers out of her mouth.
"I got plenty of practice with you." Uni muttered softly as she relaxed.
"Um," Nepgear smiled nervously as everyone looked at her and she poked her fingers together. "Well, in regards to that situation, are you talking about what happened two hundred years ago?" Artina nodded, "well, um, in that case, you should know that a really bad event happened back then."
"Those damn cultists." Blanc grumbled, much to Artina, Flonne and Laharl's confusion. "Fine, you want to know what happened? Those damn cultists managed to bring the dinosaurs back to life, undid the seal on Ouya and Stadia's HDD and somehow made it so we couldn't reseal them, on top of that they managed to use their damn technology and magic to hit all of us with something that really fucked with our heads. It took us decades to even get a resemblance of normalcy back."
"I..." Artina looked at the CPUs in shock. "...I had no clue."
"You could have just asked us what was wrong." Noire told her and reached up to remove her eye-patch. "I lost this eye and had to have it replaced."
"I chopped my hair off." Vert told them and looked at Blanc.
"I got sloshed on soda for a few decades." Blanc told them, looking uncomfortable. "It wasn't as bad as it was when we were first freed from the brainwashing, okay? I was just more irritable and constantly drinking a glass or two a day."
"...And I sealed away Plutie and P-Ko into their human forms and gave my wedding ring back to Sobar." Neptune said softly.
"That said," Nepgear gave her sister a stern look, "you didn't make things easier on yourself, Neptune." Neptune gave her a shocked look. "You really hurt yourself, Miss Plutia and you should apologize to Miss Artina over how you acted."
"But..." Neptune began but caught Uni shaking her head. "...What?"
"I had someone help me with my problems too." Nepgear smiled at her. "And I know that I did a lot of things that made things harder for everyone around me while you were away, sis. One thing I had to learn was to apologize for being a brat."
Uni sighed and shook her head in exasperation.
"And, well, sis, you need to apologize." Nepgear gave Neptune a pointed look. "If you had just apologized, I bet Miss Artina would have at least been more willing to talk instead of jumping straight to a fight."
"They're the ones who jumped me and started the fight!" Artina protested. "I didn't even know what was going on and they decided to attack me!"
Vert sighed. "It's hard to blame us, Artina, none of us have good experiences with each other. But I'll apologize over the misunderstanding, but I'm not going to apologize for kicking the crap out of those Angels."
"Don't worry." Flonne smiled at the CPUs. "They've all been punished, except for the one that Miss Plutia tormented, that one needs a psychologist."
"Hmph!" Plutia huffed and crossed her arms. "I went easy on her too."
"Well, Miss Flonne..." Nepgear smiled at the blonde Angel, "can you summon your giant robot here? I wanna take a look at it and see if I can make it work better."
"And what would you know about giant robots?" Artina asked.
"She turned four Basilicoms into an incomplete giant robot and in the span of a few hours had worker robots made in her image turn a warship of an opponent of ours into the final piece so that it could combine with the four Basilicoms and take on a thirty meter tall Dark CPU." Uni pointed out.
The next thing anyone knew, Flonne was in front of Nepgear, her eyes sparkling. "Really?! You build giant robots too?! Aren't they so exciting?!"
Nepgear nodded. "Yeah. I was building one to rip a hole in space and time, come to this world and get my sister back at any cost."
Flonne squealed and grabbed Nepgear's hand and ran out of the room. "Come on! I'll show you the Great Flonzor Z!"
Everyone just stared and blinked a few times.
"HEY!" Laharl got up and ran after them. "She should work on the Laharl Kaiser V first!"
"Well..." Noire chuckled, "I'm not sure what I expected, but that wasn't it." She tilted her head as Uni sighed and got up, walking out after Laharl, Flonne and Nepgear.
"I gotta see this!" The larger Neptune bolted to her feet, grabbing Uzume and running out of the room after the others.
"...Was it really that bad?" Artina asked, her voice soft as she looked at Neptune. "...Did those cultists do that stuff?"
"Yeah, they did." Neptune said as she stood up. "Go to Leanbox, there's a Dinosaur sanctuary there if you want proof." She turned and walked out of the room with the other CPUs following after her, leaving just Histoire, Rom, Ram, Sobar and Artina in the room.
"Don't worry," Sobar said as he stood up, "I'm sure that they have a lot to think about, but there is a lot of bad blood between you and them."
"...Do you love her?" Artina asked him as she stood up and gave him a curious look. "After how you started?"
Sobar sighed heavily and nodded. "I do. I was a stupid fifteen year old kid who had grown up being fed propaganda about how the Mole People should be ruling the surface and that CPUs were just our slaves, to be controlled by us." A troubled look came to his face and he shook his head, sighing again. "There isn't a day that I don't hate what I did to her."
Histoire looked at Artina as Sobar walked off. "One thing about life, we all have regrets. I'm not completely on board with Sobar and Neptune's relationship, myself, but I know that he won't hurt her anymore. I'm not sure if it makes it better or not."
The twins and Histoire all left the room, leaving Artina alone.
"...Am I wrong?" Artina asked herself, knowing she wasn't going to get an answer.
Well, that was heavy.