The Misadventures of Hyperdimension Peashy

Episode 5

By Derald Snyder

To say that Adrian felt like the odd man out was an understatement. With emphasis on the 'man' part. Still, it was nice of Vert to allow him to tag along with Peashy for a CPU get-together in Lastation, where they told scary stories around a campfire.

...though Noire's story-telling skills left something to be desired.

"And then, and then," the Lastation CPU hyperventilated, "the lady felt a hand on her shoulder, and she turned, and THERE WAS THE GHOST! AIEEEEE!" She finished, throwing her hands in the air.

Crickets chirped.

"...oh, come on!" Noire protested. "Wasn't that even a little bit scary?"

"Not really," Adrian spoke up.

"Yeeeeaah, you get *way* too excited when you're trying to tell a story, Noire..." Neptune muttered.

"The story might have been scary, but your delivery was horrible," Vert supplied.

"For once, I agree with Thunder Tits," Blanc agreed. "You might have done better reading it out of a storybook."

"Yeah, that sucked," said Ram, sitting on Blanc's right side, while Rom sat on the left.

"Reading it out of a storybook? Like you're one to talk, Miss 'I-can't-write-a-bestseller-to-save-my-life'!" Noire retorted.

"What was that, bitch?!" The Lowee CPU growled, one eye glowing red.

"Whoa whoa whoa!" Peach jumped in between them. "We're here to tell stories, not restart the Console Wars! Both of you, lay off!"

"Please, Noire! I don't want to fight with Nepgear here!" Uni pleaded.

Noire simply 'hmph'ed and turned away. "Fine, whatever..."

"You think you can tell me what do to just because you're more 'mature' than me?" Blanc hissed at Peach.

"That's not it at all!" Peach insisted, flushing as she crossed her arms over her breasts. "In fact, I'll go on record saying that I hate these oversized things!"

"You do?!" Vert gasped in surprise.

The former soldier turned to her goddess. "With all due respect, Lady Vert... You were born a CPU, so you probably never had to suffer through high school like I did! You have no idea how many horny teenagers I had to pound into mashed potato because they couldn't keep their hands to themselves!" She then turned back to Blanc. "Believe me, Lady Blanc, having these grabbed by a pervert is one of the worst things in the world! Be thankful you don't have to suffer my curse!"

"...I honestly wouldn't mind," the flat-chested goddess responded after a moment.

"Every day? Over and over again?" Peach pressed.

"...Well, that's where my hammer would come in."

"SILENCE!" a voice boomed from the darkness.

"What the goodness?!" screamed Nepgear.

"Waaaahh!" Rom cried out, grabbing her sister's leg. "Wh-who said that?!"

"I DID," the voice answered. In the darkness beyond the campfire's light, something suddenly flashed on, revealing a disembodied face!

"AAAAAHH! A ghost!" Uni screamed as she dove behind her sister. "D-don't let it get me, Noire!"

"Ugh, Uni, it's just Neptune with a flashlight under her chin," Noire sighed.

"I-I knew that!" Ram said, though her voice wavered slightly. "Y-you didn't fool me for a second!"

"I-it scared me..." Rom squeaked, still holding tightly to Blanc.

"Pretty sure you both screamed," muttered Neptune as she shut the flashlight off and walked back into view. "Anyway, now that we've re-established the atmosphere... I've got a story to tell!"

"*You* have a scary story?" Noire scoffed. "This oughta be good..."

"Well, it can't be any worse than what we've heard so far..." Vert said with a shrug.

"Just try not to overload it with meta dialogue and cheesy memes, Lady Neptune," Adrian advised.

"Yeah, what he said," Peashy agreed.

Neptune just sighed. "Look, I know you two are from Leanbox, but have a little faith in me here, OK?" She then cleared her throat. "Now then, ladies..."

"-Ahem!"

"-and gentleman..."

"Thank you," Adrian nodded.

"The story you are about to hear... is true."

"Oh no..." moaned Nepgear. "This isn't about my robot project going berserk, is it?"

"Now *that* was scary," Uni groaned. "I was there, after all..."

"Um, no," the purple-haired goddess sighed. "C'mon guys, stop ruining the atmosphere..."

"Yes, pipe down everyone," Vert insisted. "Let's at least give Neptune a chance..."

"Thanks, Vert. Anyway..." Neptune began. "This is a story about a lovely little girl, who was cute as a button, very friendly, loved dolls, and also liked to go on picnics."

"I know what you're all thinking, 'not so scary', right? But this sweet girl had a hidden darkness inside her... a darkness that was just waiting for its chance to escape. A darkness that would strike fear in everyone across Gamindustri!"

"One day, the sweet little girl went on a picnic by the river, with a friend of hers promising to join her later. She set down the basket and laid out the blanket... and that's when she saw it... a strange crystal that had spawned out of some strange flower of sorts. Curiously, the girl picked up the crystal, and after examining it from all sides, decided it must be some sort of candy, and ate it."

"Dummy," Ram muttered under her breath, before being shushed by Blanc.

"But that was just the chance the darkness in her heart had been waiting for, for this crystal was actually a source of great power! Using this power, the darkness took control... her body began to transform! She grew taller... her hair unbraided and flowed free... her legs became long and toned, before being encased in long black boots with high heels! Her bust size grew to extremely sexy proportions! Her clothes vanished and were replaced by a skimpy corset, cut to show off her belly, long black gloves with dark pink gauntlets, and and a black choker around her neck!"

"When the transformation was complete, the sweet little girl was gone, replaced by an evil, sadistic, dominatrix CPU!"

"Eeeeeeek!" Peach squealed as she wrapped her arms around Adrian in fright.

"A dominatrix CPU?! OK, *that's* scary..." Adrian shuddered. "And Peashy, you're squishing me...!"

"O-oh, sorry," the blonde apologized as she loosened up a little.

"Oh, hell, I know who's she's taking about..." Blanc muttered.

"So do we!" cried Ram as she and Rom held tightly to each other.

"And it's *still* scary!" Rom agreed.

"But the story doesn't end there!" Neptune exclaimed as she continued her tale. "After the transformation was complete, a fairy materialized and congratulated the woman on becoming a CPU... only for said woman to bring out a riding crop and subject said fairy to cruel, painful torture!"

"Oh goodness!" squeaked Nepgear. "The poor thing...!"

"And then, the sweet girl's friend finally arrived to join the picnic. But when she saw what had become of her friend, she tried to run away, only to be caught by the evil CPU's whip, and suffer a similar fate as the fairy!"

"Oh no...!" cried Uni. "Poor Noire..."

"W-wait, what?!" Noire spoke up. "*I'm* the one that was tortured?! What the heck? What did I do to deserve this, Neptune?!"

"You were just in the wrong place at the wrong time," Neptune sighed. "And so, the woman's reign of terror began... subjugating man and woman alike throughout the land, founding her own nation, one where subjects served not out of faith, but out of fear! Occasionally, she would revert back to the sweet little girl she was before, but anybody who knew her knew better than to try to push her too far, lest the darkness in her heart take over again!"

"Her friend eventually tried to rectify the situation by becoming a CPU herself, in order to have the power to stand up to the evil dominatrix... though she managed to succeed, and recruit another CPU to help her, their combined powers still weren't enough! Case in point, when said friend was complained too much about how Lowee was screwing her over, the dominatrix 'disciplined' her for over two hours!"

"T-two hours?!" Adrian gasped.

"And when she was done, her friend was like this..." Neptune's eyes shrunk to white circles, and she began to walk around haltingly, robotically... "I AM GOING DIRECTLY TO LOWEE... I AM GOING... THEY WILL HEAR ME COMPLAIN DIRECTLY. IN LOWEE. I AM GOING TO COMPLAIN DIRECTLY... GOING AND GOING AND GOING AND GOING AND GOING AND..."

"Sh-she did *that* to me?!" Noire gasped, sweating a little. "Please tell me you're exaggerating..."

"I AM NOT... EXGGERATING..." Neptune intoned, as she marched over to where Noire and Uni were sitting. "I AM TELLING THE TRUTH... YOU WENT DIRECTLY TO LOWEE... TO COMPLAIN DIRECTLY..."

"Alright, we get the idea," Blanc sighed in exasperation. "I almost feel sorry for that other Noire... almost."

"Almost?!" Noire protested. "Ha! I wonder what happened to *you* once that other me 'complained directly' to your face!"

"I don't wanna know!" Peashy shivered in terror, hugging Adrian tightly.

"Um, Peashy, your boyfriend can't breathe..." Nepgear pointed out, indicating Adrian's blue face.

"Huh...? Oh no!" Peach gasped as she let go, the soldier sliding bonelessly to the ground. "I-I am so sorry, Adrian!"

"AIR!" Adrian gasped, his face rapidly regaining its color. "Sweet air..."

"It's OK, Big Peashy," Neptune reassured her. "All that stuff went down in another dimension, so you *should* be safe... But beware!" her tone of voice suddenly changed. "If you ever get sucked into some random portal like I do, you better watch your back... and hope you never cross paths with the horror known as... IRIS HEART."

The twins from Lowee squeaked with fright as they cowered behind Blanc, Uni doing the same thing with her sister, while Nepgear seemed to have closed the distance between her and Vert a fair amount.

"U-umm... I-I'll do that," Peach nodded vigorously. "OK, I think I-I've had enough s-scary stories f-for one n-night..."

"Yeah, I think the kids have had enough too..." Blanc sighed as she looked behind her.

"I-I'm not scared!" Ram cried defiantly. "I-I'm just t-trying to comfort p-poor Rom!"

"Uni, quit hiding behind me already," Noire groaned as she stood up. "I mean, sure, Neptune's delivery might've been better than mine, but I've heard way scarier stories than that..."

"Suuuuure," Neptune teased as she got in her fellow CPU's face. "Then why didn't you tell any of *those* stories at the campfire, huh?"

"B-because I don't want Uni to have nightmares!" Noire retorted, flushing slightly. "Or Rom and Ram, for that matter!"

"Dummy!" Ram yelled back. "I don't *get* nightmares!"

"I wouldn't be so sure about that..." muttered Blanc as she got to her feet. "Still, I guess Ms. 'I-don't-like-my-big-tits' has a point... We should probably all turn in for the night."

"Agreed," Vert nodded. "I wanted to check on my 4GO account anyway..."

"If you're gonna get on your MMO, keep the volume down!" Noire warned. "It was hard enough getting to sleep with you doing virtual raids the last time! You probably know where I'm coming from, don't you, Peach?"

Peach just shrugged in response. "Actually, Lady Vert's MMO playing is nothing compared to a sudden midnight bombing practice run at the army base..."

"I second that opinion," her boyfriend sighed as he poured water over the campfire. "Anyway, since I'm the only man here, where am I gonna be sleeping?"

"I thought you'd just sleep with your girlfriend," the Lastation CPU shrugged.

"Just try not to make too much noise, 'K?" Neptune winked.

"W-wh-wha-" Both Peach and Adrian blushed crimson. "W-we haven't g-gotten *that* far with our relationship y-yet!" the busty blonde protested.

"Y-yeah," Adrian concurred, "W-we were gonna wait 'til we actually tied the knot before we do... that...!"

"What are they talking about, big sis?" Ram asked Blanc.

"I wanna know, too..." said Rom.

"N-none of your business!" Blanc denied them, blushing a bit herself. "C'mon, let's get you two to bed..."

With that, the group retired for the night...

*Episode 5- End*