Chapter 3: First-Time Gamer

The next day, as the sun rose, it's light shining through the windows, Neptune's eyes slowly opened up. For the first time in years, she had slept in her old bed, after she and Uzume set it up and reorganized the furniture.

As she tried to get up, she looked towards her little sister's bed, smiling, before realizing it was empty. At first, she thought that little Nep was already up, but then as she continued to move, she noticed something was holding her down. Looking down, Neptune found a small head of purple nestled against her chest, and below that, two tiny hands clutching her waist.

"Awe, aren't you adorable," Neptune said quietly, trying not to wake her, "trying to get on my good side, eh? Sleeping right next to me. You're so cute," she finished, ruffling her hair.

Before Neptune could go back to sleep, there was a knock on the door. "Girls, it's time to up!" The door then slowly opened, as Merci peered inside. "Girls- Oh..." Merci gave a small laugh at what she saw. "Oh, isn't that cute. I wish I had my camera."

Neptune smiled and gave Merci a peace sign, then patted her little sister. "Hey, little sis. Time to get up."

At first, there was no movement from the sleeping girl, but as Neptune tried to get up, she began to open her eyes. "Big sis..."

"Morning, Nep Jr. Rise and shine!"

Nepgear yawned as she began to roll out of bed (by actually rolling off). As she stood up, her big sis followed, sitting up, and slowly swinging her legs off the bed.

"Uzume and Umio are already up," their mother told them. "I'm preparing breakfast right now. So please get ready."

"'Kay," Neptune replied, as tiny Nepgear stood up and rushed for the door, yelling, "FOOD!"

"Wait, it's not ready yet, sweetie!" Merci called to her, but she had already made her way to the kitchen.

"I guess she's excited," Neptune said.

They made their way after Nepgear, and after a while, they, along with Uzume and Umio, were eating omelets.

"So, today I want to go to the market to get some more food," Merci says. "If there's going to be so many guests here, there's going to need to be plenty of it. So, I'm wondering if there is anything you want me to get. I know that Neptune wanted pudding."

"Oh, you know it," she replied with excitement, "I LOVE pudding!"

"Pudding?" Nepgear asked curiously. "What's that?"

"Oh, it's only one of the best things in the whole wide world! Even more than bugs!"

Nepgear seemed taken aback by the bug part, but she seemed really fascinated by this "pudding".

"Well, then I'll be sure to get plenty of it, then," Merci said. "Anything else?"

"I'm not sure, but I will say I'm not a fan of fish," Umio told her.

"I can see why..." Merci got up. "Well, if there is nothing else."

"Well, perhaps I could come with you, if nothing else, to at least help you find things these two might like," Umio added.

"Oh, well..." Merci wasn't sure about going grocery shopping with a strange, flying fish, but then again, he seemed to be good company, and his help could be useful. "Alright. Girls, can you take care of Nepgear?"

"Yes, of course," Neptune said. "More time to get to know my little sister."

"Yeah," Uzume replied. "Wanna chill out with us today?" she then asked the little Nepgear.

"Yeah!" Nepgear exclaimed, happily jumping up and down.

Merci grabbed her purse and approached them. "Well then, we should probably go."

"Of course," Umio said. And the two left, leaving Neptune and Uzume to watch Nepgear.

A short while later, Nepgear was in her room playing with her toys, which were colorful gear toys that could be put together in various ways. A good toy for someone who'd likes taking things apart and putting them together, such as little Nepgear.

Right then, Neptune and Uzume came back from the storage room. Both of them were carrying stuff, which caught Nepgear's attention.

"Hey, thanks for helping with this," Neptune said.

"Yeah, I mean, what's a household in Gamindustri without video games," Uzume said, holding the largest of the items, which to Nepgear was just a big box with glass on the front. "By the way, this is a really old school TV you have here."

"Well, you know." Neptune was holding a small box thingy, with some tinier, flat boxes, and some weird looking remotes with long rubber strings attached.

"What's that!?" Nepgear questioned, her curiosity taking over.

"Oh, this?" Neptune replied. "This is my old game console! I'm surprised that mom hasn't shown you this yet," she continued, oblivious to the fact Merci had almost mentioned that she needed to put it away yesterday, probably for good reason.

Nepgear, however, was simply amazed.

Uzume set down the TV in an open corner of the room, and she and Neptune began setting up the old console. Nepgear watched as wires were plugged into different things, and with a click, the big box's screen lit up.

"Woah…" Nepgear said in amazement.

"Yep, pretty cool, huh," Neptune told her. "Doesn't mom show you any movies or shows?"

"On her tablet thingy... I have to watch with her."

"That's fair. But you're being deprived of the world's number one past time," Uzume commented.

"Yeah, hey, do you want to play with me?" Neptune asked.

Nepgear eagerly nodded yes. Neptune smiled, and picked up a cartridge of something she thought her little sister might enjoy. Showing it to said girl, she found a picture with two cartoon animals on it, with a big 2 behind it. "Ooh..."

Neptune proudly inserted the cartridge into the console, flipped the switch on, and colorful moving images started appearing on the screen. While Nepgear stared in awe, Neptune handed her the controller.

Neptune started playing, going slowly as she tried to explain the controls to Nepgear, and let her keep up. Though Nepgear's character barely moved. Neptune was wondering if she was having a hard time figuring it out, when Uzume spoke out in her high-pitched voice.

"Ah, Lil' Gearsy's going all takey-aparty on the controller!"

Takey-aparty? What...? Neptune thought, as she looked over... to find Nepgear, rather than trying to play, had her screwdriver out and was trying to take apart the controller.

"Ah, ah, hey, little sis!" Neptune exclaimed, pausing the game. "That's not what you're supposed to do with that."

Nepgear looked and pouted, as Neptune grabbed the screwdriver, put it to the side, and helped put the controller in the right position in the little girl's hands (while Uzume cleared her throat).

"Okay, let me show what the buttons do," Neptune said. "These ones move your character." She helped Nepgear push down on the control pad, and she showed her how the character on the screen moved in response. "And this button makes him jump!" And with a push of a button, the character jumped.

Simply said, Nepgear was fascinated by this.

Neptune finished showing her little sister the simple controls, and started the game up again.

Things went well for a minute or two, before Nepgear's character stopped again. Looking over, Neptune found exactly what she wasn't hoping to find.

Nepgear was messing with the controller again. This time, she was poking her screwdriver (which she had again grabbed) at the buttons.

Neptune looked back at Uzume, and she just shrugged in response. The eldest Nep-sister sighed, and looked to her sibling. Yesterday, Neptune's mom just took the thing Nepgear was messing from her, but that made her upset. She didn't want that, she wanted Nepgear to be happy. Still...?

"Hey, Nepgear?" Neptune asked. Nepgear looked over, and her sister continued, "you know, these controllers are meant for playing with, not taking apart, right?"

"But... but... I want to. I want to know how they work," her sister replied.

"Yeah, but... then it won't work if you do that, right?"

"Hm... yeah... but then mommy makes them work again!"

"Sure she does, but that's not easy. And I'd like for them to work... right now. So could you hold off, for your big sis?" Neptune pleaded.

Nepgear seemed sad for a moment, but she said, "...Okay..."

Neptune smiled as they started playing again. Nepgear (as expected for a little kid) didn't play well, but that's why Neptune had her play the second character.

As Nepgear played, she tried to suppress the urge to mess with the controller again, for the sake of her sister. But she really wanted to know how the controller worked, and it started to bug her.

Eventually, Nepgear started shaking it, trying to hear the stuff inside, and started to go a little crazy with it.

"Woah, ok," Uzume spoke up, "I think that maybe the Lil' Gearsy should watch."

Looking at Nepgear, and seeing her shaking the device, Neptune reluctantly agreed. Nepgear probably was still too young to understand how these things were supposed to be used.

Uzume took over for Nepgear, and the little girl sat back behind the two older girls. She really wanted to take apart all of this stuff, but for now, she just watched as Neptune skillfully played through her game, with Uzume providing support play.

A short while later, Merci and Umio returned, the former carrying several bags of groceries. "We're back!" Umio called out.

Nepgear immediately got up and left the room, running over to see her mother. Neptune and Uzume looked over, then paused their game to follow.

"So, did you enjoy your time with your big sister?" Merci asked the excited Nepgear.

"Yeah. They showed me this... this..." she tried to explain.

"We showed her Nepsy's old game console," Uzume explained for her.

"Yeah, that!"

Merci looked at the two older girls with a sly expression. "So... how many times did she try to take the whole thing apart?"

"Uh..." Neptune sounded.

"Well..." Uzume said.

"We... tried showing her how to play..."

"But we had to make her watch..."

"Yep, that's what I expected," Merci said.

Nepgear really didn't understand what the problem was, but she still looked away shamefully.

Merci knelt down and told her youngest daughter, "Nepgear, please, your sister just wants to connect with you, but she doesn't like technology the same way you do. She doesn't want to know how they work, she just wants to use them. So, if she wants to play with you, can you promise to do that, and not take apart her toys?"

Nepgear nodded, saying, "I promise."

"So..." Neptune said, grabbing everyone's attention, "did you get the pudding!?"

Merci sighed, and handed her a bag full of them. "Here you go."

"Yes!" Neptune said, and turned to Nepgear. "Have you ever had pudding?"

Nepgear shook her head.

"Oh, you haven't experienced true bliss until you've had pudding!" Neptune grabbed some spoons, and then gave a pudding to Nepgear. "Come on! Try it!"

Nepgear took the pudding and a spoon and gingerly opened it up. As she spooned some of the custard substance and took a bite, her eyes went wide as she had just had a brand new, amazing experience in sweet treats.

"So, is it good?" Umio asked.

"Yes, mister fishy!" Nepgear replied. "It's so good!" Then she excited began chomping down on more pudding.

"Come everyone, pudding all around!" Neptune exclaimed, passing around puddings and spoons. Uzume eagerly accepted, while Merci just chuckled a bit and joined in to have pudding with her daughters, and Umio simply accepted politely.

And with that, everyone had a good time with a short pudding party. And enjoyed a new treat with her big sister.

Author's Note, Jacob: So, I had a lot of trouble getting to work on this with Savannah, so I ended up writing the second half by myself, but I did ask her to give some of the events for me to write (the stage of Nepgear trying to mess with the controller).

Another game reference! If you couldn't figure it out by the minimalistic descriptions, it's Sonic the Hedgehog 2 they were playing. Not my favorite of the classics, I prefer Sonic 3 and Knuckles (and I can't beat the Sonic 2 special stages, the only special stages I have never fully completed), but I know this is the fan-favorite, so I gave it the reference treatment.

So, when we started this, we thought that this idea had never been done before. But when reading other HDN fanfics in my free time, I found two. The first I found... it was just a subplot in a story that had about four or five story threads going on at the same time. It wasn't even the most important part of the story. And that story was the second of a series, and also mentioned to be canceled and in the process of being rewritten, so, you know.

The second I found... was five years old, and it only had one chapter, and was not complete. At this point, it's safe to assume it's an abandoned project. Which is a shame, because I liked the idea. Just because it's the same concept, doesn't mean it's the same story, and I liked where that story was going, but nothing is probably going to come of it. Shame.

It's probably not a big deal, but I'm the kind of person to give credit where credit is due. So, here are the names of the stories here on this site:
- "Second Chance Sister 2: New Story" by decode9
(Maybe read the first story if you're going to read this, so you're not confused, which is named "Second Chance Sister"
- "Hyperdimension Neptunia the fanfic" by Fu-reiji22

Oh, and I was the one who came up with "takey-aparty". You're welcome.

Author's Note, Savannah: Since my schedule was being dumb, and I was tired a lot (thanks to my time with Farming Simulator 19), I couldn't do a lot with Jacob as far as the story goes. We figured it would be best to schedule it for Fridays and Saturdays 7:00 p.m. - 9:30 p.m., so that's our plan (barring any emergency situations or unforeseen circumstances).

And in reference to when Nepgear hugs her big sister, I imagined her looking like a purple cheerleader with pom-poms in tiny hands.

Hopefully, we'll get our c*** together next time (and, when I say "we", I mean "I").