"Forgive me for not understanding, but how exactly are you planning on dealing with this problem?" Financier's expression was curious, doubting even as Blanc charted herself a flight plan in her head.
"I thought the other CPUs had figured this out a long time ago and were just being coy, but it seems I was wrong," Blanc continued without pause. "It should have been blatantly obvious that this is another attempt to discredit us from a disgruntled anti-CPU group. None of the monsters found have been anything but the monsters that normally appear in those areas, otherwise that would have been included in the reports. If monster populations were naturally proliferating at that pace, it would have caused other permutations in the environment as well, but nothing of the sort has happened. Therefore the monsters are being created and manipulated by some group, likely so they can engender a crisis at will and direct our attention away from whatever their true goal is. Only someone with a bone to pick with CPUs would do this sort of thing to all four nations at once. There's records of this happening all the way back to the first CPUs. With this being the case, there's only a small handful of places they can reasonably operate from while maintaining convenient access to all the nations. Simple."
It was anything but simple, but Financier had no intention of conveying her lack of understanding. There was a time and place for questioning her boss, and it wasn't when she was boasting without trying to sound like she was boasting. When her advice was warranted or at least had a chance to be heeded she would provide it. The chamberlain bowed. "As you say, then. When should I expect you back?"
"I'll make it in time for dinner, and if I don't we'll have bigger problems to worry about. Tell Rom and Ram I'm still out on business and don't let them wander off until I return." This would have been a fantastic plan had Rom and Ram not wandered into Blanc's field of vision just as she was about to leave through the front entrance.
Two young girls in matching pink and blue winter outfits both froze when they made eye contact with Blanc. Aside from choosing to wear blue, only Rom's shorter hair that matched Blanc's sandy-brown locks made her discernable from the longer-haired Ram until they opened their mouths to reveal their disparate personalities. "Blanc! You're back!" Ram cried out, charging forward to hug her older sister. "How'd the meeting go? Did you get in another fight?"
"Welcome back," Rom greeted with a hug of her own, more reserved than her twin sister but no less affectionate.
Blanc accepted the hug from her sisters briefly, though her mind remained on the mission ahead of her. "Hey, you two. Nothing interesting happened, but I have to go out again to take care of some business that just came up. Try not to destroy anything until I get back, okay?"
"Aw, but you promised you'd play with us this afternoon!" Ram complained. "Rom wouldn't shut up about it all morning!"
Rom blushed and looked away when Blanc turned her gaze to the older twin questioningly. "It was going to be fun," she admitted quietly.
There was a vague memory in Blanc's mind about a promise that may or may not have sounded something like an agreement to play with her younger sisters. In retrospect, it was an ill-thought-out ploy to get them off her back so she could squeeze some work in before her conference meeting, but there wasn't anything she could do about the past. "After dinner for sure then," Blanc conceded, already lamenting the death of her sleep schedule. "If this job couldn't wait then I'd have definitely made good on my word. Is that fair enough for you?"
Rom continued to pout without looking like she was trying to pout, an odd trait that Blanc couldn't fathom the source of. Ram was much more vocal about her displeasure. "Come on, Blanc, that's like the thirty-third time this week that you've said you're gonna play with us and then run off. We can do CPU work too, you know. Why won't you let us help you?"
At this suggestion, Rom perked up considerably. "Can we? I've been working really hard on my magic, Blanc!"
Blanc shook her head firmly. "Absolutely not. Even if you did go, it's just busy work. There'd be nothing for you to do. I don't go out monster hunting for fun like C-sha."
"At least C-sha bothers to bring us sometimes," Ram grumbled.
"She WHAT?!" Blanc snapped, her rage spiking. "I'm going to actually kill her one of these days. You two stay here. You're grounded until I figure out what to do about this."
Both girls started to whine, but a steely look from Blanc silenced them. Though she'd never hurt her sisters, all parties forgot that when she got riled up. "I heard you've been messing up my books again too. If I wasn't busy this chat would be a lot damn longer. Now stay put and behave until I get back."
Rom and Ram exchanged a disappointed glance. "Yes, Blanc," they responded in unison before sulking away.
Financier, who had watched the entire exchange quietly, started off in the direction the CPU candidates had left. "I will watch over them while you're gone," she reassured the CPU. "Please do not worry about anything here."
"I'll hold you to that," Blanc warned gruffly, still not over the behavior of her younger sisters.
Many people misunderstood the heroine, not the least important of whom being her sisters, born from the very sharecite that had deigned to give the three of them their power and control over the nation they loved so much. It wasn't her fault that she hadn't been taught how to handle children when the knowledge necessary for being a CPU was granted to her. It also wasn't her fault that the CPU candidates that had come from her sharecite happened to be far less mature than any other CPU candidate she knew of in recent memory, certainly not. The only issue she could lay at her own feet as her problem was the lack of maturity said CPU candidates had displayed nearly every day since being introduced to her. What could she possibly have done differently that would make them understand the importance of their role? Was her own nation playing some sort of sick joke on her? Even with the world on her shoulders, interacting with her younger sisters still left her tongue-tied more often than not. How to balance treating them like the children they are while still preparing them for the unforgiving role that awaited them? The only way to find the answers was to move forward, but to do that, she'd have to move backwards. No, wait, moving forward caused the heroine's hammer to only grow heavier with every seeming step she took. Every action inflicted irreparable damage on the heroine as she struggled to determine where the light at the end of her and Lowee's tunnel was.
"No, too depressing and inaccurate," White Heart denied as she flew across Lowee at record speed. "If you're gonna write something non-fiction, do it right. Like a documentary. Or a boxing match. Then you just gotta punch the paper until it crumples, the ref counts to ten, and you win a story. Yeah, because that's how that works, idiot."
As riveting a conversationalist as White Heart was for herself, she was grateful to arrive at her first destination, the snowfields C-sha and the others had originally been meant to travel to. Given how late she was to the original time the kill quest was supposed to take place, it was no surprise to her that she didn't find anyone as she approached the dungeon's entrance. Instead, all that was left was the corpses of some frozen skull and gold lizard monsters. While the corpses would disappear and return to the earth eventually, White Heart had been subjected to no end of complaints from tourists about the bodies left in the wake of hunter work. In the past this process had been instantaneous, but some world-altering event or other had permanently changed how monsters functioned, albeit not in a way that affected the people hunting the monsters. Personally, she thought those complaining were welcome to handle the problem themselves if it bothered them so much, but Financier had talked her into a more placating official response. The issue of other possible changes to monsters overall was a problem White Heart was hoping she wouldn't have to address. Fortunately, this policy would work in her favor today. White Heart knelt by the nearest corpse and began to investigate it, paying no mind to the disgusting scene in front of her in order to find what she was looking for. While all the items the enemies had dropped were long since looted, White Heart's target wasn't. Ripping a head from one of the fallen skeletons, she walked over to another one and compared the two. As she suspected, they were identical, right down to the hair follicles and marks on the bone. "So they are being manufactured somewhere. Obviously."
With this finding in mind, all White Heart had to do was follow her suppositions to their logical conclusion. Knowing that the rise in monsters was not natural had been obvious, but figuring out the method of reproduction made determining their source much easier. To her knowledge, there were three generally known ways to create monsters. One was simply creating them using magic, which required an extremely high-level mage and wasn't practical for attacking four nations at once. Another was turning people into monsters, which was unlikely given that there had been no spike in missing persons reports. The final option was using machines to generate monsters, which produced identical copies of a single monster blueprint and was by far the most common method employed when someone tried to destroy the world. None of Lowee's major dungeons had a simple access point connecting to the other nations, a precautionary measure that had evidently reduced the impact of this incursion on her land while also making it easier for her to determine the point of origin of her quarry. Though the detour was likely unnecessary, White Heart wanted to be as sure as possible before charging into what could be considered a lion's den. Thus, for the second time that day, White Heart made her way towards the Share Tower. The sun had sunk considerably low by the time she neared her destination, reminding her that she'd failed to eat lunch despite having the opportunity to do so. "All the more reason to get this job done and get home to Rom and Ram. Maybe I'll get lucky and the bad guys'll have snacks. Shit, I'm starting to sound like Neptune." Veering off from the Share Tower entrance, White Heart made her way towards the mountain which the tower had been built on.
The mountain, recently dubbed Share Mountain to the chagrin of Lastation's residents that had been calling it Westwind Summit for far more years than the Share Tower had existed, was an important mining hub for raw materials for all four nations. White Heart, however, was much more interested in the discontinued parts of the mines. Deciding to start with the largest tunnel she knew of first, White Heart flew up to a mine entrance that had been closed off some years ago due to the danger posed by the monsters inside. "In other words, the perfect place to release beasts and let them do what they do best inconspicuously."
As she approached the yawning entrance, her suspicions were further confirmed. The yellow tape that had been used to block the entrance had not only been broken but trampled on by dozens of prints. Some White Heart recognized, some she didn't, which inspired her to make a mental note to put out a hunting quest based on her findings when she got back. Increases in monster numbers were one thing, but the addition of new monsters would destabilize the already fragile ecosystem of Lowee if left unchecked for too long. For the moment, she hefted her glowing blue battle-axe, the weapon that replaced her hammer in CPU form, and started into the tunnel to eliminate her problem once and for all.
The cave was obnoxiously dark, only the natural light emitted by Blanc's CPU form keeping the area around her illuminated. Whatever infrastructure had been installed for mining purposes had long since been abandoned, meaning that the criminals were likely only using this as a pathway for the monsters. Prints guided her down the twists and turns of the labyrinth, but there was nothing anywhere near fresh. If she wanted to find them, she'd have to go deeper. The mystery only became more intriguing when White Heart travelled down far enough to reach a branching path that wasn't on her downloaded map of the mine. According to the map, the mineshaft was supposed to continue forward for a few hundred more meters before branching off, meaning that this was a new addition. Faint skittering noises from this new path confirmed that it wasn't nearly as uninhabited as the rest of the mine. Smirking to herself, White Heart slammed her axe into a nearby minecart, creating an insufferable clanging sound that reverberated down the tunnel. The noise instantly absorbed the smaller sounds that had come before it, replacing everything with silence as it faded away. Then, like a switch had been flipped, there was a cacophony of monster cries from the direction White Heart was staring. "About time someone treated me with some respect." The CPU grinned maniacally and charged into battle.
Some time later, White Heart panted heavily as she leaned against a cavern wall. None of the enemies she'd encountered had been particularly threatening, but they'd never given her a chance to rest, like she'd aggravated them somehow. Whether it was due to becoming used to fighting in a team or her own lack of training, White Heart found it enervating to maintain her pace as she fought her way deeper into the cave. "Stupid bastards," White Heart scoffed as she chopped a skeleton's head off. "You're lucky I don't sic my whole damn nation on you. Not that this is a much different outcome. Just thought I'd save a few lives. Not that you're the understanding types."
The monsters replied by continuing to charge forward and attack her relentlessly. Though she'd been fighting continuously, White Heart never felt her fatigue last long enough to cause her any problems. She might have questioned this abnormal recovery rate had her mind not been entirely concentrated on forward progress. If battles were a song, White Heart's playstyle was as loudly and quickly as possible. Enemies that didn't fall in one hit were overwhelmed by follow-up strikes before they had the chance to realize they were the next target. Any attacks that did get through often failed to so much as scratch what White Heart boasted was her impregnable body armor. Were it not for her stamina, she'd have been able to fight indefinitely. The battle continued until the tunnel opened up into a larger cavern. While this gave her room to maneuver, it also unfortunately meant that more monsters could attack her at once. Though she could see well enough in the darkness, not having an idea of where the walls were to be able to tell what angles she could be attacked from was a large disadvantage. This left her with two options: find a way to light the room up and slowly exterminate the remaining monsters or destroy everything around her blindly with one attack and call it a day. White Heart's peerless tactical mind chose the latter option. Hoisting her axe into the air, White Heart lost herself in the haze of combat and allowed her body to act for her. She spun around several times, feeling the weight of bodies colliding with her axe and disappearing as they were cleaved through or flung aside. Finally, she slammed the axe on the ground where an unfortunate monster happened to be standing with a sickening crunch, flinging rocks and icicles generated from the strike in all directions. "Critical hit," White Heart declared as the sound of monster activity around her died all at once.
It wasn't the safest move to use in a cave, but if she spent all her energy fighting the small fry, she'd have nothing left when the big fish showed up. Feeling around, White Heart found the nearest cavern wall and spent a bit more of her mana to increase the radius of her aura. Lights lined the cavern wall, looking much more recent than the ones she'd seen on the way in. Following the wires along the wall led her to a light switch that revealed the rest of the room to the CPU. The cavern was far more spacious than she'd initially anticipated, the destruction from her assault only covering about a quarter of the area. Said destruction was offset by the homey feel of the rest of the space; various armchairs, bookshelves, and a small kitchen took up the rest of the cavern. She could see discarded plastic bottles and both Lowee and Lastation-made handheld gaming consoles on a table, an oddly cozy sight given that the room had been overrun with monsters a moment ago. The massive crater painted with frozen monster guts also had what looked suspiciously like the remains of a television buried within it now that White Heart was able to see it. What truly captured White Heart's attention, however, was the large machine that took up most of the back wall of the space. It sputtered and coughed as White Heart approached, as if it was trying to greet her but had forgotten how to speak. Based on her once-over, it appeared to be generating data for what was certainly monsters native to Lowee. The CPUs had encountered similar machines with murky origins at best in the past, but White Heart had presumed that they'd all been eliminated long ago. More signs of real human life in the form of food wrappers and angry sticky notes were strewn about near the console input for the machine. As White Heart stepped forward to inspect the device further, the sound of a distinct set of footsteps from deeper in the cavern drew her attention. "It's just the monsters being loud, I'm telling you. So anyways, I was saying to her -ah, shit." Two men in grey Share Tower uniforms appeared from the other entrance to the cave that had previously been barred by an iron door, wielding nothing but flashlights and apprehensive expressions. "Uh, Lady White Heart, what are you doing here? This mine is sealed off, you know."
"You're right," White Heart agreed, summoning her axe into her hands once more. "Which begs the question of what the hell you two think you're doing down here summoning monsters into my territory."
"Well, you see, the funny thing about that is- BLOW THE PLACE AND RUN JIM!" The second man ordered, both men turning on their heels and booking it in the direction they'd come from.
This brilliant plan was countered by White Heart flying over their heads and cordoning off their escape route. "Come on, don't leave yet. We haven't even gotten started. I've got a lot of questions for you two. First of all, where'd you get that machine from? Who are you working for? Don't think I'll let you off easy. This stupid thing is threatening the lives of my citizens. It's unforgivable."
"Actually, I'm from Lowee, so-" A growl from White Heart shut Jim up.
At this point White Heart had expected to see some sort of fear set into the eyes of the people she was cornering. While an iota of her conscious didn't mind exercising her authority this way when it was appropriate, the majority of her was actually rather self-conscious about the carnage left behind when she lost control. Instead of fear for the goddess that had just smashed a literal hole into their plans, however, the only thing that White Heart saw in their eyes was determination, fervor for a cause she didn't understand. "If that's how it's going to be, then you can go to hell with us!" the second man cried, pulling out a remote and pressing a button on it.
For an instant nothing happened and White Heart was about to comment on the quality of the duo's comedy routine before the sound of an explosion resounded above them. All three looked up to see the ceiling explode, portions of the roof caving in from above. There wasn't anywhere she could dodge without abandoning her chance to capture the two men in front of her alive. This left her with no choice but to protect them, as much as it irritated her. Just as she was about to do that, however, a cry from behind her stole all her attention. "Blanc, NO!" Rom yelled out, the CPU candidate tackling her sister from behind.
As she did, a wall of ice appeared above the heads of both girls, blocking the falling boulders and stalactites from landing on them. Ram stood a meter behind the duo, concentrating on creating the barrier that was preventing them from being destroyed. Amidst the chaos, White Heart noticed a pink and purple form falling from somewhere among the rubble, but she paid it no heed for the moment. Instead, she pulled Rom and Ram close to herself defensively in case the ice wall failed to hold off the boulders. Jim and his companion disappeared behind a wall of ice and rock, though White Heart couldn't tell if they'd been crushed or not. By the time the rumbling stopped, the ice shield Ram had created only had a few hairline fractures in it.
There was a certain pride to be found in a hard day's work. That's what some illogical laborers would tell the heroine when she tried to make their lives easier with shorter hours and better pay, anyways. But if they wanted to keep working, that was their prerogative, and thus the nation's standards continued to fluctuate, pleasing nobody while appealing to everybody. Perhaps that was why her nation had ended up being so full of likeminded easy-going people. When others wanted to catch large fish or wild fish or graphically stunning fish, she was content to let her line stay in the water regardless of the effect on the outcome, letting bites come and go. It wasn't that she was working harder, or even sometimes smarter than her friends and foes alike. Working longer just worked for her, gave her an escape from herself. No matter how many hairline fractures appeared, all she had to do was keep her line in the water. She'd catch her perfect fish eventually. And when she did, the others would understand exactly why she could afford to wait as long as she wanted for her opportunity.
With the situation assessed in an instant, White Heart turned to her sisters. "Alright. That didn't sound like it lasted long enough to cave the whole place in, so I'm going to bust us out and see how much space we have to maneuver. You two hold on to me and don't move unless I tell you to, got it?" Rom and Ram nodded quietly, the anger in their older sister's eyes not lost on them.
With a deep breath, White Heart waited for her siblings to grab her and jumped at full speed into the ice ceiling, praying she was right. Fortunately, her guess that they weren't completely buried was correct, and she was able to pierce the surface with little effort, the small pocket they'd created collapsing behind them. Quickly, she deposited her sisters on some ground where not everything was destroyed and took inventory of the cave. The ceiling that she'd seen was now much higher, the Share Tower employees having apparently destroyed the floor of the level above rather than the cave itself. It was a shockingly sophisticated setup that meant she was dealing with more competent criminals than she'd expected. "Rom, Blanc, over there!" Ram cried out, pointing towards one of the exits to the cavern where the steel door she'd seen just finished closing behind two fleeing figures.
Before she could think about pursuing them, another rumbling shook the cavern and the entrance White Heart had used was sealed off by some boulders. The CPU swore as she transformed back into Blanc, having lost more share energy than she'd anticipated. "They're sophisticated. Too organized for this grassroots monster incursion shit. What the hell do they want?"
"B-Blanc, are you okay?" Rom asked quietly. "If you're hurt, I can-"
"Oh, I'm better than okay," Blanc scoffed, stalking over to Rom with her sister in tow. "What the hell are you two brats doing here? If I hadn't had to get you both out of there I could have caught those two goons! Now they got away! How long have you been following me?!"
"Um, if we say the whole time since you left the Basilicom will that make you angrier?" Ram asked.
"Of course it will!" Blanc exploded. "Both of you are going home right now. You're going to get yourselves or someone else killed staying here."
"But Blanc, we want to help!" Rom insisted, suddenly obdurate. "This is the only way we can get you to spend time with us anymore! How are we supposed to help you get work done if you don't let us work?"
"You idiots, this isn't work, this is- No, this isn't what I meant!" she denied.
"Hey, Miss Neptune is over there!" Ram pointed to somewhere behind Blanc.
"How stupid do you think I am?" Blanc scolded. "She wasn't even at the meeting today, what makes you think-"
"Owieee, every nepping time! Why can't there just be stairs like a normal dungeon for once?!"
Blanc blinked in disbelief at the noise assaulting her ears. She turned to witness a CPU pop her head out of the rubble, her ire forgotten for the moment in her bewilderment. "Neptune? What the hell are you doing here?"
Had the share energy that emanated from all beings that made use of it not been coming from this newcomer, Blanc wouldn't have trusted her own eyes. Neptune shook some dirt and pebbles out of her purple hair as she struggled to escape from the pile of stone debris she'd been buried under. Despite falling several stories and being covered in dust, not even her clothes were torn as she freed herself from the stone prison with a similar leap to Blanc's. More importantly, her existence confirmed the cave-in's purpose in Blanc's mind as a chance to buy time to escape rather than an insane suicide play to bring the whole network of tunnels down. "Hey, it's Blanc and the mini-Blancs! What's up, Blanc? Did I wander into Lowee or something?" The uninjured CPU was peppy as ever, her eyes lighting up as she recognized her friends.
A large array of questions to choose from were presented to Blanc, but only one of them was directly relevant to the task at hand. She held a hand out to keep her sisters from getting too close to the new arrival, the other hand holding her hammer out threateningly. "Are you the real Neptune? Our Neptune? Not some weird clone or evil dimension version or something?"
Neptune, completely oblivious to where this animosity was coming from, tilted her head. "I think so. Should I not be? Oh, is this the part where I tell an embarrassing story about you, like when you got caught snooping around Leanbox for a way to make your boobs as big as V-"
"Shut up," Blanc interrupted with a beet red face, putting her weapon away for the moment. "You're real. And if you tell anyone, I'll fix that. Now get lost, I'm in the middle of something. Better yet, take my sisters with you." Alternate exits to the cave were currently in short supply, but that was a fixable problem for someone of Blanc's strength.
"If you're looking for the workers, those guys ran off a while ago," Neptune explained helpfully. "I think it was Ricky and, uh, another one. Didn't even say hello, which is weird for Ricky. Been meaning to ask him about how things are going with his divorce. His ex used to work in the Basilicom, so you know how it is. Another time I guess. Anyways, what's going on? You doing some mining or crafting or something?"
Blanc could feel a migraine coming on. Transforming into human form to conserve energy was only so effective against mental attacks. "I'm investigating the rise in monster numbers in all four nations. These two tagged along when they shouldn't have. How are you here if you don't know what's going on?"
Neptune smiled knowingly as she leaned against a nearby boulder. "Well, it's kinda a long story and I'm not supposed to tell you because it might cause a paradox, but I was busy in another dimension and some stuff happened with space monsters but they weren't space monsters they were actually us but actually they just had our memories and thought they were us and we were the aliens but we actually weren't so we fixed their ship and helped them go home which made me remember that I needed to get home and eventually I ended up back home so I thought I'd see if you guys were still in our monthly meeting but everyone was gone so I thought I'd mosey on home too but I got lost in a cave that is apparently part of our awesome Share Tower minus the now ugly meeting room and as I was about to leave the floor caved in due to an explosion or something and here I am!" A fire hose blasted words into Blanc's ears, useless information flying in and out of her head until Neptune finally got to the point at the end of her story.
The heroine never over described anything, unlike Neptune. When she needed to describe an event, she was brief, concise, and efficient. Hence why this paragraph is the shortest one.
"So you're telling me the Share Tower is directly above us?" Blanc asked, somewhat incredulous at how far underground she'd travelled. "But how did you get lost if you found your way there the first time?"
At this, Neptune looked away and rubbed the back of her neck sheepishly. "Oh, yeah, about that. When I saw the meeting room it depressed me and I wanted to lodge a complaint, then I saw some people wandering about all suspicious like and thought it might be fun to follow them blindly, so I did. That's how I got here! And since you're on a secret mission, clearly you need a protagonist, so here I am!" She raised her hands with victory signs like this was the expected outcome.
Blanc bit her lip. Even thinking about all the problems with Neptune's story made her want to fly home and lose herself in a book, any book. At least an encyclopedia was upfront about what she was getting into before hitting her with mostly useless information. "Well, whatever. You really should go home with my sisters. Nepgear is worried about you."
"She is? Well that's no good. I told Nep Jr. I'll be back soon, probably. Isn't Histy running things just fine?"
"If you're asking if she's doing your job, then yes, she is," Blanc ridiculed as she hoisted her hammer once more. "Now, I have a machine to make sure is smashed." It wasn't necessary given the ceiling that had fallen on it, but something needed to be on the receiving end of Blanc's hammer in the next three seconds, and she didn't want it to be a CPU just yet.
"Hey, save the central core if you can! Nep Jr. can probably trace it back to its- oh, you already went to town. Ouch, that looks bad, unless the cave-in did that and nope, that was definitely you. If a robot saw this he might start crying. Blanc, do you have a thing against machines? CPUs are kind of machines, you know in a cosmic sort of way. Do you hate yourself? Blanc, you can't do that!"
Everything that wasn't Blanc's hammer or the machine in front of her didn't exist to Blanc as she smashed the monster-producer to bits. It felt good to simply whale away on something without fear of getting struck back. Only the thought in the back of her mind that Rom and Ram were watching her inspired her to eventually stop. When she was done, she wiped some sweat off her brow and leaned against a cavern wall. Perhaps she had overdone it a bit. Something Neptune had said might have resembled useful advice, but the odds weren't good. The CPU of Planeptune approached her as she caught her breath. "Well, you did it. Are you going home now?"
"No," Blanc denied, forcing herself to stand up straight. It wouldn't do to look weak in front of another nation's leader, no matter how incompetent said leader was. "I have to chase down those two goons you three scared off and make sure they don't set up shop again. If our Share Tower is compromised, I'll also have to determine how deep the betrayal goes and root it out." She omitted the part about taking credit for everything, especially since she was now no longer sure about how large the scope of the incursion she'd stepped into was.
"Sounds fun. Let us come with you?" Neptune asked, already bounding up to Blanc like she'd acquiesced. "You can't have an epic mystery thriller without the daring protagonist!"
"Good thing this isn't a mystery thriller then," Blanc bantered, heading off towards the entrance that her quarry had disappeared towards. "Everyone's a solved problem already, it's just a matter of clean-up. If you follow me I'll destroy you."
Emboldened by Neptune's bravery in the face of Blanc's wrath, Rom decided to speak up for herself and her sister. "But Blanc, we want to help too and-"
"Not another word out of you two," Blanc snapped, wheeling on her sisters. "You were in hot enough water as it was before I left. Things are going to change when I get home. For starters, you're both grounded until further notice."
Ram scoffed, folding her arms in protest. "Like you would have even gotten this far if we weren't healing you."
This comment was intentionally ignored by Blanc as she returned to the task at hand. Though her sisters took the hint not to poke the sleeping bear that was their sister, Neptune found this development amusing. She ignored Blanc's patent hints to leave her alone, trailing the CPU through the maze of strewn about rocks and stalagmites, with Rom and Ram following closely behind the duo. As they reached the cave wall, Blanc's mind turned to the nature of the conspiracy she'd stepped into. This whole operation was far too clean for a run-of-the-mill individual to execute. Much as they annoyed her, Blanc trusted the other CPUs not to try something like this, meaning the main culprit was likely an employee of the Share Tower, and an important one at that. "You sure grounding those two is the right move? Don't you think you could just, I dunno, slap them on the wrist or something?" Neptune asked rudely. "We might need a player 3 and 4 for this, ya feel me?"
"I was thinking about how nice this cave was without your voice echoing around it," Blanc responded coldly as she gave the iron door a few experimental taps with her hammer. "And you're not coming with me either. You'd get in the way."
"Ouch. Did you let all the snow in Lowee freeze your White Heart while I was gone? Did Vert make fun of your small rack again?"
"I think you should stop talking," Blanc suggested, punching a hole into the nearest boulder casually, clearing the way for everyone by knocking the door off of its hinges.
"Aight, I can take a hint," Neptune exclaimed, hands raised in the air in surrender. "Before that, though, can you at least tell me what's got you all upset? You got my curiosity juices all aflowing and stuff."
Blanc sighed, turning to face her fellow CPU with an irritated expression. "Being a CPU is a stressful job. You would understand that if you tried it sometime."
"Oof, who replaced my Blanc with a Noire? Don't get all jaded on me now just because we're the oldest, Blanc. We have to set a good example for the younger generation." Neptune indicated Rom and Ram, who were doing their best to look as small as possible behind Blanc like she wouldn't see them there.
"And, pray tell, how are you doing that by disappearing constantly?"
"What? Just because your siblings know where you are makes you so much better?"
Blanc froze. Their conversation had turned from a passable way to kill time to something far more serious. "I don't like what you're implying," she warned, already taking stock of the efficiency of their current tunnel as a combat arena.
"It really isn't fair that you got two sisters," Neptune continued obliviously as she gave them both a pat on the head. "Nep Jr. is awesome, and Uni is basically just a Noire Jr.. I don't know what the sharecite was thinking when it gave you these twins. All alone in a big castle all day, their only sister too busy to so much as say hello before darting off to handle one thing or another. Must be hard, trying to figure out what to say to 'em every day, huh?"
The CPU of Planeptune was a freaking idiot. If you took the three biggest morons in Gamindustri and asked them to compete with this CPU to see who could screw everything up the fastest, it wouldn't happen because she would have found a way to accidently ruin the event before it started. There was no mistaking the fact that this CPU only existed as a punishment for the heroine, some twisted curse that taunted her for doing her job so diligently for so many years alone. And this CPU had the gall to taunt her for her tireless devotion to her people. This wouldn't stand any longer. Someone had to put the moron in her place, and if that was to be the heroine, so be it.
"If you wanted to fight, you should have just said so from the beginning," Blanc scoffed, slamming her hammer into the ground threateningly. "Would've saved us both some trouble."
"Sorry! Just needed to catch my breath!" Neptune apologized disingenuously, her sword already in her hands. "Besides, that needed to be said, and there's nothing like a random encounter to bring it up. You can't even be bothered to remember the names of your staff, and that bothers me as your elder, Blanc."
"Shut up," Blanc countered. "And get the hell away from my sisters."
Ram finally worked up the courage to say something as the two CPUs squared off, stepping away from Neptune with Rom in tow. "Stop it! Blanc, don't do this! If we go home will you leave it alone please?"
Blanc eyed Ram for a minute. She could tell that her sister was completely serious. Genuine concern for her older sister was reflected in the eyes of both twins, and for a moment Blanc considered stopping. For a moment. "No, sorry. You're going home, yes, but after I deal with Neptune. Now sit quietly for once, would you? If you pay attention you'll be able to see what a real CPU in action looks like."
"Aw, now that's just depressing," Neptune interjected. "You shouldn't put yourself down like that Blanc."
This would have been more than enough to set Blanc off on a normal day, but today she felt oddly calm as the insult washed over her. There was no need to think about what the best response was. She knew exactly what the next task in front of her was and how to accomplish it. Neptune sensed the cold fury contained within Blanc's stare as she failed to respond to the jibe, the mood of the room catching up with her all at once. She smiled serenely as she raised her sword to meet Blanc's challenge, as if the situation was somehow amusing to her. "Ah, I see how it is. Guess I was wrong, this is definitely a required story fight. After all, the protagonist can't let another CPU steal all the glory, now can she?"