Ho-Hum and the Alien Visitation
A Hyperdimension Neptunia Fan Fiction
by Derald Snyder
Chapter 40- Pulling Back
*Ho-Hum W-2 Base*
"Ah, welcome back," MAGES. greeted Overlord Momus and Generic Ninja #25 as they walked in. "Seems you had a rough time of it..."
"Yes, Overlord Momus needs his body armor and augmentations repaired," Ninja #25 said. "But first, his vox encoder needs to be fixed..."
"You had a vox encoder?!" MAGES. frowned. "I thought that might be the case... but why disguise your voice?"
"Because there are certain subordinates who don't need to find out, MAGES.," Momus spoke in an unfiltered voice.
"Ah!" MAGES. gasped in shock. "That- I know that voice...! Is that really you, (CENSORED)?!"
"Yes, it's me," Momus sighed. "I hope you can keep a secret, MAGES... The only other one who knows is Adrian, because I had to reveal my true identity before he would trust me. Also, I think we need to restrict further operations for the time being... We still have to get settled into this new base, after all."
"Understood. I'll contact the team in Leanbox straight away... and then I shall get to work on fixing your armor and vox encoder! It shan't take long for a mechanical genius such as myself! Fuahahaha!"
"Great. In the meantime, I'll go hide in an enclosed room..." Momus sighed.
*Planeptune Basilicom*
"I'm so glad you're okay, Kyon," Haruhi sighed as she and John Smith sat on a beanbag cushion together. "I never meant for you to get kidnapped like that..."
"Well, like that Generic Ninja said, I was low-hanging fruit, an easy target," John shrugged. "Stop beating yourself up over it, okay? It's not like all of Planeptune was being converted to primordial ooze while you were sleeping on the job..."
"You HAD to bring that up..." Haruhi groaned in irritation. Just then, Neon came into the room. "Oh, Neon, Kyon was just making a joke..."
"I did not hear it," Neon shook her head. "Anyway, milady, I was going to suggest that we move Asseylum and the others to another nation for the time being, to preclude further kidnapping attempts by the House of Humiliation..."
"Probably not a bad idea," Haruhi nodded grimly. "How about Leanbox? I think LASA would like to meet the aliens, that stuck-up director notwithstanding..." But then, something occurred to her... "Oh, but, uh, Kyon, you don't have to come along if you don't want... I can just send you back home..."
John bit his lip in thought... "Well, I don't mind going back to Leanbox... There's some other places there I wanted to see..."
"You are lying," Neon stated bluntly. "More likely, the truth is that you do not want to go back to Lowee's frigid climate yet..."
"Oh darn, busted," John snarked. "Guess that means I have to back into the cold now, doesn't it? Oh woe is me..."
Haruhi couldn't help but titter at that. "No, it's alright, you can come, Kyon. You don't have to make up a lame excuse..."
"Thanks. That being said, I would like to at least call my parents and sister back home and let them know I'm doing alright..."
"You gonna tell them about the kidnapping?" Haruhi asked.
"Eh... probably not," John winced. "I'll just say Ho-Hum tried to target me, but you guys and Lady Nepgear nipped that in the bud... That's not too far from the truth."
"So, we talking a phone call, or would you like face-time?" Haruhi said. "'Cause I can do the latter easily..."
"...sure, why not," John shrugged. "Just try to project a good image for them, okay? Metaphorically speaking."
"No problem," Haruhi nodded, materializing a holo-screen...
*Over in Leanbox...*
"They got away AGAIN?!" Neptune groaned as she and Vert looked over the mess of food all over the park. "And I even happened to be in the area this time, too! Fish sticks and chips!"
"At least no one's been seriously hurt, unlike that one cop in Lastation," Vert sighed. "Then again, said cop likely caught Underling off-guard... anyway, I hear Hidden Food Harvest is strongly encouraging their drivers to arm themselves in anticipation of future hijackings... Unfortunately, my Shares are starting to suffer a little because of this..."
"Because of your failure to catch these guys?" Neptune stated. "A reporter at Nep Jr's press conference asked a similar question, but she managed to slap 'em down by saying we caught two of 'em..."
"I don't think you could really say we 'caught' little Peashy..." Vert shrugged. "Speaking of which, how is Peach doing?"
"Better, she's starting to do her daily jog and workouts again," Neptune replied. "I can tell Adrian's betrayal is still hurting her, even though I told her he's probably got some good reasons, like the evil demon kitty..."
"That was what I thought as well," Vert concurred, "an assertion that is only strengthened by the likelihood that MAGES., who created that power-suppression collar for BlackGatomon, has likely joined up with the House of Humiliation..."
"Not to mention, you got really lazy after both that cat and the other Demon Lord were beaten for good, or so I heard..."
"I-I was not being lazy! I was trying to catch up on my backlog of video games!" Vert asserted with a slightly upset expression. "I said that outright to Peach several times, but she still insisted on trying to drag me outside...!"
"Sounds like this is somethin' you two can't see eye-to-eye on," Neptune sighed. "This keeps up, she might have to seek out new employment..."
"Well, we'll cross that bridge when we come to it," Vert demurred. "Right now, we need to focus on Ho-Hum and keeping the aliens safe from further attacks..."
*Speaking of Ho-Hum...*
"Return to base?!" Underling said in disbelief. "But we've been doing great!"
"We need to regroup and recalibrate," MAGES. responded over the radio link. "Overlord Momus had a bad time of it against Nepgear and the aliens, though he did manage to disable her robot duplicate... On another note, the heat is working here now, thanks to Thief #11 and Soldier #20..."
"Well, that's a relief, chu," Warechu nodded. "I'm up for some downtime, anyway..."
"Of course you would be, rat," Linda rolled her eyes. "Alright, we'll head back to base. See you soon."
"Well, I'd rather go where Mistress can't find me, anyway," Dogoo Man spoke up. "I've been kinda on-edge since she confronted us a while ago..."
"Yeah, I like B-Sha a lot better, anyway," Warechu added.
"Both of you, shut up and let's go!" Linda asserted, the other two quickly obeying as they set off for W-2 Base...
*To be continued...*