Hyperdimension Neptunia belongs to Compile Heart, Idea Factory, Sega and whomever else worked on it.

In Eden...

"Well, that went just swimmingly..." Anonydeath muttered as he looked at Purple Heart, who had been stripped out of her processor and was currently undergoing another round of reformatting.

"This is getting out of hand." Rei muttered as she looked at the naked CPU in the pod and then back at Anonydeath. "Don't you think this is going too far?"

"Hmm... I suppose the way I'm doing it is leaving too much to chance." Anonydeath sighed, a somber tone in his voice as he looked at a device in his hands. "What I have here could easily override everything about her."

"Then use it!" Rei yelled at him.

Anonydeath sighed softly and opened the pod up. "I'm sorry." He whispered to Purple Heart as he reached behind her head and attached a small black device to the base of her skull. "Truly, I hope you can forgive me." He said, noting that Purple Heart's eyes were slightly open, even if she wasn't responding to him.

"Well?" Rei asked after Anonydeath stepped away from the naked CPU and walked over to the control panel before looking at Purple Heart one more time and sighing.

"Goodbye, Purple Heart..." He whispered and pushed a button and both Anonydeath and Rei watched as Purple Heart suddenly twitched, jerked and let out a silent scream as the device went to work on her.

"So this will..." Rei began as she watched Purple Heart thrash in the open pod. Part of her was grinning in delight as she watched the CPU suffer.

"Completely overwrite who she is." Anonydeath answered her. "There's a chance that she won't survive it. But if she does, she'll be a puppet for us. I can adjust it so that some of her personality and ability comes through. And so long as she has it attached to her, she'll only be able to hear the things we want her to hear."

Rei didn't answer and watched Purple Heart jerk and thrash in pain.

Inside her mind, Purple Heart could only scream in pain as she felt herself sinking into a pool of pitch black liquid as she was bombarded with what felt like electricity all across her body.

It was a good thing for Anonydeath and Rei that Yellow Heart wasn't in the room watching Purple Heart go through her torture.

(-)

Meanwhile in Planeptune...

"You look like hell." Noire said as she looked at Blanc and Vert, who were leaning on each other as they walked into the Basilicom.

"Yellow Heart got frisky." Blanc muttered, her left eye swollen shut while she helped Vert, who was holding one hand over her right breast and limping badly on her left leg. "What happened to you?"

Noire grimaced, even with the Hyper Healing and her own shares, taking a katana to the gut still left a mark that would take time to heal fully. "Neptune decided to show me how good she was at stabbing people from behind."

"Lovely..." Blanc muttered as Plutia and Nepgear rushed up to them and helped heal them of their injuries.

Histoire floated into the room and her eyes lit up as she created a projection on the wall that showed her other self. "Hello, I hope things are going well."

"In the past few hours? Not too horribly." The other Histoire said and looked at Nepgear, who was giving her a serious look. "Nepgear?"

"Histoire, I need answers, and I need them now." The CPU Candidate gave the Oracle a look that told her she wasn't in the mood for any sort of argument. "What happened in the past with Neptune? We just fought against Neptune and she was WAY different than I remember her."

The Histoire of the Hyper Dimension sighed and nodded. "Very well, I'll answer, but keep the questions to a minimum, I don't know how long the connection will last." Everyone nodded. "I'll give a quick run-down of Planeptune in our dimension then. Nepgear knows this, but for the rest of you, there were many CPUs before Neptune." The Ultra Dimension CPUs stared at her and then at each other in shock. "Before Neptune's birth, there was a CPU by the name of Uranus who sacrificed herself to stop what is known as the Deity of Sin." The other CPUs nodded, following along, "however, she was the only one who sacrificed herself and it was a few short years before the last CPU Shift period."

"HUH?!" Everyone asked at the same time and Histoire sighed.

"To make it short, it's when people lose faith in the current CPUs and shift to new ones. Most of the time the current CPUs don't survive the shift and new ones are born." Histoire gave them a serious look. "As Neptune came into the world before the CPU Shift period, she didn't have to worry about it like the other three CPUs of Lowee, Lastation and Leanbox did."

"Neptune said something about an assassin that looked like her?" Nepgear asked, getting a nod from Histoire.

"The CPU of Leanbox, using a bunch of her shares, created an assassin that looked similar to Neptune. Neptune, being the trusting sort, believed that the assassin was somehow related to her."

"Like a CPU Candidate then," Nepgear muttered softly, wondering why Vert had never tried that and then realized that Leanbox never had enough shares under Vert for her to try that.

"Close. Anyway, Neptune brought her back and within minutes the assassin tried to kill her and everyone in the Basilicom." Histoire sighed, hating that time of Gamindustri's history. "Neptune put a stop to that and I had hoped that was it, but a few months later, Lowee had used something to create a fake Purple Heart while Neptune was out dealing with a mission and had it take over."

"Let me guess," Noire spoke up, "the people thought she was actually Purple Heart?" Histoire nodded and Noire winced. "I'm guessing that she wasn't too happy about that?"

"Not at all." Histoire said. "Especially since the people were putting faith in the fake CPU and not into her, it made it harder for her to win, but she eventually did. And Lastation's CPU managed to convince several followers to leave Planeptune for her nation."

"...No wonder Neptune became like that then." Nepgear muttered softly, trying to imagine her version of Noire, Vert or Blanc doing that to Neptune and failing miserably at it.

"So what happened next?" Noire asked, curious about what her friend, as loathe as she was to admit it, had gone through in the past.

"Thanks to those incidents and a few others, Neptune stopped trusting people, her people, the other CPUs, she even kept me at arm's distance, but at least she was willing to work with me." Histoire explained. "It wasn't hard to understand why. After the CPU Shift period happened and our version of Noire, Vert and Blanc came into being, well, I tried to convince her that the new CPUs weren't the same as the ones who had tricked her over and over again." Histoire sighed softly. "There were times that she would be in tears because of things the older CPUs had done to her."

"No wonder she got mad at me for making you cry." Noire whispered to Blanc, who nodded. "Wait, she had amnesia?"

"Ah, yes, I'll get to that now." Histoire nodded. "While Planeptune did very well after the CPU Shift Period, Neptune didn't care much about the other CPUs at the time and fought them. With her experience and power, it was easy to see how she was able to dominate them and since she treated them like they were just extensions of their predecessors..."

"No wonder she was so mean then." Plutia said softly. "What did Neppy do next?"

"She fought against the three CPUs one day and ended up in a cave that collapsed in and disappeared for almost a month." Histoire answered her. "After awhile the people of Planeptune were worried that their CPU had died in the last fight against the other CPUs. Then, like magic, one day Neptune appeared in the Basilicom, looking around in confusion and wonder at everything. I thought she would be the same as before, but she had changed, the only things she could remember was the Basilicom and myself." Everyone nodded as they listened in, "and as I talked to her, I realized that not only were her memories gone, but her personality was completely different. She was curious, smiling and really friendly."

"So she became how she was before the CPUs before our other selves ruined her?" Vert asked, causing Histoire to tilt her head before shaking it. "Oh?"

"While Neptune was friendly and trusting before, she was still somewhat guarded even before she was ruined, but after losing her memories, it was like she lost that aspect about herself." Histoire had a slightly whimsical look on her face, "afterwords, she ran off to the other nations to see them. I tried to stop her, but somehow along the way, she helped Noire, Vert and Blanc with problems that they were facing in their nations and became friends with them."

"That sounds familiar." Blanc said softly, smiling as she thought about how Neptune and Plutia helped her when she needed it.

"And then what happened?" Vert asked softly.

"After that..." Histoire was unable to finish as the screen was filled with static, turned dark and cut off.

"Our time is up." Histoire said as she cut off the connection. "I'm surprised we got as much as we did."

"Neptune's still in there." Nepgear said softly, balling her hands into fists. "She thought I was going to steal her spot as the protagonist forever and she even remembered something silly she did a few years ago." She gently touched the spot where Neptune had stabbed her with her sword. "She couldn't go through with hurting me either."

"That was still stupid." Noire muttered in annoyance. "If she had hurt you permanently, I don't think she'd ever forgive herself."

Nepgear bit her lip softly. "There's more to it than just that... I know who Yellow Heart is." She had everyone looking at her at that moment. "It's Peashy."

"WHAT?!" Everyone screamed in shock.

"But how?!" Noire asked as she thought about how Peashy looked and how Yellow Heart looked. "Sure, there are some similarities there, but I know that neither Neptune nor Plutia look like their HDD selves when they transform."

Nepgear bit her lip softly. "Actually... I think that HDD forms for fully realized CPUs are what they'd look like at the prime of their lives if they were human, minus the eye and hair color."

"Only way you could test that is if you could find a human Neptune that grew up and became an adult." Vert commented and looked at Blanc, smirking. "Though, if that's the case, then poor Blanc, forever doomed to look like a child."

"Can it, Thunder Tits!" Blanc growled as her eyes glowed brightly in anger.

Nepgear ignored the argument as she thought about what needed to be done. 'What would Neptune do?' She knew that trying to fight against Eden at that moment, with the Shares being drained from each country towards Eden, would be hard, but trying to fight against her sister and the girl that was effectively her niece would be impossible without some sort of plan. 'Neptune would wait for the plot to give us an opening and then jump all over it, wouldn't she?'

That was a stupid plan.

Sadly, it was probably the only plan she could go with, for now at least.

Unseen by the CPUs was a little girl with brown hair by the door and who had listened to the whole conversation before slipping off. "Nep-ko... Pea..." The girl whispered as she shuffled to her room sadly. 'Why?' An image of an old woman in a witch's outfit entered her mind. 'She did it, I bet. I bet she did it!'

(-)

The next morning...

Nepgear groaned as she felt someone shaking her. Cracking an eye open, she saw a small shape surrounded in shadows. "Nnngh? Compa? What time is it?"

"Ge-Ge... Iffy's gone!"

Nepgear's eyes snapped open and all thoughts of getting back to sleep left her mind.

(-)

Several miles away...

IF bit her lower lip as she cut down another Horsebird and Tulip as she walked along the path that she had been taken down when the witch had kidnapped her and threatened Neptune with eggplants. The little girl wasn't too worried about most of the monsters, she knew she was really strong and her katars were really sharp. She didn't know why she was so strong, as even most adventurers in their twenties were weaker than she was, despite being at a higher level, but she wasn't questioning it.

If the little girl knew it was because Neptune had breast fed her, Compa and Peashy when they were infants and she had absorbed the CPU's shares, which aided her growth, she probably would either have ran off crying in embarrassment or she would have demanded to learn to fight so she could save Neptune on her own if she had to.

...Or both.

She winced as the sun started to break over the horizon. 'Don't worry, Nep-ko, I'll find that evil witch and find a way to make her tell me how to save you.' The fact that said evil witch had over-powered her about a year ago didn't even factor into the six-year-old's mind. After all, she had a birthday a few weeks ago and it was the first one that Neptune hadn't been at.

Crossing a stone bridge, IF shivered, glad she wasn't over a giant pit anymore and turned to continue on. A growling noise caused her to stop and slowly turn, her green eyes widening in horror as a Fenrir came out from under a rocky outcropping. "For some reason, I'm worried you'll maul my legs and I won't be able to walk again."

Still, despite being afraid, she wasn't going to run away. Dropping her bag to the ground, she unsheathed her two katars and rushed the Fenrir, who growled at her and ran at her.

Jumping over a lunging bite at her head, IF stabbed forward, her weapons digging into the Fenrir's back, causing it to howl in pain as it thrashed around trying to get the pain in its back off of it. For her part, IF held on tight as her weapons stayed buried into the creature's back.

"Demon... FLAME!" IF yelled as she pushed down on the Fenrir and sent flames of searing heat into the beast's back, causing it to cry out with a high pitched scream before it jerked so hard that IF lost her grip on her weapons and went flying through the air and crashed against a large rock. Groaning, the little girl shook her head and gasped in fear as the Fenrir was standing on top of her. "N...No..." The creature's mouth was open and drool was coming out of its mouth.

"GET AWAY FROM HER!" A voice that IF hadn't expected to hear suddenly yelled out as a pink beam blasted the Fenrir in the side, causing it to turn before another blast hit it in its open mouth, destroying the beast.

IF tried to ignore the jingle of leveling up from that as she stared at her savior. "G...Gear..."

Purple Sister floated down and dismissed her gunblade before grabbing IF and pulling her into a hug. "Don't you DARE do that again!" She said while trembling. "Do you have ANY idea how worried I was when Compa woke me up to say that you had disappeared?"

IF trembled and sniffled. "Jus' wanna help Nep-ko..."

Purple Sister held her tightly. "I do too. I want to help her too, but if you got hurt, imagine how Neptune will feel when she gets back."

"...Mommy..." IF sniffled and started sobbing into Purple Sister's chest.

After several minutes of staying like that, Purple Sister pulled away from IF and smiled softly. "Come on, let's go home. If we hurry you'll be home before Plutia wakes up and is upset at you."

IF paled at the thought of Plutia being upset at her. "Uh huh, okay."

Purple Sister smiled as she picked up IF and flew her back to the Basilicom.

Sadly for IF, Iris Heart was waiting for her when she got back. Thankfully for IF, Nepgear didn't allow Iris Heart to do anything more than simple punishment to the little girl.

Unfortunately, that meant that IF's butt was quite sore from the spanking that Iris Heart gave it for being a naughty girl.

To be continued...

Part 4 of ? (I have no clue anymore!)

So yeah, I basically linked this to the shorts where Neptune breastfed Peashy, IF and Compa.