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

...So no one liked the previous chapter?

"Nepgear..." The Histoire of the Hyper Dimension smiled at the CPU Candidate. "How have things been going?"

"Not good." Nepgear sighed, looking incredibly sad. "Histoire, it's been years now. Anytime we get close to Eden to try and save Neptune and Peashy, they show up with a bunch of monsters that we just can't kill and we have to retreat."

"I see." Histoire had a sad look on her face. "Things are going bad over here, the past few days have been really hard on everyone."

"How bad, Histoire?" Nepgear asked her.

Histoire sighed softly. "Really badly, I'm afraid. Shares are dropping all over the world and the others are having trouble controlling their citizens as well."

"If only we were there," Nepgear whispered, "but without Neptune, I..."

"...Is Neptune truly gone?" Histoire asked softly.

"NO!" Nepgear glared at the oracle, much to her shock. "I don't care how hard it is, I know Neptune's still in there somewhere! Every time we fight she's got that cold personality, but I know she's there..."

"She disappeared for a year, showed up to drive you away from Eden and it's been how long since then again?"

Nepgear sighed softly. "Three years, Histoire. I..." Her eyes teared up, "I want my big sister back. I don't know how to get her back. I even managed to get her stuck in an eggplant trap, she didn't react like she normally does to eggplants."

"Even back before the amnesia, Neptune always disliked eggplants." Histoire had a worried look on her face. "What are you going to do, Nepgear?"

"If only I knew how they were keeping her under their control." Nepgear muttered softly. "If I knew, I might be able to..."

"Ga-thunk..." A somber voice spoke up and Nepgear spun, her eyes wide as she saw not only Abnes, but a somber looking Mr. Badd standing there.

"...How did you get in here?" Nepgear asked. They were standing by a wall that wasn't anywhere near any sort of outside balconies or doors. Behind her, Histoire's image cut out as the connection went bad.

"That isn't important." Mr. Badd answered her. "Would you like to save Purple and Yellow Heart?"

The look Nepgear gave him told him more than any words could have.

(-)

A few minutes later...

Blanc snarled as she looked at Mr. Badd, the group was sitting at the dinner table, because there was no conference table in Plutia's Basilicom and she was on the opposite end of where Mr. Badd and Abnes were sitting. "While I appreciate any information you might have to save our friends, the fact that you have the audacity to even show your face around me fills me with so much disgust that it's taking everything I have not to bust your face open."

Mr. Badd sighed and nodded. "I completely understand. After all, I was the one who stole your nation from you and had all your followers abandon you."

Before Blanc could say anything, Plutia grabbed her hand and gave it a squeeze. "Blanc, it's okay, we already punished him over it." She smiled at the brown-haired CPU. "Besides, if he is trying to hurt us or Neppy or P-Ko, I won't let him get off so lightly like I did last time."

The way she said it, plus the smile on her face had everyone but Blanc, who was blushing and smiling at the thought of Plutia standing up for her, and Nepgear, who was ignoring Plutia, shivering in fear.

Abnes shivered and wondered why she had to come with.

"Before I tell you how to save your friend, I need to explain a few things about our group." Mr. Badd said as he adjusted his glasses. "First of all, we were brought together under the common goal of creating our own nation, one that doesn't need a CPU to function. However..."

"The way the world works," Vert, who had been quiet next to Noire, suddenly spoke up, "that's pretty hard to do." Mr. Badd nodded. "In some ways, I can understand the desire, a nation run by humans rather than a CPU who could be quite cruel and malicious for one reason or another does sound better."

"But without a CPU, there's no protection against monsters." Mr. Badd sighed heavily. "And for the longest time, the only CPU was..."

"Me," Blanc spoke up, her angry look was long replaced by a sullen look, "and I was a pretty horrible CPU for a long time. It was pretty easy for you to manipulate me after all."

"Indeed," Mr. Badd said, grimacing at the glare he got from her, "please, I mean no disrespect to you, Lady Blanc. Anyway, since we couldn't create our own nation, we got the idea to create our own CPU to do it for us."

"If I had known that they were turning little girls into horrible monsters..." Abnes growled.

"Speaking of those monsters," Nepgear spoke up, her eyes narrowed at them, "what you did was horrible, as one of Planeptune's CPUs, I have every right to punish you two for not only harming countless girls, but kidnapping three children that were under our direct protection."

"Yes, but then we wouldn't be able to turn them back into people." Mr. Badd said, causing everyone to stare in shock at him. "I've been doing some research and I've come to the conclusion that the CPU Memory effect can be reversed, at least for the ones that were incompatible with it."

"Reverse a CPU Memory effect?" Noire whispered softly, her eyes wide as a horrible thought came to her. "But if you could do that to them, you could use it on us and revert us to being human!"

Mr. Badd shook his head. "I doubt it, the transformation that you go under when you become CPUs is far more potent than a failed transformation."

"Would it be possible though?" Blanc asked, causing Mr. Badd to think about it for a moment.

"I suppose the basis of this could be used to return you to being humans, but there's nothing saying that you couldn't get another CPU Memory to just become a Goddess again."

Noire sighed heavily. "But you don't have a way to turn them back fully yet, huh?" Mr. Badd shook his head. "Fine, where are the monsters?"

"Still in Eden." Mr. Badd answered her. "I didn't want to risk them getting hurt."

"Smart man," Vert commented softly, "what are you thinking, Noire?"

Noire crossed her arms over her chest and stared at Mr. Badd, "as much as Neptune annoyed me at times, she's still someone I," her face turned red as she continued, "would consider a f-f-f-friend."

"Stop being a tsundere about it!" Blanc snapped at Noire.

"FINE!" Noire yelled and took a deep breath. "Take your research and those girls to Lastation after you leave here." She ignored the looks and gasps of surprise. "You might have made some great strides, but you're only one person. Lastation engineers and scientists are some of the best in the world. If your work can be used to undo failed CPU transformations, it'll go a long way to making sure that no one else has to suffer in the future."

"Plus with Lastation having the way to undo the transformation, you'd also make sure that no one could find a way to undo our transformations, huh?" Vert asked, getting a nod from Noire.

"The last thing we need is some terrorist in the future getting their hands on how it works and figuring out how to use it to affect us."

"It will take me a few days." Mr. Badd answered her. "As for your friends, first of all, there's a machine deep in Eden's base that's draining shares from all of your nations and siphoning them into Eden."

"I knew it!" Blanc growled. Her shares shouldn't have gotten as low as they were under normal circumstances. "Even if we released cutting edge consoles and games, we'd still be losing shares."

"So we need to destroy the machine, huh?" Nepgear asked, getting a nod from Mr. Badd. "What about Neptune and Peashy?"

"I don't know what kind of control Anonydeath and Rei has on those two," Mr. Badd said, "however, I do know that Purple Heart has something unusual on her head."

"Unusual?" Nepgear asked, wondering what it could be.

Abnes turned around and lifted her hair up and Mr. Badd pointed to the base of her skull. "Right here," Mr. Badd continued, "there's some sort of black device attached to her head." Abnes dropped her hair and turned back to face the others. "I've seen Rei use a remote to make Purple Heart jerk like she's feeling nothing but pain or fall to the floor like she's in the throes of extreme pleasure, but most of the time it's pain. And then she goes silent and responds to orders almost mechanically."

"A cerebral cortex interface?!" Nepgear gasped, her eyes wide while everyone looked at her sharply. "Such a thing, using it can make bodies that are dead keep moving and can force people to do things they don't want and feel things they don't want because it bypasses the body's natural defenses and goes straight for the brain."

"You know about it?" Blanc asked, getting a nod from Nepgear.

"Yes, I've studied the effects of such when I was building robots. I was curious about cybernetics as well and looked into stuff." Nepgear shivered. "If Neptune has that on her..." She stood up and started pacing back and forth. "First, I'd have to interfere with the signal so that no one could force her to do anything, because that thing could send a signal to her brain and kill her instantly." The CPUs and humans in the room all looked at each other and gulped as they listened in, they had no idea it was that serious. "Secondly, after that, there's probably a small window of opportunity, I'd have to short out the device so that it couldn't get anymore signals, but that runs the risk of accidentally overloading Neptune's brain and frying her mind and lastly..." Nepgear grimaced and slumped. "It has to be removed, but I don't have any skill in surgery, so I don't..."

"You don't need to." Noire spoke up, causing Nepgear to look at her sharply. "If you can do the other steps without killing her, I've got the surgeons who can help remove it."

"Don't think that you'll be doing this without my help." Blanc said softly, "there are healers in Lowee who can make sure that her body survives the operation."

"Well, we can't have any of them passing out during the operation." Vert said, "Leanbox has developed some energy drinks that don't have the same downsides as the old ones. Smaller, more compact, more potent and lasts for upwards of five hours before the effects wear off. There's a bit of a crash, but so long as you don't consume too much at once it shouldn't be a problem."

Nepgear smiled at them. "Thank you."

"That still leaves the problem with getting into Eden." Histoire pointed out, causing the CPUs to sigh heavily.

"Not a problem." Abnes said and pulled out a map. "This is how you can get in without getting noticed too easily."

"As for the cerebral cortex thing..." Mr. Badd opened up a briefcase and pulled out some papers before handing them to Nepgear. "I found this in Anonydeath's lab. It was laying on the table out in the open, which is rather odd, he usually keeps things hidden, but this might help."

Nepgear looked at it and her eyes widened. "This is... This is what I need! I can make a jamming device so that we can save Neptune!"

"But what about Peashy?" Noire asked, getting a sigh from Nepgear.

"Don't worry..." Plutia said, smiling softly. "Leave P-ko to me, Iffy and Compa."

"HUH?!" Everyone yelled as they saw two ten year olds walk up next to Plutia.

"You can't be serious!" Blanc glared at her friend. "They'll get killed!"

"No they won't." Plutia smiled at her. "We'll handle Peashy..." She looked at Nepgear. "That means Neppy Jr. will have to deal with Neppy..."

"And the rest of us will storm the base..." Noire said, getting a nod from both Nepgear and Plutia. "Great..." She looked at Mr. Badd. "How long will it take you to get completely evacuated?"

"Four days." Mr. Badd answered her.

"You have three days after today." Nepgear answered him. "As soon as the sun rises on the fourth day, we're storming Eden." Everyone in the room nodded and Nepgear took a deep breath. "If you'll excuse me, I need to work on making a jamming device." Nepgear didn't even wait for a response as she rushed out of the room.

"Hang on, Neptune, your little sister's coming to save you." Nepgear said to herself.

To be continued...

Well, here we go.