Ch 2: The Office
Within the medieval castle-themed council chamber of Vert's mental landscape, a fierce debate was raging between her various different personas.
"No, I refuse to believe it!" the main personality yelled out to her crowd of doppelgangers. "There's no way that kid can be the CPU Candidate!"
The logical Vert wearing glasses gave a loud sigh in response. "Ugh. I leave you guys alone for a couple of minutes and we end up in a situation like this. I told you from the beginning that there was something off about the kid. Of course, one of us just had to encourage all of this stupidity instead."
"Hey! I was just caught up in the moment, okay?" the idealistic Vert with sparkling eyes shot back. "How was I supposed to know he was a CPU Candidate?"
"Noooo!" the main Vert screamed while covering her ears. "He's not the CPU Candidate! He's not! He's not! He's not!"
For a moment, the various Verts remained silent as they just stared at their main personality with a deadpan expression.
"Why did we elect her to be the one in charge again?" a bored-looking Vert asked rhetorically.
Idealistic Vert chose to answer anyways. "Because she was our second-most dominant personality. Our only other option would have been to choose... her."
The multitude of Verts simultaneously turned to face the corner where one of their numbers was currently focused on a rather erotic Nepgear doujinshi. A small nosebleed could be seen on her face as she giggled perversely at her questionable reading material.
"Yeah... why don't we just get back to the matter at hand?" logical Vert said with an embarrassed cough. "We still need to figure out what do with the boy."
"What's there to think about?" the hooded figure of Vert's dark side answered. "We kill the boy, chop up the body, and throw it in a nearby bog."
All of the other Verts cringed at the suggestion.
"T...T...That sounds... rather extreme," a shy sounding Vert said while nervously twiddling her fingers.
"No kidding," idealistic Vert said with a grimace. "That honestly sounds like something Chika or Plutia would do if they ever had a bad day."
The room fell silent again as the multitude of Verts tried to figure out a less violent solution to their problem.
After a while, logical Vert cleared her throat to get everyone's attention. "Ahem. Has anyone considered the fact that the boy might simply be lying?"
"Why would he do that?" the main Vert personality asked, finally getting over her shell-shock.
Logical Vert adjusted her glasses before speaking. "Any number of reasons really. Perhaps he's a spy trying to infiltrate the Basilicom. Or maybe he's just an overzealous fanboy trying to get closer to our underwear drawer. The point is, we should try to confirm his claims before we do anything too drastic."
After thinking about it for a moment, most of the Verts seemed to agree that scoping out the situation a bit further was not a bad idea.
"Okay, it's decided then," main Vert announced. "Our primary objective for now will be to-"
"Visit Neptune and buy her a bunch of pudding!" a mental image of Neptune suddenly shouted out as she sprung up out of who-knows-where.
"What the-? Neptune! What are you doing inside my head?!"
"Oh, I just felt a plot developing so I rushed on over to see what was up," Neptune explained with a bright smile. "So what's going on Vert? Did you meet a new character or something? Do you need my help as a main character for your epic-adventure-in-the-making?"
"There is no adventure and this has nothing to do with you Neptune," the main Vert said as she resisted the urge to face-palm. "Now would you be so kind as to leave my head? This is a very serious breach of privacy."
Neptune seemed to ignore the onslaught of hostile gazes that the other Verts were giving her as she put on a disappointed expression.
"Aww... no need to be such a party-pooper Vert! Even Blanc needed my help with being a main character, you know. There's no shame in asking me for help with being a protagonist. I mean, I know you're still mad that your supposed spin-off game has my name in the title instead of yours but-"
"OUT!" all of the Verts shouted in unison.
"Okay, okay! Sheesh, it looks like someone forgot to eat their daily serving of pudding today."
Still mumbling something about pudding being the ultimate source of happiness and love in the world, Neptune departed from Vert's mind.
"... ... ..."
"Well..." main Vert eventually said to break the awkward silence that had formed. "I guess I'll head out to question the boy then."
Logical Vert gave her a short nod. "Do try to keep a calm head. Chika's definitely going to be there as well so try to prevent her from putting on a repeat performance of the infamous 'Vert Fan-club Massacre' from two years ago."
All of the gathered Vert's gave a collective shudder at this (even the per-Vert in the corner).
"So... much... blood," the shy Vert whispered out in horror as idealistic Vert gave her a few calming pats on the back.
Logical Vert adjusted her glasses before speaking up again. "In the worst case scenario, try to contact Histoire. I'm sure she'll be able sort everything out with her knowledge of share energy."
Main Vert gave a nod as the mental landscape around them began to slowly fade away. "Any other last-minute tips before I go?"
Logical Vert seemed to think for a second before giving a grin that bore a striking amount of resemblance to the one the boy had previously given them.
"Take a deep breath as soon as you get up. You'll need it."
When Vert regained consciousness, she found herself lying on a soft surface with a massive headache pounding through her skull.
Ooooh... my head, Vert groggily thought as she physically let out a groan. Hmm... I wonder what my logical side meant by taking a deep breath?
Her question was immediately answered when a familiar voice suddenly shouted out from right next to her.
"Vert darling! You're finally awake!"
Oh no...
Before Vert could do anything, she felt her head being dragged up and squashed right into a pair of large bouncy melons.
"Mmmph! ...Chika!" Vert yelled out as she tried to free herself from her Oracle's boobs. Though Chika's chest was not as bountiful as her own, it was still sufficiently big enough to cause her to nearly suffocate. "Let me... Mmmmmmmph! ...go!"
Chika seemed ignorant of her pleas as she continued to ironically subject her 'sister' to the dreaded marshmallow treatment. Just when Vert thought she could see her life flashing before her eyes (it honestly looked like a giant Yaoi compilation clip with bits and pieces of Nepgear scattered throughout), a voice from the side suddenly spoke up.
"You might want to let her get some air," the nonchalant male voice said. "Judging from her face, I think her official title might change to Blue Heart pretty soon."
Vert immediately felt the grip around her head loosen as Chika turned to growl at the speaker like some kind of rabid Dogoo.
"You keep out of this, you little brat!" Chika yelled out, looking positively murderous.
Vert used this opportunity to gently push herself away from her Oracle and take a couple of deep breaths. Vowing to have a word with her logical persona about properly warning people next time, the CPU straightened up to see where exactly she had ended up in.
Much to her relief, she saw that she was simply inside her own office. Seeing as how the place seemed to be in one piece, Vert guessed that Chika had been too busy worrying about her to continue her rampage. Glad that at least something was going her way today, she continued her investigation and saw that she was sitting on one of the pair of velvet sofas that she usually reserved for having tea with her guests.
Before she could take in anything else however, she noticed Chika tensing up next to her as if preparing to lunge towards the unseen third figure. Deciding that keeping her Oracle under control was her top priority at the moment, Vert quickly shot out a question to divert her attention.
"Chika, how exactly did I end up here?"
This thankfully did the job as the bloodlust in Chika's eyes suddenly drained away.
"Oh! I carried you here all by myself darling!" the Oracle proudly remarked as she faced Vert with a large smile. The sudden shift from killer intent to innocent happiness was frankly quite disturbing, even to the jaded CPU.
"Right..." Vert let out as she tried to keep her uneasiness from showing. "Anyways, what about the fire in my room?"
"The workers came in to deal with it while I moved you here," Chika waved off. "As for me, I've been busy taking care of you this whole time."
At this remark, Vert instinctively looked down to make sure all of her clothes were still in their proper places. As much as she trusted Chika to take care of her physical well-being, she did not put it past her Oracle to try and commit grand theft underwear again while she had been incapacitated. Celestia knows the countless number of times she had woken up to find Chika trying to unhook her bra or slide off her panties.
"She didn't steal any of your undergarments," the carefree voice spoke up again, as if responding to Vert's searching gaze down at herself. "She did make several attempts but I interrupted her every time she got too close."
"I knew that coughing fit of yours was too well-timed!" Chika angrily yelled out.
Vert just facepalmed at this while giving an enormous sigh.
After a tense couple of seconds, Vert decided that there was no point in delaying the inevitable and chose to finally acknowledge her main problem. After muttering a silent prayer to her patron deity (RNGesus), Vert slowly lowered her hand and faced the source of all of her current troubles.
Remarkably enough, the boy in the large green coat was not up to anything crazy at the moment as he seemed to be simply admiring the various energy swords in the glass display case near her desk.
"You there... um..." Vert trailed off as she realized that she had forgotten what his name was.
"Sync," he cheerfully reminded her without even glancing back.
"Right. Sync, I have a lot of important matters to discuss with you so could please take a seat?"
Sync gave one final glance towards the energy sword collection before turning around to face her. Now that she had a proper idea of who he was (or who he claimed to be at least), Vert could see that he did in fact share a close resemblance to her. His hair and eye color were the exact same shade as her own and his face structure definitely bore a familial similarity. Of course, there was always the chance that he had simply dyed his hair, put on colored contact lenses, and had his face changed by a skilled plastic surgeon but Vert sadly got the feeling that this was not the case.
As he began heading towards the pair of sofas though, Sync happened to catch sight of the large cardboard cut-out of Vert sitting behind the desk. A large grin suddenly appeared on his face as he began to look between the CPU and her cardboard counterpart.
"So," he began in an overly-innocent tone, "do you just keep this thing around for all the board meeting you have? Or do you use it to keep yourself from becoming bored when you're in here alone?"
Vert felt her left eye twitch at the puns. Next to her, Chika began to make feral animal noises towards the boy.
"Sit. Now."
With his grin still in place, Sync obeyed Vert's order and walked over to the sofa facing the two women.
"Well then," he began conversationally as he sat down. "What did you want to talk to me about sis?"
"Don't call me that," Vert immediately replied while automatically putting a restraining hand on Chika's shoulder. After waiting for her Oracle to calm down, the CPU put on the sternest look she could manage and went straight to the heart of the matter.
"Do you have any evidence to support your claim of being the CPU Candidate?"
Sync's smile hardly wavered as he looked at Vert with a bemused expression.
"Check the Leanbox Sharicite," he said with a dismissive wave of his hand. "I'm sure you can sense my presence in it."
Looking rather miffed about having her question so easily cast aside, Vert reluctantly focused on her main share crystal. As much as she hated to admit it, the boy was correct in assuming that this was the most credible way of checking if someone was a CPU Candidate or not. Seeing as how the Sharicite was one of the most heavily guarded objects in Leanbox, it would have been impossible for anyone to sneak in and tamper with the crystal. Plus, she was directly connected to it at all times so she would have immediately noticed if someone had tried to forge a fake link with it.
"Well?" Chika asked rather impatiently after Vert remained silent for a good minute. "Do you sense anything darling?"
The CPU remained silent as a look of confusion slowly fell across her face. After another minute or so, she looked up to face Sync with a puzzled expression.
"What is this?" she asked. "I can definitely feel something connected to the crystal but I can't get a good read on it."
A playful smile appeared on Sync's face as he answered. "Maybe the Sharicite and I are just not in sync yet."
Vert let out a tired groan as she buried her face with one hand while holding back Chika with the other.
"One more pun and I really will set Chika loose on you," Vert muttered darkly as the Oracle struggled to reach the boy's throat.
Though she could not see it, Sync just gave her an amused smile.
A few minutes later, Vert recovered from her pun-induced trauma and faced the supposed CPU Candidate with a serious expression.
"Unfortunately, I can't confirm if you really are connected to the Sharicite or not. For all I know, that weird anomaly I sensed from the crystal is simply a result of our sudden increase in shares. As such, I cannot accept this as evidence for your claim." Vert knew that she was simply being stubborn in her denial but she was desperate enough to take advantage of even the smallest discrepancies.
Before Sync could offer a counter-argument though, Chika suddenly spoke up.
"Ha! I knew you were nothing but a dirty liar!" she declared triumphantly while pointing dramatically at the boy. "Now stop wasting my darling sister's time and get out of here!"
Rather than looking offended, Sync spent the next couple of seconds giving her a calculating look as if trying to figure something out. Just when Chika was about to yell at him to stop staring at her, he turned to face Vert with a questioning look.
"Can you clarify something for me?" he asked with the barest hint of a smile on his face. "I know it's probably just personal preference but why do you keep around a Yandere Blight Witch as your mistress?"
It was hard to say whether Vert or Chika looked more dumbfounded at this question. Vert began to continuously open and close her mouth like a goldfish while her left eye began twitching again. Chika on the other hand turned bright red and started fidgeting uncomfortably as her imagination no doubt ran haywire at the mention of being Vert's mistress.
Sync however, did not seem to be done yet as he took in their shocked reactions with a large mischievous grin.
"Sheesh, you two really need to learn to hide your surprise better," he remarked with a large theatrical shrug. "The whole world's going to find out about this scandalous relationship at this rate. Given what the Blight Witch keeps saying, people might even assume that you two have some kind of weird sibling role-playing fetish going on as well."
This finally did the trick in snapping Chika's last remaining thread of sanity.
"DIE YOU LITTLE BRAT!"
With steam literally rising out of her head (though whether this was from anger or embarrassment was hard to tell), Chika summoned her spear from her inventory and threw it directly towards Sync.
Time seemed to slow as the spear flew on a direct course toward the boy's head. Vert tried to reach forward and grab the weapon but she knew that she was too late to stop it. Just as she resigned herself to the fact that her office was about to become the site of Chika's latest bloodbath, Sync casually made a slight waving motion with his right hand.
Almost immediately, a small distortion seemed to form in the space between Sync and the spear. As Vert watched with wide eyes, the spear flew straight into the strange portal-like shimmer in the air before disappearing completely.
Just as she was about question where the spear had gone, a loud thud resounded from behind her desk. Turning her head, Vert was completely astonished to find that Chika's weapon had somehow ended up impaling the cardboard cut-out of her instead.
"NOOOOOO!" With an anguished cry, Chika ran over to clutch the destroyed cut-out with a waterfall of tears suddenly streaming down her face. "Darling! You can't leave me like this! I was going to take you to my room later!"
Off to the side, Sync looked a little sheepish at where the spear had ended up as well.
"Whoops. I guess I still need to work on establishing a proper exit point. Still, at least none of us ended up turning into a kebab."
While Chika continued to cry loudly in the background, Vert turned to face Sync with a thoroughly perplexed expression.
"How did you do that?" she asked, completely forgetting about the verbal prank he had pulled earlier.
Sync gave a nonchalant shrug to this. "I can control space. Teleportation, telekinesis, energy displacement – just about anything that deals with moving any form of matter from one location to the next. It's how I was able to avoid all of those rockets before coming here. Of course, I'm still in the middle of getting the hang of it all so I usually end up messing up my warp coordinates like you just saw." He paused to think for a bit before continuing. "I've also been looking into dimensional warping but I'll probably need a tutor to accomplish something that advanced. You wouldn't happen to know anyone who specializes in that field, do you?"
Vert made a mental note to keep the kid as far away from Big Neptune and Croire as possible while quickly shaking her head.
"So let me get this straight," she reiterated after a brief pause. "You have the power to teleport anything to anywhere as long as they exist within this dimension?"
Sync seemed oddly amused at her question. "Please. I'm not that overpowered," he answered with a smile. "I can only manipulate the space around me within a set radius. If I try to warp anything further than that, then my control and speed slips up drastically. Kind of like how I ended up in your room by accident when I tried to get away from Chika earlier. (Vert winced a bit at being reminded of that awkward first meeting.) Anyways, as long as something happens to be within my warp zone, I can easily sense it's spatial location and manipulate it even without having to see it. For example..."
With a rather mischievous grin on his face, Sync waved his hand again.
Strangely enough, nothing seemed to occur following his motion. A few seconds later, however, the air above Vert's desk suddenly seemed to distort.
All eyes converged onto the desk as a pair of lacy green underwear suddenly floated down on top of it. Vert felt her face turning hotter than the surface of the sun as the sudden breeziness between her legs made it clear just who this underwear belonged to. Unfortunately for her, the predatory gleam in Chika's eyes indicated that the Oracle had recognized this specific pair of panties as well.
After a tense second, the two women simultaneously dived forward at speeds that could have made even Planeptune's mascot envious.
"NO! BAD CHIKA! BAD! STAY AWAY FROM MY UNDERWEAR!"
As the two green blurs clashed to vie for control of the undergarment, Sync casually pulled out a bucket of popcorn from his inventory and leaned back to enjoy the show.
An hour and a half later, the trio was back on the pair of sofas once more.
In the end, Vert had been able to recover her underwear and had momentarily stepped out to put it back on. Chika had settled for hugging a body pillow of Vert that she had pulled out of her inventory with an extremely disappointed look on her face. As for the office itself... well, a giant radioactive lizard trying to do the Macarena inside of it would have probably done less damage to the poor room than the disaster it had just gone through.
Throughout all of this wanton devastation, Sync had simply sat on the sofa and finished off his popcorn. He had, of course, used his powers to make sure that the flurry of destruction did not reach the area surrounding him but other than that he had simply played observer throughout the entire debacle.
Now that things had settled down, Vert was free to pinpoint the exact cause of all of this trouble. If looks could kill, then Sync would have probably died ten times over from the glare that she sent his way. In a sense, it was rather remarkable how he had been able to make the normally serene CPU show this much anger when Neptune had failed to do so even after annoying her for a countless number of years. Of course, this was hardly an achievement worth bragging about as Vert looked just about ready to take her own shot at eviscerating the boy.
"You..." Vert began with an ominous growl. "I'm going to-"
She was suddenly cut off when the sound of Nepgear's theme from Victory began to play from her inventory. Realizing that her phone was ringing, Vert angrily summoned it to her hand and answered it.
"Vert speaking," the CPU answered, not bothering to hide her annoyance.
"Ah, good afternoon Vert. This is Histoire."
Vert immediately felt her anger melting away upon hearing the Oracle's voice.
This is perfect! Vert's idealistic persona shouted out joyfully from within her mind. We'll just get Histoire to confirm that the boy isn't the real CPU Candidate! After that, we can just kick him out of our lives!
What if it turns out that he's been telling the truth? the logical side asked.
Oh, come on. Even our luck's not that bad, idealistic Vert waved off.
Logical Vert scoffed at this but otherwise remained silent.
With her minor debate concluded, Vert returned her attention to her phone call.
"You called at exactly the right time Histoire," Vert quickly said. "I have a-"
The rest of her words were suddenly drowned out by the sound of several large explosions going off from Histoire's end of the call.
"What the-? Is there something going on in Planeptune?" Vert immediately asked, a hint of worry entering her voice.
"Its nothing," Histoire dismissed with a tired sigh. "Nepgear just created another Nepgeardam and it has been terrorizing the city since this morning."
"I'm sorry!" Nepgear's voice called out from the background. "I thought I fixed all the bugs in the AI program!"
"If you have time to apologize, then go back to helping your sister take down that robot before Planeptune is turned into a smoking crater!" Histoire yelled back, obviously at her wits end.
Vert could only sweatdrop as Nepgear continued to apologize profusely before her voice eventually faded off into the distance.
"Well... um..." Vert eventually said, trying to get back on track. "I... uh... have a bit of problem here as well. There's someone here claiming to be the CPU Candidate of Leanbox and-"
"Oh, has she safely arrived then?"
Somewhere within the CPU's mind, her idealistic side shriveled up and died.
"You... knew about this?" Vert asked after a lengthy silence.
"Not exactly," Histoire elaborated. "My sensors simply alerted me to a spontaneous condensation of share energy somewhere within Leanbox so I assumed a new CPU Candidate had been born. I would have normally gone out to personally escort the Candidate to your Basilicom but I've been a bit... preoccupied lately." A giant laser cannon was heard going off in the background just as she finished saying that. "Anyways, I was simply calling to let you know about all of this."
There was utter silence in both the real world and in Vert's mental landscape for a good long while.
Well, I suppose this at least explains why the kid was looking for me by himself, the logical part of Vert's mind noted while the rest of her tried to figure out a way to get rid of Sync.
"I...Is there any chance you might have made a mistake?" Vert asked, desperation clear in her voice.
Histoire sounded rather confused by this question. "Didn't you say that the CPU Candidate has already arrived? How could I be making a mistake? Is there something wrong with the Sharicite connection?"
Seeing an opening, Vert immediately leaped upon it.
"There's a strange anomaly with the Leanbox Sharicite at the moment. I can sense something connected to it but I can't make heads or tails of it." At the urging of her logical side, Vert decided to add in a suggestion as well. "Maybe this is just a case of a CPU from another dimension ending up here and accidentally linking up with my Sharicite?"
Histoire seemed to think about this for a minute before answering with a sigh. I suppose stranger things have happened before. Very well then. Come visit me with this supposed CPU Candidate in a couple of days. Hopefully this Nepgeardam crisis will be dealt with by then and-"
The rest of Histoire's words were drowned out by a loud siren followed by a robotic voice coming from Planeptune's PA system.
"Nuclear launch detected."
The sound of Planeptune's citizens erupting into mass panic was audible even from Vert's end of the phone.
"NEPGEAR!"
With that, Histoire abruptly ended the call.
The ruined remains of Vert's office became silent once more as Vert put away her phone. Judging from their looks, both Chika and Sync had managed to hear the entire conversation that had just occurred.
"So... does that mean I can stay here?" Sync eventually asked with a small smile.
For once, Chika did not immediately go for the 'stab them till they're dead' option and instead looked at Vert for an answer.
After what felt like an eternity (eight minutes and forty-two seconds to be exact), Vert gave a sigh big enough to blow away all of the debris surrounding her before looking up to face Sync.
"You can stay for now," she ground out with bitter reluctance. Seeing Chika about to loudly protest to this idea, Vert decided to explain herself further. "It's only until we can go visit Histoire and get this entire mess sorted out. She said she'll have everything under control again in a couple of days so we'll just have to make do until then."
Of course, Vert knew that Nepgear liked to go rather overboard with her projects so it was very likely that her latest robot menace would take quite a bit longer than expected to take down. If that nuclear assault at the end was anything to go by, Planeptune was in for a rough week.
Realizing that she was also facing a rather rough time herself, Vert decided to lay down some ground rules before Sync went completely wild.
"Alright, listen up," she announced as she pinned him down with a stern look. "I don't want to alert the public about a new CPU Candidate before we can confirm everything with Histoire so I want you to stay inside the Basilicom until then. Don't tell anyone about your true identity and don't do anything to attract attention to yourself either."
Sync seemed to think about this for a second before giving a smile and nod.
"Also, don't do anything to annoy Chika while you're here," Vert added as she caught sight of the green-haired woman growling at him from the side. "She's the Oracle of Leanbox and I expect you treat her with the proper amount of respect from now on."
Sync looked between the two women with a thoughtful expression before settling for a playful grin.
"You have a Blight Witch as your Oracle? That's pretty unorthodox."
Vert pinched the bridge of her nose and let out another sigh as she realized that the week was going to be a lot longer than she had originally thought.
"Chika... please put down the meat cleaver."
Yep, this was definitely going to be a long week indeed.