Hyperdimension Neptunia is owned by Compile Heart, Idea Factory, Sega and whomever else worked on it.
As some of you have figured out already, yes, this story was inspired by "Into the Abyss" by Blade of Justice. Sadly the story went unfinished and never left Lowee.
Chapter 4
Days later...
Stretching as she got off of the boat, Neptune looked around the harbor and saw the large city just beyond it. "PHEW!" She smiled as she got done stretching. "Being on a boat for five days kind of sucks." She tilted her head as she looked at the city some more. "Huh, so the main city is by the coast in this world?" Neptune muttered softly and looked out into the ocean where there were plenty of islands that were visible, but pretty far away. "Fishing islands or where there's fruits?"
"Yes." Linda answered her. "Hey, if you don't mind, you can either stick around and help us or get lost. You don't need to hang around us anymore, do ya?"
"Guess not, no." Neptune smiled at her. "Well, Linda, this is where we part, huh?"
"Tch," Linda had an uneasy look on her face as she looked at Neptune. The small girl was a bit... Weird and annoying with her comments, but she seemed like a genuinely good person, which was a rarity in the world. "Hey, um... Nep...tune?"
"Hmm?" Neptune looked at her. "What is it?"
"Take care, okay?" Linda's voice was soft. "Don't think I care about you or anything, but Filyn, IF and Compa took a liking to you and I'd hate to hear that you died and have to tell them."
Neptune blinked a few times and almost made a joke about Linda being a Tsundere but held back and just nodded. "Sure. You take care too. If you're not careful, everyone will think you're some sort of underling or something."
"DON'T CALL ME THAT!" Linda yelled and Neptune's eyes widened in surprise as she realized just who Linda was. "...What?"
"I THOUGHT you looked familiar!" Neptune slapped her fist into her open hand. "You're pretty popular with the fanbase, I'm surprised that you haven't been in more games. Oh well, later!" She turned and ran off, waving her goodbyes.
"Is she gone?" Chrome asked as she came up upon Linda, who turned and nodded. "Okay, good. Let's get this stuff unloaded and do some trading." She looked at the city and grimaced. "The last thing we need is that CPU finding out that we're here."
"Hey, Chromey!" Filyn spoke up and waved at her. "I wanna go get some stuff."
"Make it quick." Chrome said to her and nodded to IF, Gust and Compa. "Don't go getting lost, you know you have trouble judging distances."
"Hmph!" The little girl crossed her arms as her light jacket fluttered in the breeze. "I'm not going to get lost, Chromey."
"I hope not." Chrome said softly as she gave Filyn a small smile.
(-)
As she walked through the city, Neptune couldn't help but stare at the buildings. While the buildings on the main roads were metal and fancy looking, the ones that were in the more residential areas were brick and mortar and all looked rather cheap and unfeeling compared to what she was used to seeing in Lowee. 'Heck, even Lonely Heart's apartment buildings have more feeling than these.' They were square, stacked up high and looked almost... Old.
As she turned a corner, she saw graffiti all over the walls. "Death to CPUs?" She stared at that. "...Is Rei doing things in this world as well?" After all, Rei Ryghts had tried to get rid of her in a misguided attempt to rid the Hyperdimension of CPUs. "Then again, maybe Rei's the reason that things are screwed up here." After all, if the oldest being in Plutia's Gamindustri was around in this world at one time, there was a good chance that she was the reason that things seemed so messed up.
"Well, better a messed up world than a world where you have to do lewd things for shares." Neptune giggled and blushed at the thought of doing stuff like that and shook her head. While she thought about that stuff from time to time, she didn't think she could go through with doing lewd things with others.
Why, head pats were so lewd that they had to be censored on television!
Walking down the street aimlessly, Neptune eventually ended up in an outdoor market of some sort with lots of people buying and selling stuff at various tables. "Huh? What's going on?"
"Don't you know?" An old man asked and Neptune turned to look at him. "It's the end of the season sales on all sorts of stuff. Everyone's getting rid of crap they gathered over the past year that they don't need anymore and are selling it to people who want it."
"Oh." Neptune nodded, that seemed rather normal, even if there was a lot of people there. "So this is once a year?"
"The big one like this, yeah." The man nodded at her. "There's markets that pop up every week in this corner, but there's not much compared to this. Why, the CPU could walk through here and no one would notice until she got mad or something." The man laughed and shivered, as did several people who were nearby and all of them quickly looked around in fear before calming down as they didn't see the CPU in the crowd or hear anyone crying out in pain.
Neptune nodded and thanked the man before walking through the crowds. She doubted her credits would be good here anyway, but she wanted to see what she could see.
"Hey! Come on!" A familiar voice had Neptune suddenly stop, spin to the East and look as she tried to find the source of that voice. "If we hurry we can get some of the good stuff and get back to our hiding spot before we're noticed."
"Was that Ram?" Neptune asked herself and made her way to the East, squeezing past some people. "Woah! Wide load!" She ducked under someone who was rather... Large and had a large rear end to go with it.
After avoiding a close encounter of the smelly kind, Neptune continued to weave through the crowds before she finally ended up in an alley of some sort. "Phew! That's a lot of people!" Walking forward, she noticed that there were a lot of metal trash cans on the ground, some trash around them and various graffiti along the walls.
"The state of the nation reflects on their CPU. The more downtrodden it seems, the worse the CPU is." Neptune muttered softly, remembering Histoire's lessons on how to be a proper CPU. Neptune mentally sighed as she thought about Histoire. While she really did care for the fairy, there were times she wanted to give Histoire a good smack. "Sorry, Histy, I know you do your best and I'm not easy to work with, but you make me so mad sometimes."
That was probably why Kurome had been able to brainwash her. "Urgh, this stinks worse than the bathroom when I had that spoiled milk." And Neptune wasn't talking about the smell in the alleyway either.
After getting to the end of the alleyway, Neptune sighed as she didn't see either Ram or Rom. "I guess I misheard." She turned around and was about to leave when something poked her in the back hard.
"Who the hell are you?" Rom's voice was heard. "Did Blanc send you? Answer me."
"Uh..." Neptune sweat-dropped heavily. "Can I turn around and look at you please? Pretty please? You sound pretty angry."
"Rom..." Neptune could have sworn that sounded like Ram, but the tone was way too meek for the girl that she knew. "Please? Maybe she's not..?"
"You said it yourself, Ram," Rom's voice was heard, "someone was following us. If not for your invisibility spell, we would have been seen."
"Well, that explains why I didn't see you after I walked into the alley." Neptune chirped up happily, until she was poked hard in the back. "Owwies!"
"So what did Blanc promise you?" Rom asked, anger seeping into her voice. "Power? Money? I'll tell you this, as soon as you give her what she wants she'll betray you, so just leave the city and never come back, you'll be safer that way."
Neptune scratched her cheek. "Well, if you want to know..." The next thing that happened had both Rom and Ram staring in shock as Neptune suddenly ducked into a low crouching position while spinning around to face them before she stood up and grabbed the staff that was in Rom's hand and with a twist, she disarmed Rom and pulled the staff away from her. "Here's a tip, if you're going to hold a magic staff like a spear, make sure you know how to use a spear." She giggled at the look Rom was giving her. "Okay..." Neptune trailed off as she got a good look at Rom and Ram.
Both girls had brown hair and Rom's hair was still short while Ram's hair was still long and both had blue eyes. Rom, however, had a stern look on her face while Ram had a timid, scared look on hers. "Huh, so you two swapped personalities in this world, huh?" Neptune muttered to herself, causing both girls to blink in confusion. "Never mind." She rubbed the back of her head and giggled. One thing that confused her was the clothing the two were wearing, their personalities being swapped wasn't the only thing that was different between this world and hers.
Rom was wearing a blue tube top over her breasts, which Neptune could see were actually there and while they weren't big at all, the mere fact that Rom, despite the fact that she looked like she was younger than Neptune, had a budding chest that was bigger than Blanc's chest almost made her tear up. 'Calm down, Neptune, just because she has boobs doesn't mean a thing, after all, she could be like Uni and get flatter when she transforms.' Neptune thought to herself and continued to look the girls over. Rom's pants were... Small and Neptune could actually see hints of Rom's underwear from under her short shorts. The girl was wearing sandals around her feet that were wrapped around her feet and ankles.
Ram, however, was wearing boots on her feet with some sort of stretchy, tight pants that molded to her legs completely. 'Didn't Nepgear say those were Yoga pants?' She remembered her sister wearing those pants around the Basilicom one day without a skirt on and everyone, including Neptune and Histoire, had to stop what they were doing and stare whenever Nepgear bent over to pick stuff up. After a few accidents involving stairs and knives, both Neptune and Histoire had forbidden Nepgear from wearing Yoga pants unless she had a skirt on over them. 'Booty of mass distraction indeed.'
Ram was wearing what looked like a halter top and a small jacket over her shoulders that left her belly exposed. And from what Neptune could see, Ram's chest was still as small in this world as it was in her own world.
"So, uh..." Neptune gave them a slightly confused look. "What's wrong with you two?"
"Tch..." Rom snarled at her and turned to walk away and Neptune could see that Rom's shorts actually rode up into her butt a bit, showing off the bottom portion of her butt and they were so small in the back that Neptune could see the top crack of Rom's butt from behind. "Let's go, Ram." She walked off in a huff.
"Um..." Ram fidgeted and looked at Neptune. "I'm sorry." She bowed to Neptune and ran off after her sister.
"...What's with this world?" Neptune asked no one in particular, wondering why the twins were not only acting that way, but why they were dressing so... Lewd. "...Also, Blanc's the CPU here, huh?" She hung her head and sighed softly. "Does this mean that there's a Vert and Noire here too? Is Planeptune ruled by Uzume, Plutie or me?" Neptune wondered why she was thinking there might have been other Planeptune CPUs, but she couldn't recall. There was one that she knew was from just before her, but she couldn't recall the name of that CPU off the top of her head.
Neptune wasn't sure what was up with this world.
But she knew that she didn't like it.
(-)
"Rom!" Ram called out as she ran after her sister. "Are you okay?"
"Is she following us?" Rom asked, getting a shake of Ram's head. "Good." Rom took a deep breath and suddenly punched a nearby brick wall. "FUCK! That was scary!"
"Rom?" Ram asked her. "Are you okay?"
"NO!" Rom trembled and pounded on the wall a few times. "That... Who was that!? Why does she talk like she knows us?! How did she disarm me like that?!"
Ram bit her cheek softly. Not even Blanc had been able to disarm Rom when she tried, but considering it was Blanc, it didn't matter as there was nothing that the two of them could do about Blanc when she was in one of her moods. "Do you think she was hired by Blanc?"
Rom trembled. If that girl had been hired by Blanc and with how easy it was for that girl to disarm her...
Ram watched as Rom fought the urge to cry. "Rom... It's okay..." She sighed as Rom pulled herself away from the wall and stormed off. "Please Rom... Don't bottle it up... I don't like seeing you suffer." She whimpered as she watched her twin walk off. 'Why? Why is Blanc so mean to us? Why do all the people treat us like we're some kind of monsters?' There were a few people who were kind to them, but even then, there was tension under the surface.
'Someone, please... Please tell us why.'
To Be Continued...
Well, you were all wondering about Rom and Ram, there you go, they're alive.
The whole "head pats are too lewd" thing is a swipe at Nintendo for censoring Fire Emblem Fates in the West by removing a mini game where you gave teammates head pats, and the reasoning given was basically "too lewd for Western audiences". Since they're in Lowee right now, I thought it was appropriate to do that.