Hyperdimension Neptunia is owned by Compile Heart, Idea Factory, Sega and whomever else worked on it.
By the way, if you're having some trouble figuring out what the airship Neptune and the others are in looks like, just go look up a sprite of the airships from Final Fantasy IV.
Chapter 13
"Well, well..." Vert, dressed in a green bathrobe that did nothing to hide her large breasts and was so short that the bottom half of her large butt was on display, and fuzzy slippers, smirked as she walked into her dungeon. There were several cells in the room, but there was only one that had the person she was interested in held within.
The person in question was a young child, and due to the fact that their clothing was in tatters, it was easy to see the abuse on their body and the fact that the person was a girl, slowly raised her head up and looked at Vert with a look of total despondence on her face. "W...why?" She asked as she hung from the ceiling with her arms locked in chains while her feet were in chains that were bolted to the floor so that she couldn't move. Her blonde hair was dirty and greasy from never being cleaned and her eyes had unshed tears as her face had tear-streaks all over them.
Vert just shook her head. "Quite frankly, I grow so sick and tired of this..." She sneered at the girl before smirking as an idea came to her. "So, I'll tell you what... Unlike my OTHER younger sisters, I'll kill you early."
The girl flinched and looked down. "Sorry..." She whimpered, wondering why she had to suffer like this.
"Aww, don't worry..." Vert slid up to the girl and ran a hand over the girl's young body, drawing a shiver from the bound girl. "It's just your rotten luck to be born as MY little sister." She gave the bound girl's butt a tight squeeze. "But don't worry, at least you'll die with your heart intact, unlike my last six younger sisters." Vert said and gave the bound girl a firm pat on the butt. "If you were a little older, I might have kept you as a sex pet or something." She laughed and walked off. As she got to the cage door, she turned to look at the girl who was hanging there. "But don't worry, I have your execution scheduled for the end of the week."
The girl's blue eyes watered up and she hung her head as Vert walked off. "Why... Big sis... Why..?" She cried to herself. She didn't want to die. She wanted to live, why did she have to die?
"What did I do wrong?" The little girl asked.
Sadly there was no answer for her.
(-)
A few days later...
"What do you mean we can't just land at the castle?" Chrome asked Linda, who shook her head.
"Not enough room." Linda said to her. "I mean, I SUPPOSE Nep could transform into Purple Heart and fly in there, but..."
"Not a good idea." Chrome shook her head. "Fine, so where do we land?" She looked outside and had a small frown on her face. "The nation is a giant stone maze?" And from what she could see there were things that looked... Weird. "So how do we get there?"
Linda shrugged and flew towards the edges of the nation. "I think I saw an entrance as we were flying up to this place."
"Hey!" Neptune said as she, Rom and Ram walked into the cockpit. "So that's Leanbox?" She asked while looking out the window. "Is that a castle?" Neptune boggled as she looked at the stone building in the center of the nation. "Leave it to Vert to want a big stone castle."
"Vert?" Chrome asked her. "Oh, let me guess, in your world, Vert's the CPU of your Leanbox?" Neptune nodded at her. "Well, does she have an ego or something?"
"Yep." Neptune nodded. "She's always trying to show everyone else up, I guess having a big, stone castle that looks like something out of an old-school fantasy RPG fits her."
Chrome smirked, glad she wasn't the only one who thought the castle looked like that. "So there's a maze to even get to the castle, but I can't figure out how we're getting into the nation."
"Oh, don't worry about that." Neptune grinned at her. "Knowing Vert, she has a way in and out and there's a whole bunch of traps and stuff in the way. But if I were here, I'd probably put a docking station for boats on the East and South sides of the country."
"Can we land on one of those docking places?" Rom asked as she and Ram looked out the window to look at Leanbox. "That place is pretty neat."
"Don't worry, this thing used to be a boat." Linda said to them. "Landing in the water is easy to do."
"So the question is, who's going with us?" Chrome asked. "Neptune already says she's going, I plan on going with her. We need some people to watch the ship."
"I'll stay here." Linda said. "Gust, Warechu, IF and Compa will as well. No offense kids," she looked at Rom and Ram, "but you can do what you want." Sure, she didn't MIND them as she had gotten to know them, but she was still wary around them. Mostly because they were born from Fearicite and even with Lowee's Fearicite crystal shattering, there was no telling if they'd transform into Voids or not, "And Filyn does what she wants anyway."
"It's fine, yo." Neptune spoke up with her arms crossed behind her head. "You can stay if you promise to keep putting faith in me."
Linda snorted, but smirked at her. "That all? You earned that when you beat the shit out of White Void." She sobered up. "Just be careful, okay? You're the only one who can fight those Voids right now."
"I'm almost disappointed." Chrome drawled but smirked at Linda as she flushed. "You're not wrong. If Neptune hadn't knocked away that axe, I never would have been able to do what I did to her."
"Um..." Ram looked at Linda nervously. "Do you still hate us?"
"Hate's a strong word." Linda admitted and rubbed the back of her head. "How to..."
"It's okay." Rom interrupted and snorted at Linda. "I get it. Even if the Fearicite's gone, I don't want to transform if I can help it, even if I get the ability to do so."
Linda nodded, grateful that the CPU Candidate brought it up. "Yeah. I don't know if you can transform without a Fearicite Crystal or not, but if you do and you turn into a Void..."
Ram trembled, her eyes watering up. "I don't want to be a monster." She jumped as she felt a hand on her shoulder. Turning, she saw Neptune smiling at her softly.
"Don't worry," Neptune winked at Ram, "you won't turn into a Void even if you transform. You need to feel all sorts of bad emotions first after all."
"What about you?" Rom asked as she looked at Neptune. "The Fearicite Crystal tried to make you into a Void."
Neptune turned to Rom and shook her head. "Nah." She walked to the door, winking at Rom. "This Nep's been brainwashed before and that Fearicite Crystal doesn't compare to what Kurome did to me." Legitimately trying to kill her sister had been the worst thing that Neptune ever did to Nepgear.
And no matter how much Nepgear told her that she forgave Neptune over it, Neptune could never forgive herself.
She knew that Noire, Vert and Blanc all felt the same way. Even if none of them ever brought it up, there was just a look that the four of them had between each other that told them that none of them had truly gotten over what Kurome did to them.
Not that any of them blamed Uzume, it wasn't her fault after all.
(-)
It was nearly fifteen minutes later when Neptune, Chrome, Filyn, Rom and Ram were walking off the ship and into Leanbox.
Chrome looked up at the walls and mentally sighed. They had to be at least fifteen meters tall or higher. "And me without climbing gear." She said and ran her hand over the wall, noting that it wasn't super smooth, but rather rough and had places that stuck out as perfect hand and foot holds for climbing up.
"Big sis Neptune..." Ram spoke up. "Can you fly us straight there?"
"Yeah!" Rom's eyes lit up in happiness. "I don't wanna get lost in this maze." It looked really complicated and there was no mini-map to tell them anything.
"Well, if I know Vert like I think I do... Even if she's from an alternate world..." Neptune reached down and picked up a rock. "HIYAH!" She yelled and threw the rock as hard as she could. Everyone watched the rock fly up and just as it got above the stone walls, it seemingly exploded and the air started to ripple with green energy or something.
"Well, that plan's out." Chrome muttered. "Anyone else have a plan?"
"I got an idea!" Filyn suddenly spoke up. "We go left!"
"Through the first or the second corridor?" Chrome pointed out and sighed as Filyn walked along the first one. "Well, it's not like I have any better ideas."
The others followed along and as they got to the end, they turned a corner...
And found themselves in an entirely different area.
(-)
"...Vert has random teleporters." Neptune grumbled as she realized that one, she was in a different area and two...
She was alone. "HELLO?!"
When there was no response, she sighed and looked around. "Well..." There was a wall to her back and the walls around her broke off into a T-section. "Left, right or center?" Shrugging, she spread her arms to the side and ran straight forward and hoped that the others were okay.
(-)
At another location...
Chrome frowned as she looked around. "Filyn? Neptune? Rom? Ram?" She called out as she looked around in the room she somehow ended up in. "Well, at least there's an open door. I wonder why I was..." She trailed off as she saw large, mutant spiders suddenly start swarming in. "Oh lovely." Flexing her fingers, several threads of thin metal gleamed in the light as they seemingly extended from her fingertips. "I might be a former CPU, but I can still fight."
At least now she knew why the door was open. After all, if it was anyone but her or Neptune, they would likely be dead real quick.
Jumping to the corner, Chrome jumped up so that her feet were on the wall and then used that to push off while swinging her arms around and flexing her fingers so that the wires went all around the spiders that were flooding into the room before she gave the wires a pull and the spiders turned into a fine paste.
Sadly, the wave of spiders didn't end and Chrome just sighed softly. "Well, guess I can't complain too much."
She just hoped that she killed these things off fast enough to find her sister and the others.
(-)
Meanwhile...
Rom stared at what looked like a glass wall in front of her. She turned to the side and saw a glass wall there as well. On all four sides, glass walls. Above her, a glass ceiling and below her was a stone floor, which she was thankful for. "So..." She pulled out her magic staff and tested the wall by blasting the one farthest away from her.
When the magic blast seemingly disappeared before reappearing to her side and zapping her in her butt, she jumped and let out a shriek while rubbing her rear end. "Why is it always my butt!?" Rom yelled in frustration. Still, at least she wasn't going to blast the walls. That was dangerous.
There was a clanging sound and Rom's pupils shrank as she saw a large metal ball suddenly appear in the center of the room. "What the heck is that there for?"
When the room suddenly tilted towards her slowly and the ball started to roll her way, Rom knew. "YEEK!" Rom jumped out of the way and watched as the metal ball disappeared through the wall behind her, only for the metal ball to come out of another side, but thankfully with the way that the room was tilted it wouldn't move towards her.
"I hope it..." Rom fell onto her butt as the room shifted again and she could only stare in horror as the ball started to aim at her. Getting to her hands and knees, she quickly crawled away while pushing herself to her feet and running as the ball just barely missed her and came through another section of the wall. "THIS SUCKS!" Rom cried out and focused on her magic and fired a blast at the metal ball as the room tilted back in her direction again. "I'll break this bad ball!"
When the blast hit the ball and bounced off of it, Rom let out a yelp of fright as the energy zig-zagged all over the room, going through the walls, the ceiling and hitting the ball again, which, while not doing any damage to the ball, was slowing it down.
Rom didn't move, she was worried her own blast would hit her in the face or butt, but she knew that if she didn't move that the big ball in front of her would run her over and that would be really bad. "Big sis Neptune! HELP!" Rom called out, wondering what she could...
There was a crashing sound and Rom turned her head to the left and saw a panel of the wall that was destroyed and leading to a hallway. Without even bothering to question it Rom ran for it as fast as her short legs would carry her before jumping as the ball crashed into the open hole, where it stopped.
Rom panted with one hand on the wall. "That was scary." She didn't want to die being squished under a giant marble after all.
She hoped that Ram, Neptune and the others were doing better than she was.
(-)
Elsewhere...
Ram looked around in confusion. "Where am I?" One second she was with Rom and the others and the next second she was all alone in some corridor, surrounded by some red, goopy substance that was making her a bit nervous.
When the goopy substance started to shrink and condense, Ram was almost relieved, at least she didn't have to see if it was dangerous to touch.
When she was surrounded on both sides of the corridor by really fat red dogoos, Ram's pupils shrank and she trembled. "Ah! This isn't fair!" She pulled out her magic staff and blasted one, only to have its body ripple without much damage dealt to it. "Eeek!" Ram trembled as they moved towards her slowly. "I don't want to die. Please..."
"Dogoo..." The two blubbered out and got close to her as Ram fell to her butt and teared up while shivering and shaking as the dogoos kept moving towards her.
"Please! Don't! I don't, EEK!" Suddenly a tendril of slime shot out from one of the dogoos and wrapped itself around Ram's leg before pulling her into the creature's slimy body.
"NO!" Ram struggled and tried to get free as she sank into the body of slime. "Let me go!" She focused her magic as best she could into her staff and smacked the slimy creature, only to find that her staff getting stuck in the slime. As she sank into the slime, helpless to move as her arms became unable to move, Ram started to cry. It was all she could do. "Rom! Big Sis Neptune! I'm so sorry! I'm glub glub!"
Ram struggled to move, she struggled to do anything, it was all she could do. As her lungs started to burn from the lack of air, she screwed her eyes shut. 'I'm sorry everyone... Forgive me.'
That was the last thing she thought of as she passed out from lack of oxygen.
(-)
Meanwhile...
Rom looked at the pit and gulped in fear. "I can't see the bottom." There was a narrow path in front of her that she could walk across at least. Taking a deep breath, she slowly let it out. "I'll be brave, big sis Neptune, you'll be proud of me." Rom started to walk across the narrow path and shivered as she realized that it was a lot more narrow than she thought it was. "Maybe..." She quickly got on her hands and knees and crawled across the platform and whimpered as she heard a rock crumble down into the pit below. "I don't want to fall. I don't want to fall." She muttered as she continued to crawl until she got to a circular pillar part way into the pit. "Made it!" She smiled and stood up. "Okay, I can do this! I can get back to the others!"
Suddenly the pillar started to shake and Rom's eyes widened. "EEK!" She yelled and ran forward as fast as her short legs could carry her. "WAAAH! I DON'T WANNA DIE!" She cried as the bridge swayed and started to crumble. "NO! NO!" Rom cried out as she got half way across and found the bridge was giving out on her completely. "JUMP!" She yelled and jumped as hard as she could towards the other side.
Sadly, it was not to be as her jump ended up being short and she fell into the deep pit below.
"WAAAAAH!" Rom cried as she saw the light of the hallway shrink and eventually disappear while she fell. "I DON'T WANNA DIE!" She screamed in fear as tears fell from her eyes as she was consumed by darkness.
To be continued...
*Insert Dick Dastardly mustache twirling pose here* Meehahahahahahahahaha!
A lot happened in this chapter, didn't it? Lots of stuff to review.
And just so you all know, I really want to post chapters as soon as I have them written too. IT'S SO HARD TO HOLD BACK! T_T