Hyperdimension Neptunia is owned by Compile Heart, Idea Factory, Sega and whomever else worked on it.

So I don't know how my update schedule will be this week. I'll try to keep posting updates, but no guarantee when I will. Just keep an eye out.

Chapter 37

"Aww, come on, Nepsy," Kurome gave her a hurt look, "it's been years since we last saw each other and this is how you greet me?" She sighed at the angry look Neptune gave her. "Come on, aren't you happy to see me?"

"You brainwashed me, used me and my friends to power Dark CPUs and you tried to have me kill my sister." Neptune shot back. "Of course I'm not happy to see you!"

Kurome raised an eyebrow and gave her a curious look. "Interesting that you would still hold this over me."

"Wait a moment!" Neptune pointed at her. "How are you here?! You're dead!"

"Am I?" Kurome asked in amusement. "I'm sure that you saw my body dissolve then?"

"Well, no, I wasn't there, but Uzume was and she told me that you died!" Neptune shot back at her.

Kurome chuckled softly. "Ah, Nepsy, Nepsy, Nepsy... You really believe her?" She shook her head and held up a hand when Neptune looked like she was about to argue the point. "It doesn't matter, does it?"

The next thing Neptune knew, Kurome was up next to her and Neptune's face paled as she saw power symbols in Kurome's eyes.

But they were upside down and black.

"...ne!" A voice that was distant suddenly spoke up and Neptune could have sworn that the darkness, the background and even Kurome all shattered in that moment. "...tune?" The voice was getting closer and Neptune blinked several times and rubbed her eyes as the scenery changed from pitch black to the cityscape that she had been in before. "Big Sis Neptune!"

Neptune blinked several times and gasped as she realized that she wasn't staring at Kurome but rather she was surrounded by Rom, Ram and Peashy, all of them were looking at her in concern. "Uh... How long was I out?"

"Not long," Rom answered her and grabbed her hand, giving it a small squeeze, "but you suddenly stopped moving and weren't reacting. What happened?"

"I..." Neptune sighed softly and shook her head. "Sorry," she rubbed the back of her head, "I thought I saw a bad guy that I thought was dead and..." Neptune trailed off and decided that they didn't need to know about Kurome, since the chance of Dark CPUs and the Zero Dimension happening in this dimension had to be really low. "Don't worry, even if we meet the bad guy from my world that doesn't mean that they'll be a bad guy in this one. After all, Chrome's a bad guy in my world."

Rom frowned lightly at hearing that. "Um... Big Sis... Are we..?"

Neptune shook her head and rubbed Rom's head, smiling. "Nah, you, Ram and P-ko are all good guys even in my world." Rom smiled and Neptune could feel her own happiness increase slightly from that. "So... What should we do? I don't know if we're going to find anything today."

"Can we keep walking?" Ram asked as she and Peashy slid up to Neptune's side. "I like this."

"Sure." Neptune smiled at her.

(-)

At the Basilicom...

Standing on the top floor of the Basilicom, Noire narrowed her eyes as she looked out at city. '...Where are you, Uni?' She could go out there herself and look for Uni, but she knew that doing so would catch unwanted attention. "I told you that you couldn't trust humans..." Noire trailed off as memories of what happened when she was a CPU Candidate entered her mind.

*Flash*

"Hey," Noire, who had dark hair and was wearing dark pants and tube top with a vest over her shoulders, smiled at a pair of teenagers who were wearing dirty clothes. "I told you I'd be back." The three were meeting at a bench on the lower levels of Lastation in the Northern district.

"Yeah." The two girls smiled at her. One of them was a girl with white hair, dark skin, eyes that were red like Noire's, but she had cat ears and a cat tail, which Noire thought was neat. The other girl was slightly smaller and had fair skin, blue eyes and pink hair done up in twin pigtails.

"Um, so... Moru, Resta..." Noire began slowly as she looked at each of the girls, "what do you want to do today?"

"Well," Moru smiled at Noire, "want to come with us? We made some new friends while you were busy!"

"I'm sure they'll love you too." Resta smiled at her.

Noire smiled, the thought of more friends seemed great to her. "Sure!"

(-)

It was nearly an hour later when Noire found herself in the slums part of Lastation. While she was certain she could handle herself against the thugs that made this area their home, it didn't mean that she felt nice down in this part of the city. "So... Moru, Resta... Where are we going?"

"Just to this place right over here." Moru pointed to a small outdoor coffee shop. "I'm, uh, a little thirsty."

"I could go for something myself." Noire muttered. "Never had coffee before." She blinked as Resta touched her hand and smiled at her, causing her to blush.

"Don't worry..." Resta's smile was rather friendly, "we'll get you something good."

Noire nodded and walked over to the coffee shop with them. "Why don't you order for me?" She asked Moru. "I'll pay for it."

"Sure!" The white-haired catgirl smiled at Noire and spoke to the server quickly. Noire turned and looked off to the side, looking around how dirty and dingy the place was, not to mention the level of... Tension that seemed to be in the air.

"With all these gangs and criminals around here, how does anyone down here stay in business?" Noire asked and she blinked as she felt a tug on her pants. Turning to see Resta, she looked at the smaller girl in confusion. "Yes?"

"The gangs and criminals don't bother the food businesses down here because everyone has to eat, right?" Resta asked, getting a nod from Noire, "so they don't cause problems for the food places and anyone who tries anything gets shanked in the dick!"

Noire sweat-dropped at hearing those words from a little girl. "Um... Aren't you too young..?"

"...Mom makes money by walking the streets." Resta said and Noire winced at that. "Plus I know Lady Ryuka and I was offered a job to work for her."

Noire couldn't say anything to that. Ryuka was one of the leaders of the larger criminal gangs in Lastation. And as much as Noire wanted to go in there and deal with her, she had no proof that the woman was doing anything outright illegal. "By work for her, you mean..?"

"As one of her night ladies." Resta smiled brightly. "It'll be better than sleeping on the streets." Noire wanted to protest, she really did, but she also knew that people needed to work if they wanted to eat. Even if that work was... Less than desirable.

"Here you go." Moru said as she handed Noire a drink. "This'll knock your socks off."

"I doubt that." Noire smirked as she took the drink and took a big gulp right away. "This isn't bad." Noire could at least appreciate a good drink, even if it wasn't something she ever had before. It was then that she noticed something odd. "Hey, where are your drinks?"

"Yeah, they're..." Moru trailed off before grinning. "Not coming. You're such an idiot."

Before Noire could ask what she meant by that she started to feel rather weak as her body started to go numb. "What did..?" She asked as her drink slipped out of her hand and crashed to the ground below.

Resta started giggling. "Man, our information was right. You really will believe any sob story. We're going to get so much money when we sell you to Lady Ryuka."

Noire couldn't say anything as she slumped to the ground and passed out.

"Don't worry," Moru smiled at her, "you'll be treated right and trained really well."

*End Flash*

Noire narrowed her eyes as the memory ended. After recovering from whatever drug that those two had given her, as they had clearly underestimated how fast a CPU Candidate could recover from things like that, Noire had thanked them for such an important lesson...

Before ending their lives for what they tried to do to her.

Noire let loose a soft sigh. 'Uni. I don't...' There was a buzzing into her office and she turned to the doors. "What?"

The door opened and Kei popped her head in. "Lady Black Void, are you busy?" She chuckled at the look that Noire gave her. "My apologies, but I thought you should know something." She walked into the room with a folder under her arms. "It seems that the CPUs of Planeptune and Eden are in the nation." Noire raised an eyebrow and took the folder from Kei. "We're not certain what they're here for, but we're tracking them right now."

"...How come they weren't put under immediate observation? And why am I only hearing about this now?" Noire asked, her voice ice cold and Kei held up her hands.

"Well, your sister went missing right about the same time that we discovered that these two were in Lastation. If I had to guess, it would seem that they were behind your sister's kidnapping."

"...Really?" Noire asked as she opened the folder and looked at the picture of a girl with short purple hair and a woman with long silver hair. "What are their names?"

"The one with purple hair is Neptune while the one with silver hair is known as Chrome." Kei answered her. "As soon as we have a lock on their locations I will let you know."

"You better." Noire said while glaring daggers at the pictures. "If that's all, get out of here before I vent my frustrations out on you."

"Yes, thank you." Kei bowed before turning and leaving the room. As she got out of the room and closed the door, she smirked to herself, pulled out a flip phone and dialed a number. "Singe? It's me. When will everything be ready? Two days? Great. I'll keep the dumb bitch chasing her tail until we're ready to put the collar and leash on her."

Kei smirked as she closed the flip phone and walked to her desk. 'Soon... This will all be ours.'

(-)

Looking at a nondescript building, Steamax, who was standing on the top of a building not far away, narrowed his eyes. "It's not a large building on top, but..." His vision changed to a mixture of X-ray and thermal scanning and saw to his surprise that the building was mostly underground. "If I was a betting robot, this is where Lady Uni would be held." He jumped into the air and disappeared.

Unseen to everyone, he entered the AZL building and ended up in front of the security guard at the front.

"Looking to join AZL?" The guard asked while not even bothering to look up. "If so, elevator's in the back."

"And if I wasn't looking to join?" Steamax asked and the guard looked up at him and shrugged, much to the ninja robot's confusion.

"Then either you came here by accident and you'll be dealt with or you came here to cause problems. Either way, not my job to worry about it. I get paid to sit here on my ass and do nothing."

Steamax looked at him and lashed out with a kick that the security guard dodged by jumping into the air and landing in front of the hallway to the elevator. "Do not try to fool me. I saw how tense your muscles were and I can see the adrenaline that's rushing through your body even before you jumped that attack."

"Damn, I need to practice being calm more often then." The guard smirked and pulled out a shock baton. "Guess I'll have to do this the hard way then."

"Alas, I have no time to play with you." Steamax said as he crouched down and jerked forward so fast that he was past the guard in a moment. Before the guard could figure out what happened, he let out a scream as the arm holding the shock baton was removed from his body. "If Lady Uni was not in danger, I would have spent more time testing you."

"That stupid looking girl that K-Sha brought in?" The guard asked in pain. "She's either dead and dissected or she's being tested right now. Maybe she's undergoing body modification and..."

Whatever more he was about to say was lost as Steamax was gone as soon as he mentioned that Uni might be dead.

(-)

Bursting through the elevator and running down the glass shaft, Steamax got a good look around the place. "This place is huge, easily several warehouses in size. How did they fit this underground?" It was mostly open and he could see that it was used for people to train in combat in one area and in another area there were Progbots being built. "Impossible, I have detailed files on every building in Lastation and I know all the locations where Progbots are being built, none of this matches my data."

Either someone had messed with his data, which he could admit, as much as he hated the thought, was a possibility, or someone had messed with the data that he had accessed and downloaded. Either way, both options were bad and whatever caused this was in great need of being fixed. He stopped running and slid down the rest of the way to the floor before taking off, his eyes scanning the building. "Interesting, these walls seem to be shielded against my X-ray and thermal scans." It was impressive, but it wouldn't stop him from finding Uni and saving her.

"That, however..." Steamax slid to a stop as more than three dozen progbots, both flying and non-flying, were surrounding him. "I am here to rescue Lady Uni, move aside."

"Enemy. Blue Robot is the enemy."

"I see..." Steamax nodded as he took a defensive stance. "Then I shall carve my way through you since you impede my progress to Lady Uni." When the arms on the progbots were revealed to be arm cannons, he scanned them. "Interesting, your armor is different than the standard issue progbots and those are not the typical weapons."

"Fire." The progbots took aim at Steamax and fired. Before the blasts hit, however, he seemingly disappeared and the blasts went right past each other and the progbots closest to where Steamax was were all blasted full of holes.

"Whew!" Steamax suddenly stood up from where he had been laying flat on his back. "I am glad for the lack of intelligence. If you'll excuse me." He ran past the damaged progbots and cut off the arm cannon of another one, though he found that it took more than one hit of his giant ninja star to do so. "Impressive, this weapon was made with the same material as Lady Noire's sword when she's Black Void." After jamming his arm into the arm cannon, Steamax used it to blast holes through the progbots that were in his way. "I must let Lady Noire know about this."

After all, if this was being done without his knowledge, how would Lady Noire know about this?

(-)

Uni jerked her head as she looked around in the dark. Not that it helped, but she really wished that she had at least a little bit of light. "...I'm scared." She whimpered, her body trembling. "I'm really scared." Tears started to fall out of her eyes. "Noire... Someone... Anyone... Help me... I don't want to be alone anymore."

She knew that no one could hear her. She knew that no one would come to help her. She knew that...

Suddenly the door to her room burst open and Uni snapped her head that way while a person came into the room. "Lady Uni!" A male voice yelled out as the person was by her side in a moment. "You are very distressed, please calm down, I am here to rescue you."

"Who..?" Uni asked as the person, she couldn't see who it was very well, suddenly punched down on her restraints, shattering them.

"My name is Steamax, please hold on." He said as he finished with the last of her restraints and picked her up in a bridal carry before running off. "I was worried when you disappeared, as is your sister."

Uni winced as her eyes had to get used to the light and she looked up at him. "...You're a robot?"

"Yes. Lady Noire does not trust humans and had me built shortly after you were born." Steamax told her as he zipped through the area and ignored the chaos around him.

"Um..." Uni blushed as she realized that she was in her bra and panties and nothing else.

"I will get us out of here, do not worry." Steamax said as he got to the main elevator shaft and ran up the side of the glass at speeds that Uni found quite impressive.

As they cleared the building, Uni caught a glimpse of the guard who was laying in a pool of his own blood and grimaced. "Is he dead?"

"I do not know, nor care. You are my top priority." Steamax said as he got outside and then jumped to the buildings and started to run across the roofs of the buildings before springing to the next one. "I shall have you home soon."

Uni nodded and buried her face against Steamax's body, blushing hard. It was nice that someone came to save her...

...But couldn't he at least put a sheet over her near naked body first?!

(-)

In his control room, Enzo sighed as he saw the destruction of his facility. "Well, this stinks." Grabbing his phone, he made a call. "Listen, that stupid pet robot of that bitch got in here. Look, it's likely that the brat will tell her what really happened. I need you to do something about it. Anything! I don't care what!" He paused as the other person said something over the phone. "Yes! Go with that!" He then hung up the phone and groaned. "How did this happen?!"

(-)

Back at the Basilicom...

Kei nodded as she flipped her phone closed. While she knew that Noire would be thrilled that Uni was safe, she couldn't let the CPU know what was going on. "Lousy interference." Still, she had a job to do and if she wanted to stay on top of things, she needed to do it now. "At least this isn't too hard, all things considered."

Getting out of her chair, she walked to Noire's office again and rang the buzzer. When she was granted entry, she stepped in. "Lady Black Void. I have some news." Noire gave her a look and nodded. "The highly wanted criminal Gernia G. recently resurfaced." Noire narrowed her eyes and Kei continued, "we're in the process of tracking her down. It seems that she's telling people that she's being backed by members of the board."

"You, Azna=Leb, Singe, Mr. Badd and Anonydeath?" Noire asked, getting a nod from Kei. "Am I supposed to believe you?"

"I would understand why you wouldn't. It's true that we did back her in the past, but when her experiments became dangerous and illegal, we turned on her, did we not?"

"..Yes, yes you did." Noire nodded and sighed. "I see, it seems that she wants some..." Whatever she was about to say was cut off as the doors to the outside burst open and both Kei and Noire turned to see Steamax standing there with Uni in his arms. "Uni!" Noire's voice was surprisingly emotional. Kei and Uni both stared at Noire in shock. They had never heard her like that. "Steamax, is she okay?"

"Overly stressed out, I'm afraid." Steamax answered her. "I recommend that she gets some bed rest for at least one day to relax."

"Very well." Noire nodded and looked at Steamax's arm. "What's with the new arm?"

"Ah! I shall explain this after I put Lady Uni to bed."

"And probably get her some clothes to sleep in?" Kei asked and Steamax looked down at Uni and suddenly started sputtering as he finally realized that she was in her underwear. "Just go put her in her room already."

"Y-Y-Y-YES!" Steamax stuttered out and ran to Uni's room, much to Kei's amusement.

"It wouldn't surprise me if the CPUs from the other nations hired Gernia G. to work for them and she told Uni that she was working for us." Kei summarized for Noire, who growled softly. "And with how much stress Uni was under, I doubt that what she says will be completely accurate."

"...You do have a point." Noire nodded. "Get out and don't bother me for the rest of the day."

"Of course." Kei bowed and left Noire alone.

After Kei left and closed the door, Noire walked over to the window door and closed it. "...Gernia G., if I find you I'll rip your head and spine out for what you've done to the people... No, for what you did to my sister." She growled, snarling as her eyes started to glow, "I swear it."

To be continued...

Did I ever mention that I absolutely hate the Generals from Hyperdevotion Noire?