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

Oh hey, it's time to find out what's with Mina. The title should give you a clue.

Chapter 88

"CALM DOWN!" IF yelled as she hid behind a desk before jumping as a beam of energy blasted the desk apart. She paled as Mina walked her way, glowing with lots of power.

"You won't take Nepgear!" Mina yelled as her hair danced in the air. Snapping her fingers, several balls of fire erupted around her. "Now fry!"

IF's eyes widened as the fireballs came charging in at her. "N.. N..."

"GET DOWN!" Linda yelled as she tackled IF from the side, allowing the fireballs to pass overhead and explode against the wall. "JEEZ! You want to get burned again?" IF looked at her, fear in her eyes and Linda got off of IF, pulling her along as another blast of magic ripped through where they had been a moment ago. "Sheesh!"

In another part of the large room, Gust was hiding behind a pillar when she spotted RED crouched down next to her, covering her head with her hands as explosions rocked the room. "Why don't you stop her?"

RED looked at Gust as though the blue-haired bunny girl had lost her mind. "Are you crazy? Whenever Mina thinks she's going to upset my wifey, she gets all crazy and does this." There was a contemplative look on her face as she thought about that statement. "Well, there was that time that one of Judge's training robots hit poor Nepgear in the head and knocked her out. Judge had to be put back together after Mina got done with him." She giggled and sighed. "Anyway, yeah, Mina gets like this every so often."

"And this is normal?!" Gust asked, before yelping as the pillar she was hiding behind was blasted apart and Mina started walking to her. "Okay... Gust is scared now." Unlike when she faced off against Rom, Mina seemed to be in complete control, if really, really angry.

"Just get..." Mina stopped as RED got in front of her, the redhead held her arms out to the sides. "What are you doing? We need to stop them from getting to Nepgear."

"We don't need to kill them, you know?" RED told Mina. "Please, Mina, you really snapped this time."

"I gotta agree with RED on this one," B-Sha spoke up as she popped her head up from behind a desk. "Come on, Mina. Usually you don't blast a large area like this."

"So long as you never fail me, you'll never have to worry about that happening to you. But of course, if you do..."

Mina's pupils shrank as those words reverberated in her head. "No... No... NO!" Suddenly lightning crashed around her in wide arcs.

Gust yelped before being grabbed by RED, who pulled out a wooden deck fan and put it in-between them and the lightning. "Huh? Aren't you supposed to stop Gust?"

RED smiled at Gust. "And let a cute wifey like you get hurt because Mina's going crazy again?" She winked as Gust blushed before she got up while holding Gust and ran off when the umbrella was destroyed. "Come on, Mina!" She implored the pink-haired girl. "Stop this!"

"You just want the Mistress to abandon me!" Mina snarled at RED and a hand of magical energy rushed out, grabbing RED, who let Gust go and lifted the redhead up into the air. "If not for the mistress telling me I couldn't hurt you, I would have ended you a long time ago."

RED cried out as she felt her bones being crushed by the grip that was squeezing her. Her left hand was caught under the the fingers of the hand and she hit the hand with her free hand. "Please! Mina! Stop!" She coughed as she felt something break. "Please..." RED had blood come out of her mouth as she looked at Mina helplessly.

"I won't leURGH!" Mina's eyes widened as a crack was heard in room and the berserk girl suddenly fell to the ground in a heap, her hair turning back to its normal blue.

"Calm down, sheesh!" Linda growled as she dropped the pipe in her hands to the ground. Not far away, RED crashed to the ground with a cry of pain. "You okay?"

RED grimaced, coughing some blood from her mouth. "She..." RED smiled at Linda. "Mina's usually a lot cuter than this."

Suddenly the doors to the back of the room burst open. "What the heck is..." Nepgear, who had been hiding in the back of the Basilicom, could only stare at the destruction. "What's going on?!"

B-Sha looked at Mina, then at RED, then at the others who were peeking their heads out from behind various things and sighed. "Can we get them to a healing bed and I'll tell you what's going on, Ge-Ge."

Compa looked at Nepgear and tilted her head. "Ge-Ge? That's really cute."

Nepgear looked at Compa, then at those that she knew and frowned. "Yeah, let's go, there's a healing room back here." Her eyes widened as Compa went over to RED. "WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!" She was about to rush over to Compa when she saw Compa gently moving RED into a more comfortable position before lifting her up.

"I'm a doctor." Compa told Nepgear as she stood up and grimaced slightly while trying to carry RED. "One who needs to do some leg lifts apparently."

RED laughed painfully before groaning. "Hurts to laugh."

Linda sighed and picked up Mina in a similar way to Compa. "Sorry about hitting your friend like that, I didn't want to die... Or my girlfriend to get burned again."

"Fine..." Nepgear turned and motioned for people to follow her. "This way."

"I'm surprised you trust us." IF told her.

"I don't." Nepgear answered her. "You're here to kill my sister and take me from her, but I won't let Mina or RED be hurt if I can help it."

IF sighed and looked at Compa, then at Linda, then she looked at Gust and Warechu, who were next to her. "Hey, um... Gear, was it?" Nepgear turned her head to look at IF. "Listen, I don't know what you think you know, but you need to know about Voids."

Nepgear had a confused frown on her face, but she nodded.

(-)

A few minutes later...

After putting RED and Mina down on separate beds and putting bars above them, Nepgear and Compa got to work making sure that they were capable of being treated.

"Um, can I talk to you now?" IF asked and Nepgear nodded as she looked over the data. "You see how my skin isn't normal? Or Compa's arms?"

"Huh?" Nepgear blinked and looked at IF and her darkened skin with blue, yellow and red lines across it. "...You look like you're wearing war paint or something."

"I'm not." IF told her. "I lived in Lowee my whole life, I had friends, their names were CyberConnect, Marvy and Falcom." She closed her eyes and shuddered at the memories. "White Void, I don't know why she did it, but she trapped them, me and a few others in the guild and burned it down with us in it."

Nepgear gasped and stared in horror at IF. "But..."

"I was the only survivor." IF told Nepgear. "White Void also destroyed both of Compa's arms."

"We all suffered under White Void." Compa spoke to Nepgear. "Rom and Ram were White Void's sisters and she hurt them so much." She bit her lip and went back to working on the equipment. "If not for Nep Nep, poor Rom would have become a Void."

Linda sneered. "Leanbox wasn't any better. You know what Green Void had going on over there?" Nepgear slowly shook her head. "She had a freaking baby-making and tentacle-breeding pit."

"What?" Nepgear stared at her. "What do you mean?"

"What she means, Chu..." Warechu spoke up, "Green Void wanted really sexy women and men and anyone who didn't make the cut tended to be fed to tentacle monsters."

"But that's horrible!" Nepgear protested, her face stark white. "Tentacle monsters breeding with people changes them so they can only make more tentacle monsters before they become absorbed by the center mass and become part of the larger tentacle monster itself!"

The others in the room nodded, they all knew that.

"And that was going on in Leanbox?" Nepgear asked, trembling. "Is... Is that why you want to kill my sister?"

"Your sister threatened to kill everyone in Planeptune if Nep and the others didn't show up to face her." IF pointed out and Nepgear flinched but didn't protest it. "Look, Gear, we know not all Voids are bad." Nepgear raised her head, a hopeful look on her face. "The last Void we met, her name was Noire. She was actually a really good Void who did all she could to help the people of Lastation. She even sacrificed herself to save the people and her nation from being destroyed."

"Oh." Nepgear whispered softly. "Wait." Her eyes widened. "Didn't Uni say something about a Noire?"

"That was her big sister." Compa told Nepgear. "We were told that Uni loved Noire so much and Uni even had a funeral for her and Uni, Nep Nep and Chromey went on television to tell people what Noire did for them. But your Nep Nep," Compa frowned and looked at RED and then at Mina. "Why did Mina try to hurt everyone?"

"I can answer that." An older woman's voice was heard as someone walked into the room. Turning, the group saw an older woman with long, dark hair, a pale complexion who was wearing long, dark pants and a dark shirt under a white lab coat. Her large bust, despite the coat hiding it, showed that at one point she had been an incredible beauty. Despite her age, she still retained quite a bit of her looks, other than the fading hair color and some wrinkles on her skin. "After all," she gave Mina a sad look, "everything with Mina is my fault."

"Lady, you're going to have to explain." Linda said with her arms crossed over her chest. "I don't like this "oh, it's all my fault" and we're supposed to feel sorry for you or her. It's old."

The woman chuckled as she walked into the room and walked over to Mina. "No, the whole reason she even exists is my fault. You see, it was... I believe sixteen years ago now when Lady Purple Void had come to me and talked about my research into artificial life."

"Why were you researching artificial life?" Nepgear asked the woman, who sighed softly.

"My daughter died to a rare sickness that had no cure to it." The scientist told Nepgear. "I wanted to try and clone her to bring her back, but it never worked." She had a wistful look on her face. "I did get close, but ah," she shook her head, "story for another time, I suppose." She waved her hand to dismiss any questions. "Well, obviously creating something from nothing, even for me, was impossible. I needed a base. So I searched for an infant or a baby that I thought could work out."

"Wait," Gust spoke up, her pupils shrinking as the implications hit her like a sack of bricks. "You stole a baby and..."

"Absolutely not!" The woman interrupted Gust. "I merely took the child, drew some blood and cloned the child's body."

"Oh." Gust sighed and nodded. "Gust apologizes, but Gust assumed the worst."

"It's fine." The older woman smiled softly. "Anyway, while I cloned the baby perfectly, Lady Purple Void told me that she wanted a sister or something like a sister." She looked at Nepgear, who had a troubled look on her face. "Don't worry, dear, you were born like every CPU is. At least, I assume that they're born from an excess of Fearicite energy." She looked back at Mina and sighed again. "Well, I used the cloned baby and used it as a base for a new clone. Clone of a clone, who would have thought?" She chuckled, though there was no mirth in her laugh. "Anyway, while I was making the biological concoction, Purple Void pulls out a sword and runs her hand over the sharp part of the sword, dropping her blood into the vat."

"So what happened?" IF asked, curious about the events that transpired.

The woman sighed softly. "It took me over five hundred attempts to create a perfect body before they stopped exploding in the vats." The others turned green at the mental image. "Oh, it's worse. It took me another two hundred attempts before the bodies would last more than five minutes after being removed from the vats before they melted into puddles of goo."

"Eww!" Everyone said at the same time.

"Well, a year after the whole thing started, so fifteen years ago if you don't want to do math, I was finally successful." The woman looked at Mina. "Mina was the 747th experiment and the first one that was successful."

"So, why did she freak out?" B-Sha asked as she looked at Mina. "Sure, I fight with her, but she's my friend and..."

"Do you really want to know?" Mina suddenly spoke up as she slowly opened her eyes. "Ngh, my head."

"You recovered pretty quick." The woman said to her. "How long have you been awake?"

"Since you came in." Mina told her. She looked at everyone who was looking at her curiously and sighed. "Well, this is what happened..."

*Flash*

"So this is the only successful one you've made?" A voice Mina had never heard spoke up and Mina sat up from the bed. The young girl, who had to be no older than eight years old sat up and saw a purple-haired woman in a bikini walk into the room behind the kind old woman that had been taking care of her. "Why is she older than I would have expected?"

"A slight age acceleration process, Lady Purple Void." The woman told the bikini-clad woman. "I figured that you would prefer not to have a young child walking around and this was as far as I was willing to go. She should age normally from here on out."

"I see..." Purple Void looked at the girl with narrowed eyes. "What's with the blue hair and eyes?"

The woman sighed and her shoulders sagged. "I apologize, but I could not get it to come out any other way."

"I suppose..." Purple Void narrowed her eyes at the girl. "Eliminate her." Both Mina and the woman gave her a startled look. "I have no interest in her if she isn't what I want."

"Eliminate..?" Mina whispered, her eyes watering up. "That means... No... Please!" She ran to the large glass window that split the two rooms apart and banged on it. "Please! I don't want to die!"

Purple Void gave the scientist an annoyed look. "Did you give her a sense of life or something?"

The scientist sweat-dropped heavily. "It's, ah, natural for all life forms to want to survive, Lady Purple Void. I thought you wouldn't want an idiot as a sister, so I made sure to upload information into her head, including what death was."

Purple Void huffed and crossed her arms while looking away. "Whatever, just have it done before the day is out."

"No..." Mina yelled as she banged on the window harder and harder. "Please! I'm sorry! PLEASE!"

The woman looked at Purple Void. "Please, my lady, surely she'll be of great..." She stopped speaking as a sword was pointed at her, the tip touching her nose. "...Yes, milady." She said, a soft, sad tone in her voice. "It'll be done."

Mina stared as the scientist walked over to a control panel, her eyes watering up. "Please... No... No... NOOOOO!" She screamed and started to glow brightly, catching both Purple Void and the scientist by surprise. "I DON'T WANT TO DIE!" She held up her hands and a blast of pure magical power erupted from her, blasting through the glass and slamming into Purple Void, causing the CPU to fly across the room and hit the far wall.

Purple Void grunted and looked at Mina, who was glowing and noticed not only was her hair pink, but her eyes had changed to a similar color. "Well, it seems that you were more successful than I thought." She chuckled and pulled herself off of the wall and walked to Mina, uncaring that the girl was crying and screaming still. "Do you want to live?" Mina nodded rapidly and Purple Void smiled at her. "What's your name?"

"M...Mina." The girl sniffled and Purple Void nodded and turned to the scientist.

"Well, I think I'll take her." Purple Void chuckled and the scientist smiled in relief. "You have other clones, right?" A nod was her answer and Purple Void smirked in a way that caused the very air to go cold. "Destroy them. I have no need for extra clones."

"Y...Yes." The woman nodded and typed a few buttons on the control panel.

Mina's eyes widened as she heard a squelching sound. Turning slowly, she saw a bunch of bodies, all of whom looked almost identical, suddenly twisting, expanding and exploding in the tubes they were in. "That..."

"So long as you never fail me, you'll never have to worry about that happening to you. But of course, if you do..." Purple Void spoke to Mina, smirking as the girl looked at her fearfully. "So do what I say and you'll live a long, happy and wonderful life." She frowned at Mina. "Fail me, even once, and you will share the same fate as your clone sisters."

"I promise!" Mina yelled, tears in her eyes. "I won't ever fail you!"

"Call me Mistress... What was your name?" Purple Void tilted her head in confusion.

"M...Mina, mistress." The girl whimpered as Purple Void picked her up and turned to leave.

"Clean this mess up." Purple Void told the scientist and left.

*End Flashback*

Mina looked at everyone with tears in her eyes. "That's why I can't fail mistress, even once. If I do, I'll be eliminated."

The elder woman sighed heavily. "I apologize, I had forgotten that happened. Then again, when you're as old as I am, you tend to forget details all the time."

"But you haven't failed my sister." Nepgear smiled at Mina. "I'm sure that she won't..." Whatever she was going to say was cut off as a rumbling sound suddenly came from the ceiling. "What the heck is..?"

Everyone flinched and ducked their head as the ceiling burst open.

"What the heck is that?!" Warechu yelled as he saw what was poking through the ceiling.

"What the hell?!" Nepgear gasped, having never seen it before. "What's going on?!"

To be continued...

In case you're wondering, that scientist woman is based on an anime character. She created a Project to try and change FATE after all.