A/N: So two things real quick before we get started.

A. Super big thanks and shout out to pardus9. Last chapter, I'll admit, I didn't expect to go very well, but Sir Pardus has reinvigorated my hopes of continuing the fic. Super big thanks to you, mate!

B. This chapter is almost 6,000 words long. Maybe I went a bit overboard, but if you're about to go to sleep, just know that you may be up for a few more minutes. It was also recommended to me, by the original author, to try marking the text less with bold and underlines. I tried that this chapter, so let me know in the comments which you prefer, and I'll adjust my future chapters accordingly.

Without Further ado, here's... Chapter Two; In which we meet the Maid, and the one whose name is Black. Enjoy!

"So really the moons could have been any sort of space rock at one point. They could have been meteors and asteroids, captured by the gravity of the planet, or they could even have been a part of the planet once and simply spun off of it while it was rotating faster." Maxi explained. He then looked over at Neptune, dull-eyed and bored.

"Wow... talk more dirty to me, why don't ya...?" she said, unentertained. Maxi quietly laughed to himself a bit, he was used to that kind of reaction, perhaps not quite in such a fashion, but that was the general response.

"Well, you asked. I guess that was just more of an answer than you were looking for."

"Sure, sure." she said, taking a deep breath and letting it out through a sigh. Maxi sat there silently, figuring that if there was anything else she wanted, then she would ask. He closed his eyes to enjoy the evening air, taking it in, allowing himself to be soothed by the gentle crashing of waves against the shore. Eventually, he felt a slight pressure against his arm as Neptune leaned over on him, having scooted closer. He looked over at her, her eyes closed, blissfully leaning on his arm. He did nothing about it, it didn't particularly bother him. Matter of fact, he kind of enjoyed the company, after all, the greatest experiences are only so great without someone to share them with. He had, unintentionally, tensed up at first when he felt her there. He wasn't used to such attention. He didn't say anything though, wondering if Neptune was aware of what she was doing. "Dude, you're so tense." she said, adding a playful giggle once she realized just how tense he was.

"Hah... guess I'm not used to this kind of thing." he said, his cheeks slightly reddening and his face slightly heating up. He relaxed as the night passed and after several minutes had passed the two teens looked out into the night sky as they slowly savored their delicious pudding. Neptune had, indeed, shown him a nice isolated spot on the top of a hill. A lone tree and the rest of a fresh green pasture, perfect for sitting on and relaxing, covered the hill. The view was quite a sight to behold, vast and radiant, and in the distance you could see some illuminated buildings, accompanied by stars, both shining with full brightness. In the upper left side, the moon lit up the bay of water as it's beauty shined down upon the Earth. Maxi decided that this was, indeed, the right decision. Even if it was late, he was glad he'd invited Neptune out here to eat some pudding. He felt like he owed her after bailing on her before to do work. Granted, that wasn't really his fault, he was just making a living, but still, he felt obligated to give something back to her. "So now, I've no clue how I've avoided this question for so long but, I probably should ask; Why and how did you come flying down from the sky? I saw you crash down and get stuck in that tree from two miles away, and I'm glad I showed up when I did,otherwise, you could have gotten seriously hurt. Wouldn't want that, would we?"

"Aw..." Neptune cooed, "There you go being all cute again." Maxi had a brief period of six or seven seconds when he genuinely tried to think about when the first few times that he'd been 'cute.' He couldn't think of anything. Neptune was probably just pulling his leg.

"That didn't answer my question..." he noted, not permitting her to dodge said question. It was a legitimate question.

"Meh you're no fun," She teased, "Well I don't really know how that happened. I don't remember anything before coming here, except that I love pudding!" Maxi's face grew skeptical. That sounded like amnesia, and he'd heard of it, and even had experiences with it before. Once or twice he could remember people hitting their heads and losing whatever their life had been up until that point, like someone had reset their memory. He decided not to question how the only thing retained was the trivial desire to ingest semi-solid desserts.

"So you've got amnesia then?" he asked wearily. Sure he had experiences with it, but he'd never had to treat someone with it.

"I... guess so?" Neptune half asked and halfheartedly said as she attempted to crack a smile, trying not to let anything get her down. With such a look, however, Maxi immediately regretted his earlier decision about leaving her to herself. Amnesia was a serious problem, and something that no one should ever have to experience. He silently thanked whatever deity watched over him that he'd never had to experience such a thing himself. He looked down, trying to think about what he could do, closing his eyes, trying to maintain some semblance of control. Neptune opened her eyes from her attempted smile and saw the disheartened look on Maxi's face. She tilted his head upwards towards her hands on his cheeks, adjusting the angle of his head so they were eye to eye again. "Hey, don't worry about it. There's no need to get yourself down over it." This time she spoke with more conviction, and a more genuine expression, but still holding back uncertainty. Maxi could sense that. It was to be expected, having no memories and just showing up out of nowhere would obviously be both unnerving and unsettling. Max only wished he could have stayed with her when he'd met her in the morning, rather than leaving to work. He could only imagine what being alone without memory must have been like.

Seconds passed and they didn't move an inch. Maxi maintained his position, stone-still, not knowing how to react to her soft fingers, so gently placed on his skin. Her eyes mystified him, they seemed to dance with splendor as he looked at them. He wasn't sure what he was feeling at the moment, so he kept himself completely still. Neptune slowly let go of his face, blushing red. "um... anyways..." she reached out and grabbed her snack once more, "this should liven the mood up again! No need to make this all dark and stuff." Max was still concerned, but he regained his composure and grabbed his pudding.

"I suppose..." he eventually replied, proceeding to resume eating as well. He'd brought a variety of puddings with them, and after a while, they'd decided on the vanilla and egg ones. Maxi had grabbed a vanilla and Neptune an egg.

"Hey~, you're vanilla pudding looks yummy, mind if I take a bite?" Neptune asked in her sing-songy tone from before. Maxi giggled a bit.

"Sure, here." Maxi held out his cup as he'd done so the first time, and Neptune had a taste.

"The tantalizing sweetness melts away on my tongue! Ooooooh... it's not quite as good as the Butterscotch-cinnamon one but it's still so good!" Neptune said, her eyes closed, savoring the sweet treat enthusiastically. She held out her cup to Max. "Try this one, I think you'll like this one!" Maxi accepted the spoonful.

"Huh..." he considered its taste for a moment, "Gotta say, I was NOT expecting egg pudding to taste like that. That's my first time trying it." He smiled at Neptune appreciatively. "Thanks for sharing that with me." They sat silently together, once more simply enjoying the view. After a while, the two of them were about to head out, but there was still one major issue unsolved. "So where will you go now?" Maxi asked the girl next to him. Neptune looked up at him, a blank expression on her face. "You have no memory, and as such, no place to go. So what will you do now?"

"Oh," Neptune struggled to find an answer, "I'm sure I'll find somewhere I can rest my little head, don't you worry, darling." She gave him a wry smile, full of uncertainty. Complete silence filled the air for a moment. Neptune was about to walk away, "I guess I'll see ya around, Maxi... Maxi?" Maxi stood and walked over to her, taking her hand.

"My home is big enough to house us both," he said, "so, if you want, you can come stay with me. You know, until you get your memory back. I'd hate to just leave you alone, I've already done that once today." The girl looked at him, her face once more blank. "Sorry, just had to offer. Gotta make sure I don't fuck up twice today." he was about to walk away, when, suddenly, he was caught off guard as she threw herself onto him, wrapping her legs around his waste and hugging her arms around his neck. She pressed the side of her head to his chest, making his heartbeat slightly accelerate.

"Thank you..." she said quietly, pressing herself close to him.

Neptune clung to Maxi's back as he walked. She had asked him for a piggy-back ride, and Max had no qualms with the suggestion. Neptune was so light, he didn't even have to exert any extra effort to keep the two of them moving. The only very slightly unnerving thing about carrying her home on his back was the body heat she was giving off as a result of being so close to him.

"Hey... um... your back is pretty hard, you know?" Neptune noted. Maxi looked at her over his shoulder.

"That would make sense, my back is mostly bone and the like. Not much cushion." He told her. She sighed in response.

"It's like... sitting on a rock... that produces heat..." She said, tiredly.

"No one said you have to sit on my back." he responded, "The sidewalk does just as well for travel. You'd just have to move yourself rather than me pulling you."

"Nah. This is better..." she said, lightly blushing unbeknownst to the boy carrying her. For whatever reason, she actually felt shy for that one second. She couldn't figure out why, though to be fair she had never had physical contact with someone of the opposite sex like this; it was a new experience for her altogether. After a few minutes Neptune couldn't resist the urge to speak anymore. "Hey... Maxi?"

"Yeees?" he asked, perfectly untroubled, as if carrying her had no more impact on him than carrying the air in his lungs. Neptune didn't waste too much time thinking about it.

"You know, I'm surprised with how patient you are," She told him, "I definitely thought you were tot's going to yell at mwah by now." Maxi turned his head slightly to indicate that he was speaking to her.

"Should I be less patient?" He asked her, "If you want, then I can yell at everything. I like to think I'm quite good at screaming at random things." She flattened herself against his back with a huff.

"Nah." She gently pinched both his cheeks. A playful, and curious gesture as she pulled at his cheeks a bit from behind him with her tiny fingers. Again much to Neptune's surprise, Maxi's patience held firm, and he showed no signs of resistance or resentment to her immature gestures. Neptune thought that, maybe he was beginning to grow fond of them? That's what she hoped at least. Neptune wanted Maxi to grow as fond of her as possible. She was starting to feel like she wanted to be with him as long as she possibly could. After a while, Neptune drifted off into a mini-slumber. Maxi could tell by the quiet sleepy sounds she was making. It was funny, they weren't loud and obnoxious like she was when she was awake, though it didn't matter much, the walls of his house were pretty thick. It was also funny that, normally, he was a gamer and had little regard for his rest since he could go several days without sleeping after getting a good rest. He was also normally full of so much energy that attempting to sleep seemed both arbitrary and improbable, but spending time with Neptune had actually worn him out to the point where he felt like he needed tonight's rest. Maxi's normally vibrant swirling eyes dulled a bit, and Maxi gave a yawn, passing by a girl with twin tails without paying her any mind. He also pretended to miss the fact that she quickly turned around to look at him after they passed each other. He was too tired to question why, so he just kept walking, ignoring the raven-haired girl's odd gesture. The girl in question, however, made sure not to miss any details.

"Light purple hair, spikey lift... That's Neptune..." she glared at the two as Maxi brought them back home, "I wonder why she's here too? And who's that boy with her? And... why is he carrying her...? Not that I care or anything!" she told herself. "Maybe because of what happened then?" her curiosity began eating away at her until she decided she had to have answers, throwing caution to the wind as she decided to tail the two from a safe distance. Finally arriving at the large house's doorstep, Maxi headbutted the door and heard it click from the other side. As he stepped in, the black haired girl's face contorted with disappointment. "Oh, you have to be kidding me! Great...now what do I do? I guess I could wait for them to come out? Or better yet interrogate that boy... That would probably be better... I'll do just that, then. I'll wait right here until he comes out, then I'll make my move!" the girl gave a prideful smirk to herself and sat next to the door, confident that she would be fine.

"Welcome home, sir." Maxi was welcomed as he entered his house by his maid, Felicia, greeting him at the door. "I tidied up the house while you were gone. Every last room is completely spotless! I made sure of that." Maxi gave a tired laugh.

"You know, when I built you, I think I made you much too energetic and earnest with your job..." Felicia puffed out her cheeks.

"Well if you wanted me to be less energetic, maybe you shouldn't have put a Xenon-diode Solar Refill battery in me!" she exclaimed. To clarify, Felicia was both his service AI, and his maid, the maid part being carried out by an android of sorts, one that looked like an actual human, but was actually a robot with very clever programming. With his surplus of resources and free time, Maxi had made Felicia to keep himself in check. She served as a sort of JARVIS for him if you will. Felicia didn't actually stand for anything, rather it was just the name of a maid from a video game he really liked: the Water Memento game he'd been playing earlier. Now that we're on the subject, Felicia was the aforementioned only friend of Maxi's that wasn't human. Now onto other things.

Maxi's house, for lack of a better description, was a big house, almost that of a mansion. When he'd been abandoned to the streets after his orphanage had burned down, Maxi had become a bit of a rags to riches phenomenon. He'd started on the street, performing tasks and tricks for people for money. He'd later gotten to performing in various tournaments, for anything really, and taking the prize money, and using that. After that had gotten old for him, he'd gotten into writing and game making. Since then, he'd published six books and seven indie-games, the games following the story of the books, such that a more interactive option was available. With all of that combined and a bit of luck, Maxi had made several millions of dollars on his publications, then took that money and put it into a company, buying and selling the stocks with clever timing, almost doubling what he had. When he was done with THAT, he took THAT money and put all of it into making his own business, and reaping the profits of that. He donated most of the proceeds to the government and to charity, that way no one bothered him while he was doing whatever he wanted, but the company basically ran itself, so he used the income to make a big house, just in case he would ever have company, and also to fund himself so he could research things at his leisure. What kinds of things, you may ask? Well, we'll find out about the important ones later. The basic point to get across here, is that Maxi had a mansion suitable to house about fifty of himself. Easily a hundred could fit in comfortably, and possibly upwards of three hundred if he was really trying. Even if he wasn't trying, he had several houses that he could retreat to if he was seeking to avoid attention, and he knew that Felicia would be there, both to cover him, and to welcome him, no matter which one he went to. Needless to say, Housing both Neptune and himself in this house, was not much of a problem.

Getting back to the situation at hand... "So who is that?" Felicia asked, looking at the girl on Maxi's back. Maxi looked at her, and smoothly slid her off his back, shifting her into a bridal carry position.

"A friend of mine," He told his maid, "met her earlier today. We had lunch together. Her name's Neptune. Would you kindly bring her to one of the spare bedrooms for me?" Felicia took Neptune's sleeping body.

"If you answer a question for me, yes I will." Maxi nodded. Even though he'd built Felicia, and she was supposed to be his maid, she was almost considerably to his spouse. Both of them carried respect for the other, and did their best to keep the other happy. That was where the similarities ceased however. Maxi did care for Felicia, and she carried such a feeling in return, but it was not comparable to a husband wife kind of love. Rather, it was even stronger, and the two felt it would be better to remain partners as they were, rather than in a relationship. Maxi had no problem answering questions for Felicia, after all, she was based on a learning AI, and everything she learned improved her ability to be more human-like, and to function better in general. "Is she the reason why you missed school today?" Maxi's expression instantly flat-lined.

"Oh, come one, Felicia! You can I both know that I already know everything they could teach me!" he responded. She frowned at him, giving him the adorable pouty face that was his weakness. He managed not to fall for it. "Felicia, I had more important thing to be doing. I was able to maximize my productivity like this, so I've already handled half of my work for tomorrow!" She pointed a finger at him, accusingly.

"Then you're going to school tomorrow." she told him he swished his hand over his shoulder.

"Yeah, yeah, I'll think about it, and since you're taking so long..." he took Neptune back from Felicia's arms. "I'll handle this. If you really want me to go to school, I'll see what I'm doing tomorrow, but there's a faculty meeting, and I'm fairly certain that they need me for that."

"I'll go in your place." she offered.

Maxi gave her a look. "Fat chance, Felicia. Thanks, but no thanks. I'll see you tomorrow." And with that, he poked the button on the elevator and the doors closed. The screen came on displaying Felicia's face.

"Nice try." He looked at the monitor.

"Son of a bitch..." he sighed to relief himself before talking to the monitor. "I'm not going to school tomorrow. Neptune here's an amnesiac, and I'm more concerned about that than I am about learning arbitrary facts like what the natural logarithm of two hundred forty six is." Felicia opened her mouth to speak, but Maxi cut her off. "I know it's five and a half!" She frowned at him again.

"That's not what I was going to say!" the elevator doors opened up and Maxi stepped out.

"Sure, sure." as he stepped out, his path was intercepted by Felicia's android once more. "How the fuck-?"

"You gave me a teleportation module, remember?" she asked, unamused. He made a face.

"When was this?!" he asked in moderate bewilderment.

"Literally, just earlier today." she reminded him, "you invented teleportation in the back of your mind while you were writing the next chapter of your internet story, sir. After that, you took five minutes to build the first module and gave it to me." Maxi could remember something like that.

"Ah." he continued walking, into one of the spare bedrooms. "Gods, she sleeps like a rock." he said, indicating Neptune, still fast asleep. Felicia gave a light giggle.

"Reminds me of you." she said, teasingly. Maxi looked at her, confused.

"I'm a lighter sleeper than you are, and most times, you're just on standby." Felicia's face went blank as she realized he was right. He shook his head. "Nonetheless, I'm going to bed. Good night, Felicia."

"Good night, sir." she gently pecked his cheek and the two went their separate ways, Maxi heading to his room, Felicia heading to run the last checks of the night.

The next morning, Maxi woke up to an icy feeling on his cheek. He looked at Felicia with an annoyed look on his face. "That didn't work the first six or seven times, what made you think it would work now?" he asked. She had her hand on his cheek and was using her cooling feature to make her hand icy cold. Maxi wasn't amused. Felicia shrugged.

"You're awake now, so obviously I did something right." He deadpanned at his maid's sarcastic comment.

"Yeah, yeah, sure. Where's Neptune? She awake yet?" Felicia half nodded, half bowed in response.

"She's upstairs eating. I've already made breakfast." Maxi smiled, Felicia proudly smiled back. "I made French toast and eggs with Morning sausage, accompanied by a drink of apple juice, sir." He nodded to her.

"Thanks, Felicia, mind bringing me up there real quick?" She nodded and took him by the shoulders, teleporting into the primary dining room. Neptune sat on one end of the room, stuffing her face with eggs, french toast, and sausages, only taking breaks to have a gulp of juice. "Thank you." He sat at the table and Felicia brought him some food, which he eagerly dug into. Maxi was pretty good at cooking, on a scale of stars, he was about a four and a half out of five, but Felicia was somewhere about a six, and Maxi wasn't sure how, but he didn't question it. He liked good food as much as anyone else. After finishing up, Felicia took care of his plates.

"I trust you will be off to school now?" she asked.

"To the company," Maxi corrected her, "That meeting was rescheduled. I need to be there." Felicia looked at him.

"If you miss today, you will be expelled from the school, sir." he shrugged in response.

"So what? Then I won't have to worry about that anymore. One less thing to occupy my mind." Felicia huffed.

"I hope you realize that I only say what I do because I care..." he nodded.

"I know, Felicia. No one cares about me as much as you do." he gave his maid a hug. "I'll have my earpiece in, so just talk to me if you need me. I'll be home soon enough, I don't expect this to take very long." Felicia smiled and bade him to have a good day as he left. As he did so, Neptune flew past Felicia, slamming into Maxi from behind. Maxi only did a little more than a stumble as a result.

"Maxi!" she complained, "What am I supposed to do?" Maxi made a face of confusion.

"Eat some pudding? Watch some TV? Talk to Felicia? She's a nice person, I swear she is, she only bites on Tuesdays-"

"It's Tuesday, sir." Felicia mused.

"I was joking... I know that..." Neptune cut him off, stomping on the ground.

"I want to go where your going! Where are you going? I wanna go! Pretty please?" she gave him puppy dog eyes, but Maxi just sighed.

"I'm going to a business meeting..." Neptune made a face. "It's going to be a bunch of adults, sitting in a boring grey room, talking to each other about a bunch of stuff that makes no sense to anyone else." Neptune's face filled with recognition. "I'll take you around the city and show you the place after I get back, I promise you that, kay?"

"Oh, okay, never mind then." She turned and walked back into the house. He gave Felicia a look, which she returned with a nod and a glance of confidence.

"I'll be on standby." she said. And with that she turned and walked back into the house after the ditzy purple girl. Maxi turned and hurried down the street, his suit flapping in the wind. It looked like a runner game almost... Nevermind.

As the door slid closed, the black-haired girl was ripped back into the world of the awake as the door touched the other side, shaking the wall just enough to wake her. She quickly got to her feet as she saw Maxi hurry off. "Shoot! I'd better hurry!" as the girl charged after him, she began feeling slightly off, but her pride refused to let her stop as she followed the boy into the city.

Maxi wasn't actually in any sort of hurry, matter of fact, he had more than enough time to get to this meeting, but running there just felt more started wondering if: with someone like Neptune living with him now, would cut his time for anime and the like. Maxi also realized then, that he had no idea what Neptune would want to do. Matter of fact, females in general were confusing to him. It was one of the main reasons he'd built Felicia the way she was; part logic, part ditzy maid girl. He had hoped t would help him learn how girls were, but he'd only wound up more confused. He must have been doing something correctly so far, however, because Neptune seemed to have taken a liking to him. He hoped that would continue, for whatever reason, the idea of making friend with her appealed to him greatly. As he got to the company, the girl following him stopped. The idea of going into the building where a ton of people would be didn't appeal to her. She decided to wait outside the building as she had done with his house, waiting for him to get back.

As Maxi emerged from the building, he was very satisfied. He'd handled every question with remarkable ease, and had even talked to his faculty a bit and gotten to know them better. To Maxi, it seemed like having a good faculty, and being friendly with said people, getting to know them well, was the basis of a healthy working relation ship, and the path to a good working environment with maximized productivity. Maxi's thoughts were cut short when he heard an audible thud behind him. He turned around to see the same black-haired girl from yesterday, passed out on the floor. He hurried over.

"Hello? Anybody home?" he asked, raising her head up a bit, "um... are you okay? Come on... answer me" she wasn't looking to good and as he placed a hand on her forehead he felt her temperature, she was burning up. "Damn... not good." Maxi could hear footsteps approaching, but he ignored them. he grabbed the earpiece in his ear and pulled the microphone over to his mouth. "Felicia, I might need some assistance here in just a sec." He received confirmation in the form of Felicia on the other end. Unfortunately, his success was cut short by the footsteps coming to a halt just before him. He looked up, greeted by the sight of three thugs standing before him, demanding he step aside. Maxi said nothing, formulating in his mind what plan he would execute.

"Hey it's the little cosplaying bitch that cheap-shotted us last night... This makes for revenge, boys!" called the thug with the mo-hawk.

"Yeah, I think it's about time for a little payback. Don't you think so, boss?" the other thug, the one with the buzzcut addressed who seemed to be their leader; a teen sporting messy dark grey hair on a round head and round figure. Funnily enough, he was shorter than both of his comrades, and shorter than Maxi. He pulled out a piece of a pipe with a disgusting smirk. Maxi stood and stepped in front of the girl, ready to fight them if he had to. Maxi was no stranger to a brawl, he'd gotten into several on a weekly basis in school.

"Oooh," the leader taunted, "seems we got a brave boy, huh?" he flourished the pipe in his hand. "Let's see how far that attitude gets you, bub." Maxi very subtly leaned onto the mic of his headset and whispered to Felicia.

"Would you kindly place a pebble on my left foot, on my right foot, and in my left hand?" he asked. Felicia sighed on the other end.

"Pebbles? Really?" she asked, "if you would just use daggers, or even shurikens would do, if you would just use those like I asked-" he harshly indicated that now was not the time to argue. Felicia sighed. "Fine, here you go." With a bit of work from her teleportation module, there was now a pebble sitting on either of Maxi's shoes, and one concealed in his left palm.

"I'm going to offer you two options," Maxi told the thug, his tie flapping slightly in the wind. He was still in his suit from the meeting, so that would make this interesting. It was going to look like a scene from The Matrix. The girl behind him came to as he continued. "Option one, I kick your ass and throw you off the street. Option two, you turn around and walk away." The thug didn't seem to have bought his threat. Maxi sighed. As the mo-hawk charged at him, Maxi kicked him in the stomach with his right foot, the pebble taking to the air. He spun over and kicked the buzzcut in the face with his left foot, that pebble following suit. Both thugs stumbled back, and all three thugs charged at once now as the pebbles, and Maxi's plan, fell into place. Maxi flipped upwards, going airborne and spinning as the thugs came nearer. Maxi lashed out and kicked the first stone, then the second, then landing, giving a final spin, and throwing the last one with incredible force. The first rock knocked out the mo-hawk with a direct shot to the head. the second shot, knocked over the buzzcut with a shot in the leg. The third rock took the leader in the chest, knocking him onto his butt and pissing him off. "Bullseye." Even though he'd missed, this provided Maxi with all the time he needed to pick up the girl behind him, in a bridal style position, and take off.

Maxi paused in the middle of the field between his house and the city to catch his breath. In a surge of adrenaline, that run had taken him just over a minute, and his endurance had taken quite the blow for it. He checked on the girl in his arms, only noticing now that her eyes had opened. "Ah, good morning." he said to her, "Or I suppose it's afternoon now. You know what I meant." The girl pouted at this.

"I-idiot! What were you thinking?!" she yelped as her cheeks turned the same shade of red as her eyes. Maxi set the girl on her feet and took a bow. The girl wasn't sure how to respond, and Maxi assumed her face was turning red due to her fever, but the girl knew it was for a different reason.

"My apologies, milady, I simply didn't want to leave you as you were."

"It's not like I asked for your help or anything!" she finished her sentence with a huff, a half angry, half bashful look adorning her face.

"Is that so?" he asked, "Because yesterday when you turned around to look at me, you seemed like you wanted something. I suppose I should have introduced myself then, shouldn't I have? How rude of me." The girl was taken aback.

"You saw that?!" she asked in bewilderment, "I thought for sure I had... ah..." she stumbled over her words as she realized what that meant. That wasn't her original intention, but it made her flustered anyway. She quickly shook that off however, as she realized that Maxi had been looking forward the whole time yesterday, so it was physically impossible that he should have seen her. With no better questions coming to her mind, she asked the one that was most prominent. "Who ARE you?"

Maxi bowed again, sensing that the girl was very much one for formalities, "Maximillian Penumbra," he introduced himself, "Though please, call me by whatever name suits your fancy. Max and Maxi are the two most commonly used, though others..." he though about Neptune, "...prefer other names..." he quickly regained his composure, "and to whom do I have the pleasure of speaking?"

She looked at him, puzzled, before managing to formulate and answer. "-re..."

"Hm? My apologies, you'll have to excuse me, but my ears are not the best, I'm afraid I didn't catch that." he told her, unsure of what she'd mumbled a moment ago.

"My name..." she sheepishly answered, but it came clearly this time, her cheeks flushing red once more. "...is Noire."

So here we are at the end of the chapter and I've got a few things for you guys before we go.

First thing, is developer commentary.
So I did this chapter for immersion and did my best to let you get sucked into the story. An interesting idea, however, would be to include why I did certain things in brackets at certain points. If you guys would like developer commentary, let me know in the comments, and we'll give it a try for a chapter. If not, then also remember to get back to me on whether or not you guys liked the text going unmarked.

Next thing is about this story's length.
I don't plan for this story to be very long. I'd call twenty chapters tops. I plan to lead it into another story though, so catch up on my other story, Paradox, if you want to see where this could go!

Final thing is about the other stuff I'm about to do.
So I like playing lots of different games and writing lots of different materials. One of the fics I plan to write is a Fire Emblem; Birthright fic. If you'd like to check that one out as well, I would very much appreciate it, but if not, that's fine too. We're all into our separate stuff.

So, now that I'm done talki- wait not I'm not.

I didn't do dev commentary in chapter, so let me try and answer a few questions before they get asked.

WHAT'S IN A NAME? - Felicia Penumbra
I've already made it very clear that I'm a bit obsessed with the Fire Emblem games, and that Felicia is a combination of three people actually. The first, gives her the more feminine side, and that side comes from the actual in-game Felicia that serves as your maid in the new games of Fates. Felicia's blunt end comes from the widely disliked Sully character from Awakening. The most complaints I've heard with Sully are that she's not very useful since she's only an average character in a game full of characters that are so much better. The last, and perhaps most unlikely character that Felicia is based off of, is any Dalek you might encounter in Doctor Who. From such a creature, Felicia gets her more logical, sometimes even violent side, portrayed when she asks Maxi to use daggers or shurikens in place of stones. Each of Felicia's sides has a reason, here they are; Her ditzy maid side, implemented by Maxi, is because she is indeed a maid. This side is Felicia's base personality and serves to have her function as any other maid might, if a little clumsy at times. Her more blunt, and Sully ended side, actually comes from the way Maxi speaks. Because Felicia is a learning software, she learns how to address people by how they address her, and how they address other people. Because of Maxi's tendancy to be sarcastic, the things she learns from him give her the saucy tomboyish side. The Dalek side is a bit more complicated, and this comes from the fact that Felicia is, indeed, a machine. Although advanced, there are still some things that Felicia is incapable of understanding, such as the purpose behind sparing attackers, demonstrated by this chapter. Felicia's main goals are to learn and keep Maxi in check, but more over, her highest priority goal, and this one she actually gives herself, is to protect Maxi. Because she is not perfect, Felicia cannot understand why Max would want to spare anyone that would attack him; her logic merely dictates that you're giving them a chance to do it again. All three of these combined, Felicia almost becomes a partial Yandere, wanting to eliminate anyone who would threaten the master she loves so dearly. All four of those things considered, I went with Felicia because, 1. Daleks don't really have names, 2. the name Sully didn't seem to fit at the time, and 3. Naming her Ayane as a shrug towards Yandere Simulator didn't seem like a viable option when I started writing.

WHAT'S IN A NAME? - Maximillian Penumbra
Some names have a huge story behind them, like Felicia's name, while others are simply implemented for much easier reasons. Maxi could have been named three things, Mike Shadow (as a reference to his own game), Anubis Necrulai (A a reference to the god of death), or Maximillian Penumbra (as a variation of Mike Shadow). The first two names were later taken by other characters, and I like the name Maximillian, because I could call the character Maxi, like a friend.

HOW ABOUT THAT SETTING? - The city and world of New Kory
New Kory, and it's geography are loosely how I imagined the world to look like when reading the original NENENEP, with a house a ways from a town or a city, with some plains in between. The hillside is over on the east side of the City, with the House residing in the north, a desert-ish area to the south, and the oceans to the West and way over, far, far to the east on the other side of the hills.

Now that that's out of the way...
As always, I hope you have a lovely evening, and, be it here or elsewhere, I will see you in the next chapter. See ya!