A/n: Do I have anything to say in this intro? Nope. This chapter has taken long enough. Let's just get to the point, so here's:

Chapter Four: In Which We Meet Maxi's Brother and Learn of the Librarian of White

Let's get started.

Maxi woke up to the smell of smoke. He sprang out of bed, located the source, and dashed into the kitchen where a flame had broken out. He elbowed the fire system on the wall, causing sprinklers to douse the room, getting him, Neptune, and Noire very wet. His hair now down in his eyes, he walked over to the two of them.

"Yikes!"

"EEP!"

The two girls yelped, afraid of what came next, noting that Maxi seemed rather tired still. "Can I ask exactly what happened?" he asked, his tone not carrying anything behind it except for exceptional drowsiness. "What were you two doing?" Before either of them could explain, Maxi poked Noire in the forehead.

"Whaaaa..." Noire wasn't exactly sure how to respond to such a gesture other than her face turning furiously red. She wasn't even entirely sure why he'd done so. The whole thing seemed to be just for the purpose of flustering her.

"Oh good, your fever's resided. Glad you're feeling better." Or maybe that was a thing as well? Ignoring that, Neptune spoke up, needing to add her own two cents.

"Well, she got better this morning, so we've just been chilling and stuff." Neptune said nonchalantly.

"Chilling, huh?" he asked, his usual repertoire of vocabulary unavailable due to his lack of energy. He pushed a button on the wall and spoke drowsy words into the panel. "Felicia, can I have some help in the kitchen? I spilled some water..." he said.

"Be down there as soon as I'm done recharging, Maxi" She replied. Maxi sauntered over to the fridge and pulled out a few cups and a carton with a panel on it.

"So then..." he headbutted the panel and the carton changed color, pouring coffee into the mug in his hand. He took a sip of the coffee before headbutting it again. This time, the carton changed to white before now pouring milk out into the mug. As a finisher, a small sugar cube dispensed itself from the carton as well, completing his coffee with a bit of sweetness. "How did the fire get started?" He seemed to be ignoring the fact that all three of them were sopping wet. That is until he noticed that both Neptune and Noire were inspecting their clothes. "Oh okay, hold on..." he leaned his head against the panel on the wall, placing the carton on the counter. "Felicia, if you could bring us all a change of clothes that would be wonderful..."

"Whatever for, Maxi?" Felicia asked. "I thought you just spilled some water?" Maxi took a moment to contemplate his answer.

"Well I did, I just spilled it from the ceiling by pushing a button." Felicia took a bit of a suspicious tone on the other end.

"Do you mean you activated the fire alarm?" she asked. When Maxi didn't answer, she took it as a yes. "Why did you trigger the fire alarm?"

"Reasons."

Felicia sighed on the other end. "I'll bring clothes down with me and, I want an explanation when I do." she said.

"Aight, suuuure..." he said. To be honest, it looked like Maxi was on so many drugs that he was higher than the ceiling but, he was, indeed, completely clean. Matter of fact, Maxi had never once used any kind of drug, and never planned to. He was just always like this when he was tired. "So then... talk to me..." Neptune obliged to an explanation.

"Weeell... to make a long story short, we kind of sorta, accidentally started a fire. We were trying to make breakfast." she said with the most casual tone, followed by an innocent smile and a round of quiet "haha's"

"Neptune!" Noire elbowed Neptune slightly in the side of her ribs, likely trying to shut her up out of embarrassment. Neptune gave a small bit of a yelp but, otherwise obliged to silence. Noire panicked in her mind as she thought of what Maxi could do next. To her surprise, he gave a dismissive wave of his hand.

"It's whatever... I mean... you know, so long as you guys are alright..." he said, his voice still clouded by the reaches of sleep. He took another swig of coffee. Noire, on the other hand, couldn't believe her ears. Max was, somehow, more worried about their well being than the state of his own house. "Really, the house coulda burnt down... so long as no one got hurt... I've got more places to go... It's not big deal..." such an attitude may have seemed foolish to some, and it could be considered as flawed, but Maxi was tired, and, as such, didn't really care.

"Aw, my darling's such a sweetheart!" Neptune tackled him, knocking him to the floor, Laying on top of him. "Methinks I was right to call you darling. Hehe~..." Maxi simply responded by hugging back, mostly being too tired to do much of anything else. Neptune couldn't help herself anymore, she'd gotten such a strong urge to show him some form of affection, and this was how the kettle boiled over. Both of them seemed to be mostly enjoying it. Noire simply stood in place, a blank stare on her face wondering just who this boy was. She had never met, or even heard of, someone so peculiarly stupid, yet somehow, she thought it was a good kind of stupid. Not that that made any sense, and not that she cared or anything. "All of us came out in one piece, so all is good, right darling?" Neptune looked at Maxi who responded with a gentle nod. "Let's just go back to making breakfast, then!" Maxi stopped her.

"Let's not set the house on fire again if we don't have to." he said, "Let's just wait for Felicia to-" The maid blipped into the room in a burst of energy. "Oh right, teleportation..."

"Explanation." Felicia said quickly, "Now."

"Cooking accident." he responded.

"Why were you trying to cook? I always handle that for you." she asked.

"Reasons."

"This is NOT Game Theory!" she shouted.

"Fine, no reason then." he quickly retorted.

"Then why is Neptune on top of you? Surely that has a reason?"

"Nope." Maxi popped the 'p' in the word, making sure that Felicia was thoroughly confused.

"Uh... okay?" Mission accomplished. Maxi eased himself off the floor. "I'll handle making the eggs, toast some bread for me?" he looked at her, his eyes still clouded. Felicia iced her hand and smacked him across the face. Somehow, he ignored such a strike and lolled over to the toaster, Neptune still attached to him. Before he could do anything there, Felicia quickly grabbed him and pulled him away. He looked at her, with sleep ridden eyes. She escorted him to the bathroom where she promptly handed him some dry clothes. "Try not to electrocute yourself, Maxi." she said before heading back out. She handed fresh sets of clothing to the girls, identical to what they were currently wearing, minus the water.

"Why does Maxi have clothes like this lying around?" Noire asked, a bit wary. Felicia shook her head.

"He doesn't, I threw these together just earlier. Because of how quickly my fingers can move, and my ability to utilize short and long distance teleportation, Sewing articles of clothing takes only a matter of minutes for me." she explained. Neptune nodded acceptingly and took her clothes and headed off to change, Noire following suit later.

Back in the kitchen a while later, this time a bit more awake, Maxi stuck a few pieces of homemade bread into the slots of the toaster. He preferred this old fashioned toaster because he found it entertaining how the toast came flying out when it was done. He'd even made the springs of the toaster more resilient such that the toast sprang out even more vehemently, usually onto a plate. With Felicia and Maxi working together, it wasn't long before breakfast was ready. After a very quiet breakfast due to everyone being busy stuffing their faces, everyone was thoroughly full. They decided to move over to the living room to relax. Neptune laid back, leaning on Maxi's shoulder.

"Ahh..." she let out a contented sigh, "this place really is just like home..." she nuzzled up against his shoulder as she eased back. "We've got a comfy couch, lots of games to play, and tons of pudding..." she smiled at Maxi, "...and now we've got friends to share it with!" Maxi smiled back, fully awake now, but contentedly comfortable.

"Yes," he sighed, "what more could one ask for?"

"Home... huh?" Noire was sitting nearby, the gloom audible in her voice. Maxi looked over at her.

"What's wrong, Noire?" he asked her. She looked over at him, slightly surprised that he'd heard the comment. "Do you not have a place to go?" Noire opened her mouth, unsure of what to say. Was that it? Did she have to come clean now? Suddenly, Neptune's outgoing randomness saved her.

"Hey! Are you a fellow amnesiac?!" she blurted out. Maxi covered his ear slightly, trying to let the ringing die down.

"Yes!" Noire almost shouted, "That's right, amnesia. I can't remember a single thing!" Maxi knew that was probably bullshit, but Noire didn't strike him as the kind of person to lie without a good reason, so he simply went with it.

"Uh-huh..." he confirmed closing his eyes. "Well, the police is an option, though not one I've found to be very helpful with such situations..." that wasn't the truth, the police would probably be the most helpful, but Noire seemed too full of pride to want to go to them. To prove his point, she nodded quickly. "Well, your room's already set up. Feel free to stay here as long as you like. With you and Neptune around, it just means I've got more people to share the space with. Who knows? Maybe my house will finally start to feel like the right size."

Noire was startled at his proposition, but it sort of made her happy that he'd offer. It saved her a lot of trouble too besides... what was the harm in hanging around him a little longer... right? Neptune put one finger on her bottom lip. I think that's a good plan." Neptune said with a confident nod and a smile, "Just so long as she doesn't get any ideas involving you, darling." Her tone seemed to be one of marking her territory, but Maxi defused such with a bit of a laugh.

"Really? That's how far your taking this now?" he asked her. She ignored his comment and turned to Noire.

"Sorry No-wah but, I've called dibs on darling since day one." she said with a smirk, "Aaaah... I remember it like it was yesterday..."

Maxi paused for a moment. "You know... it was like... two days ago. You do realize that, yes?" she looked at him, her eyes slightly narrowed.

"Blegh." she said sticking her tongue out. Maxi giggled a bit at the gesture. "Details and junk, darling. I don't need 'em." she turned back to Noire, an interesting look on her face. "Point is, Noire, I ain't the kind to share. Guess you'll have to look elsewhere, huh?" she said with the same catty smile as before.

"Wh-why you!" Noire looked slightly irritated only proving Neptune's point further.

"Alright, then that's how it is, Noire!" Neptune called, "We may be fellow amnesiacs, but now we're love rivals too!" Maxi just shook his head and got up.

"Alright, we'll as much as I'd LOVE to continue this riveting chat, there are some things I'd like to get done today, so buh-bye." he looked back at the two girls, a sarcastic and cocky smile about his face. "Also, technically Felicia has been with me WAY before either of you came along. Just noting." He nudged Felicia's shoulder and the two winked to the girls before exiting the room. Neptune turned to Noire.

"I've got my eye on you, No-wah..." Noire huffed and threw her arms in the air.

"It's NOIRE, Neptune! N-O-I-R-E! NOIRE!" she practically screeched.

The day followed as it normally would have for Maxi, checking his various e-mails, writing out commands for his multiple scripts, providing good recommendation letters for some of his previous employees... "Oh hey, lookit dat..." he clicked on an e-mail from Jay Artamiel Den. This was a previous worker of his, one with a good work ethic, and a very keen eye for detail, as well as a good handle on the quality of the products he turned out. Currently handling a company called Avenir in... somewhere... (Jay never provided details) Jay was looking for a recommendation letter to join the company. "So I just have to e-mail this 'Mr. Singe' guy? sure, Jay, I can do that for you." he wrote out a keen recommendation, being sure to left out the time when he and Jay had almost invented time-travel, and sent it to the president. It looked like Jay was going to have a good time with this company, after all, Avenir, in French, meant to come up. Hopefully that meant good things for Jay in his endeavors to rise through the ranks and make his living. If not, then maybe he'd have another house guest soon, who knows? He didn't care at the moment. He went back to the other things he wanted to get done.

Writing his stories, responding to comments, averaging in influences from PMing and Commenting requests... "Ooooooh!" he exclaimed at a request. "Mr. DxD is continuing his stories. That's pretty neat." One of his favorite authors had re-continued a story he was reading. Lovely. As he continued, he had to put up with several antics from the other three, including a contest to see who could make him blush first (which nobody one), asking him who he liked better (to which no response was given), and even asking what he wanted for lunch. He turned to them. "Before I answer this question, who's making the dish?" He asked. All three girls spoke up at once, so he cut them all off. "Alright, then I'll make lunch. Felicia, cover this for me?" she hopped on the computer and began to issue out the commands for his scripts to keep his stocks in check and his machines with fresh orders. "Neptune, turn on the bread machine?" Neptune scurried off down the hallway towards the kitchen. "and Noire?" she turned to him, "Just stand right there and keep lookin' beautiful." he winked to her and left the room as her face turned excessively red. As soon as he left the room, he immediately regretted not turning down the modulator on his ears. He'd basically given himself a hearing aid through the use of a modulator on his headphones, such that he could hear what the girls were saying the first time, but it had a volume adjuster to keep from going deaf entirely. He should have turned it down when leaving the room, but it didn't occur to him until...

"MAXIMILLIAAAAAAAAAAAN!" Noire's voice, six o'clock. Maxi took off down the hallway, pulling off the sharpest turns you'd ever see. Noire was right on his heels, and somehow gaining quickly. Reaching the end of a corridor, Maxi turned on a dime and ran right past Noire, turning again, running up the wall, then jumping over her, off the wall, rolling on the landing, continuing down the hall, right into the elevator. Noire caught up to him and barely made the elevator with him as it started to descend.

[Cue elevator music]

Noire and Maxi stood side by side, utterly silent. Noire tapped her foot. Maxi checked his watch. Felicia combed Maxi's hair back into place and redid Noire's twin-tails in order to fix the mess that both of them had become from such an ordeal.

[Music cuts out, doors open]

Maxi bolted out the doors the moment they were open, Noire right behind him. Running up and down the corridors, and occasionally vaulting through windows managed to keep Maxi ahead of Noire. She didn't seem to be capable of jumping through open windows, nor could she run up walls the way he'd down so prior. It helped that his shoes were gravity bound, making it easier to maintain his balance on the floor, and even making it possible to run, literally, around rooms, floor to ceiling, with enough speed. After a while, Maxi remembered that he was supposed to be making lunch. He rushed up the halls, narrowly avoiding running into Neptune from behind. When Noire ran past Neptune as well, Neptune threw her arms in the air exclaiming:

"Hey! NO FAIR! I wanna play too!" And with that, both girls chased Maxi up and down the hallways for the next thirty minutes, until Neptune and Noire were out of stamina. He ran back to them. "No fair... you must have, like... infinite stamina or something..."

Maxi checked his watch screen, displaying that his stamina was only half-way down. He'd been training since the day he'd gone after Neptune, and it must have payed off. "Lol, maybe tho." he picked the two off the floor and set them on chairs in the dining room, then went off into the kitchen to get on what he was doing. A few minutes later, he was back out. At sometime or another, Felicia had started serving drinks with the Custom-Carton that Maxi had used for coffee before. He placed two platters on the center of the table. "Okay, so we've got four options. You got avocado toast with salt and pepper here," he pointed at a set of sandwiches, "you got some grilled cheese here." he pointed to another set, "here're some toasted ham sandwiches" another one, "and here's a set of sandwiches with avocado, ham, and cheese, toasted." he gestured to the last set. "Have as many as you want, I can always make more, and there's plenty here. Neptune grabbed a ham sandwich, Felicia a grilled cheese, Noire an avocado toast, and Maxi one of the everythings. After all of them were thoroughly stuffed, Maxi wrapped up the leftovers. Alright, I'm gonna be bringing these to the factory and offices to see if anyone needs lunch. You gonna tag along with me, Felica?" she bowed and nodded at the same time. "You guys wanna come?" he asked the other two girls.

Noire shrugged. "I think I'll stay behind. I'm kind of tired from all that food." Maxi chuckled. That was understandable.

"Well if Noire's staying behind, I don't trust her without Felly or Me watching her..." he turned to Felicia with the silent question of 'she calls you that?' to which Felicia simply nodded. With that, he turned and walked out the door.

"See you guys later!" Neptune ran up to him.

"Didn't you say you were gonna show us around?" Neptune asked. Suddenly he felt a twinge of guilt. He DID say that. He hadn't gotten a chance to do so yesterday. He gave her a smile over his shoulder.

"That I did. Thank you for reminding me. The weekend is coming up. Don't let me forget, okay?" he replied. Neptune nodded earnestly and Maxi walked off with Felicia, onward towards the workplace. It didn't take very long to get there. Felicia had offered to teleport them there but, Maxi had decided that he preferred to walk. When he got there, everyone was hard at work and some of his employees smiled when they saw him, bidding him good afternoon, asking how he was doing. He made sure to talk to every last one who did so, and by the time he got to the middle of the office, a half an hour had already passed. He laid the sandwiches on the table and opened up the container. "Anyone hungry?" he asked. "Take a break, I'm sure you all deserve it. Have some food, it'll do you good." And so he and Felicia talked to the employees for a while, asking how their lives were, and generally being friendly. Maxi knew that the key to leading any group of people was making yourself known to them. It was hard to have loyalty to some random overhead figure you never saw. Suddenly, one of his employees approached him, holding something in his hand. He smiled when he saw who it was. Kurolipan Penumbra, one of his employees that had kind of hired himself. He just showed up one day, took an empty cubicle, and started working. At some point or another, Maxi had started giving him a paycheck for his work and made him the Chief Information Technology Officer. It was interesting. Maxi knew he had no brothers, but Kurolipan, or as he preferred, Kupo, both had the same last name, and even looked rather similar to Maxi. They had the same basic build, the same shape of eyes, the same widow's peak, the same slant on their nose, and same skin tone. Not just a similar skin tone, but EXACTLY the SAME. As a joke once, they'd gotten a blood test, just to show, sarcastically, that they couldn't be brothers. The problem was, they had the same blood type, O negative, and their DNA actually made them look like brothers. They even acted like brothers sometimes. Matter of fact, Kupo had moved into the house after Maxi had offered. He just lived on the higher floors, so he and Maxi hadn't seen each other around the house as of lately. With their recent schedule changes, however, that was about to change. Enough backstory, now more on Kurolipan.

Kupo was an interesting kid. With dark- almost black- blue hair in the same style of Maxi's, and a similar face, yet just with different colored eyes, Maxi having red, Kupo having yellow, they looked like palette swaps of each other. Kupo didn't have Maxi's same skill with his hands, yet he did have more finesse with more combat oriented technology, which is why he came to Maxi today. "Hey bro, check this out." he handed Maxi something that looked like a contact. "Think of it like a tech glass thing, except I oriented the tech into a contact lens. Pretty neat, huh? I've got two right now. One for you, that you're holding now, and one for me, I've got it in." He looked at Maxi and his eye colour subtly changed, then changed back. "You've played games where you can lock on, right?" Maxi nodded in response, "Yeah. This thing gives you a tech interface and communicate with your mind. Then you can lock onto stuff and it'll even highlight important stuff for you. Here, you can even see if someone else is locked on, their eyes'll do this." His eyes, both of them, suddenly doubled, maybe even tripled, in intensity. It was somehow both very subtle, yet extremely noticeable to anyone who was paying attention. "Just keep it on the down-low, yeah? I'm not quite done finalizing them yet, not to mention, even when I do, I don't plan to distribute them. Just among us, you know?" Maxi understood.

"Sure. And thanks, Kupo. Howsabout we walk home together?" Kupo nodded and grabbed his case, packing it into a bag. Slinging the bag over his shoulder, Kupo stood and walked back over to Maci and Felicia. "Let's get going then." He turned to the people eating the sandwiches. He tapped an employee on the shoulder, he turned to face Maxi, "Oh hey, Joe. I'm gonna head home, just do me a favor and wrap the leftovers up when everyone's done eating? Just put it in the fridge, we'll keep it around in case anyone forgets lunch or needs a snack." Joe nodded and made sure to note this for later action. With that taken care of, Maxi patted Kupo on the shoulder and they saw themselves out with Felicia close behind.

"So... how many people are in the house now?" Kupo asked. Maxi had begun to explain what had happened over the past two or three days.

"There's you and I, that's two. There's Felicia, that's three, and then there's our two new residents, Neptune and Noire, so that's five." Maxi said. "Who knows? At this rate, we might actually use all the rooms I built in the house." Kupo looked at him.

"Like hell we will. Your house makes some hotels look small, Maxi." he said bluntly, "We would need a force of battalions and armies to fill your damn house."

"Ha ha..." Maxi quietly laughed, "I suppose we woooould...?" he trailed off the last word as his new contact lens locked onto something on a bench. He walked over to it, Kupo and Felicia on his heels. He picked it up, examining it. "A wallet..." he noted, "And it's full."

"It's full? How much money is in there?" Kupo inquired.

"Quite a lot by the looks of it, but there's one thing." Kupo raised an eyebrow, Felicia following suit. "This currency isn't one that I recognize."

"That's not possible, Maxi" Felicia intervened, "You recognize all currencies used in this entire world, do you not?" Maxi turned to her.

"That I do, so either this is just play money..." He took a moment to assess whether or not this should be possible. "Or what we've got here is from another world." He looked at the name. "White- er... Blanc Whiteheart. Blanc Whiteheart... That's- ah." He looked at Felicia. "It's just like Noire. Maybe she might know something about this?" Kupo looked at him.

"Have you got time?" he asked, "I think we should return the wallet first, and ask questions when we get there." Maxi opened his mouth to speak, but simply nodded in agreement.

"You're right." he turned to Felicia, "Head back and tell the other two I'll be home a bit late and why so, would you kindly? Oh, and take Kupo with you, I'm quite capable of returning a lady's wallet on my own." Kupo chuckled a bit.

"Ladies' man." He walked over and offered his hand to Felicia. She took it and teleported the both of them out. Maxi looked through the cards, scanning each one with his new lens. He was looking for any means of tracking the girl down to return the wallet. Noire had been strictly against going to the police, to the point where she'd pretended to be an amnesiac, yet strongly suggested against it. This girl had a similar name, and that was Maxi's only judgement point, so he assumed that should be a last resort.

"So you're a librarian?" he said to the girl in the picture. "That can't be right, I've been in the library so many damn times and I've never seen you once... The librarian's name is Camilla, not Blanc..." he scratched his chin lightly before setting off towards the library. "Blanc Whiteheart... just who are you?"

So, just a few quick things before we close out the chapter:

WHAT'S IN A NAME? - Kurolipan Penumbra
Kurolipan, shortened to Kupo, appears to be Maxi's brother, which is confusing as all buggery, and, yes, it's supposed to be. Kupo get's his name from my favortie game dev of all time, being something of a mix between his two characters Lance and Matt. If you don't know who I'm talking about, refer to Kupo777 on deviantart, elsewise known as Matthew Rozak, the creator of the Epic Battle Fantasy Series, as well as the Bullet Heaven Series. Kupo will sort of explain himself in later chapters, and if that's not enough, just let me know and I'll revisit him in another end slate.

WHAT'S IN A NAME? - Camilla the Librarian
Yeah, this was a total snap decision. First name that came to my head that sounded like it might belong to a librarian type deal person. Someone actually asked me about this, it's the only reason I put it here.

WHAT'S IN A NAME? - Joe the Employee
Also a snap decision, and if I was going to cover Camilla, I had to cover Joe. It would only be fair, I guess...?

DESIGN CHOICES - "he clicked on an e-mail from Jay Artamiel Den."
I'll leave this one to a simple quote from a pre-reader of mine. "Hm... That names seems familiar for some reason? I don't suppose you jumbled someone else's name, did you?" Hm... indeed. Maybe I did?

And that's all I've got for this end-slate, so let's do this outro.

As always, I hope you all have a lovely evening, and, be it here or anywhere elsewhere, may we meet again upon another chapter. See ya!