Hey everyone! We're back with- Oh what the hell, let's just go.

I own nothing except my OCs. The respective content of Hyperdimension Neptunia belongs to Compile Hearts, !dea Factory and any other official parties.


1st person view, Nexon

'Well.' I thought. 'This was a weird and slightly cliched turn of events.'

A lot of things had happened for the past twenty-four hours. First, there was this game cartridge shaped crytstal that had a sharicite in it, then I got sucked into a TV (which was pretty cliched, being transported into another dimension and all), which led to me being requested to defend Neptune. After that, I got in some fight with the goddesses, had to retreat because I was underequipped, and now I'm here, after I met with Neptune and Compa.

I've recently went though dinner, courtesy of Compa's cooking. But we were faced with a problem; which was where we were going to sleep, due to the increased number of roommates.

Compa decided to take the plush couch. Neptune had dibs on the bed. Which left me…

On the floor.

At least Compa had provided me with a blanket and pillow. Neptune did offer me to sleep in the bed with her, since it was large enough to fit two people, but I flat-out refused. So here I am, staring at the ceiling, in the middle of the carpet. Of course, Compa moved the table so that I could sleep there.

I pulled out my phone, inspecting the weird case. It was black, and it had the Planeptune symbol engraved at the back of it. Plus, it looked like as if the case itself was melded to my phone, so there was no way I could remove it. I sighed, turning so that they wouldn't rouse when I turned on my phone, and started checking my apps.

I then immediately realised something. I checked the top left of my phone, where the 4G provider was. But it said my name up there, strangely enough. Either that I'm a service provider, or it's just saying I'm the owner of this phone.

There was nothing interesting, but there was some things that were called a 'Scanner', 'Map' and 'Nepedia'. There wasn't anything to scan, I didn't bother to check the map and there was nothing in the Nepedia, so I decided to turn off my phone. Putting it aside, I started to drift off to sleep, preparing my body for the next day.


After eating breakfast and whatever else people did in the morning, we had set out to where Neptune and I crash landed. We were making our way over there, chatting as we made our way though the city of Planeptune.

And speaking of Planeptune…

"Have you noticed that your name bears some semblance to the name of this city?" I asked the lilac haired girl.

"Yeah, I guess. It… sound familiar, strangely enough."

"Okay. So NEway, where are we going?" I turned to Compa, who was currently ahead of us.

"It's somewhere to a park outside the city." She replied over her shoulder. "We should be there in a couple minutes."

"Really? Well, that's great! I don't like carr…" Neptune suddenly stopped, as she looked to some dumpsters and trash cans to the side. "Hm? Hey, wait a sec…" She then went over to them, searching though the trash.

"Neptune, you dumpster diving?" I said, walking over to her. Nobody was on the streets, fortunately. If there were, people would just stop and stare at us. Not that I really care, but that would make things awkward for us.

"Huh, where is it… Ah, here it is! Look at what I've found!" She emerged with a wooden sword in her hands, holding it up. "Well, it's wooden, but hey, a sword's a sword!"

"A… sword?" I slowly said. "What are you gonna use it for?"

"Erm… LARPing?" Neptune tried to joke. I chuckled a bit. Live Action Roleplaying? Seriously? Compa nervously smiled at that.

Then I realised something. I was unarmed, with no means of defending myself. If Neptune had found a wooden sword in that bin, there must be other weapons in there. I needed a weapon. Maybe two.

"Hey, uh… Neptune? Is there anything else useful in there, like a weapon of sorts?" I asked, while I searched though a bin.

"…Another weapon, you say? Lemme see…" She said, going back into the dumpster. There was the clanging of metal against metal as she searched.

"You two? Um… people might stare at us, if they see us like this…" Compa said, as she nervously looked around.

"Hey, I'm sure nobody will bat an eye. Dunworryaboutit." I said, while still searching though the bins. I was sure nobody would come by, since I didn't see anyone around in the general vicinity.

"Hey Nexon! I found something that can be used as a weapon!" Neptune called out to me, as she clutched something in her hands.

"Oh, yeah? Lemme see." I turned to Neptune with great interest, so I could see this weapon she got for me. She outstretches her hand, showing me...

A pocket knife.

"Okay, uh… just what am I supposed to do with a knife?" I said, taking it out of her hand.

"I dunno, poke things very hard with it?" She joked, rubbing her back of her head while awkwardly laughing.

"I mean, it's better than nothing… I could be a rouge, and backstab my opponents, but I doubt that'll work..." I shrugged, flicking it's blade out and testing it's weight. It's moderately heavy, but it's good enough in fights. There might be something better in the dumpster, though.

"Neptune, move please." I said, as I made her step aside and started to search through the dumpster. There were mostly metal scraps and damaged weapons, but there was a good chance that one of them was still functional. As I pushed the pieces of metal and wood out of the way, something had caught my eye.

A Makarov.

"Woah-oh-oh-oh, what's this?" Getting excited, I picked out the pistol, brushing off the metal scraps that were clinging onto it. It was rusty, but I could tell that it was still functional. I looked inside the dumpster, and sure enough, there were a few magazines that were laid out in there too.

"Oh, this is perfect." I smiled, as I picked up the magazines. I saw a ammo counter pop up on the gun, showing the amount of cartridges it currently had. The magazines I was holding suddenly disappeared, but it went into reserve, as I could clearly see on the holographic ammo counter. Man, good thing I played FPS shooters, otherwise I wouldn't know how guns worked at all. Now I needed something to shoot at.

"Okay, semi-automatic, magazine's fully loaded, safety's on, eight shots, thirty-two in reserve…" I muttered, as I cocked back the slide. Neptune eyed the new weapon I had.

"Oh, come on!" She pouted. "If I saw that earlier, I could have dual-wielded weapons! I'm supposed to be the main character here, getting all the cool weapons first!"

"Well, sucks to be you, not scavenging properly." I countered. "I don't really have much experience with weapons, so just let me keep the pistol. Besides, you will get better weapons in the future, since you did say that you are the main character."

Neptune began to open her mouth, but Compa decided to cut in.

"It's not good to be selfish, Nep-Nep. Just let him keep the pistol."

Defeated, Neptune slumped her shoulders, pouting. "Fiiiine… I bet the pistol's just going to be a weak peashooter, though…"


"Huh, this place seems pretty nice." I commented, as we arrived at the park. Laid out in front of us was a clearing, with some trees that were planted out among the place. A few boulders and rocks were strewn about, with clamps of moss that were gathered around them. To our left, we saw and heard three waterfalls running into a river of sorts. There were also what seemed like pieces of tech around the trees, but I'm not going to question who came up with that or how they appeared there.

"So, I guess this is where I was elegantly lodged into the ground, right?" Neptune asked Compa, as she looked around.

"Well, not exactly. It's a bit farther back, but…" Compa trailed off for some reason.

"…But?" Neptune said. She was a bit confused about Compa's sudden worry.

"There are suddenly monsters around now… I don't think they were here before…" She said, looking at the area in front of her nervously.

"Oh, you mean that… blue, dog-like, jelly looking thing over there is a monster?" Almost as if on que, Neptune pointed towards some rocks, where a dogoo started to bounce around. Like Neptune had described them, they were a blue blob of slime, which had some features of a dog and were bouncing around happily.

"Yes, exactly… I wonder why they came here now, of all times…" Compa confirmed, still rather worried.

"Um, wouldn't this world have monsters all over the place? I mean, this story is based on a RPG, right?" Compa stared at Neptune, confused, while I just nodded at her. Seems like Compa doesn't know the existence of the fourth wall.

"Well, not really. They just started popping out of nowhere a few years ago." Compa said.

"Okay, rule number one when I don't know what it is; Shoot it dead." I pulled out my pistol from my pockets, turning the safety off and aiming it at the dogoo.

"Yeah! Shoot it!" Neptune encouraged me, pumping her fist into the air. I placed the gun close to my face, as I zeroed in on the dogoo. I took a deep breath to steady my aim, and waited until it stopped bouncing around. I held my breath, attempting to steady the beat of my heart. One second. Two seconds. Three seconds.

As soon as it paused to look at us, I took the shot. But I held the gun a little too loose, and the recoil managed to make the gun hit myself in the forehead. I grimaced in pain, clutching my forehead.

I couldn't see the slime creature, but I assume that I hit my mark, judging from the fact that I could hear slime splattering across the grass. As I removed my hand from my eyes, I could see the dogoo dissolve into binary code. I blinked a few times, before I turned to Neptune.

"Huh, well, whaddaya know… I just one-shot that dogoo." I shrugged, as Neptune started to stare at my gun once again. I saw a sense of admiration in her eyes as she ogled the weapon.

"Wow, that gun is awesome…" She said in awe, as she walked up to me. "Can I try it?"

"Huh? Well, sure. Just don't shoot it all in one go. And be sure to give it back to me." I handed the gun over to Neptune, not really thinking about what would happen If she was using it. I mean, I've seen her use a gun before in the original game, but the combat system was a bit… slow when I was playing it. At least the creators improved on it in MK2.

Neptune crouched down a bit, holding the pistol with both of her hands. Compa and I watched as she started to prowl around the place, looking around for monsters to shoot. She's the master of randomness when it comes to any situation… it's why she's my favourite character out of everyone in the Neptunia Series. My second favourite character would be… uh...

Wait, What was her name again? Why can't I seem to remember? I racked my brain, trying to find my second favourite character's name. I remember that her name starter with a 'I', but… nothing else. Actually, what about the rest of the characters? What about the rest of the game's events?

"Nex-Nex? What are you doing?" Compa was looking at me like I had grown a third eye. Understandable, since I was knuckling my brain like… someone who knuckles their brain.

"Oh, yeah. Don't worry about me Compa, just uh… trying to remember something." I continued to pointlessly knock my skull, digging through my knowledge of the game in my memory. But… all of it was fuzzy. Is this what Memoire meant when he said that my prior knowledge of the game will change? Well, this sucks. I sighed in disappointment, rubbing my forehead with the back of my hand.

Then the sound of gunshots made me quickly remove my hand from my face. I saw that Neptune was shooting at a dogoo, which was running away. I could see her bullets whizz past the monster, and into the dirt and rocks. The blue slime dog bounced away, out of range from Neptune.

"Awww! Dangit, I could've hit it if I had a laser pointer!" Neptune pouted, as she dropped the empty magazine, and loaded in a new one that materialised out of thin air.

"…you hit everything but the target. Not bad for hip-fire, but still…" Was my apathetic opinion. I walked over to Neptune, putting both hands behind my neck in a relaxed manner.

"What? Are you judging my marksmanship? I'll have you know that-"

"Uh, you two? I think we got some monsters that are coming here…" Compa cut off Neptune's speech, nervously pointing towards where the dogoo retreated. Turns out it brought some friends, to be on equal ground. There were three of them, all bouncing towards our positions. I pulled out my pocket knife, flicking out it's blade.

"Good, just what I needed. Something to test my skills on." I grinned, as I put my feet apart from each other and held my blade out in front of me. Neptune stepped next to me, summoning her wooden sword and grabbing it with her right hand and holding the Makarov with her left hand. Compa stepped up beside me too, holding a giant syringe.

"Woah, what in the…?" I took a step back from the huge syringe that Compa carried. I knew that thing was big, but not that big. It seems much more terrifying in person than in the game. I better remind myself not get healed with… that.

"Where in the flying stars did you get that thing, Compa?" I randomly spurted out something in surprise at the sight of her weapon. Even Neptune seemed surprised, staring at it wide-eyed. Seriously though, where did she get that? Did she hide that in between her melons or from her satchel? I remembered not getting an answer…

"Oh, this?" Compa said, raising her syringe to show the both of us. "Well, I can't really tell you, since it's a secret that I keep to myself…" Compa smiled to herself, leaving us wondering.

"Um, my imagination of where it came from can't explain the how…" Neptune interjected, voicing both our confusion. "…and you do realise how clichéd it is when you carry a huge weapon, right?"

"DOGOO!" Apparently the monsters were tired of waiting for us to finish talking. One of the dogoos kept forward, latching onto Neptune's left hand.

"Ahhhh!" The girl yelped in surprise, as she tried to shake the slime off her hand. It did let go, but at the cost of losing the gun. The dogoo bounced back, now with the Makarov floating in it's viscous body.

"Okay, less dialogue, more fight. We'll just pound those things and then progress." I stepped forward, as I got into a stance. The two girls spread out, so that they would take care of the other two.

"So Compa, all we gotta do is to just beat them up, right?" Neptune said, as she started to hold her sword with two hands.

"Yes. The Dogoos are cute, but they are bad monsters, so we can beat them up." Compa got into a stance of her own, holding the syringe at her hip like she would with a rifle.

"Alrighty! Now let's get this battle tutorial over with!" Neptune said enthusiastically.

"Last time I checked, this was a story. Not a game." I reminded Neptune, while still keeping my eye on the dogoos.

"Oh, right." Neptune realised, remembering her place. "Well, let's finish this battle so we can get on with the story! Eh, doesn't have the same ring to it…"

"Good enough, lesdodis." I didn't want to wait any longer to fight those things. After all, the real thing is different from the games, and I wanted to see how combat worked in here. I raised my knife, and I started slowly advancing towards the monster.

Neptune and Compa took care of the other monsters, while I focused on the one that was holding my gun. I made sue to walk slowly up to it, because I needed to know how it moved. When I reached a certain distance, it leapt at me in a attempt to tackle me to the ground. I quickly countered it with a slash of my knife, which knocked it back a good few centimetres. It got back up though, and it was angry. It's face didn't seem to change expression, though, but I can tell from the way it acted.

It lunged at me again, and I managed to dodge it by a couple of inches. But while I was turning around, it leapt at me again, latching into my left arm. The initial impact of the dogoo lunging onto my arm hurt, surprisingly.

"AH! G-get off me! Agh, it's trying to eat my arm!" When it attached itself onto my arm, I shouted in surprise. I tried to shake it off, but it never seemed to let go. Since my right hand was holding my knife, I started to slash and punch the dogoo while it was on my arm. For the final blow, I raised the blade, forcing it off with a powerful slash. The monster was sent tumbling to the ground, then it dissolved into a bunch of code.

Meanwhile, Neptune had finished hers off with a series of slashes with her wooden blade, while Compa neutralised her own dogoo with some slaps and punches, while also firing her syringe. After we took down the monsters, we started looking down at what they dropped. Including the one I shot earlier.

"Ooooh! Money!" Neptune shouted, as she grabbed what appeared to be tokens that were recently dropped by the monster. I had retrieved my pistol, wiping the dogoo jelly off of it. It turns out the jelly was a collectible item as well, judging from the holographic marker that had popped up on it.

"Hey, Compa?" I called out to her, while she placed the items into her satchel. "How do we place items in our inventory?"

She looked at me for a second, then placed her thumb and index finger on her chin, thinking of a way to phrase it.

"Well… you have to place it in your pocket, but at the same time you don't, if it makes any sense…" She slowly said. I cocked an eyebrow, confused at what she said, turning to Neptune. Sure enough, I saw her place the items on her hip, then they disappeared into binary code.

"Oh. Well, that makes sense." I placed the items I've gathered next to my pocket, and sure enough, they were transported into hammerspace. I tried that with my pistol too, placing it in a non-existent holster. It simply disappeared as well.

"Yahoo! Victory!" Neptune celebrated, doing a little dance on the spot. "Just leave it to good old Nep and her trusty sword (wood)!"

"Hey, don't take all of the credit. We did help, you know. And why do you have to add the annotation at the end?" I sheathed my knife in a non-existent scabbard, which made it disappear. Neptune was about to open her mouth, when Compa cut in.

"So, how was fighting mister monsters?" She asked the both of us.

"I think I've gotten the basics down, but there is still a lot to learn, after all." Neptune replied.

"Yeah, I might be able to put some knife skills behind me. I shouldn't rely on my gun too much, judging from the fact that the monsters close in way too fast." I added in. "Plus, I might need some strats when we face tougher enemies. This whole story is revolved around a RPG, after all."

"Well, you have a point." Compa said, while she placed her syringe back into… I don't even know. "Well, there's plenty where they came from, so maybe we can train more."

"Perfect for experience points. Nice." I nodded in agreement.

"That's what I'm talking about!" Neptune said enthusiastically. "Come on, let's go!" She rushed ahead, to fight some more monsters.

"Okay, time to farm some monsters." I ran along with Neptune, pulling out my pistol.

"Those two get along so well…" Compa said, smiling to herself. But she then realised that she was being left behind. "H-hey! Wait up!" She started sprinting, trying to catch up with us.


A few minutes have passed after our first fight with the monsters. While Neptune and I were rushing ahead, we noticed some objects just lying around and stuff, waiting to be picked up. Apparently they were the looting aspect of the dungeons. We mainly picked up Herbs and Night Moon Grasses, which were ready to harvest in the field. I also found some Healing grass, thanks to the pinging from my phone.

'In fact…' I thought. 'What's making it ping when we are near certain objects?' I pulled out my phone, while Neptune was busy dealing with walking, living tulips and some more dogoos. Apparently the pinging was from a 'Treasure Search' function, where it detected the Healing Grass from earlier. Might be pretty useful in the future. I pocketed my phone, and went to support Neptune and Compa with the fighting.

The Tulips, Dogoo-men (Dogoo-mans, maybe? Eh) and Dogoos were eventually pretty easy to deal with, as we fought more. A quarter of the neutralised monsters were thanks to my well-placed shots from my pistol, and the other three quarters were from the punching, slashing and poking of our weapons. The Dogoo-men were pretty tough to take out, but we found that 'power' attacks could bring them down easily. So they weren't much of a big deal like the others. And then…

"Cross Combo!" I heard Neptune call out. I turned to her, seeing a skeleton that was wearing a shirt that had a robot head, along with boxing gloves and a hat getting beat up. Neptune swiftly slashed the Boxer-X four times, before sending it up into the air with a vertical slash and then sending it back to the ground by jumping and slashing downwards. The monster then dispersed into code, dropping a few credits and adding some more exp to our levels.

"Dang." I whistled. "Seeing it like this is better than I thought. Maybe I could create some SP skills of my own in the future."

Neptune and Compa had levelled up more than a couple times, while my exp progression was a bit slower. Since I'm higher level, you know. When Neptune noticed, she pouted about the fact that I was too overleveled, but I reasoned with her saying that she'll catch up eventually.

After gathering more items, defeating more monsters and crossing a bridge, we were now walking though Virtua Forest without any more monsters attacking us. Compa was in the front, while Neptune and I were walking side by side. There was a minute of silence, which was unusual.

"Hey, say something random." I asked Neptune, trying to break the atmosphere. She thought about it for a second, before shaking her head.

"Nope, I got nuthin'." Neptune said.

"Kinda unusual for a personality like yours, right?" I joked.

"Maybe." She blushed a tiny bit. She did have to admit that it was weird for her to not have anything to say.

"Hey! I think we're close!" I heard Compa call out over her shoulder. We jogged a bit to catch up with the ditzy nurse, then started pushing through some shrubbery. When we emerged, we found ourselves in a large clearing. And in the middle, was…

"That's… one humongous hole." I said in surprise.

"Yeah, no kidding…" Neptune added. She seemed unnerved by the huge hole too.

In front of us was a massive crater, which looked like something had exploded. I expected it to be smaller, but… it's just bigger than I expected. Like something exploded here.

"Nep-Nep, does this make you remember anything?" Compa asked her curiously.

"…" Neptune thought hard about it, trying to remember. She closed her eyes, pinching her chin and crossing her arm over to her side.

"Um… Nep-Nep?" Compa said.

"Hmm…" Neptune hummed, starting to look frustrated. "Mmmmmmm…" Her eyebrows furrowed, her tone of voice getting harsher.

"Ah! I can't remember a thing! Compa, you sure this is where Nexon I crash landed?" Neptune shouted. She was clearly upset about not remembering anything,

"I'm sure. You two fell down like a shooting star and landed right here." Compa pointed towards the middle of the crater, where two indentations were seen. It would have been funny if our faces were marked into the ground, but there wasn't.

"So, a shooting star, blazing though the sky, right?" Neptune said. I slid down the crater, trying to find anything of interest.

"That's right!" Compa replied, raising her voice for some reason.

"Something wrong, Compa? Why didja raise your voice?" Neptune asked.

"Nep-Nep, I think we should search for clues, like Nex-Nex is doing. Did you lose anything, like a wallet?"

"Well, I wish, but I can't remember anything, so…" Neptune began, but then she realised something. "Hey, wait… I do remember something I'm missing!"

"Really?! What is it?" Compa said excitedly. I turned over to Neptune, to see what this was all about. What is she missing? Her marbles?

"Well, it's obvious isn't it? It's…" She paused, building suspense. Compa was full of hope, while I already started to see what's coming.

"…My memory!"

Compa just gave Neptune a blank stare, while I started mock laughing from Neptune's bad jokes and stupidity. She noticed the awkward atmosphere that she was in, becoming a bit nervous.

"Um… wasn't that… funny?" She awkwardly asked. Compa just sighed and shook her head, while I stopped my pretentious laughing and went back to searching the crater.

"If you were on my Harmony server and you said that, I'd kick you so hard." I talked nonchalantly while searching.

"Neptune? I don't think it's a good time to fool around right now…" Compa said, disappointed.

"Wait, what? I thought you were joking when you asked me If I remembered!" Neptune said.

"Hey, stop talking. I've found something, and I think it's werf if you come take a look at it." I called out to the girls. They noticed, and started sliding down the crater.

"What did you find, Nex-Nex?" Compa asked excitedly. I started turning around, showing them the object I've found.

It was what appeared to be the split remains of my knife. The M9 bayonet was now chipped in various places, and the blade was separated from the handle. It was damaged, but I could tell that it can still cut well.

"Huh? A knife?" Compa said. She turned to Neptune, to ask her a question. "Nep-Nep, do you remember anything about a knife?"

"Hmm, well…" Neptune tried to remember again, closing her eyes and pinching her chin. But her thoughts were interrupted when we heard something cracking beneath us. This made us stop for a minute.

"What was that sound?" Compa nervously looked around, trying to find the source.

"I don't think I'm going to like what's happening." I sighed, hearing the cracking and shifting growing louder. We all continued to nervously look around, until the ground crumpled beneath us.

"Woah, the ground's breaking apart!" Neptune shouted. We tried to get away from the crater, but that made it crumble faster. As soon as we started to climb, the dirt underneath gave away, letting us fall. First me, then the other two.

"Nepuuuuuuuuu?!" Neptune yelped.

"Aieeeeeeeeeee!?" Compa squealed.

"GRAAAAAAAAH!" I shouted. As we decended into the pitfall, the sunlight started to fade above us.


"Ow… Neptune moaned in pain. She lifted her face from the ground, starting to sit up. She rubbed her body, checking if there were any injuries. Luckily, there wasn't, and there wasn't any noticeable damage. Compa was right next to her, and she seemed fine too.

"Oh, that smarts…" I groaned, getting up and rubbing my head. I seemed fine too, judging from the fact that there were no broken bones or bruises. I turned to Neptune, who was shaking Compa.

"Man, this story's going to have all kinds of unexpected happenings… hey, Compa, are you okay?" Compa stirred, putting a hand up to her forehead.

"Y-yessy… I think I'm okay, it's… at least I'm not too badly hurt…" Compa sat up, starting to rub her head. Neptune then turned to me, directing another question.

"You okay as well, Nexon?" I nodded in confirmation, dusting myself off. I began to look around, taking in the surroundings.

We had landed in what appeared to be a cave, with blue crystals illuminating the darkness around us. The hole above us was farther than twenty-five feet, and there was no way we could get back up there.

"Okay, where in RNGesus tapdancing H. Chris are we? This looks like a crystal cave, which we basically see in every RPG ever…" I said while I looked around.

"Looks like we're underneath the forest…" Compa nervously said. "This place feels weird…"

"Yeah, I'm getting bad vibes from this place…" Neptune looked as nervous as Compa was. But then she noticed something that was neatly placed between some rocks.

"Huh? Hey, what's that over there?" Neptune said, as she pointed towards the mysterious object. "Any idea what that is?"

Compa and I started to walk over to what Neptune pointed at. It looked like a piece of circuitry that was broken apart, with some of the wires unusually glowing and some sort of hieroglyphics imprinted on the piece of metal. I picked up the mysterious object, inspecting it thoroughly. Well, this seems important.

"Oh! That must be part of a item we must assemble so we can unlock a temple! No, wait, maybe a legendary item we can trade in for a awesome weapon!" Neptune excitedly said, smiling in brilliance.

Then we heard something growl. It was powerful and low, like one of those bass sounds that'll kill your ears. It made the very ground shake from underneath us, making the small pebbles dribble around.

"What? W-where's that plot-inducing growl coming from?" Neptune tried to stand up but she was stumbling from the vibration of the cave.

"Nep-Nep! Nex-Nex! A huge monster is coming for us!" Compa warned us of the imminent danger, pointing towards a dark section of the cave. What emerged from it was a huge boss monster, that was larger than a tank. It had the body of a spider, while it had a humanoid torso that had clawed arms that was somehow attached to the top of the spider. There were three crab-like legs on it's body, and two more legs on the spider's face. The humanoid torso, arms and head held a oversized golden sword that resembled a bit like a key with it's clawed right arm, which unit rested on it's shoulder. The head was like a rhino's, but it's horn was large and the tip was triangle shaped.

"Cracker Jacks…" I muttered in fear, taking a involuntary step back. "That is the scariest thing I have ever seen in my entire life..."

The boss monster gave another shrill, guttural roar that shook the cave, and reached out towards a terrified and frozen Compa. Before it could grab her by the waist, I drew my pistol and fired at it's head. The loud bang of the gun echoed and vibrated throughout the cave, the bullet I fired punching into it's head. The huge monster stumbled back, clutching it's head in great pain. I knew that it only pissed it off more, and didn't do any damage. But the least I could do is to distract it long enough so that the others could run.

"Compa!" I shouted towards her. "Get outta there!" This was enough to snap her out of her daze, making her realise the situation she was in. She started walking backwards slowly at first, then broke into a sprint as she turned to the opposite direction. Neptune stayed behind though, as she summoned her wooden sword and got into a stance.

"This looks like a boss monster if I ever seen one. A pretty tough looking one too… Well, let's Nep this one up!" Neptune took the opportunity to attack while it was still staggering. She rushed towards the humanoid torso that was on top of the spider body, bringing her blade up for a slash.

She stuck the body three times with her blade, the sound of wood banging against the creature resonating throughout the cave. The monster recovered from it's writhing, immediately noticing her trying to slash at it and retaliated with a punch. To my horror, this sent her flying across the cave, crashing into a wall.

"NEPTUNE!" Before I could take a step towards her, the spider monster swung it's huge blade at me. I let out a panicked shout and dived to the side, the blade only striking the ground. I quickly got up to see that it was raising it's blade once again. Now why am I not a acrobat? I got ready to dive away and hit the deck, but it started to make a sweeping motion that dragged it's blade on the ground underneath my feet. As a result, I attempted to jump over the blade, but it was a little higher than I thought. I felt something cold run down my feet as I tripped over the blade and hit the ground painfully. The pain registered after a split-second, sending lots of signals to my brain.

"AGH!" I let out a pained grimace as the blood soaked my shoes, and my legs started to feel cold. I ignored it though, and I lifted my face from the ground to face Neptune. She was slumped over on the cave's wall, clutching her chest and coughing. Hopefully she isn't too badly hurt…

I turned back to the spider monster, to see that it was ready to strike again. But a shot rang out somewhere in the cave, and something impacted with it's face, making it recoil again. I turned to the source of the noise, seeing Compa with the same large syringe in her hands. She quickly rushed over to me, bringing out some Healing Grass.

"Hold still, I have to treat your injuries." She hastily said while she started applying the healing item to my wounds. I nodded, while I aimed my pistol at the monster again, firing off a few shots to buy Compa some time. The first couple of shots hit, but it quickly raised it's hand to it's head to block any other bullets. I felt the pain instantly subside when she finished healing me, and I stood up.

"Go check on Neptune, I'll distract it." I commanded Compa, as I gripped the pistol with both my hands. I saw her nod, then rush over to Neptune to check on her. I turned back to the monster, firing off all my rounds at whatever looked like a weak spot. So far, they were doing nothing to it, only just aggravating it more. I felt my heart beat faster as I reloaded, and repeated the process of laying down suppressive fire. It was slowly advancing towards me, much to my disapproval.

From the corner of my eye, I saw Compa and Neptune retreating from the battle. Neptune had her arm slung over Compa's shoulder so that she could use her as a crutch, and they were running as fast as they could. When I started reloading again, I could hear Neptune weakly calling out to me.

"Hey, Nexon… Don't try to beat this boss on your own…" Neptune said. But I shook my head without even looking at them, as I continued to fire at the monster.

"Don't worry about me, just go! I'll deal with this until you two are away from here." I replied.

"But… but Nexon…" Neptune began. It's great she's worrying about me, but…

"Don't worry about our character arcs. My only concern is that you're safe and sound, without any danger of you getting killed. Just believe in plot armour, I'll be coming back for you before you know it."

Neptune tried to open her mouth again, but Compa quickly cut her off.

"Nex-Nex is right… he's holding it off so we can escape."

I stopped concentrating on them for any longer, since the monster was dangerously close now. I kept on continuously peppering the monster, until I heard a distinctive clicking sound. I turned my pistol to the side to see the ammo counter, to see that I was out. I looked back up to the spider creature, to see it swing it's massive blade at me, sending me flying.

"NEXON!/NEX-NEX!" I heard them both cry out. I felt myself hit the wall of the cave, as dust started to spread. The impact knocked the air out of my lungs, and made my ears ring. I felt a intense agony grip my body, and it made me want to scream. But I couldn't, since I was left breathless. So I only managed a croaky groan.

The spider creature was now slowly approaching me, with it's blade over it's shoulder. Blood pounded in my ears, my heart rapidly beating as I clenched my fists. As it raised it's blade for the killing blow, I closed my eyes, waiting for everything to end. It wasn't how I wanted to go out, but at least I made a heroic sacrifice.

But instead of the agonising death I was expecting, I heard the loud clash of metal against metal echo throughout the cave. I slowly opened my eyes, to see a familiar figure floating in front of me and holding a katana that blocked the massive sword the creature was clutching.

The familiar figure I saw was a taller version of Neptune, with longer hair that was kept in two braids that hung from the back of her head. She turned her head to me, and I could see her blue eyes, with power symbols that replaced her pupils. Her hairclips were now small black domes with purple 'X's on them, and she was wearing a black body suit that covered everything below her neck (except a space that revealed the upper portion of her bust, and the upper half of her thighs), with some parts that were coloured grey and purple on it. There was also weird… technological butterfly-like wings behind her back that moved with her, like as if they were a part of her suit. The katana she was carrying was as tall as her, yet she had handled it as if it was weightless. It had a complicated diamond shaped guard, and the blade was purple all over.

"Purple Heart…" I whispered, gazing at her appearance in amazement.

She turned back to the monster, pushing the blade it was wielding to the side and dashing towards it. Before the creature could have a chance to react, it was met with a flurry of slashes that pushed it back. Aggravated, the spider creature roared at the floating woman, sending her back a bit. It then raised it's blade again, sending it down to Purple Heart, but she seemed to have something planned.

She flipped her sword so that she held it backhanded, and then flicked it up at the blade. A loud clang resonated throughout the area as the creature suddenly found that it was unarmed, it's blade clattering on the ground beside it. Then it found that the woman's katana was stabbed straight through it's humanoid torso, and ripped straight back out in a instant. It gave out one final roar as it's legs started to buckle, and fall on it's belly. It went limp, the humanoid torso sagging with it's arms dangling.

As Purple Heart sighed in relief, I stood up and started clapping, despite my obvious pain. She turned around, looking at me.

"One word: Wow. Just wow. That there was eight out of eight, would totally recre8." Over to the side, I could see Compa stare in amazement at the transformed Neptune.

Purple Heart started to look at herself, and her clawed fingers. She started to inspect the body she had, and the katana she acquired. "How did I do that…? Is this really me?" In contrast to her taller appearance, she had a mature voice.

"Huh… I must say, I'm impressed. Nexon, you were courageous enough to try and hold off the Guard Vermin, while you, Neptune, figured out how to activate HDD all on your own." A certain male voice echoed into our thoughts.

"What? That voice sounds familiar… you were from my dream?" Purple Heart immediately recognised the voice. Knowing her, she probably wouldn't immediately recognise it if she was in her normal form.

"Correct." Historie replied. "You recognise us as Histoire and Memoire, do you not?"

"Yeah. I remember you, clear as day." I said. Neptune then suddenly got engulfed in a bright column of light, purple data lines surrounding it. When it died down, she was seen back in her human form.

"Man, I'm tuckered out… and what did you say about a HDD again? Was that dream real?" She said, stretching her arms.

"Um… Nep-Nep? Whose voices are they? Where are they coming from?" Compa decided to cut in, since she felt left out of the conversation. Plus, she was pretty confused.

"They're the two heavenly voices. They're called Histoir…" Neptune began, but paused. "What was it again?"

"Histoire and Memoire. You were only off by one letter when you were saying her name there." Memoire said.

"Ah, that's right! Histy-Histy and Memo!" Neptune called out, remembering.

"You may call me Histy." Judging from her tone of voice, she seemed to like it,

"I'm fine with whatever you call me." On the other hand, he didn't seem to care about nicknames.

"Now then Compa, nice to meet you. My name is Histoire, and the other voice is Memoire." Histoire directed her voice towards the nurse. I could see her silently mouth the names to herself.

"Can I just call you Histy and Memo, too? It's nice to meet… Um, hear you, Histy, Memo." Compa said.

"Now, about your questions, Neptune. First-" Memoire began, but was cut off by a roar. We turned to see that the Guard Vermin was standing up, still alive and angry.

"OH GOD! IT'S A ZOMBIE!" I shouted in terror, as it started limping… erm, shuffling towards us.

"RUUUUUN!" Neptune shouted, as she grabbed me by the hand and started running. Compa followed along, running like the wind to escape the Spider Monster.

"AH, OW! Hey, my arm!" I shouted out in pain as I was dragged along.


Author's notes:

Not much to say, really. All I'm going to say is that thighs are going to slow down here. Not much reviews, too... eh. I'll just answer all of them.

Replies to Reviews

Shibashi61

I am leaning towards 3rd person a bit, too. But I'll alternate between perspectives if I feel like it at times.

I tried to make him not bland most of the time, but so far I'm not good at keeping personalities. The original plan was for him to be a bit alike to Neptune, but... eh.

It'd be great. But I see that you currently don't have a beta reader profile yet, so I'll have to wait until you get one.

Cobaltroid

Of course. There are multiple OCs in this story.

I was half tired when I was writing the author's notes. Don't judge.

[End of Reviews]

Bye.