Nepgear wouldn't admit it but watching Neptune get lectured for 3 hours was liberating in a weird way

Even more so, when Histoire told her that she could take the day to do whatever she wanted while Neptune does the work

Her sister had pouted when she heard that Nepgear can have the day off, she was about to complain about the fact that she has to do all the work

Nepgear has never bolted to her lab as fast as she did at that moment

She can also relish in the fact that Neptune was about to receive an even longer lecture from Histoire for the complaints she's no doubt making

After the last three years of almost constant paperwork and questing, it's nice to be able to just tinker away in her lab for the day

Not to say that Histoire didn't give her days off after things had calmed down an year and a half ago, nor is this the first time Neptune is being forced to work nor is this the first time that Neptune is more than likely going to get kicked out to go do quests

Nepgear will note that there's an odd rift between her and Neptune, once upon a time it would be her and Neptune doing everything together, heck there were rare occasions where Neptune would attempt to teach her (it failed horribly, but the thought counts)

These days there's hardly any interactions between them, heck Nepgear's spent more time with Noire last week than she has with Neptune in the last three years

Which is part of the reason why she bolted when she did, she didn't want to get dragged into helping her sister with the quests Histore will undoubtedly give her

On paper it sounds great, she would get to spend time with and bond with her sister while they do quests, in reality what would happen is Neptune would do the barest minimum when it comes to the quests and then she would drag her to goof off somewhere

Three years ago she would jump at the chance to go with her sister, now however is a different story maybe it's because of the amounts of time she's spent with Noire or maybe she's come to dislike (maybe even hate) her sister's protagonist complex

Either way she locked herself in her lab for the day, maybe she can finally finish that notebook that she was working on

The notebook that she's dubbed as the "Nep-note" (patent pending), once completed will be able to shrink and store things within its pages and technically speaking it should be capable of even storing living beings within the confines of its pages

She didn't intend to fall through the portal that Histoire made in order to bring Neptune back from the other dimension

It's not her fault that Ram's pranking spree had lead to floor being frozen and her being pushed

There was no way that she could have stopped herself from the inevitable falling through the portal to the other dimension

maybe she could have transformed and floated had she known that Histoire had a portal open in the room that Ram had pushed her to but she didn't and chose to indulge the youngest candidate by letting the prank happen as intended

However the prank didn't happen as intended regardless of Nepgear's actions

So now she's falling, from the sky

…if she dies she will haunt Ram for the rest of the candidate's existence

Thankfully she didn't die

She did however land on this dimension's Noire and if what she's getting from what Neptune and the other girl are anything close to true then this isn't the first time that "this" Noire ended up as a landing pad for someone else

Nepgear would have apologized to the ravenette if Neptune hadn't taken the opportunity to grab this dimension's Noire and Blanc as well as the still yet to be named girl off to meet with someone who invited them

All the while dumping the three babies on her to babysit

Apparently her sister will get her a souvenir from where they are going to (she doubted it)

Regardless, she had to ask

"Did my sister more or less just abandon me while calling me a burden within five minutes of me being here?"

"Yes, yes she did…" the answer from the smaller Histoire was technically unnecessary but appreciated nevertheless

As it turns out they had a CPU memory in the Planeptune Basilicom

Apparently when Neptune and this dimension's Noire had become CPUs through the use of the CPU memories they had found 3 and kept one in Planeptune Basilicom since they weren't friends with Blanc at the time and Lastation was yet to be built

Turns out that they all had forgotten about it as it's a one time use item

Sure Nepgear could have gone after them after she had regained her CPU form again

But that thought wasn't even a fleeting thought when tiny Histoire had found the CPU memory

after all, as she had learnt from her dimension's Histoire fairly early on, shares are very versatile

The babies were little menices Nepgear decided

At least in the beginning (or maybe she was getting more fond of them)

As the days went by the babies were more well behaved

They seem to be becoming more considerate of her well being after every feeding time, which was odd but she choose to not think about it too much

In the beginning little Iffy and little Peashy were loud and rambunctious while little Compa was a little angel as long as her sisters weren't causing mayhem

The problem was that either little Iffy and little Peashy tend to start causing some kind of mayhem, when one starts the other two joins in

Thankfully tiny Histoire was able to buy her enough time to quickly squeeze a meal in when the children were awake

It was almost three weeks later that Neptune and the others came back and Nepgear was moody

Why wouldn't she be?

During the entire time Neptune was gone, she was looking after the babies (and doing some of the paperwork for this Planeptune, she really cant get a break from it can she?) which left her with no time for herself

No time to tinker with anything or go out to do some quests to keep herself in shape and keep her senses sharp

And they all (tiny Histoire included) assumed that she's depressed because Neptune left her behind (although the look on this "Plutie" girl makes her think otherwise for her)

They were wrong, not that they knew

As sad as it sounds Nepgear is used to being let down by Neptune at this point, so she isn't even the slightest bit surprised that her sister forgot about the fact that she promised her a souvenir

Neptune did try to salvage the situation by saying that she loves her and what not

Nepgear was not having any of it and called her sister a liar to her face and turned to face the backrest of the couch and she would have stayed that way for longer had little Iffy not started sniffling like she was about to cry (the maternal instincts are strong in this one)

While she was tending to the baby she could hear Neptune "whispering" with the others about bringing her with them as to alleviate her mood and to ensure that she doesn't fall back into being depressed

'Clearly I'm just a piece of furniture in the room if they can't whisper properly' she thinks to herself with a eye twitch, not that they could see with her back turned to them

Nepgear was so so glad that she had the smaller Histoire swear to silence about the CPU memory she used

It didn't take long for them to get "invited" to go meet this dimension's Vert, apparently they were invited to her Basilicom earlier only for her to be busy and be unable to meet them (Nepgear has a decent idea at what Vert could be busy with)

In Nepgear's honest opinion this was less an invite and more of a challenge being issued which is more than a little stupid especially since she would be facing against 4 CPUs by herself

Even Neptune, who (as she learnt from Noire) is capable of fighting against 3 CPUs by herself with a decent chance of winning wouldn't do something like this because it is just ludicrously stupid

she was fairly sure that this Vert has a bigger ego than she has the right having

Is it wrong to want to see someone who is on a high horse get humbled very thoroughly?

Probably

Is she going to enjoy it anyways?

Also probably

Is she going to enjoy it a bit more because it's Vert getting humbled?

Absolutely, just because she was too nice for her own good some (a lot of) times doesn't mean she likes being treated like Vert's little sister by the CPU when she is in fact Neptune's little sister

Meeting Vert was an…experience

Instead of the voluptuous woman she and Neptune were expecting, they got a girl in her early teens

And if what Noire and Plutia said is true then Neptune went on a date with her

"How did you go on a date with her and not know her name?" she asked her sister because she had to know and she knows she had an incredulous look on her face

Because it's common courtesy to give your name to someone you meet, nevermind going on a date with the person

From the looks of it Noire and Blanc agrees with her

Apparently her sister was too focused on the food to learn her date's name

…

What…?

Just… what?

What did she mean by that?

Nepgear decided to stop thinking about it to save herself from the headache that line of though will no doubt induce

…

Thankfully things got on track fairly quickly afterwards

Neptune had been the one to request a CPU Memory for her and she had agreed only if Neptune were to do a favor for her later

Questioning what the actual catch was (as there was no way that Vert wasn't immediately going to cash out that favor from Neptune) led to where they are right now

Apparently, in Vert's eyes Nepgear is a wallflower,

Not anymore she isn't, thanks to her Noire, she can be assertive and take control of a situation when she needs to

who is willing to do her best to please people

It's called being a nice person and if it helps gather shares, who's complaining?

and will be praised even if she screws up

No, she doesn't get praised when she screws up (both Histoire and Noire have scolded her when she screwed up in the past), she just gets more leeway for it because she works as hard as she does

And then Vert pivots to praising Neptune for being someone who hates working and loves playing games

Does… does this child think that they like doing work? This dimension's Noire is a "maybe" (mostly due to her attitude and behavior, she doesn't know her as well as she knows her Noire) but the rest of them? But the rest of them is a definite "NO" (including her Noire)

They do their work because it's their "job", even more so for Neptune and Nepgear (not that Neptune does much work anyways) as their lives quite literally depend on it (they were born of shares and they can very easily die from a lack of shares)

Finally this girl has the nerve to Insult Blanc (calling her an old hag), Noire (an overly serious whiner, Nepgear bristles at that comment) , Plutia (a scary psycho bitch) and Nepgear… again (annoying miss perfect) as though she could beat all of them by herself (ego much?)

Nepgear was done, as was Plutia

Neptune, seeing Plutia as the bigger threat, chooses to get in Plutia's way

Nepgear was fine with that, in fact she asked Plutia if she along with Noire and Blanc could deal with Neptune while she deals with Vert herself

What happens afterwards

Is a chapter for another time