Location: Gamindustri Graveyard
Towards the centre of the Graveyard stood a pale red-haired woman whose hair is tied into twintails and has a black eyepatch covering her right eye. She is wearing what can be described as an extremely skimpy version of a processor unit that the CPUs have. This woman is known as CFW Magic, the one that defeated the CPUs 3 years ago and the reason for their current predicament
"Soon, our Goddess will awaken and she will be the one to deal the final blow to those CPUs" Magic speaks out loud not particularly caring who can hear her
"LADY MAGIC!" Magic frowns as she hears one of their underlings call out to her, when she turns towards them she becomes curious as to why an underlings are frantically running towards her with a relatively calm yet furious Judge following after them especially since Judge doesn't seem to be trying to kill them like he normally would
Magic waited until they reached her before she speaks with a sinister edge, "well, this had better be important, you should know the consequences for disturbing me whilst i am with our deity"
"Well…" the underling starts speaking
"So the candidate escaped? No matter, she's not strong enough to be a threat to us and the plans in place" Magic says dismissing the underling who bows to her and leaves in a hurry
Judge scoffs "'not strong enough' my ass, that bitch 1-inch punched me halfway across the fucking graveyard" he growls out
Magic blinks, "Come again?"
"You heard me" Judge says with a growl in his voice
"That can be problematic" Magic muses, "although it does bring up the question of why didn't she finish you off if she does have that much power available to her?"
Judge stays silent
"It could be because she doesn't have the control necessary to do more or even the fact that she was just awoken as such doesn't have the energy required to continue battling" a new voice speaks up
He is a robotic samurai that is the same height as Judge with red, blue, yellow and white armor and has a golden lion's head with glowing blue eyes on his chest
"Brave" Magic acknowledges the robotic samurai, CFW Brave
"Perhaps we should let the… 'Failures'... join our forces in the hunt for the Mascots, if either of my speculations turn out to be true our forces will need all the help that they can get" Brave suggests to Magic
Magic hums
Location: unknown
In the centre of a flower field of white, we see Nepgear holding the lifeless body of Neptune as red pools slowly around them staining both their white clothes as well as the white flowers around them
"Onee-chan' Nepgear sobs out as her sister's body slowly crumbles away into digitised particles
Nepgear holds her sisters lifeless body tightly
.
…
…..
She is gone
.
…
…..
Her sister is gone
.
…
…..
And It'S aLl HeR fAuLt
Nepgear screams out in anguish as a pillar of black, white and red light consume her being
Location: Planeptune Basilicom - Nepgear's room
Nepgear's eyes snap open as she suddenly sits up in bed with her arm reaching out in front of her
Her breathing is heavy, she clutches her hand that's reaching out and brings it to her chest
"That dream again…" Nepgear whispers softly after she calms her erratic breathing and pounding heart somewhat
She sighs and she focuses on calming herself down completely
Once she's completely calmed down she moves her arm around and frowns slightly
"Not as bad as before, but there's still some de-sync" Nepgear muses, "Sharicite probably couldn't fix the de-sync completely since i'm not whole without Burn, Cal and Ohm"
She sees her "old" sailor dress, neatly folded, on her work desk
She gets out of bed and makes her way to the mirror to take a good look at herself
As she was making her way to the mirror, a portion of her shadow splits off and made its way to the centre of the room
Sure enough she look exactly like she did before everything that had happened, had happened
The shadow bulges outward as a kneeling Humanoid form is created, as the shadows recede a fair skinned girl with ruby red eyes who is wearing a Black and Crimson gothic lolita dress, she has deep red hair that's tied into a side ponytail and wears a black eyepatch with a red gear design on it over her right eye is left behind, she is Magi, one of 4 familiars that Nepgear gained over the years
"Magi" Nepgear calls out to the girl
"Yes, my la…dy..?" Magi starts to say as her eye caught sight of Nepgear in just her underwear and froze as a full body blush overtook her, 'lady Nepgear is in her underwear and she still looks so pretty and cute and regal and KYAAAAAA!' she starts gushing internally
"Could you be a dear and shorten the sleeves of that sailor dress for me. Oh and find me a pair of shorts while you're at it, thanks" Nepgear gives the red head her "order" before she enters the attached bathroom, seemingly oblivious to her familiar's fangirling
Because of her fangirling it took a moment for Magi's mind to register her queen's request
Location: Planeptune Basilicom - Kitchen/Dining room
We pan over to the Kitchen/Dining room of the Basilicom living area
Here we see Compa humming happily cooking a meal while IF is going over information from the guild before she submits it to Histoire and Histoire is busy making the plan for what to do when Nepgear wakes up
Unbeknownst them a blur of red and black goes past the doorway to the living room in the direction of the entrance
And moments later the blur goes by the doorway again this time in the direction of the bedrooms
The blur goes by the doorway a few more times before IF looks up and blinks "huh?"
"Is something the matter IF?" Histoire asks the guild agent
"I thought I saw something move past the doorway…" IF says looking at the doorway
The two of them look over to the doorway for a moment before returning back to what they were doing earlier
And the blur goes by the doorway one last time
Location: Planeptune Basilicom - Nepgear's room
After taking a shower Nepgear re-enters her bedroom
She sees that the sailor dress had the adjustments made as she had requested
"although Magi being missing is concerning, but then again I did ask for shorts" Nepgear mused, "i could go see them now or I could wait till Magi comes back"
she sighs, "either way I'll have to explain how I altered the sailor dress, I think this is the first time I'm hoping for Magi's fangirlish tendencies short sighting her enough to reveal herself to them" She face palms and groans, "this'll be a paaaaaain"
Before she left the room she picked up a piece of paper and wrote 'Magi, i forgot to tell you to get me gloves, you know the kind, -Gear-'
Location: Planeptune Basilicom - Kitchen/Dining room
"Good morning everyone" Nepgear speaks as she walks in the Kitchen/Dining room
"You're finally awake!" IF exclaims all too happy to see her awake and well
"Ge-Ge, you were a sleep for so long, we were getting worried" Compa says relieved
"Nepgear, are you truly alright?" Histoire asks her concern colouring her voice
"Figured i wouldn't be able to get it passed you…" Nepgear speaks softly as a small smile graces her face, "there's still a bit of resistance but all in all nothing to really be worried about"
"WHAT!""Ge-Ge!" IF and Compa exclaims at hearing that
"With all due respect Nepgear, any amount of resistance, of de-sync, is not a good thing" Histoire says sternly
Nepgear's smile widens at the concern directed at her, "As long as the de-sync doesn't go over level 4 the hindrance will be a mild inconvenience at best"
"Nepgear, i'm sure you're aware that any level of de-sync means that you won't be able to transform into your CPU form" H
Nepgear shrugs nonchalauntly
HIstoire presses her lips together as she stares at Nepgear
"You know what's exactly what's happening, don't you" it wasn't a question, it was a statement from Histoire
Nepgear's smile doesn't leave her face as she gives a firm nod
Histoire is now looking expectantly at Nepgear, waiting for her to give her explanation
Nepgear sighs softly and simply opens her mouth and shows them her tongue and the three of them are surprised, Histoire especially
"Runic seal of suppression? That is…" Histoire starts
"Runic seal of tranquillity" Nepgear cuts her off to correct her
"Umm, Histy? Ge-Ge? What do those seal thingies mean?" Compa asks the two
"Both those seals forces the person its placed on be unable to speak of the details of the seal", Histoire speaks her eyes not leaving Nepgear
"the Runic seal of suppression is as forceful as it sounds, it enforces silence that the person the seal is applied through pain, it can even force the person to unknowingly falsify the details of the seal" Nepgear explains, "while the runic seal of tranquillity on the other hand is much nicer in comparison as it can only be placed when both parties involved are in complete agreement between them"
"And how does this tranquillity enforce silence?" IF asks seriously
"By literally making them shut up, the only way tranquillity will cause pain is if a familiar of the person sealed were to start speaking of the details of the agreement made" Nepgear answers her
The atmosphere in the Kitchen/Dining room is getting undeniably serious, especially between Histoire and Nepgear
Tension continued rising between the CPU and the Oracle as they continued staring at one another, it looks like neither of them would back down
IF and Compa fled the room as the tension was not only making them nervous but the rising level of tension was undeniably fear inducing
Both IF and Compa notes just how different Nepgear is, 3 years ago if this same situation were to happen Nepgear would have caved almost instantly, that is of course assuming that she would somehow still be in the same situation she is in now
but the girl in the room right now, she's still going strong, in fact she doesn't even seem to be phased by the rising amount of tension, especially since its reaching the tension level that makes the other CPU's fight or flight instincts would start to take over
Its like Nepgear was replaced by someone else but the person that replaced Nepgear is still very much Nepgear in every sense of who she is, just…more
About a minute after the makers flee the room Nepgear lets out a sigh as she leans back into the chair
"That was an interesting way to get them to leave the room", Nepgear said as an amused smile formed on her face
Histoire looks over towards the doorway and returns her gaze back to Nepgear
"That wasn't my intention" Histoire says
Nepgear hums before speaking, "either way there's enough tension in the room to make Onee-chan squirm and be ready to summon her sword to start fighting"
Now Histoire sighs, "Nepgear…"
Nepgear looks down, "I know Histoire, Believe me, I know" she says
"Nepgear, I need to know if ASIC has anything, anything at all to do with your current state of being" Histoire speaks with a concerned tone
"Why would I even think of trusting them after…" she grit her teeth as the seal on her tongue forced Nepgear to silence, "If they did, I would sooner tear my own heart out, with my bare hands, if i had to" Nepgaer says surprisingly aggressively before taking a breath to calm down, "Histoire, i really need you to trust me, everything will be fine and i promise that i'll tell you everything once the seal is removed"
"Just me?" the tome asks with a raised eyebrow
"Unless something happens that forces me to tell everyone, yes, just you, for the time being at least" Nepgear gives the oracle a wry smile
Histoire sighs and clenches her fist, "very well Nepgear, i'll trust you"
"Blindly?" Nepgear asks quizzically
"Yes, Blindly, just this once at least" Histoire confirms before continuing dryly, "it's not like you can tell me much anyways"
Histoire trusts Nepgear, there's never a doubt about it, but trusting blindly isn't something that Histoire does, Nepgear's stunned silence following her confirmation is proof of it but what choice did she have in this scenario? Refuse to blindly trust her and have Nepgear fight tooth and nail in order to earn that blind trust and ultimately blindly trust her anyways
Besides her concerns were put to rest for the most part, between the way that Nepgear was silenced and her clear disdain for ASIC (although the latter did make her feel a bit concerned)
Nepgear for her part was stunned, she expected to have to try much, much harder to get the diminutive Oracle to agree to blindly trust her, especially since how she is now is nothing like how she was 3 years ago (as far as the timeline is concerned)
It took her a good 20 seconds before she managed to get out a soft breathless "thank you"
Histoire can hear the genuine gratefulness in Nepgear's breathless 'thank you'
"Now shall we go to the living room and discuss what we can do now with IF and Compa?" Histoire asks, choosing to put an end to their current conversation
"Y-yeah" Nepgear stutters, "let me go and finish getting dressed first"
HIstoire raises an eyebrow at that
"I like wearing shorts and keeping my hair tied when I fight ok!" Nepgear said as puffed her cheeks like a little chipmunk
Histoire giggles at that, "alright, go and finish getting dressed" she says as she makes her way into the living room and Nepgear takes off to her room