Snyderverse Neptunia Snippets
by Derald Snyder
Snippet 70- Another Time
Ouro Kronii was fuming to herself as she sat in the back of the police van, still bound and gagged with duct tape... (Ame would be laughing her head off at me right now... can't believe I was brought down by a fake spider prank! Man, if only I could do this whole thing over-)
Suddenly her eyes went wide, her head jerking up as realization dawned. (Wait a minute, I'm the freaking Warden of Time! Of course I can do this over!) Immediately her surroundings went color-inverted as time stopped, Kronii then beginning to rewind...
*Garreg Mach Military Academy*
"What's wrong, Sothis?" Byleth asked his adopted daughter, who had suddenly gotten a thousand-yard stare.
"Huh? Oh, uh, nothing," the greenette shook her head. "I thought I felt a disturbance in the flow of time, but maybe it was just my imagination..."
*A few minutes earlier...*
Kronii let the flow of time resume, back at the point just before she'd blown a hole in the Basilicom's wall. But this time, she turned and flew off to the south, attracting some curious glances. "Okay, so we avoided that trap... going to the nearest castle was a bad idea. Let's try going to the furthest one instead..."
Steeling herself for a long trip, Kronii angled herself to fly higher into the sky, becoming a streak not unlike a shooting star...
*Samson & Co. Law Offices*
"Okay, but how do we deal with such a blatant cheat like that?!" Neptune griped. "It's not like we can cheat ourselves, then we'd be no better than Arfoire!"
"Um, th-that I'm not s-so sure about..." Rei bowed her head and tapped her fingers together.
"Wait, didn't she say after she beat us that we might have had a chance if we'd ambushed her?" Blanc tried to recall.
"Which means that if we caught her off guard, perhaps we could knock her out before she had a chance to use her time powers..." Vert mused.
"But how the hell would we be able to do that?" Blanc said in frustration. Just then, Bartholomew J. Samson came out of the back office.
"Lady Blanc, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but... there was a news report of a strange lady at your Basilicom," the heavyset lawyer stated. "But it seems she ended up flying off to the south instead..."
"To the south? Why would she do that?" Blanc asked in confusion.
"Maybe she changed her mind?" Vert guessed. "Perhaps she thought your Basilicom's design didn't meet her high standards..."
"Well, guess she's going after yours instead, then!" Neptune exclaimed. "After all, Noire's Basilicom is black and boring!"
"HEY!" Noire protested, adjusting her cold compress on her head. "My Basilicom is sleek, stylish, and functional!"
"Which is another word for boring," Neptune teased. "See, this is why you don't have many friends..."
"Neptune, stop it," Blanc cut in. "But if you're right, we should be heading out to Leanbox..."
"I don't know if we have enough energy to make the trip..." Vert lamented.
"Um, all I have is a s-single energy b-bar..." Rei said, bringing out the item in question.
"I'm all out of instant ramen, unfortunately," Bartholomew shook his head.
"Let Vert have it, then," Blanc suggested. "It's her Basilicom that bitch is going after, after all..."
*And so, down in Leanbox...*
Green Heart sighed in relief as that familiar northern coastline became visible. (I was starting to feel a bit fatigued, didn't think I'd make it...) She stayed low to the ground out of caution as she jetted toward the capital city and her Basilicom therein... Soon the building came into view, Vert discerning a mid-sized hole in its wall. (Oh no...) Slowing to a halt, she spotted her Oracle Chika Hakozaki lying outside said hole, looking bruised and battered. "Oh, dear!" Vert gasped as she touched down, reverting to normal. Jogging to Chika's side, she knelt down and gently picked up the greenette's head in her hands... "Chika, speak to me! Are you still alive?"
"Nnnggghh... Lady Vert...?" Chika groaned as her eyes slowly opened. "I'm sorry... I couldn't stop her..."
"Is she still inside?" Vert asked.
"I... think she is..."
"All right, in that case..." Vert handed her cell phone to Chika. "Call Peach and the other Armored Rangers. I'm going to scope things out."
"Be careful..." Chika grunted as she took the phone in hand.
*Inside...*
Vert kept her breathing slow and deliberate as she crept through the halls, keeping her ears open for any noise made by the time goddess... (Funny, other than the hole in the wall, she doesn't seem to have destroyed much else...) Then again, given that she wanted to claim this place as her own, perhaps that wasn't a big surprise... (Wait. I hear something!) It sounded like it was coming from upstairs... (My office?) She climbed the steps as quietly as she could, only to realize that the noise was actually coming from Chika's room nearby. (What would she be doing in there...?)
Deciding to take the chance, Vert pushed the door open, seeing Kronii with her back turned and a controller in her hands... "Hard to believe that Minecraft exists on this planet... I wanna make a new Bunkeronii, but I don't know if I have the time for that... guess I'll just build a castle instead." Looking at the screen, Vert saw a foundation being laid nearby a village. "Yeah, villagers, I'm gonna rule your sorry NPC butts! What do you think about that, eh?"
Vert couldn't help but smile at the sight. She hadn't played much Minecraft herself, having concentrated on the more traditional MMORPGs instead... but then she saw something on the screen that no Minecraft player wanted to see! "Creeper!" she shouted instinctively.
"GWAK!" Kronii yelled, getting out of range of the inevitable explosion just in time. "Oh, that's my foundation ruined. Great... freaking wonderful!"
"Now, now, at least it was just the foundation and not your whole castle," Vert said in a soothing voice. "Look, let me get on my PC and log on, and I'll help you rebuild, and get some torches to keep those creepers and other monsters away, all right?"
"Uh..." Kronii looked back at Vert briefly, then back at the screen. "...Sure, do what you gotta do." (She must be trying to get on my good side after I kicked her butt so hard... fine, I'll let her help me out this one time.)
Soon enough, 'GreenHeart joined the game' appeared at the bottom of the screen. "You'll have to excuse me, I haven't played this one much... I've been occupied with more traditional MMOs, so, I don't have many resources to help you out..."
"Guess we'll just have to do some digging, then," Kronii nodded. "I watch your back, you watch mine?"
"Sounds good," Vert agreed.
*Several hours later...*
"Are they still playing?" A-Mac inquired.
"Looks like it," Peach nodded, standing with Adrian. "That time goddess must be really obsessed with Minecraft..."
"Lady Vert wanted us to establish a perimeter just in case," Adrian spoke up. "She must've thought the goddess would get bored eventually."
"It's an injustice what she did to the CPUs and Chika," Nisa sighed, "but I'm not about to interrupt her gaming session if it's keeping her from attacking anyone else..."
"But where did she come from, anyway?" A-Mac mused. "Doesn't seem like she was from Gamindustri, or else she'd be calling herself a CPU, not a goddess..."
"Your guess is as good as mine, brother," Peach shrugged. Just then, there was a knocking, the group instantly on guard as they whirled toward the noise-
"Oh, hello!" greeted a tall dark-skinned woman with white hair, golden eyes and a sizable bust dressed primarily in white. "Sorry for just walking in, but there was a big hole in the building... is Kronini here?"
"Who are you?" Peach asked pointedly.
"Oh, sorry! I'm Sana Tsukumo, goddess of space. I'm looking for my fellow goddess Ouro Kronii. She's the goddess of time-"
"She's in there, playing Minecraft," A-Mac pointed. "She creamed Lady Vert and the other CPUs in battle, so if you wanna take her off our hands, go right ahead."
"Oh, thank you! And sorry for the trouble she caused," Sana smiled and nodded, Peashy and Adrian stepping aside to allow her through. "Hello, Kronini! It's time to go home."
"Sana?!" Kronii looked back to her fellow goddess. "Wait, what are you doing here?"
"I've been looking all over the universe for you!" Sana exclaimed with her hands on her hips. "Bae told me about that mishap that sent you to another galaxy... anyway, I'm here to take you back now, 'K?"
"But, I'm building a castle..." Kronii said in anguish, looking back at the screen.
"Oh, it's all right, I can finish it for you," Vert said via voice chat. "And I'l call it Castle Kronvert, since we worked on it together."
"Yeah, besides, don't you still have your Bunkeronii on the EN server?" Sana pointed out. "Not to mention Mumei's been worried sick about you..."
"Mumei? Oh... yeah, I guess she would be..." Heaving a sigh, she set down the controller and stood up. "All right, you win, Sana. Let's go home." The two goddesses exited the bedroom, but Kronii stopped at the stairs to Vert's room. "I still kicked your butt IRL, though!" she shouted, before dashing out toward the stairs leading to the entrance, laughing her head off.
"Can you make sure she, like, never comes back?" A-Mac asked curtly.
"I second that!" Peach nodded.
"Well, it was an accident that sent her here to begin with, so I doubt she'll come back anytime soon," Sana shrugged. "Have a nice life, humans!" She promptly jogged after Kronii to catch up...
*Some time later, in deep space...*
(Well, that didn't go as planned,) Kronii thought as she rode on the back of a now-gigantic Sana, easily the size of two suns. Being a goddess herself, Kronii wasn't affected by the vacuum of space. (I probably could've taken over that island if I hadn't gotten sidetracked... but who would've thought Minecraft was a thing over there?) She shrugged to herself. (Oh, well... it's a better outcome than being scared by a spider and hauled off to jail wrapped up in duct tape, so I'll accept this timeline...) She smiled to herself. (Not to mention those other goddesses never got the chance to avenge their loss to me... and now they never will.)
She laughed to herself in triumph, even though it couldn't be heard in space...
Snippet 70- End*