Neptune glanced around the area for a moment. Nothing seemed to have changed. The sky was still blue, the sun was still shining and the snow was still cold. “Uh… What’s going on?” Neptune wondered, aloud.
“Pardon me.” Histoire began. “Everything is proceeding as planned, were just waiting for the original Histoire to appear. After that, the Histoire AI will upload data to the original Histoire. After that-” The holographic image of Histoire stopped talking before she could finish her sentence and then her image vanished.
“Is that a bad thing?” Uni asked.
Nepgear pulled out her N-Gear and looked down at the screen. “Look. There’s some kind of signal coming from the Fairy Tower.” Nepgear said, turning the N-Gear so Uni could see it.
“What does that mean?” Uni asked.
“I don’t know. Maybe…” Nepgear began, but she stopped talking when a tiny figure’s silhouette appeared in front of Neptune. Nepgear swallowed hard. Tears welled up in the corners of her eyes. “Histoire?” Nepgear breathed.
“Hiya Histy.” Neptune said, as she giggled and scratched the back of her head. Tears welled up in the corners of her eyes as well.
Histoire’s form became more and more solid. Soon the tiny fairy-like girl was floating in front of Neptune. Histoire, the real one, took a deep breath and opened her eyes. “Hello Neptune.” Histoire began, before she turned to Nepgear and Uni. “Hello girls. It’s a pleasure to see you again.”
“H-Hello.” Nepgear said.
“Hello miss Histoire.” Uni said, bowing her head a little.
“Oh Histy!” Neptune cried, as she threw her arms around Histoire and hugged the girl close to her chest. “I missed you so much! I’m sorry it took us so long to rescue you!” Neptune sobbed.
Histoire giggled. “It’s okay Neptune. According to the Fairy Tower’s AI, everyone worked very hard. I appreciate it.”
“Of course!” Uni said, smiling proudly. “So what’s going on anyways?”
Nepgear nodded. “That is a good question. The last thing I remember is getting a distress call from you Histoire.”
Histoire nodded. “I do understand that, but I think we should gather everyone up first. We should probably head back to Planeptune.”
“Sounds good to me!” Neptune said. “I can’t wait to get back to my Basilicom, play video games and eat pudding until I explode!”
“No. You have work to do Neptune.” Histoire said, in a stern voice.
“Oh. I’m sure Nepgear can handle it.” Neptune said.
“Hey!” Nepgear said, fearfully. “You have to help me Neptune! I can’t do the rest without you!”
Neptune couldn’t help, but laugh. “Oh come on Nep Jr.. Do you really think I’d sit around the Basilicom all day instead of finishing this quest? No way!” Neptune said, waving her hand dismissively. “Anyways. Nepgear? Could you send a message to everyone? Ask them to meet us at Planeptune’s Basilicom.”
Nepgear nodded. “You got it sis!”
***
Even though Neptune said she was eager to finish the quest, that didn’t stop her from plopping down on a beanbag and start eating pudding. Even though Neptune, Nepgear and Histoire hadn’t been to the Basilicom in months, the guards welcomed them eagerly. “Again. I’m so sorry we forgot about you.” One of the guards said, nervously.
“That’s no one’s fault.” Nepgear said, blushing a little. “Please. Put it out of your minds. We don’t hold any grudges.”
“Nope! We hold pudding!” Neptune said, holding up the pudding cup she was currently emptying into her stomach.
“Thank you for being so understanding.” The guard said, turning to leave. “Oh! Goddesses?”
“Yes?” Nepgear asked.
“Welcome home.” The guard said, before finally taking his leave.
“That guy’s pretty sweet.” Nepgear said.
“He’s probably hurting.” Said Histoire. “A lot of people are probably hurting right now. Who knows everything they were made to forget.”
“Yeah. It’s bad.” Neptune said, her mouth was filled with pudding.
Uni groaned loudly as she watched Neptune continue to eat the pudding. “Miss Neptune. Should you really be doing that right now? Were about to have a big meeting you know.”
“Yeah, yeah. I know what you’re saying.” Neptune said. Uni smiled joyfully, until Neptune pointed at a nearby refrigerator. “You can have some pudding too Uni. Oh and get me another one.”
“No.” Uni said, crossing her arms in front of her chest.
A few moments later the doors to the large conference room opened and Green Heart, White Heart and Black Heart stepped into the room. White Heart glanced around the large conference room until her eyes landed on Nepgear. “Nepgear?” White Heart began.
“Y-Yes!?” Nepgear squeaked.
Neptune jumped to her feet, the pudding cup she had been holding bounced off her chest and flew across the room. “Halt!” Neptune said, as she summoned her katana. “Friend or foe?”
White Heart smirked. “Friend you dork.” White Heart turned her eyes back to Nepgear. “I wanted to say that I’m sorry for attacking you.”
“Lady Blanc?” Nepgear asked.
White Heart nodded before she turned back into her human form. “It was shortly after you three activated the final Fairy Tower. I reminded White Heart who she really was and we became one again.”
“I see.” Nepgear said, happily. “What about Rom and Ram?”
Blanc turned to the door as her sisters, in their CPU forms entered the room. “Hey everyone!” White Sister Ram said, smiling brightly.
“H-Hello.” White Sister Rom said, smiling nervously.
“They regained their CPU candidate forms.” Said Blanc.
“Excellent!” Nepgear said. “I have to ask… Was White Heart mean to them?”
Blanc shook her head. “Thankfully no. The twins here were obsessed with pulling pranks though. White Heart knew that if they tried that with her, she might do something she’d regret. So she had them locked away. Locking them away was mean, but they had plenty of things to focus on.”
“I see…” Nepgear said.
“Yeah. Mina was nice to us.” White Sister Ram said.
“She… Gave us candy.” White Sister Rom said, blushing a little.
“That’s good.” Said Nepgear, smiling.
Black Heart changed into her human form as well. Making her way across the room she patted Uni on the head. “You did good Uni.”
“Thanks.” Uni said, happily.
The doors to the room opened again and Nepgear gasped. Falcom, MAGES., Red, Marvy, Cyberconnect2, 5pb., Cave and Broccoli, stepped into the room.
“You all came!” Nepgear said, close to tears once more.
“Don’t forget about us.” Said IF.
Nepgear gasped once more. IF, Compa and Arfoire stepped into the room. “Hey girls I…” Neptune began, but she gasped when she saw Arfoire. “Whoa! Arfoire? What are you doing here?”
“Hello.” Arfoire said, in a small voice.
“Arfoire has a story for everyone.” Said Compa.
After everyone took a seat, Arfoire cleared her throat and started speaking. “Months back before everyone’s memories were sealed away.” Arfoire began, her voice shook as she spoke. “I was approached by the goddess Rei Ryghts.”
“Rei Ryghts? The goddess of Tari?” Blanc asked.
“That’s correct.” Arfoire said, nodding.
“Didn’t we kick her butt a while ago?” Neptune asked. “We need to stop recycling bad guys.”
“You did.” Arfoire said.
“Let’s hear what Arfoire has to say.” Said Nepgear.
“Thanks Nepgear.” Arfoire said, forcing a smile. “Anyways. Rei Ryghts approached me. She told me she had a plan to steal a bunch of share energy and she needed my help to accomplish this.”
“Help in what way?” Asked Histoire.
“She wanted me to stop the goddesses from approaching her location. A cave at Planeptune’s border. I’m not sure what’s actually out there, but that’s what she wanted me to do.” Arfoire explained. “I refused however and she didn’t take this lightly. So she sealed my memories. All of them. Almost like Purple Sister.”
“Really? I wonder why she didn’t do that to everyone.” Said Noire.
Arfoire shook her head. “However. Unlike the rest of you, I didn’t get my memories back normally. Instead, my memories came back in painful spurts and the only memories I got back were the ones involving our past fights.”
“Oh geesh.” Neptune said.
“I remembered that I used to hate all of you. That’s why I kidnapped Compa.” Said Arfoire.
“What?!” Neptune said, jumping to her feet. “You kidnapped Compa? That earned you a spanking Arfoire!”
“I deserve it.” Arfoire said, sadly.
Compa held up her hands. “It’s okay everyone. Arfoire’s already repented. Let it go please.”
IF took a deep breath. “Don’t worry Nep. I smacked her around for a while and got Compa back.”
Neptune took a deep breath as she sank back into her chair. “Well… Alright…”
Histoire cleared her throat. “Now then.” Histoire began. “I should tell everyone what happened to me.” Histoire closed her eyes as though she were trying to remember. “Three months and thirteen days ago. I was in Planeptune’s Basilicom trying to figure out who could have moved some Fairy Towers in Planeptune.”
“As all of you know. Only a goddess is allowed to move a Fairy Tower. At first I thought it was Neptune, but I quickly realized it was another goddess. Rei Ryghts.” Said Histoire, noticing that Nepgear was holding up her hand.
“How did you figure that out?” Nepgear asked.
“Simple. Rei Ryghts had appeared before me and kidnapped me.” Histoire said. “She must have used some kind of teleporting technology to get inside the Basilicom, because she didn’t set off any alarms. Rei Ryghts took me and brought me to a giant cave. I didn’t have time to look around, but I did notice a very large stone in the cavern.”
“Uh… Isn’t that normal? Stone in cavern?” Neptune asked.
Histoire sighed deeply. “Neptune. I wouldn’t have brought it up if it was normal. This stone felt strange. I could sense share energy being absorbed into the stone.”
“So Rei Ryghts has some kind of stone that can absorb share energy?” Noire asked.
“That’s not good, but it’s not totally bad either.” Said Blanc. “Our stats are pretty much maxed out.”
“True.” Said Vert. “But Rei Ryghts isn’t stupid. I doubt she did this just so she could max out her stats.”
“Vert is correct.” Said Histoire. “I could be wrong, but I hypothesize that Rei Ryghts did all this so she could overwrite the limits of the Fairy Towers.”
“Overwrite them?” Nepgear said, furrowing her brows.
“Yes.” Histoire said, nodding. “As you all know. The Fairy Towers only allows you to increase your stats to a certain amount. This is done for safety reasons. Not just for the wielder of this power, but also for the world around them. However, if you feed enough share energy into the Fairy Towers, you can overwrite them”
“So Rei’s trying to increase her level cap, huh?” Neptune said, crossing her arms in front of her chest. “How dastardly!”
“If she had unlimited access to that share absorbing stone, she wouldn’t have needed to seal away all our memories, separate us from our goddess forms and sealed away Histoire. Right?” Said Noire.
“You forget. Rei Ryghts also sealed away monsters and those monsters were released as the Fairy Tower’s were reactivated.” Said Histoire.
“Oh yeah, but it always felt like there were monsters around. I didn’t even notice the new ones coming in.” Said Noire.
“Still…” Nepgear began. “Some of this doesn’t make sense. Why did she completely seal away Arfoire and Purple Sister’s memories? Also Purple Sister never got any old memories back.”
Neptune began laughing evilly. “Those are all questions we can ask Rei Ryghts herself!” Neptune said, getting to her feet. “Come on girls! It’s time to go!”
“Hold on Neptune!” Histoire said, flying in front of Neptune and holding up her hands. “I can understand your eagerness, but we should proceed carefully. We need to know what’s happening outside that cavern. Also how are we going to get everyone there?”
Neptune smiled brightly. “Easy Histy! Ole Neptune’s been scheming a scheme since she got back!”
Histoire’s arms dropped lifelessly to her sides. “I have no idea what you just said.”
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