Ave Maria

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If you don’t have a strong heart, or love Nepgear, probably don’t read this.

Im serious. This is the toned down version.
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Ave Maria
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Planeptune was a pleasant country, idyllic and vert. While this was largely because of a series of incompetent rulers who couldn’t develop a modern nation to save their own life, it was a nice place to live, really all of Gameindustri was quite pleasant.

Nepgear was a CPU of this particular nation. For being the leader of the world as the people knew it, she didn’t behave like such.
The girl’s purple bed-head is weakly tied behind her head with what appears to be a twist tie from a loaf of bread. She meandered into the convenience store, taking a case of energy drinks, some cheap snack cakes and a bottle of painkillers for her splitting headache.

The girl’s dopey eyes blinked slowly as she stepped into the sun. She just stood there for a bit, either warming up or spacing out. While her brief pause was likely a combination of both, Gear didn’t seem to mind much. Nepgear pulled the tab on an energy drink, nearly spilling the foul smelling liquid on her flip flops. Her shirt had a few stains on it, but most of them were obscured by a purple bathrobe. She blinked quickly, slightly leaning after she took a slurp off the top of the can.

“Whew~” she thought. The beverage was cold enough to phase her, sending a tingle down her spine and setting a slightly improved aura to her eyes. She spaced out again for a second, regaining her bearing much slower than the first time before listlessly moving back towards her home in the Basilicom. Nepgear was feeling alright by the time she got home though her eyes felt like weights. It was about noon.

Nepgear peels herself awake, throwing another pill into her mouth. The headaches were common now, nearly every morning she was nearly crippled with pain. Her eyes chases each other around in their sockets for a moment, trying to remember what happened the day before.

“If I don’t remember, must’ve not been important.” She thought.

The kitchen near the entrance is cold due to the large slabs of stone and air conditioning. Even more so when one tries to get away with wearing nothing but panties.

Gear retreats to her room, shivering with a bowl of ramen. She wraps her bare breast in a fleece blanket before digging into some chicken flavored salt. She flops a hand onto her wireless keyboard, waking the PC which is attached to her TV. She stares at the stack of cardboard boxes in the corner of her room, which contain all the former decorations of her room.

In the past two years, Gear has cut her room down to a workbench which sees increasingly rare use, a bed, dresser and PC. Nepgear couldn’t stand the sight of the CPU Plushies for a day longer when she boxed them up. She had started by putting them in the closet, but even knowing that they were there was too much.

Gear stares at the screen for a bit, questioning what she wants to do before giving up and rolling over on her bed. Where’s the harm in taking a little nap, she thinks. Gear reaches for the bottle of sleeping pills, grabbing whatever felt right in her wild grasping.

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“I’d never thought I’d be such a loner.” says Nepgear in a trance.

Her pupils are pinpoints, the paint and spackling on the bare wall entertains her addled mind plenty. Her mouth seems to shrivel up, pushing the girl to chug her glass of water before meandering into the kitchen again. The chills wrack her thin frame, sending her towards a hoodie.

Histoire is powerless, she is forced to watch Gear go through these motions.

“Nepgear-san, please, should I call a doct-”

Nepgear weakly throws an empty can at Histoire.

“You’re not REAL!”

Histoire can’t even think of a reaction besides bewilderment.

“Wh-What are you talking about?”

“That’s RIGHT, disappear you- you go- ghost! *hick*”

Histoire hides behind a pillar, speed dialing IF.

“Something is very wrong with Nepgear, could you come as soon as possible? Bring Compa too, we may need her expertise.”

“We’re in what used to be Lastation, we’ll get there as soon as possible.”

Meanwhile, Gear has made it back to her room, singing loudly to herself. The bathroom Histoire passes reeks of stomach acid and partially digested foods. Histoire pinches her nose in disgust, doing her best to hover over the highly intoxicated Nepgear.

“Everyone’s afraid of what I do inside my room, scared I’m gonna do something crazy. Well I already did crazy stuff, what are they gonna do? Un-crazy me?”

Gear’s illustration of her thought processes is grim and leaves a terrible sinking feeling in Histoire’s heart.

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Nepgear wakes up on the couch, which is definitely not where she fell asleep. It’s not as if Gear can tell though, she goes about her usual process of deleting brain cells and shirking her duties. Her eyes wore heavy with dark rings around them and weighty bags under.

She wears the same foul outfit, having nearly surrendered any resemblance to the bright girl she once was.

While Nepgear was surprised that IF and Compa found her so quickly, she also had many questions. It was the most Gear had talked in a long time.

With a tremendous smile in a complete change from her previous attitude, Nepgear started.

“So, when are we gonna go save Onee-chan?”

Compa turned away, IF loses any pretense of professionalism before stuttering out a response.

“W-wHat?”

Gear was cheerful and repeated herself. IF was visibly disturbed and Compa excused herself to get a glass of water. Histoire pulled the girls aside as Gear wandered away.

“I am out of tools and tricks. I need your help, I-”

IF shook her head.

“I don’t know if there is anything we can do.”

Compa’s eyes said more than she ever would. Her usually wider frame shrunk as her arms wrapped around each other in a nervous fit.

“B-But Ai-chan, wha-what about Gear? We can’t just leave her this way…”

I peeked over the kitchen’s bar. Gear was passed out on the couch.

“Please, you two are all I have to help. I require assistance in keeping her at least confined to the Basilicom and in building a warning beacon.”

IF more than a little irked but sees the source of Nepgear’s frustrations.

“She promised that she wouldn’t fall to decay, not in thousands of years, and here we are. It’s been what, two years? If she doesn’t get her act together, all of Gameindustri dies, that includes us.”

“Please. Both of you, just for a while, then I’ll let you both go.”

“It’s not like we have any options really.”

IF turns, looking for Compa. Compa was sitting in front of Gear, taking little measurements.

“Hisu… san… Ge-Ge doesn’t look so good.”

“I’d figured as much, there is little I can do to stop her. As the omnipotent CPU, were she to enter a fit of rage especially in withdrawal there is nothing anyone could do if I were to attempt to remove her dependance.”

“Wh-Why didn’t you stop her before it got this bad?”

“Gear lost a bit of herself back then. I lost the ability to ask her things, and she became secretive. Having such a breakdown of communication between Oracle and CPU is a crash course for disaster.”

The Makers don’t deny the facts, they were there for everything anyways. The trio set to work immediately, recording and storing what we could about their soon failed struggle with the Deity of Sin and the Cursed Sword.

Compa insists that Nepgear stays with her in the front room. Compa keeps smiling at Gear, its quite clear that a conflict is happening inside the CPU’s mind. It seems that she don’t know what Compa is smiling about. Nepgear’s face says “What is there to smile about? Stop smiling.”

“Can you stop?”

“Stop what Gear-chan?”

“Smiling.”

Compa doesn’t understand. She hides her heart with her balled up hands.

“S-Smiling is it’s own medicine, you at least have to try…”

“Why?”

“Because- Because you’re all we’ve got, and we haven’t given up yet!”

“Why?”

The waterworks start. For some reason, Compa’s tears only incite a disdain in Nepgear’s frigid heart.

“... Can you please stop?” Nepgear says through a grimace.

Gear sighs. Her mouth twists into a grit.

SMACK!

Gear’s hand and Compa’s face both recoil at her slap.

“I told you to stop.”

Compa flees with a trail of tears following before crashing into IF who is leaping into action.

“What the HELL Nepgear?!”

IF may be cool, collected and generally one of the most responsible people in Gameindustri, but a direct attack on her best friend from another friend is more than enough to unhinge her. Compa cowers by IF’s side while the strong willed tomboy takes a stand.

IF might’ve been able to restrain herself, but Gear thought it was funny that Compa was so distraught apparently.

“And she hasn’t even killed anybody, despite her urging me on~”

Histoire hovers over IF’s shoulder.

“I see you’ve recovered to some extent.”

“And?”

“Your behavior has been immortalized. You promised everyone, including the girl you just slapped that you wouldn’t give up for thousands of years, and yet here we are. It’s been two years.”

“So what are you gonna do about-”

IF’s nose wrinkled at Gear’s insolence.

“We’ll cut your shares off and make a new CPU, even if it kills us, because it’s better than dealing with you.”

Gear’s pupils shrink to pinpoints she takes a few menacing steps towards the adamant trio. Compa finally recovers enough to speak.

“Ge-Ge, you shouldn’t be moving so much with the medicine I gave you…”

Gear falls to a knee, a menacing aura pervading the room. She claws a few more feet forwards before collapsing. Her sleep deprived eyes cut with lasers into IF.

“Was this part of your master plan? Kill me? Go ahead.”

IF’s patience is lost, she leaps into the face of the arrogant girl.

“That would be too dignified. I wouldn’t have gotten even a quarter as mad if you slapped me instead of Compa. She offers you affection and you respond with violence, what a joke of a Goddess.”

“You did this too IF, I don’t care how much you grandstand. You pushed me to do this, when we did all of this because-”

“We did this because you’re a fuck-up of a leader, ALL we had to do was collect shares and restore the Nations, we never had to do all this. Instead, you made a mess and started pinning it on the rest of us and got mad when we pushed you in the only direction we had left. Where was your resolution when we needed to made the easy decisions early on, and yet jumped right into killing CPUs?!”

IF’s now unrestrained temper and Gear’s delusional ranting is a feedback loop that has to be broken before all hope is lost for the dimension. Histoire intervenes.

“Please, everyone. We have no options and must continue, do not fight like this; it is the very opposite of productive.”

IF stands and turns, refusing to look Histoire or Nepgear in the eye.

“I’m out of here. I’ll go to a dimension without psychopathic little sisters.”

Compa looks between all of the present girls.

“D-Don’t… I don’t wanna choose…”

Gear shifts, sitting against the couch.

She bears her usual blank stare. Histoire hesitates to speak, realizing that the next thing said has crippling implications.

“IF, you may go. The beacon is complete.”

Nepgear slowly cracks a smile.

“What?” scoffs IF.

“It just doesn’t matter.” says Gear.

“Really?”

“It just doesn’t matter.” repeats Gear.

The three are now focused on the girl.

Loudly, Gear speaks again, bordering on yelling.

“It just doesn’t matter.”

“What doesn’t matter.?” asks Histoire.

“IT JUST DOESN”T MATTER.” screams Gear.

Descending into a tirade, Gear weakly stands against the couch, using the back of it as a support for her failing legs.

“EVEN! Even IF WE WON, HA! Even if we somehow beat Arfoire, EVEN if we fought so hard that our muscles were sore for a year and four days, EVEN if all the Goddesses in Celestia and that GODDAMN sword came back and blessed our party, our nation and CHOSE OUR SIDE OF THE FIELD, EVEN if EVERY MAN, WOMAN AND CHILD, HELD HANDS TOGETHER, AND PRAYED FOR US TO WIN, IT JUST WOULDN’T MATTER BECAUSE AT THE END OF THE DAY, ASIC CAN JUST REVIVE AND FIGHT AGAIN.”

“I see.” says Histoire with an increasing ambivalence.

“Please go with IF, Compa. I’m sure Plutia in the Ultra Dimension could use you.”

“Can’t you come with us Hisu?” Compa nervously asks.

“A captain goes down with their ship.” says the fairy Oracle with a fleeting, tired smile.