Uzume's growling stomach got to her before anyone else could. It had been about twenty minutes since she left Nepsy. In hindsight, she probably should've asked her what she could grab for food around here before she left. The red haired girl sighed as she dredged along the path. She really could use a break for a little while, if only just to have a chance to find something to eat.
She sighed as she began to daydream. Oh, maybe she find some in little house like Nepsy's. It be a nice little field where nothing would bother her and everyone wouldn't try to immediately fight her. There'd be a plate of steaming hot food and there would be a bed to take a nap in. And...
Uzume blinked… her mind catching up with her thoughts. Luckily no one could hear those, right? She really needed to get something in her system. She could rest after she got to the Goddess.
As she walked though, Uzume turned her head. There actually was a house there. It was purple themed, almost like Neptune's but maybe just a tad bit lighter. It was a little off the way, but there was a trail right to the front door from here. The red haired girl pinched herself. Nope… still awake. Uzume stared in the direction of the building. Neptune hadn't said anything about another resident.
Maybe that was a sign that this one didn't care about humans?
Uzume knocked on the door and took a breath. She had her hand on her megaphone's handle just in case the person on the other side (if they were even home) came out swinging. At this point, three out of four people she had met today had tried to kill her more or less out the gate. At this point, it was better to not be careless.
"I've got it!" She heard someone say after a few moments. The red haired girl raised an eyebrow; she had never heard anyone sound that… dopey before. Well, maybe after some of the rebels got in a few drinks. However, that only made them ridiculously rowdy and a pain in the ass to deal with. It was only thanks to Umio that some soldiers didn't wake up with a hangover and a broken jaw.
The door flew open.
"Hi, my name's Uzume. You wouldn't happen to have any..." She said, her mouth running before her brain in attempt to get the food she so desperately wanted. However, the person's face in front of her managed to break that mental rail road, causing the train to go careening off the tracks to crash and burn at the bottom of her mental abyss, "Uh... who are you?"
"Hi! I'm Nepgya!" The lavender haired girl said happily as if nothing was wrong.
She had a nice… smile?
Nepgya wore a white sailor uniform with a yellow scarf. A small leather band with an N on it held the two ends of the bandanna together. However, that wasn't her most notable feature. Her eyes… they were a large abyss of white with large black circles around them. Uzume wasn't quite sure what to make of the situation. After not receiving much of a response beyond that, Nepgya turned her head, "Nepgear, you have a visitor. It's a human!" She called out to the person in the house.
"What a… oh goodness!" Uzume heard several objects thud and clang as they hit the floor inside the house.
Nepgya looked back to see the damage, "Oooo… uh… just a minute!" She winced as she turned around to tell Uzume. Without missing a beat, Nepgya shut the door on her, leaving Uzume outside wondering what the hell had just happened.
"Owie..." A voice moaned.
"I'll help you!" Nepgya said, in her—normal?—happy, dopey voice. She didn't sound too concerned over what had happened, but then again maybe it wasn't anything serious?
The red haired girl wasn't quite sure what to make of the sounds of random clutter being thrown around the place. She supposed she should've been happy that there wasn't the sound of a power drill like she had seen in cartoons when she was younger.
Soon enough though, the noises calmed down and the door was opened once again. Despite the two having the same exact get up, this one at least possessed a normal face with normal purple eyes. They were actually quite similar to Nepsy's when Uzume looked at them, "Um, hi! I'm Nepgear. Ending with an ear and not a ya. So, uh what brings you here?"
"Wow… that's some day, but I wouldn't worry about Noire. Neptune should stop her from coming after her. Though I'm surprised she got into an argument with her. She normally tries to avoid those." Gearsy said as she pulled up a chair next to Uzume. After entering the house, the lavender haired girl had been nice as to share some of the sandwiches she had made earlier.
Nepgya was off helping to clean up the mess of robotic parts that were on the ground. However, Uzume had noticed that the girl kept on sneaking glances at her, almost as if she was constantly checking on her. After meeting Noire earlier, she guessed that Nepgya was just concerned over having a human in the house.
Uzume nodded, agreeing with Gearsy's assessment, "Nepsy seemed to have a way with her. Just the fact that she got her to back down was amazing. I thought I was a goner." While she had been walking, the shorter girl's actions had been replaying in her mind. She still didn't know why Nepsy had defended her. Histoire had almost certainly been referring to her when she said someone in Celestia had hope in the good of humanity. Still, just the reason of why that belief was even there confused Uzume. Something had to be inspiring it, but what?
Gearsy laughed nervously. She tried not to look into Uzume's eyes and glanced elsewhere, "You probably would have." She put a finger to her lips, as if in thought, "Then again, Noire doesn't have a kill count so I don't have anything to base that on." She said with a smile.
"If Histoire didn't hold me up earlier, I probably wouldn't have believed you about Noire." The red haired girl sighed as she stared down into the tea cup in her hand, "I'm still surprised that she let me go after meeting you guys. She wasn't kidding when she said that humans have caused a lot of trouble here, did she?"
The lavender haired girl looked away from Uzume. This time though it seemed more out of sadness than nervousness, "Yeah, they did." She shook her head as she put on a brave smile, "But you don't seem like a bad one. After all, you got past everyone else so far. Plus, I don't think bad humans knock and wait outside the door for someone to let them in."
Uzume was about to counter that statement, but another glance from Nepgya had her convinced otherwise. She wasn't a bad person, but that didn't stop psychos from doing that just to get close. She flashed Gearsy a smile, moving on returning her thoughts to the shorter of the sisters. Would Gearsy know Nepsy's reasons? Uzume knew she shouldn't pry into someone else's business, but she was just getting so damn curious about the girl.
Trying to untangle her mind from the enigma of Nepsy, Uzume shook her head and decided against doing so, "Anyway, you do a lot tinkering Gearsy?" The place was filled with random designs. Though for someone with so many ideas, she didn't see many products in the house. Maybe the parts Nepgya was picking up was all she had?
The lavender haired girl's face brightened. Clearly it was something that brought her happiness, "It's more of a hobby. I love making little gadgets and gizmos. Plus, robots are really cool!" She said happily as she turned her head to face Nepgya. If Uzume didn't know any better, she'd swear that sparkles were in her eyes, "Though Nepgya's one of my favorite creations I've made."
"Oh coo… wait..." Uzume's eyes widened as she looked at the near identical copycat, "You're a robot?!"
"I'm made from Nepgear's funny face components!" Nepgya said in her dopey fashion. As if to make her point of being a machine, she picked up a ton of the heavy looking robotic pieces and walked towards the wall. She stuck her hip out, activating pushing in a small panel. A piece of the wall slide up and Nepgya walked into what was apparently an elevator and descended below the house.
Something told Uzume it wasn't a basement.
Gearsy touched her fingertips as she noticed the red haired girl's baffled face, "I sorta have an underground lab. It's where I do most of my tinkering since it takes up way too much room in the house. But yeah, Nepgya's one of my earliest models I've put together. If you're wondering about the face, that's um..." She trailed off, her face becoming sad for a moment.
The change only lasted for a few seconds, but it was long enough for Uzume to catch it.
"It was a joke one of my friends had come up with. She always said I made funny faces, mainly when something went wrong. She told me that it made her smile. So I made Nepgya with one so she'd always get to see my funny face." Gearsy mumbled audibly as her face went red towards the end.
Noticing this and feeling a bit cheeky, Uzume smirked and looked slyly at Gearsy, "This friend of yours… you wouldn't happen to like her would you? After all, I don't think anyone just goes out of the way to build a robot for someone just to make 'em happy." She said, hoping to get a funny reaction from the girl.
However, all she caused was Gearsy to retreat further and hold her hands in her lap. At first, Uzume thought she was just being shy, but then she noticed that now Gearsy seemed to be crying. She had stiffled any noises she could make, but something was certainly wrong. Whatever had happened to this friend couldn't have possible been good? Maybe the relationship soured? Or… maybe it was related to this incident that happened some time ago?
As Uzume was about to speak, something held her back. She had found it weird that Nepsy had never bothered to say anything about Gearsy. For the girl to have saved her life and then just leave out her sister; it didn't seem to add up. It was clear that she believed that Uzume wasn't going to hurt her, but then why the secrecy about Gearsy. Did Nepsy not trust her enough to tell her about her sister? Or… was she afraid to say anything about her?
It was clear that something was hovering over Gearsy like a dark cloud, probably related to this friend and and whenever the residents were attacked. More than likely, she was probably killed in the fight. However, the problem was that the red haired girl didn't know where she fell in all of this. Only these girls knew the story. Knew a history that seemed to run counter to the one she had been taught.
Uzume let out a long sigh. No one in the land trusted her enough to giver her a damn clue to work with, even the one that liked her most. The red haired girl couldn't help but feel a little bit betrayed. She knew that she was an outsider and that the girls had no reason to tell her what was really going on. However, that didn't stop her from wanting to know.
The red haired girl shook her head in frustration. Maybe in time she'd learn the truth, but today wasn't going to be that day, "Anyway, maybe you can show me this lab of yours?" She said, putting on a small smile. If she was going to bring back the Goddess, she was also going to need to help the girls out. After all, part of this journey would've been for nothing if she didn't.
Gearsy looked at her. Eyes that were filled with so many emotions switched to just one: fear .
"What… did you say?" She asked, her voice was uneven.
"If it's a problem, you don't have to. I just thought it'd be cool to see some of your inventions." Uzume tried to backtrack. She thought tinkering would've returned Gearsy back to her happy self. However, the only thing her request had done, was cause the lavender haired girl to shake.
"Wow Nepgear. You must have a bunch of cool little gizmos! You've gotta take me to this lab of yours! I need to see them all!"
"I can appreciate the niche. All my friends think bug catching is weird, but I still like it. Hey maybe you can invent me something that'll make it super easy to catch bugs?"
If Uzume didn't know any better, she'd could've sworn that Gearsy was about to have a panic attack. The red haired girl reached out to her, but Gearsy dropped back, her reaction nearly flinch-like "I'm sorry but I need to get to my lab. Could you please let yourself out? You can have the rest of the sandwiches." She mumbled as she quickly got up and departed for the elevator.
Luckily for her, Nepgya had just come back up, allowing her to race in and descend again.
The only noise hear was the near silent sound of the elevator leaving.
The robot looked at Uzume with a frown on her face. It was rather disturbing considering she had been wearing a smile the whole time Uzume had been there. To add to the guilt forming in Uzume's stomach, instead of saying something like, "Please leave. the robotic girl just shook her head and walked off to another point in the house.
Uzume sighed. So much for trying to get Gearsy to trust her. At least she didn't have to fight anyone this time. The red haired girl looked at the opening for the elevator as she walked to exit the house.
She stopped.
She had been asked to leave.
She could just go and meet the Goddess; Nepsy had already told her the way.
Uzume sighed and waited for the sound of the elevator to come to a halt before recalling it.
She needed to fix this.