Today was the biggest day Lowee had seen in a long time. At long last, their new piece of hardware had been revealed to the masses — the Lowee Switch. With its grand reveal over, the nation's goddess was currently relaxing in her office, watching her Chirper feed explode with reactions and announcements of preorders months in advance. Her inbox was overflowing with notifications of messages for her.

Needless to say, it was the best feeling for a CPU.

... Or it had been, up until a trio of voices silenced her happy thoughts from outside her door.

"Go on, go on!"

"If you're in such a rush, why don't you go on, sister?"

"Ladies, must I remind you why we're doing this?"

Now what oh what could those three want?

"Are you stooges going to come inside or are you going to make me come out there?" the brunette goddess asked her oddly talkative door.

Their presence given away by, one by one the three other goddesses of Gamindustri trailed into Blanc's office, all wearing similarly calm and quiet expressions. Was that nervousness Blanc detected from this ragtag group of girls?

"Well?" Despite how rowdy they had been outside, now that they were here, it seemed to Blanc like she was going to have to be the one to get them to cough up what exactly had gotten them all here like this. She was fine with that, she supposed — she was undoubtedly due for a few victory laps today. "You all came here for something, didn't you?"

Now standing before Blanc's desk, the three goddesses all exchanged nervous looks — it was as though each was waiting for someone else to take the initiative. Blanc had to admit, she liked this feeling of superiority. Had her announcement shaken them that much? Were they here to ask her to delay the release of her glorious new project so that they could catch up to her latest masterpiece? As if!

"Come on. Is one of you going to say something, or am I going to have to guess?" she finally asked. She did her best, but her smugness was hard to hide at this point. "I'm pretty sure I know what it is already, so you can just leave now and spare yourselves the embarassment."

That seemed to do the trick.

"Blanc... Listen — and I do mean listen, all the way to the end, alright?" Oh boy, this was how they were starting off? Here was Vert with her patented "voice of reason" voice. Blanc had to fight back a smirk, seeing how genuine the blonde was trying to look. Her voice was strained, and her poor little lip was even starting to tremble a little as she put a hand on her chest. "We... The truth is, we're all quite worried about you."

wait what the fuck

To Blanc's surprise, Noire and Neptune both nodded, standing firm and showing their agreement with Vert's ridiculous comment.

"Blanc, we didn't say anything when you had your sisters walk around showing it off to people, but you've got to stop this." Before Blanc could respond, or even so much as question what was going on, Noire followed up Vert's... Vert's words with some of her own words. Words that were most certainly words, but simply did not make any sense as a comment formed by logic at all in the way Noire was arranging them together. "This just can't go on any longer."

"And like, just what they were doing by itself? That tooooootally could've been a coincidence! We get that, and we know you were probably banking on that one!" Not missing a beat, Neptune hurriedly added her own part to this parade of insanity — concern smeared all over her face like leftover pudding. "But after today, it's like... Girl... Easy there. You don't need to go that far."

no but seriously what the actual

"B-But there's nothing wrong with doing that kind of thing in private! If you feel this strongly about it, we won't judge you!" Not to be left behind her purple haired comedy routine partner, Noire was quick to add her own part to the madness, with Vert giving a firm nod of agreement behind her. "Just... You know..."

"You have to choose appropriate partners." Vert's tone took a turn for the stern as she finished off Noire's thought. "Appropriate partners and appropriate venues."

With that, the three finally quieted down.

But... Just to be sure, Blanc gave them a second in case one of them was going to jump in again — maybe to tell her she also had a goddamn tail she didn't know about while they were at it. What did she know?

Seemed safe now. Good.

"Okay..." The goddess inhaled. She wanted to make sure she was going to be allowed this chance. Everything was in order. The coast was clear. In that case, without any further delays- "What the hell are you three on about?!"

Rather than balk in the face of Blanc's token angry face, Vert just crossed her arms.

"Blanc, we all know. Your poor attempts to hide it have failed in the face of how much you've been flaunting it before the entire world."

"Please don't try to hide anymore." Noire placed her hands on her hips as she continued where Vert had left off.

Which could only mean Neptune was about to-

"And no playing dumb either!"

-do that.

Blanc pinched the bridge of her nose. This was getting her nowhere. These three seemed serious, and for the life of her, she hadn't the slightest of clues what they were getting at. Was this some practical joke, and they were going to be congratulating her in a minute?

"No, really, I don't have a-"

What Vert said next changed everything.

"We are prepared to fight for custody of Rom and Ram if you won't seek help and cease involving them with what you are doing. All three of us are united on this matter."

Blanc held up a hand.

Blanc opened her mouth.

Blanc held up a finger.

Blanc held the finger out towards the other goddesses.

Blanc held up her other hand.

Blanc covered her mouth with that other hand.

Blanc shook her head.

Blanc pushed her outstretched hand, finger still raised, toward the other goddesses once more.

Blanc could not deal.

Blanc.

Could.

Not.

Deal.

After a few moments of trying to process what had just been said — she failed miserably — Blanc finally looked back at her fellow CPUs, hoping to understand.

They were still looking at her the same way. Completely serious.

Nope. Sorry. Couldn't do it.

Her hopes had been in vain. She had no fucking clue where the hell that had come from.

"Start over. Right now." She wasn't asking. This was an order. They had mentioned her sisters before, but this wasn't a joke anymore.

The three before her looked at each other once again. That concern, that stupid goddamn concern that had no place being on their goddamn faces on this amazing day, was even more present than it had been earlier. Vert and Noire even had the gall to sigh.

She was going to kill them. She was going to kill them all.

"We asked you not do this, Blanc..." Sighing, like she was soooo worried, Vert took the lead once again. "Very well. You can't tell us that you haven't had your sisters parading around wearing 'S' and 'M' for months, Blanc. It's been all over. In all our nations, even."

"Then, this morning, you walked out on stage with a giant 'SWITCH' on yourself!" The CPU of Planeptune looked like she couldn't believe the words coming out of her own mouth as she spoke them, barely leaving Vert time to finish. "'SWITCH,' Blanc! Standing there, between 'S' and 'M' like that... Talking about how you've 'united' you and your sisters' 'hardware' together because of your 'SWITCH'..."

Blanc's mouth was hanging open. Were these sickos actually suggesting what it sounded like they were?

"You can't be- You're not saying that I-"

"After seeing how bold you were being on public television, in front of the entire world, I could walk into Planeptune right now and take sweet, precious little Nepgear home with me, and it still wouldn't be as audacious as what you've put those poor girls through!"

At last finding something to snort at, Blanc rolled her eyes at Vert's grand proclomation. She was surprised Vert hadn't stomped her foot with how dramatic that had been! Actually, was that an accusation, rather than a proclomation? Whatever. Was this a setup of Vert's, then? Maybe that was what it was. She'd seen a chance to make a grab at Neptune's sister again, and so now here she was — but now that it was out in the open, Blanc was pretty sure that it was only a matter of time before...

Neptune wasn't objecting.

Noire wasn't objecting.

"Well?" No, forget about objecting, Noire was now crossing her arms and acting like the confrontational little tsundere she was known for being. She was in so much agreement with what Vert had just said that it hadn't even bothered her — she was using that to stand on, to support her fragile ego! "What are you going to do about this, Blanc?"

If that was how these three were going to be, then as it just so happened, Blanc knew exactly what she was going to do about it.

"Get the fuck out of my office."

"But-"

"GET OUT!"

As soon as she was sure those three hooligans were gone, Blanc retreated to her office once more. Somehow, for some reason, she didn't feel as happy about today's glorious victory as she had been feeling earlier. Still, at least those three clowns weren't around to ruin it any longer. Letting out a sigh of relief, she let herself collapse into her desk chair to greet her Chirper feed once again.

That would surely make her feel better after dealing with all that idiocy.

She looked at the Chirper notifications she still had yet to open.

She remembered what she had just been told by her fellow goddesses. Things they had apparently had on their minds for months.

"... Dammit..."

Blanc suddenly had an eerie feeling about those messages now, and an increasingly large desire to mark them all as read.

Instead of reaching for her inbox, Blanc reached for her phone.

"Mina, call up the girls at manufacturing and Financier at marketing. We've got to rebrand this thing by the end of the day otherwise I have to give the twins to Vert... No, don't ask why! Just do it!"

With that, Blanc slammed her phone down and spun around to look out the window.

She could only pray her employees would be able to act faster than the those accursed fanartists.