Hyperdimension Neptunia | The Bound Warrior

True Ending Pt.1

Halfway through the night, Max awoke, unable to sleep. He ended up silently roaming through Lastation's basilicom for a majority of the night. The invasion could very well be any day now, and there showed no signs of any attempts so far. 

Eventually, he found himself in Noire's office, where she was at her table. Noire, currently going over a series of recent documents of issues from all of the sudden military mobilization. She was also wearing a red pair of glasses, wrinkling her nose to keep them balanced on her face as she hunches over the documents.

"I didn't know you wore glasses." Max comments, walking up to her desk.

"Wha!" Noire screams, bolting upright in surprise. She brightens up quickly as she sees Max, and takes the glasses off. "I don't need them... I just like to wear them when working."

She looks down in embarrassment, one of her more hidden secrets revealed to Max. The red glasses lay on the oak desktop, hastily thrown there. Max picks them up with one hand, and examines them.

Noire's embarrassment continues to grow with every minute as Max does some kind of thorough examination on them. It then dawned on her that he was purposefully doing this, and was only teasing her. 

Max smiles as he sets the glasses back down, and slightly leans against the desk; which gives a slight squeak as it budges from his strength. The two stare at each other for a moment, before Max sighs.

"Ha, sorry, but they did look good on you." Max says, trying to lighten Noire's embarrassment. 

Noire sighs, easing up a bit, and moves back to her seat. She neatly tucks the glasses at the edge of the desk. Max looks out the window, at the ever lowering sun. The Night was approaching fast. 

The sky grew a hazy orange as the sun shined on Max's face. He wore a grim expression as the seconds passed. 

"Everything alright?" Noire asks, looking up from her work.

"No." Max firmly shakes his head. "The Void have been too calm, they're going to attack soon." 

"We have patrols all around gamindustri right now, they will give us word the moment anything happens." Noire tries to reassure Max.

"I do not believe that it will be that easy. The Void and more specifically the King have been acting oddly recently. I wouldn't be surprised if they sent a recon team ahead of the main invasion forces." Max counters, sitting down across Noire while still being deep in thought.

Noire gives a sigh, knowing that Max is probably right; after all, he is the one that has the most experience with the Void. She looks back down to her desk and skims over the scouting report, seeing that nothing of interest has happened.

The sight from the basilicom shows a multitude of landscapes. To Noire, the sight has become mundane; however to Max, his eyes continuously skimmed the various features of the land. Then his eyes lay on a rugged streak of mountains that scar the distant lands. 

The Mountains themselves should be nothing unique, except that they lay in a strategic location. Max slowly wonders to the glass door that leads to the balcony. After some more eyeing up the mountains, he remembers that they lay nearly in the center of Gamindustri.

Max taps his chin with his index finger, pondering in deep thought.

"I'm going out to do some scouting." Max states firmly.

Noire gives a nervous glance to him, understanding his paranoid behavior. She bites her lip, pondering on what she should do next. There was a ton of paperwork that needed to get done, but she would prefer to go with Max to either confirm or deny his suspicions.