Ruby continued on her path through the forest. She had a feeling that she was going the right way but no guide beside that. However she noticed the trees getting thinner in front of her and could see a glimpse of red. Hastening her pace, she arrived at a large clearing full of... strawberries. Huge mountains of her favorite fruit were piled in front of her and her eyes went wide. 'Whooaa.' This was the greatest thing ever! There was still a pull on her internal compass that said despite the giant prize in front of her, there was something else she needed to find. Diving into one of the mountains, which felt not entirely solid, she swan deeper below the ground. After a few minutes she fell into a small, dimly lit, cavern. It was mostly vacant with the exception of a small throne, upon which lie none other than her favorite ice queen. Weiss seemed to be in a deep sleep so Ruby followed the old fairy tale solution. She kissed Weiss. This woke her but the scene started to dissolve as Weiss spoke her thanks. Light bent into the walls and everything blurred together as Ruby returned to consciousness. She was groggy and in her addled state, decided to start nuzzling Weiss who was laid next to her.

"Weisssss, you're soooo coommmfffy." Ruby muttered into Weiss's brown hair. Wait, brown hair? Ruby's eyes went wide as Not-Weiss stirred and stared at her. Ruby swallowed. 'This is bad.'

"WHAT THE HELL?!" Not-Weiss shouted, her and Ruby jumping back from the bed. "WHO THE HELL ARE YOU?!"

"Wait I can explainnnnnn!" Ruby trailed off as the girl lunged at her.

"RUBY!" There was a shriek that could only belong to the real Weiss. After a quick glance to confrim, Ruby used her semblance to dash behind Weiss.

"Weiss help me! I don't know what's going on." Ruby hid behind her teammate.

"Goodness what is all the commotion?" There was another, much softer, voice coming from the center of the room.

"These two broads were sleeping next to us!" Not-Weiss sounded very, very annoyed.

"Oh?" The other voice belonged to a blonde girl who looked a bit like Yang. She certainly had a similar figure albeit with a more elegant air about her. "Well who are they?"

Ruby poked Weiss a few times until she turned her head. Ruby gave her best 'I'm so sorry face' and Weiss shrugged.

"Well who are ya?" Not-Weiss had moved face to face with the real Weiss and they were staring each other down.

"Excuse me?" Weiss was using the bossy tone that Ruby remembered from their first meeting.

"You heard me, who are you?" Not-Weiss was starting to look very angry. This wasn't going well.

Ruby broke into the conversation. "We just woke up here. We have no idea where we are."

The other girls studied them closely. While Not-Weiss was still looking quite annoyed, she seemed to be calming down. Not-Yang looked more compassionate. Ruby hoped that her clueless and awkward attitude would make it more believable. So far it seemed to be working.

"So you two just woke up here?" Not-Yang asked

"Yes." Weiss answered. "We were in our room when we fell asleep."

"Like we're gonna believe that!" Not-Weiss was clearly not convinced.

"Blanc give them a chance. If they had any plan, why wouldn't they have done it while we were asleep?" Not-Yang reasoned.

"Hmmm. Alright fine." The angry girl, Blanc apparently, took a few breaths. "That does make sense."

"Sooo you aren't going to kill us?" Ruby asked, a little unsure of the sudden change.

"I'll let you live for now." Blanc responded. "But you two need to explain who you are and what you're doing here."

"Hmph." Weiss herself still looked annoyed. Ruby knew she hated waking up to loud noises. "I'm Weiss Schnee and..." She turned her head to look at Ruby who was still hiding behind her. Ruby put on her trademark apology smile. "And that is Ruby Rose." Weiss finished

"Hi." Ruby chirped. She might as well try to be friendly with these girls.

Not-Yang spoke again. "Well you two seem nice enough. My name is Vert and this is Blanc."

"I can introduce myself you know." Blanc glanced at Vert.

"Well I though to make a nice introduction but that might have been a wasted effort after they saw your vulgar side."

"Says the one who had no problem waking up next to some random girls."

"My Blanc, you're starting to sound a bit jealous."

'This is weird.' Ruby thought to herself. She and Weiss exchanged a glance as the argument continued.

"Are you two just going to argue or are you going to us where we are?" Weiss broke the argument as both girls turned to face her.

"You don't know what this building is?" Blanc asked.

"No." Weiss stopped as Ruby wandered off to look out the window. Ruby had never seen a city like this. Huge elaborate buildings littered the center and the architecture was almost alien. The buildings looked were smooth but also sharp at the same time. It looked like a old movie's vision of a future utopia.

"Whoa what is this place? These buildings look crazy." Ruby exclaimed in awe.

"The city?" Vert sounded surpirised. "My have neither of you ever been to Planeptune before?"

"Never been where?" Ruby was sure she heard something wrong.

"Planeptune." Vert repeated.

"Gesundheit."

"You've never heard of it?"

"Nope."

Now Vert and Blanc both looked befuddled. "It's one of the 4 nations in the world." Blanc stated.

"No it isn't." Came Weiss's voice. "The only 4 kingdoms in Remnant are Vale, Atlas, Vacuo, and Mistral."

"Remnant? I've never heard of it. Is it some other faraway nation?" Blanc questioned.

"No it's the planet we live on." Weiss clarified. Ruby was wondering how these people didn't know what the world was called.

"What? No it isn't. We live in Gamindustri." Blanc sounded even more annoyed now.

The argument continued for quite a while, gradually getting more intense as Blanc and Weiss fueled each others competitive spirit. Ruby eventually took to standing next to Vert as those two fought. At this point they weren't even arguing about anything relevant, it had just devolved into fighting.

"So does this happen often?" Ruby looked at Vert.

"Oh my yes. Blanc has a fairly short temper."

"What is the meaning of this commotion?!" There was a new voice at the door. Turning around, Ruby saw.. a fairy on a book? She couldn't have been more than a few feet tall with blonde hair and wore a purple and blue themed outfit. She was followed by a nervous looking girl with long lavender hair in a sailor outfit with a similar color scheme. "Who are these two?"

Vert sat next to Nepgear and half listened to whatever Histoire was saying. Something along the lines of 'Oh not again.' The gist of the situation seemed to be that Neptune and Noire were currently missing and Ruby and... what was her name, Ice? No that didn't sound right. Weiss, that was it! Ruby and Weiss looked to have woken up in place of the CPUs.

"So where are Neptune and Noire?" Blanc interupted. "Are they in the old world where Neptune went last time?"

"Most likely not." Histoire responded. "It is possible, but I would have been contacted by the other Histoire. No I believe that they are someplace else. Considering these two..." She gestured towards Weiss and Ruby. "Have never heard of anything in Gamindustri. If we are to assume that the swap happened on both sides, it is likely that Neptune and Noire are in their world."

The whole table waited for that to sink in. This was an unusual set of circumstances. Last time Neptune had vanished, it was at least in a world that she knew. Now who knows what might happen.

"So how do we get back?" Weiss asked.

Histoire sighed. "That I do not know. Last time this happened, there was another me to contact. Without that, I can't initiate any type of travel between worlds."

Vert slid closer to Nepgear and side hugged her. She knew that Nepgear treasured her sister dearly and going without her for a long time was going to take its toll on her. Nepgear just sat there and pouted.

"Wait can they fight at all?" Ruby sounded concerned.

Vert took the opportunity to talk. "Why of course, all of us can fight."

"Well that's good. At least they might be able to replace us on our team."

"Team?" Vert was intrigued. "What kind of team."

"There's four of us. Me, Weiss, Blake and my sister Yang. We go to Beacon Academy to become huntresses." Ruby sounded very proud of herself.

"What does a huntress do?" Blanc asked before Vert could say the same.

"We go out and kill monsters and fight bad guys!" Ruby exclaimed.

"You two can fight?" Vert was a tad amazed. Ruby looked like she could do something but Weiss looked quite frail. However before anyone else could speak, Ruby took out a large piece of red metal that was on her back. With a quick flourish and quite a bit of whirring, it transformed into a large scythe several feet taller than Ruby herself. Weiss had a hand on what Vert just noticed was a rapier but it didn't look like she was going to show off.

"We don't have a choice other than to fight." Ruby was in a stoic pose.

Vert felt the warmth at her side vanish as Nepgear practically squealed in joy.

"Oh my gosh how does that thing work? I need to make one!" Nepgear's eyes were shining bright with pride. Vert had seen Nepgear's obsessiveness with tinkering before, but it was mostly self contained since the rest of the world didn't have much interest in it.

"Now isn't the time Nepgear." Histoire added herself back in with a scolding tone. "There is a bigger question that we must now face. Who will lead Planeptune and Lastation for now?"

Now that was a pressing issue. Of course the candidates could take over. Nepgear was leagues more productive than her sister and Uni was basically a smaller version of Noire. They had the skills to work but Vert doubted they had the confidence to run a whole nation.

"We'll do it." Weiss said. "We took their place, the least we can do is help."

"While that it generous of you, unfortunately a nation can only be run by a CPU." Histoire clarified.

"What's a CPU?" Ruby asked.

"A CPU is both the leader of a nation and a goddess. They possess immense power and are responsible for the safety of the people. Vert and Blanc here are both CPUs and Nepgear is a CPU candidate."

"Wow. So you guys have like special powers and stuff?"

"Yes. In addition to being more powerful than a normal person, we have the ability to transform using HDD which further amplifies our power." Vert answered Ruby's question.

"So if these other girls... Neptune and Noire right? If they are in our world, do they still have that power?" Weiss asked the oracle.

"Based on what we've seen in the past, no. That power doesn't travel across dimensions for a variety of reasons that I can explain later. In fact it is possible..." Histoire trailed off.

"Possible that what?" The white haired girl asked.

"There is a small chance that you two might have received Neptune and Noire's powers. Unfortunately the only way to test this is very strenuous. I can try to force run HDD on you two, but it will likely cause me to be knocked out for several days. As to what it might do to you, I have no idea."

Weiss and Ruby looked at each other. The whole room was watching them and wondering what might happen next. Vert was quite interested in the outcome of this situation. If it worked, then there would be two entirely new CPUs! That was unheard of in their world.

"We'll do it." Ruby spoke firmly.

"Very well. You might want to stand in an open space." Histoire waited for the two to move then closed her eyes. Small discs of light began forming around the two and Histoire was glowing slightly. Suddenly large pillars of light erupted around Ruby and Weiss, illuminating the room. After few long seconds, the light started to die down and Histoire started to float to the ground. Blanc, who was closest to her, quickly picked her out of the air. Once the light had died completely, Vert was able to see what had happened to the new girls. Even as a CPU herself, Vert was quite impressed with their new forms.

"My, it looks like you two will make great CPUs."