Ultradimension Neptunia: Big Nep and Smolgear

Chapter 15: The Great Dogoo Escapade

Quick Author's Note: Before we start, I've made an original Cover Art for this story.

Okay, so I really need to state the reason why I made this, because this wouldn't have been made if I didn't have this reason. So, if you've read the Author's Notes of the first, extremely long chapter of this story, you'd know that the story was inspired by a piece of fanart I found, which depicted Ultra / Big Neptune with her own version of her counterpart's little sister, Nepgear, this Ultra version of Nepgear being a young kid and being given a piggyback ride by her adult sister. It was very cute, and I kind of wanted more of it, so I started a story about it.

Since I put the story up, I've been using that same fan art as the story's cover art. It made sense, it was the art that inspired the story, and thus had the most important characters, it was very cute, and it just so happened to fit the dimensions most fanfic sites use for their displayed cover arts.

But for a while now, that has begun to dig on me. For one, it is one of my only stories that I did not make cover art for. I'm both a writer and artist online as a hobby, so of course, I've made cover art for every other story I've made. But not this one. I mean, I also haven't made one "Meeting in the Void (DDLC x Undertale)", but that was a short story one-shot, and it was never intended to have cover art, and only use fan art on sites that actually show cover art (by the way, I'm also given that story that same treatment of new cover art, just because).

A second may be that I technically don't have permission to use their art. Now, I don't see this as a big reason. I'm not really stealing it, I'm just using it for the innocent purpose of fanfic cover art. Most fanfic writers do that. Also, I made sure to credit the original artist, unlike most others, and that is the minimum that every artist deserves. But it does bother me that I'm doing that, when I could and maybe should make my own cover art, since I can do that.

So here I am, with my own original cover art for the Smolgear story, just to put my thoughts at ease.

----- ----- ----- ----- ----- -----

It was another normal day at Nepgear's school. Kids were at recess, running out, laughing, and playing.

But a certain purplette was off to the sides with her little friends, telling them an incredible story of bravery and adventure.

"...And then little big sis started glowing, and became super tall and pretty! And she beat the mean birdy!" Nepgear told her friends.

"Yay! Little big sis! Little big sis!" the toddlers, Rom and Ram cheered together.

Uni was quiet. She was usually like this, likely embarrassed to speak due to her weird voice, and her friends didn't mind. But she was even quieter than usual, staring down at her apple, which she had as a snack.

And Nepgear noticed. "Are you okay?" the five-year-old asked.

"Uni okay?" Rom echoed.

"I don't wanna tawk about it..." Uni sounded.

Nepgear was young, and didn't know much about how the world works, but she did know that she didn't want her friends to be unhappy.

So she came over, and hugged her friend. "Please don't be sad."

"I'm nawt sad..." Uni replied. But eventually, she just hugged her back.

...Unfortunately, leaving her snack open for grabs.

Ram dived in, and grabbed Uni's apple, dashing away a bit, raising her stolen prize above her head, while shouting, "apple! Apple!"

"Apple! Apple!" Rom jumped in, as the two of them began to hop around each other.