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Lastation Chapter 2: Life's a Mystery

Dimension: Hyperdimension

(Side B)


(Nation: Lastation)

(Location: Basilicom)

(Time: 8:30 AM)

(Point of View: Uni)

"Beep! Beep! Beep!"

Ugh, there's that stupid ringing sound again. I should really get something less annoying… why do I even have that alarm clock anyway? All it ever does is- … Oh right, Noire gave it to me.

I got up out of my bed and sat on the edge, looking around the room I had for as long as I can remember. There really isn't much to note about my room, aside from the collection of guns mounted on my walls, and small empty cage that sat on top of my dresser.

I know it isn't like me, but I don't really want to do much of anything today. I would go back to sleep, but I have a lot of things to do. One of those things is visiting Caem, who got hurt last night because of Taem… that's what I remember Ram telling me anyway.

Truth is, I actually had to wake up earlier. I think it was around 6 this morning. Terra and Luth needed help moving their things over to Chian's place and asked me and Noire to lend a hand. It's… a bit disappointing if you ask me, but I guess they didn't want to make multiple trips.

After Noire and I came back from helping them, I decided to go back to my room and… and…

I don't even remember what happened after I got back to my room … I feel like I should actually be worried, but… I've been forgetting a lot of things lately, so I'm not even surprised at this point. Day after day, my memories of past events just keep on escaping me, and it's become a real chore to remember anything.

But I shouldn't be sitting here talking about pointless things, I should get ready for the day that's ahead of me. All I really need to do is put on my clothes, and do my hair… again. Nepgear was telling me that I should consider keeping my hair down sometimes instead of putting it up in twintails all the time, but it just doesn't feel… right.

I get up out of my bed and changed into my normal outfit. I then sat down in front of my vanity and started to do my hair, as usual. I will admit that it's a bit of a pain to do this constantly, but I've been doing it almost every day for as long as I can remember, so I've just gotten used to it.

When I was done, I took a long look at myself in my mirror and… it's just hard to believe that I've really changed from that day. At times, do you just not feel like… yourself? I don't know how long I've felt like this, but I know it has something to do with… him.

… Gah! What am I even doing?! Acting all sad and confused because of some internal relationship problem? What is wrong with me? I slapped myself a few times and looked at myself in the mirror again, but this time, I had more of a determined look on my face than before.

I have more things to worry about than that. It's not like anyone's going to punish me, so why am I even making such a big deal about it? My problem should be the least of my concerns right now, so I just have to grin it and bear for as long as I-

Wait just a second… I looked over at my dresser and stared at the empty cage for quite some time. On closer inspection, it seemed like it was open…

"... CRACHY!"

My pet bandicoot, Crachy is gone! How is this even possible?! I've had him for almost 2 years now, and he's never found a way to escape his cage! The gate is opened like I said, but even he wouldn't be able to open it, his arms aren't that long!

It looks like I've got another thing to worry about, and that's my missing bandicoot! Ugh… Damn it! Could things get any worse? I've already got a lot on my plate as it is, and now I have to deal with this?!

"Lady Uni is everything alright?!" Kei ran into my room with a sword in hand. "A good number of us were able to hear your scream from outside the Basilicom."

Kei… honestly, it's hard for me to think of her as an Oracle sometimes, but more as… maybe a little bit more than a friend? She's someone who you can talk to about your problem, and just so happens to know the right things to say to help you, regardless of how blunt it may come off as.

"I-I'm not alright!" I pointed to Crachy's cage. "I found Crachy's cage open when I woke up, and I have no idea where he could have gone!"

"..." Kei looked a little disappointed and put her sword away, which makes me wonder why she looks so disappointed and not relieved, seeing that I'm not actually being harmed by anyone or anything. "Oh… and here I thought this was a serious matter.."

"Kei!"

"I kid, Lady Uni!" I have a sinking feeling that she wasn't really joking when she said that, but… whatever. "But in all seriousness, it's quite troubling knowing that your pet is out there all by itself. Bandicoots are known for being quite… N. Sane."

… Was Kei trying to make some sort of joke? She did put a bit of an emphasis on that last word… Oh well. I do have to agree with her though, Crachy does tend to get a bit… hyper at times, and ends up causing a lot of trouble regardless of where he is.

"Kei… I don't know what to do." I looked down at my feet. "Crachy is out there somewhere, all alone and… probably not scared, but confused. I think I might just have to cancel my plans for today and-"

As I was talking, I stopped when I felt someone put their hands on my shoulders. I looked up and was greeted by Kei, who now had a serious expression on her face… Would you believe me if I told you that this isn't the first time Kei has been this close to me?

"Lady Uni, I don't believe it will be wise to cancel on your friends out of the blue," Kei told me. "Your pet may have gone missing… but you shouldn't really let this get to you."

…Kei, I'm finding it hard to understand the words that just came out of your mouth. I think it's perfectly reasonable to cancel on your friends in the event of something like we pet going missing!

"... Might I ask for your permission to search for that bandicoot in your stead?" Huh? "I need to run a few errands around Lastation, so it wouldn't hurt to search while I'm out."

I would let her, but… I wouldn't want her to do that. Kei has already done a lot of things for me in the past, and I wouldn't want her to do more, especially with her leaving in a week or so to take care of some personal matters.

"Also, I should let you know that your response won't matter. I'll be on high alert even if you say no." … Geez, thanks, Kei. I don't really use video game terminology in real life situations, but it kind of felt like one of those moments where if you declined to help someone, they would keep asking you the same thing over and over again until you said yes.

"...Fine, if you really want to… then I'll allow it." I muttered.

"Perfect. I'll let everyone know so they can keep an eye out here in the Basilicom… Aside from Lady Noire, of course. We all know that she'll go into a panic if she finds out that bandicoot is on the loose." Kei proceeded to make her way out of my room. "Have a nice day, Lady Uni,"

"Bye, Kei…" I waved to her. Once again, I almost feel kind of bad, but… I'd probably feel even more bad for just canceling on the others… So I guess this is for the best. I just hope that they'll be able to find Crachy before it gets dark.


"Noire?" I knocked on the door to her office and opened it. "I'm going to be heading out now."

"..." Noire was staring down at a bunch of papers that were on her desk, it looked like she didn't even notice me come into the room… even though I had said something. Noire had a conflicted look on her face.

"Um… Noire?" I called out to her. "Is… everything alright?"

"..." Still no response… I think it would just be better if I just left her alone. I wasn't going to get a response out her anytime soon, and the silence was honestly starting to scare me.

"Well, um… I'll see you later, I guess…" I slowly closed the door, half expecting some kind of response from my sisters, but got nothing.

While I'm glad that Lastation has the highest amount of shares in all of Gamindustri, I wish that Noire didn't work so hard… or so much. I can't remember the last time Noire took a day off from work… or the last time the two of us even did anything together.


(Location: Passe)

(Time: 9:20 AM)

Instead of flying, I decided to conserve my energy and walk… at least I think I'm conserving my energy. I'm not exactly sure what's going on, but whenever I revert back to my human form after transforming, I just feel… really drained.

What's really strange about this is that no one else feels the way I do. I talked to Noire, Nepgear, Rom, and Ram about the state I was in, and all of them told me that they didn't feel any different from how they normally are when in HDD… which is really weird.

The workshop-... Err, I meant factory/cafe isn't that far from the Basilicom. I'm still stunned that Noire actually gave Chian her own factory. If I can actually remember this correctly, Lastation's weapon production rate was normal before Noire had ordered for that factory to be built, so I can't exactly understand why she had to build this place.

Before long, I approached the front door to the cafe area of Passe, The cafe wasn't opened yet, so the door was closed. Right as I placed my hand on the doorknob, I could hear what sounded like… shouting, footsteps, and objects being broken.

Considering the people who live here in mind, I'm honestly afraid to open the door because whatever is on the other side has a high chance of being something very disturbing and scarring, or incredibly stupid and disappointing.

Finally, after enough time of contemplating whether to step into the cafe or not, I decided to take my chances and open the door. I gripped the doorknob, twisted it, and pushed the door open.

"Good morn-"

"WATCH OUT!"

The moment I opened the door, I'm greeted by people screaming at me along with some brown creature heading straight towards me! I should also add that this brown projectile also appeared to be wearing pants for whatever reason and-... Wait…

"Crachy?!" I held out my arms, and the bandicoot jumped right into them. "There you are! I was so worried about you!"

What… How… Why is Crachy even here?! How was this small bandicoot able to make it's way all over to Passe? I know that he's crazy, but I don't think he's that crazy to do something like this!

Even though I'm still confused… I can't help but hug him. I'm happy that he didn't get himself completely lost and that he's safe. I took my attention off of Crachy for a moment and saw that the whole room was a complete mess! Tables and chairs were knocked over, there was trash all over the place, as well as broken glass… this place looked as if it was a battlefield!

I noticed that there were two people lying on the floor in front of me, those two were Terra and Luth, and another person slouched over the counter, that was Chian. All three of them were looking at me… well, it seemed like they were staring at Crachy more than me.

"Oh… Oh, thank the Goddesses you're here!" Luth let out a sigh of relief and fell onto his back. "That little furball you got in your hands just went apes***!"

"We fed him one piece of fruit, just ONE PIECE!" Terra raised a finger to prove his point. "I didn't know these bandicoots couldn't eat Lumpa fruit! I just thought he would have a normal reaction to it, but NO!"

"...Guys? What was Crachy even doing here, to begin with…?" I asked.

"What was he doing here?" Chain looked surprised. "Either I'm starting to get old, or you just forgot that you asked us to watch him for you."

"I… What?" I asked them to watch Crachy…? Why would I ever do that?! None of them even knew that I had a bandicoot, to begin with, so why would I even ask them?

"Do you not remember telling us that you needed us to watch him for an hour?" Luth asked. "Because I certainly do! And the moment you left is the moment when that rascal went bonkers!"

… Geez, just hearing this is starting to make me feel a little dizzy. Some memories are kinda coming back to me, but… not really. Everything in my head is still foggy for the most part.

"I'm… having a hard time remembering anything right now. All I can really recall is waking up and seeing that he wasn't in his cage.." I shook my head. "But whatever, having him be here is better than having him be in some sort of lab and being experimented on by some mad scientist…"

"That's very specific if you ask me…" Chian picked herself up from off the counter and looked around and sighed. "Boys, could you lend a hand and help clean up the place? There are a few people coming by later today and I wouldn't want them to get the impression that I like living in a dump."

"You don't have to tell us, we both knew we were going to have to clean stuff up from the moment that bandicoot tore apart Terra's clothing." Luth and his step-brother got up from the floor. "Uni, could you call whoever and tell them we're going to be late?"

Who does he expect me to call? Nepgear? She doesn't really need to know about the little event that happened here. Actually, I don't even think I need to call anyone, I'd practically just be wasting my time telling them something pointless.

"... Actually, I have a better idea." I said.


(Side A)


(Nation: Lastation)

(Location: Basilicom)

(Time: 9:30 AM)

(Point of View: Noire)

"This is… This is unbelievable!" I never knew that something like this would be able to be accomplished in such a short amount of time. I don't know whether to be purely angry or be angry with a hint of surprise on my face!

Oh, right, this is a thing now… Which means I have to start explaining everything as if I was talking to a five-year-old… Alright, let's start from the top. This morning, after I came back from helping Terra and Luth with Uni, I found a few letters on my desk and a little over 30 new emails in my inbox.

From what I could gather from the emails, there were multiple reports of money being transferred out of Lastation citizens' bank accounts without their consent. At first sight, this doesn't seem too bad, as we've had multiple cases of like this in the past and it's usually resolved within the first few days.

But when I checked to see what the specifics of this little problem were… I immediately realized that this wasn't a little problem, but a massive one. Over 2 billion credits had been taken out of Lastation's national bank, along with the other bank accounts of Lastation's citizens. I should also add that this happened… LAST. NIGHT!

In a span of 9 to 10 hours, someone was able to break through our countless number of security measures, and steal 2 billion credits! What the actual hell! I don't know much about computers aside from the basic things, but even I know that being able to do something like that is unbelievable.

"Okay, so what's the big deal?" Is what you're probably asking. "Can't you just track the person who did this?" In all the previous times this has happened, the "hacker" has always done something to screw up and reveal their identity and location. We once tracked some guy all the way in the Leanbox simply because he was doing his business at a coffee shop that was a mile away from his house.

But this person in particular… they're absolutely flawless! Our experts have been searching for hours upon hours, and haven't found anything on this criminal. Well… aside from one thing, and that's what I assume to be some sort of alias.

Let me see if I can find it in my emails. Hm… Ah, here it is. I stopped scrolling when I saw an email labeled, "Urgent 13 out of 30". I opened it up and skimmed through walls of text.

"|-|-4-R-N-3-$-3" … What the hell did I just read? I've read this email over multiple times, and I'm now just realizing how bizarre this name sounds! This is definitely some sort of kid, no doubt about it.

As soon as we found the name, we immediately tried looking in our databank for any information regarding them. We haven't found anything yet, but I've sent a request to the other nations asking for them to send any info that they might have on this… child.

But now, all I can really do is wait for any information to come in… it might take a few days, but it'll come eventually…

Screw that! I'm not going to wait a few days for some of our nation's best to come to me with info that most likely has anything to do with this person location or identity. If I'm going to find this, "|-|-4-R-N-3-$-3" person, then I'm going need to take matters into my own hands.

I reached over for my phone, turned it on, and looked through my contacts. If I was going to do this, I was going to need some he-... hel-... heeee-...

… Ugh, whatever.


Xandra: What's going on everybody? My name is NOT Acallaris, and we hope that you enjoyed the chapter! Now, you're probably wondering where the actual Acallaris is…

Nepgear: Well, since it's almost summer vacation, and Acallaris is still in high-school, he's been preparing for and taking lots of exams. He really hasn't been getting a lot of time to write chapters…

Ram: And on top of that, he's being really lazy and lied about releasing another chapter a month ago!

Nepgear: Well, things do tend to pop up, Ram. You shouldn't really blame him for having things to do.

Xandra: Plus, you shouldn't really get on his case when all you do is play around every day and pull pranks on people.

Ram: Hey! That's not completely true!

Xandra: Well, it's not completely false either!

Nepgear: Um… Anyway, Acallaris won't be uploading any chapters for a while...

At least, not until he's done with exams.

Xandra: Once he's done with all those tests, he should be on his summer vacation, meaning that he'll have a lot of time to write chapters!

Ram: That's if he doesn't slack off…

Xandra: Oh, don't worry. *smiles and cracks her knuckles* I'll make sure that he doesn't slack off this year.

Nepgear: P-Physical violence won't be necessary!

Ram: Physical violence is always necessary! What are you talking about, Nepgear?!

Nepgear: *sighs* We should end the chapter before things get out of hand. *clears throat* Once again, we hope you enjoyed the chapter and hope to see you next time!

Ram: Later!

Xandra: Until next time!