Hyperdimension Neptunia is owned by Compile Heart, Idea Factory, Sega and whomever else worked on it.

And now we're in Lastation! Finally!

Chapter 29

"Report!" A female voice broke through the air as several people sat around a long table. The room was dimly lit, the walls were metal and cold, the windows on the side were the size of a wall and a quick glance out of them would reveal skyscrapers at least thirty stories high or more all around the building they were in.

"Lady Noire." One of the men at the table, an older man in a blue pin-stripe suit, spoke up. "Recently there was a little... Rebellion in South Lastation."

The CPU gave him a look. "Mr. Badd, I do hope you already took care of it."

Adjusting his glasses, the man nodded. "Of course. I had my people squash it." He smirked at that. "It was pitifully easy."

"Good," she nodded at him, "I do hate having to go out there and bring order to the streets when you do it for me."

"Of course," Mr. Badd nodded to her and looked across the table, "I do believe that Lady Kei has something to say as well."

"Yes," Kei nodded at Mr. Badd as she typed some information into a computer, "sadly it looks like you'll have to go down there and squash some of the more... Uppity gangs, Lady Black Void."

"I hate that name," Noire scoffed at Kei, "seriously, my HDD form has red and white hair and I've got red hair, who came up with Black Void anyway?"

"There's plenty of black on your processor," Kei pointed out, "and you came up with it when you killed your elder sister three decades ago."

"Whatever," Noire dismissed it as she flicked her red locks out of her face, "I hate having to deal with those punks."

"Indeed," Kei nodded at her, "there's a regiment of troopers ready for you if you need them."

Noire scoffed at her and turned, her red dress fluttering in the air as she went to leave. "Just leave it to me. Where's the problem anyway?"

"Southern Lastation, the slums district." Kei answered as Noire nodded and left. "Finally," she muttered after Noire was gone. "I hate working for her."

"You can't blame her for being the way she is," Mr. Badd smirked at her and looked at the others at the table. "Tell me something, Singe, how are things going on your end?"

A man, wearing a red suit with slicked back brown hair and green eyes, who was almost as old as Mr. Badd, but unlike Mr. Badd, he had a full head of hair and didn't need to wear glasses, nodded at him. "Almost ready to go. One, maybe two weeks maximum and then we can begin on my end."

"Good," Kei nodded at him, "I look forward to your success."

There was a chuckling next to Kei as a man with long, messy red hair and brown eyes just grinned as he spoke. "And to think, it's all because of how good you are with people, Kei."

"...Keep talking like that, Azna=Leb, and you'll see how little flattery and seduction matters to me when it comes to promotions." Kei rolled her eyes at him as he pouted. "Anyway, we still need her, for now at least. Hopefully with the new progbots we have coming out..."

"Of course," Mr. Badd nodded. "And what will you do about the little CPU Candidate? What was her name again?"

"I believe it was Uni," Azna=Leb said as he grinned. "I think she's working on dealing with the more violent criminals that target the people of Lastation. Last I heard she was dealing with gangs that were starting to get rowdy and that haven't been squashed yet."

"We'll have to deal with her and her more... Rebellious and justice-minded nature soon enough," Kei answered, annoyed that several of the plans that she had put into place to keep things in check kept getting screwed up because of one overly ambitious brat.

"How pathetic," another voice spoke up and the table looked at the final person there. "I half expected Little Noire to be more... Interesting. But in the end, all she cares about is power and she can't even manage what little she has."

Kei smirked at the final person. "Not everyone is as good as you are at manipulating data, Anonydeath."

"Enough with your foolish prattling," Mr. Badd grumbled as he stood up, "I'll get my boys to take care of things on my end."

Kei nodded and smirked as everyone but her and Azna=Leb slowly left the room. "I really have to thank her for seeing my talents though." The boyish looking girl just chuckled. "If not for her, I'd be in those slums still."

"So..." Azna=Leb grinned at Kei, "you busy?"

"...I've got an hour of free time." Kei said to him.

(-)

Meanwhile...

Panting as her lungs burned from the exertion she put herself through, the girl looked around and slid into a narrow alley as three large, humanoid beings with sleek, dark chrome-colored bodies and green visors where their eyes should have been hovered just off the ground, beeping at each other while their sensors scanned the area. 'Damn!' She thought to herself. 'Progbots!' While they weren't the brightest and were easily tricked, they were utterly relentless in pursuing whatever they were tasked to pursue. Taking a deep breath to soothe her nerves, she pulled out a handgun and mentally prepared herself.

Before she could do anything else, there was a loud crash in the streets and the Progbots turned to look at what was causing the disturbance.

"Meow." A little white cat looked at them and sauntered off.

"Freeze!" The two said at the same time. "Disturbing the peace is a violation of Black Void's directive."

"Mrew!" The cat ignored them as it focused on a mouse that was scurrying around on the ground. Its body started to wiggle as it bobbed its head up and down in preparation to leap at its future meal.

"Violator has refused to comply," the progbots said as their arms morphed into cannons. "Prepare to fire."

"Dammit!" The girl cursed to herself. 'I'm sorry, kitty, but I can't...'

"Hey!" Another girl suddenly shouted and the progbots turned their attention to the interloper. "What are you two doing?" The two progbots turned to see a girl with black hair that was pinned up against the back of her head, she was wearing finger-less gloves over her hands, a white t-shirt over her small chest, an open, sleeveless black jacket that went from her shoulders down to her knees, cut-off jean-shorts over black leggings and on her feet were a pair of boots that wouldn't look out of place for someone who was hiking in the woods or working in a factory.

"Protecting the peace, Lady Uni." They said at the same time as they addressed the CPU Candidate of Lastation.

Rubbing her forehead in annoyance, Uni gave them a glare and looked at the cat as it clamped down on the mouse's neck and started kicking the struggling creature with its back legs, killing it and shredding the carcass. "A cat knocking stuff over and looking for food is not disturbing the peace, now get the hell out of here!"

"Affirmative."

As they left, Uni rubbed her forehead. "What the fuck is my sister thinking? No, wait, I don't want to know." She couldn't blame her sister for wanting to keep things orderly, but she really wished that there would be actual people patrolling the streets and not progbots.

"Um..." Uni turned and slid back, two Uzis forming in her hands as she glared at the person who spoke. "Hey!" The girl yelled while pointing her handgun at Uni. "What's the big idea?"

"With how many gangs are down here, a girl can't be unarmed." Uni shot back as she gave the other girl a look over. The girl was wearing knee-high boots with long pants and Uni wasn't sure if the girl was wearing a halter top over her chest or if that was a sports bra as the girl's sleeveless vest hid if there were any straps on it.

"Why do you think I have a gun?" The girl replied to her.

After staring at each other for more than a minute, the two slowly lowered their weapons and nodded at each other.

"Impressed that you didn't shy away." Uni said to the girl.

Said girl just smiled at her. "Never point your gun without the intent to shoot. Always shoot with the intent to kill. Always kill with the intent to die."

"Wise words." Uni nodded, "though I'm not sure how useful a simple semi-automatic handgun would be against progbots." She knew how durable those things were, being walking tanks that took some serious pounding before they went down.

"Explosive tipped bullets tend to punch through armor like theirs." The girl smirked and gently caressed her gun. "And even if that's not enough to put them down, I can at least knock them on their ass and get out before they shoot back."

Uni didn't even question how the girl had those kinds of bullets, she'd be more surprised if the girl was packing regular bullets in her gun. "Well, see ya." She turned and was about to walk off when she felt the barrel of the gun touch the back of her head. "...Are you seriously going to try and kill me?"

"Considering you're the CPU Candidate of Lastation, I think I'd be doing all of us a favor." The girl said softly. "Your sister's policies are why everything down here is shit."

"I'm not my sister." Uni replied calmly. "And don't think that killing me would solve anything, Black Void cares less about me than she does about the people who live in the slums."

"If that was the case, don't you think those progbots would have ignored you?" The girl smirked when Uni jerked slightly. "But, no, I don't think killing you would be the right thing."

"Didn't you just say..." Uni trailed off as the gun against the back of her head poked her hard.

"Don't tempt me to shoot."

"Can I at least have your name?" Uni asked, still calm, "I'd like to know who's threatening to kill me this time."

"...Name's K-Sha." The girl answered. "Now you're going to do what I say and you're going to go where I tell you to."

Uni sighed heavily. "Fine... Not like it matters in the end anyway." She muttered as K-Sha grabbed her left hand and wrenched it behind her back hard enough to make her grimace in pain. 'Nothing but power matters, huh?'

It was a lesson that her sister had drilled into her ever since she had been born. How everything else was just an illusion and even power was fleeting.

'...Maybe Noire's right. Maybe there's nothing in the world but those who have power and those who don't.' Uni thought to herself as she noticed the homeless people around them ignoring them and the gangs just leering at them as they marched through the area on the sidewalks. There were several cars that flew by, but the streets were pretty deserted in this section of the city. "...Just shoot me already." Uni told K-Sha. "Either shoot me or put your gun away, I don't have any reason to run."

K-Sha was silent before letting go of Uni's arm and pulling the gun away. "You run, I'll shoot you, and I'm pretty good."

"Yeah, I figure." Uni turned to face her while rubbing her wrist.

The next thing K-Sha knew, she was on the ground, grabbing her stomach and coughing hard. Uni kicked the gun out of her hand and then grabbed K-Sha by her hair and lifted her up. "Listen up, you idiot, if you wanted me to come with you, all you had to do was ask." Uni threw K-Sha to the ground and crossed her arms over her small chest while K-Sha coughed a few more times. "I don't care if you want me to come with you, but don't threaten me with a gun, you understand?"

K-Sha gave her a glare. "Your sister..." A nasty snarl came to her face, "she killed all of my friends."

"Let me guess, your friends were part of that gang that was causing problems a few months ago that got their hands on some powerful weapons?" Uni shot back. "They had energy rifles, armor piercing bullets, missile launchers, EMP cannons and more I can't think of off the top of my head and got so out of hand that my sister had to come down and personally put them down, correct?" She scoffed at K-Sha. "Newsflash, those friends of yours killed more than a few dozen people, injured hundreds more and did billions in damage."

K-Sha continued to snarl at Uni. "You don't care about them?! They were the closest people I have to family!"

Uni raised an eyebrow, "you need better friends then. Go back to your real family."

"I would if they were still alive!" K-Sha yelled, tears in her eyes.

Uni stared at her silently. After a moment, she sighed and walked over to K-Sha and offered her a hand up. "Why don't I treat you to a meal and you can tell me about it then?"

K-Sha looked at her in surprise, but took the offered hand to get back to her feet. After collecting her gun, the two went to a local diner to eat and chat.

Unseen by the two girls was a red glow the shadows of an alleyway.

(-)

It didn't take the two long to get to a small diner that had apartments in the area above the building and a large window that showed the outside.

After ordering their food, Uni looked at K-Sha, who was looking disgruntled. "Okay, you want to talk about your family?"

K-Sha let out an annoyed huff but nodded. "Dad didn't have many skills, but he could lift and move stuff, so he was forced to work in the factories outside the city."

Uni mentally winced. While the factories weren't unsafe, the same couldn't be said for the areas around the factories. "Couldn't he get protective gear?"

"We barely had enough for food and rent when dad took the job." K-Sha shot back. "Mom was forced to do whatever she could to make sure we had money too." Uni nodded as she listened. "Dad..." K-Sha sighed and looked down in misery. "He put off his safety, said that he could do it while he saved up for a fancy apartment in the good sections of town. But..."

"I know," Uni sighed, knowing exactly what was going on. While the city itself had relatively clean air and water, the same couldn't be said for the rest of the country...

...It was a literal wasteland, destroyed by years of pollution and devastation to nature by the corporations that made Lastation City their home. Between the literal toxic grounds, the poisoned air and who knows what else out there...

...Uni knew that the fatality rates of those who worked in the factories outside of the city was well over ten percent and some reports had it as high as fifteen percent.

"If you're wondering about mom, she took her own life not long after." K-Sha glowered at Uni. "Your sister's policies... She's the reason for why I lost everything."

Uni said nothing as K-Sha continued with her glowering. She couldn't say anything. As much as she believed in justice and wanted the people to be free of the crime, drugs and other problems that plagued the populace, she was just one person and even if she was the CPU Candidate, she lacked any real power. '...It keeps coming back to power, doesn't it?'

If only she had the power to change things. Uni knew that if she did, she'd fix all the problems in Lastation.

To be continued...

And Lastation is a Cyberpunk city!

I wonder if this is what you were expecting.

Anyway, Noire with red hair? Yeah, original concept design for her human form was the outfit we know and love from the Hyper and Super Dimensions, but red instead of black and with red hair.

Also, don't be surprised if you see more characters connected to Lastation pop up in here. I know Azna=Leb is connected with Lowee, but I needed another character to help flesh out the world a bit. By the way, if you ever see me spell his name Anza=Leb, that's just an error on my part.