Victory! - Chapter 1

Gamindustri.

The name that one can utter of when they think of the word "home."

The realm of Gamindustri is separated into two distinct worlds: Celestia, where the Goddesses reside; and The World Below, where the humans occupy and the lands are split into several different regions.

It is said that long ago, the goddess, the great overseer of the entire human realm, awakened to her ambitions and desired to take over the world. The goddess was eventually stopped by four brave heroes from the human world. The heroes took a special road reaching up to Celestia. The four had managed to persevere and waged an epic battle against the goddess herself. Upon being defeated, the goddess admitted to the error of her ways and promised to never let it happen again. She separated part of her powers away from herself so she could never misuse them again, creating an entity known as the Oracle.

In the present day, Gamindustri is comprised of continents in the water with surrounding islands. On the main continent, Planeptune resides in the western region, Lastion in the east, and Lowee in the north. In the southern region, separated from the main continent, is Leanbox.

Planeptune has a futuristic theme, it has a very advanced look to it. Connected to the main island by long cable cords are smaller islands which seemingly hold the other towns due to the main island being where the central city is located. While Planeptune has several large rock formations surrounding it, it also has an abundance of grass and water surrounding the entirety of the mainland and its islands.

Lastation has a very industrialized look to it. It seems to have an issue with smog due to it looking significantly darker than the rest of the nations. This is most likely due to the number of factories in Lastation. But over time, the air had become much cleaner.

Lowee has a fantasy theme. It is a part of Gamindustri's main continent in the northern region. It is a mountainous region with a perpetual snowfall. On top of its many colorful buildings, its also surrounded in a rainbow assortment of sparkles.

The most isolated of the islands, Leanbox, is mainly urbanized, filled with corporate buildings, warehouses, skyscrapers, and typical urban structures. A noticeable towering structure can be seen all over Leanbox. It takes a form of a colossal white structure with black streaks filled with green light in the middle of its perpendicular sides, which ends on a green circle in between.

But instead of boring you guys with the tacky history lesson, we'll just start the actual damn story. We kick things off in the north, in Lowee.

A thirteen-year-old boy was clad in dark blue, star-print pajamas with a beanie with little cat ears. Above his head and around his left forearm are halos, one above him and two around his arm and he has jet black tresses of spiky hair. There were two pure white, feathered wings protruding from his back.

He yawns after he turns off his annoying alarm. But the catch is that he usually does not set the alarm clock as his internal clock does the work for him. So, instead of getting up, he laid right back down and tried to go back to sleep.

I repeat: He TRIED to go back to sleep until—


"Raaaaghh!" The boy immediately heard a loud, girlish voice shout at him but soon felt the weight of two small bodies on both the bed AND him. Both bodies were now identified as both girls. They both had brown hair and dark blue eyes. The one on the right had on a pastel pink winter coat over a plain gray and white overall dress. The coat has puffed sleeves and a frilled white center part with many golden buttons, with a big light blue bow on the collar and six puffballs strategically placed. At the ends of the cuff is white fur lining and a big golden button. She wears a big cap with light blue ruffles and a brown and gold under and center piece and has boots with a similar color scheme with her coat. She has a light blue purse on her right shoulder while heralding a playful smirk. The shorter haired one on the left had on clothes nearly exactly the same as the other girl, the main differences being a pastel pink purse and light blue where the pink would be on the other girl's. The boy sighed over the fact that he was woken up.

"Miss Ram? Miss Rom? What are you two doing?" he asked tiredly.

"Waking you up! Duh!" The pink themed Ram flicked his nose. "Big sis is getting kinda mad that she has to wait on you, Porcupine." The boy, dubbed "Porcupine," bristled.

"Please stop calling me that. The name's 'Kuro!'" Kuro corrected somewhat angrily.

"Sure thing… Por-cu-pine~" Ram replied and Kuro, in a brief act of grumpy rage, tried grabbing her.

"Ah, ah, ah. Can't touch me." she taunted as she wagged her finger.

"Please stop messing with him like that, Ram…" the blue-themed Rom pleaded. Ram just laughed haughtily and waved it off.

"Alright, alright. It's not like I don't have all day to mess with him, anyways." Kuro groaned at this and proceeded to get out of bed to prepare himself for the day.

'I wonder what fascinating and exciting mission Lady Blanc has for me?'

He turns to the direction of the bathroom, but two slightly frigid, yet soft hands grasped his own. The twins had grabbed him, pulled themselves closer and kissed his cheek, one on each side. He blushed a soft pink and opened his mouth to retort, but no words came.

"Later, Big Bro~" Ram winked and heads out the door.

"S-See you later, Kuro~" Rom blushed and slightly stuttered before following her sister out of his room. Not even registering him waving back.

After taking care of his personal hygiene, he got dressed in his usual attire, which consisted of a white chiton decorated with black and gold hems with octagonal patterns. It's fastened on his right shoulder by a small pin hidden under a red, loose scarf. He has a black belt with a silver circular buckle. Underneath, he has on a black undershirt and skin tight black shorts. He also wears golden torso armor that was segmented at the left shoulder, the right half of his abdomen, and across his upper back. He has gold cuffs on his forearms and upper legs, a small cloth around his upper arms that's black with a red stripe across the middle, fingerless black gloves, and brown sandals with gold "heart" patterns on them. He let out one last yawn as he traversed the Sanctuary to see his mostly likely pissed off goddess.

"Here I am, Lady Bla—" he couldn't finish his greeting when a hammer was introduced to his head, causing him to fall to the floor. Looming dangerously above him was a girl with short, sandy-brown colored hair reaching her neck and dull blue eyes. Her outfit consists of a red dress with fold-skirt and a leafy pattern along the bottom. The dress has a black tank top piece with an accessory with red lining and a blue sphere in the center with thin strings. At the top of the dress is a golden flower piece with black strap connecting around her waist. Over this is a white jacket with a big tassel hanging on the ends of both sleeves with flowers. On her right arm is a bracelet, made with oversized black and white beads. Her white cap has gained red and pink petal pattern and a black circled segment in the center. She also has on thigh high stockings with red lining and black sandals with red ribbons at the toe and flower symbols. She wears a big white cap with red and pink petal patterns and a black circled segment in the center. Allow me to introduce you to Blanc, whose eyes were shadowed by her bangs minus one glowing red eye and her hair flowing with an imaginary breeze.

"IDIOT! YOU KEPT ME WAITING FOR TOO DAMN LONG! NOW MAKE US SOME F****** BREAKFAST ALREADY!" Blanc yelled at him, her trademark temper flaring as Kuro got up and got started on breakfast.

"Don't we have, like, pudding in the fridge?" he asked while cracking open an egg. In the face of that question, the twins' heads hit the table and they cried anime tears.

("WE'RE ALL OOOOUUUTT! IT'S MADNESS!")

"Now I know how Compa feels…" he muttered—Hey, wait! You're not supposed to know who that is yet!

"I spend a lot of time on the Hyperdimension Neptunia wiki… and watched Lost Pause on WeeTube…" the angel looked at me with half-lidded eyes.

"The softness… the creaminess… the sweetness… I'll never know love again…" Rom muttered in complete sadness. She cast her eyes towards the angel over the stove and blushed a little. It was a not-so-secret that Rom had a bit of a burgeoning crush on him. The only ones who knew were Blanc and Ram. Even Kuro himself had started to pick up on the subtle signs that she was interested in him, but wasn't 100% certain. The fact that she fainted due to embarrassment when he confronted her about it didn't really help either. So, he instead reluctantly chose to act oblivious until he obtained further proof.

Now, Kuro wasn't doing this just to be a heartless ass, far from it actually. He just needed time to review his own feelings. Kuro was still just a boy. Plus, he was still only a novice when it comes to understanding the female mind. If one were to ask him right now, Rom was as much of a sister to him as she was to Blanc and Ram.

'Miss Ram just likes to mess with me and there's no way I could ever be with Lady Blanc. After all… an angel can never truly understand a CPU…' he thought bitterly as he presented the three goddesses with their food and then asked the obvious question.

"So, Lady Blanc, what sort of mission do you have for me… if any?" he patiently awaited for her to finish her lump of food before answering.

"There's an overflow of monsters in the forest outside of Leanbox. The full details you can get from Mina. Just your basic monster extermination. Nothing special."

"But why would you even remotely care about what happens in Leanbox? Don't you hate their CPU or something?" Blanc sighed and rubbed her temple with a strip of bacon still in her mouth.

"Hrr hrrnshtee krrnt shtrrd hrr." Her speech muffled by the greasy food. Kuro pulled the strip out of her mouth, with some minor resistance of course, and she repeated herself more clearly.

"I said, I honestly can't stand Thunder Tits. But it's just in my best interest to keep both her and Leanbox alive for now. Keywords: for now." she said while stabbing her eggs with her fork in boredom.

"Okay, but before I go, I have one final question…"

"What?"

"Why do you always call Lady Green Heart, 'Thunder Tits'?" Blanc's temper flared briefly before she reigned in down, something she rarely did. Kuro paled at seeing her bend her fork.

"You'll figure it out once you meet her… if you meet her…" she was sort of hoping that he wouldn't. Kuro nodded and swiped a strip of bacon from Ram's plate, ignoring her indignant protests.

"Alright. Be back by sometime this evening." he went back to his room and grabbed a small ring with crimson runes on it, putting it on his finger before running out the door and heading to the front desk of the guild. The other people there exchanged greetings with him as he made it a habit to visit the guild on most days. He was met with a familiar face.

"Miss Mina!" he called out to her. Mina is the Oracle of Lowee. She appears as a tall, light skinned girl who has very long milk-blue hair worn in low pigtails held with big orange-yellow circled pieces with short bangs. Her eyes are dark blue with a red square pair of glasses in front of them. She is usually seen wearing a short white dress under a red, long jacket like robe worn open with gold lining and buttons. The sleeves puff below her elbow and have long cuffs, while at her neck is a collar and red bow with a golden badge. A matching graduate hat is on her head with two long white tassels on opposite ends, while she also has a pair of see-through, frilled stockings and red heels. She had the appearance of a student graduate.

"Good morning, Icarus! I'm assuming you're here for today's mission?" she greeted cheerfully. Mina was usually left in charge of educating and disciplining the twins when Blanc is too busy. Kuro would always help her by keeping the twins occupied when Mina was called for other duties. Because of this, they became good friends, despite her… clumsy tendencies.

"Yep! It's just more monster 'externanination,' right?" Mina giggled at his screw-up and a 22-year-old blonde woman with pointy ears stood up from her seat on the front desk.

"It's pronounced 'extermination,' Kuro."

"Right. Thank you, Miss Adlez" he rubbed the back of his head.

"You didn't forget your weapon again, right?" Adlez asked.

"Nope! I learned my lesson the last time." he held up his left hand to show his weapon in its ring form for easy carriage.

"Did you forget to eat breakfast?" Mina questioned, remembering his unfortunate habit of forgetting to eat before leaving for his daily missions.

"I… had a piece of bacon. Heheh." Mina gave him a critical gaze.

"It's never a good think to skip breakfast, Icarus. You know the saying…"

("Breakfast is the most important meal of the day…") Kuro, Mina, and Adlez recited simultaneously.

"Yeah, yeah… I'm aware of that—Ow!" Kuro was hit in the face with a granola bar, courtesy of Adlez.

"It's dangerous to go without breakfast. Take that."

"Aw… but these are so bland and tasteless…" Kuro complained.

"You say that as you eat it." Mina deadpanned.

"I know… Ugh…" he gagged and turned around to finally leave for his assignment.

"Oh, wait! I almost forgot!" Mina called out and jogged towards him. However, in a moment of sheer bad luck, one of the other guild members had a bouncy ball bounce off of the wall and rolled directly in front of her path. And… she stepped on it. And then… she fell. And Kuro just happened to have turned around and the two collided with each other and the former landed on his back.

'Ow, ow, ow!' Kuro grimaced and opened his eyes, only to be met with both Mina's navy blue…

…and her lips ending up on his left cheek.

"I swear, you're like a walking kissing booth at this point." Adlez rubbed her temple with a sigh. Mina, on the other hand, backed off and stammered something incoherent. The angel blinked in confusion.

"Why are you apologizing? Your lips are really soft, you know that right?" he asked, his brutal honesty controlling his response. The poor, embarrassed Oracle's face glowed and her heart skipped a beat. It wasn't like she was in love with him. Far from it actually. Sure, she thought he was kind of cute when first meeting him, but he was just a friend and nothing more. But that didn't stop her from reacting in that sort of way.

Kuro approached her with analytical eyes before placing his forehead on hers as if it were an anime.

"W-w-w-w-w-what are you doing?!"

"Checking to see if you have a fever. Your face is red, so I got worried."

"N-no, I'm fine! Please move your face!"

"Are you sure?"

"YES!" If this went on any longer, she might have a heart attack.

"Okay! Well, then see ya!" he dashed out the door and took to the skies, wings aglow with a brilliant gold color, heading south towards Leanbox. Honestly, he couldn't wait to meet the CPU of Leanbox in person.

The twenty minute flight mostly uneventful until a few aerial monsters came into view. He took off the ring on his finger and it transformed into a large cannon that took up his entire arm. Kuro fired its small, explosive rounds at the attacking monsters. It was fairly easy, minus the fact that due to the cannon's size Kuro's movement speed was considerably slowed.


Came a cry. Kuro stopped mid-flight and tried to locate where it came from. Unbeknownst to him, a large avian creature resembling a phoenix had him in its sights. Its feathers are predominantly silver and black, with blood red tail-feathers, a black underside, and navy blue feathers at the tip of its wings. The massive sized bird dive bombed the unsuspecting angel. By the time Kuro had located it, it was too late. The monster had hit its target point-blank with its curved beak.

"WHOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAHHH!" Kuro screamed as he plummeted to the ground at dangerous speeds. After the unforgiving plight, he landed face-first onto the hard ground, his head effectively buried into the earth in a rather cartoon-like fashion.

'Huh… surprisingly not dead…' he thought morbidly. In tradition to head burials, he comically planted his feet firmly on the ground and attempted to pry his head out of mother Earth's semi-impregnable creation.

"Thank you, Plot Armor…" he muttered as he fixed his chiton of any dirt or rocks.

Casting a glance upwards, he saw the beast that attacked him circling around the skies, presumably searching for him.

'Heh… good luck with that. I'd rather stay down here and work on my cardio than to go up there and fight that thing. Despite how much I wanna return the favor for that sneak attack.'

Kuro started off in a random direction before something snapped in his mind.

"Where exactly am I?"

('You're actually pretty close to Leanbox. But you're going the exact opposite direction that you need to go.') a rather familiar voice rang in his head.

"'Kay, thanks, Miss Mina—wait, Miss Mina?! Where are you?" he heard Mina laugh at his confusion.

('Surprised? I'm speaking to you through your halo right now.)

"Well, that's convenient."

('Another thing: you can actually just think what you want to say to me and I'll hear it. This'll ensure you don't look like a crazy person who talks to himself.')

'Okay. How far am I from Leanbox right now?'

('Do you want time? Or distance?')

'I'm not good with measurements, so I'll take time please.'

('Approximately 20 minutes.')

'Approxo-what now?'

('It means about.')

'Okay. Thanks, Mina!'

('Anything to help. But be careful and watch out for the Phoenix that's lurking around you.')

'That thing that dive bombed me?'

('Yup. It's one nasty creature. Even more frightening is its ability to regenerate any injury in a manner of seconds.')

'Well that sounds a little TOTALLY CHEAP!'

('Cheap or not. I think it's in your best interest to keep away from it for now.')

'Right… On it…'

('Don't start sulking. Angels shouldn't sulk.')

'I'm not sulking. I'm just… upset?'

('Saying it like a question doesn't make me any more convinced.')

'…' Kuro remained silent as he trekked.

('Are you ignoring me?')

'…' Again, no reply… What a jerk…

('Yes, you are. Ta-ta~')

"Glad that's over" Not by a long shot, asshole! Anyway, it was a fairly easy outing minus all the annoying Dogoos that spawned everywhere. Out of the corner of his eye he spots a cave, but decides against exploring it… for now. What has his full attention right now is a new enemy in front of him. It looked like a small boy in a white robe with a jack-o-lantern for a head. A small, black and white text box appeared above its head when it spotted Kuro.

"'Please don't pick on me?' Oh, well, I really wasn't planning on it, man. I mean—" his response was short lived as the pumpkin headed boy lunged at him with two pronged claws and shooting projectiles out of its "eyes."

"Oh, my goddess!" Kuro exclaimed in surprise as his cannon shifted into a smaller, curved blade. He shot the jack-o-lantern monsters in its head, instantly killing it. He looked indignantly at the dead corpse, then scoffed and trudged off the rest of the way.

"Seriously…? That dude is gonna open up with a line like 'Please don't pick on me' and then immediately jump after me like Lady Blanc when she's in one of her bad moods? Really? REALLY?!" he ranted as he finally arrived in Leanbox.