And so here we are with Chapter 3! I'm hoping everyone whose reading it are enjoying it as much as I am writing it! That being said though, I won't prattle on any longer, so happy reading!

Chapter 3: The Oracle of Steamport

Nova made his way through the forest, he'd found the main path that led to Steamport and even with how far he was away from the city, he could see the massive skyscrapers that were jutting out of the city and reaching towards the sky. It was quite the marvel and Nova was actually a bit excited to see the city in person once he reached it. Of course, that just meant he had (according to Gray Heart) about another hour or so of walking to get there.

"Sorry, I left most of my usual dungeon traveling items at home." Gray Heart said "Well, not that it'd be much use with the state I'm in now, looks like items don't carry over."

"Uh right..." Nova replied, not having any idea what she was talking about. It sounded like something out of a video game. He just shook his head at her words and opted to continue walking in relative silence. It was about a few more minutes before Gray Heart piped up again

"So tell me...what are the CPUs of your world like?" she asked

"The what of my world?" Nova replied genuinely confused, this girl was just saying all sort of random things

"The Console Patron Units, you know your gods."

"Ah." Nova sighed "Well, I don't really know all that much about them. I am friends with one though, she sorta has the same deal we have going on right now. She's in law enforcement actually."

"One of the goddesses of your world is a cop? That doesn't sound too impressive really."

"Don't let her hear you say that. Besides, that's just her day job. She's actually the goddesses of life, and pretty good at her job too."

"Really? What kind of games has she made?" Gray Heart asked, her curiosity at an all time high

"Er...none? Our gods don't really make games or anything like that. We humans make our own games and stuff like that."

"Really? How odd." Gray Heart stated, Nova was about to reply when three small animals...ones that looked like dogs except they were...slimes too,they were cute though and had a small tongue that hung out of their mouths and a little tail on the back as well, but just what the hell are these things?

"Oh great, more dogoos, they're a type of monster that are all over the place. Take them out before the three of them try to merge together!" Gray Heart warned

One of the creatures 'dogoos' as Gray Heart had called them leapt at Nova, trying to attack him with a body slam, but he easily side-stepped it, the little thing wasn't that fast at all.

"Well alright, but uh, I don't have a weapon to use, and I doubt punching these things are gonna work." He said as he dodged the other two who tried for a pincer attack.

"Oh crap right...let's see...try summoning my sword that should fix the problem, just focus for a bit and it should appear."

Deciding not to argue with her, Nova did as she said and to his surprise a greatsword materialized into his hand with a bright glow. It was surprisingly light for how big it was and was at least 5 feet long making it a full foot shorter than him; he gripped the sword tightly, giving it a few practice swings. It was almost as if the thing were a part of him, and while he was usually used to fighting with two swords, this didn't feel unnatural at all. The dogoos had seen the whole display and each looking at one another begin piling on top of one another.

"Shit, they're combining! Look out!"

True to her words, the dogoos began to expand, getting bigger and bigger until it was least as big as a small house.

"Well...that's probably not good." Nova groaned looking at the thing as it toward over him. The giant dogoo lurched forward in an attempt to hit him, surprisingly moving a lot faster than its size would suggest. He blocked the tackle from it, but it pushed him back a bit.

"This thing definitely hits harder at least..."

"Want me to take over?" Gray Heart offered

"Nah, I've got this, this thing is simple. Sides, let me show you a trick."

Standing perfectly still, Nova focused his power, a small bit of his will into the blade, it glowed a beautiful light blue color the more he focused. The giant dogoo, seeing this charged at him once again, hoping to knock off his concentration but it was too late. As it closed in, he swung his sword cleaving the giant dogoo in half and destroying it in a blip of data. If Gray Heart had a mouth, it'd probably be hanging open.

"What was that, magic?" she asked surprised

"Nope, sheer force of will." Nova said plainly as the sword disappeared and he continued walking as if nothing had happened.

"Force of will,what do you mean by that?" Gray Heart inquired, she'd have a raised eyebrow,but you know...being sort of a ghost ruined that.

"I'll explain some other time, let's just get to town already."

An hour passed before finally, Nova arrived at Steamport proper. The city was pretty cool looking, there were dozens upon dozens of sleek futuristic looking buildings, above him were people getting around via some sort of floating platforms. Numerous billboards and advertisements (Many of which had Gray Heart's face on them) were sitting around on top of buildings. Overall, it was a pretty amazing sight.

"So this is Steamport. Not a bad looking city at all."

"But of course, nation of Steamport is a thriving one thanks to yours truly!" Gray Heart boasted

"Right, that's great and all, but where do we go first?"

"The Basilicom, the largest building in the city, a good friend of mine should be there. We'll let her know about what happened first. If word got out about what happened then it wouldn't be good."

"It's a bit too late for that." Nova said, he'd walked over to a newspaper stand while she'd been talking and right on the front was a picture of Grise, wearing her gray colored dress as normal and having a warm smile on her face, but there was a large X on the image with the headline reading 'Goddess Gone for three months! Is this the end of Steamport?'

"THREE MONTHS!? I WAS ONLY GONE FOR A FEW MINUTES, HOW DID THIS HAPPEN?!" Gray Heart bellowed inside Nova's head, causing him to grab his head in pain

"Look I don't know, either, but it's safe to say that the god who brought us here knew where to send us, but didn't focus on the when part."

"Ugh whatever just get us to the Basilicom. We're going to talk to my oracle."

Deciding that they shouldn't waste any more time, Nova made a beeline straight for the Basilicom, it didn't take him too long as the streets, while full of people walking had very few cars at all. With how large the city was, he was shocked that there weren't any buses at all. It probably had something to do with all the floating platforms, but that wasn't important to think about at the moment. He stepped into the Basilicom its church like interior making him want to stop and marvel at the intricate designs, but his sense of urgency getting the better of him. There was a receptionist sitting there minding her own business, but gave a light bow as he approached

"Hello, how may I help you? Have you come to put up a quest?" she asked kindly

"No, I need to speak to the oracle." Nova replied

"I'm terribly sorry, but the oracle is currently busy, she can't afford to speak with anyone right now."

"I've got information on Gray Heart." Nova said bluntly, the receptionist's eyes went wide at the revelation of such startling news; it took her an entire minute to recover from such a bomb.

"I-I-I see" she sputtered "We-well, if you would kindly leave the information with me, I can forward it to the oracle and-"

"Sorry, but I need to speak to her about this personally." Nova said with an unwavering gaze at the receptionist, the poor woman couldn't find it in herself to go against him with such a look on his face and let out a defeated sigh

"I hope I don't lose my job for this..." She muttered before tapping a few things on her computer "Yes ma'am, I have news. A young man is here with supposed information about Lady Gray Heart and wishes to speak with you. I see...yes ma'am, I'll send him right away." The receptionist looked back at Nova and pointed to an elevator. "Take that to the highest floor, the oracle will be waiting for you there."

With a curt nod, Nova did as he was told heading into the elevator and riding it towards the top. It was pretty quiet in there and there were a lot of floors in the Basilicom, not surprising given how big the place was.

"Did you have to scare the poor woman?" Gray Heart chided "She was practically pissing her pants from the way she was looking at you."

"I'll apologize later, at least we got through without any trouble, I was honestly expecting her to call the guards or something."

"Good point...they must be really desperate for information then." The two continued having they're conversation for a short while before the elevator finally stopped. Stepping out, Nova took a look to his right to see out of the windows that lined the hallway. They were pretty high up and it wouldn't be a stretch to say that one could see the entirety of Steamport from here, it was quite the sight for sure, but as much as he enjoyed taking in the scenery, he walked forward towards an office door that slid open as he neared it. There, sitting at the desk with a neat stack of paperwork (good lord was it huge) sat a young fair-skinned girl with long grayish-black hair that ran down to her hip. She looked at him for a moment, her blue eyes sizing him up as if she were staring down a criminal before standing up and clearing her throat. This gave Nova the time to look her over a bit more, she was wearing a corset top that had a cute black ribbon that was tied at the center and held between the breasts, a black jacket with crosses on the sleeves, a black and grey skirt with white frills lining the hem and for footwear she had grey shoes with a cross design, worn with a pair of black and white leg warmers with a pair of white and black striped stockings. The last thing to note was she had a cool pair of black and red headphones around her neck. Overall, an 8 out of 10, not a bad looking girl at all.

"So, you're the one with information on Gray Heart? Don't waste my time, spit it out already!" she growled, glaring at Nova, which snapped him back to reality, hopefully she didn't notice him checking her out...

"Jeez, not even going to bother introducing yourself? Name's Nova, what's yours?"

"Nitroplus" the girl snarled "Now out with it, what do you know about Gray Heart?" It was clear she was agitated, probably because of all that paperwork. Realizing this, Nova just decided to get right on out with it.

"Well, I sort of am Gray Heart. " He said with a nervous chuckle, the next moment he had barely ducked down as a katana sailed over where his head had been.

"I'm not in the mood for jokes, keep this up and I'll throw you out of the window." Nitroplus said with venom clear in her voice, her katana trained on Nova in case he made any sudden moves. He got to his feet carefully, holding his hands out to try and placate the girl

"Alright, just calm down, I can prove I'm not lying. Gray Heart, it's all you." He said to (at least from Nitroplus's point of view) seemingly no one. That all changed when in a flash of light, where the boy once stood was the familiar face of Gray Heart.

"It's good to see you Nitroplus. I trust you've kept things under control in my absence?"

Nitroplus didn't reply, she was still in visible shock at what had just occurred to her and it took all of her power just to give a small nod.

"What happened to you? Why are you a boy now? Where were you for three whole months?!" Nitroplus exclaimed, each question coming out rapidly after the other as she tried (and failed) to properly comprehend what was going on.

"Calm down, let me explain what happened exactly." Gray Heart replied with a calming tone

One explanation later...

"So someone killed you...? And then some other god stuck you in that Nova guy's body?" Nitroplus asked making sure she had the story right as she and Gray Heart sat down across from one another.

"That's the abridged version of it. I know you've probably been working nonstop since I was gone, but is there any chance you can look into who might have attacked me? And what that weapon they used was? It's something that can easily kill a goddess, so whatever it is...it's definitely dangerous."

Nitroplus nodded "Of course, but...what about you? What are you going to do now?"

Gray Heart let out a sigh "First, I'm going to sleep. I'm burned out from all that's happened...then tomorrow, I'm announcing what's happened to me."

"Are you sure that's a good idea? I mean, how are the people going to take this?"

"Who knows, hopefully all will go well, I can't really stay quiet now that I'm back." Gray Heart sighed "I've seen the headlines and I need to reassure the citizens of Steamport that everything will be okay."

"I understand, I'll do the best I can, when do you plan to do the announcement?"

"A few days from now should be good, one last thing...how goes things in regards to the other goddesses?

"Well, no signs of them getting antsy, but Vert has been quite eager to meet you."

"The CPU of Leanbox, why would she be eager to see me?" Gray Heart said with a raised eyebrow

At this, Nitroplus blushed a bit "Well, she's my friend and I sometimes mentioned you when we played 4 Goddesses Online together. I've subtly mentioned some peace talks and Vert has been more than accommodating. The problem is well...you weren't here, so I had to dodge the line of conversation for a while."

"So what you're saying is...we may be able to negotiate a peace treaty with Leanbox?!" Gray Heart exclaimed with excitement in her eyes

"Yeah, after you do that big reveal of yours, I suppose we can get to work on it?"

"Yes, good work Nitroplus...you've done a great job running things while I was gone. I'm turning over control to Nova again, but before I go, I've got one last thing to say."

"What's that?" the oracle replied

"Nova was totally checking out when he first walked in here."

A flash of light enveloped the room once again and Nova was back in control of his body...and staring at a glaring Nitroplus.

"S-so, glad to be working with yo-"

He was cut-off mid-sentence by Nitroplus slapping him hard across the face before exiting the room.

"Dammit Gray Heart." He muttered, as the goddess snickered at his misfortune, he let out a loud sigh as he rubbed his cheek. He'd have to find some time to apologize, but for now, he decided to follow Gray Heart's plan and get some much needed rest. The day's activities had finally caught up with him and he felt a lot more tired than he did a few minutes ago.

END

And there we have the end of Chapter 3. Fun fact: I was actually thinking of having the oracle of Steamport be someone else entirely, but after going back and thinking on it, I think Nitroplus seemed like a much better fit. Besides that, I hope you all enjoyed this chapter. And don't worry, that little bit of power Nova showed off will be explained. Anyways, tell me what you all think!