An update! Doing this since I will be doing a chapter for Bunny's birthday as well as Christmas. Heh. Hope you enjoy it.

(O.O)

Blue Rose arrived at NevaCorp's building with extreme trepidation. This was the first time she went back to this place since the accident.

She walked towards the entrance and was greeted by the company's scary-looking security. She nodded to the two men and followed them inside the building.

It had been almost 2 months since the incident happened. Everyone was still reeling from the event that changed many people's lives.

A lot of her classmates were victims of the deadly game. There were some teachers too. This wasn't even counting other victims from other schools and the lists don't even stop there.

She knew that a lot of people played the game. It was launched worldwide and the advertisement for its gameplay earned it quite a hefty following. So it shouldn't surprise her that despite nearly 2 months have passed, people are still not over what happened.

Blue Rose finished her musing as she was lead to a conference room by the guards. When she entered the room she was quite surprised that someone was already there.

"Ki-eeh, I mean, Sky High! What you are doing here?"

"Greetings, Blue Rose. It's good to see you. And again, it is good to see you!" The previous King of Heroes stated enthusiastically, "As for why I am here. I received a text from Mr. Barnaby to meet him here."

"I did too. Which was strange because I don't even know how he got my number," the young heroine said.

"Well, isn't this a nice surprise!" a familiar voice resounded from the door.

The two heroes turned to face the new arrivals and were once again surprised by their presence.

"Oragami, Fire Emblem, Dragon Kid! You're here too?!" exclaimed the ice queen exclaimed.

"Don't tell me, you guys receive a text from Barnaby too!" the youngest of the heroes, Dragon Kid, said.

Both heroes in question nodded in affirmation.

The three other heroes entered the room and sat down on one of the conference chairs.

"Why do you think Barnaby-san contacted us and asked us all to come here?" Origami Cyclone asked the group.

"Who knows what handsome wants with us. However, we are here and the only reason he would ask us to come is either the people in this company had a breakthrough in getting the victims out of the game or because he wants to update us on Tiger's condition," Fire Emblem stated.

Silence then fell throughout the room as the group remembered the only member of their team that fell victim to madman's ploy to trap people into his game.

"Has anyone visited Tiger since it happened?" Dragon Kid asked the group.

"Oragami and I went there, but we didn't stay too long," Sky High said with a sad tone.

The other mentioned hero nodded and said, "It was too hard seeing him that way, so we left as soon as we came."

"I visited with Rock Bison, but I too didn't stay too long. Like you said it was hard seeing him like that," Fire Emblem followed.

"I tried to go, but I couldn't go beyond the door to his room. I have a lot of my classmates, who fell victim to that madman and I couldn't take the idea that Tiger was hit too," Blue Rose confessed, tears of frustrations visible in the corner of her eyes.

"Same," Dragon Kid added.

The room fell in silence again. No one knew what else to say and their minds all went to their fallen friend.

The room's door opened and everyone's attention turns to the new arrival.

"Oh, good. You're all here," the new arrival said.

"Rock Bison!" everyone exclaimed, surprised to see the other hero.

Rock Bison was one of their strongest heroes because of his Next abilities. However, he was one of the ones who was hit the hardest when news of Tiger being a victim to Kayaba Akihiko's scheme came to light. He went berserk and almost harmed a civilian, who was put in charge to explain to the heroes what happened to their fallen comrade. Of course, he did it because he found the said civilian also helped the madman develop the game.

His sponsor immediately asked him to take a couple of weeks Leave to calm down. But like Barnaby, he too took a longer Leave of Absence from Hero work and only would be available for really extreme emergencies.

So it was a complete surprise for them to see him there and out of his hero uniform at that.

"Shhh. Geez, I may not be doing much hero work lately, but I still value my secret identity," the man chided. Then he gestured the group to follow him.

"Come on, guys, Barnaby's waiting upstairs in the lab," he told them as he walked in from of the group of costumed heroes.

Rock Bison, or Antonio as he was out of his hero suit, lead the group to an elevator and waited patiently for them to all go inside.

Once all were inside, the bulky man pushes the number 23 button and the elevator carried them up.

"Oy, Bi-I mean, Antonio, what the heck is going on?! I thought you were staying with Barnaby to help watch over Tiger!" Blue Rose, who could no longer wait, asked.

"I was. But something came up and now I am here," the man answered cryptically.

This earned him a glare from the younger hero.

"Don't worry, Blue Rose. We'll explain everything when we get to the lab," the older man said.

"We?" Everyone else in the elevator thought.

A loud Ding was heard and signified that the group finally reached their destination.

Antonio gestured everyone to follow again and lead the heroes through a long corridor. The veteran hero stopped in front of a double door and pulled an ID from his pocket and tapped it on the electronics reader at the side and the doors opened and allowed the group entry.

"Let's go," Antonio said, not waiting for any of them to reply, and simply entered the room.

Everyone looked a bit hesitant but followed their friend inside.

Once inside, everyone was surprised to find a larger room with a lot of computers and a giant one at the center. Each computer had someone tapping away in front of it but the large one remain black and turned off.

Antonio continues to walk and approached another familiar group of heroes.

"You guys!" Fire Emblem exclaimed, recognizing the group as the Second League Heroes of Hero TV.

"Yo!" Chopman, one of the heroes whose Next abilities allowed him to enlarge his hand, greeted.

"Were you all called by Barnaby too?" Dragon Kid asked.

The group nodded.

It was quite a sight, seeing a large group of heroes in the same room with no villains present or even anyone from Hero TV to supervise them. They all turned to Antonio, who seemed to be the only one who knew what was going on, and started pestering the older man for some answers.

Luckily for the veteran hero, Barnaby Brooks arrived in the scene.

"I see you all got my message," he said looking at every hero with a smile, "Thank you for coming."

"Well, of course, we'd come, Handsome, we were all surprise that you even reached out to us," said Fire Emblem. A lot of the heroes present nodded in agreement.

Blue Rose on the other hand.

"Alright, enough of the mystery crap! Why did you call us here?" she told the blonde hero.

"Well, I called you here to show you a good surprise, but if that's how you feel you can leave," Barnaby told her, his eyes gleaming like he was teasing the younger hero.

"Grrrrrr," was the ice queen's only reaction since she knew he was teasing her as well.

"Quit it, Barnaby, and just tell them the good news," Antonio said.

A bright smile graced the handsome man's features before finally answering-

"We found a way to see Tiger!"

The group became silent at this statement.

"Huh? I expected them to be happier than this?" Barnaby said looking confused at his friends' reactions.

"Give them a minute," Antonio told him.

"What?!" The entire group exclaimed.

"That's great news!"

"This is amazing!"

"We can see Tiger!"

"Alright!"

"I am so happy. And again, I am so happy!"

Were only few what they said in excitement.

"Alright, alright, pipe it down. As you can see, there are people working," Antonio told the group while nodding his head to the direction of the people in front of computers behind him.

This was enough to calm the group. Every hero looked at the two heroes in civilian attire expectantly.

Barnaby once again took over the conversation and began explaining what happened.

"As you know, Tiger was one of the hundreds of thousands of victims that Kayaba Akihiko imprisoned in his game."

This earned a nod from the rest of the heroes.

"A month ago, Doc Saito found a way to locate Kotetsu's neural signature within the game by using Maverick's data he collected on Tiger," the blonde hero explained.

"Wait, you don't mean-" Fire Emblem, catching on a bit on what the blonde meant by his statement, said in surprise.

Barnaby nodded with a grim expression.

"Yes. Doc Saito used the data from the Android Maverick had planned to replace Kotetsu with."

"You mean that data with Tiger's personality and quirks that he planned on putting on that more realistic fake Tiger?!" Blue Rose stated in horror.

Barnaby nodded again.

Every one of the first League heroes shared a grim expression.

They remembered learning about Maverick's original plan on what he was going to do to Kotetsu. Most of them were horrified because they were certain that Tiger would've been killed in order to achieve that goal. The rest just felt sick because they weren't certain if they would have spot the difference between their Tiger to the one Maverick planned on using.

The heroes were just happy that Maverick scrapped the idea.

Now, though, they weren't certain how they should take the situation.

"So you're using that imposter's data to locate Tiger," Origami summarized, "At least that other madman's ideas could be used to save someone's life."

The rest of the heroes nodded at this.

"Going back, a month ago, we were able to locate Tiger and actually see what he sees in the game," Barnaby continued.

"Wait! You've already located Mr. Tiger since last month?!" Ms. Violet asked.

"Yes. But like I said, we were only able to see what he saw and it wasn't much help. The team here had planned to be able to do more to than seeing everything from Kotetsu's perspective. They plan to be able to view the game in a wider range," Barnaby explained further.

"Last night, they had a breakthrough," Antonio followed.

"A breakthrough?" the heroes asked.

Both heroes in question nodded.

"Doc Saito had the idea that we should try to access the environment surrounding Kotetsu," Rock Bison started.

"The game developers and scientists initially thought that it was impossible since Kotetsu's not part of the environment and that it might do more harm than good," Barnaby said, "Like activating the game's kill switch on Kotetsu."

The group tensed on this.

"But they were wrong because apparently in order for one to be more emersed in the game, Kayaba, connected one's consciousness to the game's environment," Antonio took over.

"In other words, Kotetsu's neural signature had connected itself to the environment, making it easier for the developers to actually access a new point of view and now we can see Kotetsu and everyone around him!" Barnaby announced enthusiastically again.

"They plan on using this new technique to try and affect more things in the game but this is a start," Antonio finished.

"Did you invited all of us to see Tiger?" Dragon Kid asked with a smile.

"Of course! Kotetsu-san would at least want you guys to know that he's doing alright. Even if he is stuck in a game," Barnaby said with a sad smile.

Every hero nodded in agreement to the blonde hero's words.

"Barnaby-san, we are ready," a familiar man in a doctor's coat, who approached the group, said.

"Thank you, Dr. Ayama," Barnaby said.

The rest of the group just froze. Dr. Ayama was one of the lead developers of the science of that started the NerveGear technology. He was also one of the game's main developers. The group knew that he took the majority of the fall for what happened to the players since Kayaba was already dead.

Sensing his friends' unease, Barnaby explained the situation.

"Dr. Ayama is one of the developers of the game. As you all know, he took the majority of the blame for what Kayaba did. It's only natural that he help in the project to free the gamers trapped by that madman."

The group nodded in understanding.

It was then that the giant computer screen in the room lit up.

The image was focused on a leaf that a small weird looking bug was eating. This confused the group, but then they all heard a loud roar that startled everyone.

As if there was someone controlling the camera, the video slowly moved upwards to the direction past the leaf and the bug, and focus its attention on a clearing a few meters away.

On the clearing, 5 figures stood. One of the figures, which surprised the majority of the heroes in the room, was a giant hybrid of a bear and a monkey. The rest were humans with their swords drawn and pointed at the beast.

The camera zoomed again and this time it focused on one of the humans in the group.

The heroes immediately recognized who it was.

"Tiger!" cried the majority of the heroes in the room happily.

It really was Wild Tiger.

Although, he wasn't wearing his domino mask. The group immediately recognized their tall friend with his signature kitty beard.

He looked different in the all-black ensemble he wore; a black turtle neck shirt and cargo pants and was completed by a long black coach. He had a sword on his back and one in his hands pointed at the beast.

"Remember, I'll attack it continuously but once I block its final attack, I want you guys to switch in and simultaneously hit his sides to finish him off!" they heard the veteran hero order his companions.

The other players said yes before their friend charged at the beast.

The heroes in the room, with the exception of Barnaby and Antonio, nearly screamed in alarm at the sight of their Wild Tiger attacking the large beast on his own. Their expressions turned to surprise though, as the veteran hero dodged the beast's punch by twisting his body to the side. Not wasting any time, the hero continued his run towards the beast's unprotected body and left a gigantic slice in its stomach.

The monster screamed in agony and used its right hand to pound the hero below it.

"Tiger!" Blue Rose cried worried for the veteran hero.

The rest of the heroes let out a small cheer when the camera once again focused back on their friend who, either by luck or pure skill, was able to avoid the monster's attack. There was no rest for the hero as he once again ran towards the beast.

"Aren't they going to help him?" Dragon Kid asked looking fearful for her friend who was fighting the big monster.

"His current companions are low-level gamers, who need more experience in the game. Kotetsu is helping them level up by attacking powerful enemies, lowering their HPs, and having the low-level fighters do the finishing blow," Barnaby explained.

"Does he have to do all the attacks alone?" Origami Cyclone asked.

"Normally, he'd have 2 or 3 higher-level players with him. But from what we gathered yesterday, most of the high-level players in his Guild are currently trying to locate the floor boss," Antonio answered.

"Guild?" Ms. Violet, getting worried as the others, asked.

This made Barnaby smile before answering.

"Kotetsu had been busy this past month. Within that time, he was able to get enough people to create a guild that aims to complete the game and get everyone out."

The pride in the blonde's voice can be heard by every hero in the room.

"So even in an alternate world, our Tiger is still as heroic as ever," Fire Emblem said with a smile.

The rest of the heroes smiled with him.

It really shouldn't surprise them. The Wild Tiger they knew always put others before himself. Creating a group of players who dedicated themselves solely to get out of the game they were imprisoned in, was just like their Tiger.

The heroes turned back to the large screen and continued to watch their friend fight the beast alone.

The monster roared again, as it aimed a punch at the veteran hero. Wild Tiger blocked its attack with his blade again.

The beast grew angry and used its strength to push its opponent back. It was obvious that the veteran hero was losing, but once again, Sternbild's heroes were surprised as they watch their friend pushed the beast back.

They heard their friend shout as he fully pushed the beast back with his blade.

The beast cried as it pulled his hand close to its chest. It seemed that Tiger while pushing the beast back had also sliced off the monster's fingers with his sword.

"Everyone, attack now!" they heard Wild Tiger yell to his companions.

The other players immediately took the opportunity to charge at the beast and attacked the monster with their blades. With that onslaught of attacks, it didn't last long. The bear-monkey hybrid screamed ad it faded to oblivion.

"We did it!" Wild Tiger's companions exclaimed.

The group rejoiced in their victory.

The heroes did the same. Happy to see the victory their friend was able to get.

"Barnaby-san, we are ready to send the item," Dr. Ayama informed the blonde hero.

The rest of the heroes stared at Barnaby in confusion.

Noticing the said confusion, the blonde turned to face his friends again.

"As we explained earlier, we are able to manipulate the game that we can see what Tiger and anyone with him are doing. But we plan to manipulate it to the extent that we can provide enough equipment for the players that can help them win the game."

"Isn't it dangerous? I mean, you said there is still a chance that the game death trigger would be-well, triggered," Origami Cyclone asked.

"It is," Barnaby answered grimly, "But if we don't take the risk then we end up just watching helplessly as Kotetsu fights monsters stronger than any enemy we faced as heroes."

The heroes shared a moment of silence after that. They thought about the monster from earlier. It wasn't as scary as they thought after seeing their fellow hero fight it alone. But according to Barnaby, it wasn't that strong and Kotetsu was merely fighting it so he can make the other members of his team stronger to fight a monster that's more powerful.

If these people are able to aid their friend in such a way, it was worth the risk, considering it's much worse for them to sit and just watch their fellow hero die alone when they can do something.

At that moment they nodded to Barnaby giving him the permission to do whatever they planned to do. The blonde hero nodded in response before turning back to the doctor to inform him to proceed.

A few moments later, there was a small commotion by the group in the large screen. The heroes turned their focus back to their trapped fellow hero.

"Tora-san, look! I think we got a rare item by killing that beast!" one of the players said, staring at a floating screen in front of her.

"Eh?" was the veteran hero's response before looking poking the air in front of him that automatically revealed the same floating screen.

The heroes watched as their friend looked surprised at what he found in the menu page in front of him.

"This is a full regeneration potion!" they heard Wild Tiger exclaim.

"Right?! And it looks like all of us got it!" another one of his teammates announced.

"Everyone?" the veteran hero asked, before turning to look at his other 2 companions.

The other players smiled and nodded.

"Well, aren't we lucky," they heard Wild Tiger say, "But let's not push our luck. We better head back to the guild and let everyone know about what happened."

"But Tora-san, shouldn't we fight another one of those things and see if they do carry regeneration potions? If we collect more of those potions we can be sure to help protect the others when we finally face this floor's boss," another companion of their friend asked.

"We can. But remember, these are Great Mobears that you are suggesting that we hunt," the veteran hero told the group.

"They normally stick in groups. We were lucky to find one alone. If we look for another, we might stumble on their nest, and an Alpha Mobear is three times stronger than the one we fought. It's too dangerous and I can't protect everyone if we end up in such a situation."

"Maybe you can do it? I mean, we can go home and you can-"

"Still no. I can't put myself in danger for a small chance that maybe we can get such items from such an enemy," Wild Tiger told the group devoid of any emotion, "It's stupid and just plain suicidal. Best leave it as a mystery for now."

The heroes were shocked as they stared at their friend on the screen. On any normal day, the veteran hero rarely cared about dangerous situations especially if he knows there's a chance it can help protect others. Such an answer was not expected from the older man.

"Come on, let's go back to town," Kotetsu said coldly, while the rest of the group did nothing but follow the older man.

The screen turned blank by then, indicating that the show was over.

The heroes were contemplative, not knowing how to react to what they saw. On one hand, they were happy that their Wild Tiger was doing alright. He was an even more competent fighter in the show than they expected. But what they saw in the last part of the video affected them quite more than they expected.

"Did we just see that?" Chopman, one of the Second League heroes, asked looking worried as the rest of the heroes.

"Being inside the game hasn't been easy on Kotetsu," Barnaby said sadly, knowing exactly how they felt upon seeing the man, who always placed the importance on saving others

"Yeah. I mean, I only saw a few of his fights with bosses and those monsters in that game, and most of those fights nearly made me wet my pants," Antonio followed. "I can't see Kotetsu being the same reckless idiot we all know and love inside a game that can kill him if he attacks a boss in a wrong way or charges a monster 10 times bigger and stronger than him. Like he said, stupid and suicidal."

"Just don't judge him. I am certain if any of us are put in the same position as him we'd change too. The good news is despite how much this is all affecting him, he's still set on helping people get out of this game," Barnaby completed.

There was a moment of silence. Before the current King of Heroes spoke.

"Of course, we will not judge Mr. Wild! While it is strange for us to see this side of him, that doesn't mean he's not the same person!" Sky High exclaims, "As far as I am concern he is helping these people despite being a prisoner himself. That makes him amazing! And again, he's amazing!"

The group at that. They knew their fellow hero was right. Wild Tiger is still being a hero in his own way in a world that is different than their own, and for that, they can't fault him for the changes he may show in his personality.

(O.O)

Thank you for reading. Reviews are appreciated.