The world woke up for the first time in over a year.
Joseph walked out of his hut, seeing Zach.
"It just me… or does it feel like a lot of time has passed between yesterday and today."
"Yeah same." Zach replied.
Eventually, the entire gang appeared, all feeling the same thing.
"So… anyone got any idea what happened?" Anthony asked, met with silence.
"Well, only one way to find out." Ben replied, before snapping Joseph's neck. His corpse fell to the ground, as most of the group were stunned into silence.
Suddenly his corpse raised back up, now floating with a glowing aura around it.
"The main character cannot die before the end of the story, this error must be fixed" it announced.
"Aight but before ya go can ya explain what's goin' on." Zach asked, he then looked over to the others "Since Joseph the self-insert, the author doesn't let him die ever, so we can just kill him to summon him whenever we need to ask shit. Only problem is we completely forget we can use this whenever there's important things going on."
Joseph woke up in the middle of this and said "The mc can't sit out of any scene that he's in.", leaving the floating state by crashing into the ground. "Just send notes down whenever you're replyin'." He instructed the sky.
The first note fell down
"A year has passed, because I didn't write anything for a year"
"Why?"
"Because this series is meant to move in real time"
"But if we were doing that the story's still behind where it should be, since it was only a few months between part 1 and 2, not a full year." Alexandra questioned.
There was no reply for a few minutes, finally followed by a note drifting down gracefully.
"Fuck."
Joseph then attempted to cover for the God that always backed him up "Well still, if we just have another timeskip, it's good right? Just gotta change something or other. You'll think of something, right?"
"Eyepatches are cool."
"Yeah so someone just needs to lose an eye or two…" Joseph paused for a second "Riko!"
"Why?" Riko asked, before his right eye ceased to exist and an eyepatch appeared over it. "Oh… that was easier than I thought."
"Wait a minute!" Anthony yelled at the author "How come only he gets an eyepatch, eyepatches are a unique thing right, so I should get one too, to stand out!"
Anthony's eye then also exploded.
This sparked a chain reaction of everyone asking for eyepatches and other cool features to get over a timeskip, until everyone was pretty much unrecognisable.
"Actually…" Joseph thought aloud, while performing sick flips on his hoverboard in his ascended aura level 4574 form "This might be a bit much."
"What are you on about? This is great." Sean pointed out, still producing infinite money out of nothing like he had been for the past ten hours.
Ben then appeared out of nowhere "Well, killing something in frozen time… just ain't the same."
The God of Sponge then looked to the sky "Aight, we'll just roll without the second timeskip."
All of the changes were then undone. Ed and Revel were left in the middle of a random town, which had now rebuilt itself instantaneously when he was right in the middle of destroying it with his super cool demon army, while the five hundred white fatalis Alexandra and Zino just took out disappeared. The now super rad Callum's sunglasses disappeared, leaving him without any sense of identity. Instantly, all the comrades he'd gathered ceased to exist and he went back to existing in the shadows.
"So now we're here I guess" normal Joseph said.
"What did the author even do over the year?" Natasha asked.
"Read vns." Joseph explained.
"What did he learn?"
A final note fell down, very slowly.
"Archer from Fate big sexy"
Everyone tried to process this and continued until Joseph started yelling.
"Happy 2nd / 4th anniversary / Halloween / Christmas / New Year / Hanukkah / whatever else we missed."
No one knew how to react to this either.
"Now for a bunch of short chapters so the readers don't get mad that we missed over a year of updates for no reason."
Riko sat in a corner, glaring at his surroundings.
Around him, the group was active, mostly interacting with their monster companions.
While Riko sat in the corner, completely alone.
"Why the hell am I the only one?" He thought.
"Everyone else has monsters to be with them but me…" He continued "I get that it's not normal if you think about how most people are… but I feel like I'm abnormal here cause of that. Besides, ain't being so far behind everyone else in terms of strength a serious death flag? When something strong shows up I'm gonna get one-shot for sure."
Anthony walked up to him "You aight?"
"Yeah, probably. Just sitting in a corner being jealous of others. The usual."
"You've never done this before."
"Yeah, so?"
"Ok but why are you doing this?"
"Everyone who isn't me having monster partners."
"Well now that you mention it, it is pretty weird that you're the only one. Still, it's really not much to be jealous of."
"You got somebody to talk to and better combat power. I really don't see a downside here."
"Well yeah sure, but to be honest it gets pretty tiring after a while. I mean, Wave, I feel like he's gotten way too used to living like this. He doesn't want raw meat like you'd think a Lagiacrus should, it's always rare steaks, or else he won't eat it. He won't even accept well done ones! It's seriously inconvenient, do you know how many more Aptonoth I had to kill, it takes ages, rare steaks are impossible to make after you get into the habit of well-done anyways and he's behind me isn't he?" Anthony asked, before Wave picked him up using his jaws and quickly slid off.
"I don't even have anyone to have problems like that with though…"
Riko thought about it more "Well first, I should probably work out a reason to live. Oh yeah, what if I just asked everyone else."
After doing this, he received several answers, including:
"Money."
"Adventure."
"Money, I guess."
"To become the strongest."
"Get a lot of money."
"To conquer hell and become the great demon king, then rule over this world for eternity."
"Uhhh… it's money, sorry."
"A lot of these… are about money." Riko thought aloud. "Well, it's not like that isn't part of my motive." He thought further about what he should do.
It's not like this was new. He'd spent years without a motive to do anything. It's not as though lacking one would cause his death. Yet still, people with a motive have something to work towards, which appears to be something good, from how it's generally perceived. Not that he could relate.
In the end, deciding that for now having nothing was good enough, as he had before, he went back to sitting in a corner feeling envious.
"Twin characters, a force that had existed since the dawn of time itself. In fact, it wouldn't be wrong to say that twin characters existed before time. The very idea fascinates humans and anything in the universe, surpassing all will. The idea that two completely opposite concepts could start at the same point, defies all reason. On the other hand, the idea that two completely identical concepts could exist as separate beings is also defying reason. Truly, twins are a spectacle of life!"
Zach yelled this out in the middle of a room, to a crowd he had gathered.
"What are you on? Was this even a part of your character before?" Questioned Vert, having come thinking she'd learn something.
"Well, it's not like any of us know him, so maybe?" Terrence suggested, having just been roped into it somehow.
Ed sat in the corner in silence, being edgy.
"Besides, something like that doesn't even work unless you're voiced by Kam*ya Hir*shi or Miy*no Mam*ru." Vert pointed out.
"Wait, what's with the censorship? It's not like copyright matters here." Zach asked.
"According to the rules we're not allowed to include real people, but who knows whether we can mention them. Getting banned might give us a chance to market ourselves as so good we got banned, but it seems to be more trouble than it's worth. So we're playing it safe for once."
"Well, I'm too tired to care. Anyways, back to twin characters. While they are great, part of the reason why they're that is cause they also don't exist. At all. Ever. It's impossible, ya know?"
"So then wh-" Terrence began, before being interrupted by Zach continuing with "But in spite of that, there's one right here!" He then pointed into space.
"Oh you mean the Nata duo." Terrence observed.
"So I've gathered all of ya here today to try and work out whether they're actually opposites or, more likely, it's an act."
"So how are we gonna do that?" Vert asked.
"Well of course, we just gotta separate them. Twin characters don't work as well when they're not near each other."
They then ran to the gathering hall. Vert and Ed grabbed Natalie and took her on a Kut-Ku quest, while Zach and Terrence convinced Natasha to go on a Great Maccao hunt.
As they waited to arrive at the hunting ground, Vert noticed that Ed was still being edgy, so she asked "Why are you even doing this anyway?".
Ed was silent before finally saying "If someone in this group drew more attention to me I would die."
Vert was then silent, sort of worried that that was one of his only lines.
They arrived on the hunting grounds and after some searching found their target.
Ed then yelled out "Foul beast! Fear the power of the devil! Five thousand and nine years of suffering, damnation and pain formation!" He and Revel then charged forwards.
"Yian Garuga are naturally better than Kut-Ku…" Vert fight "In which case this will end quickly, before we can observe anything. We'll just copy whatever Zach reports back with, I guess."
Ed and Revel then reached the Kut-Ku and began to very weakly flail at it, doing nothing.
"They're… acting… right…?" Vert thought.
"We should assist. They're doing their best." Natalie observed.
"Sure…" Vert replied, before her and Vrai jumped forwards.
Vert gave this no thought, but Ed calmly observed the conversation as he failed to kill a Kut-Ku. "I see, the caring side could be an extension of the introversion. She hasn't broken character yet."
Vert then jumped in to punch the bird in the face, while Vrai slashed at it from the side.
Frega began to sing, giving the others an attack boost.
Natalie hit the Kut-Ku from the side, before also giving an attack boost.
The Kut-Ku attempted to strike back by pecking at the ground, Vert quickly side stepped this but Ed and Revel were knocked backwards. Vert then took the opening to jump into the air and land a punch from above. Vrai then slammed her tail into the bird, causing scales to get stuck in it. The Kut-Ku was now bleeding, but recognising that if it stayed there to wait it would get more damage it attempted to fly to safety.
This was a mistake, as Vert jumped into the air and landed a punch straight to its head which knocked it back into the ground and left it stunned. Everyone then rushed the Kut-Ku, this was checkmate.
Meanwhile, the other group had arrived at the Ancestral Steppe a while ago and were now facing down the Great Maccao.
Natasha instantly charged forward, but then the dog-bird raised itself off the ground on its tail, before pouncing forwards with a kick, knocking her back.
Other Maccao surrounded them, which the other four were preoccupied with fighting off.
However, there was still a Brachydios left unaccounted for, so Aki lept through the air towards the Great Maccao.
Her head was buried into the ground, causing a series of explosions in a line, which caught the Great Maccao off guard and sent it flying through the air. Natasha then took advantage of this chance and sprung forwards, slashing at it before it could reach the ground.
Noticing that the fight wasn't going in the larger ones favour, most of the Maccao scampered off, leaving the others to face it.
Zappy charged towards the Maccao, with Zach atop his back. He was about to crash into, when the Maccao barely managed to dodge and got ready to strike at his side, only for Zach to fire at it, causing it to be knocked backwards again.
The Maccao then spun around to notice a figure around it and jumped out of the way of Demi slashing at it with his claws. Terrence leapt from his back and fired off arrows at the Maccao, which it was unable to avoid. Being stopped by this, it was then completely open for more of Demi's slashes.
Finally the Maccao looked around desperately for one last opening and noticed Natasha staring it down. It got ready for another pounce and started kicking through the air towards her at a high speed. Rather than dodge or block, Natasha instead readied herself. The Maccao drew close, as the charge blade switched into axe mode and was brought down with an overhead swing, knocking the oncoming bird wyvern into the ground and finishing it off.
They then regrouped back at Dundorma, where both realised they hadn't noticed any difference from normal.
"Now that it's come to this, we only got one choice…" Zach began.
"Accept it?" Terrence asked.
"No, you fool! Interrogation!" Zach yelled in response.
Zach then paused, before walking up to the two of them and asking "Hey are ya pretending to be opposites?"
Natalie then got incredibly nervous and started blurting out something that couldn't be heard to how rushed it was, while Natasha simply replied "Yes sort of."
Zach then ignored Natalie and questioned further, while posing dramatically "How so?"
"When we got here Natalie said that we should stand out and be easy to tell apart for others… so she got a haircut. That's it."
Zach was then silent before once again posing dramatically and yelling "Yer lies… I have seen through all of them, no deceit can escape my view, the truth is exposed."
This was to cover up that it was basically nothing and he was wrong earlier.
Matt and Sean stared each other down, somewhere outside of town.
"Today is the day where I'll prove that I'm the superior bowgun user!" Matt yelled.
"This was a weird turn of events." Callum thought, watching this occur.
Earlier that day, Matt, normally known for being the responsible one, had sorta been drinking too much for whatever reason. This led to realising he was intensely jealous of Sean for existing, so he decided that he would challenge him to a duel to see who the superior bowgun user is.
Callum was chosen as a judge for their duel, because he had a pretty sick grappling hook.
Matt raised his gun, while Sean didn't move.
He loaded in a tranquiliser and remained tense, ready to fire the moment Sean moved. He stared at him more, attempting to detect the slightest twitch, the slightest amount of killing intent, any sign he was about to fight.
Nothing happened.
"Yer not taking this seriously, are you?" Matt asked.
"Yeah, ya got me. I don't care that much." Sean explained.
"Then, lemme raise the stakes!" He posed dramatically "Whoever loses this duel will have to leave the group!"
"Got it."
Matt then fired anyways, shooting his gun twice. "This is my trap." He thought "After hearing the gun fire, the natural reaction would be to roll out of the way then fire back. Of course, this is exactly what I am betting on. If he rolls to the left or right, one of these bullets will connect. I respect my opponent, so my plan is based on my expectation of him dodging!"
However both bullets hit the ground, as Sean stood in place.
"Did he see through it!?" Matt thought, before realising it was just that Sean couldn't be bothered to move.
"Ok!" He yelled "I see you're still not taking this seriously, so…"
Sean suddenly sensed a change, that perhaps he should start to focus.
"The loser will have to pay the winner 500z!"
As he finished that sentence, he suddenly felt himself get hit by a tranquiliser and passed out. In the space of a second, Sean had ended the duel.
Callum took a second to process what had just happened, but managed to mumble out "Yeah Sean wins" before Sean reached into Matt's pockets, took all of his money and walked off without anyone really being able to stop him.
After waking up, Matt felt pretty awkward and just tried to ignore the conditions he'd set, with life returning to normal.
TO BE CONTINUED
So there's the first chapter in over a yearish. It was a pretty fun and unproductive hiatus. I have nothing to say here, I said it all in the rewrite. Vns are fun but they kill writing.
As for the schedule, it should be back to biweekly at this point. I'm sorta busy with college, but also I'm now planning to spend a lot less of my free time on things that aren't this. It's possible I'll be late to deadlines, but I'm just going to be aiming for on every other friday.
See you next chapter and hopefully not in a year.