Everyone here? We haven't left anyone back at that last cliff-hanger have we? Good. Let's get back to this mess of a date with Iris.
Finally I felt the strength slowly start bleeding back into my body and my eyes managed to open slowly. The walls of the room I was in were a dark grey while weird machines made various sounds from all around me. A glass tube surrounded me while various masked scientists bustled about the place pressing various buttons on more weird machines. This is looking like something out of a horror game or something.
"Ah you're awake" An old voice spoke from behind me when a rather nasty looking scientist stepped into view. He was short and as thin as a stick; along his face lay dozens of scars and stitches while his eyes spoke of a hidden madness.
"No I'm still asleep" I replied sarcastically. "So want to explain to me why you've got me stuck in this cage?"
"Ah yes the containment chamber" He smirked walking over to the consoles "We are going to be running a little test on you, your darling Iris gave us enough power to do this"
"You son of a bitch!" I shouted slamming my hands against the glass, it somehow didn't even crack from how hard I hit it "What did you do to her!?"
"She is safe, her friends should be arriving soon but they will be too late to save you" He smiled broadly as the walls shook as if an explosion had gone off close by, all the scientists looked towards the door nervously but continued their work soon after. "You are completely at my mercy"
"So what are you going to do to me?" I crossed my arms trying to think of a way out quickly before I remembered my link with Foxie and began pushing out, trying to reach him at least.
"Your link with the girls will not work, we are currently nullifying it" He smirked "There are more than a few ways to nullify a link between the goddesses"
"Sure that is totally what I'm doing" I rolled my eyes while failing to hide the smirk on my face as Foxie returned my ping and began heading towards me fast.
"Something isn't right, he is too cocky..." His brow darkened "How long until the portal is ready?"
"Soon! Soon!" A scientist replied, tapping away at the keys even faster, something told me he wasn't the type of guy who enjoyed failure.
"Hurry old friend" I muttered trying to form a weapon of any kind but something was really blocking my connection with the girls, good thing I keep an ace up my sleeve for just the occasion huh?
"What have you done?" He glared at me as I looked around the place.
"Who me? I haven't done a thing" I gave my best wolf grin sticking my hand into my pocket and feeling my back up plan was still there. Score one to the man in the suit.
"Pilot" I heard Foxie's voice in my head "We are nearing the room, be ready"
"You know what they say..." I chuckled gathering the attention of everyone in the room as I pulled a small silver ball from my pocket, twisting it slightly and letting my grin grow as it grew until it was the size of a small ball with sharp blue lights flashing from it "Lights out"
Letting go of the EMP grenade a wave of blue energy flew out and caused the room to go out, lifting the block in my head too. At the same time Foxie burst through the doorway with Noire behind him, her face was a mix of fear and rage.
As the scientists scattered Foxie bounded up to the glass and tore it to pieces with his claws before quickly attaching himself to my around my body like before, but this time his head went around mine giving me an advanced HUD of my immediate area.
But before any action could start something exploded into life and I barely managed to jump forward and dig my claws into the ground before part of the wall behind my containment chamber was almost torn off its hinges revealing a massive, unstable portal.
Spears of lightning came flashing out, slamming into various consoles and people, causing them to disintegrate before they could even scream. Looking around I could see Noire had dug her sword into the floor and held on with grim determination while the old scientist wailed in fear as he held onto a terminal that hadn't been destroyed yet.
"How do you turn this off!?" I shouted over the roar of the portal.
"You can't unless you go in!" He cried "It was designed so that the girls would get here to see you thrown in and lost forever!"
"Pilot he is correct" I heard Foxie speak in my ears "The energy coming off that portal match the ones recorded when you arrived in this dimension that were recorded by Nepgear"
"If you do not the whole world could be destroyed!" He cried out.
"Damn guess this is my time to shine" I muttered "Foxie off you get buddy, can't run the risk of you getting hurt in this"
"Pilot I-" He tried but I wasn't giving him a choice.
"Override code: Alpha, Charlie, Echo" I muttered causing Foxie to shudder.
"Awaiting command Pilot" He replied in a monotone voice.
"Sorry old pal but I can't let you get hurt. You'll need to find me after this is over anyway" I muttered before looking over at Noire who was looking back at me with a look of horror and fear. She had already guessed what was going to happen. "Sorry sweetheart"
"Foxtrot, release your Pilot"
Feeling the clamps on my back disappear I didn't close my eyes as it felt like the world went in slow motion, Foxie returning to his senses but not able to move, instead all he could do was howl mournfully as I fell. Noire, screaming my name as I fell the last few meters to the portal. Her tears following me down until I had fully passed through.
-Back on earth-
"Alright thanks for locking up Ethan!" His boss called out as he left the bar to a smiling young man, a man who is in the prime of his life; full of potential.
But as soon as the manager was gone his face dropped and his eyes were filled with a sea of sadness as he pulled a bottle of Jack Daniels out of the cupboard behind him.
"This always was his favourite" He muttered before pulling out a small silver lighter with a singular spade etched onto both sides "And this was his trusty lighter"
With a heavy sigh he poured himself a shot of the whiskey and placed the lighter on the counter as he felt the tears well up in his eyes. His best friend; his brother was gone. Forever.
"Why god damn it? He didn't deserve to die, not from something as stupid as that" He cried, unable to bring himself to drink the whiskey as the tear's began to fall "He would of wanted to go out swinging, taking down whoever took him down too. So why..."
Collapsing against the wall he let himself slip down it as he closed his eyes in his grief, today it was just too much to make it through without grieving again.
Suddenly his ears popped and something was thrown into the chairs in front of the bar; unsure of what to do he slowly picked himself up and peered over the edge.
"Fuck me I forgot how much crashing into stuff hurts" A voice complained, a voice that sounded strangely familiar "Why isn't the POV on me anymore?"
A figure stood up stretching himself off and brushing dirt off his white suit after stretching his limbs out. His hair still had dirt in it but he didn't seem fazed about it as he looked about the place like he had lost something.
"Well I'll look for it after I've grabbed a drink, I mean no one's here" He shrugged and turned before spotting Ethan. "oh well erm... this is awkward"
Looking at his face Ethan just couldn't believe it, it was...
"Thomas!?" Ethan shouted in shock
"Whoa whoa calm down!" He exclaimed raising his hands in surrender "First give me the POV back"
"What?"
-POV returned-
"That's better" I chuckled rolling my shoulders as Ethan looked at me both confused and shocked.
"How are you here?" He almost shouted almost falling over himself as he went around the bar "Y You're dead!?"
"Yeah I decided I didn't like that" I replied with my usual grin before motioning to the chair beside me "You'd best sit down as this story will take a while to explain. I mean it's already twenty-two chapters long"
Sitting beside me I began to tell him the story you've all been reading, brushing off his questions till I had finished and it took a while; explaining some points took a couple attempts at explaining till he finally understood what I mean.
"So any questions?" I replied, raising an eyebrow at him.
"Yeah here's one: Why did you put down 5ft 12in instead of 6ft?" He smiled already knowing my answer
"Because I'm weird and it seemed to be triggering some viewers" I laughed, you guys really do need to stop commenting on it as I'm not going to change it.
"Well what are you going to do now? I don't see any portal for you to go back through"
"Well the only thing I can really do is hide until something happens, either a portal opens again or someone finds me"
"Well you might as well come back to my place then, your place is... well..."
"Trashed? Ruined? Yeah I remember don't worry"
Leaving the bar together I didn't need to ask him to see how badly my apparent death had struck him, the bags under his eyes and over-cheerful demeanour was enough to tell me that he struggled to cope most of the time, barely able to keep the facade up that he was fine.
Soon enough a week had passed and still nothing; then another, not a whisper about strange lightings or even a voice in my head. The Author was keeping silent as well, either he was planning something too or was otherwise occupied.
Eventually I had to ditch the white suit for enough cash to buy my own clothing: a black hoodie, cargo pants of a similar colour combining that with black military gloves, black ski goggles and a skull mask people. Now of course I didn't go out with the mask and goggles at the same time but I generally had them on hand in case I needed them such as when I spotted people who lived in the same apartment block I used to live in.
"Well those girls sure do know how to take their time" I muttered, pulling out a cigarette, lighting it and feeling the time slip by again as I stared out of the window.
That is when I noticed it, a streak of purple lighting streaked across the sky so fast I almost missed it, causing a grin to spread across my face.
"Yo man I'm home!" I heard Ethan shout from downstairs.
"Hey man you should get changed and get in here quickly!" I shouted excitedly, stubbing out the cigarette and turning a couple fans on to remove the stench of smoke. I didn't smoke often, once a month really but even one can smell pretty bad.
It didn't take him long to enter, wearing his usual smart attire. Out of the two of us he had the looks, combining that with his smart but casual attire women were often coming over to chat with him so much that when the occasional women came over to chat I was more often than not caught off guard.
"I can already tell you've been smoking" He scrunched his nose before nodding to a fan going at full blast.
"Correct you may be that is not why I called you here" I shushed him standing up and pointing out of the window "Just saw some purple"
"Some purple?" Ethan looked at me confused before understanding shone in eyes.
"Yeah means that they must be close" I barely managed to finish before the same portal began forming just outside the window "And here we are"
"What are you going to do?" Ethan asked looking at me, it was clear he didn't want to be separated again.
"Go through, I have to" I shrugged pulling my mask up and slipping my ski goggles over my eyes "Question is what are you going to do?"
"What do you mean?"
"You going to come with me or are you just going to stay here? I mean here all you are going to do is just work in a bar while over there..." I trailed off.
"It is going to be dangerous you know?"
"Yeah I know but then again when wasn't adventure dangerous?"
"True."
"So?"
"Alright I'm in"
"Awesome well follow me!" I shouted running up to the window and jumping through into the portal, I could hear Ethan shout something in Japanese before he jumped in after me.
This portal felt the same as the previous one as I flipped over and over.
"How do you stop this thing!?" Ethan shouted from above me
"Just enjoy it, if this is exactly like the previous portal I was in the exit is going to be really fun!" I shouted "Hey Author are you back now?"
"Hell yeah little buddy" I heard him chuckle as we continued spinning "And to answer your question its exactly like the first one"
"Ethan!" I shouted managing to stop myself from spinning so I was facing him. "You really need to get to me now!"
"Why?"
"Because we are about to play out the intro to Gorod Krovi!" I managed to shout before the portal opened up, spitting us out above the world of Neptunia once more.
"See you next chapter viewers!" I managed to shout before we fell, plummeting towards the ground, Ethan screaming like a baby this time.