"So you see, I think you were the reason I was able to meet you," Di said, clutching a cup of tea. Virto and Lalu sat around her in the living room, with Alan having pulled up a chair from the kitchen. Virto nodded, but Lalu didn't seem completely convinced.

"But, Virto had never used the portal before he was sucked in. How did you get in before him?" Lalu said, turning to Virto. "Virto, tell er."

"Well…" Virto rubbed the back of their head.

"Virto, you never turned on the portal beforehand right?" Lalu said, leaning forward to stare his friend in the eye. Virto couldn't look at him, looking elsewhere in shame. "I may have run a few tests, but only a few!"

"Virto, how did you not know you teleported a whole ass person across the country!?"

"Well I can't exactly detect anything in Louisiana…"

Lalu threw his hands up astonished at the carelessness. "So we could have someone there from fucking Russia is what you are saying. Tokyo. We could have teleported the Queen of England for Christ's sake!"

"Again, I couldn't exactly detect anything over an ocean. I do admit, I should have been a little less…"

Lalu: "A dumbass?"

Alan, out of nowhere: "Stupid?"

"They are fine alright?" Di said, patting Virto's lap. "Don't be so hard on my pet. If he had never done this, then I wouldn't have been able to escape. I could very well be…missing, right now," Di said, not wanting to think on that any further.

"Oh right!" Lalu said suddenly reminded, snapping his fingers for emphasis. "You are Di, the Lilim made of stars right?"

"Yes, that is an accurate description."

"This same Di that fucked with me while I was amnesic for half a season?" Lalu asked. Di didn't answer, only picking up her stuff and heading for the door. She got the feeling she was no longer safe inside the house.

"Well, you both have been very inviting…" Di said with a fake-cheer, hurrying to the door. She started to open it, but Lalu shut it back, leering behind her. "What, what are you going to do to me…" she shuddered lowly, frozen and stuck between him and the door. He just chuckled, millions of ideas swirling through his head. "Oh don't worry, I have the perfect punishment for a bitch like you~" He said, his laugh growing to a room-filling cackle.

"Please, stop it, anything than this!" Di cried, unable to avert her eyes with her head held in place. She was strapped down in a chair, struggling to escape. She had to watch Lalu mix various sodas in front of her, everything pooling into a brown mess of carbonation in the pitcher. "You couldn't fathom what would do to anyone that drank it!"

"I could, because I did this all the time in high school," Lalu said, pouring some of the mixture into a cup. "Whenever I came across fountains, I would just take a little of everything. Me and my friends called it Goliath. We took dares to see how could drink the most, and you're going to get a front-row seat to the experience."

"No! You asshole!" Di struggled some more, getting the bands to stretch, but they snapped right back down against the chair. "Please, I beg, just do something lewd! We were in a world full of monster girls, I'm used to it! Just don't pour that down my throat!"

Lalu shrugged and smiled, bringing the cup over to Di's face. She could feel the pops of tiny bubbles against her skin, trying with all her might to veer away. Lao took great pleasure from it, licking his lips like a demon. "Bottoms up~"

"Lalu!" Virto yelled from the entrance to the lab. Lalu turned his head, Di starting to relax as she had another moment spared for her.

"What?" He called back.

"Stop torturing Di, we need to figure this portal out!"

"Fine, I'll be up." Lalu grumbled but put the drink back down on the table, turning back to a half-panicking Di. He approached her and undid her restraints, leaving as soon as her arms and upper body were free. "You got lucky this time," he said, leaving her in the lab to see what Virto was doing. Di, having narrowly escaped death by disgusting soda, needed a moment to recollect herself before undoing the rest of her restraints. She held herself as she went back upstairs, spying the three of them surrounding the dining table. "What are you folk doing?"

"We are trying to figure out how to fix the portal," Virto said, adjusting their glasses. They made space for Di to come check it out as well. She saw the schematic for the portal, and all the mathematics done for it, sitting on the side. "Is this what you used to make the portal before?"

"Yes, but I'm trying to add on to it for it to work both ways," Virto said. "But I can't seem to just get everything to work together…"

"What if you use something other than math that we could understand?" Lao suggested. "I don't know if you know this but…you're probably the only one here that finished college."

"Hey, I did a little bit of it..." Di said. "I at least understand the letters, although it has been a while..."

"Fair enough…"

"Why not use what you had before?" Di said. "If you already have the means to build the portal, then we could just-"

"We can't do that, we're trying to do this," Virto responded. They seemed to be getting a headache with how long they has been trying to figure out the problem, their eyes squeezed shut while they ran the math through their head. Lao patting them on the shoulder, starting to pull them away. "Maybe you need a break dude."

"Maybe…" Virto said. Lao and Alan took them for a walk, leaving Di alone with the papers on the table. She shuffled around some blueprints, seeing all the cross-outs and additions made in red sharpie. She knew Virto had a vision, but it just seemed so much easier to follow what they did before. She picked up the paper, looking at the front door of the house. "They wouldn't be back for a while, would they?" She said, rolling up the paper and heading to the basement. "I managed to guide him before. How hard could it have been?"

The door swung open sometime later, with the three of them coming in with scoops of ice cream. Virto was the most finished with theirs, pushing the rest of the empty cone in their mouth. "You guys were right, this break was really needed," they said, walking back to the kitchen. "Now then, time to get back to work."

"Yep, although I don't really know what I am helping with you folk," Alan said, spying missing blueprints from the table. "I'm not really qualified for this, but what are the chances something in your lab took the blueprints?"

"What?" Virto exclaimed, shuffling through them. Sure enough, the three main papers were missing. "But the only one who was in here was-"

The lights flicked above them, with a massive zwoop coming from the basement. Lao and Alan looked around confused, but Virto was already walking down the stairs. The emergency lights came on as they walked through the lab, leaving only their glare to be seen in the red light. They rounded the corner to the end, seeing Di stare with amazement at the purple portal. "What the hell?" They said, seeing Di raise her hand at them. She lowered it once they stopped, her eyes locked on the glow of slow purple swirl. "It's…amazing~" She said. "It's calling me Virto, the world…I can sense it wanting me~"

"Di, I told you not to touch the schematics! Who knows what we could be connected to?" They said. "I was working on it, I could have-"

"You wouldn't have gotten it," Di interrupted.

"Yes I would have! I know what I'm doing!"

"That's why you wouldn't have gotten it Virto, you already built it once," Di said. She looked like her mind was gone from her body, her eyes full of the pink swirl. "You aren't the pawn that so eagerly allowed yourself to be led hand and foot by an otherworld mistress."

"That, is a weird way to put it…" Virto said blushing.

"You had barely sprouted Virto! But now you have methods, you have habits. Your ways are set in stone," she continued on, putting her hands on Virto's shoulders. "You have been trying to fit more costumes into a full suitcase this entire time!"

"I…" Virto didn't know how they should feel. They looked up at Di's eyes, becoming enamored in the vibrantness of its color. It made them wonder if this was what they were like when they first laid eyes on their creation. They had always had fond memories of the moment, but seeing it from the outside scared them. "Di?"

"We must go through Virto!" She said. "We simply have to! Pet and Master! Getting our way back together!" She was jolted out of it by a well-placed slap, causing her to step back a foot as Virto got ready for another. She shook her head, slowly coming back as she looked at them standing in front of her. She looked behind her, seeing the portal still leering over as if it was waiting for the two of them to get enraptured in its bliss all over.

"Virto I…I didn't know," she said. "I just thought that, if we simply did it over, then we could figure out the rest together."

"It is okay, I understand the feeling," they said back. "I suppose I would have gotten it wrong, or at least change my strategy in the end regardless. We should just go in…together."

"Really…" Di looked back at the portal, then looked back at Virto. They heard Lao and Alan come down, Lao holding a pistol at his side. "Is everything alright?" he asked looking around. Alan stopped in his tracks seeing the portal.

"Everything is fine," Virto said. "But we're thinking about going back now."

"You figured out how to link the portals?"

"No, but, and I know that this is a bit irresponsible, but I realized that instead of doing everything here, I could reopen it again and solve it on both sides. It's a long shot, sure…"

"And we could teleport into my mother's bedroom," Di said. "Wouldn't be the first..."

"And be corrupted, yes, but we will be able to go back right now. What do you think?" Virto asked, unsure if Lalu would be on board. They hoped that Lalu would at least be understanding of their reasoning, and support them from the human realm.

"Yeah, sure I'm in," Lalu said nonchalantly. At least he seemed all in?

"Wait, but don't you think this could backfire?"

"Definitely, but I also really want to go back at this point," Lalu said. "If going back means we can make a two-way portal faster, then even better."

"Thanks man,"

"Of course," Lao said, giving his friend a fist bump. "So are we literally going right now or…"

"Wait," Di said. She went to Alan, picking up his hands and holding them. "Alan…"

"This is really it, isn't it?" Alan said. He smiled and chuckled, looking back at the portal. "I'm glad you weren't at least crazy."

"So am I," she said, kissing him on the cheek. "You…could come with us you know. We could be powerful together, and rule over the lands together."

"That does beat working in a store," Alan said. He looked down and thought about it, gripping her hands a bit tighter before staring back at her. "But, I'll have to turn the offer down."

"Oh…"

"I already have a family here," he said. "They aren't family family, but they're family enough, and I love them. Just promise you'll call every once in a while."

"Fair enough," Di whispered back, giving him a kiss goodbye. This one was white with the light of a thousand stars, before fading back down to a kiss-shaped burn mark on his cheek. It hurt to Alan, but in a weird good way as he ran his fingers over it. "Would you look at that, my powers are returning already."

"Bye Di," Alan said returning the kiss on her forehead.

"Bye Alan~" She said once more, turning around and stepping through the portal. Lalu starting walking through also, ready to be Lao again before being stopped by Virto. "Wait," Virto said. "We need to make sure we have packed everything."

"But Di already went! You do that," Lalu said. He went through anyway, leaving Virto as the only one to show Alan out. They awkwardly turned to Alan and sighed, Alan tapping his feet as he looked around like a lost child.

"I don't suppose you know where the exit is, do you?"