Author's note:

* I'm using a heavily modded version of New Vegas as a point of reference; if needed, I'll end up namedropping a relevant mod in the author's notes.
* [Dialogue in brackets] indicate translation-convention'd Japanese; if all dialogue in a chapter is in Japanese, I'll just put a blanket note on top and skip the brackets in individual lines.

To say that war never changes is a massive simplification.

True, the underlying causes remained similar throughout history – desire for resources, display of power, frustration with your lot in life; all of them with various levels of justification. This part is, to an extent, innate to humanity. But the methods and weapons of war are largely dependent on the time and place, on the available means and knowledge, on how far one was willing to go and what one was willing to sacrifice.

When the Phantom Thieves of Hearts waged their war against the corrupt and complacent society, they managed to get by using subterfuge, various connections, and nigh-unlimited access to the consciousness of both individuals and humanity as a whole. But once the forces against them were revealed to be more powerful than they could've expected, they found themselves just barely scraping to survive.

And as it was about to turn out, they were about to be dropped into a different kind of war entirely.

Ren Amamiya – known to friends and one murderous traitor as Akira Kurusu – has never expected everything to escalate as far as it did.

First, there was this drunken MP harassing a woman. Then, the criminal record and move to Tokyo. Then, supernatural vigilantism. Then, picking a fight with a nationwide conspiracy. Then, faking his death and proclaiming his survival in a nationwide pirate broadcast. And then, when he thought things can't go further, a literal god borne from the masses' stagnation decided to drop the pretenses and enslave humanity.

Akira and the other Thieves stood their ground on a large piece of floating debris, facing the mad god towering above them. Akira had just ripped off his mask one last time, manifesting a Persona matching Yaldabaoth in size. His other teammates struggled to remain standing upright, and Akira himself was clinging to consciousness mostly out of a sense of duty.

"[Preposterous…]" Yaldabaoth boomed, but there was a hint of weariness in his voice. The Thieves, despite being seemingly out of their depth, managed to make quite a dent in the mad god. "[Are you not of humanity…]"

Akira didn't dignify that with a response. With a shaky hand, he slowly raised his handgun to deliver the final blow, and his Persona mimicked the gesture, much more steadily, with his own lever action rifle.

"[No…]" Yaldabaoth responded. "[Your hubris…]" Spheres of energy manifested in the god's hands – not red-and-black ones like before, but fainter, with a more orange hue. "[must be punished…]"

A neuron in the back of Akira's brain fired, with an order to pull the trigger, but the finger didn't move. He was past running on fumes at that point, he was too unconscious to register that he was already out cold. The others would have encouraged him to end the fight, if they weren't in a similar or worse state.

"[I…]" Beams connected in front of the god's torso, not unlike in an attack he had tried before. "[I banish thee!]"

Instead of a single wide-angle disintegration beam, a scattering of thin lasers fired from the concentration point, each hitting a different Phantom Thief. Instead of the pain he had anticipated, Akira felt a sense of weightlessness, and the world around him dissolved into complete darkness.

As soon as his brain registered that he's hearing that piano piece, Akira sprung up to his feet, ready to fight.

He scanned his surroundings. Everything had an expected blue tint to it, but didn't resemble the prison he had anticipated. It resembled a restaurant or bar or some sort. Most of the furnishing was made out of some sort of dark-brown wood; a bunch of worn-down round tables had an assortment of matching chairs around them, there were a few empty pristine clean beer glasses on the counter, and a pianola in the corner was lazily going through a roll of perforated paper. It vaguely resembled a saloon from one western he had watched with Makoto.

"[Welcome again, Trickster.]"

Akira spun on his heel, putting up his fists in a clumsy attempt at a guard. The all-too-familiar vaguely human long-nosed being stood in front of him.

"[Fear not,]" Igor reassured him in a scratchy voice, as opposed to the booming baritone of that mad god. "[I am not the impostor, and I present no danger to you. Mr. Amamiya, was it not?]"

"[Y-yes,]" Akira kept his hands up. "[And you're… Igor, aren't you?]"

"[That is correct. Please, have a seat.]"

Akira finally registered that he was back in his civilian attire and didn't have any weapons on himself. Playing along seemed like the least suicidal option. He sat down by one of the tables and Igor placed himself opposite him. "[Lavenza?]"

"[Yes, master?]" The assistant noiselessly manifested herself next to Akira, startling him enough to fall off his chair, sideways.

"[An Aqua Velva for me, and…]" he glanced at Akira, on the floor in a heap, "[What would you prefer?]"

"[Uh, coffee.]" He picked himself off of the floor. "[Americano, two shots of espresso, a lump of sugar, hold the milk.]"

"[As you wish,]" she bowed and marched up to the bar counter.

"[With that out of the way,]" Igor glanced at Akira, "[I assume you have questions.]"

Understatement of the century, he thought, sitting back down. He decided to open with a big one: "[I'm dead, aren't I?]"

"[Not yet,]" Igor replied, tenting his fingers. "[The usurper has merely banished you to an alternate time and space. Since the Velvet Room is unconstrained by such things, we are able to have this conversation.]"

"[Where are my friends?]"

"[Same time, relatively close space. Beyond that, I cannot tell. You might be able to search for them after leaving the Velvet Room.]"

"[You've intercepted me, why couldn't you do the same to them?]"

"[Because you have spent a considerable amount of time in the Velvet Room, invited by the impostor,]" Igor explained. "[My powers are too specialized to assist you in a more direct manner. All I can do now is warn you about what's to come.]"

Akira mulled over that answer, as Lavenza had returned back to their table, way faster than he would've expected. She placed a cup of coffee in front of Akira and a bottle of aftershave in front of Igor.

"[Oh.]" The ends of his mouth twitched just a bit more upwards than usual. "[Literal humor. I understand.]"

"[I will bring your real order soon, Master,]" Lavenza said with an impish grin and walked away.

Igor looked back at Akira. "[Any more questions, Mr. Amamiya?]"

He took a sip from his mug. It tasted exactly like he believed a good coffee should taste – which, in that specific room, made him feel on edge. "[Can you tell me anything about the world Yaldy banished me to?]"

"[In many ways, a future,]" he described. "[A frontier of civilization, sandwiched between multiple powers vying for the area and its resources. Very dangerous – arguably more dangerous than your time. The threats are more overt, at the very least.]"

An alarm horn went out in the back of Akira's head. "[Are my friends in danger?]"

"[Depends on where exactly they ended up. There are civilized settlements in the area, they could offer them relative safety.]"

"[I gotta go find them.]" He stood up and poured what remained in his mug down his throat.

"[We must discuss one last thing,]" Igor replied, "[namely, your return to your original world.]"

Akira choked on his last gulp of coffee – he didn't expect that to be an option. "[Wait, (cough cough) you can do that?]"

"[Not immediately, but yes,]" Igor elaborated.

"[And you want to do that?]"

"[Your drink, Master.]" Lavenza placed a glass filled with a translucent blue liquid and crushed ice in front of Igor, then put a black crazy straw in it.

"[Thank you,]" Igor said, then picked up his drink and, without breaking eye contact with Akira, sipped it through a straw. "[Why would I not want to?]" he said to him. "[Even putting aside my role as an assistant of humanity, you have freed me from the usurper's chains and I want to repay you for it. I could even place you in the exact moment after he has banished you, allowing you to deliver the killing blow he had denied you. The only difficult part, other than reassembling your team, would be finding your origin world.]"

"[Finding it?]" He sat back down. "[What do you mean by that?]"

"[There are multitudes of universes, Mr. Amamiya. Ones where you perished early, ones where you didn't become the leader of the Phantom Thieves, ones where you have convinced the usurper's Wild Card to join you…]" He sipped his drink some more. "[Trying to find a specific world manually would be a fruitless endeavor. Thankfully, one of my past actions may inadvertently help to simplify the process.]"

"[Less cryptically, please,]" Akira requested.

"[One of your teammates is a being born from humanity's collective hope,]" Igor explained. "[Morgana has enough of your universe's people in him to unambiguously direct you back to your world.]" Noticing Akira's unease becoming even more pronounced, he added: "[That process will not harm or alter him in any way.]"

"[So… the bottom line is, if I gather everyone, you can send us all back home, yes?]"

"[Correct.]" Igor nodded. "[You do not have a time limit… well, I do not impose one on you, at least. You don't seem to have any more questions for now, but should you have some later on, you will be able to return here.]"

"[Thank you.]" Akira bowed his head, then got up. "[How can I leave this place?]"

"[There's an exit right behind you.]"

Akira spun on his heel, and noticed a saloon-style door, with nothing but bright white on the other side of it. He took a moment to gather his wits, then confidently marched out through it.

"[Best of luck, Trickster,]" Lavenza said, but he was out of her earshot at that point.

The first thing Akira paid attention to after opening his eyes was a ceiling fan spinning above him. It was attached, as expected, to a ceiling, which seemed in need of a serious renovation – the paint that used to be white a few decades prior was cracking and falling off in large chunks.

"Good mornin', kid."

He turned his head towards the sound of the voice, and found himself staring at an older white man sitting on a chair in front of him. He had a black shirt and an impressive mustache.

"Don't panic," he reassured him. "I'm a doctor. Call me Doc Mitchell."

Akira took a moment to process the sentence before registering that he was talking to him in English. "Whu-what happened?" he asked, going for a generic American accent.

"A fella found you out cold outside and dragged you here, concerned about your state," Doc explained. "You didn't seem too hurt, just bruised and exhausted. Just needed some rest."

"And…" Akira scrambled for a non-suspicious way of asking that question, "where am I?"

"The town's called Goodsprings. You're not from around here, are you?"

The question went right over Akira's head. "And, um, where's Goodsprings?"

"Well, before the War it was in Nevada, right next to the border with California," Doc replied. "But now locals call it the Mojave Wasteland."