PLDF Chapter 28

> Chapter 28: "The Return, Part 1" (Sub-Entries 271-280)
>
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## Sub-Entry 271: "Piquing the Commander's Interest..."

I should have mentioned this.

I have a plan for rekindling the fire within our Commander.  It would mean getting deep in to the meta of our world.  It would mean exploring what many of us were afraid to acknowledge about our...theoretical existence.  It would mean looking past our fourth wall.  It was a bold plan.  It was a crazy plan.  It was the only one I had.

And I'd been sitting on the idea since...

"Sister.  A word?"

"What troubles you, Fate?  You do not seem your usual level of smug, considering your goings on in the preliminary game."

"You play the ignorant fool very well.  Did you think I would not notice?"

"Notice...?  I have no idea what you are speaking of."

"I would have thought it beneath you to resort to such measures.  Such...thievery."

"You are not making sense."

"It is missing."

"What is missing?"

"Do not feign ignorance."

"You will clarify, Fate.  Or this conversation is terminated."

"You would dare take the high ground after entering my personal domain and retrieving the Master Timeline Codex?"

"Master Timeline Codex?  Why would you have such a thing...!"  Destiny stopped herself.  "Wait.  Do not tell me...  You...!"

Destiny tried to hold back her amused smile.

"All this time...after throwing away so many...what mortals would call "logs" of our countless games throughout the UltraVerse's many reincarnations...you've transcribed everything into a master codex?  Is that how you prepare yourself for each of our restarts?"

"You take too much AMUSEMENT in this, sister."

"For all your bluster about chaos and discord...you horde information as a guide.  This is why.  Why you lack originality with each of our "reboots".  You just tweak and upgrade what we've already played through; enough so that even I have not noticed the "reskins"."

"I warn you, sister..."

"You fear losing to me so much that you've had your own take on a cheat sheet without actually cheating all this time.  Detailing everything I have and likely would do.  Detailing everything going back to our very first game in all its painfully primitive glory."

"You should mind yourself about taunt.  You cannot even remember what was transpiring in the UltraVerse 1000 years ago let alone an entire restart of the universe."

"At least when I repeat myself it is by accident or coincidence.  My, my...and they say that Hollywood place has run out of good ideas.  That is why so many remakes and reboots and retellings of the same story and same story elements keep occurring."

"You deny that you hold onto aspects of your precious Volt Arcade and his bishops, knights, and pawns?"

"On the contrary.  I embrace what matters to me.  Despite how often we remake him, he will always be one of a kind; each iteration is just as unique as he is the same.  I am merely surprised you have semblance of sentimentality."

"Do NOT mistake thorough preparation for sentimentality.  It is only logical to draw upon several trials of our games to fashion a proper archetype."

"How I never noticed the similarities...all this time...I think I now finally have a grasp on properly challenging you, now."

"You dare boast when the game has not even begun?  This is a distraction!  Nothing more!  You still deny you have stolen what is rightfully mine."

"I do deny.  If you are to be so petty then search every corner of the Quasar Pyramid.  You will find no such item."

"This is not over."   Fate stormed out.

"Master Timeline Codex...intriguing."  Destiny mused.  "I wonder...?  No.  It could not be so.  But would it not be amusing if..."

I slooooow smiled as I pulled it out of my anime subspace.

"...if it were true?"  I finished Destiny's thought.

I set down the celestial tome.

"Quite the prize.  And just the thing to spark Volt's interest."

And sure enough...

"...Bunnie...is this real?"

Volt was...still shabbily dressed and missing that necktie; his collar still unbuttoned and his lab coat in need of  a wash.

"As real as you and I.  Or at least as real as we theoretically are."

"Asriel...probably would have appreciated your moment of existential query.  Now that he understands the meta-mechanics."

I opened the tome and behold, forgotten pages of lives we both lived were spread out in not mere words and pictures...but an all-encompassing experience.  It was more than just visions...more than just daydreams brought to life...it was more than just holograms.  It was like the spirit of everything that had ever been superimposed over our reality, blotting out what was our immediate space and replacing it with what had been.  It was like our reality had cleared a space...for the ghost images of previous realities to play out in full motion...full sound...all of the senses; smell...touch...even the occasional taste.  And...something beyond the five.  Something that made us sure this...this all really happened.

It felt so real but...prolonged touch eventually gave way like wisps of smoke. Things only felt solid for the briefest of moments and our presence did not interfere with the beings going on in their daily lives.

"Volt.  Do you remember a time when the reploid, Iris was part of our Ultra Crew?  I certainly do not but why would any of us remember our past lives once we'd been rebooted?  Apparently during that time we both were sharing weapon orbs compressed out of Maverick Boss Weapon data.   Compatible with both our buster weapons."

"W...when did that happen!?"

Volt was looking at the alternate timeline.  It was like it was an AU within our AU...maybe it was alternate to us...or maybe we were the AU and we were alternate to them?

"Iris...Thorne?  And her brother's name was Corsan?  Colonel Corsan Thorne?"  Volt shook his head rapidly in disbelief, like he was shaking the grogginess out of himself.

And then in another chapter...

"Ultra Crew Movie 3...?  We were all united together with the N-Team in Hyrule during the events of Ocarina of Time!?"

And then he started coming across things that were familiar.

"This one...Asriel and I have BEEN to this iteration.  I dubbed it "CNRPG" and filed it under "ListBot" as its index algorithm in the--"

Then he figured something out.  He could notice the lack of surprise in my eyes.  He could tell by my expression that he was stating something I already knew.   And he turned grim and looked at me with a dour expression.

"Bunnie.   By any chance...have you been inside--"

"Your secret Dimensional Lab.  I have.  I admit it.  I apologize."

Volt was beside himself for a moment...I could sense I damaged his trust in me again but...

It was like he lacked the motivation to really bite my head off about it.  In fact...it looked more like he'd grown apathetic to its very existence.

"Do what you want..."  He sighed, ears drooping.

I tightened my fist.  This was Clearly a sign that Madam Fate finally discovered my thievery.  But she has only herself to blame for not noticing it had gone missing since I delivered my "message"...at sword-point.

"Volt..."

"I get what you're trying to do--"  Volt stopped as he was flipping back and forth.

He arched his eyebrow at the earliest protoform of our universe.  A simple short story of the Ultra Crew founders just having a lasagna dinner together.  It seemed...poorly authored and the details very lacking.  Almost like looking at a child's crayon drawing...but...not.  It didn't quite make sense but...was this where our universe began?  Volt had described...early AU's of Undertale within our UltraVerse in this context that slowly started coming into existence following the specific date of September 15th--Asriel's birthday.

And then there were other sub-chapters and such from weird things that didn't make sense like a section titled "Garfield Battles the Russians" in a weird end-to-end crossover-stitched-to-crossover where Odie was kidnapped during Earth's "Cold War" period.  And the journey led him all over the place...from  Volt's mentors, the Ghostbusters to Splinter-sensei's lair to an encounter with the Cat-illac Cats of Heathcliff's universe...to somehow landing at Yoshi-sensei's Foot School in Osaka, Japan before Shredder took over...and somehow into a road trip to Moscow.  It was...so all over the place.  There was no sense of direction.  No reasoning why any of us would team up.  No real structure other than many of us...just traveling together.  I think there was even a reference to Rocky 4 or two.  It was like we were watching one of Violet's A.I.'s write our life story.  We were...so lacking personality...emotion...anything defining.

"Is this...even real?"

This led me to wonder if our maker...our real maker/author...if he or she or it had gone through a period of evolution just like us.  That maybe this higher power started somewhere?

You know, Light Yagami went through a period of time mastering the Death Note...

And that was a pretty lousy example to give but...how else do you describe who or what, from our point of view, could be interpreted as a metaphorical god just writing our lives at this very moment?

And then other stories popped up.  More from this "Ultra Crew Movie" universe...then Volt and I found the "Worlds Apart" story...and then "Hybrid"...and...and the "Mirror Warp Underground".

So many different telling’s.

All the while...I was noticing a lot of common place patterns.  I noticed some of the early works didn't even have myself or Violet in them.  In fact we didn't pop up until what was...in-universe, what would have been the bridge between the 20th and 21st century.  The period between 1998 and 2002.

And then finally we reached the section detailing Miranda.

"No way..."

"This is so much to take in, Commander.  Seeing all these variants.  And things that just...I cannot wrap my head around.  Like being married to this Jason McHale person.  These people we've named dropped before...Dr. Zaius and Stuffman and Shyna Nera Shyna.  But I can't remember any one of them even though I'm looking right at them."

I actually SHUDDERED.  And I thought learning my other AU versions had a romance with Antoine was too much to take.  This was outright...insane!  Romance aside...all these people.  What happens when they...just stop existing?  What did Destiny and Fate DO with them?  Or maybe it wasn't even their doing...maybe...that higher power had the last word.

While we were both completely blown away by how many times Fate and Destiny restarted this game...

I was starting to see my plan was working.  Volt was interested.

"Check it out...our VGM-098 universe had a fairly recent previous incarnation.  And in it Mitzi was our last recruit before...the timeline ended...right about what would have been 2007-2008.  What...what must've happened for the goddess to restart so suddenly?"

I was trying to shake off the fact that I had an adopted daughter in this pre-reboot era.  A mouse girl named Karia.  Then she resurfaced briefly after 2008 under the name Kari...but this time was a human.  Then...she just disappeared without a trace.

There were other clues but...what it suggested, at least to me was...maybe our universe had more than one maker...collaborating?

"I do not know...but it shows that my previous self was confined in an all-too familiar facility.  One that Violet would not want us to invoke the name of."

"Fell's Point."

"According to this...I never made it out.  And no rescue attempt succeeded...it just ends."

As soon as I said that I could see the look of worry in Volt's eyes.  While not the first emotion I'd prefer to invoke out of him...worry was a sign that something in him was coming back to life, so to speak.

Oh, that is to say that even if I did bring him back from the brink, he's still be kind of a hot mess.  And I was certain that even we, his friends, and by extension...his family would need that big extra push to get him totally back.

That would require one thing.  Or rather...one person.  Do I need to spell it out?  I should hope not.  This whole thing originated with him.  And now we needed him more than ever.

In our current timeline...it was Violet who went to Fell's Point and she and the rest of the team made it back in one piece and discovered a huge conspiracy.  Just a short time before Miranda City was invaded...and we were driven to Westhaven.

The more we read...or rather experienced, the more questions we had about the...creative choices our maker had along the way.  Most certainly, if our universe ever rebooted again...there would be things about our current existence he might be inclined to question.  There might be...changes that at least some of us would recommend.

I suppose wishful thinking is ultimately wishful thinking when the creations have no control over the nature of your existence.  Some of us in UCIAT most certainly deal with knowing that you're at the mercy of a higher power as to who you are, what you would or would not do and the environment around you.

Yet, I was always one to believe that despite that huge factor...I still had control over what I considered my life.  I am me.  Somewhere along the line Volt had made that same choice; he had drawn that same line in the sand as had Asriel.  As had Violet.  As had many of us.

"You know what this reads like, Bunnie?"

"Like we were all painted into a corner.  Like our makers hit a wall and found no way out.  Just like..."

Volt sighed and rubbed his temples.  A sore spot.

"Like how ACM-001 came to an end...and ACM-002 took its place.  And now neither version of Mobius exists.  The Goddesses just wiped it away when they got bored.  That's EXACTLY the case.  And I've seen that happen.  Asriel and I both have.  Of course...in those instances they were usually temporarily identity crises...but not always.  Sometimes the nature of worlds were permanent like Mobius.  My predecessor self called them "Emulation Rift Anomalies"."

I had him hooked.  If I could keep his interest prolonged...maybe I could get him working on what I had found on Teletran-1.  Maybe...I could get him to agree, preemptively, to accept Brooke-domou's eventual request to start investigating what was resonating with our dimensional barrier.

I slid a can of his favorite soda over.  He looked at it for a moment before thanking me, accepting, and opening it.

\*sip\*

Caffeine often accelerated his thinking processes without making him hyper.

"This is interesting...if what Fate wrote in here is correct...then Fontraile wasn't exclusively our maker's creation.  We...Ultra Crew...were merely imported into something that already existed and the end result became a new AU variant in the UltraVerse.  From there...Ultra Crew became Ultra Crew Institute."

It seemed that "Fontraile" began as something referred to as an offshoot of VGM-alpha.  Which...if it is to be believed...in another universe was merely a forum for requesting to musicians to use sequencing software to compose MIDI's based on game soundtracks."

Volt rubbed his chin.  "That's why our universe has the designation VGM.  Video Game Music.  From there, the meta-universe branched into a small pocket universe with the namesake of our favorite ruler of the country of Raxis."

"Amazing...to think we exist in the meta state as something fictional to a people...a universe out there we can't even prove exists.  All we have to go on is the ramblings of the Goddess of Chaos and Discord in this tome."

"I don't have much reason to doubt the word of Fate even though she has lied to me.  To my face and behind my back.  As well as to Adonis.  To everyone as it suits her game.   This right here...there would be no gain to writing a book of lies if she had no intention for anyone to read it in the first place.  I don't think this was meant as a baited trap.  I think this is genuine.  And she's got to be seriously honked off if she knows its missing.  We can expect a storm coming sooner or later.  Once she's had a chance to think something up.  And that could be hours, days...years...maybe nothing within our lifetimes."

Volt paced back and forth.

"The point of origin as it appears, without regarding any red band section of the timeline, is that moment I dropped into UTPR-3224.  Not the beginning of my Undertale research...but the beginning of Project Lost Dreemurr.  I feel just like Emmett when he found out Biff took the Sports Almanac back to November 5th, 1955.  Like that date in history was some sort of...temporal nexus which the space-time continuum hinged on."

"I am surprised you've glossed over what neither of us has  yet to acknowledge."

Dead silence.  I was about to speak when he figured out what I meant.

"The Zoanthro-Sapien race didn't even exist until our current universe.  Where, when, and how we...well…you and the others are now.  Before then...we were all just aliens from other worlds."

"And you've already discerned what that implies."

"A patch...or a fix...to a problem with the very nature of our previous universe.  In fact...it's the first mention of "Genetic Hybrids" where...all mention of all of our "home worlds" disappear entirely.  We were all...just native to VGM-098 after that."

Volt looked me in the eyes.

"This tome changes everything, Bunnie.  Everything about what I thought I knew about who I was.  Who we were.  What our world was.  There's so much meta here...I feel I might drown in it.  And I can't even tell my best friend about it."

That relapsed him a little.

"I'm sure it is for the best that he not know until the proper time.  Whenever that may be."

"You're right.  Emmett always said no on should know too much about their own destiny.  But what about the very nature of their own reality?  Should any of us...know whether we even exist at all or if this is...something even beyond the Goddess' scripts...their game?"

"If you continue this dangerous thinking it may be detrimental to your mental health, Volt.  Are you willing to take that risk?"

"I can't answer...not just yet.  But...let me state this much..."

"Hmm?"

"If this was...your plan, Bunnie.  To snap me out of it?  Then...pat yourself on the back.  I am not one talk about using unorthodox tactics to coax the result you want out of those who are...uncooperative or situations that are unfavorable.  So...whatever you're doing or trying to do...it's working.  But...I'm not going to make promises I can't keep."

"That's all I needed to hear."

Volt closed the book and entrusted it to my care.

"See you around, Major."

"Yes you will."  I said as he left.

"Yes you will..."  I furrowed my brow.  I was counting on it.

## Sub-Entry 272: "Volt Awakens his Dimensional Lab and Begins Investigating..."

The activity in the UCIAT Main Lab Headquarters' foyer was normal...until he walked in the door.  And then gradually everyone just fell into a hush.

No one was brave enough to speak a word as he shuffled past security, holding up his ID badge long enough to be auto scanned and for the DNA recognition system to confirm his identity and log his arrival.

He headed to the elevator in silence had headed straight down.

From there...it was like this all the way through the lab.

Silence save for the machinery and lab equipment and the supercomputer quadrumvirate.

After a bit...Volt reached the corridor that lead to that lone hallway with the lone door at the end.

Volt was surprised how easily the door opened.  He recognized it as my handywork.

It didn’t' take him long to notice I had...also done a bit of cleaning when I was here.  Even though, as a ninja, I was obligated to leave no trace that I was ever here...It was a moot point.

I confessed.

So why would I do something so blatant to show his place had been invaded?  I had no intention, in the end, to ever hide it from him.  Just...delay it until he was ready.

And...I was Jangese.  We, on average, valued cleanliness.  In body, mind, heart, and soul.  Have you not asked the reason why my dojo required you to enter in bare feet?  One of the reasons was simply because shoes then to track dirt onto a clean floor.  And a home was considered an immaculate place of refuge.  This was especially true for me, whose home was behind a Torii Gate; that which divided the mortal plane from the sacred.  Or so my beliefs went.

Not that I was the neat freak that Antoine was...a coyote who spent two hours spit-shining his boots.  And I mean two hours, EACH.

But yes.  That was one of the main reasons.  I kept things tidy.  I had a reputation in town as being "very clean".  Not just in the obvious ways.

Ahem.

Back to Volt.

"Major.  I don't know whether to snap at you or thank you.  So...let me sleep on that for a bit."

Volt, once he was in a better mood, would probably admit that the place felt and smelled...nicer than he left it.

It didn't take him much to reboot Teletran-1.

"So.  Let's see what it is  you want me to see, Major."

I probably should have mentioned I was watching from the shadows in this very room.  Certainly if he'd been 100%, the Commander would have at least picked up my scent or sensed my heightened electromagnetic field.

But as it was...maybe I just...concerned for his well-being.

Truth be told...I hadn't been that good a friend to him as of late.  Especially after the injury which might as well have been an admission that I broke my code of not seeking revenge.

Still...I'd like to think that sometimes, even if it's through unorthodox or even unethical means, one can still do good.  One can still serve the greater good.

"Well.  No surprise here."  Volt tented his hands at the sight of the number of logged AU's multiplying drastically since he last logged in.

"Good grief...I'll never be able to index them all."

It was good that he was distracted from how much he missed Asriel.  Even though Undertale was right in his face in 8K OLED resolution.

Admittedly...I had another reason for being there.

I....too...wished to know the coordinates of UTPR-3235.  Not that I had the means of accessing it.  Even in my position, the Commander superseded my authority.  Despite being in this state...he still had the last word.

I was breaching security.  And his trust.  Trying to be a better friend?  I wasn't exactly succeeding in this moment.  And yet...I couldn't deny I missed Asriel.  Deeply so.  Enough for me to act slightly out of character.  Breaking the rules was what Violet did.  Not me.

In fact I was surprised she was abiding by them.  Certainly Vi had EVERY opportunity to hack Volt's dimensional lab.  She had every chance to take over the Gate Way room.  She had every chance to break ranks and go rogue.

But...

She abided by the Commander's decree.  We all did up to this point.

I hadn't forgotten what I scanned over.  Many universes I'm certain were new to the Commander.  Just as they were new to me.  Variants of every shape and size.

"DeterminationTale."

Yeah...seemed like this was an obvious one that probably should have popped up ages ago but...here we are.

"AsylumTale!?"

I merely arched an eyebrow.  But Volt nearly spit his soda out.  I really should tell him not to eat or drink in front of the highly expensive supercomputers and mainframes.

But point.  Any AU that has anything to do with a mental asylum is bound to do more than raise a few eyebrows.  Many of us had our own issues with wards for the mentally unwell after infiltrating Fell's Point.  A dark time for Violet and several of our friends.  I think it was about a month before she was on speaking terms with any of us.

My vision prior to has spared my life and Sarina's.  I only wish I had foreseen how awful an experience it was for Violet, Marcel, and the others.  Logically, it made sense to send Violet being that she has a degree in psychology so...whatever tricks our enemy had up his sleeves she'd be able to counter.

At least in theory.

It was tempting to sigh but I didn't want to give myself away.

Down, down, down the list the Commander scrolled, indexing as many of A.E.O.N.'s dimensional satellite captures as he could.

It was genius how Volt had only set all this up as a side project.  Yet he dangled the scraps of his research before the Council to get it even approved.  They had NO idea how much potential was here.  And where there was potential, there was the danger of this technology being overtaken and abused.

Think about it.  Eye in the sky probes transcending every world and reality we had an index for.  Learning about the nature of the Infinity-Verse so we could better serve when we were needed across the Axis of Reality.

Volt and his mentor at Hill Valley's Institute for Future Technology were far ahead of their... time.

Heh.  I made a funny.

So finally the update had finished and Volt had his fill of more Undertale AU's than even he could take in a session.

"Now.  I guess this is what you wanted me to check up on..."

A bit of typing and a lot of shuffling of windows and accessing apps and such.

"Hmm?"  Volt sounded concerned.

"UTPR-3235 unavailable?  What bull jargon is THIS?"  Volt grimaced, while trying to eliminate the noise from the signal.

A window filled with static.

"This isn't normal..."  Volt rubbed his chin.

I furrowed my brow, concerned.

In all the years that he could have checked up on Azzy's world...he didn't.  He showed self-control.  And now that he was relaxing that self-control...it seemed the universe did not want to play ball.

"Come on..."  He growled.

"Gah.  These numbers don't make sense."

He pinched the bridge of his nose between his eyes, rubbing it slightly.

"It's not as if the timeline came to an end.  Telemetry would have alerted me immediately.  It's almost like their world is in a dimensional blind spot."

Logically, the next thing for Volt to consider was the possibility of foul play.  We'd beaten Chaopolis and scattered its ranks amongst the justice systems of the multiverse; with the greatest offenders relegated to solitary confinement in the maximum security wing of Wario Galaxy Prison.  I'm told the warden was a mean tub of lard and his deputy swung an even meaner tennis racket...one outfitted with steel spikes and thermal induction netting.  Like getting acupuncture followed by a waffle iron to the face, in Vi's own words.

As he shuffled apps, he happened upon what it was that I outlined for him.

"Hmm? This energy buildup.  Like a cosmic storm but....something about it doesn't seem like a naturally occurring phenomenon.  Man-made?

The thing is...I know I've seen these wavelengths and harmonics before.  But...the amplitude is so low I can't find a correlation to anything.  It's all just being muffled by the natural EMF noise from nearby pulsars and electromagnetic sources like solar plasma."

A lot of complicated jargon.  It wasn't that I didn't understand the words he was using, it was more that I was trying to make sense of something outside my area of expertise.

I was a martial artist not a scientist.

Though. In all fairness, something like this?  Jon would have been completely before Volt could utter a word.

Volt cross-indexed the energy waves reaching across space-time with the reverberations with the Paling.

And then it just clicked.  Could it be something was reaching out to us but hadn't figured out how to decipher our "magic firewall"?

It made sense.

It was the one thing Volt never figured out...how Adonis managed to crack that safety seal around Miranda and bring his troops straight to our doorstep.

How did Evil-Chara even manage it?

Somehow all of those Cyber Gates they opened to our world...managed to breach the Paling.  If it wasn't already obvious then to Brooke-dono...then it was a real thorn in her side that her protection wasn't as infallible as we once believed.

That would be something that she'd spend a life time trying to get to the bottom of.  Who or what gave them that edge?

Either way...

If that's in fact what this was...then something was trying to hack the Paling to gain access to our world.

It was clear.

it wasn't a matter of "if"...it was a matter of "when" we'd be getting visitors.

Friend?  Or foe?

I'm sure...Volt, like all of us...wanted to believe that one thing that was...well...fairly obvious.

But...there was also something to be said about giving your hopes up.

I was not a cynic.  That I left to Violet, albeit in her most cheerful, yet backhanded sarcastic way of putting things...

...but even I knew the meaning of wishful thinking.

It's one thing to say wishes do come true.

But we're not always in control of when they do.  Sometimes...sometimes there is disappointment.  Sometimes what we want most will give us tunnel vision.  Sometimes we'll chase the butterfly until...

No.

I mustn't think this way.

I have to have hope.

I have to dream.

I have to wish with the Commander that what we are holding out for...is indeed what will happen.

"Well...nothing to do but report my findings to the Queen."

I think that's the cue for me to vanish before I'm discovered.

Well then.

Mission accomplished.

We're bringing Volt Arcade back.

Better late than never, yes?

Now...let's find out what's on the horizon.

## Sub-Entry 273: "Letting the Others Know (In Secret) What's Coming"

"Bravo, Buns.  You were naaaaaughty--"

\*THWAP\*

I don't want to hear it, Vi.

"You do realize you're risking his trust in your, Bunnie.  Especially after we all worked our tails off earning it back."  Sally warned me.

"I know.  The issue is...there is no reward without risk."

"You know one way to put this is...you're playing right into Destiny and Fate's hands.  Playing a mini-game with the Commander to manipulate him back to his prime.  A mini-game within their prelude to the next Game of Ultimate Good and Evil."

"I know, Rotor.  I know.  I am...so far out of my own comfort zone, yet I'm compelled to do this.  For his sake.  For our sakes.  We have to bring him back.  On our terms and hopefully break Fate's hold on him in the process.  Even I'm...unsure what I'm doing.  I do worry.  Worry that in the process of throwing so many things against the wall, waiting for something to stick...I'm going to make that big mistake that ends with us losing our Commander forever."

"So this is what it's like, huh?"  Mitzi crossed her arms.  "For us to think like he does.  To worry like he does."

"Yes."

"So...what's the plan?  Stay the course?"

"Yes, Sally-chan."

"So...I guess I might as well say it.  What if when he gets back here the first thing out of his maw is: "How stupid do you think I am, Major?"

And then he pins you to the wall with the knowledge he knew you were in that room all along?"

"Honey, that's a bit much--"

"No, she's right, Willamina.  There's nothing to do but face the music.  And hope I still have a friendship left to salvage."

"Can we shift gears and go into this...whatever you call this anomaly?"

"Right now it doesn't have a name, Rotor."

"Golly."

"Golly indeed, Gadget-chan."

"Should we...go even further over his head?"  Mitzi asked.  "There is his mentor in Hill Valley.  If that's an option."

"Only as a last resort.  I think I've pushed it enough for now.  Let us have faith in him to tern his curiosity to self-sustaining before we bring in his teachers."

Speaking of which.  I knew something else was weighing heavy on Volt.  Spengler-hakase's ultimate fate.

Right now there was no danger.  Spengler Egon-hakase would occasionally still return to our realm to express his...concern over Volt's situation.

Spengler-hakase seemed in good health.  Nothing seemed amiss.  Then again...Volt's "future shocks" that he experienced in Summerville with Asriel...still seemed to hint that what was going to happen...would not be by natural causes.  Rather...by supernatural causes.

I think that was why many of us still tensed up at the mention of Gozer the Gozerian.  When you got down to it....what did his mentors actually do to save the world from the 1984 Crossrift?  Close the gate, put simply.

But...two things.  Could the Gate not simply be...reopened?  Probably not with Shandor's alter and temple destroyed...as well as the top floors of Central Park West's high rise.

Which left the second issue......who was to say that Shandor only made one gateway into the Gozerian realm?

That was more than enough to compound Volt's worries.

With the destiny of STC's eventual founding lying ahead in Volt's future, relative to now...relative to this world and plane of existence...

...plus the fate of Spengler-hakase...

.....and of course...Asriel...was it safe to say that Madam Fate had more than enough to work with, manipulating our Commander into this sorry state?  And I likely haven't even scratched the surface of what all's jumbled in his minds.  With every world he's been to...every universe he's visited...every point in history he's gone, he has most certainly not gone alone.  Each one had to remind him of an adventure he went on with our little Goat Son.

So the drive to explore waned away with his Determination.

Well...there's more than one way to kick-start Determination.  Even if we don't have the citizens of Undertale in our corner...certainly we can at least follow their examples when Volt needs it the most.

Now...it was just a risk whether reminding him of it would do more harm than good.

A slice of butterscotch-cinnamon pie?  Too much.  Too soon.  It would be rubbing salt in the wound.

But...maybe more subtle things might reassure him.  We'd have to be selective.

I'd leave it to each of us to figure that part on his or her own.

"So.  The Graveyard...or Cemetery...or whatever he calls that storage depot of his whoopsies.  It's been unlocked again?"

"I fear it has, Jonathan-san."

"Bloody bollocks..."  Jon growled, barring his fangs.  "I just want to tear Fate a new one."

"Get in line, J.T."  Sally pounded her fist into her palm.

"So...he's going to Queen Brooke to report, yes?"

"Indeed he is, Pit."

"Should we not offer our support?"

"No.  This is just something he's going to have to do on his own."

"Well said, Callista-hakase."

A moment of silence.

"If you're wondering, I'm okay.  I have faith our son is in a good, happy place right now."

"But...happy enough to never want to leave--"  \*SMACK\*  "Oww!"

"Seriously not cool, Honey."  Willie threated a second whapping.

"Okay, okay!  I get it.  Jeeze, I liked it better when you just whiffed me trying to hit me with your flip-flop sandals."

"Oh my aim has improved since then.  Want to test it?"

"Eheheheh...I'll pass."

"Good thought."

"If you two are done bickering?"

"Well, what would you have us do, fearless leader?"  Honey rubbed her sore spot.

"No, she's right.  We should be putting our heads together.  Remember how easy it was to be on the same page when we still had Team Kopy Kat as a lightning rod to draw our frustrations?"

"Yeah.  I think that's why we're as sane as we are when we all hate on Al Dente.  Even when the town pariah is good for nothing, he's still good for something.  Drawing our fire and brimstone when we're stressed."

"Is that why Violet had him dress up as Meg Griffin for a previous Halloween?"

"As if she NEEDED a reason to do that, Honey."

And there was the laughter.

I could only smirk.  But really. Get back on task, girls.

"It's weird we don't really know what to do when there's no end game scenario.  Heck, when we were on Adonis' turf, it was like we were all finishing each others' sentences in battle.  And we schooled our rivals but good."

"A good point, Mitzi."  Lupe rubbed her chin.

"Yet, we do know something is coming and we'll all have to be as one again to deal with it, yes?"

We all agreed.

"So...I guess maybe some of us should analyze the data and see if we can help the Commander along."

"Anything to help big brother!"  Gadget smiled.

"Well.  We'll keep having these sessions until we come up with a plan.  Until then.  This meeting is adjourned."

I ended our proceedings and we all went our separate ways.

## Sub-Entry 274:  "Reporting to Queen Brooke (Again)":

"Brooke-dono."

I was here.  Volt was as well.

"So.  You going to come clean about--"

"Yes, I know that you know, Commander.  Apologies when it's the time and place.  Not now."

"Best I'm going to get."

"I will...look past your issues provided you get to the point, Doctor."

Volt sighed.

"My investigation has...pointed to something on the horizon."

"Explain."

"Some sort of anomaly is reaching across time and space and...it seems its purpose is to try to decode the Paling."

Brooke furrowed her brow and rose from her throne.

"For a purpose other than the obvious?"

"No.  I'm fairly certain the goal is to gain entry into our world."

"Then something or someone IS coming...?"

"Yes.  There's no electronic ID but...that could be because they haven't succeeded in cracking the natural magic firewall around us.  At least...not on the scale they wish."

"Hmm?"

"This is just speculation...but...there's a possibility that the path they're trying to create is far larger than your average gateway to our world.

I'm going to be "that guy" and use the dreaded three words that are bound to tick off certain critics on the internet...

Ahem....as you know...when we first conceived off world travel in UCIAT based on the warp zone system of our universe's VideoLand; to make it work we had to collaborate with the Mage Academy to use the very minimal amount of magic Esper to open the path up into Fontraile.  Essentially the key to the firewall so to speak.

This was our go-to protection against outsiders that weren't authorized to come and go from this world as they please."

"I recall the very extensive deliberation and paperwork even get our proposal approved."  I rubbed my chin.

Volt rubbed his temples.

"We can discuss old headache-inducing protocols another time.  The point is...every one of our portals at the lab makes use of that specific cipher to allow us off world and anyone with a matching cipher onto our world.  And it's only unique to VGM-098 because it was conceived at that Mage Academy under your orders.  In short...it's the only time we've bent the rules about not mixing magic and science."

"I see."

"So...the question is...is somebody trying to simulate the Mage Academy's skeleton key?"

"It is not merely a fluke of naturally occurring phenomenon, Commander?"

"As likely as Al Dente is to straighten his act up."

"Ouch."

The point stood.  I see what he was getting at.

"This...correlates with something that came to my attention a while back."  Brooke spoke up.

"Excuse me?"

"Brooke-dono?"  I arched an eyebrow.

"Something that was rumored to occur in Rabite Forest.  Sarina confirmed a small crack in the Paling due to the...incident."

Yeah...let's file this "incident" under "classified".  Even I know better than to spill the beans on something like that.  Sorry.  But you'll just have to speculate on your own time.  Just that I can't say under penalty of sedition and/or insurrection.  At the very least a clear violation of revealing top secret information.  Even in this journal scroll.

"Those that caused it have been dealt with.  But fixing the damage took more time than I thought.  So...something took advantage of it before we had a chance to reseal it?  Did...anything come through?"

"Unconfirmed.  Though...in all likelihood a small woodland creature."

"Great.  Lupe probably has a whole speech about letting unfamiliar fauna off world and onto somewhere else in the universe.  Just one can upset an ecosystem, right?"  Volt complained.

"The question is...who or what made use of that momentary path?  And where did that path lead to?"  I pondered.

"Sarina's team attempted to use several dousing spells to ferret out the source or at least any information of significance.  Nothing turned up.   If it was an artificial path to our world, then the one who summoned it covered their tracks well."

"This incident could be related?"  I asked what was already obvious.

"If anything...it's indicative that someone was testing their ability to get through the Paling and succeeded.  I'd say once they figured that the route had closed up they've been spending a while trying to re-open it.  They've been trying to decipher the Paling's codex."

A hush fell over the room.

I can't help but feel like Volt was worried about countless worst case scenarios.

One of them was obviously..."were we about to be INVADED?"

But I'd of course temper that with wisdom and patience.  It was a mistake to let our imaginations run away with ourselves.  We shouldn't jump to conclusions.

Still.

It wouldn't hurt to at least ready ourselves for the inevitable.  Which gave me another question to ask.

"Commander...how long would you estimate we have?"

Dead silence.

"So....we don't even have a time frame?"

Volt shook his head.

It could be minutes, hours, days, weeks, months...even years.  He didn't even have a ballpark.

"The most we can do is keep taking measurements...scans....keep watching and waiting.  I'll...try to assemble my best gear and instruments.  See if something eventually makes more sense."

I was starting to see something else spark to life in the Commander...and what that was...was wishful thinking, in his likely opinion.

He wanted it to be true but to even suggest it felt like he'd...like he's jinx it.  Like he'd get his hopes up for nothing.

I understood.

It was too much to even think about building himself up that much, that quickly......and if it ended in disappointment?  I can see no immediate future where he'd recover from it.

Just...take it slow, Commander.  Take it slow.  I sense what it is you want...what you wish for.  I wanted it to be true, also.

But.

We all were prepared for the worst case scenario.  Chaopolis had taught us to remain always on guard...even in peace time.

Was it not sad that a portion of our optimism had burned away and we were now looking toward the future with skepticism and suspicion?  That we considered the possibility that we might be caught off guard by another Apocalypse?

No.  We would not let that happen again.

On the edge of the knife we would balance.

That was all we could do.

That was all there was to it.

Plan for the worst, hope for the best.

Our meeting eventually came to an end and Brooke-dono dismissed us.

Let whatever comes of this work out in the end.

## Sub-Entry 275: "Strange Things Are Afoot Despite There Being No Circle-K":

I'm sure the Great Ones would most certainly appreciate the reference.  But they had their own path to lead.

We had ours.

It wasn't long before Volt and I began to notice...odd phenomenology start to manifest on our world.  Fairly local.  Focused pretty much around Miranda.  The furthest recorded was Raxis.  Maybe one incident in Augustgrad.  Something unconfirmed in Westhaven.

It began with pockets of energy drifting in an out of existence.

Volt had this to say:

"There's too much static and noise to trace a point of origin much less the nature of these surges."

These phenomenon remained unnoticed by the general public.

We felt it necessary to keep it under wraps so as to not start the beginning of a panic.

Volt's concerns however...seemed to indicate that these weird things happening wouldn't stay under the radar for long.

Someone would notice.

Someone would report it.

At some point...it would leak to the news media and to social media.

The rumors would start.

"Can you tell us anything more about it, Commander?"  Rotor asked.

"It's like looking at pieces of a jigsaw puzzle...but not one of them is within the vicinity of the other.  None of them fit together."

"So...no go?"

"We keep fishing for more answers."

Sure enough.

The strange occurrences did start to accelerate...and intensify."

"So...more than just symmetrical book stacking?"  Violet mused before Volt pointed.  As she turned around...Violet's jaw dropped.

"Oooooookaaaaay."  She watched the weird EMF storm actually levitate a number of Volt's glassware containing various water and soil samples at Lupe's behest.

"That's not normal."

"Ya think?"  Jon wrinkled his nose.

"You're sure this isn't a supernatural occurrence?"  Volt asked Callista.

She shook her head.

"This is extra-dimensional.  Para natural, not supernatural."

Volt didn't need to ask for clarification.  Raymond Stantz had already versed him in the specifics.  The difference between the two.  He understood.

And in time he clued me in on it.

Callista was well-versed herself.

Perhaps...I should clarify for anyone actually reading this?  I suppose the simple way to put it is simple enough for Jonathan to comprehend.  Supernatural?  Spooks, specters, ghosts.  The dead.  Sometimes the undead.  Paranatural?  Other dimensions.  Alien creatures.  Even immortals walked that line.

"Hmmm."

Eventually the phenomenon...became visible to not just us in the know with extra sensory perception or heightened abilities...

...even "normal" people began to notice.

But nothing could have prepared Volt when he saw it.

The gasp heard round the world

"Y...you saw it.  Those were...!"

I turned away, frowning.

What other way to say it but...micro glitches.

Volt was clearly frustrated.

We both didn't want to admit what this implied.  But...I said it anyway.

"Madam Fate is interfering.  She's trying to delay, corrupt, or...outright stop what's coming."

Apparently...my message didn't phase her.

Something was trying to enter our world...and Fate was against it?

This was as concerning as it was reassuring.

And that reassurance was...actually reeling our Commander back in, slowly but surely.  After all...if Fate was trying to interfere...then maybe what was coming was a good thing?

"You're clearly freaked out, Commander."  Mitzi offered a slice of pizza.

"I haven't seen these things since..."

"Indeed..."  I nodded.

"But on OUR world!?  Are they...trying to incorporate us into the game the same way they did with...!?"

And things continued to escalate.

"Well.  This isn't ripped off from the Animatrix or anything..."  Violet flailed a little as she slowly tumbled in the pocket of null gravity.

I yanked her to a stable area outside of the anomaly.  I was tempted to drop her once out of the weird energy field.

"At least it's fairly localized.  They only seem to manifest here in Rabite Forest."

"But not the issue.  The issue is that each anomaly is manifesting in a pattern.  A straight light toward...!"  Volt started before we all turned toward town.

"Miranda City."

"This thing is zeroing in on the town.  Once these events start occurring in a populated area, it's going to go public."

"Brooke-dono won't be able to keep it under wraps."

"Commander...what's really going on?"

"These occurrences are building toward a flashpoint.  And if I had to guess?  We're going to get an unknown portal into our world very soon.  I can't say when...just that it's looming overhead."

I really hoped that whoever was responsible understood they were about to start a panic.  Which led me to two possibilities.  They either didn't know about the side-effects of whatever they were attempting...or they DID know.

I was anticipating the moment my Sixth Sense would be able to tell me which was the case.

"But...why is it making--?"  Mitzi started.

"The laws of physics do some seriously messed up drugs?"  Sally finished, crossing her arms.

"My guess is it's from whatever it is on the other side trying to hack the Paling.  Someone or something doesn't understand the nature of our world's magic."  Volt offered.

"I get ya.  It's like when you type random codes into an NES Game Genie.  Sooner or later you're going to get some weird stuff happening."

"That's...that's actually kind of right, Violet."

"Violet was right about one of her gaming references?"  Mitzi cocked her head.

"Stranger things have happened."  I shrugged.

"I think that this is exactly the reason Neo Arcadia's ancestors separated the use of sorcery and science from one another.   And if whoever or whatever doing this isn't careful, we're going to experience more than a game crash."

A thought occurred to me when considering what Volt had explained before about Undertale having a "pseudo-code".  Some strange...aspect of when the Goddesses turned our copy of Undertale into an AU within our InfinityVerse for their Ultimate Game of Destiny and Fate.

Could they have instilled this in...any world?  Even ours?

They were the Goddesses that script our world.  Why wouldn't they be able to.

When I thought about it...it felt like it had similarities to......well...the lack of better example...was this "roboticization" thing that ACM-001 and ACM-002 had.  That thing my counterpart suffered.  Only it wasn't roboticizing...it was more like code inception.

Were they trying to make our world like Undertale?  Or was it just...a side-effect of whatever they were allowing to happen as we speak?

There was too many shots in the dark that I could take.  And most of them I believed the Commander was already considering.

"Why don't you get to the real meat and bones of this, Commander.  The question that's the biggest elephant in the room."

Volt was silent for a moment before he answered Violet.

"Why can we not backtrace the source of this?  Why can't we find the point of origin?"

Volt opened up a holoprojection from his device and showed us the Axis of Realities.

As far as we could tell...every pipeline...every branch...everything connecting us; our specific dimensional coordinates...our timeline with every other world, point in time, and dimension...was pulsing with the same harmonic.

"So that's it.  The echo is coming from everywhere and nowhere.  How ironic."

"And only a few locations in space-time likely have the technology to even notice this phenomenon going on at all."  Sally suddenly spoke up; reminding us that once upon a time...she was as scholar.  Before she became an athlete.  Or as Vi called it "Reverse Major League".  Now there was a baseball movie reference in all of its R-rated, Charlie Sheen glory.  Vi still wonders if Jo-Bu ever got his refill.

Ahem.  I digress.  Everywhere and nowhere.

That's how he described where he found Asriel.  Just as I was describing it now.

The resonance was too strong.  And because of that the echoing harmonics were distorting any wavelengths that could be used to identify what this was.

It seemed like a lot of convolution to why we couldn't get a simple answer.

It also left me with a concern.  All this time, and someone certainly would have...thrown it out there...suggested that what and who this COULD be.

But...no one had said it.

Maybe...maybe many of us felt we were still protecting Volt from getting his hopes up?

At a moment I was sure no one was watching, I looked up into the sky, as if I could see past the stars.

I...wanted to say what was on my mind.  But would just...stating what I thought do more harm than good?

So this is what it feels like to worry.  I'd almost forgotten what it felt like.

## Sub-Entry 276:  "The Phenomenon (Plural) Intensify.  People Start to Notice."

It started with unconfirmed reports.

As Vi put it...sometimes weird stuff happens...somebody has to deal with it...and who ya' gonna call.

If Volt were completely in his right mind...he would have thwapped her long ago.

Rather, instead...he took that as a hint and for the first time went to his mentors in New York City.

To that old firehouse, Hook & Ladder 8.  Now Ghostbusters Headquarters.

He went to that place in the basement.  Home of "Big, Red and Metal".  The E.C.U.  Ecto Containment Unit.

He had his conversation with the Wraith.  The lone member of "Legion" danced around the issue.

Even tried to bait-and-hook him with the possibility...that maybe Adonis has subjugated his kind.

But...despite the ploy...Volt was still in a mind right enough to see right through it.

A desperate gambit.

Possibly the first attempt at pulling strings to its own freedom?

No.

It probably could have made other attempts before now.

So why now?

Something was happening behind the scenes.  Was Madam Fate dangling a red herring to stir us all up?

Volt concluded...our enemy wasn't going anywhere.  Both the Wraith and Adonis were sealed away and not coming back any times soon.

But that said...

We had no idea how little time we had before we crossed the threshold.

The point of no return.

We had no idea.

Then it was upon us.

"We've got to get control of the situation, Bunnie."  Rotor had taken off his ball cap and was clutching his skull in a freaked out look.

"I'm all for a bit of chaos but not when it's building toward mass hysteria."  Violet crossed her arms as she lounged on one of her personal lab's desks.  We couldn't even chastise her for this since it was her lab.

"You never quite get over watching a cat lady lose her mind when every cat in her house suddenly gets every bit of fur on their bodies POOFED in an explosive air blast of a cloud...for no explainable reason."  Mitzi looked toward Lupe who just nodded with an almost "I'm out" expression.

"Nevermind the hairless pets and the symmetrical book stacking through EVERY aisle of the Miranda public library..."  Sally scrolled through the news reports and eyewitness videos and photos.

"If we don't reign in this insanity, people are going to think the end of the world is at hand...again."

I grimaced for a moment, recalling Adonis' attempted mass-genocide and planetary destruction.  All of our deaths were gruesome and we SITLL remembered them.  Overcoming them didn't mean that we'd never think about them again.

"We got another one...this one had time going backwards for 10 second intervals.  I had NO idea the Paling was this powerful!"  Gadget covered her mouth with both hands.

"And frustrating the mage academy to no end..."  I looked over to Volt who looked really worried and had a moment of realization.  A realization that it was echoing of Project: Exodus.

We didn't need another cold war between sorcerers and scientists.

Certainly we didn't need anyone in the Mage Academy jumping to conclusions and holding us responsible for what we going on with Miranda City's very reality.

We deliberated and argued and just kept searching for some kind of answer...some kind of plan...something to mitigate these occurrences.

But just as we were coming up short and turning in a big blank...so was the Mage Academy.

Brooke considered it a delicate situation.  She considered trying to brute force apart the connection between us and the other world.  But...Volt convinced her that there was too much risk of backlash throughout the Axis of Realities.

There was a danger she could actually end up destroying both our worlds.

Which...left all our hands tied.

There was nothing left to do but let it run its course.

At this point...how much worse could it get--

"Uh...guys..."  Jon decided to rejoin us.

"...you really should come top-side and see this."

Kuso.

Pardon my language but KUSO.

As soon as we exited the UCIAT HQ and made it out to the street.

"I don't think we're going to be able to cover this up..."  Violet gaped.

"Oh my...!"  Lupe's eyes widened.

"Of all the things that could have happened...why this...!?!"  Jon about blubbered.

Let me first remind you that we were deep into December.  It was winter.  We'd have a very good amount of snowfall lately.  Knee-deep.

It was normal.

Normal...except for a growing circular area that was gradually overtaking an increasing area of the center of the city.

And the nature of that area?

"I think the groundhog has undergone a shadow-ectomy."  Violet joked.

"What in the seven metals of alchemy...!"  Volt finally spoke.

And the sound of his tone?  Anything but disappointed.  Even though he was really "freaked out"...?  Yeah...he could imagine billions of fates worse than spring...summer forcing its way into our city.

Like that...the climate was changing nearly instantly as it spread toward us...

It was like winter sharply and abruptly stopped at the edge of the growing sphere of energy build-up.  Where inside...a sunny, warm paradise...where the colors almost seemed like they intensified...like everything had a weird pastel glow or aura to it.  This energy...the contrast between where it was coming from...and the nature of our world.  It made it all the more obvious.

It truly showcased the difference between worlds that were connecting.

And I know...we all FELT this very essence before.  Several, several times.  But greatly subdued.  Like a natural ambiance.  Really...when you submersed yourself in it, it became unnoticeable.  But when you stand between the borders of two contrasting environments?  It's familiar.  And you feel it loud and clear.

"Should we run or something--"  Was all that Gadget got out before it swallowed us up.  And then.

Nothing.

Really...that's all that really seemed to happen.  I turned from winter to spring/summer all around us.

At least...we thought that was all.

Then Lupe was the first to notice...the flowers.

Flowers growing out of cracks in the sidewalk.

Flowers growing in impossible spots.

But only the two of us...noticed these were a familiar flower species.

We've seen this type of flower before.

We know this kind of flower...this flower of this very specific color.

But in our panic...we were overlooking the most critical of details that probably would have explained EVERYTHING from the start.

"Oh my stars..."  I actually uttered an the catchphrase of my ACM-001/SATAM-001 counterpart.  A catchphrase often used by my own mamma.  I'd danced around the notion that my mother was...more like my counterpart than I was like my counterpart.

But for that moment...my subconscious was reminded that...I am Bunnie Rabbot.  I am a Bunnie Rabbot, rather.  One of countless variants across the InfinityVerse.

This was calling to mind how I'd brought something else to Volt's attention in order to spark his motivation again.  By then Volt knew how much I'd eavesdropped on his private Dimensional Lab.  He was aware how much I'd absorbed from watching and learning.  So in order to mitigate how much he was distracted by my transgressions?  I offered him a piece of meat...metaphorically.

I made him aware of yet another Mobius variant. A new take on our mutual friend and...them.

And that was enough to accelerate his interest.  That was enough for him to be more motivated.  That was all it took to bring him back to at least some semblance of actually wanting to pursue t his investigation into this strange phenomenon.

"I think the cat's out of the bag, people."  Sally rubbed the back of her head.

"We've got to prepare a statement." Volt furrowed his brow.

"No doubt Brooke-domo has begun pondering what she's going to say when she addresses this before the kingdom."

"How much sake do you have to spare, Major?"

We all looked in Volt's direction.

That was...almost a moment of his sense of humor coming back.  Though...clearly he was actually quite serious.

I might...actually have to appease our Queen.  There was no way she could be okay with this.

"So...the Paling can even change the WEATHER?"  Pit asked.

"I guess it can..."  Volt gawked at it.

"It's magic.  It can do anything."  Vi shrugged.

"But...so can science, right?"  Rotor actually asked.

"This is just what I was worried about.  It starts innocent as this...with competition between the two crafts...then...before you know it..."  Volt lamented.

"Commander.  We will not have another Project Exodus cold war."  I assured.

"But how can you be sure?"

Never say never.  But...now wasn't the time to give that tired old proverb.

I couldn't flat out lie.  I didn't want to stretch the truth.  But...I also didn't want to tell the uncensored truth, either.

Telling everyone what I really thought and believed in this moment would be just as devastating as if I crafted a well-thought-out lie.

"I thought so."  Vi cut in.

"Don't speak out of turn.  But she's right, Commander.  There are no absolutes.  Just promise.  Just us sticking to our guns."

"Okay...I guess that's all I can ask of you all."

"Come on.  We have a lot to prepare for.  No doubt...her city-wide public address will be upon us very soon."  I lead on toward the palace.

## Sub-Entry 277: "Brooke Takes Action."

It's a sign when the guards just let us straight in without even bothering to stop us to check our security clearance.

If I may read into it?

I'd say Brooke already knows and has pre-emptively summoned us.

What's more...she waived protocol.

When was the last time she actually stopped me from my customary formal kowtow?

"Your promptness indicates you are already on top of the situation."

"We are."  I nodded.

"And I'm afraid I can't say the news is dire but...clearly we can't have an early summer pop up unnoticed."

Volt's levity was starting to come back.

This is good.  But probably not the time.

"Speculation, Doctor?"

"My speculation is simple.  Whatever is on the other side of this has nearly decoded the Paling.  He...she...it...or even they have already locked in our coordinates.  Whatever means they are using to bridge the gap?  The countdown has started.  Their gateway is energizing as we speak and it may be a matter of weeks...days...maybe hours before it reaches full capacity to open the way up without utilizing a focusing ring on our end.

Someone...has reverse-engineered our technology and is about to crack our world's magic mantra."

Brooke was silent and had her head bowed so that her eyes were hidden by the shadow of her hair.

That was not a smile she was wearing.  Not at all.

She was debating if this was a declaration of war, an invasion...possibly both...or something else.

If they were coming in peace...why was there no attempt to contact us?

Why would they catch us like this unaware?

Why all this...show?  Did they not know what their attempt to reach out to us was doing?

"Then the course of action is clear.  We mobilize."

"Brooke-dono?"

"We prepare for worst-case scenario and engage on the assumption that our enemy is hostile..."

"However, this is clearly not the route you want to go, milady."  Volt looked up at her.

"No."

"And we all know and understand the reason why it has to be this way."

"Because of him."

The unspoken one.  Allouicious Adonis.

Banished to what Gaster had devised as a perfect prison for him.

"He ruined it for everyone."  Gadget spoke up out of turn.

"Little sister...!"  Volt started to protest.

"No.   She is right.  If it hadn't been for him.  Things would be different."  Brooke waved it away like it was nothing.

"But things are different.  Different than they were before.  Before any of this started."  Mitzi frowned.

"And we've all been irrevocably changed by it."  Sally furrowed her brow.

"And there is one commonality to it all that we've overlooked since...since......."  Lupe trailed off.

An ominous silence in the room.

"I think we're all starting to realize...that he would have been our anchor if he was still around."  Violet was actually being solemn?

"He just...shouldn't have left."

There it is.  There's the crack in her facade.  But who am I to talk about facades when I spend so much effort putting on a mask that I'm infallible...unbreakable.  For one who has no desire to be the top person in charge of our operation...I find myself somehow coming off as the most capable for the job.  A position of power that Volt still thinks he's unworthy of...and I have no desire to hold.

That makes us...both equally worthy of it.  But alas.  I embrace the destiny I've realized.  His destiny is our leader.  I am his subordinate despite having taken the reigns.  Rest assured...when he is back to full capacity...I intend to return the position and step down to my proper destiny as his second in command.

At least...until the time comes for me to take up the position as Daimyou.  And once again...he'll be answering to me.  I will never get used to being his superior.  No matter how much the Bishop Contract will one day make me immortal.

I wonder if Violet has yet figured out her destiny?  For someone so brilliant...she should have figured out KOMMAND's identity ages ago.

How dense you are, old friend.

But I digress...the matter at hand.

"That was not for us to decide, Violet."  I put it plain and simple.  "And wishing he were here is not going to help us.  We will have to take this on ourselves."

"Destiny give us strength..."  I heard Volt utter.

"Okay, so...we've agreed that we're running out of time.  We're going to prepare for this like it is another Adonis-grade situation.  We'll hope and dream that it won't come to that.  What's the plan now?"  Sally asked.

"Now?  I address the nation.  I break the news to whomever will listen."

"I think you do not get your clout the proper credit, Brooke-dono.  They will listen.  They all listened when you made the announcement of invading Chaopolis."

"Perhaps.  But I did not stand alone with that announcement, my friend.  Dr. Lynx and our little lost goat were the keys to our success."

I nodded.

"I trust I do not have to direct you all one what you need to do?"

"We'll do like we always do, your Maj'.  Wing it."  Violet was able to finally show some levity.  Guess she got over lamenting Asriel pretty quick.

"I will look past your moment of being informal, Violet.  Do not ever forget...a Queen still outranks a princess.  Especially one who has no authority here."

"Eheheheh...who said I uh..."

Vi tugged at her kimono's neckline.

"Would it buy me any brownie points if I make sure Al Dente remains a non-issue?"

"Your attempt at bribery is dubious.  But it will not hurt your chances of leniency.  Do not think that equates to being granted leniency for your...joculant moments of mischief."

"Eheheheh...I'll...tie him up and leave him in an unmarked mailbox right away."

"You do that.  I will turn a blind eye to what might be a postal felony."

It was good that we were at least attempting levity in light of the serious nature of this impending event.

There was a moment of silence.

"I will now ask...at what point were you planning on making your presence known...Chameleon?"

Chameleon peeked his head around from where he was leaning up against one of the throne room's pillars, unseen by the rest of us until now.

Not that I was unaware that he'd been there the whole time.  It was just more a matter of...I was waiting for Brooke-dono to make his attendance relevant.

"Nothing gets by you, huh?"

Unflappable as always.  The tension between him and our queen was thick enough to cut with a neodymium-glass industrial laser; as Volt would put it.

"So.  Any reason for the sudden self-invite, lizardman?  Or did you just miss us that much."

"You're cute when you're delusional.  That's what you'd want me to say, right, rabbit?"

"Hey.  Your words, not mine."

"And you call this flirting.  How typical of you.  I never did collect that fee for using me as a sitting platform on Lynx's juggernaut of a starship."

"Admit it.  You want to touch my feet as much as ever."

"Swing and a miss, rabbit."

Brooke cleared her throat.

"Right.  I guess if you really want me to be straight.  Just wanted to make sure the UCIAT intend to clean up the mess.  While I never said they made it...I am saying they're responsible for it.  So...just consider me a friendly notice from the citizens in town who are just chomping at the bit to know the gory details."

"And you would know about chomping."

Chameleon let out a blend of a laugh and  subdued snort.  Not quite a chortle.  His way of letting Vi know he picked up on her attempt at a pun.

"Keep it up.  You might actually get good at jaw-ing."

"Is that the tooth?"

"Leave the science to the...canine...over there.  And I won't have to put a mole-ar in your operation to keep tabs on you for my own insight-sor's sake."

Three tooth puns in a row?  A bit forced but...he still outdid Violet.  Asriel must be smiling somewhere out there.

"Are you two quite finished?"  I heard the low growl start to nip at the scary voice.

"Just one more for the road.  Cut down on the sweets to keep the Dente-ist away.  You feel me, rabbit?"

"Oh don't have to ask me twice.  I'll make sure he's properly...gummed up.  And that's no tongue-in-cheek humor to...brush up on.  I assure you we'll all be...flossing when he and his X-Ray-ted censoring is properly...drilled out of him."

**"THAT WILL SUFFICE."**

Amaterasu's Light, that was one step too far, Vi.

Though I think she considered it totally worth it to see Chameleon raise a non-existent eyebrow.  He'd been out-punned.  By Violet.

He just grinned a toothy grin and slipped back behind the pillar, pulling his cloak's hood over and donning an illusionary human disguise before somehow slipping away unnoticed.  Even by the guards.  He'd be out for a pun rematch, no doubt.  Honestly it was a step up from trying to get even with Vi the...pardon the joke...draconian methods like in the old days.  It took him a year after first meeting Violet to finally stop trying to do her actual physical harm if I remember correctly.

On a side note...dragon artifacts are definitely something to be envied.  Makes me wish some of us in UCIAT who can't pull off human disguises had one of those.

I believe my ancestor's wisdom would read...work with what you have and desire not what you haven't.

"You have your orders.  Having established that.  What do you need from me...?

We all looked at each other.

Cut away to the moment when the streets were absolute flooded and crowded with bumper-to-bumper traffic from where we last traced the energy flow to the point it was now headed.

Honestly...it ended up being fairly round about.  In our attempt to pursue the flashpoint to its terminus...we ended up going RIGHT by where we ended up recalculating the spot to be.

And that spot turned out, in the end...was at the epicenter of Miranda Square.  Just where we left from after leaving the palace!

Volt was quoted saying..."My bad...I misplaced the decimal point."

Either way...by the time we doubled back it was looking like a loooot of people plus Brooke's armies had congested the entire city traffic grid.

It was up to Hyperion to arrange the Border Patrol police escort to try to get us back into town.

"C'mon!  Let's run some red lights!"  Violet called out of the driver's door of the UltraMobile.  I knew I should have been the one driving.

I'd at least convinced Volt to pick up his 57' Chevy that he had at an unmarked parking garage all this time.

I think when it came down to it...what we were really doing was reminding our city who we were and what we did.

And I think...it struck a nostalgic vibe with our Commander.  No doubt...he was recalling the Manhattan Crossrift of 1984.

And by that point...there was something swirling in the sky above the Fountain.  We assumed it would be some kind of portal.  After all isn't that how 90 percent of all movie climaxes ended?  In that overused cliche?  I think even Violet got tired of it after seeing it in the abysmal Fantastic Four reboot.

We were all silently groaning about it until Volt checked his instruments in the dashboard of his vehicle and determined...what was in the sky was just the echo.  The focal point...would be at ground level.  In a populated area.

In THE populated area.

Brooke called for Serund to rally the troops and called for the square itself to be evacuated.

But the leadup to it?  Yeah...definitely like the Manhattan Crossrift of 1984.

I think even Volt was waiting for Violet to drop more of his mentors' quotes.

And as we finally parked at a safe distance from where the energy convergence was, the city-kingdom's populace took notice of our arrival and began cheering us on.

Violet milked the crowd.  As expected.

I could pick out Chameleon among them, still in that magic cloak.

He was...amused.  Though to what extent remained to be seen.

Chants of Ultra Crew went up around us.

"Oh boy..."  Rotor looked really uncomfortable as he donned his gear and equipment.

Volt took the lead after we helped him set up his scanners and equipment.

The mood was hopeful with rallying cries for us and the Mage Academy to face whatever was coming.

It was a perfectly captured euphoria.

Then it wasn't.

## Sub-Entry 278: "Here We Are.  Gathered to Face the Big Moment Head-On"

Inevitably, we ran out of time.

We prepared the best we could.   Brooke-dono readied phalanxes worth of her elites to defend kingdom and country.

I had requested all our best and brightest minds stand by to scan and analyze everything.

By now...Volt triangulated the point of manifest.  Down to the centimeter, this time.

The most open area in the square.  He estimated that when it opened...it would be much larger than his data projected.

Large enough for an army...no...large enough for an invasion fleet; tanks, jets, whatever could probably march right through.  Violet was even not ready to rule out "giant, killer robots" or "mech suits".

As much as I wanted to thwap her before she started making Gundam jokes...

And as expected...it became a media circus.  With Prisma and Wrench reporting on it at the forefront.

Here we were, waiting for permission to cross the Police barricades.

And that was when we looked up and the swirling not-portal had grown into a thunderhead storm cloud of magnanimous proportions.

With each thunderclap, lightning arced out...and each one was a different color.

Green.

Cyan.

Blue.

Orange.

Yellow.

Purple.

And yes...the largest and fiercest?  Neon blood red.

"What's happening!?"  Gadget hugged Volt tight.

"Easy there.  Easy."  Volt assured her until she let him go.

The signs were very tell tale if not obvious.  But we...just felt compelled to deny that it was what we were hoping it was.

I mean...if it was from...that place.  Then why?  Why was this entrance so violent and chaotic?"

The storm continued to grow more and more violent.  And yet...it didn't grow darker or ominous...if anything it was the opposite of how a violent thunderstorm should be.  Everything was getting brighter.  The colors were getting more intense.  It was a panorama I couldn't properly put into words.

And yet it was accelerating the kinesis all around us.  Everything felt in motion.  And before long it was literally so with papers and cans and trash being swept up in swirling air currents into a spiral.  But a random, chaotic spiral.    Like an imperfect cyclone.

The roar of the energies and winds just...overlapped and clashed with each other.  There was no coherence to it.

It was actually kind of painful to the ears.

Between the light and sound and the questionable gravity...the Paling's defense mechanism to try to mitigate this was not unlike the symptoms of an illness.  It wasn't the virus or the disease causing it.

No.

What was causing this was the Paling reacting to what was attempting to be granted permission...access.

We were literally in a fever pitch and the laws of physics were paying the price.

In trying to readjust itself back to normal. In trying to adapt and block out what was incoming...the Paling was bombarding us with fluctuations.

How, then...did nothing like this happen when Evil-Chara and Adonis managed to breach our world?

Maybe...they understood it better than we thought we did.

Most assuredly they understood it than our "invader" did.

"We have to stabilize this somehow before something bad happens!  Time's almost up!"  Gadget cried over the noise.

"Actually."  I said in a low voice.

"Time IS up..."  I looked up from my TAO's holo projection of an hour glass with a digital timer on the top frame and an analog stopwatch on the bottom frame.  The sand had run out.  The hand had reached zero.  And the clock was reading 0:00.

We were out of time.

It was no longer coming.  It was here.

And that was then abundance of action and chaos...gradually dropped to almost dead silence.

## Sub-Entry 279: "The Moment of Truth":

We all began to notice it...the transition from what looked like a world-ending event...to some kind of...harmonious resonance all across the Paling.

Like a chromatic rainbow.  Choreographed patterns...glyphs...runes...something unrecognizable to even the Mage Academy was taking shape around our world.

This portal into our universe...onto our planet...into our moment of time...

It felt more powerful than it needed to be but...maybe it had to be in order to reach all the way across from where it came from.

"Commander?"

"I've never seen anything like this.  And yet...every reading on this instrument panel is not only familiar.

It's like it came from our own blueprints...our own spec sheets...our operation's own schematics.  Everything I'm analyzing......what I'm seeing is us.  This gateway has every indication that it came from US!

"Then someone DID steal and reverse-engineer our gear.  Our portal technology has been jacked!"  Sally gasped.

"Quick!  Someone get us a good lawyer and start suing!"

We alllll turned our eyes toward Violet with a "Really?  REALLY?" expression.

"Not the time, Vi.  Not the time."  Drew whapped her over the head.

"Just saying.  You're not going to blow off trademark infringement when we start seeing a bajillion knockoffs of it in every corner drugstore.  Do you WANT another Atari game market crash like 1983!?"

"We'll deal with that when we're not sure this gateway is going to rip the universe in half.  If this breaches the Axis of Reality, who knows what could happen across the universe."

Volt was taking this very seriously and I was about neck-deep drowning in his worry.

"Commander.  Do not panic."

Easy for me to say when the crowd was starting to...I believe Violet would put it as..."lose it".

"We gotta do something or we're probably going to risk a riot."  Rotor clutched his ball cap to his chest.

"What do you suggest we do?  Perform the D.K. Rap?  Caramelldansen them into a calmer state?  Open up with some Gangnam Style or spin a leek to some Loituma?"  Vi retorted.

"Must EVERYTHING you suggest be a meme reference!?"  Mitzi hissed.

"Stop fighting!"  Pit clutched his head and squeezed his eyes shut, wrapping his wings around himself.

"Now see what you did!"  Honey pointed at Vi's nose.

"Me!?"

"Goddammit all, will you get on the same--"

\*KABOOM\*

I lowered my arm cannon from where I pointed straight up and unleashed a charge shot before blowing the black smoke from the barrel.

"Now that I have your attention..."  I glared at everyone.

The paper and trash on the streets that had been blowing about randomly had suddenly started circling in a slow, deliberate orbit.

"Hmm?"

"What is it, Lupe?"

"Do you not feel it?  Life energy.  Mana.  A familiar mana is pouring into our universe."

Lupe had started radiating a hazing light turquoise sheen or glow.  Indicative of when she was absorbing life energy from the surrounding environment.  Only sure assured us that she wasn't actively doing so.  The energy was...just pouring into her because it was attracted to her natural hybrid ability.

"What does that mean, Lupe?"  Sally asked.

Lupe didn't answer as her expression had turned to...joyful.  Like she sensed something that no one else did.

"The last cipher of the Paling has been decoded by...whoever's on the other side."  Sarina informed me as I looked up from my instruments.

"You mean...?"

"Yes...if we had any intention of stopping whatever was coming...it's too late.  They have...unrestricted access to our realm now.  The Paling...is open."

Brooke spread her wings, clearly not happy.

"Doctor.  If you have a plan, now is the time to act."  She informed Volt.

He looked at the Queen...then he looked at me.

I was at a loss.

What should I do?  It was not proper to stand on the sidelines but...Volt was running our show.

I had a decision to make.

And make it I did.

All I could do was close my eyes and nod, giving him the go-ahead.

And with that Volt furrowed his brow and sighed and attached his harness to the cable and winch.  Just as a precaution in case the portal started gaining mass and instead of letting something through...decided to suck us into it.

Volt began to approach as wind currents started to stir...and then build...and then actively try to blow him backward.

With that he had managed to magnetize his feet, sandals and all and anchor to the underground pipelines and metalwork under the streets, somehow.

He was the first to notice it.

Then I saw it.

A crack in reality...the turned into a dilation...and slowly widened into a hole...a swirling hole.

Volt's instruments started beeping and displaying countless data.

"That...that's impossible!!"  He gaped.  "That's OUR electronic ID I'm getting on the other side...!"

This confirmed it.  Someone had pirated our gateway technology's carrier wave.  Someone had broken the code on the Paling's magical firewall.

Someone had gained access to our world.

The crowd's clamor had swelled to a fever pitch.

I was waiting for screams to go up.

I was waiting for the panic.

This...this is what you must fear all the time, Volt.

The very notion that we'd stumble upon that one event that would lead to mass hysteria.

A panic now...might tear the whole town apart.

As the path was becoming clear, Miranda's Armies had raised their weapons in synchronicity; as practiced until the military cadence was flawless and in perfect unison.

Serund had trained them all well.

The Mage Academy had readied all of their best spells.  All they needed was for someone to say the word in order to start casting.

And us.  The Ultra Crew Institute Action Team had our weapons and powers at full capacity, ready should the order come to strike or retaliate.

As I looked, the portal was assembling itself.  With each layer it had gained a seal and once fully formed, each seal opened itself up like an iris.

And behold as the sixth seal opened, the whole world shook as a massive influx of energy poured out in a wave...moments before we felt a massive amount of our world's energy pour in through the portal in an opposing wave.

Neither wave canceled each other out.  On the contrary.  It was like they superimposed over one another and passed through one another.

"What just happened!?"

"I...I don't know...!"  Was what Volt had spoken, eyes wide open and expression completely baffled.

"Is it at least a good thing!?"

"I think...it was like two airlocks on two different planes of existence opening up...!"  Volt finally managed to call back to us.  "I think...it was just dimensional energies equalizing one another as the paths opened!"

And just as Volt finished his sentence...

...everything died down and the world become ominously silent as the portal...had completely formed and remained hovering.

"That's...a very big gateway...!"  Gadget looked at the massive rift between worlds.

Massive didn't even describe it.  There was enough surface area for entire armies to march through.  Legions of them.  It was taking up the whole intersection behind the fountain and actually blocking out the view of the Palace.

And yet...we could not see through to the other side.

And yet...as I squinted...I could almost...make out...a tunnel stretching inward to infinity.  It was my Sixth Sense, no doubt, trying to make sense of it all.  But even to me...I could not see beyond what was there.

The moment of truth was here.

Our visitor or visitors...were coming.

## Sub-Entry: 280: "No Way!  It Can't Be!  It's...!"

In that moment the gateway had opened.

It had been silent for the longest time.

Dead silence amongst us all.

Volt had slowly approached, a feverish grip on both his plasma vulcans.  Ready to raise and draw them.

The moments passed...and passed...and passed...

Then...

We heard it.

It was faint...but it grew louder as what was on the other side approached us.

It was still impossible to see through the portal dilation.  Volt said that Sanchez fellow had the same issue with his "puke-green" portal gun technology.  If it was possible to make portals you could actually see the other side of...then we hadn't developed the science.

Yet.

But I digress.

What was it that we heard...?

The sound of a music box.

And it didn't take long...for Volt to recognize the song.

"N...no...please don't get my hopes up like this...please..."

My eyes widened for the first time in ages.

"It...can't be...!"  Sally recognized the song, too.

"There's no way."  Violet was practically biting her nails.

"Could it really be...!?!"  Gadget clasped her hands.

I could see Volt's knees getting weak as his pace slowed and he staggered closer, lowering his weapons...and eventually letting them clatter to the ground.

A shape.  A humanoid shape.  A humanoid shape approaching us.

And then a voice...singing to the sound of the music box.  Singing...lyrics...we almost forgot existed.

"Are your memories still all there...?...the smell of the surface air...the wind blowing through your hair..."

Volt's jaw began to quiver as she made out the shape of the curved horns.

"You promised we'd be heirs."  Volt silently mouthed the words.  The words that had once brought terror as they had been spoken by a fallen child with a creepy smile.

"Stand down!  Stand down!"  Violet called out to Brooke's guards.

Brooke glared at Violet for trying to pull rank but gestured for them to obey.

I think...she was willing to give Vi some leeway...especially now that she recognized the shape and form emerging.

Whispers and mutters turned into a sizeable commotion among the crowd.

It was uncanny.

Here we were in December...and this...anomaly had brought a sizeable diameter of the heart of our city into what seemed like a very early spring or summer.  It almost felt like life itself was rolling out of the gateway.  But what we all saw...was something...someone familiar.

I recognized the Delta Rune once I had a clear look at the buckles on the sandal straps.

In that moment I realized how I really should have trusted my gut instinct.  It wasn't sixth sense.  We all wanted this but...I feared that we all wanted this too much for our own good.

That maybe...we were chasing the rainbow.  Maybe that's what Volt was trying to prove that he was strong-willed enough to not fall into that trap.

The clothing was different but...definitely his style.  It almost looked like he was trying to reach a compromise...somehow a balance between modern casual...semi-formal...and to be quite honest...regal.

The whole package somehow felt humble...but also acknowledged royal heritage.  And overall...looked comfortable.  In short...just the kind of thing I'd expect of him.

He made it work.

A smile slowly spread across my face in what seemed like...slowed bullet time.  I checked to see if Sally was using her powers.  She was not.  But still...I could see everyone's reactions.

From Gadget placing her hands on her cheeks and on the verge of squealing...to Sally doing the obligatory fist-pump "YES!"...to Violet trying in vain to downplay her excitement...to even Rotor looking a little misty-eyed.

I even saw Brooke-dono crack a smile once her attention was off of Violet.

But not even sixth sense could tell me what Volt was doing...all I could see was his backed turned toward us...his legs getting all the more wobbly...until finally it happened.

He just...dropped to his hands and knees...and started sobbing.

I looked at our approaching guest.  I could see the concern in his eyes...those dark copper red eyes.

But the smile didn't fade even a bit.  If anything it got wider as his eyes changed color...to green.  The color of kindness.

As I looked...I noticed there was signs of aging just slightly.  Rather not so much aging....but maturing.

I think the most obvious sign of it...was the bit of blond facial hair on his furry chin.

Heh.  What do you know about that?  An actual...goatee beard.  The tiniest hint of his father's side of the family.

And recognizable?  Those spiky bangs that stood up like a tuft of antennae that even gave All-Might's signature hair-do a run for its money.

Yes.

It was him.

It was always him...even though it was speculation on a dozen other possible scenarios.  By the will of the gods...it had to be him.

He had returned.

After taking but only a moment to assess the situation, our guest had paused long enough to put his hands in his pants pockets closes his eyes and suppress the briefest and most subdued of chuckles before slowly approaching our downed commander.

He stopped before Volt and dropped to a knee, covering the bended one with his hands before looking upon the emotional Lycan before him.

Then he spoke.

"Volt.  You remember.  I understand.  It wasn't my fault.  You were right.  It wasn't what Chara wanted.  And...it took me some time to realize it wasn't what I wanted either.

I'm glad.  I'm glad I trusted you.  I'm glad I took your hand and followed you out of Gaster's space.

Now...it's your turn."  The goat spoke as he stretched out his hand. Of all things...he quoted All Might's last words before retiring as a Pro Hero...the very moment One-For-All extinguished from his being. What a perfect way for him to put an emotional explanation point on his words.

Volt looked up.  Goat Son looked back.

The longest of stares and it was like he could understand the situation perfect.  He knew...what our Commander had been through.

And here we were.  Full circle.

From the moment Volt offered Asriel his hand with the plea to trust him...

...Best friends exchange roles for this moment.

What will you do now, Volt Arcade?  What will you do...?

To be continued...

## Sub-Entry XXX: "Unspecified Christmas Entry":

I can't say for sure where the last sub-entry fits into our timeline. But for the sake of matters...let's just presume this entry...happened just before everything that went down, previously....went down.

It was a chore.

A chore getting Volt even into the holiday spirit.

But I wasn't about to take no for an answer.

None of us would.

So by hook or crook...we were getting him motivated.

And let's be real.

I was more than ready...to go there.

I was more than ready to invoke Asriel's name just to coax him into complying.

This was bigger than his discarded pride and jagged, lonely heart. We were an Ultra Crew Institute family.

No one gets left behind on Christmas. Even if our key member could no longer be with it.

We'd celebrate and dedicate this night and day to him..

So. Where to begin?

Rock-Afire Pizzeria: Mitzi wasted no time in mixing up her award-winning egg nog; made special using ice cream as its secret ingredient. She had a gallon or two in non-alcoholic form especially for Volt. There's a good start.

Getting Volt motivated with the prospect of exterior illumination? Of course. No one better qualified to push the envelope with Christmas lights and display. No doubt he'd give that beagle, Snoopy a run for his money in a Lights and Display Contest.

And of course there was our annual attempt to explain Christmas to Pit. As an angel...it was ironic that he still couldn't quite figure it out. But he enjoyed the holiday none the same. He still wondered about why an angel would perch on top of a Christmas Tree in lieu of a star.

Though to be fair...our world had much different lore as to why we celebrate. And I will not be explaining it. Do not be disappointed. Or at least try not to be.

And some traditions just couldn't be broken...no matter how hard we tried. And I of course speak of Violet's annual telling of the Night Before Christmas...R-Rated Edition. I guarantee your ears will bleed if profanity and lewd content offend you. That's all you need to know.

Some day we'll break her of that habit.

Speaking of Violet, we knew Christmas Eve would always culminate at one of her massive holiday party blowouts.

In which we'd all draw from the lot to see who was lucky enough to put Al Dente and his third degree security checks in their place. Nothing quite topped Chameleon tranquilizing him, kidnapping him, and then waking him up in a torture trap of his own design. In this case he would have to run through a hedge maze while avoiding a heat-seaking missile that may or may not be a dud. And then going the extra mile to televise it on an internet channel that Violet only gave out the URL to everyone in our inner circle who was dying to know what Dente did this year to earn our wrath.

I turn a blind eye to this if only to maintain the status quo. I think we'd all be a lot more savage to each other if we didn't have Dente to be a magnet for our holiday stress. There has to be a better lesson to learn than always have a town pariah to be your lightning rod.

And then there was the Christmas Caroling.

This was often spearheaded by Willamina with support from all of us with vocal talent. This included but was not limited to Violet, Mitzi (and pretty much the ENTIRITY of Rock-Afire Pizzeria's staff), Megami, Sally, Lupe, and anyone else who could sing on key and didn't have a voice like nails on a chalkboard, in Vi's own words.

This year...it seemed Rainbow Wing had some kind of plan for caroling. But for what purpose? Even I couldn't speculate. And my Sixth Sense did not want to touch this one with a 40 foot cattle prod.

I'm sure they were on the up and up but...some things still made us consider the worst case scenario or at least impeding mischief and mishap. Nikita was still leery after Rainbow Wing's previous attempts to...enhance the New Year's ball drop. And after we'd focused all our efforts into making sure Ripper didn't add his own explosive upgrades.

There were the obligatory forms of practicing what we preached about the spirit of Christmas being about giving and not receiving. And that would come in the form of Scott and Callista dedicating every year to Asriel by helping out at homeless shelters, doing work at the hospital, entertaining Miranda's military troops that might actually be deployed around the world at this time (after Violet gave them the idea from that yearly WWE salute to the troops or something of that nature). Regardless of how they helped out...everyone knew it as the Asriel's Hope, Dreams, and Wishes program. Whether donation, volunteer work, or whatever. You can bet they were giving to not just our community but anyone that they could outreach to.

When each of us could take a break from the hustle and bustle, you could bet we'd find Jon ice-skating on a frozen pond...bare-chested and barefoot. Which begs the question how a werewolf skates in bare paws? I guess if certain cartoon characters can do it, so can he. Which of course...made the Commander grump about the winter season all the more. At least it was motivating him in some way, yes?

And of course there was Hestia's collab with both Mitzi and Jon to make the perfect holiday feasts. Everything you could imagine. Mince pies. Turkeys. Suckling pig. The obligatory honey-baked ham. Eight kinds of potatos...a new personal record in Jon's opinion. Yams and cranberries. And so much more.

And of course even Nikita got into it after proposing a winter laser show, projected over various designated landmarks in town; ranging from the clocktower to the palace.

Believe me...her laser shows took it past the next level and went lightyears beyond. In many ways...her laser shows took on lives of their own. It was intimidating how much she must know about laser technology to pull these three-dimensional illusions off.

While shopping had started as early back as Black Friday, Violet most certainly knew how to put our country's capitalism on overdrive. And boy oh boy was this a boost to Miranda's economy. Moneytary aspects aside...every form of shopping was at hand. From traditional in-person ventures to the stores and shopping centers to every online method Vi had an app or a web site for.

You name it and each of us had our own spin to tackling one piece of the big holiday picture.

The list went on and on.

We'd gotten so busy I couldn't stop long enough to properly quote anyone in conversation or speaking their inner monologue out loud for reasons whatever.

Either way...yeah...this entry was turning into far more exposition than accounts of anyone's own experiences, including my own.

We were just...that enwrapped in the season.

When all was said and done...it even started to motivate Volt back to a twinkle of his old self. At moments...he almost forgot about missing Asriel.

Almost.

But still in a better place about it all then previous. This was a distraction he needed.

"You know...don't think I don't appreciate everything you're all trying to do. I know I have been kind of stick-in-the-mud and--"

"Let us not speak of water under the bridge, Commander. Enjoy the holidays and we'll address apology and redemption another time.

"Well...now that I have my head on straight I guess I should start biting back when Fate keeps pulling my strings?"

"Do what you must do. But mind how far you take it. She's already scheming to settle the score over the missing tome, among other gripes."

"Wish I could see her face."

"Do not waste a wish on something so frivelous. There's more important matters to concern yourself with?"

"Oh?"

"I do believe Dente is trying to pull a fast one."

I looked at the approaching security bots he'd spend a penny or two to enforce his rules.

"I got this..." Volt shoved up his sleeps...regretting it only a little due to the cold climbate.

The next we we knew, Dente's cadre was suffering some serious malfunctions and causing a disturbance.

Which soon...got Brooke-dono involved.

And down the portal he goes.

"Guess the post office decided to return to sender." Vi shrugged.

"I would address your failure to keep your promise to keep him contained, but we are celebrating the holiday. A delay to unpleasantness for now."

"Eheheh...I'll take what I can get."

The mood was returned to festive with a special performance by Mitzi and a Rock-Afire Explosion reunion. Her old band mates were in top form and she hadn't lost a beat.

Which of course lead to a few instances of mistletoe moments. The pairings were unsurprising though no one could have predicted that Scott and Callista would have the best kissing moment on display out of everyone who embraced the love and the holiday spirit.

"Well. Maybe we'll get it next year." Volt shrugged as Lisa didn't seem that broken up by the results.

Though Violet's disappointment, though downplayed, was obvious. Not for lack of trying on her and Usagi's part. Mitzi and Duke were stiff competition as were several other couples in town.

Which only depressed some of us Ecotropians who were...still single (or swore a vow of celebacy).

We had our Christmas parties and our white elephant gift exchange.

And then Violet pulled something out of nowhere that none of us were expecting.

"You know I've been meaning to show this off for just such an occasion but...every year it's kind of gotten buried under other stuff. But I think at this time...we could all use a little something...or someone special.

And that certain someone recorded this a lot of years ago and asked me to hold onto it until there came a time we really needed something uplifting to get us through trying times, lonely times, or...even times we can't all be together."

Violet set down her Cyberdrive Gauntlet's holoprojector and hit play on the video window prompt.

And there he was for one last known appearance.

"Asriel...!" Volt's reaction was instant.

"Howdy, everyone in the future. By the time you see this I'll have no way of knowing how much time has passed or even the reason why I won't be able to show this to you in person but...better late than never. I'm sure Aunt Vi has a good reason for digging this out now on Christmas. At least I HOPE she's showing you all this on Christmas or otherwise I just wasted a large amount of video storage for this. Hahahahah.

Seriously though. I can't imagine what the world must be like in the time this video will finally be replayed.

I can't imagine what we've all been through...if we've saved the world or the whole universe again....I just hope it's a happy place where you guys are now.

Well I guess I gotta deliver some epic speech now. But I might have to limit how big I can make it or I'll fill up this thing's data storage too quick. Hahahah.

Anyway...I'd really like to address everyone individually and personalize this more but...see above reason. That said...I know you're all doing what you all do best. I know you've been through your ups and downs. I know we've put Chaopolis and all their twisted plots behind us. Whatever the case might be now...just remember. I'm rooting for you. All of you.

With that said...I guess I should say something more relavant to Christmas, yes?

Well. What can I say that hasn't already been said.

Maybe...it's cheating a little but...when it comes down to it, no better advice I have about this holiday...this season......than to fall back on someone else's words.

Yeah.

Well all do that, y'know. We all quote our movies and TV and other people who've said this stuff before. But as long as we credit our sources, right?

Ahem.

The advice. I might as well say it came from my godfather, Garfield P. Arcade And he put it this way when it comes to Christmas:

It's not the giving. It's not the getting. It's the loving."

I think we all uttered a collective "Awwwww..." at that moment.

Either way...I think it was exactly what Volt needed.

How did I know?

It was the first genuine smile I'd ever seen out of him.

And yeah...Dad...Garfield DID say that once. Still as true now as it ever was.

Azzy's image flickered a little.

"Hey. I know whatever you're in for, you're all going to do a good job. I have to have hope that we'll all meet again and by then we'll all know the reason why I'm not able to do this in person.

Either way, the message is given and I hope it's appreciated.

Merry Christmas to all of you.

And to all...a good night."

The hologram cut out at that moment.

Unlike most years when we'd follow up with standing ovations and the longest of applause sessions...

We were just...at a loss for words.

It was just that inspiring. That amazing. And really...it was what we all needed most.

From this point...I'd see Volt really start to make an effort to come back to us and be the Commander we all knew and recognized.

There really is nothing more to say other than Merry Christmas.

And before long...we'd be wishing each other happy new year.

Our hopes live on.

Our dreams are within our grasp to make come true.

And now...maybe with what power each of us has...collectively...our wish may yet come true.

Merry Christmas to all.

Chapter 29

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