Adapted into web novel format on Dec. 1, 2011 at 3:20 PM MST
Portal 2 spoilers and Payback influence ahead.
Click here for chapter 5
"But there is this," the Snob pointed out.
Kshzzzt.
Kagami was at the main street. She had a finger to her chin and was staring at Tsukasa and the others, as if she was in deep thought. However, again, it was not really her voice she spoke in. "At least I didn't sprout a robot out of my head like some people." She looked to her right and continued, "By the way, there's something new there now."
Pyro yelled as if to say, "Thanks a lot!"
"Yes! Good!" cheered GLaDOS in her authoritative voice.
Kshzzzt!
Kagami took on a more mature voice that, again, wasn't really hers. She glared and sighed, "You want me to eat eggshells or something?"
"This is unacceptable!" yelled Medic. He hit mental inhibitor #2 with his Ubersaw again.
WHACK!
Billy Cranston ran chest-first into a putty patroller. The word "BONK!" flashed once onscreen in a familiar font as Scout is heard saying it.
"How?!" the Snob yelled. His speech then seemed to come off at double speed: "Wait wait, I got a better question." Then he shrugged with another yell. "Why?!"
"You're joking, right?" Louis asked.
Kshzzzt!
At the area to the right of the concrete seating, where Yoko was moments before, stood a young polite-looking girl with long pink hair and glasses. However, the glasses seemed opaque.
The Critic's voice was heard. "Oh, glad to meet you, 'You Wish'." This mistaken nickname served only as a mere hint as to whose cackle-like voice this polite-looking lady seemed to have.
"Heh ha ha! Let us dance!" the girl spoke. She placed her arm up past her head in a fighting stance... or at least her best imitation of one. She jerked her head quickly toward Scout, who was in front of her but at a distance.
"Only when I know you're human," said a paranoid Scout.
Sniper, overhearing this from the stage, groaned.
Kshzzzt.
The girl then adjusted her glasses by the sides using both hands. With a slight tug downwards, the glasses were no longer opaque, revealing the girl's purple eyes. She then placed her hands in front of her in a seemingly well-mannered pose and spoke again, but her voice, though not as cackle-like, still didn't seem like hers.
"So," the girl asked, "do you think that after tonight, you can say you're a part of Hinamizawa?"
Scout realized that the town she just mentioned had too many connections to alleged psychopathic behaviour.
"No! No! No!!!" he shouted in a quickly dissipating panic as he fled.
At the same time, Soldier had taken Scout's place with rocket launcher in hand. He yelled, grabbing the girl's attention.
" 'Sally', you have just signed your death warrant!" declared Soldier with a made-up nickname. He pointed at her as a loud engine whir came from the sky above.
A bright flash turned the sky and everything around it dark. The girl threw her hands in front of her glasses and started to panic in her own voice.
"Huh? Oh no. It happened again! Where am I?!"
Pew pew POW!
Three quick consecutive flashes lit up the area like fireworks. A time screw had occurred. Unfortunately, although it sounded a lot like it, there was no car involved.
Instead, a naive and quirky teenage boy slid on the ground and stopped beside the girl. He had white hair with yellow streaks, and eyes with irises that seemed to be made of thin yellow slits. Attached to his head was what seemed like a personality core with a singular eye that looked the same as one of his eyes.
"Look, an eclipse! No, don't look!" he misguidedly told the girl on an impulse as the core shook its 'head'. Unbelievable as it was, a corrupt space-obsessed personality core, or Space Core for short, had somehow thrown himself to the present day and taken on a human body, in a similar situation to GLaDOS.
The girl accidentally looked up at the newly blackened sky. The second incomplete Death Star was hovering there in a solar eclipse. The Death Star II's menacing position was similar to that caused by the persona when he had tried to paradoxically destroy Earth all those years before.
"Pa-pow!" Soldier yelled. Even for a guy like him, he knew what such a massive space station can do.
"Really?" the girl stammered. She started shaking her head as she tried to recover her eyesight from looking at that solar eclipse. "Oh dear... aah..."
She then looked at the humanized Space Core. "I'm so sorry," she said. This girl was Miyuki. While she was well-mannered, she often acted too cute for her own good; nearly ten months ago, while claiming she was "afraid of... contact lenses!" in a slight panic, she was confirmed to have been the reason for the persona's tolerance of long talk sessions that otherwise were about chocolate cornets.
"Hey lady," the Space Core called. "Lady, I'm the best. I'm the best at space."
Meanwhile, with her hands on her hips, GLaDOS shook her head, then glared. "I defy you to tell me there's a purpose to what you're doing," she said.
Kshzzzt.
"Assistance, bitte!" Medic called in German.
superslinger2007 the persona appeared in his vector form on the viewscreen again. "They don't know it," he said, "but some of them may have vague similarities."
"Ha-rrururururu!" Pyro called positively. He welcomed the hints, no matter how vague they seemed.
Louis then appeared onscreen, via his visual alias. "Stop, stop, stop!" he called. "Ssh! I hear a witch!"
Medic did not believe him. "Dummkopf!" he yelled.
"Ahh, a witch," Francis said. He sniffed around while using his mirror to scan the area again. "And she's close."
Back at the floor between the stage and concrete seating, Demoman flipped his bottle of scrumpy upright. The Death Star II was no longer menacingly hovering above, and natural light had returned.
"Cheers, mate!" Demoman yelled before taking a gulp from the bottle. After wiping his mouth with his arm, he started to mumble some speech and stumble around while swinging his bottle repeatedly.
A whooshing hiss was heard as Spy materialized with his disguise kit/comm device in hand. It seemed like he was about to make a taunt gesture, now that he had uncloaked, but he only glared at the area in front of him.
"I think not," said Spy. He disappeared again with another whooshing hiss, while Demoman still stumbled around swinging his bottle.
"This is horrendous!" the Nerd was heard yelling, while heavily pixelated video game footage appeared briefly on the viewscreens.
"For the love of..." Pyro seemed to mumble. "Dispenser, go go go!" He then struck inhibitor #3 with his axe again.
Color bars appeared onscreen. "Thanks for that, tough guy! Let's do this!" Scout called.
"Yeah..." Soldier mumbled, but he was nowhere near Scout.
The viewscreens then showed Scout playing Soldier's Buff Banner bugle. Pyro suddenly realized that what Scout was playing was going to lead to a familiar tune...
"Let's go!" Scout called.
The viewscreens, however, switched to the Critic moving his arms up and down, somewhat out of sync with the bugle playing. Then a young woman stepped in while randomly playing an accordion. At the same time, the music that played added an accordion into the mix.
Heavy was next shown onscreen on the floor just in front of stage right. He moved his arms from side to side as if he was playing an accordion as well.
The Critic was shown onscreen again. He started to look confused while he looked over at the woman beside him.
Another part of the stage was shown. Engineer had returned after his sudden absence. He had thrown his construction helmet and his right-hand glove onto the floor beside him, showing off his bald "Dome Shine" head and mechanical Gunslinger robot hand. Engineer was bouncing his hands off a white keytar. The keytar was being sturdily held in the outstretched arms of a blonde-haired girl who was nodding her head to the beat just offscreen. The girl looked like the one who had "Nom'd" on pink taffy earlier.
The screens also showed a small inset square superimposed to the left, showing the Demoman taking another gulp from his bottle.
Then, it was back to Heavy, who continued to mime his joyful accordion-playing.
Another view of Scout showed him hesitating a bit before the music began a horn-bugle part.
Suddenly, the music stopped and the woman exclaimed, "Big Lipped Alligator Moment!" It was a phrase she created to describe a random out-of-nowhere situation such as the bugle-and-accordion-music session that had just concluded. She then played a "ta-da" on her accordion while the Critic looked at her, still confused.
