A/N: Just thought I'd give a warning so this doesn't come out of nowhere: the first major part of this story, AKA the Hopian Arc, will be ending within 5-10 chapters. The remaining chapters will be from the perspective of characters aside from Seric, Karia, and Amandeath. After these last few "epilogue" chapters are done- the Dalkan arc won't be starting for a while, mainly due to a lot of editing I want to do on the existing chapters.

I'll be making a "What Happens Next" post soon enough that should explain my plans more in depth.

Apologies for not mentioning this sooner. I do still plan on writing some occasional new side-stories during editing though, and maybe even an entire new TFK-based novel, so I won't be completely gone during the editing process.

That aside,

Last chapter, Quilline was erased from existence by Hopian's Cannibal.

Just before that however, Head Commander Prósopsi's battle with Metallic concluded with the bot's death. Although, winning the fight required Prósopsi to give up years of his life in order to get one last power-up from Aphrodite. But that power-up also left Aphrodite completely unable to move, and nearly unconscious...

Ten minutes earlier, back on the distant planet Prósopsi just defeated Metallic on...

Head Commander Prósopsi's P.O.V.

"Aphrodite, Aphrodite, Aphrodite!" I grunt while lying on the dirt next to her still unmoving body, since I'm completely powerless- and clothesless too without the white robe her powers grant me... so I've got no way to get off this planet without her help.

I lose myself in my thoughts as I take in short, raspy, breaths of the dust-filled air around us while staring up at the dark green clouds in the sky.

"I really hope the portal back home stays open... it should. Even if someone somehow found and destroyed the teleporter tech itself, we should still have at least ten minutes left until the portal closes... I think."

I slightly shift my body to look at Aphrodite, which was a dumb idea as that causes the massive burn that Metallic's foot made on my chest- to flare up more than it already was before.

"No way after all this I die, right? Beating the Hopian Territory's biggest threat, and I die from bad air quality? Not even from my injuries? That'd be worse than Hari's death in Blood Maid..."

...

"Ughhhh..." Aphrodite finally makes a sound aside from breathing, which is a huge relief- but I keep myself still for now to avoid any unnecessarily dangerous movements.

"Gimme a sec, Daniel. I wasn't fully knocked out by the way... just... tired..." She mumbles, using my real name again which catches me off guard.

"Um- s-sorry to bother you, but, I'm in really bad shape-"

"FiiiiNNNE!" She shouts and I flinch, but regardless- a few seconds later my injuries are completely healed. Alright!

"Thanks- and sorry, I was seriously worried about dying there. You ok?" I ask while slowly pushing myself off of the ground, which makes my aged-up joints creak even after the healing.

I turn my head down to look at the still-prone Aphrodite as she mumbles, "Fine, fine... just feel hungover. Like when I used to go to Dionysus' crazy old parties..."

"Ah. Sounds uh, pretty crazy." Is all I say back to her, since I'm really not great at smalltalk without my robe. And being tired isn't helping my social skills either...

Aphrodite seems to notice my awkwardness, and slowly turns her brown-haired head up to look at me-

"BAHA- OHHH NO! It's- it's so ugly now! I didn't think getting old would effect that part of you too!" She suddenly starts laughing her head off after her gaze reaches my crotch, and I realize what she means after I look down at my dick for the first time myself.

"Is now really a good time for jokes?!" I ask with a blush, but she ignores me completely and just keeps on laughing...

I defend myself in the hopes that it'll make her calm down, "Whatever, it's not like I ever wanted to lose my virginity anyways... besides, doesn't the rest of me look equally as ugly? I've gotta be at least 70 years old or something now, based on how long I used the life-draining power-boost thing for..."

Aphrodite slowly starts to stand up, with me taking her hand and pointlessly trying to help her up after a few seconds,

"No, the rest of you aged... kinda better I think. Oh jeez, that's hilarious though... ok. Let's actually get out of here now. Looking forward to a lot of relaxation now that the bot's dead."

I clear my throat, "We'll have to see-"

"Pretending I didn't hear that." Aphrodite warns while gripping my frail hand so hard that it cracks, but thankfully she starts slowly flying up into the air- dragging me with her by the hand.

"Wai-"

"Oh. Right, it's probably smarter for her to not use any more energy than she needs to right now. We can get back to the portal just fine without Aphrodite giving me my powers back..." I realize, trying really hard to ignore the fact that I might still be walking around nude once we get back to the Casino. Since yeah, there's much more important things to worry about right now.

💨💨💨

After a few minutes of painfully slow flying, me and Aphrodite finally come up through the hovering portal that leads to Fixed Reality Casino. The water's gone from the celebration room now it seems, which I have to assume was sucked away by the reinforcements who came prepared with the tech that always handles the aftermath of Ontarus' flood-water.

And on that note, there doesn't seem to be any fighting happening in this trashed room at all. That could either be a good, or really bad thing...

But all I can see right now with my crappy eyesight- is some destroyed soldier-robots that are spread out across the room, golden pieces of scrap metal which I assume are poor Ufisator's remains, and also a bloody blanket that has a head sticking out from it...

"Damn it." I frown and sigh after I squint- and finally notice that it's Aora's head I'm looking at... there's no way she would have her body covered like that on the floor if she wasn't dead. Plus that's not even including how bloody her head alone is...

"We may have fought a lot, but I'll still miss you, Ao-"

"SIR- you made it!" I hear Ontarus' voice shout from my right, so I swing my head towards him- to see the heavily-armored guy limping towards me without any major injuries it seems. Aside from a few bloody bullet-holes in his heavy-duty black armor at least.

"Where did he even come from? Unless the dark color of his armor just made him hard to see in this lighting... yeah."

"Status report? Any other threats who need taken down?" Is all I actually ask, not caring enough to cover myself up at this point- or to celebrate my victory with Ontarus either. It wouldn't be right after two Commanders just died.

After a few seconds of looking confused, he finally responds, "...Uh- ok... have a lot of questions but, they can wait. There's no current threats- but things aren't great here, not gonna lie. Aora died a fucking hero and sacrificed herself to save me, for whatever reason..."

I slowly nod, and Ontarus continues with a frown, "Ufisator's dead too which I think you already saw... and Fondrayan got knocked out too sometime after I got KO'd. BUT- the medics who took him away a few minutes ago think that he has a decent chance at making it. And I'm pretty fine as well, Bahari protected me for a while after Karia's Spirit of Sariel knocked me out cold."

"What about Seric, Karia, and Amandeath?"

"...The damn rats escaped. Ran through the portal to Dalkan after me and Fondrayan were KO'd. Then they blocked it off with Seric's boat so that no reinforcements could chase after 'em. And by the time Seric un-summoned his boat or whatever, the portal was already closed..." Ontarus' says which makes me sigh. Before I can talk though he continues,

"But I did get that- him... her? Fuck, my mind's all hazy. Anyways, me and Fondrayan worked together to kill that small little dumbass who was teleporting himself around the room and slapping us during the fight. Dreytao I think his name was?"

I furrow my brows, "That's it? If I'm remembering right, Dreytao was by far the lowest threat out of any of the crew... sorry to be rude but, how the heck was he the only one that you guys took out? He shouldn't have even been a target in the first place."

"I-I dunno, sir. Sorry. Seric and Karia pulled off a weird-ass attack that killed Aora and almost killed me, and after that- I was way weaker. Especially with Karia's Spirit of Sariel that was slicing me constantly too... bad luck, is all." Ontarus admits, looking confused and embarrassed as he looks down at the ground.

"...Ugh. Oh well, I guess... I'm uh- glad that you made it, by the way. Just sad that we lost both Aora and Ufisator and still let the trio get away. But hey. King Metallica's dead, and that's the most important thing-"

"Oh! I did slice Amandeath's legs off, though. So the bitch is... probably dead. And Seric got hella injured too by his own attack- which I think Aora somehow countered before she... ya know, died. Just thought I'd mention that." Ontarus interrupts me with a smile, and I just nod again.

"...Ok. That changes things. Nice. Also- where's the rest of the clean-up crew? You know, for like- cleaning up the bodies here? It feels rude having the corpses sitting out here."

"Some conscripts literally just finished sucking all the water out of the room. So the cleaners and investigators should be here soon. Access to the room was just heavily restricted for the past while, so that as few people got hurt by Bahari's water acting on it's own, is all." Ontarus says- which... kind of makes sense. So I nod again.

"Right, alright- cool. And I'm guessing the medics who came in for Fondrayan were a quick exception since he had a... you know, chance of surviving with medical help?" I ask- which gets me a quick nod from Ontarus.

"Ummmm- Prósopsi?" Aphrodite randomly calls my name, which makes me pause for a second. But I'm forced to ignore her since Ontarus is right next to me,

"All in all? I think that things could have gone worse, Ontarus. It really seems like Seric will never be as strong as he was back during his rampage on Aprase, since now would have been the best time for him to use his full power again. So I doubt those three will be able to cause much trouble on Dalkan. Especially if they're really injured. So in a way-"

"Prósopsi, Aora's moving." Aphrodite shouts, which makes me pause again- and glance towards Aora's corpse to see what she's talking about.

"AH- what the?!" I shout in fear and disgust after seeing the blanket that Aora's corpse is under start moving up and down. My panicking also causes Ontarus to turn his head to look at Aora- and he also screams just as loud as I did.

"Uaghhggahhh..." Aora's body disgustingly gurgles with her head twisting at the same time, causing blood to bubble out of her mouth.

"The fuck?! Is- is this like those fish that sometimes have their body's twitch after dying?!" Ontarus panics, looking at me for some sort of reassurance.

"I don't think so?! You're sure Aora was dead in the first place, right?!" Is all I can say back to him.

"Yeah! Medics checked her pulse and breathing and everything, I swear! Besides, you should have seen her body before the medics covered her up- no way could anyone have survived that shit!"

Even weirder, Aora's broken arms that literally have flesh and bone sticking out of them- somehow start rising up into the air.

And then, her index fingers start pointing around to random places...

"My head's too fried for this, what the heck is happening?"

A buzzing sound comes from Ontarus' direction- which I realize is his earpiece.

"Must be Taylis, she probably can't call me since my earpiece got destroyed a while back..." I think to myself, and impatiently wait for Ontarus to tell me what she's saying while staring at the floor...

"She needs help! Taylis' been watching us with a drone, and thinks that Aora's trying to draw out letters with her fingers!" Ontarus shouts.

"How?! I can't heal people, only myself- so we need medics! Damn it. But what are they going to even do to save her if her body's already beyond help... doesn't matter, we have to try. MEDICS- we need help!" I shout as loud as my raspy voice can, hoping that some people are at least somewhat close to this room still.

"Huh?" I hear the sound of Aphrodite's powers activating, and I'm finally back into my overpowered, confident, white-robed self!

"Why did I even mention anything..." Aphrodite groans- wish I could thank her right now for using even more of her energy to help me out again.

"I'll pay you back later." I think to myself while running over to Aora's twitching corpse.

"Ontarus- think you can handle things here for now?! I'm gonna fly Aora to a proper hospital!" I ask and get a hesitant thumbs up from Ontarus, and so I quickly wrap Aora up in the blanket she's under- and finally pick her up with both of my arms.

*FWOOSH!*

And just like that, with Aora in my grip- I fly up through the ceiling above us, as well as through the many floors above that- until I'm finally outside of this Casino and flying in the dark, artificial sky that surrounds this continent.

"Hospital, hospital... come on. I know there's one around here! I've been to a few that are in the center of the Hopian Continent!" I think to myself in a bit of a panic as I continue to fly up higher, hopefully so that I can see the giant neon signs that every hospital around here has.

But even with Aphrodite's enhanced sight, the signs far below us are still too blurry for me to properly read...

But that shouldn't even matter! I should be able to remember exactly where the hospitals are, I've been around here for years!

"Is my body really too old for this now?"

"The hell are you doing? Pretty sure there's a hospital literally right down there, stop screwing around- I'm fucking tired." Aphrodite snaps with one hand and points down with the other, and following the path of her fingertip I can see a big green glowing blob on the front of a cube-shaped building.

"Right." Is all I reply before I dive down towards the ground.

"Crap. I really hope I won't need to give up the position of Head Commander in a couple years... would sure be a lot less stressful though, even if Aphrodite would hate me for losing my status."