A quick yawn is heard from the little water filter on the coffee table in Iggy's room. Noticing nothing but silence, he directs his attention to an empty bed.

"Iggy? Iggy!? Where are you?" He queries to himself. He continues searching around him until the door to the room opens; Zikh comes in.

"Oh, hey there Follower." Zikh looks at the water filter.

"You! The medium guy! You know where Iggy went?"

"The little guy's storytelling about FC over at the patio."

"Storytelling? Oh, to forget about yesterday?"

"Probably." Zikh replies with doubt. "He's been on the pedestal for 30 minutes, want me to bring you out?"

"Yeah, that'd be great."

Zikh lifts Pickle and walks outside of the room. He delicately places Pickle on the table, along with a few teapots in it, and sits at a chair beside him.

> "And when she ran from her new apartment, she spoke these words: Uh, fine, load my stuff!"

A huge crowd laughs at Iggy's unintentional punchline

"Why the hell are you guys laughing, she's a killer!" One of the angels gossips about.

"Remember, She doesn't want Logic to carry her stuff, that is what makes it funny!"

> "Uhh, that's not really a punchline... but... okay. Gaia running away during the maintenance became an ode to normalcy for her and Logic. That gave him a hint of Gaia's past, a rumble with the divine. But he never dug out his past, for she was told to never question anything."

18 YEARS AGO

By her fourth year in the ground, her brain, her heart, her soul... Everything about her was tamed. She was no longer dangerous to anybody... and she was ready to take on the world.

"Uh, Good Morning to our heads. Especially to you, Mr. Scott. Umm, just a quick note, I will kill you if you don't listen to me."

She spoke such words formally.

"I'm a fresh graduate of TCC, and I work with electronics and robotics. As you can see, some of my work here is from on-the-job training... Psst. Logic!"

"Aye, aye, coming in!"

Logic enters a very, very, menial atmosphere. The heads were curious, why was the policeman here? Well, it's to bring out Gaia's biggest work!

"One of my prototype animatronics that I would like to introduce to you, is Fauna. She's a psycho. Heh, like me."

She continued rambling on about her creation, and the investors were very interested in its intricate beauty. The beauty of putting robotics into the entertainment industry. Not replacements for jobs... but instead are characters for a bigger story.

"Scott. It's a pleasure to tell you... We're going to invest in this game."

Gaia was no boss. She was merely an intern. For her to coin an investment for her company means bigger opportunities...

PRESENT DAY

The angels are starting to feel anxious about Gaia's next steps.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

"But those opportunities never happened...?" One of the angels says, predicting Iggy's next line.

"And so it did!"

Everyone was suddenly rooting for Gaia.

> "For all those years, she worked in the company as the head designer for the robotic characters of the game they're working for and it TOOK OFF. Children. Adults. Ducks. They're all invested in the game! And it wouldn't even be possible without Gaia on their team."

14 YEARS AGO

"Yeah, Logic. Scott sent me here to forage for ideas. I won't be back for seven days."

"You really shouldn't~ Update 168's maintenance is tomorrow." Louie warned.

She was hanging out in a Dango Milk Cafe in Mochi Mochi Utopia. Update 168 is set to be released in a few days, So Timeline-2 won't be a place to call home for some time.

"Is that so? Guess I'll be staying here longer..."

"Alright, I'll be heading now. By the way, I got invited to Pital's 14th birthday party...."

"...Send her my best wishes."

They had a little wholesome conversation and two years of developing a deeper story animatronic game franchise. When she returned, she kept working her way up; despite almost zero people in town noticing her... Up until her big break.

TWO YEARS LATER

And so, they were in the office. There was Scott, right in front of her. What could he be up to?

"Gaia, your robotic work for our characters for the past six years has been amazing!" Scott says with praise.

"Yeah...? What about it?"

"It's just that... We in the studio had a tribute planned for you."

Scott takes out his ultimate gift for Gaia: A comic book.

"Ta-Da! The studio created a prologue to our games, and you're our self-insert protagonist: A psychotic engineer; the woman behind the slaughter. We've been working so hard for this for the past year!" He says, gesturing in excitement.

Gaia, at first glance, smiles, but she's been so delicate about her low identity. That smile was replaced immediately with concern.

"Uhh... yeah. It's good. That's the big surprise you've been dying to tell the fanbase about later, right..."

"Yeah! Isn't that great, Gaia? Your name will be known to the world! Promise, we won't slander it, I swear."

"Okay, okay." She sweats as she stands up. "I think I have to go. I resign."

"Wait, what? Gaia~"

Panicked, she walks away from the office

"Use my name, it's alright, I promise, It's for personal reasons~"

"Why do you suddenly want to resign? Did we do something bad~"

"I'll kill you if you ask another question!" She vents out.

Her head twitches in fear.

"I'm sorry, boss. Goodbye."

She didn't even tidy up her office space. Back at her home, she calms her panicked senses down.

"And it's that time of year for the update maintenance as well... God."

Then from nowhere, Logic comes knocking in.

"Haha! My client's famous!"

"...Logic?"

"Gaia! Look at this!"

She hurriedly opens the door.

"Logic, I have no time~"

"You're the main character of the very own game you helped create! That's so cool!"

"No, it's not cool!"

"...You don't like it?"

"No, Logic. I love it, but... I can't be famous, I just... can't. It's also a good opportunity for me to tell you... I'm leaving Timeline-2 for good."

"Why...? What has gotten into you? Has your mind relapsed?" Logic asks in fear.

"No. Look. I'll get out, I'll find work at The Industry, but I can't stay here for the same reason I can't stay during update maintenance. They'll figure out where I am and what I do once they see my face in that comic book."

"Who... they?" Louie says.

But Gaia refused to answer his question.

"Looking back at it, I feel so ashamed for what I did!"

Silence.

"My past is haunting me so much right now..."

And from that, Logic hugs Gaia with compassionate arms.

"You told me not to question your past. What matters is now."

Meanwhile you angels... started to work the same morning as that. General-Consul Cider gets greeted by Trinity Town's guardian angel with a few papers and a comic book in hand.

"General-Consul!" She said, breathing heavily. "We found her!"

"...You did?" Cider asked. To prove her point, she presented the comic book to Cider, Gaia's cartooned face sketched into the volume's front page.

"The forbidden child goes by the name of Gaia now. She's a self-insert psychotic character in the story!"

Cider delicately grabbed the comic book with her hands, but the guardian angel wasn't done talking. She presented the other papers to her.

"I immediately harvested her personal information, ma'am. She works at Scott's. She has no crime record, and a dream creature therapist is accompanying her everywhere she goes."

"No crime record??? A miracle. But despite all that, she still committed a heinous crime... I bet she's well aware that her fame is the gateway for us to find her by now."

Cider thinks in the back of her mind of a way to contain her in Timeline-2.

"The only way out of Timeline-2 is the train. To avoid any external ruckus, sabotaging the train is a no-go. Call on an angel to wait for her at a station, while you go get the changelog from the museum."

"I'll handle the dream creature in case he escorts her out of the place."