Arkhan sat in his Mobile Throne staring at the disheveled Asian who was glaring back at him with his hands cuffed behind him. Arkhan knew this man, the Holy Crux Emperor, had the power to easily kill him, but that didn’t bother him in the slightest. Like the Emperor, he had an ace up his sleeve to be used when he died, although he didn’t want to test it out. Still, his curiosity had gotten the better of him, and he intended to question this person about multiple things.

He saw through the ‘eyes’ of his creations that the defeated emperor was preparing to try and get out of the cuffs and likely intended to kill him, but the end result of such an action would not be what the fool wanted. For now, he would play the oblivious victor who was to be killed by his captive, if only for the laughs when the fool got in over his head. Nothing quite matched the fury his creations had for those who meant their maker harm and just watching this self-righteous prick being sent to hell in a handbasket was going to put a smile on his face.

“Hello there. My name is Arkhan Aesir Arcadia, the quote unquote God-King of the Arcadian Commonwealth and the one whose creations allowed the so-called sub-humans to curb stomp the Human Nations. Might I have your name, so I can learn who exactly I have beaten so utterly?”

“Hiroyuki Miyamoto.”

“Ah, so you are an Otherworlder like me?”

“What…?”

“You come from another world, yes? Japanese names are unheard of here in this world, so I assumed…”

“You are from Earth?!”

Arkhan had caught his interest.

“Yes. I am indeed from Earth.”

“HOW?! The Church is the only entity capable of summoning people from Earth! How did someone that is not associated with them get here?! It’s impossible!”

“The hell if I know. I was reborn as a newborn more than sixteen years ago. But what do you mean that the Church controls Otherworlder Summoning? Please elaborate.”

“They are the ones that dragged me here! They are the ones who crowned me as Emperor and swore that once Humanity ruled the world I would be sent home!”

Arkhan chuckled and smirked.

“And you believed them? You honestly believed they wouldn’t just discard you like all the other people they summoned once they were done with you?”

“Of course not! I was chosen by the Kami! I am destined for greatness! The Kami wouldn’t let me fall until my divine rule had been achieved!”

This guy was delusional…

“And the facts that I have beaten you and hold you as a prisoner mean nothing?”

Hiroyuki grinned like a madman.

“They will mean nothing once you are DEAD!”

His hands had slipped out from the cuffs and with a leap he thrust his fist through Arkhan’s chest. While seriously in agony, Arkhan merely gave a twisted grin before his body was swapped out with that of a MS-14Jg Gelgoog Jager who now grabbed Hiroyuki in a suicidal bear hug. The Mobile Suit Golem let out a chilling declaration as its core began to detonate with Hiroyuki’s arm still lodged inside of it.

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“We go together!”

BOOM!

In an explosion of atomic fire and superheated shrapnel the Gelgoog Jager and Hiroyuki vanished into a ball of light and death. Unfortunately, Hiroyuki survived the point-blank detonation, but only barely. As Hiroyuki lay in a heap, he heard the chuckles of the person he had tried to kill.

“I knew you would try something like this, so I prepared a little… substitution, for you.”

“K-k-kisama!”

Arkhan slowly walked over to the broken emperor and looked down on the fool.

“I also informed that Gelgoog Jager NOT to blow up in a way that would deal lethal damage as I wanted to talk just a little more with you.”

Hiroyuki scowled and with what little strength he had left he raged against the man who now towered over him.

“I have nothing to say to a filthy, Kami-damned, barbarian GAIJIN!”

With a look of disappointment, Arkhan sighed and snapped his fingers.

“So be it.”

Arkhan’s MSGs took aim at Hiroyuki, but before they could fire at him, Hiroyuki spat at Arkhan. Arkhan looked at the glob of saliva, mucus and blood that had barely missed his feet and closed his eyes.

“You know what? You asked for this. Everyone, I want you to use your hands and feet to kill him. Draw it out as long as possible.”

One of the Kämpfers responded with typical gusto.

“Of course, sir! Guns are too quick for sub-sentient garbage like him!”

Arkhan cracked a joke in reply.

“I wouldn’t call him that. It would be an insult to garbage everywhere!”

Arkhan gazed at the horrified figure of the former Holy Crux Emperor as he was slowly surrounded by the human-sized killer robots. This was going to take a while, and Arkhan was intent on watching like a twisted voyeur. Hiroyuki tried to scream another insult by was shut up by a metal foot to the face which dislodged several teeth. As the beatdown reached its climax and Hiroyuki’s head was smashed open by an over-enthusiastic punch, Hiroyuki’s body began to turn into particles of light.

He was going home.

…

Hiroyuki awoke in his bedroom, the very place he had disappeared from when he was summoned. He checked the calendar that was on his wall and discovered he had not been gone even a single day.

“Ha. Haha. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! I am back! I knew that I was not destined to die such a horrible death! I….”

Something was wrong. Reality itself was beginning to break down around him. It was like everything was nothing more than a computer-generated world that was becoming more and more corrupt. Hiroyuki tried to scream in agony, but he had no mouth, no eyes, no nose, nothing at all. He was nothing at all, as was everything else.

…

Outside the rapidly degrading universe, a man sat at his desk gazing at the screen of his computer.

“Damn. My HoI4 save-game got corrupted. Well, time to delete that one and start over… Maybe try a world conquest run as New Zealand? Yeah, a Kiwi takeover would be hilarious. Thankfully, there are cheats and mods for stuff like that. Hopefully they won’t corrupt my next game…”

…

Back on Gaia, Arkhan was clutching his chest where the gaping hole made by Hiroyuki’s fist should have been. He still felt immense pain, like the mother-of-all-heartburns, but he was very much alive. One of his newer abilities had come into play just like he had expected it to, Survival Substitution was an ability similar to the one Hiroyuki had used in the waning moments of the Battle of the Border Wall, just with some slight tweaks.

His ability had no usage limit, meaning he could use it as many times as needed, but in exchange it had a lengthy cooldown of roughly 31 days or in other words a whole month. He would not ‘die’ but would be instantly swapped with one of his MSGs that was out of combat. Although he could only just barely control which one he was swapped with, the very act of swapping out his body with a suicide bomber would effectively give a giant middle finger to anyone who tried to kill him, especially if he was about to be killed by melee attack.

Once his body took enough damage over a short enough period of time his ability would activate, and he would be whisked away to safety AND healed to full. He was right, aside from the pain he felt right now this did put a smile on his face. It was a smile that was tinged with pain, but a smile nonetheless. He ordered his MSGs to vacate the city and prepare for the next stage of the war.

…

She was close. Once the younger beings were clear she would emerge from the ruins of the city. The return of the Five-God Dragon was imminent. Soon, the Angels and their proxies would tremble in terror.