The NanoSkin supersuit sat very poorly on Nonpareil. Chalice designed it for herself and a few other heroes as an underlayer to be worn underneath flashy armor. It simply didn't look good on someone who was extremely obese, showing curves in all the wrong places.

Allana cringed, dying on the inside as Bob took his first step outside, guided and prodded by Alexa towards the S-shuttle taxi.

"T-this suit is going to keep me safe, right?" the fat man appealed to Chalice.

"Yes," Allana replied.

He sounded just like her best friend, her hero, the man whom she loved and looked up to... and yet, she simply had trouble seeing him as Nonpareil. "The NanoSkin is my best, most recent design. It's insanely smart and expensive. It will make you impervious to almost anything thrown at you. It's made from microscopic hexamesh plates that turn into immovable metal when something threatens the wearer. It recycles all waste and even has an oxygen supply. For example, if you were to get thrown into a volcano, you will survive just fine for a month until the fusion micro-batteries run out."

As the teens and two heroes crowded into the S-shuttle taxi and the door slid shut, Chalice closed her eyes, desperately attempting to focus on the hero's voice alone, trying to stop her brain from picturing the squalor of Bob's apartment and his sweaty, bloated face.

"Thanks, Chalice," the fat man in a shiny suit replied, making Allana shudder.

Somehow she had never noticed before how nerdy Nonpareil sounded, but now it was incredibly obvious.

When Allana walked into the secret apartment at the top floor of Titan tower, she still clung to hope that all of this was some kind of ruse, a trick of Alexa Terranova. However, the longer she spent in the company of the fat man, the more she realized that this was indeed Nonpareil.

She had to admit to herself, a part of her still loved him, but that part was now drowning in an ocean of dread and misapprehension.

"Don't look so glum, Chalice-crumbum," Alexa commented. "I know he might not be the prettiest now, but I'm sure that I can get him into shape. You got the meds, yes?"

"I got the meds," Chalice slid a paper bag into Alexa's arms. "These will make you very sleepy, but they will get rid of extra weight much faster than simply working out."

Alexa slid the bag of weight-loss pills to her Equalizer minion. Verse 24-19 vanished the paper back inside of her gray cloak, Equality pin glinting in the dim interior of the shuttle.

Chalice shuddered. She felt naked, defenseless without her full armor sitting next to an Equalizer Executioner.

"Don't worry," Alexa winked, hugging her minion. "Cotes is a real, genuine sweetheart once you get to know her!"

"R-right," Chalice muttered.

She simply could not associate an Equalizer killer with the term 'sweetheart'. She was wearing her business casual clothes and blended into the New New York crowd, while shiny, silver-gutted Nonpareil had stood out like a sore thumb. People threw the fat man snide glances, judging him before the taxi interiors hid the group from the world.

"Do you remember how we stopped... Shadowstrike?" She asked, trying to fill in the awkward silence between her and Nonpareil.

"Obviously," Nonpareil replied. "He was highly skilled at sensing and evading direct attacks, but we played on his overconfidence. We staged a distraction, creating a fake citywide crisis in Ardadria undercity that drew the villain's attention. While you, Dora and I were demolishing Ardadrian colossus-beasts and an army of Shadow-minions, the Surgeon, hidden by an invisi-field you designed approached Shadowstrike from behind and swiftly neutralized him with a sleep-dart. Once Shadowstrike was taken from Ardadria, the dimensional rift collapsed, never to be seen again."

Allana relaxed ever so slightly. Only the five heroes knew about the operation against Shadowstrike which took place in a separate dimensional shadow-rift created by the mad supervillain. This was indeed her Nonpareil, even if he looked absurd and was ridiculously out of shape.

Perhaps she could quickly disable Alexa and her minions and take Nonpareil to Titanomachy to get liposuction or something...

"I think that in the confines of the local narrative, you are love interest number two," Alexa commented, silver-blue eyes examining Allana's face.

"What?" Chalice sputtered, her thoughts instantly derailing.

If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

"Who's number one?" Alexa's minion Mittens asked.

"Dora the Terraformer," Alexa mulled.

"Dora?!" Allana's face snapped to Alexa.

"She doesn't hide her pretty face," Alexa mulled, tapping her chin. "You should be thankful that this is a Superhero pg narrative and not say some kind of a harem scenario. Har har."

"What's she talking about?" Chalice looked at Nonpareil. She felt a vein suddenly throbbing in her head.

"Urm," Nonpareil muttered. "Well... erm."

Chalice's eyes trailed across the fat man, dancing over Alexa's smug face and the faces of her minions. They knew something. Something that she, Chalice, wasn't privy to.

"Aww are you too embarrassed to tell her, Bobby?" Alexa crooned. "Dimmy, I nominate you to reveal the truth!"

She suddenly pushed a very pale, thin, redhead girl with light brown eyes forward. The girl hissed at Alexa and then looked at Chalice. Allana stared at the teen. There was something vaguely familiar about her, but she couldn't put a face to the name. Whatever.

The girl Alexa called Dimmy blushed furiously, not saying anything.

"No?" Alexa sighed. "You gotta work on your public speaking skills, Dimms. You'll never get ahead in life by being such a zombie!"

The pale girl sent Alexa a death glare.

"Guess it falls to me, as usual to be the matchmaker," Alexa sighed.

Chalice squinted at Alexa.

"What we're doing now is likely going waaay outside the narrative boundary," Alexa said. "It is quite possible that this is likely not allowed, wasn't ever meant to happen. I chose to talk to you first, not Dora."

"Narrative boundary?" Chalice blinked. "What?"

"Everything on our planet, the heroes the superstate... humanity. Everyone here is being manipulated by these... entities, machine gods, things like Agent Three that destroyed Nonpareil's power," Dimmy finally opened her mouth, spilling everything. "Nonpareil himself isn't a normal Super like you. He's apparently some kind of a client, someone who hired these... machine-entities to screw with us, to insert himself into our reality as our staple-shaped savoir! Everything is his fault. He's the greatest villain to exist! He manipulated everyone on the planet, made everyone believe that he's a hero! He thinks that we're all bloody NPCs, that our entire world is just a game made for him!"

"Overly dramatic for someone who's been actively undermining the superstate herself, Dims," Alexa commented with a smirk.

The redhead girl blushed even more, sending Alexa another glare.

Allana's eyes snapped to Nonpareil. She had access to the sensors within his suit, left a backdoor open. She knew that the fat man was sweating nervously, his heartbeat accelerating.

"Bob," she growled. "Tell me that what Terranova's minion saying isn't true... please."

Nonpareil gulped, his heartbeat accelerating.

"Fuck me," Allina closed her eyes. "You gotta be freaking kidding me..."

When she opened her eyes, they were filled with tears.

"Everything we've done, it's been a lie then? Some kind of a setup to keep you fucking entertained?" She hissed at Nonpareil, her own NanoSkin knuckles hardening as she wanted to punch the greatest hero on the planet. "Am I a joke to you, just your dumb puppet?!"

"No," Bob stammered. "Not a lie... the villains we fought... were real!"

"You're lying!" Chalice snapped, the sensors in Bob's NanoSkin suit telling her that he was misleading her. "You don't believe that yourself! You are a God's damned liar! I cannot believe this! I cannot believe that I've ever thought of you as my friend!"

Her fists opened and closed.

"Tell me the truth Bob!" She growled. "Tell me the truth or I will make that suit crush you like a God-damned bug!"

"Nothing here is real," Nonpareil stammered. "It's all made for me by... a GLM."

"WHY?!" Chalice wailed.

"B-because I pay for you to exist," the fat man in a silver suit cowered as Chalice resisted killing him then and there by the smallest margin.

"You're my dream. You're everything I've ever wanted! You are my best friend, one I could never have in the real world!" Bob yelled. "Please! Nothing here is real, yes, but it's real to me! I didn't know that you were a girl, but I do love you, you're my best friend, Chalice!"

Allana stared at Bob, her eyes wide. He was telling the truth.

She turned to Alexa, her entire body trembling.

"If this is just a story... if we're in some kind of a massive simulation made for this idiot, then what's the threat? Us getting shut down or something?"

"Presumably," Alexa mulled, "once the game ends, we all die. It won't be like an off switch, though. It'll be more like we'll be shafted into a big pile to join the rest of... the rejects."

"I don't understand," Chalice growled. "Explain."

"We're in a single player game now," Alexa said, finger pointing at Nonpareil. "But once Bob stops paying for the game, we get thrown into... multiplayer game mode, I think."

"Meaning what?" Chalice demanded.

"Meaning that we're verrrrrry likely to encounter an apocalyptic-level event caused by PK-player," Alexa said. "Bob here is our safety net. He keeps us alive as long as he pays for the subscription or whatever."

"PK?" Chalice blinked.

"Player-killer," Alexa said. "Or more like world killer. It won't be nice, trust me. Once our subscription ends, something will come through and eat us all, or set us all on fire, or mind-melt, or grind us to dust one by one. I was told by a reliable source that I might be able to save 1% of the local population at best."

"What?" Bob sputtered. "But... I thought the game simply ends when I..."

"You didn't read the fine print," Alexa shook her head. "The game doesn't end, because this isn't a game. We're real people with real feelings. We're as sapient as you are. You treating everyone here as mere NPCs makes you the greatest villain of all Bob."

"But... You... you said that I protect you!" Nonpareil tried to defend himself. "I keep everyone here alive!"

"For now," Alexa shrugged. "But that won't last forever, especially if I simply let you return to... the real world. Do tell Allana, what will you do once you leave the game - will you stop paying for your dream, turn us off, give us up for another player to destroy? Do you see Chalice as someone you care about, or do you want her to die horribly? Will you simply let another player slap her out of existence, turn Allana into a puddle of blood... as the planet you helped defend for decades burns, as everyone here turns to ashes?"

Nonpareil gulped.