"Is everyone here?" I asked when we met just outside where Jon and Lilith were staying.
"This should be all of us." said Jon.
"All right." I responded, "Anyways, strange things have been happening here, right?"
"Yes." answered Jean.
"Jason," I said, "what have you found?"
"Things have been a little weird here." he answered, "I've seen things appear and disappear, but that's about it."
"Do you know what might be causing this?" I asked.
"Ron, what did you do with that book?" asked Jason.
"Um… what book?" I asked.
"Think back to Dimension F." suggested Jason.
"Oh, that's right." I responded, "I… shit."
"You forgot, didn't you?" asked Jean.
"Hmmm… maybe I'll remember if-" I started.
"Mike did it." a voice interrupted.
"Goddammit." I muttered.
"W-where'd you even come from?" asked Iris.
"I've been here this whole time." answered Mikaela.
"You're really freaking creepy." commented Lucas.
"You have anything important to say?" asked Lilith, "Perhaps something other than 'Mike did it'?"
"Nope." answered Mikaela.
"Well," I said, "what do we do?"
"Kill the creator of the time traveling assassin's club." another familiar voice said.
"Hi, Simon." I said, before letting out a sigh.
"Um, where did you come from?" asked Jason.
"Hell." answered Simon.
"Hey, Simon?" I said, "Why are you even in this country?"
"I got bored," he answered, "so I followed you until I got lost."
"Has anyone else been stalking me!?" I responded, a little upset.
"It's not what it looks like," responded Simon, "it's what it SOUNDS like."
"To answer your question, Ron... yes." said another familiar voice.
"Good lord, Cerise." I replied, "You never change, do you?"
"I see you've met my apprentice." she said.
"So I was right." I replied.
"Why are we always surrounded by weird people?" asked Jason.
"Because Mike." said Mikaela.
"Will you shut up about this Mike person?" asked Simon.
"Nope!" replied Mikaela.
"What kind of people have been around in your own dimension, Ron?" asked Iris.
"Wherever, I go," I said, "I'm surrounded by people with… personality. Kinda like a certain spiky-haired, blue-suited lawyer."
"What?" responded Lucas.
"W-what's that supposed to mean?" asked Simon.
"Can we… focus?" I asked.
"Oh my god, Ron, stop it." said Mikaela.
"Stop what?" I responded, confused.
"Just stop." she answered.
"Nice to know I can always get a clear response from you." I reacted.
"That just means I've been a good teacher." responded Cerise.
"Sure." I replied.
"You keep telling yourself that." said Jon.
"W-what's that supposed to mean!?" exclaimed Cerise.
"We're getting off topic here." said Jon.
"So, about the book…" said Jason, trying to get us back on topic.
"Well," said Jean, "Jeff should know of a way to locate the book. He wanted to figure out how because he has a habit of losing things sometimes."
"Isn't he dead-" started Jason, then realizing Jean was alive, "How did I not notice that YOU'RE somehow alive?!"
"People have to die in their home dimension to die fully." I answered.
"How the heck are we supposed to locate Jeff, though?" asked Lucas, "We don't know where he might have went."
"What's he going to be like if we do actually find him?" asked Jason, "He doesn't really like most of us."
"True, but if we want our investigation to go further," I said, "we should try to find him."
"Well, where is he likely to be staying?" asked Iris.
"Right," I said, "we can't rely on plot convenience."
"What does that even mean?" asked Simon.
"It means he's the protagonist." said Cerise.
"Do you have anything important to do or are you just here for fun?" asked Jason.
"Just for fun." she said, laughing, "Anyways, I gotta go."
"Why do you always take off-?" I tried to ask, but she had already ran far out of earshot.
"Let's not worry about her." said Lucas.
"Well, let's start- why is there a penguin here?" said Jon.
We all looked down, and like Jon said, there was a penguin.
"Should we ignore it?" I asked.
Immediately after that, it pulled a sword out.
"Whoa, what!?" I exclaimed.
"Where'd this thing even come from!?" responded Lilith.
"Remember what I said earlier?" asked Jason, "Things have been appearing and disappearing regularly, and that includes living things!"
The penguin ran at me and prepared to strike me, but I blocked his attack with a cat-sword that I pulled out of thin air. Jason went in to attack as well and the penguin pulled out another sword, so both of us were trying to his the penguin, our swords getting blocked. Simon pulled out a katana and ran at the penguin from the other side, but the penguin rotated itself three hundred sixty degrees, causing myself, Jason, and Simon to jump back. Then, it laid an egg, which immediately hatched and two penguins came out of it!
"What the hell!?" I exclaimed.
After that, Mikaela ran by with a scythe, hitting one of the newborn penguins. Lucas and Lilith ran in with glowing green swords and the remaining young penguin pulled out two swords. The oldest penguin also happened to lay another egg that immediately hatched, releasing give sword-equipped penguins.
"Son of a bitch!" I exclaimed.
"What are we supposed to do!?" shouted Jean, running in with her golden sword.
"And I still can't do anything." said Iris, sounding disappointed.
"Here," I said, handing her a cat-sword, "if you want to help, use it."
After that, myself, Jason, Lucas, Lilith, and Jean stood next to each other. Then, we held our swords out and ran into the penguins. Jon pulled a knife out of his pocket and tried stabbing a penguin, who knocked it out of his hand. The penguin was about to stab Jon with its sword, but Jon pulled out his whistle, blew in it, and vanished. Then, I scanned the area around us and spotted hundreds of eggs hatching.
"This is how we'll die, isn't it?" I said, "Never thought that I'd lose my life to a penguin."
"Y'know, it's not gonna matter if someone from OUR dimension dies, right?" responded Jason.
"Oh, yeah," I responded, "but we'd have to wait like twenty-four hours to return to this dimension."
"T-there are too many of them!" said Lilith.
"Ron, what did you do?" asked Mikaela.
"I did nothing!" I replied.
"I think we should probably hide." suggested Simon.
"Any ideas?" asked Jean.
"Nope." Simon and I said at the same time.
"Should we… run?" asked Lucas.
"That's a quite a situation you're all in." said a voice.
"That's-!" I exclaimed.
"Jeff!?" responded Lucas.
There he was, in front of us, alive. He looked about the same as he did in Dimension F too. He also had a weapon him. It seemed like it was just a gun.
"There's a way to exterminate efficiently." he said, shooting a laser from his gun, blasting multiple penguins at once.
After that, we all continued attacking the penguins and there numbers decreased. Jeff kept shooting and most of us kept cutting. Eventually, there were only two penguins left. Then Jeff had a gun in each hand and shot both of them at the same time.
"Okay," I said, "now that we've taken care of that… why are you here!?"
"Felt like it." answered Jeff.
"No, I'm serious." I responded, "You don't seem like the kind of guy to appear without a reason."
"It has nothing to do with you." answered Jeff.
"Is that so?" I responded, "Well, I've got an idea. I think I know why you're here… it's because of Jean isn't it?"
"Perhaps."
"Why appear now of all times?"
"That's none of your business."
"Then I'll make it my business."
"I… don't want to talk to you."
"Oh, you'll talk, dammit!"
"Hmmm… I have nothing I want to say to you."
"It's all right. I have a guess as to why you're here. …Something happened, am I right?"
"Maybe something did and maybe something didn't…"
"And whatever happened has something to do with Jean."
"I'd appreciate it if you'd quit pulling this out of your ass."
"Pulling what exactly? The truth?"
"Just… stop."
"Oh, we're not finished here. So, you came to see Jean because you were worried about her, right?"
I got silence in response.
"What the hell is wrong with you?" I said.
"Everything." he responded.
"Smartass." I replied, sighing.
"Is that all?" asked Jeff.
"No," I said, "anyways, the reason you were worried about Jean… was because of something that happened recently, wasn't it?"
"I just hadn't seen her in a while, that's all."
"Why haven't you tried to find her sooner then?"
"I've been-"
"No, you haven't."
"Huh?"
"How long have you been in this country?"
"Since March."
"Jean, how about you?" I asked.
"I got here around the same time." she answered.
"You only started searching for her recently," I said, "you've just been hiding for months."
"Ah!" responded Jeff.
"So, something happened, right?" I asked.
"As for what happened… was it someone's death?"
"Yes, somebody died…"
"Well, who was it?"
Then there was silence.
"I'm going to guess," I said, "and you can tell me if I'm wrong."
Jeff remained silent.
"It was your ex-wife, wasn't it?" I said.
"I guess there's no hiding stuff from you," Jeff responded, "I didn't want to tell you because it didn't really have anything to do with you."
"So, it's true!?" responded Jean.
"Yes… your mother is dead." answered Jeff.
"Oh." responded Jean, sounding a little disappointed.
"This is why I came." said Jeff, "I originally had no plans to come out of hiding, but as soon as the news reached me, I started looking for you, because I wanted to know if you were okay."
"Hiding and doing what, exactly?" I asked.
"Nothing, really." answered Jeff, "I got tired of evil when I realized how much it hurt."
"Is this some bad show where the villains all join the heroes...?" I muttered to myself.
"So, how did she die?" asked Jean.
"She was murdered." answered Jeff.
"It wasn't you, was it?" asked Lucas.
"No!" responded Jeff.
"What do you know?" I asked.
"When I heard about it, they hadn't identified a suspect." answered Jeff.
"Y'know, so many strange things have been happening," I said, "I'm starting to wonder if these things are all connected, which reminds me of something. So, about that book…"
"You lost it, didn't you?" asked Jeff.
"Something like that." I responded.