Disclaimer: This is fanwork based on the anime Re:Creators by Troyca. Its setting, characters and plot belong to their rightful creators. I write this only for fun and as a little writing experiment.
EPISODE 20: HOSTILE TAKEOVER
"This can't be...", Hoshikawa cries.
Yes, it can be. Princess Tomato is dead. We could have added Charon to our roster, but instead we lost my first minion. Disgraceful. And do you know whose fault it is? It's your fault, you damn porn actress, for giving her weird ideas. And Kanoya's, for being a hot-headed idiot that always shoots first. And Yuuya's, for arriving too late. And I suppose Blitz and Sho are also at fault, but I still have to think of a reason.
Of course, it isn't my fault. I'm the boss, after all. If I watched everything without saying anything that could have changed the course of events, it was only because I was so confused by your idiocy that I was left speechless. Yeah, that is.
…
Ok, ok, perhaps it's a bit of my fault. Only a tiny little bit. In hindsight, there are people far guiltier than any of us: the Creators.
Yes, the Creators. Ultimately, Selesia, Hoshikawa, Kanoya and the rest of my faulty minions can't help having been born as brainless goody-two-shoes heroes. That's the way they were written. Who has shown wisdom and sensibility since the beginning? Altair. Blitz. Yuuya from time to time. And me. All villains. Even Shark Girl has been clever enough not to show her ugly face again since we lost track of her. She's probably taking a plane to get out of the country ASAP, if she hasn't done it yet.
While my minions (and everyone inside the control room) react in shock, Altair chews the scenery again:
"What a story. You fulfilled your duties and sacrificed your life to accomplish your mission. It's the deepest desire of every hero".
Hey! That's not true! She said herself that her deepest desire was to have other, less important people sacrifice their lives so that Charon and her could live happily ever after. My Selesia was a dumb hero, but no as dumb as the rest (it's been forty seconds since she died and I already miss her).
Altair goes on breaking the fourth wall, until Hoshikawa calls her out:
"Why are you doing this? You're a Creation too! You're acting like this is all a show!"
Well, technically, it is. Did she forget there are cameras everywhere in the Birdcage? Hey, now that I think about it, is Hoshikawa aware that millions of people have seen her most embarrassing moments in battle?
"That's because this is a show", Altair points out the obvious. "That's what the audience's acceptance is for. That's what my powers are for. Everything here is a pageant that has been set up just for that purpose. You're the one who doesn't understand, Hoshikawa Hikayu".
What a burn. Hoshikawa is looking bad in front of the Big Bad, so she gets angry.
"I'll never forgive people like you!"
Yeah, people that make you look dumb in front of others are a pain in the ass, even when they are right. Fortunately, I'm more intelligent than anyone else, so I've never had to suffer it.
Hoshikawa powers up. Her nunchaku becomes a cannon, which becomes a mace, which becomes a giant spinning top, which becomes a flail… which for some reason is smaller than the previous weapon. Whatever Onishi wrote for her new setting, it's weird.
"Kassatsu Hakugeki Retsuzan!"
The porn actress turned martial artist charges forward. Altair isn't fazed in the slightest, despite Hoshikawa having defeated Sho with a single punch and kicked a mecha to the ground before. She takes her rifle and pretends to play it as if she played a violin.
Oh, oh. I'm not going to like what happens next, am I?
A wave of energy passes through Hoshikawa. Suddenly, her bizarre weapon and her Chinese dress evaporate. She's back to her old self, Hoshikawa Hikayu, the high school girl. She's as surprised as we are.
Before my pink-haired minion can react, Altair grabs her neck.
"Holopsicon, the Thirteenth Movement: Outline Origin", she explains. "This takes plot twists that were added onto the story and brings them back to the beginning".
Oh, come on! Does she have a convenient power for everything? You know, I'm beginning to suspect that perhaps we should have devoted an entire research time to check and study every available power Altair has. Or at least the most famous ones. Why didn't we do it, I wonder? Ah, yeah, I remember, we believed that just creating new awesome powers for our chosen warriors was enough.
Oh, well, not everything is lost. If Hoshikawa's martial arts are useless, time for Plan B. Heroes always power up when villains kill cute girls, especially if they are helpless civilians.
It's your time to shine, Hoshikawa! See? She's already crying and gasping for air. A perfect performance to earn extra sympathy. Great job, Hikayu! Now die! Give us a tragic death to undermine Altair!
Unfortunately, the mutated mop realizes the gist of my strategy pretty quickly.
"Killing you in a fight wasn't part of my plans", she reveals. "Or rather, it wasn't part of my plans for my story. Everything happening here is all a script made just for me. And it's also a script made for the enjoyment of everyone watching. I'll let you play the role of an innocent bystander. Feel how powerless you are. You're useless. You can't do anything. All you can do is sit back and watch the world end".
Damn. She's good. Not only she releases her, making Plan B useless, but she broke her spirit with words just in case. Truly, Altair is the only one that can match my intellect.
Now it's Yuuya's turn to attack (Why didn't he intervene when Altair seemed about to kill her? Did he fear that the script would make him sacrifice his life to save her? Clever boy). The Military Uniform Princess blocks it easily, but it looks as if Grasshopper Glasses just wanted to be close enough to ask a pressing question:
"Why didn't you erase our powers too? Why didn't you erase us? You can do that, can't you?"
As always, Yuuya is wiser than he looks. But he's still a punk that can't see the bigger picture. Blitz, who is carrying an unconscious Hoshikawa, tells him:
"She's not going to do that".
Of course she isn't. She's too intelligent for that.
00000
Meanwhile, in the control room, people are as puzzled as Yuuya. I should have expected. Oh, well, fortunately for them, I'm here. Time for exposition!
"Right now, they're all characters in a story that Altair created", I explain. "Altair used our own system against us. Right now, we're not the ones who are in control of the story. The Birdcage has turned into a booster for the purpose of increasing her acceptance".
Mr. Matsubara punches the wall. He's taking the deaths of his Creations better than I hoped for, but he needs to vent his frustration somehow. I understand. I'm clenching my fist a bit. Very emotional of me.
What? Did you think I was going to say "Oh, shit, we're doomed"? Not at all.
I admit Altair's insight has been problematic, and losing Selesia and Charon to mass stupidity has been a harsh pill to swallow (Alicetaria's death, on the other hand, was acceptable; I wasn't sure we could count on her loyalty to begin with). Now Hoshikawa is down, Kanoya's mecha is almost useless, and Yuuya, Sho and Blitz can't handle Altair on their own. But it's okay. They were never supposed to beat her. Their role was to give us time to deploy our secret weapon (Ionion Aphoria). Then our secret super weapon (the magic cube and the triple attack). And finally, the real secret super weapon.
Thank you, Altair. In your rush to increase acceptance for the show, you've played right into our hands.
Mr. Matsubara has the same idea in mind:
"Meteora, what's the current situation?"
"The level of acceptance inside the Birdcage continues to increase. The audience approves of Altair's story. They're watching closely to see what happens next".
"Then we still have a chance".
I nod.
"Let's do it", Mr. Matsubara says. "In terms of the story, this is the perfect time to use our secret weapon".
Everyone is in agreement.
"We already put some foreshadowing for this in the prequel", Mr. Yatoji points out, while Marine nods.
"That's what we pulled that all-nighter for", a confident Mr. Nakanogane reminisces.
I check the numbers of my magic machine.
"The acceptance level has already exceeded the threshold needed for making the character appear in this world. We cannot ask for a better opportunity than this".
The die is cast. Kikuchihara gives the orders:
"Prepare for the finale. We will proceed to the SI Appearance stage. This is CIC. Kanoya, can you hear me?"
At the other end of the line, Kanoya sounds depressed. He probably feels guilty because of what happened to Selesia (serves him right), since technically he killed her. But Kikuchihara doesn't have time for his bullshit.
"The special spells we used on Gigas Machina are still usable, right?", she demands to know.
"Some of them don't work anymore. The attack spells are gone", he mutters.
"We don't need them", Kikuchihara interrupts him. "Meteora will cast a spell now. Divert the remaining drive power to the Authority Pentagram".
Now that Kanoya's giant robot is in position, my time has come. Obviously, who else can defeat Altair? Only I, the real protagonist of this story, can save the world. And then I will conquer it, but first thing first. From the safety of the control room, using Gigas Machina as the antenna, I cast the spell:
"We obey thy authority. One moment shall continue for a thousand years. Eternal wandering. Use the authority of eternity. Give root to our hypothesis. In the name of the South Star, bring forth the dawn of the Holopsicon now!"
I assure you, Altair won't see this coming.
00000
Suddenly, a giant red ball of energy appears from above and crashes into Altair. She tries to block it but, for once, it's the Military Uniform Princess who is thrown away. Good, good.
Everyone is shocked. Altair, the audience, my own minions. Yuuya mutters:
"That's..."
A new challenger approaches. She looks like Altair, but in a different way. Taller and slimmer, as if drawn by a newbie artist who admired CLAMP and Matsumoto. The same giant mutated mop of hair, but no military uniform. A double-bladed lance instead of swords. And, more importantly, quiet and expressionless instead of gloating like a madwoman.
Sirius, our own version of Altair. You know how the saying goes: "If you can't beat them, copy them and make the copy beat them". Perfect.
I'd consider her silence a strong point, but it's unnerving the people at the control room.
"I wonder why she's not talking", a worried Marine asks.
"The acceptance hasn't reached all the way to the inside of the character. The acceptance level is barely able to sustain her existence. But that's as far as it goes", Mr. Matsubara tries to explain.
Oh, so cute! Look at the poor little author, infodumping as if he had any idea about the subject. Who's the one with the acceptance-level machine, Mr. Matsubara? Didn't I just say that the acceptance level was beyond the threshold we needed? Sirius has been perfectly summoned to this world. If a meme with zero narrative content like Altair can talk and talk, so can Sirius. If she doesn't do it, it's not because of acceptance. It's because of me.
You see, after witnessing the communication failure of all my other minions and losing Selesia because of it, it's pretty clear that letting the Creations talk is a mistake. I'm more than enough to do all the exposition we need, thank you very much. To achieve my goals, a strong and obedient puppet that obeys my every command is much better. That's why I summoned her this way.
Not that I'm going to tell it to the people here, of course. I'm sure they wouldn't approve. Oh, well, I can play along with Mr. Matsubara's explanation for now.
"Even so", I pretend to concede, "right now, she has the same powers that Altair does. She's a perfect reflection. That's what she is".
Who needs free will when you can remote control a killing machine? Time to prove my point.
"Sirius", I call her. "Eliminate Altair!"
She nods. That's it, no sarcastic comment, no bravado, no useless waste of oxygen. I love it.
On the other hand, Altair is pissed off. She's recovered from the previous hit and now she's had a better chance to examine her new enemy. And she doesn't like what she's seeing.
"You can't be serious! This design is the last that my dear friend created in the last moments before her death!"
Ah, she realized. As expected of mommy's little girl, she remembers her work very well.
Indeed, Altair is right. To make Sirius' connection with her younger sister more genuine, we "borrowed" Shimazaki Setsuna's drawings. This was one of the many designs she created based on the Eternal Wars Megalosphere game, specifically the last Altair prototype before she uploaded the World Étude video.
Before you ask, no, we didn't ask for permission. Why would we? Setsuna is dead, her parents have no clue that their daughter created a monster, and with the little time we had, it was better to just steal her drawings rather than trying to unravel the legal puzzle that is the rights to a meme. If Setsuna didn't want her work to be stolen by corporations, she should have copyrighted it. Then the government could have expropriated it legally. In any case, between the emergency powers and our army of lawyers, if the parents realize and sue us, we're covered. This is the adult way of doing things. Not that I expect Altair to understand.
The two mutated mops fight. Soon, Altair realizes that Sirius is more than a match for her.
"It's not just the design", she says to her copy. "So you're able to use the Holopsicon too?"
Had she been any other minion, Sirius would probably have answered with some gratuitous action cliche. But she's Sirius, my perfect doll, so she stays silent. Frustrated by the lack of response, Altair uses her Holopsicon to attack her with a giant blue ball of energy. In turn, Sirius counterattacks with a red ball. Blue versus Red, who will win?
Now we're witnessing the power of Creation. Altair is a cheap meme created by a depressed teenager. Sirius is the brainchild of some of the best selling manga and anime authors of Japan, supported by a joint effort between the largest media corporations in the country and the very government. A complex background, a narratively sound reason to exist, foreshadowed by the most popular crossover ever created. Also, she was summoned by me, the wisest, most intelligent, most beautiful magician in all the universe.
The victor is a foregone conclusion: Sirius' ball overpowers Altair's and a big explosion engulfs the Birdcage. If Blitz, Yuuya and Sho know what's good for them, they should have taken Hoshikawa and run away. If not, a pity. At this point, they're barely better than NPCs.
"Check the equipment!", Kikuchihara barks when the control room loses the signal.
"It's not a malfunction", I have to explain. "The world inside the Birdcage is trying to resolve the contradiction. It's reconstructing itself".
Soon enough, the cameras are working again. We can see Altair reforming herself from a cloud of pixels. Oh, my. Sirius' attack was so strong that we were this close to erase her for good. And we've just begun. The Military Uniform Princess is shaken, but tries to show confidence.
"You've made a pretty good copy of me", she admits. "I expected nothing less of you, Creators. That's no small feat. Getting the audience to accept a completely new Creation would have taken a lot of time and effort. It looks like you found a way to gain enough acceptance to compete against me in such a short amount of time".
Stop, Altair, you're going to make me blush! I wonder if she knows that we have synchronized Sirius to her Existence Coefficient. Probably not, otherwise she would start to panic. Everything up to now has proceeded according to our plans.
Sirius and Altair clash again, lance against sword. They're evenly matched, much to the former's chagrin. In what appears to be a mistake, Sirius throws her lance but fails and it lands on the ground. She's wide open. Altair senses her chance to strike and is about to give her the coup de grace when she finds herself paralyzed.
"What?".
Ha! Take that, Altair! You should have paid more attention to the ground. The point where Sirius' lance landed? There's a magic circle now, with a spell so powerful that it can stop even you. Of course, I'm sure that sooner or later you'd manage to find your way out, but we're not going to give you the chance this time. No Charon, Alicetaria, Sho or Blitz to work as your meatshields, Altair.
Sirius, the time has come. Execute Movement 66.
"Holopsicon, the Sixty-Sixth Movement: Existence Change", she says in a deadpan voice.
And without any hesitation, Sirius takes her lance and stabs herself.
While the audience gasps in horror, a strange effect occurs: Sirius starts bleeding pixels, but so does Altair. In fact, their digital wound is spreading at the same pace. Finally, Altair realizes what's happening, but it's too late for her to stop it:
"You bastard! You're trying to take over who I am! You're trying to become me!"
MWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Now you understand! If we can't erase you, we'll change you! We'll fuse you with Sirius and use her as the template. You'll become our puppet. No, you'll become MY puppet. I've always said that Altair could have been a most useful minion, haven't I? And I always get what I want.
Come on, come on! Hurry up! Disappear already so that you become my slave! Let Sirius absorb your very being! Your body! Your mind! Your power! Your soul! Everything! GIVE IT ALL TO ME!
Then there's a huge explosion and all the cameras go off. Damn!
00000
The next seconds are the most excruciating in my life. Did it work? Or did we fail again?
Thankfully, when the cameras get signal again, there's only one figure on the ground: Sirius. Or perhaps I should say the new Altair. Yuuya rushes to her and examines the unconscious girl. Now her face is like a perfect blend of Sirius and Altair. Sirius was too schematic, full of sharp angles and straight lines. This new minion of mine has curves, more details and softer features. She looks alive. Well, she'd look alive if she opened her eyes. Even Grasshopper Glasses is worried.
"Hey, old man, what am I supposed to do with her?", he asks Blitz.
"Why don't you try waking her up with a kiss?", the detective suggests.
"A kiss?"
Don't you dare, Mirokuji Yuuya! You're walking on thin nice right now. You could either become my concubine or a corpse, and kissing another girl is a no-no.
Unfortunately, the other uninvited guests make things worse, proving once again that no minion should talk without proper guidance.
"That's so romantic!", Hoshikawa, now awaken, says.
"Go on, do it, Yuuya!", Sho teases him. "I'll be laughing at you".
"Shut up, you bastards!"
He says that, but it looks as if he's seriously considering the option. What a shameless womanizer…
Wait! No, no, I understand now. It's all part of his plan. Clever, very clever.
It's said that the opposite of love is not hate, but indifference, and that there's a fine line between hate and love. At first, he appears as the stereotypical bad boy, the kind a girl like me would desire for some quick fun. But instead of trying to please me, he infuriates me with his 'Metchin' and his general lack of respect. He even loses on purpose to make me feel both contempt and pity. A cocktail of emotions. However, before I can write him off, he proves himself an intelligent and capable man. She's playing cat and mouse with me. So what's the next logical step? Make me jealous with another woman.
Yep, this must be. It explains everything! But now that I know the truth, I won't be taken in by your seductive stratagems. Go on, Yuuya. Kiss her. I don't care.
…
I'm being serious. Very serious. Honestly. To prove how little I care, I'll distract myself for a bit with infodump.
"Altair's Existence Coefficient is almost zero", I explain to the people in the control room. "I think that we can safely say that Altair has been swallowed up by Sirius, just as we planned".
Everyone cheers. To my disappointment, instead of showering me with praise, they commend Mr. Matsubara. However, Selesia's author doesn't seem pleased.
"I created that character just for this. As her Creator, it's not something I'm proud of".
Understandable, really. I mean, he used the designs we stole from a dead teenager and made a character that was a blatant copy of an existing one. There's more creative fanfiction out there. Heck, didn't the authors bash "secondary creations" when we discussed Altair's identity several months ago? Pretty ironic, if you ask me.
Oh, Sirius has finally opened her eyes. Did Yuuya kiss her? (I don't mind, I don't mind, I don't mind…). She looks confused and doesn't seem to know where she is, but beyond that she seems in top-notch condition.
"Hey", Yuuya greets her, but she ignores him (must be a lousy kisser, then). He's going to say something, but then he gets a call from Kikuchihara.
"Mirokuji, how is Sirius?"
"She doesn't even talk", Grasshopper Glasses points out. "Is she okay?"
Kikuchihara repeats the lie about Sirius missing a personality. For a moment, I fear that Yuuya may notice my ruse, but he accepts the theory at face value. From his point of view, she's a doll that was created just to defeat Altair. Despite our victory, the method doesn't make him very happy. Altair's absorption was effective, but also cruel and disturbing.
"I never thought that you guys would actually create a character like that", Yuuya comments. Does he sound… disappointed?
"Yeah. This was the only way", I admit.
"I'm not trying to blame you", he adds quickly. "I just didn't expect it".
Slowly, Yuuya rejoins the rest of the group, while a still dazzled Sirius explores the scenery. Hoshikawa wonders about what will happen to them, Kanoya is sure that I'll manage to send them back to their own universes (good, good, praise my intelligence!) and Blitz says he wouldn't mind too much if he can't go back. He already has what he wanted, after all.
This is the end of the adventure, they think. They are wrong.
I haven't released the Birdcage yet. Why should I? The acceptance level is at its highest. The energy of millions of viewers, focused on the grand finale. Naturally, we could leave things like this. Altair is defeated, the world is saved. A happy ending for all, except for those who died in the process. But what if we added a plot twist? Like the Big Good of the team revealing herself as the true Final Boss?
I'm talking about me, of course.
What? Did you think I'd forget my evil plan? Not at all! This is the perfect moment to strike. I'll teleport myself inside the Birdcage and explain how everything that happened was part of my master plan to become Goddess-Empress of the Multiverse (minus a few bumps, but they've been smoothed out). Audiences love diabolical masterminds, after all. And then it would be nice if they give me a final battle worthy of my ascension. The remaining Creations are a joke, but as Altair said, entertaining the viewers is the only thing that matters. The JSDF may try to do something then, but now that I have the power to summon war machines, they can't hope to match my forces. With Sirius at my beck and call, I'm the most powerful overlord this world have ever seen. In fact, I probably have more firepower than the evil overlord of my world. When everyone is crushed, their hopes destroyed, the audience in awe of my might, then I will have all the ingredients to become an omnipotent being. I just need the viewers to accept it for just one moment and fantasy will become reality.
Yes, yes, what a tragic twist. Their beloved ally, a villain all along. I can't wait to see the despair in their faces.
How should I make my entrance? Laughing maniacally the moment I appear? No, too shabby. What about killing one of them right after teleporting myself inside the Birdcage? Yes, that sounds much better. No, wait! I have a better idea: I'll order Sirius to murder one of them and, when everyone wonders what the hell is happening, I'll appear and start infodumping them, explaining how stupid they've been to trust me and how my plan is the cleverest plan ever created. Yes, yes, that's perfect.
Now, it's only a matter of choosing the perfect victim for Sirius. Yuuya… Mm, I still need to know if he was playing around or not. Blitz? He's been weak to blackmail before, he could be convinced to join my side. That leaves us Sho, Hoshikawa, Kanoya… Decisions, decisions.
Suddenly, a flying sword stabs Yuuya's back.
"Yuuya!", his rival and potential gay lover shouts.
Before anyone can react, Grasshopper Glasses is impaled by two more swords. The punk is vomiting blood, but he still has the instinct to summon his female samurai ghost to block the next two blades and send her against the culprit: Sirius.
WTF? I know I wanted her to kill one of them! But not now! I hadn't decided yet! Why did she do it? Did I give her an order without noticing? And why Yuuya? Oh, my, this must be some of those Freudian subconscious slips I've heard so much about. Ugh, nevermind, I'll have to start my plan with this. Now, Sirius, stop.
…
Stop. Stop, stop, stop! Her red shockwave has erased Yuuya's ghost. This is not what I planned! Why isn't she obeying my commands? Why is she wearing Altair's hat? And why is she smiling like Altair?
No. No, no, no, this can't be happening. It's impossible!
"NO WAY!", Kikuchihara screams.
I check the numbers of my machine again. The numbers never lie. And the numbers tell me that Altair isn't in this world anymore.
"Her Existence Coefficient is zero. That's not really Altair! I thought that Sirius..."
Eerily, the woman that was supposed to be my puppet answers my question, as if she could hear my voice from inside the Birdcage:
"Do you mean that you thought that woman over there was Sirius?"
Oh, gods. Her eyes. Those crazy red kaleidoscopic eyes, instead of Sirius' lifeless gray-blue ones. And it's not just her eyes. With a gesture of her hand, she changes her clothes to be closer to that hideous black military uniform, but without losing Sirius' style.
"Well, my friends, I have returned. I feel like I've been born again", Altair gloats.
Oh, shit. We're doomed.
00000
There is chaos inside and outside the Birdcage. Everyone in the control room, including me, is stunned. How is this possible? Sirius ate her! We won! WHY? To add insult to injury, the audience goes "oooooh" and starts cheering for her. For her! The omnicidal maniac! What does she have that I don't?
I mean, just look at us. I'm a famous NPC from a video game behemoth, while she's just a fan creation that became popular. I have the support of the government and the biggest corporations in Japan, while she just has a handful allies she managed to convince on her own. My powers have been augmented in a plot carefully orchestrated by a team of professional writers and published throughout the media, whereas she has to rely on the crazy abilities invented by random fans and her own creativity. I cleverly let others fight my fights, while she's always on the front line. My secret plan is to achieve the ultimate power and rule over everything, whereas hers is to destroy everything to avenge her bullied Creator who killed herself. And more importantly, my exposition appeals to logic and facts, while hers appeals to emotion.
No matter how you look at it, I'm obviously the superior villain.
But seriously, how is this happening? Didn't our authors agree that their original, complex narratives would not lose against a one-dimensional meme like Altair? Yatoji asks the same question:
"Why? We had everything covered! Down to the last detail! Our plan was perfect!"
"It wasn't enough", Mr. Nakanogane says. "Sirius, the character we created, didn't have enough information compared to Altair. We were able to get the audience to accept her enough to get her to appear in this world, but we couldn't dig deep enough to flesh out the character's personality".
Although it pains me to admit it, he's right. In hindsight, Altair had enjoyed many months of online popularity even before she appeared in this world. Most of it came from stupid videos, devoid of any real narrative quality. But as the saying goes, quantity has a quality all its own.
"Altair took advantage of that. Altair was almost at the point of having her existence overwritten. She slipped into one of the possibilities for Sirius and took over her", I point out.
"We underestimated her", Matsubara confesses. "Altair doesn't have a background story either. That's why I thought we'd be able to pull it off. Darn!"
Suddenly, Altair calls my name:
"Meteora. No, it's not just you. Your dirty little trick just now must have been the Creators' idea. Can you hear me?"
Everyone can notice that her tone hides a barely contained poison. She hates me. She was looking down on me before, but now she knows that I was able to almost turn her into my slave. I really hope she destroys the world in an instant, because if she takes her time, I know I'm the first in her torture list.
Fortunately, she manages to remain calm. She's still playing the ringmaster role for the audience's entertainment.
"I'm different from the other characters here", she explains. "I don't belong to any story. However, that's exactly why my dear friend gave me an endless story. She gave me an everlasting universe of freedom. Even if I don't belong anywhere, it's a universe that extracts desires without limit and lays emotions bare. It's a fragmented piece of poetry. My existence is sustained by the infinite number of Creators who add to this poem. The power of Creation gets handed off to someone. That person feel s it and thinks about it. Then those thoughts give birth to the power of Creation again. It's emotion. It's passion gone mad".
He. Now I'm reminded of all those times when our Creators talked about how great original content was, and how secondary creations and fanworks couldn't really measure up to them. Now she's telling us they were wrong. No shit Sherlock. But her last jab is for me:
"Clever logic is nothing but a slave to emotion. Even though you're caught up in the middle of a storm of emotions, you underestimated its power. That's why you lost".
Sigh. This is the way the world ends. Not with a bang but an infodump.
By the way, it's literally the end of the world. The JSDF is already detecting several disturbances in the magnetic field. The Birdcage is cracking. Once our virtual reality is no more, Altair will be free to exert her power on the world. The laws of the universe will be thrown into chaos. And reality will collapse.
Sho tries to stop Altair, but he fails hard. She's stronger than ever. And she's noticing that our trap can't contain her any longer.
"The cracks have begun to grow. Let's go on the final journey together. The audience is waiting".
Indeed. The cameras and even my own machine confirm that the viewers are enjoying the show a lot. This is what they want? An overpowered villain winning? No, not a villain. She is the hero. Hoshikawa sums it up:
"If this is really a story, then we've already come to the end, right? You've overcome many challenges and defeated many enemies who stood in your way. And you've defeated your strongest enemy. You're about to fulfill the promise you made to the person you like. The hero that the audience chose isn't us. It's you".
Well, then the audience's taste is garbage. They deserve being erased.
At this point, Blitz is the only minion left who can face Altair. Without his robot, Kanoya is useless. Without her martial arts, Hoshikawa is worse than useless. Sho and Yuuya are injured. If the old detective can't do anything about it, we're all going to die.
00000
"Meteora!"
Who's calling for me? Oh, it's Souta. He's just entered the control room. Where have you been all this time? I wanted food and a cup of coffee.
He seems agitated. If he's been watching the show with the rest of the audience, he's probably realized that he won't become by future Minister of Snacks. Mostly, because everything will disappear. I know, I know, Souta. I'm upset too.
Then he says something I didn't expect:
"Use the spell! This is the end!"
Spell? What spell is he talking ab…? Oh! That spell! The script he provided for the Elimination Chamber Festival. His personal contribution to the show.
Honestly, I never intended to use it. Don't get me wrong, it's not as if I put Matsubara's or Nakanogane's writing skills far above Souta's. Pop culture authors can only do so much. But Souta's script has two main weaknesses. First, it's incredibly naive. Seriously, it's full of fluff. Which could be nice in another setting, but the very point of the Elimination Chamber Festival was to create the biggest stick ever to hit Altair with it. Attacking her with "feels" is stupid. The second weakness, related to that, is that it doesn't fit with the rest of the show. For the love of me, we wanted action! Explosions! People dying! Not My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic. I love asspulls who benefit me as much as any other villain, but without the audience's acceptance, we can't do it.
"The character does have a small Existence Probability, but we won't be able to get the audience to accept this character", I tell him. "We haven't gained enough acceptance to get this character to appear in this world".
Mr. Nakanogane agrees. He admits that they included this new weapon in the prequel, but all things considered, if we made this character a central part of the plot right now, it would destroy the flow of the story.
"For Sirius, we put enough foreshadowing into the story", he explains (and we all know what that ended), "but this character is different".
"I understand", Souta says with determination. "And I understand that even if we could get this character to appear in this world, it would be useless if we tried to add on any extra details. That's the type of character she is. But..."
To everyone's surprise, Mr. Matsubara says:
"That's right. That's exactly why it would be interesting if we made her appear in this world".
That's desperation doing the talk. The authors start arguing, but in the end, Matsubara's opinion prevails. Our story failed. Does it matter if this new addition goes off the rails? Trying is not going to worsen our situation, because we're at the lowest point already. And as Souta (who has become surprisingly assertive and confident for some reason) points out, what happens is for others to decide. If the audience doesn't like it, we're dead, that's not going to change. But if the audience likes it, we might have a chance. Who knows.
I nod in resignation.
"This is our last hope. If nothing happens after I use this spell, that will be the moment when we have to face the fact that we must accept the end of the world. I pray that this last piece of straw will become a sword. Although this wish is like hoping for a miracle".
If there's something I learned from this experience, though, it's that the gods hate my guts, if they exist at all. So I wouldn't hold my breath if I were you.
"Nogahiel, Acheliah, Socodiah, Nangariel. In the name of the four Holies. The hundred stars ring the sound of thunder. Urge authority. Lead me to the golden base. The silver arrow splits the wedge of fluctuation and brings forth the light of dawn".
No reaction. Nothing. The spell isn't working. As I expected, we don't have enough acceptance. He, it's nice to know that I'll die being right about something. Typical me.
A desperate Souta holds on to the pendant of his necklace. Funny, I don't remember him wearing a necklace before.
Wait! Somethin's happening! The machine is lighting up like a Christmas tree. What the…?
Then, Souta's next words give me the chills:
"A lie about a lie will turn inside out".
That's… That's Magane's catchphrase! Souta, why are you using it? Did you sell your soul to the Shark Girl to activate this spell?
So many questions! But no time to ask them. The brightness engulfs everything. The control room, the stadium, the Birdcage. Everything is white. There's nothing but light.
Then there's a railway station.
And there's a girl wearing glasses.
Altair's Creator.
"Shimazaki Setsuna", I mutter.
This is it. Our last person-shaped bullet. Let's hope Onishi was right about Altair's repressed sexual urges.
Author's notes:
The end is near. Only two episodes left. The episodes are getting longer, because a lot of things are happening and Meteora is witnessing everything. This one was among my favorites for meta reasons.
One thing I didn't like of Re:Creators in the previous episodes was that nobody dared to address the elephant in the room. They planned a big crossover event whose plot was never detailed on screen, a crossover whose Big Bad was a character that didn't belong to anyone (Altair). What was their explanation for that? And their secret weapon was the equivalent of Disney, Fox and other companies banding together to create a copy of Slender Man called "Slender Guy", and insisting that Slender Guy is the real Slender Man now because they made a movie in which the former beats the later. In real life, that would be incredibly controversial. Even more so if Slender Man had been created by a bullied teenage girl who killed herself. Did they even get permission from Setsuna's parents to use her drawings for Sirius? They aren't even mentioned in the series outside Souta's flashback.
As I lampshaded in this fanfic, from time to time Matsubara, Marine and company were surprisingly dismissive of fan creations, and even Altair as a character. At best, condescending, talking as if their Creations were 100% original and not obviously inspired by or related to previous works (Altair points out in this very episode that's NOT how the process of Creation works). At worst, outright criticism, like Suruga's words against Setsuna in episode 17 ("She made the character she created get revenge for her. Is she really an author? That's not what a real story is. That's just some scribbles pretending to be speech"). Guess what? That ends up biting them in the ass. It was Re:Creators' plan all along.
More things:
-Thanks to Nayrael for pointing out Yuuya's secret master plan to woo Meteora (or what Meteora thinks is Yuuya's secret master plan to woo her). Without him, I'd never have realized!
-I've been painting Meteora as a Palpatine-wannabe, and guess what? Palpatine's order to kill the Jedi and Sirius' secret technique to erase Altair share the same number. An unexpected coincidence.