Series W; 1 - "Now I've Ascended Way Beyond Meta!"

Matthius cursed as he dodged another fist from his opponent; making sure to take this opportunity to kick the back of his knee with his own.

"Damnit!" His assailant cried, "Why can't you see that I'm doing this for your sake!".

Matthius ignored him for a few moments as he spat out about twenty millilitres of blood.

"Damn, he punched me in the chest ^that hard^?"

He then turned to look at his allies in this fight, and all but one was out for the count. "Dude, you're faster than I am; How the hell did you get hit?". His friend appeared to be on his last legs.

The man Matthius addressed narrowed his eyes; "If you haven't realised yet, I'm defending the bodies of our friends.".

"Are you sure you're not just defending Reimu in particular?"

…

…

"Don't act like you haven't been deflecting stray blasts from Reisen's direction."

…

…

After a second silence, Matthius stared back at the threat in front of him, but he was still addressing the man behind him; "Touché Eman. Touché.".
((Shocking revelation, I know.))

The enemy then set about raising his right hand in the air and gathering a massive amount of… rainbows?… before crushing them into sparkles which he rained down upon the entire planet; which Matthius and Eman could barely dodge and move the other girls out of the way in response.

"So, if it's any consolation. I won't hit the Ex-Moon Rabbit or the Shrine Maiden." His opponent placated, but then mumbled a last part; "Though then that creates problems with the green one.".

*"Hah- It's because Reimu×Sanae is a ship."*

"What?"

"Alright, now we've got problems. First, fuck- you."

Matthius spun around, "Can you be a bit more nice?".

"He attacked my first ever friend and the woman I love." Eman retorted.

"And we still don't know why. Hey other Matthius; dick move - Why'd you do that.". It is then unceremoniously revealed that it is in fact, another Matthius.

"Might've been a mistake actually." The other Matthius admitted, "See, I didn't account for there apparently being another guy here. What even is his Esoterica? This would've been a breeze since I knew everyone else's already.".

"Okay… but why? And another counter-question; What even was that attack?"

"To answer the latter question, it would have guaranteed that they became lesbian; and yes, I stole it from Gogeta." The other Matthius hung his head as he admitted that. "I gathered a whole bunch of 'pride' energy that I harvested deep from within the cesspools of Twitter.". He paused, then grimaced, "Then I realised it was much easier to just get it from Tumblr instead. The energy there's much more pure, surprisingly.".

"Damn, that desperate huh?" The 'defending' Matthius shook his head; "Well it's a stupid motive; and if it's anything like the last six Matthiuses we've killed, I'm assuming you're going to say it's to stop me from 'Accidentally getting a harem'?".

Eman took this as a cue to speak; "Seriously; What happened?" He shouted in frustration. "Wait- did I ever get a harem?".

In the corner, another man popped into existence, "Funny thing; Yes? It does seem that your Original's [Creator] was a kind and benevolent god and did not subject you to being a generic harem protagonist… On the other hand 'you' mayyyy have been…"

"Been what?"

"Uhh… Chapter Thirty-two'd. Honestly, it'd be funny if the number were two units higher."

The 'invading' Matthius laughed; "Ohhh… Haha- Porn joke. But give me a moment…"

All of them sat in silence as the fourth interlocutor left the same way he entered; but not without the parting words of "you'd be surprised if you read the whole fic lol".

The 'invading' Matthius then widened his eyes; "Kagerou? She didn't strike me as the… Oh-kaayy -gonna wipe that from my mind now. Let's see the previous chapters… huh? Oh shit- FLANDRE TOO!".

Eman, the chaste man of faith that he is, was clearly concerned with whatever had apparently not happened with the were- wifwolf and the little sister of the Scarlet Devils; "What happened; Please… I just want to know.".

"Voidsoul's a lying bastard is what happened. Neither of you clearly were ever going to get a harem here; Which is good, obviously. On the other hand… wow… I have really got to figure out what your Original was like. I mean… how did Flandre get involved like that? At least she's 'older' here…"

The 'defending' Matthius got behind the 'invading' one's shoulder and stared at the screen where 'Chapter 13' was being displayed; "Huh, it's a good thing we didn't use your blood for the I.B.M. Or actually, maybe under controlled conditions, we should; that would be hilarious as fuck."

…?

"Yeah whatever, I'm gonna go now; Sorry for the trouble.". And with that, the 'invader' left.

Matthius dropped down to the ground and slowly turned around to the unconscious bodies of his friends; "Wait, let's scale back a bit- guaranteed?".

Eman put a stop to that; "Think about it, before us, this entire place is almost all female–and it still technically is; and there's the village, but there isn't really an abundance of males there. So in that case, how do you think they would choose to 'orientate' themselves - And who do you think is on their 'to do list' now-".

"I get it! I get it!" Matthius interrupted that train of thought. "I just never really considered that it was that special. I mean… there's Rinnosuke, right?".

"Then again, there was that first fairy I came across who had alluded to this. Hindsight's a bitch." He mumbled internally.

"Honestly, at this point, I'm convinced that everyone sees him as a fatherly figure, a brotherly figure, or that he's asexual."

"And I'm not any of those things? I'm pretty sure I'm all of those things."

"Hah! But you're not quite the level of eccentric he is."

Shaking his head, Matthius turned towards another person who reappeared on-scene; "So… Alpha-Six… How many fanfiction archverses of our 'category' do you remember feature a… Oh geez I'm really going to have to say this… 'Harem protagonist'?".

"Well, not strictly 'harem protagonist', but let me check.

…

Yes, well in addition to Eman's Original fanfiction, we have:

'Accelerator Junior Getting Thrown Around in Gensokyo'

'FREAKIN GENSOKYO'
'Keys to the Heart'
'Favour Trade'
…

Hol'up… 'Lord frieza incarnate in Gensokyo'? What the hell?

…

I'm sure if I search longer there'll be some harem fics with a female lead; probably."

Yukari closed the gap she had been using to view this possibility; "Is that why you had me meddle with another archverse to ensure Eman was brought here? And make sure that a Matthius under the name 'Voidsoul' does not make a personal appearance?".

"Well, I wasn't aware of Voidsoul apparently trying to do the same shit I was doing until later, but yeah."

"And you want me to make sure that Marisa makes it to the Scarlet Devil Mansion… earlier?"

"Yes and no; If you haven't been following, this series of events-"

The unknown being waved their arm to show the scene of Matthius struggling against Sakuya and dying in multiple attempts.

Then the scene switched to Matthius spending an extended amount of time in the 'Outside World'; none of the inhabitants of Gensokyo were present.

"-will ultimately lead to the death of our 'heroines' and the eventual collapse of Gensokyo. We're trying to rectify that-"

The view switched to a Matthius who was instead training more with the inhabitants of the Scarlet Devil Mansion. He can also be seen with some of Gensokyo's inhabitants as well as several male faces—two of which belonging to Eman and Rinnosuke—along with new female faces as they had adventures in the Outside World as well.

"By making sure that he's strong enough to keep going in Gensokyo. The problem with this Matthius is that he was always afraid of Gensokyo; so he sought power from the Outside World. 'Power' that ultimately would not help him when 'Final Incident: CtC' happened; Though he might have not cared."

"Might have not cared? Are you saying that-"

"Yes, for all the shit he's been spouting, Voidsoul was the one of the only ones that didn't abandon everyone. And how does he believe he should 'help' the other Matthiuses? By making sure they didn't grow attachments to Gensokyo's inhabitants and thus abandon them like he feels he should've. Another thing we're going to fix in the new timeline; The one in the Greater Archverse known to… them as the 'Archive of Our Own'."

Yukari took this in; "So I die? There's no way I can prevent it in this timeline?".

He laughed, "HAH! You? Die? You could always escape, and most of the time you helped rebuild from the pieces.". He then shook his head, "As for preventing this, no -but you can make sure that the main instance achieves… an Alternate ending; even if the Cycle remains unbroken for one more revolution. Just make sure Matthius is present.".

"Will I have to assure that Matthius courts Reisen as was mentioned here?"

"Not only would that not happen without direct interference, Matthius here is not willing to have anything to do with Gensokyo unless absolutely necessary; Which means you will have to recall him personally for major incidents. Should he not participate in these major incidents for any reason, there will only remain one other way to break the Cycle, and that is to destroy it all together; erase Matthius entirely from the [Higher Archverse] of 'Touhou'.Which, to be fair, doesn't really mean a lot in the grand scheme of things.

Now, the question of how he ended up with Reisen in some of these parallels is a question I ask myself everyday; If any Matthius did end up in a personal relationship, it's usually with her. But being a core part of the development of the new timeline, all I can tell you is that it either happens or it doesn't; it's likely going to be a coin-toss."

"I see… That will be all."

"Very well then; I will take my leave."

"Wait, Alpha-Two."

"Hm?"

"That's not the only change in this new timeline, is it?"

"Yes, there are some precursory changes; Matthius learned magic even earlier and also got a power boost. As for what else…" He trailed off; "Yes.".

"There is one other… 'timeline' you could observe in the meantime, I suppose. It's simply known as the 'Experimental Cycle One'; We tried to do everything right, but we have no idea why the Matthius there just up and left for Remnant. It's usually my job as [Avatar] to speak for my- our [Creator], but he hasn't informed me; the only one that would know is some Gamma I never met or… *Sigh* Alpha-Zero, and who knows where that asshole is–pretty sure he doesn't exist."

Before the '[Avatar] of [BCCHP7]' left the section of void he turned back to Yukari.

"The reason I'm so involved is because I, unlike every other [Avatar] of his, am a true Matthius; the one from the Origin Yet To Be Declared."

There are only a few things I will be mentioning:
-This in no way is a representation of how this fanfic will go; We decided on CtC - So it stays on CtC.
-I'm retconning a lot of things in the first Omake D; if only because I can make harem jokes without actually writing a harem.

*Oh ho ho ff-net, you think you can just delete my double quotation marks without me noticing? I am not the same BCCHP7 I was when I wrote the first few chapters.