I walked down the street toward Osaka Park, my head still in somewhat of a daze with words and phrases dancing across my vision like tantalizing blue specters. It had been a week since my discovery of the website known as TVTropes, and I was still feeling the effects on my mind. Even after Homura and Matsu managed to pry the doo-hicky out my hands, anytime I tried to look up information after that I always ended up back at the damn encyclopedia of hyperlinks relating to all thing fiction. It's like my own subconscious was sabotaging me to keep me from getting any work done. I remembered a number of mages back at the Clock Tower who would have be envious of its ability to so subtly and completely ensnare any mind that that sees it. Hell, I had given some half serious thought about finding a way to weaponize it against my enemies in the Mage's Association. It would be difficult given their aversion to technology, but if I could just somehow introduce them to it, then they would all be far too busy doing a Wiki Walk and TVTropes Will Ruin Your Life…

Damn it! I thought as I quickly shook my head free of those thoughts, lest my mind wandered back into that mnemonic labyrinth. I don't know when it started, but at some point in the last week I started to think in tropes. It had gotten to the point where I could almost picture the blue, underlined text when I thought about it. Things came to a head that morning when I referred to myself as a "Type 2 Harem Hero in a Battle Royal between Magical Girlfriends". It was at a this point Matsu decided I had been spend far too much time indoors, and promptly kicked me out of the house while she rigged every remotely electronic device in the inn to block access to TVTropes. I was headed to the park as I decided now would be a good time to see about setting up traps in the area for my next, likely inevitable, encounter with the Enforcers. Maybe the physical labor will help me take my mind of-

At this point my train of thought was derailed when I noticed an internet cafe I had walked in front of. I immediately felt a familiar pull on my mind, the sirens call of information calling me forth. No! Must… resist… urge!

I failed to resist the urge.

I spotted a free terminal in the back, next to a man that I didn't bother looking at too hard. Fortunately for me, before I could sit down, I felt a gentle but strong hand on my shoulder. "Shirou-sama, Matsu told me not let you near any computers while you were out." Oh right, I had completely forgotten about Akitsu, and her newly appointed task of protecting me from myself.

I sighed and slumped down a bit. "Thanks Akitsu, I almost gave in for a second." However, I then heard the man I was about to sit down next to give a satisfied grunt.

"Finally! A world where it exists! I swear, if that old man sent me to another dimension that didn't have TVTropes…"

Oh no. Oh god no. How have I have started to hear hyperlinks? How is that even possible?! Sure enough, when I looked at the man's computer, there it was, the front page that doubled as the front gates to my own personal hell. The worst part was knowing that I had no one to blame but myself for this, that I could look away and leave at anytime, but I wouldn't.

Thankful, Akitsu once again came to my rescue. "Master?…" I heard her say in confusion. My instinct of immediately giving her my full focus whenever she spoke overrode my enchantment, but as I turned to look at her, I found she wasn't looking at me. I heard a quiet muttering of "Sweet Stripperific Jesus!" before the man and I both turned our gaze away for the snow woman and to each other, and caused me to nearly choke on my own tongue.

The man was… well, me. He was maybe a few years older, and there were a few strands of white peppered throughout his hair, but he was still unmistakably Shirou Emiya. The biggest apparent difference was his apparels, as where I was wearing a simple pair of jeans and a long shirt, he was clad in a Badass Longcoat with Fingerless Gloves, and I could see a pair of Cool Shades sticking out of his- god damn it stop thinking in hyperlinks!

The other Shirou, oblivious of my current internal strife, stared at me in surprise for a moment before holding up his hands in a placating manner. "Ok, before you start to freak out, there is a very good if complicated reason that there's another you-"

"Zelretch?" I asked.

"Zelretch." He confirmed without missing a beat.

Having saved a large amount of time on exposition with a convenient short hand for what was going on, Alter!Shirou (seriously, was there any part of my thought process that hadn't been corrupted?) looked between me and Akitsu, noting her particularly revealing clothing. He then turned to me with an arched eyebrow and a small smirk on his face. "So, master?"

I sighed and resisted the urge to palm my face. Looking at Akitsu, I noticed two spots of red on her face as she looked back and forth between me and my doppelganger. Knowing her and how much she liked the rather inappropriate video traps Matsu has set up on the doo-hicky, I'm sure she was thinking about the potential of having two of me around for… lewd purposes as Miya would say. Don't' think about it, don't think about it, don't think about it…

"So, you're basically a Type 2 Harem Hero in a Battle Royal between Magical Girlfriends?" Alter!Shirou asked as we walked down the street toward the park. He seemed interested in my story, and while I was reluctant to tell him at first, I came to the conclusion that he was unlikely to try and use it against me. He claimed to be Zelretch's apprentice (one of them anyway), and while the Wizard Marshall was known for playing rather cruel pranks invoking alternate versions of a person, I don't believe that he would ever do so with hostile intentions. He also seemed to be fairly similar to me in personality if a little more carefree, and from what little he said so for implied he had similar experiences as mine during the Holy Grail War. Although, there was one thing about him that was causing me problems.

"Ye-yeah, pretty much." I stuttered as I tried not to dwell on his words to much. The problem was that almost half of what he said was tropes. Normally, this would have just been an interesting quirk, but in my current state I had to concentrate to not drift off imagining all of that wonderful knowledge behind those phrases.

"Nice. Shame about losing the One True Threesome though. I hope you get them back" he said with genuine concern in his voice.

I heard Akitsu's chains clink behind me, her own small sign of her concern of my happiness. I gave her a brief smile, and turned back to my counterpart. "I have to ask, before we continue, could you… well, stop speaking in trope? It's giving me problems focusing"

He looked puzzled for a moment, and I thought I would have to explain myself further. Before I could continue, his eyes widened and he barked out a laugh. "Hah! So that's why Zelretch sent me here. How long has it been since you're first Wiki Walk?"

"Umm…"I said sheepishly "About a week?"

"Really? It took my Rin months of exposure to TVTropes to start hearing the hyperlinks. It's probably that spiritual osmosis thing we did with Archer. In fact," he said while rubbing his chin in thought "That probably explains why since you started talking, I've been able to think of nothing but swords."

I stopped and stared at him. We had arrived at the park at this point anyway, stopping in a small clearing some distance away from the road. I was trying to wrap my head around the implications as he continued.

"Oh, I doubt that we're going to start trading memories or abilities anytime soon. You may have recently introduced to the power of tropes, but it doesn't change the fact that we still have different Origins in regards to our magic. That's far too large of a hurdle to overcome."

My brain finally put the pieces together, and the conclusion was both fascinating and terrifying. "Wait, your Origin is-" That was as far I got before I noticed something over his shoulder, and that's what saved our lives.

I quickly moved past him, standing in front of both Alter!Shirou and Aktisu. I Reinforced my body, threw up my right hand, and incanted "Rho Aias!" The seven layered shield came into existence barely in time to stop the fireball that was heading toward the three of us. Rather than exploding, the ball splashed against the shield like it was made of liquid, flowing across the ground around us and making an irregularly shaped wall of flame. Before my vision was obscured, I managed to make out a man standing at the edge of the clearing, and I could definitely tell from his scent that he was a magus. Given how he launched a surprise attack rather than a monologue, it was a fair guess that he was an Enforcer. I silently cursed to myself. How did they find me here? I didn't feel my geas activate. Was it pure chance? If it was, I guessed it was lucky for me that I was jumped in the one place in the city that I was willing to use my abilities to their fullest, though I would have much preferred to not be attacked at all.

I didn't have much time to think on this point, as I heard my counterpart behind me say "Guns Akimbo, Shoot The Bullet!" Sparing a glance back, I saw that Alter!Shirou had somehow acquired a pair of pistols and was shooting down a number of glowing motes which exploded on contact with his bullets. Likewise, I heard a familiar clink of chains and cracking of ice as a wall of it formed to my left, stopping a lightning bolt from catching me in the side. Of course there's more than one, I thought to myself with irritation.

The next minute or so was something of a blur made out of fire, light and explosions. There turned out to be five Enforcers in total, and to their credit they were quite good. While the group as a whole seemed to focus on the more destructive applications of magic, they were quite proficient at covering each other's backs too, the point that even Aktisu, who was likely more powerful than any of them individually, couldn't manage to land a hit. Alter!Shirou was in much the same state. I could hear shouts of "High Speed Missile Dodge" and "Kung-Fu Clairvoyance", which seemed to keep him from being hit, but even his "Improbable Aiming Skills" couldn't find a solid mark. The end result was that the three of us were being pushed into the center of clearing. They were trying to tire us out for capture. I was pretty sure that if they wanted us dead, the lot of them had enough firepower to turn the whole area into a smoldering crater.

Things were looking bad as the three of us found ourselves back to back. As the next wave of attacks came at us, I called out "Akitsu, enclose us!"

Akitsu put out her arms, and a dome of ice about 3 meters wide surrounded us. I rushed forward and slapped my hand against the ice, ignoring the biting cold and Reinforcing the protective shell as best I could. I could feel the impacts through the ice, but the barrier held for the moment. This is bad… I thought to myself. Even with both of us working together, we can only hold this for so long, and it's not like we run away.

"Do you have a plan?" Alter!Shirou asked. I turned to look at him and all of the mirth and easy going attitude I had come to know him for had disappeared from his face, replaced with a gaze that could cut steel. The most disturbing part was that it was my own face doing it. Is that really what I look like when I'm serious? No wonder my flock gets scared of me sometimes.

"Not really," I admitted "I'm just stalling for time." I sighed. "I'm sorry, but I doubt that they will just let you go. I don't know what they think of the fact that there are two of me running around, but they'll probably capture us both to hedge their bets."

He shrugged. "Occupational hazard of dimensional travel." He looked up in thought for a moment before coming to a decision "How long will that shield hold?"

"A few dozen seconds at most." I replied. I could feel the Enforces starting to focus their firepower, and even with my Reinforcement and Akitsu continuously making new layers, they were slowly burning their way through.

"That's all the time all need." He replied, a small smirk returning to his face "You've talked enough about yourself, so let me tell you about myself". He closed his eyes in concentration and took a moment to focus before he began to speak.

"I am the lampshade of my trope."

Oh you have got to be kidding me.

"Indexes are my mind, and references are my thoughts."

I don't' know why, but I'm pretty sure this is Zelretch's roundabout way of mocking me.

"I have been author to countless epics."

You know what? I curse the Root for this. I curse the Root most strongly.

"Only I see past the Wall, knowing the truth of fiction."

As my concentration wavered, I noticed the first crack in the ice shield.

"I have withstood plot twists to continue narratives."

Another crack formed. And another, and another. I heard my counterpart's voice begin to rise.

"Searching endlessly for my happy ending!"

The crack had become a spider web. Just a few more seconds...

"And so I know, my entire story has been,"

The dome shattered and evaporated under the combined fire power. It was then Alter!Shirou finally opened his eyes.

"Unlimited Trope Works!"

There was a wave of cold fire, and world changed. We were no longer in a clearing. In fact, I'm not sure we were anywhere. There was what seemed to be an endless white void in all directions, making it rather hard to see how we were standing. But it wasn't just void, there were words floating throughout the space. No, they were just words, they were stories. The elements of stories, narrative and fiction, all connected by common threads into a single glorious web of knowledge. A man could go mad looking at it, trying to find all of the connections until days had passed and he couldn't remember who he was or how he got there. Root knows it almost happen to me.

Breaking my gaze from the world around me, I saw that at the center of all of this was Alter!Shirou, and I realized just what his ability really meant. His Origin was Tropes, so in the same sense that I could use my od to form swords, he could use his to create and manipulate narrative devices like tropes for use in real life. And if his Reality Marble was anything like mine, that could only mean one thing.

He had access all the tropes. All of them.

He strolled forward, the Enforcers looking confused and worried. "Gentlemen, welcome to my story. I'm particular fond of it, though I have a feeling you won't like how this scene ends." He said with a wicked grin. Then, with a wave of his hand, the world was consumed in a meta-fictional firestorm.