Shirou found himself standing in the in the cross between the White Void Room and the Featureless Plane of Disembodied Tropes that made up his Reality Marble. He idly wondered what he was doing there for a few moments before he figured that he was probably dreaming as the last thing he remember was going to bed after outlining his plan to rescue Chiho and Uzume. It was a little odd, given that the little of what he remembered from his dreams tended to be a lot weirder than this, but he wasn't going look a gift horse in the mouth. Although, now that he had some time to look at it… "Man, this place looks boring. I mean, I guess the floating text and hyperlinks are cool, but it's not much of a visual."

"Yeah, the author originally wanted it to look like a library throughout different periods in history, but I Put on my Robe and Wizard Hat beat him to it." Shirou turned around at the sudden voice and found the speaker to be an identical copy of himself sitting at a poker table with a number of other people. "As it is, he just decided to go with a TVTropes website motif."

Shirou gave a small frown as he looked at his counterpart, something tickling in the deepest part of his memory. "You're… Troper!Shriou, right?"

The man's eyebrows moved up at this. "I'm surprised that you actually know and or remember my name. And can pronounce the exclamation point. Anyway, yes that's me. Your subconscious, or id, or Anthromorphic Personification of you powers, or whatever."

"Huh. It's been a while since I've dreamed as myself."

"Eh, that joke's run its course. And you're not thinking of yourself as Troper as things would get confusing between the two of us. Besides, Rin would get mad at you again."

Shirou's frown deepened. "Wait a minute, didn't you tell me the last time we talked that I couldn't come down to this level of my own mind without losing my sense of self?" He paused for a moment to scratch the back of his head. "Though now that I think about it, I do feel oddly distant from myself for some reason."

Troper!Shirou rolled his eyes. "Oh, now you start remembering these things. Ok, first of all, it's just third person perspective. You'll get used to it. Secondly-"

"Oy! When are you two going to stop talking and start making out already?" The two Shrious looked over in surprise at the new speaker. He was sitting on the other side of the poker table, dressed in a red and black body suit and had number of weapons strapped to his person. It was hard to mistake the Merc with the Mouth for anyone else. "I mean, we all know that at least half of your subscribers are only reading this so they can watch the two of you get it on."

"We're not doing it!" the two trope inclined individuals replied in unison.

A giggle came from Troper!Shirou's right, and Shirou glanced over to see a high school girl with long brown hair hanging past her knees and grin that seemed like it was etched on her face. "As amusing as self Yaoi would be, even an idiot like yourself should be able to tell this isn't that kind of fanfic. It would be as out of place as if you suddenly developed a relationship with those little yellow boxes of yours."

Deadpool waved his arms in front of him franticly. "Oh hell no! My only true love is Bea Arthur! Besides, me and the box are just bros!"

Just then a 2d yellow box popped up next to his head, inscribed with the text 'But what about that time in Vegas?'

"Shh! No one must know of our forbidden love!"

Troper!Shirou Sweat Dropped as Deadpool continued to argue with his thought bubble, before turning to the girl. "Thanks for distracting him Ajimu-san."

The girl with a quadrillion superpowers dismissively waved her hand. "Oh, it was nothing. Although switching genres like that would probably help to keep the fic from stagnating, as everyone can tell the author started running out of ideas around chapter 15."

She received a flat look in response. "Thanks. Any other brilliant advice?"

"Sayuri think there should be moar fire!" Shouted a small girl at the other end of the table. She looked to be about 5, with blonde hair and red eyes, though those were not as noticeable as pair of fox ears on her head and the nine fluffy tails swaying behind her.

"That's your solution to everything!"

"Cause fire fixes evewything!"

Shirou blinked in surprise at this latest interruption. "Wait wait wait! You invited Sayuri to a poker game? Isn't that how her whole mess got started in the first place?"

Troper!Shirou looked sheepish. "Yeah, but she threatened to set me on fire if I didn't let her come."

Shirou begrudgingly nodded after a moment. "Fair enough. But still, why am I here?"

His… something or other gave a sigh. "Probably because the author wanted to say some things but didn't feel like addressing the Fourth Wall directly, so he threw you in here so we could have a convenient expository conversation."

"Umm, why? Shouldn't he be writing the next chapter?"

"That's the problem. Tell me, do even know the details of your awesome 'Save Uzume and Chiho' plan?"

"What? Of course I do, I start with…" Shirou trailed off and blinked. "Wait, what the…?"

Troper!Shirou gave him a knowing look. "Exactly. You can't remember the plan you came up with last night because the author hasn't thought out it yet. To put it simply, he's stuck. Has been for the past few months."

The trope powered magus blinked in surprise. "Seriously? He can't think of anything to advance the plot?"

"I wouldn't say that. He has actually written some stuff, but it's all out of chronological order. He still has some more ideas for the story, it's just that he's having trouble coming up with a suitably satisfying rescue plot for the next chapter. He could just skip it and get to the part he already has planned, but he thinks that would be too much of an Ass Pull."

"And it's taken him months to get to this point? What the hell has he been doing all this time?"

"Well… there's also another reason for that." Troper!Shirou said as he gestured off to his left.

Shirou looked at the last two people at the table which he hadn't looked too closely at for narratively convenient reasons and found them to be two more copies of himself. The first was rather distinctive looking with a number burn scars visible on his face and dressed in a priest suit/overcoat combo that was very similar to Kotomine's. The man gave a friendly smile. "Hello, I'm Shirou Kotomine Sahashi, Executor for the Church, Master of Nero, and Incarnation of Fire."

Shirou looked at him for a moment before saying. "That's just weird."

Troper!Shirou gave a shrug. "Maybe, but the author has received more requests to continue his story than anything else he's ever done."

Fire!Shirou gave a smug grin. "I guess you could say I'm what's hot right now."

Shirou cringed as he felt his bile rise at how terrible that pun was. Still he had other things that he was more interested in. "Master or Nero? Are you taking about Emperor Nero of Rome?"

"Nero Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus." The man confirmed. "She was summoned as Servant Saber."

"Wait, 'she'? Wasn't Nero a man?"

Fire!Shirou arched an eyebrow. "No, she was actually a short blond woman. Besides, what about King Arthur?"

"…Touché." Shirou frowned in annoyance. "Ok, is every Saber beside Siegfried a short blonde woman described by history as a man?"

Troper!Shriou rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "Well, Joan of Arc was always known as a woman, but her legend has her taking the traditional role of a man, so yes I'd say that counts."

Ajimu tilted her head to the side. "What about Gawain?"

Deadpool gave a snort. "Are you kidding? Have you seen that guy's picture? He's about as male as Homura if you know what I mean."

Fire!Shirou looked confused. "What are you talking about?"

"You'll find out later." Everyone else at the table replied simultaneously.

Shirou then took a look at the other man who shared his appearance, and this one looked far more normal than anyone else at the table. The only distinguishing thing about him was that he was currently reading a rather large book with a group of people standing dramatically on the cover. Shirou leaned closer to read the title. "Exalted Core Rulebook?"

Troper!Shirou gave a sigh as he looked at the man. "I keep telling you, you're not going to remember any of that when you get back."

"Maybe not consciously, but I'm hoping I'll internalize at least a little bit subconsciously." He replied without looking up.

Shirou tilted his head. "So what's your deal?"

The man looked up at Shirou and a golden sunburst began to glow on his forehead. "I'm identical to In Flight Shirou save for the fact that I seem to have had a spiritual super-weapon from another dimension grafted to my soul. In addition to just making me better at everything, I get host of new abilities as well as the memories of a dead man who went insane." He set the book down and started rifling through a pile of more books at his feet. "Where's that Scroll of Errata? I need to look up Holistic Miracle Understanding."

Troper!Shirou spoke up in the tone of a commercial speaker. "Side effects of Solar Exaltation include excessive Epicness, an ever expanding harem that defies all logic, potential loss of identity due to past lives, uncontrollable Limit Breaks, and for the narrative to suddenly shift into Purple Prose."

Shirou gave a sigh and rubbed his forehead as he turned back to the first counterpart. "So, that's it for me? People have lost interest in my story so the author is going to focus on his other creations from now on?"

"Well, yes." Troper!Shirou admitted. "But not forever. He still has every intention of finishing this story, though he might cut corners to do so. If it comes down to it, he'll just post the parts of the story he can definitely write - including the dramatic reveal of what happened to your Saber, which will be coming up soon."

The trope incarnation gave a small huff. "At least I can still remember that."

"Yes, he's had that planned for a while." Troper!Shirou confirmed before giving a small frown. "Although the story of your Archer has changed somewhat since he posted it. He came up with a better and more concrete idea for your future self, so he did some retconing. People might want to re-read that part of chapter 15. In any case, if the author does decide to go for the abridged version to wrap everything up here, he'll stop posting the chapters on the forums as they will mostly just be focused on you rather than In Flight proper."

"And then he'll finally start writing more of Unlimited Trope Works?" Shirou asked hopefully.

"Umm… maybe?"

Shirou's shoulders sagged. "I don't suppose there's some way to motivate him, is there?"

It was then the rather excitable kyuubi interjected "Sayuri can motiwate your author-chan!"

WOOSH! The entirety of Shirou's Reality Marble burst into flames. Which was impressive considering it was empty save for floating text.

"Mugyuu!" Wiggle wiggle.

Fire!Shirou eyes lit up like stars upon seeing the inferno around them. "I have found my new God!"

This does not bode well.

A/N: Sayuri is from Naruto Genkyouien by Daneel Rush.