Chapter 47 – The Author

The girl smiled, a small, knowing, and utterly terrifying smirk. "There. Much quieter. Now we can have a proper chat." "Don't worry," she added, "I'm not here to stop you. I'm just a fan." "Gemgem? You there?!" I thought frantically, trying to summon my tentacles to do anything. But nothing happened! The connection was gone. I was just me again: a 29-year-old guy with a bit of a gut, standing on a hill, completely powerless. "Who the hell are you?" I asked, my voice holding steady by a thread. The girl raised an eyebrow, a flicker of amusement in her crimson eyes. "Oh, your little parasite can't hear you anymore?" "As for my name? You can call me The Author. It's as good a name as any." She took another step, and the pressure intensified. It felt like the air itself was bending around her. "You're an interesting one, Hakuto," she said. "The Gem chose you because you were pathetic and predictable. A simple tool for its grand, boring plan." "But then, you did something it didn't expect. You started to care. You gave them dates. You gave them a home." "You took its cold, cosmic plan and made it messy, human. So much more entertaining." She stopped a few feet from me, hands shoved in her hoodie pockets. "See, I've watched this story play out on a thousand worlds." "The Light, a force of stagnant order. The Darkness, a force of selfish chaos. It's always the same. Boring and tedious." "But you... you're writing a new chapter. A story about a lewd, out-of-shape guy who accidentally becomes the loving dad to a harem of traumatized, super-powered women. It's the best kind of trash, and I am here for it." She grinned, a flash of sharp, white teeth. "So no, I'm not here to hurt you. Why would I kill the main character? I'm just here to give you a little nudge. A new plot twist, to keep things interesting." She snapped her fingers. The sound cracked like a whip across reality itself. Down in the stadium, the five defeated members of the Aegis of Light began to stir. The pure white light around them fractured into a chaotic rainbow. Their eyes opened, glowing with a mindless, insane rage. They get to their feet, their movements jerky and unnatural. "JUSTICE! CHAOS! KILL!" Valkyrie shrieked, her voice a discordant mess of static. The Aegis of Light had been rewritten as broken berserkers. They turned as one, their insane gazes fixing on my girls. "There," The Author said, a terrifying, creative glee in her eyes. "A proper final boss. Aren't final bosses supposed to have multiple forms? Much more exciting, don't you think?" "Don't worry about your little rock. I'll give it back when the fun is over. Now, let's watch the show." I gritted my teeth, my hands clenched into useless fists. "Fine," I spat, sitting down and turning my eyes back to the battle. "My girls won't lose to whatever crap you just pulled." The Author laughed, a sound of genuine delight. She sat on the grass beside me, cross-legged, like we were two friends settling in to watch a movie. "Oh, I hope not! A one-sided slaughter would be so boring." Down on the field, my Fallen Stars were in shock. Their defeated opponents were back on their feet, radiating an aura of pure, violent insanity. The Berserk Valkyrie charged Aoi, her spear now a jagged shard of raw, chaotic energy. The Berserk Golem roared, her skin reforming as a jagged crystalline mess as she slammed into Akane. The Aegis of Light becames five engines of pure, unpredictable destruction. They have no strategy, only rage and raw power. "They've lost their minds!" Aoi's voice cut through the chaos. "Our old tactics won't work against them anymore!" My girls responded instantly. "Homura, full containment! Akane, defensive patterns! Miki, disrupt their senses! Chiyoko, prepare for heavy damage!" Homura threw a massive gravity dome over the entire field, trapping them all inside. Akane stopped trying to trade blows and started using her strength to parry and protect the others. Miki's song changed to a confusing, disorienting noise. Chiyoko's hands glowed with a powerful, protective violet light. They weren't fighting to win anymore, but to survive and protect each other. "See?" The Author said, completely engrossed. "This is the good stuff. Your team, born of darkness, is now fighting with self-sacrifice to protect each other from a force of 'justice' that's gone completely insane. The irony is so... delicious." "With a rotten author like you, no wonder this world is so full of bullshit," I spat on the ground. "Forcing kids to fight monsters in frilly dresses like it's some kind of unpaid internship." The Author turned to me, a slow, dangerous smile spreading across her face. She wasn't offended at all. "Rotten? Oh, you have no idea. Do you think I wrote this world?" "Please. This setting, this tired old trope of 'magical girls'... it's just a template, a dime-a-dozen piece of public domain garbage." She leaned closer, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. "I didn't create the bullshit. I just saw the potential in it. The potential for a real story." "A story about what happens when these poor, traumatized child soldiers finally meet something that isn't a horny monster. Something that breaks the formula." She gestured down at the chaotic battle. "You think I'm the villain? I'm the one who gave this predictable story a chaotic variable." "I'm the one who introduced a character like you: a messy, lewd, surprisingly empathetic anomaly who could actually change things." "Before you, this world was just going through the motions. Now? Now it has a heart. A broken, dysfunctional, but very, very real heart." She leaned back, a look of immense satisfaction on her face. "I'm not the author of this world, Hakuto. I'm the author of your story. And it's just getting to the good part."