Side Note

This is an awkward car ride. Myka is silently scrolling on her tablet, Mel is ruminating while her hand is still over my mouth (Don't worry, I'm still licking it. Eventually, she'll be disgusted.), and Sherry is… holy shit, she's unconscious! How is she even driving? How is she unconscious? Why is no one worried? Well, the air is too awkward to notice anything, I guess. I only see it because I'm bored. It's boring not being able to shout out weird things and have people react to them.

"Hey Melanie," Myka looked up from her tablet at us. "You should let go of your girlfriend's mouth. It'll be a while before you can hear it again."

"How foreboding," Mel said before finally setting my mouth free from her grasp. Finally, freedom!

"I can't believe Myka will make our ending like Shaman King!" I exclaimed.

"That's not… right… wait…" Myka put the tablet on her lap, then pondered momentarily while looking out the front window. Mel and I waited until she finally looked back at us. "You're not exactly wrong."

"Oh." Mel looked surprised. "Wait, does that mean you've read Shaman King, Madeleine?"

"Yeah."

"Wait, all those references to Earth… you understood them all?"
"Yep."

"How?"

"Maid School Library."

"Seriously?"

"Seriously."

"Huh."

The car suddenly stopped, and Mel and I looked outside to see a massive pyramid floating above a cliffside that I assume goes over the edge. Oddly enough, there was the remainder of a wall on the cliffside that reminds me of Hamblin's wall. Are we that close to the edge?

"That, Madeleine, are the walls of Hamblin, your beloved home." Myka went over to the cliff's edge, looked down, and whistled. "Quite the fall, and they won't die from fall damage. Quite the shit fate."

I walked over to the cliffside, unsure of how to react. Mel came beside me, putting her hand on my shoulder, before facing Myka with an intense glare. "Was it you?"

"Pfft… no. It was just another part of this whole End-Of-The-World campaign we've got… but you wanna know what is my doing?"

"What?"

"This." Myka snapped her fingers, and chains suddenly popped out from under the ground. I jumped out of the way, thinking they were after me, but I was surprised to see who they were really aiming for: Mel! She had managed to dodge the first few chains, but each step she took made more appear.

"Mel! Watch out!" I tried reaching for her to push her away, but I was pulled away by a chain, and soon, I could see she was ensnared by one chain, then two, then three, then almost her entire body was constricted by chains. I could only watch, especially with the chain wrapped around my ankle.

"Madeleine!" I looked at Mel, who was smiling at me. The chains slowly dragged her into a shadow, and her legs were already submerged. "Just keep being carefree. I'm sure this will work out. We've still got a wedding to do and a slice-of-life in a cabin, remember?"

Before I could respond, Mel had already been taken. I couldn't help but glare at Myka, who was grinning from ear to ear.

"This time around, I'm not letting you fucking pull me into your pace. Capiche?" I was about to say something back, but Myka continued to speak before I could. 

"I don't want you to respond." Myka walked over to me, stepping the chain to break it before lifting me up and dusting my dress with her hands. She stepped back, nodding whilst looking at my dress from top to bottom.

"You've got to look your best for major arcs. Now," She snapped her fingers, and a bridge of golden light appeared, connecting the cliffside to the floating pyramid. I heard the car suddenly start up, and I dodged to the side, seeing Sherry drive the car towards the pyramid. I was about to follow when Myka grabbed my shoulder.

"Slow down there, tiger. I've got rules to tell, tension to set, and a villainous monologue to maybe say." She snapped her fingers, creating two chairs out of the dirt. She forcibly sat me down, chains strapping me down to the chair.

"Before I start explaining, do you have any questions?"

"Where's Mel?"

"At the top of the pyramid, obviously." I immediately tried standing up, forgetting about the chains. 

"Geez, talk about impatient…." Myka took out her tablet, scrolling for a bit. 

"Guess it's time to explain." She pointed at the pyramid. 

"You see that fucking pyramid? It has 50 floors, which means 50 encounters for you. Some are good, some are bad, and some are worse than your mother. What I want you to do is go through each floor, appreciate the scenery, interact with whoever the fuck I put in that room, then start that all over again on the next floor." She looked at me, clearly wanting to know if I understood. I quickly nodded, wanting to get through this as fast as possible.

"Now, I know you're in a hurry, but I'd prefer if you took your fucking time. This ain't Super Mario 64, no need to speedrun. Look, Mel ain't gonna die since bad endings suck, and she's a fucking plot device now. Plot devices don't die. So forget about her, go through the pyramid, and then we can all make up, have a slice-of-life arc, a wedding, and other shit. Okay?" She snapped her fingers, releasing me from the chains. I immediately bolted up the golden bridge, eager to start the pyramid gauntlet.

Chapter namesake: The Game Begins from Death Note: The Musical

pojlk

It's chapter 175, which means you know what! Both the Q&A that I do every 25 chapters, and the extra long Author's Note! I love doing these, but also sometimes I don't. Now, we're in the final stretch, since, as I said before, Side Note will be finishing on the 200th chapter, plus some epilogue chapters on top of that. Now, previously, I said I'd do 10 epilogue chapters, but that number has lowered to 5. Why? Well, three of them, I decided I've always wanted to do a chapter like one of those TV Show endings where they have like a sentence of two describing the character's future. The three chapters like that will be for the unimportant characters, the enemies Madeleine and Mel have faced, and their allies. As for the last two epilogue chapters, I think it's fairly obvious who those will go to, but I don't want to spoil the surprise.

Now, other than that, I've got something to announce. Drum roll please......... Side Note chapters will be released daily until it is completed! In all honesty, I could've written Side Note daily, but I didn't really want to, so why am I doing it now? You see, I actually already have all 50 encounters figured out, and what order they will happen in. Well, that and I want to finish Side Note as soon as possible. No offense to Madeleine, but I'd like to write someone else's story. As for what my next story will be, I'm kind of torn between some options. Well, I'll figure it out before I finish Side Note.

Last thing to note is that although I do have ideas of what I'd to write, I'd like to hear what you guys wanna see me write? Would you like to see me rewrite Split Divinity? Maybe write a new story based in Mendass, using one of the many throwaway characters that you actually found interesting? Or maybe a new series? Feel free to leave ideas below, or alternatively, ask questions (Or don't. I've kind of gotten used to not seeing questions).