Page 2. Declassified (& Not A Moment Too Soon)

Ten years ago, some people did some stuff.

That's it. That's all we knew. For ten years (give or take a Jeremy Bearimy) literally the only thing Upstairs would admit was that Stuff Had Happened. A couple of agents quit, but, like… big deal? Agent Dafydd died, came back, and ran off with his latest squeeze. Agent The Aviator spontaneously transformed into a Time Lord and went off to destroy Gallifrey. I once spent three years living with the Nac Mac Feegles down in the Courtyard. None of that got covered up, so what makes this so special?!

Well, the truth is out now! Yes, we, your dedicated reporting team, have managed to force the Flowers to follow their own guidelines and release the information after "a suitable confidentiality period" (whatever that means). Bet they never expected that when they explicitly wrote in a publicly-available document exactly what they would do!

So now we know what all the fuss was about. Well, somebody does. Obviously I haven't actually sat down and read the report on this "Blank Sprite Incident" thing, because a) it's really long and b) I'm really lazy. But there will be people out there who have read it, and they will know all the grisly details.

So… why hide them in the first place? People were just gonna find out eventually, and this is the PPC we're talking about. There are still people refusing to talk to each other after the Great Chocolate Heist of '07 (see our archives for all the juicy details!), ten years was never going to make a difference.

But that's Upstairs for you. For all their protests that Drama is a hu-mon concept, Agent Starwind, we do not succumb to such frailties, bleep bloop, they engage in just as much pointless shenaniganing as the rest of us. They should just own it, rename themselves the Department of Hijinks, and ban shoes or something for the heck of it. It'd be more entertaining than this meaningless censorship.

-Starwind Rohana, Editor-in-Chief

Not that this is going to keep us from reporting on it, you understand.

~Estelnar Celebduin, Editor-in-Chiefer

Page 3. Nikki Cherryflower

Page 4. In Their Own Words

STARWIND: Mr & Mrs Turbo, thank you very much for agreeing to speak with us.

NIKKI: Actually, my surname is still Cherryflower. We married in Italy so I could keep it—it is the surname I gave myself when I decided to become my own person and not just a Sakura clone, so it’s really important to me.

STARWIND: Oh. Well… huh. [Crumples up three sheets of questions and tosses them aside] Well, either way, it's great to have such celebrities sitting down for an interview.

ESTELNAR: Are they celebrities?

STARWIND: Until Dafydd stops blocking our calls or we track down Jay, they're the best we've got. So, Nikki—can I call you Nikki?—who did your hair today?

NIKKI: Who did...? I just brushed it a bit, really. Running a cafè and raising a four year old girl doesn’t really leave you much time for hair care, I’m afraid.

STARWIND: Lovely. And how about you, Sergio?

SERGIO: If someone had done my hair with this result, they would be a terrible hairdresser.

ESTELNAR: I think you're only supposed to ask the woman that one.

STARWIND: Really? Seems like a weirdly specific form of sexism, where'd that one come from?

ESTELNAR: I don't know, it's one of your weird mortal things.

STARWIND: Who're you calling morta— um, weir— um. Hmm.

SERGIO: Er... Shouldn’t we be talking about, you know, the Blank Sprite Incident?

ESTELNAR: Indeed we should. As you hopefully know, the—

STARWIND: First off, I need you to resolve a bet between me and boring there. Why's it called "Blank Sprite"?

ESTELNAR: I say it's to do with your fairy friend Corolla. As a technological entity, she could have had her programming wiped, thus becoming a "blank sprite".

STARWIND: Meanwhile, I think it's the fizzy drink.

SERGIO (laughing): I’m afraid it’s neither, though Estelnar got closer. It was coined by another PPC magazine... Sue Tactics, was it? I think it only ran for a few issues, the first couple were good but quality took a steep dive afterwards.

STARWIND: Oh yeah, they interviewed me once.

ESTELNAR: What was it you said about their quality going downhill?

SERGIO: Anyways, in what was perhaps their best article, they described a scenario in which a canon character was abducted from canon so thoroughly, they wouldn’t be able to appear in canon or in other fanfictions, with the plot of course grinding to a halt if witnessed in-universe, and the character likely being replaced by its blank silhouette in visual media depicting it—the “Blank Sprite”.

STARWIND: Is that a thing that can happen?

ESTELNAR: I asked one of the DAS scientists last week, and he just shrugged his muscles and started ranting about the audiobook version of last summer's article on them.

SERGIO: Yeah, the magazine itself thought it was impossible—and in all of PPC history, it only happened this one time. As far as I know, no one really understood how Vera pulled it off—and, to be fair, I think it’s better for it to stay that way.

STARWIND: Right, yes, Vera. As long-time readers will know, Vera Rose is one of HQ's more famous dragons. I never have gotten a straight answer on how she got mixed up in this.

SERGIO: I’m afraid you’re mixing up two different people here. The Suvian who caused the incident was called Vera Heartbound, and she very definitely wasn’t a dragon.

NIKKI: And I sure hope this 'Vera Rose' hasn’t got anything against Sergio, since the entire point of Vera Heartbound’s plan was to kill him.

ESTELNAR: Come now, as a dragon expert you should know that they're masters—or mistresses—of manipulation. Of course she made you think she was a different Vera.

SERGIO: Dragon expert? I’m pretty sure that’s not on my resume, though I did face a couple. And I am fairly confident a dragon and your run-of-the-mill blonde Sue look nothing alike. And, believe me, the Vera I unfortunately had to work with for a while, who decided that all her teammates were better dead, and nearly destroyed three different continua just to try to kill me doesn’t have a second identity as a dragon PPC Agent. Especially since, well, I made Madoka-damn sure Vera Heartbound was dead ten years ago.

NIKKI: Besides, if she was a dragon, I’m pretty sure she would’ve tried to incinerate us when everything else failed.

STARWIND: Right, the continuum destruction thing. Not that there aren't a few continu…ata that could do with it, but as a PPC agent I have to say that sounds bad.

ESTELNAR: Technical term, there.

STARWIND: How did it feel, knowing your failure could mean the end of the multiverse as we know it?

SERGIO: Well, I don’t think the entire multiverse was in danger. And, well, while we were aware the stakes were high, it’s kinda been that way already for us in the past before.

NIKKI: On top of that, due to some time travel shenanigans during the Blackout we had a possible prediction of our deaths—we discovered we weren’t going to be working at the PPC anymore by April 2013 when we thought we didn’t have anywhere else to go. So... I’m sorry if it sounds selfish, but a lot of our worries were about our own survival.

SERGIO: To be fair, once we understood that the main perp was an old enemy who had killed two friends of mine four years earlier, and was tracking me down, I focused more on the fact it was my responsibility to make sure this time she went down for good. As I said already, I was the real target—Sakura and Madoka were just collaterals to her.

STARWIND: Ooh, so it was a two-sided vengeance quest? I'm liking this.

ESTELNAR: Ignore her, she's a berserker in her spare time. So what was the plan to hunt down Vera?

SERGIO: Actually, we had to keep making new plans on the fly. It wasn’t a regular mission in which you could read the Words ahead and plan accordingly—we were in completely uncharted territory. One moment it looked like it was a Trans-Dimensional Snatching gone wrong, then it looked like someone was setting up a canon character trafficking ring, and only afterwards we realized it was a trap.

NIKKI: In fact, we didn’t even know who was behind it until a couple days into the incident, and it took a bit more to understand what she was really after. We were so out of it, Sergio even enlisted the help of Homura Akemi from Madoka Magica when we met her. It was out of the rules, but... desperate times, desperate measures I guess.

SERGIO: The end justifies the means, when the stakes are that high. Anyways, we only really managed to start coming up with some kind of strategy when I discovered Vera was behind it, and that she was after me. At that point, I completely threw the PPC out of the equation—it was personal. My case, my rules, as I explained to the Sunflower.

STARWIND: I said it was a vengeance quest.

NIKKI: Since Sergio knew her, we did our best to predict her moves—we didn’t always get it right, but it worked in the end.

ESTELNAR: So you won? I suppose you must have, given that you're here and all. How did you feel once it was over?

NIKKI: Very relieved.

SERGIO: It was one of the worst messes we were involved in, and we managed to fix it up and make it out alive. So, yeah, relieved. But I was also somewhat saddened. If Vera had only managed to understand the same thing I did when I reformed, this incident, and the deaths that preceded it, wouldn’t have happened.

ESTELNAR: Yes, it can be hard when someone doesn't understand simple things.

STARWIND: Tell me about it. And then, if I understand correctly, you were fired?

ESTELNAR: No, they ran away, like Dafydd and whatsername.

SERGIO: Actually, we retired right after the incident. I am currently working as a racing car driver—we both decided it was time to call it quits with the fighting life.

NIKKI: I’m running a small café—I took a job there a few months after we left the PPC, and a couple years ago the owner retired so I bought it out.

SERGIO: All in all, things are going pretty well.

ESTELNAR: My notes say that you're now married, and living in, hm, 'an undisclosed location'. How are your children finding life with ex-PPC parents? I understand they don't socialise with the New Caledonia kids.

SERGIO: Well, to be fair it’s kinda difficult for Keiko to be meeting them considering we live nowhere near New Caledonia.

NIKKI: Also, we’ve decided to keep her away from PPC life for the time being—we did take part in the boat race last year, but I think it will be the last time.

SERGIO: Nikki got her childhood cut short and I never had one to begin with, both of us seeing more than our fair shares of fighting. We’d like Keiko to be able to enjoy the normal childhood we were denied, and especially for her to never have to fight for her life.

NIKKI: We’ll tell her everything when she gets older, of course, but for now we’d like to cut on the weirdness a bit.

STARWIND: Haha—oh, you were serious? Well, good luck with that. But what about your other kid?

ESTELNAR: I was coming to that. We have a report that you have a second daughter, named 'Not Sure'. No, hang on, that's a note, our source is not sure.

STARWIND: So why are you hiding her? Huh? What have you done with her??

SERGIO: We never had another one to begin with? Keiko has always been our only child and to be fair we don't even plan on having another.

NIKKI: I think I would’ve noticed if I had become pregnant and gave birth a second time. It’s not all fun and games.

SERGIO: And before you ask, Nikki is the only one I ever got intimate with, so that’s a dead end too. Are you sure your source wasn’t high on something, or off meds?

STARWIND: You know what that sounds like? A coverup. A big, stinking coverup to hide the fact that you're maliciously [muffled noises as Estelnar presses a hand over her mouth].

ESTELNAR: As I'm sure you understand from your own work with classified information—

STARWIND: [Muffled noises intensify]

ESTELNAR: —we can't reveal anything about our source and how weird she is. I think this is probably a good place to end the interview—

STARWIND: [Outraged muffled noises; waves a sheaf of paper]

ESTELNAR: —before my partner starts pulling her clothes off and painting herself blue. Thank you for coming, and I'm sorry about her.

SERGIO: Yeah, considering your partner stopped making any sense, I believe this interview is over.

Page 5. A Dialogue of Two Conspiracy Systems

From deep in the dim depths of the Department of Dad Dlash… no, sorry, I got carried away there.

Kayleigh, we're dictating an article, not a work of fiction. You do not need to narrate.

Joke's on you, Sambar; I always need to narrate. Grin! A-ny-way, the Flowers That Be have released a report on something called the Blank Sprite Incident, which Starwind tells me is not about dodgy soft drinks. Instead, it's a huge report on an incident (hence the name) that went down ten years ago THIS VERY DECADE.

I'm not going to like the answer, but… did you actually read the report?

I actually did! It was very very long. Exhausted droop. But I got through the whole thing, took copious notes, rescued said notes from Aunt Sam, and the upshot is that the whole thing is fakey fakety fake fake!

You're overstating things, as usual. The Blank Sprite Incident wasn't fake, it was just… stage-managed.

Yes but how is that actually different, though?

It's a matter of degree. For instance, it's obvious that the whole thing was sparked by pairing two ex-Suvians up for missions. That was never going to end well. But that doesn't mean Cherryflower and Turbo knew about it. Far simpler for the Flowers to just maneuver them into setting the incident in motion.

Oh, they definitely knew. Come on, they were literally from the same badfic as their supposed enemy! They worked with her! They planned the whole thing from the start.

The Flowers planned it. Cherryflower and Turbo were dupes. Remember, they didn't even know they were from the same story at first.

And if you believe that, I've got a tabloid newspaper to sell you. It's not hard, Sambar—a pair of Suvians, desperate for attention, concoct this whole "Incident" with their old buddy Vera. Nikki's a knockoff Sakura, right? You know there's a new Sakura series coming out, she probably heard about that and got jel.

Gel?

Jel-ous. Eyeroll, get with the times, Sam! Oh, hey, just noticed you've got the same name as my cat.

My name is Sambar. And I find it hard to believe a single agent team would concoct such a convoluted plot just for the 'attention' of a classified report that wouldn't see the grey light of HQ for another decade. It's far more plausible that the Flowers—or some faction of the Flowers—created it in order to bring on the Coming Doom.

Aw, no, not this claptrap again.

Catastrophe Theory is a perfectly scientific theory. It's all here in the charts—the rate of Emergencies increased in 2002, then dropped off in 2015, clearly because people started to listen to my warnings. The Blank Sprite Incident was crafted to restart the slide and hasten the end.

I thought it happened in 2012. Which is before 2015, in case your maths isn't great.

Then… obviously they saw the slowdown coming and were trying to avert it. We can only be glad they weren't successful—at least, not yet.

Rubbish!

Oh, hey Shrike. What brings you here?

That's the Sunflower's Witness. You know her?

Shrug. I think everyone knows her by this point. What's up?

Your false conspiracies are an affront to the memory of the Sunflower Official, may his name be ever remembered! Only he has been victim of a concerted conspiracy by an alliance of Flowers and Suvians. Why would they bother with this Bland Spite Incident when they had already murdered the noblest of all PPCers, our true SO?

I mean, I imagine they would need to do something with their time in the past decade and a half.

That's what they want you to think! But they don't! Because the actual conspiracy was carried out by… the Mainstream Media!

Slow blink. Are you finally admitting that the Multiverse Monitor was printing nonsense when they said the SO was dead?

May you be forgiven your heretical words. No, that was obviously true, but in the very next issue the editors admitted they were running out of material. They even sent out this list of headlines that, quote, "NEED TO BE WRITTEN". And what do we see, right at the top?

"What happened with those Agents and the SWAT Team?" I don't know what—

Which is exactly what happened in the Bland Spite Incident! Don't you see? The newspaper staged the whole thing just so they could write this issue!

But the Incident was eleven years ago!

And your list was written six years before that.

Exactly! Who else but the Multiverse Monitor, the only paper to realise the truth about the evil fake SO, would plan so far ahead? Everything you say just makes it clearer how right I am!

I don't think it—

How! Right! I! Am! 

Page 6. The (Pointless) Investigation on the Third Side of The Triangle: The (Non-Existent) Mystery of Ami Tanegashima

by Arumi Knight

Nowadays, we know former agents Sergio Turbo and Nikki Cherryflower as a happily married couple, raising their daughter Keiko together. But there was a time when such an outcome was in doubt, as there was another girl who was going for Sergio’s heart: Ami Tanegashima. Who is this girl? Could she make Sergio’s faithfulness waver? Exclusively on the “Real” Multiverse Monitor [Good, but drop the scare quotes] all the juicy bits of this unexpected love triangle!

Or, at least, that’s what this thing’s directors would have wanted me to write. [Obviously take this out.] It isn’t bad enough that the “Real” Multiverse Monitor staff tried to trick me into believing this article was for the one I usually write for, when they just had to ask. [I did ask!] [I think she means ask honestly.] After all, I think I might be the only currently employed PPC Agent who had a chance to see the relevant girl when she was still alive, back in the mission during which I recruited Sergio. [Dig out the report on this, or cobble one together if we have to.]

No, they had to ask me to write about something that simply never existed. ["that Sergio wants us to think never existed."] This “triangle”? Ami had a crush on Rookie, [Yessss, a nickname! We should lean into that.] alright, I give them that. But Ami never got around to confessing before kicking the bucket. And Rookie was completely oblivious about it as he was still mourning Nikki (who was believed dead at the time). That’s all there’s to it. [Strike the last line, add something about turning to Ami in his grief.] [How about this: "Of course, he would hardly be the first to turn to a friend for affection in his grief, and who could blame Ami for taking him up on the invitation?"]

And, even if there was something between those two, Rookie was sixteen and Ami fourteen at the time. [Are we sure about these ages??] [Isn't Arumi a car? I doubt she even understands how humans age.] [Still, though, maybe we should scrap the article.] [We'll just bump them both up by a couple of years, it'll be fine.] Even if the uncontrollable human teenager hormones drove them to do something (ugh), [Swap this out for some mortal innuendo.] they were at an age at which we simply should not talk about it.

Besides, if Corolla’s stories are to be believed, [Can we talk to Corolla?] [Er. She tends to get a bit… snippy around me.] [Meaning angry?] [Meaning scissors.] this Ami girl stayed around as a ghost to, among other things, help reunite the star-crossed Sergio and Nikki. That’s not a third side of any triangle, that’s one hell of a wingman if you ask me. [And who asked you?!] [We did.] [Yeah, well… no. Clearly Ghost!Ami was renewing their old flame and trying to set up some kind of threesome angle.]

And she moved on afterwards, so you’ll have no wild “threesome with the ghost” speculations from me either [... is she reading our notes?] (Yeah, I know that was your backup plan). [ESTELNAR SHE'S READING OUR NOTES!] [She wrote that before we even got the manuscript; calm down.] [SHE'S READING OUR NOTES VIA TIME TRAVEL!] Let her rest in peace, guys. [No.] That poor girl went through a lot in her short life (and afterlife). [And it is the responsibility of the news to report on all of it.]

[That last paragraph so isn't going to cut it. Can we get someone else to weigh in?] [You wish. Agent Arumi was the only person I could find who a) knew them and b) was willing to give me the time of day.] [So what you're saying is: "Sergio and Nikki are famous for their secrecy. Even the location of their new home is a closely-guarded secret; there would be no better place to hide a spectral lover."] [I… don't think that's what I was saying?] [Well it is now.]

Page 7. Lust Object of the Week Month Issue

Semir Gerkhan—Alarm für Cobra 11. Lady-killer. Also car-killer and partner-killer.

Page 8. Horoscopes

Aires - duck and roll. And keep rolling and spinning round round.

Goat - things for you will either go very well or horribly wrong, so don’t tempt the Ironic Overpower. I mean, it applies to every sign, but especially to yours.

Juggernaut - beware of falling debris.

Okjock the Salesman - the concept of “saving up” is stupid, so do something useful with the meager pay you get here and keep buying the Monitor.

Qui Amas - LUXURY GET OUT OF HERE!

Cornhach - beware of big felines. Unless they’re green—that’s Agent Syaoron.

Don't see your sign listed? Try reloading the page. It won't help, but it'll give you something to do while we work on the next issue.

Page 9. Adverts

Actually, it’s me, everyone’s favorite DoSAT technician, Corolla! This thing’s staff had the gall of making an entire issue of... well, this particular iteration of the Multiverse Monitor (Or Moniter—I wonder if they ever noticed they have a typo in the very title? Or is it a legal loophole?) about the Blank Sprite Incident without actually asking me!

Can you believe it? I was there the whole incident, either as mission support or directly on-site. All they had to do was to... well, send someone who isn’t Starwind to interview me. Girl has issues, the main one being something called “I refuse facts and substitute them with stuff I made up with my off-the-walls crazy imagination”.

But boy, I understand why they didn’t. Nearly the entirety of this issue is, well, trash. I kinda understand Starwind’s frustration with the Flower’s idea of keeping my best friends’ greatest adventure under wraps—that’s why I made a point to tell everyone the whole story. This thing’s staff lives in a bubble, I guess.

The main piece, the interview, is where everything started falling apart. You’re supposed to either read the report or get the whole story from a direct witness (that would be me) before opening fire with completely inaccurate questions. BTW, our resident dragon is Verra. With two Rs. And very definitely a different individual from Vera Heartbound.

What really left me baffled was Starwind and Estelnar’s insistence on Sergio and Nikki having a second daughter. I would’ve loved to have another little niece, but they are too afraid that they wouldn’t be able to handle two with their current jobs - there’s a reason why they nicknamed Keiko “their little tsunami”. Anyways, the medical logs from Nikki’s Device are pretty clear: she was a virgin when she got it and she gave birth exactly one time to a single child afterwards. Kinda the same goes for Sergio, since he regularly receives medical scans from it. Minus the pregnancy bit, of course.

If they had another child, or Sergio was unfaithful, I would know it. Your “source” isn’t gonna hear the end of it, and trust me I will find them. I’m the better hacker here, Estelnar. Don’t think I haven’t noticed your attempts to get their address over the years.

But I would have been able to glance it over, say “eh, whatever, it’s Starwind.” and be done with it if it wasn't for the rest. Ooh, boy, the rest.

I can’t really disprove Sambar’s theory that the Flowers were involved in the mess somehow, and of course I don’t need to say anything about the “Sunflower’s Witness”—we all agree she’s completely off the rocker—but Kayleigh? You have a lot of nerve to tell such [EXPLETIVE DELETED] about my friends!

I can tell you Vera was very real in her attempts to kill us all. Yeah, she’s worked with Sergio. That’s exactly why she wanted to kill him. Full-blown Suvians don’t like traitors of their kind, it looks like.

And the other reasons for this to be “staged”? Sergio and Nikki wanting fame? Please, if it was up to them, this incident would still be classified. They don’t like the limelight. And the thing about Nikki being jealous of Sakura falls apart right away once you realize that Cardcaptor Sakura: Clear Card was announced something like four years after the whole Blank Sprite Incident was over and done with. You’re all lucky I’m not the murderous AI type, ‘cause otherwise there would’ve been a lot of blood around right now.

If that wasn’t enough to prove how much unreliable is this sorry excuse of a tabloid, well not only they tricked Arumi into writing for them, but when she did an honest article pointing out that what they wanted to imply simply had no legs to stand on, they went and rewrote the article to further their agenda! Of course, that couldn’t stand, so I reverted it back to the WIP version with Arumi’s own words and those two idiots’ notes detailing their plans.

It’s up to you readers to judge now. But I think you will agree that there is no journalistic integrity there.

Oh, for those wondering what the ad I kicked out to make space for my rant was? It was a scam. You’re welcome.

P.S. So it was you, Starwind, who tried to sneak a photo of Nikki while she was showering! You'd better start running before Sergio and Nikki see this issue. One has an assault rifle, the other an energy sword. You do the math.

Disclaimer: The Protectors of the Plot Continuum was created by Jay and Acacia. The (second) Multiverse Monitor was created by Starwind Rohana. Blank Sprite was created by Sergio Turbo. All canon characters & settings belong to their respective creators. Sergio, Nikki, Corolla, and Arumi belong to Sergio; Starwind, Estelnar, Kayleigh, and Sambar are Huinesoron's; the Sunflower's Witness is free-to-use. Text in this issue is by Huinesoron and Sergio. Cover & Page 3 images by Sergio.

Published: 10 October 2023

Timeline: 10 October 2023

Huinesoron's Note: Well that was a lot of typeface malarkey.

This issue was thoroughly Sergio's idea: he came up with most of the ideas, pushed it along when I got distracted, and wrote more than half of it (as well as providing the pictures!). I think this marks the first REAL Multiverse Monitor issue mostly written by someone other than the editor since Starwind's final edition back in 2007. Could this indicate the time is right for a revival of the monthly format???

(No. No it could not. Never suggest that, I would drive myself crazy.)

Sergio's Note: I would’ve never thought that when I realized “hey, Blank Sprite was set around ten years ago, maybe I should ask Huinesoron to save up some space in the next Multiverse Monitor issue for an interview with my characters or something” things would spiral out to a whole issue being dedicated to it. Still, it was a lot of fun to write, so I have no regrets!

No Multiverse Moniter staff was harmed in the making of this piece. Despite Corolla’s attempts.