“Everything is proceeding as I have foreseen. Inthecorner here. I'm talking about ISOT Insoft's upcoming Commandment of Hero: Ersatz Struggle. Two characters were just announced for the roster, which to me indicates that they're ramping up for a release pretty soon now, relatively speaking. That puts it at an odd time, since usually you expect holiday or first-quarter releases for games, but take it from me that there's nothing odd about ISOT being used to plug up gaps in schedules. It is what it is. I wish they got more respect and sales, and hey, maybe we can get some word of mouth going, starting right here with this video. Like, subscribe, leave a comment, but first, let's take a look at the new footage.”

Politics! Over inside a school gym within a city overly blessed by spirits, the setting of Afterschool Hunters, the pan-ludic assembly met to consider the issues of the day. When there were any, but also when there were not. That last situation became increasingly common as time passed.

“But I refuse to stop scheduling these things, so I thought up something,” said Newlywed Quircy near the end of her opening address. “UTASes! There are too many of them. Magical Menagerie is becoming overcrowded. That's not a problem since I just kick people out, but I'm never sure whether I have to say sorry. Since abandoning good manners is right out for any manager worthy of the title, I propose that we limit each character to only one UTAS copy each. That's all you need to do your dumb chores while you live a more vibrant life.”

Officers, instances, slayers, so-forths, and so-ons in the bleachers nudged their neighbors and tried to engage them in discussions of the matter at hand only to discover most of them to be mute and also fake. Support for the proposal rose faster than Furious Galaxy's rank in the store when Admiral Masina finally entered the gacha, but the opposition had not yet had its say.

“An unnecessary restriction. I oppose it.” The unprecedented passion of Metatron's speech, reprinted here in full, stunned assembly analysts. Attendees who had been sure of their vote seconds earlier wavered, suspecting they had missed some pivotal fact or nuance.

Wruden Calx opposed the measure as well. “Think of business! What did anyone do to deserve these regulations? Deliver too-convenient products at too affordable a price? Those are crimes now, I suppose.”

“Those things do sound bad,” the austerity-loving Arrarix of Always Leveling Titan agreed.

From the same game but the other side, BigGuy30 delivered an encomium for technological progress. “If our ancestors kept looking down instead of up because the sun is too bright, we'd never have gotten sunglasses. I saw a music video with a bunch of the most forgettable officers from Commandment of Hero. Of course they're all really strong, but their designs aren't quite as strong, you know? But they looked a lot cooler with sunglasses. I guess what I'm trying to say is that we don't know what we'll miss if we go around banning things, and all we get out of it is that Magical Menagerie can skimp on staff.”

The tears in the bleachers testified to the power of his words. The riser that seated Cadmos, Solemn Declaration, Hemt T. Elf, Ben I. Sloup, King Ostros, Saptres Muria, Burmin Trivvis, and Ulrik seemed especially moved. Zimley Boe decided to put a stop to that.

“Do you think she's likeliest to hire more staff, stop kicking people out, or just kick everyone out indiscriminately and shut the place down while the scientists work out some kind of ID implant system? Knowing what you know about Quircy? Maybe you don't know anything about her, so I'll go ahead and tell you it's the last one. No more freebies from me, though.”

Debate promised to rage for furious hours, not to mention heated minutes, all recorded by a suite of cameras and microphones set up for record-keeping purposes earlier at Metatron's request. An assembly member from host game Afterschool Hunters stood to add another argument. Or so the assembly thought. “Can we wrap this up?” Gen Suruda asked. “A big stream was announced for ten minutes from now, so it'd be great if you all cleared out. Hey, was that too rude?” That last part he addressed to his fellow hunters sitting near him, but everyone equipped with ears was able to enjoy it.

“I'm not clearing out of anywhere, Gen Suruda. I want to watch it too!” Newlywed Quircy banged her gavel on the closest flat object, which turned out to be the line representing Holy Legend Army's revenue as seen on a diorama set up behind her as a humiliating visual aid. “No time for anything. Vote now. Throw one hand up in the air for no. Let your arms hang limply at your side for yes.”

“Again I object. The custom is to stand on designated sides.”

“I don't care if you have an objection or a volume of poetry, Metatron. They're already doing it. Just as I planned. Hee hee.” Quircy's laughter grew increasingly unhinged as her ploy yielded results. All the UTASes spread throughout the gym which viewed a single raised arm, the motion their programming designated as the back command, reverted to their base form of a sack attached to a monitor, webcam, and keyboard. All that failed to see or, more likely, properly register the back signal sat unmoving in the “yes” position.

“I object yet more.” Metatron's perfect J*** T******* in S******* N*** F**** disco pose underscored the strength of his conviction.

“On what grounds?” Quircy Rau lifted her left leg and rested the foot on her slightly bent right knee, which was the sauciest display she could concoct without moving her arms. “I may never have another chance to say this, so here goes. One, two, three! I am completely in the right here, and your scheme to seed UTASes around to tilt votes the way you want deserves punishment. Oh look, my proposal passed! The punishment is that you have to help get a big monitor in here tout de suite.”

The yays all cheered, the hunters cheered louder, and the UTASes neither cheered nor booed on account of being capable of no such behavior without explicit instruction. As for Metatron's penalty, Gen Suruda rescued him by alerting Newlywed Quircy that what she had taken for a black void at the end of the building the artists had been too lazy to fill in was in fact a gigantic screen. She scrambled aside with a yelp of, “Eep! I made a mistake,” which is not at all what one hopes to hear from a bride on her wedding day. Fortunately, it was stream day instead.

As much as cosmopolitanism and cross-cultural exchanges had increased across the cluster aside from the isolationist land of Universal Testament, the first taste of an Afterschool Hunters-style stream shocked the sensibilities of Furious Galaxy crews, Commandment of Hero officers, Radiant Illusion Country legends, and the denizens of several other games, for all that Slay Every Dragon's slayers, Paradise the Enchant's candidates, Convergence/Divergence's instances, and many more found nothing odd in the proceedings.

Interminable exhibitions of merchandise! Figures, keychains, and alarm clocks with AH branding that the guests on the panel, voice actors and the game's director, believed without exception to be incredible and/or cute filled more airtime than an episode of Dungeon Express 2 stripped of its commercials. Nothing strange about that. Trivia segments were mandatory of course, and how could they neglect the story recap complete with clips that everyone watching definitely had seen already, unless some sort of pan-ludic assembly of characters from various gacha games suspended the day's business to watch it? They could not. A call-and-response chant broke out inside the gym.

“When's the news?”

“Forty minutes.”

“When's the news?”

“Thirty-nine minutes.”

And so on. Fortunately, since the time decreased every time the complainers asked in an irrefutable chain of cause and effect, the news did eventually come. News of more side stuff to sell, of course. But not mousepads, because Afterschool Hunters: Paranormal Sports Festival was cruising in at unstoppable speeds to your N****** S***** hybrid console/handheld device! Compete against your friends or your own times in a series of sports minigames! People still like those, but hardly anybody makes them! We hope! You might want to buy a cheap controller for this, because those buttons are getting pounded.

The trailer left out that last part. Everyone understood it implicitly. The panel guests did discuss their memories of button abuse though. After that, the stream at last covered some actual Afterschool Hunters material that seemed important to the hunters, but the rest of the audience had what it wanted, the AGN affiliates most of all, who ducked out furtively to write up stories with the details they had learned and quite a few they invented. “Some say the console game comes as a response to fears of a contraction in the mobile space . . .” Who said that? Lasva, Ababa, and Babab. Three entire people.

The stream ended, Skyapple put forward a motion that spinoffs were fine for some people but there was no reason to get worked up about it, and Newlywed Quircy called for a vote. The measure lost unanimously. “Wait. Skyapple. Why did you vote nay?”

“That was a childish reaction on my part. I realize that now.”

“That's some fast character development! You have my admiration, but that's probably it for story appearances from you.” Skyapple shrugged in response. He never expected to be a star anyway. Newlywed Quircy compensated for the lack of drama by hopping up on the podium, lying on it sideways, and calling for a vote on another proposal. “I just took a mental inventory of the crowd, and I see hunters who need to celebrate and a Zimley Boe who might die if she doesn't get to a party soon. Fixing up all these problems seems easy enough even for those of us not in Construction. Who wants to have a party right here? Say 'Newlywed Quircy is the three-legged race partner of your dreams' if you do.”

“Newlywed Quircy is too short to be my three-legged race partner!”

“Newlywed Quircy is too tall to be my three-legged race partner!”

“I want Newlywed Quircy to dash along the course dragging me behind her until we cross the finish line and she looks back on me with a disgusted expression!”

Consensus proved unreachable, but the party happened anyway.