Kapitel 138: Interlude - Uncertain Inebriation Record (3)

"What is this?! What is this?!" Leene shouted half in panic, half in delight, but even so her face remained locked in that sallow-eyed listless expression she had cultivated through centuries. She weaved through patterns of balls and rectangular barriers. Flight was a fairy's lifeline, but no one had ever before made *the whole sky itself* a cage!

The patterns spread out in regular, mathematically precise waves. Leene tried to go up, but the spread of energy bullets arrived in staggered lines that forced her to fly in diagonal patterns. She flew nimbly, agile as fightercraft.

And yet she was left with the feeling that while she was completely surrounded by balls of caged plasma, it was fair. There was a way out. One just had to have the skill to seek it out. One just needed to have the nerve to counter-attack. Looking towards the center of the formation, she could see that the bullets never truly permanently blocked the view to Monika and Playa.

Fireball wouldn't work, and her homing rocks were being slapped away by the waves of energy bullets.

"Come, [Ice], wicked flying shards, [Ice Daggers!]" She held her palms out and shot forth rapid streams of ice shards towards the center of the formation, while dodging left and right to slip past incoming bullets. That was the difference between humans and fairies, the fairies didn't need to use wands and magic crystals to amplify their magic power to cast spells.

It was unfortunately pointless since Monika's body was just an illusion cast by a multiple Boom Tube pixel-scale array. Nonetheless, Monika began dodging from side to side, reducing the frequency of the wide-scale bullets and instead sending out a spread of semi-homing rectangular energy bullets.

Leene hissed as a notepad-shaped bullet scraped at her skirt, slashing through but leaving only a deep stinging sensation on her skin. The cut cloth drooped down, exposing her lithe pale thighs.

"Any more than this, and I will be naked," said Leene. "You only had to ask." She posed, showing her exposed flank.

Monika paused the revolution of the bullet hell mandala.

"Are you imitating my [Program] right now?" Leene switched gears sharply, her eyes still droopy with a sort of subdued fascination.

/"No, I have always been able to do this,"/ answered Monika. /"I must understand fully a Null power first before I can [Decompile] and use it as my own. I have an ability called [Application]. It allows me to utilize completed spells – to store them, to duplicate them, to adjust their outputs, to utilize their outputs as inputs for other spells – but it is not a program. Each spell must first be loaded into memory instead of being a custom instruction set. This is still an incomplete form, basically just chaining spells together with a modification of ballistic output taken from [Earth] magic."/

"So, it's not Turing complete?" Playa asked.

/"Turing completeness is a terrible model for judging a programming language, Player. Technically all a Turing machine needs to be to be able to calculate any operation is a switchboard with infinite memory space. Above that is pushdown automation, above that is a finite-state machine, and then there's combinational logic used for comprehensible coding."/

For while Monika was called evil and murderous, and powerful with godlike control over her virtual world, much of the horror of Doki Doki Literature Club was because she was actually *terrible* at coding. It was only recently that she could read the manuals and course guides from Playa's Doom Archive that she was able to truly study programming principles instead of haphazardly using Ren'Py visual novel script which was itself based on the complete programming language Python.

"It's just a model~" Playa mumbled aside.

/"snerk*"/, Monika repressed a giggle. /"Hold on there, King Arthur. A lot of things are accidentally Turing complete. Dwarf Fortress, for example. So is Minecraft. And Cities Skylines."/

"Well compared to a computer running a Virtual Machine with a full operating system in it, it's much more impressive to create a computer inside a virtual world inside a computer using nothing but dwarves and pistons and magma."

"You two are having such fun over there, but what do dwarves have to do with any of this?" Leene groused and pouted.

"Ah!" Playa turned to look towards her. He was still in that silly belly down, elbows and knees in position, with Monika standing on his back. The bullet hell mandala began to spin again, but did not fire just yet.

"I have a question," said Playa. "Is [Program] capable of creating a memory space for handling variables?"

/"Are you capable of assigning labels into program blocks, and refer to them later as functions? Does [Program] accept IF/THEN/ELSE GOTO statements?"/

Leene blinked. "Are you… talking about [Conditions]? If you are asking if I can permanently inscribe a [Program] into a physical object, then the answer is yes."

"Is it a form of read-only memory, that is – unchangeable once written, or is it random access memory, in which it can be wiped and re-written constantly?"

"Hundreds of years I have spent figuring out the intricacies of what is possible with [Program]. And yet you… you actually know what that means, don't you? You actually understand what I am doing." Leene's pupils suddenly narrowed into pinpricks. She stood there, frozen in midair like a marionette.

And she whispered huskily "CLEARLY, I MUST HAVE YOU."

"Aww cripes so that's where Charlotte gets that from."

Leene, sacrificing all higher order thought, lunged like a cobra.

The music changed. The brilliant display had moved on, away from overhead the capital towards the forests. . Pink dots rose from the horizon like a sheet of multiple rising suns. Linze winced. "Miss Monika is… angry."

"What's wrong?" Yumina asked. "This music seems much more cheery and friendly than before."

Linze shook her head. "No. This is the music she uses when she really wants to hurt someone."

It was the Doki Doki Literature Club theme. (1)

 -- This happy tune

 -- Carves a fresh wound

 -- Into my heart

 -- But In this world of infinite choices

 -- I won't give my place

 -- Just to some stupid skank

"Ahahahaha~! I haven't been ravaged this hard in a long, long time!"

/"SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUUT UPPP!!!"/

"Nyohohoho~!"

Whabooom.

Monika breathed heavily. While her outside illusionary body lacked lungs, it was but a clone of her true self inside the virtual space of the smartphone. There, she could still get tired. She looked up with glowing green eyes, and spread open her arms. Behind her, lights flared into being, arranged like butterfly wings. And like the monarch butterly, there were two large dark spots in the middle of each wing.

Down below, lying down flat inside a crater, Leene watched impassively.

The spots opened like great demon eyes. A pair of Boom Tubes in the upper atmosphere collected and cycled photons endless between two points.

"Monika. Stop."

And immediately, all lights winked out. Monika sagged.

She gasped for breath and held up shaking hands. /"What… what was I doing?"/

"You were asserting your dominance," Playa replied gently, patting her shoulder. "You were even T-posing."

/"I was going too far… mad with jealousy… I was really going to aim to kill that time…"/ She put her hands to her face, sobbed, and curled inwards while still hanging in mid-air.

"It's fine. I stopped you didn't I? You know I never really hated this part of you. As long as you don't go too far, I love seeing my wife slap faces. Slap them good." Playa tried to look like he was hugging her, and kissed the mist of her hair. "Crush petty plots and manipulations with pure power."

Monika looked up and smiled wanly. /"Ahaha… perhaps it would have been fun to be reborn as an unwanted young miss in an inner courtyard, but you would have accidentally broken that josei harem drama into full Dragonball."/

"I only have two of them, but make a wish."

Monika snickered. /"You are such a perv~"/

Playa looked like he was supporting Monika's weight, but really his hand was just on her butt. In fact his hand even drifted under her skirt, comfortingly stroking the curve of her glorious behind instead of some bony fairy ass. But sadly, all he was feeling was a faint sense of electrostatic pressure – any more and Monika's illusion would just pop. This was why, no matter how much she wanted to hug him in turn, it was impossible to really be together.

/"It's not enough… my wish… it's painful to always just be just out of reach,"/ Monika murmured into his arms. No matter their power, it was pointless if they could not have their wish.

"Kuh, kill me…" whispered Leene. She tried to raise her arms but lacked the strength, she flapped about a little in resentment. "Don't just throw dog food down at me, you pair of affectionate curs. This is torture. DAMNED COUPLES, KILL ME."

The two continued to mutter sweet nothings to each other, ignoring all the world.

"I deeply despise this situation," Leene groaned. "Paula, help."

The teddy bear, all the way back in third floor of the palace, looked out the window. It shrugged in a 'Meh' gesture, as if asking 'Just what the hell do you expect me to do?'

(1) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BFSWlDpA6C4