Keroro pulled the single strand of rope in his arms while pressing his foot down on the rest of it, which was wrapped tightly around the author. Tamama watched excitedly (and a little sadistically) from the corner of the room, slowly pounding a baseball bat against his palm. Giroro knelt down in front of the author's face, resting his arm on his knee and staring menacingly at the tied-up captive. Kululu was

"WOULD YOU STOP THAT?!"

...The frogs were getting impatient. They wanted answers. This was the author who had neglected them for so long. Who would reappear at random and promise his many readers that he had finally returned to finish what he started, only to disappear just as quickly afterwards. He was now in their clutches with no chance of escape. Thanks to Kululu's and hacking and multi-dimensional skills, they were able to escape the author's Doc Manager, where they had been sitting for what felt like decades with nothing to do but wait for their stories to be continued. At first they were glad to be having a break, considering the more disturbing and intense plots of some of those stories. But as time went on, and the more the author would return to write one chapter before leaving for another two or three years, the frogs just wanted their stories to be wrapped up already. Getting these harsh stories over and done with seemed much more appealing than drawing them out this way.

"Just try to ignore him. Let him have his fun while it lasts. Kukuku." Kululu told Giroro through his transmitter.

"HEY! No listening in on our conversations!" Giroro growled, pushing the muzzle of a newly materialized gun into the author's cheek. "And STOP describing everything that's happening!"

"He's worse than the narrator." Tamama commented.

The author was, in actuality, not worse than the narrator. But his constant explaining was still enough to get on the frog's nerves. They did all this to get him to talk, but this was far more speaking than they had in mind.

"Imma shoot 'em!" Giroro said, tired of everything. Keroro leaped off the author's back and ran up to Giroro, frantically repeating for him to stop.

"Woah-woah-woah-woah, Corporal." he said, placing both his hands on Giroro's shoulders and pulling him back slightly. "Remember; if you shoot him, he can't finish our stories."

"Not like he was going to anyway. Kukuku." Kululu overheard Keroro's comment.

"Maybe we shouldn't do this. Kidnapping him is only going to make him less willing to help us." Dororo spoke from inside the ceiling vent, wanting no part of the rest of the platoon's scheme but still deciding to keep watch, making sure they don't cause any unnecessary harm to the helpless author.

"Oh, shut up! You're just saying that because he makes all of your parts in his stories sad!" Giroro yelled back.

Dororo jolted a bit, anxiously turning to his left. "I-...I mean...it is a bit difficult, being put through so much extra trauma. Koyuki dying in the crossover. Getting pushed around in 'Tamama Vs. Kululu'. But if it's what the readers want, then...I'll do whatever it takes to make the humans happy." He turned back to the group with a slightly more upbeat tone. "Besides, it's nice to read the reviews and listen to all the people who hope things get better for me."

"You actually read those?" Keroro asked. "I just figured they were all asking for more me. I really don't get enough love in these fics! Heck, it's pretty hard to notice unless you read them one after the other, but I mostly just cause trouble! It makes me look like...like some kind of "jerk" or something!"

Listening to Dororo's comment reminded Giroro how much he hated the way his stories were written as well. He had to deal with Natsumi dying, or the threat of her dying, in pretty much every story. This sick freak must love-

"WHA-HEY! DON'T READ MY THOUGHTS, EITHER!" Giroro shouted, stomping the author's head into the floor, Keroro and Tamama giggling in the corner.

"We should probably get this show on the road, boys. Ask him where he keeps cowering off to, and more importantly, when he's going to write a fanfiction about me where he ISN'T trying to impress Rainbowkitty by pairing me with Mois. After all, it's not my fault she's the only girl who's ever talked to him."

Giroro sighed. "Right." He pointed his gun down at the author. "Alright, StuffyCrush, or whatever your name is. What's taking so long?!"

The author tried to think of a satisfying answer that could potentially get him out of this mess. He couldn't let the frogs know that he was just lazy. He had to come up with something more respectable and understandable. He could mention that he's been having much more fun working on his YouTube series, but he figured they wouldn't care about that. Maybe he could mention that he's grown out of the Sgt. Frog fandom since he last-

"WHAT?!" all the frogs shouted at once.

"HOW?! I don't understand! Our show's the BEST! You can't 'grow out of it'! It's impossible!" Keroro remarked, jumping up and down in confused frustration.

"Well, we have been off the air for almost a decade. Personally, I blame all of you, but that's besides the point." Kululu replied.

The author had recently tried binging Sgt. Frog to see if it would reignite his passion for the reason he had when he was in high school. And even though he's still enjoying it quite a bit, he's been having trouble reclaiming that same desire to go back and finish some of his old stories. He knows that if he were to try and start another one, even if he had a clear plan on where he wanted to go with it, he would eventually leave it incomplete just as he had for his other fanfics. He didn't even remember what he had planned for most of his old stories, and no longer knew how he wanted to end them.

"That's no excuse! We're sick of sitting around in our stories, waiting for you to get off your ass and finish them!" Giroro yelled, stepping closer to the author.

Just then, Dororo jumped down from the ceiling and landed in his usual ninja pose, speaking softly to the author. "I hate to agree with my teammates, but it isn't just us that you have kept waiting. It's the dozens of fans you've garnered from writing these tales. Many people love your stories, and even though you've moved on from our series, there are still people who have become invested in the worlds you've created, and have been left with the question of 'what happens next' still lingering in their subconscious. Truly, the cost of being an artist. Where your own satisfaction is not the only one that matters anymore."

The author knew all of this. It pained him to keep people waiting. He truly did value their dedication to his writing. Fans aren't something the author ever thought he would garner in his lifetime. Knowing that even one person was reading his stories and enjoying them brought him so much joy. It sounds cliche, but it's the truth. He wanted to come back and finish each of the stories he's neglected for so long, but great art requires passion. Something he hadn't felt for writing fanfiction in a long time. If he was going to come back to any of these stories, he wanted to give people the exact same quality they had come to expect. But over time, he's begun to rethink if that's even worth potentially never coming back.

The author looked around himself. The frogs weren't impressed with his explanation. The author gave up. He was screwed.

"RrrrrRRRGH! I'M SICK OF WAITING!" Tamama screamed as he jumped through the air onto the author's back. He wrapped his arms around his neck and pulled him into a headlock. "Finish 'Tamama Vs. Kululu' so I can beat that yellow punk and get my candy!"

The author's neck would have hurt if it hadn't spent so long with it hunched over his keyboard. This was a nice stretch back into what could almost be described as a normal looking spine. Still, the author wasn't did have at least some of the final chapter of Tamama Vs. Kululu saved in his document, so he had at least some plan on one day going back to it.

Tamama suddenly let go, the author's head dropping back to the floor with a painful smack. "REALLY?!" Tamama asked, surprised. However, his expression quickly turned to one of skepticism. He narrowed his eyes and shifted his head slightly to the side. "Prove it."

Giant (though slightly smaller) Space Worms began erupting out of the ground. Their heads stuck out of the ground as their bodies wiggled endlessly. Natsumi and Giroro looked around in complete shock at the monsters surrounding them. Two rocket launchers materialized in Giroro's hands as Natsumi held her leek and frying pan tightly in a battle stance. The Queen Worm laughed.

"HAHAHAHAHA! You think we're going to let you stop us a second time!? PATHETIC DIRT!" she screamed, her tail bursting out of the ground and throwing itself down at them. Both Giroro and Natsumi jumped out of the way just in time to not be squashed, only to realize that it had been a trick. Two smaller worms wrapped themselves around them like snakes, causing them both to drop the weapons they were holding as their hands were locked by the creatures grip.

"...LISTEN! HOW...DID YOU FIND THIS PLACE!?" Giroro yelled to the Queen as the worm continued to squeeze him. The Queen laughed once more.

"Oh, a little friend of yours told me where to find you! He also lead you to us, as well! How 'bout that! Now our mission for revenge will be that much easier."

Momoka watched from the wall as everything went down. She didn't want to make herself known to...whatever these things were. She was just thankful that they were all paying attention to Giroro and Natsumi and none of them had seen her yet. Of course, she was already too scared to speak, so that helped a lot in staying hidden.

"But enough chat! I've got many plans for the two of you!" the Queen spoke in the devilish tone. "We'll take you both back to my ship, where we'll begin preparations for the feast!"

"YOU WON'T BE EATING ANYONE!" Giroro screamed as he struggled even harder to break free, but to no avail.

"Oh, I have no interest in eating you!" the Queen said to Giroro, getting his full attention. "No...I have much...MUCH bigger plans for you. You see, ever since my husband's death, by the hands of YOU TWO, I've had such a hard time keeping all twelve million of my children happy at home. That's a lot of mouths to feed, you know. So now, our planet needs a NEW king. And you're just the one I want!"

Giroro felt a huge surge of vomit enter his throat, swallowing it quickly before replying. "I'd rather be eaten."

"Oh, we'll see if you still feel that way...when you become one of us!" she said back, causing Giroro's eyes to widen. "Once I take you and your Pekoponian female back to our ship, you'll be placed into a pool of our planet's spore slime, where your mind and body will be mutated and you will become our new king. Once the transformation is done, you'll be given your first official meal as our new ruler; HER!" the Queen's tail gestured towards Natsumi.

The author waited for a response. Giroro was visibly annoyed, due to how he's ONCE AGAIN being metaphorically kicked in the teeth by the author. Tamama's eyes were as wide as they could go. "That's it?!" he shouted before jumping up and down on the author's back. "TELL ME MORE! You can't just stop there!"

But the author didn't have any more. He didn't even remember where that worm plot was going. He knew how he wanted the story to end, but how he planned on getting there had been lost to time. He really should have written it down somewhere.

"YES, YOU SHOULD HAVE!" Tamama yelled even louder. Keroro, ignoring his Private's plight, pushed him out of the way and eagerly began pestering the author about another one of his unfinished fanfics.

"How did you know?!" Keroro gleefully replied to the author's narration. "Whatever! Doesn't matter! Please tell me you've got part of the next chapter of 'My Own Worst Enemy' written! That's a story where I've finally conquered Pekopon! At least...a parallel me has! Either way, I wanna hear it!"

Keroro and Tamama held the steaming Corporal back by his arms as he beamed furiously at the still cowering Viper, who was now hiding behind Mois' legs for protection. "YOU BASTARD! You knew you were putting us in danger when you came here, and you did it anyway?! And now you want us to HELP YOU!?" Giroro shouted while trying to break free from his platoon mates' grip.

"I'm sorry! I didn't have a choice! I told you, you're the only ones who can help!" Viper yelled back in fear. "I didn't want to, I swear, but I have to save everyone. Wouldn't you do the same if Queen Nat-...I mean...if Natsumi was in danger?"

Giroro froze, giving Tamama and Keroro a momentarily rest before the red Corporal then snapped right back into his enraged state, now shouting even louder than before. "WHAT DID YOU JUST SAY?!"

Viper backed up a bit at the frog's raised voiced. "I-I'm sorry. I just thought...well, in my world, you and Natsumi are...well..." he stuttered.

Giroro once again stopped.

Keroro stood there, staring blankly at the author. "...That's...that's it."

The author, admittedly, hadn't spent a whole lot of time on that one. He mostly started writing that story because he was bored one day. Which was how most of his stories got started, now that he thought about it.

Giroro suddenly pushed everyone out of the way and somehow pointed five different guns against his cheek simultaneously. "OKAY, NOW YOU'RE REALLY PISSING ME OFF!"

"Give him some credit, Corporal." Kululu spoke through the transmitter. "At least he's treating your weird crush with more dignity than the actual show. Kukuku."

Giroro turned grey while Kululu continued. "That being said, I am rather interested in where that old 'Kero Ball Z' schlock was going. It seemed like I was gearing up to be the hero. Or at least I'd better be. Remember, I was able to get us out of that dusty-old Doc Manager and I've been snooping around in your personal files this whole time. You wouldn't want to upset me, would you? KUUUKUKU."

The author complied with the yellow scientist's request, thinking that it might be a good idea to make this preview extra long.

Aki couldn't move, nor could anyone else. Chichi had just jumped out of nowhere and began scuffling with Dororo. Aki knew she had her own set of children to find, so the fact that she was willing to hit the breaks on her mission just to help them was shocking. The sudden reveal of how strong she apparently was didn't make trying to wrap her head around what was happening any easier.

"AKI!" Chichi screamed, snapping the frightened mother back to reality. Aki instantly grabbed Fuyuki by the wrist and took off running, Keroro following close behind. Dororo, watching as Keroro began his escape once again, struggled all the harder to break free, forcing Chichi to scurry around the area while trying to keep her grip on his arms.

"NO! NOOO! KERORO, YOU BASTARD! KERORO!" he shrieked loud enough for Chichi to nearly let him go and cover her ears. He cried every cursive he could imagine at the green frog who was quickly disappearing from sight. He had come painfully close to killing him three times now, and each time there was always something conveniently nearby to get in his way. He threw his body around some more, trying to loosen his attacker's grip. But as strong as his many years of training had made him, she wouldn't budge.

"Doro! DORO!" Goten yelled. He blitzed through the trees, trying to sense where his new friend had ran off to. He knew Dororo told him not to follow, but he still felt like he deserved a sensible answer to his question. Dororo had just given him this strange blue cloth, told him to take care of it and left him there without bothering to mention exactly what the cloth was and how long he was supposed to hold onto to it. Or even why he cared so much about it. Even if whatever Dororo left him for was important, he had a feeling that it couldn't be anything Goten couldn't handle. If Dororo was keeping secrets, Goten wanted to know.

'Friends don't just ask each other to do things for them and then not tell them why.' the boy thought. 'Is Doro trying to keep me from something? Why? He can trust me.'

"Yeah, like how he trusted you to not follow him?" the narrator remarked. Goten looked up, confused.

'That's weird. Did I hear a voice just now?' he thought, bringing his head back down with a raised eyebrow. He quickly shook it off and continued running. 'Whatever. Can't get distracted. For all I know, Doro might need me right now. He didn't say anything about why he left. What if he's in danger? What if he told me not to follow him because he was afraid I'd get hurt?'

He quickly picked up speed.

Fuyuki, Momoka and Keroro all followed close behind Aki as she sped through the endless looking forest, shouting to Fuyuki about the whereabouts of his sister. Admitting that he hadn't seen her since early that morning when she ran off to help Gohan, he began pointing in seemingly random directions, suggesting that they check in every direction he could think of for her. Aki, completely ignoring her panicking son, continued to run towards the one place where she knew Natsumi would be; the explosions of light in the distance.

Keroro had been too terrified during his encounter with Dororo to remember where he had lost the dragon balls. He wanted to go back and search for them, but he would rather stick by Aki for the time being and avoid running into Dororo again, at least until this entire ordeal was over. He still felt unsure about leaving the dragon balls unguarded, but he couldn't risk it. He pondered how he was going to separate himself from the group yet again to go back for them, knowing that Fuyuki wouldn't let him if he knew where he was going.

"NATSUMI!" everyone heard Aki scream while she gazed off into the distant. She charged through a blanket of thick vines and slid down a steep dirt ridge directly behind it. Fuyuki ran up to the vines and push them away, seeing his mother kneeling in front of an unconscious Natsumi wearing her battle armor at the bottom of the hill. He gasped in shock at the sight of his sister before immediately beginning his slow climb down the ridge.

As he reached the bottom of the hill, Aki picked her daughter up off the ground and held her unresponsive body in her arms. She turned to Fuyuki with a somber expression once he was standing firmly on the ground. "She isn't waking up, but from what I can tell, it's just a small concussion. She should be just fine."

Fuyuki looked at his sister with concern. He was hoping they would find her in better condition, but at the same time thankful knowing that it could have been a lot worse. "How do we get home?"

Aki lowered her chin. "We're not going home. I was told on the way here by...my escort...that everyone on Earth is evacuating."

Fuyuki stood there in complete confusion. The entire Earth was evacuating all in one day? He didn't even know the Earth had an evacuation plan. How many times had the Earth truly been put in danger for all the world leaders to come together and decide they needed one? Goku's insane sounding stories were beginning to seem more and more believable.

"Wh-I-...Th-..." Fuyuki had so many questions that it appeared Aki wasn't in the mood to answer, as the moment she heard him begin to stutter, she turned her attention to Momoka.

"I'll explain later! But right now, I need you to call Paul on your phone so he can bring us a jet! We need to get to the evacuation ships before the take off!"

"...Meh." Kululu remarked. "Could have used more me. Time to make these selfies public."

Kululu began yelling into the phone for Giroro to pick up while watching nervously as he saw his and Natsumi's signals suddenly meet close together and suddenly drift apart once again, with Natsumi's signal remaining perfectly still and Giroro's moving closer toward Seruru's. Knowing that this had to be an unwanted change to the plans by Giroro, Kululu quickly grew agitated and a bit worried as he began despairingly trying to contact Giroro and tell him to stop whatever he was doing.

"That's better. Kukuku." Kululu finally said, taking his finger off the mouse for the time being. The author's sweat began to subside.

Dororo, hearing all of these different story requests being granted, and feeling rather uncomfortable with that last preview, walked up to the author with his hand raised. "Excuse me, but might you-"

"Alright, StuffyCrust..." Giroro slid in front of Dororo. "If you really have parts of these next chapters already done, then why don't-"

But the author wasn't gonna do this joke. The joke of Dororo being constantly ignored. It was already beaten into the ground enough by the actual show. So instead, the author decided to listen to Dororo's request first.

"Th-...thank you." Dororo cried, feeling loved. He wiped his tears away and continued. "Well...a while ago, you wrote this story about me and Koyuki finding this orphan experiment Kululu made and deciding to take care of it. 'The Gift Wrapped In White' I think it was called. Have you, maybe,...written anything for the next chapter of that?"

Nope.

Dororo was now curled up in the corner, wishing he had never asked.

"As I was saying..." Giroro interjected, "You got anything from the last chapter of 'Growing and Changing'? You know, the story where you KILL NATSUMI AND BRING A PSYCHOTIC CLONE OF HER BACK TO LIFE?! You've already pissed me off enough with those other previews, so you'd better tell me that one's gonna make up for it."

The author figured he had already annoyed all the people who hadn't read any of his other stories enough so far, but it was hard to argue with the frog with a gun pointed at his head.

"TAMAMA! TAMAMA!" Keroro shouted to his Private as he ran towards him with a scared look in his eyes. Tamama turned around from comforting Momoka and peared at his screaming Sargent with .

"Gunso-san? What's wro-?" Tamama asked before he was cut off by Keroro's second wave of pleading screams.

"TAMAMA, IT'S HORRIBLE! GIRORO AND I WERE TALKING AND THEN KULULU SHOWED UP AND IT TURNS OUT THAT THE NATSUMI CLONE FREED HERSELF AND IS NOW INSIDE THE HOUSE AND HAS PROBABLY KILLED THREE POLICE GUYS AND GIRORO WENT IN AFTER HER AND NOW HE'S ABOUT TO DIE AND WE HAVE TO GO IN AND SAVE HIM!" Keroro shouted all in one breath, Tamama unsure of how to react.

Dororo suddenly appeared beside them after hearing Keroro's tantrum from up on the roof. "Keroro-kun! What's wrong!? Don't you know that there are people around!? You're going to blow our cover!" he scolded his leader, who turned to him with teary eyes.

"Dororo-hocho! Thank goodness! Giroro ran inside after the Natsumi clone! It turns out that she got loose and is now somewhere inside the house!"

"What!?" Dororo replied in both fear and disbelief. He looked Tamama in the eyes as he grabbed him by the arm and forcefully pulled him away towards the house. "Tamama, come on! We've got to help Giroro!" he said before the two suddenly disappeared from where they were standing and reappeared atop the window sill of Fuyuki's room.

All of the lights were off inside the empty house. The only light source to keep the inside from being pitch black were the glass windows and back door that let in the brightness of the outdoors. Giroro followed silently behind the other two policemen as they search around the bottom floor of the house. Several minutes of searching lead to no avail, and the two policemen chose to take their search upstairs. Giroro stayed behind at the bottom of the stairs. After having the two Pekoponian lawmen finally out of the way, Giroro ran for the front closet and grabbed a flashlight from inside. He knew where Natsumi would be waiting for him.

He flipped the switch on the handle, a bright beam of light shot out of it and lit up the entire center of the hallway leading to the kitchen. Giroro walked along the walls, careful not to make any floorboards creak under his feat as he made his way to the basement door. Slowly and carefully turning the doorknob, he pulled the wooden door open and stepped inside. He guided the light through the room, finding nothing the first few seconds but stacks of old, worthless cardboard boxes. Eventually pearing toward the center of the room, Giroro's heart nearly stopped at what he saw laying in front of him.

Three Pekoponian bodies with the same uniform as the policemen that just went up stairs. Blood flowed slowly from their mangled bodies, which were stacked atop each other in a such a way where they had to have been moved after death. He happened to catch a view of one of the dead Pekoponian's faces, the unholy sense of fear still frozen on his face. Bringing his pulse down a bit, he quickly brought his mind back to reality.

'Now I know she truly has gone completely insane,' he thought. He took three steps down the small set of stairs that stood in front of him and reached the floor of the basement, slowly shutting the door behind him.

"Alright, Natsumi!" Giroro called out into the silent darkness. "I'm here now! I'm completely unarmed except for this one little flashlight! Come out and face me for the final time!"

The author was tired. The author hadn't looked at any of these previews in such a long time. He had no idea how seventeen-year-old him managed to make some admittedly pretty good stuff. And here he was, trying desperately to find a way to let these guys know he was still the same writer. Was his narration right now even close to the level of quality he used to have? Did revealing those previews just show off how he's not the same writer he used to be?

The author wished he could tell all of his fans that he was sorry. To tell them that he wishes he could go back and finish the stories when people wanted them. That he wishes he was talented enough to make all of their requests a reality. He wishes he had the motivation. He wishes he had never stopped. He wishes he could tell himself to keep going and to never stop creating. And what of the next thing he decides to dedicate his life to creating. What's stopping the same thing happening again? Will he one day just stop, leaving all the people he brought joy to behind? Will he ever stay committed to anything?

Writing these fanfictions had done so much good for the author's life. All the followers, favorites, reviews. Did he really deserve it all? I mean...it seems that way. He did put in the effort to write those stories in the first place. Even if they were just for his own enjoyment, even if he made most of them out of boredom, he still put in the effort. He took his creativity and made something. They may have been left open, but does that make the work he put into them any less meaningful?

Who's to say? He wishes he knew the answer to this question. He was sure it could definitely be argued one way or the other. But the author had never stopped to consider whether it was arguable at all. He had spent so much time feeling obligated to something he thought he had no control over. That until these stories had endings, they were simply mistakes that needed to be corrected. He spent so long thinking that it wasn't up to him. Thinking he didn't have a choice. He HAD to finish these stories. Or else...he was an asshole.

The author loved writing fanfiction for so long. He loved making readers happy. But somewhere along the way, the love just...stopped. He wasn't sure how or why, but it just did. He wanted that love back for so long. But would it? He didn't know. For some reason or another, he wasn't writing. He could have finished these stories, but he chose to spend his time some other way. He didn't want to force himself to spend his time doing something he didn't want to do. And he hated himself for it. But when he looked back on everything he had done...all the work he had put in to those stories...maybe just feeling accomplished with what you manged to create and not wishing you had done something differently...maybe that's the 'love' that the author had lost. Maybe simply loving writing was more important than the writing itself. The work may not have been finished, and it could potentially never BE finished...but that doesn't make it worthless. It makes it...flawed. Kind of like him.

The author looked around. He wasn't tied up anymore. The frogs were gone. It was just him.