Thank you for reading to the very end! As a reward, allow me to speak about myself and how I came up with this story.

It all started when I was only 14 when I wrote my first story. I didn’t like it at first, but at least I was doing something constructive with my life. As time passed, I began to enjoy writing more than playing sports. I was never really good at sports, but at least I was out and about while exercising daily.

The first concept of the series came to be back around 2003. Even then, I didn’t know what I wanted to do-- no scratch that. I knew exactly what I was doing, but it felt like a jumble of ideas about vampires and feudal Japan. It didn’t go anywhere, and I thought I was just spinning my wheels while doing so. Still, I took it upon myself to keep at it while taking my daily trips to the library.

In 2006, I wrote a story called Second Renaissance: Bitter Harvest. It was about what I’d written earlier but with a simple twist of an old favorite. I was in the house of Frankenstein lore and stumbled upon human evolution and how we, as humans, can alter our appearance even better. Using such research, I devised this idea about using the human genome project by creating the perfect human being from scratch.

Not long ago, around that time frame, China successfully genetically created 20 million male babies using the human genome project. I read that story long ago, and it just stuck with me. I learned much about the human genome project, in vitro fertilization, and baby creation. I even went through the whole religious route as well. I was proud of the work but didn’t like the characters I wanted to use. I rewrote the story seven times before I was happy enough to deem it readable.

Around then, I created many characters I didn’t have the time to use because I was going through many emotional problems with my family and stopped writing after many people turned me down.

There was a concept that I wanted to use that became the foundation of the Cross Roads series. At first, these groups of females were not called the Crucis Sentinels. They were called the Order of Light. Their leader was Lycka Benibara, but I named her something completely different, like Blair Hayabusa.

And yes, she looked exactly how I envisioned her initially. The character Blair Hayabusa was one of the few people that I created first. Her codename was ‘the silver sight’ because of her silver hair and eyes.

There’s even more to this because Cherie Konana has initially been a part of the Order of Light group as well. Her first name was Megumi Toyoguchi, and she always wore schoolgirl outfits. Now, both were in their late teens and were sexy vampire hybrids.

Yeah, I know… It was the early 2000s…

For many years, on and off, I started to build this group from scratch; I gave Blair a little sister named Yumi, whom I would rename Chelsea Hayabusa later. And yes, she acts exactly like she did long before Cross Roads.

And then, I just fell out of love with writing since nobody cared about me or my work. Even my own family. I went into a downward spiral and got back into it by writing fanfictions of other work. Trying to get my feet wet.

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

I stopped writing entirely in 2009 and got back into it in 2015. To me, that is a very long time. But even then, I wasn’t focused on the Cross Roads series. As I was-- now I can say this without feeling bad about it-- wasting my time with somebody else who never really saw anything in me as a fanboy.

It was then I started to write my work in 2016. I felt that Blair Hayabusa needed a complete makeover, so I rewrote her story and gave some of her mannerisms to Lycka Benibara and did not entirely redo the entire Blair Hayabusa character while having her sister Chelsea as her yin to her yang.

At that time, I finished the lore about the Order of Light. But I wanted to change the name since I didn’t want them to be some goody-goody faction. I enjoyed watching Japanese animation and came across this series called Sailor Moon when I was younger, and I sincerely fell in love with the characters and the story. I also loved the Dragon Ball Z series as well. And many Western animation shows like Batman: The Animated Series.

But what got my entire inspiration was Puella Magi Madoka Magica, which offered a brand-new concept of the magical girl trope. That show was excellent, and it reinvigorated the creativity inside me.

It was then I created more characters and flushed out the old ones. I created Selena Logan first because she reminded me of many people when I was growing up. I was born and raised in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. But how was raised in violence-ridden, low-income neighborhoods, and I knew the struggle to at least be something in a world where people had already given up on you the moment you were born.

And I even created a tanuki kemonomimi character named Erika Meridian. I purposely created her last and gave her so much mysterious anonymity that makes her so alluring and creepy at the same time. Even the name Erika Meridian is so basic and made up. Like, what is he trying to hide?

As for the story arcs, I first wanted to do one-shot novels and use the six characters as they go worldwide, saving others and working on investigations. And why don’t I go ahead and pull back the curtain just a bit and have them figure things out by doing ‘detective work’ while still being a magical girl? Trust me; creating magical realism and a factual hypothesis together is tough.

It’s tedious, but this series thrives on tedium.

I chose a dark urban fantasy setting because it just fits better than being in this magical world. And besides, it’s better to take stories from real life and rework them like fiction. I also went the mature route as I expected to see many details of sexual content and violence. The reason why I chose this is that I want to be free with my creativity.

All my life, I was censoring my work out of fear, and it hurt my creativity and the message I wanted to tell the audience. Nowadays, many people are overly sensitive to such topics. With this series, I will do no such thing. Expect to be shocked and somewhat offended, but not all the time.

You must realize that people in the situations you will read about happen daily, yet nobody wants to acknowledge or discuss them. We live in our little bubble and expect everything to be fine. It’s not okay, and I will take you on an uncomfortable journey to tell my story. I just hope you have the stomach for it.

However, I will not insult anyone’s intelligence by giving you too much. If it calls for it, I will do it for the story's sake because everything has a reason behind every action.

This act of terrorism affected everybody worldwide, and it will be the vast focal point of the story arc and the constant throughout the entire series. It won’t go away even if the Crucis Sentinels and or the Aethereal Queen survive this. Rightfully so, people will remember it, and I want this to hit home. We either ignore or acknowledge it, and there is so much to those options as you may think.

This was a predominant volume to write about early in the series. Alpha Crucis/Selena has gone through the wringer, hasn’t she? As well as Mordechai being such an unstoppable force that no one ever predicted. I want to give you some insight into her organization and everything else that has happened. Still, I won’t go into detail because of spoilers, but to clarify something you didn’t fully realize the first time you read this.