Chapter 193 |
Getting back into the Simulacrum was… trickier than usual. It made sense, once I thought about it; technically speaking, as the… Sol Leo? Over-Leo? Leo Prime…?
Whatever. The point was that, as I was right now, I was essentially an Emergent, and the Simulacrum was inside my Domain, so going into the Simulacrum was like trying to enter into myself. Granted, I'd been doing that for ages, but that was before I understood the metaphysical nuances of this whole mess, and now that I did, it suddenly started feeling difficult. I imagined it was kind of like how a musician would have no trouble playing an instrument on muscle memory alone, but would start messing up the notes when they focused all their attention on the movements of their fingers and started stressing out.
Anyhow, going 'inside' as I was right now was a non-starter, so I had to manually replicate the method I'd been using unconsciously. First, I inserted just a strand of myself into the Simulacrum, and then I used that to Define myself into it as Leonard S. Dunning, and then…
"What was that?" Elly blurted out in confusion, her eyes moving left and right. "We were on top of the roof, and then…"
"Was it some kind of illusion…?" the class rep wondered in her arms, carried bridal-style, looking equally dazed.
"What's going on? Why are we back here?" Josh exclaimed next, and the confusion would've probably spread even further if not for my sudden appearance, replacing it with an even stronger bewilderment.
"Hey guys!" The whole crater fell into silence as soon as I materialised. Looking around, I found everyone more or less where I last left them, so I let out a relieved breath and added, "Sorry for being late, but I had a bit of a situation, and…"
Before I could finish that, my communications enchantment started ringing, along with the words, "{Chief? You realise you have a lot of explaining to do, right?}"
I casually turned to Judy, still hiding under the tattered yet holding silver dome barrier erected by the Matron, and waved at her.
"Brother!" I was once again interrupted, this time by Penny dashing up to me, and then coming to a screeching halt, her feet digging a pair of grooves into the grey dust of the crater floor. "Where have you been!? Where's Bel? Did you get him?"
"Easy, Kiddo," I chided her as I let my hand down. "One thing at a time."
While that was going on, I noticed that Elly, with Ammy in tow, was also beelining towards me, which meant I only had a few short seconds to assess the situation before I would inevitably get interrupted again. So, for the record: I was standing a dozen or so steps away from the aforementioned dome with Judy, Fidèle, Ollie, and the Matron inside. My princess was still carrying the class rep around after the successful rescue operation. Josh was at the other end of the crater, still in an Abyssal form and staring at the remains of his black sword crumbling. It apparently couldn't handle the big final attack and was now turning into fine black dust.
I couldn’t see Snowy, so she was probably somewhere up in the air and hidden by all the smoke and dust kicked up by all the fighting, while our resident villain…
"No! I refuse to fall!"
The rasping declaration coming from the ravaged man made everyone turn towards his charred form. Crowy was, among other things, missing an arm from her elbow down, his horn was broken on the same side, and most of his fancy clothes were gone along with his Barrier. I had a feeling that if he de-transformed in that state, he would immediately die from the shock. But more importantly…
"Oh, come on!" Josh bellowed in clear outrage and threw aside the hilt of his broken weapon. "How are you still alive?!"
Meanwhile, the princess arrived with an elated, "Leo!" and as soon as she put the class rep down, she started gearing up for a bear hug. I stopped her by closing the distance first and putting a hand on the top of her head.
"Easy, Princess," I echoed my previous words to Penny, and ruffled her hair a bit. "We're still in the middle of a situation right now."
"I know, but… What was that all about?!" she burst out and hugged me anyway, as if afraid that I would leave again at the drop of a hat. "We were at school, and everyone was weird, and there were bones and mouths everywhere, and I couldn't say your name, and it was scary!"
"Sorry about that. It was partially my fault. If it makes you feel any better, I decked the main responsible party across a not-room already."
She didn't respond and only nuzzled up to me. Wow. Maybe that experience was more traumatic than I expected. Note to self: spank Benjamin once I'm back in the not-dark not-room.
That said, I really was at least partially responsible for what happened, which made me feel a bit bad. Not that I had much of a choice at the time; from what I gathered, the power of an Emergent is linearly proportional to the size of their Domain. Old Venerated Emergents are really big, metaphysically speaking. Now, while I was still new to this whole thing, I could sense that my Domain was freakishly huge, but the problem was that the Simulacrum itself was only a fraction of it, while the current scenario with everyone within it was just a fraction of that.
It took me all my willpower and effort to keep Benjamin from literally devouring everything and biting a piece out of the Simulacrum itself, and since I was at the end of my rope, I cheated a little. To conclude, the scenario wanted a typical ending befitting of the genre, so I forcefully initiated a 'time-skip'. It wasn't too far into the potential future, and a very limited one, only focusing on the core cast (and Sahi, for some reason), and as soon as the proverbial credits rolled, the framework of the scenario was no longer in effect, and it allowed me to link up with my Domain and Define myself as myself.
Yet, because it wasn't the 'real' ending, the Simulacrum snapped back to the present time, except now we didn't have a scenario anymore. That meant no Narrative either, only the basic tropes that had become the backbone of the Simulacrum itself. In other words, there was no 'finale' or 'ending' anymore, only a mess of a situation to quickly sort out before it would get even more out of hand. Case in point:
"I am the Emperor of the Abyss!" Crowy roared as purple light started pouring out of his every pore once again. "I will not cower like a beaten dog!"
"Says the guy who wanted to self-destruct just a minute ago out of spite," I whispered under my breath, but then that reminded me of something, and I gently pushed the princess back and turned to Ammy. "Sit rep?"
She blurted out a confused, "Huh?" so I reiterated.
"Sorry, I was asking Grimmy for a situation report. How's the implosion-situation?"
The semi-transparent form of the toga-clad hologram appeared without any fanfare by our side, and she dispassionately stated, "Report: The spike in Aetheric activity damaged several self-assessing elements of the Asphodelòs Sub-system. Precise measurements are currently impossible."
"Hold on!" the class rep interjected and tried to adjust her glasses, only to realise she must have dropped them somewhere in the commotion. To be fair, I didn't even notice it until now either. "Is the Abyss still going to implode? Are we still in danger?"
"Response: Indeterminable."
While we were talking, Josh and Crowy kept trading insults with each other in the background even as they were trying to muster up whatever power they had left. I couldn’t see any wispy connections anymore, so by the looks of it, their connections to the Mana Wells were at least temporarily disrupted, meaning… Oh, bollocks. This really was shaping up to be one of those 'the depowered protagonist and villain duke it out in a clumsy brawl' kind of scenes, wasn't it?
But speaking of which, I glanced at the Mana Well and its pedestal, and they seemed to be stable enough, so I said, "Well, we aren't imploding right now, so that's a plus. Let me quickly take care of that kerfuffle over there and ask the local expert."
"Confused Retort: I am the local expert."
I ignored Grimmy's surprisingly peevish response and turned to face Josh and Crowy, who were in the process of squaring off against each other like a pair of ornery moose in the fall. I already checked, and I had all of my usual abilities. Even better in some ways, as I could properly feel and control the number of my phantom limbs, meaning I could Phase between the two of them with ease.
"Wha—?"
"Ah, hi Josh." I cut in, starting Josh and enraging Crowy at the same time. I ignored the latter and focused on the former. "Sorry to interrupt. You did a great job. A-plus chosen one stuff, couldn't have asked for anything better, but we're in a bit of a scrappy situation right now, so would you mind if I took it over from here?"
"Wha—?" he repeated in a perfect echo of his previous outblurt, but then he was interrupted again, this time by the one-horned Abyssal in front of us.
"You!? How dare you show your face in front of me at this time?!"
"Yeah, yeah. Very inconsiderate of me, I know." If looks could kill, I would've been dead already, but that much was to be expected, so I cleared my throat and tried again. "Listen, Crowy."
"You dare—!"
"I SAID, LISTEN!" I roared out, letting loose some of my bottled-up frustrations, and it startled him enough to reel back a bit. Good. "You know, I feel a little bad for you. Not a lot, because you've been a vicious, amoral, narcissistic bastard since even before we first met, but the reason you got as bad as you did and ended up in this situation was due to forces beyond your control." Referring to both the Narrative and my own meddling as future-me, but I didn't need to go into details. "Long story short, I'm throwing you a bone. Just take a deep breath and think things through without any kind of outside influence, and you should see how this situation is dumb. Then, if you have it in you, you can still make the sensible choice by fully decoupling from the Mana Wells and letting us fix everything before the Abyss literally blinks out of existence. It really shouldn't be a very hard choice to make, but I'm still giving you the opportunity to make it yourself. So? What do you say?"
The bastard was looking at me like I just tried to convert him to the Mosque of Lord Krisha of Latter-day Thetans, but to his credit, he didn't yell or posture and spent a solid ten seconds thinking really, really hard.
…
And then he started yelling and posturing.
"I am on the cusp of godhood! The True Emperor, the one to bring a new era!"
"Oh, come on, mate. You're no god, just—"
"Silence!" he bellowed and squeezed out whatever purple flames and black ichor he still had hidden away in some crack. "I would sooner see this world ruined than to give up my birthright!"
"You're not listening," I interjected, getting more impatient. "There's no birthright, and there's not going to be a world to ruin if the Abyss implodes."
"That's fine with me!" he declared, his eyes once again shining a bright violet. "If I have to choose between betraying myself or the world, then everything can rot for all I care! Now, come at me, and face me like a—"
And then, just as I was about to try to reason with him for the last time, a golden flash flew by our side. There was a meaty 'thunk', and then a gargle as Noir reached for his throat, where a single arrow-shaft made of compressed golden flames was lodged into his flesh, its pointy end sticking out of the back of his neck. With his Barrier already broken by the big, climactic exchange, there was nothing stopping it, and there was even less he could do when the arrow exploded into a torrent of fire.
Maybe it was because of his panic, but his own purple flames lashed out in return, and both burned his body inside and out. In but a second, before he could even scream, the mix of gold and amethyst enveloped him from head to toe with a squelching, whooshing sound, and then he collapsed. Or rather, it was just a vaguely humanoid husk that fell to the ground, only held together by a criss-crossing scaffolding of his trademark black magical substance.
It all happened so fast, Josh and I didn't even have time to properly react, but once it was over, I couldn't help but let out a soft, "Well, I tried," followed by a slightly louder. "Deus?"
In retrospect, it was weird that Angie wasn't under the silver dome with the rest anymore. Tracing back the trajectory of the arrow, I found her on top of a still-standing piece of Castle Shamash, her bow still in hand and her body propped up by a visibly conflicted Snowy. I really couldn't blame her, as I also wasn't sure how I felt about this development, but then Deus flashed a smile visible even from here and gave me a thumbs up, so I settled on mild annoyance.
Meanwhile though…
"What the hell, man!" Josh burst out and grabbed me by the shoulder, turning me to face him. "You can't just leave when we needed you the most, and only come back at the very last second to do…" He trailed off at the end, his eyes glued to the smouldering husk on the ground, then he reasserted himself with an irate, "That! Where were you, anyway?!"
"Easy, buddy. Calm down." I felt like half my interactions since I came back had been telling others to take it easy. "I know you had a tough time, but I was busy too, you know?"
"Really? With what?"
"If you really want to know, I was locked in a life-or-death battle with an extra-dimensional eldritch abomination from the stars called Benjamin, and I was being bitten all over the place to buy you guys time to finish things up here. So, you know? You're welcome?"
"{Benjamin?}"/"Benjamin?"
Leave it to them to focus on the least important detail. Anyhow, since Judy was on the line, I tapped my ear and said, "Long story. I'll tell you the details later. Dormouse?"
"{Yes, Chief?}"
"Grab the class rep and get the second Mana Well ready. We'll be right with you in a moment."
"{Roger.}"
Well, at least I could always count on Judy to be professional at times like—
"{Was he really called Benjamin, or are you making that part up?}"
"Focus, Dormouse. Focus."
Okay, so maybe she was also getting a bit mentally fatigued. Anyhow, I turned back to Josh and pointed at the silver dome with my thumb over my shoulder.
"Let's gather up with the others. This day is far from over, and we still need to deal with the aftermath of this flustercuck."
"Yeah, about that…" he started while absently massaging his hands. Considering the first time he used that extra-spicy sword-beam attack of his gave him mana-burns, I had a feeling he didn't escape unscathed this time either, but more importantly, he jerked his head towards the figures slowly approaching us. "I'm not sure they'll let us."
Since the mooks Crowy summoned disappeared with his death (in fact, they probably poofed out of existence during the big final beam-struggle attack), the Axis of Evil guys approached us. They were in a sorry state, some limping, and one of them in the back apparently lost his mask, because he was covering his face with the left sleeve ripped off from his tailcoat, but a quick head-count said they were all alive. That was good. I actually grew a soft spot the size of Australia for these guys during my stunt as future-me, so it was nice to see them in one piece.
Of course, from Josh's perspective, they used to be his enemies just the other day, so he continued to eye them suspiciously. The last thing I needed right now was for them to come to blows over some contrived misunderstanding, so I held out my arm in front of my friend and inclined my head towards the dome again.
"Go ahead. I'll talk with them."
"Are you…?" he began, but then he shook his head, spread his wings, and flew back with a tagged-on, "Be careful!" in tow. He was apparently flying the long way, probably to pick up Angie/Deus on the way.
In any case, once Josh was out of earshot, I walked up to the Axis of Evil, specifically the big, grey-winged doofus at the front, and they all straightened their backs. We locked gazes, and then the man cleared his throat and began to address me in a low, level voice.
"That is not dead which can eternal lie…"
I gave him the flattest of my deadpannest stares in return.
"Give me a break, Chayson. I told you we aren't doing any silly code-phrases back then, and I'm sure as hell isn't in the mood for it now."
That was followed by a short beat, and even though I couldn't see his mug, his eyes told me he was grinning under the mask as he declared, "It's him! He's back!" to the rest, much to their relief.
I chided him with, "Easy on the volume," and glanced around to see if anyone else had heard that, but they were all at the dome already and too busy discussing the new developments to listen in on us.
"Does that mean that the plan worked?" a different member asked from the back, ignoring my previous warning.
"I said pipe down. Also, yes, it mostly worked, with lots of unexpected twists and turns, but we're still not out of the frying pan yet." As if to punctuate my words, there was a big explosion in the distance, coming from somewhere in the town centre. "Take a quick break, and then get ready for Phase 4. Make sure you don't get caught up in the crossfire."
"As you command, my Emp…" the big fellow started, by habit, then bit back the second half of the word and tilted his head. "What are we supposed to call you now?"
"We'll figure it out later. Now, move your asses already."
There was yet another explosion, this one coming from a bit closer, so they collectively nodded and began to move in unison, allowing me to finally make my way over to the others gathering under the rather crowded dome.
"Here we go again," I muttered as I started to walk. In the middle of a crisis, everybody's exhausted, explosions all around, and I'm working on my plan within plans.
It felt like coming back home.
Realistically speaking, I should've just Phased over to the guys, but the dome was literally right over there, and so I decided to just walk for once. It also gave them more time to collect themselves, and by the time I got there, a vigorous discussion was already underway.
"Do we still need this?" Josh asked as he lightly tapped on the translucent silver power field on his left. "It's getting crowded in here."
"It's better to keep it up for now," the Matron told him in a dismissive tone that didn't quite manage to mask her exhaustion. Maintaining a protective barrier during this whole mess must've taken quite a bit of toll on her. I was honestly impressed by how well he held up, but then again, she was an OP main character, so maybe that wasn't too surprising.
…
Wait, she was a what?
My steps faltered as I ruminated on that. I was still having a tough time integrating all the info that got segmented into the various subsidiary-Leos, but as of now, I just had a distinct feeling that she used to be the protagonist of a previous scenario. Kind of like Rinne or Sebastian, now that I thought about it. Which would mean…
"Tsarah is right," Fidèle spoke in a strained voice, trying her best to stand on her own two legs despite her injuries. "We can't be sure about the intentions of the other houses."
Okay, so if the Matron was the protag of the Abyss-centered scenario I had been theorising about since forever, then Fidèle was probably her… rival? They did mention fighting each other, so that made sense, but I really had to look into this a bit more once we cleaned up this mess.
It was at this point that my dear assistant, looking about as exhausted as I'd ever seen her, raised a finger and said, "Speaking of the Noble Houses, Noir is dead."
The mention of that elicited a variety of reactions. The class rep clicked his tongue with an implied 'good riddance' to it. Josh, Elly, and Penny were surprisingly ambivalent about it, despite them being the ones who bore the brunt of his attacks. Deus, in contrast, looked pretty proud of herself, as if waiting to be praised for her coup de grace. Last, but not least, we had Snowy and the Matron, both of whom had complicated expressions on their faces.
Judy's words were probably aimed at them, too, because she soon continued with, "Does that make Neige the head of House Inanna?"
While I understood her reasoning, trying to get the old woman to commit and potentially streamline the succession of the title, it wasn't much of an immediate concern. As such, I punctuated my arrival into the dome with the words, "We can figure out that stuff later," and stopped next to Snowy.
"Ah, Leo…"
Before she could say anything else, I already put a hand on her back and gave her a few encouraging taps.
"How are you holding up?"
She let out a long breath and lowered her gaze, staring at the tips of her shoes.
"I'm… okay. I had a feeling… that it would come to this."
"Don't worry, I get it. He was a megalomaniacal prick that almost turned omnicidal at the end, but he was still your brother. It's fine to feel a bit disturbed right now. Let's all sit down and talk about it with a couple of cups of tea later, okay?"
"I'd… like that."
I rubbed her back a bit for further reassurance, then turned to the rest.
"How's everyone holding up?" My question made the gang and the others glance at each other, but nobody started complaining just yet, so I quickly moved the conversation along before they changed their minds. "I'm a bit late to the party, but I was caught up in a big situation on my end. You did a good job averting the end of the world as we know it, by the way."
"What about Bel of the Abyss?" the Shamash Matriarch asked in a pensive voice.
I responded with a careless, "Doesn't exist anymore," and was planning to move on, but the Matron cut in with a scowl.
"You mean he's dead," she insisted, trying to get an unambiguous yes-or-no response from me.
I mean, I didn't know how I could make my original response even less ambiguous than that, but even before I could voice my objection, my knightly sister let out a soft 'Oh!' and pointed at me.
"I get it!"
"You get what?" Josh asked with a critically raised brow. "What even was there to get?"
"Weren't you listening?!" Penny huffed and puffed and pointed at me again. "Brother said, 'he doesn't exist anymore'! Bel could travel through time—"
"Allegedly," the Matron chimed in, but my sister continued without stopping.
"— so if he was just dead, it would mean he could travel to the present from the past, and he could still be around! By brother saying he 'doesn't exist', it means he must've so thoroughly destroyed him he's completely gone from time!"
"You're…" 'overthinking this, Kiddo,' is what I wanted to respond with off the cuff, but then I bit back the second half and just shrugged. "… exactly right, Kiddo."
She exclaimed, "Awesome!" with a toothy grin, followed by a more contemplative, "It is frustrating that I could never give him a good stab, but I'm just glad he's gone! He was the worst!"
"To be fair, Bel didn't try to blow up the world," Josh chimed in. "Deliberately, too, the second time. I personally vote on Noir being the worst."
"Can you two please not fight about this right now?" the class rep interjected, her hand once against hovering around where her missing glasses should've been. "We have more important things to discuss!"
She found support from Angie, the Celestial girl letting out a loud, "Yeah!" only to change the direction of the conversation by gesturing at Snowy. "Don't you see you're being insensitive to Neige?"
"Um… I-I'm fine, really…" she insisted, and the discussion would've probably continued to keep going off the rails if I didn't clap my hands to get everyone's attention.
"Focus, guys." Once they did that, I turned to Judy, who had been looking at me like she had something to say for a while. "Dormouse?"
She took out her notebook and started going down a checklist.
"Bel's fate is confirmed." She then pointed at the back, just outside the dome. "The Axis of Evil?"
"They're restraining the patriarchs, I think," Angie noted with a hand shielding her eyes. "Why?"
"That wasn't what I was getting at," Judy insisted and levelled a stare at me again. "Chief?"
"They're very reasonable. Nothing to worry about."
She responded with a soft, "Noted," while Josh blurted out a considerably more incredulous, "Reasonable? Those guys?"
Anyhow, I glanced over, and Angie was right; the guys were out there and rounding up the beaten-up patriarchs. Not the Ninhursag one though; he was currently in a shouting match with his treasonous cousin on the ground, however many times removed. I once tried to figure out what the Ninhursag/Ninurta family tree looked like, but I gave up.
Oh, but speaking of which…
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
"Hareng, right?"
The blonde guy was in the process of sneaking away from the dome, but he turned around and pretended to be just looking around before flashing a smile at me.
"Ah! Lord Peacemaker! Please allow me to…"
"Good job with the chimera head," I said, interrupting him before he could start trying to flatter me. "You came in at a real clutch there."
"Ah… yes… erm… I was just at the right place at the right time…"
He sure was, and it took me pulling a whole lot of narrative strings at the very last second to get him there. That was one hell of a close call, and while I was ruminating on that, Josh punched Hareng in the shoulder. Lightly, of course. As a sign of… maybe not 'affection', but potentially approval.
"That was the head of a chimera? Damn. I have to give it to you, that took balls."
"Indeed," Deus interjected with a solemn nod. "It must've taken testicles of polished brass," followed by a light twitch and an indignant, "What is it, Girl? What is the problem? I just agreed with the Boy!"
While Angie and Deus continued to argue about the appropriate ways parts of the human anatomy could be referred to in polite company, Josh crossed his arms and nodded.
"You know, Hareng, after what you said back before we left on the train, I half-expected that you would slip away in the commotion and pursue your dream of becoming a fisherman."
The blonde guy tensed up and let out an awkward chuckle (mainly because that was exactly what he was doing before I narratively re-directed him at the last second), which then turned into a startled sound when the Ninhursag patriarch entered the dome, apparently done with his spat outside.
"What was that? About being a fisherman?"
"Ah, just a joke, sir! Just a jest, right?"
He sent a glance at Josh that said, 'I saved your skin, so help me out!', and my friend wearily obliged. However, I couldn't pay more attention to that corner, because Judy impatiently cleared her throat to get my attention again.
"Chief? What about the other Noble Houses?"
It took me a second to switch tracks and realise what she was asking about, but then a couple of fireballs flying over the crater high in the sky reminded me, and I shrugged.
"Not my handiwork."
"That wasn't what I meant, but…" She trailed off, and after checking her notes again, she poked her notebook with her finger and asked, "What about the implosion of the Abyss?"
"The what!?" Hareng exclaimed in alarm, and even the Ninhursag patriarch looked startled for a second. I didn't blame them, as this was the first time they'd heard about it, and as soon as the topic was raised, the class rep immediately barged into the conversation again.
"That's right! Grimmy is still trying to assess the situation, but it doesn't look good! You said you were going to ask an expert, so where are they?"
"Right, the expert…" I muttered as I looked over and raised a hand over my head. "Josh? Come over here for a minute. We need you."
"Need me for what?" he asked even as he walked over and came to a stop next to me.
"Technically, it's not you that I need, but Sillu."
"Who's that?" asked my dear assistant, and while I would've been happy to tell her, Josh cut me off.
"Hold on! Hold the frick on! You know about Sillu? Since when? How?" his shock soon turned into outrage, and he scowled at me with an accusing finger in tow. "I knew it! You hear that, Angie? I called it!"
"Erm… No, but…"
"Do you mean about Leo having a plan he didn't tell us about?" Angie asked back before I could get a proper word in. "Well, duh? It was obvious."
"Not just that!" He scoffed back and looked me in the eye. "Since when did you know about Sillu, anyway, and when were you going to tell me?"
"What? What?" Penny asked on the side, deeply confused. "I don't get it? What's a 'sillu'?"
"Not a 'what', it's a 'who', and…" Josh started, only to stop and let his scowl be replaced by a troubled grimace. "Actually, since my sword broke, I'm not sure I can…"
"Is my presence requested?"
"Kyah!"
With everyone still being high-strung, it probably wasn't a surprise that the sudden appearance of a semi-transparent red-ish hologram person caused both Penny and my princess to nearly lunge at him. The confusion only lasted for a second, and then my sister let down her sword.
"W-Who's that?"
On the other hand, the class rep remained startled and she repeatedly gestured at the newcomer, only for Grimmy to also materialise in her own holographic glory and glare at Sillu, in stark contrast to her usual placidly mechanical demeanour.
"Statement: I have identified the source of interference within the Asphodelòs Sub-System. Attempting to bypass the anomaly."
At the same time, the red hologram also frowned at her and declared, "So you are the outside intrusion meddling with the operations of the Seven Altars. Cease your interloping at once."
"What's going on now?" Elly whined, sidling up to my side. "Things were scary for a while, but then Leo came back, and it looked like everything was going to be okay, but now things are getting strange again! I'm so confused!"
"Calm down, princess. It's just…" I wrapped my arm around her shoulder and was planning to placate her, but then I realised that explaining everything would take too long, so I just concluded the sentence with a flat, "… business as usual."
Meanwhile, Judy was taking notes, Angie/Deus were equally confused, Penny stopped thinking, and as for Josh…
"Hold on! Sillu? How are you…?" He looked at him, then at the discarded hilt of his broken sword, and the red hologram turned to him with an inscrutable expression.
"I welcome you once again, Nagiru, harbringer, throne-maker." He inclined his head in a way that wasn't quite a bow and then met his gaze. "Your confusion is understandable, as we didn't have the opportunity to discuss the deeper nuances of our connection. While the Namzaku you wielded was destroyed, I have imprinted the Seal of the Emperor upon you, so you may call upon me."
As he said that, something red flashed on the back of Josh's hand, but I didn't get the opportunity to get a good look at it, because Grimmy spoke up again.
"Request: The entity holds limited administrative rights. I require authorization from Administrator Polemos to—"
"I told you to cease your meddling, trespasser. The Seven Altars belong to the Emperor, and no other."
While that was going on, Elly continued to blink next to me and mutter, "I'm sooo confused," so I exhaled a shallow sigh and turned to the avatar of the Grimoire.
"Grimmy, please leave him alone. He's the local expert I was talking about, and we need him. As for you…"
I was about to turn to Sillu, but then Josh suddenly exclaimed, "Wow! Check this out!"
In his hands was a semi-transparent sword in the shape of his previous weapon, though at first glance it reminded me more of the Celestial arm-blade spell he used to wield before, just in a more complete (and differently coloured) form. More importantly though, I frowned at him and asked, "Josh? Do you mind?"
"Ah, right. Sorry."
Unlike me, his girlfriend (and Penny, who decided to completely remove herself from the conversation) seemed interested in his new toy, so they moved back a bit to the edge of the dome.
"This day is full of inexplicable occurrences," Fidèle noted, and oh boy, she didn't know the half of it.
In any case, I addressed the Abyssal hologram again, cutting right to the chase.
"Sillu?"
He acknowledged me with a shallow nod, followed by, "You were referred to as Polemos. Are you the descendant of—?"
"Doesn't matter, would take too long to explain, we have more important things to talk about," I cut in, then gestured towards the Mana Well, "Give it to me straight: is the Abyss still in danger?"
The hologram-man didn't look too pleased by my interruption, but still responded with a simple, "No. I have already restored the Seven Altars to their proper function."
His declaration caused the group to breathe a bit easier, but I wasn't quite satisfied with the answer, so I turned to the other hologram.
"Grimmy? Can you corroborate that?"
"Response: Negative. The anomalous entity is interfering with my attempts to diagnose the Asphodelòs Sub-System's integrity."
Now I turned back to Sillu.
"Can you stop that?"
He frowned at me and shook his head.
"No. The Seven Altars belong to the Emperor, and no other. I may answer your question, ally of the Nagiru, but you may not command me."
Oh, great. So he was the obstructive bureaucrat type. Lovely.
"Okay then. Josh?"
"Yeah?" the guy responded from the back.
"Come back, please. I need you to appoint an Emperor real quick, and then you can go back to testing your new sword or whatever."
"Aw, man! Why are you—?"
Whatever his complaint might've been, he couldn't finish saying it, because Sillu declared, "The Nagiru has already chosen the Emperor."
"I did?"/"Has he?" Josh and I blurted out at the same time, and the hologram nodded as he lazily raised a hand and pointed… right at Judy.
"Excuse me?" my dear assistant uttered in mild confusion, but then the transparent man pointed again.
"Not you. I'm indicating the Emperor."
We all turned to look at her, and… Wait…
"Are you talking about Ollie?" The question escaped my mouth before I knew it, and it caused the boy clinging to Judy's legs to tense up. Sillu didn't answer, only stared at him with the same placid yet insistent expression. "Hey, Beansprout? Can you come over here for a moment?"
"Y-Yes, Uncle…" he mumbled as he self-consciously skurried over to my side. The way the hologram's hand moved to keep pointing at him erased any remaining doubts.
"Wait, stop, time out!" Josh called out, his sword gone and holding his hands in a 'T' shape. "When did that happen?!"
Sillu turned to him in turn and uttered, "You have appointed him, Nagiru."
"When?!"
Meanwhile, Judy recovered her wits and posited, "It was likely during the time we distracted Noir to allow Elly and Penelope to rescue Amelia."
"I mean, that makes sense, but…" Josh began, only to cross his arms and scowl again. "No, it still makes no sense! Miss Fidèle was here, too! She would've made infinitely more sense!"
The hologram man squinted at Josh and said, "He was the only qualified male of proper lineage present."
Oh. Oooh. Of course, this guy was made literally millennia ago by Bel of the goddamn Tenebrous Flames. As far as I could recall from the history lessons, egalitarianism wasn't exactly big back then, let alone women in positions of power. I had no idea what else we were expecting.
"Never mind that," I said as I ruffled Ollie's hair. "Can you please ask the red uncle to kindly cooperate with the nice golden lady over there?"
This whole situation was clearly too much for the kid to process, but since I was the one asking, he still nodded and looked Sillu in the eyes.
"M-Mister Red Uncle!" he began, pointing a tiny finger at him. "P-Please don't be mean and do what Uncle Polemos says!"
The hologram-man hesitated for a second, but then he cupped his hands in front of his chest and inclined his head, deeper than he did for Josh beforehand.
"As you wish, Emperor."
Seeing that, Ollie let out a relieved breath and looked up to me with a smile that said, 'Look, I did well! Praise me!', so I did just that and tousled his hair a bit.
"Thank you, Beansprout. Nice job."
"Hehe!"
Meanwhile, Grimmy let out a few short hums, kind of like an old-timey computer whirring under a heavy workload, and she soon stated, "Report: I have full access to the Asphodelòs Sub-System now. Requesting permission to isolate the anomalous entity."
"Grimmy!" This time, it was the class rep who spoke up first, and she glared at her semi-transparent companion. "Stop trying to pick a fight and tell us if we're still in danger or not!"
She responded with a flat, "Processing," followed by several seconds of tense silence. Then, "Report: the Asphodelòs Sub-System is currently meta-stable. The catastrophic system malfunction is no longer imminent. Estimated time until standard operating stability is reached is thirty-three hours and twenty-seven minutes."
Well, now it was time for everyone to let out a proper sigh of relief, and Penny to declare, "We did it! I think!"
"Y-Yay?" Snowy muttered, and even though she was trying her best to follow the conversation, it was obvious she was just as lost as the princess and was just happy that the immediate crisis was averted.
"My… um… Peacemaker?" So, it was only natural that Chayson, the de facto team leader of the Axis of Evil, chose this very moment to descend from the sky and bang on the silver dome. "We have a serious crisis on our hands!"
And now everyone tensed up again. What was this, a roller-coaster?
Anyhow, I pushed Ollie back towards Judy and then gestured for the Matron to let him in. She looked peeved, but after humming for a bit, the big guy with his big wings could pass through the barrier, and he rushed over to my side. It sounded urgent, yet he still took the time to politely nod to Judy and the others first, and to gawk at the holograms for a bit, before finally letting the cat out of the bag.
"The fighting in the city stopped. They must have noticed that the battle has ended, and they're all heading towards the ruins."
"As expected," the Matron scoffed. "They must be planning to strike us down before we have a chance to recover our strength and reap all the benefits for themselves."
Fidèle argued, "We can't be sure of that, but… It would be prudent to act on the assumption for now."
"Let them come!" Penny declared and hefted her zweihander for dramatic flair. "We faced worse; we can take them on!"
"Yeah!" Josh agreed and summoned up his semi-transparent magic sword thing again.
"That's the spirit," came the third note of agreement from Deus, plucking at the string of her bow.
"Excuse me, but… the enemies are numerous," Chayson objected while adjusting his mask.
Judy prompted him with a flat, "How numerous?" and he let out an awkward grunt.
"Uh… At least a couple hundred combatants. Maybe a thousand, even?"
That made the trio's rising heat of enthusiasm freeze over right away, giving Snowy the chance to ask, "But… how is that possible?"
"That's a good question," Fidèle agreed as she tried to stand tall, only to wince in pain. She got over it fast and continued with, "House Gula and House Enlil stationed a few companies of their Fauns and rapid response teams here, but if what he says is true, it would mean the majority of their armed forces would be present here. There's no way they could deploy all of them from the front lines in such a short time."
While she was skeptical, the Matron looked more annoyed by the news than anything else.
"I recommend we retreat. It shouldn't be difficult to evade their pursuit, and we can regroup and strike them down later."
"But what about our men in the city?" The Ninhursag patriarch raised a valid point. "Not to mention my wife and daughter!"
"They should be safe," Fidèle noted. "I expected the Lord of Inanna to aim for the Mana Well, so as soon as the Rampart was erected, I sent them away through an escape tunnel."
"There was an escape tunnel?" Hareng blurted out, followed by a muted, "Damn…"
"Nevertheless," the Shamash Matriarch pressed on, her eyes trained on the edge of the crater we were standing in. "We cannot leave our loyal soldiers behind and run away on our own."
"They're soldiers," the Matron argued. "It's their job to hold the line."
"You see, Tsarah? This attitude is the reason why you—"
"Ladies?" I cut in with my palm raised. "Can you please stop? Just let me handle this, okay?" Before they could respond, I turned to Judy. "Dormouse? Mana Well."
She nodded and reached into her bag by her feet, retrieving a familiar (if currently inert) blue cube.
"Thank you." I accepted it and then handed it over to Ammy with the same motion. "Class rep, Grimmy. Work your magic. Literally, if you have to."
Ammy gave me a sideways look, but didn't argue. Grimmy did too, though she looked like she wanted to say something, so I beat her to the punch by pointing at the other hologram.
"Work with him to figure out a way to get things done." Using the same finger, I gestured at my sisters, "Girls? Stay here and look after Judy and Ollie, just in case." Next, my hand swung towards the others. "Josh, Angie? Back up the class rep."
"What about me?" Elly asked, looking both eager and yet a little apprehensive.
"Help the Axis of Evil haul the patriarchs into the dome."
"Oh? Are we taking them hostage?" the Matron asked, sounding oddly approving of my decision, and while that wasn't my intention, I was too tired to correct her assumption, so I pointed at her and Fidèle next.
"You two, stay put and rest up."
"What about you, Lord Polemos-Dunning?" the Shamash Matriarch asked, and so for the last time, I pointed at the edge of the crater, where I could already see some figures moving in the distance.
"I'll go and buy us a few minutes."
And with that, I Phased away without another word. Honestly, Fidèle's previous observation wasn't off the mark. It made no bloody sense for all of these Abyssals and Fauns to be here, meaning the Predator… Pardon, Benjamin must have put them here during our scuffle, just to mess with me. So yeah, now I not only had to deal with the mess I caused, but I also had to fix his mess too. As if I didn't have enough problems already…
"Whoa!"
I nearly stumbled when I reappeared on the slanted rooftop of a building near the edge of the crater caused by Crowy's little outburst. I didn't nearly lose my footing because of the angle of the roof tiles, but because the way I Phased over was…
"That was weeeird."
Why? Well, this patently outside-context ability of mine always worked very consistently. The more phantom limbs I had, the larger the radius in which I could Phase became, and I could extend it further by targeting someone I marked for Far Sight. That's how it always worked, until now.
I didn't notice it when I Phased between Josh and Crowy, because it was a casual short-range hop, but this time it was different. I moved a good hundred or so meters, not counting the elevation, without the need for a mark to Far Glance to first. In fact, I could've Phased much, much further if I wanted to. It was kind of like I had… infinite range? That sounded cool, but it meant I had to 'scan' the area where I wanted to teleport to first in an expanding sphere of influence, and thanks to the square-cube law, getting the spatial data of like half the Abyss flashed before my eyes was a tad disorienting.
Oh well. At least now I have confirmed for one hundred percent certainty that my Phasing really was an extra-Simulacral ability all along. Or more like an Emergent ability? Wait, no. Oriole couldn't do that, and she would open portals whenever she Defined herself into the Simulacrum. Maybe it was more of a 'me ability', since the Simulacrum was technically 'inside me'. My Domain, I mean.
But wait, there's more! If my Phasing was an outside-context ability unique to me, essentially Defining myself (and others/objects/whatever) to different parts of the Simulacrum, then what about my Far Sight? It was clearly compatible, but it was a different ability altogether. Was it just a fluke? Something granted by another of my variable antagonist backstories that just happened to work together?
If so, then that explained why I couldn't mark people with my phantom limbs, and… oh, right! I actually developed Far Sight before I got my first phantom limb! Or at least before I was aware of it, and—
"{Chief? What's the situation?}"
"Huh?" I shook my head and tapped my ear out of habit. "A moment, Dormouse. I kind of accidentally distracted myself. Give me a second."
Right. Figuring out all of this could wait. First off, I needed to do something about the small army closing in on the others. Step one: take a closer look, meaning I Phased again, this time to a different roof, a bit further away from the edge of the remains of Castle Shamash, and…
"Ack! Okay, this is going to take some time to get used to," I whispered under my breath as I stood on a gargoyle. This time, I didn't bother to do a nocturnal echolocating mammal man impression and simply scanned the streets below with my eyes.
I mean, I already 'scanned' them with my spatial sense, or what have you, but I didn't exactly have the time or mental wherewithal to manually count all the Abyssals and Fauns in range. For the record, there were a whole lot of them. Chayson Enlil (I couldn't remember his middle name) was reliable most of the time, and after I rescued him from Crowy as Bel and let him join the team, he's been both very steadfast and enthusiastic. However, he was also occasionally prone to exaggeration, especially when in character, so it was better to double-check the numbers, just to be safe.
Turns out, he was more or less spot on.
"Seriously, Benjamin… Did you have to bring all of them here?"
"{You still haven't explained who this Benjamin is,}" Judy chimed in through the communicator once again, sounding just a bit peeved.
"The Predator Moon. He's Benjamin now. It's a long story."
She left it at that, and maybe for the better, because explaining all that would probably take all day, and we didn't have that sort of leisure time right now. So, the 'Noble Alliance' forces. My off-the-cuff estimate was that they were numbering somewhere in the ballpark of a thousand men, Fauns included. As I had noted several times before, warfare in the Abyss was a bit peculiar. Most of it was just flash raids, using fast-moving motorised squads and flyers to assault under-defended positions, while the individually powerful fighters, like the Lords and chief retainers of the various Houses, would only take the field for critical junctures.
In other words, these guys here were most of the combat-ready personnel of the Enlil and Gula houses combined.
"{How did they get here?} Judy asked, likely observing the small army on the ground through my eyes. "{Was this a retcon?}"
"Eh, not quite," I told her as I moved to a better wantage point. "Benjamin just put them here during our scuffle."
"{So… retcon?}"
"No. It's subtly different. Unlike the other Houses, they weren't anywhere near the focus of the scenario. That left them in a sort of limbo. A Schrödinger's Plot Device, if you will."
Just like before, like with the whole Ottawa School during my brief excursion there, if a part of the Simulacrum wasn't relevant to the scenario, it was left in a sketchy, malleable state. Similarly, since these two houses were fairly unimportant background-elements until now, they were somewhat undefined, meaning Benjamin could move them with relative ease.
"Benjamin didn't change something definitive that already happened in the past to something else. It was more like filling in the blanks. He, effectively, collapsed their narrative wave-function, so now they are just here and just hostile, because Benjamin said so."
"{… I understand that, but I have a hard time taking this explanation seriously when you keep calling him Benjamin.}"
"That's the point, really."
I could hear a soft sigh from the other end of the communications line, followed by a tired, "{I'll have you explain that too, later. For now, what can you do about them?}"
That was a good question. What could I do?
I mean, I was Leo Prime, with fully-phenomenal totally-cosmic powers. If I really wanted to, I could just retcon this whole situation, and then…
"Ah, a moment... New info just came in," I whispered as I internalised yet another bit of knowledge from my many, many compartmentalised pieces. "Retcons are off the table for a while. That bony wanker mauled the heck out of the Simulacrum, and it's a bit fragile right now, especially without a scenario running to lock in its parameters. I'll have to fix that as soon as we're done here."
"{You'll have to fix it?}" my dear assistant inquired, followed by a soft hum. "{I'm adding that to the list of questions for later.}"
"Sure. By the by, how's the class rep doing with the Mana Wells?"
Judy didn't answer right away, and while I could just Far Glance over, doing that after specifically asking her about it felt wrong. Before long, the communications line connected again, and she told me, "{The magic holograms are still arguing, and she says she needs some time to untangle the Ley Lines she tied up before.}"
"Right. That was a thing." Shaking my head, I tapped my Leoformer's storage enchantment and retrieved my weapons. "They started to move towards the crater en masse. I'll go and keep them busy. Call me when the class rep's ready."
"{Roger. Beluga, out.}"
"Wait, are you still doing the code-names?" I got no response because she already cut the line, so I exhaled hard and brandished my oddly silent weapons. "Never mind. Are you two ready?"
"{I'm terribly confused, young knight,}" Cal admitted. "{I can distinctly remember getting ready to fight, but then your opponent was struck in the back, then we were in a basement, but now we're on a rooftop. I'm starting to feel like my memory is failing me.}"
"{Comment: Interface:Teeny corroborates Interface:Caly's recollection.}"
Right. I put these two in my storage enchantment at the same time I switched out of my Lion Knight armour before initiating the big retcon. More importantly though, my 'representation' from back then was erased by Benjamin, including everything I was wearing at the time, such as my Leoformer. That meant these two were also erased along with the storage, but now that I re-Defined myself into the Simulacrum, they were also back… but were they the same Cal and Teeny, or perfect copies? Was this kind of like the Space Trek transporter dilemma? And…
"Ack. I'm side-tracking myself again," I mumbled as I hefted my swords and also shifted into my Polemos outfit. "I'll let you sit in when I explain everything to the girls, but for now, please focus. We have an army to stop."
"{And army? Where?}" That was all it took to make Cal forget about his gripes, and if he had a neck, I was sure he would've been craning it left and right. "{Oooh! Finally, a proper challenge, worthy of our young knight!}"
"Don't get too hyped. We won't fight them unless absolutely necessary."
With that said, I closed my eyes for a moment to 'read' the spatial data around the city, and then I promptly Phased down to street level. Specifically, I was standing in the middle of the road leading to the crater. There were a whooole lot of Fauns at the forefront, marching more-or-less in lock step. Was it some kind of intimidation-tactic, I wondered.
Either way, I needed to get their attention, so…
"I think I should still have the loudspeaker-enchantment somewhere here… ah, here it is." It was the same one I sometimes used as Bel, though this one was a legacy version I just copied over from the old suits, along with some other enchantments, because it didn't take up much 'space', so to say. So, I turned it on and yelled, "WHOEVER IS LEADING THIS INSURGENCY, STOP THIS ADVANCE AND GET YOUR ASS OVER HERE!"
There was a lot of screaming and windows breaking and my ear was ringing and… Okay, so maybe that was a bit too loud, but at least it got everyone's attention. Still not enough, because they just started running around like headless chickens on the road, stumbling over each other instead of sending a representative. Should I try getting their attention a different way?
What about wings? Forcefully bringing out some Celestial wings usually did the trick, but without the scenario and my narrative privileges in place, I wasn't entirely sure I could—
"Ah, right."
I Defined myself into the Simulacrum, so nothing was stopping me from Defining myself into a full-on Celestial with all the wings and the halos and the shiny stuff. It didn't even take that much effort. I just had to think of it, and then I suddenly got wings. Not just wing-looking special effects, but genuine ones, and they felt…
"Ack! How does Angie live with these things…?"
Yeah, maybe suddenly growing new body parts I wasn't familiar with wasn't the smartest idea, but I still managed to somehow spread all eight of them and create a nice light-show to finally draw everyone's attention to me. As soon as that was done, I immediately got rid of them, because they were waaay too uncomfortable.
That said, it opened up a couple of new considerations. If I could Define myself into a proper Celestial to complete the Polemos-look, could I also Define myself in another way? Maybe I could Define all my Oaths to be working just fine, or to make myself literally invincible, or I could even turn into a giant radioactive lizard and stomp around the city like a big playground.
Well, maybe not the last one, but still, food for thought.
"Are you Polemos, the Peacebringer?!" a voice called out to me from above, and a group of Abyssals approached me, stopping and lining up at about the halfway point between me and the various Fauns and Abyssal soldiers piled up on the street.
All of these boss-types were already transformed and ready for battle, with half of them coming over on foot, while the other half flew over the crowd to join them. It was easy to tell that they were high-ranking Abyssals, though I had no bloody idea who they were. I could maybe kinda-sorta recognise one of the men from the Noble Alliance emergency meetings after Ammy was taken, but I wasn't entirely sure about that either.
Anyhow, I was asked, so I turned on the loudspeaker again, this time on a slightly less ear-piercing volume.
"Yes, it's me. Leonard S. Polemos-Dunning," I announced and pointed Cal at the group, by this point numbering around ten people of various shapes and ages. "Are you the people responsible for this sedition?"
"Sedition?!" a different man cried out. This one had a thick neck and a blue-ish skin with… gills? Was he a land-shark?
Whatever. Before he could say anything else, I increased the volume again.
"HAVE YOU NOT INVADED THE CITY OF NEW LARSA, ATTACKING THE SOLDIERS OF EVERY HOUSE PRESENT INDISCRIMINATELY, INCLUDING THE FORCES OF THE RIGHTFUL RULER?" I bellowed, but then my ears started ringing again, so I took it down a notch. "You back-stabbed House Shamash. What is that if not treason?"
Right, this volume felt about right. Where was I?
"Fool!" a third Abyssal roared as he stepped out of line and pointed at me. "The war is over! The Emperor and his dog are dead, and the Noble Alliance is no more! 'Tis all men for themselves!"
Okay, so there should've been really no way for him to know that. I mean, maybe they could've figured out that Crowy died by some long-distance surveillance of the crater, but they had no way to know that Bel was out of the picture… which once again reminded me that these guys were forcefully plucked out of whatever ill-defined corner of the Abyss they were chilling in by Benjamin and forcefully given this role.
I mean, I felt nominally bad about turning Crowy into our big bad and it leading to his death, but to be perfectly fair, the guy was an irredeemable asshole from day one, and if anything, I had to temper his murderous tendencies for the sake of the plot. Hence 'nominally'. I had no idea if these guys were also assholes or just caught up in this, so…
"This is the era of revolution!" the potentially land-shark guy exclaimed with his hands up in the air. "The weak shall fall, and the strong shall rise! We're the harbingers of the new age, and all who stand in our way shall be trampled!"
"And die!" yet another Abyssal called out, this time a woman with a weird hairdo that looked like a big bloody spider.
These two were very heavily weighing my opinion on the 'asshole' side of the scale, but I figured I shouldn't write them off too quickly. It was better to at least try to negotiate with them first, to see if they can see reason. Dot my i-s and cross my t-s. Just basic due diligence stuff for my peace of mind.
So, how would a very wise and peace-maker-ish Polemos type respond in this situation?
I was just about to come up with something, but then yet another guy roared, "All the traitorous houses of Inanna, Ashur, and Negal shall be exterminated to the last man, woman, and child, and from their ashes, our new order will—!"
Okay, screw politeness, because, "ARE YOU LISTENING TO YOURSELF, YOU BLOODY MUPPETS!?"
Also, ow. I reflexively cranked up the volume again. Why do I keep doing this to myself?
More importantly, I exhaled an exasperated groan and waved Teeny in a wide arc to indicate all of them as I continued with a slightly less uber-loud, "LISTEN TO ME, YOU DAFT BASTARDS! I'M TRYING TO BE NICE HERE! YOU'RE ALL CAUGHT UP IN THE HEAT OF THE MOMENT, SO I WANT YOU TO STOP FOR JUST A BLOODY MINUTE, UNTWIST YOUR BLEEDING PANTIES, AND THINK! YOU UTTER COCKWOMBLES!"
"Or what?" land-shark-adjacent guy taunted me back the moment I stopped speaking, and the only reason I didn't facepalm was because both my hands were occupied.
"Or I'll be forced to be very impolite," I said in a slightly more diplomatic tone, and yet the bastards didn't even ruminate on my words for a few seconds.
"You have no power here, Celestial!"
"Yes!" another Abyssal called out. "You're but one man, and we're many!"
I was just about to respond when my communicator flared to life, and Judy's voice interrupted me.
"{Chief? Amelia says they managed to jury-rig the two Mana Wells together, and they are ready when you are. What should I tell her, over?}"
It took a second to turn off the voice amplification, but then I told her, "Go ahead. There's probably going to be some confusion on the other side, so I'll buy you some more time until everyone's ready."
"{Roger. Beluga, out.}"
Loudspeaker back on, I yelled, "SERIOUSLY, THIS IS YOUR LAST WARNING! I'M TRYING TO BE AS NICE AND DIPLOMATIC HERE AS POSSIBLE, BUT IF YOU DON'T EVEN CONSIDER—!"
"Enough talking! Chaaarge!" the spider-hairdo woman yelled, and she started running towards me.
"For the future of House Enlil!"
"For the new order!"
She was soon joined by others. Well, fine. Negotiations had officially broken down; it was time for a more direct approach.
"{At last, a proper battle, young knight! A fight for the ballads and the history books is upon us!}"
"{Warning: Interface:Caly, please calm down.}"
Ignoring the two, I channelled my mana and immediately came up with a plan of action. From what I'd seen, this whole neighbourhood had been already evacuated, no doubt because of the protracted aerial battle between Crowy and Fidèle. Two-thirds of the castle in the center of the town disappearing probably also sent people running, so there shouldn't be any civilians left here. Or at least I couldn't 'detect' any when I was Phasing, though I couldn't be sure how reliable that was.
Anyhow, the idea was simple.
Step one: use a sword-beam to destroy the façade of the nearby buildings.
Step two: under the cover of the dust and chaos, Phase in and out to subdue the ringleaders.
Step three: once the nobles and officers were down, make another show of force to cow the ordinary soldiers until reinforcements arrive.
Not too complicated, all things considered. As such, I pumped Teeny and Cal full of mana, took up a well-rehearsed stance, and then… music?
…
"Wait, what?"
I wasn't the only one shocked, because the charging Abyssals and their little army all faltered as well, and when I looked over my shoulder…
"Kihihi! Did you think having a theme song made you special?! Two can play this game, bitches!"
… there was a huge mecha, with enormous boxy shoulders made to look like a pair of giant old-timey speakers blasting some kind of high-energy J-pop song all around; something right out of the opening of an anime, or more likely a Saturday morning sentai series.
If that was all, I could've lived with that. Barely. But then…
"Charge! For the glory of the King and the Ordo Draconis!"
"Don't worry, Son! We're here to rescue you!"
"Where's Leonard-dono!?"
"Calm down, dear. We'll find Brother Leonard as soon as possible."
"Like, out of my way! Let me at them! I'm gonna gag you all with a spoon today!"
"For Deus!"
"[Secure the perimeter! Go, go, go!]"
"For the Second True Archon!"
"My Lady! Where are y-y-y-yaaah! M-Mistress Matron! W-What are you doing here!?"
…
"…"
"{Chief? Are we invading the Abyss right now?}"
That was, without a doubt, a rhetorical question. In the middle of the crater, not far from the Mana Well and its pedestal, was an enormous gate. As in, easily at least ten meters tall, and it was spewing forth EVERYONE.
On the ground, Arnwald and Morgana were leading the charge, right behind Fred and his horde of Sprocket robots. Behind the two, the entirety of the Ordo Draconis; every single Knight, squire, and even the Kage ninjas. Speaking of which, they were flanked by Rinne and Naoren on the left, and my in-laws on the right, leading detachments of already transformed Draconians. Sahi, the arch-mages, Brang and the Fauns, hell, even Ichiko and Xiao were here!
But that wasn't the crazy part. No, that was the fact that the sky was positively swarming with hundreds of Celestial soldiers, with dozens more pouring through the portal every passing second, and…
"Deploy the Colossi! Crush all resistance and secure the Archons!"
…
You've got to be kidding me.
…
To be perfectly fair, I did give instructions to Roland as Bel, so I knew he was preparing for a big 'here comes the cavalry' moment, but… How? How the hell did he manage to get literally everyone ready and raring to go? We weren't even on schedule! And—
"{Chief? Please respond, over?}"
I sighed and, since I had already charged them up, I swung Cal and Teeny towards the sky to serve as a beacon of light. Soon, all the Knights and Draconians and ninjas and Celestials and magi and big mechas and little girls and a bloody partridge in a bleeding pear tree came rushing my way. In other words…
"Yes, Dormouse. We're, apparently, invading the Abyss today."
"{… Roger. Just checking. Beluga, out.}"
As for me, I let my disappointed weapons down, Phased out of the way back to a nearby roof, and quietly muttered, "I swear to god, if this somehow spirals into a full-blown takeover and someone tries to pin being the big boss of the Abyss onto me too, I'll blow a fuse…"