Chapter 194 |
"Bloody freaking… tapdancing… argh! Why the hell is the situation getting more dangerous, now that we have reinforcements!?"
That was, of course, yet another entirely rhetorical question I really didn't want to ask. Or answer, for that matter, because it reflected very poorly on everyone involved. Case in point…
"Khihi! You can flee, but you can't hide! I will crush you all, with SCIENCE! Kihih— Gaah!" I lightly kicked the head of the stupid blocky robot to get Fred's attention. Phasing on top of it was easier than staying there, but I managed. "Wha… What was that!"
Turns out, this was a two-seater. Galatea was also in there, and her voice joined Fred's coming from the mech's shoulder speakers.
"Master? My sensors detect Grandmaster standing on the Biomechanical Gigant Mk.9."
"What? Focus the cameras and give me a—"
I was reasonably impatient, so I gave the bloody thing another good kick, and yelled, "Stop chasing the Axis of Evil! They're with us now!"
"What? Speak up, I can't hear you!"
Well, he insisted, so I turned on the loudspeaker again and bellowed, "I SAID STOP CHASING THE AXIS OF EVIL, AND TURN DOWN THE BLOODY MUSIC TOO, WHILE YOU'RE AT IT!"
I didn't wait for him to say anything else, gave the thing's head a third kick for emphasis, then added, "AND STOP STOMPING AROUND! THE REMAINING CASTLE WALLS ARE UNSTABLE; THE LAST THING WE NEED RIGHT NOW IS FOR THEM TO COLLAPSE!"
"Eeeek! R-Right, Boss! Got it, Boss!"
I was just about breathe in relief, but then I noticed another situation unfolding and Phased over to the other side of the crater, not far from the spot where I started, where the Ordo Draconis and the Celestials were engaging the soldiers of Enlil and Gula.
"WHAT ARE YOU—!" Belatedly realising I still had the loudspeaker on, I turned it off and tried again. "What are you doing?! Don't try to push through the Colossi, go around! There are other streets too!"
The Celestials around me froze and couldn't decide whether to follow my orders or salute and cheer first, so it was a right mess. At least the Knights and squires were doing their job right, and a detachment led by Duncan and Agrawain moved away to circle the throng of Abyssals and Fauns clogging the street.
"Son! We've come to rescue you!" Arnwald yelled over from the middle of the crowd, bow in hand over his head and waving even as he was being dragged along by the others.
"Thanks, I appreciate it, but pay attention to what you are doing!" I shouted back, but before I could add anything else, a flash of dark purple weaved between the allied forces and landed right next to me with a dramatic flair.
Rinne rose to her feet from a half-kneeling position with a solemn, "Leonard-dono." It was very 'battle shounen hero arrives late and gets ready to smack down' of her, and it might've looked somewhat impressive if not for her shadow suddenly wavering, and two smaller bodies jumping out of it.
"Ue-sama!"/"Brother Leonard!"
I already knew that they were here, because I could 'feel' their Far Sight marks ahead of time, but I didn't expect them to leap out like that, so I reflexively put my hands on their noggins and pushed them back into the shadow.
"What the heck are you two doing here? This is a battlefield! Go back!"
"Uuu… But Ue-sama…" Ichiko whined, and even Odango Girl was giving me the puppy dog eyes, but I still managed to stuff them back into Rinne's shadow before they could fully emerge and disconnect from the spell. But speaking of her, I turned to Mountain Girl with a disapproving frown.
"What were you thinking, bringing the kids into the battlefield like this?"
She gave me a flat look and pointed in the direction of the enormous Abyssal gateway still spewing forth Celestials and ground support personnel. Or rather, she was pointing at the spot where the silver bubble barrier used to be until not too long ago.
"Rinne followed Judy-san's instructions, and there was a child-kun by Judy-san and Eleanor-san's side too."
"Yes, that was Ollie, and…" Realizing that it would've taken too long to explain how he got there due to a long chain of narrative setups, I just stifled a groan and didn't even try. "Whatever. Let's move on."
"Let's," she agreed and hefted her katana. "Please give Rinne orders."
"Just… do what you're best at?" I proposed, but seeing the lop-sided grin on her face, I hastily added, "Suppress the Fauns and try to capture as many officers as you can, okay?"
"Understood! Rinne will exercise Leonard-dono's orders!"
"I think you meant 'execute', and no, don't execute anyone, and…" Another sigh later, I shook my head. "Never mind. I would be lying if I said I missed these conversations, but I'm still glad you have my back."
"Yes. Rinne is also glad to see Leonard-dono, even if Rinne was also very, very angry that Leonard-dono didn't tell Rinne about Leonard-dono's plans and made Rinne feel useless, but Rinne is the bigger human and won't hold a grunge against Leonard-dono!"
With that said, she gave me a quick formal bow and then casually jumped up to the roof of a nearby building.
…
She was totally holding a grudge, wasn't she?
However, before I could start worrying about that, my eyes were drawn back to the spot where the aforementioned silver dome used to be. I Far Glanced over to see why the Matron took it down, and then the previous stifled groan exploded from my throat with a vengeance.
"Oh, for the love of…!"
I Phased over, only to find (and no, I wasn't making this up) Savir dressed in a sleek magitech power-armour kind of gear, the same type I'd once seen on Mensah, except with her usual toga on top and her face-plate open. The whole area was buzzing with activity as support personnel poured in and started setting down barricades and running around with supplies, yet there was a small circle around her, maintained by the Praetorian Guards of all people, seemingly just to allow her to gloat.
"… to find the infamous deserter immediately after entering the Abyss! It can only be called fate! Hohoh—"
"Eris?"
She froze up and turned on her heel to face me when I Phased in, and I could see the shock in her eyes. Yet, before she could utter another word, I lightly slapped her on the back of her head, causing her to nearly stumble forward.
"Stop antagonising our allies the moment you show up, stop gloating, and stop laughing like that. It makes you sound like an old school nurse."
"Leon— I mean, Archon Polemos! It is with great relief that I—!"
I cut her off with a stern, "Leave the pleasantries for later," and turned to the Praetorian Guard. "Which part of 'stop antagonising our allies' did you not hear? Let them go."
The Celestials were quick on the uptake, and they stepped back like they were touching a hot stove. Before I arrived, they were in the process of putting the Matron, Fidèle, the Ninhursag patriarch, and even Hareng into some kind of fancy Celestial bondage gear (and not the kinky kind), but now they were trying their best to quickly undo them by frantically humming and whistling like their lives depended on it.
On closer look, I recognised wetsuit-chap and facemask-fella in the circle, but the rest were new faces. By the looks of it, Jaakobah made good on his plans to recruit more Guards even in my absence. But speaking of him, the encirclement opened up for just long enough for his familiar mug to enter, and he marched right up to me.
"Lord Archon!" He gave me a textbook Celestial salute, then emphatically declared, "The Praetorian Guard is ready to serve you once again."
"Yes, I see. Good job." I pointedly glanced at the men still doing their best to untie the Matron, and added, "Mostly." Though again, there was a good chance that it was Savir's fault. It was a good rule of thumb. 'When in doubt, it's Savir's fault'. It was even a bit catchy. More importantly, I shook my head and looked Jaakobah in the eyes. "Status report."
"Following the stipulations of the military alliance signed with the Draconic Federation, the Synderion dispatched ten aerial cohorts, sixteen companies of psiloi troops, as well as five Colossi and corresponding auxiliary units."
"Yes, I can see that, but that wasn't what I wanted to know. Where are the others?"
"Sumboulos Mensah is currently leading the First Aerial Cohort in support of the deployed Colossi. Sumboulos Tsephanyah is providing logistical support from the headquarters of the Ordo Draconis. Sumboulos Savir is… here."
That also wasn't what I wanted to know, but at this point, there was no sense in trying to argue the point.
"I can see that too." I turned to the ex-Director and raised a critical brow at her. "What exactly were you doing here, again?"
"I came here to lead the rescue operation of both Her Grace and you, Polemos."
"And what does that have to do with anything that you were doing here?"
I made a vague gesture at Fidèle, yet it was the Matron who let out an indignant huff first.
"Acting on prejudice and heavy-handed self-righteousness. I see that Elysium hasn't changed one iota."
Now it was Savir who scoffed, her nostrils flaring and her eyes set in a thunderous scowl.
"Silence! I will not hear another word from you, fugitive!"
"Savir?" I asked in a low voice and slapped the back of her helmet again. "What did I tell you about antagonising our allies?"
"But… But…"
"Before you say anything else," I cut her off with a palm raised. "I just want to inform you that the Abyss also has some very nice beaches with some very fine sand."
Savir involuntarily shuddered and, for the first time, made the wise decision and shut up, averting her eyes.
"I take that back," the Matron mumbled. "Maybe some things have indeed seen a modicum of change."
Ignoring her, I turned back to Jaakobah. He had been staring at me intently for a while, and as soon as he had my attention, he gave me another salute.
"Your orders, Lord Archon?"
After some consideration, I told him, "Take the downed patriarchs into custody first, and then make a perimeter and secure the VIPs."
As soon as I said that, the Celestials immediately moved in to grab the four Abyssals again, much to Jaakobah's exasperation and possibly embarrassment.
"Stop that, you halwits!" he snapped at them, his usually unflappable attitude set aside in the heat of the moment, and he forcefully pointed at the Nergal and Ninurta nobles on the ground. "The Lord Archon was obviously referring to them!" Once they started moving to restrain and haul them away, the phlegmatic Praetorian Prefect turned to me and exhaled hard. "My apologies, Lord Archon. The new recruits seem to be too nervous in your presence. I'll make sure to educate them properly once the operation is over."
"Please do."
He acknowledged that with a soft hum, then tentatively asked, "By VIPs, I presume you are referring to your companions?" I nodded, and he added, "Her Grace Deus and her Justicar are already being guarded by our officers." By that, I figured he meant the first-generation Praetorian Guards, like armour-guy and midriff-woman. "Your household are currently in the company of the arch-mages of the Asssembly, so I saw no reason to delegate a guard detail. I'll rectify this oversight."
"If that's the case, it's not so important. I'll go and check on them myself."
"As you wish, Lord Archon."
He was clearly waiting for me to say something else, so I gave him a quick, "Dismissed," and he promptly saluted me again and turned on his heel, then spread his wings and took to the air.
"What about me?" Savir asked all of a sudden, sounding unusually anxious.
"You…" I started, but then I had to stop to give it a bit more thought, and then gestured at the Matron and the others. "They need medical attention, so take care of that. Also, bring each other up to speed with the recent events while you're at that. And play nice."
She only stared at me for a long second, and I was half-expecting her to start complaining, but then she just inclined her head with a quiet, "I understand," and she also turned around and started ordering some Celestials around.
Huh. Would you look at that? Maybe you can teach an old dog some new tricks. Or at least make them marginally more cooperative by burying them in the sand.
…
Wait, no. Don't bury dogs in the sand, kids. It's just not done.
…
"What am I even thinking…?"
Shaking my head, I turned around and started walking towards the biggest congregation of colourless magical lights, streaming everywhere like a localised aurora borealis. I could've just Phased over, but I wanted to use the opportunity to Far Glance at others, so I decided to walk. It wasn't like I was in danger of bumping into anyone, since the crowd parted in front of me like I was some beardy guy with stone tablets and they were the Red Sea.
Anyhow, I checked on Roland first, and… he was back in the underground base. Wait, more importantly, did they open the gateway to the base? Sure, the main hall was high, but I didn't think it would fit in there and…
"Calm down, Tajana. It's all right."
Okay, full stop. Why was our hapless Abyssal spymaster also back here? I could've sworn I'd heard her voice when the gate first opened.
"N-No, it's not all right! The Matron was there!" Tajana continued to panic, and would've probably been running around in tiny circles if Roland wasn't holding onto her shoulders. "She was right there! I didn't report back for months, and then the moment I returned, I met her face-to-face! I'm doomed! Doomed!"
Our Sir Griffon only sighed and continued to hold onto the frantic woman with utter stoicism. So, I learned two things: one, Tajana did come over, and then immediately escaped back through the portal. Go figure. Number two: this wasn't actually the main hall, but our Portalport in the base. It was still under construction when I came to the Abyss, and I couldn't quite recall the ceiling being that high, but Roland must've improvised in my absence. Good for him.
It also explained how everyone could show up at the nick of time, seeing that this side of the gateway was just as busy as the Abyssal end, with Celestial technicians running all over the place opening, closing, and adjusting smaller portals surrounding the big one.
Anyhow, since Roland wasn't in the Abyss yet, that meant I could leave his debriefing for later. That was… not bad, actually, because I honestly to goodness had no idea how I was going to explain everything to him, yet not doing so also felt like I was just delaying the inevitable. Like pulling a tooth, but more mortifying.
Anyhow, that took care of one target. Next, I quickly peeked at the Knights. Agrawain and Duncan just finished catching the Abyssal forces in a pincer manoeuvre. They were now more-or-less surrounded, with the Celestials and their Colossi plugging the way leading to the crater, the Knights hitting them on the left, my in-laws and Naoren leading a Draconian charge into their ranks on the right, and Rinne, Arnwald, and Morgana being in the thick of it, seemingly hunting the Abyssal nobles from before.
All in all, I could only hope that there wouldn't be too many casualties, but between three different strike forces and all our side-character grade fighters combined, I had a feeling this whole battle would wrap up in record time. Honestly, I was almost feeling bad for the Abyssal grunts, and especially the Fauns. I mean, they were just following orders, and… Oh, speak of the devil.
"[Blackcloak?]"
I came to a stop when I noticed Brang coming my way. He was flanked by Hrul and one of the guys from Tajana's Faun retinue, and they came to a halt by my side.
"[General. My heart is aflutter to behold your visual appearance in great metabolic conditions.]"
The old Faun smiled, a familiar toothy grin, and responded with a respectful yet also oddly cheeky, "[Aye. Mine eyes are also glad to behold thou in good health, Blackcloak.]"
I was ready to move on, but then I was hit by a sudden idea, and decided to switch out of Faunish, so that the others could understand me too.
"Your timing is impeccable. You're a general, right?"
"Scout-general. Used to be," he responded in kind.
"Right, about that. Crowy's dead, and Snowy's now the head of the House. Consider yourself reinstated." Brang's ears swivelled with… excitement? Delight? Or maybe just surprise. In any case, I continued with, "You can recognise the various insignias of the Noble Houses, right?"
He responded with a plain, "Aye," as if it was self-evident.
"Good. Gather up all the Fauns. We have a bunch of them from Inanna around here; you should be able to recognise them. If they don't want to come along, tell them I sent you, then go out and round up anyone wearing Shamash or Ninhursag colours."
"Enemies?" Hrul asked from the back, and I hastily shook my head before there could be a misunderstanding.
"No, friendlies. Our forces were scattered during the initial attack, and I need someone with a good head on their shoulders and some common sense to gather them up before they get caught up in the crossfire. With all of these Celestials and Draconians here, the last thing we need is friendly fire."
"What about civilians?" the other Faun asked and… huh. His voice sounded familiar. Was he the one I fought in Dominance in the past, I wondered.
However, before I could utter a sound, Brang responded in my stead with a sagely, "[That is something that goes without saying.]"
Smiling, I pointed at Brang's face and said, "You see? Common sense. It's so rare to find nowadays."
He returned my smile and then gave me a salute (the Faunish one, with the fist on the chest), mirrored by the others, and then they dashed away, no doubt to gather the rest of our Fauns.
With that done, I realised I was only a couple of steps away from the arguing arch-mages. Plural. As in, all of them were here (even Sahi, technically), including Lord Grandpa, and he was currently fuming.
"I still can not believe you have put yourself in such mortal danger without informing us or seeking our explicit consent!" the old man groused as he glared at his granddaughter. "This is not how I raised you!"
"Oh, like, chill out, Endy!" Sahi cut in by literally stepping between them and then turned her back on him to address Ammy. "So, like, this is totally wicked! Can you really, like, link us to this thing?"
She was gesturing at the pedestal with the pair of shining blue Mana Wells lazily circling in the air over it, and the class rep nodded.
"Yes. The mana accumulated by the Well is essentially the same as the outside world's; it's just that, since it flows in artificial conduits instead of in natural channels, you have a harder time accessing it. As soon as Grimmy manages to give you access permissions, you should be good to go."
"Tubular!"
"Are you two even listening to me?" Lord Grandpa groaned in exasperation, but then flinched when Taika put her hand on his shoulder.
"Please, calm down, Lord Endymonion. Isn't the fact that Amelia is safe the most important?"
"Yes, but…"
While those two talked, the lanky arch-mage and his stout companion were inspecting the Mana Well itself.
"Absolutely fascinating," Lord Gulliver spoke in a breathless voice as he moved his hand across the invisible cylinder of pure mana surrounding the top of the pedestal. "To think that the Celestials of old could construct something so monstrously powerful yet elegant, and— Ow!"
Lord Ambrose hit him on the shin with his walking cane (maybe he still hasn't fully recovered from our trip to Ottawa) and exclaimed, "Don't touch it, you lout! If you break it, we have no way to replace it!"
"Easy there, Ambrose. Easy. You know the doctor said to pay attention to your blood pressure."
"Silence! There is nothing wrong with my blood pressure!"
Okay, so that whole group was kind of lost in their own little world, so I looked somewhere else, and I soon found Lord Barnabas nearby… handing out snacks and hot drinks to my sisters and girlfriends.
"Ah, Leonard," he greeted me as soon as I came over. "It's good to see that you're still alive and well."
"Thanks, I'm trying. What do you have there?"
"Ah, this?" He showed me the large plastic thermos in his hands. "Herbal tea, I believe. I saw that the children were rather exhausted by…" His voice trailed off for a second, and he made a vague gesture towards the grey crater and the remains of Castle Shamash. "… whatever caused all of this, so I went back to Haven and picked up whatever I could find in the lounge to treat them."
Oh, wow. Two examples of common sense, back-to-back? Unheard of! Preposterous, even!
Putting that aside, the girls really didn't look like they were in top shape. All four of them were sitting on a large chunk of stone. It was either a part of one of the castle walls that somehow ended up here, or maybe a piece of the class rep's Petra. I couldn't tell.
"Hi, Leo!" my princess tried to greet me with her usual enthusiasm, but then she shuddered and let out a raspy cough. "Ah, sorry. After I sat down, my throat started to hurt again…"
"I told you, it hurt the whole time," Judy told her while gently patting her on the back, her other hand holding a candy bar. "It was just the adrenaline distracting you."
"R-Right.." Snowy muttered with a steaming paper cup in her hands. "As soon as I sat down, my legs gave out too."
"I'm fine!" Penny declared next to her, only to hastily add, "I-I mean, I'm not trying to imply you're weak or soft! I-I mean, you are soft, but that's fine! Girls are meant to be soft, and…"
"Hush, Kiddo," I cut in by flicking her forehead. "You still have your Uniformer on."
"Oh, right!" She then turned that off, her outfit abruptly switching back to her hiking gear, and she immediately let out a pained whine. "Ooowie! My calves!"
"W-What's wrong? Penny? Are you all right?"
My other sister panicked and tried to help her without spilling her drink. Meanwhile, I noticed that someone was missing and asked, "Where's Ollie?"
"He's with Joshua," my dear assistant told me in a low, tired voice. "He said they had to discuss things about heralds and emperors."
"Fair."
Meanwhile, the princess's throat got a bit better, because she flashed a grin at me, "I can't believe it's finally over! And we won! We cut it a little bit too close here and there, but we took down the bad guy, saved the world, and we're all fine!" She coughed again, then amended, "Mostly fine! But it's still over!"
"Or is it?" Judy asked, looking at me.
"Don't jinx it, Dormouse."
"No, I'm serious. Is it over?" she asked again, this time with extra emphasis.
"Oh, you mean that? Sure, it's over. We're officially flying free by the seat of our pants now."
Elly let out a soft giggle, while Judy only narrowed her eyes and said, "I'm not sure if I should feel relieved by that."
"Eh, it's going to be fine. I mean, I'm a…" I stopped myself and looked around. Barnabas was still there, and there were a couple of others in earshot as well. "I'll explain later. Suffice to say, we're safe from any serious threats, outside context and otherwise."
"Oh? Does that mean that he really showed up and fixed everything?" Elly inquired with expectant eyes, and I could only blink in confusion.
"He?"
Judy rolled her eyes and said, "The ownedcray oalescencecay."
"Excuse me?" Barnabas blurted out behind me, and it took a couple of seconds even for me to figure out that she was speaking in pig latin, and then I let out a soft groan and snapped my finger.
"Oh, dammit! I knew I was forgetting about something!" The girls (and the dark-skinned arch-mage) were all looking at me funny, so I hastily raised my palms and told them, "Sorry, I just remembered something really important I have to take care of. I'll be back in a moment, I promise!"
Then, I disappeared. Not just Phased, but fully disappeared from the Simulacrum as I retreated out of… or rather, back into myself. Then, once I settled into my Domain, I immediately started looking for the not-dark not-room, and the last dangling threat that still needed to be tied off.
"Okay, I'm back. I took care of the most pressing matters, and—"
"Raaaa!"
Before I could finish saying my piece, a sudden battle-cry interrupted me. While I didn't quite have the advantage that my vaguely precognitive sixth sense provided me in the Simulacrum, I was far from defenceless, and with a swoop and a twirl, I snatched the small body hurtling towards me out of the air.
"Hi, Benjamin," I greeted the little menace, secretly smug in my satisfaction that my vaunted girl-catching reflexes worked perfectly fine for teeny-tiny eldritch abominations as well.
"You wretch! I'll destroy you! I'll devour you, and spit you out, and then devour you again!"
I held him up with my hands under his armpits, and he kept kicking, clawing, and snapping at me, though with little effect. Although…
"Oh? What's that? You have pointy teeth now? Good for you, Benjamin."
He froze for a second, then let out a stifled cry as if I just seared him with a red-hot iron and redoubled his effort to bite me.
"I hate you! I'll kill you! I'll hunt you and eat you and—"
It was at this point that I realised that the other Emergents were all looking at me funny, so I put Benjamin down, then placed a hand on top of his head to keep him at arm's reach while I talked to them.
"Sorry, I got distracted for a moment. I just wanted to say I took care of the most pressing matters. Is everything in order over here?"
The group shared a quick glance between each other, and Carmine stepped up.
"We repaired the damage," she said, pointing at the lack of hole in the lack of walls, but then her brows descended, and she added, "While doing so, we discovered something… troubling."
"More troubling than this?" I asked as I vigorously rubbed Benjamin's head, and he groaned and thrashed like I was whipping him.
"P-Putting the Venerated Benjamin's current state aside," Fulgor interjected, the turbulent storm-clouds of his pock-marked surface shifting as he adjusted his collar. "It appears we are… trapped here."
That surprised me enough that I momentarily stopped tormen— coughteasing Benjamin and tilted my head to the side. Actually, now that I looked a bit closely, the not-dark not-room seemed a little different than usual. It was much not-darker than before, yet it was also considerably less not-roomy.
"You tried to leave?" I asked, not in an accusative way or anything, but Obsidius in the back still shuddered, and he hurriedly waved his hands.
"W-We just tried to look for the Crowned Coalescence again, and we couldn't."
"That's odd…" I mused as I crouched down to follow Benjamin and stop him from ducking under my hand. "Give me a second, let me check something…"
I closed my eyes and jerked my head left and right a few times. I was still trying to figure out how all the other compartmentalised-me-s worked, but picturing my head as a big hourglass and shaking it to get the sands flowing felt like an appropriate mental image to invite some info, and before long…
"Oh, I think I got, it" I muttered as I stood back up, along with the diminutive menace. "Everyone is kind of stuck inside me right now."
Carmine raised a brow, along with an incredulous, "Excuse me?"
"I mean, inside my Domain. You aren't quite incorporated, but more like… synced up? Something like that. I'm still wrestling with the terminology."
"Since when?" Obsidius inquired, and Oriole let out a chirping giggle in response.
"Since about the Venerated Benjamin first encountered the Crowned Coalescence in the Simulacrum," she said, as if it were self-evident.
"And how do you know about this?" Carmine asked next, eyes narrowed into thin crimson slits, and the twin-tailed girl began to sidle over to my side with an awkward grin.
"I-I told you I can explain everything!"
"Then why haven't you?" Fulgor spoke up next, looking just as distrustful as Carmine, and I was also kind of curious.
I mean, a newly integrated part of me just let me know that effectively everyone had been synced up with me for quite a while, without them even noticing. In the timeline sense. Or time-block, or whatever. Now I just had to wait for another part of me to tell me what that actually meant, and…
"Oh, wait," I blurted out. "I just remembered something."
As in, I just integrated another part of me, and that part could remember seeing the pre-Benjamin Predator Moon and the Crowned Coalescence clashing in the void, which in retrospect was my unrealised Domain, which meant…
"Oriole? Can you please hold onto him for a while?" Saying you, I manoeuvred Benajmin over to her side, much to her apparent horror. "I need to check something real quick."
"W-What? How am I supposed to—?" Her voice already sounded like a flock of startled sparrows, but then it turned into a high-pitched screech of a parrot when I pushed him in ger direction. "Eeek! O-Obsidious! Help!"
"C-Coming!"
Like that, the epic struggle unfolded between a moon covered in bones and teeth, a planet constantly raining molten glass, and a different planet with its orbital rings trembling like a cymbal. A colossal celestial battle of unfathomable proportions…
"H-Hold him down!"
"I'm trying!"
"I'll never forgive you! I'll hunt you all!"
"Put him in a full nelson! A full nelson!"
"H-H-How do you do that!"
"I don't know, but we need to figure it out quickly, or we're doomed!"
Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.
… and at the same time, it also looked like three kids from a weird period drama having a small scuffle.
Anyhow, putting them aside for a moment, I reached out of the rather-bright quite-room and into my Domain, and started searching. Simply put, I had seen the Predator Moon and the Crowned Coalescence duke it out in the past with my own… maybe not eyes, but let's not split hairs over this. The point was that since I had a memory of that, it meant they were inside my Domain. So, if Benjamin was 'synced up' with me, it meant that, by definition, the other guy had to be synced up as well.
Sure, he was good at hiding, and I was still new to this whole 'being an Emergent' stuff, but it was kind of like riding a bicycle, and once I got used to the process of searching my Domain, I quickly honed in on something anomalous. I grasped it, and while it didn't quite struggle, it seemed more annoyed by my envelopment than anything. Tugging on it, I dragged the anomaly towards the quite-bright rather-room, and then there was a crackle and a pop, and…
"Ack!"
A humanoid shape, made out of dark red star-matter and adorned by a crown made of star-lit space, landed sprawled out on the floor with a rather undignified yelp.
There was a long beat of silence hanging in the air upon his arrival, broken when he groggily sat up and muttered, "Oh, come on. You ruined my dramatic entrance," in a booming, sizzling voice that fit his appearance quite a bit.
Actually… no. If I squinted hard enough to look at his 'true' astronomical form, the red star was there, and the crown of black shards reflecting some unseen starry sky was also present, but the 'Coalescence' part was missing, the second sun replaced by a large accretion disk around his equator.
My observations were cut short when Carmine lightly cleared her throat, and the star-man hastily rose to his feet. His features were humanoid, but also vaguely alien, with limbs that were not quite proportional and a head with only the vaguest hint of facial features.
"Ah, hi ***********," he said in a happy-go-lucky tone that didn't befit his resounding voice at all, and he even waved at her with a three-fingered hand. Suddenly freezing mid-motion, he let his hand down and took a closer look at her. "Oh, my apologies. It's Carmine now, right? Wow. That's a really pretty name. It suits you really well."
"Is that really the first thing you're going to say in this situation?" she asked back, eyes once again set in a displeased squint, and it was clear he was stumped for an answer.
'Luckily' for him, it was at this moment that the white-haired menace managed to break out of the other youthful Emergents' clumsy hold, and he threw himself at the newcomer.
"You! How dare you show your face in front of me, ******************!? This is all your fault! Everything is your fault!"
"Whoa, hold on," the Crowned Coalescence showed his palms and backed away. "I don't know who you are, but…" His words trailed off as his vague features shifted, and even his crown quivered with shock as he finally recognised the kid stomping his feet in front of him. "No way. No waaay! Ha! Hahaha!" He pointed a finger at Benjamin's face and burst into uncontrollable laughter that shook the non-walls of the mostly-bright arguably-room. "HAHAHA! You… You got turned into a…! Is that… a Benjamin? Am I getting this right? A BENJAMIN! Hahahaha! This is the funniest shit I've seen since that time the—"
Whatever anecdote he wanted to share was cut short when Benjamin unceremoniously chomped down on his outstretched finger. There was a moment of silence, followed by an ear-piercing scream.
"Yaaaagh! Stop that! Let go!"
"Nfrrr!" Benjamin responded defiantly, his pointy teeth still clamped down around the star-man's fiery digit.
"A little help, please! Somebody! Oriole?!"
"Ah, right!" the girl next to me chirped, finally jolted out of her shock by being addressed directly like that, and she lunged at the white-haired kid. "Obsidius! Help!"
"A-Again!?"
Despite his protest, he also joined Oriole's efforts to pry Benjamin off the Crowned Coalescence.
Meanwhile, I unsubtly sidled over to Carmine and Fulgor's side and whispered, "Is… that how he always acts?"
It was obvious that I meant the crowned man, and while Fulgor only averted his gaze and pretended he couldn't hear me over the commotion, the woman exhaled a long sigh and said, "Not always."
Translation: this kind of behaviour wasn't entirely unusual, which meant… honestly, I didn't even know.
I, for one, certainly wasn't expecting him to be like that. To be fair, I had only met him once, during the first retcon-incident, where he blew his cover to kick the Predator Moon out of the Simulacrum and bought me enough time to finish the scenario, for the most part. In fact, because I hadn't known what I knew now, I was putting all of my chips on him serving as the cavalry at the end, swooping in and resolving everything.
Looking at him right now, he was still kind of imposing. From a purely Emergent perspective, he had a big Domain, and even though it was a bit torn and tattered by his skirmishes with pre-re-Definition Benjamin, it still dwarfed the four Emergents I was familiar with, but…
…
Wait, let's rewind that a bit. 'Familiar' was the word, was it? Maybe that was the thing that had been bothering me ever since he showed up here. He felt oddly 'familiar', but in a rather peculiar way. I knew that at least some parts of me were actively colluding with him, including other-me, who now felt like a drop in the ocean, so feeling some passing familiarity with him based on that wasn't unthinkable, but… no. That wasn't it.
If anything, it was closer to what I often felt when I looked at Carmine. A kind of ephemeral intimacy, closer to a gut-feeling than anything else. What was the connection here?
"V-Venerable Benjamin, please stop this!" Obsidius pleaded while pulling on his legs. "This isn't helping anyone!"
"Sthp cllingh mh thth!" Benjamin snapped back, his teeth still clamped on the finger of the Crowned Coalescence.
"Yes, Benjamin… pff… Listen to reason, Benjamin… pffff… hehe…"
Seeing him laugh, the white kid bit down harder, causing the star-man to hiss and flail again.
"Ow! Sorry, sorry! I couldn't help it!"
Fulgor exhaled a shallow sigh and muttered, "Nothing's getting done at this rate. Someone should do something."
I turned my head to face him, and I found both him and Carmine giving me meaningful looks.
"Oh, fine. Give me a moment." I walked over and tapped Benjamin on the shoulder. "Hey?"
His eyes snapped to me, and he gave me a venomous glare, along with an equally hateful, "Whth?" made slightly comical by the fiery finger still sticking out of his mouth.
"Don't give me that look," I chided him, along with a poke on the forehead. "We both know that you brought this upon yourself, so let's drop the pretences." He only continued to scowl at me, so I tried a different angle. "How about this? For a start, I let you keep the shark-teeth. If you cooperate and let us hear out this guy, I'm open to other concessions, too. Deal?"
He continued to glare at me, but eventually spat out the finger in his mouth and crossed his arms with a displeased, "Hmpf!" but at least he was no longer trying to bite anyone.
"You see? Was it that hard?" I asked, much to the Crowned Coalescence's amusement.
"Right, little Benjamin! You better behave yourself and eat your greens and go to bed on time, or you'll…"
"Excuse me?" I interrupted him with a frown. "I'm trying to defuse the situation here."
"Ah, sorry, sorry. I just couldn't help myself!" The Crowned Coalescene argued with his palms showing. "Can you really blame me? I mean, look at him! I never in a million years expected you to Define him into something so… so…"
Benjamin was about to blow a fuse again, so I once again interjected, this time with a flat, "Are you going to stop, or do I have to Define you into a spindly dude with a Snidely Whiplash moustache?"
That made him pause, and he even took half a step back.
"Now, let's not be hasty. All I'm saying is that little Benjamin here is…"
"With a comically tall top hat that's also two sizes too small? I can already kind of picture it, actually…"
The Crowned Coalescence held my gaze for a few seconds (despite having no visible eyes; it might've been a Venerated Emergent thing), and ultimately surrendered with a groan.
"Ah, fine, fine. I give up. I'll be good."
"Wow…" Fulgor let out a soft whistle in the back. "That's a first."
The sound drew the Crowned Coalescence's attention, but it landed on the woman standing next to the stormy planetoid first, and he exhaled a long, melodramatic sigh.
"Can you believe this, Carmine? He gets out of his cocoon, and the first thing he does is to bully me." He paused and glanced at Benjamin, then back at the woman. "Okay, so maybe it's the second thing, but still! After all that I've done for him!"
Carmine's expression remained stony throughout the entire mini-monologue, and as soon as he finished, she simply asked, "What have you done, exactly?"
"Well… you see, that's a long story."
Suddenly, Oriole let out a giggle, and when I glanced at her, she hastily covered her mouth.
"Ah, sorry. I didn't mean to interrupt. It's just funny that you say the same thing."
Confused, I blurted out, "What thing?"
"You know? 'It's a long story'?" Oriole insisted. "You say that a lot."
"No, I don't."
"Yes, you do," said the Crowned Coalescence, coming to her support.
"And how would you know that?" Carmine asked, eyes once again slowly narrowing into a disapproving squint.
"It's because I've been watching everything. Obviously," he said with a shrug, and then looked at me with a shift in his tone that kind of implied a shit-eating grin. "E-ve-ry-thing."
…
"I'm currently also imagining one of those really, really long Christmas elf shoes, with the nose curling aaall the way back."
"A very narrow and uncomfortable one!" Benjamin of all people joined in, his mouth set into a vicious grin.
"Wait, let's not be hasty!" The burning star-man showed his palms again and even took a whole step back. "How about we just… sit down and discuss things like reasonable adults? That sounds nice. Let's do that, what say you?"
"That's the first reasonable thing you said today," Carmine quipped, causing the Venerated Emergent to let his hands down and face her.
"Oh, come on, Carmine. Don't be like that. Are you still mad at me about that time when we—"
"Not in front of the others!" she hissed back at him, and seeing that the situation was rapidly deteriorating, Fulgor forcefully cleared his throat.
"Let's take it easy, everyone. I'll get a table and some seats, okay?"
As soon as he finished saying that, his outlines blurred, as if melding into the reasonably-bright relatively-room, and then our indistinct surroundings were replaced with a rather plain dining room kind of environment, with a large oval table surrounded by simple dining chairs. All the Emergents gathered around it, and I soon joined them with just a hint of trepidation.
It was nice to meet the Crowned Coalescence, and I imagined I'd finally get to ask the questions that had been bothering me for ages… yet at the same time, I had a sinking feeling that getting actual answers to those questions would be as simple as squeezing water from stone.
"Why am I sitting between these two?" I asked, my question entirely genuine.
While the table was (mostly) round, we somehow ended up dividing into two sides. At the other end, the four familiar Emergents were clustered together, with Carmine sitting directly opposite of me, Oriole and Obsidius on her right, and Fulgor on her left. In contrast, I was sandwiched between the two Venerated Emergents, though their behaviour was anything but worthy of veneration right now.
"Hey, little Benjamin? Do you need a chair pad? Or maybe some cushions? Oh, oh! How about one of those cute baby-chairs?"
"Cease your prattling, before I change my mind and consume you whole!"
"Aww! Little-wittle Benjamin is angwy! He must have lost his favorite teddy bear!"
"Why, you—!"
Running out of patience, I snapped at them with a plain and direct, "Cut it out, you two!" and they both obliged, if grudgingly.
With that over and done with, I turned to face Carmine, only to find her pointing at me.
"That," she said in a flat tone. "That's why you're sitting between them."
As much as I would've liked to argue with that, I couldn't, so I uttered an equally flat, "Fair," before pointedly clearing my throat. "Let's put that aside for now, shall we? I think we have a lot to discuss."
"We do," Carmine agreed with a slight incline of her head. "But first, status report."
"R-Right!" Obsidius stammered and made a few vague motions with his hand, as if trying to space-monk mind-trick the table in front of us. "The scenario is over, but… the Simulacrum session is still ongoing?"
"Obviously," the Crowned Coalescence scoffed, but nobody reacted.
"A-Also…" Obsidius made a few more wavy gestures and finally settled down. "The Simulacrum itself is stable, but… unresponsive."
"Also obviously," the burning star-man scoffed again, this time gesturing towards me.
I turned my head to face him and told him, "If you have nothing to add to the conversation, you may exercise your right to remain silent."
"Hah! Look at that! Even after all I've done, I'm getting the cold shoulder treatment like this!" He shook his head and folded his arms with a theatrical sigh. "Kids these days…"
"Decent segue," I noted with a shallow nod. "We can start by you explaining what you've done."
"Oh? It's my turn already?" He cocked his head to the side and looked over at the white-haired kid sitting at my other side. "Can't we talk about how Benjamin nearly ruined everything first? It would be much more entertaining."
"We're not here to be entertained," the woman at the other end of the table noted with audible distaste in her voice, her hair growing a more vibrant shade of red as her patience was starting to run low. "We would all appreciate it if you took this seriously, for once in your existence."
"Come on, Carmine. Don't be like that."
"Don't 'Carmine' me!" she snapped back at him, her vermillion waters rising like a tsunami. "You disappeared without a trace, doing who knows what all this time, and then when you finally show up, you can't even be bothered to explain yourself? Do you have any idea how much headache you caused us this time?"
"To be fair…" the Crowned Coalescence argued back, yet he was holding his three-fingered hands up in surrender, "… weren't it you guys who tried to prank me first? Technically, everything happened because of that, so…"
"We thought we killed you!" she hissed at him, taking him aback for a moment.
"Oh, please! Like that would ever happen! Nobody really thought I was dead, right?"
His question was met with a wall of silence, eventually broken by Fulgor stifling a groan and saying, "Everyone thought that. That's why the Venerated Benjamin came here to investigate."
"Oh, whatever. You guys just made a mountain out of a molehill. You prank me, I prank you back, what's the difference?"
"This wasn't a prank! You just…!"
And so on and so forth. A whole lot of tension that's been building for a while, released all at once as Carmine vehemently berated the Crowned Coalescence, with occasional background support from the others. That said, this was clearly a two-man act, and looking at these two arguing like this really brought a deadbeat dad and his estranged wife to mind.
I shook the image out of my head and focused on something else. Or rather, someone else.
"Anything to add to that?" I asked Benjamin, who's been unusually well-behaved so far.
"Their conflict has nothing to do with me," he told me frankly, followed by a short pause while he stuck a finger in his mouth to inspect his teeth. Finding them satisfactory, he turned to me and added, "I came here to discover whether ************ was cast back into the Noise or not." As usual, he refused to use the Crowned Coalescence's new name and preferred to just spray a torrent of disjointed concepts and images at me. Maybe it was a generational thing?
"Well, there he is," I said, gesturing at the being still locked in an argument with an increasingly irate ocean of ruby, but then something came to mind, and I let my hand down. "Actually, you knew that he was here for a while now, so why didn't you just go away?"
Benjamin was in the process of observing his fancy shoe buckles, so he didn't respond right away. When he finally did, he off-handedly told me, "Once I discovered that he was hiding inside the Artificial Domain housing the Simulacrum, it was imperative to capture and extract him before he could cause any lasting damage or interfere with the emergence of the Submerged Ones."
"… And then you went into the Simulacrum and tried to literally eat the scenario."
"Yes," he responded like it was self-evident, all the while inspecting his suspenders.
"And you don't see any major contradictions or hints of hypocrisy in that?"
He finally looked me in the eye, and after a long beat, casually explained, "I already told you. I was trying to prevent a singularity."
"By eating the scenario."
"Yes."
"And me."
"Also yes."
"And now we're just having a casual talk after all that," I pointed out, and he nodded along.
"Yes, we do." He acted like it was completely self-explanatory and he proceeded to start tugging on his suspenders again. "I failed, and the singularity already happened. Further hostilities are pointless and inefficient."
"… You tried to ambush and bite me the moment I returned here."
"That was a long time ago. Things have changed."
"It was literally less than five minutes, and… and never mind."
I managed to hold myself back and cut off the topic before we could get into yet another bout of bloody time-block baloney. It was pointless to argue about that with the Emergents here; it was like trying to argue with idiots. They would just drag you down to their level and beat you with experience.
"This Definition might not be as onerous as I first thought," Benjamin stated out of the blue, his fingers coming and tugging at his shiny white hair. "It certainly makes communication more efficient."
He… wasn't entirely wrong about that. Compared to the time of our scuffle inside the Simulacrum, he was considerably more articulate. Soft-spoken, even. Was it because we weren't communicating through our Defined bodies, but more 'directly', I wondered. Or maybe he just had a harder time talking because his mouth was full at the time. With both me and the literal scenery, but I digress.
Meanwhile, the argument between the crowned star and the crimson oceans was getting out of hand, and I was flagged down by Oriole.
"Sol? Help, please?"
The request came in the form of the high-pitched chirping of a whole flock of newborn chicks, and so I pulled my attention away from Benjamin and faced her.
"I told you guys, Leonard will do, and…" My gaze landed on the Crowned Coalescence next, and I asked, "What's your general opinion on pompadours?"
That made him pause and cock his head to the side again.
"Erm… Why do you ask?"
"Because I'm starting to wonder how you would look with one. Like, a comically large one."
"Whoa, whoa!" He sat up straight and raised his hands. "Let's not be hasty."
"Depends. Can we have a proper discussion without it devolving into a shouting match?"
My question made him glance at Carmine (which was, once again, mostly just an inference on my end, considering he had no facial features) and eventually resulted in a defeated sigh.
"Fine, fine. I'll be the bigger man and admit that we all could've avoided a lot of complications if I showed some signs of life earlier on. My bad." He paused for a long beat, then asked, in a slightly lower voice, "Happy?"
"No," Carmine answered flatly, but then she glanced at me for some reason and then her expression eased up with an added, "But it's a start."
The Crowned Coalescence responded with a happy-go-lucky, "Yep! So? What do you guys want to know?"
The ruby ocean responded with a succinct, "Everything," prompting the star-man to stifle a laugh.
"Well, it all started with the initial expansion of space-time about—" Low on patience, I extended a phantom limb (which was still invisible even here, for reasons that were beyond my understanding right now) and I lightly smacked him in the back of the head. He froze up and muttered, "Kids these days…" again before clearing his throat and starting from the beginning.
"Okay, let's skip the first thirteen-or-so billion years. So, I was just minding my business, as usual, when a little bird told me you guys were making another scenario, and it was designed to make sure I couldn't mess with it. You know me, I love a good challenge, so I came in, and there was a bang, and a kaboom, and a ker-chunk, and then I took the wrong exit and somehow fell into the Simulacrum while it was already running. So, as a responsible Venerated Emergent, I pulled the handbrake, threw myself in reverse, and tried to pull out, but then disaster struck! I missed the junction, and I somehow ended up falling out of the Simulacrum and right into the Artificial Domain!"
"So far, as expected," Benjamin noted with mild disinterest, way more absorbed in the elasticity of his socks than the conversation.
"Maybe, but then there was a twist!" the Crowned Coalescence declared with a theatrical flare. No, not 'flair'; he literally started glowing for dramatic effect. "The Artificial Doman is huge. You know that, right? Of course you do. Getting out of it without accidentally breaking anything was way too difficult, so I started moving about veeery slowly and veeery deliberately, and as I was feeling my way around like a blind bull in a china shop, I found something peculiar. Drumroll, please…"
He was waiting for us to do something, and while I didn't doubt that any of the quartet at the other end of the table could've made the mostly-bright debatably-room produce a drumroll sound effect, nobody wanted to land on the bad side of the woman impatiently tapping her finger on the table. At last, the star-man gave up with a huff.
"You guys are no fun. Fine. I'll do it myself." He cleared his throat and then started… making noises. With the mouth that he didn't have. "Ra-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-TAMM!" At its crescendo, he threw his hands to the side, pointing at…
"Me?" I blurted out, and after a brief pause, he let his hands down.
"Kind of. It's a bit more complicated than that, so let's start at the beginning. What I found was more of a nascent consciousness. At first, I thought it was just a Submerged One in the process of Emerging, but the more I looked, the weirder it felt, and then I finally got it! It was the core of the Artificial Domain itself! You know how, when a Submerged One emerges, they get pushed out of the Simulacrum, through the Artificial Domain? I figure that whenever that happened, they left a tiiiny bit of an impression there, and over a looong time, those slowly added up. Nobody discovered it beforehand, because everyone was too afraid of breaking something to go inside and take a look around, but it must've been there for aeons!"
"How does that relate to me?" I asked, and the Crowned Coalescence waved his hand at me.
"Patience, kid. I'm getting there. You see, my first reaction was 'Oh, crap!'. My second reaction was, 'Wait! If the Artificial Domain Defines itself, it's going to cause a whole lot of trouble! Maybe I should get rid of it?'. But then, on third thought, I was like, 'Waaait a minute. This could be huge!' and it gave me a great idea! So, guys? Do you know what a Seed Amalgam is?"
I blurted out an instant, "No?"
I mean, how was I supposed to know? On the other hand, Carmine's hair suddenly turned a dull orange, her red eyes wide like saucers.
"You didn't…"
"What?" Obsidius asked, looking confused.
"Hush! This is the best part!" Oriole chided him and put a bag of popcorn in front of him.
"You," Benjamin chimed in, pointing at the girl. "Share it with me. I wish to test this Definition's senses."
While the three kids (by a certain point of view) were busy with that, Fulgor squinted at Carmine, then at the Crowned Coalescence, and finally at me.
"Now that I think about it, that makes a whole lot of sense. Why didn't I think of this before?"
"Would someone explain what the heck you're talking about?"
My interjection was answered by Benjamin of all people, his mouth full of popcorn.
"A spurious practice. The younger generation's attempt at replicating biological reproduction. Must be an influence of their Definition." He swallowed, then continued in the same breath. "Two Emergents forcefully sever a part of their Domains and merge it together before placing it inside the Simulacrum, in hopes that it would act as a seed and Define itself with the help of a scenario. Some claimed to have succeeded, but there's no clear evidence for the efficacy of the procedure."
"Wait…" I cut in with one hand raised high. "Let me see if I get this straight. You had one of these… What did you call it?"
Carmine whispered, "Seed Amalgam," while staring at me, making me even more convinced of my hunch.
"Yeah." For the first time, the Crowned Coalescence sounded a little sheepish. "We never got around to putting it into the Simulacrum, so I kept it. Like, a memento of the good old times."
Fulgor suddenly buried his face in his hand and muttered, "I can't believe you made a Seed Amalgam with him. I thought you were more sensible than this."
"It was… a long time ago…" Carmine protested, and the atmosphere turned decidedly awkward. Not for long, though, because the burning star-man let out a low chuckle and opened his arms wide.
"It's a good thing we did, because that was exactly what the nascent consciousness I found needed. As soon as I introduced the Seed Amalgam, it latched onto it! I carefully guided it to the Simulacrum, and the moment it made contact with your scenario, it… I mean, he, immediately Defined himself on the spot! It was crazy!"
"Stop, stop. Let me digest this…" I cut in, my hand raised once again. "So you used this seed thing to act as a core for the Artificial Domain, and then I… Defined myself into myself?"
"That's the gist of it," he said with a shrug. "It all went swimmingly, but then it turned out that since you were inside a scenario, the framework of the Simulacrum treated you as a Submerged One and didn't let you get out until it was over, so we—"
"Stop, again!" I cut in, and for a change of pace, I forcefully planted my hands on the table this time. "You're trying to gloss over this, but if what you're saying is true, that would make me…"
My voice trailed off, my eyes shifting between the Crowned Coalescence, maintaining a forced nonchalance that wasn't fooling anyone, and Carmine, who looked like her whole world was rocked and she couldn't decide if she should be outraged, elated, or just plain old dumbfounded.
As for me, I was still wresting with the realization that the happy-go-lucky star-man sitting next to me didn't just give off a deadbeat dad vibe, he was literally (or at the very least metaphorically) my deadbeat dad. Because this whole situation wasn't odd and confusing enough, right?
So, this discussion took a weird turn, though not necessarily a wholly unexpected one. From effectively the first time I could remember laying eyes on her, even before we officially met face to face, I always felt that Carmine was oddly familiar. It was something of a gut-feeling, a vague awareness that I couldn't quite put my finger on, and meeting the Crowned Coalescence in the flesh (or in the Definition, at the very least) triggered the same feeling.
Until now, I chalked it up to some hitherto undiscovered metaphysical malarkey, like some yet-another-me meeting them in the past, or some time-block balderdash of me meeting them in my subjective future affecting my past, but in retrospect, neither of those ideas was sound. I never had the same sentiment towards Oriole or Fulgor, let alone Benjamin, so it was blindingly obvious that these two were special in some way.
"Does that mean I have parts of you in me?" I asked the two, yet it was the ex-bony-abomination that answered first.
"In the strictly literal sense, we're all inside your Domain right now."
I sent a sideways glance at Benjamin, then reiterated, "That's not what I was asking about, and you know it."
He was looking at me with a deadpan, disinterested stare, so maybe he didn't.
"Technically speaking, yeah," the Crowned Coalescence answered with an implied smirk. "But only if a human's progenitors are still technically inside them."
"… How does that work?"
My inquiry made him chuckle, and he made a grand gesture with his arms.
"You see, kid, when a mommy and a daddy like each other very, very much, they—"
My phantom limb was still hovering close by after the last time, so I gave him another smack on the back of the head and turned to Carmine. She twitched when our gazes met, and then she awkwardly cleared her throat.
"He's being facetious, but he's not lying, if that's what you're worried about. Of course, creating a Seed Amalgam isn't so… 'physically involved' as biological reproduction, but its whole purpose is to create a template construct that the Simulacrum could, theoretically, act upon and result in an Emergence."
"I think you can drop the 'theoretical' bit," Fulgor noted on the side, sounding just a touch vexed. "At first, we were shocked that we accidentally killed him. Then, when we discovered he's fine, we got caught up in a conflict between Venerated Emergents. Then as soon as that piped down, it was the Venerated Benjamin nearly breaking the scenario, and then when that was over, it turned out our special consultant was the owner of the Artificial Domain and the Simulacrum, and just when I'm about to wrap my head around the implications of that, it turns out he's also the first confirmed example of Seed Amalgam successfully Emerging?" He exhaled a sharp huff and added, "Can we please slow down a bit and not have any new paradigm-shattering revelations for just five minutes?"
"Hey, don't look at me like it's somehow my fault!" I protested with maybe a bit too much vehemence, and he hurriedly backpedalled.
"No, I mean… I wasn't. I'm just saying that a little break, so we could catch our breath, would be nice. That's all."
That made everyone fall silent, potentially in full agreement, so I closed my eyes and spent the next couple of seconds ruminating on this whole thing. Honestly, most of what Fulgor complained about was beyond my pay grade. The Crowned Coalescence causing a scene by hiding away until everyone thought he was dead was his own damn fault and responsibility, and while I didn't know how big a deal a clash between Venerated Emergents was, it was their business. Benjamin throwing a tantrum, that was something I already resolved, so the only thing that bothered me was my origins, and learning that I was directly related to these two was…
Honestly, I didn't mind Carmine. She was mostly sensible, and she had always been friendly (maybe because she was feeling the same odd familiarity that I did), but the Crowned Coalescence was… Honestly, I found him annoying. I mean, I wouldn't be alive right now if not for him, but everything after that was a shit-show. If nothing else, I could at least breathe easy knowing that the apple fell far from its tree this time, and we were nothing alike. And no, I refused to hear anything to the contrary.
On a different yet related note, I, Leonard S. Dunning, started out not having any idea about my family, then I got accepted by the Dracises, then it turned out I was an orphan raised by a conniving bastard, then we kind of adopted each other with the senior Knights out of necessity, and then this. I went from no family to two families and some questionable father figures.
How was I going to explain this to Arnwald and Morgana? Did I even have to? Questions for later.
For now, I inhaled deeply and turned my attention back to the Crowned Coalescence.
"How about we put the whole 'Seed Amalgam' thing aside for a second and discuss it later? Possibly in private."
"I second that," Carmine backed me up with a soft hum.
"Oh, fine, fine," the burning star-man responded by waving his hand like he was chasing a nosy fly and then pointed at me. "We were at the point where you Defined yourself, right? That's where the problems began." He paused while he crossed his arms and then slowly shook his head. "If you just stopped there, that would've been fine, but you went ahead and just put your fingers all over the Simulacrum. I mean, it's all part of you, so I understand the curiosity, but you ended up with this crazy-ass Definition that was embodying the entire thing!"
"And that's bad?"
"Of course!" he replied off the cuff. "Being every single person, and the dogs and the birds and the lampposts at the same time is not a proper Definition! You can't have a conversation with a lamppost! It's just crazy-talk! Literally! So, I had to teach you how to cut off and trim all the unnecessary bits, but it wasn't easy. You were like one of those human baby things that wanted to put everything in their mouths! It was lucky Oriole quickly erased the records and helped cover up that whole thing, or the plan would've been a bust!"
"She did what?" Carmine blurted out, eyes squinting at the twin-tailed girl currently pretending to be more innocent than a newborn lamb.
"More on that later," the Crowned Coalescence cut in and made a careless gesture towards them. "As I was saying, the kid here made this ridiculous Definition, but then he finally started narrowing things down, and eventually settled on embodying the coolest toy in the toy box."
"Which was… Leonard Dunning?" I asked, only mildly incredulous, and he nodded along.
"Exactly. But then came the second problem: the scenario mistook you for a Submerged One in the process of Emerging! And because the whole Simulacrum was built around safeguarding and nurturing Submerged Ones, you got locked in! It was like you poked one of those finger-trap things, and now you couldn't get out! So, your core with the Seed Amalgam was in the Artificial Domain and couldn't get in without breaking something, and your Definition was inside the Simulacrum and couldn't get it out without breaking something. You were effectively stuck half-Emerging."
"How is that even possible?" Obsidius asked in a low voice, though it sounded like he was just thinking aloud and wasn't expecting an answer.
"The kid's a special case," said the Crowned Coalescence with a shrug. "I mean, he got trapped within himself. Isn't that 'special' already?"
Ignoring that, I interjected, saying, "Hold on, I have a question. You said you 'guided' me and 'taught' me things, but I don't remember ever meeting you until Benjamin first came into the scenario."
The white-haired kid on my left looked up, hearing his name, but when nobody addressed him, he returned to eating a pineapple Oriole conjured up for him at one point. The whole thing, skin and leaves and all.
More importantly, the Crowned Coalescence rubbed his chin, and after giving it a lot of thought, he let out an ambivalent, "Eh? I did, but you weren't properly Defined back then. It's like… how should I put this…" He rubbed his chin even harder, and then suddenly pointed at Carmine, making her twitch and her waves turn dead still for a moment. "Hey, do you remember that thing you always liked? You know? The psychological thing with the three parts?"
"… Are you talking about Freudian psychology?"
"The Id, the Ego, and the Superego," Fulgor spoke absently, and when everyone turned to him, he hastily explained, "It's the basis of one of the power-trio character dynamics, the aptly named Freudian Trio." He looked at me and added, "You're a man of culture, so you should be aware of this."
"I mean, I am tangentially familiar, but…" I raised a palm. "Give me a moment to think."
I wish I had Judy on hand to ask, because I was sure she knew way more about this, but from what I remembered, the three concepts Fulgor mentioned were part of the psychoanalytical framework of Sigmund Freud, and they described different layers or agents that influenced how human consciousness operated. In that context…
"I suppose I'm the Ego," I said, and both the Crowned Coalescence and Carmine nodded along, as if it was obvious.
The Ego was the cognizant part of the mind that operated the body and was doing all the logic-ing and reasoning and emotional maturity-ing. In short, the consciousness and personality of an individual, which fit right into the context of the Definition/Domain duality of an Emergent.
"In that case, the part of me you taught things was something like the… Superego?"
Nobody was in a hurry to agree openly this time, but they didn't disagree either, and it made some sense. The Superego was the part of the psyche that was formed by and adhered to outside norms and rules, like whatever the Crowned Coalescence taught me, or the scenario. It would've also meant that all of these other-me-s that I absorbed, and even Narrative-me, were probably all part of the Superego, the part of me that was aware of the Emergents, the Simulacrum's operations, and the need to complete the scenario from the very beginning.
"What's my Id then?"
This time, nobody reacted at all, leaving it to me to try and figure it out myself. The Id was the part of the psyche that was all about subconscious base instincts and desires. In the case of the human psyche, that was all about gratification and pleasure, but I didn't think that translated one-to-one with Emergents, so…
Hold it.
For the longest time, I was under the impression that the Simulacrum was running on some base set of tropes hard-coded into its framework, but what if I was wrong? I was interested in tropes and plot devices since pretty much the first day I woke up, and once Narrative-me was hamstrung by my first retcon, I would often inadvertently cause odd events and bend the plot in unexpected, tropey ways without meaning to. That sounded dangerously like 'subconscious base instincts and desires to me', meaning… Was it all me? All along?
"I'm starting to feel like I might be my own worst enemy…"
My comment elicited a round of awkward silence, but then the Crowned Coalescence grabbed the rudder of the conversation again and said, "Don't overthink it, kid. Even I'm not sure where I was going with that."
"They why did you bring it up?" Carmine asked with a brow slightly raised, and he shrugged in return.
"Because… you know? You always like this human psycho-stuff, with your Freuds and Jungs and whatnot, so I figured you might want to talk with the kid about it." That resulted in another beat of awkward silence, and then he forcefully cleared his throat again and looked at me. "Anyhow, I guess you got the gist of it. For you to properly Emerge, the scenario had to be finished, but it couldn’t be rushed, because then all the Submerged Ones would've been screwed."
"We did end up rushing because of a certain someone," I pointed out while also glancing at Benjamin, who was currently stoically eating a rice-omelette dish right out of a Japanese family restaurant menu (or at least an anime rendition of it), with a cute little white flag on it. Which he ate like it was an appetiser.
"Eh, it was fine!" the crowned star-man dismissed my concerns, only to pause and backpedal. "Was it fine? Did anyone check on the Submerged Ones yet?"
"I didn't have the time…" Obsidius groaned, and then Oriole chimed in with, "We can do it later, after we finish talking! I'm sure nothing bad happened!"
Fulgor grumbled, "At least one of us is optimistic," under his moustache, while Carmine closed her eyes and massaged her temple.
"The Submerged Ones are important, but we have to consider our own situation." She abruptly pointed at me. "How are we going to explain him to the Venerated Emergents?"
She brought up a good point, so I backed her up and pointed to my left with my thumb.
"Right. I don't know much about how Emergent society works, or if there even is one, but looking at this guy over here, I'm feeling a bit worried."
The target of my pointing already finished his dish and was now casually eating an empty plate, not paying me any attention, while the other Venerated Emergent only scoffed.
"Hah! Come on, kid! Haven't you realized it yet, even after what you did with little cutie Benjamin here?"
The white-haired kid looked up, a quarter of a plate still sticking out of his mouth, and glared at the Crowned Coalescence. Then he swallowed it in one gulp and turned to me, his expression looking almost pouty.
"He isn't wrong. We Venerated Ones gained our Definitions through intuition and self-reflection, so they're more volatile and difficult to keep consistent compared to the human-based Definitions of the younger generations. In a sense, we are acutely vulnerable to re-Definition from the outside."
"Which normally wouldn't be a problem," the Crowned Coalescence continued in the same track, looking rather smug, "Except the Simulacrum was designed from the ground up to aid Defining, and it's now a part of you, making you a natural expert on Definitions!"
"Oh. That makes a lot of sense," Obsidius noted, and even Fulgor grunted in agreement.
"And your Domain is really big," Oriole chimed in next with an ear-to-ear grin. "Nobody's going to want to pick a fight with you!"
Fulgor let out another grunt, this time followed by the words, "If anything, some might ask you to re-Define them, out of curiosity. I mean, just look at the Venerated Benjamin!"
We all did, and despite being in the centre of attention, he continued to munch on the remaining silverware like they were some kind of rare delicacy, completely unfazed.
"That's… a bit too convenient to accept at face value," I told them, my brows descending into a frown on their own accord. "In my opinion, if something sounds too good to be true, it usually isn't."
Though again, my opinions were shaped by my experiences, which were potentially the result of Id-me messing with Ego-me while Superego-me was trying (and failing) to keep things on track, so that might now have been the best foundation to build a worldview upon. But I digress.
"You also have to consider that if you really are…" Carmine started, only to pause to rub her temple once more and try again. "There are many Emergents out there hoping for a successful Seed Amalgam, and if you are, on top of everything else…"
As he trailed off, the Crowned Coalescence clapped his hands and declared, "In short, half of the old guard will want to avoid you like the plague, the other half will want to ask for Definitions, while the new kids will want to ask your help on how to make even newer kids!"
"I still refuse to believe it's going to be that simple, but can we rewind the conversation a bit?" I glanced at Obsidius. "You said the Simulacrum wasn't responding to that icosahedron control panel of yours, right?"
"Icosahedron?" he repeated after me, but then quickly shook his head. "I-I mean, no, it doesn't. I mean, you don't."
I pressed on.
"And nobody checked on the Submerged Ones yet?" He nodded, along with the others. "Does that mean they're still stuck in me?"
"Maybe?"
Obsidius's reply didn't inspire much confidence, so I looked at the others, and eventually Carmine stood up from her chair.
"Sol… I mean, Leonard is right. We can discuss everything in greater detail later, but first we must attend to our duties." She looked over the rest of the group. "Fulgor? I want a report on the scenario. Obsidius, keep monitoring the integrity of the Simulacrum and look for signs of Emerging Submerged ones. Oriole…" By the look of her tone, she wanted to question her involvement with the Crowned Coalescence, but seeing that she was busy conjuring up even more dishes for the gluttonous little ex-aberration, she let out a deflated sigh and said, "You keep assisting the Venerated Benjamin. As for you…"
Her eyes finally landed on the Crowned Coalescence, and she flatly told him, "Don't go anywhere. We have a lot to talk about."
"I suppose we do," he acquiesced, and at last, Carmine's attention was back on me.
Yet, before she could say anything, I already stood up and told them, "I think I should go and check out how things are going inside the Simulacrum."
"Ah… Yes, but…" Carmine hesitated, but at last she steeled her nerves, her crimson hair regaining its shine and her eyes all but glowing as she told me, "Once you're done, please find me. We also need to talk."
"In private," I guessed.
"In private," she confirmed.
"All right. I need to sleep on all this, metaphorically speaking, so see you all later. Till then…" I paused and turned to Benjamin, in the process of trying to fit a whole can of soda into his mouth. "You, behave yourself." He scowled at me, but couldn't respond because, once again, mouth full with a soda-can. Meanwhile, I turned to the other Venerated Emergent and sternly told him, "You also behave yourself."
"Oh, come on, kid. Don't be like that."
I maintained eye contact (or equivalent, because still no facial features) until he grumbled a grudging 'Fine,' followed by a customary 'Kids these days'. With that, I bid my farewell and left the fairly-bright definitely-room.
There was no void outside anymore, just my Domain, so I maintained my shape as Leonard S. Dunning during transit back to the Simulacrum. While it technically only took a blink of an eye, like when I was Phasing between two locations, I somehow still managed to squeeze in some time for introspection.
So, I was not only an Emergent, I was a super-special-awesome Emergent who not only couldn't be bullied by the old eldritch star-people, but had an entire star-people nursery inside me, which also happened to be the place I considered to be my home. So… was I a god? Not in the monotheistic sense, but in a more colloquial one?
I mean, I certainly wasn't omnipresent, omnipotence was… a bit trickier to answer, and omnibenevolence was something I considered an incoherent philosophical concept at the best of times, so… wait. I wasn't omnipresent or omnipotent, but Narrative-me used to be, and… going even deeper, if Id-me really is the trope-framework of the Simulacrum, then wouldn't that mean that I'm…
"I really need to brainstorm this with the girls…" I muttered as I Defined myself back into the Simulacrum.
I hoped Judy wouldn't freak out after hearing all this. Elly… will probably take it in stride, I imagined. She never really stressed herself over these things too much, and maybe she had the right idea.
Anyhow, once I honed in on them, I popped into existence next to my girlfriends. Thankfully, they finally moved out of the bloody crater (it was getting a bit old at this point), and we were inside a room in a fancy hotel next to the train station.
"Hi, girls," I greeted them right away, and for once, neither of them jumped me. Probably because they were too tired.
"Hi, Leo!" the princess greeted me back, sprawled out on the bed of the tastefully bourgeois hotel room, her feet dangling off the side, while my dear assistant was chilling on a generously padded sofa.
"Welcome back, Chief. How's the situation?"
"The main threat is subdued, the Simulacrum is stable, allegedly nobody will want a piece of me for a while, and the Crowned Coalescence may or may not be my deadbeat dad. It's all confusing and metaphysics-y and wibbly-wobby." I internally debated bringing up the whole 'god' thing, but I decided against it and instead just asked, "How are things over here? Is everyone okay?"
"More or less," Elly responded from the bed. "My throat still hurts. I want hot cocoa."
"I'll see what I can do about that," I said with a smile automatically settling on my face. "What about you, Dormouse?"
She put down her communicator glasses and, after a brief beat, she flatly stated, "The campaign is going well. The Draconic Federation has already taken Castle Nergal, and Castle Gula is about to fall."
I thought she was kidding at first, but she looked dead serious, so I tentatively asked, "How long was I gone?"
"About fifteen or so minutes," Judy answered reflexively, followed by a slightly uncertain, "Why?"
"That checks out," I muttered as I tried to recall how much time I'd spend in the remarkably-bright obviously-room. "How did that happen?"
"Celestial portals," Elly chimed in, still lying on her back on the bed. "They had spies eeeverywhere, and they opened portals to them, and then went whooosh!"
"Yes, thank you, princess, but I asked the wrong question. Let me try again." Clearing my throat, I turned to Judy. "Why is this happening?"
"You said we're invading the Abyss," she told me matter-of-factly. "So, we're invading the Abyss. We should have total control of the major cities within twenty-four hours."
Once again, I really hoped she was joking, but she looked entirely serious, so I immediately face-palmed, and I could practically hear my theoretical Id-me having a good laugh at my expense.
"It's confirmed. I really am my own worst enemy…"