The Simulacrum - Chapter 142 - Part 3 (Patreon)

"I'm back. How's the sit—"

"Leooo!"

As soon as I returned to Site B, I was nearly tackled off my feet by Angie, much to the surprise of the Praetorian Guards, Assembly Magi, and assorted Celestials in the room. It wasn't all of them, as there was no way everyone could be crammed into the main floor of a nearby coffee shop they commandeered as an emergency base of operations, but having dozens of eyes focused on me was still a bit awkward.

"I'm glad to see you're all right, but you better let me go before Josh gets jealous."

"I'm not gonna," her boyfriend declared with a huff but he still grabbed her by the waist and pulled her away from me all the same.

Paying no attention to him, the Celestial girl kept staring at me with a mixture of relief and outrage, ultimately settling on the latter, and as soon as Josh deemed the distance between the two of us good enough and let her go, she pointed an accusative finger at me.

"Where did you go?! Do you know how crazy things got here!? Bel of the Abyss showed up, and…" She blinked, falling silent, and hissed to the side. "Yes, I was about to tell him!" She turned back to me and pointed even harder as she declared, "Grandpa Deus says he's definitely Bel of the Tenebrous Flames! Did you know that? Why did you work with him? He's super dangerous!"

"Yes, yes, I know…" I told her half-heartedly while looking for Jaakobah in the group. When I couldn't find him, I turned to Josh. "Did you get Judy's message?"

"Yeah. They are already making a portal outside."

He sounded downright exhausted, but he couldn't hold a candle to how I was feeling at the moment.

"Leo! Are you even listening to us?!" Angie stepped between the two of us with a pout. "This is an emergency!"

"It's not that big of a deal," I told her in a level voice and continued to glance around. "I'm more concerned about whether the situation is fully under control over here."

"I managed to conceal most of the fighting, but we can't do much about the collateral damage," an equally tired Lord Taika responded to me with weary eyes as she walked over. "It's a small miracle that the authorities aren't here yet. Lord Endymonion must've pulled some strings to delay them, but we should vacate the area before they arrive and start questioning everyone."

"Good idea. Injuries?"

"The little miss gave us a few scratches, but it's no big deal!" Lord Ambrose's loud voice startled me as he joined the conversation from behind us, and it caused the previously fiery Angie to hide behind Josh. "I once again proved that the School of Invocation is not to be trifled with!"

"He says, but things got a bit dicey a few times," Lord Gulliver chimed in from behind the older arch-mage, and he got his foot stomped for his trouble.

"Silence, fool! You're making us look bad in front of Leonard!"

Ignoring those two, or why looking bad in front of me was his main concern, my attention was drawn back to a visibly fidgeting Angie. Our eyes met, and after a few seconds, her face flushed and she stepped up from behind Josh to clear her throat and address the arch-mages.

"Erm… I'm… sorry for losing my cool like that and causing problems for everyone." She paused, her eyes glossing over for a second, and after a few blinks, she looked at the arch-mages and sheepishly added, "Um… Grandpa Deus says he's not sorry at all, but he acknowledges your strength. He also says that if he was in his prime, he would've beaten you."

"Oh? Is that a challenge?" Lord Ambrose's eyes lit up at once, so I sent a glare at him.

"Back off. We don't have time for this."

"Well, of course…" the arch-mage muttered while patting his beard and pointedly averting his gaze. "But maybe later, we could—"

He couldn't finish his line, because he was almost knocked over by my draconic girlfriend, who beelined at me the moment she entered the coffee shop.

"Leo!" I was once against tackle-hugged, though this time I didn't mind it half as much. It only lasted for a second though, and she stepped back and began to pat down my whole body. "Are you all right? You're not hurt anywhere, right? How's your headache? Do you need a lap pillow?"

My lips automatically parted into a smile, followed by a soft chuckle.

"I'm fine, but thanks for the offer."

She exhaled a relieved breath and sidled up to me.

"What exactly happened back there? Judy tried to explain things to me, but I still can't follow what's going on."

She tried to speak in a low voice for only me, but Josh obviously overheard her and let out a lung-rattling sigh.

"Join the club. Getting shot was bad enough, but then everything went nuttier than squirrel-shit, and before I knew it, there were arch-mages and Celestials and Bel of the goddamn Abyss running amok, and I could barely keep up."

Hearing that, his girlfriend turned to him with a toothy grin.

"Now, now. Don't say that, champ! You did great! Even Grandpa Deus says you weren't terrible!"

"Was that supposed to make me feel better?"

"Yeah! It's high praise from him!" She tried to playfully punch the guy in the shoulder, but when he genuinely winced, her expression turned on a dime. "Ah! S-Sorry! Did I open your wound again? P-Poopie! Stay still, I'll heal you again!"

"It's not that bad."

"Don't move! I'll try a high-hymnos chant this time!"

While those two were busy, I scanned the people in the room once again and closed my eyes with a shallow sigh. Josh and Elly weren't the only ones out of the loop. I still wasn't completely clear on the effects of my retcon, but from context clues, I could gather the following.

One: The assassination attempt still happened, and Josh still got injured by it.

Two: Angie still went out of control while trying to catch the assassins, and the Ambrose-Gulliver duo held her back.

Three: The nature of Angie's possession by Deus was fundamentally changed. By the sound of it, it was no longer a body-snatcher situation, but more of a 'mental roommate' kind of deal, where she could freely communicate with Deus in her head while retaining full autonomy.

Furthermore, it seemed like it wasn't a recent development, but an overhaul of the relationship between the two of them from the ground up. It was certainly something I would've done when I had the chance to redefine things, so I was pretty sure I did just that, even if the details of exactly what I did were a little fuzzy. How that affected past events was still up in the air, but at the very least Angie seemed much more stable, and injuries were kept to a minimum, so I wasn't going to complain. I'd have all the time in the world to fill out the blanks in my understanding later.

I was also tempted to check Angie's soul now, but I discarded the idea. I'll have more than enough opportunities later, and after what just happened, I didn't want anything to do with souls, let alone touch them, unless absolutely necessary. But speaking of her, once she finished singing her aria, and Josh's face regained some of its vitality, the Celestial girl let out a satisfied huff, followed by an annoyed click of her tongue.

"Oh fine! But just for a minute, okay?"

With those words, she turned around and marched up to me, startling Elly in the process. Closing her eyes for a moment, I could see her softly glow with the familiar, colourless and insubstantial hues of magic, and with it, her whole atmosphere shifted. Then, the moment her eyelids popped open, she practically glowered at me.

"Polemos! What the hell were you doing!?" She reached out to my neck, as if trying to grab hold of my clothes, but because I was in my Celestial disguise that still included a chest plate, halfway through the motion she extended a finger and poked me in the chest instead. "How could you leave at a crucial time like that?! If you were still here, we could've caught that traitorous bastard in a pincer maneuver and put an end to this charade once and for all!"

It took inhuman effort to still my facial muscles, but I managed. Elly couldn't, and her mouth practically hung open with a classic 'What is this I don't even' kind of expression. Angie… or, based on the vocabulary, Deus didn't pay her any heed though, and she continued to glare at me like we were mortal enemies.

"I was busy."

"Busy. Busy?!" To punctuate her outrage, she repeatedly poked my chest like I was a vintage arcade cabinet, culminating in her stomping her foot in impotent rage. "What could be more important than killing that son of a bitch!? It's Bel, I tell you! The real deal! He must've also used that reincarnation technique he sold us, the sneaky bastard! And he even looked like how he did back then! Argh!" Angie/Deus held her head in her hands and grimaced so hard I was afraid her eyes would fall out at any second. "That bitch! He gave us a flawed method, while he kept the complete one to himself! I'll kill him! Killing him a thousand times over wouldn't be enough to temper all this unyielding rage! I'll beat the ever-loving shit out of him, and then scatter his ashes across the seven seas! But not before pissing on them! But firtst, I'll—!"

"Quit it," I told her sternly and reflexively flicked her forehead. It was only after I did it that I realized it might've been a mistake, considering it was Deus we were talking about, but to my surprise, she immediately settled down. While also guarding her forehead the same way Angie would in the past.

"I'm calm. I'm calm." She repeated that a couple more times, but then her face turned red and she stomped her feet again. "No! I'm not calm! It's not fair! We both came back like this, while he gets to enjoy having his own body! Screw that bastard! I'll so kill him the next time I—" When I raised a finger poised for a flick again, she immediately fell silent and doubled down on her forehead-guarding. We maintained eye contact for a while, and when I let my hand down, she let out a relieved breath. "I'm calm. Really, I am."

"Stay that way. Throwing a tantrum won't help anyone."

"I'm not throwing a tantrum!" she objected with a pout, while her hands remained on her forehead. "I'm justifiably angry! In fact, why aren't you angry? He screwed us over! Or… did you already know?"

She kept scrutinizing me, and while I was on the back foot and not sure how to deal with this Deus character, I had to say something.

"You must've noticed that he's quite erratic."

I wanted to continue and point out how Bel was unpredictable and whatnot, but she snapped her finger and suddenly flashed a triumphant grin, cutting me short.

"A-ha! You're right! Are you saying that it's a side effect of the technique he used? Did it drive him insane? Ha! Serves him right, that bastard! I guess being trapped in other bodies while maintaining ourselves is still better than that, but it doesn't mean that I won't kill him the next time I see him! I'll wring the neck of that fu—!" Before she could finish, her whole body shuddered, and after blinking a few times, her atmosphere mellowed out. It was only for a second though, before she glared at the ceiling and yelled, "That's it! If you're only going to make Leo mad at us, I'm not letting you out anymore! You even made him flick our forehead! It hurt!"

"Man…" Josh muttered behind his girlfriend and shook his head with visible trepidation. "She was always a handful, but this is really getting out of hand."

"It could be worse," I told him, with all the world-weary reassurance of someone who had literally seen a worse scenario.

Josh raised a critical eyebrow at me, but before we could get started, Jaakobah entered the coffee shop and I waved for him to come over. In a second, he was already in front of me and giving a salute.

"Lord Archon. The gateway to Elysium will open shortly, and the Praetorian Guard is ready and eager to provide support."

"Finally some good news," I whispered and inhaled deeply, adopting my usual Polemos persona. "The assassins?"

"In the custody of the Ordo Draconis."

"The civilians?"

"Already back in their homes. We told them there was a gas explosion near the apartment building, but the danger was already over."

"Good thinking. Anything else to stop us from heading over?"

"None that I can think of."

Exhaling, I turned to Elly next.

"I'll step out for a minute and do some long-overdue spring cleaning in the Elysium. Hold the fort while I'm away."

"O-Okay. Stay safe."

I really wanted to give her a kiss, or at least a peck on the forehead, but the mood wasn't right. I made a mental note to give it to her later, and turned to the childhood friend couple.

"You two. Come with me."

"Me too?" Josh blurted out in alarm, and it was one of the rare occasions where I was entirely justified to give him his own medicine by raising a single critical bow at him.

"Of course. I'll need you to guard Angie."

"Ah. Okay then."

He accepted my proposal quicker than expected, so I dramatically glanced around and raised my voice so that it could be heard over the noise floor of the room.

"Good job, everyone. Tonight was hectic, but you have performed your duties admirably and we successfully averted the worst-case-scenario. Thank you for all your hard work."

They clearly didn't expect that, most clearly seen by Lord Ambrose, who was alternating between harrumphs and huffs to make sure he wouldn't show his real feelings, while the rest of the Celestials and Magi were either surprised, touched, or proud. Mostly a combination of all three.

There was no time to waste though, so I turned on my heel and walked out of the coffee shop, closely followed by the childhood friends and the Praetorian Guards. Once outside, Jaakobah took the helm and he led us behind the building, where a nondescript Celestial (by the looks of her uniform, one of the CIEL operatives who showed up in the first wave of 'reinforcements') was in the process of opening a portal. She momentarily froze up when she saw me, but then she hunkered down and worked her magical instrument, a slightly more compact version of the weird xylophone/theremin/saxophone/balalaika/etc. hybrid tool they usually used for this purpose.

"Due to the chaotic situation within Migdál Glaukós, we only managed to secure an insertion point outside the premises," Jaakobah told me apologetically, and his words made Angie's ears perk up at once.

"Wait. Are we going back to Elysium?"

"Obviously."

"H-Hold on! I'm not ready!" she sputtered and tried her best to straighten her Deus-outfit. "Josh, quick! Help me put up my hair!"

"On it," her boyfriend responded without batting an eyelid, as if something like this was a common occurrence. But then again, maybe it was just another of those childhood friend things.

Meanwhile, the portal was gaining definite shape in front of us, so I turned to the guards.

"Once inside, treat it like we're in a warzone. Make sure to keep Angie… I mean, Deus, safe while I confront the directors behind it all."

The Praetorian Guards, visibly tired and scuffed, saluted in unison without a single complaint, or any other word, really. Nodding, I turned to the portal-operator, and just in time for the gateway to open with a soft, humming sound.

"Let's go."

With those curt words, I headed towards the portal, with Angie and Josh hurriedly following behind me.

"Wait! I'm not ready! I need a minute!"

"Oh, come on!" the guy rolled his eyes and pulled her along. "You're pretty enough already, you don't need to overthink it."

"J-Josh!" she hissed and stuck to his back to hide her face. "Don't flirt in the open! Everyone's watching!"

Ignoring them, I stepped through, and I was nearly blinded by the sunshine raining down on my face. I have Far Glanced here to take a look at the situation before, so I knew that someone had manipulated the day-night settings of the pocket dimension (probably for better visibility to tell apart friends from foes), but my eyes needed adjustment all the same.

Once they did, I was startled by a new fact, and I turned to the dour Prefect on my side.

"When you said it was outside the tower, I didn't think it was literally just outside."

To be fair, he looked just as stumped by the sight in front of us as I was. We were standing right next to the ivory stairs leading to the entrance of the tower behind us, with its spacious gardens currently filled with thousands, if not tens of thousands of Celestials. Most of them were on the ground, carrying farming implements in lieu of weaponry; a picture-perfect image of a classic peasant revolt made infinitely less historically accurate by the hundreds of other Celestials flying over their heads.

Once we arrived, the crowd immediately focused their attention on us, clamouring and cheering from the top of their lungs. At first, I was confused about how they could even see us, but then I noticed that one of the flying celestials was carrying one of those magical camera orbs, and my enlarged face was currently projected on an enormous oval aperture over our heads.

"Ah! There's a lot of them! What do we do!?" Angie tugged at my sleeve in a hurry, but then Deus must've said something to her, because she let go and took up a clumsy martial arts stance. "N-No? I'm not afraid! No, I'm really not!"

Ignoring her for the moment, Josh also came closer and yelled at me so that he could be heard over the background cacophony.

"Do we have a plan? I came here thinking you had a plan, so I would really appreciate it if you could tell me about it!"

"Of course we have a plan," I answered, only to pause as the tower behind us shook from an explosion or a heavy impact. "I'll go in there, and apprehend Savir, Mensah, and Tsephanyah to put an end to this madhouse."

"And what about us? What do we do?" Angie inquired, trying her best not to sound afraid.

"You're a core part of my plans." Without further ado, and put my hands on her shoulders and pulled her in front of me. "They're all yours."

"Y-You want me to fight this whole crowd?!" she yelped, with an expression so comical I momentarily broke my Polemos persona and let out a soft chuckle.

"No. Look up there." I pushed her forward a bit so that she was in the focus of the magical camera thingie, her flustered face now filling the magic screen overhead. "Give them a nice speech, and make sure they don't riot."

"I… can try," she muttered, looking uncertain, so I gestured to Josh.

"Come and support her, will you?"

"Man… Just when I thought today wouldn't get weirder…" the guy complained, but took my place behind Angie, and she visibly eased up the moment he put his hands on her shoulders, much to the crowd's rather loud surprise.

I figured I'd let them deal with this side, and after a nod at Jaakobah, I turned on my heel and headed inside. He tried to follow after me, but since the Praetorian Guards were still busy securing a perimeter around Angie, he couldn't easily leave his position, allowing me to slip away and enter the tower without too much hassle.

The sight welcoming me on the inside was… rather tragic. The majestic main hall dominating the ground floor was in shambles, with hastily erected barricades dividing the place into multiple smaller sections. I had no idea why they bothered, as the people inside were taking advantage of the high ceiling and fought in the air as much as they did on the ground. There were yells and cries and moans and explosions and thumps as people fell from the air, filling the hall to the point it drowned out the clamour of the crowd outside.

"Um… Hello, everyone!" Yet, for a moment, it was all out-blared by an ear-splitting voice. Angie must've used some kind of voice amplification magic, because she made the whole tower tremble with her words. "Ah, too loud! P-Please, stay calm while I figure this out!"

Well, not the most dignified first impression, but judging by how things quieted down, it still worked. More importantly, her voice drew everyone's attention to the main entrance of the building, and with it, to me. Just like that, things fell silent on the inside as well.

As such, I adopted my best 'disappointed principal looking over the mess the kids made in the cafeteria after a food-fight' impression and walked deeper into the hall with measured steps. This was a perfect opportunity to invoke Refuge in Audacity, and while I still had everyone's attention, I retrieved Teeny from my storage enchantment, shifted it into its spear form for better visibility, and as I raised it over my head, I inhaled so deeply it almost hurt. I held my breath for a long beat, but only so that the following bellow would have an even bigger impact.

"Shameful! Display!" I inserted another beat here, and continued with, "I'll make this simple for you! Everyone who's with me, gather up by my side! Now!"

That was step one. Things were pretty chaotic, so before anything else, I had to clearly delineate my allies and my enemies here. Once we've got that sorted, I would have them hold the line to minimize casualties while I ventured out to capture the masterminds behind this all. Yet, to my shock and confusion, everyone dropped whatever they were doing, and they rushed at me at once. I was ready to brace myself, or in the worst-case scenario, Phase away, but then my confusion turned into outright bamboozlement when there was nary a peep from my precognitive senses. In fact, they all just gathered around me, knocking over the makeshift barricades and whatnot in the process, and it was happening so fast, I felt like I was trapped in an impromptu mosh pit.

After a few seconds, things finally calmed down enough for me to take a better look at the people around me, and it made me scratch my head. There were some familiar faces in there, including a few directors who belatedly ran over from their hiding spots, but most of them were either armed forces wearing the Seraphic Safeguards' crimson uniform, guards and common soldiers in their hoplite-cosplays, or some ragtag civilians in Celestial casual outfits holding old or makeshift weapons.

However, nothing gave me a bigger shock than when I noticed the latest arrivals and a specific face amongst them.

"What are you doing?" I hissed, and it made director Savir blink at me in surprise. She was dishevelled, her hair a mess and only wearing one shoe, and she was looking at me like I just asked the weirdest question she'd ever heard in her whole life.

"I'm coming over to your side, obviously," she answered, trying to sound as dignified as she could under the circumstances.

"Are you serious?"

Once again, she looked like she didn't quite understand the question, but before she could respond, a new voice interrupted us.

"Oh, finally! Someone sensible to put an end to this madness!" Mensah exclaimed as he also made his way over to me, completely unguarded and looking more than a little panicked. "Listen, Lord Polemos! We very nearly managed to catch Bel of the Abyss, so I dispatched a squad of Colossi to the location, but we lost contact with them! We need to recover them before the wingless ones get their hands on…!"

"I really don't think that's the most important thing the Lord Archon has to worry about right now," Tsephanyah rounded up the trio, looking about ten years older and his golden locks singed and cowered in sweat and soot.

"What could be more important than recovering the Colossi! And the combat data on Bel! It's vital that we—!"

"Stop! All of you!" My shout made everyone shudder for a moment, and when I looked over them, they seemed genuinely confused about my behaviour. "What are the three of you doing over here?"

"What do you mean?" Tsephanyah asked, sounding downright baffled. "You asked everyone to gather here, didn't you?"

"No, I asked everyone on my side to gather up, so why are you…?" I began, and only then did I notice that the sound of combat within the building completely died down, and the crowd around me continued to keep growing. Did… did that mean that everyone was thinking they were on 'my side'? Even her?

"Why are you looking at me like that?" Savir blurted out, trying to regain some of her dignity by tucking some stray strands of hair behind her ears and straightening her toga. "We might've had our… erm… differences in the past, but that doesn't mean I'm your enemy. I'm not suicidal."

Locking eyes with her, I was waiting for some kind of 'gotcha' moment… but it never came.

Oh god. She was serious. They were all serious.

"Bloody hell… you aren't going to make this easy for me, are you?"

"Pardon, Lord Archon?" Tsephanyah spoke up, still as confounded as before. "What do you mean?"

"Nothing. It's nothing," I muttered in a daze, raised one hand to massage my temple, and pointed at the bodies on the ground with the other. "I need a moment to think. Take care of the injured first."

As if waiting for me to say that, everyone got busy, while I continued to blankly stare at the scene with the baleful premonition that Moose would rub this moment under my nose for the rest of our lives…