The Simulacrum - Chapter 111 - Part 2 (Patreon)

In the end, my earlier predictions were off, though it made little difference in the grand scheme of things. By the time I finished hearing out the long yet straightforward explanations of Jaakobah, the sun had long set. I had no access to my phone while disguised in my Leoformer, and there were no clocks anywhere in the room, but my gut told me it was past ten in the evening by the time we finished.

Of course, we didn't just talk for over five hours straight. There were a couple of bathroom breaks, we ate dinner (or rather, just I did while Jaakobah continued to speak), and there was an incident where I had to kick a group of kowtowing Celestials from the room, but by the end of it all, I had a rudimentary grasp on the situation. The fact that so much had escaped my notice until now was a little vexing, but this incident at least made two things blindingly obvious: I was too reliant on the Celestial Hub and never noticed its blind spots, and Celestials were way more fragmented than I originally thought.

Let's not get ahead of ourselves though. Before delving deeper into the politics of the Elysium, I had more important things to take care of.

"… and so the Orthodox faction is currently holding key positions in the directorate of the…"

"Thank you, Jaakobah. I think that's enough for today," I interjected before the gaunt agent could launch into another topic. "I need some time to think alone."

"It's understandable. Do you need me to stand guard so that you wouldn't be disturbed?"

"It's getting late. Shouldn't you go home and get some sleep instead?" I asked back, but he shook his head.

"If I use a revitalizing chant every three hours, I can stay awake for four days without any deterioration in mental or physical performance."

"That still sounds unhealthy, but if you insist."

He nodded at my half-assed response and stood up, only to stop in his tracks a moment later.

"On the topic of insistence, what should I do if Director Tsephanya, Director Savir, or Director Mensah would want to meet with you?"

I had no idea who the latter two were, but since they were mentioned in the same breath as the six-winged Celestial big shot, I figured they had about the same standing as him.

"Just send them away."

"I don't have the authority to do that," Jaakobah pointed out in a flat voice, prompting me to lock eyes with him for a moment.

"Then promote yourself into a position where you can."

"I don't think there currently exists such a position."

"Then invent one. Be creative."

"If I have your permission, I'll do that."

He sounded disinterested, but the way the corners of his lips were twitching told me he was pleased by this arrangement. To be fair, I just gave him a carte blanche, so it would've been stranger if he remained completely unfazed by it. Not that I minded too much; while he was still technically on my shit-list for getting me entangled in this mess, he was also both accommodating and forthcoming with information, so I figured this much was fine. Insert something pithy about carrots and sticks here.

Anyhow, once the mostly apathetic agent left the room, I let out a pent-up breath and focused on what to do next.

"Cal? How's my hand coming along?"

"{… just because you can change your shape it doesn't mean you are... Hm? Did you call for me, young knight?}"

"Yes. Stop arguing with each other inside my head and tell me how my injury's faring."

"{Correction: Only Interface Number Two is arguing. Such displays of emotion are a sign of—}"

"I'm not talking to you right now," I scolded the short sword tucked into a hoop on my belt I made by further adjusting this makeshift 'Second Archon' disguise of mine.

In the meantime, the other sword let out a smug chuckle and told me, "{Don't worry, young knight! Thanks to our deep bond and connection, I managed to cut the recovery time by a third!}"

"{Observation: Interface Number Two admitted to cutting corners in his treatment. I recommend deactivating him and switching to Artifact: Teeny's recovery functions instead.}"

"{Don't listen to that scheming wench, young knight! I most certainly fulfilled my duties with my utmost care! And you! How dare you call me Interface Number Two! I was first, so it should be Number One, at the very— No, wait. Ah-ha! I see through your vile tricks! I shall not denigrate myself to your level, for I am Caledfwlch, the Kingmaker, and the one true blade of the—}"

"{Further observation: Interface Number Two is exhibiting delusions of grandeur. I urge Archon Polemos to bring him to a certified weapons artisan for readjustment, or failing that, for smelting down into useful materials.}"

"Can you two shut up for just a minute?"

It was a rhetorical question, as once I placed both Teeny and Cal onto the bed, I could no longer hear either of them. First thing first, I needed to change my outfit. I kept wearing the Archon disguise until now because I couldn't be sure when the next Celestial delegation would try to barge into the room, but now that Jaakobah (hopefully) was going to keep them at bay, I had enough breathing room to change into something less conspicuous.

Before anything else, I undid the transformation, and following a rustling, kind of tingly sensation, I was back in my original outfit. This was already something that would've raised a couple of brows, as due to how Barriers worked, all of it should've vaporized on the spot the moment I 'turned into' a Celestial. Actually, I wasn't entirely sure how the mechanics of that were supposed to work out, but I couldn't be bothered to experiment with it at the moment.

Next, I took out my phone from the inner pocket of my parka and placed it next to the two weapons. The battery was still at ninety-two percent, and the date and time were off due to it being effectively in stasis until this point, and there was no signal in the Elysium to sync it to the network.

Even while I absently considered all that, I didn't stop preparing, and the next step was to shift over to the school uniform in the memory of the Leoformer. As of this moment, there were four 'outfit slots' already occupied in it; the school uniform based on Josh's Magiformer, a military uniform copying Roland's Uniformer, a Bel outfit, and finally, the Archon outfit that replaced the copy of the Lion Knight armor I had in that slot. Honestly, the sheer flexibility this gave me was already worth all the exhaustion and headaches I suffered while making it, but there were still a couple of kinks to work out. For one, since I didn't have enough time to put on the finishing touches, the school uniform I was wearing at the moment didn't have any physical enchantments or the Oath-connectors. That meant no way for me to take in mana without Cal's help.

As if it knew I was thinking of it, I could see the ethereal magical glow around Cal flicker, and… wait. The light around Teeny was also flickering. Suspicious, I picked them both up, and as expected, they were in the middle of an argument.

"{… completely rusted away.}" The shape-shifting sword grumbled in a mechanical voice, but then it flashed with a brighter light and added, "{Notice: Direct connection with Archon Polemos re-established. Welcome back, Archon.}"

"… Can you two communicate with each other even while I'm not holding you?"

"{Response: Affirmative. Both Artifact: Teeny and Artifact: Caledfwlch are connected to Archon Polemos through the Universal Astral Body Interface.}"

"What the…? Let me look into this." Without waiting for a response, I turned my magical vision on myself, and after only minor finagling, I came to a startling conclusion: Teeny was using the same Oath-receptacles that Cal and the other knightly equipment did… except it wasn't the 'usual' ones, but the one that was broken by default on all the Knights of the Brotherhood of No Longer Existing Organizations.

If there was one difference, it was that Cal's connection was actively supplying me with Mana, while Teeny's felt more passive. Maybe it was just an authentication check? And more importantly, would I be even able to use this spear-sword-thing if I didn't have an Oath-receptacle. Wait, no. Was I looking at it from the wrong perspective? Could it be that the Oaths were designed specifically for this purpose? It would definitely fall in line with what Jaakobah told me, and… and I was getting ahead of myself again.

Shaking my head, I plunged a phantom limb into my Leoformer's arrays and after some ad-hoc engineering, I managed to replicate the same scabbard I made for the short sword and tucked it in. After fastening Cal to my belt on the other side, I straightened my school jacket, put away my phone, and after Far Glancing at Jaakobah to make sure there were no complications, I Phased out of the bedroom chamber and reappeared inside the pitch darkness of the back-up secret base in the dock district.

While I would've preferred to go home and kick down the ground-floor guestroom door, preferably right onto Uncle Percy, the current situation was quite complicated, and I didn't want to mess things up even further. After all, if Leonard S. Dunning, who was currently supposed to be in the Elysium and replaced by a certain historical figure, just showed up on Critias again, it would immediately raise quite a few eyebrows.

First off, I searched for the light switch and turned it on. Next, I patted the mini-shoggoth sitting on top of a wooden crate in the corner. Then, once I was done with all that and found a place to sit, I took out my phone again and opened my contact list. Critias's mobile phone network was as unapologetically overcompensating as usual, and even though I was in the basement of an old brick building, I still got full bars on my reception strength. It also updated the time and date, proving my off-the-cuff calculations right. It was half past ten in the evening, and while normally I wouldn't have called anyone at this hour, this was an emergency situation.

As such, I Far Glanced at Judy to make sure she was alone, and I found her sleeping in an unfamiliar room. After checking a couple of the surrounding red dots, I soon realized that she was inside the Dracis Mansion instead of her own home, which was odd, but I was sure she had her reasons for staying over. I picked her name from the contact list and watched as the phone on her nightstand lit up the whole room.

She groggily sat up and turned on the lights, still half asleep, only for her eyes to open wide when she read the caller ID.

"Hi, Dor—"

"Chief? Is that you? Are you all right?"

Before I could even greet her, she immediately started bombarding me with questions.

"I'm fine. Everything's okay," I told her in a calm voice and returned to my body so that I could pay full attention to the conversation.

"What happened? Where are you?"

"Didn't you get my message?" I asked back, and despite trying to sound as careful and composed as possible, I somehow still managed to blow my girlfriend's fuse.

"Message? The message that said 'I'm going to go and infiltrate Celestial high command for a bit, I'll be back by dinner, lol'? How was I supposed to interpret something like that?"

"I'm pretty sure I didn't add a 'lol' at the end," I muttered, and Judy let out an irate huff in return.

"You might as well had, for all the sense it made!" she retorted sounding both angry and relieved at the same time. "Do you have any idea how worried we were when you just up and disappeared after leaving a message like that, and then you didn't actually come home by dinner? And let's not even mention what Sir Percival told us!"

"Actually, can we do that? What did he say?"

"That you were ambushed by a group of Abyssals while on the way to a meeting, and that you stayed behind to hold them back and to let him escape."

"Huh. That's considerably less creative than what I expected. Did you call him out on it?"

"How could I, when I had no idea what really happened to you? Couldn't you have just spent one more minute on that message to properly explain yourself?"

"I thought I did. Sorry about that," I apologized and took a deep breath. "You can kick me over that later if you want, but first, we need to hold an emergency meeting."

"We already did that. Today was one emergency meeting after another, from morning until night."

"You know what I meant," I told her a touch impatiently before reining back my temper. I was still a bit too out of it, it seemed. "Call Elly too, find a private spot, and I'll Phase over to your side."

"I'll do that. Don't disappear on us again, you hear?"

"I won't. Don't you know what the 'S.' in my middle name stands for?"

"You still don't have a middle name, but if you did, it would stand for 'scares the everloving bejeezus out of his girlfriends and family'," she responded in the kind of deadpan tone only she could pull off, and I could only sigh in defeat.

"I'll apologize later, in person, but for now, I really need you two to listen to the whole story and help me out with something."

"I'm already on my way to Elly's room. Do you need me to call you when we're ready?"

"Nah, I'll keep an eye on you two. See you soon."

Judy let out an ambivalent noise on the other side and cut the line, so I also put my phone away and limbered up my arms a little. Since nobody was using this backup base at the moment, there was no heating, and while the Magiformer-patterned school uniform had a bunch of defensive wards built into it to protect against the elements, it did little to help with natural cold, and considering we were still in the middle of January, the air in here was about as chilly as one would've expected.

"{Inquiry: Where are we, and how did we get here?}"

Teeny, a bit belatedly, asked the usual question, but before I could respond, I was beaten to the punch by the other sword on my hip letting out a scoff.

"{It's but one of the many strange and impossible abilities possessed by my young knight. You'll get used to them with time.}"

"{Statement: My records do not indicate Archon Polemos was in possession of such abilities. Updating database. Are there other abilities that require new entries? I request further explanation.}"

"{Hm, well, there's my young knight's ability to cut all kinds of malevolent spells and destructive magicks, I suppose.}"

"{Request: Please provide quantifiable examples.}"

While the chatty blades were busy with that, I used Far Sight on Judy again and just caught her entering Elly's room. Her rushing over like that caused a bit of a commotion, but once the princess assured the maids and guards that everything was under control, they sat down on her bed and she listened to my dear assistant's recounting of our previous conversation.

In the meantime, I pivoted and slung my point of view all over the room, and even outside of it, just to make sure there was nobody in the vicinity who could overhear us. When I was reasonably sure the room was private, I patted the copy of Pudding-kun stationed in the basement one last time in parting, turned off the lights, and then unceremoniously Phased into my draconian girlfriend's room.

"Hi girls, I'm—"

Before I could say 'home', the princess sprung to her feet and leaped at me, catching me in a bear-hug before I could even lift a finger.

"Leo! You're alive!"

"Of course I'm alive. Who do you take me f—?"

Once again, I was interrupted mid-sentence, this time by a pillow hitting me squarely in the face.

"Dormouse? What are you doing?" I asked in mild bewilderment, but by then, she already had another pillow in hand.

"Keep holding him like that. Don't let him move."

I wasn't sure the princess even registered her instructions, but considering she was still hugging me so hard I could feel my ribs creaking, she didn't need to. A second later, another pillow flew through the room, and I obediently let it hit me again.

"Ouch, Dormouse. That was uncalled for."

"Stay still. I'm still angry, and I've still got pillows," she told me without any pretenses and picked up another projective from the princess's bed. Just why did she have so many pillows, to begin with? Was it a girl-thing, an oujo-archetype-thing, or a princess-thing, I wondered?

Not for long though, as while the way my girlfriends expressed their relief over my safe return from my unplanned excursion was about as cozy as it was strange and slightly painful, we had things to discuss. With that in mind, I snatched the next pillow coming my way out of the air and tossed it back to Judy before using my good hand to carefully peel the sniffling princess off my chest. In retrospect, maybe I shouldn't have, as once I did, she switched over to tsun-tsun mode and started hitting me in the chest.

"Leo, you… you idiot! Why did you disappear like that! I was so worried!"

"O-Ow! Princess, stop it! That's not cute! You're activating the wards on my outfit! And Dormouse! Stop throwing things at me and help calm her down!"

Judy glance between me, and the next cushion in her hands, and after a long beat, she threw it at my face anyway before getting off the bed and carefully restraining my fuming draconic girlfriend.

"Okay, is everyone calm now?"

"No!"/"Not at all."

Sighing, I pulled my girlfriends back to the bed and said, "Please try to calm down as soon as possible, because I need you two for something."

"Both of us?" Elly blurted out, and before she got some weird ideas (after all, I was leading them to the only bed in the room), I sat them down and took a seat between the two of them.

"Yes. I have a lot of news, brand new developments to discuss, and I'm curious about exactly what happened while I was away, but before any of that, I need the two of you to check something for me."

My words were followed by several seconds of tense silence, broken by Judy sighing and saying, "I bite. What do we have to check?"

Exhaling hard, I looked each of them in the eyes for emphasis, and tried my best to keep my voice from wavering as I uttered, "I need you to help me figure out if I'm still fully myself."