The Simulacrum - Chapter 124 - Part 3 (Patreon)

The home of Lord Amadeus Endymonion of Timaeus was pretty big. Not nearly as humongous or lavish as the Dracis estate, but to be fair, few private buildings were. Nevertheless, it still had its fair share of shady nooks and crannies, seemingly purpose-built to have hushed discussions about private, secretive, or even borderline clandestine topics.

Yet, the class rep chose to cross-examine me in the middle of a well-lit hallway. Go figure.

"Do you mean the big box with all the records about your grandfather's homunculus research?"

"Yes," she told me flatly and stared at my face intently. "Did you?"

Sighing, I nodded.

"Guilty as charged," I jested with a weak smile, but she remained stern. "Oh, don't look at me like that! It was… well, maybe not an 'emergency' per se, but Peabody needed it."

"You promised to keep it safe."

"And it's still safe," I pointed out, for little apparent effect.

"I went through all that trouble to keep my secret hidden, and you just handed it over," she hissed at me flatly, and so I frowned back at her.

"Well, yes, in retrospect, I should've asked you about it first, but does it make a difference?" Her brows were hovering close to an outright glare, so I hastily clarified my point. "Listen, Ammy. Peabody already knew your secret, right?" I didn't continue until she reluctantly nodded. "And the only reason why you had to hide those documents away was to keep them out of the hands of Saahira and the rest of the Assembly investigators, so that they wouldn't figure out your identity, right?" This time, she nodded a bit more readily. "Well, she's not looking for them anymore, and your secret isn't that big of a deal, to begin with, so is there even a reason to get worked up about this?"

"My 'secret' is a big deal to me," she growled, and I raised my palms to forestall her.

"This is about as good an opportunity to discuss that as any," I cut her short and lowered my voice a little. "Let's take a step back and look at this whole 'homunculus business' objectively. Is it really something you should be worried about?"

"Leo, we already discussed this."

"Yes, but the situation has changed big time since then. Again, objectivity. We won't discriminate you, your boyfriend is already okay with it, and I already put a few gears into motion to fix this dumb 'homunculus aren't people'bullcrap in the Draconic Federation before I got caught up in this Celestial mess. Since the rest of the mundane world doesn't even know that a homunculus is a thing, you being one literally doesn't matter."

"The Draconic Federation isn't the whole World of Mystics," she argued back, and I had to stifle a chuckle.

"Come on, class rep. You do remember who you are talking to right now, right?" She didn't respond, so I let out a self-conscious sigh and lowered my voice even further. "I've already got the Draconic Federation to play along, I'm literally employing the majority of the Research Society, so I would like to see them try to disagree with my stance on the issue. As for the Celestials, you not only have me, but also Angie on your side, and if we say that homunculi are people, who's going to argue with us? That makes, what? Ninety percent of the 'World of Mystics'? Who's going to care about this again?"

"The Assembly. You're ignoring the Assembly," she insisted, though her gaze was much weaker than when I started.

"Oh, trust me, they'll fall in line if they know what's good for them." I followed that up with a sinister chuckle, but when she started glaring at me again, I hastily raised my palms once more. "It's a joke, class rep. A joke. Don't look at me like that."

"With your track record, I can't tell when you're joking," she told me in a deadpan voice, with an exasperated sigh on its tail. "I appreciate the sentiment, but even if you somehow changed the way homunculi are viewed across the whole World of Mystics, it doesn't change the fact that you disseminated the thing I gave you for safekeeping."

"But… I just explained…"

"Leo. I'm not talking about the practical consequences of my secret getting out. It's about the breach of trust," she insisted with a tweak of her glasses.

"I can apologize for that, but that cat's already out of the bag, so… yeah, telling you I'm sorry for not asking for permission is the best I could do under these circumstances."

She looked at me as if I just said something weird, but ultimately shook her head and told me, "I will overlook this transgression on three conditions."

"Hm? That's unexpectedly reasonable of you." Seeing that she was starting to glare again, I forcefully cleared my throat. "What I meant to say was, 'Please accept my apologies, and I will listen to your conditions without complaints'. Scout's honour."

This time, she rolled her eyes.

"I'll hold you to your words." Her response was followed by a short yet tense beat, and then her expression finally softened. "First, once you're back in Timaeus, be nice to Michael."

"When was I ever not nice to him?" I blurted out, but she remained steadfast.

"I told you he's been nervous ever since he learned that you are coming home. I just want you to reassure him."

"That's pretty tame as far as conditions go. Do you want me to do something more specific for him?"

She blinked, apparently not expecting this response, but she soon came up with something.

"In that case, can you take him back to Elysium? He said he always wanted to see it with his own eyes ever since he was a child, but he never had the chance."

"Riiight. He's a Malakim, so he probably wasn't allowed to go there."

"A what?"

"Stupid Celestial caste system crap. I'll do something about that too, but it's for later; I already have a lot on my plate," I answered on autopilot, only to then immediately frown. "Wait. Wouldn't that mean he never met Kane in person either?"

"His father?"

"Yeah, him," I nodded and my hand automatically rose to pinch my chin. "In that case, it would make it a family reunion as well. Do you want to come along?" The class rep's eyes opened wide and she uttered a flat 'What?', but I persisted. "That way, we can hit three birds with one stone; Mike gets to look around the Elysium, meet his family in the flesh, and you can introduce yourself in person."

"That sounds like a bad idea."

"Why?"

"I'm a Magi!" she exclaimed, raising her voice for the first time since we started discussing her 'conditions of forgiveness'. "Do you have any idea what they would do to me if they realized that?"

"Ammy. Look at me." I waited for her to meet my eyes, and then pointed at myself. "Polemos. Second True Archon. Remember?"

"But what if Michael's father…?"

"He already knows. Obviously."

"And he doesn't care?"

"Oh, he does. He asked for my opinion and everything." Ammy was getting more fretful by the second, so I let out a long breath and patted her on the shoulder. "Kane's a softie and loves his son, so you don't have to worry about a thing. That said, if you really don't want to go with Mike, I'm not going to force you. It's just an option to make things a little smoother."

"I'll… discuss this with Michael first."

"Good call." I smiled and took my hand off her. "So, what's the second condition?"

She blinked like a startled rabbit, but then she finally remembered that she was supposed to give me her ultimatum, and she hastily reassumed a stern demeanour.

"Right. I haven't told you yet." She paused and looked me deep in the eyes. "Leo. I can't stress this enough. Grandfather is currently in a meeting with the Assembly delegation. All of them. They are all arch-mages of their own Schools."

"I know that much."

She suddenly put both of her hands on my shoulders and inhaled deeply.

"Don't. Provoke. Them."

Blinking, I shrugged off her grasp and let out a soft chuckle.

"Oh, please. Have some faith in me."

"I do, but I also remember what happened the first time you met with Grandfather. Please, be polite."

"I'm… not sure I can promise that, but I'll try to be diplomatic."

"… I'll take it."

She exhaled in relief, as if she'd just overcome a huge hurdle.

"Last condition?"

"I want to join Mr. Peabody's team."

That last one was rather surprising, but in a good way.

"Done."

The class rep's face suddenly slackened, as if she couldn't believe her ears. Did she expect me to argue with her?

"Just like that?"

"To be honest with you, I was planning to ask you to join them from the beginning, but I didn't think you had an interest in the project. As far as I remember, you were more into ESPs and psychics."

"My thesis is still on latent non-conventional mystic abilities in the greater human population, yes, but in this case, I want to be there to make sure the research documents won't get leaked."

Despite my attempt to reassure her, she was apparently still worried about her secret, in spite of all logical reasons. That meant it might've been more of an entrenched emotional response than anything else, but I was sure that once I got around to fixing this whole homunculi-unperson-ing debacle, she would ease up about it. If being on the team gave her peace of mind, I had no reason to argue with her.

"You do that then. Anything else?"

"No. Those are my three conditions."

I flashed a grin.

"Easy-peasy."

She remained skeptical for a while, but at last, her body language relaxed and she readjusted her glasses for the last time and we started walking again.

"Why do you need a homunculus, anyway?"

"Hopefully I won't need it. It's more of a Plan F."

"F?"

"In case Plans A to E fail," I told her with a smirk, and she half-rolled her eyes at me.

"So Joshua wasn't joking." Before I could ask what she meant by that, she gestured for me to follow her into the basement, and as we went down the stairs, she started a new topic. "We're almost there. How much do you know about the Assembly delegation?"

"More than enough," I reassured her, though it didn't work.

"Let me guess. If I asked you how, you would smile mysteriously, and then tell me 'Information broker'."

"You're learning."

She didn't find my joke amusing, but didn't argue either, and just led me to a fancy door. I could hear muffled voices from the other side, though I couldn't discern any legible words. Did they forget to soundproof the room, or was it the effect of the soundproofing, I wondered as Ammy knocked on the door. There was no response, yet after waiting for a few seconds, she reached for the doorknob and opened it anyway.

"Grandfather?" Contrary to her decisive attitude, her voice was unexpectedly mousy. "You have a visitor."

"At this hour?"

Through the gap, I could recognize Lord Ambrose's voice, grumbling as usual.

"I'll take it from here," I said and put my palm on the door.

The class rep stiffened up for a moment, but she quickly shook it off and locked gazes with me.

"Don't antagonize them," she whispered, and I showed her a reassuring smile in return before pushing the door open and walking in, much to the gathered arch-mages' surprise and shock.

I was already familiar with the small meeting room (more of a parlour, really) thanks to my Far Sight, and the same was true for the people sitting around the divans surrounding the fancy coffee table in the middle. Despite the location, the air in the room wasn't stale at all, but on the flip side, the concentration of ambient mana prickled my skin like I was wearing a woollen sweater over my whole body. It was only a small annoyance at best though, and pretty mild compared to being in the vicinity of, say, a Mana Well.

In any case, I waited for the class rep to follow, but she closed the door behind me instead. I thought she would want to make sure I was on my best behaviour, but she seemingly thought otherwise.

"Leonard?" Lord Grandpa, sitting at the head of the table (as much as such a thing applied here) uttered in mild disbelief, and I turned to face him.

"Good evening." I looked over the group scattered on the divans and gave them a collective nod. "Please excuse me for showing up unannounced at this hour. Oh, and there's no need to stand on ceremony; you know who I am, I know who you are, so let's cut to the chase and talk business right away."

"Hold on for a moment!" Lord Ambrose suddenly exclaimed and rose to his feet. The portly Magi was wearing a formal robe, as usual, and his beard was unusually well-combed this evening. It didn't make his expression look any more welcoming though. "What are you doing here!? What kind of ploy is this!?"

"Easy there, old chap." Lord Gulliver extended a lanky hand and pulled the older man back into his seat. "Let Endymonion respond first. He's the host."

"Yes, I would very much prefer to do so," Lord Grandpa chimed in without rising from his seat. He was wearing his usual beige suit, though without the Panama hat, and he wasn't exactly amused by my sudden appearance. "However, considering the circumstances, I am afraid I can only echo the previously spoken sentiment of Lord Ambrose."

"About what I'm doing here?" I walked over to the side of the table and shrugged upon arrival. "Lots of things happened since the last time I contacted you, and since I was in Timaeus, I decided to drop by and give you an update to avoid any potential misunderstandings."

"We were all under the impression that you couldn't leave the realm of the Celestials." I turned my head to the source of the comment, and Lord Taika matched my gaze with her own. "That makes me question whether you're here in the flesh."

"Who knows?" I jested with a smirk, and after a suitably long beat, I stifled a chuckle. "Seriously though, I'm here. For real."

"Are you?" Lord Grandpa stared at me incredulously, so I nodded at him.

"Yes. Well, not 'officially', at least not yet, but that's half the reason why I'm here."

"Before we proceed any further," Lord Barnabas interjected with a measured voice and gestured at the empty spot next to him. "Would you like to take a seat?"

"No need. I'm not planning to stay for long," I refused his offer as politely as I could and then turned a glance at Lord Taika again. "Please stop that."

She had two faces at the moment; one was stock still and semi-transparent, while underneath that, she was constantly muttering the verbal component of a spell. When our gazes crossed, the real face's mouth hung open for a second, but then she averted her eyes, and the magical feeler she was inching closer to me dissolved into ambient mana, along with the illusory mask covering her face.

"Thank you." I turned back to Lord Grandpa. "Where were we?"

"There was a mention of your presence here not being official," Lord Barnabas chimed in, and I nodded along.

"Not yet," the old badger at the head of the table echoed my previous words, his eyes in squints and his mouth set in a thin line. "Correct me if I am wrong, but would that mean that you would soon return to the city in an official capacity?"

"You're unusually quick on the uptake." I flashed an impressed smile, though he must have thought I was making fun of him, because he continued to squint at me. "Yes, that's exactly what I wanted to discuss. You see, I'm coming back rather sooner than later, and we need to make some arrangements beforehand."

"Bah!" Lord Ambrose exclaimed and would've risen to his feet again if not for the gangly redhead still holding onto his shoulder. "Then what was that whole tirade at the Draconians' meeting about? Do you take us for fools!?"

"Well, no, not all of you," I responded reflexively, and when everyone remained dead silent, I opened my arms wide. "Oh, come on, people! I promised that I would be polite, but when you serve me an easy ball like this, can you really expect me to just ignore it?"

"Hooold on. Is this when he's polite?" Lord Gulliver exclaimed, and the host let out a lung-rattling sigh.

"I am afraid that is correct."

"Yes. I'm very polite right now," I insisted before they could derail the discussion and, feeling a little conscious about my outstretched arms, I folded them and pointedly looked at Lord Ambrose. "Since I already addressed your second question, let me do the same to the first one. Long story short, the political landscape of the Elysium got even more shaken up since the last time we talked, but that's something I have to deal with on my end and doesn't concern you. Before I get into what does though, let's make sure we're all on the same page. How much do you know about what's going on in the Elysium?"

The arch-mages shared a few hesitant glances, and in the end, it fell on Lord Barnabas's shoulders to speak up.

"We have received news that a certain Celestial leader of old returned to life."

"Wait, you've already learned of that?" I blurted out in surprise, and he solemnly nodded.

"So it is true then," Lord Grandpa followed him up with a deeply troubled furrow in his brows. "I believe he is called the Second True Archon."

"Oh, false alarm then," I muttered, feeling relieved for the moment. "I thought you were talking about the newest development."

"Are you implying there is one even newer?" Lord Taika chimed in from the side.

"Yeah, that one's old news," I confirmed, and then added, with considerably more trepidation. "Also, would you please stop playing around?"

She stiffened again and undid the illusion hiding her attempts to do… somethingwith a small box that superficially looked like an old, homemade camera obscura. I was pretty sure she wasn't trying to make a retro photograph of me though, considering the soft magical glow around the tool.

"Fascinating," she whispered, completely disregarding the bucketful of disapproval I was throwing her way.

"Eh, it's not that big of a deal," Lord Gulliver interjected, sounding completely unperturbed by the revelation. "We're always behind in the intelligence game, aren't we?"

"That may be, but the information about this Second True Archon cost us much," Lord Grandpa responded with a heavy voice.

"Oh boy…" I muttered softly, drawing everyone's attention back to me. "I really hope it wasn't one of those 'many Bothans died to bring us this information' situations, because otherwise, this is going to be really awkward."

Saying so, I turned on my Leoformer, and shifted over to my Celestial disguise, causing everyone else in the room to shudder, jolt, or outright jump in alarm.

"You see," I began, opening my arms a bit. "When I said 'you know who I am' at the beginning, I wasn't entirely truthful. At the moment, I'm also known as Polemos, The Second True Archon. Or rather, his second advent, but let's not split hairs about the small details."

"… Since when?" Lord Grandpa uttered in a numb voice, seemingly echoing everyone's thoughts.

"Since a bit over two weeks ago," I told him the truth, but he looked eminently skeptical of my claim. "Oh, stop it. You act like you don't know how these titles keep sticking to me like flies to the glue-paper."

"I knew it! He's a Celestial!" Lord Ambrose exclaimed and nearly shook off Gulliver's hand. "Unhand me! Where's my staff?"

"You see, that's kind of the thing though. I'm not," I told them, and the old man immediately stopped struggling.

"You're not?"

"No. It's a pretty complicated situation, and I don't want to go into the nitty-gritty details, but that's the long and short of it. I give my word on that. Take it, or leave it."

My words were followed by a long stretch of silence, where none of the arch-mages wanted to be the first to break the ice. Ultimately, the dark-skinned arch-mage resolved himself to speak up and he lightly cleared his throat.

"I must ask; why are you telling us about yourself? Wouldn't it have been more advantageous for you to keep this a secret?"

"You see, the problem is that I can't do that." I turned off the Leoformer, and once I was back to my white ensemble, I crossed my arms again. "I'm not planning to announce this officially to the whole world, but it's something that you absolutely need to know to understand the rest of the situation. First off, I'll be bringing along a small group of Celestial honour guards. I'm going to keep them on a short leash, but they are going to be operating in the open, so I'd appreciate it if you could just ignore them altogether."

"You can't expect us to overlook something like that!" Ambrose continued to heckle me, and this time even Lord Gulliver seemed to agree with him.

"That's a bit of a tall order, young chap."

"I'm afraid I have to agree with—"

Even Lord Barnabas was on their side, so I hastily raised my hands and interrupted him.

"I know that after all this time, trying to crack down on Celestials should be second nature to all of you, but I'm afraid this is non-negotiable. We both want to avoid this turning into a diplomatic incident, right?"

"Speak for yours—!"

Before the bearded arch-mage could finish, Gulliver clamped a hand around his mouth and sent an unsubtle glance at Lord Grandpa.

"When you refer to the situation being 'non-negotiable', what exactly do you mean by it?"

I faced him and counted to three in my head to re-balance myself. I promised to be diplomatic, so I was going to do this diplomatically.

"It means it's going to happen, one way or the other, but it doesn't have to lead to a conflict. We have alternatives."

"Alternatives?" Lord Barnabas latched onto the word at once. "My friend, please elaborate."

"As you wish. The first option is that you stay put and don't interfere with these Celestial bodyguards. It doesn't require anyone to do anything, there's no hassle, and everyone's happy, in a manner of speaking. Alternatively…" I paused to take a deep breath, and my voice automatically descended by an octave. "Alternatively, I would be forced to make it so that you can't interfere with them. It's heavy-handed, a lot of hassle, and you certainly won't be happy about it, but the end result is the same."

"Are you threatening us?" Lord Ambrose hissed through the fingers over his mouth, and I immediately shook my head.

"Oh, goodness, no. I'm being polite right now." I used both of my hands to point index fingers at Lord Grandpa, and added, "Ask him, if you don't believe me. He knows what I sound like when I'm threatening someone. Isn't that right?"

I flashed my most disarming smile at the group, and it only took three seconds for the old coot to exhale a groan.

"Fine. You have made your point," the local arch-mage spoke through clenched teeth and raised a hand to massage his face. "I swear upon my name that neither the Timaeus School of Conjuration and Alteration, nor any of its esteemed guests will restrict the actions of these honour guards you spoke of, so long as they do not initiate a conflict themselves."

"Lord Endymonion, with all due respect, I don't believe you have the right to speak for all of us," Barnabas pointed out, causing Lord Grandpa to scoff.

"This land is under my jurisdiction, old friend. I believe I have all the rights and justifications to do so."

"This is getting out of hand!" Lord Ambrose exclaimed once he finally shook Gulliver off. "Lord Taika! Say something!"

"Hm?" As if waking from a daydream, the lady arch-mage lazily blinked at the old man, then turned to me and held out both her hands. "Young man? May I ask which of these is more visible to you?"

There were two softly glowing wireframe icosahedrons (or as better known, d20 dice) floating over her palms, and after a glance, I blandly told her, "The left one."

"The left? Not the right one?" When I shook my head, she let out an impressed hum and smiled at me. "Maybe coming to this island wasn't such a waste of time after all…"

"Lord Taika! Don't cavort with the—!"

For the third time, Lord Ambrose was restrained by his leggy colleague, and Lord Gulliver flashed a toothy smile at me.

"Please excuse him. He didn't have his afternoon nap, and that always makes him a bit grouchy."

"Who are you calling grouch, you lout! Unhand me at once!"

While the two grown men continued to wrestle on the divan, the dark-skinned man buried his face in his palm.

"We are not showing ourselves in our best light today."

"Don't worry, I'm already used to this," I told him off-the-cuff, yet it only seemed to make his complexion worse. Turning back to Lord Grandpa, I gave him an approving nod, and added, "Thanks for your cooperation. There are a few more things you need to know though."

"As in?"

"Do you remember Angie?"

"… The young Celestial in your close circle, if I recall," he responded slowly, visibly guarded and bracing for whatever was coming next. "She, along with Joshua Bernstein, has been absent from the school for the past two days."

"Yes, about that…" I paused, considering how to break the news to him, and ultimately settled on the band-aid school of thought. "The thing is, it turns out she's Deus."

"… As in, the god of the Celestials…?" Barnabas muttered in a daze, and I shook my head with a grimace.

"Nooot quite 'god' per se, more of an ancient cult leader kind of deal, but you're in the right ballpark."

"Hold on," the dark-skinned arch-mage raised a palm to stall me, his face deadly serious. "You claimed that you were taken to the realm of the Celestials to resolve their internal division. Now that their god… cult leader returned, you're returning to the island. Does that mean that Celestials are now united?"

I couldn't stop myself from laughing, even if I tried. Which I didn't.

"Hah! Fuck no!" After reining in the first wave of guffaws threatening to overwhelm me, I wiped the corner of my eyes and took a deep breath. "Haaa… Please excuse my language, but seriously, I wish that was the case."

"Why… are you telling us this?" Lord Grandpa looked at me like I was a ghost or something.

"Hm? Because she's coming home with me. Obviously," I told them, and their expressions looked like I just dropped the biggest bombshell of their lives.

"She's coming here?" Barnabas muttered in a daze.

"For what reason?" the old badger followed him up, looking unusually intense.

"To attend school. Why else?" I told them flatly, and I elaborated a little when nobody responded. "She wants to get higher education before returning to the Elysium."

"Wait. Please, hold on. One thing at a time, please," Lord Grandpa practically begged me, one palm extended towards me and the other roughly massaging his temple. "She is planning to continue attending the institute?"

"If you mean Blue Cherry High, then yes, we're naturally going to do that. That's why I needed to tell you about the honour guards, because they would necessarily have to enter the campus with us to ensure her safety. Or, well, it's not like she really needs protection, because you would have to be the epitome of a smooth-brained madman to even consider laying a finger on her, but you know what I mean." Pausing, I looked the arch-mages in the eyes, one at a time, and then added, "I'm telling you all of this to avoid any silly potential situations where she would get 'accidentally' hurt or otherwise inconvenienced because the Assembly had no idea how important she was. Just imagining all the madhouse and mass hysteria and rivers of blood resulting from that is giving me a headache, so please cooperate with us so that she can have a nice, productive school life without any hiccups of catastrophic proportions."

I crowned this small speech with my best 'Trust Me Bro™' brand smile, but nobody seemed to be receptive. Oh well, you can't win them all.

"Anyhow, that was all I wanted to tell you today. Thank you for your time, and if you excuse me, I just remembered that I forgot to ask Amelia if I could borrow her school notes, so I think I have to go. Please keep what I said in mind, and nobody will get hurt. Bye."

And just like that, I turned on my heels and marched out of the silent room. I had to say, I was pretty proud of myself. I wasn't sure I would be able to keep my promise, but all things considered, I remained very civil and polite all the way through, without any need for intimidation. Good job, me.