The Simulacrum - Chapter 129 - Part 1 (Patreon)

Just a single day spent in school, and somehow my life started to feel normal again. Going to school with my friends, attending classes, eating unreasonably scrumptious meals at the cafeteria, and beating Josh in basketball. Everything was exactly how it's always been. Just the normal life of a normal high-schooler doing completely normal things on a normal Monday, such as… giving a strategy briefing in an underground base.

Oh, who wasI kidding? Coming out of the Elysium didn't make my life more normal, just slightly less balls-to-the-walls weird, and even that assessment was debatable. In any case, back to the strategy meeting.

"And that's why," I stressed, tapping the telescoping pointing stick in my hand against the whiteboard, "we need you to be on alert and available at any given time."

Behind me, a board filled with encircled words, such as 'The Unorthodox Faction', 'Abyssals', and 'Director Savir', and a complex, overlapping mess of arrows interlinking them. In front of me, seated on the elevated benches of the main hall's briefing area, were not only the officers of the Ordo Draconis (sans Penny), but my most trusted allies amongst the Draconic Federation and the base's personnel as well. Also, Zihao, for some reason.

"Are you certain, my liege?" Arnwald asked a touch skeptically, hands folded. "Wouldn't our currently deployed forces be enough of a deterrent to..."

"I'll have to stop you there," I cut him short and theatrically contracted my pointing stick. "The point is that when a conflict breaks out, it would require more than just the usual Fauns, Squires, and ninjas on our payroll. I will need you to make a move as well."

"I believe that," Naoren spoke up next, seated in the third row, sandwiched between his younger brother and the tiny dragon, "we now have a solid understanding of the Celestial realm and their internal conflicts, but even so, this upcoming clash you speak of sounds unsubstantiated."

"I have to agree," Sebastian followed him up from behind the seats of my draconic in-laws. "As much as I trust your insight, my boy, you have yet to establish the exact time frame or scope of this 'inevitable battle'."

Ignoring his air quotes, I shook my head and put my hands on the speaker's podium in front of me, leaning forward for extra emphasis.

"That is exactly the reason why constant vigilance is required."

"We are vigilant. Always," Brang commented on the side, the only person not sitting, and I couldn't help but feel that he mistook my insistence for being critical of the Fauns' under his command.

"So are our Squires," Arnwald joined him, forming a united front.

I glanced over the skeptical group, and let out a shallow sigh. I couldn't exactly blame them, as I couldn't just tell them 'Well, we are nearing the end of a story arc, if not the whole story altogether, so it's practically guaranteed that there will be a climactic final showdown,', now could I? I knew that if I insisted hard enough, they would play along with me, but I wanted to convince them to take it seriously. That's why I spent the better part of an hour outlining all the possible threats to our organizations, Angie, and me in particular, but even so, describing a powder-keg, and telling people it was absolutely going to blow up in the near future and making them prepare for it were two distinctly different things.

"I still don't understand why you need us to be prepared in particular," Mom-in-law remarked in the back, and I could see a few approving nods here and there. "The Ordo Draconis has doubled in size since its inception, and with these Praetorian Guards looking after your friends, along with the Assembly's forces in the city, I don't see why we would need to get involved personally."

"I'm sure they will also play a role in the upcoming events," I answered, trying not to sound too annoyed, "but what we'll need is going to be individual power, not numbers."

"How do you know that?" Raven boy heckled me next, and I was tempted to fling my pointy stick at his face, but I suppressed the impulse.

"Fine. What if I told you that Bel of the Abyss visited me and told me that he came from the future and that if I don't mobilize enough powerful fighters, I'll be sorry?" I blurted out in exasperation, yet it had a mixed effect.

On one hand, the people in the know, namely Agrawain, Morgana, and Roland, stiffened up for a second, and the latter even facepalmed. On the other end of the spectrum, Duncan looked more than a bit miffed just by the mention of Bel's name, while everyone in-between seemed rather intrigued.

"Is that so?" Dad-in-law rubbed his chin and let out several thoughtful hums. "So far, as dangerous as this Bel fellow was, his actions always benefited us in the long run. Should we trust him?"

"We cannae troost 'at snake!" the big guy in the front row objected, but he was overruled by Naoren.

"Clan Head Abram's question is a reasonable one. If he's the source of the information, it might be in our best interest to consider it."

"But wait!" Sahi, hitherto silent in the back row, suddenly raised a hand. "Like, wouldn't doing what he said totally cause a time paradox?"

"We can't fathom the depths of that elder's power," Odango Girl chimed in next, sounding rather pensive. "He said he was once his own grandfather."

"I'm… fairly sure that was a jest," Morgana tried to point out the obvious, but her words fell on deaf ears.

"The young lady has a point," Sebastian spoke with great gravitas that was completely unbefitting of the topic. "This Bel of the Abyss might be an ancient Abyssal Lord from the era of the Great War waged between the Celestials and the Abyssals millennia ago. Maybe even older than that. Who can tell how much power such an individual could have amassed over the centuries?"

At last, Roland stopped facepalming, and sent me a questioning gaze, asking 'Should I play along?', and after a long beat, I nodded. With a sigh, he sat straight and cleared his throat.

"As much as it pains me to say this, I think we should accept Bel's advice." Seeing that he drew everyone's attention to himself, he further clarified, "We all have seen that Bel holds Leonard in… some form of esteem. It is unlike he would try to deceive him after all this time, and so I believe his warning is reliable."

As much as I wanted to complain about how this whole briefing turned out, I decided to just run with it and doubled down.

"And that's why I want you to be ready for battle in the nick of time, if necessary. No matter the circumstances, I think we can all agree that it's better to be safe than sorry, and while I understand that this is an inconvenience, it's better than the alternative."

This time, there was much less resistance to what I said, and after a long beat, Ichiko raised her hand. Until just a few moments ago, she was sitting on Odango Girl's lap in her fox form, and her sudden transformation caused a bit of a stir in the back-rows.

"Ue-sama! Would that mean that we should set up a schedule? So that there's always someone on duty and ready to respond in case of an emergency?"

"That sounds like a good start," I granted her, and the tiny miko immediately followed me up with a determined look on her face.

"In that case, I recommend that we form teams based on compatibility! For example, we should have Rinne-san and Naoren-san in one team!"

Finally realizing where she was going with it, the tiny dragon also jumped to her feet to vehemently back her up.

"Yes! Brother Naoren and Sister Rinne will make a great team!"

"I'll… let you work that out between each other," I granted them, and the little girls gave each other a high five, as if they scored some kind of victory. In the meantime, I could feel my phone vibrate in my pocket, and after pulling it out, I turned off the alarm I set before the briefing and let out a shallow breath. "I think that was a lot to take in at once, so let's end it here for today."

"That's, like, a bit abrupt," Sahi complained loud enough for me to hear. "Like, you haven't even told us when this battle would happen, and you, like, totally skimmed over what we should expect!"

I really wanted to extend my pointy stick again and repeatedly tap it against the overcrowded whiteboard that was describing just that, but I was mentally exhausted and didn't want to get into an argument at this point.

"We'll come back to this tomorrow. Same time, same place. For today, the meeting is over." I might've unintentionally channelled my Polemos persona a bit there, as some of the seats were giving me sideways stares. "Oh, don't look at me like that. I still have homework and other things to take care of. Give me a break, will you?"

My outburst, contrary to expectations, made everyone look more relaxed, and before anyone could address me again, I put my telescopic stick down and, with a wave of my hand, I took a sharp turn to the right and headed right to the teleport closet in the reception area. Thankfully, nobody tried to stop me.

To be fair, I wasn't entirely truthful with them, as I had already finished most of my homework in the library after school hours, with the help of the girls, of course. My sudden departure had much more to do with a previous appointment than anything else, and once I was in the reception room, I quickly put on the black long coat and the gloves I left on the padded bench by the door.

Just to be safe, I did a quick roll call before heading out. My sisters, along with Judy and Elly, were home and preparing dinner. A lot of dinner, just as expected. The Celestial bigwigs were… rather passive. Just like with the case of Crowey and his lackeys, since no main character type was around them at the moment, the Simulacrum apparently put them on the back burner, and without any major ongoing event to jolt them out of their routine, they had been doing nothing but dull administrative work ever since we left the Elysium.

The arch-mages were, by the looks of it, woefully unprepared for actually teaching actual classes, even if they would only have to do the bare minimum for the sake of their cover, and they were currently receiving guidance on how to put together a lesson plan from Mrs. Applebottom. The Praetorian Guards were, well, guarding Angie's neighbourhood, and as for our lovebirds, Josh and Angie were… washing the dishes together. Go figure.

In any case, nothing really stuck out as requiring my immediate attention, so I honed in on my actual target, and a second after stepping into our trademarked teleport closet, I was in an alley in the upscale old town area of Timaeus. Stepping out to the street, my coat was buffeted by the evening breeze. The sun was almost completely down by this point, but the area was especially well-lit, with rows of standing lights illuminating the long promenade, surrounded by a row of cafés, restaurants, and boutiques on both sides.

My destination was close by; in fact, it was technically in the building right next to me, but I couldn't quite just teleport right into the fancy family diner, now could I? When I walked through the door, the cashier lady behind the counter looked up at me, in all her vacant, placeholder glory. I still felt obligated to speak up though, and I pointed at the back of the restaurant floor.

"My friends are already here."

She followed my finger and then smiled before wordlessly returning to the cash register. I didn't dally around longer than necessary and made my way over to the table tucked away in the corner. The place wasn't particularly busy, with only about a dozen customers scattered around, but that particular area was practically deserted save for the two guys sitting there.

Mike didn't need any introduction. He was wearing a smart business casual outfit with a white shirt, a brown knit vest, and even a bow tie. Together with that handsome face wasted on him and his slick heartthrob hairdo, he provided a huge contrast with the guy sitting at the other end of the table.

He was, for the lack of better words, large. Not just overweight, but heavy-set in general. His thick brown hair was tied into a ponytail at the base of his neck, and his unruly beard covered his entire face. He was also wearing a worn leather jacket and a black t-shirt with a front right off a metal album cover. If not for his guileless expression and the thick-rimmed rectangular glasses on his nose, he would've looked like a stereotypical metalhead, or at the very least, a band roadie.

"Evening," I greeted the two as I came closer, and the big guy twitched in surprise. So did Mike, but once he saw it was just me, he let out a relieved breath. "Was I late?"

"No, not at all! We just got here!"

They didn't. In fact, they had been sitting there for the better part of three hours, as the multiple sets of coffee cups and empty plates could tell.

Sometime in the afternoon, Mike messaged me again, saying the Moose was pretty freaked out by everything, so we agreed not to increase the pressure by taking him to my place, but to meet in a more neutral location instead. Considering how hard the guy was sweating in my presence, that was probably a good call, as trying to have a decent discussion at home, with two Abyssals, a Knight, a Draconian, and a Dormouse around would have probably been quite intimidating.

Anyhow, I sat down, and only when I got comfortable did the big guy speak up.

"You're… Admin, right?"

His voice was unexpectedly soft, considering his appearance, though it might have been just because he was unsure of himself at the moment. I couldn't blame him.

"Yep. And you're Moose," I answered with a friendly smile and looked him over. "You know, when we talked online, this definitely wasn't what I was expecting."

"I-I know!" Mike joined in, sounding higher-pitched than usual. "Why didn't you warn me? We almost missed each other because I didn't think Moose would look so intimidating!"

"I just said I didn't know what he looked like either," I told him with a flat look, and added, "Not to mention, knowing you, you would've been intimidated no matter what he looked like."

"I…!" Mike tried to argue back, but when he noticed that Moose was trying to speak up, he bit back his words.

"And you're also Leonard Dunning," he stated a touch hesitantly. I nodded. "The Chimera Slayer of Critias." I nodded again. "And the leader of the Draconic Federation."

"In the flesh," I said with a smile. "Though for the record, I'm only the leader of the Ordo Draconis, and only technically. I prefer a hands-off approach, you see."

Still guarded, the bearded man nodded. On closer look, I had a hard time telling his age; he had one of those faces that looked both young and old at the same time, and the thick mane and rocker-beard didn't help either.

"And… you're also… Archon Polemos," he squeezed out, and when I nodded again, he let out a gasp and buried his face in his hands. "Oh, my Deus, what did I get myself into…?"

"She's also on the island, but I can't introduce you right now. She's busy helping her boyfriend wash the dishes."

I intended that to be a joke to ease the mood, but Moose only reached by slouching his shoulders even more. It only lasted for a few seconds though, and then he suddenly slapped his cheeks and let out a sharp breath.

"I'm fine. I'm fine," he repeated, seemingly to himself, as he readjusted his glasses and looked me in the eye with an expression that said he was still waiting for the second shoe to drop. "Any other scary revelations I should know about your identity?"

"I'm afraid that's all," I answered, though for a moment, I couldn't help but imagine his reaction if I told him about Bel of the Abyss too. In any case, he let out a relieved breath and recomposed himself a bit.

"How should I address you?"

"Leonard's fine, but you can keep using Admin if you're more comfortable with that."

"Not Polemos?" he asked, and I shrugged.

"To be honest, I'm happy that now that I'm finally out of the Elysium, I don't have to hear 'O Polemos' this and 'Lord Polemos' that all day long."

Moose nodded, and after some contemplation, his face regained its colour.

"Which one is your true identity?"

"Leonard Dunning," I answered without reservations.

"Are you the real Polemos?"

"By all measurable standards, yes."

"I see." He paused for a while, and his eyes narrowed behind the glasses. "Are you the real Admin?"

"Hey!" Mike cut in, sounding alarmed, and then instantly lowered his voice into a hiss. "Come on, Raz! We agreed not to ask!"

"He doesn't seem to mind the question, and weren't you the one who wanted to know the most?" Moose turned his gaze to him, and when Michael didn't respond, he levelled the same gaze onto me again. "So?"

"Define 'real'," I said, and at once, he let out a sigh.

"I knew it. You took over Admin's account around the beginning of last October, didn't you? Before you changed the host servers and changed the site layout."

"Oh?" That made me raise an impressed brow. "What makes you think that?"

Moose let out a long sigh and entwined his fingers on the table.

"Before that, Admin was never so proactive. He barely communicated on the forums and didn't moderate the boards at all. The way you wrote was also very different." He paused, and raised his still-entwined fists, with his elbows remaining on the table, and rested his forehead against his hands. "To think this would be the least outrageous thing about you…"

"Stay around long enough, and you'll get used to it," Mike commented with just a hint of self-satisfaction and took a sip from his coffee. Then he froze and looked at me in a panic. "Ah! W-Wait, I should order you a drink, or… Uh, but it's your money, so using it to buy you something would be weird, but not ordering anything would be disrespectful, and…"

"Don't overthink it," I told him, but the hapless Celestial was already lost in his worries. The other Celestial at the table, on the other hand, was getting more focused with every passing minute.

"What happened to the original Admin?"

"I haven't the faintest clue," I admitted with a shrug. "I never looked into their whereabouts after I took the account. You can look into them in your free time if you want; I won't stop you."

"I'm not nearly invested enough to do that," he told me frankly, and I had to admit, I liked how direct he was. He managed to be forthcoming without being overbearing, and the way he accepted everything I said and drew conclusions from them was a breath of fresh air.

In the meantime, Mike decided to order something after all, and waved for one of the waitresses. At the same time, Moose's brows descended into a thoughtful frown, and once he let his hands down, he addressed me again in a low voice.

"This turned out to be way bigger than I expected."

"Why? What were you expecting?" I asked, out of pure curiosity, and he exhaled an exasperated 'Ugh,'.

"I thought that the vice director was asking for my help because the CIN was short-handed on Critias after Deus herself came here. Instead, it turns out I was asked to come here by Archon Polemos himself."

"Maybe if you consider that it was Leonard and not Polemos, it will be less scary," Mike chimed in, earning him a glare.

"Both of those options are terrifying!" Moose burst out, and once again buried his face in his hands, and muttered, "What did I get myself into." There was a long beat, and then he looked up from his hands and asked, in a more level voice, "Seriously. What did I get myself into? What is this all about?"

"It's kind of a long story, but to summarize it in a single sentence," I began, only to stop as the waitress arrived with a cup of latte. I wasn't a fan, but Mike looked really expectant, so I accepted it and then waited until she left to continue the previous thought. "You know that I just came back from the Elysium, right?"

"I think everyone in the CIN knows that," Moose answered flatly.

"In short, my time there made me realize that the entire Directorate is a rotten tree that has to be cut down if Celestials would ever hope to co-exist in peace with the rest of the world."

"You want to overthrow the Directorate?!"

That exclamation came from Mike, but we both ignored him for the time being. Moose's eyes only widened for a moment, only to shift into a frown right away.

"You need a replacement, and you want to use the Hub and the Celestial Intelligence Network as a power base."

"That's the gist of it," I told him in the company of an approving nod. "On a side note, you have no idea how refreshing it feels to talk with someone to whom I don't need to spell out everything one by one."

"Is Deus in on this plan?"

"More-or-less. She's busy preparing herself to govern the Elysium, and if we don't do something about the Directorate, it's only a matter of time before they butt heads with each other."

"So she's not an active participant," he noted, and we locked eyes. "Why me?"

"Because I trust you," I told him without any pretences. To be fair though, it might have been more accurate to say 'You're the sanest guy on the Hub I know of,' but that didn't sound as flattering.

"Can I refuse?"

"You can, but that would put me in a bit of a pinch, so I would prefer if you didn't."

Moose continued to look me in the eye for a while, as if trying to read my mind, and he ultimately let out a sigh.

"I'll get paid, right?"

"Sure."

"And you won't throw me under the bus once all of this is over, right?"

"I don't do that to my friends."

"Friends? Do you even know my name?"

"I don't see how that's relevant," I said with a frown. "Until five minutes ago, you didn't know my name either, but you still came to this island when I asked for help."

"Fair enough, I suppose," the guy mumbled, and after giving him some time to think (which I spent adding even more sugar and cream to my latte), he came to a conclusion. "Fine. All of this is crazy, but I have a feeling that if I don't jump aboard now, I'll regret it later."

"That's the spirit!" Mike exclaimed with a gleeful grin, and Moose looked at him with an expression that said 'Now I understand why you were always using so many exclamation marks in chat', before he extended a hand to me.

"By the way, the name's Raz," he told me, and I reflexively shook his hand. I had a hard time resisting a Far Sight mark when it was freely offered. "It's short for Raziel."

"Seriously? You grew up with a name like that?" I blurted out, and he let out an annoyed groan and squeezed my hand.

"Don't make me get started. I could go on for days."

Honestly, the more we interacted, the more impressed I was by Moose. Or should I say, Raz? He had a distinct appearance, a fully-fledged personality, he was remarkably quick-witted, and he even had a pretty unique name too. I couldn't help but wonder: with all of those things combined, could it be that he was always meant to be a character in the Simulacrum's grand play? The only thing he was missing was a lack of direct connection to any of our so-called cast, excluding my meddling self, that could've pulled him into the plot, but otherwise, he was…

"The full name's Raziel Mensah, by the way. You probably already met my brother in the Elysium."

… aaand here comes the other shoe. Goddamit.