The Simulacrum

~Chapter 140~ Part 2

Let's make a tally. There were three situations unfolding at the moment: the site with Percival and the Colossi, this place with Angie, the assassins, and the in-fighting Celestials, and finally there's the Elysium, things have completely escalated out of hand. Which of these required my attention the most?

Well, the Elysium was more-or-less off the table. I already had a lot of trouble being at two places at once, so I wasn't going to touch that with a standardized ten-foot pokey pole if I could help it. As for the remaining two…

"Monsieur Archon? Would you take your feet off my head, s'il vous plaît?" the armoured man squirmed under me, so I immediately put more pressure on him.

"Shut up. I'm thinking."

He let out a strange noise, something halfway between a groan and a whimper, and fell silent. Not that it made a lick of a difference, considering the rest of the roof was still loud as heck.

"Oryaaah!" hammer-lad yelled and sent one of the assassins flying with a strike of his weapon, while facemask-fella and sci-fi-dude were in the process of cornering two others by working in tandem.

The Praetorian Guards had a clear advantage, probably because of their magical team-power-up song or whatever, so Jaakobah had the leeway to dash over to my side. He braced his sword and gun, with his back turned to me and looking for potential threats, and after a second or two, he turned his face to me without letting his weapons down.

"We have emptied the side of the building facing the theater of operations. The rest of the civilians were informed as well and are in the process of evacuation as we speak. Your orders?"

"Good job," I spoke half-heartedly. To be fair, I was audibly out of it, so he hopefully didn't blame me for not being particularly enthusiastic. I pointedly swept my gaze across the battle in front of me and carried on in a slightly firmer voice. "Capture the perpetrators alive and then extract them from the combat zone for interrogation."

"As you command."

Jaakobah flourished his weapons (including doing one of those patently unsafe spins with his gun), and rushed back into the fray, leaving me alone. Well, as alone as I could get with the squirming man under my feet, but that's beside the point. For the time being, I needed to focus my attention, but it was hard when my head was throbbing like crazy. As much as I got used to Phasing and using my phantom limbs over the months, the after-effects never fully went away, and overusing them like this was taking a toll on me.

For example, I was so out of it that it took me this long to think of doing something about it. Activating the storage enchantment adjacent to my Leoformer, I retrieved Cal at once.

"{Hm? Where are we?}" They, for once, didn't open by complaining, but sounded rather surprised instead.

"I don't have time to explain. Ask Teeny for details," I whispered in response and tightened my grip on the sword. "Help me with the circulation trick."

"{Again?}"/"{Report: Interface:Teeny isn't entirely up-to-date with current events either, but will oblige.}"

Despite their complaints, I could soon feel Cal guiding the mana in my body through the familiar channels, and after a few seconds, there was a cooling sensation washing over both my body and mind. I let out a relieved sigh and closed my eyes.

With my headache lessening into an unpleasant buzz, and my talkative weapons' chatter serving as background noise, I used Far Sight. While the obvious thing was to check on the situation in the Orange Zone, or the Elysium, I decided to go against the grain and focused on the people who weren't fully wrapped up in this situation yet, because the devil you didn't know was always worse than the devil you did.

Starting with the Old Man conspicuously missing from the events so far, I found Lord Grandpa in the company of Ammy, still in the School.

"… if you go, things are only going to become more chaotic," the class rep argued as they walked down one of the underground corridors. "Lord Ambrose already took command of the rapid response unit, along with Lord Taika and Lord Gulliver."

"It is all the more reason for me to also get involved," the old man argued back as they rounded a corner, and entered the familiar area of the local Enchanters' Lodge. "This is my island. Ensuring its security is my duty, and not doing so would inevitably tarnish my authority."

"Grandfather, listen!" the class rep stepped in front of him in an unusual display of fervour, and even tweaked her glasses at him. "This is not our destiny. Let Leonard and his allies handle it. If we interfere too much, it will only make things harder for everyone involved."

"Destiny?" the old man paused and raised a brow. "Why do you speak of such a senseless concept all of a sudden?"

"It's… complicated. I'm not sure I can explain, but you know what I mean!" Seeing her arguing back like that made Lord Grandpa's expression get even more complicated, but the class repo pushed on. "It's an affair they have to resolve on their own, and escalating things by mobilizing the School's forces would be foolish. Let Leo handle it."

The old man eyed her for a while, but then started walking again, pushing past her. For a moment, it looked like her words fell on deaf ears, but then he said, "I am going to mobilize the School, but we shall remain on standby for now. So long as the conflict remains under control."

"Thank you!"

She followed after him, and for a moment, I couldn't decide whether this was a good or bad development. On one hand, it was true that getting Lord Grandpa and the rest of the Magi involved in this already chaotic situation would've been a pain in the neck, but on the other hand, 'Let Leo handle it', especially coming from the class rep of all people, made my headache surge once again.

Since Ammy reminded me of him, I far glanced at Mike next, and I naturally found him in the frantic company of Moose in their apartment. While the big guy was glued in front of his multi-monitor old-school hacker setup, and browsing multiple reports and the Celestial Hub at once, the hapless blonde had half a dozen communication balls in small wooden boxes laid out on the table in front of him.

"Crap, crap, crap," Moose cursed under his breath. "This is bad. Things are getting out of hand."

"R-Raz!" Mike called over after an unfamiliar hologram head just disappeared from sight. His voice was hoarse, and he frantically gestured at the man at the computer. "I've just got a report! There's a sighting of your brother!"

"I don't care about Dolion!" Moose snapped back. "We have bigger things to worry about! The fighting it spilling out of the Migdál already."

"That's bad! What should we do?"

"That's what our collaborators are asking too! Admin said we should stay put, but at this rate, there are going to be a lot of collateral casualties, especially once the army moves in."

"M-Maybe we should tell them to help evacuate the Malakim in the area?" Mike proposed, causing the other man to stop typing and turn in his seat to send a skeptical gaze at him. "I-I mean, Father told me Leonard really cares about the Malakim, and he spent a lot of time mingling among them, so I don't think he'll be mad if we try to help them. Doing that technically doesn't mean we're telling others to take sides, right?"

"Technically, no." They remained silent for a second, then Moose turned back to the screens. "Ah, to hell with it! I'm telling them to do that. Let's hope we won't get chewed out for it later."

"I'll do the same!" the other guy agreed with a thin-lipped smile, and then frantically tapped on one of the communication balls. "Ah! I've missed a call!"

Those two… weren't exactly on the top of things, but they were trying. That was good enough in my book. I was also tempted to take a peek at the three head directors, but stopped myself. Chances were, if I saw them, and whatever dumb scheme they were running at the moment, I wouldn't have been able to stop myself from interfering, and I couldn't afford to open a 'third front' right now. But staying on the theme of 'Celestials', I was getting a bit worried about how things were going with Angie/Deus in the Purple Zone, so I shifted my attention to her, and…

"Out of my way, wingless cur!" she yelled so hard it made me twitch by reflex, and then she let loose of a single arrow that broke into multiple projectiles, drawing bright lines through the air as they rained down onto… the pile of rubble that once used to be the copy of the apartment-complex I was standing on at the moment. And a whole bunch of other buildings as well. And the completely glassed remains of the playground. And…

…

Holy shit, did we dodge the bullet by quickly dragging her into a Purple Zone or what?

That aside, I glanced around and found Ambrose and Gulliver on the ground. They looked tired, but otherwise not much worse for wear; as you would expect from arch-mages, really. The bearded older man was in the process of conjuring up more automated magical railguns firing stones and rubble at the girl weaving and zigzagging between his projectiles, while the lanky one was covering them with a complex array of interlocking hexagonal shields.

"Give me more cover!" Ambrose yelled as a magical arrow exploded just a couple of meters to their left. "I can't cast anything complex like this!"

"I'm trying, but I also have to pay attention to the Restricted Space!" Gulliver argued back. "We can't afford to let her out of here yet. Not until Leonard comes back."

"Bah! I could take her down on my own if only you—" There was a buzzing sound and the magical construct the ornery arch-mage was working on nearly collapsed. "Ah! Leave some mana for me, you lout!"

"Sorry, but the throughput of the ley-line here is pretty bad. We should move somewhere else."

"But I'm almost done with my air saturation ordinance invocation!"

While the two argued, Angie continued to fly circles in the air and take potshots at them, though her attacks kept getting intercepted by the hexagons floating over the arch-mages. In any case, while the collateral damage was appalling, they were still in a stalemate, so they didn't require immediate attention.

Moving on, I checked on Crowey, but he and his cronies didn't even seem to be aware that something was going down upstairs, colloquially speaking. To be fair though, things only started escalating less than half an hour ago, so it wasn't surprising that news didn't travel that far yet. But while we were on the topic of Abyssals, I quickly checked on Tajana, and to my relief, I found her back home, though in an unexpected company.

"No. You're staying here," Roland told her on no uncertain terms, and the young spymaster honest-to-goodness puffed up her cheeks and angrily stomped her feet in return. The two of them were in my living room, standing right next to the couch; the Knight in his uniform, standing firm with his arms crossed, and the alleged Seducer dressed in her casual indoor clothes, complete with bunny slippers, fuming at him.

"But… but you said Lord Bel… I-I mean…" She stammered for a while, but then her eyes lit up and she animatedly waved her arms. "T-That's not important! What about My Lady? Is she all right?"

"Neige is currently engaged in battle, but it's not something for you to be concerned about."

"That's exactly something that concerns me!" she argued vehemently. "W- What if she gets hurt? Or worse! Shouldn't you be out there, helping her?!"

"Under normal circumstances, yes." Roland sounded cool and collected, though I could detect a hint of frustration in his voice. "However, the situation is already chaotic, so I'm here to ensure that nothing could happen to you."

Oh. I was wondering where Roland was during all of this, but this made sense. Chances are, Judy sent him to my house to make sure Tajana would stay put and wouldn't complicate things even further. That was a good call; this kind of mess was the perfect opportunity for her to slip away, and either get caught up in the cross-fire, or escape back to the Abyss and get those guys involved, and that was the last thing we needed right now.

"I… uuu… Y-You don't need to worry about my safety! I-I-I can take care of myself! I'm strong, you know?"

"Sure," Roland responded dismissively, causing her to fume again.

"I'm serious! I'm not some damsel that needs a d-dashing knight to protect them!"

"Well, I'm still going to do just that, so you better make your peace with the idea, sit down and stay quiet."

Roland either didn't notice or more likely didn't care about how flustered Tajana was getting, seemingly trapped in some kind of odd and slightly contrived misunderstanding of her own. I made a mental note to tell him to be careful around her with his choice of words, before he started raising flags unintentionally, and shelved it in the 'not important right now' folder in the back of my mind.

Anyhow, I let out a soft grunt and focused on the next red dot on my list. Since now I knew where our Sir Griffon was all this time, it made me wonder about the rest of the Knights who were unaccounted for, and since I knew that Penny was still stuck in the underground base with Zihao, my attention shifted to Duncan. However, I never got around to properly switching my point of view, because I was startled by just how close he was to my location.

Less than a blink of an eye later, I was startled by the sound of a car horn, and when I looked down to the veiled supernatural three-way battle between the Magi task force, the first group of CIEL-affiliated Celestials, and the hitherto unexplained second, even larger group of Celestial agents, I saw a limousine and two black minivans careen into the playground. The vehicles' door sprung open, and out jumped Sir Minotaur, carrying his family heirloom sword I once borrowed from him instead of his usual double-headed axe, followed by a whole bunch of Ordo Draconis Squires.

Even more surprising was that Elly was also there, already in her Uniformer, yet before I could ask any questions, Judy connected to me.

"{Mission Control here. I've rerouted more reinforcements to Site B, over.}"

"I can see that," I whispered, just slightly alarmed. "What's Elly doing with them?"

"{She insisted.}" After a long beat, she also added, "{Duncan is asking for orders. What should I tell him?}"

"At this stage, I have no idea either. Ask Josh; I think he's in command down there, so tell them to work together."

"{Roger. Are you planning to use Joshua's plot armor to their advantage?}"

"I'm not trying to be meta here, but sure. We should let him flex his protagonist status every once in a while."

"{Good thinking. This way, the Narrative presumably won't get him involved in another dramatic event.}" There was another lull in the conversation, to the point I thought Judy cut the line, but then she suddenly spoke up again. "{Chief. I recommend you take a look at Site C. Things aren't looking good there.}"

Wait, which one was Site C? The one with Percival? How could there have been any problems, considering the all-star lineup we brought to the table there?

Far Glancing over to the Orange Zone, I was met with collateral damage that was second only to the abject devastation caused by the back-and-forth between Angie and the two arch-mages. Speaking of which, the first person I saw was Lord Barnabas, who was out of the fight, and was in the process of healing a roughed-up Raven Boy. He was lying on the ground outside the half-ruined copy of the warehouse building, and by the looks of it, one of his arms was broken. As for the inside…

"Haaaa!"

Dad-in-law was in the process of wrestling with one of the Colossi on the ground, their hands interlinked as they struggled against each other. Then, he suddenly and brutally slammed his head into the face of the statuesque monster on the ground, denting its golden helmet in the shape of his ridged horns. He tried to do it again, but then the Colossus kicked at him, and Abram staggered back, but only to let out another roar and tackle the creature the moment it got onto its feet, and through a wall, further compromising the structural integrity of the building.

Following them, my eyes caught Snowy and Emese, flying high in the air and harassing a different Colossus. This one had already morphed a bit to match them, elongating its limbs and wielding a long spear and a shield, using one to threaten mom-in-law whenever she was about to dive-bomb it while using the other to guard against my sister's projectile attacks.

"Tenka Dairinzan!"/"Thousand Arhat Palm!"

Back inside, I saw Rinne and Naoren working in tandem to keep two Colossi busy, alternating their attacks, with the Feilong patriarch accommodating Mountain Girl's extravagantly telegraphed attacks with more straightforward hand-to-hand strikes of his own. That said, he was also calling out his moves, and they were accompanied by all kinds of flashy special effects, so… birds of a feather, I supposed?

Anyhow, it looked like they'd got the upper hand, so I searched for the two missing Colossi and found them outside, where Sebastian was soloing them on his own. While I've been looking forward to seeing him in action, reality was kind of disappointing, as he did little more than dodge with minimal effort, and occasionally let loose a short but loud burst of Dragonfire, its red light momentarily overpowering the orange ambiance of the place, and sending a Colossus tumbling down.

Yet, it didn't seem to have too much of an effect, as even though it left the affected creature covered in blackened burns, after just a few short seconds, the skin of the affected areas just flaked off and they would join the fray once again. Still, the fact he was keeping two of them at bay at once was impressive, I supposed? I was still expecting more though.

In any case, everyone seemed to be at least holding the line, if not necessarily outright winning yet, so what was the…? Ah, right. Percival. Where was he, anyway?

Shifting my point of view, I was suddenly looking at the roof, where a black knight was standing tall over Morgana and Arnwald, the two of them bruised and exhausted, which meant…

"Shit. Is that bastard the actual final boss of this whole mess?" I hissed as I returned to my body and stepped off the armoured man under my feet. Then I kicked him before he could get up, because unarmed captive or not, he tried to shoot Angie, and did manage to injure Josh, so he deserved it.

Anyhow, this was bad news, but I should've expected it. I thought three-to-one was enough to suppress the old bastard, but considering how the Knights operated, ramping up and then their enchantments winding down after a while, maybe this was inevitable. Fortunately, the Praetorian Guard already more-or-less wrapped up the situation here, so I flagged down Jaakobah.

"I have to leave now. Once you're done here, provide support to our allies on the ground."

"As the Lord Archon commands." He saluted to me, and then when he saw the man on the ground stirring, he took my place and stood on his head. "Please, stay safe."

"Don't give me death flags."

That prompted Cal to ask, "{What manner of pennant are you talking about, young knight?}"

"{Speculation: Archon Polemos must be referring to the type of flags used for communications at a distance. According to my knowledge-banks, the proper term is 'semaphore'.}"

"{Ah! So our young knight is telling his retainer no to bring him news of their untimely demise. Such a simple yet elegant explanation!}"

"{Boast: Thank you, Interface:Cal. Interface:Teeny is indeed well-versed in the ways of linguistics.}"

Ignoring the sentient swords lost in their non-existent metaphors, I stepped up to the edge of the roof, and mimed jumping off before Phasing to the same old storage room. Since I had a bit of momentum, I landed with a rough stomp, causing the startled Pudding-kun to hurriedly hide behind some boxes. For the moment, I ignored them and got ready to move out again.

After catching my breath for a few minutes, I felt better, and my headache was also mostly gone thanks to the mana-circulation trick. While I was far from being in top shape, I was at least ready for action again… but first, I had to make a decision about who should show up to back up Morgana and Arnwald, and that was a trickier question than it seemed at first glance…