The Simulacrum

~Chapter 138~ Part 2

Josh, Angie, Zihao, Penny, and Snowy. Plus yours truly, obviously.

That was one eclectic bunch if there ever was one, and all of us gathered at the underground base's training grounds was especially unusual.

"Hiya! Too slow!" my Knightly sister, clad in her Uniformer and wielding a training sword, exclaimed as she dodged out of the way of the younger Feilong brother's kick combo, and then used a wave-dash to rapidly close in on him, but he managed to get away with a double-jump.

…

"Maybe I've been playing too much Super Bash Siblings lately…" I mused, and my other sister turned a puzzled glance at me.

We were sitting on the benches at the edge of the sparring field, while the childhood friend couple was sitting just a bit further away. They were kind of lost in their own little world though, with Angie helping Josh stretch, so let's ignore them for now. As for Snowy, she was here to cheer for Penny (while I wasn't looking, she, Josh, and Zihao developed a weird rivalry-triangle), but the more I looked, the more I felt that she didn't have her heart in it.

"Why the long face?" I asked jokingly, and to my surprise, she let out a soft whimper.

"I'm just…" She stopped, and I waited for her to continue, but it never came. If anything, my question only made her look like she was even deeper under the weather.

Considering the recent events, I tried to figure out what was eating at her, and by process of elimination, I came to the only viable answer I could think of. I gestured for her to lean closer, and I made sure to whisper so that the others wouldn't overhear it.

"Is this about Sir Percival?"

Snowy was stumped for a moment, but then she responded with a soft 'Mm' and a graceless nod.

"I… really wanted to do something useful, but in the end, I didn't get anything out of him."

"Don't feel too down." For emphasis, I patted her shoulder. "He's a crafty old snake, so there's no shame in it."

"But it still hurts my pride as a Seducer…" That was already an odd thing for her to say, but she even pouted a little. It only lasted for a second though, as her face immediately flushed and she insisted, "I-I mean, I'm not proud of being a Seducer, but it's… you know… It's supposed to be my thing, I guess?"

She sounded oddly uncertain of herself by the time she voiced her woes, so I couldn't help but smile and rub her head a bit.

"Ease up, sis. It's no big deal."

"But I thought I was getting to him. I even called him 'uncle' a few times…" she muttered, sounding embarrassed by the whole ordeal.

"Let's not let it get you down. Look on the bright side; you've made a lot of progress with Tajana, right?"

"R-Right!"

I had to admit, my Abyssal sister was nothing if not adorable, and the moment I reminded her of her ongoing efforts to subvert the hapless spymaster, the way her mood turned on a dime was almost funny. Of course, I would never laugh at her resolve, so I kept my chuckles locked up and only rubbed her nogging a bit harder. I thought that was the end of the topic, but then her expression grew clouded again, and she turned to face me.

"Leo? You're planning to send him into Elysium, right?"

"Most likely. Everyone seems to think that stripping him of all his titles and kicking him out as a spy is the best way to deal with this."

"Before that… can I give it another go?" When I raised a brow at that, she hastily explained, "I-I… spent so much time and effort on this, so… I want to try one last time."

"I don't know what you're expecting, but don't let me stop you."

She nodded, determination practically oozing from her expression, and we both turned back to the sparring ring, where the fight was about to reach its crescendo, with an unexpected twist at the end.

"I've got you!"

Penny yelled out loud as she did her zig-zagging Sanic the Hedgehog impression and rushed down the draconian boy. Yet, just before she could swing her sword, Zihao stepped in and stood his ground. To avoid a head-on-collision my sister changed the direction of her dash, but then Zihao's hair flashed with red light as he forcefully twisted his feet to match her trajectory, and caught her flat-footed.

He grabbed hold of her uniform, and with a yell, he threw Penny over his shoulder while retaining much of her momentum. The move caused her to land on her back and then roll, losing her weapon in the process and coming to a stop several steps away from the point of impact. By the sound of it, a lot of her Uniformer's wards activated to mitigate the blow and she quickly rose to her feet, but without her weapon in hand, it was already her loss.

"You… signal too much…" Zihao said between heaves, and while he was grinning over his victory, the sweat on his forehead and his laboured breathing said it was a hard-won one. He rapidly inhaled and exhaled a few times, while making a martial artist salute, and then he continued in a much more even tone. "You shouldn't announce your moves in advance. It gives your opponent an edge."

"That's rich coming from mister 'ReCeIvE mY iNfInItE qIlIn PaLm'!" Penny argued back, causing his dignified expression to show some cracks.

"Are you making fun of the Feilong clan's martial arts!?"

"Hmpf! At least I don't shout the names of my attacks out loud!"

"Big words for a loser!"

"I wouldn't have lost if I had my armour on!"

"Excuses, excuses, excuses."

"Ease off, kids," I cut in, walking into the sparring field. "Arguing after a match is not very sportsmanlike."

My knightly sister let out a brash harrumph and picked up her sword, then pointed it at Zihao again.

"I'll go get my armour, then we'll have a rematch, and we'll see who's talking rubbish!"

"Bring it on," the draconian growled, and Penny did so as well before sheathing her weapon and dashing off.

"Is it my turn now?" Josh asked from the side and hopped into the ring.

"Go, get him, tiger!" his girlfriend cheered him on, and speaking of girlfriends, it was around this point that Judy came into view. She was downstairs in the Research Division's lounge with Galatea until now. I only recently realized, but the two of them got along surprisingly well… though in retrospect, maybe it wasn't so surprising, considering the whole robot-gimmick.

"Penelope almost knocked me over just now." She stopped next to me and tilted her head a bit. "What did I miss?"

"She lost to this guy," I said, indicating Zihao with my finger.

"That's surprising," my dear assistant commented without any ill-meaning, but it still made the Feilong boy scoff.

"What? What's so surprising about it? Are you picking a fight?"

"… Care to walk back on that before I knock you upside your head?" I asked very, very politely, and the guy twitched before quickly saluting.

"My apologies. I'm still worked up after our duel." When he saw that I wasn't making a move, he let his hands down and added, in a decidedly grumpy tone, "But it still shouldn't have been surprising. I'm strong, you know?"

"You're indeed in the upper third of our power rankings," Judy stated, and Zihao immediately raised a brow.

"Power rankings?"

"Don't ask."

My words caused my girlfriend to lightly kick my shin, as is custom, but I could barely feel it. Meanwhile, the younger Feilong brother thoughtfully rubbed his chin, and let out a series of thoughtful hums.

"I see, I see. There are indeed a lot of monstrously talented fighters in our organization. I have to train harder."

"Just keep it in moderation."

My words were meant to be just idle small talk, but it once again caused Zihao's temper to flare.

"It's easy of you to say that, blessed by the heavens as you are, but if you don't take practicing your martial techniques seriously, one day you may be dragged down from your throne."

"By you?" I asked, mostly in jest, and the guy let out a vigorous grunt only slightly undermined by his refusing to meet my gaze.

"Maybe… or it could be him."

The person he was referring to was, naturally, Josh. He was still doing stretches at the other end of the ring, which looked especially weird when he did them clad in his Justicar outfit. He apparently took a liking to it lately and used it way more than his Uniformer outfit, but the way he looked in them while doing callisthenics still brought a smile to my face.

Zihao must've misunderstood the source of my amusement, as he was quick to double down on his previous statement.

"I'm not joking. He's a rare talent you only see once every generation, absorbing martial arts like a sponge absorbs water. You must best not underestimate him."

Why was this guy trying to up-sell my friend as if I wasn't perfectly aware of this already? None of that was shocking by any stretch of the imagination. Breaking news: Battle harem protagonist is unnaturally talented at supernatural combat. In other news: water makes things wet, space is big, and the pope reads the bible. More at eleven.

Seriously though, I thought it would take Josh considerably longer to get fully used to his Celestial power set, especially after only using Abyssal and Draconian transformations since forever, but he took to it like a duck to the water. Or so I imagined, considering he was able to go toe-to-toe with Zihao when sparring. As for posing a threat to me… we'll see about that, but I certainly wasn't holding my breath just yet.

"Can we get started? I'm starting to feel silly warming up all by myself here."

Josh's complaints reached receptive ears, as Zihao quickly left the ring, and so did Judy, though only after making me promise to take it easy. That was the plan from the beginning though, as I was already a bit tired from listening to Lord Barnabas's lecture and playing target practice for Lord Ambrose's newest 'totally-not-just-a-magical-gun' spell.

With all that in mind, I gestured for one of the Fauns idling by the side of the sparring area, and he tossed me a training polearm. It was a little longer than Teeny in its spear form, but it made little difference. I activated my Leoformer and donned my version of the Magiformer uniform. The Leoformer currently had four outfit configurations stored in it: this one, my Polemos outfit, my Bel disguise, and the tuned-up (if still inferior) replica of my Lion Knight armour. This wasn't shaping up to be particularly dangerous, so I opted for the uniform, as while it had all the wards, its weaker physical enhancements were easier to use in situations like this.

Meanwhile, Josh picked up the helmet that came with his Justicar ensemble and walked over to me. He stopped a couple of paces away from where I was standing and looked at me with a pair of resolute eyes.

"Today, I'm giving my all," he declared, with altogether too much fighting spirit.

"No need for that. It's just a friendly match," I responded lightly, but he shook his head and put on his helmet.

"Maybe, but if I'm to improve, I need to take this seriously. I can't live in your shadow forever."

"… Oh, come on. Are we really doing this?" I muttered softly, but he already took up an odd martial artist stance that was similar to Zihao's, but not quite the same. In any case, he probably didn't hear me, and he even did that thing from old martial arts movies, where one of the duellists made a 'Come and get me' motion with his hand to taunt his opponent.

As much as I loathed to admit it, this was a pretty tropey situation. Specifically, the 'talented protégé is trying to overcome a mental block by fighting his teacher' trope, common in both martial arts, shounen battle, and by proxy, harem battle narratives. And I walked right into it, without recognizing it ahead of time.

It made sense, too. Josh was, according to Judy's idea of the route structure, in the late stages of his 'character development'. Proving himself by fighting me, and showing off all the new and fancy abilities he learned and how much stronger he'd become, was evidently a part of the process. Normally it wouldn't have been that big of a deal, but it was also a bloody death flag for the mentor; either the hero wins, meaning they had no reason to exist in the story anymore and would get eliminated or demoted to extra, or the hero would still get defeated to reaffirm the power-level of the mentor, only to then get offed by a villain to establish their menace and power-level.

Though again, maybe I was just overthinking this, and there was no overarching narrative purpose for this duel beyond us having a sparring match. After all, we used to spar all the time in the past. Before I got too busy, and he found partners better suited to his style and power level.

In any case, Josh was waiting for me to make the first move, so I inhaled sharply and took up a simple stance with my training spear. Compared to his posture, mine was slightly less refined… but then again, I was an autodidact when it came to combat. While Josh received lessons from Rinne, the Knights, and even Zihao, by the looks of it, I got most of my experience by spending hours upon hours fighting the Fauns in Dominance battles, plus whatever crazy encounter I occasionally got myself into, like the duels with the arch-mages.

Though again, these didn't really compare well. Fighting someone who wanted to punch you was fundamentally different from trying to fight someone who threw serpents made of fire and bullets of stone at you.

But enough stalling; it was time to get this thing going, and I did so by readjusting my posture and making a light stab at Josh's side. Since he was fighting bare-handed, I had a serious advantage in range, which kind of reminded me of my very first real encounter with Brang, just before the school incident with Crowey. Good times.

…

Wait, no. Those were the exact opposite of good times.

Meanwhile, Josh jumped back to get out of my range, and then he suddenly accelerated to the right, accompanied by a flash of faint magical light. I was tempted to rush after him, but I stood my ground and retracted my spear, only following him with my eyes until he came to a stop.

Now on my right, I stepped to the left and simultaneously swept the spear over my head, stopping him just as he was about to move in. Since I had my weapon high, in an aggressive stance, I figured I might as well use it to rush him down, yet he once again slipped out of my range, his feet moving as if skating on ice.

That was already odd enough, but then he further surprised me by accurately exploiting an opening and suddenly closing the distance while I was pulling the spear back. I even got a faint warning from my danger sense, and I automatically leaned to the side, just in time to avoid a small bolt of white light exploding from his palm. Its shape kind of reminded me of the light arrows Jaakobah and midriff woman were shooting from their off-brand magitech magnum pistols, just less defined.

While I was doing that, he closed the distance, so I used the butt of the spear to push myself to the side. He followed right after me, and I could hear faint chanting as a bunch of faint disks appeared in the air around him. I figured they were some kind of projectile, but then even as they accelerated towards me, I couldn't feel my danger sense activating. I soon learned why when Josh let out a soft grunt and stepped onto one of them, using it as a foothold to dash through the air, from one platform to the next before landing behind me.

I had to give it to him, it was a flashy move, but kind of excessive, and when he tried to hit me from my blind spot, I did the same to him by thrusting the butt of the spear backwards under my arm, hitting him squarely on the chest. With this, the first strike went to me. Yay.

More seriously, all actions have an equal and opposite reaction, so as I stuck him and activated his Uniformer's built-in wards, the spear in my hands was also pushed back. Since it was an awkward position, I had to move with the force to retain my grip on my weapon. After taking a few steps forward, I brandished my weapon and turned around… only to momentarily freeze when Josh was nowhere to be found. My eyes were reflexively drawn up, and there he was, sporting a pair of translucent wings and already in the process of diving at me.

The sight made me instinctively glance at Angie, but she seemed to be fine, and enthusiastically cheering for her boyfriend. That was a mistake though, and one Josh immediately capitalized upon by grabbing hold of my spear, his hands gripping the shaft right next to mine and pushing it to my chest. The impact pushed me back a few steps, and he followed after me, refusing to let go of the spear. Was he after my weapon from the very beginning, I wondered. It was a smart move.

Unfortunately for him, I wasn't nearly as attached to this wooden training spear as he thought. I let go of my weapon, startling him for just long enough for me to slip under his guard and deliver an uppercut to his stomach. Normally you'd do that to the chin, but he was wearing a helmet, and I had no gauntlets, so I refrained from doing so.

Contrary to my expectations, he didn't stagger back, but instead tried to headbutt me. I twisted my upper body to avoid it, but that meant I had no way to respond when he used my own weapon to sweep at my feet. I suppressed to urge to Phase out of the way and took the hit. It was pretty insignificant, considering that both of our postures were a mess at the moment, but it was still a clean hit. Then he surprised me once again.

Instead of holding onto my weapon, he tossed it at me, just as I was about to jump back. I reflexively caught it, but my honed weapon-catching instincts were used against me when he suddenly sang the refrain of an old pop song I've often heard using as an advertisement jingle as of late, and he swung down vertically. His fingers were straight and held together firmly (a 'knife hand', if my memory served right), but more alarmingly, his entire lower arm was surrounded by a surging golden glow, extending beyond his fingertips. I've seen that move before, when he got out of control during the match against the Praetorian Guards, though this time it seemed much weaker than it was back then.

I raised the weapon in my hand to block it, but to my further shock, I was easily pushed back, literally skidding across the floor a good couple of meters before I came to a halt. Glancing up, I saw a deep notch on the spear shaft, reaching down to nearly half of its diameter, and still smouldering with the golden light.

"Hah…" Josh exhaled hard and took up his initial stance once again. "Ready to take me seriously yet?"

I gave my friend a disparaging glance and ramped up the physical enhancements on the uniform as high as they went (which was about half of the max output of the other three outfits) but I didn't lunge at him yet. Instead, I raised the spear over my head and brought it down on my knee.

The shaft broke cleanly in two at the notch, and I brandished my 'new weapons', earning a few 'Ooohs' and 'Aaahs' from the steadily growing peanut gallery. However, despite his earlier cocky attitude, Josh was the one who made his move first, humming a song and then blasting the ground in front of him, kicking up the equivalent of a magical smoke pellet. It was oddly reminiscent of a trick he often used with his Abyssal transformation, but while it was extra-effective on my eyes due to it being suffused with the colourless light of magic, it couldn't fool my sixth sense. I rushed in, and when I got a warning, I swatted the incoming magical bolt out of the air with one half of the spear, while using the other half to trike at its source.

I was rewarded with a thud of impact, and I immediately pushed my advantage, delivering a series of strikes without giving Josh any opportunity to retaliate. Half of my swings whiffed, while half of the remaining were blocked or redirected, but it still meant I got a couple of hits in, unbalancing him. By the time the smoke screen cleared, I could hear him trying to hum another Celestial spell, but I was faster, and with a burst of effort, I delivered a shoulder slam that sent him reeling back and nearly falling to the ground.

Once the obstruction finally cleared, we were standing a couple of steps apart, with Josh's arms raised to protect his head, and his outfit bearing the marks of my strikes. Despite my best efforts, he was still chanting, yet even after he let his arms down, there was no magical light show coming. Instead, he used his fist to beat his chest, and he was suddenly enveloped in a warm light.

"What was that?" I asked, genuinely curious.

"Healing chant," he answered off-handedly and hopped in place before taking up a stance again. "Takes care of scrapes, restores stamina, and clears the mind." He paused, and I could practically see the shit-eating grin behind his closed helmet as he once again gestured for me to come at him. "I can do this all night, you know?"

"Tell that to your girlfriend," I answered curtly, and threw my broken spear aside, requesting a pair of proper training swords in the process.

Josh apparently wanted to turn this into an endurance match, which was fine by me. I might not have had his magical recovery, but I had stubbornness on my side. It was time to find out which one was more effective.

Spoilers: chalk one up to stubbornness.