The Simulacrum

~Chapter 140~ Part 1

"Haah… Deep breaths…" I inhaled and exhaled slowly as I limbered up my arms and legs. I couldn't show it before, because I was playing the role of Bel, but I was actually pretty out of it. I not only already had a protracted (if mostly friendly) sparring session with Lord Ambrose, but then a second one with Josh as well, meaning I was already a bit tired before going into this whole mess.

Adrenaline was one hell of a drug though, and there were few things getting it running better than fighting against a whole bunch of semi-mythical monsters. Yet, there was a limit to everything, and so the moment I was alone, my exhaustion hit me all at once like a sack of bricks. I knew that time was of the essence, but I really, really needed a few seconds to center myself.

Actually, maybe more than just a few seconds. I was going to deal with Celestials, so I had to act as Polemos next, who also couldn't show weakness in front of them. Ugh. At times like this, I really wished I had made him a more friendly and easy-going persona, but that ship had already sailed. In any case, I shifted my outfit, took a few more deep breaths, and got ready to Phase… and yet, I stopped and absent-mindedly patted the mini-shoggoth excitedly jumping up and down on a nearby crate.

Why was I about to deal with Celestials again? I didn't mean that in a rhetorical sense, but in a narrative one. Was this situation a naturally developing flusterkuck, emerging from the interplay of entirely Watsonian reasons, or was it the result of some Doylist interference from the nebulous Narrative? The last time something like this happened, it was because we decided to cut the Gordian Knot and bust a clear plot-line prepared by the Simulacrum and its ill-defined Narrative, but nothing of the like happened this time. Except…

"Oh, bollocks…"

My whispers made the tiny Lovecraftian horror let out a curious whine, so I patted it harder. In retrospect, I did declare that I would take down the Directorate today. Even if I changed my mind halfway through, it could've caused the Narrative to freak out and start rearranging the dominos on the table, and then all it needed was a single one to topple over to bring all the rest down with it.

Of course, this was just a conjecture, and I was sure that once we scrutinized the events under a microscope after the fact, we'd get a better picture, but for the moment, that was my best explanation. More importantly though, as much as I wanted to catch my breath, I couldn't tarry here for too long. So, I limbered up my body one last time, gave a playful scratch to Pudding-kun, and then exhaled hard before Phasing into the relevant neighbourhood.

A quick glance around was enough to give me a headache, and I quickly headed in the direction of the light show.

"What the hell is this!?"

I let out a bellow as soon as I arrived at the currently rather ruined playground, where a chaotic magical shootout was taking place. On one side, we had Lord Taika and Josh, in his Justicar outfit, holding the line with the sharply dressed Magi squad. On the other side, a bit of a melee going on, as the duo of armour-guy and midriff-woman were trying to break through to the Celestial commander at the back, leading a whole platoon of the more modernised version of the hoplite-armoured soldiers I'd seen in the Elysium

It didn't take me long to recognize them: at least some of them were definitely CIEL operatives, though I'd never seen them in such numbers, not even when they were trying to capture me as Bel during my last clandestine visit. For what reason would they even send all of these guys he—? Oh, wait. Deus. Never mind. I almost asked a stupid question. Instead, I hurriedly walked over to Josh and Taika hiding behind a row of cars parked by the sidewalk of the playground.

"Sorry, I can't talk." The arch-mage's voice sounded strained as she kept muttering and waving her hands, squeezing out words between chants. "I'm trying… to keep things under wrap… with three separate illusionary layers… but the Ley-lines are weak here… have to concentrate."

That was fair, I supposed, so I turned to Josh.

"Didn't I tell you to stay put?"

"I didn't have a choice, okay?" he barked back, only to flinch when a magic arrow hit the ground not far from him.

"Don't… shout too much. Can't cover up… all sounds," Lord Taika hissed, so I walked closer and crouched down next to Joshua.

"Can I get a sit-rep?"

"I don't know shit!" He let out a grunt and animatedly gestured at the Celestials buzzing around, over, and between the playground's ruined equipment. "Those guys just showed up out of nowhere and demanded to see Angie. When we told them she's currently fighting the literature teacher and the old guy, they lost their shit and attacked us."

"Ah… Yeah, now I see how this happened…"

I rubbed my temple, feeling another headache coming, and I was just about to get up when Josh suddenly exclaimed by my side.

"They're breaking off! Provide suppressive fire!"

To my slight bafflement, the Magi followed his order and started shooting off a barrage of magical projectiles at the Celestials. I figured that maybe Taika left him in charge, since she had to concentrate on whatever illusion she was weaving to keep this whole battle under wraps, but before I could ask, armour guy and midriff woman dive-bombed next to us from high above. They even did the whole superhero-landing trope and everything, followed by a curt salute.

"Sir, Lord Archon, sir!"

"Report," I instructed him in a low voice, and the large man let out an uncharacteristically frustrated groan.

"Sir, the reinforcements proved to be uncooperative, sir."

"I can see that, tell me something new," I hissed and rubbed my temple even harder. "Seriously, I leave for just a minute, and everything gets more confusing."

"Sir, you have left for well over fifteen minutes, s—"

Before he could complete that, midriff woman noticed the withering glare I was directing at the man, and gave him a solid slap to the back of the head, then pretended that nothing happened when he looked over. Meanwhile, Josh's attention snapped to me.

"Actually, where were you all this time?"

"There's another situation going on right now," I answered off-handedly, and after a beat, I quickly added, "I was heading there, but I had to turn back when Judy told me things went wrong here."

"A situation more important than Angie?"

"I thought things were under control here, with Jaakobah at the helm," I growled between clenched teeth and turned back to the Celestial duo. "Speaking of which, what's his situation? Are the assassins apprehended yet?"

"Sir, they are putting up a fight, sir. The Prefect decided to honor the Lord Archon's command, and focus on evacuating the building first, sir."

"Well, at least he still has a good head on his shoulders." I stood up and glared at the Celestials still firing arrows our way. "Give me a minute. I'll go and resolve this situation."

With that, I stood up and walked past the cars, followed by the baffled stares of everyone present.

"Wait, Leonard!" Lord Taika called after me. "You're under my illusion… they can't see you properly…"

"Noted."

With that, I flailed my phantom limbs around a bit to make sure whatever general cloaking spell she put on me was fully dispersed. I was obviously successful, as the arrows immediately stopped flying, and the Celestial 'reinforcements' all stopped in their tracks to stare at me.

To further capitalize on the break in hostilities, I pulled Teeny out of my storage enchantment.

"[Report: Connection Initialized. Interface:Teeny, operational.]"

"Spear."

A second later, the short sword in my hand shifted into its familiar polearm form. I brandished it for even more visibility, and after planting its butt into the grass under my feet, I inhaled a deep breath.

"WHICH ONE OF YOU MISERABLE IMBECILES IS THE ONE IN COMMAND HERE?!"

My bellow made the Celestials flinch, and after a few seconds of scurrying, a tall woman with shoulders that rivalled Duncan walked to the front. I couldn't see her features because of her helmet, but her body language told me she was rather flustered, and she stopped about ten meters away from me before performing a salute.

"Kentyri?n Atropos, reporting to Archon Polemos."

I looked her over from head to toe, and even under these circumstances, I couldn't help but wonder: was that supposed to be a Roman or Ancient Greek military rank? Celestials were pretty inconsistent in this regard, and this one could easily go either way.

Shaking the distracting thought out of my head, I levelled a glare at her and flatly uttered, "What are you doing?"

She looked momentarily confused by my question, but after a long beat, she gathered her wits and straightened her back.

"My unit was dispatched to secure Her Grace Deus."

"Yes, you were sent here to provide support," I reiterated after her and gestured at the Magi hiding behind the perforated cars at my back. "What are you doing attacking your allies?"

"Um…" Her body language once again showed that she was stumped, but she didn't back down. "We… received a report that the wingless ones have ambushed and separated Her Grace from her guards."

"No, those are two different incidents," I explained with mild exasperation and pointed at the apartment building behind them. "The would-be-assassins are over there, and they are being apprehended by the Praetorian Guards. Ang— I mean, Deus is currently being held in a Restricted Space to avoid any further attempts on her life, or collateral damage, until the assailants are captured."

"We… were informed of that, yes, but the wingless ones refused to give us access to her."

"Because they can't," I groaned and waved at the sky. "Not to mention, you'd only complicate things, so stand down, and secure the perimeter, like you should've done in the first—"

I couldn't finish that thought, as my danger sense suddenly blared at me, and my upper body twisted on its own. Once again, I could see a faint tray of magical light pierce through the air, barely missing my shoulder, and leaving a wispy trail of softly glowing condensation trail in its wake. The bang of the gunshot itself only came after what felt like a small eternity, and it made both the Celestials in front of me and the Magi in the back freak out. So was I, but once again, I couldn't show it, so I channelled the emotion into pure outrage.

"You see!?" I yelled as I straightened myself using Teeny as leverage. "The shooter is still at loose because you idiots are causing a scene! Stop being braindead for five minutes, and secure the area!"

The captain of the group stared at me in disbelief at first, as if she couldn't comprehend what just happened, but she quickly snapped out of it and gave me a salute.

"As… the Lord Archon commands!"

"But… our orders said…" one of her subordinates tried to object, but the woman hissed at him to shut up.

"Do you want to argue with Archon Polemos?"

"N-No…" the man shrank back, and I was just about to wash my hands of this affair when my danger sense started sending warning signals again.

My eyes snapped to my chest and opened wide when I saw the bright red laser pointer dot on it. My gaze immediately moved to the apartment building and traced the remaining wisps of glowing smoke in the air leading to the roof.

"I'm out of patience!" I snarled and shifted my posture before leaping towards the source of the laser sight, and then Phased.

I didn't have a mark on these guys, so getting there in one go was out of the question, but I still had my ways. At this point, I had a pretty good radius on my short-range teleportation. Not enough to cover the distance at once, but enough to make up the difference in 'quality' with 'quantity'.

The process was simple. Phase towards the roof, and the moment I reappeared, immediately Phase again. And again. And again.

Doing so played havoc with my vision and nerves, but it wasn't fundamentally different from how I used my teleportation ability to mimic the 'flash step' move popular in martial arts stories, and I had more than enough practice under my belt to pull it off.

The whole process took less than two seconds, though it felt much longer to my brain. Unfortunately, that still meant nearly two seconds of 'technical' free-fall between each Phasing 'jump', so when I finally arrived at the rooftop, my landing wasn't exactly soft. Less 'cat jumping off a tree', and more 'car falling off a bridge'.

Despite the physical enhancements doing their job, the bones in my legs creaked with pain from the impact of my arrival. Not only that, but the force was great enough to trigger the wards of my outfit, causing an extra explosion that cracked the concrete panels under my feet and kicked up a lot of dust. At this point, my plan to ambush the assassin was out of the question. Or rather, assassins.

In the corner of the roof, there were about half a dozen eclectic faces clustered around a stocky man. I couldn’t see his features properly because he was wearing an oddly blocky and bulky power armour, and in his hands, there was a high-tech and yet strangely boxy sniper rifle, about as long as he was tall.

"Sacre bleu! That scared me!" the man exclaimed with a very prominent French accent, and when he pointed his gun at me, it collapsed into a more compact form.

Following his lead, the other assassins also got ready for a fight. On closer look, at least two of them seemed somewhat familiar, but I couldn't quite put my finger on why. From right to left, there was a rough mercenary type holding a big combat knife in a reverse grip. Next to him was a middle-aged woman with a scar running across her face, wearing black robes and holding a softly glowing magic wand. Then there were the two semi-familiar faces, in the form of a muscular woman with short, yet ridiculously spiky bright blue hair. Right next to her stood a short, emaciated person covered from head to toe in black bandages like a goth mummy, to the point only their eyes showed.

Then there was the short man with the bulky armour and big gun in the middle, while his other side had an Asian girl wearing a jumpsuit and carrying two oversized single-edged blades with rings on their spines, a thin man in a shabby robe carrying a sinister-looking tome in his hands, and a heavy-set brown-skinned man with a Rastafarian hairstyle wearing traditional Japanese clothes and clutching the large katana on his belt.

All in all, that was a pretty damn diverse group, and they all looked unique enough to qualify for at least side-character status by our metrics, though I couldn't really muster the enthusiasm to give more than half a damn about it.

"What are you standing around for? Get him!" the armoured man yelled out, and the group quickly spread out, trying to encircle me. However, my eyes remained locked on him as he raised his gun to eye-level and shot at me again.

The distance was too short, so I Phased just a little bit to the side. He fired his gun (apparently a bolt-action rifle) again and again, so I kept doing my fake 'flash step' act as I moved towards him and weaved through the other attackers. Ironically, his firing at me meant they weren't too keen on getting into close combat, which gave me more room to manoeuvre.

Halfway through, he seemingly ran out of ammo and threw his rifle aside. In its place, he pulled out an oversized, kind of steam-punk-ish revolver, and started unloading on me again. However, at this point I was close enough to him, and I was just about to make one last teleport to catch him when he suddenly addressed me.

"I know what you're thinking!" His threatening yell was slightly undermined by the comically overacted French accent. "Did he fire six bullets, or only five? Well, to tell you the verité, in my excitement, I—"

"Oh, shut up!" I paused to whack the spiky-haired woman in the head before she could lunge at me and turned back to the short man. "I know the reference, so shut it, and put down your weapon, before I…"

As per the unwritten rules of timing, it was exactly this moment that Jaakobah and the rest of the Praetorian Guards chose to kick down the door leading to the rooftop.

"In the name of Archon Polemos, freeze!" the unusually animated man yelled as he rushed outside, and the very same moment, my danger sense started giving me a strong signal again.

Yet this time, I couldn't just Phase out of the way, because I was currently standing precisely between the aforementioned door and the gunman, meaning if I got out of the way, Jaakobah or the other Guards could get shot instead, which… Wow. This night was a greatest hits album of the 'Most Annoying and Painful Moments of my Life' variety, wasn't it? It even had the whole 'time slows to a crawl' effect and everything. How nostalgic!

Fortunately, things have changed a lot since the days of a mind-controlled Snowy chucking ice spears at me, and I had more tools in my belt. Letting my danger sense take partial control, the next instinctive choice after 'dodge' and 'Phase' was 'use your phantom limbs', and even though I couldn't quite see the bullet, my invisible appendage lashed out, and a moment later, I was in a timeless void filled with fractals of bullet-like objects.

I didn't have time to waste, so I quickly shifted through my options. Different calibres and types were obviously off the table, so I moved past those and focused on the more weird and quirky options. Unfortunately, there were just too many things that could be substituted for an object this small, and my patience was already running thin, so…

"Fuck it, gummy bear it is!" I yelled, causing the whole space to violently tremble as I slapped the new image onto the original bullet.

A moment later, I felt an impact on my chest as something completely splattered on contact with my breastplate and its surface wards. While it caused no damage, it still made me brace myself, a momentary distraction that the armoured man used to… throw his oversized revolver at me.

I swatted the unorthodox throwing weapon out of the air with Teeny, but by then, he had already broken into a mad dash, except not towards me. As he ran, a pair of stubby metal wings extended from his backpack, with small rockets at their tips, and with a roaring sound, they ignited just as he was about to reach the edge of the roof. He jumped into the air, at their thrust made him unsteadily hover in the air, he clumsily turned around and gave me a simple military salute.

"Well, I'm out! Au revoire, and tell Wissenschaftler that his old rival, Arnaud de Savantfou, sends his regards and—"

"No," I declared on no uncertain terms and Phased right under him.

The man was visibly flustered by my sudden disappearance, but then I grabbed one of his dangling feet while also skewering his suit with my phantom limbs. As expected, the thing was more magitech than real machinery, and his rocket boosters immediately sputtered to a stop. Then, with some effort, I twisted my upper body while still holding onto his leg, and smashed him into the room behind me with a deafening metallic thud.

Before he could get up, I fully turned around, stepped on his defenceless back, and stabbed my spear into the roof right next to his head. Then, I turned to my confused Praetorian Guards and raised my free hand, fingers splayed.

"What are you waiting for? Capture them!"

"Understood!" Jaakobah responded first, and yelled, "Offensive Hymn, now!"

The group started singing in unison, much to the confusion of the eclectic assassins. In the meantime, I finally managed to catch my breath. With these people finally subdued, Angie/Deus wouldn't have a reason to attack the building anymore, meaning that even if she came out of the Purple Zone, she could be hopefully reasoned with, and with the Celestials down there finally seeing reason, things should've been getting less chaotic soon. Or so I thought.

But then, I glanced down and saw that there were magic arrows flying. Again. More alarmingly, there were even more of them than last time, but before I could Phase down, I could hear the faint static of Judy connecting to me.

"{Chief. Did you catch the assassins?}"

I glanced over at the rest of the roof, where the teamwork of the Praetorian Guard was steadily cornering the rest of them.

"More or less. More importantly, what's going on down there?"

"{I'm not sure, I was occupied elsewhere.}" There was a long pause, and then she added, "{I've got a call from Raziel. He wants to talk to you.}"

"I'm kind of busy," I growled, without meaning to.

"{I know. He's already on the phone with me, so I'm going to relay his messages.}" There was another pause, during which one of the desperate assassins tried to attack me (the rasta-samurai, for your interest), but after I blocked a few of his swings without even moving my feet, uniform-bloke used his whip to trip up his feet and drag him away. That intermezzo aside, Judy spoke up again, in a voice trying (and failing) to mimic Moose. "{'Admin! With all due respect, but are you out of my mind?! You said we aren't staging a coup today, so what's this shit!?', over.}"

"That's what I'd like to know! Where did you even get that ridiculous idea?!" I yelled back, and when the nearby facemask-fella looked at me funny, I put a finger on my ear. He understood the gesture, and returned to duelling the black mummy guy, while Judy relayed my message.

"{He says, 'Then why is the Seraphic Safeguard and the military fighting inside Elysium?', over.}"

"How the hell should I—?" I began, only to bite back my words as it all sank in. "Say what?"

"{I also checked the Hub,}" Judy answered, this time in her own voice. "{There are lots of contradictory reports, but from what I could gather, the Orthodox side attacked the Unorthodox faction after a disagreement over an unauthorized deployment, and then the Department of Military Affairs also got involved somehow. I'll update you when there's more information. Also, Raziel is asking about what he should tell the collaborators. Are we doing a coup, or not?}"

I let out a groan, and whispered, "Tell him to tell them to lay low until we have a full grasp on the situation."

"{Roger. I'll relay that, and then check on Neige and the situation at Site C. Mission Control, out.}"

"You do that."

With that, Judy cut the connection, and I let out a long, rung-rattling sight. By the looks of it, this night was far, far from over, but fuck it, I just dodged a bunch of bullets and then did a temporary mini-retcon on the fly. I needed a minute to catch my breath. I could worry about whatever new flavour or madness the world was about to throw at me after that.