The Simulacrum

~Chapter 143~ Part 1

The ruined, though slightly more orderly main hall was enveloped in a tense silence as the hundreds of Celestials all waited for me to organize my thoughts. I was standing on top of a makeshift podium made from some metal boxes previously used in their barricades and covered with a plain black tarp. I had no idea where they came from, or how they had the time to even build any of those in less than two hours, but it didn't really matter, since… Wait…

"Oh god… Everything happened in less than two hours…" I whispered (though it felt more like a moan) as I massaged my temple. What the hell was I thinking with this crap? I mean, I'm obviously not talking about me-me, or even other-me, but Narrative-me, so…

…

Crap, that just made it sound even more confusing. Let's ignore that, and what potential motivations my pan-Simulacrum greater self might or might not have had when pulling the strings of this climax. I was pretty sure that if I sat down and thought deep and hard about it, I could fish out the correct answer from all the info other-me dumped on me, but I also had a feeling it would either infuriate me, make me feel stupid, or have a cringe-induced aneurism, and I couldn't have that in the current situation.

Speaking of which, I looked over the crowd, now forming a loose semi-circle in front of me and clearly divided into multiple groups, like a pie-chart, or one of those diagrams that showed the distributions of political parties in parliament. Of course, the divisions weren't that clear, and there was no colour coding, but it was close enough.

From left to right, we had Savir and his Orthodox people, being the biggest slice, comprising about a quarter of the crowd. Then we had the Unorthodox and the Reformist groups, followed by the military represented by a mixture of soldiers, officers, and medics, with the Seraphic Safeguard members in their distinct uniforms serving as their core. Next were two eclectic groups mingling together; mostly civilians and lower-ranking politicians, bureaucrats, and other middle-class individuals blended with a group of weirdoes proudly wearing the literally winged spear crest of Polemos and carrying familiar blue banners with the same symbol. Then there were the rest of the people present, idling at the side and the back of the main crowd; mostly guards, workers, and other unaffiliated people who got caught up in the events.

This was already a mess, and it didn't even account for the mob outside. But I was getting ahead of myself. First, let's sort this out, and then I'd worry about the rest.

"So, just to summarize," I spoke up as I let my hand down and swept my gaze over the people, with extra attention to the three chief directors in the front. A beat later, I pointed at Savir. "So, it all started when the Praetorian Guards requested reinforcements after the assassination attempt, and the Department of Military Affairs responded directly, without waiting for your approval."

She nodded, with a rather sour expression on her face.

"But then you…" My finger swung to Mensah. "… received a distress call from a certain agent of yours, and unaware of what the others were doing, you deployed a strike force to rescue him."

"That's right. And when I—"

"I'm not finished," I cut him short, and after a meaningful pause, I continued with, "And when you learned that Bel of the Abyss was at the scene, you decided to deploy all the Colossi you had to the location. However, you didn't have the authority to do that on your own, so when you did it anyway…" My finger returned to Savir. "You thought it was the doing of the Department of Military Affairs, and you thought they were preparing for a coup, so you rallied your loyalists to capture them."

"Yes, Lord Archon. That's how it started," the commanding officer of the Seraphic Safeguard on the scene stated solemnly. I acknowledged him with a nod, and then pointed at Tsephanyah.

"But then you thought that she was starting a coup, so you gathered your forces and tried to intervene, but in the meantime you…!" Finger back at Savir, I exhaled an exasperated breath, then started again. "But in the meantime, you learned about the assassins, and you tried to steal everyone's thunder by sending in your subordinates at CIEL to extract Deus, leaving you short on manpower when Acacius showed up, at which point you thought that he was taking advantage of the situation and you declared martial law."

"That's more or less how it happened, yes, but—"

I didn't let him finish, and I turned to the slice of the pie chart representing the military instead.

"However, at this point Praetor Khurshid deployed the Seraphic Safeguard to break up the fighting, trying to suppress both the Orthodox and the Reformist forces, and since they interfered with the rescue operation prior, you joined them in a mêlée à trois, and when the news of that spread…" Pointing at the ragtag group of civilians, I sucked in a sharp breath and said, "Some of you 'Archonists' contacted my liaison to ask for information."

"Y-Yes, Lord Archon. It was because there were rumors that there would be a coup today, but then later we were told there wouldn't be one, so we didn't know what to do."

"Exactly," Director Savir butted in with a rather indignant huff. "If it wasn't for the intel I received about a possible takeover attempt, I would've never acted so rashly!"

I raised a palm to silence her, and quickly moved on before anyone could ask where that notion originated from.

"Let's ignore those wholly unsubstantiated rumours for now and focus on the facts and the events as they happened. At this point, you, Dolion, finally got wind of what happened, but the only thing you focused on was that Eris sent in CIEL to bring Deus here, which you interpreted as her trying to kidnap her."

"I would never!" Savir protested while glaring at her bespectacled colleague, but I ignored her objections and continued the previous thought.

"Because of this, you hurriedly deployed your forces to stop them, so the military tried to intervene, opening another front." Pausing, I glanced at the 'Archonists'. "All the while you people got caught up in the crossfire and started pushing back, which then caused these people to take action."

Finally addressing the elephant in the room, I turned to the final group, dressed more or less uniformly and eagerly waiting for my attention.

"O Great Second True Archon Polemos the Wise!" the man in the front exclaimed, and it wouldn't have been weird if he outright fell to his knees to bow to me. "Your true scions have gathered to offer their services to you once again! Our millennia of hiding in the shadows of Elysium is finally over! The Sons of Polemos are yours to command! We are the heirs of your will! Your iron fist covered in velvet! We shall…!"

It took me a lot of willpower and mental effort, resources I was already running dangerously low on, to stop myself from facepalming on the spot, and the whispered discussion between the three chief directors at the forefront didn't make things any easier for me.

"You see!" Savir declared in a clearly audible whisper. "I told you he had a conspiracy!"

"I'll be damned," Tsephanyah responded blandly, eyeing the Sons of Polemos.

Despite their coordinated outfits, they were even more of a ragtag group than the Archonists recruited by Moose and Mike, but they were also much louder, cheering and waving their flags to celebrate being addressed by me like their favourite football team just won a cup. No one in their right mind would've considered these guys the members of some super-powerful secret society, but then again, these three had already proven that they lost their right mind ages ago, if they even had one to begin with.

"Does that mean that the rumors about the Arbiter and the Justicar belonging to an ancient organization dedicated to Polemos were true all along?" Mensah blurted out, but Tsephanyah shook his head.

"That doesn't make sense. Wasn't the Arbiter revealed to be the previous head of the Kage clan from the Far East?"

"It just proves how deeply rooted his schemes are," Savir whispered to them, somehow looking even more sour than before. "We might as well accept that his subordinates have infiltrated… No, it's even more likely that they have secretly commanded many of the independent forces of the World of Mystics."

"I think you're right," Mensah nodded sagely, as if they just made a great deduction. "If he managed to create a hidden organization of this size under our nose, millennia in the making, I can't even begin to imagine how far their roots must have spread outside of Elysium."

"We truly underestimated the Lord Archon," Tsephanyah sighed, and I just about had enough to this farce and wanted to interrupt them before they worked themselves up into inventing an even bigger conspiracy theory, but…

"… For the sake of your eternal rule, we shall be the spear tip that will pierce the darkness of the…!"

Jesus F. Christ, he's still talking?!

I hastily raised a palm towards the spokesperson of my… uh… 'cult', and it finally made him shut up.

"Yes, thank you for your… dedication, but let's not stray from the topic. If I understand right, you were the ones who got the crowd outside riled up."

"Yes, O Great Archon! It is only right for you to lead, and the masses to follow! We were but the instrument of your will!"

"My will of what?" I pointed out, and for the first time, the cultists faltered for a moment.

"Erm… Truth be told, we weren't entirely sure at the time, but since the Archonists were allies the Great Second True Archon recruited, we found it only natural to come to their aid."

"In other words, when you heard that they were caught in the crossfire, you riled up the Malakim to storm the tower…" I turned to the Seraphic Safeguard commander next, "And so the rest of the military moved in to stop them from rioting."

"That is correct, Lord Archon," the man in red nodded. "We received direct orders from the praetor himself."

I waited to see if there was anything else anyone wanted to add, but since they remained silent, I exhaled hard and adopted my 'disappointed principal' act once again. I hardened my expression and swept my eyes across everyone present, ultimately settling on the three chief directors.

"To say that my disappointment is immeasurable and my day is ruined would be the understatement of the century. Your performance today has finally proved, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that you are unfit for leadership."

"W-What?!"

Ignoring Savir's yelp, I continued in a low, level voice.

"Due to your monumental failure to communicate, you have not only nearly plunged the Elysium into an outright civil war in a time of crisis, but your incompetence created unwanted interference that threatened the life and wellbeing of, among many others, Deus herself." I let the words sink in, then exhaled a precisely calculated distraught sigh. "I truly didn't want to do this, but I cannot leave the Elysium in your hands after this. Effectively immediately, your official positions, along with all of your authorities, are suspended indefinitely, until the investigation into today's events is concluded."

"But… Lord Archon!" Tsephanyah tried to plead with me, but I sent him a glare, and he fell silent.

"No objections are allowed. The only reason why I don't just dissolve the entire Directorate right here and now is because I still need it to maintain order here, but I can't allow you to plunge the Elysium into even more chaos than you already have. Consider yourself under house arrest until further notice."

"Wait, Lord Polemos!" Savir raised her voice again and stared at me with an expression hovering between alarmed and outraged. "You're being too hasty! Please reconsider your—!"

"Eris. Are you deaf?"

"N-No?"

"Then just which part of 'no objections allowed' was hard to understand?" I growled, and she opened and closed her mouth a couple of times.

"I… I have vital information to share with you! Please hear me out first!"

And now she was trying to bargain. Sighing, I shook my head and glanced at the Seraphic Safeguards. They were good at reading between the lines, because they were already moving towards the trio even before I tried to get their attention.

"Yes, we're going to have to talk. In your quarters, once I'm done cleaning up the mess you caused."

"Shall we escort the Prime Director… or rather, Lady Savir?" the red-clothed soldier at the front proposed, and I nodded along at once.

"Please do."

"Wait! Just a minute!" Mensah raised a hand next, and I was expecting more complaints. Instead, he asked, "What about the Colossi?! Who's going to recover them?"

"I'll take care of it."

My curt answer visibly relieved him, and contrary to my expectations, he allowed the Seraphic Safeguards to escort him without a fuss. Savir was still rather miffed by her treatment, uttering all the classic lines fitting this situation.

"Take your hands off me! I can walk by myself!"

See?

As for Tsephanyah, he looked only mildly annoyed by the situation, and after a glance and a nod in my direction, he stoically followed after them with a stiff upper lip.

"All hail the Great Second True Archon!" the men on the right exclaimed, followed by a series of cheers from the other cultists. "The Age of Polemos has begun!"

They were disturbingly stoked by all of this, and worse yet, the Archonists, and even some members of the other factions were also getting carried away by the mood and started cheering and singing and…

"No!" I exclaimed, and the festive mood immediately froze over. "We're not having any of that. We're still in the middle of a chaotic situation of your own making! No cheering, no chanting, and absolutely no singing until you clean up your mess! Shame on you!"

My words had the desired effect, and everyone calmed down. Maybe even a bit too much, as they all looked like a bunch of kindergarteners who just got scolded by the teacher. Ignoring the mental image, I rubbed my forehead, and after scanning over the crowd, I swept my finger across them.

"Anyone who had important jobs to do, get back to work. Anyone capable of combat, head out, break up any stragglers, and inform them of the situation. Anyone proficient with healing, start treating the injured. Archonists, help the healers carry the injured and set up a field hospital. The rest, help with the cleanup and menial work if necessary."

"What about us, O Great Archon?"

I levelled a flat gaze at the Sons of Polemos, and uttered, "Make yourselves useful, and don't cause any more chaos."

"As you command!"

Everyone waited for a few seconds to see if I had anything else to add, but then, as if rehearsed ahead of time, the whole crowd dispersed and tried to follow my instructions to the best of my abilities. Some of the highest-ranking Celestials, in the absence of the three demoted chief directors, tried to cluster around me, but I completely disregarded them and headed outside.

This whole thing took longer than expected, and I was getting a little worried about how Angie was doing with the mob outside. Hopefully, she had better luck than I did here. I mean, technically things worked out in my favour, so I couldn't really complain. This whole mini-civil-war gave me ample justification to finally take Savir, Mensah, and Tsephanyah down a peg. With some luck, I could make it stick and demote them for good. Judy might've even said I went too easy on them, but as much as I would've liked to just flip the table and get rid of the Directorate altogether, I still needed someone to govern this place.

After all, I knew diddly squat about rulership. It was the kind of thing I delegated out to the Draconic Federation the moment I had the chance to do so, but there, I had my in-laws, Naoren, and the Knights to rely upon. Here, I would have to reform the whole governing structure of an entire civilization, and I seriously didn't have the time to spend weeks, if not months, focused on that when I was still reeling from the meta-narrative bomb other-me and the Crowned Coalescence dropped on me.

Meanwhile, I exited the tower, and to my surprise, I found the place startlingly peaceful. The Celestial farmers rallied by my cult (goddamit, I still couldn't believe that's a thing) and the cannon-fodder soldiers sent to contain them were all quietly watching as Angie mingled with the front rows, holding something that looked like a steampunk microphone while closely followed by the broadcaster with the projector-orb in her hands.

"Y-Your Grace D-Deus…" A stuttering man spoke up as Angie presented the mic to him, and after she smiled at him reassuringly, he audibly gulped and squeezed out, "What… are your plans after you… fully reclaim your divine throne?"

"Thank you for the question," she responded spiritedly and turned to face the projector orb so that her face was in the center of the huge, oval screen still floating over the crowd. "I… still have many things to learn before I can confidently return, but I have many ideas! For example, I looked into modern farming methods, and…"

In the meantime, I found Josh, standing a bit away from her and watching her surroundings with hawkish eyes for any threat. Not that there seemed to be any; if anything, the masses were smitten with her. This was probably the best possible outcome I could've asked for. Or at the very least, it was both less cringy and more realistic than her throwing an idol concert, or something equally asinine. Thank god Narrative-me was declawed by the original plot falling apart, or I could've actually seen just that happening.

"… and we can import these machines to make planting and harvesting much easier! That way, you can cultivate your lands in much less time, and you'll have waaay more free time!"

"But, Your Grace…" Another Celestial objected, if a little meekly, but when Angie presented her with the mic, she hesitantly asked, "Won't that just mean we would be working the same hours, just producing more?"

"R-Right… capitalism, huh…?" Angie muttered in a daze, but then my attention was drawn to Josh when he gestured at me.

"She's doing well," I noted absently, and after some hesitation, he nodded.

"Yeah. I didn't expect things to turn out like this when you said you needed us here. I thought we would be fighting, not…" He fell silent, and after mulling it over, settled on, "… doing a political rally."

"It worked out though."

"Yeah, yeah." After another beat, he glanced up at me. "What's the situation in there."

"Mostly resolved. I'll just have to figure out how to create a new government for this whole place without it plunging into either another civil war or anarchy."

"Sounds tough, buddy." I thought that was the end of the conversation, but then he blurted out something unexpected. "Say. I might be overthinking this, but some of her answers are kinda bothering me."

"How so?"

He gestured for me to listen, so I did that.

"… and then I'm going to set quotas so that you won't be exploited."

"That sounds wonderful, but… what about the ones who can't afford these new 'kuum-byne haar-vestas'?"

"Everyone can just pool their resources! We'll create these… uuu… let's call them collective farms, and it's going to make everyone's lives much easier, because one machine will do a hundred people's work!"

"But then what about those people? Are they going to be unable to work?"

"N-No! They can just relax, or… um… yes, they can work elsewhere! Like in industry! We're going to create our own local industries, and to make sure nobody will exploit the others, everybody's going to own them together!"

Josh let out a shallow breath, and glanced up at me again.

"Leo?"

"Yes?"

"I think she's doing a communism. Do you think we should stop her?"

Blinking, I watched Angie trying to explain to these poor Celestials what it meant to own the means of production.

"She didn't finish reading the political history textbook we bought her yet, did she?"

"Nope."

"Figures." With a sight, I rolled up my proverbial sleeves, and jerked my head towards her. "Come on, buddy. Let's grab her before she somehow manages to change her title from Archon to La Presidenta and turn the Elysium into a banana republic…"