The Simulacrum

~Chapter 152~ Part 1

Two days passed in the blink of an eye, and it was in the late afternoon that I arrived at the base with my girlfriends, through the usual means.

"Come on, Dormouse. Cut me some slack, please," I pleaded half-seriously as we exited the teleport closet, but my dear assistant remained adamantly sulky.

"Sorry Chief, but it'll take a while for you to live this down," she stated, extra-deadpan, and turned to face me. "You have broken the one rule."

"No, I haven't," I denied on the spot as we came to a halt in the middle of the reception room. The three of us came here right after school was over for the day, so we were still wearing our uniforms. Our bags were left at my place, with Rabom and Tajana, since everyone else was here already. "I will break it in the future, but I haven't yet."

"Does that make a difference?" Elly asked, and while it might've sounded accusative, I was sure she was just genuinely curious about my answer. Yet, before I could respond, Judy turned on her heel and shook her head.

"No, it doesn't. There's no excusing time travel."

"I'm pretty sure I'll have a really good reason for doing this," I told her, trying to sound convincing, but when she still didn't budge, I changed tactics. "Not to mention, it's not time travel in the strictest sense of the word. We're just living through a retcon."

"A distinction without much of a difference," Judy huffed, so I shifted tactics again and stepped up behind her to give her a shoulder massage. She gave me a disapproving look, telling me she knew what I was trying to do, but she didn't shy away from my touch.

My girlfriend momentarily placated, I had no choice but to exhale a shallow sigh. I expected that she would react like this (heck, I wasn't a huge fan of my future-self mucking up my present either), but I didn't foresee that Judy would continue to sulk about it for two whole days. Fortunately enough, it felt like she was only doing it on principle, so we didn't have any major arguments over it or anything. Not that I could do anything about it even if we did; the Bel played by my future self was completely out of my control.

"Can't you just track down this future you and have him properly explain everything?" Elly asked the obvious question. I didn't blame her for it; I was more surprised it didn't come up in conversation until now.

"I can't. I have no mark on him. Heck, I don't even know if I can mark him, with him being me and all that."

"What about the assassins?" Judy asked, sounding a bit more mellow. Yay for the therapeutic effects of shoulder rubs.

"I didn't mark any of them either," I answered on autopilot, and then added, "Well, except for the French guy, but he's still in Magi custody."

"Which begs the question: Did he not take him along with him because he knew that he was the only one you marked, and wanted to keep you in the dark?" Judy asked, but before I could respond, the princess already formed a hypothesis.

"Wasn't that on purpose? He did tell Leo that spoilers were a no-no."

"Which is just a fancy way of saying that I should keep my nose out of his business before I accidentally break the time-space continuum," I joked, but then paused for a beat and added, "Now that I think about it, if this is an ongoing retcon where I'm manipulating the past from the future, is it even possible for me to cause a paradox, even if I try?"

"Don't try," Judy snapped at me at once.

"That was just a rhetorical question."

Judy slipped out of under my hands and turned around to poke me in the chest.

"Chief, I know you. You say it's a rhetorical question now, but the moment you could try, you would do it just to see what would happen, and then before anyone could do anything about it, we wake up in a universe inhabited by sentient marmots."

"Why marmots of all things?"

My question fell on deaf ears, and Judy poked me again.

"Don't change the subject. Promise me you won't try to cause a time paradox just out of curiosity."

"I won't do that even without a promise. I may be a bit impulsive from time to time, but I'm not that reckless."

Especially when I wasn't entirely sure how time worked even after all the mind-bender explanations from future-me. Anyhow, my dear assistant looked me deep in the eye, and after locking gazes for a few seconds, she let out a resigned breath.

"Good enough for now."

"You're being too negative again," Elly spoke, sneaking up behind my other girlfriend to knead her shoulders where I left off. "Leo's insistence on pessimism is rubbing off on you."

"They do say that couples start to resemble each other with time."

Elly giggled, while Judy only levelled a dispassionate gaze at me and stated, "In that case, why don't you try to resemble us more instead of the other way around?"

"Sorry girls, but I think it's too late for me to become lovely." This time, even the corners of Judy's mouth twitched a little, so I capitalized on the opportunity and changed the direction of the conversation by pointing at the door. "How about we move along? I've finally managed to arrange a meeting with Yseult this evening, so we should get things done here first. I don't want to be late."

"Fair enough."

Following Judy's response, Elly stopped rubbing her shoulders and the three of us headed out. The moment we entered the main hall, we were welcomed by one of the many copies of Pudding-kun, as if waiting for our arrival.

"What's up, little buddy?" I scooped the mini-shoggoth up into my arms, and it let out a pleased purr.

"I think he just missed you," Elly spoke casually and poked the ball of flesh, and when it grabbed onto her fingers, she let out an amused chuckle. "He's cute."

"I don't know what you're seeing in him," Judy noted a touch sourly, but when Pudding-kun turned its single eye to her with a pleading look, she soon gave up and carefully petted it.

Like this, the three of us made our way over to the lounge area first, where I parked down the girls in the company of Brang, doing his bartender routine. Lately I'd been seeing him handing glasses more than doing weapon maintenance or training.

"[May thine day shine bright, Blackcloak,]" he greeted me with a smile and was patiently waiting for my response, all the while the girls took their usual seats by the bar counter.

"The same to you." He was still looking at me intently, so I figured some small talk was in order. "How are things going in the base?"

"[Most satisfactory, I must say.]" Even as he spoke, he prepared a pair of glasses for the girls, without them having to utter a word. "[I abhor to state it, but if there's but one matter most vexing, it is the young ones who had yet to swear themselves to thine person.]"

He was talking about Tajana's Fauns. I personally saw no problem with keeping them locked up as long as it took, but maybe because he shared a sense of kinship with them, but Brang had been really adamant about recruiting them into our ranks. Either that, or they just needed more hands doing maintenance around the base. Last I heard, they were going to fully remodel Galatea's room, including a wooden floor and a walk-in closet, but that was none of my business, so I left them to their own industry.

"I can't do much about that," I told him with a shrug, my eyes already drifting towards the training grounds. Blinking, I returned my attention to him and added, "It's not like I can force them to do it. If they don't mean it, the whole thing is meaningless."

"[Aye. Which is why thou should come to an agreement with the diminutive one.]"

He was referring to Tajana. It was a nickname, from what I gathered, he gave her when she was still a little kid. It was easy to forget, but Brang was older than modern democracy, and he had served dozens of Lords of Inanna over his tenure as the Scout-General of House Inanna. Maybe it was because of this that he was so flexible about pledging his allegiance to Snowy (and indirectly to me), sticking to the spirit of serving the noble house instead of the more by-the-letter approach Tajana's retinue took.

"You know that Snowy is still working on her. Don't rush it."

The old Faun let out an ambivalent grunt, and then lightly shrugged.

"[These old bones simply wished to remind thine self of the matter of those younglings. I did not intend to hasten thy decisions…]" He paused, his ear twitching as he was looking at my reaction, and seeing that I remained passive, he added, "[However, I admit it would swell my heart with pride to see the ranks of the Faun of House Innana-Dunning grow.]"

"Oh, fine." Giving up, I showed my palms. "I'll consult Snowy, and if she says it's fine, I'll ask Tajana to switch sides along with her retinue. Are you happy?"

"[I'm but thine humble servant, so how would I dare to impose myself upon thou,]" he began with a shallow bow, but then his expression cracked and he flashed a toothy grin. "[But since thou inquired, aye, I'm certainly elated.]"

The princess grinned at us in the background, even though she could only understand my side of the conversation, while Judy only looked mildly impatient. I figured it was best not to keep them from their drinks any longer. I still stuck around and made some small talk while Brang prepared their usual non-alcoholic cocktails (seriously, he made like thirty recipes at this point), and only when the girls settled into one of their light-hearted non-meta discussions did I say my temporary farewells and headed to the training grounds.

Even before I reached there, I could hear some strange sounds coming from that direction. Also, a few jets of flames nearly reached the ceiling, followed by hasty apologizing. It wasn't until I was right next to the ring that their source came into view.

"Ah! Sorry, I didn't mean to do that!" Ammy cried out in horror and rushed over to Morgana's side. The Gorgon Knight seemed unfazed, looking at a singed lock of hair pinched between her fingers.

"Don't worry about it." She let go of the tuft and turned back to the class rep. "I was planning to trim my hair one of these days, and it was my fault. Not facing you while wearing my Gorgon armor was clearly an oversight on my end."

Despite her words, Ammy looked crestfallen and didn't even notice that I was there until I was standing right next to her.

"How's the training going?" I asked in a chipper voice, and she immediately froze up and turned a wooden smile at me.

"E-Everything is fine… I just had a little… miscalculation, that's all!"

She sounded entirely unconvincing, but I didn't want to rain on her parade, so I just nodded along. After the discovery of her being the Conduit of the Grimoire, Ammy was caught up in a whirlwind of attention. I couldn't figure out why future-me went out of his way to get all the arch-mages involved in the discovery. My initial guess was to make sure the incident couldn't be swept under the rug, but my current theory was that it was some kind of 5D chess move to ensure they would pester her so much she would run away from home and try to test her powers here, where I could see her.

The thing that really tipped the scale from one theory to the other was the fact that it was plain impossible to hide her status at this point, courtesy of the two orbs still circling around her head even as we spoke. Much to her chagrin, as they didn't leave her alone even when she slept, floating over her all night long. Case in point.

"Ah, get out of the way!" she lightly hit the lazily levitating marble ball that stopped between the two of us, and the two orbs rapidly circulated for a few seconds before settling down again… except this time it was the other one that was in the way. "I hate these things!"

"Sometimes the mantles we bear come with unforeseen consequences, but it is our duty to soldier on and bear the burden," I said, trying to sound as profound as possible, and for a moment I was afraid she was going to hit me next with her staff.

"Stop joking around! They really are inconvenient." She was just on the borderline of a legitimate pout, but then she remembered something and her expression softened. "Mike said they 'look cool' though, so I guess they aren't all bad… It's just he's not the one who has to live with them."

"Speaking of which, did you get any benefit out of them?"

"No." She sounded downright heartbroken. "I thought that since I'm now the Conduit, maybe I could use other spells, not just Petra and basic utility incantations, but…"

Her words trailed off and she glanced at Morgana's signed hair. In turn, she pointedly glanced at the benches at the far end of the training field and…

"Holy moly, how come I didn't notice that until now!?" I exclaimed when my brain processed the burned, warped wreck.

"I-It was another miscalculation! I will compensate you for the damages! I swear!"

From what I gathered, Ammy's biggest issue wasn't power, but control. By using her staff as a medium, she could summon her golem, but only because it was the one spell she practised her entire life. Even so, based on the enchantment arrays of the staff, Petra was originally supposed to be human-sized, and it was due to the volatility of her magic that it became such a hulking construct.

Conversely, if she tried to use any other spell of that complexity, it would result in an explosion. One would be tempted to think that would be a good thing (it is technically in the ballpark of a fireball, after all), but the problem was that the spells were just as likely to explore in front of her as they were in front of the target. Because of this, Lord Grandpa must've been convinced that her inability to control complex magic was a result of being a homunculus, which was as good as saying she was defective. That also explained her hang-ups about that topic, but I digress.

Due to how magically challenged she seemed at the moment, there were some minor misgivings about her ability to control the power of the Grimoire, so for the past two days, she's been diligently training here. I had a subtle hope that, by narrative fiat, becoming the Conduit would've magically fixed her problem, but it didn't seem to be the case.

"Uuuh…" She let out a groan and waved the orbs away. "I swear, I feel like I'm on the verge of a breakthrough. It's as if I could just reach out and grasp the problem, but every time I feel like I've almost got it, it just eludes me." She glared at the marbles and continued in a soft voice. "I really thought these things would have some function other than annoying me all day, but I can't even begin to grasp the power of the Grimoire through them."

"Makes sense," I spoke off-handedly, noticing a few new faces coming our way. I waved to them and then returned to the conversation. "The whole point is that you need all three Keys to access the Grimoire, right?"

"Yes, but…" Ammy shook her head. "At this rate, it'll take at least a month before I could get my hands on the third one."

"That long?"

"The arch-mage of the School of Ottawa isn't on good terms with Grandfather, and she's been claiming that she's currently occupied by a dispute with the School of Boston over a juristic matter. Unless the rest of the Assembly officially orders her to come here, she's going to drag her feet, and that will take a meeting in Glasgow and an official announcement and… Maybe it will take longer than a month. Until then, I'll have to live with these things."

"I'm sure you'll get used to them in no time."

"That's not the problem." Ammy reached for her glasses. "How am I supposed to attend the school with—?"

"Ya-hoo!" Before she could finish, a certain energetic Celestial rushed to our side and came to a screeching halt right next to her. "Hi, fellow habitual truants!"

"It's not 'habitual'! I don't have a choice!" Ammy griped, while I just flashed a smile at the girl.

"Hi, Angie. You got here fast."

"Yeah. I wanted to beat you here for once, but I failed again," she answered with mock dejection, at which point her boyfriend casually karate-chopped her on the top of her head.

"Don't be a dummy. Leo can teleport, so there's no way we can get here quicker when we're riding the bus up the mountain."

"Boo! Where's your spirit of competition! You should relish the challenge!"

She stuck out her tongue, but Josh wasn't looking at her anymore and faced me instead.

"What's today's menu?"

He obviously wasn't talking about food, but our training schedule. He's been pretty adamant about starting our training arc (even if he didn't know that's what it was), so I arranged a simple training regimen for the two of them. Nothing major; mostly just stamina exercises combined with some teamwork drills.

"Wow! Josh, look over there!" Angie pulled on the guy's sleeve before I could respond and pointed at the ruined benches. "Ammy finally did it!" She turned a pair of sparkling eyes at the resident Magi, making her visibly reel back. "Did you finally cast your first fireball?"

"N-No… That was just a misfire."

Angie was taken aback, but only for a second.

"Wow! If your misfire causes so much destruction, imagine how powerful a real fireball is going to be!"

"It wasn't a fireball spell. I just wanted to summon a water burst to put out the fire caused by another misfire."

"R-Really?" Feeling awkward, Angie looked at Josh for support, but when the guy didn't respond, she squeezed out, "B-But since there's no fire, it means you must've succeeded. Yay?"

"How about we move this conversation along?" I proposed, and everyone agreed right away. "Okay, so here's the drill: Josh, do you have the spare shield I got for you?"

"Sure."

He reached into his bag and pulled out a metal cylinder. With a jerk of his hand, the two ends of it popped open, and a bunch of flimsy-looking metal strips burst forth. Some of them attached themselves to his forearm, while the rest formed two symmetrical semi-circles before the whole thing lit up, creating a large semi-transparent blue force field. Once it stabilized, Josh had a large circular concave shield on his arm, slightly less than one meter in diameter.

It was something I borrowed from armour guy, as he was the only sword-and-board type fighter I knew, and he happened to have a lot of spares. I was planning to get Josh specialized equipment later, but for now, it was good enough.

"I've brought my bow this time!" Angie chimed in, and with a twist of her wrist, the bracelet on her hand unfolded to create the familiar magitech bow held together by force fields and willing suspension of disbelief.

"Good. Ammy, please summon Petra."

"Okay." She went along with my request and only raised a brow once she already grasped her staff with both hands and began the summoning. "Why though?"

"It's going to be their opponent for today, and it should also help you. Maybe using a familiar spell will let you connect better to your floating marbles."

"Right, that's an idea."

"What about me?"

It was only at this point that I realized that Morgana was standing a few steps away from us all this time.

"Erm… Until my sisters arrive, you can take a break?"

"Okay." She nodded, but instead of leaving, she pointed a finger up. "If I may add, could you please mind the ceiling today?"

I followed the direction where she was pointing, and sure enough, there was a visible impact mark on the ceiling of the main hall. It was left by Angie's bow the day before, and while the structure had been repeatedly reinforced by Fred and his crew specifically for situations like this, the deep gash on the concrete was still disconcerting.

"Should we open up a Restricted Space?"

I shook my head at Josh's question.

"No. As Sunday's incident shows, you can't always rely on being able to do that in an emergency, and the whole point of this exercise is for you to learn how to work together while minding each other, your environment, and minimizing collateral damage."

"I get that, but…" Angie pulled on her invisible bowstring a few times, making the weapon's limbs bend back and forth and the vague outline of an arrow materialize and disappear over and over. She was listening to something, occasionally nodding along, and then she faced me. "For once, I agree with Grandpa Deus. Doing this first isn't meaningless, but if we want to defeat Bel of the Abyss, we need to practice how to fight with our full power!"

"We'll get there. I'm already in the process of arranging for a new training ground where you can let loose, but for now, you should focus on your teamwork."

"Okie-dokie."

She accepted that pretty quickly and trained her bow on the recently summoned golem.

"You focus on offense, I'll protect you!" Josh declared, stepping defiantly in front of Angie with his shield raised. After a long beat, the class rep lightly waved her staff, commanding Petra to move, and the two sides clashed.

As for me, I was a bit lost in thought after that previous exchange. Truth be told, while I said I was working on a new training ground, it was a bit of a misnomer. It would've been more accurate to say that, inspired by something future-me wrote in his message, I was trying to do one of those 'hit two birds with one stone' kind of deals, and I wasn't entirely sure it would work out yet. It was worth a try though, even if by doing so I imposed a hard time limit on myself again.

Spring break would start at the end of the month. By then, I was determined to resolve the villainess plot of my own making, corral all of the rom-com side-plots and developments into the background, and have the island in the best, most peaceful shape possible.

I could only hope that future-me wouldn't cause more chaos in the meantime, but as usual, I would flip that bridge once I got there.