The Simulacrum

Okay, Leo, deep breaths. Things are chaotic at the moment, but not unsalvageable. No need to panic. Panic is for horror movie heroines with obnoxiously high-pitched voices, and I sure as hell wasn't one. Let's just observe the situation for a moment before jumping in. As they say, look twice, act once, live considerably longer.

So, let's start with observation number one: Rinne somehow found the secret base, and she was currently wreaking merry havoc in the middle of it. Observation number two: The Fauns were trying, and apparently failing, to restrain her, with Hrul and Pip bleeding on the side. Fortunately, their wounds didn't seem to be life-threatening, so how's that for a silver lining? As for observation three: some of the metal scaffolding by the sparring arena was cut into pieces, which meant that Mountain Girl was rampaging around without any care about collateral damage once again. I couldn't help but wonder just how long it took her to cause this much mayhem.

As if reading my mind, my slightly rattled girlfriend immediately supplied the answer.

"{The Faun didn't say anything until she was already inside. I called you the moment I heard them fighting.}"

So she did all of this damage well under a minute. How come I wasn't even surprised? For a split second I almost wondered if the shop warranty would cover this, but I quickly shook the idea out of my mind. This wasn't the time for idle thoughts.

"Tell the others I'll need some time to resolve this," I said so fast I almost bit my tongue and, after one last breath of determination, I dashed forward with all my might.

Rinne and Brang looked like they would be at each other's throats at any moment now, so before anything else, I had to defuse this situation. Once I was close enough, I took a deep breath, and then shouted, "What the hell are you doing?!" from the top of my lungs.

Both combatants froze up for a second, but contrary to my hopes and expectations, the unreasonable huntress took this as an opportunity to lunge forth with her sword raised instead of standing down, right towards the momentarily distracted Faun. It was a quick attack, but not unreasonably so, and I thought Brang would at least try to parry her strike, but instead he belatedly tried to dodge out of the way, and his bad leg nearly buckled under the stress of the sudden movement. Rinne seemed ready to capitalize on his loss of balance, so I had no choice but to directly involve myself in their duel, even at the risk of further escalating things. Since I was out of time and reach, I did it the only way I could; by Phasing over to the Faun's side and parrying her stab myself.

Or rather, that was the plan, but when I did so, I belatedly realized why Brang decided to back away instead of blocking her initial sword strike. The idea was to start the wind-up motion of my parry before Phasing over, thus allowing me to give my swing a longer arc to collect momentum for batting her weapon away, but when the two met, Onikiri's edge bit into the hardwood shaft and cleaved a solid twenty centimeters off the butt end of my spear with minimal resistance.

On the bright side, my sudden appearance and unexpected attempt at getting in her way also startled her into withdrawing and she took two hasty steps back before assuming a defensive posture, with her sword held diagonally in front of her. This momentary lull allowed my poor brain some breathing room, and so it immediately noted that goddammit, this was the second perfectly good spear that got broken in two days! Well, at least it got cut close to the butt end, so I could still use it as a short spear. That was also a silver lining, I supposed.

But putting my brain's odd priorities aside, I decided it was in my best interest to lead the conversation, so I raised my voice and repeated my previous question, this time even more forcefully and filled with as much righteous indignation as I could manage at the moment.

"As I was saying, what the hell do you think you are doing!?"

There was a long beat following my exclamation, but my words seemed to have fallen on deaf ears, as the currently guarded monster slayer's eyes only kept jumping between me and Brang without her saying a thing or even moving a muscle. After a while, I decided it was probably more productive to address the person behind me rather than the one in the front.

"[Regroup and tend to the wound-bearers. I shall attempt to quench the flammable cord of the circumstances,]" I grunted in Faunish while making sure I wouldn't take my eyes off Rinne even for a split second.

Brang didn't argue, but instead he warned me, "[Understood, my Lord. I wish you the best of luck, though I'm afraid thine fellow's grasp of her sanity has already slipped well out of reach.]"

I could tell that much without his input, but I let out an appreciative noise all the same. A moment later, I could already hear him backing away, his direction made evident by Mountain Girl's eyes following him for a while before suddenly snapping back to me, her expression constantly vacillating between a confused deer-in-the-headlight stare and her patented brand of slasher grin. To my dismay, she ultimately settled on the latter.

"Leonard-san saved the creature of the underworld… Was Onikiri right all along?"

Her ominous whisper made a cold shiver run down my back, and so I hurriedly raised my hand and told her, "Wait, don't jump to conclusions just yet. Put down your sword for a moment and we can talk."

"Rinne doesn't believe you," she responded with a sense of finality that was somewhere between a death knell and the second end-credits of a superhero movie. Be as it may, I had no choice but to press on anyway, as the clock was already ticking. I still needed to get Mike out of his cage, notify the others so that they could retreat in time, and on top of all that, now I also had to deal with this mess.

I had many questions, such as how she managed to find this place, or how she got inside, or why all of this had to happen now of all times, but I put all such quandaries aside for the moment and forced a harmless smile onto my face. Before I could worry about anything else, I first had to try and negotiate myself out of this situation.

"Come on, Mountain Girl; don't be like that! Just hear me out, okay?"

My attempt to cajole her fell on deaf ears once again as she slowly shifted her center of gravity into a more threatening stance. My instincts told me to raise my weapon in turn, but doing so would have escalated things right away, so I restrained myself.

"No. The time for honeyed words of deception is over," she declared, making me barely able to hold myself back from burying my face in my hand.

"No, it's not! I mean, not the deception part, but this is definitely the time for words!"

"Onikiri was right all along," she muttered as her slasher smile widened even further, with the corners of her mouth practically on the verge of creeping off her face. Also, was it just me, or was there an ominous purple aura coming off her? That couldn't be good. "You are a scion of a female dog indeed."

"No, I'm not, and… are you even listening to what I'm telling you?"

"Onikiri wonders what the color of your blood is?"

Well, that more or less answered my question, didn't it? Her threatening question was then followed by the odd purple aura surrounding her becoming even thicker to the point it resembled some kind of mist. Also, her eyes were now shining in a yellow-ish hue. I was about ninety-seven percent sure they weren't doing that second ago, but I tried not to let it bother me as I did my best to remain as non-threatening as possible.

"If you really want to know, it's red. Mystery solved. Now, could you please—?"

Suddenly, the purple mist dissipated, as if it was blown away by a sudden gust of wind, and it took the violent tension weighing on my shoulders with it… but then why was my back crawling with all kinds cold sweat?

"You have betrayed the trust Rinne invested in your personage," she stated out of the blue, and now I knew.

"Oh crap, did you just—" 'go soft-spoken on me?', I wanted to ask, but then I was rudely cut short by a blade aiming right at my neck. Thankfully I was only metaphorical this time, as my head remained perfectly attached to my everything else thanks to my ever-helpful danger-sense, and I managed to duck out of the way just in time, if not particularly gracefully.

Rinne didn't dally around in the meantime, and she drew back her sword into a stance as she whispered, "You must suffer the consequences of your betrayal," followed by a considerably louder, "Mumyō kansatsu ken!"

Normally I would've shouted something along the lines of 'Since when's that a capital offense?!', but this really wasn't the time to trade witty quips and banter, as her sword already began drawing a series of after-images in the air in preparation of some kind of fancy and no doubt quite lethal technique aimed at my squishy bits. Needless to say, I did the only reasonable thing in this situation and immediately got out of sword's reach by Phasing over to Brang's side.

The currently quite murderous huntress was startled by my disappearance, but even after her eyes found me, at least some parts of her brain had to be working properly, as she didn't blindly rush into our group. At least not yet. Speaking of which, Brang, and consequently I, was currently standing near the edge of the training grounds and surrounded by the other Faun, with the two injured members in the back row. I glanced over to the largest guy by my side, and then curtly stated, "[Negotiations have broken down.]"

He grunted with an implied 'I told you it would turn out like this' hidden somewhere in it, but by the time he let out a proper Faunish growl, his sentiment turned into, "[How shall we proceed? Do you wish to eliminate her?]"

"[Most certainly not. We must subdue her and then make her see reason.]"

"[Doing so would be an ordeal several magnitudes more perilous than simply overwhelming her,]" Brang responded in a skeptical tone without taking his eyes off the huntress eyeing us. "[Her weapon is dangerous, and our arms and armor offer little protection against her strikes. My experience tells me that if you desire us to fight her while attempting to preserve her life, one or more of our kin might lose theirs in her stead.]"

"[Cease your pessimism,]" I grumbled in his general direction before taking a deep breath and considering our options.

In short, the biggest problem when facing her right now was the fact that she was wielding a Japanese bootleg lightsaber that cut through everything like it was made of alpine butter. On top of that, she was fast, vicious, and didn't pull her punches, so trying to wrestle her sword away from her was guaranteed to end up with a couple of missing limbs.

In that case, let's re-phrase the question: what options did we have to subdue her? Getting her away from her sword was a perilous proposition, so how about disabling her movements? It could've been be a feasible idea if we had a pair of bolas or a net, but we didn't, not to mention they probably wouldn't have held her for long anyway.

How about knocking her out then? Well, I didn't have a tranquilizer rifle in my back pocket (not that it would've helped, as delivering the right dosage was a bit more complicated than what the movies would have you believe), so that was out. A hit to the head was also an option, but that was just as likely to give her a serious concussion or even brain hemorrhage, and while she wasn't exactly the apple of my eye, I still didn't want to cripple her. A more reasonable option was a choke-hold, but that was also harder to do than it appeared, not to mention, without taking her weapon away first, it was just asking for a blade to the head.

No matter how I looked at it, the first step had to be getting her unreasonably dangerous weapon away from her, but it was easier said than done when we had nothing that could even block her long enough to attempt a disarming maneuver. That was a bit of a pickle, but then as I considered the possible tools we had at hand in the secret base, I had a sudden and, if I do say so myself, somewhat brilliant idea.

"[General, follow my lead. We shall steal sand from the hourglass and treat her like a child's paper toy in the wind.]" I said so, but then I paused as I rewinded what I just said, and then silently cursed the obtuseness of the Faun language under my breath. Brang seemed to have understood my meaning well enough though, so I decided to roll with it and followed things up by addressing the rest of the group. "[Karukk, I strongly request that you retrieve the emphasized polearm from its storage. The rest, attend the wound-bearers, and then join us as distractors of the mind.]"

The younger Faun had considerably more trouble understanding what I meant, but once he did, he tentatively asked, "Do you mean that spear?"

"Of course I mean that one!" I barked back and then immediately followed after the already dashing Brang. By the looks of it, Mountain Girl got tired of waiting for us and decided to assault everyone at once, so the ex-general broke away from us to meet her halfway. She wasn't fazed by the huge body charging towards her and leveled her sword right at her opponent's neck. Going for the vitals right away meant she was aiming for a fatal wound, but such single-mindedness also made her easy enough to read so that Brang could change his trajectory and get out of the way of the incoming blade. There was a momentary standoff between the two, which I quickly joined by taking a position near her blind spot. Because of this, she had no choice but to break her engagement with Brang and share her attention between the two of us.

That was more or less my intention, as currently my main objective was to tie her down and slowly chip away at her endurance until we could safely capture her, if only so that we could have a proper discussion without the danger of getting my head separated from the rest of my body in the process. In some ways, our positions at the moment were reminiscent of how we two-teamed the Chimera, except this time Rinne was on the receiving end. She also wasn't mindless enough to completely ignore one of us, but at the same time she also wasn't reasonable enough for us to maintain the balance of the stalemate just by moving in and out of her zone of control.

As such, the momentary lull in the combat only lasted for a few seconds before she decided to break through by attacking Brang first. As for why, I imagined she either wanted to get rid of the bigger target first, or more likely, she might've considered him easier prey at the moment. The ex-general, most likely due to being afraid of losing his spear and symbol of office to a single unlucky swing of the infuriating katana, opted to use a short sword instead. It was actually a replica Roman gladius that I mail-ordered the same time I got the spears and the rest of the weaponry for the Fauns. It was standard-sized, but in his hands, the short thrusting sword looked more like a dagger, especially after he put it in a reverse grip and held it up in a defensive position as if wielding a combat knife. Furthermore, he was wielding it while still buckled into its scabbard, making it an improvised blunt weapon to comply with my plan to catch Mountain Girl alive.

"Sakurabana Ranbu!"

Rinne called out the name of her attack as she made a diagonal cut from the bottom right side. Brang managed to avoid the telegraphed first strike and it seemed like he would go in for a grapple. It was fortunate that this particular attack of the creepy huntress was one that I have seen her use multiple times against the Chimera, so I knew that even though the way she let go of her blade for a moment and she was spinning around might have looked like an opening the size of a skyscraper, she would be inexplicably able to stab forth in a split second anyway.

"[General, waterfowl to the sinister side!]" I called out in a hurry, and even though this time even I couldn't readily untangle just what the hell I meant by that (thanks, Faun language), he still pulled back from his planned grab and swerved to the side, just in time to avoid the straight trust of the o-katana whistling thought the air.

I wasn't sitting on my laurels though, as I swiftly closed in the distance and swung my spear. Stabbing with the pointy end was naturally out of the question, and while normally I would've poked her in the back with the butt end of my weapon, she cut it off at such a sharp angle that I was afraid that if I did so, I would still end up wounding her anyway. Despite my best efforts, I inflicted practically zero damage on her with my strike. I not only lacked the familiar leverage due to my shortened weapon, but she also seemed to instinctively roll with the incoming force, as I barely felt any resistance when the shaft of the spear met with her shoulder.

Rinne tumbled on the ground without making a single sound, only to almost immediately spring to her feet while shouting yet another string of Japanese syllables and raising her sword high as she leaped at me. My trusty danger sense caught her abrupt attack well ahead of time, and I Phased right out of the way, reappearing by Brang's side with a small gasp. While such short-range teleports normally weren't that taxing, this time each one of them was making my headache ever-so-slightly worse. It was still bearable at the moment, but I was afraid it wouldn't stay that way for long.

"[I shall be her opponent. General, use the art of illusions bestowed upon you by your liege and limit yourself to harassing the interloper while I narrow her view of the world only to my person.]"

"[Understood,]" he grunted back right away and he began to radiate magic, only to add, "[Are thine orders to spare her life still in effect?]"

"[Naturally.]" After saying so, I considered things one more time, and in the end I added, "[Restrain yourself for the time being, but once her inner reserves appear spent, use your natural bulk to subdue her when the opportunity presents itself.]"

He nodded in acknowledgment, and a split second later his whole body was enveloped in the orange-ish rippling shine I've long since associated with the cloaking Sigil activating. From Rinne's point of view, it probably looked like he just vanished into thin air, so she immediately went on guard. That gave me a second or five to catch my breath, so I did just that and awkwardly put the lopsided end of my shortened spear against the ground to lean on it.

"Come on, Mountain Girl. Do we really have to do this?"

Instead of answering right away, she warily glanced around the area, probably thinking that I was trying to distract her while Brang got into position to ambush her (on which point she wasn't entirely wrong per se, but I digress), but at last she looked me in the eye and stated, "You are a lackey of the powers of the underworld."

"Well, no, not really." My response drew a curious look from her, so I explained, "Technically, they are the ones who work for me."

"{Chief, I can't believe you thought that was going to convince her of your innocence.}"

I ignored my assistant's biting comment and instead whispered a deadpan, "Status report?"

"{I told the others about the situation at the base. Joshua said they are going to buy you as much time as they could, but asked you to hurry up.}"

"As if it was that simple," I murmured under my breath before focusing on Rinne again. "So, are you one hundred percent certain we cannot stand down and talk this through?"

"Yes," she nodded without any hesitation.

"Are you really sure? We could do it while we eat? I'll throw in a full meal too; you can even pick the restaurant."

For a moment her eyes actually wavered, even though I was half-joking, but she ultimately overcame her weakness and firmly declared, "You are Rinne's enemy. Rinne must fight you."

"But wh—" was as far as I got before I was once again interrupted by my danger sense insistently telling me that moving was in my best interest, and so I graciously obliged by leaping backwards with all my might. While I was doing that, my opponent dashed forward as if she was shot from a bow and swung her blade horizontally while yelling something about 'Iaijutsu' or something. Her strike still wasn't anywhere close to hitting me, but it didn't deter her from trying again, and again, and again. The series of strikes she threw at me was as simple as a floorboard, but their speed (plus being unblockable, of course) still made them really threatening.

We exchanged several blows under these circumstances, though more realistically speaking, it was mainly just me dodging out of the way of her sword while occasionally throwing a few feints at her to break her rhythm. For the moment, I decided to devote all my mental faculties to uphold the status quo until Karukk would come back with the thing I requested, and so I continued eluding her strikes like it was going out of style. That said, even though my situation wasn't exactly peachy, I still had some breathing room to think, and so I used the opportunity to further analyze my opponent.

By my subjective judgment, facing Rinne gave me about as much pressure as when I was fighting Brang in a Dominance duel; each of their attacks felt really dangerous and potentially fatal, but as long as I kept my cool, I could sidestep them with relative ease. As far as actual physical combat prowess was concerned, she had a noticeably shorter reach than my usual Faunish sparring partner, as well as much more limited threat projection, mainly since she lacked the intimidating bulk and weight of a Faun.

Based on her performance against the Chimera, as well as her current attempts at cutting me into ribbons, she had a slightly worse control over her the spacing and rhythm of the battle than the big Faun. She wasn't an amateur by any stretch of the imagination, but when I sparred with Brang, I always had to be on the lookout for feints and be wary of being drawn into his pace, and I often had to rely on my inexplicable sixth sense of mortal danger to get me out of the way of an unexpected jab. Compared to that, Rinne's fighting style was much more straightforward, to the point where I felt that once I got used to her moves, I could probably run circles around her.

There were only two problems that made this fight into an enormous pain in the neck: the first was the fact that I couldn't block or parry her strikes. That was a big deal, as it left me with no other choice but to avoid all of her attacks, which forced me to move my whole body a lot more than usual, and that meant that I was most likely burning through my stamina faster than her. The second issue was...

"Kenzen Ichinyo!"

"Sonova..." I muttered as I immediately Phased a few steps back to avoid her strike. Whenever she called out one of her attacks, it played havoc with my danger senses, and triggering my fight-or-flight reflexes made me teleport out of the way before even considering any other options. That, naturally, wasn't good for my migraine, and I was starting to be afraid that my head would give out sooner than her fatigue.

Anyhow, while I was forced back, Brang immediately picked up the pace and tackled Rinne from her blind spot. She might have had some kind of sixth sense of her own, as she managed to roll out of the way, but by the time she jumped back to her feet he already re-triggered his cloak and allowed me to take his place again. This kind of strike-and-fade tactic wasn't the most honorable in the world, but he didn't complain, and it worked wonders for keeping Mountain Girl off-balance.

After that, things returned to the status quo by me rushing in and keeping her occupied right until she would use another one of her fancy named attacks, then Brang would pick up the pace while I retreated, rinse and repeat. Not exactly the most dynamic, pulse-pounding battle in the history of supernatural combat, but in my defense, I didn't really have much of a reason to change things up. Keeping Rinne localized like this prevented more collateral damage from her swinging her exasperating blade through our furniture, and on top of that, it also kept everyone relatively safe until Karukk would finally show up with his delivery.

"[My lo… I mean, boss! Over here!]"

Oh, speak of the devil. The friendly Faun called out to me just after he returned from one of the as-of-yet unfurnished side-chambers of the base, and he waved a long, thin object wrapped in a thick layer of protective canvas that helped to keep it from getting dirty, kept moisture away from the sensitive metal edges, and most importantly, blocked any eye-sore magical glows it might have radiated from giving me pink-eye.

But putting such things aside, I held back from letting out a frustrated 'Finally!', and instead I distanced myself from the berserk huntress and waved for Karukk to bring it over. I thought that was the obvious thing to do, but for some reason he remained in place and only gave me a dumb look while alternating between looking at me and the object in his hands. Then, after an objectively short yet subjectively torturously long moment later it seemed like something finally clicked with him as he raised it over his head and…

"Wait, don't throw it over to—!"

I was too late. He threw it. Maybe he thought I wanted to have it right away, but for god's sake, man! If I was in such a hurry, I would've Phased over to your side already! You could've at least taken off the covering! How was I supposed to use it like that?

But alas, there was no point crying over spilled milk, so I swiftly moved in to intercept it… except I nearly stumbled when my danger sense began to blare at me like a world war two bomber alarm. It wasn't hard to figure out why either; I was moving to catch a spear with a fixed trajectory. That meant that my own movement became predictable, which in turn led to Mountain Girl instantly moving in to intercept me.

So, there I was. On my right a crazed woman with her sword raised over her head, ready to swing it down upon me. On my left, a spear thrown towards me on a flat flight curve designed to be easy to catch. In-between the two, a choice; do I catch the weapon and risk getting cut, or do I avoid the incoming slash and then run around like a headless chicken trying to recover the weapon? After a short but intense internal debate, I decided on a third option, and with a low grunt, I threw the spear already in my hands into the face of the incoming huntress.

She was more startled than anything by my actions, and she brought down her blade in a swift, vertical cut, neatly bisecting the shaft in the middle and pushing the pieces aside in her continued rush towards me. Still, it gave her a pause, and that was all I needed.

Goodbye cheap, nameless spear. We hardly knew ye, but your heroic sacrifice shall not be forgotten. Anyhow, while Rinne was momentarily distracted, Brang also revealed himself for a moment and let out a threatening roar that made even me twitch, even though I was already used to the guy. For our home invader, the sudden appearance of the blaring Faun must've been even more surprising, as even though he didn't do anything afterward, his T-Rex impression still provided me with ample distraction time to display my trained weapon catching skill.

...

Ooooh, so that's why Karukk threw the spear at me! It had to be muscle memory from the times we trained my post-Phasing weapon catching technique together. With that mystery solved, I reached out and elegantly snatched the unusual projectile out of the air, and then I brandished it in a slightly less graceful manner. I blame the damn canvas for the last bit.

I still did a small flourish with it, unwieldiness be damned, and took up an offensive stance, with my legs spread wide to provide a solid foundation and the spear in my hands held at shoulder height with the point angled slightly down.

Once I was in position, I sent a provocative smirk in my opponent's way, and her reaction was quite predictable. She instantly resumed her rush towards me, her torso slightly bent to the side and away from Brang, and blade held in both hands and angled for a diagonal slice from bottom-right to top left. I, in turn, shifted into a more defensive posture, and eagerly awaited to see whether my gambit would pay off.

Blocking a sword strike with a spear was a tricky one. In the movies, you often see one actor hold their polearm horizontally to stop a vertical slash, only to get locked in a contest of strength as they both push against each other's weapons. This is all very dramatic, as it allows for a moment of pause in the combat where they can trade angry quips with each other while the camera zooms in on their faces. It makes for an intense scene, so long as nobody starts wondering why the swordsman doesn't just slide his blade down the shaft and cut off his opponent's fingers. But then again, this is the kind of thing where a little willing suspension of disbelief (and the general populace's lack of need for armed combat knowledge) always pays dividends.

Needless to say, I didn't even try to do any of that. Instead I opted to take half a step back with one leg to brace myself while simultaneously swinging my weapon around to gather momentum, meeting my opponent's strike on a deflective angle. And that, ladies and gentlemen, where the magic happened. As in, literally.

The moment our weapons met, there was a blindingly bright flash of light reminiscent of a welding arc followed by a numbing electric jolt running up from my palms all the way to my shoulders. All of these distractions nearly blotted out the sound and impact of enchanted wood meeting enchanted metal, but at the end of the day my hunch was proven correct, and the dragon-slaying spear successfully deflected the aggravating sword. That's a plot device for you, I supposed.

Well, to be fair, I would've been satisfied with either outcome; if it blocked Onikiri, neat. If not, at least this damn thing would be out of my hair. It would've been tricky to explain it to Sebastian but I was prepared to do so from the beginning.

As for why I even had this spear in the secret base at the moment, simply put, I set Elly up to be my anchor, and I sneakily spirited it away before it could inevitably serve as a rogue element during the upcoming attack by the Knights. But putting all that aside, the collision between the two enchanted weapons have caused something of a magical shock-wave that undid the knot fastening the cloth onto the spear, so after pushing Rinne back a step, I did another small flourish and used the opportunity to discard the canvas and reveal my weapon in all of its glowy glory.

Once she overcame the first shock, Mountain Girl swiftly reasserted herself by raising her sword up to the level of her face, signifying that she was about to go on the offensive again. This time however I had no reason to shrink back, and I met her assault with an aggressive posture of my own, and when she was about to rush forwards, I abruptly shifted my hands down the shaft and positioned the tip right in the way of her predicted lunge.

She was already moving by the time she realized what I did, so she had no choice but to awkwardly twist her body while simultaneously attempting to sweep the spearhead in the other direction. I didn't allow her to do so, as I quickly yanked the spear back, causing her to ineffectually wave at thin air instead. Doing so disturbed her stance even further, so I quickly struck at her sword in the back-draw, causing her to completely lose her balance and letting me strafe to the side to keep an optimum distance.

This small exchange was the textbook example of the very basics of armed combat. First, establish favorable spacing, then read your opponent, bait them into making a mistake, and then punish them for it. It wasn't as flashy as throwing sword-beams at each other or as visually stunning as repeatedly bashing our blades against each other until sparks started flying, but damn me if it wasn't effective.

By having a weapon with a longer reach, I naturally opted for a wider spacing, used my range advantage to disturb her attack, baited her into a miss to further unbalance her, then I used the opportunity to re-establish my preferred distance. As for punishing, if I really wanted to, I could've probably stabbed her upper arm or shoulder, but for now I opted for keeping the fight bloodless and aiming to disarm her instead.

Honestly, I didn't think that having a weapon capable of parrying her would make such a difference, but with this small change, the battle went from 'this is dangerous, and a single mistake could result in serious injury or worse' to 'this is not that hard, but the constant flashing magical lights are making my eyes hurt'. By the way, yes, that was still a thing; every time our weapons met, there was a bright light that gave the sun a run for its money, and by the looks of it, only I could see it. Also, if we're talking about nuisances, the spear itself felt a tad unwieldy in my hands, no small part thanks to it still giving me small electric shocks every once in a while.

The other big factor that turned the situation around was even more surprising. Rinne, the self-proclaimed hunter of supernatural nasties and highly visible ninja, was apparently entirely inexperienced when it came to fighting someone who had a weapon. Or rather, she seemed completely bewildered by the idea of her opponent being able to block and counter her, and once I broke her momentum with that and didn't let her slip close enough to get into her preferred spacing range, she became surprisingly easy to handle.

"Sakuraba--! Ouch!"

Just like that. Whenever she was about to try one of her unreasonable moves, I immediately punished her by extending my weapon and slapping her shoulder or thigh with the flat of the blade, or occasionally interrupting her by targeting her weapon before it could gather momentum. It still resulted in a few shallow cuts every here and there, but I kept telling myself that once she was tied up, Angie would take care of them, so it wasn't that big of a deal. That said, even I was astonished by how easy it became to suppress her. Was she really this bad? Or maybe Judy was right all along and I really did have a knack for armed combat?

"Stop it!" she suddenly burst out, and on a closer look, I could see tears of frustration in the corner of her eyes. "Fight properly!"

"I'm fighting properly," I answered while swatting away a surprise thrust and countering by whacking her on the wrist before retreating by two paces. "You're the one who is flailing around."

She yelled something at me that sounded like gibberish mixed with random Japanese swear words, so I shut her up by feinting a thrust towards her head, and then immediately pulling back and smacking her hastily raised sword again, eliciting a pained hiss in the process. Odd as the turnaround was, I definitely wasn't going to complain, as by the looks of it I was going to be able to either wear her down or disarm her before long. Now I only had to make sure to pace myself and to make sure she wouldn't run away before we could—

"{Chief, we have a situation.}"

My thoughts were abruptly interrupted by Judy's voice, and she somehow sounded even more worried than the last time she called me.

"I noticed, I'm dealing with it right now," I whispered curtly, much to Mountain Girl's confusion. "I have it more or less under control."

"{No, we have a new situation.}"

"What? Did something happen with the others?" I asked back while parrying another strike and feinting a thrust towards Rinne's abdomen to force her back before adding, "Please don't tell me it's another giant robot..."

"{No Chief, we have a brand new situation,}" she told me impatiently, and this time she didn't wait for me to react before throwing a bombshell. "{Mother-in-law is in trouble.}"

"Emese is in trou... Wait, come again?" Judy didn't say anything, so I presumed I've heard it right. "Dormouse... For the love of god, please, please tell me it's not the Knights..."

"{Sorry Chief, but it's the Knights,}" she responded in a voice that managed to be both apologetic and flat at the same time.

"… What the bloody hell on earth is going on with this godforsaken…" For the sake of brevity, let's just say that what followed after this point was a solid fifteen seconds long litany of curses, courtesy of yours truly, which put an unexpected and quite awkward end to the hostilities for while it lasted. "... goddamn son of a goat merchant!"

I finished in the company of a ginormous groan. Letting off some steam like that helped a bit, and one sharp breath later I glanced at the still cloaked Brang waiting for an opening on the side. I had to move fast, and considering how much trouble I went through to get it out of the mansion ahead of time, I wasn't going to take the dragon-slaying spear back there, so once I was sure I had Brang's attention, I unceremoniously tossed my weapon over to him.

The Faun general almost fumbled, but ultimately managed to catch the spear with a confused look on his face.

"[I request that you hold the line. My presence is required elsewhere.]"

Brang wasn't anything if not adaptable, and once he digested my words, he undid his cloaking and took a threatening stance to draw Rinne's attention away from me. With that, I felt confident that the situation should be under control here, so I closed my eyes and quickly Phased away with a looming sense of trepidation about what other kinds of fresh hells this day would still have in store for me...

When I arrived at the Dracis mansion, I was immediately thrown off-balance by a cacophony of voices. Also, it was pitch black all around me, though my eyes adapted to that one far quicker than my ears did to the noise. I came over in a hurry and didn't really have the spare time to observe the situation before jumping into the middle of it, but I seriously didn't expect to see all of the household's maids, cooks, and other assorted personnel stuffed into a single room like sardines. They all looked… well, not exactly frightened, but at the very least tense. On the bright side, I couldn't see any injured among them. There was also a low, arrhythmic thumping noise in the air, and everyone in the room was so focused on its source that only a few of them even noticed my arrival.

"I said no!" I was startled by Emese's sharp voice, and following it led my eyes to the only entrance of, what I belatedly realized to be, the poker room on the first floor.

"Ma'am, with all due respect..." the large, well-built man she just yelled at tried to speak up, but he was cut short by an angry scoff and what I presumed to be a commanding glare. I could only guess, since she was facing away from me. There were also a couple of other, similarly built men behind the speaker, all dressed in black suits and wearing sunglasses indoors, even though it was dark and two of them were even holding flashlights, and my honed trope-senses told me they were probably security.

Meanwhile, the draconic woman still pretending to be wheelchair-bound pointed a finger at the large, antique wardrobe still being held by two of the man's colleagues and told them, "That is an heirloom from my great-grandmother's time! You're explicitly forbidden to use it to build the barricade!"

Speaking of which, it finally registered with me that the thumping sound was coming from behind the group, or to be more precise, the heavy wooden doors currently held shut by the sheer bulk of three security guys.

"Then what can we use?" the man in the middle asked, and I decided this was as good a moment as any to make my presence known.

"Try the couch; it's pretty heavy," I advised, making everyone freeze up for a moment before mama Dracis whipped her head around to look at me over her shoulder with astonished eyes.

"Leo!" Her excited exclamation was accompanied by a surprised look that quickly morphed into an uncomprehending one. "Why are you here?"

"I was told there's trouble," I answered while walking over and carefully leaning onto one of the handles of her wheelchair. "Wasn't you the one who called Judy?"

"No, that would be me," came the answer from a new voice, and its owner promptly made her way out of the throng of servants and stood next to us.

The look Melinda was giving me was slightly suspicious, but I was more surprised that I saw no magical glow, and consequently no communication artifact on her, meaning the way she contacted my girlfriend almost certainly had to do with the ye olde brick phone in her hand. Just how exactly Judy got a mobile signal in a bomb shelter inside a mountain while I often had signal issues even in the middle of the city was one of the more mundane yet nonetheless mind-boggling mysteries of our existence.

Anyhow, I was quickly jolted out of my train of thought by another thud coming from the direction of the door, so I cleared my aching head with a shake and addressed the room in general.

"So, could any of you brief me on the situation?" After saying so, I paused for a few seconds, and then also added, "Moreover, while you're telling me, somebody should really start moving the couch already. I don't like the sounds the hinges are making."

"You heard him," Emese prompted the reserved security guys, and after they began to move, she turned in place to face me. "Did you know the accursed Knights would be attacking today?"

"No, I just learned about it too," I answered a little absent-mindedly while looking for something else to lean on, and I ultimately settled on a nearby chair.

"Then how come you're here?" Melinda leveled the question at me, which naturally earned her a 'Please read the situation and shut up' glare before I turned a considerably more amicable look at my self-appointed mother-in-law.

"It's a long and complicated story, and not exactly relevant at the moment. On the other hand, I'd really appreciate it if one of you could please start the explanation I asked for."

My words were further emphasized by yet another impeccably timed thud coming from the door, so the two draconian women shared a meaningful glance between each other, and ultimately decided to drop the issue of my sudden appearance.

"The assault started about half an hour ago," mama Dracis explained in a tone that didn't seem all that concerned with the circumstances. "It was ahead of schedule, but we already discussed what to do with the staff, so no one panicked. We couldn't erect a Restricted Space over the mansion because of their interference, and we couldn't evacuate either, so once the alarm sounded, we all headed to the safe room under the mansion."

"… I can't help but notice that we are not there," I noted, and Melinda quickly stepped forth to explain the discrepancy.

"Milady was on this floor when the accursed knights rammed through the front gates with their vehicle, so while the mansion's security held them back, we decided to move to her side instead."

"They cut the power cables before the attack, and without the elevator, carrying me down to the safe room on the stairs would've taken too long. These wheels are really inconvenient, aren't they?" Emese added in a light tone that didn't fit the severity of the situation at hand, but I decided to let it slide. Also, this finally explained why we were currently sitting in the dark. One mystery solved.

"So you came to this room instead and barricaded the entrance? Not a terrible idea, I suppose. It's a smaller room with only a single entrance and one window, so it's reasonably easy to mount a defense here. I have just one question though: why did you hole up here instead of fighting back?"

"I was under the impression the plan was that we lure the accursed knights in, and then hubby and Sebastian would hit them from the back," Emese explained. "I was also afraid that if we fought them head-on, we would cause a lot of damage to the building. It's better to wait for them, and then catch the enemy in a pincer-maneuver and quickly overwhelm them, right?"

I looked the woman seeking validation in the eye and replied with, "I don't want to burst your bubble, but I doubt they are going to make it. In fact, let me check."

"Check what?" Melinda inquired with narrowed eyes, but I ignored her for the time being and instead I focused on my Far Sight and glanced over to Abram's location.

"… Yeah, just as I expected," I murmured under my breath once I ascertained their situation. "Unfortunately, they are currently being held up by the Magi. They probably didn't know that the island is under lockdown and got caught when they tried to sneak back. It must've happened pretty recently too."

Emese looked like she wanted to know how I knew that, but then it was a different question that escaped her lips.

"Since when is the island under lockdown?"

"Long story." My answer made both the lady of the house and the chambermaid narrow their eyes with a frown, so I ultimately decided to elaborate a little. "Fine, here's the footnotes version: we tried to catch the guy who was ambushing us, he got away, he stole something from Lord Grandpa, and now the Magi are running around like headless chickens and don't let anyone off the island."

"That's… a problem," Melinda stated the obvious, but I didn't hold it against her.

"Yep. In short, instead of waiting for dad-in-law and Sebastian to come home any time soon, I think we have two options: you could either transform and fight back, or you could continue to stay on the defense, and instead we could call the police." Mama Dracis was giving me an unusually baffled look, so I clarified, "We aren't in a Purple Zone, so the knights actually broke into your real, real-space house. The police can't exactly ignore that, and since the knights cannot harm innocents, they would be forced to retreat so that they wouldn't get into conflict with the law."

"No," my self-imposed mother-in-law abruptly declared on no uncertain terms. "If law enforcement gets involved, it will leave a permanent record that could lead to us even after we move again, and removing that would require the help of the Magi. Our relationship with the Arch-mage might be cordial, but I don't want to be in his debt."

"Really? I thought it would be a rather elegant solution."

My stray comment was met with a frown, so I raised my hands in surrender.

"Fine, fine. When in Rome, do as the Romans do. This is your home, so if you want to deal with them without involving the authorities, then be my guest."

"That's right. This is our house, and we would be a laughing-stock if we couldn't protect it ourselves," Emese declared while beaming with dignity, which was only slightly marred by the clumsy way she tried to dramatically rise from her wheelchair.

"Fine then," I ended that part of the discussion, only to take a deep breath and reluctantly raise my voice again. "I have about three other places to be already, but I think I can spare a few minutes to help you out. First off, how many bad guys are we dealing with?"

"At least twelve squires," came the answer from an unexpected source as the main security guy walked up to us. Apparently, they have finished building their barricade, which looked a tad flimsy, yet it was holding out well enough, so I probably shouldn't complain. Once he was sure everyone's attention was on him, he continued in a grave voice. "We've also confirmed the presence of no less than two Entitled Knights."

I almost asked what he meant by that, but I managed to swallow the words back as the hamster-wheel operated gears and pulleys I jokingly call a brain managed to drag the term out of the bottom of my memory. According to one of Judy's reports I read not too long ago, the Knights with the Long Ass Name didn't have centralized leadership; in its stead, certain members held specific titles in the organization, usually passed down in the family or to apprentices. Normally each of these 'entitled knights' operated their own little clandestine circle of operatives, and whenever an important issue came up that required the whole organization to act, they would come together and vote on the issue, probably while standing around a round table inside an old European castle or something.

I could also recall that they actually used to have a proper leader who was supposed to hold the whole organization together, but he passed away a few hundred years ago and left their super-special-awesome sword embedded in a suitably stereotypical magical rock. Insert typical Arthurian tropes about pulling out said sword here. More importantly though, the 'entitled knights' were more or less the equivalent of mini-bosses, with specialized magical gear and unique skill-sets, so fighting them face-to-face was just a tad too dangerous. There was also something else I remembered finding odd about them, but I couldn’t recall what it was at the moment. I blamed the headache.

"Which named ones are here?"

My absent-minded inquiry was answered by Melinda.

"I've seen one of them from a distance, and based on the armor he was wearing, he was most likely the Griffon Knight."

"Oh," I exhaled in surprise as her words further jogged my memory.

The last important thing about the entitled knights was that they were each named after some animal, either mythical or real, and their namesake was part of their insignia. It was kind of a cringy thing if you asked me. I mean, 'Blackcloak' was bad enough, but I'd probably drop dead from embarrassment if someone called me 'Sir Leonard Dunning, the Hippopotamus Knight' or somesuch.

Emese most likely mistook my momentary silence for requesting more details, as she told me, "We more or less expected him, but nobody could take a good look at the other accursed knight. He was a man, so he couldn't be the Unicorn Knight, and the Eagle Knight was recently injured, so he's probably off the list. That leaves either the Minotaur Knight or the Kraken Knight."

"There is also the Lion Knight," the security guy noted, and mama Dracis gave him an appreciative glance.

"True, although he'd been inactive for the past couple of years. Hubby even speculated that he probably died and no one inherited the position yet, but it's not out of the question. But then again, the Raven Knight has been missing for years as well…"

"Okay, time out," I raised my voice to make them stop before those names make me die of second-hand embarrassment. I mean, Unicorn Knight? Really? Sheesh. "So we have two dangerous people and a bunch of goons. What are they armed with?"

Everyone in the room was looking at me like I just asked something really dumb, but then the security guy cautiously answered, "Erm… Swords and spears, as usual?"

"Only melee weapons?" He nodded to my question. "No guns?" This time, he shook his head.

On the second look, I only just realized that none of the security guys had any firearms on them either. In retrospect, I shouldn't have been so surprised, as I was already made aware of the insanely strict gun laws of the island when I tried to buy a pistol, just in case, and was stonewalled so hard I couldn't even find a black market vendor who would deal in them. In fact, the unavailability of handguns was so absolute that Judy even had a theory about the narrative artificially restricting them, because supernatural battles and guns rarely mixed well.

Anyhow, if not even the cutthroat cavaliers of the supernatural world used firearms, I figured no one else would either. I wasn't going to complain though, as it made the situation slightly less dangerous from my point of view. I mean, I put a lot of trust in my inexplicable yet incredibly reliable danger sense, but I doubted that I could dodge a bullet even if I was forewarned about it. Now, there was only one question remaining.

"You said you couldn't erect a Purple Zone. Is that normal?"

"If you mean a Restricted Space, then no. The knights brought an artifact with them that made it harder to invoke the Restricted Space, so we decided to forgo it for the time being." Mama Dracis paused for a moment, as if just realizing how weird it was, and then she asked me, "Do you have any idea why they would do that?"

"Oh, I have an idea all right," I grumbled as I stopped leaning on the backrest of the chair beside me and took a deep breath. "All right, here's the plan: first and foremost, lay the groundwork for a Purple Zone. I'll go and scout around a little, and if I can, I'll try to snatch or disable their jamming artifact. Once that happens…" I looked at Emese, who actually perked up for some reason. "By that time, you should get ready to cause some havoc, mom-in-law."

"You can leave that to me!" she immediately declared with a vicious grin that somehow still reminded me of Elly. Speaking of which, I really hoped things were going all right on their end. I really didn't expect that things were going to turn out like this, so I wanted to wrap everything up over here as fast as I could. Brang could probably handle Rinne on his own, now that he had a proper weapon to use, but originally Josh and the others only had to hold up Labcoat Guy for a few minutes while I freed Mike, and I figured they were getting a little worn out by now.

"Do you plan to use the window?" Emese asked while pointing at the only window in the room, which currently had the poker table covering it.

"No, I plan to use this wall," I answered while pointing in the other direction. "It would take too long to explain. Let's just say it's a thing I do."

After saying so, I walked over to the wall in question, bent my knees for a sprinter's start, and told them, "I'll be right back," before bursting forward and then simultaneously Phasing to the room on the other side. My body came to a lurching halt, and it took a couple of short breaths to steady myself before I could stop leaning on the nearby table.

After glancing around a bit, I soon realized that I was inside Abram's trophy room. That was a pleasant surprise, as I could've sworn that it wasn't right next to the poker room. But then again, I didn't exactly have the full map of the mansion in my head, so I didn't dwell on it. The stuffed animal heads on the walls were even eerier than usual in the dark, but more importantly, I could remember a couple of other odds and ends in the room. For example, there were all those stereotypical African tribal spears and javelins in the corner. I was almost tempted to pick one up, but after some consideration, I decided against it. I didn't plan to fight the Knights in the open, and even if I did, after my recent experience with Rinne, I doubted that some mundane spears were going to make a huge difference. Ideally, I would quickly find the magical jamming whatchamacallit, break it, and then once the Purple Zone was up, I'd let mama Dracis clean up the rest while I focused my attention elsewhere. Easy-peasy.

As to how I was supposed to find said jammer thingie, that was another matter entirely, but I figured that if it was a powerful magical tool, it would be lit up like a Christmas tree; if I found the most glaringly eye-watering object in the invaders' possession, I was probably on the right track. As such, instead of a weapon, I decided to look for another item that I noted when I visited the room the last time, though it was pretty hard to find anything in the place considering most of the little illumination the street lights outside provided was blocked by the curtains. It also didn't help that just as I was about to reach for said curtains, I was startled by a voice echoing right inside my head.

"{Chief, more trouble.}"

"Oh for the love of..." I reflexively cursed under my breath, but I quickly reined in the impulse and once I felt collected enough, I asked, "New trouble?"

"{In a way. Amelia was taken hostage by Doctor Robatto.}"

The news made me pause on my tracks, and instead of asking for more information, I decided it was more efficient to just Far Glance over there. It took me a few seconds to digest the situation, and once I did that, I let out an exasperated sigh and addressed my girlfriend again.

"Judy, please remind the class rep that I put an anti-grappling function onto the Magiforms for a reason."

"{Roger.}"

"Also, tell her that it's two for two. If she gets captured by the next bad guy too, I'm going to bench her."

"{Noted.}"

After Judy's s response I also used my Far Sight to observe the events on that side of this evening's multifront flustercuck. I made a quick tally, and at a glance, it seemed that one of the special robots and about a third of the normal ones were turned into ugly colored scrap metal scattered around the place. In the middle of all the expected collateral damage, Labcoat Guy was currently holding the class rep in a clumsy choke-hold while rattling off his demands to the rest of the group. Or rather, the rest except for Josh, because for some reason he was having an epic duel with the android woman on the rooftop of the warehouse. I wasn't even surprised anymore.

Anyhow, it looked like Judy just finished relaying my message to our hostage, for her eyes abruptly lit up with belated realization behind her glasses, and not a moment later, there was a sharp banging sound that reminded me of the last dying gasp of an industrial jackhammer. What followed was both comical and yet immensely satisfying, as the guy in the clogs was sent flying as if he was punted by a giant, invisible leg. That was nice, but Newton's Third Law also reared its ugly head at this moment, the killjoy, and while magic allowed quite a bit of leeway when it came to creatively reinterpreting classical mechanics, it was practically impossible to stop a small amount of counter-force elbowing its way into the equation. This naturally resulted in Ammy getting ever so lightly shoved in the opposite direction where our resident mad scientist was currently soaring, falling forward and right onto her chest. Insert amusing witticism about how she had a cushioned landing here.

Crude jokes aside, things quickly returned to their previous chaotic state, so I stopped paying attention there and I decided to redouble my searching efforts, and they were soon rewarded when I found the oval object I was looking for. Regrettably, it was inside a locked glass vitrine, and I didn't have the time to mess around, so after whispering a quick and absolutely one hundred percent sincere apology to Abram, I picked up a nearby musket from one of the weapons stands and shattered the display case with one firm strike of its butt. It made quite a bit of noise, but I figured that with all the commotion outside, no one would really care.

I reached inside the vitrine while making sure I wouldn't cut myself on the broken glass and managed to fish out my target with relative ease. As for what it actually was, the best way I could describe it be it would be a jester's mask, the kind that one would find in the carnival of Venice but without the cockscrown crest on the top, leaving an oval, dominantly black porcelain mask with silver highlights around the eyes, depicting an ominously grinning man. It wasn't exactly perfect, but it was the best disguise I could procure under the circumstances. I mean, it was either this, or one of those traditional African tribal masks on the wall, and if I had to decide which one looked less jarring with my usual black long coat, there wasn't really a competition. It was a little tricky to put it on in the dark, but once I secured it onto my face, it fit surprisingly snugly and it didn't even restrict my vision as badly as I feared.

Thusly disguised, I felt that my identity was, if not completely hidden, at least harder to tell at a glance, which was all I was hoping for. After all, the only reason why I even bothered was so that I could maintain plausible deniability if the knights came knocking on my door. It was never a good idea to cut off a potential mark that could be squeezed for possibly life-saving information. With all that in mind, I was just about to Phase to the next room and start looking for the Purple Zone jammer when I was once again interrupted on my tracks.

"{Chief.}"

I suppressed the indignant 'What now?' bubbling out from the bottom of my gut, and after a shallow breath I whispered a considerably more polite, "Yes, Dormouse?"

"{I need some help. Josh isn't listening to me.}"

Did… Did she just sulk? That was mildly unexpected, and once I shook off the initial surprise, I quickly asked her to clarify what she meant.

"Did you lose the connection?"

"{No. He's just not listening to what I'm telling him.}"

"Is he still dueling the fembot on the roof?"

"{No. He's currently flirting with her.}"

My hand that was just about to put the unloaded display musket away came to a surprised halt with a quiet, "Pardon?"

I mean, Judy had a very broad definition of 'flirting', and I've been on the short end of that stick a couple of times, but I couldn't really imagine how or why Josh would try to make a move on the fembot in the middle of a battle. But then again, he was a harem protagonist, and this kind of thing wasn't exactly unheard of, so I quite eagerly waited for Judy's explanation.

"{Amelia is still unsteady on her feet, and the girls need his support, but he's too busy giving a sentimental motivational speech to his opponent, and I'm not getting through to him. Please do something.}"

"Okay, so I've heard it right the first time…" I muttered before raising my voice and asking, "But how exactly am I supposed to do anything about it? I'm kind of in the middle of something here."

"{Chief, you can teleport,}" she told me as if it was something I forgot I could do. "{Please go over to him in person and tell him to regroup with the others. Apparently, it's not good enough if only the mission control says it.}"

Yep, she was definitely sulking. Wonderful. Now I'll also have to console her too when this is all over. More importantly though, what she said just now made me raise a single incredulous brown.

"Need I remind you that we want to keep my ability to teleport around without any support infrastructure a secret?"

"{I thought the cat was already out of the bag,}" she responded a smidgen impatiently. "{You're already present at two different locations, with multiple witnesses. Three, if we count your monster hunter frenemy.}"

"Yeah, but I can probably explain my way out of this once things calmed down," I retorted, only to immediately get shot down.

"{Then there is even less of a reason to hold back.}" I stayed silent for maybe a bit too long, as she soon added, "{Just go to Josh's side already. He's killing me with his speech.}"

"Fine," I grumbled, and once I made sure that I could still Phase in and out of this room later, I let out a long breath and muttered, "Oh well, this is still only the second-worst day I've ever had. At least no one stabbed me today… yet."

And with those words, I promptly disappeared from the room.

"... and that's why it doesn't matter if you are flesh and blood or not; what really matters is th— ouch!"

Whatever impassioned speech Josh was delivering came to a screeching halt after I, without sparing a single second for whys and wherefores, immediately slapped him on the back of his head the moment I arrived at the tattered warehouse roof inside the Purple Zone.

"We don't have time for this," I grumbled while gesturing towards the fembot down on one knee not far away from us, her hair and clothes visibly disheveled after a no doubt astonishingly epic battle of might, magic, and magitech. "Since she's already down, how about you capture her first and then discuss the philosophical implications of androids dreaming with electric sheep after that?"

My currently very Abyssal-ish friend, still holding the back of his horned head, turned an indignant look in my direction, only to instantly freeze up on the spot when our eyes met. For several seconds there was silence on the battlefield (or at least on our side of it; by the sounds coming from downstairs, Elly and the girls were still busy with breaking Labcoat Guy's mooks into chunks of recyclable size), culminating in Josh muttering a wide-eyed and somewhat uncertain "Leo?" towards me.

"Yes, what is it?" I responded maybe just a tad snappily, but he was still looking at me weird, and it took me an embarrassingly long time to realize why he appeared so dumbfounded. "You're wondering about the mask, aren't you?"

"Among other things," he confirmed with a nod. "Like... Why do you have a hunting rifle?"

Now it was my time to be surprised, as I didn't even realize I accidentally took something else with me when I Phased over.

"It's actually a musket, and it's a long story," was my reply, a phrase I repeated so many times as of late I was afraid it was going to become my catchphrase.

In the meantime, the kneeling fembot unsteadily rose to her feet and was intently staring at me.

"Reappearance of the primary target is confirmed. Anti-illusion sensors appear to be ineffective." She fell silent for a beat, and then she abruptly raised her hands towards me. "Commencing the firing sequence for Plasma Disintegrators at thirty perce—"

"Oh no, you don't!" I exclaimed in a mild panic and reflexively flung the unloaded firearm in my hand at her.

Galatea's eyes opened a fraction wider in response and tried to raise her arms to defend herself, but by then the stock already whacked her in the forehead with an unexpectedly meaty 'thunk' noise followed by an uncharacteristically girlish 'Eep!'. After finding its mark, the musket spun away and out of sight, presumably landing somewhere on the ground below, while the trigger-happy android fell backward while discharging a pair of tear-shaped, gut-shaking blasts into the sky from the middles of her palms. Odd. I could distinctly remember her firing from a barrel inside her forearm the last time around. Maybe she got an upgrade when I wasn't looking?

While I mused so, there was another long moment of awkward silence hanging in the air as we both stared at the android woman splayed out on the rooftop. At first I thought she was just shocked by the events, but on closer look, it turned out she was knocked out cold. That was… mildly unexpected, to say the least. Then, at last, the momentary lull was broken by Joshua letting out an indignant groan by my side.

"Dude! Why did you do that!?"

I spared him a skeptical glance, then flatly told him, "In case you're wondering, this is called self-defense. When someone tries to vaporize you with a plasma whatchamacallit, you're entirely justified for knocking them down."

"No, I don't mean that!" came his animated retort, but then he froze up for a moment and then amended, "I mean, if you didn't suddenly appear, then she wouldn't have tried to attack you on the first place… but I suppose that's beside the point. More importantly," he began to wind up again, raising his voice in the process, "More importantly, who the hell throws a rifle?!"

"… I do?" I replied, suddenly feeling like we weren't exactly on the same wavelength. "Seriously though, is that really your biggest concern at the moment?"

"Ah, you're right! I should check to see if she's all right," Josh suddenly declared and leaped over to the fallen android's side. "Maybe she got a concussion."

"No, that's not what I…" I began, but then the end of my words trailed into a sigh. Can androids even get a concussion in the first place? Anyhow, at the end of the day I let it go with a soft-spoken "Never mind."

Considering the situation, I decided it wasn't really the time to argue about small details like that, so I simply followed after my friend, only to catch the tail end of the seemingly unconscious fembot muttering something while her face subtly twitched every once in a while.

"What is she saying?"

"Something about rebooting," Josh replied off the cuff while observing her forehead where my improvised projectile hit her.

"Error," Galatea began to murmur again without opening her eyes, and this time I listened closely to her exaggeratedly robotic voice. "Probability of primary target using [Object: Archaic Firearm] as projectile: zero point zero two percent. Beep. Error. File corrupted. Beep. Rebooting is required after rebuilding the probability calculation engine: seven percent. … eight percent…"

Also, yes, she actually said 'beep'. Not an actual sound, but the onomatopoeia. What is this I don't even.

"You see?" Josh addressed me with a triumphant smirk in the meantime while pointing at the unconscious(?) Galatea. "Even she agrees with me."

I would've facepalmed if not for the mask already covering my face, so I decided that an unsubtle eye-roll had to do for now, and I instructed my friend, with my best leader-impression, "Josh, I'm way too tired for this right now. Stop messing around, and grab her."

"By grabbing her, you mean…?"

"Throw her over your shoulder or something," I told him ever so slightly impatiently. "After that, regroup with the others on the ground. I'll see you there."

"Erm… Okay," he responded a bit uncertainly, but I didn't have the time to argue with him, so I turned my back on him and Phased over to the rest of the group. Normally I wouldn't have been so flamboyant with my teleporting ability, but considering the circumstances, I was ultimately of the same mind as Judy and decided to worry about explaining things after the situation got un-buggered.

Anyhow, after arriving at my destination, I spent a few seconds observing the situation, which also served as a brief respite to collect myself a little after rapidly Phasing all over the place. In short, the front of the warehouse was currently covered in a layer of white ice, no doubt the handiwork of my sister. On my left, Elly was fighting two of the elite mooks (the neon green and the blue one, to be precise) on her own while holding one of the run-of-the-mill mooks by its ankles and using it as an improvised blunt weapon. In other words, pretty much what I expected from her.

Meanwhile, on my right, Snowy was floating about a hand's width above the ground with her wings spread wide open and three long ice-spears hovering above her raised right hand. She was currently keeping Labcoat Guy at bay; his upper body was covered in the now-familiar magitech power armor, and he was hunkered down with his arms crossed in front of his chest while a couple of glowing spots on his shoulder-pads were projecting some kind of barrier in front of him.

Finally, right next to me, Ammy was sitting on the ground, her glasses missing and with one hand clamped on her bleeding nose while Angie and the golem were holding back the red and the purple elite mooks from closing the distance. I observed all of this in great detail, yet it took my poor, overexerted brain several long seconds to realize I could do so because everyone on the battlefield went stock still the moment I arrived. Even Elly, who was just about to beat a mook into a pulp with another mook.

Speaking of which, I turned towards my girlfriend and told her, "Don't mind me, just carry on as you were."

The princess once again proved to be really adaptable (or she just stopped thinking and decided to go with the flow, one or the other), as by the time I finished my sentence, she already swung the unlucky Sprocket and sent both of the elite mooks flying. Atta girl.

"Leo?" came the incredulous question from my side. I glanced over, and once I met the class rep's confused eyes with my own, I couldn't help but groan in exasperation.

"Don't ask about the mask, it would take too long to explain," I told her right off the bat before addressing the others. "Snowy, keep him occupied for a bit longer. Angie, focus on crippling the big guys. Princess…" I paused for a second as I looked over my girlfriend still holding the broken, severed leg of a goon-bot, and in the end I settled on, "You're doing great, keep it up."

"What about me?" Ammy asked, seemingly out of reflex, only to immediately come to her senses and follow it up with an indignant, "Wait, no! First, explain where…!"

I figured she either wanted to ask where I disappeared to, or where I came from, but I didn't have to patience to answer either of those questions, so I extended a finger towards her lips to silence her before replying with, "I'm going to need your golem in a moment. Please stand by until Josh arrives."

Needless to say, she was quite dissatisfied with my interruption, but before she could voice her complaints, we were all startled by a loud cry coming from the roof of the warehouse.

"Parkoooooouuuuuur!!!"

I'm not going to lie, for a moment I couldn’t decide whether I was more impressed by the way my friend jumped off the roof and managed to land without breaking his legs, while carrying someone on his shoulders no less, or annoyed by his weird battle-cry. After some consideration, I decided it was the latter. Unfortunately Josh was completely unaware of my frame of mind, and once he got his bearings, he casually jogged over to my side with a grin on his face.

"Did you see that? I didn't even need to bring the wings out!"

I sent the guy riding on an adrenaline-high a wry look and told him, "Josh, you're completely wrecking the tone of the situation. Stop it."

"Yeah, whatever," he responded with a shrug that rattled the still unconscious android woman on his shoulder, but then he finally noticed the glare I was sending his way and clumsily cleared his throat. "So, I brought her over, but what am I supposed to do with her? I think she just reached seventy percent…"

"Put her down over there," I instructed him before turning to the still wobbly Amelia. "Class rep, call your golem over."

"Why?" she asked, though by the time the words left her mouth, the aforementioned golem already began to retreat from the frontlines and headed in our direction.

"Have it stand over there," I directed her without bothering to answer her question, and pointed to the spot right next to the unmoving fembot. I was just about to tell her what to do next, but my words were cut short by a magical projectile sailing way over my head. It wasn't picked up by my danger sense, probably because it was way off the mark, but it still drew my attention to the man who launched it.

"What are you doing!? Let her go!"

Labcoat Guy was obviously more than furious at the moment, but he was kept in bay Snowy sending wave after wave of icicles flying towards him. Ugh. That brought back some bad memories, so I decided to ignore that corner of the battleground for the time being; instead, I turned my attention back to the golem and pointed at the android on the ground.

"Sit."

"What?" Ammy blurted out in surprise, so I repeated myself.

"Make it sit on her, or lie on her, or whatever you want, so long as it stops her from moving."

"Wait, wouldn't that crush her?" Josh objected right away, so I overruled him with a shrug.

"I'm fairly sure that she's tougher than that, but even so, I'm not that invested in the well-being of someone who tried to disintegrate me multiple times."

"Fair enough, I suppose," Josh grumbled, though obviously not convinced.

"Reboot compl— Ouf!"

Credit where credit's due, unlike our resident harem protagonist, the class rep had no problem with following my orders, nor did she have any qualms about her golem pushing the breath out of the fembot. … Speaking of which, that pained 'Ouf' sounded really authentic. Did she actually have lungs? What kind of android has lungs? Wait, now that I think about it, I've seen her eat with Labcoat Guy and the nurse too. Was she really an android?

"Questions for later," I muttered under my breath before turning to the class rep again. "Nice work. Now come here."

Ammy only took a wobbly and decidedly hesitant step towards me, so I exhaled with all the enervation of the world and unceremoniously grabbed her by the waist.

"{Chief? What are you doing?}"

"Not now, Dormouse," I whispered under my breath before turning to the others. "Things are being a little chaotic right now back at the base and at Elly's place, so I'm taking the class rep with me. You guys keep stalling, listen to Judy's instructions, and make sure you stay close and cover each other. Got that, Josh?"

Instead of my friend, it was the princess who raised her voice in alarm.

"Something is wrong at home?"

"I'm already dealing with it. Don't worry, and just focus on scrapping these guys."

"Uhm… Okay," she responded with a carefree voice that said 'If Leo's on the case, everything will be fine', which would have been flattering under normal circumstances, but this time it only gave me unnecessary pressure, so I quickly nodded in her direction and. before anyone else could say anything, I wrapped my Phantom Limb around the flustered class rep.

Not half a second later, we both reappeared inside the sparsely lit impromptu prison room in realspace.

"Uwah!"

Yep, we barely arrived, and I was already getting irritated. I let go of the class rep and took a step away from her and towards the large cage in the corner and the hapless Celestial in it.

"Holy crap! You almost gave me a heart attack!" Mike exclaimed while dramatically clutching at his chest, only to freeze up a moment later and immediately stand ramrod straight. "Amelia! Hi! What are you doing here?"

"That's a good question," she responded while aiming a glare at me, and she even raised her hand to her temples, no doubt reflexively trying to tweak her missing glasses. "What am I doing here? And how? We were outside and in a Restricted Zone just a few moments ago!"

"Do you really think this is the best time to ask this?" I asked back while unsubtly glancing towards the captive sleeper agent, but she didn't get the memo, so I resolved myself to give her a quick 'explanation'.

"Ancient super-powerful artifact that can warp time and space," I declared as I unabashedly pointed at the mask on my face. "Hard to control, dangerous, might cause all the atoms in my body to explode at the speed of light if I'm not careful, but we are in a tight spot at the moment, so I had to use it anyway. There. Now can we actually move on?"

Ammy gave me an uncharacteristically doe-eyed stare for a second or five, after which she hastily took a step back and mumbled something along the lines of, "Y-Yes, sorry. I shouldn't have asked."

I was tempted to immediately retort with a miffed 'Yeah, you shouldn't have', but I managed to hold myself back and a deep breath later I softened it into a more moderate, "Good. Now, I have to go, because I still have two more situations to deal with. Since you're injured, I figured you wouldn't be able to contribute much to the battle, so please help this guy get out of that cage in my stead, and then escape before your grandpa shows up."

"… Okay," she agreed in an unusually weak voice and took a step towards the cage, only to recoil when Mike rushed up to the bars with thundering eyes.

"You're injured?! What happened? Who hurt you?"

The class rep glanced over to me for some reason, then back at the guy, and finally told him in a meek voice, "We were distracting Doctor Robatto, and in the process I fell down and hit my face. I don't think it's broken, but…"

"Come closer, let me see! Ah, your nose is bleeding! Quick, I'll heal you!"

In the meantime, Ammy got into arm's reach of the cage, so Mike extended his hand and put it over her bruised nose. I didn't feel like watching the scene unfolding in front of me, so I bid a quiet farewell and Phased away, barely catching the end of the Celestian mumbling something along the lines of, "Oh, I forgot I can't. The cage is—"

Well, whatever that was, I decided to put it out of my mind and trust the class rep. She would hopefully get him out of there in a jiffy, so that was one issue out of my hair. I would've told Judy about this, but I couldn't open a communication line on my end, so I only made a mental note about instructing her to keep an eye on Ammy and tell the others to retreat the moment she and Mike were out of the area.

More importantly, I was finally back in the pitch-black trophy room inside the Dracis mansion. Based on the thumping noise coming from outside, the knights were still trying to break down the barricade from the outside. That meant I still had time to find the jamming artifact. Or wait, should I Phase over to the other side of the wall and tell Emese to hold tight a little longer first?

It was at this point, while I was vacillating between the two options, that the door of the trophy room was kicked in with a deafening bang that cut my thoughts and filled my aching head with white noise.

"Captain, wait! Sir Roland said…!"

"Ah ken whit he said!" the huge man thundered back to his subordinate in an accent as thick as tar. He was decked out in full plate armor, capped by a great helm adorned with a pair of stubby horns at the top, and all of his equipment was giving off a faint magical glow that ironically made things even harder to see in the dark. He was also freaking huge, easily the size of one of the Faun, though still just slightly less massive than Brang. He walked into the room with a confident stride, and he was followed by a couple of smaller, yet similarly dressed men clutching shields and short swords in their hands.

"Th' wyrmblood is richt oan th' ither side o' this dyke! Ah will sooner be damned than let th' chance gang juist sae that he cuid…!" he yelled at one of the men beside him, but then a moment later he came to a screeching halt and grabbed the hilt of the heavy executioner's blade hanging from his waist and his helmeted head faced my general direction. "Thare's someain hidin' haer!! Shaw yersel', knave!"

I… had a lot of different things to say. Things such as 'I wasn't even hiding, idiot', or 'Knave? Really?', or even the incredibly obvious, 'What kind of accent is that? You sound like a Russian mobster trying to speak ye olde English with a Scotsman trapped in your throat!', but at the end of the day, I decided that none of those were right for the situation.

Instead I took a step forth so that my silhouette would be outlined by the light coming from the outside, and with a deepened voice I greeted the flabbergasted group of knights with the most ominous, malicious, and downright gleeful "Good evening, gentlemen," the world has ever heard.

And why? Because I might not have a weapon, and I might not have any fancy spells and superpowers, but as long as I had my refuge in audacity, I was confident I was still going to make these guys regret they ever set foot inside this mansion.