The Simulacrum

"The weather forecast said it's going to rain all week," Josh noted absent-mindedly, and I responded with a similarly half-hearted grunt.

"I guess that means rooftop lunches are off the table for the foreseeable future."

"Probably."

For one reason or another, my friend seemed really distracted, to the point I had to nudge him a little so that he'd notice that the line in front of the cafeteria counter already moved.

"Hey, pal? Are you all right?" Josh gave me an uncertain glance in exchange for my concern, so I guessed, "Are you still stressing over what we talked about on Saturday?"

"What? Nah, man," he denied with a lazy wave of his hand. "I just woke up today, looked at my calendar, and realized that the exam period is starting next week."

"Oh, that?" I mused as the line moved again. "I thought it was something serious."

"Exams are serious business," my friend huffed, but then a moment later his eyes lit up as he looked at the blackboard above the counter. "Hey, look at that! Caviar is back on the menu."

"I'm not buying you any," I told him with the kind of gravitas I usually reserved for more dire circumstances, such as refusing some especially adamant door-to-door salesmen (it's a long story), and he promptly rolled his eyes at me.

"I wasn't asking! I just pointed it out because it's unusual, that's all," he grumbled, but I knew better than to give him an inch.

In the meantime, we finally reached the counter and we made our orders. For once, even Josh picked a fairly normal dish, and as for me, I went with fried chicken and onion rings. I asked for an extra serving of the latter, because Judy liked them and tended to snack from my plate whenever I ordered some. I also ordered a slice of apple pie, and while the lady on the other side put our dishes together, I couldn't help but noice how she was eyeing me after I made my order.

"Is that for Lili?"

"You mean the pie? Yeah. I give her more than enough allowance to buy it herself, but for some reason she never does, so I figured I'd get her a slice."

"How very big-brotherly of you."

I had a feeling he was poking fun at me, but I saw absolutely no problem with what he said, so I answered with a humble, "Thanks."

Once we got our food, I turned on my heels and headed for our usual spot in the dining hall, with Judy, Elly, and Snowy already seated there. Josh also caught up to me in a second, and once he did, he let out an unusually dejected sigh and did a sudden verbal U-turn.

"Seriously, man. With all the chaos of the last three months, we really need to start cramming. If my average gets under three-point-seven, my parents are going to flay my ass."

For the record, the school was grading on a five-point system, and they would round the averages up from the seventh decimal instead of the fifth, meaning that Josh, contrary to all of his complaints, was actually aiming for some pretty decent grades. More importantly, there was one particular pronoun in what he said that piqued my interest.

"'We' need to start cramming?" I repeated after him with extra emphasis, and he nodded right away.

"Well, yeah. I mean, we agreed that we'd study together, but never got around to it. It's now or never."

"Good point," I noted as we reached the table. My girlfriends left a seat empty between the two of them, so I naturally sat there, while Josh picked the empty spot beside my sister.

"Hi, Lili," my friend greeted her, only to pause and lean closer to take a better look at her. "You look a little strange today. Did you catch a cold?"

"Can Abyssals even catch a common cold?" my dear assistant followed it up with a question of her own.

"I… don't know. I've never been sick since I was a child, but I've never been out of the Abyss for this long, so I honestly don't know."

"In that case you better take some extra vitamins," I told her with a smile as I carefully handed the slice of pie over to her. "Apples are a great source of vitamin C."

"Oh, wow. Thanks, Leo," my sister finally smiled, and I returned the gesture even as a wave of killing intent was washing over me. More on that later.

"So if you aren't sick, then why were you looking so down?" Josh asked once he finally sat down.

"It probably has something to do with her," the princess noted with an irate growl, all the while she was cutting her steak with the elegance of a pure-bred noble lady. It wasn't hard to figure out who she meant by that, and I didn't even need to look over to know that the subject of her comment was watching us from afar even now.

"By her, do you mean the new girl?" Josh asked, and unlike me, he made a point of glancing around. "Is she bullying you?"

"N-No, not quite," my sister said in a mousy voice. "She's just… not very friendly. Also persistent."

"Translation: she's trying to pick a fight, but she can't do it in the school, so she's just glaring at Neige all the time," Judy stated while simultaneously reaching over and taking an onion ring from my plate without even asking. See? I knew this would happen, and thus my preparations ahead of time once again justified having that 'S.' in my middle name.

"Yes, she's bothering her a lot," the princess suddenly spoke up with a determined expression. "You could even say that she's ruining sister-in-law's school life! I believe the most prudent thing to do is to resolve this by going over to her and beating her up. Who else agrees with me?"

At this point she tried to jump to her feet, but I was one step faster, and I put my hand on her shoulder and gently pushed her back onto her seat, accompanied by another spike in ambient bloodlust.

"Easy there, princess," I soothed her by patting her head, and somehow the killing intent directed at our table rose a whole notch, but the moment I glanced in the direction where it was coming from, it disappeared. Behind a column. With a high-pitched 'Kyaa!'. Go figure. Anyhow, I turned back to my girlfriend and told her, "You promised not to make a scene, remember? I still need to make some preparations, so until then, please don't confront her."

"But she's bothering sister-in-law…" she muttered with a crestfallen look on her face, so I immediately redoubled my head-patting effort. It resulted in another wave of bloodlust, but this time I completely ignored it and focused on my food instead, allowing Josh to make a grab for everyone's attention.

"So, back to that thing we were talking about…" he began, but before he could get to the point, our attention was drawn to a certain loudly complaining Celestial arriving at the scene.

"I can't believe they did this! What were they thinking!?" Angie fumed even as she unceremoniously sat down next to Josh.

"You need to calm down. You're bothering the other students," the class rep, arriving in her wake, tried her best to pacify her, but with little apparent success.

"How can I calm down?! This is a travesty! A betrayal! Treachery of the highest order!"

It was at this point that I sent a glance at Judy, and her eyes asked, 'Aren't you going to ask her what she's talking about?', so I used my eyebrows to communicated, 'Nah, I'm just going to wait for the punchline. It's probably going to be something silly.', and my girlfriend immediately answered with a tiny twitch of her left eye that said, 'That's more or less guaranteed.'

"What are you talking about? What happened?"

Since I remained silent, it was Josh who asked the obvious question. What he received for his trouble was an angry Celestial all but grabbing him by the collar.

"Don't act like you're innocent! It's your fault this happened! You and your vocal minority must've threatened the producers into bowing their heads with your deluded demands and proclamations!"

"… I… I think I completely lost the thread. Does anyone know what she's talking about?" Josh muttered while glancing around the table, and when his eyes met with the recently seated class rep's, she let out a shallow sigh.

"They are rebooting Trucy the Werewold Huntress," she stated in a voice that said she really didn't want to hear any more about the topic, but my friend apparently didn't pick up on it.

"Really? They do?"

"The news just leaked," Angie explained while still sending a death glare at her childhood friend. "Apparently 'some fans' were unsatisfied with the ending of the series, so the network greenlit another season where they will completely erase the original ending."

"How?" Josh blurted out in surprise, and the Celestial girl's face scrunched up like she was smelling something really foul.

"Time travel."

"Seriously? Man, that sucks." Normally that would've been the end of it, but then Josh's eyes suddenly lit up and he asked, "Wait, but if they are redoing the last season, does that mean that Trucy and Ceraph might end up together after all?"

"I knew it," Angie exclaimed as she grabbed his collar again. "It was you and your toxic brood! Why couldn't you just let Trucy be with Elliot!? Why must you ruin everything with your bulldozer of toxicity running of high octane entitlement?! Why, oh why…?!"

"Angie, please behave yourself. We're trying to eat here," I sternly warned her, and after locking eyes for a mere second, she finally let go of Josh and turned to her food (a plate of lasagna, in case anyone was interested) with a pout the size of a small planet.

"It's so unfair…" she grumbled, and this time it was Josh's turn to act.

"Come on, Angie. Don't let it get to you. Look on the bright side: if it's good, it's going to be another kickass season of our favorite show, and if it sucks, we can just pretend it never existed and go with the previous finale… even if it sucked that the shafted Ceraph at the very end."

"Don't you get started again…" she hissed back, and my friend immediately raised his hands in surrender.

"All right, I got it. No more Trucy for the day. We have something important to discuss anyway."

"Something important?" Snowy echoed him, and Josh responded with an unusually dramatic nod.

"Yes, very important. You see, the exam period is just around the corner, so we really need to start preparing for them, or we're going to be in trouble."

The moment the word was mentioned, Angie's expression darkened again and she all but smacked her head against the table with a lethargic groan.

"Argh! You just had to do it! I thought my day couldn't get worse after Team Trucy's abject betrayal, and then you just had to remind me of the exams! Tu es terrible!"

"Why French?" Judy whispered in mild confusion, and all I could do was an equally uncomprehending shrug between two bites.

"I'm not Tu es terrible! " Josh protested in return (with rolling 'r'-s to boot) and put both of his hands onto the table, probably for emphasis. "I just think that it's better to be safe than sorry, so we should—"

However, before my friend could conclude his sentence, he was once again interrupted by a new voice entering the scene.

"Dunning," the voice called out to me from behind, and when I turned around, I found Armband Guy walking towards me with measured yet evidently hurried steps.

"Hello, Pascal," Josh greeted the newcomer a tad grudgingly, apparently not too happy about getting interrupted again, and Armband Guy returned the gesture with a curt nod aimed at the whole table.

"Hello, Bernstein. I need to talk with Dunning for a moment."

"Is it public, private, or classified matter?" I jested, yet the guy seriously considered his answer.

"It is technically classified, but the details are public." Saying so, he glanced around the dining hall and then took a step closer to the table, practically looming over it. "I wish to call in a previous favor from you."

"You owe Pascal a favor?" Ammy inquired on the side, and following her, the rest of the girls (plus one guy) were giving me curious looks.

"It was something related to Sahi, and it wasn't a big deal," I told them off-handedly, and Armband Guy immediately nodded along.

"Precisely. My request also concerns her, and it should not be particularly taxing."

"Oookay, what is it then?" I asked to keep the conversation rolling while simultaneously ignoring the newest actor on the stage in the form of a certain brown girl sneaking up behind Armband Guy with comically over-mimed steps.

"I am certain you are already aware, but Arch... Sahi officially transferred to Blue Cherry High."

"Yes, we noticed," Josh noted just a touch nervously, probably still a little on guard after what happened between the two of them. The incognito ex-Arch-mage, on the other hand, just put a finger in front of her lips, already bent into an impish smile, and she continued her over-exaggerated sneaking act.

"So... Do you want us to help her fit in?" came the next question from Angie, and the guy promptly shook his head.

"Nothing so vague. The issue is that she transferred into the second year, because—"

"Because I'm a child genius who skipped grades!" Sahi suddenly exclaimed while she simultaneously threw her arms around Armband Guy's waist with a beaming grin that said 'Gotcha!'. Pascal, on the other hand, only stiffened for a moment before he slowly looked over his shoulder and gave her a not at all amused look, but then a second later he was looking at me again while staunchly ignoring the girl clinging to him. If I had to make an analogy, it was like an old Saint Bernard ignoring a playful tabby kitten.

"It is as she said," he stated with a voice as dry as an old broom sweeping a dusty sidewalk. "Since you are here, you should explain your predicament yourself."

The girl, currently wearing her hair in a long braid and in a new uniform that perfectly fit her, let out a semi-embarrassed giggle and looked at me without loosening her grip on the guy.

"You see I, like, enrolled with the pretense that I skipped grades, but it's been, like, decades since I studied this stuff, so I could totally use a refresher course."

"You should've thought of that before you came up with that cover story," I pointed out, which naturally earned me a frown.

"I was, like, under a lot of time constraints, and this was the bestest option at the time."

"What she is trying to say is that this was the only option where she could pretend to be a genius and brag about it," Pascal commented on the side, and in response, the alleged teen genius immediately tightened her grip on him.

"Hey! You're supposed to be on my side! Endy told you to support me!"

"That is precisely what I am doing. I am protecting your dignity by attempting to explain your frankly inexplicable thought processes."

"Agh! You used to be so respectful just a few days ago! This is lame. You're lame. Stop being lame!"

Completely ignoring her nagging, Armband Guy looked me in the eye again and bluntly stated, "I don't have the time to tutor her, and you owe me one, so take responsibility."

It was at this point that Josh cleared his throat to gain his attention, and once he got it, he explained, "Actually, your timing is perfect, because we were just planning to get together to study for the exams. One person more or less shouldn't make a difference."

"Really? Thanks! You're total lifesavers!" Sahi beamed at us, and at first I thought that was the end of it, but all of a sudden she set her feet and, with a heave, he began dragging the guy still in her grasp, one step at a time.

"What are you doing?" came the deadpan question from the mouth of Armband Guy, and the girl dragging her let out an enormous huff before answering.

"If you're going to ditch me, then the least you can do is to buy me lunch first!"

"You have your own budget now, so I have no reason to do that anymore."

"Stop being so ugh and just come with me already!"

Honestly speaking, if he didn't want to go, I was pretty sure Pascal could've stopped her at any time, so just the fact that he let her drag him away meant he was playing along. As for why, I had no idea. Maybe it was because he was ordered to keep an eye on her? Or maybe he was messing with her? Maybe not; the guy never struck me as the playful type. But then again, he never struck me as a professional level Street Combat player either, so what did I know?

Anyhow, once they left, Josh clapped his hands and declared, "It's settled then! We're going to have a study meeting. No, let's make it two. As many as necessary."

"You're already moving the goalpost."

Hearing Angie's grumbling, he turned to the girl and emphatically told her, "I know that you already gave up, but I still have a chance to have my three-point-seven average, and I'll be damned if I'm not going to give it my best shot."

"If you are trying to do your best, why don't you aim higher?" Ammy cut in with a small frown, and after a moment, my friend let out a defeated sigh.

"Cut me some slack, please. Three-point-seven is high enough for the likes of me, and it's hard enough even with the guaranteed fives in PE and Arts."

"I'm okay with not failing any of my subjects, really," the Celestial girl whispered while absent-mindedly playing with her food.

"With how hectic things have been recently, I'd be okay with a four-point-five average," Ammy admitted a little sheepishly, earning her a couple of boos from the childhood friend duo suddenly on the same wavelength again. It was at this point that I decided it would be for the best that I grabbed the reins of the conversation, so I conspicuously tapped my fork against my plate to get everyone to listen to me.

"Before you guys get off-topic again, let's come to an agreement on this whole study group idea. Anyone who wants to take part, raise your hand." Naturally, everyone did so, though in the case of Judy and her photographic memory, I figured she was only tagging along to hang out. She didn't know yet, but I was planning to put her in charge of reviewing the rest of the group at the end, and I wasn't about to tell her yet either. "Next, where should this study group be held? If Sahi's also coming along, then my living room might be a little cramped, but we can't exactly take her to the base either. How about the library?"

"Objection!" Angie cut in with a finger pointing at me. "That way we can't have snacks! You can't have a study group without snacks!"

"Yeah, that's just common sense," Josh agreed like it was absolutely evident.

"In that case—"

"Why don't we hold the meeting in our mansion?" the princess proposed out of the blue, and when I directed a questioning gaze at her, she hastily explained, "Mom and Dad said they wanted to meet the rest of my friends anyway, and we could use one of the guest rooms."

"Wouldn't Sahi pose a problem?" Judy asked the question on my mind, but Elly immediately shook her head.

"Not a problem at all. If we are just studying, there should be no problem, and even an Arch-mage would think twice before causing an incident in our home."

"In that case, I have no further objections," Judy concluded and raised her hand. "I'm for."

"Me too!" Angie agreed right away. "I've never seen Elly's place from the inside!"

"I'm a little curious too," Snowy whispered with a raised hand, and soon even the rest followed suit.

"Very well. The last matter is this: when?" I imposed the question, and Josh immediately came forth with an answer.

"Angie's having tennis practice today, and I also have some stuff to take care of in the afternoon, so that's a big no."

"In that case, tomorrow?" I proposed, and after a long beat, everyone nodded. "So, just to summarize: tomorrow, after school, at Elly's place, we all gather and study for the exams, unless something uselessly dramatic happens in the meantime. Are we clear on that?"

"Chief, you are jinxing things again," my dearest assistant warned me, but I placated her with my patented Disarming Smile ver.0.7.3.

"Nah, I simply learned that optimism doesn't work. This way if I'm wrong and nothing happens, I will be pleasantly surprised, but if we do run into some annoying developments, I would at least have the option to smugly smile and say 'See, I told you this would happen!'."

"It fills me with shame that I can't refute your logic," Judy grumbled in response, so I did the responsible boyfriendly thing and put my arm around her shoulder to cheer her up, all the while ignoring the sudden spike in bloodlust filling the air around me. Again. The fact that I was getting used to it was pretty alarming, but I had a feeling I wouldn't have to put up with it for long before the Knight girl would cause a huge incident that would spiral out into another epic flustecuck.

In case it wasn't obvious yet, friendship ended with optimism. Now pessimism is my best friend.

The last lesson of the day ended with the same unceremonious finality as it tended to do every day. The rain outside eased into a light drizzle sometime after lunch, and while things were relatively peaceful (Angie's sustained complaining about a certain TV series notwithstanding), I was feeling unusually under the weather.

"Chief? Are you spacing out?"

See, that's what I'm talking about. I didn't even notice Judy coming over to my desk until she spoke up. If it was the class rep with her inexplicable ninja powers, that would be one thing, but missing my girlfriend was something else entirely. Anyhow, I shook these stray thoughts out of my head and stood up.

"Don't mind me." I theatrically stretched my back to punctuate my point, and feeling the blood rush in my ears finally perked me a little.

"Do we have any plans for today?" the princess asked next. She already packed her bag and was waiting for me to pick up the pace, so I did just that.

"Nothing I can think of," I told her and flung my bag over my shoulder. "I have to continue training with Cal to get my hand better, but I can get that done during the night."

"The weather isn't suitable for strolling, and we're going to be gathering in the Dracis mansion tomorrow, so by process of elimination, we should hang out at the Chief's place."

"Movie night?" I asked, and she nodded right away. "Any recommendations?"

"Not yet, but I'll look something up by the time we get home."

"I have an idea. Why don't we go to your house today?" Elly proposed out of the blue, and Judy practically froze up for a moment. My other girlfriend didn't notice, as she added, "I don't think I've ever met your dad, and I've only seen your mom from a distance. I think I should introduce myself."

"I don't think that's a good idea," my dear assistant answered in an even more deadpan tone than usual, and when the princess sent her a 'Why?' kind of look only missing the little red question marks circling around her head, she soon admitted, "My parents don't know I'm going out with Leo yet. I'm still waiting for the right opportunity to tell them."

"They don't know? And what about me?"

While Elly was asking that, I gestured to get going, and we made our way out of the classroom. Ammy was still inside, leaving for last as usual, while the childhood friend duo was out the door the moment the bell rang and I figured they'd be downstairs and looking for Snowy. Ever since the Knight girl showed up, they've been 'picking her up' at the end of every day. I figured we'd meet them at the shoe lockers as usual.

Speaking of which, it took Judy until we nearly got there to awkwardly explain that her father was a little overprotective, so telling him that her daughter was in a polyamorous relationship at this point probably wasn't the best idea. I once asked her at which point would it cease to be a bad idea, but she sulked for an entire morning after that, so I decided to ignore that bugbear for now.

But that was neither here nor there. More importantly, I could already see Josh, Angie, and Snowy in the entrance hall, so we quickly made our way over to the lockers as well. It was such a routine by this point that it took me until I was putting my indoor shoes back in to notice something peculiar.

"... Judy? Come here for a sec."

"Is there a problem?" my dear assistant inquired the moment she made her way around the row of lockers.

"Maybe. I just want you to see this before I touch it. Just to avoid shenanigans."

"Did someone say 'shenanigans'?" Angie butted in by poking her head around the same lockers, followed by the rest of the peanut gallery.

I decided to pay no attention to them and pointed at the piece of white paper sitting at the bottom of my shoebox, and the ever-so-nosy Celestial immediately let out an excited 'Oooh?'.

"What's that?" Elly asked the moment she arrived, and she all but pushed me aside trying to get a better look.

"No matter how I look at it, that looks like a love letter," Josh noted on the side, and his childhood pal vehemently agreed with a series of nods. "How many does this make? I think it's the third."

"If you mean a piece of paper in my shoe locker, sure, but I didn't get a single love letter so far."

"You didn't?" came the sudden question from the class rep, who appeared in my blind spot like usual.

"They were both letters of challenge from Elly," I explained, and the gawkers all nodded in acknowledgment, more or less in unison.

"So? What do you think it is this time?" Josh asked an innocent yet dangerous question, and Angie responded without a moment of thinking.

"My money is still on a love letter." Sensing the skeptical glances surrounding her, she immediately doubled down. "What? Leo's pretty popular! All the girls in the tennis club think he's cool! It's about time he gets a love letter!"

"No way!" Elly protested with a troubled frown. "There's no way they wouldn't know that we're already dating, right, Judy?"

My other girlfriend remained conspicuously silent at first, but then she faced me and stated, "Please remind me to write you a secret letter one of these days. I don't like being the only odd one out."

"... Your priorities sound a little off," I noted, earning me a disinterested shrug.

"It's practically guaranteed that it's a letter from the new girl, probably angry at you for spoiling Elly in public. There's no point getting worked up over something silly like that."

"Boo! At least play along for a bit!"

Angie's protests fell on deaf ears, and I figured I should just get this over with before she actually managed to get my girlfriend worked up anyway, so I picked up the paper and unfolded it.

"What does it say?" Snowy inquired on the side, and after skimming its contents, a tired sigh forced its way past my teeth.

"It's three for three," I said and lowered my hand so that the rest of the group could also take a look at it.

"Meet me on the roof... things to resolve... don't be a knave..." Ammy muttered as she read the lines, and when she reached the end of it, she looked over to the princess. She wasn't the only one either, and I couldn't exactly blame them. The style was eerily similar to the first letter she wrote me ages ago.

"Welp, I guess I'll have to take care of this," I said to no one in particular and pocketed the letter.

"Should we wait for you?" the princess inquired with a serious look in her eyes that couldn't quite hide her ongoing confusion about why everyone was still looking at her with difficult expressions.

"No, you guys should leave before the weather turns for the worse again. I'll catch up with you once I figure out what our stalker wants from me."

"Stay safe," Judy wished me well... Or was it a warning? Either way, I told her I wasn't going to pick a fight just yet, and I waited until they pulled up their umbrellas and left the building before I pocketed my hands and began climbing the stairs.

Simply put, I couldn't put my finger on this Penny girl. Her whole character made little sense to me. From a narrative standpoint, I mean. Her enrolling wasn't entirely unexpected; as much as we got lost in the supernatural zaniness of the Simulacrum, at its core, the main 'setting' of our narrative was a high school, so her coming here was highly probable. Hell, I even expected a Knight to transfer before we even learned of her existence, so things conveniently falling in place so that she could come here to complicate our lives was not outside my predictions by any means.

What really bothered me was the fact that she felt like a watered-down version of the Princess.

A new transfer student with an agenda? Check.

Clumsy hostility towards others? Check.

High-pitched cutesy noises whenever she was embarrassed? Check.

Dropping letters into my shoebox calling me to the roof? Check.

So, here comes the million Jen question: was I overthinking this, or was the Simulacrum already reusing character archetypes? Objectively speaking, it really shouldn't. Even if the world was procedurally generated, which wasn't entirely out of the question, theoretically 'plot relevant' people tended to be at least nominally unique, and honestly? My brief and slightly terrifying forays into the bedrock system underlying the supernatural stratum of the world told me that the Simulacrum was insanely, mind-numbingly, comprehension-shatteringly complex. As in, we were talking about 'down to the molecules' level of complexity. Considering that, why would it, or whoever designed it, ever need to resort to such shortcuts?

The issue was further muddied by the fact that something like that wasn't even really out of the ordinary as far as the world's modus operandi was concerned. We had all that complexity, and yet there were so many obviously immersion-breaking things that had to be smoothed over by perception filtering, such as the unnatural cleanness of everything, or the Placeholders and everything related to them.

Actually… hold that thought for a minute. The explanation of the former, my ninja maid jokes notwithstanding, was still waiting to be found, but for the latter, Judy recently had a hypothesis: it wasn't that Placeholders couldn't be properly 'simulated', but that they purposefully weren't to reduce the number of variables in the Narrative itself. Her idea made sense even to my nominally Narrative-agnostic sensibilities, and I had to admit that it would be a viable solution for minimizing the butterfly effect. After all, if 99.9% of the people on the island were little more than automatons going through the motions, it meant that they wouldn't cause any unforeseen deviations that could derail 'scenes' or 'scenarios' that were set up by the Narrative.

Of course, we also knew that by pulling a Placeholder into the 'plot', it could result in them rapidly developing into a full-fledged person, but that just further illustrated that this most likely wasn't a question of 'couldn't' but rather a 'designed not to' situation. However, if I turned that on its head, wouldn't it mean that the Knight girl wasn't unexpectedly similar to Elly because of some kind of limitation in the simulation, but because she was supposed to be like that from the beginning?

Let's take a step back and try to look at this from a meta-perspective. The Draconians and the Knights are set up to be unconditional enemies. My current goal was to get rid of this animosity, and I've been provided a convenient way to do it by using Cal. However, if we presumed that there was an 'original script' where I wouldn't get into a relationship with Elly and instead she would enter into Josh's entourage, the presence of the sword and it acting like a 'get out of jail free' card would suddenly fall into a different light.

In short, it was entirely possible that Cal was convenient for resolving the conflict because it was designed as a plot McGuffin for that purpose from the very beginning. Let's say in a hypothetical scenario, Josh picked Elly and got into her 'scenario'. Knights attack, Penny transfers, et cetera. Bloodshed would be inevitable, but frankly speaking, the 'plot' seemed to be on the light-hearted side of things; so far the only person who ever got injured in our group was me, and mainly because I was more or less directly butting heads with whatever plot or subplot the world was throwing my way. So, how could Josh resolve the situation without bloodshed and while staying on the rails of the plot? The answer was obviously our favorite bootleg Excalibur and them making their wielder into the ill-defined 'King of Knights'.

This would naturally mean that I more or less totally stole his role in this particular plot, but there's more: one of my biggest headaches was the fact that, even if I could claim to be the new 'King', I would still have to strong-arm the rest of the Knights into abandoning their centuries-old feud with the Draconians, but what if I was overthinking this? If I presumed that Cal exists to set up the possibility, it's entirely possible that there are other 'plot points' already established by the Narrative to enable the protagonist (in this case, me, I suppose) to succeed in brokering peace.

So… what if this Penny wasn't similar to Elly because 'oh, look, the Simulacrum is so kooky', but because she was deliberately set up to be so? My five cents would be that they were supposed to interact in school, without the princess being aware of her being a Knight, and then realize that they are not so different, potentially leading to a friendship to pave the road of peace between the two factions. It's a cliché, but a pretty good one, if you ask me. Too bad it's a non-starter at this point, as the princess obviously knows she's a Knight, while Penny hates her guts for being close to her big brother or what have you. Add in some potential brocon tendencies, and it's like a powder keg waiting for the spark to ignite it.

That said, at the moment this was still just a hare-brained idea of mine, but it would certainly explain why the personalities and behavior of these two were so similar. Ah, speaking of similar…

"Oh, come on! Open already!"

I came to a halt at the last bend of the stairwell leading to the rooftop access, and what a surprise! I found a certain redhead vehemently trying to pry the locked door leading to the roof open. Oh, and now she even kicked it.

The word déja vu surfaced in my mind, but I quickly chased it away and cleared my throat instead. The moment I did so, the girl at the top of the stairs shuddered and then hurriedly turned around. Considering the situation, I primed my vaunted girl-catching reflexes, just in case, and when our eyes met, she immediately averted her gaze with a slightly flushed face.

"Brother, you're here… I'm afraid that door to the roof is locked," she muttered, but then she soon remembered why we were here in the first place and she faced me again with a fiery scowl. "Never mind, we can talk here too!"

"We sure can," I agreed, and for a second or two I hesitated whether I should walk up to her or not, but considering that we could communicate just fine from this distance, I figured I'd best stay out of arm's reach for the time being.

But more importantly, the Knight girl remained silent on the top of the stairs and continued to glare at me for a while, and when I didn't respond, she suddenly blurted out, "Brother, I can't approve of your conduct!"

"… I'm sorry, but could you be a bit more particular?"

"I'm talking about the lengths you go to maintain your cover," she told me in a hiss. "I can't bear to look at you pretending to be lovers with that idiotic girl anymore!"

"First off, she's a little silly at times, but certainly not 'idiotic'. More importantly though, I'm not pretending."

"No, you don't—" she began, only for her vehement words to come to a sudden stop as she narrowed her eyes. "What are you talking about?"

"We are actually dating," I clarified with an earnest look. "As in, for real."

"W-W-Whaaaat?!" Her uncomprehending cry echoed for several seconds in the empty stairwell, and once she recollected her wits, she pointed an accusatory finger at me that once again reminded me of a certain lovely dragon-girl in her early, somewhat over-the-top phase. "I don't believe you! You cannot date a wyrmblood!"

"I'm doing it anyway," I answered in a neutral tone, but it only seemed to make her even more agitated.

"Come back to your senses, Leo! Even if she somehow ensnared you—"

"She didn't. We just love each other," I told her frankly, but I once again only managed to enrage her even further.

"D-Doesn't matter! Even if she seduced you, the moment she learns you are one of us, she will turn on you! Don't you understand!?"

"She already knows though."

"… She does?"

"Yep."

Hearing that gave her a long pause, but she quickly doubled down by declaring, "T-Then once her family learns of it, you are done for! Turn back before it's too late and you doom yourself!"

"They also know," I pointed out, and then added, "and they are fine with it."

"N-No way! That's impossible! You must be under some kind of…" Her eyes suddenly opened wide and she redoubled the intensity of her finger-pointing as she declared, "It must be that Abyssal Seducer who messed with your mind! There's no way the brother I know would say something like that! It must be that tart's fault!"

I had a feeling this conversation was going nowhere fast, but I pretty much expected this from the very beginning. Still, I had to at least try and resolve some of the misunderstandings.

"No, Snowy didn't do anything of the sort, and she's definitely not a 'tart'. I adopted her because she had a rough family background and she had nowhere to go, so I'd appreciate it if you didn't insult my sister like that."

"But she's not your sister! I'm your sister!"

"Speaking of which, there's one more thing we should—"

"And as your true sister, I can't let this go on anymore!"

My plan was to tell her about my amnesia at this point and use it as an opportunity to explain the circumstances to her, but the angry redhead didn't allow me the chance, as she stomped her way down the stairs and grabbed hold of my hand. Her grip was actually strong enough where it was a bit uncomfortable.

"You're coming with me now! There is something obviously wrong with you, and we have to talk to the rest of the Brotherhood before they declare you a traitor!"

"The situation is not that black and white," I tried to object, but I couldn't really get a word in as she began to drag me along, so I had no choice but to forcefully yank my hand out of her grasp. "Cut it out, will you, and listen to me for a moment!"

She, naturally, didn't do that, but instead she turned on her heel to face me again with a shocked look on her face.

"You… You're really refusing to cooperate…" she muttered as if it was a huge shock to her.

"How about you listen to my side of the story first?" I proposed, but she instantly shook her head before I even got a chance to elaborate.

"No! No way! I can't let you justify yourself! I can't let you become a traitor!" Yelling so, she once again pointed at me and suddenly declared, "As the Unicorn Knight, I have ascertained that you and I are now in irreconcilable opposition! By the laws of the Brotherhood, I request a fair duel of Arbitration to resolve these differences!"

"Hey, whoa, hold on! Why the hell are you immediately jumping to…?!" Before I could finish my sentence, I noticed that she started glowing. More alarmingly, so did I, and after a couple of seconds, the colorless magical light faded away, leaving a heavy, throbbing sensation in my chest. That probably wasn't good.

"Don't worry, brother! I will make you see the light and abandon these foolish delusions!"

Proclaiming so, the Knight girl let out a loud huff and, without any further ado, she dashed down the stairs, leaving me alone and quite flabbergasted by the sudden turn of events. I expected that this whole 'Arbitration' thing would show up sooner or later. I mean, we lived in a battle harem kind of setting, so if a system of honorable duels like that was established, it would've been weirder if it didn't get used at some point. However, I honestly wasn't expecting it to happen before I even revealed myself as the owner of Cal. More alarmingly, just the challenge itself induced some kind of reaction in my body, and while it wasn't exactly painful, it was still uncomfortable, kind of like a light heartburn.

Anyhow, there was no point crying over spilled milk. On the bright side, my challenger marked herself for Far Sight just now, so at least now I could keep an eye on her. It wasn't much of a silver lining, but better than nothing.

More importantly, this sudden and frankly unexpected development required a quick response, so I reached into my breast pocket and quickly dialed my assistant on the phone.

"Chief? Did something happen?"

"Yeah. I was blind-sided by a plot-hook."

"That sounds troublesome," my deadpan girlfriend stated on the other side, and I let out a sigh in agreement.

"It is. Emergency meeting at my place. Bring Elly, I'll get Cal. I'm afraid movie night is canceled today…"

"Do we really need snacks for an emergency meeting?"

I considered my question entirely reasonable, but I yet my girlfriends were looking at me like I was some kind of weird space-alien.

"They are entirely necessary," Judy stated with absolute certainty, and she even opened another pack of breadsticks to punctuate her point. "Snacks keep your blood sugar levels high so that your brain could operate at maximum capacity, helping you focus. It's quite self-evident."

"It is, isn't it?" Elly agreed, probably just on principle. Either that, or she was a little peckish, as she already had a bowl of popcorn in her lap.

"Definitely. You really need to keep up with the cutting edge of nutritional science, Chief. For example, did you know that corn is both a vegetable, a whole grain, and a fruit? At least technically."

"All three of those are good for you," the princess declared with an ear-to-ear grin and threw an especially big piece of fluffy white popcorn into her mouth for good measure.

"Technically," my dear assistant stressed, and it sounded suspiciously like a disclaimer at the end of a commercial condensed into a single word.

I figured that arguing about this was entirely pointless, so I dropped the topic like it was a hot potato and belatedly opened our meeting with a sigh.

At the moment it was only the three of us in my room, with the girls sitting on my bed amidst a small pile of party foods and me in front of them on my swivel chair. No, wait. I also had Cal in my hand, so that makes four... well, not 'people' per se, but it was four of us all the same.

"Before anything else, let's make sure we're all on the same page. Today I met up with the Unicorn Knight, aka the new transfer student, Penelope Pendragon."

"{Oh? So the line of Pendragon continues to this very day. Such a small yet wonderful speck of light in these dark times.}"

I, naturally, completely ignored the comment of the melancholic sword.

"She's also my sister in one way or another, and she hates pretty much every girl around me."

Elly nodded along with my words as if this was the first time she'd ever heard this. My other girlfriend, however, raised a single hand, followed by a curt, "Actually."

"Actually what?"

"I actually never had any problems with her. We even talked once and she was surprisingly friendly."

"{Ah, indeed. The Pendragons always had a great eye for people. Young knight! You should listen to your sister and get engaged to Lady Judy instead!}"

"I'm dating both of them, so it's a moot point," I whispered to the nosy sword before turning back to Judy. "How come this is the first time I've heard about you making contact with her?"

"It was brief. We only ran into each other in the restroom," she explained.

"It's good to hear that she wasn't hostile, but you should be more careful in the future. She's not exactly the most stable individual I know, so you should steer clear of her until the whole Knight situation is resolved."

"Ah." All of a sudden, Judy let out a crestfallen noise, followed by an equally dejected expression spreading on her face in an imperceptible yet very definite fashion. "To think that the day came when you of all people would tell me to be more careful, and I couldn't laugh it off. Oh, how the turns have tabled..."

"I think you mean 'the tables turned'," Elly attempted to correct her, only to freeze up a split-second later and exclaim, "Oh no! That was on purpose, wasn't it? Did I ruin a skit again?"

"It's not that big a deal," my dear assistant tried to calm her, but my draconic girlfriend had none of it, and she shook her head so hard her hair all but whipped around her face.

"No, wait! I can fix this! I've been training specifically for an occasion like this!" I was tempted to ask what she meant by 'training', but I never got the opportunity to get a word in, as she was murmuring under her breath just loud enough for me to head. "Think, Eleanor! What were we talking about? It was knights, and safety, and tables, and... Ah, I got it!" After exclaiming so, she snapped her finger and pointed at me. "Even if the tables turned, it doesn't matter, because it's a round table!"

Her exclamation was followed by a short beat that also felt unusually long, to the point she looked a little nervous.

"It wasn't perfect, but I appreciate the effort," Judy abruptly stated in an altogether too serious tone, and she even offered a breadstick to the visibly relieved princess. "Well done."

Elly bit onto the offered snack without a moment of hesitation or apprehension and immediately devoured it without ever touching it with her hands in a display that reminded me of a great white shark. Seeing the two of them getting along like this was admittedly a little heartwarming, and the princess's chuckles were always music to my ears, yet I couldn't help but frown at the moment.

"Is it just me, or are you guys really not taking this emergency meeting seriously?"

My question dampened the cozy mood a bit, which was a shame, but also inevitable. My girlfriends shared a strange look with each other, and ultimately it was Judy who answered my question.

"It's because the emergency doesn't seem to be too serious. If it was, you'd be more intense."

"That's the right word," Elly agreed on the spot. "When things are truly dangerous, you're much more focused, kind of like a honey-badger facing off against an entire pride of lions."

"An unusual analogy, but surprisingly fitting. I approve," said Judy, and then immediately continued Elly's train of thought like it was her own. "Right now, you only look mildly annoyed. That tells us that whatever happened is troublesome, but you're not too worried about it, so we aren't too worried either."

"... I don't really know how I feel about you guys psychoanalyzing me like that, but it's a tangent that's completely unimportant right now. Could I at least ask you to pretend that you take this seriously?"

They both nodded, so I closed my eyes for a moment to gather my thoughts and simply continued my explanation right where I left it off.

"Since the Knight girl called me out for a private talk, I decided that I'd be straightforward with her. I mainly wanted to gauge her reactions and to make sure she understood the situation."

"Does that include me?" Judy interjected.

"No, I never got the chance to get that far. She already flew off the handle when I told her about Elly and Snowy and, this is the important part, she challenged me to an Arbitration."

"What's an Arbitration?" the princess inquired right away without even waiting for the customary dramatic silence to settle.

"A kind of ritualistic duel between two Knights to settle a dispute."

"That could be either really bad or really convenient depending on the details," Judy mused aloud with an ever so slightly raised brow asking which one was the case.

"The details are why Cal's here."

I casually raised the sword to my eye level, and they didn't need much more in terms of prompting to let out a weary sigh.

"{I believe I have already told you all about Arbitration, young knight.}"

"Not enough, it seems," I scoffed as I forcefully shook the blade, much to my girlfriends' silent yet apparent amusement. "She challenged me without giving me any terms or deadlines. That tells me that there have to be some rules she thinks I must already know, so I'd appreciate it if you enlightened me."

There was some obligatory grumbling about 'dark times' and 'no respect' and 'back in my days', but once they got it out of their system, Cal obediently began the explanation.

"{If there's no prior agreement in place, an Arbitration takes place three days from the date of the challenge. It is so that both parties would have the opportunity to call upon their witnesses and make their preparations.}"

"Witness? What witness?"

"{During Arbitration, both parties must have a witness to examine the chosen venue and observe the duel to prevent dishonorable tricks or conduct.}"

"You said 'must'. Does that mean I'm required to bring a witness along?"

"{Yes.}"

"Do they have to be able to fight?"

"{Traditionally, yes. They must be able to intervene if necessary.}"

"Tch." Well, there went my plan to bring Judy along. "Understood. What about the 'venue' you mentioned. What are the rules about that?"

"{It is decided by the challenged party, and they must inform the challenger about the location at least one day ahead of the date of the duel.}"

Finally some good news. That meant that I could at least have the home field advantage.

"What about the actual duel? Does it have to be a fight with swords or is there some wriggling room?"

"{I'm afraid the rules of Arbitration specifically demand that both the challenger and the challenged must do battle using the equipment bestowed upon them by the Brotherhood.}"

"So there's no way we could resolve this with a game of poker. There goes my plan G."

"{'G'}?"

"I have a lot of plans," I stated offhandedly, and only now did I notice that the girls were looking at me expectantly, so I gave them the short version of Cal's side of the conversation.

"Who do you want to bring as a witness?" Judy asked right away, and a long moment of thinking later I had no choice but to weakly shrug my shoulder.

"Elly and Snowy are out of the question, as it wound just trigger the Knight girl. The same goes for any other Draconians. Ammy and Angie are not exactly melee-oriented, while the Fauns would also cause too much trouble with their presence so... I guess that leaves me with Josh."

"You forgot about Rinne," the princess pointed out, but I shook my head.

"I didn't. She's just my backup option, in case Josh doesn't want to get involved. Considering how things went awry every time any kind of physical conflict was involved, I don't want to leave anything to chance."

"You have a plan."

"Indeed," I responded to Judy's comment, but since both of them were giving me expectant looks, I had no choice but to let them down by putting an index finger in front of my lips. "Sorry, I can't tell you the details."

"Is... Is it because I'm bad at keeping secrets?"

Elly sounded really dejected there, so I hastily used the same hand to wave away her concerns.

"Oh, no no nonono. It has nothing to do with that. It's just... Let's just say that after getting burned so many times, I came to the conclusion that so long as a plan is openly discussed in advance, it never, ever goes without a hitch."

"Now that you mention it, there is a trope for that."

"Of course there's a trope for that. There's a trope for everything," I said with a subtle roll of my eyes, but Judy didn't seem to mind my tone.

"Is... it okay to discuss this in front of the sword?" Elly questioned a touch uncertainly, and Judy gave her the exact same answer I would've.

"It's not like it can tell anyone else about it."

"That's a good point," she granted and turned to me with curious eyes. "So? What's this trope?"

"I don't know the name of it off the top of my head, so ask Judy for it later, but the gist of it is that the more a plan is discussed in the open, the more likely it's going to fail catastrophically."

"I see, but... Why?"

"Let's try this," Judy proposed, apparently trying to lead the princess to the conclusion instead of outright telling her. "Imagine that you're watching one of those episodes of that werewolf hunter show Angie loves so much. Now imagine that at the beginning of an episode, the protagonist describes exactly what's going to happen in the rest of the episode as an elaborate plan, and everything would go precisely as she said." Elly nodded along, so Judy finished with the question, "Now imagine that the exact same thing is explained, but instead of the protagonist, it's told to you by a friend sitting on the couch next to you. What do we call that?"

"Oooh! I get it! It's a spoiler!" she exclaimed with a beaming smile, and now it was Judy's turn to nod along. "But wait... How does that work in real life?"

"I have no idea, but at the bare minimum, I'll make sure to only tell the people who are going to be directly involved, and only at the very last moment, so that I could minimize the chances of it getting subverted."

"You could try writing the plan down and hand them out right before you want to put it into action."

I weighed Judy's proposal, and gave it an 'I'll give it some thought' grunt before focusing on the main topic again.

"Let's put the plan we're not going to talk about aside, and focus on the duel for now. So, under ideal circumstances, Josh would be my witness, with Rinne as the backup. Next issue: as the challenged one, I'll have to decide on the location. Any ideas?"

"The park," Judy proposed right away. "It's available 24/7, relatively secluded at this time of the year, and it's familiar terrain."

"I agree with Judy," my other girlfriend added, and that pretty much settled that question. Now there was only the biggest elephant in the room we had to deal with.

"Three days from now, in the park, duel with full gear. Sounds straightforward, but there's one big issue. Cal?"

"{Yes, young knight?}"

"What did you say, how long will it take for you to heal my hand?"

"{Considering the progress we've made, I believe it will only take about two months, give or take a few weeks.}"

"Okay, now let's narrow it down a little: how long would it take to heal my hand to the point where I could don my whole armor and use a melee weapon with it?"

"{That… It's hard to say for certain, but I believe it would take at least three weeks to restore the most obstructive damage in your Astral Body, but if you channeled mana in that state it would only cause further damage. If you wish to use your armor without potentially crippling yourself in the process, it would take at least a month and a half.}"

"So three weeks at the least, two months at most," I stated aloud for the benefit of the girls. "That's slightly more than three days, isn't it?"

"{Well… Yes, young knight. It is. Why is that even a question?}"

I proceeded to ignore the sarcastically challenged sword and turned to the girls again.

"In other words, I would have to duel her without using my full suit of armor and its comprehensive physical enhancements, and with only one arm to boot, while she would have access to her whole arsenal."

"That doesn't sound very fair," Elly muttered under her breath, while Judy looked to be considering things a tad more thoroughly.

"How much of a difference does that suit of armor make?"

"I can't say for sure, but even only wearing the cuirass, the greaves, and the helmet provides a substantial boost both in physical strength, speed, and reaction times. I imagine wearing the whole thing and letting the various pieces boost each other would increase the effect even further, so I would be at a distinct disadvantage."

"It's sounding more unfair by the second," Elly reiterated her previous sentiment.

"So even if you're bigger, she might have both the speed and strength advantage because of the armor," Judy concluded, and a moment of consideration later she added, "I think your best course of action would be to abuse your ability to freely teleport and hit her from her blind spot."

"Uugh…" I grunted as my hand automatically rose to massage my temple. "There's a small issue with that. You see, I can't Phase in front of the Knights. If I did that, it would connect me to my Bel persona, and it would torpedo any kind of peace talks. I… might've gone a bit too overboard with antagonizing them."

Judy remained silent for quite a while, but then her shoulders very slightly slouched when she said, "So you'll have to duel someone who's going to have a physical advantage over your due to their magical gear, while you are injured, and while you can't even use your overpowered ability to level the playing field. This duel could only get more unbalanced if you had to do it blindfolded."

"That's what I've been saying all along," the princess agreed, Judy nodded, and I sighed, in that order. "Do you really have to fight her? Can't you just not show up to the duel?"

"{Don't listen to her, young knight! If you purposefully abandon an Arbitration, you could not only break your Oath, but may even lose your qualification as a member of the Brotherhood!}"

After listening to the panicky and altogether too loud yells of the sword in my lap, I redoubled my temple-rubbing efforts, yet despite that, I could already feel the onset of a headache.

"Apparently, I can't. Now, technically I didn't have to 'win' per se, due to the aforementioned plan we are not talking about, but losing is not an option either."

The girls didn't argue, and we soon fell into an unusually long silence that stretched out for several minutes, with the only noise in the room coming from Elly occasionally crunching a piece of popcorn or two between her teeth, and doing so with an almost comically solemn expression. Judy was also serious, but she looked more troubled than anything, and as for me, I was feeling caught between a rock and a hard place. I had to accept this duel, otherwise my plan to use Cal to force a ceasefire would be jeopardized, but in my current state, but without my usual ace in the hole, I wasn't sure I could win. I've yet to see the Knight girl in action, but she could keep up with Rinne for a short time even without her gear, and the other Knights referred to her as a genius, so she obviously wasn't a pushover, and fighting her with one hand and only using my partial armor-boost and my dodging reflexes… I'm not going to lie, I wasn't entirely confident.

I was still thinking in circles when, unexpectedly enough, the princess came up with a proposal.

"So, correct me if I'm wrong, but the issue is that you have two separate handicaps, right?" I nodded, so she continued with, "One is your injured hand, the other is that you can't use your powers without linking you to that alter ego with the mask. Am I still right?" I nodded again, so after a brief moment of hesitation, she said, "In that case… which one is easier to resolve?"

"I… think healing my hand is more feasible," I admitted, though a little reluctantly. "The Celestial healer I told you guys about is still on the island, but I can't really take his offer, because it would mean I'd have to sacrifice my most important source of intel, and—"

"Hold on, Chief," my dear assistant abruptly called out to me with a look of revelation in her eyes. "I have a solution."

"Ooookay. I'm listening."

I might have sounded just a touch apprehensive, as Judy's lips bent into an actual, honest to goodness perceptible wolfish smile. That… was simultaneously fascinating and just a little scary, but I tried my best not to show it on my face as I waited for her explanation.

"You see, Chief, I think we might be able to use one of your problems to solve the other one…"

Following those words unfolded a simple yet effective plan that was right up my alley… and one that I obviously won't say anything about. I wouldn't want to spoil anything, now would I?

Cheap faux-Persian carpets, simple kit furniture, and some of the most garish bright yellow wallpaper in existence. As far as cheap motel rooms were concerned, this one was definitely one of the tackiest the city of Timaeus had to offer, and it was made even worse by the contrast provided by the man sitting on the sofa in the middle of the space serving as both living room and bedroom. The current occupant, a certain Celestial field agent, was sitting ramrod straight while still dressed in a different yet equally sharp black suit as the one he wore when he visited me.

In front of him, there was an open suitcase on a nearby coffee table, with a handful of neatly stacked documents, a small wooden box, and a pair of silver bracelets that gave off a slight glow. As for the man, he was in the process of reading a newspaper under the single ceiling lamp right above his head. The old CRT TV in the corner was on, but muted, which might've been for the better, as at the moment it was on a kid's channel. The last thing the already mixed ambiance of the room needed was a bunch of cartoon pirates singing in the background.

In short, the not-so-secret agent was apparently laying low in an unassuming spot near the outskirts of the town, obviously trying to stay out of trouble and the view of the Magi still on high alert after the multiple recent incidents they suffered. He was doing a good job at that, so much so that he apparently had the leeway to just relax and read the news at his leisure, without a care in the world. Let's fix that, shall we?

All of a sudden, there was a series of loud, screeching noises in the room, making its only inhabitant lower the newspaper with a frown. He glanced over at the bed, the source of the sound, and soon rose to his feet. On said single bed, covered in the ugliest shade of purple bed sheets humanity ever invented, there was a couple of old brick phones neatly arranged next to the pillows. It was one of these that was trying, and spectacularly failing, to play some kind of symphonic piece using only four or so notes.

Thankfully it didn't have to try for much longer, as the scarred man gingerly picked it up and pressed the big green button on it.

"Jaacobah speaking."

"And this is Leonard Dunning," I answered back, and it took my voice a solid second of lag to come out of the phone's speaker.

"I presume you've reconsidered my offer," the Celestial stated with feigned disinterest that was betrayed by the expectant look on his face. I didn't answer right away, but instead I let out a carefully stifled groan into my phone.

"You could say that, but the situation became a bit more complicated in the meantime, so you have to listen to me," I told him with as much urgency as I could forcefully impart into my voice. "My source of Celestial intelligence contacted me. He knows that you're on the island, and he said he's going to visit you in person. Whatever happens, do not antagonize him."

"Visit me?" he repeated after me as his brows furrowed even deeper.

"Yes, but did you hear me? I can't stress this enough: Do. not. antagonize—"

And this, ladies and gentlemen, where the 'magic' happened.

"Zoink!"

The Celestial reeled back in surprise as 'someone' snatched the phone out of his hand. It was a really tricky move that I couldn't exactly practice ahead of time, but I wanted to make an impression, and boy did I make one! Once the fact that the phone was no longer in his hand registered with him, the field agent turned on his heel to face me, adopting a low stance that said he was ready to go on the offensive or escape at a moment's notice. I didn't want either of those to happen, so I adopted my usual nonchalant body language and casually raised the phone to my ear partially hidden behind the mask covering my face.

"Aaaah, Leonard! Dearest of all my friends! We only talked a few minutes ago, but it feels like it's been ages! How are the missues?"

I spoke loudly and clearly while also gesturing with my free hand. Of course, there was nobody else on the other side of the line, but it was essential to establish my 'alibi'. The original plan was to just show up as Bel and ask the guy to hand over the phone, but since I took the risk to forcefully snatch it away from my mark, I figured I might as well milk the opportunity for all its worth.

"What? Of course I came here! … What? No, he's not dead! I'm not some kind of savage, you know? I only kill people who hinder my plans, annoy me, look at me funny, and mimes! And clowns. Anyone with face paint, really…"

"Who are…?"

I stopped the Celestial from saying anything else by raising a finger at him, and at the same time I kept repeatedly nodding like I was still in conversation with 'Leonard Dunning' on the phone.

"Yes, I know you need him to fix your hand, but… Oh, come on! I wouldn't do that! Or at least nobody could prove I did it even if I would! I'm not that sloppy, and it's a moot point anyway, because I wouldn't do it today. … Ugh, fine, fine. You're lucky you're useful…"

By this point I deemed my target sufficiently bamboozled, so I theatrically cut the line and tossed the phone onto the bed, and then, while the agent was paying attention to that, I immediately Phased over to the couch where he was sitting just a minute ago. By the time he looked around and found me, I already sat down and crossed my legs with my right ankle on my left knee, and once our eyes met, I let out an annoyed groan.

"Can you believe that guy? Just because I promised him I wouldn't break his neck in his sleep, now he thinks he can tell me what I can do and who I can encase in a ball of concrete and throw into the ocean! The gall!" For emphasis, I mimicked rolling my eyes by circling my whole head, and then added, "Oh, who am I kidding. I like the kid. He makes decent grilled cheese too."

"Excuse me, but who are you?" the Celestial operative finally managed to ask, and while he sounded calm, I couldn't help but notice that his voice was missing its usual dry, detached professionalism.

"Wait, the kid never told you? Oh shucks, did I come too soon?" I jumped to my feet and, for good measure, immediately Phased to the other side of the room before giving the man a scraping bow I practiced more than I dared to admit. "People call me Bel of the Abyss. It's a pleasure to meet you, Bob."

"My name isn't Bob," the scarred man stated as he carefully sidled towards the table with the briefcase on it.

"I know, but saying Arpachshad Jaacobah is annoying, so your name is Bob now."

To his credit, he didn't really bat an eye at my declaration, but instead cut the chase and said, "You must be here for a reason."

"Ah, quick on the uptake! I like that!" I clapped my hands after exclaiming, and before the echo of the sound could even have a chance to face, I unceremoniously Phased over to the table again and roughly snapped the lid of the briefcase shut. Once the man's attention was on me again, I leaned forward a little and let my voice drop an octave. "Listen, Bob, and listen well. Ever since I came to this bedlam of an island, the leeches of the mana streams have been running around like headless chickens, then the bucketheads started causing trouble with the dragonbloods, and now you show up. The last thing in need in my plans right now is one of you Deus-cultists to muck around the place. Under normal circumstances, we wouldn't even be having this conversation; you would be dead, your superiors would be none the wiser, and I would have one less infuriating variable to worry about. That is, if not for Leonard Dunning asking me not to paint the insides of this room red with your blood." I paused here for a long moment, then adopted my ostentatious persona again and added, "Lucky you!"

"Lucky indeed," the Celestial agent stated, still maintaining his cool. "If you are not here to do that, then what exactly do you want from me?"

"What do I want? Oh, it's simple, Bob. I want you to get whatever business you have on Critias done, then pack up your snazzy suits and cute little suitcases, and get off my island. Was I clear enough, or do I have to use simpler words?"

"No, it was perfectly understandable," the gaunt man answered, and a second of consideration later he carefully added, "I have a few questions though."

"Oh, come on Bob! You are breaking my balls, Bob! I'm trying my best to be nice and keep this bloodless, and you're acting like you have a say in the matter, BOB! Stop it, BOB!"

"I understand, but I still need to ask. May I?"

I looked the Celestial agent in the eye for several long seconds, but he didn't back down, so in the end I decided to play it off and let out a hearty chuckle.

"Ga-ha-ha! I'm not gonna lie, I'm starting to like your spunk! How about this? I'll answer exactly three questions of yours. I swear on the name Bel of the Abyss that I'll tell you no falsehood. Any further questions will cost one limb each. Of course, you can choose which one I'll rip off. I'm not entirely unreasonable. Just ask the bucketheads, they'll vouch for me. Haven't disemboweled a single one of them yet."

He apparently took my words very seriously. That wasn't surprising. Normally swearing on one's name was a big deal among magical folks, so he probably thought I meant business, and he considered his questions for quite a while before he spoke up again.

"Are you the one who supplied Leonard Dunning with classified Celestial intelligence?"

"Certainly."

"From whence did you receive said information?"

"Your very own intelligence network. Where else?" I scoffed, maybe a touch too theatrically, but he didn't mind.

"Was it the online repository?" he guessed, and I went out of my way to very slowly shook my head.

"Do I look like someone who would require such… ugh… 'mortal' means? If I but wished for such knowledge, all I had to do was to ask nicely, and a gaggle of fools disenchanted with your dead false god would clamor for the opportunity to serve me, even amongst your superiors."

Now that finally got a rise out of the guy, but after exhaling a sharp breath through his nose, his widened eyes slowly morphed into an intense glare.

"Are you saying there's a traitor in the CID?"

"I can tell you, but first you tell me which limb you need the least," I told him in a jovial tone. "Is it a leg? Please tell me it's a leg. They make the funniest sound when they are popped out of their socket!"

"… I retract my previous question," the Celestial muttered a tad dourly.

I let out another chuckle that sounded grating even to my ears, but even while doing so, I was evaluating the conversation and decided that some further misdirection was in order.

"Now, come on, Bob! Don't be disappointed! Here, let me give you a hint." That made him perk up right away, but I kept him in suspense for a while longer by leaning closer and raising a hand to my mouth, and then I whispered, "You think my servants are in your precious Intelligence Division? My dear Bob, you're not looking high enough."

I punctuated my line with a wink, though he might not have seen it due to the mask. In fact, he remained completely rigid, so I took the lull in the conversation as an opportunity to Phase again, which finally jolted him out of his vacancy. Once I had his attention again, I overtly stretched my arms and told him, "I'm getting bored with this conversation. Back in my day, I didn't even need to kill people who bored me with such simple questions. I had subordinates for that. It was their entire job. Also, cleaning up the aftermath, but that goes without saying. Also… where was I? Oh, right. Since I'm bored, I'm going to say this one last time: you, get your shit together, do what you came here to do, get out, don't show yourself in front of me again, you dipshit. Say, Bob? Did I miss anything?"

"No, I believe you didn't," the man answered with the same professional attitude as always. "Since I now fulfilled my original mission, I will leave the island."

"A good answer. Also, a boring one. I have to get away from you before you bore me to sleep." Saying so, I mimed walking into a wall, but then stopped at the last moment and turned back to the rattled operative and told him, "Oh, and don't forget about healing the kid's hand or whatever. And while you're at it, heal his head too. Who does he think he is to sass me?! Bah!"

And with those last words, I continued pretending to walk into a wall and then Phased away just before I made contact with it. For the next couple of seconds, there was an eerily tense silence stretched over the small motel room, which was at once broken when the only remaining occupant darted over to the nearby table with nary a hint of his previous composure remaining on his face. He threw open the briefcase again and grabbed the two silver bracelets inside. A blink of an eye later the air around him was filled with flashes of magical light as they unfolded into a pair of delicate weapons mostly consisting of softly glowing blue light with the metal only serving as their backbone.

In his left hand, there was a short sword with a wide blade, while in his right there was a thin rapier with a cross-shaped guard. The moment they formed, he raised them defensively while his eyes darted around the room, and he remained perfectly still for several seconds, going as far as to hold his breath so that he could hear even a pin being dropped. What he soon heard instead was, however, the familiar sound of a tiny speaker trying its best to mimic an orchestra with just a handful of basic tones.

The Celestial spun around and pointed his rapier at the source of the sound, and once he confirmed that it was just the phone, he tentatively let go of his short sword and picked it up from the bed.

"Jaacobah speaking."

"Oh, good. You're alive," I said through the phone with all the fake concern I could muster. "Is Bel still there?"

"No. He left already." I wanted to ask him a few meaningless questions to further establish my alibi, but the agent on this side cut me off with a dry, "I have confirmed that he's the source of the leak in our intelligence network. I must report this in person. Free your schedule tomorrow morning; I will perform the treatment on your internal injury before I leave the island."

"You do? With the catalyst and everything? Well, I'm not going to turn you down, but it's a little sudden."

"I'm afraid I cannot stay on the island any longer, so my plans for long-term treatment are no longer feasible. Since you have fulfilled your side of the bargain, I will contact my superiors and request permission for the use of the catalyst."

"That sounds really neat, but… Your voice sounds a little shaky. Are you sure you're all right?"

"Do not concern yourself with me. Also, I would like to request you to share all information you have on Bel of the Abyss with me tomorrow."

"Well, I don't have much, but since you're doing me a favor, I suppose I can tell you what I know."

"Understood. I'll see you tomorrow morning."

Since the guy cut the line, and I more or less achieved what I wanted, there was no more reason to keep an eye on him, so I canceled my Far Sight and my point of view rapidly returned to the main hall in the secret base. Once I also let my phone down, I became very aware of the fact that Judy, Elly, Ichiko, and all of the Fauns were looking at me with various degrees of expectation.

"The good news is that we got him," I said, and the peanut gallery let out a collective relieved sigh. "He's going to come and heal my hand tomorrow."

"That's great news!" my draconic girlfriend exclaimed as she simultaneously caught me in a bear hug that was more careful than usual. The princess apparently really liked my Bel costume and didn't want to get it wrinkled.

In the meantime, my other girlfriend gestured for me to pay attention to her, and when I did, she asked, "You said that was the good news. What's the bad one?"

"It's nothing serious," I replied with just a hint of exhaustion, and then further explained, "I just have to spend the whole night coming up with a backstory for Bel, that's all…"