The Simulacrum
"Hold on, I need to sit down for a moment," I muttered between two hoarse breaths, and my ever-so-mindful (if at the moment slightly overbearing) girlfriends grabbed hold of my arms like clockwork. I gave each of them a wry look in turn and tried gently shook them off, to little apparent success. "I'm not going to collapse, I'm just a little woozy."
They didn't seem to care about what I was saying, as they proceeded to drag me over to the nearest chair in the so-called 'reception area' of our hidden base. It might have sounded grand, but in reality it was just the refurbished room right outside the teleport-closet. I naturally continued to grumble all the way there, but took a seat anyway. I mean, what other option did I have?
"Is Leo okay?" Angie inquired while trying to take a better look at my no doubt pale face, so I quickly shook my head.
"I was still feeling a little sick from the other day, transporting you... or rather, using the teleport circle with you guys in tow just made it a hundred times worse. That said, I'll live."
Even though I managed to catch my slip of the tongue early, the class rep still sent me a suspicious glance, so I quickly and very naturally averted my eyes and pretended I didn't see her.
In the meantime my nausea slowly abated, and so I let out a self-deprecating sigh. As much as I hated to admit it, my current condition was almost entirely the result of my own carelessness. I was already overworked to being with, and yet, despite Judy's repeated warnings, I was running around like a headless chicken the whole morning.
For a start, I contacted Mike and received the first deposit of magical doodads from him, then I had to visit our family doctor to get a medical certificate for my days of absence (which I successfully received after just a bit of badgering), and once I got home I checked all the artifacts, and then, after all that, I Phased everyone over to the secret base. In retrospect, it was no wonder I felt weaker than homeopathic whiskey.
Anyhow, I already felt marginally better after sitting down for just a moment, so I carefully stood back up and stretched my back under the scrutinizing gazes of my girlfriends. The others, on the other hand, were paying very little attention to me, as they were considerably more interested in the reception room.
"I like what you did to the place," Josh stated with a profound voice as he looked over one of the freshly painted ocher walls and the simple wooden furniture. "Very... Errr... Minimalist?"
"Yes, yeeeees," Angie agreed while she pretended to twirl a nonexistent mustache, and then she continued in some kind of fake and altogether undecipherable accent, "It certuunly possesss a certuun untaangibl sharm. A stroong presanse of industrial steil, with juuust a daaazs ov mid-censurii modaarn detektaabl in ze kompoziisuun. Trulii marveluuus."
"Um... Yes. What she said," Snowy said between repeated nods, though based on her expression, she had no idea about what she was agreeing with. To be fair, she wasn't alone in that regard.
"Stop fooling around. We are here on serious business," Ammy scolded the trio right away, and their back and forth quickly faded into the background noise as I literally moved things along by walking over to the metal door leading to the main hall of the complex.
It had a wheel in the middle, kind of like a ship door on a submarine, and it was also freshly painted in a dark, almost brownish red that made it both fit the color palette of the room and at the same time stick out like a sore thumb. Putting my inner interior decorator's assessments aside for a moment, I grabbed hold of the wheel and, since the door wasn't actually locked, I could push it open without having to turn it.
It opened up without a sound (the Fauns were very particular about maintenance and lubrication, it seemed), and once the other side came into view, Josh immediately let out an impressed whistle.
"I like that room too, but I really like what you did with this place," he told me as he followed after me, and embarrassing as it was, I felt exactly the same way. I mean, I was the one who ferried over all of the raw materials and all the modular furniture with large 'Assembly Required' stickers over them during the past couple of days (or rather, nights, but that's beside the point), but even though it wasn't my first time seeing Brang and Co.'s handiwork, I was still amazed by how they managed to turn the very utilitarian interior of the main hall into something so different it was hard to imagine how bare it looked just a couple of days ago.
First and foremost, all of the old furniture was removed from the place and placed inside one of the side-rooms we designated as the storage area. The new and improved chamber was now divided into four areas by functionality, with the walls of each segment painted in a different pastel color. Oh, and speaking of paintings: the ceiling was painted sky blue with actual fluffy white clouds, and the cluster of lamps in the middle serving as the sun. I had no idea why though. Maybe one of the Fauns had an artistic side that suddenly came to the forefront or something?
Anyhow, on my left was the training area, which was roughly half the size of a standard basketball court. The actual sparring arena in the middle was considerably smaller, and it was surrounded by simple, three-step bleachers made of aluminium tube understructures and brightly painted wooden benches.
Further back, past the open end of the arena, there was a meeting area where tactics, strategies, or recent plot-twists in TV serials could be discussed, and it had several rows of seats along with a patently huge, dry-erase whiteboard. The latter sat on a metal scaffold, and it was about a head taller than I was, and at least twice as wide. Let's just say that Phasing that thing over was an absolute pain in the neck, but I managed to do it anyway.
The third area was a workshop and armory rolled into one, where the Faun kept and maintained their weaponry and armors, as well as their more mundane tools. It had all the wrenches, hammers, saws, and power tools you would see in any self-respecting handyman's garage, and I could even save a few pennies on this part by simply bringing over the unused tools from my own.
Last, but not least, there was the smallest of the four segments, right next to the door through which we just arrived. It was a cozy little recreational area, complete with a bar counter, those small round stools that looked hilarious when a Faun tried to balance on them, an honest-to-goodness air hockey table, and even two vintage massage chairs. The last two were impulse-purchases, as they were on a sale in a bundle, and while the massage chairs didn't prove successful (probably because Brang and his men could barely even sit on them), the hockey table was an instant hit and became part of their 'hand-eye coordination training'. They also kept score and held a mini-championship at the end of the day, ostensibly as a way to 'improve performance through competitive practices'. It obviously had nothing to do with enjoying themselves, and I most certainly didn't participate in the past.
I'm not going to lie, I had my reservations about putting all of these facilities into a single chamber, even if the available space allowed it, but Brang was very insistent about doing things this way. It had something to do with how the Fauns' mustering area was arranged back in the Abyss. It seemed quite inefficient to my layman's eyes, but in the end I left the minutia in the hands of the professional.
"Woooow! This looks amazing!" Angie expressed her admiration with the kind of childish glee I expected from her, and she immediately honed in on the recreational area with the precision of a bloodhound. "Oh my gosh! You've got a hockey table! That's so cool!"
"Look! They even have a mini-bar!" Josh added to the commotion. "Our old tree-house has nothing on this secret base…"
"We had our comic collection though," the Celestial girl argued back.
"True, that does level the playing field a little," my friend mused as he browsed through the contents of the tiny fridge.
"How much did this all cost you?" Ammy leveled the question at me, and unexpectedly enough, even she sounded mildly impressed.
"More than I originally set aside for it, but less than you would expect," I told her with a mysterious smirk, but before she could react, our conversation was interrupted by Josh exclaiming from literally inside the mini-bar.
"Holy hell, you seriously have Crystal Pepsi in this!?"
"Brang likes it," I absent-mindedly answered his question, even though it was most likely rhetorical, and just then I noticed a large shape coming our way from the direction of the armory area. "Speak of the devil..."
"Welcome, tiny heir," Brang greeted Snowy in his usual gravely, yet at the same time affectionate voice the moment we were in earshot. He looked the same as usual except for two slightly anachronistic details: he was wearing a thick leather apron, the kind you would see on a medieval blacksmith, and on his head, there was a pair of XXL sized transparent protective glasses that looked absolutely hilarious on him. He also saluted to her by placing his fist on his broad chest, and then he turned to the rest of us and did the same. "Welcome, regent. Companions."
"Regent?" Ammy raised a curious brow at my expense, so I gave her a shrug in return.
"It's a long story and not exactly relevant right now," I unsubtly dismissed her and turned my attention to the Faun general instead. "[I hope my greetings find you in good health, general. Mine eyes tell me you and your men did not shy away from labor in the days since I last visited your temporary abode.]"
"[Aye, thine eyes play no tricks on you Black-cloak, albeit thine countenance appears worrisome enough to make this old man's heart fear you might see double.]"
"[Your observation is accurate, as my current disposition is akin to the backside of an ornery horse.]"
"[I wish you a recovery as swift as the unseen knife in the dark.]"
I sent the friendly Faun a skeptical look, but he seemed perfectly serious, so a brief sigh later I replied, "[I shall accept your unusual wishes of positive regard. On more pressing notes, where could your men be at the moment? Were their ears preoccupied when I informed them on the date of our arrival?]"
"[Nay. They just recently completed the facsimile of the firmament above in a haste most unusual, and are thus currently in the process of ridding themselves of paint.]"
"[That's… understandable. Please instruct them to come and join us as soon as possible, for I wish to start discussing matters of the utmost seriousness.]"
"[Aye,]" he grunted with a nod and then turned on his heel and headed in the direction of the barracks… which was just one of the side-chambers refurbished and filled with beds.
"I just can't get used to him," Judy grumbled behind me, and when I glanced over my shoulder, she also added, "And I don't like it when you growl at each other either."
"I told you already, it wasn't growling. The Faun language is actually really complex and expressive, and…" my words trailed off when I noticed that it was only the two of us standing by the entrance, and so I asked, "Where's the princess?"
My dear assistant wordlessly pointed ahead, and when I followed her finger, I found Elly and Angie right next to the air hockey table.
"Oooh? You wish to challenge me?" Elly asked in that high-pitched, faux-haughty, and just a tiny bit cute voice she occasionally used when she was feeling threatened.
"Yeah!" Angie declared while grabbing hold of one of the strikers. "We still have to settle our score from the other day!"
"Very well! I will show you that you cannot defeat me, no matter the game!"
After proclaiming so, she pointed a challenging finger at the similarly psyched up Celestial girl, a look which was further emphasized by a charming little overconfident smirk, but then her eyes met mine as Judy and I walked closer, and said finger quickly turned into an outstretched palm.
"I accept your challenge… but first I have to talk with Leo!" She didn't even wait for Angie to react, instead she immediately scampered over to our side and whispered, "Leo, quick! Tell me how you are supposed to play this game!"
"You don't know how to play air hockey?" my other girlfriend enquired quite incredulously, and after a brief moment of hesitation, the princess shook her head so hard I was afraid she would lose her balance.
"I never played this game before," she admitted. "But I can't back down now!"
"Why did she even challenge you in the first place? What is this score you have to settle?" I asked in a low voice, though I had a feeling that Angie could probably hear our every word. I mean, we were only a couple of meters away from her, but it didn't stop the princess from whispering her answer, like it was a top secret.
"The other day we had a long game during practice, and she thinks she was winning even though I had her on the ropes for the last set, but then it started to rain, so we had to wrap things up."
It took me a few seconds to wrap my head around what she was talking about, but then the proverbial light bulb finally lit up over my head.
"You are talking about tennis, aren't you?"
"Yes, of course," Elly stated as if it was completely self-evident, and it reminded me of the fact that the two of them were rising tennis stars or something.
I never really paid much attention to the princess' sports carrier, but now that she jogged my memory, I couldn't help but ask, "I've heard you were playing professionally. Something about tournaments and the mainland or something…" I vaguely muttered, hoping that she would bite and fill in the blanks, and my dear draconic girlfriend did just that.
"Ah, that's right. I used to do that when I was in elementary school. Not anymore."
"Why not?" came the unexpected question from Angie, who sneaked up on us while we were talking, and she made the princess jump in surprise.
"I'm curious too," was the next question, which came from the mouth of Ammy. She somehow managed to sneak up on us even harder, to the point even I barely noticed her before she spoke up, and Elly straight up yelped in surprise. Maybe the class rep really was a ninja after all? Like, a super-secret experimental magi-ninja hybrid? It's sad to admit it, but at this point it wouldn't even surprise me if that was true…
Anyhow, once my draconic girlfriend calmed down a little (and stopped holding onto me like a slightly less fluffy koala bear), she sighed aloud and explained, "Mom used to be a professional tennis player before I was born, but then her injury made it impossible for her to do it anymore, so I tried my best to learn how to play well to make her happy." At this point she let out another, even deeper sigh, then added, "Unfortunately it turned out I was only mediocre."
"You call that mediocre?" I asked in surprise, as I could distinctly remember that I was pretty damn impressed by her when I last saw her have a match with Angie. It also made me wonder how playing tennis in tournaments was okay, yet becoming a singer was dangerous, but I had to put the question aside for the moment due to Angie honestly to goodness stomping her feet by our side.
"Yeah! How dare you!" the Celestial girl huffed, and when she noticed that we were all looking at her with question marks over our heads, she hastily amended, "I mean, she is my rival! If she says she is mediocre, that means it would make me mediocre too! That's just rude!"
"But I am…" Elly's response was not only a little sheepish, but she was fidgeting so adorably I wanted to give her a big hug. Of course I realized it was inappropriate to do so at the moment, and since I was a very mature and rational person, I naturally decided to do it a little later. Anyhow, while I battled my inner demons (read: hormones), she continued to explain herself with, "I only got the silver medal in the European Youth League Championship, and I barely managed to make it to the top five in the internationals."
I was a little skeptical about my girlfriend's words, but no matter how I looked at her, it didn't feel like she was humble-bragging, so in the end I straightforwardly told her, "Listen, Elly. I don't want to start an argument, but I feel like I'm obligated to point out that if you call that 'mediocre', then it would mean that ninety-nine percent of all tennis players would be below average."
"That's statistically impossible," Judy remarked on the side, earning her a slightly frustrated nod in the process.
"Yes, that was my point. Getting second place in a championship is about as far from mediocre as it can get."
"I… don’t think you are wrong…" Elly finally agreed with me using a textbook double negative, but before the conversation could get any further, the arrival of Brang and his not particularly merry men put an end to that, with my friends staring at them in mild bewilderment. I have to admit, I wasn't entirely immune to it either.
"Leo?" Josh called out to me as he also walked over.
"Yes?"
"Why are they all blue?"
"Well, they are not 'entirely' blue," I objected to his choice of words, but he didn't seem to appreciate it, so after a short while I explained to him, "The Faun were the ones who painted the ceiling, and they didn't have the time to clean up."
"I was meaning to ask about that…" Ammy cut in while her eyes alternated between the Faun and the facsimile of the sky over us, and it didn't take long for her brows to furrow in perplexity. "Please wait just a moment. Wouldn't that mean they just finished painting all of this?" she said as she gestured upwards.
"Apparently," I agreed.
"So why is it that they are covered in blue paint, yet nothing in this place has even a drop of it on them?"
"That's… actually a very good question. Why don't you ask them about it?"
"Uh… No offense, but I would rather you do it."
"Maybe later," I responded a tad ambivalently as Brang and company finally arrived, and they all went through the whole greeting and saluting routine. Once we were done with that, our fairly sizable group moved over to the meeting area, so that we could finally discuss the reason why we gathered here in the first place.
I walked up to the whiteboard and waited until everyone took a seat, and only then did I clear my throat to open the gathering.
"Listen up, everyone! I now open our first grand tactical meeting," I paused for a moment and sent a piercing look at my only male friend. "And for the record, if any of you asks something silly, like 'What makes it grand?', I will personally stuff this black marker up his nose."
"I wasn't going to ask that!" Josh denied everything while vehemently shaking his head, which was, let us be honest, enough evidence of his culpability to make even the most lukewarm judge find him guilty on the spot.
Anyhow, once I got ahead of the heckling and established my position, I took a deep breath and declared, "We are here today to discuss the current situation, upcoming threats, and how to deal with them in an efficient, hassle-free manner. First and foremost," I began as I stepped closer and started to write on the board, "We have Labcoat Guy and his army of ineffectual yet annoying robots."
I paused to see if anyone wanted to add something, but since they stayed silent, I continued by writing up the second issue, in the form of, "Then we still have the issue of the Chimera running amok… or rather, laying low and attracting a monster hunter who is running amok. Same difference, really."
"Did you seriously just tell me that a legendary, magic-immune, dreaded monster of mass destruction is the same thing as an allegedly annoying huntress?" Ammy interrupted while adjusting her glasses, and her comment earned a few stray chuckles from the Faun on the left.
I gave her a look flatter than an unscrewed bottle of coke left out in the open overnight and responded with, "You try spending a few hours with Mountain Girl every evening, and we'll see whether or not you would agree with me."
"A moment, please," Judy suddenly interrupted with her hand raised. "Did you give her a nick-name?"
"Yes. I kind of had to because she refused to let me use her real name," I clarified, yet it only made my assistant's expression more grave as she turned to Elly by her side.
"Did you hear that? We must employ more anti-harem counter-measures before it's too late."
"Oh, ha, ha, ha," I cut in before she could respond. "Just because I call her by a nickname, it doesn't mean I'm the least bit interested in her. What's next? Are you going to claim that I'm interested in Armband Guy?"
"Are you?"
"… Dormouse. Don't make me go over there and tickle you."
There was a long moment of silence following my threat, and since Judy didn't react, I considered the tangent finished… but then Josh raised his hand.
"I just want to know why is that I get threatened by physical violence before I even say anything, but she only gets a mildly flirty warning?"
I directed an ever so slightly incredulous look at my friend, and I eventually told him, "It's just simple, run of the mill nepotism. Wasn't it abundantly clear?"
"And why are you so smug about it!?"
"Because I can afford it," I replied before gesturing with my hand to cut the tangent short, this time for good. "So, back to the issues at hand, the third of which is the coming of the Knights."
I wrote the word 'Knights' onto the whiteboard as well, then I turned to the group and continued by saying, "A quick recap, so that we are all on the same page: Labcoat Guy is working for the Arch-mage, and he is under orders not to cause too much distress. The Chimera is currently in hiding and sending out these tiny versions of itself to gather food, which I'm reluctantly hunting at the moment. The Knights are coming to the island to cause trouble to Elly's family, and I am related to them. Now, let's discuss how to deal with the first two before the third comes in to muddy up the waters." Our, at the moment not so little, group exchanged timid glances between each other, so a quick sigh later I decided to forcibly move things along. "How about this? Let's start with the one that is the least dangerous, though not necessarily he least annoying at the moment."
After saying so, I turned to Brang and asked him, "Did you find out anything about the whereabouts of the Chimera?"
The old Faun raised a finger to say something, but then he shook his head and stood up instead. He walked over to my side with his usual lopsided gait and he said, "[May this old man borrow the tool of drawing in thy possession?]"
"Sure," I answered and handed him over the black marker. It looked comically small in his hands, yet that impression only lasted for a second before he stepped up to the whiteboard and began to draw a series of lines so straight I probably couldn't even make them with the help of a ruler in hand. After the first couple of lines, he began to add other shapes, and in a matter of minutes, I was startled by the recognition of the city's rough map from a bird's eye view. I said 'rough' because it lacked any street names or other indicators, but as far as I could judge by eye, it was about as accurate as the large tourist map I had seen in the park a couple of times. I couldn't even imagine how someone could make a map like that from memory, but considering who we were talking about here, I had to conclude that the 'Scout' part in Brang's old title wasn't just for show.
Once he was done with the drawing, he drew three impeccably perfect circles onto it. "Nests. Target moves." He paused for a moment while he put the cap onto the permanent marker and he used it to point at the circle in the upper left corner. "Here." After saying that, he pointed at the next circle and said, "Then here," and after moving to the third one he repeated, "Then here. In circle. Pattern is predictable, timing is not."
"So if I get this right, you managed to pinpoint the main Chimera's hiding places?" Brang nodded, so I pressed on by asking, "Does this mean you know where it is right now?" He nodded again and pointed at one of the circles.
"Here. Surrounded by tiny sentries. Numerous escape routes. Confronting in nest… difficult. Would lose element of surprise. Would find new nest to hide. Frustrating."
"I see," I muttered as I considered his words. If I could believe them (and why wouldn't I?), it meant that the Chimera was routinely moving around in the city, which either meant that the daily hunts on the tiny Chimeras to draw it out was pointless, or that it already worked and it realized it was being hunted, so it decided to keep moving. Either way, the result was the same, so I proposed, "If assaulting its lair is risky, I guess our best bet is to ambush it while it is moving from one hidey-hole to the next."
The old Faun flashed me a toothy smile and gave me a nod so deep it was almost a small bow.
"My plans, exactly."
I disregarded his deferential tone and instead I focused on the map again. I drew mental lines between the three circles and tried to match the actual lines they crossed with the streets from my memory, but I quickly had to give up on the endeavor. It was something I probably couldn't have done well even when I was in top-shape, and so it was doubly impossible at the moment. As such, I decided to depend on the person with the most experience in the room and asked, "In your opinion, what are the best spots for ambushing it."
The moment I said that, as if waiting for those words, Brang removed the cap from the marker in his hand and drew four small squares that roughly sat on the imaginary lines I drew between the circles before.
Once he was done with that, he pointed at them one at a time and explained, "Should move in one or two days. Site has cover. A lot. Area is populated, Zone necessary. Second site. Moves in about three days. Moves on rooftops. Little cover, no worry for collateral damage. Third site. Moves in five or six days. Part of woods in city. Park? Part of park. Lots of cover, Zone is easy to make. Fourth site, same day as third site. Narrow alley. Easy to corner, no cover."
I let out a small 'Hm.' in place of a more nuanced opinion as I considered the options he presented. The first area was in the middle of a residential district, so it was right out of the question, Purple Zone or not. The second option was better, but fighting a Chimera on a rooftop brought back some nasty memories, and I decided it was better not to tempt fate. I mean, I could totally imagine the whole 'falling off the roof' bit happening again just to provide an ironic echo or something.
That left only two options on the table, and after some consideration, I told Brang, "Let's go with the ambush in the park. You said it would move through there in five or six days, right?"
"Estimate. Target is not predictable."
"That's a bit of an issue," I muttered as I rubbed my chin, but I ultimately decided to risk it. "It's a little too close to the arrival of the Knights for my comfort, but we should manage. I will tell the huntress about it and hopefully I can delegate dealing with it to her. Please keep a lookout on the Chimera and inform me if its behavior changes."
"Will do," Brang responded with a smaller version of his usual salute. I acknowledged it with a nod and then turned to the rest of the group.
"Okay, that's about it for the Chimera for now. Does anyone have anything they would like to ask or add to the conversation?" I asked to be polite and, unsurprisingly, no one reacted. It was to be expected. I mean, it was my 'sub-plot', so to say. In fact, if I had to rank our current problems based on narrative terms, it would be that one side-plot that got resolved off-screen because it didn't directly affect any of the main characters. Now, as for the main plot, it was obviously going to be the main topic of our conversation, but before that, I had to discuss one more side-plot first.
"Speaking of the Knights, how are the preparations going on your end?" I leveled the question to my draconic girlfriend, and for some reason it took her a few seconds to answer.
"Oh, you mean us? Yes, dad and Sebastian are already working on an ambush." After she said that, Elly abruptly snapped her fingers and added, "That reminds me; Dad told me to tell you to come over to our mansion later so that he can discuss something with you."
"Again? At this rate, I'm visiting your place every single day."
"You can always move in, and then you won't have to do that ever again," my girlfriend offered in a manner that would have sounded quite self-assured and flirty if not for the fact that her ears were red as a lobster.
"Thanks for the offer, but I decline. Anyhow, I will talk with him after I escort you back home today. But back to the Knights: as of now we don't know much about them, so I want all of you to be on the lookout for any new faces."
I paused as I noticed that Josh had his hand raised over his head as if we were in the classroom, and I motioned for him to speak up.
"Could you be a little more specific?" he requested as he let his hand down.
"Unexpected mid-term transfer students, substitute teachers, people with unusually nice hair or fancy clothes, these kinds of things."
"What does hair have to do with the Knights?" came the next question from Ammy, and I was tempted to answer with a suitably dramatic 'Everything!', but in the end I decided on a more conservative approach.
"Just trust me and keep an eye out for new people."
"Does Mike count?" the class rep spoke up again, and her question drew everyone's attention at once.
"Who's Mike?" Josh inquired with an unusually apprehensive expression.
"He is an acquaintance of mine," I answered in Amelia's stead. "And before you ask, no, he is not a Knight."
"Well, of course he's not," Angie declared on the side, and so all the eyes previously glued to Amelia turned to her in an instant, so she hastily added, "I mean, he's like my dad's second cousin's stepson, you know?"
"Wait…" the class rep raised her voice with just a tinge of alarm. "If he's related to you, does that make him…?"
"Yes, he is also a Celestial," I clarified, earning me a glare from the local Celestial asset.
"Leo! That was supposed to be a secret!" Angie whined, but frankly speaking, I couldn't care less about her objection.
"Then maybe you shouldn't have let the cat out of the bag first. Also, could we please try and stay on topic for just five damn minutes? Pretty please?" Everyone fell conspicuously silent, which I interpreted as agreement. "Okay, so just to reiterate: if you see anyone with a very distinct appearance, inform me right away. As for what we are going to do about the actual attack, it will depend on Elly's family."
It was at this point that I took a huge breath and decided to stop skirting around the meat of today's meeting, so I pointed at the very first word I wrote onto the board and said, "Last, but not least, we have to discuss what to do with Labcoat Guy in general and Ammy's grandfather in particular. At this point it is a well-established fact that they are working together as part of some sort of overarching and as of yet not exactly sensible master plan. We decided to put an end to their interference before the Knights arrive. However, before we discuss that any further, I have one quick request to make. Class rep?" Even though I just addressed her, she didn't seem to hear me, so I raised my voice and tried again. "Amelia?"
"Hm?" She flinched as if she just woke from a daze, and he immediately looked me in the eye. "Ah, yes? Can I help?"
"Yes, you can," I answered firmly. "I want you to arrange a meeting between me and your grandfather, as soon as humanly possible."
"I… think I can manage that," she replied a little uncertainly, and I could practically see the unspoken 'Why?' in her eyes. I didn't let it manifest though, as I immediately moved on.
"Good, please do so. Now then, here's the main thing we have to discuss: how do you plan to take care of Labcoat Guy and his flunkies?" I could see the budding confusion in some eyes in my audience, so I quickly told them, "I have already discussed this with Josh, but to be frank, I'm going to have my hands full with the Chimera and preparing for the Knights, and I am going to need Brang and his men to be on standby for that. This means it falls on your shoulders to deal with our serial ambusher on your own."
"Does that include me too?" Judy asked with a raised hand, and I immediately shook my head.
"Nope. You are a non-combatant, so you are obviously excluded. That said, this reminds me of something." I swept my eyes over the group and addressed them as one. "After this meeting is over, please hand you’re your Magiformers for the rest of the day. I recently got access to some communication artifacts, and I plan to integrate some of their functions into the uniforms so that you could communicate with the outside even while in a Purple Zone. Also, I am planning to make Judy into our mission control."
"Chief, stop," my dear assistant spoke up in a comparatively dire tone. "You already look terrible. If you are going mess with enchantments again and get sick, your school attendance record is going to get completely ruined."
"Don't worry Dormouse, it's not that big a deal."
"The enchantment or the attendance record?" Josh asked a little absent-mindedly, and I answered in the only appropriate way.
"Yes."
My friend immediately rolled his eyes, but I naturally ignored him and continued the previous discussion unabated.
"So, back on topic: I can provide you with the location of their base, and I can provide info on their movements, but as far as actually going in and bashing heads together, I'm afraid I can't help with that."
For the record, what I just said wasn't entirely true. The truth of the matter is that I could, if I really wanted to, put an end to Labcoat Guy's shenanigans in many different ways. Just to give an example, if I considered him a serious threat to the life of my friends, I had all the tools necessary to assassinate him by, say, making an IED using plans from the Celestial Hub, and then Phasing into his bedroom while he slept and putting it under his bed.
It would be a quick and permanent solution, but I had two good reasons why I wanted to avoid such a development at all cost: on one hand, I was afraid that resorting to lethal force would somehow drag everything into a darker, grittier direction, which was a possibility I simply couldn't rule out without first understanding what made the world react to my actions. This was something I have been considering ever since I accidentally poisoned Crowey, and I decided it was better to be a little soft-hearted now than to be sorry later when it turns out I accidentally changed the world where, in the grim darkness of the near, future there is only war and merchandising. I mean, reading about a setting like that might have been a guilty pleasure of mine, but I sure as hell didn't want to live in it.
Let's put grimdark space war-games aside for a moment though and return to my other reason why I didn't want to blow Labcoat Guy into smithereens: I simply found the idea of ending someone's life, unless in clear self-defense, an ethically indefensible action, and so I wished to avoid it if at all possible. Not to mention, I also had to wrestle with the notion that the 'bad guys' I would be facing in the future would be, in practical terms, pre-programmed actors designed to serve an antagonistic role, and as Brang's example illustrated, once decoupled from their original role, they could turn out to be perfectly friendly and reasonable people. In short, I found even hurting our antagonists more than necessary to be morally dubious. Except when it came to Crowey, of course, because screw that guy.
However, my aversion to dirtying my hands aside, I had another, narrative-theory driven reason why I figured I could leave this to Josh and company while I focused my attention elsewhere: Josh was the 'protagonist' of this world. Whether there was something like an AI director that threw plot at him (and by proximity, us), there was a pre-planned story we were unwittingly playing out, the fact that Josh was in the middle of it all remained a constant. In our previous discussions on the subject, Judy and I have long since concluded that the attacks by Labcoat Guy and his supposedly hidden connection to Lord Grandpa were the 'A-plot' of the current 'arc' of Josh's story.
Why was that important? Simply put, just like how the Chimera seemed to be my side-plot designed to keep me busy, either by the ever-elusive narrative or the not-so-elusive Lord Grandpa, the main plot of the 'arc' was necessarily something that the 'main characters' were supposed to resolve. I also wasn't particularly worried about them, not only because I knew how strong they individually were first-hand, but because as 'main characters', being the resident battle harem protagonist and his love-interests, I was fairly certain they enjoyed at least some measure of 'plot armor'. This was just a theory made on strong inference, but considering that the entire gang managed to weather a battle against one of the Lords of the Abyss with only minor scratches, I had a feeling I was onto something.
Speaking of injuries though, while they managed to get through multiple battles without shedding a drop of blood, in the same timespan I had been injured and fallen ill so many times I almost understood why Judy became such a worrywart. That told me that I was either really unlucky, or that I simply didn’t have the same plot armor as them. On the same note, I felt it was safe to guess that side-characters possessed no such plot armor either, so I felt it I was entirely justified in focusing my attention on Elly's family, as they were the ones in actual tangible danger without any narrative safety lines.
But let's put my ponderings about the nature and possibility of plot-armor aside for now, and focus on the discussion. Or rather, the lack thereof.
"Come on guys, don't look at me like that!" I exclaimed as I swept my eyes over the hesitant bunch in front of me. "You can handle this much on your own, can't you?"
"Maybe, but I would feel safer if you were around," Snowy told said in a low voice, and she was immediately supported by Angie.
"Yeah! You are the leader! The idea-man! The boss! How can you expect us to just do things without you!"
"Hold on for just a moment!" I stopped her with a raised palm. "Who made me the leader?"
"You just kind of… are?" Angie told me, this time a little less eagerly. "I mean, you are the guy with a secret base and an army of scary Faun and you are also the only one of us who seems to know what's going on at all times… so… yeah…"
I awarded her sincere words with a frown that almost made my forehead hurt and responded by telling her, "Well, sorry to disappoint you, but I am definitely not leader material, and thus I won't do any leadering."
"You are making linguists cry. Shame on you," Judy cut in with an absent-minded voice, probably by reflex.
"Doesn't matter. The important thing is that if you want to get rid of the silly robot ambushes, you have to come up with a plan on your own, and that's my final word on the matter."
"Oh, I see what you are going!" the Celestial girl pressed on, her enthusiasm completely unabated. "You are doing that mentor thing where you are throwing us into the deep water to teach us how to swim on our own!"
"No, I am literally not able to be in two places at once, so I simply want you to do this one thing on your own. If you absolutely need someone to lead you, you have Josh right over there."
"Ah, so he is your deputy then," she stated with a profound nod, and by this point I decided to give up.
"Fine, call it whatever you want. Anyways, Josh, do you have anything to say?"
My hapless friend looked equal parts startled and indignant by the unwanted attention, but he quickly collected himself and told us, "Actually, I had this idea. I don't know if it will work, but…"
"Just say it and we'll see," I encouraged him a little, if only so that Angie would focus on him instead of me.
"Well, you see, Doctor Robatto is working with Ammy's grandfather, right?" I nodded and urged him to continue with my patented eyebrow-wriggling. "So, if I remember right, they kept in contact by using Pascal as a messenger, but Pascal and Robatto didn't seem to like each other at all. I mean, Ammy told me there was something about broken arms or something…"
"That's correct," I confirmed, which seemed to have made Josh slightly more confident.
"So, I was thinking: If they don't like each other, couldn't we play them against each other? For example, we could set things up so that Pascal would have to come to our 'rescue' in some form, and then we could have them tire each other out."
"So you want to use Pascal to capture Robatto," Ammy mused as she absent-mindedly adjusted her glasses.
"Yes. Since they are already on bad terms, we could indirectly provoke them so that they would focus on each other, and then once they are out of breath, we could capture Robatto, and Pascal wouldn't be able to let him get away like the last time," Josh added.
"And then we could take them both to Lord Endymonion, and then we could force him to confess and explain himself" came the next addendum from the princess. "I could even ask Sebastian to come with us. He cannot fight Robatto for us without breaking the truce with Endymonion, but if Sebastian was with us when we present the two, Ammy's grandpa couldn't dismiss us that easily."
"That… could actually work," Ammy granted it to Josh, and I used the opportunity to get everyone's attention by clapping my hands once.
"That's a decent first plan, and suitably devious to boot. Now you just have to work out the details and try to put it into practice. See, it's not that hard."
"You are right," Angie agreed with a huge nod. "To think that your leadership skills would rub off on Josh so well, you are a great mentor after all!"
"… You know, you are lucky you are too far and I can't be arsed to walk over to you just to flick your forehead." The Celestial girl let out a giggle in response to my grievous threat, and so I exhaled in a long groan and told them, "It seems like this discussion is going nowhere fast at this rate. How about we call it a day for now and I let you guys make your plans in your own time?"
"Sounds great," Angie exclaimed and she elbowed Josh in the side before she sprang to her feet, "The last one to the hockey table is the spoiled egg!"
"What does that even mean?" My friend grumbled, but got up and followed after her all the same, and before I knew it, the others began to leave as well. Ammy seemed to be unusually interested in the facilities of the secret base, Snowy took two of the fauns with her and began preparing refreshments from the mini-bar, while Judy and Elly quickly walked over to my side and dragged me to sit down with them, claiming that I looked unsteady.
All in all, I couldn't help but sigh in exasperation. They claimed I was the leader of the group, yet at times like this, I felt more like a shepherd trying to herd cats…
Chapter 142: ~Chapter 51~ Part 1
They didn't seem to care about what I was saying, as they proceeded to drag me over to the nearest chair in the so-called 'reception area' of our hidden base. It might have sounded grand, but in reality it was just the refurbished room right outside the teleport-closet. I naturally continued to grumble all the way there, but took a seat anyway. I mean, what other option did I have?
"Is Leo okay?" Angie inquired while trying to take a better look at my no doubt pale face, so I quickly shook my head.
"I was still feeling a little sick from the other day, transporting you... or rather, using the teleport circle with you guys in tow just made it a hundred times worse. That said, I'll live."
Even though I managed to catch my slip of the tongue early, the class rep still sent me a suspicious glance, so I quickly and very naturally averted my eyes and pretended I didn't see her.
In the meantime my nausea slowly abated, and so I let out a self-deprecating sigh. As much as I hated to admit it, my current condition was almost entirely the result of my own carelessness. I was already overworked to being with, and yet, despite Judy's repeated warnings, I was running around like a headless chicken the whole morning.
For a start, I contacted Mike and received the first deposit of magical doodads from him, then I had to visit our family doctor to get a medical certificate for my days of absence (which I successfully received after just a bit of badgering), and once I got home I checked all the artifacts, and then, after all that, I Phased everyone over to the secret base. In retrospect, it was no wonder I felt weaker than homeopathic whiskey.
Anyhow, I already felt marginally better after sitting down for just a moment, so I carefully stood back up and stretched my back under the scrutinizing gazes of my girlfriends. The others, on the other hand, were paying very little attention to me, as they were considerably more interested in the reception room.
"I like what you did to the place," Josh stated with a profound voice as he looked over one of the freshly painted ocher walls and the simple wooden furniture. "Very... Errr... Minimalist?"
"Yes, yeeeees," Angie agreed while she pretended to twirl a nonexistent mustache, and then she continued in some kind of fake and altogether undecipherable accent, "It certuunly possesss a certuun untaangibl sharm. A stroong presanse of industrial steil, with juuust a daaazs ov mid-censurii modaarn detektaabl in ze kompoziisuun. Trulii marveluuus."
"Um... Yes. What she said," Snowy said between repeated nods, though based on her expression, she had no idea about what she was agreeing with. To be fair, she wasn't alone in that regard.
"Stop fooling around. We are here on serious business," Ammy scolded the trio right away, and their back and forth quickly faded into the background noise as I literally moved things along by walking over to the metal door leading to the main hall of the complex.
It had a wheel in the middle, kind of like a ship door on a submarine, and it was also freshly painted in a dark, almost brownish red that made it both fit the color palette of the room and at the same time stick out like a sore thumb. Putting my inner interior decorator's assessments aside for a moment, I grabbed hold of the wheel and, since the door wasn't actually locked, I could push it open without having to turn it.
It opened up without a sound (the Fauns were very particular about maintenance and lubrication, it seemed), and once the other side came into view, Josh immediately let out an impressed whistle.
"I like that room too, but I really like what you did with this place," he told me as he followed after me, and embarrassing as it was, I felt exactly the same way. I mean, I was the one who ferried over all of the raw materials and all the modular furniture with large 'Assembly Required' stickers over them during the past couple of days (or rather, nights, but that's beside the point), but even though it wasn't my first time seeing Brang and Co.'s handiwork, I was still amazed by how they managed to turn the very utilitarian interior of the main hall into something so different it was hard to imagine how bare it looked just a couple of days ago.
First and foremost, all of the old furniture was removed from the place and placed inside one of the side-rooms we designated as the storage area. The new and improved chamber was now divided into four areas by functionality, with the walls of each segment painted in a different pastel color. Oh, and speaking of paintings: the ceiling was painted sky blue with actual fluffy white clouds, and the cluster of lamps in the middle serving as the sun. I had no idea why though. Maybe one of the Fauns had an artistic side that suddenly came to the forefront or something?
Anyhow, on my left was the training area, which was roughly half the size of a standard basketball court. The actual sparring arena in the middle was considerably smaller, and it was surrounded by simple, three-step bleachers made of aluminium tube understructures and brightly painted wooden benches.
Further back, past the open end of the arena, there was a meeting area where tactics, strategies, or recent plot-twists in TV serials could be discussed, and it had several rows of seats along with a patently huge, dry-erase whiteboard. The latter sat on a metal scaffold, and it was about a head taller than I was, and at least twice as wide. Let's just say that Phasing that thing over was an absolute pain in the neck, but I managed to do it anyway.
The third area was a workshop and armory rolled into one, where the Faun kept and maintained their weaponry and armors, as well as their more mundane tools. It had all the wrenches, hammers, saws, and power tools you would see in any self-respecting handyman's garage, and I could even save a few pennies on this part by simply bringing over the unused tools from my own.
Last, but not least, there was the smallest of the four segments, right next to the door through which we just arrived. It was a cozy little recreational area, complete with a bar counter, those small round stools that looked hilarious when a Faun tried to balance on them, an honest-to-goodness air hockey table, and even two vintage massage chairs. The last two were impulse-purchases, as they were on a sale in a bundle, and while the massage chairs didn't prove successful (probably because Brang and his men could barely even sit on them), the hockey table was an instant hit and became part of their 'hand-eye coordination training'. They also kept score and held a mini-championship at the end of the day, ostensibly as a way to 'improve performance through competitive practices'. It obviously had nothing to do with enjoying themselves, and I most certainly didn't participate in the past.
"Woooow! This looks amazing!" Angie expressed her admiration with the kind of childish glee I expected from her, and she immediately honed in on the recreational area with the precision of a bloodhound. "Oh my gosh! You've got a hockey table! That's so cool!"
"Look! They even have a mini-bar!" Josh added to the commotion. "Our old tree-house has nothing on this secret base…"
"We had our comic collection though," the Celestial girl argued back.
"True, that does level the playing field a little," my friend mused as he browsed through the contents of the tiny fridge.
"How much did this all cost you?" Ammy leveled the question at me, and unexpectedly enough, even she sounded mildly impressed.
"More than I originally set aside for it, but less than you would expect," I told her with a mysterious smirk, but before she could react, our conversation was interrupted by Josh exclaiming from literally inside the mini-bar.
"Holy hell, you seriously have Crystal Pepsi in this!?"
"Brang likes it," I absent-mindedly answered his question, even though it was most likely rhetorical, and just then I noticed a large shape coming our way from the direction of the armory area. "Speak of the devil..."
"Welcome, tiny heir," Brang greeted Snowy in his usual gravely, yet at the same time affectionate voice the moment we were in earshot. He looked the same as usual except for two slightly anachronistic details: he was wearing a thick leather apron, the kind you would see on a medieval blacksmith, and on his head, there was a pair of XXL sized transparent protective glasses that looked absolutely hilarious on him. He also saluted to her by placing his fist on his broad chest, and then he turned to the rest of us and did the same. "Welcome, regent. Companions."
"Regent?" Ammy raised a curious brow at my expense, so I gave her a shrug in return.
"It's a long story and not exactly relevant right now," I unsubtly dismissed her and turned my attention to the Faun general instead. "[I hope my greetings find you in good health, general. Mine eyes tell me you and your men did not shy away from labor in the days since I last visited your temporary abode.]"
"[Aye, thine eyes play no tricks on you Black-cloak, albeit thine countenance appears worrisome enough to make this old man's heart fear you might see double.]"
"[Your observation is accurate, as my current disposition is akin to the backside of an ornery horse.]"
"[I wish you a recovery as swift as the unseen knife in the dark.]"
I sent the friendly Faun a skeptical look, but he seemed perfectly serious, so a brief sigh later I replied, "[I shall accept your unusual wishes of positive regard. On more pressing notes, where could your men be at the moment? Were their ears preoccupied when I informed them on the date of our arrival?]"
"[Nay. They just recently completed the facsimile of the firmament above in a haste most unusual, and are thus currently in the process of ridding themselves of paint.]"
"[That's… understandable. Please instruct them to come and join us as soon as possible, for I wish to start discussing matters of the utmost seriousness.]"
"[Aye,]" he grunted with a nod and then turned on his heel and headed in the direction of the barracks… which was just one of the side-chambers refurbished and filled with beds.
"I just can't get used to him," Judy grumbled behind me, and when I glanced over my shoulder, she also added, "And I don't like it when you growl at each other either."
My dear assistant wordlessly pointed ahead, and when I followed her finger, I found Elly and Angie right next to the air hockey table.
"Oooh? You wish to challenge me?" Elly asked in that high-pitched, faux-haughty, and just a tiny bit cute voice she occasionally used when she was feeling threatened.
"Yeah!" Angie declared while grabbing hold of one of the strikers. "We still have to settle our score from the other day!"
"Very well! I will show you that you cannot defeat me, no matter the game!"
After proclaiming so, she pointed a challenging finger at the similarly psyched up Celestial girl, a look which was further emphasized by a charming little overconfident smirk, but then her eyes met mine as Judy and I walked closer, and said finger quickly turned into an outstretched palm.
"I accept your challenge… but first I have to talk with Leo!" She didn't even wait for Angie to react, instead she immediately scampered over to our side and whispered, "Leo, quick! Tell me how you are supposed to play this game!"
"You don't know how to play air hockey?" my other girlfriend enquired quite incredulously, and after a brief moment of hesitation, the princess shook her head so hard I was afraid she would lose her balance.
"I never played this game before," she admitted. "But I can't back down now!"
"Why did she even challenge you in the first place? What is this score you have to settle?" I asked in a low voice, though I had a feeling that Angie could probably hear our every word. I mean, we were only a couple of meters away from her, but it didn't stop the princess from whispering her answer, like it was a top secret.
"The other day we had a long game during practice, and she thinks she was winning even though I had her on the ropes for the last set, but then it started to rain, so we had to wrap things up."
It took me a few seconds to wrap my head around what she was talking about, but then the proverbial light bulb finally lit up over my head.
"You are talking about tennis, aren't you?"
"Yes, of course," Elly stated as if it was completely self-evident, and it reminded me of the fact that the two of them were rising tennis stars or something.
I never really paid much attention to the princess' sports carrier, but now that she jogged my memory, I couldn't help but ask, "I've heard you were playing professionally. Something about tournaments and the mainland or something…" I vaguely muttered, hoping that she would bite and fill in the blanks, and my dear draconic girlfriend did just that.
"Ah, that's right. I used to do that when I was in elementary school. Not anymore."
"Why not?" came the unexpected question from Angie, who sneaked up on us while we were talking, and she made the princess jump in surprise.
"I'm curious too," was the next question, which came from the mouth of Ammy. She somehow managed to sneak up on us even harder, to the point even I barely noticed her before she spoke up, and Elly straight up yelped in surprise. Maybe the class rep really was a ninja after all? Like, a super-secret experimental magi-ninja hybrid? It's sad to admit it, but at this point it wouldn't even surprise me if that was true…
Anyhow, once my draconic girlfriend calmed down a little (and stopped holding onto me like a slightly less fluffy koala bear), she sighed aloud and explained, "Mom used to be a professional tennis player before I was born, but then her injury made it impossible for her to do it anymore, so I tried my best to learn how to play well to make her happy." At this point she let out another, even deeper sigh, then added, "Unfortunately it turned out I was only mediocre."
"You call that mediocre?" I asked in surprise, as I could distinctly remember that I was pretty damn impressed by her when I last saw her have a match with Angie. It also made me wonder how playing tennis in tournaments was okay, yet becoming a singer was dangerous, but I had to put the question aside for the moment due to Angie honestly to goodness stomping her feet by our side.
"But I am…" Elly's response was not only a little sheepish, but she was fidgeting so adorably I wanted to give her a big hug. Of course I realized it was inappropriate to do so at the moment, and since I was a very mature and rational person, I naturally decided to do it a little later. Anyhow, while I battled my inner demons (read: hormones), she continued to explain herself with, "I only got the silver medal in the European Youth League Championship, and I barely managed to make it to the top five in the internationals."
I was a little skeptical about my girlfriend's words, but no matter how I looked at her, it didn't feel like she was humble-bragging, so in the end I straightforwardly told her, "Listen, Elly. I don't want to start an argument, but I feel like I'm obligated to point out that if you call that 'mediocre', then it would mean that ninety-nine percent of all tennis players would be below average."
"That's statistically impossible," Judy remarked on the side, earning her a slightly frustrated nod in the process.
"Yes, that was my point. Getting second place in a championship is about as far from mediocre as it can get."
"I… don’t think you are wrong…" Elly finally agreed with me using a textbook double negative, but before the conversation could get any further, the arrival of Brang and his not particularly merry men put an end to that, with my friends staring at them in mild bewilderment. I have to admit, I wasn't entirely immune to it either.
"Leo?" Josh called out to me as he also walked over.
"Yes?"
"Why are they all blue?"
"Well, they are not 'entirely' blue," I objected to his choice of words, but he didn't seem to appreciate it, so after a short while I explained to him, "The Faun were the ones who painted the ceiling, and they didn't have the time to clean up."
"I was meaning to ask about that…" Ammy cut in while her eyes alternated between the Faun and the facsimile of the sky over us, and it didn't take long for her brows to furrow in perplexity. "Please wait just a moment. Wouldn't that mean they just finished painting all of this?" she said as she gestured upwards.
"Apparently," I agreed.
"So why is it that they are covered in blue paint, yet nothing in this place has even a drop of it on them?"
"That's… actually a very good question. Why don't you ask them about it?"
"Uh… No offense, but I would rather you do it."
"Maybe later," I responded a tad ambivalently as Brang and company finally arrived, and they all went through the whole greeting and saluting routine. Once we were done with that, our fairly sizable group moved over to the meeting area, so that we could finally discuss the reason why we gathered here in the first place.
I walked up to the whiteboard and waited until everyone took a seat, and only then did I clear my throat to open the gathering.
"Listen up, everyone! I now open our first grand tactical meeting," I paused for a moment and sent a piercing look at my only male friend. "And for the record, if any of you asks something silly, like 'What makes it grand?', I will personally stuff this black marker up his nose."
"I wasn't going to ask that!" Josh denied everything while vehemently shaking his head, which was, let us be honest, enough evidence of his culpability to make even the most lukewarm judge find him guilty on the spot.
Anyhow, once I got ahead of the heckling and established my position, I took a deep breath and declared, "We are here today to discuss the current situation, upcoming threats, and how to deal with them in an efficient, hassle-free manner. First and foremost," I began as I stepped closer and started to write on the board, "We have Labcoat Guy and his army of ineffectual yet annoying robots."
"Did you seriously just tell me that a legendary, magic-immune, dreaded monster of mass destruction is the same thing as an allegedly annoying huntress?" Ammy interrupted while adjusting her glasses, and her comment earned a few stray chuckles from the Faun on the left.
I gave her a look flatter than an unscrewed bottle of coke left out in the open overnight and responded with, "You try spending a few hours with Mountain Girl every evening, and we'll see whether or not you would agree with me."
"A moment, please," Judy suddenly interrupted with her hand raised. "Did you give her a nick-name?"
"Yes. I kind of had to because she refused to let me use her real name," I clarified, yet it only made my assistant's expression more grave as she turned to Elly by her side.
"Did you hear that? We must employ more anti-harem counter-measures before it's too late."
"Oh, ha, ha, ha," I cut in before she could respond. "Just because I call her by a nickname, it doesn't mean I'm the least bit interested in her. What's next? Are you going to claim that I'm interested in Armband Guy?"
"Are you?"
"… Dormouse. Don't make me go over there and tickle you."
There was a long moment of silence following my threat, and since Judy didn't react, I considered the tangent finished… but then Josh raised his hand.
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"Yes? What is it?""I just want to know why is that I get threatened by physical violence before I even say anything, but she only gets a mildly flirty warning?"
I directed an ever so slightly incredulous look at my friend, and I eventually told him, "It's just simple, run of the mill nepotism. Wasn't it abundantly clear?"
"And why are you so smug about it!?"
"Because I can afford it," I replied before gesturing with my hand to cut the tangent short, this time for good. "So, back to the issues at hand, the third of which is the coming of the Knights."
I wrote the word 'Knights' onto the whiteboard as well, then I turned to the group and continued by saying, "A quick recap, so that we are all on the same page: Labcoat Guy is working for the Arch-mage, and he is under orders not to cause too much distress. The Chimera is currently in hiding and sending out these tiny versions of itself to gather food, which I'm reluctantly hunting at the moment. The Knights are coming to the island to cause trouble to Elly's family, and I am related to them. Now, let's discuss how to deal with the first two before the third comes in to muddy up the waters." Our, at the moment not so little, group exchanged timid glances between each other, so a quick sigh later I decided to forcibly move things along. "How about this? Let's start with the one that is the least dangerous, though not necessarily he least annoying at the moment."
After saying so, I turned to Brang and asked him, "Did you find out anything about the whereabouts of the Chimera?"
The old Faun raised a finger to say something, but then he shook his head and stood up instead. He walked over to my side with his usual lopsided gait and he said, "[May this old man borrow the tool of drawing in thy possession?]"
"Sure," I answered and handed him over the black marker. It looked comically small in his hands, yet that impression only lasted for a second before he stepped up to the whiteboard and began to draw a series of lines so straight I probably couldn't even make them with the help of a ruler in hand. After the first couple of lines, he began to add other shapes, and in a matter of minutes, I was startled by the recognition of the city's rough map from a bird's eye view. I said 'rough' because it lacked any street names or other indicators, but as far as I could judge by eye, it was about as accurate as the large tourist map I had seen in the park a couple of times. I couldn't even imagine how someone could make a map like that from memory, but considering who we were talking about here, I had to conclude that the 'Scout' part in Brang's old title wasn't just for show.
Once he was done with the drawing, he drew three impeccably perfect circles onto it. "Nests. Target moves." He paused for a moment while he put the cap onto the permanent marker and he used it to point at the circle in the upper left corner. "Here." After saying that, he pointed at the next circle and said, "Then here," and after moving to the third one he repeated, "Then here. In circle. Pattern is predictable, timing is not."
"Here. Surrounded by tiny sentries. Numerous escape routes. Confronting in nest… difficult. Would lose element of surprise. Would find new nest to hide. Frustrating."
"I see," I muttered as I considered his words. If I could believe them (and why wouldn't I?), it meant that the Chimera was routinely moving around in the city, which either meant that the daily hunts on the tiny Chimeras to draw it out was pointless, or that it already worked and it realized it was being hunted, so it decided to keep moving. Either way, the result was the same, so I proposed, "If assaulting its lair is risky, I guess our best bet is to ambush it while it is moving from one hidey-hole to the next."
The old Faun flashed me a toothy smile and gave me a nod so deep it was almost a small bow.
"My plans, exactly."
I disregarded his deferential tone and instead I focused on the map again. I drew mental lines between the three circles and tried to match the actual lines they crossed with the streets from my memory, but I quickly had to give up on the endeavor. It was something I probably couldn't have done well even when I was in top-shape, and so it was doubly impossible at the moment. As such, I decided to depend on the person with the most experience in the room and asked, "In your opinion, what are the best spots for ambushing it."
The moment I said that, as if waiting for those words, Brang removed the cap from the marker in his hand and drew four small squares that roughly sat on the imaginary lines I drew between the circles before.
Once he was done with that, he pointed at them one at a time and explained, "Should move in one or two days. Site has cover. A lot. Area is populated, Zone necessary. Second site. Moves in about three days. Moves on rooftops. Little cover, no worry for collateral damage. Third site. Moves in five or six days. Part of woods in city. Park? Part of park. Lots of cover, Zone is easy to make. Fourth site, same day as third site. Narrow alley. Easy to corner, no cover."
I let out a small 'Hm.' in place of a more nuanced opinion as I considered the options he presented. The first area was in the middle of a residential district, so it was right out of the question, Purple Zone or not. The second option was better, but fighting a Chimera on a rooftop brought back some nasty memories, and I decided it was better not to tempt fate. I mean, I could totally imagine the whole 'falling off the roof' bit happening again just to provide an ironic echo or something.
That left only two options on the table, and after some consideration, I told Brang, "Let's go with the ambush in the park. You said it would move through there in five or six days, right?"
"Estimate. Target is not predictable."
"That's a bit of an issue," I muttered as I rubbed my chin, but I ultimately decided to risk it. "It's a little too close to the arrival of the Knights for my comfort, but we should manage. I will tell the huntress about it and hopefully I can delegate dealing with it to her. Please keep a lookout on the Chimera and inform me if its behavior changes."
"Will do," Brang responded with a smaller version of his usual salute. I acknowledged it with a nod and then turned to the rest of the group.
"Okay, that's about it for the Chimera for now. Does anyone have anything they would like to ask or add to the conversation?" I asked to be polite and, unsurprisingly, no one reacted. It was to be expected. I mean, it was my 'sub-plot', so to say. In fact, if I had to rank our current problems based on narrative terms, it would be that one side-plot that got resolved off-screen because it didn't directly affect any of the main characters. Now, as for the main plot, it was obviously going to be the main topic of our conversation, but before that, I had to discuss one more side-plot first.
"Speaking of the Knights, how are the preparations going on your end?" I leveled the question to my draconic girlfriend, and for some reason it took her a few seconds to answer.
"Oh, you mean us? Yes, dad and Sebastian are already working on an ambush." After she said that, Elly abruptly snapped her fingers and added, "That reminds me; Dad told me to tell you to come over to our mansion later so that he can discuss something with you."
"Again? At this rate, I'm visiting your place every single day."
"You can always move in, and then you won't have to do that ever again," my girlfriend offered in a manner that would have sounded quite self-assured and flirty if not for the fact that her ears were red as a lobster.
"Thanks for the offer, but I decline. Anyhow, I will talk with him after I escort you back home today. But back to the Knights: as of now we don't know much about them, so I want all of you to be on the lookout for any new faces."
I paused as I noticed that Josh had his hand raised over his head as if we were in the classroom, and I motioned for him to speak up.
"Unexpected mid-term transfer students, substitute teachers, people with unusually nice hair or fancy clothes, these kinds of things."
"What does hair have to do with the Knights?" came the next question from Ammy, and I was tempted to answer with a suitably dramatic 'Everything!', but in the end I decided on a more conservative approach.
"Just trust me and keep an eye out for new people."
"Does Mike count?" the class rep spoke up again, and her question drew everyone's attention at once.
"Who's Mike?" Josh inquired with an unusually apprehensive expression.
"He is an acquaintance of mine," I answered in Amelia's stead. "And before you ask, no, he is not a Knight."
"Well, of course he's not," Angie declared on the side, and so all the eyes previously glued to Amelia turned to her in an instant, so she hastily added, "I mean, he's like my dad's second cousin's stepson, you know?"
"Wait…" the class rep raised her voice with just a tinge of alarm. "If he's related to you, does that make him…?"
"Yes, he is also a Celestial," I clarified, earning me a glare from the local Celestial asset.
"Leo! That was supposed to be a secret!" Angie whined, but frankly speaking, I couldn't care less about her objection.
"Then maybe you shouldn't have let the cat out of the bag first. Also, could we please try and stay on topic for just five damn minutes? Pretty please?" Everyone fell conspicuously silent, which I interpreted as agreement. "Okay, so just to reiterate: if you see anyone with a very distinct appearance, inform me right away. As for what we are going to do about the actual attack, it will depend on Elly's family."
It was at this point that I took a huge breath and decided to stop skirting around the meat of today's meeting, so I pointed at the very first word I wrote onto the board and said, "Last, but not least, we have to discuss what to do with Labcoat Guy in general and Ammy's grandfather in particular. At this point it is a well-established fact that they are working together as part of some sort of overarching and as of yet not exactly sensible master plan. We decided to put an end to their interference before the Knights arrive. However, before we discuss that any further, I have one quick request to make. Class rep?" Even though I just addressed her, she didn't seem to hear me, so I raised my voice and tried again. "Amelia?"
"Hm?" She flinched as if she just woke from a daze, and he immediately looked me in the eye. "Ah, yes? Can I help?"
"Yes, you can," I answered firmly. "I want you to arrange a meeting between me and your grandfather, as soon as humanly possible."
"I… think I can manage that," she replied a little uncertainly, and I could practically see the unspoken 'Why?' in her eyes. I didn't let it manifest though, as I immediately moved on.
"Good, please do so. Now then, here's the main thing we have to discuss: how do you plan to take care of Labcoat Guy and his flunkies?" I could see the budding confusion in some eyes in my audience, so I quickly told them, "I have already discussed this with Josh, but to be frank, I'm going to have my hands full with the Chimera and preparing for the Knights, and I am going to need Brang and his men to be on standby for that. This means it falls on your shoulders to deal with our serial ambusher on your own."
"Does that include me too?" Judy asked with a raised hand, and I immediately shook my head.
"Nope. You are a non-combatant, so you are obviously excluded. That said, this reminds me of something." I swept my eyes over the group and addressed them as one. "After this meeting is over, please hand you’re your Magiformers for the rest of the day. I recently got access to some communication artifacts, and I plan to integrate some of their functions into the uniforms so that you could communicate with the outside even while in a Purple Zone. Also, I am planning to make Judy into our mission control."
"Chief, stop," my dear assistant spoke up in a comparatively dire tone. "You already look terrible. If you are going mess with enchantments again and get sick, your school attendance record is going to get completely ruined."
"The enchantment or the attendance record?" Josh asked a little absent-mindedly, and I answered in the only appropriate way.
"Yes."
My friend immediately rolled his eyes, but I naturally ignored him and continued the previous discussion unabated.
"So, back on topic: I can provide you with the location of their base, and I can provide info on their movements, but as far as actually going in and bashing heads together, I'm afraid I can't help with that."
For the record, what I just said wasn't entirely true. The truth of the matter is that I could, if I really wanted to, put an end to Labcoat Guy's shenanigans in many different ways. Just to give an example, if I considered him a serious threat to the life of my friends, I had all the tools necessary to assassinate him by, say, making an IED using plans from the Celestial Hub, and then Phasing into his bedroom while he slept and putting it under his bed.
It would be a quick and permanent solution, but I had two good reasons why I wanted to avoid such a development at all cost: on one hand, I was afraid that resorting to lethal force would somehow drag everything into a darker, grittier direction, which was a possibility I simply couldn't rule out without first understanding what made the world react to my actions. This was something I have been considering ever since I accidentally poisoned Crowey, and I decided it was better to be a little soft-hearted now than to be sorry later when it turns out I accidentally changed the world where, in the grim darkness of the near, future there is only war and merchandising. I mean, reading about a setting like that might have been a guilty pleasure of mine, but I sure as hell didn't want to live in it.
Let's put grimdark space war-games aside for a moment though and return to my other reason why I didn't want to blow Labcoat Guy into smithereens: I simply found the idea of ending someone's life, unless in clear self-defense, an ethically indefensible action, and so I wished to avoid it if at all possible. Not to mention, I also had to wrestle with the notion that the 'bad guys' I would be facing in the future would be, in practical terms, pre-programmed actors designed to serve an antagonistic role, and as Brang's example illustrated, once decoupled from their original role, they could turn out to be perfectly friendly and reasonable people. In short, I found even hurting our antagonists more than necessary to be morally dubious. Except when it came to Crowey, of course, because screw that guy.
However, my aversion to dirtying my hands aside, I had another, narrative-theory driven reason why I figured I could leave this to Josh and company while I focused my attention elsewhere: Josh was the 'protagonist' of this world. Whether there was something like an AI director that threw plot at him (and by proximity, us), there was a pre-planned story we were unwittingly playing out, the fact that Josh was in the middle of it all remained a constant. In our previous discussions on the subject, Judy and I have long since concluded that the attacks by Labcoat Guy and his supposedly hidden connection to Lord Grandpa were the 'A-plot' of the current 'arc' of Josh's story.
Why was that important? Simply put, just like how the Chimera seemed to be my side-plot designed to keep me busy, either by the ever-elusive narrative or the not-so-elusive Lord Grandpa, the main plot of the 'arc' was necessarily something that the 'main characters' were supposed to resolve. I also wasn't particularly worried about them, not only because I knew how strong they individually were first-hand, but because as 'main characters', being the resident battle harem protagonist and his love-interests, I was fairly certain they enjoyed at least some measure of 'plot armor'. This was just a theory made on strong inference, but considering that the entire gang managed to weather a battle against one of the Lords of the Abyss with only minor scratches, I had a feeling I was onto something.
Speaking of injuries though, while they managed to get through multiple battles without shedding a drop of blood, in the same timespan I had been injured and fallen ill so many times I almost understood why Judy became such a worrywart. That told me that I was either really unlucky, or that I simply didn’t have the same plot armor as them. On the same note, I felt it was safe to guess that side-characters possessed no such plot armor either, so I felt it I was entirely justified in focusing my attention on Elly's family, as they were the ones in actual tangible danger without any narrative safety lines.
But let's put my ponderings about the nature and possibility of plot-armor aside for now, and focus on the discussion. Or rather, the lack thereof.
"Come on guys, don't look at me like that!" I exclaimed as I swept my eyes over the hesitant bunch in front of me. "You can handle this much on your own, can't you?"
"Maybe, but I would feel safer if you were around," Snowy told said in a low voice, and she was immediately supported by Angie.
"Yeah! You are the leader! The idea-man! The boss! How can you expect us to just do things without you!"
"Hold on for just a moment!" I stopped her with a raised palm. "Who made me the leader?"
"You just kind of… are?" Angie told me, this time a little less eagerly. "I mean, you are the guy with a secret base and an army of scary Faun and you are also the only one of us who seems to know what's going on at all times… so… yeah…"
I awarded her sincere words with a frown that almost made my forehead hurt and responded by telling her, "Well, sorry to disappoint you, but I am definitely not leader material, and thus I won't do any leadering."
"You are making linguists cry. Shame on you," Judy cut in with an absent-minded voice, probably by reflex.
"Doesn't matter. The important thing is that if you want to get rid of the silly robot ambushes, you have to come up with a plan on your own, and that's my final word on the matter."
"No, I am literally not able to be in two places at once, so I simply want you to do this one thing on your own. If you absolutely need someone to lead you, you have Josh right over there."
"Ah, so he is your deputy then," she stated with a profound nod, and by this point I decided to give up.
"Fine, call it whatever you want. Anyways, Josh, do you have anything to say?"
My hapless friend looked equal parts startled and indignant by the unwanted attention, but he quickly collected himself and told us, "Actually, I had this idea. I don't know if it will work, but…"
"Just say it and we'll see," I encouraged him a little, if only so that Angie would focus on him instead of me.
"Well, you see, Doctor Robatto is working with Ammy's grandfather, right?" I nodded and urged him to continue with my patented eyebrow-wriggling. "So, if I remember right, they kept in contact by using Pascal as a messenger, but Pascal and Robatto didn't seem to like each other at all. I mean, Ammy told me there was something about broken arms or something…"
"That's correct," I confirmed, which seemed to have made Josh slightly more confident.
"So, I was thinking: If they don't like each other, couldn't we play them against each other? For example, we could set things up so that Pascal would have to come to our 'rescue' in some form, and then we could have them tire each other out."
"So you want to use Pascal to capture Robatto," Ammy mused as she absent-mindedly adjusted her glasses.
"Yes. Since they are already on bad terms, we could indirectly provoke them so that they would focus on each other, and then once they are out of breath, we could capture Robatto, and Pascal wouldn't be able to let him get away like the last time," Josh added.
"And then we could take them both to Lord Endymonion, and then we could force him to confess and explain himself" came the next addendum from the princess. "I could even ask Sebastian to come with us. He cannot fight Robatto for us without breaking the truce with Endymonion, but if Sebastian was with us when we present the two, Ammy's grandpa couldn't dismiss us that easily."
"That… could actually work," Ammy granted it to Josh, and I used the opportunity to get everyone's attention by clapping my hands once.
"That's a decent first plan, and suitably devious to boot. Now you just have to work out the details and try to put it into practice. See, it's not that hard."
"You are right," Angie agreed with a huge nod. "To think that your leadership skills would rub off on Josh so well, you are a great mentor after all!"
"… You know, you are lucky you are too far and I can't be arsed to walk over to you just to flick your forehead." The Celestial girl let out a giggle in response to my grievous threat, and so I exhaled in a long groan and told them, "It seems like this discussion is going nowhere fast at this rate. How about we call it a day for now and I let you guys make your plans in your own time?"
"Sounds great," Angie exclaimed and she elbowed Josh in the side before she sprang to her feet, "The last one to the hockey table is the spoiled egg!"
"What does that even mean?" My friend grumbled, but got up and followed after her all the same, and before I knew it, the others began to leave as well. Ammy seemed to be unusually interested in the facilities of the secret base, Snowy took two of the fauns with her and began preparing refreshments from the mini-bar, while Judy and Elly quickly walked over to my side and dragged me to sit down with them, claiming that I looked unsteady.
All in all, I couldn't help but sigh in exasperation. They claimed I was the leader of the group, yet at times like this, I felt more like a shepherd trying to herd cats…
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