The Simulacrum

The cleanup operation following the cessation of hostilities was quick, efficient, and silly. Because no matter what, being apprehended by sentai minions and big robots that looked like they were made of cardboard boxes was hard to take seriously.

While that was going on within the Purple Zone, the Praetorian Guards and Squires stationed around the neighbourhood were also busy, and after just about half an hour, Jaakobah entered the violet version of the thoroughly destroyed square. He scanned the perimeter and quickly found the loudest spot.

"Like, this is totally lame! You didn't let me, like, punch her even once! Forget me out the door, why don't you?!"

"Please, do not make a scene. Everyone is fatigued after the battle."

Funnily enough, Pascal looked the most tired out of everyone present, probably because he had to constantly provide cover for Sahi while she went on an indiscriminate punching spree. For further emphasis, he placed a hand on her head, which caused the fuming ex-arch-mage to twitch and look up to face him.

"Like, don't patronize me, Paz!"

"… All right." Updates are released by novel·fıre·net

He was just about to remove his hand, but then she hurriedly caught him by the wrist.

"Like, I don't remember telling you to stop."

Talk about mixed messages. Anyhow, while Armband Guy continued to placate the brown girl, Jaakobah reached the group on the edge of the ravaged square. The whole gang was there, including Judy. Some, like the Magi duo, were standing on the side, while most of the rest were seated in a circle on whatever intact chairs they could scavenge from the nearby restaurants, cafés, and other shops.

The dour Celestial agent headed towards Angie right away. She was sitting shoulder to shoulder with Josh and resting her head against him, eyes closed. They popped right open when Jaakobah stopped in front of her and gave a salute.

"Praetorian Prefect, Jaakobah Arpachshad, here to give my report, Your Grace."

Angie blinked in surprise, seemingly unable to focus, but then her eyes shifted to bright amber, and she straightened her back in the wobbly dining chair.

"The Girl is exhausted by today's ordeal. Give your report, Prefect, and let us rest."

"As you command." Jaakobah put his hands behind his back and stood with legs apart, head held high. "We managed to apprehend all seven of the escapees in cooperation with the Ordo Draconis personnel. The four Magi fugitives were handed over to the local authorities, while the Celestial traitors will be taken to Elysium, along with the rest of their co-conspirators for interrogation."

Deus nodded along and her eyes scanned the empty square. Just as he said, once Fred, Galatea, and their Sprockets showed up, the rest of the battle was wrapped up in no time. All the Magi, both the regular guys and the muscled variety, were apprehended and dragged through the same portal they used to enter the Purple Zone. It was one of the semi-permanent portals from the base's Portalport, and I imagined they used some kind of mad science trick to temporarily reroute its exit to this place for the sake of rapid deployment.

Some of the captives were seriously injured, but amazingly enough, nobody died. At least not yet; some of the non-muscle-Magi and a few Celestials had half their bones broken by golems or a building falling on them, but their wards and Barriers (not to mention, magical medical attention) kept everyone breathing. I was a bit afraid that letting the cat out of the bag with the death of Tracas, but apparently that rubber-band analogy future-me used was still loose after that and didn't demand further casualties in the name of raising the stakes. At least not yet.

Marzanna flew a bit too close to the sun though; if what I overheard was to be believed, the only reason she didn't keel over from the backlash on the spot was because Angie kept casting healing magic on her even after she lost consciousness. If not for that, she would be pushing up daisies by now, but to be honest, I wasn't all that sympathetic towards her, considering she brought it all upon herself. Also, I was still a little mad about that head-bonking thing.

Speaking of which, I shifted my perspective and looked at the rest recuperating on the chairs. Clockwise, we had my sisters, then my girlfriends, and finally Mike and Ammy. Sahi and Pascal were standing on the side, while Zihao was sitting in a lotus position on the ground, or rather, on some cushion he'd found somewhere in the rubble. He must've been circulating his chi or some other esoteric stuff. Adding in the Magi duo and Jaakobah, it meant there were twelve people in total… which was also more or less the entire population of the Purple Zone at this point.

With all the injured already captured and/or evacuated, only a mixed group of stragglers remained in the square. By the looks of it, they were busy documenting the signs of the battle, probably so that it could be presented in a case against the perpetrators. They kept their distance from the gang though, so the place was as good as empty.

It got a bit emptier when Jaakobah asked, "When are you returning?"

"We rest for a while longer. You may attend to your duties."

Hearing Deus's dismissal, the man's face remained inscrutable, and he touched his chest in another salute before turning on his heel and leaving the way he came. It was only when he was out of earshot that Deus set her head against Josh's shoulder again and closed her eyes. More importantly, the guy looked a tad impatient, and he was insistently staring at Judy. He wasn't the only one though, as did Elly, my sisters, and even the class rep.

"He's late," Ammy noted with a tinge of sourness in her voice, and Michael grabbed her hand.

"Patience, Sunshine. Didn't Judy say that he needed some time to prepare?"

"It's been twenty minutes," she pointed out in turn, and her tone made me just a bit snappy, so I grabbed hold of Cal, and…

"{Ten minutes, young knight. Not a minute longer.}"

"Yes, yes. We already agreed on that."

My grumbling didn't exactly please my sword, but once I started channelling mana and doing the circulation, Cal automatically joined in to ease the process, and after a few seconds, I opened the communications channel again.

"Dormouse, please tell the class rep to either invent her own less-straining inter-dimensional communications method, or zip it."

A few seconds later, my dear assistant perked up and she said, "The Chief is here, and he says he's sorry for the inconvenience."

I rolled my eyes, but we were on a timer, so I didn't stop to squabble with my girlfriend.

"Cal is mother-henning me, so I can only talk for a couple of minutes more before I have to cut the transmission for today."

"He says the connection is unstable and we can only talk for a short while."

Once again, that wasn't exactly the case, but I didn't have the time to correct her.

After the battle ended, I had already given Judy a quick rundown of the situation, starting from how future-me grounded and ending with my meeting with the Matron and my jury-rigged solution for the transmitter. I would've talked to her more, but I had to take a break, because there was an unforeseen side-effect I ran into: maintaining the micro-tunnel and sending messages across it was taxing, both mentally and metaphysically.

Cal realised that before I did. I was accumulating internal damage, and so he forcefully cut my mana-circulation (and my broadcast) lest I would give myself full-body mana burns. Or rather, more of them, but that's beside the point.

"Me first! My turn!" Elly demanded with her hands balled into fists in front of her chest, her eyes practically sparkling with excitement. It was hard to believe that this cutie was breathing giant wave motion cannon beams just a couple of minutes ago, but such was this world.

Meanwhile, Judy let out a shallow breath and took off her funky glasses. My princess snatched them out of her hands at once and put them on.

"Leo? Can you hear me?"

"I can hear you fine, no need to shout. Also, there's a bit of a lag in the communications, so don't be too alarmed about any late answers."

She kept blinking for a few seconds, but when my voice finally reached her, her face lit up with an enormous smile.

"I missed youuu!"

"So did I, princess. Sorry for being late like this."

The relieved chuckles escaping her lips were music to my ears, but they only lasted for a short while before she suddenly asked, "Right, we don't have much time! Quick, tell me: did you see when I gave Judy a massage last time?"

"… Is this seriously the first thing you're going to ask him?" Josh asked with a not very subtle undertone of disapproval, but my draconic girlfriend didn't relent.

"This is important, okay?"

Shaking my head, I told her, "Back in the mansion, right? Yes, I saw you."

"Ha! I was right!" she beamed and reached out towards Judy. "Ten Jens, please."

Oh. So it was another one of their bets, huh? The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Meanwhile, the class rep lost her patience and pulled the glasses off Elly's nose, much to her outrage.

"Hey! What gives?"

"Judy said we have a limited time. You can flirt later; some of us have more important things to discuss with Leo." Saying so, he took off her own glasses and put on the artifact. A long, silent beat followed, then she suddenly blurted out. "Did you see my fireball?"

"… Yes, class rep, I saw both of them."

"It was amazing, right? Listen, Grimmy is telling me that I have to branch out and learn all the spells, but there's nothing wrong with first focusing on something I'm interested in, right? Like a specialization? Can I tell her you agree with me? Then maybe she'll stop pestering me, and…"

I'm not going to lie, considering the class rep's usual modus operandi, I was prepared for a scolding, so her sudden motor-mouth took me aback for a second or five. She was probably still riding on the adrenaline high of the battle, I surmised, and forcefully cleared my throat to interrupt her.

"Yes, yes, it was very impressive, and yes, you can do whatever you want as the grimoire, and so on. Can you pass on the glasses? I don't have much time left."

"Ah, right…"

She took off the artifact and offered it to Mike, but he politely refused and allowed my knightly sister to grab hold of it instead. Then…

"Brother! Are you all right? Are you eating well? Did you really get captured on purpose? You shouldn't have scared us like that! Did you at least get in a good hit on that Bel bastard? When are you coming back? And…"

Wow… I had the trippiest case of déjà vu just now.

"Slow down kiddo. To answer your questions, yes, yes, it's complicated, sorry, yes, and I can't yet."

Penny paused to pair up my answers with her questions, and then her expression clouded.

"W-Well, at least you punched Bel, right? That's something!"

"Kicked too, but again, it's a long story. I'll tell you the details once we aren't under time constraints."

"O-Okay, and… we also miss you…"

She only whispered the last bit before suddenly turning beet red and hurriedly handing the artifact over to Snowy. As soon as my Abyssal sister took it, Penny buried her face in her hands, making everyone else look at her funny. Meanwhile…

"Leo?"

"Hi, sis."

Snowy let out a relieved sigh as soon as she heard my voice.

"Are you all right?"

"More or less. I'm currently having a pretty bad headache from all this enchanting and other related malarkey, but I'll live."

"Um." She nodded, then glanced around before continuing in a low voice. "Uuu… Did you… Did you really meet Noir?"

"Oh, yeah. We ran into each other."

"You weren't hurt, right?"

"Nah. He couldn't hit the broad side of a barn. I almost cut off one of his wings, thought. Before I got hit in the back. Too bad those grow back. Wings, I mean, not backs."

My blabbering drew a smile out of her, and she quietly whispered, "I'm glad that you're okay."

"And I'm glad that you guys are okay, too. While we're at it, thanks for bringing me up to speed on the roof. It helped a lot."

"Oh, it was nothing much."

"Thanks anyways. Oh, and once Penny calms down a bit, tell her I miss you guys too."

This time her smile fully bloomed, and she nodded again with a soft, "Um." She then paused and grabbed the frame of the glasses. "Josh is getting impatient, so I'll pass it on now. Stay safe."

She took off the artifact and handed it over to the guy. It was a bit tricky, because Angie fell asleep at some point while still leaning against him, so he couldn't get up to receive it, but with Snowy's help, they managed to work it out.

As soon as the glasses were on his nose, he let out a pent-up breath and spoke up in a quiet but insistent voice.

"Dude."

"Yes?"

"Give it to me straight." He was glaring at the insides of the glasses, so… did he think I was looking at him through that? That was just silly, but more importantly, a pregnant pause later he levelled a question at me that directly cut to the heart of the situation. "Did you, or did you not get yourself captured on purpose just to get everyone riled up?"

I had some time to consider how to answer that question, as I had been thinking about it ever since he first floated the idea in front of the Draconic Council, so I responded right away.

"Let's just say that I wasn't planning on getting stuck here like this, but the results are still well within the margin of error, so everything's mostly fine."

"… So it's a yes," he concluded.

"It's not as clear-cut. Let's just say that it's not a straightforward 'no'."

Josh let out a groan and massaged the bridge of his nose.

"Goddamit, man! You can't keep doing this!" His sudden outburst roused Angie, but when he fell silent again, she nuzzled closer to him and went back to sleep once more. He waited for a few seconds, then continued in a quieter, "One day, this plans within plans bullshit's gonna be the end of you. I bet you're already having the time of your life playing your mind-games down in the Abyss and subverting the whole damn place, but we were seriously worried about you!" When I didn't respond, he shook his head and asked, "Do you need us to get you out of there?" in a frank tone that tolerated no nonsense.

"Honestly, the situation is a bit complicated, and—"

"Yes or no, Leo. Yes or no."

Wha? He cut me off! Even though there was still a five-second delay! How do you even do something like that?! Was this another weird protagonist-privilege, or what?

Anyhow, I exhaled hard and uttered a short, "Yes," at which point the guy looked like all the tension was drained from his shoulders.

"That's all I wanted to know. Sit tight." He took off the glasses before I could respond and looked everyone over. "The plan's still on track, guys. We're going in."

"Wicked!"

That came from Sahi, naturally, while the rest of the group was ever so slightly less enthused by the news. Meanwhile, the artifact made a full cycle, so Judy snatched it back from Josh and put it on.

"Chief? Anything else you want to say?"

I could feel my mana-circulation growing more strained by the second, so I answered with, "I'm running out of time, so… Sorry for worrying you, I miss you, and I love you."

She probably wanted to hear more than that, but for the moment, she let out a soft huff followed by a curt, "I'm still mad at you, but I love you too."

"Me too!" Elly chimed in from the side. "The love part, not the mad part!"

I wanted to say my goodbyes, but just as I was about to open my mouth, I was hit by a spike of white-hot pain in the back of my head that jolted me out of my Far Sight. I hastily turned off the transmitter enchantment, and after several long breaths, the pain finally subsided, and I rubbed the nape of my neck.

"{I told you that this would happen.}"

Cal's voice sounded a bit more echo-y than usual, and when I tried to get up, the whole world started spinning, so I quickly sat back down and took a couple of deep breaths.

That was a bit alarming, so I quietly asked, "How bad is it?"

"{Severe, young knight,}" they answered in an unnecessarily dramatic tone. "{If not for my intervention, you could've crippled yourself! I advise against using mana for the next three days, at the very least.}"

"I mean, I believe you, but it doesn't feel that bad…" I muttered as I rolled my shoulders.

Truth be told, I was still a bit queasy, but now that I stopped actively channelling mana, the headache got a bit tamer and my body, while a little sore, was in decent shape. Then I recalled that I still had my Leoformer turned on, and that the physical enhancements dampened my sense of pain, and I suddenly dreaded turning it off. Not that I had much of a choice in the matter.

It was a small price to pay for finally being able to contact the girls and the rest of the gang. Now I just had to sit back, wait for the rescue, and watch the runaway shenanigans that would inevitably follow. But before that…

"Let's go home and build some LAGO pirate ships."

It was still well before bedtime, and full-body pain or not, a promise was a promise.