The Simulacrum

So just to recap: Josh and company infiltrated the castle of House Ninhursag caught up in a coup d'état, got discovered, broke into their Mana Well chamber, straight up stole said Mana Well, then they got pursued by a Chimera, ran away with a whole gaggle of Abyssal nobles, and as of right now…

"Aaaah! It's too fast!"

"M-Motheeer!"

… those aristocrats were in the process of sliding down the winding ice slide Snowy created for them to escape the castle, all the while screaming from the top of their lungs.

I couldn't make this stuff up even if I tried. I also wondered if the previous incidents I planned around were just as nonsensical as this one, and I just never had the chance to realise it because I was too busy trying not to lose my mind under the pressure and the rapid developments. Was this that 'outside perspective' privilege I've often heard about?

Whatever the case might've been, the dignitaries and Ninhursag family members were steadily emptying out of the hallway while Josh and company were in quite the pickle.

"Get off me, you goddamn—!" Josh roared while hacking at the creature's sinewy arm trying to get behind his shield, its jaw snapping closer and closer to his face.

"Hey, catch!" Hareng exclaimed from behind, and the Chimera let out a pained whine as a life-size marble head hit it squarely on its snout.

"No!" the patriarch supporting them from behind roared and pointed at the guy. "That was my great-grandfather's bust!"

The beast didn't stagger for long, and it shifted its attention to the young Ninurta. I had to give it to him that throwing non-magical stuff at it to deal meaningful damage was good thinking; he only forgot to consider what to do after he drew the aggro of the monster.

The Chimera narrowed its multiple eyes and leapt, and while Josh tried to get its attention by smashing its flank with the rim of his shield, it only mildly imbalanced its gait as it let out a gut-rattling roar and lunged at Hareng, its jaws open wide.

"Look out! Duck!" Ammy yelled from the back, and he instinctively obeyed, throwing himself onto the floor and completely ignoring the rubble and glass shards on it.

A moment later, a piece of rock the size of a basketball flew past him and right into the open mouth of the creature. It reeled back in surprise, but when it bit down on the intruding projectile, it suddenly lit up with red-hot light from the inside and exploded, blanketing the hallway in crimson flames.

"Hey, careful!" Josh yelped, barely managing to duck under the wave of fire.

At the same time, Hareng rose to his feet and beamed at her with a chipper, "Thank you, my fair maiden! You saved my life!"

"And destroyed all the ceiling stuccos!" the Ninhursag man cried out in what sounded like genuine despair, but then, when the flames settled and the Chimera stuck its head through the billowing gray smoke, he immediately waved his hands and let loose a series of lightning bolts any evil space monarch would be proud of. "Back! Back, I tell you!"

Despite being fed enough voltage to power a small village, the creature completely ignored the electric sparks dancing across its singed fur and coughed like a cat with a furball trapped in its throat. Once it expelled the rock shards from its mouth, it unceremoniously whacked its own face to set its dislocated jaw back in place, followed by yet another furious roar.

"We're not doing any damage!" Josh yelled even as he was busy repositioning himself and raising his shield again.

The patriarch retorted with an irate, "Of course we aren't! It's a Chimera! What were you expecting!?"

"Focus!" Ammy cried out from the back, and she waved her staff to summon a couple of stone spikes from the floor and ceiling. "Leave killing Chimeras to Leo, and just focus on staying alive!"

"For how much longer?" Hareng cried out in alarm, seeing that the creature was tearing through the class rep's thorny barrier like it was made of Styrofoam. "We're on the back foot here!"

As if to answer his question, Snowy's voice rose over the commotion, sounding understandably strained.

"E-Everyone's down on the ground! Come, quick! I don't know how much longer I can maintain this!"

The four in the ruined hallway glanced at each other, then back at the Chimera, and then immediately beelined towards the hole Josh blasted into the wall. On the other side, Snowy was still busy performing her interpretive dance magic routine mid-air, doing her best to keep the U-shaped ice slide snaking between the castle's architecture and the town's rooftops intact as long as possible.

"W-Wait, is this safe?" Hareng blurted out as soon as he could take a closer look, and he hastily raised his palms. "Actually, I think I might've recovered enough to bring out my wings. Just give me a second to—"

"We don't have time for this!" Josh roared and deadass kicked the guy into the slide.

"Uaaaaaah!"

Seeing him slip down made the portly Ninhursag man consider his options for a moment, but realising that the Chimera was almost through the barricade, he threw his dignity to the wind and practically jumped onto the clear blue ice construct.

"Go!" Josh yelled at the class rep, and even though she could also fly (or at least levitate), she was so caught up in the moment that she automatically hopped into the slide and sped away with a terrified 'Eeeek!' kind of scream, leaving only Josh and the Chimera in the hall.

By this point, the beast got rid of the obstacle and, lacking other targets, it focused all of its attention on him. He, on the other hand, flashed a cheeky grin at it and unfurled his wings with a smug, "Adios!". He took to the air, and while the Chimera tried to lunge after him, it couldn't make it in time and teetered on the edge of the broken wall. It gazed after the rapidly retreating golden streak in the air, but then its six eyes locked onto the ice slide, and it jumped onto it without any hesitation.

"Oh, no you don't!" Josh bellowed mid-air as soon as he saw what was happening, and after just a moment of vacillation, he braced himself with his shield at the front and went into freefall.

As he descended, streaks of red and gold coalesced around him, blurring his shape and turning him into a bright falling star. His target wasn't the Chimera, but the midpoint of the ice slide. His impact created an enormous golden-red flash that painted the streets in his colours and tore a huge chunk out of the magical construct. I couldn't help but feel that Snowy might've overengineered it a bit, since the rest of it remained standing even after such a ridiculous impact, and so the Chimera kept skidding towards the gape at breakneck speed.

Sensing the danger, it planted its claws into the ice to slow its approach, but realising that it wasn't enough, it instinctively switched tactics and streamlined its body instead, gaining even more speed as it approached the gap. At the very last second, it flexed its whole body, releasing all the pent-up energy in its muscles like a spring, and it leapt towards the second half of the slide.

I'm not going to lie, it looked unexpectedly majestic as it soared through the air, and if this were a movie, this would've been the point where the footage would've slowed down with some dramatic music in the background to drive the awesomeness of the scene home even harder.

…

And then there would've been a sudden record-scratch as a block of ice the size of a small car fell right on top of the creature, and they both disappeared through the broken roof of a warehouse building, followed by an earth-shaking thud and a pained roar.

My Abyssal sister, heaving and drenched in sweat, was floating nearby with her hands pointed towards the ground. She remained in that position for a bit longer, eyes trained on the aforementioned hole, but when she saw no motion, she finally exhaled and assumed a more relaxed posture. It only lasted for a moment though, as she anxiously glanced around and then beelined towards the end of the slide.

She arrived just a few seconds after Josh landed, still surrounded by a rapidly dissipating yet still crackling red-gold aura.

"Did you get it?" he asked as soon as her foot touched the ground. "Is it dead yet?"

"What part of 'It's a Chimera' you don't understand?" the Ninhursag patriarch scoffed as he was trying to get his facial hair under control. He looked left and right, and it was only at this point that he grasped that they were standing on the flat roof of a different warehouse building, just a stone's throw away from the harbour. "Where are we supposed to go now?"

"Over there," Ammy, looking slightly dishevelled, pointed her staff towards the docks, and when one squinted hard enough, a familiar steam paddle-boat could be seen rolling into the waterfront.

"That's our ride out of here," Josh noted with just a hint of relief in his voice, and everything would've been fine if he had stopped there.

No, I mean that. If he just stopped talking there, everything would've been fine, but he couldn't help himself and just had to add, "Unless something goes horribly wrong again, but I think we're in the clear at this point."

And then the boat exploded. No, I'm not joking, or being over-dramatic, or even just cheeky, because let us be honest here; that was about as clear-cut an example of 'tempting fate' as it could get. If there was one thing I'd learned over time, it was that the rules of dramatic and comedic convenience were easily the most deeply embedded, hard-coded rubrics of the Simulacrum's underlying narrative structure, superseding anything the Narrative or the scenario could throw together on a moment's notice… yet it was the first time I've seen it take effect this fast.

"Oh, no!" Ammy cried out in alarm, seeing the plume of smoke rising from the rapidly sinking boat. "What happened?"

As if to respond to her cries, a grating laugh sounded from above as a tall, wiry Abyssal flew over. His long blonde hair fluttered with each beat of his large leathery wings covered in blue scales. He crossed his arms and threw his head back with another triumphant cackle.

"Kahaha! You old fool! Did you think I wouldn't realize what you were up to!?"

"You!" the patriarch on the roof below bellowed and stepped forth. "How dare you show your face in front of me, traitor?!"

"Kahaha! You talk like you could do anything to me down there! Why don't you come up here and… Oh, right. You don't have wings! Kahaha!"

"I'll kill you!" the Ninhursag noble roared so hard it was a wonder he didn't pop a vein, much to the floating Abyssal's glee.

"Oh, that's my line!" He unfurled his arms and spread them wide, summoning a large fireball over each palm. He looked at the people on the rooftop with a deranged grin and was just about to let loose his spells when his eyes suddenly met with someone's, and he blinked, with a confused, "Hold on. What are you doing over—!?"

Then he was gone. Poof. Just like that.

Well, okay, it was a bit more involved than that, but to explain it, I first had to point out the rapidly approaching golden streak of light flying over the town, drawing a brilliant line across the red sky. Nobody paid it any attention, because they were too startled by the sudden appearance of (whom I presumed to be) the Ninurta patriarch. At least until they couldn't ignore it any longer, as a pair of sandaled feet dropkicked him right in the side of his head, sending him flying right into the harbour and kicking up a huge wave.

Ouch. Barrier or not, that was still nasty. But more importantly, after delivering the high-flying wrestling move (though in a more literal sense than usual), the golden streak made a full circle and rapidly descended next to Josh and company, cracking the roof with her touchdown.

"Boy! Are you all right?" Deus called out as soon as she stood up from the customary three-point hero landing. She was in her full Celestial getup, with all her wings on display, plus a dozen or so summoned flame swords following right after her. Despite sounding worried, she didn't let Josh respond, but instead she angrily pointed at the sinking ship out on the water. "That Abyssal son of a b-barn animal blew a hole into our ship!"

"I can see that," the guy responded a tad morosely. "Where are the others?"

"Over there." This time, Deus pointed at the center of the town. "We drew everyone's attention as planned. Or so we thought…" She glanced back at the capsized boat and sighed. "I liked that ship."

It was at this point that Hareng wedged himself into the conversation with an audibly alarmed, "Excuse me, my scary but still fair maiden, but… does that mean that the Fauns of House Ninhursag are in the town?"

"Yes," she responded, sounding just a tad annoyed, but he didn't let up.

"Meaning that the rest of the Ninhursag family are also there?"

"What? My wife came back?!"

Ignoring the shocked patriarch, Deus nodded again, and while that made Hareng pale for some reason, all eyes were focused on Josh.

"What do we do now?" Snowy asked, sounding rather tired, and after some thinking, he pointed towards the harbour.

"Please go to the boat and help the… survivors ashore."

My sister nodded and got ready to take to the air, but then the class rep readjusted her glasses and decided to play the role of the wet blanket on this occasion by saying, "Yes, we should do that, but it doesn't change the main problem. Our escape route was literally sunk."

Josh responded with a slightly miffed, "We just have to figure out another way to get out of town, okay? One thing at a time." He glanced at Deus and added, "Can you go with Lili? The sailors probably need healing."

Her eyes abruptly switched blue, and Angie gave Josh a clumsy salute with an "Aye, are, sir!" in tow, then turned to Snowy. "Let's go!"

The two took to the air towards the docks, while Josh stepped up to the edge of the roof and looked over the horizon. On their right, the docks. On the left, the downtown of Digirmah, where the girls and what remained of the Ninhursag loyalists were making a whole lot of noise fighting the Ninurtas. Behind them, the castle where they came from, its outer walls blocking both their vision and path. Finally, right in front of them, the warehouse district, buildings full of barrels and makeshift shipping containers as far as the eye could see.

"So?" Ammy stepped up to Josh, her tone audibly impatient, and she swept her arm out. "Any idea of how to get…" She paused to quickly count the people on the rooftop, then asked, "How many people are with Team B?"

"Idunno. Lots," Josh said a tad morosely, and I was kind of tempted to check. However, I didn't want to leave them mid-conversation, especially when the class rep confrontationally tweaked her glasses again.

"Okay, so how are we supposed to get, let's say, a hundred plus people out of this town before we get fully encircled? Any ideas?"

"Right, boss," Hareng chimed in with only mildly obvious forced enthusiasm. "Hit us with your Plan F! I know you can do it!"

Josh snapped at them with a harsh, "Don't rush me!" followed by several seconds of silence as his eyes kept darting around, trying to find the optimal way out of the settlement. Then, just as he was starting to look crestfallen, his eyes suddenly opened wide, and he had an expression. The kind of expression that said its wearer had a crazy idea they thought was just crazy enough to work. "Say, Ammy?"

"Yes?"

The class rep's response was guarded, no doubt because she also recognised the expression, but Josh paid it no heed and jerked his head towards a particular set of buildings at the other side of the warehouse district.

"You said you wanted to try lighting up a steam engine, right?"

And that, ladies and gentlemen, was how we somehow went from 'infiltrating an underground vault' to a literal 'train heist'. Seriously, I couldn't make up this stuff even if I tried…