The Simulacrum

In the business, we had something called the 'Chronic Hero Syndrome'. It was a shockingly common trope for various reasons, chief of which being that people usually didn't like to read about characters who ignored the peril and suffering of others. Sure, anti-heroes and anti-villains were a thing, but there was a reason why there were much fever of them than 'traditional' heroes.

Why? I imagined because heroes were supposed to be sympathetic and admirable and whatnot, and someone deciding that getting to their favourite coffee shop before they sell out their Friday Special Double Pumpkin Spice Frappuchino Latte (or something like that, I don't drink coffee) took priority over a bus full of children falling into the river generally wasn't considered very 'heroic'.

I knew this, and I knew that Josh (and based on the previous conversation, maybe Fidèle too) had a metastable case of the CHS, but this whole situation was still a bit on the nose.

Hareng wasn't exactly wrong back there; the chances of someone falling for this was just on the south side of zilch, but they also overlooked a different issue: for any of this to happen, someone had to invade deep into Shamash territory and raze a settlement that's literally within sight of the capital. Sure, the Abyss wasn't exactly huge, and such deep strikes could be facilitated relatively easily with motorized units and natural fliers, but both sides knew that and they had rapid response units to repel such incursions.

The only way to solidify ownership of an area was via the presence of a powerhouse, such as a Lord, but doing so invited the other side to just strike somewhere else, knowing that said powerhouse definitely wasn't there. That's how Abyssal warfare worked; a constant push and pull, trying to snipe down enemy VIPs and capture fortified positions, with probing raids in-between. The only time Crowy broke away from the pattern and tried to directly invade another capital to bind their Mana Well, he got ganged up on by the other Lords and spent weeks recovering from his injuries.

In other words, sending a force in to torch a village in the middle of enemy territory just on the off-chance that it could potentially draw the gang out into the open before they reached the Shamash capital could only mean one of two things: either Crowy was getting incredibly desperate… or future-me was manipulating things to this end.

I mean, even putting future knowledge aside, he'd know for sure that Josh would rush in without question, and the others wouldn't try to stop him, because Chronic Hero Syndrome was insidious like that, and it tended to pull everyone else along.

The problem was that I couldn't be sure. If it really was future-me's doing, then playing along would be the reasonable thing to do, no matter how unreasonable the situation looked from my perspective, but… Yeah, that was the main issue. This setup was just too irrational. I was almost tempted to call it contrived. Sure, from a Doylist perspective, I could clearly see why this would happen and how it would work, relying on the people involved acting in line with their character, but from a Watsonian perspective, this made no bloody sense, for all the reasons I already explained. So, what gives?

Before anything else, I checked Crowy's location, and I was both relieved and mildly confused by his mark being all the way over in Castle Nergal. That meant a confrontation with him was out of the question, which was… eh? On one hand, letting him fight the gang was both too early and kind of un-dignified in this situation, and him personally showing up to burn down a village would've been monumentally stupid. On the other hand though, if he wasn't going to show up, then what was the point of this whole detour?

While I was pondering all that, the gang left the forest and was cutting though a hilly meadow, already armed and clad in their Magiformers. Josh was leading their advance, which was surprising, considering the Shamash Matriarch was there and should've taken charge (being the only legal adult there and whatnot), yet she stayed back and was carrying Ammy in her arms. It was an odd sight, but then so were my girlfriends, with Elly hauling my dear assistant piggyback-style.

Once they reached the hilltop, Josh came to a staggered halt as he beheld the village. It was a small settlement, only a couple dozen plain wooden and brick buildings clustered around the dirt road snaking through the large monoculture-fields. It was hard to make out anything specific at this distance, no small part due to much of the scenery being obscured by plumes of black and grey smoke rising from the fires all around.

The rest of the group also caught up with Josh and descended into a stunned silence.

"Those barbarians! How dare they?!" Fidèle fumed as she beheld the destruction, her eyes set in a fiery glare unfamiliar on her usually dignified visage.

"We need to fly," Josh urged as he pointed towards the village. "Getting there on foot will take too long."

"To be fair, we could've done that from the start," Hareng noted from the back, and when everyone looked at him, he hastily clarified. "If it's the Herald and the Emperor doing this, and we're going there by ourselves, then hiding your wings is pointless."

"He's correct," the Shamash matriarch concurred and she immediately spready her wings, a pair of large, smoky ones resembling bat-wings that I'd last seen during the battle of my 'capture'. "Let us not tarry!"

She immediately took to the air, ignoring the cries of the startled class rep in her arms, and Josh and Angie followed after her at once. So did Hareng, though with much less enthusiasm, and only after he kicked off his boots and removed his coat, to make sure they don't explode off him during his transformation.

That left only my sisters and my girlfriends, and while the former were trying to decide how Snowy could carry Penny in the least awkward fashion, the latter had something else in mind.

"This is too suspicious…" Judy muttered as she climbed off Elly's back and started rummaging through her backpack. What can I say? Great minds think alike.

She quickly found the snazzy party glasses, wrapped in a towel to keep them safe, and put them on her nose.

"Chief, are you there?"

Since they were closer now, sending messages took less effort, but I still put Cal in my lap out of habit and started the mana-circulation.

"Here, Dormouse."

My dear assistant didn't beat around the bush and immediately asked, "Is Noir here?"

"No, I already checked."

"What are the chances of this being a trap?"

"I'd say about one hundred percent."

"That's lower than expected."

"… Was that a joke?"

She ignored my response and turned to the others.

"The good news is that Noir isn't in the vicinity. The bad news is that the Chief also agrees that this is fishy, so we should be prepared for anything."

"Oh… that's good," Snowy uttered in relief, only to hurriedly tag on, "I-I mean, it's good that he isn't nearby. I'm not sure I'm ready to confront him yet."

My other sister reflexively gave her a hug with one arm while shadow-boxing with the other and declared, "Don't worry! If he shows his face, I'll give him a piece of my mind! And more!"

Judy let out a soft hum and tapped on her artifact.

"I'll stay in contact, so that we can ask for advice when something unexpected happens."

"Don't you mean 'if' something unexpected happens?" Elly tried to correct her, so she gave her a deadpan look in return.

"I know what I said."

Meanwhile, my sisters decided on a rather awkward flying configuration, where Penny would be literally hanging from Snowy's arms, mainly because the more reasonable princess-carry would've been 'too embarrassing'. My girlfriends had no such reservations, and Elly casually scooped Judy into her arms and spread her wings through the Magiformer.

The four of them were following after the rest before long, and by the time they arrived at the village, everyone was already busy with the rescue efforts. Josh was in the process off essentially toppling a wooden building to help the person trapped under the debris, straining hard until part of the roof crashed to the side, where it couldn't hurt anyone. On the roadside, Angie was offering her healing support to anyone injured, and while there were a lot of burns, none seemed life-threatening despite the scale of the destruction in sight.

Though again, while the average Abyssal placeholder was an order of magnitude less powerful than even the weakest side-character types, they still were Abyssals, meaning they had their Barriers to protect them from sudden trauma. Of course, that came with instinctive transformation in response to danger, so the survivors were in a rather sorry state, with all of their clothes shredded and everything, but at least they weren't dead. Or rather, I couldn't see any dead, but maybe because I didn't want to look too closely.

While the childhood friend couple was busy with that, Hareng made himself surprisingly useful by acting as a portable flying water hose and trying to keep the worst of the fire in the center of the village from spreading. The buildings were close to each other, with only small fenced spaces for barnyard animals and livestock, so it was easy for the flames to jump from one roof to the next. Ammy was doing her best to support him from the ground, using a very similar magic that made up for her worse aim with much greater water through-put, no doubt another one of the 'totally original' spells.

As for the Shamash matriarch, she was up in the air as well, though her primary concern wasn't the fire but the Abyssals circling in the sky. She was wielding her inconveniently oversized fantasy scythe (and I'm going to leave it at that, because I already shared my opinions on that particular weapon) and chasing them around. Her opponents were your usual Abyssal combatants, meaning winged, horned, and in various states of undress thanks to the aforementioned Barriers.

She wasn't lying about not being able to exert her full power in sunlight, as while she could pursue and knock them away with a swing of her weapon (which was silly, because it was a cutting blade, but I digress again), she was nowhere near as overpowering as when she single-handedly fought off the late Tracas and the head of House Nergal at the same time.

Oh, speaking of which…

"Belette Ugur Nergal!" Her roar made everyone glance up at her, even my sisters who just landed on the outskirts of the village, and she did a complicated twirl with her weapon before pointing it towards the ground. "What manner of madness took over you to dare show your face before me like this?!"

I couldn't believe that right away, but… yup. When I mentally extended the shaft of her scythe as a direction arrow and followed it to its target, I found a familiar bullish Abyssal standing on the road leading out of the settlement. He was already transformed, meaning his hairy muscular chest, pointy bull-horns, and hoofed feet were all on full display. As well as his goatee, which only added to his villainous mien when he put his hands on his hips and let out a belly laugh.

"Ahaha! Fidèle Basmu Shamash! To think you would truly fall for such a simple provocation!"

Okay, putting the cheesy response aside, what exactly was going on here? This whole setup was already weird as all hell for all the reasons I had previously outlined, but this was just absurd. Whether we looked at this from a Doylist or a Watsonian perspective, a different Abyssal Lord showing up here made no sense whatsoever. A 'disposable' raiding party for drawing the gang out was one thing, but sending Belette Nergal himself here was outright asinine. What were they thinking?

"Do you think you'll walk away from here after invading my lands and massacring my people?"

Massacring? I hurriedly switched my point of view around, but I still didn't see any dead people. Maybe she was just overdramatic? In any case, by the time I returned, I only caught the end of Belette's response.

"… not alone!"

He then extended his hand forward, and all of a sudden a solid stone spike sprung out of the ground. As in, a literally, conical, and really pointy spike made of some kind of dark red rock that was markedly different than the material of the dirt road. He grabbed the tip of it and the whole thing snapped off at its base, only to then start crumbling away until he was holding a crude war hammer that was as oversized as the flying woman's scythe.

Speaking of which, the two weapons clashed as Fidèle dived down from the air, sending a rippling shockwave across that could probably be heard even at the other end of the village. Or at least I was sure Josh did, because when I Far Glanced over, he was busy giving out orders.

"Ammy, Hareng! Focus on putting out the fire! Angie, Lili! We'll go chase off the fliers! Penelope, you go and—"

However, before he could finish that, there was another explosion. Except… this one wasn't from a clash, or someone throwing a big magical projectile. If anything, it sounded and looked like…

"Fireworks?" Judy mumbled in surprise, the moment she landed with Elly. She tapped her eye-wear, maybe trying to ask a question from me, or just to contact the Snowy, who was already on her way to help the matriarch, when another boom startled her, followed by…

"… Is that music?"

That question came from my princess, but nobody had the presence of mind to respond, because it was time for yet another shocking development.

"There's nothing to fear! The Axis of Evil is here!"

"… Excuse me?"

Judy's reaction perfectly mirrored my own, because seriously, what the hell was going on?!

Completely oblivious to our collective shock, the 'Axis of Evil' descended upon the battlefield, some more literally than others. Some came out of the blue (or the reddish-orange, but let's not split hairs over this), others from behind ruined buildings, or as in the case of one particular guy, crawling out of a literal well. They could've encircled the guys, but instead they chose to make their presence known and then form up into a well-dressed lineup on the road as they slow-walked towards the stunned gang.

At least they didn't do poses. I don't know what I would've done if they struck a sentai pose.

Oh, and did I mention that there was still music in the background? Something right out of a rock-opera, and it was hard to tell where it was coming from, though it was probably the least of everyone's concerns right now.

"Shit! Change of plans! Gather up, gather up!" Josh instructed, and while most of them acutely felt the precariousness of the situation, others…

"Aw! Why do they get a theme song, and we don't?" Elly griped, and… Princess, my love. There were more important things to worry about at the moment.

"I don't know, but cover me," Judy responded while tapping her glasses. At least she was on top of things… or so it seemed at first, until she added, "If they're here, you-know-who could be nearby. Let me check the channels. I'm planning to give him a few stern words about not letting the Chief come home."

…

Dormouse, my other love. That also wasn't the biggest concern right now.

Then again, maybe they were easy-going like that because they knew that these 'Axis' guys didn't pose a mortal threat. The same might've applied to the rest of the gang, thanks to all their previous encounters with future-me's pet project, but they still took the threat seriously enough. Not to mention, Belette Nergal was still there, and…

Wait. Goddamit, now things make even less sense! Why would the Nergal patriarch show up together with the Axis of Evil? They were unrelated! I mean, technically the bullish Abyssal Lord swore loyalty to Bel, but he wasn't 'in' on the plan. Not that I had an idea about how much the Axis members knew, but they were happily playing along with future-me's whims, so they must've been given at least an outline.

The point was, this combination made no sense, them showing up here made no sense, and this whole trap made no sense. Something was seriously wrong here, and the only thing I could hope for was that future-me knew what he was doing. Or rather, I hoped he did, because if not, then it meant I will have no idea what I'll be doing in the future, which only ever happened when things had seriously and irrevocably gone off the rails. But then again, that shouldn't happen, because of future-knowledge, so…

…

Okay, let's just ignore Josh's verbal jostling with the buff masked guy in the middle (I presumed he was their squad leader, kind of like an Abyssal Jaakobah) and focus on untangling this. It was just a standard pre-battle preamble, with lots of boasting and arguing about personal philosophies and so on. Classic battle shounen stuff, but I've seen it enough times already.

For a start, let's presume that the Axis of Evil's presence confirmed that this was set up by future-me, and then further give him the benefit of the doubt and assume that he knew what he was doing. The question was, why? What was the rationale here? Something narrative-related, I reckoned, but what could it be? Both Belette and the Axis was set up already, so it wasn't to introduce them. Re-introduction also didn't make much sense, so maybe they were here simply because they were the only ones who could reliably pose a threat to the gang? But for what reason?

Maybe I was overthinking this. Maybe… It could be that there was another rubber-band situation here, where the Simulacrum's framework was expecting something to happen, and this had to be arranged for it to calm down and stop pushing things somewhere else. For example… Yeah, maybe this was a rivalry square-off.

That kind of thing often happened in the finales of battle shounen stories, especially ones with large casts. The protagonist would obviously face off against the main villain, but the rest of the cast also needed something to do, so the story would introduce a large number of new enemy underlings. Named characters, usually with striking designs and unique powers that either contrasted or complemented the abilities of the main cast, and with varying power levels (often emphasized by literal hierarchies, where they would be given numerical or alphabetical designations to show how high they were in the pecking order) so that everyone could have someone fitting to battle.

Fidèle and Belette had already fought and clearly didn't like each other, so that was a clean matchup, and as for the gang versus the Axis of Evil… maybe they existed specifically for this purpose? Or rather, to make sure there would be a pre-existing group of quirky minions in play, so that the Simulacrum wouldn't try to invent a whole cast of potentially genuinely dangerous bad guys for Josh and co. to fight?

It made a lot of sense from where I was standing, or rather lying down, but something was still missing. Why would this encounter be 'placed' here, apropos of nothing? Shouldn't there be some build up? Maybe as part of the final confrontation, instead of some random skirmish like this?

Whatever the case might've been, the verbal sparring between Josh and the other guy whose name I still didn't know quickly turned into an actual battle (it was inevitable, really), drawing my attention away from my meta-narrative guesses, yet I just couldn't shake off the feeling that something was definitely wrong with this picture… I just had to figure out what, preferable before it exploded into our collective faces.