The Simulacrum

Getting back into the Simulacrum was… trickier than usual. It made sense, once I thought about it; technically speaking, as the… Sol Leo? Over-Leo? Leo Prime…?

Whatever. The point was that, as I was right now, I was essentially an Emergent, and the Simulacrum was inside my Domain, so going into the Simulacrum was like trying to enter into myself. Granted, I'd been doing that for ages, but that was before I understood the metaphysical nuances of this whole mess, and now that I did, it suddenly started feeling difficult. I imagined it was kind of like how a musician would have no trouble playing an instrument on muscle memory alone, but would start messing up the notes when they focused all their attention on the movements of their fingers and started stressing out.

Anyhow, going 'inside' as I was right now was a non-starter, so I had to manually replicate the method I'd been using unconsciously. First, I inserted just a strand of myself into the Simulacrum, and then I used that to Define myself into it as Leonard S. Dunning, and then…

"What was that?" Elly blurted out in confusion, her eyes moving left and right. "We were on top of the roof, and then…"

"Was it some kind of illusion…?" the class rep wondered in her arms, carried bridal-style, looking equally dazed.

"What's going on? Why are we back here?" Josh exclaimed next, and the confusion would've probably spread even further if not for my sudden appearance, replacing it with an even stronger bewilderment.

"Hey guys!" The whole crater fell into silence as soon as I materialised. Looking around, I found everyone more or less where I last left them, so I let out a relieved breath and added, "Sorry for being late, but I had a bit of a situation, and…"

Before I could finish that, my communications enchantment started ringing, along with the words, "{Chief? You realise you have a lot of explaining to do, right?}"

I casually turned to Judy, still hiding under the tattered yet holding silver dome barrier erected by the Matron, and waved at her.

"Hi, Dormouse! I'll be right with you, but first we need to—"

"Brother!" I was once again interrupted, this time by Penny dashing up to me, and then coming to a screeching halt, her feet digging a pair of grooves into the grey dust of the crater floor. "Where have you been!? Where's Bel? Did you get him?"

"Easy, Kiddo," I chided her as I let my hand down. "One thing at a time."

While that was going on, I noticed that Elly, with Ammy in tow, was also beelining towards me, which meant I only had a few short seconds to assess the situation before I would inevitably get interrupted again. So, for the record: I was standing a dozen or so steps away from the aforementioned dome with Judy, Fidèle, Ollie, and the Matron inside. My princess was still carrying the class rep around after the successful rescue operation. Josh was at the other end of the crater, still in an Abyssal form and staring at the remains of his black sword crumbling. It apparently couldn't handle the big final attack and was now turning into fine black dust.

I couldn’t see Snowy, so she was probably somewhere up in the air and hidden by all the smoke and dust kicked up by all the fighting, while our resident villain…

"No! I refuse to fall!"

The rasping declaration coming from the ravaged man made everyone turn towards his charred form. Crowy was, among other things, missing an arm from her elbow down, his horn was broken on the same side, and most of his fancy clothes were gone along with his Barrier. I had a feeling that if he de-transformed in that state, he would immediately die from the shock. But more importantly…

"Oh, come on!" Josh bellowed in clear outrage and threw aside the hilt of his broken weapon. "How are you still alive?!"

Meanwhile, the princess arrived with an elated, "Leo!" and as soon as she put the class rep down, she started gearing up for a bear hug. I stopped her by closing the distance first and putting a hand on the top of her head.

"Easy, Princess," I echoed my previous words to Penny, and ruffled her hair a bit. "We're still in the middle of a situation right now."

"I know, but… What was that all about?!" she burst out and hugged me anyway, as if afraid that I would leave again at the drop of a hat. "We were at school, and everyone was weird, and there were bones and mouths everywhere, and I couldn't say your name, and it was scary!"

"Sorry about that. It was partially my fault. If it makes you feel any better, I decked the main responsible party across a not-room already."

She didn't respond and only nuzzled up to me. Wow. Maybe that experience was more traumatic than I expected. Note to self: spank Benjamin once I'm back in the not-dark not-room.

That said, I really was at least partially responsible for what happened, which made me feel a bit bad. Not that I had much of a choice at the time; from what I gathered, the power of an Emergent is linearly proportional to the size of their Domain. Old Venerated Emergents are really big, metaphysically speaking. Now, while I was still new to this whole thing, I could sense that my Domain was freakishly huge, but the problem was that the Simulacrum itself was only a fraction of it, while the current scenario with everyone within it was just a fraction of that.

It took me all my willpower and effort to keep Benjamin from literally devouring everything and biting a piece out of the Simulacrum itself, and since I was at the end of my rope, I cheated a little. To conclude, the scenario wanted a typical ending befitting of the genre, so I forcefully initiated a 'time-skip'. It wasn't too far into the potential future, and a very limited one, only focusing on the core cast (and Sahi, for some reason), and as soon as the proverbial credits rolled, the framework of the scenario was no longer in effect, and it allowed me to link up with my Domain and Define myself as myself.

Yet, because it wasn't the 'real' ending, the Simulacrum snapped back to the present time, except now we didn't have a scenario anymore. That meant no Narrative either, only the basic tropes that had become the backbone of the Simulacrum itself. In other words, there was no 'finale' or 'ending' anymore, only a mess of a situation to quickly sort out before it would get even more out of hand. Case in point:

"I am the Emperor of the Abyss!" Crowy roared as purple light started pouring out of his every pore once again. "I will not cower like a beaten dog!"

"Says the guy who wanted to self-destruct just a minute ago out of spite," I whispered under my breath, but then that reminded me of something, and I gently pushed the princess back and turned to Ammy. "Sit rep?"

She blurted out a confused, "Huh?" so I reiterated.

"Sorry, I was asking Grimmy for a situation report. How's the implosion-situation?"

The semi-transparent form of the toga-clad hologram appeared without any fanfare by our side, and she dispassionately stated, "Report: The spike in Aetheric activity damaged several self-assessing elements of the Asphodelòs Sub-system. Precise measurements are currently impossible."

"Hold on!" the class rep interjected and tried to adjust her glasses, only to realise she must have dropped them somewhere in the commotion. To be fair, I didn't even notice it until now either. "Is the Abyss still going to implode? Are we still in danger?"

"Response: Indeterminable."

While we were talking, Josh and Crowy kept trading insults with each other in the background even as they were trying to muster up whatever power they had left. I couldn’t see any wispy connections anymore, so by the looks of it, their connections to the Mana Wells were at least temporarily disrupted, meaning… Oh, bollocks. This really was shaping up to be one of those 'the depowered protagonist and villain duke it out in a clumsy brawl' kind of scenes, wasn't it?

But speaking of which, I glanced at the Mana Well and its pedestal, and they seemed to be stable enough, so I said, "Well, we aren't imploding right now, so that's a plus. Let me quickly take care of that kerfuffle over there and ask the local expert."

"Confused Retort: I am the local expert."

I ignored Grimmy's surprisingly peevish response and turned to face Josh and Crowy, who were in the process of squaring off against each other like a pair of ornery moose in the fall. I already checked, and I had all of my usual abilities. Even better in some ways, as I could properly feel and control the number of my phantom limbs, meaning I could Phase between the two of them with ease.

"Wha—?"

"Ah, hi Josh." I cut in, starting Josh and enraging Crowy at the same time. I ignored the latter and focused on the former. "Sorry to interrupt. You did a great job. A-plus chosen one stuff, couldn't have asked for anything better, but we're in a bit of a scrappy situation right now, so would you mind if I took it over from here?"

"Wha—?" he repeated in a perfect echo of his previous outblurt, but then he was interrupted again, this time by the one-horned Abyssal in front of us.

"You!? How dare you show your face in front of me at this time?!"

"Yeah, yeah. Very inconsiderate of me, I know." If looks could kill, I would've been dead already, but that much was to be expected, so I cleared my throat and tried again. "Listen, Crowy."

"You dare—!"

"I SAID, LISTEN!" I roared out, letting loose some of my bottled-up frustrations, and it startled him enough to reel back a bit. Good. "You know, I feel a little bad for you. Not a lot, because you've been a vicious, amoral, narcissistic bastard since even before we first met, but the reason you got as bad as you did and ended up in this situation was due to forces beyond your control." Referring to both the Narrative and my own meddling as future-me, but I didn't need to go into details. "Long story short, I'm throwing you a bone. Just take a deep breath and think things through without any kind of outside influence, and you should see how this situation is dumb. Then, if you have it in you, you can still make the sensible choice by fully decoupling from the Mana Wells and letting us fix everything before the Abyss literally blinks out of existence. It really shouldn't be a very hard choice to make, but I'm still giving you the opportunity to make it yourself. So? What do you say?"

The bastard was looking at me like I just tried to convert him to the Mosque of Lord Krisha of Latter-day Thetans, but to his credit, he didn't yell or posture and spent a solid ten seconds thinking really, really hard.

…

And then he started yelling and posturing.

"I am on the cusp of godhood! The True Emperor, the one to bring a new era!"

"Oh, come on, mate. You're no god, just—"

"Silence!" he bellowed and squeezed out whatever purple flames and black ichor he still had hidden away in some crack. "I would sooner see this world ruined than to give up my birthright!"

"You're not listening," I interjected, getting more impatient. "There's no birthright, and there's not going to be a world to ruin if the Abyss implodes."

"That's fine with me!" he declared, his eyes once again shining a bright violet. "If I have to choose between betraying myself or the world, then everything can rot for all I care! Now, come at me, and face me like a—"

And then, just as I was about to try to reason with him for the last time, a golden flash flew by our side. There was a meaty 'thunk', and then a gargle as Noir reached for his throat, where a single arrow-shaft made of compressed golden flames was lodged into his flesh, its pointy end sticking out of the back of his neck. With his Barrier already broken by the big, climactic exchange, there was nothing stopping it, and there was even less he could do when the arrow exploded into a torrent of fire.

Maybe it was because of his panic, but his own purple flames lashed out in return, and both burned his body inside and out. In but a second, before he could even scream, the mix of gold and amethyst enveloped him from head to toe with a squelching, whooshing sound, and then he collapsed. Or rather, it was just a vaguely humanoid husk that fell to the ground, only held together by a criss-crossing scaffolding of his trademark black magical substance.

It all happened so fast, Josh and I didn't even have time to properly react, but once it was over, I couldn't help but let out a soft, "Well, I tried," followed by a slightly louder. "Deus?"

In retrospect, it was weird that Angie wasn't under the silver dome with the rest anymore. Tracing back the trajectory of the arrow, I found her on top of a still-standing piece of Castle Shamash, her bow still in hand and her body propped up by a visibly conflicted Snowy. I really couldn't blame her, as I also wasn't sure how I felt about this development, but then Deus flashed a smile visible even from here and gave me a thumbs up, so I settled on mild annoyance.

Meanwhile though…

"What the hell, man!" Josh burst out and grabbed me by the shoulder, turning me to face him. "You can't just leave when we needed you the most, and only come back at the very last second to do…" He trailed off at the end, his eyes glued to the smouldering husk on the ground, then he reasserted himself with an irate, "That! Where were you, anyway?!"

"Easy, buddy. Calm down." I felt like half my interactions since I came back had been telling others to take it easy. "I know you had a tough time, but I was busy too, you know?"

"Really? With what?"

"If you really want to know, I was locked in a life-or-death battle with an extra-dimensional eldritch abomination from the stars called Benjamin, and I was being bitten all over the place to buy you guys time to finish things up here. So, you know? You're welcome?"

"{Benjamin?}"/"Benjamin?"

Leave it to them to focus on the least important detail. Anyhow, since Judy was on the line, I tapped my ear and said, "Long story. I'll tell you the details later. Dormouse?"

"{Yes, Chief?}"

"Grab the class rep and get the second Mana Well ready. We'll be right with you in a moment."

"{Roger.}"

Well, at least I could always count on Judy to be professional at times like—

"{Was he really called Benjamin, or are you making that part up?}"

"Focus, Dormouse. Focus."

Okay, so maybe she was also getting a bit mentally fatigued. Anyhow, I turned back to Josh and pointed at the silver dome with my thumb over my shoulder.

"Let's gather up with the others. This day is far from over, and we still need to deal with the aftermath of this flustercuck."

"Yeah, about that…" he started while absently massaging his hands. Considering the first time he used that extra-spicy sword-beam attack of his gave him mana-burns, I had a feeling he didn't escape unscathed this time either, but more importantly, he jerked his head towards the figures slowly approaching us. "I'm not sure they'll let us."

Since the mooks Crowy summoned disappeared with his death (in fact, they probably poofed out of existence during the big final beam-struggle attack), the Axis of Evil guys approached us. They were in a sorry state, some limping, and one of them in the back apparently lost his mask, because he was covering his face with the left sleeve ripped off from his tailcoat, but a quick head-count said they were all alive. That was good. I actually grew a soft spot the size of Australia for these guys during my stunt as future-me, so it was nice to see them in one piece.

Of course, from Josh's perspective, they used to be his enemies just the other day, so he continued to eye them suspiciously. The last thing I needed right now was for them to come to blows over some contrived misunderstanding, so I held out my arm in front of my friend and inclined my head towards the dome again.

"Go ahead. I'll talk with them."

"Are you…?" he began, but then he shook his head, spread his wings, and flew back with a tagged-on, "Be careful!" in tow. He was apparently flying the long way, probably to pick up Angie/Deus on the way.

In any case, once Josh was out of earshot, I walked up to the Axis of Evil, specifically the big, grey-winged doofus at the front, and they all straightened their backs. We locked gazes, and then the man cleared his throat and began to address me in a low, level voice.

"That is not dead which can eternal lie…"

I gave him the flattest of my deadpannest stares in return.

"Give me a break, Chayson. I told you we aren't doing any silly code-phrases back then, and I'm sure as hell isn't in the mood for it now."

That was followed by a short beat, and even though I couldn't see his mug, his eyes told me he was grinning under the mask as he declared, "It's him! He's back!" to the rest, much to their relief.

I chided him with, "Easy on the volume," and glanced around to see if anyone else had heard that, but they were all at the dome already and too busy discussing the new developments to listen in on us.

"Does that mean that the plan worked?" a different member asked from the back, ignoring my previous warning.

"I said pipe down. Also, yes, it mostly worked, with lots of unexpected twists and turns, but we're still not out of the frying pan yet." As if to punctuate my words, there was a big explosion in the distance, coming from somewhere in the town centre. "Take a quick break, and then get ready for Phase 4. Make sure you don't get caught up in the crossfire."

"As you command, my Emp…" the big fellow started, by habit, then bit back the second half of the word and tilted his head. "What are we supposed to call you now?"

"We'll figure it out later. Now, move your asses already."

There was yet another explosion, this one coming from a bit closer, so they collectively nodded and began to move in unison, allowing me to finally make my way over to the others gathering under the rather crowded dome.

"Here we go again," I muttered as I started to walk. In the middle of a crisis, everybody's exhausted, explosions all around, and I'm working on my plan within plans.

It felt like coming back home.