The Simulacrum

In retrospect, deciding to divide my time between in-Simulacrum affairs during the day and Emergent-business during the night was a rather hasty decision. Maybe even a mistake.

Previously, nights were when I could get some 'me-time', be that in the form of doing homework and studying for exams, doing trope research, or just relaxing while watching something fun on the net. Lately, though, I was spending all my nights in the not-dark not-room discussing operational minutia of the Simulacrum with the Emergents or such, and it's been a mental drain. I really needed to fix my work/life balance, and I was also running dangerously low on cat-video-ium in my system.

I would've really loved to get started with that today, but unfortunately, my whole night was already booked, and I had little I could do about it at this point. At least I wasn't the only one.

"I'm back," Judy announced upon returning from the bathroom, wearing a fluffy bathrobe and with a towel over her head.

"I just finished tidying up the bed," I told her in response, and she let out a soft hum before walking over to my desk to grab a hairbrush.

We worked up a bit of a sweat just now, and it was my turn to take a shower, but before I could step outside, she stopped me in my tracks.

"Chief?"

"Yes, Dormouse?"

"In your expert opinion, what are the chances of Ollie developing into a harem protagonist?"

That made me lurch to a halt, and I glanced over to her with a brow raised high.

"Where did that come from?"

She didn't answer right away, because she was busy combing her hair, but she eventually pointed her hairbrush at me and said, "Shower thoughts. It's a real phenomenon. You can look it up."

"I get that, but…" I shook my head and fully turned around. "Never mind. Why are you even asking?"

"Because there's been a lack of developments," she answered off-the-cuff. I waited for her to finish brushing her hair and clarify her point, which she eventually did by telling me, "After the test of courage scenario the other day, I was on a lookout for signs of change in their group dynamic, but there weren't any major divergences to note. It makes me wonder if Ollie may not be cut out to become a harem protagonist."

"Dormouse, love," I started, giving her my deadpannest of stares. "I thought we were over this, but they are literal children."

"And?" she asked back with her head tilted, as if not quite understanding my objection. "I'm not asking for ecchi developments. That can wait until high school. It just worries me that, even after one and a half months, the girls don't seem to be conscious of Ollie."

"And that's a bad thing?"

"For a slice-of-life wholesome school life magical girl harem romance comedy? Yes," she insisted. "The magical girl sub-genre is already shriveling away, and at this rate romance is soon to follow. We might need to intervene."

"Dormouse…" I stepped up to her and gave her a playful flick on the forehead. "Don't be an agent of chaos."

She uttered an obligatory, "Ow," followed by a defiant, "A little chaos is the spice of life."

"… I think Fulgor is a bad influence on you."

Completely ignoring my comment, she put her brush down and insistently stated, "You have to think of the poor Submerged Ones. They're going to get bored."

"… … … I retract my previous statement. I'm sure that Fulgor is a bad influence on you." My dear assistant continued to stare me down, her cheeks ever-so-slightly puffed up into a sulky pout, so I raised my palms. "What exactly are you even suggesting? Give me something concrete."

She responded with a suspiciously quick, "Okay."

"… You have a thirty-page-long script already prepared, haven't you?"

"Only twenty-seven," she told me as if that made it any better. "I think we should go all-in on the magical girl approach. We already have the Magiformers, so you just need to make them cute and give them some bright transformation effects, and we're good to go."

I eyed her for a while, trying to figure out if this was just an elaborate skit or if she was serious, but she didn't break character even for a moment. Oh, dear.

"You do know that the whole reason why we had your family adopt the Beansprout is to give him a normal upbringing, right?" I asked in a last-ditch effort, and she nodded along like it was only natural.

"Yes, and this is going to be very educational both for him and the rest of the children. Studies show that hands-on practice is a more effective teaching tool than theoretical methods, and this way they can deepen their friendship and learn about overlooking individual differences and cooperating to tackle a common obstacle in a hands-on manner." Her brows suddenly twitched, and then she admitted, out of the blue, "Speaking of obstacles, my script still needs a villain. Also, we need a dark magical girl archetype. The kind that shows up as an antagonist at first, but then becomes friends with the group by the end of the season. I'm still working on that part."

Ugh. She put way too much effort into this just for me to shut her down. I needed some time to formulate a proper response, and maybe consult the princess, and… wait, no. She would absolutely be on board with this, wouldn't she? Did I already lose the war before the first shot was even fired?

"Let's… iron out the details later, okay?"

My response visibly shocked her, at least based on the way her eyes opened a fraction wider, and she muttered, "That was too easy," with a suspicious tinge in her voice.

"Oh, don't get paranoid on me now." I planted a quick peck on the spot where I flicked her forehead and turned on my heel. "I really need to take that shower. I'll be right back."

I left the room while she was still looking rather skeptical of me, and maybe I deserved it. I mean, I was never a big fan of just throwing genres and clichés at the wall to see what sticks, so I wasn't surprised that she expected more resistance. Truth be told, there was some logic in what she said. Manipulating the Simulacrum from the outside was a no-go, since Superego-me was keeping things running consistently while Id-me was injecting tropes on demand, effectively locking the usual ways by which Emergents would create and modify scenarios from the outside, and… Where's the shampoo?

"Oh, here."

Lathered my head and… where was I? Oh, right. Scenarios.

We didn't really have one right now, but we still had a bunch of Submerged Ones embedded in the Simulacrum. While I didn't feel outright obliged to cater to them, that didn't mean Superego-me and Id-me would be on the same page, and having a bit of 'controlled chaos' was always better than any 'uncontrolled chaos'. I had experienced more than my fair share of the latter on my own skin, thank you very much.

Not to mention, while I wasn't a huge fan of the genre (or even particularly familiar with its tropes), I knew that so long as it was played straight, it was similar to Sentai; flashy, over-the-top, but pretty family-friendly and safe. The kids might've even enjoyed the adventure, and so long as we didn't overdo it, it should've been fine, but…

Why was Judy so adamant about this, anyway? Trying to purposefully invoke tropes and genres like this? Was it really Fulgor's influence? Or was it a response to us no longer having a proper scenario? We have been under one for effectively all our self-aware lives, so maybe she was subconsciously being drawn to the familiar instead of the unstructured open-endedness of something resembling 'real life'? Maybe we all were, and that's why I was willing to consider her proposal so readily, and maybe we were both hoping to deepen our bonds by working together behind the scenes and orchestrating something like this…?

"Wow. Shower-thoughts really are intrusive, aren't they?" I muttered as I stepped out and dried myself, then put on my briefs and my own fluffy bathrobes.

By the time I returned to my room, Judy was already under the blankets and tapping the spot next to her.

"Hurry up, Chief. We shouldn't make them wait."

"Sure, sure." I also slipped under the blankets, and Judy automatically pulled my arm over to use it as a pillow. "On second thought, I don't think we can even make them wait. You know that Emergents' sense of time is all kinds of screwy."

"But ours isn't, so it's our responsibility to be responsible," she muttered, followed by a stifled yawn. "Mm. Do you think Galatea would make a good dark magical girl?"

I shot her down with a frank, "No, because the kids already know her," and then poked her nose. "Now, go to sleep, and we'll continue this discussion later."

"Reasonable. Judy-bot, entering standby mode"

She said that, nuzzled closer to me, and after just a few seconds, she was already sleeping. Seriously, did she have a hidden off-switch I didn't know about?

Anyhow, I made myself comfortable, wrapped my phantom limbs around her, and then extracted myself from the Simulacrum. I was pretty used to the routine at this point, so I didn't bother to make a pit-stop in my Domain and automatically entered the not-dark not-room.

A moment later, we both appeared inside, and this time Judy was wearing a fancy dark-green evening gown that looked suspiciously like what Mom-in-law would wear on formal occasions. I had to say, there were worse people to draw inspiration from, and she looked rather pretty and dignified in it. At least until she continued the conversation where we left off back in bed.

"So we need someone Ollie and his entourage don't know yet. Should we hold an audition for the role?"

"Focus, Dormouse. Focus."

She puffed up her cheek a bit again, ruining the previous dignified look, but it was pretty cute, so it kind of evened out, I guess. Anyhow, before we could get any further into discussing potential outside-context dark magical girls and whatnot, there was a pop and a chirp, and a third person materialised next to us.

"Oh, hi! You're right on time!" Oriole greeted us with an ear-to-ear grin.

"See, Dormouse? I told you we weren't…" I started, only to fall silent and frown at her. "No. That's a bad idea."

My dear assistant tried to look innocent and said, "I didn't say anything yet."

"But I know what you're thinking, and I'm telling you it's a bad idea."

"What are you guys talking about?" Oriole asked as she leaned left and right, as if trying to figure it out just by looking at us from different angles. "Is it one of those inside jokes? Or one of those boyfriend-and-girlfriend things?"

"No, it's… complicated," I told her flatly, then glanced around. "So? Where are they?"

"They should be here any moment now," the youthful (looking) Emergent reassured me with a grin and started waving her arms around. "I already cleaned up the place! Look!"

We did, and the usually indistinct not-dark not-room shifted and churned around us before settling into a picturesque, borderline idyllic garden setting. The kind you would see next to an old European palace, except the only building in sight was the small gazebo on our left. There was a curious mixture of pretty much everything associated with fancy gardens surrounding us; on the left, there were a series of small ponds connected by a meandering creek, filled with lotus leaves, while on our right, there was a hedge maze covered in small white flowers. Next to the octagonal gazebo, there was a small, nonintrusive water fountain, with concentric circles of colourful flower beds.

With the bright blue sky above and the slight breeze blowing through our hair, it was definitely a pretty landscape, and its maker put her hands on her hips and puffed up her chest with pride.

"What do you think? It's neat, huh? I so rarely get to do things like this, so I gave it my one hundred and ten percent!"

"Mm. Elly would like this," Judy noted while observing the postcard-esque surroundings, and her comment made Oriole cock her head to the side.

"Speaking of which, where's she?"

"Sleeping," I told her flatly, which prompted her to tilt her head the other way, as if I just presented her with a trick question. "Coming here every night is mentally exhausting, so she's taking a break."

"Oh. Okay."

She sounded almost disappointed, but then the air next to her shimmered, and another small Emergent appeared out of thin air.

"They're here. Where's…?" When he noticed us, Obsidius hurriedly bit back the end of his question and nodded in our direction. "Oh, hello, Sol. And… erm… Judy?"

My dear assistant nodded back, and while Obsidius's greeting sounded awkward, it meant no offence. It was just that, because Judy was an 'Immersed Emergent', as I liked to call it, it meant she didn't have an independent Definition yet. Emergent names weren't just a word, but effectively a distillation of their character, emphasising certain parts more than others. So, when I said 'Oriole', it was actually something closer to 'a cheerful and bright birdsong of harmonious chimes born between beautiful orbital rings', except waaay more flowery and about a page long. No wonder she liked it.

But back to Judy: since she wasn't fully Defined yet, and we didn't even know what her astronomical 'anchor image' was, it also meant that her name was just that. No complex, layered imagery or anything, just her name from the Simulacrum, and so it must've felt weird for the other Emergents to use it. Which also explained why they insisted on calling me 'Sol' instead of 'Leonard', now that I thought about it.

Anyhow, Judy was intently staring at Obsidius and… Oh. Oh, dear.

"No, Dormouse," I whispered over, seemingly startling her. "We're not asking him if he would like to cross-dress either."

My dear assistant looked genuinely flabbergasted for a moment, but then she narrowed her eyes and asked, "Chief? Are you reading my mind?"

"… No?"

She let out a soft, "Hmpf," and put two fingers on her temple, like an old-time psychic trying to mesmerise someone. When I only looked at her with mild confusion, she let her hand down and followed it up with an even softer hum and a quiet, "You didn't react, meaning you can't read my mind."

"I just told you, and… Wait. Did you just imagine something that would get a rise out of me?"

Instead of answering the question, she gave me a deadpan look and stated, "That means I'm getting too predictable. I must fix that."

"No, please don't."

"E-Excuse me? The guests are here," Obsidius interjected, and just as he uttered the last syllable, the space next to the gazebo shimmered, and out popped two weird people.

I know, I know, judging people by the cover was rude, but… I mean, one of them looked like a standard fantasy dwarf with a big, bulbous nose and a bushy beard. He was in a dark red suit and wearing a huge hat that looked like he had a chimney on his head, while next to him stood a statuesque woman with bright blue skin and six arms in various position, like a deity off an Indian tapestry or something, dressed in what I could generously describe as a metal bikini and some white shawls. She was also a good head taller than her companion, counting the big hat, and had huge, round wire-rimmed glasses sitting on her nose, her bright red hair done up into a bun on the top of her head.

The two of them appeared disoriented for a moment, and Obsidius took the opportunity to sputter out, "I-I'll go find Carmine and the others!" before hastily disappearing.

Oriole, on the other hand, casually skipped over to the weird duo's side with a loud, "Welcome! Come this way, please!"

"Pardon the intrusion," the blue woman responded in an unexpectedly soft and melodious voice, but then her eyes landed on me, and she let out a soft gasp. "Oh? Is that the rumored…?"

"**************, please, calm down?" The short man tapped her on the closest available forearm and strode forth, trying to look… Imposing? Intimidating? It was hard to tell.

"Greetings! I'm ***************** *************, and…"

He glanced at the woman, and she hastily cleared her throat, "*************** ******** *********. It's a pleasure to meet you."

Oh, boy. I was getting so used to our Emergents, I completely forgot how convoluted their original self-Definitions sounded. By the looks of it, Judy didn't understand a thing about them either, so I felt obligated to try and disentangle them, for both of our sakes.

So, the dwarfish man's name could be best transliterated as something like, 'Speak not to me of tempestuous souls and volcanic tempers of passions that erupt in violent paroxysms and then fall to spent, cooling ash. Such conflagrations are for lesser spirits. My temperament is not forged in the inferno's fleeting glory, but rather in the patient, inexorable heart of flowing waters. I am the ever-tenacious river, the sum of countless brooks, not the frenzied waterfall that throws itself against unyielding stone, a fury of noise and impotent spray, but unyielding flow that carves mountains and canyons. Let lesser men rave and beat their fists upon the banks of circumstance, for I am the submarine force, sculpting my path not through clamour but unceasing, silent pressure. My persistence is my power; it is the weight of an ocean distilled into a single, forward-moving will of…'

… Okay, this is a bit too much. What about the woman?

'In the vaulted cathedral of the midnight firmament, where the celestial tapestry is woven with threads of distant stars, I exist as a solitary aurora of the…'

Ack, this one isn't any better either.

"Brook and Aurora," I blurted out, and after a blink, Judy nodded. The two guests looked a touch flabbergasted, but I pressed on and introduced ourselves. "I'm Leonard Sol Dunning, and she's my fiancée, Judy Sennoma."

"The pleasure is mine," my dear assistant joined in with a small curtsy. The short man and the tall woman each looked confused in completely different ways, but then the last member of our group raised her hand.

"And I'm Oriole now! Come on, let's sit down while we wait for the others!"

The guests, still unbalanced by the odd introduction, followed her lead. So did we, and soon we were all seated around the small round table in the gazebo. By the looks of it, they both seemed a little nervous, but it slowly melted away when Oriole conjured some tea and pastries out of thin air.

Finally, after everyone collected their thoughts, the man lightly cleared his throat and started with, "So Le… Leon… May I call you Sol?"

I stifled a sigh and told him, "Of course."

He nodded, and then started again, "So, as you're certainly aware, we're here to… represent our peers and…"

He was clearly missing the right word, so his companion simultaneously tapped his shoulder with one hand and readjusted her glasses with another.

"Observe the operations of the Simulacrum," she stated in the same melodious voice from before.

I uttered a short, "Naturally," and it really was rather obvious. Just as our Carmine and the others predicted on the eve of my Emergence and the end of the scenario, the broader Emergent community (if you could call it that) had a mixed response to the news of the Simulacrum being under new management, so to speak. However, since they operated with that time-block nonsense on the outside, and we were following my 'internal clock' on the inside, it meant that it took some effort to 'sync up' and negotiate.

Carmine took it upon herself to take care of most of that, and effectively sprung this meeting on me just the day before. Long story short, the Emergents on the outside decided to adopt a 'wait and see' approach, and nominated these two to serve as inspectors.

"The Venerated Emergents were rather… impatient," the dwarfish man stated while wiping his forehead, "and there was a major debate among the rest of us to decide who should come here, but I assure you, we're going to serve as impartial observers."

"That's right," the blue woman insisted. "We have complete faith in you."

"You do?" Judy asked the question on my mind, and the woman folded all her arms with a definitive nod.

I had a bad feeling about that. I had many things in mind, but I didn't expect our 'guests' to be so nakedly supportive of us. Why? What motivations did they have? I was under the impression that Emergents didn't really have a proper society, let alone a governing body or factions, but could it be that we inadvertently ended up in some kind of Emergent political web of intrigue? Maybe between the Venerated ones and the new blood? Some kind of power struggle that—?

"The competition was fierce, but as they say, slow and steady wins the race." The short man let out a guffaw and patted his large beard. "You're looking at the winners."

"Does that mean you wished to meet the Chief in person?" my dear assistant inquired, and seeing that they didn't get it, Oriole chimed in from the side with, "She means Sol."

"Ah, yes. Precisely," the six-armed woman said with a smile that was trying way too hard to seem harmless.

"And why's that?" Judy continued to drill them, and this time, they didn't respond right away.

Seeing that, I told them, "If you don't want to talk about it, then we can discuss it later," but the man shook his head so hard his big hat nearly fell off.

"No, no. This is as good an opportunity as any." He cleared his throat, visibly nervous, then linked his fingers in front of his chest. "You see… the two of us… We… how should I put this?"

"We made a Seed Amalgam," the woman cut in, conspicuously avoiding eye contact. "We thought it didn't bear fruit, but considering… erm… everything, we thought that you could, maybe… help?"

Oh. Oh, dear. I really wanted to tell them that I didn’t think I could. I mean, I might have been the result of a Seed Amalgam, but that didn't mean I knew the first thing about them, and even if I did, I wasn't exactly an Emergent fertility specialist, but their expectant gazes made me hesitate just long enough to lose the opportunity to voice my misgivings.

"Hey, guys! I'm not late, am I?"

The two in front of us tensed up the moment a certain happy-go-lucky Venerated Emerged materialised directly into one of the open seats and pointed a pair of finger-guns at me.

"Ah! Venerated *************** *******************!" Aurora yelped and even stood up to give the man a deferential bow.

"I go by Apollo these days," he responded flippantly, and wiggled his finger guns. "The kid gave it to me. It's neat, huh?"

"No, I didn't 'give' it to you, I just rattled off all the sun-related mythological names I could think of on the spot, and you picked all of them."

"Don't sweat the small details!" He finally turned his attention to the odd couple and adjusted his sunglasses with a whistle. "Ah, I remember you guys! You used to hang out with Carmine, didn't you?"

"It's an honor to be remembered by the Venerated Emergent, but…" Brook furrowed his brows and asked, "Who… might this 'Carmine' be?"

"That's me," a new voice announced as Carmine arrived, clad in her usual red dress and closely followed by Fulgor and Obsidius.

"Ah, ************!" Aurora exclaimed and walked over, all arms spread open as if she wanted to give her the mother of all bear-hugs.

"It's been too long, *************** ******** *********," she greeted her back, but then she glanced at me, which I took as a prompt and pointed at them in turn.

"Brook, and Aurora."

Apollo let out a loud whistle on the side, followed by, "Dayumn, kid! It's been just a few minutes! You work fast!"

Overwhelmed by the rapid developments, the dwarfish man tried to raise his voice, but then it turned into a yelp when a certain planet of bleached bones intruded into the scene and tugged on my sleeve.

"Sol. I need to consult you."

I turned to the white-haired kid standing between my chair and Judy's, and flatly told him, "Can't you see we're in the middle of something here, Benjamin?"

"This is important," he insisted, and made another mechanical tug at me. "I require your assistance to deal with an annoying pest."

Seeing that he wouldn't relent, I eventually told him, "Fine, fine. We'll talk after we're done here."

"An acceptable compromise," he said, and then disappeared the same way he arrived.

"Was that… the Venerable ********************?" the six-armed woman hiding behind Carmine muttered. Huh. I didn't even notice when she did that.

"He goes by Benjamin now," Apollo explained with a shit-eating grin. "Also the kid's handiwork."

Meanwhile, I couldn't help but notice that Judy was suspiciously silent, so I quickly added two and two together and told her, "No, Dormouse. Absolutely not. He's an old, curmudgeonly eldritch abomination who tried to eat me and kill us all."

"Which makes him a good villain," she argued back without missing a beat.

"That doesn't mean he can be…!" I bit back the end of the sentence, because I noticed the man at the other end of the table staring at me, so I cleared my throat and asked, "Yes?"

"Are… things always so… lively here?" he asked, though it was obvious he wanted to use a different word to describe the situation, and after looking over the group in the gazebo, I can only shrug.

"Stay around long enough, and you'll get used to it."

That was genuinely the best advice I could give him. I also figured things weren't going to be very productive today, so that was also my way to temper expectations. But, even more importantly… why did I suddenly have this foreboding feeling? I turned to my girlfriend, and…

"Maybe I should ask Elly to talk to him about it. He seems to like her, so she would have a higher odds of success…"

…

Ah, yes. That's why.