The Simulacrum

I couldn't believe I let myself get roped into this…

"I still can't believe I have agreed to this arrangement."

I glanced down at the white-haired kid grumbling next to me.

"Exactly what I was thinking."

Benjamin only let out a soft huff, while my dear assistant only shook her head and continued to mother hen him.

"How does the jacket fit? Is it tight anywhere?"

"No, it's fine," Benjamin continued to grumble, though he didn't quite look like himself at the moment. The four of us were currently in my room, with Judy kneeling next to the small Emergent. Unlike his usual getup, he was dressed in a child-sized white tuxedo with black highlights, complete with matching trousers and leather shoes. His hair was also tied up into a low ponytail, which gave him a slightly different vibe, but before all else, he just looked rather uncomfortable. He still said, "I can bear with it."

"Aw! Little Benny is acting like a big boy! So cute!"

I did mention that there were four of us in the room, with the fourth being Apollo, acting as irreverent as always. He was sitting on the edge of my bed, looking supremely amused by the situation, much to Benjamin's visible chagrin.

I uttered a tired, "Behave yourself," while poking him in the side with a phantom limb, which made him jump in his seat.

"Don't be like that." He only looked displeased for a moment, but then his attention returned to Benjamin, and he pinched his chin between his thumb and forefinger, accompanied by a thoughtful hum. "Seriously, though, he does look surprisingly charming in those clothes, doesn't he?"

Benjamin growled out in an infuriated, "You…!"

"Just take the compliment," Judy told her, and he tugged on his black bow-tie. "All done."

"Not all," I chimed in and tossed over a black domino mask. Benjamin caught it with one hand and looked at it funny, so I explained, "I made this one for you in a hurry, so it's a bit rough around the edges. I'm still not one hundred percent confident in this 'recognition filtering' thing, but I did what I could. They don't know you, anyway, so it should be fine."

Benjamin stared at the mask in his hand. Unlike the full-face one I'd been using as Bel, this one only covered the area from the nose up. It also had the same adhesive quality, though, so it wouldn't fall off all willy-nilly, and most importantly, it had a new type of enchantment on it. The girls pestered me about it ever since they came up with the whole 'magical girl' concept, and while I could probably reality-warp something that fit their exact requirements by directly tweaking the Simulacrum, I wanted to keep such interferences to a minimum, so I tried to make it work within already established in-universe metaphysics first.

The result was a mild perception-altering effect. It not only made the user harder to recognise, but also more impressive and a bit more vibrant and 'sparkly', as Elly put it during testing. The kind of things necessary to make, say, a big, dramatic first impression.

Benjamin was still visibly skeptical, but put on the mask all the same, and it fit the contours of his face perfectly. It wasn't surprising, since while I did the enchanting, the actual base item was crafted by Galatea. She was reliable when it came to these things.

The Venerated Emergent walked over to the corner of my room, to the full-body length mirror that's always been there but had seen little use, and he beheld himself. Then, after a few seconds of silence, he turned around and said, "If this ends up being an elaborate joke at my expense, I'm going to maul all of you, consequences be damned."

"It's not," Judy insisted, but then she walked over to my PC and picked up her communicator party glasses from the desk and put them on, which did more to undermine her than anything else. "Weren't you the one who suggested this strategy?"

"Yes, I proposed that we lay a trap for the pest, but it wasn't meant to involve such…" He paused while looking for the right word, and eventually settled on, "… theatrics."

"Don't worry, Benny. It'll be fun!" Apollo declared while he rose to his feet and stretched his back.

"I care not for fun. I only demand effectiveness," Benjamin continued to gripe, so I also got up and lightly clapped my hands to get everyone's attention.

"There's no time like the present, so let's get started." I glanced at my dear assistant first. "Judy?"

She responded with a firm, "All set," and tapped on her communicator. "I'll stay here and take care of the stage directions, as usual." She glanced at Benjamin next and explained, "Your mask should also have a communications line, so when I give you the signal, do as we practiced."

"The mere concept of letting you order me around is preposterous," he started with a huff, but then he tugged on his lapel and added, "However, if it lets me track and hunt down the pest, I'm willing to cooperate."

"Aren't we a bit too deep in the weeds already to say that just now?" Apollo commented on the side, earning him a glare partially hidden behind the half-mask.

Meanwhile, Judy bent over to re-adjust his suit jacket one last time and asked, "You memorized all the lines, right?"

"Yes," Benjamin answered reflexively.

"And you remember what we discussed about improvisation, right?"

"Of course."

My girlfriend nodded and lightly patted him on the shoulders.

"Then I'm sure you're going to do well."

For once, the small Venerated Emergent didn't complain and only uttered a flat, "Naturally."

After we dotted all the i-s and crossed all the t-s, we all gathered in the middle of the room, and I wrapped my phantom limbs around Benjamin and Apollo. While it wasn't strictly necessary to do so, as all Emergents had their own way to fast-travel around the Simulacrum by pulling out and then re-inserting themselves to the place they wanted to go, it involved opening holes in reality and a bunch of other extra steps, so it was simpler to just bring them with me. A blink of an eye later, the three of us appeared outside, in the familiar park in the middle of Timaeus, currently tinted in an equally familiar shade of purple.

"{Chief? Can you hear me?}"

"Loud and clear, Dormouse," I responded to Judy's voice coming from the communications array of my Leoformer, and she gave me a soft hum.

"{Roger. I'll inform Elly that the operation is underway.}"

"Careful, Little Benny. You're so white, if you get lost in the snow, nobody's ever going to find you," Apollo continued to heckle Benjamin, but he ignored him with a huff and addressed me instead.

"I'll take my position. Do your job."

"Sure, sure."

With that, he turned on his heels and dashed behind a nearby tree, then after glancing around, he quickly rushed over to another one. We just had our first snow the other day, and the whole park was covered in a thin layer of fluffy whiteness, and Benjamin scampering around like that made him look like an actual (if somewhat oddly dressed) kid.

"Brrr! I'm getting a bit cold!" Apollo declared next to me, and I wasn't too surprised, considering he was wearing his usual garish Hawaiian shirt, cargo shorts, and flip-flops even though it was already December. He rubbed his palms together and then started making strained noises, like when someone was trying to raise a heavy weight… or constipated on the toilet. Either way, after a few seconds of trying, a red-and-white striped fluffy scarf poofed into existence around his neck, as well as an honest-to-goodness Russian ushanka, with the floppy side flaps and everything. "Ah, much better!"

"Don't goof around."

My warning only earned me an irreverent grin, and… Wait. Where's Benjamin?

I had to strain my eyes a bit, but I managed to find him circling an old tree a bit further away, and… was Apollo right about him getting lost in the snow? Maybe we should've made him a black outfit instead, but there was no point crying over spilt milk. Of course, it wouldn't have been a problem if only I could track him with my Far Sight, but I couldn't quite mark Emergent Definitions inside the Simulacrum the way I could the 'natives'.

As for the people I could track, I closed my eyes for a moment and shifted my perspective outside the Purple Zone. The park in the early afternoon was… maybe not 'bustling', but as I'd said, this was the first proper snow of the year, so a bunch of people decided to come by to enjoy the scenery and engage in winter-themed hijinks. Snow-forts, snowball fights, or in this case, building a snowman.

In the clearing that mirrored our current location in 'realspace', a gaggle of familiar kids was gathered around the huge bundle of snow slowly taking shape under the supervision of my other girlfriend.

"Ollie, don't run far!" Elly called out to the little Beansprout, but he was too hyped by his snowball duel with Ichiko and Xiao to listen. My princess rolled her eyes with a 'kids will be kids' kind of expression and turned back to the snowman-in-potential being awkwardly sculpted by the remaining kids.

"D-Does this look good?" Fiia, the incognito Magi kid, asked a touch nervously, her face barely visible under an oversized winter cap and an equally large Christmas-themed scarf.

Elly responded with an upbeat, "Very good! Let's work on the face next!"

"O-Okay…"

Meanwhile, the Celestial twins were busy rounding out the bottom of the snowman, looking absorbed by the task and fascinated by the snow itself in equal measure. It wasn't too surprising; these two grew up in the Elysium, which had its environment tightly regulated to mimic an idyllic Mediterranean climate, so I'd bet they'd rarely seen snow before. If ever.

Speaking of idyllic, this whole scene was just postcard-level wholesome. It was a shame I couldn't be there to enjoy it in person, and it was an even bigger shame that we would have to interrupt it, but I unfortunately had already agreed to help Benjamin, so there was no going back. Not to mention, with how much the girls were invested in this plan, it would've been just as bad to let them down.

"Hey, kid?" Apollo's voice pulled me back to my body, and when he saw that he had my attention, he thoughtfully tapped his chin with a finger and asked, "I just realized, but isn't this the first time we've been alone like this?"

"We're not exactly alone," I pointed out, but he dismissed my objection by blowing raspberries.

"Pff. Benny-boy hardly counts. He's out of earshot, too."

"No, I'm not!" A distant yelp called out to us from the other side of the clearing. "And don't call me Benny-boy!"

Apollo pretended he couldn't even hear that and flashed a grin at me.

"It's our first adventure together! Isn't this the part where we're supposed to have a heart-to-heart and bond?"

"I don't think we're going to have time for that."

That's what I said, but to be honest, our timetable was entirely dependent on Judy's discretion. She was in charge of organising this whole scene, so we would move forward to the next step if and when she said so. Speaking of which, she soon contacted me through the communicator.

"{Chief? Elly and the children are in position. ETA is in ten minutes, over.}"

"Ten minutes," I echoed her, for Apollo's benefit, and it earned me a grin.

"Oh, that's more than enough!"

"Yeah, yeah. How about we settle down somewhere out of sight, like…" I glanced around and found a nice spot behind three trees growing close together. "… over there, first?"

"Lead the way!'

I would've done so anyway, and we made our way over. Just watching the guy wade through the ankle-deep snow in shorts and flip-flops was enough to make me shiver, despite being dressed season-appropriately, and we soon settled down. I double-checked through Far Sight, and I figured this spot was good enough, especially when their attention was going to be elsewhere.

From here on out, the plan was rather simple, even though it was one of those 'hit two birds with one stone' kind of deals. Benjamin deduced that the 'pest' he kept complaining about was stalking him for the same reason he was 'observing' people in the Simulacrum. I had my reservations about the theory, but it made some sense. He was watching people to figure out how to be more like a normal human, so if I presumed the 'pest' was something like a Submerged One or someone stuck in the process of Emerging, they would look for an example to follow in how to be more like a 'normal Emergent'. Since Benjamin was the one spending the most time in the Simulacrum, it only made sense that they would latch onto him.

Based on that, we came up with the following idea: let's bait them by having Benjamin do something 'interesting' they couldn't ignore, and then, while their attention was occupied, we would track them from within the Simulacrum. The only problem was that I wasn't very good at that. I was still learning the ropes of being an Emergent, and trying to analyse the Simulacrum while in it just gave me a big headache. That's where the Crowned Coalescence came into the picture. He volunteered for the job and swore up and down that he could do it, so I let him prove himself.

"Heh. You know, this thing you do is absolutely amazing."

Speaking of which, I was jolted out of my train of thought when Apollo uttered that line, and I gave him a slightly confused glance.

"What thing?"

"You know? That." He pointed at Benjamin, in the process of scooping up a handful of snow and observing it like it was some strange, exotic animal. "The way you just impose Definitions on others, like playing with fresh clay, and somehow still making it work. It's insane. And impressive. But mostly insane." He let out a soft chuckle, seeing that some snow fell out of Benjamin's hand and he was glaring at it like it was a personal insult. "Seriously, if I hadn't known that old mofo for aeons, both literally and figuratively, I would've never guessed he wasn't always a funny kid like that. Or maybe he always was on the inside, but it just couldn't come to the surface until you Defined him? Hard to tell."

"Maybe. I didn't think all that deeply about it when I turned him into…" I made a vague gesture at the well-dressed kid in the snow, and lacking better words, I just uttered, "That."

"You should."

The sudden solemnity of that gave me a brief pause, and I turned to face Apollo.

"Pardon?"

"You really should consider what you're doing, especially when you're altering Definitions," he stressed, sounding unusually serious. "It's one thing to Define a willing participant, and I have to give it to you, you have a certain… 'poetic flair' that makes your Definitions hard to resist, but you must still be careful. Our Definitions are who we are. Stretch them too far, and you might cause permanent harm, or worse. It worked out surprisingly fine with Benny, but you can't take things turning out right for granted in the future. You have a great power, and that comes with a great responsibility. Never forget that."

A brief spell of silence lingered between the two of us, lasting for several seconds, right until Apollo pulled down his sunglasses and winked at me.

"So? Did you sound wise and fatherly enough?"

I squinted at him and uttered, "Until the last bit. That was just the line from Arachnidman."

He flashed a toothy grin, followed by the words, "It's a good line, and imitation is the sincerest form of flattery."

"Fair," I admitted, then another beat later, I amended, "Also, I'll think about what you said."

"Good!" He pushed his sunglasses back up, his lips still bent into a smirk, and he muttered, "Heh. I can't wait to tell Carmine about this."

About what? Trying to act like a father figure? Was that something worth reporting on?

Before I could ask, the static of the communications line flared up.

"{Operation – Elfenbeinprinz commences in T minus twenty seconds. Over.}"

"It's starting," I whispered, though there was no need for that, and we watched as Benjamin also got the news and skipped over to his designated location. I didn't count down from twenty, but it was roughly on time when the whole Purple Zone quaked. I held my breath while waiting for the next stage, and with a soft pop, a couple of familiar faces appeared inside, seemingly frozen mid-motion.

"Aaah!"

Out of the six kids appearing in the clearing, Ichiko was the one with the quickest reaction time and she dashed over to Ollie's side.

"Ollie-kun! Stay close to me!"

Fiia exclaimed, "W-What's going on?" in the back, her voice stifled by her scarf, followed by a yelp when the Celestial twins grabbed one of her hands each and practically dragged her over to the others.

"Ichi! This is bad! Really bad!" Xiao squeaked even as she was taking up a martial arts stance, made slightly awkward by her puffy winter jacket.

"What's going on?"

Ollie sounded more confused than anything in the middle, surrounded by the girls on all sides.

"Ah… If only Fiia-chan wasn't here…" Ichiko whined, making the poor girl on her left shudder.

"Ha-Hauuu… I-Is this my fault?"

"No, that's not what Ichi meant!" Xiao tried to console her, but was interrupted by Kóre yelling out, "Movement, on our six!"

Pais followed that up with a helpful, "On your three!" but it was pointless, as the other kids couldn't be expected to understand military terminology. Not that it mattered, because this was the point where Benjamin made his appearance with a genuinely chilling cackle.

"Kahaha! For prey to frolic and prance in the open like this! How foolish, yet delectable!"

He walked towards the little group with arms spread wide, his lips set in a deranged grin, and… was it just me, or was he waaay too into this?

"Wow! Little Benny's way too into this!"

…

No, apparently it wasn't.

More importantly, Judy chimed in again with, "{Operation underway. Any sign of the stalker, over?}"

I turned to the man hiding behind the tree next to me and prompted him with a quiet, "Apollo?"

"Yes? What?"

"The 'pest'?" I prompted again, and it took him a few seconds to respond.

"Oh, right! I was supposed to do something about that, wasn't I? I'm on it!"

That didn't quite fill me with confidence, but for the time being, I focused on the kids. From their perspective, they were in quite a pickle. Not just because some masked weirdo showed up out of the blue (that part, I think, most people were quite used to at this point), but because Fiia was also with them. Everyone was still upholding the masquerade, and since they believed that she was a mundane, non-magical human, they couldn't just reveal their true natures. Unless there was mortal danger afoot, at least, but none of them jumped the gun so far.

"Who are you!?" Ichiko called out to Benjamin, taking point while the rest of the group clustered behind her.

Benjamin sneered at her and threw his right arm to the side with a snide, "Me? Who are you to demand my name, little fox?" That gave her a pause, but then he spread his other arm as well and let out another cackle. "Kahaha! Worthless you may be, but I respect your spirit, fox of the east! If you wish to know, then listen closely, and listen well! I'm the Ivory Prince! I'm the eyes glinting in the darkness! I'm the dread that grips your heart in the dead of night! I'm the Heir of Walpurgis-Nachtkönigreich, and your doom!"

"I… I've never heard about any of that…" Xiao whispered, looking at the others. "Have you?"

"N-No, I haven't," Pais admitted in a squeaky voice, as if doing so was causing him physical pain.

"I don't know what's going on either," Ollie chimed in, while Ichiko took a step forward and did a finger-seal with her hands.

"Whatever you want, we won't let you lay a hand on Ollie-kun."

"Hm? You think I'm here for the boy? Ha! Hahaha! Oh, you fools! You know so little! It would be funny if it weren't so pitiful!"

"If it's not funny, then why are you laughing?"

Ollie's random question made everyone at the scene freeze up for a second, including Benjamin, who was knocked off his rhythm in one fell swoop. It didn't last long, though, and maybe after getting some coaching from Judy, he spread his arms again and bellowed, "Silence, fool! Endlose Jagd – Kiefer der Verfolgung!"

There was a tangible pressure descending onto the clearing, physical pushing on the kids' shoulders and even crushing the snow around them. Not only that, but the surrounding trees suddenly started growing fangs and talons, and some of them even outright burst open to reveal huge maws filled with hundreds of needle-like talons. The ground under their feet also squirmed, as if huge muscles and sinews were moving in the soil.

I wasn't quite sure how Benjamin was doing that, but since I couldn't see any magical light-show, he was probably doing it by directly interfacing with the Simulacrum's surface stratum, like when we had our metaphysical battle during the scenario's climax. Back then, it felt quite uncomfortable (to put it mildly), but this time it was more of an… itchy kind of feeling. It was hard to describe.

Not that I had time to ponder that, because the scene moved on, and once he let up the pressure, Benjamin started monologuing at them again.

"Destiny has brought you together, Scions of Tageslicht, but it's too late! My revenge is inescapable, and I shall hunt you down this time, Princessin of Sonnenwendenkönigreich!"

He yelled that last bit while pointing at someone in particular, and it took the children a couple of seconds to realise who it was.

"M-Me?" Fiia muttered in a daze, but before anything could be clarified, a flash of light illuminated the clearing within the Purple Zone, and this time it was both the literal and the magical type.

A small tear opened in the air above the huddled-up kids, and then with another flash, out popped a familiar face wearing an outfit I hadn't seen in a long while. The girl landed in one of those 'dynamic' poses right out of an action manga, her frilly green dress and detached sleeves fluttering in a wind that came out of nowhere, and as she raised her head under the wide-brimmed witch hat of the same colour, along with her silver staff.

"In the name of the Morgenstern and by the authority of the Conduit of the Grimoire, I command you to stop this foolishness!"

…

Well, I'll be damned. How the heck did Judy manage to rope the class rep into this?

"Ah? Are you the inheritor of the Wächter of Sonnenwendenkönigreich?"

"I'm not obliged to answer you, fiend of the night! Away with you!" Ammy exclaimed as her staff lit up with a blinding blue light. "Return to the darkness, where you belong!"

The already grotesque trees drew twisted shadows in the light, while Benjamin hissed and raised a hand to shield his face.

"Curses! I was so close!" He took a step back, then yelled, "But it matters not! My return is inevitable! Hear this vow, Princessin! I shall hunt you till the night swallows the day, to the end of time if necessary!"

And with that, another maw opened up in the ground behind him, and he fell backwards into it. As soon as he passed through, the weird mouth snapped shut… only for another one to appear next to us and him to pop out of it, as if he was doing his previous fall in reverse.

"I've done my part," Benjamin declared with audible distaste, trying his best to look calm and detached despite his flushed face and the smirk tugging at the corner of his lips.

"Yowza, Little Benny! I never in a million years would've expected that you were this talented!"

I hissed at Apollo, and he hurriedly covered his mouth. We were still close enough for them to potentially overhear us, especially when talking that loudly.

"{Stage one of Elfenbeinprinz is complete. You can leave the cleanup operation to Amelia and focus on tracking the target, over.}"

"Yeah, on it, but… Dormouse?"

"{Yes, Chief?}"

"Why German?"

My question resulted in a silence so long and profound that I was worried the communication had lost connection or something, but then she finally told me, "{Everyone knows that every self-respecting magical girl narrative needs to have lots of gratuitous German words sprinkled in the terminology. It's just common sense.}"

"I... I'm not going to argue with that right now." Trying my best not to roll my eyes, I saw Benjamin glaring at me, so I blurted out a reflexive, "What?"

"Where's the pest's location?"

"Good question. Apollo?"

The man on my side blinked and muttered, "Ah, right. That's my job." He tapped his temple a couple of times with his index and middle fingers, and after a few tense minutes, he pulled down his sunglasses and said, "Huh. This is pretty weird."

"What is?"

"I've got a signal, but it's all over the place."

"Do you mean you can't trace the scent?" Benjamin asked a tad impatiently, but Apollo shook his head.

"No, no. I've got a clear trace, it's just that it's at multiple places at once, and… Actually, it's easier if I show you." Before I could ask what he meant by that, he opened his mouth again, and… "************ ************ ***************"

My poor brain was suddenly flooded by an avalanche of images and other sensations. It was overwhelming, yet somehow (maybe due to practice, maybe due to his 'dumbing things down' for me) I surprised myself by how quickly I managed to make sense of it all.

Long story short, what he just 'told' me was kind of like a series of coordinates within the Simulacrum. Or rather, the locations within the bedrock layer of the Simulacrum exponentiating up to the surface layer we occupied, but again, unimportant technical details. So, I started shifting through them, and…

"… Huh."

"You see? I told you it's weird," Apollo insisted, looking vindicated. I showed a palm in return, both to tell him to quiet down and to let me think.

These locations were oddly deliberate. We had one near here, but we also had multiple readings at the Blue Cherry High, at least one at Ollie's school, my house, the Dracis estate, a whole bunch at the underground base, and when I tried to overlap that with the mental map of my Far Sight marks…

"Well, damn," I whispered under my breath and turned to Benjamin. "I think I found your stalker."

"Good!" He stepped closer to me and even grabbed onto my sleeve. "Now, take me to it, so that I can hunt it down!"

"How about we ask some questions first?"

"We can ask them after I hunt it down!" he insisted, so I exhaled hard and wrapped my phantom limbs around them. In the background, I could hear the class rep talking with the kids, and while I was really curious what all of that was about (Judy didn't tell me all the details of her 'magical girl scenario'), I would have to get up to date with that later.

For now, I locked in on the target, and a moment later, all three of us reappeared inside the second floor of the base.

"Is it here?" Benjamin inquired as he stepped back. "I should've known. This was the place where I first detected its presence!"

"Oh? The plot thickens!" Apollo chimed in, once again rubbing his palms, though this time in anticipation.

A sigh later, I turned to the door on our left, and I walked in, with the other two following closely behind me. I flipped the light switch, and we beheld a neglected storage room filled with stacks of old chairs, boxes full of discarded building materials, and other miscellaneous odd and ends. I was rather familiar with this place, as for a while, this was my go-to intermediary spot I used whenever I needed to change into my Bel outfit. It was also where I used to keep the 'incriminating documents' about Lord Gradnpa's homunculus research (which turned out to be not that big of a deal after all). However, in the place where those used to be, now sat a big, red, fleshy ball.

"What's that?" Apollo blurted out once we got closer, and I had to say, I didn't quite get it at first either.

But then…

"Nyuuu!

"Nyu-nyu-nyuu!"

"Nyu! Nyu!"

About half a dozen Pudding-kuns appeared in the storage room. Some were hiding under tarps or in boxes, others disguised themselves with that weird ninja technique Ichiko taught them, but all of them were frantically whining and running in small circles.

"What kind of creature is this?" Benjamin spoke out and tried to grab one of the Pudding-kuns, but they all ran away from him. Meanwhile, I took a closer look at the fleshy ball.

It was about a little more than a meter in diameter, with a roughly oval shape and a rough texture. On closer look, the bright red meaty bits were surrounding a lighter coloured core that was less fleshy and more like… a cocoon? Wait. It was hard to recognise it at first, but were the red parts… more Pudding-kuns fused together? Was this whole thing made up of mini-shoggots?

I had many more questions, but before anything else, I reached out with my phantom limb to check if it was safe. The moment I touched it…

*Paaash!*

There was a hiss and a pop, like the fizz getting released from a soda can, and the whole meaty ball cocoon thing split open into four parts, curling back like the petals of a grotesque flower. There was a sour-smelling mist emanating from inside, but more importantly, a small hand reached out, and then another, and finally a damp red head.

"Papa!"

All of us, even Benjamin, froze up when the high-pitched voice called out from the split cocoon. From it, a doll-like girl with long red hair sticking to her pale skin was staring at me. No, correction: glaring at me.

"Too soon!" she exclaimed, her expression growing more indignant by the second. "Pudding is still small! Papa should've waited for Pudding to get big!"

Meanwhile, Benjamin stopped chasing the… normal-Puddings? What even was going on anymore?

"Are you the pest who's been following me around?" he asked as he stomped towards her, and the air grew heavier around us, just like back in the park when he was menacing the kids. "I will have you answer for—"

"Aaaaagh!" Before he could finish, the little redhead flew out of the cocoon with a rather flimsy battle cry and tackled him onto the ground. "You! ******************! You bit Papa!"

"Gaah! Let me go! I'll hunt you! I'll eat you!"

"No! You're bad ***************! I won't let you bite Papa again! Pudding will beat you up!"

"Raaah!"

"Yaaah!"

The two of them tumbled on the floor, with the small Pudding-kuns cheering from a distance, and the weirdest thing was that… The 'Venerated Benjamin' was losing and getting put in a choke hold by the naked little girl.

…

No, wait! That wasn't the weirdest part!

I turned to Apollo and asked, "Hey, did I hear that right? Is she an Em—?"

Before I could finish saying that, the man couldn't hold back his laughter and burst into maniacal cackles, eventually getting to the point he had to hold onto a crate to stop himself from toppling over.

"Hahaha! This is incredible!" He lifted his sunglasses to wipe his eyes, then suddenly he pointed a pair of finger-guns at me and exclaimed, "Carmine's gotta see this! I can't wait to see her reaction! Don't go anywhere!"

And then, just like that, he burst into light and disappeared from both the room and the Simulacrum. What was this I don't even…

"{Chief?}"

Hearing Judy's voice pulled me back from the brink of a weirdness-induced aneurysm, and I reflexively tapped my ear.

"Dormouse? Do you see this?"

"{Yes. I think we just found our dark magical girl for the scenario.}"

"That wasn't what I…" I started, but I was honestly too tired and confused to argue, so I shook my head with a quiet, "Never mind," and moved in to break up the fight between Benjamin and Pudding-kun.

…

Wait. Wouldn't she be 'Pudding-chan' at this point?

…

Dammit, this is going to be such a hassle…