PART 1

The ruined, though slightly more orderly main hall was enveloped in a tense silence as the hundreds of Celestials all waited for me to organize my thoughts. I was standing on top of a makeshift podium made from some metal boxes previously used in their barricades and covered with a plain black tarp. I had no idea where they came from, or how they had the time to even build any of those in less than two hours, but it didn't really matter, since… Wait…

"Oh god… Everything happened in less than two hours…" I whispered (though it felt more like a moan) as I massaged my temple. What the hell was I thinking with this crap? I mean, I'm obviously not talking about me-me, or even other-me, but Narrative-me, so…

…

Crap, that just made it sound even more confusing. Let's ignore that, and what potential motivations my pan-Simulacrum greater self might or might not have had when pulling the strings of this climax. I was pretty sure that if I sat down and thought deep and hard about it, I could fish out the correct answer from all the info other-me dumped on me, but I also had a feeling it would either infuriate me, make me feel stupid, or have a cringe-induced aneurism, and I couldn't have that in the current situation.

Speaking of which, I looked over the crowd, now forming a loose semi-circle in front of me and clearly divided into multiple groups, like a pie-chart, or one of those diagrams that showed the distributions of political parties in parliament. Of course, the divisions weren't that clear, and there was no colour coding, but it was close enough.

From left to right, we had Savir and her Orthodox people, being the biggest slice, comprising about a quarter of the crowd. Then we had the Unorthodox and the Reformist groups, followed by the military represented by a mixture of soldiers, officers, and medics, with the Seraphic Safeguard members in their distinct uniforms serving as their core. Next were two eclectic groups mingling together; mostly civilians and lower-ranking politicians, bureaucrats, and other middle-class individuals blended with a group of weirdoes proudly wearing the literally winged spear crest of Polemos and carrying familiar blue banners with the same symbol. Then there were the rest of the people present, idling at the side and the back of the main crowd; mostly guards, workers, and other unaffiliated people who got caught up in the events.

This was already a mess, and it didn't even account for the mob outside. But I was getting ahead of myself. First, let's sort this out, and then I'd worry about the rest.

"So, just to summarize," I spoke up as I let my hand down and swept my gaze over the people, with extra attention to the three chief directors in the front. A beat later, I pointed at Savir. "So, it all started when the Praetorian Guards requested reinforcements after the assassination attempt, and the Department of Military Affairs responded directly, without waiting for your approval."

She nodded, with a rather sour expression on her face.

"But then you…" My finger swung to Mensah. "… received a distress call from a certain agent of yours, and unaware of what the others were doing, you deployed a strike force to rescue him."

"That's right. And when I—"

"I'm not finished," I cut him short, and after a meaningful pause, I continued with, "And when you learned that Bel of the Abyss was at the scene, you decided to deploy all the Colossi you had to the location. However, you didn't have the authority to do that on your own, so when you did it anyway…" My finger returned to Savir. "You thought it was the doing of the Department of Military Affairs, and you thought they were preparing for a coup, so you rallied your loyalists to capture them."

"Yes, Lord Archon. That's how it started," the commanding officer of the Seraphic Safeguard on the scene stated solemnly. I acknowledged him with a nod, and then pointed at Tsephanyah.

"But then you thought that she was starting a coup, so you gathered your forces and tried to intervene, but in the meantime you…!" Finger back at Savir, I exhaled an exasperated breath, then started again. "But in the meantime, you learned about the assassins, and you tried to steal everyone's thunder by sending in your subordinates at CIEL to extract Deus, leaving you short on manpower when Acacius showed up, at which point you thought that he was taking advantage of the situation and you declared martial law."

"That's more or less how it happened, yes, but—"

I didn't let her finish, and I turned to the slice of the pie chart representing the military instead.

"However, at this point Praetor Khurshid deployed the Seraphic Safeguard to break up the fighting, trying to suppress both the Orthodox and the Reformist forces, and since they interfered with the rescue operation prior, you joined them in a mêlée à trois, and when the news of that spread…" Pointing at the ragtag group of civilians, I sucked in a sharp breath and said, "Some of you 'Archonists' contacted my liaison to ask for information."

"Y-Yes, Lord Archon. It was because there were rumors that there would be a coup today, but then later we were told there wouldn't be one, so we didn't know what to do."

"Exactly," Director Savir butted in with a rather indignant huff. "If it wasn't for the intel I received about a possible takeover attempt, I would've never acted so rashly!"

I raised a palm to silence her, and quickly moved on before anyone could ask where that notion originated from.

"Let's ignore those wholly unsubstantiated rumours for now and focus on the facts and the events as they happened. At this point, you, Dolion, finally got wind of what happened, but the only thing you focused on was that Eris sent in CIEL to bring Deus here, which you interpreted as her trying to kidnap her."

"I would never!" Savir protested while glaring at her bespectacled colleague, but I ignored her objections and continued the previous thought.

"Because of this, you hurriedly deployed your forces to stop them, so the military tried to intervene, opening another front." Pausing, I glanced at the 'Archonists'. "All the while you people got caught up in the crossfire and started pushing back, which then caused these people to take action."

Finally addressing the elephant in the room, I turned to the final group, dressed more or less uniformly and eagerly waiting for my attention.

"O Great Second True Archon Polemos the Wise!" the man in the front exclaimed, and it wouldn't have been weird if he outright fell to his knees to bow to me. "Your true scions have gathered to offer their services to you once again! Our millennia of hiding in the shadows of Elysium is finally over! The Sons of Polemos are yours to command! We are the heirs of your will! Your iron fist covered in velvet! We shall…!"

It took me a lot of willpower and mental effort, resources I was already running dangerously low on, to stop myself from facepalming on the spot, and the whispered discussion between the three chief directors at the forefront didn't make things any easier for me.

"You see!" Savir declared in a clearly audible whisper. "I told you he had a conspiracy!"

"I'll be damned," Tsephanyah responded blandly, eyeing the Sons of Polemos.

Despite their coordinated outfits, they were even more of a ragtag group than the Archonists recruited by Moose and Mike, but they were also much louder, cheering and waving their flags to celebrate being addressed by me like their favourite football team just won a cup. No one in their right mind would've considered these guys the members of some super-powerful secret society, but then again, these three had already proven that they lost their right mind ages ago, if they even had one to begin with.

"Does that mean that the rumors about the Arbiter and the Justicar belonging to an ancient organization dedicated to Polemos were true all along?" Mensah blurted out, but Tsephanyah shook his head.

"That doesn't make sense. Wasn't the Arbiter revealed to be the previous head of the Kage clan from the Far East?"

"It just proves how deeply rooted his schemes are," Savir whispered to them, somehow looking even more sour than before. "We might as well accept that his subordinates have infiltrated… No, it's even more likely that they have secretly commanded many of the independent forces of the World of Mystics."

"I think you're right," Mensah nodded sagely, as if they just made a great deduction. "If he managed to create a hidden organization of this size under our nose, millennia in the making, I can't even begin to imagine how far their roots must have spread outside of Elysium."

"We truly underestimated the Lord Archon," Tsephanyah sighed, and I just about had enough to this farce and wanted to interrupt them before they worked themselves up into inventing an even bigger conspiracy theory, but…

"… For the sake of your eternal rule, we shall be the spear tip that will pierce the darkness of the…!"

Jesus F. Christ, he's still talking?!

I hastily raised a palm towards the spokesperson of my… uh… 'cult', and it finally made him shut up.

"Yes, thank you for your… dedication, but let's not stray from the topic. If I understand right, you were the ones who got the crowd outside riled up."

"Yes, O Great Archon! It is only right for you to lead, and the masses to follow! We were but the instrument of your will!"

"My will of what?" I pointed out, and for the first time, the cultists faltered for a moment.

"Erm… Truth be told, we weren't entirely sure at the time, but since the Archonists were allies the Great Second True Archon recruited, we found it only natural to come to their aid."

"In other words, when you heard that they were caught in the crossfire, you riled up the Malakim to storm the tower…" I turned to the Seraphic Safeguard commander next, "And so the rest of the military moved in to stop them from rioting."

"That is correct, Lord Archon," the man in red nodded. "We received direct orders from the praetor himself."

I waited to see if there was anything else anyone wanted to add, but since they remained silent, I exhaled hard and adopted my 'disappointed principal' act once again. I hardened my expression and swept my eyes across everyone present, ultimately settling on the three chief directors.

"To say that my disappointment is immeasurable and my day is ruined would be the understatement of the century. Your performance today has finally proved, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that you are unfit for leadership."

"W-What?!"

Ignoring Savir's yelp, I continued in a low, level voice.

"Due to your monumental failure to communicate, you have not only nearly plunged the Elysium into an outright civil war in a time of crisis, but your incompetence created unwanted interference that threatened the life and wellbeing of, among many others, Deus herself." I let the words sink in, then exhaled a precisely calculated distraught sigh. "I truly didn't want to do this, but I cannot leave the Elysium in your hands after this. Effectively immediately, your official positions, along with all of your authorities, are suspended indefinitely, until the investigation into today's events is concluded."

"But… Lord Archon!" Tsephanyah tried to plead with me, but I sent him a glare, and he fell silent.

"No objections are allowed. The only reason why I don't just dissolve the entire Directorate right here and now is because I still need it to maintain order here, but I can't allow you to plunge the Elysium into even more chaos than you already have. Consider yourself under house arrest until further notice."

"Wait, Lord Polemos!" Savir raised her voice again and stared at me with an expression hovering between alarmed and outraged. "You're being too hasty! Please reconsider your—!"

"Eris. Are you deaf?"

"N-No?"

"Then just which part of 'no objections allowed' was hard to understand?" I growled, and she opened and closed her mouth a couple of times.

"I… I have vital information to share with you! Please hear me out first!"

And now she was trying to bargain. Sighing, I shook my head and glanced at the Seraphic Safeguards. They were good at reading between the lines, because they were already moving towards the trio even before I tried to get their attention.

"Yes, we're going to have to talk. In your quarters, once I'm done cleaning up the mess you caused."

"Shall we escort the Prime Director… or rather, Lady Savir?" the red-clothed soldier at the front proposed, and I nodded along at once.

"Please do."

"Wait! Just a minute!" Mensah raised a hand next, and I was expecting more complaints. Instead, he asked, "What about the Colossi?! Who's going to recover them?"

"I'll take care of it."

My curt answer visibly relieved him, and contrary to my expectations, he allowed the Seraphic Safeguards to escort him without a fuss. Savir was still rather miffed by her treatment, uttering all the classic lines fitting this situation.

"Take your hands off me! I can walk by myself!"

See?

As for Tsephanyah, he looked only mildly annoyed by the situation, and after a glance and a nod in my direction, he stoically followed after them with a stiff upper lip.

"All hail the Great Second True Archon!" the men on the right exclaimed, followed by a series of cheers from the other cultists. "The Age of Polemos has begun!"

They were disturbingly stoked by all of this, and worse yet, the Archonists, and even some members of the other factions were also getting carried away by the mood and started cheering and singing and…

"No!" I exclaimed, and the festive mood immediately froze over. "We're not having any of that. We're still in the middle of a chaotic situation of your own making! No cheering, no chanting, and absolutely no singing until you clean up your mess! Shame on you!"

My words had the desired effect, and everyone calmed down. Maybe even a bit too much, as they all looked like a bunch of kindergarteners who just got scolded by the teacher. Ignoring the mental image, I rubbed my forehead, and after scanning over the crowd, I swept my finger across them.

"Anyone who had important jobs to do, get back to work. Anyone capable of combat, head out, break up any stragglers, and inform them of the situation. Anyone proficient with healing, start treating the injured. Archonists, help the healers carry the injured and set up a field hospital. The rest, help with the cleanup and menial work if necessary."

"What about us, O Great Archon?"

I levelled a flat gaze at the Sons of Polemos, and uttered, "Make yourselves useful, and don't cause any more chaos."

"As you command!"

Everyone waited for a few seconds to see if I had anything else to add, but then, as if rehearsed ahead of time, the whole crowd dispersed and tried to follow my instructions to the best of my abilities. Some of the highest-ranking Celestials, in the absence of the three demoted chief directors, tried to cluster around me, but I completely disregarded them and headed outside.

This whole thing took longer than expected, and I was getting a little worried about how Angie was doing with the mob outside. Hopefully, she had better luck than I did here. I mean, technically things worked out in my favour, so I couldn't really complain. This whole mini-civil-war gave me ample justification to finally take Savir, Mensah, and Tsephanyah down a peg. With some luck, I could make it stick and demote them for good. Judy might've even said I went too easy on them, but as much as I would've liked to just flip the table and get rid of the Directorate altogether, I still needed someone to govern this place.

After all, I knew diddly squat about rulership. It was the kind of thing I delegated out to the Draconic Federation the moment I had the chance to do so, but there, I had my in-laws, Naoren, and the Knights to rely upon. Here, I would have to reform the whole governing structure of an entire civilization, and I seriously didn't have the time to spend weeks, if not months, focused on that when I was still reeling from the meta-narrative bomb other-me and the Crowned Coalescence dropped on me.

Meanwhile, I exited the tower, and to my surprise, I found the place startlingly peaceful. The Celestial farmers rallied by my cult (goddamit, I still couldn't believe that's a thing) and the cannon-fodder soldiers sent to contain them were all quietly watching as Angie mingled with the front rows, holding something that looked like a steampunk microphone while closely followed by the broadcaster with the projector-orb in her hands.

"Y-Your Grace D-Deus…" A stuttering man spoke up as Angie presented the mic to him, and after she smiled at him reassuringly, he audibly gulped and squeezed out, "What… are your plans after you… fully reclaim your divine throne?"

"Thank you for the question," she responded spiritedly and turned to face the projector orb so that her face was in the center of the huge, oval screen still floating over the crowd. "I… still have many things to learn before I can confidently return, but I have many ideas! For example, I looked into modern farming methods, and…"

In the meantime, I found Josh, standing a bit away from her and watching her surroundings with hawkish eyes for any threat. Not that there seemed to be any; if anything, the masses were smitten with her. This was probably the best possible outcome I could've asked for. Or at the very least, it was both less cringy and more realistic than her throwing an idol concert, or something equally asinine. Thank god Narrative-me was declawed by the original plot falling apart, or I could've actually seen just that happening.

"… and we can import these machines to make planting and harvesting much easier! That way, you can cultivate your lands in much less time, and you'll have waaay more free time!"

"But, Your Grace…" Another Celestial objected, if a little meekly, but when Angie presented her with the mic, she hesitantly asked, "Won't that just mean we would be working the same hours, just producing more?"

"R-Right… capitalism, huh…?" Angie muttered in a daze, but then my attention was drawn to Josh when he gestured at me.

"She's doing well," I noted absently, and after some hesitation, he nodded.

"Yeah. I didn't expect things to turn out like this when you said you needed us here. I thought we would be fighting, not…" He fell silent, and after mulling it over, settled on, "… doing a political rally."

"It worked out though."

"Yeah, yeah." After another beat, he glanced up at me. "What's the situation in there."

"Mostly resolved. I'll just have to figure out how to create a new government for this whole place without it plunging into either another civil war or anarchy."

"Sounds tough, buddy." I thought that was the end of the conversation, but then he blurted out something unexpected. "Say. I might be overthinking this, but some of her answers are kinda bothering me."

"How so?"

He gestured for me to listen, so I did that.

"… and then I'm going to set quotas so that you won't be exploited."

"That sounds wonderful, but… what about the ones who can't afford these new 'kuum-byne haar-vestas'?"

"Everyone can just pool their resources! We'll create these… uuu… let's call them collective farms, and it's going to make everyone's lives much easier, because one machine will do a hundred people's work!"

"But then what about those people? Are they going to be unable to work?"

"N-No! They can just relax, or… um… yes, they can work elsewhere! Like in industry! We're going to create our own local industries, and to make sure nobody will exploit the others, everybody's going to own them together!"

Josh let out a shallow breath, and glanced up at me again.

"Leo?"

"Yes?"

"I think she's doing a communism. Do you think we should stop her?"

Blinking, I watched Angie trying to explain to these poor Celestials what it meant to own the means of production.

"She didn't finish reading the political history textbook we bought her yet, did she?"

"Nope."

"Figures." With a sigh, I rolled up my proverbial sleeves, and jerked my head towards her. "Come on, buddy. Let's grab her before she somehow manages to change her title from Archon to La Presidenta and turn the Elysium into a banana republic…"

PART 2

It was on days like this that I really, really hated the fact that I couldn't sleep. It would've been so nice to just fall into bed and push all of today's problems aside for eight-or-so hours, but nope. Despite being tired like a sleight-dog, I wasn't sleepy at all, so I just had to keep paddling.

I really wished I could at least head home and grab a hot cup of tea, but there were still debriefings to give and cleaning up to do, so even that was out of the question for the time being. Like that, I left the Elysium and Phased to the underground base with a heavy sigh.

"Brother! What happened? Are you all right? Is Snowy all right? She's not picking up her phone! I've heard you found Uncle Percy, and that there was a battle, but nobody's telling me anything! Brother, are you listening? Brother!"

And then I immediately got verbally deluged by my sister the moment I stepped out of the teleport closet. Go figure. She must've been pestering my dear assistant until I came back, since it was only the two of them in the reception room.

In any case, I undid my Leoformer transformation and returned to my street clothes before placing a palm on Penny's head.

"Don't worry, kiddo. Snowy's all right; she just turned off her phone to take a nap. It's been a long night." After a long beat, my own words sank in and I added, "Speaking of which, it's pretty late. What are you still doing here?"

"You can't expect me to just go home and go to bed when nobody's telling me what's going on!"

"Everything's fine. You'll learn everything during the debriefing tomorrow anyway."

"Today," Judy noted, and showed me her phone, with the numbers 00:13 on the screen.

"Later today," I corrected myself and jerked my head towards the teleport closet. "Come on, kiddo. I'll ferry you home, and if you're still curious, you can get some of the details from Snowy when she gets home. Or, you know, get some shuteye. You must be tired."

"I'm not!" my knightly sister protested with a pout, but then she froze up, and despite trying her best, she had to hastily cover her mouth to hide a yawn. "A-Awawa! T-That means nothing! It's just, um, mirror neurons and stuff! We learned all about that in school!"

"Yes, yes," I said a touch noncommittally while gently pushing her towards the closet, and after a quick trip home, I deposited her in the living room.

"Oh, I didn't expect you to arrive this way," Roland noted in a low voice when we appeared. He was sitting on the couch, and when he spoke, the woman sleeping by his side stirred from her slumber.

"Ish mah Laady home?"

"No, not yet. You can go back to sleep," he told Tajana, and she casually accepted it and did just that.

Roland carefully rose to his feet and walked over to our side. In the meantime, Penny kept yawning, so I shooed her towards the stairs. Before long, it was only the two of us left in the back of the living room.

"Anything to report?" I asked, just to be sure. He shook his head.

"Nothing in particular. There weren't any suspicious movements around the household." He apparently considered the topic concluded with that and raised a brow at me. I knew what he wanted, but I didn't have time for a full breakdown of the events, so I just gave him a quick recap of the most important highlights. Attack on the hideout, assassination attempt, Percival, Colossi, dumb Celestial plots, et cetera. He listened to me attentively, and when I finished, he exhaled a soft hum and relaxed his shoulders a bit. "You had a busy night."

"Tell me about it." I glanced at the Abyssal spymaster still sleeping on the couch, and then back at him. "I don't think we have to worry about her getting loose today, so you can go home and get some rest. Tomorrow's gearing up to be as tiresome as today."

Surprisingly enough, he shook his head.

"You said Neige is on her way back." To be sure, I gave her a quick Far Glance, and she was still napping while sitting in the back of the Dracis's limo, and since I couldn't see Emese by her side anymore, I figured my in-laws had already gotten off and the car was bringing her home. All in all, I nodded, and Roland let out a thoughtful hum. "In that case, I'll wait until she's here. I listened to Tajana's worries about Neige all night long, so I feel I should stay until then. A few more minutes don't make much of a difference."

"Your call." With a shrug, I turned around and opened the door of the teleport closet. "I still have things to take care of. Let's have a proper talk tomorrow."

His agreement came in the form of a solemn nod, and with that, I closed the door behind me and reappeared near Judy, back in the base.

"Sorry about the sidetrack," I spoke automatically as I walked over to her side and sat down.

She didn't respond right away; since she still had her communication glasses on, she was probably in contact with someone, but after a few soft grunts, she pulled it down her nose and turned her full attention to me.

"Don't even mention it. So? How did things go in the Elysium?"

"Mostly okay," I responded off-handedly, busy rolling my shoulders to get the tension out of them. "Civil war averted, directors in house arrest, communism thwarted. All in a day's work."

"… You have to elaborate a bit on that last one, but later. What about Joshua and Angeline?"

"They're fine. I left them in my apartment over there before coming over. I'll pick them up tomorrow… I mean, later today." I paused, and after some consideration, shook my head. "Actually, maybe not. Having Angie around in the Elysium for a few days should help stabilize things faster. Maybe I should tell Lord Grandpa to shut down Blue Cherry High for the week, or something."

"Chief, you can't just cancel school for everyone whenever it's inconvenient," Judy chided me, but I wasn't ready to give up just yet.

"I don't really see any other option. We already played the 'we got the flu' card this year, and in my case, trying to use hospitalization as an excuse will only lead to the rumour mill getting a second wind, and that's just annoying."

"Speak for yourself. I personally found collecting those rumours rather amusing. Did you know that seven-point-two percent of the school still thinks that you were in a submarine accident?"

"… How does that even work? Logistically speaking, I mean?"

"I don't know, and that's why it's so fascinating," my dear assistant concluded with a shrug, but then her eyes opened imperceptibly wider as she recalled something and tried to snap her fingers. As usual, she had trouble with it, so I supplied the sound effects myself. "Thank you. More importantly, according to the school rules, parents can vouch and account for up to five missed days on the student's attendance record each school year."

"And how does that help…?" Half the sentence already slipped through my mouth by the time I realized what she meant. "Oh, right. Now I have parents. At least on paper."

"Yes. You can ask Sir Arnwald to do it for you. The same goes for Neige and Penelope."

"That could work for us, but still doesn't fix the issue for Angie and Josh."

"Baby steps, Chief. Baby steps. With this, you no longer have any reason to shut down the school. We'll figure out the rest later."

"… Fair enough."

With the preambles done, Judy let out a satisfied hum and took out her phone, only to stare at it and put it away.

"I'm under ten percent battery power. I'll take notes tomorrow."

"Good idea. It's pretty late, and you should also go to bed."

"Not before we discuss some crucial details first," she declared firmly and shifted in her seat to make it easier to face me. "I'll start. I questioned everyone about the events to see what your retcon changed. I made it into an easy-to-parse flowchart, but I already turned on the battery-saver mode on my phone, so I'll send it over to you in the morning."

"Sounds good. I already got a vague idea from context clues, but I'll listen to the results of your investigation first."

Nodding, she took a shallow breath to collect her thoughts, and began with, "According to what the others said, in this new continuity, Angie had always shared her body with Deus, who acted as a second consciousness that could take control of her body when under duress."

"That seems more or less in line with what I've seen," I agreed in a contemplative tone.

Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings.

"Does that make Deus her 'Superpowered Evil Side' or 'Superpowered Alter-Ego'?"

"… Probably neither? I mean, Deus is kind of annoying, but not Evil per se… at least I don't think this version is, and he's not a split-personality of her either. It's probably closer to just classic Body Sharing, with Deus drawing out more of her power."

"That brings up another point I was meaning to ask," Judy interjected before I could continue on that line of thought. "Have you changed Deus's personality?"

"… Maybe?" Silently I tried to recall whatever I could of the retconning experience, but it was still way too vague. Then, I considered my exchanges with Angie/Deus before the retcon, and what I knew about what her role in the plot should've been from other-me's knowledge, and I hesitantly whispered, "I probably did." After another pause, I centered myself and reiterated, this time with a stronger voice. "No, I almost certainly did. Original Deus was kind of an unsavoury, execute-first-ask-questions-later dictator type, while the current one is a bit more mellow, for the lack of better words. Knowing myself, even if I can't clearly remember what I did during the retcon, I can guarantee my primary concern was preserving Angie, so if Deus had to be altered to better fit the new scenario, then I absolutely did it."

"I have also seen that Angeline can now freely let Deus use her body, and then take back control. We should probably take the opportunity to interview Deus. He should be an invaluable source of information about the lore of the setting."

"You mean the history of the Elysium and Celestials."

"Yes, that's what I just said," Judy stated in a deadpan voice, and after a long beat, she continued like the previous exchange never happened. "On a related note, I have also built a provisional timeline of the night's events. Site A and Site C were unaffected by the retcon, while the incident at Site B played out closely to how I remember them."

"Please do elaborate."

Following my prompting, Judy let out a soft hum and closed her eyes for a second. Probably to collect her thoughts.

"The assassination attempt proceeded as in the previous continuity, except that Joshua was hit on the shoulder. Due to the shock, Angeline wasn't able to respond well, so Deus wrestled control of her body. Events from this point happened similarly to how I remember them, with her getting locked in a Restricted Space with the arch-mages, but according to witnesses, instead of her breaking out, Deus soon ran out of steam and Angeline asserted control. Then, Bel of the Abyss showed up and menaced her, while Joshua and Elly did their best to protect her until he, aka you, left the scene. From this point onwards, it's the current continuity. I also tried to look into whether the changes had any older or retro-casual effects on the timeline, but so far, I don't have enough data points."

"Don't put yourself down, Dormouse. I'm impressed you managed to figure out this much while also acting as mission control for multiple fronts at the same time. You're amazing, as usual."

"Mm."

She nodded, poker-faced as ever, but I could tell from her small gestures that she was secretly quite happy about getting casually praised like that. But back to the conversation.

"Hopefully I didn't do a slapdash job, and there won't be any dangerous unforeseen consequences of my actions. We're probably going to have our hands full with the dangerous foreseen consequences already."

"Ominous," Judy stated with just a bit of a pout, probably none too happy about ruining her mood right away with those foreboding words. I wasn't kidding though.

"Yep, but also true. Listen up, Dormouse. Remember how I told you about how I'm the Narrative?"

"Yes."

"I've managed to sort out a lot of the information in my head, and I think it might be more literal than I thought. As in, I, Leonard S. Dunning wasn't the actual, capital-N Narrative, but because I unwittingly shattered the plot of the current scenario and merged with other-me, it kinda-sorta broke the Narrative, and as the next most complete 'me', now I'm the Narrative."

"… You were right when you said it's all very esoteric," Judy noted with just a hint of a frown. "Does that mean there are even more versions of you out there?"

"Not quite? I mean, I'm me, and other-me was also me, and the Narrative was also me until I accidentally broke it, but all of that is part of something like a big me that's diffused into the Simulacrum…" Seeing that my explanation didn't exactly light the fire of understanding in her eyes, I switched my approach. "Okay, let's try it this way: you know the Freudian model of the mind, right?"

"Yes. The Id, the Ego, and the Superego."

"Exactly that. All of those are part of a single being, but they have different goals and purposes. It's like that with me; I'm kind of part of a bigger whole, but that bigger whole is still intrinsically 'me'. Does that make sense?"

"Some," she stated, though she didn't sound very certain of that. However, she soon shifted the conversation, making my analogy fall to the wayside. "I'm more curious about something else: you said you are the Narrative. Does that make you have reality-warping powers?"

"… I'd say that the ability to retcon things already counts as that, but I think I know what you mean." I recalled the moment I ordered the Colossi to stand down, and not only did I manage to sprout wings out of nowhere, but I also invented a random code phrase that got accepted on the spot. That was some prime evidence if there ever was any. "If we are talking about Narrative Influence, I think I can kind of do it, but… it's more like a strong self-suggestion? As in, if I insist that something should happen, and I genuinely believe that it should happen one way or another, then I can kind of will it into existence. Sorta."

"Can you do it accidentally?"

"Nah. It requires a lot of concentration, and…" I paused to mull over the best way to explain this to her, settling on, "It ultimately has to make sense to me, I guess. Like, if I sit down and convince myself that the forecast said there would be rain tomorrow, I could probably do that, but if I tried to convince myself that burning pigs would start falling from the sky, it would never work, because that's just stupid."

"So we don't have to worry about you accidentally creating a time loop that lasts for way too long and completely plummets our ratings."

"Probably not." Judy was looking at me like she was expecting something more. "What?"

"That was a reference."

"I know."

She gave me an icy stare, as if I just ruined the setup of her joke, but she quickly thawed out and linked her hands in her lap.

"Fine. One last question: Does being the Narrative mean that you have to continue the plot?"

"Unironically yes," I answered, though it sounded more like a groan in retrospect.

"And what's the plot?"

"I'll be damned if I know. The original was about Deus overwriting Angie, but then Josh reviving her with the power of love and banishing Deus or something. I have no idea what I was supposed to be doing during all of this, but it's a moot point because the whole thing is FUBAR at the moment."

"Does that mean you have to invent a new one?" I nodded without putting much thought into it. "Why?"

"Because… Because if I don't, then there's no drama, and this whole Simulacrum session will just completely decohere."

"Meaning, it's the end of the world as we know it."

"Pretty much."

"Then what happens if you do invent a new plot?"

"Well, I guess I will just have to do the same thing as when I tried to derail the tournament arc, just with more options in my toolkit."

"And then?"

I felt that Judy was trying to lead me to some kind of realization, so I played along.

"And then… I guess we'll have to write a new scenario, with all the rising action and interpersonal drama, and then conclude it with a climactic ending."

"And then?" she echoed herself, staring into my eyes without blinking.

"Then we'll have our ending and… erm…" Pausing, I scratched my head. "Honestly, I don't really know what comes after that."

"So, in theory, we could be trapped between a rock and a hard place," Judy posited solemnly. "If the plot doesn't continue, the world ends, but if the plot reaches its conclusion, the world also ends."

"Hold on!" Raising a palm, I cut in as firmly as I could. "Calm down, Dormouse. Don't go all class rep on me just yet. Remember that Narrative-me was working towards concluding the plot with a big, dramatic ending, which means it was the goal of pan-Simulacrum-me as well. Me is me is me, and since I definitely wouldn't do anything that would wilfully endanger your lives, let alone every living being in the Simulacrum, it logically follows that reaching an ending is not the end of the world."

"That's a semantically wonky argument, but I'm inclined to trust your judgement," Judy concluded, and after a few seconds of silence, she added, "Does that mean we'll have to invent our plot to replace the Angeline Route's ending right away?"

"Hell no. Things were more than dramatic enough to provide stimulus to the Submerged Ones for a while. We're going to coast on slice-of-life until today's mess gets sorted out, and then we can start worrying about climaxes once everything is stable."

"Understood."

Judy nodded, and I couldn't help but notice that her head was a bit unsteady, as if she had to catch herself from dozing off. It made sense; we were getting close to one in the morning, and that was way past her usual bedtime. As such, I decided to cut the discussion here, before she could bring up a new topic.

"It's getting really late. Come, Dormouse. I'll take you home, and then we'll give all of this another look tomorrow with fresh eyes."

"Sounds good to me."

As if to prove my point, the universal rules of timing made her stifle a long yawn and rub her eyes. A drowsy Dormouse was cute too, so I helped her get up, and only when I had already wrapped my phantom limbs around her did something occur to me. I said 'the universal rules of timing', but I always kind of thought it was just another facet of the Narrative. Like how jinxing things or my phone ringing to interrupt certain discussions happened because of the Narrative's meddling, but… I was the Narrative. Did this mean that I did all of those things, or were they completely unrelated to me, and I just had a way too active sense of pattern-recognition?

"Questions for later," I whispered as I hugged my girlfriend, and we disappeared, effectively serving as the curtain call for this hectic day. At least for her.

PART 3

"Good night, princess," I said to my draconic girlfriend after tucking her in her bed, and she must've been even more exhausted than I thought, because she fell asleep on the spot. After taking Judy home, I Phased over to visit her and had the truncated version of the same discussion as the one I had with my dear assistant, and it was already close to two in the morning by the time I convinced her to turn in for the night.

I watched her sleeping face for a few seconds, a small indulgence, and then I turned around and Phased to the other side of the Dracis mansion, and pretended that I just arrived as I walked into the old servants' quarters, a smaller building next to the east wing. Contrary to the name, it was more of a storage area, as well as the place where the family detained people who needed, well, detaining. It wasn't quite a prison, or a dungeon, but more of a 'this building has tiny windows, so people can't escape through them' kind of deal. Or so I figured, anyway.

"Ah, Leonard… I mean, My Liege," Arnwald greeted me, in the company of Morgana, Agrawain, Brang, and Rinne. Naoren and my in-laws were elsewhere, probably dealing with the political side of this whole hubbub, while this group was in charge of taking care of our captives.

To be frank, half of those didn't need any taking care of, as the mighty Colossi were currently quite literally piled up in the next room, on top of each other like a bunch of ragdolls. I was planning to have either Jaakobah or Kane take care of them later. For the moment, I had different fish to fry.

Before I could turn in for the night (as much as that even applied to me), I needed to tie up all loose threads, and everyone else seemed to be on the same page with me, considering they were still awake despite the hour of the day. I gestured for everyone to be at ease, and my eyes looked over the seven Fauns sitting on comically tiny stools lined up next to the far wall. They were nine of them in total, if my memory served right, but two of them were injured during capture by an overly enthusiastic Mountain Girl, so they were receiving treatment in a different room.

My eyes only lingered on the Fauns for a moment before returning to my allies on standby, and I nodded in their direction.

"Good work, everyone. Today was hectic, but everyone performed above and beyond the call of duty. You can rest now." Everyone relaxed a bit, except for Raven Boy, who was eyeing me suspiciously. We locked gazes for a few seconds, but when I still couldn't figure out why he was acting this way, I tentatively added, "How's your arm? Did you receive proper treatment?"

"Yes, but…" He continued to scrutinize me, ultimately blurting out the words, "You're acting odd."

"Agrawain…"

Morgana turned a pair of frowning violet eyes at her nephew, but he didn't back down.

"I'm serious. Normally he never gives a damn about me. It's suspicious."

Oh. So that's what the misunderstanding was about. Shaking my head, I told him, "I think I already mentioned this, but you're no longer high on my shit-list. It's as simple as that."

"… Seriously?"

I nodded, but he remained skeptical of my claim. I didn't really mind it. Honestly, I had been a bit too stubborn about that whole 'trying to kidnap Judy' thing, anyway, and now that I had more of an understanding of the plot, I had to realize that he targeted her due to Narrative-me trying to keep the plot on rails. Then I kicked over my own arrangements anyway and replaced it all with my ploys, because I didn't understand diddly-squat about the plot back there, but all of that was beside the point.

It did lead me to a belated realization though; while now I understood that Narrative-me had his fingers in many pies while trying to steer the plot, I also gained an acute awareness of the limitations of those 'narrative influence' moments. Narrative-me wasn't omnipotent, nor was he omniscient, and my actions often did catch him by surprise. Or catch me by surprise. Goddammit, trying to wedge this weird pan-Simulacral existence of mine into a language with pronouns not designed to accommodate it is going to be the death of me one day…

Anyhow, didn't that mean that Narrative-me was more of a DM from one of our tabletop roleplaying games than some kind of god? And if so, then that made Leonard S. Dunning me something of a self-insert, used to interfere with the plot without the other players' being the wiser? But if so, who were the 'players' in the analogy? The people inside the Simulacrum, the Emergents, or the Submerged Ones?

"What? Why are you staring at me like that?" Raven Boy blurted out, causing me to blink and belatedly realize that I was so lost in thought for a few seconds that I completely tuned out of the conversation. I still had a lot of things to figure out, and I was itching to finally sort out everything, but I could only do one thing at a time.

For the moment, I focused on our first group of captives and considered what to do with them. As I glanced over, my gazes crossed with a familiar Faun's; he was among the ones who got captured at the hideout, and the one who proudly declared that they would 'never yield to the usurper'. That was referring to me, by the way.

"[What do you want from us, usurper?]"

See? Just as I said.

In any case, he continued to growl at me with his ears folded close to his head, which meant he was either ready to fight, or scared. Maybe a bit of both? Due to all my interactions with Brang and co., I had a good impression of Fauns in general, and so I didn't take offence. I had people who did that for me.

"[Cease thine disrespect, Karrga,]" Brang raised his voice and slammed the butt of his spear against the floor for emphasis. The other Fauns all twitched in apprehension, and even though the speaker remained silent, his eyes continued to shift between wary and defiant. Seeing that, the old Faun sneaked a peek at me and then let out a pent-up breath. "[Thou art fortunate that Blackcloak's heart is broad enough to shoulder thine disrespect. Were he any less magnanimous, thou would have seen the wick of thine lives cut short already.]"

"[Better to die with dignity than to bow our heads to the man who turned the sister of our Liege, Lord of Inanna, into a traitor,]" another Faun hissed, and the rest, emboldened by his defiance, grunted in agreement.

"[He's not even a true Lord of the Abyss! How could you betray our Liege for him, general?!]"

"[He even captured our Lady, and no doubt subjected her to all kinds of indignities!]"

Were they talking about Tajana, I wondered. When the word 'indignities' came up, they all glared at me like I was the scum of the earth, so I was certain there was some kind of misunderstanding in play here. I tried to search my newfound memories to see if it was in any way related to the plot, or something set up by Narrative-me as part of the ploy to get these guys to assault the dockyard hideout and kick off today's climax, but I couldn't recall anything concrete. That meant it was probably a genuine, home-grown misconstruction. Lovely.

"[The singular ignominy I have ever inflicted upon the lady of neglectful eyes and haphazard espionage was the forbiddance of audiovisual theatre of the coarsest variety.]" My attempt at clearing things up fell on deaf ears, and seeing the confused expressions on the Fauns' faces, I figured it was pointless to keep trying. Instead, I turned to Brang. "[General. May I bequeath these foolish warriors of the Abyss in your care?]"

"[Aye, Blackcloak… yet first, I have a request to thee.]"

That was unexpected, so I automatically raised a single brow high. Brang must've found it amusing, as he covered his mouth with his fist and let out a low chuckle before gesturing at the captives.

"[I shall enact discipline upon the men-at-arms, and see that they understand thine will and character, yet I sense that doing so would be made more efficient if thou were to set an example.]"

Brow still raised, I was just about to ask what he meant by that, but seeing the subtle orange glow in his eyes quickly made me realize his point.

"[You would entreat me to contest these fools in the Rites of Dominance.]" He nodded, and after considering the pros and cons of the issue, I did the same and turned to Mountain Girl. The Knights already retired for the day, as per my instructions, but she was still diligently doing the retainer-business by sticking to my back like my shadow. "This shouldn't take long. Could you please untie that big oaf over there?"

I pointed at the mouthy Faun (what did Brang call him; Kerrigan? Kurgan? something like that), and while she looked unsure about why I told her to do that, she dutifully unsheathed Onikiri and cut the ropes tying the big ram-guy's hands behind his back. He rubbed his wrists, weighing his options, but seeing that Mountain Girl still had her sword drawn, his gaze ultimately settled on me.

"What are you waiting for? Get up, and stand over there," I instructed him and rolled my shoulders. "It's late, and I have places to be, so let's get this over with quickly."

"[You want me to engage the general in the Rites of Dominance?]" he asked in a low, rumbling voice, sounding quite wary of the prospect, and when I shook my head, his expression shifted into one of full-blown confusion, complete with rapidly twitching ears and all.

"I really don't have time for all the ceremony, so just follow my lead."

Saying so, I locked eyes with him, and as our consciousnesses touched, there was the familiar orange light of the Dominance enveloping him from head to toe as a spectral copy was overlaid upon his body. My ghostly version wasn't so lackadaisical, and the moment the ritual started, it dashed out and knocked the Faun's spectre in the nose with a straight punch.

The real guy shuddered in surprise, nearly breaking the connection between the two of us in the process, but he quickly stabilized himself, which I took as an invitation to ramp things up a bit. As such, I released five more spectres, bringing the numbers up to six, and then I automatically tuned out. It was a habit I developed from training with Brang, and let's be honest here; while I was 'fighting' this guy bare-handed, in a cramped room, and even without wearing my Leoformer gear, at this stage he was practically no threat to me, and my transparent copies could beat him on auto-pilot anyway.

Instead, I let my mind wander. For example, where did my ability to engage in Dominance come from? I was pretty sure it was another one of the powers my original 'choose your own villain' role in the plot necessitated and one that would've laid dormant in me if I remained me. Did that make sense? Once again, pronouns were my new enemy; joining the axis of evil along with 'hindsight', 'overthinking', and 'accidental flirting'. Quite a nefarious quartet.

Jokes aside, if my hunch was correct, this was probably some kind of situational power for me when I went the way of the Abyssal. Which made me wonder; which route was supposed to be that? I mean, as much as the concept of 'routes' actually applied to the Simulacrum's current plot, anyway.

If Josh picked Elly, I would've stayed a Knight. If he picked Angie, I would become Polemos. In case he picked the class rep, I would've… also become Polemos? Yeah, that sounded right. Then was my Abyssal version for the Snowy route? Nah, Snowy wasn't a heroine, so…

…

Wait. Snowy wasn't a heroine? Why? I tried to look into my memories, but that was all I could gather. She apparently wasn't even supposed to factor into the plot past the intro. That was weird. But if not her, then…

"Ah. Penny."

My whispered words made my shades flicker, but then they continued on like nothing happened. By the way, one of said spectres of mine was currently beating up one of Karr-something-something's ghostly afterimages by using another Faun as a cudgel. It was shockingly visceral, which made me wonder if I might've been in more dire of a need to release some steam than I ever realized.

Putting those worries aside, I concluded my previous thought with the realization that Penny was originally the secret surprise heroine, and then my Abyssal version would've been the secret surprise villain. Colour me surprised.

Anyhow, I felt like I was getting too lost in thought, so I refocused my attention and pondered on what to do next. It was late in the night, so I figured that using Far Sight wasn't going to lead me to discover anything new, but then that idea launched me off on a completely different tangent. As in, why was I so good at this Dominance combat thing? No, scratch that, the issue went deeper: why was I so good at dividing my attention when doing tasks like this?

For example, using Far Sight while also battling ten spectral Fauns with ten copies of myself wasn't a big deal, but using Far Sight while walking home was just asking for trouble. Was it because I was subconsciously restraining myself into the concept of Leonard S. Dunning, but activities that purposefully divided my attention brought me closer to my pan-Simulacrum self?

There were lots of things to consider, but before I could get anywhere with them, suddenly the Faun in front of me fell to his knee and raised his palms in surrender.

"[I… I yield… to you…]" He squeezed out in a daze, his forehead drenched in sweat that made his hair and fur cling to his skin, his breath heavy like he just ran a marathon.

"Oh. That was quicker than expected," I noted with just a tinge of pleasant surprise, and Brang by my side let out a satisfied chuckle.

"[It warms mine old bones to see the Rites of Dominance used for their ordained purpose for once.]"

I could feel some hidden barbs in those words, but when I turned a sideways glance his way, the old Faun flashed an innocent smile, and walked up to the downed ram-man in the middle of the room.

"[Now that thee have seen the qualification of Blackcloak by thine own eyes, let us turn the inquiring eye to thine behavior, young Karrga.]"

He put his big hand on the other Faun's shoulder, and he shuddered like Brang just dropped a whole wooden beam on him.

"Do you need me to be around?" I asked, and after some consideration, the elderly Faun shook his head.

"[Nay, Blackloak. Thou hath done what had to be done. Henceforth, I shall be enough to enlighten the younger generation.]"

"Good. I still have one more place I need to visit before the night is over, so I'll take my leave now."

He nodded, and while I was tempted to just Phase away and get things over with, considering Brang and Rinne were the only witnesses who mattered in the room, I decided against it and left the place, and the Fauns, in the old general's capable hands. I was planning to head outside, and have some people witness my departure from the mansion before I teleported to the last stop, and it was only when I was already out of the old servants' quarter building that I realized that Mountain Girl followed after me.

"Aren't you tired?" I asked, and despite the visible circles under her eyes, she shook her head.

"No, Rinne is fine. Since Leonard-dono is still working, Rinne cannot rest either." She paused and glanced at the lit windows of the main building. "Naoren-san must be working too."

"Probably," I noted with indifference as we kept walking towards the main gates. "It was a crazy day."

"Rinne agrees. Rinne never thought that Rinne would get to fight the monsters of the Empyrean Realm today, and Rinne is feeling really invigilated by the experience."

Despite what she said, her using her own name ever more than usual told me she was more out of it than she wanted to let me on, but I played along.

"Figures. I said this already, but you did well today."

"Of course! Rinne always does well. Even Naoren-san praised Rinne today."

"Did he?" I spoke absently as we reached the gates and I waved at the guard on night shift to let us through. He wanted to know if we needed a ride, but I dismissed him, not only because we didn't need one, but also due to Mountain Girl hogging my attention.

"Yes, Naoren-san really did! Naoren-san said Rinne looked gallant, like a fairy."

That… was pretty weird, so I had a feeling that she either used the wrong word, or the guy meant something different. Or maybe in China, fairies were badass? It could be. Whatever the case might've been though, she suddenly grew more enthusiastic.

"Ah, Rinne just remembered! Can Rinne ask for a day of leisure from Leonard-dono?"

"… You mean a day off?"

"Yes, that's what Rinne meant!" She exclaimed with a look that said I was the weird one for repeating the same thing she just said.

"Do you need rest? Were you injured?"

"Hm? No, of course not. Rinne is not so weak." She stopped here, so I gestured for her to continue, yet she seemed unwilling to do so. In the end, she still gave in, and told me, "Naoren-san said Naoren-san wanted to reward Rinne for Rinne's support during the battle, so Naoren-san will host a feast in Rinne's honor!"

Oh god. The name overload is getting worse. Maybe pronouns aren't so evil after all…?

"So, you want a day off to have a 'feast' with Naoren," I summarized, eliciting a nod. "Sure. Ask me again once things calmed down a bit. For now, if you want to come along, then get in my shadow."

"As Leonard-dono commands!" she declared, and after making a couple of hand seals, she merged into the shadow cast by the nearby street lamp.

We weren't fully hidden, but the tree on our left and the hedge on our right provided enough cover. Meanwhile, I couldn't help but exhale a soft grunt in amusement. Leave it to Naoren to grab every opportunity to get what he wants, by any means necessary. Including the seemingly bottomless stomach of a certain dense ninja woman.

I wished him the best of luck, and with those final thoughts, I disappeared from the shady street corner. My destination: the School.

PART 4

"My goodness, Leonard! Why aren't you resting?"

Gowan, the sociable Head Artificer of the School, continued to mother-hen me as we waited for the elevator car to reach the underground facility. I ran into him just as he was about to leave, and he not only decided to turn around and accompany me, but he never stopped pestering me either.

"I truly mean that! Do you even know what time it is? You really should be sleeping right now."

"I'll have plenty of time to sleep after the heat-death of the universe," I jested, but he didn't get it. Shaking my head, I deflected the topic by asking, "You should practice what you preach, you know? Why aren't you resting yet?"

"Well, I would be, if we didn't meet up there," he answered with a huff while readjusting the loupe on his forehead. "I'm not the one who had to capture assassins, fight a Colossus, and stop a war today!"

"Colossi. Plural," I pointed out with just a smidgen of a hint of a shadow of a smile. "There were six of them."

"All the more reason why you should take it easy!"

I wanted to point out that I didn't actually fight those (well, technically I kind of did, as Bel, but that was beside the point), but I didn't get the opportunity, as the elevator doors opened with a soft ping, and the conversation naturally petered out as we headed deeper into the School complex. Our (or rather my, as Gowan was only tagging along on his own) destination was the holding area on the third basement floor.

In retrospect, just Phasing there would've been much more economical, but then I would've had to explain how I got in, why I did it while avoiding getting noticed, and so on, which was a pain in the neck. It would've still taken less time than walking through the corridors, and even using the stairs, but that's just how the whole 'pick your poison' thing worked.

Anyhow, since Gowan remained mostly silent, I had time to think, and there was soon an odd question rearing its ugly head in the back of my mind: I have often complained about the Simulacrum having an inexplicable obsession with underground bases and facilities all around the island, but now that I understood my connection with the Narrative, was this also my fault?

…

No, I was pretty sure it wasn't. I kind of played into it by picking the abandoned bomb shelter as our base of operations, but the rest wasn't on me. Not even on Narrative-me. I could nudge the plot, and people, if necessary, but this felt like it was a different matter entirely. Kind of a… division of labour kind of way? Was there another-me out there, responsible for worldbuilding?

In point of fact, now that I thought about it, wasn't The Man of the Emergents I saw in the not-black not-room particularly insistent on terminology and setting details? Maybe he was the one in charge of that. Maybe I should ask him when…

"One thing at a time," I whispered under my breath to shake the thought out of my head, and Gowan raised a brow at me in reaction.

"Could you repeat that? I didn't quite catch it."

"Don't mind me, I'm just mumbling to myself."

"It must be because of the exhaustion. Yet another reason why you should put your feet up."

"Sure, sure. Right after I'm done here."

That finally satisfied him, and before long, we reached the holding area in comfortable silence. The friendly artificer headed inside ahead of me, and the moment I followed, the room fell silent.

"Whit th' hell? Whit urr ye daein' 'ere at this oor?"

"Hello, Duncan," I greeted him back, purposefully ignoring his string of complaints and glancing around.

We were in a large, grey concrete chamber. The side with the door through which we arrived was completely bare, while the others were covered with metal bars, with three cells on each side. It both the bars, the metal doors, and the insides of the cells looked like budget versions of a modern prison block, but considering the eye-watering glow of magic surrounding every square centimeter of every surface, I was sure this place was more secure than Alcatraz in its heyday.

Including me and Gowan, there were now five of us in the central room. On my left, Sir Duncan, looking even grumpier than usual, folded his large arms and was looking at me attentively. On my right, Lord Grandpa and Lord Taika were no less intrigued by my visit, though the former was a tab bit more annoyed than the latter.

Then, there were the occupants of the Cells.

"Ah, bonsoir!" A short man with a handlebar moustache greeted me with a toothy grin. While he, along with all the other would-be assassins, were wearing the hand-me-down tracksuits of the Knights, it would've been impossible for me not to recognize him as the power-armour-wearing bastard from before. When I didn't greet him back, he cocked his head to the side. "Or is it bonjour already?"

Completely ignoring the aggressively French mad scientist, I approached Lord Grandpa and nodded in his direction.

"Is everything in order?"

"I feel like I should be the one to level that question at you." He made a vague gesture at the cells on our left, which housed a bunch more people, and while they were also wearing plain tracksuits, it didn't take a genius to deduce that they were the Celestials causing a scene at the playground. "I was informed there was an internal altercation among the leadership of Elysium. I did not expect you would have the leisure to visit my School, especially not at this hour."

"Yes, yes, it's very late." I rolled my eyes to emphasize my annoyance with the topic. "For your information, the situation in the Elysium was already resolved."

"Really?" Lord Taika interjected, looking rather shocked by my words.

"Let me jalouse. Ye gaed thare, 'n' beat th' crap oot o' a' body wha didnae sit doon 'n' listen tae ye. Am ah in th' richt ballpark?"

"Surprisingly enough, you aren't," I answered the big guy with a smirk, earning me a huff. "It's not that important though. I'm here to ask if everything was fully resolved. Were there any casualties?"

"Our staff suffered a handful of minor injuries, but nothing debilitating or life-threatening," Lord Grandpa answered first, and the female arch-mage followed him up with a thoughtful him.

"The civilians were also uninjured. We also… negotiated with the authorities."

"Due to the large scale of the battle, fully covering up the entire incident may prove to be impossible without employing mind-altering mystic arts, and even so, the process may take weeks," the old man griped as if already seeing the mountain of work on his plate.

"Fortunately, there were no recordings of the events. I did my best to cover up the battle, but the School of Illusion still has its limits." Taika paused, and after pointedly looking at me, she added, "At least, most of the time."

"Let's hope everything stays under wrap then," I concluded and then jerked my head towards the Celestial captives. "Can I ask you to keep those guys in custody for a few days? At least until the situation in the Elysium is fully sorted out." Lord Grandpa nodded and we both turned to the cells on the other wall, more or less in unison. "As for these guys…"

"Just un instant!" the prisoner in the front cut in with a hastily raised hand. "How about we… couper la poire en deux, so to speak?"

"… What?" I blurted out without thinking, and Duncan let out a soft scoff.

"Th' bas says he wants tae mak' a deal wi' ye."

My head snapped to face the big guy, and it took me quite a bit of effort not to sound too incredulous.

"You speak French?"

"Ah picked up bits 'n' pieces ower th' years."

Duncan's tone was almost bashful, but his expression said he was quite pleased by my reaction.

"Ah, indeed. A… compromise, oui?" The imprisoned sharpshooter implored me with a grin right out of the handbook of a used car salesman. "Our first meeting was désastreux, but as they say, l’habit ne fait pas le moine! If you can look past our small désaccord, I can prove myself!"

Levelling the flattest gaze I could at the man, I let out a looong breath.

"You tried to shoot me. Twice."

"L'accent est mis sur le terme 'tried'."

"… Duncan?"

"He sa' he didnae hit ye, sae tis braw," he translated, in a manner of speaking.

"I am beginning to develop a headache from this," Lord Grandpa whispered in the back, and I couldn't exactly make fun of him this time. Between Mr. Handlebar Moustache's violent Frenchism and our Sir Minotaur's rather… esoteric accent, it was easy to get lost in the conversation. Anyhow, I turned back to the prisoner and narrowed my eyes even more.

"You did manage to shoot one of my friends while trying to assassinate another. You can't just handwave that away."

"Ah, but they did live, didn't they, the petites saucisses! Let's not get bogged down in such désagréable details. De l'eau a coulé sous les ponts, eg?"

"Wat'r under th' brig, he say," Duncan translated without any need for prompting.

"No, it's really not. There's a limit to how much I can overlook," I said in a firm tone and turned to the arch-mages. "This is getting us nowhere. Can I leave interrogating these clowns to you?"

"That was our intention from the very beginning." Lord Grandpa's voice was practically dripping with irritation, as if I just stepped on his toes. "We are more than capable of finding out the identities and whereabouts of the people supporting this group on our own."

"I wasn't implying otherwise; I only asked because neither the Ordo Draconis nor the Elysium can currently do that, for various reasons."

For the former, we didn't really have any interrogation experts, with maybe the exception of Snowy, on our payroll, while the latter… Well, let's just say that leaving these guys, who tried to assassinate Deus (and to a lesser degree, me) in the hands of the Celestial Intelligence Network was just asking for an 'unfortunate accident' to happen to them.

"Don't worry, Leonard. We'll share everything we draw out of them with you," Lord Taika reassured me, while the Frenchman in the back objected with a voice full of industrial-strength indignation.

"W-Wait! Just a minute! Can I speak with Wissenschaftler?"

"Why?"

My honest question made him pause, and he tentatively answered, "Because… If not for népotisme, I could've been the one hired by the archi-sorcier here! If now for that, our roles could be reversed right now! I'm sure he'll montrez-moi un peu d'empathie!"

I glanced at the aforementioned 'archi-sorcier', and Lord Grandpa, in a rather uncharacteristic display, didn't meet my eyes.

"Did you seriously plan to hire this guy in the past instead of Fred?"

"It was indeed in the cards," the old man answered a touch hesitantly and absent-mindedly rubbed his face. "Those were, without a doubt, simpler times."

Ignoring how Lord Taika was having a hard time holding back a chuckle, I turned to the imprisoned mad scientist again, and told him, "Well, I guess we dodged a bullet with that one, didn't we?"

"Haud yer haurses! Wis that a pun!?"

"Maaaybe?" I responded coyly, and this time, Taika actually burst into laughter, much to the chagrin on Lord Grandpa. Her expression proved to be infectious though, and soon, even Gowan and Duncan were chuckling. Maybe it had to do with the tension of the day finally dissipating. I wouldn't know, because I most definitely wasn't grinning along with them.

But alas, with this, the loose end was almost completely tied up, and I had other places to be, so I promptly told our not-so-sharp shooter, "I'll mention your name to Fred, but even if he vouches for you, don't expect to get out of jail any time soon."

The man nodded with a hint of relief, and seeing that the main reason for my visit was officially concluded, I got ready to move on. Just leaving all of a sudden would've been rude though, so I first looked around and asked, "I've been wondering, but where's Ammy?"

Of course, I could've just checked with Far Sight, but that would've ruined the point of the small talk, now wouldn't it?

"I had instructed her to head home and rest," the old arch-mage answered as if I was asking something absurd. "It was already well past her customary bedtime."

"A very sensible thing indeed," Gowan interjected and lightly patted on my back. "One Leonard should definitely follow, don't we all agree?"

"Ah think it wid be better tae say we shuid a' git some shuteye awready, nae juist him," Duncan grumbled, and Taika nodded in full agreement.

Like that, our little group left the prisoners in their cells and headed upstairs. While Endymonion and Taika broke off from our group and went to the old man's office, Gowan very insistently shepherded me and Duncan out of the complex, and would've even gotten me a ride if I couldn't convince him otherwise. Seriously, he was being unusually overbearing. Did I look that exhausted?

Putting silly questions like that aside, I bid farewell to the big Knight (he said he still had something to take care of in the Constable Inc. headquarters), I followed the usual routine by picking a deserted spot on the street first, and after ensuring that there was nobody else around, I Phased right into my room.

The moment I arrived, I practically fell onto my bed and stared at the ceiling for a solid five minutes to collect myself a bit. I was dead tired, but with some effort, I pushed myself up and exhaled hard. While I only did the bare minimum, I tied up more or less every hanging plot-thread that could get tangled up if left alone. To be safe, I did a quick Far Sight roll call, just to make sure everything was in order. My girlfriends were sleeping. So were my sisters, Ammy, as well as Josh and Angie in the Elysium. I would have to pick them up in the morning, but that was for later.

The Abyss was still blissfully unaware of what happened, so I quickly crossed Crowey and his cronies off my checklist. The chief directors were also, surprisingly enough, on their best behaviour. Or maybe they were just too tired to scheme at this hour. Others were still active though, as Jaakobah, Kale, and Gideon (aka, the head of the Department of Military Affairs) were still cleaning up after the surprise almost-civil-war. Speaking of which, I checked on Mike and Moose, but they were both asleep already; probably tuckered out after playing mission support for the Archonists for the night.

Last, but not least, I Far Glanced at Sir Percival. He was still unconscious, in one of the more guarded chambers of the Dracis mansion, and he was hooked up to a respirator and a bunch of monitors. Needless to say, he was in bad shape, but he should be happy he wasn't dead. Of course, that meant that once he woke up, I would have to put the final nails in his proverbial coffin, since the cat was out of the bag regarding his betrayal and Celestial connections, but I would cross that bridge when I got there.

For now, I had one last task for the day I had to accomplish. One that I really, really didn't want to do, but it was absolutely necessary. For a second, I wondered if I should watch a couple of funny animal videos on the internet first to center myself, but I exiled the idea from my frontal cortex. There was no reason, or excuse, to drag my feet at this point, and it was probably better to give it the band-aid-ripping treatment than to pussy-foot around the problem any longer.

As such, I inhaled, long and deep, raised the only unique, slightly stubby phantom limb among my plethora of ethereal tendrils, and exhaled the words, "Welp. It's time to take another peek… and maybe introduce myself, I guess."

And then, with a careful stab, I entered the space-between spaces. Now, I just had to find the not-dark not-room again, and then… and then I would have to wing it, I supposed. Wouldn't have been the first time, and wouldn't be the last.