PART 1

"… What?"

No, seriously. What even was this? What was I looking at?

Right then and there, I had one of those moments. The kind where an hour's worth of thoughts would flash through one's mind in the span of a single second, and the cognitive overload causes none of them to be properly considered or answered before a dozen more would appear. It was kind of the opposite of being stupefied, but from the outside, it looked pretty much the same; me standing there like a deer in the headlights, motionless and eyes glazed over.

I might've stayed like that for quite a bit longer, if not for a sudden battle cry shaking me out of my stupor.

"It's youuu!"

With a mighty (if slightly strained) bellow, Angie's wings and halo suddenly sprung up, dyeing the surroundings in their golden radiance. The unexpected spectacle caused the nearby guests to also awaken from their first shock, but to their credit, they didn't panic. Probably because they were already used to being on guard against Knight attacks in the past, I figured.

Whatever might've been the case, they gave a large berth to Angie even as they retreated away from the center of attention in an orderly fashion. Over there, the hostess dragged the young cellist behind the stage, Yseult was doing her best to figure out what was going on, while Naoren and Rinne were… grappling? From the looks of it, they were probably both trying to protect the other by standing between them and 'Bel', but they just ended up rooted in place and struggling with each other. Go figure.

But speaking of the masked man, he was focused on Angie for now, with a hand in front of his mouth mimicking chuckles.

"You dare show your face in front of me again?" the Celestial girl bellowed, Deus momentarily asserting control while she was out of it, but then she soon followed it up by a much more natural (and just a touch more panicked), "T-That's not important! W-We have to keep him occupied and protect the people!"

Josh was of the same mind, and he also flashed his wings as he drew forth his magical arm-blade, striking a pose next to Angie. It was probably meant to signify that he got her back, and she hurriedly took up a matching stance, as if they had practiced this beforehand. Which… considering it was these two we were talking about, wasn't out of the question.

More importantly, someone was tugging on my sleeve, and when I looked down, I found Judy glaring at me.

"Chief?"

"Don't ask, I have no idea either," I told her in a hurry before she could level any accusations against me.

She would've still done so, if not for my family barrelling through the retreating crowd; Penny and Snowy were coming from our left, while Arnwald and Morgana arrived from the rear, more or less at the same time. Thanks to all the emergency drills, they automatically put on their respective Magi- and Uniformers.

"Leonard? What's going on here?" Morgana was the first who levelled an understandable question at me, and she unsubtly jerked her head towards the masked man on the stage.

"Deus, old pal! It's good to see you again! Last time we parted on a sour note, but I hope that this time we can have some fun!" The 'Bel' up there rubbed his palms together in anticipation, only to then pause and tilt his head to the side wonderingly. "By the way, did you bring the biscuits? Or was it cookies in this timeline? Ah, who cares! They're almost the same thing anyway, right, old chap?"

"T-They aren't!" Angie protested, and while I couldn't see his face from this angle, Josh's body language told me he must've been giving her a deadpan stare that practically screamed 'Dude, are you seriously objecting to that in this situation?!'.

But putting Josh being the straight man aside, I had to give it to the guy on the stage; he was doing a perfect imitation of my Bel act, down to the small gestures. Like how he swept the tails of his coat out when he did a scraping bow, or the way he tapped on the chin of the mask to indicate confusion. That… gave me a rather foreboding tingling up and down my spine, but I pushed it down for the moment and turned back to the impatiently waiting Morgana and company.

"I don't know what's going on, but I intend to find out." I glanced at the princess. "Elly, please look after Judy."

"On it!" my draconic girlfriend declared with gusto and hugged my dear (though currently still very disapproving) assistant from the side.

"You two, please get Naoren and Rinne out of the crossfire, and then call for backup."

Morgana was visibly unenthused by my previous non-answer, but when Arnwald gave me a salute with a solemn, "As you command!", she quickly joined him and the two of them left in a hurry. That left me with my sisters, and when I turned to them, I found Penny already hyped up.

"Don't worry, Brother! I'll protect Snowy!"

"I… was actually going to ask you two to help the stragglers evacuate the courtyard and secure the perimeter."

"Oh…" My Knightly sister twitched in mild embarrassment, but only for a moment before she perked up again. "I can do that too! I'm good at multitasking!"

Meanwhile, Snowy was giving her a sisterly 'Oh, what am I going to do about you?' kind of look, so I left them to their own devices and faced the unfolding situation in the front. The 'Bel' on stage was still heckling Angie and Josh, making wild gestures as he walked up and down and giving a passionate speech about pastry discrimination, while the senior Knights had already reached the couple in the middle, who were now also struggling with Yseult trying to intervene and drag them away herself.

In other words, it was a classic, Grade-A flustercuck that came out of nowhere. As they often tended to do. And the 'Bel' on display was still giving me the mother of all bad premonitions, chills and all.

"Stay safe," I told the girls, and with a deep breath, I activated my Leoformer and donned my Polemos gear. Considering the circumstances, with the whole hubbub going on between Angie and this 'Bel of the Abyss', I figured this was the most appropriate way to insert myself into the conversation.

With measured steps, I walked over to the side of the childhood friend couple and then stepped between them and the stage, my right arm extended to the side and forming a barrier (figuratively, not magically) to signal that they should stay back.

"I'll take it from here."

Josh looked relieved by my arrival (though maybe also a little miffed because I took so long), but on the flipside, Angie looked furious.

"No! I told you that we would fight together and beat this motherfu—" On second thought, that was probably Deus, but before he could launch into a tirade, Angie reasserted control and let out an annoyed, "Mou! Stop it! Leo's gonna be mad at us again!"

"Oh, look at that! We have a full reunion!" The Bel on the stage clapped with unbridled enthusiasm, and disappeared in a blink of an eye, only to rematerialize just a few steps in front of us with his arms open, as if he wanted to sweep up all of us in a huge hug. "All three Archons, together once again! It's the Bel and Polemos and Deus and Deus variety hour!" He remained stock still for a beat, then his whole body twitched and he adopted a thinking pose, with his chin resting on his knuckle. "By the way, Polemos, dearest of all my friends! You still haven't explained what that is all about, you know? It really hurt my poor little feelings."

For the moment, I ignored the fact that his gestures and tone were way, way too natural, and focused on the rest of the scene. Thanks to him moving over, it provided an opportunity for Arnwald and Morgana to close the distance and they finally managed to drag the three arguing stragglers out of the theatre of action. By this point, most of the guests and staff also evacuated, but there were still some who remained behind, either looking to provide help if necessary or for some juicy gossip.

In either case, I hoped my sisters would convince them to leave soon so that I could focus all my attention on this… was 'impostor' the right term? I kind of hoped it was, but deep down I had an inkling that things were more complicated than that. Anyhow, he was the right height and build, he had my Bel act nailed down to a tee, and he could even teleport somehow. That last one was a bit of a pickle to explain, but I decided not to jump to conclusions yet, and instead I reached out with my phantom limbs. As I did, there was a strange and incongruous feeling, as if they had to pass through water to reach him, but when they did and I took a look at his outfit…

…

Yep. This was definitely my Bel gear. The one I used before switching to the Leoformer. It even had the anti-draconic enchantment on the gloves and everything.

…

Well, fuck. That meant there were two possibilities left: either someone who looked just like me when disguised as Bel sneaked into the underground base, stole the old outfit from the secret storage under Galatea's watch, and spent who knew how long to mimic my acting to perfectly impersonate me, or…

"{Testing, testing. Can you hear me?}"

My internal turmoil was interrupted by a strange, warbled voice coming through the Leoformer's communicator. It sounded like a badly tuned radio broadcast of an old text-to-speech program, including the flat tone and emphasis on the wrong syllables all over the place.

"Leo? Are you listening to me?" Angie fumed behind me, and since I couldn't recall her saying anything new, I apparently wasn't.

"Just stay back for now," I told her without taking my eyes off this Bel and took a step forward for emphasis before extending my phantom limbs again and plugging into the communication array on his mask. At first, I couldn't decide how to respond, but I ultimately settled on a safe, "{I can hear you.}"

"Oh, the heroic Polemos to the rescue!"/"{Good. Listen, let's put on a show first, and then I'll explain what's going on later.}"

It took me a while to parse the two different lines, one spoken and one transmitted through the communication enchantment, and when I did, I felt even more apprehensive.

"{Are you me?}"

"{In a manner of speaking,}" he responded, but before I could ask anything else, he suddenly Phased away, and since my phantom limb was no longer connected to him, our communications were effectively cut.

As for why he did so, it probably had to do with the ball of compressed air landing in front of his feet and kicking up a small explosion of soil and grass.

"Josh! What the shit!?" I yelled at my friend behind me, but he remained undaunted and met my glare tit for tat.

"Angie is right! We can't let this opportunity slip away! He's a threat, and it's three-on-one this time! We can get him!"

"Right!" Angie exclaimed next to him, and the two of them struck matching poses again, bringing out their magical arm-blade spells and flaring their wings. "We've got this!"

I was just about to tell them to stand down, but then 'Bel' showed up on stage again and reconnected to my communication line again.

"Oooh! Aren't you a pair of eager beavers? You know, I came here for something else, but if you really want to play like in the good old times, I'm game!"/"{Don't overthink this. This is fine. They are the protagonists of the scenario, so we need to give them the opportunity to do stuff like this every once in a while.}"

Barely stifling a groan, I turned to the stage and, after a long beat, I retrieved Teeny from my storage enchantment and brandished it over my head.

"Fine. But you follow my lead, got it?"/"{Fine, but I want to get some bloody answers afterwards, goddamit.}"

"Sure!" Angie exclaimed, and the childhood friend duo lined up next to me, forming a united front. It was only then than she awkwardly added, "B-By the way… Grandpa Deus asks if you have a way to deal with his teleporting?"

"You can teleport too, right?" Josh whispered on my other side. "I mean, not like this guy, but can you, like, tie him down somehow?"

I wanted to tell him that it's not how that works, but then my communicator came to life again.

"{Okay, so here's the plan: Tell them you'll stop me from Phasing, and I'll play along. Don't worry; I upgraded the arrays on the outfit in my free time, so I have some pretty decent physical enhancements. I'll manage with danger sense alone.}"

I didn't know what felt more incongruous; the oddly natural and friendly way he was messaging me, the fact he was using my terminology without batting an eye, or that my gut reaction was an immediate 'Yeah, that sounds good', as if it was my own idea.

Oh, dear god… he really was me, wasn't he? Please, please tell me we didn't jump the shark and—

"Huh?" Suddenly, the Bel on the stage staggered, and glanced left and right. "Oh, Polemos, you cheeky, cheeky sausage! You had something like this up your sleeve the whole time, huh?"

"What is he talking about?" Josh asked, raising his arm-blade defensively.

"It's… spatial coordinate oversaturation," I spoke the first somewhat fitting string of technobabble that came to mind. "He can't teleport now, but it won't last for long."

"We'll make it count!" Angie (or more likely, Deus, based on the tone) declared and spread all her wings before suddenly lunging forward like an arrow loosed from a bow.

"Wait! Don't rush in alone!" Josh yelled and leapt after her, and they both engaged the man on the stage in a close-quarters battle that almost looked like a choreographed dance number, with all the spinning and everything.

"{Inquiry: Is this an appropriate time for Interface:Teeny to ask for information about the situation?}"

"No," I responded a touch dourly and joined the dance… I mean, fray.

Meanwhile, Josh used his wings to jump extra-high, nearly hitting the scaffolding holding the speakers overhead and did a dive-bomb attack with his two arm-blades extended. Bel casually avoided the initial attack by twisting his body to the side, and then jumped over the weird, spinning follow-up-strike Josh did after landing. At the same time, Angie was singing a slow Gregorian-style chant while floating over our heads, and it summoned half a dozen transparent, glass-like flying swords around her. Each one was about a meter long, tinted in a golden yellow colour, and had what looked like bits of the flames from her wings embedded in them.

It all looked really majestic… until she started beatboxing (no, seriously) to rapidly fire them at Bel. He weaved between the incoming projectiles, and when they landed on the stage, they pierced right through the plywood flooring before exploding. Luckily, there was no shrapnel, but the burst of flames that accompanied them made me fear that this might've been a fire hazard.

"Hey, watch it!" I yelled at Angie and brandished Teeny, swiping at Bel's feet. To my surprise, while he perfectly dodged all of Josh's various stabs and slices and Angie's exploding projectiles, he barely managed to jump over it in time. I didn't need to wonder why though, since…

"{Careful. Danger sense doesn't warn about attacks that don't intend to hit me, so give me a heads up beforehand.}"

Resisting the urge to roll my eyes, I messaged back, "{Upswipe. Keep your arms clear.}"

Making good on that, I swept Teeny vertically upwards, and this time he casually got out of the way.

For the next minute or so, the three of us were just tagging in and out while attacking the guy, making a few sweeps here and there before switching out and giving someone else the opportunity. I guess it must've looked really impressive from the outside, but internally I was screaming pretty much non-stop, because I had to spend most of my time constantly repositioning and trying to make sure we wouldn't bump into each other or end up causing a friendly fire incident.

"I said watch it! And Josh, stop spinning and pay attention to where you're going!"

"I do!" he yelled back, but then I had to nearly smack him with the butt of my weapon to stop him from jumping right into the middle of Angie's next beam-spamming spell.

"Argh! I just told you to pay attention!"

"But I nearly got him!" Angie whined back and pointed a Josh. "Quick! I'll use a slowing aria, get him while he's distracted!"

"You're not supposed to yell your plans out loud!"/"On my way!"

And then Josh rushed in, and guess what? He did another divebomb, but this time with extra nonsense vertical spinning slashes that landed him right in the middle of Angie's spell, and got momentarily slowed down, forcing me to engage our opponent on my own until she dispelled the debuff. These two might've practised posing beforehand, but team combat tactics, they most definitely did not.

"This is unfair. Am I the only one who thinks this is unfair?" Bel said in a whiny tone, and snapped his fingers, which was… He was wearing gloves, so how did he do it? Wait, on second thought, I could do that too, so how did I do it? Questions for later. "I know! Let's get another Polemos too! That should balance the scales and make things more fair."

"Silence, bastard!" Angie and/or Deus yelled and got ready to summon another salvo of sword-like objects at him, while Josh was sneaking up from behind and tried to hit him in his blind spot. Of course, his arm-blades only cut thin air. They exchanged a couple more strikes, but they only served to give Bel the excuse to evade in Angie's direction, at which point I got another message from him.

"{I'll grab her feet and swing her down before she can set the stage on fire. You catch her and hand her over to Josh.}"

"{On it,}" I answered reflexively, without much thinking, and threw Teeny over to my friend.

He was stunned for a moment, yet managed to ham-fistedly catch it before the shaft bonked him in the nose. Meanwhile, Bel made good on his plan, and after a few dance-like steps he jumped up and grasped both of Angie's feet. She tried to avoid him, but the scaffolding got in the way and she couldn't rise higher, and once he seized her, whatever magical effect kept her floating got disturbed and he casually swung her to the ground.

Of course, I was already there, and using my patented girl-catching reflexes, I wrapped her in my arms and dissipated the force of the impact by rotating my upper body. Then, I yelled, "Switch!"

Josh, for once, was quick on the uptake, and he automatically threw Teeny up into the air at the same time I tossed Angie over. He caught her, though with considerably less finesse, and the two of them landed butt-first on the stage floor, while I snatched my spear out of the air and did a quick flourish before lunging at Bel.

"{Statement: Interface:Teeny is currently experiencing a sensation of dizziness. Interface:Teeny didn't know that was possible.}"

"Hush. I need the communication line uncongested," I whispered and then followed that up with, "{Short thrust aimed at your neck.}"

"{Got it. I'll activate the enchantment on the gloves and counter with a blast to gain some distance.}"

"{I'll stand my ground and block it, then feint at your thigh before a vertical sweep.}"

"{Roger.}"

Then, things proceeded just as planned. My initial thrust was evaded with minimal effort before I was hit by a pressure wave, the effect of the anti-dragon blast enchantment being discharged into thin air. I braced myself with Teeny, and then once it passed around me, I lunged forward and did the feint combo.

But that was just the beginning. We followed it up with a series of exchanges; all of them simple and straightforward. No crazy twirls. No magic missiles. No jumping three meters high into the air like a Street Kombat character. No running around like Sanic the bloody Hedgehog on methamphetamines. Just simple, traditional close-quarters combat. Toe to toe, head to head, mano a mano, et cetera. I would swipe, and he would dodge. He would punch, and I would counter. Then we would work together so that he would convincingly deflect my counter-thrust with his bare hand, like a perfect parry from a video game, followed by yet another quick exchange of blows.

Before I knew it, we spent nearly a minute doing this, and I was so immersed in the back and forth, both in messaging and combat, that I only belatedly recognized that Josh and Angie didn't rejoin the fray. Instead, they were just staring at us exchanging blows, as if trying to memorize our moves.

"{That should be good enough,}" came the next mechanical-sounding message, followed by a taunting stretch from Bel. "Ah, yes! There's nothing better to get the blood flowing! Morning radio callisthenics, eat your heart out!"

"Do you really think you have the leeway to play around like this?" I asked with a suitably angered hiss, but at the same time I also messaged, "{Good enough? For what?}"

"{For today's performance. Let's do one last exchange. Finish your combo with a low stab, and I'll step on it, so you can knock me over.}" He followed that up with a cocky wink and spread his arms. "Oh, my dear Polemos. What is the point of life without games? It would make existence such a—"

There was a small, barely perceptible nod, and I instinctively understood that it was a signal. I didn't wait for him finish his line and lunged forward. First starting with an overhead diagonal swing from right to left, then a horizontal drawback from left to right before finishing it with a low thrust aimed at his feet. As expected, he easily dodged the first two strikes, and then when the tip of Teeny tapped against the plywood flooring, he immediately stomped on the flat of the spearhead.

"Tut, tut, my friend. That wasn't very sportsmanlike."/"{Three, two, one… now.}"

On his mark, I swung my weapon up. For extra effect, I turned on the fireworks by forcefully bringing out my wings for a split-second, and Bel let out a startled yelp and did a perfect prep-fall, landing on his back with a loud 'Keh!'. He was really selling this to the audience, and… wait… Was this kayfabe? Were we doing pro wrestling right now?

"{Focus.}"

Shocked out of the sudden realization, my body automatically went through the motions, twirling Teeny overhead before dramatically swinging down and stopping the spearpoint just a few centimeters from the familiar mask. This was the perfect situation for a one-liner, but I was drawing a blank, so I just said the first thing that came to mind that fit the situation.

"Life is not a game."

We locked eyes, and Bel let out a chuckle.

"Au contraire, my dear Polemos. Life is most definitely a game. It has rules, winners, losers, and it even has abilities with effect durations and cooldowns! Isn't that just quaint?" He casually flicked the tip of the spear, and added, "Speaking of which, time's up. See ya!"/"{Good effort. Let's meet up at the usual spot.}"

"Wait. What does that—?"

Before I could finish, he suddenly disappeared from the end of my weapon, startling everyone, myself included.

"Son of a discounted goat merchant!" I groaned and pulled back my spear, then after a moment of hesitation, I glanced at Josh and Angie and yelled, "I'm going after him, while the trail is still fresh! Stay on guard!"

They nodded, looking a bit out of it, and then I closed my eyes, pretending to concentrate really hard before suddenly opening them wide and disappearing from the scene. Of course, all of that was just for show. In reality, I figured out where he would go immediately, despite not having a mark on him. A second later I materialized in the dark, out-of-the-way storage room in the depths of the underground base, only illuminated by a single, weak safety light.

"Oh, here you are," the 'Bel' on the ground noted, one hand absently patting a confused Pudding-kun. He remained sitting on the floor and rubbed the back of his neck like a blue-collar worker after a long day at the job. "Ugh… I keep forgetting that this body is a bit fragile."

Meanwhile, Pudding-kun looked almost panicked as he kept glancing between me and the man on the floor. He tapped his side with his many fleshy appendages, then skittered over to me to do the same to my legs, only to return to him and repeat the process, ultimately letting out a distressed 'Nyuuuu?' sound and almost turning into a meat-coloured puddle on the floor.

"Easy there, little guy," Bel spoke with a chuckle as he rose to his feet and scooped the swirly-eyed little eldritch abomination up into his arm. After giving him a soothing shake he faced me and he used his free hand to take off his mask.

The face underneath wasn't mine. Instead, it was the face of Bel; as in, the fake face provided by Pudding-kun whenever I wore him as a disguise, except his mug seemed natural. His hair was jet black, while his irises were a dark shade of grey. As for his features, he had a jawline more defined than mine, and a slightly bigger nose, but overall he was still on the handsome side. Though again, I could count the people in the Simulacrum who weren't handsome on two hands, so that probably went without saying.

Much more importantly though, the moment we locked eyes, I was once again hit with a strong sense of foreboding, and I had to swallow hard.

"Before we start," I spoke, squeezing out the words through my clenched-up throat. "Be straight with me. Please, please tell me you aren't literally me from the future…"

He eyed me, lips hovering just on the edge of an awkward smile.

"Well… on a technical level, I'm not."

"Oh, for the love of…!" I threw my hands in the air. "That's exactly what I would say if I got involved in some stupid, bloody time-travel bullcrap! Argh! I knew it! I bloody knew it!"

"Easy there," Bel… no, yet-another-me told me and held out Pudding-kun. "Just breathe and take this emotional support mini-shoggoth to calm down."

"Well, don't mind if I do!" I groaned and snatched it up before sitting down onto a nearby crate, placing the one-eyed meatball on my lap, and furiously petting it while glaring at the other person in the room. "Give me a minute, and then we talk. Don't go anywhere."

PART 2

Breathe in. Pat. Breathe out. Pat. Breathe in. Pat, pat, pat. Breathe out.

"Okay, I think I'm calm now," I said, but yet-another-me… Actually, let's just go with 'Bel' for now, it should be less confusing. Anyhow, he was rummaging through a bunch of nearby boxes and didn't even look up to answer me.

"No, you're not. Don't try to rush this."

I wanted to complain, but he was right. While I managed to suppress my outrage on the surface, I was still fuming on the inside. This whole situation made no sense. Why was there another version of me running around, disguised as Bel, and potentially from the… Oh god, my blood pressure's spiking again. Calm down, Leo. Calm thoughts. Happy thoughts.

If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement.

While I was trying to keep my potential-time-travel-plot-induced aneurism in check, I figured I might as well give a quick Far Sight check to the situation at the banquet venue. It should help clear my head a bit if nothing else.

From a glance, things were mostly okay; nobody was injured, and things seemed to be under control. In one corner, Penny, Angie, and Josh were vigorously trying to one-up each other while proclaiming their undying loathing of Bel of the Abys. In another, much quieter corner, Snowy and my girlfriends were huddled together and discussing this development and if it was one of my secret plans. On the adult-front, Duncan already showed up with a contingent of Squires and was listening to a debriefing from Arnwald, while the three main characters of the banquet occupied a guest room, where Naoren and Yseult were still arguing while Rinne was sitting on a nearby bed and acting like it was none of her business. Typical dense protagonist behaviour, if you asked me.

Anyhow, after doing all that, I felt better, so I turned to Bel again. Strangely enough, he was still sifting through one of the boxes.

"What are you looking for?"

"A copy of Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe," he answered nonchalantly, his hands still moving without a hitch.

"… Why would there be a book in those boxes?"

"Hey, don't ask me. I haven't the foggiest idea either, but it was here the last time, and… Ah, here it is!" With that, he turned around and presented a worn paperback book to me. "You see?"

"I do, but… What does Robinson Crusoe have to do with anything?"

"Oh, nothing at all. I'll just need a book for illustrating a point later." Bel walked over to my side, casually picked up one of the old metal chairs stockpiled in the corner, and placed it down in front of me. He took a seat, placed the book in his lap, and inhaled a deep breath. "I think you should be calm enough now. Let's get started."

"Let's," I answered bluntly and let Pudding-kun off to the floor before crossing my legs and levelling an appropriately serious gaze at Bel. "So, are you from the future, or not?"

"Technically speaking, I'm not. You are the one who's in my past," he pointed out, and when I narrowed my eyes, he hastily added, "Hey, I know it sounds like some dodgy semantic bullshit, but I swear it's important."

"… Okay, let's just take that at face value. Does that mean that you are…?"

"I'm in the present. Well, my present at any rate."

"And this is…?"

"The past. My past."

"And you came back here, which means you time-travelled," I concluded, but he shook his head.

"Nope. It's a bit more complicated than that." I was just about to tell him I was all ears, but he raised the book he just scavenged, interrupting my momentum before I could get started. "Stop. Let me just give you the low-down of this whole situation first, and then we'll do the back-and-forth questioning thing. Sounds good?"

"I would appreciate that."

Bel flashed a smile and crossed his legs, mirroring my pose before starting. Now, what followed was a solid twenty minutes of pretty damn dry info-dumping full of complicated terminology, so let's just skip all of that for now. I was planning to dissect the whole thing anyway.

"So, if I get this right," I started, one hand already massaging my temple. "We're in the middle of a retcon."

"Yup."

"You took the homunculus we made, and retconned it into existing in the past as a kind of proxy of yours. You, the original body, are still in the future and you're currently remote-controlling this body I'm talking to."

"Yup again."

"And once we get to that point in time, I'll do the same." He nodded, and I squinted again. "Isn't that just a time loop?"

"It is, but it's also technically just part of the linear timeline," he told me with a patient expression and lightly waved the book he had scavenged. "Time, from the perspective of the Emergents, is like this book." He opened it in the middle and tapped a finger on a page. "The events happening in this are both linear and causal, like how a person would experience time normally, but from the point of a reader, all of it is one 'block' of time. There's nothing stopping you from reading it from the beginning, or the middle, or backwards. Of course, if you want to properly experience it, you would have to go through it linearly from the start, but it doesn't change the fact that the contents of the book, even the parts that you haven't read yet, are already there. From the viewpoint of an Emergent, the Simulacrum is like that as well, and this 'time loop' is already embedded in it."

"Wait, slow down. Wouldn't that mean that the future is set in stone already? I mean, if time is in static 'blocks', then doesn't that mean all things are already predetermined?"

"It would be, without the Free Actors," he told me, but then he clicked his tongue. "Wait, The Girl hasn't explained that bit yet, has she? Whatever, she'll tell you about that later."

"That didn't answer my question."

"Okay, then look at it this way: retconning something is, essentially, altering the past, which then subsequently alters the present and the future. In that way, changing things is obviously possible. However, when the retcon is done, it is now the official timeline, and it appears to be predetermined. It's just like how you can rewrite parts of a book, and when someone reads is afterwards, they will only know about your version, so it will look like things were never changed at all."

"Like how, when I retconned Angie's relationship with Deus, it created this continuity."

"Bingo. And the only ones who are aware that a change happened are the ones who 'read' the previous edition," he continued with his book analogy. "In other words, us, the girls, and the Emergents."

"Speaking of them, won't this retcon of yours piss them off?"

"That's the best part: it won't. From their perspective, Bel of the Abyss always existed in the scenario since the last retcon you did, so Bel doing Bel things doesn't throw up any red flags the same way changing Deus's nature did. Of course, doing it this way is also trickier than just brute-forcing the changes in the timeline, but hey, we do have a working time loop, so we know it works, and unless they go through the whole scenario manually, they shouldn't notice anything strange."

"But… you said the Emergents perceive time as a big block."

"They perceive it, yes, but to experience things, they still have to go through it linearly. They modelled themselves after humans after all, and the human mind isn't designed to experience past, present, and future at the same time."

"But they can still perceive it. Doesn't that mean they should be able to see our future then? If they can just take the book, and go to the last chapter, couldn't they figure out the Crowned Coalescence's plans and everything?"

"I don't know."

His straightforward answer gave me a pause.

"You don't?

"Hey, give me a break. I'm not that far ahead of the timeline, linearly speaking. I haven't figured out everything yet. It probably has to do something with how Free Actors can muck up the plot, or maybe they are just allergic to spoilers, or something. We'll ask them when we'll get there."

I eyed my simultaneously helpful and obnoxious future self and exhaled a tired breath.

"Okay, but how does retconning yourself back in time actually work? Isn't it just asking for a paradox?"

"Ah, right. I remember not getting this the first time around either." He put down the book and looked me in the eye. "Simply put, I have already changed the timeline when I retconned Bel into the past. You could say I already rewrote the script at that point in time, and now I'm only going through the motions to play it out."

"So you have no agency now," I concluded, and he nodded along. "You're just following this script."

"Yep."

"How does that even work?"

"It's not that bad, actually," he told me with a shrug, sounding rather disinterested in the topic. "It's kind of like playing a game, where I already know the whole story and which are the right dialogue choices, and I just have to pick them when I get there. It's pretty laidback, really."

"I still don't quite get it."

"You will. It's not that big of a deal."

I still had my reservations about this whole thing, but the metaphysics of this whole debacle was already starting to give me a headache, so I decided to move on.

"Fine. Let's just say that I accept the whole premise for now. You're me from the future who retconned yourself as Bel into the past to maintain a time loop or something. Let's just leave it at that. Now what? Are we going to make you into the big bad, and ignore the whole original plan with the homunculus?"

"Nah, that won't work. The Simulacrum hates overlaps." He sat up straight and exhaled a long breath. "Actually, we might as well quicky discuss this now. Simply put, the Simulacrum's framework has some hard-coded rules about roles. In this case, Leonard Dunning can be either the Hero, or the Villain, but not simultaneously. If you tried to execute the original homunculus plan as-is, it would've meant you would be both at the same time. To the Simulacrum, that would be the equivalent of one of those logical paradoxes, like a married bachelor or saying 'This statement is a lie'. You're either the big good unifier and reformer of the World of Mystics, or the big bad orchestrator of chaos. You're currently the former, but if you lean into the Bel role too hard, he'll become the 'main persona', and then the Simulacrum will try to passively shoehorn you into the role. Which would be bad."

As usual, my first instinct was to argue, but this was future me I was talking to, so I had no choice but to accept his words at face value and consider them carefully. When I did, my eyes opened wide, and the more I thought about it, the more sense they made.

"So the reason why I got a second chance to pull Cal from its stone…"

"Yep."

"And the reason why everyone, Knights, Draconians, and Celestials alike were following me and accepting my reforms…"

"Yep yep."

"And back then, after the tournament, Roland came out and tried to convince everyone that Bel wasn't an arch-villain because…

"Yep yep yep.

"And… at the time when Angie managed to grab my Bel mask and reveal my identity… It was because I was leaning too much into Bel and so my role was about to be shifted over?"

"Quadruple yep."

"That's fucked up."

"Yeah, the foundational functions of the Simulacrum are insidious like that, but not as bad as they used to be. It's a work in progress kind of deal. Ask The Girl about it."

"Will do." I closed my eyes for a second to collect my thoughts. There were a lot of them. "Okay, so the Simulacrum itself would make me the villain and conspire to reveal my identity if I overdid it as Bel, because it can't allow me to be both Leonard and Bel simultaneously, but then how are you here at all as Bel?"

"Oh, that's easy," future-me responded as if waiting for this question, and flashed a toothy grin. "I told you that I technically still exist in the future, and this is a proxy that was retconned into my past. Because of that, the Simulacrum doesn't recognize me as 'Leonard Dunning', only as 'Bel of the Abyss'. Of course, once the loop ends there's only going to be one me again, but at this moment in time, the Simulacrum views us as two completely different entities. It's a loophole."

"And you know about all of this… how exactly?"

"I was also warned in my past by my future self about this happening. You know, time loop stuff." Seeing that I was confused (or more likely, remembering his own confusion at this time), future me threw me some crumbs. "My best guess is that there was a kind of 'bootstrap timeline' at some point, where things went horrifically wrong and we got shoehorned into the role of the final villain of Josh's story, forcing us to do another big retcon like the one with Angie. That created the circumstances that led to the establishment of this loop, and now we're just passing whatever information remained about this original timeline between each other like this."

"Ugh… dammit, my head is starting to hurt again…" I crossed my arms with a groan and threw my head back for a second or five before returning to the conversation again. "Okay, let's say I've got that." I narrowed my eyes again. "If this is all a retcon, how far is it going? How much are you changing?"

"If you mean since when I've been here as Bel, it's been right after the Angie retcon."

"Damn…" I whispered, then asked the next relevant question. "Were you the one who burned down the Celestial Archives during that whole mess?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"I don't know. It's just something that's on my bucket list that always has to be done. It's probably related to that bootstrap timeline. It will have some positive-ish results, so it's fine."

Feeling another headache coming, I tentatively asked, "So you've been doing other things in the background as well?"

"Oh yes. Lots."

"And you only showed myself right now, in front of everyone like this because…?"

My words trailed off as I tried to put myself in the shoes of this future me for a moment, and when our eyes met, we both pointed finger-guns at each other.

"Drama."/"Drama!"

We spoke at once, though his response was in considerably higher spirits than mine.

"There has to be something else though," I pressed on with a frown. "We were in the middle of a big event there; there's no way you only interrupted it for the sake of dramatics."

I knew myself, and I knew that I wouldn't do something like that unless I had good reasons to do so. Bel grinned and started playing with the spine of the book in his hands, yet his eyes remained serious and trained on me.

"That was one of the developments in need of retconning. It's a bit of a 'you broke it, you fix it' kind of situation."

"We broke it," I repeated after him, and he nodded.

"You have no idea how dangerous our Narrative influence can be," he stated solemnly and raised the book again. "Think of it this way: do you remember that whole childhood promise thing between Naoren and Yseult?"

"Yes? It was kind of the centerpiece of the whole drama."

"That centerpiece didn't exist last week."

"… Excuse me?"

Seeing my skeptical reaction, Bel opened the book and asked, "What's the name of Friday's mother?"

"I… Do you mean the character in Robinson Crusoe? I don't know. Was she even mentioned?"

"No, she wasn't. In this regard, Friday's history has a blank spot. However, if the narrative required her presence, this spot could be filled in at any point, and you wouldn't find it strange at all. After all, people have mothers, right? And it's normal that we don't know every little detail about a character's background, right?"

"I see you're trying to make a point. Is it that this childhood promise used to be another blank spot that got filled in recently?"

"Exactly. Because you were convinced that you were seeing a stereotypical romance story development, the actors were arranged and the holes in their backgrounds filled out to fit your preconceived notions. Just like how you could disable the Colossi because it made sense that Polemos would have authority over them, your expectations have twisted the histories of Yseult and Naoren to fit the situation you imagined would happen."

"That's… actually… Wait, does that mean there was a duel challenge at the end because…?"

"Because Elly reminded you that it's how Draconians would resolve an argument, and it got immediately integrated into the scene."

For a few seconds, I could only stare blankly as the new information sank in. Did that mean that I was wrong when telling Judy about how I wouldn't subconsciously warp reality? Wasn't that ridiculously dangerous?

"Honestly, that's the smaller problem," Bel told me with a sour expression and tapped the book against his palm for emphasis. "You were expecting things to develop in the usual, East-Asian romance fiction template, but you forgot to interrogate what that actually meant. If Yseult is designated as the villainess, it would mean she would have to play out her role, but do you remember what that is?"

Wracking my aching head for a few seconds, I quickly came up with an educated guess.

"The villainess usually gets denounced, then they do something stupid, like trying to assassinate the heroine, which leads to their downfall. Their family falling to ruin along with them, getting exiled, or executed, are also common developments."

"Okay, now apply that to Yseult."

When I did that, a soft curse inadvertently escaped my mouth.

"Bloody hell…"

She was one of the highest-ranking representatives within the Draconic Federation. If the villainess template played out with her, it would've not only created a rift within the organization, but losing the support of the Albions and all of their branch- and allied families would've been an enormous blow to our claims of legitimacy.

"Exactly," Bel stated softly and pointed at himself. "My appearance will cause all developments to halt for a while, because the 'main plot' takes precedence over the 'side plot' in the Simulacrum's priority list. You'll have to sort it out before this whole powder-keg explodes."

"Okay, and how do I do that?"

"Can't tell you," he responded curtly, throwing me on a loop for a moment.

"You can't tell me? Why?"

"Spoilers."

Was he pulling my leg, I wondered. He didn't seem like it. In fact, he looked dead serious about it.

"You mean, it would create a time paradox," I hazarded a guess, and he shrugged.

"That too."

I continued to eye him, but he didn't (or couldn't) talk about it. Maybe it had something to do with that whole 'sticking to the script and going through the motions' thing he mentioned before, I ventured. In any case, I decided to drop the topic for now and move on.

"So, what's the plan?"

"I continue doing Bel things and building an Axis of Evil for the finale, you keep doing Leonard Dunning things and keep your narrative-ness in check as best as you can. Mainly, you should try to work out all the sudden romances and related plots that have been cropping up around this time. Oh, and also look into the whole Melinda situation."

"Why?" I blurted out, mildly alarmed. "I thought Judy and Elly already have it covered."

"Nope."

"Sounds annoying."

"It is." He paused and then pointed at me. "Anyhow, the girls are already going to be freaking out because you disappeared for half an hour, so let's continue this conversation later."

"No objection here." Saying so, I stood up, and the sudden movement made Pudding-kun skitter over to our side again. "I should discuss this with them anyway. Maybe by the time I explain everything, I'll have a better understanding of this timeline nonsense as well."

"It could be worse. Imagine if this wasn't a retcon, but real time-travel," Bel chuckled and stood up as well, then reached for his mask on a nearby box. "Grandfather paradoxes, as far as the eye can see."

"Don't jinx it."

The words slipped through my teeth on their own, and Bel let out a stifled laugh.

"You sound like Judy."

"Couples tend to start resembling each other," I answered off-handedly while he put on his mask.

"Oh well. It was nice meeting you. Now if you excuse me, I'll go ahead. I still have stuff to do today."

"Stuff?"

"You know? Recruiting evil minions, making fake doomsday devices, and stopping the second tournament arc by harassing the Feilong elders a bit. All in a day's work."

"… Figures."

I waved Bel goodbye and he responded by striking a dapper pose and disappearing into thin air. The storage room suddenly felt rather lonely with his departure, but I quickly shook off the sentiment. First, I placed the book he kept waving around back in its box, then returned the metal chair to the stack, and finally petted Pudding-kun a bit more before standing in the middle and exhaling a deep, pent-up breath.

Honestly speaking, I still didn't know how to feel about this. On one hand, I just gained a reliable ally and co-conspirator, which was always a good thing. On the other hand though… I still wasn't sure this didn't count as a time travel plot, and that just irked me.

"I'll go ask Judy for a second opinion."

And with that, I also disappeared from the storage room, full of conflicting emotions.

PART 3

"Ah. You're back."

That unenthusiastic response to my return came from Judy, who was looking at me with quite a critical squint as I Phased into the room. At some point, everyone was moved inside the Lotan mansion, probably so that the Ordo Draconis would have an easier time securing the premises, and my girlfriends were now in a pretty nice guest-room near the center of the building.

"Leo!" The princess was considerably more enthusiastic about my arrival, and she immediately caught me in a bear hug, but only so that she could drag me to the corner where Judy was sitting. "Quick, tell us what this was all about! Was it time travel?"

I was honestly a bit shocked by her question, not only because of how straightforward it was, but also because of how she hit the nail on the head without any reservations. My other girlfriend looked considerably less enthused by this whole situation.

"I told you, it can't be time travel," she spoke in her usual deadpan tone, though maybe with just a smidge of exasperation. "It's not only impossible by the metaphysical standards of the world, we have already discussed how it's also denied by the hard-coded rules of the Simulacrum itself. Right, Chief?"

"Erm… Sorry to disappoint you, but it was actually time travel," I admitted a touch sheepishly. Her eyes opened a bit wider in surprise, but then she squinted even harder at me, so I hastily added, "I mean, I'm not completely sure whether what happened qualifies on the literal or metaphorical level, but I'm—"

I didn't get the opportunity to finish that sentence, because a suddenly excited Elly let go of me and turned to my girlfriend with a triumphant smirk.

"A-ha! I told you! I won the bet!" she declared with the kind of glee usually reserved for winning the lottery and held out a hand. "Pay up."

My other girlfriend clicked her tongue and grudgingly handed over a crumpled ten Jen bill, and Elly accepted it with such excitement, I wouldn't have been surprised if she started hopping in place at any second.

"Why are you so happy?" Judy grumbled while also trying to appear above it all. "It's just ten Jens."

"That's not the important part! This was the first time I won a bet about tropes! It's a trophy, and I'm going to frame it and hang it on my wall!"

"I… can actually see you doing that," I interjected and gestured for her to settle down. "But before we get to that, how about I give you an update on what just happened."

"I would appreciate that," Judy noted with just a hint of annoyance while pointedly frowning at the other girl still giggling by my side. "So, where was that Bel from? The past, or the future?"

"Future," I confirmed, causing her to click her tongue again. "Also, he's technically me."

Now, that made my girlfriends stop giggling and fuming respectively, and they both looked at me funny.

"You'll travel back in time in the future?"

"Not technically." My response sounded a bit too defensive, so I amended it. "I mean, technically future-me retconned a Bel into the past to exploit some loophole in how the Emergents perceive time, so it's—"

"Hold on," Judy interrupted me with a raised palm and levelled a hawkish gaze at Elly. "Give me back my ten Jens."

"What? No! I won it fair and square!"

"Didn't you hear the Chief just now? Things turned out like this because of a retcon, so I won the bet."

"Nooo! You said it happened because Leo accidentally created a Bel with the last retcon! There was no mention of future retcons in our bet!"

"Maybe not the letter of it, but the spirit of the bet implied it. Now, give it to me."

"No!"

I not only couldn't get a word in there, but the arguments between my girlfriends also caused quite a ruckus and I could already hear footsteps outside the guest room.

"Keep it down, you two. I'll continue the explanation later, but for now, we should—"

As per the rule of three demanded, I was interrupted for the third time, this time by Angie throwing the door wide open with a loud "Leooo! Did you get him?"

She was closely followed by Josh and my sisters. The Celestial girl looked full of bluster and outrage, and so did my knightly sister, while Snowy was trying to keep the latter from getting out of hand. As for the guy in the group, he looked unusually sombre and maybe just a little bit glum as he held onto his girlfriend's shoulder.

I waited for them to get inside, and after hesitating for a second, I let out a suitably dramatic sigh.

"He slipped away."

"Ah, that b-bastard!" Angie exclaimed, and for a moment I couldn't decide whether that was her or Deus speaking. It certainly sounded like something he would yell, but the small stutter there didn't fit him. I was just about to ask, but this time, I couldn't even get started before Penny grabbed hold of both my attention and arm.

"Brother, are you all right? You weren't hurt, right? Did you at least manage to sock Bel in the face? Or the mask? You were gone for a long time, so did you chase him all this time? Speaking of which, how did you pursue him? Since when can you disappear like that?"

Right. In the heat of the moment, I Phased right after Bel in front of a bunch of eye-witnesses. To be fair though, it was high time this particular cat got out of the bag. However, before I could answer any of Penny's questions, Angie let out a soft huff.

"Leo could do that since forever!" It was only after she said it out loud that she froze up for a moment, and turned a borderline panicked face my way. "A-Aw shucks… I was supposed to keep that a secret, wasn't I?"

"It doesn't matter now," Josh interjected, still looking as glum as when he entered the room. "Everyone already saw it, so it's no longer a secret."

"I-I know, but… we still promised, right?"

While the childhood friend couple was whispering about the etiquette of keeping secrets, and Penny was still shocked by the fact that I could teleport, I noticed that my other sister was conspicuously absent from the conversation. When I glanced around, I found her mediating between my girlfriends behind my back.

"I-I don't understand the full context, but if I got the gist of it, you've made a bet with each other, and you… both won?"

"No, I won, and Judy is trying to bend the rules," Elly huffed.

"I'm not. You just jumped to a conclusion before hearing the Chief's full explanation, and you're refusing to back down."

"H-Hauu! Please don't fight! Here, let's sit down and come to a compromise."

"Leo? Are you listening?"

Josh's question made me blink and turn back to them, where he, Angie, and Penny were all looking at me intently.

"Sorry, I'm a bit out of it. Could you repeat that again?"

"I asked how badly we screwed up."

He no longer sounded just glum, but borderline grim, and his girlfriend patted him on the shoulder.

"Oh, come on, buddy! Don't be too hard on yourself! We were just caught with our pants down. I mean, I didn't have my bow with me either, and you… um… it was a chaotic situation, okay?"

"You're right. Our performance against Bel of the Abyss was sad, but that's not what I'm talking about."

"Whose performance are you calling sad?!" came a sudden outburst from Angie, followed by a sucked-up breath, and a hissy, "That's it, Grandpa! If you're picking a fight with Josh, you're not allowed to come out!"

"I'm sorry, I kind of lost the thread," Penny interjected, looking as confused as she sounded. "I couldn't pay much attention to what was happening on stage, but didn't you manage to rout Bel of the Abyss? I thought that was a good thing. What did I miss?"

"We didn't want to chase him away," Josh told her, followed by a dejected sigh. He rubbed his face and simultaneously continued with, "We were supposed to catch him while Leo pinned him down, but in the end, we just got in each other's way." He finally let his hand down and looked me in the eye. "So, let me ask again: how badly did we mess up? That saturation thing was supposed to be your ace in the hole against Bel of the Abyss, and we completely wasted it, didn't we?"

"Wait, was it like that?" Angie rejoined the conversation after she finished scolding the ancient Celestial messiah living in her head, and she sounded more than just alarmed. "Did… did we screw the pooch?"

"H-Hold on!" Penny cut in before I could reassure them, her eyes swimming as she was finding it difficult to keep track of the conversation. "So you're saying that Brother had this ability to teleport like Bel of the Abyss, but he kept it a secret to catch him off-guard, but then because you couldn't catch him and he got away, now he knows, and it's going to be much harder to pin him down the next time?"

"That's precisely what happened," Josh stated with audible distaste, and Penny's face scrunched up.

"Wow. You messed up."

"I know," the guy growled, and it was about time I put a stop to this, so I put a hand between the two of them.

"Stop. You're blowing this out of proportion. It's not that bad."

"Isn't it?" Angie blurted out, sounding like she didn't believe me.

"That sounds like exactly what you would say if you tried to make us feel better about our cock-up."

"Jooosh! Language!" the Celestial girl hissed and punched him in the shoulder. "I knew it. Grandpa Deus is a bad influence on you."

The guy let out a low grunt and rubbed his arm, but his eyes remained on me as if waiting for me to come clean. Just why was he so insistent on this, I wondered.

Not for long though. After considering the situation from the ground up, I shifted my thought processes to a more narrativistic perspective. Let's forget about the time-travel-technicalities and whatnot for the moment. That was something related to me. When viewed through the lens of 'This is Josh's and Angie's story', this encounter with Bel had very different implications.

First off, it was the two of them who insisted that we could take on Bel of the Abyss together. However, from their perspective, they wedged themselves into a fight between Bel and me and even implored that I would use my 'trump card' against him. Then, they couldn't even touch him, distracted me during combat, and he not only got away, but he now knew that I could stop him from teleporting, making catching him even more difficult. In other words, it was a failure of their own making.

To boil down the tropes even further, Bel was the Big Bad, I was the Big Good, while Josh and Angie were the Battle Shounen Heroes in over their heads, who caused the Big Bad to discover the weakness of the Big Good, putting everyone at risk. It was, if not exactly a cliché, but a fairly straightforward development, which also made this the low point of the arc. Now, what was the Big Good supposed to do in this situation to nudge the plot forward?

I would've loved to get a second opinion from Judy (or even Elly, as she was also getting into the groove of trope discussions), but…

"… and then you give Judy five Jens, and Judy gives you five Jens," Snowy explained in the background, causing my draconic girlfriend to tilt her head like her gears just got stuck.

"But… then we're both at zero."

"Y-Yes, but this way, you both acknowledge that you were both technically right, so you both get half the bet."

"Oh, I think I get it." Elly reached into her dress's skirt and produced a small purse. Colour me surprised; that meant her gown had pockets. What a revolutionary idea. Anyhow, she produced a five Jen bill and handed it over to Judy. "Here. This way, we're even."

"No, we aren't," my dear assistant very nearly glared at her. "I gave you ten Jens. If you give me five, I'm at minus five."

"Come on, Judy! Don't be a scrooge!"

"I'm not a scrooge, you're just trying to keep my ten Jen bill!"

"P-Please don't fight!"

…

Yeah, that was still going on in the background. Anyhow, lacking second opinions, I had to use my head, and decided to go with a fairly orthodox development. As such, I straightened my back, squared my shoulders, and then let out a theatrical sigh.

"Okay, Josh. Do you want me to be one hundred percent honest with you?" My friend nodded, while the girl next to her nervously swallowed. And by that, I meant Penny, even though she had nothing to do with this conversation. Ignoring that, I raised my hand to my temple and, after a dramatic pause, blandly uttered, "You're not ready."

As if waiting for those words, Josh visibly deflated and stared at the floor.

"Yeah, I know."

"And that's important," I continued on, causing him to stop deflating and glance back at me. "You must know your limits if you want to improve, so you'll be better prepared next time."

"Next time?" Angie echoed me with considerably more excitement, and I nodded deeply.

"You need to be better prepared, so let's do just that." I crossed my arms and jerked my head towards him. "So? Are you up for some training?"

It was a rhetorical question, as I could already see Josh's determination getting reignited in his eyes. Some things are just simple like that. When the protagonist of a battle shounen story suffers a setback and reaches a low point, there are only two ways to go after that: either receiving a sudden inspiration to power up or going on a training mini-arc. I had no control over the first option, but the second one was easy to trigger, so long as he was willing to cooperate.

"Sure, partner," Josh responded curtly and offered a hand. Oh, damn. He's now turning this into one of those memetic two-page spread scenes, where we have a manly handshake to celebrate his newfound resolve or somesuch. It was a bit trite, but as other-me would say, it was a trope because it worked, so I felt obliged to play along and I grasped his hand.

"Me too!" Angie declared with extra gusto, and placed her hand on ours. "Let's take him down!"

I was just about to nod, but then another hand landed on ours.

"Yeah! Let's beat him to an inch of his life!"

"… Kiddo? What are you doing?"

Penny looked startled for a moment, but then she quickly doubled down.

"I-I-I also want to punch Bel! We all want to do that, right?"

"Yeah! All five of us wanna do that!" Angie backed her up on the spot, eliciting a relieved breath from my sister.

"Yes, all five of… Wait, are you counting Deus separately? I-It doesn't matter! We're all united in purpose, so let's do our best together!"

As such, my knightly sister shoehorned herself into our training mini-arc. Oh well. I could work with that.

"So?" Josh drew my attention back to him, sounding just a tiny bit pensive. "Are you going to train us?"

"Nah, that would be dangerous," I told them frankly, and the girls gulped nervously, more or less in unison. I had no idea why; I wasn't talking about them, but invoking the Mentor Occupational Hazard trope this late into the game. Knowing that the Simulacrum was doing its trope enforcement on top of my own subconscious Narrative reality-warping, it wouldn't have been just foolish, but outright suicidal. "I'm going to show you the ropes, but you'll have to do the heavy lifting yourselves."

"Let's do it." Josh looked me in the eye, and shook my hand again. "Let's get him next time."

"And this makes us the Fellowship of the Bel!" Angie exclaimed, and Josh's previous serious expression immediately fell away to give way to a critically raised brow, aimed right at his girlfriend. "What?"

"You ruined it," he uttered flatly and let go of my hand, only so that he could facepalm. "You totally ruined it."

"No, I didn't! It was a classy movie reference, right? Leo, back me up!"

"… I don't get it," Penny muttered in the background.

"Sorry, I'm with Josh on this one," I said absently, and the Celestial girl puffed up her cheeks like a hamster.

"Mou! You guys are mean!"

Ignoring the fuming girl, I exhaled a long breath and closed my eyes for the moment. So, I would need to set up a training mini-arc for these three. What did those need? The training part was obvious, but it would also require the right context. Maybe I could set them up with the Ordo Draconis members to improve specific aspects of their skills? Arnwald would be a good fit for Angie, since they both used bows, while Roland could serve as a guide to help Josh with his aerial manoeuvres. Penny was… maybe I should get Morgana to supervise her?

Oh, we'll also need some power-ups as well, so Snowy could maybe use her Sigils on them? I knew she was already experimenting on Penny, so hopefully she could help, and powerups should also come with new outfits. Altering these two's Deus outfits was a tall order, but with some image training, it could be theoretically done. As for my sister, adjusting her Uniformer was easy, but to have it reflect a power-up and development… Should I just give up and give her that combat miniskirt she's been asking since the beginning?

…

Nah. Let's not get carried away. I could just make her a fancy new sword, or something. Oh, and speaking of which, Josh could probably also use a proper weapon. That was also a staple in battle shounen stories, along with evolving weapons and secret super techniques that may or may not involve transformation sequences. In retrospect, training arcs were quite complex, weren't they?

But speaking of arcs… wasn't I forgetting something?

"Ah, right. Where's Rinne and Naoren?"

"Them? They're in the room down the hallway, with that Albion woman," Penny told me while gesturing with her thumb over her shoulder. "You could hear them all the way over here."

"Wait, what? They're still at it?" Rolling my eyes, I turned to the corner of the room, where Judy and Elly were still in the process of playing tug-of-war with a poor ten Jen bill, my Abyssal sister caught between them. "Girls?"

"Yes?"/"Hm?"

They both looked at me but didn't let go of the bill.

"I'll have to step out and take care of something. If you still haven't resolved this silly argument of yours by the time I'm back, I'm not telling you the rest of what happened until you're back to normal again." They both looked at me like I just provided them with a difficult math problem, while Snowy let out a relieved breath in the background. I gestured for her, and added, "Hold the fort, sis. I'll be back in a minute."

With that, I turned on my heel and headed towards the door, passing by the childhood friend couple who were still bogged down in…

"Maybe I should've said, 'What are we, some sort of Belicide Squad?'…"

"No, that's worse! Somehow, that's actually worse!"

… that. So, I ignored them and decided to just head outside, and nip the whole villainess shoujo romance arc angle in the bud, before it was too late.