Part 1

Getting out of my girlfriends' post-coital embrace was a little tricky, as usual. In the past, I tried just Phasing out of the bed, but my weight suddenly disappearing from the mattress made it bounce the girls up and wake them anyway, which completely defeated the point. As such, I had to do it the old-fashioned way, by waiting until they were fully asleep and then very slowly slipping out of bed.

For once, I didn't mind it though, as it gave me lots of time and opportunity to think and internalize what just happened to me. In other words, it was kind of the opposite of the 'let's forget about everything else for a while' sex we just had, now that I thought about it. Speaking of which, the girls were still mostly nude under the blankets, so I made sure to carefully tuck them in before I dressed up. We were doing it in a, so to say, more subdued fashion than usual, since we didn't want to make noises, but it was still a sweaty business, and I didn't want them to catch a cold.

Then, I paused as a realization reared its ugly head in the back of my mind. When we started our relationship, or rather, its physical side, I was pretty sure we agreed that threesomes would be a rare thing for special days, yet somehow, they ended up becoming a regular occurrence. In fact, our relationship itself was slowly becoming normal, to the point people were no longer even giving us skeptical glances. It just felt entirely natural, and our environment treated it as such as well.

Of course, it could all be the result of the Simulacrum already being primed to accommodate polyamorous relationships aaand I just reminded myself of my biggest current bugbear again. Damn it.

Sighing softly, I buttoned up my shirt, slipped into the backup shoes I kept in my room in case I had to Phase away in a hurry, and quietly disposed of the evidence of today's pillow-wresting activities before glancing at the girls one last time and disappearing from the bedside. A moment later, I arrived at the underground base. Its future name was still pending, with support for 'Haven' and 'New Camelot' going neck and neck at the moment, but I had a feeling that even after everyone settled on a name, I would still end up calling it just 'the underground base' anyway. Habit. It was a hard thing to break.

In any case, I was standing in the armoury segment of the main hall. Most of the overhead lights were off, which wasn't surprising, considering it was well past midnight, and so my eyes were automatically drawn to the large figure hunched over the workbench. The spot was lit by a single shielded light bulb at the end of a standing lamp with a long, flexible neck.

"[Blackcloak.]" Brang greeted me without looking up from his work. He had a magnifying visor with its own light strapped to his forehead, and what looked like the insides of a vintage clock in front of him. "[What brings thine steps to this place in such hour? Is thine sleep troubled?]"

"[Nay, albeit turning such queries upon your person would be equally warranted.]"

He let out a soft chuckle and replaced a large gear before turning on his, compared his bulk, comically small stool to face me.

"[I'm but an old man, Blackloak. This body of mine hest not as much catch but a wink as it used to.]" His ears swivelled, telling me he thought his answer was amusing, before he levelled a more serious look at me. "[But thou hast yet to answer mine question. What brings thee here?]"

"[The mind of yours truly is abundant with high notions, and whereas I would be in my right to dwell upon, I'm no man of echolocating nocturnal mammal to perch upon the crowns of edifices under the wintry skies.]"

Brang's ears twitched again, this time telling me he wasn't entirely sure what I just tried to say.

"I'm kind of out of it. Would you mind if I didn't use Faunish?"

"[It is as thine heart wishes, Blackloak.]"

Sighing, I walked over and pulled another stool out of under a different workbench, then sat down.

"For the record, I said I had a lot on my mind, and I figured that brooding on my own was silly."

"[I hath understood thine words as such,]" the old Faun nodded, and as it made the visor on his head wobble, he took it off and put it away before he continued. "[What bothers thine mind in the dead of night? Is it thine involvement with the winged ones of Elysium?]"

"No," I answered reflexively but then backpedalled a bit. "I mean, yes, that's also an issue, but I'm worried about something… different."

We remained silent for a while. The silence wasn't awkward, but it wasn't exactly comforting either.

"[Thou came to speak, did thou not, Blackcloak? Do so. Mine ears are always open to you.]"

That was an odd way to put it, but since he prompted me like that, I figured I might as well get this off my chest.

"I have encountered something I'm not sure I can deal with," I admitted, and Brang kept looking at me expectantly, urging me to continue. "To be precise, it's an opponent I'm wary of." Pausing, I couldn't help but let out a self-deprecating chuckle. "You know, it's kind of funny, now that I think about it. You know what I'm capable of, right?"

"[Aye. Thine prowess is impressive indeed.]"

"But because of that, I've had it easy. Even back then, when we first clashed, or when I encountered the Chimera, I was never afraid. I was startled at times, but I wasn't afraid, because I always looked at these situations not as a danger that could get me killed, but just as an obstacle in the way I had to solve something bigger. It's just that… with this opponent, the stakes are different. It feels like a barrier that separated me from the danger of the situation was taken away, and I'm feeling paralyzed."

"[Are thou?]" Brang blurted out with a brow raised high, and I nodded.

"Yes. It's… It's something a lot's riding on, and I… I think I'm sort of at a crossroads here, and I don't know what to do."

"[Is this a foe no one else can confront?]" came the next question, and I nodded again.

"Yes. It's outside of your scope. I mean, everyone else's scope. That's kind of the issue."

"[If so, then do thou plan to shirk away?]"

"That's not exactly an option," I groaned and held my head in my hand. "But I have no idea what to do about it."

"[But thou are planning to act.]"

"Well, yeah. As I said, I don't have any other option."

All of a sudden, Brang's stoic visage twisted, and he let out a pent-up chuckle. I waited for him to finish with a frown on my face, and once he did, he roughly cleared his throat.

"[Thine words make little sense, Blackcloak. Thou already have thine answer, yet pretend that thou art undecided. Has an uncertain victory ever hindered thine advance? Has thou ever ceased to enforce thine will on the world just because the task seemed insurmountable?]"

"It's different this time…" I tried to argue back, but before I could get any momentum, he pointed a large finger at my chest.

"[What maketh thou move forward? What is thine drive?]" Once again, before I even had time to respond, he raised his arm and made a vague gesture towards the ceiling. "[Why dost thou think the powers of this world follow thine path?]" This time, I couldn't formulate an answer in time, so he let his arm down and stroked his beard with another throaty chuckle. "[I hath stood by thine side through the trials and tribulations of thy path. It was but a short moment in my long life, yet I has't seen thee throw thyself at the world, and it bent to thy will. Doth thee know wherefore?]"

"Because I had the money and power to make it so?"

"[Aye, that helped,]" Brang admitted with a toothy smile. "[But that was but a part of the whole. Men and women of power followed thy will because of thine ambition. That is thine greatest strength; to see the mountain insurmountable ahead of thine eyes, and scale it with nary a second thought. It's what gives thine followers the courage to follow in thy footsteps.]"

"You know, that's the kind of thing most people would call hubris," I pointed out, but he continued to grin at me.

"[For ones that stray the path? Mayhap. But those who do not will be called visionaries. Thou may never know which one thou art until thou reach the end of thy path on the other side of the mountain.]"

"I never wanted to be a visionary though. Or to lead people," I grumbled, earning me yet another chuckle.

"[Men desperate to lead others art rarely leaders of merit. On the contrary, I believe in thy vision precisely because you act not for thyself, but for the sake of the ones behind you.] He levelled his finger at me again, and added, "[Even now, while thou claim to be shaken, I can see it in thy eyes; thou art not daunted by this obstacle you face. Thou already see the path. Worry not; we will follow.]"

Once again, silence settled onto the armoury area, and this time it lasted for a solid half a minute before I let out a long breath and folded my arms.

"You know, general, I didn't come here for a pep-talk, but that was a decent one. I wonder if the role of the friendly, world-wise bartender is rubbing off on you."

"[See? Already back to thy normal self.]"

The toothy grin on the old Faun's face was borderline smug, but I didn't let it bother me and closed my eyes. In a way, he was correct. Not about the whole 'visionary' thing (I felt that one was stretching things a bit to make me feel better), but about how, despite the trepidation and apprehension I felt whenever I recalled the bone-man, I still felt the urge to press on, no matter what. And I already had a couple of ideas in mind. Maybe I came here just to get that final push to put them into practice.

"Thank you general," I said, from the bottom of my heart, and casually picked up a small wrench lying on the nearby workbench. "I'm going to move forward now. Just in case, if it looks like I have a seizure or the like, please make sure I won't hurt myself."

I could see the old Faun's eyes open wide in alarm, but I ignored it and took a deep breath. I held the wrench in front of me and plunged one of my phantom limbs into it. There was a familiar sense of backlash, but I pushed on, and soon the world began to melt away in front of my eyes.

My body was gone, once again replaced with a disembodied vantage point surrounded by eight phantom limbs. One of those was reaching into a wildly twisting fractal of vivid colours and sharp sounds, but not for long. Holding my injured appendage in reserve, I used the remaining six to anchor myself into space itself. The tips of my phantom limbs sunk into the fabric of fractals surrounding me, and once I was stable, I used the first one to stretch out even further.

As I reached deeper, I could feel my consciousness narrow down, as if I was trying to squeeze my whole body through a keyhole. I was surrounded by a seemingly infinite number of wrenches. Some of them were the same as the one in my hand, but different sizes. Others were made of different materials, different designs, and some of them only remotely resembled anything one could call a 'wrench'. The deeper I plunged, the more esoteric my surroundings became, and the more twisted the wrenches. My phantom limbs trembled as they continued to anchor me in this universe of wrench-like objects, while I bobbed, weaved, and twisted around the fractals about me like a small snake climbing an enormous thornbush.

However, my goal wasn't here. It was inside myself. With each passing second of eternity, a familiar voice in the back of my mind started sending warning signals to my forebrain. Stop. Danger. This is foolish. Cease at once, or there will be unimaginable consequences. This is not allowed.

"Come out," I whispered, causing the world of wrenches to tremble, but maybe because my phantom limbs were embedded into it, its structure remained stable. Emboldened, I spoke louder the second time. "I said, come out, asshole, or I'll keep going deeper until you do!"

Once again, everything around me quaked and twisted, as if I poured paint thinner on the world and shook it, but while the warnings in my head got more insistent, there was no change. As such, since I was always good on my word, I redoubled my effort and slithered even deeper into the thornbush of warped metal tools barely resembling a wrench anymore.

I should turn back.

The moment I had that thought, I stopped my advance and spoke again, "Come out already!"

There was silence. The naggy corner of my mind remained quiet, as if in defiance, leaving me with a sense that I was doing something fundamentally wrong. I had no idea whether that came from me, or 'other me', but I got so far, so I was willing to see this show through.

"Do you want me to find a plot device then? There are a whole bunch of them around, and I always wanted to tinker with them. This sounds like the perfect excuse to start!"

That was a stupid idea.

The thought was once again my own, and not, at the same time, but it told me I was on the right track.

"What? Do you think I won't do it? Desperate times call for desperate measures, you know?"

I'm being an unreasonable asshole.

"No, you are an unreasonable asshole!" I argued back… against myself? In any case, I decided to throw common sense to the wind for now and doubled down. "I can do this all night, you know? There are a lot of bloody wrenches on this blood workbench!"

This was the most idiotic thing I've ever heard in my entire life.

"Tough luck! So, are you going to show my face, or not?"

I waited for a while, and when there was no answer from the back of my mind, I extended my phantom limb again, ready to continue my trek up the infinite wrench-fractals. That is, until suddenly the whole world froze around me.

"Am I completely out of my mind?" a new voice growled. Except it wasn't. It was my voice.

"Took me long enough, asshole."

"Who am I calling an asshole, shithead?" other me exclaimed, taking the familiar form of a quivering hole in reality in front of me. "How did I end up this stupid? Am I really this desperate, just because I met the Predator Moon again?"

"What do I mean… I mean, what do you mean 'again'?"

"Stop calling myself 'you'. We are me," other me insisted, but I had none of it.

"I refuse to call m— you 'me' again! You are obviously holding out information on me, and that obviously makes you a separate entity."

"No, it obviously isn't. I don't understand jack shit about the circumstances, do I?"

"No, I don't understand, but you do, so spill the beans."

"I can't. I know I can't."

"I don't care!" I huffed, and since I had no real arms, I retrieved two phantom limbs and crossed them in defiance. "Things are already way too busy within the Simulacrum, and I can't have all of this external crap hang over my head like the world's creepiest sword of Damocles at the same time, so give me some answers, dammit!"

"I was never even supposed to know about the Simulacrum, but apparently I'm too much of a nosy busybody! Have I ever considered that maybe, if I was doing my job as I should have, I would've never had to worry about the ***********?"

"That too! The hell does that even mean!?"

"What?"

"The thing you just said!"

"I can't explain, me! The whole point is that I'm not supposed to know!"

"But now I do, so tell me what's going on!"

"No."

"Then I will just keep retconning items and poking plot devices, I guess."

There was a long beat of silence in the wake of my words.

"Am I seriously trying to blackmail myself?"

"Am I— I mean, are you seriously refusing to at least give me some crumbs even after all this time?"

Other me considered my question for a while, and to my surprise, he finally relented.

"Fuck me, fine! I want to know if the presence of the Predator Moon is cause for concern, right?"

"Among other things," I uttered in a half daze, finding it hard to believe that I finally managed to crack other me's resistance.

"Listen, me, because I'll only say this once. Everything is still going according to the plan. The four ************* are insignificant. The Predator Moon is insignificant. All I have to do is to stick to what I've been doing until now, keep everyone alive, and not fuck up the plot."

"Okay, and what's the plot?"

"Everything that I'm doing," he answered me cryptically, and the whole world started to tremble again. "Shit, they noticed the unauthorized access. See? I knew this would happen!"

"Those four star-people?"

"God, I sound like an imbecile!" other-me griped.

"Then explain the terminology!"

"How many times do I have to—" We were interrupted by another quake in the scenery, and other me started to rapidly fade away. "Listen, dipshit. Just make sure I don't modify the Simulacrum from the inside, don't touch the framework, and for the love of god, don't fuck up the plot! So long as I can do that, everything will work out."

"Wait! I still have other questions about—"

"Don't. Fuck. Up."

And with those less than eloquent words, other me de-conceptualized, and became an indistinct feeling in the back of my mind telling me to get out of this wrench-fractal already. Speaking of which, once the other me disappeared, the strange time-stop also came to a halt, and the world around me started to churn again. I was late to realize that, by removing two phantom limbs previously, I destabilized my anchor.

I was far from satisfied with this encounter, but by the looks of it, that was the best I could get out of myself at this point, so I reluctantly withdrew from this ever-branching worldscape and, with a sudden exhalation, returned to my body.

"[What dost thou mean by 'seizure'?]"

Blinking, I turned to the confused Faun on the other stool.

"For how long was I unresponsive?"

"[Unresponsive?]" he repeated after me, sounding even more confused than before. That was answer enough.

"Never mind."

I threw the wrench into the air, and then caught it on the way down a couple of times as I ruminated over what I just learned. In short, there was a plan in effect, that didn't involve the star-people and the bone-man. Was it my plan, or was it someone else's plan? Or was that someone else me too? In any case, other me was much more up-to-date with the backstage of the Simulacrum than me me was, and while I was a bit of a dick… I mean, he was a bit of a dick, I figured I could trust myself on this.

Bloody hell, this pronoun mess is killing me…

Anyhow, I learned much less than I hoped, but what I did learn was significant enough to put my immediate worries at ease. With that conclusion in mind, I caught the wrench one last time and raised it to my eye level.

"General? Was this always size fourteen?"

"[Without a doubt,]" Brand answered, though he still sounded rather off balance, made worse when I let out a snicker.

"Sure it was." Saying so, I tossed the wrench back onto the workbench and stood up. "I think my mind cleared up a little. Could I interest you in a Dominance match to work out the remaining stress?"

"[I thought thou may never request,]" the old Faun answered with a smile, and reached for the spear propped up against a nearby tool cabinet. "[It has been some time since our last contest. I have long hoped to see thy improvement, Blackcloak.]"

With those words, we left the armoury, and with it, many a troubling thought behind. After all, if other me was to be believed, so long as I didn't majorly mess up the plot, everything would work out, and really, what are the chances of that?

…

Note to self: Consult Judy, and create a Plot-Non-Up-Fucking Committee. Just to be safe.

Part 2

Life had a way to dissipate tension. Just the other day, I was freaking out over being bitten by a space-whatever, and yet once the initial shock passed, I quickly found myself drowning in other issues demanding my attention. Yet, even with all of that going on, I would occasionally find myself spacing out and just going with the flow. Like right at this moment.

"Chief? Can you pass me the red paint?"

I turned to Judy and raised a single brow.

"… Why? It's a blue vase."

"I'm trying something," my dear assistant responded, shaking her open palm.

I still had no idea what she was trying to do, but I didn't argue and handed her a red paint tube from my kit. She thanked me and returned to her canvas, leaving me none the wiser about how she was planning to use a red pigment to paint a completely blue model.

But speaking of plans; I'm not going to lie, just learning about the fact that there was something like that in play took quite a bit of weight off my shoulders.

Not all of it though, as I still had no idea just what said 'plan' was, but it was something other me vouched for. Even if he was a bit of a douche, I figured he was still me, so he wouldn't be okay with something that would negatively affect me or the people around me. Probably. Hopefully.

In any case, with my shoulder weights temporarily alleviated, I could focus on other endeavours in earnest. Such as the blue vase in front of me.

"Ah, very good! You are such a free spirit, aren't you?"

"Tee-hee!"

I glanced over to the desk on our right, where Josh, Angie, and Ammy were sketching an apple. After being praised by our new art teacher (better known as Lord Taika), our friendly neighbourhood messianic archetype let out a silly laugh. She got along with everyone, as usual, and the illusionist arch-mage wasn't hard to gel with, to begin with. Out of all the incognito Assembly members, she took to her cover job as a teacher the easiest, and even though this was her first lesson with us, her interactions felt natural.

She was also pretty good at the whole 'art' thing as well. Apparently, a good illusionist needed quite a bit of artistic talent to craft believable magical mirages, and the advice she handed out sounded legit. She even managed to impress the princess, and while that doesn't sound like much, my lovely draconic girlfriend was still prone to pouting whenever the quality of her handiwork was brought into question. As I've learned on my own skin for daring to add salt to her homemade lunchbox the other day.

Anyhow, just like the three childhood friends, we were also sitting in a group, with a couple of desks pushed together between us and the already mentioned blue jug sitting in the middle of it, serving as our model for the day. The girls were happy with this arrangement, and threw themselves at the task with passion, while I… well, let's just say that after making up the leeway for two math tests at once during the last period, I was a bit more economical with my gusto.

I also had many other things on my mind. While my meeting with other me made me feel at least marginally less worried about the future, my inner pessimist kept reminding me that complacency was for children, fools, and tenured university professors. As such, even while I was doing my best not to embarrass myself with my lack of artistic skills, I also had a notebook open next to the canvas, where I was jotting down my own, not-at-all nefarious schemes.

"What are you writing?"

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

Of course, it wouldn’t escape my girlfriends' notice, and it was the princess who breached the question first.

"Multitasking," I told her with a cheeky smile.

"That's Judybot's job," my other girlfriend commented while doing that thing where she held out her brush and closed one eye to… measure… something? I guessed? I never really understood what that was about.

"It's not a proprietary feature, so there's no problem," I jested and pulled the notebook out of the curious princess's sight.

"Is it a secret? Is it another scheme?" she asked while craning her neck.

"No, it's just a run-of-the-mill priority list. Nothing more, nothing less." She still wasn't satisfied by the looks of it, so I added, "Pay attention to your painting, princess. There's only twenty minutes left until the break, and if you smudge it now, you won't have the time to start over."

Pouting, she finally relented, and returned to her work, meaning I could also take the notebook out again. Truth be told, while I wasn't lying to her, I wasn't entirely sincere either. This was, in the strict sense of the word, a priority list for sure, but it also happened to list all my currently ongoing plans, designs, and machinations. And oh boy, it was much longer than I thought it would end up when I started.

Currently, the top spot was reserved by the words 'Valentine's Day Dates'. It might have looked silly, compared to everything else on the list, but it was the only one with a hard deadline, so come hell or high water, I had to finalize everything by Saturday, or I would… Well, honestly, I wouldn't lose anything per se, but I went into our polyfidelous relationship saying I would give my one hundred and ten percent to make it work, and if I slouched on this, I was afraid I would create a bad precedent.

As such, taking the girls out was priority number one, and I intended to keep it that way, unless the world was literally collapsing on the very same day. But let's not tempt fate, shall we?

The second entry was slightly more abstract, as it read 'Train My Arms'. Long story short, as my slightly traumatic encounter revealed, my immaterial tentacular appendages could be injured by factors outside of the Simulacrum. Conversely, this meant they were something that existed outside of this world, and while it opened up a lot of metaphysical questions, for the time being, all of those had to be sacrificed on the altar of practicality.

Put simply, since they could be damaged by the bone person, it meant he could interact with them. This logically meant the phantom limbs had to exist on the same plane of existence as him. Therefore, if it ever came to a confrontation with him, or any of the other star-people from the not-dark not-room, these ethereal tendrils were my first and last line of defence, meaning the best course of action was to strengthen them in preparation. Of course, that was easier said than done, but I still had lots of free time at night, and I was anything if not persistent, so I was sure I would figure out something. Rather sooner than later. Preferably before it was too late.

The next line (or rather, the line that had an arrow point there, after many rewrites) said 'Clean House and Reorganize', referring to the Directorate. It was kind of a big thing, admittedly, but I had already laid down some groundwork by interrogating and marking the entire Celestial leadership, as well as recruiting Moose to open up a second front. It was this high on the priority list because as much as I enjoyed the momentary lull, I knew for sure that Savir was doing her best to consolidate her power in preparation for Angie's proper ascension as Deus, and it obviously wasn't to help her. Mensah was also doing some shady stuff in the background, though I couldn't quite catch him red-handed yet, and as for Tsephanyah, as much as he was the least of three evils, I wouldn't trust him as far I could throw him.

Leaving them in power was just asking for more harebrained schemes and potential betrayals, and while those were very exciting and dynamic and whatnot from a narrative perspective, being on the receiving end of them was both dangerous and annoying. Though the first part mostly applied to Josh and Angie, not me, it was still something to be avoided. That alone should've warranted an obvious high spot on the list, so why did I erase it and then arrow it back later?

It all had to do with other me's warning. Without it, the logic was pretty straightforward: The Directorate is dangerous to Josh and Angie, dangerous things are bad, bad things have to be rid of, therefore removing the Directorate is a good thing, and everyone's happy. However, I was explicitly told not to mess up the plot, and whatever big, dramatic flustercuck would serve as the 'climax' of the 'Angie Route' was guaranteed to involve them. If I decided to pull the plug and just get rid of them tomorrow by, say, employing a certain enigmatic and erratic alleged Abyssal Lord, picking up all the undesirable elements and dumping them in an underground prison somewhere or something, it would definitely count as 'messing up the plot', meaning it was a no-no.

As such, for the time being, I decided to limit myself to simply laying the groundwork and setting the stage, so that the moment the aforementioned 'plot' reared its ugly head, I could smack it down, and the Directorate with it, getting them out of my hair once and for all. Of course, that required a lot of time and effort, so it was still high on my priority list.

"Oh my, Leonard."

My thought processes were suddenly interrupted by Lord Taika appearing beside me. By the look on her face, I could tell that she was enjoying herself, and her modest smile, combined with her outfit and her (fake) glasses gave her a distinct 'mature, intellectual beauty' kind of look. More importantly, she leaned closer to take a better look at my canvas, and her brows rose with a mixture of wonder and astonishment.

"Are you… trying to depict the three-dimensional surface of the vase from every direction at once, but in two dimensions?"

I… had absolutely no idea what she was talking about, but I was never shy to take undeserved credit for inconsequential things like this, so I gave her an unabashed nod.

"Ah, I expected at least this much from you!"

She sounded genuinely impressed, but to be honest, I had no idea what she was seeing in my half-finished sketch. As I have alluded to, I was multitasking, and wasn't taking the assignment seriously at all. Hence the notepad and the slapdash painting that only resembled a vase in the most basic and generous terms. I didn't think she was pulling my leg though, so I was either so clueless about art that I didn't even recognize my own genius, or this was one of those 'misunderstanding comedy' situations. My money was on the latter.

At least my girlfriends were taking art class seriously. Judy's painting, despite using some, so to say, unconventional palette choices, was starting to look more and more like a photograph by the second, while the princess was going for a more freeform kind of style. Was 'impressionism' the word, I wondered? In any case, while less realistic, her work wasn't any less striking.

Compared to them, my sorry excuse of an 'artwork' was laughable at best, but to be fair, I wasn't especially trying. There was a reason why 'Schoolwork' ended up pretty low on my priority list, and while I imagined Elly would end up bummed if I didn't end up on the honour roll again at the end of the year, I didn't have as much free time to study as I did during last autumn. Even without my long absence, it was inevitable.

In any case, once she finished inspecting my 'painting', our 'Mrs. Talvipäivänseisaus' smiled at me. Speaking of which, was that her real name, or a fake identity? And in either case, was she married for real? Better yet, did I even care? Well, at least I could answer that last question with a 'No', so I ignored the rest and raised a brow at her.

"Artistic talent does seem to run in your family," she told me in a soft voice, and it took me a moment to realize what she meant.

"Right, already taught my sisters' class, didn't you?"

"Has she told you about it?" She hid her mouth behind the back of her hand and let out a dignified chuckle. "Why, yes. Neige is immensely talented in the visual arts, and as for Penelope, she's… enthusiastic."

"That was very diplomatic of you. Thank you." She let out another chuckle, and I thought that would be the end of it, but she remained with me. "Is there something else?"

"As a matter of fact, yes. Could I have some of your time after classes?" She leaned closer, and whispered, "I would like to ask you for advice."

I considered her request, but ultimately shook my head.

"Sorry, but I already have plans with the girls after class, so I can't stay."

"We do?" the princess perked up at once, and I just noticed that she somehow got a paint splotch on her cheek.

"Yes, we most certainly do," Judy came to back me up, without even looking up from her canvas, which told me she was paying full attention to our conversation. In the meantime, I took out a paper tissue from my bag and wiped my other girlfriend's face clean.

"You heard them. That's the long and short of it," I told Taika, and then threw the bunched-up tissue into the nearby wastebasket. It landed right in the middle of it, without even touching the sides. "Heh. Three points."

"Showoff," Josh commented on autopilot from the desk next to us, causing Angie to giggle uncontrollably.

For a moment, I had to slow down and take in the scene. As much as a hassle it was to keep up with schoolwork, it was exactly this kind of thing why I still insisted on attending Blue Cherry High. It was, for lack of better words, cosy.

"Oh. If it can't be helped, then it's fine…" Taika whispered with audible disappointment, and realizing that I wasn't paying attention to her anymore, she grudgingly moved to the next study group.

Now that she was gone, I could finally return to my painting… except it was apparently already perfect and impossible to improve, so I reached for my notebook instead. Where were we, where were we…? Ah, right. Dismantling the Directorate. It ranked high, but not at the top, because while it was something important, I was planning to delegate much of its foundation to Moose, Kane, and any other semi-trustworthy individuals they could find. As such, it was a high-impact, low-effort thing.

In this regard, the next priority on the list was mirroring this one: 'Plan F'. Also known as the homunculus plan. In contrast to the previous one, this required great material and time investment on my end, and whether it would be useful or not in the future was still up in the air, but it was one of those contingency plans I didn't dare to skimp out on. It also had an arrow pointing at it, with 'Getting rid of B?' at the end of it. The letter 'B' was referring to 'Bel', and it had a question mark because it was more of a backup plan, to recuperate some of the investment in case I never had to use Plan F after all.

The next couple of lines were erased and switched around a couple of times, and they all had to do with various topics regarding the Draconic Federation, the Ordo Draconis, and others. Official stuff. In other words, boring things that had to be taken care of, no matter how much I loathed wasting my precious time on them.

But speaking of taking care of things, the next line was something that also had to happen sooner or later. Namely, doing something about the Faun escorts of Tajana. Oh, for the record, she was near the very bottom of the priority list, because Snowy was taking care of her, but the Fauns were another issue entirely. Now that I had Rinne back on the island, I had all the chess pieces necessary to capture them, but it wasn't a pressing issue.

Mountain Girl was also busy nowadays, mediating between the Ordo Draconis and the Praetorian Guards, on top of keeping up appearances as a PE teacher here at Blue Cherry High, so I was willing to wait for her to sort out her affairs first. Speaking of her, she had been spending a lot more time around Naoren as of late, ostensibly to discuss security. While I was curious if that's all they were doing, I also respected my associates' privacy (ha!), so I left them to their own devices.

Then, at the very bottom of the page, slightly away from the main body of the list, there was another entry marked with a question mark. It read 'Visit Elderly Relatives?', and as the punctuation had already implied, I didn't know what to do with him.

Sooner or later, I had to do something about Sir Percival, but to be honest, the current arrangement was working for me. Out of sight, out of mind, as they say. Honestly speaking, I didn't want to directly confront him, because once I did so, I would have to decide his fate for good. Releasing him was out of the picture, killing him still didn't quite sit right with me, and as for keeping him locked up indefinitely… wasn't that what I was already doing, anyway?

In conclusion, while he was a liability, I figured I should let sleeping lions lie until I sorted out everything else, and leave the moral quandary for last.

Was I missing anything from the list, I wondered? I was about to start reading from the top, but then I saw that Judy was signalling to me, so I put it aside… and nearly burst out laughing.

"Chief, please review my painting," she said with a straight face, though there were two things definitely out of place.

First off, the tip of her nose was covered with blue paint, and as deadpan as she appeared on the surface, I could see that the tips of her ears were turning red. Did she… do that to herself, because she wanted me to clean her face too? All evidence pointed in that direction, so I did my best to stifle the laugh tickling the back of my throat.

"Before that, there's something on your face," I said as I fished out another paper tissue from my bag.

"Where. Where."

Her acting wasn't exactly convincing, but I did my best to accommodate her by reaching over and carefully wiping off her nose. My dear Dormouse rarely showed them, but she definitely had her cute sides, didn't she?

However, while I was happily musing about that, someone tapped on my shoulder, and when I turned over, I found Lord Taika standing next to me again, this time with a handful of white pages covered in glowing black blotches in her hands.

"Since you said you'll be busy after class, can I bother you for a moment now?" She didn't even bother to wait for my response and showed the first page to me. "What do you see here?"

"… A Rorschach Test?" I answered, sounding just a tiny bit miffed after she ruined our wholesome moment with Judy.

"No, I mean me, what do you see?" she emphasized and kept pushing.

"A bunch of ink blobs."

"But what's in the blobs?"

Rolling my eyes, I took a closer look, and when I squinted, I could make out a pattern in the soft magical glow of the indistinct ink stains. It didn't take long to realize they were the outlines of letters, and after straining my eyes a bit, they read 'Are you free after school?'.

"… Are you serious?"

Instead of answering me, she showed me another ink blob picture, and the illusion embedded in it said, 'Pretty please?'. Not only that, she even punctuated it with a clumsy wink, which completely ruined her 'cool, intellectual beauty' image. Worse yet, it caused not only the creepy quartet, but even my girlfriends to give me sideways looks.

In the end, I settled it with an ambivalent, "Maybe."

"Thank you!"

Apparently, so long as it wasn't a hard 'No,' it was good enough for her. With that she walked away with springy steps, followed by everyone's eyes. Including Elly's.

"What was that about?"

"Extracurricular activity," I answered in a low voice, and with a careless toss, I scored another three-pointer in the thrash basket.

In conclusion, school was necessary, mostly cosy, and occasionally exasperating. Nothing new, by any stretch of the imagination.

Part 3

"Aw, man! This is going to be much harder than I thought…"

While the unusually lethargic Celestial girl at the other end of the cafeteria's table made it sound like she was talking to herself, she was obviously angling for someone to address her. That someone was my draconic girlfriend.

"What? Tennis practice?" Elly inquired, looking genuinely intrigued.

It was lunch-break-o-clock, and our entire group was sitting around one of the larger tables in the corner of Blue Cherry High's needlessly fancy cafeteria. The seats on my sides were occupied by Judy and Elly, as usual, while the other end of the table had Josh and Angie side-by-side. The rest of the spaces were filled by the silent class rep and my clamouring sisters, arguing about who should eat the last slice of apple pie. They both wanted the other to have it, which was just cute enough that I decided to buy a bonus slice for whoever 'won' the argument.

Strangely enough, their disagreement didn't make them stick out of the crowd at all. Our environment might've been high-class, but the students romping around the place were just like what you would see in any other school's dining hall. Which was, of course, pleasantly surprising. The atmosphere was much more, for lack of better words, 'natural' than how it used to be in the beginning, when all the placeholders were just mechanically eating their standard menu dishes and were rote discussing ten common topics ad infinitum.

By this point, they developed by leaps and bounds, and their dialogue reached brand new heights of… discussing about fifteen different common topics. So, baby steps? To be fair though, that was a solid fifty percent increase, so maybe I shouldn't have complained at all. More interestingly though, their interactions also grew in complexity, and now we had friends horsing around, girls huddling together to gossip, and one guy even got into hot water for hitting on another girl while his girlfriend was within earshot. Let's just say that their argument made the back-and-forth between my sisters look like nothing at all.

All in all, it was heartening to see how much everyone's agency progressed since the first day I came here… except maybe for the four creepy amigos.

Did it have something to do with their character archetypes, or them just being really stubborn about refusing to gain another dimension? Even now, they were following Sahi, who was using them as her minions, making them perform silly, superficial tasks and whatnot. I wondered how Pascal felt about all that, but before I could find him in the crowd, my attention was pulled back to my tablemates as Angie let out a lung-rattling sigh.

"I wanna play in the regionals, but I don't know how to make the time!" she grumbled before picking up a piece of deep-fried broccoli, dipping it in a whiteish sauce, and then eating it in one bite. It was today's C-menu, if I wasn't mistaken. After she swallowed, she let out another sigh and drooped her shoulders. "I need all the time to study, because I need better grades! Getting into university is gonna be a paaain!"

"Can't you just get a sports scholarship?"

The idea came from Judy, but it was shot down by my other girlfriend before Angie could even respond.

"There's nothing like that on Critias," she said, sounding remarkably disappointed. "I looked into it."

"You did?" Judy asked between two bites, and while she wasn't confrontational at all, the princess still ended up sounding startled, and even a bit defensive.

"What do you mean? I just… you know, since we no longer have to be worried about the Knights, I thought I might try joining a tennis tournament or two, and asked around a bit." Despite neither of us responding in any way whatsoever, she turned redder by the second and blurted out. "D-Don't take me wrong! It's not because I want to make mom happy or anything…"

"Tsundere."/"Tsun-tsun."

Judy and I spoke at the same time, and after a long beat, I let out a low chuckle and turned to my pouting princess.

"If I remember right, you said you started playing tennis because Emese used to do so before her injury, right?"

"Yes," she responded tentatively, as if expecting that I was about to make fun of her. That hurt a bit, but I moved on all the same.

"But then you stopped after middle school, because of the Knight threat." This time, she only nodded. "Correct me if I'm wrong, but since both of those issues are resolved, can't mom-in-law just resume her Tennis career herself? I mean, you can keep playing if you like it, but I think the incentive behind the whole thing was already resolved."

"That's… Hmm…"

While Elly contemplated what I said, Angie rolled her eyes and grumbled, "How does any of that help me?"

"Ah, right. We were talking about your grades stopping you from playing tennis," I said while cutting my steak, but then I raised a brow and asked. "Wait. How are those two related again?"

"Thank you!" Josh suddenly burst out and even threw his hands into the air. "I've been telling her the same thing all morning, but she refuses to listen to reason!"

"No, you don't get it," Angie fired back with a glare aimed at her boyfriend. "I asked Mrs. Applebottom about it, and if I want to get into a good university, I have to start studying for the entrance exams right now! I can't divide my attention now!"

"And I'm telling you that you can do both! Do you know how long I've been dragged along to your tennis club activities?"

"Since the beginning?"

"Yes, since the freaking beginning!" Josh declared with a huff. "I know exactly how long they take, so I know for a fact that you have plenty of time to study. You can do both."

"It's not about that! You know that prepping for a tournament takes extra time and effort, and I need that to read and do mock tests and stuff!"

"Argh! I can't with you anymore!" The guy threw his hands into the air again and then turned to me. "Leo! Gimme some support, would you?"

Startled by being called out like that, I quickly swallowed the food in my mouth and said, "What does this have to do with me?"

They both looked at me like I was asking a rhetorical question, so after collecting my thoughts a bit, I drank some water to clear my throat and put my utensils down.

"Angie."

"Yes?"

"You can do both."

"Thank you, again!" Josh exclaimed in triumph, but since his girlfriend looked less than enthused by my response, I proceeded to elaborate.

"Have you tried playing tennis since we came back?"

"N-No?"

Her reply sounded anything but confident. Why was everyone so jumpy today, I wondered as I shook my head.

"Think about it a bit. During yesterday's PE class, you handily demolished all the girls in our class in dodgeball." Pausing, I reached out to pat my blonde girlfriend on the head, and she gave me her best 'startled rabbit' impression. "Well, most of them. You put up a good fight, princess."

"I was caught off-guard, okay?" she grumbled, as if I just opened up a fresh wound again.

"You also beat the school's record for long jumping, didn't you?" I continued, and based on her expression, Angie still had no idea what I was getting at, so I slowly shook my head and pointed at her. "Listen, Angie. Even at this moment, you are stuck in your Deus-enhanced Celestial mode, aren't you? It obviously comes with higher physical specs, so as long as you aren't completely slacking off, it should compensate for missing a couple of tennis practices here and there. You'll be fine."

"If what you say is true," the class rep interjected, speaking up for the first time in a while, "then wouldn't that give her an unfair advantage? It should be against the rules?"

"A fair point, but I would like to remind you that Elly won a tennis championship already, so the whole 'is it fair for supernatural folks to compete in sports' thing has already sailed."

"It doesn't make it any less unfair," she pointed out, and I couldn't help but shrug.

"Then once everything calms down, let's organize a separate tennis league for mystic folk or whatever. I'm sure the Eastern Draconians will be all over the concept."

"Oh? I like that idea," the princess agreed with me on the spot, suddenly sounding enthusiastic about the prospect.

"But my grades!" Angie whined, drawing my attention back to her. "What about my grades?!"

"Get a tutor," I said casually as I cut my steak again before it went completely cold. "A proper one. I'm sure there are some university students or private teachers out there who would be happy to stuff your head full of everything you need."

"Erm… I'm not sure I can afford one," Angie muttered, and before I could tell her how silly that was, Josh more or less did it for me.

"What do you mean you 'can't afford it', dumdum? You're the messianic leader of an entire civilization! Just ask for money from them!"

"I'm not a dumdum! You're the dumdum!" she fought back, but it was hard to call that a 'counter-argument'.

Ignoring his girlfriend's protests (and her kicks under the table), Josh seemed to be deep in thought as he turned to me again.

"Hey, Leo? Do we get paid? For being Polemos and Deus and the Justicar and all that?"

"I… never really even considered that, but it's a good question," I confessed, sounding a little sheepish even to myself. "The next time I'm in the Elysium, I'll ask around."

That seemed to satisfy Josh for the time being, so I returned to my meal, only to suddenly remember something and turn to the class rep next.

"Hey, Ammy?"

"Hm? Yes?"

She looked a bit absent-minded, and I had a feeling that what I was about to say was at least half the reason.

"I already told Mike on the phone, but I have something to take care of after school, so we'll set out around five, if that's okay with you."

"Mm. Sure," she answered, but her eyes betrayed her apprehension. I had no idea why; she was going to be a state guest.

I promised that I would set up a meeting between Michael and his father (plus, presumably, his hitherto-unseen mother) in the Elysium, with the class rep also tagging along for good measure. With how much I had on my plate at the moment, I found it necessary to knock as many outstanding obligations off my priority list as possible and decided to start with this one. It might've been a bit too soon for her, but since Mike was really enthusiastic about the idea, she didn't want to disappoint him. I was sure they would work it out between the two of them, so once I received her acknowledgement, I immediately shifted my focus elsewhere.

Namely, my lovely assistant by my side.

"Chief? How much money do you think we can make by starting a superhuman sports franchise?"

Blinking, I turned to face her.

"Are you already expanding the tennis tourney idea?"

"Yes. I'm planning to invest in it."

"Your allowance?"

Shaking her head, she pointed at me.

"I'll ask for a loan from a venture capitalist I know, and then I'll pay it back once the organization makes it big."

"… I was called many things, but a 'venture capitalist'… That's a new one…" After those grumbles, I narrowed my eyes and asked, "Since when are you worried about making money, anyway?"

"It's a necessary evil. According to a recent study I read, financial disparity and dependency are strongly correlated with failed long-term romantic relationships. I'm going to get ahead of the problem."

"But wouldn't borrowing money from me make you 'financially dependent' on me, as you put it?"

"I have no other choice, because I have no savings. You are only paying me in sandwiches and kisses, and I can't put those into a savings account or trade them on the open market."

"To be fair, you were the one who insisted on those."

"It was ages ago. Since then, you have saturated the market, driving down the prices."

"It's been only half a year," I pointed out.

"Yes. Ages ago. Just like I said," she answered with a straight face, and then added, "Speaking of which, since inflation hit the value of kisses, I demand a raise to compensate for the state of the economy."

"Hm. Well, I'm not following these things too closely. Please ask my assistant about it."

"Chief. I'm your assistant."

"Then I'm sure you can work something out with yourself," I told her with a cheeky smile, and we would have probably continued our skit, if not for an unexpected interruption.

"Brother! We need help!"

Glancing over, I found my sisters pushing the plate with the last slice of apple pie on it towards me.

"Uuu… Could you… cut it in half?"

Oh. So that was their solution to their dilemma. Very fair, as expected. Yet, before I could do as they asked, Penny followed my Abyssal sister up with a hasty, "It doesn't matter if it's not perfectly half-and-half! Snowy can get the bigger portion."

"That defeats the point," my other sister commented with a rare, deadpan stare. "Aren't we asking Leo to make sure it's fair?"

"Y-Yes, but this way, he won't have to stress over it! And you getting the bigger part would be fairer anyway! We bought the pie with your allowance!"

"But we agreed to share properly," Snowy argued back. "One of the slices I ate was bigger, so if it ends up uneven, you should be the one getting the bigger piece."

"That's not how fairness works!"

Looking at them, I couldn't help but feel my big brotherly instinct getting tickled, and after some consideration, I put the knife down and stood up.

"Stay put, you two. I'll be right back."

With those words, I headed to the cafeteria's counter and got in line. While I waited, I had time to look around, and to my surprise, I found two familiar faces in the distance, standing by the entrance at the other end of the dining hall. Duncan and armour-guy were, presumably, on duty, and they were surrounded by a whole gaggle of students. Most of them girls. While Duncan was making bodybuilder poses, armour-guy was flexing a double-biceps pose, with two giggling first-year students hanging on his arms.

"What the heck, what the heck…?" I muttered under my breath, trying to figure out what exactly was going on over there, and I was so distracted by that whole thing that I very nearly bumped into another familiar face when the line started moving again.

"Oh. Careful, Mr. Dunning."

"Oops, my bad," I responded reflexively, and the red-haired arch-mage flashed a pearly white smile at me.

"No harm done." He paused and glanced over at the table where I came from. "Are you here for seconds?"

"Sort of," I told him with a shrug. "Are you?"

"I have to admit, I have something of a sweet tooth," Lord Gulliver told me in the company of a good-natured chuckle. "Amadeus didn't spare any expenses when it came to this refectory. You know, I lost some weight recently, but by the time I finish sampling the menu, I think I might run into the opposite problem."

Despite our first meeting ending on rather ambivalent terms, the lanky man was unexpectedly friendly and talked to me as if we had known each other for ages. I figured he was just naturally affable, so I humoured him for the moment.

"You lost weight?"

"Ah, yes! All the stress, you see. First with the Keys reacting, then Saahira passing away, and then we had to come here, expecting a big conflict to break out at any moment. It was just one thing after the other." He let out an overdramatic sigh, raising and dropping his shoulders in the process, but then he shook his upper body and added, "You know, on second thought, I might not gain any weight after all, considering how hectic this teaching position turned out to be."

"Taika seemed to take to it like a duck to the water," I pointed out, and the redhead arch-mage let out an amused chortle.

"Already on a first-name basis, I see! Unfortunately, not all of us are so naturally adaptable. Ahhh… I should've taken Ambrose's advice and adopted a consultant role, or something similar instead. Oh well, can't do anything about it now, except lose weight to stress. What do you think I should do?"

"Get double portions?" I blurted out the first thing that came to mind, and he blinked at me in surprise before breaking into a hearty laugh.

"Ahaha! Great minds think alike, aren't they? I love it!"

As we talked, the line kept moving, and we soon reached the counter.

"Yes?" the lady on the other side asked Lord Gulliver, but he shook his head.

"Sorry, I'm still browsing." He gestured to me. "You go ahead."

"In that case, a whole apple pie, please."

The cafeteria lady nodded and disappeared in the back. While she did that, I took out my wallet, and when I opened it up, the man by my side let out an impressed whistle.

"Do you always carry so much cash with you?"

"A bad habit," I admitted as I pulled out a banknote. "Did you make your pick yet?"

"I'm still not sure…" he said as he rubbed his chin. "Maybe I should get a little bit of everything, and then share the leftovers with Ambrose. I'm sure he's getting lonely without me."

"Without a doubt," I responded on autopilot, since the cafeteria lady showed up with a piping hot pie still in its circular pan in the meantime.

"Would you like me to cut it up for you?"

"Eight equal pieces, please."

She nodded and reached for a knife. In the meantime, the leggy arch-mage continued to rub his chin, and when he finally had my attention again, he let out a thoughtful hum.

"You know, Leonard… Can I call you Leonard?"

"You're a teacher now. It would be weirder if you called me Mr. Dunning," I pointed out, and his hum turned into a stifled chuckle.

"Agreed. So, you know, I was told you are pretty scary, but aren't you actually a pretty nice guy?"

"Depends on the circumstances," I answered half-heartedly. "My reputation has a life of its own, but I don't like to take myself too seriously. Otherwise, I would miss out on too many nice things."

"Like buying sweets for your girlfriends?"

"It's my sisters, but potayto, potahto, I suppose."

The guy let out an amused chuckle and watched me as I received my perfectly cut apple pie, with fresh whipped cream on top.

"I wish more people thought like you. Everyone takes themselves too seriously nowadays."

"That, we can agree upon," I said without much meaning, and after a nod, I left him at the counter and headed back to our table.

On my way back, I glanced at the entrance again, where Duncan and armour-guy were… leaning towards each other, with their hands clenched and pushing on one another. … Wasn't that one of those weird traditions that wrestlers did before a match? I mean, the ones on TV, not the ones at the Olympics? What the heck were those two up to?

As much as I was curious, I had no time to check them out, as I was already back at the table. I placed the tray with the pie on it in the middle and flashed a big smile at my flabbergasted sisters.

"Let's trade. You give me that apple pie, and I give you this apple pie. One for one. Perfectly fair trade."

"I… don't know about that…" Snowy mumbled, eyes glued to the pie.

In the meantime, I sat down, pulled the plate with the lonely slice in front of me, and raised a questioning brow at my sisters.

"So? Are you going to eat it, or what?"

"No! It's too much! Do you want to give us a heartburn?" Penny exclaimed and waved her finger around. "We should share it with everyone!"

"It's your pie. You do whatever you want with it."

Once she received my approval, my knightly sister immediately pulled it in front of her… only to get bogged down as she kept turning it, apparently looking for the biggest slice to give to Snowy. Seriously, these two…

Meanwhile, just as I was about to reach for my utensils again, something landed on my shoulder, and when I looked over, I found the princess resting her head on it.

"I was missing this so much…" she whispered, and my dear assistant leaned forward just so that she could send her a puzzled glance.

"The Chief spoiling others?"

"No, not that," Elly responded with a soft whine. "I'm talking about everything. I like it when it's peaceful, and everyone's happy, and our biggest problem is having too much apple pie!"

"I… can't argue with that," Judy relented rather fast, and the girl on my shoulder let out a satisfied giggle.

"I wish every day would be like this."

"So do I, princess. So do I."

Whispering, I finished up my lukewarm steak, even though I was sure we all knew we would never be so lucky. Still, it didn't hurt to be just a tiny bit positive every once in a while, and enjoy the moment. It was the small things that made life worth living, after all.