The Simulacrum

"... and that concludes my explanation of the current situation."

The moment Judy declared so, my living room burst into a mixture of surprised, excited, and occasionally indignant murmurs. On one side, Ammy and Angie were aghast. On the other side, Elly and Snowy were mildly perturbed by the news. Josh was… well, he was zoned out at the moment. Couldn't blame him, even I was a little exhausted after Judy's info dump, to the point I pretty much melted into my comfy chair like a deflated balloon. As for why we were in my house again, that is a tale for... well, I wanted to say another time, but really, why delay the inevitable exposition, am I right?

Seriously though, it all started a long, long few hours ago, in a Josh's house far, far away, and as with all great epics, it began with a tale of conflict as old as time: a powerful man defeating and humiliating a less powerful individual… in a sixteen-bit video game. This momentous and highly dramatic event of mythic proportions naturally resulted in a declaration of an eternal rivalry of the hot-blooded variety that would echo down the ages, or some such. I'm not entirely clear on the details, as I was being interrogated by my very own Spanish Inquisition at the time, but the way Josh recounted the event, it might as well have been one of those ancient Greek classics.

Anyhow, back to the inquisition part: once she made me confess all my sins, Judy decided that we needed to have an emergency meeting to discuss what to do with, among other things, the resident mad scientist, the captive Celestial, and the missing liqueur cabinet, not necessarily in that order of importance. Of course we couldn't exactly do that with Armband Guy loitering around us, so after some leading questions, we (read: me alone, because the others couldn't read the mood if it was written in 72px Arial Black) successfully convinced him that if he was worried about a surprise attack on our group, my house with Snowy's warding around it was by far the safest place for us to stay.

The thing is, I've completely underestimated just how seriously he took his body-guarding duties, as he acted so much like a professional that even Elly was impressed. He planned out the safest route to my place, gave instructions about how we should line up based on whether we were more offensive or defensive-oriented, and the way he was constantly scanning our vicinity for threats on the way was the spitting image of an especially skittish meerkat.

Oh, and before I forget it: I finally discovered his power set! Apparently, Armband Guy specialized in the Negation branch of Abjuration, which in layman's terms meant he used a whole lot of barriers and force fields, mostly the semi-transparent bubble variety, though he also showed off a few fancy hexagonal shields as well. It was slightly unexpected, but when I mentioned to Judy that this was usually the playing field of a tropey archetype called the Barrier Maiden, she only rolled her eyes and told me to stop tempting fate. I was more than a little baffled by her reaction, as even if her interpretation of the Narrative could be influenced by somehow 'tempting fate' like this, I doubt it would lead to Pascal suddenly changing his gender overnight to match the trope. That said, she didn't elaborate, so I didn't dwell on it for too long either.

Where was I? Oh, right, our trek to my house. So, after frequent stops and a whole lot of obnoxious safety measures forced on us, we successfully arrived at my place, just in time for the rain to finally stop. Then came the next problem: how do we get rid of Armband Guy without raising suspicion? No, wait. Let me rephrase that: how do I get rid of him without giving a single damn about suspiciousness? As it turned out, very easily.

As such, after treating him to a customary cup of hot drink, I promptly kicked him out by invoking the 'my house is my castle' rule, meaning I could expel whoever I wanted, whenever I wanted. He took it surprisingly well, and based on later Far Sight observations, he kept patrolling around the neighborhood with unwavering determination. I'm not going to lie, I found his dedication a tiny bit commendable. Not enough to substantially raise my opinion of him, but enough to feel a little sorry for him being ordered to go on a wild goose chase like that. I wondered, maybe I should Phase over after the meeting and give him another warm drink. Or make some 'Kihihi!' noises to liven up his uneventful afternoon. One or the other.

But speaking of the meeting, let's return to the present, where the initial commotion over my assistant airing some of my dirty laundry finally settled down into an apprehensive and just mildly judgmental silence. That last part was mostly due to the class rep. Shocking, I know.

"So, you've been busy," Josh spoke up in a jovial voice in an obvious attempt to ease the mood. It didn't really work.

"This is not the time to joke around!" The vehement rebuttal naturally came from Ammy, and she immediately proceeded to send me the mother of all menacing glasses-tweaks. "If this is all true, we have to do something about Robatto!"

"Do we?"

My sister's innocent question was met with a frown so fierce it made her shrink back right away. Not that it took much to make her do so, so the class rep's expression was definitely an overkill.

"Of course we have to!" she declared, her voice all but dripping with indignation.

"I don't know," Josh raised his voice at once as he unsubtly came to my sister's defense, his arms already crossed in front of his chest and one brow raised high. "We did our best yesterday, but we couldn't catch the guy. Now we don't even know where he is."

"We actually do." Upon her interruption, Josh's curious brow was immediately aimed at my assistant, and after a long beat, she amended, "And by that, I mean that the Chief knows where he is."

"Of course he does," Ammy grumbled under her breath, but before she could question me, Josh spoke up again.

"Even so, I don't see why we can't just leave it to your people." That comment earned him the dreaded Class Rep Glare™, so he hastily added, "I mean, we could just tell your grandfather where Robatto's hiding, and then have him take care of them."

"Weren't you listening!?" Ammy's voice actually broke for a moment, so a quick clearing of the throat was necessary before she could continue with an equally heated, "They have Michael, and since someone decided to somehow fake a note in Celestial Script at the scene of the biggest heist in the history of the Assembly, he's going to be arrested on the spot!"

"So?" Josh blurted out quite bluntly, much to my surprise.

"He's innocent. We can't let him get caught up in this," Ammy stressed while subtly averting her eyes, something that didn't escape either mine or Josh's notice.

"Right! We have to save him!"

The in retrospect not too unexpected call of support came from Angie. She clenched both her fists in front of her, and her face was overflowing with determination to the point it formed a small, illusionary puddle under her. Josh still looked skeptical of the prospect, so she faced him right away.

"Mike is my dad's second cousin's stepson! He's practically family!"

"How many times removed is that?" I wondered, only to be dismissed out of hand by her.

"He's family all the same! We have to rescue him!"

"Fine, whatever. He's your relative then," Josh finally relented with the grudging grousing of an ornery mule, and then after a short while he turned to Ammy again. "Is his situation really that bad? Can't you just ask your grandfather to let him go after he was captured, or recaptured, or whatever?"

"It's not that simple," she responded in a dour voice and sent a sharp glance my way. "A certain someone stole one of the most important relics of the Magi from grandfather's office. He's keeping the scope of the incident under wraps for the moment, but the rest of the Assembly is already preparing to send specialists to look into the situation. If they learn that one of the Grimoire Keys was taken from under grandfather's watch, it will greatly affect his standing; he might even lose his position in the Assembly. Now consider that our School is mainly a research institute, with the only two combat-ready members being grandfather and Pascal, which means they would have to be the ones to assault Robatto's hideout. Considering all that, do you really think he's going to be in the mood to negotiate the release of a Celestial captive involved in the incident?"

"If you put it like that…" Josh mumbled under his breath as the last of his resistance crumbled.

"I think we should help him too," came the next unexpected comment from my sister of all people.

"You do?" I blurted out in surprise while unconsciously mimicking Josh's expert eyebrow technique, and she immediately nodded in the affirmative. Her answer, on the other hand, was slightly less confident.

"I-I mean... They are the bad guys, right?" The rest of us shared an odd look between each other at this point, but for the time being, I gave her the benefit of the doubt in that she was getting to a point, so I gestured for her to continue. "If they are the baddies, and if we fight against them, that makes us the good guys, right?"

That was a slightly dubious conclusion, but I figured this wasn't the time or place to discuss the nuances of moral relativism, so I gave her a small nod. Snowy let out a pent-up breath, as if she just overcame a serious hurdle.

"Then, if we are the good guys, isn't it our job to defeat the bad guys and rescue the people caught up in the conflict?"

Her rhetorical question was met with a long beat of silence, followed by a still grumpy Josh muttering, "Well, I can't really argue with that."

Once again, I felt like there were plenty of good arguments to be made here, but I decided to stay silent and let the others work this out among themselves.

"Let's put it to the vote!" my draconic girlfriend proposed at once, with a serious face that said this was the most logical idea in the world and she wouldn't hear anything to the contrary.

"Sure," Ammy agreed before I could even react and raised her hand. "All in favor of capturing Robatto and rescuing Michael, raise your hand."

"I'm for!" Angie came forth at once, raising both arms and waving them with enough enthusiasm for three people.

"I suppose I'm in too."

Josh's half-hearted reply and equally limp raised hand was still met with a high five from his childhood friend. The next member of our group raising her hand was naturally Snowy, and while she didn't get a palm-slap of her own, Angie was about as happy about her decision as when Josh entered the fold.

That left only me and my girlfriends. The way the two of them looked at me said they could go either way depending on my decision, and the trust they placed in me would've been fairly heartwarming if not for the fact that we were at three against four, so the vote was already decided.

"Sure, let's do it."

My agreement was met with exhalations so relieved they were honestly a little off-putting. I mean, what difference would it make if I said no? While I tried to logic out the reason for my friends' reaction, Elly also raised her hand high.

"If Leo's in, then I'll help too!"

"I can't do much, but for the sake of completion, let me also throw a 'yay' into the ballot," Judy proclaimed, thus closing the vote.

"Great." Ammy's single word had a surprising amount of gravitas behind it, and for a moment it seemed like things would calm down a little. Then she dropped a bombshell. "When are we setting out? Do we wait until dusk?"

"Wait! Hold your horses for just a minute!" She fell silent the moment I raised my voice, and her hand was already in the process of reaching for her glasses when I continued with, "You seriously want to do it today? Without any plans?"

"We have to," she argued back at me in the company of a displeased frown.

"But why though?" I challenged her right back, and she rolled her eyes as if I just asked an oblivious question.

"The agents of the Assembly could arrive at any moment. We have to resolve this on our own, and a soon as possible."

"I agree with Ammy." I glanced at the source of the class rep's unlikely supporter, and when he noticed my gaze, Josh simply shrugged his shoulders. "I mean, if we decided to do it, we might as well do it ASAP and put his whole Robatto and Michael business behind us."

"I wholeheartedly agree with the previous speaker," Angie exclaimed with her usual brand of enthusiasm, and she raised her hand high. For a moment I thought she was fishing for another high-five, but then she proclaimed, "All who are in favor, raise your hand!"

"Hold on... we didn't put this up to vote," I protested, only to get summarily disregarded when Ammy added to the momentum by raising her hand.

"Now it is. Who else is with us?"

"As I said, I'm still in," Josh joined the fray with one palm held high.

"Oh come on! At least try to pretend you have a plan before you jump in!"

"We had a plan the last time, and Robatto still got away," Josh noted without letting his hand down.

"Right, which means we would have even less of a chance to catch him if we try it without any preparations. For example, I doubt you could convince Pascal to join us out of the blue. In the worst-case scenario, he might even get in the way, or report it to Lord Grandpa."

"And that's why we can't tell him," Ammy told me, and this time it was my turn to send a frown in her way. "Even if he wouldn't tell grandfather right away, Pascal would not let Michael go. If that happened, we'd be back to square one."

"Then what? Just do this on our own without any backup?"

"I could ask uncle Brang for support?" Snowy suggested in an uncertain voice, but the class rep quickly dismissed her idea with a shake of her head.

"No, they are too conspicuous. If Robatto saw them during the assault, he would certainly talk about them during the interrogation."

"You're right. That would be hard to explain," my sister granted her without any resistance. I, on the other hand, couldn't help but exhale a short yet decidedly lung-rattling groan.

"So let me see if I got this straight," I said in a low voice as my hand unconsciously rose to my head to massage my temple. "You want to rush in and assault Labcoat Guy's hidey-hole without any plan, without help from Armband Guy, and without involving the Faun in any shape or form. What exactly makes you think things are going to turn out better than the last time like that?"

"You would be there?" Josh answered with an honest grin that gave me a pause for a moment.

"I don't think that would make as much of a difference as you think," I answered just a tad dourly, but it didn't stop my friends to keep looking at me with expectant eyes.

"I think it would, actually," Ammy noted on the side, drawing my attention.

"And in that case, you would be wrong," I told her flatly, but the atmosphere refused to change. I glanced over everyone present one at a time, and at last my eyes landed on Judy. I closed my eyes for a second, then after a long breath later I rose to my feet and pointed at her. "Okay, I need some time out to think this through. Dormouse, please come along."

"Sure," Judy responded without missing a beat and slipped her phone into her pocket.

"Just the two of you?" Elly asked with puppy eyes, but unfortunately this wasn't something where I could compromise, so I planted an apologetic peck on her forehead. It wasn't a perfect solution, but for the time being it calmed her down enough.

"Sorry, but this is a tactical discussion."

"Didn't you already have one at my place?" Josh mused, and before I could answer, Ammy also joined the fray.

"Right. Also, if it's 'tactical, isn't it all the more reason why you should do it where we can also contribute."

"No," I told her, and when she looked like he was getting ready to argue back, I added a stern, "And that's final."

In the meantime Judy got ready, so I gestured for her to follow after me, and we walked over to my teleportation closet while staunchly ignoring the scrutinizing eyes following us. I opened the door, and my dear assistant walked right in. Once we were inside, she turned on her heels and gave me a questioning glance, but I shook my head and wrapped my Phantom Limb around her.

A few moments later we both walked out into the reception room of the secret base, and after a few steps, Judy repeated the whole 'turning on her heels' thing, but this time she straight up asked me.

"What's the problem?"

"You mean besides the way things are developing at the speed of a runaway freight train?" She didn't appreciate my snappy answer, so I took a deep breath and reiterated. "What I was trying to say was, I'd like to ask about your opinion on the situation."

"Narrative implications included?"

"Naturally. Why else would I take you over here?"

"Noted," she responded with a nod, and then she casually took his phone out again. While she did that, we walked over to one of the padded benches and sat down.

"First and foremost, I wanted to hear what you think about the whole impromptu operation. Do you think we should go through with it the way Ammy wants to?"

"Since when did you ask for my permission to jump head-first into risky affairs?"

"Come on, Dormouse. Not now," I chided her, but she seemed entirely serious, so after a short while I gave up and told her, "Listen, I admit that I might've taken a few slightly dangerous options in the past couple of days, but this situation is on a different level entirely. We are no longer dealing with sentai-shenanigans. There's no longer a contract holding Labcoat Guy and his posse back, and Ammy in her hurry to rescue Mike has already cut off most of our safety nets. If we do this, the guys might get hurt, or worse."

"I think I'm starting to see where you are coming from," Judy noted, and then fell silent for a long while. "Before we discuss anything else, do you have an alternative way of dealing with the situation?"

"Honestly, I was planning on framing Labcoat Guy and then letting him and Lord Grandpa duke it out between each other, and then deal with the fallout of Mike later. What I didn't expect was that taking the Grimoire Key would escalate things so much."

"You should have."

"Hey, give me some slack. Hindsight is always 20/20." My protests fell on deaf ears, so I decided to move the conversation along by saying, "Anyhow, while my original plan could still be executed, I would have to smuggle Mike out before the confrontation between the two, and I can't do it without revealing my Phasing ability."

"You shouldn't do that in front of a Celestial agent."

"I know, that's why I haven't done it. It's still my emergency plan in case the guy was in danger, but for the time being, he is safe, if confined."

"So in the end rescuing him the old-fashioned way is the only reasonable option?"

"Yeah, I just don't know why it has to be us," I paused here for a moment as a new idea sprouted in the back of my mind, and asked, "Do you think it's a bad idea to leak his capture to the Celestials?"

"Depends. Is causing a scandal between the supernatural superpowers and a possible three-way battle a bad idea?"

"… In that case, scratch that. What other options do we have?"

"Chief, I'm sorry to say this, but this is a bed you made. You must lie in it."

"Can't you say anything reassuring today?"

"I would love to, but no, I can't."

"Well… darn."

After that exchange, we both fell silent for a subjectively long time. I was just about to consider my options for the third time when Judy poked me in the elbow to draw my attention.

"Why don't you just go along with the others?" My expression was probably pretty odd at this moment, as she also added, "It seems like the Narrative really wants you to do this. They too."

"Yeah, and it's creeping me out. I mean, the latter, not the possibility of things escalating because the Narrative is on the verge of having a blue screen of death. Have you seen how they were looking at my reactions? It's almost as if they thought suddenly everything would work out if they got me involved."

"That's not 'almost', it's literally what they think."

"Yes, and th—" I began, only to stop with my mouth halfway open. "Excuse me, but could you repeat that?"

"They really think that if you were with them, things would go smoothly."

"… And how do you know that, if I may ask?"

"Amelia said so, and Angeline also agreed. They also think that the reason why they couldn't catch Robatto the first time around was because you weren't around."

"That's just silly."

My dear assistant looked me in the eye for a moment, and then she declared, "Chief, please stop avoiding your responsibility. You've acted as the group's leader from the beginning, and there is nothing silly about them trying to rely on you."

"Yeah, but I never really tried to be the leader on purpose. I'd prefer if Josh, or even Ammy, would step up to the plate instead."

"Well, I never wanted to live in an artificial world and would've preferred if I could have you for myself in a monogamous relationship, but sometimes you just have to work with the hand that life dealt you."

We kept looking eye to eye for a while longer, but at last I had to give up, and after looking up at the ceiling I muttered, "To quote a famous harem protagonist, I really can't argue with that."

"You better not. Otherwise, I would have to kick you."

"Oh the horror," I responded in a dull voice and then exhaled sharply through my nose to clear my thoughts. "Fine, I'll pretend to be a responsible leader-type for the time being. Now let's move on to the second part of our discussion: how would you describe the current situation on tropey terms, and how did we end up with it?"

"I have a hypothesis," Judy declared with a new sense of vigor in her voice. "I think the current arc is being aborted."

"Ooookay. Please elaborate."

"We've already discussed this in the past, but in my opinion, the Narrative operates on the basis of plot arcs. I believe that with your latest stunt, you messed up the current arc centered around Friedrich Günther Wissenschaftler and Lord Amadeus Endymonion past the point of recovery, so the Narrative is cutting its losses before it would start affecting future arcs."

"In other words, the thing we joked about the last time kind of came true… Does that count as tempting fate?"

"Probably, but stay focused," Judy reproached me with a huff. "If the current situation really is the result of an arc being aborted, then there are a few things we should look out for."

"Such as extensive info-dumps about the antagonist's tragic backstory and revealing all the special abilities and power-ups they were supposed to unveil over the arc all at once?"

"Precisely," she stated with a nod, and for a moment I was lost for words.

"I… was actually half-joking about that."

"It doesn't make what you said any less accurate. It is likely that in this confrontation, the Research Society is going to reveal all of their hidden cards and go out with a blaze of glory."

What she said made a certain kind of sense, at least as far as fiction was concerned. When a story gets axed for one reason or the other, authors often try to condense as much of the original story they dreamed up into the premature finale as they could. If Judy's idea was even in the ballpark of the truth, then it wasn't unreasonable to expect that Labcoat Guy would pull out all the stoppers and reveal all the hidden aces up his sleeve he was supposed to use one at a time over his time in the limelight. But then again, this was hardly any different from simply being cornered and being forced to use everything at his disposal, but that was probably only my inner Watsonian argumentator speaking.

While I was considering all that, the door leading into the main hall of the secret base opened to a crack and one of the Faun cautiously poked his head through. He glanced around and straight up froze the moment he noticed us. After a long moment of silence, he hastily threw the door open and walked over with rushed steps, only to come to a screeching halt in front of us and give us a salute. Now that he was closer, I finally recognized that it was Vurrok, but before I could greet him, he lowered his head to the point I thought he was about to get down on all fours.

"[Please forgive me, my lord. I did not expect your arrival.]"

I gave him a wry look, and told him, "Don't apologize; you were on anchor duty like you were supposed to."

He let out a relieved grunt in response and finally straightened his back. Seriously though, will I have to order each one of them to stop calling me 'my lord' individually? Well, that was a concern for another time, and since he was already here, I decided to put the Faun to good use.

"On a separate note, could you get me a spear?"

"[You mean… that spear?]" he asked back, a little uncertainly, and I immediately shook my head.

"No, of course not. I'm talking about the back-up spear in the armory. Please bring it to me; I'm going to need it later today."

"[Your wish is my command, my lord!]" he exclaimed, and he immediately turned in place and practically jogged out of the room.

Once he was outside, Judy finally stopped trying to hide behind me while I was still sitting on the bench, and after she fixed up her skirt, she asked me in a voice so artificially nonchalant it almost hurt my ears.

"If you're asking for a weapon, I suppose you decided to go along with the Narrative."

After a moment of thinking, I slowly shook my head, and with my mouth already set in a sly smile I told her, "Do you really take me for someone who would just let some tropey crap dictate my life?"

"I was under the impression that you also wanted to get rid of Friedrich Günther Wissenschaftler and any chance of a genre shift."

"Yes," I confirmed, with my smile growing even wider (and maybe just a tad sinister) as I appended, "but on my terms."

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

"Clear, though not particularly loud," I responded to the voice of Judy that felt like it was coming from right inside my head.

"{How about now?}"

"Much better."

My girlfriend let out an affirmative grunt and moved on to check the connection with the others. In the meantime, I checked the time, followed by a brief Far Glance at Armband Guy. It was already past seven in the evening, but he still didn't notice that we sneaked out of the house. Well, on second thought, saying 'sneaked out' was slightly inaccurate, as I actually Phased everyone over to the secret base, and we set out onto our impromptu operation from there. It was this late because my plans to order a couple of cabs to take us to the docks was vetoed by Ammy (apparently it would have been too suspicious), so we trekked over to the closes bus stop, and then we took the island's reliable mass transit system to the outskirts of the dock district.

Explaining why I had a spear with me to the driver was a little tricky, but I managed by claiming that we were a LARP-ing group scouting out the nearby woods in advance of a session, and then I overwhelmed the poor placeholder with so much useless detail, he completely locked up and we used the opportunity to slip by him.

Anyhow, putting my transportation tribulations aside, we arrived in the vicinity of our destination a little after six, and then came the somewhat arduous task of actually locating Labcoat Guy. It was a little tricky due to a quirk of my Far Sight: while could instinctively identify his dot, and I knew of its general whereabouts, it didn't exactly give me the GPS coordinates to pinpoint the precise location. Because of this, I had to get creative by using a primitive form of triangulation, telling Snowy and Angie to both walk twenty steps away from me in different directions, and then using their relative distances from me to get a more accurate grasp on Labcoat Guy's position.

Once we got into the neighborhood, it didn't take a genius to figure out where to look for him. I mean, picture this: one long street parallel to the waterfront. From left to right, we had a boat lender, a commercial dock with a ton of containers, a tariffs office, a mermaid-themed Hello Kitty souvenir shop, then a huge-ass, completely abandoned and somewhat crumbling military warehouse with an open courtyard and signs of recent movement around the enormous metal doors leading into the building, and then finally, a sailor pub called 'Davy Jones's Liqueur'. I mean wasn't it just blatantly obvious that the secret base would be none other than the souvenir's shop?

... Nah, I'm kidding. It was the warehouse, or to be more specific, the extensive basement hidden underneath the already imposing concrete complex, but let's not split hairs about it.

{I'm done. Everyone can hear me.}"

"Roger," I muttered in response to Judy's declaration, and I looked over the rest of our group, all of whom were already in their Magiforms. Anyhow, it took some Phantom Limb elbow grease, but I managed to finish the communication artifact I promised for Judy a while back, and it allowed her to talk to us regardless of distance or if we were inside a Purple Zone, and with it, she could serve as our remote mission control. Said artifact incidentally looked like a pair of incredibly gaudy, star-shaped sunglasses (originally supplied by Mike), but it was the only one that already had the required visual enchantment in place, so I had to build on that to finish things on time.

It looked hideous, something on which we both agreed, but she was staying in the base at the moment, so it wasn't like anyone was going to laugh at her appearance. Especially after I prohibited the Fauns from doing so, under the threat of a court-martial.

But I digress. Now, as for the thing's actual functionality: by reactivating and tweaking the original surveillance enchantments on the Magiformers, it allowed her to see and hear everything the currently observed user could, with a few extra helpful metrics on top. No, I'm not talking about health- and mana-gauges, but technical stuff, like atmospheric mana density, or various overlays that let her see heat signatures and the like. In short, it was a bootleg version of the vision enhancements a tribal hunter space-alien with dreadlocks and a really horrid mouth would use.

There was only one slight issue with it (aside from the way it looked), namely the fact that I made it to be compatible with the Magiforms, and I didn't have one myself. Nor could I use one even if I had due to a lack of magical mojo. Well, technically I could have, if I really wanted to, by using the same kind mana battery that allowed Judy to use her mission control glasses without being able to use magic on her own, but I never got around to making one, mainly because doing so would've been not only a long-term job, but a huge pain in the neck to boot. Redesigning a specialized suit that was intended to run on esoteric energies of the mystical variety drawn directly from the user and not from an outside source, was... well, I wanted to say 'beyond my expertise', but it was honestly more of a 'beyond my headache tolerance' situation.

The point is, for the time being, I had to do with a simple silver ear wrap which, aside from making me look fabulous (in Angie's words, not mine, and she received her well-deserved forehead flick for her trouble) provided me with an alternative as far as communication was concerned, at least for the time being. It wasn't exactly my size, so I had to bend it a little to comfortably fit me, but beggars can't be choosers. It only allowed verbal communication (so Judy couldn't peep on me), and the line could only be opened or closed from her side, but it was better than nothing.

Speaking of better than nothing, while I couldn't wear a magical school uniform, that still didn't mean I resigned myself to be completely defenseless. For a start, under my usual longcoat I was wearing a ballistic vest I ordered online. It wasn't exactly military grade, but it would protect from shrapnel, and it even had a few ceramic plates to protect my squishier bits just a little better. I also put on a pair of heavy, steel-toed work boots, as well as padded airsoft pants. Of course none of those would help me against, say, a direct hit by a magitech plasma cannon, but they didn't interfere with my movement, and if they deflected just a single stray projectile in the thick of it, they would already earn back their price.

But back to the situation at hand: I was currently standing behind the corner of a nearby building with a good view of the warehouse. Josh and the princess were on lookout duty, while our two magical experts were out to set up an anchor point for a Purple Zone, with Angie ostensibly serving as their sentry while they worked. According to the class rep, it was a necessity due to the area being warded by our antagonists, which made calling down an anchorless Purple Zone on it an exercise in futility. Her explanation was a lot more technical, but that was the gist of it.

"It's quiet. Too quiet," Josh noted on the side quite ominously, which naturally earned him a very pointed eye-roll.

"Please stop tempting fate."

"{That's funny when it's coming from you,}" my dear assistant chimed in completely unannounced or unneeded, resulting in an eye-roll in the other direction.

"Dormouse, I know that you enjoy having a direct line to my head, but please don't open communications just for idle chatter."

"{I'm combining work with pleasure,}" she responded in a slightly more animated voice than in face-to-face conversations, but I was already used to that. It was a bit of a culture shock for the others, but that's a story for another time. "{Amelia and Neige completed their objective and they are on their way back to the rendezvous location. ETA is twenty-five seconds.}"

"... You really enjoy your mission control roleplay, aren't you?"

"{I'm just happy to be helpful,}" she responded, but then a moment later she yanked the steering wheel of the conversation to a ninety-degree angle by unexpectedly asking, "{How's your head?}"

"Manageable," I replied under my breath. In fact, I almost managed to successfully ignore the drum-solo of stings going on in my head until she reminded me of it, but I wasn't going to tell her that.

It wasn't an unexpected development by any stretch of the imagination. While the backlash was considerably less severe than what I expected, I still didn't fully recover from my jaunt with the Chimera the day before, and then I further over-exerted my Phantom Limb with all of this last-minute enchantment tweaking today. While my headache was little more than a throbbing buzz at the moment, I had a feeling I was running on borrowed time, so I wanted to get things over with before I would crash. With my luck, I didn't have any illusions about everything going smoothly, but I hoped I could set things into motion and then sit back while Josh and company picked up the pieces.

I mean, that's what leader-types do, isn't it? Pretend to know what's going on, act stoic in face of all the weird and unexpected stuff inevitably happening around them, and then when the dust settles, they flash a nefarious smile and declare that everything went according to keikaku (keikaku means 'shit conveniently happened in a way so that it looked like I was on top of things'). Or was that the strategist archetype? Either way, I planned to act my part while trying to spare myself as much as possible.

Anyhow, while I pondered about the finer points of leadership, the three girls on anchor duty finally arrived back at our vantage point.

"Private Angie, reporting for duty, sir!" the upbeat Celestial declared the moment I laid my eyes on her, and since I already rolled them a lot recently this time I settled on a mildly disparaging sigh to express my feelings.

"Judy acting as mission control is having a bad influence on you guys," I murmured as I stopped leaning against a wall, only to receive an instant rebuttal.

"{Your baseless accusation hurts officer Judy's feelings.}"

I naturally completely ignored the girl having way too much fun with her new role and focused my attention on the girl with the glasses at the back.

"How did it go?"

"We set down two anchor points near the outskirts," Ammy answered while she passed by the still saluting Angie. "Any more than that would've made them aware of our presence."

"The buildings are more heavily warded than we first thought," Snowy added as she passed by the Celestial from the other side. She was still standing at attention while giving me an expectant look, so I whispered a grudging 'At ease' in her general direction, if only to keep things moving. She stopped saluting, but instead she was now grinning with even her molars showing.

"How long will it last?" I asked once I had my focus back on the returnees.

"About forty minutes, an hour at most," Snowy noted, only for the class rep to immediately follow up with her much less generous prediction.

"The School is on high alert at the moment, so the Diviners should be on the lookout for any Restricted Spaces being erected on the island. I'd say we'll have about half an hour at best before grandfather will dispatch someone to the docks. Ideally, we should be already gone by then."

"Thirty minutes should be enough," I told her before addressing the whole group. "Gather up guys. It's homework time."

"What now?" Josh grumbled as he came closer, and I waited for everyone to gather up before I continued.

"Let's make sure we are on the same page: Our primary goal today is not to capture Labcoat Guy or his accomplices, but to rescue our distant Celestial acquaintance before the local Magi raids this place, he gets recaptured by Ammy's grandpa, and gets vivisected or something."

"Hey! Don't slander our School like that! We no longer do that!"

That was a rather disturbing bit of implication I could definitely live without ever knowing about, but for the time being I decided to staunchly ignore the class rep's objection and instead I focused on the briefing at hand.

"Theoretical dissections aside, I want you to recite the plan we agreed upon, just to makes sure you remember it."

"Er… Sure, I suppose?" Josh responded a little uncertainly, and after glancing at each of the girls in turn, it finally dawned on him that by speaking up first, he more or less nominated himself to start the explanation. "So, um… First, we turn on the Restricted Space, and drag in everyone except that Celestial guy inside the building over there."

"Everyone but him and the big biomechanical things," Angie corrected her friend while sticking her head over his shoulder, and Josh gave an appreciative grunt in return.

"Right; the Gigants stay so that they can't transform into the large horny robot."

"So far so good," I told them with a nod. "Then what?"

"Then we make a huge ruckus to draw them out," Elly said, and the rest of the group nodded in agreement.

"You also said you would take care of this part," Ammy elaborated while pointing at me, and I confirmed her word with a smile.

"Yeah, you can leave that to me."

"{It is only logical, as you're an expert at getting under dangerous people's skin,}" Judy commented on the side, and by the way Angie and Josh suddenly started snickering, I probably wasn't the only one who heard it.

"Hush, Dormouse. Let's focus on the next step of the plan. Anyone?"

"We hold their attention?" Snowy answered a tad timidly, so I flashed her a brotherly smile to ease her nerves.

"We should also prioritize our safety and only prevent Robatto from escaping for as long as possible," Ammy added right away, followed by, "In the meantime, you leave the Restricted Space and get Michael out of captivity."

"And because all the baddies are going to be in the Zone, you can just walk in and out without a single obstacle!" Angie concluded with an excited grin, and while I wanted to argue that it wasn't quite that simple, I decided to hold my objections in for the time being.

"After that, you will give us the signal to retreat," the princess remarked, then after a short pause she added, "and then we all sit back and watch the mayhem when the Arch-mage arrives. I think."

"That's what Leo said," the hyperactive Celestial noted, and they shared a glance of mutual understanding.

Their explanation was accurate on all the broad strokes, so I let out a quiet hum of approval and said, "Yes, that's the gist of it. Any questions before we begin?"

"How are you going to leave the Restricted Space?" Ammy leveled one at me right away, which wasn't much of a surprise.

"I have my ways," I answered mysteriously, only to get undermined by my dear assistant.

"{The Chief is a man of many talents, but giving smooth elusive answers is unfortunately not one of them.}

"Dormouse, please stop being sarcastic; you're distracting Angie," I chided my girlfriend while pointing at the still snickering Celestial, and then I told our group, "If there's nothing else, we might as well get on with it."

"Just like that?" Josh blurted out with a raised brow, and I reaffirmed my previous statement.

"Yes. We don't need to over-complicate this." Saying so, I undid the safety cloth wrapped around the head of my spear and set its butt against the ground with a satisfying thud, then after some deliberation, I decided it was time for a leaderly display of raising the morale before the battle. "Let's just get in there, draw the guy's attention, and then get out with everyone in one piece. I'll try to be quick, so you'll only have to bog them down for a few minutes, and before you know it, we are already going to be back home watching the next season of Trucy the Werewolf Huntress."

"Sure, just give me a minute," Josh mumbled a smidgen absent-mindedly while rummaging in his pockets for one of the small containers holding Snowy's and the princess's blood samples. We prepared them just before we left the base, and they were kept fresh and liquefied in the tiny medical capsules I custom-ordered for this purpose. Using these to transform Josh didn't last as long as directly taking it from the 'source', and the blood held in the containers 'spoiled' after about a day, but they were still a hell of a lot more convenient than having to prick the girls on-site every time Josh needed to fight.

In the meantime, he finally found one of the capsules, and then he noted, still absently, "By the way, are we up to the sixth season already?"

"Aw… that season sucks," her Celestial pal responded with over-exaggerated trepidation. "Now I don't feel like doing anything anymore…" I sent the girl a critical glance, and when I raised a hand and bent my fingers a little, she immediately hid behind Josh while guarding her forehead and hastily declared, "I'm kidding! Just kidding! I'm totally pumped and everything!"

One disappointed sigh later I gestured for the group to follow me, and our small procession walked over to a fairly unassuming corner of the warehouse in question.

"Okay, we're in position," I told them, prompting a number of confused glances towards the perimeter.

"Here?" came the incredulous question from Ammy, and so I pointed at one certain part of the wall. They couldn't see it, but there was a small, glowing magical something there, which reminded me of a steampunk version of an artificial eye, with a lot of random gears and metal tubes sticking out of a blinking orb in the middle. Needless to say, it was Labcoat Guy's own brand of magical surveillance, so after giving it I small wave, I turned back to the class rep.

"Please open the Purple Zone. No need to be ceremonious about it either."

She grumbled something under her nose which I couldn't quite catch, but whatever it was, she still faithfully followed my request, closed her eyes, and a few long seconds later the world went negative, and then all purple.

Looking around, I was once again reminded of the fact that humans were really adaptive creatures. The first time I was taken into this convenient battle-ground space, I was quite freaked out, but by now, it was nothing special. Hell, even Josh, who was newer to the whole supernatural shebang than me, was too busy discussing which was the worst episode of the werewolf huntress show to even care about his surroundings turning the color of eggplants. On a side-note, I was getting a little annoyed by how laidback they were acting, so I gently poked his feet with the blunt end of my spear.

Once my friend stopped hopping on one leg while sending a death-glare my way, I let out a pent-up sigh and looked right into the magical camera. There was a long beat while I Far Glanced over, and once I was sure I had their attention, took a breath so deep the air needed spelunking equipment.

"Hey, Friedrich!" My bellow may or may not have scared my friends, but I was in the zone at the moment, so I didn't care. Instead, I continued with, "We're here to have a talk! Or a fight! Whichever one you prefer!" There was another long pause I spent using my Far Sight on them, then I added, "No, this is not a joke! Please come out at your earliest convenience, or we might have to invite ourselves in!"

"What exactly are you doing?" Ammy abruptly interrupted me while tugging at my elbow. I glanced over my shoulder, and then simply shrugged them.

"Psychological warfare?" I proposed, but then my Far Sight caught something else, so I turned back to the steampunk orb and yelled, "No, your boots are under the table, in the big duffel bag! You don't need them though, just come out already!"

The class rep looked like she wanted to say more, but at the end of the day she slowly slouched her shoulders and walked back to the rest while shaking her head. In the meantime, I continued my verbal assault without missing a beat.

"Stop wasting time looking for your biomechanical whatchamacallits! They are not in the warehouse! No, not even the small one! Also, tell the fembot her voice is also annoying, and she doesn't see me call her out on it! Yes, I've heard that too! … No, I don't know where your master is hiding his secret stash of porn magazines, and I don't really care either! … Stop bickering and just come out already, will you?! We don't have all day!"

My one-sided conversation continued for about a minute longer like this, but at last I could let out a breath of relief. It was about time too; my throat was about to get sore from all the yelling. Turning around, I saw that Josh has already in his Magiform, Angie had her bow out, and the class rep had summoned her golem as well. Elly and Snowy were the same as usual, but even so, our group was decidedly combat-ready.

"They are coming. Get into position," I instructed my friends, and while they looked skeptical and maybe even a little appalled (even the princess, which hurt me a little), they followed after me all the same and we took up our spots in front of the enormous sliding metal doors of the warehouse.

A minute or so of tense waiting later said door began to open up with the pained creaks of rusty metal, and just like that, Labcoat Guy and his company came into sight. The man himself was still wearing his costume, including the custom welder's mask and the magitech shoulder pads, except instead of boots, he had a pair of bright plastic clogs on his feet. I was the one who told him not to waste time searching for his usual footwear, so it might've been hypocritical of me to say this, but I could barely stop myself from laughing out loud the moment I noticed that. The others probably skimmed over this detail, as they finally acted with the seriousness befitting of the situation, and I decided it was for the best that I didn't draw attention to it either.

Besides the aforementioned fashionably challenged mad scientist stood his personal android. She wasn't wearing a costume, opting for a way more reasonable woolen sweater and thick cargo pants, plus a grey scarf around her neck. Her attractive figure, combined with her casual yet somehow still oddly stylish apparel, only made the contrast with Labcoat Guy even more glaring. Also, apparently fembots could also get chilly. Who would've thought?

Finally, behind these two stood several rows of silly sentai foot-soldier robots. They all looked entirely identical save for the five bots right behind the two ringleaders. Each one of those had different body types; one was a bit more buff than average, another had extra spikes on its shoulders and slightly longer arms, and so on and so forth. They were also colored differently, as while the rest was uniform yellow, these ones were all covered in solid prime colors. In other words…

"Oh look, we have elite mooks now. Lovely," I grumbled under my breath to no one in particular, yet I was still heard.

"{It was inevitable, just like death, taxes, and you having to explain our relationship to Elly's mother from the ground up.}"

"… Dormouse, if you keep using this line just to throw jabs at me, I'll revoke your mission control privileges."

My dear (if sometimes just a liiiiiitle bit trying) girlfriend stayed wisely silent, so I left it at that. In the meantime, our antagonists for the evening came to a halt about ten meters away from us, and as such we suddenly had a classic standoff on our hands in the middle of the tarmac-covered courtyard. Like in the movies, but without tense music and no flock of easily startled white doves in sight.

"Ki-hi-hi!" Our conversation was started with Labcoat Guy's familiar yet no less irritating laughter. "If it isn't Leonard Dunning himself!"

"Yup. Good evening," I greeted him with a lazy wave, but he didn't appreciate the courtesy.

"Are you here to finish the job you started?" he leveled the odd question at me, and before I could respond, he raised his voice both in volume and pitch as he added, "Did you come to deliver us to that traitorous old man?!"

"Well, no, not really," I responded reflexively, but then I remembered that this time I was actually looking for a fight, so de-escalating was not a good idea. "I mean, yeah, sure. We are totally here to do that. Very treacherously and stuff."

My disinterested act was not convincing at all, but by this point Labcoat Guy was already so worked up he didn't care.

"I knew it!" he declared, but then his android companion unsubtly poked his side with her elbow.

"Master, I'm eighty-seven-point-seven percent certain he was being sarcastic."

"Is he?"

"Oh, not at all. I'm completely sincere and about as serious as an Onion article on politics," I told them, only for the fembot to send me a glare for my trouble.

"Master, now I'm one hundred percent sure he's making fun of you."

"Ki-hi-hi! So what if he does? I don't care!" he declared, followed by another bout of hysterical chuckles. "He already saved us a lot of trouble by delivered himself to our doorstep, so he can have whatever final words he want!"

The android turned her disapproving gaze at her master this time, and after a very human sigh she proposed, "I request permission to shoot him with my plasma disintegrator and then go back and watch TV."

"No! I told you that you're not allowed to fire that thing off anymore! We are going to kick his ass manually!"

I had no idea what he meant by that, but we were slowly steering off-topic, so I raised my voice to get his attention again.

"Um… For the record, you can see that I'm not alone, right?"

"Ki-hi-hi! Of course!" Labcoat Guy exclaimed while excitedly rubbing his palms together, and then he yelled out, "Numbers one through five! Go to the front!"

Following his words, the five elite mooks took a few steps forth in unison their movements are slightly less mechanical than their common brethren's, yet still over-exaggerated enough where it was hard to take them seriously.

"Ki-hi-hi-hi-hi!!! Look upon my works and despair!" Labcoat Guy exclaimed with undue glee as dramatically extended his arm towards us, his palm pointing at me and his fingers spread. "The Sprocket Mk.IVs are the final amalgamation of science and the mystic arts, and they owe their existence to you! Yes, you! It was your combat data that allowed me to perfect them! They know all of your strengths and weaknesses! They are—"

"Wait, time out!" I called out while making an awkward 'T' with my hands. "By any chance, did you build these robots specifically to counter each one of us?"

"Yes!" he declared quite proudly.

"Does that mean each one of them is specialized to counter one member of our group in particular?"

"Erm… Yes. Obviously," the mad scientist told me, this time a bit less enthusiastically.

"You heard that, Dormouse?" I whispered very softly, and I got an immediate answer.

"{I did. Do you want me to take care of the obvious instructions?}"

"Only if the guys are too slow to do the obvious by themselves," I responded, earning me a curious and slightly confused look from the android. I made sure to talk really quietly, but she may have still heard me with her super-scientific sci-fi sensor arrays… or just read my lips. Either way, my short conversation with Judy was already over, so I glanced behind me over my shoulder and told the guys, "You've heard the guy. Have fun trashing these mooks. As for me…"

I was about turn back, but then my danger sense suddenly flared up, so I hastily twisted my torso to the side, and not a moment too soon, as the space that my chest occupied just a moment ago now had a hand sticking through it. I looked at the surprised android, but before she could collect herself, my body was already moving by reflex as I swung my spear at her legs. She turned out to be faster than me just by a hair, as she deftly backed out of the way of the shaft. I kept up the momentum by immediately reversing the direction of the strike, and this time I aimed a diagonal strike at her upper body.

Instead of dodging, this time she opted for a block, and she extended a hand and grabbed onto the spear just under the head. Since I was swinging from an awkward position, my attack didn't have enough momentum behind it and so she managed to stop it on its tracks. The moment she did that, I pulled the spear back without hesitation while also taking a large step back, both as a way to put some distance between us and to regain my stance, and since her hand would've been cut by the blade if it slid any further down towards the point, she immediately let go of my weapon and also took a step back.

This short exchange only lasted for about two seconds, and it was over before any of my friends could get over their first surprise and move in to support me, but it was still enough to tell me that my opponent was a highly trained (or programmed, or whatever) combatant with excellent senses. By my rough estimate, she was better than the average Faun, but slightly slower and considerably weaker than Brang, and now that we had some distance between us where I could leverage my weapon's reach, it didn't feel like she'd pose a lethal danger to me anymore. Well, unless she started firing off her destructo-beams, or break out some other sci-fi weapons, but that was neither here nor there.

By this point Labcoat Guy also overcame his first shock, and he called out to his partner with a mixture of anger and concern.

"Galatea! Just what the hell are you doing!"

"I'm kicking his ass manually, master," she answered completely nonplusses, though it was hard to call it anything but a bluff at this point.

"Well, that was surprising," I commented with a sigh before shaking my head. "Anyhow, while I'd obviously love to have a terrifying battle of life and death with you, I'm afraid I'm needed elsewhere."

"… What does that mean?" the fembot inquired with a deadpan yet decidedly annoyed gaze.

"In short… bye!"

"Wha—?"

And just like that, I was suddenly inside an abandoned storeroom. I let out a small sigh as I relaxed my body and suppressed the sudden spike of headache assaulting my brain. Once that was over, and my eyes adjusted to the darkness of the room, my gaze was met with an honest to goodness rectangular metal cage with thick, iron bars in the corner. Even since I first saw this thing through Far Sight, I couldn't help but wonder just how the heck they managed to get it inside the chamber, but I decided that it was a question for later as I walked over to the enclosure and tapped on the metal bars with the butt of my spear.

The occupant of the cage, who used to be lying in the middle on an inflatable mattress and under a pile of blankets, jumped up like he was hit by a cattle prod. And then he fell off his bed. And then he rolled on the floor while making weird noises. And then he got tangled in the sheets and blankets and looked like an oversized caterpillar.

"… Dude, are you for real?"

The question escaping my mouth made him stop struggling for a second, and then, after clumsily wiggling for a while to face me, he exclaimed, "L-Leonard!? Is that you?"

"Who else?" I grumbled while inspecting the padlock holding the cage's only door shut and pointedly not looking at the guy inside.

"What are you doing here?"

While asking so, he finally managed to peel himself out of his blankets. He had bags under his eyes, and his hair could give a pile of hay a run for its money, but overall he didn't seem worse for wear. I was still disappointed by his conduct, so I grumpily told him, "You missed your last delivery, so I looked into your whereabouts. When I learned you were held hostage, I figured I might as well help you out." My small lie made the guy's eyes sparkle, so I amended jab to the end of it. "Just what kind of secret agent gets captured on the job by a group of nerds anyway?"

"Erm… Sorry. In my defense, I'm not a full operative," he excused himself. "Also, I was caught off-guard."

"How so?" I enquired on auto-pilot as I looked around the room in search of a key matching the padlock.

"Well… Um… First they distracted me," Mike explained, and even in the dark room, I could somehow still tell his face was getting red. "When I arrived, I was greeted by this woman wearing this really revealing costume."

"The one with the neckline plunging down to her navel?" I ventured a guess, and he nodded repeatedly.

"Yes, that's the one! So, you see, she wasn't my type, I like more modest girls, the kind who are maybe a little shy but easy to talk to, kind of like…" He must have realized he was blabbering, as he awkwardly cleared his throat and told me, "I mean, they were right there! In the open! I'm a guy, so of course I'd pay attention to them!"

"Uh-huh," I grunted a tad non-committedly, followed by a shallow sigh. I was just about to give up on finding the keys. I mean, in retrospect it made sense that they wouldn't keep them in the same room as someone who could use magic. As in, imagine that they just put the key onto a huge keyring, and then hung it on the wall. Mike could just use some basic telekinetic magic to levitate it to himself and then open the lock. Now granted, he still couldn't just walk out, but it would've still been a grievous and unprofessional oversight on the side of Labcoat Guy, so… maybe that was the reason I was half-expecting it?

"So… Um? Leonard?" the captive Celestial addressed me as he grabbed hold of the bars holding him. "Are you really here to get me out?"

"That's the plan," I responded while checking the padlock one more time. Unfortunately, it was still entirely mundane, with no easy-to-break enchantments to make my life easier.

"Really?" The guy's face lit up for a moment, but once the first rush of relief receded from his eyes, his brows knit into a confused frown and he asked, "But… how are we going to leave? And how did you even get in here? No, wait… how did you even find me?"

"How about you ask all of these things after we leave?"

"Ah, right. Sorry, sorry. I'm just… I don't know what to say right now…"

"How about you say nothing and let me work?" I proposed, and the guy immediately fell silent with his hands on his mouth.

Anyhow, now that I have the opportunity to consider my options in silence, and even my headache was slowly receding, I narrowed them down to three. One: I go out and search for the key. The pro was that it was the most convenient solution, the cons were that it might take too long, or I might not even find the key. Two: use Phasing to take Mike out of the cage. The pro was that it was the quickest way to do it, but the con was that then I would have to explain what just happened to the guy, and keeping my abilities from inadvertently ending up on the Celestial Hub was the main reason why I didn't just Phase in and spirit him away ages ago. Three: just break the lock with some good-old-fashioned elbow grease. On the pro side, it was a fairly simple solution, but on the con side, I didn't have any tools at hand, and I doubted I could do it with my spear.

… But then again, the padlock looked pretty cheap, and the hoop was wide enough so that I could probably wedge the shaft of my spear in and then apply enough pressure on it to snap it.

"Let's give it a try," I whispered as I set the back of my spear against the lock. "I'll try to force this open. Please step back and—"

I got exactly this far. I didn't even have the time to stick it through the hoop when I was startled by a borderline panicked voice echoing inside my head.

"{Chief, we need you here right now. The base is under attack.}"

I froze mid-motion and muttered a slack-jawed 'What?' under my breath, but once the words finally sank in, a rush of adrenaline cleared my head and I called out, "Sorry, I really have to go now. I'll be back."

And with that, I immediately disappeared from the room, leaving the poor guy in the cage quite shocked and alarmed. To be fair, I had a feeling my current state of mind beat him in both regards. A moment later, I appeared beside Judy, and even before the Phasing completely finished, I could already hear angry shouting coming from the other side of the door leading into the main hall of the secret base.

Judy was momentarily startled by my sudden appearance, so to jolt her out of it, I emphatically told her to "Hide," before I turned on my heel and rushed towards the sounds of battle without even bothering to ask for an explanation of what happened. I threw the door open, and then immediately stopped in my tracks the moment my eyes skimmed over the scene.

There was the body of the Chimera in the middle. There were all the Fauns scattered in the hall, some of them obviously injured. And in the middle, there was Brang, currently silently squaring off against a short person with a billowing purple shroud flapping behind her.

"Oh…" I muttered as cold sweat ran down my back and my fingers tightened around the weapon in my hand. "This is gonna suck."