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The Simulacrum - Chapter 139 - Part 3
🕑 Added 2024-03-18 16:41:26 +0000 UTCWhat was I looking at?
No, seriously. Was this real? Did the Celestial Directorate collectively lose all their marbles at the same time? Wasn't just one of these things supposed to be a huge freaking deal? Why send in six of them at the same time? What's wrong with everyone today?!
"{Chief? Are those the Colossi you talked about?}"
"They sure are," I whispered under my breath, and Judy let out a strange noise on the other side of the line.
"{I'm re-routing more reinforcements. Hang tight. Mission Control, out.}"
I really hoped that she was talking about the big guns here, because otherwise, this was going to be a pain in the neck. No, scratch that. I couldn't bring Cal or Teeny out, so this was going to be a pain in the neck either way. Maybe I should've come here as myself after all? Ugh, no sense crying over spilt milk, so let's take control of the situation first.
First order of business: situation analysis.
On our side, there's me, Snowy, the three knights, and Lord Barnabas.
On their side, there's Percival, six Colossi, and an unverified number of Celestial agents, somewhere between eight to twelve.
Conclusion: we're being outnumbered and outgunned at the moment.
With that in mind, my first priority was to make sure nobody got hurt, the second was to stall for time until more reinforcements arrived, and the third was to level the playing field a bit. The only problem was that these guys weren't going to give me the time to work everything out in peace, so I'd have to come up with a plan while flying by the seat of my pants.
Rapidly glancing around, I honed in on Lord Barnabas and Phased right next to him.
"Hey, you," I addressed him directly, and the startled man looked like he was about to try and bash me with his staff. I leaned out of the way of his strike and continued without mentioning it at all. "This is one of those locked Restricted Spaces, right?"
Seeing that I wasn't about to attack him, the arch-mage took a step back, glared at me, but ultimately responded with a level, "Yes, it is."
"Good. Letting those things out of here would be bad news." I pointedly glanced at the Colossi moving about, as if warming up their stiff muscles. "They managed to get them in. Does that mean other people from the outside can enter here?"
"… Yes."
"Good. Keep an ear out for that." I paused and looked him over. "I don't know what you're good at, but a Magi isn't a good match for these toy soldiers. I recommend you focus on taking down the Celestials until your reinforcements are here."
I didn't wait for him to respond and Phased over to the other side of the Orange Zone, where the three knights and my sister were clustered together. It was only a question of time before the Colossi started moving in earnest, and I had to get everyone up to speed before that.
"Yo," I opened, ignoring the way Arnwald immediately levelled a magic arrow at my head.
"Stay still, fiend!"
"Dear! This is not the time!" Morgana groaned, causing Agrawain to stare at her in a shocked, 'Seriously, what the hell did I miss?!' kind of expression.
"Quite true, Dame Gorgon." I pointed at Snowy, then used my thumb to point behind my shoulder at the enemy group. "You. Stay away from that fucker. He may or may not have Blood Amalgam on him." While the bottle he threw at them was a distraction, I couldn't be sure that he truly didn't have any, and I wasn't in the mood to take chances at this point. Next, I pointed at the Knights and then used my thumb to indicate Percival again. "You three. Keep him busy. I'll take care of the rest."
"You dare to give us orders?!" Arnwald objected quite furiously, but the fact he was no longer pointing his bow at me meant he already got the message.
"T-Take care of the rest?" Snowy muttered in a daze, looking at the Colossi. "Um… Are you… sure?"
I wagged my finger at her, telling her not to act too familiar while I was in my Bel disguise.
"Easy there, Miss Inanna-Dunning. Just because I have a soft spot for your brother, it doesn't mean I won't…" I wanted to say something fitting Bel, like 'Won't snap that pretty neck of yours if you annoy me', but I couldn't squeeze it out, and had to soften it into, "… show you my meaner side. As for your question…"
It was time to return to the standard Bel act, so I theatrically threw my arms open and turned on my heels, facing the six colossi.
"I'm already in the center of attention! Just how I love it!" I exclaimed and then made a practised scraping bow. "I'm not great at tango, but since I was invited to the party, don't mind if I join the dance!"
In reaction, the Colossi let out spirited roars, more or less in unison, and started moving towards me with lumbering gaits, away from Percival and his three Celestial cronies. That was good. If I wanted to keep a tight rein on this battle, I had to break it up into smaller, more manageable situations. Unfortunately, I was next to the rest of the group, which was kind of counter-productive for this plan, so I immediately Phased behind Percival. Or rather, behind the trio by his side.
"I'm afraid the dance floor is already full, and we can't have any more uninvited guests," I began, and was forced to Phase to the side as Percival immediately launched a spear thrust at me. That was dangerously fast, but I couldn't let it knock me out of my act, so I continued without missing a beat. "As such, I'm afraid I'll have to ask you three to leave. Yoink!"
While I talked, I wrapped my phantom limbs around them, and without further ado, we all reappeared in realspace, inside the currently eerily quiet ruined factory floor. The Celestials were spooked out of their minds by the sudden change in scenery, which turned into abject horror when they realized they were alone with me.
"U-Uaaagh!" the guy on the left tried his best to muster a war cry as he drew one of those Celestial magitech swords made of golden wires and semi-transparent force fields, but I was faster.
While I specialized in swords and spears, I've taken a couple of unarmed combat lessons from Elly and Naoren in the past, and combined with the physical enchantments of my Bel outfit, a single palm strike to the man's chin was enough to send him flying and knock him out cold, which was… well, kind of startling. I hit him that hard because I thought his Barrier would mitigate most of the damage, but it folded like it was made of tissue paper and my blow landed on him like a ton of bricks.
Actually, didn't something similar happen when Jaakobah knocked out the bald guy leading the group that tried to kidnap me after Percival betrayed me? Maybe the Barriers of non-plot-critical characters were significantly flimsier than the ones I was used to. But wait… wouldn't that make them literal plot armour?
Even while all of those questions rushed through my head, my body didn't stop moving, and I stepped up to the second Celestial. This time, I went for a grab, and after getting a good grip on him, I threw him over my shoulder. This time, it was a judo move I borrowed from Josh, and the impact made the second man let out a pained croak, and he remained on the ground. Seriously, these guys were much more fragile than expected.
At last, I turned my attention to the third man, and when our eyes met, he threw his hands in the air.
"P-Please don't kill me! I'm just doing my job!"
Ignoring his pleas, I reached out and yanked the magical portal-instrument off his neck. I chucked it against the ground as hard as I could, and then gave it a few good stomps, for good measure, until it was completely unrecognizable. While this didn't entirely stop the Celestials from sending in reinforcements, as it could be done through portals opened from Elysium, not having someone on this side cooperating would at least make the process harder, it would also limit Percival's escape routes.
I dusted my hands, and sent one last glare at the last man standing.
"You stay here. If anyone comes by, tell them the situation. Be a good boy, and I won't give you a visit later."
I might've laid the intimidating side of the Bel persona a bit thick there, as he looked like he was about to piss his pants as he hurriedly sat down on the ground and bowed his head.
"Y-Yes! I will!"
All of this took about ten seconds, but in a chaotic situation like this, that was more than enough to cause problems, so I immediately Phased back into the Orange Zone. Fortunately, my disappearance with the trio caused enough confusion that the Colossi remained mostly stationary, but once I was back in view, they let out a series of roars again and started advancing on me once more.
"Oh, come on ladies! Don't rush! I'll dance with all of you soon, but I have a prior engagement!" I yelled as I Phased around and observed the situation again. Snowy caught up with Barnabas, and they were outside, engaged in an aerial battle with the remaining Celestials. I had no idea how strong the arch-mage was in combat, but so long as he provided at least minimal support to my sister, that side was guaranteed to resolve itself in a few minutes.
The three Knights, on the other hand, were still stuck where I left them, since the big statue monsters were standing right between them and Percival. That was something I had to fix first, so I Phased over to the old bastard's side.
"Oh, my. It feels like everyone wants a piece of me tonight!" I exclaimed, and the black-armour-clad mand immediately lunged at me.
"Don't think you can escape today!" He swung Ascalon (sic!) at me, and once again, I was startled by his ridiculous speed. He was easily Penny-fast, and the sound of the tip of the spear made as it cut through the air was freaking me out. "I'll pay you back for the humiliation tenfold!"
I was tempted to tell him that if I wanted to 'escape', I could leave any time I wanted, but the time for reasonable words and snappy taunting was already over. It wasn't quite the time for fighting either though; while the Bel-suit's enchantments were some of the best I could manage, its output was worse than my Lion King armour replicas, which was already slightly weaker than the real deal, and Percival's gear had much higher specs than even that. Combine that with his fully working Oath-replacements, and it meant a one-on-one fight was very ill-advised.
Three-on-one? That was a different equation though.
"Aw! If you're going to be like that…" I began, only to cut myself short as he rushed me down with a series of thrusts, forcing me to duck and weave around them. I couldn't move back either, because the Colossi, by this point quite animated, were also closing in on me. As such, I did the exact opposite and, guided by my danger sense, I tuned up the speed-related physical enhancements of my outfit and closed in on him instead. "… then I won't dance with you after all!"
"Hah!"
Percival yelled and pulled the fake Ascalon back, holding it in one hand, aiming for a low thrust at my waist. The bloody thing was flashing so much it was hard to look at it, and I cursed myself for copying all the non-anti-dragon enchantments on it. In retrospect, I should've used my phantom limbs to disable some of them, or to break the whole thing while we talked, but hindsight was 20/20 as usual, and while it wasn't impossible, it was much harder to do the same right now, with him swinging it around.
More importantly, he was ready to stab at me, so I used this opportunity to Phase, and I wasn't doing it alone, as one of my phantom limbs was already firmly coiled around him. A split-second later, we both appeared up in the air, not far away from Arnwald, Morgana, and Agrawain. Because he was in the middle of executing a thrust, Percival's whole body flailed as he lost the solid ground under his feet.
I couldn't ignore this chance, so I used an old trick, and by activating the anti-grappling array on my back, I gave myself a boost forward, slamming into the armoured man. He was much, much more solid than expected; it almost felt like I just tackled a bronze statue, but to be fair, I should've seen that coming. There was no turning back now though, so I grit my teeth and triggered another enchantment, this time on the gloves.
It was the same one I used to give Zihao and one of the Smok brothers a good smack during the tournament-interruption operation, and while it was specifically designed to be super-effective against Draconians, the built-in force multiplier still packed a wallop, and at half-power, it was enough to launch Percival's body at the ground at breakneck speeds.
It didn't break his though. While he landed with a deafening crash that left a couple of cracks on the concrete-tiled floor of the faux warehouse, he was back on his feet in a second. Or so I figured, but I couldn't pay attention to him, because Sir Isaac Newton was out for my blood.
The third law of motion sadly wasn't just a strongly worded suggestion, and the same force that sent the armoured old man plummeting to the ground sent me reeling back in the opposite direction. Luckily, since I still had some forward momentum from before, I didn't spin out of control and managed to emergency Phase to the ground and land on my two feet. I was still left staggering by the impact, and the Colossi used my momentary disorientation to close the distance.
Before I could fully collect my wits, all six of them rushed me, roaring and swinging their swords, axes, and maces at me left and right, not giving me a second to catch my breath. Thanks to my danger sense and liberal usage of short-range teleporting, I could weather their initial assault with my skin intact, but this confirmed a suspicion I had from the beginning: these bloody things were pinpoint-focused on me, and me alone. But why?
They were engines of war from the age of the conflict between the Celestials and Abyssals, so maybe they were fixated on me because of that. But wait; why didn't they pay any attention to Snowy then? Or were they specifically sent over to fight me? I mean, to fight Bel? It would certainly explain how whoever approved of this could justify this kind of excess.
Even as I was thinking, I ducked under an incoming axe and hopped out of the way of a shield bash, which hit another Colossus rushing in trying to get a strike at me. Once I got my bearings, I quickly realized that as long as kept my wits and approached this situation methodically, it wasn't that hard to keep these creatures occupied. They were mono-maniacally focused on me and didn't even seem to be aware of the concept of teamwork, so as long as I remained cool and made sure they couldn't surround me, they would get in each other's way about as much as they posed danger to me.
This way, I imagined I could kite them for quite a while, and that was exactly the plan. At least until whatever reinforcements Judy managed to mobilize would get here.
"{Update.}"
Oh, speak of the devil.
"Things are mostly manageable here," I whispered as I Phased over to the side of one of the Colossi, trying to bait another one into charging into it. "What's the situation outside?"
"{Angeline isn't using her Magiformer, so I have no information on her situation. The same applies to the Praetorian Guards, as I can only see the events at Site B through Joshua's eyes. I'm working on a solution for that,}" my dear assistant informed me, just as I Phased out of the way and watched two Colossi tumble to the ground as a third one tackled them.
"Score!"
"{… Are you having fun?}"
"A little bit," I admitted while backstepping and weaving between the attacks of the three living statues still in action. "These things are though, but pretty slow, so it's not hard to avoid them."
"{I can barely follow their movements.}"
"Sure, but…" I paused while I Phased on top of the shoulders of a Colossus and leapt off just in time for another one to knock him in the head with its shield. After landing, I concluded with, "… you don't have physical enhancements."
"{Fair enough, but it's still dangerous. Don't get cocky.}"
"Roger." There was another break, since I had to focus on repositioning myself so that I wouldn't get backed into one of the corners of the warehouse. "I'll be careful. Anything else to report? What about my reinforcements?"
"{They should arrive in a minute or two. Hang in there.}" She remained quiet for a while, time which I spent with further infuriating the Colossi chasing after me. Honestly, that was all I could do to them at the moment; without my trusty (if occasionally naggy) weapons, I couldn't meaningfully injure them. Someone else could, though. "{Chief? Neige says she'll provide backup.}"
Before I could ask what she meant by that, I huge double-ended icicle, as thick as my thigh, pierced through the shoulder of one of the Colossi, nearly pinning it to the ground. I glanced at its source, and saw Snowy in the air through the hole in the warehouse's ceiling, readying another ice spear.
"Tell her to stay up there," I instructed Judy, but didn't discourage her. As much as I was confident in kiting these things, there was a limit to how much I could harass them, so as long as she stayed out of harm's way, I didn't mind the assistance. Those ice spears probably wouldn't cause lasting damage though, considering these monsters had a healing factor comparable to a Chimera's, but I knew from first-hand experience that it had its limits. Also, unlike with 'normal' magic, their resistance did little to protect them from Snowy's attacks, so I hoped the damage would add up over time.
"{Understood. I'll…}" There was a bit of static on the line, and then Judy hurriedly said, "{The Celestial reinforcements your guards requested are about to arrive at Site B.}"
Considering I was fighting Celestials here, I wasn't sure how much of a piece of 'good news' that was, but for the moment, I focused on dodging the stupid statue monsters and let Judy do her thing. Once I re-established the rhythm of the battle, I kept the Colossi busy while providing Snowy with opportunities to provide supporting fire. Since now they also had to pay attention to her incoming ranged attacks, my opponents were slightly less reckless, which meant I didn't have as many opportunities to play them against each other, but it also gave me enough breathing room to sneak a peek at how things were going at the other side.
Percival was… holding out surprisingly well under the assault of three Knights at the same time. Though again, it wasn't that weird, considering the output difference between their gear. He was still on the backfoot though, which was good enough for me. Then, the tide finally started turning in our favour when Lord Barnabas, floating over the roof after the last of the Celestial mooks were taken out, yelled to the Knights.
"Someone is trying to enter the Restricted Space!"
"It's our reinforcements!" Arnwald shouted back between taking potshots at Percival.
"I'll let them in!" the dark-skinned arch-mage responded by landing on the ground and slamming his staff against the floor.
There was a bright orange flash, and from it, emerged a small yet imposing group. On the forefront, Mountain Girl and Naoren were standing back-to-back. Behind them, Mom-in-law and Dad-in-law were at the ready in their draconic forms. This wasn't the first time I'd seen Abram transformed, but I was still surprised by his appearance. Unlike the women of the family, his changes were much more prominent, with multiple sets of huge, ridged horns jutting from his head, his face and body getting covered in black scales, and most of his clothes were shredded as he grew a solid thirty centimeters in height, nearly matching the size of a Colossus.
However, the most unexpected (and in a sense, relieving) presence was that of the silver-haired steward, dressed in his usual dapper butler outfit, and looking at the scene with a mixture of annoyance and trepidation. I hoped Rinne's sword would have some effect on the Colossi, but with Sebastian around, I had a feeling that even if it didn't, things were still in our favour. There was finally a light at the end of the tunnel, and I for one—
"{Chief. There's a problem with the reinforcements.}"
Judy's interruption was so sudden and unexpected that I forgot to jump over an incoming swipe from a sword-wielding Colossus, and I had to Phase out of the way instead.
"What problem?" I blurted out in a low voice. "Aren't they up-to-date with the situation?"
Actually, none of them had Uniformers or Magiformers, which meant Judy couldn't directly communicate with them, but even so, it wasn't hard to see who the good guys and the bad guys were in this situation. Only a group of absolute morons would mistake their allies and enemies here.
"{No, Chief. Not these reinforcements. The Celestial ones.}" I really wanted to give a double-take, but it was hard to do with the Colossi bothering me, so I Phased to the other side of the battlefield, and by then, Judy continued her previous line. "{They attacked Ms. Talvipäivänseisaus and the rest of the Magi at the scene. The Praetorian Guards who didn't leave to apprehend the assassins are trying to stop them, but they're getting overwhelmed. They need help to resolve the misunderstanding.}"
Oh, for the love of…! Why did everything have to go wrong this evening?!
Groaning, I turned to the mess in front of me and singled out Sir Percival. He was still holding his own against our Knights, but now that the numbers game was against him, his body language was considerably more tense than before. At last, I theatrically shrugged.
"Ah, Percival! You didn't tell me this ballroom blitz would have so many guests! Tsk, tsk, tsk! How are we going to dance when things are getting so crowded?" I dramatically spread my arms, and then let them drop. "Well, a promise is a promise, I suppose. Let me get some fresh air, and then we'll tango like it's nineteen-XX all over again! I'll be back in a jiffy!"
And with that, I bowed and immediately Phased into the familiar storage room in the bowels of the underground base, my momentary transit stop before heading out to deal with yet another inexplicable conflict. Because things weren't chaotic enough yet, apparently…
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Egathentale
Hello, dear readers. This one almost ended up being postponed, because we had a power-outage in the morning, followed by an internet-outage in the afternoon, but I managed to hammer this together anyway, mostly on my phone. Till next time, stay safe, and always make sure you have back-up plans for days like the one I just had. Ciao!
