The Simulacrum ~Chapter 50~ Part 3

"Aaaaand I'm back," I announced my arrival and imdiately plopped myself into one of the spare chairs in my kitchen.

"Oh." Judy froze up for a mont to process my sudden appearance, but then she casually picked up the ladle at her side and greeted with a cautious, "Welco back. How did they take the news?"

"Too well," I much less told than groaned the answer, which earned a skeptical look from her.

"How can soone take bad news too well?" she asked the obvious question, and all I could provide in place of an answer was raising my hands and shrugging my shoulders.

"I have no idea, but they managed," I clarified as I let my hands down, only to change my mind halfway through and raise one to rub my temple instead. "They didn't care one bit about my connection to the Knights, didn't seem particularly bothered about the coming attack, and then they instead threw a small party to welco into the family."

"How did the first two points relate to the third one?"

"I'll be damned if I knew," I grumbled in a soft voice before shaking my head. "Anyhow, as odd as their reaction to the news was, telling it to them hopefully got ahead of any future complications. I can only hope that Sebastian's going to keep them alert and safe."

There was a lull in the conversation after I said that, so I used the opportunity to take a deep breath to reorient myself. When I did that, my nose was imdiately tickled by the rich scent of whatever Judy was cooking on the stove, and before I knew it, my stomach was already rumbling. It was actually a little surprising, considering that as much as I tried to hold back, I sohow still ended up eating about half a plate of cold cuts at Elly's place, so I didn't feel particularly hungry until now. It must've been the magic of ho cooking.

"What are we going to have for lunch?" I asked while I craned my neck to take a better look at the pots, but Judy imdiately moved in to block my line of sight.

"It's a surprise," she stated in an unusually firm tone, and since insistently looking her in the eye wasn't effective at getting her to elaborate, I ultimately shook my head and rose to my feet instead.

"Oh well. I suppose I'll be just looking forward to it then."

"No peeking," she warned while pointing the ladle at , only for her ears to abruptly get flushed. She quickly put the ladle down and repeated the motion, this ti with only her finger, and added, "I'm serious. If you peek, I promise that I'm going to hate you for at least an hour. No, make it an hour and a half."

"Then I better not peek," I placated her with my best attempt at a smile, and after a mont of hesitation I decided to tease her a little by saying, "You know, you looked just like your mother for a mont there."

"Erase that idea from your mind," she commanded with a frown. "In fact, erase the mory altogether."

"I'm sorry, but that's sothing no man or god could do," I replied with a slightly easier smirk this ti and walked out of the kitchen.

Once I was inside the living room, I stretched my back first, after which I checked the ti. It was still a while until lunchti, so I decided to wash up a little and check the Hub before coming back to see how Judy's doing. However, just as I was about to take the first step towards the upper floor, I froze mid-motion and put my foot down again, and checked the ti once again.

"Hey, Judy?"

"Yes, Chief?"

"Is Snowy ho yet?"

There was a mont of odd silence, then my dear assistant asked, "Couldn't you just use Far Sight to find out?"

"Yes, but I'm asking you first," I replied a tad impatiently.

"No, she's not ho yet."

Once Judy told that, I imdiately entered into Far Sight and looked for my sister's 'dot', and once I found it, I let out a relieved sigh.

"Judy?"

"Yes? Is there a problem?" she responded by coming over and poking her head through the doorway.

"Depends. How many portions are you making?"

My girlfriend's visage turned unusually serious for a mont, and then she asked, "Are we going to have guests?"

"Yup," I confird without beating around the bush. "Snowy is on her way ho, and it seems Josh and Angie tagged along."

When she heard that, my dearest of all assistants let out a shallow groan and mumbled sothing along the lines of, "I have to check if we have any more penne pasta…" and then she disappeared back into the kitchen. I didn't even attempt to stifle my chuckles at her expense, but once I was done with that, I did a quick roll call on the rest of the gang.

Alia was, for a change, relaxing and reading a book in her room. Good for her, I thought, and I quickly moved on while trying to pretend that I didn't see that she was perusing a textbook on accounting. I just said goodbye to the princess, but I decided to check on her, just to be on the safe side, and she was currently receiving terrible relationship advice from her mother. Okay, so that was another thing I better pretended I didn't see.

Moving on, I glanced at Labcoat Guy, and I found him in his hidden evil lair where he was evilly welding what looked like the evil arm of an evil cha or sothing. That was at least mildly interesting, but not enough to actually linger at the scene, though I made a quick ntal note about the giant arm-thing. Maybe it was part of a second-generation biochanical whatchamacallit? Anyhow, for the mont I was satisfied with knowing that he wasn't out prowling the streets looking for a chance to ambush us.

Speaking of prowlers, I checked on Rinne next, and at the mont she was in the process of devouring an entire grilled duck. My stomach was grumbling a lot already, so I really didn't need to see that. As such, I quickly moved on to the next target: Armband Guy. He was… patrolling the school. On a Sunday. That was just sad.

Last, but not least, I decided to see how Mike was doing, and once my vision stabilized, I found him inside a fairly puritan yet oddly welcoming apartnt, and on closer inspection, I found him in front of his computer and playing so kind of hack-and-slash ga… with his character looking suspiciously like the class rep. Should I consider that a coincidence or creepy, I wondered, and in the end I realized I didn't care enough, so I just stopped my observation and returned to my ho.

I was montarily tempted to see what Judy was cooking, but I decided that if she was so insistent on not looking, it might've been an attempt at reverse-psychology to make sure I would be looking, and I didn't want to play into her hand. But then again, she knew well enough to know that I would be thinking that, so maybe it's a reverse reverse-psychology, and by not looking I would do exactly what she wanted. But then again… I was too tired to follow this train of thought, so I decided to just ignore it and go and freshen up a little. I reckoned Snowy and company should be ho in about five minutes or so, and by then I wanted to welco them in a presentable condition.

Predictably enough, it took roughly four minutes and fifty-nine seconds to clean up, change my clothes, and dash (read: shuffle like an old man with full-body arthritis) back to the living room. I was almost by the entryway when I noticed the characteristic sound of jingling keys coming from the front, and not a mont later the door opened wide.

"I'm ho," Snowy announced in high spirits, and she was followed up by Josh.

"Pardon the intrusion… oh, hi Leo. You look like shit."

I gave my cheeky friend a withering look and told him, "You're lucky I also feel like shit, or I'd kick you out this door with my own feet."

"Nah, you wouldn't. You're too nice for that," ca the next comnt from Angie as she pushed her childhood friend through the threshold, and once she closed the door behind her, she took a good look at and stated, "Wow, you really do look sick."

"Don't worry about it; I just overworked myself a little. Again."

The Celestial girl completely disregarded my words and walked over to without bothering to take her coat off first, and before I could say anything more, she rose to her tippy-toes (even though she really didn't have to; I wasn't that tall) and put her palm on my forehead.

"Oh no! You're burning up!"

"No, it's just that your hand is cold," I corrected her.

"Really?" Saying so, she removed her hand and placed it on her own forehead, then after a long mont she walked over to Snowy and did the sa thing to my hapless sister, and only then did she declare, "I guess you're right."

In the anti, Josh peeled himself out of his coat and took a few obvious sniffs from the air.

"What are you cooking?"

"I'm not cooking anything, it's Judy."

"Oh, okay then. So, what is she cooking?"

"I have no idea," I told him with a small grimace. "It's apparently supposed to be a secret."

"I'll go and help," Snowy proposed on the spot and she imdiately walked away in the direction of the kitchen.

"Hey! Don't leave out!" the Celestial girl called out after my little sister as she hastily shed her outerwear and then rushed after her, leaving alone with Josh.

I gestured for him to follow after , thus we wordlessly entered the living room and both took a seat in our usual spots.

My butt barely even touched the cushions when Josh abruptly cleared his throat to get my attention, and then he asked, "So? What's going on this ti?"

"What do you an?" I answered his question with one of my own, since I had no idea what he was getting at.

"You look like crap and you said you overworked yourself. That ans sothing must have happened to get you into that state. What is it?"

Well, I had to give credit where credit is due; Josh didn't beat around the bush. After a brief mont of deliberation, I took a deep breath and told him, "Okay, so just to be clear, sothing did happen, but it is mostly unrelated to my current condition. First, a quick question: do you rember when we discussed the big players in the supernatural politics?" Josh imdiately nodded. "Good. Then I presu you rember the Knights with the pointlessly elaborate na?"

"You an The Knightly Brotherhood of the Most Heroic Bloodlines?"

"… You seriously rembered their full na?"

Josh honest to goodness scoffed at my question as he crossed his arms and stated, "Unlike so of us, I don't have to luxury not to pay full attention to these things."

"That's… um… comndable. Anyhow, the reason I brought up the Knights is that they are coming here to cause so trouble for Elly's family."

"Did you tell them?"

"Of course. Not that they were particularly worried about the prospect, but they definitely know."

"Oh. Good."

I expected him to keep talking, but instead he just fell silent, followed by a drawn-out sigh. That was ever so slightly suspicious.

"Ti out," I said and raised my hands in the standard T-position. "What's eating you? Is there a problem?"

"No, it's just… well, maybe."

He apparently didn't really want to say whatever was on his mind, but since we ca so far, leaving the topic at that would've been unsatisfying, so I looked him in the eye and prompted him with a firm, "So?"

"You're going to make fun of if I tell you."

Josh looked unusually timid, so I reassured him by saying, "I promise I won't make fun of you. Just get it off your chest, will you? It will probably make things easier for the both of us."

Just like that, the last of his reservations lted off my friend like snow off a rooftop in an early spring heatwave. He slouched his shoulders and then, at last, he told , "I'm just sick and tired of it all."

"Of what? Life?"

"Nah. I'm talking about Doctor Robatto," he finally spat it out. "I had enough with always being on edge whenever I step outside with the others. Like, normally when coming over, we would go through the shopping district to do so window shopping or buy so snacks on the way. You know? Hang out, have fun, that sort of thing? Instead of that, we were just hurrying along while constantly on guard."

"Wait a mont. Are you telling that it's been just a week, and your nerves are already fraying?"

"Well, excuse for not having your nerves of reinforced titanium," Josh huffed quite indignantly, and I quickly raised my hands to placate him.

"Sorry, that ca out wrong. I didn't an it like that. I just thought the rush of being able to use your new abilities to whack so inconsequential robots would last a little longer."

"I an, yeah, it was a rush, but…" he stamred for a mont, then in the end he told , "It's like… we are high-schoolers, man. We're supposed to have fun, hanging out in town and stuff, right? Living in constant fear of an attack is no way to spend one's youth."

There was a long, deafeningly loud silence as I stared at Josh with a mixture of skepticism and bafflent, and at long last, I simply covered my face with my palm and uttered, "I honestly can't decide if that was deep or just needlessly lodramatic."

"Hey! You said you wouldn't make fun of !"

"I'm not making fun of you, I'm just making an observation," I corrected him while restoring my posture. "So your point is that you don't want to play around with Labcoat Guy anymore. Well, it's your lucky day then, because soon we are going to put an end to his shenanigans."

"Really?" Josh looked almost comically surprised by my words, but he quickly shook it off and inquired, "Does that an you collected enough incriminating on Ammy's grandpa?"

"Regrettably, no," I admitted, followed by a shallow sigh. "I'm not planning to let the old coot get away with this, but the Knights are coming in a little more than a week, so I want to prioritize taking Labcoat Guy and his ambushes out of the picture before that happens. Preferably in the next couple of days."

"That's… soon. So, how are you going to do it?"

"That's the best part!" I exclaid with a toothy grin. "I won't need to do anything, because it's your job."

"… You can't be serious."

"And yet I am," I replied, this ti much more seriously. "Listen, Josh, I still have the whole creepy Chira hunter lady business on my hands along with trying to pin this whole circus on Lord Grandpa, and now I'll have to do sothing about the Knights as well. I can't be at every place at the sa ti."

"Why do you have to deal with The Knightly Brotherhood of the Most Heroic Bloodlines? Just let Elly's scary butler handle them or sothing," Josh argued, and I imdiately shook my head.

"Can't do. You see, I'm actually related to the Knights. Or at least I was before the… you know?" I hinted while tapping my forehead, and Josh imdiately got the mo. Unfortunately, he wasn't the only one.

"You're a Knight?!" ca the astonished exclamation from the direction of the kitchen, and when I glanced over, Angie was already skipping towards us. She practically jumped over the couch and landed just beside my startled friend, and the mont she did so, she instantly began to inundate with questions, such as, "Seriously? Why didn't you tell us? Did you tell Elly? How did she take it? What about her parents? Do you have a cool sword? Can I see it? Pretty please?"

It took a mont to process the torrent of questions coming my way, so I raised a palm to quiet the overly excited girl.

"In order: Yes, because of certain circumstances, yes, pretty well, they didn't mind, I don't, and so you can't."

Now it was Angie's turn to think hard for a mont while she paired her questions up with my answers. In the anti, there was more movent from the direction of the kitchen and soon Snowy also joined us.

"Um… Did I hear that right? Are you really one of the Knights?"

Her question was naturally addressed to , so I gave her my perfected big brotherly smile and answered, "It's a tiny bit more complicated than that, but for the ti being, let's just say that I'm very closely tied to them."

anwhile, Angie untangled the answers ad suddenly declared, "That's great!"

"Is it?" Josh muttered under his breath, but since she was right next to her, his childhood friend naturally overheard him.

"Of course it is!" she began to explain with her usual gusto. "Think about it: Leo is a Knight, right?"

"He just said that it's more complicated, but yeah, let's go with that," my friend agreed, if a bit tentatively.

"And he is going out with Elly, right?"

"Along with Judy." This ti it was Snowy who added to the conversation as she made her way over to their side and sat down next to Angie.

"Yes, but now it's Elly who is important! It's a Knight and a Draconian going out! It's amazing! This could be the first step to end a thousand years old conflict!"

"It's not a thousand years old, and to be honest, I doubt it," I told her in a level voice.

"Co on, Leo! With your track record of fighting discrimination, you are going to break through this millennia-old feud in a jiffy!"

"Millennia ans a thousand years too, and I told you that… Bah, forget it. I'm more curious about when I ever fought about discrimination?"

"Are you serious?" she asked with her eyes wide as saucers before she pointed at her face with both of her index fingers. "Look! It's a Celestial! And she can walk in the open without having to fear the mages! Oh, and look!" Suddenly she threw her arm around the shoulders of my surprised sister and directed her free finger at her. "It's an Abyssal who is completely free to live on the surface without anyone harassing her! And we are besties to boot! Isn't that right?"

"Uuu… R-Right," Snowy ekly agreed while repeatedly nodding her head, which made Angie giggle with satisfaction.

"It's absolutely crazy! Celestials and Abyssals are never supposed to get along, and yet here we are!" After saying that she sent a stealth glance at the silent guy by her side and she added, "I an, we are not in perfect agreent about everything, but still! Besties!"

"I'm happy to hear that, but that still doesn't an that just by being in a relationship with the princess I would magically make the Knights and Draconians get along."

"Oh please, don't be so pessimistic. Aim for the stars! Even if you miss, you can still go for a stable orbit!"

"And what exactly is that supposed to an?" Josh enquired with one of his masterful, incredulous single eyebrow raises.

"I… don't really know, to be honest. It sounded way cooler in my head," the Celestial girl admitted.

anwhile, I used the montary lull in the conversation to think a little. While Angie's proposal sounded simple and naïve, was it actually a bad idea? Even since the possibility of the Knights showing up on my doorstep reared its ugly head, I have considered them a threat and have been thinking of thods to stop and eliminate them, but what if I could reason with them? It couldn't hurt to try. Even if I couldn't ensure a fairytale ending where everyone would be living in perfect harmony, maybe I could avoid a fight, or even the whole conflict altogether. It was food for thought, is all I'm saying.

Anyhow, while I was having these thoughts, Snowy suddenly raised her voice and asked Angie, "Did you tell them the thing Judy asked you to tell them?"

The slightly circular question drew everyone's attention, and in a mont the Celestial girl let out a slightly embarrassed 'Ooooh!', followed by, "Thanks for reminding , I totally forgot! Listen, guys, since Judy originally only made enough casserole for three, she had to modify the recipe on the fly to increase the number of portions. Because she wasn't sure how that would turn out, she told to co over here and sneakily dampen your expectations a little."

"… Is that how you do that? By telling us outright?" Josh asked in the company of another skeptical look, but Angie instantly shook her head.

"Nah. I'm going to do that now." Saying so, she straightened her back, cleared her throat, and solemnly announced, "Judy's custom casserole is nearing completion. Soon, the living shall envy the dead."

There was a very, very long beat of silence following her words, but then a certain assistant of mine abruptly called out from the kitchen, her voice soft yet chilling at the sa ti.

"Angeline, could I ask you to co here for a mont. I'm afraid I can't leave the pan alone, but I need you in arm's reach so that I can strangle you."

Angie let out a hearty chuckle that would have made Abram proud and responded with, "I'm kidding, I'm kidding! I told you it's going to be amazing! You're like ten tis better at cooking than I am, it will be fine!"

"That doesn't say much," Josh mumbled on the side. "Ten tis zero is still zero."

"Oh, now you did it, mister!" Angie suddenly turned on her childhood friend and the two began playfully tussling with each other on the couch. Snowy, wisely, chose to leave the vicinity at this ti and she sidled over to my side.

"Is everything going to be okay?"

"With those two? They should run out of steam soon enough."

"No, I an… with the Knights," my sister clarified with a voice that was walking on eggshells.

"Ah, that… I can't guarantee anything, but you shouldn't worry," I reassured her by patting her back without standing up from my chair. "I know that they dislike Abyssals about as bad as they do Draconians, but even if push cos to shove, I'll make sure to keep you out of the crossfire."

"I didn't an that," she shook her head. "I'm more worried about you."

"Awww, that's sweet of you," I said with a genuinely delighted smile and I redoubled my back-patting efforts. "Don't worry, I'll be fine. I an, I don't want Judy to kill , so I have all the incentive in the world to avoid danger."

"That's true," she muttered in a considerably more relieved voice. In the anti, the childhood friend duo ran out of steam, just as I predicted, and after a few exaggerated heaves, it was Josh who spoke up first.

"Can we go back to the previous discussion for a mont?"

"Sure," I granted him, though I wasn't sure which part he was referring to.

"Can you tell how I am supposed to deal with Robatto?"

"You are going to 'deal' with him?" Angie interjected, resulting in shaking my head.

"No, it would be more accurate to say that you are going to 'neutralize' him. Plural. As in, the group, minus and Judy."

"Yes, but how?" Josh pressed on, and after a second of thinking, I shook my head again.

"You know what? How about we hold a big eting tomorrow in the secret hideout and we discuss this with everyone? I an, I'm sick, you are tired and on edge, Angie is going be strangled by Judy… it's best we do this when everyone is in better condition."

"That… makes sense, I suppose," my friend agreed sowhat hesitantly. "So, what are we going to do today?"

"Idunno," I responded with shrug. "What were you planning to do when you ca over?"

"I mostly wanted to co here to talk to you about Robatto, but we already postponed that, so… I have nothing else."

"Well, we still have Elly's spare poker set. We could…" I proposed, only to get shot down imdiately.

"Let's not," Josh said with a completely deadpan expression. "Don't you have anything else?"

"I don't have a gaming console, so that's out of the equation. No board gas either," I counted off the things that we couldn't do, only for Angie to suddenly exclaim:

"Well then, I suppose we have no choice! We must continue our Trucy the Werewolf Huntress marathon!"

"Must we?" I asked back.

"Definitely," ca the enthusiastic confirmation from the Celestial girl. I sent a questioning glance at Josh in turn, and his expression said 'Whatever, we might as well', so I turned to Snowy next.

"Is that the show you talked about last night? I'm actually a little curious about it," she spoke while looking at Angie, and our friendly neighborhood Celestial asset's face imdiately lit up like a Christmas tree.

"That's right! Neige wasn't around when we had our last marathoning! This is a grievous mistake we must rectify right away!"

"Okay then, that's four out of four so far. Who's going to ask Judy?"

"Not it," Angie imdiately raised her hand, then she sheepishly added, "I don't want to be strangled."

"I'll ask," my sister proposed on her stead right away and she swiftly walked over to the kitchen door.

In the anti, I leaned back in my comfy chair and exhaled a shallow sigh. Things were bound the get more hectic… or rather, even more hectic than usual, so I figured having one last lazy afternoon during the calm before the storm wouldn't hurt anyone. The fact that Alia was excluded this ti around felt a little off-putting, but then again, if I called her over now and we had one more mouth to feed, Judy would probably strangle too. Sorry class rep, but that's just how the casserole crumbles.