The Simulacrum ~Chapter 59~ Part 2

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

"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 anti, I checked the ti, 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 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 overwheld 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 ca the sowhat 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 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 in different directions, and then using their relative distances from 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 an, picture this: one long street parallel to the waterfront. From left to right, we had a boat lender, a comrcial dock with a ton of containers, a tariffs office, a rmaid-thed Hello Kitty souvenir shop, then a huge-ass, completely abandoned and sowhat crumbling military warehouse with an open courtyard and signs of recent movent around the enormous tal doors leading into the building, and then finally, a sailor pub called 'Davy Jones's Liqueur'. I an 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 basent hidden underneath the already imposing concrete complex, but let's not split hairs about it.

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

"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 so 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 enchantnt in place, so I had to build on that to finish things on ti.

It looked hideous, sothing on which we both agreed, but she was staying in the base at the mont, 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 enchantnts on the Magiforrs, it allowed her to see and hear everything the currently observed user could, with a few extra helpful trics 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 enhancents 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), naly 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 sa 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 ti being, I had to do with a simple silver ear wrap which, aside from making look fabulous (in Angie's words, not mine, and she received her well-deserved forehead flick for her trouble) provided with an alternative as far as communication was concerned, at least for the ti being. It wasn't exactly my size, so I had to bend it a little to comfortably fit , but beggars can't be choosers. It only allowed verbal communication (so Judy couldn't peep on ), 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 an 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 against, say, a direct hit by a magitech plasma cannon, but they didn't interfere with my movent, 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 chid 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 ti. "{Alia 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 mont 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 of it, but I wasn't going to tell her that.

It wasn't an unexpected developnt 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 Chira the day before, and then I further over-exerted my Phantom Limb with all of this last-minute enchantnt tweaking today. While my headache was little more than a throbbing buzz at the mont, I had a feeling I was running on borrowed ti, 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 an, 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 ans '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 mont I laid my eyes on her, and since I already rolled them a lot recently this ti 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 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 imdiately follow up with her much less generous prediction.

"The School is on high alert at the mont, 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 soone 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 howork ti."

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

"Let's make sure we are on the sa 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 sothing."

"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 ti 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 rember 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 biochanical 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 agreent.

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

"Yeah, you can leave that to ."

"{It is only logical, as you're an expert at getting under dangerous people's skin,}" Judy comnted 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 anti, 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 ti 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 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 reaffird my previous statent.

"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 so deliberation, I decided it was ti 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 ho watching the next season of Trucy the Werewolf Huntress."

"Sure, just give 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 dical 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 ti Josh needed to fight.

In the anti, 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 imdiately 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 , 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 periter.

"Here?" ca 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 sothing there, which reminded of a steampunk version of an artificial eye, with a lot of random gears and tal 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 sothing 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 ti 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 , 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 cara. 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 equipnt.

"Hey, Friedrich!" My bellow may or may not have scared my friends, but I was in the zone at the mont, 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 co out at your earliest convenience, or we might have to invite ourselves in!"

"What exactly are you doing?" Ammy abruptly interrupted 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 sothing 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 co 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 anti, I continued my verbal assault without missing a beat.

"Stop wasting ti looking for your biochanical 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 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 co 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 ti 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 sa 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 a little), they followed after all the sa and we took up our spots in front of the enormous sliding tal doors of the warehouse.

A minute or so of tense waiting later said door began to open up with the pained creaks of rusty tal, and just like that, Labcoat Guy and his company ca into sight. The man himself was still wearing his costu, 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 ti searching for his usual footwear, so it might've been hypocritical of to say this, but I could barely stop myself from laughing out loud the mont I noticed that. The others probably skimd 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 aforentioned fashionably challenged mad scientist stood his personal android. She wasn't wearing a costu, 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 sohow 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 pri 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 , I'll revoke your mission control privileges."

My dear (if sotis just a liiiiiitle bit trying) girlfriend stayed wisely silent, so I left it at that. In the anti, our antagonists for the evening ca to a halt about ten ters 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 , and before I could respond, he raised his voice both in volu and pitch as he added, "Did you co to deliver us to that traitorous old man?!"

"Well, no, not really," I responded reflexively, but then I rembered that this ti I was actually looking for a fight, so de-escalating was not a good idea. "I an, 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 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 ti, 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 ant 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 exclaid 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 movents are slightly less chanical 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 exclaid with undue glee as dramatically extended his arm towards us, his palm pointing at 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 to perfect them! They know all of your strengths and weaknesses! They are—"

"Wait, ti 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 an each one of them is specialized to counter one mber of our group in particular?"

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

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

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

"Only if the guys are too slow to do the obvious by themselves," I responded, earning a curious and slightly confused look from the android. I made sure to talk really quietly, but she may have still heard 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 over my shoulder and told the guys, "You've heard the guy. Have fun trashing these mooks. As for …"

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 mont too soon, as the space that my chest occupied just a mont 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 just by a hair, as she deftly backed out of the way of the shaft. I kept up the montum by imdiately reversing the direction of the strike, and this ti I aid a diagonal strike at her upper body.

Instead of dodging, this ti 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 montum behind it and so she managed to stop it on its tracks. The mont she did that, I pulled the spear back without hesitation while also taking a large step back, both as a way to put so 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 imdiately 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 , but it was still enough to tell that my opponent was a highly trained (or programd, 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 so distance between us where I could leverage my weapon's reach, it didn't feel like she'd pose a lethal danger to anymore. Well, unless she started firing off her destructo-beams, or break out so other sci-fi weapons, but that was neither here nor there.

By this point Labcoat Guy also overca 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 comnted 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 an?" 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 t with an honest to goodness rectangular tal 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 tal 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 , he exclaid, "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 anded 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 ," Mike explained, and even in the dark room, I could sohow still tell his face was getting red. "When I arrived, I was greeted by this woman wearing this really revealing costu."

"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 , "I an, 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 an, in retrospect it made sense that they wouldn't keep them in the sa room as soone 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 so 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 as he grabbed hold of the bars holding him. "Are you really here to get out?"

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

"Really?" The guy's face lit up for a mont, 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 ?"

"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 work?" I proposed, and the guy imdiately 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 so 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 ti 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 imdiately disappeared from the room, leaving the poor guy in the cage quite shocked and alard. To be fair, I had a feeling my current state of mind beat him in both regards. A mont 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 montarily 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 imdiately stopped in my tracks the mont my eyes skimd over the scene.

There was the body of the Chira in the middle. There were all the Fauns scattered in the hall, so 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."