The Simulacrum

Day six of our vacation.

It was late in the night, after the girls had already gone to sleep, that I decided to step out for some fresh air. Sneaking out of bed without waking anyone and dressing up in silence had long since become yet another in my long list of weird skills, and after tucking in the princess (she had a bad habit of kicking off her blankets in her sleep), I slipped out of the beach house and took a deep breath.

The air was cool and salty, as expected of the seaside, and the clear sky was awash with the light of countless stars. Unlike on Critias, where light pollution was a thing, the Milky Way was clear to see even with the naked eye. Maybe even a bit too visible, as I was pretty sure it wasn't supposed to be this bright, especially with a crescent moon hanging in the sky. But then again, it wasn't real. Or at the very least I was pretty sure it wasn't.

Ah, right. That word. 'Real'. I've grown to strongly dislike that world as of late. Not that I was ever a huge fan of it, to begin with, considering all the existentialistic questions it imposed on us ever since I first started looking into the nature of the Simulacrum. Even before I knew what it was called.

My legs absently carried me towards the shore as my mind continued to wander. It felt like it's been ages since I first woke up in this world, but in truth, it's only been a little over half a year. It probably felt longer because my life was just so, for the lack of better words, dense. New discoveries, new crises, new friends and foes… it was like a giant revolving door that kept me moving, lest the next door-flap would smack me in the back of the head, so I never had much opportunity to unwind.

Even now, while I was ostensibly relaxing on the beach, I was acutely aware that other things were happening in the background, out of sight for most. Future-me was still stirring the pot in the Abyss, Ammy's role as the Conduit of the Grimoire still needed fleshing out, and even this beach episode of ours was a calculated development invoked on purpose. But if so, then was any of it 'real'? Did any of our actions have any meaning? Was a vacation arranged with such motives in mind actually count as a vacation? Would Skyminton become the new national sport of Elysium?

Okay, maybe that last question was not like the others, but it was hard to keep my mind on track when it came to heavy topics like this. Even if I forcefully ignored all the metaphysical and extra-Simulacral things going on, and pushed the 'What does 'real' even mean in our context?' into the 'Philosophical headaches to resolve later, when I have nothing better to do' pile, I was still left with a lot to think about.

Meanwhile, I reached a familiar stony outcrop at the edge of the beach and sat down on its edge. The waves were calm and didn't reach my soles hanging from the edge, and everything was just so quiet. My eyes were once again drawn to the sky, and I squinted as I stared at the outline of the Milky Way. It certainly wasn't the 'real' one, because the Elysium was a kind of pocket-space. It probably wasn't a straight-up painted dome over our heads, but more like a mirage that emulated the 'real' sky. However, the 'real' sky outside of the Elysium was still inside the Simulacrum, so it wasn't strictly 'real' either.

Did that make the night sky I was staring at double-not-real? Would the two negatives cancel each other out and make it actually real? I was pretty sure it didn't work like that, but it wouldn't have been the first time the world was counter-intuitive.

I would've probably continued to absently muse about the nature of what is real and the semantic interpretations of double negatives, if not for a bright star catching my attention. Specifically because it was moving. Outside, I would've considered that it was a plane, but in the Elysium, it was much more likely to be a flying Celestial. Except they usually weren't glowing that bright, unless someone was disguising themselves as a UFO.

"Right… Draconians do that, don't they?" I mused aloud while tracking the bright yellow dot high in the sky. Or… was it? In fact, it was getting bigger by the second, and before long, it was bright enough to blot out the rest of the stars.

It landed somewhere nearby, and about a minute later, I noticed that someone was approaching the rocky outcrop.

"…"

Angie silently walked towards me on the stones. She was wearing her swimsuit with a shawl around her hips and her sandals made soft clicking sounds as she approached me. Then, without a single word, she just sat down next to me, her shoulders nearly touching mine.

We remained silent for a while, and after some consideration, I turned to her and uttered a single word.

"Deus?"

"So you could tell," she responded with a hint of a smile and let out a soft sigh before throwing her head back and gazing at the stars.

To be fair, it wasn't hard to guess. Angie never really cranked up her halo (both in the literal and metaphorical sense) as much as Deus did whenever he was in control, and considering the golden shooting star I just witnessed a few minutes ago, it wasn't difficult to put two and two together.

"What are you doing out here at this hour?" I asked absently, just to fill the silence, and her attention returned to me.

"I could ask the same thing of you," she retorted calmly, but after a bit, she lightly shrugged. "The girl was sleeping like a log, so I thought I'd come out to clear my thoughts."

"Is that healthy?"

"Don't be a worrywart," she dismissed me with a wave of her hand. "I look after myself. She's me, so I'll make sure she'll get a good night's sleep afterwards. I just… sometimes even I need some time for myself."

"I can relate to that," I whispered, and she nodded like it was something profound. "So? What's on your mind?"

"Nothing much in particular," she told me off-the-cuff, but then she immediately followed it up with, "Elysium hasn't changed much." I couldn't really comment on that, so I just let out an ambivalent grunt, which she interpreted as agreement. "Certainly not as much as the rest of the world. But… I think the biggest thing that changed is us."

She pulled up one leg and hugged it to her chest, resting her head on her knee as she stared at me. It looked mildly uncomfortable, but it was a fairly cute pose that… surprisingly didn't make my inner Polemos go gaga. Probably because I'd thoroughly beaten it into submission over the months.

I waited for her to continue, but Deus just kept staring me in the eye. There was a faint tension in the air; not the UST kind, but rather the sensation you get when you watch something teetering on the edge and just about to lose its balance.

"Polemos?"

"Yes," I responded reflexively.

"Are you really the Polemos I know?"

That made me blink, but I otherwise managed to keep my expression in check and muttered a soft, "That's an odd question."

"I know, but…" She let go of her knee and put her arms behind her, leaning on them as she looked me over. "I've always had this peculiar feeling, you see? We just never had the opportunity to sit down like this, so I could never ask you directly." She frowned slightly and let out a heavy breath. "That's also peculiar. Why is it so hard to have a private conversation with you nowadays? Even this meeting was brought about by pure chance."

"I guess because I have too many people around me," I proposed, and she accepted it with a hum.

"True. It's also one of the reasons why I'm asking. You were never much of a people-pleaser, yet now you're constantly surrounded by lovers, friends, and allies." Angie/Deus squinted at me, and I couldn't decide if she was accusatory or just curious. "So? Are you going to answer the question? Are you Polemos, or are you Leonard? Or maybe a mix of the two?"

That was a question much deeper than it might've looked on the surface, and I seriously wasn't expecting to encounter it today when I decided to get some fresh seaside air.

Really though, who was I? And this time I meant it will all the navel-gazing, philosophical weight of the question. I was living under the name of Leonard S. Dunning, but that was just the name I was saddled with from the day I woke up in the Simulacrum. Ignoring all the superfluous titles I gained afterwards, it was the identity I'd been using all this time, but I wasn't actually Leonard Dunning. The true Leonard Dunning of the Simulacrum's scenario was a Knight/Celestial double agent who was working under Percival and who met Penny in some orphanage.

That Leonard Dunning didn't exist. Maybe he never existed, to begin with. But I also wasn't Archon Polemos either. While I absorbed some of his memories, it was only a small fraction, and so I wasn't him. Instead, I was someone different. Something different, using these identities as masks while navigating the Simulacrum as best as I could. I was someone with many selves.

I was Leonard Blackloak, the mastermind behind the Draconic Federation and regent of House Inanna. I was the King of Knights and the Third Seat, clad in dark armour and commanding the loyalty of Knights and Draconians alike. I was the Second True Archon, ruler of all Celestials. And I was also Leonard S. Dunning, a student who attended school, hung out with his friends, spoiled his girlfriends and little sisters, watched funny cat videos during the night, and only occasionally rewrote all of reality.

On second thought, maybe trying to nail down my identity was a fool's errand to begin with. Ultimately, I was me. It was a bland answer, but it was the most accurate way to describe myself. Even if the Simulacrum suddenly ceased to exist tomorrow, and all of my names and titles with it, I would still be me. And that was enough.

Alas, such simple self-affirmation wasn't what Deus was looking for when she asked that question, and I couldn't exactly explain all of this to her. As such, I opted for a less accurate but still somewhat truthful response.

"Let's go with option number three."

She locked eyes with me, her gaze boring into me to see if I was joking or not, but in the end, she slouched and let out a surprisingly relieved sigh.

"I knew it. Considering the circumstances, I should've expected something like that."

"Circumstances?"

"Yes. Like this situation I have with the girl, or… whatever happened to that hateful cur." I was pretty sure she meant Bel by that, but I didn't have the opportunity to ask for clarification, as she soon barrelled on. "I should've known you would also suffer from some unintended side-effects of the reincarnation procedure, and…"

She abruptly fell silent and squinted at me again.

"And?" I prompted her, but she only squinted harder. "And what?"

"Be honest with me: did you do this to yourself?"

"Erm… What?"

She subtly rolled her eyes and sat up properly, dusting off her palms.

"You integrated into the current power structure of the world almost immediately. You kept all of your allies while also regaining your position in Elysium, making use of everything Leonard already accomplished. That's precisely what the Polemos I know would've done, justifying it all by saying 'It's the most efficient way to achieve optimal results'."

Her accusation was followed by a long beat of silence, yet I couldn't help but say, "That was a terrible impression of me."

"I'm no actor," Angie/Deus shrugged without breaking eye contact. "I'm right though, aren't I?" When I didn't respond right away, she exhaled an exasperated breath and folded her arms. "Seriously, you're just… Ugh. I can't even with you."

That… sounded suspiciously Angie-like, but I was pretty sure I was still talking to Deus.

"Leonard or Polemos, we're still friends though," she concluded, and it took me a second to realize that it wasn't a question. By then, she continued without waiting for me to respond. "Now that I think about it, you've been friends with the girl even before either of us was back. Is that the 'destiny' you sometimes talk about?"

My first instinct was to deny it, because 'being tied together by destiny' was a phrase that would've caused Judy's anti-harem countermeasures alarm to short out on the spot. Yet, on second thought, I tentatively nodded. After all, tit for that, we all knew each other because of the Simulacrum's scenario, and that was about as close to literal 'destiny' as it could get around here. Also, Judy wasn't here to hear it, so it was all good.

"Such a peculiar thing," she noted with a lopsided smile, and then suddenly poked me with her elbow, a gesture usually reserved to Josh. "Think about it: if things turned out differently, you and the girl could've started a romance before either of us knew who we were! Imagine how awkward that would've been!"

"Very," I responded bluntly. "Not that there was any chance of that happening."

"It's just a hypothetical," she shrugged, still grinning. "Still, the possibility that it could've happened is just… wow."

Once again, that was a very Angie thing to say, so maybe she was waking up. Or alternatively, their personalities were bleeding over. Deus had been insisting on 'being the same person', so it was a distinct possibility.

"Can we drop this topic? The two of us meeting here in the middle of the night is already odd enough, how about we keep the easily misconstrued romance-talk to the minimum, before Josh gets jealous."

"He doesn't even know I'm here, so…" She fell silent and scrunched up her brows. "On second thought, you might be right. We better not talk about hypothetical relationships."

"Especially when you're already in a concrete one."

"Yes, it's—" She abruptly blinked and then glared at me. "Hey! The girl is in a relationship, not me."

"Aren't you the same?"

"Yes, but…" Her brows continued to flicker between confounded and irked, ultimately settling on a garden-variety frown. "Listen, Polemos. I want you to understand that this and that are two different issues. I'm one with the girl, but we're not the same person."

"I noticed," I stated bluntly.

"Right. And it's not like I have any fond feelings towards the boy, anyway. If anything, I'm still mad that he took some of my power for himself."

"Uh-huh."

"I'm serious. I don't even understand what the girl sees in him. I mean, he certainly understands her, and they are definitely compatible, but just because of that, it doesn't mean that his charms are affecting me as well."

"So he's charming. I got it."

"No, what I'm trying to say is that…" She trailed off, eyes gradually narrowing, and before I could react, her elbow was digging into my side again. "You're teasing me! Stop it!"

"Ow."

My deadpan reaction earned me another jab under the ribs, and then she crossed her arms once more.

"That's it. No more talk about this. Let's change the topic."

"All right, I'm game. What else do you want to talk about?"

"Let's see…" She muttered to herself for a while, but then she suddenly snapped her finger and grinned at me. "Right! I wanted to ask for a favor regarding the boy."

"… Weren't we going to change the topic?"

"No, this is a completely different thing. None of that mushy nonsense," she scoffed and folded her hand under her other arm again. "Listen, the boy's been really stressing over his training as of late, and it's making the girl anxious. Would you please do something about it?"

"What exactly are you expecting me to do?" I asked back, and after some mulling and pondering, she grimaced and made a weird 'Nyeh?' noise.

"I don't know. Something that gives him a sense of progress? It's good that you gave him proper Celestial-made weapons and some guidance, but… can't you just teach him how to fire beams from his sword?"

"… Pardon?"

"You know what I mean. The final attack you used during your duel with the leech—" She abruptly cleared her throat. "I mean, the 'arch-mage'. The one with the big beard."

"Ambrose."

"Yes, that one. It was a magnificent strike, and I'm sure that if the boy had something similar in his repertoire, it would cheer him up considerably."

"I'm not sure I can do that…"

My rejection made her almost reel back and she let her arms down, only to place a hand over her heart.

"Polemos, please reconsider in light of our friendship."

"Wait, you're misunderstanding something here. It's not that I don't want to, it's that I'm not sure I can."

In fact, it would've been more accurate to say that I had absolutely no idea about how to do it, because it happened in the heat of the moment, and I never got around to experiment with the concept. To be fair, despite Cal's insistence, I didn't really need a beam attack. Between all my various other powers and abilities, getting a flashy move like that felt entirely superfluous, so I just swept it under the rug until now.

That said, since now that she reminded me of it… wouldn't that make a lot of sense? Giving Josh a beam attack, I meant. Thinking about it logically, from a Doylist point of view, the one thing he was desperately lacking as a battle-shounen-adjacent protagonist-type was a signature technique. Your traditional blue beams, named after kings of tropical island nations and whatnot. While I wasn't confident that I could teach something like that, I figured it couldn't hurt to give it a try, and who knew? Maybe if I kept self-suggesting hard enough, he would develop one himself. It would've been high time these Narrative-influence powers worked in my favour for once.

Deus was looking at me earnestly in the meantime. No, scratch that. Puppy-dog eyes. That's what she was doing, which was pretty weird, knowing that it was coming from this ancient messianic figure.

"Oh, fine. I'll give it a try tomorrow, but I'm not promising anything."

"Good enough," she nodded, followed by a relieved sigh. "That will hopefully cheer him up a little." No sooner than she said that, she blinked and frowned at me. "Not that I care about the boy's mood swings, mind you. It's only so that the girl wouldn't feel so troubled. I couldn't care less myself."

I met her eyes, and after a long, long beat, it was my turn to sigh.

"Deus. Please stop being a tsundere. It's disturbing."

"… I don't know what that means, but…" Without warning, she pulled up her feet, lunged over, and caught my neck in a loose choke hold. "I told you not to tease me!"

She tightened her grip on my neck, though it still wasn't anything threatening. I played along by grabbing her arm, and she let out a soft snort.

"I'm just telling as I see it," I argued back, but she had none of it.

"I won't let you go until you take it back."

"Oh, fine." I rolled my eyes and let my hands down. "You're not a tsundere. Are you happy now?"

Instead of answering, she loosened her grip and draped herself over my shoulders the same way the princess would do from time to time. Of course, this also meant that her breasts, which were already touching me before, were now squished against my back. She didn't seem to care at all about that and smiled at me.

"Heh. This is just like old times. We used to horse around like this all the time, didn't we?"

She was clearly talking about Deus and Polemos here, which meant… Wait.

Polemos had a thing for Deus, and he was an aloof introvert. Deus was apparently the same kind of no-personal-space extrovert as Angie, with a penchant for expressing his emotions through physical contact. Q.E.D…

"Damn."

"Hm? Did you say something?" Deus asked, completely oblivious.

"Nothing. I just… felt nostalgic," I lied, but she took it at face value and rested her chin on my shoulder.

"Right. This really makes me feel like I'm back."

Whether she was referring to the night sky, clinging to my back, us talking unreservedly, or the combination of the three, I couldn't tell. However, one thing I was sure of: while I definitely wasn't Polemos, and I didn't share his infatuation, for the first time I felt like I could understand all the trouble he went through, and maybe even sympathize with him a little.