The Simulacrum

Day eight of our vacation.

We were slowly but surely inching towards the end of our stay in Elysium, but it didn't mean there weren't still things to be done, both of the 'beach episode' and the 'training arc' variety. Today, we were focused on the latter.

I'd already made a small trip back home with Snowy to pick up a few things and to check on Tajana and Sir Roland. Needless to say, it was incredibly awkward, but I pretended to be oblivious for the time being and we quickly left the scene before they could drag us into any embarrassing shenanigans. The rest of the morning was fairly uneventful, save for another volleyball mini-tournament I graciously avoided, and so we reached the current time, where I was standing inside the bubble of the training ground and watching a battle unfold.

"Angie! Support Penelope!" Josh barked, and his girlfriend yelled an enthusiastic 'On it!' from high up in the air, followed by a barrage of arrows.

In the meantime, armour-guy raised his shield high, emitting a concave dome to block the incoming missiles. Of course, due to the power disparity, he wouldn't have had a bat's chance in hell stopping Angie's arrows, but since this was just training, everyone was limiting themselves a bit.

Still, his shield soon broke when the class rep finished casting and a small fireball exploded against the dome, cracking it and staggering armour-guy in the process.

"You're wide open!" Penny exclaimed as she rushed in to capitalize on the development, and while she was 'only' in her Uniformer, she was still moving so fast it was hard to follow her movements with the naked eye.

She came to a sudden halt in front of armour-guy, legs apart and with her zweihander resting on her shoulder, and she was just about to swing it like a baseball bat (which, in and of itself, would've probably earned her a scolding from Dame Morgana) when hammer-lad burst into the scene and parried her with the head of his eponymous hammer, and then a series of shots from midriff-woman forced her to retreat.

"Where's my support!" my sister cried out in alarm, prompting Angie to yell in the sky.

"I'm a bit busy here!" She dived down, closely followed by wetsuit-chap and sci-fi-dude on her heels. Ammy seemed to be backing her up now by casting some kind of multi-coloured spray in their direction, but the Celestials effortlessly dodged it mid-air.

"I've got you!" Josh leapt forward to stand between Penny and the duo of armour-guy and midriff-woman, just in time to deflect an arrow (more of a mini beam-attack, really) from tunic-man hanging out in the back and sniping with his huge bow from a safe distance. "Press the advantage!"

Like that, the two of them rushed forward in unison and clashed with the two Celestials on equal terms, all the while Ammy in the background was forced to disengage from Angie's side of the fight and was got caught up in a hit-and-run skirmish with uniform-bloke and facemask-fella.

Despite being outnumbered two-to-one, the four of them were holding themselves admirably against the Praetorian Guards. Though again, just a reminder, but nobody was using their full power. Everyone had either Barriers, Wards on their gear, or both, plus we were in Elysium where you couldn't shake a tree without a healer falling out of it, it was better to be safe than sorry.

"Argh! Stop chasing me!" Angie cried out in frustration and, while flying backwards, let loose a series of arrows at her opponents. She followed that up with the familiar Celestial spell that summoned a bunch of semi-transparent exploding swords and began carpet-bombing her corner of the training grounds.

"I did it!"

The elated exclamation of the class rep drew my attention next, where she was sitting on the shoulders of Petra and retreating, leaving her own adversaries in the dust. Or rather, the mud, as she somehow transmuted a part of the floor into a sticky brown substance, and facemask-fella was currently in the process of trying to drag his comrade out of it.

The only reason why she couldn't capitalize on their vulnerability was because tunic-man shifted his attention to her, and so she had to stay on the move to avoid his arrows. This, of course, meant that armour-guy and midriff-woman lost his support, and so the two of them were now on the back foot against the combined assault of Josh and Penny.

…

On second thought, I had to revise my earlier statement. Despite only outnumbering them two-to-one, the Praetorian Guards were doing an admirable job combating the four of them. It wasn't good news though; the whole point of today's exercise was to work on the guys' teamwork, now that their individual training sessions already concluded, and while there was some improvement, the only one who felt like he was even trying to act tactical was Josh.

It was a bit of a head-scratcher, really, but also somewhat understandable from a Doylist perspective. Angie, Ammy, and even Penny (as hard as it was to believe) were all 'heroines' in the Simulacrum's original scenario. Not only that, but the first two were more of a MacGuffin, being Deus and the Conduit respectively, so there was a good chance they were either never supposed to fight in a team, or they were meant to be busted OP like Deus back during the assassination fiasco and just demolish all opposition through sheer firepower. In other words, they were never 'meant' to engage in teamwork.

That left only Penny, and while she was better at that than the rest…

"Hyah!"

"Hey! Watch it!" Josh griped as he slipped under her wide-arching swipe.

"Then don't be in the wa— Ow!"

She was shield-bashed in the side by armour-guy for her trouble, and would've been a prime target for midriff woman if Josh didn't jump between the two of them, cutting down the incoming magitech projectiles before engaging her in melee.

Yeah, that was the problem. Both of them were the hot-headed types who would rush into the thick of the battle, and while Josh made strides to be a bit more tactical, there was still room for improvement. It's just that… maybe this whole approach was wrong, from the get-go.

Staying on the Doylist side, it was pretty much mandatory for the protagonist to do the heavy lifting in combat. They didn't necessarily have to be the strongest individual, but they needed to be the ones to fight the final big bad and win. Preferably without too much plot armour involved.

In other words, maybe I should've focused specifically on Josh alone in preparation for our 'final arc', so to speak… but then as the Praetorian Guards just demonstrated, teamwork was also a great force multiplier, and there was something inherently satisfying about a well-oiled team overcoming an enemy much stronger than themselves. I still couldn't decide which was the more efficient approach, so I was trying a mix of both. I could only hope that I wouldn't end up in one of those 'trying to ride two horses at once' situations.

In any case, the team exercise was getting way too chaotic, so I decided to end it for now. I clapped my hands, and while I didn't have any fancy sound amplification on me as I did on my Bel outfit, everyone stopped in short order and lined up in front of me, with Angie being the last straggler.

"Good work, everyone."

"Aw… I was just about to win," Penny whined, but when I sent a mildly disparaging look her way, she pretended that she never said anything and inspected her two-handed sword for nicks like her life depended on it.

"How did we do?"

Josh's question made everyone stand at attention, waiting for the 'debriefing'. For a start, I turned to the Praetorial Guards.

"You did well. Take a break, and then report to Prefect Jaakobah."

"Sir, thank you for the kind words, sir!" Armour guy exclaimed and saluted to me, followed by the rest.

"Where's Mr. Arpachshad, anyway?" Angie blurted out, squinting and looking around as if he could be hiding somewhere on the completely flat (recent craters notwithstanding) training field.

"Ma'am, the Prefect is currently educating Lord Polemos's Chief Reminders, ma'am!"@@novelbin@@

Armour Guy responded to her the same way he did to me, and the Celestial girl cocked her head to the side with a soft, "Oh, is that so?"

Meanwhile, I turned to the members of our group one by one.

"Kiddo."

"Y-Yes, Brother?"

"You're still too impulsive. You should know this already, but most battles aren't clean one-on-one duels where you can just quickly overwhelm your opponent. You have to pay closer attention to both your opponents and your allies."

"… Yes, Brother…"

She sounded a bit too crestfallen, so I added, "That said, you're getting much better at using a zweihander. Your training is showing results."

That was enough to cheer her up a bit, so I moved on to the next person in line.

"Class rep. Using your golem as a mount to increase your mobility was a good idea, but you also need to focus more on your defence. Also, while I understand that you're thrilled by being able to cast more complex spells now, you should try to focus on a few of them instead of spreading yourself thin."

"Got it."

For once, she didn't argue with me, allowing me to move on to the Celestial girl fidgeting by her side.

"Angie?"

"Y-Yes?"

"What did we agree upon before we started this exercise?"

She hung her head and muttered, "No carped bombing."

"And what did you do?"

"B-But I was out of options!"

Shaking my head, I pointed at the class rep.

"I'm telling you the opposite I told to Amelia: you need to branch out, because reaching for the big guns and blowing everything up indiscriminately whenever you feel inconvenienced doesn't work."

Angie descended into a full-blown sulk, but that was to be expected, and by then I already faced Josh. There was a bit of tension in the air until I turned back to the others and said, "Let's call it a day, everyone. See you in the evening."

Following that, I jerked my head to the side. Josh got the message right away and followed after me as we made our way back to the middle of the training field, while the rest headed outside of the bubble. At last, when it was only the two of us, Josh slouched his shoulders and gave me a look filled with trepidation.

"What did I do wrong?"

"Nothing," I replied right away, much to his visible surprise. "You're doing well. I just wanted to give you some personal pointers."

That immediately made him perk up, but before we could get down to the nitty-gritty, I raised a finger to stall the conversation and activated my Leoformer, shifting over to my Lion Knight armour.

"Before we get started, let's go over a few things. First off, did you feel off during the exercise?"

Josh narrowed his eyes and considered my question seriously.

"I'm feeling… fine, actually. I figured out how to loop one of the shorter healing arias, so I'm not even tired right now."

"What about mentally?"

"… No, I don't think I'm having any mental fatigue. Should I?"

I stared at him furtively, but it only served to confuse him even more. He was fine, by all intents and purposes, which once and for all confirmed something I noticed beforehand; Josh was not under any Deus-influence anymore, retaining full control even during the heat of combat. Or rather, maybe it would be better to say that he never had that problem in this 'continuity', after the big retcon.

It made sense, once I gave it some thought; Deus was a full-fledged second persona now sharing Angie's body, which meant that Josh probably didn't absorb nearly as much of him. Of course, this meant that he had less raw power, but on the flip side, he no longer went into a near-berserk state when under duress. I had no idea whether that was something I consciously decided during the retcon or just an acceptable side-effect, but in retrospect, it felt like a bit of a waste.

After all, when he went into Deus-mode during his introductory spars with the Praetorian Guards he easily overpowered them. Sure, it was during a weird trance where he couldn't control his strength, forcing me to intervene before he'd seriously injure someone, and while not having to deal with that sounded like a good thing in a vacuum, hindsight spoke otherwise.

In shounen battle stories, there was a trope called 'Superpowered Evil Side'. While the name was on the nose, the 'other side' didn't need to be 'evil' per se. Being unable to control their power, or just going berserk was also in the same ballpark, and they all shared something in common: they were double-edged swords that would give the protagonist a temporary burst of power in exchange for their sanity or situational awareness. Conversely, the protagonist mastering this and turning it into a 'Super Mode' was a very common way to give the hero a massive power boost. If it also came with a snazzy new transformation, even better.

Josh apparently lost this opportunity during my retcon, and there was a good chance that it was the source of his recent complains about not being able to grasp some kind of epiphany. As such, since it might've been at least partially my fault (and because Deus asked me), I was now going to attempt to rectify this by invoking a different shounen battle trope: the signature move.

"If you're mentally stable, it's good," I stated off-handedly and took out Cal from my storage enchantment.

"{Hm? Ah, young Knight! Is it time for the demonstration for which we've been tirelessly practising for the…}"

Ignoring my prattling weapon, I faced Josh and held out Cal vertically.

"Today, I'll try to teach you a special move, if you're willing to learn."

"Fuck yes, finally!" Josh burst out with a grin, in stark contrast to his previous demeanour. He quickly caught himself and cleared his throat. "I mean… yes please?"

"You can ease up. It's just the two of us now."

I gestured at the rest of our group already outside the bubble surrounding the training grounds, but he shook his head.

"Nah. This is serious business, so I need to be serious," he stated firmly, but then his eyes glinted greedily and he followed it up with a considerably less solemn, "So? Are you going to teach me how to fire sword beams?"

"… Did Deus tell you?"

"No. Angie did." He paused and rubbed the bridge of his nose. "After Deus told her, of course. It sounded like he couldn't wait to tell us about it. Kinda reminded me of how dad could never stop himself from spoiling what our Christmas presents would be." Realizing that he was getting off-topic, he hurriedly crossed his arms and adopted a solemn expression. "So? Are you going to teach me that?"

"I'll try. The rest depends on you."

"Yes, master."

I narrowed my eyes and uttered a flat, "No."

"Sensei, then?"

"Cut it out, or I'm not teaching you anything."

"Oh, fine," he finally relented, showing his palms in resignation, only to then retrieve his sword from his storage and give it a practice swing. "So, how are we going to do this? Are we sparring?"

"No. First, I have to explain the theory."

Or rather, I would explain what I'd learned from Cal while also relaying whatever advice they would share as they came, but potayto, potahto.

"{While I'm not convinced that someone like him could grasp, let alone execute a proper beam strike, since it is my young Knight's wish, I'll at least attempt to enlighten him.}"

"Cal says he has the utmost confidence that you can do this," I spoke, and my sword started fuming at once.

"{Young Knight! That wasn't what I said at all!}"

Now, let's ignore the skits for the time being, and focus on the actual teaching parts. Raising my sword, I channelled the mana in my body directly into it, giving Cal's edge a soft white glow that made my friend swallow hard.

"The theory is remarkably simple: you infuse your weapon with your power. Directly. No spells or fancy techniques are required for this step, only that you push your mana into your weapon and keep accumulating it there without it leaking out."

"Like this?" Josh asked and raised his own black blade. For the first few seconds, nothing happened, but then there was a faint blue-ish light emanating from the edge, interspersed with small flashes of golden flames. "W-Wow… It's actually much easier than I thought…"

"{Preposterous! Even the most ardent Knights of legend would take weeks to learn how to infuse their weapons!}"

The ones that succeeded, that is. According to my Knightly acquaintances, the whole 'sword beam' thing was rare even during the heyday of the Brotherhood and became a once-in-a-generation kind of affair over time. While I pulled it off once under duress, I had to sneakily train for the last two days in secret to figure out how to use it again… so it was only natural that Josh could do it on his first try. Being a protagonist was such a hax.

"Good job," I told him and pointed my sword towards the far end of the training grounds. "Now listen. The form your attack will take is entirely dependent on the nature of your mana and the way you execute the move."

Saying so, I grabbed the blade with both my hands and raised it high over my head. Then, with a smooth motion, I brought it down in a vertical slash. I simultaneously let go of the restraint on the mana within the blade and it created a brilliant flash. Blink and you miss it, there was something resembling a hazy white crescent exploding from the tip, as if I cut the air itself. The resulting shockwave etched a long, straight groove into the ground in front of me, reaching all the way to the edge of the bubble encasing the field.

The gash left in the ground was roughly two fingers wide and about as deep, and while this move didn't have the raw destructive force of one of Deus's arrows or Elly's dragonfire, the sheer speed of it still made Josh's face pale with apprehension.

"On second thought, can we not spar after all? I'm not feeling all that confident anymore."

"{Wonderful, young Knight! As we have agreed during practice, we shall name this attack, 'Flash Cut'! Now, make sure you say it out loud the next time you use the technique!}"

Not even deeming Cal's ecstatic words worthy of a response, I turned to Josh instead.

"Stop being a baby, and concentrate." I pointed at his rapidly dimming sword, and he hastily grabbed the hilt with both hands. "Now, you give it a try."

"O-Okay." He raised his glowing weapon over his head, then stopped. "So I just… have to swing it really hard, and let the mana go?"

"More or less," I confirmed, flicking some dirt off Cal's crossguard. "The way you swing it and your mental image is also important, but not as much as the quality of your mana."

Or at least that's what Cal insisted upon, and they were the expert on the topic, so I just repeated it whole cloth. It made me wonder what the way mine manifested said about me though, considering how simple and utilitarian it was.

"I think I've got it," Josh muttered and pulled his sword back even more. He squared his shoulders, set his feet, and then swung with all his might, resulting in… a puff of golden flames the size of a basketball hitting the ground in front of us, barely scorching it. "Uh… That was a dud. Let me try again…"

This time, he went for a horizontal slice, with his blade shining even harder, but once again, it was roughly the same amount of golden flames distributed in a wave that dissipated after a few meters.

"I take it back. This is hard."

"Rome wasn't built in one day. You just need to practice."

He didn't need my encouragement though, as he continued to swing his sword and produce increasingly larger and more defined gouts of golden flames. Yet, after about half an hour, he finally started running out of steam.

"Man… I got my hopes up, but…"

"You just need a bit more time," I reassured him, fully banking on his protagonist specs, but he shook his head.

"Nah, you don't get it. It's like… How should I put it…?" He fell silent while he did one more vertical slice, resulting in yet another lash of flame hitting the ground. He then raised his sword to eye level and muttered, "You remember the other day? When I told you I felt that I was doing something wrong, but couldn't put my finger on it?"

"Yes."

"This is like that, but like a hundred times worse." He let his blade down and his eyes, vexed yet sharp, turned to me. "Maybe it's because Celestial powers aren't really compatible with this. How do you do it?"

"The way I just explained to you," I responded, but then I let out a soft, "Oh," when I realized something. "Now that you mention it, I'm not using 'Celestials powers', as you put it."

"Then what?"

"You know? Just normal mana. From my Oaths."

"Well, crap. That doesn't help me at all…" He grumbled, but then he abruptly fell silent. "Or does it…? Hold onto this for a moment."

He handed his sword over to me, forgetting that he could've just put it in storage, and then after rummaging around for a while, he produced a small leather pouch, the type cowboys would have on their belts to hold spare ammunition. He undid the clasp at the top, revealing the many compartments in it filled with large, red capsules full of blood from Elly and Snowy.

"I haven't been using these in a while, but…"

"Shouldn't you check if they're expired first?" I asked, and my friend shrugged.

"None has ever gone bad on me before, but there's a quick way to find out."

He took out one of the capsules and threw it into his mouth, crushing it between his molars before taking a gulp. There was no change in his outward appearance, because his Celestial-ness was at this point so entrenched it was overwriting all other transformations (and even if it didn't, his Magiformer would've done the same), but the atmosphere around him felt different. Without further ado, he snatched his sword out of my hand and raised it high over his head. This time the blue light surrounding the blade not only had golden flashes, but dark-reddish ones as well.

"Here goes nothing," he whispered through clenched teeth and swung his sword with all his might.

The motion was the same as before, but the effect wasn’t. Fire erupted from the trajectory of the blade like always, but this time the golden flames were mixed with something else; a dark, almost viscous matter that simultaneously seemed to be absorbing the flames, yet also fuelling them. The two twisted and churned for a split second before reaching equilibrium and, with a deafening roar, a pillar of red light with a brilliant yellow core erupted from the blade, straight up throwing the guy off his feet.

This was followed by a blinding flash and an explosion that shook the ground under my feet. Once the dust cleared, the groove I carved into the ground was completely gone, swallowed up by a wide, smouldering ditch as wide as I was tall, reaching all the way to the bubble surrounding the training field. One spot was currently bright red, like overheated metal.

Once I gathered my wits, I turned to the guy still sitting on the ground, and grinning like an idiot. When he noticed, he directed that grin at me and elatedly exclaimed, "I think I'm onto something!"

"You sure are…" I whispered, taken aback by the sudden development. Though again, I had no right to be surprised, since I should've expected him to pull off something like this. It must've been nice being a protagonist.

"{We shall call this the Black-Gold Spiral Slash!}"

Glancing at the equally excited blade in my hand, I uttered an unenthused, "Let's sleep on this first."

To my shock, Josh nodded along.

"Good idea. I'm feeling a little lightheaded, anyways."

And just like that, he laid down and went to sleep. Or lost consciousness. Same thing really.

So yeah. He makes a big deal about feeling inferior, then learns the super-secret-super-duper-super-technique in an afternoon, shows it off, and then takes a nap while I'd now have to deal with the cleanup. Typical protagonist behaviour.