The Simulacrum

I threw my curtains open to be greeted by the light of the morning sun... except not really, because the sky was still completely overcast. I opened the window as well and stuck a hand outside.

"Oh great, it's still raining," I grumbled to myself before closing the window and wiping the drizzle off my hands onto the back of my pants. It was such a nice morning too, why couldn't the weather match my mood for once?

I shook my head and put such irrational thoughts aside for the moment in favor of continuing my morning routine. PC turned off? Check. Schoolbag packed for the day? Check. Mysteriously well-ironed school uniform? Check. My umbrella? Now, we had a problem.

After rummaging through my room for a while, I still couldn't find one, so I did the logical thing and checked the entryway. On my way there, I ran into Snowy preparing her lunchbox, and after the customary head pat, I finally reached my destination and searched every nook and cranny in the room.

My efforts bore fruit, as I soon found an umbrella. On the other hand, it was only a single one, which posed a different kind of problem, namely that there were two of us in the house.

"Hey, sis?" I called out as I walked back into the living room. In the meantime I also absently inspected the thing in my hand. It was huge, black, and with a hooked handle, the kind that Mary Poppins would hold onto as she flew off into the sunset. It was also heavy enough where I figured it could serve as an impromptu self-defense weapon. Seriously though, this thing was so solidly built I imagined it could stand in for a parachute if push came to shove.

Meanwhile, my sister stuck her head through the kitchen door with a curious look on her face, so I asked her, "Do you have an umbrella of your own?"

Her brows furrowed at my question before she completely entered the living room and shook her head.

"No, I don't think so. I never needed one until now."

"Well, that's a pickle, because this is the only one we have, and the rain doesn't look like it would let up any time soon."

She glanced between me, and then her umbrella in my hand, and at the end of the day she timidly proposed, "We could share that one. It looks big enough."

"Sure, but it's a trope I don't really want to deal with," I replied, earning me a funny look in return, so I hastily shook my head and told her, "That said, it's not like we have much of a choice in the matter."

With that sorted out, she went back into the kitchen to finish packing her snacks. Once she was out of sight, I stretched my back a little and then glanced at the clock. We were still quite early, but considering that I still had to pick up Judy, and then Elly after that, it never hurt to get moving soon-ish.

With that in mind, I put on my outerwear, put my phone away, and put up with waiting for Snowy to do the same (I kid, she was done quite fast), and once the morning routine was well and truly over, we closed the door behind us and headed out. My sister, naturally, took shelter under my enormous umbrella; it's big, black bulk sheltering us both from the outside world. I think there was a metaphor hidden in that somewhere, but I was still a little brain-dead after the previous day's overexertions, so I didn't even try to unravel it.

On our way to Judy's place, I couldn't help but let my mind wander and make small, inconsequential observations left and right. For starters, even after two months, the streets were still impeccable as ever. Scratch litter or dust; not even any puddles were left behind by the rain. In retrospect, that wasn't too surprising, considering that those generally formed in indentations or potholes on the road, but since everything was still brand sparkling new, there obviously weren't such imperfections present. Well, either that, or the invisible ninja maids not only swept but also mopped the road whenever nobody was looking. One or the other.

Aside from that, we also had a lot more placeholders on the street, especially considering the weather. The variety of them also increased a lot; we had everything from elementary schoolers in bright yellow raincoats and office workers in business casual, to housewives carrying bags with obligatory baguettes and celery sticking out of it and even the occasional high-schoolers with matching uniforms and colorful umbrellas over them. All in all, the streets finally felt completely natural... save for the uncanny cleanness, but hey, it was still progress.

While I mused about these things, we unceremoniously reached our first stop on our daily commute. We came to a halt in front of the picket fence in front of Judy's house, and a couple of seconds later, their front door opened to reveal my girlfriend's absurdly youthful mother.

"Good morning, cubbies! Judy will be here in a second!" She greeted us with an energetic wave of her hand holding a pair of wooden-handled metal grill tongs. No, I don't know why this was her 'thing', but I have long since accepted it. Also, for the record, 'cubbies' are supposed to be us. Don't ask why; she just started calling me 'cubbie' one day (it had something to do with my name having to do with lions, and lions having cubs or something), and since Snowy was my sister, we both turned into 'cubbies'. Some say I have an odd naming sense, but that was still a stretch even by my standards.

Anyhow, I thanked her and we waited for my dear assistant to arrive. It really didn't take long, as she soon burst through the door holding a small, foldable white umbrella featuring some kind of brand logo; a big-eyed cartoonish teddy bear, with a snazzy green bowler hat. It looked vaguely familiar, and it took until Judy walked over to us for me to finally remember where I saw it.

"Did you get that umbrella from the amusement park?" I inquired, and my girlfriend gave me a curt nod.

"It was one of the consolation prizes during the shooting game," she told me as she opened it up, and now that I could take a better look, it was indeed one of the park's many mascots.

"Oh, so I was the one who actually won that? Sorry, after the tenth or so attempt to get your owl plushie, I completely ignored the other prizes and—"

"Never mind that," Judy cut me off as she stood in front of us and made a vague gesture in our direction. "What's this?"

"What's what?" I asked back reflexively, head tilted juuust a smidgen to the side and one brown raised high.

"You're sharing an umbrella," my assistant pointed out in a flat voice that still sounded more than a tad sulky to me.

"Is there a problem with that?"

"Of course there is," Judy declared with one hand on her hips. "That's something you do with your love interest. That's me."

"I'm fairly sure you are way beyond that category, but putting semantics aside… do you seriously want to invoke that tired old trope on purpose?"

My incredulous rhetorical question was met by a completely serious nod.

"Not all tropes are bad, Chief," she reproached me with a huff, and then explained, "Walking under the same umbrella became a trope because it's inherently a very heartfelt and romantic situation. Just because it's overused, it doesn't mean it's bad and shouldn’t ever be invoked."

"That's true, I suppose, but that doesn't mean you have to invoke it," I countered, only to be dismissed out of hand.

"No Chief, we must. I believe the most surefire way to solidify our relationship against outside threats is by purposefully engaging in wholesome romantic tropes."

"Do we really have to though? Do we really?"

"Yes," she replied on no uncertain terms. "It's about time we start exploiting some of the more benign tropes by manually enforcing them."

I was under the impression that I had been doing that for a while now, but my protests fell on deaf ears as Judy unceremoniously wedged herself between me and Snowy. It was getting a little crowded, but then she turned to my sister and presented her umbrella to her.

"Here, Neige. You can have this."

"Hey!" I immediately protested. "Dormouse, you are being really, really rude right now."

"I detest your accusation, and I will see you in civil court over defamation charges," she responded off-handedly, but then she finally noticed my less than amicable expression, and she hurriedly continued with, "Excuse me. What I meant to say was, 'Neige, I wish to trade your place by the Chief's side for this limited edition Bonta Jr. umbrella'."

"Come again? What the heck is a 'Bonta'?" I complained, but I was immediately overruled.

"Hush, Chief. I'm negotiating." After proclaiming so, she turned back to my sister and added, after reaching into her pocket, "I'm also willing to throw in this limited edition Kowalski Jr. keychain."

She dangled the small plastic figurine of a penguin wearing a top-hat and monocle in front of my hapless sister, and to my sincerest bafflement, her eyes instantly lit up with greed.

"Can... can I really keep both?"

"Yes," Judy confirmed with a big nod.

"For good?"

"For good," my assistant nodded again.

After only half a second of hesitation, my sister snatched the items out of her hands and took a step to the side, allowing Judy to immediately move up to me and link her arm around mine on my free side.

"Was... I just traded for an umbrella and a keychain?"

"Don't sweat the small details, Chief," my girlfriend told me and then rested her head against my upper arm.

I wanted to complain, but both of the girls seemed very satisfied with their deal, with Snowy already in the process of hanging her new acquisition onto the side of her bag. Maybe it was a new fad I didn't know about? Or was it just Snowy who was really easy to please with cute things? Looking at the giddy expression on her face when twirling her new Bounty Senior or whatever umbrella made me lean towards the latter, but one could never know.

"Let's go. We're running a little late," I prompted the girls, and they followed my lead in silence... for exactly ten seconds before Snowy threw us on a loop with a simple question.

"Leo? What's a 'trope'?"

"Pardon?" I asked back reflexively, and she might have thought I couldn't hear her, for she immediately repeated her question.

"What's a trope? You two talked about it just now."

Judy and I shared a distressed glance for a moment, and it turned out she was quicker on the uptake this time around, as she quickly explained, "A trope is a common element in a story."

"Precisely," I followed up with an authoritative nod. "Like... Do you remember that bad movie we watched the other day? Where the hero points his mecha's gun at the bridge of the big bad's skull-shaped ship and says, 'Alas, poor Yorickus. I hardly knew ye.' before he pulled the trigger? That's a trope called Pre Mortem One-Liner."

"It was also an overwritten, badly justified reference," Judy added after a click of her tongue.

"True, but that's kind of beside the point," I chided her, and she accepted it with a shrug.

"I see," Snowy mused aloud as she absent-mindedly twirled her new mascot umbrella left and right, but then she point-blank asked us, "But why were you talking about these 'tropes' just now?"

The question was innocent, but it caused us no little headache to explain it to her without revealing too much, and it took us until we arrived at Elly's place to make her come to the conclusion that "Oh, so it is like… an inside joke?"

"Exactly," Judy agreed on the spot, and that was the end of the discussion for the time being, as even though we barely stepped in front of the gate, Elly was already running towards us. That wasn't surprising, but the fact that she was wearing a dark green camo-patterned raincoat was all the more so.

"I'm ready, we can go!" she declared as she slipped through the wrought iron gates and closed them behind her, but then she looked at me and Judy and added, "Is it just me, or are you two even closer than usual?"

"They are doing a trope," my sister helpfully informed her, but it only made the invisible question marks over her head multiply faster than rabbits in Australia.

"I don't get it," she finally admitted, only for my sister to shrug her shoulder as well.

"Me neither, but it looks nice."

"Your turn is tomorrow," Judy suddenly cut in, warning my other girlfriend before she could say anything, and I once again couldn't help but feel left out of the loop, especially when the princess subtly rolled her eyes with an expression that said, 'Isn't that obvious?'.

Anyhow, once the customary morning greetings were over (read: one kiss for Elly, and then an extra kiss for Judy, because I forgot to give her one before), we continued our merry commute towards the one and only Blue Cherry High. Most of the way was spent with small talk about the weather, which then led to Elly noticing my sister's new umbrella and fawning over that Bojack Junior or whatever mascot, after which the conversation progressed into the topic of mascot keychains. Apparently it really was a fad, and the three most important girls in my life were all inexplicably neck-deep into it.

I, being a manly man, full of manliness and testosterone and all that good stuff, naturally only scoffed at their cutesy girly stuff with prejudice of the most extreme variety. It was due to that that I only sporadically engaged in their discussion, mostly just to explain to them on rational terms and in very meticulous detail why, in fact, the baby panda with the fedora and handlebar mustache was definitely the best, because mustaches are manly and stuff. Though again, the puzzlingly Irish baby seal keychain Elly had got sideburns under its green, buckled top-hat, so that also got a few points in my book.

Like that, we swiftly arrived at the school, and to my surprise, the childhood friend duo was already waiting for us in front of the closed gates. Angie was wearing a white plastic raincoat, but she had the hood down and stood under my friend's multi-colored umbrella.

"Hi guys!" the Celestial girl greeted us while we were quite a distance away, and she even waved at us with a happy-go-lucky grin on her face.

"Good morning," my sister greeted them back properly, but then after she looked them over, she turned to me and asked, "Are they doing the trope too?"

"I actually think they are."

My response earned me a couple of puzzled blinks from the duo, and Josh ultimately asked me, "What are you guys talking about?"

"Nothing. It would take too long to explain," I told them before pointedly glancing at the closed gates. "So, what's up with that?"

"Oh, that? You're not gonna believe this," Josh answered while his childhood friend repeatedly nodded. "The school is closed for the day. Do you know what that means?"

Before I could say anything, Angie threw her fist high into the air, almost knocking the umbrella out of Joshua's hand, and exclaimed, "It's a long weekend!"

"Errr… Cool, but why?" I enquired after I overcame my first surprise at her display of unbridled enthusiasm.

"Something about a gas leak," my friend told me while checking his umbrella for damage, and once he made sure none of the spokes were bent, he added, "Ammy was also called inside, so I think things are more complicated than that."

"You think so?" I prodded him to continue with a knowing smile that didn't escape my assistant's notice, but she didn't point it out for the time being.

"Well, yeah? I mean, if they only let Ammy in, it means it has something to do with the magical School. Maybe there was an accident there?"

"Or it could be because of what happened yesterday," Elly supplied the next guess with a finger on her lips.

"Or that," Josh granted her that, and there was a short lull in the conversation as everyone considered this new bit of information. On my end though, I was more curious about something else entirely.

"For the record, since when did you know there wouldn't be school today?"

"Oh, that?" Josh responded a little late, and then after some thinking he told me, "Since we came here, so about fifteen minutes?"

"And couldn't you call me to tell us about this?" I posed my next questions, and my friend flashed an impish grin at me.

"I figured we shouldn't be the only ones who had to walk here in the rain." I rewarded his honesty with a flat and in no way or shape threatening look, so there was no reason why he would hurriedly add, "A-Also, I figured that once we meet up here, we could go to my place together. You know? To talk, and plan, and have that Street Kombat tournament we wanted to do for ages?"

In the end, I couldn't help but let my shoulders drop in resignation, and I ultimately told him, "Fine, we might as well do that. I suppose we should wait for the class rep first."

"I'm here," came the sudden declaration from our left, and we all glanced there in unison.

"Uuum… Hi, Amelia," Snowy greeted her first, if a little uncertainly.

"When did you even get here?" I mumbled as I looked her over. She was also part of the raincoat-club, and hers was a blindingly bright orange one with reflective stripes. How we all managed to miss her was a complete mystery. My working theory still involved ninjutsu.

"I've been here for a while," Ammy huffed, but then she abruptly shook her head and stated, "It doesn't matter. Listen, there's pandemonium down in the School; everything's on lockdown until further notice."

"What exactly happened?"

The class rep glanced at Judy, then at me, and after a short sigh she explained, in a low voice barely audible over the sound of the rain.

"Someone broke into grandfather's office last night."

Shocked gasps! Wide-open eyes! Mouths hanging open in disbelief! Bizarre 'Dun-dun-dun!' sounds in the distance! All of those… were things that obviously didn't happen.

"So that's why the school's out!" Angie exclaimed with a toothy grin, completely unfazed by the dramatic revelation.

"This is no joking matter!" Ammy reprimanded her on the spot, and then for some reason she turned to me next. "Leo?"

"Yes?"

"By any chance, do you know anything about what happened?"

"Nope," I denied it on the spot with my patented 'I'm as innocent as a newborn lamb on the virgin snow' expression.

"Why, what happened?" Judy gave me a saving throw with impeccable timing, forcing the class rep to explain herself.

"Last night, someone circumvented the wards protecting grandfather's office," she repeated what we already knew, and then after a deep breath she expounded, "They took several important files from the archives, and at least one very, very valuable item." She paused here, probably looking for a reaction, but I was only giving her the same innocent smile, so she soon gave up and continued with, "They also stacked up all the paperwork in the office, threw away all the trash into the bin, and they took all of grandfather's liqueur."

"You mean… all of it?" Judy muttered, half astounded and half impressed.

"Yes," Ammy nodded, and then after a second added, "Including the cabinet in which they were stored."

"… Are you serious?" came the next question from Josh, resulting in another nod. "How did they even move that out from underground without anyone noticing a thing?"

"We don't know yet," the class rep admitted, but then she ominously declared, "However, we're soon going to find out. Whoever the thief was, they left a message on grandfather's desk."

"Really?" Angie burst out as she leaned forward, her eyes sparkling with excitement. "Was it a calling card?! Is it a phantom thief?! Is it?!"

"N-No, probably not," Ammy replied with a stutter, obviously taken more than a little aback, but then she quickly collected herself and clarified things. "It was a letter written in Celestial Script."

"Oh, oh! Do you need me to help?" Angie jumped to the opportunity with her hand raised high, and this time Josh was fast enough to get the umbrella out of the way. She didn't even notice.

"No. We have experts for things like this."

After saying so, Ammy fell silent for a long while, all the while drilling a hole into my forehead with her gaze.

"Why are you looking at me like that?"

"It's because I'm sure you know something about what happened," she told me frankly. "Any time something really weird or seemingly impossible happened in the past couple of weeks, you were always related to it."

"Well, I can't deny that…" I muttered under my breath, but before I could get to the actual denial part, Ammy cut me off.

"Leo. Look me in the eye, and tell me the truth."

Well, that was an easy request, so after a momentary consideration, I did just so.

"Oh, fine. I swear that I didn’t break into your grandpa's study, I didn't take anything valuable yesterday, nor did I carry an entire liqueur cabinet anywhere at any point in time."

"Why did you emphasize things like that?"

That calamitous question came from Elly of all people, so I did my best to keep up my smile and I told her, "It's important to be specific when you are testifying, to avoid being too vague. Isn't that right, Ammy?"

The class rep gave me a non-committal noise in place of an answer, but for the time being, it seemed I have successfully allayed her suspicions. All hail the power of half-truths.

"So, now that we're over that side-track, where does all of this leave us? Can we do anything?" I spoke up mostly just to move the conversation forward, but for the moment nobody gave me an answer. "In that case… Josh?"

"Mm? Yes?"

I sent my friend my brightest grin, and asked him, "What suits an impromptu fighting game tournament better: pizza, or Chinese food?"

"Idunno… Pizza, I suppose?" he responded a bit uncertainly, only to immediately get overruled by his childhood friend crossing her arms in front of her.

"Hold it right there! This is a serious issue! I propose we should put it up to vote!"

"Can we do that while we walk?" I proposed, feeling a little chilly despite Judy's best efforts to warm my side.

"We might as well." Josh shrugged, and we all began walking, even the slightly confused class rep, who apparently wasn't around when we discussed this bit after all.

"So, Elly? What do you vote for?" the Celestial girl interviewed her first subject, even going as far as to pretend she was holding out an invisible microphone to her.

"I… don't really know," my girlfriend answered, her face already scrunched up in a complex expression. "I've never eaten pizza or takeout food before."

"Did you seriously pick this of all moments to play the Oujo archetype?" my other girlfriend grumbled under her breath, but the princess still overheard her.

"Excuse me? What is a… what was that word again?"

"It's a trope!" my sister suddenly declared on our right, and then after a beat, she tentatively followed it up with a subdued "Right?"

I gave her a small nod, and while the relieved smile she flashed me tickled my big brotherly instincts, I couldn’t help but feel that we might have accidentally let a genie out of the lamp without realizing it...

It's been a while since I've last visited Josh's place. To be precise, it was just before he was kidnapped and the whole school incident with Crowey. It felt like it happened ages ago because of all the crap we had to deal with recently, but it's only been a little more than two weeks since that fateful night. I couldn't help but wonder; was my sense of time out of whack due to my lack of need for sleep? Or was this a normal reaction to shit hitting the fan over and over again? Maybe a combination of the two?

I would've probably kept pondering about this for a while longer, but I was knocked out of my train of thought by my sister offering me some cola. I thanked her and took a leisurely sip as I looked over my surroundings. We were inside Josh's living room. His parents were nowhere to be seen, just as you would expect from a protagonist type. Reasonable and responsible parents are the kryptonite of exciting, wacky, and occasionally dangerous adventures. Also, for the record, my parents didn't count for the trope, as they didn't even exist. Probably.

But back to the scenery: the short, black wooden coffee table in the middle was buried under a small mountain of pizza boxes, their previous contents already safely stored away in our bellies. Behind those, Joshua and Elly were sitting on a pair of cushions and were having a heated battle of epic proportions on the screen of the Bernstein family's old-school yet fairly big CRT television. The princess was a newbie, but she took to the game really quickly, and she was putting up a good fight against Josh's cheap zoning efforts.

On my left, Judy and Ammy were having a soft-spoken yet still oddly animated discussion about how to use communication artifacts. On my right, Angie made some space for Snowy to put down her tray of drinks onto the table, and then they both sat down by the two contestants in front of the TV and silently watched the beginning of the third round.

All things considered, things were obnoxiously peaceful, especially considering everything that happened yesterday. Or could it be that everyone was relaxed like this specifically because of what happened? I mean, for the longest time I've advocated enjoying ourselves to the fullest between the occasional episodes of supernatural peril, so it could be that everyone simply adopted my philosophy over time. Anyhow, this kind of atmosphere wasn't bad at all; too bad it didn't last long.

Everyone raised their brows in unison, save for myself, when a not particularly loud, yet very insistent, whirring sound rung out in the living room.

"That's the doorbell," Josh noted without bothering to look away from the screen.

"Aren't you going to let the guest in?" I asked after finishing up my drink, but my friend only shook his head.

"I'm busy at the moment," he insisted while hammering on the controller with his thumbs in a frantic effort to dodge the super-move my girlfriend just pulled off by good-old-fashioned button-mashing.

"I'll get it," Angie proposed after rolling her eyes at our host, and then she jumped to her feet and casually strode out of the room. For the next couple of seconds there was curious silence hanging in the air, but at last she returned with an entirely unexpected person in tow. Well, for the others, at least. I cheated with Far Sight, as usual.

"Hello, Pascal," Ammy immediately greeted the guy walking behind Angie, even before she got a chance to introduce him.

Armband Guy stopped just past the threshold of the room and looked over each one of us in turn with barely disguised discontent. The rain actually got worse sometime after noon, and even though he was mostly dry, his pants under his knees and his socks were still drenched. More importantly, he had not one, not two, but a grand total of three flying, glowing eyeball things circling around him. Speaking of eyes, his gaze ended up landing on Josh at last, and it was at the precise moment when he let out a vigorous, "Hell, yeah! That was close!", followed by a fist pump.

"Don't worry, Elly. You'll get him next time," I told my momentarily disheartened girlfriend and gestured for her to come over to my side for her consolation prize in the form of a head-pat. She, naturally, complied right away.

In the meantime, our host finally noticed the newcomer and turned one hundred and eighty degrees in place while still sitting on his cushion and raised his hand in a lazy wave. "Hey." Armband guy returned the greeting in the form of a small nod, after which my friend scratched his chin and asked, "I don't think I ever invited you over before. How did you know where I lived?"

"I knew your address from your school records," Armband guy answered with a tone that clearly wondered if that was really the most important question at the moment. I found myself unexpectedly agreeing with him, but then I was immediately startled when he reached out to his face and dramatically readjusted his glasses in an eerily familiar fashion. I couldn't help but wonder if the class rep learned this habit from him, or it was the other way around. Either way, after a similarly dramatic pause, he stated, "All of you are here. Good. That makes things considerably easier for me. That said, I would be lying if I said I was not surprised to find you so unperturbed, considering the severity of the current situation."

"What situation?" I blurted out without missing a beat, mostly to hasten the conversation a little.

"Have you not heard about what happened last night?"

"Not in detail, no," Judy noted while she indiscreetly took out her phone to make notes.

"If it was important enough to barge in on us uninvited, you might as well tell us yourself," I proposed, only to realize I might be rushing things a little, so I subsequently added, "But before that, how about you sit down first?"

Armband Guy sent me a sharp glance but only said, "Please do not mind if I do," and then he promptly took a seat at the only free seat, which happened to be right next to me. Just as planned.

Josh's living room had one large and one smaller couch, which meant that with his addition, all the seats were taken up, forcing Josh, Angie, and Snowy to bring over a few wooden chairs from the kitchen. The rest of us patiently waited for them (except for me, since I was busy swatting down the observer orbs with my Phantom Limb), and at the end of the day we successfully formed a circle around the coffee table in the middle. The whole thing almost felt formal, if not for the pizza-boxes and the TV playing a demo match of Street Kombat in the background.

Anyhow, once everyone settled down, our unexpected guest pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose and turned to Ammy.

"How much have you told them?"

"Everything, though in broad terms only," she responded a little sourly, something which Armband Guy either didn't notice or he just didn't care about it.

"I see," he nodded and, after a long moment of consideration, he began his explanation. "Last night, approximately just before twenty-three hundred, someone infiltrated the School complex through presently unknown methods."

The guy's direct, almost militaristic way of reporting momentarily raised the tension in the room, so I subtly redoubled my head-patting efforts, and once Elly let out a blissful 'Nyu' sound, things went back to normal. Well, except that now Armband Guy was glaring at us, but hey, sometimes sacrifices had to be made for the greater good.

"The identity of the infiltrators is unknown," Ammy cut in, most likely in order to keep the conversation on track, but then our guest immediately shook his head.

"That is no longer the case," he stated, then after a dramatic pause (he apparently had an affinity to those) he continued with, "But I am getting ahead of myself. Let us establish the circumstances of the crime first." When he said that, his eyes blatantly skimmed over us in general, and me in particular, obviously looking for a reaction. Maybe he expected that we would know something? Or maybe even that we were involved in some way? Well, I was, but it would take more than a few pointed looks to break my well-practiced poker-face, so when his gaze lingered on me for too long, I simply raised my brows to urge him to go on.

"After checking the inventory, it became evident that the only three things they took were the liqueur cabinet, a valuable heirloom of the previous Arch-mages, and a certain document." He once again paused while looking for a reaction, but since nobody knew anything, and I was still holding up my nonchalant façade with the help of my overly-affectionate girlfriend, he once again came away empty-handed. "More importantly, the perpetrators left behind a single written note in Celestial Script."

The moment that was mentioned, Angie immediately perked up. I figured she still hoped that it was a calling card, the kind that stereotypical phantom thieves in kids' shows left behind at the scene of the crime after they've successfully taken something really valuable without anyone being the wiser, only to taunt the authorities and… oh crap. It was a calling card, wasn’t it? Dammit, does that make me a phantom thief?

Questions for later. For now, my attention was drawn to Josh, who asked the obvious question that was on everyone's mind.

"What did it say?"

"Celestial Script is notoriously hard to translate, but allow me to paraphrase the content based on the reading of our expert." After saying so, he took a big breath and then cleared his throat. "It said, 'Dear Old Fart! You stabbed me in the back, so I took your fancy box in return! See you never! P.S.: I took your booze too, because screw you!'"

"That... wasn't very eloquent," Angie noted with palpable disappointment in her voice.

I inwardly apologized to her; if I knew things would turn out like this, I would've made the note more playfully flamboyant, but at the time, my main goal was to piss of Lord Grandpa. Also, it wasn't surprising, but Armband Guy purposefully left out the segment about the contract. That told me they were still trying to cover up their connection with Labcoat Guy. How cute.

In the meantime, Ammy visibly paled and she addressed Armband Guy in a low voice.

"By 'fancy box', does it actually mean…?" He raised a finger to his mouth, but nodded, confirming that it was just as she thought, which made her eyes open even wider with military-grade bewilderment and she mumbled something along the lines of 'What kind of lunatic would dare…?'. I gracefully decided not to hold against her, as she obviously didn't know she was talking about me.

"So," I spoke up, to keep things rolling. "Thanks for telling us this, but I can't help but wonder if you barged in here just to do so?"

I intended that as a somewhat confrontational jab, but Pascal gave me an appreciative look instead, as if I just helped him breach a subject he didn't know how to handle.

"The Lord told me to come and tell you about the contents of the letter for a very simple reason. I must ask you this: based on what I told you, who do you think the perpetrator could be?"

There were several seconds of tense silence following that question. I was ready to step up if things went awry and to guide them towards my preferred (and only slightly misleading) deduction, but thankfully Josh had enough brain cells to rub together to come to the obvious conclusion on his own.

"It might be Robatto," he stated with a thoughtful expression, and Elly immediately agreed with him.

"Right! Didn't he talk about being betrayed during the battle? That really sounds like him!"

Since things were proceeding in the right direction, now my role went from gentle conversation-guide to the devil's advocate, just to make things sound more natural.

"I don't know," I commented with intentional nonchalance while rubbing my chin. "If it was really Labcoat Guy, where are all the 'Kihihi's?"

"Chief, people don't write those into letters," my dear assistant rebuked me right away.

"Well, I do," I double down, throwing the ball back into her court.

"Yes, but that's because you're weird," she told me with the utmost seriousness.

I wanted to give a snappy reply, but then my other girlfriend gently grabbed hold of my free hand and told me, "But that's why we love you," and then she rested her head against my shoulder with a giggle, making me unable to say anything in return. Well played, my dears. Well played.

"As much as I would like to deny that, I can't," Judy piled on with a coy smile only I could see, while Armband Guy was giving me a decidedly skeptical look. I couldn't blame him, as while our poly relationship wasn't exactly a secret, we didn't announce it outright either, and since Elly was the more visible out of my two girlfriends, Lord Grandpa and his posse thought I was only dating her. Well, that would probably change now, I surmised.

That said, this was all a tangent we didn't really need right now, so once my mischievous girls calmed down a little, I turned my attention to Armband Guy again.

"So, back to the point; do you also think that it was Labcoat Guy?"

"It is one of the possibilities," Pascal answered in a neutral tone that neither confirmed nor denied our 'slight suspicion'. I waited to see if anyone wanted to pick up the ball, and after some thinking, it was actually Ammy who leveled the next question at him.

"But if that's the case, then what reason would he have to write the letter in Celestial script? And more importantly, how?"

"That, we cannot say for sure yet," Armband Guy freely admitted, so I decided to adapt my most thoughtful expression ever and once again nudge him in a direction that wasn't necessarily the right one, but the most advantageous at the moment.

"Could it be a distraction," I proposed with a conflicted frown hiding just how much I was enjoying leading the whole conversation by the nose. This was rapidly becoming a guilty pleasure of mine.

"Possible," He granted me. "However, if he attempted to shift the blame towards the Celestial Intelligence Network, then it was a sloppy job."

Pascal ended up responding quite negatively this time around, but I didn't let the topic go just yet.

"Not necessarily. After all, you had to spend a lot of time and effort on translating and double-checking the contents; time which our perps could use to get a head-start on their escape."

"That... is a distinct possibility," he granted me again, if a little tentatively, but then he followed up with, "Nevertheless, it is an awful lot of effort to go through, using Celestial Script of all things, just for gaining a few hours of headway."

"Is that Script that special?" Josh interjected, and I was tempted to give him a subtle thumbs up for steering the conversation in the right direction, even if by accident.

"Yes," Armband Guy declared, but when Joshua kept giving him an expectant gaze, he soon let out a small breath and he elaborated. "Celestial Script is more than a simple writing system. It not only conveys words, but complex thoughts and emotional states as well, leading to multiple possible, often radically different readings of the same sentences. It is not only exceedingly hard to translate, but due to the way it is structured, only the Celestials themselves can write it. Artificial Script is easily distinguishable from the genuine article, and this note is genuine without a doubt."

"Does that mean it was written by a Celestial?" came the next reasonable question from Snowy, and everyone involuntarily glanced at Angie.

"It wasn't me!" she instantly denied the unspoken accusation while frantically waving her hands, which earned an almost amused sounding scoff from our guest.

"We never even entertained the thought. The Script used on the note was a complex yet archaic dialect with at least three meaning-layers beneath the surface text. It is not something someone your age could produce."

"That's... both reassuring, and a little irritating," our resident Celestial grumbled under her breath, but it only lasted for a second before she bounced back with a question. "You said there were under-scripts, right? What did they say?"

"That's right! Maybe there's a clue there!" Josh backed her up right away, and everyone turned their rapt attention at the upperclassman in our midst.

Instead of answering right away, Pascal's brows slowly knitted into a deep frown, to the point even his nose was scrunched up, and then, after no doubt thoroughly considering how much he should share with us, he finally opened his mouth again.

"As I said, Script is notoriously hard to translate, and the difficulty rises exponentially the deeper one tries to interpret it." He paused here one last time, probably further considering how much he would say, and after glancing at Ammy for a moment, he seemingly found his resolve and explained, "The second interpretation was along the lines of 'I'm an assassin with extended buildings, a captive of science. A microphone.'"

"A... microphone?" the class rep echoed him, and Pascal slowly nodded.

"As I said, deeper translations get increasingly more unreliable." At this point he let out a mall snort, and amended, "Case in point, every translation attempt of the third layer resulted in unintelligible gibberish about fried cheese."

There was a long moment of baffled silence hanging in the air, during which my assistant was sending me an insistent, prickly stare. Armband Guy, fortunately, didn't notice it, and before I could tell her to cut it out, she actually spoke up first.

"I believe that settles it. I don't believe we know anyone else nonsensical enough to write something like that down other than Doctor Robatto."

"I agree!" Elly, well, agreed on the spot. "It sounds like something only someone crazy like him would do!"

"I think that we are all in agreement now," Joshua spoke up, suddenly adopting the role of a mediator. "The one who left the message, and therefore the one who broke into Ammy's grandpa's office, was almost certainly Robatto."

I'm not going to lie, this development left me more than a little dissatisfied, not just because of my girlfriends' jabs at me (be they intentional or inadvertent), but because while Josh's assertion was technically correct, the way he came to his conclusion was completely illogical and even ignored the bread-crumb trail I left for them to follow. It was ever so slightly absolutely aggravating. But then again, there was no point crying over spilled clues, so I let the whole thing go with a small, dejected sigh that nobody noticed.

"I see," Armband Guy spoke softly, and after taking a long breath, he suddenly raised his voice. "This was our suspicion as well. Since you have come to this conclusion independently, I believe I can explain to you part of the reason behind my arrival. For you see, out of everyone on the island, you were the ones who interacted the most with the aforementioned Doctor Robatto, so the Lord felt it was prudent to ask about your opinion before we jumped to conclusions. Thank you for your cooperation."

"You're welcome," Josh responded just a little flippantly, but before he could add anything else, his spotlight was taken by his childhood friend again, as she leaned forward and did her whole investigative journalist routine, invisible mike and all.

"You said that was part of the reason. Is there something else you are not telling us?"

"As a matter of fact, no, since I am going to tell you right now."

"Oh…" Angie was taken aback for a moment, but then her enthusiasm flared up again like a propane torch in a storm. "Out with it then!"

"I am here to deliver a warning," Pascal proclaimed with tremendous gravitas, made only slightly comical by the fighting game music still blaring from the TV in the background. "Due to this incident, the Assembly decided to lock down the island. No one may leave without our knowledge and permission. We are afraid that the Research Society, once they discover they are trapped on the island, might grow desperate and target you again."

"How is that different from everything being the same as usual?" I blurted out without too much thinking, but Armband Guy only shook his head without taking offense.

"Trust me, it is. I recommend requesting asylum in the School until the agents of the Assembly arrive and capture the perpetrators."

"Oh?" This time I outright scoffed as I raised a brow. "So when we were constantly being targeted by ambushes, you couldn't spare the manpower, but the moment someone stole Lord Grandpa's liqueur cabinet, you guys immediately swing into action and offer us shelter. Doesn't that strike you as inconsistent?"

"The circumstances are wildly different," Armband Guy rebuked me with a sour bend in his lips, then after a moment of thinking he quickly added, "Also, this has nothing to do with the liqueur."

"If you say so," I responded with an irreverent shrug before swinging back into the offensive again. "More importantly though, considering our track record of keeping that dastardly Labcoat Guy and his rascally robots in bay, especially compared to yours, I honestly don't see any merit in asking for your protection."

"The School possesses the most powerful wards and the tightest security system on the entire island."

"I'm sure it must be super-impressive! I mean, it's not like a certain Abyssal Lord and his mistreated sister managed to successfully lock down the school grounds and summon a gate to the Abyss. Or that a ridiculous-looking mad scientist could break into the heart of your compound and waltz away with the prized liqueur collection of the freaking Arch-Mage of the island."

"… Why are you so fixated on the liqueur cabinet?" the class rep abruptly interjected, and I gave her the flattest look I have ever flatted.

"Because the fact that someone could steal an entire cabinet full of booze from under the nose of the 'tightest security system on the island' is absolutely hilarious," I responded with just a hint of pride in my voice, but only Judy was aware of it, at least if the way she immediately rolled her eyes was any indication.

"Sorry Ammy, he got you there," Josh came to my support like a good friend should, and he raised his hand to his face and held his thumb and index finger a coin's width apart. "It's a liiiitle hilarious."

For a change, the target of the class rep's menacing glasses tweaking wasn't me, but Josh either didn't understand the meaning behind the gesture, or he got used to it over the years, as he immediately laughed it off. In the meantime, Armband Guy slowly shook his head and addressed me again.

"The Lord told me you would most likely react like that."

"Did he now?" I raised a single brow on incredulity, and Pascal gave me a stiff nod right away.

"Indeed. It was because of this that he ordered me to guard you until the current crisis was resolved."

"Guard us?"

The incredulous question came from the class rep of all people, and for once, I had to completely agree with her.

"So, just to make sure I get this right," I spoke up with a raised voice. "When we were definitely under attack by a bunch of mechanical misfits, you couldn't spare the manpower to look after us, but now that we might be targeted by that scaaary scientific simpleton and his gaggle of goofball goons, now we must have a bodyguard."

"… Yes. That is precisely what I am telling you."

"Oh… Okay, just checking."

After that, there was a long moment of awkward silence in the room while no one knew what to say. It was situations like these where an overly enthusiastic genki-girl was useful to lighten the mood, so I signaled at Angie with my eyes, and she got the message right away.

"Hey! Hey! So, what are you planning to do? Are you going to just stand on the side with a stoic expression? Like those agents in the movies? You know, the ones that protect the president and stuff?"

"That was the plan…" Pascal confirmed just a tad awkwardly, and my friend immediately shook his head.

"No way. Having someone looking after us like that sounds awkward as hell."

"It's not that bad," Elly commented with a thoughtful expression, and when she noticed the others were giving her doubtful looks, she hastily clarified herself. "Our family often hired bodyguards, so I'm already used to people like them. They are just part of the scenery."

"Maybe for you, princess, but none of us had bodyguards to get used to them like that," I gently explained to her, but she immediately retaliated with a smug little smirk.

"All the better! You should consider this part of your groom training!" She let out a triumphant chuckle, but then she gasped and pointed at my other girlfriend in turn. "The same goes for Judy too!"

"I'm not your groom," my dear assistant deadpanned back at her, but it wasn't enough to break her moment.

"I fail to follow this conversation," Pascal stated with an odd expression.

"You'll get used to that if you hang out around us long enough," Ammy told him with a self-deprecating smile, which only made the guy even more confused.

"Never mind that," Josh suddenly cut in with a smile that said he just had a great idea. "So, since we can't have you just standing around, there is only one thing left to ask!"

"Which is?" Armband Guy asked back with a guarded frown.

"How good are you at Street Kombat?"

"… The game?"

"What else?"

Our guest slash self-appointed bodyguard fell silent for a moment, but then he stated, "I used to play the original in the arcade a lot back in middle school."

"Were you good at it?"

"It has been a while, but I reckon I could beat you guys with one hand behind my back."

"Oooo! Oooo hooo hooo!" Josh's lips parted in a wolfish grin at the guy's flippant answer, and he raised his hand and pointed a controller at him like a famous defense attorney before declaring, "Those are fighting words, pal! Come over here, and I'll have you eat them!"

"It is your funeral," Pascal shrugged in the company of a rare smile and promptly got up and walked over to the TV. He grabbed hold of the offered controller and sat down onto one of the cushions followed by my unusually fired-up friend, and a moment later, they were already on the character select screen.

"… The heck just happened?" I asked no one in particular, but my assistant, who exploited the fact that the space beside me got vacated and moved over, answered it all the same.

"I believe it's the beginning of a hot-blooded manly friendship."

Hearing her idea, my eyes involuntarily narrowed into a squint, and after a moment of thinking, I whispered back.

"Are you sure it's not just Josh's aura?"

"Not entirely impossible. We need to gather more data on the subject," she whispered back, only to then loudly clear her throat and grab hold of my sleeve. "Sorry, Elly, but I have to borrow the Chief for a moment. It's important."

"Oh… okay then," my other girlfriend reluctantly untangled our fingers, and before I knew it, I was already being dragged out of the living room and into the kitchen (though again, 'gently being led while Judy acted like she was hauling a mountain' was more accurate, but I digress).

Once we arrived, my assistant went as far as to close the door behind us, and once she was sure nobody could see or hear us, he looked me in the eyes and let out a tired sigh.

"Chief. Please tell me what you did last night?"

"Do you really want to know?"

She lowered her voice even further, and whispered, "No matter what you say, I promise I won't kick you."

"… That was very specific."

"Chief…" she stressed the word, further emphasized by an unholy mixture of a threatening frown over a pair of puppy-eyes.

"Oh, fine," I finally relented and told her all about my misadventures in Lord Grandpa's office.

…

Needless to say, I got kicked anyway.