"... and that concludes my explanation of the current situation."

The moment Judy declared so, my living room burst into a mixture of surprised, excited, and occasionally indignant murmurs. On one side, Ammy and Angie were aghast. On the other side, Elly and Snowy were mildly perturbed by the news. Josh was… well, he was zoned out at the moment. Couldn't blame him, even I was a little exhausted after Judy's info dump, to the point I pretty much melted into my comfy chair like a deflated balloon. As for why we were in my house again, that is a tale for... well, I wanted to say another time, but really, why delay the inevitable exposition, am I right?

Seriously though, it all started a long, long few hours ago, in a Josh's house far, far away, and as with all great epics, it began with a tale of conflict as old as time: a powerful man defeating and humiliating a less powerful individual… in a sixteen-bit video game. This momentous and highly dramatic event of mythic proportions naturally resulted in a declaration of an eternal rivalry of the hot-blooded variety that would echo down the ages, or some such. I'm not entirely clear on the details, as I was being interrogated by my very own Spanish Inquisition at the time, but the way Josh recounted the event, it might as well have been one of those ancient Greek classics.

Anyhow, back to the inquisition part: once she made me confess all my sins, Judy decided that we needed to have an emergency meeting to discuss what to do with, among other things, the resident mad scientist, the captive Celestial, and the missing liqueur cabinet, not necessarily in that order of importance. Of course we couldn't exactly do that with Armband Guy loitering around us, so after some leading questions, we (read: me alone, because the others couldn't read the mood if it was written in 72px Arial Black) successfully convinced him that if he was worried about a surprise attack on our group, my house with Snowy's warding around it was by far the safest place for us to stay.

The thing is, I've completely underestimated just how seriously he took his body-guarding duties, as he acted so much like a professional that even Elly was impressed. He planned out the safest route to my place, gave instructions about how we should line up based on whether we were more offensive or defensive-oriented, and the way he was constantly scanning our vicinity for threats on the way was the spitting image of an especially skittish meerkat.

Oh, and before I forget it: I finally discovered his power set! Apparently, Armband Guy specialized in the Negation branch of Abjuration, which in layman's terms meant he used a whole lot of barriers and force fields, mostly the semi-transparent bubble variety, though he also showed off a few fancy hexagonal shields as well. It was slightly unexpected, but when I mentioned to Judy that this was usually the playing field of a tropey archetype called the Barrier Maiden, she only rolled her eyes and told me to stop tempting fate. I was more than a little baffled by her reaction, as even if her interpretation of the Narrative could be influenced by somehow 'tempting fate' like this, I doubt it would lead to Pascal suddenly changing his gender overnight to match the trope. That said, she didn't elaborate, so I didn't dwell on it for too long either.

Where was I? Oh, right, our trek to my house. So, after frequent stops and a whole lot of obnoxious safety measures forced on us, we successfully arrived at my place, just in time for the rain to finally stop. Then came the next problem: how do we get rid of Armband Guy without raising suspicion? No, wait. Let me rephrase that: how do I get rid of him without giving a single damn about suspiciousness? As it turned out, very easily.

As such, after treating him to a customary cup of hot drink, I promptly kicked him out by invoking the 'my house is my castle' rule, meaning I could expel whoever I wanted, whenever I wanted. He took it surprisingly well, and based on later Far Sight observations, he kept patrolling around the neighborhood with unwavering determination. I'm not going to lie, I found his dedication a tiny bit commendable. Not enough to substantially raise my opinion of him, but enough to feel a little sorry for him being ordered to go on a wild goose chase like that. I wondered, maybe I should Phase over after the meeting and give him another warm drink. Or make some 'Kihihi!' noises to liven up his uneventful afternoon. One or the other.

But speaking of the meeting, let's return to the present, where the initial commotion over my assistant airing some of my dirty laundry finally settled down into an apprehensive and just mildly judgmental silence. That last part was mostly due to the class rep. Shocking, I know.

"So, you've been busy," Josh spoke up in a jovial voice in an obvious attempt to ease the mood. It didn't really work.

"This is not the time to joke around!" The vehement rebuttal naturally came from Ammy, and she immediately proceeded to send me the mother of all menacing glasses-tweaks. "If this is all true, we have to do something about Robatto!"

"Do we?"

My sister's innocent question was met with a frown so fierce it made her shrink back right away. Not that it took much to make her do so, so the class rep's expression was definitely an overkill.

"Of course we have to!" she declared, her voice all but dripping with indignation.

"I don't know," Josh raised his voice at once as he unsubtly came to my sister's defense, his arms already crossed in front of his chest and one brow raised high. "We did our best yesterday, but we couldn't catch the guy. Now we don't even know where he is."

"We actually do." Upon her interruption, Josh's curious brow was immediately aimed at my assistant, and after a long beat, she amended, "And by that, I mean that the Chief knows where he is."

"Of course he does," Ammy grumbled under her breath, but before she could question me, Josh spoke up again.

"Even so, I don't see why we can't just leave it to your people." That comment earned him the dreaded Class Rep Glare™, so he hastily added, "I mean, we could just tell your grandfather where Robatto's hiding, and then have him take care of them."

"Weren't you listening!?" Ammy's voice actually broke for a moment, so a quick clearing of the throat was necessary before she could continue with an equally heated, "They have Michael, and since someone decided to somehow fake a note in Celestial Script at the scene of the biggest heist in the history of the Assembly, he's going to be arrested on the spot!"

"So?" Josh blurted out quite bluntly, much to my surprise.

"He's innocent. We can't let him get caught up in this," Ammy stressed while subtly averting her eyes, something that didn't escape either mine or Josh's notice.

"Right! We have to save him!"

The in retrospect not too unexpected call of support came from Angie. She clenched both her fists in front of her, and her face was overflowing with determination to the point it formed a small, illusionary puddle under her. Josh still looked skeptical of the prospect, so she faced him right away.

"Mike is my dad's second cousin's stepson! He's practically family!"

"How many times removed is that?" I wondered, only to be dismissed out of hand by her.

"He's family all the same! We have to rescue him!"

"Fine, whatever. He's your relative then," Josh finally relented with the grudging grousing of an ornery mule, and then after a short while he turned to Ammy again. "Is his situation really that bad? Can't you just ask your grandfather to let him go after he was captured, or recaptured, or whatever?"

"It's not that simple," she responded in a dour voice and sent a sharp glance my way. "A certain someone stole one of the most important relics of the Magi from grandfather's office. He's keeping the scope of the incident under wraps for the moment, but the rest of the Assembly is already preparing to send specialists to look into the situation. If they learn that one of the Grimoire Keys was taken from under grandfather's watch, it will greatly affect his standing; he might even lose his position in the Assembly. Now consider that our School is mainly a research institute, with the only two combat-ready members being grandfather and Pascal, which means they would have to be the ones to assault Robatto's hideout. Considering all that, do you really think he's going to be in the mood to negotiate the release of a Celestial captive involved in the incident?"

"If you put it like that…" Josh mumbled under his breath as the last of his resistance crumbled.

"I think we should help him too," came the next unexpected comment from my sister of all people.

"You do?" I blurted out in surprise while unconsciously mimicking Josh's expert eyebrow technique, and she immediately nodded in the affirmative. Her answer, on the other hand, was slightly less confident.

"I-I mean... They are the bad guys, right?" The rest of us shared an odd look between each other at this point, but for the time being, I gave her the benefit of the doubt in that she was getting to a point, so I gestured for her to continue. "If they are the baddies, and if we fight against them, that makes us the good guys, right?"

That was a slightly dubious conclusion, but I figured this wasn't the time or place to discuss the nuances of moral relativism, so I gave her a small nod. Snowy let out a pent-up breath, as if she just overcame a serious hurdle.

"Then, if we are the good guys, isn't it our job to defeat the bad guys and rescue the people caught up in the conflict?"

Her rhetorical question was met with a long beat of silence, followed by a still grumpy Josh muttering, "Well, I can't really argue with that."

Once again, I felt like there were plenty of good arguments to be made here, but I decided to stay silent and let the others work this out among themselves.

"Let's put it to the vote!" my draconic girlfriend proposed at once, with a serious face that said this was the most logical idea in the world and she wouldn't hear anything to the contrary.

"Sure," Ammy agreed before I could even react and raised her hand. "All in favor of capturing Robatto and rescuing Michael, raise your hand."

"I'm for!" Angie came forth at once, raising both arms and waving them with enough enthusiasm for three people.

"I suppose I'm in too."

Josh's half-hearted reply and equally limp raised hand was still met with a high five from his childhood friend. The next member of our group raising her hand was naturally Snowy, and while she didn't get a palm-slap of her own, Angie was about as happy about her decision as when Josh entered the fold.

That left only me and my girlfriends. The way the two of them looked at me said they could go either way depending on my decision, and the trust they placed in me would've been fairly heartwarming if not for the fact that we were at three against four, so the vote was already decided.

"Sure, let's do it."

My agreement was met with exhalations so relieved they were honestly a little off-putting. I mean, what difference would it make if I said no? While I tried to logic out the reason for my friends' reaction, Elly also raised her hand high.

"If Leo's in, then I'll help too!"

"I can't do much, but for the sake of completion, let me also throw a 'yay' into the ballot," Judy proclaimed, thus closing the vote.

"Great." Ammy's single word had a surprising amount of gravitas behind it, and for a moment it seemed like things would calm down a little. Then she dropped a bombshell. "When are we setting out? Do we wait until dusk?"

"Wait! Hold your horses for just a minute!" She fell silent the moment I raised my voice, and her hand was already in the process of reaching for her glasses when I continued with, "You seriously want to do it today? Without any plans?"

"We have to," she argued back at me in the company of a displeased frown.

"But why though?" I challenged her right back, and she rolled her eyes as if I just asked an oblivious question.

"The agents of the Assembly could arrive at any moment. We have to resolve this on our own, and a soon as possible."

"I agree with Ammy." I glanced at the source of the class rep's unlikely supporter, and when he noticed my gaze, Josh simply shrugged his shoulders. "I mean, if we decided to do it, we might as well do it ASAP and put his whole Robatto and Michael business behind us."

"I wholeheartedly agree with the previous speaker," Angie exclaimed with her usual brand of enthusiasm, and she raised her hand high. For a moment I thought she was fishing for another high-five, but then she proclaimed, "All who are in favor, raise your hand!"

"Hold on... we didn't put this up to vote," I protested, only to get summarily disregarded when Ammy added to the momentum by raising her hand.

"Now it is. Who else is with us?"

"As I said, I'm still in," Josh joined the fray with one palm held high.

"Oh come on! At least try to pretend you have a plan before you jump in!"

"We had a plan the last time, and Robatto still got away," Josh noted without letting his hand down.

"Right, which means we would have even less of a chance to catch him if we try it without any preparations. For example, I doubt you could convince Pascal to join us out of the blue. In the worst-case scenario, he might even get in the way, or report it to Lord Grandpa."

"And that's why we can't tell him," Ammy told me, and this time it was my turn to send a frown in her way. "Even if he wouldn't tell grandfather right away, Pascal would not let Michael go. If that happened, we'd be back to square one."

"Then what? Just do this on our own without any backup?"

"I could ask uncle Brang for support?" Snowy suggested in an uncertain voice, but the class rep quickly dismissed her idea with a shake of her head.

"No, they are too conspicuous. If Robatto saw them during the assault, he would certainly talk about them during the interrogation."

"You're right. That would be hard to explain," my sister granted her without any resistance. I, on the other hand, couldn't help but exhale a short yet decidedly lung-rattling groan.

"So let me see if I got this straight," I said in a low voice as my hand unconsciously rose to my head to massage my temple. "You want to rush in and assault Labcoat Guy's hidey-hole without any plan, without help from Armband Guy, and without involving the Faun in any shape or form. What exactly makes you think things are going to turn out better than the last time like that?"

"You would be there?" Josh answered with an honest grin that gave me a pause for a moment.

"I don't think that would make as much of a difference as you think," I answered just a tad dourly, but it didn't stop my friends to keep looking at me with expectant eyes.

"I think it would, actually," Ammy noted on the side, drawing my attention.

"And in that case, you would be wrong," I told her flatly, but the atmosphere refused to change. I glanced over everyone present one at a time, and at last my eyes landed on Judy. I closed my eyes for a second, then after a long breath later I rose to my feet and pointed at her. "Okay, I need some time out to think this through. Dormouse, please come along."

"Sure," Judy responded without missing a beat and slipped her phone into her pocket.

"Just the two of you?" Elly asked with puppy eyes, but unfortunately this wasn't something where I could compromise, so I planted an apologetic peck on her forehead. It wasn't a perfect solution, but for the time being it calmed her down enough.

"Sorry, but this is a tactical discussion."

"Didn't you already have one at my place?" Josh mused, and before I could answer, Ammy also joined the fray.

"Right. Also, if it's 'tactical, isn't it all the more reason why you should do it where we can also contribute."

"No," I told her, and when she looked like he was getting ready to argue back, I added a stern, "And that's final."

In the meantime Judy got ready, so I gestured for her to follow after me, and we walked over to my teleportation closet while staunchly ignoring the scrutinizing eyes following us. I opened the door, and my dear assistant walked right in. Once we were inside, she turned on her heels and gave me a questioning glance, but I shook my head and wrapped my Phantom Limb around her.

A few moments later we both walked out into the reception room of the secret base, and after a few steps, Judy repeated the whole 'turning on her heels' thing, but this time she straight up asked me.

"What's the problem?"

"You mean besides the way things are developing at the speed of a runaway freight train?" She didn't appreciate my snappy answer, so I took a deep breath and reiterated. "What I was trying to say was, I'd like to ask about your opinion on the situation."

"Narrative implications included?"

"Naturally. Why else would I take you over here?"

"Noted," she responded with a nod, and then she casually took his phone out again. While she did that, we walked over to one of the padded benches and sat down.

"First and foremost, I wanted to hear what you think about the whole impromptu operation. Do you think we should go through with it the way Ammy wants to?"

"Since when did you ask for my permission to jump head-first into risky affairs?"

"Come on, Dormouse. Not now," I chided her, but she seemed entirely serious, so after a short while I gave up and told her, "Listen, I admit that I might've taken a few slightly dangerous options in the past couple of days, but this situation is on a different level entirely. We are no longer dealing with sentai-shenanigans. There's no longer a contract holding Labcoat Guy and his posse back, and Ammy in her hurry to rescue Mike has already cut off most of our safety nets. If we do this, the guys might get hurt, or worse."

"I think I'm starting to see where you are coming from," Judy noted, and then fell silent for a long while. "Before we discuss anything else, do you have an alternative way of dealing with the situation?"

"Honestly, I was planning on framing Labcoat Guy and then letting him and Lord Grandpa duke it out between each other, and then deal with the fallout of Mike later. What I didn't expect was that taking the Grimoire Key would escalate things so much."

"You should have."

"Hey, give me some slack. Hindsight is always 20/20." My protests fell on deaf ears, so I decided to move the conversation along by saying, "Anyhow, while my original plan could still be executed, I would have to smuggle Mike out before the confrontation between the two, and I can't do it without revealing my Phasing ability."

"You shouldn't do that in front of a Celestial agent."

"I know, that's why I haven't done it. It's still my emergency plan in case the guy was in danger, but for the time being, he is safe, if confined."

"So in the end rescuing him the old-fashioned way is the only reasonable option?"

"Yeah, I just don't know why it has to be us," I paused here for a moment as a new idea sprouted in the back of my mind, and asked, "Do you think it's a bad idea to leak his capture to the Celestials?"

"Depends. Is causing a scandal between the supernatural superpowers and a possible three-way battle a bad idea?"

"… In that case, scratch that. What other options do we have?"

"Chief, I'm sorry to say this, but this is a bed you made. You must lie in it."

"Can't you say anything reassuring today?"

"I would love to, but no, I can't."

"Well… darn."

After that exchange, we both fell silent for a subjectively long time. I was just about to consider my options for the third time when Judy poked me in the elbow to draw my attention.

"Why don't you just go along with the others?" My expression was probably pretty odd at this moment, as she also added, "It seems like the Narrative really wants you to do this. They too."

"Yeah, and it's creeping me out. I mean, the latter, not the possibility of things escalating because the Narrative is on the verge of having a blue screen of death. Have you seen how they were looking at my reactions? It's almost as if they thought suddenly everything would work out if they got me involved."

"That's not 'almost', it's literally what they think."

"Yes, and th—" I began, only to stop with my mouth halfway open. "Excuse me, but could you repeat that?"

"They really think that if you were with them, things would go smoothly."

"… And how do you know that, if I may ask?"

"Amelia said so, and Angeline also agreed. They also think that the reason why they couldn't catch Robatto the first time around was because you weren't around."

"That's just silly."

My dear assistant looked me in the eye for a moment, and then she declared, "Chief, please stop avoiding your responsibility. You've acted as the group's leader from the beginning, and there is nothing silly about them trying to rely on you."

"Yeah, but I never really tried to be the leader on purpose. I'd prefer if Josh, or even Ammy, would step up to the plate instead."

"Well, I never wanted to live in an artificial world and would've preferred if I could have you for myself in a monogamous relationship, but sometimes you just have to work with the hand that life dealt you."

We kept looking eye to eye for a while longer, but at last I had to give up, and after looking up at the ceiling I muttered, "To quote a famous harem protagonist, I really can't argue with that."

"You better not. Otherwise, I would have to kick you."

"Oh the horror," I responded in a dull voice and then exhaled sharply through my nose to clear my thoughts. "Fine, I'll pretend to be a responsible leader-type for the time being. Now let's move on to the second part of our discussion: how would you describe the current situation on tropey terms, and how did we end up with it?"

"I have a hypothesis," Judy declared with a new sense of vigor in her voice. "I think the current arc is being aborted."

"Ooookay. Please elaborate."

"We've already discussed this in the past, but in my opinion, the Narrative operates on the basis of plot arcs. I believe that with your latest stunt, you messed up the current arc centered around Friedrich Günther Wissenschaftler and Lord Amadeus Endymonion past the point of recovery, so the Narrative is cutting its losses before it would start affecting future arcs."

"In other words, the thing we joked about the last time kind of came true… Does that count as tempting fate?"

"Probably, but stay focused," Judy reproached me with a huff. "If the current situation really is the result of an arc being aborted, then there are a few things we should look out for."

"Such as extensive info-dumps about the antagonist's tragic backstory and revealing all the special abilities and power-ups they were supposed to unveil over the arc all at once?"

"Precisely," she stated with a nod, and for a moment I was lost for words.

"I… was actually half-joking about that."

"It doesn't make what you said any less accurate. It is likely that in this confrontation, the Research Society is going to reveal all of their hidden cards and go out with a blaze of glory."

What she said made a certain kind of sense, at least as far as fiction was concerned. When a story gets axed for one reason or the other, authors often try to condense as much of the original story they dreamed up into the premature finale as they could. If Judy's idea was even in the ballpark of the truth, then it wasn't unreasonable to expect that Labcoat Guy would pull out all the stoppers and reveal all the hidden aces up his sleeve he was supposed to use one at a time over his time in the limelight. But then again, this was hardly any different from simply being cornered and being forced to use everything at his disposal, but that was probably only my inner Watsonian argumentator speaking.

While I was considering all that, the door leading into the main hall of the secret base opened to a crack and one of the Faun cautiously poked his head through. He glanced around and straight up froze the moment he noticed us. After a long moment of silence, he hastily threw the door open and walked over with rushed steps, only to come to a screeching halt in front of us and give us a salute. Now that he was closer, I finally recognized that it was Vurrok, but before I could greet him, he lowered his head to the point I thought he was about to get down on all fours.

"[Please forgive me, my lord. I did not expect your arrival.]"

I gave him a wry look, and told him, "Don't apologize; you were on anchor duty like you were supposed to."

He let out a relieved grunt in response and finally straightened his back. Seriously though, will I have to order each one of them to stop calling me 'my lord' individually? Well, that was a concern for another time, and since he was already here, I decided to put the Faun to good use.

"On a separate note, could you get me a spear?"

"[You mean… that spear?]" he asked back, a little uncertainly, and I immediately shook my head.

"No, of course not. I'm talking about the back-up spear in the armory. Please bring it to me; I'm going to need it later today."

"[Your wish is my command, my lord!]" he exclaimed, and he immediately turned in place and practically jogged out of the room.

Once he was outside, Judy finally stopped trying to hide behind me while I was still sitting on the bench, and after she fixed up her skirt, she asked me in a voice so artificially nonchalant it almost hurt my ears.

"If you're asking for a weapon, I suppose you decided to go along with the Narrative."

After a moment of thinking, I slowly shook my head, and with my mouth already set in a sly smile I told her, "Do you really take me for someone who would just let some tropey crap dictate my life?"

"I was under the impression that you also wanted to get rid of Friedrich Günther Wissenschaftler and any chance of a genre shift."

"Yes," I confirmed, with my smile growing even wider (and maybe just a tad sinister) as I appended, "but on my terms."