Where to begin, where to begin…?

Normally, the obvious answer was 'at the beginning, stupid', but there were too many different beginnings for such a simple answer to work. Still, I couldn't let the girls wait indefinitely, so I exhaled sharply and kicked things off in chronological order.

"Let's start with Archon Polemos, Deus, and the ancient Celestial civilization."

"Let's," Judy echoed me with a finger on her phone, and the princess looked just as expectant.

"Here's a quick primer on the history of the mystic-folk as we knew it until now: at first, there were the Phantasmal Creatures, Celestials, and humans. Out of the first group, only dragons got really involved with humanity, pretending to be polytheistic gods and whatnot, while Celestials mostly kept to themselves. Then, over centuries, the two groups got it on with each other, and the Abyssals as a race were born. Stuff happened, which I will elaborate on later, which led to the Celestials and the Abyssals going to war, with the dragons getting involved on the side, and it ended with the Abyssals getting locked up in the Abyss. Then the Celestials, led by Deus, retreated to the Elysium, while the dragons ran amok and made a bunch of Draconians, so the Celestials created the Brotherhood to crack down on them. Over a couple of centuries, the two sides wore each other down, and then the Magi stepped up to fill in the power vacuum, creating the Assembly. Are we clear so far?"

Judy nodded, while Elly just kept looking at me extra-expectantly.

"Okay, now let's discuss the twists and turns of this whole thing. First off, ancient Celestial civilization. From what I'd learned, it all goes back to ancient Greek times, and it developed on Critias. Make a note, Dormouse: apparently, Critias really is Atlantis by another, unsubtle name."

"Noted."

I watched her fingers dance on the touchscreen and only continued once I had her full attention again.

"Based on what I gathered, the chain of events went something like this: Celestials made contact with the early Greek city-states, adopted their aesthetics over time, made a bunch of colonies. You know? Ancient Mediterranean stuff. Then, some of them moved further east and made contact with the Mesopotamian civilizations of the era, and got involved with the dragons posing as deities over there."

"Is this the origin of the Abyssals?" Elly asked a pertinent question, and I nodded along.

"Yep, more or less. The funny thing is, they lived more-or-less peacefully for well over a thousand years before the war between the two, and it was related to power dynamics. Long story short, Celestials got weaker and shorter lived for some reason, probably genetics, while the Abyssals had draconic ancestry, so they naturally lived for much longer. Over time, this changed the demographics of Critias and caused some political instability. Are you with me so far?"

"I… think I am?" the princess whimpered, so I flashed a reassuring smile before returning to my explanation.

"All righty then. So, government. They were running a republican system, with something resembling a senate and a trio of elected Archons serving as the head of state."

"Oh, I remember this one from history class. It's ancient Athens, right?"

I gave Elly a shrug.

"I guess. Don't ask me which one came first, I have no freaking idea. Anyhow, since the demographics changed, Abyssals were gaining more and more seats over time. Finally, things reached a tipping point, and they not only got an Archon candidate, he actually won, and all he broke loose."

"How bad was it?"

I didn't even have to think about the answer to Judy's question.

"Oh, you know? Forty years of darkness, seas boiling, cats and dogs living together, mass hysteria, the whole nine yards."

The giggle coming from her told me Elly got the reference, while Judy only rolled her eyes and muttered something about how now she was sure I was still myself.

 "Seriously though, it fractured the entire society of the island. One side supported the elected Abyssal Archon, while the other Archons broke away and formed their own faction, declaring themselves the First and Second True Archons."

"In other words, Deus and Polemos."

"Spot on, Dormouse," I confirmed her conjecture and lightly clapped my hands. "Now, this is where things get really spicy. The Abyssals had a lot of clout, but they were still a minority on Critias, so when the civil war broke out, they were forced to flee to continental Europe, to join their draconic relatives, including the Abyssal Archon, while the loyalist Celestials returned to the island. After both sides collected their forces, there was a big war with big aerial dogfights involving dragons and proxy battles using humans and Draconians and everything in-between, and it intermittently lasted for nearly a century. In the end, both sides got tired of it, and there was a truce."

"W-Wait! Hold on! Slow down! Didn't you first say that the Abyssals lost?" Elly interjected, sounding genuinely confused.

"That's the funny part," I admitted while still pacing up and down. "Based on the memory fragments I've got in my head, I have an impression the Abyssals were winning the war, but considering the story was written down by the Celestials, they probably gave the story a facelift, and there were no Abyssals around to contradict them. In any case, the main contention, beyond the race-politics I don't want to get too deeply into, was that both sides deemed Critias as their homeland and wanted the other, 'illegitimate', side off of it. It was at this point that the Celestial side proposed a trade in exchange for an end of hostilities."

"Did it involve accepting the Abyssal Archon's legitimacy?"

"Hm? Nah, not that." Judy's eyes were still poised over her phone, so I curtly explained, "By this point, Deus and Polemos fully took over the government, and they were declared that only two Archons, in perpetuum, till the end of time. The third Archon's position didn't even exist anymore."

"Got it."

While Judy typed, Elly took the opportunity to raise her hand next.

"So if it wasn't about accepting the Abyssals, what did the Celestials offer them?"

"I'm glad to see you're paying attention. As I was saying, the war wasn't going well for the them, so they looked for a way out. Classic wunderwaffe stuff, from dragon-slaying sword prototypes to mini-mecha golems Fred would have a nerdgasm over. None of them proved to be a silver bullet, but near the end of the war, they figured out how to copy the island into a pocket space, and that intrigued the Abyssals. As part of the truce, they settled on a deal: both the Celestials and the Abyssals would get their own pocket-dimension version of the island, while the real Critias would serve as a sort of neutral holy ground between the two. It was a bit of a have-your-cake-but-eat-it-too solution, but I guess it just shows how fed up they had to be with the war to go for it."

"Question," Judy interrupted me with a hand raised. "What did the Abyssals give in exchange for that?"

"Idunno, I don't have that particular memory, but if I had to make an educated guess, I'd say the Mana Wells. Or maybe the technology to make them? They are used to anchor the pocket-spaces, I think, but it's hard to parse some of these fragments, so I'm not sure. More importantly, once the Celestials got what they wanted, they backstabbed the Abyssals."

"Shocking!" Elly exclaimed, and I'm not going to lie, with her track record of utmost appreciation when it came to tropes, I wasn't sure whether she was being sarcastic or not.

"Yes, quite. We already know the outcome, but just to be clear: the Abyssals were baited into the Abyss, along with most of their Celestial families and supporters, and then they were locked inside, while the stragglers outside were hunted down or had to go into hiding. Over time, they developed their own culture centered around the people in control of the Mana Wells, and the Abyssal Archon became the first and only Emperor.

In the meantime, the dragons were miffed by their descendants getting locked away, so just before the second round of the war could start, all the Celestials evacuated Critias and moved into the Elysium. Things are a bit more hazy after that point, but I'm pretty sure Deus died if old age, Polemos outlived him by a couple of decades, during which he reformed the government to his liking, and then before succumbing to old age, his memories were saved into this here sword-spear as a back-up plan, and that's how some of them ended up in my head."

"But… if this Polemos was so important, how come we never heard of him?"

"That's a good question," Judy followed up on Elly's inquiry with an intrigued glint in her eyes.

"Three reasons. Deus had better PR, being the cultural and political leader of the Celestials for something like two hundred years straight. Actually, scratch that; he technically still is, because of that whole 'Archon in perpetuum' thing. Secondly, Polemos was a gruff, no-nonsense military type who stayed in the shadow of Deus. Thirdly, and maybe most importantly, the latter was idolizing the former and actively helped to mythologize the man until he became the indefinitely-reigning leader and a religious icon for all Celestials, and to do that, he purposefully downplayed his own achievements."

He also might have been just a tiiiny bit gay for the guy, but the girls didn't need to know that. Hell, I wished I didn't know that, but thanks to the whole memory-bleed-in thing, I couldn't un-know it anymore.

"That concludes the history lesson. Any questions?"

Before the question even left my mouth, Judy's hand was already up in the air.

"Why wasn't any of this on the Celestial Hub?"

"It's because the Hub is being run by the Orthodox faction, and they don't want anyone to know this. Heck, Celestial history and Polemos had been obfuscated so much, I'm not even sure the average Celestial inside the Elysium is even properly aware of it."

"I see. You didn't mention anything about Deus' return, the prophecy, or the masquerade maintained by the Celestials. Can I presume that there's no major change in our understanding of those topics?"

"There are some minor clarifications, but I'll talk about those when we get to the current Celestial political landscape."

"I have a question too!" Elly raised her hand even higher than Judy's, so I gestured for her to speak up. "They think that you're Archon Polemos now, right?"

"… More or less," I responded a tad guardedly, recognizing the look in her eyes. It was the same as when I first told her about the Kage clan.

"Does that mean you're now the leader of all Celestials too? Are they going to join the Draconic Federation too? Do we need to rename it to something more generic? My vote is for 'Pan-Mystic Alliance'."

"You're jumping the gun, princess." For emphasis, I waved with both my palms for her to settle down. "The situation inside the Elysium is a bit too complicated for something like that to happen."

"Please elaborate."

Following Judy's prompting, I let my hands down and began pacing again.

"Here's the current situation in a nutshell: Polemos was a military leader, so the government he created was very hierarchical, and remained so to the present day. In theory, it is still led by two Archons, but because Deus and Polemos were declared to be the permanent holders of the titles, nobody was elected to replace them. The people at the top with actual power are the Board of Directors. They are kind of a mix of ministers and the leaders of the various branches of Celestial military."

"So it's a junta."

I considered Judy's interjection for a moment, and in the end, tentatively nodded.

"Sort of, except it didn't come to be through a coup d'état. In any case, it's certainly some flavor of militaristic oligarchy, with some religious undertones thanks to the whole Deus-worship thing going on."

"Noted."

True to her words, Judy continued to type as if her life depended on it, allowing the princess to speak up.

"Are these the Orthodox people you were talking about?"

"Yes, and no. On the surface, the Celestial leadership is united, but there are three different factions with differing ideologies among them.

The Orthodox are the oldest group, and they are the ones exemplifying what most people-in-the-know consider to be a 'baseline Celestial'. They venerate Deus, they try to keep everyone in check while waiting for his return, and they are the ones responsible for most of the spying, instigation, and other underhanded operations.

Then there's the Unorthodox faction, which was formed after the Abyssals managed to finagle their way back to realspace, and they're concerned with preparing for a second war with them.

The last group, the Reformists, are the newest faction, and their main goal is to modernize the Elysium and bring it up to current-day living standards.

For the record though, take all of this with a pinch of salt, because all my information about these groups came from Jaakobah, who has his own affiliations. He subtly implied that the Orthodox are ultra-conservative, scheming control-freaks who use Deus as an excuse to keep both the Elysium and the world in the dark, the Unorthodox are paranoid firebrands who want to nuke the Abyss and take over the world, not necessarily in that order, while the Reformists are nice guys who just want to help the poor and the downtrodden by introducing modern technologies like electricity and running water to the Elysium.

You can have three guesses about which group he belongs to."

"Sooo… You said you can't just assume a leadership position because there are multiple factions," Elly mused with a hand in the air. "Which one of these three is against the return of this Archon Polemos?"

"That's the problem. I have no idea. From what I gathered, there's a good chance all of them want me on their side."

"And that's a problem because…?" Judy prompted me while twirling her finger, so I let out a sigh and answered in a morose voice.

"Because when I messed with them, implying that Bel of the Abyss had already infiltrated the Celestial high command, it gave the Unorthodox faction fuel, tensions rose, the Directors jumped at the opportunity to get rid of their political opponents, it caused an internal shakeup, and right now the whole Celestial Directorate is just an inciting incident away from a civil war, so I can't thoughtlessly tip the scales before first figuring out who the good guys are."

"And that's why you need to stay in the Elysium," Judy stated with audible disapproval, but since I was already expecting it, I nodded on the spot.

"Exactly. I've only heard one side of the story so far, so I want to make sure I don't jump to conclusions and make a mistake I cannot undo."

We locked eyes for a few seconds, and I would be lying if I didn't say I felt a little guilty about leaving the whole situation with my disappearance and the Assembly on the girls' shoulders, but the last thing any of us needs right now is an outright supernatural war spilling on top of everything else.

"Fine. Just makes sure you'll stay safe, and if there's any sign of trouble, you should just come home," she compromised, and I agreed right away.

"I will, but it's going to be my last resort. The moment I publically returned as Leonard Dunning, I would permanently lose the opportunity to use the identity of Polemos to further infiltrate the Celestial leadership and learn about their plans, so I want to avoid it for as long as possible."

"Judy already warned you to stay safe, so I'll tell you to do your best instead!" the princess joined in with a fire in her eyes. "I bet they'll be ready to join the Pan-Mystic Alliance by the end of the week!"

"You're still jumping the gun, princess," I murmured in the company of a soft chuckle, and just as I thought that was the end of the topic, Judy cleared her throat to get our attention.

"Now that we're clear on the questions of the what and how, I think it's time to address the why."

"As in?"

"Why are you the Second True Archon Polemos," my dear assistant stated with an implied frown and put her phone aside for the moment. "We are on the Angie route, which means that the Celestial involvement was to be expected, but why are you who's getting involved instead of Joshua?"

"You mean, from a narrative perspective?" Elly placed a thoughtful finger on her lips, and tentatively proposed, "Maybe Leo really is meant to unite all the forces of the world of mystics under his banner? Why else would he gain another leadership position?"

"That is just something the Chief does, because forcing everyone to ally together is the easiest way to avoid annoying conflicts in the future."

"Guilty as charged," I admitted, and she let out a content hum before continuing.

"That is unlikely to be the Narrative's goal though, so there has to be something else. Just as how he being a secret Knight was most likely supposed to set up some kind of future conflict until we turned it on its head, this development should also have an angle like that. It should, in some shape or form, put him into a position where he could play a role in Joshua's story, most likely as an antagonist."

"But… weren't Deus and Polemos supposed to be allies and friends?" the princess pointed out, and I had to give her, it was a solid point. "If Josh is the reincarnation of Deus, how would Leo being Polemos make him into a bad guy?"

"I don't know, but I feel like we're missing something," Judy whispered, and she bit down on the finger of her right thumb while thinking. That could turn into a bad habit, so I carefully wrapped my hand around hers and pulled it away from her face.

"Well, I guess that's another thing I'll have to try and figure out while in the Elysium."

"Maybe," she granted, and squeezed my hand. "I should probably sleep on this."

"You do that. In the meantime, I'm going to do my best to turn this whole episode to work in our favor." Judy still looked conflicted, so I proposed a concession. "That said, I can't ignore the situation brewing on the island either, so let's arrange another emergency meeting, focused on keeping Percival in check and everything under control until I'm back. Please contact Roland for me."

"I hope he isn't the only one you want to talk to," my dear assistant commented a tad dully, and my other girlfriend also raised her voice in support.

"Right! You should at least call Neige and Penelope! They are worried sick!"

"I recommend involving the other Knights as well, while we're at it, if you want to Sir Percival isolated."

"And don't forget Naoren! I'll talk to Dad, but he really has to know what's going on with him and the Celestials."

"On the same note, Rinne should also be notified, so that they would stop looking for you in vain," Judy added, and it was at this point that I gave up and threw my hands into the air.

"Just call everyone, why don't you!"

"Actually, that would be the most straightforward way to deal with this situation," my dear assistant noted in a detached tone.

"In that case, I'll call Josh and Angie!" When we both turned a questioning gaze at her, the princess hastily explained, "You keep talking about how he's the protagonist and how this is her route and everything, so shouldn't they be involved in what's happening?"

"She has a point," Judy remarked in a pleasantly surprised tone, while I just sighed.

"Oh, fine. Let's get everyone up to speed then."

"Good choice. How do we contact you?"

"You can't. There's no phone reception over there, and while my Leoformer has the communication enchantment integrated into it, I doubt it works across the Elysium." Pausing for a beat, I considered my options. "I guess I'll just keep a close eye on you through Far Sight and visit as often as I can."

"I like that option," Elly beamed at me, but then a second later she blinked and asked, "By the way, I meant to ask this before, but what's a Leoformer?"

"It's what I call my personal Uniformer," I answered without any pretenses, yet my other girlfriend looked at me like she just bit into a lemon.

"Chief, I have said this before, but I feel obliged to say it again. Your naming sense is terrible."

"Oh, hush you," I chided her as I stepped closer and planted a kiss on top of her head. "I really should get going now, before someone notices I left my room."

"How long are you going to stay there?" the princess asked while unsubtly tilting her head forward, so I gave her a kiss on her noggin as well before I answered.

"I'll try to get to the bottom of this as soon as possible, before things get out of control. It'll probably take a couple of days. A week at worst."

"Your attendance record is going to suffer," Judy pointed out, drawing an eye roll out of me.

"That's pretty low on the priority list. I'll just ask Lord Grandpa to tweak the records for me or something." My joke failed to ease the tense atmosphere that settled onto the room, so I descended to one knee and caught both of my girlfriends in a big hug. "Don't worry, girls. I'll visit as much as possible."

"You better," Elly muttered as he hugged me back, and even though this would've been the perfect time for Judy to gripe about how I kept jumping into weird and dangerous situations, she remained conspicuously silent.

"You were just wondering why I wasn't nagging you, weren't you?"

"N-No, not at all."

Her question caught me off-guard, but before I could ask when she learned to read my mind, she also hugged me back and added, "I'm slowly getting to terms with the fact that you're impossible to keep out of trouble, so I don't even bother to try. Just promise me that you stay safe."

"It's still my middle name," I jested.

"Which you still don't have," she replied similarly.

After that, we stayed huddled together for close to a minute, until my legs started getting numb (they still haven't fully recovered), so I patted them on the back and stood up.

"Oh, before I leave, can I borrow your phone for a moment?"

My dear assistant was surprised by my request, but she obediently handed it over without me having to ask twice. Her phone had the same operating system as mine, so it only took me a few seconds to find a notepad app and type in two lines.

"My e-mail address and password for the Hub," I said as I handed her phone back to her. "Please play my role as Admin until I'm ready to come back. Just to be sure."

"Do I have anything to do?"

In response to the princess's question, I thoughtfully pinched my chin and soon shook my head.

"No, nothing else in particular. Just convey everything to dad-in-law, Naoren, and the others."

"That sounds plenty enough," Judy noted, and Elly agreed, with a determined spark in her eyes.

"You can leave that to me!"

I was tempted to lean over and give her a kiss, but if I did that, then I would've had to give Judy one too, and then we would've been bogged down in goodbyes for minutes on end. Instead, I flashed my best smile, waved them goodbye, and after they returned the gesture, I reappeared in the Elysium. I glanced up at the night sky over my head, and let out a long sigh before taking out my phone from my pocket and holding it out, along with the two swords, before I used a phantom limb to switch my Leoformer outfit to the Archon disguise.

As for why I was outside, the reason lay in the scene currently unfolding in front of my Far Sighted eyes. At the moment, the nearby tower was on full alert after, despite declaring himself my First Praetor, Jaakobah failed to stop the intrusion of one of the Celestial directors. Needless to say, my conspicuous absence was discovered right away, and now everyone and their mother's neighbor's dog was looking for me. Which meant…

"Welp. Time to create an alibi."

Accompanied by those words, I strapped the weapons to my sides again, put away my phone, and ventured into the settlement surrounding the ivory spire for the second time, except this time, in the open.