To say that the group was eclectic was an understatement. The big guy in the middle had his sword-and-board, while midriff-woman behind him was brandishing the same cutlass and handgun as before. On my right, sci-fi-guy had a long glaive with flat, curved blades on both ends, while tunic-guy was sporting a longbow that was as big as he was tall. On the other side, wetsuit-man had a pair of katars strapped to his wrists, while a previously unmentioned participant I promptly christened hammer-guy was… well, he carried a sledge-hammer the size of an engine-block. Quite self-explanatory.

Then, as if they had rehearsed this ahead of time, all of them started singing. It was a slow melody, an aria of some kind sung in Latin, or at the very least some kind of Romance language. If I paid close attention, I felt like I could vaguely understand the meaning of the lyrics, but I had no time to do that, as my danger sense started sending multiple warning signals to me at once.

Raising my right foot, I was just in time to avoid getting tangled by the glowing whip in uniform-dude's hand. Using Teeny for balance, I ducked out of the way of the two arrows fired at me, one from a bow and the other from midriff-woman's handgun, but before I could catch my breath, I could hear the thundering footsteps of armour-guy charging at me. He was just a second too late though, as by the time he got close, I regained my balance and simply pointed my spear at his face. He reflexively hid behind his shield, but it caused his momentum to falter just long enough for me to sidestep out of his way.

Unfortunately, that got me in the crosshairs of wetsuit-guy, and he leapt at me with his katars pointed forward. Once again, I only needed to extend my spear a little, delivering a feint at his face before pulling back and flourishing the weapon in my hand, using the other end to smack the top of his head. He managed to cross his forearm-mounted blades overhead, yet the impact still sent him reeling back, much to my surprise.

Long story short, without realizing it, I began to unconsciously ramp up the physical enchantments of my Leoformer. The output was a fraction of what my proper armour could provide, but it still gave my strikes some surprising heft. Regrettably, it also caused my right hand to throb and sting like I just put it in a nettle bush.

"Cal, status report," I hissed between clenched teeth as I swatted two small arrows out of the air, and then neatly bisected a third, larger one, right down the middle. I didn't plan to do that, but it looked pretty cool.

"[You're fighting against twelve mighty foes, young knight.]"

"Not that, you—! My hand! What's the situation with my hand?"

"[Oh. Hm. Your internal injury isn't getting worse, but I'd recommend that you practice restraint.]"

"I'll try," I whispered, my voice drowned out by the sound of my spear repeatedly clashing with sci-fi-guy's weird double-sided glaive as he did all kinds of weird, unpredictable break-dance moves while swinging it.

Luckily for me, uniform-guy choose this opportunity to lash out with his magical whip (or lasso, or whatever it was), and with just a little push at the right moment, I managed to easily entangle sci-fi-guy's weapon in it, temporarily taking both of them out of the fight.

Just as I was about to catch my breath, armour-guy burst forth from a blind spot on my left, and even with my sixth sense's forewarning, it took some effort to avoid his shield bash. For the first time, I was forced to retreat, and I assumed a more defensive posture. He didn't follow through with his charge though. Instead, he repeatedly smacked his sword against his own shield and exclaimed, "Start the canon!" from the top of his lungs.

For a long beat, half of the people fighting me fell silent, only to then sing the same song with a bit of a shift in the timing, and… was that just my imagination, or were they glowing even brighter than before?

Before I could give that question its due consideration, all twelve of them brought out their wings and started a new round of assault, this time led by wetsuit-guy and hammer-dude. It was an odd combination, considering one of them was continuously spinning his arms around like he was a human wood chipper, while the other seemed like he had a hard time swinging his weapon, delivering measured (and easy to avoid) strikes only every once in a while, made just slightly more difficult by the shooters and uniform-guy occasionally bothering me from a distance.

All things considered, I had to readjust my evaluation of these guys. While individually they were roughly on the level of our Fauns, while they were working together like this, they were… well, still on that level, but maybe with some Kage ninja support from the back? It was hard to tell, as it'd been a while since I last sparred with those guys a group, but that was the impression I got.

If there was just one small difference to mention, it was definitely the coordination between the members. The Celestials continuously weaved in and out of combat, only fighting me two or three at a time, while receiving fire support from the rest of the team, and there was a certain cadence this gave to the fight. In a way, it felt kind of like a dance, where everyone was already aware of the choreography but me, and I had to use my reflexes to keep up as much as I could.

…

Wait. Was this what the song was about? To help their timing?

"Second verse! Go, go, go!" Armour-dude bellowed from the back and began to rhythmically beat his shield, and as he did, the colourless magical light surrounding the group further intensified a notch. There had to be another effect of some kind to it, I surmised as I avoided facemask-guy's ball-and-chain trying to entangle my weapon (I didn't mention him until now, because he was a sneaky one). He had a strange sickle in his other hand, and I was pretty sure that whole thing was an actual Japanese weapon, but I couldn't recall the name of it, and instead I gave a solid kick to sci-fi-guy, presently spinning on his back with his weapon extended, like some kind of young mutated assassin tortoise or something.

Whatever this song's effects were, I had to admit it was pretty catchy. It had a solid melody that reminded me of one of those bands the princess recommended to me a while back. The one that covered popular rock- and metal songs, but with a Gregorian chorus. It wasn't exactly my cup of tea, but it was certainly memorable, and even as I listened to these guys, I couldn't help but unconsciously follow the beat, and… Oh, wait. Maybe that was the goal? To draw me into their rhythm? Because if it was, it kind of worked.

Of course, I knew that was bad for me, because it made me predictable, but it was hard to ignore. It wasn't due to some kind of magical effect or anything (though it might have been for them, considering that they had halos of magical light pulsing to the rhythm); just the beat being infectious. Luckily, this wasn't the first time I had to deal with an earworm, and I had a very simple solution: just listen to another song with a catchy tune until it overrides the first one.

That said, I didn't exactly have access to my usual music library, nor my phone to play it, so I had to improvise. Dodging another hail of arrow fire, I ducked under the hammer aimed at my chest, then rolled out of the way of armour-guy's next charge, only to be menaced by wetsuit-guy again, and… long story short I didn't have the time to think of a fitting song while trying to stay afloat. In the end, I went with the first thing that came to mind and started humming.

"Hm-hm hm-hm-hm hmmm~" As if timed for when I started, wetsuit-guy swung at me repeatedly, and I somehow ended up parrying each strike right on the note I was humming. Feeling strangely vindicated, I pushed my advantage, and before I knew it, the lyrics slipped through my teeth. "You know the rules and, so do I~"

"W-Watch out!" he cried out in something that was way closer to abject terror than it had any business to be. "He's using counter-hymn!"

"How!? He's alone!"

That question came from Kane of all people, watching us from the side-lines while clutching his own lapels for some inexplicable reason I was too busy to ponder. Pulling back my spear, I ignored the numbness in my right arm as I raised Teeny over my head, rested its shaft on my free palm, and, to the rhythm of 'I just wanna tell you how I'm feeling~', I delivered nine consecutive thrusts. They weren't aimed to kill, only to disorient, and while wetsuit-guy managed to block the first three or four of them by flailing his arms, he quickly lost his balance and fell over.

"No! Third verse! We need the third verse!" Armour-guy bellowed as he rushed in to support, and if we were talking about verses, I was just about to hit the chorus myself.

'Never gonna give you up~'

Parry the sword, poke the shield, stop the charge with a well-timed shoulder slam.

'Never gonna let you down~'

Use the momentum to close the gap, grab the arm with the sword, and throw him to the ground.

'Never gonna run around and desert you~'

Two steps back, cut the arrow coming my way, two more steps, smack the archer on the temple with the blunt end of my spear.

'Never gonna make you cry~'

Let uniform-guy wrap his whip around my weapon, and then use my physical enhancement to immediately yank him over and use him as a human shield to block the rapid-fire attacks of midriff woman.

'Never gonna say goodbye~'

Turn uniform guy into a projectile and knock facemask-guy out by throwing him right into his face, and with the same motion, sweep the legs out of under sci-fi-guy and then slam him into the ground with a vertical swing of my spear.

'Never gonna tell a lie and—'

"We… We yield!"

Grab midriff woman and… wait, what?

Blinking in mild surprise, I glanced at armour-guy, still lying on the ground and holding his right elbow. Did I injure him? And speaking of injuries, I glanced at my aching right arm, and at the end of it, I found midriff-woman dangling in the air, with my fingers clenched around her neck, her face turning redder by the second. Crap, that's actually pretty dangerous.

First things first, I let her down, and after making sure she could both breathe and stand on her own, I let her go with a shake of my hand and forcefully cleared my throat.

"Please excuse me. I've got a little too immersed in the beat."

I had no idea why I put it that way, as it sounded absolutely asinine even to my own ears, yet nobody in the room laughed. If anything, the construction workers were practically cheering, while Kane was… still nervously clutching the lapel of his military uniform. What was that about?

In the meantime, the people still standing helped the ones on the floor to their feet (with the exception of sci-fi-guy, who was out cold), and formed something resembling an orderly row in front of me. I'm not going to lie; I was feeling a tiny bit guilty about what happened, so I decided to put some salve on their bruised egos.

"Your performance was roughly what I expected. Your teamwork was decent, but your individual strength is nothing to write home about. With enough training, I suppose you might just make great warriors one day."

"Sir." Armour guy spoke up, this time without an accompanying salute, since his right arm was limply hanging by his side. "Please instruct us, so we may be worthy to serve you."

"I told you I don't need…" I began, only for my words to trail into silent consideration.

While I wasn't keen on these guys breathing down my neck, considering they were specifically chosen to monitor me, maybe having them around wasn't such a bad idea after all. Thinking about it, if I straight-out refused them, I was sure the directors would use other methods to keep tabs on me, and I was sure that, being the annoying espionage faction of the supernatural world, they had lots of means to annoy me. Wouldn't keeping my 'guards' around be one of those classic 'better the devil you know' kind of situations? And no, I wasn't saying this because I was feeling a pang of guilt over roughing them up more than initially intended. No sir.

That said, my Polemos character was supposed to be a hardass, so I remained silent a little longer, culminating in an irritated grunt.

"Fine. I'll look after you when I have the time," I stated, doing my best tsundere-old-guy-in-a-young-body impression (it wasn't hard, I just had to mimic Sebastian) and, after asking Teeny to return to its short sword form, I waved at the group and uttered a flat, "Dismissed."

My 'guards', looking relieved and proud in equal measure, stood ramrod straight and saluted me to the best of their abilities. In the meantime, Mike's father, who turned strangely meek since we entered this makeshift training facility, headed my way. Before he would reach me, I quickly placed my aching hand on the pommel of the sword on my right.

"Cal? Please tell me I didn't accidentally wreck my arm again…"

"[Very nearly, young knight! I told you to practice restraint, didn't I?]"

"Got caught up in the moment. How bad is it?"

"[It will take at least one more… no, two more weeks to fully heal! You need to take better care of yourself!]"

"[Recommendation: Interface:Cal's diagnostic systems seem to suffer from a dangerously wide bar for error. I recommend switching to Interface:Teeny's treatment subsystems.]"

"[Silence, wench! My young knight was talking to me, and I never gave you permission to refer to me so informally!]"

While my weapons descended into bickering, Kane reached my side. It was easy to tell that he was distinctly uncomfortable, and when he spoke up, there wasn't a hint of the previously audible hard edge remaining in his voice.

"It was a rather… extraordinary display of power, Lord Archon." He paused, clearly gauging my reaction, and when I didn't respond right away, he cleared his throat to ease the tension in the air. "So, if I understood your words right, you approve of your honour guard?"

"Approve is a strong word. For now, I'll tolerate their presence and watch over their growth."

"I'm sure they feel honoured, Lord Archon."

I wanted to question what he meant by that, but when I saw that the construction workers, who served as our audience, were practically lining up to congratulate my newly appointed 'honour guard', I felt that I mostly understood him after all. Caring was another matter entirely, and just as I was about to start thinking of a way to get away from this place before they started asking for 'pointers', or something equally asinine, a new face entered the hall, and I let out a relieved breath. I never expected that Jaakobah's dour mug would ever have such an effect on me, but as they say, strange situations create strange bedfellows.

"Great timing." I gestured for him to come over, and before he could get a word in, I pointed at the guards. "I want you to take care of these guys."

The stoic agent, or should I say, 'Praetorian Guard', spared a glance at the battered Celestials and turned a questioning gaze at me.

"Me?"

"Of course. Didn't you designate yourself as my personal guard? That makes you their commanding officer."

"I… suppose that's logical."

"Of course it is. With great promotion comes great responsibility." I paused for a beat to let that sink in and then pointed at the man on my left. "Work with Primus Khurshid to get them equipment, healers, and anything else they need. You're free to use my name in the process. I'll head back to my quarters. Report to me there after lunch."

"Understood. Do you require anything else?"

"No, that's—" Cutting myself short, I recalled something, and added, "Actually, there's one last thing. Please get me a bottle of the cheapest wine you can get your hands on," before I casually walked away, paying little heed to the non-honour-guards scrambling to catch up to me.