-Robby Fayn Beta-

“To think you are still helping out these people instead of defending your own kitchen with the others,” chastised Chef as I hurried with Mita to the spot where Daphne and Umi were fighting Clockwork Witchwork.

“I thought I told you to only keep me updated on what was going on, not telling me what to do,” I telepathically shot back with a scowl, gripping my Grand Key-empowered glaive and gun. I don’t see why Chef was chastising me about this, I was the weakest of the representatives, even Dux was stronger than me. Besides we had already agreed that if anything went south for me that the others would summon me away using the familiar contract toward me that was baked into Cheesecake Emporos-Museum’s Board of Representatives. And I fucking hated the feeling of getting summoned, seriously had no idea how spirits, familiars, and other summons could handle being squeezed through layers of reality like that. Or stand to be cooped up in their personal spaces.

“You okay?” asked Mita, noticing my scowl.

“Just Chef being annoying again.”

“Too think your system assistant is even more bossy than Robert’s… That’s just… well sucky.”

“You have no idea, now let’s just get this done with so I can get him to shut up.”

“If you think defeating the Glory Daze members will spare you then you are mistaken. The way you have been letting your emotions toward Mita and this Enigma simmer need to be addressed,” quipped Chef loudly. Yeah Mita was definitely right: I got the short end of the stick for naming my system assistant Chef instead of something more mild and appropriate like Sous.

Turning the corner, I could start to hear the sound of fighting that wasn’t between dark monsters and the monsters of my other self’s Enigma. From the sound of rapid rifle fire, Clockwork Witchwork was already in their fucked up giant black-and-white six winged angel mode. Let’s hope they are faring well enough without Mita’s gold.

“You think that because I am outside my system lair then you are sorely mistaken!” shouted the Glory Daze member as Mita and I entered the clearing between skyscrapers and high schools where they were all fighting: Tabitha and Margaret were both already there with the pair of dragons, but I couldn’t see a second Glory Daze member anywhere.

“Of course the first thing we hear is a bluff, what is this dude’s problem?” sighed Mita as he readied his forbidden magic-infused gold.

“Probably a lot of things,” I replied as I entered the fray, only to have to suddenly dodge a thrown Vertrala and Scorpius. Jesus christ, did this guy actually have a way to manipulate velocity on top of time dilations?

Rolling out of the way as the pair of dragons were sent tumbling into a nearby building, I watched as Mita went to throwing his chunks of gold and having them explode against near invisible fields of time and space. Let’s hope this works, I thought to myself as I lined up a shot through one of the holes: pulling the trigger, I watched as my phantasma of a bullet, Hundred Velo, soared straight into one of the Clockwork Witch’s wings. You wouldn’t think that a phantasma would come in the form of a hivemind spread across a hundred self-repairing bullets, but god damn were they useful when empowered by a Grand Key that doubled up as a giant mana reserve.

“Wow, a Robert with a gun that is actually useful in combat. Colour me impressed,” off-handedly complimented Daphne as she twirled and chucked half-formed spears overflowing in mana.

“I’m just… I’m just going to take that and go with it,” I replied before jumping back as an oversized hour hand whizzed toward where I was standing a second before. Solid pavement definitely made movement a hell of a lot easier than sand dunes and flying clock work gears. 

“This guy feels funny,” commented Hundred Velo from the back of my head and its bullet-body flew back toward me.

“I mean he’s a freaking anachronistic lifeform on top of an enlightened robotics, what were you expecting? Squishy flesh?” I noted, darting around the rim of the courtyard-esque clearing to avoid wild rifle fire and oversized hour hand projectiles. The Glory Daze member was screaming mad and definitely going all out, probably cause he had to deal with my cousin’s banes on top of Mita’s specialized anti-magic now. Dealing with two freaking dragons didn’t help.

“No, it’s like spell shields are being eaten up by something. From the inside.”

“Wait what?” Pausing for a split second, I got hit by a stray thing of rifle fire. Wincing from the pain, I saw that it was only a grazing blow that managed to break my passive spell shield: still was going to leave a mark in the morning.

“Yeah, it ate me up a little bit too,” continued the bullet phantasma as Vertrala and Scorpius entered into another tussle with the now slowed down Clockwork Witchwork. Did they have some sort of self-cannibalizing magic? That made no sense though, if your style of spellcraft was cursed or forbidden magic based, you generally used all the fucked stuff you had at your disposal.

Trying to figure out what the hell the pathological liar of a Glory Dazy member was hiding, I went back to circling around the clearing to avoid getting hit. It was obvious that Clockwork Witchwork was getting more desperate as he sunk his hour hand projectiles into the dragons in a vain attempt to pry them off.

With the six of us focus firing the giant transformed enlightened robotics, it was becoming more obvious that we were the winning side, especially since Daphne and Umi were playing interference for the less mobile Mita and Tabitha. But I still couldn’t feel easy, even as I fired Hundred Velo over and over again to pepper the Glory Daze member, something felt off. It wasn’t cause they were a recursive mage or anachronistic lifeform cause that was a different type of uneasy. And it wasn’t like we were going to get ambushed by dark monsters cause from the looks of it either my other self or Johari had already managed to restore one of the dungeon cores.

“I lost another bullet. I have eight more you can use still,” apologized Hundred Velo as another piece of him disappeared inside Clockwork Witchwork’s body. Even with all the potshots I was getting, I was down two bullets and the two dragons were doing a bulk of the work.

“The magic is rotten,” quipped Chef out of the blue as I jumped over and down a concrete fence toward the center part of the clearing. 

“No kidding,” I shot back before realizing that he was actually observing what was going on. “Wait… are you analyzing their magic right now?”

“Analyzing is a poor choice of words, whenever I try to taste the magic through Hundred Velo, all the wills, not just karma, stop me.”

“What the fuck! All of them?!” Okay something seriously wasn’t adding up: karma fucking with information was one thing, karma and another will fucking with information was another thing, but all fifteen of them?

“Yes, it is distressing to think the entire metaverse doesn’t want me to discover the ingredients being used. I can not tell if it is that tantalizing or stomach upsetting,” answered Chef as I darted to the other side of the clearing under the two dragons and giant Glory Daze member to avoid a sudden halo of oversized hour hands being shot out in every direction. Firing up a few bullets of Hundred Velo upward, I couldn’t avoid being splashed by a few drops of Clockwork Witchwork’s oily blood: it wasn’t chewing me or my spell shield up on contact so whatever Hundred Velo was getting hit by was definitely internal.

“Hey cous! Does something feel off to you?” called out Margaret as I ran toward her and Umi, as Umi and her skeleton conjuration blocked blows from the hour hands with their fishing rods.

“Yeah, something is really freaking weird with this dude,” I replied, leaping up toward her and turning around to let Hundred Velo slide back into my gun’s magazine.

“What are you two feeling? I don’t feel anything?” asked Umi with an annoyed tone to her voice as she whipped her fishing rods back and forth.

“No clue, something internal in them.”

“Yeah, it’s eating through my banes and it definitely isn’t just accelerated time,” followed up Margaret as Clockwork Witchwork managed to toss off Tabitha’s and Umi’s dragons again.

“How dare you sully my perfect form and waste my time like so!” managed to roar the Glory Daze member in a blind rage. Continuing to scream, they continued, “Must I use my trump card?” As mana started to swirl around, I couldn’t help but gulp: for once the Glory Daze member didn’t sound like he was lying or bluffing. Sensing the danger also, the two dragons hurried to pin the transformed enlightened robotics again as the intensity of the mana surrounding Clockwork Witchwork picked up, except it didn’t look like he was controlling it…. rather it looked like the mana was attacking them. Before they could tackle the Glory Daze member in time, cracks in reality formed around them: cracks in reality I’ve only ever seen in documentaries about the manalogical phenomena that occurred during the Aligning or on the rare occasion during Aligning Day... “Descend! Y-Prapaht!”

Suddenly everything started to feel slow and fuzzy as I saw fragmented images surround everyone. In a split second that lasted way longer than it should, I realized I was looking at fractured potential futures for everyone present. And whatever weird self-cannibalizing thing that was inside Clockwork Witchwork was outside of him creating disgusting barely visible tendrils that were striking everyone before they could even have a chance to dodge. A few split seconds I saw beams of light flying out of the Glory Daze member in slow motion. 

Jumping to the side as hard as I can, I felt the tendril wrapping around chipping away at something. It’s… fucking with my future?! I mentally shouted as I felt the possible outcomes where I actually dodged the beam were stripped away. In a panic, I flooded myself with as much mana as I could from Cheesecake Emporos-Museum’s Board of Representatives, forcing me to go faster and farther than normal. As the flow of time returned to normal, I dodged the beam of light by a few inches: but Margaret, Mita, and Tabitha weren’t as lucky. Looking at how deep the wounds in all three of them, I couldn’t help but wince in sympathy. At least they are only in simulated bodies.

“How can this be? The will did not kill me?” laughed Clockwork Witchwork as cracks criss-crossed his body more than its clock patterns.

“What the fuck was that?” gasped Umi in confusion, looking at her now destroyed skeleton conjuration that took the blow for her.

“That was proof that today is our lucky day,” giggled an unfamiliar voice from behind the three of us. Spinning around as fast as I could, I saw a girl flanked by four giant floating cannons and sitting on a four-legged spider-throne-thing. Well, we just found out where the other Glory Daze member was. “To think Clockwork Witchwork didn’t die from that. Our time must be nearing.”

“The only time that is nearing… is the time for you to leave,” growled Umi as the other Glory Daze member started to emit a weird energy like Clockwork Witchwork, creaking more cracks in reality reminiscent of the ones from the Aligning. But before I could even think of making some distance from her, Umi started to flare up with an obscene amount of mana. What the fucking was going on right now?! “Haha… to think dad would pull something like this now of all times!” What did I do? What did the other me do?!