Monday evening. The end of yet another long and hectic day. My voice sounded a tad morose even to myself as I entered the house. To be fair, I was pretty exhausted, in the mental sense of the word. Keeping track of the play was taxing at the best of times, but I also had to uphold my public image at the same time. The latter required me to skip school for the day, which… was becoming too much of a habit if you asked me. More on that later. For now, I walked into the living room, where Morgana and Arnwald were poring over some documents on the coffee table. They were dressed in their usual indoor ensembles (read: red plaid shirt and black pants on one, white knit turtleneck sweater and jeans on the other), and they both perked up in my presence. "Welcome back! Did you get him?" Arnwald enquired right away, sounding hopeful, only to wilt the moment I shook my head. "No. He's slippery, as always," I answered flatly and walked over to their side. "What are you looking at?" "We're trying to find a pattern in the attacks," Morgana told me matter-of-factly, accompanied by an odd glint in her eyes. She was one of the few people aware of me playing the role of Bel, and while she wasn't in on the full plan this time around, she shouldn't have had any reason to do this… other than playing along with Arnwald, of course. In a way, it was almost sweet. "I doubt you'll find anything, but don't let me stop you." I intended that to be the final word on that and leave, but Morgana reflexively reached after me, so I halted in my tracks and faced them again. "Yes? Is there something else?" "Dinner's in about half an hour." She gestured towards the kitchen first. "Eleanor and Judy did most of the cooking, I'll just have to reheat it." Then she pointed a forefinger directly up. "They're waiting for you in your room, as usual." Finally, she made a vague sweeping notion towards the back. "Penelope and Neige just came back from visiting Percival, and they said they wanted to talk with you. You might want to visit them before dinner." Before I could get a word in, Arnwald let out a soft harrumph and crossed his arms. "I tell you, spending so much time with a traitor like that is a bad influence on the kids." "They go there to learn from him," Morgana spoke softly, only to then add. "At least… I'm certain that Neige does." "That's the problem! If she wants to learn, I'm sure there are less dishonorable sources to draw upon, such as…" He said, but then he faltered, visibly stumped. "Such as…  many others I can't readily name right now. I'm still certain they would serve them better than interacting with him." "While I share your sentiment, the only reason I kept him alive is to do that, so trying to find a different mentor for her at this stage would be a bit counter-intuitive." My comment got him groaning, so Morgana grasped the back of his hand. "It should be fine. Even Leonard says so, and Percival has been behaving himself until now." "Once a traitor, always a traitor," the man fumed, only to blink and look at me. "Extraordinary circumstances notwithstanding, of course." He must've felt like he stepped on a landmine, because he quickly grasped Morgana's hand back and cleared his throat, trying his best to shift the topic. "Nevertheless, I'm uncomfortable about what manner of skullduggery and treachery he's teaching the girls. Not to mention, those phone games!" Okay, I admit that gave me a whiplash, and I blurted out, "The what now?" without meaning to. Meanwhile, Morgana glanced over her shoulder in the direction of the stairwell, then gestured for me to come closer. "Penelope didn't want you to know, but we're not very familiar with these things," she admitted in a hushed voice and urged me to lean in so she could whisper. "It's a game on their phones, and Penelope admitted that she was using her allowance to buy something called 'Value Bundles' for Percival so that they could keep playing together." "I think the game they play is called 'Ga-cha'," Arnwald joined in with a conspiratorial whisper. "It's a strange title. I don't know what it means." "… And you're saying that Penny's been paying for Percival's microtransactions?" "What's a 'microtransaction'?" Arnwald asked back with mild bewilderment, while Morgana just nodded along. "She said she felt bad for him because he had his bank accounts closed and his savings confiscated, and since he's not receiving a pension, she said it was the only way they could keep playing together." "What do you mean he 'doesn't get a pension'? That crafty old—!" I stifled a curse and took a deep breath as I straightened my back again. "Thank you for telling me that, I'll look into it later. It's getting late, so I'll go and do the rounds before dinner first." The two senior Knights nodded in unison, and since they didn't add anything else to that, I hefted my bag over my shoulder and headed upstairs. I considered visiting my sisters' room first but decided against it and walked into mine first, without knocking. I mean, it was my room after all, yet… "Welcome back, Chief," I muffled voice greeted me from the bed. Judy, topless, was lying on her stomach, with Elly straddling her butt. "Oh, wow. For a moment, I just thought that it was weird that Leo came in through the door. Is that weird?" my princess spoke with a giggle, while also in a state of relative undress, and continued to knead my dear assistant's shoulder blades like it was the most natural thing in the world. "And you two wonder why you aren't beating the allegations…" I grumbled as I closed the door behind me and threw my bag in the corner, next to my school bag. It only had towels and some other stuff from my morning rehearsal with future-me, so nothing fragile. "I have no idea what you're talking about," Judy responded, still muffled by the pillow, and I had a hard time deciding if she was being cheeky or genuinely didn't understand my point. In any case, Elly finally got off her and put on a shirt. Judy followed her example, though she didn't bother with a bra, and… Why did I have a feeling there'd be copious amounts of lewding in my near future? And more importantly, since when did I start looking forward to it ? It must've been the stupid spring hormones and whatever. "How's the situation?" my lovely assistant asked while buttoning up her shirt. That is, my shirt she took for her own and occasionally used for the 'boyfriend shirt' trope when staying over, but that was beside the point. "We had three more incidents today," I responded normally, then added, "As planned," in a low voice. "Isn't this overdoing it a bit?" Elly asked on the side while helping my other girlfriend put on her hair ribbon. "Remember when Friedrich and Galatea were threatening us? We only got pulled into a Restricted Space every other day, not all the time." "I know I said we're doing something similar, but we have a strict timetable to keep. He didn't." "So? Who was involved this time?" came the next question from Judy, and I was pretty sure that she was showing off her cleavage through the unbuttoned top of the shirt on purpose, so I pointedly walked over to my PC and sat down. Dinner was around the corner, so I had to make sure not to get sidetracked by those pesky hormones. "One attack on the Feilong elders and Xiao, one ambush on Josh and Angie on their way back from school, and one final bout with the arch-mages and the new Assembly delegation at the docks." I paused and turned my chair around to face the girls. "The last one was right after messing with Josh and Angie, and it was quick because the Magi were escalating things hard. The rest went just as planned." Fresh chapters posted on novel•fire.net "You didn't make little Xiao cry, right?" Elly levelled a sudden question at me, and when I automatically averted my eyes, she puffed up her cheeks. "Leo! You know that she was traumatized by her last encounter with Bel!" "I know, but it was necessary to show that Bel had no specific interest in her," I argued back. "It's not like future-me hurt her, and I gave her lots of head pats afterwards, so it should be fine." The princess still didn't seem convinced, but then Judy came to my support. "I'm sure it was a necessary evil. It was probably better than the Feilongs hiding her away in fear of Bel targeting her." "Precisely! Thank you for understanding." Elly still didn't look perfectly convinced, but she let the topic drop for the moment. Meanwhile, Judy shifted on the bed and asked the next pivotal question. "I'd already got a text message from Angeline, so I knew that there was nothing special going on with the two of them. I also learned that our texting app has a profanity filter enabled by default and that Deus learned how to use it, but that's a different matter entirely. What about the Magi? Did you encounter Lord Marzanna?" "Nah. I was very emphatically told that I'm not allowed to meet her. By Roland… and Barnabas… and everyone else, really." I shrugged. "I mean, it's not like they can stop me, and I can meet whoever I want, but they weren't unreasonable about it, so I did as I was told." "Really? I thought she would be with the other Assembly delegates," Elly chimed in curiously, so I shrugged one more. "Nah, again. She apparently arrived separately for one reason or another." "Can't you tell where she is?" came the next question from her, and this time I didn't shrug, though my response remained the same. "Nah, three for three. I never got around to marking her back in Ottawa; I was more important things to consider at the time." "So we have a rogue arch-mage on the island with an axe to grind with you, whose location you can't track," came the next remark, this time from Judy. "When you put it like that, it does sound troubling, but future-me assured me that she won't be doing anything stupid for the next couple of days, and by then, I won't be on the island anymore." "Which conversely means that she will do something stupid later," my dead assistant concluded. "Should we be worried?" my other girlfriend asked, already sounding worried to my ears, and I sadly couldn't reassure her. "Didn't future-you tell you the details?" "As hard as it is to believe, I have a very strict no-spoilers policy." My joke didn't land well, considering the deafening silence I received in return, so it was my turn to change the topic. "Anyhow, I'm sure our protagonists are more than up for the task of dealing with her, and if not… well, there's always some wiggle-room for supporting the actors from off-stage with some props or a well-timed poke with a broom handle." "Chief, you're getting carried away with your theater-analogies. Please, stop." I capitulated to my girlfriend's objection, and it was only at this point that I noticed that the princess was a bit fidgetier than usual. "Are you still worried about Marzanna?" "Hm? No, not really," she spoke off-handedly, and it didn't sound like she was putting up a front. "I'm just… do you really have to stay in the Abyss for this plan to work?" "Officially? Yes, absolutely. But…" I leaned forward and put a hand next to my mouth. "If you're lonely, I'll come visit. I did it when stuck in the Elysium, so it wouldn't make much difference." "Oh, right. You did." She flushed red, realizing that her worry sounded silly in retrospect, so I got up and reflexively hugged her. I always did that when she was getting flustered or worked up, so it became a habit. It soon turned into a group hug when Judy joined it, and I couldn't help but freeze up for as soon as we made contact. "Dormouse, my love? You really need to put on a bra ASAP." "Why?" she asked back, pretending to be clueless. "Because the bumps on my arm are very distracting." We stared eye-to-eye for a while, then she finally pulled back with a hint of a smile and added, "We have reached a new milestone in the Chief Libido Development project. I must add this to my observation records." "What project?" I blurted out by reflex, only to pause and start over. "Wait, scratch that. Did you just say 'observation records'?" She nodded. "You mean the ones from way back? When we first started working together?" She nodded again. "You're still writing that?" "You hired me to do it, and I was never fired." She paused and gave me a clumsy yet endearing wink. "It's going to make a fun story for the kids." "Oh, I can already imagine that!" Elly burst into giggles, though only for a second. "Wait. Are we going to tell them about it? The whole Watsonian and Doylist narrative trope things?" "How about we cross that bridge when we get there?" I said a touch wearily and got up. "We don't even have kids." "Yet," Judy stated defiantly. "According to statistics, less than one percent of high-school relationships lead to long-term marriage without divorce. I'm dedicated to beating the odds, so get ready to have a nice nuclear family unit, kids and pets included." "I want a doggie," Elly chimed in. "Or we can go for a cat. Potentially a parrot." "Oh, I like that! Parrots are funny, too!" While the girls were busy planning our future household, I rolled my shoulders, got my hormones under control, and once I felt nominally calm and unaroused, I jerked my head towards the door. "Let's get back to this, and other things, after dinner. My sisters wanted to talk with me, so I'll go visit them, and we'll meet downstairs." "That's a plan!" my princess exclaimed and turned to Judy. "I think we have enough time to finish the massage first. Do you want to continue?" "Sure," Judy told her and was already in the process of unbuttoning, with her eyes slyly looking at me, so I hastily left the room before she could tease me more. Note to self: tease her back after dinner. For now, I had other things to do, and I didn't have to go far either, as my sisters' room was just next door. I couldn't hear anything on the other side, though it wasn't surprising; Snowy already sound-proofed all the rooms in the house with her Sigils. It was also the reason why I felt comfortable discussing things in my room while it was only separated from theirs by a thin wall, but I digress. I knocked, and it only took a few seconds for the door to open. "Brother, you're back!" Penny greeted me with a grin. She was still in her school uniform, and she grabbed my hand and practically dragged me in. "Come inside!" That choice of words, while innocent, triggered all kinds of Freudian connections in my brain thanks to Judy's teasing and the talk about children, so I had to forcefully still my face. "Easy there, Kiddo. Why are you so excited?" Once I was in the room, I saw that Snowy was sitting cross-legged on the bed, with a whole lot of hand-written notes spread in front of her. Were they school notes, I wondered at first, but then my other sister skipped over and she presented me with a couple of pages. "Look! We've got a whole lot of intelligence reports from Uncle Percy!" "Have you now?" I whispered with some reservation, but my Abyssal sister also insisted. "We asked him about what he knew of the Abyssal Houses and their recent ploys, and we cross-referenced them with what Tajana and I knew to make these." She showed off another densely written page. "I-It's a bit messy, but I'll clean it up later." "I wasn't worried about that, but…" I squinted to take a better look at the page Penny gave me. "What exactly is this?" "It's documentation on all the secret alliances, feuds, and ploys between the various Noble Houses of the Abyss," Snowy explained plainly, but then she averted her eyes and muttered. "The ones we know of, at any rate." "And since you're going there," Penny took the reins of the conversation with enthusiasm and presented the scattered pages on the bed the same way a television quiz show host would show off the car the contestant just won. She paused for a meaningful beat, then exclaimed, "We put this together so that you would be prepared to face those schemers and backstabbers!" "That's very thoughtful of you, but…" "Ah, and before I forget!" my redhead sister barrelled on without letting me get a word in. "We explained what's going on to Uncle Percy, and he had some advice for you!" I glanced at my other sister, and she nodded in the affirmative. "Yes, and I… I agree with his assessment." Snowy took a deep breath and pushed some of the documents aside so she could sit properly. "Fidèle Basmu Shamash is known as a woman of integrity, but after looking at all the available evidence, we came to the conclusion that the Nergals might be using her influence as a tool, with or without her approval. The Ashurs don't have a great reputation either, especially now that everyone knows of their collusion with Elysium, so we…" "All three of us," Penny interjected for emphasis. "… are of the opinion that they might end up betraying you once you're in the Abyss. We're not sure of their exact plans, so we can't tell whether they would do so before or after your rescued Éolienne Serua Ashur or after, but in either case… You need to watch your back." "Right! Abyssals are a treacherous lot like that, and Uncle Percy said this whole situation reeked of betrayal!" I wanted to say something along the lines of 'Well, he's certainly an authority on the subject,' but Penny didn't let me, because she pushed another couple of papers into my hands. "That's why we wrote these down! If they turn on you, you can just go to their enemies, and pit them against each other! It's not the most honourable thing to do, but when in Rome, do as the Romans do!" "It's not complete yet, but by the time you set out on the rescue mission, it'll be finished," my Abyssal sister concluded with a solemn mien, and while I could've pointed out that I had more intel on the Noble Houses, thanks to the Celestial Intelligence Network than I ever needed, I obviously wasn't going to rain on their efforts. "Thank you, I appreciate this, and keep what you said in mind." "Just… stay safe, okay?" Snowy whispered, her serious surface cracking and letting some of her anxiety seep out. If she was in arm's reach, this would've been the point I tousled her hair, but since she wasn't, I put my hand on Penny's head instead. "Don't worry, sis. Everything's under control." My reassurance didn't work perfectly, but she still looked better. My knightly sister, on the other hand… "B-Brother! Why are patting my…? W-Wait, let me go!" "No can do, kiddo," I spoke in a level voice and gently guided her onto the edge of the bed, making sure not to squeeze her noggin too hard in the process. Once she was sitting, I let go of her and crossed my arms in front of my chest with a disapproving, yet still brotherly, frown. "We still have a few minutes until dinner, so before that… let's talk about your allowance and your spending habits, shall we?"