Horizon clutches onto his head, the pain from the sonic attack ringing his ears merciless. Percy was trying to say something but he waved off the mage. "Keep your attention on the barrier!" He says way too loud,
He taps Conflux on the shoulder, speaking in a loud whisper. "Can't hear! Got to silence her or block her out somehow!" He tells her, before looking around at the field to see how to separate the Slipknots further.
"SG! Help out Diva! Femtite, take out Bazinga's tech!" He calls out while charging up his own attack, aiming for Timestamp to try and get him away from his allies!
Femtite’s body becomes unstable red flame, her eyes golden wildfire. She laughs wickedly as Chumpchange cries out in pain. “Better save some of those coins for a prosthetic.”
Femtite doesn’t understand this new feeling. She only knows the pain of others brings satisfaction.
She sees Horizon rush the most obnoxious of the men. Femtite will distract the foe with a fireworks display, snapping, crackling, and mushroom-clouding his vision!
Even with magic, force had to go somewhere, and figuring out the different places to put it was why Connie had so many different warding talismans. Early on in her testing she'd tried to figure out a way of surviving the classic problem of a titanically powerful punch (or being hit by a semi, whatever), and unless she matched all the energy coming in, she just went flying. And that meant even more oomph put into landing safely, and those kinds of adjustments were best done when not flying straight into a brick wall.
Enter: The Skidfield (not that she called it that out loud). It caught force like an airbag, but then after that had a set amount of friction with the world around it. So unless you hit something *exactly* dead on, you just ended up squirting off to the side till you safely decelerated.
It wasn't her go-to. Just not anchoring the shield to herself was a lot easier and avoided all those problems as long as the ward was strong enough for the task, but sometimes you needed a shield that was also an escape hatch. Sometimes you just needed to make something slippery.
Fidgeting with the (probably fake) pearl on one of her rings, she focused on the area right above Bazinga's grabber-mine. Her fields were specifically designed **not** to cut through things when they appeared, so it was all about finding a patch where the mine wasn't flush with the ceiling and then spreading, spreading, spreading the field from there until it fell to the ground next to Devil Diva's feet.
**Clank** went the gadget.
**KRONCH** stomped Devil Diva
**gulp** went connie.
Max cries out in surprise as the tendrils grab her and lift her off of the ground! Fortunately, Connie releases her in short order. ”Thanks!” she shouts to her teammate.
Synphony’s words hit home, filling Max’s mind with guilt at what she’s doing here. But she snarls as she pounces on the girl, baring her fangs and grabbing her by the throat. ”Shut up! Shut up!” she roars angrily, seeming every inch the terrifying monster!
With Max holding Symphony, Chumpchange wounded and Timestamp protected by the time bubble, Caio turns his raging eyes at Bazinga. He charges again to tackle the criminal and hopefully lock him place.
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Watching most of the team spring into action Indarius surveyed the battlefield knowing he could keep the barrier up and offer some support he thought about separating the slipknots further. Upon second thought the others with the exception of Femtite and Steel Guardian had things under wraps. So whispering under his breath and pointing towards Horizon an invisible shield of force sprung up around the teams leader in the hope of protecting him from whatever dark presence was targeting him. However keeping both incantations cycling through his mind at once left him quite open.
Horizon enters the fray, hitting Timestamp from a surprise angle, aided by a distracting lightshow from Femtite. He disrupts the time bubble that was holding Caio at bay.
Caio takes the opportunity created to rush Bazinga. The Bull pounces on the gadgeteer and bats aside the gizmo that he tried to use to defend himself.
Conflux takes care of the device that bound up Devil Diva, who pushes aside the hypnotic messaging and attacks the songstress in a terrifying way. Symphony's eyes are wide in horror as she's lifted off the ground by the demoness. Her windpipe temporarily shut tight, all the sound she makes are some choked whimpers.
The spasming Steel Guardian looms in the middle of the brawl, but the robotic suit's jerky motions are easily dodged.
With Timestamp, Symphony and Bazinga engaged and Chumpchange still cradling his throwing hand, most of the fight is out of the Slipknots. Notably, Bazinga and Symphony are terrified of the more monstrous members of the team, with the gadgeteer screaming for someone to pull the werewolf off of him and the songstress dangling helplessly in the hands of the demon.
At that moment, Indarius senses the lurking presence is about to burst into this plane of existence! He throws up a protective barrier over Horizon just in time as an echoing roar sounds through the chamber!
Long, sinewy, hazy and somewhat indistinct, a snakelike form the size of a minivan writhes and coils through the aether seemingly unaffected by air or wind. Its movement is fluid, but it also stutters like a buffering video. Its head is almost insectlike, with frightening mandibles in place of a normal jaw, and empty sockets where eyes should be.
The creature slams into the shield barrier around Horizon, but rather than recoil from hitting an impenetrable force it rewinds somehow to right before its strike! Its unseeing head tilts, then turns to focus on Indarius! Its tail then cracks like a whip, slamming into the Nova!
The strange creature opens its mouth and roars, though what comes out of its mouth cannot be called sound. Ripples pass through everyone in the chamber and you feel the strangest sense of deja vu!
What do you do??
Caio: Angry, Guilty, Insecure
Conflux: Guilty
Devil Diva: Angry, Guilty
Femtite: Angry
Horizon: None
Indarius: Guilty, Insecure
Steel Guardian: Guilty, Insecure
Femtite relives the moment she provoked Chumpchange.
The deja vu strikes Devil Diva, reminding her of the terror she felt staring into the empty soul of the creepy groundskeeper. She starts to breathe heavily, eyes wide with fear. Despite this, she maintains her grip on Symphony, clobbering the girl with her tail in an attempt to knock her out.
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Indarius lets out a short scream of fear as the, Time centipede demon whatchamathingy, appears out of everywhere and nowhere. He is cut short as it rebounds off the protective barrier and before slapping him with it's tail sending the Nova sprawling in the ground a gash in his outfit. Already blood started to bleed into the cloth thankfully the red made it a little harder to tell.
Then everything felt weird as he was pulled back in time but unmoving, his thoughts returning to the moment when he cast the shielding spell. It held strong, but after the creature's true appearance he had to refocus on the new threat perhaps regrettably dropping the shield on horizon. Flipping to his side he pulled his spellbook free and frantically searched for something.
He pulls from the thrumming staff the last motes of aether and rolls to point at the Time-wraith.
Indarius flares and yells at the creature in a voice that booms through the enclosed space. A small distortion starts around the time-beast and glowing golden chains seem to latch onto it's form stopping it from stuttering and flitting about. The chains themselves burning into the creature's here and now presence.
"Forget the slips Take this thing down, everyone!"
"Wh-"
The whole world skipped around Horizon, as he finds himself losing his calm as he tries to make sense of this new monster that has shown up and attacked them!
He still can't hear properly, and didn't risk looking away from this new threat. So he tapped a button on his visor to link up to Clocktower and try to figure out what this thing might be!
It was slower than he needed it to be, so he stepped back, putting Indarius between him and the monster to let the analysis finish. "Keep it at bay!" He tells the mage as the first bit of data comes through, coaxing his memories. "...okay, physical blows won't hurt it, but it's vulnerable to magic! Wolf, Conflux, Indarius, you're up!"
Conflux managed to keep her wits about her, and for a moment thought that she would be able to make use of her expanded knowledge of the present moment. However, thinking too hard about the drone's destruction left her more flustered than prepared, and connie nearly muffed Max's rescue the second time around - drowning out everything around her as she barely salvaged the effort!
The time warp puts doubts in Caio's head. When he sees Horizon, their supposed "leader" back away from the new monster and leave Indarius between them, he feels hopeless. Not only that, but Horizon calls for help... he doesn't look the alpha. He looks weak, not even prey. "You are not Alpha."
Knowing the monster is certainly more dangerous than the Slipknots, Caio moves besides Indarius, to protect their weak leader.
Steel Guardian briefly moves smoothly enough to throw some substantial strikes, but then a new jolt of electricity courses through them and they briefly lock up!
Time warps around the team, rewinding and skipping back and forth briefly. Several of the heroes find themselves reliving events that occurred seconds before. Conflux's efforts to recreate her save of Devil Diva barely succeeded, causing her to take a few steps closer -- exactly where the tail of the wraith manifests!
Femtite finds herself replaying the exact events with Chumpchange, but the conviction in her voice isn't there knowing that he was about to be maimed by Caio.
Steel Guardian finds itself rewound, and this time the exosuit uses the jolting electrical sparks to its advantage! The Slipknots are prevented from regrouping.
Indarius is rewound to the moment he put up the shield around Horizon, and manages to pull it off again after taking a savage blow from the wraith!
Devil Diva, Caio and Horizon all are affected differently, each reliving a recent unpleasant moment. The demoness gives Symphony a final blow, sending her to the ground in a heap.
Horizon takes a moment, hiding behind Indarius's showy display, to pull up the files on such a creature, and Clocktower offers up a data file that had been added by Inquiry -- the creature is something the Iron Federation calls a chronowraith. Existing outside of time, they appear drawn to areas of temporal instability or anomalies. The magitech of the Iron Federation has been able to drive them off or even destroy such creatures, so magic might be one of the best ways to deal with the wraith.
Caio, apparently disapproving of Horizon's use of Indarius as a shield as he conducted his research, steps up in defense as the chronowraith's stuttering form again strikes at the Protégé. Caio's tattoos flare as he deflects the wraith's strike upward, and a blast of temporal energy strikes the ceiling! Aged a century in less than a second, the mortar is weakened and the stones begin collapsing!
Indarius channels his magic into a spell to stop the chronowraith's temporal powers, but there's only so much he can do against a creature that lurks outside of time itself. Golden chains latch on to the writhing form, pulling it more fully into this time stream.
The creature thrashes about in the chains, roaring its ethereal cry. In its throes, it calls forth a danger from the past! Suddenly, an unmistakable rumble from down two adjacent tunnels is heard! Though this subway junction hasn't been used in decades, it certainly has been used!
Femtite uses her heliokinesis to melt the tracks—hoping the metal softens to slow the trains so the people inside won’t be killed from the impact.
The red, fiery alien surrounds herself in sunfire—which plops onto the junction with a sizzle! The tracks glow white hot…
But Femtite is struggling…!
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"C
R
A
A
A
A
P
!"
Things were going from bad to worse. Now they had to deal with trains coming through the junction? How had it summoned them in the first place?
It was also most likely after him. He was the anomaly here in this timeline. So it was his responsibility to try and deal with this before it could do...whatever it was planning to do.
First priority though came to the oncoming threat. "Diva, SG, work together with Femtite and stop those trains!" He calls out, hoping they'll listen. If those things hit here they're hurt everyone, Slipknots included. He concentrates on his power to form that arc of vantablack he uses as a blade, careful as to where he was pointing it.
Maybe his power was magical - it certainly seemed to be able to bend the laws of physics. So hopefully, as he slashed out at the chronowraith, this would actually hurt it.
He wasn't sure if that attack actually hurt it, but it seemed to make it angry enough to lash out at him, as he ducks and tumbles around the side, avoiding it's follow up swipe!
Max releases Symphony from her grasp, eyes wide as the girl slumps to the floor. I did this. I hurt her, she thinks, feeling guilty for her actions.
But there's no time for that, as Horizon's shout gets her attention. The trains are coming. If they aren't stopped, then it won't end well.
"Help Femtite!" Max shouts to Steel Guardian. "I've got the other train!" The demoness rushes down the tracks towards the oncoming train. She plants her feet and braces herself, ready to use all of her inhuman might to slow or derail the vehicle before it hurts anybody else! Even if she gets hurt in the process...
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Pulling the last vestige of energy he can hold onto right now Indarius looks back at Shin. "I can contain it but I can't pull anymore... we have to finish this now!"
Indarius flings his good hand towards the rail that Femtite is covering causing the breaks to start screeching and attempting to halt the train as it hurtles towards them. But between bloodloss and already having drawn heavily from the aether of Halcyon, it was clear Indarius couldn't keep this up for long.
Caio pounces at the think without thinking twice.
Steel Guardian joins the fray against the wraith, engaging it in tandem with Horizon and Caio.
The chronowraith recoils in pain, stuttering and moving in jerky fashion. The trio of assailants deftly avoid its coiling form and thrashing tail as it tries to retaliate. Suddenly afraid, it lashes out without thought at a threat, throwing its entire body down upon Horizon!
Meanwhile, the trains are bearing down upon the intersection. Those focused on stopping them see that they are an older style, likely from the 40s or 50s, and they have a similar unreality to them like the chronowraith.
Femtite melts and slags the tracks to slow the trains, aided by the magic of Indarius. The incoming train hits the molten tracks and is jarringly slowed. The cars behind the lead buckle, and the main car leaps off the tracks and slams into the side of the tunnel. However, a ghostly afterimage continues on through the junction -- passengers in old-style clothes staring in astonishment at the team as they go by!
Devil Diva braces herself against the other incoming train, bravely putting her altered and inhuman body to the test! Though the train is only partially in this time, it's real enough to make quite an impact! Sparking brakes scream as the lead car slams into Devil Diva, its front buckling inward as it rams into her. Gravel and dirt plow upwards around the Transformed as she's pushed back into the main junction. She slows it down enough that the ghostly image of the other train races through the tunnel just ahead of it!
Time then speeds back up and the train blasts forward again, leaving an exhausted devil girl at the end of a large and very real fissure in the ground.
The chronowraith stutters once more, and this time coils around Horizon. It clamps its split mandibles down around the Protégé before anyone can react! Those around him see a ghostly image of an older, white-haired version of Shin be drawn out of him and swallowed by the wraith. The creature immediately looks better, and with a flex of its body shatters the golden chains around it!
Horizon is dropped to the ground, but appears to still be alive!
What do you do?
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Femtite heard that magic is the weakness of the mighty time-beast. She is not a magic user, but hurling fire looks like something from Indarius’ Magic the Gathering card game.
She turns to the monster, intent on consuming it as any microscopic pixite might consume a germ!
Max pants with exertion as the ghostly train speeds away. Luckily, the demoness seems none the worse for wear for having successfully deflected the time train!
Seeing Horizon in trouble, she leaps back into the fray, trying to claw and tear the chrono wraith!
As the wraith decides to go after Horizon, ignoring Caio (the largest threat), he grabs and claws the wraith's tail. "You are my prey!"
Crap, I'm behind.
Risking getting impaled by a Time Knife or whatever again, Connie shut her eyes in a desperate attempt to catch up by listening in to Femm's thoughs.
Okay. Fire fire, burning bright... Her eyes snapped back open, worry filling in at the edges of her gaze.
Did something even worse happen while I was on pause? 'Cause Femms is out of c- Well, she's teetering anyways. I've gotta shut this thing down before she burns herself up.
What Shin had said about Time Wraiths being vulnerable to magic was cheering, but not directly helpful. Zapping it with supernal lightning or an eldritch bolt or bathing it in the utter cold of the outer realms might have been effective, but spells like that drew on precisely where Connie was weakest. Evoking something out of nothing took **a lot** of magical oomph.
But hey, Femms is already slinging around all the fire a gal could ask for. We don't need more energy, we need efficiency.
She scraped her thumbnails against each other like flint against steel as she tried to spark an idea. Okay, plenty of ways to signify time, but they don't really intersect with fire... 'Cause time flies or time runs out, or it devours itself in an unending snakefest; outside of metaphor gravity bends it or sands track it. Time can signify destruction with a ticking timebomb or... a fuse.
Her eyes alight with the gleam of an idea she really liked, Connie rushed forward under the aegis of one of her wards until the Wraith's attention flickered elsewhere. Then she struck. Pulling a long thin rope from up her sleeve like a never-ending kerchief, Connie swayed as she guided her impromptu fuse to weave around the Time Wraith's coils, encircling it without binding it fast. You can't stop time, you just have to bring the bad times to an end as fast as possible.
"Okay everyone, fuse is set. Just give it a light and this thing's time is up." Connie briefly considered withdrawing to safety, but shook off the impulse. The fuse needed guidance and the spell needed her close to keep its delicate framework marching on towards the Time Wraith's end.
Her wards would just have to hold.
He didn't expect this thing to be so fast - nor for it to capitalize on its distraction with the trains to jump him. And then it...seemed to bite into him, and he thought he was dead. Should be dead. Instead, it seemed to swallow up something from him and grow stronger, as he scrambled back and wondered just what had been taken from him.
The rest of the team were dogpiling onto the wraith, but Horizon wasn't sure that he wanted it gone before he had a chance to try and get back what had been taken from him - if it could be recovered.
He looked at Conflux in alarm when she said the fuse was set, speaking up. "Hold on! It's already weakened the ceiling and the trains didn't help either! We need to avoid anything that can cause collateral damage if we don't want to end up buried in rubble!"
Seeing as the most likely one to try an explosive attack was their Outsider, he called to her next. "Keep your attacks focused and concentrate on taking out its appendages if you can!" He said, before assessing his options.
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Seeing Femtite fling herself into the fray against the time-warping monstrosity Indarius casts off a shard of aether similar to the one he used to protect Horizon earlier. Hoping to shield the Pixite from the worst of the chronological instabilities it created. The process of expelling the aether he held within himself also worked to lessen the burning feeling in his chest.
"Horizon, I think I can stabilize this place and reestablish it's place within the time stream, but I'll need you to buy me a bit to weave the spell."
Steel Guardian seems to have finally shaken the worst of the effects of the electric attack against them, and proceeds to launch themselves full force back into the fray. They reach out and try to snatch up one of the villains and rocket out to a safe spot.
Caio knocks the wraith aside before it could slam its body against the team leader, but he can't stop it from consuming the temporal anomaly around him. The wraith looks stronger after its meal, but the team comes together!
After being remarkably unscathed from stopping the train, Devil Diva throws herself at the chronowraith. She is unlucky in her timing, however, as she leaps at the wraith just as it stutters and blinks in and out of the time flow. Everyone watching can see Devil Diva stutter along with it!
You get the sense that you leapt somewhere in your own chronology. You are in a massive chamber lit by numerous braziers shooting flames dozens of feet in the air. Before you is an immense demon seated in a throne made of bone and horned skulls. You only come up to its knee. To your left are two other female-looking demons roughly the same height as you, the farthest one having bluish skin and the one next to you having reddish skin.
The giant demon's attention is on the three of you, and it says something in a harsh and vile language. You immediately kneel and the two demonesses do likewise. More things are said; you cannot understand but they sound like instructions. You respond briefly in the same language, knowing instinctively that you just agreed.
You spare a glance to your left. You meet the red demoness's eyes and she smiles with wicked delight. You feel the same expression on your own face. The giant demon bids you rise (odd; somehow you knew that's what he said). You stand up and see that the massive fiend has something in its hand. Your heart seizes as you recognize it -- it's the idol! Whole and intact! Dizziness strikes you and you feel yourself falling...
Devil Diva is thrown back from the wraith, looking dazed.
Conflux recovers from her temporal lock and catches up on current events. She recognizes a way to set up a magical fuse to the chronowraith's proverbial stick of dynamite. Recognizing Femtite's charge of energy as the subatomic-Outsider-grown-large plans on consuming it through fire, Conflux primes the bomb and lets Femtite light the match.
Horizon staggers back from the chronowraith's assault. Still thinking that his team are just fighting the temporal invader, rather than setting up a means to blow it up, he focuses on the other danger in the chamber -- that of the ceiling about to collapse!
Indarius sees how reckless Femtite was being with her all-out assault on the chronowraith, so he wraps her up in a protective ward. That still left Conflux at a dangerous proximity to the wraith!
While all this is going on, Steel Guardian spots the dazed form of Symphony and secures her in a viselike grip. Though the armored hero sees no sign of the rest of the Slipknots!
The fuse is set and lit. The chronowraith again unleashes its distant echo-y wail through the aether. It stutters and writhes across the chamber until the fuse finally reaches the magical gunpowder! Ripples of temporal energy implode around the wraith, as it speeds up, slows down, rewinds or jumps forward in a confounding cascade of chronology!
The chronowraith vanishes in a flash, leaving only echoing rumbles and odd motes of light.
Conflux, caught near the center of the implosion, stuttered along with the chronowraith -- momentarily appearing as a child, an old woman, an infant, a mature adult, and finally snapping back to herself! Her clothing and gear didn't survive the waves of temporal energies, however, and they appear as a mishmash of clothes from varying ages. Frustratingly, most of her reagents have suddenly expired, or have reverted to an earlier state!
However, the chronowraith appears to be banished from this timestream. Silence descends on the subway junction.
What do you do??
"Indarius, I need you to stabilize this place and keep it from crashing around us," Horizon says, totally unaware he's repeating his teammate's words. He realizes he still can't hear anything - that was probably not a good thing.
He gears up to defend against the wraith again, but before it's able to make another attack against him, the creature is suddenly blown up - and Conflux stutters along with it before arriving in an unflattering hodge podge of clothes. Not entirely certain that she's all right, he pulls from his utility belt a sleek silver space blanket for her to wrap up in. "You all right? Is everyone all right?" He calls out in concern.
He also realizes its time to use the bracer, as he presses a button on it - and a familiar song plays out of it, the one Caio had given the group before.
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"Yeah that's..." Indarius shook his head at Horizon still yelling figuring it had something to do with the screech from earlier. He moved to the center of the room, clutching his book in one arm, ignoring the bleeding limb for the time. His sleeve was fairly saturated at this point, the crimson material a deeper shade now. He sat on the ground and opened the book flipping through to his time-based spells.
Eventually he found the right one and started to recite from the book pulling from the aether within himself and channeling it into the surrounding area. Unwarping the terrain from all the battle damage that had happened before over the next few minutes. The young mage sweat as he performed the task.
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Conflux threw back her head and howled with laughter. "Ha! Hahahahahahahahaha Hee Hee hooooo... Heh heh.
Aheh."
**Ptoo**"
She spun around in a circle, middle fingers pointed nebulously towards the sky in a gesture of defiance only slightly hampered by her dinosaur-festooned overalls and the dentures she'd spat out.
Her eyes gleaming, she gave Shin a manic grin. "Couldn't be better!" Inspecting her rings she added, "Oooh new designs. Oh god And that one. So uh, someone else should really handle the ceiling. I only know how one of these work, and there is a reasonable chance I will let everypony of us die before I put up a ward in the shape of my favorite OC's cutiemark."
"Good grab on whats-her-name though, Robbie," she added in an aside to Steel Guardian.
Max stands there in a daze for several seconds, yellow eyes wide, as she tries to process what she has just seen. Another vision--was it past or future?--and even more disturbing than the last. She gives Horizon a shaky thumbs-up when he asks if everybody is okay, but otherwise doesn't say anything. As the others regroup, she stands off to the side of the tunnel, arms wrapped around her chest, staring into the middle distance...
Femtite tries to comfort Percy herself, but…
…she fails spectacularly to get her message across.
“Thank you for the magical shield. You saved me from…”
Femtite glances at Connie’s overalls. And extra teeth? Don’t humans think we aliens do that??? She understands the significance of being forcibly aged by a monster. That’s her first misstep—she can’t even focus on the person she’s thanking.
Complicating the situation more is that she hasn’t reverted to her flesh form. She is fire. She is red. Her golden eyes and hair whip furious arcs. Femtite hovers as far away from everyone as possible, including the one she is trying to comfort.
Whatever words she says next are lost in the noise. Did she even finish her point? Even Femtite doesn’t know.
Steel Guardian staggers closer, still moving in spasming jerks at times. Holding the villain firmly in their grasp, they ask ”So, what we gonna do with this one?”
As Caio begins to hear the song, he looks at Horizon quickly. "I'm in control... you don't need... I'm... arrrggh" He says as the ward attuned to song activates in a flash. The other wards then begins pulsing apparently randomly (some remain untriggered), and even the air around Caio becomes hazy from the magical energy being released.
Caio stumbles around and braces against a wall, forcibly reverting to his human form, and collapsing on the ground close to Conflux and Horizon. Barely able to move, he looks at Connie's feet. "Crocs?" He gives a chuckles once... chuckling twice was beyond his capabilities at this moment.
Seeing Caio collapse, Max makes her way over to him. She crouches down an extends a hand to help him up. "Hey. You okay? You took some nasty hits in that fight. Silver, right? Does it hurt?" She probes carefully at his wounds, concern evident on her face.
Unfortunately, with anger still clouding her judgment, Max isn't as careful as she would have hoped. Her claws painfully tug at Caio's injuries.
"Yeah... Silver." He answers slowly, with obvious effort. Even if a bit careless, Max could not hurt him too much and in his condition, he was even further numbed against pain. That did not stop his arm to bleed a fair amount.
"It is still inside... my arm. Burns... bad." He looks pleadingly. "Take it out... you can't hurt me."
A few seconds later, Caio speaks again, his voice strangely muffed. "Max... they are... my face."
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Indarius, in the middle of a very complex incantation meant to reverse and 're-lock' time barely glances over to Fem "Not now." His voice is strained and comes off rather harsh.
The various runes floating around the room waver for just a moment before Indarius reassert his focus to the spell, his whole form shaking through the process. "V̷̨̅̎o̸̮͇̕ ̶̟̔́T̸̲̘̒͊i̴̮̅i̵̭͓͛d̷̞̠̊ ̷̻̑A̷̩̻̍͗ĥ̵̗̆r̵͖̲̐k̸̢̠͛ ̷̩̆̾ͅG̸̢̳͌͆o̴͗ͅv̴̳̔̔è̷̛̱ŷ̷̯̝̐ ̶̨̈́B̶͚̋ó̴̺̓k̴̡̭̂͑ ̷̝̑R̵̩̓̚ú̵̘ż̷̨̜̏ ̸͙̈́͜͝G̷̰̏r̸̜̐̆ȏ̴̧͎ń̶̫̹̂ ̷̢̫̈́Ṕ̷̲͖̓a̷̳͎͆h̷̪̣͑̐ ̵̳̂Q̷̣͕͑̀e̵̳̥͋̈́ț̶̪̇͝ȟ̴͔̒s̸̘̉e̸͌͜g̴̞̞̈́̑o̷̥̭̍͘ḽ̸̄͜ ̷͓͓̈́A̷̻͊h̴̩̻̒̀ȓ̴̪̎ḱ̶̛͇ ̶͙͐͜D̴͈̽͛w̷̭̬͆i̷̗̊̚i̶̇ͅn̷͕̆̈ ̸̧́̐Ő̸̠n̶̝̜̽̚i̵̞͋́ ̵̜͗̀͜K̶̜͊ṓ̶̟̬" He chants slowly, the old railway steel mends, reverting from it's melted slap self to almost new or at least what it was prior to their engagement with the wraith. The fissure caused by Devil Diva's catching of the trolley slowly begins to rebuild itself stone flowing in chunks back into the gash and fusing to itself once more. The now ancient ceiling tiles crack as flakes and bits float up and merge into solid normal aged stone. Tiny chunks of the wall and floor shunt out bent and broken coins of various sizes, sealing themselves as the coins unbending and return to their original shape flying back to where Chumpchange had thrown them from where, with noone to catch them, they clattered to the ground.
The silvered coins buried in Caio's arm slowly dig themselves out and like their counterparts, return to where they had been hurled from before clattering harmlessly on the ground. With the spell complete and the floating runes fading to nothing Indarius slumps on his knees and finally grasps his arm to stem the bleeding. "Th-there.."
Max does her best to carefully pluck the silver fragments out of Caio's arm. She cocks her head at his next statement. "Your face? I don't see... Let me try to find them..."
She leans closer to find the silver fragments around Caio's face. Her own face is just a few scant inches from the werewolf's. This close, Caio can smell the sweat on her body and hear her heart beating in her chest...
As the coin flies from his arm, a gush of blood follows, but the flow of blood quickly diminishes and the tissue is already starting to heal.
Caio grabs Max's hands as she misunderstands him, smiling. "There are no fragments in my face..." He answers, less debilitated, now that the silver coin had been removed. He points to Max's chest. "...they were in my face. Not complaining, though."
Max follows the pointed finger, looking down and belatedly realizing just how close her breasts had been to Caio's face. He definitely got an eyeful! She immediately flushes a darker purple color. Her heart beats faster. "Oh! Oh! Um, s-sorry..." she stammers.
"So, um, did you see me stop that train?" she says quickly, trying to change the subject.
"Saw some parts..." He says as he sits against the wall. "When the Wolf is out, some stuff becomes hazy. I know that the Wolf wasn't worried about you, probably because he was certain you could do it."
Taking a full picture of everything that was going around, between Horizon covering Connie, Femtite still burning, Indarius still fixing the place and Steel Guardian holding on Symphony. "I think I scared the shit out of that girl... where are the others?"
Symphony is wearing a simple domino mask, but is clearly of Mediterranean descent. Her black hair is shoulder-length, and her dark-colored costume has a prominent treble clef on its front in red.
She becomes groggily awake, and quickly realizes her predicament so she doesn't struggle or make a sound.
Percy's magic reworks the junction, restoring the damage created by the battle and shoring up the weakened ceiling. With the chronowraith gone and the other Slipknots fled, it's just the team right now in the tunnel.
What do you do?
Max smiles as Caio praises her abilities. "Thanks, Caio. I knew you'd be fine, too. You're tough as nails, hermano."
”Yeah, not bad,” Steel Guardian adds, their monotone, robotic voice echoing in the room. ”Meanwhile, I had a few robo-seizures and just flailed about like some busted up animatronic. A lot of good I did…” they grumble as they tighten their grip on Symphony, just to make sure they don’t manage an escape.
Looking around, Connie replayed her memories of the fight - at leas the time she'd been there for.
If there's one thing I know how to whip up quickly it's Constance's Constant ContactTM. As long as Caio flipping back and forth doesn't clean him off too much we'll have at least some samples, but finding everyone might take more so-
Huh. She's still looking really hot.
Wrapping the silvery blanket around herself, Connie shuffled closer to Femtite, gingerly moving in her poorly fit clothes.
"Hey Femms. Fight's over and you're still burning kinda hot." Is she still mad? This'd be easier if the circlet had survived the Wraith... Probably Red Red fire means she's still in the depths though.
Even with the blanket bouncing away a lot of Femtite's radiant heat, Connie's face beaded with sweat, but she stayed close. "I haven't seen you like this before. Do you have a song like Caio or a mantra I can help you with? We're all okay, so you just need to be okay too and we'll have the full set."
Caio turns to Percy to thank him. "Thanks about the coin... first time I was shot and gladly it just hit my arm. I guess I'll have to also work on another sigil, one that could make a force shield against projectiles."
Seeing a long reddish hair at the ground, Caio picks it up to give Connie later. He then laughs a bit from Max's comment. "Very close, but that would be Spanish. The slang would be mano, even if it is not really a word."
"Hey, Guardian, I think she is not going to try to escape. Her friends left her to take the fall by herself. Relaxa, cara." He says, a little worried for the girl and still a bit guilty for the fear he had caused her. From all the new heroes, Steel Guardian is the one he feels the most detached from... their metallic and robotic voice not really inviting or even human-like.
"Yeah, don't hurt her, Iron Dude. I think I did her enough harm already," Max says with a pang of guilt. "We should interrogate her to figure out how the hell they were able to summon that thing!"