Void Rift (rp) - Intermission

"What?!" He replies.

 

"Ah good, a punching bag!"

Stephanie punches me in the head so hard I'm knocked out.

"She...kinda has a short temper..." Artemis admits.

"I don't have a short temper! I'm just easily annoyed by bullcrap!" Stephanie protests.

"Sorry about scaring you back there, Ihra." she says sincerely.

"Is...Aj gonna be alright?" Artemis asks, looking back at my unconscious body.

"Probably, what do I care? Worst comes to worst you can just cover him in vines or whatever you do, Flower Power." Stephanie says offhandedly.

"I told you not to call me Flower Power!" Artemis hisses.

Stephanie just gives a sweet smile.

 

"That thing walked out of the prison. Literally just... the guards said that they moved blisteringly fast. If you look at the night sky, I... uh..."
You hear a nervous swallow.
"I think it can bend time. I think it just slowed down time for us. It's just a guess, but mages do ridiculous stuff, right? Maybe it's plausible..."

Ihra drops her staff, bringing you back to your senses.
"Whoops."
Rineth dumps her on the ground.
"Urf... Hey!"
"Don't tell me you're growing into a short temper, too."
"I'm not! I... crapyou'reright"
Ihra gets to her feet and grabs her staff. "I forgive you."

I step out from seemingly nowhere.
"Okay, Ihra, is it really a good idea to bring more of AJ's kind here?"
"I doubt it."
"Wh... THEN WHY DID YOU?!"
"I dunno."
I bury my face in my claws, sighing.

 

Stephanie looks at Ihra quizzically, "Do you like seeing Aj getting knocked out or something?" grabbing me by the neck.

"I think that's enough now, Stephanie." Artemis says in a serious tone.

Stephanie drops me, I fall to the floor holding my neck, panting.

She then turns to Vesius, "Correction, why did you bring more of Stephanie's kind here; cuz I'm way cooler."

"I don't think making people cry counts as 'Cool'" I say smirking.

Stephanie glares at me.

 

"He has a point. It'll be your fault if he dies if you keep this up." I glance at you, gritting my teeth.

 

"Pfft, like I could kill him. I doubt he'd come to harm with Ihra and Flower Power looking over him." Stephanie says uncaringly.

"I'm not going to if you keep hurting him like that." Artemis hisses.

"I didn't ask for you to be here you know. I wanted Artemis because I knew should could be of help. You just decided to tag along." I say, glaring at Stephanie.

"What? You think it's my fault you ended up in the void? You know it's dangerous there and it very nearly got me killed!" Stephanie argues.

"Rineth had us covered you know." Artemis says whilst glaring at Stephanie.

"Siding with the dragon now are we? What would your father think?" Stephanie says smirking.

Artemis tries to punch Stephanie, which she catches.

"Getting violent are we? How about I dislocate that arm of yours for real?" Stephanie says, her eyes glowing red as she twists Artemis' arm. Tears run down her face as she tries to fight it.

"Stop it, Stephanie. Why don't you get Rineth to take you home?" I hiss.

A snapping sound is heard as Artemis' arm finally dislocates. She falls to the floor crying.

"When did you get so soft?" Stephanie asks turning to me, her eyes glowing red, evil in her voice.

I unsheathe Shadow Katana and ready it.

 

"Hold on. You guys put it in prison?! Why not just deport it to the mainland?! hey wait holy *bleep* it can bend time?!"

 

"Don't make me rip another hole in the fabric of reality, you two. I can only do so much to the Etherum without suffering backlash."
I look and sound like I'm scolding children. I'm obviously not taking the situation as seriously as I should be.

 

"How did you ever have feelings for her?"
"Cut it out."
Ihra heals Artemis.

"I could hold on to her for eternity." Ihra suggests lackidaisacly.
"I doubt you would."
"Maybe if I had to, I could."

________________________________

"That's the only explanation I can think of. We've found ways to suppress most forms of magic, but time bending isn't one of them. That's the only plausible thing I can think of- even though I know it sounds ludicrous."
Pause.
"If you have any other ideas, reporters are all ears."

 

"I'd imagine you are right. I mean, she would somehow not have a huge gravitational effect... but maybe some weird energy reaction would happen or something."

 

Artemis lies sobbing on the ground.

"Don't baby me old man, like you could rip a hole in the fabric of reality!" Stephanie scoffs.

"Oh good! Fresh bones to break!" Stephanie says, stomping on Artemis' arm.

I charge at Stephanie as a cracking sound erupts from Artemis' arm. She screams in pain. Stephanie brings out her daggers, "You want something to cry about? I'll give you something to cry about!" she says stabbing Artemis' arm. "S-s-sto-p!" she says weakly through tears.

"CUT IT OUT!" I scream, imapling Stephanie through the back with Shadow Katana and forcing her away from Artemis. Shattered bones show where Artemis' arm was severed.

"Taking a stand are we? Why don't you admit you're really in love with Artemis while you're at it?" Stephanie says in a corrupt voice.

I smash Stephanie's head to the floor, then hit it again with the hilt of Shadow Katana; knocking her out.


"Rineth, please take her home." I ask while helping Artemis up. Her face is marked with tears.

"I don't know what came over her, but she certainly wasn't herself. She won't be waking up anytime soon." I say looking over at Stephanie. Blood dribbles from Artemis' missing arm; she turns pale.

 

"Or... What if there was another way to balance it? What if it was as simple as speeding up time for an equal amount of... uh... I didn't think that through. For a moment, I thought maybe it was like positives and negatives, and it could be bent as long as everything went near zero, so to speak. Like, if it goes slower, then it must go faster for a bit. Like fancy addition. I dunno... There's bound to be some backlash, and we should at least tell the public to do something in hopes of minimizing said backlash. That's the problem with magic; there's always backlash."
Another pause.
"You want to come see what happened for yourself?"

________________________________

"Ihra, live up to your name."
"Got it."
She walks over to Artemis.
"You're going to honestly bring that... thing... home?!"
"I see no reason not to."
"IT TURNED. Leave it in the Void."
Rineth grabs Stephanie with his tail and turns to you.
"You're the judge. Bring her home, or leave her to die?"

 

I give Artemis to Ihra, she weakly holds on with her good arm.

"She's still a friend at heart," I say, "I knew something wasn't right, maybe the voices finally got to her." I say solemnly, looking over at a friend I just knocked out.

"If you could take her home, I'm sure she'd recover. The others might wonder if she doesn't return too,"

"She always used to make threats, but she never followed them through. When she woke up something didn't sit right with me about her. Maybe it was because I wasn't staring at the same girl..." I say with sadness in my voice.

 

"I will ask one more time... If I bring her back, which is iffy, then if she's still turned, she may kill your kind. If she isn't and I leave her, we never would have known. So... Do I try to bring her back, or leave her to die?"

 

"Definitely. Also, does the public know anything about this? Just tell the people it was a... uh... false alarm. And that we fired the guy who... hmm... I'll leave it up to you, I was never good with social situations. Get some vets on the dinosaurs too, just to make sure nothing bad happened to the poor things."

 

"It's on the news. I'll get vets to come out, but the panic's already out there. No blame has been pinned on you, so at least there's that."

 

"Is this the first time a leader of an organization is not blamed for everything? Besides that, tell them that the threat is gone. "

 

"Reporters are making us sound like the victims. Frankly, I'm not sure if we really are, inspections turned up no damages to the facility. Still, I'll have them report that. For now, you may want to get another clock and set it to a different time; see if this anomaly lasts or not. If it does, we'll still need to have some sense of time or everything's going to go south fast. If you want anything else relayed, let me know. I'm going to go off-premises to get your word out."

 

"Thanks."
I go and grab another clock, careful not to be seen because I do not want any social interaction with anyone asking me about why I need two clocks. I then go to the scene of the 'crime'.

 

The roads are closed left and right. Walking takes a while; it almost puts rush hour traffic to shame.

Eventually, you do manage to reach the prison. Immediately, you notice they have an entrance quarantined. There's like a tunnel of light leading away from the island.
"Hi Lazarus, glad you made it. Sorry about the scare yesterday." One of the prison guards stands between you and the taped-off entrance.