Chronos - Chapter 8 (Patreon)

Chapter 8 – Awakened

Sometimes one must sacrifice to maintain your cover. Tonight, my great sacrifice was going out with five lovely ladies to have a night on the town. I made a mental note to extol my humanitarian virtues the next time I had a chance.

At thirty-eight, in chronological time, I was the eldest of our group, though Susan wasn’t far behind at thirty-five. Bethany and Janice were thirty, though their birthdays were spread out by four months, and Linda was twenty-nine. Tracy was the ‘baby’ of the group, fresh out of earning her degree in library science at twenty-four.

For bowling, we took over two lanes, with Susan, Linda, and Janice on the first one, and Tracy, Bethany, and myself on the other. Of course, since our lanes were side-by-side, there was plenty of talking and gossiping going on. Being women with juicy gossip at hand, it did not take long for them to start bugging Bethany for details on the ritual. After all, sexy times happened in the library, so obviously they needed a full report!

Fortunately, the ladies were more concerned about the actual sex itself than anything else. Part of that was because they wanted to tease Bethany, of course, since she hadn’t had a relationship in years that didn’t involve batteries, but Susan also helped steer the conversation away from the reason why the ritual was done, and what it would do. Teasing their friend for getting some was one thing, but rubbing her face in her fears was quite another.

The actual bowling itself was unremarkable. None of us were what you might call ‘professionals’, and our scores reflected that. All told, across two games on each lane, we each averaged about 100, which was decent, for people who might not be beginners, but only played once or twice a year. I won the second game on my lane with a 115.

I might have done better, but I was recovering from the ritual, still. Also, I kept getting flickers at the edge of my time sense, as though someone were trying to manipulate things, and failing. That either meant that there was some other fool who was trying, and failing, to play with time in this city, or that Paradoxical was around. And, given the way accidents kept almost happening around Bethany, I knew what the smart bet on that was.

I didn’t actually spot Paradoxical until we left the bowling alley to drive to the restaurant for dinner and karaoke. He was actually in costume, wearing this garish outfit of green and purple, with a domino mask over the eyes, and he was driving a skybike at ground level to follow us. Honestly, once I saw him, he stuck out like such a sore thumb that it was surprising I had ever missed him, given that he was constantly less than a hundred feet away from us.

Once I got a good look at him, though, it all made sense. One of his powers was obviously a kind of ‘misdirection’ field. Unless he did something to stand out, he just kind of blended into the surroundings. It wasn’t so much ‘invisibility’ as just convincing people to ignore him. But once you noticed him, the effect was broken.

Getting away from the group was easy enough. I just told them that I needed to use the restroom and for them to go ahead and get our booth ready. As soon as I was in a stall, I untethered myself from time and switched into my ‘costume’ for Chronos. Time moved around me, but I was effectively operating on a different ‘wavelength’, making it impossible for normal people to see me.

Untethered Time

Linked Power

Quickness 20 – 1PP/Rank

Action: Free (Passive)

Range: Personal

Duration: Continuous

Cost: 20PP

Concealment 10 – 2PP/Rank

Action: Free (Active)

Range: Personal

Duration: Continuous

Feats: Close Range

Extras: Duration (Continuous)

Flaws: Distracting

Drawbacks: Power Loss (Does not work against Time Sense)

Cost: 20 PP

Feats: Alternate Power 9 (Compressed Time, Entropic Touch, Freeze   Time, Stasis Touch, Temporal Copies, Temporal Mobility, Temporal Reversion,   Timeshades, Timeskip)

Descriptors: Magic, Time

Total Cost: 49 PP

By accelerating his personal time, Chronos can act five million   times quicker than a normal person. While accelerating in this way does not   allow him to run faster, his body does move quickly enough that he becomes   effectively invisible to all senses. Only those with Time Sense can perceive   him normally while he is accelerated like this. Unfortunately,   self-acceleration like this makes it difficult to concentrate on the real   world, leaving him vulnerable to attacks if anyone can see him.   Alternatively, he can forgo using this power and use one of the alternate powers,   each having up to 40PP available to them.

Paradoxical was still outside the restaurant. Looked like he was casing the place, trying to figure out why his power hadn’t worked all evening, and probably also scouting for the best ways to cause trouble. That was fine, it meant that he was still outside, and I had room to maneuver.

The villain was not on his guard. He wasn’t used to people being able to see him before he could see them. He hadn’t bothered even trying to cover for any of his weaknesses. That was unfortunate for him, but it made my job easier, by far.

Chronos’s   Attack Roll: 1d20+8 = 28 (Success)

Paradoxical’s   Will Save: 1d20+10 = 14 (Fail, DC 22)

Because of my being effectively invisible to all of Paradoxical’s senses, and him being more concerned with his own plans, he did not notice me walking right up to him, and saying the incantation to activate the talisman I’d prepared for him this morning. In fact, it wasn’t until I applied the talisman to his forehead, and it began burning brand of sealing into his flesh that he figured it out. But, by then, it was already too late.

Chronos’s   Initiative check: 1d20+5 = 21

Paradoxical’s   Initiative check: 1d20+2 = 19

Chronos’s   Knowledge (Arcane Lore) Check: 1d20+20 = 26 (Success)

Chronos’s   Attack Roll: 1d20+12 = 33 (Hit)

Paradoxical’s   Toughness Save: 1d20+10 = 14 (Fail, DC 27)

Paradoxical   is Staggered, Disabled, Stunned.

“Teldranath, awaken!”

With those words and a twist of arcane power at just the right point, the cane I had been using to help support myself glowed with a pulse of raw magic. Teldranath was the name of the blade, an artifact that I had ‘acquired’ long ago. It was on that misadventure when I suffered the wound that ruined my dreams of being a combat mage, a ‘gift’ from the former wielder of the sword.

The blade was shaped as a khopesh, but, unlike the bronze blades of ancient Egypt, this blade was forged from steel made of meteoric iron and infused with dragon bones, rather than mundane carbon. Its hilt was made from the shaved bark of the world-tree, and wrapped in the leather of a demon’s wings. Along its blade, the flames of creation and the light of the first dawn were enshrined, in their pure forms from when time itself was young. Even now, its creation could never be matched, and I was well aware that I had not even unlocked a fraction of its true power.

Paradoxical’s eyes went wide as he saw the blade for an instant before it slashed a bloody stroke across his chest, doing its best to cleave the man in two. As it stood, he lived, if only barely, because he had just enough wit to jerk out of the way before I could have made it a killing blow. Even so, one hand hung limply by his side, useless.

“Y-you bastard!” He coughed, falling to one knee, unable to do more than spit up blood and glare at me. “You almost killed me! What kind of hero are you?”

Chronos’s   Attack Roll: 1d20+12 = 21 (Success)

Paradoxical’s   Toughness Save: 1d20+10 = 19 (Fail, DC 27) (Nonlethal)

Paradoxical   is Unconscious.

Chronos   gains 1 XP.

I smiled, even though the scarf hid my expression. “Who said that I was a hero? You were simply hunting on my turf. The God of Time does not share his domain with other time-shifters.” And then I swung the blade again, this time taking care to hit him with the flat, so that he was only sleeping when he fell to the ground.

“Sleep, Teldranath.”

As I spoke the words, the sword once more returned to the form of a simple walking stick. With a thought, I once again untethered myself from time, and went back inside the restaurant, changing my clothes to once more be the simple librarian I made myself out to be. And that is what people saw when I walked out of the bathroom, walking with my cane, and went to find the private room where my coworkers had already settled in, and were looking at the menus.

It was a pity to have to use Teldranath. The sword was far too powerful for the likes of Paradoxical, of course, so I knew that it would end the fight quickly. That, and the fact that it would not give the Protectors a chance to see any of my other time-based abilities was the only reason I used it.

For such power could not be unsheathed without people noticing it. Indeed, anyone who could use magic, or even just detect it, would have felt the blade’s revelation like a blaze of light in the darkness. Even here, in the midst of the city, with all the supers around, there were few items that would be so easily felt. Only in its bound form, where it was nothing but an indestructible walking stick, could it escape detection.

Now, there would be talk. I didn’t doubt that, in the next day or two, I would have another visit from the trio who unknowingly asked me to consult on how to capture myself. Though they didn’t have any mystic types to match the skills of the Black Hat, much less myself, that did not mean that they were devoid of resources. Someone would have felt the pulse of magic, and realized that it was an artifact being used.

That, and the fact that people would soon be calling the cops, if they hadn’t already, meant that someone would find Paradoxical. They would find out what happened to him, how I locked his powers behind his nonexistent knowledge of the arcane. And they would learn about the sword that cut him down. I doubted that they would discover the weapon’s name, not unless Paradoxical was lucid enough to recall it through the pain, but they would undoubtedly know that Chronos had a powerful weapon at his disposal.

That was a risk, but a calculated one. If the groups that were wanting to hunt me knew that I had a weapon that could disable a villain like Paradoxical without him being able to so much as attempt to defend himself, then they would be more cautious in how they approached the hunt. They would want more information, and some way of neutralizing the threat, or at least countering my abilities. And they would almost certainly come to me, as the highest-rated expert in the arcane currently in the city, to help with that.

But that was something I could deal with later. I stepped into the room, and made my apologies, but my coworkers all knew that sometimes nature called. Just as I sat down between Bethany and Tracy, the waitress came in, and we started ordering our drinks and food. By the time the cops actually showed up, we had already started playing songs and enjoying ourselves, with the music turned up high enough so that the officer had to really bang on the door in order to get our statements.

But everyone vouched for me, saying that I had been in the room for a while, and none of us heard or saw anything. I just added that I did feel a pulse of magic, but that it was gone too quickly for me to know what it was. The cops took my card, in case they had any further questions, but I got the feeling that none of them were too torn up about a supervillain getting thrashed in the parking lot, especially since there weren’t any casualties. They had paperwork to file, but other than that? They were just happy that someone else took out the trash.

With that handled, I simply focused on enjoying the rest of the night. After all, I was drinking and partying with five women. Tomorrow could take care of itself.