Fantasy The Passage of Time

[Kazehana]

Neither Luis nor Aaron had a legitimate response to the 25 shifts in attitude displayed by everyone else. Luis shook his head in an attempt to clear it as if it would help. "Why are you suddenly worried and helpless? Weren't you just using some sort of magic? It's not like you're defenseless," he queried. This didn't make any sense, even if he was aware of her power. "Besides, if we know how to beat her, why do we still consider her a threat? It's not like anyone here is vulnerable to water anyway," he pointed out, his face pensive and confused.

Aaron nodded his head. "I'm certainly not going to complain if I have more water," he muttered, already thinking of how beneficial it might be for her to throw water on his plants. "And we do have five times the amount of manpower she has anyway. No way is anyone stupid enough to fight that," he reasoned, though he imagined that the man wouldn't be much help if it came down to it.

"I'm not moving, but I'm also not going to chase her," Luis stated adamantly. His indifferent gaze never left the girl.


"Now hold it," Caroline responded. "We haven't prepared for anything since we first learned that they existed a minute ago. Calm down and focus," she continued, giving Felicity a warning glare. She wasn't about to let these people fly off the handle at the thought of any new news. God forbid they learn something while they're here.

"Maybe you should," Father Time interrupted. "You're all in trouble if you stay here," she added, then began to hum a familiar tune. Lulu froze when she heard it, but quickly shook it off. "Are you gonna tell us what or who these seekers are?" she snapped, clearly impatient. "Oh, yes, of course. For those of you who don't know, seekers are essentially magical poachers, or witch hunters if you prefer. They can summon magical weapons that shatter magical energy and effectively siphon their energy. So basically, they're anti-mages," she explained, trying to sound mysterious and intriguing.

"But why are they coming here?" Caroline asked. "Well, it turns out that they haven't been living under a rock and know that mages have come from the past. Apparently, recklessly using magic in the open is a terrible idea and might get you noticed by people." Lulu flinched from the sheer pettiness oozing off of the girl. She was clearly very salty about the whole matter.

"How do you know all this?" Lulu inquired. "We don't even know about this and I for one have been deeply involved with magical matters in this world." "Well, seekers aren't exactly as conspicuous as magic users. They certainly don't group together like witches and sometimes mages. I know more about what's going on than you'd want to know." "So you're like Kale?" Lulu asked, glaring suspiciously at her. "Oh, heavens no," she giggled. "He sure wishes, don't you, Kale?" she asked, looking around into the air.

Caroline followed her gaze, but saw nothing. <<... So there you are>> a voice echoed from no discernible location. "You really shouldn't be intruding on my personal conversations," Father Time added with a hint of an edge. After a few moments, their minds became slightly clearer from an unnoticeable abnormal state. "How did you know he was listening? Or that he was near?" Lulu demanded. "You don't need to know," she replied jovially.

 

[Shuttleloop14]

"Ya know you got a point there Mr. Mess up." Charlie said before turning the the man now looking much less pleading and rather spiteful. "With her weakened and all of us banded together I doubt she'd be a threat or even try to fight us with the water so far away." Charlie questioned further. The man looked angry and uneasy and looked like he was going to say something, but Miyu cut him off.
"She hasn't even tried to attack, I'm looking directly at her and she hasn't even moved a muscle yet. She's not as aggressive as she showed us initially or as you make it out to be. Why do you want us to attack her?" She said nonchalantly not breaking her gaze at the girl.
"Who are you? Seriously this time, answer." Charlie demanded. The man looked so unsure of himself at this point, he was stuck for words. But he could tell that Charlie wasn't fooling around. Not with that tone. The man sighed with frustration.
"Ugh. My name is Jerome, truth is I have a little bit of a grudge against this girl. You see, Lacey over there is a monster. She washed up on the shore one day alone and confused, I took her in out of sympathy and made her a part of my family. Of course as much as I would've liked to I can't feed another head without extra money. So I had to put her to work for her own sake, she refused though. Said our families work was-"

"Murder. It was murder Jerome." Lacey said standing behind the group. Miyu had watched her get off her water platform and let it be absorbed into soft ground and walk over to them with her hands raised slightly and her palms wide open as a sign of peace. Miyu didn't trust her at all but she trusted Jerry a lot less and wanted to clear up the situation. For her own understanding's sake as well as to stop her involvement with Jerome and his suspicious behaviour and deals.
"It was for our sake Lacey, you know we couldn't survive without-"
"We could've survived, you and all of the 'family' could've worked at real jobs and made an honest living like I tried to. Like I tried so many times only to have you stop me over and over. I told you I didn't want what you gave me if it meant I'd have to capture all of those people with supernatural abilities and watch you do what you did with th-" Jerry cut her off with a firm slap across the face, Lacey staggered backwards a little bit. He was fuming.
"You don't know what you just said do you," he was advancing towards her "you just had to go and spill it all out didn't you!" Charlie immediately used his powers to stop Jerry's legs in place, he wasn't sure who to believe or what to feel considering what Lacey had done prior. But he did want to hear more about Jerome and what he did. He knew he couldn't do that with Jerome attacking her. With a face of anger Jerry muttered a different sentence and with that came electricity from his fingertips- zapping towards Charlie who reacted by lowering his face swiftly so that his wooden mask would stop the electricity from reaching his body. As a result he had to stop holding Jerome's legs with his powers.

Jerry was clearly angry beyond reason, even with this many people around he was still willing to try and harm the now fleeing Lacey- whom he was still advancing towards once his legs were freed of Charlie's effects.


Felicity took Caroline's words and used them to regain her normal composure rather than the panicked one she had just showcased. However she didn't take kindly to what the girl said about using magic in the open, she thought back to a few of her own antics with her powers that she had exhibited in the past. Though she had made sure no one was around when she used her appendages. Though the teleporting may have been the problem.

"Anti-mages, so effectively they're hard counters to us ancients. Aren't you the least bit concerned with them too Father Time?" Felicity asked rather redundantly. She had already gathered that Father Time was significantly more powerful than Kale and must've had some sort of precognition or teleportation in order to appear out of no where like she did with the information that she had. Needless to say Felicity's soft tone had gone and she spoke to Father Time in the same way she spoke to everyone else, confidently and to the point.

"I'm not sure what our course of action should be next, I'd like to wait here and see what these seekers are all about honestly. Learning as much as we can from them and their motives can only be beneficial to us after all. Any thoughts ladies?" She asked Lulu and Caroline.

 

[Kazehana]

Aaron's eyes darted back and forth as so much happened in such a short time frame. As soon as Jerome used his powers, Luis' guard went up, and he threw a light shield on Aaron out of instinct. His initial instincts were right, and he was glad he stood his ground. But Luis was less thrilled that his predictions turned out to be true. With everything out in the open, however, he no longer felt threatened by the uneasiness and the obvious deception lying in the air.

The wind picked up as Jerome used his elemental powers, sending a chill up Aaron's spine. "Witch," Luis muttered, quickly cycling through his options. Given the lack of time, he resorted to a make-shift plan and told Aaron to throw whatever he had. Aaron nodded and flicked his hand upward to sprout new flowers, mostly black roses. He rose his hands and threw them stem-first at their aggressor, not bothering to aim well in such a time. Once he did, Luis pushed him lightly towards the direction of an alley where he might find shelter. He gave Miyu a head jerk for her to do the same, but wasn't sure if she'd follow. Hopefully, this distracted the man enough to falter his focus. In preparation, Luis shifted his light to himself.


"Obviously they're of concern to me," the girl shot back, almost huffing indignantly. Instead, she puffed her cheeks. "Listen, I know what they're capable of, and I'm not going to let the mage faction suffer for an unfortunate event throwing them forward to such an unforgiving world," she explained, though vaguely so.

"I'd rather not," Caroline suggested. "Look, we don't know anything about them other than their basic principles. Who knows how they work or how lethal they are to you or anything? There's a difference between testing the waters and diving in." "But I kno-" Father Time began. Lulu tilted her head. "But how else would we test the waters?" she asked, clearly unsure of the metaphor. "We could learn from the mistakes of others. I'm sure news travels fast," Caroline suggested, not wanting to stick around for the aftermath. "We cou-" "But this is a good time to understand them. It's not like we have any competition; did you see the witch flee?" "Precisely! The witches haven't seemed scared of us before, so what does it tell you about how she fled at the thought of a seeker?" Caroline countered. "If I could jus-" "This doesn't even concern you!" Lulu argued, clearly aboard the murder-train. "I'm involved now. Deal with it," Caroline spat back.

 

[Shuttleloop14]

Miyu picked up what Luis meant with his head jerk and followed Aaron into their temporary hiding spot. As much as she didn't really want to hide Luis had a different aura about him, it wasn't awkwardly authoritative like it normally was but he seemed far more serious. "I wonder what he's planning." Miyu said when the two of them had reached their destination.

Jerome couldn't process anything but his hate at the moment, but that changed when it felt like he was being stabbed by several shells of ammunition, a few of the projectiles missed and Jerome saw the black roses. He turned around with an almost deranged smile on his face, "So who's the florist?" He said with his anger directed towards Charlie and Luis, Miyu and Aaron were running away as he said this, and as much as their departure anger him he had a feeling they weren't as combat adept as the two who stood before them. "Doesn't matter, I'll have it as an ability of my own soon enough!" He yelled once more, Jerome once again summoned the purple binding chains from the ground and tried to catch Luis and Charlie in them. However Charlie could see the attack coming and quickly moved himself out of the way. Charlie kept trying to get in close to Jerome but Jerome continuously warded him off with a multitude of magical attacks. Charlie was getting frustrated with his failed attempts but continued trying to distract him up close, from the looks of it Luis was charging something up and distracting Jerome until the attack was unleashed was probably the best course of action.

Meanwhile Lacey had also managed to retreat to where Aaron and Miyu were, ironically she assumed she'd be safer with them than near the ocean again. The reason being if Jerome managed to beat them all it was inevitable he would come after her next, she was here to lend support if she was needed but without a large water source nearby her support would be rather limited. Miyu looked over at her, "What're you doing here? Wouldn't you rather get away?" Lacey shook her head.
"I don't want to be alone right now..." She said timidly, a stark contrast from before "...I'm sorry about earlier..." She said shakily after Miyu didn't respond to her.
"Don't worry about it." Miyu said half heartedly, something about this girl still didn't bode well with her but being civil for now was probably the best option.


Felicity smirked at their little quarrel "There's no point fighting amongst each other here, that's very immature of you both. Especially when there is supposedly an enemy coming to our location." She said arrogantly before looking at Caroline directly. "Let's stay, Lulu is right we would literally be wasting an opportunity to see what it is we are up against. Like it or not, if you're going to be a part of this you're going to have to be in danger at some point. I'm going to stay here and see what the seeker is. If you don't then we'll that's up to you, I'm sure Lulu and I will be far more than enough to deal with the seeker." Felicity said almost condescendingly, she then turned her focus to the ever mysterious but presently clearly frustrated Father Time.

"Now that these fools finally ceased their little squabble why don't you get your word in? I noticed your futile interjections during the waste of a few seconds we just endured thanks to my companions." Felicity was more than ready to face an opponent. She had wished the time of day was slightly different so she could fight optimally but she doubted its effect the outcome of the battle wouldn't be significant. Especially with the presence of Lulu, she struck Felciity as the boss of the little duo between Lulu and Luis. Felicity was definitely surprised to hear of Father Time's worries, this was the first time she had expressed any real emotion other than her odd playful persona. But despite this Felicity was feeling rather confident against anything or anything that'd dare challenge her?

 

[Kazehana]

Aaron tended to believe in the best of people, so he didn't necessarily care about Miyu and Lacey at the moment. However, he was exceptionally worried about the other two, namely Charlie. For a reason he couldn't quite place, he felt perfectly fine with Luis, but Charlie was a different matter. He couldn't seem to predict what would happen to the weird cosplay dude.

Luis made no effort to move, but instead closed his eyes. The light around him radiated with an intense glow almost as if he were a terrestrial version of a star. The chains fizzled immediately as they touched the light, as well as any other magical attacks that headed their way. He opened his eyes and observed their fight. After a moment, he began to move forward towards the two, mostly staring at Jerome. His face expressionless, he soldiered forth to his target.

Aaron squinted suspiciously. "Solar flare," he breathed, feeling an indescribable sensation about him. As if by reflex, he stood up from his crouched position and reentered the battlefield. He rose a line of tiger lilies, promptly uprooted them, and shot them at Jerome.

Meanwhile, the light around Luis became more violent and uncontained, almost as if it were lashing out. The light singed nearby buildings and plants as if it were made of fire, and Luis kept his pace.


Caroline said nothing, resigning herself to a tsk of indigence instead. It would be no use to her to try to fight them on the matter again. Lulu glanced at Felicity for but a moment before she began to walk around and inspect for good vantage points.

"I was just going to say that it doesn't really matter what you decide. The encounter has been fated and is therefore inevitable. It is what you decide to do with the event that determines which of many outcomes may occur. But be careful, as this particular event holds weight in the destiny of the magical world." She looked behind herself briefly, then turned back to the three with a blank expression. In the next moment, she had completely vanished.

Footsteps followed her disappearance, almost as if in a rush. In the archway that lead into the plaza, a tall, fit man stopped and glanced around. "Are you the sorcerers that are drawing in seekers?"

 

[Shuttleloop14]

Both Charlie and Jerome stopped their little battle and looked at where this huge amount of light was seemingly coming from, only to see Luis walking towards Jerome in a unnerving fashion as he was surrounded by what seemed to be a sphere of disintegrating light. Charlie immediately pushed his own body directly away from Jerome and used his magic to hover the man in the air upsidown. Jerome could barely process what was happening before he was pelted by another round of stems, Jerome was worried now. This man was seemingly a walking killing machine and he was trapped in place. Jerome tried blasting him with an array of attacks but none of them prevailed. At that moment Jerome's phone fell out of his pocket, Jerome clicked a button on the side of his phone before yelling for help to whoever was on the other end before Charlie pulled the phone over to him.

Charlie picked up the device while holding Jerome in place and inspected it, it wasn't a smartphone but instead some sort of old communication device. "You heard him Mr. Mess-up, whatever you're doing do it now before anyone gets here and don't mess up!" Charlie said worried about any other people coming to this area.

"Help? No..." Lacey said to herself, she was also worried about the reinforcements but wanted a different course of action to Charlie, "If whatever that man is doing is going to cause physical recoil to himself then tell him to stop immediately!" She told Miyu, as much as Miyu didn't like Lacey- Miyu knew that she had a connection with Jerome so she didn't hesitate.

"Luis!" She said as she left her hiding spot and stood by Aaron "If you're going to get damaged by whatever you're doing then don't do it!" She yelled as loud as she could. She didn't know if that bubble of death around him stopped sound. Charlie looked over at her and she knew exactly what he was thinking. "Don't look at me! Focus on holding him up." She said as she could see his powers were faltering a little due to fatigue. Whatever happened next was seemingly down to Luis.


Felicity would've been surprised by the man if Father Time hadn't said anything, speaking of whom has mysteriously left as oddly and suddenly as she arrived. "I don't know anymore but probably, what's it to you?" She said nonchalantly, not even turning her whole body to face the man- just her head. Unless this man had a strong talent in misdirection Felicity was fairly certain that he wasn't a seeker given his composure and more obviously his question.

"More importantly," Felicity said ignoring the man "are you able to fight the seekers off without relying on your abilities Lulu? Because as much as I hate to admit it we might be in a bit of a dilemma if they really are as efficient against magical attacks as that little girl said they were." Felicity guessed that if they needed someone to fight the seekers without abilities then Miyu or Luis earlier would be the best choice, considering that Miyu was able to fight physically without powers and Luis as he was probably physically the strongest out of the bunch. Charlie would've been useful too considering his abilities weren't tangible, she was rather annoyed that none of them were here and considered travelling away from the group through the shadows and trying to find them and ask them for help.

 

[Kazehana]

Luis paid them no mind, his stone glare directed only at the man who threatened them. He stopped only a short distance away, his flares still lashing out in rage. "You can hurt me all you like, but you may not hurt the young ones or my beloved," he stated plainly, almost monotonously. A few quick flares lashed at the man, one right after the other. Luis hardly moved or flinched in the slightest.

Aaron watched as the first few hit the man, then ran out to him. "Stop, stop!" he pleaded once he understood what was happening. It was clear to him that Luis didn't intend to leave a warning, but to completely remove the man from existence. "You can't kill him; that's not what we're after. Remember? We wanted more information on how to save people, not kill them!" His cries became more exasperated as the situation became more intense and volatile, his pacifism getting the better of him.

Luis glanced at Aaron and studied his demeanor carefully. The flares became less erratic and volatile, diminishing in frequency as well. The light around him lowered to a dim glow, just enough to be back to its original form. Aaron broke a small smile in gratitude, then looked at the man. Luis returned to Aaron's side and shifted his suspicious gaze to the man as well.


The man was visibly irritated that she dismissed him as if he didn't matter, but Lulu answered first. "I specialize in weapons, though usually I just make them myself. If we had something of use around here, say a sword or something, maybe I could. But we don't exactly know how they work with magic, and we're here to experiment anyway, so why not just use it?" Caroline shifted uncomfortably, but said nothing in response.

"Yeah, so how about you do that somewhere else?" the man demanded abrasively. "We can't have them hanging around here, so take them with you and away from us," he continued, his annoyance noticeably increasing. "Oh hush," Lulu shot back simply. "Now, do you have anything to use? No offense, but you don't seem like you can function without your magic," she pointed out after basic observation. "Caroline either, but I'm assuming she wouldn't fight regardless," she finished, mostly thinking aloud.

 

[Shuttleloop14]

Charlie stood in awe of Luis' power, a tinge of jealously shot through him as he saw the capability he had. Once the attack stopped Charlie dropped Jerome onto the ground, causing the Aaron-lookalike to faceplant onto the floor and splutter a little bit when hitting it. He wasn't in a good condition, the attack had done a little more than just singe his clothes. With a desperate sigh as the group who intended to be pacifists leered at him from all directions, Jerome began to trudge in the opposite direction before falling down onto his knees and panting heavily.

"Jerome, are you okay?" He heard a familiar voice say
"I transported Miss Euraka here as soon as I could sir, unfortunately the rest of your witches are busy right now." Came another voice. Jerome looked up to see Bell and Matthew, a young girl and a middle aged man who worked under him in his 'family'.
"Could've gotten here sooner Matthew, what happened to all that teleporting crap magic huh?" Jerome said exhausted and beat. Matthew simply let out a heavy breath and leaned down to touch Jerome with his hand before extending out another skinny arm to draw a circle on Jerome's back. From the circle Jerome's body seemingly disappeared into the night.
"Let's go Miss, I'm surest will scold us back at home for not fighting this crowd." Bell let out a rather sad sounding laugh and smiled before nodding her head. Matthew began to draw the circle on the ground around them and they too disappeared into the night, Matthew with a stern look of emptiness and Bell with a wave directed towards Lacey who she had spotted. Lacey averted her eyes, much to Bell's disappointment.

"Thank God that's over," Charlie exclaimed as he collapsed after using his power so extensively "Now let's sleep." He said before seemingly instantly dozing off. Miyu rolled her eyes and came out from her hiding place with Lacey not too far behind.
"Well we have a few options now, we could keep looking for Kale or we could go and find Caroline and the rest of them." She said trying to lift Charlie onto her back.
"...or if you really wanna save people then we could go to Jerome's home." Lacey said looking at Aaron in particular "I'll give it to you straight, Jerome captures people with abilities like us and performs some kind of ritual on them. All I know is that it transfers their abilities to Jerome...and kills them in the process. So if you really wanna save people then please help me to save them." She shuddered as she spoke, remembering her failed attempts to save the captured ancients in the past and how she had to run away and leave them all behind to escape Jerome with her life.

"Sounds useful." Felicity said continuing to ignore the clearly offended man mostly for her amusement at this point "and yes Caroline isn't going to fight unless she really wants too." Felicity was rather annoyed at how accurate Lulu's statement was. To think she came all this way to kill and learn about the Passage of Time and how she could avoid it ever sending her back in time and yet neither of the, had been achieved at this point. "I'm much less useful than I would've been had they not been immune to magic. But my shadow manipulation still allows me to throw multiple physical objects at the seekers at high speed, and like you said we don't know what their 'anti magic' factor really is. My main prowess comes from cutting and crushing using my many shadows, it's quite physical so really I'm not sure if they'll be immune to it entirely." Or at least that was what she hoped would be the case. In any situation though if things started looking bad she could always teleport herself away from the danger.

She was growing curious about the man behind her and if he hadn't made his frustration so clear she would've paid him some attention, but right now in the midst of all of this doom and gloom she could use his temper tantrums as a form of comic relief.

 

[Kazehana]

Aaron, feeling the pressure being put on him directly by Lacey, started fidgeting with his hands. "W-well, I don't know. To be honest, we should help people, but everyone needs help right now, don't they? Who really needs it more? We don't know how anyone is doing at all, so who's to say what we should be doing," he rambled aloud. Luis caught on and chided in with his own thoughts about the matter. "I think we should discuss this in full with the rest of our group. We can't keep splitting off to cover more ground, especially when tethers are at stake. Perhaps if we met back up with the other three, we could make a collective decision then."

Aaron was surprised that Luis took the decision directly off of his shoulders and threw it as far as he could, relieving him of the pressure. But he wasn't about to complain. "That sounds good, right guys?" Aaron affirmed, trying to see if Miyu was on board. He wasn't sure what those people were about, and to be fair, he wasn't sure if he wanted to know.


Lulu hesitated as she tried to think of an appropriate response. "Are we willing to take that risk? What happens if that fails? Do we have an escape plan?" she asked, her attitude suddenly turning prudent and insightful. Caroline almost screamed at how Lulu basically stole her entire position on the matter as if it was her idea the whole time, but bit her tongue to keep the peace.

"I don't think you should be taking any risks at all," the man began, still trying to get his point across. "They will give no mercy to you or to us. How do you know about them yet not know just how serious this is?" he demanded, his eyebrows crossed in both vexation and confusion. He glanced out of the plaza and down the alley as if he expected something new to be there. "Look, if you use magic, and I mean at all, they can shatter it. Not only does this weaken you, but it makes you vulnerable to capture or death, which is something none of us want. So how about you come with me, and we can void all of this unnecessary danger," he proposed, his demeanor growing ever worried as he glanced back into the alley once more.

 

[Shuttleloop14]

"Yeah, I think it's about time we try and find the other three. Forget this Kale charade, we're only getting beaten up over here." Miyu said trying to adjust Charlie on her back to a more comfortable position.
"Hm, okay. I see." Lacey said clearly a little disheartened, she didn't take her eyes off Aaron though. "I won't be joining you then. I don't want to burden you guys with me anymore, clearly you have your own problems and your own people that need saving." Lacey turned in the direction of the beach where they found her on. "If you need me for a favour or whatever then I'll be where you all met me, I kind of owe you one now. Jerome would've probably captured me if it weren't for you guys...so thanks." And with that Lacey had already began to walk away, only breaking the eye contact with Aaron once she turned away.

As much as Miyu would've liked another strong ally around them, she clearly had too much baggage with her to get involved with something else that didn't involve her directly. Miyu didn't want to further stress her out as she was clearly not very happy with her situation at the moment. "Either of you two wanna stop her?" Miyu said to Aaron and Luis, checking that they were also okay with leaving her, before turning in the opposite direction and beginning to walk back towards the more crowded city area. It dawned on her that she had no clue where to even begin to look for the rest of their little group.


Felicity had had just about enough of hearing this man speak, she raised a rigid shadowy appendage up behind her as she finally fully turned around to address him. "Look, who even are you? How do we know we can trust you? If you genuinely mean well with whatever you're trying to do here then you picked an awfully poor way to do it, don't you agree?" Her tone was stern and serious, her narrowed eyes reflecting that as she looked dead into his. "In general, I've found that people who know anything about magic tend to be bad news for me. I have little reason to trust you. For all I know you could be the seeker you're pretending to fear." With her last sentence a smirk emerged on her face.

Felicity shot the shadow behind her forward straight towards the man's neck, stopping it moments before it impaled him. "This is how I can know I can trust you. If you're a seeker then you'll shatter this and kill us, if not then you'll tell us the truth about who you are and how you know so much- and more importantly why we should believe a word you say. You're speaking for your life right now darling, so be concise. Don't let me get bored." She really doubted he was a seeker, she just figured she'd try to have a little more fun with him while trying to reach a conclusive route of action to take against these seekers.

 

[Kazehana]

Luis glanced curiously at Lacey, but said nothing to her. In his opinion, she seemed capable enough to take care of herself, and he couldn't burden their alliance with more problems than they already had. Aaron did not share his nonchalance, but said nothing to say otherwise. "I think that she will be fine," Luis said curtly since no one else seemed to want to say anything. He began to follow Miyu with Arron lagging slightly behind in tow.

"I guess we're off to the northern district to find some witches," Luis observed obviously. Of course, he didn't know how obvious the other three would be, but he suspected that they wouldn't be hard to find if they were nearby. But it was a matter of when they arrived with relation to whatever battle the three belligerents of the group had conceived. Although he wasn't entirely indifferent to the witches, he wasn't so sure that instigating them out of the blue was such a smart idea.

Aaron, silent as ever, simply continued to keep the caboose in check, occasionally glancing over his shoulder as if he expected to be followed. **This group will likely be traveling for quite a few posts so I'll stop posting for them for a short while


"Look," the man began flatly and standing in his casual stance as if nothing had changed, "I know you think you're hot stuff, but this isn't something you know anything about - clearly you're out of your element here." He tilted his calmer head slightly to the side. "And to be quite frank, I highly doubt you've heard anything less of a warning than what I've said given that someone had to tell you about seekers in the first place. Certainly you can't believe me so dumb as to think anyone would dare brush off their power as if it's nothing unless they wanted you dead."

Caroline fell for the man's logic and began to question herself what they were doing there. She opened her mouth to add to the conversation, but the sheer amount of magic around her prevented her from making any sort of sound at all, so she closed it right back up. Lulu on the other hand had no quarrel with confrontation in a dangerous situation. "Okay but who are you?" she demanded almost out of the blue. It hadn't slipped past her that he failed to mention anything about it.

"I feel as though you're not taking this conversation seriously," he responded bluntly. "Please, do feel free to kill me, but I'm just here to give your decision a second opinion - and of course to minimize the damage you'll cause if you do so. I've seen an oracle, and I know what goes down here if you decide to stay. In short, it isn't pretty for anyone."

 

[Shuttleloop14]

Felicity pondered for a moment whether to kill him or not, smiling a little when he mentioned it. If she was alone she most certainly would've done it but Lulu and Caroline might not have taken so kindly to it. The last thing she needed was more enemies when potential danger was around. With a brief laugh Felicity simply quickly moved her shadow over to the man's cheek and pierced it to make a slight cut, drawing a bit of blood. She retracted the shadow and turned to the evidentially strong willed women behind her.

"Let's just go with it you two. As much as I don't trust him and that I hate the fact I'm accepting advice from him, I hate the fact that we're honestly not getting anywhere with this even more. Besides, it's not like he's making up the seekers. Either he's being genuine or he is just stupid. If he continues to be unhelpful despite insisting otherwise then I'm just going to kill him and we can figure out what to do from there." She spoke clearly and without any uncertianty in her voice before she turned back to him with a serious look on her face. Felicity was rather desperate to learn how she'd be able to go about killing the seekers. She couldn't accept there was a group of people out there who were a threat to her.
"Alright, look. I'll listen to you, where do you want to go before you start actually being more than useless?"

 

[Kazehana]

The other two women exchanged a glance, but didn't directly respond to Felicity. The man stared indifferently at her, almost as if he was still trying to figure her out. "I recently spoke with Penelope on the matter, and she seems to believe that there is no way to fend yourselves from the seekers without some magical item or items or something. She was speaking quickly, so I didn't catch the details."

Lulu grunted. "Why would we believe a little girl over our own instincts? She can't even fend for herself," she retorted, clearly unwilling to take the information at face value. The man shifted his glance to her as if he didn't see her standing there before. "Well, she does have the power to read and learn at a incredibly quick pace. Perhaps she's done her research on the matter. It's not like they're completely invisible, though they are rather careful."

Caroline, further unhappy that more young people are involved in the chaos, scowled in response. Lulu noticed this, but didn't say anything for priority's sake. Instead, she retorted once again. "So then what would we do now? We already know that they're on their way, and that we can't fight them head on. So do we just run away or?"

The man thought about it for a moment, then looked up. "I can provide a quick means of escape, but I'll need something from you - the description of someone who was recently here, someone who goes by Father Time."