Welcome to Gaia! ::

Wiseman looked less interested in Chronos now that her Crystal was no longer up for grabs; in fact, he looked completely disinterested in her, as his eyes were trained on Aries. Behind him, Black Lady walked up to him with a grin of barely-disguised delight; she looked at him for a moment, then with scorn at Aries and Gemini, and then back at him, but he kept his eyes on Aries. His hands were bandaged, it looked like -- his hands and arms, actually, even under the slate-colored gauntlets he wore. He had two fingers poised almost delicately on Chronos's throat, like he was taking her pulse.

"Very good," he said to Aries. "Light stays red until I'm done talking, you understand? Now don't go violating traffic laws. Your momma taught you better than that."

The air was dead in silence whenever he took a break from talking. This time he looked up at the sky.

"Nice night, don't you think," he commented.

No one answered him. He shrugged with an air of oh, well, what the hell, and then motioned for Black Lady to join him: she did so, gladly. Without looking at her he looped his arm around her waist, and looped his other arm through Chronos's arm, and just as suddenly, the three of them rose into the air -- with no visible propulsion, or anything else, just as though someone had reached over to an invisible switch where they were standing and turned gravity off. They rose a little higher into the air, and then floated not far above the Zodiacs' heads, though out of their reach. Chronos was staring.

"I'll give her back," he remarked, inspecting the nails on his hand that was holding Chronos. His eyes were glowing Cherenkov blue. "Well, maybe. That depends on how well you answer this question, Captain. You can join in if you want, Gemini! It's a free country we got here. Anyway, I was wanting to ping Princess Serenity on Facebook and we might, you know, get together for some coffee or something, but it turns out I don't have her friended! And you know, common name and all -- so hard to find on the search -- so I was wondering if any of you," he gestured with Chronos, "knew her number or anything?"

They stared. He gave them a plaintive look.

"Oh," said Wiseman. "Well, that's too bad."

That sentence dropped like lead on both of their heads. The sorceror floated above them shaking his head as if he was going that's a pity, that's a pity, and there was nothing they could do -- panic riddled them with painful buckshot, but Wiseman was already rising a little higher in the air. He was talking again; sometime during all of this he'd looked at Black Lady, and then back again, and his expression had taken on a slightly different set, though it was hard to say what. "Lucky for you kids, I am in a good mood tonight. You see, I thought I missed tonight's ep of 30 Rock, but it turns out I had TiVo set to tape it automatically." His eyes glowed only brighter. "Small favors, eh?"

He adjusted his grip on Chronos. "So I'll make it brief. Ish. You can call me Wiseman until we get to know each other a little better. That," he nodded to his own chest, "is my new Great Crystal. This," he nodded to Black Lady, "is my lady fair. And we," the three of them rose a little precariously higher, "are the new kids on the block."

In one motion, Wiseman dropped Chronos and saluted them. As Chronos plummeted, an explosion of blue light and force knocked Aries and Gemini flat -- she landed on Aries in a tangle of limbs, and the three of them were stunned for long enough that, when they disentangled themselves, Wiseman and Black Lady were gone.