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 Posted: Mon Jan 17, 2005 6:02 pm
"What the...?" Sosiqui walked over as soon as she saw Carda's reaction, then blinked. "Twin brother?" she guessed.
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Posted: Mon Jan 17, 2005 6:09 pm
"Only sibling I've got is Michelle," Carda replied. "Any ideas, Seraphim?"
Seraphim floated over and did a double take. "Wow I've heard of the expression 'knock yourself out' but this is a little extreme isn't it?"
"Less commentary, more answers, if you please?"
"Right gotcha sure thing," Seraphim replied. She looked skyward as if praying. A moment later, she lowered her gaze. "He's you."
"Well, THAT certainly takes a load off my mind."
"He's a parallel self and apparently he's working as an agent of the Council."
"Wait, what? If he's working for the Council, how come I never saw him before now?"
"Well he's the guy who bumped into you earlier today and I TRIED to tell you that but you were so busy thinking and stuff that you didn't want to be bothered."
"Beyond the scope of the past several hours, Seraphim. Why wouldn't I have seen this other me before? Come to think of it, why haven't I had a suspension yet?" Carda shook his head. "Never mind, I don't want to know. Let's just get him out of the way and be done with it. My life is existential enough as it is without a clone of me running around."
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Posted: Mon Jan 17, 2005 6:35 pm
Sosiqui thought, again. She COULD put the other guy into stasis, but they'd still have to hide him somewhere... and it would be suspicious. If he was found, it would be obvious a kairomancer was around.
So. The other option. Aeina had told her not to use her magic until she said it was alright, but considering the options... "Ever time-traveled before?" she asked Carda with a wry grin.
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Posted: Mon Jan 17, 2005 6:37 pm
"Do what now?" Carda inquired dumbly.
Seraphim gasped and buried herself in Carda's scarf.
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Posted: Mon Jan 17, 2005 6:42 pm
Sosiqui pulled out her wand. "I shouldn't use any of the advanced kairomancy spells, but... I think I can make this work using mostly low-level spells." She grinned. "Aeina will be ragingly mad at me, but considering the alternative... well." She pulled at the drawstrings of the pouch at her waist with her free hand, and managed to open it and remove a handful of fine, sparkling powder. "I'll need you to do your little trick again, when I tell you to. Are you up to it?"
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Posted: Mon Jan 17, 2005 6:47 pm
"Um... I think so?" Carda honestly had no idea what Sosiqui had up her sleeve, but it was apparently better than any alternatives. "The trick with the staff? Yeah, that's child's play; even a child with enough control of his abilities could pull off that little sleight of hand."
Carda suddenly became a little nervous. "Why? What are you planning?" he inquired suspiciously. "This better not end with more than two of me in the same place at once. Two's bad enough."
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Posted: Mon Jan 17, 2005 6:51 pm
Sosiqui bit her lip. "No, I think I can keep it down to two. Meeting yourself in the past doesn't hurt you, exactly... paradox doesn't always do what you'd think. We're just going to alter history a little tiny bit... I'll take us back about five minutes, and then you'll knock out our spy here before we start talking about the more interesting things. Essentially, we'll erase the past five minutes. Since you're with me, you'll remember. Don't worry."
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Posted: Mon Jan 17, 2005 6:57 pm
Carda glanced down at Seraphim, who was still hiding in the folds of his scarf. He guessed that she didn't want to get left behind or whatever, shrugged it off, and concentrated on the matter at hand. He didn't know how much energy he had left, but he figured it was more than enough to pull his little parlor trick again.
"Okay, I'm ready."
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Posted: Mon Jan 17, 2005 7:05 pm
"Okay. We need to get out of the way, though." She guided them all back behind the nearest bushes, where they crouched low. "Now... do what I tell you, when I tell you. Don't move until I say."
Sosiqui took a deep breath, pulled Carda close - if they'd had their arms in the right positions, they'd have been embracing tightly - and threw the powder into the air around them.
It almost seemed to fall in slow-motion, and before any of it could hit the ground, Sosiqui used the last of that breath for the spell. "Revert!"
A sudden swirl of purple, almost electric-looking light snaked up the outside of the wand, following the natural grooves in the unicorn horn, before jumping into the air. It instantly split and connected to all the floating motes of powder, forming an odd, wavy web over the three of them.
Then something jumped and skipped, not jarringly, and things were different. Two people and a little angel were talking urgently in front of them. "Cloak!" Sosiqui muttered. A line of temporal energy curled out around them, making the air seem to shimmer and flux around them. "They can't see us now... revert!" Sosiqui whispered again, and the odd jump happened again.
"Revert!" And again. And again. And again, until they had skipped far enough back so that their past selves were once again inside Carda's house. Sosiqui's voice was hoarse and her hands were sweaty around the wand. "Okay," she managed. "Find him. Hit him."
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Posted: Mon Jan 17, 2005 7:16 pm
Carda almost didn't hear her, so enthralled was he by what he was observing. He had heard all the skewed stories about kairomancers from the Council during his training.
The stories couldn't have been further from the truth. What he and other Striders did was manipulation by sheer brute force, using gestures and willpower to bend space to their will. This was like watching poetry come alive.
Oh, right. The spy. Carda stretched out his detection sense towards the tree, but... his double wasn't there.
"Aw crap. Where is he?" Carda muttered as he kept looking. There! Walking down the street from the direction opposite the way to Sosiqui's house. He must have seen them leave and decided to spy from over here where he wasn't likely to be seen.
Well, better now than later, when it might be too late for them to prevent his overhearing anything. Carda timed his jab and nailed his duplicate right atop the head. The figure collapsed on the sidewalk.
"Well now, we can't have him laying in the middle of the street, now can we?" Carda muttered, smiling insanely. He hadn't had this much fun using his powers in a long time. It had been a while since he had tried teleporting a distant object, but all it took was stretching space from your general area over to your target's, and then letting go--
The unconscious body appeared two feet away from where they were crouched.
Had they been standing, Carda would have taken a bow.
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Posted: Mon Jan 17, 2005 7:21 pm
Sosiqui turned just as the door opened - fortunately, the alt-Carda's body was out of view of the door. "Follow me," she hissed, and stood up, half-dragging Carda and Seraphim along to keep them inside the cloak spell's range.
Carda, Seraphim, Sosiqui and Five came out the door. They watched from a few feet away as Five left and Carda and Sosiqui began to talk, then...
"Now!" Sosiqui dragged them forward - right into their other selves.
Something snapped audibly, then there was a wave of dizziness for all concerned - and then nothing. The motes of powder fell to the ground around them as the lattice of time magic finally broke. The 'doubles' were nowhere to be seen. "We've rejoined our time," Sosiqui managed, sheathing her wand. "Our own timelines and those of our 'doubles' have merged - we're safe. That went well."
Then Sosiqui flopped down on the snow, panting, scratching at the snow to cover the fallen powder. "Hide it," she managed, her voice cracking with strain. "Then run."
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Posted: Mon Jan 17, 2005 7:29 pm
Carda had no idea what he was supposed to hide or why he needed to run, but he guessed that this wasn't a time to be asking questions. There were really only two things that she could have meant for him to hide. "Seraphim?"
Seraphim peeked out from under the scarf. "Is it over?"
"Yes, now hurry, we don't have long. If you see any of that powder Sosi was using, bury it under snow and then get back to the house. FAST."
"What about you?"
"I've got to hide that body."
Carda dashed over to the body and wrapped both himself and his copy in a bubble of space, then waited. He had no idea why he was told to run, and even less of a clue why he was hanging around, outside of morbid curiosity.
No, that wasn't right. He was concerned for Sosiqui's well-being. He guessed that whoever this "Aeina" was that Sosi had spoken of, she was probably the reason she told him to run.
He'd done enough running. Hiding was good enough for now.
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Posted: Mon Jan 17, 2005 7:32 pm
"Gah!" Sosiqui ran over to where she'd seen Carda vanish, then turned around. "You're supposed to GET AWAY FROM HIM so when he wakes up he won't see us together!"
Her headache from earlier was gone now, but she could tell she'd overstretched herself. Hooboy, this was going to be fun. She steeled herself to hold off the sickness until she got home...
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Posted: Mon Jan 17, 2005 7:37 pm
"Why didn't you SAY so?" Carda shot back, mildly annoyed that he'd misinterpreted her vague directive. "I'll meet you... someplace else," he added lamely, just in case his copy was waking up.
Then he vanished.
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Posted: Mon Jan 17, 2005 7:43 pm
Brilliant.
She stared down at the double for a moment, then pulled out her wand again. She took hold if it by the horn, carefully, then used the pommel to whack the double firmly on the head right where the goose egg from Carda's earlier attack was beginning to appear. "That's for the next few days," she growled at him. "May you feel as shitty as I'm going to."
Then she backed up, slowly, erasing her footprints in the snow as she did so, until she had backed well into the bushes and brambles on the outskirts. She'd rather be further away, but with the snow it was too easy to track her... and it was too slow to get any good distance while still erasing footprints.
So. She hunkered down and waited, feeling rather miserable.
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