The hovercraft roared past, and Moone stepped backwards, hands from the craft reaching out and plucking him from danger.
The attacker stood in foot-deep water for a moment, looking defeated- then burst into a sprint after the overloaded hovercraft.
"What on earth is that?" asked Keepses, looking backwards as Moone took the controls.
"Uumm," Moone said, glancing back at the black-garbed Victorian figure rushing and gaining on their sputtering hovercraft. He seemed familiar; Moone felt as though they'd crossed paths before. "Time traveler. Assassin." He thought some more. "Pretty sure it might be Jack the Ripper, even."
Keepses squished his mouth into a thin unamused line, and said nothing.
The hovercraft broke into what was once a neighborhood, now desolated and half-submerged by the hurricane. They wove down what once were streets, now several feet deep in brackish water.
The assassin jumped from rooftop to rooftop, following them at a brisk tireless pace and a near distance.
"Uuumm, Larry..." Keepses said, and his sharpshooter got into position, pulling out his sniper rifle and attempting to take the figure of the assassin out. There was a greater distance placed between him and the hovercraft, and at last his figure disappeared from view, as they burst onto a larger waterway.
"Jack the Ripper?" Keepses asked, now that it seemed the coast was clear.
"Not 100% positive," Moone said. "Long story."
Suddenly, something burst out of the foliage to their right, and back a few hundred yards. Another hovercraft, lighter, smaller. Faster. In the pilot's seat, recognizable at this distance by the tall wide-brimmed top hat, was the assassin, still hot on their tail. He had gotten his hands on hovercraft of his own somehow. And was gaining on them.
The waterway narrowed for a space, which meant the other hovercraft couldn''t pull up alongside theirs-- but its position directly behind them left a large whirring blade between their sniper and his target.
Pontifex [thought of something,] but turned to the front seat to find Keepses and Moone arguing back-and-forth with each other.
"He is on our tail," Moone spat. "And gaining. This is all your doing."
"Yes. What? No. I mean no."
"Oh, not your fault, right. Mr the Ripper here, he just happens to show up right as you give me explicit confirmation that you hadn't sold me out-- like that isn't suspicious--"
"No! Exactly! We didn't sell your location out. I mean, after all, now we know you're a good guy--"
"You could have signaled him when you found me but before you found out--"
"We had a sharpshooter for you, remember?---"
"Whatever," Moone said. "I'm just not sure I can trust you." He adjusted the [steering stick,] hoping that would signal an end to the conversation, but Keepses kept talking.
"None of what you're-- if we called him in here, we could just call him off, if he works for us."
"He doesn't need to work for you. You tracked me down, and he could have tracked you down, to track me down--"
"So what, if we didn't cover our tracks. Is that wrong? You were the bad guy."
The waterway once again wider, the assassin's hovercraft drew up alongside their own, directly along their port side. [Pontifex needs a little bit of his own aura back for some critical reason. Presumably to give to Keepses, because unlike Moone he does trust the man, but we need a reason for him to hold onto it for a little bit instead of bestowing it immediately.]
"Sorry about this." The Pontifex withdrew a tiny part of his aura off of Moone, and held onto it for himself. Moone could feel the aura retreating from him, like the tide retreating from the land. Or a cotton sweater tightening around him in the rain.
The fabric frayed around the edges a little, but the dance between bane and boon held firm.
Which was fortunate, as the gentleman assassin lunged at Moone, jumping from his hovercraft onto theirs; using his shrunken but still workable boon, Moone could anticipate the assassin's trajectory and dodge out of the way in time. The villain's hovercraft went off course and listed off somewhere behind them, slowing to a full stop, as the assassin, kneeling above Moone...
Put away his knife, instead of trying to slash Moone with it. The other men on the hovercraft just sat there and gaped. Could this have been good news?
Moone felt something, like tiny little impossibly long baby fingers, extend into his aura, and wrench it around. Suddenly, he felt-- naked. Like the boon was gone, covered up by his bane, creating an open-air zone where he was vulnerable to danger. Just like in his dreams of a few months back. Moone had the supernatural gift to always have some tool or another on hand to evade magical danger, and maybe those still existed, but now Moone felt cut off from everything. No boon. No prayer.
This all happened in the span of a couple of seconds. The assassin leered.
"Uh," Moone said, but the Pontifex could apparently feel that something was wrong with the aura which was partially his. In the same time it had taken the assassin to massage Moone's aura exposed, the Pontifex now shoved the remaining part of the aura he'd taken for himself-- into Keepses.
[Keepses, now enhanced, gives one of those "oh... yeah" powerup moments, like Rocket in Guardians of the Galaxy getting his hand on the big gun. He uses one of his boons to somehow defeat the assassin, who probably flies off of the hovercraft and dies spectacularly. Figure boon out, and tie into something else plot-important, or otherwise foreshadow.]
Keepses sat there, panting and sweating heavily. "Told you you could trust me," he said in between breaths, and beaming.
...
After the attack, they pulled the hovercraft over to a shored-up area, and regrouped on the side of a hill. His aura had reclosed as soon as the assassin had been pushed off of him, and the scrap of the Pontifex's aura which had been bestowed upon Keepses had been returned him, but still, Moone couldn't help but feel... vulnerable. Violated. How he'd been opened up, plucked like the petals off of a flower... He'd never seen anything like that in his life.
He tried to keep it practical as he debriefed his ragtag team. "I know that assassin," he said, nodding back in the direction from whence they'd come. "We've crossed paths before."
"Probably how he knew to try to override your boon," Pontifex observed.
"And I still feel violated over it," Moone said flatly. "Don't... don't bring it up. Though... it does raise an interesting question, not why he knew how to do that, but how. I've never seen anything quite like that. Never." He felt haunted, but tried to pull himself together.
"Pontifex," said Keepses, wheels turning again. "You bestow auras on others. Can you think of any way that he could have done that, altered an aura that wasn't his?"
"A few," Pontifex said after a few moments. "All of them, powerful magics."
Moone rubbed his forehead between thumb and forefinger. "Well, from what I remember of him and his buddies, unless he's learned a few tricks in the meantime since I saw him last, that doesn't really make any sense."
"He's got buddies?" Keepses asked, raising an eyebrow and tilting his head at an odd angle, as if trying to remove a crick in his neck.
"Two more, if that was who I think. They call themselves the Messrs Slice, Slit and Slash. Gentlemen Assassins for Hire. I think that one was, uh, Slash."
"With the top hat?"
Moone tried to suppress a grin. "With the straight razor.
"See, he wouldn't have understood that reference, they're from the Victorian Age. Or they were. Now they're mercenaries, making [assassinations] throughout time."
"And traveling through time, killing people, that won't create any paradoxes?" Keepses asked, voice suddenly low at the thought.
"Not with the kind of time travel they use. It's a lower-level form, I think. True reversal of causality, erasure of the past, undoing of free will, it's way higher order than is practical for even, world powers, to be able to use effectively."
Keepses licked his lips. "But you just admitted that he was more magically powerful now than you'd thought."
"Then I don't know.
"Still, I think that should be the last we see of him, in the past of his own timeline or otherwise. There are still two more we need to be on the lookout for. And now they know that you're working with me, so I don't think your stunt with the enhanced aura is going to work again."
"They know about me now." Keepses frowned. "Do you think he might have been working for the agency?"
Moone shrugged. "Them, or MacBeth's group. Are the two factions I know of, at least, trying to hunt me down."
"Perhaps the remnants of my organization," Pontifex chimed in.
Keepses nodded, resigned. "Great, now I'm a fugitive," he muttered. He sat down on the side of the hill, and Moone joined him.
"But," Moone chided gently. "You said you had a plan to take them down. It doesn't, uh, require agency assistance, does it?"
Keepses stirred, and snapped out of the apparent reverie. "What? Uh, yes. I mean, no." He craned his neck up to the sky, where the clouds were parting and the sun was beginning to peak out. "No it doesn't."
They hopped up, and set to work.
"You could have signaled him when you found me but before you found out--"
"We had a sharpshooter for you, remember?---"
"Whatever," Moone said. "I'm just not sure I can trust you." He adjusted the [steering stick,] hoping that would signal an end to the conversation, but Keepses kept talking.
"None of what you're-- if we called him in here, we could just call him off, if he works for us."
"He doesn't need to work for you. You tracked me down, and he could have tracked you down, to track me down--"
"So what, if we didn't cover our tracks. Is that wrong? You were the bad guy."
The waterway once again wider, the assassin's hovercraft drew up alongside their own, directly along their port side. [Pontifex needs a little bit of his own aura back for some critical reason. Presumably to give to Keepses, because unlike Moone he does trust the man, but we need a reason for him to hold onto it for a little bit instead of bestowing it immediately.]
"Sorry about this." The Pontifex withdrew a tiny part of his aura off of Moone, and held onto it for himself. Moone could feel the aura retreating from him, like the tide retreating from the land. Or a cotton sweater tightening around him in the rain.
The fabric frayed around the edges a little, but the dance between bane and boon held firm.
Which was fortunate, as the gentleman assassin lunged at Moone, jumping from his hovercraft onto theirs; using his shrunken but still workable boon, Moone could anticipate the assassin's trajectory and dodge out of the way in time. The villain's hovercraft went off course and listed off somewhere behind them, slowing to a full stop, as the assassin, kneeling above Moone...
Put away his knife, instead of trying to slash Moone with it. The other men on the hovercraft just sat there and gaped. Could this have been good news?
Moone felt something, like tiny little impossibly long baby fingers, extend into his aura, and wrench it around. Suddenly, he felt-- naked. Like the boon was gone, covered up by his bane, creating an open-air zone where he was vulnerable to danger. Just like in his dreams of a few months back. Moone had the supernatural gift to always have some tool or another on hand to evade magical danger, and maybe those still existed, but now Moone felt cut off from everything. No boon. No prayer.
This all happened in the span of a couple of seconds. The assassin leered.
"Uh," Moone said, but the Pontifex could apparently feel that something was wrong with the aura which was partially his. In the same time it had taken the assassin to massage Moone's aura exposed, the Pontifex now shoved the remaining part of the aura he'd taken for himself-- into Keepses.
[Keepses, now enhanced, gives one of those "oh... yeah" powerup moments, like Rocket in Guardians of the Galaxy getting his hand on the big gun. He uses one of his boons to somehow defeat the assassin, who probably flies off of the hovercraft and dies spectacularly. Figure boon out, and tie into something else plot-important, or otherwise foreshadow.]
Keepses sat there, panting and sweating heavily. "Told you you could trust me," he said in between breaths, and beaming.
...
After the attack, they pulled the hovercraft over to a shored-up area, and regrouped on the side of a hill. His aura had reclosed as soon as the assassin had been pushed off of him, and the scrap of the Pontifex's aura which had been bestowed upon Keepses had been returned him, but still, Moone couldn't help but feel... vulnerable. Violated. How he'd been opened up, plucked like the petals off of a flower... He'd never seen anything like that in his life.
He tried to keep it practical as he debriefed his ragtag team. "I know that assassin," he said, nodding back in the direction from whence they'd come. "We've crossed paths before."
"Probably how he knew to try to override your boon," Pontifex observed.
"And I still feel violated over it," Moone said flatly. "Don't... don't bring it up. Though... it does raise an interesting question, not why he knew how to do that, but how. I've never seen anything quite like that. Never." He felt haunted, but tried to pull himself together.
"Pontifex," said Keepses, wheels turning again. "You bestow auras on others. Can you think of any way that he could have done that, altered an aura that wasn't his?"
"A few," Pontifex said after a few moments. "All of them, powerful magics."
Moone rubbed his forehead between thumb and forefinger. "Well, from what I remember of him and his buddies, unless he's learned a few tricks in the meantime since I saw him last, that doesn't really make any sense."
"He's got buddies?" Keepses asked, raising an eyebrow and tilting his head at an odd angle, as if trying to remove a crick in his neck.
"Two more, if that was who I think. They call themselves the Messrs Slice, Slit and Slash. Gentlemen Assassins for Hire. I think that one was, uh, Slash."
"With the top hat?"
Moone tried to suppress a grin. "With the straight razor.
"See, he wouldn't have understood that reference, they're from the Victorian Age. Or they were. Now they're mercenaries, making [assassinations] throughout time."
"And traveling through time, killing people, that won't create any paradoxes?" Keepses asked, voice suddenly low at the thought.
"Not with the kind of time travel they use. It's a lower-level form, I think. True reversal of causality, erasure of the past, undoing of free will, it's way higher order than is practical for even, world powers, to be able to use effectively."
Keepses licked his lips. "But you just admitted that he was more magically powerful now than you'd thought."
"Then I don't know.
"Still, I think that should be the last we see of him, in the past of his own timeline or otherwise. There are still two more we need to be on the lookout for. And now they know that you're working with me, so I don't think your stunt with the enhanced aura is going to work again."
"They know about me now." Keepses frowned. "Do you think he might have been working for the agency?"
Moone shrugged. "Them, or MacBeth's group. Are the two factions I know of, at least, trying to hunt me down."
"Perhaps the remnants of my organization," Pontifex chimed in.
Keepses nodded, resigned. "Great, now I'm a fugitive," he muttered. He sat down on the side of the hill, and Moone joined him.
"But," Moone chided gently. "You said you had a plan to take them down. It doesn't, uh, require agency assistance, does it?"
Keepses stirred, and snapped out of the apparent reverie. "What? Uh, yes. I mean, no." He craned his neck up to the sky, where the clouds were parting and the sun was beginning to peak out. "No it doesn't."
They hopped up, and set to work.
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