A little time to think...
(By CmptrWz)
"MUAHAHAHAHA," the crazed tinker laughed as his robotic minions swarmed over the Docks. Similar events had already distracted the Protectorate (currently cleaning up the Boardwalk, though Armsmaster and Dragon had decided to head for the Docks), the Wards (working on attacks at Arcadia and two nearby elementary schools, though why they were attacked on a Sunday in the middle of summer was confusing), and New Wave (defending their own neighborhood).
Due to what was either excellent timing on the tinker's part or piss-poor timing on the universe's part Taylor and Lisa were the only ones available to do anything about the attack on the Docks. Even Lung was unavailable, his civilian identity apparently having gone to visit a relative in Chicago. Even worse, Taylor and Varga had just run into their current limit for running two aspects at once and needed some time to recover.
"Now you heathens will feel my wrath!" the tinker yelled as Taylor, currently as Raptaur, and Lisa, in Metis, tore apart his robotic minions with ease.
{What is he yapping about?} Taylor asked.
{He worships the Endbringers and figured out that they are afraid of you,} Lisa answered. {I suspect he wants to wipe the entire Family out so the Endbringers will resume their attacks.}
"That is quite rude," the tinker said, knowing that the two were communicating but having no clue what was being said. "Oh well, no matter." He then lined up a shot at Metis, the robotic minions suddenly becoming much more competent and, interestingly enough, much heavier. Enough to hold Metis down as he fired.
Taylor was having none of that and figured that whatever that thing did she could tank it better than Lisa could. It only dawned on her as she intercepted the blast halfway that she probably should have just thrown a physical EDM shield up instead. Then again, given what happened next she wasn't going to complain too much.
Lisa watched as Taylor was engulfed in a pitch black sphere that just sat there where Taylor had been, mid-air. Her power told her that it was a time-compressed pocket dimension of some kind, yet also that Taylor would be fine within it. Her power also noted that Armsmaster and Dragon had shown up just in time to see the attack engulf Taylor.
"MUAHAHAHAHA," the tinker laughed again as a small charging meter lit up on his weapon. Lisa noticed that it would take nearly half an hour to fully charge as she tore apart the robotic minions that had gone back to incompetent. "One down! She will spend the next hundred thousand years trapped in an airless void with no light or gravity, unaging but needing normal amounts of food and water to survive! In an hour the bubble will dissipate and her corpse will be left for all to see!"
"Wait a minute," Lisa said. "You just gave her a hundred thousand years to plan and prepare? YOU IDIOT!"
"I am concerned that Metis believes that a hundred thousand years trapped in an airless void lacking food or water isn't enough to kill Raptaur," Colin admitted. "If only because of the implications."
"I am more concerned with the 'plan and prepare' part of her statement," Dragon admitted. "Given that this is the first of multiple assassination attempts this tinker has obviously planned."
Taylor found herself in a pitch black void with no air and no apparent gravity sources nearby. Generating some light of her own showed her that there was still nothing. A few minutes later and she had a platform with artificial gravity on it "under" her and a comfortable chair to lounge in as she thought.
"This is definitely a time compression field," Varga said after about half an hour of poking at the void they were in. "Very high compression, but probably won't last more than an hour on the outside."
"Then I guess we better get to work," Taylor admitted. "The sooner we figure out how to get out of here the better, right?"
And thus Taylor started working on unraveling the underpinning mathematics behind the pocket they had been trapped in.
Three minutes after Taylor had been trapped Lisa was chasing after the now disarmed (less literally than she desired) crazed tinker. With the help of Colin and Dragon the remaining robotic minions had been destroyed and the crazed tinker was trying to come up with an escape plan. Lisa kept tearing them apart in various ways while Dragon analysed the weapon that they had gotten away from the idiot.
"I can't find any way to end the effect early," Dragon admitted. "I actually can't find how the effect is even generated, I think it teleports that in from somewhere else just before firing and then sends that part back."
"Keyed to my very DNA!" the crazed tinker gloated. "Without the correct access control sequence entered by my very fingers you can't summon anything!"
"I hate competent enemies," Lisa admitted. "They are so annoying to deal with."
"I would have to agree," Colin said, cutting off another attempt by the crazed tinker to use some device to escape. "So inefficient to deal with as well."
"This one didn't even introduce himself," Taylor said from behind them. Everyone stopped and turned to stare at her. "Sorry I took so long breaking out, but I got distracted re-deriving the mathematical underpinnings of the multiverse and codifying it into a Grand Unified Theory of Everything. Speaking of," she pulled out three large books and handed one each to Dragon, Colin, and Lisa. "Here, have a copy. Then I had to use the local dimensional subset to destabilize the time compression field and the associated pocket dimension."
"That took you eight thousand years or so?" Dragon finally spoke up. "Assuming a linear time progression inside the field, anyway."
"Thereabouts, yea," Taylor said. "It was what, about five minutes out here?"
"That would be accurate," Colin said.
The crazed tinker appeared to be having a mental breakdown of some sort, just standing there shocked. Right up until Lisa noticed a mini-dragon aspect leaning on a dart in the idiot's neck. Paralysis, apparently. Good choice.
"So now that this idiot is no longer a problem," Taylor said, causing Dragon and Colin to look at the crazed tinker as he fell over. "I think I'll go order some pizza. Feels like I haven't eaten since a little after the last ice age ended."
"You only knocked the idiot out?" Dragon asked.
"Long-term paralysis," Taylor said. "Fully conscious, no control. Mildly painful, inhibits sleep, but his automatic functions like breathing and heartbeat continue as normal. He'll need to be fed via tubes, obviously. Probably need a full lifesculptor to fix him up, I suspect Metis here hasn't practiced removal of that particular toxin before so Ianthe is probably the only safe bet. Though Amy might be able to do it too. Might have gone for more, but I haven't eaten and I suspect you want him available for questioning so I figured I would stick with pizza."
"What do you mean we have to update Raptaur's ratings?" Emily asked. "Didn't we just do that two days ago?"
"That was before she survived in a time-compressed airless void with only the materials she had on her for around eight thousand years," Colin said. "Not to mention apparently documented a 'Grand Unified Theory of Everything' for us."
"The book containing it is thick enough for around five hundred pages," Dragon added. "But the initial index is around a thousand pages long and refers to tens of thousands of pages. As you flip through the book more pages come and go, looks like they fold into and out of the covers."
"She then merely paralysed the crazed tinker," Colin continued. "Whose name we still don't know, with a toxin that is almost permanent and only a lifesculptor or Panacea is likely able to deal with properly. As a nicer alternative to just eating him, apparently, given that she was hungry after eight thousand years and she figured we might want to question him."
"Well at least we know to never try knocking a member of the family out with the inert gas trick," Emily admitted as she put a bottle of Vodka on her desk. After a moment of consideration she opened it up and drank straight from the bottle, foregoing the cups she was originally reaching for.