The Start of it All

[Carthrat]

It was, perhaps, unfortunate for Kwok that Carthrat's gun hand + trigger finger was way faster than any kind of disarming or defence he could pull.

A somewhat wide red beam lanced out at point-blank range towards Kwok, completely befuddling his mind as the beam began warping space/time physics in ways mere Aspects cannot begin to imagine...

OOC: Oh, come on. You REALLY thought it's possible to move faster than the gun? ^^

[Kwokinator]

The railcharge hit Kwok...

... then said Aspect just... faded out and dissolved.

"Hey bartender," came a voice from the bar. "Where's my drink?  I've been waiting for a while."

Turning around, he motioned for Carthrat to come with his head. "Want a drink?"

[Carthrat]

Carthrat smirked.

Temporal physics, while only a new and 'exciting' development in modern science, were all too simple for a genius of Carthrat's calibre. While the information he rolled through his mind could be understood with a bit of reading, the equations needed to prove it were somewhat larger.

The railcharges energy had been trapped in the area thanks to Kwok's nicely timed teleport. What this did was somewhat interesting.

Since the lowest possible division of time is unknown, one can only assume that the railguns charge in subspace, by following the Carthratical Law of Physics rule #33214, it's power would be put to the power of infinity, to be released at a time unknown yet forever.

What this meant was...

Kwok would now have spasmodic migraines for the rest of his tortured existance, unless he somehow extricated the railcharge from the sub-time-space sheath in which it was placed, which was only really doable by going back in time and preventing Carthrat from taking the shot in the first place.

To do that, of course, broke the first rule of paradox, and thus was patently impossible to affect the current dimension.

But what all of this added up to was...

Carthrat, smirking, replied, "Yeah, whatever. Spike it and die."

He produced a small watch, fiddled with it and the railgun for a moment, and a timer appeared-

"1 hour, 35 minutes, 21 seconds'

Yup. If only he'd brought a camera...

[RyderHakubi]

Out of the corner of his eye, Ryder watched the battle with a half-hearted interest, with most of his attention focused on the locals, and why they looked so frekkin' familiar...

"I could have sworn I've heard that before..." he muttered before taking a sip of his drink...

[Carthrat]

As he drank his drink, Carthrat realised that he'd forgotten about something.

Something vitally important to his survival, and continued existence. Something really big.

But what WAS it? He couldn't remember! It eluded him.. what was it? What WAS it?

B! It began with a B! Now, what letter next...

His thinking was cut short, however, as Bahamut flew directly over him, and began charging up a rather impressive blast of energy.

"...Aww shit."

Carthrat dove away as the powerful blast smashed into the tavern, cursing his luck.

[acetalon]

"Hey!  Tomas!"  Ace stood up and leaned over, watching for signs of life from Tomas.  The guy was totall unresponsive.  Maybe Tomas was having one of his...dead moments.

"Hey!  You alive over there?"

No response.

"Fine then, ya Barney lover.  When the ceiling collapses on you don't blame me for not warning you,"  Ace grumbled.

Just to be sure, Ace grabbed Kwok and threw him at Tomas.  If Tomas WASN'T alive, he'd be smacked.  Hard. By Kwok's fat ass.

[Kwokinator]

Kwok did a few extravagant flips in the air and landed on his feet, wagging his finger at Ace.

"Tsk tsk tsk.  Does everything in your life revolve around violence?"

[RyderHakubi]

Ryder blasted a piece of ceiling falling on Ace, and said calmly, "You guys... maybe moving this fight elsewhere would help, since there's a big... whatever the hell it is... outside waiting to destroy this tavern..."

[Carthrat]

Bahamut was upset, mainly because Carthrat was still alive.

He really was quite a terrafying beast, when one thought about it. Great and huge, capable of breathing hugely powerful blasts...

On the other hand, you had Carthrat, who while capable of blowing the Dragon from one end of the world to the other, was, well...

Slack, tired, and trying to conserve his railgun shots.

It was times like this he wished he knew some magic...

Bahamut landed in front of him, smashing half of the tavern (and it's inhabitants) to pieces. He let loose one of his really big beam things which hurt, but Carthrat managed to shield himself behind his wings, whipping of his cloak and curling them around him...

The wings didn't break- they had this tendancy to only get hurt by things once. But everything behind Carthrat was in for some major pain...

[acetalon]

Ace fingered the bracelet on his wrist.  For some reason it got a little warm when Kwok said that.

"Only when it comes to people like you, Kwok,"  was his reply.  "Especially since everything I've done that has been violent has been YOUR fault."

Ace shrugged his shoulders.  "But yeah, sure.  I agree with Ryder.  Lets get out of here.  Sir Personality and Ol' Shi over there can go get tentacle raped."

Ace thought for a moment.

"Actually, I hope that they do.  They might actually react to that."

Ace turned to Ryder.

"Speaking of which, aren't you the guy who was with Evil Saturn?  You better not have left her behind!  She owes me a game of chess!"

He muttered "Shield," covering, himself and Ryder with a blue bubble.  He wanted to know what happened to Evil Saturn.

[Kwokinator]

Kwok kicked at the bubble around Ace and Ryder.

"Lemme in, damn chinzy bastard!"

[Carthrat]

"Let you in? Why'd they do that? Then they'd have to like, you know, TOUCH you. What kind of person in their right mind would do that?"

Carthrat stretched for a moment, then narrowly dodged ANOTHER giga flare.

"For chrissakes, Kwok, go kill it! Aren't you meant to be the all-powerful aspect here? Do you WANT to die?" Carthrat asked.

He checked his watch. One hour left.

[Kwokinator]

Kwok gave Carthrat a wide grin.

"I'm not the one he's after," he grinned. "Besides, since I'm the 'all powerful' Aspect, he can't kill me."

[RyderHakubi]

"What?  Who's Evil Saturn?  Should I know her or something?" Ryder questioned while tilting his head slightly...

Looking up at Bahamut, Ryder sweatdropped and added, "You sure this shield will hold?"

[Carthrat]

Carthrat snorted.

"Of course you can die. I've been setting my Railgun to 'weak' mode. And don't spout that crap about the universe being destroyed as well as you... I did my homework, and found that, in fact, you'll just be reincarnated somewhere else."

Carthrat produced a grenade from somewhere, and with an expert throw, slung it straight into Bahamut's mouth.

"I'm sure you'll be happy to know that you'll end up in extreme pain for the rest of your life, unless you help me. As for how... let's just say I got my ways."

He surrepitously checked his Safety Bit- yup, no way he'd die to any of those lame 'instant death' attacks. Goddamed 'finger of death'...

A small explosion rocked Bahamut's interior, but he didn't fall...

Instead, he fired another Giga Flare... at Carthrat...

who pulled out a small, gun-shaped device... pointed it at Kwok and fired it...

And suddenly, Kwok was standing where Carthrat was standing before, with Carthrat checking his Railgun- switching the mode from "Weak" past "Tank-buster', and all the way up to 'Slaughterer'.