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Timelines and Where-Realms

Part 4

for Taiko and studley-destiny

by Draconicon

For all that the tiger had been captured and locked to the present time, the shrieks of pain were somehow echoing through the seconds forward, back, and sideways. It was like an echo that faded out and then came back again at fuller than full volume, only to fade again before starting the whole process over. The sensation of having it echoing in his own ears after it faded, with a temporal panting and gasping just after, made him wonder just how trapped the feline actually was, if the seconds were ticking by and some part of the tiger was getting relief.

Nor was right there after he trapped the tiger, starting to lean down to help the feline up. Studley held up his hand, shaking his head.

"Not yet."

"He's hurting."

"He's going to run if he doesn't."

"You don't know that."

"He's done it every other time."

"This is cruel."

"Sometimes you have to be."

"Let him up, at least."

"If he's willing to answer questions, of course."

The tiger growled under his breath, but there was something in his eyes as he looked up. There was something different there, a powerful mind that he should have expected. Someone that existed up and down time the way that this feline did had to have some sort of way of processing all that information, how to make it work properly. That kind of mind would be hurt with all of it being collapsed down at once, but it would survive. More importantly, however, it would adapt, and that was exactly what the feline was doing.

In short order, the panting, gasping, occasionally hissing tiger got to his feet, pulling his arms around his middle for a moment. He sucked air, squeezing his eyes tight, shaking his head as if he was dealing with a migraine to end all migraines. He probably was, with what Studley had done.

Eventually, the tiger managed to stand straight. Nor offered a hand, but the tiger shook his head.

"Wonderful. I see you are touched by powers that reach further than they should. Thank you for giving me yet another reason to wish that you would leave my city," the tiger said.

"Your city?" Nor asked.

"Yes, I'd like an answer for that, myself," Studley admitted. "What is that supposed to mean?"

"...Novus Ager is my city, and I am Novus Ager."

"Like an avatar of the city?" Nor asked.

"Nearly. It is an imperfect blending, but we are...touched together. It is something that will likely continue to evolve over time. But that is not important right now."

But it was interesting, which meant that Studley was more willing to be nice. He had found avatars of other things before, other cities, but this was the first time that he had found someone that was this intimately tied into the city. Usually, it was a matter of the city latching onto someone and then giving them power. This felt like something else, something more personal and more...close, for lack of a better term. It felt like there was something that the city was getting out of it besides just a guardian, and that was something he would give much to explore.

The tiger flicked his gaze at him and shook his head.

"No."

"No?"

"I don't know what you are thinking, but no. Not now."

"Perhaps you can tell me what you think I'm thinking?" Studley said, crossing his arms with a smile. "After all, we've got all the time in the world."

"No, you do not."

"I doubt that the tattoo gun will be as useful to someone else."

"In that, you are very, very wrong."

"Excuse me?"

The mule held up his hand, and both Studley and the tiger turned to face him. Nor shook his head.

"Mind if I just point out that the gun was taken by telekinesis? Now, I don't know every villain in the city -"

"Though you have been intimate with many, yes," the tiger said. "You are assuming a certain lion?"

"It's him, isn't it?"

"That is correct."

"God damn it..."

"Someone care to clue me in?" Studley asked.

"Nemean. A lion with telekinetic powers - and a very short range set, thankfully - and a lot of connections. He's been a big shot in town for a while, though he's been hiding behind a lot of different screens. He's almost impossible to flush out unless you have something going on that he wants to be involved in personally."

That made sense. Someone that was playing the mastermind card, someone that was hiding behind the different layers of different villains. Of course, with Nor and Studley working together, the different events - the cat burglar attempt, the necromancy running wild, and now this - had been stopped before they could hit their peak. No wonder it had gotten sloppier as the crimes had gone on.

But that didn't answer some of the bigger questions. Nor stepped in before he could ask them, too.

"Who are you? Really?" the mule asked.

"...There is an urge to lie to you, but I believe that there will be a moment where you forget my name, anyway. I am Erwin, and I am Novus Ager. Or at the very least, I am as close as you will ever come to talking to the city itself."

That was the difference, Studley felt. There was a half-lie there. There was an imperfect bond between Erwin and the concept that was Novus Ager, thus the difference in feeling as the city started to funnel them towards the warehouse, whereas Erwin would have wished them to stay away until he was done. In other words, there were times when Erwin and the city could disagree on things, and when there was a disagreement, the city would overrule him by dragging in others to do its bidding.

Fascinating.

The wolf crossed his arms, shaking his head.

"All that aside, you were at all the crime scenes. Why?"

"I believe that you can hazard a guess."

"Nah. I want you to tell me. You are here, after all. And still in pain, even though you're hiding it."

"Studley!" Nor poked him. Hard. "Let him go."

"Not without answers."

"I was trying to avert a catastrophe that you may have started."

"You know how many times I've heard something like that before?" Studley asked. "That's kind of the running theme. Everything's always facing a catastrophe."

"Perhaps you should consider whether the chaos you carry is responsible for that, and take greater care in the future," Erwin muttered, shaking his head. "At any rate, you have foiled my every attempt to remove the artifacts and components of the catastrophe from the equation, and now...we have a problem."

"Yeah, and I'm guessing that we're the ones that have to fix the problem?"

"Considering that you were the ones that kept me from keeping it from becoming a problem, I believe that is only fair."

Somehow, despite being tied up in the wolf's powers, the cat was still finding a way to be snarky about things. It was almost impressive, and would have been if it wasn't also so annoying. Studly shook his head, sighing into his hand.

"Alright. What's happening, where is it going to happen, and what do we do?"

"You will want to head to Allen Nemali's latest building."

"Who?"

"...Nor will know the name," Erwin said with a pointed look at the mule. When nothing further was said between the two, the tiger shook his head and continued. "It is built on top of a mausoleum, one that was on the verge of going bankrupt until the land was bought by Allen. There's little to be found there now, but there is the danger that he represents. There is a great deal of danger coming, Studley, Nor. There will be more to this than you believe."

"Right, right. Danger, corruption, explosions."

"The dead, wolf. The dead are coming, and they will be infested into one person in particular. Do you wish to see the dead of the entire world being shoved into one man, with that person wielding power over them for all eternity, gaining the strength of every new fallen as the world continues to age and feed him power?"

That was not altogether a new take on necromancy, but it was something that sounded like a challenge, and one that would take more than the average amount of wolf-power to get through it. He probably could manage it - he'd killed worse, in the past - but that sort of power would probably end up messing with the world at large, as well. That wasn't something that he needed to be thinking about putting back together, either.

So, stop the necromancy empowerment before it happened, get all the stuff out, and they should be fine.

"So, why can't you just take care of this?" Studley asked. "You're a time wizard."

"I am a temporal creature that is tied to a geographic location. Our imperfect bond allows that geographic binding to be...flexible, but that doesn't mean that I can do everything. You have seen these objects. You understand a hint of their power."

Studley remembered the skull that he'd seen, as well as the way that it had called to the dead, both those that were dead in truth and those things that were dead as concepts. He remembered the feeling of wrongness regarding the tattoo gun, and he remembered just how bad it felt to have that around.

"They don't belong here."

"Correct. Just as you do not," the tiger said, narrowing his eyes for a moment, hissing as a spasm of pain echoed through him. "As they are aberrations, there is less that I can do with them. I could have interfered before someone managed to get their hands on the first item, but you stopped me. The cat burglar got away, and the item was handed off. With each successive item, it became harder and harder to affect their timelines, and now, with three such items in the way, I cannot touch them directly."

"...Oh."

"Yes, wolf. Oh. You, specifically, have triggered us down this road with your damnable curiosity."

"Well, I can fix this." Studley shrugged. "Not like there's anything like me in this world."

"I'm starting to feel like the minnow in the pond right now," Nor muttered. "Do you need me here for this?"

"Actually, Nor, we do. There is a purpose to this, though you may not realize it just yet."

Studley kept himself from rolling his eyes. All things considered, Nor might be someone that could deal with the minions in the building, someone that could help keep him from expending too much energy right at the start, but fond as he was of Nor, the mule was someone not entirely suited for this sort of mission. It was something that required a certain level of strength, power, and more than that, connection with the extra-normal, and Nor didn't really have that. Not that he was bad, but...it was like asking someone who was in the gym on their first day to beat out the local champion without any prior training. It just wasn't a fair comparison.

"So, when we get to the building, what then?" Studley asked.

"You will have twenty minutes to get there before the catastrophe is due to begin. When you arrive, you will need to remove the tattoo gun with all its modifications from Nemean's grip. Once that is done, then you can repay your blunders, wolf."

"My blunders? Hey, you were the one that had all of time and space to play with and still fucked this up."

"I am blind to you, you dunce. I have no way of seeing you. You are not even a hole in reality. You are an unreality; as far as time is concerned, you do not exist. Without you interacting with me, I am not even aware of your existence. Every time you spoke, it was like someone ripping through the world, making it impossible to think of anything else."

"Sounds like you're falling for me. Sorry, taken."

"Studley..."

"Sorry, Nor. Habit." He chuckled. "So, you want me to take care of the device? Take it away from here?"

"Yes."

"Do I get anything for that?"

"Studley."

This time, Nor actually smacked him along the back of the head, something that he was willing to admit that he probably deserved at that point. He looked down at his watch, shaking his head. Nineteen minutes, now.

"We better get going."

They ran through the streets, the lights changing to their favor every time that they approached. Studley gritted his teeth, looking at Nor for a moment, and then shook his head.

"Grab on."

"What?"

"I said, grab on."

"What are you going to do?" Nor asked, taking him by the shoulder.

"Getting us there faster."

Studley had a number of different powers, a number of different abilities and forms that worked best for him in this day and age. In this case, however, there was one form that was a little bit risky to let out, but it was the only way that they were getting to that skyscraper in time.

Studley reached in, and took the collar off the Beast.

The silvering wolf growled under his breath as his muscles started bunching up, his legs already stretching as he grew upwards and outwards at the same time. His next step covered twice the distance of the last, and the next step nearly as much again. His neck cracked as he arched his back, hunching forward to use his forepaws as he started running in the way of the werewolf. Which, at that point, was what he was, he supposed.

Nor clung to his back as tightly as possible, which was for the best. When the Beast was out, certain behaviors became harder to hold back. Meat-eating was one of them, and his jaws hung open, his tongue drooling and lolling free as he ran down the streets. Several unlucky cars were battered to the side with a shoulder-check, and the rest were pushed out of the way, almost as if they had been moved by an unseen hand.

"Oh...you can do that..."

Nor's comment went uncommented on, and Studley kept running, clawed toes ripping up the pavement and clawed hands doing the same. The city blurred around them as they picked up the pace, and in the distance, the building loomed higher and higher.

The front door was open, and security guards waited in great numbers. Studley slammed right into them. The bullets hit the Beast, ripping through flesh and fur, but they did nothing to him. The Beast was a living tank, able to take far more than that and keep moving.

Claws flew, and body parts were shredded. Never quite taken off, Studley holding back on that particular instinct, but there were blood stains when they pushed through. The werewolf hit the elevator doors and punched them open, the hydraulics whining in complaint. No elevator waited for them though, even as he looked into the shaft and up.

"There's a button right over there," Nor said.

The Beast ignored that. No time. They were climbing.

Grabbing one of the long metal lines, he started dragging himself up hand over hand, running up the wire even as he might have run down the street. He could feel Nor hanging on for dear life, and more, he could feel the seconds ticking by as they went further and further against the clock. How long did they have left? No idea, his watch had burst, and the Beast wasn't exactly capable of telling time.

Up, up, up, they went, punching through an elevator in the process and leaving multiple people behind, staring at the hole that they had made with shock, awe, and just a little bit of something else. He didn't care. All that mattered was the lion at the top of the building.

They reached the top and he punched a hole in the door. The metal screamed as it came apart, and he pulled himself through, ignoring the slices through his fur. He was finally taking this seriously, and the Beast could take a great deal of pain without needing to regenerate, and when it did, it could regenerate quickly.

As Nor followed him through the hole, a lion in a black suit looked up from the weapon that he had been observing. An assistant, some generic woman, stood at his side as he glanced at the werewolf, and then at Nor, and then back again.

"I see that the flies are swarming now that the exterminator has come," the lion said, reaching up and undoing his tie. "I suppose that it was only a matter of time before someone decided to check in. But for now, I would say that the phrase is...how would you put it...too late?"

The Beast lunged forward. Studley was halfway across the room before the lion's tie hit the floor, but just when he was about to slice out at the cocky little cat -

SNICKT!

A floor panel rose up and slammed his fist to the side, cutting through his fur and flesh so fast that he almost lost a finger before he reacted to it. But he was fast enough to react. A quick tug back, a punch -

And he dented another metal panel, one that pulled his hand back. The Beast pulled back a little, the shapeshifting reversing as the metal panel tried to carry him away, and the wolf lashed out with one more blow, this time a kick from the side.

Third time was the charm, and Nemean went backwards, hitting the table hard. The suited lion grunted as the air was knocked from his lungs after that blow, cradling his ribs with one hand as he shook his head.

"Well...I will give you this. A fly you may be, but one with a sting, indeed."

"Nemean. Whatever you're planning, trust me, this is not going to work out the way you think it will," Nor said, already crossing the floor. Studley was too busy trying to remove the metal panel from his hand - the damn dent had formed to his fist all too well - and he couldn't do much as the mule stepped between them. "Whatever you think that you can do with that tattoo gun -"

"It is not a matter of thinking, Nor. It is a matter of doing. I have already determined how it will work. A cursed gem to subdue the dead, a skull to summon them, and finally, the injection device itself. The three of them work in tandem, quite obviously. Perhaps not intentionally, but for me, they shall."

Studley grunted, finally pulling the metal chunk off his fist. He had just a split second to see Nemean look afraid, but that was all. Mostly because the panel was headed right back towards the lion, and this time, there was a surprise coming right after.

The lion caught the panel with his telekinesis, but the wolf was right behind it, a blade of black pulling from a different realm at his hip. The katana slashed the panel, the grip that the lion had on it, and it came right for the lion's neck. There was a sudden whir, followed by a 'shunk' sound as the blade cut through the table just behind Nemean.

Studley stopped, holding his sword tightly at the hilt, slowly turning in place. Nor stared.

"What...did...you...do?"

"That wasn't me. If it had been, it wouldn't have made that sound."

The door opened, and the lion appeared again, looking slightly the worse for wear. His mane was covered in sparks, and he looked as if he had been static-shocked from a super with electrical powers.

Unfortunately, he still had the tattoo gun. He shook his head.

"I was hoping to get at least a few more uses out of that teleportation device. It has been useful to avoid being caught out as a culprit in this, but I suppose that a prototype only has so many uses."

"You're starting to remind me of someone I hate," Studley said. "And let me tell you, that's not a good thing."

"I'm sure. Now, let us cut to the chase, shall we? We are not here to banter. We are here to see the world change."

And with that, Nemean pushed the tattoo gun to his arm and pulled the trigger.

The horrifying call of the skull pulsed through the building once more. This time, however, it was enhanced, the gem that filled one eye-socket glowing brightly. Studley gripped the table beside him desperately as the sound echoed through his ears, pulsing through his bones as it went down to the -

The mausoleum.

They weren't on top of a graveyard, but they were damn close. The ghosts came as they were summoned, lining up in a way far more docile than what Necromiter had summoned. They did not dart down the lion's mouth, but rather seeped through his flesh, sinking into him and growing his power.

"Shit..."

That was about the long and short of it. Studley lifted his blade, only to feel a grip at the tip. That, in and of itself, was something of an impossibility, considering that nobody tended to stick around for long if they touched the katana without his permission. However, that was a pretty mild thing compared to the sudden yank and throw that followed.

CRACK! He slammed against a window pane so hard that he nearly went through. The only thing that saved him were the multiple layers of glass behind the first one. He huffed, gritting his teeth as he struggled to hold onto his own sword as it was dragged up and down, twisted about and nearly pulled from his grip time after time.

"I thought you said - nnngh - I thought you said that the telekinesis was short range!"

"It is. The ghosts must be making him stronger."'

"You think?!"

Before he could think of something beyond just dismissing the sword and trying something else, Nor was on the move. The mule darted forward, one fist pulled back as he leaped through the air. Studley saw what was going to happen an instant before it did, and he gritted his teeth.

Oh, fuck.

The lion didn't even change his gaze. He just twitched a finger, and just like that, Nor changed direction in mid-air, flying towards Studley and the raised katana blade. The only thing he could do was get rid of it, and he did just that, barely managing to catch Nor at the same time and keeping them from going flying out the window.

"You know...this really wasn't what I was planning to do with my night," the wolf muttered. "I thought I'd get a drink. Maybe hit the beach and find a couple nice ladies. Not this crap."

The gun was still calling up more ghosts, the spirits swirling around the lion. Bit by bit, he was growing ever stronger, and the pulsing power that came with being infested with ghosts rolled through him like sonic waves at a concert. Except those only made him nauseous. These made him feel chilled to the bone, like the cold of the grave was passing through him every few seconds.

The lion's assistant was long gone, run off somewhere else. Studley groaned as he got back to his feet, shaking his head.

"Tell you what. How about you let me get a free shot, Nemean? One free punch."

"It would be futile. I am stronger than you can comprehend."

"You know, I know I put out a quote book for guys like you to start spouting cheesy lines, but I never thought someone would actually use it."

"I use no book."

"Yeah, it's a line. Alright. You won't let me? Try and stop it."

This was going to take more power than just fighting someone that had super-strength and super-stamina. He was going to have to take this up a notch. With something similar to what he had done with Erwin, he embraced some of the chaos, some of the inner power. And just like that, he wasn't there.

Instead, he was behind the lion, in the perfect place to land a blow. He punched, his hand breaking the laws of physics, no longer quite traveling, but rather just going from one place to another, hitting the perfect combination of nerves to induce a knock-out.

Or at least, what should have been the perfect combination of nerves.

Rather than falling over, the lion barely took a half-step forward. Studley paused, his eyes widening slightly.

"How many ghosts do you have in there already?"

"Enough to handle whatever you throw at me," the lion said, turning on his heel. His suit was slowly breaking down, ripping as his mane started to glow, pushing out and getting longer and longer. It made him look almost like a vengeful feline spirit. "Whatever you might be, I suggest you run. If you stay, you will not live for long."

"...Never did know when to quit..."

Shaking his head, Studley dodged a sudden mane-strike - who knew that the lion could extend that? - and then followed up with a punch. He dodged a kick, caught the leg, and brought his elbow down on it. A tail swipe followed, and he grabbed it, literally throwing the lion over his head and into the ground.

It did literally fuck-all. Every blow that got anything more than a grunt ended up fixing itself less than a second later, and most blows didn't even get that far. Most of what he did got shrugged off almost as soon as he delivered the blow in question, and he was leaving himself open to more different attacks.

Fuck...this is going to take more than I should use...

Studley glanced over his shoulder back at Nor. The mule was getting to his feet, shaking his head, looking like he was trying to think the situation out. He shook his head. Nothing from that corner. It was going to be down to -

He ducked, barely avoiding getting spitted through the skull by the lion's newly tentacular mane. Throwing himself into a forward roll, he came back up with a chunk of metal from the floor, spinning it around like a shield around his wrist. He might have been getting up there, but he still knew a few tricks, a few acrobatics.

Okay, think. He's getting stronger and stronger, which means that he's going to be too strong for any heroes in the city to handle before long. He outclasses most of them already with that damn telekinesis, not to mention being sturdy as hell...

And that was before he got to the dead with superpowers, if he hadn't started getting them already. Once those started going in, then this Nemean was going to be more than dangerous. He would be all but unstoppable, a true King of the Dead ruling over the living.

As the mane tendrils came to him again, he trimmed them on the fast-spinning metal plate, but they kept growing back. Nemean was floating now, no longer restricted to walking, and the air was almost too cold to breathe. Studley gritted his teeth, trying to think of a way out of this without blowing the city up. Anything that would actually affect this lion was going to be something that would do a huge number on the city, too.

He was just about to give in and go for it - and apologize later - when he felt that stretching sensation again.

Just like that, Nor was gone, the assistant was back where she had been, and Nemean himself...well, the lion was unchanged, but the world was quiet. He looked up and realized why. The light beams coming from the lightbulbs above were frozen. Time had stopped.

"I cannot move you in time, but I can keep it from progressing...at least for a time."

Erwin stepped out from behind the frozen female assistant at the table, holding the tattoo gun in hand. Studley stared for a moment, then looked back at the floating lion before him.

"...Uh...shouldn't he be gone?" he asked.

"Ordinarily, yes. The timeline has been changed."

And Studley had a half-memory of how that had happened, too. Nor had been diverted from their pathway while running to the office building, and when that happened, it meant that Nor reached the building first. The fight between them hadn't required the tattoo gun, but it had gotten out of hand enough that the police had been called. That Nemean was being led away without having ever used the tattoo gun.

"But this one...he is a fusion of the impossible and the unnatural, too much of the other for me to fully affect. You will have to deal with him," Erwin said.

"...Tell me. How long can you keep us in frozen time?" Studley asked, even as the growling, snarling lion turned on him again.

"I can give you five minutes."

"Heh...I only need two."

"You have been fumbling around like a fish out of water," the lion said, turning his full attention to Studley once more as the tiger disappeared. "There is nothing that can be done to stop me. Even if time itself is against me, what is time to one that has mastered death?"

"I'm guessing that you absorbed a hammy actor from down there to say lines like that. Well, let me tell you a couple things, Nemean."

Studley grabbed the next stabbing chunk of mane without even trying, gripping it tight before giving it a hard yank. The floating feline stumbled forward, and he grabbed him by the throat. Just enough to give him a squeeze, not enough to choke him out. He wasn't pulling that much power yet.

"One, I'm not from here, so don't think that you know what I can do just yet."

"It matters not."

"Two, I've been holding back, mostly because I don't want to blow this city off the map. Call it a professional courtesy. Or maybe I'm just starting to like this place."

"As if you could do something like that."

"Three..."

Studley chuckled, growing again, growing into something that was color and darkness, fullness and emptiness, bubbling and pulsing and yet sucking in everything around it. He was everything, and he was nothing. In that moment, the eyes of the lion went as wide as they possibly could, and he snarled through teeth that could have rent planets in two.

"In stopped time...nothing but you and me get hurt..."

"..."

"And I plan on taking you somewhere that never was...so you will never be..."

"Try it, wolf."

"I intend to."

And with that, he threw Nemean against the window as hard as he could. He felt Erwin's power, felt the stretch that came for a split second, and the window broke. Then time froze again, the light beams slightly further from where they had been, the assistant taking on a shocked expression, but no more than that. She didn't know what had happened. Nobody but he, Dead King Nemean, and Erwin would know what happened in this stopped time.

He ran through the window, one katana, then a second forming in his hands. It was time to take care of business in the way that only he could.

The End

Summary: Studley finally gets an explanation from the tiger about what is going on, and finds out that he's a bit to blame for a lot of shit going down. Well, time to fix that.

Tags: no sex, wolf, mule, lion, super, supers, superheroes, supervillain, necromancy, fight, fighting, explosive, time powers, revelation, series,