Disclaimer: I would willingly sell family members to get the rights to Witch Hunter Robin, but alas the people who do own it don’t want any of my crazy kin. They can act normal if it necessary! *screams*
Kitsune: *pacing*
Puff: *glances up from the television screen to watch her sister* Ya know, if I didn’t know better, I’d say that you were really worried over Amon. Don’t you trust my inventions?
Kitsune: No, not particularly. Especially since it seems that Amon is the only muse you have left.
Puff: Volunteers, my dear, volunteers. They all chose, with their own free will, to participate in my experiments.
Kitsune: *facial twitches* What did you do to them?! Are they dead?
Puff: They’re still alive; just healing down in the hospital area. Kinda half-dungeon, actually. ^_^ *giggles*
Kitsune: You’re sick and twisted, testing things on innocent muses.
Puff: I’m not the one who has a lust for blood and battle, Kitsune. I am merely trying to improve the lives of muses and masters alike around the globe. *stands up and strikes a hero pose with sunlight streaming around her* Soon, all muses will be constantly whole and healthy; no longer will writers have to worry about their muses falling pray to muse-diseases that can’t be treated with conventional human treatments. The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, dear sister. *sits down and sips her tea*
Kitsune: I hate you.
Puff: A tad harsh, isn’t that?
Kitsune: Alright then, I loathe you.
Puff: Much better. Now on to the chappie!
Chapter Fifteen: Temporal Equations
Amon snatched Robin’s coat sleeve and pulled the blonde craft user to his side. The witches were still chanting their eerie message, their voices becoming more and more disembodied with every spoken syllable. The cold hunter grabbed his daughter from Robin and placed her in a cubby-like hole in the boxes precariously stacked on the shelves.
“Robin, we have to be very carefully. These women are witches,” Amon stated icily, calculating eyes darting around the rapidly enclosing semicircle of witches. They stepped synchronously, every move perfectly in time with one another. Blank eyes blinked, mouths moved wordlessly and the sound emerged seconds later.
“I was just thinking that,” Robin said casually, her tone unusually light and cheery. Amon glared at her, quickly letting his dark eyes return to their visual search for any escape route. Their opponents had been extremely thorough in blocking the trio’s escape; not a single path remained that couldn’t be blocked in seconds of any, even the slightest, movement from the hunters. The outlook was beginning to look grim.
“Amon, why are you blinking so fast?” Robin questioned worriedly, placing her glasses across the bridge of her nose so she could peer at his near-black eyes more easily. Her partner’s head whipped around, black locks flaring out briefly.
“I’m not,” Amon said sharply, noticing how sluggish Robin seemed, “I’d like to know why you are acting so slow.” Green eyes shone with a flash of brilliant light before bells went off in both of their heads. Every single customer, employees, even fly outside the witches’ semicircle had stopped moving, as if time itself had been put on hiatus.
“Did Michael say anything else besides the fact they are witches?” Robin questioned as quickly as was possible given the fact that time for her was beginning to slow. Amon flicked back to his very short conversation with the STN-J’s resident hacker, pouring his concentration, at least what he could muster because much of his mind was distracted by the incessant chanting that was in the background, into pulling every single word from short-term memory.
“It seems they are related,” Amon said after a moment’s deep thought, imagining the horror that such a large group of witches with closely related powers could do to the planet. All they had to do was pour all of their combined energy into one attack and entire sprawling metropolises could be wiped out. Countries could fall in days. That is if the witches knew how to harness their powers properly.
“That doesn’t seem to forebode well for us,” Robin said unhappily, her voice already detaching from her mouth movements. Amon’s eyes shot down towards his Orbo pendant, the liquid glowing a fierce blue-green. In one fluid motion, the hunter had removed his gun from its holster and pulled out a single bullet. He tipped the liquid-filled capsule between two fingers, sloshing the mysterious ooze around a bit before he pressed it into Robin’s small palm.
“I know you dislike Orbo, but I think now would be a good time to get over it,” Amon said pithily, frowning at Robin’s wrinkled nose. The bullet glowed into life, and the craft user returned to normal speed. She held the bullet up to a light, eyes narrowing in distaste as she slipped it into one of her coat pockets.
“Doesn’t Orbo decrease a hunter’s powers though?” Robin questioned innocently, looking for any excuse to just give the bullet back and drop into a temporal-induced coma-like state, “I don’t think that would be a good idea in battle.” She immediately regretted speaking her mind; a single death glare from Amon set her back into her proper place.
“Slightly. It takes exposure; your craft won’t be impaired unless you decide to constantly wear an Orbo pendant,” Amon explained exasperatedly, feeling that Robin’s questions were childish and a waste of precious planning time, “And given how much more powerful these witches seem to be getting as we go along, I don’t think that you wearing Orbo would be a bad idea.” She was about to open her mouth to protest his words, when a single witch glided forward.
With every step the witch took, her comrades drew back into more of a natural state. Their hold on time outside the ring, however, remained completely fixed, people frozen in mid-movements as they reached for items or spoke to one another. Both of the hunters were irate; they couldn’t believe how the witches had violated the humans, as they were simply innocent bystanders in the whole thing.
“Please hand over the little girl,” the lead witch said, as if she was asking for a slice of toast or pencil instead of Amon’s daughter. Instinctively both Amon and Robin moved closer together, shielding the still sleeping Javan from their opponents. Emerald met nighttime sky as they exchanged an exceptionally hurried look, silently agreeing to protect the child at all costs.
“Oh, I’m sorry. You can’t just hand over your child to a perfect stranger,” she said, bowing her head in apology, “Let me introduce myself. I’m Sela, master of time and temporal relations. These are my older sisters.” Sela casually gestured at her sisters, acting as if they were nothing more than simple tools for her use. Robin’s jaw dropped in surprise, her wide eyes indicative of her complete shock. Amon’s response was bordering on the edge of nonexistent; vaguely amused eyes and an eyebrow raised an infinitesimal fraction of an inch hinted at his displeasure.
“Now give us the child,” the other fourteen witches said in unison, their own free will seemingly suppressed by their sister, “We need that little girl if we want a faint hope of living.”
“We’re hunters. Do you really think we’d help a group of witches live?” Amon questioned frostily, his words sharp enough to draw blood. Sela sighed loudly, her annoyance with Robin and Amon increasing exponentially. She shook her head slowly, laughing deviously. Suddenly her head snapped to a stop, her blue-green eyes shining with a malevolent light.
“Amon, will you listen to me?” Sela questioned coldly, addressing the older hunter like she knew him. The dark man nodded, suspicion clearly written across his chiseled features.
“I want to know why you would deny half of your heritage,” Sela said sweetly, playing with Amon’s mind in the worst possible way, “Don’t you love your mother? Didn’t you feel her pain when her sanity finally snapped and they, the very same people you work for, took her away?” Robin shivered involuntarily, the waves of hatred radiating from her partner chilling the room like a refrigerator.
“My mother was a witch and witches need to be hunted,” Amon said coldly, speaking to both himself and Sela.
“Is that so?” Sela questioned sarcastically, her face contorting as she grinned sadistically.
“Yes,” Amon responded curtly, his fingers twitching on the gun he still held in his hand. Sela’s eyes darted towards Robin, amusement appearing on the witch’s face as she stared at the nervous young craft user.
“What about your little friend?” Sela inquired, jerking her head to the side to indicate Robin as her subject, “Does little Robin deserve to hunted mercilessly? Without remorse for the pain she will feel?”
“Robin uses her craft to better humanity,” Amon responded monotonously, pushing his partner further back against the shelves protectively, “She doesn’t need to be hunted because she’s not a witch.” Sela stepped forward, stopping when she was mere inches from Amon. She ran a finger down his cheek, slashing his skin with a sharpened fingernail. Amon pressed the barrel of his Orbo gun against Sela’s stomach, his finger curling around the trigger.
“Don’t bother, Amon. If you remember correctly, I control time. All I have to do is stop time and move out of the path of the bullet. Or I could move it, instead of myself,” Sela explained amusedly, her voice barely above a whisper, “Our boss wasn’t stupid this time around. Last time he sent a little weakling to retrieve your daughter and the precious craft user. Believe me, he wasn’t happy when he heard his favorite lackey was defeated by that slip of a girl behind you. Not at all. But he’s decided he wants Robin alive and well when she’s presented to him, so I can’t kill her. You are a different story, however.”
“You make it sound like Robin is to be a gift,” Amon said offhandedly, trying to buy time to figure out how to get out of the mess he was currently stuck in and completely ignoring the threat on his life.
“I thought you would have known that from when the lackey paid you a visit. Robin-chan is to be the boss’s bride,” Sela cooed, enjoying the sickened look that formed on Amon’s face as her words sunk into his brain, “He has yet to explain why he needs your Javan, but we do know that capturing her alive is crucial to our survival. Perhaps we need to drain her of her blood and sacrifice her.”
“You’ll never get your disgusting hands on Robin and Javan. I’ll kill you before you have a chance,” Amon threatened, his head hung and his knuckles white from his tightly formed fists.
“Oh you’ll kill us all, will you?” Sela questioned teasingly, but immediately recoiled when Amon looked up. His dark eyes were filled with seething anger, reminiscent of the deepest pits of the underworld.
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Author’s Note: Hello, thought that you might actually READ this if it was separate a bit. (I don’t care for the pattern, but…) I’d like to thank my reviewers. All of you mean the world to me. It’s not any of you that are the problem. It’s the fact there are so few of you. I can’t write. I have only one or two pre-written chapters until I have nothing left to post. So, I’m going to plea to any readers out there who stopped or don’t review. I don’t even care if you have only bad things to say; I’m not vindictive that way. I just want to know that you acknowledge my story. Please, take my words to your heart. That’s all I have to say. Thank you, for your time.
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To the Reviewers:
Wake-Robin: The witches will, or should, get worse. It all depends on how you observe it.
Haruya: Amon was a bit cruel, wasn’t he? I agree, old ladies are evil. You never know when they will pinch your cheeks.
Suki1: Oh, thank you. I’m glad you my cynical, satirical comments. I have fun with them. And, just so you know, I talk like this in real life. ^_-
Goth Musician: I’ve decided that I prefer painting pictures with my words. I’m not saying anything on the subject of Amon and Robin getting out alive. I could be cruel. ^_^ Wait, I just said something! FEH!!!!
Linkinthepast: No, no, it’s just that I read over my review quickly the first time and yours sounded a bit off. ^_^ Thank you, I’m glad you enjoy my writing.
Athana233: Of course, my quality of work, even if I must go on hunger strikes and write in blood, will never waver. (Don’t take the hunger and blood serious, frustration yes. My computer is evil >_<)
Row: Barbeque!!! Barbequed Amon!!! Come and get ‘em. Fresh off of the flames!!! {Robin smiles in the background}
Speaker for Psychopaths: Try this one to get out of the ‘income and parents bugging you’ situation. You’re evaluating your life and a summer job will demean you, there for leading you to poor career choices in the future workplace. If that doesn’t work, just tell them that your future job determines what kind of retirement home they get. It’s all about playing with their minds, and reversing their emotions to work for you. ^_^