Chapter 0 - [C] A Battle of Time

[Commission: Featuring time stop and 0 reaction/completely unaware others] 

Elytra. A world of heroes, might and magic. Where the common man may one day need to rise above his peers to battle the forces of evils and the nastiest monsters the world can throw at him, and the next, return to his peaceful village as a farmer. 

Those who make battle their calling however, those few who would brave the wilds, the mightiest of foes, that would rise in strength and live a life full of danger as they go forth throughout the land, are known by only one (good) name. 

Adventurers. 

“Bad idea Elaine. I’m telling you, this can only lead us into trouble.” 

“Really Karie? Ya been harping out about how ya don’t want any more party members but before that ya were harpin’ about how it’s “too dangerous for us to do this”. Ya know we can’t have it both ways right?” 

Karie, the rogue who had spoken, looked over to Trex with a glare. 

“And do you think I’m wrong? Going off on this quest is going to get us all killed and accepting a stranger into our group isn’t any better. My knife isn’t the only one that can end up in someone’s back.” 

“And that is why,” Elaine had decided to speak up “we must make a strong judgment of their character and overall abilities. It’s not simply enough for us to trust them, they must be a good fit for us. Ah, Mary is back.” 

Mary, carrying four pitchers of ale in her arms that threatened to spill, had returned with a gentle smile on her face. 

“A self serving adventurer bar is quite a place. Ah, are we still talking about the adventurer’s notice we put in?” 

“Hah. “trust them” and “still.” We shouldn’t do much of any of the first and a lot more of the last. I’m just saying, trusting our lives to someone we just met is incredibly dangerous. And make no mistake, that’s exactly what we’re doing by inviting someone to adventure with us.” 

“Well, we will just have to see what kind of person our notice attracts and you can personally vouch or veto them.” 

That satisfied Karie enough that she only lightly complained and bitched as she tested and drank her ale. 

As they settled into their tankards, there was a similar thought on each of their minds. 

“How long will it be until we find our 5th party member?”

They would not have to wait long. 

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Marcus Michelangelo entered the bar. 

He was a curious fellow. Young, brown hair, thin build, clearly early 20’s, wearing what seemed to be traveling clothes consisting of a T-shirt and loose pants. He had an easy smile on his face that some would say made him look cocky or too assured of himself. But no one could deny, he had confidence in himself. 

He looked around the bar for a little while, eventually finding the group he was looking for. 

There sat his future party. He had noticed the lovely quad of beautiful elf women when he was returning from a routine quest. Their notice of needing a 5th member in the adventure guild was surprising, as were the qualifications. For starters, with four women, he had immediately expected that they would be harshly against any kind of male presence. Clearly they had a thing going on, after all, and adding a guy into the mix would’ve been odd. 

And yet surprised he was, for multiple reasons. 

The qualifications we’re not asking for light members in any way, shape, or form. They were directly asking for someone of considerable power. That means they themselves were probably not too far below that level or were equal with it at the very least. There was also no type or limit in any other way. Power was purely the name of the game. That reeked of needing someone and needing someone now, rather than later. 

Well, Marcus always did love a challenge. 

He took the time to examine his party as they talked. 

The second tallest immediately drew his attention. It was something in the way she held herself. Her face was a little hawk-like and her bearing was… nobility? It was just something in the way she moved and sat, like she was at a fancy party then in a rowdy inn. She almost seemed fragile, like how elves were portrayed in novels. She had long straight hair, wearing a leather top and skirt, with a bow strapped around her and a quiver on her back. A true archer through and through then. Marcus took a guess she was the leader and that was mostly because of the other members. 

Next was the healer, the looks between her and the Archer were extremely easy to see. Sister’s without a doubt. But where as the Archer looked like a classic example of what elves were, the priest was taller, curvier, and generally more filled out. She was wearing heavy robes but even through that, you could tell she was not slacking in certain sizes of things. She had a gentle, peaceful look on her face, and was shorter than her sister, which made her look even more stacked comparatively. She had a short bob cut hairstyle and a staff attached to her back through a strap. If there were only a few words he could use to describe her, he would use “gentle” and “supple.” Clearly a priestess judging by her gear. 

Now if he had seen their ranged damage dealer and healer, his 3rd party member was the fighter. And she was pushing what should be possible for elf biology, for sure. She was a fighter through and through and she wore very little clothing. A shirt that didn’t cover her 6 pack abs or stomach, shorts that barely got past the waist before they stopped, she was absolutely stacked. Muscular, athletic, fierce. She was a fighter through and through and the lack of armor was probably not a concern at all considering her build and class. She had long wavy hair, big breasts, thick thighs, was the tallest one there and most frighteningly, she had no weapon. A pure hand to hand fighter. Her punches could probably put holes in plate mail. She was the tallest on here and currently drowning herself in ale it seemed and laughing all the while. 

The last, but certainly not least, took him a while to find. She was hidden behind the Fighter. Judging by the darker clothing and almost unnatural way she blended in with the surroundings, she was definitely the rogue. She was cute, in a particular way. She was the shortest and the word coming to mind when looking at her chest was “flat.” But that didn’t make her look any less lethal. Far from that. She had two daggers on each side of her, in clear view, and possibly more knives hidden. Her face was extremely cold and she looked like she was flat out glaring at her drink. Marcus could tell that this one was going to be the problem child. If anyone had a criticism of him, it would be her. 

His scouting (staring) done, he went to introduce himself before someone else could take the party slot. 

He heard the Rogue mumble something and the party turned to him. 

“Hello! Nice to meet you all. I’m Marcus and I saw your post up in the adventurer’s guild. Was hoping I could join up with you lovely ladies.” 

“A pleasure Marcus. I am Elaine, leader of the Stalwart Defenders. What qualifications do you bring to bear?” 

“I’m a silver rank mage.” 

They all looked at each other for a moment, before the fighter spoke up. 

“Aye, that’s all well and good but we’re looking for strong allies yeah? We can’t be protecting both you and Mary while ya send out your little bolts or charge up a fireball. We need someone who can keep up with the rest of us too, we ain’t going to any easy dungeons or anything of that sort.” 

Ah, the old Mage prejudice. Not entirely unwarranted. The easy smile never left Marcus’s face. 

“Ah, I should have clarified. I am a Battle-Mage. I am perfectly capable of protecting myself while in the thick of it without support. I have experience, and frequently fight, alone.” 

The Rogue openly scoffs and the other party members don’t seem very convinced. Lot’s of eye movement between them, mostly to Elaine, seeking her judgement on the matter. It’s not like Battle-Mages are common. It’s like having a Battle-Scholar. Nothing is stopping someone who studies all day, every day, from learning how to fight like a soldier, but it’s not usually what those types of people do. 

Elaine soon speaks up. 

“Well, I feel it would be in all of our best interest to test your capabilities going forward. I propose you have a duel with Karie, our rogue. As for other late introductions, this is Mary, our priest and Trex, our fighter.” 

“Nice to meet you all and a duel with Karie sounds fine to me. It’s getting late as of now but how about tomorrow around mid-morning?” 

“Works for me.” Karie said with an absolutely frigid expression on her face. 

With that, Marcus left his future party to their slow night of drinking and prepared for tomorrow. There wouldn’t really be a need for much preparation, but a good night’s sleep and time, heh, to think of some fun ideas to do tomorrow would be worthwhile. 

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Early the next morning, a particular group of five were at a clearing briefly outside the city. This group was of course Marcus and the party of four elves, the Stalwart Defenders. Besides Trex being a little less smashed, no one else really looked any different. In other words, no one had made any special preparations besides Marcus bringing a staff to wear on his back. It was a simple thing though, a dime a dozen. Wooden, long, sturdy, but not the type of staff that would let someone they couldn’t already do. It was the equivalent of seeing a swordsman with a simple steel sword. A bit odd, considering Marcus’s professed level of ability. 

The rogue was quick to comment as she and Marcus started walking forward into the clearing. 

“So was all of your talk bullshit or do you just enjoy being seen as poor?” 

“Ha, big words coming from someone who can’t even say they get seen.” 

“‘Oh no, the rogue doesn’t get looks’ really? That was your best?” 

“Oh no, but I mean, clearly, I didn’t feel like I needed to bring my best today.” Marcus replied with an easy smile. 

The rogue’s face transformed into an outright freezing glare. 

About 15 feet apart, they stand, waiting for the signal from Trex. 

“Ready!” 

“GO!” 

Marcus’s eyes bulge slightly at just how fast the rogue is. He quickly shoots out a few mana bolts, one aiming at the face, two aiming for the natural lean she’ll do after she ducks and another for the leap she’ll do past that. Multi-casting and insta-casting of even basic level spells is impressive but it’s clear that the Rogue has some experience with mage types because instead of ducking, she leaps over the bolt. Being airborne isn’t especially advantageous as far as positions go but it’s a great way to avoid a mage’s first set up if they aren’t expecting it. 

Marcus fires as many bolts as he can out at her while she’s in the air, turning it into a numbers game, but she surprises him again by twisting in mid air. It wasn’t the twist that surprised him, but her apparent lightness. She moved from a normal human to a leaf on the wind in less than a second. Skills are variable and strong but they all require effort and work. Using Lightness to dodge isn’t surprising. Using lightness to dodge a spread of mana bolts, in mid air, by twisting your body is impressive. 

Karie landed without a mark on her and less than a foot between us. She swiped up with the dagger but I was already backpedaling, sending out some False Bolts to slow her down. If she was going to end up dodging it all anyway, I didn’t need to spend the extra bit of mana. 

It was tempting to just have this be a normal battle. It would be a good challenge I feel but I needed to put on a good show for my future party members. So it was time to activate my real powers. 

Time magic. 

Time magic isn’t common. It’s not rare. It’s not even extremely rare or once in a generation. Simply put, I haven’t heard of others having the same abilities. That doesn’t mean it hasn’t happened, just that anyone who’s ever had it has hidden it from others. Keeping that fact hidden is my highest priority. 

But that doesn’t mean I don’t use it. In fact, I’d say I use it frequently. 

Suddenly, everything became slower, including Marcus. The dew from a leaf fell at a slow speed, the knife coming for his body was moving as if they were practice swings and Marcus himself felt like he was a block of iron in comparison. Karie was fast after all. He dodged the swing and the next one, and the kick that followed that one up, and the leap that continued afterwards. 

Marcus’s physical speed may have stayed roughly the same, only gaining a bit of speed at the moment, but his mind was the same speed it had always been. 

At some point, he had even taken the staff from his back and was using it to evade and parry where just more dodging would not have been enough. From an outsider's perspective, it would have looked like he was insanely talented at physical movements, with incredible footwork and insane reaction speed. There was clearly at least some evidence of that feeling coming from the woman trying to slash him to pieces, as her movements had gotten only more frantic and quicker and deadlier. 

However, from Marcus’s perspective, he was not some movement God taking this fight incredibly seriously. No, from his perspective, he was watching a beautiful elf show off her body as she moved at a trainer's pace. As if she was trying to show off the absolute most perfect form and her thin and lithe body was following with a grace that a human could never hope to follow. Even as she grew more frantic, her form was impeccable, perfect even in the slowed world. 

And when she used Lightness to try and get in quick and used acrobatics to try and catch him off guard, it was a rare beauty he hadn’t had the chance to see before. Her clothing would lift up and what would be a flash of skin would instead become a slow rolling wave of sight for him and him alone. 

Eventually, enough is enough and he can’t take it anymore. He unleashes his full capabilities. 

Everything freeze’s. The wind, the stars, the dew dropping from the leaf it was on, Karie in a mid battle pose, everything. Everything except for Marcus. Because not only can he freeze or slow down time, he can unmoor himself from those effects entirely. 

Now that he doesn’t need to fight, the first thing he does is sit down and rest for a moment. 

Regardless of how slowly the fight was going from his perspective, he hadn’t actually sped his body up much. He was actually fighting after all. Meaning he was a little tired. 

After a brief rest, Marcus got up and looked at Karie. 

Beautiful. 

She was mid swing, striking forward, going for a plunge this time, as a follow up to another swing. It was just one of a hundred swings that had happened and would happen, not special in any way, another moment of time except for the fact that that moment had become an eternity here and now. 

He walked over and slid his hand down her arm and up into her shirt, feeling her small breasts. Perky, not as flat as he thought but definitely not big by any stretch of the imagination. Cute. He gave them a light squeeze for now and continued on. He would have plenty of fun with her soon. Ha, soon, he had all the time in the world to do anything when he wanted. 

He walks leisurely up to the other three party members. The three people that have been watching him the entire time he fought. Their appearances are all distinct, their personalities and thoughts and worries written across their faces.

The Fighter, Trex, is outright excited. The cocky grin on her face could probably split a mountain, her hands are on either side of her hips and she is staring right at where he just was. It’s hard to tell whether she wants to fight him herself or to do something else the way she leans forward and her eyes gleam. 

The Priestess, Mary, is gazing with attentiveness. No doubt she had gone from casually paying attention to extremely paying attention once things had gotten heated. From her perspective, she might be needed at a moment's notice to make sure he didn’t actually die in this duel. A kind woman.  

The Archer and leader, Elaine, was looking on with a calculating face. Her brows were scrunched up in concentration and she was clearly deep in thought. Her eyes were just as sharp as they were first. Her thoughts however, were practically written across her face. “How?” and “Is he actually a good fit for the party?” 

“Hmm. So let’s see. The fighter wants to fuck or fight me, the priestess is worried about me and the Leader wants to know if she can actually use me. Seems about right haha.” 

He decides to first get an up close look at the Priestess, Mary. He approaches her and pays attention to just how cute and femine she is. A soft face, a supple body, but he realizes that they hadn’t really talked much so far. She might be a bit shy after all. Cute. Up close, the family resemblance to Elaine is even easier to see. It almost seems odd it never came up but at the same time, it’s not like there’s been any reason to bring it up. 

He lifts her chin from where she was looking and stares directly into her eyes. 

“You are so, so cute. It really adds to how defenseless you currently are. Anyone could do anything to you right now and you wouldn’t be able to resist at all. It is weird that that makes you all the cuter to me?” 

Marcus reaches up and pinches her face a little and then reaches up with his other hand. He grabs either side of her cheeks and pinches them, pulling them and stretching them as far as they can go, laughing lightly at the funny faces she’s making. 

He then grips her face with both hands, leans in, and kisses her deeply. He feels her soft lips on his, his tongue deeply entering her mouth, the feeling of his breath meeting her face and the warmth of her frozen lips. He feels as he can kiss her as deeply and as breathlessly as he wants without any resistance. He gets even more into it, holding her close and rubbing her ass with his other hand, as he continues to make out with her. He doesn’t let up, reveling in the feeling, until he eventually has to come up with air. 

He chuckles as he actually has to wipe a few strands of saliva from between the two of them. Perhaps he overdid it just a little. 

He proceeds to see what he is missing and moves her body around in such a way that taking off her robe won’t be that hard. It’s a bit difficult but not really that hard. After he does though and sets the robe down in mid air, he’s shocked by what he sees. 

Underneath robes she’s wearing underwear but her body is incredibly sexy. Her breasts are huge and she’s definitely well filled out in all the right places. He marvels for a bit more, just taking in her considerable curves, plentiful ass, big breasts and thick thighs. There might be multiple reasons she wears that robe and attention like his might be one of those reasons. That just makes Marcus’s smile wider, knowing he gets to see something she’s trying to hide from the world. 

He pulls off her breasts and leaves them hanging in the air, ogling her impressive bare mammaries. He takes them in his hands and begins rubbing them, before putting his face down and sucking on one of them. He suckles her nipple and breast, feeling how it fills up his mouth with just how much of it is there. He continues to fondle them and suck deeper and deeper, and harder, thankful that time stops how it does for him or he would be worried about leaving a mark. When he’s finally done sucking so deeply, he raises up and realizes he can’t just leave the other one. He licks and lightly bites and fondles and sucks Mary’s breasts for a bit, fully experiencing their splendor and pleasure. 

After he’s done, his eyes turn to Elaine, the Archer and Leader. He looks her up and down and the same thing’s that have been imprinting themselves onto him since he saw her, continues to impress upon him. She looks so serious, capable and even regal. He would not be too surprised if he found out she was nobility. At this point it’s all but a guarantee, just how far up is the question in his mind really. A baron’s daughter and a princess are not the same thing, after all. She’s clearly related to Mary but, Mary just doesn’t carry the same presence.  

“I wonder what this quest is actually about anyway, if they need someone at my level of power?” 

He shrugs, the answers will come to him in time after all. And time, well, he’s got plenty of that. 

For fun, he decides to grab Elaine and bring her to her sister. He carefully, carefully places them in front of each other, staring at one another, and then, gently grabs both of their heads and smashes them together. He fixes it up a little bit, so now they're both staring into each other’s eyes, sharing a wet drooling kiss. For some extra fun, he positions it so that they’re both holding each other's asses in their hands and pushed up against one another. Looking more like desperate lovers than sisters. 

Next down the list, is Trex, the Fighter. This one is going to be something special. She’s bombastic, not at all shy, carries herself with full confidence and can decide that anyone that gets too handsy can end up without a hand, pretty easily. She’s clearly used to attention, especially of the lewd kind given her body, but it’s a very “look-but-don’t-touch” kind of deal. However, none of that applies to him, of course. He fully intends to touch and touch quite a lot at that. 

For starters, he removes her clothing. Which is both easy and harder than it has any right to be. It’s easy, as there’s just two simple pieces of cloth. She doesn’t even wear any underwear, no bra or panties, which is crazy, despite her massive breasts. How do they not jump around all the time? Must be a skill or something. But it’s incredibly hard as they are tightly gripped to her body. It takes some pulling and he’s not at all looking forward to getting those back on. 

But now, standing before him, is what looks like an ancient statue of Elven might. Trex is tall and strong, but she’s nearly a head taller than him. Her muscles are clearly defined across her entire body and although a bulky elf is impossible, she seemed to try religiously to prove that wrong. With such a strong, stable body, he doesn’t feel like he needs to hold back on this one. 

He starts by throwing back his hand and solidly spanks her. In the time stopped world, there’s no ripple of flesh, but she does move slightly at the force but not much. He continues to use all of his strength to slap her ass, over and over again, all the while she’s frozen in time. 

Next, he walks around and backhands her breasts. Slapping them with as much force as his hands can muster. Then grabbing them and pulling and twisting and roughhousing with her breasts as much as possible. After he gets done with that, he looks up at her face and slaps her, hard. Then in the same motion, backhands her, again and again. All the while, her cocky grin never leaves her face. Marcus has the feeling that even with time unstopped, she would still barely react to such hits. 

He decides it’d be amusing to see her actually topple and pushes her over, watching her fall onto her back exactly like a statue. She lands on the dirt, no worse for wear. Seeing her back to the sky, her face looking up at the frozen clouds, naked in front of him, it sparks an idea. After all, her breasts seem like the absolute best pillows in the world. 

He undresses and lays on top of her, his head resting on her breasts. It’s always good to take breaks sometimes, to just relax and really recognize you have all the time in the world. He can resume it “tomorrow” or next week or next year, if he so decided. 

Using her breasts as pillows and her body as a bed, Marcus falls asleep in stopped time, taking a quick nap underneath the sun. 

When Marcus later awakes, no time has passed. He always loves these lost moments. If he’s not there, then who is time passing for? It’s a world of complete stillness and just him sleeping. It makes him feel at peace. 

Getting up from his Trex bed, he looks down at her body. She’s wonderful to sleep on, he may need to do this again sometime. But now that’s he up… those breasts seem like they could have other uses as well. 

He gets down on his knees, straddling her chest and puts his dick between her breasts. He feels how soft they are, on either side of his cock and squeezes them together, thrusting forward, feeling how wonderful they are. Soft and firm and large enough to envelope his cock completely, he thrusts harder and harder, until he eventually cums between them. 

Getting up, he turns back around and faces The Rogue, Karie. The main course, in his mind. The real one that caught his eyes, outside of just the other party members. He walks back to her, taking her body in as he does so. 

Short, young, lethal. Her body is sinuous grace and form. As he walks back and stands in front of her, however, her face is nothing but cold fury. She glares fiercely forward, as if him not getting stabbed by her was a crime punishable by a cold death in a snowstorm. 

Now, you do have to be careful while in stopped time. Somewhat. Damage lasts throughout. People won’t react to anything you did, per se, there’s no delayed feelings or bodies reacting but damage is the big outlier. 

However, lucky for Marcus, this is a fight. A fight, with somewhat high level combatants. Some bruising and marks are to be expected. He fully intends to take advantage of that to be rougher than he otherwise could be with her. 

The first thing he does, is carefully remove all her clothing. He could just do this without but he has the time. And thankfully, her clothing seems to be the easiest to remove for some reason. He moves that and her weapons aside and looks at her. 

Small breasts, furious face, naked skinny body, short. She’s perfect. He moves around her, holding her naked body close to his and fondling her small as his erection threatens to enter a certain place and whispers into her ear. 

“How does it feel to be so vulnerable to someone you looked down upon Karie? You shouldn’t underestimate people.” he says as he grabs and squeezes her breasts fiercely. 

He lays her flat on her back, naked, face looking skyward before he lifts her head up. She’s clearly shown to be extremely flexible. He decides to make use of that. He lines her hips up and then carefully stretches her legs so that her knees are past her shoulders. Now, scowling at him through her legs, he leans down on top of her. 

He feels her legs around his shoulders and lines up with her pussy, smirking down at her scowl, before slamming into her. He feels her timestopped pussy engulf his dick. He feels how it doesn’t tighten at all to his approach and fully lets him just slide in. It’s always a bit of a dry rub, unless the woman was already wet beforehand. He doesn’t really mind though as he continues to thrust and slam into Karie while she looks up at him with the same frozen look on her face. He leans down and begins to kiss her furiously, deeply making out with her and continuing to fuck her. He thrusts and pounds her hard, over and over again, as he tightens his hold around her and passionately makes out with her, feeling their lips locked and pressed against each other. 

He feels her legs over his shoulders, his arms around her little body, his cock deep inside her soft pussy and her mouth against his as his breaths rolls off of her and his tongue continues to explore the inside of her mouth. 

Soon, he can feel himself building to release, going higher and higher until, with a last thrust he explodes deep inside her timestopped body, spilling out a little bit as he pulls out. 

Panting, Marcus relaxes off of Karie and considers how great his future is going to be with his new teammates. He holds her close and then gets up, with her tiny body in his arms. He walks back over to Trex, deciding he’d like another nap now. 

Laying back down on Trex’s extremely well build body, he lays Karie next to him resting a bit off of Trex as he fondles her breasts and looks over to Elaine and Mary who are still in their lovers pose. 

As he takes another nap, he smirks and wonders how long it’ll take him to fix everything up. 

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A while is the answer. He’s moved everyone back to their positions as best he could remember and manage, used some basic cleaning spells to make sure there was no lingering after effects, saliva or cum anywhere around, redressed everyone and even took the time to fix up the facial expressions a little bit if they changed too much. He was particularly thorough with using his cleaning spells on and inside Karie. It’s one thing to have his way with them while time stopped, that doesn’t really “matter.” After all, it’s what actually happens that's important right? And all he’s done “actually” is some light bruising and maneuvering of people and that’s fine, right? 

So with no chance of anything unwanted happening or leftover harm coming anyone’s way, he got back in position right where he had left off in the fight beforehand. 

He had, however, prepared a few basic spells to make sure everyone focused on that, instead of any minor differences like maybe being a foot or two off from where they were. 

It’s tempting, incredibly tempting, to sometimes timestop with everyone in a compromising situation. Just imagining Elaine and Mary’s reaction to being naked eating each other out or Karie underneath him and Trex underneath them both, is enough to fill him with incredible glee. But no, it’s much better not to fall to such temptations with his party. 

For now, at least. 

With Karie about to cut him to pieces and his prepared spells frozen in time, he’s ready. 

Time unfreezes. 

Karie cuts forward slightly and a giant fireball slams into her chest and a Mana Bolt comes at her from the side right after, slamming her across the field. 

The Priestess is already by her side and casting basic healing even before she was hit by the mana bolt, knowing that the fireball had ended the match. 

Elaine is intensely studying where the mana bolt came from, trying to figure out when I cast it and how. Probably trying to ascertain whether I can cast the bolt from that distance or whether I can time delay my spells and had predicted that my time fireball would launch her into that space. 

Trex’s grin had widened even further and I’m shocked that that’s at all possible. She looks like she really wants to fight me, right here and right now. Sadly, for her, I would really rather not. A fight against a rogue is one thing but I’d really rather not fight a Fighter. I mean, it’s in the name of their class for Godess’s sake. 

I look over to see Karie already back on her feet, no worse for wear really, rubbing against her chest. She seems extremely confused, which is understandable. From her perspective, I have no signs of casting either two spells and then they suddenly hit her at the same time. There’s ways and methods I could’ve done it, but none that make complete sense to her without more knowledge. 

“So, do I pass?” 

Karie’s face goes from confused to angry in a second. 

It really looks like she’s going to flat out say no until Mary gives her a look and she does a light scoff. 

“You pass.” Is all she manages to grumble out. 

The others are quick to chime in, Trex especially. 

“That right ther’e was some amazing shit! How about ya fight me next ey’ little guy?” 

Marcus laughs. “No thank you Trex, maybe another day.” 

“I believe you are a good choice for the team.” Mary replies. 

Elaine walks up to me. 

“You have clearly passed the combat portion of the test but as the leader of the Stalwart Defenders, I must ask you, why do you wish to join our party in particular? Someone of your skills, who can both be a mage and defend themselves, would be a good fit in a variety of teams.” 

He resists answering that the real reason is just that he wants to fuck all of them. Somehow, he feels that answer wouldn’t really go down very well. 

“It isn’t hard to tell you are on some important quest. No offense, but you and Mary both are clearly of some sort of nobility, Trex could absolutely smash me in two and I felt very close to dying while fighting Karie. That’s a lot of firepower and prestige to walk around with and yet you’re still looking for someone strong. Whatever you’re looking to do, it’s clearly something of importance. Figured I’d tag along. It was just luck we all happened to be here at the same place at the same time.” 

Most of that isn’t even a lie. That’s my honest thoughts on almost everything. The only lie is, that’s not the reason I want to be in their party. Those are just facts and truths I feel. 

Elaine seems surprised by my answer before nodding her head. 

“Very well. Welcome to the team Marcus, I hope we can all get along.” 

Elaine offers him a handshake. 

Grinning wide, Marcus goes in for the handshake, freezes time for a moment, gropes and kisses her and then unfreezes time, finishing the handshake. 

“You won’t regret it, that I promise you.” 