Come On Dear Pierrot

[Did I actually accidentally schedule my shit to all post on the same day, or is that a visual bug? Who knows! Sorry if it was the former.]

A few days later, they returned to the house of the drug-deal and Iris began her outside Timeline. She finished, and there was the car again. She got in and tested an acceleration, and they were soon a few miles from the neighborhood.

"Alright. I'll text you when I've got them tied up." said Natasha. She hugged Iris, then left.

Iris watched the winds literally carry her away, and she thought over how they had been for the past few months. She enjoyed how straightforward and open Natasha was with her: she was not a bullshitter. It molded well with Iris, who grew to appreciate that Urasaria was one of the few places in life that required no games; she just knew she would be president eventually, but the knowledge that it would come was all she needed for now.

But why she desired presidency was vague, aside from the control and security it provided. Natasha's direct rebuttal of her violence had been her first in years; even her coworkers were afraid to be so direct. The bias of the past meant that the ways in which she managed her emotions had usually been self-selected and regardless of others' recriminations. It had not necessarily been healthy, but her uncle had rarely provided her structure otherwise.

(Natasha) "Go"

Phantom accelerated the vehicle forward. She started with 100mph, then ramped it up to 1000mph. Scenery and homes flitted by in the windows, a retinue of colors that squabbled to be made chief in the sight. She tentatively tuned it to 1500mph, rapidly rotting cars and road to make sure no civilians were killed. The car drove to the young man's home (what was left of it) repeatedly; whenever it was parked she tried to accelerate it as fast as she could so she was not parked long. Gasoline emptied and refilled at empty gas stations.

Whenever it returned home she felt a cold feeling sit at the bottom of her stomach. Calm was not a word she knew here. It had been fifteen minutes and she was still -30 days from where she was to be.

(Natasha) "Fuck, they're coming back."

(Iris) "I'm -30d from his death."

(Iris) "Can you get here? Don't stand in the road."

The car rapidly lurched, through parked recalcitrance and stoplights. Its headlights turned on, then off, then on again. The radio emerged and Iris turned it off so she could see better. It was -5 days. She texted Natasha again and heard sounds of fighting nearby, but she could not yet leave; it had been their plan that Natasha would accompany her.

It was the day of his death and the car was parked in his driveway. Tentatively she accelerated it and was relieved to feel it move, then paused it in the driveway. She texted Natasha again and kept her head ducked.

The car's engine began to dim, then scraped against itself; she felt the moisture in the area drop -

- her breath chilled in her lungs -

- she shot herself out of the vehicle and landed onto a bed of frozen spikes that stabbed through her skin; she rolled off and kept rolling & rolling up the driveway, frozen spikes spreading up behind her, until her head hit the other wall of the home and the wall collapsed like it was brittle -

" - P-Phantom -"

- the wall repaired, and somewhere near the car she heard a shout of: "Rime Time!" and pressed herself up, bleeding from several wounds. Hundreds of ice buds were forming in the air ahead, frozen branches growing; one shot towards her and she hit it with a superheated blast -

- that didn't even melt it -

- twelve ice-branches impaled through her left leg -

- and sucked out all of the blood within it; her leg buckled and her head hit the ground, concrete rotting below her as she tried to escape for an instant -

- but an ice crystal shot through her eye and sucked its fluid away; the last thing she saw before she lost sight in it was him crossing ahead of her car, and as Phantom's strand took the car's pedal and slammed it down -

- the 1000mph vehicle slammed through him and tore off his bottom half like there was nothing there, ice crystals falling yet fading around her. His front half was still latched to the windshield when she reverted the car back, dragging herself along the driveway and repairing it with Phantom.

She crawled inside and reset the car to -2 days, wincing as she accelerated it out of the lot. It went over to the friend's house, and its passenger door opened and closed. She texted Natasha and told her to run away.

"…h-had... h-had to have been the only one..."

She groaned as she applied some Flickendecke patches to herself, though they would shrivel until 15 minutes had passed without Revenant usage. Phantom accelerated the vehicle out of the neighborhood, and she took it in her own grip to drive it around herself for a bit.

(Note: Phantom does not work on Flickendecke's time limit, as the time limit is not contained within Flickendecke but the hosts themselves; an unknown pheromone excreted by hosts repels the abominations. Iris had tested this with Emilia before.)

She decided to distract herself with a call to Amelie, though she didn't mention to her why.

Mostly, she was pissed at herself. Being forced into a position of weakness never sat well with her. Amelie was out on investigation, but her talk soothed Iris, and once her wounds were healed, she reset the car and resumed its roll along its normal timeline.

It was a few miles into the city when Iris realized it was driving near that Little Alfredo's. She slowed it down to a normal pace as it drove past the diner and dropped the passenger off, then went further up the city to a parking garage and parked on the fourth floor. A bit hesitant, Iris kept a strand on the wheel. It was parked for a while, then the passenger door opened and closed again.

It began to pull out, and in the next instant -

- Phantom rotted the driverside door away and Iris threw herself out to the concrete -

- just in time for a royal flush of cards to go sailing over her head; the car lurched back in its spot and she stood up, catching a spot of motion moving behind cars 50ft away & left.

'Thank god that didn't go like last time.' she thought, relevantly.

She had been hoping for this re-fight and had come up with some strategy, hoping to show it took a good host to beat Sleight-of-Hand but it wouldn't take her long.

"Where the fuck's the other one, huh?!" he shouted, though Iris could see no figure yet; to her left were parked cars and a long fall to the street below, ahead & behind pillars at regular intervals.

She sneered. "You must have a vicious level of idiocy to try fighting me twice with the same Revenant. What a stupid son of a bitch."

Her Desert Eagle repaired in her right hand from the pieces of it she kept in her jacket; her favorite-if-cliched firearm she owned. More cards came flying at her from ahead -

- but the air chilled and slowed them down to the ground; she sidestepped and checked for where the volley had come, ready to pinpoint his angle if another volley was thrown. Phantom checked the air behind her and felt a strand forming it couldn't manipulate, and in the next instant -

- a large hole eroded in the ceiling; another one in the floor -

- and the guillotine pendulum swinging behind her fell into the hole, keeping her safe as she stepped forward. Another two-of-a-kind was thrown at her from behind a car ahead, a third following far above that a guillotine dropped out of -

" - Phantom!"

An arc of the roof rotted and sloped downward, and into the concrete stuck the high-flying card; she dodged the next two cards and the guillotine, and as it reached the tip of its ascent and swung back -

- a fist of pressure shoved it up into the roof & through it like there was nothing there, fading once it was out of Sleight's range.

She glanced over to the car the last volley had come from; she had his location now. She aimed above where she knew he was and dumped three accelerated shots into the roof; shards of concrete rapidly fell and a scream of pain came out from him as they landed in his skull. Location truly confirmed, she put another shot into the gas tank of the car he was hiding behind -

- and it exploded -

- then reverted -

- then exploded -

- then reverted again -

- she laughed as Phantom felt him desperately trying to open the car door to teleport through it, caught in the constant cacophony - " - didn't have enough the first time?"

- and the next scene was instant. Phantom's strand reverted the car's gas tank open, and as the gasoline tried to fly back to the station it was born at -

- it covered him completely and the next explosion set him alight; this time he managed to escape through opening & slamming the door, and Iris sighed as it began then. All around her were cars opening & slamming, cards spewing randomly around her; many were not close to striking her but were dragging strands of magician's wax, forming a thick & flammable lattice around.

Doors closed and doppelgangers spawned in; she hit each with a bullet and reloaded using Phantom after each, careful to avoid a misfire. She dodged and swept underneath among the cards, rotting random sections of the ground to shorten the strands of wax; yet she knew he would try to pay back his immolation soon.

A doppleganger spawned in and she turned to dump a round in its skull -

- he held up a gasoline-covered card to block it -

- and the entire lattice burst into flames, fires shooting towards her as more strands spewed at her from the outside -

- but the next scene was instant.

She directed Phantom towards her car and the radiator fan within it; its strand pulled it back the path it had once gone and left it midair before her, and as she plucked it out the fan accelerated and blew the foul strands away. Fire still burning, Phantom accelerated the oxygen they fed upon and decomposed them into nothing, snuffing out the web of flames.

She saw her foe stand openly now, ahead of her & 50ft away, another volley readied in-hand. Phantom felt the air around him and reverted it back into smoke before he could react; a horrific cough went through him as Iris stepped carefully forward, her foe blinded as he staggered & struggled to find a patch of air the smoke had never once touched.

'Note to self: check if I can decompose certain molecules preferentially.' she thought to herself; a student's mind whirls plans in microseconds of thought.

Ahead, he stumbled out of the smoke and to the front of a parked car; the floor rotted into a slope and the car fell accelerated into him -

"- Sleight-of-Hand!" he shouted, placing his hand to the windshield to escape through the glass -

- Phantom reverted its innards reverted into sand -

- and a horrific scream of agony came out of him in the next instant; Iris burst into laughter when she saw why. He had escaped to the other side, alright: inside the glass. It had burst open with him in it and sent hundreds of shards slashing through his body, laying him out in the front seats & bloodied. He saw Phantom's strand, and he begged her not to revert the glass deeper against his flesh; she did not listen.

She was still laughing as he put his bleeding hand over his face, trying to escape the water within -

- until a hyper-arid air evaporated it without a single drop left. She heated the air so no blood could leak from him, rotted away the car and gave his legs a stomp that reduced his knees to powder, leaving him to crawl away in agony as she watched.

With Natasha, killing had always been quickly and violently; she could have some better enjoyment here. Should not an executioner enjoy dragging the time of their victim? She loved power and control, and she loved showing herself off.

"Maybe the third time they'll try sending a better host." she muttered. "What a dumb son of a bitch."

"G-God damnit, fuck-"

A guillotine pendulum appeared behind Iris, but Phantom's strand returned the pendulum to the ether. It was rare she could overpower a host enough to do this with Phantom, but it was her favorite ability; it was the pinnacle of dominance.

"…I-I don't have shit to tell you, so j-just kill me like students do. J-Just some fuckin' low-level carrier..."

Iris glared at him. She tried to gather in her mind what she knew and had seen of the mafia; that they sold drugs to children and had killed Luca's mother, a fact she cared only for so long as she could layer it as part of her self-constructed melodrama.

"Let me put this simply for you, so you understand well." she said. "I've fought enough of you mooks this year to know that killing is something I enjoy and it's something I'm going to become incredibly good at. I'm not usually sadistic, but boy, I've had some help learning over these past few months. You've sent about ten or twenty hosts after us, so to me, killing another one is nothing. But, what you also should understand... it isn't my fault how I might react to the next one like you. You've given me the right to be sadistic. You triggered that. Anything I might do, well, that's your own fault for declining Urasaria."

With a single wave of superheated energy she consumed his corpse and black hands reclaimed his Revenant.