Kahli gasped for air as Taubitha tightened her grasp around her ex-friend's neck, only this time, she didn't hesitate - and she didn't stumble, either. She was a little surprised, sure, and indeed she did shout out some confused expletives, but still Taubitha kept her vice grip on Kahli's neck. The encroaching purple energy snaking its electrical way to Kahli was indeed quite foreboding, and Kahli was ultimately not sure how to proceed.
And then, she had an idea. It was an idea that was incredibly risky, but an idea all the same. Indeed, there was a part of her that wondered if she should just let Taubitha kill her in this scenario. After all, if she died, then the scenario would end and she could go on to scenario three - finally escaping this most dangerous of [checkpoints]. However, therein lied yet another risk - if Kahli died, and the scenario ended immediately, was there not a chance, however small, that Taubitha might in fact realize a link between the two events? That is to say, sure, Taubitha was not the brightest lightning conch in the bioluminescent sea. At the same time, Taubitha was a thinking tauman being, and surely there would at the minimum be a chance that Taubitha might recognize the cause of why both events happened it tandem if, in fact, they were allowed to. With this rationalization, whether it was the product of overthinking or not, Kahli assured herself that the best way forward was in fact to protect her life at all costs, despite the eager desire to rush to completion of the [checkpoint] and return herself, Froufrou, and Taubitha indeed to the main timeline.
And so it was that Kahli had to act - but how? And then it was that she realized, in a way, she was already acting. She'd used her [SPEE], somewhat unintentionally, to slow down time and allow herself the ability to think through her options before getting annihilated by her ex-friend. With that, her thoughts came to how she could use her [SPEE] to better serve herself and Froufrou in this fight. It was also at this point that Kahli sorely wished for a bit that she had indeed dumped most if not all of her original [class] assigned [attribute] points into [SPEE]. It was proving to be an incredibly useful [attribute] in fights such as this, especially considering that it seemed to have the effect of preventing her subjects' awareness of what it was that was truly happening. Or was that bit an aspect of [Tale Teller]?
[Clarification: Much like your CLA and PER can work together to allow you to visualize and predict the outcomes of certain timelines and paths of action, your other attributes and skills also have a crossover effect wherein each attribute benefits one another in a synergistic manner. This is, in a way, a benefit of your more balanced approach to building out your character sheet. As you have multiple strong attributes and skills, they can all work in tandem - especially those with perpetual effects, that is to say those with effects that do not end in a burst, but instead work always and ever on in the background, quietly biding their time for the winds to change to whip them up into a subtle bit of a tizzy. As these powers build off and on one another, you may notice an increase of this sort of inter-system 'teamwork' that may continue to benefit you in more ways than one.]
"Froufrou, what do you think we should do?" asked Kahli through her strained breath. After all, slowing time didn't necessarily make Taubitha's grip on her neck any less tight, it instead just kept the purple energy from reaching her neck, and kept Taubitha and Princess both from attacking, lashing out, or indeed dropping in for a chat.
As a result, Froufrou did her best to squelch out a response. Only bits and pieces of it were even kind of intelligible to Kahli, after all they were indeed just squelches of varying volume, timbre, and odor, and yet they'd communicated through this manner so many times that Kahli was at least able to pick up more than most people would have been able to. All that said, the gist of it was that Froufrou felt much the same as Kahli, in that fighting for her life was most definitely the way to go here, and that allowing this scenario - or, indeed, anyscenario - to end in Kahli's death could surely throw everything into jeopardy. With that understood by all parties, Kahli posited that Froufrou ought to consider whether there was some action she could take at this moment. Indeed, Kahli continued, it was hard enough for her to speak with Froufrou at all under Taubitha's grasp. Froufrou, of course, did have the whole issue of having the laws of physics seemingly inverted by Princess, but Kahli argued that if Froufrou just jumped backwards, then shouldn't that kind of counteract it? Froufrou, of course, had her own thoughts on this that directly conflicted with Kahli's opinion, mainly because she didn't think that made any sense and was wondering whether the bile and blood that coursed through Kahli's capillary system was getting out of whack or otherwise constricted by Taubitha's grasp - which, of course it was.
Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.
"Like, oh my gods, what the fuck is this?" said Taubitha suddenly. It was bizarre - it was as if her head suddenly became in synch with Kahli's slowed time due to her [SPEE], whereas the rest of her body - including her arm and her attack - were both moving in slowed motion. "What the fuck is happening?"
Kahli didn't know how to respond, because she was having a bit of the same kind of moment herself in realizing that, somehow or another, Taubitha was somewhat resistant to her [SPEE] [attribute]. Did this mean that Kahli's [Time Manipulator] abilities, both [skills] and [attributes], might not be enough any more to contain and defeat Taubitha? If so, it was a troubling thing to become aware of, although Kahli ultimately still had a great deal more confidence in herself than she did in Taubitha's ability to figure that out, if it truly was the case.
"Seriously, Kahli, what the fuck is this shit?!" spat Taubitha angrily. "Like, oh my gods!!"
[End scenario]
And so it was that they were back in the void.
All of them.
All of them being Kahli, Froufrou, Taubitha, and of course the Supreme Time Protector.
It was time for the show to begin, again.
"Wow, what's going on?" said Kahli with the most aloof tone she could muster. Which was quite an aloof tone, indeed.
"You cannot be fucking serious right now, Klikli," hissed Taubitha. "Like, we were totally just here. And the fucking cloaked weirdo is still here, too!"
"Hi there," said the Supreme Time Protector. They waved sanctimoniously.
"Oh my fucking gods, I feel like I'm losing my fucking mind," said Taubitha with an angry gasp. She walked around the void, screaming and groaning and moaning, stomping her feet against the blank nothingness of the void as if it might do something.
Kahli, once again, had to hold back a laugh. It was incredibly difficult, considering that Taubitha was falling for all of this indeed so easily. It almost felt too easily.
Of course, had Kahli been thinking about the common Nomachiattan principle known as Clockam's Razor, she would've known indeed that, in theory, time spent doing something easily had only a fractional affect compared to time spent doing something difficultly. That is to say that, her feeling of too easily-ness was not only somewhat justified, but it was indeed a symptom that, had she been more prudent to recognize earlier, Kahli could have potentially course corrected. That being said, despite said too easily-ness, Kahli felt confident in her own abilities. It was how she functioned, and indeed in many ways she needed this faith in herself in order to face the endless onslaught of challenges that seemed to present itself to her.
All that said, things were about to get a whole lot less too easily for her.
"You know what? I don't give, like, a flying fuck what's going on! I'm going to, like, totally fuck all this shit up! Including you, you," Taubitha, once again, pointed with mire at the Supreme Time Protector, "You THING!"
"Hi there," replied the Supreme Time Protector.
"Like, do you know what I'm totally going to do? I'm going to open up a dimensional rift with my [Minor Dimensional Rift] [skill] and I'm going to see just what in the fuck is going on around here!" said Taubitha.
"Wait! What? What do you mean, Taubitha?" said Kahli with the most convincing tone she could muster. "What do you mean, what's going on?"
"Take a fucking look around you, Kahli! We're nowhere!"
"I, um, I hadn't noticed that."
"Oh my gods, you're so stupid!!" Taubitha hissed. With a flick of her wrist, a small rift in space opened up in a flash of light.
"Shit," said Kahli under her breath. Then, remembering her verbal trespasses, she whispered a prayer to Theseosus. Then, finally, she looked down at her big left foot. And then she did a double take. Her third scenario wasn't there to visualize!
"What are you looking at?" yelled Taubitha. "Like, why haven't you looked at my awesome rift?"
Kahli wondered if Taubitha's rift in reality itself was enough to disable her scenario function. Then again, if there was a way to disable it, there had to be a way to enable it. Right?
With that, and thinking rather quickly and frantically, Kahli opened up her own rift with a kick of her big left foot. A [Minor Time Rift] that was just big enough for herself and Froufrou to slip into. And indeed, before Taubitha could react, they had.
In a flash of whirring lights, sounds, and spacial aberrations, Kahli felt altogether disoriented on entering the rift. However, at the same time, she knew one thing. Wherever she was going, she was going with two goals in mind - stop Taubitha from ruining her [checkpoint], and indeed to defeat her evil ex-friend once and for all.