Augmented Aspects: Chapter 279 What Has the Pixie Been Up To?

Chapter 279

What Has The Pixie Been Up To?
(45 Minutes Ago)

(Mallory)

There are times, moments when the world seems to slow down to a grinding halt.

“We are… ga..ther…ed… hee..re…” the voice of the spirit Priest began, but as he spoke his words slowly seemed to grind down to a complete standstill.

“Wha?” King De’Arcaneri began, as he too saw what was happening and was momentarily flummoxed by the situation. Seeing that Gwen was still here with her and that Gwen had not been frozen in time caused Mallory to relax for a moment.

That was until, she remembered that a soiled Gwen left and was replaced by an immaculately clean version not seconds later. For a moment, Mallory was tempted to ask who was playing the role of King De’Arcaneri, was it Cass?

Then Mallory looked around Mallory began to see that more and more people were frozen in time.

Why is this happening, now? Is there a new threat that I am currently unaware of? Mallory thought to herself as she began to first look around, then seemed to pause as she noticed that everyone else around her was also frozen in place. All of the true Deolorean members gathered were frozen, while Princess Octavia seemed to be nervously glancing about.

Mallory looked behind her to those who were gathered and saw that everyone was frozen.

Well mostly everyone as there were quite a few of the more well-known students of Dr. Spiritlight’s classroom who were also in attendance. Normally the faces of such students wouldn’t be immediately recognizable to Mallory, but these students had a special place in Mallory’s mind as she herself had been responsible for teaching almost all of them in the recently pawned off Bloodline Evolution class, or whatever it was called.

Seeing the students, many of whom seemed to twitch nervously as they all seemed to be looking around in confusion at what was happening around them as well.

“Could she have missed everyone else?” Mallory found herself asking to no one in particular.

“No, she got them the first time, which makes me think this isn’t her work,” Princess Octavia stated.

Pausing to turn back to Princess Octavia, or at least the person who was playing Princess Octavia, Mallory looked and asked, “Jhonny?”

At that Princess Octavia nodded in confirmation.

Then turning to King De’Arcaneri, Mallory found herself asking, “Cass?”

“Nope, she is up there…” King De’Arcaneri said, as she pointed out the cutest pixie flying high into the air and frantically scrawling out various runes of some kind.

“No, that is her Simulacrum,” Jhonny answered authoritatively.

Mallory paused and felt like the world was going crazy on her. Here she was trying to get through this lumbering process, and every three seconds they had to pause to take care of something.

While everything had mostly been calm up to this point, Mallory knew that there was going to be something major happening. Pulling up her interface, she saw that she could in fact use her one time a day summoning on Dr. Spiritlight, thereby proving that the real Cass, or the Cass the system considered to be real was not in fact here.

For a moment, she turned to King De’Arcaneri, and wondered “Gwen?”

At that the King just shook their head and responded, “Penelope.”

“Right,” Mallory replied as she realized that questions needed to be answered.

Realizing that now was the time to get any and all answers, particularly with why the world had suddenly ground to a complete and utter stop, Mallory did the only thing she could think of.

“Get over here,” Mallory called out, initiating the Guild Leader only power and instantly she saw confirmation that the power was in fact working.

Summon Guild Member.

Poof.

One second there was nothing, the next second there was Dr. Spiritlight in her full pixie garb that Penelope had crafted just for her, hot pink with black vertical stripes that seemed to flow seamlessly into and around her body and accentuated her glowing wings perfectly. Everything looked fine, until she saw that there was an albino white puppy in her arms.

No, albino wasn’t the right word, as at least for the moment Mallory couldn’t see the puppy’s eyes. Instead, all she saw was the blizzard white furred pup laying on its back, bloated puppy belly up in the air like a miniature parasail and the biggest look of contention on the pup’s face.

“Hey everyone, what’s up?” Dr. Spiritlight began, as she looked around sketchily. Though everyone knew the looking around was just an act of hers as she likely already knew where everything was.

Then looking up, she snapped her fingers at her Simulacrum that was desperately crafting runes into the ceiling.

“Rune-ulacrum, that won’t help. Besides, I need you to take Umbra back.” Dr. Spiritlight said as she quickly got the attention of her flying Simulacrum, the one that was clearly adding runic graffiti to the chapel.

The aforementioned Simulacrum stopped their painting in magical energy, turned and saw that Cass was there, then pointed back to the ceiling.

“Yeah, I see, but it’s still not going to fix this,” Dr. Spiritlight said, gesturing to the frozen people around her. Then waiting for a moment, she then held up the blizzard white pup that looked somewhat emaciated, despite its currently bloated belly. “Besides, I need you to take Umbra here, back to the Kujo Caverns.”

As if finally seeing the pup for the first time, the Simulacrum stopped, then seemed to look at the wall then back at the pup. Before finally a weighing of options was performed, and then the flying Simulacrum that had been modifying the structure of the chapel disappeared from sight.

Poof.

Only to then reappear next to Cass, the real Cass, where she took the albino white puppy and left.

Poof.

With both the Simulacrum and the albino dire phase wolf gone, Mallory proceeded to ask the most pertinent question of the time, “Umbra?”

“Yeah, I thought it fit, particularly with how attuned to Death and Spirit magic the wee guy is,” Cass responded excitedly, clearly happy with her naming choice.

For whatever reason at that time, Mallory was reminded of the song about a boy named Sue. Then she instantly regretted that comparison, for if this pup was as attuned to Death and Spirit magic as Dr. Spiritlight stated, one where calling him Umbra was warranted, she really hoped that others would not bully the little pup to get him tougher.

For a second Mallory was willing to drop it all, as the momentary pause in time seemed momentarily more important, but then she couldn’t help but remember what she called her Simulacrum.

“And your Simulacrum, did you by chance name her recently as well?” Mallory pressed.

“Yes, Rune-ulacrum, on account of her passion for Runes,” Cass noted, as she then gestured to the ceiling as if that proved her point. Of course, by now all the runes that the Simulacrum had been scribbling were no longer glowing with visible mana, making any actions hard to monitor.

“Right,” Mallory said nodding her head and then proceeded to go on to the next topic as it was clear that she was going to have a hard time getting the crazy girl to focus. “So, is there a reason why you needed to freeze everyone this time?”

Cass looked around, then noted that only a few of those who were gathered were able to move.

By now everyone that was in the stands and able to move immediately moved forward as if wishing to hear every word.

“Nope, none that I can see.” Cass stated.

“Okay, well can you unfreeze them then so we can get on with this?” Mallory snapped.

“What? I didn’t do this,” Cass stated defensively.

Sigh.

Seeing her get suddenly defensive only seemed to prove the point to Mallory that Cass had done something, but just didn’t want to admit it.

“It’s okay, I’m not mad. Just please undo whatever you have done so we can get this over with,” Mallory said as diplomatically as she could, given the circumstances.

“I would if I could, but it wasn’t me,” Cass stated.

“Look, I’ve had a really long day, and last thing I need is to argue with you over something like this,” Mallory noted with more than a bit of anger now filling her voice.

“Oh, come on, half the world shuts down and you think it is somehow my fault?” Cass responded almost annoyed at the thought of being accused.

Deep inhale.

At that comment, Mallory took in a deep breath as she didn’t want to get into this with Cass, but realized that getting angry wouldn’t solve anything, which was why she took a deep breath and tried to look at this as calmly as possible.

“Okay then, if you didn’t have anything to do with this, then could you tell me what would randomly cause half the people to stop, all while we are trying to get through this moment quickly enough, so that the enemies that are storming right towards us don’t have a chance to overtake us while we are caught mid-ceremony?” Mallory hissed out by the end.

With that Cass paused as she seemed to have a eureka moment.

“Oh, I get it. You think this is related to my Time Stop magic?”

“Yes, now please end it, so we can go on with the wedding. I want this over already.” Mallory responded a bit of relief filling her voice as she was finally getting Cass to admit to her mistake so they could all just move on. Again, she wasn’t mad with the pixie, she just wanted this to be over, so a little accidental magical misfire on her part was more than acceptable and not a big deal at all.

“That isn’t me,” Cass stated defiantly.

And just like that, they were back to square one. Mallory rolled her eyes as she tried to once again work with the suddenly obstinate Doctor.

“Okay, if it isn’t you, then who was it that could cast time halting magic?”

“That’s the thing, this isn’t magic. If anything I’d say this was some sort of processor overload. It feels sort of like what happened when Arcanarus University was transformed into Arcanarus Tower, but on a much larger scale.” The pixie stated.

“A resource overclock? That is what you are going with?” Mallory asked, trying to make sense of her statements.

Shock.

The pixie paused in thought for a moment, then suddenly responded, “actually that is a great description of what is likely happening. Good job putting it into words.”

Frustration.

By now, Mallory was inclined to believe that the pixie was not in fact lying to her, as she had always been truthful, even when she tried to speak around her own culpability for any actions. The fact that she has been able to deny this so openly for so long without any major quirks made Mallory inclined to believe her.

“Okay, so what do we do?” Mallory asked.

With that Cass just shrugged her shoulders, “I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?”

“What, it’s not like there is a quest or something saying go here and fix this problem to start up the world,” Cass replied.

WORLD QUEST FOUND: Go To Timult, Stop The Being of Indescribable Horrors From Fully Entering Our Reality. You have been tasked with going to Timult, the capital of the Legrand empire and stopping a being of extreme power from fully entering our reality and thereby breaking BiPrism as we know it. Rewards: Continued Existence, Failure? Well good luck.

Seeing the quest Mallory’s eyes went wide with shock as she read it, then re-read it and then finally she was able to make sense of it all.

Reading the message, Mallory felt slightly sorry for her earlier accusation about Cass being the cause of this problem. With the problem clearly originating in Timult, it had to have been the Legrand empire doing more restricted research that is now causing imbalance issues in the game world.

“All right, well I guess I owe you an apology,” Mallory noted apologetically.

“Actually, about that, if this is the entity that I think it is, I might have inadvertently started this,” Cass responded slightly crunching in on herself.

Seeing her sudden fear and apprehension, Cass looked like Mallory would reach out and strike her for her actions. Seeing the cowering fear of her subordinate and best friend, Mallory knew now was not the time for harsh actions and instead tried to defuse the situation.

“How am I not surprised,” Mallory quipped, well she would defuse after getting one good verbal jab in.

“But come on, let’s try to solve this issue together,” Mallory finally finished her thought.

“Together?” Cass asked.

“Yeah, you think I’m going to let you try to solve this on your own? Lord knows what will happen if we leave this all up to you.” Mallory quipped, while there was truth to her words, there was a hint of joviality that was otherwise missing from their previous discussion.

“Ah, come on. Fine.” Cass said, apparently going through the various aspects of guilt in four quick words.

Then seeing this as a good moment to not cause too much stress to the pixie she did add.

“Don’t worry all is forgiven, so long as you tell me how you got this to happen in Timult and let me know how we can do something like this again. No wait, let me take care of doing things in Timult in the future, with you apparently going so overboard.” Mallory noted.

“Oh haha,” Cass said as she opened a clear Portal that went straight to the once lustrous city of Timult, but by comparison what Mallory saw through the image of the Portal looked like a ruined wasteland from one of those desert apocalyptic thrillers that were all the rage back in her day.

“Wait, you did this, how?” Mallory asked, but before she could get an answer, the Pixie and her one and only chance to get over to the other side and try to deescalate whatever this was, was gone.

“Okay, I guess I will just find out when I get there.” Mallory responded, then turning around she remembered that she was still in the middle of the wedding and that everyone was staring at her. Well everyone that was still able to move was just standing there, staring at her, jaws agape.

“Yeah, we are going to fix this, if we don’t,” Mallory began but then trailed off as she realized this was actually a big deal, even though it oddly felt somewhat normal by now. “Well if we don’t then know it was a pleasure working with you all, and thank you for all you do.”

Then with those words of encouragement spoken, Mallory stepped through the portal and went from one bizarre scene to another more frightening scene of a futuristic apocalyptic world, one where only she and her energetic pixie could apparently solve the problem.

Schwoo.

As soon as she stepped through Portal, the connection behind her ended leaving her alone to witness what could only be described as an unfathomable tentacle monster reaching out and trying to touch her pixie.

“Oh no you don’t,” Mallory stated as she instantly summoned her ephemeral Scythe and prepared to do whatever it took to protect her friend.