[center][img]https://fontmeme.com/permalink/231108/f93ba5f96cecd177ca78468c60714d23.png[/img][/center][hr]
Tyler kept to himself on their walk back from the bathroom. It seemed he and the prince had traded roles; Lucas wanted to grace the party with his royal presence for a bit longer and now Tyler was the one who urgently wanted to leave. Not that it would do him any good - Theodore wouldn't suddenly haunt him less once he was alone with his thoughts. As the lights flickered, he thought perhaps the Goddess had answered his pleas. A power outage would certainly put a damper on the festivities, and sure enough, moments later the lights shut off entirely. Weird that it happened in the absence of a storm, unless this was some dumb party trick manufactured by the Duke's staff. Maybe Scion Nadine got too drunk and fried the building - women could still be party animals at the ripe age of a hundred, right? 

Tyler sighed and pushed open the door to the ballroom, half expecting to see some gimmick he wasn't quite in the mood for starting up. The sound of shattering glass rid him of that notion very quickly. As the first screams rang out, Tyler threw his arm back and shoved Lucas toward the wall of the adjoining hallway, behind the cover of the doorframe. His other hand fumbled in his pocket, wasting no time in slamming his crystal into his chest. The armor unfurled, sleek and elegant, unhindered by the pointless trappings of ceremony it was earlier. Gold manalights pulsed from the suit's decorations, flaring with the power of the sigil of Time.

[color=00ccff]"We're leaving. Now,"[/color] he ordered back toward Lucas, only to be cut off by the sounds of the Scions screaming for their Templars over the clamour of frightened nobility. [i]They[/i] were the targets? For animals, the Kaudians certainly did know how to make an entrance. [color=00ccff]"Scratch that, I'm going in."[/color] 

The ballroom exploded with light, illuminating their attackers at last. One of them had already drawn concerningly close, doubtlessly tipped off by the flash of Tyler's armaments. Worse, he weaved to and fro between panicked civilians on his approach, meaning Tyler couldn't just shoot him and be done with it. 

Poor guy.

Tyler again left one arm backward to attend (read: manhandle) his Scion as he grasped for a weapon. As his assailant lunged at him with a blade, Tyler shoved Lucas back further as the attack skimmed the trim of his forward pauldron. A torrent of mana burst forth from the device in his other hand, writhing in undulating ribbons until it stabilized into a brilliant golden blade, not quite crystallized but not entirely energy either. His attacker dodged a quick upward thrust from the newly-manifested manasaber, and responded with a few hounding blows as he very obviously tried to flank Tyler and force him into playing human shield for Lucas.

The guy was fast, Tyler would give him that, but the Templar was beyond such mundane concepts as speed. Rather than continue his incessant parrying, Tyler ignited his sigil and ducked backward to let a swing sail past his face at a laughable pace. Too laughable, he had more people to kill than this. Tyler shoved the blade along its path with his free hand, forcibly overextending the man's arm before he dug his own sword into the man's flank and then ripped it out gruesomely.

A gunshot echoed closer than the others and something whizzed past his head as the first attacker crumpled to the floor in slow motion, though spray of drywall lethargically floating past tipped him off that the projectile had missed and struck into the wall. Tyler flattened himself behind the doorframe for cover and let time speed back up to meet him before he spoke.

[color=00ccff]"If you hear a gun go off, you slow everything down immediately until you're sure it's not coming at you, got it?"[/color] Ideally, he'd vacate the prince from the premises entirely, but then he'd have to leave him unattended while he went back in for the other Scions, which was historically a bad idea, especially if these were the same people.

His Scion sufficiently chided, Tyler pulled out of his hiding spot at preternatural speed to advance on the gunman from earlier. Separating from him was a risk, but it was much easier to dodge a bullet than smack it out of the air, and he couldn't do that with Lucas directly behind him. Two more shots flew past before the man switched to a bladed weapon, as if realizing the futility of trying to shoot a man that quite literally sees it coming with time to spare.

They locked swords as a second attacker joined them for an attempted cheap shot, forcing Tyler to disengage and strafe away to try and put the gunman between himself and the other attacker. The former-gunman lunged in a repeat their earlier tactic, aiming to tie up Tyler's sword so the other could exploit their numbers advantage. To that end, he momentarily dispelled his blade, letting his opponent's sword slip through the formless wisps of residual mana before it reformed past the man's guard and sliced across his neck. 

Tyler released his throttle on the flow of time as the last man came in, no longer needing to cheat on a single opponent. He had to give them credit, they fought with fanatical morale; his attacker didn't even flinch when his companion died. Also meant they probably wouldn't talk, so Tyler had no reason to be anything but lethal. He met the man swing for swing until a parry sent both their weapons careening away from their center line, and Tyler followed up with a swift front kick to knock the man into a table of refreshments before follwing up with a downward slash to cut him down properly.

[color=00ccff]"No wonder you ducked me last time,"[/color] Tyler goaded to the crowd as he caught his breath, hoping to draw the attackers in and away from the fleeing civilians, [color=00ccff]"I can do this all day!"[/color]

[hr][@Hero]