Round and Round in a Magic Spell

[kitchen_maid]

By the time they reach the far side of the lake, there is no sign of Amy on the shore, save the boat she had crossed in, tied up to a dock that's the twin of the one they departed from.

There is, however, music coming from the castle in front of them, and it's easy enough to see through the windows of the brilliantly lit ballroom.

The path from the dock leads up to a grand, and apparently unguarded, doorway. Still, it's with a fair amount of caution that they make there way up the path and into the castle.

The door opens onto a small square room, lit by towering iron candelabras in the corners. Tapestries hang on either side of the door in the center of each wall. The door to the left is obviously the ballroom -- it stands ajar, and the host of clockwork guests and serving people move easily around, unconcerned about their observers (at least at the moment).

The door to the right conceals, improbably, a small storage cupboard, with brooms and mops and buckets. Parker, who has opened it, closes it again with a bit of a shrug.

That leaves the door straight ahead, which leads to a long, torch-lit hallway. "That way, I think," Scorpius says, nodding at it, after un-shrinking Sir Harold's book and consulting something in it.

"You go. We will keep Amy safe," X says, to Scorpius and Parker. There's a beat, and then she adds, "Yell if anything is trying to kill you."

"Oh, that's a given," Parker promises. And on that dreadfully encouraging note, they start down the corridor.

Bruce and X move into the ballroom. Around them, clockwork footmen and serving girls carry trays of glasses and plates, clockwork musicians play notably mechanical music, and clockwork noblemen congregate in corners and along the edges of the brilliantly candlelit room.

In the middle of the room, Amy is dancing with a clockwork figure, around and around and around.

Comments

[master_bruce]

'Yes!'

He smiles at Amy, and executes a rather graceful turn, twirling so that the two of them are in the cape position, stepping together facing the same way.

'...no!'

He tries to remember exactly what he was doing here. The clockwork dancers are turning away, their attention focusing elsewhere. He shakes his head, turns back into classic hold, and thinks wait, clockwork...

He pulls another boomerang from his belt, and snaps it out, taking out the wires in the neck of a footman ten yards away. It stumbles and topples forward, and Bruce swings back to Amy, trying to move her toward the back of the floor.

'I think I'm OK.'

For now.

[cutting_edgex23]

X does not have time to settle her expression into one of dubiousness. (If she did, however, that would very much be the look she is sporting.)

She slides down beneath the halberds of a pair of clockwork soldiers, cutting through the weaponry with the claws on her feet.

Then she springs up, taking off the heads of another set of footmen.

"Do not be stupid," is the contribution X decides to make to Bruce's apparent quandary.

"And do not let you or Amy get killed."

X catapults into another clustered formation of maids and stableboys, dropping most of them within the first ten seconds.

"I will take care of crowd control."

She is learning the best way to function as a distraction in this scenario. Now to employ strategy.

(X is not bad at that, either.)

[master_bruce]

He's humming a tune under his breath. Three beats, steady, and on the sixth he steps out and throws a small black object at the far edge of the dance floor. At least twenty feet from X, and Amy, but there are still a concentration of creatures over there.

'Cover your ears.'

It'll be a small explosion, but an explosion all the same.

'And duck.'

He turns so that his back is to it, shielding Amy from any flying debris.

[cutting_edgex23]

X drops flat, hands pressed against the floor, careful to keep her legs free.

And as the footmen and maids swarm around her --

They really do provide a nice wall to take care of any debris that flies her way.

As for the noise, well. Her eardrums will recover. Fast.

And now there is a second cleared space to start driving the remaining horde into.

A clear space that does not contain Bruce and Amy.

It helps.

[master_bruce]

Bruce is all about being helpful. He'd like to be more helpful, but he just can't seem to make his feet behave.

He looks into the face of his dancing partner, and wonders if she can hear any of this. She gave no indication that the blast bothered her.

'Amy?'

Nothing.

He takes a breath and forces himself to let her go. She just carries on dancing, up near the edge of the dance floor. He pirouettes once more, and quicksteps over to help X.

'Move them a bit further away, and use another bomb?'

He'd normally just do it, but yeeeah, not the most reliable right now.

[cutting_edgex23]

"Yes," X says, without nodding.

She's too busy trying to herd a vast swathe of clockwork servants in the direction she wants them to go.

Which is the other side of the ballroom, far enough away from the pillars to keep them from impeding Bruce's field of view.

"I will tell you when."

Likely when she's got them as tightly clustered as possible, while still providing an avenue of retreat for herself.

It seems sensible.

[master_bruce]

He can see what she's trying to do. And OK, maybe there is a way to help.

The tripwires shoot out again, this time to one side of most of the things. A few tight spins, another tripwire to the other side of them...now they're stuck in an avenue. They can only go forward or back, unless they figure out how to use their weapons to cut the wires.

'How's that?'

[cutting_edgex23]

"Acceptable," X says, darting into what constitutes the 'front' of said avenue.

There's a 'thank you' implicit in that.

This makes things simpler, if not exactly easy.

But those that get felled trying to get around the tripwire are very easy to put down permanently.

And that buys X a moment or two to push the rest back.

After a few more minute of back-and-forth, they seem to be in what X considers 'the position'.

"Now," she says, sharp and clear over the clanging noise of clockwork.

"Please."

And then she's diving backward, trying to quickly move out of range.

[master_bruce]

Bruce...may have been lulled into a tap-dance routine while she worked. He can't even swear about it' it feels like the most natural thing in the world.

'What?

Oh, right. Yeah.'

One small black bomb is flicked out, closely followed by another. And then he rouses himself enough to run in Amy's direction, in case flying bits reach that far.

[cutting_edgex23]

At that second hint of uncertainty, X spares the time to flick a quick glance in Bruce's direction.

Calling her 'concerned' may be becoming an understatement.

Then she starts moving in his and Amy's direction, pausing only to drop low to keep any stray debris from impacting on her body.

"I think you are compromised."

There's no time to sound uncertain.

Amy is still entranced, after all.

[master_bruce]

He catches a few bits in the back, but it doesn't matter. It pings harmlessly off his body armour, and as soon as he's within reach of Amy, he sweeps her back into their waltz.


'Don't know what you mean.'

[cutting_edgex23]

"Yes," X says, spinning left and taking out another soldier.

"That is the problem."

At least she can keep his and Amy's pathway clear.

You know.

While they dance.

[master_bruce]

He's humming the tune under his breath, and for someone with no dance training whatsoever, he has remarkably good posture. Maybe it's the magic.

But even the magic can't stop him being distracted when the floor starts to shake, and the chandeliers rattle above them.

'...X?'

[cutting_edgex23]

"Bruce," X says, looking up at the wobbling chandelier hanging precariously above their position.

It is a very large chandelier.

X darts forward as the floor stills, mere seconds ahead of the sound of long-frayed rope snapping.

The quick two-step that she whirls Bruce and Amy into is purely accidental.

X would not know a two-step if someone drew a diagram on the floor.

But her timing is impeccable.

[master_bruce]

It really is.

And Bruce, as it happens, seems to suddenly know rather a lot about the two-step. Evidence of this; him doing it with X. It seems even falling chandeliers can't break the spell in his feet.

'X,' he says, and he sounds a bit desperate, 'make it stop?'

If nothing else, it's getting embarrassing.

[cutting_edgex23]

X trips him.

Obligingly.

She'll make sure to disentangle Amy from him on his way down.

It is only fair.

[master_bruce]

...well, that's one way to do it.

(Ow.)

He falls over a tripped clockwork minion, and lands on his face.


'Thanks.'

The danger's not over. More like the need to dance has retreated, and is just circling back in for another go. But there's clarity in this moment, and it's probably a good thing because from the other end of the hall-


'I don't think we're done here.'

He counts six. And they look bigger than the ones they've already taken out.

[cutting_edgex23]

"You are welcome," X says, expression composed.

She slips smoothly to his side, the both of them planted firmly between Amy and --

-- the --

-- clockwork princes?






"Oh."

Beat.

"I think you are right."

The real question is, do they try to drive these newcomers left, or right?

[master_bruce]

He gets to his feet, and checks that Amy is still dancing away. Then, back.


'Split them?'

The only problem with that being that he is obviously not the most reliable at the moment. If he gets distracted again, X would have his three coming at her from the rear. Not ideal.

He pulls out a small, bat-shaped weapon (throwing knife, essentially) and throws it overhand at the nearest prince. It embeds in the thing's head, but doesn't seem to bother it at all.

'I've only got one wire left.'

[cutting_edgex23]

X tilts her head fractionally, gaze narrowing at their new opponents.

"Bait and switch," is her response.

At another time it would be a question.

"Save the wire."

They will probably need it.

[master_bruce]

He nods, and resists the urge to pirouette on the spot.

'See you in a minute, then.'

He grins at her, and jogs forward. The clockwork princes, which had been advancing in a line, split into two sets of three and look to round in on him from either side. Bruce sizes up likely vulnerable spots - much the same as the previous ones, but these have better armour, and some kind of protective plates in the shape of high collars covering their necks.

'Legs!' he calls back, even though she'll already know. He chucks a bat into the knee joint of one, at the front; it creaks a bit, and its movement becomes uneven - who knew clockwork could limp? - but keeps coming.

[cutting_edgex23]

X, who spent the last few seconds scaling the side of a column, does not bother nodding.

Bruce doubtless knows she heard him.

And since he's got them focused in one direction, her job is to approach from the other.

That would be above, behind, and slightly to the left.

She hits the ground hard enough that the sound of her impact is unmistakable. This is not an accident.

In the seconds where the rear guard of the princes tries to turn around, X jams her claws into the knee joints -- left, right, left again -- then darts back to give herself more room.

And to give Bruce more time.

[master_bruce]

As they turn - as one, which is more than a little creepy - Bruce skips to the side of the dance floor, behind the three of them that are furthest from X. If the things are going to behave as a single entity, this should be a lot easier.

He doesn't have a lot of weapons with him - this was supposed to be a trip to a soccer game - but he hasn't been training all these years to be useless with his body. He takes a run up, and launches himself feet first into the back of one, his boots crashing into the knee-joint of the thing in the centre. It goes down with a clatter, and he rolls up and away again as they once more turn towards him.

[cutting_edgex23]

X darts behind a pillar as Bruce crashes into the center prince, scrambling halfway up before launching herself at that same center prince.

She makes a solid hit to its shoulders, hands-first. The flanking princes are turning toward her, while the one she landed on lifts its hands to grab her wrists.

It's at this point that X's legs flash out, the claws on her feet slicing through the protective collars on the clockwork creatures to her left and to her right.

Now all that's left is to wrench herself away from the one she's currently climbing on.

Surely two adamantium claws to the spine will help with that.

At least in part.

[master_bruce]

'X. You OK!?'

He's trying to distract the attention of the other three by passing through their eyeline, because he doesn't like how close they're getting to her. But the things seem to be one creature, and all five of the princes still standing are focused on X.

Maybe a hot shoe shuffle will help. Entertain them away from her.

Yes.