//------------------------------// // (Weiss Report) Chaos Butterfly [Slepnir Gear] // Story: The Unique Properties of Dark Magic // by Shadestyle //------------------------------// What does it mean to stop time? A lot of people might think that it's as easy as turning on JoJo and watching Dio do his thing. But it really isn't, at least as I've done it. It's strange, that's the first thing to say. I attempted to activate an Empty Vance, basically drinking Stoppered Time with nothing else in it, and trying to call on its power. The end result was surprisingly gruesome, and if I hadn't had my Shadow Clone technique to use as a proxy in the test, I wouldn't be here writing about it. Stopping Time, or rather, taking an action within the span of truly zero seconds, is more like what I would think of as destiny. Even if you don't do anything, even if you stood perfectly still, by expending time, you affect the world around you. Activating the Empty Vance had a simple result. My body was pulled in all directions, and the area around me had been shredded in the process, actions that I could have taken in that time exacted instantly on my surroundings. I wasn't aware of the process while it was happening, but I could remember, hazy events, an hour or so of them. In several blurred memories, I felt whimsical and decided to run in a random direction to see what it felt like, in others, I smashed things near me, to test my strength. All of these hazy memories, however, were of things that didn't happen. Or rather, they were of acts that my body did not perform. Even though my Shadow Clone was ripped to pieces, it didn't actually do anything remotely similar to running or attacking on the high-speed footage of the test, and the smoke failed to even reach some of the places where damage appeared. By expending the Stoppered Time that my body had absorbed, effects had occurred in the world around me, without the causes that are required to exact them. But I can't control it, not with my own body, or my own mind. I suspect, for a pony to harness this power safely, they would have to, in all possibilities, have only one, or very few courses of action that they could take. They would have to minimize the possibilities that exist until only one possible future can occur at the moment of activation. If this can be done, a pony could take an action within the span of zero seconds. I believe, in some respect, this is the closest a living creature can come to taking action within a World of Stopped Time. I've finished the first iteration. Based on the Time-eater organs that I've already been using for Pokemon, I can create a sustainable source of Stoppered Time, automatically, and pump it using synthetic muscles. Unless I'm willing to mount even more things on my body, however, I'll need to replace my limbs entirely. Good thing I've upgraded the sockets since then. By replacing a few of my arms with extra legs, I've been able to make relatively subtle time-manipulating machines that a Shadow Clone can safely use to take Instantaneous Actions. I won't be using it with my real body, of course, considering just how hilariously dangerous it is. That aside, it hasn't failed me yet. I've taken the human element entirely out of the process, each leg communicating intelligently, as well as consuming data from Pensieve Enchantments on my limb sockets, so they can accurately predict what I'm going to do at any given moment, and use that data to perform instant actions and expend Stoppered Time safely. One problem I've been having is, even with graphene tubes in place of veins to transmit the liquid around the legs, some quirk of processing the fluid leaves them constantly gummed up. The solution I've gone with is simply moving the legs around to force the clots to break up, but the time-clots breaking seems to cause effects very similar to my first experiment. Kinks in the time-space continuum where possible actions are transformed into actual effects. I shouldn't use this form near any allies, to avoid accidentally kicking them in the head or something. I've also noticed an unrelated problem, namely, moving my extra legs around while also being affected by time-kinks means that my legs can occasionally jerk around violently. This means the best option is to simply include an automatic function that makes them skip around naturally, to "Exclude that action from the queue", so to speak. The problem is, with four legs kicking instantly, and so frequently, I've achieved... propulsion. I hope I can reduce this in later versions, as right now, it means I literally cannot use this form, and also stay on the ground, my legs kick too fast for me to do anything but hover slowly upwards, unless I adjust my angle drastically... Now that I've gotten the practical side out of the way, I've also been considering style. As anyone who knows me can attest to, I'm a firm believer that stylish combat is the key to harnessing emotional power. Really, my only option is clear. Eight legs? I emulate Norse mythology. Call it the Sleipnir Gear, and use a spear, Odin style. I bet that will make Iron Diamond happy, I've seen the way he looks at me whenever he sees me pick up a spear. Well, sorry, Iron, I don't care how tactically superior it is in most situations, I'm still a bigger fan of swords. So this is what he used to apprehend that Storm King guy? I sincerely doubt it. He has probably improved it drastically since then. It might even be unrecognizable as it is now. It just depends just how old this entry is. It's a shame it's so volatile. The ability to stop time is one that unicorns have been trying at for years, isn't it, princess? Well, there are a few things here and there that approach frozen time in a more feasible way than this, but it's another example of just how dangerous manipulating time can be. Even Weiss Noir needed no less than four relics grafted to his body to even begin harnessing this particular method.