//------------------------------//
// A Matter of T 
// Story: L-B-X ~Lyra-Bon Bon Extreme~ 
// by BioniclesaurKing4t2 
//------------------------------//

Bon Bon stared at the beige flash drive, her ‘Memory’, as Lyra had called it.  She now clearly saw her name in the lower corner by the button and repeated numerous times in faded text in the background of the candy-formed ‘B’.  Somehow she’d looked right past that before.
It had been an early morning, but the night hadn’t shaken much else loose from Lyra’s steel-trap mind.  She’d expanded the name to ‘Gaia Memory’, remembering that ‘Gaia’ was not arbitrary but not why.  What she didn’t remember was why she’d talked about “riding with the devil” last night.  Kinda important of a detail to forget.
Then an alarm clock went off.  Again.
Sitting all over the table and counters of her detective office was every alarm clock, hourglass, and egg timer she never realized she had, each set to go off at a different time by guess who.  She’d been awoken to this scene after barely a half-night’s sleep by the first clock, and it had quickly become apparent that trying to hunt down and un-set each of them was impractical.  Some were even hiding in drawers.
‘Why?’ she’d asked deflated after finding Lyra re-setting some of the timers that had already gone off.  ‘It’s important,’ Lyra had replied.  ‘How?’  ‘I don’t know.’
Bon Bon did have a separate apartment where she was technically supposed to live, but she spent about half her nights at the detective agency anyway, being its only member and all; that’s why she’d been so prepared at accommodating Lyra, who she wasn’t about to leave here unattended.
Speaking of, the alarm clock was still ringing.  It wasn’t even hiding, the strawberry-shaped alarm clock was clearly sitting on the other side of the table.  She was making a statement.  Little to win, but nothing to lose.
As the seconds rang by, Lyra shuffled silently over to the fruit clock, stopping like a deer when she met the headlights of Bon Bon’s stare.  Eyes locked, Lyra slowly reached and clicked the alarm off, then picked it up and started winding it up again, holding the stare while shifting her feet to slink back out of the room very noticed.
Bon Bon sighed into her coffee.  Her mind was probably filled with bouncing thoughts of wooden wolves and magic flash drives, but her sleep-deprived state refused to acknowledge them.  She’d decided to put off dealing with last night’s events until the ethereal ‘later’ that would never truly come.  She knew they’d probably make themselves come up again, but she’d make them wait as long as possible first.  That always worked.
Then another ringing started.  But it wasn’t an alarm clock this time.  Bon Bon snapped to attention and was at the shelf in a second.
“You know who you’re calling?” she answered in a dramatically serious tone.  “I see.”  Pausing, she glanced towards the spare room in the back.  “Consider it done.”
After gathering up a few things, Bon Bon leaned into the doorway for the spare room.  “Behave while I’m out, and don’t touch anything…else.”
Lyra looked up from tapping an hourglass.  “Where are you going?”
“Didn’t I tell you?” Bon Bon replied.  “I’m a detective.”


*	*	*



Bon Bon looked with arms crossed at the somewhat busy university campus from outside the main cluster of buildings, a fair establishing shot if she was judging.  She started walking up.

Mid-step she suddenly felt like she’d been grabbed by an invisible hand of air as a brief flash brought the scene around her to an abrupt standstill.  Sound around her ground to a creaking halt.  Her foot was still in the air, but though she felt off-balance and that she was probably falling, she was barely moving.
“What the heck?” she tried saying, but her words fumbled out incoherently from a mouth that was moving too slowly to form them properly.
She tried looking around.  Her head barely tilted, then the invisible grip briefly slipped and let everything slide forward for a second before getting slogged down again.  Birds hung in mid-flight.  The breeze had stopped.  She’s tried stamping down to steady herself at the beginning, but her foot still hadn’t hit the ground.
Then everything lurched back into motion, Bon Bon stumbling and stutter-stepping to catch herself.  Gulping deep breaths, she looked up at the university.
“There it was again!” came a voice from nearby.
“That’s it, I’m skipping,” said someone else.



Walking through the now slightly less-busy campus, Bon Bon wondered about what could have caused that ‘Slowdown episode’.  More rather, she worried that it might be connected to what had happened around Lyra.  Forget that that might mean having to ask Lyra for help—that was bad enough.  The problem was her detective business had never delved into the apparent supernatural before, and she would never admit this, but she wasn’t sure her skills would keep up.  She wasn’t even sure what she was looking for.
And then she found it.  Something from the corner of her eye grabbed her, and she slipped through the sparse current of students to reach several copies of a flier on a bulletin board.  The dark blue pages discussed some sort of demonstration scheduled for later that day, hosted in the Physical Sciences Building by a Professor Turner.  But what had drawn her over was a yellow hourglass symbol next to their name.
Time freezing, and suddenly an advertisement for an hourglass?  Shaky, but it’s a start.
She looked around for a campus map, but instead saw someone stopping to address the tour group following them, likely for prospective students.  As the guide walked on again, Bon Bon shuffled over and silently merged into the herd.


Soon the tour passed into the lobby of the multi-storied building Bon Bon was waiting for.
“This building contains the classrooms, labs, and other facilities for the physical sciences,” the guide recited with an excited facade, “which contain physics, astronomy, inorganic chemistry, and Earth sciences like geology and meteorology.”  Then a hand started waving from within the group.  “Yes, who’s that?”
“Will we be seeing that demonstration on the flier?” Bon Bon asked, pitching her voice up to sound younger.  She was good at disguising her voice, it was a helpful tool at times.
“Later,” the guide said with a hidden sigh, “we’ll be coming back around for it.  Now who can name some of the physics areas you can major in here?”
As the tour group moved on, Bon Bon hung back while pretending to read a random poster.  After watching them leave, she scanned the walls for a reference map and saw a listing for Dr. Turner on the fifth floor, heading for the elevator.
After an elevator ride longer than the stairs would have taken, she perused the hallway until seeing the hourglass from the poster on the placard outside an open door.  Pacing around inside was an aqua blue-skinned young woman with dark blue and white hair wearing a white lab coat with an hourglass pin.  Upon noticing Bon Bon, she walked over and stopped in the doorway.  “Yes?”
“Excuse me,” Bon Bon said, “the poster didn’t say much, and I’m curious about some of the details of this upcoming demonstration…Professor Turner?”
The girl stared at her, unimpressed.  “Minuette.  TA.”
“Right…,” Bon Bon said sheepishly.  Then she took a closer look.  “Have I met you before?”
“No.”
Pause.
“So, about the demonstration?”
“It’s not happening right now.”
Insulted pause.
“Could I possibly speak with Professor Turner myself?”
After a second, Minuette called over shoulder, “Doc!  Someone who thinks they’re smart wants to talk to you!”
“Thanks,” Bon Bon said flatly.
Minuette shrugged with a smile, stepping out as a pale brown man with pointy brown hair in another lab coat with a bigger hourglass pin and carrying a small stack of paper came to the doorway.
“You wanted to speak to me?” he said in a British accent, shifting under his coat.  “I don’t recognize you, are you a student?”
“Actually, no,” Bon Bon replied, “I have nothing to do with the university.”
“Oh,” he said, stopping.  He started backing inside again.  “Well, then if it’s no bother, I am rather busy—”
“I’m a private detective,” she continued.  “I’m actually here to investigate reports of something termed, ‘the Slowdown’.”
Minuette made a silent, “Oooh.”  She slipped behind the frozen Professor Turner back into the room with a, “Buuusted.”
“Ah,” he said.  “Yes, well…”
Bon Bon smirked.  “Am I in the right place?”
“Look,” he said quietly, “I didn’t want to admit anything because the university might take away my funding, but yes, the Slowdown was me—but not on purpose.  It’s an unintended side effect of something I’m working on.”  Bon Bon crossed her arms.  “I’m pretty sure I’ve isolated the problem and we’re working the kink out now, so you can tell your client that whatever they were concerned about, they’re never going to have to worry about it again.  In fact,” he shuffled through his papers, “I have a demonstration later today of the finished product, so you can come and see it at work for yourself, Slowdown-free, just in case you need to be sure.”  He handed her another copy of the flier.
She took the page without looking at it.  “Believe me, I will.”







*	*	*


Bon Bon had quietly rejoined the tour group as it passed back by the science building heading for somewhere else, but she slipped away again while they were passing an administrative building with a label for Records she saw through the glass doors.
Staying outside and circling the building, she found a side door.  She carried a lock picking kit with her for just such occasions, but on a whim she tried the handle.  It opened.  She tiptoed through the dull empty hallway until she found the Records door, beyond which was a stuffy, half-lit room filled with beige and gray metal file cabinets.  Bingo.
A printed-out page reading ‘Personnel’ was taped to the wall over several cabinets with small labels of alphabet sections on each door.  Finding the one for ‘T’, she gently lifted the drawer over the first bump on its track to avoid a loud lurch, then let it glide open.  Scanning through the name tabs, she found the folder labeled ‘Turner’.
The file wasn’t very thick.  Professor of Applied Physics and Lab, full name Dr. Time Warner Nathan-Turner Whooves.  Yeesh.  Nothing much biographical.  Hired several months ago after coming highly recommended by his previous employer, ‘SKI’, no elaboration.  She flipped back and forth.  It almost felt like some pages were missing—
A shrill ringing echoed through the room as her bag vibrated.  Fighting a heart attack, she quickly squeezed the bag to muffle the sound as she rifled through it, probably bumping into everything else twice before finally ripping out her smartphone.  It was the office, and there was only one person there. -beep-
“Lyra!?” she hissed quietly.  “What are you doing?”
“Something probably more legal than you, with that response,” she replied.
Bon Bon rolled her eyes.  “How did you call this number?”
“Oh, I just dialed every possible number in sequence until I got yours.”
The silence hung.
“Lyra…,” Bon Bon growled.
“Kidding,” she said.  “It was in your spinning pages thingy.  ‘Sweetie Drops’ isn’t your real name, but there’s no one else with that name, and it felt like it just had to be you.”
“I meant how did you even know how to use a…wait, what?  Yeah, that’s my fake cover name if I ever need to give one when I don’t want someone to know I’m a detective—back to you knowing how to use a phone.”
“So, detective,” Lyra continued, “find any clues yet?  I can help if you give me a few hints.”
“How could you help, you don’t even know what’s going on.”
“You muttered ‘Slowdown’ before you left,” Lyra said.  “That’s not a name, but it narrowed the list quite a bit, however…,” holding a pencil, she looked down at the piece of paper in front of her, “I’m not sure if I’m following the right angle here.”  The page had the sketch of a surprised-looking snail.
Bon Bon gave a blank stare.  “Lyra, what are you on about?  Actually, drop the ‘about’.”
“Say it with me…I don—”
“You don’t remember,” Bon Bon sighed.
“So, clues?”
Bon Bon looked down with a groan…and then saw something.  Kneeling to reach around the side of the file cabinet, she retrieved a broken half of a nametag.  The first half was gone, but what remained bore an engraved “WHooves”; the ‘W’ was scratched out, trenches scoured in the tag’s surface, and the ‘H’ had clearly been made capital after the fact by a permanent marker.
“Thanks for the commentary,” Lyra said.
“What?  I wasn’t—”
“Please?”
Bon Bon sighed.  “Hooves, first with a ‘w’, then without.  Someone made a point about changing their name.”  Why was she entertaining this?  Right, so Lyra could distract herself.  Meanwhile, she needed to think.  This tag had the same last name as Professor Turner’s full name, which he seemingly wasn’t using.  But the handmade edits instead of a new tag?  Why would someone do that to their name?  Was it his, or could it be…
“So,” muttered Lyra, “we’re on The W Search, is it?”
Bon Bon stared a second.  “Huh?”
“This could narrow down what ‘Slowdown’ is,” Lyra continued.
“Oh, I already found that out.”
“Huh?  Why didn’t you say so?”
“Because we’re not partners, I’m the detective and you’re a houseguest, now get back to your alarm clocks and let me do my job.”
She almost hung up before Lyra added, “You didn’t happen to find another Gaia Memory, did you?”
“No, and I’m not going to,” she insisted.  “The main case is almost wrapped up, I just need to watch a science demonstration for some probably big, homemade machine to confirm the results.”
“Aww, and I wanted to help…”
Bon Bon paused.  Lyra did sound kinda sad for real…
“Hey,” Bon Bon said, “if you know how to use a phone, do you know how to use a computer?”


The demonstration was being held down the hall from the lab; a big open beige room, the carpeted kind with the sliding inner walls, one of which had opened to make the room double-wide.  Its windows looked out upon an inner-campus courtyard, but the blinds were drawn.  The only furniture besides the table in front of the windows was several rows of folding chairs set out for the gathering audience.  Barely half of them were occupied, though, so Bon Bon was easily able to claim two seats in the front row.
The nametag was intriguing, but might not be relevant.  This machine, however, might just put the case to bed.
Bon Bon propped up her phone against her bag on the chair to her right to broadcast the events live to Lyra through the shop basement’s computer setup, probably the first time it was properly being used during her residence.
Yes, to bed, like she would go tonight, no matter what alarm clocks there might be.  Letting out an early yawn, she slouched back into her chair to watch events unfold.
On the table in the front, some indistinctly large and boxy thing sat under a dark blue sheet, the supposedly ‘fixed’ Slowdown device.  As the clock reached 2 and everyone’s casual mutterings died down, Professor Turner shuffled up to the table and turned up the side of the sheet, pulling something from his lab coat pocket.
Bon Bon sat up in shock upon seeing it was a slightly oversized clear brown flash drive.  You’re kidding me.  She wasn’t sure if she wanted Lyra to have seen it or not.  Of course no one else in the sparse crowd reacted as he plugged the apparent Gaia Memory into a vertical slot on the end of the machine.  How does he have one of those?  Lyra’s armor and belt briefly flashed into her mind.  And what’s he using it for?  I mean, power source for the Slowdown machine, obviously.  But why would he be showing it off?  He even knew he was inviting me here!
As he slid the sheet off the device, which looked something like a blocky engine, someone suddenly sat down to Bon Bon’s left and leaned over to her.
“Heh, guess how pretentious this guy is,” the woman said smugly, gesturing at Professor Turner.  They were a bit short and stocky with pale dust blue skin, slate purple hair, and a grain stalk pin.  “Talked a big game in college, and then fell off the face of the earth.  Now he’s back as if he’s invented sliced bread.”  Probably a jealous rival scientist.  She didn’t even bother looking Bon Bon’s way when talking.  Bon Bon leaned away and tried watching Professor Turner closer.  Undeterred, the woman continued, “He makes it out like this is some ‘crazy’ new thing, but I snuck a look at his blueprints, this is nothing but a power generator, it’s not even fancy.”  Bon Bon’s head twisted to them.  What?  The woman subtly gestured around.  “This is probably just a big show to excuse his budget.”
Confused, Bon Bon looked back to Professor Turner as he turned to the audience.  If the machine’s not the source of the Slowdown, what is?
“You are about to witness a true marvel of invention,” he began, his prior nervous demeanor gone.  “Too long has the progression of time tormented us.  But with this,” he looked to the machine, “I can say, ‘no more’.”
Reaching over, he flipped a switch.  The machine activated, mechanics whirring as it began to shake intensely.  A mutter rippled the crowd as the table started to shake, followed by the floor and chairs.  The lights flickered as concerned audience members began to stand up.  Professor Turner ignored them, staring silently at the machine.
Already getting up, the woman said, “Okay, th-this is just that show I was talking about before, and…”  She darted off, shoving her way to the front of the crowd now heading for the door.  “Out of the way, someone smarter than you coming through!”
Amidst the panic, Minuette merely watched unnoticed from the sidelines.
As the room emptied, Bon Bon stood up, not to flee, but to confront Professor Turner.  Noticing this, he looked over intrigued.
“So the Slowdown wasn’t enough for you, was it?” she accused.  “Are you ramping up to freezing the whole world?”
“That’s still what you’re focusing on?” he replied, a bit surprised.  “I told you that was just a side effect.”
“Likely story.”  She folded her arms.  “I know how you’re powering that device, and I’m here to put an end to your scheming.”
Professor Turner’s look softened.  “Oh, so you’re going to stop my plan, are you?” he teased, shoving back his lab coat to put his hands in his pockets.  “Just for laughs, though, let me pose to you a bit of a question.  What is my plan?”
Bon Bon’s intensity stalled out.  “Well…ahm…”
“You call yourself a detective?” he said.  “You don’t even know what mystery you’re trying to solve.”  Bon Bon flinched.  He turned serious again.  “That’s where we’re different.  I know exactly what I’m solving.”  He pulled the Memory from the machine, which sputtered out, glancing at it to mutter, “That’s got to be enough.”
Now what?  Bon Bon watched puzzled as Professor Turner slid his watch up his arm to reveal some form of spider-like tattoo inside his left wrist.  He pressed the button on the Memory.
TimeTurner
Shoving the plug end of the Memory onto the tattoo, he was covered by a flash of light and a burst of sand, the cloud falling to reveal…something else.  Standing in his place was a steampunk monstrosity: a body of bronze gears, limb segments formed from gold-rimmed hourglasses constantly draining thin streams of sand, a yellowed working clock face borne on its torso, and its head a glass shell filled with the whirring and clicking golden components of some unknown clockwork mechanism.
The only other observer remaining, Minuette casually watched the two as she backed out the side door she was next to.
Staring at the clockwork robot, Bon Bon slowly picked up her phone.
“Lyra…,” she muttered, “what just happened?”
“That’s what happens when Gaia Memories are used, people turn into a monster like that called a Dopant.”
“That would’ve happened to me?” Bon Bon asked quietly, still staring.  “You saved me from that?”
“You’re welcome, finally,” Lyra moaned.  “You need to fight it into submission as the armored warrior I called Double, it’s the only way to stop it.”
“Of course,” Bon Bon said, remaining motionless.  “R-right.”  Forcing herself to shake, she came back into focus.  “If that’s what it’ll take, then I’ll do it.”  She grabbed her bag and started racing to the door.
“Where are you going?” Lyra’s voice harped.
“I have to get back to the shop to get the things we used to transform.”
“No, no,” Lyra insisted, “your Gaia Memory and Driver, you have them.”
Bon Bon stopped halfway through the chairs.  “What?  No I don’t.”
“You did last I checked.”
Phone against her shoulder, Bon Bon opened her bag and shuffled some of the loose objects around.  Sure enough, both the red buckle and her beige Memory fell into view.  She lifted them out in one hand.  “Lyra, you sneaky little—”
“Transform!”
Bon Bon dropped her phone into the bag and the bag to the ground, pressing the buckle against her waist for a black strap to wrap around into a belt.  She turned back to the Dopant, right hand raising and triggering her Memory.
BonBon
Having been ignoring her, the TimeTurner Dopant turned to the sound.
“Another one?” it said in a warped version of Professor Turner’s voice.  “There are more?”
“Not just one,” Bon Bon announced.  Lyra’s Memory materialized in the Driver’s right slot from strips of green code.  Bon Bon stuck hers into the left slot with a blue and pink flash, with the same hand shoved Lyra’s fully in with a green flash, and then pulled the slots out to the sides.  A script green ‘L’ and beige ‘B’ appeared over the buckle, flipping into gold lyre and blue-and-yellow candy half images.
Lyra BonBon
With a flash, the images shot out green and blue/pink rings around colored electricity which quickly burst into a cloud of swirling gray debris that assembled themselves onto her as a figure-fitting suit with silver V-spines for angry eyebrows, her large round eye covers flashing.  The sleek suit was formed from layered V-shaped bands and had a vertical silver line down the center dividing Lyra’s shiny lime green right half from Bon Bon’s beige left half.  Lone V-bands on the chestplate, shoulder pads, wrists, and ankles were a pale seafoam on the right side and dark blue and pink layers on the left.  The left eye cover was blue, and as Lyra stepped her side forward, pointing out, the yellow right eye cover flashed with each syllable.
“Be warned,” she said, “we settle things two-on-one.”
“Uh, what are you doing?” Bon Bon asked.
“Giving us a catchphrase.”
“Please don’t give us a catchphrase on your own.”
“That device of yours,” the Dopant observed, glancing down at its own form, “such a refined process.  If I could use that, then maybe…”
Not waiting, Bon Bon ran up and gave a solid punch to knock it stumbling back.  She stood still a second, then started shaking her hand.  “Ow…”
“But I don’t have a reason to fight you,” TimeTurner said after steadying himself.  “Now, I’m afraid I must depart.  Ahhhhhhh—aaaa!”  He spread his arms wide, and a red wave flashed through the air bringing motion to a standstill.
Bon Bon suddenly felt gripped by the same invisible hand as before, if not tighter, as everything was restrained in place.  All sound but the slowing second hand of the wall clock ground to a halt.
tick
tick…
… tick…
…
… tick
tick
tick
The hand had let go.  Bon Bon looked around.  Nothing seemed different.
“What?” TimeTurner muttered, looking at his hands.  “Why don’t you listen to me, I’m not trying to make that happen.  Is it still not enough power?”
Bon Bon tried a karate chop at the Dopant, but he blocked it and knocked her away with a palm slam.
“Your equipment,” TimeTurner said, stepping towards her, “it might just be what I need.”
Getting back up, Bon Bon shouted, “No deal!”  She dove at him, but another flash wave slowed her to a crawl in midair.  She watched him step aside, unrestricted by the Slowdown, before it abated to let her continue her lunge right past him, getting slammed in the back flat to the ground.  This was tougher than last night’s wild animal.
“Any time you’re ready,” Lyra commented.
“You try it!” Bon Bon shot back.
Then a hand grabbed her shoulder and yanked her back to her feet, TimeTurner reaching in to make a grab at her belt.
“Hey!”  Bon Bon swung out to hit him with a sidehand, a blue and yellow candy wrapper energy construct forming over her left hand that burst into a wave of fire on impact.  The Dopant stumbled back, a crack now running across its chestpate clockface.  Red-Hots, Bon Bon mused, looking at her slightly smoking hand, spicy.
“Ah, good,” said Lyra, “you remembered you have superpowers, too.”
Suddenly another red wave flashed through the room, slowing sound and motion as Bon Bon tried turning towards the Dopant, but it easily strode out of view.  A few seconds later and the grip gave way, Bon Bon spinning to see a flash fade as a reverted Professor Turner slipped out into the hallway.
“Oh no you don’t.”  Bon Bon raced to the doorway, but saw the professor ducking into the stairwell at the end of the hall, so she raced the other way to the elevator to cut him off.  It was still on this floor, so she dashed in and hit the ground floor button.  After a second, the doors slowly slid shut.  After another second, the floor gave a slight lurch as the elevator began to move.
In the wide stairwell at the edge of the building, whose walls were giant windows onto the bright and beautiful day outside, Professor Turner loudly shuffled down the stairs, taking them two at at time.
The elevator was moving.  Slowly, almost silently, but it was indeed moving.  Probably.
Professor Turner slowed down a bit, panting to catch his breath.  As he turned on the next landing, he spotted a bird perched on the branch of a tree outside the large windows.  Oh, how nice.
The elevator was still silently moving.  Bon Bon gently tapped her foot.
Professor Turner had stopped in the middle of the steps to squat down and retie his loose shoelace.
The elevator continued to move silently.  Bon Bon pretended to check the watch she wasn’t wearing.  Thinking it had to be wrong, she tapped it, then held it up to her ear.
Professor Turner exited the staircase on the ground floor while straightening his tie before powerwalking down the entire length of the building to the main exit.
The elevator was still moving along silently.  Bon Bon kicked the wall.
The elevator finally lurched to a stop with a ding, the doors sliding open just in time for Bon Bon to see Professor Turner reach the main doors.  He noticed, and hurried out into the courtyard.  Bon Bon rushed out the doors to catch him, but found herself in the middle of the crowd of those who’d evacuated from the building, those closest turning and reacting in shock to Double’s armor.
“A monster!” someone shouted.
“What, are you kidding?” said the intrusive woman from the audience, who was near the front of the crowd.  “That’s not a monster, it’s armor, clearly a robot.”
Ignoring them, Bon Bon scanned the crowd, spotting Professor Turner trying to shove through the mass of people but finding himself stuck by the living wall.  Someone in an important-looking suit, possibly the dean, came up and grabbed his shoulder, saying something Bon Bon couldn’t hear.  Professor Turner scowled at him, turning back to stare at her.  Then he held up his Gaia Memory.
TimeTurner
Attention turned to the bright glow, and a new wave of panic spread through the crowd.  The dean recoiled as people started shoving to get away, the fringes of the crowd dispersing.
Backing away, the woman pointed at the Dopant nervously.  “Now that is a…nnnnh—”  She gave up and ran.
The Rider and Dopant slowly circled each other as the courtyard emptied.
“You’re already not helping me,” TimeTurner said, “why make it worse?”
“I’m protecting others,” Bon Bon replied.
“From me?”  The Dopant shook its head.  “No clues at all, detective.”
TimeTurner charged and took a swing at her, but she ducked to the side.  TimeTurner took a few extra steps to stop himself, giving her a chance to rush up.  In a flash the Slowdown gripped her again midstride, but it was looser this time, and she slid out of its grasp after only a few seconds, grappling him in a bearhug.  Her mind celebrated deducing that his power had to be given ample time to be charged up, while her body was easily peeled off and sent tumbling with one swing from his arm.
“Blast,” he muttered, glancing at his hands.  He marched towards Bon Bon.
Pushing herself up, she prepared to react, but suddenly her right foot kicked off, rolling her left past the Dopant.  Lyra flicked her right wrist to glow green and traced out her golden lyre into Bon Bon’s left hand, quickly brushing its strings to send out a horizontal green shockwave with a high sound.  It cut through the Dopant, causing several of its hourglasses to crack and sending it stumbling back, leaking more sand than usual.  It’s been weakened, Lyra’s instinct told her, now is the time to strike.  She pulled her Memory out of the Driver while leaving the slots angled.
“What are you doing?” Bon Bon asked, trying to turn her head as if she could look at her silent partner.  Lyra slid the Memory into a slot set inside the end of the lyre’s higher back arm, an open square on the side letting its ‘L’ be seen as its green projection flashed in the air in front of it for a second.
Lyra
Maximum Drive
With the sound of charging pulses of energy accompanying the melody, Lyra brushed back and forth on the lyre, a green energy ring appearing over the strings and flattening into an oval.  Bon Bon remembered what a simple attack did to the wooden wolf.  This had to be stronger, but…
“Lyra, what are you doing?” she repeated.
“We have to do this,” Lyra replied, focused more on the attack than her.  The oval collapsed into a thick line.
“But there’s a person in there!”
“He’ll be fine.”
Bon Bon felt herself aiming the lyre at the Dopant, who was trying to stay standing.
“How do you know that?” she pressed.
“Just trust me!”
Lyra held her hand out past the lyre.  Bon Bon panicked.
“No!”
As Lyra stroked back across the lyre, Bon Bon pulled her arm down and away, the energy arrow firing at an angle and exploding on the patio near the Dopant’s feet with a spray of sparks and dust.
TimeTurner looked to them, then swung out his arms.  A flash brought the Slowdown, catching the cement debris as he turned and fled, leaking midair streaks of sand as he went.  Once out of sight, the Slowdown relented, and the sand trails fell to the ground.
Lyra’s face wasn’t visible, but Bon Bon could read the sting in the hanging silence.  “Lyra, I—”
Lyra pushed up the Driver slots and pulled her Memory out of the lyre.  It faded into strips of green code as Double’s armor faded gray and shattered off of Bon Bon, leaving her standing alone in the courtyard.  She looked down with a sigh.





L B _ _ _ _





The Mystery Continues…
“The missing ‘W’ is the key,” Bon Bon said, “I just know it.”
“At least you know what you’ve lost,” said Lyra.
“The power of time is mine,” said Time Turner.  He held up his Memory.  “And it will obey ME!”
Kamen Rider Double stood with their right half green and their left half light gray.
Secrets of the D