To Catch a Chronoz (Argil Prodigy Recruitment Redux)

"Like, yeah! I would be so, like, not risking my neck if I wasn't wearing body armor going up against armed thugs. I'm just glad he didn't like, go after my face." It was fitting that Sage spoke with a metahuman with power of clay and ceramics, as she opened her body armor to reveal a smashed up ceramic armor plating that was crushed by Chronoz's powerful thrust.

Conversely, for hitting a teen girl in the gut, Chronoz paid for it with a ruptured eardrum and a concussion. He had a thick skull and a strong neck, so nothing broken there.

Aside from the explosive arrow Sage used, there wasn't much damage done that the thugs hadn't already. The broken windows and smashed glass doors would have to be covered by the mall. She picked up Chronoz's clock shield, seeing that it was still mostly intact from the explosion. "Huh. Like, This shield is made of seriously tough stuff... Think I'll call dibs on it as a trophy!" Sage said after putting her phone away. She picked up the Chrono Cudgel, aka, a baseball bat covered in watches, and offered it to Argil as a trophy.

"Think these watches are stolen?" She asked, looking at all the Rolexes and other branded, golden watches, just as the police arrived in a timely fashion.

"Police! hands the in air! Drop your weapons! We've got ourselves an armed, costumed vigilante here, and possible metahuman. They've apprehended suspect named Chronoz and his associates." Came the usual lines as beat cops took out hand guns and took aim at Sage and Argil. They were accompanied by a truck containing Metahuman response teams, heavily armed and armored specialists attached to the police department. How heavily armed? Two guys with rocket launchers apiece took aim at Argil and Sage. And they had officers with heavy shields in front of them.

"Um... I'm making a citizen's arrest!" Sage protested, raising her arms without protest. Her body armor protected her from some crazed costume criminal, but not from armor piercing missile launchers.

"Is that so? Well then, you and your friend won't object to coming with us to the precinct to make a statement?" A lady cop asked and approached Sage. Another, larger man approached Argil with metahuman grade cyber manacles.

"No... no, ma'am." Sage said, submitting to arrest. She looked at Argil, making a sad expression. "Don't... don't worry. We didn't do anything wrong. We made a citizens' arrest, after all."

"Be that as it may, you're in possession of some serious fire power. You look pretty young to be in the cape business, miss?" The lady officer said, leading Sage and the barely conscious Chronoz to a waiting police armored vehicle.

"It's Sagittarii, ma'am. I'm 17, ma'am. Like, I know I have a right to anonymity... and a lawyer."Sage said with a cooperative tone. The cop whistled. "A minor, but you know your rights. Well, ain't that good for you. I suppose your friend here's a minor too?" She looked at Argil, who would be led to a separate truck, escorted by heavily armored cops with metahuman grade weapons.

Argil had been in the middle of refusing the trophy, extending his hand to push away the bat, when all of a sudden things changed rather drastically. The sound of the police yelling startled Argil, and he jolted a little before looking at the cops and sighing, slowly raising his hands into the air. He really didn't want to get into any sort of dispute with the police and makes things worse than they already were-- Argil didn't know if this was going to dash his ambitions and then get him fired from his job to boot... depended on how the police in Cheyenne felt about metahumans, really. He wasn't gonna make it worse by even arguing.

Argil noticed a problem, however: there was no way those handcuffs wouldn't make it over the plates. So he began to speak, managing a rather calm and measured tone: "I'm going to use my powers briefly-- NOT to attack or anything, I'm just moving my armor so you can handcuff me." After this was explained, Argil slooowly and gently shifted his armor plates from his wrists to stack up on the plates further down his arm, now making it so that his wrists were of the proper diameter to be actually get the cuffs to fit over. He sighed, though: this still really sucked.

When he was looked at and mentioned, Argil spoke up again. "Yes, I'm a minor too. 16 years old. ...I was only trying to help stop a robber, but... I suppose I can understand the arrest, keeping the peace and all..." Argil trailed away and frowned. They really were just doing their jobs... but they hadn't managed to stop Chronoz before, had they? No, Argil had done some good, he was sure of it. He just hoped that it wouldn't cause him any problems for the future. He wanted to do better than his family had before, not be thrown down to an even worse position.

Once the police convoy was on the way to the precinct, Chronoz slowly came to his senses, drooling onto the van's floor. He looked around, and saw he was seated next to a heavily armored cop with a armored gauntlets. Across from him was Sage and another Heavy cop. They had no weapons to use against them, as the Heavy cops were tasked with beating down perps with their fists.

"Don't even think about it, scumbag." The Heavy beside Chronoz made punching gestures with his gauntlets.

Chronoz chuckled to himself privately. The Heavies were specifically designed to counter low strength, high skill entities like himself. He looked at the girl seated in front of him, who had been staring at him with violent eyes the whole time. "So... who are you really? I saw how you fight, and how you snuck up on me. I know you ain't Sage. I put that kid in the hospital good, smashed up her hand and whacked her on the head. Took her bike too. Stupid kids think they can play hero. heh. What's your game?" He said, his enthusiasm replaced by a dark, cynical tone.

"HUUURK!" Chronoz choked and began gasping for air, as Sage's incredibly strong hands went to his windpipe, quickly starting to crush it. Her handcuffs were undone. They had been since she got on.

The lights in the back of the van flicker. He looked at the meta response police guarding them, then to the driver. None of them reacted to Sage's sudden brutality, they simply watched. Then lights go out.

"Hello Maurice." Sage's voice changed, as did her appearance. The blonde teenager was gone, replaced by the Red Scorpion wearing Sage's combat armor. Or perhaps Sage wearing the Red Scorpion Mask. It was hard to tell.

"Fuck... you're... you're the Scorpion... these cops are on your payroll! Let me out! LET ME OUT! Guhrk~" Scorpion tightened her grip once again. She made Chronoz choke and suffer, slowly crushing his windpipe, then relenting at the last second, making him cough, gasp and wheeze.

"Maurice. That fact that you just confessed to viciously maiming a costumed teenager would probably be enough for me to just take you behind the nearest dumpster and put two in your head. But I have a question about our common associate, Stan The Spartan Man." Scorpion spoke. Her voice synthesizer bounced back and forth between cold and mechanical, and the voice of Sage.

"The Spartan Man? Stan's dead! The Spartans are long gone! YOU put a .50 Cal through his mouth years ago!" He said, his voice now hoarse and strained from the damage to his throat, each cough sending pain through his chest.

"His grave is empty. And there have been sightings of him haunting old hide outs." Scorpion said, her tone not even changing, but Chronoz was feebly trying to get free of her robotic grip, unable to even look at Scorpion.

"Man I don't know nothing about some zombies!" He protested.

"You're wasting my time." Scorpion said, relenting on the choke hold but grasping Chronoz's hand, and quietly threatening to snap one of his fingers.

"I got a call from the other Spartans! Told em I don't want to get involved!" He said, coming clean fairly quickly.

"Names and locations." Scorpion asked.

"Sure. Sure! Just don't hurt me!"

* * *

LATER

They arrive at the precinct, and as Sage and Chronoz were disembarked from the van, the Tyrant of Time looked a lot more shaken and intimidated than usual, like he had seen a ghost. From then on there was standard police procedures, Argil and Sage being questioned by the police to make statements about what had occurred. Chronoz was put behind bars separate from his thugs.

Thankfully no charges were pressed against the heroes, and allowed to walk free. They met up again in the lobby. Sage was relieved of her arrows but got to keep her bow. "So... I guess today was a good day's work." She said sitting next to him, yawning, talking like she was a bit tired.

Argil didn't really think that much in particular was off with Sage being so tired all of a sudden-- she HAD taken a club hit strong enough to shatter normal ceramic armor outright in a single hit... even if she wasn't terribly injured, fatigue catching up with her was at least something to be expected. Argil was rather less fatigued himself-- aside from a slight bit of wear from having just been in a fight, Argil hadn't really taken any terribly strong hits, and Argil had quite a bit of stamina to him. He did want to finally take the clay armor off, though: it was pretty heavy, and it'd be a literal load off of his back to pack it back into his backpack. Accordingly, the clay plates swirled off of his brown pants and shirt and were funneled into his backpack. "A good day's work... yeah, it was. I kinda have to hope I don't get fired from my actual job for being a metahuman or anything, though."