15707/Even Old New York

Even Old New York
Date of Scene:	14 September 2023
Location:	Times Square
Synopsis:	A strange event takes place in Times Square.
Cast of Characters:	Diana Prince, Emma Frost, Phoebe Beacon, Kyle Rayner, Cassie Sandsmark

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Diana Prince has posed:
A beautiful afternoon in Manhattan.

And in the midst of a bustling 2023 Times Square, an inexplicable transformation begins to unfold before the bewildered eyes of onlookers.

Guided by an unseen force, the towering skyscrapers and neon billboards begin to shimmer and blur, their modern facades warping and receding. The cacophonous sounds of traffic and contemporary chatter give way to the distant jazz melodies of the 1920s, as cobblestone streets materialize beneath the feet of pedestrians. Gleaming chrome gives way to brass, and sleek glass windows transform into ornate, Art Deco designs. In a matter of seconds, the heart of Times Square is thrust back in time to the vibrant and glamorous era of the Roaring Twenties, leaving the city's denizens and tourists in awe of the magical force that has reshaped their surroundings.


As the magical force continues to ripple through Times Square, the transformation deepens, enveloping the very fabric of the city and its inhabitants. Pedestrians find themselves in a surreal whirlwind as their modern attire seamlessly morphs into flapper dresses, bowties, and fedoras, while the sleek vehicles they once drove now resemble Model T Fords and classic roadsters of the 1920s.

Iconic landmarks within Times Square undergo a mesmerizing metamorphosis, with the theaters and businesses of 2023 miraculously reverting to their long-forgotten counterparts from a century ago. The legendary marquees once dominated by contemporary blockbusters now proudly display the names of vaudeville acts, speakeasies, and grand old theaters, plunging all who witness it into a remarkable journey through time.

Through all the confusion that this creates, it rapidly becomes evident to many that the changes only extend so far across the city. They consume the bow-tie that is Times Square, but abruptly end in what seems to be a circular radius. People begin to crowd around the edges of this time bubble, some passing through to either side, with their attire shifting back and forth, while vehicles move in and out of the time-stream, seamlessly joining or leaving the enigmatic magical mayhem.

Those who reside within it, have a myriad of reactions happening. Some are enjoying it, with laughter even ringing out, while others are rushing wildly to get away as quickly as possible!

Even old New York, can seemingly make a random return to modern reality... but what is the cause of it all?

Emma Frost has posed:
Emma had been going to one of the shows in Times Square. Not that the show itself was importnat - she barely paid attention to it. It was one of those where one went to be seen after all, and to have people realize you were there to be seen. And so as things shift as she goes to take a step out, going from the theatre she had been at seeing some sort of playright the likes of which she couldn't be bothered to have paid attention to..

She goes to step out, even as there's a shift within the theatre and on the stage a group of vaudeville actors lead by a suspiciously mustachioed man with a large set of glasses and his four brothers performing go off the stage, heckling a group of would-be hecklers into silence.

Emma herself comes out in full flapper regalia. It's of course full white an dperfect - even as she looks like something out of the era, with a large set of opera glasses resting over on a hand. She can only just flat out stare.

"WHat.. The.. Hell?" Did she partake of some of Janet's drugs and go way over her tolerance level? Did -Janet- put enough of her drugs in Emma's tea to do this? When was the last time she -saw- Janet?

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    The McDonald's in Time Square was now an advertisement for a one dollar safety razor! Oh, the humanity!

    Balm had been on the trail of something else through New York City when she had swing on a grapple to a billboard in TIme's square, just in time for her body to pretty fairly tremble with the mystic mayhem of temporal transferrance, and as she passes through the growing, shimmerinf field of influence, peering otu the far side of the billboard?

    She's now wearing a plain domino mask, with glass lenses that strike blue in the light, along with an overcoat and riving gloves. Gone is all the Bat-related tech, leaving just her raw and jangling magic nerves, trousers shifting as she squats down, her eyes narrowing as her trousers lift, showing well-worn shoes.

    "... this... could be bad." she murmurs quietly, taking a look for panicking people below.

Kyle Rayner has posed:
Kyle Rayner is just looking over the area when everything. He sees the ripple effect happen. Buildings age a little bit as they take on older motifs. Giant Neon signs are now billboards that need to be changed by a crew of people instead of a few button pushes.

"The hell?" Kyle cries out and the shimmer hits him. The ring tries to fight it, resist, but that lantern symbol jerks, moves, and struggles before it becomes a signet ring on his hand. One with a beautiful green stone upon it.

"That's not good," he says and sees his ungloved hand. A red tunic like shirt now covers his arm. He looks over his person. Shocks of the candy apple red tunic stick in a few places while the majority are concealed by a black leather vest. A heavy and big brown belt holds the vest in place. It feels like a pair of dark green tights cling to his legs comfortably and they feed into red boots that step a little below the knee. They have black ties that crisscross over one another here and there. There's no lantern symbol him.

Shock runs through him and only when that emotion starts to wear off will Kyle feel the weight of a new accessory.

A cape drapes over him. The purple fabric shows to most on the outer layer. The inner layer a bright green. A gold clasp keeps the cape n place. "This is weird. Is this what Superman deals with everyday?" he tries moving and just feels that cape follow him. Bare hands reach up and feel along his face. A black masquerade mask conceals his face. The black holds a little bit of a shine due to freshly polished leather. The ties are a dulled black leather.

"Why are there so many colors?"

Cassie Sandsmark has posed:
"Real New Yorkers" avoid Times Square like the plague.

There are many reasons for this, although they tend to mostly center on its tourist-oriented nature. It's very crowded, and heavily commercialized, with a number of big chain restaurants, the Disney store, and all the famous electronic billboards advertising the most mainstream of brands. The tourists, inevitably, are lost and confused, provoking the highest incident of annoyed "Ey I'm walkin' here!" shouts from the natives who get bogged down by the meandering pace of traffic.

In turn, these wide-eyed out of towners are often set-upon by no shortage of unscrupulous hustles meant to prey upon their lack of familiarty with the city. There are the touts for various bus tours, the streed-side ventors, cariacture artists, and others. In a world of superheroes, there are those who dress up in costume, luring children to beg their parents for selfies and then charging high prices after the fact. It has, occasionally, approached criminal levels, with them threatening those unwilling to pay the jacked up rates.

And this is what Cassie is dealing with when it all happens.

She had been in the area to meet Diana, who in her all-loving nature does not manifest the hatred for this godawful crowded place that her younger and yet somehow more cynical protege does. Cassie could put up with it, and waits on one of the corners, until she sees Diana badgering a family of tourists. 'Diana,' that is. A Halloween-store version viewed through a drug habbit. She is getting rather aggressive with them about the money they owe, when Cassie walks up behind her.

"So, we're normally pretty chill about people doing this, but that comes with a big ole 'do not tarnish the brand' caveat." She says this as she reaches out to nab one of the woman's arms, which may have been reaching in a suspicious direction.

And thus, Cassie is mid-heroics when it all happens. As was normally the case, she was dressed like a normal person, in just some breezy youth fashion, big baggy khaki pants and a thin camisole top with the afforemention brand blazoned on the chest. However, in the moment she seizes the Dime Bag Diana, she finds everything changing around her, right down to her clothes. Which indeed turn into a very 'in trend' flapper dress, frilled and glitzy in a kind of champange gold. She starts looking around. "What the f-"

Diana Prince has posed:
Wonder Woman had been in the process of coming to Times Square, as luck would have it. She was meant to meet Cassie here for a public appearance. She was in the process of arriving too, when things began to change. She'd seen it from afar, and it had hastened her arrival...

Perched atop one of the taller structures that has morphed back in to a time that even Diana never saw of old New York, Wonder Woman merely stands atop the structure, peering down at all of the magical mayhem down below. Diana can see Cassie within moments, she sees the attir that her protege is wearing, mirroring that of many of the other women who also seem to be reacting in utter confusion at it all. In the chaos, Wonder Woman hadn't noticed any changes upon herself... yet she was still within the radius of this magical change. She drew her hands up, and peered down at her gloves, then looked down at the armor itself that adorsn her body. It... had changed. Not dramatically like those down on the ground were experiencing, but in more subtle ways. Some wear and tear markings earned over a hundred years of use were gone. The colors that shine from her armor shine a little brighter... She had this same outfit back in the 1920s. Why would it change?

Wonder Woman looks up again, and takes a step off of the building...

Down below, the crowds continue to react, some of the Model-T cars blaring their annoying little buzzy horns as their engines sputter and rumble louder as their drivers propel themselves out of whatever is happening here. The cars pass thorugh the magical limitations, and once more warp back in to their modern versions. It is beyond perplexing, and no one seems to know the cause, as there is no evidence to support where the epicenter of this might clearly be...

Or is there?

Wonder Woman lands beside Cassie, simply appearing beside her understudy. She casts her eyes around the landmarks of old New York, and then regards the young blonde. "Has anything been happening to indicate what might be causing this?" Diana asks, without so much as even a 'Hello!'

Mixed in with it all, the flow of traffic continues. People try to take photos of themselves with their phones, only to find that their phones have changed in to whatever most closely represents the 'app' they had open when the event began. For some, that is an encyclopedia where once they had open a web-browser. For others, they're holding the receiver of conical phones with a severed lines dangling from their ends. While some happen to be holding large cameras with giant flash bulbs, some of whom are already snapping off photos after fumbling their way in to figuring out how they work.

One man, elderly and confident, strides through the crowds and marches right up to a storefront where he pauses to stare up at the sign. With a big smile on his grey mustachiod face, the man adjusts his derby cap and proceeds on in to the store marked 'Hartwick and Son Horological Emporium' where once had been a Taco Bell only moments earlier.

Emma Frost has posed:
Emma goes to let out a sigh over and rubs at her temples, "It's going to be one of those kind of days, isn't it?" Emma goes to try to focus, seeing if she could pick things up telepathically still. then hse goes to, presuming hse can, try and scan them to see how far things went - everyone seemed aware that something was different, that they had been changed.. So in appearance, not personality and memory.

"Well, someone has a taste for things before the Depression." Because that was what it was remembered as - the time of denial when everything was happy right before the world had it's legs smashed out underneath it and paid the price for the denial.

Emma goes to fix Diana over in her mind - and then Kyle, if not directly if only by his very, very heroic attire. She goes to try and if she can speka to anyone that's 'aware' of things telepathically. <<So, does anyone have the slightest idea as to what is going on here? We're not dealing with Turner D Century, are we?>> Because that was apparently a thing. THat happened.

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    It is certainly one of those days.

    At least the grapple lines still work, though they're a fair bit more ginger to upkeep than the ones she's used to. Balm sweeps in, landing near Diana and Cassie, looking particularly nervous as she looks arounds at Times Square, and then lifts a hand to rub the back of her neck.

    "Not a hundred percent sure, but my magic senses are jangling like I'm next to a police siren." she states, looking to the two Wonder Folks, and then up to Kyle. Emma she's not as familiar with.

    "Just can't put my finger on it, but at least doesn't seem outright demonic?" she offers, and then pulls the bucket hat harder over her hair. "I don't even wanna know what my hair looks like under this."

Kyle Rayner has posed:
Kyle sees the panic hitting a few faces. Not many and it doesn't happen until people see their cellphones are missing anyway. Focusing a moment, he tries to make a bullhorn construct, but the construct almost looks like it glitches out. Like it rejects the idea and the construct is an old timey megaphone. Pause. "That's weird. So, you're just as stuck as me. Got it," then the construct goes to his lips as he begins to float downward over the people. "Everyone remain calm," his voice carries out a bit. "We are trying to figure things out. We are working on it," he continues. Who are we? He doesn't know. Right now, he's just trying to make it look like there's a plan. After this step it's improvising and then taking all the credit like the plan was set in the beginning. Right now, he's trying to keep everyone calm. Also, to act as a beacon so the other members of this "we" could find him a little more easily. Also, those bright costume colors help.

Cassie Sandsmark has posed:
Unlike the legitimate article, the false Diana that Cassie was holding on to does change outfits. While there might have been -a- Wonder Woman costume in the 1920s, there were no Spirit Halloween versions of it. Instead, her outfit has morphed into something maybe more akin to Cassie's, albeit with a bit more spectacle, with a feather-headband and other strange additions. Evidently, it's translated more of her identity as an entertainer (or fraudster?!) than the would-be superheroic intent. The family she was shaking down, by contrast, look much more dour, the mother wearing a drab traveling dress in a more European style, the man with her a similar suit. Their children are miniature versions, the boy's suit with short pants and the girl wearing a pinafore over her dress. Instead of tourists, they are now European immigrants, behind America's booming new fashion.

Of course, the people inside those clothes are still who they are. So they look just as dumbfounded and confused. The scammer runs off, while the tourists look to Cassie for any explanation. "Yeah you just uh, stay put folks, I'll try and-"

And woosh, there's Diana. The real one. The little girl who had lured her parents into the selfie-scam in the first place looks on with awe. "Uh hello to you too," Cassie answers her boss, still looking around. "No idea. I was helping these nice folks and it just uh, happened." Indeed, in her process of surveying the area, she has a few more moments to appreciate her own transformation. "I look like I Charleston'd right out of the Great Gatsby. Seems my bracers are fine, though." The lasso she still has on, too, although it's moved to drape around her neck, immitating the long neclkaces often worn with her style of dress.

Soon, Phoebe lands nearby. And this is useful, because she actually might have some kind of clue. Mytho-divine origin aside, Cassie really doesn't know a crap lot about actual hocus pocus-style magic. "Can you narrow in on it at all? Some kind of centerpoint or locus? There's usually, you know, a warlock or someone with a time gem or whatever at the center of weird crap like this."

Maybe it's Time Trapper. Is he canon here?!

Diana Prince has posed:
A number of NYPD officers are trying to group together to offer directional support to the citizens that are swarming them. The officers are waving the citizens on toward the north, and this does draw Diana's eyes. She can hear Cassie's response to her, and she can hear the telepathic voice of a familiar woman. "emma Frost." Diana says softly, her voice and mind carrying the words to Emma's own. "I do not know what is happening here. But there seems to be free passage in and out, and it does not seem to be harming people to leave. I recommend we try to urge everyone to do so immediately. Evacuating the area seems the most prudent course to take..." The Princess states in her Themysciran accented English as her curled hair waves gently against her shoulders.

Finally, Diana looks to Cassie again, to her bracers and lasso. "I do not think it is effecting what existed already at the time that this has... wound back to." The Princess further states before she looks to Phoebe. "Do you sense anything?" She asks also of the young magical woman.

It isn't but a matter of a handful of ticking seconds later that several new things begin to occur. Blurring splashes of reality begin to appear across the streets, and figures step through them. Men and women in a variety of clothing styled both old and new. They step through the blurred portals, six of them in total, and begin to take 'stock' of the situation too.. though their attire does not seem to be shifting back in time like everyone else's has. Their arrivals are not hidden, their presences are not being concealed.

One of the figures steps toward the middle of the road, as the vehicle traffic has thinned out, with less vehicles coming in to the 'time bubble' now. This man, well over six feet in height, is wearing a rather posh suit, with a top hat even adorning his head that he reaches up to remove, and tuck beneath his right arm. "Elias Hartwick!" The man's booming voice calls out, causing many to look in his direction, including Wonder Woman.

"Elias! Come out now! Where are you hiding!" He shouts, looking behind him now in the opposite direction from which he'd arrived.

The man's escorts being to converge on his position, walking up to stand on either side of him.

Emma Frost has posed:
Emma Frost would take a moment. "I'm picking up confusion. No mass hysteria. People are jumping back and forth. As they enter and then leave they shift back and forth. Something here seems on the edge moreso of mischievousness than malisciousness." At least so far.

"There's no panic, and no attacks of clockwork monsters or giant zeppelins either." They have to exhaust the most probable outcomes first.

"And I do believe that we have something afoot here." Emma goes to move to advance on the man, going to change herself over to diamond form. Seeming exotic, a flapper in a white dress turning a glorious white for just a moment.

"Pardon me here good sir.. Do you happen to notice anything amiss?" She would go to glance over at the man's escorts. Without telepathy, she can only read their body language. But she's standing moreso in a posture of curiousity, not threat. This group seems a little more like they're less.. Out of time than the rest of them.

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    "There's definitely something going on --" Phoebe states, and she lifts both hands, concentrating, fingers curling as circles appear on the back of her gloves.

    Just before the portals open, lines trail out from Phoebe's epicenter towards where the portals would form.

    The young mage bristles slightly. and withdraws chalk from her bag as one man bellows out a name.

    She whispers her incantation as she writes 'ELIAS HARTWICK' on the back of her left glove, and tries to divine where he's gotten to.

    "It's not straight magic they're using. It's blended, from what I can pic up, but it's not familiar -- not anything I've sensed before." she replies to Diana and Cassie, and looks up to try and catch Kyle's gaze as well to point him to the shouting people.

Kyle Rayner has posed:
Kyle is just keeping his head straight when a familiar face kind of stands out. Pausing, Kyle wants to register this face properly. He wants to make sure this is who he thinks it is. Recognition fills his face and he nods going toward the commotion.

Landing down upon the ground. Once his feet hit the ground, both of his hands raise palm upward. "What's going on?" he goes to the yelling folk trying to get their side of the story. Right now, everything feels so nutty the Lantern is not jumping to conclusions. Right now, he really misses having a com system to link into. It would b so much easier to coordinate everything going on.

Cassie Sandsmark has posed:
"Yeah, doesn't seem to be hurting anyone, or stopping anyone who wants to get out. And I kinda like the clothes..."

Leave it to Cassie to focus on that! But with the idea to evacuate seeming to be the primary thing they've settled on, and her having very little to offer in terms of magical investigation, she focuses on the civillians. Given that she's already befriended this bunch, she helps them find a good escape route. Even with the cars clearing quickly, the square has a LOT of people, so there's some logistics to it. And here, she gives them an insider tip: "I think from here it's faster if you just go East toward 6th ave, means you won't have to cross broadway. "

Except the girl doesn't want to leave. Oh right. Cassie reaches for her... handbag? She doesn't have pockets any more. But obviously, she produces a compact with a mirror rather than her phone. "... oh goddesses freaking damn-" Right, the kid. "Hey so, if you turn south, er, that's -right- looking down this street here, you'll see the park in a couple blocks. You can show your kids the library, and after we sort this out, I can bring Diana by to give you a real selfie, ok?"

See? She's focused on the real problems!

Elsewhere, the police are spreading out to handle more and more of the civilians. There is, in fact, a police station at the lower end of the so-called 'bowtie,' so there's lots of police presence here and they're dispatching everybody they've got, dressed as old timey 'Coppers.

Eventually, Cassie gets her attention back to the main 'show,' although now it's turned into a bunch of weirdos. "My super advanced magic senses are telling me those guys did it," she deadpans. "So uh... do we punch them? Or ask them nicely to go back WHEN they came from?"

Diana Prince has posed:
Wonder Woman would've liked nothing more than to have simply gotten to arrive at Times Square, and meet with the people who'd come to see her. The real her, not the Meth version that Cassie was flirting with when Diana arrived. But, no, life had a different plan for today.

The Men and Women who had stepped forth from their vortex gates, come together in a line, with that very tall man, in his fine clothing, standing amidst the center, his hat tucked under his arm and a kerchief coming up to dab at his forehead. "Elias!" He shouts again, sounjding more impatient this time.

One of his coherts elbows his left arm lightly then, before motioning across the street. "Boss. Check it out." He says, nodding past the onlooking civilians watching them. There, behind them is the Horological Emporium. The sight makes the tall man start to smile, a reserved smile that is equally laced with annoyance.

"Hartwick and Son!" He shouts then, just as Emma, and Kyle approach him. This draws his eyes away from the Emporium store that he was about to begin to march toward, and instead he just eyes the Diamond Woman over, then the man in the fancy cape. "I have no time for explanations. Give me my space, and I will see to it whatever has occurred here is taken care of swiftly!"

He starts to march across the street then, where he is met by two of the 'Coppers' both of whom hold up their hands. This causes the tall man to suddenly exhale, and motion with a dismissive gesture toward them.

Two of the tall man's coherts draw weapons from their sides, bright and shining bronze pistols that they aim at the cops, and fire! The police do not fall, nor cry out in any kind of pain. They simply are frozen in a blurry ball of hazy displacement!

Seeing this, Diana turns toward the situation and starts to proceed toward it. She'd heard, and seen, enough.

The Emporium door jingles with a little bell inside, as it is pulled open, and a older man steps out, his derby cap still worn over his head, and his white mustache deep in a frown.

"Soren Kale." He says in a grave tone, his eyes directly upon the tall man with the top hat.

Soren stops, and points at him. "Elias!" He shouts. "I hired you to repair my time piece! Not steal it!" He shouts angrily.

Diana moves toward where Kyle and Emma are, pausing to look at them as she observes what is happening. "Emma. Convince all onlookers to leave at once. Clear the area save for our people..." She states, giving a glance to Kyle, though she hasn't worked with him much in the past. "Can you keep their weapons from working again?" She asks him, referring to the police officers who are now frozen in some kind of strange bubbles of blurry time.

Emma Frost has posed:
Emma Frost would rub at her temples, "I've seen where things end for you if you keep up with this. I don't have to tell you it ends poorly. Oh, it ends ins omething far, far worse." Emma would turn back to her normal form, focusing on doing what was asked. To each mind about, moving to press them to depart. To each calmly take a breath, think nothing was amiss, and to line up in an orderly fashiona nd leave. To help one another, to do so in a safe manner.>

And so, Central Park is empty for at least a few blocks in every direction by the time Emma is done. She takes a few breaths - this sort of thing isn't strenuous for her. It's more to do with the company. One must make sure to impress the demigoddess that is asking nicely after all.

"But, darlings, it ends with bureaucracy. Banal, banal bureaucracy. Do you want to spend the next thousand years filling out forms, doing so in triplicate, then being told you put one incorrectly somewhere and having to start over? I've seen what's at the other end of the hourglass. It's eternal boredom and banality as far as the consciousness can see. Tell me, gentlemen, do you want to risk being made to press papers from now until the heat death of all reality?"

Kyle Rayner has posed:
Kyle would normally compliment Miss Frost's attire, but the reaction from the gentleman walking prevents that. He thinks about conjuring an old fashion bird cage, but decides against it. Not enough clues to make a good assessment.

When those clues do come, Kyle's not quick enough to stop them. One cop. Two cop. Both seemingly frozen in place. Constructs from his ring are severely limited, so someone with a working freeze-type ray is going to stand out. A lot. And this coming from someone wearing red, greens and purple.

Before long they're joined by Diana. She gives out order and Kyle speaks back, "Yes Wonder woman," and is quick to move. Anything projectile base Kyle refrains from conjuring. Those complications are something he doesn't want to begin to think about. So, it's simple constructs.

Forming a wooden police baton Kyle's plan is simple. Either Smack the gun away. Then destroy the gun once it's on the ground by a lot of rapid baton strikes or Hit the wielder's hands. Then destroy the weapon once it hits the ground. It's just a question of how much pain the opposition is going to be in. This is for the greater good.

Cassie Sandsmark has posed:
Flirting?!

All that aside, Cassie rejoins Diana after she's done with her little side mission, even flying a short distance to catch up. It looks strange in her new dress! By the time she sets down, the two men are now shouting at each other, and she rolls her eyes in the way of all young people forced to deal with relics from another time (basically... everyone as far as they're concerned!).

"So what is this, a couple of interdimensional boomers having a geezer-off? Why do these people always have to bring their nonsense where it messes with other people." She wonders, full of youthful antagonism toward the olds! Diana may end up catching some verbal strays! "Uuuugh. It's just so tiring. Didn't have enough fun ruining the past so now you're here or something? Pining for the good old days?" As with Emma, she has enough grounding to history to know that this particular extravagant moment in history is an oddity, a blip between eras of hardship and war.

"If someone stole something, give it back and get the hell out of here," she declares, boldly. But then she pauses, thinking it through. "Unless, like, that guy who wanted it repaired is some evil interdimensional time Hitler. In which case, definitely don't do that. Is he? What are we talking about anyway here?"

Diana Prince has posed:
"Be careful." Diana warns Kyle before he rushes in to attempt to disarm the men who'd drawn the strange bronze pistols! She moves toward the ruckuss as well, but diverts her course to put herself between this Soren Kale, and the older Elias Hartwick. The tall Amazonian looks from one to the other, before she eyes Soren lastly, since he and his people have shown the most aggression thus far.

Soren's people react to Kyle, losing their one gun quite quickly to the Lantern's efforts, the other swing his pistol around to aim it at Kyle now.

"Wait!" Soren shouts. "This is uncivilized!"

Kyle now has one large bronze weapon aimed down sights at him, its fat barrel seemingly ready to fire one of those time displacement traps at him, should the wielder decide to ignore his would-be boss. But he doesn't, yet.

Soren first looks to Emma, as she commands the people still lingering in Times Square to wander off. They do as mentally ordered, creating an eeriely perfect line of pedestrian traffic toward the outer edges of the magical perimeter of this time bubble.

"Don't come at me with insults and sass!" Soren gruffly says to both Emma, and then Cassie. "This man stole from me, a possession he cannot possibly understand the ramifications of should he neglect to properly operate the intricate ins and outs of its design!" Soren states, pulling his hat out from under his arm to lower it to his side as he looks then to Wonder Woman. He eyes her up and down, before he smirks. "Are you protecting the thief?" He asks Wonder Woman, who says nothing. She just stares evenly at Soren's eyes.

Elias steps around Diana then, his right hand dipping in to the pocket of his suit jacket. He retreieves a pocket watch, that is so silver it almost seems to be denying any shadows touching its surface. It glows with a shimmering light that even a star might envy.

"Soren. I never have intended to keep your watch for longer than I needed it... Once I learned what it was capable of, I knew that I had to take my chance, to use it and be done with all of this."

Soren gruffly snorts in disbelief at this from the old man. "Turn it over, /now!/" He demands with a stomp of his foot on the cobblestone street no less!

Elias holds the pocket watch open, and opens its face, craddling it in his hands. His eyes look to Diana, then to Cassie, then to Kyle and Emma, and lastly Soren again. "They took my store. My grandfather built this store, and these greedy monsters took it from us. I had to see it. I had to just see it one last time..." He says, his fingers, old and wrinkled, stroking the edges of the time piece. "I never meant to cause any harm, to anyone..."

Emma Frost has posed:
Emma Frost would let out a sigh and then speak, even as the people would keep on walking out. They have privacy - at least a three block perimeter away. "Darlings, time travel is dangerous. I'm sure that you've read enough penny westerns and chick tracts to know this. See it for yourself? Of course. But you know what just a stray thing can happen that messes everything up. Is it a risk worth hurting so many others for? I understand the necessity of whimsy, fantasy, and denial.. But this doesn't just effect you, but possibly everyone and everything."

She muses while glancing about. Just in case they're going to have some idiot coming out of an emergency call box with a ridiuclously contrived scarf and accent going afoot. For now, things seemed safe. "And I'm hardly one to speak about avoiding consequences darlings.. But just do be careful. Do you want to rsik all of this.." A hand waving back to the horrible gaudiness that was Times Square on a hot summer day.. "Coming back with you?" Neon gave you cancer, after all.

For the direct threats of pistols, of watches, of whackdoodles.. Emma leaves that over to those that have a good negotiating position and some semblance of sense here.

<<Do please take care in case the TVA show up. We'll need to be able to get out of here before they start taking testimonies. It's tedious.>>

Kyle Rayner has posed:
Seeing how quckly ne of those guns bcomems bit. That baton lifts and strikes downard. "CLACK!" "CRUNCH!" "CLNK!" the sound of energy, wood, metal and concrete meeting each other in a cacophony of sounds. It's a mixture of those items mixing.

Pushng out of the way, Kyle then focuses to create an old medieval shield as he sees the barrel of a bronze barrel. "Careful where you point that thing," and he'll keep the baton at the ready witht he shield.

Cassie Sandsmark has posed:
The fact that this seems to be two grouchy old dudes arguing more than an assault on the time-space continuum has Cassie on a slightly less aggressive stance. Albeit not any less of a sassy one, as Soren notes! She looks, well, somewhat unsympathetic and mostly just kind of annoyed.

Which isn't to say she's heartless, as Elias gives his little tale. "Yeah, it's sad. NYC has had lots of great historic buildings torn down, whole neighborhoods lost, throughout the years. It's why they founded uh, what's it called? The Landmarks Preservation something or another?" She looks around, although in a way, the historic Times Square is still as gaudy as the present one, albeit by the standards of the time. "Some of it's just the march of progress. We need that too."

A glance is cast toward Diana. Given her famousless boundless WISDOM, she'll have something more profound, perhaps. "If you folks are finished messing around, and it's really just some kind of sightseeing trip, uh... then on your way? I figure we can let that much slide, since it doesn't seem like anybody got hurt."

Diana Prince has posed:
Kyle is left with his shield up, and a strange time gun aimed right at him. It is quite a stand-off, and the man holding the gun seems eager to use it... if just because the sudden summoning of a medieval shield is a bit off-putting, even to a guy with a time gun! "Don't challenge me." He warns Kyle, which earns a moments glare from Soren. Soren, instead, just looks past Diana to Elias. "Clock Maker... You've had your fun, now turn it over." He states, offering his hat out as a place to drop the pocket watch, holding it in front of Wonder Woman's presence.

Elias glances at the hat, before he looks over to Emma and Cassie again. "No harm was caused..." He tells them in a emotionally charged voice. "Save the harm of watching my family's legacy be torn apart by the soulless benefactors of boundless business."

Elias reaches his hand out, holding the pocket watch over the offered top hat's silk-lined interior, as though he's about to deposit the watch in to the hat. But then he stops.

"But... no. I'm not quite done yet."

His hand pulls the watch back, and he twists another knob upon its surface!

He blinks out of existence then, and the watch falls straight downward.

Right in to Wonder Woman's hand.

"Elias!" Soren shouts in to the empty space where Hartwick had just vanished.

The door to the Horological Emporium opens with another little jingle of its interior bell, and a young boy steps out, wearing lower-class clothing of the 1920s, with a mop of curly red hair beneath a dirty brown cap. He eyes the group standing outside the Emporium with a annoyed look. "You people sure do make a lot of noise out here." The kid says. "You better quit loiterin too before my Pa gets back from the bank. He'll shoo you right on outta here with his cane like he does to all the other bums outside his store."

This, of course, garners a look from Wonder Woman, who smiles at the boy lightly. "We will be on our way." She says, before she turns then to offer the pocket watch to Soren. "Restore what has been done, please." She tells him, to which Soren nods softly, and offers to take the watch from Diana.

"Emma, please keep everyone safely at-bay." She states, while stepping over to stand beside Cassie.

The little red headed boy just hooks his thumbs under his denim suspenders and stares at all the adults with a dumb expression on his freckled face.

Emma Frost has posed:
Emma Frost would sigh, "Yes, yes." Even as part of her is smugly annoyed at being used so much for just keeping people out of the way. Ah well, the sorts of sacrifices she made for the greater good and keeping civilians safe. She didn't have to take the glory all the time now, did she?

Also what was most important was that this madness was stopped and that the city would crawl back to the normal state of chaos that had defined it for these last few decades. Until the next lunatic came out to do something.

Emma does, however, give a gentle smile to the boy. Then a nod over at Diana and Cassie. Before closing her eyes and going to take another sweep about the perimeter to keep people away. <<Should I wipe minds of this event and tell those around to delete recordings?>> Something a bit severe, but that Diana might deem necessary with time travel involved. Emma wasn't going to do it without necessity - but it was something that was proferred up just in case.

Kyle Rayner has posed:
Kyle bransishes the shield and baton. "CLANG!" "CLANG!" "CLANG" as Kyle bashes the club against the shield lightly. A sign of defiance and challenge from the man wth the bronze weapon pointed at him.

"i don't want to do this, but we're going to be at a stalemate. You should put down the gun. Let us keep the people safe because freezng cops is not safe," he says not really trustng the person with a weapond rawn on hm.

Kyle will call out to Diana if she's still there, "Everything going good on your end?"

Cassie Sandsmark has posed:
Again, Cassie is not wholly unympathetic to Elias' complaint. "Hey, I'm a twenty-something in 'current year.' I complain about the souless unending appetites of late stage Capitalism for breakfast."

She shrugs, and then relfexively reaches to adjust one of the straps of her transformed dress. "Buuuuuut I think time travel is generally frowned upon as a solution. Leads to all kind of nonsense with hoverboards and cool guitar solos and people being their own grandparents."

The show-down Kyle is having earns a smirk just for the visual inventiveness. "I think you can both put down the weapons They're _just_ leaving, right?" She adds a meaningful glare to that in Soren's direction, to encourage him to make good on this, while the making is good!

Diana Prince has posed:
Diana moves to stand between Cassie and Emma. She glances to Emma, and shakes her head lightly from side to side. "I do not think that will be necessary in this instance." She tells the White Queen. "But we will see how things pan out." She adds before her stare goes to Kyle who gets a small smirk. "I think we have figured out the madness, and hopefully no more aggression is necessary?" She says to Kyle, but also asks of Soren who was inspecting the pocket watch.

He does a double take toward the Amazon Princess, before he nods his head. "Elias did good work." Soren admits. "It should be functional. Where he got the Starlight Quartz is beyond me, but... I guess it is too late to ask him now." The enigmatic man with the top hat says before he tucks said hat back under his arm. "Everyone stand still."

Soren's people begin to move around him, the one with the pistol aimed at Kyle finally deciding to let it twirl back down in to its holster before he 'air kisses' in Kyle's direction in a teasing sort of taunt.

Soren looks up at the facades of the buildings before him as he starts to manipulate the watch dials. Within seconds, the same strange magical energy that had occurred when the time bubble expanded out across Times Square begins to retract, and in its wake the perimeter of the magical effected area begins to draw back in toward the source of the manipulation... Slowly the sight of the jazz-filled joints, the glitz of old time theaters, and the cobblestones of the streets begins to return to the era of 2023 designs. Where once had been the old era of a bygone age, now is replaced with the shining mirrors of modern ammenities. The lights, the glowing screens, and the sounds of the ambient atmosphere of the Times Square everyone is used to today returns...

Soren watches as the classically designed storefront of Hartwick & Son is cast back to the garish purples and yellows of a Taco Bell.

And the little boy, just stares at the group before his family's stores before he quietly says. "I'll see ya around, folks!" Before he runs inside the Taco Bell's front door, disappearing in to thin air before he can even fully enter the restaurant as it is restored.

"Well, there you have it. Back to its depressing state of modernity." Kale announces as his top hat is placed back on his head, and the watch is slipped in to his left breast pocket. He looks over those gathered before him, and nods his head softly. "As you were then. I'd offere my thanks, but... something tells me you'd all rather just get back to your lives." He smirks then as he turns toward his people. "Let us return to wence we came!"

And with that, the six of them spin on their heels, and begin to step through swirling vortex's of time and space.

The two police officers suddenly regain their movement, and look around in utter confusion, as cars of the modern age begin to once more drive in to Times Square, with people soon to filter back in, and once more fill up the avenues with foot traffic, and a desire for Cheesy Gordita Crunches.