by M&CNICFYYY2K
I can't see him from my standing position, but I can hear his footsteps approaching me. Though he clearly didn't find Alfhild's burnt body upstairs like he expected to, his pace seems as relaxed as before.
"I couldn't find your friend between all that debris, Will... but don't worry, she'll turn up sooner or later," he says with a small grin, as he walks past me. "You'll have plenty of time to look for her once I'm out of here. Her body's probably buried under a wall or something." He begins unhooking wires from the box of explosives near the stage, occasionally gazing at me as he works. "I do hope her skull wasn't squashed, or you'll have nothing to show your..." He stops what he's doing, and looks at me. "Wai--"
He probably realized my posture isn't exactly the same as when he left me to go upstairs, but before he can finish a word, I'm already running toward him. I instinctively slow down to avoid pulverizing his skull when I punch him, which proves to be a mistake. This gives him time to raise his hand and point at me, and suddenly my whole right arm goes numb, freezing again. He probably can't concentrate enough to stop my whole body, but one arm is enough to throw off my balance, causing me to crash on the metal structure under the stage. Ouch.
By the time I recover, he's quickly making his way through the sea of paralyzed people. It's a straight line from my position to his, so I should get there in no time... if all the people hadn't suddenly been unfrozen. After a split second of hesitation, the crowd of hundreds starts panicking and chaotically making their way to the stairs, slowing me down considerably as I try to avoid running into them. Their collective fear and urgency tells me they were conscious while frozen, after all. They heard everything this S.O.B. said, and know what he's capable of.
I'm able to see him running toward the elevators, when I hear a woman yelling from behind me. I turn around and see that she's about to be trampled by the running crowd. By the time I've put her out of harm's way, our favorite time-stopping metavillain is already inside the elevator. The doors begin to close. I make my way there as fast as I can, but another quick movement of his hand makes my feet temporarily freeze, making me land on my chin. I'd say "double ouch," but right now I'm too pissed for that sort of thing. The doors close.
The elevator is going up. If he was running up the stairs I could catch him, but now I won't be able to get my hands on him until the door opens, and he'll be ready for me by then. He'll probably go all the way to the last floor to buy himself some extra time. I'm guessing the "R" after the "10" means he'll be getting off at the roof. How about that. Before she went out the window with her jet-pack, Alfhild told me to get him to go up there. When that door opens, he'll be ready for me, but at the same time she'll be ready for him.
I'm not too thrilled that things ended up working according to her plan. I wanted to get this guy myself. And, yeah, a big part of that is that I didn't wanna give Alfhild the satisfaction of beating him herself. She may have survived a huge explosion, but she definitely got the easy part on this one.