#238 - Clock King

"TMD!" Nitro Surge struggled to get up from the ground, the fall filling him with lingering fear. The short sword was forged from Adamantium, and if he had fallen incorrectly, he could have accidentally stabbed himself. He might have become the first villain in the world to die from a fall.

"Help me stop him!" Nitro Surge shouted. "I want to poke a few holes in him!"

The other villains were unhappy with Nitro Surge's bossy attitude, but they knew this wasn't the time for infighting. To ensure the success of their plan, they needed to eliminate Yang Le, this unexpected variable, as soon as possible.

Frostheart drew her twin swords, and the room's temperature plummeted. Her weapons looked like swords, but they were more like Mr. Freeze's freeze gun from DC, the only difference being one was for melee and the other for ranged attacks.

In this room, only her abilities made minimal noise. While both Electro and Nitro were powerful, their powers inevitably created a disturbance, attracting other heroes.

Electro thought the same way, so he simply gathered electricity in his hands and stood guard. However, Nitro beside him didn't agree.

"All of you, attack together and finish him off quickly," Nitro said. "He's alone. If he isn't stupid, he must have something to rely on, either backup or great strength. Either way, we can't afford to hold back."

Nitro believed they had been exposed and that Yang Le was a scout sent to stall them. The best course of action was to get rid of Yang Le and escape. As for their original plan, they could revisit it after escaping.

The others agreed with Nitro. Nitro Surge increased his armor's output. Frostheart's twin swords emitted waves of white mist. Electro crackled with electricity. None of them questioned why Nitro wasn't helping, as his powers would kill everyone present.

Faced with the hostile villains, Yang Le made his choice: change heroes. Before the villains could charge, a dazzling white light erupted.

"Damn it, he's trying to escape!" Nitro Surge shouted, covering his eyes. He thought the light was a flashbang, used to cover an escape from their superior numbers.

"You're wrong about that." The white light faded, and the blue dinosaur was gone, replaced by a plump, brass-colored robot. The giant wind-up key on his head and the visible gears in his chest were striking.

Unlike Fast Track's high-pitched voice, Yang Le, as Chrono Queen, spoke in a mechanical tone: "You few aren't qualified."

The villains responded to Yang Le's contempt with an attack.

Frostheart raised her twin swords, and Nitro Surge flanked Yang Le from the left and right. Electro held his hands out, and lightning raced toward Yang Le at high speed.

Faced with this seemingly fatal situation, Yang Le remained calm, a smile on his face. The villains were unnerved by this smile of a powerful being.

Chrono Queen's wind-up key turned slowly, and a soft white light burst from the gears in his chest. As the light expanded, everything seemed to pause. But upon closer inspection, time hadn't stopped; everything was moving, just extremely slowly.

Yang Le slowed down the flow of time, making everyone else appear to be moving in slow motion, while he seemed incredibly fast to them.

Yang Le calmly dodged the lightning and approached Electro. He raised his right hand, and a white energy beam shot from his palm, enveloping Electro.

The white light dissipated. Electro's tight suit now hung loosely on his body. His exposed skin resembled withered tree bark, his muscles atrophied, and his youth was gone. Yang Le had turned Electro into an old man using the time beam.

That was the frightening aspect of Chrono Queen. Chronosapiens didn't possess the power to directly take lives, but they could steal your time.

Next, Yang Le used the same method to steal Nitro Surge's time. When he reached Frostheart, Yang Le made a change. Instead of turning her into an old woman, he reversed her time, turning her into an eight or nine-year-old girl.

The reason for this was that Yang Le knew Frostheart was a mother who had turned to anti-heroism after losing her child. She wasn't like the other scum in the room, so Yang Le decided to give her a chance to start over.

Starting again from childhood, he hoped she could avoid tragedy this time.

Yang Le also took the twin swords from Frostheart, fearing she might hurt herself when time returned to normal because she was too small to handle them.

Having done all this, Yang Le stopped slowing down time, allowing it to return to its normal flow.

Nitro only felt a flash before everything changed.

Yang Le, who had been surrounded, was gone. Even his partners had undergone drastic changes.

Electro was hunched over, the electricity that had surged in his hands now withered, emitting only a few sparks.

Frostheart had shrunk significantly, her clothes barely hanging on her body. The heroic spirit on her face was replaced by childishness. She was now a child, looking around blankly.

Nitro Surge didn't seem to have changed much, as he was completely covered in armor. However, the only part of his face that had been exposed, his chin, was now covered in a thick beard.

"Where am I?" Frostheart asked timidly. Her time had been reversed, and her mind had reverted as well. Unlike Conan, she was truly a child.

"I want to go home!"

Looking at the strange adults around her, Frostheart burst into tears.

"Cough! Don't... don't, cough! Don't cry!" Nitro Surge's old voice came from under the beard. His body was slowly sinking closer to the ground. Having aged, his back was no longer straight. If it weren't for the armor, he would have had trouble even walking.

"What happened to me?" Electro looked at his hands in horror, his power continuing to drain.

"What exactly happened?" Nitro couldn't help but take a few steps back and bumped into something cold. At that moment, his blood ran cold.

"I stole their time." Yang Le still had a smile on his face. He lowered his head and looked down at Nitro. At this moment, Chrono Queen's adorable smile, like an emoticon, was no different from a demon from hell in Nitro's eyes.

"You! You stole my youth!" Electro heard Yang Le's words and looked at Yang Le with resentment. He raised his trembling right hand, trying to gather all the electricity in his body.

Electro threatened in a hoarse voice, "Give me back my time!"

Then, a current of electricity shot out and fell to the ground less than half a meter from his body, crackling.

"Looks like your kidneys aren't doing too well," Yang Le joked. "Take care of yourself, grandpa."