POV Rio
After signing the contract with Peggy Carter, I started gathering the necessary time. Thankfully, the compass helped with that as well. It led me to a few people who met my requirements: young and with hearts as black as the darkest pits of hell. That led me to a small bar in London that seemed empty. The compass led me to the bartender.
'Odd.'
"What do you want?" the woman says with a perfect smile.
The woman had strawberry-blonde hair and dark green eyes, and she was wearing a black leather strapless top that was as small as it could be without being considered nudity, and a black leather miniskirt that was equally small.
"Uh, can I have a water?" I ask.
"Sure," the woman says with that same smile.
She grabs a glass and fills it with water and a small amount of powder.
"Here you are," the woman says.
"How much?" I ask.
"It's on the house," the woman replies with a smile.
I drink the water and can tell what she put in it.
'Interesting.'
I pretend to let the drug take me out and wait and see what she does.
"Ah~ Another poor fool that dared come into my home," the woman says.
She picks up my body and starts to move it down into the basement. The ride was a little rough, but at least she was gentle enough with my body.
SNIFF
"Oh, he smells great. I wonder if his insides will smell as nice," she says creepily.
'I'm starting to regret my choice.'
We arrive at the basement, and I am laid upon a table, but she doesn't strap me down right away and instead leaves the room for a moment. I take this chance to get off the bed, and I replace myself with an illusory copy. Then I hide and look around the room, and what I see makes it clear this woman was very crazy. The room was filled with human bones in various configurations.
[Image Here]
When the woman came back, she was naked and covered in oil.
'What the actual hell did I find?'
"Now to remove your clothes," the woman said with a perverted look on her face.
I chose this time to knock her out, not physically, no, I wasn't going anywhere near her; instead, I cast Stupefy on her.
Slip
I looked bewildered when my spell literally slipped off her and into the wall.
"Oh? You're awake? I-I mean, uh, this is what it looks like," the woman says while trying to hide the large knife behind her.
I cast another spell at her, and it too slips off her oiled body.
"Bloody hell, what are you covered in!?" I complain.
"Lube?" she says uncertainly while avoiding eye contact.
I don't believe that for a moment, and as she tries to get closer, I back away.
"Stay back!" I warn.
"I just want a hug," she says while spreading her arms.
'Where'd the knife go?'
I shake my head and pull out a gun.
"Stay back or I will shoot!" I warn again.
She pauses for a moment and then reaches behind her back while emphasizing her breasts.
"You would hurt a beautiful lady like me?" the woman asks.
"Drop the knife!" I yell.
She walks towards me with an exaggerated sway.
"Oh God, her knife is fully loaded!" I yell.
She pauses and looks confused, but before she can ask, I open fire.
I pump her full of lead, and she drops to the floor. Before she dies completely, I tap a medallion I had crafted and hover it over her body. Her body rapidly ages and then turns to dust alongside her blood as I steal the time from her existence.
'That was way more complicated than needed. Next time, I will just trust the compass and knock them out right away.'
I removed any evidence I was there and then vanished before anyone could respond to the disturbance. Though I felt that would take a while, as her basement seemed soundproof. I also investigated what oil she was covered in and immediately regretted it. It was her body fluids. She was a mutant, apparently, and any fluid that came out of her had a magic/energy repellent property. It sounded great, but I wasn't that desperate. I destroyed the substance and left. I was tempted to check her computer's hard drive, but I felt it was better to let someone else take that bullet.
I go on to follow the compass to find and eliminate a few more killers or otherwise really bad people. Most were gang leaders, but it only took me a night to gather all the time I needed to restore Peggy. Next, I would go grab Steve.
'Sigh. This isn't going to be fun.'
I was indeed correct that it wasn't fun going into the freezing Arctic. At least it didn't take that long to find what I was looking for, as the Batjet was able to make the trip fast and undetected. When I reach the location, the compass indicates, I start digging. Even with the equipment I bought, it still takes a little over 3 hours to reach the aircraft buried under the ice. From there, it was really easy to find Steve Rogers and transport him to the Watchtower, where Peggy Carter would wait for him to awaken. I also used the chance to take the aircraft while I was at it. It might not have much technological merit, but it might still be a cool thing to mess with. It did, after all, have 2 intact bombs. Well, intact might be a slight exaggeration. They were at least not disintegrated into nothingness, but the weapon was far from being ready to be used.
Once I had taken all I wanted, I started the ritual to add the time I stole. The ritual itself wasn't insanely complicated, a bit costly, and this method of extending one's life is very inefficient, but it was a spell that Constantine knew, so it was the best I had.
Tick Tock Tick Tock
A massive hourglass appears above the ritual circle.
"This hourglass represents your time remaining," I tell Peggy.
"There's not much left," Peggy notices.
"Correct, you had maybe another decade, give or take a few months," I comment.
I take out the medallion and toss it into the ritual. As it enters the circle, it disintegrates into sand, and that sand then flows into the hourglass. The hourglass fills more and more, and I pay close attention to the spell to make sure I control how much sand enters the hourglass. Too much could have some side effects that I didn't want to deal with. I didn't want to be a babysitter, at least not until I had kids of my own.
Tock Tick Tock Tick
The sound of a clock can be heard going in reverse as Peggy's skin starts to soften and smooth. The wrinkles from her advanced age melt away, and her white hair returns to its healthy brown. Her somewhat clouded eyes regain that sharp and judging look. Her body returns to what I could estimate to be her early 30s or late 20s. And the spell ends.
"Congrats on regaining your youth. In fact, I think it worked far better than I originally expected," I say with a smile.
"How much better?" Peggy asks.
"Originally, I expected that at most you would gain another 50 years, but it seems more like you regained 60 or more years," I reply.
"Oh? That's good, right?" Peggy asks nervously.
"It's a bloody good thing. The only downside is that this ritual likely won't work as well next time, but at least you should live till you are physically 100," I reply.
"Good, then I suppose I have a lot of time to spend with Steve," Peggy says with a smile.
"Yep, and if you want to help out around here, you can read up on the computer. I've gone ahead and given you level C access," I reply calmly.
We had discussed the terms of the agreement, and part of that discussion touched upon whether she wanted a job. Now nothing concrete was added to the contract, but it was left open that should she want to work for me, she could do so at her own volition, and all I had to do was pay her properly. I was more than happy to have her on board, though I also made it clear that I was more than okay and even happy if she stayed retired and just spent her days doing whatever she wanted, but given her personality, if Steve was working, she would want to work as well.
"I'll consider it, and maybe I will take a look at what you gave me access to," Peggy replies.
Once we had finished the ritual, Peggy went back to the med bay where Steve was currently resting. My estimates still placed his awakening around three weeks. I could awaken him much earlier, but it was better to revive him slowly so his body has time to fix itself. The fact was that he had been in hibernation for just over 60 years, and even the super soldier serum couldn't maintain him perfectly, so he had lost a fairly noticeable amount of body mass.
I would let her handle things from here. The only other people I had to check on were Dr Connors and Dr Octavius. They had been making good progress with Dr Connors nearing the completion of his limb regeneration serum, thanks to the addition of Bacta research. Bacta, on the other hand, was still a ways off from being replciable, but he was still making good progress. Dr Octavius had not only fully understood Fusion Core technology but had found a way to increase the power output without reducing its stability. He had even used said knowledge to complete his life's work. Sustainable fusion reaction in the form of a miniaturized star. Which brings something that we were both quite surprised by to the table.
The technology Dr Octavius had invented could restart a star's core and, in theory, even create a new star altogether. When we would ever need that was hard to say, but it was good to have and not need it than need it and not have it.