An hour passed.
She continued to revert until the day of the drug deal, then paused at the moment the goods were exchanged. There were six people in the room: 2 were hosts they had killed a few chapters ago, 1 was a new unknown host's corpse, 2 were host auras, and one was the young man from the diner.
Natasha frowned. "Uh, what?"
"Why were they letting a non-host do deals with hosts?"
"Yeah, seriously. Civilians are so weak that if you punch them hard enough their entire body explodes. There's six deaths every year in this country involving a student fucking someone to death."
"…I think that's more that we're strong, Natasha, but yes. Still, it's possible he actually is a host."
"One way to find out." Natasha aimed her fist, and with one motion slammed it through the corpse's chest with her fingers gripping his non-beating heart on the other end. "He's not a host."
"Hell of a way to test it."
"Iris, I wanted to be this strong since I was a kid. I fucking love using my strength. Like when I can't find a parking spot, I just pull another car out of its spot and park in its place." said Natasha. "I did that in front of a group of women once and the next thing I heard sounded like Niagara Falls being blasted out of a garden hose. That and them screaming that their grandparents were still in there."
"Thanks for not doing it in front of Amelie."
"Hey, manipulating time is more impressive than manipulating cars."
"Actually, she didn't like it when I got us a parking spot either." Iris smiled. Mentor & protege, the two were rather butch and would support each other in their own bawdy fashion. If part of her liking of their friendship was that it never drew attention to their own flaws, she did not realize it.
"Did your lunch go good, though?"
Iris nodded. "She's been easy to deal with lately. Some days... she's a bit rough, but when she's on -- she's on."
Natasha grinned. "Nice. Okay, cool. Sorry, I don't wanna come off like I'm micro-managing you; just wanted an update. Viktoria is usually pretty bad about that, so I don't wanna do that with you."
Iris shook her head. "Everything I've heard about Viktoria makes her sound like a bitch. Somebody mentioned to me that she likes to say some civilian women go lesbian just because they can't find a man who'll put up with them."
"I mean, is she wrong?"
"Yes. That's a terrible stereotype."
"So what? Stereotypes exist for a reason. Not every lesbian, sure, but definitely a few don't actually love women, they just hate men. Viktoria's stepped over the line before, but that's not one of them. She's not really homophobic to anyone but herself. I'm her protege, after all."
Iris mostly just didn't want to deal with this; what Viktoria was was for Natasha to deem. She busied herself by checking around the room again… it seemed mostly normal.
Natasha checked the briefcase of money and swiped it open. "Holy shit, this is like $10,000."
"Natasha, I have unlimited money. If you need something, just pay for it in cash and I'll revert it back into your pocket."
"That's illegal."
"That isn't?"
"No, this is just asset forfeiture."
Iris examined the non-host's corpse. As previously mentioned, his face had been twisted apart; his eyes were on the side of his head and his mouth in his hair. "Killed by a Revenant, too... Obviously, the non-host had some special relation with whoever was putting him on these assignments. I can't imagine why he would want to be a civilian in a room of hosts, though."
"Any possibility he lied and said he had a Revenant?" said Natasha. "…oh, no. Because then they'd just ask him to show it."
Iris nodded. "Something I'm thinking about, though. See that host's corpse there? That isn't anyone we dealt with before, is it?"
"No, doesn't look like it. But his face is all twisted and freaky just like the non-host. Were they both killed together?"
Iris went over and rooted around in their pockets, checking for phones or identification. Nothing. She checked the non-host's corpse again; he had several bruises on him that his compatriot did not. Iris assumed he might have been tortured prior to death. "No phone or ID. I might need to do a second Timeline, if we're through with this one."
"Think so."
Iris walked outside and crouched in the driveway, close to the road. She focused, and as Phantom's webs extended Meteorology's clouds covered them so that no one else could see what she was doing. When she finished, Natasha was sitting next to her. A dome of clouds covered them.
"So, you're going to be reverting cars, right?" said Natasha. "Are they going to come flying in at 500mph?"
Iris was a little slow to react. "…they shouldn't. Objects are teleported into Timeline."
She reverted the scene a few minutes before the meeting. A car pulled in and she paused it to check their passengers. It was their four Marrivelli-associated corpses, and the young man's compatriot was driving. She rooted around in the glovebox and found his license & registration. "Well, there's the address. That was simple. Let's, er... let's head over."
Iris got in her truck and Natasha stood outside.
"No, not yet. I can tell your movements and reactions are slower. You've done two Timelines in one day and a fight. We're going back to rest."
Iris tried to head her off. "Timeline doesn't tire me out much. I can still..."
"Just because Amelie overworks herself doesn't mean you need to too."
A sense of vulnerability came over Iris and she did not like it. Natasha knew her better in some ways than she knew herself. The truth was she still barely thought herself worthy of Amelie, an idealization that seemed further the closer they drew towards each other.
"We could at least swing by there. I can still accelerate the truck."
"No."
Iris sighed. "…alright. Let me look up Urasaria's address again..." Usually it fell to her to drive anyhow; Phantom's acceleration halved any trip.
Natasha got in and closed the door. Iris looked up and saw her with a shit-eating grin. "So, earlier, when you and Amelie were in that graveyard. You stayed way longer than fifteen minutes. Were you boning down? I did that once with a goth."
"Wouldn't you like to know." muttered Iris. "Unrelated, I'll be spending the night over at Amelie's tonight."
"Well, have fun with your arts & crafts, or whatever it is you do over there." Natasha pat Iris on the back.
Iris started to drive off, though she still tried once or twice to convince Natasha to let them go back and Timeline again. She still had the desire to make work a fetish, a trait she usually played off as another one of her prods into masculinity.