Henderson, in the meanwhile, has rolled a small blunt, lit up, and smoked it, time slowing down to that warm-honey pace common to all decent weed as the voices whirl around him like a maelstrom of noise. In a moment of clarity, Henderson raises Betty straight up, moving slowly as to clearly signal his non-hostile intent, and fires off a shot into the air to give himself room to speak.
Thinking with a clarity that would be impossible without the weed, Henderson, evaluates the situation before making a very important observation.
Nobody was wearing yellow. These weren't the cultists he was looking for.
"I have no proof that you are telling the truth. Put her on the ground or fight, sorceror. Choose wisely" Mordred continued threathening the cultist. He would have to give her good reason to convince her that he is not trying to deceive her.
"I would not like to make an enemy out of you over a petty misunderstanding. Would you be willing to wait until after she wakes up to start a fight, madam?"
"Only if you pledge not to leave this place until that girl wakes up. If you break it, I swear I will not hold back against an oathbreaker. And if I break it, my honor as a knight of the Summer will be stained and nobody will trust my word. If the girl proves she is not a victim, only then you may convince me" Since her enemy insisted he does not want to fight right now, Mordred reluctantly agreed to his proposition, provided the sorceror would keep to her condition. But that would be an oath between them two only.
"..." At this point, Henderson realizes that he still doesn't know the girl's name, "He's not a cultist," he states simply, "No yellow. Can you kids wait for a bit? Or should I get you to a hospital now?"
"She fucked us up!" Neo said. "It's all self-defense on our part, girl! Get him!"
Faust looked down at Neo.
"And I don't think she would have attacked you without ample provocation, so your argument of 'self defence' holds very little meaning to me."
"Well, she was trying hard to be fuckin' edgy and I called her out of it, dipshit! And the two asshats with me just tried to stop me from shit-talking to her! They didn't do nothin', asshole!" Neo retorted. "We were about to leave, then she suddenly went apeshit on us and called out her shadow doggies to maul our asses! I just called her out of her bullshit attitude, and she attacked us for it!"
At this point, Henderson notes a certain tightness in his pants, reaches back, and pulls out his wallet, only for the page of the Necronomicon to fall out, pulsing with an eldritch glow as it continues to regenerate, with another page growing out of it as the magical circle and the ice both disappear without a trace as they are consumed by the pages. The pulsing increases in frequency, then hold steady as it exerts an invisible pressure, preventing any further magecraft from being cast. Ignoring it, Henderson makes his way over to the kids and crouches down, waiting for them to sit up so they're level with him before speaking to Neo.
"Son, according to what I've heard, you took it upon yourself to get someone worked up because you didn't like how they acted. I'll admit, they're still at fault for attacking you in the first place, but you're hardly blameless yourself."
Taking another hit of the blunt, he stands up and turns to Faust, "However, as nobody has been killed as a result of this mess, the proper course of action would be to discipline these kids."
Henderson takes another puff before breaking out into a full-on Old Man rant, "Back in my day, discipline didn't mean watching a young 'un bleeding out! Discipline was a
belt! And it was effective! You belt the unruly brat who gets himself beat up because he runs his mouth, and he knows not to do it again! You belt the person who beat up the unruly kid because they couldn't contain themselves, they know not to do it again! The belt was all that was great and good when it came to setting a kid straight!"
Finally, he takes another deep puff before releasing it long and slow, the delicious weed smoke billowing around him, "If you are in fact this girl's keeper, I will leave showing her the way to simply walk away from situations like these to you, however you do it. I'm getting these kids to a hospital before they bleed out. Discipline will have to wait until they've been patched up."
He then turns to the three, "None of you are old enough to be sitting in the passenger seat, I'm not fooling with any o' them fancy celery phones, and I've only got two seatbelts in the back. So you," he points at Neo, "Are going to be sitting on his lap," he points at Rattus.
With that, Henderson walks back to the pages of the Necronomicon, snatches them out of the air, and stuffs them back in his pocket, snuffing the eldritch glow.
