Angel helped Klein, who had crawled and scrambled out of 2-049's range, to his feet. Only then did the pain nerves in her left shoulder, dulled by adrenaline, register the searing pain.
Ignoring the still-bleeding wound, she approached to within five meters of 2-049 and the clown it controlled, pistol in hand.
This Sealed Artifact had just displayed its terrifying power of domination. After Klein crouched down and braced one hand against the ground, he kicked 2-049 in a sweeping arc toward the clown behind him. And 2-049 did not disappoint them. The instant the clown entered its range of influence, it inflicted its negative effect upon him. The clown, who possessed countless ways to escape, could not even snap his fingers.
Angel had no desire to step closer and experience that effect herself. She positioned herself outside the Sealed Artifact's range, raised her pistol, and aimed at the rigid clown. He maintained the ridiculous pose of one hand on his shoulder and the other pinching his thumb and middle finger together. His eyes tracked Angel with excruciating slowness, but the light soon faded from them, and he no longer reacted to external stimuli.
Dunn and the others had not told her what someone completely controlled by 2-049 would become. Perhaps he would remain in the same pose until death, or perhaps he would become a "puppet" of the Antigonus Puppet and fulfill its wish of finding descendants of the family.
But she did not dare gamble on it.
The Tuxedo Clown's many bizarre and powerful abilities had allowed him to move freely even under the siege of numerous Nighthawks. Had he not been controlled by 2-049, even several more Angels and Kleins might have been helpless against him. If he truly had some means of escaping, or began moving