The Take-Five Bomb is a fan-coined term for the hazardous Black Level Item of unknown origin employed by Baron Klaus Wulfenbach during the Siege of Mechanicsburg. It is a grapefruit-sized device featuring a Large Red Button and a single-digit number display. Baron Wulfenbach resorts to its use after the fully restored Castle Heterodyne repulses a massive conventional attack by Wulfenbach forces. Originally stored within a highly secured vault aboard Castle Wulfenbach, the device radically slows the passage of time over a city-sized area. (Light is still able to pass through the affected area, albeit in a red-shifted state, perhaps indicating that time is not completely halted.) Klaus uses the device in an attempt to remove both Agatha and Mechanicsburg from the resurgent Long War, perceiving both to be a dire threat to stability in Europa, and to (presumably) remove himself from the influence of The Other so his son, Gilgamesh Wulfenbach, can continue in his stead. As shown in the included image, when Klaus first activates the device, the display shows a 5, hence the name.
While Mechanicsburg is successfully frozen, it happens that the bomb is activated at the exact moment ✣ that Agatha is being involuntarily dragged through the Red Cathedral's monolith gate by Tweedle. She thus escapes the city, but in process suffers a gap of time (timeskip) of two and a half years that she (and the strip's readers) are not immediately privy to.
The use of the Take-Five Bomb by Klaus has, unfortunately, attracted the attention ✣ of certain extradimensional horrors. It is currently unknown what intention these entities have, but Castle Heterodyne (somewhat immune to the Take-Five's power) predicts to Gil they will reach the Baron and the Take-Five in two years of normal time passage. (It later turns out ✣ the monster's presence is welcomed by the Dreen, who eagerly covet the glory of battling the beast ✣ .)
Later on ✣ , Queen Albia of England informs Agatha that Prende's Chronometric Lantern should be able to reverse the effects of the Take-Five Bomb, although Agatha will need to test it and calibrate it to the unique phenomenon that surrounds Mechanisburg. Albia warns Agatha that Klaus put the time bubble in place around Mechanisburg for a reason and she will need to be careful as Klaus will likely not be pleased that Agatha reverses it.
Agatha later does confirm that she can use the Lantern to enter the time-freeze, and that anyone exposed to the Lantern will resume forward time-movement as long as they are in the range of its power.
Using the Lantern, Agatha and Co. get in visual range of Klaus and the Take-Five Bomb, only to find ✣ a swarm of different Klaus-images that all disappear when touched, leaving behind the Bomb suspended in mid-air. (The display is reading "2" during this sequence.) Agatha finally grabs ✣ the Bomb and pushes the button on it, causing ✣ the time freeze to collapse and time to resume for the Mechanisburg residents ✣ . Note that in this last scene, the Bomb does not include the number-display, which is presumably an artistic oversight and not a plot point.
All that jazz[]
Dave Brubeck - Take Five ( Original Video)