Sell you a bridge chapter 299

June 16th 2016 Wayne Manor, Earth -11, 10:00 AM EDT

After  talking things over we decided to get some rest before attempting to  take the trident from The Drowned. A female Batman with hydrokinesis and  related superpowers in a partly underwater city was somewhat  intimidating to think about. So our first priority was obviously to  scope out Wayne Manor and figure out if she was even there. Planning a  raid wasn't the same as planning a theft, granted, but there were  similarities, and casing the joint was definitely high up on the list of  optimal first moves in both cases. Knowledge was always power.

The  team for that consisted of Jim, Rana, and I. Our three fastest and  stealthiest party members. The others stayed at Shadowcrest to wait for  word. With just us we were able to slip unseen through the dark  abandoned city, without even those damned red things popping up to stop  us, and we made it to the Wayne Grounds pretty quickly, only to have to  halt to find a better way in because the grounds were fucking CRAWLING  with Dead Waters. There were dozens of the things, which I was easily  able to identify even hidden in the depths by using my aura sight, at  least now that I knew their signature.

It was actually  impressive. The Dead Waters had an aura nearly identical to the shade  and composition of the Gotham waters around them. They had been  literally MADE for this environment. It had taken me a few encounters to  be able to parse the difference. Whether that was a natural side effect  of being hollow shells animated from the Gotham murk or some kind of  ingenious defensive mechanism engineered by The Drowned, I'd gotten  around it once I figured out the trick, and I could identify the  bastards from a distance.

But rather than the Dead Waters,  I was much more concerned about one specific factor at play here that  hadn't been addressed at all. "Why the fuck is it so WET everywhere?  Like yeah, water Batwoman, I get it, but does EVERYTHING have to be  covered in water? This whole place looks...moist. It's unpleasant. It's  like Florida if you classed the place up a bit. Just because she has  this whole ocean queen schtick going doesn't mean she has to be THAT  supervillain. The one whose whole personality is their gimmick. Nobody  likes those."

Jim cleared his throat loudly and I winced.  "I mean. Not you of course boss. You don't have a gimmick. You're simply  an urbane and semi-corporeal gentleman about town. But you have to  admit, some of the villains in like, Central City get pretty ridiculous.  Hell, even in Gotham we have some wackos. Penguin, the Riddler, Two  Face?" I paused. "Well Penguin mostly does it as an affectation I guess.  But Riddler and Two Face literally get arrested on the regular for  sticking to their theme."

My mentor heaved a sigh. "I wish  I could dispute you, but I too sometimes find the behavior of such  people incomprehensible. That, my lad, is why we do not claim the title  of supervillain. We are gentlemen thieves, and nothing more. Leave the  caped tomfoolery to the lunatics. A good thief needs no affectations,  save those that he leaves behind to confound his enemies and delight his  loyal fans. You remember one of the first rules I ever taught you?"

I  chuckled. "Before a crime, no one should know what your target was.  After a crime, no one should be able to forget." Of course, while that  rule sounded cool, it wasn't one he always followed. Jim had been known  to tip people off about a potential theft just to get a bigger challenge  when he stole from them. He WAS the greatest thief in the world, after  all. But he tried to instill better habits in us when we were training  under him, even if it sometimes strayed close to hypocrisy.

I'd  been told 'do as I say, not as I do' was a common refrain among dads,  even if I hadn't been around my own enough to get that particular  treatment. I didn't mind it from Jim since it came from a place of love,  plus I was retired anyway. Speaking of dads though. I turned to Rana.  "To clarify, don't steal from people. It creates friction with capes and  they're a huge pain in the ass. We got lucky with that statute of  limitations thing, but usually in order to maintain your freedom you  have to keep committing more and more of them and it becomes a vicious  cycle."

"I know dad." My daughter groaned, rolling her  eyes. "I know it's not ok to steal. Mom was very clear about that when  she was teaching me about earth. She said she didn't want me to 'end up a  charming reprobate like my father'. Which would have been a lot less  gross if she didn't giggle after she said it. You guys are extremely  sickening most of the time. At least mama is subtle about her flirting.  You and mom just fawn over each other in public."

It was  my turn to snicker. "My mother disgusts me be flirting with her husband,  and I disgust you. Someday you'll have children of your own to disgust  with your significant other. It's the circle of wife." I winked  exaggeratedly as she groaned at my terrible dad joke. I'd always loved  puns, but since I was mortifying my child with my behavior already, it  was my duty as a dad to expose her to the sacred comedic traditions.

All  in a much better mood, we turned to stare at the estate again, focusing  on our job. Casing was boring and time consuming, but it required me to  at least LOOK at the place we were watching. Even perfect memory didn't  help if I didn't pay attention. I did a count over the next hour or so,  remaining quiet as I concentrated on sifting through the aura around  the place to make sure I got every Dead Water.

"Okay, I  have bad news and good news. Which do you want first?" Between my  ability to detect lies and my aura sight, my perception powers had  synergize to grant me an entirely new method of viewing the world. It  took time and concentration to parse it but it was still there. I had  more than enough determination to stoke that fire. The ghostly obsession  I'd cultivated to protect the people I loved was still there, howling  inside me, even if it was less insistent when I wasn't seeing one of  them strung up and tortured.

Rana made an indecisive face  before finally saying. "Bad news? I'm skeptical how good the good news  could be in this situation. I'll just go all in on the bad and be  pleasantly surprised if I turn out to be wrong."

I smirked  at my daughter. "Who did you get that cynicism from exactly? But fine.  The bad news is that there are about a hundred and fifty Dead Waters in  there altogether. They're trash and we could melt them like snow on a  hot day, but they aren't a problem because of their power. They're a  problem because they're going to cause a ruckus when we try to get in  and alert The Drowned. SHE's the one we really need to worry about."

"Okay."  She said in annoyance. "See that was about as bad as I thought. So what  is this good news that seemed like it would any way soften THAT blow.  Because I'll be honest. I feel like that's the most important take away  from the time spent watching this place."

I grinned at her  wolfishly. "The good news is that she's there to alert. She wasn't  guaranteed to be here, and we might have had to chase her down to  Atlantis or something, so seeing her around is a positive, even if it's a  double edged sword." My daughter rolled her eyes at me, clearly proved  right in her suspicions and taking it with the least amount of grace  possible.

Turning to Jim, I raised an eyebrow. "What about  you boss. Lots of death energy here and those Dead Waters are  partially....well, dead. You picking up any information that I didn't  pick out? We need as much information as we can get, and you ARE the  expert. "

Jim's hat tilted slightly, clearly showing he  was cocking his head to think. "They're not...exactly necromancy.  There's echoes of it, but, not the same. Similar to what Victor von  Frankenstein did. Luckily magic leaves a signature even when harnessed  by fringe science. Death magic is thick in this place and it's  definitely stained both the creator and the creations. The Drowned  should be necrotizing herself. Becoming more dead as time goes on. Fire  is out, but healing magic should have a pronounced effect on both master  and creations, and not for the positive. Their bodies weren't built to  be restored to life."

I'd always  wondered how that worked actually. "Why does healing hurt the undead? It  doesn't really make sense the way I've heard it described. I know that  it's a common theme in fiction, and even some magical traditions, but  why would restoration magic harm zombies? Not all healing magic is  'holy' and from what I've heard even the stuff that isn't has the same  kind of effect."

Jim  paused at that, seemingly thinking about how to phrase his response.  "If it helps, you can think of death like a spectrum. Being alive is  being in the positives. If a living human being is at ten, then a corpse  is at zero, and a zombie is at negative ten. Healing magic adds life to  a being. A living human being who was hurt might go down to five, or  even one. Healing spells can restore that by adding life energy to bring  them back to one. If you add life energy to a zombie, it brings them  lower in the negatives, and closer to true neutral aka being a corpse."

I  nodded along. Jim was an excellent teacher when motivated, and had a  knack for explaining things. "Ok, so the Dead Waters are necromantic in  nature, healing them will bring them closer to just straight dead, and  The Drowned is...what? Infused with death energy? So healing brings her  closer to being a normal person?" I didn't think the former Batwoman had  actually died, so that was the only thing I could think of.

"Basically."  He said with a shrug. "It's more complex than that, but the theory  boils down to being pretty much the same thing, so that works. The  question is whether or not we have any healing magic we can use? Can  your demonic energy be used to make a healing spell?"

It  could, but it would be a damn expensive one. Luckily we had a better  option. "It would make more sense to talk to Zee. Her keyblade taught  her a bunch of new spells, and one of them is a healing spell. She  hasn't really had a chance to test it because we're all total badasses  and who could hurt us, but if she can teach it to the three of us we  should have a marked advantage against The Drowned and her forces. It  would make me feel a lot better to have an ace in the hole anyway. Just  in case."

He  chuckled at that. "Well, that would certainly be a useful trick to pick  up. Alright, with your memory I imagine we've done enough diligence  here. These things aren't humans, they don't seem to have much variance  in their behavior, so a longer timeline won't be of much benefit. We can  head back and report to the others, and then come up with a plan  together." He stood in a fluid motion, stepping out from behind the  brush we'd been hiding in, but moving quickly back so the Dead Waters  didn't see us, and Rana and I followed. It was time to head back. We had  an assault to prepare for.