Sell you a Bridge chapter 122

Blackgate Penitentiary November 11th 2010 2:00 PM EDT

This  was not an ideal situation. Clayface was annoying to fight. I'd  expected the flash freeze to finish him but once I shattered the bastard  the pieces had melted the ice somehow, some kind of vibration I was  pretty sure. Water and Ice were out, but upon studying the villain I  realized something pretty interesting. He seemed smaller. Like he's lost  some of his mass shaking off the freeze spell. I stared at him in  concern, how the hell was I supposed to put him down if a hundred point  spell only took off a few inches of height.

On  closer examination though it didn't seem like the ice was what had done  the most damage. The main contributing factor was the water Kaldur had  used. The issue was that the busted pipes nearby wasn't enough of it. I  snarled at the wards here, if they weren't here to stop me I could have  just dropped this asshole in the ocean with a portal, I refused to  believe that wasn't enough water to put him down. Glaring at him though I  had an idea. Points were universal, they could be anything at all, and  since I could have any power, maybe I could just push them into someone  else.

I stepped over to where Kaldur was and put a  hand on his back, focusing on pushing twenty points or so into his body,  and I easily felt the movement of the energy as it flowed into him. His  blue glowing tattoos began to shine much more brightly as the points  supercharged the living fuck out of them, and I felt him reach out to  the surrounding water again through that connection. This time though  that grasp had massively increased in range. Kaldur leveled a hand at  Clayface and pulled on the water in the pipes and literally hundreds of  gallons came pouring out.

It all gathered in a  shifting mass above his head as he took control of the power and I  stepped away so I didn't get wet. Wally darted back as well and we both  gave Kaldur room to work with his new juice. Calling that much water had  butned probably three quarters of that power but the last quarter was  keeping fine since the tattoos were made for this to begin with. The  entire purpose was manipulating available water so it wasn't too much  strain just doing more. Kaldur faced off against two face now with a  much larger pool of resources available.

It was a  massacre. Massive columns of water extended like tentacles from the orb  of liquid and smashed down on the villain shearing off pieces of his  muddy body. He tried to fight back, but he couldn't even get close to  Kaldur with all that water around, and he just got slowly shaved down to  size bits at a time. By the time he'd finished crushing the bastard the  others had finished, partly aided by the absolute shock their opponents  had felt at watching their heaviest hitter get destroyed. Clayface was  thrown back into the collar and I was able to use my hacking skills and  my knowledge of how they worked to turn it back on.

I  stared in awe at the water. I'd never thought of giving my points  directly to someone else before. It had been surprisingly effective. It  made sense too, considering how much energy they had and how they could  become anything there was no reason they couldn't be given to others as  fuel. I mad a mental note to try that out with a member of my team, but  for now we had to just keep going. We had to get to Miss M and Ivy as  soon as humanly possible. We re collared the villains like we'd done to  Clayface and tossed them back into their cells. Then we headed out  towards the marked spot on the map once again.

I  shook off my surprise, we didn't have time for me to sit around and  dawdle. I turned to Robin. "You guys good? We need to get going again  this place is going crazy, we need to get to Miss Martian before the  Amazons decide to grab Ivy, or they might snatch her up at the same  time." Having said that, I was also kind of on edge. Some part of me  felt like that was too easy. Clayface was a heavy hitter, though to be  fair we had basically a hard counter for that bastard in Aqualad,  especially with me giving his mojo a boost. Still, despite wanting to  hurry I also planned to move carefully. I had a strong feeling this  wasn't the end of our problems.

Robin  clearly felt the same as he frowned down at the subdued villains.  "We're fine, but we should try to scope things out, there are worse  things here to run into. KF can you do some scouting ahead? Just to make  sure we aren't on a collision course with Atomic Skull or something." I  couldn't argue that, it was a good plan. Robin knew his team better  than me, I got the impression he was a little salty about me shot  calling that last battle, so hopefully this would calm him down a bit.  Wally nodded and zipped off down the hall, moving so fast he was barely  visible. While he did that I got back in touch with Zee to check on the  situation from on high.

I got a response immediately. "Hey  babe, the map is showing so many red dots and so many names we don't  know that it's hard to see what's going on, but I will say there are a  lot of women without last names circling around Ivy and Miss M. They  don't seem to have made contact yet but they're in the area." I  cursed, though I made sure to mention her method of telling Amazons  from the other prisoners since I was pretty impressed she'd noticed that  on the fly.

I  relayed the information to Robin and he looked as unnerved as I felt.  Luckily Wally got back shortly after with his report. Unfortunately he  didn't look happy about what he found. His disguised face was set in a  scowl. "Ok we have a small problem. Rhino, Grotesk, and Sumo are up  ahead, and they got into the room where the prison keeps all the  costumes and weapons. They let Reaper, Electrocutioner, and Firefly into  the room to get their gear. Seems like the picked up Tiger Moth and  Blitzkrieg from the womens side. I don't know what the hell they're  doing, but whatever it is, I can't imagine them having that much  firepower bodes well for anyone."

I  looked at Robin questioningly and he groaned. Rhino, Grotesk, and Sumo  are all huge guys who are really strong, Reaper is a hook wielding  maniac, Electrocutioner throws around lightning and Firefly is a nutcase  with a flamethrower. Tiger Moth is a crazy dangerous assassin, and  Blitzkrieg uses gloves that shoot explosive power blasts. All in all  it's kind of a bad lineup for us, but it could be worse. Czonk and SB  should be able to take their heavies. Me and Red Arrow should be able to  handle Reaper and Tiger Moth. KF you're on Blitzkrieg and Aqualad you  take Electrocutioner." He nodded to me. "Given what I've seen you do  with that sword you should be able to take down Firefly. Be careful with  him, that flamethrower is more effective than it seems."

I  wasn't really worried about it. I shot a quick query to Zee and  confirmed Wally's count. "My sources say these should be the last of the  bad guys we have to mess with until we hit the womens wing. Our path is  mostly empty and after these assholes its a straight shot down to the  area where Miss M is." With that news lifting our spirits we headed for  the spot where Wally had seen the enemy. We had the element of surprise  on our side and we decided to use it. Wally attacked first, darting in  to punch Blitzkrieg. The female supervillain lit up her power blasting  gloves and hurled a burst of energy that exploded, distracting the rest  of them as we all fell on them like rabid wolves.

Superboy  and Czonk hit the heavies. Czonk took on Rhino with backup from Arthur  while Sumo and Grotesk were left to the half alien bruiser. Robin and  Red Arrow. Hit their respective targets. Red Arrow was on Reaper while  Robin took Tiger Moth, and I was shocked at how skilled the pretty  blonde woman was given that I'd barely even heard of her. I'd have  expected someone that tough to be more well known. Reaper wasn't that  skilled, but that hook was dangerous as hell and look nasty sharp.  Aqualad used his massive ball of water from my boost to hit  Electrocutioner which left me to deal with my only target.

I  darted forward with my blade out to slash the line on the flamethrower  and deprive the firebug of his weapon, but he jerked it up and pulled  the trigger forcing me back. I danced out of the way, a bit of the  napalm getting on my Armor of Gloom but not burning through. Firefly  opened the wings on his costume and darted up into the rafters of the  cavernous room we were standing in, some kind of huge central area where  they kept all the cells. I growled and opened my own wings, flying up  to meet him.

Still it was annoying  to deal with, and I couldn't help but bellow "What kind of prison keeps a  huge room full of all the dangerous weapons the inmates use right next  to the cell blocks? Why do they even have that room?" I had no earthly  idea why the hell that would even be a thing. I looked to Robin and even  in the midst of his battle he made to to dart back and offer me a  shrug. I could see from his aura he thought it was as stupid as I did.  It's like Blackgate wanted people to try to escape.

Regardless  I shook off the thought and darted after Firefly. The flame wielding  villain was shockingly agile and incredibly quick with that flame  thrower. Granted I was much faster, but the arc on that thing was long  enough that he could keep me at a fair distance so he only had to make  small adjustments to his aim while I was trying to cross like fifty foot  gaps in the air between us. The firebug was obviously more than used to  dealing with aerial attackers, and I planned to use this little battle  in the Outer Body trance to improve my flying ability.

Luckily  for me, between bursts of fire that semi blinded me in the dark the  rafters were covered in deep shadows. I poured in ten points and shoved a  thin spike of darkness into the wings of the mans costume, not enough  to drop him immediately but the damage was heavy enough to cause him to  spiral out of control and force him to do an emergency landing. He hit  the ground hard enough to be too distracted to blast me with fire and I  managed to get in close and cut his fuel line before stripping all his  gear off.

By  the time that was finished the others had managed to finish their  fights, and despite Czonk having a broken arm and Red Arrow having his  arm slashed open by readers hook they were mainly in decent shape. We  stripped all their gear off and shoved them into the nearby cells, which  I managed to actually get working again and close so we didn't have to  worry about getting jumped from behind, and then we headed off down the  hall. According to map it was smooth sailing from here, at least until  we reached ivy, and then the real party would start.