Sell you a Bridge chapter 110

Doomhollow Hall October 31st 2010 12:00 AM

Obviously  with the harbor full off pissed off Amazons we weren't going to be able  to sail to the island. Instead I'd burned the extra points to shadow  port us back to the tower so we could use the teleporter to get there.  Mom was safe with Gojo, and Paula was there too, but Reggie called Bette  and his mom and sister and told them to stay inside while we bypassed  their whole fleet by jumping straight out to our base. It cost me about a  hundred points to shadow port everyone nearly across town, leaving me  at five hundred and some change when we actually arrived.

The  first thing we did was check on the defenses for the island. Our  concealments hadn't been breached but part of the layered design let me  check the upkeep and do repairs, which meant we could see what had been  through them and which way it had gone. The fleet had gone by the edge  of the island, though not closely, which I was grateful for because  while my protections were good I doubted they would hold up to an army  of Amazons noticing them and trying to break through. From the slight  brush though I was able to get an idea of their speed and urgency, and I  scowled as I noted how fast they were going.

They'd  been in a hurry. I turned to Jim, who'd come over from the tower with  us. Luckily Kent hadn't been around, he'd gotten called off on an  emergency response when everyone was booted from the dungeons. He  usually hung out at the tower when Zee was delving with us. Jim had his  face on, and he was still looking grim from the news about Kit, but  sadly we had bigger fish to fry right now. My mentor sighed. "This was  Circe." My blood froze. I hadn't even considered that. He shook his  head. "I was foolish, I got so distracted by the dungeon that I forgot  Circe was involved with the early stages. Of course she would bring her  faction of the Amazons to claim the labyrinth."

That...that  was crazy. "What do you mean claim the labyrinth, it's in Gotham.  There's no way the government will let a tribe of foreign warriors seize  one of the biggest cities in the US. Besides isn't Circe an enemy of  the Amazon's? Wonder Woman is their princess and I heard they hate each  other. They all live on Themyscira right? How could she have a faction  there opposed to the Queen?" I never took the Amazon's for soft, and  leaving a divisive splinter group alive in your territory was nothing if  not naive. There was no way Wonder Woman or her mom would allow that.

Jim  shook his head. "The Bana-Mighdall are a splinter group of the Amazon  nation. They were followers of Hippolyta's sister Antiope, who was  murdered by her husband Theseus. There's... a lot of context behind that  story that we don't have time for but basically the Bana-Mighdall are  Circe's chosen instruments and hate men even more than regular Amazons.  If Circe brought them here it's almost definitely to take advantage of  the power of the Labyrinth to raise some of her own to godhood. There's  also so history with the Labyrinth given Thesues's involvement in their  founding but I won't get into it. Suffice to say they have the reasons  and the resources to take Gotham."

I  scowled. "That's crazy though. Sure we don't have many powerhouses but  there's no chance the boyscout in Metropolis lets a hostile force invade  the US even if the government failed to get involved for some reason."  Honestly I had been confused as to why we hadn't seen the government in  Gotham yet with the advent of the dungeon. I'd figured they'd just been  in another instance or something but I still should have heard news of  a  big influx of soldiers. It seemed stupid to ignore something as  important as easy access to powerful magical gear.

Jim  looked troubled. "I agree, but I suspect someone is pulling strings  here. The military should have been in the city months ago to  participate in the dungeon delving, someone high up is keeping them from  interfering. Given Shiva's presence I suspect someone working with the  shadows is using their influence to divert attention from Gotham, though  how they managed to get enough sway for that is anyone's guess. Granted  the information avenues out of the city have always been easily  manipulated because of the Court's interference but keeping this under  wraps would be a massive undertaking."

I  blinked. I...didn't know anyone outside Gotham except I guess Wally,  but it would make sense the League would have the inside scoop. Was it  really possible someone had managed to keep the dungeon out of public  view outside the city? Hell even if news did get out it was feasible no  one had believed it. Gotham was known to be a crazy shithole, they might  have just assumed it was some kind of trap. I shook my head. "That's  not the same as covering up a whole invasion though, there's no way the  government would just throw a whole city under the bus like that right?  It would make them look terrible to the public."

Jim  nodded. "It would, if they knew about it. But considering the level of  influence at play here that's no guarantee. Depending on whether Circe  got in contact with whoever is making moves there are plenty of ways to  hide an invasion on a target this small. My first guess would be  spreading some kind of outbreak rumors and quarantining the city. Most  of the country wouldn't even question Gotham being host to some kind of  plague. Once they fully have the city under their heel it would be easy  enough to melt into the background like the Court has done for years,  just letting things go an as normal, or even get whoever is pulling  strings to open an embassy here."

I  groaned and stood up from the table we were all sitting at, pacing back  and forth. "Then what the hell do we do boss? Assuming this isn't going  to just go away, how do we prepare for this? What's even going to  happen? Will they just lay siege to the city? Will they make demands?  Will they book it for the dungeon first thing? Is Kit in danger? Can we  negotiate with Circe? Gods this is such a mess, how the hell are we  supposed to react to this nonsense?" I admit it, I was panicking a bit. I  had just gotten done with that shitty dungeon and now we had this mess  and who knew how things were going to shake out.

Zee  reached out to grab my hand, squeezing my fingers soothingly as she  gave me that smile that made me go a little loopy in the head even when  she wasn't letting all her sexy out, which she currently was. "Hey, calm  down. We're fine. Sure this isn't great, but we don't necessarily have  to DO anything. Batman is still in town and daddy and Black Canary and  tons of other Leaguers. Even if they can cut off contact with the  outside to civvies there's no possible way they can do it to the League,  so everything will be fine."

I  exhaled. She was right. But I still wanted to do something. I pulled up  my upgrade menu for Doomhollow Hall and flipped through it, finding one  particular bit of useful equipment and throwing it over to the others  to look at. Territory map. Allow overlying view of nearby  territories, zoom function available, colored designation markers for  all inhabitants. 500 points. It was pretty pricey for something  with literally no external aspect at all. It couldn't effect anything  or interact with other people, but for something huge like this  potential invasion it would be a life saver. I looked to my boss in  question?

He  nodded. "An excellent purchase. Having such a capability would enable us  to operate with impunity in the city even should it come under siege as  currently seems likely. I wholeheartedly agree with the selection." I  grinned and purchased it, feeling five hundred points drain away,  leaving me only the twenty or so I'd had on top of that. Luckily it was  enough to prevent me from feeling like I'd been hit by a truck, but it  wasn't exactly a pleasant experience. I flicked a hand and brought up  the map of the region, which covered the island, Gotham, and a bit out  to sea but not much else. We got a very small section of Metropolis too  but I ignored that.

I  blinked as it came up, because hold shit there were so many dots. I  could see the red field of them heading for the harbor still, they  hadn't made landfall yet mostly, but I saw some of them had broken off  and sailed around to the sides for some reason and those had already  disembarked and were moving inland in small groups. I turned to Jim. "Ok  boss, any ideas here? Because I have zero clue what's happening." I was  completely perplexed as to what the hell was going on here. They hadn't  attacked, they were just spreading out, mostly avoiding group of other  dots. I saw some of them slip further inland and some took up position  at the docks but they didn't seem to be moving much aside from that.

Jim  took in the map and looked to me with a raised eyebrow and it took me a  second to get what he was aiming at before I passed him control of the  map to let him zoom in and out and turned to regard my friends. Artemis  looked disturbed. "This...seems bad. Amazons are scary, like I know  we're pretty badass too but there are...a lot of them. Can we do  anything about that many of them? Should we? Like is this even any of  our business? If they don't start offing random people then I don't  really see how it's our problem." Which was actually a really good  point. We were making a ton of assumptions here.

Reggie  came back over, looking worried but less stressed. "I called my mom and  sister and then Bette. Told them what was up and to stay indoors. I  said I was by the docks when we saw the ships but I ran away and I'm  safe now. Luckily they're all women so even if things get bad the  Amazon's shouldn't just go ham on them or anything." He slumped into a  chair. "I heard what Artemis said, and I agree. If they don't start shit  with us we shouldn't start shit with them. We just got out of one long  term mess and there's no reason to get dragged into another. Let the  League and the Court deal with the Amazons."

Jim  interrupted us from his place at the map. "I'm afraid that may be less  of an option than one might expect. Come look at this, I think I've  figured out what they're doing." We hurried over to his side where we  were looking down at the map. I didn't see anything, but he pointed out  the distribution of the dots. "As you can see they appear to be  spreading out in a full circle around the city." He zoomed out. "Not  just within city limits either, as you can see they left several ships  behind and it appears some of them have come overland from the other  direction, presumably portaled in by Circe. The only thing I could think  of that would require this kind of encirclement is some kind of ward."  My eyes widened at that and I bolted for the door, the others hot on my  heels.

What he hadn't said was that  if they were in the full encirclement position whatever spell or ward  they cast would be happening any moment. What he probably didn't KNOW  but I did, was that Circe had a spell for this situation in her  grimoire. I'd memorized the whole thing before she gave it back. The wildsphere was a powerful divine spell that used ambient power to create  a sectioned of partition in the world, sort of like a sphere that made  everything inside it part of another dimension.

 It was one of hundreds  of spells so I hadn't really considered it a threat but given the curse  on Gotham and the labyrinth being here... I hit the door running. I  threw open the front doors of the castle and sprinted outside to see,  but we were too late. We arrived just in time to watch the green dome of  power shimmer into existence trapping us and the entire city of Gotham  inside with an army of Amazons.