Sell you a Bridge chapter 98

Gotham Academy September 30th 2010 1:00 PM EDT

I  was going out of my fucking mind having to go to school. I had re upped  my point total to the full two fifty at noon, but hadn't been able to  test anything since I had school. I'd skipped during that mess with Zee  and while grades were laughable to me, I knew for a fact Robin was in  this Academy and if I just dropped off the face of the earth I'd have to  deal with him, and then through him Batman, and then through him the  League. I didn't want any part of dealing with the League, not for quite  some time to come.

I acknowledged how lucky I'd gotten  with the Zatanna thing. I hadn't been thinking straight. I'd seen my  girlfriend upset and I'd taken the easiest (at the time) path to fixing  that, and I'd very nearly touched off a literal war between two magical  factions in the process. I'd expected Jim to get pissed and yell at me,  but he never had. He had my back because that was the way Jim lived. In  his mind I hadn't done anything wrong, I'd wanted something so I took  it. Which on the one hand was pretty neat of him, but on the other made  me take a look at where Jim was in life.

No friends, no  girlfriend, no stability. Jim was a force of nature, the gentleman  thief. He was larger than life, which meant he didn't really get to have  one, and while I envied him in lots of ways I personally didn't want to  become him. Jim didn't think things through, and I'd been internalizing  that far too much. There were a hundred ways I could have helped  Zatanna without going full Peter Pan and just taking her home to my  base, and in retrospect that was easy to see. Just because it worked out  doesn't mean I shouldn't be aware of that.

If Zatara  hadn't felt so guilty or if the magic factions weren't so isolated from  traditional capes I might have completely fucked everyone over, and that  impatience and recklessness wasn't something I liked about myself. In  some ways it was the Falcone in me, imposing my will on the world, and I  didn't like the comparison much at all. It was a hard thing to address  though, just saying "I'm going to think more" was easy. Actually doing  that was harder. But I would at least try to take consequences into  account, even if I wasn't sure what I would have done different given  the chance. Hence my current attendance of school despite not wanting to  be here.

I sighed, tossing the thoughts about my nature  and how I handled life around in my head for the thousandth time in the  last month. I was chasing this whole thing in circles and I knew it. But  in some ways that felt like it's own answer. Thinking about my mistakes  and keeping them in mind might prevent me from making another one. I  was snapped out of my reverie by a kick to the shin, and I winced and  glared across the table at Reggie. He just shrugged. "That was the fifth  sigh in the last twenty minutes. It was getting annoying. Either talk  about it or move on."

I snorted a bit at that, but he had a  point, these concerns weren't going anywhere. I opened my mouth to  respond but I was cut off by the intercom. "Attention students, please  proceed in a calm and orderly fashion to the emergency shelters. There  has been a large scale villain attack, so we will be taking refuge until  the League sorts out the issue." I glanced at Reggie as we both got up  to slip out and we pretty much immediately decided to go and figure out  what was going on. No way Robin wasn't going to be dipping out to go  place justice bro, so it wasn't like he would notice us not being  around, plus I was betting a dozen or so other people would use the  chance to slip out.

We met up with Artemis outside and I  fished out my phone to call Zee. She answered on literally the first  ring. "Morgan? Oh thank god you're ok. I was scared you might have been  hurt in an attack. Are Artemis and Reggie there?" After she confirmed  everyone was ok she let out a sigh of relief. "Good. This whole thing is  a mess. If you're in school I'm guessing you don't know. Some group of  asshole villains calling themselves the injustice league unleashed a  horde of plant monsters on the planet to try to ransom the world for ten  billion dollars. There are some scary people working with them."

I  winced. That was a hefty payout, and if they had managed this kind of  response then they must have the muscle to back it up. I glanced at  Artemis and Reggie. "I'll head to the penthouse to check on mom after I  suit up. You know I'm not really the hero type but Gotham is still my  town. Nuclear dumpster fire or not I can't just ignore things here." I  glanced to Artemis. "You think Paula will be able to help keep herself  safe?" I didn't want to count on Gojo, even if I suspected he would  handle it without an issue. He'd proven that he didn't really care about  what happened around him unless it affected him or mom directly.

Artemis  nodded. "Mom will be fine. Since she got her spine fixed she's been  getting back into her training. She used to be kind of a big deal, so I  wouldn't worry too much." She grabbed the phone, putting it on speaker.  "Hey sis, give is the inside dish on these things. I'm sure you know  more about what's happening than the stuff people are seeing on the  news." Which was a good thought. Even if the cause wasn't our business  knowing more about what was going on could only help us out with dealing  with things.

Zee made a small noise  of agreement. "I do know a bit. Daddy is working with the justice bros  this week." She had picked up my name for them at some point and it  always made me smile. "I don't have too many details as usual, he's been  really trying in our sessions with BC but understandably he isn't going  to share any info with me that isn't pertinent to my health or  wellbeing. Luckily this kind of is, so I was able to get a bit of inside  information. Basically the plants were mutated by some crazy venom  agent to be more powerful and they regenerate crazy fast."

She  went on to fill us in on the technical details she'd gotten out of her  dad, and even mentioned a few important factoids about the people behind  the attack, including our old pal Black Adam. Apparently the justic  bros, along with their buddy Red Arrow (derivative much?) were being  sent to deal with the bad guys while the League took care of the plants,  but that left Gotham with Batman running point and as scary as the big  bad Bat could be he wasn't exactly an army killer. He was going to need a  hand.

On the  upside I felt way better about being a villain, because if heroes sent  their sidekicks to solo Black Adam level bad guys I had absolutely no  interest in joining up. I mean, I was reckless and impatient, but I was a  teenager. What the hell was Batman thinking sending a group of rookies  to deal with those monsters? Artemis looked...upset. I took the phone  from her, leaving it on speaker. "The justice bros have backup right  Zee? I can't imagine the League would send them into this solo?"

She  seemed to pick up what I meant because she gasped. "Oh no, sorry Arty,  yeah they have backup. Captain Marvel and Uncle Kent went with them."  She grumbled under her breath. "After he locked me in the damn tower for  my own safety." She sounded pissed and I didn't exactly envy Kent, but I  could tell she wasn't looking at it like the last time. There was big  shit going on, and locking the tower of fate down during a worldwide  attack was different from the last time a father figure stuck her in a  room.

We  thanked our resident girl on the inside, promised to stay safe and call  once this was over, and then hung up. We then slipped out of the school  via shadow porting for the low low price of twenty points, and headed  for the tower to gear up. I personally felt naked without my weapons. I  slipped into my gear with practiced ease. I'd traded in my Victorian  finery for a legit suit of armor from the dungeon, A breastplate called  the Scavenger Carapace which boosted my dex by five and gave me  lightning resist.

It  was part of the horde of gear we had laying around, but I could just  barely use the stuff because it required over forty strength, something I  wasn't even close to before my devil upgrade. It would be solid upgrade  from my last set. I also strapped on my King's Sword of Haster, my  demonic dagger, and my tanto just in case, with my shuriken in a pouch  on my belt. Reggie and Artemis were both rocking new gear as well with  Reggie wearing Naj's light plate which had no requirements and gave  fifty armor and Artemis in the Sparking Mail.

The  Sparking Mail was a huge thing for Artemis actually. It required thirty  strength, which she'd made sure to get, because aside from being sturdy  armor it added a native amount of lightning damage to all her attacks,  and with the anvil and her smithing know how she'd managed to upgrade  the thing to use her Heavenly Punishment Lightning. It was a dangerous  combo and stacked well with her Blitzen bow, which just hurled straight  lightning bolts on its own, since she didn't even need to infuse them  with power and could focus on pumping out shots faster.

Kit  had obviously suited up with us, and we filled her in on everything  that had happened. She just shrugged. "Meh, giant plants of demon spawn,  who cares. Monsters are monsters, we've fought enough of them that I'm  not too worried about it." Which was fair enough. I was having trouble  being freaked out over evil plants myself. If anything I was excited to  really let loose with my new powers, less the hole ability and more the  wings and physical power. I was excited to see what the extra dimension  of movement would do for me in battle.

Once  everyone was ready we headed out. Jim wasn't here, most likely using  the opportunity to rob someone who normally paid attention half blind,  and Madame Xanadu was at the shop during this time of day, so we were on  our own. Getting to the penthouse was easy enough. We took the shadows  as per usual, bringing me down another ten or so since it was closer. I  felt like my ability to move in shadows had improved with the  qualitative boost from my hole bloodline, something to look into later I  supposed.

Arriving  at the penthouse we saw...something. The plants obviously, raining down  blows on everything, and they had wrapped around the building and were  squeezing it tightly, clearly trying to destroy it, but it absolutely  wasn't working. The whole building seemed to be fine. In fact looking  closely I could legitimately see the plant's stopped a few inches from  the surface, as if there was some invisible shield around the thing,  which worked out great for me. I assumed this was Gojo's handy work. I  turned to the others with a grin. "New plan. Looks like our moms are  safe as houses, and it seems a shame to waste the target practice. Let's  go trim the hedges."