Sell you a Bridge chapter 85

Tower of Fate August 19th 2010 7:00 PM

The  deluge of holy lightning my girlfriend poured down on that weird kid  was, in all honesty, terrifying. Despite that however, he turned to meet  it was a casual disdain that made my heart sink pretty quickly. I  focused on his feet and tried to shift his shadow into an oil slick and  he just drifted up a few inches until he was standing on air before  turning to grin maliciously at all of us, holding up a hand to swat the  lightning away. When he reached up however he let out a yelp and yanked  his hand back, hissing and sucking his finger like he'd touched a hot  plate.

His beady eyes narrowed  at Zee. "Ow! That wasn't nice!" He glanced down at his cat with a pout  "They're cheating, aren't they Teekl, using weird magic." He flashed us  that shark's teeth grin. "I can use weird magic too." He raised a hand  to cast a spell at my girlfriend. So I shot him. Four times. In the  head. With my magic death gun. Everyone turned to look at me, some in  surprise and some in horror. Unfortunately one person turned to look at  me in annoyance, which was not the reaction I was hoping for from the  guy I just quadruple skull tapped.

The  vicious little demon boy wrinkled his nose and spat all four bullets  into his hand. "Ow! What is that?" He sniffed the bullets then held them  up for the cat to sniff. It did and then meowed, to which he nodded  with a wince. "Smells like high level death magic, it's pretty weak but  that really hurts! I'm going to have a headache for days now." I winced.  Jim and Madame X had warned me the gun was low level still and couldn't  just kill anything, but I was hoping for more than a headache.

Meanwhile  the others had snapped out of their gaping when presented with danger  and the justice bros deployed. Robin "vanished" in a puff of smoke (he  wasn't close to good enough to do that successfully in front of me, I  saw the whole thing) Miss Martian flew over to the yellow bubble to try  to reach out through it to talk to Kent Nelson. Superboy charged head on  and Kid Flash tried to circle around behind the kid. The little demon  casually blinked from one place to another as the two clashed where he  stood, with Wally's arm shattering as Superboy accidentally shoulder  checked him.

Artemis  let out a scream of pure rage and started raining down lightning bolts  with her bow, stepping past a very worn looking Zee who was struggling  to cast her Guardian spell but had pretty much used up all her mana  throwing down that torrent of lightning. I'd officially had enough of  this kid and nodded to Reggie, who swapped me for Wally, leaving me  right next to the demonic brat. My king's Sword of Haste flickered out  with every ounce of speed and power I could manage and even the  demonspawn couldn't react in time to keep me from neatly severing his  head.

The  whole battle froze. Everyone just gaping at me and at the headless body  of the kid. Rather than topple over like normal though he just squatted  down and picked up his pouting head, sticking it back on his neck. "That  was mean! No fair!" I shadow ported as fast as I could, as the little  bastard hurled a gout of bright red fire at me, catching my arm and  searing my forearm down to the bone before I got away. He glared around  at us. "I want that helmet! I wanted to just slip in, kill the old man  and grab it. And I would have gotten away with it too if it wasn't for  you meddling kids!"

I  reappeared next to Zee, who saw me and freaked out. "Jesus Rand, are  you ok? Here let me see." She leaned down and slipped a rejuvenation  potion out of her jacket, pouring it directly on my wound before force  feeding me the other half. Then she downed a mana potion as I healed and  the strain seemed to ease a bit from her face. She smiled as the wound  closed up and pulled me close. Being so close to her when she was  unglamoured like this was intoxicating, even with the practice I had,  and I just close my eyes and basked in her glow for a minute.

Unfortunately  we were in mid battle, and getting distracted to cuddle was a bad  decision. I felt myself suddenly yanked away from Zee, and I was  confused as I went stumbling back. She'd shoved me away herself. I  didn't see why until I looked down at the spike of stone impaling her  through the stomach. Her eyes looked so wide and confused and scared.  She muttered something on reflex and the stone vanished, and I dove  forward to catch her, driven by every ounce of reflex in my body.

I  pulled out a full healing potion and poured half on her wound and half  down her throat. But the wound only healed partway. Luckily I had about  six of the damn things on me. Artemis had gone berserk and was pouring  out lightning arrow she'd finally managed to imbue with her holy  lightning, but the demon brat was just laughing and dodging while my  girlfriend bled out on the roof top of this stupid fucking tower. And  just like that, I was fucking done. I was finished with this bullshit.

I  whistled to Kit and gestured her over, handing Zee to her. My girl was  still healing and still in shock so she shouldn't be left alone. Reggie  came with her to keep an eye on them and I nodded my thanks and stood  up, turning to face the bastard who had shoved a length of stone into my  girlfriends stomach. Then I reached out to the shadows. All the  shadows. I poured three hundred fucking points of power into creating  one single construct, emptying my tank of everything I had, and with  almost no wait time, a black hand the size of a fucking VW bus appeared  above the kid and smashed down on him like the fist of an angry god.

He  must have sensed it because he sneered and flicked a hand, conjuring a  red barrier over his head, but he'd clearly underestimated what three  hundred points of my power could fucking do. The shadow construct  hammered into his shield and his beady little eyes widened as it  literally forced him to his knees. For the first time in this fight, the  kids face showed anger. Not annoyance, or pouting, but true boiling  rage. He dropped the cat, lifted his other hand like he was atlas  shouldering the world and fucking PUSHED.

I  felt the strain in my soul as my construct was contested, but rather  than move too much the edges of the shadows just started smoking off. I  snarled. Finite power in the construct, there was a lot of it but it  would fade eventually. Luckily the shadows themselves were bound to me,  and I could move them around without dissolving the construct itself.  The hand vanished in a puff of darkness and the kid stood up straight,  nearly staggering at the lack of pressure. He grinned nastily at me,  ready to finish what he'd started with Zee. Unfortunately for him that  meant he didn't notice when the shadows reformed into an only slightly  smaller hand and slapped him clean off the fucking tower.

When  I say slapped him off the tower, I don't mean he stumbled over the  edge. I mean that hand hit him like a fucking driver hits a golf club  and the little bastard went flying off the building and literally  streaked off into the horizon. I watched to see if he would come back,  and didn't see him, or weirdly the cat, which he'd somehow taken with  him. Just to be safe I reforged my shadow construct again, losing a  small bit of the power and condensing a dome of condensed shadow metal  over the roof to protect us in case demon boy came back.

I  had saved a very few points in case of an emergency there at the end,  but I was so close to empty I had no clue which way was up. I hadn't  felt like this since the early days of my power when I'd burned all my  points without realizing it and passed out after. Regardless though I  stood up and staggered over to Zee, falling to my knees next to her and  pulling her against my chest. "God baby you scared me. Seeing you like  that. Never do that again you hear me. We're getting you some armor  first thing." I wanted so badly to kiss her, but with my mask on I had  to settle for leaning my forehead against hers.

She  smiled at me dazzlingly before it dropped and her eyes widened. "Uncle  Kent!" She staggered to her feet and barreled toward the yellow shield,  stumbling right through it. Apparently the old mans magic recognized his  niece. She rolled the insensate man over. He...didn't look good. Pale  and weak. Luckily we had a fix for both issues. She pulled out another  rejuvenation potion and poured it right down his throat, and the old man  sat up with a gasp, mana and health flooding into him. Zee laughed and  leaned forward to hug him with tears in her eyes. "Oh, gods Uncle Kent  I'm so glad you're ok!"

The  man looked dazed, looking around in shock at the damage around us. I  saw him take in Kit and Reggie helping patch up Superboy, who I hadn't  noticed being speared on one of the stone spikes the kid had sent out.  Artemis was hovering over Wally, holding him close, he was messed up from the clash with Superboy and from a few stab  wounds of his own, but his body seemed to have lightning coursing  through it. Rather than harm him the lightning was supercharging him,  healing his wounds quickly. That was...interesting. Seemed like Wally  and Artemis were going to need to have a talk soon. I didn't envy her  that discussion, since I didn't see it ending in anything but a break up. She'd never tell him who she was, she didn't have it in her.

Well...theft  from when we stole the dagger, but Zee said her dad was kind of  prideful and wouldn't have gone around telling people about that when I  asked in Kent's study earlier. Speaking of the former Dr. Fate, the man  looked shocked. "What...what is this? Last I remember I was being  attacked by Klarion the Witch Boy." He turned his eyes to Zee. "And what  in the gods happened to you girl? You look so...different." She helped  him sit up and he stared around at everything nearby, taking in the  shadow dome, the burn marks, and the messed up teenagers. "Who chased  Klarion away? He's outside the wards now, and can't get back in without a  key."

I  sighed with relief and slumped back onto the stone. Good. Because I  absolutely couldn't do that again. I'd caught the little sadist off  guard but if he had come back he would have ground my construct down to  nothing and then killed us all. I'd never heard of Klarion the Witch  Boy, but he was not someone I was even remotely ready to fuck with. I  needed to talk to Jim about this immediately. Who knew if this kid would  be looking for payback. Thank the gods we came in costume instead of as  friends of Zee. I flicked my hand and the shadows of the dome condensed  into a single point, forming a black stone in my hand.

I  could use this construct to fuel our teleport home, and I wasn't going  to let all those points go to waste. If I didn't use the thing it would  dissolve over time. It was already severely weakened from the clash, the  energy was steadily bleeding off. The condensed form of the orb was  keeping it sealed in for the moment but I needed to use it soon. Luckily  three hundred points should be enough to open a shadow portal all the  way home easily even with some shaved off the top. With that I climbed  to my feet to make my way over to my girlfriend and her Uncle. I wanted  to be around for her explanation, just so we had our stories straight.