Sell you a Bridge chapter 199

March 17th 2016 Mount Justice  10:00 PM EDT

Blue  Beetle was actually a lot scarier than he looked. I hadn't really given  B'arzz a chance to catch his breath when he was being scarab puppeted,  but with time to actually try, Blue was a scary fucking guy. Not only  could he morph literally any part of his body into a weapon, he could  merge multiple parts together to make bigger scarier ones. He put his  hands besides each other and they fucking merged to make a cannon the  size of a damn watermelon. A pair of stabilizers lowered to the ground  to form a tripod because the thing was so fucking huge the recoil would  have bowled him over.

He took aim at Sigfreid and let off a  massive blue cascade of energy at my summon, a torrent of cerulean  force and light barreling toward the massive armored form of my Knight.  Sigfreid reached out, closed his hand in midair, and a writhing cloud of  black shadows and green flame blazed up, coalescing into the form of a  massive and very familiar long sword. Sig swung the blade at the beam,  and the massive construct forged from a combination of ghostly flame,  powerful shadow, demonic energy, and void flashed down and split the  attack in two, deflecting the beam off to two sides.

I'd  started mentally calling the combination Abyssal Alloy, because  describing the unique mixture the Soulless utilized got annoying and  time consuming if I had to do it every time one of them used it. The  Alloy in this case had assumed the shape of my King's Sword of Haste,  and I recognized the form of that defensive counter as something I'd  seen the Warlord use, and the exact one I'd have used myself. Being made  by Tartarus and from parts of me and my bloodline the Soulless  apparently had access to my combat abilities.

Beetle  halted his attack as soon as he saw what happened, trying to prevent  damage, but the split beam scored a pair of deep lines in the cavern  walls. He miscalculated with that pause though, because as soon as he  stopped firing Sigfried stepped through a corridor of darkness and  appeared right behind the scarab warrior, bringing his blade down in a  slash at the blue hero. The move was flawless, a mechanically perfect  flowing strike executed by a machine created for the soul purpose of  absolute destruction.

Beetle caught it head on. A pair of  bladed scimitar wings grew from his back, crossing to intercept that  slash. The teen hero was forced down to a knee, cracking the ground  below him, but he was definitely able to take it. He shoved an arm out  behind him, turning it into a wickedly sharp lance, and Sigfried  disengaged. Dancing away from the blow and letting the hero come to his  feet.

Blue Beetle flashed forward, propelled by boosters  from his back, and his limbs blurred as he lashed out with them.  Punches, kicks, elbows, a combination a style very like Mui Thai was  combined with the ability for his body to become any weapon instantly,  and the mixture was deadly. Beetle wasn't fucking around, but Sigfried  had come to play. That massive sword was like a hurricane, a shimmering  black and green cloud of motion around the two, deflecting and  intercepting attacks sometimes three or four at a time.

Sigfried  was better, even with Beetle letting the scarab do the heavy lifting,  but Beetle was raining down attacks like a cascade, hitting my armored  minion from every angle possible. It was an amazing battle to see, and  Jaime, the kid in the suit, was putting it all on the line. Rather than  give up control completely Jaime had selected a specific combat task he  was best at and dedicated himself to controlling it while the scarab  moved the main body. A pair of thresher like arms had grown from the  back of the scarab where the wings were and were launching attacks on  whiplike tentacles.

The issue was that while thew scarab  was an implacable mix of man and machine, Sigfreid was a walking engine  of eldritch destruction. Despite the scarab offsetting it, scarab  warriors apparently DID get fatigued, even if it happened slowly because  the machine was picking up the slack. The bastards weren't infinite,  and the void very much was. Beetle started to give ground. Not fast, or  often, but attacks missed, or were turned away more easily. The blade  intercepted every blow, biting back and drawing sparks off the blue  armor.

Superboy, Nightwing, and Wonder Girl were gaping at  what their teammate could do. They'd clearly never seen scarab let it  all hang out before. He was probably much more limited against living  foes he would worry about hurting, but the armored behemoth was a  construct, not a person, and Jaime had no problems letting the scarab  bust some summoned ass. Once the physical attacks started missing the  spare parts of Beetle's body started shifting into fucking cannons,  mixing in blasts of energy with the torrent of physical blows my minion  was barely countering already, and things started to slowly turn around.

The  blasts were gouging holes in the body of Sig's armor, clearly being  purposefully aimed at weak points and gap and firing...something that  would allow them to damage the Abyssal Alloy the armor was made from. It  took mutiple shots, but whatever was powering that fucking machine it  was nothing that was running out anytime soon, and the damn thing  managed to hammer the same places between exchanges with out of sight  energy blasts until the armor began to fracture. Then the tiny pieces of  cracked off armor that fell off Sigfreid started to morph into tiny  armored copies of the giant and swarm the alien symbiote, and the battle  turned on a dime again.

Jaime cursed inside the scarab.  "Are you fucking kidding me?" I cackled in genuine joy as the horde of  mini Sig's dog piled the scarab, who was able to counter them with his  shapeshifting weapon suit, but was having trouble doing both that and  deflecting the massing sweeping blows of full sized Sig, who was still  more or less intact and slipping attacks through gaps Jaime probably  didn't even notice he had until they were exploited. Poor little rookie.

As  I watched, he started destroying the mini armors, and the void stuff  from the constructs flowed back into Sig, repairing the damage to his  armor bits at a time. Not just repairing, strengthening, I could see  those ghostly green flames get brighter. Those fucking mini armors had  been feeding on the energy from the scarab somehow, and when they  returned they were making Sig bigger and stronger.

Beetle  snarled at the increased power of his enemy, letting off another salvo  of attacks to try to damage the armor again, but after the power  increase the normal small shots didn't work anymore. He put his hands  together, trying to make that massive buster cannon thing again, but Sig  followed his motions into his guard, grabbing the cannon in one massive  gauntlet and jerking it up to aim at the ceiling, letting off a huge  blast that cracked the stone above, causing a rain of dust and debris.

Sigfried  lifted beetle off the ground by the cannon, dropped the sword in his  other hand to dissolve in a shower of black green flame, and then  started punching the hero in the head. Beetle attacked at first. More  cannons, arms, blades, hammers, chains, and basically every weapon you  could imagine rained down on Sig. But after each punch the scarab  warrior got groggier and less coherent, and finally he passed out. The  scarab, probably unable to operate without it's hold being conscious,  retracted.

Everyone  tensed up, getting ready to attack Sig, but the armored giant just set  Jaime down on the ground gently and walked back over to stand behind me.  Nightwing walked over to kneel down and check on Jaime. He felt his  pulse, opening his eyes and shining a light he pulled from his belt  pouch into the kid's pupil before sighing in relief. "He's good. No  concussion. I'm surprised he was able to knock Blue out through his  scarab." He glared at me before grudgingly admitting. "Though I suppose  that means he should be able to take on at least scout class scarabs."

As  usual he'd missed the important part. Sig could grow. I wasn't sure  what he'd actually done when he created and reabsorbed those mini armors  but there was some kind of way to increase power, and it could work  against scarabs. Granted I would need like hundreds of the damn Knights  to even have a chance at chasing them off, not to mention I was guessing  a warrior class would be way stronger, but I had a legit way to chase  the bastards off, and it felt amazing.

I  was glad I'd spent the points to get this keyblade. Personal power  could only do so much against an occupying force like The Reach. I  supposed I could have found some way to try to reinforce my clones, but I  suspected that would have taken much more, and the keyblade was going  to provide me with exponential benefits down the line. This was the best  strategy I could have taken to prepare for this war.

I  turned to Superboy with an apologetic smile. "Well. That was exciting,  probably best to avoid any more fights with allies for the moment if you  don't mind Superboy. At least until I can teach Sig to hold back. The  scarab offset most of the damage in that fight but Sig is powered by  magic, and I know kryptonians don't have a defense against that." I  actually kind of liked the guy, and I didn't want him to get splattered.

Wonder  Girl raised her hand excitedly. "Oh! Let me fight him! My defenses work  fine against magic and I'm just as strong as Conner. That battle was  awesome I really want to try!" I laughed at the enthusiasm. I could see  how she was Wonder Woman's protege. She reminded of Myrina in some ways,  the aura had some echoes of that warrior spirit the Amazon had held  onto, even if it was balanced with youth and optimism.

I  shrugged, turning to Sig. "Alright. Listen to Wonder Girl, unless she  tells you to leave the cave or tells you not to defend yourself. Other  than that I'll leave you to train with them, don't kill anyone, and make  sure to analyze your opponents so you don't attack them too hard." I  turned to Nightwing. "I'll leave Sigfried here, because I trust you all  won't harm or abuse a helpless being who only recently came into the  world." He grimaced but nodded, and I couldn't help but add with a  smirk. "Also go ahead and pay Jaime his ten grand for me since I know  you've been in my accounts anyway."

His  aura flared with rage and I grinned to myself, nodding to the others.  "Well, nice seeing you all, I'm going to go got working on finding some  of Sig's friends for this mission and the battles ahead in general. Ta  ta for now." I stepped into a corridor of darkness, becoming one with  the void, and emerged back on the island. It was a nice feeling, being  back and I let out a deep breath of relaxation.

I  headed up to my room, opening the door and stopping in shock as I saw  Dreamer perched on the bed, alone, and in very skimpy lingerie. She  smiled seductively at me. "Hello Morgan. Please...come in." I did,  intrigued at where this was going. She patted the bed next to her and I  walked over to sit down. She leaned up to kiss me softly. "So I was  talking to Zatanna, and we agree you and I needed some alone time  together. So tonight I'm going to be handling your tantric ritual." She  shoved me down on the bed, climbing up to straddle me. "Now, let's get  you all worked up."