Stronger Together chapter 169

Ok, I had seen some impressive shit, but building a roman coliseum  out of the last rays of the setting sun and dragging us into the  nevernever with it was pretty fucking impressive. I turned to look at an  equally astonished Gard. "Any chance this was all within Odin's  calculations and you have some sort of amazing countermeasure for  getting dragged into the nevernever stashed in your pocked that will  turn this around in seconds?" Judging by her expression I sort of  doubted it, but I figured I'd remind her in case she forgot or  something. Forgetting about secret information given to you by gods of  wisdom until after it was useful was more common than most people  thought.

Unfortunately  I had been pretty much dead on, she just shook her head sadly "I'm  sorry to say but if the all-father predicted this he did not share those  predictions with me. But you're incorrect. This isn't the nevernever.  This is a gods Authority. The ability to warp the world around them into  their own territory is the hallmark of a god. They shouldn't even be  able to do this since they aren't real divinity. I'm guessing being  twins makes their use of their demigod powers efficient enough that they  were able to manage an actual divine manifestation together where it  should have been impossible. They may be unpleasant but they're also  definitely geniuses."

That  didn't sound great. I'd been hoping for some better news but that  sounded even worse than what I was expecting. "Ok so what is Authority.  It sounds dramatic, is there a way for us to break out of it?" I wanted  to just punch our way out but I hadn't seen a single seam or weakness in  whatever this place was so that plan was out. "I have a few tricks up  my sleeve, but if you can tell us how to take our shot it would be  easier than just throwing the kitchen sink at the problem. We have way  too many things to try and I suspect being stuck in here for any length  of time with douche one and douche two will be hazardous to our health."

Gard  confirmed that suspicion instantly "It would be. The space within a  gods Authority is their absolute dominion. Intellectus is the least of  the gifts they can show in such a place. I can't imagine a half baked  manifestation like this would give them the same level of power as a  full god, but it must make them substantially more powerful. As for  breaking it, if they were another god I'd say no but they're forcefully  fusing two partial divinities, there's no way that doesn't take effort  and concentration. If we can split their focus and separate them it  should dissolve on its own, or at least become fragile enough to break  with a normal spell to rip through the veil."

Ok,  so the situation hadn't really changed, it had just gotten way worse. I  could work with that. I turned to the others "Ok our original plan  isn't going to cut it. Let's go with a variation of Kara's idea. I'll  take Remus with Cinder as backup, Raven you and Kara will be our main  offense on Romulus. Gard you do what you can about their time nonsense,  which I assume is even more nonsensical in this place. As for the rest  of you..." I caught a bit of movement out of the corner of my eye. The  gates around the perimeter of the coliseum were opening, revealing  shapes moving in the dark.

I  winced, there were...lots of them. Vukodlak if I wasn't mistaken. Some  of them looked...bigger. Stronger. I'd asked Bob about them last time I  had moment with him and he said Vukodlak were only similar to zombies in  attitude, the werewolf regeneration ability made them able to grow.  These were big and very vicious looking. I was guessing some of the  Vukodlak here had been around for a long time. This was probably their  entire stockpile of the things. I turned to the others "Them. You're  dealing with them. Stick together and don't let them get to Gard while  she's working." I was annoyed. These guys kept coming up with new ways  to piss me off.

Gard  looked troubled "Be careful. All of you. Within their Authority  directing their forces will be even easier. They'll be distracted  fighting against Cameron and Kara but they're considered some of the  greatest military minds of all time, and are children of Mars himself.  That army of wolf spirits will be much more skillful than they would be  in other circumstances." Luckily we had River and Morgan with us, not to  mentions Yang and Barb were packing magical weapons and armor. I had  faith in their ability to make it through this.

The  Vukodlak surged into the coliseum, encircling all of us. There were...a  lot of them. Like, more than I'd been expecting. At least a thousand.  Most of them were huge and very obviously old. I couldn't help but grit  my teeth at the numbers. Not just because of their power but because  Remus and Romulus had enslaved perfectly innocent people and turned them  into monsters for their own benefit. Not just temporarily either, these  people had been trapped as living puppets for thousands of years. I  glared up at the shit bag godlings smirking smugly down at us as if  they'd already won.

I  turned to the others "Kill every single one of these things. Those poor  people have been stuck like this for so long I doubt there's any human  left in them, if there ever was. Put them out of their misery once and  for all. No one deserves to be stuck like that forever." I turned to  Kara "You ready to do this? Gard is going to try to counter the effects  of their time distortion but inside their Authority or whatever it'll  probably be even worse than before. This will be a tough fight, even for  you."

Kara just snorted and  cracked her knuckles. "Ten bucks Raven and I get rid of Romulus before  you and Cinder can take yours down." I couldn't help but laugh at that,  not because it wasn't true or sounded like a joke, but because it was  just like her. Kara was always indomitable, it was one of my favorite  things about her. Over the last year together she had gotten past all  her lingering doubts and fears about having lost her planet. Well, two  planets I supposed. But still she'd come so far and so much of it had to  do with Inari, I couldn't help but be grateful to the vampire.

That  didn't mean I was just going to lie down and take that kind of comment  though. I shot her my own grin in response "A hundred that we finish  early and have to come bail you two out. You guys are pretty tough but  Cinder and i are an awesome team. Isn't that right babe?" Of course it  was actually pretty up in the air who would finish first, but putting on  a strong front wouldn't hurt. Cinder shot me a brilliant smile as she  nodded her assent. Making my newest girlfriend feel special was a nice  side effect of my bravado.

I  nodded to Cinder and we stepped out of our clear circle, heading around  to the left towards Remus. Cinder snapped her fingers and a carpet of  roiling fall soulfire cleared a path for us to walk through the throngs  of Vukodlak with pretty much no fanfare. I turned to smirk at Kara, but  she was already gone. Our of the corner of my eye I saw her emerge from a  Raven shaped teleport just a few feet from the base wall where the box  the twins thrones were in sat.

None  of the Vukodlak had made their way into the stands which I could only  attribute to the twins being drama queens that loved everything to be  orderly. Wolf zombie monsters in their stands would ruin their image. I  kicked on my aspects, lightning and force for this since I couldn't  carry Cinder with me as the wind, and strode down the path of fire she'd  made, smacking aside any of the bastards that tried to jump over the  flames and tackle me into the surrounding crowd. Since this was soulfire  and we were so connected walking in it wasn't an issue for me.

I  expected them to try to stop us or swarm us with Vukodlak but the twins  just looked down on us imperiously, like we were amusing children  playing dress up as adults. It really made me want to punch them. They  actually stepped out of their boxes and floated down to the stands  together. Standing back to back with Cinder and I on one side and Raven  and Kara on the other. They were so sure we weren't a threat to them  inside their so called Authority.

Since  we were within range I didn't see a reason not to just go with my  earlier instinct and punch Remus in his smug face with my metal arm. I  cranked my lightning and force aspects to the max and channeled a force  Aura to magnify the impact of my first then channeled an actual force  spell through my arm on impact, stacking my attacks into the most  powerful blow I could manage. Remus took my right straight across the  face and his head turned sharply with the impact. I grinned  triumphantly, fully expecting the motion to continue through his body  and throw him across the coliseum.

It  didn't. Remus turned to look at me and grinned viciously, showing me  gold tinged blood coating his teeth. He spat to one side then wiped his  mouth with the back of his sleeve. His expression was a mocking sneer as  he spoke "That was actually not completely pathetic. What an impressive  mortal. Let's see if your defense is on par with your offense." He  hauled back and punched at my head as hard as he could. Even with my  lightning aspect at max I barely managed to put my metal arm in front of  my face before being slugged.

The  impact of the punch sent me skipping across the stands like a rock  skipping across a lake. Except rocks don't feel pain and stone steps  really fucking hurt when you bounce off them. Contrary to my  expectations however Remus didn't chase me down to continue, he stayed  where he was, watching me smugly. He and his brother obviously knew  getting separated might collapse their Authority. I considered just  attacking from a distance but they might gang up on Kara, so I braced  myself to rush back in.

As  I streaked back towards Remus Cinder lashed out with a soulfire blast.  The wolf god hybrid snarled in annoyance and batter the thing away, only  to get another full powered stacked force punch in the ribs. He spun  with a growl to clock me again but Cinder poured more fire into his back  getting a yelp of pain. While I couldn't put the bastard down myself  between her soulfire infused maiden powers and my punches we were  managing to keep him off balance and stop him from putting either of us  down for good.

I  glanced over his shoulder as I smashed a blow into his solar plexus to  discouragingly little effect. Kara was moving so fast I could barely see  her and managing to keep Romulus pinned but even with Raven helping she  could barely hang on. Without Gard being able to counter any of the  temporal shifting even her fastest and strongest wasn't enough to hang  with Romulus. It was my turn to snarl now, these fuckers were way  tougher than expected. We couldn't bring Gard or Barb close enough to  use the damn weapons until we got them separated and split this  Authority. The question was, how the hell did we do that?