Sell you a Bridge chapter 331

July 2nd 2016 Traverse Town, 3:00 PM EDT

Whatever  the fuck the Devastator was, I knew I absolutely did not want any part  of fucking with it. Scale of one to ten, my desire to avoid that thing  was a fifteen, and messing with it would be the stupidest possible  choice that I could make in this situation. Which was why I immediately  went out searching for it in the Second District as soon as I learned  where it had been last spotted.

Yes, it was a stupid idea,  and yes it would probably get me into a huge fight, but Sora was  wandering around Traverse Town, and while I trusted the kid to take care  of himself based on what I'd heard, there was a fucking difference  between being tough and fighting contagious alien bone monster Batman.  One of these things was not like the other, and I was NOT letting one of  the wielders I needed to kick the bat god in his eldritch scrote get  turned into an extraterrestrial spike zombie.

Which was  why I was currently walking around in a creepy district of a town I'd  only been in for a day or so, searching for evil dark multiversal Batman  ripoffs. Fucking Barbatos. What a dick. I was going to make his life  miserable when I got my powers, assuming he didn't die in the process.  If he did I'd just leave it alone. Vengeance was nice, but I wasn't a  fucking idiot. Resurrecting evil monster gods just to poke them with a  stick was full on Joker level crazy, and I absolutely was not going to  follow in the footsteps of that obnoxious clown.

The  streets were dark, Traverse Town was in a state of permanent evening,  which just so happened to be the creepiest possible time of day. There  were some lights and signs strewn about, but their glows were limited,  and if anything made the emptiness here even more unsettling. I rolled  my eyes internally, forcing myself to pay attention. I was a fucking  ghost-devil GOD, it was ridiculous for me to be twitching like some  moron in a horror movie.

I opened my aura sight, glancing  around the place to look for any traces of the Devastator. Which I  found. Everywhere. The thing must have made fucking virus angels on the  ground here, because there wasn't a single spot that wasn't crawling  with his filth. As I walked slowly down an alley that seemed to have  heavier traces of the monster, I let my armor flow over me, coating me  and protecting me just in case I ran into the thing.

About  twenty feet down the alley I stopped with a sigh. "Great. Are you all  heartless or whatever the hell the other things are?" I could hear the  shuffling of movement and the clink of metal shoes on stone as the  beings moved to surround me. I felt zero threat from these things of  course, they were fodder, but where you saw blood in the water there  would often be a shark.

The beings that surrounded me were  weird. Pink clothed...things, with no actual bodies that I could spot,  juggling what looked like giant dice. "Well." I said with amusement.  "Aren't you...interesting." I slipped through the shadows, porting of  course, since corridors weren't safe still. Regardless I was fast enough  to appear in front of one of the pink things, laying a casual backhand  across it's face. Or at least where a face should be.

I  hit the monster so hard the top half of it's body flew off across the  alley, and I stared after it in shock, looking down at my hand. That had  been a pretty extreme result. I'd meant to smack it around a bit,  not...bisect it. How did you even slap something in half at the waist?  That didn't seem right.

My instincts were spot on  apparently, as the thing's arms smacked down, pushing it up onto its  hands as it walked itself back over to it's legs, climbing up onto them  and reattaching itself at the waist. I hadn't been expecting that. The  thing turned and faced me for a second, it's aura blazing with  annoyance, before walking over to where it's top half had landed to pick  up its dice.

I didn't even attack, I just let it act.  This whole thing was weird as shit. Before I could make a move on one of  the other ones though, a series of blocky shapes slid up out of the  ground. It took me a second to realize that they were giant playing  cards. They all arranged themselves edge to edge in a ring around me  even as they began to spin. "I give this a four." I said, unimpressed. I  addressed the comment to the air around me, sure the Organization  member behind this nonsense was around to hear. "Card tricks? Really? I  expect better than that, even from you cultists morons."

A  low chuckle rolled across the alley. "Well that's rude." A dark  corridor opened in the middle of the pink things, inside the circle of  cards. From the portal stepped a blonde man with a goatee and an  earring. His voice had a crisp accent to it that I equated with Jim and  John. British. "I worked very hard on this trick? Won't you let me  finish it before you judge me so harshly?"

Despite the  accent, the cheesy grin and goatee reminded me of the Green Arrow. I  watched his aura, and the aura of the cards, carefully. "I suppose  you're the one who brought the Devastator?" I kept my voice neutral,  despite being a little pissed about all this. His eyes widened in  surprise when I named the monster, so I assumed it had been supposed to  be a secret.

He gave me a respectful nod, some of the  mocking bravado fading. "Aye. That was me. The beast is a bit  indiscriminate, but it's a power. After you so easily handled Marluxia  and Lexeaus, we weren't taking any chances. You ought to be honored  really. This lineup isn't something just anyone can earn." He swept into  a rougish bow. "I, in case you were wondering, am Luxord, the Gambler  of Fate. Would you like to play a game with me?"

I sighed  heavily. "No, but weirdly I feel like you aren't actually asking me a  question." With a smirk, Luxord stepped back, literally INTO one of the  giant playing cards. The surface of the card rippled like water as he  vanished inside. Instantly, the cards all flipped around to show me  their backs and began to spin, swapping and shifting around to obscure  which card he was in. That wouldn't have been an issue to start, my  perfect recall and reaction time made keeping track of the cards easy  enough...until they started attacking.

The cards fell  flat, beginning to spin and flash in at me like saw blades. I should  have been fast enough to deflect them, but as I summoned my keyblade to  smash them down, I felt something...warp. The space around me seemed to  stretch in a weird way that made me feel slow and awkward. It took me a  minute to figure out that it wasn't space warping, it was TIME. This  fucker was slowing down time to hit me.

Of course, his  bullshit cards mostly pinged off my armor, but they fucking hurt when  they hit me. If I wasn't a ghost-devil I would probably have bruises.  More importantly trying to react to getting pelted with giant sharp  edged human sized playing cards made me lose track of Luxord, and as the  cards retreated, face out, and began to spin, I rolled my eyes in  annoyance. "Oh what fresh hell is this? Your boss couldn't kill me with  firepower so he wants to annoy me to death?"

I lashed out  at the nearest card with Tartarus, and the thing shattered, the shards  dissolving into a plume of smoke that covered the whole area. It wasn't  just smoke though, it was magic smoke. Just like the cards themselves  the damn thing was made of concentrated sorcery. It meant my aura sight  was fucking useless because the cards were all basically radioactive  with power regardless of if he was in them or not.

A laugh  echoed through the air as the cards lined themselves up into a deck and  then began to deal themselves right at my fucking face like throwing  stars. I smashed the first one, but the explosion of magic smoke blinded  me and left me open to getting pelted with the rest. This was absolute  fucking bullshit. The time manipulation was making it impossible to  react properly, with the slowing affecting me in random spurts and  stuttering my response times.

What was the fucking point  of this. This wasn't even a fight, it was...it wasn't even a fight. I  froze. This wasn't a fucking fight. He'd even said it. This was a game. A  card trick. He was fucking DISTRACTING ME. Shit. I pulled on my magic,  casting an air spell and then infusing demonic energy into a flame  spell, creating a massive explosion of hellfire in a radius around me to  drive everything back.

The pink things, which were still  nearby, cried out in distress as they were blown away, and the cards  were sent flying. I ignored them all, charging down the alley. Why had  they attacked me here? Why was he doing all this now? Because whatever  was down this alley was something they didn't want me to see. He was  stalling me. When I arrived at the end of the alley I scoured the area  with my aura sight, searching for any sign of something important.

I'd  expected Sora to be here, maybe under attack, but though I caught the  aura of lightside keyblade wielder, it was a bit older. More recently  though, I could sense the aura of something...else. Something big and  angry and powerful. Something that HATED. Something devastating.

And  I had fucking MISSED it. By minutes looked like. I cursed. I got played  by that stupid card shark. I wheeled around to stalk back down the  alley, at least give the bastard a beating, but when I turned to look  there was no one there. I growled. Of course there wasn't. Because  knowing when to dip out was the absolute most annoying skill he could  have had.

I walked back to where we'd been fighting,  scanning the area with aura sight for clues. Nothing. Just a big flaming  crater where I'd blown up part of the street. An effort of will and  power and I infused my Cure spell with demonic energy, using my power to  alter the effect to work on nonliving matter. It took a bit of grit,  forcing myself to push past the pain, but the street mended itself  completely, and I let out a sigh of relief. That was a useful trick to  know.

Once that was done I turned and stalked back the way  I'd come. The Devastators aura had just vanished from the spot,  probably picked up by someone from the organization while Luxord  distracted me. Following them through the corridors was out so I could  only regroup with the others and tell them what was going on. Maybe Zee  would have some kind of counter to that time ability. The cards had been  annoying, but the speed fuckery was what had thrown me off.

As  I walked back toward the house where my girls were staying with Aerith,  Namine, Roxas, and Leon, I grimaced. This wasn't going the way I'd  expected. I got used to clashing against enemies who used brute force.  Luxord was a tricky fuck who was providing support for the Devastator.  Between the virus and the time bullshit, I had a feeling this little  encounter was just getting started. They were getting more creative when  dealing with me. That was fine though. They hadn't seen anything yet. I  still had plenty of tricks up my sleeve.