Sell you a Bridge chapter 323

June 31st 2016 Mysterious Tower, 7:00 PM EDT

In  the end, we divided up the teams to include the strongest fighters on  each side so no one team was overpowered. Me, Zee, John, Roxas, Namine,  Drea, Kit and Eddie, VS. Rana, Jim, Artemis, Wally, Sindella, Suzie,  Taylor, and Tommy. The lineups weren't perfect, but they were good  enough to make things interesting. Rana and I were the standouts really,  but Jim was a beast in a fight, and I was excited to see what he could  do with Fatal Crest. Not to mention Wally and Artemis, and Tommy who was  probably hilariously overpowered now.

We spread out along  the length of the desert, each team retreating into the distance to  plan. Zee and Sindella erected noise cancelling shields over their  respective teams before the planning session. As soon as they did, I  took charge. "Alright. First up, anyone with a plan, speak now. I have  some ideas, but literally all of our most experienced party members are  over there. We have the edge in raw power, but tactically they're going  to be WAY ahead of us."

Zee frowned out of the shield at  the huddled team across the desert from us. "I think our best bet is to  try to divide and conquer. Tactically we aren't suited to dealing with  them. If we force everyone into an individual fight we should be able to  deprive them of their biggest advantage." She looked at Kit and Eddie.  "You two are powerful from your demonic natures, and have experience  working together. With the boost from the keyblade, do you think you can  counter Wally and Artemis?"

Kit looked troubled. "Maybe?  We haven't gotten to do much training with them. We can work together,  but with the new element in our dynamic I'm not sure. Wally and Artemis  got lucky because their keyblades perfectly enhance their existing  powers. Artemis's Photon Debugger just ups her lightning damage, and  Pumpkinhead just makes Wally hit faster the more blows he lands. My  Rumbling Rose does something similar with strength, and it makes me hit  like a truck, but that's assuming I can land a blow."

Eddie  nodded. "I can pretty much drown them in flames, if that helps. Bond of  Flames causes higher fire damage. Considering my abilities it's a good  match up, but I'm not sure it'll do much against the two of them. What  about you Morgan? Can you counter Wally with your armor maybe?"

"Not  a chance." I said frankly. "I have to counter Rana, and possibly Jim  depending on how much that keyblade amps him up." I glanced over at Zee.  "Unless you think you can take him yourself? Or even with Drea? Though I  might need to counter Tommy's gift actually. So maybe you and Drea can  handle Rana and I'll take Jim and Tommy? Shit, this is going to be  rough." I looked at our two newest members. "Roxas, Namine, who are you  most comfortable fighting?"

Roxas had been a bit spacey  for a while, his eyes focused off into the distance, but as I said his  name, they snapped to me. They looked...different. Clearer. Sharper. His  aura was different too. Slightly. It also looked...connected, to  Namine. I was pretty sure she'd used her memory magic on him, because  people didn't change that much that quickly. He seemed aware of it  though, and mostly fine with the outcome. He glanced over to the other  side. "Suzie. I'll take Suzie. Fenrir is physically based and I'm a bit  of a bruiser."

He glanced at the tiny blonde in the  sundress beside him, and she frowned. "I'm not one for up front combat,  but I might be able to counter Mr. Taylor's gift? Maybe?" She sounded  incredibly unsure. "I don't know exactly how it works, but it's probably  not suited to battle. I can disconnect the chains of memory between his  use of the gift and its results at the very least. How much help that  may be, I have no idea."

Roxas just smirked. "I wouldn't  worry about it. I have more tricks up my sleeve than you think. Take  care of Taylor's gift, I'll do the rest. But that leaves John and  Sindella one on one. I don't know you guys well, but those two seem  close. I don't really see him being ok with beating her violently about  the head and body with a blunt instrument. Should we switch out the  opponents?"

To my surprise, John nodded." Yes.  Specifically, Namine and I will switch. Sindella will stick with Suzie  and John anyway. I'll handle John as a unit with you two as backup, and  we can support each other as needed. Namine, can you handle Sindella?"

Far  from being uncertain, Namine seemed relieved at the change. "Yes. Magic  users are much more familiar territory. I wasn't very confident in  beating Mr. Taylor. I don't really understand how his power works very  well. But can you beat him yourself John? I know he's your mentor, and  we won't be able to do much to help."

John assured the  tiny blonde he could handle himself, and with that decided, we finalized  the plan. I cracked my neck and started to limber up while we waited  for them to be finished planning, and I let my armor flow over me even  as they turned to face us. I held up five fingers, to which my daughter  nodded, and then began to count down. "Alright everyone." I said as I  reached four. "This is it. Stick to the plan." Three. Two. One.

Zee's  shield dropped and I shadow ported across the distance, appearing as  evenly between Jim and Tommy as possible. With an effort of will I used  my gift to shift their reactions slightly, ensuring they would be  attacking me. Lies were easiest when I didn't have to push hard, and the  two of them were in the middle of being attacked by me directly so it  wasn't a stretch that they would defend themselves.

In  order to maximize my impact on the attack and further separate the  others, one I was between them, I flicked my blade back to cast  blizzard, sending a chunk of ice into the ground behind me. As I did, I  imbued it with my freezing ectoplasm, using it in conjunction with the  ice spell for the first time. As the chunk of frozen water hit the sand,  rather than melting, the ectoplasm triggered, and small chunk of ice  exploded into a fucking glacier that rapidly expanded outward, pushing  the others to split up.

Knowing the I couldn't waste the  time to see how it turned out, I wished my teammates luck engaging their  targets as I flashed forward to bring my keyblade down on Jim, as he  hauled up his own keyblade to smash it aside, I staggered slightly from  the impact, staring at him in shock. He lashed out with several more  blows, which I caught and deflected with more difficulty than expected.

"I  see you've noticed." My mentor said smugly. "Fatal crest does allow me  to cast spells rapidly by paying more mana, but it ALSO gives me a  massive boost to physical strength. I suspect not as much as Suzie or  Kitrina, but then, I AM over a century older than they are. I've picked  up some tricks over the years. Not to mention I'm a ghost, so my  baseline physical strength is higher that most people."

He  flicked out an effortless series of strikes that I deflected without  much trouble, but that were enough to put me my guard. I was ALMOST  distracted enough to miss Tommy smashing down on me from above. Almost. I  dove backwards, avoiding the swings from both of them, then shifted  into Lexeaus's defensive stance. I was able to meet them head on,  defending my vitals and deflecting every blow without too much trouble,  but I was on the defensive now, and they weren't giving me an opening to  attack.

Tommy's blows were fucking staggering, and I had  to keep my ability active to counter any use of his gift, because I  couldn't handle this fight turning existential. Finally, after about two  dozen blows, I conjured the teeth I usually used on my keyblade and set  them to spinning. Between one breath and the next I went from passive  to wielding a blade that tried to drag their own out of their hands.

Rather  than just let the keyblade disperse and resummon it, like they should  have done, they both kept a death grip on the weapons and got jerked  forward, allowing me to smash my other armored fist into each of them in  quick succession, hitting one in the ribs and one in the shoulder.

They  stumbled back, groaning in pain, and Jim flicked his keyblade a few  dozen times so fast it blurred. A wall of skeletal minions started  appearing in front of me. Rolling my eyes, I got to work tearing the  damn things apart, reaping through five or six of them per swing easily.  Unfortunately the bastard just kept summoning, resupplying faster than I  was capable of cutting them down.

I  could see why he was using that particular spell too. It was pretty  weak, but it ALSO required almost no mana. Even so, doubling his output  each time to instant cast it wasn't sustainable. After he'd created a  decent chunk he was breaking the casting chain and then restarting it  with a fresh spell. Since the doubled casts had zero cast time, he was  able to do a shit ton of them incredibly quickly and then restart before  getting too deep under with mana consumption.

It  still wouldn't be something he could keep up long term, but it WAS  effective for the moment, especially since the damn skeletons were  harder to break than they should be. I was pretty sure Tommy was  altering the spell to make more powerful summons. It wouldn't even be  that big of a chance since I had no real way of knowing the exact  strength they were supposed to have.

I  growled and realized I was doing this wrong. I imbued demonic power  into a Fire and Air spell, setting off the hellfire explosion and  leveling the area around me, tearing a huge chunk out of Jim's summons  and opening up some more room for me. Then I hurled a void enhanced  Gravity spell at my mentor. If it had been one of the others I'd have  been worried about killing him, but luckily Jim was a ghost. He could  take it even if it would suck.

With  a curse, Jim abandoned all the constructs, letting them collapse or run  rampant as he swung his keyblade up and channeled a spell I'd seen him  use before. A pair of giant skeletal hands cupped around him,  interlacing translucent bony fingers to create a defensive sphere that  enfolded him and protected him from the plummeting dark hole of Gravity.

I spun and  caught a blow from Tommy, staggering a bit at the absurd strength that  damn keyblade gave him, but able to deflect it with my defensive stance.  There was a low boom as the dark sphere met the skeletal shield and  collapsed, trying to corrode and crush the energy shield even as I  engaged Tommy in a direct confrontation. The only saving grace of this  nonsense was that Tommy was a terrible swordsman, so the overpowered  strength wasn't too big of a deal.

Empowering  my armor with a bit of demonic energy strengthening, I managed to  batter him down and use a shaped Blizzard spell infused with ectoplasm  to hold him in place. I had to pump a bunch of demonic energy in to  harden the ice but I managed. Once that was done I turned on Jim, who  was even now emerging from the blast zone of the gravity spell, and set  my stance for a fight.

I just hoped  the others managed their opponents as quickly, or at all. If they lost  I'd have to deal with getting ganged up on. With a grin, I charged  forward, rejoining the battle. This was already pretty damn  entertaining. Too bad I was going to make sure it wouldn't last long.  Once I beat Jim, I could go gang up on the others too. This was going to  be over before they knew it.