Sell you a Bridge chapter 322

June 31st 2016 Mysterious Tower, 6:00 PM EDT

We  all wanted to know what Fatal Crest could do, but Jim put his foot  down. He insisted if we made a big ruckus about every keyblade after  awakening we'd waste tons of time, so he said that we should do all  eight of the remaining ones and then just have a demonstration or  something once it was done so everyone could show theirs off. I really  wanted to know more about his keyblade right away, but he wasn't wrong  about the time suck, so we all agreed to save the debrief for the eight  day mark.

Now it had been seven more days, and I'd managed  seven more keyblades, with help from Tommy and the girls. The more we  did it the more they refined the ritual and the less exhausting it was,  but I still couldn't manage it without Tommy acting as a catalyst for  sharing the strain. Which was unfortunate. Still, after the full week,  we'd managed get keyblades for Artemis, Wally, John, Taylor, Tommy, Kit,  Eddie, and Sindella. With Jim already taken care of, and Drea, Zee,  Rana, and I already having one, that meant the home team had been  completely outfitted.

Once we decided to wait, everyone  stopped summoning theirs in front of all of us after the ritual,  hoarding them to show off so they could study the extra effects, which  we still didn't really understand. Mine was summon assistance for sure,  but the girls each had their own unique abilities even beyond the magic  and physical boosts, Oathkeeper's was the same as Tartarus sadly, so we  knew not all of them had abilities like that, but Zee had apparently  discovered a new use for her own keyblade she was going to unveil today.

Now  we had all gathered at the training room after the last ritual was  completed, and everyone looked excited to show off their keyblades.  "Alright." I said with a smirk. "Jim, you were the first to get yours,  so you can be the first to show us what you've got." Fatal Crest was an  amazing looking keyblade, and I was incredibly interested to see what it  could do, especially in the hands of someone like my mentor.

Jim  tipped his hat and called his keyblade. The dragonbone weapon appeared  in a flash of dark energy, and I could better see the grim looking hilt  and the strange birdlike symbol on the chain. Jim gave it a twirl,  before flicking it a few times and animating a series of skeletons. I  was kind of curious as to why Master Yen Sid had a bunch of bodies in  his training room, until I looked with my aura sight and noted that they  were conjured monsters. Jim spammed them out with a series of flicks,  creating literally a hundred of the damn things in under a minute before  letting them dissolve.

"This, as I mentioned, is Fatal  Crest. Aside from a base boost to magic that is rather substantial,  Fatal Crest also grants me a rather novel gift. By doubling the payment  of each successive casting, I can completely skip the casting time. It's  functionally useless for large scale workings because of the exorbitant  stacking cost, but for the rapid use of smaller spells it's quite  potent. Not to mention I possess a rather substantial pool of magic, and  Fatal Crest itself adds to that pool a not inconsiderable amount."

Taylor  snorted. "Figures. The old ghost gets some overpowered ability and mine  just looks for treasure." Holding out a hand, he conjured his with a  flash of dark energy. The keyblade was a long, dark shaft of black metal  with a spade like tip and a pommel that looked like a ships helm. Above  the grip sat a gold medallion with a skull insignia, an identical  mirror to the one on the key's chain. "Follow the Wind. I think it works  well for me actually. It draws me toward treasure. I've been  experimenting and I think I can use it as a focus for my gift."

"Better  than mine." Scowled John. The swirl of dark this time conjured a large  red keyblade with teeth shaped like a single heart. The hilt was purple  with two inward facing clubs symbols in gold connecting it. The chain  had an ace of spades on the end of it. "Lady Luck hits harder. That's  it. Sure, it boost my magic a bit, and makes me a bit stronger. But  mostly it just deals a lot more damage than it should when you give  people a slap with it." He shrugged. "It isn't...unfitting. I wish I'd  gotten something a bit more interesting though."

The next  three didn't have any particularly interesting effects either.  Spellbinder, Sindella's fancy blue keyblade, was just a flat magic  bonus, as hinted at by the book on its chain. Eddie's red and silver  Bond of Flames increased the power of his fire magic and looked more  like modern art than anything else. Kit's Rumbling Rose was the most  interesting, as it hit harder the more hits you landed, up to a point.  It was also pretty spectacular to look it, being deep purple and covered  with plant designs all the way up to the pitch black skull looking  teeth.

Wally's was...unexpected. Especially since when it  appeared, it, like Sindella's, in a flash of light rather than dark.  That wasn't too big a shock, we needed some light keyblade wielders, the  shock was that despite forming from light, it looked...pretty fucking  grim. When it appeared, he proudly showed off the pitch black metallic  keyblade as he gave it a few swings. The whole thing looked skeletal and  bleak, the only visible color a single orange pumpkin medallion hanging  from the chain.

"This." He said proudly. "Is Pumpkinhead.  Stupid name, I know." He snapped, cutting off the snickers. "But worth  it. Pumpkin head has the effect of making my blows faster with each  successive shot I land with it. It's not exactly unlimited, but it's a  pretty decent bump after a few dozen hits. I can't think of a better  match for me." He grinned over at his girlfriend. "How about you babe?  Get anything interesting?"

Artemis smirked right back,  holding out her own hand to conjure a blue and purple keyblade with an  odd design. "Sure did. Photon Debugger, it boosts my ability to cast  lightning magic. Or more specifically, the damage of it, even when the  thing isn't summoned. Considering my bloodline it's just about perfect  for me." She gave it a few swings, letting purple lightning play over  the blade. I could see a bit of envy on Zee's face, despite her love for  her own keyblade.

Finally I turned to Tommy. "Alright  teach, that leaves you. You just got yours today, so its cool if you  don't know what it does. But I'm kind of curious what you got. These all  seem to be pretty fitting for us in one way or another, and I'm  wondering what fits the 'existential detective'." Everyone stared at  Tommy intently, all of us curious what the strange, colorful man would  end up with for his personal keyblade.

Tommy just gave his  usual devil may care smile and grabbed the air, a swirl of dark  revealing... "Ok, what the actual fuck even is that?" I was staring at  the strange looking keyblade with fascination. I could see some serious  power rolling off it, more than more of the others actually, but in  exchange it was just...weird. "Are those mushrooms?" I said in  disbelief, staring at the warped looking thing.

He  shrugged. "Maybe? Or maybe knights." The whole keyblade was made up of a  series of small figures with dark circular faces, and the telltale  yellow eyes of heartless, each wrapped in some kind of helmet. They were  stacked on top of each other to make a ladder, standing on each other's  shoulders and making happy hooray motions. They were pressed against a  gold skeletal outline of a key, so it WAS a keyblade, but it looked  strange as hell.

Tommy swung it a few times gleefully.  "This is Winner's Proof. It doesn't do anything fancy, but it gives me a  ton of magic and makes me really strong. It's also super cute, isn't  it?" He swung it happily back and forth, making whooshing noises as he  did like a kid playing with a lightsaber.

Chuckling at his  enthusiasm, I turned to Zee. "Well, you mentioned that you had a new  trick with yours that you wanted to show us? What kind of ability does  your Star Seeker have?" I wondered if it would be something specific  like Jim's or something vague like mine and Drea's.

Zee,  for her part, just looked sulky. "Whatever. I was super psyched to tell  everyone, but it seems less like a big deal now." She summoned her  keyblade. "Star Seeker will subsidize one of my spell costs when I'm  casting in the air. So I can double cast and one of them will be free."

Laughing,  I stepped up to pull her into a hug. "That's way better than mine at  least. I barely even use summons anymore. We can look for some keychains  together though." Even if we changed the chain and therefore the form,  they would be the same keyblades, so there was nothing stopping us from  switching if we found something better.

"Now."  I said, clapping my hands together. "Why don't we do a bit of training.  It would be good to see exactly what everyone is capable of and  familiarize ourselves with each other's abilities. You all have been  learning a bit of magic for the last week right? Even those of us who  couldn't learn Cure have had keyblades since early in the week, so  everyone should have picked up something at least."

"Indeed."  Echoed a grim voice from behind me. I just about jumped out of my skin,  whirling to find Master Yen Sid standing calmly behind me. The old man  must have used magic to sneak up on me, because my senses were no joke,  but I didn't say anything about it. He got me, I'd take it with grace.

The  old wizard pierced us all with his macabre glare. "You have all learned  at least the Fire spell, yes?" Despite being a pretty nice guy, Master  Yen Sid was creepy as hell, and his wide unblinking eyes looked mostly  hostile whenever he glanced at you. Everyone in the group looked visibly  chilled, but nodded along anyway, knowing that he didn't mean anything  by it and that this was just how he was.

I  gestured behind us to the room. "Is this place set up for this kind of  dustup? I know I need to get on the road sooner rather than later, but I  think a team match might be a good way to get everyone's training  started. Let them see what they're capable of and see how the keyblade  abilities effect them in combat. Other wielders are probably the best  training partners."

The  old wizard stroked his beard thoughtfully. "Perhaps." He intoned. "I  suppose there is no harm in it. But no, this place is not suited.  Follow." He turned and strode to the door, which opened as he  approached, letting him out into the hallways and the rest of us after  him. He escorted us up and down a few flights of steps and few more than  a few rooms that confirmed that this tower was bigger than it looked.

Finally,  he stopped and opened a door, letting us out into a massive, barren  desert. The only structure in the place was the single freestanding door  we were emerging from. He gestured us inside. "I will watch your trials  from within the tower, should one of you be in a position to be injured  or killed by mistake, I have the ability to remove them. You may battle  to your heart's content." With that last comment, he turned and headed  back inside. Well, I wasn't unhappy with the chance to get into a nice  scrap safely. Now we just had to pick teams.