Sell you a Bridge chapter 315

June 21st 2016 Twilight Town, 3:00 PM EDT

The  fenrir keyblade looked awesome. Way cooler than mine. I wondered if I  could switch, but I felt bad even thinking it. I was pretty sure some  keyblade wielders did the swapping thing, but that wasn't how I worked.  Tartarus was made from my  bloodline, custom forged for me directly. I  didn't need a bunch of different keyblades. Just mine. It suited me. I  suspected the others would feel the same for the most part. Something  about awakening them the way we did made the one you got seem  more...weighty.

Once Suzie had her keyblade, we headed  over to join the others, who were catching Namine and Roxas up on  everything that was happening. Roxas seemed...a bit confused. Not just  by the rest of us, but in general. Like he was missing something.  Judging by Namine's guilty aura I suspected she had something to do with  that. Jim had mentioned she had mental powers. Now wasn't really the  time to deal with that though. "Okay." I said. "Now that we found  them...now what? I have no clue how to go about finding the others." I  turned to Namine. "You're supposed to be connected to one of them?"

She  frowned slightly but nodded. "Kairi. Yes. But...also no? I can probably  help you find her, but I mostly travel through the dark corridors  myself. If those are too dangerous I'm not sure how we would get to her.  It's not like I have a gummi ship lying around. I don't really use  them. Plus it's not like I have a homing beacon exactly. I can just kind  of get a feel for where she is at the moment."

"Which  leaves us with no way off this planet." I sighed in annoyance. "We can  find something I'm sure, but we need some way to leave soon. I'm not  sure how many of those cloaked assholes are around but I'm pretty sure  they can call more quick, if they haven't already. We need to get out of  here, because with just five of us playing at the right level there's  no way we can pull this off. Plus Suzie still needs to be trained with  her keyblade."

Zee raised a hand smugly. "I can probably  help with that actually. Both parts. See, when we went to go look at the  ghost train, we realized the line didn't actually stop at the station.  When we followed it down we ended up finding something interesting. A  locked tower on some weird floating island. The thing was warded  magically up the ass, and I couldn't get in until I manifested Star  Seeker. Turns out the tower let me access it because of the keyblade,  but you called me back before I could go inside."

That  brought me up short. "Wait...what? Do you think there was anyone in  there? You mentioned that your keyblade came from some master wizard or  something? Is that guy the one in the tower? " We could use a master  wizard in our corner. Especially one who had access to a way off this  fucking world.

"I think so." She said confidently. "I  could feel a strong magic user inside, but I didn't want to go in  without telling anyone. If it ISN'T master Yen Sid we could have been in  trouble. Whoever is in there has to be a talented caster based on those  wards." I was relieved she hadn't done the 'Morgan' thing and just  charged in there. She was right that it would have been stupid and  dangerous. As a group though we should be safe to head in.

Sindella  seemed excited. "The spellwork there was absolutely brilliant! I could  have spent days studying the wards. I can't wait to meet this master Yen  Sid. He's clearly an extremely old and powerful sorcerer." I smiled a  bit at her optimism. Seemed she was pretty sure the man was Yen Sid  after all. I didn't blame her, that seemed likely given the Star  Seeker's reaction. I wondered if this was the guy who created the  structure of the spell images we had been using.

"Well."  Said Artemis as she stood up. "Sounds like this is where we need to go.  No reason to hang back when we could be getting to safety. Not sure how  long it'll take these cultists to find the hotel, but we shouldn't be  here when they do unless we want poor Olette to be out of a job." She  looked around meaningfully and I nodded along. She had a point.

As  everyone filed out I stopped Kit and Eddie. "Hey, I was thinking it  over, and with everyone else having access to magic or some kind of gift  there's no real obvious person to get a keyblade after Suzie. Taylor  had a point about his gift. So with that in mind I was wondering if one  of you was interested. Kit, I know you're a literal demon goddess, but  Eddie is just a cursed guy with some light pyro powers right?"

Eddie  snickered a bit at that. "Yeah, I'm not in the same weight class as  everyone else. But I'm not pyrokinetic. I breathe fire and my skin can  burn you, but it doesn't go further than that. I can also teleport, but I  literally have to go through hell to do it, so I avoid that ability.  Infernal portals attract all the wrong sort of attention. Are you sure  you want to give me a keyblade though? Not that I don't appreciate it  but...you don't know me."

I shrugged. "You followed my  cousin to the street of gods and god captured and tortured for her. I  can see enough in your aura to know you'd do it again if she needed it  too. That's more of a spine than most people I know, and tons more  loyalty. Kit deserves someone like that. If I can help keep the person  she loves safe, I owe her at least that much." Kit had spent years  looking for someone to put her first, and Eddie was definitely that  person.

I didn't know him well, but with my abilities I  didn't need to. He was a solid guy in the ways that mattered. Kit was  looking at me in shock. Her face was human in appearance under the  glamours Zee had made for them, and she looked so much like the version  of her I remembered from our time in the labyrinth. She hurled herself  forward to give me a tight hug, and I couldn't help but smile.

There  was no way this was enough to make up for the complete lack of sympathy  from me when we were in Gotham together, but it was clearly a good  start. Past that I'd have to just keep trying. Eddie though, seemed to  almost feel he didn't deserve the gratitude. He gestured to himself.  "Man ever since I became like this, or at least like I am under the  illusion I guess, no one has ever cared about me. Not really. I had a  crush on my best friend Rose for a while, but she never really saw me  that way, even if we were pretty tight. No girl gave me the time of day.  Kitrina...Kitrina is the first girl who didn't care."

Kit  rolled her eyes. "For the five thousandth time. Dating you is not an  act of charity. You're a sweet guy with a good heart. Having red skin  and white hair doesn't change that. Besides, it's not like people  ignored MY condition." Eddie and I shot each other a look at that, both  aware that there were definitely guys who would be into the succubus  look. Especially given her powers. Kit just ignored us, if she even saw.  "I'm grateful every day you decided to stay with me, and I'm so sorry  about getting us kidnapped."

I left them to their argument  over whose fault it was that Neron caught them, chipping in my own  apology before I left, and then caught up to the others. We were all  making our way out, though Roxas had stopped to say goodbye to Olette.  None of us were quite sure when he'd see her again, and we hadn't been  vague about that. He seemed...dazed, but he recognized that he wanted to  say goodbye to his friend. She seemed confused where he was going, but  he just claimed he was a relative of Artemis and that we'd come to town  to pick him up.

Olette seemed too upset by losing him to  question it much, and the girl's aura flared slightly pink as she hurled  herself at him in tears, telling me she might have a little crush.  We  finally got out of there, heading for a hill at the back of the town.  "So." I asked as we walked. "Why are we going to this hill? I thought we  were catching a train."

"Because." Said Zee patiently.  "The train doesn't stop at the station. That's why it's a GHOST train.  The track doesn't even connect, we need to jump on as it goes by. It  always arrives at around sunset." Her voice was confident and full of  smugness as she stared cockily towards the tunnel the train would  presumably come from. I gave her a minute to figure out why she'd just  said something dumb.

Sindella was the first to notice it,  pressing a hand to her forehead in exasperation. "Zatanna, sweetie. This  is Twilight Town. It's ALWAYS sunset." My girlfriend froze, grimacing  at her own slip up as everyone chuckled at her expense, but she took it  with grace and aplomb. Everyone knew Zee was a genius, and being a bit  of an airhead sometimes didn't change that. Plus when my snickering got  too loud I head Artemis cough 'ocean' and immediately shut up. Everyone  had dumb moments.

Luckily, it  actually wasn't too long until the train came around. We spent an hour  or two just relaxing on the hill (which was really nice) before we  finally heard the sound we'd been waiting for. It came right through the  tunnel we'd been keeping watch on at the base of the hill. I glanced  down into the tunnel as we listened to its approach. "Wow. They really  made this convenient. Like...aside from this one small fence there's  nothing stopping us from hopping down off this hill and onto the train  as it passes."

It  really was childs play to hop down onto it. I could see how Zee and  Sindella got to the tower so easily. We waited for a minute and then as  it came by, we all hopped down. With me and Zee here there was no need  to worry about anyone falling, I was more than fast enough to catch  them. As we slipped through the hatch at the top, I stopped to stare in  delight at the train itself. "This is the coolest fucking train I've  ever seen!"

Zee  giggled at that, slipping her arm into mine. "Isn't it? Purple with  gold stars and that cool little wizard hat on top? I love it." We heard a  throat clearing from behind and turned to see Rana tapping her foot.  Zee just smiled playfully and rolled her eyes. "Alright miss impatient.  We're coming. We should be inside when it goes through the portal  anyway." With a grin I scooped her up into a princess carry, laughing at  her happy squeal and our daughter's groan at our affectionate behavior.

As  we dropped down into the train, I looked back at Twilight Town through  the windows. I hadn't been here long, but I'd learned more in this place  than anywhere I'd ever been, at least about myself. I was going to come  back some day to visit. First though, we needed to figure out our next  step, and hopefully the owner of the tower would be able to help us. We  still had so much left to do, and we could use all the help we could  get.