Sell you a Bridge chapter 314

June 21st 2016 Twilight Town, 2:00 PM EDT

The  first thing I did after we got clear was head for Rana. We didn't have a  place to stash Namine at the moment, but I needed to reach my daughter  in case the other wielder had been attacked like she had. Luckily, when I  arrived (keeping track of your kids is easier when they're made from a  piece of your heart) she was still fine, and she and Taylor were trying  to convince some pop star looking guy with weirdly spiky hair that they  needed to talk to him in private.

Rana probably could have  managed easy, since physically the kid looked around our age. Taylor,  unfortunately, was in his forties, and was tall and wearing a trench  coat. His patented John Taylor menace wasn't helping either, and I was  pretty sure the man couldn't have been proclaiming stranger danger any  harder if he'd been carrying a big glowing sign. When we arrived, the  pop star guy noticed us and groaned. "Oh come on, more of you? Look I  don't want to join your club or anything."

I wasn't sure  how to respond to that, but fortunately, I didn't have to. As he  finished talking Namine came into view and he just...stopped. Not like,  holy shit she's hot kind of stopped either. His aura lit up like a neon  billboard. Heartache, need, confusion, and a bunch of other emotions  that passed too quickly for me to understand. It was clear that this guy  was heavily affected by Namine, and just as clear he had no fucking  idea why.

Her aura looked a bit better. Same general  feelings, but without the confusion and the shock. She'd seen him before  at the very least, but was just as attached. I just stood there, head  shifting back and forth as the stared at each other, before Rana decided  to butt in. "Ok this? This is kind of awkward. If you guys are finished  eye fucking in the middle of the street maybe we could go somewhere?  Between my dad showing up and the massive surge of emotion I felt from  him a little while ago, I'm guessing we aren't really safe here."

That  kind of jarred me out of the shellshock of seeing whatever weird fated  meeting I had just witnessed. "Right." I said helpfully. "Go. We should  do that. I'll contact the others and get them back to us." I reached out  to Drea and Zee, leaving the latter to get in touch with everyone else  (her magic was more versatile than just flooding the whole town with  clones. I wasn't sure my clones could stay hidden from these guys) and  then led the new guy, my daughter, Taylor, Jim and Namine back to the  inn.

I'd considered taking them somewhere else, but I  didn't know any other places, and at the very least we hadn't run into  any of the cultists there yet. The new guy was quiet as a church mouse  as we made our way there, having completely shut down when he saw  Namine. She was quiet too, but she'd been quiet before, she seemed like  she might just not be a super talky person.

Taylor had  tracked the kid down at some kind of station on the other side of town,  so when we picked them up, the time it took us to get back to the inn  was enough time for the others to meet us there. Zee and Drea swarmed me  as soon as I was in sight. "Morgan, thank the gods." Drea seemed almost  frantic. "We felt that surge of emotion a little while ago, and then  the massive burst of power that came after. If we hadn't felt your  relief as you calmed down I would have headed straight for you."

I  pulled them against me, giving them each a quick kiss. "It's fine. I'm  glad you didn't come find me. The guys we ran into were dangerous, and  you had to make sure we found the other wielders." I gestured over my  shoulder. "The blonde is Namine, and the one with the drool hasn't  mentioned his name yet."

That seemed to snap him out of  his reverie, and he scowled at me. "I'm not drooling! And my name is  Roxas. Would any of you mind telling me what the hell is going on?  I...just realized that I followed a group of random strangers back to  their hotel and I'm not really sure why. Who are you people, also did I  see Olette downstairs? Is this her summer job? I realize that isn't  really relevant to everything else probably, but I'm never letting her  live that uniform down."

I snickered at the tone change as  he went on, but looked over to Jim. "Hey boss, I need to take care of  the new awakening, can you do me a favor and fill him in. Between you  and Namine you should be able to bring him up to speed. Hell I'm sure  they know things we don't, and if you catch Zee and Drea up on all of it  I should be able to pick it up through the bond while I work."

Roxas  had no complaints about some quality time with the pretty blonde he'd  been mysteriously mooning over, and Jim was happy to help me out.  Meanwhile, I had to figure out who the next keyblade recipient was.  While they headed over to talk to my girls, I pulled the three oldest  members of our group aside (not counting Jim) and offered them the  chance to go first. Sindella, Taylor, and Suzie were the ones with the  least reason to stick around, and two of them were basic human beings.  Scary human beings sure, but they weren't at a level to deal with any of  this.

"Alright." I told the three of them. "Like I  mentioned, I'll be giving you all keyblades. I'm in a position where I  can make that happen at the moment." I had about a hundred thousand  points, between daily charges and some ritual stuff Zee and Drea and I  had done on the beach. That should be enough to do the keyblade email.  I'd need to brute force it into being active again, but I knew much more  about my abilities now. I knew I could make that happen, even if I was  pretty sure it was the best I could manage.

The three of  them looked a bit blindsided. Taylor was the first to speak up. "I  didn't expect us to be the first on the list mate." He seemed uncertain.  "Are you sure Junior wouldn't be a better fit? Suze and I can take care  of ourselves, and Sindy has her magic. Junior could probably use the  boost. If not then I think Suzie should go first. I have my gift to fall  back on if needed but her guns aren't going to cut it for much longer."  He shot her an apologetic smile. "Sorry love."

She just  shrugged it off. "You're not wrong. There was a reason I avoided taking  jobs on the street of gods. If this thing can give me a powerup that  let's me keep you two safe I'm all for it." She smirked at Sindella.  "Princess over here isn't suited for combat, you just let me look after  that big sexy arse of yours yeah?" Sindella blushed bright red at the  statement and I had to bite back a snicker. I was definitely telling Zee  about this conversation. Still, good for Taylor managing to make that  work. I had been briefly worried Suzie might try to kill her again, but  to be fair I didn't know the bounty hunter very well.

They  discussed it among themselves for a bit, before finally, they all  agreed Suzie should be the first to get a keyblade. With that out of the  way I sent Sindella and Taylor to join the others and Suzie and I  prepared for the awakening. "Alright, this won't be too crazy. Awakening  Zee and Drea was a big production, but that's because I did it  manually. You're going to be awakening through my power, so it shouldn't  be too complicated. It might be a bit intense but just bear with it."

I  opened my phone, focusing on the greyed out keyblade email, and PUSHED.  I focused on the inherent falsehood of the email, on its deceptive  nature. It wasn't real, not to anyone but me, it was just a lie, and  since it was a lie I told with my power, who was to say where that lie  ended. Was it really greyed out? Had I already used it? The original  email was based on Deception, and I could deceive it again. I focused on  the fact and leveraged every ounce of my conceptual weight and effort  against the lever of that lie.

It  was the hardest thing I'd ever done. My body shook, my nose bled, my  knees buckled, and my head pounded as I forced what felt like a partial  aneurysm to go off in my fucking brain. When I finally felt the email  give and darken on the screen, I triggered the purchase and collapsed.  Not blacking out, but barely lucid as I shuddered and twitched on the  ground. I felt like I'd almost cracked something important in my soul  doing that, but I hadn't. I'd recover. I breathed on the ground for a  few minutes, Zee and Drea breaking off from talking with the newbies to  rush over to me, but I couldn't hear what they said.

Finally,  after what felt like an eternity, the pain started to recede. My body  knit itself together easily once the strain was gone, perks of being  part ghost, and I sat up with a groan. "Ow." I croaked. "That  was...unpleasant." Still. I felt like next time it would be easier.  Maybe not a LOT easier. But easier. Doing this was training, and that  would have been worth it even if I hadn't needed to do so. I looked  around for Suzie, and saw her leaning against the wall of the room  holding a black box. "Oh, it's here. I didn't hear the door."

Zee  glared at me. "Yeah no shit moron. That's because your fucking eardrums  burst. The blood is still drying on the sides of your face." Her eyes  pierced my with incalculable fury for a minute before she thres herself  against me, squeezing me so tightly I was worried my ribs might crack.  "Don't ever do something like that again without warning us. I felt the  pain through the bond and thought you were dying. You said you had a way  to do this, but you never said it was THAT. I was terrified I was going  to lose you."

Drea  nodded dourly, clearly just as upset and I smiled, putting both hands  up placatingly. "I'll warn you next time, I promise. It should be easier  doing it again anyway." I turned to Suzie. "So, you ready to get your  keyblade? I've never seen it done this way from the outside before." I  was curious what the awakening would look like. She shrugged and popped  the lid on the box, finding a chain like I had.

She  raised an eyebrow at me. "Is this it? Yours seems bigger." She shrugged  and reached down to pick up the black metal chain, showing a weird  circular metal disk with a stylized wolfs head on it. As she picked it  up, her body tensed, and her head flew back as darkness poured from her  eyes and mouth, exploding out from her body. Luckily I wasn't a complete  idiot and I'd long since talked to Tommy about isolating the room  during this process, so there wasn't a reason to worry about the  cultists noticing.

As  she finished the process, she slumped against the wall. "Bloody hell.  That was deeply uncomfortable." She grinned wolfishly. "Still, reckon it  was worth it." She held out a hand and clenched it into a fist, her  fingers coming to a stop around the grip of...a keyblade. But not like  any of the ones I'd seen before. Our keyblades had all been old style  skeleton key type keys. This one was more like a normal car key, except  for a few thin bandages along the top and the hilt, which was like the  other keyblades. Suzie swiped it through the air back and forth with a  cackle. "Oh, yes. I think this will do nicely. Boys and girls, I'd like  you to meet my keyblade. Fenrir."