Sell you a Bridge chapter 313

June 21st 2016 Twilight Town, 1:00 PM EDT

The  biggest surprise of unleashing the new and improved ghostly wail was  that the fucking mansion wasn't leveled. My outburst had been directed  and shaped by my intentions, as one might expect of demonic energy, and  the intentions of a god were WAY more effective than the intentions of a  run of the mill devil. To my absolute shock, the waves of unnatural  force imbued into my wail exploded outward, and then BOUNCED off the  fucking walls like an echo, amplifying and condensing on the spot where  the two cloaked figured were standing.

I  was still glad that Namine was under a shield, because even the  transmission of all the energy cracked the floors and several of the  suits of armor around the edges of the room, but all the damage was  cosmetic in the end. Unfortunately, the insane amount of power I dumped  out at them wasn't enough to finish the job. The cloaked form stepped  forward, and there was a swirl of darkness as he reached out to  grab...something. It was kind of a sword, but much bigger and thicker  through the blade. Whatever it was, he brought it down with a roar,  smashing it head on into the incoming waves of power.

There  was a massive rumble as the ground started to quake, and the earth  under their feet smashed through both floors of the house, a humongous  pillar of stone stabbing up to meet the striking blade as the wail's  energy was smashed on the rock like steel on an anvil. As that happened,  Axel, the redhead, was already moving, and with a flash of fire a pair  of intricate silver hoop blades flashed into existence. He hurled one  forward, and with the fury of a shooting star it crashed into the wave  of sound and fury just in time for the sword strike to slam IT into the  rock too.

The  combination caused a terrible explosion that soaked all the force from  the attack, bleeding it off so that the actual sound waves barely  managed to blow back the hood of the sword wielding man. Still, despite  the dispersal of the blast, the two of them looked visibly shaken by the  attack. They clearly hadn't anticipated that kind of power. I suspected  Barbatos's understanding of my strength was lagging behind, since I  hadn't really demonstrated it much since my ascension.

Namine,  for her part, was just gaping back and forth between the two men and  myself, even as Jim flicked his cane and the skeletal hands swept them  into the shadows and out of the mansion. Slipping into the shadows  myself I followed them out. The mansion wouldn't stay standing after  another exchange, and I didn't need to deal with collapsing buildings on  top of my fight. We reappeared in the forest, in a clearing a bit away  from the mansion, and the two cultists stepped from swirling darkness  right after.

Axel  had reclaimed his second chakram, and the two of them had their weapons  primed for a fight, but their easy demeanor was gone. "Well." Said Axel  tightly. "THAT was dramatic. Like...really dramatic." He gestured at  himself. "I have FACE tattoos and I thought that was excessive." I  blinked, because I'd kind of assumed the triangular marks were some kind  of war paint or magic symbols.

I  shrugged. "Play stupid games, win stupid prizes. I don't suppose that  was enough to scare you off?" It wasn't. I could see in their auras they  were just getting started. Still, stalling would give my allies time to  get prepared. I was pretty sure Namine wanted to help, even if she  wasn't confident she could. Jim was much more confident he could make an  impact, despite my ascension, my mentor WAS still one of the most  powerful magic users on earth. He'd delved deeper into necromancy and  death magic than anyone should safely be able to do.

I'd  never actually asked Jim how he became a ghost. I knew it wasn't the  normal way, and that the Nightside was involved, but he had a  metaphysical weight to him that most spirits just didn't. The Shade had  been a scary bastard, but Jim had smacked him down head on. Even on this  current playing field the Gentleman Ghost was a force to be reckoned  with, even if he had to be more of a scalpel than the hammer he was back  home.

Letting  my armor flow over me, I braced my feet to prepare for the next round.  The two opponents didn't seem to know what to make of my torc, but they  weren't dismissing it, both of them calling out for power that flooded  their auras. The other guy, the bigger one with the butcher's blade,  used an earth analogue of the dark energy elemental stuff Axel was  tapping, and he had a LOT of it.

I  called Tartarus to my hand, and I heard Namine gasp at the sight of it.  I guessed she hadn't seen many keyblades before aside from her own.  They couldn't be common if twenty of the damn things could create a  universe. Axel flinched, but rather than fear I saw a pang of...loss?  The keyblade had shaken him deeply, and it took him a minute to snap out  of it and answer. "No. We aren't going anywhere. Not until we take you  in. You're coming with us, even if we have to drag you."

That  got another shrug from me. "Suit yourself man. Your funeral." I flicked  out my keyblade, calling on the cold and the dark again as I infused it  into a familiar shape. "THUNDER!" A bolt of freezing black force fell  from the sky like a plummeting satellite, smashing down toward the pair  with much more power than I'd ever used before. I was still buzzing from  my obsession mixing with my demonic energy, and those two powers  happened to be exactly what I needed for cranking out that spell.

Rock  guy with the big sword was pretty fast, and he managed to react in time  to the spell, slamming his sword into the ground as a dome of stone  erupted from the ground around him and Axel. The lightning hit the stone  as it completed it's descent, but unfortunately for rock guy, this  wasn't normal lightning. Rather than grounding out, the lightning rolled  over the stone, seeping into the darkening rock and leeching out the  power and warmth as the earth began to crack and fracture from the cold.

There  was a burst of flame from inside the dome, but the rapid change in  temperature, while effective against the attack, just caused the stone  to explode. Fortunately for me I was in my armor, so as I blurred  forward I was able to ignore the blast as the rocks plinked off my  metallic form and bring down Tartarus hard on the sword of rock guy was  just barely able to bring up in time.

To  my shock, he didn't break or stagger at the blast, and that dark earth  aura flooded into the ground at his feet, reinforcing it so it didn't  even crack. I unleashed a blistering flurry of slashes and attacks with  every bit of speed I could crank out from my armor, pumping the demonic  energy into enhancing my rate of movement as high as I could possibly  get it.

I was  shocked to see him manage to block it all. Not because he was able to  keep up, but because his guard was so fucking tight I couldn't land any  hits on his vitals, and the dark energy had seeped into his flesh,  hardening it to an obsidian like stone shell. I saw a skeletal hand rake  down to one side, though I couldn't focus on it, and Jim let loose a  powerful spell on a distracted Axel.

That  worked out well for me, because rock boy was WAY stronger than  expected. I probably should have figured Barbatos's personal errand boys  would be tough, but this was ridiculous. Bat god is OP please nerf. i  slipped back from rock guy, putting up my guard in case of attack. He  grinned at me, his face a rictus of pain. "Ok, you're pretty strong.  Been a while since anyone pushed me this far. Your sword work is  fantastic too. Sadly for you, I train regularly against a guy who uses  flying wind lances, so speed isn't going to do the job."

I  let the demonic energy fade from me as I began to loosen up my muscles.  I had more than just speed. No matter how good his guard was, it  couldn't do shit one I broke it. "Fair enough. Guess I'll have to put  some english on it then. Before we do this, any chance I can get your  name? You're pretty fucking scary, and anyone who develops a defense  like yours is worth remembering. The control you need to counted that  many attacks that are faster than you is no joke."

His  grin widened. "Sure. Call me Lexaeus. And trust me, I know. Took me  decades to get good at it. People always assume that defensive sword  work is all about standing still and taking hits. Reactive defenses are  so much more complicated than that. Deflecting blows in just the right  way, knowing which hits I can take, reacting with the smallest possible  movements, it's a mess. Curious to see how you're going to handle it.  Maybe another speed upgrade? Do you know the haste spell or something?"

I  didn't, though I was sure as fuck going to try to learn it now that I  knew that was a thing. Still, it wasn't relevant right now. I flooded my  armor with more power, but this time I focused the demonic energy on  boosting strength. One of the major benefits of the stuff was that it  worked based on desire. Force equaled mass times acceleration, so making  myself stronger instead of faster shouldn't really have been viable,  but magic finds a way, and I felt my body flood with power.

Without  pausing to respond, I dashed forward, swinging down on Lexaeus again.  He brought up his blade to block, and I saw his eyes widen as his knees  buckled slightly before he could catch himself. He gritted his teeth and  roared, the energy on his body exploded into a brown black nimbus of  power that flooded the black stone shell, imbuing it with thrumming  veins of earthly power. With a low bellow he shoved back at me, and  actually succeeded in pushing me back a step despite my strength  enhancement.

He  brought down his blade at me in a cleaving overhand swing that I dove  backwards to avoid. At this level of power that shit would have sheared  right through my armor. The glow of the veins in his rock shell was  getting fucking STRONGER too, and I could feel him increasing in power.  To my shock though, when the blow landed a wall of rock shot up from the  ground in front of him, blocking him from sight.

I  smashed through it, but on the other side I just found a cursing Jim  being helped up by Namine. I looked around, but Lexaeus and Axel were  both gone. I cursed. "Shit. He noticed the battle was getting out of  hand and booked it. Smarter than I gave him credit for. I take it you  had Axel on the ropes?"

Jim  exhaled noisily. "Miss. Namine here was using come kind of mental magic  to throw him off his game and confuse him. I was able to barely put him  off balance and had just found an opening when the other one buried me  under a sheet of rock." He looked around unhappily. "We ought to go  Morgan. Running was the right call because their information was wrong,  but that Axel seems like a hothead. They'll be back, and they won't come  alone." He was right. Gesturing for Namine to follow, we took off into  the forest. I wanted to meet up with the others to check in. Good thing I  sent Rana with Taylor. I wasn't sure anyone else could handle one of  these assholes. I needed more powerful backup if these guys were all  this strong. Luckily, I knew just how to do it. I had to awaken another  of my friends to a keyblade.