Sell you a Bridge chapter 303

June 16th 2016 Wayne Manor, Earth -11, 9:30 PM EDT

Dealing  with Scilla was MUCH more stressful with The Drowned doing her best to  tear me apart with advanced water magic. My cryoplasm was a perfect  counter for her water, and the ice lightning in particular was scarily  effective (no pun intended) but the attacks she was throwing my way were  coming so fast and from so many directions that even my augmented  reflexes were having trouble keeping up.

I dodged a  massive bite from an oversized orange head (not one of the two dealing  with lightning damage) and flicked out a ringing deflection that managed  to divert the absurdly powerful blow of the trident heading for my  throat. I didn't know what The Drowned had done to herself, but I was  pretty sure it was drastic. No human should be able to move that fast.  She was moving as fast as my armored form could keep up, and from her  aura I could see divine power flowing into her from the trident itself.

It  didn't help that bat-nutjob was taking advantage of even miniscule  lapses in my attack patterns as they were provided by her big beastie.  She was, some-fucking-how, almost as good in combat as I was. Combined  with the six headed handicap I was working with it was taking everything  I had to keep ahead of her. My girls and the rest of our friends were  pinned down killing Dead Waters by the score (the bastards just kept  coming) so I was fighting the two biggest threats on my own.

"You  know." I said conversationally as I smashed aside a thrust aimed at my  left eye, only to have my cheek armor laid open with a shower of  sparks.  "I feel like we may have gotten off on the wrong foot." I  shadow ported back three feet, dodging the next attempt to rip off my  legs, and raised my voice so I could still be heard. "I mean, we both  said some hurtful things. But I feel like we've really grown as people  since that nasty business when we first met. Can't we let bygones be  bygones."

I lashed out with a cryoplasmic wave that froze  the barrage of water needles solid. I wasn't expecting this to go  anywhere, but acting ridiculous was bound to piss her off even more, so  it would help keep her attention on me. As long as she wasn't attacking  my friends I was pretty much fine. Granted, I had a few fissures in my  armor and I could feel blood dripping from my ghostly flesh, but still, I  was far from hitting my limits.

The swirling flash of  bronze that almost caved in my skull was probably enough of a response,  but just in case she clarified her position. "I don't know what you're  doing here. I don't know why you came, what you want, or how baiting me  helps you. I don't know any of those things, and I don't care. For what  you said to me earlier, I'm going to kill you and mount your head above  my mantle. So make your quips and comments, because they aren't going to  save you."

I grinned at her. "Salvation. What a concept. I  think deep down we could all use some salvation. Here, why don't I  supply some." I dumped an absolutely monstrous amount of power, points  in this case, into a healing spell, and dropped it right on top of The  Drowned and her little pet, targeting them both with the most  overcharged healing spell I could manage. I didn't use ghost or devil  energy, I used points, true neutral power that could be anything at all.  There was no taint of my nature in the spell, just a massive amount of  pure perfect life energy.

The Drowned roared alongside her  dragon as they both wilted under the effects of the healing energy  cascading through them. They were both undead, healing brought them  closer to living normal, and they both had more than enough damage done  to them to make that a bad thing. At the moment of her stunning though, I  noticed a distinct lack of fighting noises from elsewhere. I looked  over to see Zee holding up a shield to protect the others as Rana  defended from anything that got around it. Drea was looking right at us,  and raised her keyblade, Oathkeeper, pointing it right at The Drowned.

A  lance of pure light flashed out from the tip of the keyblade, and The  Drowned turned in shock that quickly melted into horror as it hit the  trident. There was a thrum of power, like an invisible gong being  struck, and an outline of a massive keyhole appeared in the air in front  of the undead Batwoman. As we watched, the keyhole filled in with  darkness. The light from the beam hit the black surface of the keyhole  and rippled out like a rock hitting a pond, dyeing the whole think a  glowing pearlescent white.

There was a click and the  trident shuddered and then cracked, falling to pieces right out of the  woman's hands. She looked on in horror as the shattered fragments fell  to the ground. Light began to leach from the keyhole, dying the ground  and surrounding area in a more colorful and fascinating version of what  it already was. The wave rippled out and continued into the city.

It  was hard to explain what happened to the world when it passed. It  wasn't...brighter. More like the colors just became more vivid. More  real. It was like watching and old washed out tv and switching to a high  def 4k model right after. What didn't seem so bad suddenly became all  the more noticeable for its absence. As the light flooded the world, I  saw it start to erode the dark energy in the air. Dark energy that had  been used to animate the Dead Waters, which began to collapse into muck,  and to pour power into Scilla, which began to slowly lose its energy as  parts of it were stripped away.

The Drowned stood there,  dumbfounded as the massive monster started to sway slightly. Still, it  was far from down and out. I poured demonic energy and cryoplasm both  into another lightning strike and unleashed it with a bellow of. "  Thunder!" The shock that poured down this time was pitch black,  flickering with the same energy draining cold, and destroying everything  it pulled from. A third head was taken out by the blast, and a fourth  was affected and started to seize up.

The remaining two  heads were going insane, snapping and roaring at everything in sight,  and I saw one of them almost tear into The Drowned, or rather, Batwoman,  who was starting to look much more alive and much less superhuman  without her toy. I conjured another black ice lightning burst, finishing  the thing off as the others made it to us. Before they could attack The  Drowned though, I held up a hand to stop them. "Wait."

They  did, circling up around the woman to prevent her from getting away into  the keyhole. She looked...bad. Sick, in pain, and furiously angry. I  sighed. "Let her go." They all looked at me like I was insane. I just  shrugged. "We came into her house, kicked down her door, ruined her  stuff and I spent like ten minutes psychologically torturing her for the  express purpose of attracting her attention. I honestly feel pretty  shitty about all of this. Sure, she probably did some bad shit, but  that's not what this was about."

Sindella sighed, nodding  along. "You're right. I'm not going to say we should apologize, this  little zombie army was an abomination, and destroying it was the right  call. But we've done more than our part here." She shot a cold smile at  The Drowned. "Besides. We weren't her victims anyway. I have a feeling  some of the people she's hurt will be coming to for a word once we're  gone, given her loss of power. Letting things take their natural course  seems like the fairest way to do things." She looked over at the city.  "Besides, how much more damage can she really do?"

That  was surprisingly brutal for Zatanna's super sweet, peace loving mom, but  I couldn't exactly bitch about her agreeing with me. Zee looked unsure,  as did the others, but eventually they all saw our point and decided to  leave it be. I turned to The Drowned. "I'm sorry. About all that shit I  said before. I'm sure his grave is still intact if you want to go say  goodbye. I can't exactly claim every word was a lie, but I certainly  made a point of being an asshole. If you think he would be ashamed of  who you became, maybe that's a hint that you should try being someone  different?"

Her aura was...a mess. She was angry, and  ashamed, and spiteful, and grateful, and a dozen other conflicting  emotions that she could barely process. Eventually though, her shoulders  slumped, and she just nodded. More than anything, her actions after  destroying Gotham showed what she really wanted was to be left alone to  grieve. I didn't know if she'd get that, but it wasn't my business in  the first place.

I felt weird about tearing into a  grieving widow basically to get the job done, and this was just my way  of making that right. If she came after us somehow, I'd take care of it  then, but I wasn't getting that vibe from her. She was definitely  pissed, but in general, I think she was just tired. She'd pushed herself  so far to do what she felt was needed, and this was her living in the  aftermath. Whatever happened, as far as I was concerned we were good.

Just  to be safe, I drew my gun and shot Scilla in all six of its heads,  making sure the damn thing was permadead. No use leaving her with a  possibly reanimatable god beast. Then I stepped aside, giving her an  exit away from the keyhole, which still shone like an open doorway, and  she fled, leaving us all behind as she headed for the house, down into  that cavern where the body of the one person she loved most was laid to  rest.

Once she was gone, I turned to  the others. "Alright, well...anyone else ready to get the fuck out of  this moldy hellhole? Because seriously, I have my fingers crossed that  our next world isn't going to be constantly WET. I'm not a big fan of  humidity." I grinned at the others, trying to lighten the mood a bit.

Artemis  snorted. "I have to admit it's been annoying. It'll be nice to get  somewhere a bit nicer. I'm pretty bothered seeing this fucked up version  of Gotham. Makes me worry about how things are going back home." Seeing  his girlfriend's discomfort, Wally looped his fingers through hers,  giving them a reassuring squeeze. She smiled at him softly and kissed  his hand.

"Alright."  I said with finality. "So we just have to walk through the keyhole.  Everyone grab onto someone else please? I'd rather not get separated  when we go through. This mess is annoying enough without having to track  one of you nerds down when you get lost." That got a few snickers and a  couple middle fingers as we all grouped up, grabbing hold of each other  to make sure we went through together.

I  made sure to use my power to tweak things a bit. Telling them this  would help had been a lie, since I didn't have any clue if it would or  not, and it was easy enough to twist that uncertainty into a truth. With  one last glance around at my companions, we made our way over to stand  in front of the giant glowing keyhole. With one last bit of preparation,  we stepped through into the unknown. I wasn't sure where we would end  up next, but I wasn't too worried. There wasn't much we couldn't handle  together.