Sell you a Bridge chapter 289

June 14th 2016 The Street of Gods 5:00 PM EDT

I think Neron expected that revelation to be a lot more devastating  than it was. I mean, he said it like it was some huge reveal, but I had  absolutely no clue who that was. Granted, the weird shift in the ambient  temperature and the creepy feeling of being watched that cropped up  after certainly gave it more punch than it might otherwise have, but  still. I was honestly a little embarrassed for him. I cleared my throat,  just wanting to end this edgy theatrical show. "Ah. Yes...him. How  could I have been so blind. Now it all makes sense."

Admittedly,  there might have been a bit more sarcasm in my voice than might have  crept in if I didn't dislike the guy so much, and I saw his face flicker  with a nearly imperceptible twitch of annoyance. That was a personal  victory in my opinion. Seriously. Fuck that guy. I smoothed into his  previous smarmy grin almost instantly though, and he let out a  (noticeably forced) chuckle. "I see you lack even a basic understanding  of the multiverse as a whole." He said scornfully. "How...pathetic."

I  didn't have to fake the incredulous look at I stared at him like he was  an idiot. "I'm a seventeen year old who went to a public school in  Gotham for most of my life, dude. Why the fuck would I know anything  about the multiverse? Do you not know what information is accessible to  most people? Like, I thought you were supposed to be some genius  schemer. Or are you just out of touch? Like, are you the demon  equivalent of those old people who don't know how computers work? Have  to call your grand-demons to ask them how normal people think when  you're scheming?"

That got another twitch, which I enjoyed  immensely. I had to keep his focus while the illusion got in position. I  had a plan to spring Kit and her boyfriend, but it was mostly just  'SURPRISE!' which admittedly usually worked pretty well for me. Still,  it was on feasible if I could keep this asshat distracted enough not to  notice when I made the actual swap, because while it would be  undetectable over here, a person would be appearing in the spot the  illusion was occupying, and he would notice that if he looked.

It  was also easier to focus on taunting him than on the seething, riotous  cloud of rage churning through my veins. I'd managed to get that shit  under control temporarily, but it was far from gone. I was pretty sure  it would make my attacks even more powerful than they would normally be,  but since at the moment he had hostages, that wasn't really useful.  Neron was clearly just as capable of forcing himself to calm down as I  was, because he retained his mocking grin. "I suppose there are always  those who make excuses for ignorance."

That would have  been a lot more convincing if I couldn't hear that second voice  underlying his comment screaming obscenities and listing the horrible  things he wanted to do to me. Needing to stall longer, I decided to  adopt the same tactic I used on DeSaad, with a twist. "So, Barbatos you  said?" I asked with a sly malice. "Does he make you wear a collar? I bet  you always get the finest kibble, since you're clearly such an obedient  little bitch."

The muscles tightened in his arms, but  suddenly, he relaxed, his formerly tense grin melting into a malicious  smile. "Oh, you're stalling aren't you? I admit, you have a gift for  being irritating, I almost didn't notice it. What exactly are you hoping  to accomplish here boy? Think you're going to get rescued? Maybe you're  preparing some kind of magic you think will save you? No, that doesn't  seem to be the case." He looked around in amusement. "Where oh where is  your backup plan? I don't see anything around. Or are you just trying to  buy yourself an extra few minutes."

At first, I was upset  he'd caught on. And then I realized that since he couldn't perceive the  illusion, it didn't actually matter. This asshole was paying attention  to me and nothing else, this was literally exactly what I wanted. So, I  just kept talking. "Oh sure, I'm thinking about what I did to your mom  last night. Trying get hard so I can smash you with my huge dick. I  figure since it worked so well on her you're probably genetically  predisposed to be helpless against it." I paused, feigning confusion.  "Actually I guess I had that grandpa comment backwards, you know, since  she spent all night calling me daddy."

That speech would  normally have been pointless, I wasn't sure Neron even had a mom, but it  was such a stereotypically teen insult that it looped right back around  to being functional in this situation. While he was still trying to  decide how to react, I struck. Triggering my domain, I moved myself into  reality in place of my suddenly visible illusion, allowing it to  seamlessly take my place. He was so focused on me he didn't even spot  the dark metal clad form as I spread my wings and blurred across the  room toward Kit and her boyfriend, Tartarus lashing out to tear through  the chains holding them as I scooped them up.

I created an  illusion of them on the shoulders of the doppelganger where I had first  been standing and swapped us with it, grimacing slightly at the strain  of using that power on other people. Luckily (for me at least) there  were both beaten to within an inch of their lives and unconscious so  there wasn't exactly any resistance from them to becoming illusions and  then resuming their reality even as the darkness of the churning portal  shot up like some kind of liquid tentacle beast to swallow the  completely incorporeal and not at all real illusions we'd left behind in  our wake.

Neron, still sort of confused by the verbal  assault, snapped out of it and tried to react, utterly failing to do so  in anything resembling a decent amount of time. When his white eyes  settled on me, sitting there with my cousin and Eddie each over one  shoulder, he actually growled in annoyance. "That...was inconvenient."  He snapped his fingers and the stone in the chamber began to move. The  dark material flowed and changed, melting together until the door we  came in through was completely gone.

Well, that was one  way to prevent escape. I could use my shadows to leave, but it would  take time to set up a portal to take us all, and I doubted I'd have it. A  corridor wouldn't work for the obvious reason that it would drive my  friends insane, and besides...that portal looked far too much like the  darkness of the corridors for my comfort. I wasn't sure using one so  close to it was a good idea. I suspected some interference might occur,  and I somehow doubted I wanted to be traversing the darkness between  worlds in an unstable corridor.

Still, the hostages were  gone, which meant this was just a straight fight now. I was confident I  could do ok in a straight fight. I passed Kit and Eddie to the others.  John and Taylor stepping up to take them, and turned to my friends,  ignoring Neron. "I think we might have to actually fight this out. Are  you guys sure you're ready? I'm sure I can stall this asshole for a  while if not."

I didn't bother keeping my voice down. Fuck  this guy, if he didn't like my shit talking then he could let us out so  he didn't have to hear it. Zee smiled at me, always the first to tell  me she had my bacl. "Of course we are baby. We can do this. All of us."  She glanced at Kit, and her normally smiling face became cold and  remote. "He crossed a line. No one hurts one of us." It went without  saying that Kit WAS one of us, unless she decided not to be. Whatever  happened in the past was meaningless. Kit was family, and had fought by  our side, not to mention she was hurt.

Neron's mocking  laugh cut us off. "I'm sorry, did you think that little trick would be  effective? That this had turned into some kind of face off? How absurd.  Barbatos wants you boy, and he will have you. I didn't seal the exits  just to prevent your escape. I did it to hold you in place." I turned to  face him and he gestured grandly to the pool of writhing darkness.  "It's fine if you would rather not cooperate however. If you don't wish  to go into the portal. I'll just make the portal come to you. To ALL of  you."

With a sweep of his hand, the liquid darkness leapt  from the pool, surging from a small pond to a massive tidal wave as it  rolled across the floor of the chamber. It didn't move fast, rolling  implacably, and far slower than normal water ever would. My eyes went  wide in panic. That darkness...it could damage my friends, harm their  souls, but it wasn't like I could stop it either, the thing that made it  controlled the darkness far more thoroughly than I did. I couldn't take  that control away.

My mind flickered back to earlier. I  couldn't take the control, but I could disrupt it. "All of you, grab a  hold of each other!" I yelled, snagging Zee's hand as I did. Everyone  snatched up any limbs they could, and I barely had time to confirm that  we were all together before the surging darkness hit. Digging deep down I  reached through Tartarus, into the dark that it connected me to,  finding the part of me that could open those dark corridors. I'd never  done much with that darkness besides opening the corridor and making  Morana, but it was there, and it had grown along with the rest of me.

Making  a corridor was effortless, like flipping a light switch, and I could do  it all day, but this...substance trying to drag us down was like a  mountain pressing down on me, impeding my motion, making the act of  flipping a finger feel impossible. With a bellow that tore from my chest  like it would rip its way free I heaved and threw that connection into  the full weight of the darkness around us. Not to hold it back, or to  stop the advance, but just to...tilt it. Push it off center, allowing me  to flip that switch as it rushed past.

The  portal jerked in the void in a way I really couldn't have described  with a thousand years and a million notebooks to write in, but I felt it  change slightly as we were ripped away. We were being carried somewhere  far different than either I or Barbatos had intended, somewhere not  exactly IN that dark multiverse he'd been trying to pull me into. It  didn't really matter to me where we were going, I had other things to  worry about. I'd spread my domain across the others and was straining  with all I could to protect them from the creeping dark, to shield them  from the madness.

Finally,  it was over, and I felt a crash as we slammed into hard ground. I lay  there for a minute, letting my domain dissipate once I felt that we were  at least not currently under attack, and groaned as I climbed to my  feet. The purple stone around me was barren and dense, unlike anything I  had seen before. I glanced up to see a massive castle in the distance,  towering over both us and this twisted wasteland. I felt Tartarus hum  inside my soul, and through the same connection it used to tell me its  name, it whispered another. I spoke aloud without meaning to, and my  voice echoed off the dense rocks surrounding us. "Ok, what the fuck is a  'Hollow Bastion'?"