Sell you a Bridge chapter 197

March 17th 2016 Doomhallow Hall  8:00 PM EDT

Ten  days. Ten days since we'd set up the fund, since we'd mobilized the  underworld against The Reach, and it was finally time. Time for a  purchase that I was pretty sure I couldn't possibly afford without all  my shadow and darkness themed abilities. I remembered this particular  email costing up in the millions the first time I saw it, though I  hadn't paid much attention because of that. Now though, it was only one  hundred thousand points. Void, darkness, and who knew what else had  seriously discounted the email, and combined with the heavy research I'd  been doing I was about to see that pay off.

Before  that though I decided to call and check in with the League.  Specifically, calling Nightwing, which was my new favorite pastime. He  picked up within two rings. "What?" His voice was ragged and bitterly  pissed off, and I couldn't help my grin. Nightwing had decided early on  that me pulling out more money than most of the richest men on Earth had  been a clear indication of criminal activity, and was absolutely  determined to "catch me" getting back up to my old tricks.

I'd  seen him in person once or twice over the last week and a half and his  aura was absolutely glaring with seething impotent rage as he drove  himself near into a coma from the absolute obsession with catching me.  It was pretty on brand with what I heard about Batman, but it was still  hilarious to watch. I didn't even know what he was doing to try to trace  the money, because I had no real connection to it and didn't need to  bother checking, since he literally couldn't find anything.

I  managed to keep that out of my voice when I spoke, maintaining a tone  of pure innocence. "Oh I just wanted to check on our little project. See  how things are coming with the fund. I did leave you in charge of the  money." Which was my favorite part of the whole thing. Nightwing  couldn't prove it was stolen, so he couldn't justify taking it away, and  he was too much of a boy scout to embezzle from me, especially with the  whole League watching. He just had to hold the cash and use it to pay  criminals (my excuse being that he was better at this sort of  transaction than a mere eighteen year old like me).

It  also gave him in depth access to my accounts, through which he could  comb through records and potentially "catch" me doing something  wrong...except he couldn't and it was killing him. Honestly even if he  stole the damn money I could just make more, so it wasn't an issue, but  watching him torture himself paying criminals with what he was sure but  couldn't prove was a stolen fortune was high comedy to me.

His  voice was spat through gritted teeth when he responded. "It's fine.  We've been collecting the data they've sent in, and we've managed to  cross reference enough disparate pieces of information to uncover a  reach base in the Himmalayas. It's a peripheral research base, but still  an in. We were just discussing staging an op there, but we need more  info. For the moment all the contractors have been reassigned to that  location to try to get us as much intel as possible before we go in.  There. You're up to speed." There was a click and the line went dead.

I  looked up at Zee, who was standing nearby, leaning against a wall. "He  hung up on me. Rude." She rolled her eyes at that. I turned to Dreamer.  "So, first time seeing my do my thing, these can be a bit dramatic and  horrifying to watch depending. Knowing how my power works...well as much  as I do anyway, are you sure you're up for this. This next purchase  isn't a transformation, but it's a fundamental shift in ways I don't  understand. What is this thing anyway, since you seem to have heard of  it?"

She  frowned. "It's called a keyblade. How it ended up being offered as a  false advertisement on Earth i have no idea, because they are real, if  rare and hard to come by. I suppose you mentioned other examples of real  abilities however. The serum to make one a Kryptonian for instance."  That particular email still cost millions and wouldn't be affordable  soon even with my current income. I considered trying my whole lying to  reality trick again, but I had a gut instinct I couldn't handle that  kind of change as I was.

Still  she wasn't wrong. "Yeah, the email has to be a lie, but the thing in it  doesn't have to be imaginary. Like the rare painting emails, or even  the ones that pay out cash. Based on what you said this is a dark  keyblade right? Lots of crossover with the void? The email mentions  summons, which is what I'm getting this for. I have a plan for  integrating all my powers into something really impressive to help fight  the reach, but it only works if the summons work like they think I do."  The mention in the email was vague, which meant it would probably work  pretty close to reality.

She  nodded seriously. "The keyblade is something of an unknown even to us.  The bearer is usually fairly independent and I've never heard of a New  God being chosen. I do know that the keyblades of darkness can summon  and control creatures known as the heartless. That's what you want from  it right?" The heartless sounded like exactly what I needed to put my  plans in action, and the keyblade itself was apparently incredibly  durable and an amazing magic focus. This was a perfect pick for me given  how out of date my sword was getting.

I read over the email. [Wield  the powers of darkness as the chosen of the Oblivion keyblade! Summon  creatures of darkness, traverse the worlds and the space between, use  powerful magic and learn to use a blade the likes of which the world has  never seen! For only ten thousand dollars you too can use this ancient  weapon of legend and become a keyblade wielder like the warriors of  old.] Pretty standard stuff for spam, though clearly the writer had heard some story or other and based their scam on it.

I  exhaled slowly, looking to the girls, who both nodded, before pressing  the order now button. One hundred thousand points evaporated as the  world shifted, and knowing what to look for I could hear the words of  the email being whispered into the ether, convincing reality to shift.  The emails were a crutch, a buffer that combined with the points  insulated me from my own power, but as I grew they became less and less  necessary. There was a knock on the door to my room, and I nodded at the  girls as I walked over and opened up the door.

One  the other side was, as expected, a box. The box wasn't big and fancy  and impressive like usual. It was small. Well crafted but simple,  laquered black with a gold trim around the edges. I opened the box to  find a chain. I raised an eyebrow at dreamer, who just shrugged, and  then I picked the thing up. As soon as I did I felt my bloodline boil in  my veins. This thing was...void. Or at least connected to it. It  belonged to the space between worlds, and my connection to the void  through my Hole bloodline and my void form was resonating it with me.

I  felt it deep down inside, not just in my body, but in my soul. I was  changing, connecting to something bigger, and without my knowledge my  ectoplasm, my shadow, the void, my demonic power, and every other  ability I had began to writhe inside me. I held out my hands as a  flickering green black fire began to erupt in front of me collecting  together into...a key. Obviously. I had been expecting a key based on  the description sure, but I hadn't figured it would be so literal.

The  key was black. Or at least the shaft of it was. The black of the void,  and veined with glowing green the pulsed with the eerie glow of  ectoplasm, down to the teeth, cast like a dark crown. The guard around  the hilt was a straightforward pair of metal pieces that joined into a  sort of box to protect the hand, made of the same green ectoplasm, but  somehow more...solid. More like metal than the translucent glass like  constructs I normally formed. More importantly though I could FEEL it.

There  was no pain, no dramatic shift, I didn't get given a keyblade. I  INHERITED it. It was mine, was a part of me, and nothing could take it  from me. I could feel that. I let go of the weapon and it dissolved into  those same green black flames. With an effort of will it was back in my  hand. I could feel that any skill focused through this would require  substantially fewer points. To the extent that this might make my  demonic power actually viable to use in combat, as opposed to being a  useless framework I occasionally blew points on to close gaps in my  spells and techniques.

I  didn't get stronger exactly, not physically. I could tell that my  keyblade wasn't meant for that. I'd gotten it to bolster one fundamental  aspect of my being, to amplify an ability and bind together disparate  powers to create something I could field against The Reach. I'd been  studying for days to learn more about the void, to understand the  structure of the magic and how it interacted with other things so I  could advance to the next stage.

I'd  managed it last night, Hollow Armor, easily one of the lowest level  void spells, but I had figured a humanoid form would be a good baseline,  and I was right. I reached into the darkness between worlds through my  keyblade to try to find something similar, and as soon as I did...it  clicked. Guard Armor, an entity created from the darkness in the human  heart. I was a bit short, but I had something even better. An entity of  conceptual darkness whose life essence was imbued into my gun. I stood  up and bolted outside, the girls followed, not interrupting but curious  to see what I was doing.

I  ran out the front of the hall, into the woods a bit, and out into a  courtyard before I found the place I felt would work. I had so many  different things churning in my head, in my gut, so many abilities and  so much knowledge that I knew would fit together. I drew my gun, tapping  it with the keyblade, and a wisp of deepest black was pulled free. The  metal of the gun lightened slightly, but I knew it would recover, so I  just holstered it and got back to what I was doing. I used the darkness,  funneled it through the keyblade, and shaped it into the Guard Armor.

But  while I did that I channeled the void spell for Hollow Armor, and I  pushed in ectoplasm and demonic power to create my void armor. I used my  bloodline to to imbue it with the true void, and, using the guidance of  the keyblade to weave them together I created something...new. I still  had a few thousand points, and even with the almost ninety percent  reduction from this being what the keyblade was MADE for it still cost  me two thousand points. I channeled in the power, the skill, the magic  and points and the key shaped them. There was billow of that same black  green flame, and I smiled widely as my very first true creation was  manifested into this world. This, I could work with.