Sell you a Bridge chapter 191

March 5th 2016 Reach Factory 11:00 PM EDT

Slipping  through the walls of the factory like a ghost was...nostalgic. I wasn't  really that attached to thievery, but being back in Gotham and sneaking  into an alien factory was pretty nostalgic for something I'd never done  before. As I entered the factory, I looked around carefully in aura  sight. I could see...factory stuff. I literally knew nothing about what  went in factories. I shook my head in annoyance, ok, they were right  about how badly planned out this had been. I summoned patches, the  cornerpup shifting out of the dark next to me.

I  looked down at him. "Find me chemicals." He looked up at me blankly. I  sighed. "Yeah, that sounded dumb to me to. Find me...something that  smells weird." He blinked, and then turned and headed off in another  direction. I trailed behind, only belatedly realizing that I was a  literal invisible ghost and he could see me. I put into context exactly  how powerful cornerhounds could be at the higher levels.

I  followed my dog through a few rooms until we finally came to a small  room full of beakers and test tubes. It couldn't have been more  obviously a lab if there had been a nerdy dude in a coat standing there  mixing chemicals or looking through a microscope. I pulled out the test  tubes and walked up to the beakers, starting to fill them up with  samples of the chemicals. Once I'd filled all of them (and a few shadow  test tubes I made myself) I stored everything in my spatial ring and  headed out to find the others.

My  clones were combing the other parts of the factory and the others were  doing the same, now I just had to retreat and...then I bumped into  something. Which was...odd. Because I was intangible. I yelped, and I  heard a grunt from  whatever the thing I bumped into was as we both  faded into visibility, me my usual charming self and it...green. It was  really, really green. Also kind of tall and with long limbs. My mind  blank ability from all those months ago told me the thing was trying to  read my mind, but I knew it got nothing.

It  stared at me. I stared at it. It's aura was...weird. Mostly positive,  not exactly friendly but not evil or anything, and familiar. It took me a  second to pin down what it was, but the aura reminded me of Wally's old  teammate, Miss Martian. Which told me he was probably a martian  himself, but he didn't look like any martian I'd seen. Given where I was  though, and the big ass green chitin antlers growing out of his armored  back I had a decent guess what I was looking at.

My  hands lit with ectoplasm as I got ready to throw down, but he put his  hands up placatingly. "Peace! I am on your side friend! I am B'arzz  O'oomm of Mars. I detected an intrusion and intercepted the signal. I  wish to speak to your earth heroes about an alliance. Do you work with  League of Justice?" His voice was sincere and his body language was  showing that he meant what he said. Despite that, there were other  things to consider, so I didn't lower my hands.

I  did shake my head. "Not exactly. But I can put you in contact with  them. Tell me why you want to know?" His hands lowered despite my  obvious defensive posture. His aura looked...wrong. Fake. I kept my  guard up, I didn't know what was up with this guy but I didn't trust  him. Still, it would be best if we weren't caught, and if I could manage  a bit of intel gathering that would be a cherry for the top of this  debacle.

He looked away sheepishly. "Ah, yes. I have embarrassed myself. As I said, I am B'arzz O'oomm of Mars. I am here to warn your earth of a grave danger. The Reach  are not what they appear to be. They are not the friendly teachers they  portray in their media, but a race of intergalactic conquerors who seek  to enslave and subvert all they survey. I am here to help you avoid  such a fate."

I  raised an eyebrow. "Yeah, we got that memo already thanks, it's why I'm  here. But since you're dressed up like a bug, and I hear that's the  latest fashion craze among The Reach, why exactly should I trust you.  Forget beware a wolf in sheep's clothing, you're a wolf dressed up like a  slightly bigger wolf." I was curious what he would say, because that  weird aura I was seeing wouldn't go away. He believed what he said, he  genuinely wanted to help, but it seemed...shallow.

He shook his head sadly. "As I said, I am of Mars. Earth's defenders are many and mighty, but  Mars is a small planet with little support. If Earth falls, Mars will be  next. I would not see those of my home exploited and abused by The  Reach." Which sounded like a legit reason. I could imagine doing  something similar, but it didn't change the fact that this guy just  reeked of double agent. I peered deeper into his aura, trying to see  what was making me feel weird.

Then  I saw it. A black flash underneath all that peaceful talk and good  intentions. Once I spotted it I followed it throughout his aura, finding  the threads of darkness woven throughout his mind and spirit in a way  that hid them from detection at first glance. B'arzz O'oomm of Mars DID  want to help Earth. In fact, he was under the impression that he WAS  helping Earth. That impression was mistaken.

The  biotech construct on his back was some kind of mental subversion device  as well as armor. It was puppeting him through the motions it wanted,  and it absolutely didn't seem like it was here to lend a hand. As soon  as I identified what it did, the martians eyes flashed in recognition.  Somehow it knew I could read his aura, and it could tell it's goose was  cooked. Unfortunately for the scarab warrior, three times human normal  reflexes boosted by over a hundred points of dexterity and aura sight  meant the ectoplasmic bolt was already flying when it started to react.

I  saw the hand at it's side start to convert into some kind of cannon,  and then stop halfway and switch to a shield. By the time it brought the  shield up to block three more bolts were slamming into it's ribs,  sending it hurtling back into the wall. I was on it in seconds. My blade  lashed out, coated in ectoplasm as I rained down strike after strike  into the armored form of the scarab. As soon as this thing took control,  the aura underlying the martian's EXPLODED. I was going to have to put  this bastard down fast because whatever a scarab was, it was powerful.

The  thing's eyes narrowed as it's arms turned to blades, parrying my blows  sloppily but with enough power to make my teeth rattle. I opened my  mouth and spat a beam of ectoplasm wight in it's face and the thing  roared and stumbled back, opening it up for a blow from my sword that  did...nothing. Shit. It retaliated and I shifted into my intangible  state, it missed me, but I knew from earlier if it wanted to touch me  when I was intangible it could. I wheeled back from the onslaught and  winced as the bastard shifted his hands to cannons again and opened up  on my with a rain of plasma bolts.

I  reached for my gun, then pulled back. From what I saw the martian this  thing was controlling actually was a good guy. I was in the clear  legally already, and somehow I doubted the League would take kindly to  me popping one of the manhunter's planetmates with an evil conceptual  handgun I'd gotten from a serial killer. Which gave me...an idea. Not a  great idea. But an idea.

This  thing showed up and tried to get me to work with it. It only turned on  me when I noticed it was controlling the martian, so it clearly had some  sort of interest in using me as a cover. As I dodged a few bolts of  energy I focused ten thousand or so points into my demonic power, and  then shoved all of that into my cloning ability, creating a duplicate of  me that wouldn't just pop immediately.

Of  course all that energy went into defense so it essentially just became a  punching bag, but I knew it would serve my purpose. I was pretty sure  the scarab was controlling the martian directly, like hardwired into  it's brain. Which meant the scarab wasn't psychic. The martian was, but  it couldn't control me. Except it didn't know that. That scarab bounced  my sword right off, which made me think it stopped energy, if that  energy blockage affected the mind mojo the martian had, it would need to  drop that barrier to try to whammy me.

I  left the clone behind, phasing through the floor even as the scarab  smashed it to the ground, pummeling it with a series of powerful energy  blasts. Once it stopped moving the martian knelt down to touch it's  head, and when that didn't work, just like expected, it let the helmet  portion of it's armor slide away from it. I was already coming up out of  the floor behind it, and with every ounce of power I had left, another  full ten thousand points I shoved myself into the martians brain as a  possessing spirit.

If  the last time had felt like slipping into a meat suit and pushing aside  the occupant, this time felt like I was trying to overpower a rampaging  elephant. Luckily, my ghost power scaled. I didn't know what pouring  ten thousand points into possession would do, but I was pretty sure it  would help. It did, but only barely, I managed to stall the scarab where  it was but I was being pushed back, this thing was way deeper in this  body than I was, it had a physical, tangible presence and it absolutely  did not want to give up control.

I  was losing, it was pushing me back, and all it's cold unnatural  intelligence was pushing with single minded focus to crawl inside me  next, to hollow me out and create another mindless thing in my place for  the reach to puppet. I had fucked up, this thing was way more than I  could handle. I'd gotten so used to being a badass I forgot there were  things that could hurt me, that could kill me. I absolutely was not  capable of holding this back with the power I had right now.

And  then I felt something, a connection to my ability, and I realized what  time it was. It was midnight, the witching hour, and my power had  arrived with more strength. But I would only get six hundred or so  points. I needed at least half as much as I put in to reach this stale  mate. I needed five thousand points. That would be ten thousand of daily  income, far off from where I was.

But  as I sat there, about to be consumed by an alien machine intelligence, I  remembered something. I remembered that crow, and my ability to create  it from nothing, because of a story. That was all I was really, I was  stories, falsehoods that I fed the universe to make my dreams come true.  I was a liar, and all of reality was my audience, and I needed that  now, I needed to tell the world that I was going to get five thousand  points, needed to MAKE that true, or I was going to die here, and these  alien bastards would be wearing me like a suit, if I even existed at  all. So I focused on that falsehood, that five thousand points, and I  made it real. I told the world a lie, and it believed me, and for the  first time ever, I used my power as it was meant to be used.