Sell you a Bridge chapter 168

February 13th 2011 The OZ 12:00 PM EDT

Everyone  was staring. Not just the OZ locals but even the other gods. My team  wasn't too shocked, Artemis and Zee knew how strong I was, and Wally had  seen me use my ghostly wail on New Genesis, but the others were looking  at me much differently after the display of power.

I  turned to Cain, who was just flat out gaping at me. "So. Tell me about  this Mystic Man?" I was pretty sure he was just going to be the Wizard  of Oz. Youd have to be an absolute idiot to miss the archetypes in play  here. We had been informed Cain used to be a "Tin Man" Raw was a total  wuss, and Glitch LITERALLY didn't have a brain. If this world was  beating us over the head with Wizard of Oz references any harder I would  have a concussion.

It wasn't that weird in retrospect. We  were in the Sphere of the Gods, in the Dream no less, the effects of  something like the collective unconscious here was bound to be nuts.  Still it wasn't exactly the same so I needed more information. Cain  frowned a bit, seeming to be searching for words. "Basically he's the  man you go to when you're all out of options. I worked his security  detail a few years ago. He helps the people who need it. He's a good  man. Wise. Powerful. If anyone will know how to help DG find her mother  or get you all home it'll be him."

Which was pretty much  what I figured. Still it was nice to have the confirmation. He looked  uncertain for a minute. "That thing you did. The way you just spoke and  crushed all of them. That was magic?" I raised an eyebrow and he  scowled. "I know you blasted that tree but I figured it was some sort of  gun or blaster or something. Those I know, but that...I've never seen  anyone do anything like that. Magic or not, that was...impressive."

Which  was fair honestly. It WAS impressive. Even by my standards the wail was  a big move. I sighed. "It's not magic. It's something else. Something  other people can't learn. But it's close enough that you could put them  in the same category." My explanation was interrupted as we came to the  other side of the meadow we had walked through, emerged out of some  trees and saw...something. I paused my attempt to explain ghost powers  and turned to Cain. "What the fuck is THAT?"

Up  above us was a grey fortress of some kind. I'd been expecting the  Emerald City, and this place was not Emerald and was more prison than  city. It was dingy and soul crushing and hands down one of the ugliest  places I'd ever seen, somehow combining all the charms of an office  cubicle and a medieval castle with soulless modern architecture to make  something demonstrably LESS than the sum of its parts. It was  just...awful. I heard Dreamer gasp as she took in the sight of the  place, clearly distressed by how dilapidated the city had become.

I  could understand why. This place looked like the worlds largest prison  themed disney castle. Cain just shrugged. "Central City isn't what it  used to be. Years of neglect and corruption have reduced it to a den of  thieves and conmen lorded over by a militant police force." I resisted  the urge to make a comment about it being just like home because I saw  how upset Dreamer and DG were. He sighed. "It's gotten worse since I've  been gone though. It wasn't half this bad when I was a Tin Man."

I  felt for him, but my attention was drawn to one side of the road before  I could respond. Specifically to the red bordered black and white  sketch of DG herself hanging on the board with a big wanted tag across  the top. I groaned. "And now THAT's a thing. Great. So, where is this  Mystic Man, because I'm about done with this bullshit. I'm going to blow  a hole in the wall of this place in a minute and just walk right in."  It was one thing after another in this shitty world, and I was getting  sick of it.

Since  we got here it had been nonstop bullshit. This place was supposed to be  a nice pleasant trip with my girlfriends and instead I was watching  women and children get murdered on repeat and getting attacked by  jackbooted thugs. Cain's eyes went wide and he held his hands up. "Whoa  there kid. I get it, I do. But as much as I sympathize with the desire  to burn this toxic scrapheap to the ground, not everyone here deserves  it. Even I have limits when it comes to collateral damage, and a whole  city is up there."

I  wasn't going to kill anyone, especially not a bunch of innocents, just  do some property damage, but I could see my team knew that, and Cain  seemed to have come to some sort of personal realization during that  speech so I just let him think I was convinced. It worked out anyway  because a minute later he saw a weird hippy truck pulling in and grinned  viciously. "Wait here." Cain walked over and stood in front of the  truck, forcing it to stop and getting a glared warning from the driver,  whom he ignored. A minute later a man leaned out, spewing threats until  he saw who was under that wide brimmed hat.

His  eyes went wide and his face drained of blood. "Wyatt fuckin' Cain. I  thought you were six feet under. What the hell are you doing back here?"  The man Cain had stopped was a weaselly looking man of indeterminate  age, with a pudgy face and oily slicked back hair. He looked, in short,  like every two bit snitch and con man that I'd ever seen in Gotham,  which was quite a few.

Cain  gave him a humorless smile that showed way too many teeth. "A few  things, where's Zero?" Zero was the name of the longcoat leader, because  apparently the jackbooted soldiers of darkness were also edgelords. Not  that I had much familiarity with such people. I wasn't an edgelord no  matter what anyone said. Regardless, while we'd been forced to leave  Milltown behind before reinforcements showed (eventually even I would  have been outmatched and I didn't see Zee or Wally enjoying us wading  through a sea of dead mooks) Cain absolutely had not given up on killing  the longcoat boss.

I  personally didn't blame him, and after watching what he'd done to Cain  even Wally was very carefully not paying attention to Cain's occasional  bouts of murder happy daydreaming. Still, he got us into the spacious  truck, that became much less spacious when we had to jam in next to  Bear's giant ass and all the others besides. Weasel face (because I  refused to care enough about some random scam artist to remember his  name) was helpful enough once Cain put the fear of ex-cop into him,  especially with Bear looming over them both.

After  hearing what we wanted and a bit of glaring, he held out a bunch of  tickets. "You want to see the Mystic Man? These will get you in, but I'm  warning you. He ain't the man he used to be. Specifically your, uh,  lady friends might need to change their manner of dress a bit." He  looked at Dreamers low cut top and Zee's fishnets. "Well, some of them  anyway." I reached through a small portal and slapped the greasy asshole  in the back of the head, not hard enough to seriously injure him, but  enough for him to watch his mouth. He glared but turned to DG and  Artemis. "My girls might have something you ladies can wear."

Getting  them into their dresses took no time at all, except a brief argument  from Artemis that she hated wearing dresses. She was basically told to  get over it by everyone, since none of us wanted to be in shithole city  longer than we had to be. If the Mystic Man could give us a ride home  she would have her whole wardrobe to change into, and if not she could  change back into her current New Genesis leathers right after we  finished talking to the old bastard. She sulked but accepted the clothes  and got changed quickly so we could head into the club.

The  Mystic Man's club was...shitty. One of those old school cabaret clubs  with a stage. The two women standing at the mic singing about him like  they were belting out a theme song were dressed in stupid yellow dresses  with ridiculous hip bongos on either side of their hoop skirts. I  looked at Artemis, who was taking in the dresses, and raised an eyebrow.  My best friend shrugged. "Alright, I feel better now." I chuckled at  her blunt admission and we turned back to watch the show unfold.

The  Mystic Man appeared. He was a massive holographic head, which seemed  derivative to me, but then this was the actual Emerald City so maybe it  was more of an homage. He spoke a bit, sounding like kind of an idiot,  and then came onstage. He was wearing a turban and sitting on a peacock  throne that would have been more than a little offensive on earth, but  that wasn't the first thing I noticed about him. I groaned. "Oh  fantastic. He's fucking high."

The  others looked at me, confused. They couldn't tell yet, but I could see  his aura. It was suffused with pure undiluted bliss in a way that  definitely wasn't natural. This guy was high as a kite right now, and  had almost no idea what was going on around him. I cursed. "Well great,  how the hell do we get home when out only ticket back is a drug addict.  This guy is going to be use..." I trailed off, seeing DG's eyes start to  tear up. "Shit. I'm sorry DG. " I panicked a bit, I'd never been great  with crying women and Zee was glaring at me. "Hey don't worry ok, we can  still help you find your mom. She had a way to send you to Smallville  so she must have a way back. That can be our next step."

It  was actually a decent lead since we had nothing else, but mostly I  wanted my girlfriend to stop glaring. Zee had taken to DG pretty  quickly. The girl had this sort of naive optimism that made her  difficult to dislike, but more importantly, this story with her mom had  tugged at Zee's heartstrings. I knew my girlfriend wanted to reunite  mother and daughter because she could never have a reunion with her own  mom. She saw a kindred spirit in DG, one she could help, and she was  determined to be there for the older girl.

DG  seemed to perk up a bit at that, though I saw she still hadn't written  off the stoner old guy in the racist hat. However we were forced to  derail that heartwarming moment when I noticed a familiar aura out of  the corner of me eye. I turned to see literally dozens of longcoats  streaming in through the door. I grimaced. This was a huge problem,  mostly because we were in a building full of civilians which meant my  wail was a no go. I didn't have any other real wide ranging attacks so  my only real option would be to fight them one at a time.

The  others came to the same conclusion because I saw them all getting  ready, and neither Wally nor Zee said anything when I drew my King's  Sword of Haste from my spatial ring. These guys were scum. What they did  Cain proved that. No one here would regret me spilling their blood all  over this tacky red carpet. Zero stepped forward with a grin. "Well now,  looks like you can do more than just yell to get your way." He reached  into his shirt and pulled out an amulet. "Let's see if that big pig  sticker can help you when you have no magic." And with that the amulet  flashed.