Sell you a Bridge chapter 145

New Genesis December 30th 2010 10:00 PM EDT

One  of my favorite things about my abilities recently, whichever caused it  at this point, was my absolutely amazing night vision. My eye sight was  aces in the dark, which really came in handy as we climbed down into a  giant messy hole in the ground to try to find a bunch of godspawn  supersoldiers and fight them to save people we'd never even met. Still, I  could tell this meant a lot to both Wally and Zee for different  reasons.

I suspected that my girlfriend had been genuinely  worried what the siege in Gotham was doing to me mentally, given all  the hard calls and violence I'd been engaged in. This clearly heroic  rescue mission, selfishly motivated or not, helped put her mind at ease.  I was coming with her to rescue a small child, you didn't get less evil  than that. Wally in the meantime seemed like he really need to engage  in some heroics to feel like he was accomplishing anything.

In  both cases I was glad to see I could do something to help them out.  They deserved the peace of mind and honestly I'd been feeling like a bit  of an asshole lately myself. Helping some random kid was a great way to  lift some of the weight from my shoulders about all the killing I'd had  to do. Well, killing of humans. I don't think anyone here cared if I  had to cap a couple failed science experiments with no sapience to save  some kids.

It took longer than expected to reach a point  where the tunnels leveled off. I once again wondered exactly how big  this planet was. Could we keep climbing like that for days without  seeing any real change in the surrounding dirt and stone? Did this  planet even have a mantle and a crust like Earth? I signaled for my  friends to stop once we reached level tunnels and spammed a dozen clones  to check down the varying tunnels. I was fairly annoyed still that  dying prevented the memories from returning to me, but at least if one  didn't come back we'd know which tunnel was occupied.

We  stayed put for about an hour before I finally got a response from one of  the clones. The tunnels were too expansive for intangibility to be a  good search method but using it to come back to me worked fine and they  phased through the wall, dismissing themselves as they got within range  so I could get the memories of all the various endings and locations.  Luckily one of them actually spotted the kids and was able to lead us  there.

I considered bringing the others, but finally  decided it wasn't exactly what would be most effective. I turned to  whisper to my friends. "Ok, so here's the plan. My clone found the nest  with what looks like the captives based on Vana's description. They're  lightly guarded but the patrols are mobile. I'm going to slip over there  and slide between their guard and start teleporting the kids to you,  and then Wally can run them up to the surface as they come through. You  two can keep a lookout to make sure none of the large groups I saw in  the other tunnels come down and pen me in."

Naturally Zee  wasn't please about this, but even she had to admit this was the best  plan. I might be able to avoid even being noticed, and if I wasn't I was  the one with the best chance of escape. Once they nodded their assent I  turned and shifted into my shadow form, figuring in these dark ass  tunnels it would be even better than intangibility. I was packing more  than thirteen thousand points still so it was no problem to move at a  decent pace down here as I headed for the nest, despite my stealth.

Despite  being a literal shadow on the ground however, I was forced to actively  dart around as some of the monsters stalked through the intersection I  was crossing. My stealth skills and aura vision combining with detective  mode to give me a sort of predictive sense for when they were starting  to notice me. It was actually kind of cool, and it reminded me of  stealth mode in video games where it gave you an indicator of how close  your were to discovery. These things clearly had razor sharp senses and I  had to dance around along the walls and ceiling to stay out of their  detection range.

Finally though, I managed to reach the  room where the captives were being held. As my clone had noted they  weren't being directly guarded, but the room itself was being regularly  patrolled. My immediate instinct was to jump out and face murder all the  guards and save the kids, but I was an assassin, not a warrior. This  wasn't earth where my stat advantages could let me bully or even equally  match my enemies. These things were fucking ancient bio weapons and  from their auras any one of them was a serious threat.

So I  relied on the skills I'd learned from Jim. I waited. I cased the  target. I wasn't rescuing these kids, I was stealing them. I sat on the  top of the cavern as a shadow and I watched, I tracked the movements of  the guards, I memorized their individual rhythm of motion and created a  tapestry of information in my head, breaking down every single stem and  lurch into minute increments and mapping out every second of my rescue  to the exact inch of where I should be and when.

I had to  admit, these things were fucking ugly. Twisted humanoid monstrosities  covered in black chitin like beetles, with strange elongated and  sharpened limbs that acted as built in weapons. I could see how  something would intend being like this to be living weapons, and I  absolutely understood why the natives called them bio-freaks. Still,  even monsters have patterns, and after about a half hour of watching I  was pretty sure I had theirs down. Any longer would be an unnecessary  risk, so I'd have to hope there were no surprises.

I  slipped down off the wall and into the cavern as the guards passed,  skating around their range of detection and resumed my human form as I  approached the cage, motioning for the captives to be silent as I  approached. The natives looked thrilled to see a human looking person,  or New God looking person I guessed, but either way I had to remind them  to keep quiet as they spotted me. In the end though, they didn't make a  sound and I approached the cage, forming a key from ectoplasm and  fitting it into the lock before solidifying the gelatinous substance and  opening the lock with a click.

The wide eyes shifted  slightly and lost their focus on me, and I almost didn't even need to  turn and look. I could sense the fear and despair as they glanced over  my shoulder, and I turned with slow, deliberate calm, to look at the  room behind me. Sure enough, I'd been discovered. But luckily it wasn't a  patrol, just a single lone bio-freak. I wasn't sure if I was strong  enough to kill it in a fair fight. I had to protect the hostages, so I  stepped forward and drew my King's Sword of Haste, facing the monster.

I  began to walk forwards. I expected it to scream or alert it's fellows,  but it just cocked it's head like it was scenting prey. It began it's  own implacable march, and once it reached the center of the room I  stopped, and it mirrored me. Then, slowly I began to circle. It watched  as I walked forward, noting as a clone fell out of step lagging behind  me, then one behind that, and again, creating a full ring around the  creature. The clones all turned and lashed out with their empty hands,  bursts of energy converging from nearly every angle. Disturbing for  their utter silence even as they closed.

The beast was  fast and strong and dangerous. It had the animal instincts of a true  predator and it saw the weakness in the web of blasts instantly, darting  forward, still eerily silent but with a burst of glee in it's aura to  slip past the attack. It was fast and strong and cunning. Unfortunately,  it wasn't intelligent. Which was why it didn't notice that none of the  dozen or so clones that had now vanished after burning their singular  attacks had been the real me.

The real me had been  invisible since before the clones even started circling and had silently  and imperceptibly walked ti exactly where the gap in the wave of blasts  would be and waited for the thing to slip through. Aura, detective  mode, and my assassin training made finding a weak spot simple, and I  used every bit of my monstrous strength and every bit of martial ability  to deliver a picture perfect blow right through a gap between it's  spinal plates and up into its brain, killing it instantly.

Assassins  like me excelled at powerful but stupid opponents. I flicked the  apparently acidic blood off my blade and sheathed it, nodding to the  gaping hostage, and after glancing around to make sure there wasn't  another one coming I opened a portal to Wally and the girls and had them  walk through it one at a time. It was fucking hard. The space on New  Genesis was...more, and teleportation was way more complicated here.  Porting myself short distances was doable, but holding a stable portal  for more than a few seconds was like bench pressing the sky.

It  felt like it took ages for them all to get through, but in reality it  was probably more like five minutes tops. When the last hostage escaped I  released the portal and melted back into a shadow, fleeing down the  tunnel toward the girls and Wally. My whole body was exhausted, the  strain of fighting the space here for an extended period having depleted  my strength completely in a ways I hadn't felt for a long time.

I  made it back without any more incidents and got to the girls as Wally  was taking the last of the kids up. I reformed in my human shape to see  the speedster looking disturbed. I asked if he was ok and he looked up  with a jerk of his eyes. "I feel weird. Faster. It's increasing too, but  there's something else, like I'm touching something powerful. Every  time I run I get closer and closer to it."

That  was...interesting. Wally hadn't been pushing too hard since we got  here, but it sounded like his power was changing from being on New  Genesis. The girls hadn't said anything similar, but they didn't really  connect to outside forces. I wondered what those fruits of divinity  would do for them. That particular thought process was cut off as a  terrible shrieking cry tore through the tunnels from behind us.

Our  eyes widened and we bolted, all of clearly hearing the multitude of  inhuman voices doing that shrieking. If we could get to the surface we  could at least force them to come at us through the tunnels and attack  them as they lined up for us. We scrambled and slipped through the dirt  as we climbed to the top, barely managing our way out but doing it in  half the time the descent took in our haste. I heard a curse and turned  to find Artemis had slipped coming out and the first of the bio-freaks  had made it out and was bearing down on her.

I  saw Wally's eyes widen and Zee's fingers crackle with lightning even as  I reached for the shadows to spear the thing and Artemis drew her bow,  but none of us were faster than the globe of whirling power that smashes  into the thing from above. A loud, deep voice bellowed. "Monsters of  below, you face the Monitors of New Genesis!" I looked up to see an army  of green armored figures barreling from the sky right towards the  oncoming wave of bio-freaks. I smiled in relief. Oh good, that would  have been annoying to deal with.