Sell you a Bridge chapter 138

Arkham Asylum December 21st 2010 11:00 PM EDT

Getting  everyone together and helping them slip off to the boiler room took  hours. Specifically I had to go and help several of the justice bros  disengage with clones to get them here and Superboy actually got lost.  Finally, after running around getting ducks in rows, we got everyone  gathered together in a single room. The boiler room wasn't exactly  spacious either, so it ended up being extremely cramped in there with  all of us.

Surprisingly the auras of the others didn't  seem particularly hostile. Robin was a seething mass of douchebag, but  the others seemed less confrontational that I expected. There was  wariness there sure, but it was mixed with a not inconsiderable amount  of guilt. I was guessing the boy blunder hadn't told his team about the  call to turn on us during that truce, and when they found out they  weren't happy.

The wariness I assumed had more to do with  the very public execution I'd staged a week ago. Still they listened as  we filled them in on what we knew. I wasn't worried about them finding  the ritual with only an hour to go so there was no need to be wary of  them double crossing us. They wouldn't jeopardize their chance to stop  this just for a bit of petty revenge. At least not most of them, and if  Robin tried the others would stop him.

Aqualad spoke up  first. "So, if your leads have panned out and the ritual is taking place  nearby, which I have to assume to be the case, you must know the  location of the sacrifice. Since you mentioned it has to take place  tonight and midnight is the optimal time for such things it must be  close. I take it you are withholding that information until the last  minute so as to avoid potential betrayal?" I nodded. He sighed. "I...I  cannot reassure you of our intentions. You were ill treated in the past,  but with so little time to act every moment counts. I implore you to  tell us what we need to know."

I sighed. I wasn't against  telling them, but I wanted to wait a bit longer so they had no chance to  screw us. "The room is a huge stone chamber filled with columns." I  changed the subject to the rooms layout, hoping to come up with a game  plan while we waited and kill some time all at once. "The Amazon's were  lined up wall to wall, and some priestess was sacrificing them. They all  seemed willing. There were hundreds of them, though I don't know how  many will be left, still given who we think is performing the ritual  this will be a hard fight. Not to mention I'm guessing Circe isn't going  to kill every single one of her flunkies. I can think of at least one  we'll definitely have to fight."

Myrina was the toughest  of the Amazon's I'd seen or even heard of, and there was no way Circe  wouldn't have SOME kind of insurance in place. With me pinned down  fighting Circe though it would be up to the others to take her down, and  I wasn't sure any of them were up to it. That was less of an issue now  though. Having clones that can become completely invisible and  intangible that can execute split second attacks with pinpoint accuracy  and sneak undetectably gives you quite a few options in combat.

Of  course, I was sure that my temporary allies wouldn't be happy with my  solution for the Amazon Assassin, but I was equally sure that I gave no  fucks what made them happy so it worked out pretty well for me. Seeing I  had no intention of discussing the location for the moment Aqualad made  the command decision to engage in the planning process with me, and the  others seemed to follow his lead. Robin's aura pulsed with rage for a  minute but clearly whatever they had said or done to him after he tried  his little backstab had been enough to make him wary.

We  talked for a half an hour before I finally decided it was close enough  to the moment of truth for them not to be able to double cross us and  stood up. The others, who had been embroiled in a discussion about how  to deal with the leftover Amazon's, stopped and looked up. I gestured to  one side, having my clone open a portal to the vanishing hallway and  gesturing towards it. "It's about that time boys and girls, heroes  first." I absolutely wasn't offering Robin my back, even if I was sure I  could crush him if he tried anything. Aqualad seemed to understand  because he took the initiative himself.

He stepped past me  without hesitation and stepped into the shadowy portal, vanishing into  it's depths. A second letter he stepped back through partway to wave  everyone in and the others let the tension drop from their shoulders as  he proved I hadn't just dropped him into the sun or something. Superboy  followed him in, with Miss Martian coming up behind him and Kid Flash  bringing up the rear after Red Arrow. The archer glared at us  suspiciously the whole time but I didn't really care so I ignored him  until he vanished.

Finally it was time for my own team to  head in. Jim was the first, followed by the girls, then Reggie, and I  brought up the rear. I stepped through the portal and as usual appeared  on the other side instantly. I'd had the clone hide so I didn't give  away and secrets and I dispersed the thing once I walked through,  reclaiming the memories as the portal shut. I gestured for the others to  follow me and we slipped from the closet quietly, filing out of the  cramped space one at a time. Then I led them down the hall to the stone  archway and gestured them all forward.

The trip down the  spiral stone steps seemed even longer walking on two feet, despite how  slowly I'd moved as a shadow. I even considered flying down. My aerial  mobility was leagues above what it used to be, my new ghost flight  combining with my devil wings to boost my speed in the air to levels  that dwarfed even what I was capable of on my own two feet. In the end  however, I stuck to my sneaking, sticking with my crew so we could all  act together. Plus I didn't trust Robin not to stare at my girlfriends  ass, so I made sure to stand between them.

When we reached  the bottom we stuck our heads out to look around, and the resulting  sight made even me a little sick. Blood. So much of it. They had  apparently abandoned getting it in the blood pool at some point, or  maybe they just had enough, because they started killing the sacrifices  where they stood. Bodies and gore were strewn about, but all the blood  was softly glowing with that same light that infused the first sacrifice  even without flowing into the actual pool. It was being used somehow.

Circe  stood in the center of the chamber, naked and splattered with glowing  blood, her head lolled back as she chanted. The priestess knelt in front  of her, echoing her words, and the blood on the walls and on the  goddess pulsed in alternating beats. I could see that each time they  switched the glow on her skin brightened and the glow on the walls  faded. The blood in the blood pool pulsed behind her as well, the light  casting an eerie blood red glow throughout the room, the strobing making  it seem like we were standing in a beating heart.

I  didn't know how she'd escaped my clone, but upon reaching out I noticed  he was dead. Apparently I needed to actually disperse the damn things to  get the memories. Inconvenient but good to know. Circe was surrounded  by several brutal looking Amazons still, guarding her as she performed  the ritual, and as I suspected Myrina was indeed one of them. I looked  at the others and made a gesture with my hands, showing a number to  denote which of the plans we'd come up with we'd be using, and then I  activated my ghostly form and sank into the floor.

Contrary  to my opinion Robin didn't argue or bitch, he just followed the others  and got in position. I split off a clone that circled around to get  behind Myrina and my main body took position right below Circe. Because  the stone around us was so soaked in dark magic she didn't notice me  approach her. If I'd been above ground even with my most effective camo I  doubted I'd have gone unnoticed, she was way too attuned to the magic  in this place right now. I crept up under her, taking a mental breath to  get myself ready before finally acting.

With a split  second movement using every trick I knew I reached up, grabbed both of  her ankles, and simultaneously yanked and made her intangible. Circe  countered the phasing ability immediately of course, which was  unfortunate for her, because she was already ankle deep in magic  saturated stone when it happened. Her feet became physical again inside  the stone of the floor. Stone that, based on it's location and nature  was probably some sort of semi dungeon material from what we could tell.  This whole place screamed dungeon and it just made sense given what she  was doing.

Circe hissed in anger,  and as she was getting ready to unleash that fury, my ghostly clone  appeared undetected behind Myrina and, propelled by monstrous strength  and an absolutely perfect assassination technique, drove a composite  blade of grey energy made from a blending of shadow and ghost constructs  into the soft spot at the base of her skull and into her brain.

Aside from my unnatural skill and strength, I'd studied Myrina's  fighting technique obsessively for months now and baked it into my own  style fanatically. Assassinating someone from a position of surprise is  incredibly effective, but it can fail. Driving a dagger through the weak  point in a person's defenses that you've studied for countless hours is  much easier to manage. The powerful Amazon assassin collapsed  bonelessly as my blade severed her brain stem from her spinal column.  She died instantly and every single being in the entire place froze.

Even  Circe's words stuttered during the recitation of her ritual chant, but  she managed to force herself to continue, despite the shock of seeing  her strongest warrior murdered and have her feet fused into evil  supernatural stone. I had to at least give her credit for that. The  justice bros and the other Amazons had all remained motionless, staring  at the dead Assassin. The sidekicks had sharp spikes of betrayal in  their auras feeling they were used as a distraction to commit murder,  but I had absolutely no time for that right now.

With  no suspense I phased into existence  behind Circe, hoping to spear her  through the heart with my King's Sword of Haste, but after getting  Myrina I had zero chance of managing a sneak attack. A wall of violet  light sprang up around her, and my blade skittered off it, shooting  sparks as it skittered across the surface of form fitting armor of  mystic force she'd willed into being to protect herself.

Circe  turned her head toward me, her eyes glittering with rage, and without  breaking her cadence or stopping her recitation at all a second voice  echoed from her body somehow. "You'll pay for that, boy." I barely had  time to fling up my own shield before she flung out a cascading wave of  energy, not at me, but at her own feet, shattering the stone fused into  her lower extremities into shards that somehow passed right through her  flesh and flew right at me. I winced at her livid tone. I had a feeling  this would not be an easy fight.