Stronger Together chapter 246

I admit to being a bit smug, which mixed with my simmering rage was  an interesting combination. There was a distinct undertone of vindictive  pettiness to the concoction roiling in my gut too, and I was pretty  sure I was not hiding that cocktail of emotions very well because He Who  Stands Above looked less than enthused to be trapped in a giant ass  force field with me. More than that though, with the shield up I  wouldn't have to hold back so much. I could use some of my more  destructive abilities without worrying about sinking Illinois or  something.

He  probably figured that out too based on his shifty look, and I gave him a  dark smile as I cast my earth spell. I shoved a tidal wave of power  into the ground below us, inundating the ground with earth essence in  seconds. This style of earth magic required massive amounts of power or  skill to be functional, and while I was short on the latter the former I  had in spades. With the essence soaking into the ground I was able to  warp and twist the dirt any way I wanted, but I had an even better idea.  I pulled on my power, all of which had my soul merged into it and  shoved a bunch of it into the earth.

Then  I pulled on the spell shaping that chunk of earth into a fist even as I  imbued the energy inside it with intent concentrated it, reinforcing  the dirt with particles of shimmering godsteel. The huge metal hand came  smashing down on He Who Stands Above, whose eyes widened as he tried to  dart away. Sadly he didn't manage it, and I used the connection of my  spirit to the magic to funnel a triple stacked force blow through the  ten ton metal hand, hammering him into the now exposed bottom of the  spherical force field like a fly hitting a fucking windshield. The  pressure was so immense that even I shifted a bit as the shock wave hit  me, tearing up the earth as the vibrations nearly shattered the air  itself.

I  staggered a bit, the combination of displaced footing and immense  spiritual drain actually forcing me to take a beat to recharge, taxing  even my immense power. Apparently my power was inexhaustible but not  infinite. I still had limits for what I could do at one time, even if  they were literally earth shattering. The metal hand shifted slightly as  the outsider pushed it off him, climbing to his feet in jerky,  spasmodic movements as his body tried to repair itself after literally  the most powerful blow I'd ever thrown in my life. His pitch black eyes  glared hatefully at me as he spat out a few of his jagged teeth.

There  was rage simmering in his voice as he spoke, a hiss of disdain and hate  that made even me pause at it's vitriol. "Alright boy, you want to  treated like a threat? Fine. Wish granted." The outsider king was  covered in cracks, exposing jagged hungry voids of blackness in his  flesh as dark putrid muck leaked from his distended form. His formerly  short body had been stretched and warped by the impact of the fist his  like were lanky and elongated by the sections of exposed darkness. His  hands ended in jagged twisted black claws and I felt my instincts scream  at me that he was coming even as he vanished from where he stood.

I  felt like a fucking truck was hitting me as the outsider smashed into  my front, barely able to mitigate the damage by propelling myself  backwards to try to bleed off some of the impact. Unfortunately the  whole unbreakable shield thing kind of went both ways, and when I hit  the wall of Lucifer's power I felt my whole body groan at pressure. Then  He WHo Stands Above was on me and the battle was back on. Now it was  his turn to gleefully beat his enemy. "Simpering idiot child. You think  any of this matters? This is merely a fragment of a greater whole, even  if you destroy this shard of me it won't end this. Nothing will change."

Despite  that though, he looked...frantic. Like he needed to convince himself of  the futility of this fight as much as me, and I thought I knew why.  Even if this was just a fragment I'd already demonstrated the ability to  truly destroy the unkillable. I defended myself fiercely as he attacked  and grinned at him tauntingly. "But it does matter doesn't it. Because  the outside make be a sucking vortex of suck but isn't a vacuum. I'm  betting outsiders aren't very touchy feely about loyalty. You're in  charge and you stand above them all right? But I bet there are others  who are close to that strong, I wonder how they would react if their  vaunted leader lost a piece of himself forever."

I  saw a spike of genuine fear cross his face and smiled cruelly. "That's  the rub isn't it. You predatory psychos are always trying to victimize  everyone, and if you get hurt they'll sense that weakness. Of course it  shouldn't have mattered, you should have been able to run from anyone  and anything even on the off chance you couldn't kill them. But now  you're stuck and if I smash your little clone you'll be diminished  forever." I started throwing out triple stacked blows, attacks his  damaged body was even less capable of handling as he desperately tried  to dodge or block.

His  teeth were bared in a snarl. "You idiots! You think this is a solution?  That this will save you all? This is suicide! I'm positively moderate  compared to some of my generals. I possess caution and foresight. My  Walkers are an alternative to the endless tides of us that would sweep  across your walls." He was almost pleading with me as he spoke, his  words insulting and arrogant but his tone desperate as he realized what  was going to happen to him. "Treaties can be made, we can retreat, we  can give you time to rebuild. This need not end in complete  destruction."

I  snickered at the ploy. "You say that like your enemies won't have  anything to focus on. You'll be wounded and vulnerable but I doubt  you'll go down without a fight. Hell you might even come out on top, but  I bet the resulting civil war will royally fuck you and your people  up." I shot a glance at Lucifer. "This was your whole fucking plan  wasn't it? Turn them on each other, use their darker nature to tear the  apart from withing. This plan basically has your fucking personal  monogram on it. Divisive infighting by Lucifer." i was honestly  terrified, the number of pieces needed to make this work, the number of  ways he must have needed to tweak things...it was staggering.

Lucifer  cackled at me from his place in the stands. "See! This is why I like  you! You get all the work that goes into this kind of thing. I'm pretty  proud of this one I admit. Imagine this idiot thinking he could use me  as a patsy by offering me some kind of token position is his new world  order." He sneered at the outsider. "If I wasn't content to play second  fiddle to the creator of the multiverse what makes you think scum like  you is qualified? I don't need your army of sewer freaks to take this  world, I have my own plans for that." His grin was chilling as he  flicked his eyes back to me and shot me a wink. "But for now I'd like to  keep universe in decent shape for my inevitable ascension to the top,  so you'll have to go."

He  waved a hand at us to hurry up, clearly dismissing us back to our  fight, and as much as I kind of wanted to punch his fucking lights out  it wasn't the time and I wasn't close to strong enough yet. Sadly now  that I had assumed my final state I didn't have the klurkor forms to  refine me any more. I'd have to grind my power up the slow way like Yang  and any of the other Aura users, expanding my available Aura pool a bit  at a time. I generated the stuff almost nonstop but as noted earlier I  did have a capacity. I shook of the wish to curb stomp the devil and  turned back to the seething outsider. "That pompous ass is right. This  is my home now, nobody fucks with my universe but me."

I  cranked my aspects at full force and blitzed toward the bastard,  throwing out triple stacked punches with speed so fast I was having  trouble tracking them myself, and the battle was back on. As the old  saying goes a cornered animal is the most dangerous, and He Who Stands  Above was as cornered as it got. He fell on me like an animal, his  jagged black claws raining down on me, grasping and searching for some  bit of flesh to rend and tear as he unleashed his fury and hate on me in  a futile attempt to delay the inevitable.

Not  that he didn't hurt me, he tore my ass up, his claws ripped jagged  gashes in my flesh, even with the godsteel refinement my body couldn't  just shrug that off. My cestus meanwhile managed to tank those strikes,  clearly a cut above my refined body even in its final form. Olympian  bronze was no joke. My Archangel Armor was scratched and dented but  still holding and I was able to heal the wounds on my arms face and next  by willing my flesh back together. The godsteel power in my cells let  me shape myself to my desires and closing my injuries was a fairly basic  application of that.

We  battled like that for almost an hour, my non stop power generation  keeping me going as the outsider literally fell apart under my bone  crushing blows, the cracks and wounds increasing in size and severity as  he grew more and more vicious and frantic. At the end he was basically  ignoring the damage I was doing, full on sacrificing himself in the hope  of ending me along with him, but I had staying power on my side and I  was too careful to let him put me down for good. FinallyI got my chance  to end it, an opening in one of his attacks, and I smashed into him,  body checking him across the inside of the shield.

He  flew backwards, but not into the other side of the bubble, towards the  giant metal hand. I flexed my power and the hand opened, catching him on  the palm and closing around him in a fist. As I connected to the hand I  grinned viciously and summoned every ounce of power and knowledge I had  at my disposal, pouring every bit of power into one massive spell. I  started with a force aura to amplify force, then threw in the biggest  fire spell I could manage, lightning aspect to enhance the speed of the  molecular motion, lightning magic to give it some kick, fire aura to  turn any excess kinetic energy into heat, wind magic to pour in some  fuel and some good old fashioned soulfire from my limitless spirit to  make it burn the right way.

The  sum total of all my knowledge of magic and power and forces of nature,  every ounce of energy in my entire body, all my rage, my hate, my sorrow  at the loss of my friends, every feeling in my being I poured it in. I  poured it into a coruscating riot of color and power and exultation and  death, and because it was so beautiful and powerful and so...ME, I  decided to use an incantation. My body was beyond the need for other  languages, for anything except raw will, and I just said the first thing  that I thought of when I looked at the riot of color and flame in my  minds eye before I channeled it through that giant fist. "Burn baby burn. DISCO INFERNO!" And burn that motherfucker did.