Sell you a Bridge chapter 99

O'Malley Penthouse September 30th 2010 1:30 PM EDT

I  was having so much fucking fun. I'd gotten so used to big waves of tiny  annoying creatures or even tanky mid sized boys that I hadn't realized  how fun it was going to be to fight these big fuck off plants. The  mechanics of fighting in my new form were pretty novel, but I was  acclimating fast, and my reflexes made even small slips manageable.  Oddly, the thing I'd been most worried about, flight, was probably the  most intuitive power I'd gotten yet. I could just feel how I was  supposed to fly, like using a limb that I'd always had but never  noticed.

I darted in between the  massive vine stalks as they tried their best to smash me flat, and drew  as many of them to me as possible as I weaved in and out of the gaps,  trying to get them tangled up in each other or just generally bait them  into ignoring my team as they rained down damage from afar. As I went I  did my best to deal some serious damage to the plants themselves, but my  swords were too small for any of the giant stalks to worry about.

Luckily  I still had my shadow power. I was summoning condensed wheels of shadow  with sharp teeth about five feet across and spinning them like chainsaw  blades, swinging them through the tentacles as I sped past and cackling  madly as they tore apart the plant fibers. Each one only cost me about  ten points, but unfortunately while my ability to manipulate them was  casual and without cost, the actual attacks weren't and the shadow  constructs started to weaken after a few stalks had been torn apart and  eventually broke under enough use.

Still,  I was pulling off some serious damage here, and it was more than  distracting enough to let Artemis, Reggie, and Kit do their sweet funky.  Artemis and Reggie were teaming up to blow portions of the thing apart,  with my lab partner kicking a soccer ball out toward the thing and then  swapping it with huge chunks of dangerous unstable explosives he'd  grabbed from his workshops, which Artemis set off with well places  lightning bolt arrows.Aside from the bombs blowing chunks out they also  showered the thing with white phosphorus or magnesium.

Reggie  had spent the last month learning how to make bombs and his work shop  was full of huge chunks of random mixtures and concoctions. Granted they  weren't all battle ready, but when you had a lightning bolt to put into  a charge it didn't really need to be pretty, just packed enough to go  boom. I had offered to get him an "expert my dad knew" to teach him as a  cover for finding a way to cheat him the skill, but he actually loved  studying explosives and turned me down saying he was enjoying the  learning process.

He  seemed to have a real flare for it, pun intended, because the two of  them were doing even more damage than my psychotic gun nut cousin, who  had grabbed a duffel without me noticing as we left and was currently  setting up a mortar launcher she was using to take chunks out of the  plant thing. All in all between us we were taking serious bites out of  this thing, but it was regenerating incredibly fast and I didn't have  the points to put into something huge and flashy. I had some amazing  ideas for using my new powers in concert but I would need a few days  savings to use them.

I  landed on a nearby roof after I dodged around a corner having used a  single point to create a shadow message I could alter at will to  communicate to my crew to pull it back while I rested, because dear gods  was this tiring. Flying may have been instinctual, but it still took  energy. Even if the energy was somehow distributed evenly across my  whole body instead of in my back muscles like you would expect. I was  starting to get exhausted. I heard a whistle next to me. "Wow, that's  pretty nasty. Have to say kid, I'm impressed you managed to put up such a  fight, you don't feel that strong."

I  jumped and spun around to see Gojo sitting cross legged in mid air next  to me, looking down over the scene with casual interest. He grinned at  my yelp, throwing his hands up. "Don't shoot kid, I come in peace. And  don't worry I'm not here to steal your kills. Last thing I want is to  start making noise here like I did back home and get dragged into all  the power games. Still, you and your peeps aren't too bad and I've  always been something of a teacher plus your mom would be bummed if you  got ganked right in front of her, so I thought I might offer some  advice."

I  glared at him. "Ok, ignoring your complete refusal to help because we  don't really need it and you ARE protecting my mom...somehow, how do you  even know who I am? I'm wearing a mask and very thick armor. Plus I  have fucking wings like this? Who the fuck are you?" Because despite  being in the middle of a city block under attack by a giant regenerating  plant monster the bastard was just floating around amicably without a  care in the world. Even I was keeping a weather eye out for the nearest  tentacle but Gojo looked completely unconcerned.

He  just shrugged. "You're you. My eyes don't work like most people's,  things like masks and armor aren't really an issue. As for who I am well  that's easy." He gave an exaggerated wink I could see behind his  glasses and shot me two finger guns. "I'm your moms super cool honey  bunny. Just the guy who takes care of her now." He could clearly tell I  was unamused because he let his head fall back and groaned. "Awww, am I  officially old now? Did the kids leave me behind on the road of cool and  now I'm just an out of touch fogey?" He threw his hands up in the air,  clutching at the space like he had claws "How do I reach these kids!?"

I  just...stared. Ok. So Gojo actually was much of a spaz as he seemed  around mom. Good to know he was being up front with her at least. I'd  kind of expected that to be some kind of cover identity, but it seemed  like he just gave zero fucks. "First off, you're weird. You're a weird  dude who does weird things. Second of all as amusing as all of this is  to you I'd personally like to finish this fight before I run out of  energy, so if you have some sort of insight to share that isn't bad  cliches or subtle insinuations about your sex life with my mother I  would love to hear them."

That  surprised a laugh from the floating madman, who literally fell over  cracking up in midair, and somehow kept falling in a complete circle  until he was upright again. "Gotcha, I'll make sure my insinuations  about my sex life with your mother are as blatant as possible. But fine,  buzz kill. You're doing this wrong. I was going to ignore it because  you're doing your own thing and if I hold your hand you'll never get  strong, but you've done more than enough damage to actually kill the  thing if you weren't being an idiot, and watching people be stupid gets  on my nerves."

He  pointed at the plant. "As you can see the thing is clearly regenerating  from all the damage you're doing, except your boy's cool fire bombs  which are slowing it down, kudos on that by the way. But you just keep  hacking away at it like morons, despite getting almost no long term  results. Seriously even basic critical thinking skills would have ended  this fight like twenty minutes ago, you're bad at this and you should  feel bad for making me watch it." He adjusted his finger, indicating a  specific spot on the plant. "What do you see there."

I  looked, rolling my eyes because he was clearly trying to find some kind  of central power source, but I'd been staring at this thin in aura  sight for like ten minutes and there was no...I froze, leaning forward  to get a closer look at something. Gojo cackled and slapped his leg.  "And look at that, he can be taught. Man life is so much easier with  people who can pay attention. You saw that I take it?" I nodded  absently. I had seen it. A flash of concentrated power past the spot he  pointed out, sort of like the core I'd been looking for but moving.

I  glanced at him again, even more warily. "I didn't even notice that  until you pointed it out. How can you see that kind of detail in the  energy? Seriously what are you doing here? I've been ignoring it because  you make my mom happy, but someone as strong as you just sitting around  doesn't make much sense. Hell if you were really so into my mom I'd  have expected you to step in during some of our fights. But you just sit  at home with mom goofing off and being kind of a freeloader. Not that  I'm annoyed about the money I have plenty, but you make me nervous."

Gojo  shrugged. "I don't make a habit of playing babysitter. If you're too  weak to stay alive that just means you're an idiot for getting sucked  into the fight, and I don't save stupid. This is just me pointing out  something that's right in front of my face because watching this  nonsense was getting old. As for why I'm here?" He just shrugged. "Back  home I was always the go to for peoples problems. 'it's so strong, we'd  better call Gojo, he can save us' it honestly made me sick. I made  everyone so lazy and weak. I hated being a crutch. So I stopped caring."

That  did sound annoying. He must have seen that in my body language because  he laughed. "Yeah see, you get it. But still I had a person or two I  liked so I usually got sucked into a fight here or there and despite how  good I was at it it still bored the shit out of me. Like what was the  point?" He smiled a bit. "But then I met Marie. I'm used to women  falling all over themselves, I'm strong and pretty damn handsome, and  it's usually easy. But Marie wasn't impressed. I had to work to get her  to agree to go out with me. Work to make her happy. And it was hard. For  the first time I stopped being bored. My life is so much better with  her than just fighting. It's interesting and surprising."

He  just left it at that. Like it was enough just to not be bored. Which  honestly, for someone like him I guessed it was. I wondered if I'd ever  get to that point? Being so strong that my strength literally became  meaningless because it was so overwhelming. I could see his point. I  sighed and stood up. "Ok, fair enough. Just...don't hurt her. I can find  a way to kick your ass old man, if I really have to." He just laughed  and waved me off and I rolled my eyes, heading back for the edge of the  roof. "Anyway thanks for the advice, you should head back inside. You  probably told her you were going to the bathroom or something, don't  want her to get suspicious."

There  was no answer, and when I looked back he was nowhere to be seen. Rather  than impress me it made me roll my eyes again. He was such a show off,  but still, I could think of worse guys for mom to be dating. I walked up  to the edge of the roof and hopped up on the railing, using my powers  to manipulate the shadow message I'd left on the small square of white  cardboard I'd had Artemis bring just for that purpose, telling my  friends the plan as I called up a twenty point saw blade on either side  with a grin. Now that I knew what to look for I was going to finish this  once and for all. Then maybe I would get some pizza. Flying made me  hungry.