Stronger Together chapter 178

Naturally the girls decided to invite the old bastard in to stay.  Luckily my abusive teacher preferred solitude and chose to retrofit the  garage to his own liking. Apparently the girls were thrilled to meet  him, with Raven and Cinder being excited to meet an experienced  enchanter and Barb wanting to hear all about the amazing projects he  worked on. Yang was trying to pump him for embarrassing information on  me, which I'd kind of expected and Kara had brought out the Sword of El  to show him, wanting an experience opinion on the object.

Morgan,  Sam, Inari, and Andi mostly didn't care but they were happy to join in  with the fun, leaving me dragging the bag out to the garage to clean the  place up and set up a temporary abode for the vicious old elf. Having a  detached garage like Michael's wasn't really useful to me before, since  I could just use Harry's lab if I needed to work and he had better  stuff, but since I had to make a forge anyway I might as well but my  master out here. Besides, I wanted to sleep as far away from the Goddamn  Stick as humanly possible.

Forcing  the door to the garage open was harder than expected. Not because it  was stuck so badly or anything but because as strong as I was I didn't  want to smash any of the stuff behind the door into paste. Still after a  few minutes of shifting I got into the place without too much trouble  and flipped the switch set into the bare wooden structure of the garage.  A single light bulb on a string flared to life, still swaying from the  slam of the closed door, and casting a swinging shadow onto...so much  fucking stuff.

I  groaned. Right. This is where we dumped all of the inconvenient shit we  couldn't find a spot for. Morgan and Sam had brought a fuck load of  things with them when they moved in, but their rooms only had normal  sized closets, so they just shoved the boxes of clothes and extra  furniture out here. How the hell was I supposed to organize these in a  way that would give someone room to live, plus we would need to put the  forge in the back yard now, which would piss off the neighbors something  fierce.

I  stepped gingerly into the room, trying to avoid crushing any of the  boxes that had been thrown in here like the worlds most annoying and  space consuming game of jenga. It briefly reminded me of a scene from a  TV show I'd watched once, and I started humming "Istanbul" by They Might  Be Giants. As I began tackling the stack of boxes. I had mental images  of summoning gales of wind or using my lightning speed to clean up, but  the wind was a stupid idea because I had terrible control.

As  for the lightning speed, metal fingers moving in bullet time are  basically just bullets, and fragile cardboard is not bulletproof. Even  my most delicate attempts would tear the boxes to shreds. So I was stuck  picking up random boxes of similar size and stacking them in the corner  one at a time. It took me two hours to get them all sorted into neat  stacks that rose to the ceiling tapping into the very best of my  admittedly mediocre tetris skills to make the best use of the space. By  the time I was done I'd condensed the entire garage full of random  clutter into single corner, leaving three quarters of the space open.

Finally,  covered in dust and even a few webs that were thankfully free of  spiders (even with skin that can stop a knife those things freaked me  out) I dragged myself back inside to let that ancient stick swinging  menace know his room was ready. It occurred to me that absence really  did make the heart grow fonder, when I thought I wouldn't be seeing him  again parting with my master made me feel wistful, now I just wanted him  to go far away from me with that Goddamn Stick.

Upon  entering the house I was disgusted to notice that none of them even  noticed I was gone. Yang was digging some story out of my master about  one of the many time I accidentally spilled molten metal on myself  (though he was neglecting to mention he was hitting me with the Goddamn  Stick at the time) and the rest of them were laughing uproariously at my  misfortune. I rolled my eyes and cleared my throat "Master, I cleared  you a space in the garage, but some of Morgan's stuff is out there so we  can't use it for the forge."

My  master turned to look at me disdainfully "My old bones have been here  for so long and you've only just gotten around to clearing a space for  me? What a sad thing it is to have such a lazy ungrateful disciple." I  glared at him venomously, his bones weren't too old to swing the Goddamn  Stick too fast for me to follow with my eyes. He was just playing the  poor old man in front of the girls to garner sympathy.

Of  course I couldn't say that, so I just forced myself to smile tightly  "Sorry master, it was a bit messy and I wanted to clean up for you."  Honestly it had occurred to me too late that I could have asked Kara to  do it. She had a ton of practice picking things up gently at super  speed, and would have been able to clean out the whole place in minutes.  Of course the old man would have just bitched at me for not doing it  myself anyway. He was just annoyed because I downplayed his role in  making the Archangel Armor.

The  old elf gave a humph of disdain and hopped spryly down from the couch  (aching bones my ass) and pushed me aside to stroll out the the garage  himself. I rolled my eyes again and followed him, at this point there  was no real reason to pout, staying angry would just ruin my day, he was  here to stay so I might as well just let it go. I trailed behind him  helplessly, with the girls following me as he strutted across the back  yard and to the door of the garage. There were no boxes in the way this  time so the door swung open with no difficulty.

He  looked around the mostly empty garage critically, but I was surprised  when he nodded. "This will do. I can prevent the boxes of Ms. Morgan's  things from being damaged, we will set up the forge here." I was a bit  surprised by his statement bu on reflection it wasn't exactly odd for a  master enchanter and blacksmith to know some fire prevention runes. He  turned to regard me casually. "Fool! Why are you standing there like  furniture. Begin removing the forge from my bag and construct it. I can  only enchant the precautions once it's been built."

I  stared blankly at him for a minute, but faced with his impatience I  just stalked across the concrete floor of the garage in a huff,  muttering every curse I could think of. Despite how much I wanted to  tell him to do it himself, I noticed his knuckles tighten on the Goddamn  Stick so I had no choice. I pulled down the zipper on the army green  canvas bag and opened it up before reaching in and pulling out...a metal  hood for a coal forge. Or at least a few inches of it, I pulled and  pulled and more and more of it came out.

I  was damn lucky to have super strength or I'd have toppled over  backwards when it came free. Even so I still stumbled around a bit to  steady myself as I tried to regain my balance without tearing the roof  out of my garage. I was able to barely fit it into the available space  and managed to put it down before turning to glare at my master "You  brought a whole forge here? No wonder that damn bag was heav-ow!" I  yelped as a familiar pain shot through my skull, glaring at him, but  decided to shut up and get back to work hauling his heavy ass metal  working equipment out of his stupid bigger on the inside bag that I was  totally going to hide and not give back.

It  took me about a half hour to drag out all his crap, which turned out to  be literally everything in that stupid hut of his, and put it all in  position (by which I meant put it one place and get a Stick to the head  before he told me where to move it to). In the end it was basically the  same layout as his old place so I wised up an avoided getting hit most  of the last half. Luckily this freed him up to start engraving runes on  the concrete around Morgan's boxes and around the actual forge  equipment.

As  he carved the last rune around the forge itself the coals inside blazed  to life. I'd always wondered why that thing never needed to be lit,  guess it was magic. As we worked I managed to pick up the pace enough  that I felt comfortable asking "Master, is it really worth coming out  here? In all honesty even with the armor we aren't guaranteed to beat  Fenrir, besides I would have come back. Why would you come all this  way?" The elders never left the depths as far as I knew him showing up  here was unprecedented.

I  half expected to get hit for asking, but the response I got was even  more jarring. Silence. The old man never shut up unless he was forging.  When you asked a question he answered immediately, usually with some  kind of insult or barb mixed in. Finally he spoke again "I've never  taken a disciple before. As old as I am I probably never will again. You  aren't untalented, and it would be a shame to see you feed the beast.  I'll help you forge some armor for the rest of your women so you can  fight without distraction."

I  swallowed hard. That was...wow. I hadn't expected that. The old man was  rough on me most of the time, I knew he was putting up a front but to  have someone care that much about me was pretty touching. I knew that  dwelling on it would embarrass him though so I just cleared my throat.  "Thanks. I better get the last of this metal unloaded then. You'll need  it if you're going to be making armor for the girls." I tried to keep  the gratitude out of my voice, but I knew I sounded a bit stiff and he  could tell, neither of us commented.

He'd  brought quite a few supplies with him. With the extra gear we would be  able to bring Andi and Inari this time, and it occurred to me that he  might have been using the chat session inside to gauge who needed what. I  wasn't sure if he knew which girl had the three armors they supplied  but I wouldn't put it past him, he was pretty wily. Nine girls would be  coming this time, so we needed six sets of armor. Harry and River had  their own gear sorted out but I felt like I needed to provide for  everyone who lived with me.

As  the grouchy old elf started melting down steel and silver and a dozen  other metals I couldn't help but smile. This was going to be the biggest  fight of my life and his help might save some of the people I cared  most about. I'd have to really bust my ass learning from him after this  to make up for it. I silently promised that I would become skilled  enough to make a masterwork artifact like the Archangel Armor all on my  own, and when I did I'd make sure everyone knew who my teacher was.