Malcolm Tent

Stronger Together chapter 173

I wasted no time heading over to the svartalf compound, and made my  way down to speak with Etri the very next day. I didn't need Gard to  make it through the gate this time, Etri must have mentioned I might be  coming because the svartalf at the gate in the human mask let me right  through. That seemed like a good sign to me. My biggest worry coming  here was that the svartalves would turn down my request for  apprenticeship, they were extremely insular, and if ...

Sell you a Bridge chapter 39

Hokus and Pokus Occult Curioso July 11th 2010 1:30 PM EDT

I turned to Jim with a horrified look on my face. This was all  because of us, hell, because of me. Annabel had only pushed Reggie into  that stupid heist to try to get control over me. Now the knife we'd  stolen had seriously injured and maybe killed a powerful ancient magic  user and was responsible for the Court of Owls getting their hands on a  cache of extremely dangerous magical ite...

Stronger Together chapter 172

The first thing I did after we left the field was fix my body. I was  up to about eighty five percent godsteel, and it felt...wrong. I felt  inhuman, like I was becoming something other. Luckily I didn't have to  worry about it as much anymore since I'd discovered my new trick. I  began to slowly shift the godsteel along the living web of metal in my  body drawing the extra material out of other parts of my body ant  condensing them into my arm. It was excruciati...

Sell you a Bridge chapter 38

Hokus and Pokus Occult Curioso July 11th 2010 1:00 PM EDT

Madame  Xanadu's shop was wrecked, but we couldn't see it until we got closer.  She must have had some sort of illusion over the place because until we  were about ten feet away from the store front it looked just like it had  before. Once we crossed the ten foot line though it became clear that  something bad had gone down here. The windows were blown out from the  inside, with glas...

Stronger Together chapter 171

I was stunned. These bastards had fused together like some kind of  evil douchey wolf megazord. Fifteen feet tall may not have sounded like  much, but the actual power this combined version had was much more than  doubled. This thing was undoubtedly at least twice as strong as the two  of them together inside the Authority. The question was, why hadn't they  done this at the beginning. The Authority clearly had more holes in it  in terms of weaknesses, so the onl...

Sell you a Bridge chapter 37

The Clock Tower July 11th 2010 11:00 AM EDT

Sleeping  at the clock tower was miserable, the beds here were awful, I  considered ordering a super deluxe mattress through my power, but it  seemed like a huge waste with everything going on. I needed a new power,  something I could explain away with my perfect memory and my current  abilities so I was saving up for something useful. Unfortunately my  muscle powder was long finished and I couldn...

Stronger Together chapter 170

I managed to hurl myself away from another blurring strike by Remus  as he came in with a hard right aimed at my jaw, and it gave Cinder just  enough time to hurl a soulfire and fall maiden infused glass sword made  by her semblance at his back. Unfortunately the bastard had started  getting used to our rhythm and rolled to the side, avoiding the slash. I  dove forward to put my arm in front of Cinder as he threw a kick at her  off balance form, aiming for her st...

Sell you a Bridge chapter 36

??? Gotham City July 10th 2010 8:00 PM EDT

I  admit to being a bit disappointed when Jim pulled up on a street corner  and we all got out of the Silver Ghost. I looked at my mentor dryly  "Wow. This is a nice street corner. I can't wait to tell all my friends.  They don't have clandestine meetings on street corners this nice. I  have to say I wasn't sure this place would live up to all the hype but  you sure proved me wrong. Look at the qua...

Stronger Together chapter 169

Ok, I had seen some impressive shit, but building a roman coliseum  out of the last rays of the setting sun and dragging us into the  nevernever with it was pretty fucking impressive. I turned to look at an  equally astonished Gard. "Any chance this was all within Odin's  calculations and you have some sort of amazing countermeasure for  getting dragged into the nevernever stashed in your pocked that will  turn this around in seconds?" Judging by her expression I...

Sell you a Bridge chapter 35

Unknown Warehouse July 10th 2010 2:00 PM EDT

The  meeting with my dad the next day was a few hours after noon. I'd  slept...poorly the night before. I'd expected the nightmares, but I also  had a sense of growing paranoia about being alone. Being by myself  forced me to think about something other than what was going on, and  that inevitably involved Annabel. I did everything possible to avoid  being on my own at all times, distracting myse...

Stronger Together chapter 168

Gard was of course onboard. The weapons we had were all we needed for  this show down. With the exception of the Beast killing flintlock,  which pretty much didn't do anything anymore except fire subpar  ammunition, all the rest of the gear was long term viable. Granted I was  pretty sure I'd end up having to return some of it in exchange for my  smithing lessons from the Svartalves (there was no way they would pass  up the excuse to get some of it back) but stil...

Sell you a Bridge chapter 34

The Clock Tower July 9th 2010 11:30 PM EDT

Getting  in touch with the others to arrange a meeting wasn't too tough. Artemis  was right next door and Reggie had finished his date with Bette at  around ten. Jim meanwhile pretty much lived at The Clock Tower so all of  them getting there by eleven thirty wasn't too big of a problem. The  meeting itself was much less simple of an affair. The air around the  table in the main room behind the tow...

Stronger Together chapter 167

We had a few days of quiet after The Beast was put down. Honestly I  was a bit antsy to start looking for the twins since we only had a few  weeks left to deal with the bastards. But aside from my own mental and  physical exhaustion, Andi was in a pretty fragile state. We had somewhat  bonded over our similar trauma and she spent most of her time with me  and Barb and all of the rest of it with Morgan, who she was becoming  surprisingly attached to.

I think...

Stronger Together chapter 166

Getting home I was exhausted. Even my insane body had limits and  apparently running across town at three hundred miles per hour was where  I hit my wall. When I got home I asked Kara to draw me a medicine bath.  Every muscle in my body was screaming at this point, honestly it was  almost nice, I'd sort of forgotten what it was like to hit my limits. I  didn't count klurkor anymore because even Kara could wear herself out  doing that.

Raven came in to sit w...

Sell you a Bridge chapter 33

Powers Estate July 9th 2010 7:30 PM EDT

I don't know what I expected after Annabel died. Hell, I don't know  if expected anything. The only girlfriend I ever had had just drugged  me, told me she loved me, and then died, all within the last hour. She'd  been directly responsible for several extremely unpleasant things and  had been planning to brainwash me and turn me into some kind of assassin  puppet. All of that was unacceptable, but it was a...

Sell you a Bridge chapter 32

Powers Estate, July 9th 2010 7:00 PM EDT

Ringing  the doorbell at Annabel's place was nerve wracking. I was in my best  suit, which I'd splurged and burned ten points on when I found an email  for a discount suit sale that promised the highest quality and a fit as  good as custom tailoring. I had five of them in my closet now and they  were worth probably twenty grand a pop, I'd paid less than a thousand  for all of them. Still, even with t...

Stronger Together chapter 165

Gabby, fortunately, was not an orphan. Chastel had snatched her off  the playground rather than from home so her parents were most likely  fine. However, a random guy returning your kid was bound to stir up  questions, so I called Harry and asked him to pass a message to our  favorite lieutenant, asking her to come and meet us. In the meantime I  brought Gabby out to the parking lot and we sat down to wait for her.  She seemed shaken, which made sense after all t...

Sell you a Bridge chapter 31

Wayne Manor, July 9th 2010 7:15 PM EDT

I was a bit skeptical of Jim's plan. Admittedly I doubted Dick would  have time to keep an eye on me with such a good show going on, but this  seemed wildly dramatic and ostentatious. As I had that thought however I  remembered that this was exactly Jim's style. He purposefully got  caught on big flashy jobs to misdirect the League away from his real  thefts and lower his perceived threat level. This was ex...

Stronger Together chapter 164

The snide french voice on the other end of the burner phone sounded  less amused when I answered this time "I am not enjoying this game  anymore. You have cheated. I had more fun planned, but if you cannot  follow the rules we will skip to the final stage. Meet me at the field  where we first spoke if you wish to recover the girl. As you did the  last time you have ten minutes before I spill her blood across the  grass." The line clicked off as he hung up again.<...

Sell you a Bridge chapter 30

Wayne Manor, July 9th 2010 7:00 PM EDT

Wayne  Manor was really big. Like, I'd thought the Drake Estate was big but  the Wayne's took it the extra mile, the place was the size of a damn  castle. I turned to my girlfriend, who was just getting out of the limo  she'd arranged for tonight. Annabel was wearing a tiny maroon dress that  set off her hair amazingly. Her face was expertly made up and her hair  was falling in shimmering golden curls ...

Stronger Together chapter 163

I was about to lose my damn mind. I'd been feeling so powerful  lately, taking out all my opponents one by one, and then The Beast shows  up and rakes me over the coals. I felt like I was hurtling down a set  of tracks in a cart and no matter how hard I tried I couldn't stop. I'd  gotten too obsessed with raw power and forgotten that even minimal force  can move mountains with the right leverage. I got cocky and Andi and  these bystanders were paying the price. 2021-12-11 20:53:47 +0000 UTC View Post

Sell you a Bridge chapter 29

Gotham Academy, July 7th 2010 7:00 AM EDT

Once  again I was exhausted in class. I'd stayed up late last night at the  lair, working on trying to crack into the security on Wayne Manor. After  about five hours of attempts to get past their firewall I had decided  to call it. Whatever fucking monster of a computer Bruce Wayne had  running the encryption on his security cameras wasn't something I could  bypass, even with the frankly ludicrous ...

Stronger Together chapter 162

Swinging home to pick up the gun made to kill Chastel was pretty  quick, but extracting myself from the throng of agitated women that  really didn't want me to go meet a serial killer in the middle of a dark  Chicago park was a much more long term project. I got their concern,  really I did. I honestly would have preferred to carpet bomb the place  with soulfire and laugh maniacally from a distance as the bastard  burned, but sadly this particular fuck stick was ...

Sell you a Bridge chapter 28

The Clock Tower, July 4th 10:30 EDT

Artemis  was glaring at me as she pulled off her mask when we got back to the  clock tower. I winced and averted my eyes. After a minute or two of  silence she finally erupted "I can't believe you knocked out a nine year  old!" I had been expecting that a lot sooner honestly, and I was  grateful she waited until we got back to the lair. She exhaled slowly  "Ok, you didn't punch him or anything, so why don...

Stronger Together chapter 161

Barb's call came as we were walking out of the field museum. I had  been a bit worried about not seeing her earlier so I was happy to hear  from my redhead. I picked up the call with a smile "Hey babe, we missed  you at the house earlier. Big day on our side. How goes the exciting  world of big business?" I was expecting plenty of ribbing about how  badly I'd been mishandling things but I was ready for it. I told you so  sex was Barb's specialty. I didn't mind a ...

Sell you a Bridge chapter 27

Drake Manor, July 4th 9:00 PM EDT

I  was annoyed. It was the fourth of July, and instead of being curled up  next to my girlfriend like I was supposed to be I was sitting in a copse  of trees outside a huge manner house. I glared at my boss, who was  floating next to me sipping tea, as we sat in the sweltering July night.  My costume did not breath. I was wearing a full three piece black suit  complete with half cape and a shiny black trage...

Stronger Together chapter 160

I completely understood why Lycaon had collapsed under Fenrir's gaze  when he was younger. I had been thinking about it like resistance  training, like I had been around enough terrifying things to weather the  pressure. But I had been wrong. Fenrir's gaze didn't crush down on me  like a mountain. I mean sure, there was that too, but I was actually  able to resist that fine, no the thing that made this scary was that the  pressure to submit came from ME.

It...

Stronger Together chapter 159

The phone ringing wasn't an unusual turn of events. It was pretty  common to get calls now that our friends had phones they could use. No  one gets more giddy about technology than wizards who spent decades  watching everyone else have fun with it. However, out of all the people  we'd given the phones to, the one who was the least flighty was Henry.  He only called if he had news or was inviting us for a visit, and he  knew we had too much going on right now for ...

Sell you a Bridge chapter 26

Gotham Park, July 4th , 12:00 PM EDT , four weeks later.

It  was a good day. Annabel and I were at the park for a picnic for the  fourth of July, enjoying the sunshine and each other's company. After  our first date the day after the heist we started spending more time  together. She'd even gotten to know my friends, though Reggie was still  twitchy around her. I'd asked him about it and he said he'd always  suspected she was in the Court. ...

Sell you a Bridge chapter 25

The fingers on the Hand were getting a bit low as I stumbled out of  the cellar doors. Avoiding that shitty green thing had been annoying, I  assumed that it was for some reason considered to be outside the Hand's  restrictions. I had to use my shadow movement again to get out, but  after I'd completed the mission I could spare the extra power to push  the speed up. By cranking it to four points an hour (leaving me with  only three) I could actually push myself t...