Stronger Together chapter 87 (Patreon)

The rest of the week flew by. Between training in Klurkor with Kara  and working on potions and improving my shield I was swamped. I trained  with my aspects and combining them with the shield or Aura or even just  normal casting, though I kept my word to River never to try too many of  those things at once. My Aura reserves grew incredibly quickly and my  strength soared with them. By the time the eighteenth rolled around my  Aura had basically doubled.

Kara's  medicinal baths helped smooth over the training time and I felt like got  more improvement out of that one week than I normally would out of  months. Klurkor was fucking hard. Even with the medicine baths (which i  just started sleeping in) It was insanely difficult to manage my forms  every day. I felt like my body was being destroyed down to the last cell  and remade daily. The worst part was they didn't get easier, I just  became more and more aware I was doing them wrong. The stronger I got  the more nuance and depth I found in the exercises, like I was still  catching up to the basic level of strength I'd need.

Kara  had been wrong though, I realized it as I trained, these forms were not  made for mortals. Something about the gradual cleansing the soulfire  was doing and my constant strengthening was making it clear to me that  this martial art was every bit as old as Kara said. I suspected one of  their gods might have designed it. Of course they had "refined it" over  millennia, so the effects were a bit muted but this style was genuinely  helping the soulfire purify my body of mortality. If I kept training I  might cleanse myself totally in years instead of decades. At least  assuming it didn't slow down.

I  climbed out of the bath early the day of the eighteenth. Barb was  actually really pissed I stopped sleeping in our bed at first but then  she sat in on one of our lessons and now she spent the night in Kara's  tub so she didn't hog too much of the potency of the nutrient fluids. I  looked down at the water, which was clear as glass. Last night it had  been dark blue, Kara said nutrient fluid was designed as a carrier so  once the healing compounds were absorbed you ended up with just water. I  normally waited until the end of the day to do my forms, but today I  completed them early.

As  usual my ducking muscles felt like they went through a wood chipper and  I dumped another few gallons of nutrient fluid into the tub and laid  back down, turning on an audiobook before I relaxed. I climbed out of my  now clear tub again at two PM and stretched, feeling the power in my  muscles. I'd had to do my exercises early today and waste the time on  the bath because tonight was the night. It was finally time to beard the  Skinwalker in his den. I couldn't miss a day but I needed to be healed  and ready for the fight.

River  was out scouting ahead for nightfall since that was when the ritual the  Skinwalker needed to do had to happen apparently. The wizards were  gearing up and doing battle prep and Kara and Cinder were waiting for me  out in the clearing when I got there. I nodded to my girls as I showed  up "Hey you two, are you both ready for the big fight? Tonight's the  night. Cinder, did you ever get a handle on the shielding spell?" Cinder  had run into some trouble with the soulfire magic, River had been  working on helping her meld the two systems, since his powers were  pretty similar to hers.

Cinder  nodded "Yes. But I've had a bit of a side effect." She reached up and  pulled back her hair to reveal a single streak near her ear that was the  red of fall leaves. My eyes widened at that, but she just nodded.  "After consulting with teacher and Dresden, as well as speaking to Kara  and Barbara, we came to the conclusion since my power is mixing with  soulfire the conversion process all of you are going through is  different for me. We aren't sure if I'm just becoming some kind of fall  angel, or something else. Either way it doesn't seem harmful. In any  case I was able to successfully blend the magics together."

One  thing I'd noticed recently was that Cinder was incredibly respectful of  River. Not just as lip service I could feel the genuine admiration. The  big Sasquatch had clearly made an impression on the former follower of  Salem. I suspected it might be because she'd never had anyone take a  genuine interest in teaching her before, or at least not for a long  time, but Cinder seemed to have a special place in her heart for the  position of teacher. I smiled at her happily and she blushed a bit and  looked away, clearing her throat as she tried to disengage.

Kara  took pity on the other girl and piped up "And I've been working on my  Klurkor. I've been trying to feel a bit of what you described when you  mentioned doing the forms. I feel it a little bit, like some very small  spark inside me is growing brighter but very faintly. Maybe its  strengthening my divine blood. You could be right about where it came  from. Sadly the edited version that the science council 'fixed' is much  different than the original so its barely doing anything. It'll be a  long time before I get any stronger I think. I wish I'd bothered  learning the original forms. Or any of the higher level stuff."

We'd  talked it over and we were pretty sure the Kryptonian phobia of all  things mystical or spiritual had stunted their development in this  regard. Our working theory was that every Kryptonian who started feeling  the effects of the forms had gone out of their way to avoid it. Which  to be fair, made sense, if you started feeling weird mental disturbances  when you worked out and didn't know why you'd do something different  too. Another thing I hadn't known was that Klurkor was apparently mostly  extinct on Krypton. Sure they had refined it like they did everything,  but most of them practiced newer arts, the House of El made their  children practice it though, presumably a holdover from their divine  ancestors.

The  more we delved into it the more sure I was that this was some sort of  Divine Art Rao passed down to his grandchildren to help them get  stronger. I'd been insanely lucky Kara had been drilled on it as a kid.  The House of El had held onto their roots even after they forgot why and  it was paying dividends for us. With all this in mind I was probably  going to ask Kara to teach it to Raven, Yang, and Cinder too. Though  considering it sounded like it purged mortality and refined power Raven  probably wouldn't want anything to do with it. We'd be honest with her  and let her choose, I could definitely understand not wanting to be more  of a demon.

I  shook off those thoughts, this particular day wasn't the time for  musing about the future. I needed to be laser focused. I closed my eyes  and let out a deep breath. I opened them and turned to Kara. "Anyway  I've made some damn good progress, I can do some serious damage when i  put my mind to it. I can't wait to test out my new skills. Speaking of  skills, where is Barb? I expected her out here with you guys talking  strategy before the big show down?" The redhead was pathologically  meticulous about strategy meetings, a holdover from working for a boss  who tended to vanish into shadows without discussing the plan.

Kara  smiled "She's in the bath recovering. Little miss sunshine woke up  later than you so she's still healing up after her exercises. She's as  religious about the forms as you are." She paused, cocking her head  "Though I guess given their effects religious is the right word. Huh.  Anyway yeah, she's soaking right now. I swear I'll need to make a  machine to mix that stuff for you guys, you drain it faster than anyone I  know. Eight hours is about the right amount of time for you to heal up  but you should be able to reuse the stuff like five times. Draining it  clear every day is weird."

That  was interesting actually. I wondered if the nutrient fluid was based on  a recipe that was supposed to work with Klurkor to help refine the  body, but it wasn't like there was anyone we could ask. I shrugged it  off "Fair enough, of all of us she's the one who relies most on her  physicality aside from you so making sure she's in tip top shape only  makes sense. How long has she been in there? If she got in at noon it's  going to be a problem. We need to leave just after sundown to make sure  we get there with time to spare."

She  shook her head. "She got in at around eight, she'll be out in a few  hours with plenty of time to spare don't worry. But is going in the dark  really the best plan? If we hit it early we might be able to take it  down while it's weak. It mostly thrives in the dark doesn't it?" She  sounded more worried than I'd ever heard her, not that I could blame  her. We were going to be fighting a shapeshifting super monster that was  mega charged on her blood. It had wounded her the last time and it was  stronger now.

I  made a point of not acknowledging the fear, I knew that was what she  needed. I glanced out into the trees before I spoke "It does hunt mostly  at night, but the issue is the only thing we know about this ritual is  that it needs the moon. If we got early we risk not only not managing to  surprise it like we're hoping to, we might get there before it does and  get counter ambushed when it stumbles on us. Going in the dark is a bit  riskier but it gives us the best shot of taking it unaware. Aside from  the fact that this ritual is in a place it thinks is safe it also knows  we know it's stronger at night. It won't be expecting an attack."

Cinder  actually snorted out a laugh at that. We glanced at the now once again  blushing maiden and she shrugged. "Sorry, just the idea that our element  of surprise stems from the fact that it assumes no one would be stupid  enough to attack it in it's lair isn't comforting. Though it is kind of  hilarious. Are you sure we can take this thing? Because seeing what  teacher can do in combat makes me terrified of fighting something who is  at his own admission leagues above him in terms of shapeshifting. Even  that small amount of combat form shifting gave him enough of an edge to  beat Sam, and this thing can just become whatever."

I  winced at that "You aren't wrong. But in terms of surprises we should  come out ahead. Even it couldn't get close enough to eavesdrop on us  with River around. We have so many powers and skills it hasn't seen  before no way it sees us coming. This is going to come down to grit, we  have Kara and River as our heavies and you and the wizards as our cover  with me and Barb running flanking we should be able to take down  anything. The issue is keeping it down. River knows the blessing way to  bind it, but with the extra power it might break loose. Once it's bound  we need to finish it if we can. This is going to be one hell of a  fight."