Stronger Together chapter 122 (Patreon)

I was really worried about the fight with the vampires...for about half a second. Until I heard Ebenezar roar "Teine!" at  the top of his lungs and fucking seven bus sized COLUMN of fire smashed  into the closest crowd of vampires. Nearly a hundred of the undead  bastards went up like a tinderbox and the rest scattered like bowling  pins. I nodded gratefully to the old man and turned to run to Raven. The  small bits of soulfire infused outsider vamp ash raining down seemed to  burn the vampires but more like tiny bits of acid, only enough to  irritate. It didn't bother me though and I got to her side quickly.

I  exhaled with gratitude as I dropped down next to her. She was awake,  though the bloodless pallor of her face was alarming even for her and  she had her hand over her wound, her empathic healing working on it  slowly. She noticed my stare and smiled painfully "Yes I can  empathically heal myself." Her voice was strained and her teeth gritted  "It exponentially increases my pain however so I try not to use it. I  caught the end of your fight. Very impressive. Especially the way you  aren't in a coma this time." Barb snorted in laughter and I turned to  glare at her, only to find her facing away trying to hide her obvious  smirk.

I  dropped the glare with a laugh, my heart wasn't in it. "Sorry, but that  particular enemy needed killing." I looked around to see that Yang,  Kara, Lily, and Cinder had been escorted over to us by Lily's knights. I  smiled as they made it to us "Speaking of enemies that need killing,  anyone know if offing that rotting bitch Mavra will under whatever weird  dark sacrilege nonsense she used to put out your powers?" I was pissed I  hadn't seen any of this coming. Predicting this shit was my job and my  terrible operational security had almost gotten us killed. Public  conspiracy meetings against the white court? What was wrong with me.

Ebenezar  nodded. "It should, and if it doesn't I probably can myself if we can  get the damn thing. Unfortunately she played into the crowns purpose  which makes the spell more effective. The crown is made to rule, proper  protection and a just and loyal kingship are in it's nature. By  subverting it like she did she inverted that nature. Unjust rulership,  forced submission and tyranny. The crown has always been less obviously  useful than the swords because it's so situation specific, but that same  factor makes it substantially more powerful when it works. If killing  her doesn't undo it we'll have to resanctify it and use the crown  itself."

I  could see how that would work. The swords were a multitool. They were  good for all sorts or things. The crown was a drill, it was pretty much  only good for drilling holes, but it was better at drilling holes than  the multitool. With that clarified we encircled the girls with some of  our best and River, Ebenezar, Harry, and Jace the faerie wizard all  came with me to try to take out Mavra and Raucus. Unfortunately we ran  into an issue. The bastards were gone. We'd been in the way of the exit  so they headed underground.

Following  supernaturally sneaky vampires into dark caverns seemed dumb, but hell,  we didn't have a choice. River and I took the front, since our bodies  could compete with them, and I managed to get both aspects going again  though it kind of burned. I was rapidly approaching my limits tonight.

 I  could feel the gosteel threads inside me had increased in number and my  aspects seemed more powerful and fluid. The extra juice was nice but  the growth of my internal metal network was distressing to say the  least. I didn't have time to worry about that right now though. I was  able to dial the lightning down enough to perceive the world normally at  least.

Harry  and Ebenezar conjured light from their staves, and the old wizard gave  his apprentice a sideways look but very carefully didn't mention the  sulfurous red light emitting from his staff. As we walked down the path  though Harry whispered "Hey Cam, you were down here in your vision quest  deal right? Can you help us get our heading?" 

He gestured ahead of us  to a branching tunnel. I nodded and turned left, heading for the slave  pens. I assumed the vampires would either hide among the civilians or  use them as meat shields. I counted this little outing as a win in one  way though, Harry hadn't had his hand flash fried.

I  gestured to another side and turned them away from the tunnel we should  have been using to get to the place and around a branching side  corridor. I knew these tunnels, they were burned into my brain, so I'd  take us the back way and hope we could get in a sucker punch. I lowered  my voice as we walked.

 "Ok, Harry, Ebenezar, you need to let River and I  engage them physically. I crossed fists with Mavra and that bitch has a  mean left. Well she used to. Now she has a mean right and a charred  stump." I smirked at the memory before shaking it off "Regardless no way  she lets herself get so much as grazed by my right again, between the  missing limb and the fear I should be able to keep her off balance until  you can torch her ass."

River  nodded. "The other, Raucus, is younger, I can tell. His strength should  be less though most likely still formidable. I admit my inferiority to  your speed and strength based on what I saw in that church, but I should  be more than able to handle a young vampire, even such an obviously  precocious noble." 

I thought he was underselling himself but then again I  had been hauling ass with my Klurkor so if it left an impression I  wasn't complaining. He didn't seem afraid, just respectful of my power,  which was a nice compliment from someone as badass as River. We  continued on down the tunnel in silence, the basic plan figured out.

Harry and Jace were with River on Raucus and Ebenezer would smite Mavra while I pinned  her down. We figured the older wizard would be a better match for that  ancient bitch than Harry and we didn't really know what the fae could do. After walking for a few minutes we emerged  into a massive cavern. 

The stone enclosure was pitch black and even with  it's absurd size stank of sweat and death and human waste. We'd kept  the lights coming in, because they were fucking vampires who could  obviously see in the dark, and the shining magelight from the staves  cast eerie shadows across the walls.

Within  those shadows were shifting forms in giant cages, the homeless people  captured for the ritual. I activated my magic eye spell, cranking my  lightning aspect back to full so I could perceive the world in bullet  time. Mavra and Raucus couldn't be seen even with my magic eye spell.  That wasn't surprising at all they were master vampires with centuries  of experience, obviously they would have counters to scouting magic.  Neither Harry nor Ebenezar could open their Sight either. The amount of  human suffering and torment that was even now occurring here would drive  them both insane no matter how mentally tough they were.

Harry  tapped his staff and muttered a word. A carpet of red flame rolled  across the floor, not damaging anything but climbing up the solid object  it touched like a sonar rolling up everything around us. I'd never seen  this spell in the books and judging by his face Ebenezar hadn't seen  him use it either. I came to the obvious conclusion. Lash was helping. I  wasn't sure if that was good or bad. Him accepting her help could have  been an emergency thing inspired by these suffering people but it could  have been him giving into temptation.

Then  again her offering could be her tempting him or her beginning to sway  to his side. I was confident that with Maggie around Harry wasn't going  to go dark side any time soon so I chose to think of it as the latter.  My ruminations were cut off as the hellfire sonar rolled over an  invisible form, outlining it in red light. I pounced. Vanishing from  sight as I barreled towards the form. I didn't put up a shield or use  any spells. I was tapped. I'd poured everything into that final smite on  Lord Raith.

If my aspects didn't  work passively now because of my godsteel weave I would have never had  the power to run them. But they did. And not only did they work  passively, after my expansion of the weave they were even stronger. I  blitzed the red blazing form, my godsteel arm smashing down in a Klurkor  technique. Not the forms because doing them would kill me right now,  just one of the many movements I'd been forced to memorize when learning  them. The purpose of a Kata was to teach martial arts and after the  crazy things that they'd done to me I knew those katas perfectly.

I  was a master of Klurkor, at least the first level of it. Unfortunately I  was not a centuries old vampire and Mavra was pretty fucking spry for a  senior citizen. She dodged my blow and lashed out with a kick that I  deflected. We began our fight. The flames clung to her but started to  fade creating a disturbing image of me fighting a fiery silhouette.  Mavra was better than Raith. A lot better. But she wasn't as strong or  fast and she was missing an arm. The fight should have been entirely one  sided, pun intended, but the sneaky bitch just would not stand still.

She  got in some really nasty blows but my skin and bones and muscles were  woven with divine metal and it dispersed most of the force. Most of it.  Shit still hurt. Ebenezar was hurling spells when he could but that  wasn't really often considering she was so tiny and I was in the way,  still the magic tripped her up enough for me to catch her with the  occasional left. She put her full effort into avoiding my metal fist,  which seemed like the right call.

I  heard River in the background engaging Raucus but Mavra noticed the  distraction and used it to hurl a vicious looking black hex at me. I  moved on instinct and the spell went whirling past...toward a cage where  a little girl in a stained pink nightie clutching a bunny rabbit  watched with wide eyes. My own eyes were just as wide as I sprinted  after the spell. I managed to grab the thing with my godsteel arm and it  grounded through my whole body like evil lightning, causing  excruciating pain.

When  I spun back around Mavra was gone, the red fire quenched. She hadn't  run, she was still here, but she was hidden again and I doubted the same  trick would work twice. I cursed under my breath. I limped over to the  little girl, throttling my perception without letting my aspect drop  since I was positive I couldn't start it up again. I knelt down in front  of the cage, confident that Ebenezar would keep me from getting stabbed  in the back. Mavra would probably try to feel us out a bit before she  attacked again, so we had a little time to figure what to do to help the  prisoners.

The  little girl with the pale blonde hair and bright blue eyes reminded me a  bit of Kara. She stared at me in awe, at my odd blue eyes and my  shining silver arm. "That was so cool! Are you an angel? Are you here to  help us?" I smiled down at her as I stiffly began to work the lock on  the cage. 

It might be more advantageous to leave her in there until the  fight ended, but I just couldn't live with that. I was definitely here  to help them, as for her other question? I wasn't sure what the answer  was anymore. But as the cage opened and that little girl tackled my leg  in a grateful hug, I realized i didn't much care.