Stronger Together chapter 144 (Patreon)

The distraction from watching her walk was interrupted by a voice  from behind me. "Ah, I was wondering where the servants went. I suppose  you should be congratulated for managing them all on your own." I froze  in place and turned. Behind me stood a guy who looked about my age. His  hair was blonde and his eyes were the ice blue of an arctic wolf. I  hadn't sensed him literally at all, which couldn't possibly bode well.  He turned his head to regard an almost identical guy with brown hair and  amber wolf eyes who i also hadn't noticed until he drew my attention  "What do you think brother?"

Brown haired wolf guy  shrugged. "It's certainly an impressive feat Remus, but it's a bit  inconvenient. Finding so many compatible subjects for our curse was time  consuming. Now we have to source more of them or we'll be without any  servants at all." He sounded at worst mildly irritated by my wholesale  slaughter of the super werewolves, which was really not good. These guys  had seen the fight and considered me zero threat to them, though at  least I knew who they actually were now. The twins had officially made  their move.

The twins felt weirdly massive for their size.  Like they had this palpable aura of violence that just rolled off of  them, something about them spoke of an unnatural animality even without  the eyes. The way they cocked their heads, the way they stood, their  intense focus. I felt like a gazelle being watched by a pair of lions. I  decided to try polite, no reason to get into a fight with unknowably  powerful legendary enemies if it could be avoided. "So, Remus and  Romulus huh? It's an honor. I'm a big fan of....western civilization in  it's current form."

I kind of lost my momentum there at  the end because considering Roma was one the major forces behind the  current form of society as a whole I was standing in front of a pair of  people who literally shaped the world. Though I used the term people  fairly loosely.Romulus smiled...wolfishly "You are welcome. We seek the  child, no need to fear for his safety, we only wish to help him fulfill  his destiny." He said that like just stating it should immediately put  an end to any worries, because he had said it so it should happen.

I  noticed a fairly big gap in that particular promise of safety though.  "What about Tera? She's his mother, I would think the two of you would  understand if anyone did how important that is to a young boy. Will she  be safe too?" Honestly none of this was even my call, but if Jean  Chastel and fucking Fenrir were the other choices I would take a message  to Tera if theses guys were willing to protect them without separating  them. From their cold expressions though I was guessing this was going  to end less than stellarly.

Remus shook his head "A wolf  is a fine mother for a small child, but there comes a point where boys  must go out on their own. We left our own mother behind when we were the  boys age to make our way. We won't kill her so long as she hands over  the child, this is our sincerity. Should she stand in our path...well,  all children, save one, grow up." That had been a bit of a gear shift,  also I was fairly sure that had been a Peter Pan reference, which was  both interesting and fairly disturbing in the current context.

I  quickly realized that even if I gave that offer to Tera (which I wasn't  going to bother doing because what was even the point) she would end up  fighting to the death with the two of them. This was going to become a  fight no matter what happened, so I decided to take it into my own  hands. I triggered my aspects again and rushed forward, using my old  fall backs of lightning and force this time. I rushed at the closest  brother, Remus, expecting to take him off guard with the attack. I was  moving so fast the gravel spray from pushing off was sitting in the air  like it was frozen in time.

I was about a second away from  pulping his smug roman face. However thing's didn't go as I'd hoped, as  I approached Remus turned his head to regard my fist and then stepped  out of the way. It was deeply unsettling to watch. He wasn't using super  speed, he was interacting with time differently, he stepped casually  out of the way of my full speed charge and despite dodging me at full  speed he was going slow. He reached out with a balled fist and casually  smashed it into my ribs.

Despite looking  like he was  giving my torso a light fist bump all of my built up force redirected  itself into my ribs, smashing me backwards and sliding my body along the  already pretty messed up street, tearing furrows in the ground. Remus  just shook his head "Imagine living life in three dimensions. How  gauche." He strolled calmly up to me. "We're kings boy, speed, strength,  they're all meaningless against divine providence. Not matter how  quickly you move we will always swat you like the fly you are. You  should have taken the favor of allowing you to lead us to the child."

Romulus  smiled ruefully "The youth today is so unruly." He walked over to stand  next to his brother, and despite being in bullet time from my aspect he  seemed to be moving completely normally, stepping around the cloud of  barely moving gravel. "So, will we have to torture you for the  information or will you simply bow to the inevitable? Because I detest  getting blood on my clothes. We might even offer a reward if that sways  you. After all, you did defeat so many of our servants, you aren't  undeserving of our praise."

This was  a problem. Apparently my speed wasn't going to work on them because  these assholes were powerful enough to perceive the world in four  dimensions. Fucking time dilation bullshit meant moving fast wouldn't  work. Luckily there was more than one way to skin a cat. Or a wold in  this case, I flicked my hand out and muttered a spell, casting a wave of  soulfire empowered flame at the twins. I might exist in three  dimensions but somehow I suspected soulfire didn't I didn't think their  little time trick would work so well on the fires of creation.

I  was actually right, they didn't just dodge. I was guessing that little  time shift trick was some kind of reactionary thing since they didn't  use it to just kick my ass to start with and they couldn't use it right  now. Remus sneered at the incoming flames and snarled a word though and  his shadow leapt off the ground. As it came free it changed shape and  began to grow until there was a wold the size of a school bus crouched  above him. It opened it's jaws and swallowed the wave of soulfire whole.

It  barely even seemed to twitch at the attack and I winced. The hulking  shadow turned slowly to glare at me. Which is why it missed the massive  blade of fall maiden flames infused with soulfire that hacked down at  it's neck, severing it's head. As the shadow wolf collapsed the darkness  that made it up began to glow with a familiar black light and reshaped  itself into a massive shadowy cobra that lashed out at the twins. My  girls had been tipped off by the magic and come to help.

Unfortunately  it was two on two not two on one, another massive wold construct, this  one made of silvery light, intercepted the shadows snake and engaged it  in battle. While the twins were distracted with combat Raven appeared at  my side with Cinder and with a massive effort of will her soul self  swallowed us both as she shadow ported us away. The further the shadow  port the longer we had to stay inside the dark magic. It wasn't really  that bad in there, just really really cold. But when you were stuck  inside for like three full minutes it became uncomfortable.

No  air existed with us in there, just icy vapor that really sucked even in  lungs reinforced with magical god metal. Finally we came spilling out  into our back yard, Cinder and I both gasping for air as we twitched on  the ground. Raven was leaning bonelessly against the wall of the house,  clearly having drained herself dry of magic in the confrontation and  ensuing teleport. My reserves had been tapped pretty heavily by that  wave of fire magic too. Combined with unpleasantness of the shadow port I  decided to just lay there and gasp for a minute.

Clearly  Raven and Cinder both agreed, but we weren't alone for very long Kara,  Barb and Yang were out the door within a minute of us landing. Yang  grabbed me and pulled me up to check me over frantically "Cam!? What  happened to you? Your clothes are all torn and bloody and you look  exhausted. Are you guys alright? Where's the car?" She looked incredibly  disturbed by the circumstances of our reappearance, clearly drawing  parallels to her mother going out on a mission and never coming back.

Kara  stepped forward to place a hand on her shoulder. "They're ok Yang, no  serious injuries or broken bones, lets just give them a minute to catch  their breaths and they can tell us all about it alright?" She pulled the  larger blonde away from me a bit to give me space and looped her arm in  Yangs. She looked over at Cinder "Seems like you're the one who looks  least exhausted Cinder, can you tell us what happened when you're  ready?" Cinder was taking great big gulps of air still to try to get her  lungs working but nodded as she did.

After  a minute of that she managed to get her breath back to normal and  responded, lucky her, I was still gasping. "We were meeting with Dalton  for information about who's in town searching for Connor. We left to  come home after he told us who was here and why and the car was attacked  by a horde of crazed werewolves. We managed to fight them off but  apparently they were sent by two very powerful...what exactly are the  twins?" She looked at me "Being raised by wolves doesn't give you that  kind of power, did you figure out what they are?"

I  winced finally managing to get my own lungs working right and draw in  breath "If I had to guess they're demigods. I've heard they have some  connection to the Roman god of war, though I don't know what it is, but  that time stream trick they used to counter my speed is something I  think gods can do. Seeing the world in multiple dimensions and all. If  demigods are that scary I don't know how the hell we're going to deal  with Fenrir. Hopefully Sigrun can help us out and put us in touch with  Odin."

Raven  had taken a seat, the good news is I suspect that Kara would be able to  deal with them if they show up again, or at least one of them. There  have to be limits to that temporal shifting and she moves much faster  than you do. At best she would be fighting on even footing with them. We  might want to ask Harry to try to hurry with that scale mail though. If  her speed is neutralized then she's going to need it to soak up  whatever magic they throw." I nodded, making a note to head to his place  tomorrow after a night sleeping this off in the medical tub. When it  rains it pours huh?