Sell you a Bridge chapter 140 (Patreon)

Arkham Asylum December 22nd 2010 12:30 AM EDT

The  massive sucking energy vortex in the middle of the room was,  unfortunately, a bit distracting as we tried to fight. The Amazon's had  been swarming my team and the sidekicks as we fought Circe, but even  they were kind of frozen in terror at this point. I was pretty sure,  however, that we didn't have much time before everything went to hell  again, so I shadow ported over to where the others were fighting. Circe  seemed almost hypnotized by the vortex, so we were able to slip away  from her to rejoin the others for the moment, though who knew how long  that would last.

As I appeared Robin glared at me. "Great  work. You murdered a woman and then failed to stop her boss from tearing  open a portal to a higher dimension. She's going to kill us all and  then go through, and I'm guessing that the portal isn't just going to  quietly fade away after she's done. Is there any way we get out of this  without all of us dying? Or did your terrible plan already doom the  entire city and now we're just enjoying the last act?" I found his voice  annoying as fuck and wanted to punch him, but he wasn't wrong. I'd  fucked up planning this.

I'd gotten so used to just brute  forcing my fights with my powers that I hadn't been selective enough  about WHICH powers I'd picked and I'd fucked myself. I looked to Jim,  who had teleported over after I did while Circe appeared to continue the  ritual. He shook his head. "It isn't over yet. The ascension ritual  requires her to go through the portal. The shock wave from the ascension  itself will collapse the Labyrinth, which we are technically in right  now, and probably most of the city. That said there is another option."

Zee,  who had been worrying her bottom lip in thought, suddenly looked like  she was hit by a brick. Her eyes widened in shock and she blurted out.  "We need to cut off the connection to the Labyrinth and destabilize the  portal! If we can do that, when she falls through her destination will  be completely random. Even if she ends up on the higher plane she wants  she won't be anywhere she'll have made preparations for and without a  connection to the rest of the Labyrinth the worst the damage from that  would be is Arkham collapsing."

The justice bros looked at  her in horror and she held her hands up defensively. "Not saying it's  ideal, but if we have to pick between the cesspool of madness and the  entire town, I pick Arkham. It might not happen anyway. The portal being  unstable means that when she goes through it might be partially closed  or closing. The energy feedback from the ascension would still be  blaster out but it would at most just blow a big hole in the roof  instead of collapsing the whole place." They didn't seem to like that  any better but they didn't really have another option so they nodded  grudgingly.

Wally, meanwhile, was treating some minor  wounds while avoiding looking at Artemis, who looked halfway between  wanting to cry and gut someone with a butter knife. I wanted to help,  but I figured now wasn't really the time, so I focused on the rest of  the team as I checked for any serious injuries. Superboy and Aqualad  were fine for the most part, Robin was a bit beat up but ok, Red Arrow  had been lightly stabbed, but I didn't like him and he wasn't dying  anyway so I didn't care, and Miss Martian was in perfect shape.

With  at least some plan in mind and the knowledge that the team at my  disposal was operating mostly unchecked I felt much more hopeful. I  turned to my girlfriend. "Ok, sever the connection to the Labyrinth,  that sounds...not easy but possible at least. Any big ideas on how? Can  you use your heavenly punishment lightning to do it?" I didn't remember  if that was a secret from the sidekicks but at this point I couldn't  afford to care about secrecy. We might all die any minute now wasn't the  time to walk on eggshells.

She shook her head. "No, we  don't have the output for it. Not to mention out powers COME from the  Labyrinth, it would probably just absorb the energy and strengthen the  connection. We need something that can hit a large area at once and that  has no relation to the Labyrinth itself. Do you have any powers that  might work?" I snarled in frustration, my most versatile power was  demonic magic but it wasted so many points. Damage on the scale we  needed would require much more than the ten thousand points I had.

As  for my new abilities, I didn't have anything that would destroy a large  area...I froze. I had a basic understanding of my abilities after  becoming half ghost, but they were from the email. I did remember  something about an ability that might work. I held up a finger. "I  might, hold on." I closed my eyes, slipping into the Outer Body trance  like I was slipping on a glove. I remembered something in the email  about a few different powers, ectoplasmic blasts and intangibility and  the usual phantom stuff.

Most importantly to know I  remembered mention of a "ghostly wail" that was considered the most  dangerous of all my new powers. I didn't know exactly what that meant or  why it was considered so powerful but it very obviously did something  profound and sound traveled widely. I closed my eyes and did my best to  figure out how it would work. I tried imbuing ectoplasm into every part  of my body involved in the vocal process. Voice box, throat, I did tried  I could one by one until finally I got some kind of response.

I  didn't have time to work on training it, once I figured out how to  trigger it I had to slip back out of the trance. It would cost me three  thousand points to use, but it would have to be enough. I had no clue  how powerful the attack would be given the lack of things to destroy in  the Outer Body trance, so I just hoped this would be enough to destroy  the connection. I turned to look at the others and nodded. "I've got  something, but you'll need to have Jim shield the hell out of all of  you. This one is going to get a bit loud."

I  looked at Zee specifically. "Once we break the link I assume we need to  get her through the actual portal by any means necessary? My attack  should stagger even her." Zee nodded. I exhaled heavily. "Alright, Zee,  Artemis, your heavenly punishment lightning is the only real divine  force we have her. It should be able to stun her once my final shot puts  her off balance. Swap, once she's stunned I want you to get her into  that portal. I'll grab an Amazon to throw in so you can switch her out."

My  friends all confirmed their roles and I stepped up. As I did Jim formed  a powerful shield around them. Jim's spectral nature should definitely  negate some of the damage. Then, I poured three thousand points of  ectoplasm into my throat, leaving myself with seven thousand as a  cushion, and wailed. The waves of enhanced force billowed out from my  mouth, tearing across every surface nearby, and the entire world began  to crumble. Stone fractured, columns broke, the ground heaved.

The  feeling of using the Ghostly Wail was...indescribable really. I'd  barely had time to figure out how to trigger it in the Outer Body  trance, and my test version had been pathetically weak and cut off too  quickly, but this...this was a flood of ectosplasmic devastation the  likes of which I'd never seen. The Labyrinth was a powerful place, one  that had it's own rules, and we'd needed something truly brutal to  destroy it. Three thousand points of unchecked undead sound was  basically everything we could've hoped for and more however.

The  longer it went on the more it felt like I was a tube of toothpaste that  someone was squeezing really hard from the bottom up. Like every  emotion and thought was pouring out of my mouth and mixing with the  ectoplasm to create a palpable wave of despair so thick you could  fucking see it. The Wail wasn't just a sonic attack, it was concentrated  misery too, the physical and the emotional blended together where they  met in the afterlife. It washed over everything, and as the stone  crumbled, so did the wills of the Amazons.

Even  Circe looked seriously off balanced, eyes unfocused as she tried to  steady herself, just as I'd been hoping. The girls bolted forward  unleashing a burst of powerful purple lightning with everything they had  point blanks. Circe's stunned form turned rigid as the electric power  of another god locked her muscles. I teleported to the nearest Amazon  who was too dazed to stop me and grabbed her, hauling her into the air  and racing top speed towards the portal.

Reggie  was creeping in closer worried the massive power difference between the  two would affect his range. His power normally only worked on mass, but  who fucking knew how the sacrifices had changed Circe, so better safe  than sorry. He got close enough to the edge just as I released the  Amazon over the portal, dropping her into the whirling vortex. Reggie  translocated the goddess, and Circe vanished, appearing over the hole in  reality while still completely stunned, vanishing inside the gestalt of  power beneath me.

I  turned to give the others a thumbs up once I saw her go in, and I got  relieved smiles from everyone, but then their eyes widened. I looked  down and saw the unstable portal fluctuating like it was supposed to,  but the edges of the thing started expanding and contracting too  rapidly. Artemis and Zee, who had been standing with Circe, were  swallowed up by the edge, being sucked right in. My eyes widened in  horror as I heard Wally scream in denial and without a second thought I  barreled my way in after them.

I  heard Reggie and Jim in my head through the stones, telling me not to  do it, but I wasn't leaving my girlfriend and best friend trapped in  some higher dimensional hell. The shift in the portal meant it had  changed destinations from when Circe went in, but I had to get inside  before it contracted or I was going to end up somewhere completely  different. As I made my way in I saw another shape barrel into the  light, and it took me a minute to understand what it was. Wally had  jumped in at the same time I had, great minds think alike.

I  swept down after him, pushing my wings and my spectral flight together  as fast as I could move and breaking the fucking sound barrier, and we  just barely made it in. As we went into the portal, I could still see  Zee and Artemis falling and I raced after them, grabbing the speedster  who was in free fall like they were. I sent back one last message to Jim  before I was out of range. "Take care of our family's boss, we'll be back."

Then  I got close enough to them inside the shifting portal to grab them both  before we dissolved into a riot of light and color. The last thought I  had as I felt myself stretched like a piece of taffy between two places  on opposite ends of creation was how indescribably annoying it was going  to be to get home. I was betting I could but a teleportation array or  something but it would be so expensive. Oh well, I'd faced worst  challenges, at least we were together. That was the last coherent  thought I managed before my brain was swallowed by the light.