Sell you a Bridge chapter 212 (Patreon)

April 15th 2016 Infinity Island 4:00 PM EDT

First  stop, the League of Shadows. Savage and Luthor were tough to pin down,  at least in their lairs. Luthor was usually in public, but we couldn't  exactly lay siege to downtown Metropolis. Luckily for us, we knew some  ex members of the League of Shadows. And based on the recon I HAD done  this time, those cocky motherfuckers were perfectly fine sitting on  their island daring anyone to come for them.

Of course,  not being an idiot I was bringing every bit of firepower I had available  to the party. Morana, all thirteen Soulless, the whole Team, Jim, and  everyone else we could muster. If this was overkill it would be the  fastest raid in history and if it wasn't we were going to tear The Reach  or whoever tried to spring a trap a new and much bigger asshole.  Despite having seen the inside of this place personally, I turned to our  source. "You're absolutely certain this is the main base? There's no  secondary location where they slip off to when no one is looking? We get  one shot to lock them all down."

Cheshire huffed under  her mask. "YES! For the tenth time, I'm sure. The League is...involved.  Leadership maintains a constant presence among the rank and file. It's  how they keep morale and devotion up. Ra'as is almost always in his  throne room. This isn't just some random island. Infinity Island has  been the main base of the Shadows since before advent of the Roman  Empire. It's not a shill or a decoy, it couldn't possibly be. There's  too much history. It IS heavily fortified with incredibly nasty  protections and magics from about a dozen magical traditions."

I  could see that for myself. The whole island was humming with wards and  defensive magic. I passed that view along my link to Zee and Dreamer,  the capabilities expanded considerably since we made Morana. "We know. I  have a plan for that. Assuming the shields work like I'm expecting them  to. How's the breakdown going baby? Any nasty surprises for me? And  Drea, what about the tech, anything that's going to be a problem?" I had  a better idea about taking down the magic, but luckily Dreamer came  from a super advanced technological society and she could get a decent  read on what was what.

I once again thanked my younger  self for getting that damn aura sight ability. It was probably solely  responsible for my continued survival. Zee studied the wards intensely  for a few minutes, passing notes to Blood, Jim, and Madame Xanadu.  "It...should work, but I'd be expecting a party once we get in. They  have the wards set up to facilitate aura cloaking. I'm guessing you  noticed something fishy during your recon, because we pretty much came  armed for the god of bears."

I chuckled. "Yeah. A few  figures under cloaking I noticed. Klarion is in there. Little bastard  snuck in, but he's anything but subtle at the best of times. Pretty sure  they got Teth-Adam on the payroll somehow, which is pretty unfortunate  because I was kind of expecting he would side with us based on what I'd  heard about him. I also recognized some traces of an old friend. Looks  like Circe is back from wherever the fuck she ended up. No clue how or  why they ended up bringing her here, but she didn't even bother cloaking  herself, and she's...stronger."

I turned to my new  daughter. "Morana, we'll be leaving you to her. Blood, Madame X, Jim,  you'll handle Klarion if you think you can? He shrugged off my gun last  time so I don't want to count on it to work, upgrade or not. Zee,  Dreamer, Blue, and I will deal with Adam while you all take care of the  Shadows." I turned to look at Paula, Roy, Reggie, Bette, Artemis,  Nightwing, and all the other team members. "You guys should be good for  the ground forces while we deal with the heavies right?"

Jim's  hat tipped in a nod. "I've long wished to paddle that insipid brat.  It's just never been worth the effort when he can just slip away by  detaching from his anchor. With the new prison in play I look forward to  educating the little beast." Madame Xanadu and Blood looked to be in  wholehearted agreement. Jim hesitated before turning to Paula. "I  realize I'm the last person you want to hear this from, but be careful? I  know how you get about Lawrence. I don't doubt you can take him apart  handily, but he's usually with Shiva, and she is beyond you as you are."

She  looked ready to spit fire, but closed her eyes, taking a deep breath.  "I'm angry at you. I don't know when I'll stop being angry. But I don't  want to see you destroyed. Don't play with Klarion, he's dangerous. You  like to show off. If you can keep from doing so I can keep from  challenging Shiva without sufficient backup." She smiled wryly. "I'm a  grandmother now, I need to  make sure I don't set a bad example. I'll  have my girls with me, and my son in law, and probably that preening  peacock in the body suit with the smackable ass."

She  glanced at Nightwing when she said that, ignoring Artemis's horrified  yelp of embarrassment And Jim's full throated belly laugh. I smiled to  myself, Paula never had a filter, I was glad to see she hadn't changed. I  turned to Morana. "The Soulless will be with you. Deploy them as you  see fit. Teth-Adam is a monster but we have plenty of bodies on him, but  don't underestimate Circe. Her aura is...bigger. She gained something  from her trip to the Sphere of the Gods, and I really don't like how  convenient it is that she happened to end up here in time to meet us.  She's involved in all this somehow and I plan to question her as to how  thoroughly once we throw her ass in the new prison."

Dreamer  in particular looked...troubled, and I could feel why. If we'd ended up  in New Genesis it was possible Circe had too, or possibly on Apokalips.  That might mean her people's enemy was involved in all this, which was  even more of a reason to take Circe alive for questioning. Luckily  Morana was much stronger than the rest of us. Even if they were aware of  strength after the fight with Black Beetle, they literally couldn't be  aware of hers. I checked my points, twenty thousand plus, plenty for  what I needed to do.

I called Tartarus, grinned at this  next part, and summoned a close. Rather than have it vanish or go  insubstantial I sent it flying straight ahead and directly into the  wards at top speed. It hit the shield and popped in a shower of shadows.  Then I summoned another and did the same thing. The shields pulsed. The  others looked confused, but only Nightwing questioned it. "Ok, what the  hell are you doing?"

I sent another three clones, then  another ten, continuing to summon as I responded, paying almost nothing  with the modifier. "Simple. I'm overheating them. They want us in there,  but they set the wards to a hair trigger to make it necessary for us to  punch through them and weaken ourselves before we get in, hopefully  losing some to the shields offensive response when we do it. We exhaust  ourselves infiltrating the island and then we're too tired to put up a  fight. Unfortunately for them, a hair trigger is TOO sensitive, and this  barely takes energy for me anymore."

Zee cut in matter of  factly. "Despite having an ample power source, the magical structure of  the spells isn't designed for constant ramping throughput. Spells  aren't all made for one thing. This one is designed to take a ton of  firepower, but it's designed to take it in bursts. They sacrificed  magical conductivity for defensive strength and reactivity." I summoned  another hundred or so clones, paper thin defensively but still enough to  trigger the offensive response when they ran into the wards.

I  sent them in waves, staggering them to make sure there was always one  hitting the shield. I continued Zee's thought to Nightwing without even  turning around. "Since I use barely and energy, and the shield is set to  instadeath anyone who hits it at full blast, if we run enough clones  into the thing the constant throughput will be too much for the  structure of the spell and it'll collapse. The best part is that it'll  do it without tiring out or killing a single one of us. The shield is  lit up like a Christmas tree non stop, which means any magical senses  will be unable to see through it."

Zee picked it up for me  again while I sent out another thousand clones, the whole assault had  cost me about a hundred points. Clones we useless in a fight but this  kind of work was perfect for the things. "They have no idea what's going  on out here, and when this goes down they're going to pop out and  attack what they're expecting to be a completely depleted enemy who just  got done with a full powered assault. Needless to say it isn't going to  go well for them." I stared hard at the aura of the shield, ignoring  the blinding light to focus on mechanics. "Zee, how long do we have left  here?"

I glanced to my girlfriend, squinting up at the  shield. "A few minutes at best. The framework is already melting down.  Dreamer, what are we looking at for tech defenses. Wouldn't be ideal to  get blown out of the sky by some kind of super guns before we get a  chance to even fight." I'd been waiting on our girlfriend's report  myself, once I knew what was there I could send some people to deal with  it. I hadn't handed out that assignment yet for that exact reason.

She  was staring up at the place, tracing the lines if circuitry with my  aura sight, having combined it with her own enhanced senses. Dreamer had  perception beyond most mortals, it was how she reached out for minds  and to shape illusions. With my aura sight as a carrier she could see  specifics even I couldn't. "Positron cannons, a couple of matter  disintegrators, nothing huge but lots of small stuff. They prepped for  an army." She sent the images back along our link the way I had with the  aura vision.

Luckily I had someone in mind for this now  that I knew what we were dealing with. "Superboy, Wonder Girl, you two  will take out the big cannons." I conjured an ectoplasmic construct in  the shape of the island, using a tinge of demonic power to make the  spots needed glow red. Since it was a conjuration it cost basically  nothing. "You two hit here and here. Impulse, the smaller stuff will be  on you and Wally. You're science geniuses and your speed lets you hit  the widest spread. Those are here." I lit up about a hundred spots for  them to focus on. "Can you hit those when the shields come down? We need  them down fast so they don't trip us up during out fights."

Impulse  gave me that same big cheesy grin, but despite his wholesome everyone's  buddy image, this one was tinged with bloodlust. I didn't know where  this kid came from, but I was pretty sure it wasn't as warm and fuzzy as  this timeline. I approved. "Sure thing amigo, their mode is about to  crash. The chance to work with Cousin Wally is pretty Schway, you can  count on us." He turned his grin on Wally, who looked plenty happy about  the chance to fuck shit up.

I  took a deep breath. "Alright ladies and gents, it's about to go down.  Everyone get your game faces on, because this is going to be a  shitshow." I summoned my last hundred clones, but this time I left  behind one where I was standing and followed the others in towards the  shield. I used the sending stones and link to tell Dreamer, Zee and  Artemis what was going on and when the shield was about to go down, I  flew right at it and went invisible as I pulsed shadows with my ability,  appearing to have vanished with the others. As the shield crashed down I  noticed the three massive power signatures flying out, and grinned as  they flew right past me. Perfect. Time to start the operation.