Sell you a Bridge chapter 223 (Patreon)

April 20th 2016 Appalachian Mountains 8:00 PM EDT

I  hit Metallo first. Obviously. Lex's bullshit armor would be annoying,  but whatever the fuck he did to the former cyborg was clearly the bigger  threat. I felt the thrum of joy and violence pulsing through me as I  pushed the armor forward. Magic, ghost powers, summoning, they were all  fun and it was a blast to see them at work, but there was just no  beating the raw physicality of direct and brutal confrontation. The  armor put me on a playing field with real heavyweights and I loved every  second of it.

I'd picked up some bare handed brawling in  my Outer Body Trance. Not too much, but there was enough hand to hand  from a few of my enemies to cobble together a style that wasn't full of  holes. I felt the world blur as I appeared under Metallo and smashed a  punch up from below right into the reactor in the middle of his torso. I  really dug it out, putting my whole body into the blow and channeling  all the force I could get up from the ground. The reinforced flooring  was obviously meant for this situation exactly, because there were only  some cracks and a pair of small craters from the force.

Metallo  on the other hand, wasn't so lucky. The blow hammered him straight up,  and I bent my knees and jumped, following his path to the ceiling and  twisting in midair to point my legs at him. I lashed out with both feet  in a stomping kick with all my jumping momentum behind it, and there was  a rumbling boom as he cratered the ceiling so hard it shook the  foundations of the whole fucking base. I bounced off my feet as I came  down, throwing myself into a back handspring to get clear in case he  attacked back.

Luthor looked furious. "What the hell is  this!? Where did you get that armor? Why haven't you used it before?"  His head snapped up to Metallo. "Corbin, enough playing around. All  systems at maximum output." The green glow from Metallo intensified, the  light leaking from between is various parts amplifying as he powered  up. He tore himself free from the ceiling and dropped to the ground with  a loud boom.

Unfortunately for me, my blows before hadn't  done more than dent the guy a bit. There was a slight buckling at the  torso from the punch and two indents on his chest from my feet, but he  didn't seem to be much the worse for wear. Ok, so maybe attacking the  heavy wasn't the right play here. Luthor seemed to be in charge of  Metallo, so maybe if I dropped him I would be able to get the robot to  stop. I launched myself forward at Luthor, but Metallo blurred into my  path, lashing out with a fist that I was pretty sure would have  splattered unarmored me across the wall.

There was a  hollow boom as my torc tanked the hit, but I absorbed enough of the  punch to reverse my momentum and send me hurtling back into the wall. I  twisted midair, and called up my wings. My armor shifted on my back the  liquid metal covering the appendages as the burst from my back. The  effect clearly boosted their usability because I was able to slow myself  considerably mid flight and land gracefully on the wall, flipping down  to crouch on the ground without add a single crack to the wall or floor.

Luthor  was grinning smugly at me, but honestly I only had one thing to say.  "Who the fuck is your contractor? Seriously. I mean the force of our  impacts alone should be shattering whatever the hell this place is made  of. Then again I imagine you make sure all your buildings are rated for  fighting Superman. Probably your version of carrying a condom in your  wallet."

His expression turned sour. "Why won't you die? I  admit that with your new armor you're an even bigger cockroach than  before, but that's all you are. The Nth metal Corbin is made of is nigh  indestructible. Even your most powerful blows were barely able to leave a  dent. Surrender and I might consider letting the rest of your rabble  live after I finish with you. Refuse, and I'll enter the fray myself."  He said that last part like it was some kind of terrifying show of  force, which just went to show how big his ego was. He was literally the  least problematic part of this fight.

When I didn't  respond he simply held out a hand and waited. There was a loud buzz and a  huge spear came flashing out of the wall, whirling end over end to  smack into Luthor's palm. He brandished at me as if showing off, and I  had to admit the thing was pretty imposing. A seven foot length of  silvery metal with a blazing golden blade on the end crackling with  power. The shape reminded me of nothing so much as an exacto knife or  box cutter, just scaled up substantially in terms of size.

Giant  ass box knife or not though, when he threw himself at me I was hardly  worried. I called Tartarus to my hand and leapt to meet him. Metallo  grabbed for my foot midair, but luckily with my wings boosted changing  directions was pretty easy. I avoided the grab and hit Luthor head on.  To my surprise a yellow shield flickered into existence around him  before my keyblade made contact. His spear skittered off my armor,  raising a hail of sparks, but it left behind a line of glowing damage  along my ribs that kind of smarted.

Luthor looked as  shocked by that as I was, and began eyeing my armor greedily. I wasn't  worried yet, I still had my demonic power augment to burn, I was just  reserving it for when it would do the most good. For now, while I  couldn't mess them up too bad, they also weren't able to do much damage.

Still,  knowing his spear could hurt me even a bit encouraged me to fight a bit  more defensively. I wasn't sure what the hell it was, but Tartarus was  able to deflect it easily enough. Luthor flicked out a few probing  strikes that I easily batted aside and then whirled the spear at my head  in a feint before spinning and dropping to a knee to try to sweep my  legs from the opposite side. I hopped over the strike and then  intercepted the attack he launched at my chest while I was midair to try  to take advantage of my unsteady footing.

Shockingly  Luthor was actually pretty damn skilled with the spear, his insane armor  managing to make him an actual potential threat with that spear. Of  course skill wise he wasn't close to my level, but being pinned between a  talented spearman and a massive machine giant who was trying to crush  me somewhat limited my options and Luthor definitely knew how to exploit  opportunities. I was basically fighting one of them with each hand as I  deflected the spear with Tartarus and deflected giant robot fists at  the same time.

As bad as things looked for me from the  outside though, I was only trying to find an opening. I'd been hacking  at Metallo between blocks and I couldn't seem to make any headway  penetrating his armor. My kayblade was clearly not suited to tearing  through whatever Nth metal was. That said, I only needed a small gap,  and whatever kind of obviously advanced alien tech that spear was made  of provided me a possible solution to breaking this annoying stalemate.  So I studied and internalized Luthors fighting style. I had serious  practice learning from enemies in battle after all.

I  parried and dodged seamlessly, reading Luthor's moves easily enough  after a bit of time studying. That was one of the side effects of the  Outer Body method. Enough time learning to study others let you get  better at picking up those cues on the fly. It wasn't nearly as good,  but Luthor was pretty basic compared to some of the things I trained  against in my head. It only took me a minute and a half to find the  opening I was looking for. Luthor got impatient and tried a lunge I'd  been expecting. Instead of dodging I dipped into my bag of tricks and  conjured a Hole.

I opened one about size of a dinner plate  in front of my chest, and calculating the angle of attack Metallo was  about to take I opened the other behind him at an angle, right in his  blind spot. Metallo had just thrown a devastating haymaker when he saw  me sit still and the spear slammed home at the thinnest point on his  huge body. The articulation of his shoulder joint. It cleaved through  the metal like a hot knife through butter. Nth metal was about as strong  as my armor, and that shoulder joint was lightly covered to allow  movement. The spear hit the kryptonite reactor and exploded, knocking  Metallo and Luthor both back.

I poured points into my  demonic magic, augmenting my strength exponentially and blurred into  action, appearing behind the staggered Metallo. I yanked his damaged arm  behind him by the wrist, then planted my feet on his back, putting the  other hand under the elbow and used the full power of my legs and body  to shove up. There was a screaming tear of ripping metal and the arm  came loose from his body. I let Tartarus dissolve grabbed the arm in  both hands, and started smashing it into Metallo's upper body repeatedly  with every bit of strength I had.

The limb was heavy and  sturdy as hell. It made a fantastic bludgeon, and while my armor would  have done the job with enough hits, the massive arm was heavier than my  fists and driven be the same amount of power hit with much more force.  There were repeated booms as the Nth metal extremity shattered the sound  barrier, and it drowned out the sound of Luthor cursing and trying to  stop me. He came after me with his now retrieved spear, but I smashed  the arm into the haft of the weapon and it snapped. A second swing  caught him across the shield and sent him flying across the room.

At  the nearly kryptonian levels of power I had I was able to swing the arm  dozens of times per second, and within a half minute I had Metallo  beaten to basically scrap metal. I tossed the limb aside and turned to  Luthor. With my still demonically augmented strength I crossed the room  instantly, smashing him into the wall before I proceeded to rain blows  on him until the shield sputtered out. The entire time he was howling in  outrage. "How dare you! Stop this at once! I'll make you pay for this!"

With  a final punch the shield dropped and his eyes widened in fear, but I  didn't bother with actually hurting him. I reached out, grabbed two of  the plates of the suit and hauled them apart. I tore him out of that  thing like I was unwrapping a christmas present, before binding him in  shadows and then shadow porting him directly into a cell. I used a  corridor to transport Metallo, since he didn't seem to have an actual  brain left. I dropped him somewhere remote on the island so I could  salvage him for scrap.

I dropped  the demonic empowerment but left the armor up before heading up the  stairs to check in with the others. A quick glance outside showed me  that Etrigan and Madame X had finished with the grunts and were helping  Morana curb stomp the shit out of the scarabs, but my girls were doing  less well against a giant chalk white version of Hulk Hogan with black  hair and red eyes. I imagined this was the alien bounty hunter. I  checked my points, and while I'd burned a solid amount of them in the  fight I still had about twenty five thousand left. I cracked my neck  with a grin. Guess it was time for round two.