Sell you a Bridge chapter 284 (Patreon)

June 13th 2016 The Street of Gods 11:00 PM EDT

DeSaad did the first thing I should have expected when he saw me stand up. He  fucking booked it. The illusions scattered like bowling pins, barreling  in every single direction to try to confuse me. Of course, that didn't  work, but it distracted several of the Parademons around us and he used  that confusion to slip into the chaos of the admittedly mostly wiped out  force of Apokaliptan soldiers.

I stepped through darkness  to catch up, and appeared right in front of him so fast he didn't even  notice. I held out an arm and let myself revel in satisfaction as the  ugly god smashed into it moving a at least eighty miles per hour,  clotheslining himself as his feet were jerked out from under him. I  didn't even wait for him to hit the floor, I brought my fists down in a  clasped hand swing to smash him into the cobblestone as he came down on  the street. I grinned down at him in smug mockery. "Wow, an escape  attempt? From you? How shocking. Isn't Darkseid coming to save you? What  are you even worried about buddy? You're going to be fine right?"

My  voice was dripping in venom as I spoke, twisting the knife of his  abandonment even deeper. Our conceptual battle from earlier was over,  but I still didn't like the asshole. I wanted him to suffer as much as  possible. He sneered back. "Pathetic. I don't know how you've delayed  lord Darkseid, but will dispatch your champion and return to destroy you  momentarily. Enjoy your hollow victory while you can. It'll be the last  enjoyment you ever get from the destroyed remains of what will be left  of your mind and sanity when my lord is done with you."

Despite  the severity of the threat and the poisonous tone, I noticed DeSaad  sounded...worried. He was putting on a brave front, but nothing too  convincing. I smelled blood in the water and pounced. Cackling  maliciously, I stood up, jamming my foot into his chest and grinding it  down roughly. The bones in his chest cracked slightly, though I eased up  so he could respond. Then I continued talking. "You're DeSaad aren't  you? The lord high rimjob master of Darkseid's unholiest of holies?  Aren't you supposed to be a better liar than that? Because I didn't  believe you for a second. Or is it harder to lie to yourself than it is  to manipulate scared humans?"

DeSaad's face was turning  purple, though whether that was from rage, fear, of pain and suffocation  as I slowly ground the breath from his chest with my heel, it was hard  to say. I saw his power start to crack just like his bones were, and I  had an idea. It was a crazy idea, and one I wouldn't have ever tried on  anyone else. DeSaad wasn't actually here though. This was a meat puppet  like Darkseid had used, and one that was created from a domain very  similar to my own power.

I drew my gun, checking it  casually to make sure it was loaded and ready to be fired. DeSaad stared  at it in horror, seemingly able to sense what it could do, or possibly  having heard about it from Kalibak. Then I called Tartarus to my other  hand and leveled it at him. I focused my power through the keyblade and  focused on the idea I'd had. I focused on locking DeSaad's physical form  to his consciousness. Binding the meat and mind together, but making  sure to bind only the flesh and mind, and not the spirit. Not the power.

The  keyblade glowed with a dark light, and a torrent of black force slammed  into DeSaad through a keyhold shaped gap, binding him to his flesh.  Then I leveled the gun at him, smiled grimly, and pulled the trigger.  What happened next was impossible to replicate for a variety of reasons.  Aside from needing the keyblade, a conceptual death weapon like the gun  (specifically like the gun because of the nature of the witch bound  into it) and the similarity between our powers, there was one more  unique element that only I could supply.

As the bullet  punched through DeSaad's skull and splattered his brains across the  ground behind him the body dissolved, taking the mind with it, and for a  split second there was only the pure, unrefined power of the piece of  DeSaad's mantle that had been used to craft that vessel. Only a single  fragment of a larger whole, but it was completely untainted by his  psyche or ego. Before anything could happen to derail my plan I shifted  form to embody the void, tapping into my Hole bloodline as I surged  forward, a spot of unbelievable blackness like a hungry maw consuming  the shard of divinity.

It felt like I'd just eaten a  supernova. Not like I'd felt when I ate Black Adam's power. This wasn't  converted into points, it, didn't have to be. It was already too much  like my base power to be changed. It just...smashed into me, and I felt  myself GROW. I resumed my solid form, collapsing to the ground, body  locking up inside my armor as I felt myself change. I was a ghost-devil,  a hybrid of beings that shouldn't exist, and I drew a great amount of  power from that fact, but at the end of the day, I was the ghost of a  human, a devil human hybrid. Human was my base, was my origin.

Now  it wasn't. I felt my nature fundamentally shift. The mortality was  burned away by that dark spark as it was subsumed into my power,  replacing my humanity with something more fluid, more divine, something  made of lies and falsehoods that was far more in tune with my nature. I  understood now why Del had forced us to escape from New Genesis through  the Sphere of the Gods instead of taking the mother box. It had been for  this. For this one moment, to pave the way for this ascension. It had  been to allow me to become a god.

A minor god, granted.  This was a small fraction of DeSaad, and he was a little bitch boy  anyway. But that wasn't the point. Changing my nature in this way would  align me with my power. I was still a being with an ability for now, but  the more attuned to it I grew, the more fully I could merge with it. I  was a minor god right now, but soon, I would become something else.  Something new. Something probably a lot like Del if I didn't miss my  guess.

That was all in the future though. For now, I just  groaned and got to my feet. I was already recovering from the strain of  the conversion, but it HAD been a strain. Having the mortality burned  out of you is a rough experience. It was necessary though. I knew  without knowing how that this was the EXACT path I needed to take to  become what my power was guiding me toward. Using the fruits or an  ability I bought wouldn't have worked. I needed to be ready to accept  the power on a base level, even outside of the changes it made to me.

In  the meantime DeSaad wasn't going to be coming back soon. Between  getting capped by the mortal gun and having a chunk of his essence  nommed by a void mouth the ugly god of never shutting the fuck up was  going to be out of play for quite some time, which was just one more big  fuck you to Darkseid, so win-win. That said, we needed to get the fuck  out of this place. I was positive Gojo could hold him for a few days,  but there was no telling if more New Gods might show up from that  temple.

I turned to check on the others, and froze. They  were all just standing there, looking at me. Zee rolled her eyes, hands  on her hips. "We're fighting demon slave soldiers for our lives and you  stop to have a snack and take a nap? This is next level laziness even  for you Morgan." Despite the arch tone, I could feel the relief through  our bond, and it occurred to me she might have noticed me violently  burning the humanity from my very soul. I winced as I thought about how  distracted she might have gotten.

She was alright though,  so I just gave her an apologetic smile. "Well, you know me, always  sitting on my ass and ignoring everyone else. Seriously though, I'm glad  you're ok baby. Gojo is holding big grey and ugly for a while, but I'm  feeling rough. We can't afford to engage Neron with me in the condition,  and the rest of you seem a bit run down on top of that. We need  somewhere to hole up for a while and recharge before the fight. Just a  few hours. I'm anxious to find Kit, but we won't do her any good if we  get brutally murdered as soon as we arrive."

I was  stronger now than I had ever been. My ghost half was multiplicative, and  got way more powerful with a stronger base, and while my devil half  wasn't, it was still pretty intertwined. That said though, I needed the  strength to actually use those abilities. I could use my powers more  freely, but I wasn't one with them yet, and I'd been abusing my  abilities for what felt like hours.

Eddie, somehow NOT  splattered with Parademon blood despite the butchery I'd seen him  engaged in, raised a helpful hand, seemingly as serene as ever. "I have a  place we could go." He said calmly. I got the impression the Parademons  weren't the first gang or army Eddie had butchered, and probably  wouldn't be the last. I chose not to bring that up in front of Wally  though, as the redhead didn't seem to have bucked as hard at the  Parademon's death as I expected. I doubted he would be as calm about  Eddie potentially killing people.

I raised an eyebrow at  the other god. I could feel him more viscerally now that I was divine, a  vague impression of something sharp but mostly untarnished by anything  but age. "Where are you going to take us? I thought you lived at that  smaller house we visited earlier?" I did NOT use the word shack, because  that seemed rude, but I was pretty sure it had been his temple, so it  begged the question of where he would be bringing us next.

"The  temple of Dagon." Said Eddie breezily. "Dagon grants sanctuary to  anyone who requires it. It used to be pretty flimsy protection, but I've  done my best to steer the desperate there for years now. Dagon has a  decent sized following these days, and his temple is one of the safest  places on the street to lie low for a while." He smiled over at Sindella  warmly. "Sindy knows about it. I've taken her there before."

I  looked quizically at my mother-in-law, who nodded firmly. "The temple  of Dagon is a safe place. I don't know how close we are, but Eddie will  be able to bring us there if nothing else." She looked around uneasily.  "We should go anyway. Even if the other members of Darkseid's pantheon  don't show up, the street is like an ocean. Blood on the cobblestones  draws in the sharks, and I'd rather be gone when they arrive."

So  we set off, heading for the temple of Dagon. I needed a few hours to  rest and recover physically, but more than that, I had an idea of how to  develop my power a bit more before we reached Neron. My instincts told  me this would be a hell of a fight, no pun intended, and I'd need to be  as strong as possible. The only real immediate chance I had to improve  was to figure out my domain. Luckily, I had access to the Outer Body  method, and it would let me train without wasting any resources or  energy. Time to try to figure out more of the secrets of the universe.  Hopefully that would be enough to fight the devil.