Doomhollow hall December 12th 2010 8:00 PM EDT

I stared out the window of Doomhollow Hall in interest as we watched the distant skyline, hoping to see some trace of what was happening in Gotham. We didn't, of course, but I'd taken to looking out across the bay as a form of relaxation. Zee has next to me, a sheet pressed to her front and curled against my side. In the last month we had picked up quite a few people who were calling the island home now. Bette was here, as was Arthur's daughter Stephanie. Steph and Reggie's sister Callie got along like a house on fire, so having the girl around was actually really nice.

I closed my eyes, focusing on my point's total and grinned. Eleven thousand points. I'd been stockpiling them non stop, the only time I'd spent anything was buying the restaurant for everyone a few days ago. I'd been in Outer Body meditation the whole month and hadn't even been there yet, since devil's didn't really need food. Still, I'd officially completed the mission I set for myself. As of last night I'd managed my first real victory against Myrina in the Outer Body trance. It had taken absurd amounts of time and practice, but I'd done it.

We'd stayed off the mainland for the last month as I trained and hoarded points to upgrade the island. We'd decided that none of what was happening was going to be safe or clean to be involved in, so we would build up our power while we let things stagnate over there. It was...kind of a mixed bag in terms of success, but admittedly there hadn't ever been any hope for Gotham to become peaceful or pleasant. Still, the city had settled into a kind of factional state with areas carved out by warlords.

The Shadows controlled a part of thing, having recruited a pretty decent following using Ivy's food production capabilities. They also traded heavily with the other factions and between that and Ra'as al Ghul's reputation outside the bubble were pretty much the closest thing to a neutral party the city currently had. The Amazon's had taken the areas just off the docks and built fortifications there, but when they tried to expand further inland they'd met much harsher resistance than expected. Infighting was rampant in Gotham but people pretty much universally hated the Amazons.

They'd ended up basically stranded at their initial insertion point, and even their strongest warriors had some trouble getting through the literal hail of gunfire that rained down on them when they tried to get further in. From what Jim heard on one of his scouting trips someone had an actual cannon. Gotham was considered one of the most dangerous cities in the world, and the percentage of gun owners here was absurdly high. Amazon's or not they were finding the city a tough nut to crack.

Unfortunately the other factions weren't having the same issue. Since they weren't outsiders there was a pretty high sign up rate from locals and the response was much less universally negative even from those who didn't actually join. Two Face and Penguin had a sizeable chunk of Gotham each. The family had carved out a small area in the Diamon District they were holding and from what I could tell The Court had their own territory in Cherry Hill, though they appeared to be operating through a front man. Apart from those there were various small operations and gangs that had stocked up on magic items and were holding small areas as their own territory.

I turned to Zee, grinning down at my lady love. We'd spent all of last night celebrating my victory over Myrina, and we'd both enjoyed ourselves (I will neither confirm nor deny that Outer Body Meditation can be used to improve sexually) and now we were just relaxing getting ready for the new features on the island. I raised an eyebrow. "So, from what I can find we can afford two of the most basic tier one workshops. The question is of course which ones should we choose? Not to mention we still need to go check out the restaurant. There's a custom order section for dishes made with points, which I suspect is why it only cost two thousand. The real impressive stuff costs on its own."

She chuckled. "I mean, you obviously know which workshop I want. The casting rooms are all amazing but that ritual chamber is a game changer. The ability to automate parts of a ritual beforehand and play it back after checking it over to make sure you perfectly executed the step is just...I can do so much with that," Her blue eyes were wide with excitement and she was nearly salivating over the possibilities. I reached out and slapped one of her already red ass cheeks as I did a little salivating of my own but it was enough to shake her out of her reverie. She gave me an adorable pout and rolled her eyes looking away sulkily as I interrupted her magic workshop fantasy.

I desperately wanted to go back to bed, but we had training to do so I forced my hand off her cheek and went back to thinking over my options. I pulled up the workshops, narrowing it down to the five thousand point variants at tier one. Workshops: Ritual casting chamber- 5000 points. Alchemy lab-5000 points. Biogenic mutation lab-5000 points. Chemistry lab-5000 points. Smithy-5000 points. Curse chamber- 5000 points. Immortal kitchen-5000 points. Soul casino- 5000 points. Skill library- 5000 points. Goblin explosives lab-5000 points. There were drop down explanation under each as well, but I zeroed in on a few I felt might be necessary.

The labs were out, mostly because I didn't have the skillsets for them. I could GET the skillsets for them with my power, but realistically I wanted to focus on improving with the multitude of tools I already had, not get new ones. Reggie could use the Goblin lab but we were trying to maximize usefulness to everyone not just one person, which kind of nixed the smithy for now too, we didn't have enough mats for Artemis to use it properly. My first instinct was to do the Skill library. Rather than wanting it for the skills I could learn, I was excited because it enabled me to record skills I had an teach them.

Things that used points wouldn't be transferable, but I could record my skills learned in the outer body and pass them to my crew which was a huge boon for us. Experience was hands down our biggest weak point as a team. As for the second option...I paused, thinking hard. "Be honest, aside from long term research what are the benefits for us to getting the ritual chamber?" I did note that it came with a library of books, but to be fair I could just get a ritual master lesson from me email and transcribe that with the skill library. I didn't actually need the books.

Zee was positively ecstatic at even the possibility of getting the chamber, and she lit up as she explained it. "So many things. The ritual chamber lets me basically record a part of a complete ritual personally and then play it back. Kind of like those youtube videos where the person records a bunch of parts of a song and cuts them together. That's a big deal for a bunch of reasons. First off it lets me essentially stack my power, which is already pretty nuts. It also lets me micromanage and use powerful rituals I would normally be incapable of casting."

She gestured out the window at the now ever present green shield. "For instance, that ritual would have taken hundreds of Amazons to complete. Granted, Circe could have seriously lessened the requirements by participating, but it still wouldn't be a one person job. With the ritual chamber I could cast that ritual all on my own. Granted I'd need to know the ritual first, and I don't, but I can solo cast massive powerful spells all by my lonesome. Plus ritual magic is dangerous and exacting, since I can double check the portions of the ritual before casting I can adjust for minor difficulties that in a live casting would ruin my chances of success."

That did sound really useful in all honesty. I furrowed my brow as I thought about our lacking defenses. Casting new defensive spells would save me from having to spend points on them. I hadn't been planning to do any myself because it seemed like a huge waste since they wouldn't be nearly as good, but this room seemed like the answer to our problems. "So could you cast defensive spells that wouldn't disrupt the concealments of the island and would be up to the same stard of power? Or at least close, I don't know. Because if so I can agree to that."

She grinned. "Of course I can, especially with the ritual library. Of course it won't be at the same level of complexity but my mana is crazy high, I can just massively overcharge the spell to achieve similar results. Plus there's a ton of other rituals we can try." She gave me a lascivious wink. "Including some very fun tantric rituals we can look into." I rolled my eyes and purchased the two workshops. I'd arranged them to show up out of sight so we could just tell any of the others that they'd been here all along. I closed my eyes as I did it, watching those ten thousand points vanish into nothing.

There was a very minor tremor as they manifested in the basement under the hall, but not enough to really alert anyone who wasn't looking. Zee was almost bouncing with glee as she felt the small tremor, which she actually had been looking out for, and she took off for the closet to throw on some shorts and a tank top so we could go down and check out the new facilities. I threw on my own clothes and we linked arms as we headed downstairs. I still had a thousand left so I was in perfect condition and wasn't about to pass out from overdrawing myself.

Before we headed down to check out the new workshops though we stopped in at the restaurant tucked back in the corner of the top floor. It was basically empty this late at night so we didn't have to share the place with anyone. I sat down and picked up a menu and a waiter dressed in a suit and tie came to take our orders. I glanced through the available options before deciding to splurge a bit. I tried the custom order. "I'll take a bowl of Jambalaya. The Tier One version please." Since this was a Tier One restaurant we could only order limited meals, but they were able to do a Tier Two order at an upcharge.

I felt ten points deducted from my power, as well as knowing with certainty that I could only order a custom meal once a day. Zee ordered the Lasagna, since she had eaten here before and knew what she liked. Non Tiered meals from the menu had no cost, though the restaurant made a limited amount of resources to cook with per day. Luckily there weren't many people on the island so the ingredients were plenty. The Jambalaya came out and I smiled at the heavenly aroma as I inhaled deeply and then took a huge bite.

The flavor was complex and nuanced as it hit my tongue, the rice juicy and perfectly cooked, the meat cut into flawlessly sized pieces and the vegetables crisp without being crunchy. I almost moaned just from eating it. Tier One ingredients really were next level in terms of freshness. I cleaned my plate within minutes, desperately wishing I could order more, but I knew I'd have to wait until tomorrow. Though I wasn't sure exactly why that rule was in place. As if that question had conjured it I saw a new notification pop up on my screen. Tier One fare confirmed. Strength plus one. Huh...that was interesting. That was very interesting indeed.

Doomhollow Hall December 12th 2010 9:00 PM EDT

The news that I could grow my stats was welcome, and I made plans to come back tomorrow and try the Tier 2 dish. Based on the way Tiers seemed to work here I was betting it would be ten points, though I wasn't sure in which stat. I wondered if it was random or if Jambalaya was some kind of strength boosting specialty. Maybe because of all the meat? What would boost Dexterity? Dessert? Regardless we finished our food and got ready to head over to check out the ritual chamber when I felt a panicked thought slam into my head. "MORGAN! ZEE!"

I almost fell over but managed to shake off the mental assault, taking a minute to recognize Artemis's voice. She sounded terrified for some reason, but she seemed to understand exactly that she hadn't been clear because I felt another, slightly quieter but equally panicked thought chase the first. "Morgan my sister is in trouble. I gave her a burner number to use to contact me, and she just called me. She sounded out of breath, like she was being chased. Apparently the Penguin Mob is making a move on the Shadows. My mom was here when I got the call and she took off for the teleporter, I'm worried she might get hurt."

I cursed. Paula was one of the most rational people on the island, so giving her teleporter access hadn't been a huge deal. She liked to dip into town to get the lay of the land with Jim sometimes. Going by their auras I was ninety percent sure they had a fuck buddies thing going on and almost equally positive I didn't want that confirmed so I never brought it up. I looked at Zee, seeing on her face she'd heard it too. Paula was a sweet lady who looked at all of us as her surrogate kids. Zee was literally only closer with my mom, and I cared a lot about the former assassin myself.

I nodded to her, and we were so in sync she didn't even need to ask, she just took off for my room at top speed as I slipped into the nearest empty room to suit up. I'd taken to keeping all my stuff in the spacial ring because it was so damn convenient so I had it on me. I got changed in record time, meeting a sprinting Zee at the teleporter in time to run into Artemis and Reggie, likewise in costume. This section of the castle was off limits to the civilians, as enforced by some neat magics from Zee so being costume wasn't a problem, but when we stopped to get ready to leave we all froze.

I looked at Artemis. "Shit. Did your sister tell you where she was exactly?" We had a few teleporters spread out through the city, so we needed a general direction to pick one. The Shadows had a decent sized chunk of territory, and our own pads dropped off on either side of it. She shook her head. I considered using the map, but the demonic magic was a points sink and this had already happened a few times. I slipped my phone from my spacial ring and scrolled through my phone to an email I'd been eyeing for a while.

Detective mode fit pretty well with my personal style actually, and even better with my aura sight. Allowing me to see traces of people to track them. Used with my aura vision I should be able to read details of the traces to pick up information about the situation the target was in. It only cost a hundred points, pretty cheap for a passive sight boost like that. Probably because it was of such limited use. The thing came in the form of special goggles that would upload the ability to you brain and cost a thousand bucks. I barely batted an eye as I clicked the order button.

I turned to Artemis with a nod. "Ok if we check which pad she left from I should be able to track your mom from the exit point." I mentally gave her permissions to access the teleport interface. "I'm going to go get that." Before she could respond a knock sounded on the nearest door, an alcove I was pretty sure was some kind of storage closet. I grinned and headed over to the door as Artemis checked things over. I popped the box open without missing a beat and slipped my mask off and the glasses on.

I stumbled as a series of flashing images poured into my brain, making even my impressive mental faculties buckle, and my purposeful momentum and focus fractured for a second as I fell against the wall in agony. Ouch. This one was worse than usual. Maybe because I already a vision upgrade? I'd mostly given up on figuring out how my power worked. I felt a soft hand slip into mine and looked up to see Zee looking at me in worry. Artemis and Reggie were behind her, and though I couldn't see them behind their masks their auras showed concern.

Artemis walked up and pulled me into a hug. "Breathe." I released the tension in my body, closing my eyes as I adjusted to the still fading pain as my best friend pulled back. "Don't do that again. Just burning a bunch of points and shotgunning an upgrade with no preparation is dangerous. I get you're worried, I am too, but my mom is a big girl and she can handle her self for long enough for us to catch up to help. You running yourself into the ground doesn't help anyone, even if I appreciate the sentiment. Sorry if I was freaking out and pushed you."

I saw that her worry had made her pause and take a breath of her own. "I know. Sorry, I was just reacting. That was stupid, I'm supposed to think more now, gods know its burned me enough times just going with my gut." I took a deep breath like she said, exhaling and trying to push out that panicking urgent feeling in my gut. I smiled at her. "Hey, this is a role reversal though, normally Reggie and Zee are the level headed ones. You're usually just as stupid and impulsive as I am." I shot her a wink as I pulled off the goggles.

She rolled her eyes. "Please, I'm so much more cautious than you. Half the time we're out you're staring at Zee's ass. The only thinking you're doing is thinking of clapping those cheeks." I opened my mouth to retort but...I had no response to that. She wasn't wrong. I just shrugged and my girlfriend sputtered and punched me in the shoulder. The byplay seemed to help calm Artemis even more than the short break in our momentum and she chuckled at our antics. Zee smiled at her blood sister looking more relaxed and I took the opportunity to grab her around the waist and pull her against me.

I buried my face in her lavender and chamomile scented hair as I let my brain adjust to my new upgrade for a minute. She wasn't actually mad at me and just let me hold her until the last of the pain faded and I stepped back. I slipped my mask back on and turned to Artemis. "Ok. Taking things a step at a time, thinking through our actions. Next step is figuring out where Paula went so which pad did she use?" Artemis nodded, her aura showing relief as she led me over to the pad that connected to the school. Of course.

I activated the pad as we stepped on, the four of us vanishing and appearing on the pad on the other side instantly. Once we came out I looked around to see if I could find any traces of Paula. Detective vision was...weird. When I activated it the world took on a slightly red tinge, like thermal vision, except instead of heat I was seeing traces of people. I was incredibly glad to have aura sight, because detective vision absolutely did not limit itself to just the person I was looking for. I saw traces and footprints from a dozen people here, I just counted myself lucky we'd put this thing out of the way or it would have been way worse.

Luckily I was able to focus in on Paula's tracks once I recognized her aura and sort of tune the rest of them out, focusing in on just the one specific set of footprints. I could see from the aura in her tracks that she had been frantic and in a hurry but she hadn't been in danger. I set off in the direction her tracks led immediately and the others followed closely behind. I kept my voice low as I talked. "In retrospect we maybe should have left someone at the map on overwatch." I blinked for a second. "Hey Jim, you near the map room?" He hadn't really been a priority before but having someone shot calling would be useful here, and I was pretty sure we wouldn't need him even if I thought I could make Artemis wait.

Clearly in her panic Artemis had only contacted the two of us, Reggie must have been nearby. Jim, who seemed a bit distracted responded after a moment to process. "Ah Morgan, yes I'm nearby, I suppose I can drop in. I was simply enjoying a cup of tea with Claire. Delightful woman, and quite lovely. Did you know she collects pressed butterflies?" Reggie, who could hear this because Jim hadn't aimed his thoughts in any particular direction looked horrified, and Artemis looked amused, an expression I was pretty sure would vanish when she found out our ghost mentor had been sticking it to her own Mom.

I rolled my eyes at my ridiculous man whore of a boss. One of the main downsides to Jim's "take what you want, give nothing back" attitude was that he liked to "live life to the fullest" which mostly meant nailing any attractive woman who showed interest. Jim, as you might expect from a career thief, was a hedonist, and he had no issues indulging that. The one thing I will say is that he seems to be pretty up front about his womanizing, and I haven't seen any of his love interests actually ever get mad about it. I was pretty positive Madame Xanadu knew he was banging Paula, and even though they had broken up, the number of fucks she didn't give was impressive.

I said a mental prayer of thanks for Gojo, who had taken my mother off the market before my ghostly mentor added her to his milf harem. Which it totally was, because seriously, every woman I'd seen Jim hook up with or reference having had sex with was a stone cold stunner. His little black book was basically a milf parade. I shook off the completely irrelevant thoughts. "We have a problem boss man. The Shadows are under attack and Cheshire called Artemis. Paula heard it and took off to find her. We need some long range support so we don't go into this blind, think you can pull yourself away from trying to bang Reggie's mom to help save Artemis's mom who you're already banging?"

I made sure to watch Artemis's face when I said that, and I was rewarded with a horrified look, Reggie's own cringe had shifted slightly but not gone away, he was clearly torn on whether he was more horrified that Jim was putting the moves on his mother or amused at Artemis for experiencing the thing she just mocked him over. Jim meanwhile saw none of this and simply sighed over sending, which was completely unnecessary and entirely for dramatic effect. "Must you be so crass Morgan? I would of course be happy to locate the lovely Mrs. Crock. A fact that has nothing to do with any supposed romantic entanglements. Let me get to the map room and I'll guide your path." As his voice went silent I had to admit, this night was turning out even more exciting than expected.

Gotham City December 12th 2010 10:00 PM EDT

Detective vision made tracking Paula a breeze, it did not however, make the streets and safer. I heard Jim's bored voice sound in my head. "Left on Sycamore, there appears to some sort of riot up ahead on Wiltshire." The roads had become infinitely worse since we'd retreated to the island. Because the city had been mostly area locked no one was driving anywhere anymore. The streets had been blocked off to create small territories and I could see broken blockades where people had created their own cover but then been overrun.

The buildings we passed were starting to look cracked and broken down, and the empty feeling that had already been present a month ago was now even worse. I half expected to see a damn tumbleweed roll down the street. I took the left like Jim said and turned to check with my team. I gestured Reggie over and he stepped in, leaning down to whisper. "Hey, I have a way to check in on things if you can help me out." He handed me a rubber ball about the size of a grapefruit. "Toss that up onto that building over there for me?" I shrugged and did what he asked. When it landed he reached into his pocket and pulled out another orb, this one with an obvious camera and a bunch of spider legs on it.

He invoked his power as the ball made it to right above the roof and switched them before the ball was out of sight. The spider camera thing landed on the roof out of sight, and he pulled out a remote and switched it on. An image appeared on the screen and Reggie grinned. "Haven't had time to bust this thing out. I ordered it special from Toyman, but it's too fragile to use in the dungeon so it was just gathering dust until tonight." He manipulated the remote, causing a scuttling sound to feed over the camera and microphone as the tiny machine climbed across the roof and hung down to look at the street below, giving us a view of the street around the corner and up ahead.

I grinned, slapping my friend on the back. "Nice man, the map doesn't show what people are doing, just where they are. Now we have eyes on the street to make sure some asshole isn't hanging out a window spooning a bolt action and waiting to scoop off our heads." Granted we had costumes and armor that would make that less likely to work, our masks were specially enhanced, but still, masks only cover the front. I focused on detective vision for a second as we rejoined the main street we'd been following, needing to pick the trail back up after the detour.

I pointed down a side alley. "Paula went that way, good we'll be getting off the main roads, now maybe we won't have to sidetrack as often to avoid random looters." We picked up the pace, Reggie retrieving and resetting his camera spider orb with my help. We made decent time but as we went we got to see more of what the city had become over the last month. Gotham had always been bad, and in some ways that actually helped, preparing the civilians somewhat, but in other ways that made it even worse.

The Gotham natives had created cliques, tiny gangs in essence, and the more wily and experienced in the city seemed to be flourishing. Add in that the people running the show had apparently been solo running the dungeon (from what we could see through the camera they seemed to be using health potions as a replacement for food, or at least to repair the damage starvation did as it happened) and there was massive power imbalance in basically every building. The delvers were all geared with decent weapons and items and they passed out more to their followers, so most of the groups weren't exactly led by the nicest member.

The camera views into the various buildings as we looked for threats showed the situations were mostly stable however. We didn't see anyone beating anybody or anything too outrageous so we had no reason to step in. We weren't heroes but if we had spotted some old person or kid getting their teeth kicked in I don't think any of us would have been comfortable ignoring it even if Zee hadn't pushed us to intervene. Finally after about a half hour we neared the end of Paula's tracks, and Reggie's spider cam picked up some movement outside. We stopped and hid, checking the camera to figure out exactly who was involved.

As expected, the League of Shadows were under attack. It looked like they'd been jumped while in the middle of some kind of patrol. Several of them were injured but they seemed to have found a place to take cover and were currently ducking behind some blockades to avoid the rain of bullets from the Penguin's thugs. For their part they Penguin's people were incredibly well armed, obviously having come here for a fight, and I saw more than a few of those old fashioned Tommy guns among their numbers. They seemed to be pretty well stocked on bullets too, because the pressure didn't look like it was letting up.

Among the suited thugs were a few people with obvious powers or special gear. The one at the back was the weirdest. Standing behind a wall of goon was a kid a bit younger than me. Well, I say kid, but I had no real idea how old he was because he appeared to be an anthropomorphic monkey. He was wearing a set of golden armor with an M on the front and carrying a staff that glowed like a fucking solar flare in my aura sight. I winced at that, dismissing the other capes as I focused on the obvious threat in front of me. I turned to whisper to my crew. "Ok slight problem. See that Monkey kid? He's carrying a magical nuke. Seriously. That thing is a reactor core of magical energy. What's the play?"

Zee spoke up, murmuring a spell to view the magical spectrum and wincing. "Ouch. Ok yes, we'll leave him to you. Do you see Paula though? I cant spot here anywhere?" I flicked on detective mode as I tried to spot her, using my aura vision on in conjunction with my newest ability so I could spot the freshets tracks. It took me a second of scanning to find the footprints leading behind one of the furthest blockades and I pointed it out to my team. Zee's glowing blue eyes focused, her spell clearly letting her spot the woman even through cover. "Gotcha, I'll head over there to back her up. What about the guns though?"

Reggie grinned behind the mask, the smile obvious in his voice. "They're using Tommy Guns, which means all the bullets are in the mags." He reached down and picked up a hefty piece of building that had cracked off and was lying on the ground. With a quick flex of power the rock vanished and he was holding a magazine full of bullets. He shot us a wink. "Best part is since they don't have the magazines they can't reload even if they have more. I'll stick back here and deal with their ranged options and provide support with my explosives. Neith I assume you want to go beat the shit out of a bunch of thugs?"

My best friend nodded. "Yeah, that sounds nice." Her words were light but her tone promised horrible vengeance for the men shooting at her mother. Not that I blamed her for that one. She nodded to the random suited criminals mixed in with them. "Any of them have an aura that tells you they might give me trouble? I assume Zee will provide support once she gets over to Mom in either case but I'd like to know who to watch out for." I shook my head and she nodded again as Reggie finished up stealing the magazines from all the goons.

I swiped them all into my spacial ring in case we found a use for them later. "Nah, no one that looks like a threat except that monkey kid with the staff. Aside from that nuclear staff he's packing his aura is pretty bright on its own. He's strong. My King's Sword of Haste is reinforced so it should hold up but I'm worried I might not be able to take him for long. Don't fuck around in there Neith. Keep them pinned down while Zee grabs Paula and then beat it with the others. I'll follow once I can shake them. With my ninja skills losing a tail is simplicity itself, especially with wings."

She didn't look incredibly pleased about the instructions but I could tell she understood I was serious because she nodded stiffly. With our roles in mind we headed out, Artemis drawing attention first as she came out firing a lightning bolt into the biggest most menacing goon, an absolutely massive woman with grey skin and conrows, wearing a single pauldron and covered in black thorn tattoos. The bolt didn't drop the woman in a single hit, most likely because of her obvious meta powers, and the very large woman curled a lip at my bestie in a snarl.

Knowing she could handle herself and had plenty more in her I didn't distract myself watching her fight, triggering my shadow port and appearing behind monkey boy, lashing out at his arm at top speed. With my new combat style courtesy of Myrina and the enhancement from my weapon my blade cleaved through the space where his elbow should have been. Despite the speed of the attack though I missed, the furry bastard somehow noticing me and dropping his arm out of the way, releasing the staff to avoid the blow.

This would have been a much needed gap for me to exploit when it came to most fights, but most of my enemies didn't have a prehensile tail. The tail caught the staff and swung it at my head, a blow which my instincts screamed at me to dodge. I triggered shadow form as a last resort, desperate to avoid the swing from that horrifying staff. I didn't know what the fuck it did and honestly I really didn't want to find out, but whatever it was I was positive getting hit by it would not be pleasant at all.

Monkey boy hissed at me. Literally hissed like an animal, and hopped off the ground, somehow landing in a crouch balancing on the tip of his fucking staff as he glared at me. "How dare you?" His voice shook with rage and hate, and his tone was unpleasantly high pitched, reminding me of the scream of a monkey. "You seek to deprive me of my weapon? TO dare steal from the monkey prince, only death is a satisfactory end for someone like you!" Wordy little bastard, but even though I didn't love the death threats I was pretty sure I would be fine.

He didn't seem that impressive to me. The monkey boy lashed his tail, leaping up and setting the staff to spinning below him. When it was mid spin and the end was pointed at me he hissed. "Grow Ruyi Jingu Bang!" The staff expanded. Turning into a fucking column big enough to stick in front of a greek temple. The monkey kid had aimed well enough and it went under his feet, letting him plant his feet on the expanding item and run down it.

I however, was not nearly as well placed, and somehow my instincts were good enough to be positive that I didn't want that to hit me even in shadow form. I surged to the side but sadly didn't make it in time, and when the pillar hit me I felt an actual attack smash into my body, breaking an arm and forcing me back to my corporeal state. The broken limb wasn't my biggest issue though, because my brain finally caught up to what he'd called that staff, and I felt myself pale as I realized how very fucked I was.

Gotham City December 12th 2010 11:30 PM EDT

I admit, I actually stopped what I was doing and gaped at him as I reformed my wings extended. "The fuck? Dude, you broke my arm!" I realized it was a bit petty to point that out after attempting to lop his off at the elbow, but come on. That was just cheating, I'd been a shadow, how the hell do you break a shadow's arm? I had to grit my teeth against the pain, but I was used to physical discomfort. The Outer Body training method was incredibly lifelike, and between the Warlord and Myrina I'd spent most of the last month in there being carved up like a Christmas ham.

The masked monkey boy sneered at me. "Despicable beast. You seek to deprive me of my divine weapon and cast aspersions on my character when you fail? Your vile actions and your wings make your true nature plain as day. Demon, you stand before the son of the Monkey King!" He lashed out with his staff again, and this time I was able to dodge it much more completely, now that I knew that asshole had an extendo rod. Ignoring the wounded arm I closed in and lashed out with my blade. I'd broken my left arm, and despite being left handed I wielded my sword with my right.

My vitality was high as hell, so I felt my arm start to heal pretty quickly. Of course it would still take minutes to finish, but I conjured a shadow cast around my arm to keep it splinted while I attacked. Unfortunately the damn staff shrunk down and he used that shitty tail of his to swing it to intercept my blade. I winced as the clash provoked a teeth rattling shake from my blade and dove backwards, abusing my wings to fly out of the way. Then I went all out. The Warlords terrible skill and Myrina's split second attacks merged together into the new style I'd been refining since my fight on Blackgate.

I was moving through the air like a force of nature. The perfect skillful slashes of the Warlord delivered instantly with perfect bodily control, but despite all that I just couldn't land a hit. Shifting the whirling staff between his hands and that damn tail gave him insane coverage, and combined with his speed and his incomparable agility and flexibility he was barely keeping up with me. Before long he lured me in close and started abusing that insane growth property to smash down on me with that damn staff over and over again, and I had to resort to a bunch of teleports to avoid it.

I snarled at him, darting back before that stupid column could crush me like a bug. Suddenly I had a brilliant idea. I focused hard, creating a massive construct of shadow and pouring about two hundred points into it. Once that was done I shifted to shadow form and then merged the construct with my shadow body. I fed the power into myself, creating a giant twenty foot tall shadow avatar of me just like when I stayed in humanoid shadow form and then I shifted back. Another fifty points burned away as my normally low energy shadow form skill became stretched, but despite that it worked.

I grinned beneath my mask as I brought down my now giant sword on the bastard at my fastest speed, which strangely seemed even faster than before because of the enchantment on the sword. I felt the power sing through my veins as my now massive body blitzed through the exact same pattern of sword work I'd used before, but this time with massively increased range and damage. Monkey boy snarled and enlarged his staff, managing to meet the giant blade head to head by bracing against buildings and the ground for leverage.

I was almost fucking vibrating with eagerness to fight at this point. His stupid expanding staff had given me the idea to try this. My shadow form and shadow manipulation were different skills, and since I could use them together to teleport there should be other uses. By creating a giant simulacrum of myself out of shadow and then shifting it like I would my normal sized shadow body I'd been able to grow myself into a fucking giant! Of course this wasn't all hearts and flowers, I wasn't used to handling myself at this size so I was a bit worried about stepping on someone or something but still it was turning the tide of the battle.

As I put monkey boy on the defensive I used my massively increased range of vision to check in on my crew to see how they had been doing. From the looks of it the mooks had gone down easy enough but the big tattooed lady was giving Artemis some serious trouble. The few other costumed thugs were fighting the Shadows while Zee tried to drop magic on the big gray woman to help Artemis to a frankly disturbing lack of success. Reggie for his part was just chucking bombs into the crowd as always, trying to make sure not to hit anyone but the bad guys.

That was about as much as I saw because monkey boy used my brief distraction to launch a counter attack. Say what you will about monkeys but the way that kid was spinning that staff was a clear demonstration of how fucking lethal that flexibility was with that staff. He was doing his daddy proud, because every time that staff shrunk it was spun up to create the maximum amount of momentum and expanded into a giant pilled on the downswing to maximize the force. I felt the jarring ring of metal on metal as the enchanted black iron pillar smashed into my damn sword over and over, sometimes making it around my defenses to smash one of my bones.

I was kind of glad I was speed based, because judging by the feel of the impacts this thing actually was like five tons. Unfortunately, that was just the beginning of my problems. I was able to deflect the impact by perfectly preparing but I had a much harder time adjusting when a second one smashed into my ribs from behind. I cursed, teleporting away about fifty feet as I saw a second monkey boy shrink down his staff and spin the damn thing up again, getting ready for another attack. I cursed. I had to point out. "Doesn't that seem a bit unfair. The whole duplication thing?"

Granted being twenty feet tall kind of took the wind out of my sails but still. The monkey prince laughed arrogantly. "What is fairness in battle? Victory and defeat are the only standards!" I gave an annoyed huff. Well, he wasn't really wrong. He closed in from both sides, and deflecting the damn pillar got much harder under the dual pressure of two attackers. Honestly at this point being huge was starting to become a liability. It helped counter that annoying staff by creating a weapon that could match it's size but now that there was two of him I'd kind of left myself wide open.

I grunted in anger and manifested into my shadow form, dispersing the shadow construct into at least ten versions of me. Sadly my skill couldn't duplicate that particular trick. I became corporeal again at my normal size but then condensed all the shadow into a few dozen duplicates of my sword. I swung around and pointed my physical blade at monkey boy and the two versions of blanched and tried to dodge as a rain of razor sharp shadow blades poured down on him from on high, clearly aimed right at his vitals.

The staff shrunk down again, but rather than lash out alone, the second monkey boy passed his staff to the first like a baton as the dark blades shredded his body. The first monkey boy, who I was pretty sure was the original recipe, passed the staves between his limbs and tail like he was conducting a parade, batting aside the army of shadow swords. I controlled the blades to come back around, but I couldn't get through his defenses. I sent the swords up into the air with a thought to hover above the battle and exert silent pressure as I dove forward again.

I teleported in, wielding my sword as viciously as possible and monkey boy countered, with only one arm I couldn't get through his defenses. Three limbs and two weapons versus one of each wasn't anything I could handle for long, but luckily I didn't have to. The asshole took my bait and tried to smash me with the expanding pillar again, and I took the opportunity to deprive him of one of the weapons. I dissolved the shadow swords, converging them into a giant hand that wrapped around the staff and yanked it away, hurling it off into the distance.

I winced in expectation of a smashed building or something but the staff just dissolved into stardust as it flew. I cursed. Fucking duplication bullshit. Monkey boy flipped backwards into a series of cartwheels and used his staff as a pole vault to open space as he tossed himself up and back catching a ledge of a nearby building. He called down to me with frustration. "What are you? I've never fought another in this city that was my equal. I suspected the caped one in metropolis was my better but I should have heard of you."

I just laughed at him. "Kid, the dungeon has been open for months now. I'm betting there's more than a few Gothamites that have something to show you. I didn't get all my powers from there or anything, but it's a hell of a training ground. Since you seem to be too proud to ask though my name is Random. Just so you know what to call the guy who kicked you ass." I grinned up at him from under my mask, admittedly kind of enjoying the ability to let loose like this.

Fighting an opponent who was stronger and faster but much less skilled with my reflexes was kind of a rush. I could tell from his aura he was getting pissed off about it too. He knew he should be beating me but he wasn't. Of course I'd yet to really cut loose, but I was picking up some of his combat style. He may not be as good as me but he had some weird martial arts going on and I didn't hate the style. It would work well in three dimensions.

The monkey boy sneered at me as always. "I am the Monkey Prince, that is all the name you need beast." I choked down a comment about the irony of an anthropomorphic chimp calling me a beast but apparently he wasn't done. "I will allow you the glory of dying beneath my most powerful attack then demon." His freaky monkey face contorted in the first smile I had seen from him so far. Then it opened wider, and wider. It was deeply disturbing to see, and only became moreso when I saw the tiny sparkle of golden light inside his maw. My eyes widened in panic as I shifted to shadow form.

Despite the shift though I remembered my broken arm and panicked, before pouring another two hundred points into my bloodline and doing something I had never even considered trying before. I converted my shadow body into a hole. It felt really weird and incredibly uncomfortable but I became a gap in space and time just as that shitty monkey kid literally SPAT a column of golden energy at me from his freaky monkey face.

I saw it coming my way and prayed with everything in me that the Hole bloodline would save me. I closed my eyes, which felt weird to do as a Hole, and just stared at the burning red five hundred behind my nonexistent lids. Which was the only reason why, as I felt the energy slam into the depths of my being, I noticed the points value start to skyrocket. From five hundred up to five thousand as my body and being absorbed the energy and converted it into my own points. Deep in the darkness of a place between places my spiritual self grinned. That...was going to be a game changer.

Gotham City December 13th 2010 12:00 AM EDT

As I watched that five thousand jumped to fifty two hundred as it hit midnight, but the usual exhilaration of my points arriving was absent. Or rather, it was overshadowed. I had found a way to gain points outside of my daily allotment. It was almost impossible to put into words how big of a game changer this was for me. I'd been a slave to my point allotment since I first got my powers all those months ago. It was easily the biggest weakness I had, and just like that I had finally figured out a way to surpass it.

Monkey boy meanwhile was howling mad, literally, the little weirdo was screeching like a monkey as he jumped up and down. He could clearly see my shadow form was undisturbed this time. "You dare ignore my wrath, demon? I'll show you why it is unwise to toy with the Monkey Prince." With a primal screech he opened his mouth back up again, wide as before and vomited up another golden burst of light. Again it slammed into my current self and was absorbed by my Hole bloodline. If I'd had a body I would have been dancing as I closed my eyes and saw that number tick up to ten thousand two hundred.

Sadly my celebration was short lived as the Monkey Prince used his amazing skills of basic pattern recognition to note that shooting me with his crazy mouth beam did nothing and lashed out with his fucking staff again. I dodged. That weapon could hurt me even in shadow form and was absurdly powerful, I wasn't at all certain my bloodline would be able to tank whatever the hell made that thing so dangerous. Avoiding the literal staff of Sun Wukong just seemed like a common sense move honestly, and it was made all the more urgent because I was still kind of reeling to know I was fighting his kid.

Still I was in my shadow...Hole form? Whichever I was two dimensional and made of empty space so moving was pretty much pure willpower. I could really move my ass with my reflexes as they were. The shift back to my corporeal form cost pretty much nothing since I was just regaining my normal devilish shape. Once I was back in person form though I grinned maniacally. I felt like a fucking beast. I had so much energy flowing through me. I'd never felt this supercharged, some kind of side effect of consuming power like that I supposed.

Weirdly, my arm was actually healed, I was assuming that repair was the first place the energy went before it got dumped into my points total and I wasn't complaining. I teleported behind the simian bastard and lashed out with my blade again, my two hands allowing me to exploit my power to the fullest. It was a picture perfect slash, and despite him deflecting it with his shitty tail I was able to flow into a second attack, and then a third, raining down blows on the monkey boy as I built up speed.

With both my limbs and the euphoria of all this energy I completely reversed the momentum of the fight. Monkey boy was obviously intimidated by my ferocious attack and I saw him start to give ground, which was exactly what I wanted. I'd been on the defensive since minute one in the fight and I didn't like it. I needed to take this asshole apart so I could go help Reggie and the girls. As I poured on the pressure he started to make mistakes. A small slip here, a slow block there, nothing huge but each little nick I'd managed was enough to put him slightly more off balance.

Each touch I scored made him slip a bit worse the next time and he kept getting worse and worse, leaving me bigger and bigger holes to exploit until I finally managed something nasty. As he blocked a low shot to his leg I switched direction mid blow, whipping my body around in a full three sixty and using the momentum to bring my blade slashing at his head. He reeled back, stumbling to block the head shot and I called up my power. I created a portal in front of my blade and one right next to his midsection and slashed him across the guy by spatially displacing my blade.

Despite the speed and skill of the blow his monkey reflexes mostly saved him, allowing him to leap backwards into a handspring, avoiding the worst of the slash. Despite the dodge however I'd still opened up the skin on his midsection, splitting his hoodie and revealing pink muscle underneath. He hissed with rage and pain but clearly saw the writing on the wall and took off. I made to follow but his exit strategy was to brace himself against Ruyi Jingu Bang and extend the damn thing, hurling himself up into an arc and clear of the battle.

I sneered at the little twerp but in the end let him go. My friends might get hurt if I followed him, and the little bastard was too messed up to be an issue soon anyway. I hadn't eviscerated him (which I was honestly kind of happy about, killing a kid younger than me seemed messed up even if I hadn't had the luxury of hesitating) but I'd laid open his abs and that had to fucking hurt. He would need to get that stitched if he wanted to operate properly anytime soon.

I turned to check on the other battles. Zee was protecting Paula and trying to throw some magic at Artemis's sparring partner, but her attention was being kept by a small guy with white hair made of ice and a meta I recognized as Killer Croc. The combination of bruiser and blasts of ice was proving annoying to her as they switched out with surprising efficiency, keeping her from focusing too much on their fellow penguin metas.

Reggie was helping as best he could but he'd ended up actually having to engage directly as one of the penguin thugs had led a small group behind his cover and was trying to wreck his day. My friend was more than a match for a bunch of random gangsters so he was taking their asses apart but still. The one in the most trouble though was still Artemis. Whoever that big gray woman was she absolutely did not fuck around. Artemis was using every bit of her training and abusing her stats hard to avoid those beefy limbs.

The tattooed muscle head was faster than she looked but as her appearance suggested the real killer was her strength. Unlike monkey boy however she wasn't a kid and I had absolutely no compunctions teleporting in behind her and trying to sever her fucking spine. Sadly she had pretty good reflexes for a big lady and managed to dodge. I slashed open her side but the wound wasn't as deep as I'd hoped because her fucking skin was way thicker than I expected. Once again she demonstrated that surprising quickness once again when she lashed out with a back fist at my chest. My Armor of Gloom soaked it up as I let the force push me back from her and I grimaced.

Unfortunately for her I wasn't fighting alone. While I could have taken her apart easily enough over time her tough flesh would have been annoying. Luckily it wasn't an issue because Artemis put a lightning bolt into her back at point blank range. Since she was mostly immune it didn't really hurt her, but she was only MOSTLY immune. Which meant her muscles did lock up for a split second, and that split second was all I needed.

I teleported in front of her and lashed out with one of my usual lightning fast attacks, engaging my full body. I aimed this one right at her throat. For a normal person the blow would have beheaded them, or at least cut to the spine, but the gray lady was made of tougher stuff. Despite that I'd used more than enough force to cute through her skin, which when you slit someone's throat is pretty much enough. Her eyes flew wide as her mouth worked silently, blood flowing from her severed neck.

By the time her muscles stopped convulsing her throat was open and the return of normal bloodflow sent a fountain of the red stuff spurting from her neck as the fell to her knees, eyes wide with panic and despair. Despite the fact that I'd been the one to do it I winced to see the expression and I felt my stomach tighten in shame. This was the first person I'd really killed aside from Annabel. Forcing myself past my horror I straightened my back and pulled back my sword.

I swung hard at her neck chopping into it like a tree. My sword wasn't made for this kind of work but it was fast and sharp and hard so it would do. As brutal as it must have looked from the outside though my only real motive was mercy. i wanted that horrified expression to end. I didn't want her to suffer because of me. It took me a good four or five whacks before her head fell off, and even though the fear faded from her eyes pretty early on I forced myself to finish. I'd already started and it felt wrong to leave it half done.

Once her head rolled to the ground I turned and glared at the nearby penguin goons. All of them, metas included had stopped, staring in horrified fascination as I decapitated the big gray woman. Their auras pulsed with fear and despair, the same emotions that had gone through her eyes. I sheathed my sword and fixed my eyes on the nearest goon. "Run." That was all it took. Every single one of the goons turned and took off, with Killer Croc and the ice kid nipping at their heels.

I sighed loudly and turned to regard the Shadows, as well as all the watchers that lurked unseen inside the nearby buildings. I raised my voice loud enough to carry. I'd practiced this in the mirror a few times. This was something I'd thought about a lot when we were holed up on the island, and now it was time to put it into words. "This is not a game! It is not a contest, there is no prize at the end, and most importantly there are no rules! We are stuck in here, trapped like animals and when you corner an animal it attacks."

I pointed at the head lying at my feet. "So this is my first and only warning to you all. If you come at one of my people I will end you. The heroes won't stop me. Your bosses won't stop me. Your reputation or your friends or your daddy will do nothing to save you. The old rules are over with, and this is a new Gotham. So if you come to play you'd better get ready to play for keeps!" I kicked the cornrowed head away from me. "Here endeth the lesson." Then I turned and walked away, sickened.

Every bit of glee and exultation from earlier was washed away in a bitter flood of shame and regret. This had been the solution I'd come up with on the island while I trained. I'd put off thinking about it for as long as I could once I got finished but this was necessary. If we wanted to make it in Gotham we needed a rep. This was the best time to establish that, the League was severely weakened and I was at my strongest. I needed to show everyone that my team was not to be fucked with. As I walked over to where they stood I tried not to meet Zee's eyes. I wished she hadn't had to see that. I just hoped she could understand.

Morgan was never going to be an unrepentant murderer after his first kill, but he isn't an innocent either. Making a statement is the best way to keep his friends safe. If that becomes a problem after this mess is over so be it. Meanwhile in the advance chapters theres a new power coming down the pipe and its a doozy. Pat-reon has the advance chapters at that site /malcolmtent . Let me know what you think.