Stronger Together chapter 92 (Patreon)

I was still lying on the hard stone ground when I woke up. The others  were all crowded around me. Kara, Cinder,Barb and Harry were the  closest, staring worriedly down at me while the other's gave them space.  The tangible relief on the girls faces and even on Harry's was honestly  heart warming. I groaned as I sat up, looking around the temple cavern.  The whole place was empty, with only some craters and broken stone to  show evidence of our battle. Well...empty except one thing. The  Flamebird was here.

Upon  seeing me stare at the woman who was now composed entirely of living  flame the others nodded. Kara spoke up "Yeah she's been like that for  about twenty minutes now. She absorbed the Skinwalker's divinity and  seems to be refining or digesting it somehow. Either that or she's  waiting for us to say something, it's honestly hard to tell at this  point." She gave a wry smile and I chuckled, wincing a bit at all the  soreness I still felt. The relief we were all feeling was so obvious it  was almost tangible, it was hard to be pissed about being ignored when  you were still excited to be alive.

I  heard a small scrape of metal on stone and looked down at my living  quicksilver arm. I raised an eyebrow and looked up at the wizards  "Speaking of hard to tell, any of you know what the hell this is?" I  waved my metallic fingers in the air. The metallization seemed to stop  at my elbow, but it wasn't skin deep. I could literally feel the density  of my arm. "I have no clue what's going on here but if this is part of  my angel transformation I'd prefer to avoid becoming Colossus from the  X-men."

River  answered "Angel's aren't made of metal. Nor I suspect is your arm  however. Your construct was linked to your flesh and it absorbed  soulfire from multiple sources mixed with multiple magical signatures,  as well as nature magic, multiple powerful spells, whatever alien magic  my student possesses, and literal divine energy from young Kara. I doubt  such an absurd combination of energies has ever been unleashed upon the  face of this world, so there's no telling what exactly the effects  were. What did you notice from it during the battle?"

I  shrugged, noting one of my arms felt a bit heavier now "Mostly it was  just full of power. Like it absorbed all that energy and merged it  together into some kind of new energy I could use." I paused and imbued  my arm with some of my power, focusing Aura into it like a spell, I  couldn't get a reaction so I asked Barb and Cinder to try, both of them  imbuing power into it for minutes. It was almost unnoticeable but I  could have sworn the metal began to shine just a bit brighter after a  few minutes of the power being shoved in.

I  tried using a bit of the aura inside it as a new spell and called up a  very small shield with it, about the size of a dime. The same shimmering  riot of colors appeared in the air in the same shield form that had  imbued the hand. It took all the power to make even that tiny shield out  of the stuff, clearly whatever the conversion was it wasn't economical  at all. Sill, I was in awe, the energy felt...powerful. "I guess it  stores and converts power into whatever the hell this is."

River  stepped forward to study the shield. He reached out to touch it and  actually managed to pick it up once I allowed it to move. What I'd taken  for multicolored energy was actually some kind of shimmering metallic  substance, it kind of reminded me of my arm but glittering with the the  same riotous lights as the hand construct. He stared in wonder at the  shimmering stuff. Exerting some pressure on it with his fingers he just  stared. "This substance is extremely tough. It feels mystically potent  as well, I'd need to do some testing on it but I imagine it's an  extremely powerful magical conductor."

I  didn't mention it but I could feel that dime sized piece of shimmering  metal wasn't going to vanish. Of course I could also sense that the  requirements for that stuff grew exponentially. It would take much, much  more energy to make even a piece the size of a penny. Regardless I  shook it off, the new power was interesting but I needed to focus. "All  that is well and good and we can talk about it later, but what the hell  is going on with Flamebird. River, you're most likely to have seen  something like this before since you're the oldest, any clue what's  happening?"

The aforementioned  entity had begun to strobe in intensity, her flame flaring up and then  condensing, getting brighter each time it was packed down. The Sasquatch  shrugged his massive shoulders "Sadly I have no idea. This entire  situation is so beyond the norm, the chances of any of it happening are  infinitesimal. My experience isn't worth much in such unusual  circumstances I'm afraid. Our best bet here would be asking miss Kara.  She seems to have some mysterious connection with this entity."

We  all turned to look at the Kryptonian girl, who shrugged a bit  awkwardly. "I can sense a bit. From what I can tell she seems to be  burning up pieces of the Skinwalker to purify the energy then condensing  the flames to reintegrate each shred of divinity. She had absorbed all  of it into her before but it had some of the bastards energy in it and  it would have been stupid to merge with it in that state. I can feel her  divinity becoming purer. She's getting close to what she was before,  though I'm guessing she was much more powerful on Krypton. She should  also be able to speak to us now, it's incredibly strange knowing all  this without knowing how I know it."

I  nodded at that one, understanding completely. My connection with Cinder  was similar. I stood up, legs still a bit shaky. River had handed back  the  metal circle which I pocketed as I slowly hobbled towards the flame  being seated cross legged in mid air off to one side of the chamber.  The position reminded me of Raven and a pang of longing went through me  as I reminded myself that I'd be home to see her soon since this was all  almost over. We made our way over to the flaming entity. The heat was  so extreme we had to stop after we got within about twenty feet even  with most of it condensed down around her.

I  nodded to Kara, who stepped forward with a smile and began speaking her  musical language to the spirit. The flaming being cocked her head as  she took in the speaking and eventually responded to my roommate. "She  says thank you for your help with the monster. Now that its gone she can  integrate completely with the tribal lands. This territory should get  slowly more powerful. Higher magic density, more healthy crops and  people. The more people come here the more power she can get. She isn't  exactly like she was before but she can survive and that's all that  matters."

I  smiled and nodded at the spirit "Tell her we said no problem. Is she  going to be safe here though, what if something else comes after her  like the Skinwalker did. Will she be able to protect herself? Also are  any less friendly plants or animals going to show up here. I know you  enjoy the plants you've seen so far but there are some pretty horrible  beasts on Krypton right?" I'd considered that when we first found them  actually but with everything going on I hadn't had time to ask about it.  Some of the locals might get killed if Kryptonian beasts stared making  an appearance.

Kara  relayed the message to Flamebird, who responded immediately. She turned  to me with a relieved smile "She says no. Most of those plants are  pretty low level stuff with very little power. She isn't strong enough  to spawn anything too big or scary and once she is she'll have enough  control to stop it from happening. The locals will be fine." I noted she  didn't seem particularly enthused about dealing with Krypton's native  fauna either. Thinking back I was pretty sure there was a small dragon  there that played you your worst fears on a psychically projected screen  until you died of it, so I was right there with her.

Kara  said a few more words to her and got another string of gibberish in  return which she passed on to us "As for protecting herself she says  with her full divinity she won't be nearly as easy to catch, not to  mention the Skinwalker was only dangerous to her because they were born  from the same event. Even if another Skinwalker showed up it wouldn't be  able to do anything to her and she could chase it off pretty easily."  It made me smile to hear the pride in Kara's voice, and I knew we would  be back down here at some point to visit. She felt connected tot he  spirit. Kara had a little piece of home now.

We  finished our conversation with the spirit, trading a few more minutes  of lyrical babble and translation before we all headed back down the  mountain. Flamebird controlled the land here now and was easily able to  smooth our path down from the cave so we didn't need to worry about  catching any stray traps or protections. We made much worse time heading  down the mountain than up, taking our time to just enjoy the scenery  and the fact that none of us were dead. I got used to my new arm pretty  quickly, it seemed to kind of adapt to my desires and somehow become a  small bit lighter.

I  considered the limb again, as well as the metal in my pocket. It was so  shiny it wasn't realistic, like someone had CGI'd some kind of super  metal onto my elbow. I slipped the disc out again staring at it. The  shimmering colors were still there, and I felt like as long as it was I  could move the thing around and even change the shape, but I felt the  energy fading from it even as I watched and unlike my arm I somehow knew  I couldn't put more in to change it. Once it set it would just be  metal, though what kind I had no idea.

I  had fantasies of pouring a leyline worth of power into it and making  like a  staff or something. Somehow I knew it needed soulfire in the  energy to work though, I'd have to wait for all of us to become stronger  before I could use this...godsteel? That seemed like a good name,  before I could use the godsteel to make anything really impressive. I  shifted the shape of the dime sized circle into a ring that I slipped on  my finger. The magic inside faded and it became just a ring, albeit a  really shiny one that matched my arm.

I  suspected the ring would make a good battery if nothing else, and would  make for good enchantments when I learned them based on what River  said, but that would have to wait. I had all the time in the world to  figure out my mysterious new ability. I marched up behind Barb and  Cinder and threw my arms around their shoulders as we walked. For now we  were alive and happy and together, and that was all that mattered. Now  we were heading home, and it would be good to see everyone again. I just  hoped we had some downtime before we had to deal with the fucking  vampires.