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Alchemist rubbed his face, more in confusion than pain.
Cure had fixed that.
Most of that.
His nose was still broken though, and neither Life nor Cure had done anything for that. It hadn't restored his missing VP, either.
He'd get that figured out in a moment. Player One was breathing hard and looked like she was getting ready to hit him again.
"Alright. I might ha'e deserbed dat." He cast Repair and finally, finally felt his nose straighten back out! His also VP recovering by one point. "I've been playing pranks all day."
Blink was up and running just fine. So long as he kept from being caught in a prone position and he kept an eye on her, she shouldn't be able to land another hit.
He stumbled up to his feet, actually a bit awkward while keeping his head locked on her.
She lunged as soon as he was upright, but ended up going wide as he slid to the side.
"You going to explain what's got you pissed?" He snorted internally even as he asked. When was the last time he'd gotten a straight answer for why he was being attacked? When had anyone?
"You-" She lunged again.
He dodged again.
"-godawful parasite!"
Robin was at the side door, Aqualad with him. Alchemist waved his hand across his throat, signing for them to keep back. Or at least keep quiet.
"How long were you controlling him!?" Ah. So that's what this was about.
"Well Tiff, can I call you Tiff? Tiffany sounds like too much work." She pulled her sword out and reeled back.
Well then. If she wants to get serious...
She slammed the stone blade forward, but it was stopped cold when the blade hit the darksteel rod making up his Second Hand and supported by Berserk.
He shifted the short staff around to a one-handed grip and slapped the materia against the fingers she had wrapped around the sword handle, her white-knuckled grip going slack for a second.
Dropping her sword.
He cast Stop on it before it hit the ground. Locking it in place and out of this little scuffle.
"I was never controlling him." She screeched, something unintelligible, and tried to claw at him as he wavered back and forth. Sometimes only just out of reach. "More... Taking up residency after the last tenant left."
She stuttered in place for a moment before lunging forward with the same speed as her initial attack on him earlier, the one that broke his face.
This time he only managed to dodge the first attack.
~~ -20 HP! ~~
~~ -20 HP! ~~
~~ -10 HP! ~~
~~ -50 HP! ~~
~~ Critical Hit! ~~
The last hit, a punch to the gut, almost had him doubled over. He managed to stay upright, if only barely, as the burst of speed slowed down to normal again.
A cooldown, perhaps? Or it required a certain amount of some resource that was regenerating at a reasonable clip.
"He made an agreement with an eldritch deity. The same one that gave you powers, even! If not for him, none of us would be here!" And if not for her...
"You liar! None of us even knew they existed! How was he supposed to make a deal like that!" As Player One screamed at him, he caught a glimpse of pink out of the corner of his eye.
He didn't intend to turn and look, but his eyes moved almost on their own.
Jinx was standing just behind Robin now, holding the leashes for both of the hellhounds. Ash was straining against her collar, hackles raised.
Tiffany's fist slammed against his mouth for his troubles.
~~ -25 HP! ~~
"It's actually very simple, Tiff." Dragon's Blood had a very odd taste to it, now that he could taste it without godawful alcohol mixed into it. Kind of... Zippy? "Those rules about when a god can or can't make a deal?"
He was back at level one, and he had no idea what level she was at. If she had half a damned clue about how to actually fight, he'd be dead already!
...Actually, that probably wasn't fair. Those were his experiences talking, and his experience recently was very much designed around killing something fast.
And Tiffany? She probably wanted to make sure he -hurt-.
"They don't mean much when someone's already dead." The girl wasn't tiring, and he was getting frustrated. He knew, as soon as he threw his first punch, the bystander effect everyone else was under would fade.
And he'd be the bad guy.
"He called me!" Her voice was getting ragged, though. "He called me! I looked for him for months! For months! I thought my boyfriend was de- Was- Was... And you- He- You were right there the entire time! And he was gone! I was looking!"
Her hands dropped to her side for a moment before she brought one up to her mask, muffling a sob.
"You knew! And now his mom hates me! She wouldn't- She wouldn't- I couldn't even talk to him!" She pulled it down, properly revealing her face for the first time since she'd ever come to Mount Justice. Every other time he'd seen her without a mask, she'd either had a ridiculous pair of aviators sunglasses on, or in one particular case, a pair of diving goggles. "He called, after- after Karen kicked me out. He said you told her to! Because I-I-I"
"Killed him." Alchemist answered for her. "You. And Dave. And your friends. One little piece at a time that I had to spend months fixing. I put everything together. Shouldered every risk! And still nearly failed because he didn't want to come back!"
She inhaled sharply, a wet, keening noise. Dropping to her knees, she covered her eyes with her forearm, sobs wracking her body.
"I told her to keep him away from the places and the people who put that situation together to begin with. I didn't fight through the side-effects of anti-depressants and beg for help from eldritch powers so he could be dragged back down to a point he felt like killing himself again." Alchemist debated for a second spitting a gob of blood on the ground at her feet before deciding against it.
He'd probably be the one cleaning it up later.
"It's not your fault, not really." He tried to put a hand on her shoulder, but she slapped it away. "But it's been fixed, not forgotten. Winters would be a pretty bad mom if she wasn't trying to keep her son safe. Even if it's from the people he used to think were his friends."
"I used to call her mom!" The girl wailed. "I used to call her mom too!"
Alchemist shook his head and started to walk away.
Black Canary was the one meant to deal with this shit.
-----
He wasn't hiding.
He wasn't.
He was in full view of the security camera, just outside the unused front entrance to Mount Justice. Sitting in a lawn chair, drinking a can of lemonade leftover from the camping trip the team had gone on months ago.
Reading a book while facing the setting sun.
He wasn't even angry, at this point. Just... Exhausted.
He still hadn't heard from M'gann, and thinking about it, he owed Kaldur an apology too. He'd been downright giddy when he properly woke up in this new body and he wasn't metaphorically drowning. He'd over-corrected, swung back so hard he missed the goal.
A quick glance at his phone again and he winced. Today was a very mixed day.
He closed the book, a Manual of Spellcraft and put it away in his inventory. He wasn't making any progress, and reading the same page for a fourth time wouldn't help at all.
He heard the door behind him click open, but didn't turn around. The rapid clicking on the cracked and overgrown driveway drew his attention though.
A little black wolf puppy was running his way!
He got out of his chair and leaned down, pulling Ash up in a hug when she reached him.
"You know, I was this close to hitting you myself." Jinx said to him as she closed the distance, Cinder trailing just behind her. "But watching you get beat up by a little girl? Just not doing it for me."
"S'alright." Alchemist answered. "Didn't do much for me, either."
Ash had her tongue sticking out the side of her mouth while he was roughly rubbing her ears.
"So what'd I do to upset you, too?" He was pretty sure he hadn't done anything too stupid involving Jinx. Pretty sure.
"Oh, gee, I dunno. How about the fact that I got a message from your game system a bit after school started telling me I was being kicked from the party because the team leader died!" Alchemist winced again.
She sounded just a little bit upset.
"Ah, yeah. Sorry, Jinx. Didn't even think about it." She crossed her arms in a huff at his apology, though he could see a bit of amusement in her eyes. "I was just really, really desperate to get out of Player One's boyfriend's body. Turns out that being him really sucked."
"He was willing to date her." She grabbed his can of lemonade out of the little cloth cupholder in the arm of the chair and took a sip. "This is terrible. How can you drink this warm? If I was dating her, I'd be pretty miserable too."
"Dinah showed up, I think Robin got her? Anyway she's super pissed. I would not suggest going back in there anytime soon." She kept drinking his lemonade. "You might want to get Batman? Maybe the crimson typhoon?"
"Stuck outta luck on both fronts. Take a look." His mouth twisted into something ugly as he tapped away at his phone for a few seconds and then handed it over.
Jinxes eyes slowly widened in shock as she watched a live-stream of the news coming from Salem, Massachusetts. Of fire and destruction on a massive scale being perpetrated by what looked like a child.
And only a small handful of heroes trying to stop him. Batman, Wonder Woman, Red Tornado and Captain Marvel all doing their level best to corral and beat down whatever was on screen.
She handed the phone back, her grey skin ashen when she watched Captain Marvel get knocked out of the air by what looked like a smilodon.
"The local chaos lord. He's an idiot, but he's got power beyond belief. And no vision." Alchemist shook his head, honestly disappointed with the creature.
He hoped the battle ended soon, especially so he hoped it ended in the favor of the heroes. He'd be more than willing to go in and help...
When he's not at risk of existential failure because Klarion sneezed in his general direction.
"What do you mean by that? No vision?" Jinx asked, clearly confused.
Klarion turned to face the camera, outrage in his features.
"All he does is kill, or set up situations where people die. That's it. It's not chaos, just entropy and order, reducing the boundless possibilities found in the chaos of life because he's inexplicably amused by turning people inside out. That's just... Wasteful." Alchemist turned off the phone when Klarion started to look upset about something. "Short term chaos that leads to long-term stagnation. He and Vandal Savage made Atlantis by sinking a landmass, killed like ninety-nine point nine percent of the population. Ah, ooh, terror and death and destruction! A handful survived, and mutated and... Did nothing. Hanging out at the bottom of the sea, refining the same magic over and over again, picked up racism because they got bored. They're fish people. With magic. Who are exactly like us surface worlders. Super chaotic, right?"
Jinx had nothing to say to that, because seriously, that was how Atlantis was sunk?!
Instead she chose to change the topic.
"Robin and Aqualad were in there arguing for you, they said you only hit Tiffany in there once, when she pulled her weapon on you. But Dinah is, uh, well... I hope you've got some place to stay tonight? I mean, she's also saying that she's going to suspend Player One from any future missions until her issues are under control, but she really wants you away from everyone. Called you an, uh, 'Inflammatory Presence' or something." Well, Alchemist would admit that the woman wasn't exactly wrong. Still, it seemed it had Jinx really worried.
"I've got options." He could book a hotel. Hell, he could buy a hotel! "You know, I've been wondering something, since before we came back."
"About what?" Cinder whined at the girls feet, so Jinx leaned down to pet her.
"What about you? Do you have any plans, any goals? You've got options now, a lot of them." She knew every spell he did, and more beyond! She just had a knack for Illusion and Enchantment spells! Not so much with Conjuration, though.
"I..." The girl hesitated, thrown off by the shift in focus. "...Haven't really thought about it."
Alchemist shook his head, a small grin on his face.
"Well, do me a favor. Tell Aqua Lad and Miss Martian if she shows up that I owe both of them a proper apology." He checked his phone briefly before swapping it out for a notepad and a piece of paper, quickly writing something down. "I could really use an assistant. And if you'd like to help out, I can afford to pay very well. Take as long as you need to think about it. And..."
He tore the sheet of paper off the pad and handed it to her before he picked Ash up and just held her under his arm.
"Tell Black Canary that if she needs me, I'll be in Salem assisting in the relief efforts."
With a completely unnecessary snap, he disappeared.
-----
Wally hadn't ever really done anything with disaster relief.
Cleaning up the mess, finding injured people... The Flash always told him it was messy, ugly work that the adults would deal with.
He kind of wished he'd left it to them, but still, this was something he needed to learn.
Alchemist had been the first person there after the battle ended, apparently. He'd set up a tent right in at the edge of things. It even had a big green cross on the side!
And the jerk in question was wearing a new shirt. A heavy white hoodie with red triangles around every opening. At the hem, the cuffs, even going around the hood.
A part of him wanted to ask. A bigger part wanted to punch the guy.
Except apparently Penny beat him to the punch. Literally.
Wally had only gotten the cliff notes so far, but it sounded like a real mess.
And lifting a piece of timber off of a person, he got to see another mess.
"Oh god! Oh god it hurts so bad!" The man he'd just freed hadn't been reacting too badly a moment ago, but then he couldn't see the compound fracture poking through his arm.
"Hey, you'll be okay. Alright? Just look at me, not at the arm. We'll get you fixed right up!" Wally wished this was the first time he'd had to say something like that.
He'd seen people die. Seen them hurt, brainwashed, transformed and even encased in a massive block of ice.
He'd never dealt with the clean-up, though.
What he'd been told, this wasn't even -that- bad. The League members onsite had done a reasonable job keeping collateral damage contained. But they'd been fighting some massively powerful reality warper. Contained meant a lot less when something like that was involved.
He managed to get the man to Alchemist's triage tent and set him down in one of the many chairs the magician had set up just outside.
They were supposed to prioritize head and chest injuries, but there weren't enough injured that he'd found to prioritize much.
"Kid Flash?" Alchemist called out to him, stepping out of the tent to look at the man he'd just brought. "Hold back a minute."
Alchemist got the man's attention by waving one hand in front of his face, almost like he was checking his eyesight.
And then, while the injured person was focusing on that, he snapped the fingers of his other hand twice, apparently casting his spells.
It left Wally feeling squeamish, seeing the bone reset itself. It didn't seem painful at least, the person didn't even notice, but still. Watching bone sink back into flesh and wounds knit themselves together was just unsettling.
"Alright, you're looking pretty good! Take a few minutes, keep hydrated-" Alchemist gave the guy a bottle of water, and he grabbed it with his formerly injured hand! Much to his own surprise. "-and if you're feeling alright after ten minutes you should be good to head home. If your home has been destroyed or rendered unsafe, there's a temporary shelter over on the corner of Dodge and Washington."
Alchemist gave the man a plastic smile and then walked back into the tent, waving at Wally to follow him.
He did so, though he may have hesitated for a moment, struggling to decide if he should get back to searching.
"When did you last eat something?" He asked the speedster the second the tent flap closed behind him.
"Yeah. Hi. I'm doing great, thanks for asking." Wally crossed his arms and glared, though there wasn't any real heat. "...An hour ago. I think. Why?"
Kid Flash nearly fumbled it when Alchemist threw something at him.
A small, plain ring?
"Put that on and leave it on. You take it off in less than a week, it resets and you have to start over." Ah. Probably magic.
He was still coming to terms with that.
He'd accepted that Magic could be real, seeing as he couldn't explain Alchemist any other way. He didn't like it, the inexplicable nonsense rubbed him wrong on every level...
But he wasn't coming up with any better answers.
"Maybe explain a bit? 'Cuz Al? You're just not my type." Alchemist froze for a moment, processing Wally's sarcasm before he started to grin.
"That's fair. I'm not my type either. That's called a Ring of Sustenance. It'll cover at least part of your caloric needs after it attunes to you. That process is just wearing it for a week straight." Yep.
There it is.
Magical BS. Just like he was expecting.
"...Hey. Somethin's been bugging me. What's the deal between you and Player One?" And at Wally's newest question, Alchemist lost his grin.
He didn't immediately answer, checking outside the tent first for any stragglers.
"She was in a relationship with the person whose body I ended up wearing for the last few months." Alchemist really didn't sound enthused about saying that.
And Wally really wasn't enthused to hear that. He'd been kind of hoping Alchemist had some kind of run in with time magic or something to explain why he was older.
"I put in a lot of effort to build a new body, then I might have begged a favor from the Reaper to pull his soul back from wherever it went. I... Talked to his mom, because... Well, it's a little difficult to explain, I guess. He made a deal with a kind of deity, offering up his vacant body so she could put a champion into it, and he'd go on to get a fresh start." Alchemist pulled a chair out of nowhere and offered it to Wally.
He declined.
Alchemist unfolded it and sat down himself.
"So he comes back, and I give his mom a heads up about what I've been doing. Getting him on anti-depressants. Absolute pain in the sack. Suggested to her that she keep him away from what triggered things in the first place. First thing he did after I left is call up his girlfriend and... She was not happy with me." The wizard ran a hand over his face, going up into his hair.
"Might've shot off at the mouth a bit after she started hitting me, I wasn't planning on letting her know I knew her identity. Or the other things, really, if it wasn't ever going to be relevant. But I'm not about to apologize for that."
Wally shifted uncomfortably, leaning back against one of the metal poles the tent was propped up on.
And then leaning back forward when the tent tilted, unsecured as it was.
"How'd you know her identity? She's always got a mask on?" Wally also kind of wondered if she was cute, but didn't put much thought into it.
She was taken. And if she was still interested, then he wouldn't be.
"I was running on her boyfriend's brain. I didn't passively remember his life, but I could ask it questions. And I spent a few days trying to pretend I was him before noping on out of that. She gave me the clues, and I already had the context. I've known since the camping trip we all went on. I told Green Lantern that my secret super power is pattern recognition! It's not my fault nobody believes it." Because pattern recognition isn't a real... Super...
Wally was going to be up late tonight thinking about that.
When Alchemist threw a box of granola bars at him, this time he had no trouble catching them.
He could eat them on the go, and he wanted to get back to work.
As he was leaving the safe zone around the tent, he passed Black Canary, carrying an elderly woman in a fireman's carry. He gave her a nod as he passed.
Her mouth was set in a grim line, but she nodded back.
AN/ Links!
Lore:Manual of Spellcraft - The Unofficial Elder Scrolls Pages (UESP)
Edit: Corrected some punctuation issues. Thanks Silverias!
Edit2: Props go to Alipheese for catching an unintentional name change for the puppies!
