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Yuffie... Didn't really know what to do to prepare for a trip to someone's house.
Alchemist was still wearing his jeans, but he'd put on a button-up shirt.
So... She didn't know if that counted as 'Dressing up', because it really didn't look like it.
"Should I, like, find a dress or something?" Yuffie ended up asking Alchemist after she'd spent far too long trying to remember what her tutors had taught her.
It really wasn't helpful. All they'd told her was 'Sit still, don't move, don't eat until your father does first and don't embarass him!'
In contrast, Alchemist's advice was "Wear whatever you think is nice. Just plan ahead if you want to show off your totally awesome ninja skills!"
Probably! At least, Yuffie thought so...
She might have asked him while he was looking at a weird, clockwork bow and a big golden hammer. That was shiny.
And she really wanted it!
Focus. Focus, Yuffie.
Steal the shinies later.
Dinner now with... With...
"Hey, Tracy? Who are we going to go eat with today?" Right now, the two of them were walking through another sad, miserable city. It even had little rainclouds hanging out over a few spots! Just, like, sitting in the sky and refusing to move!
"Giovanni and his daughter Zatanna. He's a coworker with my boss." Alchemist answered her, looking up from his PHS where he had a little map that they were following. "I think he wants to talk magic."
Ugh! Boring!
"And introduce you to his daughter. She's fourteen, I think? Or right around there." Worse than boring! Teenage girls always wanted to talk about boys, boys and makeup and so much stupid stuff!
"Can I show her my shuriken?" Yuffie asked, hopeful that he wouldn't ask why.
"Go for it." Yes!
She was going to show that magic teenage girl how real ninjas did things!
"Oh, for the love of-! Just keep walking, Yuffie. Pay no attention to the weird building on our side. Pay less attention to the blonde hobo trying to break into it." Alchemist started walking faster along the sidewalk...
And Yuffie turned her head to see what he was talking about.
There was a blonde, scruffy looking man pulling on a door to this place called 'Abel's House of Secrets'. He was wearing this long brown duster or trench coat and-
Yuffie could smell the cigarette smoke from a hundred meters away.
"He smells like an ash-tray!" Yuffie whined, pinching her nose shut.
"His soul's an ash-tray." Her guardian agreed with her.
Unfortunately, the two of them made the mistake of slowing down and watching as the man failed to break into the building. He was amateurishly sliding a wire in the crack between the doors when, inexplicably, the door slammed open and hit him in the nose.
There was a brief flash of nothing and the back of Yuffie's eyes itched, but when she managed to open them long enough to blink the tears out she saw that the hobo was still sitting in front of the building-
Which was now a boarded up Bowling Alley called 'Crazy Lane's Crazy Lanes!'
"Hey!" The hobo shouted after he picked himself up. "Hey, you! Stop!"
Alchemist picked up his pace and so did Yuffie.
"Bloody prick, I said stop!" Yuffie could hear the dirty man start running.
"I don't have any cash!" Alchemist shouted at him before he crouched down and held his hands out behind him.
Yuffie immediately jumped on and wrapped her arms around Alchemist's neck.
"Go bother someone else!" And the two took off!
Yuffie turned her head, a grin spreading across her face as she saw the blonde man stop running after about fifteen seconds, place his hands on his knees and start wheezing. Just before they turned a corner she heard him start saying the really bad words while he pulled out a pack of cigarettes and a lighter.
"So..." Yuffie and Alchemist were getting some very odd looks as they jogged down the streets of Gotham. "Who was that?"
"One quarter of a cosmic mistake." Her guardian answered her. He huffed and puffed for a second, getting a good lungful of air. "He'll sell anyone's soul to keep from owning up to his own past. A lot of people like him because he cleans up pretty well, but he causes most of his own problems."
"So, in other words, he's like you?" Alchemist slowed down at her question, pulling one hand free to extract his PHS from his pocket.
"Yuffie?" According to what she could see, they were only a block and a half away from where they were going. "Have I ever told you that words can hurt?"
"Yeah?" But he'd also been really specific that words hurt less than taking a sword through his liver.
Which was really odd and really specific.
"Good. I'm glad you were listening. You know what else hurts?" He leaned down and she hopped off of his back.
"Falling up the stairs?" She'd seen Alchemist do that yesterday. It'd been kind of funny but he just seemed really disappointed with himself.
"You know what? Sure." He just sighed and they continued walking. "Let's go with that."
"...I fix my own mistakes, don't I?" Yuffie was pretty sure he wasn't talking to her. Mostly because he said it, like, really quietly.
...And now she felt bad.
-----
Zatanna was not looking forward to today.
Her dad was hosting a dinner party and those always ended up being boring. Super boring!
Laying back on her bed, she was struggling to come up with a good excuse for avoiding it.
Period cramps? No, she'd used that last week.
Homework? She'd kind of messed that one up by bragging to her dad about already finishing it.
Ghost possession?
...She'd give that one a tentative 'maybe' and moved on.
She was still thinking on what she could do to not have to spend time around some creepy old wizards when her father came and started knocking on her door.
"Zatanna!" He called through the door. "Our guests have arrived. Please be presentable this time."
"Ugh, fine!" She shouted back before leaning up on her bed into a sitting position. She looked down at herself, wearing a pair of boys jeans and a normal tee-shirt.
They had pockets. She didn't care about looking 'girlish' around her own home when she could have pockets instead.
She did take the time to put on a sports bra before she left the sanctity of her room, though.
Stepping out of her room and walking through the manor home that was Shadowcrest, Zatanna had more than enough time to work up a bellyfull of dread.
Who was going to be visiting today?
The dark, angry man that was sometimes Jason Blood? One of the other, older wizards that her father had basically 'inherited' as contacts from his own dad?
If another one of those creepy pigs offered to 'purchase' her, she was going to be very, very cross.
Her dad wasn't in the parlor. The kitchen had a few things still spread across the table but it was empty, too. She finally found him out back, next to the grill he'd bought a few years ago, used once and then never touched again.
He was crouched down under it and fiddling with the connection to some big white container, a plate of steaks on the counter connected to it.
As for the guests?
She had not been expecting Alchemist to be the one visiting. Although that made her feel much, much better about today already! And she was going to assume the girl next to him, pointing at different things, was probably Yuffie.
Zatanna looked down at her own clothing, the jeans and tee, then at their guests. Hell, her dad!
Alchemist was wearing jeans, too, and a button down shirt. Yuffie was wearing a tee and short. Her dad...
Well, he was wearing slacks, he had his shirt sleeves rolled up and he had a big cooking apron on over top of that. It didn't say 'Kiss the Cook'...
It claimed he was a 'Wizard at the Grill!' instead.
Zatanna opened the door to the back and stepped out, actually feeling eager for the change of pace. Sure, half the people here were the old wizard types... But she somehow doubted Alchemist would be asking her father how much it would cost to have her 'Give birth to his heirs' or something else gross and nasty.
"-The connections seem tight?" Her father asked more than stated as he adjusted a hose on the white tank under the grill. "So I don't understand why this blasted thing won't start!"
"How long ago did you last use it?" Alchemist was crouched down next to her dad, looking at the different parts of the grill with him.
"A few years ago, I suppose." Her dad stood up, then kicked the propane tank. It gave off a hollow 'ding'."It's likely empty, then? Wonderful."
"Hey, dad?" Zatanna spoke up as she got closer to the assembled group. The man had gotten back down underneath of the grill to start messing with the hose connected to the tank.
"Ah, Zatanna!" Her father tried to stand up- Without pulling his head back, which meant he slammed it on the underside of the grill.
Everyone was polite enough to ignore the cursing.
"Zatanna." He tried again, nursing his head where she was sure a good sized goose-egg was going toform. "It seems my plans may have run into something of a setback."
He rubbed his skull a few more times before turning to Alchemist, then his ward, then back to his daughter.
"You've met Alchemist, of course, though I understand he goes by 'Tracy' when dealing with the public. This is his ward, Yuffie Kisaragi. She's a, hmm... Dimensional refugee, of sorts?" Her dad looked to Alchemist, who simply nodded.
Well, that didn't actually answer much about the obviously Asian girl.
"I think I might be able to fix this." Alchemist spoke up after a second. "Yuffie, why don't you help Mister Zatara get everything else while I take care of things?"
"If you're sure?" Her dad asked the man. Rather than directly answering, Alchemist gave him a distracted nod and began to unhook the propane tank from the grill. "Very well. Come along girls, there are several plates left."
"...So." Zatanna, following along behind her father, eventually spoke first. "You, uh, live with Alchemist?"
There were a lot of different things she could ask, honestly, but she didn't even know where to start. It didn't help that Yuffie looked like she was eight and Zatanna had made an effort to not have to deal with other people's kids in the past.
They all liked begging for her to show off a magic trick and she didn't feel like some kind of a dog, regardless of what her dad did for a living!
"Uh-huh." The younger girl agreed readily. "Me, and Ash, and Reis just hatched from her egg! Now Kary is like his girlfriend? I think. They had this whole heart-to-heart and had this really big adult talk."
Reis? Kary? Zatanna had no idea who those were supposed to be!
"So, what's that like?" Living with her own dad, her life was... Her life. She didn't really know how to describe it. It was just, well, normal for her.
"Weird. Alchemist is super weird. Back when I first met him, he was telling people his name was 'Alec Mist', which... I mean, it's way better than Tracy. Who came up with that?!" Zatanna actually knew the answer to that one!
It was Batman.
"But... It's also really nice." The younger girl continued after grabbing a big plate of vegetables. "He doesn't yell at me when I mess something up, or I'm not paying attention. And he's kind of bad at ninja skills and can't do any ninja magic, but he's teaching me everything I ask him to. It's... It's a lot better than my old home."
Zatanna balanced a plate of popped rice marshmallow treats against her hip and went to pat the girl on her back.
"Even if I'm not a princess anymore." Yuffie finished, just before Zatanna's hand made contact with her back.
She froze for a moment, then brought her hand back to the plate.
That...
"What?" Zatanna asked, trying to wrap her mind around the fact that Alchemist had apparently kidnapped an extra-dimensional princess. "No, seriously, what?"
Yuffie turned to face her as they went back outside, her confused expression slowly morphing to one very troublesome grin. It was more than enough to distract Zatanna from the grill, which now looked brand-new, along with the sparkling white propane tank underneath of it.
"You mean nobody told you?" Yuffie asked before she put her plate down on a table next to the grill. The younger girl struck a pose, one hand on her hip while the other was pointing directly into Zatanna's face.
"I!" The girl shouted. "Am Ninja-Princess Yuffie! Heir to Wutai, daughter of Leviathan and future empress of the Summoned Throne!"
"Oh!" Alchemist spoke up from the grill, igniting it with a hiss. "That reminds me of something! Yuffie, I snagged something for you!"
"What's that?" The girl practically bounced away from Zatanna, completely ignoring the confused looks she'd been giving her.
"Here." And the man extracted an orb of Solid Magic to hand to the girl! "Kept forgetting to get that to you."
"Is this..." The ninja had gone very quiet as she looked at it, seemingly recognizing it. Zatanna shared a look with her father and he wasn't just confused. He was unnerved.
"Yep. The Leviathan Materia your father wasn't going to hand over unless you could beat him and his patsies in martial combat." He closed the girls hands around the crimson orb. "And your birthright."
Zatanna watched the girl stow the orb away... Somewhere. But she could still feel the immense amount of magic that was wrapped up in it.
"So..." Zatanna turned to her dad, trying not to look at the girl who'd wrapped her arms around her guardian and might have been crying. "What's my birthright?"
"You're living here. Rent free." Her dad huffed and turned an amused eye on her. "Otherwise it's the magic you seem quite keen on not learning."
"So... No crazy-powerful magical artifacts?" It wasn't her fault that her dad was insistent on teaching her the basics of the basics! They were just too boring!
"Again, Zatanna. You live in Shadowcrest."
-----
Tracy had kept an eye on Yuffie for as long as he could but he'd known well in advance that she was going to run off with Zatanna and go do something dangerous.
So long as she didn't break anything too important, he wasn't going to worry about it.
The food had been good. Great, actually. Grilled steaks, roasted vegetables... Alchemist hadn't touched the deviled eggs.
He'd never gotten over his dislike for the smell of mayonnaise and, if it couldn't get past his nose, it wasn't going into his mouth.
Truly, the Condiment King was the one human villain he feared more than all else. At least the rest would just kill him...
After dinner, the girls had run off and Alchemist and Giovanni had settled down in the man's parlor. The master of Shadowcrest wanted to talk about a few things.
Magic, Alchemist assumed.
Sitting in the man's parlor, surrounded by trophies from ancient hunts and likely stolen during periods of war and strife, Alchemist had to admit... This wasn't as classy as the Addams Family had made it out to be.
"Could I interest you in a drink, Tracy?" Giovanni asked him from next to an old, fancy cabinet full of bottles and glasses.
"Sure. Whatever you think sounds best." Alchemist fully expected his next question to be what he'd like, then he'd have to admit he didn't drink or know much about alcohol.
Well, he knew that a lot of the mystique around it was just a scam to gouge people who thought they were being fancy. But hell, if they enjoyed it? He had no issues with other people enjoying things that he didn't appreciate.
"Very good. I've got a delightful single-malt in here... Somewhere..." Giovanni quickly had the bottle pulled from the cabinet and poured the liquor into a pair of glasses, over ice.
Alchemist accepted his readily enough, but waited until he'd seen Giovanni take a sip to mimic the man's actions.
He'd been a blue-collar worker in his past life. Appropriate drinking etiquette wasn't on his list of life skills. On the other hand, he could walk into any factory and find enough Occupational Safety and Health Administration violations to shut them down.
...He'd save that for the next time he needed to keep Lex Luthor busy for a few days.
"Wonder Woman submitted an... Interesting report, recently." Giovanni was calm and relaxed as he spoke, though Alchemist did wonder how much of it was because they were inside of his 'Sanctum'. "She was quite enthusiastic in regards to your combat capabilities whilst in some other reality beyond the boundaries of our own."
"Hmm..." Alchemist took another sip of the smooth, burning liquid as he thought on that statement. "There are some places where an abundance of force -is- the appropriate amount of force."
"Yes, quite. Given the scope of what she'd mentioned, I had been wondering why you did not attempt to deal with Wotan within Metropolis." The man took a sip of his own alcohol. "Though, considering what the ancient sorcerer had done before your disappearance, I cannot truly complain."
"Well, my current list of go-to spells for dealing with hostiles is geared towards handling large monsters with excessive force. I also had the misfortune, recently, of discovering that there may be more ways around my preferred non-lethal spell than I'd previously known." Alchemist raised his right arm, still hidden under an illusion, to refer to the werewolf incident. "I'm a bit hesitant to rely on it, really, against magical threats at the moment."
"That does seem problematic." Giovanni swirled his glass for a moment, thinking on things. "She mentioned a few other things I was hoping you could clarify for me, if you don't mind?"
"No, go ahead." There was a crash from overhead but nobody was screaming so Alchemist assumed it wasn't anything too serious.
"...She mentioned that you set up a series of spells that you thought would benefit her. Diana didn't see fit to include the names, but she did mention the list was significant." Ah, that would be the real reason for this little meeting, then?
Hmm... No, that didn't feel right to Alchemist.
"A few." Tracy nodded to his host. "I tried to keep it limited to things that I thought were in line with her domain of Truth. While I have every belief that Diana could learn illusion spells, it may be best for her to get a handle on her nature as a Divine. Otherwise we may get into the odd aspect where she's attempting to cast an illusion spell and instead uses it to redefine reality."
Giovanni had lowered his glass and was staring at Alchemist, his jaw hanging slightly loose.
"Which, admittedly, would be an amazing means of utilizing her domain... But she really should get a proper handle on being a Titan before she gets caught up in rewriting the fundamental laws of creation." The woman was already a planet buster, just using her physical capabilities. If she properly realized her nature, her domain? She could pop Darkseid's godhead like it was a whitehead.
"...That's... A frightening prospect." Giovanni brought his glass up to his mouth and drained the contents before standing up to pour himself another glass. "I wasn't aware she could wield so much power."
"I'm sure the gods of Olympus would prefer she remain unaware." Alchemist admitted to the man. He was sure the gods would be quite unhappy if there was someone sympathetic to mortal concerns -and- had the strength to back up her displeasure. "There's this sage greater than heaven who could really help her, I'm sure... But it would involve a trip to China."
"Ah." Giovanni sat back down. "That would be... Problematic."
Aside from their Great Five, the Chinese government was incredibly hostile to metahumans. Regardless of their nature or claims. The metahuman concentration camps were something of a dirty little secret that everyone knew but wouldn't act on.
"Though, on a different topic, Alchemist... She did make mention in her report that you're on speaking terms with one of the Endless." Giovanni was looking directly into Alchemist's eyes, and he nodded at his host's question. "If you don't mind my asking... What's she like?"
"She's probably one of the nicest people you'll ever meet." There wasn't even any hesitation as Alchemist answered. "Kind, considerate. When it's finally time to go, she'll be there. Offering an ear to listen to you and a shoulder to cry on if you need it. For some people... It's a long journey from when they die to the time they arrive wherever they're meant to be. And she'll walk every step alongside you, so long as you want the company."
There was more Alchemist could say. So much more... Such as how it wasn't her duty to kill anyone. Just to guide them afterwards.
But that wasn't what Death was like, that was what she did or didn't do.
"That's... Oddly comforting." Giovanni nursed his drink for a long moment, his eyes distant and his mind elsewhere.
Perhaps thinking on Sindella, his departed wife?
Alchemist thought it might be rude to ask.
"Well." He did eventually interrupt his host's thoughts, however. "On a distantly related topic, I do have some bad news."
"Anything involving the Endless and mortal affairs does tend to be that, now doesn't it?" Giovanni asked him, seemingly pensive. Or perhaps a little bit buzzed?
That might be for the best, come to think of it.
"Fair enough. John Constantine was in Gotham. Seems he's looking for the House of Secrets." Best to just get it out of the way. Like ripping off a band-aid.
"Well..." Giovanni set his glass down on a little round table next to his chair.
What he said next was, unfortunately, too graphic for this story.
-----
"Shelke..." Weiss the Immaculate stood at the head of a grand table in one of the destroyed meeting rooms inside the Shinra building, over the ruins of Midgar. Sitting inside of it were Nero, Rosso and sitting on the floor was Azul. In the middle of the table was a PHS, set to speaker so everyone could hear the girl on the other side. "Have you found anything about the training program that disrupted our plans the other day? Who made it? Who it was based on?"
He was not going to admit that he'd been beaten. Not by a hologram, not by anyone!
"Very little." The perpetual child admitted. "The majority of the data was corrupted shortly after the fight ended and I've only been able to reconstruct a very small amount."
"Very well." Rosso had fully recovered during the intervening days, though her pride was still shattered and her weapon yet still missing. "What can you tell us?"
"I did manage to review the combat logs if/then scenario gates." There were a few glances between the people physically present, but only Azul felt it necessary to visibly shrug and show his confusion. "What you all fought could be considered 'Easy Mode'."
"...It seems you've discovered a sense of humor." Weiss grumbled before he pulled out a chair and dropped into it.
"I have not." Shelke responded frostily. "If the fight had continued on for an extended period, then it would have begun using combat magic. If that was not sufficient, it would have access to its own limit break form. If that hadn't worked, it would begin using wide-area magic."
"My brother could not be beaten by some training program in its easy phase!" Nero shrieked, the dim lights in the room flickering.
"Understood." Shelke responded.
There was a brief lull in the conversation...
"At this time..." Shelke continued. "I do not believe my body is capable of sustaining extended strain at the levels recorded as the baseline for Weiss by Doctor Hojo. As such, I do have some further unfortunate news."
"...What?" Azul asked, clearly confused by the direction the girl had gone.
The way the other Tsviets were glancing between each other made it obvious they didn't understand, either.
"Weiss? Unfortunately, I cannot be a part of your harem due to health concerns." There was a choked laugh at Shelke's proclamation, coming from Rosso of all people. "As it seems to be a job requirement to maintain a position in the Tsviets, you may consider this my resignation. All data regarding myself within the company networks have been wiped. I wish you the best of luck in the future. As I've discovered whilst browsing the company intranet- It's not you. It's me."
Someone started to shout something, Rosso had actually leaned over the table and was in the process of beating through it while she laughed uproariously. Regardless of who was saying what, the call ended in a dial tone mere seconds later.
"This..." Weiss growled, glaring at the PHS. "Is possibly the worst time she could have chosen!"
"Perhaps so." Rosso agreed, her crimson lips spread in a grin. "However, I believe I'll be doing the same."
The woman stood up and began to head for the door.
"What do you think you're doing?" The lights flickered violently as Nero stood up, but Rosso did not stop.
"I'm going to see the sky, Nero. The Restrictor is dead and I am no longer a slave. Kill me, if you wish, but I will die a free woman." Rosso didn't even stop as she made her proclamation, leaving the door open behind her as she left.
Nero sat back down, the room unpleasantly silent as only he, Azul and Weiss remained.
"I'll stay..." Weiss raised his head and looked over at Azul as the beast of a man spoke. "But only so long as you remember one thing!"
"And that is?" Weiss asked, his voice was firm but there was something deep in his gut that was unsettled by the malicious grin on the great behemoth's face.
"I'm on top!"
