Lycanthromancer
The Arcane Fuzz
- Location
- USA
Pics or it didn't happen. [/meme]
Project: Gamer Ver. 2 (Young Justice/Gamer/Multicross OC)
- Thread starter Mister Ficser
- Start date
- Location
- Isekai'd to this shitty world we're live in
This isn't QQ for posting this sort of stuff. They were holding hands. HOLDING HANDS!!! I don't want to get permabanned.
Fencer
Writer
- Location
- 2nd shift
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Scuse me one sec need to vent this for the latest snip on the other thread.
Kay, I'm good. Thanks for the awesome story.
Damn it Batman you tremendous control freak, shit heel!!! Fuck man you just can't help but let paranoia poison the well. It's very in character which makes me want to strangle him all the more. Good boy Kaldur. Call that spade a spade.
Kay, I'm good. Thanks for the awesome story.
Alexander Snow
Mad Artificer
Im sorry what other thread amd what did i miss?
Lycanthromancer
The Arcane Fuzz
- Location
- USA
The one on CaerAzkaban. It's got a significant number of chapters beyond what's here, up for people to discuss for things like edits and spotting plot-holes and such. Current thread is here.
- Pronouns
- he/him/his
I have fixed this for you, Robin!
You are very welcome. Some people just have to try and spoil what they've got. I'm sure we all know someone like that.
Darn it! I have no idea how I made that mistake.
A very good outlook. No tool is worth anything without the proper hand to wield it.
Frescko
King of Silver 🏳️⚧️
Hey Fiscer is Yuffie a Shoulder Loli? If so here's a stupid perk I made up:
Shoulder Loli:
The Mount (you) gave 10% more health, stamina and magic, alongside dealing 10% more damage, while taking 10% less damage.
Your Rider gains 10% more health, stamina, and magic, but takes 5% more damage. They also do not suffer from damage taken from inertia that would normally injure or kill someone.
(Can buy this perk one more time for your other shoulder)
Shoulder Loli:
The Mount (you) gave 10% more health, stamina and magic, alongside dealing 10% more damage, while taking 10% less damage.
Your Rider gains 10% more health, stamina, and magic, but takes 5% more damage. They also do not suffer from damage taken from inertia that would normally injure or kill someone.
(Can buy this perk one more time for your other shoulder)
Yuffie's a bit big to be a shoulder loli. That said, Alchemist is a bit on the wider side of things.
It'd be awkward but then, hyperactive kids at Yuffie's age always are.
Kenpachi and Yachiru would either have a fantastic time meeting them or declare them enemies for all eternity.
It'd be awkward but then, hyperactive kids at Yuffie's age always are.
Kenpachi and Yachiru would either have a fantastic time meeting them or declare them enemies for all eternity.
Chapter 190
Project: Gamer Ver. 2 Alpha Build 1.9.0
Disclaimer Me Do: I own nothing you recognize. And most of what you don't recognize, I still don't own.
_________________________________________________________________________
Bruce Wayne stepped out of the shower, towel around his waist and hands in his hair.
The second wave of the gauntlet had been worse than the first. The first creature they'd had to fight was some kind of living flame in a room full of machinery. The immaterial creature would shift its form from a giant man, a tornado and finally a massive hand made of flames.
Jinx and Kar'Yashlan had been the frontline fighters. Alchemist had forced open a nearby door and disappeared for a minute before the creature became significantly weaker and he returned to the battlefield.
The caped crusader had noticed there were dozens of notifications filling his own window but he hadn't been able to focus on them at the time. Whatever else they wanted to try and think about had to wait until they weren't under brutal assault by a monster that half of the team were literally unable to do anything with.
It hadn't been immune to physical harm, that hadn't been the issue. Player One had been able to stab the creature and it was reduced in some capacity. It just wasn't possible for Aqualad or Aquaman to approach the Living Flame to try and do anything, there hadn't been any water for them to use and Aqualad's ability to manifest some using magic hadn't been enough to overcome the creature's raw heat.
Its death wasn't some great explosion or conflagration. Batman's scorched fists tore through the shrinking creature's head in its humanoid form and it just sputtered out, faded away.
That... Had been an eye opening battle. His usual array of ranged weapons had quickly run dry and his handful of fire-suppressant tools hadn't been enough to help. He needed more. He needed more options, better tools for handling immaterial threats.
Bruce dried his hair and dressed himself, stepping out of the bathroom and into the cabin that he, Robin, Aqualad and Player One were taking residence in. The teens were sleeping downstairs in a pair of bunk rooms whilst Bruce himself had taken the loft.
It was kind of cramped but it also reminded him of the years he'd spent in his late teens and early twenties, mastering whatever martial arts he could find. It was nostalgic and he'd been more than happy to take the opportunity to really focus on some hand to hand lessons for the apprentices.
"Penny." Bruce started when he saw the girl sitting at the breakfast bar and facing away from him, just outside the bathroom door. "Can we talk?"
"Yeah, Batman." The girl, absent her normal suit of armor, turned around and froze when she saw him. "...What?"
The second fight had seen the group struggling to maintain their footing as they faced off against the emplaced armaments on some kind of flying colossus. Missiles and flamethrowers that had done their damnedest to obliterate the group as they tried to keep from falling.
Jinx, Kary and Alchemist had dealt with them in short order, summoning walls of lightning down on the malevolent machinery.
That had brought forth the cannon. The giant energy cannon.
Again, Alchemist had disappeared shortly after throwing himself into the way of several attacks the weapon had aimed towards the apprentices. Jinx and Kary had gone on the defensive, intercepting attacks and teleporting people out of danger whilst Alchemist worked to disassemble the machine's power source.
It took several harrowing minutes, Batman recalled seeing a specific notice about some kind of creature called 'Ghidra' being killed by the mage. It stood out to the man, Bruce had experienced an odd connection where he remembered that was the name of some multi-headed movie monster from his childhood. Or, at least it sounded like it.
The team noticed when Alchemist succeeded at whatever he'd attempted when the cannon had cut off in the middle of firing a massive blast of energy. The thing didn't power down or go into some kind of reserve power mode. It just stopped entirely.
Then the city-sized flying machine underneath of them began to slowly descend. Slow quickly turned to fast and it was only thanks to Jinx placing them all on a stable, if invisible platform that they survived what would have been a lethal fall. The group had only just been able to make out a black speck rocketing out of the hole behind the cannon before it impacted the mountains below.
"I was considering expanding my own abilities." Bruce admitted to the girl as he walked around the bar and sat down across from her. "I've always tried to have the appropriate equipment on hand to deal with a problem but it seems things on the more mystical front will need a new approach."
Sometimes, force really was the only answer. Which Bruce honestly found incredibly irksome. While he'd always told the other heroes they needed to act with more control, he also knew he'd be able to rely on them. Now that he was facing threats that were close to their levels of power and with no ability to get help, Bruce was facing the fact that he had to do something more.
"What?" The girl repeated, her eyes locked on his face. "Just... What?"
"While Alchemist's solution of using singular, very potent spells has certainly got potential, I was hoping for methods that were a bit more specific." Bruce had actually enjoyed employing the enhancing magic he'd learned. Moving faster, hitting harder, strikes and blows just sliding right off of him... All of that had made things significantly easier.
Especially when he'd had to tear his son away from the massive turtle that had gotten Dick stuck on its claws.
The next group of monsters had been... Odd. Much less troublesome than the cannon, at least at first. Flying pink sacks that would try and attack the group using their stubby little arms.
They didn't seem to put up too much of a fight at first, one was defeated in quick order.
Then the second one was defeated and, in its death throes, it cast a spell that resurrected its fallen comrade.
Alchemist and his group simply continued on, calling down lightning, casting forth packets of volatile ice magic or summoning beams of plasma from around them to continue harassing and herding the monsters away from the apprentices.
The creatures were barely able to move once the trio had a good rhythm set up... But it left Batman, Aquaman and the children with little to do for several minutes. Though, thankful for the reprieve, they chose to rest instead. It gave everyone a chance to recover, to spread about some healing magic and to remove bits of shrapnel that had gotten lodged into people.
Every time one of the monsters, Purobolos, died it would offer a sum of experience and GP. Bruce could feel his body shifting, feel strength filling him that he hadn't worked for. It made his breathing easier, it refreshed him and made the fatigue in his bones fade just a bit faster.
After a number of cycles in which the trio of mages had shifted to casting a spell that would draw thick, crimson orbs from creatures, Batman noticed that one of them would not resurrect its fellows upon death.
That number slowly grew to two and then the others followed suit. All in all, it took somewhere close to forty minutes for the other team to wear down all six creatures until they had no more magic to expend on returning each other to life.
"It, that, you... You're Bruce Wayne!" The girl broke through her stuttering and shouted.
Bruce just sighed in silent frustration as she did so. His identity was a secret, a tool, a weapon... And while he didn't just hand it out readily to people he didn't trust, that reaction was one of the many reasons he kept it secret. His name and circumstances were things he'd had no control over.
Being Batman, however, involved a measure of freedom and control that Bruce Wayne couldn't have. Not if he wanted to be effective in both lives.
"I am." Bruce nodded to the girl. "I hope that's not a problem?"
"Problem? No! No, uh, no." Penny struggled to find the proper words for what was on her mind. Bruce debated getting up and working on making a cup of coffee until she'd gotten her thoughts in order.
Unfortunately, Alchemist only had the instant, powdered stuff.
"It's just- You're Bruce Wayne! You're on the news all the time for doing crazy stuff like taking a bunch of hookers out on your yacht!" Penny wasn't quite shouting but she was definitely loud. "You're always being quoted about how much money you spend on Arkham and... Uh... Huh. I guess that part makes sense, actually."
"They weren't hookers." Bruce allowed himself a small smile as he spoke. The absurdity his unmasked identity got up to was a fantastic shield for the serious attitude of Batman. "They were models. I needed two weeks to get into and out of Hong Kong for an investigation and that offered me the cover I needed. That those girls spent two weeks on a paid vacation without their managers forcing them to act bulimic was simply a bonus."
After the last of the round, balloon like monsters had finally died without resurrecting the others they'd moved on to what seemed like the top of a tower. There they fought against a giant beast, a Minotaur wielding a greatmace.
It was skilled with that weapon and wore heavy armor. For whatever reason, Alchemist and his group had stopped using magic entirely.
It was also the battle in which Batman and the others had resumed their efforts to help out. Smoke powder packets aimed towards the creature's face had helped to distract it and Bruce had a chance to meet up with Alchemist as Aqualad and Aquaman used their superior strength to disarm and harry the beast.
Bruce remembered him making a significant number of throwing weapons. Kunai and shuriken made up of a material that his scientists still hadn't been able to identify. Alchemist gave him several handfuls of both, enough to refill his pouches with and to share with Robin.
Player One had taken the giant beast's massive morningstar and was swinging it awkwardly in wide, slow arcs. The weapon's weight and blunt nature caused more harm to the beast than her own two-handed katana did.
Kar'yashlan was the one who felled the great beast. The woman literally used her knives to climb the creature and buried them in its eyes.
"So, uh, what were you thinking about?" Penny asked him, refocusing on the actual point of the conversation.
"I already have access to the self-enhancing magic that Alchemist uses." Bruce admitted to the girl. He'd used Protect the most, the others needed significant amounts of re-training to control his strength and speed. Adjusting to the changes in timing under Haste was something he knew would take a significant amount of effort. "I need to look into options for fighting things which are less than physical."
"Well, uh... What kind of options were you thinking about? I mean, I have this spell that ignites my sword with magical fire. Or I think there might be weapons that are made of magic. Or, uh..." The girl trailed off, her fingers tapping away rapidly at the screen in front of her.
Bruce left her to it for a moment as he stood up and moved towards the sink. He grabbed a cup from the dish strainer and filled it with steaming hot water from the tap before moving to the cabinet that held the coffee.
"Well, I think it might be something we can both use." Bruce mused as he measured out several scoops of brown crystals. "Alchemist has shown Robin and I that your fire-weapon spell isn't limited to just being used on a sword. What do you think of it?"
"It's pretty good..." Penny mused, tapping her fingers on the table in front of her. From behind the girl, Bruce could see the actual details of her screen. "I... Think I found something?"
"What did you find?" Bruce asked before taking a sip. The coffee was terribly bitter, lacking any of the undertones that properly brewed coffee would have had.
"It's called the, uh, Spellfencer Asterisk." She explained, scrolling up and down as she read the description. "It specializes in teaching the user how to imbue their weapons, any weapons, with these different spell effects. It costs, uh, thirty-seven thousand, eight-hundred GP. The note says it's slow to master."
"That might be a bit more involved than I was expecting." Bruce admitted as he continued drinking his coffee. There was creamer and sugar, he could temper the flavor into something a bit smoother... "I wouldn't want to drain your funds too heavily."
"It's fine." She brushed off his concern with a wave. "We got, like, two-hundred k off of the balloon things earlier."
The final battle of the gauntlet had been against a trio of spirits. Creatures that had leaned heavily into some elemental aspect. Fire, Ice and Poison of all things.
Every strike, every blow was countered by the creatures using powerful magics of the type they specialized in. Freezing gales, screaming conflagrations and thick, muddy pools of filth quickly surrounded the team as they fought on.
However, the majority of the team also had the ability to much more easily fight the creatures. As vile specters and wicked undead, they found restorative magics to be entirely anathema to their existence.
With all but Aquaman or Kar'yashlan throwing Cure at the creatures, they quickly fell. Never again to spread their malevolence.
Bruce accepted the amber stone handed to him by the young girl. One facet had a carved symbol, though Bruce didn't know what, if any, significance it may have had.
"What of yourself?" The dark knight questioned, turning the object over in his hands and running his fingers over the uneven surface of the bottom.
"What about me?" She asked him, seemingly uncertain as to what he was asking.
"If this object would offer a wide skillset to be learned, is there one like it that you would benefit from?" Bruce clarified for the girl.
"I... Hadn't really thought about it." Penny admitted, shifting awkwardly in her seat. "What should I even learn, though? Most of this stuff is all, like, knights and mages and stuff. That doesn't really, uh, translate to the real world. Does it?"
"For many things, no." Bruce admitted, setting the curious object down on the table alongside his coffee before sitting down across from her again. "I can't imagine these could help you with schoolwork or finding a job once you finish school."
He picked his coffee back up and took a sip as he thought on things. Put into that perspective, trying to train the children like this felt... Unpleasantly exploitative. The odds of them being able to have a normal life, maintain normal relationships became increasingly slim as they became more and more adjusted to the darker truths of the world.
"But if they offer you better discipline, that may help you in many aspects of life." He finally settled on. It was true, even, though it wasn't nearly such a universal change as some martial arts enthusiasts would tell people. "As they say, a healthy body makes for a healthy mind."
"...If you say so." The girl quietly sighed and began to type something new into her system. "...Everything I'm learning to use, all the ways I'm learning to use it they... Mister Wayne, they can all kill things. They can all kill -people-. They don't- I mean, I'm not..."
"That... Could be something of a problem." Bruce admitted quietly. It was a very rough position for the girl to be in, especially given the escalating nature of her power.
Alchemist had dealt with the issue by learning a functionally non-lethal spell. It gave the man something of an odd reputation and it clearly carried other risks, especially combined with the wizard's own overburdened schedule...
"I'm sure we can find some non-lethal options, Penny." Bruce tried to smile, intentionally avoiding the thought of an obese murderer after she'd been returned to human form. "Perhaps some form of skill or ability. There are no shortage of options, after all. Perhaps something that drains stamina or puts someone to sleep instead of causing outright harm?"
Bruce felt for the girl, he really did. It was a struggle he dealt with as well, just from being well-trained and physically powerful. Other people just felt... Fragile. Weak.
He'd never intentionally killed a man. Never aimed a fatal blow for fragile bones or critical organs. Regardless of how much it might change, how... Easy it would be, to do away with the likes of the Joker or the Penguin with a heavy blow to the right spot...
That wasn't who he was. And it warmed his heart to know that it wasn't who Tiffany was, either.
-----
Kaldur breathed in, magic and water filling his gills.
Kaldur breathed out, stress and fatigue leaving his body.
He'd found the water feature in this small realm to be incredibly fascinating. Alchemist had carved a bowl into the earth of this place with one great spire reaching up from the middle of it. The depths around it weren't great or terrible, perhaps three meters deep in the area immediately around the spire, but it was cool, wet...
And magical. The water carried a greater charge than any place Kaldur had ever seen on Earth.
He was not alone under the small pond as he slowly practiced forms with his Water Bearer, though no weapon had been formed by the magical tools. King Orin and Queen Mera were with him. The both of them were practicing in their own way.
Like him, Orin was slowly moving through forms for combat. The monsters they'd fought against and proven less than effective for was... Jarring. It was understandable, the environment and nature of the fight against the living flame or the magical turrets atop the flying dreadnought were simply not locations in which their own gifts and abilities offered them an advantage.
The queen had her eyes closed in deep meditation, likely analyzing the incredible magics that filled the water. It dripped in a steady stream from a sealed box atop the spire, its nature and potency impossible to hide.
Pure elemental water. Some of the greatest scholars in the Conservatory would spend years working on making just a few liters to act as reagents for high-potency spells... And Kaldur was swimming in some that reached a level of purity he'd never heard of.
Kaldur inhaled slowly as his body moved. Orin and the Queen had taken up residence in the basement Alchemist had installed under his house but they'd spent the last evening alongside him watching a television show in the cabin with the other members of the team. It had been called a book, an odd thing for such a program..
Despite the odd naming discrepancies, it had still been fascinating. It detailed a group of young children going on a journey to master mystical martial arts to defeat an empire of fire users. While the plot had been engaging, Kaldur and Orin had focused on the girl who used water based martial arts, the philosophy and the teachings of it.
Incredibly wrong in parts, especially when the girl was able to convert water into ice considering the magical properties were vastly different, but many of the other ideas were solid.
"I've never thought of doing this." Orin admitted as he performed a slow wave, pushing with his magic and then pulling back, drawing the water towards them. "It's usually simpler to just crush someone under a wave of water than to do... This."
"Perhaps it is simply a matter of practice, dear husband." Mera admonished him gently, settling herself into a loose stance. "Many things that seem difficult become quite simple, with enough practice."
Kaldur listened to them as he held his water bearers in hand and performed motions similar to his king. He was still working on discerning the minimum amount of magic needed to perform the work without disrupting everything.
For the king and queen, the growth in magical power was significant, yes, but the both of them were used to handling much greater forces than Kaldur was. For him, his magic had multiplied many-fold and it was slow going for him to regain the finesse he'd once wielded.
He now had the magical power to manipulate water without his bearers but he simply lacked the control. If he could regain that through what felt like elemental attunement practice, Kaldur would hardly complain.
"...I've missed spending time with you, you know that?" Orin started. Kaldur looked over and saw that the man was addressing his wife, thankfully. "We've had so many incidents happening so close together, I feel like I hardly remember what our bed feels like."
"It has been a busy month." Mera agreed. "The castle feels terribly dull without you."
"...You've mentioned that you feel as though there's a driving force behind it." Orin's statement drew Kaldur's full attention, interrupting his makeshift kata. "Have you found any further details?"
"Nothing yet." Mera admitted, her torso waving back and forth as she rotated her arms in slow circles which churned the water before her. "But now that we have exposed the connection between Orm and Ocean Master, we may yet shed greater light on things."
"I suppose my brother is lucky that it was your and your guards that caught him." Orin sighed quietly, the waters growing sluggish with his mood. "Had I been present when he made his attack on you the first time, I would not have stopped at his capture."
"He may soon be wishing for such a fate." Mera countered, her magics fading from the water whilst she continued moving. "Alchemist's request in return for access to his magics was that we summon Poseidon to act as judge to Orm's actions."
"That... That's incredibly dangerous, Mera!" Kaldur was nearly knocked off of his feet at the sudden shift in the waters when Orin turned to face his queen. "Calling upon the gods, especially if they deem the reason too minor for their attention? A curse is the least of our worries!"
"...I know, dear husband." Mera's sigh was distressingly loud in the silence of this foreign water. "But the mage raised some rather valid points at my own disagreement. Orm is of royal blood, making it rather difficult to find a panel to judge him without bias. He was also wielding a divine artifact, one 'stolen' from the royal armory for the sake of committing multiple acts of kin-slaying. Finally... He sought to consume the magic of myself and our unborn child, Orin."
"Mera..." Orin sounded hoarse at the accusations laid against his brother.
"It is not a great stretch to call what he attempted an act of cannibalism." The queen continued, undaunted. "Something our god prohibits directly, perhaps due to his own history of acting as a meal to his own father. The strength found in the royal bloodline is a gift given unto you as a divine blessing. Requesting judgement after it has been so grossly misused... We can only hope Poseidon will feel that we are not wasting his time."
Kaldur had dropped his form, listening intently. So far as he knew, while Poseidon had been venerated he also had not been called upon in living memory. The rituals to do so were time consuming and demanded a level of focus and effort that often left the participants bedridden for days at a time afterwards.
Beyond that, Poseidon was the king of the seas. His temper could shift like the tides, going from calm and nurturing to raging and tempestuous in moments with little warning.
It was simply unsafe to rely upon his good humor.
"At least our reasoning is solid." Orin exhaled heavily, the weight within the water receding. "When will the summoning take place?"
"In two weeks time after we return." Mera responded. "That will mark the full moon rising over Poseidonis. We'll need to have our Stormcallers on hand to summon upon a great storm whilst carving a hole in the clouds so that moonlight can filter through the waters above his temple."
Kaldur jerked slightly at that. He'd briefly considered signing up to join the order of Stormcallers, their teachings could have been a great compliment to his native capabilities with electricity. Unfortunately, they demanded a level of skill far greater than his own and he'd soon found himself under Orin's direct command, regardless.
"...It's too late to simply wring Orm's neck and be done with it, isn't it?" Orin asked, his voice weary.
"Unfortunately so." Mera seemed to be equally worn out by the entire ordeal. "The people have already heard that we intend to see a member of the royal blood judged by our gods for treason. It will have to be a spectacle."
"...Was the spell at least worth this?" Orin asked, waving about himself as though to indicate something.
"It is a great difficulty." Mera agreed. "But it also offers a significant amount of legitimacy to your rule. You know how difficult it's been, dealing with the nobles over your status as a..."
"...It's not about legitimacy, Mera." Orin sighed, his tired blue eyes gazing deep into his wife's. "What if this goes wrong? What if the god validates Orm's actions? We're calling upon a god to place judgement on a man. What will this mean for our courts? For our laws?"
"If we word things correctly?" Mera seemed to have thought on it, at least Kaldur thought so. "Then very little. We may add restrictions upon such a calling, limit it to those we are attempting to condemn of high treason. It is said that Poseidon knows all that occurs beneath the seas, that there are no secrets kept from him in his domain."
"That doesn't make things much better, Mera." Orin admonished her, though he lacked heat in doing so. Instead, Kaldur thought he just seemed tired.
"True." And the queen did agree with him. "But it's something, at least. Otherwise we'd have fools demanding trial by god. You know how quickly that would turn sour."
The god of storms, growing angry at being bothered by fools and idiots thinking they could trick him?
Kaldur almost shuddered. He could all-too-easily see such an event ending badly. Not just for the condemned, either. The gods were well known for venting their wrath upon entire cities.
The apprentice could only hope that the summoning went through quickly. The longer Poseidon lingered in Atlantis, the more likely it became that some fool would irritate him.
And, though the boy would never admit it, the first person that came to his mind was Alchemist.
-----
Yuffie may have been young but she'd fought her share of monsters.
Foulanders, Bizarre Bugs, Garudas and more around Wutai didn't actually care that she was the princess of the land. She'd avoided as much as she could but others, she'd had to fight and kill. Her skill with the shuriken and the Materia she'd 'borrowed' had been enough to eek out a victory and she'd been more than a bit excited that she could fight monsters, just like her dad's ninja!
She'd done it the first time she escaped and started working her way to the east, she'd done it the second time, too. When the war had gone cold and Wutai started to cede to ShinRa, she knew she was going to have to get strong. Strong enough to beat up all the SOLDIERs and restore the glory of her homeland!
Except, well, glory had apparently involved going hungry. And selling off some of her Materia to try and buy food. Then going hungry -again- because the money didn't last that long.
Grouping up with others to try and make her way towards ShinRa without a plan was maybe not her best idea... But it worked out okay! She watched ShinRa fall, all because of one weirdo with some cool skills and on a budget of less than two-hundred gil.
Yuffie wouldn't admit, she'd enjoyed getting to be free of her responsibilities to Wutai. After her mom died and her dad turned into a jerk, it just felt like she didn't have any say in her life. She was forced to learn a lot of useless, boring junk. She had to eat what the cooks made for her, no substitutions or snacks allowed.
Following Alchemist let her have friends. He didn't care too much about what she ate so long as she didn't make herself sick and actually finished her vegetables.
Yuffie had been willing to compromise on that matter, as any good Empress should. It allowed for, uh, 'Mutually assured dissatisfaction'.
Of course, discovering that her home and subjects were under threat (Someone had tried to do... That to Jinx? Yuffie wasn't going to let that go, buster!) had forced her hand. She'd told Alchemist that she would be joining them, that he would be teaching her how to wield such power that even the gods would tremble at her might!
(Please? Please-please-please-please-please-please-please!)
He'd quickly caved under her convincing request.
She hadn't been allowed to join the others while they were fighting epic monsters, instead being stuck in the demi-plane with the red-haired water lady and the familiars. Which wasn't too bad, really, but the woman was a Proper Queen and she acted like it.
Puh-leeze. If Yuffie wanted to deal with that, she wouldn't have joined Alchemist when he went back to his home reality.
The last few days hadn't really been bad, though. Alchemist's new house inside the demi-plane had two bedrooms upstairs and he'd converted half the pantry into a set of stairs leading to a basement. She and Jinx were sharing the second upstairs room and Mera and Arthur had been given a room in the basement that Alchemist had converted into a bedroom for them.
Having a proper bathtub was nice. Like, really nice.
That wasn't to say that Yuffie was being kept all safe and secure, hidden away and not allowed to fight. Alchemist had other avenues that he was pursuing, many other things that needed done before he was ready to fight that- that thing.
He'd purchased -another- gun from that floating window shop. The simplest, most basic form of the rifle he liked to use. That antique, the Hydra.
"Bo-ring!" Yuffie whined, watching Alchemist check the gun he'd bought. He, Yuffie, Jinx and Kary were situated in the living room of his house... Which was incredibly bare. He hadn't even started furnishing everything! Just the kitchen and the bedrooms. "You've got, like, laser guns and that giant ShinRa cannon! Why did you buy another dinky little rifle?!"
"Because it makes a good starting point." He told her, confirming that there were no bullets in the weapon. "Terra requested we not go to any other Quests while already on one. There are other options available, though. They just... Kind of suck."
"You say that, like, all the time!" Yuffie continued, bouncing on the heels of her feet. "Come on! I know how to fight, I'm totally ready for whatever you wanna do!"
"Alchemist." Jinx, wearing her cut-down suit of black crystal armor, spoke up. "Perhaps an explanation?"
"...Alright." The mage huffed quietly and held the gun in front of him. "Inside of every item, there's a metaphysical reality or plane. On it, in it, whichever, all of the items flaws and imperfections are made manifest. We're going to go to that reality and kill off everything wrong with this gun as a trial run before I get around to working on stronger weapons."
"Oooh!" Yuffie gasped, thinking about the implications of such a thing. "Could we go into my mom's shuriken? Will it fix the rust around the tips? What about Materia, how does it work on those? Ooh! Food! What about food?!"
"Once we know what we're dealing with, we can go into your mom's shuriken. I could fix the rust, just let me see it when we get back." Alchemist explained, answering her questions in the order she'd asked. "I don't know what will happen if we try it on Materia, probably not much since what's important is on the inside instead of the orb itself. And food is improved as well, it can become tastier and more nutritious but it usually isn't a worthwhile investment because it takes more time to fix a dish than to cook it properly to begin with. Usually. We're not improving natto or cheese, Yuffie."
"Bacon?" Ash asked, happily sitting near the entrance of the room. "Better bacon?"
"Bacon!" Cinder screeched. "More bacon!"
Reis, calmly watching from a corner of the room, said nothing. She did, however, slowly run her tongue along her chops. A horned black cat on the stairs whose name Yuffie still didn't know simply stared at them, its green eyes glowing malevolently.
"...Maybe later." Alchemist acquiesced with a quiet sigh before grumbling. "Swear to god, it's always about food."
"So, how do we intend on running through this item, Alchemist?" Kary interrupted, pulling the conversation back on track.
"It depends on the inhabitants." He answered, opening his system and poking at things while looking at the gun. "This is the most basic model available, so it shouldn't have anything inside that's absurdly strong. I was thinking that we could take turns clearing floors until we catch up to things that won't just fall apart with a mean look."
Alchemist snapped his fingers and the gun faded away, replaced by a Gate filled with swirling motes of light.
"And our end goal?" The demon asked, her jade eyes gazing intently through the portal.
"Upgrading as much of our equipment as is reasonable. If done right, this will give us access to a lot of tools that would otherwise require an Instant Quest to get. It's just... Time consuming. And tedious." Alchemist explained before he looked across the team and stepped into the Gate.
Jinx and Kary quickly followed him. Yuffie hesitated for a moment, looking back to the familiars and biting her lip before she jumped through.
She smacked into the back of the imp, who smacked into the back of Jinx and she, in turn, knocked Alchemist over.
"Oof!" Yuffie grunted, waving her arms comically to keep her balance.
"Ow..." Alchemist groaned as he got back up.
The place they'd appeared looked like... Like...
Yuffie had no idea. It was a bunch of square spaces, some giant pillars reached high up and there were disconnected islands just floating nearby. Some of them had trees or rocks, some things that looked like treasure chests stood out, calling to the Treasure Hunter in Yuffie.
Oh, and there were shadow people all over the place. Maybe, like, sixteen or seventeen in all? They had weapons and armor that stood out strangely on their immaterial bodies. Some had guns, some swords, a few wore threadbare gloves. The armor looked like ShinRa stuff, the cheapest stuff at that.
"...Looks like gen one, maybe two." Alchemist muttered as Yuffie got close to him. "Wonder if that's because of me, the level of my Gate spell or something else?"
"Alright!" The mage turned around, sounding more energetic than he'd been in days. "Ladies, do you mind if I go first? I got a few things I wanted to test!"
"...Go for it?" Jinx sounded uncertain for a moment, looking to the shades in the distance before focusing her face back on Alchemist. "Is it gonna be cool?"
"If it works? It'll be awesome." Alchemist turned around, a grin on his face. Yuffie watched as he carefully looked at the creatures that had yet to notice them all. He pulled his hand back, a purple Materia in his gauntlets glinting as it was activated. His hand swiped across and all of the shades were naked! All of their weapons and armor had gone missing!
"...Did you just steal everything? From everyone?" Yuffie felt breathless at the idea of doing something like that. She'd never heard of a Materia that could do that!
"Yep." Alchemist grinned, the Materia re-activating as he snapped his fingers and the shadows exploded into red orbs that converged on him.
The experience and GP wasn't particularly impressive but then, neither was the equipment. The shadows had been weak, super weak.
"How?!" Yuffie squealed, grabbing on to Alchemist's arm. "You gotta teach me! How'd you do that!? Show me!"
"The answer, Yuffie, is very simple." The man crouched down until he was even with her eyes. "I did it the ninja way."
He reached forward and gently poked her nose.
"I cheated."
Disclaimer Me Do: I own nothing you recognize. And most of what you don't recognize, I still don't own.
_________________________________________________________________________
Bruce Wayne stepped out of the shower, towel around his waist and hands in his hair.
The second wave of the gauntlet had been worse than the first. The first creature they'd had to fight was some kind of living flame in a room full of machinery. The immaterial creature would shift its form from a giant man, a tornado and finally a massive hand made of flames.
Jinx and Kar'Yashlan had been the frontline fighters. Alchemist had forced open a nearby door and disappeared for a minute before the creature became significantly weaker and he returned to the battlefield.
The caped crusader had noticed there were dozens of notifications filling his own window but he hadn't been able to focus on them at the time. Whatever else they wanted to try and think about had to wait until they weren't under brutal assault by a monster that half of the team were literally unable to do anything with.
It hadn't been immune to physical harm, that hadn't been the issue. Player One had been able to stab the creature and it was reduced in some capacity. It just wasn't possible for Aqualad or Aquaman to approach the Living Flame to try and do anything, there hadn't been any water for them to use and Aqualad's ability to manifest some using magic hadn't been enough to overcome the creature's raw heat.
Its death wasn't some great explosion or conflagration. Batman's scorched fists tore through the shrinking creature's head in its humanoid form and it just sputtered out, faded away.
That... Had been an eye opening battle. His usual array of ranged weapons had quickly run dry and his handful of fire-suppressant tools hadn't been enough to help. He needed more. He needed more options, better tools for handling immaterial threats.
Bruce dried his hair and dressed himself, stepping out of the bathroom and into the cabin that he, Robin, Aqualad and Player One were taking residence in. The teens were sleeping downstairs in a pair of bunk rooms whilst Bruce himself had taken the loft.
It was kind of cramped but it also reminded him of the years he'd spent in his late teens and early twenties, mastering whatever martial arts he could find. It was nostalgic and he'd been more than happy to take the opportunity to really focus on some hand to hand lessons for the apprentices.
"Penny." Bruce started when he saw the girl sitting at the breakfast bar and facing away from him, just outside the bathroom door. "Can we talk?"
"Yeah, Batman." The girl, absent her normal suit of armor, turned around and froze when she saw him. "...What?"
The second fight had seen the group struggling to maintain their footing as they faced off against the emplaced armaments on some kind of flying colossus. Missiles and flamethrowers that had done their damnedest to obliterate the group as they tried to keep from falling.
Jinx, Kary and Alchemist had dealt with them in short order, summoning walls of lightning down on the malevolent machinery.
That had brought forth the cannon. The giant energy cannon.
Again, Alchemist had disappeared shortly after throwing himself into the way of several attacks the weapon had aimed towards the apprentices. Jinx and Kary had gone on the defensive, intercepting attacks and teleporting people out of danger whilst Alchemist worked to disassemble the machine's power source.
It took several harrowing minutes, Batman recalled seeing a specific notice about some kind of creature called 'Ghidra' being killed by the mage. It stood out to the man, Bruce had experienced an odd connection where he remembered that was the name of some multi-headed movie monster from his childhood. Or, at least it sounded like it.
The team noticed when Alchemist succeeded at whatever he'd attempted when the cannon had cut off in the middle of firing a massive blast of energy. The thing didn't power down or go into some kind of reserve power mode. It just stopped entirely.
Then the city-sized flying machine underneath of them began to slowly descend. Slow quickly turned to fast and it was only thanks to Jinx placing them all on a stable, if invisible platform that they survived what would have been a lethal fall. The group had only just been able to make out a black speck rocketing out of the hole behind the cannon before it impacted the mountains below.
"I was considering expanding my own abilities." Bruce admitted to the girl as he walked around the bar and sat down across from her. "I've always tried to have the appropriate equipment on hand to deal with a problem but it seems things on the more mystical front will need a new approach."
Sometimes, force really was the only answer. Which Bruce honestly found incredibly irksome. While he'd always told the other heroes they needed to act with more control, he also knew he'd be able to rely on them. Now that he was facing threats that were close to their levels of power and with no ability to get help, Bruce was facing the fact that he had to do something more.
"What?" The girl repeated, her eyes locked on his face. "Just... What?"
"While Alchemist's solution of using singular, very potent spells has certainly got potential, I was hoping for methods that were a bit more specific." Bruce had actually enjoyed employing the enhancing magic he'd learned. Moving faster, hitting harder, strikes and blows just sliding right off of him... All of that had made things significantly easier.
Especially when he'd had to tear his son away from the massive turtle that had gotten Dick stuck on its claws.
The next group of monsters had been... Odd. Much less troublesome than the cannon, at least at first. Flying pink sacks that would try and attack the group using their stubby little arms.
They didn't seem to put up too much of a fight at first, one was defeated in quick order.
Then the second one was defeated and, in its death throes, it cast a spell that resurrected its fallen comrade.
Alchemist and his group simply continued on, calling down lightning, casting forth packets of volatile ice magic or summoning beams of plasma from around them to continue harassing and herding the monsters away from the apprentices.
The creatures were barely able to move once the trio had a good rhythm set up... But it left Batman, Aquaman and the children with little to do for several minutes. Though, thankful for the reprieve, they chose to rest instead. It gave everyone a chance to recover, to spread about some healing magic and to remove bits of shrapnel that had gotten lodged into people.
Every time one of the monsters, Purobolos, died it would offer a sum of experience and GP. Bruce could feel his body shifting, feel strength filling him that he hadn't worked for. It made his breathing easier, it refreshed him and made the fatigue in his bones fade just a bit faster.
After a number of cycles in which the trio of mages had shifted to casting a spell that would draw thick, crimson orbs from creatures, Batman noticed that one of them would not resurrect its fellows upon death.
That number slowly grew to two and then the others followed suit. All in all, it took somewhere close to forty minutes for the other team to wear down all six creatures until they had no more magic to expend on returning each other to life.
"It, that, you... You're Bruce Wayne!" The girl broke through her stuttering and shouted.
Bruce just sighed in silent frustration as she did so. His identity was a secret, a tool, a weapon... And while he didn't just hand it out readily to people he didn't trust, that reaction was one of the many reasons he kept it secret. His name and circumstances were things he'd had no control over.
Being Batman, however, involved a measure of freedom and control that Bruce Wayne couldn't have. Not if he wanted to be effective in both lives.
"I am." Bruce nodded to the girl. "I hope that's not a problem?"
"Problem? No! No, uh, no." Penny struggled to find the proper words for what was on her mind. Bruce debated getting up and working on making a cup of coffee until she'd gotten her thoughts in order.
Unfortunately, Alchemist only had the instant, powdered stuff.
"It's just- You're Bruce Wayne! You're on the news all the time for doing crazy stuff like taking a bunch of hookers out on your yacht!" Penny wasn't quite shouting but she was definitely loud. "You're always being quoted about how much money you spend on Arkham and... Uh... Huh. I guess that part makes sense, actually."
"They weren't hookers." Bruce allowed himself a small smile as he spoke. The absurdity his unmasked identity got up to was a fantastic shield for the serious attitude of Batman. "They were models. I needed two weeks to get into and out of Hong Kong for an investigation and that offered me the cover I needed. That those girls spent two weeks on a paid vacation without their managers forcing them to act bulimic was simply a bonus."
After the last of the round, balloon like monsters had finally died without resurrecting the others they'd moved on to what seemed like the top of a tower. There they fought against a giant beast, a Minotaur wielding a greatmace.
It was skilled with that weapon and wore heavy armor. For whatever reason, Alchemist and his group had stopped using magic entirely.
It was also the battle in which Batman and the others had resumed their efforts to help out. Smoke powder packets aimed towards the creature's face had helped to distract it and Bruce had a chance to meet up with Alchemist as Aqualad and Aquaman used their superior strength to disarm and harry the beast.
Bruce remembered him making a significant number of throwing weapons. Kunai and shuriken made up of a material that his scientists still hadn't been able to identify. Alchemist gave him several handfuls of both, enough to refill his pouches with and to share with Robin.
Player One had taken the giant beast's massive morningstar and was swinging it awkwardly in wide, slow arcs. The weapon's weight and blunt nature caused more harm to the beast than her own two-handed katana did.
Kar'yashlan was the one who felled the great beast. The woman literally used her knives to climb the creature and buried them in its eyes.
"So, uh, what were you thinking about?" Penny asked him, refocusing on the actual point of the conversation.
"I already have access to the self-enhancing magic that Alchemist uses." Bruce admitted to the girl. He'd used Protect the most, the others needed significant amounts of re-training to control his strength and speed. Adjusting to the changes in timing under Haste was something he knew would take a significant amount of effort. "I need to look into options for fighting things which are less than physical."
"Well, uh... What kind of options were you thinking about? I mean, I have this spell that ignites my sword with magical fire. Or I think there might be weapons that are made of magic. Or, uh..." The girl trailed off, her fingers tapping away rapidly at the screen in front of her.
Bruce left her to it for a moment as he stood up and moved towards the sink. He grabbed a cup from the dish strainer and filled it with steaming hot water from the tap before moving to the cabinet that held the coffee.
"Well, I think it might be something we can both use." Bruce mused as he measured out several scoops of brown crystals. "Alchemist has shown Robin and I that your fire-weapon spell isn't limited to just being used on a sword. What do you think of it?"
"It's pretty good..." Penny mused, tapping her fingers on the table in front of her. From behind the girl, Bruce could see the actual details of her screen. "I... Think I found something?"
"What did you find?" Bruce asked before taking a sip. The coffee was terribly bitter, lacking any of the undertones that properly brewed coffee would have had.
"It's called the, uh, Spellfencer Asterisk." She explained, scrolling up and down as she read the description. "It specializes in teaching the user how to imbue their weapons, any weapons, with these different spell effects. It costs, uh, thirty-seven thousand, eight-hundred GP. The note says it's slow to master."
"That might be a bit more involved than I was expecting." Bruce admitted as he continued drinking his coffee. There was creamer and sugar, he could temper the flavor into something a bit smoother... "I wouldn't want to drain your funds too heavily."
"It's fine." She brushed off his concern with a wave. "We got, like, two-hundred k off of the balloon things earlier."
The final battle of the gauntlet had been against a trio of spirits. Creatures that had leaned heavily into some elemental aspect. Fire, Ice and Poison of all things.
Every strike, every blow was countered by the creatures using powerful magics of the type they specialized in. Freezing gales, screaming conflagrations and thick, muddy pools of filth quickly surrounded the team as they fought on.
However, the majority of the team also had the ability to much more easily fight the creatures. As vile specters and wicked undead, they found restorative magics to be entirely anathema to their existence.
With all but Aquaman or Kar'yashlan throwing Cure at the creatures, they quickly fell. Never again to spread their malevolence.
Bruce accepted the amber stone handed to him by the young girl. One facet had a carved symbol, though Bruce didn't know what, if any, significance it may have had.
"What of yourself?" The dark knight questioned, turning the object over in his hands and running his fingers over the uneven surface of the bottom.
"What about me?" She asked him, seemingly uncertain as to what he was asking.
"If this object would offer a wide skillset to be learned, is there one like it that you would benefit from?" Bruce clarified for the girl.
"I... Hadn't really thought about it." Penny admitted, shifting awkwardly in her seat. "What should I even learn, though? Most of this stuff is all, like, knights and mages and stuff. That doesn't really, uh, translate to the real world. Does it?"
"For many things, no." Bruce admitted, setting the curious object down on the table alongside his coffee before sitting down across from her again. "I can't imagine these could help you with schoolwork or finding a job once you finish school."
He picked his coffee back up and took a sip as he thought on things. Put into that perspective, trying to train the children like this felt... Unpleasantly exploitative. The odds of them being able to have a normal life, maintain normal relationships became increasingly slim as they became more and more adjusted to the darker truths of the world.
"But if they offer you better discipline, that may help you in many aspects of life." He finally settled on. It was true, even, though it wasn't nearly such a universal change as some martial arts enthusiasts would tell people. "As they say, a healthy body makes for a healthy mind."
"...If you say so." The girl quietly sighed and began to type something new into her system. "...Everything I'm learning to use, all the ways I'm learning to use it they... Mister Wayne, they can all kill things. They can all kill -people-. They don't- I mean, I'm not..."
"That... Could be something of a problem." Bruce admitted quietly. It was a very rough position for the girl to be in, especially given the escalating nature of her power.
Alchemist had dealt with the issue by learning a functionally non-lethal spell. It gave the man something of an odd reputation and it clearly carried other risks, especially combined with the wizard's own overburdened schedule...
"I'm sure we can find some non-lethal options, Penny." Bruce tried to smile, intentionally avoiding the thought of an obese murderer after she'd been returned to human form. "Perhaps some form of skill or ability. There are no shortage of options, after all. Perhaps something that drains stamina or puts someone to sleep instead of causing outright harm?"
Bruce felt for the girl, he really did. It was a struggle he dealt with as well, just from being well-trained and physically powerful. Other people just felt... Fragile. Weak.
He'd never intentionally killed a man. Never aimed a fatal blow for fragile bones or critical organs. Regardless of how much it might change, how... Easy it would be, to do away with the likes of the Joker or the Penguin with a heavy blow to the right spot...
That wasn't who he was. And it warmed his heart to know that it wasn't who Tiffany was, either.
-----
Kaldur breathed in, magic and water filling his gills.
Kaldur breathed out, stress and fatigue leaving his body.
He'd found the water feature in this small realm to be incredibly fascinating. Alchemist had carved a bowl into the earth of this place with one great spire reaching up from the middle of it. The depths around it weren't great or terrible, perhaps three meters deep in the area immediately around the spire, but it was cool, wet...
And magical. The water carried a greater charge than any place Kaldur had ever seen on Earth.
He was not alone under the small pond as he slowly practiced forms with his Water Bearer, though no weapon had been formed by the magical tools. King Orin and Queen Mera were with him. The both of them were practicing in their own way.
Like him, Orin was slowly moving through forms for combat. The monsters they'd fought against and proven less than effective for was... Jarring. It was understandable, the environment and nature of the fight against the living flame or the magical turrets atop the flying dreadnought were simply not locations in which their own gifts and abilities offered them an advantage.
The queen had her eyes closed in deep meditation, likely analyzing the incredible magics that filled the water. It dripped in a steady stream from a sealed box atop the spire, its nature and potency impossible to hide.
Pure elemental water. Some of the greatest scholars in the Conservatory would spend years working on making just a few liters to act as reagents for high-potency spells... And Kaldur was swimming in some that reached a level of purity he'd never heard of.
Kaldur inhaled slowly as his body moved. Orin and the Queen had taken up residence in the basement Alchemist had installed under his house but they'd spent the last evening alongside him watching a television show in the cabin with the other members of the team. It had been called a book, an odd thing for such a program..
Despite the odd naming discrepancies, it had still been fascinating. It detailed a group of young children going on a journey to master mystical martial arts to defeat an empire of fire users. While the plot had been engaging, Kaldur and Orin had focused on the girl who used water based martial arts, the philosophy and the teachings of it.
Incredibly wrong in parts, especially when the girl was able to convert water into ice considering the magical properties were vastly different, but many of the other ideas were solid.
"I've never thought of doing this." Orin admitted as he performed a slow wave, pushing with his magic and then pulling back, drawing the water towards them. "It's usually simpler to just crush someone under a wave of water than to do... This."
"Perhaps it is simply a matter of practice, dear husband." Mera admonished him gently, settling herself into a loose stance. "Many things that seem difficult become quite simple, with enough practice."
Kaldur listened to them as he held his water bearers in hand and performed motions similar to his king. He was still working on discerning the minimum amount of magic needed to perform the work without disrupting everything.
For the king and queen, the growth in magical power was significant, yes, but the both of them were used to handling much greater forces than Kaldur was. For him, his magic had multiplied many-fold and it was slow going for him to regain the finesse he'd once wielded.
He now had the magical power to manipulate water without his bearers but he simply lacked the control. If he could regain that through what felt like elemental attunement practice, Kaldur would hardly complain.
"...I've missed spending time with you, you know that?" Orin started. Kaldur looked over and saw that the man was addressing his wife, thankfully. "We've had so many incidents happening so close together, I feel like I hardly remember what our bed feels like."
"It has been a busy month." Mera agreed. "The castle feels terribly dull without you."
"...You've mentioned that you feel as though there's a driving force behind it." Orin's statement drew Kaldur's full attention, interrupting his makeshift kata. "Have you found any further details?"
"Nothing yet." Mera admitted, her torso waving back and forth as she rotated her arms in slow circles which churned the water before her. "But now that we have exposed the connection between Orm and Ocean Master, we may yet shed greater light on things."
"I suppose my brother is lucky that it was your and your guards that caught him." Orin sighed quietly, the waters growing sluggish with his mood. "Had I been present when he made his attack on you the first time, I would not have stopped at his capture."
"He may soon be wishing for such a fate." Mera countered, her magics fading from the water whilst she continued moving. "Alchemist's request in return for access to his magics was that we summon Poseidon to act as judge to Orm's actions."
"That... That's incredibly dangerous, Mera!" Kaldur was nearly knocked off of his feet at the sudden shift in the waters when Orin turned to face his queen. "Calling upon the gods, especially if they deem the reason too minor for their attention? A curse is the least of our worries!"
"...I know, dear husband." Mera's sigh was distressingly loud in the silence of this foreign water. "But the mage raised some rather valid points at my own disagreement. Orm is of royal blood, making it rather difficult to find a panel to judge him without bias. He was also wielding a divine artifact, one 'stolen' from the royal armory for the sake of committing multiple acts of kin-slaying. Finally... He sought to consume the magic of myself and our unborn child, Orin."
"Mera..." Orin sounded hoarse at the accusations laid against his brother.
"It is not a great stretch to call what he attempted an act of cannibalism." The queen continued, undaunted. "Something our god prohibits directly, perhaps due to his own history of acting as a meal to his own father. The strength found in the royal bloodline is a gift given unto you as a divine blessing. Requesting judgement after it has been so grossly misused... We can only hope Poseidon will feel that we are not wasting his time."
Kaldur had dropped his form, listening intently. So far as he knew, while Poseidon had been venerated he also had not been called upon in living memory. The rituals to do so were time consuming and demanded a level of focus and effort that often left the participants bedridden for days at a time afterwards.
Beyond that, Poseidon was the king of the seas. His temper could shift like the tides, going from calm and nurturing to raging and tempestuous in moments with little warning.
It was simply unsafe to rely upon his good humor.
"At least our reasoning is solid." Orin exhaled heavily, the weight within the water receding. "When will the summoning take place?"
"In two weeks time after we return." Mera responded. "That will mark the full moon rising over Poseidonis. We'll need to have our Stormcallers on hand to summon upon a great storm whilst carving a hole in the clouds so that moonlight can filter through the waters above his temple."
Kaldur jerked slightly at that. He'd briefly considered signing up to join the order of Stormcallers, their teachings could have been a great compliment to his native capabilities with electricity. Unfortunately, they demanded a level of skill far greater than his own and he'd soon found himself under Orin's direct command, regardless.
"...It's too late to simply wring Orm's neck and be done with it, isn't it?" Orin asked, his voice weary.
"Unfortunately so." Mera seemed to be equally worn out by the entire ordeal. "The people have already heard that we intend to see a member of the royal blood judged by our gods for treason. It will have to be a spectacle."
"...Was the spell at least worth this?" Orin asked, waving about himself as though to indicate something.
"It is a great difficulty." Mera agreed. "But it also offers a significant amount of legitimacy to your rule. You know how difficult it's been, dealing with the nobles over your status as a..."
"...It's not about legitimacy, Mera." Orin sighed, his tired blue eyes gazing deep into his wife's. "What if this goes wrong? What if the god validates Orm's actions? We're calling upon a god to place judgement on a man. What will this mean for our courts? For our laws?"
"If we word things correctly?" Mera seemed to have thought on it, at least Kaldur thought so. "Then very little. We may add restrictions upon such a calling, limit it to those we are attempting to condemn of high treason. It is said that Poseidon knows all that occurs beneath the seas, that there are no secrets kept from him in his domain."
"That doesn't make things much better, Mera." Orin admonished her, though he lacked heat in doing so. Instead, Kaldur thought he just seemed tired.
"True." And the queen did agree with him. "But it's something, at least. Otherwise we'd have fools demanding trial by god. You know how quickly that would turn sour."
The god of storms, growing angry at being bothered by fools and idiots thinking they could trick him?
Kaldur almost shuddered. He could all-too-easily see such an event ending badly. Not just for the condemned, either. The gods were well known for venting their wrath upon entire cities.
The apprentice could only hope that the summoning went through quickly. The longer Poseidon lingered in Atlantis, the more likely it became that some fool would irritate him.
And, though the boy would never admit it, the first person that came to his mind was Alchemist.
-----
Yuffie may have been young but she'd fought her share of monsters.
Foulanders, Bizarre Bugs, Garudas and more around Wutai didn't actually care that she was the princess of the land. She'd avoided as much as she could but others, she'd had to fight and kill. Her skill with the shuriken and the Materia she'd 'borrowed' had been enough to eek out a victory and she'd been more than a bit excited that she could fight monsters, just like her dad's ninja!
She'd done it the first time she escaped and started working her way to the east, she'd done it the second time, too. When the war had gone cold and Wutai started to cede to ShinRa, she knew she was going to have to get strong. Strong enough to beat up all the SOLDIERs and restore the glory of her homeland!
Except, well, glory had apparently involved going hungry. And selling off some of her Materia to try and buy food. Then going hungry -again- because the money didn't last that long.
Grouping up with others to try and make her way towards ShinRa without a plan was maybe not her best idea... But it worked out okay! She watched ShinRa fall, all because of one weirdo with some cool skills and on a budget of less than two-hundred gil.
Yuffie wouldn't admit, she'd enjoyed getting to be free of her responsibilities to Wutai. After her mom died and her dad turned into a jerk, it just felt like she didn't have any say in her life. She was forced to learn a lot of useless, boring junk. She had to eat what the cooks made for her, no substitutions or snacks allowed.
Following Alchemist let her have friends. He didn't care too much about what she ate so long as she didn't make herself sick and actually finished her vegetables.
Yuffie had been willing to compromise on that matter, as any good Empress should. It allowed for, uh, 'Mutually assured dissatisfaction'.
Of course, discovering that her home and subjects were under threat (Someone had tried to do... That to Jinx? Yuffie wasn't going to let that go, buster!) had forced her hand. She'd told Alchemist that she would be joining them, that he would be teaching her how to wield such power that even the gods would tremble at her might!
(Please? Please-please-please-please-please-please-please!)
He'd quickly caved under her convincing request.
She hadn't been allowed to join the others while they were fighting epic monsters, instead being stuck in the demi-plane with the red-haired water lady and the familiars. Which wasn't too bad, really, but the woman was a Proper Queen and she acted like it.
Puh-leeze. If Yuffie wanted to deal with that, she wouldn't have joined Alchemist when he went back to his home reality.
The last few days hadn't really been bad, though. Alchemist's new house inside the demi-plane had two bedrooms upstairs and he'd converted half the pantry into a set of stairs leading to a basement. She and Jinx were sharing the second upstairs room and Mera and Arthur had been given a room in the basement that Alchemist had converted into a bedroom for them.
Having a proper bathtub was nice. Like, really nice.
That wasn't to say that Yuffie was being kept all safe and secure, hidden away and not allowed to fight. Alchemist had other avenues that he was pursuing, many other things that needed done before he was ready to fight that- that thing.
He'd purchased -another- gun from that floating window shop. The simplest, most basic form of the rifle he liked to use. That antique, the Hydra.
"Bo-ring!" Yuffie whined, watching Alchemist check the gun he'd bought. He, Yuffie, Jinx and Kary were situated in the living room of his house... Which was incredibly bare. He hadn't even started furnishing everything! Just the kitchen and the bedrooms. "You've got, like, laser guns and that giant ShinRa cannon! Why did you buy another dinky little rifle?!"
"Because it makes a good starting point." He told her, confirming that there were no bullets in the weapon. "Terra requested we not go to any other Quests while already on one. There are other options available, though. They just... Kind of suck."
"You say that, like, all the time!" Yuffie continued, bouncing on the heels of her feet. "Come on! I know how to fight, I'm totally ready for whatever you wanna do!"
"Alchemist." Jinx, wearing her cut-down suit of black crystal armor, spoke up. "Perhaps an explanation?"
"...Alright." The mage huffed quietly and held the gun in front of him. "Inside of every item, there's a metaphysical reality or plane. On it, in it, whichever, all of the items flaws and imperfections are made manifest. We're going to go to that reality and kill off everything wrong with this gun as a trial run before I get around to working on stronger weapons."
"Oooh!" Yuffie gasped, thinking about the implications of such a thing. "Could we go into my mom's shuriken? Will it fix the rust around the tips? What about Materia, how does it work on those? Ooh! Food! What about food?!"
"Once we know what we're dealing with, we can go into your mom's shuriken. I could fix the rust, just let me see it when we get back." Alchemist explained, answering her questions in the order she'd asked. "I don't know what will happen if we try it on Materia, probably not much since what's important is on the inside instead of the orb itself. And food is improved as well, it can become tastier and more nutritious but it usually isn't a worthwhile investment because it takes more time to fix a dish than to cook it properly to begin with. Usually. We're not improving natto or cheese, Yuffie."
"Bacon?" Ash asked, happily sitting near the entrance of the room. "Better bacon?"
"Bacon!" Cinder screeched. "More bacon!"
Reis, calmly watching from a corner of the room, said nothing. She did, however, slowly run her tongue along her chops. A horned black cat on the stairs whose name Yuffie still didn't know simply stared at them, its green eyes glowing malevolently.
"...Maybe later." Alchemist acquiesced with a quiet sigh before grumbling. "Swear to god, it's always about food."
"So, how do we intend on running through this item, Alchemist?" Kary interrupted, pulling the conversation back on track.
"It depends on the inhabitants." He answered, opening his system and poking at things while looking at the gun. "This is the most basic model available, so it shouldn't have anything inside that's absurdly strong. I was thinking that we could take turns clearing floors until we catch up to things that won't just fall apart with a mean look."
Alchemist snapped his fingers and the gun faded away, replaced by a Gate filled with swirling motes of light.
"And our end goal?" The demon asked, her jade eyes gazing intently through the portal.
"Upgrading as much of our equipment as is reasonable. If done right, this will give us access to a lot of tools that would otherwise require an Instant Quest to get. It's just... Time consuming. And tedious." Alchemist explained before he looked across the team and stepped into the Gate.
Jinx and Kary quickly followed him. Yuffie hesitated for a moment, looking back to the familiars and biting her lip before she jumped through.
She smacked into the back of the imp, who smacked into the back of Jinx and she, in turn, knocked Alchemist over.
"Oof!" Yuffie grunted, waving her arms comically to keep her balance.
"Ow..." Alchemist groaned as he got back up.
The place they'd appeared looked like... Like...
Yuffie had no idea. It was a bunch of square spaces, some giant pillars reached high up and there were disconnected islands just floating nearby. Some of them had trees or rocks, some things that looked like treasure chests stood out, calling to the Treasure Hunter in Yuffie.
Oh, and there were shadow people all over the place. Maybe, like, sixteen or seventeen in all? They had weapons and armor that stood out strangely on their immaterial bodies. Some had guns, some swords, a few wore threadbare gloves. The armor looked like ShinRa stuff, the cheapest stuff at that.
"...Looks like gen one, maybe two." Alchemist muttered as Yuffie got close to him. "Wonder if that's because of me, the level of my Gate spell or something else?"
"Alright!" The mage turned around, sounding more energetic than he'd been in days. "Ladies, do you mind if I go first? I got a few things I wanted to test!"
"...Go for it?" Jinx sounded uncertain for a moment, looking to the shades in the distance before focusing her face back on Alchemist. "Is it gonna be cool?"
"If it works? It'll be awesome." Alchemist turned around, a grin on his face. Yuffie watched as he carefully looked at the creatures that had yet to notice them all. He pulled his hand back, a purple Materia in his gauntlets glinting as it was activated. His hand swiped across and all of the shades were naked! All of their weapons and armor had gone missing!
"...Did you just steal everything? From everyone?" Yuffie felt breathless at the idea of doing something like that. She'd never heard of a Materia that could do that!
"Yep." Alchemist grinned, the Materia re-activating as he snapped his fingers and the shadows exploded into red orbs that converged on him.
The experience and GP wasn't particularly impressive but then, neither was the equipment. The shadows had been weak, super weak.
"How?!" Yuffie squealed, grabbing on to Alchemist's arm. "You gotta teach me! How'd you do that!? Show me!"
"The answer, Yuffie, is very simple." The man crouched down until he was even with her eyes. "I did it the ninja way."
He reached forward and gently poked her nose.
"I cheated."
- Location
- Here
Exhibit A: Alchemist being a shockingly good father figure.
- Location
- Australia
This seems like a GREAT time to tell her about Ban and his AMAZING ability "Snatch"!
View: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=cAZLUFcWtf4
View: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=cAZLUFcWtf4
Ah at last Bravely Default appears it has a lot to offer from a ton of status immunity accessories and equipment that offers elemental resistance, immunity, absorption or can be used as an item (takes a turn but doesn't consume it) to do something a big one is a shield that can be used to cast cura since that doesn't use up your mp in the cast. For example the Raikiri katana gives lightning immunity while equipped. It also has a ton of stuff for dealing damage to enemies with obscene defence stats like atks that ignore defences or deal fixed damage. The hourglass which allows stopping time for extra actions also probably would be great but probably needs an instant quest.
For a caster this is probably going to focus on the magic modifications allowed various jobs allow things like black mage's spells ignore opponents magic defence, white mage's spells don't weaken when used on multiple targets for a single cast, the witchcraft metamagics that consume an extra bp and more mp to alter the power and properties such as having 60% the power but hitting 4 times or dealing physical damage and the yokai's echo which after using a spell gives a chance of instantly using the spell again on the same target for no cost. The Bishop's healing spells are also fixed percentages of max hp instead of scaling to the casters stats.
Other jobs of note would be
Freelancer possessing a very strong version of examine and overworld hazard like trap or poison bog immunity.
Ninja allows dual wielding without loss of power even things like axes, teleportation counterattacks for every dodge, a buff that forces the next hit on them to miss and an attack redirection move
Templar has rampart which gives every party member negation of their next hit
Exorcist has time reversal allowing values to return to recent ones including reviving the recently dead
Pirate has a ton of attacks that cause debuffs
The Dragoon stand in Valkyrie can take hits to mp at 10 % the damage since the party has mp cost negation for spells that's just extra hp
Salve Maker doubles items effectiveness, has mix and can do things like override an opponents resistance, immunity or absorption of an element with a weakness to it
For a caster this is probably going to focus on the magic modifications allowed various jobs allow things like black mage's spells ignore opponents magic defence, white mage's spells don't weaken when used on multiple targets for a single cast, the witchcraft metamagics that consume an extra bp and more mp to alter the power and properties such as having 60% the power but hitting 4 times or dealing physical damage and the yokai's echo which after using a spell gives a chance of instantly using the spell again on the same target for no cost. The Bishop's healing spells are also fixed percentages of max hp instead of scaling to the casters stats.
Other jobs of note would be
Freelancer possessing a very strong version of examine and overworld hazard like trap or poison bog immunity.
Ninja allows dual wielding without loss of power even things like axes, teleportation counterattacks for every dodge, a buff that forces the next hit on them to miss and an attack redirection move
Templar has rampart which gives every party member negation of their next hit
Exorcist has time reversal allowing values to return to recent ones including reviving the recently dead
Pirate has a ton of attacks that cause debuffs
The Dragoon stand in Valkyrie can take hits to mp at 10 % the damage since the party has mp cost negation for spells that's just extra hp
Salve Maker doubles items effectiveness, has mix and can do things like override an opponents resistance, immunity or absorption of an element with a weakness to it
190 Status
- Gamer Ver. 2 Alpha Build 1.9.0: Character Sheet
I shouldn't have put this off as long as I did, so I'm sure I've missed a fair few things. Just been something of a rough month. I thought work was going to clear up and we'd stop doing so much overtime.
I was very, very wrong.
Regardless of that- Thanks once again to the amazing Memzak for setting up this incredible format for me!
Edit 1: Forgot to include the most recently acquired spells and items.
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- Location
- England
Y'know. This is exactly the thing I was thinking about during the murder discussion between Batman and Player-One.
- Location
- Australia
Imagine being able to apply a "False Swipe" modifier to a continental explosion, like, I blew up that ENTIRE continent, but everyone, from the strongest to the weakest are still alive, but unconscious. 😂
Czlyydwr Llrngwl
"Sell ya a door Learn gull," Czly/Celly for short
- Location
- Where the Beef is
- Pronouns
- Any
With Disgaea in play, you can do EXACTLY that, by equipping either a weapon with that effect or a passive skill -- except that some Disgaea attacks are (by the attack animation) planetary or interstellar in scope - There are team and tower attacks in Disgaea 4 that involve rapid-fire punching a target all the way to the moon and then throwing them back down, opening a rift in space that tosses them outside the galaxy or at least a galaxy-like planetary nebula as seen at the end of The Empire Strikes Back, and couple of spells that throw half the planets in the solar system to impact on the target. Disgaea 2 has one that summons an intelligent evil star to swallow the target planet whole... and if you bring character-specific attacks into the mix, Disgaea D2 features the MC creating a pocket universe, throwing the enemy inside, and then collapsing it, purely to show off his power. Level 100 characters can canonically destroy a planet on a whim, and at the beginning of DD2 Etna is unimpressed about Laharl blowing up multiple stars because any half-assed demon could do that.
Granted, the story is generally going with a less ridiculously OP version of things, but your basic idea is specifically and explicitly not just possible but easy to accomplish, and if they get lucky when they kill an ItemWorld boss they could get the relevant weapon innocent any time, though I believe they first apppeared in Didgaea 2, and only became things you could get on any item much later in the series so he'll have to level up the portal skill before that if they really are in a first or second generation style Item World.
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- Location
- Australia
- Location
- Argentina
Bravely default takes a very long ass time to complete. To the point people recomends the remake as it removes 20 hours of wasted time. There is no way Alchemist is going there.
- Location
- Cambridge MA
Well, I know of the (Pathfinder) Periapt of Peace?
(Granted, this is on the wiki for a third-party Pathfinder magic system (Spheres), and it takes Craft Rod and Merciful Spell (metamagic) but the effect is inflated and the cost is massively slashed to 50gp. Because it's treated as more of an RP item than a real game item, so the devs decided it shouldn't take up too much of your WBL power budget and be available at level 1, which makes it kind of BS. In-universe, though, I guess it could be something produced and sold under-cost by certain gods' temples, with that god doing something to make the crafting easier?)Spheres wiki said:
Merciful Spell (+0 metamagic) normally turns spell damage nonlethal, though that's not a perfect guarantee--once you take your HP in nonlethal damage, you fall unconscious and any incoming nonlethal damage becomes lethal. So it would probably work for anything that takes more than a couple hits, but you'd still have issues with AoE. It also wouldn't inherently apply to things that aren't spells. Though Pathfinder allows doing nonlethal damage with any weapon for an atk penalty, and with certain weapons (including unarmed) for free.
Spheres also has Elude Fate, which is roughly a 6th level spell that causes the target to not die of one specified cause one time in the next CL hours. The maximum broadness of the the eluded fate seems like roughly "death by HP loss at the hands of my party."
(It's also kind of BS, and is in the "your GM decides whether this spell exists in their campaign world" category.)
Though this one wouldn't prevent concussions/brain damage or bleeding out after the spell expires or limb loss or other side effects like lifespan shortening or negative levels. Though most of those you could avoid risking by using non-physical methods of damage.
Another nonlethal takedown method is teleporting people into a prison. Teleporting someone into an antimagic field may work, the rules interaction is unclear.
Some kind of execute effect seems like something one universe might have? Like, on a killing blow, instead X? Perhaps not normally nonlethal (e.g. in a fighting game?), but possibly exploitable for that purpose?
Pathfinder has some specific abilities that do that, e.g. Immortal Truths of the Sleeping Goddess, though that's not spammable. A Spheres Paladin archetype has a spammable one.
Judges in FFTA seem to have anti-death abilities (perhaps an unmentioned Law card?), given the difference in how death works between battles with and without Judges.
Never said he was Asterisks are in the shop or p1s at least who doesn't mind buying them for Al if reimbursed and that's most of what I talked about as for the rest it isn't worth one such as the Raikiri or Cura shield you get them in chapter 3 of 8 and simply aren't strong enough to justify a quest. The only thing that would is the hourglass which I said would but even that wouldn't be too bad since you get it from the adventurer who is the superboss the quest would likely be fighting them. Though it wouldn't matter anyway most of the time spent in Bravely Default is grinding and doing side quests just look at how much quicker chapters 5-8 are because you already have the things like door keys.
It probably doesn't help that Poseidon feels both hatred at the loss of rulership and oceanic themes forced upon him and schadenfreude at how it has resulted in him being the most worshipped Greek god nowadays. In Mycenaean Greece, Poseidon was the Earthshaker, king of the gods and lord of the underworld, husband to Cold Demeter and father of Dread Persephone.
Then Ancient Greece happened and he had his rulership handed to a minor sky god, while his and Persephone's underworld themes were ripped out of them and fashioned into Hades, with Poseidon being given oceanic themes to replace them. And to add insult to injury, his usurper was the one who gave away his daughters hand in marriage to the thing crafted to replace him.
If they need help defeating Zeus, Poseidon is probably one of the best bets to help them.
Nah, the enemies in the Item Worlds have nothing to do with their wielders.