Project: Gamer Ver. 2 Alpha Build 0.1.7
Disclaimer Me Do: I own nothing you recognize. And most of what you don't recognize, I still don't own.
_________________________________________________________________________
Leslie woke up to his phone ringing.
It was nearly noon and he was usually up earlier, but today was a holiday and he'd stayed up late the night before, reading another spellbook.
He'd needed something to calm his nerves. The initial negotiations had gone fine, Batman didn't really seem to understand that he was asking for a wage significantly higher than an untrained individual would normally be getting.
Then they'd come to the compromises.
As much as he'd wanted to, the healing couldn't really be hidden. Not if it would be putting the heroes back out on the streets in days compared to weeks or months. Someone would be asking questions, and it would be better if the Justice League got a grip on that from the word 'Go'.
His argument about drawing attention had been countered with the simple logic that, exposure under the aegis of the Justice League should offer some protection from the street level issues and the League itself would be able to deflect and defray pressures from most supervillains and international demands.
Leslie's response? 'I'm not drunk enough to believe that.'
They'd argued back and forth a bit over that before reaching an acceptable agreement. Death's brief visit fading from the minds of Batman and Robin as though she'd never been there.
Between caffeine, sugar and nerves, Leslie hadn't been able to sleep. Thus he'd done as he preferred to do.
Read.
At least this was a new spellbook instead of just more amateur fanfiction.
Flare was a non-elemental attack spell that creates explosions. Oddly enough they happen in a burst of 'Black' light. Between its low level and his magic stat, it should hit about like a quarter-stick of dynamite.
He had no idea how the black light thing worked.
Unfortunately, between that and the De Le Metallica, he was back down to broke on GP.
"Ye, Yeah?" His voice didn't work on the first try, his throat too dry.
"Alchemist. We have a situation." Usually, hearing those words from Batman would shock someone into full wakefulness.
"Nn-ye-" The young man tried to stifle a yawn with his fist. "yeah, alright. Gimme a minute to get dressed and tell me where."
"At Gotham City Park." Well, that's helpful.
"Which one? There's, like, five Gotham City Parks." Leslie had a special hatred for city planners. Due in no small part because they had reused the name of the road he'd lived on in his past life within fifteen kilometers of each other.
"Across from First Gotham Bank." And then Batman hung up.
Leslie glared at his phone before putting it on a counter and getting dressed.
Pants on, clean shirt swapped on, socks and shoes and...
Leslie scrolled through his inventory, a glare settling on his face.
Where was his hoodie?
He put on his red button down shirt instead and then slid his goggles onto his face.
One final check and he put the phone in his pocket, his cot and blankets into his inventory, and teleported away.
And then had to teleport again after healing himself because he'd gone to the wrong Gotham City Park across from the First Gotham Bank.
There were two of the damn things that he knew of. He'd put solid money on there being at least one more though.
Thankfully the second location was the correct one. There were a handful of spires of ice in the park when he walked into the boundaries, and he caught sight of Batman and Robin dealing with some first responders while some guy wearing a broken fishbowl was being carted off by the police.
"Bats." Was all he said in greeting after walking under the police cordon tape.
"Kid, you ain't supposed to be in here!" Was... Huh, Bullock was here. That shouldn't be surprising, but then Leslie was used to interacting with him under different circumstances.
"He's the metahuman we contacted. He should be able to assist the victims faster than the medics." Batman's reassurance was nice, but Leslie would've preferred directions. Or instructions.
There were sixteen people in sight, all of whom had been frozen solid. That was... Going to be problematic. He didn't have the MP to thaw and heal all of these people at once. He was going to have to prioritize then.
Transmutation required he be touching something to be able to manipulate it. Unfortunately, the skill itself didn't offer any kind of internal insight to what it was doing, or how he could do things. At least, not on the level of internal mapping or some sort of view on molecular or atomic bonds.
Maybe, if he had Gamer's Mind it would do something like that, but he didn't. So it didn't.
What he did get was a sort of impression, or feeling based on what he was touching. He'd been working on crushed aluminum cans for a few weeks, so he knew what paint, plastic and aluminum felt like.
And now he knew what water felt like. Or maybe just ice? He really needed to experiment with it. Trying to push it deeper and he ran into a thin layer of... Maybe cotton? But under that was just a void.
Transmutation didn't seem to like things that were alive.
Leslie was very okay with that.
It took a moment to think about what he needed to do, and then the ice cracked and fell away.
The person who'd been underneath it, an older African American woman, immediately began shivering, wrapping her arms around her core.
"It w-w-w-was so c-c-cold!" She stuttered, her teeth chattering uncontrollably.
"I know ma'am. I can help you a little more, but I need to thaw everyone else out, okay?" She nodded... Or at least he thought she did. It could have just been more uncontrollable shivering. "Do you think you can walk?"
This time her nod was stronger.
"Alright. There's the paramedics over there, okay? I'll be over as soon as I can." Slowly, the woman started walking towards the ambulance. Leslie would have offered to help her, but he had no idea how long it would take hypothermia to settle in to the other victims.
--Alchemy -Transmutation- has leveled up!--
--Transmutation has reached level 50!--
--You may now use the Transmutation sub-skill Conversion!--
That was awesome and all, but Leslie would look later, he needed to focus on the task at hand.
Fifteen minutes later, and Leslie had managed to thaw out the last person. It hadn't been as fast as he'd have liked, he'd had to literally start yelling at the paramedics to help get people moving and warmed up.
The red creeping into their fingers and the tips of their ears and noses had been a very severe warning sign. The last few he'd been worried about especially, they hadn't seemed to understand what was going on or where they were.
He was literally down to just enough MP for one spell, and that was only thanks to his MP regenerating.
"Is this everyone?" He asked the paramedics once he'd gotten back to the central area where the ambulances were parked.
"It should be. We got everyone out under the sun, got 'em moving. Trying to get some warm fluids in their systems, warm everybody up." The man, Hank according to his nametag, said to him.
Leslie took a step back from the group, trying to get a good look at everyone in a thermal blanket.
"Alchemist." Came a gravelly voice from behind him.
"Shh. I'm about tapped out, gimme a second." He finally got all sixteen victims tagged. Raising his hand, he snapped his fingers once.
The effect was immediate. Not just the victims, but everyone could feel something in the air had changed. Something kind and reassuring, something telling them they could stand back up. They could take a little more. They could -do- a little more.
Across sixteen people, Life at level ten wouldn't do much at all. Restore one VP and an insignificant handful of of HP.
But the people who'd been the worst off, who had been stumbling in a daze as they tried to keep moving to stay alive, it was like the lights behind their eyes had finally been turned back on.
Leslie would have liked to at least have hit everyone with Esuna, but that became increasingly ineffective when spread across multiple targets. With sixteen people? It wouldn't have accomplished a single thing, it'd be like casting it at level one on everyone.
And he had all of three MP left, not enough to cast it anyway.
"Alchemist." The voice said again. Leslie finally turned around to look Batman in the cowl. "Are you done?"
"Yeah. I'm out. It'll be a few hours before I can do much else."
"You did good work. Freeze's ice is usually pretty hard to melt. And it looks like nobody will be losing fingers or toes this time!" Robin piped in from behind his mentor.
"Good. It seems the other members of the Justice League are moving forward with the apprentice program. If you'll come with me, I'll introduce you to the others you'll be supporting."
Supporting.
That had been the dealbreaker of the previous nights negotiations.
Leslie had refused, point blank, to be a combatant. He didn't have the actual training.
He could throw a decent punch and knew how to go unnoticed to the untrained eye, but he didn't have much else by way of fighting skills.
He wouldn't be assigned to espionage or combat missions.
Instead he was supposed to specialize in relief and support. Basically, clean up the mess and heal up the injuries.
"After we pick up Player One, we'll go to the Hall of Justice."
Wait, hold on.
Who was Player One?
caerazkaban.groups.io
