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Disclaimer Me Do: I own nothing you recognize. And most of what you don't recognize, I still don't own.
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-October 30, 2010
Robin hadn't had much luck getting the new spell Alchemist had given him to work. To be fair, nobody except Aqualad had gotten it down.
That included Alchemist.
"So, what was everyone thinking of doing tomorrow?" One of the other teens in the mountain asked. Looking up from the scroll that he'd been working on for a few days, Robin saw that it had been Miss Martian that asked.
"There's this Halloween dance in Happy Harbor tomorrow," Kid Flash offered. In front of the speedster an uneven ring of light slowly formed, ones and zeros filling it for a second before the whole thing destabilized and broke apart. "If anyone else wants to go, I suppose I could come along."
"...Don't you have a girlfriend?" Superboy asked. He was sitting across from Miss Martian in the training room, hovering a few inches off the ground with his eyes closed.
"Had," Kid Flash grunted in irritation as he tried to work on his own spell again. "Alice dumped me a few days after we dropped off Cheshire."
"Oh. That sucks, man," Robin commiserated with the boy before looking back down to the clay pot he'd been working over. "Did she say why?"
"Didn't bother. She just ghosted me." The symbol that formed in front of Kid Flash was wobbly, the rings uneven, but it must have been correct enough considering a ball of fire flew out of the middle of it to impact the far wall.
Robin hummed quietly, ignoring the sound of clashing blades coming from the corner that Aqualad and Power Girl had claimed. He debated things for a moment before turning back to Kid Flash "I probably can't go. Alchemist said there's something important he needs to do with Batman and me that he can only do tomorrow."
"I'll go!" Megan shouted, her enthusiasm must have been infectious considering the subtle scowl on Kid Flash's face faded just a bit. "I mean, if you still want to?"
"Of course!" Kid Flash laughed, though it was noticeably hollow. "Come on, who wants to sit around in the dark and listen to depressing music on Halloween?"
"...Have you been sitting in the dark and listening to depressing music?" Shrike teased, an orb of flame hovering over her hands. Robin had stolen her book and read it himself before returning it, unnoticed. The orb form of the spell was considered a 'passive' effect, it couldn't really be used to attack with or do much beyond maybe start a camp fire. The 'active' form of the spell would involve grabbing that orb and then using it to fire a small stream of flames forward.
Unfortunately, Shrike had the smallest pool of magic on the team. She'd only been able to hold the spell for about five seconds and then she was exhausted, complaining of migraines and what felt like color leeching out of the edges of her vision.
"No comment," Kid Flash teased back, a bit more life in his voice. "What I do in the privacy of my room is for me to know and you to wonder about."
"...I'm good," Shrike rolled her eyes and sighed in exasperation, loud enough that Robin could hear it from across the room. Her muttered "Pig" though was so quiet he barely caught it.
"Didn't you synthesize your super-serum in your room?" Robin asked, throwing Wally a bone.
"Yep!" Robin looked up from the pot he'd been focusing on, the seed inside still unsprouted, and saw that the blond archer had dispelled her little orb of flames to stare at Wally incredulously.
"That's good an' all." Speedy grunted from the workout mat he'd claimed in the room. Unlike most of the others, he had no spells or magic to work on. Instead he was doing push-ups, and a lot of them. "But unless you've got a super-serum for super-strength, I don't want to hear about what you're jerkin' off to."
"...Well, actually-" Robin was about to admit to the team running into the super steroid 'Kobra Venom' but cut himself off when the door to the training room opened and a trio of people walked in.
Player One, Giovanni and Zatanna Zatara.
The awkward silence that filled the room could've been cut with a knife, it was so thick.
"...Ah, well, I'm glad that I caught everyone," Giovanni started to say after clearing his throat. "This will simplify things significantly. First- I understand that many of you encountered a sort of mental influence on an excursion of some sort recently? Well, J'onn has just confirmed that the effects were tied directly with exposure and should have faded quickly once anyone afflicted was removed from the environment causing it."
Robin didn't need a second to parse that. He was just glad that everyone should be okay.
Megan must've been, too, since she flew off from where she'd been working with Connor to greet the new arrivals.
"Let me finish, let me finish," Giovanni laughed, cutting off Megan before she could start asking dozens of questions. "Now, my daughter has decided she would like to join the rest of you on a... trial basis. I expect you'll all do your best to keep her safe!"
"Da~ad!" Zatanna groaned, burying her face in her hands. "Can we go somewhere without you embarrassing me? Please?!"
"...No," Giovanni denied. "No we can't."
Robin hid a grin by looking back down to the pot of soil he'd been failing to influence.
It felt good to know that it wasn't just Bruce that enjoyed embarrassing him.
Apparently? It was just a dad thing.
-----
A graveyard was meant to be a place of repose. Where those who've struggled and suffered are finally laid to rest and allowed to enjoy the peace they'd earned through the hardships of life.
Leslie found it strangely peaceful, sitting under the rain that seemed to fall eternal over the graves of those claimed by the city of Gotham. There was a mire, a gloom that seemed omnipresent around the city that couldn't quite penetrate through the wrought-iron gates.
The young man had found his way to the graveyard fairly often since his resurrection. One part of him often wondered where he would've been buried if things... hadn't changed. Those thoughts often led him down a depressing spiral of personal doubts and recriminations, mentally flaying himself for the hurt and pain he'd put his mother through.
"...Hey," Tiffany, his once girlfriend called as she found her way to the bench the two had claimed as their own and sitting to his left. "Sorry I couldn't make it the last few days. My boss kind of had a breakdown and, uh..."
"It's fine," Leslie told her, shifting his umbrella so that it would partially cover her.
Now the both of them could get wet together.
"Are you doing alright?" The boy asked, his gray eyes sliding down to watch as the girl clenched her fists against her thighs.
"...No," She admitted before hunching forward and pulling her legs up to her chest. She wrapped her arms around them to make herself as small as possible.
Leslie shifted about, moving his umbrella to his right hand so he could put his left arm around her shoulders.
Once upon a time, he would have enjoyed the way she leaned into him.
"I picked up a new spell. It's expensive and kind of difficult but I saw how to use it to do some really cool stuff," She began to explain, pre-empting the boy before he could ask. "And instead of anyone asking what it was, or, or anything they just locked me up! They wouldn't let me go until they had John dig through my head to tell them I was fine!"
Leslie pursed his lips, an old flicker of indignation sparking to life within his chest. He began to slowly rub his hand up and down her back as he thought about what she'd said. Finally, after a few moments of silence, he asked "Are they allowed to do that?"
"...I don't know," Tiffany admitted with an awkward shrug. "S'not like a lot of people can tell them no..."
Yeah. That wasn't scary at all.
The two stayed in the same position for a long while, the both of them just thinking as the rain continued to fall. The only interruption throughout had been an older man walking through the graveyard wearing a blue hoodie with a straw-colored bucket hat. The guy stopped at one of the more impressive gravestones, a giant brown piece of stone with the word 'Wayne' carved ominously at the top.
"John didn't... hurt you or anything, did he?" Leslie eventually asked, his mind calming enough to determine a list of things he needed to know.
"No, no. He didn't really seem interested in any of it," Tiffany seemed to be warming up a little bit. Or maybe it had something to do with the soothing effects of the atmosphere? The end of October carried its own chill but the cold had yet to turn bitter, even within the waterlogged graveyard. "When he heard what the problem was, he decided to, uh, 'educate' me on things?"
"...What's that supposed to mean?" Once upon a time, Leslie knew he would've felt jealous at hearing her say things like that. Unfortunately, those feelings had found their place in a more metaphorical graveyard, dead and buried.
"We sat around watching anime while he explained the story beats to me," Tiffany said with a choked giggle. "He said that every story may be, um, 'Formulaic' and that they would all repeat these patterns but it was how the story did it that made them interesting."
"...Alright. I'm confused," Leslie had been following along so far but the turn things had taken didn't make any sense to him. "What do Asian cartoons have to do with things?"
"Ah, uh, well..." Tiffany trailed off nervously, before furtively looking around the bench they sat on.
Nobody was around, not even the guy who'd walked up to the old Wayne grave.
"The, uh, 'Quest' that Alchemist took me on? It kind of... Tried to, uh, 'superimpose' its reality on us," Tiffany explained once she was sure they were alone. "And it was kind of a anime reality."
"...How does that even work?"
"I have no idea," Tiffany admitted with a shrug. "But John pointed out something that I thought was pretty funny."
"What's that?" Leslie felt himself relaxing, especially once it became clear enough that they weren't dealing with another 'Dave' issue.
"Aside from saying I went through a phase of 'While the teacher's away, the students will play', John had me watch this show called 'Evangelion. He said that my boss can't be allowed to go to another anime reality because, if he did?" Tiffany actually giggled as she continued. "He'd turn into a guy named 'Gendo Ikari'."
Leslie actually felt like he was an outsider looking in, he didn't understand the reference at all. Something that must have showed clearly on his face.
"Come on!" Tiffany said as she stood up. The girl grabbed his hands and pulled him to his feet, dragging him along with her towards the exit. "We can watch it together! It's, like, super depressing but it's a really good story!"
"Alright, alright! Geeze!" Leslie... Things still weren't normal for him. "Don't pull so hard!"
They would never go back to being normal. They couldn't.
And...
Somehow, that still felt okay.
-----
Alchemist leaned against the back wall of his underground laboratory, his eyes locked on the growing vessel suspended within the lone tank in the middle of the room.
The homonculus designed by Chartreuse Grande was an impossibility of Alchemy, expensive and potent reagents stitched together and then given direction through transmutation. Reading through the man-beasts journal, the alchemist had made absolutely no secret as to what he'd done to refine his methods into something successful and, more importantly, replicable. The man was just as amoral as any magus from the Nasuverse and had no qualms about the beings he bound into physical form, nor any concern for the countless test subjects he'd violated with his experiments throughout the process.
The man had left behind notes and journals that detailed, in exacting methods, how to best tailor a humanoid shell to host beings that were divine, infernal and even fey.
The question then became, how was Alchemist supposed to create something that exemplified the greatest strengths of -everything-? The devil's daughter had risen to the greatest heights imaginable, proving herself more than a match for the greatest demons and the brightest angels before she'd consumed the Cosmic Fruit, an expy Alchemist assumed for the forbidden fruits from the Tree of Knowledge.
The homonculus itself had been infused with some of the strongest materials that Alchemist had come across. The wings of Titania, the blackened claws of the hellish dragons, Abyssal Guardians, even the heart of the artificial entity had been replaced with one ripped from the chest of a Demon Lord.
The potential strength that the homonculus could wield was beyond reckoning.
And it still came up short.
The essence of the materials already present gave the homonculus a high ceiling of power, absolutely. The issue, though, was that Alexandra held a genuinely immeasurable potential within her. Something that could have seen her surviving through her final battle had she been given the time to cultivate it properly instead of shortcutting things by eating the Cosmic Fruit.
It was possible that, when her soul was pushed into the shell, the essences of Divinity and Sin would allow the body to reach the heights her soul could carry it to...
But Alchemist wasn't willing to bet on that. Not with someone else's life on the line.
The mage pursed his lips and opened the inventory. He knew he'd seen something that could bridge the gap. The problem, though, was trying to remember what that material was.
"Something ancient... From something powerful..." Alchemist muttered to himself as he sorted through the countless items he'd acquired.
He knew what he was looking for was hidden within the lists. Something they'd acquired, something...
Had there been a fight involved?
"No... No, I think it was just purchased," Alchemist continued to mumble, one finger tapping at his lips as he tried to think. "So it wouldn't be blood from the god of law. Pretty sure that'd be a diametric opposite, anyway. Something else? Or..."
The wizard extracted a vial of golden blood from his inventory, the visceral liquid glowing golden within its glass prison.
"Some-one- else. That was it," Alchemist didn't smile, no, but his voice carried with it his contentment at finding the answer he'd sought. "I'll need to remember to thank Jinx for picking up a few bottles of this stuff."
"Now," Alchemist closed the window and focused on the tube incubating the homonculus, barely the size of a small child. "Let's see how you handle the Blood of Prometheus."
-----
Gwyndolin, god of the dark sun and last true warden of Anor Londo, found himself oddly satisfied with the newest resident to find their way to the refuge provided to the survivors of his home reality.
The girl was young, willful and prideful and countless other things but it was the connection she shared with him that was the most fascinating.
A moon goddess.
Exactly what his father, Gwyn, intended for him to be.
The two had spent a very long time talking. Hours upon hours they'd shared, conversing, bonding over the bridge that already existed over their domains.
Still, as far beyond mortal needs as the two may be, basic comforts still brought joy to their lives. Things such as rest, food and water.
They also provided excuses to take breaks from such overlong discussions, to think and gather one's thoughts.
A welcome respite for the god as he waited for a small electric kettle to boil some water so he could make tea for himself and his guest.
To him, the goddess seemed akin to a child in many ways. She was young and foolhardy, headstrong and quick to anger. The stories she'd told him, of such brash actions as bringing a half-tamed bear and leaving it before children, spoke of one who had little care for the consequences of her actions.
His own efforts to explain the grand city he'd inherited, the struggles that had come with being abandoned by all of the other gods, seemed to interest the girl but it felt to him as though there was a sort of disconnect. His efforts to make things work, to make things better...
Artemis did not quite seem to understand why he would do such things for the humans under his care. Nor did she understand why his failures had been so painful. Why the death of his Darkmoon Knightess had been so heart-rending. Artemis, for all that she was a hunter, she was neither steward nor shepherd.
Gwyndolin found himself glad that their conversation was nearing its end. The goddess, stagnant and unyielding, had been consistently critical of his duties as the god in charge of Anor Londo. Not because he'd done a bad job, no...
But rather, that he did not impose his unyielding will upon the people, force them to build monuments in his honor and venerate him beyond all others.
Pouring hot water into a pair of mugs, Gwyndolin put a cloth bag of tea into each and turned back towards the bar where Artemis was seated. The serpents that made up his legs slid across the ground with nary a sound and he placed one mug before the girl as he took his place across from her.
"You've told me the history of your lands. The sordid stories of your siblings, as I've told you mine," Artemis picked up her mug and held it but she did not drink. She just held the fragrant tea before her face, enjoying the smell. "How, then, did you come to be here? You've power enough, I can feel as much. Why then do you reside in anonymity rather than claim some dominion over the mortals of these lands?"
"Mmm..." Gwyndolin hummed, savoring his tea for a moment before he opened a small jar on the bar and began spooning in a small amount of sugar. "I've told you that my world was subject to the appetites of my father. That he'd forged himself into the source from which all light sprang."
The spoon Gwyndolin used created a soft 'Tink!' every time it struck the insides of his mug, breaking down the sugar to take the worst of the edge off of his drink.
"Notably, I am not just the god of the moon. I am the god of the -dark sun-. Something which can only exist to contrast the light. As my father's power waned in that reality, so too did my own," Gwyndolin explained between sips of his tea. "My growing frailty invited betrayal, as it often does. My pontiff, my face in the mortal world, took advantage of my weakness and sealed away my remaining sister after cutting out her tongue. Yorshka, my niece, only remained safe within her tower due to the illusions I'd cast upon it to try and safeguard her mother's realm. As for myself?" Gwyndolin placed one hand over his chest, resting upon his pristine white robes. "I was fed to a beast that had once been a man, made to bolster his vitality and soul in preparation of his sacrifice to the hungering flame my father had become."
Remembering those times was a difficult feat for the god. Not because of the trauma, no. His awareness during the terrible endeavor had waxed and waned like the moon itself. Moments of brilliant, painful clarity warred with unknowable stretches of time wherein he'd been so insensate that he could not have told someone his name, let alone guess at how long he'd suffered for.
"Yet you are here," Artemis observed, finally taking a sip of her tea after letting it steep for much too long. "How did this come to be?"
"Ah, well. The cannibal was fed to my father's flames, myself with him. After countless years, the flames had consumed all there was, the world itself twisting about the lingering embers to feed it. And, in the process, my captor was revived and I with him. He was to be fed to the flames once more, my father's eternal hunger such that it would gnaw upon the spent ashes to try and burn as long as it could," Gwyndolin paused for a moment to quaff the rest of his tea, his mug clinking audibly as it was set back down upon the bar. "And this final age is where Alchemist became involved. Before facing the cannibal, he'd broken into the stronghold of a band of traitors, then through their wicked defenses to reach a bastion of the primordial humans, hidden beyond time. In this place, he hunted the first knights of humanity, champions on par with myself so he could divest them of their weapons. Tools that could cleave through god-flesh as well as they could dragon scales."
Gwyndolin pushed himself away from the bar and pushed down his girdle with one hand before raising the chest piece of his robe with the other.
The gasp that came from Artemis upon revealing a great, thick scar that went cleanly across his hips, just above where the snakes that made up his lower half began, was oddly satisfying.
"The cannibal had intertwined its fetid flesh with my own, Artemis. I was but a puppet at the end of its hand, my magic and memories alike were naught but tools for it to use," Gwyndolin explained before properly covering himself once more. "And Alchemist carved me from the beast with a blade of ancient, primordial flame. In that moment of agony, of freedom, I begged him for death. And he refused."
The ancient god reached over the bar and took the cold, empty mug from Artemis's hands, making his way to the sink.
Once upon a time, it would have been beneath him to sully his hands with such mundane tasks. But he was a prince no more, and there were none left to worship his name.
"My life was restored to me, Artemis. And my family, what few pieces of it could be found, were secreted away to spare them from my father's hunger," Gwyndolin considered telling the girl of Alchemist's feat, of his slaughtering Gwyn at his most desperate... But no. The girl had no need of such knowledge. "I am yet still recovering from my ordeal. All of us are. We are refugees of a war that spanned not just years, Artemis, but countless kalpas instead. I cannot speak for those like my brother but I, at least, am content to wait and heal before I try and rejoin the greater world."
"...What of myself?" Artemis eventually asked, her gaze locked upon him hawkishly as he busied his hands with mundane tasks. "Am I to be a prisoner here? Locked with you and the others in some paltry imitation of freedom?"
"Nothing of the sort, no," Gwyndolin denied, masking his frustration. Throughout the previous days he'd noticed the girl was quick to take offense. Often seeking such a thing where none was intended. It was infuriating but... The goddess was still practically a child. Mentally older than Yorshka but still so quick to reach a conclusion rather than spending time to think upon things. "If you were to walk beyond the fence warding this land, none would stop you. Others have already left upon their own journey. A cleric and her warden, seeking to lift the burdens upon the world. A pyromancer was once counted among our number but he was quick to seek out a more suitable environment. If you wish to leave, you may do so. Should you choose to linger, we will gladly offer you a home to call your own. The choice, Artemis, rests upon your own shoulders."
"...I see," Artemis sounded rather small as she said that. As though the enormity of her freedom had somehow cowed her.
Gwyndolin supposed he could understand.
He'd yet to decide what he would do with his own future, vast and formless as it was.
"It's been forever since I last pranked someone!"
