Then why didn't Alchemist go deeper? Nine generations is pretty impressive, but with all his various modifiers and buffs and amplifiers I'm sure he could've done, like, Entanglement x6
Project: Gamer Ver. 2 (Young Justice/Gamer/Multicross OC)
- Thread starter Mister Ficser
- Start date
- Location
- In the Depths, Lurking...
That solves basically every (the only) point of confusion. Now Al has performed an unquestionably GOOD DEED to go with his new prescription of Fuck-It-All (tm) and can get his gods be damned vacation.
- Location
- Vietnam
- Pronouns
- He
With that Heal spell, I wonder if Al can dig deeper till he got to the first Vampire, which will Heal all vampires since the dawn of vampirism.
Just casually remove/genocide a race of evil suckers because he's not motivated enough to pick them off one by one
Just casually remove/genocide a race of evil suckers because he's not motivated enough to pick them off one by one
werewolves being evil supernatural predators is the historically accurate part of the myth. the whole vampire-hunting/hating side of it is a MUCH more recent movie invention picked up by some of the comics out there or the Werewolf/Apocalypse game. Werewolfdom is a curse, not a good thing, and not a natural thing. getting changed to something heroic is the alteration.
Frescko
King of Silver 🏳️⚧️
Werewolf's where kinda like Fae in that they weren't straight up evil but more so worked on their own morals, werewolf's where just as likely to be a vicious monster as a village protector against supernatural threats.
Krazyfan1
Worrying for the future.
- Location
- Australia
Nope.
Random Werewolf Fact #14 - Werewolves as Noble Knights
This week is something very near and dear to my heart - the medieval werewolf knight. There were actually lots and lots of werewolf knights in medieval folklore and stories. They were noble, kind,...
maverick-werewolf.tumblr.com
Random Werewolf Fact #19 - Werewolves vs Evil
Did you know that some werewolves were also holy warriors of God who protected people from demons and reclaimed stolen goods from the forces of evil to ensure good crops each year, and passed between...
maverick-werewolf.tumblr.com
yeah.
Broovian
The Patriarch of Oblivion and all it contains.
- Location
- The cesspool of New York and Loving it!
How he described it, that was with most if not all his modifiers. Also with one cast of Heal, a spell he teaches to children in the regular, he's added easily a few hundred thousand to his body count. Nine generations is plenty.
Crake
I AM THE STORM THAT IS APPROACHING
- Location
- USA
Does the supernatural apex predator ecosystem actually have the capability of sustaining a few hundred thousand vampires and not even get close to counting up all the vamps from before the 1800s who are still kicking around?
I guess it's a distinct possibility if a good solid majority of them are all in torpor.
I guess it's a distinct possibility if a good solid majority of them are all in torpor.
Frescko
King of Silver 🏳️⚧️
Vampires are parasitic by their very nature, relying on humans to increase their numbers bar the Uber rare pure bloods and dhampirs which are treated as lesser creatures despite being superior.
My guess is that Vampires hunted most of the supernatural creatures to near extinction which their massive increase in numbers during the Industrial Revolution, add in humans also hunting down supernatural creatures due to the Industrial Revolution, they're all likely endangered, so the supernatural ecosystem is in shambles as even if a group of vampires aren't a threat, a bunch are.
Also the decline in magic is a thing, which is weird as magic doesn't get weaker over time like in fate but due to other reasons I can't fathom, perhaps due to the supernatural ecosystem being in shambles caused a knock on effect making mystics weaker over the decades?
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Frescko
King of Silver 🏳️⚧️
Also I don't remember if this is DC or Marvel but aren't cats (as a species) Uber powerful reality warpers that accidentally turns themself into animals? Do the cats that alchemist power leveled have that ability or did they reality warp their reality warping powers away assuming this is a DC thing and not a Marvel thing.
I think you're talking about/thinking of "A Dream of a Thousand Cats" from The Sandman? That's the DC side, at least.
It's more a 'dreams effect reality'. With Dream showing a potential possibility/other reality (at least I think? I'm going off on description/plot summary, since I've seen it described before), where cats ruled. Only for them to be overthrown, because humans were told about dreams being able to effect reality. And enough humans got together to dream into reality a world where cats were pets, instead of the giants compared to humans. And act like cats would.
With the cat being shown this, deciding to try to get enough cats to do their own dream changing.
With the cat being shown this, deciding to try to get enough cats to do their own dream changing.
Whereas Marvel has the Flerken. Which look like cats, but are explicitly very much not. Nigh indistinguishable from them, but having a 'pocket reality' access. And tentacles.
Alchemist ending up having done the 'cats in the party' trick with at least one Flerken in the mix... that's actually a bit terrifying. If it would have even been possible if Alchemist even saw one.
If it's not either of those two options/a mashup of them, then I have no idea.
- Location
- RS,brasil
marvel also has a khajit-like race that tigra of the avengers comes from
Lycanthromancer
The Arcane Fuzz
- Location
- USA
This sounds like a job for Backpack Hero! It's just the demo, but still.
Who were originally nature spirits, but they emigrated to a demonic plane and are now demons.
From the cartoon, there's only one of each devil fruit, and when a user dies it reforms somewhere else (as the fire fruit did from Ace). So, no, don't think you can take them out of the setting, but I could be wrong.
- Location
- Isekai'd to this shitty world we're live in
Yes, thank you for proving me (partially) right, that Stocker was the main push for the werewolf/vampire "bromance".Nope.
not a thing.
Maverick-Werewolf
This has come under the radar of the World of Darkness fans again, so I must address this, as my inbox has been before and will be again filled with insults and passive-aggressiveness... I am very...maverick-werewolf.tumblr.com
infact the Opposite of what you claimed.
You can also read some actual legends about werewolves, where they were hunting demons, evil witches etc. Especially in Central/Eastern Europe, where I'm from. Shit from the mid to late medieval period is glorious. I'm not saying that werewolves were always and everywhere seen as the good guys, but depending on the region, they were 50/50 on that field. Until Stocker came, and turn that shit 100%. Now, some media, are giving them a proper place, but it's still far from what it should be.
Lycanthromancer
The Arcane Fuzz
- Location
- USA
That sounds like an attitude that Alchemist would want to do his best to stamp out ASAP, given that he knows just how hard it can be to get anywhere in life without an extreme amount of luck.
- Location
- United States
Are we really in Hellsing? Or is this still DC?
Still in DC.
Nazi vampires have been a thing in the setting since the forties, at least in some of DC's expanded licenses. Hell, Count Berlin (I wish I was kidding...) has been in DC since 2010.
Chapter 232
Project: Gamer Ver. 2 Alpha Build 2.3.2
Disclaimer Me Do: I own nothing you recognize. And most of what you don't recognize, I still don't own.
_________________________________________________________________________
November 5, 2010
Edward Nygma did not often frequent oriental restaurants.
It was not a matter of flavor, the man was honestly quite fond of Cashew Chicken truth be told. It was a matter of cleanliness. In Gotham, the various different businesses of Asian ethnicity were the ones most likely to fail a health inspection.
Primarily because the other businesses could, would and did bribe the inspectors. Assuming said inspector wasn't under Falcone's employ, in which case the bribe tended to be even more expensive.
Edward sipped his tea as he waited in the little hole-in-the-wall restaurant for his food.
The Jade Empire was one of those few places that he could expect to get reasonable service without the police being called. Half because the proprietor didn't speak a solid word of English and relied on his ten-year old daughter to take orders for him. Half because Bakta Lee hated the police and anyone else in a position of authority and would much rather beat someone with his wok instead of dialing nine-one-one.
The Riddler looked up as a blond haired, blue-eyed man walked in and set off the chimes on the door before immediately dismissing him as unimportant.
He was waiting on someone, the master of the impossible magical beasts that had made him an offer on Halloween.
Quite frankly, Edward considered himself rather lucky to have still been in the planning stages of his current riddle. He had little doubt that those same creatures would have been all too happy to assault him and leave him hung up on a telephone pole if he'd made the mistake of getting caught.
That level of violence felt rather distasteful to the man. There was risk, absolutely, but he'd employed quite a few henchmen throughout the years and the Batman had never been so casually cruel as to cripple them. A good fight, a bit of a beating, the caped crusader usually left people with a motley assortment of bruises and a few sprains.
Edward sipped his tea as a rather intrusive thought wormed its way into his mind.
The Batman's touch was especially soft, wasn't it? A light beating, a black eye, the man usually left his victims smarting and tender but capable of returning to their day jobs.
But if he or his men would catch the Batman...
Edward nursed his tea, thinking on the situation of Gotham as a whole. He and the others knew that Batman forced the other heroes to follow his rules when they were in Gotham.
And the Batman hadn't been seen since Halloween...
A ball of ice began to form in the Riddler's stomach.
Edward knew how far he could push the caped crusader and his boy wonder. There was a line that even he knew better than to cross and that was the city limits of Gotham. He'd heard what happened to the Joker when the fool had tried to play his games in Metropolis.
Everything had been dismantled in minutes and the Man of Steel had given the Clown Prince of Crime a very clear ultimatum: If the Joker returned to Metropolis, Superman would kill him.
The Riddler looked up when someone sat down across from him, the old leather of the booth crackling audibly under his weight.
It was the blond man from earlier. His blue eyes were locked on to the Riddler's own. Assessing, weighing, measuring...
Judging.
Edward was having some second thoughts.
"Mister Quizzling," the man's voice was deep and betrayed little as he reached across the table with his hand held out. "It's a pleasure to make your acquaintance."
"And you as well," Edward responded as he reached out to shake the man's hand. Despite the muscles in the stranger's forearms, his grip was feather-light. "I don't believe I got your name?"
"Conrad Jurer. My friends call me Con," the man, Con, told him.
"I see..." Edward was almost certain that it was a false identity. Almost.
His own name came out to 'E. Nygma' though so he wasn't quite willing to bring it up.
There was a brief pause in the conversation when Bakta's daughter, Wei, came to take Con's order.
Ginger chicken and Soder cola.
"...Now, to business?" Edward asked once the girl had gone to the back to inform her father.
"Yes, yes. You were given a brief overview of what I need done?" Con asked, reaching into his jacket and coming back with a folder.
"You want me to investigate someone, find compelling evidence of wrong-doing and then deliver it to you," Edward told him, summarizing the words Con Jurer's summoned beasts had told him. "I was given an estimate on payment but I'd like to see who I'm supposed to investigate before I agree to anything."
Con slid the folder over to Edward and then leaned back, accepting the glass Wei came to give him.
Edward flipped the folder open and his eyes narrowed at what he saw.
'General Wade Eiling' was printed clearly on the top of the page, over a picture of the man. Flipping through the pages, Edward found a chronological listing of where the man had served and in what capacity.
Assuming he agreed, that would simplify things immensely.
"What, specifically, did the good general do to get your attention?" Edward asked as he memorized the dates and locations that were listed.
"He's the ringleader of a group selling American arms to foreign adversaries, which would be enough for most folks," Con told him as Wei brought out Edward's Cashew Chicken. "My issue with him is secondhand and a bit more personal."
"Go on," Edward said, shoving his meal to the side so he could focus on the dossier.
"He killed someone I know to keep them silent on his dealings," Con elaborated. "Then he had the gall to go and marry his victim's widow and raise the man's children."
Edward frowned as he got to the section detailing Wade Eiling's current marital status. He didn't recognize Wade's wife's name... But he could likely figure out the name of the general's victim with minimal effort.
"Well, while I would like to help you..." Edward snapped the folder shut and looked up, plastering a bashful smile on his face. "I'm afraid your offer just isn't enough. I really can't justify risking my life or globetrotting for such a small sum."
"Alright." Con shrugged. "What's your counter offer?"
"Three-hundred now," Edward fired off immediately. "Three-hundred when I'm done."
Six-hundred thousand dollars would go a long way for him... But he'd settle for five.
"Done." Con, however, did not bother haggling him down.
He just agreed immediately!
"What- Uh, thank you?" Edward felt off-kilter at how easy that had been. He'd thought they would haggle and argue, coming in at a sum that was higher than the original offer but lower than what Edward had thrown out.
The Riddler looked between Con, the folder and then his food in confusion for several seconds before he hesitantly pulled his meal back over to him. As he broke his chopsticks, Con extracted a phone from within his jacket and started doing something.
The silence was akward and uncomfortable, only broken by Wei coming back with Con's food. The man thanked the girl and she said something to him in Mandarin, though it was far too fast for Edward to make out. Whatever it was, Con nodded to her before she left back to the front counter to get back to work on her schoolwork.
"Alright," Con suddenly said as he held the phone out to Edward. "You'll find an app on there that will connect you to the bank account that's been set up for you. The account is listed under your last name and the password is the date of your first encounter with that lunatic in the fur suit. You'll have to set up everything else yourself."
Edward reached out to grab the phone when Con snatched Edward's hand, holding it in a deathgrip!
"What are you- Let go!" Edward shouted, drawing Wei's eyes in the otherwise empty restaurant. The little girl didn't get up, she just ducked her head down like the Riddler and quite a few other villains had told her to do. "Release me this instant!"
Edward jerked and pulled, eventually managing to extract his hand from Con's grip. The man's blue eyes reflected nothing, boring into Edward like chips of ice.
Clutching his hand with the other, Edward rubbed some feeling back into it and hissed in discomfort. Looking down, he could see that the skin had gone pale white with the force of Con's grip-
And there was a tattoo on the inside of his palm. A large dot surrounded by four circles with more dots along those circles. Two dots on the first circle, eight dots on the second, fourteen on the third and then two more on the last.
"What is this?!" The Riddler hissed, grabbing his chopsticks menacingly. "What have you done to me?!"
"A bit of insurance," Con told him blandly. "If you feel the need to truly betray me? That will activate and you will be forced to contact me to tell me that our deal is off."
"You think you can just... Wait..." The Riddler ran through that again. "This won't kill me, torture me or otherwise ensure I can't talk about what we've agreed to?"
"No, I'm not Waller," Con told him as he shook his head and began to eat his own food. "I don't trust the results that might come on pain of death. If you want to give up, fine. The only repercussion you'll face is that you won't get the second half of your payment and I won't be hiring you again in the future."
"...Huh," Edward mumbled, clenching his marked hand.
He'd been expecting something to go wrong when he came in for this deal.
Hell, compared to most of the people that would be willing to 'employ' his intellect?
This was downright tame.
-----
The Hall of Justice was the technical headquarters of the Justice League and as such required a regular presence.
Some members volunteered for the duty more often than others and Giovanni was tied with Batman for spending the least amount of time within the building.
He honestly just had too much to do most days to justify spending his time doing busywork in front of an oversized, overpriced monitor.
Today?
Today, Giovanni actually needed the resources that the Justice League had available.
"...I don't often see you here," a voice called from behind the magician as he made another notation in a very abused notepad.
Giovanni turned around, knocking over one of several mugs of coffee to see Black Canary.
"I don't often need to be here," Giovanni countered irritably as he spun back around. "But there's something of a situation unfolding in Europe and I can either work on it or be inundated at home with countless phone calls, texts, sendings or summons from the Zataras that are still over there."
"I saw something about that on the news?" Dinah asked, taking a seat near the man as she looked up to the monitor. Giovanni had six different windows open to various different offices overseas. "Something about a 'Modern day rapture' I think?"
"Modern day...?" Giovanni's hand tapped on the desk in a quick staccato as he parsed that statement. "Damned televangelists- The charlatans are trying to use this to bolster their flagging attendance, I've no doubt!"
He inhaled sharply before dropping his notepad harshly on the desk.
"Dinah, millions of Europeans and people of European descent have been struck by some form of unknown spell or effect. -I- was struck by this strange magic! My -Daughter- was a victim of this spell! According to Shadowcrest, there was a third individual in my home that was targeted as well and I have yet to determine who or where they are!" Giovanni turned back around, his bloodshot eyes locking on to Dinah's. "John bloody Constantine was hammering at my door last night because the magic struck him as well!"
"Okay, okay," Dinah held her hands up and backed up several steps. "What was the magic? What did it do?"
"It -Healed-!" Giovanni waved his hand behind him towards the screen, towards one window that was reporting in German on people waking up from long-term comas. "People in comas, broken limbs, long-term injuries- My great grandmother is one-hundred and eight years old, Dinah. She's been bedridden for the last four years. She was found this morning in the kitchen, making a breakfast of bacon, sausage, beans and toast!"
Giovanni had been in the middle of a rather fetching fantasy book the night before. Political intrigue, awakening dragons and heaving bosoms when, around eight o'clock at night, he'd been surrounded by golden light. It had only lasted an instant but afterwards, he'd felt as though the burdens of the world were a bit more tolerable. As though he could hold a little more weight.
Even the scar in his knee, where a cursed blade had been slammed into it after a cultist had used it to kill his wife, Sindella. The wound had never healed properly and now Giovanni barely even noticed it.
"But... What does that have to do with the piles of dusty clothing?" Dinah asked, pointing to a different window that was reporting out of Britain.
"I don't know!" Giovanni nearly shouted, his voice breaking on the last syllable. "I don't know... I've been trying to figure it out since last night- Dinah, I haven't been able to sleep! This spell did not tear through the defenses of Shadowcrest, it completely ignored them. Ignored them and targeted my daughter. What was the purpose? What was the caster's goal? How did... How?!"
A lack of sleep, a persistent heightened emotional state and an abundance of caffeine may not have been for the best.
But it was what Giovanni had so he'd make the best of it.
"Well, maybe we should look at this from a different angle?" Dinah offered, gingerly walking around Giovanni to take control of the computer. She swiftly minimized his windows and instead opened their database on known metahuman villains. Tapping a few keywords into the sort bar narrowed the list down to only a few pages.
The first entry? Not alphabetically but rather by sheer power and motive?
Klarion the Witch Boy.
"...That's not helpful, Dinah," Giovanni sighed and grabbed his new cane to push himself to his feet. "We could literally blame anything on that creature with fair odds of being correct. It has the power, certainly, but its motive may well be 'Because I wanted to'."
Unnotice by either of the heroes, the picture of Klarion pulled down one eyelid and blew a raspberry at the two of them.
"Well, I'm open to suggestions," Dinah offered, moving to the side to let Giovanni get around her. She followed him as he headed towards the kitchenette, pausing briefly as he leaned over to pick up the mug that had fallen over earlier.
"...I know the man is on vacation, well earned if what I've heard of his efforts to train Batman or Aquaman in magic was any indication, but I'd rather like to ask Alchemist." Giovanni pushed the door open and stepped into the kitchenette, his first stop was the coffee machine where he began the process of making a fresh pot. "His knowledge of applied healing magic might offer some insight."
"So call him," Dinah told the magician as he poured water into the reservoir of the coffee machine. "Asking should only take a few moments."
"...I'd rather expected you to be upset at the mention of the man," Giovanni noted as he measured out how much coffee he needed to add. "Given the constant friction I've heard about from my daughter."
"I don't have to like the man to recognize his talents," Dinah responded tersely, crossing her arms under her breasts.
Giovanni nodded, acknowledging her point.
"I'll ask Batman for his number when he turns up," Giovanni told the woman as he watched liquid nirvana drip into the carafe. "Until then... I think I need a nap."
The woman didn't respond verbally which was fine by him.
Giovanni was too tired to deal with much else. He needed a nap, he needed to eat, he needed...
Well, he wasn't sure if he actually needed answers but he'd like to get them regardless.
-----
Alchemist lay on his back in two different locations.
In one, he was in a hotel room with Kar'Yashlan. The fallen was sprawled across him after a full day spent going around and looking at the various tourist attractions in and around Tokyo. He'd gotten a lot of pictures, of Jinx showing Kary what she knew of hotpot ettiquette, of Yuffie glued to the window of the gondolas on the giant ferris wheel, the Daikanransha.
Jinx had spent a fair amount of time in an arcade, fighting with a claw machine to get a prize. The look of victory on her face when she finally got it would forever be immortalized in digital.
Sleep was not coming to him. Not readily. It wasn't the worst thing, his body didn't get as tired as quickly but he could definitely feel the mental strain his insomnia would put him through.
The second Alchemist lay on his back on the couch in his cabin in the mountains. Ash and Cinder lay next to the couch, Reis had taken up residence on one of the chairs adjacent to it and Nostradamus was actually overlooking everything from his spot on the back of the couch.
"T-E-E-N T-I-T-A-N-S, Teen Titans, oh let's go!" played on the television, the season during which Robin had fought with Red X playing on repeat. Alchemist had been trying to get a feel for how the costume moved as best he could based on the animated depiction but he knew things would be wholly different if he could get his hands on it.
Speaking of hands, Alchemist had a curious, comma-shaped stone held in his hands up above his head.
The Magatama, known as the 'Spirit of Misfortune', at least in one reality. The smooth stone in his hands was in truth a sort of primordial spirit that was forged in the death of worlds and would form based on ideals and concepts that were especially strong. They could symbiotically fuse with other creatures, bolstering their strength and giving them access to new abilities.
Eleven of the strange little grubs were available for direct purchase on the game shop, covering a wide gamut of different abilities and specialties. From basic healing magic to powerful elemental skills to buffing and debuffing spells, they could imbue their host with incredible power...
Provided someone could bring the creature out of hibernation.
Naturally, or rather, supernaturally, the Magatama would only form in a kind of environment called a 'Vortex World'. A splintered fraction of a former world that had spiritually died and was in the process of being recycled, of having a new metaphysical focus decided on in a grand battle between the various spiritual factions and whatever chosen human souls would be the final word in how the new world would form.
In that place, the Magatama would take form. Or perhaps return to their true forms?
Alchemist wasn't at all certain. He'd been working at trying to awaken the little creature since he'd splurged and bought some of them on the Game Shop. Healing magic and status restoration magic hadn't worked out so far but Alchemist was sure he'd figure something out.
He figured they would be a good option for Player One. There were a few that would offer elemental boosting perks, one that would gift the girl a perk that would restore some of her HP after a fight, one that would teach universal attack magic-
A lot of solid options!
...Provided Alchemist could find a way to bring the Magatama out of hibernation.
The one currently in his hands was named 'Kamudo' and it focused on utility. It would teach its host how to avoid being attacked from behind, how to better land critical blows, a spell that would multiply the strength of a physical attack and even help them learn how to channel their strength into a wide-area blast of raw, physical force.
All in all, it was a lot of what he thought Tiffany could use to just be better at her chosen focus.
He doubted she could extract the full power of the symbiote, though. Some of the Magatama were held in the grip of incredibly powerful spirits and gods. Or perhaps they were formed from the strength of those gods and spirits, their concepts and power manifesting into a Magatama once they were slain? Alchemist honestly couldn't be sure.
One was in the hand of a plane-traveling nightmare that had surpassed the 'reason' of his Vortex world, killing the power of creation and leaving it stuck in a dark eternity of stillbirth.
Alchemist let his hands drop to his chest, let his mind wander elsewhere.
He wasn't narrowly focusing on any one project at the moment. His attention was drifting and wandering about, the only stipulation he held on to was that he wouldn't go gallivanting off into combat for the sake of getting stronger. Alchemist knew he needed to calm down, to relax, to just not go from stressful situation to stressful people to dealing with things man was better off not knowing.
His psychiatrist, Chase Meridian had looked like she was going to be sick when he told her about the Swamp of Defilement. She'd had to literally excuse herself from the room when he explained what a Botchling was to her.
He didn't blame her. He would have been a lot better off if he didn't know, himself.
And everything else after that?
She'd told him that, if he wasn't taking a vacation himself, she'd have marched up to Batman and forced him to make Alchemist take some time off.
Alchemist lifted the Magatama back overhead and tried channeling some magic into the stone-like existence.
They existed in a primordial environment, a place where reality was... embryonic? If he could figure out a way to simulate those conditions, it might awaken the symbiote.
Or perhaps not.
Failure was still valuable data, after all.
The mage was pulled from his idle musings by the ringing of his phone. Picking it up, he rolled his eyes at the notice that said 'Unlisted Number!'
"Batman?" Alchemist asked after clicking connect. "What's going on?"
"Alchemist," the billionaire growled over the phone. "What were you doing yesterday?"
The amalgamation rolled his eyes in irritation. It wouldn't kill Bruce to pretend he was human, would it?
"I filed a request with the city hall in Beverly Hills to see the blueprints to an abandoned estate," Alchemist told his employer. "Then I got on one of those open-air buses to go around and see the homes of the rich and famous."
"...That's all?" Batman asked.
Alchemist remained silent. If Batman was fishing for something, he could do the adult thing and just ask about whatever he wanted to know.
"...What are you doing in Beverly Hills?" Batman finally asked after a good thirty seconds of silence.
"I'm looking into some conflicting reports I've gotten about this little town named Cutsoil. One of the mysteries around it had to do with the former owners, the Cuts, and they disappeared overnight about forty years ago." Which was fascinating for a host of reasons.
Rich people didn't 'just' go missing. There was always something else going on, some motive, some will, some jilted mistress... But not this time. They were just gone, disappeared into thin air.
"And what were you doing in Gotham this morning?" Batman asked, the growl creeping back into his voice.
Considering Alchemist had spent the entire time he'd been in Gotham under a disguise, that meant that Batman knew he'd been there through other methods. The wizard would place better than even odds on the caped crusader checking his cell phone's GPS data...
And Alchemist had thought he was being paranoid about keeping his cell phone in the U.S. and sticking to a digital camera overseas.
What was Batman interrogating Alchemist about? If he knew about the nazi vampire, he would have said something about it by now...
"Hiring the Riddler to do a job for me," Alchemist absentmindedly told the dark knight as he focused on the Magatama once more and tried a different idea.
Stripping out any scrap of identity or purpose from his magic, Alchemist tried teasing the artificially blank magic into the hibernating creature.
"You what?!" Batman's growl disappeared, replaced instead with a confused shout. "If you know where the Riddler is, why didn't you call the police?! You should have told me!"
"Look, I sent him off to investigate a criminal. I even paid him," Alchemist leaned up and forward as the Magatama began to unfold. It was slow and sluggish but Alchemist was having a hard time focusing on cleansing his magic so it would have to do. "I don't really see the problem."
"He is an escaped criminal, Alchemist!" Batman shouted, loud enough that the wizard had to pull his phone away from his ear. "You have a responsibility to inform the authorities!"
"Alright. Alright." Alchemist rolled his eyes as he placated the neurotic mess on the other end of the line. "So, when will you be telling the police where Catwoman or Talia Al Ghul are?"
"That... That's different." Batman's voice came through softer, losing his edge.
"Both of them are wanted by the police," Alchemist countered as the Magatama began to properly wake up. "Catwoman is wanted in something like five different countries for theft? Talia has a body count that's halfway into the triple digits. How is that different?"
Notably, Batman wasn't responding. Alchemist could hear someone else talking on the other end but he couldn't tell who.
"You know, I've noticed that certain female villains tend to escape more often than others," Alchemist started as the creature was fed more magic and became increasingly active. "Specifically the ones that you, uh, have 'relations' with. Like Catwoman, Talia, Cheetah that one time-"
"How do you know about- Alchemist, stop!" Batman frantically demanded over the phone. The talking on the other end got more distinct...
Did Batman have him on speaker?
"Then there's Poison Ivy. I mean, I know she's sent you a little kiss from time to time but you really don't tickle her kitty, you've got that pesky Y-chromosome and-"
Alchemist was cut off by a solid tone.
Batman had hung up.
The mage turned his head towards his phone and grinned, openly amused that Batman had actually hung up on him. It even left the wizard chuckling.
At least, for a moment.
His laughter cut off suddenly when he felt a sharp jolt of pain in his fingers and he reflexively slapped his hand down-
And released the Magatama on his belly.
Quick as a flash, the pale little grub ripped through Alchemist's shirt and buried itself into his navel. The mage had just enough time to stare at the bloody hole before the pain hit-
And both of the Alchemists, one in the mountains and one in Tokyo began to scream together in pain.
-----
Kary jolted awake in an instant once she heard a scream. The fallen rolled off the bed, her sword summoned to her hand in less time than it took to blink!
Rising to her feet in a flash, her sword poised and ready, the woman looked around the room for their attacker-
And found nothing, just her beloved curled into a ball and whimpering on the bed.
"...Alchemist?" Kary hesitantly asked, reaching out with her free hand to touch his shoulder. His breathing was ragged and each breathe was a short pant. The flesh around his arms and face had turned crimson and she could feel something under his shirt. "Alchemist, what happened?!"
"I..." his voice was raw and he had to break through a wad of phlegm just to speak. "I messed up. I was, I- Need to go to the bathroom."
Her beloved's efforts to uncurl were slow and obviously painful, any attempt at moving looked like he was trying to avoid stretching a cramped limb.
Kary wasted no time in making her way to his side, unsummoning her blade so she could help him stumble into the wash room.
There was a loud pounding on the door and Kary looked down to Alchemist, hovering with his head over the bowl of the toilet, and over to the direction where the hotel room's door was.
Alchemist waved to her with his left arm, his fingers turning black, and Kary quickly made her way towards the incessant pounding.
"What's going on!" Jinx asked, practically pushing her way into the room. "I heard screaming- Did someone attack us?!"
"...No," Kary finally settled on as Yuffie peeked into the room. Once the girl saw that the coast was clear, she simply walked right in. "Alchemist was apparently up to something with his duplicate and it apparently did not go to plan."
"It worked perfectly!" Alchemist said from the bathroom. Kary could hear the sink running and water splashing. "I wasn't even expecting it to work at all... It just wasn't supposed to work on me- Shit. This is going to be a pain in the ass..."
Kary leaned to the side, next to Jinx and Yuffie, to look into the room and see what he was talking about.
Alchemist had taken his shirt off and was in the process of looking down at his belly, running scaled fingers over plates of black scale, still slick with blood, that had formed over his navel.
"...What the heck happened to you?" Yuffie asked, voicing the same question that was on Kary's mind and likely Jinx's as well. "You got all scaly!"
Indeed, Alchemist had grown quite a lot of scales. The scales that her beloved often kept hidden on his right arm now extended all the way up and crossed over his chest to his left arm, which now ended in a set of wicked claws that mirrored the ones on his right. The scales did not merely cross his chest, they actually went down to his navel, creating a natural barrier of armor over his girth.
A few scales did peek out around his neck but perhaps the most striking feature for Kary was her beloved's eyes. They'd changed into a pair of sharp yellow slits rather than simple orbs as they'd been before.
"...I was messing with something I'd been thinking of giving to Player One," Alchemist began to explain as his fingers continued to poke and prod at the scales over his belly as though he were looking for something. "These things called 'Magatama'. They can offer up some skills and minor attribute bonuses, I figured one might be good for her. Though, definitely not thinking that now..."
"Those comma shaped rock things at that temple Yuffie wanted to see?" Jinx asked, referring to their sightseeing earlier in the day. "How did that turn you into... What even are you, now?"
"I... have no idea," Alchemist admitted as he gazed into the mirror, locking his new eyes on Kary's own. She watched as he opened his menu and moved over to his status.
The woman leaned over her man as he looked through the screen, reading it alongside him.
"Family: Dragon," Kary mumbled into Alchemist's ear as he pursed his lips in confusion. "Species... it's just a garbled mess."
"Probably something new, then," her beloved mumbled as he placed a rag under the water and began to clean up where the scales had forced their way through his skin. He paused briefly to look in the mirror and began twisting around, groping at the back of his neck. "I didn't grow any horns anywhere, did I?"
"No, love," Kary told him as she wrapped her arms around his torse from behind and pulled him against her. "Were you supposed to?"
"The demi-fiend did." His response was short and rather simple.
And somehow, those three words filled her with a truly terrible feeling of unease.
"I think Kary mentioned that one, once," Jinx mentioned from the doorway. "Something about him having a pixie?"
"Naoki Kashima," Alchemist said, naming the monster in question. "He was bound to a Magatama inside of this multiversal nexus called the 'Amala Network', which is basically where all the leftover creation magic inside that multiverse ends up. I think I remember reading that his horn was some kind of antennae or something? It's been a few years..."
Alchemist placed a hand over Kary's own as she pressed him against her tighter.
"Okay, so we're not fighting anyone?" Yuffie asked, yawning widely. "'Cuz I wanna go back to bed. There's this fox village, or the cat island, or, or, or so much other stuff I wanna see!"
"Get back to bed, hon," Alchemist's voice was soft but Kary could feel his hands trembling around hers. However much pain he still felt, he didn't wish for the girl to see it. "We'll get started on things in the morning."
The little ninja needed no further prompting before she darted out the door.
"...You gonna be okay?" But Jinx did. The young dragon stepped into the room and clearly saw the red mess that Alchemist was leaving in the sink.
"I should be," Alchemist tried to smile and Kary could see that his teeth had grown far sharper than they had been before. "If something else comes up, I'll tell you."
Kary saw Jinx hovering in the reflection cast by the mirror. The girl bit her lip and sniffed loudly before turning around to walk away. She still stopped at the doorway, half turned to take another look before she departed.
"...Will you truly be well, love?" Kary asked, the room silent but for the sound of running water.
"...I think so," he told her, squeezing her hand in his claw. "Naoki didn't truly become a demon until after he'd devoured all of the magatsuhi that had accumulated inside of the Amala Network and mastered the power that Lucifer had embedded into him. I'll need to keep an eye on it but I don't think this will force me to change so much as... express the changes I've already gone through?"
Kary closed her eyes and leaned forward enough that she could rest her chin upon his shoulder.
Inhaling deeply, Kary noted that the changes had even changed the way he smelled. More draconic, more organic but still with an underlying scent of steel.
"Why must you worry me so?" she asked as he ran a thumb over the knuckles of her hand.
"...I'm not trying to," he told her. Something she well knew to be true.
He was just extraordinarily good at it.
Disclaimer Me Do: I own nothing you recognize. And most of what you don't recognize, I still don't own.
_________________________________________________________________________
November 5, 2010
Edward Nygma did not often frequent oriental restaurants.
It was not a matter of flavor, the man was honestly quite fond of Cashew Chicken truth be told. It was a matter of cleanliness. In Gotham, the various different businesses of Asian ethnicity were the ones most likely to fail a health inspection.
Primarily because the other businesses could, would and did bribe the inspectors. Assuming said inspector wasn't under Falcone's employ, in which case the bribe tended to be even more expensive.
Edward sipped his tea as he waited in the little hole-in-the-wall restaurant for his food.
The Jade Empire was one of those few places that he could expect to get reasonable service without the police being called. Half because the proprietor didn't speak a solid word of English and relied on his ten-year old daughter to take orders for him. Half because Bakta Lee hated the police and anyone else in a position of authority and would much rather beat someone with his wok instead of dialing nine-one-one.
The Riddler looked up as a blond haired, blue-eyed man walked in and set off the chimes on the door before immediately dismissing him as unimportant.
He was waiting on someone, the master of the impossible magical beasts that had made him an offer on Halloween.
Quite frankly, Edward considered himself rather lucky to have still been in the planning stages of his current riddle. He had little doubt that those same creatures would have been all too happy to assault him and leave him hung up on a telephone pole if he'd made the mistake of getting caught.
That level of violence felt rather distasteful to the man. There was risk, absolutely, but he'd employed quite a few henchmen throughout the years and the Batman had never been so casually cruel as to cripple them. A good fight, a bit of a beating, the caped crusader usually left people with a motley assortment of bruises and a few sprains.
Edward sipped his tea as a rather intrusive thought wormed its way into his mind.
The Batman's touch was especially soft, wasn't it? A light beating, a black eye, the man usually left his victims smarting and tender but capable of returning to their day jobs.
But if he or his men would catch the Batman...
Edward nursed his tea, thinking on the situation of Gotham as a whole. He and the others knew that Batman forced the other heroes to follow his rules when they were in Gotham.
And the Batman hadn't been seen since Halloween...
A ball of ice began to form in the Riddler's stomach.
Edward knew how far he could push the caped crusader and his boy wonder. There was a line that even he knew better than to cross and that was the city limits of Gotham. He'd heard what happened to the Joker when the fool had tried to play his games in Metropolis.
Everything had been dismantled in minutes and the Man of Steel had given the Clown Prince of Crime a very clear ultimatum: If the Joker returned to Metropolis, Superman would kill him.
The Riddler looked up when someone sat down across from him, the old leather of the booth crackling audibly under his weight.
It was the blond man from earlier. His blue eyes were locked on to the Riddler's own. Assessing, weighing, measuring...
Judging.
Edward was having some second thoughts.
"Mister Quizzling," the man's voice was deep and betrayed little as he reached across the table with his hand held out. "It's a pleasure to make your acquaintance."
"And you as well," Edward responded as he reached out to shake the man's hand. Despite the muscles in the stranger's forearms, his grip was feather-light. "I don't believe I got your name?"
"Conrad Jurer. My friends call me Con," the man, Con, told him.
"I see..." Edward was almost certain that it was a false identity. Almost.
His own name came out to 'E. Nygma' though so he wasn't quite willing to bring it up.
There was a brief pause in the conversation when Bakta's daughter, Wei, came to take Con's order.
Ginger chicken and Soder cola.
"...Now, to business?" Edward asked once the girl had gone to the back to inform her father.
"Yes, yes. You were given a brief overview of what I need done?" Con asked, reaching into his jacket and coming back with a folder.
"You want me to investigate someone, find compelling evidence of wrong-doing and then deliver it to you," Edward told him, summarizing the words Con Jurer's summoned beasts had told him. "I was given an estimate on payment but I'd like to see who I'm supposed to investigate before I agree to anything."
Con slid the folder over to Edward and then leaned back, accepting the glass Wei came to give him.
Edward flipped the folder open and his eyes narrowed at what he saw.
'General Wade Eiling' was printed clearly on the top of the page, over a picture of the man. Flipping through the pages, Edward found a chronological listing of where the man had served and in what capacity.
Assuming he agreed, that would simplify things immensely.
"What, specifically, did the good general do to get your attention?" Edward asked as he memorized the dates and locations that were listed.
"He's the ringleader of a group selling American arms to foreign adversaries, which would be enough for most folks," Con told him as Wei brought out Edward's Cashew Chicken. "My issue with him is secondhand and a bit more personal."
"Go on," Edward said, shoving his meal to the side so he could focus on the dossier.
"He killed someone I know to keep them silent on his dealings," Con elaborated. "Then he had the gall to go and marry his victim's widow and raise the man's children."
Edward frowned as he got to the section detailing Wade Eiling's current marital status. He didn't recognize Wade's wife's name... But he could likely figure out the name of the general's victim with minimal effort.
"Well, while I would like to help you..." Edward snapped the folder shut and looked up, plastering a bashful smile on his face. "I'm afraid your offer just isn't enough. I really can't justify risking my life or globetrotting for such a small sum."
"Alright." Con shrugged. "What's your counter offer?"
"Three-hundred now," Edward fired off immediately. "Three-hundred when I'm done."
Six-hundred thousand dollars would go a long way for him... But he'd settle for five.
"Done." Con, however, did not bother haggling him down.
He just agreed immediately!
"What- Uh, thank you?" Edward felt off-kilter at how easy that had been. He'd thought they would haggle and argue, coming in at a sum that was higher than the original offer but lower than what Edward had thrown out.
The Riddler looked between Con, the folder and then his food in confusion for several seconds before he hesitantly pulled his meal back over to him. As he broke his chopsticks, Con extracted a phone from within his jacket and started doing something.
The silence was akward and uncomfortable, only broken by Wei coming back with Con's food. The man thanked the girl and she said something to him in Mandarin, though it was far too fast for Edward to make out. Whatever it was, Con nodded to her before she left back to the front counter to get back to work on her schoolwork.
"Alright," Con suddenly said as he held the phone out to Edward. "You'll find an app on there that will connect you to the bank account that's been set up for you. The account is listed under your last name and the password is the date of your first encounter with that lunatic in the fur suit. You'll have to set up everything else yourself."
Edward reached out to grab the phone when Con snatched Edward's hand, holding it in a deathgrip!
"What are you- Let go!" Edward shouted, drawing Wei's eyes in the otherwise empty restaurant. The little girl didn't get up, she just ducked her head down like the Riddler and quite a few other villains had told her to do. "Release me this instant!"
Edward jerked and pulled, eventually managing to extract his hand from Con's grip. The man's blue eyes reflected nothing, boring into Edward like chips of ice.
Clutching his hand with the other, Edward rubbed some feeling back into it and hissed in discomfort. Looking down, he could see that the skin had gone pale white with the force of Con's grip-
And there was a tattoo on the inside of his palm. A large dot surrounded by four circles with more dots along those circles. Two dots on the first circle, eight dots on the second, fourteen on the third and then two more on the last.
"What is this?!" The Riddler hissed, grabbing his chopsticks menacingly. "What have you done to me?!"
"A bit of insurance," Con told him blandly. "If you feel the need to truly betray me? That will activate and you will be forced to contact me to tell me that our deal is off."
"You think you can just... Wait..." The Riddler ran through that again. "This won't kill me, torture me or otherwise ensure I can't talk about what we've agreed to?"
"No, I'm not Waller," Con told him as he shook his head and began to eat his own food. "I don't trust the results that might come on pain of death. If you want to give up, fine. The only repercussion you'll face is that you won't get the second half of your payment and I won't be hiring you again in the future."
"...Huh," Edward mumbled, clenching his marked hand.
He'd been expecting something to go wrong when he came in for this deal.
Hell, compared to most of the people that would be willing to 'employ' his intellect?
This was downright tame.
-----
The Hall of Justice was the technical headquarters of the Justice League and as such required a regular presence.
Some members volunteered for the duty more often than others and Giovanni was tied with Batman for spending the least amount of time within the building.
He honestly just had too much to do most days to justify spending his time doing busywork in front of an oversized, overpriced monitor.
Today?
Today, Giovanni actually needed the resources that the Justice League had available.
"...I don't often see you here," a voice called from behind the magician as he made another notation in a very abused notepad.
Giovanni turned around, knocking over one of several mugs of coffee to see Black Canary.
"I don't often need to be here," Giovanni countered irritably as he spun back around. "But there's something of a situation unfolding in Europe and I can either work on it or be inundated at home with countless phone calls, texts, sendings or summons from the Zataras that are still over there."
"I saw something about that on the news?" Dinah asked, taking a seat near the man as she looked up to the monitor. Giovanni had six different windows open to various different offices overseas. "Something about a 'Modern day rapture' I think?"
"Modern day...?" Giovanni's hand tapped on the desk in a quick staccato as he parsed that statement. "Damned televangelists- The charlatans are trying to use this to bolster their flagging attendance, I've no doubt!"
He inhaled sharply before dropping his notepad harshly on the desk.
"Dinah, millions of Europeans and people of European descent have been struck by some form of unknown spell or effect. -I- was struck by this strange magic! My -Daughter- was a victim of this spell! According to Shadowcrest, there was a third individual in my home that was targeted as well and I have yet to determine who or where they are!" Giovanni turned back around, his bloodshot eyes locking on to Dinah's. "John bloody Constantine was hammering at my door last night because the magic struck him as well!"
"Okay, okay," Dinah held her hands up and backed up several steps. "What was the magic? What did it do?"
"It -Healed-!" Giovanni waved his hand behind him towards the screen, towards one window that was reporting in German on people waking up from long-term comas. "People in comas, broken limbs, long-term injuries- My great grandmother is one-hundred and eight years old, Dinah. She's been bedridden for the last four years. She was found this morning in the kitchen, making a breakfast of bacon, sausage, beans and toast!"
Giovanni had been in the middle of a rather fetching fantasy book the night before. Political intrigue, awakening dragons and heaving bosoms when, around eight o'clock at night, he'd been surrounded by golden light. It had only lasted an instant but afterwards, he'd felt as though the burdens of the world were a bit more tolerable. As though he could hold a little more weight.
Even the scar in his knee, where a cursed blade had been slammed into it after a cultist had used it to kill his wife, Sindella. The wound had never healed properly and now Giovanni barely even noticed it.
"But... What does that have to do with the piles of dusty clothing?" Dinah asked, pointing to a different window that was reporting out of Britain.
"I don't know!" Giovanni nearly shouted, his voice breaking on the last syllable. "I don't know... I've been trying to figure it out since last night- Dinah, I haven't been able to sleep! This spell did not tear through the defenses of Shadowcrest, it completely ignored them. Ignored them and targeted my daughter. What was the purpose? What was the caster's goal? How did... How?!"
A lack of sleep, a persistent heightened emotional state and an abundance of caffeine may not have been for the best.
But it was what Giovanni had so he'd make the best of it.
"Well, maybe we should look at this from a different angle?" Dinah offered, gingerly walking around Giovanni to take control of the computer. She swiftly minimized his windows and instead opened their database on known metahuman villains. Tapping a few keywords into the sort bar narrowed the list down to only a few pages.
The first entry? Not alphabetically but rather by sheer power and motive?
Klarion the Witch Boy.
"...That's not helpful, Dinah," Giovanni sighed and grabbed his new cane to push himself to his feet. "We could literally blame anything on that creature with fair odds of being correct. It has the power, certainly, but its motive may well be 'Because I wanted to'."
Unnotice by either of the heroes, the picture of Klarion pulled down one eyelid and blew a raspberry at the two of them.
"Well, I'm open to suggestions," Dinah offered, moving to the side to let Giovanni get around her. She followed him as he headed towards the kitchenette, pausing briefly as he leaned over to pick up the mug that had fallen over earlier.
"...I know the man is on vacation, well earned if what I've heard of his efforts to train Batman or Aquaman in magic was any indication, but I'd rather like to ask Alchemist." Giovanni pushed the door open and stepped into the kitchenette, his first stop was the coffee machine where he began the process of making a fresh pot. "His knowledge of applied healing magic might offer some insight."
"So call him," Dinah told the magician as he poured water into the reservoir of the coffee machine. "Asking should only take a few moments."
"...I'd rather expected you to be upset at the mention of the man," Giovanni noted as he measured out how much coffee he needed to add. "Given the constant friction I've heard about from my daughter."
"I don't have to like the man to recognize his talents," Dinah responded tersely, crossing her arms under her breasts.
Giovanni nodded, acknowledging her point.
"I'll ask Batman for his number when he turns up," Giovanni told the woman as he watched liquid nirvana drip into the carafe. "Until then... I think I need a nap."
The woman didn't respond verbally which was fine by him.
Giovanni was too tired to deal with much else. He needed a nap, he needed to eat, he needed...
Well, he wasn't sure if he actually needed answers but he'd like to get them regardless.
-----
Alchemist lay on his back in two different locations.
In one, he was in a hotel room with Kar'Yashlan. The fallen was sprawled across him after a full day spent going around and looking at the various tourist attractions in and around Tokyo. He'd gotten a lot of pictures, of Jinx showing Kary what she knew of hotpot ettiquette, of Yuffie glued to the window of the gondolas on the giant ferris wheel, the Daikanransha.
Jinx had spent a fair amount of time in an arcade, fighting with a claw machine to get a prize. The look of victory on her face when she finally got it would forever be immortalized in digital.
Sleep was not coming to him. Not readily. It wasn't the worst thing, his body didn't get as tired as quickly but he could definitely feel the mental strain his insomnia would put him through.
The second Alchemist lay on his back on the couch in his cabin in the mountains. Ash and Cinder lay next to the couch, Reis had taken up residence on one of the chairs adjacent to it and Nostradamus was actually overlooking everything from his spot on the back of the couch.
"T-E-E-N T-I-T-A-N-S, Teen Titans, oh let's go!" played on the television, the season during which Robin had fought with Red X playing on repeat. Alchemist had been trying to get a feel for how the costume moved as best he could based on the animated depiction but he knew things would be wholly different if he could get his hands on it.
Speaking of hands, Alchemist had a curious, comma-shaped stone held in his hands up above his head.
The Magatama, known as the 'Spirit of Misfortune', at least in one reality. The smooth stone in his hands was in truth a sort of primordial spirit that was forged in the death of worlds and would form based on ideals and concepts that were especially strong. They could symbiotically fuse with other creatures, bolstering their strength and giving them access to new abilities.
Eleven of the strange little grubs were available for direct purchase on the game shop, covering a wide gamut of different abilities and specialties. From basic healing magic to powerful elemental skills to buffing and debuffing spells, they could imbue their host with incredible power...
Provided someone could bring the creature out of hibernation.
Naturally, or rather, supernaturally, the Magatama would only form in a kind of environment called a 'Vortex World'. A splintered fraction of a former world that had spiritually died and was in the process of being recycled, of having a new metaphysical focus decided on in a grand battle between the various spiritual factions and whatever chosen human souls would be the final word in how the new world would form.
In that place, the Magatama would take form. Or perhaps return to their true forms?
Alchemist wasn't at all certain. He'd been working at trying to awaken the little creature since he'd splurged and bought some of them on the Game Shop. Healing magic and status restoration magic hadn't worked out so far but Alchemist was sure he'd figure something out.
He figured they would be a good option for Player One. There were a few that would offer elemental boosting perks, one that would gift the girl a perk that would restore some of her HP after a fight, one that would teach universal attack magic-
A lot of solid options!
...Provided Alchemist could find a way to bring the Magatama out of hibernation.
The one currently in his hands was named 'Kamudo' and it focused on utility. It would teach its host how to avoid being attacked from behind, how to better land critical blows, a spell that would multiply the strength of a physical attack and even help them learn how to channel their strength into a wide-area blast of raw, physical force.
All in all, it was a lot of what he thought Tiffany could use to just be better at her chosen focus.
He doubted she could extract the full power of the symbiote, though. Some of the Magatama were held in the grip of incredibly powerful spirits and gods. Or perhaps they were formed from the strength of those gods and spirits, their concepts and power manifesting into a Magatama once they were slain? Alchemist honestly couldn't be sure.
One was in the hand of a plane-traveling nightmare that had surpassed the 'reason' of his Vortex world, killing the power of creation and leaving it stuck in a dark eternity of stillbirth.
Alchemist let his hands drop to his chest, let his mind wander elsewhere.
He wasn't narrowly focusing on any one project at the moment. His attention was drifting and wandering about, the only stipulation he held on to was that he wouldn't go gallivanting off into combat for the sake of getting stronger. Alchemist knew he needed to calm down, to relax, to just not go from stressful situation to stressful people to dealing with things man was better off not knowing.
His psychiatrist, Chase Meridian had looked like she was going to be sick when he told her about the Swamp of Defilement. She'd had to literally excuse herself from the room when he explained what a Botchling was to her.
He didn't blame her. He would have been a lot better off if he didn't know, himself.
And everything else after that?
She'd told him that, if he wasn't taking a vacation himself, she'd have marched up to Batman and forced him to make Alchemist take some time off.
Alchemist lifted the Magatama back overhead and tried channeling some magic into the stone-like existence.
They existed in a primordial environment, a place where reality was... embryonic? If he could figure out a way to simulate those conditions, it might awaken the symbiote.
Or perhaps not.
Failure was still valuable data, after all.
The mage was pulled from his idle musings by the ringing of his phone. Picking it up, he rolled his eyes at the notice that said 'Unlisted Number!'
"Batman?" Alchemist asked after clicking connect. "What's going on?"
"Alchemist," the billionaire growled over the phone. "What were you doing yesterday?"
The amalgamation rolled his eyes in irritation. It wouldn't kill Bruce to pretend he was human, would it?
"I filed a request with the city hall in Beverly Hills to see the blueprints to an abandoned estate," Alchemist told his employer. "Then I got on one of those open-air buses to go around and see the homes of the rich and famous."
"...That's all?" Batman asked.
Alchemist remained silent. If Batman was fishing for something, he could do the adult thing and just ask about whatever he wanted to know.
"...What are you doing in Beverly Hills?" Batman finally asked after a good thirty seconds of silence.
"I'm looking into some conflicting reports I've gotten about this little town named Cutsoil. One of the mysteries around it had to do with the former owners, the Cuts, and they disappeared overnight about forty years ago." Which was fascinating for a host of reasons.
Rich people didn't 'just' go missing. There was always something else going on, some motive, some will, some jilted mistress... But not this time. They were just gone, disappeared into thin air.
"And what were you doing in Gotham this morning?" Batman asked, the growl creeping back into his voice.
Considering Alchemist had spent the entire time he'd been in Gotham under a disguise, that meant that Batman knew he'd been there through other methods. The wizard would place better than even odds on the caped crusader checking his cell phone's GPS data...
And Alchemist had thought he was being paranoid about keeping his cell phone in the U.S. and sticking to a digital camera overseas.
What was Batman interrogating Alchemist about? If he knew about the nazi vampire, he would have said something about it by now...
"Hiring the Riddler to do a job for me," Alchemist absentmindedly told the dark knight as he focused on the Magatama once more and tried a different idea.
Stripping out any scrap of identity or purpose from his magic, Alchemist tried teasing the artificially blank magic into the hibernating creature.
"You what?!" Batman's growl disappeared, replaced instead with a confused shout. "If you know where the Riddler is, why didn't you call the police?! You should have told me!"
"Look, I sent him off to investigate a criminal. I even paid him," Alchemist leaned up and forward as the Magatama began to unfold. It was slow and sluggish but Alchemist was having a hard time focusing on cleansing his magic so it would have to do. "I don't really see the problem."
"He is an escaped criminal, Alchemist!" Batman shouted, loud enough that the wizard had to pull his phone away from his ear. "You have a responsibility to inform the authorities!"
"Alright. Alright." Alchemist rolled his eyes as he placated the neurotic mess on the other end of the line. "So, when will you be telling the police where Catwoman or Talia Al Ghul are?"
"That... That's different." Batman's voice came through softer, losing his edge.
"Both of them are wanted by the police," Alchemist countered as the Magatama began to properly wake up. "Catwoman is wanted in something like five different countries for theft? Talia has a body count that's halfway into the triple digits. How is that different?"
Notably, Batman wasn't responding. Alchemist could hear someone else talking on the other end but he couldn't tell who.
"You know, I've noticed that certain female villains tend to escape more often than others," Alchemist started as the creature was fed more magic and became increasingly active. "Specifically the ones that you, uh, have 'relations' with. Like Catwoman, Talia, Cheetah that one time-"
"How do you know about- Alchemist, stop!" Batman frantically demanded over the phone. The talking on the other end got more distinct...
Did Batman have him on speaker?
"Then there's Poison Ivy. I mean, I know she's sent you a little kiss from time to time but you really don't tickle her kitty, you've got that pesky Y-chromosome and-"
Alchemist was cut off by a solid tone.
Batman had hung up.
The mage turned his head towards his phone and grinned, openly amused that Batman had actually hung up on him. It even left the wizard chuckling.
At least, for a moment.
His laughter cut off suddenly when he felt a sharp jolt of pain in his fingers and he reflexively slapped his hand down-
And released the Magatama on his belly.
Quick as a flash, the pale little grub ripped through Alchemist's shirt and buried itself into his navel. The mage had just enough time to stare at the bloody hole before the pain hit-
And both of the Alchemists, one in the mountains and one in Tokyo began to scream together in pain.
-----
Kary jolted awake in an instant once she heard a scream. The fallen rolled off the bed, her sword summoned to her hand in less time than it took to blink!
Rising to her feet in a flash, her sword poised and ready, the woman looked around the room for their attacker-
And found nothing, just her beloved curled into a ball and whimpering on the bed.
"...Alchemist?" Kary hesitantly asked, reaching out with her free hand to touch his shoulder. His breathing was ragged and each breathe was a short pant. The flesh around his arms and face had turned crimson and she could feel something under his shirt. "Alchemist, what happened?!"
"I..." his voice was raw and he had to break through a wad of phlegm just to speak. "I messed up. I was, I- Need to go to the bathroom."
Her beloved's efforts to uncurl were slow and obviously painful, any attempt at moving looked like he was trying to avoid stretching a cramped limb.
Kary wasted no time in making her way to his side, unsummoning her blade so she could help him stumble into the wash room.
There was a loud pounding on the door and Kary looked down to Alchemist, hovering with his head over the bowl of the toilet, and over to the direction where the hotel room's door was.
Alchemist waved to her with his left arm, his fingers turning black, and Kary quickly made her way towards the incessant pounding.
"What's going on!" Jinx asked, practically pushing her way into the room. "I heard screaming- Did someone attack us?!"
"...No," Kary finally settled on as Yuffie peeked into the room. Once the girl saw that the coast was clear, she simply walked right in. "Alchemist was apparently up to something with his duplicate and it apparently did not go to plan."
"It worked perfectly!" Alchemist said from the bathroom. Kary could hear the sink running and water splashing. "I wasn't even expecting it to work at all... It just wasn't supposed to work on me- Shit. This is going to be a pain in the ass..."
Kary leaned to the side, next to Jinx and Yuffie, to look into the room and see what he was talking about.
Alchemist had taken his shirt off and was in the process of looking down at his belly, running scaled fingers over plates of black scale, still slick with blood, that had formed over his navel.
"...What the heck happened to you?" Yuffie asked, voicing the same question that was on Kary's mind and likely Jinx's as well. "You got all scaly!"
Indeed, Alchemist had grown quite a lot of scales. The scales that her beloved often kept hidden on his right arm now extended all the way up and crossed over his chest to his left arm, which now ended in a set of wicked claws that mirrored the ones on his right. The scales did not merely cross his chest, they actually went down to his navel, creating a natural barrier of armor over his girth.
A few scales did peek out around his neck but perhaps the most striking feature for Kary was her beloved's eyes. They'd changed into a pair of sharp yellow slits rather than simple orbs as they'd been before.
"...I was messing with something I'd been thinking of giving to Player One," Alchemist began to explain as his fingers continued to poke and prod at the scales over his belly as though he were looking for something. "These things called 'Magatama'. They can offer up some skills and minor attribute bonuses, I figured one might be good for her. Though, definitely not thinking that now..."
"Those comma shaped rock things at that temple Yuffie wanted to see?" Jinx asked, referring to their sightseeing earlier in the day. "How did that turn you into... What even are you, now?"
"I... have no idea," Alchemist admitted as he gazed into the mirror, locking his new eyes on Kary's own. She watched as he opened his menu and moved over to his status.
The woman leaned over her man as he looked through the screen, reading it alongside him.
"Family: Dragon," Kary mumbled into Alchemist's ear as he pursed his lips in confusion. "Species... it's just a garbled mess."
"Probably something new, then," her beloved mumbled as he placed a rag under the water and began to clean up where the scales had forced their way through his skin. He paused briefly to look in the mirror and began twisting around, groping at the back of his neck. "I didn't grow any horns anywhere, did I?"
"No, love," Kary told him as she wrapped her arms around his torse from behind and pulled him against her. "Were you supposed to?"
"The demi-fiend did." His response was short and rather simple.
And somehow, those three words filled her with a truly terrible feeling of unease.
"I think Kary mentioned that one, once," Jinx mentioned from the doorway. "Something about him having a pixie?"
"Naoki Kashima," Alchemist said, naming the monster in question. "He was bound to a Magatama inside of this multiversal nexus called the 'Amala Network', which is basically where all the leftover creation magic inside that multiverse ends up. I think I remember reading that his horn was some kind of antennae or something? It's been a few years..."
Alchemist placed a hand over Kary's own as she pressed him against her tighter.
"Okay, so we're not fighting anyone?" Yuffie asked, yawning widely. "'Cuz I wanna go back to bed. There's this fox village, or the cat island, or, or, or so much other stuff I wanna see!"
"Get back to bed, hon," Alchemist's voice was soft but Kary could feel his hands trembling around hers. However much pain he still felt, he didn't wish for the girl to see it. "We'll get started on things in the morning."
The little ninja needed no further prompting before she darted out the door.
"...You gonna be okay?" But Jinx did. The young dragon stepped into the room and clearly saw the red mess that Alchemist was leaving in the sink.
"I should be," Alchemist tried to smile and Kary could see that his teeth had grown far sharper than they had been before. "If something else comes up, I'll tell you."
Kary saw Jinx hovering in the reflection cast by the mirror. The girl bit her lip and sniffed loudly before turning around to walk away. She still stopped at the doorway, half turned to take another look before she departed.
"...Will you truly be well, love?" Kary asked, the room silent but for the sound of running water.
"...I think so," he told her, squeezing her hand in his claw. "Naoki didn't truly become a demon until after he'd devoured all of the magatsuhi that had accumulated inside of the Amala Network and mastered the power that Lucifer had embedded into him. I'll need to keep an eye on it but I don't think this will force me to change so much as... express the changes I've already gone through?"
Kary closed her eyes and leaned forward enough that she could rest her chin upon his shoulder.
Inhaling deeply, Kary noted that the changes had even changed the way he smelled. More draconic, more organic but still with an underlying scent of steel.
"Why must you worry me so?" she asked as he ran a thumb over the knuckles of her hand.
"...I'm not trying to," he told her. Something she well knew to be true.
He was just extraordinarily good at it.
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- Location
- England
To be honest, most people could do with something like that when they arrange for builders to add an extension to their house.
Magos Tractor-1
Archmagos Dominus
- Location
- Somewhere in Mars, Olymus Mons probably
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
Ah yes, the only person in whole DC Multiverse that can sass and embarrass Batman outside of his family and walk away unscathed. Of course Alchemist, being a fae-like truth teller, derails the intended line of inquiry and stalls the dissemination of information about what happened in Europe or offering of insights regarding the mass healing magic affecting hundredsmillions across the world.
Batman really needs to learn to just ask politely instead of demanding something. At least when it comes to interactions with Alchemist.
I'm surprised Giovanni is not yet rocking the Threaded Cane given its powerful metamagic enchantment and arcane metal durable enough to resist eldritch blood being spilled on it.
Batman really needs to learn to just ask politely instead of demanding something. At least when it comes to interactions with Alchemist.
I'm surprised Giovanni is not yet rocking the Threaded Cane given its powerful metamagic enchantment and arcane metal durable enough to resist eldritch blood being spilled on it.
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- Location
- hell
I kinda thought batman had learned how to properly ask Alchemist questions by now. And Giovanni must not have been part of that conversation or still wants to talk with Alchemist since the guy just wanted to pick his brain over "what might this be?" not "did you do it?" - so that conversation is at least still coming down the grapevine. And he is probably pissed at the bat for not helping at all considering his state of worry over his family being hit with the spell.
- Location
- Here
That's not really the issue here, Alchemist already knows how Batman is.
The problem is that Batman doesn't like directly asking the questions he actually wants answered. He likes to circle around and get someone else to volunteer stuff... All he really had to do was ask about the people vanishing into dust directly instead of attempting to investigate it all in the conversation.
The Greater Good.
"Shut it!"