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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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22/11/2010
It had taken a bit of trial and error but Tiffany had eventually found a good way to move their haul from the vaults of Fort Knox to the bed of a truck. First she would load up her inventory, then they would just unload it on to a truck bed and Shrike and Tigress would get things all piled up and tied down all nice and neat.
Honestly? The truck actually couldn't hold that much. She had way more gold bars in her inventory than they'd been able to stack up within the truck's weight limit.
But if they were all driving semi-trucks?!
It... still didn't add up to a whole lot. It was more than Tiffany had ever seen but the trucks barely made a dent in the stacks inside the gold reserve.
So she went ahead and looted all of the rare coins!
Really, she didn't understand why Alchemist hadn't done that himself. There was all kinds of cool stuff inside, like a vault full of blackmail, one full of plates covered in numbers, all kinds of cool gadgets and doohickeys.
There had been an empty space with a helpful label on it that said 'Spear of Destiny - 1945' but everything else had been left alone.
It was weird.
So, gold, superweapons, blackmail... Tiffany was -loaded- up and ready to-
"Hey-o."
Shriek in surprise when Alchemist and Wonder Woman showed up at the front gates of Fort Knox.
"We were wondering if you'd be showing up," Tigress called as she approached the group, the semi she'd backed up to the gates idling loudly. "We were starting to think you planned on staying behind."
"Figured I should top off my stock while I've got the chance," Alchemist admitted, practically shouting to be heard over the truck. "I actually use a good amount of gold with some of my magic, the stuff is great in alchemy."
"How does that work?" Tiffany asked, pausing for a moment to look at Alchemist's retreating back and then to the idling vehicles as he went into the gold reserve. Running after the man, she had to repeat herself, "How do you use gold in alchemy? Isn't that just, like, making potions and stuff?"
"Some of it," the man agreed as they walked around the still, silent corpses that Tiffany and the others had left in their wake. "Alchemy covers a few other... specialties? Specialties as well. Transmutation of materials, altering the shape or composition, converting one kind of material into another, those also fall under the header for alchemy. Weirdly enough, my system actually has a specific separation between magical medicines and technological medicines. Those would fall under 'compounding'."
"I... think I remember reading something about that?" Tiffany half-asked, crossing her arms as she tried to think on it. "Some kind of stone or something was involved, right?"
"The Philosopher's Stone, yeah," Alchemist agreed as he reached into his inventory and came up with a purple crystal suspended in a gold lattice. "Version I can make off-hand is interesting, but worthless. It doesn't actually have any of the universal catalytic properties that it's supposed to have."
"...Wait a second, that doesn't explain what you're doing with all of that gold though? Can you, like, make other stuff into gold?" If he could do that, why was he bothering to collect any? Wouldn't if just be easier to make other stuff into gold?
"I could, yeah," Alchemist agreed as they entered the vaults.
Tiffany, Shrike and Tigress had already ripped apart the security. The stuff was good, super thick walls and really complicated passwords and the like.
Shrike and Tigress were cunning and Player One could leverage a lot more strength and power than any normal human, though.
"But converting materials into gold is hideously expensive. Inversely, using gold to make other materials is the most efficient method I've found so far." Alchemist shrugged and began to run a hand over one of the pallets, huge bars of gold disappearing with a bare touch of his finger. "There's less in here than I was expecting... did you fill up your inventory, too?"
"...Yeah?" Tiffany asked, wondering why he would even bring that up.
He was doing it, too, so why would he care if she did it?
"Good thinking. Just don't forget to do something about the serial numbers stamped into everything." Serial numbers? Tiffany hadn't noticed any serial numbers! "It's why I avoided most of the other stuff, here. Gold has a raw value and it's easy to recast or mold with magic, cleans that up pretty nicely. Everything else is documented to hell and back."
"But... didn't you steal a bunch of coins at that gun shop?" Tiffany asked, feeling as though her easy score had just been ripped out from under her.
"Yeah. Then I sold those off in the underworld." Alchemist turned to her and offered her an easy-going smile, completely at odds with how she felt. "They're still originals, so it really confuses the hell out of authenticators, but it's not like I went and stole the paperwork that went with everything. Using the Penguin to move stuff like that, they assume it's stolen and hot. Really cuts down on the profits but it also cuts down on the beauracracy."
"...This is going to be a lot harder than I thought, isn't it?" Tiffany asked as Alchemist finished loading up his own inventory.
"Of course it is," Alchemist told her as he started to head back towards the entrance, Tiffany on his heels. Along the way, every corpse they passed was filled with green light and stood up, following them even as their skin and muscles melted off. "If the feds had their way, it'd still be illegal for us filthy commoners to own silver or gold. Bastards stole my retirement, too..."
Alchemist's grumbling cut off into nonsense and Tiffany just sighed as she stepped out and into the night air.
Tigress was talking with Diana and Shrike was practicing her archery on some distant, shambling targets.
Tiffany, meanwhile, felt the giddy high she'd been riding start to fade, fast.
Now that Alchemist had brought it up?
She had no idea how they were supposed to actually sell all of that gold. Or the coins she'd grabbed that might actually get her into legal trouble.
The day had been going so good, too.
-----
Lois felt like her guts had been violently jerked against her torso but out of everyone in the vehicle, she was in the best condition.
Southie in the driver's seat was groaning face-first into his airbag, both of the gunmen had slammed forward into the seats in front of them, and were halfway over them, and the Puppeteer had flown forward so hard his face ran into the center console and the man was laying on the gear shifter.
None of them were dead. The groaning, moaning and crying were pretty solid indicators. No, they were just very, very badly inconvenienced and maybe a little bit hurt.
Unbuckling her seatbelt, Lois crawled over one of the gunment and tried the door.
It didn't move.
Rolling over, Lois laid on top of the man with the armed assault rifle and braced herself as best she could before kicking out and-
Missing as the door was ripped off of its frame.
"Miss Lane?" a girl's voice asked the flailing reporter. "Are you alright?"
"...I've been better," Lois groaned out after she rolled out of the vehicle. Stumbling on to her feet, she took in the damage that had been done to the windowless van.
The grill was caved in and the entire frame was bent out of shape, various fluids were pouring out of broken containers and pooling under the vehicle and the chemical smells were quickly coming up on overwhelming.
"Was this really necessary?" Lois asked as she appreciated the wreckage.
Maybe she was feeling a little vengeful. Just a bit.
"The longer an individual remains in the care of their abductor, the less likely they are to survive," Power Girl explained, her voice flat and neutral. "It is very important that kidnappers not be given an opportunity to take their victims to a secondary location."
Which... was all true. Logically, Lois knew all of that. It just hadn't quite applied to her in the past.
The woman crossed her arms in growing discomfort as the reality of the situation began to set in.
"...How did you know I needed help?" Lois asked, her voice small and quiet as Power Girl pulled a communicator off of her hip.
"I was watching every panel van in the city," Power Girl explained as she flipped open her communicator and began to dial a number into it. "These are used to commit the majority of crimes in the city. Superman says that I cannot stereotype based on trends or history but Robin insists that it is profiling, which is very different."
Lois snorted quietly and fidgeted from one foot to the other. The woman bit her lip and looked down at the ground as Power Girl called the police.
It had to have been utterly stupid and ill-planned, but the Puppeteer and his cronies had come for her. Not some weird plan to get at Superman.
Her.
That... that wasn't normal. Lois wasn't a stranger to being in danger but it was either something that she got into herself, so it was under her control, or it was because some lunatic got their hands on some kryptonite and wanted to draw out Superman.
"The police will be here soon," Power Girl said aloud, drawing Lois's attention back up and away from her spiraling thoughts. "Do you need medical assistance?"
"I..." Lois looked down at her clothes, rumpled and wrinkled and dirty. "I don't know?"
"Alright. Please hold still," Power Girl hovered over to Lois, turning away from the wreckage of the fan to face her. "I am not very good at this, yet."
Lois looked up, looking into Power Girl's eyes as green lights flickered around the duo and the Kryptonian's face was pinched in concentration.
It took a second for Lois to recognize that what she was seeing was magic.
Power Girl... knew... magic?
The sparkles in the air focused on Lois, circling around her and washing away a number of aches and pains that she hadn't even noticed under the adrenaline. It left the reporter feeling... good? Good, but tired.
"Is everyone learning magic, now?" Lois had to ask, fatigue settling deep into her bones.
"Alchemist says that almost anyone can learn it," the hero explained as she settled down to stand on the ground. "So he offered to teach basic healing magic to us."
That... actually sounded like a good idea.
Lois looked back down and clenched her fists.
There were all kinds of lunatics, throwing around weird abilities they got from the genetic lottery, building death rays and doomsday bombs and, and, and...
"Anyone can learn magic?" Lois asked, swallowing thickly.
She didn't know who Puppeteer was. She didn't know who this 'Bureau' was that he said he worked for.
But if Power Girl hadn't stepped in, how long would it have taken for Superman to find her? She knew he could, she knew he would, but...
"Almost," Power Girl agreed as she turned back around to face the van, pulling an absolutely massive wooden sword off of her back. "I was told that soulless middle-management cannot learn it, but that may have been a joke."
One red hand reached out, grabbing on to the frame of the van as Puppeteer pulled himself out of the wreckage of the vehicle. His visor was cracked and his helmet sat askew, revealing one brown eye from underneath.
"...Do you have any idea who I am?" the man growled as he shakily stepped out of the vehicle. "Do you have any idea who I work for?!"
"...No," Power Girl responded, her voice as blase as it had been earlier. "This is the part where I inform you that I also do not care."
"You-!" Puppeteer howled, his hands reaching out and clawing at the air. "I am going to-"
"Also. Your costume looks like a used tampon," Power Girl continued, heedless of what the villain was about to say. "And I will be putting you in the trash where you belong."
The sheer, blank confusion on the idiot's face matched Lois's own at hearing the girl mechanically recite trashtalk.
Unlike the Puppeteer, however, Lois actually found herself giggling at the girl's efforts.
It was awkward and clumsy and also, somehow, kind of cute.
"No!" Puppeteer howled, a scarlet glow growing around his gloves and belt. "Not if I get you first!"
A similar red glow began to outline Power Girl, surrounding the girl-
"No," Power Girl denied, a crimson beam lancing out from her eyes and ripping clean through a bulky portion of the villain's gloves, melting delicate circuitry and wires.
The man screamed, loud and high-pitched as he frantically waved his arm around before using his good hand to rip the glove off.
"And now?" Power Girl's feet rose above the ground as she began to hover towards the Puppeteer. "I believe I must tell you to 'Git gud, scrub'."
Lois... really couldn't help it. As Power Girl began to repurpose parts of the broken vehicle into restraints, she just broke down laughing.
It was stupid, and it wasn't funny, but... just... hearing the girl repeat lines she must've heard from someone else while she was casually dealing with a supervillain had Lois Lane bent in half and laughing.
And maybe crying.
She didn't know. And she didn't care.
Her fit of hysterics continued until the Metropolis Police Department finally arrived. The officers needed to get a statement from her but there was something that Power Girl had said that Lois really, really wanted clarification on.
"You said that Alchemist taught you all basic healing magic, right?" Lois asked as the police loaded everyone up.
"Most of us," Power Girl clarified. "Some individuals were not present or else showed no interest. Many of us have learned only one or two spells, or else something has been made for us. This weapon-" Power Girl shrugged on shoulder, raising the hilt of her strange, wooden sword. Upon closer inspection, Lois could see that it actually had a metal wedge bolted to one edge. "-has been enchanted with some basic damage enhancements and the ability to repair itself."
"...There's magic that can repair things?" Lois asked, her previous line of inquiry fully forgotten.
"Yes." And Power Girl didn't seem to understand just how valuable that kind of magic could be.
Or if she did, she wasn't expressing it.
Lois would hate to play poker with that girl.
"Do you know it?!" Lois did not want to have to deal with her insurance company. Not again!
They would raise her rates, she just knew it!
"I do not, no," Power Girl's face betrayed nothing. If she was unhappy about not knowing whatever spell or ritual Alchemist used, she certainly didn't show it. "But I can ask to learn it. Why?"
"Because these guys hit my car," Lois explained, holding out a hand towards the impatient officers and raising her index finger in the near-universal sign of 'Just a minute'. "And I kind of need it to get to work."
"Oh. Okay." Power Girl didn't seem very invested in Lois's problem but the girl did pull out her communicator and start to tap away at it. "I have texted Alchemist. The message has not gone through, so he is likely busy, but I will contact you soon when I have further information."
"...That's it?" Lois asked. She'd sort of expected to have to jump through hoops or try and argue or cajole Superman or... something.
"Yes."
Lois... let the officer on duty lead her away so they could get her statement.
She had no idea how to handle someone that was just so... direct.
-----
From Knox County in Kentucky to Happy Harbor, Rhode Island they were looking at about a fourteen hour drive. Alchemist had hit the trucks and their drivers with Haste at level ten, so they'd be able to get done before the sun came up and everyone could go home before school and do... whatever, but it was still going to be fourteen hours of time they were going to have to experience.
The wizard had listened to Tiffany's plan to drive and vetoed it. Instantly. The girl had been given the basic lessons on driving a sportsbike but she didn't know how to drive a car, didn't know how to drive a manual and, finally, was not going to learn how to drive a semi-truck with a ten-ton load behind her!
The final arrangement, after a solid ten minutes of arguing, had resulted in Tiffany riding shotgun with Alchemist, Shrike and Tigress hauling another load and Wonder Woman was running solo in the last vehicle.
The woman had, actually, been trained to operate a tank. There were a lot of differences between the vehicles but Wonder Woman had adjusted well enough.
"This is so boring..." Tiffany whined as they ran over another zombie with a wet squelch and a muffled thump. "Couldn't we just teleport?"
"Sure," Alchemist agreed, snapping his fingers as he cast 'Fortify Skill' on himself. Something he'd been doing consistently for the entire drive so far. "And Wonder Woman could fly with a whole truck trailer. Or you could hunt down your own teleportation skill and give that a try."
The wizard snapped his fingers again, restoring the buff of Fortify Skill.
One percent better results from using a skill, lasting sixty seconds at its base effect. Bolstered by his perks to two percent for one-hundred and twenty seconds. Bolstered further by Faith by one-hundred and eighty percent to a grand total of...
A five percent boost to effectiveness for five and a half minutes. At level one. Because his system rounded down to whole numbers.
Of course, he didn't need to wait nearly that long to reapply the buff and grind up the level of the spell.
As for the skill he was buffing? He was focusing on his driving skill when he would cast the spell. It wasn't one that he had a numerical value to, it wasn't leveling up as he drove or anything of that nature. So he didn't have some random mastery of how to drive being slowly downloaded into his skull.
Just years of practice.
"So why are we doing this instead of either of those?" Tiffany asked, leaning against her door and acting... like a petulant teenager.
"Well, I'm grinding a spell," Alchemist explained, though he held off on mentioning the fact that he was also waiting for the side effects of Mako Poisoning to fade. He'd figured he might as well make use of the time they had.
So his bilocation duplicate had eaten a Dark Fire and Dark Thunder Materia, things he'd stolen from Wutai. Later, once he didn't feel sick anymore, he intended on chomping down Dark Ice and a Comet Materia. Then, assuming he still had some time? He'd add Gravity to the list.
He didn't know how he'd overlooked the least lethal spell available but he felt kind of like kicking himself.
"So what about me?" Tiffany asked, crossing her arms and leaning back in her seat.
"Well, you could read a book. Take a nap. Learn a skill or spell and grind it, like I am. You have options, Penny." And this was part of why Alchemist hadn't really been upset about getting stuck working an alternate schedule to the Team back when Penny had her meltdown. They were all teenagers and motivating them was a trick and a half, one he honestly wasn't very good at.
The girl shifted awkwardly in her seat a few times before turning around to look in the sleeper cabin, apparently debating his suggestion that she take a nap.
Alchemist sighed and leaned a bit to the side as well.
He kind of hoped she would. Otherwise, if she wanted to keep complaining? He was going to drop her off with Wonder Woman the next time they stopped at a gas station for a bathroom break.
Considering the long distance ahead, Alchemist recast Fortify Skill and tried to zone out.
Still, emptying his mind as much as he could, he couldn't help but wonder what Jinx or Kary were up to.
-----
Jinx stared at the raging inferno in front of her, an empty gas can at her feet. As the flames danced in her eyes and the monster at the heart of the fire screamed, she couldn't help but feel...
Amazing.
Kary leaned over her shoulder, a wide smile on her face.
"I told you this was a good idea, didn't I?" the fallen angel asked, one hand resting on Jinx's other shoulder.
Jinx watched and listened as glass shattered, she could smell plastic and wood burning in the air.
"Yeah..." Jinx agreed, her voice soft and quiet as the greenhouse nestled deep in the wilderness outside of Gotham roared merrily, drowning her out. "I guess... I guess you were right."
In the distance, the sound of sirens could be heard screaming towards them.
"Fire really does solve so many problems, doesn't it?" Kary reaffirmed as the screaming inside the flames slowly came to a halt.
As Poison Ivy's mutant Venus Flytrap, Frank, finally perished-
-----
Alchemist blinked, incredibly confused at the notification that had just popped up in front of his face.
~~ Enemy Defeated! ~~
~~ Frank X1! ~~
~~ You have gained 75 XP! ~~
~~ Enemy Level Too Low! You should consider fighting something closer to your own size! ~~
~~ You have gained 500 GP! ~~
~~ You have gained: Fantastic Fertilizer X 4! ~~
"What the fu-"
-----
"It really does," Jinx agreed as Poison Ivy's greenhouse burned to the ground. She wouldn't be feeding the homeless to her pets, not any more. "It really does."
