Project: Gamer Ver. 2 Alpha Build 2.8.4
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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1/12/2010
Alchemist would freely admit upon returning to his home that he felt better. A lot better, about a lot of things.
Talking with Abel had been a strange experience, true, but far from a bad one. The man was an avid listener, perpetually a participant without trying to distract or redirect the story.
He'd laughed when Alchemist had explained the earliest part of his history, when he'd been told by his father that Alchemist used to think his name was 'Damnit!'. Asked questions when Alchemist described the friends he used to have. Winced in sympathy when he heard about the injuries the mage and his friends had accrued whilst exploring the nearby woods and countryside.
The wizard didn't feel like he was ignored or neglected at home, by the friends and family he'd put together, but Abel was talented at being an active listener and it was something Alchemist had never really paid attention to.
It was... nice. And retelling the story of a friend of his that went on to become a mechanic, who'd once been a boy that tried to jump a creek on his bike and rather unfortunately stuck the landing had been cathartic.
Not for his once-friend, who'd had the misfortune of having his genitalia rather painfully crushed up and into him by the bicycle seat, but Alchemist rarely relived the memories of his youth.
The wizard hadn't really made any specific plans to return but Abel had practically made the mage promise to return. He'd shared a story with Abel, the keeper of the House of Secrets had explained, and it would only be fair for Abel to share a fable with him in turn.
But Alchemist couldn't just linger in the House of Secrets forever. Jinx would like to know about the Wizard's Workbench, Yuffie would probably like having someone to practice her ninjutsu with-
Not that Alchemist actually knew any of the ninja magic, no, but he did know the basic elemental spells that would complement her efforts.
-and Kary... Well, she'd admired the blades he'd manufactured, listened to his explanation of what he intended on doing with one of them and told him, quite bluntly, that he was going to have to put in more work to properly wield such a weapon.
Soul cleaving weapons were hardly unheard of but they were dangerous in the extreme. Both in wielding one and, far more concerning, the reputation that came with using one.
Flicking on the light as Alchemist entered his home, the mage was greeted with an empty house. Everyone else was still taking care of their own things, it seemed, which left the man with a decent bit of time to get dinner started.
The first thing the mage did was extract his groceries from the inventory and set them on the counter. Simple fare, carrots, potatoes, onions and peppers along with the pre-cooked chicken he'd picked up. And they were processed rather simply, too. The carrots and potatoes were peeled and cut into chunks that were simply thrown into the pot of the rice cooker Alchemist occasionally used in making Yuffie's favorite staple.
The onion was diced and the peppers sliced, Alchemist got to work on tearing the chicken apart and took the time to consider how his day had gone. Overall, he was satisfied with his day. Working on things with Giovanni had actually been enjoyable, even with the rather acrid cloud that Constantine had cast over things.
All in all, it really had been a good day.
Using one greasy finger, Alchemist opened his system and began to read the various messages he'd been ignoring throughout the day as he shredded the chicken meat. Mostly just inconsequential things, notices about getting a single experience point here or there for accidentally crushing a bug, warning notices that he lacked Gamer's Mind and couldn't use a scroll or book as Skill Books, those sorts of things.
He did have a considerable number of 'Congratulations!' messages to scroll through, however. It seemed that Majustis had hit enough targets and gained enough experience to go all the way up to level two-hundred. And Alchemist could now cast the upgraded spell, Gigastis, through the system.
Alchemist hummed quietly at reading that.
Gigastis targeted everything around the caster, including the spellcaster. It would erase all magical effects and the suppressive aura would persist for something like ten or so seconds.
Which... could be useful. But it would weaken Alchemist immensely and would destroy all of the Fused spells that Alchemist had put into his gear.
It wasn't necessarily worthless, Alchemist could easily imagine a few scenarios where it would be vital. But every place it could be useful, Majustis channeling Mega-All would do the same thing without any blowback to Alchemist or his team, barring the aura of suppression. It was the steroid abusing Russian big brother to Dungeon and Dragons' Anti-Magic Field combined with Mordekainen's Disjunction and did not come with a chance to save or resist.
With one hand, Alchemist began to put the shredded chicken into the pot with the vegetables whilst he closed out the notification with his free hand. He wasn't exactly done reading the others, after all.
Pausing briefly, a rather confused look spread across Alchemist's face.
Locked inside of the Source Wall, there weren't actually an infinite amount of John Constantines. There should have only been fifty-two, in total, or possibly less if some of them had died or been consumed by their own failures. Given the fact that Majustis was an epic spell, even with all of Alchemist's experience boosters, it would have needed to be cast a bit more than that to reach its maximum level.
Had some of the Alternate Johns had family members that the spells had chained to? It was certainly possible but unless each of them had fathered enough children to fill a church, Majustis still shouldn't have hit level two-hundred.
Alchemist finished placing the shredded chicken in the pot with the vegetables and went to the sink to wash his hands.
He'd targeted the sympathetic links leading out and away from Constantine. He'd targeted the marks left on the Laughing Magician by...
Ah.
Alchemist didn't exactly freeze but there was a brief hitch in his motions as he realized the scope of his own actions.
His hands clean, Alchemist filled the pot of chicken and vegetables about halfway with water before adding a significant amount to the rice cooker's steam chamber, then added a healthy amount of rice wine to the chicken and vegetables as well.
It would cook off and help preserve the flavors of the individual components.
Finishing off, Alchemist seasoned the stew heavily with salt, pepper and rosemary before he put the lid on the rice cooker and turned it on.
He... needed to have a seat. He needed to think.
So that's exactly what the mage did. He sat on his couch and stared at the black screen of his television as he tried to figure out the impact of trying to help John Bloody Constantine.
No... that wasn't quite right. Giving John a new lease on life was more or less a side benefit.
Alchemist had been trying to neuter the Golden Boy without having to directly interact with him. But that couldn't be done without causing collateral damage throughout the multiverse.
Majustis had erased the magical bonds and pacts on every iteration of Constantine, sure, but it had spread to the demons, devils, possibly some angels and the fae as well.
Alchemist pulled one of the numerous steel swords that he'd made out of his inventory and held the arming sword over his lap. Swallowing thickly, he pressed one finger against the fuller along the blade and ignored the tingling sensitivity as it began to turn into black Darksteel.
He needed to rest. He needed to heal.
He couldn't do either of those if some thing figured out it was him that freed John.
Once the fuller and hilt had been Converted, Alchemist ran his finger over each of the rivets connecting the blade to it. They took on a subtle glow, the blue-silver of Xth Metal. Materialized creation and, more importantly, a physical connection to the story of reality.
Once that material had properly settled into the world, it would offer the weapon a greater sort of metaphysical weight. And, just as critical, it would bind the concepts of the sword all together into a true and proper whole.
Alchemist pursed his lips and swallowed thickly as the blade began to shift from polished steel to a white that glowed with cold purpose. He didn't know the name of the material that the blade was turning into, his System wasn't allowed to tell him and Lucifer certainly hadn't considered it important enough to say what it was.
But the white metal could kill a soul. Erase it from existence, remove it from the cycle of life and death in a way that was... permanent. Small injuries inflicted by it would still heal, though they would resist magical healing. Limbs that were severed using the weapon could not be regenerated and Alchemist had some severe doubts as to the success of grafting the original limb back in place.
Alchemist sheathed the sword and breathed heavily.
The sword wasn't done. It was far from done, honestly. There were still enchantments to add to it, magics that would take it from being dangerous up to being a tool that would send the greatest monsters fleeing in fear at the mere sight of it.
But for that, he'd need to master Enchanting.
And for that, he'd need to master Alchemy.
Alchemist exhaled sharply and sat back as he set aside the weapon and lifted up the scabbard instead. Arguably the most important part, really.
But Alchemist had no intention of Fusing spells into it. Those could be dispelled, especially if Alchemist went about trying to use Gigastis. Instead, he needed to Fuse permanent traits to it, things that might be suppressed but would return to full functionality once whatever was doing so was gone. Or else go about properly Enchanting it, but Alchemist needed to put a lot of time into actually mastering other skills to accomplish what he wanted.
The wizard let out a long, drawn out breath as he set the scabbard down next to the murder-blade and began extracting other things from his inventory. He'd purchased some the specific components he wanted a while back, now it was time to actually do something with them.
Setting a helmet, a hauberk, some greaves, boots and gauntlets on the coffee table (and ignoring the groan that came from its legs) Alchemist fused the helmet to the body armor. Which left him with a significant number of extra Perle Cuirasses but those weren't especially important. Then he fused the cuirass into the greaves, again getting a significant number of duplicates, which were fused into the boots, then those were fused into the gloves.
~~ Perle Moufles + x14 ~~
~~ Defense + 179, Strength + 22, Dexterity + 14, Vitality + 10, Attack + 25, Accuracy + 18, Haste + 13%, Critical Hit Rate + 2% ~~
Setting the gauntlets aside, Alchemist began to do the same with a pink outfit of heavy cloth.
~~ Aurore Gloves + x13 ~~
~~ Defense + 160, Strength + 8, Dexterity + 13, Agility + 12, Evasion + 13, Accuracy + 17, Haste + 11% ~~
Finally, setting a red beret down next to the two pairs of gloves, Alchemist extracted an ebony ingot and put everything together.
~~ Enchantment Token x13 ~~
~~ Defense + 359, Strength + 30, Vitality + 10, Dexterity + 27, Agility + 12, Evasion + 13, Accuracy + 35, Attack + 31, Haste + 25%, Critical Hit Rate + 2% ~~
Alchemist nodded to himself as he looked at the token. By itself, that would be fine. That particular version of Haste would only activate in combat and was at its cap, it couldn't go any higher than twenty-five percent.
It wasn't the strongest variation of Haste that Alchemist could have gone for but, critically, it would multiply -other- versions of Haste. That twenty-five could, for example, make Alchemist's Haste spell act as though he were almost fifty times faster than he actually was. And, if he took Haste all the way up to thirty-two? Then it would be a sixty-four times multiplier based on perks which would become... a multiplier of eighty in total.
Which was largely useless because anything that Alchemist would need to go that fast to deal with was probably still faster than him. Which was why he had the Standstill spell instead.
Opening the game shop to pick up a ring from the world of Final Fantasy Six called an Angel Ring, Alchemist fused it and one of the tokens into the scabbard, then thought long and hard about what to name it. He'd functionally recreated Avalon but the sheath would hold no sword of kings.
Giving up on being creative, Alchemist just typed in 'Megiddo' for the name of his scabbard.
~~ Megiddo ~~
~~ Defense + 359, Strength + 30, Vitality + 10, Dexterity + 27, Agility + 12, Evasion + 13, Accuracy + 35, Attack + 31, Haste + 25%, Critical Hit Rate + 2%
Regenerate (Vitality X Level)/16 HP every 6 seconds ~~
Sheathing the blade within Megiddo, Alchemist began to return all of the leftovers to his inventory and get things cleaned up.
"Woah, something smells really good!" Jinx called from the front door as the mage was in the process of adding his new sword to his soulbound armory. "What'd you cook?"
Behind Jinx, Alchemist could see Kary and, trying to fight her way to the front of the pack, was Yuffie.
Everyone Alchemist needed to talk to.
"Chicken and vegetable soup," Alchemist told the girls as they all filed in. "Grab a bowl, grab a seat. We've got some things to discuss."
He wasn't sure how, exactly, he was going to explain that he'd probably spat in the eye of Hell as a whole but, well, they definitely needed to know.
...Eh, he'd figure it out.
-----
Yeah... Jinx had never heard someone say 'We need to talk' and not have it be something terrible.
But the food did smell good and school had kind of sucked, so she went ahead and got a bowl for herself before sitting down and sending Alchemist a suspicious look.
Yuffie and Kary both got a bowl as well, then Alchemist got himself one and they all sat around the cramped table after he got done moving some papers off of it.
Jinx hadn't even gotten a spoonful of broth into her when Alchemist spoke up.
"I might have upset the hierarchy of Hell," the man said. He just... threw that out there. No warm up, no preamble. "I don't know how badly but the current rulers of Hell might have just lost all of their magical pacts."
Not even any kind of warning. Just 'I broke hell, lol'.
"...Was there a particularly good reason for doing so?" Kary asked.
The woman had her lips pursed in clear frustration but seemed to be doing a decent job of not getting upset.
Yuffie, regardless of the atmosphere, was happily slurping at her soup.
"A little bit of yes and a whole lot of maybes," Alchemist admitted. "I used a spell that erases magic on a creep that kept following me but there's a version of this nutjob a few realities over who can cast magic of a sort throughout the multiverse and he can manipulate the source of creation. And he's a... I can never keep 'sociopath' and 'psychopath' straight but that probably doesn't matter because this guy is both. I hit our guy with erasure magic and it traveled along the path between our guy and his twin... but there were also a metric shit ton of demonic pacts in between. And the erasure magic should have carried on for one more level after that."
"So... wait. Like, God? Capital G, the guy who created everything, omnipotent creator above all kind of God?" Jinx had to ask. She wasn't religious, especially considering her father -was-, but she was hardly ignorant.
"YHVH, yes," Alchemist agreed. Blandly. Like that, somehow, was not a big deal.
"Then it would have been imperative that you intervene, regardless of the risk," Kary said with a quiet sigh before she continued to speak in a quiet mutter. "The Lady of Pain would never have allowed such a pest to grow unchecked..."
Jinx... sighed before she shook her head and just enjoyed her soup.
Which tasted fantastic.
"Will they be able to find out that it was you?" Jinx asked after she finished chewing and swallowed.
"It won't be very easy, I don't think," Alchemist explained as he pulled a sleeve of crackers out of his inventory and began to crush a few into his soup.
Jinx declined when Alchemist offered the crackers to her but Yuffie greedily snatched them for herself.
"Between the Mind Blank spell screwing with divination, the Stealth Mage perk erasing magical traces, the fact that the event happened directly in front of a building that literally cannot be detected through supernatural means and then my going into said building? Things should be clear on that specific front. The question will be however long it takes for John Constantine to summon up a demon and tell them what happened." Alchemist was silent for a long moment as he stirred his crackers around in his soup. "So they probably already know. Might not have my name, I specifically never told that to Constantine, but they probably have my description. How quickly that spreads? That I have no idea on."
Jinx didn't really know what to say on that. There weren't a whole lot of things they could've done to change what was done, to make it more secure, make it more secret.
"Did you consider killing this Constantine when you finished with him?" Kary asked, her spoon idly tapping on the rim of her bowl.
Alright. Jinx wasn't going to admit it but that definitely would have made things far more secretive.
"He's an idiot, not a monster," Alchemist disagreed. "If that was my criteria for offing people, I'd never be able to stop unless I destroyed the whole planet."
"...So, what'cha gonna do about it?" Yuffie asked as she loudly smashed the crackers she'd taken to drop powdered cracker crumbs into her soup. "Like, just, go to this Hell place and kill all the demons?"
"Nah. I'm not related to the Taggart or Kane families. I've got a weapon that can kill a demon so thoroughly they don't go back to Hell, though. It'd just be a matter of finishing it and using it on something big enough for everyone to notice."
Jinx bit her lip and considered that. Killing a demon so hard they stay dead wasn't exactly a unique feat. She'd heard about a gun that could do that, something called the 'Ace of Winchester'. And she knew Alchemist's forays into exotic materials had come up with some very unusual results.
But... it sounded like they needed more time just in general.
"...Have you thought about going to any Instant Quests?" Jinx asked. Those were always a fantastic way of finding some free time.
"...I've thought about a few, yeah," Alchemist admitted. "I was considering a farm life one but that might eat a few years. Or I could try my hand at a different one, try and insert my way into a magical school for kids so I could learn the magical secrets they've got, but... those would all take a lot of time."
Jinx sighed and stirred her spoon around in her soup for a moment as she considered things.
Those all sounded...
"Boring!" Yuffie complained, practically shouting.
"Inside voice, Yuf," Alchemist chided the girl.
"Well, they are!" the girl reiterated, though at a much lower volume. "Where are the monsters? The fighting?! The excitement as you triumph over your enemies and leave everyone staring at you in fear and awe!"
"...Okay." Jinx sighed again at Yuffie's outburst. "I've got a suggestion?"
The table went silent as three sets of eyes focused on Jinx.
"...I've been working on getting Limited Wish leveled up and I got it up and unlocked Wish last night. You said we could go to the reality nearby where we could get that Red-X suit, but you wanted to use Wish to 'target' a spot there that's earlier than right now, right?"
"Right," Alchemist agreed with a short nod.
"So... what if I did the targeting? I know Wish and Gate are kind of hard for you right now. What if I did them instead?" Jinx continued, filling the silence. "We could just... go. And we should be able to hop back into -this- timeline right where we left. It should leave a mark, shouldn't it?"
"...Well, it will if you didn't take the Stealth Mage perk," Alchemist slowly said. Jinx could see the gears working behind his eyes as he considered what she said. "But... if you and Kary cast the spell together, that should leave behind a traceable mark."
"So... can we?" Jinx asked, directing her question to Kary. "We could just, y'know, go after we eat. Get the familiars all together, get our stuff ready and just, y'know, go."
"...I have some rather severe reservations," Kary admitted after a moment of silence. "Traversing the space between realities is dangerous at the best of times and only Alchemist is suited for it, given his nature. Utilizing such a method to manipulate time is... I have never heard of someone doing so, but I do understand your logic. With that said, though, only chronomancers and Time Dragons are usually willing to undertake such a risk."
Kary clearly had more to say but she held back for a moment to eat a spoonful of soup. She clearly chewed over what she was thinking, along with the chunk of chicken, before she continued.
"...I will help with this venture," Kary agreed after a long moment of thought. "I must admit, I am curious to see whether or not it is at all possible."
"...Alright," Alchemist nodded and Jinx could tell he had his own reservations. "We'll eat, get the familiars together, get the dolls; anything else we need to do?" Nobody spoke up so Alchemist nodded again. "Alright. We'll give this a try here in a bit."
Jinx looked down and focused on her food.
She'd been looking forward to this. For a while, truth be told. And she wanted to pull it off for much the same reason that Alchemist probably did.
She wanted time. Time to work on her enchanting. Time to work on her spells. Time to build up her own demi-plane.
Alchemist had some kind of plan for Olympus that involved stripping away whatever allies Zeus might have at his side. Jinx...
Jinx didn't care about Athena, Poseidon or Hades or the others. She wanted to break the god, break his power, break his body, ruin absolutely everything about the man.
And if the others wanted to get in her way?
Jinx swallowed thickly, chicken and vegetables sliding down her throat slowly.
If the other gods would get in her way?
She'd break them, too.
-----
Tiffany White felt... adrift. Everywhere she went, the sounds were muffled. The colors duller. The temperature in her house felt... cold. Even when the furnace was running.
The laughter in the kitchen, between her mom, her dad and Dave's ex-wife, Becky, felt like someone was dragging a razor against her mind.
She hadn't- She couldn't- She didn't-
Tiffany barely remembered walking out. She barely remembered a mumbled 'bye' to her older brother and her younger sister, parked in front of the television and staring as the news ran a story about some child queen being bedridden.
It had been a few days and her powers still hadn't come back. There was progress, she'd gotten something like one-hundred thousand files out of more than a million 'downloaded'. Somehow.
She'd tried using some of her skills, like Robin suggested, but while she could feel them, sort of, she still couldn't force them to manifest.
She was just dead weight. A liability. The cold December air bit deeper into her than it had before, walking or running left her feeling exhausted instead of just leaving her with a slight burn that would swiftly fade.
Tiffany still had the Aurore suit that Alchemist had given her, and wearing it did make her feel stronger and faster but it was nowhere near the power her own stats had given her.
When she still had stats.
But the Aurore suit and the adamantine short swords were all that Tiffany was left with. She couldn't get at her inventory, couldn't pull out any other weapons, armor, tools or food.
She was useless. She knew it, she felt it and she knew the others were all aware of her 'difficulties' by now.
So... she'd declined going on the mission that Batman had called people in for, today. Something about someone named Deadshot and some middle-eastern guy.
She couldn't do anything. She couldn't contribute. She couldn't help. 'Player One' would just... get in the way.
Tiffany was in the middle of a pity party and she knew it. It was what her mom called it when Tiffany had tried talking to her about her powers being gone. Or turned off.
Whatever.
Her mom... She'd just said it was 'good'. That Tiffany could just go back to being a normal girl, focus on her schoolwork and worry about her grades instead of gallivanting off with crazy men in tights.
There was an itch in the back of Tiffany's mind at hearing those things. A quiet, sinister little voice telling her that there was a way to dull those feelings. That she could just... track down someone doing something a little bit naughty and they wouldn't report her if she beat them up and took their stash for herself.
It wouldn't be hard. Not with what she'd learned. She'd been taught how to track and hunt people. She knew that Tom and Jerry both were still stoners. Finding them wouldn't be hard. Hunting down their dealer would be easier. Violence or theft, both would get her what she-
Tiffany jerked in shock at seeing not just Alchemist but also Jinx and Kary in front of the Gotham Memorial Graveyard. Her previously spiraling thoughts were forgotten and replaced with naked curiosity at seeing the gray-skinned girl walking around and holding a chunk of some kind of crystal dangling from a thin chain.
The girl pursed her lips in thought, then abruptly un-pursed them as her teeth chattered in the cold. Hustling as much as she could with a heavy pair of boots on, Tiffany rushed to catch up with them.
"Hey!" she shouted, drawing three sets of eyes. "Hey! Uh... hey. What are you doing?"
"We're looking for a weak point in reality," Alchemist explained, waving with one hand towards the graveyard before pointing to the crystal Jinx was messing with. "We've got an idea for a Gate experiment but we think starting some place where the walls are already a bit thinner will help out."
"...Huh," Tiffany muttered.
That wasn't what she'd been expecting. At all. She did have the Gate spell herself, technically. It was part of her System.
Which wasn't working at the moment.
So, really, she didn't actually have the Gate spell.
"Why would it be in a graveyard?" Tiffany asked as she followed the group through the wrought iron gates.
"They're a sort of nexus," Kary explained, her head swiveling back and forth. "Humans inter their dead for the sake of offering a gentle repose to their souls. The idea is that they can peacefully move on to the next stage in their existence. Doing so once or twice would be inconsequential but dozens? Hundreds? Thousands?"
Jinx stopped moving forward and spun in a lazy circle, Tiffany could see that her eyes were locked on the crystal that looked like it was shifting in the wind.
...Except it was only jerking in one direction. Into the wind.
"Gotham itself is a nexus of nexuses. A super-nexus, or macro-nexus, I guess," Alchemist said as he took over the explanation. "Quite a lot of things simply come and go, here. Good, evil, living, dead and other. Mostly evil, mostly other. It's left a mark on Gotham itself."
"...I guess that explains a few things?" Tiffany... had no idea what they were talking about. "So, why do you need to find some kind of weak spot? Won't the spell do all the work?"
"We're trying to cover a bit more distance than the spell was initially made for, in a manner of speaking," Alchemist explained. Sort of. It didn't really explain a whole lot. "Think of the Gate spell as a sort of... tunnel. It creates a safe passage between different planes, realities and dimensions. Not unlike a Zeta Tube, really. But the reality the Gate spell was made in was actually very close to its neighbors, enough so that natural Gates would form."
Okay, that actually did explain things. Sort of.
They were trying to have an easier time breaking out of their reality so the spell could more easily cover a longer distance. Which the spell wasn't really designed for.
That wasn't so complicated, really.
"Well, what about-"
"Shush!" Jinx shouted as she walked around a spot, free of snow and worn down to the bare soil, in front of the old Wayne mausoleum. Her little crystal thing was actually rotating on its string so it could keep pointing at that specific spot. "I think I found the crack."
"Very well," Kary said as she stepped up and circled the spot alongside Jinx, a considering look in her sparkling green eyes. "Jinx, are you ready?"
"One second," the pinkette said as she inhaled deeply through her nose and then held her left hand out to the fallen angel. "Alright. I've only ever done this with Alchemist, though."
"It's alright," Kary said with a laugh. "I'll be gentle."
"...What are they doing?" Tiffany had to ask as the two girls held hands, their free hands held palms-up at the 'crack' they were focused on.
"Combining their efforts on the Gate spell," Alchemist told her. He had an intense look on his face and Tiffany noticed his eyes twitching, as though he were seeing something that she definitely wasn't. "...Take a step back."
Tiffany wasn't used to hearing Alchemist actually make a demand but she obeyed regardless. In no small part because he did the exact same as he'd just told her to.
In front of them, a... hole, of sorts, ripped itself into existence. It was moving, the edges of the tear in space undulated grossly and a slight vacuum was pulling at the snow and dead bouquets that littered the area, drawing into a vortex of light and noise.
"...You're going to have to hurry!" Jinx shouted over the dull roar that filled the air. "It's not stable!"
"Alright!" Alchemist shouted back as the edges of the Gate wobbled.
There wasn't any flash or anything else of the sort before Alchemist was replaced with a large dragon, black as the night and as large as a horse.
"Wait!" Tiffany shouted as Kary held a hand up to her face to keep her hair out of her eyes and Jinx was in the process of raising her hand to snap her fingers. "Can I come with you?!"
"...Alchemist?!" Jinx shouted, the roar of the Gate growing louder.
"Take her with you!" Alchemist shouted back as he grabbed the edges of the magical hole. "And... go!"
The dragon pulled one hand back and snapped its claws, choking down a scream as a second Gate appeared on the ground. Kary swiftly jumped into it and Jinx roughly grabbed Tiffany's arm, dragging her through Alchemist's Gate-
-and into his demi-plane.
"Wha-oof!" Tiffany landed on her back, hard, and the air was driven from her lungs. "Wha's gho-"
The hole overhead disappeared, leaving the girl with a clear view of the starry sky beyond the edges of the magical realm.
Apparently, it was night inside of the demi-plane.
And... overhead, Tiffany saw something incredible. Impossible.
She saw the stars in the far distance start to move.
