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11/07/2003 (TT)
Alchemist did not, unfortunately, end up making his way to the bath tub.
There just wasn't enough room, not for him and Kary both.
The compromise, however?
"This is nice..." Kary mumbled from her spot draped over his back. The woman had found a red bikini from... somewhere, Alchemist didn't know where, and suggested they soak in the pond instead.
"It iss..." the mage hissed.
Overhead, on the spire rising from the middle of the pond, a massive blue crystal shone with unrestrained power as a steady torrent of water sloughed off of the rotating stone.
The upgraded Water Crystal was, in every conceivable way, superior to having a chained Water Elemental in place. It produced more water, even richer with elemental power, and it shed primordial magic into the reality around it at a rate that was simply astounding.
If Alchemist's math was right, given his observations on the various other weapons or tools he'd gone through the item worlds of, then... if the 'base' Water Crystal had an output of energy equal to '100', then the compounding improvements to the empowered Water Crystal put its output at about '975'. Plus or minus a bit of change, and not factoring in the improvements he'd been able to select on floors thirty, sixty, ninety and one-hundred.
Output plus ten percent, twenty percent, thirty percent and the improvement selected from killing the shark-marine was 'Indestructible'.
Alchemist remembered what happened to the original crystals from Final Fantasy Five. He wasn't going to see that repeated if he could avoid it.
The dragon lounged at the edge of the pond, his chin resting on the ensorcelled stone that encircled everything and kept the eternal water source from flooding.
Floating in the water, Kary laying on his back, the dragon almost felt weightless. Peaceful.
Content.
He wasn't happy, he didn't think. Alchemist had never been particularly good at being happy. But he was... calm. Unconcerned. The anxiety and fear that usually motivated him wasn't so pressing, not at that moment.
"What are you planning to do next, love?" Kary asked, her mouth right next to his ear.
Alchemist closed his eyes for a moment as he considered the question.
He didn't want to go and empower a Fire Crystal, or, well, he did. He just didn't want to do so at the moment. It would be a fantastic opportunity to learn and empower another Absorb spell, to learn the deep intricacies of the Water series of magics. But the Item World was tedious and time consuming. Worthwhile, yes, but... it was work.
The dragon raised a claw up and out of the water, snapping its digits needlessly to enact a minor cantrip.
"I don't know," he admitted in a voice that didn't rasp or hiss on every soft syllable. "There's a lot of work that needs done but... no real order that it needs done in."
The dragon opened his yellow eyes and tilted his head up slightly, turning his eyes to the Light Elemental that pretended to be the sun in his little realm.
"I want to make an Adamantine Golem," Alchemist admitted. "Maybe even an Xth Golem, if I wasn't worried about one of the new gods deciding to harvest the metal for his damned chair. Adamantine Golems given intelligence, free will and a reason to defend the island."
"...That's a rather demanding goal," Kary said. He didn't know if it was just an observation or a critique. "Few artificers would be willing to give free will to so expensive a construct, love."
"...I know," Alchemist said with a sigh as his head drooped back down to the ground. "But they could, should outlive me. I can't help but feel it would be cruel, creating something with the potential of life and then leaving them to do nothing but follow the orders of a dead man for countless millennia. With no ability to choose their own fate."
Kary hummed against him, the vibrations echoed through his scales with an odd tingle. However, she did not comment further. Not on that goal, at least.
"...I need to talk with Batman, too." Which was not something Alchemist was looking forward.
Bruce was a good man. He was even kind, in his own way. He was not, however, a nice man.
"His son is so... angry, here. And I know the both of them are too stubborn for either of them to speak with the other one first." Alchemist sighed in exhaustion, worn out just from thinking about how that encounter could possibly go. "There's no Justice League here, not yet. And it's beyond me to try and get everyone to work together, even with the imminent arrival of a Demon God."
"Hmm..." Kary hummed against him. "How strong has your lightning spell grown, love?"
Alchemist carefully reached in front of himself and opened a system window, navigating through the various bits and menus until he had his Skill tab open.
~~ -Thunder (200) ~~
~~ –Thunder I~VI ~~
~~ –Thundaga I~III ~~
~~ –Thundaja I, II ~~
...The final entry was new, actually. Alchemist was going to assume he'd gotten it when Thunder had hit level two-hundred. Pressing a claw against the roman numeral for two, a new window opened on top of the current one.
~~ Thundaja II- A cumulative spell which deals lightning damage of incomparable strength!
When a target is first struck, they recieve a debuff which increases damage from (Thundaja I, II) by (10)%. Each successive casting which hits afflicted targets within (120) seconds deals (10)% more damage.
Cost: (796) MP.
Range: AoE (15) meters around target.
Casting time: (9) seconds.
Recast time: (55) seconds. ~~
...That was ridiculous. It wasn't even funny.
"...Potent," Kary said as she read the window over Alchemist's shoulder. She reached across, stretching to touch the window and press a finger against one of the numbers bracketed in parentheses. Upon doing so, a third window opened on top of the spell description which showed a number of modifiers affecting a value before showing a total at the bottom of the screen that differed from what was in the description.
Alchemist's perks doubled the damage buff of the spell, doubled the duration, did some confusing things to the cost before it came back around to zero thanks to his equipment, which also cut the casting time down to three seconds...
And he had nothing that changed the recast time.
"Three seconds is a long time in a fight, though," Alchemist said as he double checked the various numbers. "I don't even know what kind of level that spell would be considered. Wish costs a third of what it does."
The synergy that spell had with the various echo or repeat effects that Alchemist had was phenomenal, amazing even, but the recast time disqualified the spell from being repeated within Chaincast.
Though, if that was indicative of the level of direct power that could be drawn from the other elements... Using all six elemental spells of that caliber would probably be noticeable to a god. But that would demand that Alchemist stand reasonably still for eighteen seconds.
Or adding the lesser version, Thundaja I, to keep bolstering the damage bonus? Then he'd just need three sets of spells to get maximum effect.
Alchemist shrugged, shifting Kary along his back before he closed the various windows that had been opened.
He'd been taking a break from getting any more epic perks but there really wasn't anything stopping him from taking a few more levels of Automatic Quicken. There might even be something in there for recast times, now that the wizard thought of it.
"So, love?" Kary asked as she wiggled along the dragon's back and into a more comfortable position. "How were you planning to handle the Batman this time around?"
"That..." Alchemist actually paused as he considered his answer. "...Is a very good question."
-----
Robin felt exhausted, emotionally, when he and the other three Titans finally made it back to the tower. He was hot, sweaty and worse, the stink of failure clung to him and the others.
The Boy Wonder moved something green and fuzzy out of the way in the fridge to grab a six pack of soda, the whole thing, which he brought with him back to the living room slash operations center of the tower. He split a can of cold soda off for everyone else, Starfire, Raven and Beast Boy before dropping bonelessly in the middle of the couch with the remaining three cans.
"...That su~ucked, bro," Beast Boy was the first to speak up. The green teen, slouched in a corner of the couch, looked bedraggled and defeated. Robin felt for him, he really did. "That girl was just running circles around us."
Honestly? Beast Boy was probably the worst off out of everyone. He'd been the one doing the most, physically, to try and catch up with Levia-chan. Flying as a hawk, running as a cheetah, turning into a giant bird to try and match the girl's steed.
When Beast Boy had finally turned back into a human, he'd thrown up and been too tired to make his own way back to the tower. The lanky boy had ended up clutching to Robin's back as the martial artist rode his bike home.
"...It could have been worse," Raven commented as she held her can against one of her cheeks. "At least Levia wasn't trying to break anything. Or anyone."
Robin nodded as he cracked open his soda and took a long pull of sweet, bubbly corn syrup and artificial flavorings.
"...Yeah," he agreed. "That was embarrassing but at least nobody got hurt."
And the property damage was minimal, really. The East end of the city didn't have too many residential buildings and what was there was mostly abandoned. Honestly, the police that had tried to interfere had caused more damage.
"...I do not believe Friend Cyborg would agree," Starfire hesitantly offered. She held her cola in her hands but made no motion to open it. "He was most furious."
The language Cyborg had used to complain about Levia-chan, her steed, her parentage and her general level of intelligence was... not something Robin intended on repeating. And there was a reason that Cyborg wasn't with the rest of them in the tower.
"He'll be fine." Robin hoped he would, anyway. "Give him some time to hit a car wash and cool off, he'll calm down."
For a moment, everything was silent in the tower. Starfire was depressed, Beast Boy was slowly recovering from being so worn out that he'd literally gotten sick, Raven switched the can from one crimson cheek to the other.
Sure, things had gone bad but nobody was hurt. Robin had enough time during the ride back to reach that conclusion. To box up and shove aside his own frustrations and hurt feelings.
There hadn't even been any damage. Levia-chan and her massive bird didn't shatter any windows or destroy any cars. They'd made a mess of Cyborg's truck and probably warped the hood but Robin wasn't sure that anyone but Cyborg would be able to tell. The older teen was a bit of a car nut, he'd sometimes talk about his plans to build his own car, but at the moment Cyborg was just using an old, beat-up pickup truck.
With a quiet sigh, Robin pulled the remote out from between the couch cushions, where Cyborg had left it, and pressed the power button. It took him a moment to flip through the channels to find something that everyone was willing to watch, though none of them particularly enjoyed.
The news.
"-a video on our own news forum by poster P_1gaming showcased several members of local superhero team, the Titanic Teens, struggling to apprehend what appears to be a large chicken!" the newscaster onscreen said. As she did so, a video began to play in the upper righthand corner.
It was a scene Robin was familiar with. It was a scene of him launching off of his bike in a bid to kick the giant bird in the head.
"As you can see, local teen hero 'Cardinal'? attempted to assault the large chicken and its masked rider. Our local contact with the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals condemned these actions, as well as those that followed."
The scene onscreen moved in fast forward, going to the part where Robin got on Beast Boy's back after he transformed into a green version of whatever that giant bird was.
"Luckily, it appears the young child accosted by our local heroes managed to escape after their frightening encounter with 'Andro-boy'. We have, as of yet, heard no response from the Titanic Teens but we'll keep our viewers posted as the story updates!"
"...They literally got all of the details wrong," Beast Boy said, shock in his voice as he leaned forward to stare incredulously at the screen.
"...I don't think that could have been more insulting if they'd actually tried," Raven commented acidly.
"...That wasn't too bad, honestly," Robin admitted with an amused grin. "I've been featured in worse. They even had video, this time!"
Robin let the continuing complaints of his teammates was over him. If they knew even half of how bad a hatchet job Vicky Vale could do?
They'd be laughing at the incompetence of the local news team, too.
-----
Within a dimly lit room, surprisingly close to the excitement that had just taken place in the increasingly depressed eastern edge of Jump City, a man sat upon an office chair and watched the very same video that the majority of the Teen Titans were currently viewing.
He'd been quite aware of the actions of the numerous overpowered children; four of them had come to his attention as he'd been keeping his eye on the fifth.
Yes, the video of the three boys was... amusing. And he was quite sure that somebody would appreciate the brief glimpse of the two superpowered girls, floating in the air that the cameraman had caught.
Why one of the girls that flew insisted upon wearing a skirt, he truly did not comprehend.
But most surprising to him had been the rider of the giant bird. A young girl, he was fairly sure, wearing red and blue scale mail along with a red visor shaped to look somewhat like a pointed beak.
The man's lone eye stared with malicious intent, watching and re-watching the altercation between the girl and Robin. The young man's aggression held so much promise. The willingness to strike first, to target the most obvious weak points...
Yes, the boy could go far. He just needed a little bit of retraining.
Still...
A single, dark eye narrowed in consideration as the girl caught Robin's foot and redirected his momentum. It was an impossibly smooth maneuver. Especially her ability to do so without actually harming Robin. Such an action should have, at the very least, sprained either the boy's ankle or knee.
The fact that the girl managed to steal his boot before subsequently returning it was... amusing. And incredibly interesting.
Deathstroke the Terminator, Slade Wilson, set the short video to repeat again and leaned forward. He placed his elbows on the table in front of his computer and joined his hands together in a fist beneath his chin.
Robin continued to prove most promising... but it seemed as though he might need to keep his eye on this 'Levia-chan' as well.
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