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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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20/07/2003 (TT)
The five teens, most dressed in sleepwear provided by their host, sat around the 'living room' of the cabin they'd been permitted to use for the duration of their stay.
Cyborg took up the entirety of the futon with his bulk. He was the only one not wearing any actual clothes, nothing could fit his massive frame.
Raven sat in a rather plush chair situated at the end opposite of the doorway into the house. She'd been given an over-large tee shirt with a skull wearing a red helmet on it and a pair of black sweat pants. Judging by how much she had to tuck things in or tighten things up, those probably belonged to Kar'Yashlan.
Starfire hovered in the air. Her purple shirt was the opposite to Raven's, it was too short to fully cover her torso. If she stretched upwards, it lifted just high enough to expose her belly button. The pink sweatpants she'd been given were similarly too short, though they were loose enough that the cuffs didn't cling to her calves.
Robin sat opposite to Raven and had a shirt that was similar to Raven's; a skull wearing a blue helmet and the boy was practically swimming in it. His sweatpants, grey, were equally oversized and had to be drawn incredibly tight to actually stay on him.
Beast Boy... was just wearing a pair of heart print boxers and sat cross legged on the floor.
He, unlike the others, had absolutely no shame.
"So, what do we know?" Robin started off, asking the most basic question that would lead to more. "Do we have any ideas on how they got into the tower and took out the power?"
"Not yet," Cyborg admitted as he leaned forward and placed his elbows on his knees. "You were hurt and I had to do some maintenance last night once the workshop got freed up. We basically retreated at the first chance we had."
"A tactical retreat was most wise," Starfire commented. Like Beast Boy, she sat cross-legged. She was just doing so in the air. "Facing foes who have succeeded in claiming a tactically important facility is crucial, yes, but it must be done with both proper plans and rested forces. Otherwise we would likely have lost twice."
Robin tapped at his knee with one hand and pursed his lips in thought. Starfire was right, Cyborg was, too. It wasn't a decision he would've made if he'd been in any shape to make it but he could see how an immediate counter attack could have gone poorly.
"So we need to figure out how they got in, how they took out the power and how to take control of the tower back," Robin said, listing out what they needed to do. "Any ideas?"
"That's gonna be on me for the most part," Cyborg admitted with a sigh. "I'm gonna have to get in contact with the companies that supplied a lot of the parts for the security system and do some testing. I'm betting Gizmo discovered a Day Zero Exploit somewhere and managed to fake a set of administrative credentials. I can patch it when I find it, assumin' he didn't fill the hole behind him when he got done."
Robin nodded as Cyborg spoke. He could read code, he could even do some hacking, but Cyborg was a specialist compared to Robin being a generalist.
"We won't leave all the work to you, big guy," Beast Boy chimed in with a toothy grin. "I know a few ways into the tower that you don't! I can do some recon, get an idea of what the terrible trio are up to. Ooh! Maybe you could even give me a floppy with a virus or something to take down the security from the inside!"
The conversation petered to a brief halt as Yuffie stumbled up the stairs, her hair sticking almost straight up on one side. The girl blearily looked at them, waved, mumbled something that sounded like 'G'm'rn'n' and walked out the door. Behind her, a little cloud of fog dogged her heels.
The teens felt a brief moment of confusion as a pair of green eyes glowed from within the little cloud and hissed out "Stu'hid!" at them before darting after the girl.
"...I guess the baby dragon actually can talk," Raven idly commented.
"...She is most mean," Starfire said with a pout as she crossed her arms. "We are not the 'stu'hid'."
"...Speaking of our 'hosts'," Robin said, blatantly changing the subject. "Does anyone else think it's especially convenient that they're in Jump City at just the right time to offer to help us out?"
"Eh," Beast Boy grunted out and waved his hand in a so-so motion. "They've been here for weeks and mostly avoided us. Kinda got the feeling that they're up to something, sure, but it's probably some kind of magic stuff. Besides, dude, dragon-dad doesn't really seem to care much about us one way or the other. He's just letting us stay here 'cuz Levia-Chan asked."
Robin... slowly nodded at that. It really did make sense, he supposed. The man had been pleasant enough, cordial and willing to answer any questions posed to him, but he didn't really go out of his way to interact with any of them.
"He's working on magical capacitors," Raven chimed in. When everyone turned to look at the girl, she just shrugged at the attention. "I wanted to ask what he knew about some prophecies that would be happening around now. He seemed pretty aware of what was going on. Then I asked what he was working on and he explained it to me. Some kind of gemstone that can store magic, devised by a culture that would use them to trap souls and starlight."
"...I'm sorry," Beast Boy cut in as Raven stopped to breathe. "Did you seriously just say that this guy can steal souls!?"
"...A lot of magicians can?" Raven... Robin didn't know if that was a statement or a question. "He said the one he was working on making was useless to the society that made it because they could only store one soul at a time, and only up to a certain size. That manually charging them was faster and more efficient, but also largely unknown to that society because of cultural drift."
"...Did he say anything else on the topic?" Cyborg asked as he raised a massive hand to massage the bridge of his nose.
"Yeah," Raven admitted. "He said that the guy who devised what he was making was equivalent to a Nazi. And that modern society is still using techniques that those people discovered and developed, even if we're not researching them the same way."
That...
Well, that was true. It didn't make Robin feel any less uneasy, not at all, but it was true.
"So it ain't just magic," Cyborg's voice wasn't really directed at anyone. More, it seemed as though the teen was thinking out loud. "It's magic being looked at through the lens of science. Don't think I've heard of too many folks doin' that."
"Nah, bro. Most magic users are just some crazy losers in robes- No offense, Rae!" Beast Boy was quick to try and apologize.
"Some taken."
"-who just try and summon up some demon that they read about in some musty old book. Not really a whole lotta science there."
"That... does seem to happen a lot," Robin admitted as some vague and strangely foggy memories tried to surface. "Does it always seem like it's the same book?"
"...Maybe?" Beast Boy admitted with a pensive hum. "I think so. I swear, there were, like, three different cults that I helped stop and they were all trying to summon the same thing. It never worked but, ugh, it was always a mess."
The room went silent for a long minute. Some of the teens were trying to bring up some strangely distant memories while some of the others looked confused.
One, in particular, seemed rather nervous though they did an admirable job maintaining their composure.
"So, game plan," Robin finally said after giving up on figuring out what he was forgetting. "Cyborg will be looking into the security system while Beast Boy is running recon on the tower. I'll make a few calls and start trying to dig up what I can on our assailants. Raven, Starfire, what do you want to assist with?"
"I can phase through the walls to break into the tower," Raven explained. "But I don't know the best way to implement that. I'll need you or Cyborg to help me plan that out."
The two aforementioned teens nodded. That would be a valuable tool for infiltrating or performing a sneak attack.
"I would like to refresh myself on physical combat," Starfire admitted. "I fear my training has grown lax these last few months without a proper foe to hone myself against. I will ask the residents of this realm for assistance."
Robin... didn't much like that, no.
But he also wouldn't say that it surprised him, either.
-----
Walking upstairs, Tiffany felt... nervous. And anxious. But, more than either of those things, she felt...
Hungry.
Grabbing a bowl, filling it with cereal and milk, Tiffany shuffled her way into the dining room where Yuffie and Jinx were already working on their own meals. Yuffie had some runny eggs over rice and Jinx was happily munching on some fresh fruit while she was reading a scroll of something or other.
"Hey," she greeted the other two unenthusiastically.
"Good morning," Jinx offered in return, far too bright and happy for whatever hour it was.
"M'rnin'," Yuffie offered back, clearly still half asleep.
There was a sort of muted silence between the three as they ate for a bit, the sounds of crunching and chewing only broken up by the sparring outside.
"Open your eyes to the darkness, and drown in its loveless embrace. The gods will not be watching," Alchemist extolled from outside as blue light crashed through the dining room window, followed by a pained grunt from Kary.
"Sword magic?!" the fallen angel cried, clear enough to be heard through the window. "When did you start learning sword magic!?"
"...You know, one of the people that the teens fought was the local version of you," Tiffany finally got out towards Jinx when she was about halfway done with her cereal. "Skinnier, though. Meaner, too."
"I've met her," the dragon admitted. "She's loyal to her group, I'll give her that, but I don't think the school is good for her."
"Is it good for anyone?" Tiffany asked, more curious than snarky.
"Actually? Yeah. Kind of," Jinx took a bite out of an orange, peel and all, and swallowed after barely chewing. "I've been looking and I can't find any of its graduates going on to do anything important but... kids like Gizmo? The tinker? There's no way he'd be able to stretch what he can do in a normal school."
Tiffany considered that as Alchemist screamed in pain outside. Kary was probably treating him a bit more seriously after he'd done whatever it was that he did.
"So's, like, ninja school?" Yuffie asked as she used a pair of chopsticks to stir her gooey food.
"...Like the one Ra's Al-Ghul runs?" Tiffany asked as she tried to picture how that would work.
The conversation paused momentarily as the three girls heard the fridge slam shut in the kitchen, followed by the clacking of claws as Reis sauntered past them, a bowl of leftover fish balanced in between the horns on her head.
Not a single one of them was willing to question how she'd done it. Tiffany just hoped that the hellhounds couldn't replicate the feat.
They would get so, so fat if they had unrestricted access to food.
"No," Yuffie denied once she was a bit more awake. "Like, like, like a middleschool where they teach ninja stuff. Y'know, how to feel your inner chakra, how to do some basic ninja techniques, rope work and throwing stuff. How to ninja."
"...Sounds like some kind of Buddhist monk thing to me," Tiffany admitted after a few seconds of trying to imagine what Yuffie had said and pretty much just getting stuck on 'Chakra'. "I thought ninjas were supposed to be infiltrators and disguise artists and stuff."
"They are!" the indignant little princess shouted as she slammed her hands on the table. "The best ninja could totally sneak into anywhere and do what they had to do and nobody would know they ever did it!"
"...Which is kind of the opposite of what you want," Jinx commented as she set her scroll down to look at the girl. "You want everyone to know how awesome you are, right?"
"...Yeah?" Yuffie asked, obviously not comprehending the difference between what she said she wanted and what she said ninja did.
"Well, if the best ninja is really the best ninja, then nobody knows anything about them," Jinx explained. "Whereas what you want to actually do sounds like some kind of weapon-fist-wizardry thing."
Tiffany stared at Yuffie as Yuffie stared at Jinx. Jinx, in contrast, simply picked up her orange and stuffed the rest of the fruit into her mouth.
"...You're making sense," Yuffie said, the words coming out slowly. "...I don't like it."
Tiffany stifled a snort at the exchange.
As more blue lights flickered outside, Tiffany felt the knot of tension from the night before, sitting in the center of her gut, start to unwind. Just a little bit.
At least she couldn't say that she was stuck being bored, here.
-----
Alchemist panted in exhaustion. His arms burned with fatigue as he sluggishly raised his blade in a basic parry-
*Klang!*
-that Kary almost lazily knocked out of the way.
Sweat poured down the man's face, crimson with exertion, and his ragged breaths took a wheeze out of him with every painful second.
"What have we learned?" Kary asked, her tone mild as she pushed away Alchemist's feeble efforts to raise some kind of guard with the flat of her own blade.
His fingers felt numb and his wrists ached, throbbing with every beat of his heart.
"That I-" Alchemist wheezed, fire burning in his chest, "-that I need more practice with the sword arts."
"Well... yes," Kary agreed. The fallen angel took a step back as Alchemist forced his arms back up, forced his weapon back into a ready stance.
A single casting of Heal would ease his difficulties, wash away the worst of the exhaustion. But it would also defeat the purpose of sparring so harshly, muddle the results of pushing himself and the technique he was using.
The mage tried to focus, his elbows bent through the stiffness as he swung-
And a blue, phantasmal fang ripped out of the ground! The object arced, the tip aiming right for Kary's chest!
Just to miss as the woman stepped to the side.
"You didn't answer me before, love," Kary stated as she watched the thing, one part construct and one part pure magic, retract like the claw of a cat back into the untouched soil. "Where did you come across such obscure teachings? I could never find a master of these sword arts in Sigil."
"Odin," Alchemist gasped out as he swayed on his feet. He held on to his sword, dull as it may have been, through nothing more than pure willpower. The man stumbled to the side, catching himself against the trunk of one of his fruit trees. "I did- I did him a favor, and he embedded the instructions on a weapon. Or... no. It was the other way around."
The wizard's vision was blurry and he could feel a headache forming.
He knew the dark arts of the Fell Blade drained at the vitality of the user but he'd thought it would be fine. The mage had handled grueling death-marches through foul, fetid swamps in the past and been left capable of fighting on.
Alchemist had been wrong.
Fell Strike, the only skill that Alchemist had been willing to field against Kary in a spar, was supposed to drain the magic from a foe. It wasn't harmless, per se, but against her it literally could not be lethal.
And the cost of every strike was that Alchemist was left feeling like he'd just done a hundred-meter sprint.
Doable. Repeatable. Exhausting, however, if performed in succession.
"...I think we're done for the day," Kary admitted with a put upon sigh. "I'm surprised, love. I'd have expected you to try such a maneuver sooner."
"...I wanted to surprise you," Alchemist admitted as he held his free hand out and focused on the spell he needed. He snapped his fingers and was lit up with the brilliant, beautiful light of Heal. The countless welts and contusions on his body and face slowly melted away, leaving unblemished skin behind. "But I didn't think you'd be impressed if I threw around fancy techniques while my fundamentals were still so rough."
"...Love?" Kary asked with another sigh as she stepped against him and wrapped her arms around him. She hummed quietly against him as he returned the gesture. "It will be a century, at the very least, before I consider your form to be anything close to acceptable."
"With that said, love?" she whispered into his hair. "You've improved so much more than I could have expected in so short a time."
"...You just enjoy having someone to beat on that keeps coming back."
"...Maybe." He could literally feel her smile, the way her chin was pressed against his forehead.
"You are most adorable!" a high-pitched, unpleasantly teenaged voice shouted. "To be warriors in love is the greatest ideal upon Tameran!"
Kary pulled away with a tired sigh and freed up enough of Alchemist's vision to see Starfire, wearing the clothes Jinx had been kind enough to offer.
"Princess Koriand'r," Alchemist greeted, as cordial as he could be given the interruption. "Did you need something?"
"Yes! I would most like to request your assistance in a matter most dire!" the girl explained with far, far too much enthusiasm. "I find the implements of Earth to be very fragile but the training weapons you both use seem most sturdy. I would be most pleased to barter for such tools!"
Alchemist pursed his lips in thought for a moment as he tilted his head down to look at the blunted sword he'd been using. It had initially just been a normal iron sword he'd found on Solstheim before he'd rounded off the edge and Converted it to Darksteel.
Lesser materials had a tendency to, well, snap under the force that he and Kar'Yashlan would put them under. And, while he could fix that? It would completely throw off the flow of training.
"Love?" Kary asked as she held out her free hand, palm up. Alchemist twisted his sword around with a quick flick and held it out to her, hilt first. "Thank you."
Kary gently took the weapon from his hand-
Then twisted, sending it careening towards Starfire at speeds that had the wind whistling in its passing!
But Starfire, being a deft hand at warfare, simply tilted her head to the side and grabbed the hilt as the sword spun past her ear, several red hairs falling to the ground.
"Impress me," the fallen angel demanded, her blade pointed tip-first at the princess in an open challenge. "And I will see you armed."
"...You mean me," Alchemist grumbled with good humor, a small smile on his lips as he was ignored. "I'll see her armed."
The mage slid to the ground, his back against the apple tree, as Starfire lunged forward, ready to earn herself a weapon.
As steel rang against steel, as both women bore bloodthirsty grins, the mage sat back to watch and wait.
The battle would prove educational, he was sure of it.
