Project: Gamer Ver. 2 Alpha Build 3.0.2
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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21/07/2003 (TT)
Alchemist hummed quietly to himself as he stood at the stove the morning after his discussion with Bruce. He idly stirred the eggs in the pan as he considered his options.
They'd talked, for quite a while, under the cool rain as they kept a pair of idle eyes on the Falcone duo. The Batman in the Teen Titans reality didn't often venture outside of Gotham unless he was dealing with one of his personal Rogues. Most of the heroes didn't, really.
But that sense of territorialism needed to be tempered, and not just in Bruce. Alchemist hadn't said as such to the man, however. Batman's personality was obstinate and defiant; demanding anything of him might see it done, possibly, but in such a way as to defeat the purpose and leave everyone feeling hurt or stupid afterwards.
Discussing the villains that Alchemist knew would be going after the teens, however, that was something that they could do.
The unwanted leftovers of a Frenchman, the Brain. The rogue actress with split personality disorder, Madame Rouge. The abusive monster that would cuckold his own child, Deathstroke the Terminator. Brother Blood and his delusions of competency. The possibility of reprisal from such alien forces as the Gordanians from the Vega Sector...
There were more. So many more. Far more than Alchemist or Bruce had time to talk about. The mage was sure that Batman knew what he was doing but the billionaire was willing to humor him and that was enough.
At least, Alchemist hoped so.
The wizard chewed on the inside of his cheek as he tilted the pan and flipped the eggs over. Picking up a small bowl next to the stove, the wizard carefully spread a mix of seared vegetables and mushrooms along one half of the sheet of egg before topping them with a thick slice of cheddar. Folding that over, the mage took the pan off the heat and put a glass lid overtop of it.
"Something smells wonderful, love," a husky voice whispered into the man's ear as a pair of arms wrapped around him from behind.
"Working on some omelettes, hon," Alchemist explained as he placed a hand over Kary's.
"That smells good, too," she teased before pressing her lips against his neck, just under his ear.
The man shuddered slightly, a small tremor running through his frame. He loved the contact, he enjoyed the casual affection but a part of him still just wasn't used to it. He didn't know if he ever would be.
"Go have a seat," he told the woman as he pulled away to start setting the table. "I'll have everything ready in a minute. Just need to prepare a box for our guests."
She squeezed him against her front for a moment before letting go and leaving the room.
Alchemist used Shades to conjure a small Earth Elemental and sent it off to the cabin with the Teen Titans whilst he got breakfast set out and ready.
Yuffie made her way in, eventually, with a slurred "G'mornin'," and took her seat.
Jinx, unfortunately, was not present. She'd had to return to her dorm sometime after he'd left the night before.
Tiffany did make her way upstairs, however. As a teenager, the allure of food was likely too much for her to resist.
The man wasted no time in divying up breakfast. Mushroom, bell pepper and cheese omelets with an assortment of fresh fruits and orange juice.
"So," Alchemist began as he sat down and began to cut apart an apple. "Anyone have any plans for the day?"
"I think I would enjoy exploring the beach, love," Kary answered as she imitated him with an apple of her own. "I overheard our guests talk about strange, alien technology washing ashore from the ship they built their home upon."
"...I'unno," Yuffie said. The girl was in the process of pouring soy sauce on her eggs. "I don't really have any plans, I guess."
"...I don't know, either," Tiffany admitted after swallowing a mouthful of food. "I kind of want to take a break from enchanting, though. Maybe work on something else for a bit?"
"Alright," Alchemist told the girl before he bit into an apple slice. He chewed and swallowed before continuing. "What's your favorite element?"
"What?" Tiffany asked.
"Fire, water, wind, earth, lightning, light and dark. What's your favorite element?" Alchemist asked again, listing off the options available for the girl.
"Water!" Yuffie exclaimed.
"Fire!" Ash shouted from under the table.
"Fire!" Cinder echoed. Also from under the table.
"...Wind?" Tiffany half-asked, certainly confused by the unexplained question.
Alchemist looked to Kary but the woman silently raised one eye-brow rather than answer.
"Alright, so one water, two fire and one wind," Alchemist said aloud as he opened the game shop and began to type. "How about we try Tiffany first and see how things work out? If things go alright, we'll outfit everyone else, too."
The man's finger hovered over an entry, one that was listed as having no cost, before simply pressing down on it.
For a moment, nothing happened-
~~ Tutorial Egg: Wind has been acquired! ~~
-until the purchased item was simply deposited into the inventory. The wizard extracted the object, a massive crystalline egg that was almost as large as his head and tinted with a subtle shade of green, and set it down on the table in front of everyone.
"...What is that thing supposed to be?" Tiffany asked.
"...A demi-god in stasis?" Kary asked before Alchemist could put together an answer. "Love? How did you come across such a thing?"
"My patron said she took over the realities these entities called home when their creator god died," Alchemist explained as he poked at the crystal. Which did nothing. "At this stage, they're honestly weaker than a lot of mindless beasts. One of them even died from being too close to... air that was being pumped into the world from their native reality? I think?"
...The Mist from Legend of Legaia was known among the Ra-Seru, entities just like the egg that Alchemist had purchased, as being the 'Breath of Rogue'. Which, despite being phrased as a singular entity, was actually a conglomerate of other Ra-Seru which had rebelled against the purpose placed upon them by their creator deity, Tieg.
Yes, it borrowed heavily from the story beats of the Bible's creation myth in that aspect.
"So barely even a demi-god," Alchemist continued as he pressed one finger flat against the large, transparent crystal. He channeled a trickle of magic into the object and the green glow within grew stronger. "Terra said that she took a bunch of them and repurposed them to act as instructors for Gamers like Tiffany and I."
"Hold up," Tiffany said, heat in her voice as she put her silverware down on the table. "You mean there's actually a manual for our powers?!"
"Not quite, no," Alchemist disagreed as the light solidified into a green orb inside of the egg. "I'm supposed to go over the manual and make sure it works."
Against his better judgement, Alchemist dispelled Mind Blank so the entity could actually communicate with him.
The egg began to break apart, the crystal cracking into dust, which faded to nothingness, as the light within began to take form. The forming mass hovered in the air above the table and turned towards Alchemist.
'Chosen Champion,' the roiling shape spoke in an airy, feminine voice, its words echoing within his mind. 'Hold out your dominant hand so that we may explore the depths of our power!'
"Two things, sweetie," Alchemist disagreed immediately. "You're looking at the wrong person. Turn a bit and look at the blond girl."
The mass slowly turned in the air, its form slowly becoming a vague glove instead of just a glowing orb.
'And the other?' it asked as it observed the girl.
"I wipe my ass with my dominant hand," Alchemist explained. "I don't think you want to be involved in that."
"...Seriously?" Tiffany asked, disgust in her voice as Yuffie started laughing. "That's just-"
'Champion,' the repurposed godling spoke. 'I am Terra, the Dancer of the Wind. Would you open your heart and soul to me, as I shall you? Would you join me as we learn the depths of our strength and the limits of our world?'
"...Yes." Tiffany swallowed thickly. The entity was expressing more than words as it spoke. The creature's emotions were on full display and they were...
Alchemist honestly found them overwhelming.
He'd never felt hope and faith so intensely, not his own.
'Then, champion, hold out your non-dominant hand so that we may walk the future, together!'
It was supposed to be some kind of momentous thing, Alchemist got that. He really did.
But the awkward shift in Terra's speech based on what he'd told her just a moment ago had him holding back a snort of laughter.
-----
Raven could feel that something big had happened in the realm she was a guest in, though she couldn't be sure of what that actually was.
The thought kept bothering her the entire time she was eating her omelette and listening to the others talk.
"-she was wearing your clothes, Star!" Beast Boy said, Raven half-listening to the boy. "Like, she kept strutting your stuff in front of a mirror!"
"But did she look good?" Starfire asked as she pointed at the green-skinned boy with her fork, a cheesy chunk of mushroom dangling from the end.
"...Eh," Beast Boy grunted with a shrug. "I mean, she didn't look bad? Couldn't pull it off, though."
"This is most unfortunate," Starfire bemoaned before eating the mushroom. "They are my clothes and I would most like it for the horrible Jinx to pull them off."
Robin had to stifle a laugh, which ended up turning into a cough, which didn't stop until Cyborg slapped his back and Robin coughed up a chunk of pepper back on to his plate.
"WeLL-" Robin started to say before his voice broke and he coughed to try and fix it. "Well, well, we might have a lead on how Gizmo broke into our base. Cyborg?"
"Whut?" the massive teen asked, eggs and cheese stuffed into both cheeks. The half-machine swallowed thickly and grinned, black pepper flakes on his teeth. "The base! Right! So, uh, I put the base together using the most modern, state of the art equipment on the market!"
Raven raised one eyebrow in curiosity but didn't ask the man to continue.
"So, like, what's that supposed to mean?" But Beast Boy did.
"It means that it has vulnerabilities that didn't exist in earlier models," Cyborg went on to explain. "One of the things I went with when I was putting up security cameras was upgrading from video cassettes to digital. Well, that's a whole thing all by itself but making it real simple? Turns out, you can hack a computer through the camera if you know what you're doing."
"...Huh," Raven said, her voice void of tone. It was an interesting fact, she guessed...
But she didn't know how to use a computer to do much.
"So when did Gizmo do that?" Beast Boy asked. "And, like, how?"
"I don't know," Cyborg admitted with a quiet sigh as he moved the gooey remains of his breakfast around with his fork. "As to how? Well, here, does this look like anything?"
Cyborg held up his plate and the quartet of teens tilted their heads to try and make sense of the lines and splatters he'd made with the cheese, egg and bits of leftover vegetables.
"Is this some sort of Rorschach's Blot test?" Robin asked.
"Basically, yeah." Cyborg flipped his plate back down. "Turns out that specific patterns will be read as programs if they're saved in digital. It gets real complicated real fast. I'm pretty sure that's how Gizmo broke through the security on the-"
The massive teen was cut off by the sound of someone knocking on the door.
The group looked around to each other for a moment in apprehension, unsure if it would be another strange little mudman-
"Not it!" Beast Boy shouted, breaking the silence.
"Not it!" Starfire followed him, half a heartbeat later.
"Not it!" Cyborg exclaimed.
"Not it!" Robin joined in.
"Not- ...Fine," Raven, in her usual manner, failed to voice her dissent in time. With a barely audible growl, she set her empty plate on the coffee table in between all of the teens and wormed her way around the group.
Opening the door, she was met with Alchemist in his human guise. His hands were clasped behind his back and he appeared to have just been waiting patiently for them to figure out who was going to answer the door.
Honestly, Raven would place better than even odds that he'd been aware of the exchange inside. The walls weren't exactly soundproofed, after all.
"Good morning, Raven!" Alchemist greeted her, a smile on his face.
...Ugh, a morning person.
"...Do you need something?" she asked, half-turning to look at the rest of the Teen Titans behind her.
Beast Boy just sent her an awkward thumbs up.
"I'm just giving you all a heads up that my team and I will be leaving to another reality here shortly," Alchemist explained. "We'll be right back, according to local time we won't actually be gone at all, but I expect that we'll be experiencing about two or three weeks of time at our destination."
Raven... needed a moment to parse that.
"So you're leaving," the dour girl slowly worked out. "And you'll be wherever you're going for a while... but you won't actually be gone at all here?"
"Kind of, sort of," Alchemist hedged as he pulled one hand out from behind his back to wave in a so-so gesture. "The demi-plane is connected to me so it will be coming with me. I'm just making sure you're all aware that, if you're here when I make the transit, you'll be joining us for the duration of the trip."
Ah.
"...What are you doing?" Raven found herself asking as she tried to work out the mechanics of what he'd explained.
"Player One just joined up with a divine Outsider, so we're going on a journey to feed the poor little creature its lesser kin so it can grow up big and strong."
Raven stared into the man's eyes. Slitted, yellow, glowing and not an ounce of deceit in them at all.
She inhaled deeply and said-
"What?"
-----
'Darknessa' idly walked her fingers forward on the armrest of the stiff-backed, uncomfortable chair she was sitting in.
"-you cannot simply ignore orders from a superior," Brother Blood, seated behind the lone desk in his office, tried to tell her. "It will negatively impact your ability to work beneath someone and-"
"And the scenario was about killing hostages," Jinx tried to cut in. "That's-"
"What you were told to do, and thus what you are expected to do." But Brother Blood just wasn't having it. "You are not paid if you do not follow orders."
"Yeah, great idea," Jinx sarcastically agreed as she rolled her eyes under her illusion. "But I also don't get paid if killing kids is what finally sets off Superman and he kills us all before we can blink. Or the Flash. Or Batman boobytraps our getaway vehicle with Smilex."
"If the heroes intervene, Darknessa, your job would be to distract them. Not to worry about whatever else -might- happen," the old man tried to explain. She could see that she was clearly getting to him, given that he'd taken to rubbing his temples as he kept talking to her. "Such concerns would be for whatever employer you have to worry about."
"And we go back to the point of not getting paid if I don't survive," Jinx repeated.
The tall, thin man growled as he looked up and glared at her-
Then kept raising his eyes until they had settled on something above her head, his face morphing through irritation to concern to discomfort and into fear. Looking up, Jinx saw a wisping shadow leaning far over her, practically ready to pounce on Blood.
"Shadow," she greeted, oddly calm at Alchemist's presence.
"My darling cloud of darkness," Alchemist said back to her, his voice pitched to be awkwardly loud and bombastic. "The Shadow comes to impart a lesson most valuable and he finds a violator of minds, berating his student as though she were a mere... peon. I am... most displeased."
"Now, see-!" Brother Blood exclaimed as he made to stand up.
"Be! Silent!" But was forced back to his seat as the Shadow's form... rippled. Tendrils of darkness, forming actual tentacles escaped the umbral wisps. One lashed out and... caressed Brother Blood's jaw?
Jinx supposed the room dropping into a sort of staticky darkness might have also helped in shutting the man up.
"The prophecy safeguarding your life may seem absolute, just as your father believed and his father believed... But it does nothing to protect you from those to whom Fate is blind," the Shadow hissed, his voice warping as whispers crawled out from underneath of Blood's desk. "Your efforts to penetrate Darknessa's mind draw my ire, kinslayer."
"That is... privileged information!" Blood shouted as he hurried to his feet. "How did you- Who told you about that?!"
"You may think a dead man tells no tales!" Alchemist shouted, acting like a ham again. Jinx almost found it embarrassing if not for how pale Blood had gone. "But for the Shadow? The dead have no secrets! Ha-hahah!"
"That's-" Blood shouted as he stood up while Alchemist placed a hand on Jinx's shoulder. "You can't- What else do you-!"
Alchemist kept laughing as the lights in the room were covered over in shadows and she felt the telltale shift of Teleport the same instant the last mote of light was swallowed in darkness.
"...So," Jinx asked as she found herself sitting on the front step of the refurbished apartment building. "How did you know he was trying to get into my head?"
"He's trying to get into everyone's head," Alchemist told her as he began to dispel the illusions on himself. "Moron's a natural psychic so he's about as subtle as a brick to anyone he can't manipulate."
"Huh..." Jinx thought on her rare interactions with the man and... yeah, he was pretty overt, wasn't he? "So, question two, how'd you find me? Mind Blank stops scrying, right?"
"It does, yes," Alchemist agreed as he raised a hand and snapped his fingers. For a moment, nothing happened.
Then Jinx heard claws scrabbling against the floor and she turned around just in time for Cinder to nearly knock her over.
"But Mind Blank on you does nothing to protect Brother Blood, who was the fourth person I ran a search on," the mage continued as Cinder proceeded to lick Jinx's face. "Who was talking to thin air; which I felt was decently likely to be you."
"Stop- Stop!" Jinx managed to get out between laughs as she tried to push her pooch away. "Momma loves you too, Cindy."
Since pushing wasn't working, Jinx went with a different strategy. Instead she grabbed on to Cinder's ears and trapped the dog's head between Jinx's arm and body. Cinder fought her, of course she did, but when Jinx started rubbing the top of the dog's head she went docile and her tail just started thumping rhythmically against the ground.
"So, should I be worried that you were looking for me?" Jinx asked, a grin on her lips as she rubbed her familiar's ears.
"I've finally picked out an Instant Quest," Alchemist admitted as he sat down next to her and began petting her dog. "Well, I had circumstances line up that kind of pushed my hand. My administrator wants me to test some special equipment which... I'm not sure it would work with our Incorruptus forms, honestly. But they're supposed to help a new Gamer learn how to utilize the System, so I've pushed that mostly towards Tiffany. But Ash and Cinder both want to try them, too, and so does Yuffie. And this special equipment has a special trait that lets them absorb their lesser kindred and then they can summon them to have them do things, like cast healing magic or throw around elemental spells."
"So you want to go and power up these things?" Jinx asked as she considered that. Ash and Cinder both knew healing magic, and so did Yuffie, but having more options was never a bad thing.
Well, no, that wasn't true. Having more, useful options; that was never a bad thing.
"So far I'm not really hearing anything bad," Jinx observed. "Is there something bad?"
"Two things," Alchemist admitted. "One, the equipment is sentient. Sophont. Aware... Intelligent? Let's go with intelligent. The second thing is that the most convenient location to get all of the normal summons is a terrible place and we'd either need to be in our Incorruptus bodies, or wearing one of these pieces of Gamer equipment. Otherwise the location will try to consume us, then keep us in an immortal state of torment to drain our vitality or souls in order to feed the main body. Which we'll need to go inside of."
"...Yeah, that's pretty bad." And considering Jinx wasn't even sure if her Core Crystal had finished forming so she could use her dragon-shaped Incorruptus, she didn't know if she'd be able to participate and help out.
There was a long moment of silence between the two. Comfortable and companionable, though. It was broken by Alchemist releasing a long sigh as he leaned back and looked out at the dilapidated portion of the city they'd chosen to hole up in.
"Cinder and Ash both want the fire elemental Ra-Seru," Alchemist started. "They can use 'em, I've seen Seru and Ra-Seru both fuse with animals before. I just wasn't going to get that for Cinder without your permission, Jinx. She's your familiar."
"...I want to play the game and see things for myself before I let her," Jinx decided, ignoring the way her puppy whined in her clutches. "I mean, I trust you and all. I just..."
"You're fine," Alchemist said as he waved off her justifications. "I'll grab a copy of the game and the book that got written for it in Japan, let you go through it at your own pace. You'll probably finish up in four or five days. I'll hold off on giving Ash one of the Ra-Seru until you make up your mind, though."
Jinx let go of Cinder's head and leaned back herself, looking up to the clouds in the sky.
He didn't have to do that. If he wanted to give Ash one of those see-roo things, that was up to him...
But maybe he was thinking about how Ash and Cinder act together? They were easily as smart as children, now. And giving one an advantage over the other, with the only explanation being that Momma wasn't sure if she should let her own familiar get the same potential power-up?
Sure, the familiars didn't act like humans, nor did they have human motivations... But Jinx could kind of see where the hesitation was coming from. Envy, resentment and jealousy were all very real things.
"So, when are we going?" Jinx asked. Sure, it sounded kind of bad. And kind of inconvenient.
But if it kept Tiffany from moping?
It'd probably be worth it.
"Let me grab the door and we can head on out," Alchemist told her as he got to his feet. "Been a while since I messed around with anything really new..."
"Is any of it any better than what you've already got?" Jinx asked as she made her way to his demi-plane doorway.
"One thing. Maybe," he admitted as he opened the door and held it open for her. "I'll have to take a look but the trip might be worth it for me."
"Well..." Jinx grinned and turned around to poke the man in the chest with one finger. "You'll have to show me whatever it is when you get it!"
"I will!" Alchemist laughed, the chuckle deep in the back of his throat. It didn't sound anything like the bombastic chortling he'd done as The Shadow. "It'll be pretty big, I promise."
With Cinder next to her, Jinx waited until the door shut before the smile dropped off of her face. There was just a moment, one where the door faded out of existence to imply that Alchemist had just inventoried it before the stars beyond the invisible walls of the plane flickered and changed.
"...Well, Cindy?" Jinx asked her familiar as she worried at her bottom lip. "I hope this one doesn't take as long as the quest with Zagreus."
Cinder looked up, innocence in her crimson eyes...
And jumped up to lick at Jinx's face.
"Stop!" Jinx weakly demanded with a laugh. "Alright, alright! Fine! No more mopey Jinx!"
"Good!" Cinder declared before she dropped back down to all fours. "Happy Jeenx is best Jeenx!"
"Ara ara, Alec-kun!"
