Chapter 306, Legaia 4
Project: Gamer Ver. 2 Alpha Build 3.0.6
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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??/??/???? (Legend of Legaia)
Alchemist hadn't exactly held out a lot of hope in finding anything for his current main objective, not with the state the Absolute Fortress had been left in. It was a crumbling ruin, the entire facility inexplicably falling apart when the man in charge, Cort, had been defeated.
The whole damned reality had been filled with load bearing bosses. It had been cool at first, delightfully dramatic, but Alchemist found the trope horribly overused by the end of the game.
The cave that would lead into the facility was collapsed, as Alchemist had expected. Hitting it with Repair fixed that easily enough... For about twenty seconds, at which point it collapsed under the weight of the wreckage that was outside of the range of the spell.
"I think this might be a bit beyond us, love," Kary said at Alchemist's side. The woman had her left arm crossed over her abdomen while her right hand held her chin in thought.
"Maybe," Alchemist agreed as he looked over the ruins. He didn't have too many other options to explore, his other half had returned to the facility under Ratayu to try and hunt down whatever information they might have had. "But I can't just magic up the answers I need, so I'll have to get this figured out."
There were spells that could scour the greater subconscious of the world and write the information out into a blank book, and they were well within the remit of Wish. But, the fewer 'experts' that existed on a subject, the less the spells could get out.
With Cort, insane as he was, being the only living expert on an active Juggernaut?
The results of trying to pull information out of that particular batch of crazy would probably see more use as kindling or toilet paper.
Alchemist worried the side of his bottom lip between his teeth while his right hand rotated the rings on his left. He did that for several seconds, trying to work out which figures he could guess at. He didn't know how much material made up the collapsed facility, what it had been constructed out of or even how much space any of it took up. He was looking at engineer kinds of numbers and, if he had a week and access to everything before it broke, he might be able to work some of those numbers out.
He...
Well...
"No kill like overkill," Alchemist declared as he slipped his electrified ring off of his finger and swapped it for the ring he'd enchanted Faith into. "Right, hon?"
Opening the Game Shop, the wizard hunt and pecked his request into the search bar.
"I'm unsure if 'Overkill' is a real concept, love," Kary gently ribbed at him as he extracted a small scroll from the window. "I believe it's 'Dead' and 'Keep stabbing'."
"...Heh," Alchemist chuckled, once, as he skimmed through the spellscroll. It was just a third level spell, from the good old days when magic in Dungeons and Dragons wasn't nerfed to make the fighters feel good about themselves. "You know what? That's fair."
The wizard closed his eyes for a second as he chained his spells together. None of what he was casting came from the world in which he picked up his multicast Materia but...
The man stepped forward and thrust his hand out, casting the first spell, Charge, one of the spells he'd just had Tiffany learn. He could feel it sink into him, an electric current that was ready to fire off at any time.
Following it was Repair, from the world of Dark Souls. It ripped through the ruined cavern, righting the broken and shattered bits and pieces. It traveled farther than it had before, significantly farther as its power was multiplied many times over.
With so much more repaired all at once, the cave held together far better but Alchemist could hear the cracking of stressed stone.
Charge fired off again, filling Alchemist with potential-
Before he slashed his hand down and cast his final spell, freshly learned, which began to form within his hand. He lifted the transmutation spell high above his head and closed his hand, finishing it.
A wave seemed to pass throughout the cave and the groaning, the creaking of imminent destruction came to a halt as Augment Object multiplied the durability and hardness of the stone that had just been repaired.
Alchemist was going to have to get out a pen and some paper, later. He wanted to figure out how much effect Focus and Charge actually had on things.
"...Are you going to have to do that the entire time we're searching the facility?" Kary asked as they walked into the cavern that had just been repaired.
"...Probably?" Alchemist honestly hoped that Repair would be more functional when they got further in. Once they got in to where the actual, refined building materials were? That would hopefully involve less mass by volume so Repair could spread across a larger area.
"...So long as it holds," Kary finally said as they pressed deeper in and found even more collapsed stones blocking them.
"...It should," Alchemist hesitantly told the woman. "Probably."
Hopefully.
-----
Yuffie had been given a critically important task for the day. One that nobody else in the demi-plane could do! She...
"Nin, nin, nin..."
...was going to outninja Robin!
The boy in question had headed towards the back of the demi-plane and started practicing forms with his bo staff. He was used to handling the weapon, that was easy enough to see, but whoever had trained him?
Yuffie had to wonder if Robin had been trained wrong on purpose. Like it was a joke or something.
Because throwing in random spins and literally spinning the weapon overhead? Those kinds of maneuvers weren't actually -useful- and they instead demanded the practitioner dedicate themselves to looking cool and leaving their torso fully exposed.
It offended her, now. She could see that Robin was fast on his feet, agile, adaptable... But she'd bet that jerk, Sonon from Wutai, would be able to beat the kid like a drum.
So Yuffie watched. Yuffie waited. Yuffie... planned.
'He seems to lead with his right,' Mule, the intelligent bracelet on Yuffie's left arm, whispered into her mind. The entity's voice seemed like water rushing around the rocks in a river as it spoke. 'And he is very mobile. Countering that may be difficult...'
"...Nah," Yuffie denied as she clenched a heavy bean bag in her right hand. "I'm better!"
As Robin dedicated himself to another helicopter spin, Yuffie's arm swung out and she launched the bean bag with a speed that left it as a blur in the air! Robin appeared to notice, she could see how he tried to adjust his staff to smack the little packet, and she could hear the air escape his lungs in a pained gasp as he missed and let the heavy little bag slam into his gut.
"Hi!" Yuffie shouted as she practically bounced out to the clearing Robin was practicing in. "I'm the ninja! Let's fight!"
Robin... held one hand out towards her, half-bent over as he clutched his guts.
"...Why?" Robin wheezed out. "Just... why?"
"You're all flash and distraction," Yuffie explained as she settled into a ready stance. "Dad doesn't know how you haven't been shot, yet, but he kind of wants to keep that from happening. He says bullets hurt."
"And that hackey sack hurt!" Robin exclaimed.
Which actually reminded Yuffie of something. She dashed in towards Robin, sending the boy careening to the side as she slid across the ground and grabbed the bean bag out of the grass.
"It's gonna hurt more if-" Yuffe was cut off as she had to duck, slipping under the bo staff aimed at her neck. She slipped back, supporting herself on her hands as she kicked up, kicking the staff out of Robin's hands as she flipped backwards, out of his reach and on to her feet.
"Nice!" Yuffie called out as she held out her left hand, catching Robin's bo staff as the boy backed off. She held it out, pointing at Robin with one end. "Good initiative! Dad's real big on keeping the momentum, though, so you're gonna have to do better than that!"
She placed one foot in front of the other and then launched herself forward. She led with the staff, jabbing and poking at Robin with it instead of the big, telegraphed swings he seemed to like so much.
He dodged, though. Actually, Yuffie noticed, he was really good at dodging.
Better than he was at using the staff...
After several seconds of testing his defenses, Yuffie was starting to get a good feel for things. And it was a feeling that she wasn't sure what to do about. But, when Robin reached down to his belt and pulled out a pair of red, bladed throwing stars?
Yuffie disappeared in a cloud of smoke, leaving behind a little moogle doll with a big, green leaf taped to its head.
"What?!" Robin called out, his head swinging wildly from side to side as he tried to find her.
"Secret Ninja Technique..." Yuffie's voice, coming from behind him, was grave and solemn. "One-thousand years of death!"
"What are you- Eeh!" Robin's shriek definitely drew a few sets of curious eyes. The boy practically flew into the air, his hands covering his butt.
Right where she'd stabbed him with his own staff!
Yuffie dug the tip of Robin's staff into the ground and leaned against it, watching the older boy. He'd flipped around with surprising speed and had one of his red throwing stars in hand while the other was still rubbing his backside. His stance remained hostile and guarded but Yuffie...
Yuffie was done.
"You don't know how to use this thing, do you?" she asked, indicating his staff.
"I know enough!" Robin's voice was defensive and his glare was angry but Yuffie thought she heard...
Well, she kind of thought she heard herself in Robin's voice. All defensive and confident without really having anything behind it.
"Here," she said as she tossed his staff back to him and opened the inventory. "I only learned a little bit before my teacher went and died in the war but I can show you what I know."
"...You're a kid," Robin complained as Yuffie extracted an adamantine rod from the Game Shop. "What could you teach me?"
"Do you want me to poke you in the butt again?" Yuffie asked as she adjusted her grip on the weapon until it felt right.
"...No."
"Then that's what I'll teach you!"
-----
Beast Boy watched, fascinated, as Player One summoned some kind of rock-bat creature. It was surrounded by a literal pillar of light for a moment before it leaned forward in the air and pointed at him with its wings.
And the various cuts and scrapes he'd picked up in the most recent scrap faded away, just like the Vera bat-thing.
Sure, he'd seen it before. There wasn't a single fight he'd been in on the plains, transformed into a martial-arts-werewolf, that had been 'flawless'. But, every time Player One held up her hand and called out the creature, Vera, it was always amazing.
Transforming back into his humanish form as his most recent opponent, another werewolf, ran off in the distance, he felt pretty good about things.
"You think more of 'em will show up?" the changeling asked as the monster faded away in the tall grass.
"I think it's been the same one, over and over again," Tiffany argued, though her voice seemed more considering than condescending. "Either they all look alike, or you've got an admirer."
Beast Boy rubbed his nose as he thought about that.
They'd, uh, 'fought' a few monsters before they'd run into the werewolf. Well, Player One fought.
The girl would just stand there and soak the damage for a second as she worked on casting whatever spell it was that Alchemist had fed to her, and even though she was the one getting hit? It looked like the monsters, big, ugly cyclops things or giant murder bees, they'd all get hurt just from hurting her.
Then, once Player One cast her spell?
She blurred. It looked like a slowed down video of Kid Flash, tearing into something. Except she'd pulled a pair of great big knives or shortswords out of freaking nowhere and she seriously knew how to use them.
So it ended up being a lot... redder than the videos of Kid Flash.
And it explained the pink outfit she had on.
"Couldn't tell ya," Beast Boy admitted after a bit of thought. "The werewolves all smell the same but I don't know if that's, y'know, them? Or maybe I'm just not used to their noses. They're not the same as a dog's."
Though... it was kinda weird. Whenever Beast Boy would face the werewolf while he was transformed into the same creature, it became less violent and seemed more interested in... play fighting? It was fighting him, sure, but it wasn't hitting him hard. It seemed more like it was just showing him how he was supposed to fight.
Which was weird.
"...Hey, can I ask you something?" Beast Boy piped up as they -didn't- get attacked immediately.
"What?"
"What's the deal with you and Alchemist?" Beast Boy asked, waving vaguely towards where the man-shaped-dragon had gone. "I appreciate you guys putting us up while we figure out how to get our tower back, but... What's your story? Like, who even are you guys?"
"...Pretty sure you should've been asking that before you started sleeping in Alchemist's old house," Player One commented before crossing her arms and scanning the grasslands around them. "Seems like a pretty poor choice, in retrospect."
"Desperation and poor choices go together like peanut butter and mayonnaise, yo!" Beast Boy chuckled at the disgust that washed over Player One's face. "Nah, but seriously. Put someone in a rough spot and they'll take whatever choices they got. That's practically street crime one-oh-one."
"...I guess it is," Player One agreed. She inhaled deeply, obviously gathering her thoughts before looking up to the darkening sky. "Honestly? I'm not even sure where to start."
"How about where you two met?" Beast Boy offered. "Don't know what it is but I can tell you two have some history."
"...I'm pretty sure I know when I first met him. And I know he knows. I was stoned and watching some... friends, I guess, playing Lexbox. We all loved the heck out of Human Allied League of Operatives. So, my boyfriend at the time? He gets up, he acts weird, he says he's going to head to the corner store and get some snacks," Tiffany's voice sounded distant and her eyes weren't really focused on anything around them. "About fifteen minutes later, the police are ripping through the house. We were all arrested, but only one person was charged. It... my whole world burned down right then, y'know?"
"Oh. That... sucks?" Alright, that wasn't what Beast Boy was expecting. At all.
But, he thought as he revised his expectations. She'd said she was from Gotham.
And now Beast Boy was wondering if Alchemist was a body snatcher or shapeshifter or something. And why he would've gone after Player One's boyfriend? Or her?
"It was the best thing that could have happened, honestly," Tiffany admitted. "For all of us. Well, maybe not Tom or Jerry. But me? Leslie? That bastard? Things ended up working out, sort of. I just... I never really thought that just calling the cops would, y'know, matter."
"...I always heard that the cops there were corrupt," Beast Boy commented. He hadn't thought her story would start out so... strange?
"They are. It's not like any of us had mob connections, though, so that really didn't matter too much." Tiffany paused for a moment to clear her throat before continuing. "Anyway, I thought things were normal for the next few days, well, as normal as they could be. Then Leslie just went missing and his mom started freaking out. Not too much longer after that, I woke up and I had a computer screen floating in front of my face, introducing me to my power."
"So... Alchemist's real name is Leslie?" Beast Boy asked, trying to get the facts straight.
"Alchemist's real name will give you an aneurysm," Tiffany rebutted without a second of hesitation. "You know how we all came from a parallel dimension, reality, reflection? Y'know, a different but similar universe?"
"...Yeah, I'd kind of gotten that."
"He's from somewhere way further out. So are Yuffie and Kary."
"But not Jinx?" Beast Boy asked as he reached up to scratch at the side of his head. His hand came back with a tiny, brown speck that quickly jumped away.
Ugh, fleas.
"She's from my reality," Tiffany explained. "She just... changed."
So. Jinx, the one that took over the tower, probably wasn't a dragon in disguise. The others would probably be relieved by that little factoid.
Probably.
"Anyway, I decided I was going to go out and find Leslie. I didn't know that Alchemist had run off, wearing Leslie's body to try and work out a way to: One, get his own body and, two, bring Leslie back. So, I kind of..." The way Tiffany trailed off was telling enough on its own.
"You went out on your own," Beast Boy finished for her. "Let me guess; you fought something outside your weight class?"
"No," Tiffany disagreed with a shake of her head. "I was beating up drug pushers, looking for Leslie, and I caught Batman's attention. He... He's actually a lot nicer than most people think."
"Wait-wait-wait, let me get this straight," Beast Boy waved his arms in front of his chest and looked Tiffany up and down. "You actually met the Batman?"
"Yeah."
"And you seriously think he's a 'nice' guy?"
"I wouldn't go that far, but... basically?"
"Your reality sounds ca-ra-zy!" Beast Boy admitted with a laugh. "Folks here are terrified of him!"
"...Would he sit down and listen to a scared, angry little girl cry her eyes out?" Tiffany asked, a dangerous edge in her voice.
"What?" Beast Boy asked, his laughter dying on his lips.
"Would he listen to her?" Tiffany asked, pressing forward with her questioning. "Would he offer her a chance to be around people that could understand her? Befriend her? Help her?!"
"I don't know!" Beast Boy shouted, backing away from the obviously upset girl. He didn't even know what he said to set her off! "Geeze! Chill, okay?!"
"...My Batman would," Tiffany told him, her voice thick as she sniffled heavily. "My Batman did."
-----
Kary swung her sword with controlled purpose and all but reveled in the feeling of power as crimson blades ripped up and through the monsters that had followed them into the fortress.
The burn within her core as the arts drew from her vitality to materialize was exhilarating, in its own way, and the fire that filled her veins as she consumed the very life of her foes tasted sweeter than the finest nectar!
It was all she could do to keep from breaking out in laughter, only held in check by the experience she'd had as she mastered the poisonous Scourge magic.
"Have you had any luck, love?" Kary asked over her shoulder as the beasts that tried to hound their footsteps collapsed to the ground.
"...No," her man growled, his fingers tapping at the keyboard of a computer console in clear agitation. "I've learned a lot about the Juggernaut but not a damned thing on its fusion abilities!"
Kary closed her eyes and inhaled slowly, listening for beating wings or scrabbling claws.
Countless beasts had flooded into the facility after them, too weak to be a danger but frustrating for the sheer quality of quantity. She'd no idea what drew them in, nor any idea as to why they acted as they did.
She wasn't going to complain, however, It had proven quite fortuitous in gifting her an opportunity to test the skills Alchemist had shown her.
"Anything useful?" she asked. By the thudding that she could feel in her heels, Kary could tell another wave was incoming.
"Aside from the fact that the damned beast was an untested prototype that wasn't supposed to exist? Not much." Alchemist inhaled deeply and Kary could still sense his frustration. "The stupid thing was just a thought experiment over in Ratayu. 'What's the biggest thing we could theoretically build?'"
A great, lumbering beast led the charge into the restored room that housed the records within the fortress, sparse though they were-
And the creature, some kind of ogre, barely had a chance to scream in confusion and pain as a lance of darkness tore through it and continued into the horde behind it. Kary turned slightly to see her man, quite fed up with the persistent interruptions, holding out one hand with his index finger pointing straight out. From which tore the black beam, the unholy light of Void Ray.
His hand tracked back and forth, his usual composure well and fully lost as he obliterated the current wave of wild beasts that sought to rend them limb from limb.
She wouldn't admit it unless he asked but Kary liked it when her lover finally got tired of pretending at his veneer of control. She knew he was making everything up as they went along and the chaos was thrilling, truly something she enjoyed.
"That's why the Juggernaut has stamina issues; it's basically a one-pump-chump. Ratayu didn't have any way of overcoming its energy requirements and the dipshits here just pumped it full of Mist and called it done!" Alchemist hissed, actually hissed as he spoke. "I -think- that's where the flesh-garden-hellscape came from, that's what the Rogue and its pieces looked like. One of them was even growing nearby, it ate a whole damned castle and..."
Alchemist's hand came up, balled into a fist, then slammed back down into the keyboard.
"...This was a waste of time," Alchemist muttered as he lifted his hand back off the keyboard and covered his eyes with it.
"I disagree, love," Kary gently told the man. More beasts were on the way, a swarm of hornets from the sound of things. The woman didn't bother looking out the door of the room or down the corridor. Instead she just channeled a touch of magic and summoned a gale of hellish wind, ripping some apart whilst petrifying even more. "Did you learn nothing during our trip?"
"The trip was fine, hon. Just..." Alchemist waved his hands erratically as he struggled to specify what, exactly, was bothering him.
"Well, I enjoyed it," Kary told him. The hall was silent so she felt rather confident in taking a brief reprieve from guard duty. She approached the man and wrapped her arms around him, resting her chin on his shoulder. "I've been wanting to spend a day with you, love. And we both got to learn some new things..."
He reached up and held on to one of her wrists, exhaling slowly in her embrace as he calmed down.
She knew that most of the others would see his outbursts and think them a loss of control. That he could not contain his frustrations and lashed out too readily.
She knew better. She knew he'd gotten comfortable enough with her that he didn't try and hide who he was and what he felt. That, through his own hesitations, he'd grown to trust her enough to let her see more than just the surface of who he was.
"...It is nice just to spend time with you," her lover admitted. He hadn't hesitated with his words, not really. She'd learned to tell when he was just struggling to find the right ones. "...If you still want to go to a beach, I know where one is?"
"I think that'd be lovely, Alchemist," Kary told the man as she nuzzled her cheek against his. "We'll have to spend a bit of time there. Maybe you could even teach me how to swim?"
"I think I could manage-" Alchemist's agreement to her generous offer was interrupted by a howl coming from the hallway, followed by a number of echoes indicating the newest trespasser wasn't alone.
"...Why are there so many of the beasts?" Kary asked with a growl as she released her hold on Alchemist and grabbed her sword from her armory.
"I think they want to destroy this place," Alchemist said with a quiet sigh as he shifted into a firing stance and his laser pistol appeared in hand. "I always thought it was a game mechanic for the strongest monsters in the region to hang out around these fortresses. But, if they're trying to break in and break the place?"
Kary... didn't really care about the reasoning, if she were being honest.
Stepping out into the hall, not-magic gathering about her blade, Kary just wanted the interruption to her romantic moment to die.
And it was a desire she was well-equipped to bring into reality!
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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??/??/???? (Legend of Legaia)
Alchemist hadn't exactly held out a lot of hope in finding anything for his current main objective, not with the state the Absolute Fortress had been left in. It was a crumbling ruin, the entire facility inexplicably falling apart when the man in charge, Cort, had been defeated.
The whole damned reality had been filled with load bearing bosses. It had been cool at first, delightfully dramatic, but Alchemist found the trope horribly overused by the end of the game.
The cave that would lead into the facility was collapsed, as Alchemist had expected. Hitting it with Repair fixed that easily enough... For about twenty seconds, at which point it collapsed under the weight of the wreckage that was outside of the range of the spell.
"I think this might be a bit beyond us, love," Kary said at Alchemist's side. The woman had her left arm crossed over her abdomen while her right hand held her chin in thought.
"Maybe," Alchemist agreed as he looked over the ruins. He didn't have too many other options to explore, his other half had returned to the facility under Ratayu to try and hunt down whatever information they might have had. "But I can't just magic up the answers I need, so I'll have to get this figured out."
There were spells that could scour the greater subconscious of the world and write the information out into a blank book, and they were well within the remit of Wish. But, the fewer 'experts' that existed on a subject, the less the spells could get out.
With Cort, insane as he was, being the only living expert on an active Juggernaut?
The results of trying to pull information out of that particular batch of crazy would probably see more use as kindling or toilet paper.
Alchemist worried the side of his bottom lip between his teeth while his right hand rotated the rings on his left. He did that for several seconds, trying to work out which figures he could guess at. He didn't know how much material made up the collapsed facility, what it had been constructed out of or even how much space any of it took up. He was looking at engineer kinds of numbers and, if he had a week and access to everything before it broke, he might be able to work some of those numbers out.
He...
Well...
"No kill like overkill," Alchemist declared as he slipped his electrified ring off of his finger and swapped it for the ring he'd enchanted Faith into. "Right, hon?"
Opening the Game Shop, the wizard hunt and pecked his request into the search bar.
"I'm unsure if 'Overkill' is a real concept, love," Kary gently ribbed at him as he extracted a small scroll from the window. "I believe it's 'Dead' and 'Keep stabbing'."
"...Heh," Alchemist chuckled, once, as he skimmed through the spellscroll. It was just a third level spell, from the good old days when magic in Dungeons and Dragons wasn't nerfed to make the fighters feel good about themselves. "You know what? That's fair."
The wizard closed his eyes for a second as he chained his spells together. None of what he was casting came from the world in which he picked up his multicast Materia but...
The man stepped forward and thrust his hand out, casting the first spell, Charge, one of the spells he'd just had Tiffany learn. He could feel it sink into him, an electric current that was ready to fire off at any time.
Following it was Repair, from the world of Dark Souls. It ripped through the ruined cavern, righting the broken and shattered bits and pieces. It traveled farther than it had before, significantly farther as its power was multiplied many times over.
With so much more repaired all at once, the cave held together far better but Alchemist could hear the cracking of stressed stone.
Charge fired off again, filling Alchemist with potential-
Before he slashed his hand down and cast his final spell, freshly learned, which began to form within his hand. He lifted the transmutation spell high above his head and closed his hand, finishing it.
A wave seemed to pass throughout the cave and the groaning, the creaking of imminent destruction came to a halt as Augment Object multiplied the durability and hardness of the stone that had just been repaired.
Alchemist was going to have to get out a pen and some paper, later. He wanted to figure out how much effect Focus and Charge actually had on things.
"...Are you going to have to do that the entire time we're searching the facility?" Kary asked as they walked into the cavern that had just been repaired.
"...Probably?" Alchemist honestly hoped that Repair would be more functional when they got further in. Once they got in to where the actual, refined building materials were? That would hopefully involve less mass by volume so Repair could spread across a larger area.
"...So long as it holds," Kary finally said as they pressed deeper in and found even more collapsed stones blocking them.
"...It should," Alchemist hesitantly told the woman. "Probably."
Hopefully.
-----
Yuffie had been given a critically important task for the day. One that nobody else in the demi-plane could do! She...
"Nin, nin, nin..."
...was going to outninja Robin!
The boy in question had headed towards the back of the demi-plane and started practicing forms with his bo staff. He was used to handling the weapon, that was easy enough to see, but whoever had trained him?
Yuffie had to wonder if Robin had been trained wrong on purpose. Like it was a joke or something.
Because throwing in random spins and literally spinning the weapon overhead? Those kinds of maneuvers weren't actually -useful- and they instead demanded the practitioner dedicate themselves to looking cool and leaving their torso fully exposed.
It offended her, now. She could see that Robin was fast on his feet, agile, adaptable... But she'd bet that jerk, Sonon from Wutai, would be able to beat the kid like a drum.
So Yuffie watched. Yuffie waited. Yuffie... planned.
'He seems to lead with his right,' Mule, the intelligent bracelet on Yuffie's left arm, whispered into her mind. The entity's voice seemed like water rushing around the rocks in a river as it spoke. 'And he is very mobile. Countering that may be difficult...'
"...Nah," Yuffie denied as she clenched a heavy bean bag in her right hand. "I'm better!"
As Robin dedicated himself to another helicopter spin, Yuffie's arm swung out and she launched the bean bag with a speed that left it as a blur in the air! Robin appeared to notice, she could see how he tried to adjust his staff to smack the little packet, and she could hear the air escape his lungs in a pained gasp as he missed and let the heavy little bag slam into his gut.
"Hi!" Yuffie shouted as she practically bounced out to the clearing Robin was practicing in. "I'm the ninja! Let's fight!"
Robin... held one hand out towards her, half-bent over as he clutched his guts.
"...Why?" Robin wheezed out. "Just... why?"
"You're all flash and distraction," Yuffie explained as she settled into a ready stance. "Dad doesn't know how you haven't been shot, yet, but he kind of wants to keep that from happening. He says bullets hurt."
"And that hackey sack hurt!" Robin exclaimed.
Which actually reminded Yuffie of something. She dashed in towards Robin, sending the boy careening to the side as she slid across the ground and grabbed the bean bag out of the grass.
"It's gonna hurt more if-" Yuffe was cut off as she had to duck, slipping under the bo staff aimed at her neck. She slipped back, supporting herself on her hands as she kicked up, kicking the staff out of Robin's hands as she flipped backwards, out of his reach and on to her feet.
"Nice!" Yuffie called out as she held out her left hand, catching Robin's bo staff as the boy backed off. She held it out, pointing at Robin with one end. "Good initiative! Dad's real big on keeping the momentum, though, so you're gonna have to do better than that!"
She placed one foot in front of the other and then launched herself forward. She led with the staff, jabbing and poking at Robin with it instead of the big, telegraphed swings he seemed to like so much.
He dodged, though. Actually, Yuffie noticed, he was really good at dodging.
Better than he was at using the staff...
After several seconds of testing his defenses, Yuffie was starting to get a good feel for things. And it was a feeling that she wasn't sure what to do about. But, when Robin reached down to his belt and pulled out a pair of red, bladed throwing stars?
Yuffie disappeared in a cloud of smoke, leaving behind a little moogle doll with a big, green leaf taped to its head.
"What?!" Robin called out, his head swinging wildly from side to side as he tried to find her.
"Secret Ninja Technique..." Yuffie's voice, coming from behind him, was grave and solemn. "One-thousand years of death!"
"What are you- Eeh!" Robin's shriek definitely drew a few sets of curious eyes. The boy practically flew into the air, his hands covering his butt.
Right where she'd stabbed him with his own staff!
Yuffie dug the tip of Robin's staff into the ground and leaned against it, watching the older boy. He'd flipped around with surprising speed and had one of his red throwing stars in hand while the other was still rubbing his backside. His stance remained hostile and guarded but Yuffie...
Yuffie was done.
"You don't know how to use this thing, do you?" she asked, indicating his staff.
"I know enough!" Robin's voice was defensive and his glare was angry but Yuffie thought she heard...
Well, she kind of thought she heard herself in Robin's voice. All defensive and confident without really having anything behind it.
"Here," she said as she tossed his staff back to him and opened the inventory. "I only learned a little bit before my teacher went and died in the war but I can show you what I know."
"...You're a kid," Robin complained as Yuffie extracted an adamantine rod from the Game Shop. "What could you teach me?"
"Do you want me to poke you in the butt again?" Yuffie asked as she adjusted her grip on the weapon until it felt right.
"...No."
"Then that's what I'll teach you!"
-----
Beast Boy watched, fascinated, as Player One summoned some kind of rock-bat creature. It was surrounded by a literal pillar of light for a moment before it leaned forward in the air and pointed at him with its wings.
And the various cuts and scrapes he'd picked up in the most recent scrap faded away, just like the Vera bat-thing.
Sure, he'd seen it before. There wasn't a single fight he'd been in on the plains, transformed into a martial-arts-werewolf, that had been 'flawless'. But, every time Player One held up her hand and called out the creature, Vera, it was always amazing.
Transforming back into his humanish form as his most recent opponent, another werewolf, ran off in the distance, he felt pretty good about things.
"You think more of 'em will show up?" the changeling asked as the monster faded away in the tall grass.
"I think it's been the same one, over and over again," Tiffany argued, though her voice seemed more considering than condescending. "Either they all look alike, or you've got an admirer."
Beast Boy rubbed his nose as he thought about that.
They'd, uh, 'fought' a few monsters before they'd run into the werewolf. Well, Player One fought.
The girl would just stand there and soak the damage for a second as she worked on casting whatever spell it was that Alchemist had fed to her, and even though she was the one getting hit? It looked like the monsters, big, ugly cyclops things or giant murder bees, they'd all get hurt just from hurting her.
Then, once Player One cast her spell?
She blurred. It looked like a slowed down video of Kid Flash, tearing into something. Except she'd pulled a pair of great big knives or shortswords out of freaking nowhere and she seriously knew how to use them.
So it ended up being a lot... redder than the videos of Kid Flash.
And it explained the pink outfit she had on.
"Couldn't tell ya," Beast Boy admitted after a bit of thought. "The werewolves all smell the same but I don't know if that's, y'know, them? Or maybe I'm just not used to their noses. They're not the same as a dog's."
Though... it was kinda weird. Whenever Beast Boy would face the werewolf while he was transformed into the same creature, it became less violent and seemed more interested in... play fighting? It was fighting him, sure, but it wasn't hitting him hard. It seemed more like it was just showing him how he was supposed to fight.
Which was weird.
"...Hey, can I ask you something?" Beast Boy piped up as they -didn't- get attacked immediately.
"What?"
"What's the deal with you and Alchemist?" Beast Boy asked, waving vaguely towards where the man-shaped-dragon had gone. "I appreciate you guys putting us up while we figure out how to get our tower back, but... What's your story? Like, who even are you guys?"
"...Pretty sure you should've been asking that before you started sleeping in Alchemist's old house," Player One commented before crossing her arms and scanning the grasslands around them. "Seems like a pretty poor choice, in retrospect."
"Desperation and poor choices go together like peanut butter and mayonnaise, yo!" Beast Boy chuckled at the disgust that washed over Player One's face. "Nah, but seriously. Put someone in a rough spot and they'll take whatever choices they got. That's practically street crime one-oh-one."
"...I guess it is," Player One agreed. She inhaled deeply, obviously gathering her thoughts before looking up to the darkening sky. "Honestly? I'm not even sure where to start."
"How about where you two met?" Beast Boy offered. "Don't know what it is but I can tell you two have some history."
"...I'm pretty sure I know when I first met him. And I know he knows. I was stoned and watching some... friends, I guess, playing Lexbox. We all loved the heck out of Human Allied League of Operatives. So, my boyfriend at the time? He gets up, he acts weird, he says he's going to head to the corner store and get some snacks," Tiffany's voice sounded distant and her eyes weren't really focused on anything around them. "About fifteen minutes later, the police are ripping through the house. We were all arrested, but only one person was charged. It... my whole world burned down right then, y'know?"
"Oh. That... sucks?" Alright, that wasn't what Beast Boy was expecting. At all.
But, he thought as he revised his expectations. She'd said she was from Gotham.
And now Beast Boy was wondering if Alchemist was a body snatcher or shapeshifter or something. And why he would've gone after Player One's boyfriend? Or her?
"It was the best thing that could have happened, honestly," Tiffany admitted. "For all of us. Well, maybe not Tom or Jerry. But me? Leslie? That bastard? Things ended up working out, sort of. I just... I never really thought that just calling the cops would, y'know, matter."
"...I always heard that the cops there were corrupt," Beast Boy commented. He hadn't thought her story would start out so... strange?
"They are. It's not like any of us had mob connections, though, so that really didn't matter too much." Tiffany paused for a moment to clear her throat before continuing. "Anyway, I thought things were normal for the next few days, well, as normal as they could be. Then Leslie just went missing and his mom started freaking out. Not too much longer after that, I woke up and I had a computer screen floating in front of my face, introducing me to my power."
"So... Alchemist's real name is Leslie?" Beast Boy asked, trying to get the facts straight.
"Alchemist's real name will give you an aneurysm," Tiffany rebutted without a second of hesitation. "You know how we all came from a parallel dimension, reality, reflection? Y'know, a different but similar universe?"
"...Yeah, I'd kind of gotten that."
"He's from somewhere way further out. So are Yuffie and Kary."
"But not Jinx?" Beast Boy asked as he reached up to scratch at the side of his head. His hand came back with a tiny, brown speck that quickly jumped away.
Ugh, fleas.
"She's from my reality," Tiffany explained. "She just... changed."
So. Jinx, the one that took over the tower, probably wasn't a dragon in disguise. The others would probably be relieved by that little factoid.
Probably.
"Anyway, I decided I was going to go out and find Leslie. I didn't know that Alchemist had run off, wearing Leslie's body to try and work out a way to: One, get his own body and, two, bring Leslie back. So, I kind of..." The way Tiffany trailed off was telling enough on its own.
"You went out on your own," Beast Boy finished for her. "Let me guess; you fought something outside your weight class?"
"No," Tiffany disagreed with a shake of her head. "I was beating up drug pushers, looking for Leslie, and I caught Batman's attention. He... He's actually a lot nicer than most people think."
"Wait-wait-wait, let me get this straight," Beast Boy waved his arms in front of his chest and looked Tiffany up and down. "You actually met the Batman?"
"Yeah."
"And you seriously think he's a 'nice' guy?"
"I wouldn't go that far, but... basically?"
"Your reality sounds ca-ra-zy!" Beast Boy admitted with a laugh. "Folks here are terrified of him!"
"...Would he sit down and listen to a scared, angry little girl cry her eyes out?" Tiffany asked, a dangerous edge in her voice.
"What?" Beast Boy asked, his laughter dying on his lips.
"Would he listen to her?" Tiffany asked, pressing forward with her questioning. "Would he offer her a chance to be around people that could understand her? Befriend her? Help her?!"
"I don't know!" Beast Boy shouted, backing away from the obviously upset girl. He didn't even know what he said to set her off! "Geeze! Chill, okay?!"
"...My Batman would," Tiffany told him, her voice thick as she sniffled heavily. "My Batman did."
-----
Kary swung her sword with controlled purpose and all but reveled in the feeling of power as crimson blades ripped up and through the monsters that had followed them into the fortress.
The burn within her core as the arts drew from her vitality to materialize was exhilarating, in its own way, and the fire that filled her veins as she consumed the very life of her foes tasted sweeter than the finest nectar!
It was all she could do to keep from breaking out in laughter, only held in check by the experience she'd had as she mastered the poisonous Scourge magic.
"Have you had any luck, love?" Kary asked over her shoulder as the beasts that tried to hound their footsteps collapsed to the ground.
"...No," her man growled, his fingers tapping at the keyboard of a computer console in clear agitation. "I've learned a lot about the Juggernaut but not a damned thing on its fusion abilities!"
Kary closed her eyes and inhaled slowly, listening for beating wings or scrabbling claws.
Countless beasts had flooded into the facility after them, too weak to be a danger but frustrating for the sheer quality of quantity. She'd no idea what drew them in, nor any idea as to why they acted as they did.
She wasn't going to complain, however, It had proven quite fortuitous in gifting her an opportunity to test the skills Alchemist had shown her.
"Anything useful?" she asked. By the thudding that she could feel in her heels, Kary could tell another wave was incoming.
"Aside from the fact that the damned beast was an untested prototype that wasn't supposed to exist? Not much." Alchemist inhaled deeply and Kary could still sense his frustration. "The stupid thing was just a thought experiment over in Ratayu. 'What's the biggest thing we could theoretically build?'"
A great, lumbering beast led the charge into the restored room that housed the records within the fortress, sparse though they were-
And the creature, some kind of ogre, barely had a chance to scream in confusion and pain as a lance of darkness tore through it and continued into the horde behind it. Kary turned slightly to see her man, quite fed up with the persistent interruptions, holding out one hand with his index finger pointing straight out. From which tore the black beam, the unholy light of Void Ray.
His hand tracked back and forth, his usual composure well and fully lost as he obliterated the current wave of wild beasts that sought to rend them limb from limb.
She wouldn't admit it unless he asked but Kary liked it when her lover finally got tired of pretending at his veneer of control. She knew he was making everything up as they went along and the chaos was thrilling, truly something she enjoyed.
"That's why the Juggernaut has stamina issues; it's basically a one-pump-chump. Ratayu didn't have any way of overcoming its energy requirements and the dipshits here just pumped it full of Mist and called it done!" Alchemist hissed, actually hissed as he spoke. "I -think- that's where the flesh-garden-hellscape came from, that's what the Rogue and its pieces looked like. One of them was even growing nearby, it ate a whole damned castle and..."
Alchemist's hand came up, balled into a fist, then slammed back down into the keyboard.
"...This was a waste of time," Alchemist muttered as he lifted his hand back off the keyboard and covered his eyes with it.
"I disagree, love," Kary gently told the man. More beasts were on the way, a swarm of hornets from the sound of things. The woman didn't bother looking out the door of the room or down the corridor. Instead she just channeled a touch of magic and summoned a gale of hellish wind, ripping some apart whilst petrifying even more. "Did you learn nothing during our trip?"
"The trip was fine, hon. Just..." Alchemist waved his hands erratically as he struggled to specify what, exactly, was bothering him.
"Well, I enjoyed it," Kary told him. The hall was silent so she felt rather confident in taking a brief reprieve from guard duty. She approached the man and wrapped her arms around him, resting her chin on his shoulder. "I've been wanting to spend a day with you, love. And we both got to learn some new things..."
He reached up and held on to one of her wrists, exhaling slowly in her embrace as he calmed down.
She knew that most of the others would see his outbursts and think them a loss of control. That he could not contain his frustrations and lashed out too readily.
She knew better. She knew he'd gotten comfortable enough with her that he didn't try and hide who he was and what he felt. That, through his own hesitations, he'd grown to trust her enough to let her see more than just the surface of who he was.
"...It is nice just to spend time with you," her lover admitted. He hadn't hesitated with his words, not really. She'd learned to tell when he was just struggling to find the right ones. "...If you still want to go to a beach, I know where one is?"
"I think that'd be lovely, Alchemist," Kary told the man as she nuzzled her cheek against his. "We'll have to spend a bit of time there. Maybe you could even teach me how to swim?"
"I think I could manage-" Alchemist's agreement to her generous offer was interrupted by a howl coming from the hallway, followed by a number of echoes indicating the newest trespasser wasn't alone.
"...Why are there so many of the beasts?" Kary asked with a growl as she released her hold on Alchemist and grabbed her sword from her armory.
"I think they want to destroy this place," Alchemist said with a quiet sigh as he shifted into a firing stance and his laser pistol appeared in hand. "I always thought it was a game mechanic for the strongest monsters in the region to hang out around these fortresses. But, if they're trying to break in and break the place?"
Kary... didn't really care about the reasoning, if she were being honest.
Stepping out into the hall, not-magic gathering about her blade, Kary just wanted the interruption to her romantic moment to die.
And it was a desire she was well-equipped to bring into reality!
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"Da hekk???"
