Project: Gamer Ver. 2 (Young Justice/Gamer/Multicross OC)
- Thread starter Mister Ficser
- Start date
Oof, uh...
Look. Some places just can't be purified by holy water and good vibes.
Some places? A good old fashioned burning is about the only option that'll work. And even then, some places just refuse to die. (Lookin' at you, London...)
Look. Some places just can't be purified by holy water and good vibes.
Some places? A good old fashioned burning is about the only option that'll work. And even then, some places just refuse to die. (Lookin' at you, London...)
According to DC lore, Windsor Manor is the nexus of a necromantic ritual feeding on the people of Britain. That darkness has been seeping into every little nook and cranny there is.
A rainy day ala Alchemist might see the whole thing falling apart!
It'd be almost as entertaining as watching the Americans and the Chinese fight over who gets to plant their flag on the moon.
A rainy day ala Alchemist might see the whole thing falling apart!
It'd be almost as entertaining as watching the Americans and the Chinese fight over who gets to plant their flag on the moon.
Oooo, where can I read more about that bc it sounds fascinating
So it's true? London has fallen to demon kind? Even the prince is a demon in disguise? Makes one wonder how Alchemist didn't attract the attention of the collective echos of 1000+ unborn babies tossed into the River Thames with his overwhelming Dad energy/aura, while he was on his world wide vacation trip. His protective Dad/Dragon aura would probably feel like the closest thing to a womb to those poor souls. Did he skip that location after having to deal with the Bloodborne victim?
What book?
Not derailing. Sent you a message.
I think that would've been Hellblazer. I know I've been reading references to the house of lords being corrupt demon summoners for literal decades but I've been going through so much fanfiction, fancomics and unofficial media that my memories are blurrier than I'm comfortable with on the matter.
He kicked off into actual Europe, specifically the Baltic region to put to rest an old dream of his from his last life. Alchemist told Jinx and Kary about how he'd once had a friend in Estonia before life got in the way and they drifted apart and so they spent a little bit of time in that country before taking a ferry north where they had their vampire encounter.
Alchemist has informed Wonder Woman as to the goings on that he suspects there but hasn't made his own way, yet. Given the issues plaguing the isles, his veil of anonymity would be pretty hard to maintain considering he couldn't just avoid them once they were within reach.
Majustis + Mordred = ?
- Location
- RS,brasil
I would still like to see more of the world, teen titans and batman beyond felt... I don't know, small? Closed off? Like there was a lot more to the world I was not allowed to see
lacking in world building compared to some other worlds
it's very pronounced in the OVA dio vs jotaro fight compared to the newer one, your focus is entirely in the characters, whereas the older one had sings in Arabic, actually Egyptian looking Egyptians, when dio "said do you think all these streets look the same?" I actually believed him that he would have noticed the difference
i always liked JLU compared to either the batman and superman series
the series eventualy did that with every hero coming together for the finale
lacking in world building compared to some other worlds
it's very pronounced in the OVA dio vs jotaro fight compared to the newer one, your focus is entirely in the characters, whereas the older one had sings in Arabic, actually Egyptian looking Egyptians, when dio "said do you think all these streets look the same?" I actually believed him that he would have noticed the difference
i always liked JLU compared to either the batman and superman series
the series eventualy did that with every hero coming together for the finale
Arimai
Curmudgeon
May I have one as well?
He's a hormonal 12 year old at this point of YJ canon. As hilarious as the film That's My Boy was, Selina and Dick starting such as relationship would be incredibly bad. In every aspect.
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Lycanthromancer
The Arcane Fuzz
- Location
- USA
And, again, not one we should be discussing in this thread.
(Not directed at you, Arimai. For some reason, TerraBull seems to be easily distracted by Robin's activities in that direction, despite his being a child. Please stop, @TerraBull. We don't want to get the thread permalocked and/or deleted for discussing such things.)
I wonder if we ever get an Omake/Interlude about Etrigan's "adventure" in Detroit.
Since this is DC Comic Detroit he was probably mugged within 5 minutes of his arrival and now there is a naked demon trying to flee that city.
Think he was talking about Teen Titan Robin who is teen late teen.
Arimai
Curmudgeon
Same problem. Please drop the this topic.
He's thinking House of Windsor in Britain, not Windsor/Detroit.
I think he's referring to the story I made on Royal Road, Dynamo!
The Power of Ten Book Four: Dynamo | Royal Road
Discord Link at: TPoT link! Always up if I'm online. This novel is complete at 510 Chapters and daily updates! Getting carved off a soul is traumatic. Getting snared by an extradimensional entity for unknown reasons is worse. Waking up in a new world that is suspiciously familiar to your...
www.royalroad.com
Almost all Marvel, not DC, and set in a world that deviates from standard Marvel in 1832 or so. It also takes a LOT from the 70's and 80's comics to start, not the cartoons, so you may be wrong-footed with some of the stuff that goes on if you are not familiar with the older stories (and amusingly, the older stories updated for the times are the ones used for the newer cartoons!...)
Tying together stats was one of the big challenges for the story, as I do try to cleave to the rules, but superheroes have silly high physical Stats compared to normal D&D characters, so be warned.
As a side note, one of the ways I get around the silly high Intellectual ability of some of the characters, including the MC, is simply making them good at particular aspects of Intellect. The MC is not an Inspired Genius able to pull bullshit science out of nowhere, she's not the Invent the Tech to Solve the Problem type of super genius. Once the tech is invented, she can make it sing and dance, however, and bring it out to the wider world... so unbelievable for a comicsverse, I know!
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- Location
- Ohio
So before Beta Testing with people that are customers to find flaws, companies have in house Alpha Testers play/use it to see if they find any flaws...
Which caused me to wonder...what happens when someone up there wants to compare their Alpha and Beta Testers against Terra's...
Which would be a problem that Terra would likely take to Al after trying to make her Alpha Tester, and messing it up...
Which caused me to wonder...what happens when someone up there wants to compare their Alpha and Beta Testers against Terra's...
Which would be a problem that Terra would likely take to Al after trying to make her Alpha Tester, and messing it up...
Crayz9000
Deranged Bounty Hunter
- Location
- Improbably superpositioned
That sounds like something the Gamer should be filing a bug report about.
Eh, if he can find a way to monitor/access them with a spell or something, he can probably add it to the basic Assay. You don't put information on the readout that's not relevant except in special cases, right? That's what custom screens are for. How many worlds/games use a SAN stat?
Chapter 323, TT
New
Project: Gamer Ver. 2 Alpha Build 3.2.3
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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27/07/2003 (TT, Earth-12)
The Arlington National Cemetery had seen countless visitors, and many a General had been among them.
General Wade Eiling had been present at a baker's dozen burials at the solemn grounds, though only a few had been under his current rank. Wade had gotten old, something of a luxury that far too few got to enjoy as servicemen.
It was a hot, dry morning and sweat was already working its way down the tired old man's face.
Wade had gotten soft. Something the old man was unhappy to realize as he chewed on the end of an unlit cigar.
Seventy-Eight degrees Fahrenheit at nine in the morning? He used to lead men into combat with flamethrowers before the crack of dawn back in Vietnam!
Still. He was here and he damn well planned on seeing things through. After all, getting permission to exhume a soldier's remains was a nightmare and a half, even with the countless eye-witnesses from the Pentagon affirming that something supernatural was afoot.
Wade's jaw worked back and forth, grinding his cigar into pulp.
Some undead thing, stinking of napalm, had waltzed on through every layer of security they had. Somehow the revenant, ghost, ghoul, whatever the damned thing had been, was able to use its old dogtags to get through doors sealed up with electronic locks that sure as shit didn't exist back when the burning corpse had been alive.
The security experts were useless, of course. And the few mystics that were actually willing to consult with the military had taken a look at the video and wished him the best of luck before, in several cases, literally sprinting away!
Without too many clues? Wade had to work with what he had. And what he had was the name of the stinkin', burnin' ghost.
Lieutenant Daniel Prowler. Buried with honors.
Well, they buried what was left of him.
Napalm was a messy way to go.
"Get this show on the road!" Wade shouted as he glared up at the moron on the backhoe. "We have a lot of folks wantin' to make damned sure this man is dead!"
It was too goddamned early and too goddamned hot. And while one of those was resolving itself all fine and dandy? The day was just going to keep getting hotter and hotter.
The man on the backhoe, even older than Wade and wearing a pair of overalls with a red flannel shirt, sent the General an informal salute and started working the levers of his machine. The equipment carved through the dirt before the small, unassuming headstone with ease and it was only a matter of minutes before it had gotten too deep to continue.
At that point three other men, all significantly younger than the machine operator, climbed down into the pit and got to work digging.
Wade had to pull a handkerchief out of his pocket to dab at his forehead before the boys were done and one of them slammed their shovels into Eiling's goal with a loud, hollow 'Thunk!'
"We got it!" one of the attendants yelled. Wade leaned over the hole as two of them climbed up and out. The one that remained looked up and Eiling motioned for him to hurry up. "On it, boss!"
Wade was tempted to crack out 'That's Sir!' but held his tongue. Educating civilians never worked and he didn't want to waste another minute out in Virginia's miserable, humid heat.
The man down below leaned down and grabbed at the edge of the coffin they'd dug up and, with a great, deep groan he lifted and twisted.
Revealing the long-decayed remains of Lieutenant Daniel Prowler. Right where they were supposed to be. Not a scrap of flesh on the old boy, not after he'd been buried for decades, but it was good enough for Wade.
He didn't know what the Hell he'd been expecting but that fit with how nobody had a damned clue about how any of this whole damned mess fit together.
"Alright," Wade said as he turned around and adjusted his cap. "Close him up."
At the least, they knew that Prowler's corpse was where it was supposed to be. Which meant that the thing that'd attacked the Pentagon was either a fake, or...
Well. The specter had claimed it came crawling right out of Hell.
Walking back to the golf cart that had brought him to Prowler's grave, Eiling was confused to find a second golf cart next to his, with a number of men in suits similar to his own.
"...Barker," Wade greeted once he was close enough to recognize the man leading the procession. Dalton Barker, a Warrant Officer acting under the direct orders of the Director of the U.S. Army CID. They'd crossed paths on several occasions in recent years. "Don't often see you these days."
"Wade," Barker acknowledged with a salute. He didn't fall under Wade's authority but some habits were simply too hard to break. "We've got an Order of Apprehension. For you."
"...Excuse me?" Wade asked.
Barker ducked his head and turned to look at his men. The fool was clearly uncomfortable and twisted his mouth, sucking in one side of his cheek before he turned his eyes back up to meet Wade's.
"Sir? I don't know what's going on. Orders came in from the Secret Service."
...The Secret Service?
What on God's green Earth could the Secret Service want with him?
"...Alright, men," Wade said, his eyes narrowing into flinty slits. He pushed his way through the men blocking his way to get to his own golf cart, then sat down in the passenger seat. "Let's get this dog and pony show on the road."
The General kept his eyes forward and his back stiff as one of Barker's men sat down in the driver's seat. Still, the old man didn't miss the way that Barker relaxed. He'd probably been expecting Wade to fight and argue over the orders Barker barely even knew about!
Someone thought they were going to pull a fast one and leave Wade Eiling as their patsy?
They had no idea who they were messing with. Wade had been double-dealing and backstabbing for the last thirty years.
No upstart, no ghost and no God damned Secret Service was going to get the best of him!
-----
The week since they reclaimed their home was most joyous for Starfire! She was finally able to reclaim her closet from the horrible Jinx, not to be mistaken for Friend Jinx, and wear fresh clothes that were hers and not borrowed that covered her in too much restrictive, unyielding cloth. Their kitchen had been thoroughly cleaned, every speck of food had been removed and that meant that they went to the Supers Market, filled with countless varieties and flavors just waiting for her to experience!
One that constantly drew her attention was the mythical Gold Fish. Unfortunately, there seemed to be some kind of hidden price or requirement as Friend Robin was most insistent that she could not have one.
She had heard of a Silver Fish, however. If her understanding of Earth currencies was correct, that must mean that it was a cheaper and less valuable alternative. Unfortunately, all of her searching throughout the Supers Market yielded no results and left her wondering if others were purchasing the Silver Fish for themselves for they, too, could not afford the Gold Fish.
But that disappointment aside, Starfire was most happy with the state of things. Had been happy with the state of things.
The night before, she and Robin had tried to spend time together. Just the two of them upon the boardwalk, riding a 'Ferris Wheel' and enjoying the 'Cotton Candy'.
How the delicious treat was made, she did not know. It was certainly different from normal cotton, however. It tasted far better.
And the fireworks had been... distracting. For Robin.
For her...
Starfire had needed to learn to sleep through distant explosions many years ago. She found the light and the noises distracting but far from pleasant.
And, hiding among the explosions had been a foe most strange. From the skies above came a large, purple object. It was a giant, oblong piece of machinery with a number of purple tentacles and it had grabbed her from the wheel of Ferris. Attempting to free herself had proven difficult, the machine being most resistant to her starbolts, but with the help of her friends they soon defeated the interloper and were free to return home.
She had been ready to recite the Poem of Gratitude for her dear friends, all six-thousand verses! But had been interrupted by the presence of a most fortuitous visitor!
Komand'r! Her older sister!
And she had brought a Centauri Moon Diamond for her!
But... it soon seemed as though her friends had fallen for Komand'r's charms. Like all of her friends had done in the past, back on Tamaran. And Komand'r had freely helped herself to Starfire's clothes as she integrated into Earthling society with ease and grace that Starfire simply lacked.
It was... isolating.
And it was in that isolation that more of the strange pods had found Starfire. She had been sitting atop a roof of a club, moping as her friends and sister danced to the 'boppy' music inside of the building.
At first, when fighting just a single tentacle machine, Starfire managed to hold her own reasonably well. It had not taken her by surprise like the last one did.
She was soon joined by her friends to fight off the pod.
And the pod was soon joined by friends of its own.
The battle was rough and, worse, the battle was lost. Once it came to the skies? Starfire and her friends were limited while the purple pod and its friends were not.
Separated, isolated and battered, Starfire fell into a dumpster. She tried to crawl out of the filth when she saw one of the pods coming down from overhead to seal her in!
"Ahh!" the teenage heroine screamed, her arms bracing her head.
She had nearly been spirited away, off to parts unknown by the wicked tentacle pod when her friends arrived to save the day! With great courage and power, they held the pods back until Komand'r, Blackfire, Starfire's sister proved most capable in destroying them with her own powers!
...And then, as always happened, her friends were quick to offer Blackfire a place among them. So excited and enthralled were they by Komand'r's charisma and capabilities, they paid Starfire no attention and left her to escape the dumpster alone and unassisted.
It was the same. It was always the same. Komand'r was better than her and Starfire knew it. If she lingered, if she remained, she would slowly be forgotten. Cast to the wayside as her friends found Komand'r to be her superior in every way...
The Tamaranean silently hovered up the stairs that led to the roof access, a pack held in her hands as she prepared to leave.
She was not, however, prepared to find someone already upon the roof.
A man of average height and unremarkable brown hair stood at the edge of the Titan's Tower. He wore a pair of scuffed, sandy boots, blue jeans and a white hoody with red triangles around the sleeves, hood and hem.
"Friend Alchemist?" Starfire asked, her voice soft and hesitant. The man, his head tilted up and his eyes flickering from star to star, blinked before he turned to face her. His mouth twitched once towards a smile before thinning back out and he waved to her. "For what reason are you here?"
"Saw an odd explosion in the fireworks while I was out with Yuffie and Kary last night," Alchemist explained, his head tilting back up and his gaze returning to the heavens. "Then Tiffany was telling me about some flying tentacle monsters earlier. This is the best spot to look up in the city, it's just past the worst of the light pollution."
Starfire heard the door slam shut behind her and almost turned around to look at it.
She'd been sure she closed it, after all.
But then... well, she was quite distracted.
Starfire looked up as well, Earth's moon seemed so large, so beautiful... A glance at Alchemist's eyes let her follow his gaze, up and up to Alpha Centauri. Idly, absentmindedly, she reached up to place her hand over the Centauri Moon Diamond that Blackfire had gotten for her.
It was so rare to receive a gift from her sister... Starfire hadn't even stopped to wonder how her sister had gotten it.
But her thoughts were interrupted as a platform rose from the sides of the tower. Alien lights upon an alien craft came to life, focused on Starfire! And, atop the craft, a shadow moved. With her hands before her face to try and block the glare, Starfire tried to see what was atop the craft-
Then stumbled, her balance offset as she found herself several meters to the side of where she'd been standing. Whipping her head to the side, she saw a green tentacle twist in the air to chase after her-
And then her stomach flipped as Starfire was on the opposite side of where she'd been placed just seconds ago.
"Is there a reason the Centauri Space Cadets are in Sector Two-Eight-One-Four?!" Alchemist shouted up at the hovering space craft.
"We are the Centauri Space -Police-!" a voice shouted back at him. "And you are interfering with official police business!"
"You've attacked an immature adolescent member of interplanetary royalty without a declaration of intent within the jurisdiction of two Green Lanterns," Alchemist explained, his words somehow carrying without needing to shout any longer. "Is it your 'business' to initiate hostilities?"
The lights on the alien craft flickered off and it lowered down until it was roughly even with the roof of the tower, revealing a pair of large, armored aliens that had claws rather than hands.
"...Two Green Lanterns?" one officer asked. The other one was behind what looked like a control station for the craft.
"At the moment, yeah," Alchemist explained. "Green Lantern Two-Eight-One-Four dot One, Hal Jordan and-"
Down below, a window shattered and Starfire could just make out Blackfire zipping through the air, her body kept low to the sea.
"...I think that was our suspect," the armored alien behind the controls lamely stated.
"You are here for Blackfire?" Starfire asked around the back of her mouth. Her stomach did not particularly enjoy it when she was moved by powers other than her own, it seemed. At least, it most definitely did not like it when it was performed many times in rapid succession.
"...Yeah," the officer that tried to capture her admitted. "We've been tracking the radiation of a stolen Centauri Moon Diamond and it led us right here."
That...
The dishonor!
The betrayal!
Starfire knew it had been too good to be true! Blackfire had not just planned to steal more of Starfire's friends, she planned to have Starfire suffer for Blackfire's crimes!
Reaching up, Starfire ripped the Centauri Moon Diamond from around her neck and reared back, ready to throw the stone into the sea-
"Actually, Starfire? Could I borrow that for a moment?" Alchemist asked, stopping her mid-throw.
"Actually, it's evidence," one of the officer's interrupted. "We kind of need it."
"I was going to use it to lead you to a Green Lantern," Alchemist explained, his head turning to the officers. "Can't imagine you guys just accept random teleports."
"That won't be necessary," the pilot of the alien craft told the group. "Now that this sector has a Green Lantern again, we can just send a message using their reserved frequencies. So, if you could avoid handling the evidence? It would simplify the paperwork immensely."
"...Yeah."
"Now, miss?" the alien that tried to capture her said as he turned to properly face Starfire. "I don't suppose I could get you to fill out an incident report, could I? Starting from when you first encountered Blackfire?"
"Uh..." Starfire turned to look at Alchemist, who just shrugged to her. "...Sure?"
-----
That... had not gone as Alchemist planned.
At all.
Actually, he was fairly sure he'd just made things worse than how they were supposed to go?
Without his intervention, the Alpha Centauri crab people would have captured Starfire and then the Teen Titans would have explained to them that there were not just one, but actually two Tamaraneans on Earth. With the second one being Blackfire and the one they'd captured being Starfire. Then both groups would have worked together to capture Blackfire so she could be sent back to be tried for her crimes.
Which were...
"Hey, if you don't mind my asking?" Alchemist, well, asked of the armored crab that wasn't helping Starfire type at a futuristic I-Pad. "What all did Blackfire actually do?"
"...She's largely wanted on charges of being a public nuisance," the officer began to explain as he extracted another pad like the one Starfire was using. He carefully swiped and tapped at it with the tip of his claw, then handed it over to Alchemist. "Petty theft, disturbing the peace, minor counts of assault, public indecency... we would have been content to let her leave, honestly, up until she stole the Centauri Moon Diamond."
Alchemist pursed his lips as he looked at the screen. It had a profile picture of Blackfire, with her actual Tamaranean name, and a long, long list of... petty crimes. He pressed the tip of his finger against one of the listed thefts and the screen went dark for a moment before it pulled up a video.
In it, he could see Blackfire from an overhead view, wearing a pink wig of all things, at a restaurant. She was eating something, Alchemist had no idea what, and then she stopped. She looked around at the other patrons of the eatery, looked up to the camera, smiled at it...
And got up and walked off.
The pad returned to the profile of Blackfire and Alchemist pressed one of the public indecency charges. After a moment of loading, the screen pulled up a shaky video of Blackfire, half-naked, molesting a... statue?
"You're a wimpy li'l thang..." the girl drunkenly slurred as the video panned back. Alchemist pressed a finger against the screen, pausing it so he could read the plaque at the base of the statue.
In memory of those who served...
"Tamaranean men are way better... not a bunch a' wimpy losers..."
Alchemist... handed the pad back to the officer.
Suddenly, he understood the episode about racism against Tamaraneans a lot better. If Blackfire was the face of Tamaran to the galaxy at large? Then the galaxy at large would be expecting Tamaraneans to act like Blackfire. It wasn't exactly fair, no, but first impressions rarely were.
Alchemist's cheeks puffed out as he let out a slow breath.
The situation was suddenly a lot bigger than he imagined when he decided to involve himself.
Strangely, instead of feeling overwhelmed, Alchemist was experiencing a weird sort of zen. He was attributing that to the fact that he wasn't just situated atop Titan Tower.
With Bilocation active, he was also walking through the desert south of Jump City and practicing with a number of spells. The monofocus as his other half walked out to a barren patch of sand, cast Charge and then cast Plant Growth. Around him, cacti and shrubs would spring to life, creating a dense patch of hardy and nearly intraversible terrain.
Then that Alchemist would use Wraith King, creating fourteen duplicates of himself that were each, individually, imbued with Haste so they could work on enchanting Discipline into even more children's clothes using Petty Soul Gems to minimize the otherwise overwhelming bonus it would have created.
It was a repetitive task that repeated itself roughly once every five minutes, the length of time it took for him to walk out of the freshly cactused zone, but it was doing wonders to keep the Alchemist atop the Titan's tower grounded.
As to the reason why Alchemist was using Plant Growth to fight the desertification caused by California's egregiously wasteful practices in moving every drop of water they could find to their major cities?
He'd thought long and hard about using it to help farms before, begrudgingly, accepting that multiplying the yield at a farm many times over could actually be more harmful than helpful. The farmers he 'helped' would have to either hire more people to harvest the extra produce or use more equipment, find storage for a dozen times their normal production and try to find buyers for all of the excess before it began to rot.
It would have been a logistical nightmare that would cause more problems in the short term than it would solve.
Kind of like Alchemist interrupting events and causing Blackfire to take a runner when it became obvious to her that Starfire wasn't getting arrested in her place...
Although, at least with Blackfire, the short term issues would turn into a long-term solution as, through the Green Lantern's intergalactic network, she would be a known quantity and a wanted criminal.
...Yay?
"Yo, Starfire!" Cyborg shouted out from the doorway of the roof access. "You up here!"
"Friend Cyborg!" Starfire shouted over to him. "I am the here!"
"Hey, great, listen..." Turning around, Alchemist saw Cyborg finally realize that it wasn't just Starfire on the roof. His lone human eye widened significantly as he tried to figure out what was going on. "Uh... friends of yours?"
"They're police," Robin explained, finally coming out of hiding from behind the roof access building. "And they're here for Blackfire."
"...Is that why she went nuts, blasted out a window and took off like she did?"
Alchemist just sighed and turned his head up, his gaze returning to the stars. He had something else he wanted to do here, had something special he meant to deliver to Starfire, but...
The explanation about Blackfire was going to be repeated two more times, for Raven and Beastboy, and it was just going to be so, so tedious.
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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27/07/2003 (TT, Earth-12)
The Arlington National Cemetery had seen countless visitors, and many a General had been among them.
General Wade Eiling had been present at a baker's dozen burials at the solemn grounds, though only a few had been under his current rank. Wade had gotten old, something of a luxury that far too few got to enjoy as servicemen.
It was a hot, dry morning and sweat was already working its way down the tired old man's face.
Wade had gotten soft. Something the old man was unhappy to realize as he chewed on the end of an unlit cigar.
Seventy-Eight degrees Fahrenheit at nine in the morning? He used to lead men into combat with flamethrowers before the crack of dawn back in Vietnam!
Still. He was here and he damn well planned on seeing things through. After all, getting permission to exhume a soldier's remains was a nightmare and a half, even with the countless eye-witnesses from the Pentagon affirming that something supernatural was afoot.
Wade's jaw worked back and forth, grinding his cigar into pulp.
Some undead thing, stinking of napalm, had waltzed on through every layer of security they had. Somehow the revenant, ghost, ghoul, whatever the damned thing had been, was able to use its old dogtags to get through doors sealed up with electronic locks that sure as shit didn't exist back when the burning corpse had been alive.
The security experts were useless, of course. And the few mystics that were actually willing to consult with the military had taken a look at the video and wished him the best of luck before, in several cases, literally sprinting away!
Without too many clues? Wade had to work with what he had. And what he had was the name of the stinkin', burnin' ghost.
Lieutenant Daniel Prowler. Buried with honors.
Well, they buried what was left of him.
Napalm was a messy way to go.
"Get this show on the road!" Wade shouted as he glared up at the moron on the backhoe. "We have a lot of folks wantin' to make damned sure this man is dead!"
It was too goddamned early and too goddamned hot. And while one of those was resolving itself all fine and dandy? The day was just going to keep getting hotter and hotter.
The man on the backhoe, even older than Wade and wearing a pair of overalls with a red flannel shirt, sent the General an informal salute and started working the levers of his machine. The equipment carved through the dirt before the small, unassuming headstone with ease and it was only a matter of minutes before it had gotten too deep to continue.
At that point three other men, all significantly younger than the machine operator, climbed down into the pit and got to work digging.
Wade had to pull a handkerchief out of his pocket to dab at his forehead before the boys were done and one of them slammed their shovels into Eiling's goal with a loud, hollow 'Thunk!'
"We got it!" one of the attendants yelled. Wade leaned over the hole as two of them climbed up and out. The one that remained looked up and Eiling motioned for him to hurry up. "On it, boss!"
Wade was tempted to crack out 'That's Sir!' but held his tongue. Educating civilians never worked and he didn't want to waste another minute out in Virginia's miserable, humid heat.
The man down below leaned down and grabbed at the edge of the coffin they'd dug up and, with a great, deep groan he lifted and twisted.
Revealing the long-decayed remains of Lieutenant Daniel Prowler. Right where they were supposed to be. Not a scrap of flesh on the old boy, not after he'd been buried for decades, but it was good enough for Wade.
He didn't know what the Hell he'd been expecting but that fit with how nobody had a damned clue about how any of this whole damned mess fit together.
"Alright," Wade said as he turned around and adjusted his cap. "Close him up."
At the least, they knew that Prowler's corpse was where it was supposed to be. Which meant that the thing that'd attacked the Pentagon was either a fake, or...
Well. The specter had claimed it came crawling right out of Hell.
Walking back to the golf cart that had brought him to Prowler's grave, Eiling was confused to find a second golf cart next to his, with a number of men in suits similar to his own.
"...Barker," Wade greeted once he was close enough to recognize the man leading the procession. Dalton Barker, a Warrant Officer acting under the direct orders of the Director of the U.S. Army CID. They'd crossed paths on several occasions in recent years. "Don't often see you these days."
"Wade," Barker acknowledged with a salute. He didn't fall under Wade's authority but some habits were simply too hard to break. "We've got an Order of Apprehension. For you."
"...Excuse me?" Wade asked.
Barker ducked his head and turned to look at his men. The fool was clearly uncomfortable and twisted his mouth, sucking in one side of his cheek before he turned his eyes back up to meet Wade's.
"Sir? I don't know what's going on. Orders came in from the Secret Service."
...The Secret Service?
What on God's green Earth could the Secret Service want with him?
"...Alright, men," Wade said, his eyes narrowing into flinty slits. He pushed his way through the men blocking his way to get to his own golf cart, then sat down in the passenger seat. "Let's get this dog and pony show on the road."
The General kept his eyes forward and his back stiff as one of Barker's men sat down in the driver's seat. Still, the old man didn't miss the way that Barker relaxed. He'd probably been expecting Wade to fight and argue over the orders Barker barely even knew about!
Someone thought they were going to pull a fast one and leave Wade Eiling as their patsy?
They had no idea who they were messing with. Wade had been double-dealing and backstabbing for the last thirty years.
No upstart, no ghost and no God damned Secret Service was going to get the best of him!
-----
The week since they reclaimed their home was most joyous for Starfire! She was finally able to reclaim her closet from the horrible Jinx, not to be mistaken for Friend Jinx, and wear fresh clothes that were hers and not borrowed that covered her in too much restrictive, unyielding cloth. Their kitchen had been thoroughly cleaned, every speck of food had been removed and that meant that they went to the Supers Market, filled with countless varieties and flavors just waiting for her to experience!
One that constantly drew her attention was the mythical Gold Fish. Unfortunately, there seemed to be some kind of hidden price or requirement as Friend Robin was most insistent that she could not have one.
She had heard of a Silver Fish, however. If her understanding of Earth currencies was correct, that must mean that it was a cheaper and less valuable alternative. Unfortunately, all of her searching throughout the Supers Market yielded no results and left her wondering if others were purchasing the Silver Fish for themselves for they, too, could not afford the Gold Fish.
But that disappointment aside, Starfire was most happy with the state of things. Had been happy with the state of things.
The night before, she and Robin had tried to spend time together. Just the two of them upon the boardwalk, riding a 'Ferris Wheel' and enjoying the 'Cotton Candy'.
How the delicious treat was made, she did not know. It was certainly different from normal cotton, however. It tasted far better.
And the fireworks had been... distracting. For Robin.
For her...
Starfire had needed to learn to sleep through distant explosions many years ago. She found the light and the noises distracting but far from pleasant.
And, hiding among the explosions had been a foe most strange. From the skies above came a large, purple object. It was a giant, oblong piece of machinery with a number of purple tentacles and it had grabbed her from the wheel of Ferris. Attempting to free herself had proven difficult, the machine being most resistant to her starbolts, but with the help of her friends they soon defeated the interloper and were free to return home.
She had been ready to recite the Poem of Gratitude for her dear friends, all six-thousand verses! But had been interrupted by the presence of a most fortuitous visitor!
Komand'r! Her older sister!
And she had brought a Centauri Moon Diamond for her!
But... it soon seemed as though her friends had fallen for Komand'r's charms. Like all of her friends had done in the past, back on Tamaran. And Komand'r had freely helped herself to Starfire's clothes as she integrated into Earthling society with ease and grace that Starfire simply lacked.
It was... isolating.
And it was in that isolation that more of the strange pods had found Starfire. She had been sitting atop a roof of a club, moping as her friends and sister danced to the 'boppy' music inside of the building.
At first, when fighting just a single tentacle machine, Starfire managed to hold her own reasonably well. It had not taken her by surprise like the last one did.
She was soon joined by her friends to fight off the pod.
And the pod was soon joined by friends of its own.
The battle was rough and, worse, the battle was lost. Once it came to the skies? Starfire and her friends were limited while the purple pod and its friends were not.
Separated, isolated and battered, Starfire fell into a dumpster. She tried to crawl out of the filth when she saw one of the pods coming down from overhead to seal her in!
"Ahh!" the teenage heroine screamed, her arms bracing her head.
She had nearly been spirited away, off to parts unknown by the wicked tentacle pod when her friends arrived to save the day! With great courage and power, they held the pods back until Komand'r, Blackfire, Starfire's sister proved most capable in destroying them with her own powers!
...And then, as always happened, her friends were quick to offer Blackfire a place among them. So excited and enthralled were they by Komand'r's charisma and capabilities, they paid Starfire no attention and left her to escape the dumpster alone and unassisted.
It was the same. It was always the same. Komand'r was better than her and Starfire knew it. If she lingered, if she remained, she would slowly be forgotten. Cast to the wayside as her friends found Komand'r to be her superior in every way...
The Tamaranean silently hovered up the stairs that led to the roof access, a pack held in her hands as she prepared to leave.
She was not, however, prepared to find someone already upon the roof.
A man of average height and unremarkable brown hair stood at the edge of the Titan's Tower. He wore a pair of scuffed, sandy boots, blue jeans and a white hoody with red triangles around the sleeves, hood and hem.
"Friend Alchemist?" Starfire asked, her voice soft and hesitant. The man, his head tilted up and his eyes flickering from star to star, blinked before he turned to face her. His mouth twitched once towards a smile before thinning back out and he waved to her. "For what reason are you here?"
"Saw an odd explosion in the fireworks while I was out with Yuffie and Kary last night," Alchemist explained, his head tilting back up and his gaze returning to the heavens. "Then Tiffany was telling me about some flying tentacle monsters earlier. This is the best spot to look up in the city, it's just past the worst of the light pollution."
Starfire heard the door slam shut behind her and almost turned around to look at it.
She'd been sure she closed it, after all.
But then... well, she was quite distracted.
Starfire looked up as well, Earth's moon seemed so large, so beautiful... A glance at Alchemist's eyes let her follow his gaze, up and up to Alpha Centauri. Idly, absentmindedly, she reached up to place her hand over the Centauri Moon Diamond that Blackfire had gotten for her.
It was so rare to receive a gift from her sister... Starfire hadn't even stopped to wonder how her sister had gotten it.
But her thoughts were interrupted as a platform rose from the sides of the tower. Alien lights upon an alien craft came to life, focused on Starfire! And, atop the craft, a shadow moved. With her hands before her face to try and block the glare, Starfire tried to see what was atop the craft-
Then stumbled, her balance offset as she found herself several meters to the side of where she'd been standing. Whipping her head to the side, she saw a green tentacle twist in the air to chase after her-
And then her stomach flipped as Starfire was on the opposite side of where she'd been placed just seconds ago.
"Is there a reason the Centauri Space Cadets are in Sector Two-Eight-One-Four?!" Alchemist shouted up at the hovering space craft.
"We are the Centauri Space -Police-!" a voice shouted back at him. "And you are interfering with official police business!"
"You've attacked an immature adolescent member of interplanetary royalty without a declaration of intent within the jurisdiction of two Green Lanterns," Alchemist explained, his words somehow carrying without needing to shout any longer. "Is it your 'business' to initiate hostilities?"
The lights on the alien craft flickered off and it lowered down until it was roughly even with the roof of the tower, revealing a pair of large, armored aliens that had claws rather than hands.
"...Two Green Lanterns?" one officer asked. The other one was behind what looked like a control station for the craft.
"At the moment, yeah," Alchemist explained. "Green Lantern Two-Eight-One-Four dot One, Hal Jordan and-"
Down below, a window shattered and Starfire could just make out Blackfire zipping through the air, her body kept low to the sea.
"...I think that was our suspect," the armored alien behind the controls lamely stated.
"You are here for Blackfire?" Starfire asked around the back of her mouth. Her stomach did not particularly enjoy it when she was moved by powers other than her own, it seemed. At least, it most definitely did not like it when it was performed many times in rapid succession.
"...Yeah," the officer that tried to capture her admitted. "We've been tracking the radiation of a stolen Centauri Moon Diamond and it led us right here."
That...
The dishonor!
The betrayal!
Starfire knew it had been too good to be true! Blackfire had not just planned to steal more of Starfire's friends, she planned to have Starfire suffer for Blackfire's crimes!
Reaching up, Starfire ripped the Centauri Moon Diamond from around her neck and reared back, ready to throw the stone into the sea-
"Actually, Starfire? Could I borrow that for a moment?" Alchemist asked, stopping her mid-throw.
"Actually, it's evidence," one of the officer's interrupted. "We kind of need it."
"I was going to use it to lead you to a Green Lantern," Alchemist explained, his head turning to the officers. "Can't imagine you guys just accept random teleports."
"That won't be necessary," the pilot of the alien craft told the group. "Now that this sector has a Green Lantern again, we can just send a message using their reserved frequencies. So, if you could avoid handling the evidence? It would simplify the paperwork immensely."
"...Yeah."
"Now, miss?" the alien that tried to capture her said as he turned to properly face Starfire. "I don't suppose I could get you to fill out an incident report, could I? Starting from when you first encountered Blackfire?"
"Uh..." Starfire turned to look at Alchemist, who just shrugged to her. "...Sure?"
-----
That... had not gone as Alchemist planned.
At all.
Actually, he was fairly sure he'd just made things worse than how they were supposed to go?
Without his intervention, the Alpha Centauri crab people would have captured Starfire and then the Teen Titans would have explained to them that there were not just one, but actually two Tamaraneans on Earth. With the second one being Blackfire and the one they'd captured being Starfire. Then both groups would have worked together to capture Blackfire so she could be sent back to be tried for her crimes.
Which were...
"Hey, if you don't mind my asking?" Alchemist, well, asked of the armored crab that wasn't helping Starfire type at a futuristic I-Pad. "What all did Blackfire actually do?"
"...She's largely wanted on charges of being a public nuisance," the officer began to explain as he extracted another pad like the one Starfire was using. He carefully swiped and tapped at it with the tip of his claw, then handed it over to Alchemist. "Petty theft, disturbing the peace, minor counts of assault, public indecency... we would have been content to let her leave, honestly, up until she stole the Centauri Moon Diamond."
Alchemist pursed his lips as he looked at the screen. It had a profile picture of Blackfire, with her actual Tamaranean name, and a long, long list of... petty crimes. He pressed the tip of his finger against one of the listed thefts and the screen went dark for a moment before it pulled up a video.
In it, he could see Blackfire from an overhead view, wearing a pink wig of all things, at a restaurant. She was eating something, Alchemist had no idea what, and then she stopped. She looked around at the other patrons of the eatery, looked up to the camera, smiled at it...
And got up and walked off.
The pad returned to the profile of Blackfire and Alchemist pressed one of the public indecency charges. After a moment of loading, the screen pulled up a shaky video of Blackfire, half-naked, molesting a... statue?
"You're a wimpy li'l thang..." the girl drunkenly slurred as the video panned back. Alchemist pressed a finger against the screen, pausing it so he could read the plaque at the base of the statue.
In memory of those who served...
"Tamaranean men are way better... not a bunch a' wimpy losers..."
Alchemist... handed the pad back to the officer.
Suddenly, he understood the episode about racism against Tamaraneans a lot better. If Blackfire was the face of Tamaran to the galaxy at large? Then the galaxy at large would be expecting Tamaraneans to act like Blackfire. It wasn't exactly fair, no, but first impressions rarely were.
Alchemist's cheeks puffed out as he let out a slow breath.
The situation was suddenly a lot bigger than he imagined when he decided to involve himself.
Strangely, instead of feeling overwhelmed, Alchemist was experiencing a weird sort of zen. He was attributing that to the fact that he wasn't just situated atop Titan Tower.
With Bilocation active, he was also walking through the desert south of Jump City and practicing with a number of spells. The monofocus as his other half walked out to a barren patch of sand, cast Charge and then cast Plant Growth. Around him, cacti and shrubs would spring to life, creating a dense patch of hardy and nearly intraversible terrain.
Then that Alchemist would use Wraith King, creating fourteen duplicates of himself that were each, individually, imbued with Haste so they could work on enchanting Discipline into even more children's clothes using Petty Soul Gems to minimize the otherwise overwhelming bonus it would have created.
It was a repetitive task that repeated itself roughly once every five minutes, the length of time it took for him to walk out of the freshly cactused zone, but it was doing wonders to keep the Alchemist atop the Titan's tower grounded.
As to the reason why Alchemist was using Plant Growth to fight the desertification caused by California's egregiously wasteful practices in moving every drop of water they could find to their major cities?
He'd thought long and hard about using it to help farms before, begrudgingly, accepting that multiplying the yield at a farm many times over could actually be more harmful than helpful. The farmers he 'helped' would have to either hire more people to harvest the extra produce or use more equipment, find storage for a dozen times their normal production and try to find buyers for all of the excess before it began to rot.
It would have been a logistical nightmare that would cause more problems in the short term than it would solve.
Kind of like Alchemist interrupting events and causing Blackfire to take a runner when it became obvious to her that Starfire wasn't getting arrested in her place...
Although, at least with Blackfire, the short term issues would turn into a long-term solution as, through the Green Lantern's intergalactic network, she would be a known quantity and a wanted criminal.
...Yay?
"Yo, Starfire!" Cyborg shouted out from the doorway of the roof access. "You up here!"
"Friend Cyborg!" Starfire shouted over to him. "I am the here!"
"Hey, great, listen..." Turning around, Alchemist saw Cyborg finally realize that it wasn't just Starfire on the roof. His lone human eye widened significantly as he tried to figure out what was going on. "Uh... friends of yours?"
"They're police," Robin explained, finally coming out of hiding from behind the roof access building. "And they're here for Blackfire."
"...Is that why she went nuts, blasted out a window and took off like she did?"
Alchemist just sighed and turned his head up, his gaze returning to the stars. He had something else he wanted to do here, had something special he meant to deliver to Starfire, but...
The explanation about Blackfire was going to be repeated two more times, for Raven and Beastboy, and it was just going to be so, so tedious.
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This is the true reason for people saying 'There is no time to explain'... Repetition gets tedious quickly.
