Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Project: Gamer Ver. 2 Alpha Build 0.0.1

Disclaimer Me Do: I own nothing you recognize. And most of what you don't recognize, I still don't own.

_________________________________________________________________________

You know? Being dead isn't really so bad.

It's calm, peaceful. Quiet.

Beautifully so. Tinnitus didn't carry over.

Just myself, my thoughts, and an endless yawning abyss filled with horrors and eyes. Staring, judging, weighing and waiting...

I waved.

"Please don't encourage them!" And I suppose I should introduce the only other 'Person' here with me.

Terra-Tan, girl was a head and a half shorter than me, measuring up to a rough one-point-four meters. Ish. Maybe. Size is relative here, I think. She had wheat-gold hair done in a pair of drill-like pigtails and eyes the lightest color of jade I'd ever seen.

And she was dressed in a magical girl outfit. I kid you not. Frills and bows everywhere, even had a scepter with a large red gem at the end, with one ring with a pair of pearls right around it, and another ring with four pearls around that.

Total weeb.

"Why are you so rude!" Fists on her hips, cheeks puffed out, she tried to lean forward and look intimidating.

"Because I'm all thoughts and no filter?" And it wasn't working. I just couldn't muster up the energy to be afraid.

I was already dead after all. Stroke in my mid-fifties, just like the rest of my family. Except without the cigarettes and alcohol.

Honestly, I thought I'd been doing pretty good.

"And you were." The girl, goddess probably. Or bad joke my own psyche is playing on me, admitted. "The stress you put on yourself didn't help any, but if you'd gotten to a doctor, you would have made a full recovery. Or as full as it gets, I guess. Brains are hard."

"So, what happens next? Reincarnation? Recursion? Passed around like a sorority girl to the elder gods?" The last one involved actual madness, it should be entertaining for a bit.

"What? Eww, no! They're just here because it's the only thing entertaining left at this level of reality. I pick a human soul, offer them my boon, and then throw them into a random part of the multiverse!" She seemed very proud about that, leaning back in this indefinable space with a smug grin and closed eyes.

"Oh! You mean like Aqua!" She deflated at my words, almost visibly shrinking.

"I'm better than Aqua!" Terra shouted as she waved her fists and pouted. "I don't have to send people to her miserable little death world, and I don't prey on NEETs and Shut-Ins!"

Well, that was fair enough. Now I was kind of wondering if my wife would be calling my workplace. The bastards would probably pull out a Ouija board and ask if I could come in on Friday.

"And-and-and I'm the one who made the first gamer! Without me, Han Jihan, Harvest and countless others would've just-just... Why are you looking at me like that?" The girl slowed down, less and less certain as her audience of one was, for all of her boasting, not impressed.

"Which I suppose is what you were going to offer me?"

"Yup-Yup!"

"Oh." Was my entirely unenthusiastic response. "I think I'll pass."

"Excuse me?" She was looking at me like I'd said something absurd, or just realized I was simple. "Maybe you don't understand. Magic? Stats? Potential for unlimited power? Loot? You guys like loot, right?"

"Yeah, that's awesome and all, but I had enough trouble relating to people without sociopathy from the whole 'Mind Protected From Emotions' thing you got going on with it. How many of your gamers -Don't- end up being ADHD murderbots?" I was not a paragon of virtue, no, but most of the gamers I knew about were murder-obsessed blood knights.

It was incredibly telling when she refused to answer.

"Right, so, if we could just get this ball rolling? I'm sure there's some other option for me. Maybe reincarnating as a fish? I like fish, well, fried fish."

"...I've been trying to patch things..." She was mumbling.

"Sorry?" I leaned down. "Don't think I got all that."

"I'm TRYING!" She exploded, shouting in my face. "But do you have -Any- idea how hard it is to fix things when people are complaining 'Where's my skills, Terra?' 'Why can't I have a party, Terra?' 'My HP hit zero 'cuz of a paper-cut, Terra!'? Well do you?!"

"I was married, so yes." My response was said in such a sincere deadpan, too.

She screamed wordlessly, the... Things, in the background, screaming as well. Or maybe laughing.

"Alright, alright, just take a deep breath, okay?" I tried placating her, but I wasn't sure it was working. Her eyes were glowing a darker green now, and I was pretty sure I could hear her teeth grinding.

Literally in both cases.

"How about you just tell me what changes you've tried, and we'll workshop this, alright?" At my urging she did take a slow, deep breath before exhaling in the loudest, most obvious way I'd seen.

Outside of an anime.

The weeb.

"Alright. Alright. So I've tried toggling access to the shop. Some gamers have it, some gamers don't, it doesn't change much. I've also tried ID create. Some of the more entertaining gamers have used it for a kind of teleportation, and that was really cool! Bust most of them just go in and pew-pew-pew zombies until they're too strong for their reality." She actually did finger guns for the pew-pew-pew part.

"But the gamers who don't get ID create just find some other mechanic to abuse?" I already knew the answer.

"Yeah... They usually go for the adaptive abilities and do crazy stuff like catch themselves on fire or eat lightning bolts or stuff. Then they walk up to the big bad and become a bigger bad." She sounded more and more depressed, which was fair. On the surface, it was a cool idea.

"Alright, and what about relationshi-"

"No." She stopped me cold.

"Yeah, that's fair." I already had a good idea about the next set of questions. "What about Gamer's Body and Gamer's Mind?"

"What about 'em? They're, well, they're like the whole draw aren't they? Live life like a video game! Be the ultimate gamer! Who doesn't love that?" She seemed incredibly proud about that, too.

"But maybe they're a big part of the problem?" I could already see that she was going to argue, so I held up my hands. "Hey, hey, just give it a thought, okay? A lot of the really good protagonists have got some trauma, or some kind of motivation, right? Something they feel really strong about?"

She nodded, still not looking too happy with me.

"Being an emotionless tactician is great in things like the Civilization series, but your gamers are supposed to be action RPG's, yeah?" She nodded again, looking slightly less unhappy with me. "So maybe they need to be a little more vulnerable? Let them be scared, and reckless, and clumsy so they can make mistakes. Mr.Perfect is Mr.Boring, isn't he?"

Terra still didn't look happy, but she nodded at me.

"But... I built it all on those things. ID create, Gamer's Body, Gamer's Mind. They're, like, my hallmarks!" Ooh, tears now! Aqua vibes rising.

"And sometimes you have to innovate, try new things, cut out some bugs! Or is your name Bethesda instead of Terra?" To be fair, I was goading her. I really shouldn't have been surprised.

"You know what? You're right!"

I was? I mean, yeah, I was!

"And you get to be my beta tester!" Terra was starting to sound manic. Why was Terra sounding manic?

"I'd really rather not. Could I maybe just, y'know, pass on?" Seriously, I'd already lived. I wasn't actually eager to go on to some afterlife, but I was very, very keen on not being some god's entertainment.

"Nope!" Yay.

INITIALIZING CHANGES...

"So, is this gonna be some kind of reincarnation deal then?" I wasn't sure if I hoped it was or wasn't. Both sides had their pros and cons.

CORE MODULE: GAMER'S MIND - UNINSTALLED

"Eh, well, no. I've got a great deal with the Death of that multiverse though!"

CORE MODULE: GAMER'S BODY - UNINSTALLED

"So, y'see, when someone decides to unalive themselves there, I can make them an offer. In exchange for incarnating my champion in their body, I'll erase their karmic debt and help them reincarnate."

CORE MODULE: ID CREATE - UNINSTALLED

"I really can't help but feel I won't be terribly useful at the bottom of a rope." Or with any of the other common side effects of that kind of activity.

CORE MODULE: ID ESCAPE - ERROR! FILE SET TO READ ONLY!

"Don't be silly! The swap happens the same moment they -decided- fully and certainly, to do it. I just rewind the clock a little bit and do a little switcharoo." She looked a bit concerned about the error message, but shrugged it off. "Though, if you could maybe resolve whatever caused them that pain to start with? I'd... Really appreciate it."

CORE MODULE: MENU - SUCCESSFULLY LOADED!
CORE MODULE: STATUS - SUCCESSFULLY LOADED!
CORE MODULE: SKILLS - SUCCESSFULLY LOADED!
CORE MODULE: SPELLS - SUCCESSFULLY LOADED!
CORE MODULE: PERKS - SUCCESSFULLY LOADED!
CORE MODULE: SHOP - SUCCESSFULLY LOADED!
CORE MODULE: SETTINGS - ERROR! (MULTIPLE) MASTER FILES MISSING!

"Good enough!" Terra was actively giggling now. That was probably a bad sign. "Are you ready?"

"No?"

"Too bad!" Then the stupid magical girl hit me in the face with her stupid scepter and I 'Woke Up'.

Chapter Text

Project: Gamer Ver. 2 Alpha Build 0.0.2

Disclaimer Me Do: I own nothing you recognize. And most of what you don't recognize, I still don't own.

_________________________________________________________________________

"Don't worry, he knows."

Those were the first words he heard when he woke up in this reality, wearing the skin of someone else. It was accompanied by a full body jerk as he tried to figure out what was going on.

One moment he'd been in the abyss, talking to... Well, she never quite introduced herself beyond her name, Terra-tan, but he was going to assume goddess. Or eldritch equivalent in a convenient, non-mind breaking package.

The world was already in full focus, which was disorienting in the extreme. Human minds struggle terribly with shifts that happen without transition.

It didn't take incredibly long for him to put together where he was, or what was going on around him though.

The air stank, bitter and very reminiscent of skunk. Empty cans were piled up on every surface nearby. Explosions and gunshots coming from the television screen.

A girl, someone his meatsuit presumably knew, getting felt up and kissed by an older man. Potentially a problem, but... How old even was she?

'13'

Alright, huge problem. How old was the guy kissing her?

'37'

Yep. Awesome. Huge problem.

"Bro, you alright?" One of the two boys playing the game on the tv asked him. Who was he?

'Johnny'

"Yeah Johnny. Just... Man, I really need some chips." He didn't have the full details, he couldn't even remember what was supposed to be happening here! Every time he tried, he could remember what he'd been doing before he died, but nothing about any of this.

Except that he -could- answer himself if he asked a question he should know. Which was... Interesting. The kids brain could answer queries, but it couldn't be directly accessed.

Maybe a software to hardware mismatch? Fifty year old nerd trying to run on thirteen year old stoner brain.

"Man, I could go for some cookies!" The other boy on the couch...?

'Tommy'

Tommy said.

"A'ight. You got money? I'll walk to the corner store, get some stuff." Tommy waited until his character got downed by a headshot and gave...

'What's my name supposed to be?'

'Leslie Winters'

'...'

Leslie a fistful of crumpled bills he pulled out of his pocket. He didn't bother counting them before stuffing them in his own pocket, pointedly ignoring what was happening on the chair and shuffling outside.

It was hot, incredibly humid, and fairly early if the sun being high in the sky meant anything.

Leslie stalked down the road, making a mental note of the house number as he passed the mailbox.

--QUEST ALERT!--
--Resolve the events that lead to the suicide of Leslie Winters!--
--REWARD!--
--1000 GP!--

As he got further down the road, he looked up, checking the street sign, and then began patting down his pockets. He found the wad of bills Tommy gave him, a flip lighter and a wallet that had a student I.D. and a further fifty dollars in it.

And a scuffed smartphone with a cracked screen.

Perfect.

It took him a moment to turn it on and he stared at the lock screen.

'What's my P.I.N?'

'7734'

'This kid was such an edgelord' Well, Leslie thought that, but didn't bother voicing it. Too little too late after all.

Passcode put in, a moment to puzzle out the buttons later and-

"Nine-One-One, what's your emergency?" The responder was a woman, he thought her accent was from the east coast but he wasn't actually sure.

"There's a pedophile with three kids in his house, he's been giving them weed and beer. He was feeling up a twelve or thirteen year old girl when I saw it."

She asked a few further questions, things he didn't have an immediate answer for except the address. Leslie might have, but other people asking questions didn't prompt that little answer like his asking did.

"Listen, if I stick around I'm going to commit a crime. Tell the officers if they need me I'll be at the corner store two blocks south of the house. Leslie. Green hoodie and blue jeans." It would've been dramatic for him to just hang up on the responder then and there, but not terribly useful. She asked a few further questions before thanking him for his time and telling him to stay put for the officers.

Not something he was looking forward to, but it'd probably resolve his starter quest.

Leslie hung up and continued walking. No starting knowledge of a setting and waking up to a tragedy, this was going to be awesome, he could already tell.

"Inventory?" He was expecting a grid, but got a list instead. In the upper right corner it listed GP, and had the number one-thousand there.

Experimentally he pushed the flip lighter into it.

It still sank right in, and at the very top of the list the word -Lighter- was filled in. Thinking at the menu didn't move the selector up or down, but he found he could move it with his eyes by focusing on the words, or he could wave his hands and move things that way. He highlighted the lighter he'd just put in and shifted his focus to the neighboring screen.

-Flip Lighter-
-Brand: Zippo-
-Fuel: 67%-
-Description-
"A flip lighter with a Buckeye leaf on one side, and a large red O on the other. Leslie stole this from a tourist because he thought it was a marijuana leaf."

Disappointed, though not surprised, he closed the inventory.

"Status?" A new window popped into existence. It had seven core statistics, and three other figures.

Strength and Vitality, Dexterity and Agility, Intelligence and Wisdom, and finally Luck. A little bit bare-bones, but not too surprising.

HP and MP were expected as well. VP wasn't. He highlighted that.

-VP- Vitality Points
"These points are not directly affected by your in-game stats. Instead they represent your bodies actual health. HP may act as a buffer or shield to defend against permanent or crippling injuries, but VP represents your actual life remaining. Piercing damage, critical blows and various debilitations or injuries can cause direct harm to VP. Non-Lethal attacks cannot reduce VP"

He had one-hundred HP, twenty-five MP, seven VP, and a flat five in every stat.

Three squad cars passed him by, heading in the opposite direction. He was almost at the store, a Seven/Eleven.

Did he just get incarnated back into normal reality?

"Shop?" This window was just a search bar. Unlike his inventory though, it responded directly to what he thought.

'Status Recovery' He wasn't stumbling around drunk on the side of the road, but he could taste something bitter at the back of his throat and his thoughts felt... Off, somehow.

A lot of options were brought up, and he did mean a lot. Powdered unicorn horns, pixie dust, anti-anything he could think of was listed here.

And most of it was more expensive than he could afford.

He scrolled down, moving past the single use items and into spell and skill books. Just like before, most of it was just outside his price range. Cure Condition, Status Restore, Purge, Chakra Cycle, Vera, Spoon, the list went on and on. And the prices went up and up.

Except for one. Listed at Six-Hundred GP was a spell called Esuna. Well, there were a bunch of different Esuna listed, but this one was conspicuously inexpensive. He highlighted it.

-Esuna-
"This version of the spell is from the world of Palakkia. It can initially only cure poison and blindness. As the caster becomes more experienced, however, it can be used to cure nearly all debilitations!"

He clicked purchase.

He also picked up a bottle of water from a refrigerated rack in the store and a pack of mint gum. Paying for it, he sat down in front of the store on the sidewalk and pulled out his new spellbook from his inventory.

It very inconveniently did not burst into motes of light and ash and add itself to his list of known spells. He had to actually read the book before the spell was useful.

Which wasn't actually too bad, it was thirty pages and closer to an idiots guide than a magical treatise. He even got to keep it when he was done.

"Spells?"

There were actually two entries here, which was fairly surprising. Esuna, which he'd been expecting. And I.D. escape, which he hadn't been expecting.

Well, that wasn't terribly important right now. He focused on Esuna, focused on himself, and with a strange twisting feeling, it was cast.

[Alcohol has been removed]
[Tetrahydrocannabinol has been removed]

No lightshow though, which was surprising. Good, but surprising. He was going to have to figure out how to increase his MP however, or he'd be unable to cast the spell after it leveled up a few times.

He took a sip of his water and was about to reopen the status menu when a squad car pulled up and parked in front of the store.

Gotham City Police Department.

Oh. That... Wasn't good.

A portly man stepped out of the vehicle, wearing a beige trench coat and a brown trilby hat.

Leslie started chewing a piece of gum.

"Hey kid, you the one called in that Chester up the road?" The officer stopped directly in front of Leslie, so he got up.

"Two blocks north of here?" Leslie wasn't quite sure what he meant by Chester.

"That's the one, yeah." The man reached into his coat and pulled out his badge. "Harvey Bullock, GCPD."

"Leslie Winters." The boy held out his hand, but the detective didn't shake it. "What do you need?"

"I'm a need you to fill out a statement kiddo. Ya wanna do it here, we can do it here. Otherwise you an' me are gonna have ta go to tha station and do it there." The detective was getting more brusque, but then he could probably smell the cheap weed Leslie was soaked in.

'Where do I live?'

The address the remnant of Leslie offered was relatively nearby.

"I live three blocks over, Mr.Bullock. You wanna just go there, get my mom to sign off on whatever she's gotta and we get this over with?" Leslie was still a minor, if this world was anything like the real world then she'd have to get involved with the whole mess anyway.

"Not happenin' kid. Here or the station." The detective was getting impatient.

Leslie wondered if he'd been having a bad day to start with, or this just upset him.

Or both.

"You're gonna take me to the station either way, aren't you?" Bullock didn't say anything, but he did cross his arms. Screw it. "Let's just go to the station. Sooner begun, sooner we're done."

"'Least you're smarter than your two pothead friends." No handcuffs were involved, and the detective didn't 'Help' him into the car, but still. An hour and a half into day one in this reality, he was already in police custody.

Awesome start.

Chapter Text

Disclaimer Me Do: I own nothing you recognize. And most of what you don't recognize, I still don't own.

_________________________________________________________________________

They'd arrived at the police station without issue, and Bullock had handed Leslie off to a junior officer.

Apparently his shift had been about to end when they'd gotten the call about a pedophile, and Bullock had drawn the short straw.

Leslie hadn't asked about the kids, probably his friends, more likely former friends. And Bullock had been content to spend the entire drive complaining about clowns. And mimes. And then more about clowns.

Couldn't exactly blame the guy, this was a Detective Comics Comics universe. Probably.

Bullock, Gotham, clowns. Too many icons that narrowed things down less than Leslie would have liked. After all, how many different versions, forms, timelines and reboots were there? Leslie wasn't sure, but the answer was at least 'A lot'.

Officer Pulowski had taken over for the man, and really all she'd done was have him fill out an incident report and answer some questions.

Then his mom came and things got more difficult. He wasn't sure how they'd gotten a hold of her, since he hadn't been asked for her details, but here she was.

Maybe he had a record. Maybe someone in the station knew him. Maybe John, Thomas or the girl had called her. He had no idea.

Any which way, she was here. And Officer Pulowski requested permission to do a drug test. Apparently he was a 'Known Associate' of people who had recently been apprehended for trafficking.

As if he wasn't the entire reason the arrests had happened at all.

His mom had been getting redder and redder, more and more angry at him. Probably not a good thing, seeing as she was overweight, wearing heels and in a fairly professional looking suit and skirt combo.

Leslie was guessing she worked either in legal or finance.

'Accountant' The Leslie that was whispered in his mind.

Well, the long and short of it came out that he was clean (Esuna had been more thorough than he'd thought) and after a few more questions he was frog-marched out of the building. She didn't manhandle him into her little four-door hybrid but it was a near thing.

Leslie really wasn't sure if she was a bad driver, slamming the gas constantly and tailgating the car ahead at every opportunity, or if she just shouldn't drive angry. When he was thrown forward as she slammed the brakes at another red light, he decided it didn't really matter.

He would not be getting in this car again at all if it could be avoided.

"Do you have any idea how angry I am right now?" Leslie's mother certainly did not sound calm. On the other hand, this was the first time she'd spoken directly to him since he'd replaced her son.

That... Could end up being a problem.

"About what?" Was he expecting an actual answer? No. Did he think asking that would help? Also no.

"About what? About what!" She started shouting at him, her eyes barely on the road. "Tiffany calls me crying because she's been arrested and she's terrified about her parents finding out! She said you got everyone arrested!"

That was more than he expected, just... Who was Tiffany?

'Childhood friend since kindergarten. Loved her with all of his heart, and then...'

Ah, the girl. Seems the pedophile had been using drugs and alcohol to groom and condition her. And she'd picked that over Leslie.

Okay then. He was not fixing that last part.

"Well, yeah. That's pretty much true." His mother was breathing harder and harder. Her hands were trembling on the wheel. "Figured this was better than letting..."

Who even was that guy?

'Tommy's cousin, Dave'

"Dave keep molesting Tiff." Did Leslie ever call Tiffany, Tiff? Well, it didn't really matter.

They pulled over near a park. His mom's trembling had gotten worse, but her face had gone from red and blotchy to stark, stark pale.

"What do you mean Dave was molesting her? Sweetie, this isn't something you joke about." Her voice was pleading as she stared directly into her son's eyes. She didn't know when they'd faded from beautiful baby blue to soft grey. And he didn't flinch or look away.

They sat there in uncomfortable silence for one minute. Then two. Then five.

"Leslie? Honey? Tell me everything."

He had to pull up a lot of memories from the hole left by Leslie's Soul, but he told her. Everything.

Except for who he was.

The woman cried. Maybe a lot. He really couldn't blame her. The story took the better part of an hour. Almost half of that made up of awkward pauses on his end.

--QUEST COMPLETED!--
--Leslie's Suicide has been avenged!--
--You used Communication! It was Super Effective!--
--Reward: 1000GP!--
--Intelligence +1!--
--Wisdom +1!--

Leslie closed the notification and sighed. Looking out the car window as the sun was setting, he found it difficult to think about that aspect of this... Rebirth. He needed to stop, take a moment and just list out everything. His situation, his resources, his needs and wants and goals.

Even as they pulled into the driveway at his... Leslie's home, he didn't know how long this situation could last.

"I don't think I can cook tonight sweety." Leslie's mother said. She'd pulled a pamphlet off the fridge of their cramped kitchen, some Chinese place.

"Just get my regular. I'll be in my room." He had no idea what his regular even was. It probably wasn't important enough to ask, either.

Leslie's room was... It was a typical kids room. Over his bed he had a -very- artistically rendered Batman poster, more animal than costume. A laptop sitting on a small desk, currently turned off. He wasn't sure of the model, but the emblem was a large 'L'.

Maybe Lenovo or something.

A backpack was sitting on the desk chair, schoolbooks still in it. There was a bookshelf with a combination of figurines, video games and books on it.

No pictures though. Nothing like that anywhere in the room.

He pulled a notebook out of the backpack before he moved it to the bed and sat down at the desk. Turning to a fresh page, he took a pen out of one of the desk drawers and put it to paper.

'Changeling'

An apt enough description of his situation. He'd have to check the story here, but in the real Earth there had been stories of children being replaced by Fae duplicates.

Tragedies, if he recalled correctly.

A few lines down, he tapped the pen against paper for almost a solid minute as he tried to distill the next concept into as few words as he could manage.

'Game'
'GP'
'Esuna - level conditions?'

The game was absolutely a resource. It could put out as much as you could put into it, it could turn time and energy into anything!

That... Actually, that was an idea worth exploring.

He opened up the shop menu again and this time he searched for 'Alchemy'.

Like last time, the shop list was populated incredibly fast. And like last time, almost everything was outside of his price range.

Oh, basic materials like Potions Vials were available, but he was looking for a very different kind of alchemy. It took him a few minutes to find it, but he did eventually come across what he was looking for.

-The Basics of Transmutation-
"A primer on the incredibly complex art of magically manipulating materials. Utilize MP to manipulate the size, shape and density of objects! Some materials are more resistant to transmutation and suffer a cost penalty."

It was one-thousand GP. Everything he'd gotten from the quest about Leslie's circumstances.

And the book itself, after he purchases it, is significantly denser than the spellbook had been. If he started right now, he still wouldn't have the skill understood by tonight.

Rather than closing the shop afterwards he makes two more purchases. A pair of spells from the same series as Esuna had been, ones that start off especially weak but, with a lot of work, could scale decently.

Cure, a spell that would restore his HP, but not VP, had been incredibly inexpensive at one-hundred GP. Protect, too, had been relatively inexpensive. Three-hundred GP, leaving him with nothing in the bank, but at least he could directly improve his defense.

So that was a handful of tools that offered him a lot of survivability, especially in Gotham. Three of the major villains here could be, not prevented, but he could counter their tools. Scarecrows fear toxin, the Joker's... Laughing gas? Smile vapor? Leslie couldn't remember the actual name.

And Poison Ivy's... Actually, would Esuna even do anything about her at this point? If her pheromones counted as a Charm condition instead of Poison, it wouldn't do anything at level one.

Leslie tapped a pen against the paper. He needed to be smart about this. Flailing around and reacting was a valid option, but not necessarily a successful one. He needed to figure out a source of GP. He needed to improve the tools he had. He needed...

"Sweety, dinner's here!" His stomach clenched and he realized he needed to eat.

There weren't a whole lot of words shared over dinner. Black pepper chicken and fried rice for him. Sweet and sour pork with fried rice for her. He wasn't terribly hungry, not really. After a few bites his appetite completely disappeared, but did nothing about the twisting and churning in his gut. He set his chopsticks down and just stared at the food for a moment.

"Hey mom?" She was only picking at her food too. Probably too stressed to be properly hungry. "Could you call Tiffany's parents and tell them what's going on? I need to... Not smell like today."

Like beer, cigarettes, marijuana and sweat.

"Yeah." No energy in her response. Likely depressed over the whole mess, or at least she's emotionally exhausted. "I'll put away the leftovers. And Leslie? If you need to talk about this, I'm always here, okay?"

"Yeah. Thanks mom." He got up and went to his room. A few minutes of rummaging through the dresser and closet, he had a change of clothes.

In the bathroom, with the shower running he stripped down. Looking in the mirror, he could see things were different. That he was different.

Leslie looked a lot like him. Similar curly brown hair. Similar eyes. The scars were missing though. Leftovers from accidents, from fights. The callouses on his hands were -wrong-.

He stepped into the shower, letting the hot water cascade over him. He stood like that for a moment before he pushed himself against the back wall and slid.

Here, private and alone, he choked down a sob. He put a hand over his eyes, and he could tell what was water and what was tears.

This was wrong. Everything was wrong. He was -Wrong-.

And being a gamer didn't change that. Being the victim of some god-things power trip didn't change that. The only thing he could do was move forward.

But right now? Right now he was trying to keep his uneven, shuddering breath's from making too much noise. He was trying to keep the roiling, churning turmoil in his stomach from coming up. Keeping that broken, empty, sucking feeling in his chest from dragging him in.

Right now, he was human.

And he was never going to let that go.

Chapter Text

Project: Gamer Ver. 2 Alpha Build 0.0.4

Disclaimer Me Do: I own nothing you recognize. And most of what you don't recognize, I still don't own.

_________________________________________________________________________

Elbows go out. Chest goes down.

Hold that pose for a moment, and then reverse.

Leslie had hated doing intentional exercise in his past life. It was time he'd prefer to spend either relaxing after work or catching up on a project. Either his amateur and expensive attempts at working with a metal foundry, or his equally amateur and less expensive attempts to learn how to code.

He was not exercising terribly quickly. His goals for this Saturday morning were flexible, especially after his incredibly depressing and distressing entry into this reality yesterday.

"Menu" The teenager muttered as he went back down.

--Party--
--Quests--
--Messages --
-- 1 Unread message!--
--ERROR--

"Messages?" He asked when he came back up. It opened a secondary menu, where he selected the bouncing closed envelope.

--FROM: Ultra-powerful best goddess Terra-Tan!--
--Only losers cry in the shower. That was sad. You made me sad. Here's a handful of pity GP, loser.--

It was five GP. Not a lot, but it was basically free. It only came at the cost of his dignity.

--TO: Ultra-powerful best goddess Terra-Tan!--
--You're watching a thirteen year old kid while he showers?--

He could've included more, of course, but did he really need to?

Standing up, Leslie started doing squats.

"Party."

The party menu opened, but it only had two buttons.

--INVITE--
--DISMISS--

Not terribly surprising. Still, he clicked on Invite.

--Either select a nearby individual to invite, or input their name here!--

Well, there wasn't anybody nearby to test that with, at least not in his bedroom. So he tried to input a name.

Ultra-powerful best goddess Terra-Tan!

--Pending--
--Pending--
--Ultra-powerful best goddess Terra-Tan! has accepted your party invite!--

Wait, seriously?

--Who dis?--

Leslie wasn't sure what to say. He hadn't expected to get this far.

--How do I mine for fish?--

--Fkn noob--
--Ultra-powerful best goddess Terra-Tan! has left the party--
--You have been blocked by Ultra-powerful best goddess Terra-Tan!--

Leslie paused in doing his squats. That was either really, really good. Or incredibly bad. Nothing for him to worry about right now, he supposed. Probably going to bite him on the backside next time he dies though.

Well, nothing to do for it.

"Quests."

There were two options here. A completed tab, and a pending tab. He checked the pending tab. Most of the options here were... Less than savory.

Defeat twenty bandits. Collect a dozen rat tails. Those sorts of things. Although Leslie noticed as he was looking through them all there was something missing from the rewards section.

Experience.

Most of them had a notice for a stat reward, including a notice that it was a one-time bonus for the repeatable quests... But none of them offered experience. And although he hadn't paid much attention to it, he'd noticed an EXP bar under his name in the status menu.

Which meant combat was the only means of leveling up. That was going to be... Problematic. Risk might equal reward, but he knew first-hand that the equation was never exactly equal.

Leslie picked two quests and pinned them.

--Quest: Saitama! Someday--
--Do 20 Pushups!--
--Do 20 Squats!--
--Run 2 KM!--
--Reward: 200 GP!--
--One time bonus!--
--+1 Strength--
--+1 Vitality--
--+1 Agility--
--Repeatable: Daily--

That was a quest chain, it could be done every day and there were similar names for each part. Completing the full set would add nine points to each stat the first time around, and net a solid nine-hundred gp every day.

The other quest he'd picked out was not glamorous in the slightest, the reward wasn't fantastic, but he was pretty sure he could get some solid mileage out of it.

--Quest: Civic responsibility--
--Pickup ten pieces of litter!--
--Reward: 50 GP!--
--One time bonus!--
--+1 Intelligence--
--+1 Wisdom--
--+1 Luck--
--Repeatable: Yes--

There were actually a lot of quests like that, more than he'd been expecting. Planting trees, cleaning parks and rivers, all sorts of nature related things. Shutting down a coal power plant was apparently worth a jaw-dropping fifty-thousand GP.

Instant riches and rewards! Just become an eco-terrorist.

He'd stick to exercise and trash duty. Might take a month and a half, maybe two, but he'd have the same payout.

Leslie finished out his squats and headed to the kitchen. For whatever reason they had a water dispenser, which was odd since there was perfectly good tapwater, but he'd figure that out later. He stuffed yesterdays leftover chicken in his inventory, alongside a bottle of water, and headed out.

Apparently Leslie and his mom lived in a cul-de-sac near the outer edge of Gotham, just two blocks closer to Slaughter Swamp and they'd be in a trailer park instead. It was easily five kilometers from here to the recognizable parts of the city. Leslie was pretty sure he could jog the distance.

An hour later, Leslie was regretting jogging the distance.

"Hey kid, you okay?" A clerk asked him as he stumbled into a store, red-faced, soaked in sweat and struggling to breathe. Calling the last kilometer a jog would be a lie.

A terrible, awful lie.

"I'm trying-" Leslie paused to inhale all too deeply, hands on his knees. "To be less fat."

He hadn't received any stat points for his effort, and no Running or Sprinting skill either.

"Well, good luck with that." So saying, the store clerk went back to restocking the cold soda in the refrigerators next to the cash register.

Minutes later, when Leslie could no longer feel pain rising from deep within his lungs, he went to the back of the store. Then back to the front. Then back around the back, coming back finally with a small bag of catfood and a laser pointer.

"Ooh, gonna play with your cat tonight?" The clerk was actually pretty happy at the moment. She'd been shadowing the boy as he walked through the store and he hadn't bothered shoplifting anything!

"Nah." He handed over the money for his things. "I'm actually gonna recruit a bunch of strays to do my work for me."

The nice woman (Her name was Shannon) just stared bemusedly as he left. It was hardly the weirdest thing she'd ever seen.

And the supervillains did most of their shopping at the retail chains anyway.

Chapter Text

Project: Gamer Ver. 2 Alpha Build 0.0.5

Disclaimer Me Do: I own nothing you recognize. And most of what you don't recognize, I still don't own.

_________________________________________________________________________

"Alright kid. This? You're gonna have to explain this." Bullock was flummoxed. Confused. Off center.

They'd gotten another nine-one-one call, seventh one today, but this one involved two things that managed to get everyone in the station moving all at once.

Police were canvassing the entirety of the alley the kid had been in, and Commissioner Gordon was busy talking to some paramedics.

"Well, I was in here playing with a bunch of stray cats." The kid, Leslie, waved in the general direction of the alleyway. "And then I heard a kind of fwumping noise. Like someone tossed a bag of trash in the dumpster. Except heavier? Denser maybe? Anyway I went and took a look since it scared the cats off of me. And I forgot this is Gotham."

Bullock dutifully wrote down what he heard. The kid was even using descriptions, which were going to be helpful when he had to explain this to the chief.

"Turns out it'd been a person instead of trash. Tall, but I'm not sure how tall. He was laying down and his fursuit had ears on it." There was a sharp click as the detective pushed down on his pencil hard enough to snap the lead.

"Could you repeat that last bit?" There was no way the kid had called the caped crusaders costume a-

"The fursuit? Was black and gray, had tiny little ears right on top, spray-on abs and he had a thick yellow belt. Probably full of, uh, supplies. I asked the guy if he was alive, or at least awake and he groaned. So then I asked him if he needed an ambulance." Bullock almost grinned as he wrote down what he was hearing. There was definitely going to be a copy getting passed around the bullpen tonight.

"Then this other dude drops down from a nearby building. Which is a little nuts, 'cuz the shortest apartment on one side here is four stories tall, and this giant walking slab of Mexican muscle says 'Run along, Nino. It is not wise to interfere in my affairs'. I'm talking six and a half feet tall, leather pants, leather vest and an honest to god gimp mask. With spikes."

"Can you describe the placement of the spikes, kid?" The detective needed a moment. He wanted to laugh, but that wouldn't be professional.

"Yeah. You know those dog collars drug dealers get to make their pitbull look mean? With spikes going all around it? The giant was wearing one of those around the base of his neck." The kid was fiddling with his phone as he talked. The screen looked like it was cracked to hell and back, how Leslie was using it Bullock would never know.

"Alright kid, got it. And then what happened?"

"Well, I did the smart thing and started backing away. I don't know what the beef is between furries and the BDSM guys, but I didn't want to be in the middle of it. And then I made the stupid mistake of opening my mouth." Leslie grinned sheepishly, but Bullock got the feeling this is where his headache would start.

"Alright. What'd ya say?"

"I asked him if the guy in the fursuit had hired him as a professional dom, or if he just had a thing against furries."

Bullock had to stop. This was gold, pure gold.

"So the guy says to me "Nino, I do not think you understand what is going on." and I told him "I'm thirteen. We covered this in health class.". I think he was a bit confused. Then he picked up a dumpster. I mean that literally. This dude picked up a freaking dumpster. Lifted it right over his head. He said "You should look away. This will be messy." and I guess he was right. 'Cuz he tried to turn back to the other dumpster and well... He sort of dropped it on himself?"

"An' that's when you called nine-one-one?" Bullock didn't figure there was too much else to the story. Though, that didn't explain why they'd found Bane and not Batman.

"Well, yeah. After I stopped recording." Leslie handed over his phone, the video already up and ready to play.

Bullock took it and pressed go.

It started with just a video of the kid scratching a cat under the chin, another one trying to fight for some attention and, honestly, Bullock is a little surprised. He was half expecting to see the kid torturing a cat or somethin' else grim and awful. Then there was a crash from somewhere off screen and the cats bolted off.

The kid had walked up to the dumpster, just like he said, and lyin' in there in a heap was the Batman. The kid poked him in the face a few times and asked if he was alive. When the Bat groaned and struggled to move instead of breathing out a death rattle, Bullock would admit he felt relieved.

After that, it all went just as the kid said. Down to asking those same weird questions and Bane being his usual, weirdly genteel self.

One thing the detective caught, but couldn't explain, was why he could hear Leslie snap his fingers just before Bane's legendary strength failed him.

Although it seemed the kid hadn't actually stopped recording to make a phone call, like he'd said. He was definitely sounding panicked while he was on the phone with the operator and looking over Bane to describe his injuries.

The phone was jerking around and unstable, but he could easily see it when Robin showed up, likely in the kids blindspot, and with way more ease than the detective would expect from a kid his size, carry the Bat out of the dumpster in a fireman's carry.

"Oh... That was really, really stupid." Bullock looked up when Leslie spoke, apparently as surprised as he was about the extra footage.

"Why's that?"

"The guy in the fursuit fell at least four stories. If he had a back or neck injury, that kid coulda just killed him."

"Not gonna comment on his outfit?"

"He's dressed up in every color of clay pigeon?"

The rest of Bullock's questioning was pretty standard and, after getting the kid to sign a sworn statement and getting a copy of the video he let him go.

As he was reviewing his notes an all too ugly grin spread across his face. Yeah, the commissioner might have a bit of a man-crush on the Bat Man, but everyone else in the station? They were gonna love this.
-----

Leslie stumbled home in a bit of a daze. Today had gone... Today had been... He didn't even know. He'd only completed the first four of the exercise quests, but he didn't feel motivated to do the rest. He'd picked up enough litter to cover the difference in GP, so that wasn't a total loss.

And then there was this...

---Enemy Defeated!--
--Eduardo Durrance X1!--
--You have gained 7000 XP!--
--You have gained 5000 GP!--
--You have reached Level: 6!--
--You have 25 unused stat points!--
--You have 3 unused perk points!--

All he'd done was cast Esuna. That, that was all he'd done. A half-baked idea while he was panicking.

He checked his stat page. His attributes had gone up from the minor quests he'd done, which was nice. He also had twenty-five points to distribute where he wanted. He put ten into intelligence, bringing it up to seventeen and giving him a total of sixty-five MP. Ten also went into wisdom, bringing it up to seventeen as well, which meant his MP would regenerate by seventeen percent per hour.

The other five went into vitality. With that, and the four he'd gained from the exercise quests, he had fourteen points, which equated into two-hundred and eighty HP.

He had five-thousand, nine-hundred and five GP.

He'd worry about spending it and his perk points tomorrow. Today, he needed today to be... Just not today.

Chapter Text

Project: Gamer Ver. 2 Alpha Build 0.0.6

Disclaimer Me Do: I own nothing you recognize. And most of what you don't recognize, I still don't own.

Also, has anyone figured out where I'm pulling the spells from? It was never a popular game, at least here in the West, but it did manage to get a port and a pair of remakes.

_________________________________________________________________________

Compared to the sweaty, beefy Hispanic nightmare Saturday had been, Sunday was almost a disappointment.

Leslie woke up.

Had an existential crisis.

Got over it.

Burned the MP he had to get Esuna and Protect up to level four and three respectively.

Made breakfast.

(Mom's gone. Church? Should probably find out.)

And then picked up the rest of the spells he could afford from the game Shop.

Teleport had been both an offensive and utility spell in the original game, though it had a major drawback. When used by the player in the game outside of battle, it teleported the party outside the current dungeon. And left them initially on the verge of death. After leveling up it did progressively less damage to the party until it hit level sixteen and stopped harming them at all.

He needed to experiment with that. If all it did was get him out of danger, it'd be worth every scrap of effort he put into it. If it could do more than that? It would be worth the thousand GP it cost a thousand times over.

Blink was a spell that increased evasion regardless of his agility. Three hundred gp.

Shell mitigated magic damage. Another three hundred gp.

The next spell had been the source of his existential crisis earlier in the morning.

Life. It, well, it brought party members back to life. Barely, at level one, but still. It was changed a little bit to fit the current game system, restoring one point of VP per level alongside a pittance of HP... And in the flavor text for the spell it did mention that it could be cast on the recently deceased.

Death may have been a revolving door in this part of the multiverse, but it still wasn't supposed to be easy. If it ever got out what he was capable of, he doubted he'd ever be safe again.

And the final spell he purchased was Toad. With Circe hanging around in this reality and making animal-people, it might not have been an optimal choice. On the other hand, Leslie just didn't feel comfortable grabbing offensive spells that could burn, freeze or electrocute someone to death. He'd suffered all three to varying degrees in his former life. While he wouldn't say murder was off the table, he drew the line at torture.

So that was Three-thousand and six-hundred GP he was short. Unfortunately, that was the affordable half of the spell list from the game of Shadow Over Palakkia. The spell to turn flesh to stone was five-thousand GP. A spell to multiply his speed was ten-thousand. So too was the spell to multiply his strength and a curse to halve the stats of someone else. The spell that would drain the MP of others to give to him cost twenty-thousand, and one that called down Holy light to smite ghosts, ghouls, zombies and all other manner of evil was the same. Forty-thousand for the next spell, one that was pure offense.

And then the last one. It was listed at sixty-five-thousand, five-hundred and sixty-five GP. And it was important because it caused True damage.

It was also a gimmicky piece of crap that was plain-old broken on its initial release, causing five hundred damage -at best- when it was fully leveled and drawing power from a completed list of fully leveled spells.

Hilariously enough, he could actually purchase the bugged version for fifty GP.

Moving on from his growing list of books he needed to read, he also had three perk points to spend.

That had actually left Leslie stumped for a good bit. The list was legitimately massive, easily holding a few hundred different perks, modifiers and feats. Oh, what he could actually get was significantly less, being that the list was populated by trees and progression tables, but he still had to take everything into account.

He'd finally settled on getting the first part of the Bright and Shining Soul pair.

--Bright Soul--
"Power thrums from deep within your soul. Magic is a part of you, and it's a part you'll cherish, ever and always."
"MP regen +50%"

He'd also gotten the first part of the Metamagic series of perks. Everything in it was situationally useful, some more than others, but he was really after the final perk.

Entanglement.

A level twenty-five perk that would let him cast a spell or use a magical ability on the entirety of an object even if he only had a small, separated part.

But that was for later. Right now he'd have to enjoy having Metamagic: Extend, letting him either double the area of effect of applicable spells, or doubling their duration.

He'd save his final perk point for later. Nothing else really stood out except for Magically Apprenticed, but that was a level ten perk, and he was a level not-ten.

By the end of Sunday, Leslie had successfully finished reading the book on alchemy basics and the spelltomes for Life and Teleport. Everything else was still sitting in his inventory, unread and waiting. Esuna had reached level five, and was starting to critically slow down due to the minute but steadily increasing cost, and both life and teleport were sitting at an unhealthy level of four and three respectively.

Teleport, unfortunately, left him drained and exhausted but it did make for good practice with either of his two healing spells.

Thankfully, or perhaps thanklessly, Monday was more... Interesting.

Leslie had gotten up at four in the morning, got himself ready and did what he could to not be visibly disgusted at the thought of going back to middleschool. Even if only for a week before a very long summer break.

And then high school. That was... Well, he wasn't quite sure, but he had months to figure something out.

"Leslie? Sweety? Are you ready?" His- Leslie's mom yelled from down the hallway. He stopped closing the notifications that had piled up from a project while he was asleep.

Was he ready? Backpack, notebooks, pens and was he dressed? He looked down, yes he was dressed.

(A tiny ritual, just a small thing. Asking his wife if he had both of his workboots on. Never again)

"I didn't even have to get you up today! You must be so excited for summer break!" The overweight office worker handed him a bottle of pills and-

Leslie stopped listening to read the label.

Adderall. Forty pills. He held it up to a nearby light.

Half of them were missing.

"Don't forget, you need to take two of those with your lunch today and two after school." The instructions also mentioned breakfast and dinner, but she seemed to have forgotten that. Leslie self-medicating with weed was making a lot more sense now.

What was he even supposed to do with these?

'Sell them to Mrs.Kwan at lunch.' Whispered Leslie's echo from the back of his mind.

He puts it out of his mind. He puts a lot of things out of his mind. Like how uncomfortable it is to ride a city school bus again. Or that girl from the pedophile incident staring at him.

He'd already forgotten her name.

The first morning class had been Math. Half of it he'd long forgotten. The other half he could do mentally. The second class was Gym. Dodgeball with the old, heavy rubber balls.

Cure reached level two then. And the scrawny black-haired kid who'd beaned him was seriously good.

At lunch he took a detour to the art classroom. He walked out with an extra hundred dollars and a pill bottle full of candy. Both of which disappeared into his inventory as soon as he put them in his pockets.

He didn't really pay attention to what was on his lunch tray, mechanically eating instead of looking at the food. He did notice a pair of security cameras, but he didn't think much on them.

Was this seriously the life he'd been inserted into? A kid who was buying and selling drugs at school? Whose mom had probably gotten him diagnosed with attention deficit disorder so she could get free amphetamines?

He needed to find a way to deal with this. He had enough information to know that-

"You rat bastard!" Leslie started to turn around in his seat when his vision was filled with metal tray.

--Critical Hit!--
--Headshot!--
-- -50 HP!--
-- -2 VP!--

He fell to the ground, dazed and foggy. He tried to get his hands under him but a kick to the side knocked him back down.

-- -10 HP!--

"You think it's funny?! Huh?! They're sendin' my uncle to jail 'cuz of you!" Leslie found it a bit difficult to feel bad about whoever was yelling at him, seeing as they continued kicking him in the ribs.

-- -10 HP!--
-- -10 HP!--
-- -10 HP!--

Leslie tried to roll away, but just ended up hitting the table he'd been sitting at.

-- -10 HP!--

The kicking stopped, and Leslie finally managed to get a good look at who'd been trying to beat the stuffing out of him.

The gym teacher?

No, no, Mr.Kemp was holding someone. That made more sense.

Tommy! That was it! He'd been one of Leslie's friends, at the stoners house.

While he was shouting and teachers were all storming in, Leslie pulled out his phone.

"Gotham City Police Department, how may I direct your call?"

"Hi. It's Leslie again..."

Chapter Text

Project: Gamer Ver. 2 Alpha Build 0.0.7

Disclaimer Me Do: I own nothing you recognize. And most of what you don't recognize, I still don't own.

_________________________________________________________________________

"I don't like you fighting." Karen was worried for her son. He'd been distant and sullen lately, and seemed to be getting involved with the police almost every other day. He'd been a sweet, quiet boy before but there was a sense of distance lately she just couldn't understand.

"I don't think I actually got to do any fighting." She looked over, wincing at the red mark covering more than half of his face. He was just looking straight ahead at the road, seemingly thinking about something.

She missed the days when he would tell her what that was.

"Principal Nettle said you were fighting in the cafeteria."

"And Officer Johnson said it was a clear case of assault after he pulled up the security footage." He was even talking back more lately!

She knew the teenage years were supposed to be rough, but she really didn't think it was supposed to be this bad.

She'd seen the security footage too, so she couldn't completely argue with him. She just needed to make sure he knew she didn't approve of what happened. And she wouldn't admit it out lout, but she had a hard time conveying that without sounding as though she disapproved of him, too.

"I haven't seen Tiffany come over lately. Are you and her still friends?" Leslie and she had known each other since they were just little kids! The two of them used to be inseparable.

"Don't think so." She glanced over as they pulled into their driveway. He was poking at the bruise on the side of his face. "Only person to talk to me today was Tommy."

"You should call her. Make sure she's okay after the whole... Dave... Thing." And that had been a bitter pill to swallow. She'd trusted that man, just as Tiffany's parent did and he'd... He'd...

Better not to think about it.

"She doesn't want to talk to me." Leslie reached back, grabbing his backpack. "And I'm not going to push it."

He was the first out of the car, stumbling slightly when he fully stood up but pushing on with a minor limp. She was right behind him a moment later. Close enough to hear him exhale heavily in frustration when he tried the door and found it locked.

She'd never given him his own key.

"Well I still think you should call her. After everything, this can't be easy for her. Maybe she's just waiting for you to talk to her first?" She unlocked the door and stepped in.

Too dark. Too cold. Too quiet. Days like these, she missed her husband more and more. Especially with Leslie growing up and seeming more and more like him every day. He'd been another victim of that damned clown. Another smiling face among countless others.

"Then she can wait." She winced at how cold he sounded, saying that. "If she needs an emotional support pet, I know a lot of very friendly cats. Otherwise my ribs are busted and I'm not up to listening to people complain about what they won't fix."

He brought his hand up next to his ear and snapped his fingers as he passed by her. She felt something strange in the air, almost warm and comforting before it was gone in an instant. Karen stared as he closed his bedroom door behind him.

Something was very wrong with her son. He'd never said a bad word about that girl in the past.

She hoped he'd come around, maybe she just needed to give him some time.

-----

He breathed out heavily once he was back in Leslie's room.

Five in. Five out.

Stop. Pause. Think. Do.

He needed to stop -Reacting- and calm down. He was stressed, and he was getting pissy and short tempered.

That was fantastic when he wanted to ruin things and hammer is way into the heart of the matter, but it was distinctly unhelpful in literally every other situation.

He breathed in again and then sighed explosively as he sat down on the bed. Everything draining out of him and leaving a hollow, empty feeling in his chest.

Pause. Put what he's doing, what he's thinking on hold for a moment. He pushed down the subject of Leslie's stoner friends. Former friends. Whatever.

Shoved aside the discomfort of being in someone elses life. The kid may have agreed to the Fae deal that had him stuck here, but that was an entirely seperate issue.

For a brief moment he pondered about Terra and the incomprehensible things watching from the dark. Were they amused? Bored? Flipping to a different gamer channel?

Inconsequential. Worrying about what he couldn't effect would just pile on even more stress.

Alright. Okay. He was good now. He was in control now.

He needed to think. He needed to either integrate himself into Leslie's life, or he needed to get out.

Getting out was looking more and more tempting. He needed a plan for that.

He had healing magic. He had a plan for that. He just needed a safe way to market that. Either it or transmutation would see his financial issues resolved.

Hiding away to practice was looking less and less viable, too. He'd already had plot literally drop in on him.

He didn't want to throw his lot in with the heroes, not directly. They put in a lot of work to keep the world turning, sure, but it wasn't getting any better. It might've had something to do with the fact that most of the heroes worked off of physical superiority and most of the individuals who had brains were also infected with stupid-evil.

No, no, he had to stop that. Social commentary could wait. He needed to figure himself out first. He just, he needed more time.

--Quest Alert!--
--Your party member: Kay-Tee the cat has been captured!--
--Save her or let her suffer a violent death!--
--Time Limit: 12:00:00--
--Reward: 4000 GP!--

No, that was the opposite of what he needed!

"Son of a bitch!"

Chapter Text

Leslie's game system allowed for a party limit of six. Himself, and five other people or potentially self-animated things. Such as robots and golems, though he had no idea where to find either of those without potentially making them himself.

Before the Bane incident, he'd found a handful of older looking stray cats and used a laser pointer to make them attack the 'Accept' button for his party invites. He might have some serious qualms about casual murder, but he wasn't going to complain about cats being cats and decimating the local vermin populace.

It had honestly worked out pretty decently. Those five cats had, over the last two days, gotten him a solid amount of experience and another thousand GP in dead rodents, birds and various small insects.

Their success rate was curiously high, but he attributed that to the cats all being level six and drastically outperforming the other nearby animals now.

And now, two days later, one of those stray cats had been captured by parties unknown and was apparently going to die.

He was... Not entirely sure what he was expected to do about that. He had no actionable information, such as a guilty party or even a general location.

"Map?" Did nothing.
"Locate Party?" Also did nothing.
"Highlight party?" Still did nothing.
"Settings." This did something! Dozens of screens popped into existence with large, flashing warning signs in red and his ears were filled with screeching static! The volume got progressively louder and louder until putting his hands over his ears did nothing to help. The pressure continued mounting, ever more painful until-

-- -5 VP!--
--ERROR! System settings has crashed!--
--A defect ticket has been automatically generated.--
--Please contact your local administrator if you need further assistance.--

Leslie cast Life on himself twice, restoring the lost VP and burning eight MP. There wasn't much he could do about the blood leaking out of his ears, nose, his eyes...

Actually there was. He checked to make sure Leslie's mom wasn't in the hallway and he cleaned that up in the bathroom.

Awesome. Great. Not doing that again.

"Alright. Eleven hours and change left. I... Got nothing." He wasn't a detective of any measure and his people skills were poor.

Leslie began pacing around his room. He wouldn't know the first thing about interrogating people who'd been near the alleyways he'd picked up his party of strays, so that wouldn't work. He didn't have any training in picking apart a crime scene quickly, so he wouldn't be divining any... Answers.

"Shop." He demanded suddenly.

He'd been working at a specific plan, but he knew he was handicapping himself to follow it. He didn't have to stick to a single source of magic. It was a universal toolbox! Not just a means of healing and fighting.

Wasn't that why he'd picked up the Transmutation skill in the first place?

And now he had eight hours to learn how to use Scrying.

No pressure.

-----

Robin watched the warehouse in the docks from a building almost two blocks away. There had been a growing number of reports of break-ins, muggings and beatings in the area. Nothing abnormal had been stolen, no chemicals, not a rash of jewelry heists which left everything -except- diamonds untouched. Not even fertilizer.

Just cash and shiny, hard to move valuables that professional thieves wouldn't bother with.

After two weeks of collating reports and tracking suspects, they'd found that those were minor thieves, debt collectors and leg-breakers working for a larger, though still minor, organization.

Current intelligence suggested it was a small offshoot of the Falcone crime family. Either a younger family member or mid-level boss trying to open up a new income avenue.

The Junior caped crusader hadn't managed to get inside to take pictures or collect evidence yet, but he had seen a lot of kennels, cages and cat carriers being brought in. Bruce's contact in the police department had confirmed there had been a recent spike in missing animal reports, but they were too swamped with violent crimes to dedicate any resources to it.

In short, a gambling den focused on dog-fights.

Robin zoomed in, snapping pictures of people either entering or exiting the building. He stopped and stared for a moment after he caught someone in frame wearing a blue hoodie, welding goggles of all things and a blue surgical mask.

He scrolled back. Somehow that person had appeared in the millisecond between photos he'd been taking of the bouncer.

Robin zoomed back in. The two were talking, he thought. The bouncer definitely was. Robin started to move when the overweight man pulled a pistol out of his jacket, but froze when the man disappeared, his clothes and gun dropping to the ground.

The person in the hoodie reached down, into the pile of clothes and pulled out a -Robin zoomed in closer- toad of all things. He hadn't been able to see earlier with the persons hands in their pockets, but he was wearing gloves.

He did something with the gun, too. Causing it and the mans clothing to just disappear before he stuffed the toad in his hoodie. With the bouncer out of the way and the evidence -disappeared- the person strolls right into the building.

Robin hesitates for only a moment, stuck between the decision to follow the metahuman vigilante and Bruce's orders to hang back until he was healed enough to take the lead.

It barely took a second for him to choose to scale the building and follow the man in blue.

Robin's in fantastic shape and trained incredibly well, but two city blocks is still a good distance to travel.

He was expecting chaos and mayhem when he got to the warehouse, but all he can hear is the thumping bass of music from inside. No screaming or gunshots.

He doesn't know if that's worse.

A side door that he knew had been guarded earlier is cracked open, yellow light splashing across the dim alley. Robin creeps next to it, straining his ears to listen over the thum-thump-thumping of the tasteless, soulless music.

"-Sh-sh-sh-sh-shh, it's okay. I've got you." Can barely be heard, muddled with the hissing and whimpering of too many animals for Robin to make out. He pushed the door open a bit more to get a look inside.

Blue hoodie is in the room, unharmed, and sitting on the floor next to him is an animal carrier with easily half a dozen toads, likely more. He's talking at the animals, but most of them remain absolutely terrified.

Robin starts taking pictures. Batman will want to build a profile on this new meta, and he'll want everything the boy wonder had seen and then some.

"A-a-a-nd next up to face our reigning champ-" Robin watches Blue rush to the door, placing himself just behind where it would open. "-we'll have the Bitch of Birmingham! One of our newest acquisitions, see how she fights to protect her litter!"

"...Hey Larry! Larry?! Idiot's probably taking a smoke folks! Daryl, Murry, go get the bitch! And grab the dog while you're at it!" Robin pulls back, cutting down his vision but hiding him in the dark.

The first man to enter the room, obscuring Blue behind the door, is tall and lanky with straw colored hair and cigarette stained lips. The second one is shorter, burlier and wearing a ball-cap for the Metropolis football team.

They both spot the side door that's cracked open and start heading towards it, but the door into the main building shuts silently. They don't even see Blue before they're both a pile of clothes on the ground. It's a matter of moments before the meta has another pair of toads in hand, and shortly after has them put in the animal carrier with the rest.

Looking at it, Robin wonders if the announcer is the only member of the staff who's still human.

For however little that's worth.

An instant later and the piles of clothing have disappeared too.

Blue continues to walk around the room, making a bag of dog food disappear just like the clothes. Then he does the same to various empty kennels. Soon enough the room is basically bare but for the occupied cages.

"Sorry folks! It looks like we're having some technical difficulties. If you'll all hang tight for a minute, I'll go get this sorted personally!" Once more at the announcers words Blue hides himself behind the door.

Moments later, this appears to have been a good idea. The announcer, a fat redheaded man, slams through the door with a pump shotgun in his hands and a wild look in his eyes. Robin can see it when he notices the missing cages and the door that's propped open.

"One of you bastards grow a conscience? That it?!" He's heading for the open door, moving faster than Robin was expecting.

He starts to scramble out of the way when he knows he's been seen. The announcer fires off a shot, blasting the door open. Robin hears the ker-chick of the shotgun being reloaded and dives for cover, but then it gets quiet.

He manages to take a look from beside a dumpster.

Blue is pulling a toad out of the announcers emptied clothes. The shotgun and clothing disappearing an instant later.

Robin is looking directly into his eyes. He's staring back. Probably. Robin can't actually see behind the welding goggles.

And then he slams the door. Robin tries it, but the door is locked. He runs, trying to get to the front of the building when he hears gunshots and people start screaming, running through it in a panic.

By the time Robin can get into the building, Blue is gone. So is the safe.

And so are the animals.

Chapter Text

Project: Gamer Ver. 2 Alpha Build 0.0.9

Disclaimer Me Do: I own nothing you recognize. And most of what you don't recognize, I still don't own.

_________________________________________________________________________

BRR-BRR
BRR-BRR
BRR-BRR

"Hello?" It had been a bit of a trick, but Leslie managed to swipe answer on his phone one-handed.

"WHERE ARE YOU?!"

"Hi Karen!"

"Leslie Anthony Winters, you tell me right this instant where you are!"

"I'm about... Fifteen minutes outside of Hartford." And it'd taken two hours to get even this far!

"Hart? Hartford?! What are you doing in Hartford?! How did you even get to Hartford?"

"Well, in the order you asked, this is the only place I could find that had an animal shelter that specialized in abused animals. And I got here by stealing a car." He looked up, squinted a moment, and then turned on his right turn signal. This was his exit after all.

"You turn right around this instant young man!"

"I can't."

"What do you mean you can't?!"

"U-turns are illegal, don't you know that?"

"Leslie Winters!"

"Relax. I've got the owner in the car with me."

"Put him on the phone!"

"I can't."

"What do you- Leslie!"

"He's in the trunk."

For the next few moments the only thing he could hear was half-started words and heavy breathing.

"Leslie. Sweety. What in the nine hells has gotten into you?!"

"Well, depending on what you want, I've got two possible answers for you. So, what are we shooting for? Comfortable lie, or really, really unpleasant truth?"

"This isn't a game, Leslie!"

"I mean, you're not just a little bit wrong. You're a whole lot wrong."

"Goddamnit Leslie, do you have any idea how much trouble you're in?"

"Huh. You sound like my mom."

"What? Leslie, I am your mom!"

"Yeah... About that. You remember I mentioned a really unpleasant truth?" This was every kind of a bad idea. Unfortunately, the right thing often is.

"Leslie, what? Leslie, what's going on?"

"It's Tuesday by now, right? Well... About Five days ago, Leslie decided he was going to... He chose to kill himself."

"If this is some kind of joke, I am not laughing mister." She sounded confused, maybe just a little desperate.

"Really wish it was. On the other side he met someone who made him a deal. Not sure what the right title for it is. Goddess, Titan, Eldritch half-wit. You'd have to ask Wonder Woman which is appropriate. Bitch is called Gaia, if you're curious." Leslie flipped back over to his directions and made a left turn. "Way she told me, she did a little imaginative filing and got the suicide erased, but she got to use his body for her own project."

"And... What? You were just waiting to, to puppet my sons body? Is that it? Some, some disgusting body snatching-"

"I'm gonna cut you off right there. Real simple reason Karen. I want to be here about as much as you want me here. I was dead and ready to pass on when Gaia got a bug up her ass about making a champion, or avatar, or whatever word she wants to use instead of -Victim-." There were two cars in the parking lot when he pulled in to the shelter. Which was good, he didn't want to have to wait.

"My, my boy. My baby boy..." She was sobbing on her end. Leslie couldn't blame her, his eyes were burning too.

"I can't offer a whole lot of advice Karen. I... Can't even begin to tell you how sorry I am. For this, for the last few days, for your son. I-"

"Shut up! Just shut up!"

He just sits there and silently lets her cry and scream over the phone.

"...I need to hear it. I need to hear his voice. I want..."

"...What do you need me to say?"

"I'm sorry mom. I love you. Just, I need, one more time. Please."

"...I'm sorry mom. I love you."

-----

Chapter Text

Project: Gamer Ver. 2 Alpha Build 0.1.0

Disclaimer Me Do: I own nothing you recognize. And most of what you don't recognize, I still don't own.

_________________________________________________________________________

Donald wasn't sure of many things right this moment.

He didn't know where he was.
He didn't know the time.
He didn't know the day.
He didn't even know if he was human.

What he did know is that it was currently dark and pleasantly cool wherever he was. The vibrations that had been running through his body were uncomfortable, but he'd gotten used to it.

But everything changed suddenly. He could feel himself being moved, jostling against the others.

And then he was falling! He was crying in distress, and so too were his fellows. The ground was uncomfortable, rough and cold where before it had been smooth and cool.

Suddenly things changed! The ground became painfully hard, and the others (They had names! He could remember names!) were a tangled, jumbled pile of naked flesh and limbs.

"Mornin' gents." Donald looked up, someone was standing in front of their dozen strong pile of writhing, struggling men. He had to pull someone's elbow out of his kidney before he could really get a good look.

The kid, and it was definitely a kid, he was just a little too short and his voice a bit too high, was just casually standing there in a pair of ratty jeans, a dark blue hoodie and the dumbest looking goggles Donnie had ever seen.

"The hell'd you do to us!" Larry had finally pulled himself free and rolled off of Murry to stand up and try to menace the kid.

A little difficult when he's hunched over and holding his wedding tackle, but still, the man tried.

"One of you grabbed the wrong cat. I came to get 'er and one of your boys thought it'd be smart to pull a gun on me." Donnie doesn't know how, or why, but a dozen pairs of pants drop into the kids outstretched arms. Then shirts, socks, shoes... The underwear just drops straight to the ground though.

"You have any idea who we are, punk? Who you're messing with?" Giuseppe was practically yelling before he'd even gotten up.

Thinking on it, Donnie figures he would'a been on door duty.

"Jesse, shut it!" Paulie is pulling himself out from the bottom of the group, the red on the man's face would put a tomato to shame. Either the man is furious...

Or he got a weiner in the eye.

The kid just leans back against a brick wall, apparently he'd done whatever he'd done with all of 'em in an alley. Donnie thinks he might know where it is.

"Kid. You got a name?" Paul is getting his pants on while he asks, apparently deciding to just go with things.

"Alchemist."

"Alchemist. Alright. Whatever you want it to be. On behalf of myself and my boys here, I would like to apologize for bothering you." Donnie has to stare at Paulie when he says that. This guy storms their operation, catches all of 'em with their pants down and...

Suddenly, what Paulie's doing is making a lot more sense.

"I'd say we're even." The kid, Alchemist, is looking over the now much more clothed and subdued group. "Your guns and the take are at the bottom of the bay. Next time I have to come asking after my property, let's not do this again."

The boys are digging through their pockets, checking phones and wallets when the kid speaks up again.

"Who drives the '97 Ford, the green one?" Donald raised his hand. He wasn't proud of having the oldest car of the group, but he was trying to save up, send his girl to school.

He almost fumbles when the keys hit him in the stomach.

"Oughtta be a full tank of gas." The kid just waves and then... Disappears. Donnie's staring at where he had been, and he knows he ain't the only one.

"Yeah, like that ain't just goddamn terrifying." It takes Donnie a moment before he realizes it's Paulie talking.

"What the hell?! Why'd you apologize to 'im boss?" Giuseppe is getting into the smaller man's face. Right up until he's falling flat on his ass, his nose busted and bleeding.

"I tell you to start talkin' Jesse?" Paulie pulled a phone out of his pocket and pressed speed dial.

There's only one person he'd be calling after a night like that.

"Hey honey?"

...There's only two people he'd be calling after a night like that.

-----

Batman reads over the reports Robin had brought him. He'd done a passable job reviewing the warehouse where the dogfighting had been happening.

He'd only failed to take pictures of a few locations Batman needed to see. A vast improvement from his earlier days, and likely it would continue to improve as the young man got more experience.

None of the mobsters had shown up in missing persons reports, either on Tuesday or today. One young man had been reported as a runaway yesterday, but against organized crime or the likes of The Joker or Two-Face, he just couldn't dedicate any time to tracking down hormonal teenagers.

"Incoming Call" The computer terminal announced. The geographic ID for the source indicated it was coming from Washington, D.C.

Batman pressed enter, accepting the call. He waited one heartbeat, then two.

"Who is this?"

"Uh, Sir? Batman? Sir? It's, uh, it's Janice. From the Hall of Justice? We got a letter for you and, uh, we think it's a code but it doesn't match any of the normal profiles." Batman almost grinned. Almost. The poor girl sounded terrified.

"Send me a copy." He could hear her clicking a few things through their connection and moments later he could see the words 'File recieved' onscreen. "Janice. Good work."

The caped crusader disconnected immediately. If this was another threat, or if Calender Man had come up with a new cipher it would require his immediate attention.

It was, probably, neither of those things.

To: Dumpster diver in bat condition
Saw you take a tumble over the weekend.
Wanted to offer help, but had to leave when I saw the Bane of my existence.
Left a little present to help Clean his conscience.
Still sore? Give me a call and we'll work things out.

It had no signature, but it did include a phone number. One with an area code that would indicate northern Gotham.

That could potentially be a feint, Nygma could easily have come up with such a plan. On the other hand, if he had, the letter would have been much less obvious.

Frankly put, that was the most vexing part. The letter simply didn't match the complexity Gotham's villains worked at. The closest could have potentially been Catwoman, but she would have added several layers of innuendo referencing her Kitty multiple times.

The dark knight read the letter again, and then a third time for good measure. Nothing changed, nothing new stood out. It read like it had been dumbed down as much as possible while still maintaining the presumption of subtlety.

Batman actually felt a little bit insulted.

That didn't stop him from setting up a private network and creating a temporary number. If there was a new force in Gotham, he needed to know.

The phone rang once.
Twice.
A third time.

"Hello?" The person who picked up sounded young.
Another kid, then.

"I recieved your letter." Batman wasn't sure what he was hearing in the background. It was a series of short clicks before shifting to one long tone and then back to clicks.

"Oh! Bart! Awesome." Really? "How've you been?"

"What is it that you want? Why were you trying to contact me?"

"Nah, I'm at the library right now. Give me just a second and I'll get somewhere more private." The Batman resisted the urge to sigh. This. This was why he was adamant about the Justice League actually doing some form of training.

The trace running in the background confirmed the boys statement.

"Alright. Looks clear. I'm a healer."

"You're a... What?" There was no way someone had gotten it into their head to just advertise that fact.

"Healer. Broken people, I can fix 'em. Why do you think Mucho-Muscles lost his mojo? Cleaned the poison out of his system at range." Bruce could hear the kid flipping through papers before he made a dissatisfied sound. "You need some help, give me a call. We'll call that first time a consultation. Just give me a time and place and an hour heads up."

And then, the kid hung up.

Bruce was bemused. On the one hand, he had a kid claiming to be a healer of some sort. On the other, that same kid was claiming he'd weaponized that ability to take down what was possibly one of the most dangerous mercenaries outside of Deathstroke on Earth.

He had a few options on how to play this out, but all of them relied on information. To that end, he picked up his league communicator.

"J'onn? Something's come up and I could use your assistance. Here are the details..."

Chapter Text

Project: Gamer Ver. 2 Alpha Build 0.1.1

Disclaimer Me Do: I own nothing you recognize. And most of what you don't recognize, I still don't own.

_________________________________________________________________________

"I have visual." Came the monotone voice of the Martian Manhunter through Batman's earpiece.

A quick rundown of recent events, as well as the sheer convenience of a 'Healer' showing themselves after Bruce had been in a very physical altercation had been enough to convice J'onn that something was amiss.

But it wasn't until Batman had explained that, not only was the kid claiming to be able to heal, but that he'd somehow weaponized that ability to nearly kill someone that he'd agreed to psychically monitor the situation. And even then, unless J'onn found something especially dangerous or worrisome, he wouldn't intentionally dive in.

Unintentionally, the Manhunter had explained to him in private some time ago, it could still happen. Martians, all of them, were a deeply interconnected species. They were individuals, but all of them were part of their community. It was difficult to be a stranger on Mars, and on Earth the silence J'onn could hear was sometimes heart-rending in its intensity.

And... Much as it galled Bruce to admit, he wasn't in any condition for a fight. Bane had worked him over all too well before throwing him down two, three, four stories. Landing in a dumpster was a stroke of luck he couldn't be more thankful for.

As such, the Martian Manhunter was here as a trump card more than he was as insurance. If the healer could manipulate biology and turned violent, J'onn's command of his own physiology should negate that concern. And even if it didn't? Well, most people forgot that the Martian was nearly on par with Superman.

"The subject is wearing a blue sweatshirt, hood up. Blue denim pants. Black shoes. He has entered the building. I have a lock on his... This is rather curious." Curious was not good. Curious was not something Batman wanted to hear.

"What do you have?"

"He lacks any form of mental defense. Not even the most basic means of organizing his thoughts, beyond some simple focusing practices. I am, however, uncertain if I should attempt to press deeper."

"You found something?" Bruce is keeping an eye on the door. He'd sent the kid a message, to meet him on the roof of a building downtown at twilight. He'd been trusting the Martian Manhunter to keep him apprised of the healer's location, but it sounded as though he was becoming distracted.

"It is... Difficult to navigate. His mind is filled with minor memetic hazards. Beyond that, he knows an astounding measure of the Eldritch Truth. I was unaware humanity had even had contact with -" Bruce physically stumbled when J'onn said... Something. A name. Simple and common, but filled with meaning and understanding and purpose and it was lookinggazingjudginglovinghim-

Batman struggled to get control of himself when he saw the door opening.

The boy walked forward with confidence that rang hollow. He was dressed exactly as J'onn had said, though the Martian had failed to mention the glowing yellow eyes. He was carrying a drink tray filled with coffee, of all things.

"Half expected you to not be here." He doesn't introduce himself, and he doesn't offer to shake the Dark Knight's hand. He set the tray down on the ledge of the roof, grabbed one and turned to face Bruce.

The batman said nothing. For several minutes, the only sound on the roof was the wind and the boy drinking from his cup. Several moments like this passed before the boy turned around, gazing over the city much as Bruce was in the habit of doing.

"He will leave soon if you do not initiate further conversation." Unseen, Bruce glared at the boys back. This was a minor gambit, a means of asserting control over a conversation and establishing the power structure of negotiations. A child shouldn't have enough experience to recognize that.

"...What, exactly, are you offering?" Bruce took a coffee out of the carrier. Fresh, hot and black.

"I'm offering cream and sugar if you want it." The boy held out a bag, labeled with Maritime Coffee, but Bruce didn't reach for it. He'd grown to appreciate the bitter acidity of black coffee through years of drinking it.

The boy shrugged, putting the bag back into the pocket of his sweater.

"Like I said. Healing. Toxins, blindings, paralysis and deafness, as well as physical harm, minor and severe. Not sure about reattaching limbs, and dead is dead, I'm already doing miracles here. If you weren't born with it, I can probably fix it unless it's a mental disorder." That was... An incredibly bold claim.

"And you used this to incapacitate Bane." The child didn't answer him, not immediately. He was holding his cup up to his mouth to take a long, drawn out sip.

"Steroids are toxins, yes. I didn't expect he could lift a dumpster after I tagged him, but I'm not surprised he couldn't hold it."

"What makes you think I would accept your... Healing?" If the boy was being honest, this was a resource the league couldn't afford to waste.

"You still pissing blood?"

"...How does this 'Healing' work, then?" It had been six days since he'd landed in a dumpster, on his back, after being thrown off of a roof. He was lucky he was even walking right now.

"I use a handful of spells. They work by empowering a concept and using it to erode a negative concept in a target. Or in some cases, replacing it. Stronger people can take more harm, which takes more effort for me to repair. I could probably have you fixed up from near-dead in about an hour. Superman, Wonder Woman, really any Superhuman or Extra-terrestrial who's beyond human I can stabilize, but bringing them back to full health would likely take me a week of constant effort. That's me being optimistic, by the way." The kid took a sip of his coffee and looked like he was thinking for a moment. "Also, works kind of weird on the undead, depending on the type. Solomon Grundy would be actively weakened or possibly disincorporated, as an example, whereas a spirit might be healed. Or not. Those tend to be a case by case basis."

A wizard. A wizard who knew what he was doing. A wizard who knew what he was doing and recognized he had limits.

This was not a thirteen year old child.

"Who are you?" Bruce took a sip of his own coffee. He was going to have to find out what had the Martian Manhunter keeping quiet soon.

"My name is-" Bruce heard static as he spoke, painful and corrupting noise. "-alright, that's no good. Just go with Alchemist. Save me the hassle of playing charades."

"What... Was that?" He'd already had a headache coming here. Now it was edging into a migraine.

"I've got a few answers and I don't know which one is true. Could be the goddess that brought me here has DRM on my name. Could also be that I'm not in the Book of Destiny and that's minorly offensive to reality. Could also be any number of other things I haven't got a clue about." The wizard simply shrugs, almost unconcerned.

"Fine." Not an answer he wanted, but if Alchemist didn't know then there wasn't much use in pursuing it with him. "After you heal me, then what?"

The wizard looked at him, with those strange, glowing eyes. In a moment, Bruce's headache was gone. The minor aches and pains in his knee, elbow, back and neck that he'd grown used to for years were fading away. The ringing in his ears, present for over a decade was just -gone-. The city lights were no dimmer, but they were suddenly so much less sharp.

A moment later, and the more severe pain in his back and calves, the rigid stiffness in his neck was gone too.

It was the first time in a very, very long time he'd been able to fully stand without agony trying to push him back down.

And then, finally, he felt something else. Something warm and light, he felt... He felt -good-. He looked down at his left hand and flexed it, trying not to express how amazing it felt to move his fingers and not feel the tendons struggling.

"Then it's up to you. If you want this to be a one-time thing, that's it. I go my way, you go yours. You want this to be something the league can benefit from, here's my list of demands." He handed a sheet to Bruce, who took it without hesitation.

Bruce unfolded the sheet and looked at it. An annual wage, Alchemist's list of responsibilities which included confidentiality and that the league members receive top priority for treatment. The league's responsibilities, which required he never be listed in their database as having healing abilities and that they create a legal identity for him. It was actually very simple, very straightforward, and Bruce knew any contract lawyer would be frustrated at how incredibly lacking it was in legalese.

"I'll discuss this with-" Batman stopped mid sentence. Alchemist was gone. He'd never heard the wizard move, or the door open. He folded the paper back up and put it in his belt.

"That was... A rather curious experience." J'onn floated up, through the roof of the building they were standing on. He grabbed one of the remaining two coffee from the carrier and held it in front of his mouth.

He'd always preferred the smell to the taste.

"I suppose that's fitting. Is there anything I need to be aware of?" A wizard with almost unrestricted healing magic. That... That could be a game changer.

"He lied only once while speaking with you. I am uncertain as to what, however. I was... Distracted."

"This Eldritch Truth that you mentioned?"

"No, thankfully not. It was one of the memetic hazards he knows. Something called the 'Nyan Cat'."

Chapter Text

Project: Gamer Ver. 2 Alpha Build 0.1.2

Disclaimer Me Do: I own nothing you recognize. And most of what you don't recognize, I still don't own.

_________________________________________________________________________

Leslie stepped out of the recycling center at the edge of Gotham's northern district. It had been nearly a week since he'd interacted with Bruce Wayne, and that meant they were two weeks into Summer Vacation.

It was time he'd been using productively.

He'd ended up using the stolen money from the mob to purchase basic supplies, a folding cot, electric heating element, blanket and other odds and ends. Between that and food, he'd burned through a third of the money all too quickly. And finding a means of income as a thirteen year old child with no documentation was... Honestly, an effort in futility.

He'd managed to luck out after a few days in coming up with a plan that met multiple goals at once, and actually succeeded. It had taken him almost a full day of legwork to find a recycling center that would pay him under the table to convert aluminum cans into cast aluminum.

His cut was half the normal cost for the material. Using transmutation, even at level one, that had offered him a decent amount of money in a day. And after it leveled up? The owner of the facility was buying up the materials the other centers in town had lying around.

After the five days he'd been doing this, transmutation was level thirty-seven. Between this and the money from the dogfighting ring, he was sitting on almost seven thousand dollars.

Which would be great, if he could spend it. As is, that was almost a side-effect of his other goal.

Goals.

He had accrued nearly forty-thousand GP for doing the same work. Well, forty-thousand after he'd made another purchase from the game shop.

The Creation, Calibration and Care of Advanced and Unique Homonculi by Dr. C. Grande.

It had been an expensive book, and between the page count and ludicrous amount of technical jargon Leslie wouldn't be finished with it anytime soon.

And it was the cheaper of the two books he needed to read on the subject. De Le Metallica was another book on a similar subject, but it focused on the creation of living steel and using it to make a kind of homonculus called the Holmcross.

That one would cost one-hundred thousand GP.

And if Leslie could use it the way he planned, it would still be cheap.

BRR-BRR

Leslie was pulled from his thoughts midway to the abandoned apartment he'd been squatting in by his phone going off.

BRR-BRR

He swiped up, accepting the call from an unknown number.

"Hello?"

"Alchemist." The voice on the other end sounded like it had been gargling gravel.

"Ah, Bart. How are things?"

"Our organization has determined that they will not be contracting your services."

Leslie stopped walking, his expression shifting into a frown. He'd known this was a gamble, but this meant he was going to have to review his other options.

"I understand." He wanted to ask 'Why?' but pushed that urge down. It wouldn't change his next set of actions, whatever he chose to do. "Thank you for informing me."

He was going to have to either get into the black market and have an identity made, or he was going to have to see if the legal system could be manipulated as he needed.

"Alchemist. Would you be willing to consider a different offer?"

Leslie closed his eyes and exhaled slowly.

First the stick, now the carrot. Of course.

"I'm certainly willing to entertain a different offer. Whether or not I accept it is a different story."

"I'll call you again with a time and date for a face to face meeting."

He pocketed his phone after Batman hung up.

This was... Not ideal. Less worrisome than his eyes glowing yellow after he picked up the second half of the 'Bright and Shining Soul' perks, but that was all in perspective.

Being rejected by the Justice League was an immediate concern. Magically tampering with his soul was, hopefully, a long term issue.

He shrugged and got moving again. It's not like he was done tampering with his soul, anyway.

-----

He'd almost made it back to the empty apartment building when he felt something. The hairs on the back of his neck had risen, something cold crawling down his spine.

He came to a stop. The nearby windows were boarded up, no glass to check behind himself. The only sound he could hear was the wind drifting through empty alleys.

Giving up on being discreet, he finally looked behind himself.

Nothing.

Nobody on the sidewalks near him either.

Up?

There.

It had been only an instant, but he'd seen movement. Someone had ducked under the ledge of a building across the street.

One of the Robin's? Leslie wasn't sure. Teleport was at level eight, and still left him half-dead when he used it, so he was absolutely not going to use it to try and ambush a potential ninja kid.

Or adult ninja, if the League of Assassins had found out about him.

Leslie inhaled slowly, and then exhaled slower. He was not going to work himself into a panic. Not here. Not now.

He looked down a nearby alley, and then checked the walls. Fire escapes and dumpsters, meaning broken line of sight. Great for people trained for ninja ambushes. Not for him.

He started walking again. Whoever it was, they knew they'd been made. They weren't jumping down and attacking though, so they had something else planned.

A prepared staging point? Reinforcements? Leslie wasn't sure.

He turned a corner opposite of the direction his watcher had been and started jogging.

He needed to break line of sight without giving them an advantage. He didn't think his ability to teleport had been noticed by anyone yet, and he'd certainly never mentioned it...

An arm reached out from an alley he was passing and grabbed his wrist. They tried to swing him in, and even partially succeeded.

And were fully turned into a toad.

Leslie managed to stop himself after a few more steps and turned around. He hadn't seen the person who grabbed him, but he didn't see anyone else in the alley.

He picked the confused toad up and looked around. He still felt something off, an uneasy weight in his stomach... But he was used to that, that was just nerves.

Still, he spent a solid minute looking over everything, every speck along the roof lines and the entrances on both sides of the alley with a paranoid eye.

He didn't feel safe. He didn't feel secure.

He teleported home anyway.

Chapter Text

Project: Gamer Ver. 2 Alpha Build 0.1.3

Disclaimer Me Do: I own nothing you recognize. And most of what you don't recognize, I still don't own.

_________________________________________________________________________

Artemis Crock had... A very rough childhood.

A demanding father.
High expectations.
Her mother and sister had been impossibly distant.

But she still loved them! She did!

At least, she thought she did. And then things had changed. Her mother had been hurt. Jade disappeared. Father was... Gone.

Everything was different. Everything was better!

Half of her family was gone and Artemis had never been happier.

She'd stayed up late on many, many nights thinking about that.

If it made her a bad person.
A bad daughter.

She... Did not enjoy those nights.

Turning to vigilantism hadn't actually been a huge stretch of the imagination. Her father had trained her in hand to hand, marksmanship, archery and even knifework. Taught her the best methods to track someone, to ambush them and interrogate. Soft and subtle, or vicious and bloody.

Turning those skills to more... Productive? Uses had been a little difficult, but she'd appreciated the distraction.

It kept her from dealing with the whole family issue. Or... Or worrying about her mom.

She thought herself something of a prowler of the rooftops, doing with her bow and arrow the kinds of things that Batman or Robin wouldn't. She'd avoided murder, but she was perfectly comfortable with maiming people.

Under the right conditions.

She saw the same man her father had used to, to test her with. She saw him in would-be rapists, in wife beaters, in too many men.

He hadn't been able to harm her body. But he'd scarred her memories.

But that was not why she had gone out today. She'd heard something, something impossible while she'd been on patrol. The Batman had been on a rooftop, stiff and struggling to move and he'd met with someone. He'd made the caped crusader an offer she hadn't believed.

Healing.

She hadn't believed it, not at first. But she wasn't blind, she'd seen how Batman had moved like a wounded, angry bear getting on the roof, and left with the flowing grace of a panther in its prime.

It had taken her almost a week to find him again. Walking around freely during the day in the near-abandoned apartments close the docks. Like he didn't have a care in the world. Like he didn't match the description she'd heard of a new metahuman the mob was steering clear of.

Like he didn't have a power that people would pay a fortune for.
Or kill for.

She didn't know how he'd noticed her. She wasn't wearing anything reflective, and her shadow was cast far behind him. When he'd turned around to check, she'd thought she might not have been the only one following him.

And then he looked up.

They never look up!

She caught a glimpse of impossible, glowing yellow before she'd ducked under the ledge of the roof she'd been on. She kept low as she ran to the fire escape on the back side of the building.

Her father had told her, time and again. 'The worst thing for a trained professional is a lucky idiot.'

Well, that and 'If you see Deathstroke on the other end of the scope, cancel the contract'.

He was at the end of the road when she saw him, just turning to the right. She sprinted after him, ducking into the alley parallel to him. A glimpse between abandoned dumpsters and she saw he was pacing himself, moving at a glacial jog compared to her.

She pushed harder. She didn't know what she was going to do, but she knew she had to do it.

Closing in on the mouth of the next alley, she tried to calm her ragged breathing.

There!

A flash of blue and...

She wasn't really sure after that. The world was big. And hot. And confusing. Because she was sure it wasn't supposed to be this big, but her brain just couldn't say -why-?

And then it just became even scarier when a big thing -grabbed- her and she couldn't escape!

She tried to scream, but the only noise she could make was a panicked, high-pitch chirping. That only got worse when something changed, the world changed, and she felt like she'd lost a fight with... With...?

She couldn't remember!

Her distress was mounting even as the big thing put her on the ground. She couldn't move, petrified with fear! She chirped once, then twice, and then things got weird again.

She was laying on a dusty hardwood floor. Light was peaking in between the white slats of plastic blinds.

And she was naked.

That took a moment to register, but when it did she pushed herself to her feet in a single, lightning quick motion. She turned around, eyes wild, hands moving to cover things when she saw him.

Making direct eye contact.

Glaring at her, gleaming yellow eyes boring into her own. Arms crossed and leaning against the wall.

"What." He finally said after several intense, uncomfortable moments. "Do you want."

If Artemis had been thinking clearly, she might not have twisted and kicked him across the face.

She would've gone for the gut instead.

It's hard to get people to talk with a broken jaw, after all.

Chapter Text

Project: Gamer Ver. 2 Alpha Build 0.1.4

Disclaimer Me Do: I own nothing you recognize. And most of what you don't recognize, I still don't own.

_________________________________________________________________________

---Enemy Defeated!--
--Artemis Lian CrockX1!--
--You have gained 1000 XP!--
--You have gained 500 GP!--
--You have reached Level: 11!--
--You have 5 unused stat points!--
--You have 0 unused perk points!--

Leslie looked over his notifications as the girl remembered she was a human. The level up was nice, the stat points would be fantastic. With the plus fifty percent modifier to his MP from Shining Soul, that was another fifteen points. And with the Bright Soul modifier, the boost to his Wisdom got him another three percent of his MP back per hour.

He would be able to cast all of his spells one more time before running dry. Well, three more times for Toad. That one was harder to level without a valid target, so it was sitting at four.

His last point went into Vitality. It wasn't terribly healthy, nineteen points meant three-hundred and eighty HP.

Leslie figured it would at least give him an opportunity to run away from anything that wouldn't kill him in one hit.

Like any of the metahumans.

He ran his gaze over his stats one more time. Nine Strength, Nineteen Vitality, Five Dexterity, Nine Agility, Twenty-Two Intelligence and Twenty-Two Wisdom with Six points in Luck.

He was never going to compare to the powerhouses in this reality, and he was okay with that. He could try moving in a different direction, magic and utility instead of raw damage.

The girl, Artemis, was starting to come to, but still seemed to struggle with the sensory disparity between being a toad and human.

Leslie took that time to double check his perks. He didn't have any points left, but there had been a few things he wanted to double check.

Metamagic: Lock had been a tough choice, there were a few branching options down that tree, but Lock had been especially interesting. It would make his spells and enchantments harder to dispel by others until he mastered the spell, at which point it was permanent unless he personally dispelled it or something with significantly greater metaphysical weight than him got rid of it.

So gods, spirits, demons and the fae wouldn't have much trouble, but he could force John Constantine to burn a favor to undo a curse.

Or he could make his buffs permanent when cast. Both options were good!

It does suck that it locked him out of purchasing Metamagic: Overcharge but he figured if he couldn't deal with something in one hit, it would deal with him in one hit instead.

Magically Apprenticed had been the last perk he bought. It just made spellcasting Ten percent easier. That wasn't too impressive, but the level Fifty archmage perk was the end of that perk tree and it did the same thing but at a Fifty percent magnitude.

Terra was not exactly imaginative.

Leslie nearly jumped when Artemis launched herself to her feet.

He stared, intentionally keeping his eyes locked on hers and not on... Other things.

His body was thirteen, not his mind.

She seemed at a loss for words, or perhaps this was how she instinctively acted. Leslie wasn't sure. He waited one second, then two... Then five.

"What..." He finally said, uncertain what to say, to do next. "Do you want?"

If he'd been watching anything else, he might have seen her feet moving before one of them slammed into his jaw.

--Critical Hit!--
--Headshot!--
-- -80 HP!--
-- -2 VP!--

"Son of a bitch!" He didn't care about the numbers, that just legitimately hurt!

And he only had Seven VP, so he couldn't afford to take too many more of those.

"Where the hell are my clothes?!" Artemis backed her way to the middle of the bare room, one arm across her chest while she tried to maintain an aggressive stance.

Leslie tapped his jaw twice, casting Life and Cure sequentially, repairing all of the damage she'd caused.

"Assuming nobody else picked them up? Probably still in the alley you grabbed me in." He glared, silently casting Protect and Blink.

"Give me back my clothes, asshole!" She tensed, readying herself to attack him again.

And missed when he stepped to the side.

"Yeah, no. I ain't got 'em. You want 'em you can walk out and find them yourself!" He stepped to the side again when she tried to grab him.

Her third attempt came up short when he stepped backwards, out the door to the room and slammed it on her.

She was pounding on the door, but he took the moment to think. He could either turn her back into a toad and drop her somewhere. Turn her into a toad and leave her as a toad. Teleport out and just leave this as a bad job...

Or he could try and talk to the angry naked blond girl.

"Why were you following me?" The pounding stopped for a moment before she hit the door one final time. There was a squeak of skin on varnish as she probably sat down on the other side.

"...Because I wanted to ask you something."

"And you couldn't have tried the sane, non-ninja method of just asking?" She may have started to calm down, but Leslie was still holding the door shut.

"I just... This is what I know how to do, okay?" Artemis sounded defensive, not apologetic.

"Okay. Let's try this again. Why were you following me?" Leslie looked around the main room of the apartment. The only thing he'd left out this morning had been his camping cot, and that was easy to grab.

And easy to replace, if it came down to it.

"You're a healer, right?" Ah, damn. He could hear the hope in her voice.

"Let me guess. You were somehow nearby enough to hear my conversation with Batman the other week, weren't you?" This was the only option that made sense, seeing as he hadn't brought it up, at all, with anyone else.

"What? How did you know?"

"Because reality runs on Narrative-ium and I'm a wizard." He stepped away from the door, materializing a pair of lawn chairs as he moved. "So get out here and we'll have a proper talk about this."

He'd set both chairs up before she awkwardly shuffled out of the empty room, hands once again covering her body.

"Do you, do you have -anything- I can wear?"

"No."

Chapter Text

Project: Gamer Ver. 2 Alpha Build 0.1.5

Disclaimer Me Do: I own nothing you recognize. And most of what you don't recognize, I still don't own.

_________________________________________________________________________

Paula did not like to think she was a good woman.

She knew better.

She didn't value life, or strangers. She'd had her husband, and she'd loved him. Together they'd had two daughters.

Two beautiful, wonderful, talented daughters.

She liked to think that it was them that started to change her outlook on life.

She liked to think that, because it felt less selfish in her mind. To think she'd changed for her children. Rather than just... Adapting, to changes in her circumstances.

The incident that crippled her had been a hazy thing, in her memories. Apparently a normal thing, the doctors told her. Sometimes the brain intentionally lost things. Dulled memories.

She'd remembered her time in prison just fine, though. In some ways, those were the easiest years of her life. In so many others, they were the worst.

She got up when she was told to.

Ate when they told her to.

Showered when they told her.

Slept... Well, as best she could, with one eye open and a pair of dead weights where her legs had been.

Lawrence had never come to visit. Jade had, a few times.

Begging and broken by what her father was training her to do.

More than prison, more than her legs, that was her biggest regret.

Paula didn't know if being a mother changed her, if prison changed her, if her struggling to crawl into a wheelchair morning after morning had changed her.

She knew her daughter asking 'What's wrong with me? Why can't I be what dad wants? Why can't I be -like you-' had definitely changed her.

It was why she took Artemis when she was released from prison. Why she kicked Lawrence out from both of their lives.

She didn't regret it... She just wished she'd known what she was signing up for.

Artemis was intelligent and willful. The girl didn't like sitting still for too long.

Not outside of a hunt, at least.

And she refused to tell Paula where she was going when she headed out!

Already it was getting late, much later than Artemis was normally out anymore. It kept Paula up with worry every night, but this was even worse.

A few short years ago, she'd have been pacing. Now, now all she could do was sit.

Sit and wait.

Eleven O'clock came.
Then Midnight.
By One, her anxiety was beginning to get the better of her.

The door slammed open just shy of Two in the morning. Paula wheeled away from the window (How had she missed her?) to look and freezes for a moment.

Artemis is standing there, barefoot, only wearing a blue hoodie. No socks, no backpack, no -pants-.

"Artemis? What happened?!"

"Him." Is all she say, lifting her arm to point behind herself. The hem of the hoodie raises, and Paula realizes that it's literally all her daughter is wearing.

"Me." A boy walks in behind her daughter. Wearing a dark red button down shirt, fading jeans and welding goggles, of all things.

"You?" He waves at Paula, clearly amused.

"Me." He walks right into the kitchen, barely paying any attention to her. She rolls in after him, speechless at the sheer disregard he seems to have for her while he's rummaging through her cabinets.

"What is going on here? Who are you?!" She reaches behind her back, going for the small gun that would be incredibly uncomfortable to sit on, if she could still feel it.

"I-" The young man starts to say as he pulls out a cup. "-am Alchemist. And your kid wants to have me do something."

"And what are you making her do for you?!" She's incredulous when he fills the cup with tap water instead of using the water cooler.

Is the boy insane?

She flicks the safety on her little .22 pistol off.

"We haven't discussed payment yet." He pauses for a moment to sip the water.

Either he doesn't know the danger, or he doesn't care.

"I figured you might be better suited to helping me than she is, anyway."

"You want to just tell her why you're here, or are you going to keep being an asshole?" Artemis stepped out of the hallway, standing just behind Paula's chair. "Wait, are you seriously drinking from the tap?"

"You took an hour to get us here. I'm thirsty."

"Oh my god, you really are an idiot. How has the smilex not killed you yet?"

He took a long, slow drink. Seemingly contemplating the question before shrugging.

"Alright. So. Mrs.Crock." He set the empty glass down next to the sink. "How would you like to walk again?"

"...The doctor's said it's impossible. I'll never walk again." She didn't want to hope. Not anymore.

"Yeah, that's nice and all. Look, we live in a city where a sociopath with daddy issues beats up the mentally handicapped. There are literal gods and goddesses walking around, making even more bastard children. Magic is a thing. And you?" He snapped his fingers and she felt... She felt something. It was pain, but it was pain she hadn't felt in -years-.

"You can walk."

Chapter Text

Project: Gamer Ver. 2 Alpha Build 0.1.6

Disclaimer Me Do: I own nothing you recognize. And most of what you don't recognize, I still don't own.

_________________________________________________________________________

"I'm sorry." The words tasted like ash in her mouth. "But I can't help you. I left that behind. I want- I'm trying to be a better person. To raise my daughter better."

The boy who'd done the impossible, who had healed her, sat across from her at her kitchen table. He'd pulled his goggles up, revealing a pair of the brightest yellow eyes she'd ever seen.

And what he'd asked for in return for the miracle he'd given her?

An introduction to the criminal underworld.

"It's fine." He was looking at the wall behind her, gaze rather blank. She could tell he wasn't entirely focused on her, hadn't been since she'd already refused his request minutes before and kept justifying herself. "I wasn't actually expecting it, if I'm being honest."

He was drumming chipped fingernails on the faux-wood of the tapbletop.

Tap-tap-tap-tap
Tap-tap-tap-tap

Over and over again. Initially she'd thought it some subtle means of stressing her, to try and make her anxious.

Some of the clients who'd hired Lawrence and her in the past had liked to play such power games.

But he hadn't made demands. Hadn't suggested some form of alternate payment. After a few minutes of him staring into space and tapping, she realized it was likely just a subconscious habit.

Similar to how she used to pace when she got bored.

"I... I don't suppose there's anything else I can offer?" She didn't know what she could offer, what he would want. But if she could keep her daughter, this daughter safe...

"I don't suppose you know of a way for a minor with no I.D. to get to Los Angeles, do you?" To be fair, she actually could think of a few ways.

Unfortunately, none of them were legal or simple.

She shook her head no.

"Didn't think so." He stood up, bones creaking and popping as he stretched. "Nothin' for it then."

"W-wait!" He stopped at the doorway of the kitchen, turning to look at her. With the light behind him, she realized why his eyes were bright.

They were literally glowing.

"Isn't, isn't this the part where you-" She waved a hand at her hips, motioning towards her legs. "Where you take away what-"

"Yeah, no." He interrupted her. "I'm not in the business of hurting people because I didn't get my way. Some things don't pan out, that's okay. I'm not going to throw a tantrum over it."

He just turned around, waved at her once over his shoulder and walked out of sight. A moment later and she could hear the door of her apartment close.

For a while, she just sat there. Her hands rubbing up and down the tops of her thighs. She could feel them again!

They were weak, and they hurt. A bone-deep ache of sore, exhausted muscles that hadn't moved in so, so long.

But she could feel that they hurt! She could feel her hands moving over them! The texture of her cotton pajama pants had never felt so comforting.

Eventually she wheeled her way down the hall, stopping in front of her daughter's room.

"Artemis? Are you still awake?" She had questions, so many questions.

"...Yeah?"

"We need to talk. In the morning, we need to talk." Paula could feel her emotions swinging between elation and confusion.

"Alright mom." Her girl just sounds done. Done with today. Done dealing with wizards or, or whatever Alchemist was.

Rolling away to her own room, Paula had to agree. She was done with today, too.

She hoisted herself onto her bed and got comfortable. Looking down at her pale, thin legs she stared at her feet.

How long had it been since she'd moved them? She couldn't remember. Couldn't even remember how it felt to move them.

Moment after moment passed as she tried to get even the smallest twitch.

She wasn't actually sure it was real when she finally saw movement. Just her toes trying to flex.

But they curled. Not all the way, not even close. And even that small motion took so much effort.

But it was something. Something she never thought she'd have back.

Her feet were sore. Her legs were sore. But she still fell asleep with tears in her eyes and a smile on her face so wide it hurt.

-----

Nearly a week after the Artemis incident, Leslie once again found himself climbing up the stairs of a mostly abandoned building.

The economy just had not treated Gotham well. At all.

Independence day would be tomorrow. He was planning enjoy watching fireworks from atop the new apartment complex he was squatting in. There was actually a surprising number that still had their basic utilities turned on.

He pushed open the door and stepped through. Batman and Robin were nowhere to be seen yet, but he didn't really have that much to do.

Leslie rotated the little coffee cup carrier he'd gotten, then pulled out the cup with the white lid. He was not a fan of coffee, and opted for cocoa instead.

"You've been busy." Leslie did not jump when the voice unexpectedly came up behind him. He did, however, flinch.

"It's mostly been boredom." The mage turned around, Batman and Robin both behind him. He hadn't heard them get up on the roof, and that part at least did not surprise him.

"Most people don't accrue twenty-thousand dollars out of boredom." Batman took the container of cups and pulled one free, then handed the carrier back to Robin.

"Believe it or not, that's actually a side-benefit. My main goal is to get a better handle on material recompositioning." Leslie offered a half-shrug. "Figured this had a handful of knock-on benefits for the environment and Jeff's recycling business."

Batman held the cup up to his mouth, probably trying to smell if Leslie had added anything. Robin was less cautious, directly drinking it instead.

"And after the solar panels, it's closer to seventeen-thousand."

"...What do you need with five-hundred broken solar panels, anyway?" Robin finally spoke up, asking the question Batman was likely too proud to ask himself. "Where did you even put them all? We didn't even know the recycling centers here were holding on to them after that cold snap Freeze caused last summer."

"I figure I'm going to destroy a few learning to fix them. Then if I can get a few working, I'll be trying to figure out a way to convert electricity into magic. Then, if I can make that work, I'll need to figure out some kind of battery." Leslie took a sip of his cocoa, staring off into the city. "It's probably going to be some kind of crystal. It's always some kind of crystal."

It was rather telling that Leslie didn't ask how they knew about what he'd been up to. He had rather high expectations of their paranoia, after all.

"...I called you here to discuss a contract similar to what you offered the Justice League, Alchemist." Batman finally tried the coffee. Black and bitter, just like his childhood. "I'm attempting to create a secondary team, meant for the younger members. Someplace the Justice League can train our successors and help them develop the camaraderie that has allowed us to challenge threats that were beyond any of us individually."

"I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess that the other members think it's a good idea in theory, but are all arguing over the details and nothing is actually getting done, yeah?" Batman and Robin both were mutely staring over the city, listening to the ambient noises. "I'm guessing you're planning to ask me to contribute somehow?"

For a long moment, nobody said anything.

"Suppose I'll lay out my wants, and we'll work out the details. One-hundred and four grand a year, after tax. Ten percent raise on that salary every year starting from the third onward. Full insurance. Hopefully won't need it, but magic and teeth don't always mix well. Minimum of forty-eight consecutive hours of downtime per week. Don't care if it's back to back and I'm working the next ten days solid. In case of emergency you can call me, but it pauses the clock until I'm back on break. Good so far?" Batman nodded, but Robin just looked confused. "Last two things. One a requirement, other's a request if you can swing it. I need legal identification. From scratch. I can pass the G.E.D. and all that fun stuff if it helps. I just need to be able to legally open a bank account and buy property."

"Why from scratch?" Robin asked, stifling a yawn. "Can't you just get an I.D. for yourself?"

"You mean as Leslie?" Robin stilled, realizing he'd just broken some of the unspoken etiquette in the hero world. "That's where the request comes in."

Leslie sipped at his cocoa for a long moment as he contemplated how to say what he wanted to get across.

"He's... Not actually in here." He tapped at his chest. "And I need help. Probably a lot of help, honestly, to find him and give his body back. I'd rather not die again, so I've been researching how to make a body without dark magic or evil rituals, and that's been promising... But moving souls around is complicated and difficult and I -might- be able to do it, but getting good enough to do it reliably would require experimenting and I'm -not- comfortable with what that entails."

Robin was looking at him in disbelief. Batman, however, was glaring. He'd also moved in such a way that his cape was now closed like a cloak, so he was likely holding something on his utility belt.

"Don't look at me like that. I know you've met Boston Brand." Batman shifted. Some, but definitely not all, of the tension relaxed at the comparison. "My best bet is asking Death if she'd be willing to help. Barring that, there's the devil. He's retired, but..."

Leslie shrugged, trying to give off the impression of 'What can you do?'.

Now both of the caped crusaders were looking at him like he'd said something insane.

"What, seriously? She's probably one of the nicest beings you're likely to meet."

"Aww, you're just saying the sweetest things." Came a feminine voice from behind Leslie. The accent was impossible to place, he could swear he heard southern twang mixed in with New York rudeness and valley girl vapidness.

A pair of pale, impossibly pale arms wrapped around his neck in a loose hug and the person behind him set their chin on top of his head.

"Huh. Hey Didi!" Even if she wasn't willing to help him, this was still a win in his book. She was one of the Endless he'd always wanted to meet... Outside of her official function, at any rate.

"A little birdie came to me, they said @**&@%$#% had something he wanted to ask." He could hear it when she said his name, he knew what every letter and sound was supposed to be... But it came out corrupted, not like screeching metal or nails on a chalkboard, but like a glitching audio file.

"Well, it's more like I've got two things I need to ask." He reached into his inventory, unconcerned if Batman and Robin saw him pull a pair of cups, still hot and fresh from the cafe, out of nothingness. "But this first question is really, really important."

"Oh? And what's that?"

"Coffee, or Cocoa?"

Chapter Text

Project: Gamer Ver. 2 Alpha Build 0.1.7

Disclaimer Me Do: I own nothing you recognize. And most of what you don't recognize, I still don't own.

_________________________________________________________________________

Leslie woke up to his phone ringing.

It was nearly noon and he was usually up earlier, but today was a holiday and he'd stayed up late the night before, reading another spellbook.

He'd needed something to calm his nerves. The initial negotiations had gone fine, Batman didn't really seem to understand that he was asking for a wage significantly higher than an untrained individual would normally be getting.

Then they'd come to the compromises.

As much as he'd wanted to, the healing couldn't really be hidden. Not if it would be putting the heroes back out on the streets in days compared to weeks or months. Someone would be asking questions, and it would be better if the Justice League got a grip on that from the word 'Go'.

His argument about drawing attention had been countered with the simple logic that, exposure under the aegis of the Justice League should offer some protection from the street level issues and the League itself would be able to deflect and defray pressures from most supervillains and international demands.

Leslie's response? 'I'm not drunk enough to believe that.'

They'd argued back and forth a bit over that before reaching an acceptable agreement. Death's brief visit fading from the minds of Batman and Robin as though she'd never been there.

Between caffeine, sugar and nerves, Leslie hadn't been able to sleep. Thus he'd done as he preferred to do.

Read.

At least this was a new spellbook instead of just more amateur fanfiction.

Flare was a non-elemental attack spell that creates explosions. Oddly enough they happen in a burst of 'Black' light. Between its low level and his magic stat, it should hit about like a quarter-stick of dynamite.

He had no idea how the black light thing worked.

Unfortunately, between that and the De Le Metallica, he was back down to broke on GP.

"Ye, Yeah?" His voice didn't work on the first try, his throat too dry.

"Alchemist. We have a situation." Usually, hearing those words from Batman would shock someone into full wakefulness.

"Nn-ye-" The young man tried to stifle a yawn with his fist. "yeah, alright. Gimme a minute to get dressed and tell me where."

"At Gotham City Park." Well, that's helpful.

"Which one? There's, like, five Gotham City Parks." Leslie had a special hatred for city planners. Due in no small part because they had reused the name of the road he'd lived on in his past life within fifteen kilometers of each other.

"Across from First Gotham Bank." And then Batman hung up.

Leslie glared at his phone before putting it on a counter and getting dressed.

Pants on, clean shirt swapped on, socks and shoes and...

Leslie scrolled through his inventory, a glare settling on his face.

Where was his hoodie?

He put on his red button down shirt instead and then slid his goggles onto his face.

One final check and he put the phone in his pocket, his cot and blankets into his inventory, and teleported away.

And then had to teleport again after healing himself because he'd gone to the wrong Gotham City Park across from the First Gotham Bank.

There were two of the damn things that he knew of. He'd put solid money on there being at least one more though.

Thankfully the second location was the correct one. There were a handful of spires of ice in the park when he walked into the boundaries, and he caught sight of Batman and Robin dealing with some first responders while some guy wearing a broken fishbowl was being carted off by the police.

"Bats." Was all he said in greeting after walking under the police cordon tape.

"Kid, you ain't supposed to be in here!" Was... Huh, Bullock was here. That shouldn't be surprising, but then Leslie was used to interacting with him under different circumstances.

"He's the metahuman we contacted. He should be able to assist the victims faster than the medics." Batman's reassurance was nice, but Leslie would've preferred directions. Or instructions.

There were sixteen people in sight, all of whom had been frozen solid. That was... Going to be problematic. He didn't have the MP to thaw and heal all of these people at once. He was going to have to prioritize then.

Transmutation required he be touching something to be able to manipulate it. Unfortunately, the skill itself didn't offer any kind of internal insight to what it was doing, or how he could do things. At least, not on the level of internal mapping or some sort of view on molecular or atomic bonds.

Maybe, if he had Gamer's Mind it would do something like that, but he didn't. So it didn't.

What he did get was a sort of impression, or feeling based on what he was touching. He'd been working on crushed aluminum cans for a few weeks, so he knew what paint, plastic and aluminum felt like.

And now he knew what water felt like. Or maybe just ice? He really needed to experiment with it. Trying to push it deeper and he ran into a thin layer of... Maybe cotton? But under that was just a void.

Transmutation didn't seem to like things that were alive.

Leslie was very okay with that.

It took a moment to think about what he needed to do, and then the ice cracked and fell away.

The person who'd been underneath it, an older African American woman, immediately began shivering, wrapping her arms around her core.

"It w-w-w-was so c-c-cold!" She stuttered, her teeth chattering uncontrollably.

"I know ma'am. I can help you a little more, but I need to thaw everyone else out, okay?" She nodded... Or at least he thought she did. It could have just been more uncontrollable shivering. "Do you think you can walk?"

This time her nod was stronger.

"Alright. There's the paramedics over there, okay? I'll be over as soon as I can." Slowly, the woman started walking towards the ambulance. Leslie would have offered to help her, but he had no idea how long it would take hypothermia to settle in to the other victims.

--Alchemy -Transmutation- has leveled up!--
--Transmutation has reached level 50!--
--You may now use the Transmutation sub-skill Conversion!--

That was awesome and all, but Leslie would look later, he needed to focus on the task at hand.

Fifteen minutes later, and Leslie had managed to thaw out the last person. It hadn't been as fast as he'd have liked, he'd had to literally start yelling at the paramedics to help get people moving and warmed up.

The red creeping into their fingers and the tips of their ears and noses had been a very severe warning sign. The last few he'd been worried about especially, they hadn't seemed to understand what was going on or where they were.

He was literally down to just enough MP for one spell, and that was only thanks to his MP regenerating.

"Is this everyone?" He asked the paramedics once he'd gotten back to the central area where the ambulances were parked.

"It should be. We got everyone out under the sun, got 'em moving. Trying to get some warm fluids in their systems, warm everybody up." The man, Hank according to his nametag, said to him.

Leslie took a step back from the group, trying to get a good look at everyone in a thermal blanket.

"Alchemist." Came a gravelly voice from behind him.

"Shh. I'm about tapped out, gimme a second." He finally got all sixteen victims tagged. Raising his hand, he snapped his fingers once.

The effect was immediate. Not just the victims, but everyone could feel something in the air had changed. Something kind and reassuring, something telling them they could stand back up. They could take a little more. They could -do- a little more.

Across sixteen people, Life at level ten wouldn't do much at all. Restore one VP and an insignificant handful of of HP.

But the people who'd been the worst off, who had been stumbling in a daze as they tried to keep moving to stay alive, it was like the lights behind their eyes had finally been turned back on.

Leslie would have liked to at least have hit everyone with Esuna, but that became increasingly ineffective when spread across multiple targets. With sixteen people? It wouldn't have accomplished a single thing, it'd be like casting it at level one on everyone.

And he had all of three MP left, not enough to cast it anyway.

"Alchemist." The voice said again. Leslie finally turned around to look Batman in the cowl. "Are you done?"

"Yeah. I'm out. It'll be a few hours before I can do much else."

"You did good work. Freeze's ice is usually pretty hard to melt. And it looks like nobody will be losing fingers or toes this time!" Robin piped in from behind his mentor.

"Good. It seems the other members of the Justice League are moving forward with the apprentice program. If you'll come with me, I'll introduce you to the others you'll be supporting."

Supporting.

That had been the dealbreaker of the previous nights negotiations.

Leslie had refused, point blank, to be a combatant. He didn't have the actual training.

He could throw a decent punch and knew how to go unnoticed to the untrained eye, but he didn't have much else by way of fighting skills.

He wouldn't be assigned to espionage or combat missions.

Instead he was supposed to specialize in relief and support. Basically, clean up the mess and heal up the injuries.

"After we pick up Player One, we'll go to the Hall of Justice."

Wait, hold on.

Who was Player One?

Chapter Text

Project: Gamer Ver. 2 Alpha Build 0.1.8

Disclaimer Me Do: I own nothing you recognize. And most of what you don't recognize, I still don't own.

_________________________________________________________________________

Player One, it turned out, was another kid around the same height as Robin. They were wearing an odd outfit made of some gray-ish leather with an... Unpleasant smell around them.

The hockey mask covering the entirety of their face was almost as equally offsetting as the dented baseball bat in their hands.

If Batman hadn't said they were collecting this person explicitly, Leslie would have first thought 'Villain'.

As it is, he'd only just moved them up the list to 'Edgy antihero' instead.

"Zero-Two. Batman"
"B-Zero-One. Robin"
"B-Zero-Seven. Alchemist."
"B-Zero-Eight. Player One."

Alchemist stepped out of the zeta tube terminal just behind Robin, and ran immediately to the first trashcan he could see.

Several painful moments of dry-heaving later, he was rather thankful for waking up late and missing breakfast.

The experience had been... Odd, to say the very least. It wasn't as bad as a roller coaster, at least it didn't make him dizzy like one.

Instead it almost felt like his stomach had been left behind, then followed a second later and tried to crawl back down his throat.

"I think I'll stick to not doing that from now on. 'Kay?" Batman had moved on ahead towards the building, but Robin and Player One had stayed behind.

"You'll get used to it." The boy wonder sounded absolutely smug, standing there with a familiar grin on his face. "Just try to stay whelmed, Alchemist. Don't want the other heroes seeing barf all over your shoes."

Leslie wiped his mouth. The only thing that came out was spittle, but still.

"Let's go." Player One growled. They were agitated and tapping their foot.

Leslie didn't know where their baseball bat went.

Getting from the discreet zeta tube terminal to the Hall of Justice was a reasonably short walk.

"Why didn't we just teleport straight in?" Player One asked, apparently deciding the walk was not short enough.

Leslie didn't have an answer.

"Because the security on that terminal is tighter and you two would need to be manually added to it." But Robin did.

Not far away they could see another band of brightly colored young men walking up. These, however, still had their mentors in view.

Green Arrow and Speedy, Flash and Kid Flash, Aqua Man and... Aquaboy? Kid? Leslie couldn't quite remember.

The comics of Water Man and his fratricidal brother had never really caught Leslie's interest in his previous life. The story of Abel and Cain could only be rehashed so many times before he just didn't care any more.

That... Was probably going to bite him in the ass, huh.

"Ready to see the inner sanctum?" Green arrow was asking his sidekick.

"Born that way." The younger man answered.

Leslie looked across the assembled heroes. This was all starting to look kind of familiar...

No, no. He was thinking of Batman: The Animated Series. This scene wasn't in it, he was certain.

And this was definitely not the Justice Friends. The pictures he found of Solomon Grundy on the internet had included pants.

A decent pair of pants, at that.

The various heroes and sidekicks were chatting as they continued to walk into the building. Leslie, not being part of the in crowd, caught up with Player One as they were heading in.

"Well, this is gonna be fun." Leslie said in a deadpan voice, clearly meaning the opposite.

Player One stared at him, black eyeholes attempting to glare into his soul.

Under his goggles, Leslie narrowed his own eyes. Something was off here...

Why couldn't he hear their breathing? With that mask against their face, the sound should be even more obvious, not lessened.

Through the doors of the Hall of Justice, and down a few hallways they eventually came to a locked door. No latch, keycard access only. The various heroes handed their sidekicks a plain, unmarked badge each.

Looking at that, Leslie came to a rather unfortunate conclusion.

He was going to have to train these people on infosec.

He was going to have to dig up the dozens of hours he'd spent working in manufacturing, learning about classified information and the countless small ways his company had used to safeguard corporate secrets... And try to use that to explain to children that, half the time, unmarked spy tools are actually more telling than a normal keycard or a badge with a face.

Did the white hats have that hacking expo in this reality? What about the physical penetration experts? He needed to find an outlet and get the wifi password.

Or, Leslie pushed those thoughts down. Or he could just... Not.

He didn't have any sway here. No authority, no history, he was the FNG. Telling other people how to not mess up would, at best, be ignored.

At worst, he'd be alienating his coworkers and the contract he'd signed had the intention of being year long and renewable, but it was still at-will employment between him and the Batman.

"Robin, Alchemist, here are your access passes. Player One, a word." Robin didn't so much as jump when Batman appeared behind them. Leslie definitely and visibly flinched.

Player One just stayed behind as everyone else filtered into the room beyond.

Within the Martian Manhunter stood, poised and incredibly still.

Leslie watched. His chest didn't even expand as he breathed. If he breathed.

"Welcome, everyone, to the inner sanctum of the Hall of Justice. Here you have unlimited access to the gym, our fully stocked gallery, and of course our library." The alien spoke. It came as a flat monotone, yet somehow still conveyed... Pride?

Either he was very good, or he was using his telepathy to share his emotions where his voice and face couldn't.

That... Actually, Leslie was decidedly envious of that. If he wasn't being sarcastic, caustic or asinine he had a hard time expressing himself the way he wanted.

"Make yourselves at home!"

Chapter Text

Project: Gamer Ver. 2 Alpha Build 0.1.9

Disclaimer Me Do: I own nothing you recognize. And most of what you don't recognize, I still don't own.

_________________________________________________________________________

"Or what? You'll send me to my room? And I'm not your son! I'm not even his. I thought I was his partner, but not anymore. Guess they were right about you three. You’re not ready." Speedy berated the other three sidekicks.

He didn't even feel the need to include Player One or Leslie in his tantrum.

Likely a good thing, Leslie had far more important things to worry about. Like catching up with the breakfast he'd missed out on.

Judging by the contents of his inventory and the access he had to utilities here, his options were... Granola bars.

Player One was just... Staring at Speedy's back as he stormed out the door. Completely silent. Completely still.

Leslie was relatively sure he knew what was going on here, and he didn't like it.

Just one or two clues to confirm, and he'd be certain that-

Ooh! He forgot he bought blueberry breakfast bars!

He pulled the box out of his inventory and opened it.

"Hey, uh, new guy. You gonna share that?" The kid in the yellow outfit, with red hair. Kid Flash, that was it! Kid Flash asked him.

"Help yourself." Was probably the wrong thing to say in hindsight. Leslie was left with just the two bars he had in his hands.

He was two bites into his first bar when alarms started going off and an image popped on to the oversized screen. A man with a strong jawline, finely coiffed short black hair and somewhat small baby blue eyes was onscreen.

"Superman to Justice League. There has been an explosion at Project Cadmus. It's on fire."

"I've had my suspicions about Cadmus. This may present the perfect opportunity to in-" Batman's incredibly unnecessary and leading statements were cut off when another face popped up on screen.

"Zatara to Justice League. The sorcerer Wotan is using the amulet of Aten to blot out the sun. Requesting full League response." The man, Zatara, looked incredibly sharp. Especially that mustache.

"Superman?" Batman asked, looking for his input to compare the issues.

Leslie wasn't sure what the comparison was. Some corporation owned by the evil league of evil burning down versus a one-thousand year old transgender sorcerer trying to blot out the sun.

If Batman was struggling to figure out his priorities this badly, Leslie might have made a mistake in choosing his employer.

As the sidekicks started arguing about going to the fight, Leslie just opened his second granola bar.

A bunch of kids seriously trying to convince some adults that they should change their minds? What did they think this was, a cartoon? That'd just be crazy!

Leslie got a fair few dirty looks when he started choking on his granola bar mid-laugh.

It didn't take very long before the heroes managed to leave, their sidekicks moaning about the Justice League's decision to leave them behind.

About the time Robin was doing something to the computer, however, his good mood soured.

--QUEST ALERT!--
--THE CORNERSTONE OF FATE!--
--You've survived the relative peace of the tutorial, now it's time to act!--
--Use your skills, determination and wits to carve a new path to victory!--
--Rewards: 20000 GP, +1 to all stats--
--Failure: The Light obtains a super weapon. Potential death.--

Good news! He finally knew which continuity he was in.

Bad news! The Light. That... That was a problem. Wealth, experience, unadulterated brilliance and Klarion.

Not the heroic one, who'd go on to become Klarion the Witch Man. The chaos lord one. Who only worked for the side of evil. And only fixated on Nabu.

Crap. Nabu.

Alright! Leslie could work with this! He could. Absolutely... He was going to have to exploit the ever loving hell out of everything he could, wasn't he?

"Alchemist, Player One, come on." The two followed along mutely.

Alchemist in a bid to think of whatever leverage he could that -didn't- involve summoning The Spectre when Nabu went off the rails.

And Player One simply silent.

-----

Finding out the two story lab used by Cadmus was mostly fake? Not at all surprising. Finding an express elevator going straight down? Incredibly too convenient.

Leslie used the time to dig through the shop. Signature weapons? Too expensive. Powerful spells? He needed both kidneys, thank you much. Familiars? Either worthless or outside of his price range.

He did send the Blue Dragon egg to his wishlist, though. They were the most gifted in magic of the chromatic dragons, and forty-five thousand GP was doable. Could take him the better part of a week doing a repeat recycling quest, but doable.

The cost of some things had been bothering him for a bit, and he'd finally managed to get an idea why after a bit of digging. Things that were more expensive? They were more immediately useful. There was no learning curve, he didn't need to escalate through levels of near-uselessness to make them functional.

As an example, there was the Blue Dragon egg. It would take time to hatch, take years to mature and would need to be taught everything. From how to speak to how to cast spells, even how to shapeshift if it had such a gift.

On the opposite end of the scale, well, no, not really. Closer to the middle of the scale. On the opposite end were insane things like God Seeds and Sapient Time Rifts. In the middle of the scale, at two-million GP, was the Iron Golem. It was fully functional at purchase, was a master of one and two handed swordsmanship and could be taught to replicate mundane skills at any level of mastery they were shown.

In the end he had to settle on buying a one-handed sword that was well within his price range. It was worthless as a weapon, technically causing as much damage as his bare hands, but it was a fantastic parrying tool and it had the ability to turn those struck by it into toads.

He was beginning to worry that he was becoming a bit too thematic... But toad conversion therapy still counted as defeating an enemy without the whole -killing- thing.

And... The sword only cost ten gp.

The Nagrarok was something of a joke weapon in Final Fantasy Tactics, buried behind a hideously powerful enemy on a map that could only be played once and was filled with far superior items.

Far superior items he couldn't afford.

He'd checked.

As Robin hacked the door open on the twenty-sixth floor, Leslie tried to mentally prepare himself. This was it. This was the top of the avalanche. If he was going to make a change that mattered...

It had to be here.

Chapter Text

Project: Gamer Ver. 2 Alpha Build 0.2.0

Disclaimer Me Do: I own nothing you recognize. And most of what you don't recognize, I still don't own.

_________________________________________________________________________

"You kids have gone far enough." Guardian was a well built man wearing a blue and black suit with gold highlights. And a shiny golden helmet. "Now you can come along with me and leave peacefully, we'll work something out with the Justice League."

He also had an imp on his shoulder. A little thing with greyish green skin, red eyes and a pair of horns.

A G-Gnome, Leslie recalled from the show. An artificially created life form with a wide variety of shapes and psychic powers across the whole board.

The show never really went into their origins, not that he could recall, but looking at it he was fairly sure there was some Martian in there.

Which would mean one of two things. Cadmus got its hands on J'onn J'onzz D.N.A... Or they got one of the many, many samples from J'onn J'ackson, the Martian Womanhunter.

Clearly the reference was painful enough that even the gremlin on Guardian's shoulder shuddered too.

"And what, just forget about the weapons you're breeding?" Kid Flash chose his words rather poorly, but being fair it's not as though he knows the G-Gnomes are psychic. Yet.

"Weapons? What are you.. What have I... Ugh. My head! Take them down hard no-" Guardian slowed down, his words coming out as a struggle.

Leslie snapped his fingers.

"What?" Guardian's eyes cleared, his head turning wildly to look at the G-Gnome on his shoulder. "What was I doing? What were you-"

The other G-Gnomes in the hallway froze, their orders becoming confused as the first link in their chain was broken.

Leslie snapped his fingers again, casting Esuna once more and breaking the Confusion the man was under. He pushed his way to the front of the group, grabbing the little creature off of Guardian's shoulder.

"You try that one more time, you lose thinking priveleges." The gremlin stared up into Leslie's eyes with its own. Red and blank, empty. Just a tiny living node for something greater. Something deeper...

And then it bit him.

-- -8 HP!--

"Aww, aren't you just adorable!" Leslie simply smiled as he pushed the meat of his hand deeper into the little monsters mouth. Just like a cat, it realized quickly that biting that hand had been a mistake, and started trying to back away and flail its head.

"Alchemist, you know what these things are?" Leslie put the G-Gnome on the ground and turned to face Robin. The creature made it about three steps before it was turned into a toad, alongside about half of the other G-Gnomes in the hallway.

"Clearly, Robin, it's a toad."

"Kid? What was that? Who are you?" Guardian seemed to finally be coming back to his senses. For it to have taken this long, these things must be rooted pretty deeply into his brain.

"We're with the Justice League, the junior division." Aqualad said as he stepped forward, putting out his hand. Guardian shook it mostly as a reflex. "We came because there was a fire upstairs, but we've since found ourselves... It seems we've been led here."

"Probably one of the gremlins." Leslie piped up. "Probably got tired of being a science project. Or slave. Or whatever else they're being used for."

"The Genomorphs are -not- slaves!" Guardian growled when the kids started pushing forward. He needed to talk to the Doctor. He needed to know why his personal G-Gnome had been tampering with his mind.

"Have they ever seen the sun?" It was a surprisingly insightful question for Player One to ask. And it was incredibly telling that Guardian didn't have an answer.

"...Come on. The doctor is probably downstairs. We'll get some answers and then you all need to leave." Leslie tilted his head slightly at that answer.

He exhaled in a strong, amused huff.

This man had to have a WIS score lower than Kain from Final Fantasy Four if he was -already- back under the control of another Genomorph.

Still, the longer it took for the next attack to come, the more MP he could afford to spend on it.

-----

This had very clearly been a mistake!

Whose bright idea was it to follow a mind controlled puppet into a trap?!

Oh. Right. His.

Project Kr, a hodge-podge'd Superman clone, was taking the team apart piece by piece.

Leslie would love to just turn the artificial teen into a toad, but he'd already used up most of his MP just on healing the team! He had just enough left to use teleport, and that needed to wait.

Instead he was stuck relying on his sword-shaped club and he'd discovered two things. The first being that Superboy was simply too fast for him to hit.

The second being that, while the weapon did a very good job intercepting the hybrids punches, it did nothing to stop the sheer force from sending him falling after blocking said punches.

Guardian was just standing in the background, doing nothing. Possibly drooling a little. Leslie had wasted the magic to try and break the mind control on him once. The man's freedom had lasted an astonishing three seconds.

The other team members were actually figuring out tactics, though. Which was the one good thing here!

Kid Flash kept moving, being the one thing too fast for the clone to catch. He'd close in whenever Project Kr was distracted and try a haymaker.

Cool idea, but kidney shots would have been better.

Robin was all distractions and acrobatics. The genomorph would get too focused on either Player One or Aqualad and then Robin would come in with a smoke bomb or a flying kick that would launch off of the berserking boys brain-case.

Aqualad was... Incredibly ineffective.

Water swords. Cool idea, splish-splash hits like trash.

Leslie was going to buy that boy a copy of Blizzard.

And then Player One.

"Power strike!" They'd screeched early into the fight. Then they'd swung their bat with significantly more force than he'd seen them use at all before then.

The bat broke, by the way. Splintered into two sharp, uneven pieces.

Player One was another Gamer. Judging by the fact that they were wearing Zombie Leather armor and using the most common gamer skills in existence, they were also unrestricted.

This... Was unfortunately what he'd been suspecting earlier. It threw a wrench into things, though. He'd never heard of there being multiple gamers in one setting at a time.

"Alchemist, we need some help here!" Leslie shook his head and stood up at Aqualad's urging. Readying his dull, blunt, curse-rotted sword he...

Got knocked back over when the doors to the chamber Project Kr had been found in were ripped open.

Getting up on his elbows, he froze when he saw what had done it. Giant, hulking elephantine figures.

There was definitely some Martian in them.

Hiding his sword back in his inventory, he slowly, obviously stood up. His hands above his head.

"What are you doing!" Robin yelled as he ducked under another strike from the super-powered clone.

"Robin. I need you to understand something. I never negotiated for hazard pay!"

Chapter Text

Project: Gamer Ver. 2 Alpha Build 0.2.1

Disclaimer Me Do: I own nothing you recognize. And most of what you don't recognize, I still don't own.

_________________________________________________________________________

On the positive side of things, it ended up taking a few hours between catching Leslie and catching Kid Flash.

Apparently, if your superpower is running? You tend to be really good at it.

Rather than dealing with the teenagers one by one as they were acquired, whoever in charge needed all of them, all at the same time. In the mean time they'd been stuck standing in weird pods.

Cloning pods.

Quaint.

Aqualad was busy trying to convince the Superman hybrid clone to let them go, but it wasn't going very far.

"We can show you, introduce you to Superman." Aqualad finally tried.

"No, they can't." Some scientist said as he finally walked in. He looked pretty important, flanked by another scientist and Guardian.

"Hey Robin." Leslie said as the scientist continued talking. "I'm gonna need you to do me a solid."

"Little tied up here. Take a rain check?" The doctor was talking at Guardian now, pointing at the clone.

"Nah, listen, it'll be real easy. Once you're out of here, I need you to get a Green Lantern."

"Young man, I do not believe you understand your position. There will be no 'Getting out of here'." He was directly in front of Leslie's pod.

"Well darn" Leslie Snapped his fingers. "And here I thought it'd be real easy. But I guess being an aspiring member of the seven thirty-first you must'a thought of everything."

"Uh, Doctor Desmond?"

"What did you just say, boy?!"

"No ethics, no morals, real happy to experiment on children? Dead ringer to me." Leslie shrugged in his pod as the doctor turned redder and redder. "Or maybe you'd prefer to be compared to Wirths? You're a little too low on the totem pole for that, though."

"Doctor Desmond!"

"What is it!" The man finally roared at his assistant. His lab coat twisting as he violently turned towards her.

"S-sir, Guardian, the weapon, the other children! Everyone's gone!" And indeed everyone was! Except for her, Desmond, his genomorph and Leslie.

He turned back around, eyes wild and landing on Alchemists grinning face.

"What have you done!" The man screeched. "Where did you-"

His tirade was cut comfortably short as he and his genomorph both disappeared, their clothes falling empty on the floor. His assistant, trembling and terrified turned around and bolted.

Right into Leslie.

"Sorry Sweetheart. It's my show now."

-----

Lantern Gardner liked to think he was a fairly agreeable individual.

Willful, certainly. But not quite so belligerently stubborn as most of the other Green Lanterns.

When the call had come from Robin about a hidden facility under Cadmus performing illegal human experiments and that another member of his team, Alchemist, had specifically requested a Green Lantern, he'd only wondered briefly why they were contacting him instead of either of the two who were actual members of the Justice League.

Stewart was more of a hard-liner, inflexible. Great when dealing with villains but a bit less so when handling kids.

Oh, the man absolutely could. He was great with children when he wanted to be.

That just didn't happen to be very often.

Lantern Jordan didn't have any such issues. The man was genuinely pleasant to be around, a fantastic Lantern and considered as the 'Soft' approach between the two.

Gardner had to wonder if the reason he'd been called was due to availability, or specifically because he -wasn't- part of the Justice League.

He had initially been somewhat skeptical of Robin's claims about illegal experiments. A lot of science could look pretty sketchy while still being ethical.

In response, Robin had claimed the weirdly dressed boy who was staring at the moon nearby was a result of those same experiments.

And his ring had confirmed it.

Kryptonian, Human, traces of Martian and large amounts of testosterone blockers. The D.N.A. was a match to Superman.

He was suddenly in a much greater hurry to get down into the hidden labs. The Guardians of Oa might not be too concerned with the Humans of Earth, but Kryptonians? Especially artificial ones?

They were going to want answers. Especially about what could potentially be a galaxy-wide threat of a canned Kryptonian army.

The elevator wasn't responding, but with a lantern ring that was a trivial inconvenience at worst.

Apparently someone had blocked the elevator door down on the seventh floor with a chair. Incredibly simple, but it kept the sensors active and forced the door to stay open and the elevator itself inoperable.

He was floating through the halls, toads literally everywhere.

Were they an escaped experiment?

"-Telling you there's nothing here!" Finally, he heard voices instead of the constant chirping.

"And I'm telling you there is! There was a door up on floor thirty-three. There's a door down on thirty-five. Where's door thirty-four?" A kid, presumably Alchemist was standing on the unmarked landing, pointing at the wall next to him.

Next to him stood a... Thing. It was tall, blue-ish and had a pair of horns. It looked like it was dressed in white hospital scrubs.

"There is no door thirty-four!"

"Exactly! There is no door! But there should be!"

"Gentlemen?" Lantern Gardner started as he landed. The two didn't seem to be violent, and being on the ground instead of in the air helped to put people a little more at ease.

"Green Lantern! Perfect! I'm going to need, like an hour of your time... And I need to know if you can hold a rabid Superman clone." The kid turned to face him as he spoke, clearly not a fan of wasting time. "Actually maybe an hour and ten minutes? Gimme a second."

The kid put both hands on the wall he'd been pointing at and...

Guy Gardner was honestly quite surprised to watch it wobble and pulse outward, rebar curling in on itself.

Revealing a room.

"What? How? I know every room in the facility!" The blue-ish goblin looking man was gobsmacked.

"It's my superpower, Dubbilex. Pattern recognition." Guy filed these two things away. First was the name of the blue man. The second being that the kid had the one secondary superpower necessary for any successful hero; Sarcasm.

"Either of you know what's in there?" Dubbilex shook his head no, and Alchemist didn't respond at all. "I'll take point. Stick to me, this isn't a horror movie."

He walked into the pitch black room first, his soft green glow illuminating things nearby. Close to the door Alchemist had made wasn't much, one desk with a few binders on it.

In the distance, Guy could see a white light on the floor but it was obscured enough he couldn't make out details.

"Any idea where the lights are?" The Lantern asked to the two behind him. A quick glance back and he saw Alchemist was turning his head back and forth. The taller man, Dubbilex, was walking as though distracted.

"No. I've never been on this floor. I do not know the layout."

"This is my first time in Cadmus. I've spent most of my time here dealing with a bunch of Toad-ies. No id- holy shit!" They'd gotten close enough to a pod to illuminate the interior.

A partially formed Genomorph floated within. It was basically a right arm, head and part of a torso. It looked vaguely like Dubbilex, having horns and tiny eyes, though it also noticeably had breast tissue.

The corpse-like pallor was made all the worse as it was lit up in green.

Gardner scanned it, the pod and even the chart that Dubbilex was grabbing with his ring.

"A failed genomorph. Model sixty-three of project 'Proliferate'. D.N.A. alterations failed to hold without excessive modifications which lead to disfigurement and even beyond that, it did not respond adequately to in-gestation hormone treatment. Project suspended..." Dubbilex read.

Gardner listened with half an ear as he reviewed the data from his Ring. The Genomorph was originally a Superman clone, though extreme efforts had been made to make it female. Unfortunately the D.N.A. had started breaking down, and they were trying to use Martian D.N.A. to patch it.

Somewhat successfully.

"Any idea what the original purpose of the project was?" He asked once Dubbilex had finished reading.

"I do not know. As I said, until just moments ago I was unaware of the project at all." They got moving again, passing by tubes filled with murky, rancid liquid.

"I can make a few guesses." Alchemist said from the back. "You said it was 'Proliferate' right? One meaning of that is to have kids. Think they were trying to make something to... I mean, I'm guessing 'breed' with Superman?"

That... Was an unpleasant thought. Gardner had met people who treated other humans as though they were stock to try and create a 'Better' child.

Usually the wealthy.

"So what did you need a Green Lantern for, kid?" There was a lot to unpack here, and it was just one part of the facility neither of the other two had even known existed.

"Information extraction, asset denial and sabotage. In that order." They passed by several tubes that had tiny, tiny specks of -something- floating inside.

A scan with his ring (93% charge remaining) told him what it was. Genomorph, stalled at seven weeks of artificial growth. Genetic expression of XY. Almost pure Kryptonian.

"Normally that'd be a pretty tall order, but I -am- the best of the best here." He tried to affect a cocky attitude. He preferred to fight, deal with the action, get his adrenaline pumping!

This kind of stuff, these kinds of places, even knowing about them could be harmful to a Green Lantern. Some would get stronger, become even more Willful. Others, seeing nobody to help and nothing they could do, would struggle against depression.

That, more than fear, could cripple a Lantern in the long run.

"Then I'm glad you're the one who showed up. We're going to have a lot to do and not a lot of time to-"

They'd finally found the lone light source in the room.

Next to another express elevator stood a single cloning tube, still active. Bubbles floated up from the bottom quickly, almost pretty with the light beneath them.

And inside was a girl. Tall and blonde, wearing a white suit just like the hybrid Guy had seen outside.

Alive.

Alchemist inhaled slowly through his nose, the sound loud in the silent room.

"Shit."

Chapter Text

Project: Gamer Ver. 2 Alpha Build 0.2.2

Disclaimer Me Do: I own nothing you recognize. And most of what you don't recognize, I still don't own.

_________________________________________________________________________

As a rule, Batman did not drink.

Bruce would, on occasion, enjoy whatever expensive alcohol was being served at an event. Under the light of the camera, competetion and vultures circling and watching every action and inaction, specific images had to be cultivated. Others had to be clipped at the stem before they could take root.

Tonight, Batman wanted to drink.

"-at which point we found a third hidden laboratory with a mostly-complete however non-functional clone of Superman. According to documentation on the computers, the individual present in pod eight dash seven three was the actual Roy William Harper. Two successful clones of Roy Harper had been completed and programmed at an earlier date. These clones being Jim Harper, alias Guardian, and the currently missing Roy Harper clone who has been acting in the role of Speedy for, if the documentation is correct, two years." Guy Gardner recited to the entirety of the Justice League.

Under normal circumstances, an affiliate would not be invited to the Watchtower. Guy, however, was a Green Lantern and trying to hide the orbiting station would have been an act of stupidity.

It had been a gift from his own patrons, after all.

The apprentices had gone off on an unsactioned excursion to 'Help' put out fires at the Cadmus Labs in Washington and come back with three Kryptonian clones, one Human clone and a missing person that the Justice League hadn't even noticed was missing.

"Thank you for your report, Lantern Gardner. Was there anything else of note?" Wonder Woman was taking this best of the group. Perhaps it was the wisdom from her greater age, or else because she hadn't had an apprentice to worry about.

"Yes, actually. At the young man, Alchemist's urging, I performed a complete system download of the Cadmus computers relating to their cloning projects, as well as seeded said computers with tracking software. He seemed to believe there was an especially high likelihood that they would either be stolen or misplaced after being collected for evidence. If you can provide an isolated terminal with storage exceeding four terabytes, I can leave a copy of all relevant medical and experimental data here."

That was the source of Batman's current headache. He'd had to push especially hard to bring in more than just Robin. Suggesting that they needed to take an active hand in building the next generation of the Justice League.

Clark and Diana may not have been aging much, but everyone else was growing older. If they didn't prepare for the future, someone else would.

"Come on." John Stewart stood up, leading Guy from the room. "I think we've got a computer available over in medical."

Batman knew the real discussion was about to begin.

"Now that we're all caught up on current events, we need to discuss how, exactly, we're going to deal with this." Giovanni 'John' Zatarra wasted no time.

"A cloned race with roughly five hundred members declaring their independance, on the Fourth of July. That's a bit on the nose, isn't it?" Came from the Flash.

The news had gotten involved after the sidekicks had been teleported to the entrance of Cadmus. They had barely been able to keep the Kryptonian clones out of it.

Barely.

When the reporter had seen the Genomorph Dubbilex it had turned into a circus. The artificial life form clearly had no idea how to handle them.

He'd stumbled, struggled to explain the situation and what the Genomorphs were and their situation.

When he mentioned that he and his kind had been created for the purpose of working, the reporter had asked a simple question.

'What's your salary like?'

'I am given food and a bed. So long as I remain useful, I am not disposed of.'

And it just exploded from there.

"I will discuss this with the leadership of Mars." J'onn said from the end of their table. "We are perhaps the best suited to accept a race that is interconnected as the Genomorphs are."

"Assuming they accept the Genomorphs, Stewart and I should be able to help with transportation." Came from Hal Jordan.

"Then we should table this topic and revisit it after J'onn hears back from his home planet." Superman finally interjected. He'd been struggling since the clones made from him had come to light.

"Very well. We need to discuss the sidekicks." That Captain Atom brought it up was a surprise to noone. "I'm having a hard time deciding how we should proceed. Clearly discipline needs to be enforced, they were instructed to wait at the Hall and failed to follow orders. However, their actions revealed crimes we had not even begun to suspect and resulted in-"

The silver man waved at the piles of documents placed in front of Green Arrow's empty seat.

"-all of this coming to light."

"Perhaps it would be best if we tailor our responses based on their individual actions? Each of them have clear areas in need of improvement." Batman attempted to mediate. He would be having words with Robin, likely after an extended training session so the young man would be too tired to do anything except sit down and listen.

The others would require a more... nuanced approach.

-----

Leslie was exhausted.

He'd been running for the better part of an hour, and he could swear he wasn't any further along than when he started.

Being on a treadmill, this is a rather accurate description.

He was in the gym in the Hall of Justice, the Tuesday two days after the whole Cadmus fiasco.

Had he known it was going to be such an issue? Yes. Was he going to admit to that? Not unless the Martian Manhunter was doing the asking.

He was incredibly surprised to see Batman coming in to use the facility. The Batcave almost certainly had better equipment.

The caped crusader got on the treadmill next to him, still in full regalia.

The man started at a jog.

Leslie, dressed in a pair of shorts and a sweaty, sticky tee-shirt would have felt underdressed... But fitness isn't a competition against anyone but yourself.

"I wasn't aware that you could teleport other people." Ah. So that's what this was.

"It's... Hah... Not great yet. Still drains huh vitality of the target." Did he have to do this while Leslie was running?

Probably.

"So why didn't you leave with the others?" Batman was matching his own pace, maybe a little faster to account for longer legs.

"Kr was a hah a hybrid. People like, like Desmond don't make a hybrid unless hah unless the purebreed is bad." Leslie lowered the treadmill speed. It was hard to talk when your lungs are burning.

"Experience with scientists like him?" Batman was still breathing calm and evenly.

"No, no. Dog breeders. Talked about puppies the same way, like product. Things." Leslie tried to drink some water, but he was still moving too fast, some spilling down his chin.

He tried to wipe it away, but just spread it around with more sweat.

"So why did you think to do things yourself, instead of relying on your teammates?" Ah, here it was. The meat of the issue.

"I'm not great with people. Need time to adapt to them. Figure out how to work with them. Part of why I requested to do support. Repairs. That kind of stuff." It was still hard for Leslie to breathe, but it was evening out.

"...If that's what you wanted to do, why approach me? Why the Justice League?"

"I like what you stand for. Your goals." Did Leslie feel like lying today? No, not really. "And I knew you could afford what I was offering, at the price I was offering. The money wasn't the important part. I could make ten times that in California curing AIDS or whatever the rich and wealthy have. The Justice League offers legitimacy, it tells people I'm doing the right thing for the right reason. They see me at a fire fixing smoke inhalation? Good press. I take a day and go cure a children's cancer ward? Even better."

"You didn't strike me as being too concerned with your reputation."

"I can multitask, Batman. And, hah, who says it's my reputation?" Leslie turned down the treadmill until it stopped. "How many metahuman kids are out there right now? How many are there going to be tomorrow? Next year?"

Leslie couldn't be sure who the intense stare focused on him belonged too.

Batman?

Or Bruce Wayne.

"And it won't matter how many times I tell them I'm a wizard, or that I don't have a metagene. They're going to think I'm a meta anyway. Almost all of the heroes here? Either use tools or got their superpower in some weird accident. Hell, the first Flash said he got superspeed from heavy water!" Leslie took a deep gulp of water. "And all those kids out there born with a power that they're afraid of, because almost every well known metahuman is a villain? They're gonna be afraid of you. A lot of 'em are already waiting for the hammer to drop, thinking they're gonna be the next round of Japanese getting sent to concentration camps here in the U.S."

"That's... That's not going to happen. We won't let it!" The most painful part of this for Leslie? He knew Batman meant it.

He reached into his inventory, pulling out a vial.

"Cadmus was already working on mass produced super powers." He held it out to Batman on an open palm. He took it, gingerly, as though even holding it too tightly would unleash its contents. "And that concentration camp? It already exists. Filled with the worst monsters you can imagine, right next to scared kids who just got handed a bad lot in life and no good advice."

"You can't mean-"

"Belle Reeve."

Chapter Text

Project: Gamer Ver. 2 Alpha Build 0.2.3

Disclaimer Me Do: I own nothing you recognize. And most of what you don't recognize, I still don't own.

_________________________________________________________________________

The same night after his talk with Batman, Leslie was relaxing. He'd bought a pair of spellbooks from the game shop, one that would drain MP from enemies and was... Honestly, kind of expensive, considering he'd yet to have to deal with even a single spellcaster.

The closest he'd come had been seeing Giovanni Zatara through a computer screen.

Aqualad might count. Maybe. But Leslie had a good idea that draining a nominal ally for a pittance of magic might be a bad thing.

Still, it might come in handy some day.

The other one was less of a book and more of a scroll. Golden, written in archaic english and half of it was functionally complaining about how the spells on it were restricted, or forbidden, or 'limited' because a more complete version was considered 'impossible' when it was written.

Still, it was five spells for a little over thirteen thousand GP. Three of which would actually be useful, however limited they were at level one. A repair spell, a near-invisibility spell and the real kicker, a spell-deflection spell. There was also a basic light spell and another to turn the casters weapon invisible, but he didn't have much current use for those.

At level one, the deflection spell would last for three seconds and could even turn away attacks from an unliving nightmare that had literally devoured a god.

He wasn't eager to test it, but in this nightmarish death world where the good guys were perpetually a day late and a dollar short? He'd take whatever he could get.

As much as he'd prefer to hide away and just play with all the delightful new magics, Leslie couldn't justify it to himself. The world was going to get worse and worse and he couldn't remember if it ever got better.

Really today had been a pretty good day! He'd finished the quest chain for Saitama Someday, learned a bunch of nifty new spells, really he didn't have much left to do!

Except...

Leslie hesitantly pulled one last book from his inventory.

He'd been putting of reading the book De Le Metalica, within which lay the secrets of imbuing metal with life. As well as creating a body, a human body, using it.

He opened the cover...

And it was blank.

He flipped to the next page, and the page after that!

All empty!

This book had cost him a literal fortune!

"What the hell is this?!" That couldn't be right!

"-Ye Seeker of Forbidden Knowledge.-" The words, coming from the book itself, echoed throughout the small room.

That... Was not good!

"-Prove yourself worthy!-" Glyphs and circles started filling the pages as they rapidly flipped on their own, the book holding itself in the air.

Leslie had forgotten this part.

He swallowed thickly and tried to quell the hammering of his heart.

Shaking, he reached out, pushing his hand into the light shining from within the endless pages.

And the book dropped to the ground in the empty room, slamming itself shut.

-----

Coming to in an oddly lit room is always pretty sketchy.

Leslie looked around himself as distant memories slowly came back into focus. He was leaning against a lone door on a floating platform, stairs leading down.

Looking around, he could see various platforms all arranged in a circle around the door, with stairs leading to each sequentially until they wrapped back around at the bottom.

He'd forgotten this book was protected, the words inside of it sealed away...

"Game Shop?" He tried.

--ERROR!--
--Service: Game Shop unavailable--
--Interference detected!--

Well, that was great.

He tried to teleport out, but that didn't seem to work. He could teleport to one of the other platforms though!

Alright. He had one more option to try.

"ID Escape!"

--ERROR!--
--Skill: ID Escape can only be used inside Illusion Dungeons!--

Alright. Awesome.

Leslie returned to the central platform, with the freefloating door, and read the plaque situated on it.

"-The Door Was Open But An Hour Past-"

-----

It was difficult to get any rest here. Sometimes after clearing a puzzle, he'd be dropped into an otherwise empty room. Actual walls, with a door at the end. His buffs didn't wear off just because he went to sleep, so he had Protect and Blink on at all times.

He'd still be woken up well before he could get any proper sleep, often by a lightning bolt or explosion striking too close to his head.

He'd never been part of the military, and this was one of the major reasons!

At least the things had the decency to make him 'wake up' before going on the offensive.

The typical fight against these things usually involved him teleporting after an attack, using Osmose, then using Esuna because everything caused a debilitation of some kind.

Burns from fire spells, frostbite from ice spell, electrocution was the biggest issue. He'd do his best with his deflection spell, but the window it was active was short for now, and he was often attacked by packs of enemies instead of just one or two.

The lightning after effect would cause his limbs to spasm, his thoughts to stutter and was, without a doubt, the most painful of the bunch.

After clearing that mess out of his system, he'd hit whatever was attacking him with Osmose, followed by healing spells. Then Osmose again and Flare until dead.

If he had to redo his buffs, he'd hit the blasting books, floating pumpkins and potion vials with Osmose one more time for good measure.

-----

"-The Elements Exist In Harmony, But One Has Broken The Chain-"

-----

"-Often Is The Path Of Enlightenment Found In The Dark-"

-----

Leslie stood before a being, massive and powerful, wearing blue armor shaped like the carapace of a beetle.

Duras Drum, a great spirit, possibly a god in a lot of definitions. The Guardian of Illusion.

Leslie didn't know how long he'd been here. It certainly took longer than when he'd played through the dungeon in a video game.

So much longer.

He'd had to try and get some sleep, but he could only steal a few hours at a time before more things, floating books, floating pumpkins and intelligent alchemy vials would attack him.

Homonculus. Dwarf in the flask. The meaning was not lost on him.

He'd run out of food... Maybe two days ago? Three? He really didn't know. He also only had three bottles of water left in his inventory.

The alchemy vials would occasionally drop items, along with the experience and GP he'd been getting... But he'd tried eating the nectarines they left behind.

They restored HP and MP, but did nothing for his hunger.

He'd gotten some interesting drops from the books, too. What he was going to do with three copies of the Necronomicon he didn't know, but he had them.

Positive notes though! Osmose, Life and Cure had all hit sixteen, their max level! He wasn't sure how long ago that had actually happened, but it was a huge milestone for him!

"-You Have Done Well, Seeker.-" Duras Drum looked down upon him.

Filthy, disheveled, exhausted and hungry.
He didn't feel he'd done well at all.

"-For What Have You Come To Learn?-" The Guardian didn't speak, so much as impressed its intent upon the world.

"I need." Leslie swallowed. His mouth was dry, his legs felt weak, his stomach was cramping and his eyes burned. "I need the secrets of steel, and the knowledge of the Holmcross."

The Guardian leaned down, wise eyes buried deep in the darkness under his golden crown.

"-Such Knowledge Is Sealed, And For Good Reason. What Reason Could You Offer To Merit This Ruinous Wisdom?-"

"This body-" Leslie put his hand over his chest, above his heart before dropping it back down. "-doesn't belong to me. I need to return it. I've spoken to the power behind Ge Ramtos, she's offered to find the proper soul. I just need to find a vessel for my own."

Leslie held his eyes shut, failing to push the exhaustion burning at them away.

"And I won't displace someone else, or steal another body. I have to make my own."

"-Your Desire Is Selfish-" Duras Drum had his arms crossed. Leslie didn't know if it was disapproval in his voice, but it felt like it.

"I know." And Leslie did. His eyes burned, now with tears instead of just exhaustion.

He could normally control himself better than this, but he was just...

Just so tired.

"-You Would Give A Mother Her Son. Give A Child Another Chance At Life. Bear Upon Your Shoulders The Burden Of Righting These Wrongs. Are You Certain You Wish For This Knowledge?-"

"...No." Leslie wasn't prepared to hear the Guardian Spirit -laugh- at his answer.

"-Good! I Am The Guardian Of Illusion! Shadows And Doubt Are My Domain! I Am Both Mans Greatest Foe And Staunchest Ally, For With Every Defeat We Both Grow Greater! Uncertainty Allows For Us To Question Our Truths! Through Uncertainty, Illusions Are Dispelled And Falsehoods Discarded! You Came Seeking Knowledge, And With It You Shall Be Freed From My Realm.-"

"...Thank you." Leslie wiped at his eyes, trying to clear them.

"-Do Not Thank Me. Not For This. This Knowledge Is A Burden. A Weapon. More Dangerous To You Than To Any Other. Tread Carefully @**&@%$#%, Lest You Invite Destruction Into Your Very Soul.-" Duras Drum placed one great claw upon Leslie's head, pushing -something- into him.

No, not something. Words, numbers, formulae and notes were being carved into the core of his very being, knowledge etched into spirit rather than mind.

Long, long before Duras Drum was done, Leslie was screaming as though fire was being poured into him.

And he didn't stop until he woke back up, once more in the real world.

A blank, nameless book on the floor next to him.

Chapter Text

Project: Gamer Ver. 2 Alpha Build 0.2.4

Disclaimer Me Do: I own nothing you recognize. And most of what you don't recognize, I still don't own.

_________________________________________________________________________

J'onn J'onnzz sat at the main console in the Hall of Justice. It was not strictly necessary, but the optics were supposedly important for the public.

Seeing the heroes hard at work, or something to that effect.

He was currently between duties. M'gann was enjoying spending time with the team, no major crimes were currently in progress

The leader of the Genomorphs, Dubbilex, was currently in communication directly with the spiritual and community leaders of Mars.

As J'onn understood, the talks were going well. His involvement had ended shortly after an introduction and explanation to the Red Priests.

The Genomorphs simply did not have an extended history to discuss, and their presumed sterility had stalled plans for more direct integration.

The last he had heard, the current plans involved offering them an extension to the main city in return for assistance learning to replicate the more novel specializations of their biology. Being able to replicate the bio-electric generating capabilities of the G-Sprites could open new avenues of exploration for his people.

He felt someone coming well before they had entered the building.

It was an... Uncommon, experience. Not incredibly rare, but the majority of Humans were rather closed off in the mental sense.

Quiet, perhaps.

But there were still those who were open, easier to read. To hear. To feel.

By his estimate, it was a bit under two percent of the human population. People in various walks of life who were just... Loud. Many of them did not understand other people very well, and many others seemed to be handicapped in some way or another.

None of them, none that he had encountered at least, were psychic. They were simply open, honest in a way that many others were not.

This one, he recognized. Alchemist had a curious, conflicting blend of being smug, terrified, anxious and confident all at once.

The young man had also been missing for more than a week.

J'onn sent and alert to Batman on the terminal and turned around to watch the door.

He was not kept waiting very long.

Alchemist was, in one word, unkempt. His hair was a mess and clearly burned in places, his eyes were sunken and dull, skin pale and waxy and his clothes... Were pristine, as though they'd come fresh from wherever they'd been manufactured.

"Alchemist." The boy was looking at him, or perhaps through him. "Your presence has been missed. Are you well?"

"I got... I got messages. It was urgent? Batman said to be here." J'onn's neutral expression did not shift as he heard the tired rambling. Internally, however, he was unsettled. Alchemist had seemed to be fairly stable in their past encounters.

Mentally, J'onn probed. Not deeply, not into the boys history, but there was clearly something wrong here.

He saw... It was hard to describe. Room after room with no cieling, but swirling, unfolding magical formulae filling the sky. Of impossible books throwing magical fire, called down lightning and ice. Struggling and failing to master the timing for a spell, a Twisted Wall of Light to deflect attacks aimed at him.

Struggling to sleep in the corners of seemingly safe rooms, only to wake up somewhere else with chemical flasks attacking him instead.

Biting hunger as he ran out of food. Growing fear as his water reserves ran low. Desperation as he struggled to solve puzzles and word games that made little sense.

And relief, spreading through every fiber of his body as he encountered a being that radiated magical power beyond some gods.

It spoke.

"-This Was Not Your Test.-" J'onn could not hear what Alchemist was saying, and the great being was not looking at him. It was looking at the Martian instead. "-And What He Sought From Me, You Shall Not Be Given.-"

"I apologize for intruding." It was rare for him to interact with gods or spirits. Still, he knew to be polite first and foremost. "Alchemist is one of our own. Seeing him in this condition was... Worrisome."

"-He Found What He Was Seeking In My Realm, And Left. Greater Than He Was Before.-" Within the armored faceplate, J'onn could not see the gods eyes. He could feel them boring into him regardless. "-But Even One Who Sees More Than Most Mortals Cannot Gaze Upon The Soul. Your Tresspass Was Borne Of Concern, And Shall Be Forgiven This One Time. Leave, J'onn J'onnzz Of Mars. Unless You Wish To Prove Your Worth As Well.-"

It was not a question, not really, and J'onn knew that.

"I apologize for intruding and thank you for your patience." The mental representation of J'onn J'onnzz bowed, and the images faded away as mist before the sun.

Still, standing before him between the moment before and now, Alchemist was wobbling on his feet.

"Alchemist, I am sure Batman will answer shortly. Perhaps you should use the shower in the gym?" The boy held up one hand, making a circle out of his index finger and thumb.

Beneath the exhaustion, he got a sense of -Agreement-.

As the boy left, J'onn turned back to the computer. Batman had yet to respond, so he began composing an updated message, covering the cliff notes of what he had understood.

He struggled briefly on deciding how to word the situation the boy had found himself in before deciding that, if he needed to explain what he saw in person he would rather do so.

'Alchemist has returned. Appeared to be trapped by a spirit in a magical realm. Details unknown.'

Ah, now, what is it that the human children would say?

Oh, yes.

'Nailed it.'

-----

Karen had been having a rough month.

A very, very rough month.

Difficult, even.

Wine helped. It helped her get to sleep.

It didn't help to keep her from crying.

She looked at the living room when she heard a chime. Putting down her half empty glass, she stumbled out of the kitchen.

On the couch, where she'd been sleeping recently she saw her phone.

One unread message.

She clicked it. She read it. She read it again and she froze.

--Leslie
-I can bring him back. I found a way. I just need time to build it.

She put a hand over her mouth to try and stifle a loud, broken sob.

It was a lie!

That thing in her sons body was just trying to torture her!

It had to be!

Even still, a part of her hoped. A part of her that had woken up in her son's room. A part of her that still cried in agony when it saw the pictures of her son.

Her boy.

Her baby boy.

Buried under despair, the mother in her -Hoped-.

Chapter Text

Project: Gamer Ver. 2 Alpha Build 0.2.5

Disclaimer Me Do: I own nothing you recognize. And most of what you don't recognize, I still don't own.

_________________________________________________________________________

Batman clenched his fists.

It was one of the few habits he could allow himself.

Bruce Wayne could do almost whatever he liked, so long as it was within the image he'd built. He could get up and pace, run his hands through his hair, twirl a pen across his fingers.

No nail biting or pencil chewing, those kinds of habits were reserved for the intellectual types of celebrities.

Nose picking was just... Ew.

Batman, however, could not do any of those. Instead he was left clenching his fists as tightly as he could.

The sidekick team had been doing... Moderately well. There had already been a few severe hiccups, but nothing too disastrous as of yet.

So far it had just been joint training, letting the children fight each other and blow off steam.

Supervised, for the most part.

The two Kryptonian clones, Superboy and Power Girl, were struggling to moderate their strength when they got excited. That, combined with their abysmal ability to work with others, was going to be a long, long list of headaches.

Player One was, if at all possible, even worse. Even during training they would go for the weaknesses of their teammates. And outside of the Kryptonina duo, none of the other apprentices were capable of taking a solid hit from them without risking a serious injury.

Offering them criticism was proving to be difficult as well. For whatever reason, even after causing their opponent a potentially serious injury, they would jump to defend the grey clad child.

The other four were easier to deal with. Batman was fairly certain it was because they'd had previous experience taking orders and receiving training.

This was exactly why he'd agreed to hire Alchemist as a support and medical specialist, and the boy had been missing for almost two weeks.

He and Robin had found the apartment he'd been staying in, on the edge of the docks in Gotham. His laptop had still been plugged in, paused in the middle of an old interview where J'onn was explaining Martian culture.

The door had been locked and all of the windows were intact and closed, but he could teleport seemingly at will. The only things to suggest he hadn't disappeared voluntarily was the half-eaten sandwich on a metal camping plate and a nearly empty bottle of juice.

Yesterday, half of the team had been in Star City and run into the unaccounted for clone of Roy Harper. There was apparently some confusion, and Batman hadn't been able to get a solid grasp on the details, but the clone firmly believed he was the original and refused to come with the team.

Batman would have liked to have heard about that sooner, but he had to set that aside for the moment.

He still set a reminder to inform Green Arrow. The man had been beside himself since the whole thing had come to light, and he desperately wanted to know of any updates involving the clone.

Today, the entirety of the team had gotten into a fight with a superpowered android distinctly similar to Red Tornado.

It was utterly pulverized.

The Justice League had some of the best technical analysts on call, but none of them could extract data from a memory drive that was shattered.

Batman finally logged the last of the recovered robots components and checked his communicator.

Two messages today. Both from J'onn.

Alchemist had turned up.

He'd been trapped in a spirit realm?

Batman needed more details, but J'onn was his equal in being infuriatingly brief.

-----

"Batman, Zero-Two" Rang out loudly in the Hall of Justice.

J'onn, still at the computer terminal, turned to face the oncoming source of -Determination-.

"Alchemist has returned?" Batman was stressed and tired, though he did an admirable job masking it.

"Yes. I sent him to the gym showers. I was uncertain when he last had an opportunity to bathe." It was fascinating to be a psychic when giving a man like Bruce such a statement. Feeling his mind make connections, run through and discard assumptions and finally create a list of possible answers.

All of it based off of two insignificant sentences.

"He has been asleep for nearly six hours in the changing room. I would advise caution when waking him."

Passing by him, Bruce muttered three simple words.

"Thank you, J'onn."

-----

Batman is unsure what to make of what he sees when he finds Alchemist.

The young man is clean, which is good. He's dressed, which is better. Parts of his hair are clearly burned... And he's sitting on the floor, half laying against a long, oval object roughly the size of a small barrel.

Reaching out, Batman gently grabs one of his shoulders and gives it a small shake.

And then another.

Alchemist's eyes snap open in an instant, looking around the room in a half-mad panic before calming down. He reaches up, pushing the palm of his hand against his brow, just above his left eye.

"Alchemist." The boys vision is blocked by his arm, but the way he moves shows he's focusing on Bruce. "You've been missing for two weeks. Are you alright?"

The boy leaned back, curiously turning to look at what he's against. He regarded it for several moments before letting out a slow, heavy breath.

"No." The boy was a curious mix of honest and secretive. He refused to say where he was learning his magic from, but at the same time did nothing to exxagerate himself or his condition. "Haven't eaten for a few days, barely slept in god knows how long. And I've apparently decided to pick up a huge responsibility while I was running on autopilot."

"Can you explain what happened, what that thing behind you is?"

"I'd forgotten one of the books I needed to read was sealed by a greater spirit. Or lesser god." The boy waved his right hand from side to side. "Not much difference. Had to pass its trials and earn what I was trying to learn before I could leave."

The boy leveled a disgruntled look at his backrest.

"And this thing is a dragon egg."

"... A dragon egg." There's a lot to unpack in that statement. Partially being that Batman had been certain dragons, real dragons and not just some empowered mystical form of a villain, didn't exist.

And then he rethought his position because he used to believe gods and goddesses didn't exist either.

"Flying, breathing fire and hoarding gold, that kind of dragon?"

"Except for the middle part, yeah. Not sure about this one actually, I don't really remember getting it. Problem is the color." Alchemist ran a finger down the side of the egg.

Bruce didn't understand what he meant by that. The shell was a pearlescent, almost shimmering white.

"Traditional fire breathing dragons have red eggs. This isn't the right white for a Frost Dragon, definitely not a Storm, their eggs are blue." Alchemist reached up to scratch at the back of his head, but froze when he felt a clump of singed hair. "Honestly I'm coming up blank. Suppose I'll know when it hatches."

He put his hand on the egg and it disappeared.

Batman inhaled slowly. He'd prefer to foist that off to an expert, but he was fairly certain none existed.

"Is there anything else I need to be made aware of?" It was good that Alchemist was back and relatively unharmed, but he brought back so many more questions than he did answers.

"Well, I've got some good news?" Alchemist pushed himself to his feet. "I've picked up two more spells for self defense, a kind of magical shield and another to hide with. And I also got a spell to repair things, even if they're entirely destroyed. That's been so incredibly useful, it's the only reason I still have clothes after the whole burning and explosions and godawful terror in the book realm."

That was... Potentially very useful.

"Good. We're glad to have you back. Be here tomorrow morning at eight. The team has been in desperate need of your medical abilities." Especially if they were going to train the Kryptonians and Player One in martial arts that didn't involve crippling people.

Maybe he needed to ask Diana again if she'd consider helping. Clark was still having a hard time accepting the existence of the clones, and couldn't bring himself to be near them.

A good thing, considering their conflicting programming.

Batman was glad Alchemist had thought to grab a copy of their medical notes.

Bruce, however, was beyond disgusted and furious enough to spit lead.

"Can do, Boss."

Chapter Text

Project: Gamer Ver. 2 Alpha Build 0.2.6

Disclaimer Me Do: I own nothing you recognize. And most of what you don't recognize, I still don't own.

_________________________________________________________________________

Gotham was like New York in a way; if you really looked for something, you could find it.

Like a barber at six in the morning.

Nice and clean, with no singed or melted hair, Leslie was feeling much more human.

Restocking food hadn't taken that long, but then, Leslie wasn't quite finished doing it either. A week and a half of general groceries in a time-frozen closet was nice. A six month supply of MRE's would be... Not nicer, but better than going hungry.

Maybe.

So long as he avoided the Five Fingers of Death. Or the military pizza.

But that was a problem for later. Right now it was closing in on seven forty-five in the morning and he was only just scanning into the Hall of Justice.

As he'd expected, Batman was already in the main hall. Robin and Player One were with him.

"Alchemist. Do you know why I asked you to come in today instead of telling you to take your two days off?" Batman was looking up at the giant computer monitor, letting various news stories play out in different corners.

Not actually knowing what the caped crusader wanted, Leslie instead said the first thing that came to mind.

"You found out I've been signing Lex Luthor's various business and personal email accounts up for hardcore fetish porn?"

The room was eerily silent except for the sound of Player One's clothes shifting as they turned around to look at Alchemist.

"You've been... What?"

"Okay, so not that then. Is this because I sent Mercy Graves a three legged horse costume with the message 'Take off the prosthetic, put this on and convince me not to put you out to pasture'? 'Cuz I told the guy making it to just use the letter L as the signature."

Now it was Robin's turn to turn and stare.

"No. No Alchemist, that's not why you're here."

"Okay, so... It's not because I ordered and paid for forty cakes to be delivered to Lexcorp on his birthday? I paid extra to get the Superman shield piped on to those. Though those would've been delivered last week..."

"Alchemist?" Robin started. "What? No, why. Just why?"

"Because, Robin. Forty is four tens, and that's terrible."

Finally Batman turned around.

"No, Alchemist. None of these are the reasons I requested your presence. However, since you've been kind enough to bring these issues to light, could you please explain why you are harassing Lex Luthor?"

In the background, Robin was talking to Player One.

"Is he quoting something? I think he's quoting at me."

"Absolutely Batman, and I'm so glad you asked!" Leslie piped up, putting his hands together behind his back and straightening his posture. "Out of all of the members of the Illuminati, Lex is the only one who's in a position that's easy to irritate while still not being able to openly have me murdered in my sleep! The other members are heads of state, related to heads of state, a talking brain, or else are so old they think the internet is a passing fad. And the evil Un-Child. We don't talk about the Un-Child."

It took almost a solid minute before anyone spoke.

"Alchemist?"

"Yes boss?"

"Refrain from having extended contact with The Question in the future."

"Can do, boss."

Another minute passed, the dark and broody trio all facing Alchemist as he leaned back and forth on his feet.

"The reason I requested your attendance is both simple and straightforward. The team you'll be supporting has expanded since your... Absence. As such, you'll need to familiarize yourself with the new members, as well as their equipment."

"Alright, fair enough." Leslie looked at the two standing behind the Batman. "Hey, Player One. Still have your broken bat, or did you replace it yet?"

Rather than verbally responding, Player One held out both hands. The cleanly snapped pieces appeared in an instant.

"Nifty. Alright." Alchemist grabbed both pieces, holding them together. A soft golden glow flowed over the broken wood for a few seconds before fading away.

Leslie held it back out, handle first. Player One grabbed it, rolling it between their hands for a moment before it disappeared into their inventory.

"Thank you." Their voice was very soft, very quiet. Leslie nodded in acceptance.

"I suppose that works as a demonstration. Come on. We need to get to the actual base."

-----

Leslie had an easier time with the Zeta Tube coming in to Mt.Justice.

Not a significantly easier time, but still. Not trying to lose your breakfast is a major plus.

He didn't understand what the problem was. It looked and felt like it was creating a tunnel, like he was just walking through a short hallway. As soon as he was on the other side, though, it felt like another part of him was just realizing he was gone and trying to catch up.

Any which way, he was left holding his stomach as the entry room for the mountain came into focus.

"Oh. Hey." A significantly taller boy noticed him, as well as the others. "It's you. From Cadmus. Robin said you were gone."

"I got better. How's life outside the tube?"

"It's very loud." The boy, the hybrid from the lab, stared at Leslie.

Leslie stared back.

"Ookay. Alchemist, that's Superboy. Superboy, you met Alchemist. Once. He's supposed to be our medic and support staff." Robin finally interjected.

Robin was starting to realize there were a few too many people who were happy with uncomfortable silences in this mountain.

"I thought he did the teleport thing." Superboy finally said after several moments of contemplation.

"I do, in fact, do the teleport thing." Leslie agreed.

Robin's hand finally met his face.

"See? He does the teleport thing."

"What's the teleport thing?" Came a new voice into the room. This one came from a green skinned girl with red hair and freckles.

"Hey M'gann, this is the teleport guy, he helped us all get out of Cadmus and found Power Girl. It kind of felt like getting punched in the stomach that one time the Flash helped with training, but one second we were all in the lab, and then the next most of us were up in the lobby."

"That sounds really neat! Is teleporting your power?" The girl turned from Superboy back over to Alchemist.

The movement was actually rather exaggerated but it definitely showed where she was focusing.

"Nope!" Superboy looked confused, and it seemed M'gann was following his cues.

"It's not? Then, what is your power?" She seemed to be the one doing the talking now. Superboy seemed more comfortable to let someone else speak.

"I'm a wizard." Near the entrance to the room Leslie could see Robin grabbing Kid Flash.

He wondered briefly what that was about.

"Wait, so like a stage wizard?" M'gann moved her hands apart at her chest, mimicking something opening, or exploding. "With the doves and girls in boxes being cut in half?"

"Wrong on the first part! And the rest. That's showmanship, which is not my specialty. Instead, I do things like this!" Latching on to the other two teens, he teleported onto the roof of the apartment he'd been staying at in Gotham.

Superboy and M'gann both looked incredibly discomforted for a second before he hit them both with Cure and Life.

"Real magic. Almost as good as stage magic." The two of them looked around, awed at the instant change in scenery. From the artificial lights of the cool, chilly cave to the natural sunlight and summer heat.

"Was that the teleport thing?" M'gann asked Superboy.

"Yeah, that's the teleport thing."

Chapter Text

Project: Gamer Ver. 2 Alpha Build ~Interlude: Lex Luthor~

Disclaimer Me Do: I own nothing you recognize. And most of what you don't recognize, I still don't own.

_________________________________________________________________________

Lex Luthor didn't think of himself as a successful businessman.

He -knew- he was a successful businessman.

The part most people didn't really consider was just how much work went into that, though. Sleepless nights, work, compromises.

So many compromises.

And sacrifice.

Preferably at the expense of other people, but Lex had put no small amount of blood and tears into his work.

Again, most of it belonging to other people, but they'd been paid for it.

However the part that most people really overlooked was the sabotage. The backstabbing. The constant one-upmanship and politics that kept even his own success in check and hobbled.

He was the best at the game he played, but there were always others trying to claw their way up to take his place.

Lex hadn't been able to dedicate enough time to it, but he was beginning to suspect there was someone new to the game. Or at least that one of his many, many detractors had learned some new tricks.

At the moment, Lex Luthor was sitting at a computer in his private apartment at his corporate headquarters. A plate of half-eaten cake next to his keyboard. On his monitor?

Porn.

Lots of porn.

Too much porn.

Someone had gotten their hands on his private email address. And his company address.

More worrying, though, was that someone had also gotten their hands on the email address he used when communicating with the other members of The Light.

The individual messages were all still safely encrypted, but the issue now was finding them! They were constantly being buried under an ever-growing mountain of garbage from websites like 'Midget Stripper Magazine' and 'Superman foot fetish pics', or, even worse, 'Innocent teens hold hands'!

He'd been to Human Resources twice in as many weeks, and he'd had to have two decent personal assistants reassigned after they tried to file a complaint over the endless reams of spam.

Currently, he had an intern getting trained to take over for them. But trusting some college brat to do a job correctly with no oversight or double-checking was a recipe for disaster.

Lex had already missed two important meetings this week because the emails for them had been buried!

Pushing the cake further aside, Lex leaned back in his chair and tried to massage his temples.

The cake had been a birthday present of sorts, delivered last week by a local bakery. Forty of them. Apparently the customer had ordered two of everything the company offered on their website.

Super Scrumptious Sweets.

Every single cake had the emblem for the House of El on them. Every. Single. One.

Between that and the lovely little card wishing him a happy birthday from someone calling themselves 'L', the day had been nearly ruined.

It had been completely ruined when a stripper showed up in the main lobby wearing a Superman costume.

A male stripper.

It wasn't much of a costume.

Lex was pulled out of his spiraling rage when he heard a noise just outside his door.

Clop. Clop. Clop.

It almost sounded like someone was stomping down the hall wearing heels.

The knock on his door wasn't surprising.

Hearing Mercy on the other side of the door saying "Mister Luthor. It's me." was.

The woman had a key for a reason.

Grumbling, Lex got up to open the door.

He dearly wished he hadn't.

Mercy Graves was on the other side of the door, yes.

Dressed up as... As...

Lex knew what she was dressed up as. He just didn't want to acknowledge it.

A skin-tight, light purple spandex uniform. Specially made shoes that had to be a nightmare to balance in, as they were almost like heels, minus the heel. Her hair had been tied back in a pony-tail and she was wearing... Were those blinders?

That her prosthetic arm above the elbow had been removed was almost unnoticed with the sheer -wrongness- Lex was looking at.

"Mercy? What, exactly, are you wearing?" The cake had to have gone bad, or been baked with bad flour!

Something to explain this!

"The outfit that you sent to me. Sir." She managed to fit more loathing in that one word than Lex had ever heard directed at him before.

Which was actually rather impressive, a distant part of his mind pushed to him.

His bodyguard, his confidante of many, many years got down on all three's, on her hand and knees, and looked up at him with baleful rage.

"Please, sir." She sounded like she was spitting out each and every word through clenched teeth. "I know it's expensive to keep a lame horse. But I promise, if you give me a chance, I'm worth it."

Lex Luthor had one of the most brilliant minds on Earth. He could think of solutions and problems in moments that others would struggle with for the entirety of their meaningless lives.

For this, however, he was coming up blank.

Instead he took one step back. And slammed the door.

Chapter Text

Project: Gamer Ver. 2 Alpha Build 0.2.7

Disclaimer Me Do: I own nothing you recognize. And most of what you don't recognize, I still don't own.

_________________________________________________________________________

"Welcome to the General's Rotisserie, where every chicken is cooked with care. What can I get you started on today?" In the DC realities, it looked as though Colonel Sanders never saw any great success. Kentucky Fried Chicken was just not a thing in Gotham.

There were a few, sure, but it wasn't a country-spanning franchise like it was back home.

Instead they got The General's Rotisserie. They specialized in a slow-roasted chicken that's flame kissed and coated in seven special seasonings.

That's what they said on the front door at any rate.

"Yeah, hi. We're going to need... Five? Five sound good?" Leslie looked behind himself, but Superboy was standing completely still and offering no input.

M'gann just shrugged. She'd shifted to a skin tone that looked identical to a human, but retained her other features.

"Yeah, five whole chickens. And a large order of every side. And two dozen biscuits."

The cashier took a moment to put that in, not a single word about the size of the order.

"And would you like anything to drink with that?"

"A diet coca-cola? I don't want to get fat." This finally got the older teenage boy to look up from the register.

"I'm sorry? We don't serve any, uh, coca-cola? We serve Freshky products."

"We'll take water." Leslie frowned as he moved his group to the side to wait on their order. That was probably some more of DC's early history weirdness, probably a shift that happened around World War Two.

He'd been avoiding soda since he'd been thrown into this reality, but he was going to have to look into those differences.

He already knew Oreo's had been replaced with Chocos cookies. Functionally the same thing, except that they tasted exactly the same as the cheap store-brand knockoffs.

"Oh, my uncle mentioned those! He said I should avoid them because they're dangerously addictive." M'gann spoke up unexpectedly from the side.

Leslie looked over at her, visibly confused. He'd been sure he wasn't talking, and he knew Superboy hadn't. But M'gann was looking directly at him. Suddenly she slapped the front of her forehead.

"Hello Megan! I'm so sorry Alchemist! It's just, you're projecting so loud! I thought you were actually talking. I didn't mean to, you know-" She held her hand up to her forehead, and then pointed back and forth between his head and hers.

"No, no, you're fine. I didn't even know I was... Loud? I wouldn't suggest digging too deep though."

"Because it'd be a huge invasion of privacy and you'd hate me forever?"

"Nah." Alchemist said as he handed one of the huge bags of chicken to Superboy. "It's because my mind is pretty much just memes and porn."

"Oh." M'gann took two of the other bags, these holding the various sides Alchemist had ordered. "I... Appreciate the honesty? That's really not what I was expecting."

"Yeah, that's what she said."

"But" Superboy finally had something to say. "That is what she said?"

"Someday you're going to look back on this and realize that was probably the funniest thing you ever said." Alchemist did a quick check, looking through the various bags of meat and greased up vegetables. "But probably not today."

"Would you guys like-" The three teens disappeared right before the cashiers eyes. "-yeah, no. At least these guys paid for their food first."

-----

Bruce reviewed the mental notes he'd made throughout the day.

A habit he tried to continue whenever he had that rare, rare night to decompress.

As much as people tried to say that crime never sleeps, it does tend to take a nap on Mondays.

Alchemist had been behaving oddly today as compared to normal, more flippant and energetic, less nervous than normal.

Or perhaps this was his normal, and his earlier behavior was how he tested the waters of new social situations? He'd make a note to update the profile he kept on the magician.

Upon their return from the unscheduled and unapproved outing, Superboy had gone to his room. He'd claimed the city was "Too loud, and bright, and way too fast.". He did make an appearance nearly half an hour later when Miss Martian had told him everyone was ready to eat.

Communal dining appeared to be a good team building exercise. It had even gotten Power Girl involved.

Not very involved, the girl had been unable or unwilling to speak since J'onn had finished her deprogramming. She had shown up however, and had been willing to take directions from M'gann to try different foods.

Opinions on her were incredibly mixed in the Justice League's core members. She had apparently been cloned from Faora, one of Zod's contemporaries, rather than Clark. Her initial programming had involved a rather heavy-handed dint of Black Widow, or Praying Mantis mentality.

Clark, understandably, wanted very little to do with her. He didn't want much to do with Superboy either. Considering the boy had been made from his own stolen genetic material, and both clones were intended to kill him, Bruce could hardly blame him for his hesitation.

Kid Flash... Was going to be problematic. He'd eaten two whole chickens, an entire tub of macaroni and cheese and then topped that off with eight biscuits.

He'd then made the off-hand comment that it was the first time he'd felt full since he got his powers.

By Bruce's estimate, that was almost four-thousand Calories.

And then he'd taken the leftovers home so he could "Have a snack before bed".

As much as he didn't like to, the team might need to send him to one of the Star Labs metahuman testing divisions. If he needed upwards of ten-thousand calories per day, his superspeed would be leaning heavily enough on his biology to function as a mutation. As compared to The Flash whose power seemed to be pure speed with few, if any, drawbacks.

Player One had been interesting. They had finally gotten rid of the hockey mask, at least long enough to eat, and instead had large mirrored aviators. They hadn't stayed long enough to finish the meal alongside everyone else however.

M'gann had been the one to ask if they were alright, and Bruce certainly hadn't expected their answer.

Or, considering their reluctance to speak at all so far, any answer.

Player One had therapy on Mondays. Every Monday. They hadn't said for what, simply leaving afterwards. It had signaled the wind-down of the meal, where everyone except Kid Flash finished what they had and moved on to other things.

After the meal had concluded, Alchemist had been shown to the remains of Mr.Twister...

-----

"So all of his parts are here?" Alchemist was poking at some of the android's remains.

"Everything we could find, yes. The head and chest were complete, though crushed." Batman had called ahead, ordering the remains to be assembled as best as possible before they'd arrived.

"Alright, yeah. I could probably fix him. Not doing it here though."

"Why not?"

"The last time I fixed someone who'd been attacking me, I nearly lost my teeth. And you said it had wind and lightning powers?"

"That's correct."

"Well I don't like being electrocuted. Get a Faraday cage built and drive some copper rods into the ground, I'll fix it."

"Why do you need a Faraday cage?" It was actually an excellent suggestion, but Batman had wanted to hear Alchemist's reasoning.

"Because he might have a transmitter in there. Or a receiver next to a self-destruct. I can repair everything inside of an object, but I don't get any understanding of what they are, or what they do. The spell is pretty indiscriminate on that front." All good reasons, though fewer than what Bruce had thought of.

They didn't know how fine the androids control over electricity was, or if that extended into electro-magnetism. They also didn't know if it had some kind of connecting technology that would allow it to piggyback off of their own devices.

A Faraday cage with an outside observer was just good sense.

"Acceptable. We'll get a proper facility constructed. In the meantime, you should take your two days. Be sure to be at Mt.Justice Thursday morning."

"What's happening Thursday morning?"

"You'll find out Thursday morning."

Alchemist silently stared at Batman's cowl for several long, uncomfortable moments before shrugging and turning around.

The young man needed to work on his body language if he wanted to glare at someone when his eyes were covered.

Chapter Text

Project: Gamer Ver. 2 Alpha Build 0.2.8

Disclaimer Me Do: I own nothing you recognize. And most of what you don't recognize, I still don't own.

_________________________________________________________________________

Leslie having a day off actually meant Leslie had a lot to do.

He'd gone to a military surplus shop in Gotham and bought out about a third of their supply of shelf stable military rations.

As much as he'd have liked to, he couldn't get any of the more interesting things.

This was Gotham, not Bludhaven.
Or worse, Detroit.

His second stop of the day was going over to talk to Jeff at the recycling center. He traded an hour of converting cans into more expensive pure aluminum for half a ton of iron and five hundred dollars.

Jeff still ended up coming out ahead on that deal.

Leslie had reached level twenty-one in the Realm of Forbidden Knowledge, a massive jump since he'd been at eleven before that.

Five perk points, fifty stat points and a significant amount of GP lead to a lot of improvements. With his intelligence and wisdom both at forty-three after distribution, he had a lot more MP to go around. And it regenerated significantly faster, too. Three hundred and twenty-two MP at sixty-four percent per hour gave him a lot of leeway compared to where he used to be.

The perks had a lot of potential, too. Metamagic: Pierce didn't make his spells any stronger, but they had an increasing level of ability to ignore magical defence. Up to half at max level.

Leslie really, really hoped that would let him ignore "Boss immunity" for casting toad.

Metamagic: Minimum Powah! had the very, very useful effect of keeping his spells from getting too weak if spread across too many targets. It would preserve half of a spells power, if the spell was at max level.

Yeah, it also impacted spells below the max level, but he didn't care very much at the moment. Life and Cure were now persistantly useful!

The final perk he'd gotten was the second tier of the magical development tree. Magically A-Practiced replaced Magically Apprenticed and gave a twenty percent discount alongside a twenty percent boost to all spells.

It didn't make Transmutation any easier to use, but it was now significantly cheaper!

With the majority of his tasks for the day taken care of, Leslie found an abandoned warehouse and got started on his next major project.

Advanced Homonculi Creation had been a bust for his purposes. It demanded ingredients and reagents he just didn't have access to.

Like a dragon's heart.

Or fairy wings.

If pushed, he could just purchase them from the game shop, but they were -expensive-.

As in, he'd had two-hundred thousand GP after the Duras Drum incident, and he could have gotten the dragon's heart. And only the dragon's heart.

And after he'd apparently bought a Dragon Egg, he didn't have enough left to do that at all.

Instead he chose to blow it on another crafting book Synthesis: Fuse for about half of his remaining GP.

That would let him combine items, unfortunately at a loss of efficiency, to create overall better items.

After he read it anyway.

And he bought the various spellbooks from Final Fantasy Two that he was still missing, barring Ultima.
Break, to turn a target to stone. A more permanent and still non-lethal option for dealing with things trying to kill him.
Haste, the quintessential spell for improving speed. He'd never be on the level of The Flash, but he could live with that.
Berserk. Basically the same as Haste, but for strength instead. Again, he'd never be swole like Superman, but then, who was?
Curse was kind of the odd duck out of all of his spell choices. It was a pure debuff, reducing strength, defense and magical power of the target. It could be resisted, but in time Leslie hoped the Pierce perk would help with that.
Shell. It was exactly like protect, improving defense. Except specifically for magic. Of limited use in the world of DC, true, but the magical threats here were, one and all, kind of a big deal.
Holy. There was just not much to say about Holy. It was one of the two attack spells based off of wisdom, and it dealt especially strong damage to Undead and Evil monsters.

Now had Leslie actually read any of these spell tomes? No, no he had not. Each of them would take about half an hour, maybe even a full hour to read.

And if Synthesis was anything like Transmutation or Homonculus Creation, that could easily take him a week of on again, off again work.

All of that book learning would be useful in one way or another, but it wasn't why he'd holed himself up in a warehouse.

He'd come here to get started on building a new body.

At least, the first step. Creating living steel.

In description, it was fairly simple. You just fill iron up with Life magic.

In practice, not so much.

Leslie used transmutation to shape an ingot of iron out of a handful of solid metal scraps, rust and carbon dropping out and being left behind.

He'd heard people claim that iron could resist magic, but that had always seemed especially odd to him. History and myth were absolutely riddled with magical swords and armor, and they'd been made of iron and steel.

The misconception about 'Cold Iron' bothered him even worse.

Leslie shook his head and focused. The next step was going to be difficult.

Using transmutation once more, he reached into the iron ingot. It was homogeneous now, pure iron barring the traces of oxidation already forming on the outside.

Carefully, very carefully, he pushed a little more energy into it and the ingot expanded minutely. Inside, at the molecular level, the bonds between the iron atoms expanded as well.

Leslie swallowed heavily. Holding it in this state was... Actually very taxing. He could see his MP dropping fast.

He'd never actually tried something like this before.

Focusing on the ingot with a second spell was particularly challenging. Dualcasting was a difficult art to begin with, and this was his first time trying anything with it.

He managed to cast Life on it just before his MP ran out completely.

Breathing out a sigh of relief, Leslie looked over his stats. No MP, but it was coming back fast. He'd be able to check on his work in a moment.

One little bar of iron, maybe less than a kilogram, and it had completely exhausted him.

No wonder it had taken the combined power of two god-like spirits and an ancient, elven master smith to make an appreciable amount of the stuff.

Leslie shuddered a bit at that thought.

It hadn't just been used to make the near-human Holmcross. Living Steel had been the primary material in making the massive and imposing Golems in the world of Filgaea.

That had been what Duras Drum had warned him about. Not the tiny, almost insignificant command unit that was the Holmcross, but the ensouled weapons of mass destruction that, at their peak, still failed their original goal.

After waiting several minutes, Leslie took a look inside the ingot with transmutation.

It was... Not impressive. The concentration of life magic in the steel was spotty at best. Shifting it around and concentrating it, he had a small sliver of material that was maybe one-hundred grams.

Over three-hundred MP to make one-hundred grams of material, and he needed... A human skeleton was somewhere around two and a half to three and a half kilograms, and steel was about four times denser. Add in that the Holmcross had various internal supports that were otherwise made up of other organs and supporting fat...

Leslie put down his phone where he'd been searching for data on the internet and sighed. He'd probably need about twenty kilograms of material, and he could do one-hundred grams every two hours if he wanted to exhaust himself.

Two hundred times, or four-hundred hours of work.

Yay.

At least he hadn't had an accident that created a world-spanning stretch of desert!

Opening his skill menu, Leslie looked at the crafting skill he'd picked up when Transmutation hit fifty, Conversion.

It would let him turn one material into another, provided he could afford the MP cost to do it.

-Alchemy: Conversion-
-Transform the materials or properties of one object into another, provided you have used Transmutation on them in the past!-
-MP cost: Varies. Similar materials or properties can be Converted with greater efficiency!-

Looking at it from that skill...
Converting Iron to Living Steel was eight MP per gram.
Converting Steel to Living Steel was six MP per gram.
Aluminum was more expensive, and stone was a lot worse.

Starting off it would be a lot worse, but if Conversion leveled up decently it might more than even out!

Leslie was about to look into his inventory to see if he had any gold or silver to experiment with when his phone started ringing. Looking at it, he had two questions.

Who was Megan Morse?
And how did she get his number?

Chapter Text

Project: Gamer Ver. 2 Alpha Build 0.2.9

Disclaimer Me Do: I own nothing you recognize. And most of what you don't recognize, I still don't own.

_________________________________________________________________________

It had taken him an embarrasingly long time to remember that Megan Morse was M'Gann's alternate identity. It wasn't even particularly clever, literally just 'M'gann of Mars' written to English phonetics.

She'd called because Kid Flash had suggested going camping, and she wanted to invite everyone. She'd already called and gotten Player One to join them.

Leslie had no idea how long it'd been since he'd been invited to go camping.

Or, more realistically since this involved a bunch of teens who've never set up a tent or dug a proper pit, a cookout in the woods.

He made two stops before heading to the cookout. Once at a sporting store, where he picked up a proper camp stove (His hot plate was wonderful, but it still required electricity) and again at a grocery store.

Hot dogs and hamburgers may be traditional, but bratwurst and actual seasonings would be amazing. Graham crackers, marshmallows and chocolate bars were a no-brainer.

Having no idea what any of this realities cola would taste like, he bought some lemonade and called it a day.

-----

M'gann really had gotten everybody. Even Power Girl was here. Still dull and listless, but here none the less.

Leslie didn't know what exactly had happened to her, but he wasn't in the business of asking uncomfortable questions.

Questions that made -him- uncomfortable, at least.

Still, this camping trip had gone on in unexpected ways. The kids had actually set up some very basic pole tents, had a handful of logs around a fire and were eating s'mores.

It was nice.

"I think-" Aqualad took charge, amid M'gann's sugar-filled giggles. "-that everything really began not long after I enlisted in the military when I was twelve."

Leslie would've had some very pointed questions about that, but he held his tongue. Different cultures, different norms, different rules. It might have even been compulsory to teach the kids how to use magic in safe ways and was just structured odd.

"I completed my basic training at the same time as my age-mates before choosing to pursue a different specialty. My gift for Atlantean magic is not phenomenal, but it is still greater than many. So I went to the conservatory to learn how to do more with it." Kaldur'Ahm pulled one of the metal sticks, his water bearer, off of his back. The tattoos on the hand and arm holding it lit up, before water condensed out of the air into a roughly ovoid shape before the lightshow stopped and it dropped to the ground with a splash.

"That was two years ago. I've met some of my best friends at the conservatory, Tui and Garth. And y'know, they're both better sorcerors than me. I think Garth was almost ready to stop using water bearers back before I left, and I'm nowhere near that good." Kaldur put his artifact back on his back and stared dramatically into the fire for a few moments before continuing.

"And then one day, just like any other day, a supervillain attacked. Down in Atlantis we don't have too many, not like you guys up here do. They tend to... Not survive. Not when everyone has basic military training. So when Ocean Master, Black Manta or Squid Lord turn up, it's kind of a big deal." Aqualad took a few moments to drink his lemonade as he gathered his thoughts on how to continue.

"It was Ocean Master, that day. I don't know what he was planning, but he'd attacked the king. Worse, he beat him. Garth and I weren't the only two planning to do something, but it felt like it. So we attacked him. I was better at hand to hand, and Garth is just better with magic. So I tried to fight him while Garth was backing me up."

"...Did you win?" It took a moment for Leslie to place who'd spoken. Half because he hadn't expected it to be Player One.

"No. Gods no. He didn't even see us as a threat." Kaldur took another long sip of his lemonade. "But while he was toying with us, the king got back up, attacked Ocean Master from behind. It must've done something, since he chose to run instead of finishing what he started. Right then and there, King Orin offered Garth and I chance to be his apprentices. I said yes! It was everything I dreamed of. Garth... Said no."

"That's rough buddy." Leslie finally said from where he sat nearby on a different log.

"It is. I miss my friends and family every day, but I couldn't pass on this opportunity."

Everyone sat there, drinking or staring into the fire as they thought about the story they'd heard.

"I guess... My story is a little different." Kid Flash started after a few moments of contemplation. "You all know how there's two other Flashes who came before me right?"

There was a general murmur of yesses and yeahs from around the circle.

"The first one got his powers from a lab accident. At the time nobody really understood what happened. But he was one of the first superheroes to show up after the end of World War Two, after the end of the All-Star League. His name back then was Jay Garrick." Leslie noticed Kid Flash, Wally was tapping his foot. Sharing this left him... Agitated.

"Well, eventually the Flash got to know him. He was a huge fan, back when Garrick was active. So the two met, y'know, and got to talking. Garrick told the Flash how he got his powers, what he was doing when the accident happened. And unc- The Flash recreated the accident, except he did it under proper lab conditions. The results were stronger... A lot stronger. The original Flash could outrun an early jet. The new Flash could outrun the Blackbird." That, especially on land, was incredibly fast. Leslie wasn't sure the exact speed, but then the SR-71 had -still- been classified in his reality and time.

"I'm not as fast as either of them. I managed to get ahold of the current Flashes notes and rereate the experiment, but I did it at home, in my bedroom. With a normal chemistry kit." Robin looked visibly stunned at that one, and Leslie felt the same. It was easy, sometimes, to forget that the redheaded speedster was brilliant in his own right.

"It knocked me out. I don't know how long, but I woke up in the hospital. I didn't have superspeed then, y'know? It took a few weeks before we started to notice something was wrong. Funny thing is, the first sign was the food. I was eating more and more, my parents just thought it was puberty at first. Then here and there were just... Bursts, I guess. Where I was moving too fast, or the world wasn't moving fast enough." He stopped talking to drink his lemonade. Draining almost half the can as he got his thoughts in order.

"Have you ever tried to redo the experiment? With better equipment and materials?" Leslie asked. He'd never thought much about Kid Flash, but even he considered it wrong to let the kids body eat itself alive.

"Parents and Flash won't let me. They're afraid it could make it worse. They hope maybe I'll grow into it or something." Kid Flash threw his empty can into the fire.

"...Gimme a list of what you need and -I'll- buy it for you." Robin turned to glare at him, but Alchemist didn't really care about their 'Conservation of Superpowers' garbage.

"What, you just gonna magic it up, that it wizard boy?"

"I was thinking Amazon, actually. Or finding out whichever vendor schools use to get stuff." Kid Flash was angry, Leslie understood that. He didn't enjoy being talked down to, but being an ass back wouldn't make anything better.

"And let me guess, you won't use it for yourself, right?" And now into sarcasm! Ah, the teenage years.

"I'm working on a spell that'll let me do the whole superspeed thing, but temporary." Superspeed like the Flash had -would- be handy, but it also invited time travel shenanigans. And reality breaking. Leslie didn't know how insulated he was from those, and didn't feel like finding out.

"A spell. From a wizard. Of course you are." Kid Flash inhaled heavily for a moment before exhaling and slumping forward on his log. "You're serious, aren't you?"

Leslie nodded. He remembered a world where this same boy died a hero because he wasn't fast enough. If money could solve the problem, why shouldn't it?

"...Thanks man."

"Geeze." M'gann said from where she sat next to Power Girl. "This all got real serious, really fast. What about you, Alchemist? How'd you get into the superpowers and hero thing?"

"Well, since you asked, I died." She wanted things to be more lighthearted? He could do that. "But then I got better. An extradimensional entity, one of the decent ones instead of the multidimensional worms, decided I'd be a fantastic person to alpha test their new video game system."

Half the team was looking at him like he was crazy.
Except for Player One. The intensity of their stare had gotten to the point they could challenge Superman in a glaring contest.

"Alpha test being the key word here. I've got access to maybe half of the System and I've got to use in-game currency to purchase things. So I've been buying spellbooks from videogames I was familiar with before the whole dying dealy. First thing I picked up was a healing spell, and then I realized 'Y'know Alchemist, with all the crazy supervillains and evil rich people, maybe you should find a team to protect you!'. Unfortunately the Metropolis Meteors were only accepting positions for a pitcher instead of an umpire, so I had to go with Plan B and sent a letter to Batman."

Mentioning Metropolis had gotten both Superboy and Power Girl's attention.

"So I offered to heal him pro-bono if he'd put in a good word for me with the League. Well, that sort of worked out. I did get attacked by some supervillains ninja kid after that, but it was toad-ally a non-issue. Anyway, the league said I was too young, didn't want to hire me. Batman must've figured it was either them or the league of extraordinary evil old people and reached out to hire me for this team instead. Which has kinda worked out, except when I accidentally do something stupid to myself. Like the last week and a half, I got trapped inside of a literal book and had to fight other, evil books and living potion vials before the spirit of the book decided he was sick of dealing with me, and gave me what I wanted to make me leave."

Robin looked down at the can he'd been drinking from, checking the back where the ingredients were listed.

So far, it looked like there were only two people who believed him. M'gann, who was probably hearing his thoughts while he'd been mis-representing himself.

And Player One.

"If you weren't going to take this seriously, you could've just passed like Robin did." Kaldur looked and sounded disgruntled.

"Dude, seriously. We're all sharing our tragic backstories here and you go and do that? Not cool, man." Kid Flash sounded equally unhappy.

Which was really too bad.

"A wizard has his secrets, KF." Leslie stood up and stretched, joints popping. "Now if you'll excuse me, I need to take a wiz."

Chapter Text

Project: Gamer Ver. 2 Alpha Build 0.3.0

Disclaimer Me Do: I own nothing you recognize. And most of what you don't recognize, I still don't own.

_________________________________________________________________________

Apparently, the only thing it took to kill the mood for camping night was to get Superboy to say he wanted to kill Superman.

Well, alright, 'Defeat'.

Semantics.

After that the kids had all turned in to bed. Leslie was still up, watching the dwindling coals.

These... These were kids. Maybe not in the traditional sense, not when you factored in the clones or M'gann, but still kids.

And they were ready, eager even, to throw their lives on the line and try to fight the good fight.

How do you tell kids like that the fight was already over? The hero's had already lost. They just didn't know it yet.

That the Illuminati he'd joked about just a few days back knew who they all were. Knew the identities of their mentors. Were replacing people with clones and aliens, or just making up new people wholesale and placing them where they needed to be.

That if they wanted to do anything more than struggle along as puppets on a string, they had to flip the table and play a different game?

Except they couldn't afford to be -too good- or Vandal Savage or Ra'as Al Ghuul would take off the kid gloves and kill them without so much as a second thought.

Idly scrolling through the Game Shop he wasn't finding any answers. He didn't have much to work with at the moment, just a bit under fifteen-thousand GP, but he could figure out options.

He had to.

Spells were out. Anything good was too expensive.
Artifacts of great and useful power were out, too. Same reason.
What about skill books? He needed power multipliers. Things that would expand what he could do, and make those things more powerful...

The limitations of human memory were a serious problem for him here. He'd played games where there were skill books to learn actual skills, but he couldn't remember most of them, the details were just... Old.

He remembered one of them was literally called a tome of some sort, and it had a passive ability to increase MP. It had been in a JRPG, but he'd played a lot of those.

A lot.

He just typed 'MP' into the search bar.

Once the list populated, he started looking down, down and further down.

Amp, camp, hemp...

He backed that up and typed 'MP Increase'.

The list was a lot shorter this time. By literally tens of thousands of entries.

He could purchase an enchantment that he could apply to his equipment?
Maybe later once he actually had the enchanting skill. If he ever got the enchanting skill.

Books, books, books...

Or maybe not? There was a passive skill he could purchase, two-thousand GP for a flat ten percent increase.

'Arcane Knowledge' seemed like a fair deal.

He clicked purchase and waited.
And waited.
And waited.

-ERROR!-
-Skill: Arcane Knowledge could not be purchased from the game shop!-
-Prerequisite: Gamer's Mind not met!-
-Your GP has been refunded.-
-An error ticket has been generated. Please contact your local administrator for further assistance.-

Well alright then! Back to the books it was.

Further down was a skillbook, literally called MP Boost and it was eight-thousand GP. It offered a flat bonus to MP.

Though it would level up over time, so potentially more useful.

He checked his inventory, making sure it actually showed up, before going back to the shop.

If he was going to do things properly, he needed to have tools or abilities the Light didn't know existed, things that were out of context. Amazonite and Nth metal were both things they'd encountered. Knew how to work around.

Ceratanium, Titanium-X, Lightanium... Were all interesting, but only insofar as they were especially strong compared to their weight.

Necrodermis... Eight-hundred GP for twenty-eight grams was a little steep, but he paid for it. Self-healing metal rated for interplanetary travel could have all kinds of uses.

Leslie froze for a moment, straining his ears to listen beyond the soft crackling of the dying flames.

It wouldn't do any good if any Emperor fanboys found out he was working with filthy xenotech.

Adamantite and Adamantine were both far too expensive. Darksteel, on the other hand, was reasonable. Barely. Two-thousand gp for twenty-eight grams.

But, and this is the important part, it's a magically reactive indestructable metal.

He was about to purchase a nugget of transparent aluminum when he felt a hand on his shoulder and nearly jumped out of his skin.

"Alchemist." Came Player One's voice. It was quiet, so impossibly quiet. "We need to talk."

"I was wondering when you were going to ask." Leslie felt the world -shift-. The fire, almost dead, was now long cold. The tents around them were torn and faded. "Zombie world, eh Gamer?"

"You know." Leslie would like to say it was said menacingly, but really Player One had no inflection in their voice. At all.

"I've known since day one, yes." Leslie stood and turned around, barely able to see Player One in the dead of night. The only reason he could see them at all was because they'd swapped back to the stark-white hockey mask.

"You said... You got your powers after you died. You got them from a goddess." Alchemist nodded. "I didn't. I didn't die. I didn't meet a goddess."

Now that was odd, Leslie hadn't figured they were a native gamer.

"I just woke up, and the screens were there. Welcoming me to the game. Explaining everything. After the worst week of my life... I thought I was having a psychotic break. I told my parents, and they took me to the hospital." A zombie shuffled into the clearing, but it only lasted a moment before its head exploded.

"So you used your newfound power to try and fix whatever your problem was, and it didn't work." Leslie wasn't exactly impressed so far. He'd heard this story a thousand times over in as many different books and games.

Still, Player One wanted an audience and he didn't feel it necessary to be rude, at least until they attacked him.

"No. I couldn't find my friend. Couldn't fix what I let happen. I thought... I thought the mob was involved, maybe. I found them. I fought them. I -hurt- them. They didn't know anything, but that was how Batman found me. With a bloody bat and surrounded by broken men." Well golly gee willickers, Player One, that's not horrifying at all!

"He told me I couldn't do that. He beat me. He beat me like I was nothing to him. When I couldn't fight back anymore, he asked me why. So I told him. I told him everything. I don't even remember when I started crying but... He gives good hugs." Also something Leslie never thought he'd hear.

"I had to stay out of trouble, keep my nose clean, he said. Then maybe he'd be able to find a group of kids like me, kids with powers trying to learn a purpose. So I kept busy for two weeks. I was in here, killing zombies and getting stronger until I hit the level cap (level cap?) and on Mondays I had therapy. If you want to know about that you can ask M'gann. She already told everyone else, now they all think I'm fragile, that I can't take criticism or being told I'm doing things wrong! I just thought us girls had to stick together..." Player One was a girl? Leslie legitimately couldn't tell. The zombie leather gear they had on didn't exactly expose... Anything.

"I'm not trying to be rude, but is there a point to all of this? Because if not, I could've just thrown another log on the fire and we could've had the same conversation over some cold lemonade." A trio of zombies showed up as Leslie spoke. A trio of zombies suffered sudden cranial explosions as Leslie spoke.

"You're legitimately an asshole, aren't you?" Player One's voice was finally picking up some inflection, so regardless of whatever else happened, Leslie considered this a win.

"Yes."

"Fine, yes there's a point. Prick. I have a quest, and it involves you." Alright, here it comes. "The system says you need to check your messages."

What?

"What?"

"Your messages, asshole. Check them."

Leslie did so. Only messages were the ones from way back when Terra was taunting him.

"Yeah, I got nothing in there. Did your quest update?"

"No."

"Okay. I think I know what's going on. Go to your messages and hit compose. You need to send a message to, and don't laugh, Super Ultra Powerful Best Goddess Terra-Tan."

"Please tell me you're kidding."

"Nope, dead serious. She's the admin here."

"Fine... Now what do I tell her?" A larger zombie carrying an axe tried to show up, but it didn't last very long before it took a Flare to the head.

"Tell her you can't complete your quest because she blocked the person you were told to pass a message to."

"She blocked you?"

"Yep."

"Dick picks?"

"Ew, no. I asked her how to mine for fish."

"...I don't even know what that means. Anyway, got a message back. She says she's unblocked you."

Leslie could already tell. He had two-hundred messages in his inbox.

'Stop ignoring me!'
'Real mature'
'You think you're cool?'
'Please stop ignoring me.'
'I'll give you stuff, please respond.'

Leslie didn't know what was weirder. How needy the goddess sounded? Or how creepy some of the pictures she sent looked.

Chapter Text

Project: Gamer Ver. 2 Alpha Build 0.3.1

Disclaimer Me Do: I own nothing you recognize. And most of what you don't recognize, I still don't own.

_________________________________________________________________________

Player One didn't know what she did to deserve this...

Alright, she did, but she wasn't sure about this in particular!

"Why are we heading to town instead of just leaving the zombie I.D.?" She was stuck following Alchemist, who apparently couldn't decide if he wanted to explode zombies with some weird, powerful black light thing.

Or turn them into toads.

"Well, the things we get here come back to the real world, right?" He didn't even stop walking and talking to turn the zombies into toads!

She was beginning to wonder if she'd picked wrong in going with a strength and dexterity build.

"Yeah?" It was practically the first thing she'd learned as a gamer!

"Alright. Well. I noticed there's a big strip mall at the edge of town that had a sporting goods store, and there was a jeweler on the other end. I want to get some samples of precious metals. And I also want a hunting rifle." Was he saying what she thought he was saying?

"You're going to rob those stores?!"

"What? No." Oh, good. "I'm going to loot those stores. Huge difference."

"No! There's not a huge difference!"

"Alright. Let's work this out using our brains here." God, he was such an asshole! "Who am I hurting?"

"The store owner?" Obviously!

"You mean the zombie. The undead shambling thing that's trying to eat you." He did pause this time as he blew up a large group of zombies. Likely so he wouldn't get coated in the... Stuff.

"No, I mean the real store owner! In the real world!" She wasn't even getting anything for this. The zombies were too low a level to get experience from, and without being in a party with Alchemist she couldn't get the loot drops either.

"Where the things we take will still be in the same place as the copy we've taken? Because we're not going to go do this to the real stores, just the copy here." Alright, he was making sense... But she still didn't like it.

She wanted to think of it first!

"Alright. I guess. So why do you need a hunting rifle?" They broke through the treeline into town.

Player One saw a red skinned zombie, eating a corpse in the middle of the road. She pulled out her bat and ran at it, but it ran off before she could reach it.

"I don't need a hunting rifle. I want a hunting rifle. Key difference. I was planning on going boar hunting, maybe try to get some coyotes. I'll need a lot of meat in the near future." She could already see the place he'd been talking about, Legacy Firearms and Coins.

And, yes, a little place at the other end of the strip mall called Sandy's Silversmithing.

"Well we need to hurry. The red zombie that ran off is the boss spawn." She tried to open the door to the store, but it was locked. She was about to pull out her bat when Alchemist stepped around her. She couldn't see what he did, but the door opened with zero issues for him.

"Huh. What's the mechanic behind it?" The place was absolutely loaded with guns, ammunition, knives, swords, bows and arrows and old, antique looking coins.

A trio of zombies stood up from behind a few merchandise shelves, but dropped to the ground as toads a moment later.

"It's kind of frustrating. The red zombie is called a Cannibal, and it eats other zombies. After it gets enough, it turns into a Corpsulant. After that eats enough other zombies, it starts to mutate into this thing called the Zombie Giant. Which is about as big as a pickup truck." Alchemist stopped inventorying absolutely everything for a moment and handed her a bow. A weird looking one with wheels on the ends.

"You're a sneak attack build, right? Bow and arrow are usually considered stealth weapons, got any bonuses for those?" She grabbed it and stared for a moment, turning Observe on it.

--Weapon: Compound Bow--
--Description: An advanced form of one of mans most basic weapons. Utilizes pulleys and tension to accelerate projectiles at incredible speeds!--
--Projectile Bonus: 1.5--
--Range Bonus: 1.2--
--Sneak Attack Bonus: 2.2--

"Yeah. How did you know? Did you Observe it?" Those were actually some very solid bonuses, much better than her bat.

"Nah. Don't have that skill. Or Gamer's Mind or Body, either." That didn't sound right. She'd hit him with Observe in the past, but it had recently gained another level. Maybe this time she'd get more.

--Name: Alchemist--
--Title: Alpha-Tester--
--Description: LOCKED! For administrator use only!
--Stats:
-Level: 21
HP: 700
MP: 322
-STR: 15
-VIT: 35
-DEX: 6
-AGI: 15
-INT: 43
-WIS: 43
-LUK: 7
--Threat rating: NaN

"Huh, weird. Your stats are really low." She tried to do the math before giving up quickly. "And I can't see your skills or abilities at all."

"Wow. My feelings. They hurt." He stopped inventorying black plastic jugs for a moment when they could feel the earth shaking underfoot. "Zombie Giant?"

"Yeah. Probably trying to catch more zombies to evolve into a Zombie Titan. You need to hurry up." He was practically sweeping his hands through the glass cases with coins on display, all of them going into his inventory.

Rather than leaving, like he should have now that the store was empty, he headed into the backroom. Against her better judgement, Player One followed him.

They found another zombie stuck between a desk and a chair, but it joined its brethren on the main floor in becoming a toad.

"Seriously, what is with you and turning everything into toads?"

"Well," He put his hands on a large gun safe, one hand turning the dial while another was placed next to it. "I have two offensive options. Toad and Flare. I can't speak for you, but I don't want what's effectively a bundle of dynamite going off next to me in a small room."

She had to admit, that was a very good point.

With a click, the large safe opened. Inside were two rifles and a large, very large, wad of cash. Alchemist inventoried the two guns and then handed her half of the wad.

He didn't even bother to count it!

It was two-thousand, seven-hundred and fifty-two dollars.

"Think we have enough time to hit the jeweler or do we need to deal with the Titan?" She... Really didn't like how he said that.

"We should go deal with the Titan. I've never fought the next stage, and I have a really hard time with the Titan anyway. The only good part of these things is that it multiplies the experience of every zombie it's eaten before we kill it." The last time she'd done it, it involved trapping it in the quarry outside of Gotham and teaching herself how to use an excavator.

There weren't enough showers to get that mess off of her.

"Alright. Ladies first." He waved towards the front door as he spoke.

She didn't dignify him with a verbal response.

Finding the Zombie Titan was fairly easy. It stood head and shoulders above the nearest building, its limbs and torso disgustingly bloated and distended.

Watching something ripple inside its abdomen left her shuddering viscerally.

"Well, I suppose we should perform an Attack on Titan." Alchemist said from the space next to her. "How much HP does it have?"

"About twenty-thousand."

"Cool. How much damage did I do when I cast Flare on a normal zombie?" Player One turned to properly face him as the Titan was picking up and eating another lesser zombie.

"You don't know?" Alchemist shook his head no. "About sixteen hundred."

"Huh. Neat. I bet I can kill that in less than a minute then." This... This audacious asshole!

"It took me two hours to kill the last one!"

"Yeah, well, it sucks to suck. And I just got a quest for it. Neat." He raised his hand up and tapped a spot in the air, right where she knew a quest prompt would be.

She turned back to look at the Zombie Titan as she heard the first explosion happening.

No, she realized as she stared. Sixteen smaller explosions all at once, all across its body and limbs. Each one doing four-hundred hit points of damage.

The titan stumbled, listing into a building on its right as another salvo hit it.

Ten seconds in, almost halfway dead already!

She really did choose the wrong build!

It fell flat on its back as the third wave of black explosions surrounded it.

The fourth was barely necessary.

"Alright. Gonna be honest here. Kinda disappointed." Alchemist was lazily looking at his popups as he said that.

Like he hadn't just murdered a raid boss like it was a normal zombie!

"Yeah, that-" There was an explosive squelch, like something soft and wet was being folded and sucked through a straw.

She turned back around to look at the corpse of the Zombie Titan. She did not like what she saw.

One massive skeletal arm had torn its way free of its abdomen. The thin, bony hand settled on the ground in between the corpses legs before another ripped itself loose.

Four fresh arms eventually ripped their way free of the body, looking for all the world like some demented, undead skeleton spider. It was ghastly and gory, blood and other fluids dripping from the massive gash that used to be a stomach.

And it wasn't done.

As it rose back up, standing backwards on all of its hands, two more finally broke free of the bloody hole that had been the belly of the beast. They placed themselves on the sides, grabbing on to exposed ribs, and finally pulled free a fresh, bloody torso. Red, dripping muscles exposed without skin and empty, milky eyes locking on to her and Alchemist.

"So." Her companion started. "What's this one called?"

She hit it with Observe but didn't have a chance to speak before it was barreling down on them.

She felt Alchemist grab her arm and they -Shifted-, going from the street to the roof of a nearby church behind the thing. Her HP dropped to a bit above half before she felt his restorative magic top her back off.

"It's called a Zombie Hivelord. And it has eighty-thousand hit points."

"Huh." Alchemist pulled a nectarine out of his inventory and started eating it.

"That thing you did last time? I don't think it'll work." That had to have been expensive, there was no way he had the stamina to do it not just again, but another twelve times as well.

"Well, I mean, it probably would. But I think I've got a better idea this time." The hivelord locked its blind eyes on them and charged.

Alchemist teleported them again.

And it still sucked.

"And I bet I can still do it in less than a minute." She watched him accept the quest for his bold claim with wide eyes.

And then... Nothing.

"Are you-" The hivelord must've heard her voice, it jumped into the air and turned around with more agility than she'd been expecting. "-going to do anything?"

It was hard to measure steps when the thing had more arms than a demented spider, but it was almost upon them when it happened.

More specifically, when it turned into a toad and dropped to the ground.

"You-you're kidding, right?" She followed behind him as Alchemist picked the toad-lord up. "You seriously turned a raid boss into a toad?"

"Yes. Yes I did. His name is now Zombles. Zombles the toad!" He was holding the toad against his chest.

Did he even get experience for that?

"Please tell me you're not going to keep it?" There was insane, and then there was... There was... She didn't even have words for that!

"Absolutely! It's a surprise tool that'll help us later!" Watching him amble off to the jeweler, Player One couldn't help a soft, manic laugh.

Alchemist was absolutely, completely, inexcusably insane.

He had to be.

Chapter Text

Project: Gamer Ver. 2 Alpha Build 0.3.2

Disclaimer Me Do: I own nothing you recognize. And most of what you don't recognize, I still don't own.

_________________________________________________________________________

Leslie didn't really get any sleep after his experience in the Illusion Dungeon.

He wasn't anxious, or nervous, excited or some such thing, he'd been busy. He'd rekindled the fire from a few dying coals so he could get enough light to read by.

His eyes might glow in the dark, but they aren't that bright!
He'd tried that.

He had a lot of spellbooks he needed to read, but after getting a pocket nuke picking up the petrification spell had turned into a high priority.

The failure rate of the spell was truly abysmal but luckily Zombles wasn't going anywhere. He'd wondered if he was getting it right, but the spell had been leveling up even as it missed, up until it midway through level four when it landed.

He hadn't been able to put a toad into his inventory, apparently it couldn't hold living things. A toad -statue- on the other hand suffered no such restrictions.

After that he'd idled away a few hours before sunrise, burning his MP periodically to convert his metal scraps into living steel and sorting out the loot he'd gotten.

One-hundred thousand GP for his 'Boast' quests in dropping the raid bosses in under a minute each, as well as ten free stat points to put where he wanted. Absolutely worth it, and definitive proof that the metamagic perks were amazing.

The normal rewards were received as well, which had been an additional fifty-thousand GP and a lot of very unpleasant items.
Like Zombie Tongues.
And Rotting Teeth.
And the blueprint for a weapon called 'The Plaguebreaker' which was a bat studded with rotting teeth and he just noped on out of that one.

He'd also gotten a blueprint for a piece of Zombie Leather gear and discovered why Player One was so hard to hear. The set bonus was a ninety percent reduction to all sound, and a twenty-five percent reduction to overall detection.

The real kicker had been the experience. Like Player One had said, the normal zombies didn't offer much experience.
Or, well, any experience. They probably couldn't give any to a Gamer at or above level twenty. The bosses though?

Eight levels.

Eight levels, putting him up to twenty-nine. Which meant forty stat points from those. Fifty in all. He bolstered his vitality by ten points, and then put twenty each into his Intelligence and Wisdom. Forty-five vitality, so nine-hundred HP. Sixty-three intelligence, four-hundred and seventy-two MP. Wisdom was the same, skyrocketing his MP regeneration up to ninety-four percent per hour.

Finally, he picked up the last of the metamagic perks. Entanglement. It would let him cast a spell on part of an object to have an effect on the whole of an object.

As an example, if he had the license plate of a car, he could cast haste on the car from anywhere in the world, so long as he had the license plate on hand. Or as another way to say it, this was the perk that would let him use the 'Voodoo doll' effect.

At this point, he wasn't actually sure what else to get.

Summoner's Pact? It would double the duration of any magical minions, or else cut the perpetuation cost in half. That could be amazing... If he had any magical minions.

Crafter's Luck? A twenty-five percent chance to get a duplicate item when using a crafting skill...

Yeah, Leslie got that.

Once the sun started coming up, he got moving. He could overthink about what he wasn't planning to get later.

Cooking breakfast for a bunch of kids over a campfire wouldn't exactly be hard, but he'd need more time to cook for Kid Flash too.

Luckily all he needed was a single cast-iron dutch oven...

-----

"Robin come on, breakfast is ready." Were the first words that Dick really heard that morning.

He rolled over and grabbed the sunglasses he'd been using to try and mask his identity. He rolled his shoulders as much as he could in the small space, trying to get sore muscles to loosen up, and crawled out of the tent.

He was the second person up.

Well, third if you counted the cook.

Power Girl was apparently helping Alchemist get the others up to eat. She was trying to get M'gann to get out of bed.

It didn't look like it was going too well.

"Hey Robin, wanna get Kid Flash? I'll wake up Kaldur." It was a simple enough request, and Robin couldn't really complain about it.

A few moments later, Robin wanted to complain about it.

Kid Flash was apparently a heavy sleeper.

Robin tried talking at him. Yelling at him. Shaking him!

Nothing worked!

"Hey Robin!" Alchemist yelled from outside the tent. "If he's not out in ten seconds, I'm giving his food to M'gann!"

And Robin got knocked over by Kid Flash rolling out of his sleeping bag and running out of the tent at superspeed.

He should've thought of that!

Alchemist handed him a thin metal bowl filled with eggs with red and green chunks in it once he'd gotten back out and sat down. It had a crushed biscuit sitting on top.

"What's in this?" For camp food it didn't exactly look bad, but Bruce had a thing about knowing what you were putting into you.

"Eggs, peppers, bacon and sun-dried tomato." Alchemist said as he offered him a jug of milk.

Robin shook his head no and took a bite.

Salty, greasy but it was pretty tasty.

After everyone else was served, Alchemist sat down with his own bowl.

"Hey, Kid Flash. Been thinking about something." He was using his fork to tear apart the biscuit and mix chunks of it into his egg.

" 'bout wha'?" The speedster said around a mouthful of food.

"The whole Garrick formula thing I offered yesterday." Robin put his fork down when he heard that. Batman -needed- to hear about this, so he was going to listen carefully.

"You're backing out." Sounded like an accusation.

"Nah, that's not it." Alchemist didn't even slow down.

Which was an odd dynamic, because Kid Flash had stopped eating.

"So what is it then? Decide you -do- want to use it for yourself? 'Cuz that ain't cool buddy."

"Kid Flash, he-" Aqualad tried to interrupt.

"Actually, I was going to ask if we should maybe get some lab mice and test it first." But Alchemist interrupted him instead.

"What do you mean? Why test it?" Now Wally sounded confused, but he started eating again.

"Well, it's been used three different times and gotten three different results. Similar, sure, but different." Alchemist paused to take a bite and chew his food. "For all that you guys say it's scientific, it hasn't actually been put through the scientific process."

Kid Flash finished his bowl and got seconds while the team digested that.

"So." Robin had to be the one to ask the obvious question. "You're suggesting we give superpowers to mice?"

"Yep." Alchemist put his fork down. "And then we spend a week recording how much they eat, how much they poop, how energetic they are. All that good stuff. Then we use the corrected formula and spend another week doing it again."

Wally seemed to spend a good deal of time thinking about it while he ate. "I don't think the Flash will like that."

"I don't think I care." Well, there wasn't a lot Robin could really say about that.

"Okay, so... What are you trying to figure out with this?" M'gann asked from where she was sandwiched between Superboy and Powergirl.

"Well, the scientific method starts with a question. Then we gather data, develop a series of tests, record our data and see what relation it has to our question. On that front I have two very simple questions that I think need answered before we move on to near-human experimentation." Here Alchemist waved at Kid Flash.

"Hey wait! What are you trying to say with that 'Near Human' crap?!"

"Well, I mean, you -are- a ginger." Almost as one everyone turned to look at Wally before turning back to stare at Alchemist.

"Okay, you know what? That's fair." Wally held a straight face for just a moment before snickering into his hand.

"But seriously" Alchemist continued. "We've got two important questions. The first being 'Will the corrected Garrick formula fix Kid Flash'."

"What?" For the first time since her deprogramming, Robin heard Power Girl speak out loud. Her voice was surprisingly soft, and clearly uncertain. "What's the second question?"

"I'm so glad you asked, Power Girl." Alchemist was lacking the sarcastic air he normally held when he said those words. "The second question is probably more important than the first. It goes 'Will double dipping on superspeed be harmful to someone's health'."

"That's not what you were gonna say!" M'gann practically shouted.

"So? She finally spoke up and I'm trying to encourage that!" Alchemist sounded indignant, but he was smiling.

So was M'gann.

"No! You were going to say 'Will too much superspeed give Kid Flash super ass cancer'!"

"It's the same question!"

"Wait, wait, dude. Stop! Why were you thinking about my ass?" Kid Flash managed to get their attention back on him instead of yelling at each other.

"Oh. Huh, right. Kid Flash, I need you to understand something. It's really important, and I hope you aren't uncomfortable around me after this, but..." Kid Flash was already looking more and more uncomfortable as Alchemist was talking.

M'gann, on the other hand, was trying and failing not to laugh.

"I need you to know. No Homo." There was a moment of collective silence...

And then Wally threw his empty bowl at Alchemist and shouted "You ass!"

AN/ A little early, but you all deserve a present from time to time.

Chapter Text

Project: Gamer Ver. 2 Alpha Build 0.3.3

Disclaimer Me Do: I own nothing you recognize. And most of what you don't recognize, I still don't own.

_________________________________________________________________________

Leslie ended up waking up around One in the afternoon.

He'd gone to a different empty apartment building and got himself set up, did his dishes and passed out.

At this point, he didn't really know what he needed to do. He had a list, but it had gotten pretty long.

He needed to read the rest of his spellbooks, sort through all of the stuff he'd acquired, determine whatever other perks he needed to choose... And that was strictly on the Gamer front of things.

And he needed to add grabbing a copy of Mind Blank to that list, seeing as psychics were a thing here and he apparently couldn't keep his thought to himself. He wasn't actually upset about M'gann calling him out for his thought crimes, but the others out there could be a lot worse.

On the local issues... Well, that could be a bit more problematic. He couldn't remember the order things happened in, and he hadn't caught every episode anyway. So he was going to have to work off of context clues.

One of his bigger weaknesses.

Regardless, this was his day off to work on his own projects. Short of someone getting seriously hurt, the Justice League and its problems could wait.

Cracking open his spelltome of Haste, Leslie got to work.

-----

Okay, you know what? Superspeed is weird.

It had taken him about forty minutes to get through the book because some of the terminology was just convoluted, but he'd been able to cast it without any issues.

He was currently existing at a little over twice his normal speed and everything was just... Off.

Sounds weren't right, moving things didn't go well, and he tried to shower with superspeed on and it...

Had been a wet, slippery mess that involved water flying a lot further than he'd expected.

Speed times force equals power, and he'd multiplied half of that equation.

And this was just at level one! He didn't want to imagine how absurd it would be at its maximum level of sixteen!

He couldn't deny, it would be incredibly useful... But he still didn't like it. Attempting to do -anything- demanded more care and caution than he was used to.

Maybe if he could control it, dial it up and down as he wanted, he could see the appeal to having it as a permanent superpower. But with how his spells were literally just on and off? He wouldn't recommend it.

Casting it on his laptop had given him some interesting results though! It had been able to operate at twice the normal speed, and began chewing through its battery just a bit faster than it could charge.

It couldn't load webpages any faster than normal, and it shut off from overheating after about fifteen minutes, but it was fifteen minutes where it was running like it was a brand new Lexbook!

The last half hour (Fifteen minutes) of his time he spent reading the skill book for MP Boost. That one had been... Odd.

Leslie was going to go with odd.

It required that he create a sort of pseudo-soul space around himself that he could fill with his own magic.

Except he didn't know how to do that.

Trying to imagine his magic around himself did nothing. Closing his eyes and trying to meditate on it did just as much. Imagining his magic as something solid and trying to push that deeper into himself did do something!

It sent him to the bathroom.

He didn't want to admit it, but he lacked either the context or the skill to do what the book was describing. Which was... Frustrating.

Instead he hit himself with Haste again and finished off his current list of spell books, Berserk, Shell, Curse and Holy.

It was boring, but so long as he was careful while he turned the pages it was a good way to get that done.

It was closing in on Four in the afternoon when Leslie got done with that, he'd let his MP regenerate, now it was time to go and do something productive!

Pulling an old silver coin out of his inventory, he made a decision. Heads he'd get started with Strange, buffalo he'd figure out what to do with Freeze.

He flicked the coin up into the air and...

-----

Oswald Cobblepot had gotten out of the game.

Not the -Crime- game, heavens no! But he'd gotten out of the part where he personally did stupid things that inevitably got the Batman involved.

It turns out that, if you're not stealing valuable specimens or relics from the museum and actively being a public nuisance? The caped crusader had better things to deal with.

Most nights anymore he really just ended up watching the dishonestly wealthy mingle and give their money away from his office, his own criminal empire almost ran itself.

The benefits of management and making an effort to hire -and retain- talented people.

He was brought out of his musings as he heard a knock on his door. A quick glance at a nearby monitor showed it was Jeffrey, one of his doormen.

"Enter!" The man waited just a moment before doing so. He stopped directly in front of Oswald's desk, his back straight and eyes forward.

An honorably discharged veteran, with a few anger issues that kept him from having a job on the 'Right' side of the law. Most of the Penguin's visible muscle came from similar backgrounds.

"Sir. We've got a kid out front, asking to be let in." Oswald flipped through his security feeds before finding the one in question. A young man, blond with bright blue eyes, was standing right in front of Ronald.

"I somehow doubt he's old enough to be here." Did he actually care about the legal drinking age? Absolutely not. But if the law could be used to keep the riffraff out from under foot he'd gladly use it.

"He claims he wants to ask for information. He gave me these to offer as incentive." Jeffrey put a pair of coins on the desk and Oswald's face dropped in a sneer.

If the kid seriously thought anyone would be bought off for...

He took a closer look at the coins.

Silver Eagles.

Holding one in his palm, the weight felt right.

Two of these had a value that wasn't even up to one-hundred dollars, but if they were just the incentive...

"Send him on up. Have Ronald escort him." Oswald took a look at a few papers as Jeffrey left. Earnings on his more lucrative 'Businesses' had dropped recently and he wanted to make sure it was in line with his predictions or if there was an outside factor he'd need to look for.

And if the boy had meant the coins as some kind of threat, there would have been thirty of them.

Of course he knew about theme villains! He was one of them, after all.

Moments into a report from a street level vendor he heard a knock on the door. He didn't even bother to check who it was as he yelled for them to enter.

The boy walked into the room while Ronald remained at the door. The man made eye contact with Cobblepot for a moment before closing the door when he received no subtle or trained cues.

He would remain right outside the door in case Oswald needed any intervention. Or, more likely, the boy needed to be escorted out of his nightclub.

The boy, rather contrary to Oswald's expectations, simply stood in place silently and looked out the window over the club as he continued to review his paperwork.

"Well." Cobblepot finally said, adjusting his monocle as he looked up. "If you're looking for information, I may be able to provide it. For a modest fee, of course. What is it that you need?"

The boy relaxed, just a smidge, but noticeable enough.

"I'm looking to collect a few things, I was hoping I could get the name of a good fixer." Not the most common term for a middleman that Cobblepot had ever heard, but still one he knew.

It was also a good sign that the boy wasn't asking him to do such menial work. He'd entertained such ludicrous notions in the past only so long as it took to remind a particular patron that -he- was the villain in the room.

"I'm sorry, I don't think I know-" The boy reached halfway across his desk, leaving behind a single coin.

Gold.

"-what your price range is."

Chapter Text

Project: Gamer Ver. 2 Alpha Build 0.3.4

Disclaimer Me Do: I own nothing you recognize. And most of what you don't recognize, I still don't own.

_________________________________________________________________________

Thursday morning rolled in and Leslie was in Mount Justice before the sun had risen.

And apparently beaten Batman, too. He never thought he'd see the day.

He was situated in the main hall, two books open in front of him on the main terminal and a calico cat purring on his lap.

Leslie had finally gotten around to checking his massive, massive backlog of notifications and found that, like Player One in Zombieland, he'd stopped getting experience for the cats killing vermin in Gotham.

He was still getting GP, but that had slowed down to a trickle. Apparently, the cats' Prowler skill, which was just a fancy name for stealth, was based on their dexterity and agility. Which were both sitting at twenty-nine, compared to the normal one. Add in that their Pounce attack does damage based on those same stats, plus a sneak attack bonus...

Well, in short, several city blocks in Gotham were running a little short on things like mice, rats and all sorts of small insects.

And a chihuahua named Yapper.

He'd managed to catch three of the five cats, though he'd had to Convert the metal grill of a carrier to Darksteel after the cats had literally cut open the grate. Then he'd brought them to the edge of the cave, near where the kids had set up camp the other day, and let them go.

Normally he'd be opposed to that on principal alone... But the animals could probably kill their way out of an animal shelter. And likely survive any attempt to put them down that didn't involve a metahuman.

Which he'd still say would be about fifty-fifty, depending on the metahuman involved.

This particular cat, the Calico, had her name listed in his party as Awtum. Which he assumed meant Autumn.

One of the Red Lanterns of Earth was a cat named Dex-Starr, who had initially been named Dexter by his human.

Then there was Teekl, the familiar and anchor of the evil unchild, Klarion the Witch Boy. Leslie assumed that cats name was actually Tickle, or perhaps Tickles. That would, strangely enough, fit Klarion's chaotic sense of humor.

Regardless, Awtum was a little sweetheart. Really. She'd followed him back into Mt. Justice and hopped on his lap when he pulled out a few books to work on.

He had a spellbook in front of him, written in braille, and a normal notebook he was transcribing it into in plain written English.

'And it was so that Artur, firstborn of the Sun, did say unto his father
"My love for this mortal woman burns greater than the magicks of brother Seath!"
"I ask now of you, father, not that she be granted the flame of your divine spirit."
"But that my own soul be stricken, that I may live a mortal life beside her!"
'And thus was Gwynn, he who is the Sun, keeper and kindling of the first flame, enraged.'
'To have his child, second coming of the Sun, keeper of Lightning and tamer of Dragons, turn his back upon him.'
'Was an affront far beyond what he could dare to allow.'
'Gwynn struck the woman down before his son, consumed her in flame 'till nought but ash remained.'
'Yet still her Human soul lingered.'
'It reached out to Artur as it faded, loving words on dead lips lost to the wind.'
'And Artur held this Human soul in his hand. Her ashes beneath his feet.'
'His sorrow called the storm. His faithful dragon cried among the sky.'
'And he felt fury.'
'Her fading soul touched his spear, and it was touched with Mortality'
'He struck his father. For the first time.'
'For the last time.'
'And Gwynn was rebuked.'
'Cut deeper than steel.'
'Carved deep into flesh.'
'Humanity was driven into the divine soul.'
'And it knew pain.'
'Flames erupted from the father.'
'As the Accursed Son.'
'Left the throne of the Kiln for the final time.'

All of that to learn a single spell. It had literally taken him close to two hours for all of that. Called Dark Blade, it would infuse a weapon with dark magic that could help in penetrating divine defenses. Or any defenses, but it was 'Profane' damage. There were two other spells hidden in the prayer book, but Leslie didn't think he'd have much need of the ability to booby-trap corpses. The other one, which rendered all spells inert for a few moments, might be worth translating though.

It took a bit more work than normal, but the Londor Braille Divine Tome cost all of fifty GP. If he'd bought the spell itself, that would've cost him Ten-thousand GP.

There was more to the story, about how Artur had his name taken from him and went on to become an undying war god, but the important part had already been transcribed.

He'd still need to pick up the other three imbuement spells, but that could wait.

"Why do you have a cat here?" Batman had finally arrived.

"Because it's a super cat." Leslie pushed the cat off of his lap and pulled out a laser pointer.

"Somehow I doubt that." Robin tried to snark at him. He stepped out of the way when the cat zig-zagged around his feet and went running at the wall.

"Alchemist, the Justice League is not a-" Batman was cut off by the sound of stone being carved into.

He turned to the side to look at the cat, happily pawing at a little red dot.

A quartet of gouges in the stone wall behind it.

"...A super cat." Player One said from behind the caped crusader.

Leslie had missed her entirely.

He was going to blame her equipment bonus for that.

"Yeah, so, funny thing about my power." Alchemist started to say as he brought Awtum back over to him. "It kinds lets me grow stronger through beating things. By, like, turning them into toads. Which is what I prefer."

"Or." Alchemist continued. "Killing stuff. Not a huge fan of that option though."

"Are you still trying to convince us you have video game powers?" Wally asked as he walked into the room.

"Sorta, yeah. I was just getting to the part where I used a bunch of cats to farm experience from killing level one mice." Maybe calling them level one mice wasn't helping?

"Calling them that really isn't helping your case, bro." Alchemist nodded in understanding. Having confirmation for what he suspected would be useful in the future.

"Alchemist. How many cats are involved in this?" And back to Bruce, getting on track with the important part.

"Well, I've managed to catch three out of five. The other two are still in Gotham." It was fascinating watching the stress work its way through Batman. His face remained stoic, but he would clench his fists and his neck would tighten up.

"...We'll deal with that after the mission assignment." He finally ground out.

"Deal with what after the mission assignment?" Miss Martian asked as she entered the room.

Alchemist sighed. Maybe he should've put more effort into catching the other two.

"Alchemist accidentally made a gang of supercats." Robin told her.

Leslie could see Aqualad was coming into the room, which meant the whole thing would start up all over again.

Yay.

Chapter Text

Project: Gamer Ver. 2 Alpha Build 0.3.5

Disclaimer Me Do: I own nothing you recognize. And most of what you don't recognize, I still don't own.

_________________________________________________________________________

"The Island of Santa Prisca-" Batman began after all of the kids were assembled. "-stopped producing the enhancement steroid Venom near the end of last month. Recent sattelite imaging however would suggest that either the island has come under the control of another criminal enterprise, or else Bane has resumed production for reasons unknown."

A series of low resolution pictures flicked across the screen behind him. It was a square, with a couple of other squares around it. And some smaller squares were pulled up to it that might be generously called trucks.

Hologram technology existed, there was no good excuse for this kind of image quality.

"This was the main production facility-" The image focused on the largest block. "-and beginning just a few days ago it resumed production after being inactive for the last two weeks."

About this time, Leslie stopped paying close attention. He did have another issue to take care of.

--FROM: Ultra-powerful best goddess Terra-Tan!--
--So, as an Alpha Tester, you've actually got some other responsibilities you need to take care of. Like telling me how you're enjoying the game, issues you've come across and various exploits that may need to be patched.--

--TO: Ultra-powerful best goddess Terra-Tan!--
--Well, when I tried to open the settings menu, it glitched so bad it caused VP damage before crashing.
Not sure if this is a bug, but I've put a bunch of wild animals in my party. Only ended up being a short term benefit though before I couldn't gain any experience from the local vermin.
Recently tried to purchase a skill from the Game Shop, but it said I needed Gamer's Mind. Might need to figure out a workaround if you're going to avoid using Gamer's Mind in the future.
Metamagic: Pierce might be a bit OP? I've got a raid boss sitting in my inventory thanks to it.
Not a fan of the setting, too grimdark and the win conditions are pretty iffy. Gamer system is otherwise alright though.--

The computer stating "Zero-Eight, Green Arrow" broke him out of his thoughts.

"B-Zero-Six, Speedy" However fully caught his attention. Neither of the two had been heard from since the whole Cadmus incident.

At least, not that Leslie was aware of.

It definitely caught the attention of the people around him, too. Batman paused his mission briefing as they waited to see if Green Arrow would be joining them.

Several minutes went by before the Robin Hood cosplayer did, in fact, show up. The man in question did not look like he'd been taking especially good care of himself. The goatee was significantly less manicured that normal and there was a pallor to his skin that was clearly unhealthy.

Give the man a makeup team and twenty minutes, it'd all be hidden. Nothing that would be too difficult to hide... So he clearly wasn't worried about it too much.

Speedy on the other hand was looking much better.

Still one-handed, yeah, but he wasn't on ice at this point.

Batman was looking at the older blonde man, his expression inscrutable. "Green Arrow." His voice was calm and even. "You were not expected today."

"Yeah, I know." Oliver sounded exhausted. "I'm still handling the fallout for that Cadmus mess."

Behind him, Speedy waved with the one hand he had left.

"One of these kids, they're a healer right? I need to know if they can do anything for Speedy." Well, the man was good about getting to the point at least.

"That's me. And unless you've got the rest of him on ice somewhere? Probably not. I can still try though." Alchemist stood up from his seat and began walking to them.

"Alchemist. We're not done." Batman did not seethe. But he did try to loom menacingly. It worked fairly well inside of the dimly lit cave with the massive screen behind him.

"I know. But it's not like I'm going on the mission anyway." This would either be espionage or combat.

Considering the kids in question? Likely both.

He was halfway to the door behind the archer and a half when he heard M'gann asking a question.

"Batman? What is a 'Hispanic leather daddy'? And why does Alchemist think we're going to check on yours?" It was asked with absolute innocence, something Leslie was fairly sure the girl couldn't fake yet.

He hurried out of the room.

-----

"So you can't do anything to fix-" Speedy waved his stump in front of himself as they walked. "-this?"

"Probably not, especially not yet. If you've got phantom pains, maybe muscle problems, I might be able to do something. If you get a prosthetic or graft, I should be able to help with that." There wasn't really any point in giving the kid false hope.

"You mean like pulling an arm off a corpse, kid? I don't think we can really go for that." Green Arrow sounded resigned, and definitely tired.

"Well, that's one option, yes. The genomorphs might be able to just grow an arm. They grew a Kryptonian, after all." Which was incredibly fascinating, moreso than Leslie thought the others could really understand. Depending on how much of the DC movies made their way into the cartoon and comic book realities, that would mean Kryptonian DNA was heavily black-boxed.

They walked on in silence for a good while before coming to the common area, one of the various rooms Alchemist had barely spent any time in.

"Hey Red, not interrupting you are we?" Oliver asked the android.

Leslie hadn't actually been introduced yet. Either an oversight on Batman's part, or everyone was just too busy.

"You are not." Leslie waited for a moment, but Red Tornado had nothing else to say.

Green Arrow moved into the room and sat down on a large, L-shaped couch. Speedy next to him and Alchemist across from them both.

"So kid, Alchemist. How's this thing work? You just wave your hands, do some hoodoo and make people all better?" As much as Leslie disliked someone else pulling his schtick with sarcasm, that was basically correct.

"Kind of, yeah. Gonna need two dead chickens and a mummified llama fetus for this one." Best way to handle someone else being sarcastic? Play along.

"Wait, what?" Speedy must have been thrown off by the fetus comment.

"Sorry, that's the ritual for good luck. I thought you might need a hand with that." Alchemist fired back. "Nah, but seriously, yeah. I just do this-"

Leslie snapped his fingers at Green Arrow, casting Esuna on him.

"And bam, magical healing."

Chapter Text

Project: Gamer Ver. 2 Alpha Build 0.3.6

Disclaimer Me Do: I own nothing you recognize. And most of what you don't recognize, I still don't own.

_________________________________________________________________________

"How are you two feeling? Any aches, pains, lingering whispers of madness at the edge of your perception?" Leslie asked after finishing up with the two archers.

"Well, I'm still tired. Not exhausted though, so I'll take it for what it is." Green Arrow said as he stretched out his arms.

Batman had done something similar, back when he'd been healed. He'd stretched out his hands and clenched his fists and looked at them, really looked at them.

"It... It doesn't hurt anymore." Speedy was being a bit more obvious with the difference.

Like Leslie had thought, he couldn't restore a missing limb. Esuna, Life and Cure were mostly field dressings, great at doing a quick patch up but they weren't the near-divine restoration spells that could regrow limbs wholesale.

He'd have to look into those. Regenerate was a dungeons and dragons spell, wasn't it?

Oliver looked askance at his apprentice, obviously having picked up on those words. "I thought you said you were okay now?"

"I thought I was!" Speedy seemed more surprised than defensive. "It just, everything below my elbow just relaxed. It feels, felt like I was clenching my fist, just really hard and all the time. But my arm, my hand-"

He waved his stump. "How was I supposed to be clenching something I don't even have?"

"I don't know, Speedy. I didn't even know it was bothering you!" Green Arrow seemed stricken.

As though he should have miraculously known what a teenager wasn't telling him.

...Leslie chose to move on from that line of thinking. Guilt and grief didn't enjoy playing well with logic or reason.

"How about you, Red Tornado? Want me to throw the healing spells at you and see how they treat ya?" He instead asked the android who'd been waiting and watching near the entrance of the room.

"...It would be advisable to experience the effects in a controlled and safe environment, yes. Please allow me to situate myself adequately before attempting anything, however." The couch noticeably sagged under the robots weight as he sat down. "Very well. Please proceed."

Leslie snapped his fingers, starting with Cure.

"I registered a very minor energy fluctuation. Was this one of your healing spells?"

"Yeah, basic one for fixing most injuries. I'll move on to the one for fixing severe injuries, one moment." Leslie again snapped his fingers, this time using Life.

"That was a most curious sensation. I feel... Encouraged. Is this why you asked Green Arrow and Speedy if they were experiencing anomalous auditory input?"

"It was one of my many poor attempts at humor, actually. Alright, last of the standard spells. This one removes negative influences. Parasites, viruses, diseases and poisons and mind control, as well as a significant number of curses and other minor ailments." Leslie focused on Esuna and snapped his fingers.

"...How very odd. My processing has become slightly more efficient."

"Computer virus, maybe?"

"Perhaps. Do you have any other healing spells you wish to test on me?"

"Just one. It's a repair spell instead of a healing spell, so it might have a bigger impact on your body compared to the healing spells. Or you're just in good enough shape the healing spells didn't have any work to do. Tough call." Once again, Leslie snapped his fingers. This time it covered Red Tornado in a golden glow.

It lingered, much longer than it did when Leslie had used it on his clothes or Player One's bat.

"Anything?" Leslie asked as the color faded, Speedy and Green Arrow both watching closely.

"I am uncertain. I will inform you of any noteworthy changes after I next perform maintenance." After several long moments of surprisingly comfortable silence, the android stood up. "I apologize, but I do have duties to attend to. Alchemist, I am the designated 'Den Mother' for the team. Should you need anything, please feel free to contact me."

Watching him leave the room, Alchemist stood as well.

"I suppose I should head back to the mission room, mission control, whatever. Pretty sure Batman's not gonna be happy I stood him up." Green Arrow was the next up, and then Speedy as well.

"Yeah, maybe not my best idea. He tends to get surly if things don't go his way." Oliver said as he started walking to the door.

"Surly? I'm betting he's going to send me back to Gotham to catch stray cats or something for his dominatrix furry side-chick." One, two, three...

"Hold on, what?" Green Arrow actually stopped in the middle of the hall as he processed that statement.

"Y'know, Catwoman?" Alchemist was honestly wishing he'd let Speedy walk in front of him, his expression would've been golden.

"And you refer to Bane as Batman's leather daddy... Do you have an inappropriate reference to all of his villains?"

"Actually yes." And they hadn't been hard to think of, either.

"Alright, this I've got to hear. Poison Ivy?"

"Unwashed hippy vegan activist." Which really wasn't fair. Pamela Isley did a very good job on her personal hygiene.

"Two-Face?"

"When good boys go Chad."

Speedy behind him was snickering.

"Alright. Scarecrow." Did Oliver really think he was going to get tripped up on that one?

"Bad Molly."

"Okay, that one's not bad. How about The Joker? You can't have a good one for the Joker."

"Yandere-chan."

"Yandere, yandere, yandere..." The blonde archer muttered to himself for a moment as they walked. "Alright. I can see it. I wish I couldn't, but I can see it."

They reached mission control to find that there were only three people left, Batman and the two Kryptonian clones. The rest had apparently gone on the mission.

"Alchemist. I'm glad you saw fit to rejoin us." The caped crusader ground out in his usual gravelly tone.

"No problem, always happy to help." The dark knight's hooded eyes glared at Leslie's own.

Thankfully he had his goggles on.

"I intend on training you to man the console for the times the main team will be on critical missions, though it seems that will have to wait. Power girl will show you what to do when you return from your own task. Superboy will be taking today with the Martian Manhunter to finish his deprogramming." Well, that all seemed reasonable.

"Alright. What's my task supposed to be?"

"You'll be tracking and capturing the remaining stray cats in Gotham." At Batman's words Leslie slowly and purposefully turned to make eye contact with Green Arrow.

The man looked utterly baffled.

"What? Batman, you can't be-" Oliver started, only to be interrupted by Leslie.

"I'll get right on that, then. I'll be back shortly." Grinning at the confused expressions on both of the archers faces, Leslie simply raised up his hand.

And disappeared with a snap of his fingers.

Chapter Text

Project: Gamer Ver. 2 Alpha Build 0.3.7

Disclaimer Me Do: I own nothing you recognize. And most of what you don't recognize, I still don't own.

_________________________________________________________________________

It didn't actually take Leslie too terribly long to catch the remaining cats. The hardest part would have been identifying them... But he had an answer to that.

Cat videos.

He'd made a quick video of each cat he put into his party using his phone. The only criteria he'd cared for at the time was that the animals looked to be older and, more importantly, were friendly.

Making a super-powered angry feral cat had seemed like a bad idea at the time. Closing in on level thirty, it sounded a lot worse.

So a half an hour after he left, Leslie returned to Mount Justice.

Batman had left, Superboy had left, Red Tornado was off somewhere in parts unknown and he was supposed to get a mostly mute girl to explain to him how to do a job.

This could be a test for him. It could be a test for Power Girl. It could be completely meaningless.

"So what all am I supposed to do?" Leslie finally asked.

"Not much." She said quietly. "We just watch the monitor in case the team calls us. Then we answer them or call whichever member of the Justice League they need."

She was right, that really wasn't much.

"..Hey." Leslie started after about thirty minutes of nothing happening. "Do you mind if I ask you a question?"

"...I don't know what dating is, and I'm not interested in learning." Came the blonde girls answer a moment later.

"Not what I was going to ask, but now I have more questions." The frustrating thing was, Leslie was pretty sure he already knew some of the answers.

"Oh." She was just silent after that.

"Why isn't anyone letting Player One hear criticism when she's training?" That had been bothering him for almost two days now. She hadn't mentioned any kind of affection or friendship system in her game, and Terra had seemed opposed to them as well.

"Robin and Kid Flash said that only villains need therapy." Given what Leslie knew of their gallery of rogues, he could see their bias. "So they said we need to make her feel welcome and happy so she stops going."

And that was a problem.

"That's not how that works." That's not how any of that works!

No, no. Don't yell at her. Power Girl is only relaying a message.

"It's not?" For the first time all day she had finally looked away from the monitor.

"No. No it's not. Therapy is supposed to help people deal with trauma, depression or other emotional issues so they can try to live a more balanced, healthier life." Leslie would know. A lifetime ago he'd been forced into anger management.

"That makes sense, I guess. I didn't understand why we had a villain on the team."

...Goddamnit, guys.

Grabbing the mouse, Leslie took control of the computer. He had to navigate through a few folders to find the contacts, but he clicked on Justice League HQ as soon as he did.

It opened up a new black window with the word 'Contacting' on it with a filling, disappearing and refilling ellipses on it.

"League HQ, this is Black Canary. What's the situation?" A young blond woman appeared on screen. Leslie took a moment to memorize the background, as that was definitely not the Hall of Justice.

"This is Alchemist at Mount Justice. We may have a training issue that could lead to at least one potential fatality." If Player One was going at the team the same way they probably went after Zombies, then they were trying for either head shots or maybe knee shots.

"Is this an immediate concern?" Leslie knew that question. That was the 'This isn't my problem' question.

"Considering the person with the issue has been sent on a mission with potential hostile contacts, yes." He'd worked with useless middle-management for years. He knew how to phrase the truth in a way they'd listen to.

"Very well, please explain what's going on."

"Player One's personal training involves using lethal takedown measures on hostile and highly resistant targets. Most of the other members on the youth team felt that preventing Player One from learning why this was problematic would endear them to each other. We also have a serious miscommunication on the purpose of personal therapy and the people who utilize it."

Black Canary was some kind of counselor, wasn't she? The last part should actually matter to her.

"...Please remain at Mount Justice. I need to contact Batman." She moved the mouse on her end, but didn't disconnect.

"...This is Batman." Maybe she'd minimized the window instead of closing it?

"Do you have anything ongoing that demands your attention, Batman?" Or maybe she'd opened a second window? Leslie wasn't exactly watching her screen, after all.

"I've just dropped off a member of the team for treatment with Martian Manhunter. What's come up?"

"Another member of the team, Alchemist, just contacted me to explain that a team mate has been sent on missions without adequate non-lethal takedown training."

"They've been sent on a reconnaissance mission. I determined that the issue with their training would not be a major detriment at this point in time as Player One's stealth capabilities exceed even Robin's." The fact that Batman knew exactly who was being referenced was probably a bad sign.

"Alchemist." Black Canary switched her focus back over to him. "Please explain to Batman what, exactly, the issue is."

Leslie sat back in his chair.

This was gonna be good.

Or really bad.

Probably really bad.

Chapter Text

Project: Gamer Ver. 2 Alpha Build 0.3.8

Disclaimer Me Do: I own nothing you recognize. And most of what you don't recognize, I still don't own.

_________________________________________________________________________

"Player One's personal training involves traveling to an alternate reality where Earth fell to a zombie apocalypse and practicing her fighting on the things that are there." And Alchemist was already losing them. "And the general consensus on the team is that therapy is reserved for the mentally deranged. They seem to think that she either needs to stop going, or that they can 'Fix' whatever her issues are by becoming her support structure."

"...Those are rather... Extraordinary claims, Alchemist." Batman did not sound terribly enthused about what he was hearing.

"No, one of them is an extraordinary claim. The other one is a direct consequence of dealing with violent people who treat an insane asylum as a two week vacation." Leslie could pull magical artifacts of incredible power out of thin air. Extraordinary claims were his bread and butter!

"And how did you come across this information, Alchemist?" Right, Black Canary. Leslie hadn't exactly forgotten about her, but he wasn't exactly focused on her either.

"Player One took me to Zombie World to yell at me in private. And I literally just asked Power Girl why the team is getting in the way of Player One's training." The second part was probably the most unbelievable for them, sad as that was.

"...Please hold. I'm entering the zeta tube en route to the base now."

Black Canary seemed to be looking at something on her monitor for a moment before speaking again. "Alchemist, thank you for bringing this to our attention. In the future, however, please follow proper procedure and alert Red Tornado to any other issues."

"...Alright. Do you guys have a handbook, or have the procedures written down anywhere that I can check and, y'know, make sure of things?" Leslie already knew the answer to that.

"...We'll have one compiled for you." The blonde woman looked at something on the monitor. "Black Canary, out."

And just like that, the connection was cut.

"Is... Did I get everyone in trouble?" Was the nearly whispered question at Leslie's side.

"They're going to probably blame me, and you're free to blame me, but probably actually no." People getting sat down and talked to wasn't the same as being in trouble. It might feel that way, but it wasn't. "Anyway, got another question if you're up for it?"

"I'm sorry." Power Girl certainly did not sound sorry. "I can't go out on Friday. I have to wash my hair."

"...Did M'gann just make you a list of things to say when someone is trying to ask you out?" Because that one was old. Really old.

"Yes?" Why were the clones so innocent?

It almost made Leslie feel bad.

"I was actually wanting to ask how you got the name Power Girl." It had been bugging him for a while.

He had an idea, but there wouldn't be any way to prove it. At least not any way he could think of. Applying the Named concept from a Practical Guide to Evil to an entire multiverse that followed the same tropes like grooves in stone certainly made some sense...

But again, he couldn't think of a way to prove something like it was happening here. At least not beyond some vague connections to the Sector Six-Six-Six thing that resonated throughout all of the local reality. Except it exceeded that limitation, in that it was only known in the one reality but it was present in multiple ones.

"They tried Super Girl but... It was wrong. It felt wrong. It tied me to him, and after J'onn got everything out of my head... I don't want anything to do with him. Not, not that way. Maybe any way." Her voice, already soft, dropped down to being nearly inaudible by the end.

Leslie couldn't really blame her. He didn't know the details of her programming, but the concept of being forced to do something, being pushed to it subtly in ways you can't recognize, it didn't sit well with him.

"Kid Flash suggested Power Girl. It wasn't bad. Not, it wasn't wrong." But it wasn't right, either. Just not wrong.

Leslie was about to ask something else when he saw a reflection on the computer screen.

"Power Girl." Batman was surprisingly gentle as he called out her name. "Could you come with me? I need to ask how you've been adjusting, how the team is holding together and your training."

Power Girl got up to leave and, rather than turning around, Leslie just raised one hand up over his head and waved.

Once both were out of sight, he pulled two things out of his inventory and left the window open.

A bottle of water and an M.R.E.

It was time to see just how bad these things could be.

Chapter Text

Project: Gamer Ver. 2 Alpha Build 0.3.9

Disclaimer Me Do: I own nothing you recognize. And most of what you don't recognize, I still don't own.

_________________________________________________________________________

The M.R.E. had been... Not bad. Not exactly.

Bad would be a definitive quality, and it had been decidedly lacking in those. Rather, it was very reminiscent of his first mothers cooking.

And she cooked the same way a priest made holy water.

By boiling the hell out of it.

It said it was menu seven, beef strips in tomato sauce and garlic mashed potatoes.

He wasn't sure if the strips were beef. The sauce was basically just red water. And the garlic mashed potatoes were all lies. It wasn't bad, not really. It was just... Meh.

Leslie finished it anyway. He'd learned the hard way to not turn his nose up to food.

He was sealing up the remains to stuff into his inventory -He could convert it into something useful later- when a shadow passed over him.

Batman had come back. And he'd come back alone.

"Alchemist." He sounded as happy as usual. "We need to talk."

"Alright?" Those words tended to bring up a lot of memories.

The caped crusader sat down in the chair next him, looking up at the monitor briefly before focusing on Leslie. "Most people don't eat those meals as their first choice."

"That whole book realm thing? I ran out of food a few days before I was let out, and I was about out of water too." That had been... Fun. Really, something he hadn't been looking forward to.

"So you've stockpiled emergency rations in the event that something similar happens?" Leslie looked askance at the Dark Knight, one eyebrow quirking at the question.

That was kind of the point of M.R.E.s, now wasn't it?

"It is important that we learn from our mistakes and attempt to prevent them from happening again in the future." Batman tilted his head in the direction of the bag filled with empty bags. "Or to recognize when we have a problem and ways that we can both fix it and prevent it from occurring again."

That was all well and good, but Batman should have enough of a bead on Alchemists personality to know he doesn't care much for praise...

So this was leading to something else.

"With that in mind, would you care to explain why you felt it necessary to not just leave during a mission briefing, but to disrespect myself and your team while doing so?" And there it... Was.

Huh. Yeah. He really did do that, didn't he? Leslie pulled his goggles off to rub at his eyes while he thought about it.

"Alchemist." Leslie blinked as he looked over to Batman. The older man's mouth was set in a grim line.

"Sorry. I'm just... Processing. I didn't notice I'd been this big of a jerk lately." He knew he'd been struggling to get back to normal, but he thought he'd had it under control.

Apparently not.

"That's not what I was going to ask, Alchemist. When did you last get any sleep?" Well, that was an easy question.

"Just this morning, why?" Green Arrow and Speedy both could have waited five minutes, there wasn't a good reason for him to just up and leave like he had.

"And when did you last get a full eight hours of sleep?" And that was the not so easy question.

"I guess... Almost three weeks ago?" Had it been that long? It had to have been before his time with Duras Drum... And he'd been almost relentlessly busy ever since. "I usually manage three or four hours before I wake up."

At least he wasn't waking up violently any more, so that was a plus.

"You know that's not healthy." Leslie wasn't about to argue against the truth with Batman. "Go claim a room in the base. I'll cover the console for now."

Leslie finished inventorying the trash and stood up to stretch. "It's not that I'm trying to stay awake."

He sat back down.

"I just can't stay asleep. And I don't know where the bedrooms are in the base. Or that it was even an option." Which he really should have guessed at, since they had to keep Superboy somewhere.

And Kid Flashes closet was probably not a long-term solution.

"Almost all of the rooms upstairs that are neither bathrooms or filled with gym equipment are available to you, barring the three already in use. I would suggest, considering your duties, that you choose a room near the southwest stairwell. It's the closest to the Zeta terminal." That was a very fair point. "Go and get whatever sleep you can for now. We'll look into your insomnia later."

"Yeah, that's... Alright." Leslie stood up again, this time actually moving towards the door. "I'll put a mark on my door if you need me, okay?"

He got exactly the response he expected. Nothing.

----

"Alchemist, get up! We have an emergency situation!" Leslie rolled off the unfamiliar bed on to the floor, a spell forming in his mind before it shorted back out.

Batman was silhouetted at his door, a bright light shining behind him.

"The venom facilities the team were investigating exploded. We need to act, now!"

Shit.

Chapter Text

Project: Gamer Ver. 2 Alpha Build 0.4.0

Disclaimer Me Do: I own nothing you recognize. And most of what you don't recognize, I still don't own.

_________________________________________________________________________

Eduardo Durrance was a man who thrived on hardship.

He'd been born in prison and expected to carry on his father's sentence. Every lesson he'd learned had come from the 'generosity' of the other inmates.

To be fair, many of the men who had taught him had been truly kind. Imprisoned often for the crime of speaking their thoughts by petty tyrants who feared such small things as the 'Truth'.

But then, it was not the lessons imparted on him by these good men that had defined him. The monsters, the nightmares wearing the flesh of man, they had taught him the lessons that defined his career as a mercenary.

Cruelty had a place as a rarely used but well honed tool.
Mercy was both carrot and stick.
Death was a kindness.

And many, many more lessons he'd taken to heart and carried into his career.

His career...

As a mercenary, that part of his life was over.

Eduardo had returned to his home in Santa Prisca near the end of June, bound to a wheelchair.

His legs, shattered.
But his mind, for the first time in many years, was clear.

His first act when he returned to his country was to stop the production of his Venom.
His second was to put down the dissenters to his command in as quick and brutal a fashion as possible.

In his den of vipers, weakness and death were too often synonymous.

Pulling himself out of his navel gazing, Eduardo spared one more glance for the once-defunct venom factories he could just barely make out from his villa.

A cobra had crept in during the night.

The disrespect burned in Eduardo's belly.

That some zealous fool thought he could go behind Bane's back, steal from him, and right in his own back yard?

Bane seethed.

He'd sent a man to tell this 'Lord Kobra' his terms, and he'd received a tongue delivered in a box instead.

Pedro had been an incredibly loyal man, his loss would be an inconvenience.

"Sir?" One of Bane's many other employees, this one as a manservant at his villa. Joseph, if Eduardo remembered correctly. "Dinner is ready."

Eduardo refused to be wheeled around by others, treated as an invalid. He made his own way to his barren dining room.

"Joseph." He said as he lined himself up at the table. Dinner tonight was steak, carrots and broccoli. "I would like music to accompany my meal."

"Of course, Sir."

As the man was turning to leave, Bane spoke once more. "Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture, Joseph."

"Of course, Sir."

Bane was a third of the way through his steak when the first explosion sounded out in the night.

It, like the meal, was delicious.

-----

Player One struggled to her feet. Struggled to see through the tears in her eyes. Struggled to hear through the ringing in her ears.

A massive fist crushed into her side, sending her flying.

~~ -20 HP! ~~

She hit the ground, bouncing once, twice, three times before she rolled to a stop.

Her armor reduced the damage, but she'd been fighting for so long already and her HP was dwindling away more and more every time he hit her.

She didn't even know who he was. He was a massive figure, dwarfing everyone on the team in height and width easily. He had red hair dangling limply around his head in a mullet, tiny sunken eyes in his massive skull and great tears torn throughout his limbs, exposing the taught, powerful muscles underneath.

The monster just appeared while they were sneaking through a building, collecting evidence and taking pictures of whatever was going on here. Robin was communicating with her telepathically thanks to M'gann, but she must have responded verbally or knocked something over.

Anything to explain the muscular nightmare finding her.

The team had jumped to assist when she broke communication... Not that it did much to help. Even with M'gann there to take Alchemist's place, it still felt like fighting and failing against Superboy all over again.

It, his raw physical power was just overwhelming. Everything they did failed, nothing seemed to get through to the guy.

And then the building, all of the buildings, blew up at once.

And he still wouldn't stop!

She didn't know where her team was, probably buried in the smouldering wreckage. Hopefully still alive.

~~ -50 HP! ~~
~~ Critical Hit! ~~

Which she wouldn't be, in a few more hits.

...If she was going to die, she at least wanted to know the name of her murderer. She hit the titanic man standing over her with Observe.

--Name: Baran Flinders--
--Title: Mammoth--
--Description: A fairly simple young man who would do nearly anything for his sister. Including such delightful ideas like joining a cult or testing unknown mixtures of steroids and super serums.
--Stats:
-Level: NaN
-HP: 2400
-MP: 15
-STR:80
-VIT:120
-DEX:40
-AGI:40
-INT:3
-WIS:1
-LUK:5
--Threat rating: High

She was about to be killed by a braindead sis-con... And her last thoughts were about how Alchemist's godawful sense of humor was rubbing off on her.

Player One closed her eyes.

Then she heard Mammoth screaming in pain, something she hadn't managed to accomplish at all, let alone any of her other team members.

She cautiously opened her eyes to see the redhead howling in pain and clutching at the great rends in his flesh...

And Alchemist standing nearby, holding a plastic container of rubbing alcohol, of all things.

"You still alive over there?" He wasn't looking at her, keeping his eyes on the mutant boy, but she was pretty sure he was talking to her.

"...Yes." She could vaguely make out Batman in the darkness, on his hands and knees digging through the rubble of the main facility.

"Great." He snapped his fingers and she could feel the pain -vanish-. Her ribs getting put back in their proper locations, her arms and chest stopped screaming at her in pain. Her vision cleared and the ringing, that deafening solid tone, disappeared. "Go help Batman. I'll handle the trailer park reject here."

The 'Trailer Park Reject' apparently heard him and decided to charge. Mammoth was almost on him before he stumbled, running into nothing where Alchemist was supposed to be.

Instead Alchemist was behind him, squirting more rubbing alcohol into Mammoth's exposed muscles.

She stumbled over to Batman as the villain once more began screaming in pain.

Nope. She was just gonna Nope on outta that one. Not gonna think about it.

Nope, nope, nope.

Chapter Text

Project: Gamer Ver. 2 Alpha Build 0.4.1

Disclaimer Me Do: I own nothing you recognize. And most of what you don't recognize, I still don't own.

_________________________________________________________________________

"Well, Cult Baby, I have good news and bad news." Mammoth was crouched down in the mud, arms over his head and trying to keep his open wounds from being exposed.

It didn't really work too well.

"The bad news is that I'm out of rubbing alcohol." An ugly grin cracked along his distended maw. Mammoth started to stand up when he caught sight of Alchemist, uncapping a black bottle in his hands. "The good news is that I have a lot, I mean, a lot of hydrogen peroxide."

This was mostly true. The remaining alcohol Alchemist had in his inventory was just too strong to use directly on people.

"...What?" Mammoth's voice, when he wasn't screaming, was a deep rumble. "What is hy-hy-hy that?"

"...Foamy hurty juice." Alchemist was practically a dwarf against the massive bulk of the redheaded behemoth, but it was Mammoth that was backing away.

It just takes the right tools.

Alchemist took one more step forward and Mammoth broke. Bolting in the opposite direction. Alchemist watched for a few moments as the teen covered the distance between himself and the nearby treeline and disappeared.

From the sounds of it, he was knocking trees down in his hurry to escape.

And Leslie never did get a chance to ask him what his favorite flavor of Flavor-Aid was...

None of the other cultists had come out of hiding to attack while he was dealing with Mammoth, so hopefully they had either fled or been buried themselves.

It was somewhat unfortunate, but the steroid used on Mammoth had either run its course, or it was more beneficial than harmful and as such wasn't considered a poison.

Alchemist didn't know which. Neither would surprise him, honestly. If he recalled correctly, the combination drug wasn't quite equal to the sum of its parts, but it still permanently empowered whatever it was injected into. Human or animal. And it accomplished that with one dose.

Somewhat the opposite of Venom, really. That offered a short-term boost to strength and intelligence but would cause long term deleterious effects and withdrawal symptoms. Bane in Batman Beyond had been a wheelchair bound vegetable, only alive so long as his drug was being pumped into him.

He stopped glancing around and trying to listen for an ambush. Looking at the wreckage left in Mammoth's wake, he shook his head.

He could have captured him. He might have had to cast toad a few times, but he could've done it. He'd considered it, while Mammoth was cowering, before deciding against it. Mammoth was over eight feet tall, his metabolism was probably pumped through the roof and he had to weigh over six hundred pounds.

If the Justice League, FBI or whoever couldn't track him and his wannabe god by finding out who's buying industrial sized toilets and enough food to feed the Brady Bunch every single day then someone needed to be fired.

Turning around, Alchemist joined Player One and Batman in digging out his teammates.

And if he saw Batman cradling a concussed Robin to his chest, well, he wouldn't be saying anything.

-----

"-we found members of the Cult of Kobra mixing an unknown substance into the Venom synthesis process, pictured here." Robin flipped to a different slide.

Everyone was gathered in the main meeting room, with the large projector and various computers. Everyone who'd been on the mission was looking worse for wear, uniforms scuffed and torn, but were physically hale and hearty.

Now.

"Did we collect any samples of the finished product?" Leslie asked from his seat.

"We managed to collect two vials of the unknown substance. Player One should have them both secured?" Aqualad ended his statement by turning to the gray clad Gamer.

"Mind if I see one for a moment?" Player One looked to Batman, who didn't respond. She pulled a dark, purple vial out of her inventory and handed it to him.

He pushed transmutation into it, getting an indecipherable jumble of information back and adding it to the list of things he could Convert.

"Do we still have that superserum from Cadmus, Batman? I can't give you a chemical composition or anything, but I should be able to compare it and see if it was used to make this." There were a few raised eyebrows at the suggestion, though Leslie wasn't quite sure why.

"You believe there is a connection between Kobra and Cadmus?" The caped crusader asked him.

"No idea!" Leslie fired back. "But there's only so many bottled super powers available and getting whatever data we can on the ones we have seems like a good idea."

"Cadmus had bottled superpowers?" It took Leslie a moment to narrow down who talked before finding Kid Flash.

"Bottled superpowers, clones, hybrid creatures. Pretty sure they could've had a cure for cancer, too, if they weren't being run by idiots." Leslie handed the bottle of Kobra Venom back to Player One and sat down. "You want more details you'll have to talk to someone else, I didn't go digging into their computers while I was there."

Unlike a Green Lantern ring, he couldn't just ignore password protections.

"You're thinking this was already used, possibly on the metahuman you drove off from the scene of the explosion?" Here Leslie nodded at Batman's question.

"The tears in his skin were fresh, still oozing when I got to him. If he knew how to do anything in that shape, Player One should be dead. Instead they got sent flying a lot. I... Can't actually tell you any more because I don't know any more." And that was already a lot, at least a lot more than they had before.

"...Your observations are noted. We'll make sure to add combat classes for fighting enemies that are significantly stronger and faster." Batman actually looked like he was making a note. "Focusing on the mission. Were there any other observations of note?"

"Yes actually. On slides six, ten and twelve we have captured images of individuals working, all of them are dressed as Kobra cultists. It appears as though there are no local people involved in whatever they were working on." Leslie leaned forward, keeping his speculation to himself.

Having complete strangers just pick up and start using machinery and mixing chemicals wasn't something you pulled someone off the street to do. It required training and education. Not necessarily formal education, but still. Manuals were actually terrible at this.

Of course, Batman had also said this operation had been running for a few weeks. Enough time to get experts to train new people in the basics, but not enough to train them for troubleshooting and repairs.

"Are we sending these pictures to interpol, or keeping this in-house?" Aqualad asked of Batman.

"...We'll be sending them to interpol. El Presidente Durrance has demanded the perpetrators be exposed and captured, if at all possible." Well, that could technically include the Justice League, couldn't it?

"...I don't think I'll be much help with that." Alchemist said after a few moments. "I have a hard time telling flavor-aid drinking idiots apart."

Chapter Text

Project: Gamer Ver. 2 Alpha Build 0.4.2

Disclaimer Me Do: I own nothing you recognize. And most of what you don't recognize, I still don't own.

_________________________________________________________________________

Jinx was a dirty girl.

That's not a metaphor, by the by. Being homeless in Gotham didn't offer a lot of ways to keep clean. Being a homeless, obvious metahuman offered even fewer.

Today had been an oddly good day for her. Some rich-looking bleeding heart had given her some money, told her she could go to any of the Wayne shelters for the homeless to get a meal.

As if they had any room.

But it had bought her a meal, real hot food from one of the places in downtown that didn't ask questions and didn't care what you looked like. She even had some leftover.

Keeping cash on you was a risk, especially when you're a grey-skinned girl who was all skin and bones. Most of the other homeless weren't a concern, they'd be happy one of their own had a good day.

The wannabe gangsters and thugs, on the other hand? They didn't even need an excuse to try and pick a fight. And if they found out she still had a few dollars on her, well, she'd helped carry a few people to the free clinics in the area.

At least the Martha Wayne foundation clinics actually did their jobs.

She had her backpack full of foul-smelling, dirty, unwashed clothes clutched in both hands when she walked into the laundromat.

It was a dingy, dirty little hole in the wall placed on the border between the docks and the poorest part of town. Nobody ever came here.

Everyone she talked to was sure it was being used either to launder money or as a tax write off.

So it surprised her to see someone else there. Some kid, probably younger than her, wearing just a set of shorts and some band tee-shirt with a blue guy and a red guy.

No socks. No shoes. He had some goofy looking goggles pulled up into his hair, though. He was reading a book, either not noticing her come in or not hearing her over the washing machine that was running nearby.

Jinx had to take a second look at the last part of that, actually. The washing machine on the end was known to be broken. Just like half of the dryers on the left wall.

She kept an eye on him as she poured out her clothes into a machine.

He wasn't paying any attention to her.

She didn't stop watching as she used the coin changer near the door to get quarters.

He still wasn't paying any attention to her.

She fed her quarters to the washer and was about to push in the slot when she nearly jumped out of her skin.

"Hey!" He was loud, but only just audible over the sounds of the machinery around them. "I'm gonna order a pizza. Pepperoni and mushroom good?"

Jinx froze for a moment as she processed what he said. Dumb, unsure if she should reject the offer, she nodded anyway.

"Alright, cool! If you need some detergent, my stuff is over there on the folding table." He flashed her a thumbs up before walking over to the corner under the broken television and pulling out his phone.

Her hands were trembling while she measured out the soap, watching him in the reflection of one of the machines, but he wasn't paying any more attention to her.

She'd heard stories, sometimes, about metahuman snatchers... But the kid was literally ordering a pizza, she could hear him say 'mushroom' just over the din of the washer.

She pushed the coins in, selected the heavily-soiled wash cycle and practically ran to the bathroom.

A small, private bathroom. With a lock on the door.

She checked the lock, double checked the lock, and then peeled off her clothes piece by piece.

-----

Putting dirty clothes on after you've just gotten clean is a uniquely unpleasant experience.

Jinx didn't know if she'd ever get used to it.

Is it wrong she was hoping something, anything would change and she wouldn't have to?

Sometimes, when it was quiet and cold, she remembered her mom. Her d... Her da... Him.

It was always a struggle to decide if she was angry and hated them. Hated herself. Or if she was just... Empty.

Stepping out of the bathroom, she saw the other kid sitting at the folding table. Pizza box open in front of him.

The television was on and tuned to the news...

That was weird... The T.V. here hadn't worked in years!

It looked like it was brand new, but she knew when she came in that it was the same one that had always been here!

"Hey!" He hollered over the sound of the dryer running next to her ear. "Food's here!"

Pepperoni and mushroom pizza. From a local place.

"...Thank you." She said, taking a square piece. Two hot meals in one day? Today really was a good day!

It was actually kind of nice, just sitting down, eating, watching t.v. with someone. It almost felt normal.

Somewhere between her third and fourth slice she realized she was staring at her acquaintance. There was something off about him, something she couldn't place...

The eyes!

The laundromat was brightly lit, but his eyes were practically shining. And yellow.

Actually a really bright yellow.

"You alright?" The boy asked her once he noticed she'd been staring.

"What? Yeah! Just, just wondering why you're here." Awesome work, Jinx. Someone is finally nice to you and you get caught staring like a weirdo.

"Ah." He chewed for a moment before swallowing his bite of food. "Normally I'd say I'm doing laundry but..."

He shrugged, or at least tried to shrug with one shoulder.

"I'm not really making friends where I'm currently staying, so I figured I could use a break from that and get something done at the same time."

She could relate to that. Her first two foster families had gone pretty similar.
She never thought she'd be able to say she missed going to school, but you end up missing a lot when you're a runaway.

"Ugh, I know how you feel. Nobody's happy and everyone's miserable and you've got other kids making it worse 'cuz they want to make you miserable since they're angry and think everyone has to suffer, right." She missed having a bed, but she didn't miss the other foster kids.

"It doesn't help that half of us have got, like resting bitch personality and they're all like totes jealous that mine's the best." She had to stifle a laugh when he said that. He sounded like one of those valley girls from the old sitcoms foster family number two had loved to watch.

She would have made a joke back, but there was a loud buzzing noise coming from her washing machine.

Pulling the hot, wet clothes out she did her best to not let the clean smell get to her. Pushing them up and into a wall mounted dryer wasn't too hard. The machine took her money just fine, the only problem was that it wouldn't start.

She pushed the button a few more times, then she started slamming the coin return.

Nothing.

Her fist slammed against the metal next to it and she felt hot tears burning at the edges of her eyes.

She knew today had been going too well.

"I think there's a trick to that one." The boy reached up to the machine from her side and tapped it.

That was it.

He just tapped it.

Her eyes went wide when the entire unit glowed gold and started rumbling.

"What- what was- What did you just do?!" She wasn't trying to sound hysterical, but that was not normal.

Not at all!

"It's just a cheap repair spell." Her eyes had gone wide and she knew her slitted pupils would be plainly obvious.

Magic!

Here!

Nonononononono!

His eyes! The glow! Her dad- She should- He-

"Are... Are you okay?" He looked confused. Concerned. He was backing away.

Jinx took one deep breath. Then two.

Then she hiccuped and started crying.

Chapter Text

Project: Gamer Ver. 2 Alpha Build 0.4.3

Disclaimer Me Do: I own nothing you recognize. And most of what you don't recognize, I still don't own.

_________________________________________________________________________

Alfred Pennyworth enjoyed a rather simple life.

He woke up early in the morning, prepared himself for his day, and went about doing it.

Often such days were rather uneventful. He would prepare breakfast for the master of the house and his ward, clean up the leftovers and prepare a schedule for the afternoon.

At which point Master Wayne and young master Dick would proceed to disappear off to their heroics and he would have to scrap the plan, leaving him alone in a massive mansion at the edge of Gotham's civilization with the dog.

Ace, at least, appreciated his cooking.

The English Gentleman was, quite thankfully, fairly well removed from Master Wayne's rather eccentric hobby. Although of course he made sure that, should any of his costumed comrades make an unexpected visit they would be quite generously received.

And, all too often, it was his responsibility to see to it that any daytime callers were answered and summarily dismissed when the master of the house was absent.

Again.

Picking up the ringing phone in the Batcave (Your imagination is showing, Master Bruce) he prepared to do his duty and inform yet another member of the Justice League that no, Batman was not available.

"You have reached the Batcave. I regret to inform you that Batman is not available at the moment. May I take your message?"

"Uh, hi? This is L- Alchemist. I've got- I don't know. A girl just had a few panic attacks and threw up on me and passed out and I was hoping- I need some advice." The young man, Alchemist, sounded incredibly stressed.

Considering the complaints Bruce had in regards to him failing to integrate with Dick's team, he supposed he could understand.

But oh, this kind of call brought up memories. The first time Bruce had sent a man to the hospital, Alfred had gotten a very similar phone call.

"Understandable. Are the two of you safe?" Something that had taken an absurd amount of time to teach Dick had been risk assessment. Something he also well knew that the young man had never taken to heart.

"Yeah. No combatants, no conflict. She saw me use a spell and had a break down. I got her to calm down a little and then I asked her if she needed to call someone or go to the hospital and she hyperventilated until- yeah."

"Very good. And when, approximately, did the young lady pass out?" It was certainly not ideal, but it was a very good sign that this Alchemist was reaching out for help when he was out of his depth.

"Two? Yeah, two minutes ago. Or four? Something like that." So not very long at all. Much better than discovering something hours after the stains had set.

Considering the circumstances, it was likely the boy had exaggerated the time somewhat. It was actually quite rare for someone to pass out for longer than a few minutes.

"She should be waking back up momentarily, Alchemist. Tell me your location and then make sure she's comfortable, would you?"

"Uh, yeah, yeah. Gio's Laundromat, on the east end of Market street." The east end of Market? That dramatically limited the number of vehicles Alfred could use. Driving any of the very expensive and very well maintained cars registered under Bruce Wayne's name were just too noticeable, too obvious.

That meant he was going to have to use his own car.

Bugger.

-----

It took him ten minutes to get to Gotham. From there, it took him five to reach the laundromat Alchemist was in.

It was a truly rare stroke of good luck, to have the traffic lights favor him.

Alfred checked his face once again in the rear-view mirror, ensuring his domino mask was affixed correctly before he picked up his little flip phone. Master Bruce -had- supplied him with a much more modern device, but he was fond of the compact he'd kept.

It had been a birthday present from Dick back during his first year living with Bruce.

"Al here." Was the answer after two rings. "Kind of busy."

"Alchemist." Alfred could actually see the boy go stiff through the large window in the front of the laundromat. "If you're quite ready, we should depart immediately."

Alfred could also clearly see the boy put his phone in his shorts pocket and try to help a girl (A filthy and very disheveled girl) stand up.

"-it'll be okay? Alright? No hospital." And Alchemist apparently decided against hanging up before pocketing said phone.

"-m' clothes. No 'spital."

"-I'll get your clothes, okay? Can you stand up on your own? That's great, you're doing great. No hospital, alright? I promise." Alfred watched with one eyebrow raised in curiosity as the boy led an ashen skinned girl out of the laundromat and to his small little compact.

"Alchemist." Alfred said as the girl scooched her way into the seat, Alchemist right behind her. "I'm glad to see the young miss is recovering well."

"Thanks, thank you for this." Alchemist said as the car started rolling.

The girl, a metahuman it seemed, was rocking in her seat.

"It's no trouble at all, young man. The Bat Butler is always happy to help an associate of Batman's, as well as their charming companions." Had it been Batman crawling into his car after a phone call like that, his response would have been far, far more sarcastic.

"Still, I just, I really appreciate it, just... Thank you." Sincere gratitude? From a teenager? It seemed the world wasn't completely gone to pot after all.

They passed through several traffic lights and were well outside the city when Alchemist got his nerves in order enough to speak again.

"Does... Does this feel like a kidnapping to you?"

Alfred pursed his lips but kept his eyes focused on the dark, unlit roads ahead of them.

At least he hadn't been the one to say it.

Chapter Text

Project: Gamer Ver. 2 Alpha Build 0.4.4

Disclaimer Me Do: I own nothing you recognize. And most of what you don't recognize, I still don't own.

_________________________________________________________________________

Contrary to popular convention, Leslie did not, in fact, enjoy the smell of vomit.

He'd had to dig around the game shop for a bit before finding a good, cheap method of dealing with that.

And, honestly, was stuck feeling like an idiot afterwards.

Twenty-two GP and he had his own scroll of Prestidigitation. In the game of Dungeons and Dragons, it was basically 'Least Wish'. It could clean something, make it dirty, change a color or make an illusory sound, alter the temperature of something within a comfortable range, start small fires or even make a 'Non-magical' artifact. Under normal circumstances, the illusory and conjuration effects would last for an hour. With one metamagic, he could double that. With another, he could make it permanent after he gets the spell mastered!

However long that would take...

He made sure to grab a scroll of Regenerate for a touch over Five-thousand GP and a scroll of Mindblank for Ten-Thousand and Three-hundred GP as well.

He'd been needing to buy both spells for a while, to be quite honest, but he'd been busy in the week following the Santa Prisca debacle.

He wasn't actually sure where outside of Gotham he was at the moment, it had been dark as sin and Alfred had actually driven through several long stretches without the headlights on.

Well, that wouldn't matter too terribly much, push come to shove. He'd put in the effort to finally master Teleport and Esuna, and Protect and Blink were not far behind.

He side-eyed the girl sitting next to him.

She'd freaked out when she saw him use magic, and that could be a problem... But some consequences were easier to deal with than others.

Leslie put those thoughts away as they passed through another black stretch and came out in the Bat Cave.

It was... Well, it was like a dream come true, but decades after it had faded and been forgotten.

The penny, the featherless T-Rex, suits preserved in glass in the distance... Leslie could feel the Nineties again.

"You holding up okay?" He asked the girl next to him.

"Is... Is this the Bat Lair?" Bat Lair? Well, it made sense, Leslie supposed. The Bat Cave was supposed to be a sort of secret. "I thought this was like a legend! Am I still dreaming? Wait! Am I drugged? Did you drug me?! Was it the pizza?"

"I believe she is 'Good' as you say, sir." Alfred opened his door and stepped out. He didn't have to walk far to open the girl's door.

"Seems like it." Leslie said as he opened his own door and got out. "And even if your pizza was drugged, I'm currently wearing it."

He'd gotten some of it off in the laundromat, but the smell and stains were still there.

"If you'll follow me, miss? I am quite well trained in first aid, and it sounds as though you have had quite the difficult night."

As Alfred led her off to wherever he usually pulled bullets out of Batman, Leslie was left standing next to Batbutler's Batcompact Batcar.

Well, now what?

-----

The answer to that question was, quite simply, taking five minutes to learn Prestidigitation because for the love of god, pre-owned pizza smelled awful.

And it really was that simple, strange as it was. The spell, cantrip really, was all about 'convincing' reality that this was something else, or a task had already been completed, or no, really, that knife was always there! Honest!

He cast it on his shirt and his MP didn't even dip.

...He was going to abuse that, so, so hard.

"Alchemist? How did you get in here!?" And Robin was back! That was good, right?

Well, hopefully. Robin hadn't been too terribly fond of him this last week.

"Oh, uh, Batbutler picked me up?" He could have scryed the location and then teleported, he supposed, but he didn't really have any reason to do that.

He had enough opportunities to harass the Bat-family while he was on the clock.

"Alchemist, why did Batbutler need to collect you and bring you back to the cave?" Leslie honestly liked dealing with Batman. He tended to ask direct questions.

"I was trying to call you for advice on how to handle someone passing out and he offered to help out since they didn't want to go to the hospital."

"Why didn't they want to go to the hospital?" And that, Robin, was a very good question.

"No idea. I didn't ask, and they aren't a wanted criminal so... Might have something to do with being a meta, but again, not sure." The ones with obvious mutations got a raw deal, everyone knew that.

But it was always someone elses problem.

Actually, was he really sure she wasn't a wanted criminal? He never got her name.

Eh, details.

Robin was looking agitated and Batman was looking in the direction Alfred went. Several moments of seemingly silent conversation later and Batman went after Alfred while Robin stayed with Alchemist.

"Alchemist." Robin was seething, almost hissing the word out.

Leslie pulled his goggles down, he wasn't sure what was coming but-

"What exactly made you think it was a good idea to bring an unknown metahuman into the Batcave? Bringing a potentially dangerous person into -my- home without so much as calling us?!" It was going to be one of these conversations. Where defending himself or his position wasn't going to work regardless of what he said.

Robin hadn't been happy with him since day two after the Santa Prisca mission, and Leslie couldn't figure out why.

He'd joined physical training when he could, when he wasn't being shown the various forms of paperwork and after-action reports he was going to be expected to help the team file, and he'd lost both times, pretty badly.

He'd tried showing up in the common room whenever a group activity was going on, and things tended to get tense and cold. Or else they were tense and cold to begin with but it took him a few minutes to notice. He wasn't that good with people most of the time and he knew it.

Kid Flash was acting the same way. The most he'd gotten out of the boy recently had been a terse 'Thanks' when he handed over the mice for the Garrick experiment.

Leslie inhaled slowly as Robin continued, moving into how 'You don't even act like you're part of the team!' and decided, no, he wasn't dealing with this today.

Robin stopped to take a breath and Leslie took that as his cue.

Raising his right hand, he snapped his fingers.

And left.

-----

In her home, with her brothers and sisters all sitting together and watching T.V., Player One nearly jumped when she felt her League issued phone go off in her pocket.

She didn't even say anything as she got up, everyone was too engrossed in watching reality shows, and hid in the bathroom.

It was just a text, from an unknown number.

-- 999 867 5309
- Alchemist here. Need a minute if you can. Want to go to id and test things. Can be anywhere in Gotham in 10

She wasn't sure what to respond with. He'd had his nose buried in a book for the last week whenever anyone saw him... Maybe he had a new skill?

-- P1
- be @ big belly burger in 20

Chapter Text

Project: Gamer Ver. 2 Alpha Build 0.4.5

Disclaimer Me Do: I own nothing you recognize. And most of what you don't recognize, I still don't own.

_________________________________________________________________________

It actually took her closer to forty minutes to get to Big Belly Burger than twenty.

Her parents were fully in on the whole superhero business. Her siblings, not so much. So while telling her mom that she had to a coworker about some work related stuff got her off the hook on that front, one of her little sisters wanted to come along.

Then her older brother offered to drive. He didn't ask where, he just offered to drive.

It was awesome that her family worried for her, but it was also just so frustrating sometimes!

But she made it! She was late, but she'd managed to figure out a way to get her family off her back long enough to slip away.

And maybe, possibly, definitely started a fist-fight between her older brother and a younger sister.

It took her a minute after walking into the greasy fast-food joint to find Alchemist, and the only reason she managed that was because he still had those goofy looking goggles on. For whatever reason he'd switched out of his usual red shirt and black pants for a dark blue jacket and jeans.

How he wasn't sweating to death in the July heat, she had no idea.

He was sitting at a table against the window, looking out and his leg bouncing, book closed in front of him.

He must have finally finished it.

He was sipping something through a straw, and across from him was a bag and another drink, completely untouched.

"Hey Al." She sat down in the empty seat across from him. "Sorry I'm late. Family wanted to get involved, you know how it is."

"Hmm?" Alchemist put his drink down and focused on her. "You're fine, Peabody. Just thinking. Got you something."

Ugh. He kept coming up with random names for her when he had to refer to her 'Out of Costume'. Always something starting with a P!

He waved in the direction of the bag in front of her, and she opened it.

Burger and fries. Shocking.

The drink was a chocolate milkshake though, which was a major plus.

"Figured I've been ordering delivery from one of these places for almost two weeks now, I should probably try it."

Eating a luke-warm fry, she ran that sentence through her head a few times. It just sounded weird.

"Why are you ordering food but not eating it?" That just sounded so wasteful!

-----

Meanwhile, in the headquarters of the Legion of Doom (Luthercorp HQ)

Lex Luthor slowly, carefully unwrapped the burger that had been delivered not even an hour past. It had come with a side of extra large fries and a double extra large vanilla milkshake from his own fast food chain, the Big Belly Burger.

He'd had his doubts about this L figure, but whomever they were, they had long since bought his appreciation.

Not his forgiveness, no, but he could most certainly appreciate their good taste.

The burger wasn't one of his, and most definitely had not been made for consumption by the masses.

No, this one was a thing of beauty and taste!

A kobe beef patty wrapped in edible gold leaf foil with exquisite, flavorful truffles, lobster, caviar, genuine gruyere cheese and topped with Kopi Luwak barbecue sauce, all between a pair of champagne infused buns.

He almost, almost moaned as he took his first bite.

The first time one had been delivered it had, unfortunately, gone through a very, very thorough deconstruction and testing phase. Everything had come up exactly as expected. No poisons, no toxins, everything was fresh and safe...

It was incredibly suspicious.

He'd even told the department testing it to get a fat priest and skinny priest to exorcise the blasted thing, and nothing came of it. They'd finally settled on feeding it to his intern.

Apparently, this made him the best boss ever.

If L kept having these kinds of meals delivered, Lex might even consider rescinding the contract he'd taken out on him with Deathstroke.

-----

"I... Have some long term plans." Which really didn't answer her question, but whatever. It was his money.

"Alright." She drank her milkshake while she thought of what to do next. A reminder from her status caught her eye, telling her she had unspent stat points.

Actually, there's an idea.

"I can take you to Zombieland, but I'll need you to do something for me." The last time he'd gotten into her I.D. he'd been the only one to benefit. A low estimate for what he'd acquired was still sitting in the six-figure range.

"Depends on what you want." That was fair, she guessed. He wasn't willing to just do anything. She wouldn't be either.

"Put me in your party. I'm close to fifty but I'm going to be busy with things for the next few days." Tomorrow was shopping with Megan and Power Girl. The day after that was her older brother, Tod's birthday.

She unwrapped her burger as he started looking through his menus, finger flicking at nothing in the empty air.

He seemed to be comparing something, his head tilting from left to right, before deciding on what to do.

~~ You Have Been Invited to Join ~~
~~ Player: Alchemist ~~
~~ Do You Accept? ~~
~~ Y/N ~~

She clicked on yes just before she bit into her cold, soggy, greasy meal.

It'd be a waste not to eat it when he'd been nice enough to pay for it.

Chapter Text

Project: Gamer Ver. 2 Alpha Build 0.4.6

Disclaimer Me Do: I own nothing you recognize. And most of what you don't recognize, I still don't own.

_________________________________________________________________________

Alchemist took only a moment once the transition from real world to Zombie I.D. happened to get his bearings.

And then he was off, turning zombies into toads and giggling in a way that was distinctly uncomfortable to listen to.

Player One wasn't getting any notifications of zombies dying, but her inventory -was- filling up with loot drops, so things were apparently working properly. She spared one more glance at where he was spinning around at the intersection of the road near Big Belly Burger, toads dropping all around him, and then hit I.D. escape.

-----

Leslie watched Player One leave and let the smile fade. Getting another level on Toad had been fun, and he was planning to level it up while he was here, but it wasn't really his focus.

No, he was here for an entirely different and, honestly, much more selfish reason.

He let out a slow breath as the grip he'd kept on the tight bundle of frustration, anger and stress in his chest uncoiled.

A short rifle appeared in his hands, pulled from his inventory. A semi-automatic 9mm carbine. He slid in a magazine, a standard one with ten rounds in it. Slid back the action to chamber the first bullet.

He did not disable the safety, he didn't have a target lined up, nor was he ready to shoot.

Instead he cast Dark Blade on the gun, causing black flames to leak from the seams and then he cast Haste on himself and the rifle.

Today was all about stress relief because he did -not- want to lose his temper on his team mates.

-----

Bruce put away the league communicator in his pocket and picked up the tray with two plates of Alfred's cooking.

He'd gotten a message from Alchemist saying he was 'Taking my two. Will be out of touch. Player One can reach me.' which was... Going to be something of an issue.

The friction growing within the team needed to be addressed, and Alchemist was just one of quite a few parts of that.

Black Canary had been doing more and more counseling sessions with the team, but she was demanding that an actual psychologist be brought in.

He balanced the tray in one hand and knocked on the door to Dick's room.

Waiting one, two, three seconds he got no answer.

Pushing the door open, he didn't see Dick in the main room but he did hear the shower in his attached bathroom running.

Bruce set the tray down on the table where Dick had left a few books open, clearing a space so the both of them could sit and eat.

A History of Time, Locksmithing through the Ages, Advanced Code Infrastructure and Logistics... All useful books, but also terribly dry.

It took him entirely too long to find something that -wasn't- related to his activities as Robin, a Nancy Drew storybook buried under a dusty pile of books on the physical mechanics of hand to hand combat.

Bruce stacked the books at the end of Dick's table and set the plates out as he heard the shower shutting off. Two frosty glass bottles of root beer, a treat that Alfred would certainly disapprove of, sitting next to them.

"Sorry Alfred, I'm not... Bruce?" Dick stepped into the room wearing just a pair of sweatpants, toweling his hair dry when he realized the man at his table was not an English gentleman.

"I'd hope not. That would mean I'd have to be Dick." Bruce smiled as Dick groaned at the joke. This was one of the parts he enjoyed most about being a parent.

"So why are you here and not Alfred?" Dick sat down, leaving his towel hanging around his neck. Bruce dusted off his own chair and then sat down as well.

"He's taking a meal down for Jennifer right now." The homeless metahuman orphan downstairs was an entire can of worms on her own. And that was on top of the potential bomb that had walked into the Mother of Mercy Hospital in Gotham earlier today that Batman and Robin had been investigating.

Dick stabbed his fork into his roast beef with just a little too much force at hearing that. Bruce let him work on those thoughts on his own for a bit as he enjoyed his own food.

A slow cooked beef roast, carved into medallions over a bed of mushrooms and onions and glazed with a red wine sauce. Buttered corn with red and green peppers, as well as steamed broccoli.

Flavorful, delicious and it practically fell apart on his fork.

"...Do you think Alchemist had anything to do with Nora, too?" Well, it wasn't what Bruce was hoping Dick would start with, but it was a good question.

One he was wondering about as well.

"We don't know enough to be sure, but it would be the easiest answer." Nora Fries, buried seven years ago, had walked into a hospital on the other end of Gotham from her grave, surgical tubes embedded in her and oozing various fluids both natural and not.

Somehow nobody had seen her walking the entire distance, and neither did she appear on any security camera anywhere in the city before she turned up at the hospital.

Dazed, confused, and cured of MacGregor's syndrome.

The list of people that could perform miracle healing and teleportation was...

Alright, it wasn't actually that short of a list.

The ones who would use it irresponsibly, however...

Also not a short list.

Alright. Being realistic, Alchemist was potentially their best option due to proximity.

"How did Freeze even get everything buried under her grave without you noticing?" Dick raised another very good question.

Nora's coffin, dug up and forced open, had been a cryogenic storage pod. Buried and safely hidden for seven years as Freeze had continued to work on a cure.

The coffin itself could operate independently, though for how long Bruce didn't know. Just underneath of it, however, had been a series of batteries and canisters of preservative fluids that had interfaced with the coffin to keep it operating for years at a time without maintenance.

"We'll have to find out. Somewhere between the caretaking service, the grave diggers and the manufacturers of the equipment we should be able to get some answers." Bruce wanted to find out too, especially because he had to hope that Nora had been the only person Freeze had done that to.

Dick chewed on that for a moment. Or he was chewing on his beef.

Bruce popped off the cap to his root beer and decided he needed to reroute the conversation.

"Dick, about what happened down in the cave..." The young man swallowed heavily and looked down at his plate. Bruce had to suppress a smile. The boy was so confident and proud when it came to villains and heroics, but he was still uncomfortable just talking about his feelings. It was good to see that the young man could still just be a boy instead of a hardened vigilante at all times. "I understand you were angry. Do you want to talk about it?"

"Why are we on the team?" Bruce put down his fork as Dick asked that, motioning for him to elaborate. "Aqualad, Kid Flash and me. Why are we on the team? All the others are novices, newbies. They're getting trained from the bottom up and we're just... Sitting on our hands and waiting for them to stop being bad at everything."

Bruce understood, maybe all too well what his young ward was feeling.

"Being honest Dick? The team pretty much got away from the Justice League. We planned on having more experienced heroes, including you, there to train our new members one on one. And then Cadmus happened and we had more people than we really knew what to do with." It had removed Clark from the equation while adding two people that desperately needed trained by him. The Speedy situation was similar, taking out Green Arrow as well as the clone he'd been unwittingly training.

Speaking of...

"Do you remember seeing Speedy at the Mountain last week?" Dick nodded. "Green Arrow is planning to have him join the team soon."

"So... He can join us in waiting for the others to get caught up?"

Bruce chewed on his broccoli for a moment as he decided how to answer that.

He also wondered if Alfred thought he'd been a little shit back when he was Dick's age.

"That's not quite the point, Dick. You, Kid Flash, Aqualad. Speedy when he can finally join you. You're the second generation of heroes for the Justice League. The newer kids are going to be looking to you for direction and guidance." As usual, the vegetables were fantastic. "Do you want to tell me why you were so angry?"

Dick moved his own vegetables around on his plate for a bit, getting his thoughts in order, getting his feelings in order.

"...It's not just Alchemist, but I guess... Seeing him in the cave. In our cave. All I could think about was how he didn't take anything about being a hero seriously. Like he's not taking -me- seriously. He's always got some lame joke, or some weird non-answer whenever we try to talk to him. He was there and it... It just boiled over." Bruce didn't say anything for a moment as he thought on what his adoptive son said.

"Have you tried talking to him about this?" He wasn't the best at communicating himself, but he knew that talking would probably be the simplest solution.

So, as Dick was a teenager, obviously not something he was comfortable with.

He smiled, just a little, as Dick shook his head no.

Teenagers.

-----

Meanwhile, fifteen kilometers and one dimension away...

Leslie slammed the butt of his gun into another zombie's face, shattering its teeth and knocking it back far enough he could discharge two shots into its center mass.

The ground shook as a zombie titan outside slammed its stumps against the side of the police station, hunting after the human that disarmed it.

Leslie had been trying to find a particular gun, big and expensive enough that various pawn shops and gun stores didn't carry it. He had more ammunition than he could count at this point, though. Irritating enough, he had close to a thousand rounds of ammunition, pilfered from the emptied storefronts, for the gun he couldn't find!

A hefty zombie, its jaw ripped off and its tongue looking like a rather grisly neck-tie stood in his way of the police armory as another zombie, slimmer and retaining some glimmer of intelligence ran for the stairs to the roof. Leslie ignored it and moved on, his gun belching black flames, gouts of fire following every ejected, spent cartridge.

The locked door barely slowed him down and he found it, finally. He was expecting to maybe find a Barret M95, but hanging on the wall with two cases of ammunition under it was a Zastava M93. A .50 caliber rifle with a range close to two-thousand meters without magical enhancement.

Haste caused the bullets to fly faster and over-penetrate, but the dark elemental magic, while reduced against zombies, it still caused enough additional damage to cover the difference. He wouldn't be switching over right now, the 9mm was a semi-automatic and the Zastava was bolt action, for one thing. The other was, well, he'd gotten comfortable with the carbine. Especially in short, cramped quarters.

...And he couldn't use a handgun to save his own life. His horizontal aim was fine, but his vertical aim was all over the place.

He refreshed the spell on the carbine and started working his way to the roof, slowly but surely carving his way through enemy zombies packed almost ass to elbow in the stairwell.

The roof, contrary to the stairwell, was almost clear. Only the one zombie was here. It looked at him through broken glasses, salt and pepper hair waving in the wind. It looked almost angry, maybe even defiant as it pulled a switch against the wall.

Leslie dropped it like an unstrung puppet and moved on to the roof, looking around himself and casting Esuna so he could listen...

And there, in the sky, was the Bat Signal.

Chapter Text

Project: Gamer Ver. 2 Alpha Build 0.4.7

Disclaimer Me Do: I own nothing you recognize. And most of what you don't recognize, I still don't own.

_________________________________________________________________________

~~ Warning! ~~
~~ Enemy: Commissioner Goredon has summoned - ~~
~~ Event Boss! The Corpse Knight! ~~
~~ Event Boss! Rob(in) Zombie!~~

Player One rolled over in bed and stared at the notifications.

She'd had to turn off the ones whenever an enemy was killed, or whenever loot got put into her inventory, or...

Ooh, she leveled up! Forty-Eight! That was gonna be nice!

Rolling back over she turned off the notification system entirely.

Whatever Alchemist was up to in there was his business.

-----

Before coming to Earth, J'onn J'onzz had never heard the term 'Body image issues'. On a world of shapeshifters, it could hardly matter what you looked like!

At least, he had thought... Well, no, he hadn't thought. The differences between Reds, Greens and Whites was older than him.

It was just how things were.

On Earth, most cultures would disagree.

The source of his disquiet was sitting in his apartment in Middleton, happily chatting about her day and her efforts to teach Power Girl how to cook.

Still in her 'Almost Human' form.

Here in the privacy of his own home, with the blinds drawn and curtains closed, he felt more comfortable in his own skin instead of the human-ish appearance the Justice League preferred.

Once upon a time his neighbors had asked about his peculiar habits and need for so much privacy.

He'd come up with a rather brilliant solution to that, he thought.

Police detective John Johns had told them he was a nudist.

It had seemed to work quite well for a few months... And then the delightful old lady down the hall, Gale, had slipped a letter under his door inviting him to a private beach.

J'onn made a rather pointed effort to not think about that.

"How have you been getting along with your team?" He asked his niece while he put a few slices of pizza on a plate for her.

Earth cuisine was difficult, different and all the worse, time consuming. The flavors had been difficult to get used to, but the robust martian physiology hadn't complained.

Too much.

"They're all really nice! Superboy and Powergirl are really curious about everything and Robin is like super smart, but only when he's not paying attention to stuff. Like, if you ask him about something when he's distracted you'll get this really good answer about how things work and how to take them apart and things like that but if he's paying attention to the question he'll just say stuff like 'So long as it works, right?' or 'I don't know, it just does'." She stopped just long enough to take a bite of her food before continuing on. "Alchemist, he's the loud one. I told you that, right?"

J'onn nodded.

"Sometimes he seems worried about stuff, but mostly he's just focused on something. Like, all the time! And it's always kind of easy to know when he's around 'cuz, not just the whole hearing his thoughts thing but he's always thinking about music. Usually it's only about ten or fifteen seconds of something and it's always repeating unless he gets distracted and then it changes to something else." She stopped long enough to gracelessly shovel the slice of grease and cheese down her throat before continuing on. "I think I've almost got a pattern figured out about that. Like, if I hear 'Metal walls, reinforced.' he thinks he's making progress on something but if he's hearing 'But if I stay, here, with you. I would leave them to their doom' he's getting frustrated."

"Perhaps his tastes have changed somewhat? I remember hearing more classical pieces when I've interacted with him." Classical, instrumental, synthetic... Not many pieces that involved actual singing, though.

"I guess? There's a lot of those too, but I can't figure out if they mean anything. He switches them a lot. Anyway! Anyway there's also Aqualad, Kaldur! He's really cool and he knows a lot about what we're doing! He's really sharp, like, when anything happens he's got us going and doing stuff before we've even figured out what's happened." J'onn nodded along as his niece continued.

That was actually a very good trait to have in a leader. Not necessarily knowing what's going on, but having the ability to direct the team through uncertainty.

"And what of Kid Flash?" M'gann went very silent at that question. "M'gann, I would be happy to help you, but I need to understand what the issue is."

Communication across two telepaths is both more complex and paradoxically more simple than using something like words.

Rather than trying to explain her thoughts on Kid Flash, she shared them directly.

As such, J'onn got to enjoy the experience of being hit on. At first M'gann had been flattered, though simply uninterested.

Someone tall, dark and mysterious had caught her attention instead, after all.

But the speedster either had not gotten the hint or just ignored it and continued. M'gann was flattered, and the young man's overtures certainly helped bolster her confidence both as a girl and as a shapeshifter, but it was also frustrating, annoying and made her uncomfortable after some time.

J'onn pushed back a sense of comfort and understanding.

"I will speak with Flash tomorrow, M'gann. Please keep me appraised of the situation." J'onn understood that the teenage years were all about mis-steps and emotional development. That also meant having various behaviors corrected by their elders if need be.

"...Thank you, Uncle J'onn." She meant it, too. He could feel her gratitude through the link she'd made. "May I be excused? I'd like to get a shower before I go to bed."

"Of course, M'gann. Sleep well." His niece got up and pushed her chair in before heading to her room. J'onn got up as well, ducking reflexively to avoid bumping into the ceiling, and finally prepared a plate for himself.

Talking to M'gann... J'onn needed to set aside some time. He was sorely missing M'yri'ah and K'hym.

-----

Leslie spat out a mouthful of blood and clenched his teeth.

Protect was a godsend, but it didn't stop everything.

A direct fight hadn't accomplished anything. The two zombies summoned to the roof had been stronger than him by a lot more than he was comfortable with. They'd also had tools that made three-dimensional travel pretty easy.

And ranged attacks. He'd had to pull bat and bird themed throwing stars out of his arms and back, and that had hurt badly enough it brought tears to his eyes every time.

Not just being the nightmare of tool using zombies, these two could even run!

With Haste up and at level four, he was able to move insanely fast and outpace them, but he'd run into an issue early on where his MP regeneration didn't speed up with him. The two zombies weren't as fast as him in general, but in short range they could move explosively with more speed than even his accelerated pace could avoid.

He'd tried to stick to using a gun at first, but he'd discovered two issues with that. The first being that, both zombies were armored against penetration damage. The other was that they were absorbing dark type damage, so they were taking reduced damage from the bullets and actually healing off the Dark Blade buff. Some warning for that would've been nice, like having Observe instead of figuring it out by watching the Batman knockoff regrow an arm he'd blown off with Flare, bit by bit and faster and faster with every dark-charged bullet.

He'd finally pulled off a victory by luring the both of them into a building and using flare to collapse it. Well, 'lure' was a bit of a strong word. He'd ended up running as his MP got too low and they pursued. Taking down the building was more an accident than anything else. The hulking Batman zombie had caught him and was introducing his face to a counter edge at fifty HP a pop. He'd fired off a flare half-blind and hit a wall instead of an undead horror. The teleport out had eaten the last of his MP, so he was going to have to wait a few minutes to fix his ruined face.

Well, a few minutes in real time. It was closer to ten minutes in Haste time.

Leslie spat out more blood and a few chunks of tooth before steadying himself against a wall with one hand. The other he brought up to his face, gingerly touching his pulped and flattened nose.

He grabbed the sides, raw and broken and painful, and pulled it straight.

Alone in a world full of zombies, there was no one to hear him scream. Or curse. Or cry.

Chapter Text

Project: Gamer Ver. 2 Alpha Build 0.4.8

Disclaimer Me Do: I own nothing you recognize. And most of what you don't recognize, I still don't own.

_________________________________________________________________________

Cure, Life and Esuna didn't do much about broken teeth. Leslie really shouldn't have been surprised about that.

He also shouldn't have been surprised when what they -did- do involved popping the broken tooth fragments out of where they were embedded in his cheek and gums.

Live and learn, right?

Leslie was currently sitting on the roof of an office building a few hours before dawn, reading by spell light the scroll of Regeneration he'd bought.

He wasn't too concerned about zombies, not since he'd collapsed the stairwell leading up. Once he had his teeth back he was going to hit himself with Haste again and get some sleep, see what else he could hunt for in the morning.

-----

Player One, Penny according to Batman for everyone on the team who -wasn't- Alchemist, was having a fantastic morning! She'd leveled up again, gotten a full night of sleep, her mom had made a great breakfast and now she was spending time with her new friends!

It was kind of weird that she was the normal one between Megan and Karen but that just meant it was up to her to make sure they both got the cutest outfits!

Karen would be easy to shop for. Straw-blonde hair and bright blue eyes? The girl would look fantastic in a classic patriot ensemble. How it was put together would be a tough call, but red white and blue were definitely her colors!

Megan would be a bit harder, especially with having two skin tones. The red hair, pale skin and freckles meant light colors had to go. It would just completely wash out her complexion! Dark colors would be good, but they were going to have to be really careful with orange.

Penny paused, a little niggling sensation at the corner of her eye demanded attention.

Her notifications. They'd been piling up since she turned off the audio cues.

There were a lot now... And there was a floating red exclamation point... That was probably not good.

"Hey girls, I'm gonna go get some snacks? Anything sound good?" A surefire way to get some privacy? Buy the other girls food while they keep busy looking at clothes.

"I think I saw a pretzel place? With different dipping flavors?" Penny mentally wrote that down for Karen. Always a solid choice.

"I saw a store that sold elephant ears. Do they grow back? Are they good?" Player One had to hold back from laughing at Megan's questions.

"They're not actual elephant ears, Megan. I'll get you one, alright?" The martian nodded easily as she started to pull turtleneck sweaters off the rack.

Penny left the clothing boutique in the mall and got in line behind some loud idiot on his phone in the food court. She pulled out her own phone and used it to hide her actions as she manipulated her interface.

Actually looking through her notifications...

Alchemist had been... Busy. Very busy.

She'd been saving her GP since day one to buy the Acceleration skill, and now she could afford it.

With ease.

And there was apparently a limit on how many copies of an item she could have. Ninety-nine stacks of ninety-nine items. That was... Uh... A lot.

After that it would automatically be sold on the Void Market for gp.

And the money. She usually only managed a couple of bucks when she killed a zombie. The Zombie Titan had been her biggest payday at five grand.

She inhaled heavily as she stepped forward in line. She was going to have to get some pretzels for herself.

A few more notifications, geeze that was a lot of zombies... There we go, those two weird bosses she saw last night. Corpse Knight and Rob(in) Zombie were how she got up to level forty-nine.

That was a lot of GP.
-That- was a lot of money!

She didn't even care that Alchemist had gotten the boss drops because she wasn't physically in the I.D.! What was she supposed to do with the 'Midnight Cowl' or the 'Bootyshorts of Evasion' anyway?

She took another step forward and scrolled further down.

Zombie, zombie, zombie titan...

~~ Warning! ~~
~~ Raid Event Encountered! ~~
~~ "He's not just the clown, he's the whole circus!" ~~
~~ Has Begun! ~~

That... Sounded like it could be pretty serious.

Just not for her.

That was an Alchemist problem.

Those Nacho Pretzel bites on the menu, though. Those were a Penny problem.

-----

A circus tent. In Gotham. Especially Zombie Gotham.

Like it wasn't the biggest giveaway he'd ever seen for 'Evil Stuff here!'.

Greasepaint stains on everything and purple suits on everyone was decidedly on theme, at least. Trapeze artists, knife throwers, strongmen all accounted for. All sporting massive rictus grins.

Leslie had debated going in, guns blazing and holy light being thrown about everywhere... And then he remembered the gasoline tanker he'd passed on the way to the tent.

He assumed it was gasoline at least. It had a big red diamond on the back of the tanker with a little flame symbol on top, the numbers one-two-oh-three in the middle and the number three on the bottom.

The zombie-truck-driver had been incredibly helpful and even offered over his keys after a little application of Holy and now Leslie was slowly backing the tanker up and getting turned around.

Made all the slower with a little application of Haste on himself but not the truck.

He pulled a black plastic jug out of his inventory, one he'd gotten from the gun store over in Happy Harbor. Once he got the truck lined up and accelerating and poured its contents, large black sandy granules, all over the passenger seat and floor of the truck.

He was getting close to the tent and he could see a zombie strongman standing in his way, bent down and ready to try and grab the front of the semi-truck.

Leslie really didn't plan on being in the truck for that.

He pulled the wheel to the right, enough to get the load to start swinging, and then pulled back hard to the left.

Once he felt the cab start to tilt he took that as his cue to teleport out.

The zombie did in fact manage to grab on to the side of the truck... While it was rolling over him and into the tent.

Once the metal started to tear and give way, Leslie tried to picture the inside of the truck cab, filled with loose gun powder...

And used prestidigitation to light just a tiny spark.

-----

"Huh." Penny said as she saw a new notification pop up.

"What's up?" Karen asked her around a mouthful of pretzel and marinara sauce.

~~ Hidden Raid Boss Unlocked! ~~
~~ Jokers Wild! ~~

"Probably nothing." That was an Alchemist problem. Not hers. Nope. Not hers.

Chapter Text

Project: Gamer Ver. 2 Alpha Build 0.4.9

Disclaimer Me Do: I own nothing you recognize. And most of what you don't recognize, I still don't own.

_________________________________________________________________________

He'd actually been pretty disappointed, there had been some hidden boss in the Joker tent, probably called the Sideshow Attraction or something, but it had just ended up being a re-skinned zombie titan. If he'd been ground-bound, it might have been a bit of an issue, but he could teleport pretty much at will to any location he was familiar with.

Some restrictions did apply, his familiarity with the real world didn't translate to the zombie world, so he was limited to places he'd been or could see in Gotham... But that was still every nearby rooftop basically everywhere. The greasepaint wearing behemoth had screeched and flailed and really just ended up being target practice.

Toad-ing another Zombie Titan, Leslie checked his notifications.

Player One was at level fifty. Finally.

He wasn't sure how much time he'd experienced making that happen, but it had been... Alright, he wasn't sure. Haste made things weird. Every level had been a notch on the multiplier, add in the perk bonus and things got pretty ridiculous.

Looking around himself, Leslie noticed something odd.

A trio of Cannibals.

A thought later and he was up on a nearby building, watching them.

Only a single one would spawn at a time before, and he'd noticed a minimum cool down of thirty zombies before even that would happen.

Well, they would take their time and do what Cannibals do. In the meantime he had a message he'd been meaning to read.

~~ FROM: Ultra-powerful best goddess Terra-Tan! ~~
~~ Alright! Well! Let's take things from the top!
To start with, reviewing the code for your game shows that your settings are corrupt. That's on me, I should have recompiled the code after pulling bits and pieces out, but I was in a hurry to get somebody into that world in the window I had. I've got a fix figured out! We just have to wait until the next time you die to apply it.
Animal party members isn't a bug, more like legacy code. It was the precursor system to the current familiar system. It's not really used very often, but it's a dependency for a handful of other systems so we've just been leaving it like it is.
We are looking into options for skills. Direct purchase is, as you've noticed, inoperable without compatible Gamer's Mind/Body. Instant Skill Books are also non-functional for Alpha Tester's in your position. Skill Create unfortunately tends to lead to what we refer to as 'Body seized or died', aka the BSoD. We have had some luck patching skills in as quest rewards, however, so be on the lookout for that!
Metamagic: Pierce is actually working as intended then. We were concerned that it wouldn't match up to the original Pierce ability as designed by Lucifer for his gamer Naoki Kashima. That said however, you're the only gamer we have who specializes in Baleful Polymorph. The typical transformation skill has more often been seen as Polymorph: Girl. We've been fielding a lot of complaints about that from our friends Ophis and Great Red.
Many gamers who specialize in magic have been complaining that spells don't work especially well in high-level builds due to increasing magic resistance. If you have any further comments or concerns regarding the ability, please let us know.
Finally.
You're a Gamer! If you don't like the win conditions, @**&@%$#%, write your own or die trying!

Hugs and kisses, Terra-Tan! ~~

Well, that answered a few questions Leslie had.

Specifically about whether or not game balance or entertainment were the more important parts, and it seemed entertainment won.

Closing the window, Leslie looked down from his perch. Then he closed his eyes, took a deep breath and reopened them.

He wasn't afraid of heights, but looking down from too high up still made the bottom drop out of his stomach.

Two of the Cannibals had been pretty quick and already evolved into Corpsulants. The last one looked well on his way to doing the same.

Pulling out his scroll of Mindblank Leslie unrolled it even as he kept an eye on them.

Something was different and he...

Alright, he didn't -need- to find out what, but he was curious none the less.

Afterwards he had a final project or two he wanted to pull of before leaving.

-----

There was just something freeing about being able to run.

And it felt good when the people of Central City were yelling out his name, cheering him on.

This, running with his uncle and helping the people of his city, this is what Wally wanted.

And, alright, maybe a cute girlfriend too.

That part was looking pretty dead in the water though.

"-look, I'm not trying to say you can't talk to her, alright? Maybe just back off a bit champ. She might come around." Wally rolled his eyes as he bit into the hotdog his uncle had brought along.

"Geeze Flash. For the fastest man alive, you're a bit late on that one." Kid Flash inhaled through his nose, pulling that back in. He wasn't going to lash out about this, he was more mature than that damnit! "...Sorry. Look, I know I'm kinda dense when it comes to girls, alright? But I'm not stupid, okay? She'll barely say two words to me but she's hanging off Superboy, I get it."

He crammed the hotdog into his mouth and chewed while reaching for another one.

"This whole week I've just said 'Hi' 'Thanks' 'How's you're day been', y'know, polite conversation with everyone. Other than that I've been spending my time with Robin and Aqualad." It had bothered him a lot, actually, watching as two cliques formed in the team.

Kaldur, Robin and him in one group. Player One and Megan really made up the other one, but they pulled Power Girl and Superboy in with them. Alchemist had been a non-entity, focused on his own things when he wasn't being pulled into a team activity.

He thought he'd left that crap in school.

"Alright, alright." Flash held his hands up in a joking manner and... It helped actually. Not a lot, but a little. "Might be for the best, y'know? Inter-office romance always goes pretty south pretty fast. There's plenty of other fish in the sea out there, and you've got your whole life ahead of you. No need to rush it, alright?"

"...Y'know I do remember how many girlfriends you had before Aunt Iris asked -you- out, right?" Flash actually winced at that. Wally had grown up watching his uncle get dumped time and again when he had to respond to an emergency and his girlfriend at the time didn't know he was a hero. "I kinda... I just figured I could try and get ahead of that, y'know? Find a girl that's already in the business and not have to pretend."

"Hey, you're thinking ahead! That's a good thing, alright? Sure, it didn't work out this time, but failing is a pretty big part of life. The important part is that you don't let it keep you down." Flash leaned over to give his shoulder a squeeze before going back to his own hotdog.

The two ate in silence as they looked over their city. Peaceful, at least for the moment.

"Hey Wally?"

"Hmm?"

"...The Trickster has group therapy tomorrow. I'd appreciate it if you came with me. You don't have to though, alright?" That...

Wally knew that Black Canary had been upset when it got back to her what he and Robin had said about Player One. Connecting her counseling sessions to this wasn't exactly difficult. That said...

"Alright." Maybe he really did need to understand things better before he shot off at the mouth again.

-----

So. Zombie Hive Lords don't like each other.

Good to know.

The first one had milled about, eating random zombies but otherwise not doing much. The second another Zombie Titan had turned into a corpse-drider nightmare though, all hell had broken loose.

They were pummeling, biting and stomping on each other and it only turned into a free-for-all when the third turned up.

If it wasn't grisly and gory, Leslie would've been recording it.

When the first one finally died, the other two stopped fighting long enough to eat it and fight over which one got the bigger portion. Both Zombie Hive Lords limbs started to blacken and dark red pustules formed at random on their bodies.

And then they decided there could be only one.

Leslie could've intervened, it definitely would've sped things up, but he wanted to save his MP for whatever was coming.

One fell, and the other dropped on it. Biting and ripping and tearing until it was done.

That seemed to have been the trigger for the next evolution. The last lord standing fell over, boils spreading across the entire body before it just dissolved.

Not into thin air, unfortunately. It just fell apart into a sea of brackish blood, the stench of Rot overpowering everything else.

From the core, or maybe the belly of where the Hive Lord had been was a significantly smaller figure rising into the air. It was skeletal, not a scrap of flesh to be seen. Clad in tattered robes embroidered in tarnished gold, it waved a staff through the air.

The rotten liquid congealed around it in a sphere and writhed before losing color, clear water dropping to the ground in a monumental splash.

Huh. It was a woman now. Neat.

"I-" Her voice boomed throughout the remains of the city. "Am the eldest Lich Witch, Briar White! Bow before me, Mortal, and your suffering shall be brief!"

Leslie looked to his left, then his right, and then pointed to himself.

"...Yes, you. Do you see any other mortals here? No." She put her hand to her face and shook her head. "No, I shall not be party to whatever foolishness you would inflict upon me. I shall offer you this meager kindness, mortal, for bearing witness to my rebirth. Have you any last words that I shall engrave upon your bones?"

Leslie grinned.

Well, if she was going to ask...

"I bet I can beat you inside of a minute, and I bet you can't even hit me while I do it!" He punched accept on both of the boast quests.

And then he hit Briar White with Flare, at maximum level, with both the pierce and entanglement effects.

-----

Player One was putting her new clothes in her closet when she got an alert.

Which was especially startling, seeing as she had them turned off.

~~ Critical Quest Alert! ~~
~~ For Reaching (Zombie I.D. Level Cap) A New Foe Has Awoken! ~~
~~ Learn her secrets and defeat her to unlock greater depth in the Illusion Dungeon! ~~

The only choice she had was to accept.

She had no idea what Alchemist had done, but she would appreciate five minutes without his insanity affecting her day!

She had half of her equipment on when she had to stop and stare.

~~ Congratulations! ~~
~~ For defeating (Lich) you have attained greater power, and greater potential! ~~
~~ Obtained Skill: !ERROR! (Player was not present upon completion of quest) ~~
~~ Illusion Dungeon: Caves unlocked! ~~
~~ Notice! Once all players have left (Illusion Dungeon: Zombie) it will be sealed for 72 hours for emergency maintenance. ~~

But... She hadn't even entered the I.D. yet.

Chapter Text

Project: Gamer Ver. 2 Alpha Build 0.5.0

Disclaimer Me Do: I own nothing you recognize. And most of what you don't recognize, I still don't own.

_________________________________________________________________________

Leslie adjusted the rearview mirror of the Jeep he'd found on the edge of what was left of Wayne Manor as he left Gotham behind.

From Gotham, it'd be about a thirteen hour drive for him to get to Kentucky. He could've used Haste, but it was raining and he didn't really want to see how well he could brake on slick roads going two or so hundred kilometers per hour.

Teleport could've worked too, either by scrying the military base he was aiming for or using it to hop across the states in ten or twenty kilometer bursts... But he'd been running and gunning and planning and acting for so long and he just, he needed to zone out for a bit. Let all the things he'd been pushing down process.

He was feeling better, that was something he could definitely say. It took time for him to lose his temper, he'd spent years learning to bottle that up, but sometimes it just got to be too much. He needed to vent some of that pressure. Having a place where he could throw a temper tantrum without any repercussions, without losing whatever respect people did have for him... Or maybe just the respect he had for himself?

Either way, he felt lighter than he had since he'd ended up in Leslie's body.

It was a real shame he had to burn down Gotham for that to happen.

He'd tried to find the Bat Cave, even went and looted Wayne Manor... It hadn't felt right to attack the Zombie Butler there, he reminded Leslie a lot of the butler from Tomb Raider. Unlike the other zombies he hadn't even been hostile. Just following Leslie around while he was taking things off the walls, stealing the silverware, raiding the wine cellar and trying to figure out how the Grandfather Clock in the second floor study was related to the Bat Cave.

He never did figure that out.

He -had- been tempted to lock the zombie butler in the walk-in meat freezer (Not thinking about the meat. Don't go there. Don't.) for the sake of tradition, but... It just hadn't felt right. Alfred had been decent to him, and being cruel to his zombie when it wasn't even hostile felt wrong.

He did, however, snag a lot of very expensive heirloom jewelry he'd never be able to sell.

Passing by zombies on the road, he was turning them into toads without much conscious thought. That spell was close to being at its max level, then he could worry about Holy.

Or maybe he should worry about Holy first? He couldn't practice it outside of an I.D., but he could get a rat or something, turn it into a toad and into stone and rinse and repeat and...

He turned on the radio.

Static, static, static... Looks like he's making his own music.

"On the road again! Something something something 'bout that road again!" Which was going to be a bit rough since he could never quite remember lyrics, but he'd make due.

He'd reached level forty-two over the last however long it had been. Mastered protect and blink, his main damaging spell Flare as well. Dark Blade had maxed out pretty quickly, he noticed. Of course, it gained experience whenever the weapon it was buffing caused damage. Thanks to haste and severe over-penetration he'd been able to run the spell pretty long and pretty hard.

He'd also gotten to learn that prestidigitation was damned handy for cleaning a fouled barrel and repair would fix a gun to feeling like it was brand new again.

It was kind of sad he didn't have a firearm skill, he knew he'd fired a bit over six-thousand shots. Most of 'em even hit.

If Batman ever found out about Leslie's little hobby and tried his 'No Guns!' shtick, Leslie might actually quit. The 9mm and him, they had a connection now.

The Zastava though, she was still being a bit touchy. Zeroing her in was slow going.

And painful.

But that was love right there.

Leslie snorted at his joke and ignored the quiet 'Thunk!' of the jeep running over a toad.

Briar White. The name meant nothing to him. Her being some final boss of the area wasn't too surprising. It was always a lich leading zombies.

Unfortunately for her, he was tooled specifically to dealing with her kinds of shenanigans. Pierce didn't care about whatever magical protections she'd set up unless it outright absorbed the damage. Entanglement let him cast his spells on her, and anything connected to her.

Like her phylactery. Horcrux. Soul Jar... He should've asked what term she preferred before he re-killed her.

He'd gotten an interesting skill from her though!

Briar's Dream.

And wasn't he nervous about saying that last word out loud.

~~ Briar White was a sickly child in her youth. Like all who fall to darkness, her journey to mastering undeath started with an arcane dream and a touch of Hope. ~~
~~ Effect! ~~
~~ +1 HP/Minute ~~
~~ +1 MP/Minute ~~
~~ +1 VP/Day ~~

Every little bit is nice, but that was too little to really be useful to him at this point.

He'd also gotten a Lichbone Pendant, it improved his dark and negative energy resistances by fifty percent each, and empowered spells of those elements by an additional one-hundred percent. Which was great, for all of two spells. Dark Blade and Osmose. Minimally useful and negatively useful in Zombieland. Yay.

He shouldn't complain, really. That was honestly fantastic, just not in here.

That would pair really well with the Midnight Cowl if he ever had to deal with something throwing around dark damage though!

~~ Midnight Cowl ~~
~~ Intelligence -10 ~~
~~ Wisdom +20 ~~
~~ Dark Resistance +75% ~~
~~ "That's one trouble with dual identities, Robin. Dual responsibilities." ~~

It was dark blue, had tiny little ears on the side, crudely cut-out eye holes and it had little white eyebrows stenciled over those.

Leslie loved it.

~~ Bootyshorts of Evasion ~~
~~ Defence +15 ~~
~~ Dexterity +10 ~~
~~ Agility +10 ~~
~~ Respect -20 ~~
~~ "So is it me... or are the crooks getting lamer as we go?" ~~

Those, not so much.

With a quiet *Ping!* telling him Toad had hit Sixteen, Leslie had finished everything he'd come in here to really do.

He pulled over to the side of the road, turning on his hazard lights more by reflex than necessity, and looked at his stat page. He'd gained thirteen levels here, from twenty-nine to forty-two. That was sixty-five stat points. Plus the five he got from one-shotting Briar White. And apparently 'Boasting' that you can take down an end-boss with a successful no-damage run was worth one point in every stat. He went ahead and distributed them, and then he purchased the two perks between him and Archmage.

Strength 16
Vitality 60
Dexterity 7
Agility 16
Intelligence 91
Wisdom 91
Luck 8
Adept Arcanist
Wizened Warlock

Soon, pillars of holy light began to rise into the night sky as a teenager drove wildly through the dark, giggling like a madman or a fool.

Fort Knox had no idea what was coming its way.

-----

Red Tornado stared at the security footage in silent confusion.

In one frame, they had the motorpool. Completely empty. No vehicles.

In the next, there was a semi-truck. Blue and red. Towing a trailer with stacks of metal bars on it.

Alchemist dropping out of it almost explained a few things.

His proclivity for teleportation in lieu of more traditional means of transportation was well known. However his ability had yet to be tested, and using it to teleport a truck and what looked to be ten tons of cargo was... Well beyond their expectations.

The android confirmed the boys heading and began making his own way to the recreation room and attached kitchen.

-----

Robin wasn't sure what to make of what he was seeing.

Alchemist was in Mount Justice. Cooking, which wasn't actually weird. He did that a lot.

But he was humming, and grinning.

And wearing a very, very familiar looking pair of green gymnastic shorts.

"Where did you get those?" His legs looked like they'd never seen sunlight!

"What, these?" Alchemist slipped a finger into the waistband and pulled, letting it slap back in place. "Got 'em off a Robin lookalike contest winner."

Please be lying.

"Something smells go- Oh my god what are you wearing!" Robin could -hear- Alchemist chuckling at Kid Flash.

"You like 'em? They're called the bootyshorts of evasion!" No! God no!

"They're gymnasts shorts, Kid Flash." Dick tried to head that off, force them to use the correct terms.

He knew he wasn't going to win this.

"I know Robin. That's what I said." Alchemist knew what he was doing. He was getting his revenge for Robin's outburst in the dumbest way possible.

"Is someone cooking?" And there was Aqualad, followed closely by everyone else. Robin could see the momentary confusion when Kaldur saw Alchemist wearing... Those.

Megan and Player One had a bigger impact. Sort of. They stopped dead in the doorway and almost ended up on the floor when Connor and Karen ran into them.

"Alchemist! You're in a good mood! Did you have fun while you were out?" The Martian asked him.

He stopped what he was doing for a moment, tapping his chin as a small, honest smile spread across his face.

Megan, in contrast, seemed to go pale. Her eyes opened wide, pupils dilated. She bit her lip and stared at Alchemist with a look on her face that Robin couldn't quite decipher.

"It had its ups and downs, but overall it was pretty good." Alchemist tucked in the edges of his egg and flipped it over.

"You look dumb." Someone finally said it. Connor finally said it.

"Ow." Alchemist mockingly grabbed his chest. "My feelings. They hurt. I'll have you know, my mom said I'd have the most handsome face for radio."

"That's not what I-" Superboy started to clarify.

"Sorry! I really need to be- go- I'll be right back!" And Megan cut him off. She nearly knocked over Red Tornado as she ran out of the room.

"Alchemist." Red Tornado always lacked significant inflection.

"Yo."

"How did you acquire ten tons of gold?" What?

Ten tons of what?!

"You what?!" Player One shrieked from the couch.

In response Alchemist just shrugged, put his omelet on a plate and said "I got bored."

Chapter Text

Project: Gamer Ver. 2 Alpha Build 0.5.1

Disclaimer Me Do: I own nothing you recognize. And most of what you don't recognize, I still don't own.

_________________________________________________________________________

If Leslie had been expecting a quick payday from his gold, he'd be sorely disappointed. Ten tons of unknown, unregistered and (After he'd gotten done with it) unmarked gold couldn't just get thrown on the market.

Batman said he'd get it taken care of, but then he'd also said he'd be getting Leslie another identity too.

Thankfully that had just been the amount he couldn't fit into his inventory. He had a further nine-thousand, eight-hundred and one bars, all weighing in at four-hundred troy ounces sitting on his person. Roughly a third of the gold stored at Fort Knox.

A week after turning back up with absurd wealth in tow, he was still laughing at the memory of the look on Player One's face when he handed her a bar off the truck for 'Services Rendered' before booting her from his party.

He was a bit torn on what to do with it all, honestly. Putting on an obvious disguise and selling it piecemeal to every pawnshop and gold broker in the state -was- an option, but he'd probably only manage one, maybe two bars before he'd have to come up with another disguise. On the other hand, gold was the cheapest base material to use for Convert. Across similar conversions, like Iron to Steel it might only be winning by one or two MP but when it came to making any of the really impressive stuff, Darksteel and Necrodermis especially, it won by a landslide. It was also practically free to transmute.

Well, frustrating as Batman mishandling his bureaucratic mess could be, Leslie had been working on his own solution. The middleman Oswald Cobblepot had set him up with said he'd have everything from his forger soon, and he accepted payment in quite a few different currencies. Gold coins, silver coins, precious gemstones, guns... Or straight cash.

Leslie had looted a significant enough amount of that, and if it eventually got caught as a forgery, well... Actually, that sounded like an increasingly bad idea. The kind that would see another hit called out on him, assuming Penguin didn't send his own men after Leslie.

Well, it's not like he was using any of the rubies, sapphires or diamonds he'd collected while digging through Gotham's pawnshops anyway. He briefly considered paying with the armory he'd collected, but there were bad ideas and then there was that.

Besides, he'd been using those to level up his item creation, well, modification skill. Fusion: Synthesis.

It let him take the attributes of an item or spell he'd mastered and cram it into another one. There were limitations of course, but he'd already made a fun little toy. His 'Magic Wellness Stick' which restored health when it hit someone, made from a police baton, a little green plus sticker since the Red Cross was trademarked, and the Cure spell.

It was still at a low level, so it had an upper limit on the 'Rarity' of items it could be used on. Common for now, rare at fifty, legendary at cap. Basically anything common was the equivalent of non-magical and didn't modify stats, so ninety-nine percent and change of what he had in his inventory. And at the moment, he could only fuse one item into a 'recipient' item, though that would go up by one every fifteen levels and that he'd lose half of the stats or factors that were being moved. Every other level the efficiency would improve by one percent.

Two things he'd made note of. An item could only have something fused into it once, and according to the book that was a hard cap. That didn't stop the enhanced item from being fed into something else.

The other was what happened to the sacrificed item. It was turned into 'Useless scraps', which so far meant a fused lump of metal and plastics when he'd experimented with some handguns. Which wasn't quite useless to him. That right there was Conversion fodder.

Guns had a lot of little stats on them, most of them functionally unimportant. Aesthetics and intimidation, for example, meant nothing to him.

Though he might see about chaining out the intimidation factor and feeding it into something like a teddy bear. Let the rest of the world feel his fear of stuffed animals.

No, he cared about durability and shot consistency, which was the guns ability to consistently fire a bullet along the same trajectory. It wasn't quite an accuracy stat, but that was fair. Accuracy was a skill and only a part of it could be attributed to the tool.

Leslie had been tempted, incredibly tempted, to threaten to 'Beat his teammates to health with his magic wellness stick' but he'd kept his mouth shut.

He'd managed to earn a little over two million GP while he was 'relaxing', and he'd been a bit torn about what to do with it. He was fine with spending it, but he had to take a bit of time to decide what to spend it on.

He'd eventually settled on buying the rest of the imbuement spells, skipping over the books and going directly for the scrolls. Carthus Flame Arc, Blessed Weapon, Lightning Blade, Crystal Magic Weapon and Frozen Blade. All read and, since he wasn't a sadist willing to inflict severe harm on random people, sitting at level one.

More importantly, he'd picked up yet another skillbook. Hewards Handy Handbook of Magical Mysteries. It was kind of a 'throw it at the wall and see what sticks' book, but it had a lot of magic inside that was less strictly governed by hard numbers.

And he really wanted to find out how to make a demiplane seed, a pocket reality, for himself and lock it up as tightly as he reasonably could.

He'd had to go back over his process of building a holmcross now that he had better access to alchemically superior materials and start from basically scratch.

Though with the cost decrease between his skills and the gold, he was now done with the first two steps. He'd transmuted gold into all of the components to make the blasted thing, and then converted it into living steel. Now he just wanted a private workshop where he could assemble the skeleton, attach the nerves and muscles, skin it, prime it with Leslie's blood and have Death move him over.

He'd tried transmuting one wholesale, but that had been something of a failure. Details had been missing at various points and a lot of the joints had been fused solid. A skeleton contained a lot of small moving parts that he just couldn't focus on all at once. He could have potentially made it in groupings of pieces... But if he was going to have to live in the thing, he wanted to be sure every piece was done correctly.

Though, being entirely fair, he was cheating for time. He'd purchased Dispel from Final Fantasy Eleven, since that was the only other game that he knew of off the top of his head that used scrolls for the spells and because Dispel from Final Fantasy Two worked a little differently. After that, he'd been casting Haste on himself when he'd go to bed and Dispel on himself when he woke up. (On a more mundane note, he'd had to purchase a fan. The first time he'd used Haste to get around the time lost to sleep, he'd woken up with a migraine, minus five VP and had the status defect of 'Hypoxia')

He'd be nearly done, but he'd had to participate in team exercises. Physical training, basic combat instruction, counseling... The counseling sessions with Black Canary had been... Interesting.

She'd ended up asking if he might have potentially been disassociating from his original personality as Leslie Winters due to the emergence of his metahuman powers.

He'd agreed that it was a very real possibility and not something he could immediately disprove, which seemed to throw her off her game pretty hard. He knew he wasn't the boy, but short of making a massive target of himself he couldn't exactly prove it.

An even bigger target of himself, at any rate. Healing powers were rare, and that was just what everybody else was aware of. If they all knew that he and Player One both had the potential to rise up to city-wrecking levels of power... Well, there were a lot of 'Patriots' who would act on fear and then try to justify it as precautions and prevention. He didn't want someone trying to put a sniper round through Player One's skull until she could survive it, and getting there would take time...

Contrary to what he remembered, it seemed like the team was still doing minor missions throughout the week. The key difference being it would always, always be the three sidekicks plus one of the new members, minus himself. Instead he was patching them up and repairing their equipment after said missions.

To be fair, he was fine with that. It's what he signed up for, after all.

He was starting to worry that combat seemed to be the actual goal, or things were just worse than he remembered.

Probably worse. DC was all deathworlds, all the time.

All of that lead up to today, for good or ill.

-----

Superboy had come back from some mission in a bad mood. Slamming doors, ignoring people, all in all he was acting like an upset child that didn't get his way.

In other words, like someone with his level of life experience should realistically be expected to act like. The poor kid wasn't so angry anymore since most of his subconscious triggers had been removed, but he still had this idealized version of Superman he was trying to emulate.

All Leslie had gotten about it had been something about a bridge being the trigger for today's episode.

Really helpful.

Later on, around eight in the evening they'd been gathered together for another mission.

"Recently as you may have seen, Professor Ivo unleashed an android with capabilities never before seen, able to emulate any member of the Justice League that he observed for an extended period of time." Batman briefed the team in the operations center. "After a protracted engagement it was successfully defeated and disassembled and is now en-route to Star Labs for in-depth analysis. Your responsibility will be to oversee the remains and ensure that they are successfully delivered."

Multiple different pictures flashed across the screen, directed by the small remote Batman had hidden in his fist. Ruined buildings, beaten heroes, millions in property damage.

"As no combat is expected, the entire team is being fielded to supervise the components and their handover." That's a daring play, Batman. Let's see how it turns out. "Any questions?"

Alchemist raised his hand.

"Yes?"

"Why wasn't I brought out for the aftermath of the android's rampage?" Leslie waved a hand in the general direction of the screen.

"A very good question. We were able to determine that civilian harm was not a priority for the android and all injuries to the League members were determined to be non-critical. Your assistance, while debated, was eventually determined to be unnecessary." Alright. That wasn't fantastic but it did answer his question. "Anything else?"

Nobody else seemed intent on speaking up.

"Alright. Further instructions will be provided in Lichfield. Alchemist, Player One, stay behind."

Chapter Text

Project: Gamer Ver. 2 Alpha Build 0.5.2

Disclaimer Me Do: I own nothing you recognize. And most of what you don't recognize, I still don't own.

_________________________________________________________________________

Superboy, Connor, was struggling to remain still. Lichfield was a podunk, empty stretch of land with a handful of houses, one traffic light and a military base nearby that probably spent more on a lazy weekend than the local civilians made in a year.

He, Robin and Power Girl were one team, supposed to protect a truck full of something. They hadn't seen it yet, Batman had taken Player One and Alchemist somewhere else to brief them on the truck they were supposed to watch.

Megan, Kid Flash and Aqualad made up the final team. He didn't know if they also got motorcycles.

He didn't know why he got a motorcycle either, come to think of it.

"Alright." Batman said from behind him, which caused jump a foot in the air. "Teams Two and Three are set and moving. You three will be Team One. The truck driver already knows the route, you three just need to keep up. We aren't expecting a retaliatory strike from Ivo, not after the losses he's sustained, but be on the lookout regardless."

Superboy stared at Batman for a moment, a look of something on his face before he started his motorcycle and got moving. It took him a little bit to get the balance figured out, being that it was his first time using one...

Seriously, he had no idea why he was on a motorcycle and not in the truck with the... The thing they were moving. Some Amazing thing? He hadn't had a chance to ask Wally, Megan or Alchemist to explain it to him.

Following behind the truck, Connor wondered if this is what he was going to be doing for the rest of the day.

-----

The answer ended up being 'yes', right up until the answer was a very emphatic 'No!'.

Flying monkey things were attacking the truck!

Superboy struggled to maneuver his stupid motor-bike-thing and it just wouldn't do what he wanted it to do! He finally got frustrated enough he jumped off, launching himself at the truck and the glowing green robot monkey things.

This did not go as well as he'd been planning. Sure, he landed on the top of the transport truck, but he couldn't actually accomplish much. The monkey were just too fast, too agile and they could fly in almost any direction when he tried to grab them.

Where were Power Girl and Robin?!

If one of them could just hold these things still, he could dis-assemble it without a real fight!

Super Boy tried to jerk to the side when he felt one, no two of them grab under his armpits and start lifting up but his struggles yielded no results. With an expertly coordinated toss he ended up rolling in the ditch next to the road as another monkey used their eye-lasers to cut open the truck.

With a screech of rubber on asphalt Power Girl came to a stop next to him. "Get on!"

Even as Super Boy hurried, he could already tell it was too late. The flying monkey robots were already lifting a massive crate, one that took four of them to carry, into the sky.

-----

They'd followed Robin a long way, tracking the monkeys all the way to Gotham.

Why Gotham? Why not Gotham. The United States is huge, but for whatever reason nearly a quarter of the crazies could be found in either Gotham or Metropolis.

Closing in on the Gotham High School, Superboy saw three other motorcycles parked in the alley Robin chose.

Megan, Kid Flash and Aqualad.

"Robin." Kaldur started as soon as the equipment was turned off. "I'm glad to see your team is safe. Any word on team three?"

Right. Alchemist and Player One. They'd headed in a different direction, just like Aqualad's team had.

"Radio silence. I hope whatever they had was important."

-----

Leslie looked at Player One.

Player One looked at Leslie.

She'd gotten around to replacing the chipped and yellowing hockey mask with a red hood that had a black face mask concealing her mouth and nose. It looked nice. Didn't match the rest of her outfit, but the overpowering stench of Rot and dust was slightly reduced.

"You got any two's?" Leslie grudgingly took a card out of his hand and gave it over.

-----

"Batman wouldn't have sent them off separately if it wasn't." Superboy nodded at Kaldur's words. What he knew of Batman was someone dedicated to brutal efficiency and purpose.

"Is this the part where we split up?" Power Girl asked from where she stood next to Robin.

"That would likely be most effective, yes." Aqualad responded.

"Okay. So, if we're going to be picked off one by one who has to go first?" Superboy wasn't quite sure what to make of her question.

Thankfully he wasn't the only one struggling with it.

"...Maybe we should stay in our groups and just, like-" Megan spread her fingers apart on both hands and then meshed them together. "do a pincer attack? Is that the word?"

"I think I like that idea better. Are we doing that?" Robin asked and looked around. Everyone, Aqualad included, were nodding. "Alright. My team will go in the South. Team Two, there's an entrance to the north-east that's not usually locked."

There was a final look between Robin and Aqualad, one Superboy couldn't decipher, and both teams broke.

-----

What was the word Superboy was looking for here? He'd heard it used a few times, usually when someone was talking about him and not remembering that he had better hearing than a human.

Eerie, that was it.

The dark hallways of the Gotham school were eerie. They seemed too wide, too open to be empty. Like there was something vital missing and he was walking through a half-aware corpse.

He saw a flicker of green and held out his arm, almost knocking Robin over. Power Girl, of course, saw it at the same time.

Somewhere between the humming and rattling of the old air conditioning system, he could almost make out words.

"Peanuts? It's just full of peanuts! I don't need packing peanuts, I need the head!" That would probably be the Ivo guy, the one in control of the monkey droids.

Superboy tapped Robin's shoulder and then pointed down the hallway he could hear the voice coming from.

Power Girl hadn't figured out flight yet, but she was still faster than him. With a subtle nod from Robin she shot off like a rocket, grabbing the robot before it had time to do anything this time.

"What? Unit Seventeen is offline? Wonderful! Just wonderful! The children are already here and this is what I have to show for it? Someone must think they're cute." He heard a door slam and both him and Power Girl took off. Passing by the one room with the lights on he could just make out the words 'Electrical engineering and woodshop'.

They were almost on him, a short, older looking man in a sweater vest wearing a dapper little red bow-tie. Superboy was reaching out to grab him when a yellow streak got him first.

The others caught up quickly, probably with Megan's help to track the man down.

"Alright!" The professor shouted in Kid Flashes grip. "Alright, I surrender! Just put me down you brute!"

Wally dropped him as Robin and Aqualad closed in.

"I didn't know you had it in you to make the smart choice, Professor." Robin mocked the old redhead as he pulled out a pair of handcuffs from his belt.

In response, the old man pulled something out of his vest. A small circuit board with a handful of wires attached to it and a large lantern battery, a little blinking light at the end of one cable. "And I didn't think any of you were smart enough to set a trap and make a signal duplicator! I guess we all get to be disappointed today!"

He did something, Superboy didn't see what, but it caused the battery to explode into a cloud of choking smoke. He couldn't see the man, but over his own coughing and that of the team he could hear him running.

There was a crash of shattering glass and Kid Flash took off, running half-blind after the man.

A few moments later, tears and snot running down his face as his vision cleared, Superboy was after them too. He could make out the yellow form of Kid Flash not too far away, shouting up at the sky and...

Oh. The man had a quartet of his monkeys flying him away.

Superboy was looking for something he could throw that he wouldn't get yelled at about when he heard a quiet 'Fwip' noise.

It was followed very shortly by Ivo screaming as he fell towards the ground.

Luckily Kid Flash was there to break the old man's fall.

Unluckily, Kid Flash was there to break the old man's fall.

Both of them were stuck in a painful, groaning heap on the ground. One of them, Superboy wasn't sure which, was complaining about their hip.

-----

"Sorry that it took so long, our head of security demanded the unit be placed in isolation before we could begin unpacking it." A Star Lab technician told the pair of Alchemist and Player One. "Alright. Everything was accounted for, the intact parts were intact, the other ones weren't. If you'll just sign here acknowledging the surrender of the Amazo android you two can get on your way."

Alchemist grabbed the clipboard offered to them before Player One could and began to slowly read through the document. Midway through he pulled a pen out of his inventory and began using it to track where he was.

It got a little uncomfortable when he started to underline things.

"No. We're not signing this." The boy was shaking his head, clearly unhappy.

"Excuse me?" The technician didn't understand, and that was fair. This looked like a job for legal.

"This says the Justice League retains all legal indemnity for any losses or damages that occur due to experimentation as performed at the behest of Star Labs while waiving all rights to knowledge, products and patents that may result from said research." He handed the clipboard over to Player One. "I need to call my superior, but if that's what you expect us to sign, we're taking it back."

Alchemist and Player One had been given a very simple set of tasks. Put the boxes containing the Amazo components in their inventories and then teleport to said labs.

Short, simple and delightfully easy.

What Bruce Wayne's, sorry, Batman's lawyers were about to do could not be described using any combination of those words.

Chapter Text

Project: Gamer Ver. 2 Alpha Build 0.5.3

Disclaimer Me Do: I own nothing you recognize. And most of what you don't recognize, I still don't own.

_________________________________________________________________________

Later that night after the team had come back from processing Ivo, Leslie had made his way to Metropolis.

The majority of the team had had acid burns, on their faces, arms, they'd probably inhaled it too. Sure, he'd been able to fix it pretty quickly, but still...

He shuddered just thinking about it.

Then the grumbling had started, that turned to whining, then Player One mentioned that she and Alchemist had gone directly to the lab with the Amazo parts while they'd all played decoy.

Then there'd been even more whining when she revealed that they'd ended up bringing the components back so Leslie eventually just walked out when they started repeating themselves. He'd been intentionally avoiding Metropolis, but if Batman did what he remembered him doing...

"Hey Superman." Leslie said into the empty air from where he sat on the ledge of a building. "This is Alchemist. If you're free, I think we need to talk."

He'd done that five minutes ago, and five minutes before that. He knew if Clark was nearby he could hear him, he wouldn't even need to shout.

Looking around, there were still only darkened windows and a few rare cars on the road. Shrugging, he got back to work on what was in his lap.

A sheet of paper with an exploded view of a human hand, offering a very detailed look at how the muscles and tendons were connected to everything. Balanced across his legs was the start of something that looked very similar, albeit it made of metal instead of bone.

He was actually enjoying this work. It was small and detail oriented, needing him to use transmutation to anchor together bones, work artificial sinovial fluid between the joints and affix synthetic, cable-like muscle fibers and tendons in place.

Assembling the wrist had been a lot like putting together a puzzle, he'd thought.

"Hey Superman-" Leslie started again without looking up.

"Alchemist?" Leslie jumped at actually hearing a response.

And dropped the arm he was working on.

He was halfway to leaning forward, halfway to acting instead of thinking when he saw a blue blur grab it for him.

Floating before him, looking curiously at the assembly he'd been working on, was the Man of Steel himself.

"Crap, sorry!" Leslie reached out to take the arm back, but Superman was just out of reach.

"This is... Very detailed." Well Leslie hoped so. If it wasn't, it probably wouldn't work. "Do you mind if I ask what you're making it for?"

Leslie sucked in his cheek for a moment as he actually decided how to answer. He could tell several half truths, experimenting with golems, making a body double, giving himself a hand... But he was here to have a serious conversation for once. If he wanted Clark Kent to actually sit down, listen and talk he should probably be the one to start.

"Did Batman tell you that I'm the second person to be in this body?" Superman shook his head no and Leslie cursed under his breath. "Alright. Storytime I guess. Are you a coffee or cocoa kind of guy?"

"I... Usually have to settle for coffee?" Superman sounded confused. A simple question shouldn't have that effect on the guy, should it? Leslie didn't ponder on it for too long before he had a steaming cup of cocoa from Maritime Coffee in his hand and held out for the man in blue. "...Thank you."

Superman settled himself down next to Leslie and looked over his city.

"There's a lot of details that probably won't matter, so I'll try and pare this down a bit. I was dead, and I was fine with that. Dying sucked, and I left a lot of things behind, but it happens to everyone. Problem came around with someone who was on the other side, one of the deities in charge of humanity. She had an idea and a recently vacated corpse. She put those things together, and here I am." Clark nodded along as Leslie talked, and it was kind of nice getting to talk about this. "I... Don't really agree with how things went. This body had friends. Family. Gods, his family. It was just him and his mom, no idea what happened to his dad. And I was just, I don't know, expected to pretend I was him."

Leslie brought out his own bottle of water and took a sip, thinking about how to word the next part.

"So I told her. That I wasn't her son. That he killed himself. The problems that caused it are in jail, but I can't, won't change the past. But I can determine the future, and I said that this situation isn't acceptable. I managed to get in contact with the being in charge of moving souls back and forth... I'm betting you've met her, even if you don't get to remember it." Leslie shook his head. If he got off on a tangent he'd never get back on the rails. "She agreed to bring him back after I had a decent vessel for myself. No idea what that's going to cost me yet, but I'll figure it out. The first method I looked at, cloning, didn't pan out. It needed materials I can't really get. I was looking at other methods when I learned something kind of important though."

"And what is that?" Superman looked grim, possibly even angry.

"If it ever got out that my body was cloned, I'd be in serious trouble. Clones don't have rights, they're considered as the property of either their original self, or else property of the company that made them. Toasters have more rights than clones right now. The Genomorphs from Cadmus? Basically shielded from being reclaimed by the shock value of what they did. Last I checked the government is still arguing over their status as either property or citizens." Clark looked like he clearly didn't believe Leslie's words. "Seriously, we can thank Red Tornado for androids having rights. Truman declared him a citizen back in forty-nine in the middle of a legal battle against the Edison Illuminating Company. They were arguing that, as he was initially made primarily out of their components and since Morrow wasn't in the picture that they had the rights to do what they wanted with him."

"You can't be serious." Leslie wondered which part Clark was struggling with. "They actually thought they could declare a war hero as their property?"

"Edison was a nightmare, and so was his company." Leslie shrugged. "Right. Focus. Clones and that arm. If I clone a body and the original decides he's entitled to anything I have, it'd be legally difficult to say no. If I build a body and technically fall under the Android banner, I've got precedent behind me. You know judges love precedent."

And that circled all the way back around to the point he wanted to get at.

"And clones are the whole reason I came out here in the first point." And Superman, who'd been loosening up as Leslie talked was suddenly ramrod straight and his eyes had gone hard. "We really need to find them a legal guardian so Cadmus or whatever company, hint- Lexcorp -hint, doesn't get their hands on them. Is Wonder Woman at all willing?"

"You... Aren't going to tell me to adopt one or both of them?" Clark... Shouldn't sound so surprised by that.

"I'm sure there's some bullshit somewhere about manning up and taking responsibility, but no. Superboy remembers wanting to kill you. Power Girl has got some even more screwed up stuff in her head. Whoever thinks that they need to be around you for their benefit is an idiot." When Clark relaxed at hearing that, something in Leslie's chest hurt.

"Then you'll be telling the Justice League they're idiots." Maybe Superman wasn't supposed to say that. Maybe it was Clark instead.

"Get me up to the Watchtower and we can both do it." There, ever since bringing up the clones, that was the first grin Leslie had gotten out of him. "How does the whole situation make you feel?"

Clark leaned forward, his hands on his knees as he looked down over his city. "I don't know."

"Mind if I make some guesses?" Clark shrugged. "Violated, betrayed, ganged up on. Frustrated. Upset."

Human emotions. Dark emotions. The things Superman couldn't be seen feeling. With every word Superman leaned further forward, hunching in on himself.

Leslie hesitated, but reached out to awkwardly put a hand on Clark Kent's shoulder.

"Do you... Mind if I make a suggestion?" Clark nodded, and Leslie pushed down how awkward and uncomfortable all of this felt. This whole thing was a mess. "Do you have anyone who's on your side? Not the Justice League, nobody else, just worried about you? Parents or a girlfriend or something?"

"I..." Leslie wondered if he was thinking of the Kents or Lois Lane. "Yeah. A few people."

"I think maybe you should go and talk to them, tell them everything. What you feel, why you feel it, who's making you feel that way." He'd hated how Superman was handled in Young Justice. Like he was some deadbeat dad for not wanting to take in someone who was purpose-built to kill him and take his place.

"...I think I will. You're a good kid, Alchemist." Superman floated off the ledge. He looked... Lighter than he had before. "Thank you."

With a short wave, he took off.

And Leslie waved after him... Right up until he remembered that Superman still had his arm.

Chapter Text

Project: Gamer Ver. 2 Alpha Build 0.5.4

Disclaimer Me Do: I own nothing you recognize. And most of what you don't recognize, I still don't own.

_________________________________________________________________________

Leslie waited ten, twenty...

Thirty minutes. Clark never showed back up.

Sure, he'd come here to give him a hand, but it wasn't supposed to be literal!

He huffed and teleported to the ground. The Zeta Terminal wasn't that far away, and a good walk sounded like a nice chance to think.

Sure, the missing arm irritated him, but that was only about three, maybe four hours of work he'd lost. He could make that up tonight after he got some sleep...

That was another issue he was going to have to figure out. He was running into the same issue his laptop had when he'd cast Haste on it. The air in his room didn't circulate well, so he ended up just inhaling the same air he breathed out, which meant a decreasing amount of oxygen and an increasing amount of carbon-dioxide.

Alright, it wasn't the exact same issue. His laptop would vent heat faster than it could dissipate, but the principal was similar.

The fan worked for now but one more level, two at the most and he'd be back to the same issue. Hell, even if the fan was doing a fantastic job it still wouldn't be enough. At that point, he'd literally be inhaling all of the immediate oxygen in the room inside of... Eighteen? Twenty minutes in real time?

He knew there were a few solutions, he was pretty sure there were a handful of machines made just to fix that kind of issue, though not his specific case.

Probably.

But it wasn't something he'd ever even thought of before, so his Google-fu would get a workout.

Had been getting a workout.

This would not be an issue if the room just had windows, instead of an old and desperately in need of service HVAC system...

Leslie exhaled in a huff as he turned a corner. It probably wasn't the end solution to his problem, but that would probably buy him some time, maybe another level or two.

He'd just have to put on his robe and wizard hat and actually use his repair spell for something legitimately worthwhile for a change.

...And maybe see about mugging a druid for some spider-plants. At least he couldn't kill those with negligence. Were there druids here? Did Holland count?

Leslie revised that thought. He'd go to whatever department store he could find with spider-plants.

Holland scared him witless.

-----

Artemis exhaled slowly, carefully. Silently.

She'd been keeping her eyes open and straining her ears ever since she dropped the lunatic with the robo-monkeys and she knew she was being followed.

They were good, she'd give them that, but not so good she hadn't noticed them.

She thumbed a knob on her belt once, twice, three times and shifted her heading. She didn't expect things to get loud, but her pursuer was persistent.

It took fifteen minutes to get to the docks, fantastic time made by jumping across roofs and scaling fire escapes. Her shadow dogging her the entire way.

Calling them 'good' hadn't been a matter of praise.

Stupid though, they were good but so very, very stupid.

She used a fire escape to drop to the ground and ran through an alley. Just like on the roof, they followed her trail almost exactly.

Two blue dumpsters down this alley.

One green recycling dumpster down another.

One painted with graffiti that looked like Robin, that was the one. She juked hard to the side, obvious enough a blind man could see it.

And blind her pursuer must be, they, he she finally let them close enough to see, followed her down into the darkness.

He caught up to her, lunging to grab her and overshooting as she ducked under him.

"Stop!" He gasped, clearly out of breath after he rolled to get his feet back under him. "I'm here to talk!"

He had short cropped red hair and a domino mask. A bow and quiver slung across his back.

Artemis pulled a knife from her boot and moved.

He probably did want to talk, seeing as he could have shot at her easily enough. But she'd let someone else get the drop on her once before and it had only ended well due to their nature. Her mother had never let her live it down.

Or the fact that she still had their hoody.

He grunted and lunged, but she danced out of the way, her fist glancing across his ribs.

"Most men who want to talk don't go chasing girls down dark alleys, now do they?" Sportsmaster had drilled into her that silence was efficiency.

Her mother told her that an angry enemy will have a harder time noticing when you slip a knife between their ribs.

He slowed down, circling around her.

A little more, a little more... There!

"I'd suggest you stop moving." The non-sequitur seemed to puzzle him for a moment.

And then a little red dot splashed over the lenses of his mask and he froze.

"And this is the part where you start talking."

Chapter Text

Project: Gamer Ver. 2 Alpha Build 0.5.5

Disclaimer Me Do: I own nothing you recognize. And most of what you don't recognize, I still don't own.

_________________________________________________________________________

Most of the team had either left or, in the case of the clones, already gone to sleep by the time Leslie came back.

That was fine, he wasn't intending to stay up anyway.

He made his way to his room, changed into a pair of sweatpants and a tee, cast Haste on himself-

~~ Congratulations! ~~
~~ Haste has reached Level 12! ~~

And got another unwanted surprise for the night.

Leslie exhaled slowly. Alright. He could deal with this. It wasn't a setback, just a bonus he didn't know how to properly utilize yet.

He turned the fan he'd been using to face the desk and sat down. He was just going to re-shuffle his plans a bit, just... Stay awake until near the end of the... Twelve, plus forty percent, that's sixteen point eight. Multiply the eight by six... Sixteen hours and forty-eight minutes.

Or he could just use dispel when he got bored, that was also an option.

He needed to know if he could safely sleep under these conditions, or if he was going to have to figure out a more efficient means of oxygenating and circulating the air.

Leslie pulled out a bar of gold and absentmindedly got to work. He had a few artificial bones leftover for the right arm, courtesy of the perk for Crafter's Luck, but only a few.

As his hands and magic followed the blueprints embedded in his soul, his mind wandered.

He had a lot of perk points saved up, mostly because, well, he didn't pay much attention to them. He had a specific goal in mind, and everything else just kind of fell to the wayside.

And there were a lot to dig through.

Perks for all of the elements...

Actually, he needed to take a look at that one.

~~ Hero of Rime ~~
~~ It's Dangerous To Go Alone; Take This! ~~
~~ Ice and Cold based damage and effects +50% ~~
~~ Ice and Cold Damage Resistance +25% ~~

Alright, it made him laugh. That was worth the point he spent on it.

He did see another perk that could be interesting, but he hadn't actually read the details yet...

~~ The Wages of Mages ~~
~~ By sacrificing valuables to Mammon equal to 1.5 times the original cost of a spell or ritual, you will be given the magical power to complete the spell or magical item at no MP cost. Expending riches at twice that value (X3 base cost) will see the spell or item completed at one tier greater than your current capabilities. ~~

Oh. That... Wasn't going to happen. The cost part didn't bother him, but the patron was a sticking point. Mammon was the demon lord of greed and wealth, one of the seven or... Eight, possibly, if Terra's message earlier represented the current state of things. One of the eight 'Kings of Hell'.

Not getting mixed up in them was a good idea.

Not getting mixed up in anyone that John Constantine probably owes money or souls to is an even better idea.

Leslie shook his head and focused on his hands for a second, double checking his work.

So far so good.

Going back to the perk list, there was actually something he saw a while back that he'd been reminded of while he was thinking of the Swamp Thing and druids.

Polymind! That was it.

~~ Polymind ~~
~~ Maintain human levels of consciousness within animal forms ~~

It and its successor perk-

~~ Greatest Wilder ~~
~~ Retain spellcasting capabilities within animal forms ~~

-had given him an idea.

He was just going to need a few spells from the shop and...

Leslie scrolled up and down, a frown on his face.

Ironize was available, twenty-five thousand GP for that spellbook.

Dragonkind, though, was the odd duck. Sure there was a scroll of it sitting at ninety-nine thousand, nine-hundred and ninety-nine GP, which was all kinds of odd... But the second and third levels of the spell were missing.

Well, Leslie had GP to burn so he bought it anyway. As well as a few others that would fill in a few holes.

Leslie put the golden bones down for a moment and pulled out his phone, already aware he was going to be distracted for the next few... Hours? Minutes?

Regardless, he sent a text to Red Tornado about Speedy and got to work.

-----

"Does Alchemist sound like one of those squirrels outside the base?" Superboy asked Power Girl, sleeping on opposite sides of the same bedroom. The majority of the rooms available were tiny, single rooms that could barely squeeze a single person inside, but there were a handful of slightly larger double rooms.

The two of them shared one such bedroom, regardless of the complaints raised by some of the other members of the team.

"You mean the little brown things that squeak a lot?" She'd heard it too, almost every night recently.

"Yeah."

"...Yeah."

"Okay."

-----

~~ Warning! ~~
~~ You have lost 1 VP due to oxygen deprivation! ~~

Leslie glared at the notice through the minor headache that had built up.

According to the digital clock next to his bed, it had been about twenty minutes. A bit over five hours in Haste time.

Leslie cast Dispel on himself, then did it again and finally a third time before he hit Haste instead of Protect or Blink.

He was going to have to reapply those.

Leslie steadied himself with his chair as he stood up, blinking to try and bring his vision into focus.

Okay, no. This was not tenable for the long term.

Opening his door brought in fresh, sweet air as he stepped out. He left it open behind himself as he went downstairs and prepared something to eat. Aside from getting up to pace from time to time, Leslie hadn't done too much.

Something light would be fine. Maybe toast.

While that was heating up, Leslie took a look at his spells. He'd learned both Ironize and Dragonkind, but he didn't know how to use them effectively, not yet.

Ironize was relatively straightforward. It turned the targets body into iron. It was a total tradeoff spell, losing out on all offensive abilities and becoming incapable of moving, but also becoming functionally invulnerable for a short time.

According to the spell menu, it should only last about ten seconds.

Dragonkind, or Form of the Dragon, wasn't what he remembered. Instead of a spell that would let the caster transform into a dragon of their choice, at least among ten different dragons (These being black, green, red, blue, white, copper, brass, bronze, silver and gold) it instead had a different description.

~~ Dragonkind ~~
~~ Using a Player's history, skills, alignment and mindset this spell will create a new form. Once cast, this cannot be changed. The Player will assume the shape of a Dragon for a duration up to (1 Minute X Player Level) minutes. In this form, the Player will have access to all of the natural physiologies a Dragon would have. This includes Armored Scales, Fangs, Claws, a Tail, Wings, Darkvision and the corresponding Breath Attack. This may include Gills, Venom, Planesight and/or Foresight. The Dragon's form will correspond to the Player's actual age regardless of Player Status. ~~

~~ WARNING! ~~
~~ Once cast, the Form of the Dragon cannot be changed! The Player will use the same form each time the spell is cast! ~~

Yeah, alright, Leslie got that the first time. Hammering it into his skull wasn't going to help.

He was going to be hatching the dragon egg as soon as he had a place figured out to keep it that wasn't so public and he... Planned on actually being able to raise it. It was a dragon, not a cat or dog. It was going to be intelligent.

He hoped.

Leslie pushed the plunger for his toast down and went into the sitting area, shoved the table up against the seats to clear about a fifteen foot space, roughly five meters...

And cast the spell.

Chapter Text

Project: Gamer Ver. 2 Alpha Build 0.5.6

Disclaimer Me Do: I own nothing you recognize. And most of what you don't recognize, I still don't own.

_________________________________________________________________________

Huh.

Well.

This was not what he expected.

He had to crane his neck to look at himself, but his body was pitch black with a glimmer of white here and there. No spines, thankfully. He wasn't keen on trying to open his wings here, but they looked like they had a denser concentration of the glowing white specks between the black.

Although it was probably the deepest black he'd ever seen, and that included a few samples of Vanta he'd come across in his former life.

Looking at his reflection on the television, he could make out his own eyes glowing yellow in an angular, pointed face.

Not sunken though. That ruled out Swamp Dragons, commonly known as Black Dragons or Skull Dragons. The horns were wrong, too. They weren't angled around his maw. Just stubs angling back from where his head met his neck.

He tilted his head, trying to look at it across different angles. Until he opened his mouth, he couldn't make it out at all, the seam was simply swallowed by the coloration.

Curiouser and curiouser. He knew there were more dragons than he could name in Dungeons and Dragons alone without getting into the esoteric and odd things that came from anime and video games... But he wasn't sure what kind he was supposed to be.

From snout to tail he was, perhaps, three meters long. Maybe a bit less. On the low end of large. Unless he was one of the few small size dragons that meant he was Young. Though that covered anything from five years to a hundred.

He held his claws up in front of him, sitting back on his haunches. Curved and sharp, hardly surprising. It might have been the light, but he could swear they had a subtle green glow. There were scales missing on the back of his left forepaw, though. Over an old... Healed... Scar.

He brought his head down to examine that very, very closely.

That wasn't right. Leslie's hands were calloused but unharmed, he'd been careful!

He went back to the television, snout practically against glass as he looked for something.

Something he found.

Old scars, bone deep in one place.

That was his face.

This was his face!

Blacker than black and draconic, sure, but those were his scars...

He closed his eyes, quelling the thrum of excitement and listened. Not to the sounds of the cave or mountain, but within.

Silence. Calm.

No fear. No anxiety. No depression trying to find a crack to seep into.

This was him, it was only him.

The desperation that had been clawing at him for weeks was quiet. The almost manic need to be in his own body wasn't fraying at every thought.

He could focus.

He could finally -think-!

He settled himself on the ground against the blessedly cool stone and looked at what he'd been doing.

Making leaps of progress but wearing himself out...

Why?

He'd been obsessive in his past life, it had been part of a cycle and he knew it. Curiosity, obsession, frustration and satisfaction until he'd made himself competent in whatever he wished to know. Then he'd move on to a new game, or new subject of study.

Pride? Oh yes, he was a proud individual. He desired competency from himself, and was proud of what he'd accomplished.

It was not to say he'd never felt fear or anxiety, never struggled through the malaise of depression, but they had not been defining aspects of his life.

But within Leslie, it was rather different. He could see it with much greater clarity from without as compared to within.

He felt it could be justified to call his recent behavior a manic episode. He'd been destroying himself in a bid to desperately accomplish his goals.

By himself.

His own pride would be his undoing there. Where before he'd desired competency and comprehension, the combination of himself and Leslie -needed- self-sufficiency. He feared relying on the people around him, was terrified by the thought of their rejection or refusal.

He was so dead-set on doing everything by himself. The Holmcross could have potentially already been assembled if he'd just had the courage to -talk- to Red Tornado, to ask him if he knew of a lab where the parts he'd made could be assembled!

@**&@%$#% huffed and stumbled back up on all fours. Of course he'd fall prey to such a trap. How much did it matter if Leslie's soul was gone if he was still operating on the boys brain and all its teenage neuroses, struggling against the persistent drag of suicidal depression?

He dispelled his Dragon form and cast repair on the shredded remains of his clothes. He was going to eat his toast, get some real, proper sleep and then start -fixing- things.

-----

Red Tornado had been gone when Leslie woke up. The android had read his text, but he didn't respond so Leslie had no idea if his message for Green Arrow ever got passed on.

One of the brilliant procedures and policies Black Canary had finally made for him. Any communications to one of the League members he didn't answer to was supposed to go through either Batman or Red Tornado first.

He'd make sure he sounded appropriately apologetic if they wanted to complain about him talking to Superman the night before.

Well, that was two tasks he wasn't going to accomplish by himself. That left him stuck with figuring out why the ventilation in his room was dead.

One key issue there, however, was that he had no idea where the units were for heating and cooling, or for moving the air. He did have an idea on how to find out, but he wasn't sure it was a good idea.

Leslie cast Toad on himself.

A small crawling amphibian had no issues sliding in between the bars for his room vent.

Adjusting to the different sense of vision definitely took some getting used to.

Once he did, though... Well, he wasn't too upset about the vent not working once he figured out what he was seeing. Toads apparently had amazing night vision, definitely superior to a humans. What he was smelling though...

Mold. Everywhere. Round black spots as far down the pipe as he could see.

As a toad he couldn't see things that were too close, but the point stood.

He didn't want to step into it. Hell, he didn't want to breathe any of it either.

He had an answer though! The vent pipes were up here in the residential section were twenty centimeters by ten centimeters, and Prestidigitation could clean a cube of space measuring thirty by thirty.

Before he'd leveled it up, applied Expand and the forty percent boost from Wizened Warlock.

It would take him some time, but he was not going to let this stand!

...And he didn't want to have to keep casting Esuna on everyone because of mold toxicity.

-----

He wasn't sure how long he'd been traveling, renewing his light spell and cleaning out filth before he found another issue.

Mice, now dead, had destroyed the wiring to one of the fans that would force the air to circulate. Repair fixed it in short order, but it was just one of many.

How long had this place been abandoned before they decided to throw a bunch of kids into it?

The Joker attacked it in Two-Thousand and Six, if he recalled correctly.

So four years. Four years of damp and wild being allowed to settle in.

Why did Bruce have to be rich? He probably had no idea this kind of thing happened when buildings weren't maintained!

-----

M'gann stared at the segment of her wall where a vent was. Player One was with her, and the two of them had been debating outfits.

"Is that light coming out of the vent?" She had to ask when she saw, well, light and shadows crawling across her floor.

"Yes. Yes it is. Does the mountain have little robots or something to clean the vents?" Player One got down on her hands and knees, trying to look in between the metal slats but...

There was a toad. With a ball of light hovering over it. And staring back at her.

It waved.

This had Alchemist written all over it.

Chapter Text

Project: Gamer Ver. 2 Alpha Build 0.5.7

Disclaimer Me Do: I own nothing you recognize. And most of what you don't recognize, I still don't own.

_________________________________________________________________________

Kaldur'ahm didn't really know what to expect when he went to the base today.

The operation last night had, apparently, been a total success. Until the very end, when Alchemist and Player One had returned from making their delivery while still in posession of their cargo.

While none of the team had been upset about that, they had been very confused. Alchemist claiming someone at Star Labs was engaging in legal idiocy did very little to clear things up.

The receipt he'd handed Kaldur hadn't made much sense to him, filled with legal jargon that didn't exist in Atlantis. Robin however had understood it with little issue. Another little reminder that this was Robin's team in all but name.

Attempting to ask for more information had been a dead end, considering Alchemist had disappeared. That had been frustrating, but not especially important. Kaldur had done his job, the team had returned safe, the supervillain was captured and everybody went home at the end of the day.

Beyond that, if Batman wanted to talk to Alchemist about him and his 'Aborted Machine God', then that was between the two of them.

At least the kid had remembered to fix Kaldur and the rest of the team before he disappeared. The stinging, itching, burning all over had been agonizing.

Most of the team was in the recreation room, attached to the kitchen when he came in. Player One was on the couch flicking through television channels, Megan was looking through a TV guide, Alchemist was putting together a sandwich and both Superboy and Power Girl were reading what looked to be a primer for schoolwork.

Wally had yet to arrive, it seemed. Nor had Robin.

"Have we heard what we'll be doing today?" He asked the motley, multi-colored group.

"Not yet." Player One said. "I was going to introduce Megan to Glee though, there's a season recap playing!"

"It'll be fun! I'll make popcorn!" And the Martian in question seemed very enthusiastic about it.

"Unless someone has something for me, I was going to go out into the woods and figure out how to be a dragon." Nobody quite seemed what to make of Alchemist's declaration. "But if Red Tornado or Speedy show up, could someone let me know? I've got stuff to do with both of them."

"...Sure?" Player One said from the couch.

"Would you mind some company?" Kaldur wasn't sure what to make of Alchemist, and a lot of that felt like his own fault. He hadn't gone out of his way to interact with the boy...

And likely wouldn't have today, either. But the other option was to watch some sitcom with three girls and Superboy.

"Sure, c'mon. I think the spot we went camping was pretty open." Alchemist did that thing where he makes something disappear and stepped around the counter.

The two of them were halfway out the mountain when Aqualad felt he had to ask. "So. Not a fan of Glee?"

"I would rather teach myself to fly using a rope and a chair."

-----

"So." Alchemist pushed aside a bush on the way to the campsite. "I've been meaning to ask. The water thing, is that magic or just really specific telekinesis?"

"Magic." Kaldur replied instantly. "Everyone, even from the surface, has some capability with magic. Atlantis tends to have more people with more potential, and we've cultivated that alongside our specific schools of magic."

"I'd figured. Might have a spell to share with you if you're interested." Kaldur had to school his features. Alchemist had occasionally tried to be helpful, but he'd never made that kind of offer before.

Neither had Giovanni Zatara, come to think of it. Everyone seemed to guard their secrets jealously.

"Well, what kind of spell is it?" Toad, teleport or healing. And maybe that material shaping spell he used. Kaldur could see some limited utility in all of them.

"Water conjuring." That was it? "Sorry, permanent water conjuring."

"...I'm pretty sure that's impossible." Even magic had to obey the laws of conservation of mass, right?

"I'm pretty sure magic leaves 'Impossible' and 'reality' and 'common sense' off crying in the corner. Not sure you actually can learn it, not with that mindset anyway." Alchemist did that thing where Kaldur's eyes hurt and pulled a scroll out of... Out of...

Alchemist handed him a scroll, the wax seal already broken.

"Create food and water?" Kaldur asked after reading the title.

"No, no actually. My bad. Here." Alchemist handed him a different scroll, taking the food and water one back. "That one should be Create or Destroy Water, right?"

"...Yeah." Aqualad struggled to read and walk at the same time but... It was! He might need to practice a bit, some of the terms were archaic, possibly even foreign, but...

The spell in the scroll actually sounded like a sustained, permanent, consumable conjuration!

And the Destroy Water aspect... If he used that in a spar in Atlantis, he could disarm a foe before going in to strike! Forcing them to re-arm themselves, wasting precious time and magical energy! Or even more... Creating a void in the ocean for a moment could disrupt momentum.

Or...

Well, nature abhors a void. All the weight of the ocean rushing to fill in an empty space, that kind of force, it would be immense.

"Alright, well, you have fun with that." Alchemist took off his shirt, and then began unbuttoning his pants.

"What are you doing?" Kaldur came out here to get away from over-sexed teenage drama, not walk into... Into.

"I still haven't figured out how to transform my clothes. It's a work in progress." Those words almost made sense.

Then Alchemist stepped behind a tree, obviously disrobing the rest of the way.

And a dragon shaped piece of the night sky walked back out.

Stumbled back out.

Actually it just fell over.

Chapter Text

Project: Gamer Ver. 2 Alpha Build 0.5.8

Disclaimer Me Do: I own nothing you recognize. And most of what you don't recognize, I still don't own.

_________________________________________________________________________

Kaldur watched Alchemist struggle to effectively stand up with a smirk on his lips.

It probably -shouldn't- be funny, his teammate had actually turned into a dragon (What else had he been telling the truth about?) but he just...

The guy tried to stand up and walk two steps, overextended because he didn't move his back legs but his wings instead and just fell back over.

It's hard to find something intimidating when it can't even walk.

While Alchemist got that whole mess figured out, Kaldur decided to work on the spell he'd been given. It was different from using his Water Bearer to magically control water, and he wasn't the most adept of magicians, but...

If he could get the spell figured out, he would never be disarmed again.

Using his Water Bearers was a constant exercise in focus. The tool helped to 'remember' the shape of the water but there was still a constant, minor drain on his magic to keep it active. More experienced, more talented sorcerers could maintain the shape without a tool, but it required more skill and more focus, though the cost in magic remained the same.

The spell called for a drop of water, which was easy enough for him to get. The mountain and these woods were next to the sea, he didn't even need his tool to focus some of the moisture in the air into a more condense form.

The next part was a bit more difficult. Concentrating on the concept of Creation and using that to fill a small, small piece of his internal mana, magic, ether... Whatever word someone wanted to use. His spirit.

That was a bit different for him. He'd been taught to use Control, Shape and Water. Learning the various nuances and meanings, how one thing can be so much of anything else, even be completely different while retaining the same Identity.

So he charged a little bit of his magic with the idea of Creation, pushed it into the water and then... Twisted it, he guessed.

The scroll got a little confusing right about there. It did specify that a skilled enough magician could cast the spell 'Without material components' which sounded like it would be significantly harder. Or how they could amplify the volume both created or destroyed by sacrificing greater tiers of power. Whatever that meant.

Well, Kaldur learned best by doing after all.

He focused on- Alchemist tripping over his own four feet and dropping jaw-first into the ground.

"Maa ig shing ind uh." The dragon tried to speak. Maybe. "Muh mih ma mu my. My."

Alright. Alchemist was learning how to talk again. It may have been brief, but his silence had truly been golden.

Kaldur suddenly remembered a movie he'd watched the other night with most of the team, a classic.

"What is it boy? Did Timmy fall down the well?!" Kaldur grinned as Alchemist looked at him with unsettling glowing eyes, distinctly unamused.

And then Kaldur had nearly forty liters of water drop on his head.

"Kuldur tall in wall!" Well, that was difficult to understand but Kaldur now knew that Alchemist could still cast magic as a dragon. That could be a dangerous combination.

And he already knew the water conjuring spell.

Kaldur stared at Alchemist. Alchemist was staring back.

Alchemist broke first, a hissing, rasping laugh soon followed by Kaldur's own.

This... Kaldur'ahm had missed this! Studying magic. Having fun with magic!

With a grin Kaldur got back to trying to figure out the spell, now thoroughly drenched.

Alchemist was looking at one of his stray cats that had been attracted by the noise, his head tilted to the side in curiosity.

-----

"Why are the two of you soaking wet?" Black Canary asked, frustration feeding into her voice. She had been against the idea of a junior Justice League. She didn't like how close it came to child-soldiers.

Something Batman didn't quite seem to grasp.

But they were here, and she wasn't willing to just ignore them because they made her uncomfortable.

"It was raining where we were." Alchemist responded with a smile.

Aqualad was looking at him speculatively.

The two had come back from the nearby woods, laughing and joking with each other. It was a good sign, team cohesion had been proving to be an issue.

"Well, come with me. We've got an introduction to make and then we're doing hand to hand training." Both boys fell into lockstep behind her.

Aqualad was easy to work with. He followed a chain of command and could be inflexible, but he paid attention. He was quick on his feet, had solid analysis skills and was shaping up to be a fantastic member of the Justice League.

Alchemist was more of a mixed bag. Willing to question orders, look for weaknesses and offer alternatives, he could be fairly effective. His physical abilities were, likewise, somewhat mixed. The boy was a brawler through and through, his form was... Not just terrible, but filled with gaping holes. Sometimes he used those to his benefit, grappling the opportunistic fist or foot, the other half the time he'd take the hit and close distance.

Against someone significantly stronger or better skilled, it was a losing strategy. Proven by his defeat in every spar he'd participated in. About the only good thing she could say was that he knew how to keep his feet under him and he'd made a good opponent for Robin and Player One now that they'd started fixing her issues.

That was not to say he wasn't improving, just that it was slow going with how spread out her focus had to be.

It may have, also, probably felt like something of a wasted effort considering he was a non-combatant, but it was at least good practice for the actual members of the team.

"Who's the introduction for?" Alchemist asked from behind her and to the left.

"I've recently taken a young girl under my wing. She's not joining the team, but I want to be able to train her alongside all of you and work on getting her powers under control." Taken under her wing, right.

She might be the trained counselor, but Batman was the expert on guilt.

They quickly made their way to the PT room, padded mats covering just about every surface. The rest of the team was there, from Robin to Superboy to Megan.

And her ward, awkwardly standing apart from the group.

The girl shyly waved at her, Dinah waved back.

She was about to say something when Alchemist stepped past her, walking right up to the girl.

"Hey. I'm glad to see you're doing better." It wasn't what she'd been expecting him to say, not with his profile and history, and she was glad for it.

Jennifer "Jinx", her ward, very rarely smiled after all.

Chapter Text

Project: Gamer Ver. 2 Alpha Build 0.5.9

Disclaimer Me Do: I own nothing you recognize. And most of what you don't recognize, I still don't own.

_________________________________________________________________________

Black Canary knocked Superboy off of his feet with more ease and grace than Robin would have expected.

Whatever the mechanic behind his super-stength, it didn't seem to multiply his weight or stability. If he didn't anchor himself properly, he'd fall over just like anyone else if force was applied correctly.

"This is the purpose of training. To improve your basic abilities, as well as to prepare you for situations that may occur while in the field. Each of you will encounter things you have no training for, no experience with and no frame of reference to rely on. You will have to figure out how to handle them yourself. What we can do, however, is ensure you each have a set of tools and skills that you can apply to such situations." Dinah turned to each of them, locking eye contact before moving on and finally pulling Superboy up from his stunned stupor.

"Many of you are enhanced in some way. Super strength, super speed, material phasing. All potent and incredibly useful, but also incredibly lethal without appropriate training or understanding of your limits and the limits of more mundane, normal humans. Alchemist!" She shouted the last word at the boy who'd been paying rapt attention.

"Yes, I'm Alchemist."

"What? No, nevermind. You'll be our mundane human for this training exercise. Take this-" She tossed a small black marker at him. "-and use it to make as many marks as you can during a one minute spar. Kid Flash, you're up."

The two of them walked to the center of the padded room. Kid Flash had a cocky grin on his face. Alchemist wasn't smiling, but his mouth was set in a determined line.

"Now Kid Flash, your goal is a non-lethal takedown. If Alchemist is unable to strike you for ten or more seconds due to restraints or a successful grapple, this bout will be over. Am I understood?" Both boys nodded. "Begin!"

Wally was off like a shot, covering the short distance instantly and grabbing Alchemist to twist and throw him on to the ground.

Alchemist had grabbed the same arm that was holding him, pulling Wally over with him and then, while the two were on the ground began stabbing him in the ribs with the marker.

He managed about four or five hits before Wally got himself together and flung him off. Before Alchemist could get back up Wally had his arms pulled behind his back and was holding him in place.

"Nn! Yeah! Harder daddy!" Whatever Wally was expecting, that wasn't it. He let go of Alchemist like he'd caught fire.

Which was a mistake, Alchemist rolled under him in the confusion and managed to score a solid line across the back of Wally's left ankle.

Figuring out what, exactly, the magician had done caused the speedster's face to light up a solid red. Embarrassed and more than a little angry, he might have used more force than absolutely necessary when he wrestled Alchemist back into a headlock.

By the end of Dinah's ten second count only forty or so seconds had passed.

"Congratulations Kid Flash, you apprehended the criminal. Unfortunately, unless you receive medical care in the next fifteen minutes you'll suffer a slow, agonizing death as your stomach acid devours and destroys your internal organs." Black Canary sounded thoroughly unimpressed.

"What? But I caught him, didn't I?" Robin understood the point of the exercise, but it seemed Wally hadn't caught up yet. Then again, his villains weren't criminally violent murderers. Just tech-driven weirdos. Robin sometimes wished they had to deal with people like Captain Cold instead of the frigid, determined Mister Freeze.

Unlike Wally, he'd been the victim of a lucky hit a few times in the past. He knew what the instructor was getting at.

"You did. But if that had been a knife instead of a marker we'd be dealing with a medical emergency right now." She turned to face Megan and the kryptonians. "Your powers give you amazing and powerful options, but without appropriate training and preparation you'll find yourselves falling victim to someone who's better trained, desperate or just plain lucky. We have to be careful and prepared at all times. A villain or criminal only needs to get lucky once."

-----

The team separated after training was over. Alchemist had gone off to talk to Jinx, Megan and Player One were going back to finish their shows, the clones were going outside for some sunlight and that left the core sidekicks together in the gym upstairs.

"So, I've been thinking about something." Kaldur started off while he was stretching.

"Didn't hurt yourself, did you?" Wally asked while he set the speed on a treadmill.

"Not this time. You two ever catch Alchemist saying some weird stuff?" Robin nodded at Kaldur's question even as he was practically bent in half and stretching his back and calves.

"What, like his video game powers thing he insists on?" Robin had actually brought that up with Black Canary earlier that week. She'd said it may have just been a coping mechanism.

"That and some of the other claims he's made, yes. Didn't you mention he came up with a conspiracy theory about Lex Luthor a while back?" Robin stood up from touching his toes and tried to remember. It sounded familiar, but with everything else they'd come across it probably hadn't been important. "Well, what if he's not making them up?"

Wally started running while Kaldur went to the free weights.

"Then Player One would have the same power he does but he said she 'Went in the opposite direction' and that she can go to some 'Zombie earth' for training. That's some pretty crazy stuff. What brought this up?" Robin asked as he continued stretching. Flexibility was a bigger concern for him than raw strength or speed.

Although that might explain the gold Bruce had been trying to sell for him...

"Earlier today, the girls were making plans for watching a television show about singing children. Alchemist mentioned that he was going into the woods to 'Practice being a dragon."

Kid Flash almost fell off the treadmill when he started laughing.

"So, I accompanied him, mostly to see what he was talking about, but also to avoid the girl's afternoon entertainment. Alchemist offered me a scroll of magic that everything I learned at the Academy insists cannot exist, removed his clothing..."

Robin was suddenly very uncomfortable with how this was going. A quick glance at Wally suggested he was feeling the same.

"-And turned into a nine-foot long black dragon with little white specks on its scales and glowing yellow eyes."

Wally turned off his treadmill.

Robin stood up fully and popped his back.

Together they both said "What?".

Chapter Text

Project: Gamer Ver. 2 Alpha Build 0.6.0

Disclaimer Me Do: I own nothing you recognize. And most of what you don't recognize, I still don't own.

_________________________________________________________________________

"And in this room-" Alchemist had taken to showing Jinx around the mountain under Black Canary's gimlet eye. "We have the rec room. Big television, big couch. Attached is the kitchen. If you see a name on something in the fridge, don't get caught taking it. Everything else belongs to Kid Flash but nobody actually cares-"

"Alchemist!" Dinah warned from behind them.

"-but if he catches you, you might lose a finger and I've only just figured out how to regrow those." Well, not really true, but now that he'd re-centered himself a bit he could focus on things that took more than two steps.

"You can regrow fingers?" Jinx asked him, either curiosity or wonder in her voice.

"And hands, arms, elbows, legs and feet. Teeth. Don't ask about teeth." That had actually been more painful than losing them. On the plus side though, no cavities!

"You know I'm going to have to ask about the teeth, right?" Black Canary always sounded so exhausted when she had to deal with him for more than fifteen minutes.

Kind of like the anger management therapist he'd had as a kid, come to think of it.

"Zombie-Batman slammed me face-first into a teller counter until something broke. It was my face." It was apparently in poor taste to ask said zombie why his parents didn't come back.

Who'd a thunk it?

"What are they watch-"

"Shh! If they hear you ask, they'll offer to let you join them! Then you'll get stuck watching trashy shows about teenage drama while we're currently living it!" Alchemist was holding his finger up to his lips, much to the amusement of... Nobody.

Jinx was just confused. Black Canary was exasperated.

"We can hear you, you know?" Player One and M'gann were both getting irritated that he was interrupting their show.

"And I'm sure the commercial you're watching is incredibly important." Cable television was awful for actually watching things.

They grumbled but settled down as Alchemist and his entourage left the room.

"There's supposed to be some sort of hidden waterfall room around here, but I haven't found it yet. So that just leaves the operations center as the last place I need to show you. Imagine a combination of basic office room, five or six year old supercomputer and every every big mecha anime's ops center all in one and you've basically got- This!" He opened the door and held it open for the ladies to enter through before following behind them. "If there's an ongoing mission, there is supposed to be someone here to help coordinate whatever is going on. If there's an ongoing mission and nobody is here, it's because someone pulled rank and said they needed all hands on deck. This is also where I do my League related work that doesn't involve magic."

The girl, Jinx, still tensed at the M word but it was less than before. Maybe she was less stressed? He hoped so.

"So, what do you do? Are you actually paid?" Both good questions. Dinah nodded at him subtly to answer.

"I actually wear a handful of hats here. I'm on call for all medical emergencies that can be handled with spells, I assist in the maintenance and upkeep of the facility and the equipment and I help handle the paperwork for the team. Anything involving finances gets kicked up the chain, but I enter the various reports the team will write up into the computer, make notes of things that need clarified and then get that for whoever asks." He flipped through a handful of papers, the reports the team wrote for the Ivo mission last night.

Including his own.

"Actually, here's a perfect example. Superboy, that was tall, dark and silent in the training room. He was assigned a piece of equipment recently that he's received no training in how to use, and did not feel comfortable using it. He attributes it, and plans made around it, as having caused difficulties on his mission. He wants to know why that was given to him with no notice at the last minute. And he notes that it was lost while performing said mission, so that gets added to the report I'm sending to Batman to feed to his financial experts." Ah, now this brought back memories. Trying to offer details without explicityly saying anything about who, where or what happened. "So when I write up the summary at the end, I'll add some bulletpoints for what needs addressed, and by who."

Was that everything?

"Oh, and I get paid an even two-grand a week after tax."

There. Now it was everything.

"Is that a lot?" That... Was actually a very good question.

"I'm not really sure." Factoring in his repair skills that he picked up after they'd made the contract, and Batman using him as emergency teleportation back during Santa Prisca... "Actually, I'm probably pretty underpaid. But I'm using magic to cheat, so... I have no idea. It is a lot of money for this part of the state, though."

He was going to have to research that for when it came time to renegotiate his contract.

And maybe figure out how much hazard pay he was going to have to start charging Batman, next time he was expected to do something dangerous and stupid that he hadn't actually signed up for.

-----

Batman was staring at records of papers scanned into the Watchtowers database. Everything involving Star Labs, going back ten years.

He was a little over halfway through everything and he'd found a disturbing trend. Another six similar documents to what Alchemist had rejected had turned up, always in the Materials and Robotics divisions headed jointly by Maria Glory.

And each one was connected to an item or exotic material that had gone missing without being reported directly to the Justice League. Instead he'd found it when the League had been billed and automatically paid Star Labs for the stolen materials!

Someone clearly knew what was going on, they had to if they were running a con going back at least five years. Though what, exactly, they were doing with volatile high-energy materials and partially destroyed teleportation technology was something the League desperately needed to figure out.

Bruce pulled back the cowl to try and massage his temples. Everything building up like this was starting to give him migraines, and he couldn't take medication for it without disrupting his carefully built sleep schedule.

"Rough day?" Diana asked from the door, two mugs of coffee in her hands.

"Rough month." He agreed, taking one from her.

"Gotham, Justice League or the Team?" He wished it was as simple as she made it sound.

"Yes." He pushed two fingers into the spots above his eyes, shifting the pressure on his sinuses. "You're familiar with Victor Fries?"

Diana finished taking a long drag from her coffee and nodded.

"He was supposed to have a hearing soon to review his placement in Arkham for a chance to go to Belle Reeve and join their general population. That's been delayed indefinitely after he suffered a critical and currently ongoing emotional breakdown." Nora Fries, recently exhumed and cured, had visited her husband.

It was haunting, in a way, watching the footage as one of the most composed and determined men Bruce had ever encountered just fell apart. Crying, apologizing to his wife, begging her to -live- and cursing his own inability to find a cure.

One of the most brilliant cryo-biologists in the world calling himself -stupid- because he'd created dozens of treatments for MacGregor's but he hadn't found a cure for the most advanced stages.

Nora had to be escorted out of the facility after that.

"That's just Gotham. For the League, thanks to the Team, we've uncovered evidence of something happening in Star Labs. We don't know what, yet, but until it's resolved I'm requesting a halt of all deliveries of confiscated materials. I'm still reviewing our documents, but this is just what's been digitized and we'll need to go down to the Hall to pull up the physical records." Half of what had been found so far had Barry's signature on it, as the Flash of course. Bruce was going to need to talk to him.

"And the team?" Bruce wasn't sure what Diana was asking about them for. She'd been a proponent for them, but hadn't had time to interact with any of them between her duties as Wonder Woman and her responsibilities as Diana Prince, ambassador of Themyscira.

Batman pulled the cowl back on.

"Struggling. We need someone with an enhanced physiology to help train half of the team, but so far the only member willing has been the Flash. His tutelage is useful, but it's somewhat lacking in the..."

"The world of cardboard speech that Superman is fond of, I know." Batman nodded before he started drinking his own coffee in silence. Diana sipped at her own as well before draining the entire mug and sighing. "Make sure everyone is together tomorrow that needs it. I'll try to make it but things have gotten quiet the last week, I'm expecting someone to try something big."

Batman nodded in acceptance. The quiet always got to him, too.

Chapter Text

Project: Gamer Ver. 2 Alpha Build 0.6.1

Disclaimer Me Do: I own nothing you recognize. And most of what you don't recognize, I still don't own.

_________________________________________________________________________

Taka-taka-taka-taka

This was probably the most tedious part of his job and Leslie knew it.

Typing in the written reports. It wasn't especially difficult, but it was time consuming. It was interesting in its own way, but not terribly so. He could read and understand how the various members thought about the missions from their own perspectives.

Robin put timestamps on everything. Internally that was fantastic, especially when they had to go and retrieve something that had been left behind or lost.

In regards to information security though, it was a nightmare.

Leslie had already retrieved Superboy's abandoned motorcycle, it had taken him roughly twenty minutes to find it on the rarely-used country road they'd been on.

If Robin hadn't kept an average of their speed and made a note of the time the attack had happened, Leslie would have been searching up and down the road for a dozen or more kilometers. With Robin's information, he'd narrowed it down to two.

A little hit of Repair and a Teleport later, he was back with a fully functional, twenty-thousand dollar motorcycle in his inventory. It was, unfortunately, right on the limit of what he could cram in there. His inventory had a per-item weight limit based on what he could personally lift. He'd see if Berserk would raise that later.

He would admit, he'd been neglecting that particular spell. The only reason it was above level one was that he needed the strength boost to hold the Zastava steady in a standing position.

Right now he was wondering if Batman would ask for the bike back or if he could keep it. Probably not, but that was perfectly fine. Asking for something outrageous is the first part of negotiating for something.

In this case, Alchemist was hoping to get permission to use the motorpool.

He did wonder if Batman would finally figure out he could save a couple million dollars a year by having Alchemist Repair the Batmobile. Or the Batcycle. Or the Batcopter.

Did this one have a Batcopter?

Well, back to work. Superboy had small, dense handwriting. Something Leslie was honestly having a bit of trouble with at first.

He hadn't gotten used to it, rather, he'd used Transmutation to make a decently sized square magnifying glass and set a quartet of ball bearings into the corners so he could move it around and actually read what the boy wrote.

That was the real reason he'd gotten Transmutation. There were countless little things he could think of needing at a moments notice only to forget when he went to buy things, or else were specialized little tools that were absurdly expensive.

Like any kind of forging or casting tool made with Tungsten... The Germans had the much better name for that element.

Leslie stopped what he was doing for a moment and made a note to get a sample of Wolfram. Tungsten. Whatever people here called it. And Molybdenum and...

Leslie made a note to visit a well-equipped blacksmith instead before getting back to work.

"B-Zero-Six, Speedy" The computer rang out. It was followed immediately by the call sign for Green Arrow as well.

It seemed Red Tornado had gotten around to passing on his message after all. He pushed his chair back into place and got up to greet them.

"Alchemist!" Or they'd get to him first? Green Arrow was looking much, much better than the last time he'd been around. He was smiling, and it didn't look forced. "I heard something about a breakthrough?"

"Yeah. Managed to get a spell working that's a bit slower than my normal healing method, but it fixes things a lot better." Alchemist grinned as he caught sight of Speedy, hanging back behind his mentor. "Hey! You're lookin' better man! High five?"

Alchemist put his arm up, but Speedy just glared at him. Then he put his stump forward and started waving his left hand in front of it.

"Bravo, cripple jokes right off the bat. Gotta hand it to you, but I'm a little short right now. You deserve -all- of this applause though. Really." Huh. So the sound of one hand clapping is sarcasm. Good to know.

"Ouch. I'd give you a hand with that, but Superman flew off with my spare." Green Arrow had a considering look on his face when he heard that, but Speedy just had the same blase 'I-can't-believe-I'm-putting-up-with-this' face. "Right. Standard disclaimer first. It's going to hurt, it's going to suck, no I can't cancel it or give you a refund partway through. You good with that?"

Speedy just shrugged, but Green Arrow looked concerned. "How bad are we talking about?"

"Well, I used it on myself after some of my teeth were shattered in an... Altercation. After a few minutes they started coming in and, look, I'm not going to lie. It was worse than having them broken in the first place. If I had a way to put you to sleep for the process, I'd be offering it." His teeth had grown in one by one, too. He didn't know if it would've been better or worse if they'd come all at once.

"That's-"

"Just do it already!" Green Arrow jumped as Speedy shouted over him. "The cripple jokes are getting out of hand and I'm tired of hearing them!"

"Alright, alright. First things first-" Leslie cast Esuna on Speedy.

Leslie cast Esuna on Speedy while it was charged with Entanglement.

-----

Artemis looked at the red-headed archer on the rooftop with her in worry. He'd suddenly stopped talking mid-sentence about some researcher the League of Assassins was getting ready to go after.

It started off subtle at first, he just flicked his wrist a few times, very hard... And then he started shaking. And then he started jerking.

Artemis had her phone out and was calling her mom when he dropped to the roof in the middle of a severe seizure.

-----

Jim Harper jerked to the side of the road, almost going nose first into the ditch when he suddenly woke up while driving.

He didn't know where he was, he didn't know what he was doing, all he could see was a prison transport bus pulling further and further away as he slowed down, pulled over and turned on his hazard lights.

He put his forehead on his steering wheel and just -breathed- to try and calm down his racing heart.

-----

"-And... Here." Leslie flicked Speedy in the forehead, casting Regeneration on him. "It'll take a few minutes before it gets started. Go sit down somewhere and I'll get you some tissues and advil. I meant it when I said it's gonna hurt."

-----

~~ FROM: Ultra-powerful best goddess Terra-Tan! ~~
~~ There's actually a really good reason I had to restrict that dragon spell you picked up! It's all because of another gamer who came before you. Shi Wa was reincarnated into a more fantasy based world with the previous gamer system, though the quirk of it there was that you could build your stats by eating special foods!
Maybe not the best idea. Cannibalism gave great physical stats but reduced mental stats. You shoulda seen the orc tribes!
Anyway, the best food was dragon meat. Stew, steaks, burgers... Dragon Meatloaf was to die for! But dragons there were smart, they could talk, reason, laugh and love. All the good things!
And the bad things. They still worshipped Tiamat and Bahamut.
I should probably mention that I don't get along with Mama Tia. At all.
Anyway, Shi Wa tried the whole hunting dragons thing and discovered it was actually really hard. Like, total party wipe hard. So he got an idea.
War!
He just nabbed the whole Form of the Dragon spell, found a nesting lair, turned into a different species from the dragon in question and then bam, Dragon Balut for him, nesting dragon screaming bloody murder for them.
Three different civil wars later, and the dragons figured it out. A bit too late, but that happens. Dragons on that world were basically extinct and Shi Wa was fat, happy, powerful and had a pretty big harem.
Well, sort of. He had a fondness for goblin girls. Lots of goblin girls. Like, too many goblin girls.
Anywho, the remaining dragons threw a fit. Demanded justice, swore vengeance, the whole shebang. Normal methods didn't work to kill the guy, so they said screw it. If they were gonna die, everyone else was too.
They came up with a ritual, which is not in your shop so don't go looking for it, that would let them perforate the boundaries of reality at the expense of their souls.
Lemme just say this real quick. What they did was some bad, bad juju.
Okay, that out of the way.
They killed reality there. Not, like, super fast or anything but they let the outside in and the inside out for that thread of reality. Some things were unmade, others were dissolved into the extradimensional firmament of reality, Shi Wa -was- protected by gamer's body... Up until he wasn't.
I've never had the system overload before, not planning on seeing it again. Got it?
Whatever fragments of him were left were picked up by a lesser goddess. Not a very bright one, she's, uh, 'Learning disabled' or something like that. Decided he'd make a great tool in this cluster reality she's trying to eat.
Which won't work how she wants it to. Divinity is kind of like vitamin c. If you have too much, the rest just gets piddled away.
I think his name is Tact now or something. Not really sure, don't actually care at this point.
Mama Tia and Bahamut threw an absolute fit when they found out what happened. Like, tearing holes in my private sanctum upset. I mean, I needed to redecorate, but damn!
We came to a compromise after they got done screaming at me. I wanted to keep the spell because watching humans try to walk on all fours and fly is funny, they wanted to take it away because you're all irresponsible children that can't be trusted not to lick a light socket. So long as I restricted the spell to one form, so someone abusing it could be hunted down and killed, I could keep it.
Anywho, that's it for Terra's Terrible Histories! Tune in next time to find out why I had to remove the whole relationship system! ~~

Chapter Text

Project: Gamer Ver. 2 Alpha Build 0.6.2

Disclaimer Me Do: I own nothing you recognize. And most of what you don't recognize, I still don't own.

_________________________________________________________________________

Green Arrow had taken Speedy and left after his hand had started to come back in. It was an ugly process, the skin stretching out like an over-inflated balloon and becoming semi-transparent. Still, it had been fascinating in a gross way to watch new bones forming and veins splitting and branching out.

Speedy had been holding his limb against his chest and groaning and gritting his teeth, trying to look strong. The fact that he'd been sweating and whimpering would've given him away, though.

Alchemist hadn't commented. He knew how much it hurt, he knew how it felt to hold on to the tatters of your pride.

Oliver had done the right thing, trying to get him somewhere he could be comfortable for the process.

He'd finished transcribing the reports and wrote up a summary to send on to Batman. Afterwards, noticing the time, he went to the Kitchen. The day had been interesting and eventful, and it was getting close to dinnertime. If M'gann didn't have the oven and every burner on the stove claimed, he could make something.

Jinx and Black Canary were sitting at the bench having some kind of heart-to-heart when he came in. M'gann and Player One were still on the couch and arguing over something, but it looked like their show was over.

Not seeing any of the others, he dug around the fridge for a moment before coming back with a raw steak, an onion, a pepper, some mushrooms and some cheese.

All his. He wasn't a petty thief, contrary to what he'd said to Jinx.

"Alchemist?" Robin had come in while he'd been getting his ingredients out. "I want to talk."

"What's on your mind?" He set the oven temperature and pulled the ingredients to prepare his steak out of his inventory. Salt, pepper and olive oil.

"I wanted to ask why..." Robin was looking over the ingredients in front of the magician. "What are you making?"

"I'm thinking cheese steak today." He could let the question lie. Robin had given himself an out... "Why what?"

"Why... Don't you take anything seriously?" So, Robin wanted to go there.

Alchemist pursed his lips and decided how he wanted to answer that. He'd have loved it if Robin had chosen to ask that when Dinah Lance wasn't here. Still, she'd have heard it somehow anyway, he had no expectation of secrecy for anything he shared among the team.

"Do you remember my story, how I got powers to begin with?" Robin's body language was closed off and neutral, Alchemist couldn't tell if he did or didn't recall. "How I'd died and got chosen to be the 'alpha tester' of a set of powers for a god?"

Well, Primordial God. He doubted anyone but Wonder Woman would really care about the very significant differences. Gaia was to the gods as the gods were to mortal men.

"It was not a smooth or pleasant process, Robin. There are very, very few things that go through that and don't Come Back Wrong. Manic violence, psychopathy, hysteria and obsession are pretty common side effects. Something you should be well aware of, with Batman's connection to the Ghul. I think, and I could be very wrong here, that the Soul remembers what's on the other side and the brain can't properly comprehend that." He wasn't hungry anymore.

"So, what? You chose to be a weirdo instead of... What, the next Joker?" Robin didn't quite understand how dangerous a Gamer could be.

That was fine. Good, even.

The right skills, the right modifiers... He'd read of Gamers who could casually wreck planets. And they still struggled against even greater powers. Hell, he was very well aware of the disparity between when he'd been sent here versus what he could do now and most of that had just been screwing around and sticking to a theme where he wasn't desperately grabbing the skills and tools to put Leslie back together.

"...Something like that. For me, it was more like I could be a weirdo. Make a joke about things, try to smile and laugh and not think about how I got here-" She let him die.

She let him die.

She let him die!

She -MADE- him die!

She-

"-because otherwise I'd be in Arkham with a very nice, long-sleeve I-love-me jacket and trying to decide if I should be laughing like a loon or crying hysterically or both. And Robin? That would not be a good look for me. I'm an ugly crier." He turned off the oven and inventoried his food.

He wasn't hungry. The room was too quiet.

He needed to leave.

He needed to leave -now-.

"Alchemist?" M'gann asked from the couch. "Are you okay?"

He swallowed past the lump in his throat.

"No." He said without any flourish or misdirection. "I'm going to go outside and play with the cats until I am."

-----

Some time after Black Canary took Jinx and left, Robin finally got his thoughts in order.

There were things he'd noticed that were wrong. Very, very wrong. But he only knew part of what was going on, he didn't have enough answers for his questions.

Alchemist all but admitting that he was borderline crazy was rubbing him wrong. He'd seen how the guy had frozen mid-sentence, trapped in his head somewhere before he ran off. He'd seen him look at Black Canary and internally debate even answering Robin's questions.

"Hey, Megan?" And if you wanted to get into someones head, who better to ask than her? "You got a minute?"

"One second!" She called back to him, elbow deep in the oven. "Let me get this cobbler out real quick."

There was a loud thud as she dropped the heavy, bubbling pan full of baked berries and oatmeal on the counter. She removed the mitts from her hands, dusted them off and turned to him, a proud smile on her face.

"What's on your mind?" She leaned over the counter, a broad smile on her face.

"It's about Alchemist." She nodded at his words, likely already knowing. "Did I say something wrong? He was being weird, or normal for him, but then he just froze and practically ran off."

"Well..." She tapped the counter a few times with a fingertip. "This might be a little, invasive I guess? His mind is really, really open. So when he's around it's like he's talking right to me whenever he's thinking about something."

"And he was thinking of something?" The look she gave him almost made him feel as stupid as saying that out loud did. "Let me guess, his brain is a motormouth."

"He's always thinking something, yeah. Usually it's just music though." She breathed in deeply through her nose and smiled.

Robin's stomach growled. That cobbler did smell pretty good.

"But he twisted himself around a bit to thinking how he died." And now the cobbler smelled less good. "He had one thought that kept screaming in his head. Someone -made- him die."

"...He was murdered?" That, well, that could change a few things. If he could get some more details, Bruce might even be able to find out who Alchemist was.

Or... Thinks he was?

Robin wasn't sure. He'd seen enough impossible things that being forced into someone else's body didn't sound entirely impossible.

"...I don't think so?" Megan said as she stretched up on her tip-toes to get a bowl from a high shelf.

Robin looked. He knew he looked. He knew she knew he looked.

"He's usually really careful with his words." She scooped a very generous helping into the bowl. "So if he thought he was murdered, that's what he would've said. Thought. You know what I mean."

"...I don't really think I get it." The two facts just weren't adding up for him. "Do you think he'd explain if I asked?"

"Yes." There was zero doubt in her voice. "But it's not something he's comfortable with, he really doesn't like thinking about it. He'd explain it, but he'll twist it and make it sound so weird or unimportant you won't think he's telling the truth. He does that a lot with things he doesn't want to talk about."

"Like his Game thing?" Megan nodded, an almost comically serious look on her face as she started blowing on her syrupy treat. "How does that even work?"

"Mmm, oh that'sh good. If you want to know how that works, you can ask Penny. I don't really understand it all."

Robin sighed, more and more questions piling up. He'd call Player One and start asking...

Right after he had some of that cobbler for himself.

Chapter Text

Project: Gamer Ver. 2 Alpha Build 0.6.3

Disclaimer Me Do: I own nothing you recognize. And most of what you don't recognize, I still don't own.

_________________________________________________________________________

"You know." He said to his companion. "I try to avoid lying too much. It just causes more and more problems, takes a lot of upkeep and it all falls apart with one little thing out of place."

The cat, of course, did not have an answer.

She instead had rolled over to her side to lick her belly clean while he was sitting in the dirt and petting her.

"Lucky girl. If us humans were as flexible, we'd never leave our homes." He picked her up and put her in his lap, scratching and petting her until she was purring like an engine. "Definitely thinking a lie would be better than the truth sometimes, though. I keep falling into the same mental rut and it's... Bad, Girl."

She'd latched on to his hand and was holding it against her torso with her forepaws while her hindlegs were kicking at him.

He just shook her a bit with that hand and then used the other to pet her head.

Frost, being a cat, decided she'd had enough and jumped off of him though she didn't go far. She just kept circling around him and butting her head against him while he would try to pet her.

He flopped onto his back once she'd gone around to his side, heedless of the bugs and dirt and roots. For her, this was apparently an invitation to climb on top of him and start kneading at his belly.

"...I have an idea." He admitted to the black cat after she lay down on him. "It's a really bad idea though. I'll need to go back to Gotham for a bit."

Anything involving Gotham was a bad idea. Whoever thought building a city on top of... What all was it? A hellmouth, a Lazarus Pit, some Apokolips technology and a not-quite-dead necromancer? And didn't the corpse of Trigon resurrect itself there at some point? Well, that last one wasn't a concern yet. Leslie hadn't been able to find hide nor hair of a 'Raven Roth' anywhere on the internet.

He could probably fix three of those, but he wasn't touching anything from Sector Six-Six-Six.

Not happening.

Right. Gotham's concentrated Evil problem. He remembered, vaguely, a seven-winged Holy seal that was supposed to block off infernal influences. The Vatican might even have a version of that here that he could use instead of digging around the Shop and learning it himself.

And having about as much magic as twenty-seven average people combined, he could probably power the thing all by his lonesome.

In contrast, the Lazarus Pit was decidedly simpler to deal with. He could find the design specifications and just make a small Tesla Turbine to drain the foul thing. Maybe fill up some fifty-five gallon drums and see if he could use those in case of an emergency.

Or, since he had an indestructible meta-material, he could make some full sized Tesla Turbines and drop them off at the various institutes of Science around the United States. The news reports as people try to figure that out would be worth a laugh.

He pursed his lips and thought about that. He would absolutely need to have his inventory limit modified by Berserk, or that would not work quite so well. He'd have to store the fluid separately since he couldn't lift two-hundred kilograms by himself.

He shook his head a little bit and pulled the cats claws out of his shirt. He needed to focus.

As for Doctor Gotham? According to his memories the warlock was, by his own admission, something like forty-thousand years old. Anti-Magic might be the only way to go there.

Anti-Magic and orbital bombardment. He could figure out the whole flying deal as a dragon and just drop some metal rods.

"What do you think, hon?" The cat just purred. "Yeah, might be too long term. Think I should go talk to my guy in Gotham? I've got another idea."

Tired of being jostled and moved around, the black cat hopped off of him and wandered into the woods.

That was fair.

Alchemist got up, stretched, and disappeared.

He had to go and see a guy in Gotham for some lysergic acid diethlyamide.

-----

Hugo Strange woke up slowly, clawing and crawling his way through a migraine and a slow, thick haze to fully wake up.

His arms were being held down by something on either side of him, and opening his eyes invited sunlight to pierce directly into his brain with unbridled wrath and fury.

His tongue felt like it was covered in a thick, fuzzy layer of nastiness that tasted like an unholy combination of vodka and vomit.

He blinked, pulling the world into painful, fuzzy focus.

His glasses were missing.

On his right was a girl, some brunette with a very modest rack. On his left was another girl, blonde and smaller.

Was she even legal?

He couldn't remember much of the last night. He'd ordered delivery after a hard day of trying to do his job...

Dealing with vapid egotistical fools and brilliant morons on a perpetual power trip did not make for an easy day.

The delivery driver had shown up, some young new kid with blond hair and bright, brilliantly bright blue eyes. He remembered pouring himself a finger of whisky and watering it down.

So far so good.

The food was fine, he was starting to relax after eating when things started to get... Weird.

The delivery driver had come back. Just right into his small apartment, didn't even use the door.

Had he actually come back?

And he'd given Strange a bottle of Vodka, the expensive kind. Asked him if he remembered "How you used to drink in college?".

Of course he did! He'd even shown the boy how it was done!

How... Why had he done that?

Strange pulled his arm free of the brunette and put his hand over his eyes. He'd been drugged.

The memories after the alcohol got more and more blurry.

Like the hallucination suggesting he go for a drive and get something else to drink. Or him sitting in the back seat and telling Strange, high and drunk, that he should drive faster.

That he could definitely outrun the cops.

Oh.

Oh god.

He'd been in a high-speed pursuit at the behest of a hallucination.

Strange pulled his other arm free and crawled out of the bed- A hotel bed, he noticed. He definitely wasn't at home.

He took a step towards the bathroom because he was going to be sick and stepped in something warm and soggy.

It utterly reeked.

Looking down, it was a pile of animal feces.

It probably belonged to the small pony tied to the chair. Why it had the word 'Vaporeon' written on its side in blue spray-paint, he didn't want to know.

Strange was worshiping the porcelain throne when he heard the banging start on the hotel door.

He didn't need to hear them screaming "Police! Open Up!" to know he was not going to have a good day.

Chapter Text

Project: Gamer Ver. 2 Alpha Build 0.6.4

Disclaimer Me Do: I own nothing you recognize. And most of what you don't recognize, I still don't own.

_________________________________________________________________________

Diana arrived at the Mountain bright and early, announced only by the Zeta terminal.

She found four people there, already awake. Superboy, Power Girl, Miss Martian and Alchemist were in the rec room watching the news.

It was currently focused on a high-speed pursuit from last night in Louisiana.

Wonder Woman was no stranger to how audacious villains could be, but watching a normal, older looking man drive through the median of a highway and turn around just to double back behind the police chasing him was baffling. That he soon lost the police entirely and wasn't found again until just this very morning simply boggled the mind!

The Martian turned to wave at her while the clones seemed to lose interest in the show after it switched to less interesting topics, like economics.

"Hey Connor, Karen. Picked something up for you guys last night." Alchemist said as he got up and went to the television. He put in disc into the media player and flicked through a few menus before whatever it was started.

The screen changed to show what looked like an aerial view over a town and a simple, somewhat catchy tune started to play. Soon the scene shifted to an older man wearing a hand-knit red sweater entering a room and singing "It's a beautiful day in this neighborhood-".

He sat back down behind the counter as an old episode of Mister Roger's Neighborhood played on the screen.

Diana felt something very uncomfortable with how deeply engrossed the clones became in listening to the old man talk about expressing your feelings, and how other people express theirs.

"Alchemist." She started at a near whisper. "What encouraged you to choose this as their... Entertainment?"

"Wonder Woman." He responded at a normal tone of voice, nodding in Superboy's direction. "They have a lot to learn about how to interact with people in a way that doesn't involve punching. Batman's no good for that. Red Tornado is worse. Black Canary is perpetually angry about something."

The boy shrugged and then waved at himself.

"I'm a suspicious, secretive pessimist myself. And everyone else is a teenager with a violence problem. Watching a few episodes of Mister Roger's will do them a lot of good that I couldn't."

Diana wasn't sure what to make of that, or of the three teens listening intently to the words of a dead man preaching empathy.

She hoped Player One got here soon. Training them in how to safely fight with super-strength was somehow starting to feel more morally ambiguous.

-----

"Super Strength." Diana began after getting everyone assembled. "Is a tool first and foremost. Like any tool, it may be ill-suited to the task at hand. And just the same as any other tool, without appropriate thought and application, it will be wasted in your hands."

She cast her gaze across the assembled teens. Some, such as Robin and Kid Flash, were more interested in looking at their teammates. Others, like Miss Martian and Power Girl, were instead paying close attention to her words.

One of the children even had a notepad and was writing things down.

"As with any other power, its applications are limited for a variety of reasons. You will find that it can only very rarely be used in direct conflict. Either the individuals fighting against you will be too vulnerable to your strength and thus all too easily crippled or worse, slain. Or else you may face an opponent who is impervious for any number of reasons to direct force. Intangibility, an aqueous or gaseous form, extraordinary regeneration or simply greater strength can all be direct counters to physical might." She inhaled slowly and focused on Superboy. "And that is the key here. -Direct counters-. Where raw strength cannot be used, we must be clever. Mastering the environment is often the key to victory. If your opponent is stronger, find a way to remove their leverage. Miss Martian!"

The girl let out a squeak at being suddenly addressed.

"You are fighting someone who has greater strength than even Power Girl, what are your options in dealing with them?"

The girl floundered for a moment before coming up with an answer. "I, uh, I drop something heavy on them?"

Wonder Woman remembered the mission report for the team and the Mister Twister android... And the tactic -did- work. However...

"Then one of two things will happen. Either their strength will allow them to use whatever you dropped on them, or we have a very dead suspect." It may have been the nature of her origin, but Diana, while much more willing to resort to lethal force than many of the Justice League, did not quite feel that artificial life was so worthless as many of the others thought. "If you can lift a multi-ton boulder, why can you not lift the criminal? Without some form of innate flight? You can telekinetically lift them off the ground and remove the leverage they need to fight."

The girl looked thoughtful, so Diana chose to move on.

"Superboy. Another theoretical scenario. You lack the direct strength to bring down your foe. What can you use to fight them?" Like Power Girl, the boy was incredibly still and silent.

"...Are their joints armored? Because I would try to disable them by attacking the knees or using pressure points." He didn't sound sure, but that was the point. To get them asking questions and thinking.

"Perhaps they are, or perhaps they are not. You will not know until you try. So long as you have your team with you, make sure you have some basic tactics planned with them to probe and test the defenses and strengths of your opponents." She scanned the assembled children and her eyes landed on the one with the notepad. "Alchemist! What is the heaviest thing you could hit someone with?"

He tapped his pen against his chest, closing it and put it and the pad away. "...The earth?"

That... Was actually a fairly interesting answer. "A very good choice. In the absence of a magically or temporally created immovable object, the ground is often a very good alternative. Super-strength and Super-durability do not always translate into an improved pain tolerance."

She could see that she was starting to lose the attention of most of the boys and decided to wrap up the lecture and begin moving on to sparring and practical examples. Though she had one last thing she needed to say.

"Do not, I repeat, do not be afraid to exploit the weaknesses in your enemies form or abilities. Biting, scratching, even hair pulling may not be 'Honorable' in the middle of a fight, but when civilian lives are on the line our honor is found in their safety, not in the glory of combat. I have had to learn this the hard way. I should hope that you can instead learn it from me, rather than at the funerals of those you meant to save"

Chapter Text

Project: Gamer Ver. 2 Alpha Build 0.6.5

Disclaimer Me Do: I own nothing you recognize. And most of what you don't recognize, I still don't own.

_________________________________________________________________________

The hand to hand portion of the days physical training had gone almost exactly as Black Canary had explained it would.

Robin clearly had the most skill, followed by the well trained but less flexible Aqualad. Kid Flash made a decent showing, but it was more and more clear that he relied on his speed to make up for gaps in his training.

Alchemist actually came up in the middle of the pack in regards to actual skill. Rough and unrefined, but he had solid instincts on where blows were coming from and was surprisingly adept at intercepting and deflecting them or turning an attack into a grapple. He lacked follow-through, however. Seemingly afraid of harming his training partner.

The remaining four suffered from varying degrees of a lack of training in how to fight, as well as how to utilize their superior strength and abilities with finesse.

There was a lot of work to be done here.

"Alright!" Wonder Woman yelled, getting everyone's attention. "Take five, re-hydrate and then line up! We're going to be doing some limited power-assisted combat training!"

There were some breathless cheers and a single groan of complaint.

Which was too bad. If Robin wanted to be a hero against superior foes, he'd better get used to being up against enemies he won't always be able to outskill, outmaneuver or overpower.

She actually ended up giving them ten minutes, Aqualad and Player One both were struggling to get their breathing under control and get some water in them.

She mentally reshuffled who was fighting who and moved them to the end of the list. Learning to fight through exhaustion was important, but it could also burn out a trainee if forced on them too early.

"Alchemist. Superboy. You two are up first. Use your abilities as best you can within reason. We want the mountain to still be here when you're done!" Alchemist gave her a thumbs up while Superboy managed an almost imperceptible nod.

Even as the two were pacing away from her she could feel Alchemist casting spells, accompanied by a quiet clack-clack-clacking as he snapped his fingers.

Somewhat against the rules, but well within the spirit of the training exercise.

Once both had managed a solid ten paces away from her in the middle she backed away and roughly waved her arm down. "Begin!"

Superboy took one step forward, then another... And then with a stutter he was back in his starting position and walking towards Alchemist.

"Oh?" The younger looking boy said as Superboy kept up his steady pace with no progress. "You're approaching me?"

"Yeah, well, I can't punch you from over here!" Alchemist brought a hand up to his face and covered his mouth as he laughed... Though he never broke his hidden gaze upon Superboy's position.

"Then by all means, come as close as you like!" Superboy made it another two steps before he returned to his starting position.

He was starting to notice something wasn't quite right.

"Is there something wrong?" Alchemist held his arms out. "You should have reached me by now. Are you... Hesitating?"

Superboy crouched low and tried to rush Alchemist's position, to much the same effect.

It was amusing, but...

"Alchemist!" Diana shouted. "Get on with it!"

The smile dropped off his face and he held up a hand, disappearing from view with a snap of his fingers.

Superboy froze, looking around, spinning around to try and find him.

Diana, however, was focusing on the spot he'd 'left', able to feel, able to -see- that he was still there. Just... Mostly invisible. Thank Hestia, hers were the eyes that could discern the truth.

He started taking off his clothing and Diana shook her head. She'd heard of this insane ritual some boys would partake in, where they would strip nearly nude to try and intimidate each other.

Somehow she didn't think it would have much impact on-

And there went the underwear.

He took one step, then another and lunged at Superboy.

Turning into a largish dragon and nearly doubling in height and tripling in width.

Diana was struck dumb for a moment. A very critical moment as Alchemist latched his fangs onto Superboy's leg, breaking his transparency and swung, slamming the half-kryptonian into the wall and cracking it.

"What?!" Came the surprised shriek from one of the girls, likely Player One.

"Oh my god." She could vaguely hear Robin say. "He really can turn into a dragon."

"And that's going into the nightmare drawer." Kid Flash muttered from right behind her.

"Alchemist?" She asked the dragon holding a very dazed Superboy in the air by his leg.

"Yush?" He answered with his mouth full.

"You can put him down now." The boy dropped to the ground with a meaty thud. "Thank you."

This... Was well outside of her expectations.

-----

"Alright." After the initial upset of Superboy losing to Alchemist, the other fights were actually rather enlightening.

Miss Martian had taken her advice and simply lifted Kid Flash off the ground, rendering him basically helpless.

Robin versus Power Girl had been... Interesting. Without being able to actually -fight- her, he'd settled on using various tools to disorient and distract her.

Exploding a stink packet into her eyes may have been a bit much, but it kept her off the offensive long enough for the bout to be called in his favor.

Aqualad against Player One had been quite enlightening, actually. Player One had stamina well beyond what her build would suggest, and access to skills or abilities that could drastically turn the battle in her favor. She actually seemed to regenerate slowly, had... Odd... Armor that was surprisingly effective.

(What was that smell? Deep caves and graveyard soil...)

And could, in short bursts, move nearly as fast as Kid Flash.

All of these abilities in her favor, and she still lost. Aqualad had created a puddle of water from seemingly nothing.

Innocuous enough.

And then brought out his water bearers.

Rather than creating swords or weapons, he instead took control of the water he'd created. Using it to bind and tether Player One, taking her mobility away from her.

Diana had to call the match when he started to make tentacles.

"You all did very well. There's a lot of room for improvement, but with enough practice you'll all make fantastic heroes. Before we break for the morning, do we have any comments or concerns that need to be addressed?" She scanned over the group. Dirty, disheveled and tired but satisfied. One of them was awkwardly lifting one claw up into the air. "Yes Alchemist?"

"Can you bring ketchup next time?" He dragged out the r and struggled with the tch sound as he asked.

"Ketchup?" Did he have a spell of some sort that needed it?

"Yess. Superboy is good, but he needs more time to prepare, to... Simmer. Too salty, too crunchy. Needs... Ketchup." Diana couldn't make out a facial expression, between the inhuman visage and the way everything sank into the black. With that and the way he struggled with various words he'd become very difficult to read.

She'd been told he liked to joke.

She hoped that's what that was.

"I'll consider it. I have one important question for you though." The other teens were edging away from the both of them now. "Was the stripping necessary?"

"Wonder Woman?" He curved his neck to meet her eyes. "I think you may want to reconsider your position in asking that."

He waved a claw in the direction of her torso and...

He could not be serious.

"My outfit is the traditional battle armor of Themyscira!" She could feel the way his eyes slid from her armor, to the Lasso of Hestia and then up to meet her eyes once more.

"The traditional battle armor of Themyscira is dominatrix fetish gear?" Diana idly noted the various teens quickly vacating the room, leaving her and the dragon alone in it.

Her gaze was locked on his for one beat, then two...

Then he started to laugh, and she did too.

"Oh Hera no!" Nobody had actually complained about her outfit since World War Two! Well, nobody that mattered. "No, we still use armor designed during the days of the Greeks. Some chauvinist fool back in the day thought I was a backwater princess, naive to the world. He tried to send me off to sing and dance for the soldiers in an outfit like this in the second World War. I decided to keep it and make it my own while proving him wrong. My mother hates seeing me in this!"

"Alright, alright. Turn around and let me get dressed. I can't fit through the doors like this." She obliged him, a lighthearted grin on her face. "Hey, been wondering something. You think we could get Superboy and Power Girl something referencing dragon's teeth? That aren't mine? They're Cadmus soldiers and all."

She turned around as he was finishing up, sliding a short sleeve shirt over his head with the words 'Meddle not in the affairs of dragons' on it. "I doubt they would understand the reference."

Which was such a shame. Classic literature had fallen so far to the wayside in recent years.

"Gotcha. Get them a book on mythology first." He stretched, popping something in his back. "Might even do what school can't and get them educated."

Chapter Text

Project: Gamer Ver. 2 Alpha Build 0.6.6

Disclaimer Me Do: I own nothing you recognize. And most of what you don't recognize, I still don't own.

_________________________________________________________________________

Alchemist listened with half an ear as Diana went through the various do's and don'ts of combat with the actual combatants.

His own failings seemed to be a lack of assertion and that he shouldn't play with an opponent. His high point, however, was that he'd combined his abilities, known and unknown, to good effect.

So yay for that?

He was reviewing his own stat menu and the various other ones he had available, double checking something.

Specifically if there was a job or class system.

He'd been avoiding the more mundane skills, cooking and cleaning and so on, because he already knew how to do those things. And he didn't feel like experiencing random failures or get stuck cooking 'Burnt Water' or 'Runny Eggs' because his skill checks could override his reality.

Accidentally grabbing the Chef profession would probably shoehorn those skills into his system, and that would be... Eventually delicious? But immediately annoying.

Thankfully that wasn't an issue. Jobs, classes, professions... His system didn't have any of those.

Which was interesting, because there were definitely Class Manuals in the shop. Memoirs, diaries, how-to guides, monster hearts and soulstones, crystal shard and blessings...

Alchemist had to stop scrolling to stare at one name in particular.

The Journal of Goffard Gaffgarion.

The Fell Knight. A character from one of the better storytelling masterpieces of the nineties.

At eighty-thousand GP it was also one of the more expensive Class Manuals. Not the most expensive, but it was definitely up there. The Heroes Heart and the Sage Scroll were winning in the top slot he'd seen so far at one-hundred and fifty thousand GP.

He bought it anyway. Figuring out how to steal the life-force and magic of foes without any MP cost? Absolutely worth it.

Though... Those all relied on Magic Swordsmanship, and, well... He could barely swing a sword.

Diana was winding down her attempts at instructing the apprentices though. And he really, really needed to convince her to get herself into top form with a sword. Godkiller would need to be wielded soon...

Bird one? Bird two? Meet stone.

"Hey Wonder Woman?" He spoke up as she started to head to the exit. She stopped to look at him, clearly curious. "I don't suppose you'd be interested in some additional training? I've got this sword, but I barely know how to use it."

She seemed to be debating something, her eyes narrowed for a moment before she said "Show me."

He pulled Nagrarok from his inventory and she visibly recoiled from the ruined blade.

"What is that!" She steeled herself and approached, looking over the rusted, pitted weapon.

"Well." He didn't have to pick his words carefully, but explaining it correctly might be a bit difficult. "It used to be a legendary sword. But it was lost in a war where fallen gods ravaged the world. They were beaten, mostly, and their leader sealed away deep beneath the sea and surrounded by the dead. This got stuck in a temple, guarded by a broken golem powered by the calling stone for one of these gods. Zeromus, a god of judgement and condemnation, twisted by hatred to abandon judgement and instead condemn all things to suffer."

Alchemist stopped for just a moment to take a deep breath.

"This weapon basked in the light of the gods caged will for a long, long time. I went out of my way to get my hands on it for its lingering enchantments. Or curse. Whichever one you want to call it." Gingerly, Wonder Woman took the blade from his hands. She shifted her grip on it a few times, testing its weight and looking at it, her gaze focused on the empty spot on the hilt and base of the blade where adornments had clearly once existed.

"Yes..." She swung it and moved into a form with a fluidity Alchemist knew he couldn't match. "It was balanced, once. And the magic in it is twisted, ruined. I can't even begin to guess what it was meant to do."

"Originally?" Alchemist shrugged. "No idea. Now it does two things. It can help its wielder block incoming attacks with fantastic frequency and..."

He looked around, meeting the eyes of most of his teammates who were clearly listening in.

"It can turn people or things it hits into toads."

"Oh come on!" He'd expected it from Kid Flash, but he got Robin instead! "Why is it always toads?!"

"Actually." Diana brought the sword-swinging to a stop. "I'd like to hear your answer to that as well."

"Fairly simple, honestly." Now why would Diana be so interested in- Ah, right. Circe. "It's non-lethal, basically harmless, removes a hostile target from the fight and it's something I can easily reverse."

He didn't... He didn't feel comfortable with the idea of taking a life. In self defense, sure, but he already had all the tools he needed to do it if he decided it was convenient. He didn't think he'd become an addict like Batman was afraid of, but... Thinking about pre-meditated murder felt like a solid stone in his gut.

"Very well." Diana handed the Nagrarok back to him. "Do any of you also with to learn the basics of swordplay?"

Two people spoke up. Kaldur and Player One both expressed interest in either learning the art, or bettering themselves in the art.

"Then I shall return later on tonight to begin our first lesson!" Huh. Diana actually seemed excited about that. "I've never trained someone to wield a weapon, so this shall be a learning experience for all of us!"

And now he saw why.

-----

Alone before lunch, Alchemist spent his time reviewing the remaining components for the Holmcross he needed. He was basically done with the body, barring assembly. Hair, eyes, organs... Mostly made of a sort of synthetic flesh either supported or doped with living steel in them.

He was never going to be able to get on an airplane, that was certain.

'Sorry, I'm allergic to metal detectors after my full body transplant. Here's my doctors note!'

Yeah, that wasn't gonna fly. And neither was he.

There was one component left he hadn't made. In no small part because the instructions for it were not included.

A soul repository.

It was referenced as being required, even listing the requisite grade needed... Which meant it was probably something that had been manufactured long before the Holmcross had been designed. He was stuck because of an oversight, of all things.

He had an idea on how to fix that, however. He'd tried searching for it in the game shop and came up with some odd results.

Materia
Magicite
Fairy Stones
Soul Gems
Mana Crystals...

All of them being some form of solidified magic. Some of them were 'naturally' occurring, too. But one those, he knew how to manufacture artificially!

Sort of.

In Crisis Core: Final Fantasy Seven there was a cutscene where artificial materia was made. It took liquid mako, seeded it to give it some form of aspect, element, whatever. It decided the type of materia. And then it was compressed!

That was a chemical process, and he knew how to do it!

He'd had to figure out how to make it work without a ready source of liquid magic, or a room-sized piece of machinery to compress and condense the material until it reached meta-stability. The answer, as was the case with many things he'd discovered, was Darksteel.

He'd created an orb made of two halves that could screw together, a quartet of bolts along the seam to lock it in place... And a T-bar with a core made of silver, locked in place with Darksteel barbs inside. The hardest part to manufacture had been a one-way diode.

Magic could operate like light, in some ways. It was both energy and material... Under the right circumstances.

Alchemist didn't know how well that was going to work, it was built off of some very poorly understood principles. Or even how long this was going to take. He'd be feeding magic directly into the flask until it solidified or things exploded. That being said, well, his other options were limited to either very, very expensive or...

Well, Evil.

Creating unaspected soulstones was either incredibly difficult, or incredibly Evil.

If there was an in between option, he'd have probably taken it.

But anything involving the soul of an orphan was instantly out.

Chapter Text

Project: Gamer Ver. 2 Alpha Build 0.6.7

Disclaimer Me Do: I own nothing you recognize. And most of what you don't recognize, I still don't own.

_________________________________________________________________________

Batman didn't have any expectations when he entered the mountain.

Wonder Woman had been in earlier and had completed her initial survey. Her report was actually rather optimistic, and it included the fact that she'd be training several of the children in using a sword.

Perhaps not incredibly applicable to heroics, but it could be a good bonding exercise for Player One and Aqualad.

Alchemist and Kid Flash were together in the recreation room, both sitting on the floor with various machine parts strewn around them when he silently walked in.

"-so these bolts should be the ones for the outer casing?" Both of them were hunched over the manual to whatever the final product was supposed to be.

A long tube, three large bearings that were likely supposed to go around it, perhaps two dozen thin black rods and a fairly large electric motor.

"What are you working on?" Though it didn't show on his face, it still amused Batman to watch someone, Alchemist in this case, jump when he surprised them.

"Hey Batman! There should be some pizza on the counter if you want some. Is there some pizza left?" The last part was said to the speedster, but he was too busy trying to assemble the machine case to pay attention.

There was, in fact, one slice left.

"Right, we're working on making a rod mill. I've got some ball bearings around here somewhere... Anyway, I need to powder some gemstones for a ritual spell." The boy pulled a freezer bag filled with green sand from seemingly nowhere to show to him.

"Are those... Emeralds?" They were not the shiny, polished precious jewels he was familiar with, but he'd been involved in breaking up a few smuggling rings that tried moving unrefined jewels a few times.

"Yep. Also made a batch of diamonds, rubies, sapphires, topaz and onyx." The four 'traditional' elemental colors, as well as black and white?

And he said he 'made' these?

Batman took a seat at the counter and grabbed the last slice of pizza.

He had questions now.

"So what is this ritual you're working on? How did you make the gemstones, and why do you need to grind them even smaller than that? I would assume with your abilities, turning them from grains to a powder should be rather simple." Trying to guess and assume with Alchemist had proven difficult in the past... But directly questioning him tended to be quite enlightening.

"Right, well, it's called a Demiplane Seed. Are you familiar with sub-space?" The caped crusader nodded. "Alright, think something like that except stable enough that a person can go into it and come out safe and sound."

Alchemist once more motioned towards the bag of rocks before slotting a part onto the mill.

"I need to, how did the book put it, invoke the elements to define the rules and properties of the personal reality I'll create. Typical stuff like earth, fire, water and air to create fertile land, set a temperature and create sunlight, specify the humidity or if there's a spring of pure water and make sure there's breathable air. That's the emerald, ruby, sapphire and topaz. The onyx and diamond are to, uh, soulbind it. Onyx has some mystical connection to death, diamonds with life and rebirth, together they... Right. Together they define the journey of the soul, and can be used to bind the demiplane to a specific individual. This way whenever I try to go back to my demiplane, I'm going back to -my- demiplane." Alchemist waved at Kid Flash who was tightening the nuts on one side of the mill.

"Kid Flash heard about what I was up to and wanted to see if I could make it work."

"And if you'd make me one!" The speedster finally spoke up.

Batman raised an eyebrow under the cowl. He'd been made aware that the boy vehemently denied the reality of magic. Something must have happened to change his mind.

"If it works I'd be happy to. I just need to break down these granules into a powder to mix with some resin to make the glyphs in the magic circle. And artificial gemstones are easy enough to make, it's just a tightly bundled pattern of the exact same thing over and over again. Heck, I could make rubies if I went and bought about thirty dollars in parts and got a bag of aluminum-oxide and chromium-oxide. Don't think I'm talking about making a full blown alternate reality, though." Alchemist shrugged and waved his hand vaguely. "Starting out, the demiplane is only about the size of a small janitors closet. You store some stuff in it and forget about it. Thing is, though, it's called a seed for a reason. Over time it'll grow, and if you can feed it magic it'll grow even faster. The biggest one I've read about so far was about one kilometer cubed, and that was controlled by some ancient dragon. He kept his hoard in there."

He fit a part of the casing against the motor and loosely secured one bolt to it.

"I did try to powder these, earlier. I think I just have a hard time picturing it, which, well, visualization is pretty important. I have to mix this stuff into resin, and I need it to be really, really fine. I'm not sure what I can do by hand is good enough, and this thing can be pretty useful even after I'm done with this project."

"Fascinating." As much as he meant that, Batman kept his voice neutral. "I hope you're not in the middle of anything critical, however."

He pulled a manila folder out from behind his cape while Alchemist snapped his greasy fingers and made his hands magically clean.

"I've finalized a lot of the details on your new identity. One thing I could not do, however, is create an identity for you that would bypass the education system." Alchemist took the folder from his hands and began reading through it.

"Well, that sucks. 'Tracy Nicholas Whittaker'... Alright. Aged sixteen." No complaints, which was good. He'd spent a significant amount of time deciding on a name.

"Indeed. You're scheduled to take the test for your General Education Development certification at Gotham University in one hour." It was not exactly ideal, but the Board of Education didn't do private tests.

"Ah, alright the..." Alchemist froze in the middle of what he was going to say when Batman's words fully processed. "...Hey Kid Flash? If you finish putting this together while I'm out, I'll cook whatever you want. Sound good?"

He got a greasy thumbs up in response.

"Awesome. Thanks. I need to go and cram four years of history into twenty minutes!" Unlike what he normally did, Alchemist didn't raise his hand or snap his fingers. He just disappeared.

Batman allowed himself a small grin.

How Alchemist handled this would offer a significant amount of insight into his character.

Chapter Text

Project: Gamer Ver. 2 Alpha Build 0.6.8

Disclaimer Me Do: I own nothing you recognize. And most of what you don't recognize, I still don't own.

_________________________________________________________________________

Without Alchemist hovering nearby to hog the manual, Wally actually completed the mill in record time.

Moving it up the stairs and into one of the unoccupied bedrooms near where Alchemist was staying though? That was a bit beyond him.

He was super fast, not super strong.

Kinda.

Alchemist's grumbling about 'Necessary secondary superpowers' ended up making a lot of sense when he got the guy to actually explain it. Wally didn't really feel like he had super regeneration or some measure of enhanced durability, but at the same time, he also didn't have arthritis from logging more miles than most cars could survive.

Either way, he wasn't lifting the machine and lugging it around the mountain.

That's what Superboy was for!

And it only took Wally two and a half minutes to find him. Sitting alone in the room Wally had commandeered to run his own experiment. Just watching the four mice kept in individual cages.

Three of them had superpowers, to varying degrees, while the fourth one did not.

This wasn't the first time Wally had found him here. Connor wouldn't talk about it, but Wally was pretty sure there was some odd sort of kinship between him and the lab rats. When Karen was being pulled off into girl stuff and nobody else was engaging with him, he'd just find his way back to this room and watch the mice.

Kid Flash sort of understood. He'd done the same thing more than once. It had actually been kind of relaxing to just sit and talk to them like they were people. It had also been kind of nice to train Connor in how to take care of them, to make notes and observations.

It sort of felt like a connection, a real, human connection.

"You learn anything new, big guy?" Wally unfolded a chair and sat next to him, looking at the mice. Looking at the voltage display over three of the cages.

Gauging their individual strength in superspeed had taken a bit of work. Two of them, the ones dosed with the Garrick and Allen formulas, would get on their exercise wheels and tear off faster than he could keep track of. The third one, significantly slower than the other two, he could just barely keep track of.

His solution? He stole the idea from a show he used to watch as a kid, something about pre-teen operatives and spies fighting against adult tyranny. In a few episodes, the kids used hamsters and their wheels to power backup generators.

Wally had retooled that idea a bit. With Alchemist's help to make the parts out of the same weird, black metal as the rod mill used, he'd set it up so that the three superpowered mice would generate a current when they ran and he could then run the average results of a multi-meter through an algorithm to figure out how fast they were running.

"I think Pinky is getting tired faster than before? He's not running as long as he did last week." Wally nodded almost absentmindedly as he took the clipboard Connor handed him and started looking it over.

Inky, the Garrick mouse had remained consistent. Blinky, with the Allen formula had actually increased its endurance. Clyde, the control mouse, remained within standard tolerances. The only one fluctuating significantly was Pinky. The West formula.

Food consumption had gone up in the case of Blinky and Pinky, but not for Inky or Clyde. Pinky was producing more waste, though.

That... Was also consistent with his own experiences.

"Any luck trying to weigh them?" Wally finally asked once he got done reading.

"No." Wally gave Connor a moment to continue that, but nothing else was forthcoming.

"Alright. Think I could get your help for a minute? Alchemist and I built something, but it's too heavy for me to carry." Wally got up and started to top off their food, noting absently that the superpowered mice were watching him with much greater intensity than Clyde was.

"Sure." Superboy stood up to watch him as he worked.

These might have been lab mice, but that didn't mean he had to be cruel, not like that one scientist.

Not like Desmond.

-----

Player One had kept up her training after Wonder Woman had left.

She was getting close to the last training bonus she could get for Strength, the counter sitting at a frustrating nineteen of twenty.

She'd already gotten the maximum for Agility and Dexterity, but only had about half the bonuses for Intelligence, Will and Endurance.

She'd earned one bonus point for Luck, but she wasn't even sure how she did that.

She'd waved when Robin and Batman had entered the training room, but they hadn't waved back.

Rude.

Watching them was really impressive, though! Batman was almost like the kung-fu movies made fighting out to be, like poetry in motion.

Robin was different. When he let loose, it was more brash, more sudden and opportunistic but lacked planning, strategy.

In the three rounds she saw of their training, it always ended the same way. Robin would try and go in for a strike at a presumed weakness and, when he overextended, Batman would literally just grab the offending arm or leg and throw him out of the ring.

Then Batman had held up a hand to answer his communicator and rushed off, which probably meant trouble.

Robin stayed behind, though, so probably not any kind of serious trouble.

She wasn't really sure what to make of the boy wonder, not really. He hadn't had a whole lot to say to her after Santa Prisca, just a mumbled apology after Batman had a talk with him about something and then he'd kept his distance.

She kind of thought he blamed her for the mission being a failure.

He went through a cooldown phase for a bit, did some stretches and then left with a backwards glance.

Player One went back to doing squats, sit-ups and push-ups.

It was boring, it was tedious and honestly she didn't enjoy it. It did give her time to think, though.

She'd hit a wall. The cave I.D. was consistently proving to be too hard to handle, the monsters that appeared past the first boss were just too strong.

Or too beefy. They had a hard time hitting her, but she couldn't cause any real or significant damage to them.

She'd been trying to avoid it, he weirded her out so, so much but... She was going to have to ask Alchemist for help.

Or at least advice.

He seemed to just know things, especially about The System. But half the time, he just acted so... unsettling.

"Hey-o." She nearly flipped when the boy she was thinking about spoke up from the doorway. "Any word on when Wonder Woman will be back?"

Right! That! She'd almost forgotten.

"I haven't heard anything." He stepped into the padded room, a comfortable distance between them, and started stretching. "Hey, uh... Can I ask you something?"

He was slowly bending over to touch his toes when he said "Go for it."

"I'm... Kinda stuck, in my new I.D.. Do you have any suggestions that could help out?" There you go, see? That wasn't so hard.

"Sure, can think of a few. What kinds of games are you familiar with?" He stood back up fully and brought his arms up over his head.

"Shooters. I used to love shooters." Though she never played anymore.

"But you went with a sneak attack, melee, critical build?" She glared hard enough he could feel it. "I'm not criticizing, alright? I'm not. Everybody needs a ninja. Have you considered adding some utility spells to your list?"

He was a magician. Of course he'd go with suggesting magic.

She didn't know what she'd been expecting, honestly.

"I've got seventy-five MP. How much do you expect me to do with that?" She had way more Stamina Points than she did Magic Points, and the Stamina regenerated significantly faster.

"Honestly? You can do a lot with that. You could cast my repair spell seven times with that, use healing magic a few times, grab some buffs to multiply your stats for a few hours or change the way you're hitting your enemies... There's a lot of options, really. And crafting, you can't go wrong with crafting. I picked Alchemy half because it's a little bit of everything." That... Huh.

He was making a good point. She had a versatile build, and adding some niche skills or utilities wouldn't be a -bad- thing, would it?

"What about your perks? I've been getting the stuff that makes me better at what I do but the main options are about taken." She wasn't sure how to answer that. He'd actually been spending those? She'd never been able to decide what she wanted, there were just so many options!

"I've got a lot of points left... Is there anything specific you think I need? I'm having a hard time with specific enemies, trolls." Her damage output was good, but they just kept getting back up!

"Alright, look. I'm not going to tell you how to kill me." Kill him? What? Why was he grinning?! ...Oh, troll joke. Hah. "Well, I can't help you too much there outside of giving you something, but I can make a few suggestions if you want?"

She nodded at him.

"For perks, look for things that make what you already do better. Things that increase your stealth, health and maybe defense or hit points? Maybe grab the elemental perks for fire or acid, too. Trolls regenerate health, but those two things interfere with that. Here." He handed her a scroll.

A scroll! Of all the things she'd expected this... Wasn't at the bottom.

-- Do you wish to learn the spell --
-- Carthus Flame Arc --
-- Level 1 --
-- Cost: 30 MP --
-- Coat weapon or hands in flame for (90 X (1+(Skill Level/100))) seconds causing ((INT+WIL)/2) X (1 + (Skill Level/100)) additional fire damage! --
-- Y/N? --

Obviously she clicked yes! That would be perfect!

The scroll exploded into a burst of light as the spell slotted itself into her menu.

She didn't miss the look of envy on Alchemist's face, but she couldn't bring herself to feel too bad for him.

Magic! She'd finally learned some magic!

Chapter Text

Project: Gamer Ver. 2 Alpha Build 0.6.9

Disclaimer Me Do: I own nothing you recognize. And most of what you don't recognize, I still don't own.

_________________________________________________________________________

Red Tornado did, in fact, have access to an android assembly machine. It was one of Morrow's abandoned facilities, and Red Tornado had secured it and purchased the property for his personal use.

An abandoned Radio Shack, go figure.

The first floor, the ground floor, had one very large, very heavy duty chair taken from a dentist's office and three waldos around it. It was where Red did most of the maintenance needed for himself.

Now the basement... That had been interesting. The towering Cray-1 was imposing for a variety of reasons.

Among them being a story Alchemist had read, years and years ago, of a sorcerer putting his mind into one of those same monsters.

'Do you remember the taste of wine?'

He shook his head, no need to fall into nostalgia here.

It was connected to an imposing number of other machines, soldering, fluid fill, spot welding...

An old-fashioned spike connector that would line up perfectly with a covered port in the middle of Red Tornado's back.

"I understand that your need of the equipment is strictly for hardware assembly?" Red Tornado's synthetic voice broke him out of his thoughts.

"Yeah. I've made all of the parts that need to be assembled at once, the rest are going on the backburner for a bit." The rest being a soulstone without any pre-existing spiritual or magical connection to anything.

Natural soulstones occurred pretty commonly in various worlds. They could make up the hearts or cores of monsters, be the lingering physical essence of great spirits, even be the concentrated memories and magic of reincarnated souls.

All of which would be completely useless to him.

Er, well, all of which would be completely useless for his purpose.

Putting a Summon Materia or a piece of Magicite into the holmcross could be interesting. Make everything die in a fire or accidentally bring about the apocalypse, maybe, but definitely interesting.

"And, just to confirm, you are not attempting to reassemble the Amazo android confiscated from one Professor Ivo?" There was no emotion in the question, but also no accusation. Alchemist had a sense of certainty that Red Tornado might be one of the few people who wouldn't try to stop him at every step and demand answers.

"That is correct. Both the head and torso of Amazo remain with Player One. I don't feel comfortable attempting to create an artificial body when I have no certainty that the construct would not be co-opted by an adapting and evolving artificial intelligence." Alchemist did still have the arms and legs, however.

"Understood. And there is no neural or any other form of upload to occur at this time?" Alchemist shook his head no. "Then this will be significantly more efficient."

So saying, Red Tornado pulled a small laptop out of the drawer of a desk situated to oversee the equipment. He disconnected the Cray supercomputer from the web of wires and then connected a USB cable with nearly a dozen adapters to the laptop instead.

"...I suppose that makes sense. This is pretty much just a long list of instructions, isn't it?" Alchemist began setting the various pieces of the skeleton and artificial tissues in the spaces the android pointed out.

"Very simply put, yes. The adaptive program will observe the completed pieces you have already assembled and use that, as well as the reference material that you have provided to determine the most effective method of assembly." Red opened the laptop and booted it up as Alchemist continued placing the components. "Inform me once you have finished and I will begin the scanning procedure."

Roughly half an hour of pleasant, silent work later and Alchemist gave Red the thumbs up.

A light was emitted from one of the waldos, working its way down the loosely assembled skeleton and then slowing down dramatically once it reached the right arm.

"I understand you have engaged Wonder Woman for additional weapons training?" On the one hand, Alchemist hadn't been expecting small talk from the android. On the other, Red Tornado did have responsibilities as the teams den mother.

"Yeah. Myself, Player One and Aqualad are all taking lessons from her in swordsmanship." Today had been lesson one, the most basic lesson.

How to hold a sword.

Kaldur had already known. Player One had picked it up pretty fast. He'd struggled.

The weighted wooden weapon Wonder Woman had brought with her felt wrong, especially the balance.

It felt far too light. It swung too easy. He'd still been worn out and sore afterwards, but it was nothing like he'd expected.

"Self improvement is an admirable goal. Weapons training can be especially useful for engaging opponents with superior physical capabilities." Self improvement... Well, that was kind of the goal here, wasn't it?

"...How often have you used this place, Red Tornado?" There had been dust when they'd come in, sure, but less than what he'd have expected from decades of neglect.

And the laptop, while not new, was hardly that old.

"I primarily use this facility for the production of replacement parts following a violent altercation. Full body replacement and upgrades often require a significant amount of time, effort and resources." Well, that was fair. Androids were hardly cheap to produce after all.

"With that said, however, this body is the Red Tornado mark Three. Created using modern materials with significantly higher stress and shear resistance compared to what was available following World War 2. Manufactured inside of this facility two years ago." Red looked down and confirmed something on the laptop even as the machinery began moving. "Estimated time until completion is seven hours and fifty three minutes. Would you like to wait here or return to base to collect it later?"

"If you don't mind, I'd rather wait here. No offense intended, but I'm not letting that out of my sight." Leslie nodded towards the skeleton that was taking shape.

"Understood. Please be sure to lock the facilities when you leave."

With that, Red Tornado stood up from the groaning office chair and left, leaving Alchemist alone with the familiar sounds of machinery around him.

-----

Nine hours later, and Alchemist was incredibly bored. He'd spent the time idly working through Heward's Handbook to learn more about its spells and crafting techniques, and burned a lot of his MP just casting Shell and Berserk on himself.

He was regenerating enough MP to cast any of the spells from Final Fantasy Two at least once per minute now.

Though that would be miserable and tedious, so he'd just been casting enough at the start of every hour to burn himself down to one-hundred magic points, the remainder he kept as a general safety net.

The holmcross was mostly assembled, with nerves and muscle, tendons and bones, even the organs in all of the correct places. Now all that was missing was the skin and, well, him.

Nine hours was a long time to wait, and watching the machinery assemble the golem body -was- fascinating, but not nine hours long fascinating. The last hour or so had been various checks and confirmation tests, seeing if all of the joints moved adequately, the computer throwing up errors due to the lack of hydraulic fluids, that kind of thing.

He'd explored the basement pretty thoroughly and, well, there really wasn't much worth looking at on this side of the electronically locked door. There were pretty much just two rooms here. The assembly room... And a wash closet.

That had been a nightmare. Everything was sealed with rust and it had started off utterly filthy. Leslie guessed it wasn't pertinent to Red Tornado's needs, so he'd never payed it any attention except to turn the water off thirty or so years ago.

Repair may have been an Arcane spell, but for him it was a Miracle! He'd cast it on everything he could see in the small room, followed up by prestidigitation to clean everything bit by bit.

It had been a long nine hours.

As the machinery was finishing the final checks, he was sitting back in the chair, pointing at spots of dust or dirt in the room with finger-guns and pretend-shooting them with prestidigitation, cleaning the room spot by spot.

*Thud!*

Came from overhead, knocking loose some dust he hadn't seen.

Had Red Tornado come back?

Leslie glanced at the screen of the laptop briefly-

--Process: Complete!--
-- 27 Errors Found! --

Well, that sort of sucked, but he'd read through what he needed to fix in a minute.

*Thud-Thud! Thud-Thud-Thud!*

Alchemist's brow furrowed as he inventoried the near-complete holmcross.

That sounded like more than one person... But the weight of their steps was either really heavy, or they were stomping around up there.

He checked his phone while he heard them stomping down the stairs...

No texts from Red Tornado, just Kid Flash asking him to make spaghetti.

...Which he'd already done. There was no signal down here, something he'd learned hours ago but checking his phone was just a reflex at this point.

A buzz rang in the air.

The electronic lock on the door had rejected a code.

A quick glance at his MP showed he was about at half... He could try to teleport to the other side of the door, find out who was here.

The door buzzed again.

Leslie sat back down in the chair Red Tornado had used earlier. He unplugged the wire connected to the laptop as the door buzzed yet another time and inventoried it, too.

Turning back around to face the door, he steepled his fingers in front of his face in the classic Gendo pose and waited.

It took them another six attempts to get the door open, finally accomplished when a very fine jet of water drilled and cut the space around the handle.

And now he had proof of who was here. Wonderful.

Was it bad that he could only tell Red Torpedo apart from Red Inferno based on the chassis?

"You are late." Alchemist said to the two androids.

Hopefully they wouldn't notice his phone sitting on the table and recording them, propped up against an old CRT monitor.

"You are not Red Tornado." No inflection, no purpose, not even the vague hint of something like he could find in Red Tornado when he spoke.

"An astute observation, Doctor Lockhart." Alchemist crossed one leg over the other. "Miss Reilly. It's a pleasure to see you up and moving again."

Did Alchemist have a plan?
Not at all.

"You will tell us where Red Tornado is." Red Inferno spoke as she lifted her hand towards him, lighting it ablaze.

Alchemist stood up slowly, deliberately and stretched his arms out wide.

"He's not here, obviously. He wasn't upstairs, performing maintenance. He's not down here, building a new frame. If you'd like, feel free to check the bathroom. It's the only other door in here." Both androids stood deathly still for several long moments, either deliberating between each other or attempting communications with an external source before the slimmer android, the former Firebrand, actually went to check the wash closet.

Alchemist had an idea, but no certainty it would work... And Red Tornado had mentioned being able to notice -something- when spells were cast on him, which meant testing if Esuna worked on reprogramming would have to wait.

Well, nothing to do but to do it.

Red Inferno had actually opened the door to the wash closet and stepped inside when Alchemist cast his first offensive spell.

Red Torpedo became a toad in an instant, he represented what Alchemist considered the most critical threat. Piercing damage.

An instant later and the world went white.

If not for his protective spells, Alchemist may very well have been knocked out by the sheer concussive force released by Red Inferno in response to Torpedo going offline.

Maybe they were both a critical threat? Alchemist hadn't wanted to risk the spell failing if he cast it on multiple targets...

He was patting the flames off of his shirt when strong, slender hands grabbed on to his collar and lifted him into the air.

"What have you done with Red Torpedo!?" There was more than just the monotone he'd been hearing from them.

Actual desperation and fear was in there.

Danette Reilly was still in there.

"Who's asking?" Leslie hit himself with Regeneration. "Reilly? Inferno? Volcano?!"

Whatever she was about to say was cut off when she turned into a toad as well.

Alchemist stood up, dusting soot and plaster off of himself. Almost absentmindedly he grabbed the two toads on the floor and pulled a bottle out of his inventory to store them in.

The door had been blown off its hinges, there were a couple of fires, there was a puddle over by the entrance where Torpedo had cut his way in...

Repair was going to get a workout.

-----

"Hey Red Tornado!" Alchemist hollered into the android's apartment space in the mountain.

"Alchemist. You've returned. Everything went successfully?" Red Tornado had to look down to talk to the boy.

Were those soot stains on his shirt?

"Yep. By the way, congratulations!" Alchemist had a large square box with him when he'd come in. He set it down on Red's unused table and opened it, revealing a small terrarium with two toads in it. "You're no longer the baby in your family."

He stared at the toads, looked at Alchemist, went back to the toads, internally reviewed the files on Alchemist and then- "Are those people?"

"Yep. Morrow brand androids, just like you! They must've had someway of tracking you in the lab leftovers you use. They came to capture you while it was finishing up my project. That did not go well for them. Or me. Or any of us." Alchemist gently pulled the terrarium up and out of the box. "I fixed everything before I left, but I still have your laptop. I wasn't sure if they were going to try and steal it or not."

"Oh... Thank... You?" Was... Was this how Batman felt?

Chapter Text

Project: Gamer Ver. 2 Alpha Build 0.7.0

Disclaimer Me Do: I own nothing you recognize. And most of what you don't recognize, I still don't own.

_________________________________________________________________________

Batman sat alone in a meeting room on the Watchtower, packets of papers and folders splayed out in front of him. Reviewing documents and making notes wasn't exactly exciting, but it was important to stay on top of things.

"Hey Bats." The Flash said as he entered the room. With a short, two-fingered wave he sat down at one of the many unoccupied seats at the round table. "Anything exciting?"

"The team has blown through their maintenance budget about seven times over, I've discovered multiple conspiracies in Star Labs, one of the members of the team is performing illegal experiments and another one has started seeing a psychiatrist." The dark knight assembled the papers in his hand, tapped them on the table to align them and said "Guess which one your protege is involved in?"

"...Can I hope it's the maintenance one?" Resignation filled his voice as he accepted the packet of papers Batman handed to him. The Flash barely looked up when The Martian Manhunter walked into the room.

The tall green man said nothing as he sat in an unoccupied space of his own, a brief nod given to the other members.

It did not take much longer before Aquaman and Black Canary joined them.

"I would like to start this off" Batman began. "By stating that until further notice, The Team will not be taking missions directly involving Star Labs."

One packet of papers was handed around, each member taking a smaller packet of papers stapled together.

"Upon discovering a discrepancy in the paperwork, a full audit was initiated on Star Labs and their containment procedures. A significant amount of materials, roughly four percent so far, are not in the labs they're supposed to be. These include unstable compounds, high-energy power sources, teleportation technology and advanced robotics technology. A multitude of these included nuclear and near-nuclear devices, and those findings have already been handed over to the Federal Authorities." The faces around the table grew grim. "I'd also like to remind everyone here that the audit isn't even through the first week."

Batman handed over another packet, this one involving just a single sheet of paper for each of the people at the table.

"One hundred and fifty thousand dollars for mold removal, vent maintenance, HVAC maintenance... Billed by Alchemic Solutions? Alchemist is charging us to maintain the Mountain?" Orin asked calmly after reviewing the sheet.

"He's charging us for maintenance beyond the scope he was contracted for. I had him walk me through everything he did, and where he did it. Mount Justice was in significantly worse condition than I expected. Independant estimates for contractors to be hired to complete the same job would cost three times as much, not to mention the significant risks to security. I've already authorized the payment." There were a handful of nods around the table, those assembled being well aware of what could happen if the wrong person was trusted.

Again.

"Are we certain that his repairs will last?" J'onn asked as he looked over the estimates Batman handed out.

"Lantern Stewart reviewed his repairs and performed a basic scan of the base at my request." Batman nodded to the various members who looked up. "Everything has been returned to its original condition. There were a handful of sealed locations that he couldn't access that were in the condition he claimed to have repaired the base from, pictures have been included."

The Flash actually looked somewhat green when he saw what had been growing in the corners of the Waterfall Room.

"I'd like to propose that we hire or recruit an individual with a specialty in building and maintenance." Flash spoke up after looking at the pictures again. "Because I just thought the place smelled like an attic, y'know, old and musty. Not... yeah."

When Batman began handing out -even more- papers he let out a resigned sigh.

"Let me guess, the illegal experiments this time?" There were a few questioning looks passed between the members present at Flashes question, but Batman just nodded. "Alright, let's see it."

The packet this time was significantly thicker. When opened, Barry saw photos, numbers, lots of numbers... The fact that the subjects were mice named after the Pac-Man ghosts was reasonably amusing.

The experiment itself, not so much.

"He gave mice Superspeed?!" Black Canary shrieked, flipping through the papers. "They need to be terminated! Not only is this illegal, it's immoral and-"

"And it suggests Wally's powers might be eating him alive." Flash interrupted her, reading through it faster than the rest could comprehend. "Look at the pictures on pages three through five, he's been comparing them. Pinky, that's the one with his powers. Look at it."

Black Canary flipped through the pictures, comparing them... Pinky had been eating more and more food but losing weight every single day. The most recent one, from yesterday... The mouse was skin and bones except for the bloated, distended belly.

"There is no guarantee that his powers are affecting him the same way, Flash." J'onn offered calmly. "Perhaps it would be wise to consult a medical professional before assuming these similarities are exact."

"Yeah, you're right I-" Flash was interrupted by a knocking next to the open door of the meeting room.

Superman was there, followed by Giovanni "John" Zatara.

Holding a skeletal hand with muscles still attached and nope, the Flash was not interested in whatever crime had Superman carrying around a dismembered hand.

"Batman, I'm glad I caught you."

"Superman." How Batman said that one word conveyed a significant amount of meaning.

Shortening it, however, it meant 'What do you want?'.

"Before my sabbatical I met with Alchemist and we had a brief talk. I... Accidentally flew off with some of his property." Trying to hand over a hand was actually a rather awkward affair. Clark shuffled the thing in his hands a few times, unsure if he should hold it by the arm bone, in a handshake, maybe intertwine his fingers with it?

He eventually just held it by the wrist and handed it to Batman armbone first.

"Wait-wait-wait, are you seriously trying to tell us Alchemist gave you a hand?" Despite the grisly looking subject, the Flash still managed to find humor in it.

"I'm more concerned with where it came from, and why he had it." Aquaman interrupted before the Flash could build up momentum.

"It's artificial." Batman said after tossing it to Barry, his expression neutral even while the speedster shrieked.

"And magical." John added as he stepped around the Man of Steel. "Extremely so."

"Necromancy?" Black Canary wonder aloud.

"No." John said as he took the hand from Barry. "I am quite familiar with Necromancy and this is very different."

"I can tell." Aquaman was looking at the artifact with naked curiosity. "Necromancy has a taint to it, slick, oily... Rotten. Whatever that is, it's light. Eager, even."

"Precisely! I would quite like to know how this came to be, as well as getting samples of it to experiment with!" John handed the limb back to Batman.

"I'll pass on the request." Batman secreted the arm away into his cape. "Superman? Have you reconsidered what I brought up?"

The man of Steel looked into the caped crusaders hidden eyes and nodded grimly. "Yes. And my answer is this. I will not be adopting the clones. Period. But I will consent to training them so long as it's supervised by at least one other member of the league."

"They need-"

"They need" Superman rode over Batman as he tried to speak. "to be in the care of someone that can properly care for them, and that they won't remember feeling the need to either destroy or seduce."

The two of them glared at each other for a long moment before Batman nodded, breaking the tension that had grown thick in the room. "Very well. Thank you for reconsidering their training, at least."

Superman nodded before waving and leaving the room, stress obvious in his steps.

"...I think that's it for this meeting, right?" Barry asked as he stood up, aligning the papers he'd been given.

"Except for one matter that I need to discuss with Black Canary, yes. In short the team has a lot of growing problems and issues that we did not anticipate, but what we've encountered so far is either being resolved or researched." As Batman finished, three of the other members of the League stood up to leave.

Once the door closed behind the Martian Manhunter, leaving the room to Batman and Black Canary, the Dark Knight spoke.

"Alchemist has begun seeing a psychiatrist."

"Oh thank god!" Was not the response he'd been expecting from her.

Chapter Text

Project: Gamer Ver. 2 Alpha Build 0.7.1

Disclaimer Me Do: I own nothing you recognize. And most of what you don't recognize, I still don't own.

_________________________________________________________________________

"Alright, that should be everything." Alchemist was packing a backpack in the kitchen and checking things off of a list. "I'll have a few chores to take care of across a few places, but I'll be ending in Gotham. Does anybody need anything?"

Every member of the team except Kid Flash were looking across each other, unsure who should say what.

"Some... Nutmeg? I guess? Are you sure you won't come with us?" M'gann asked.

She, and everyone else, were wearing swimsuits of one kind or another. Trunks for the boys, two-piece bikinis on the girls.

Alchemist held out his wrist and shook the loose sleeve of his shirt down his wrist. "Much as I'd like to, I've got a complexion like milk. You all have fun though, alright? If you think of anything, text me. Call if someone is seriously hurt. Emergency numbers are on the fridge."

With a jaunty wave, Alchemist disappeared into thin air.

Superboy, rather than debate or question how or why simply grabbed the cooler Alchemist had prepared and lazily lifted it like it weighed nothing. "We goin' or not?"

"Yes, let's. His choosing to take care of his responsibilities is admirable, but let us not allow it to distract us from our day." Aqualad added, grabbing the bag of towels and sunblock and heading for the door.

-----

Misty Baron absentmindedly tapped her phone, crushing another cookie on hour three of her shift at the loudest, foulest most run-down humane society slash animal shelter in Hartford.

Too many animals, too little budget. Same story in every shelter, in every state. Add in every bleeding heart who thinks putting down a rabid dog is tantamount to murder and there's no wonder things were never getting better.

Idly she scratched under the bracelet on her leg.

If she had her way, she wouldn't be here at all.

She heard the jingle of the door bell ringing and- "Hello?"

Looking up from her phone, she saw a boy, probably just in his teens and... He looked familiar? Regardless.

"Hello and welcome to the West Hartford Humane Society, what can we do for you today?"

"Hi, uh..." The little perv was looking at her chest like she wasn't going to "-Misty. I brought in a bunch of animals from a dogfighting ring about two months ago? I was hoping I could talk to the vet tech here and see how they're doing."

She actually looked down to what he had been staring at and- Oh, right. Her nametag.

Well, now she felt silly.

"Uh... Ashley, right?" The kid shrugged. "I'll go and get Dolittle."

The kid, rather than saying anything, just contented himself with leaning against the desk and reading the various signs on the walls.

-----

"Lesley!" The vet, one Bernhard "Buddy" Baker, was all too happy to see the young man again. "You didn't bring another truck full of animals, did you?"

"No! Gods no!" The boy laughed it off. "Just came by to ask how the guys I brought in are doing, maybe ask you a favor."

"Well come on in back, let's get out of Misty's way. I'm sure some of them would love to see a friendly face." The kid followed along easily enough into the cacophonous din hidden just behind a set of doors.

"Unfortunately." The doctor's countenance grew grim. "We did have to put a number of the dogs down. A few of the cats, too. Once they'd been blooded and violent, well, retraining is difficult at the best of times."

"And I guess..." Lesley bent down in front of the cage of a very eager and excited lab. "Some of the bait animals were too injured, weren't they?"

"Sadly so." Despite the topic, it did warm the vets heart to see the young man here again. How he'd gotten a warehouse full of pit animals he didn't know, but the kids heart had been in the right place. "Now, what's this favor you were hoping to ask of me? Unless you're looking to adopt, we're at capacity right now."

"I wish I could, but my dorm's not happy with the cats I already have." The boy stood back up. "Can we go to the exam room? And, uh... Have you ever heard of that one Meta, King Shark?"

"I'm not familiar with him, no. I'm guessing he has some ability related to sharks, going by the name?" The exam room was right next to the kennel, for obvious reasons.

"He's a half-shark demigod, among a variety of less savory attributes." Lesley stopped to look at one of the charts on the wall, a guide on identifying mange. "Also kind of wondering if you've ever had to work on something big, like the size of a horse or something."

"That's... An odd set of questions. But, well, yes. A few times. We've had a few rescues from ranches that went defunct. And one where the owner brought the animal home because she couldn't afford the stable fee." That had been a real mess.

"Awesome! Good. Do me a favor doc." Buddy turned to look at the boy.

He was instead met with glowing yellow eyes set in an angular, reptilian face.

"Don't scream."

-----

A very shrill, rather feminine shriek rang out through the building. Dogs began barking, cats yowling, one rather irritable alligator thrashed about in its tank.

Misty, incredibly oblivious, simply kept poking her phone screen. Her earbuds doing a wonderful job of blocking out all unpleasant sounds.

-----

"Berny. Buddy. Bro. That was the one thing I specifically asked you not to do." The dragon was just sitting there! Menacingly! In some very tightly overstretched clothing that was bursting at the seams!

Maybe.

Bernhard wasn't actually sure.

"P-p-p-please d-don't eat me! I taste terrible, I swear! Just ask the dogs!" He blubbered as he backed away into a corner.

The dragon, in contrast, continued sitting in its spot blocking the door and doing nothing.

"Even if you offered, I wouldn't eat you. What was it, one person in five has an S.T.I? And I recall reading one in three have parasites. Believe me, you're very safe." The calm, even tone as the giant lizard person spoke terrible, unpleasant facts actually did work to calm the vet down.

Just a little.

"One in five are what?!" Or maybe it would just upset him for a different reason. "No, no, focus. If you're not here for- for lunch, then what do you want with me?!"

"Well, being rather blunt. You're the only vet I know, and I was hoping to get a physical done on, well, this." The dragon waved a claw at itself. "And after that I was hoping you'd help me do a blood draw, as much as you felt was safe."

The great black beast awkwardly shuffled over to the exam table and tapped a talon on it five times, each time dropping a golden coin on the clinically cold surface.

"A blood draw? For what?" Bernhard picked up one of the coins, a limited run Lady Liberty. "Wouldn't you prefer to go to a doctor instead?"

"I somehow doubt a doctor, who is trained to work on human bodies, would even know where to start with this." The boy? yawned, and he had such big teeth. "As for the blood? It's magic. I'm magic. I need it for magic. I could get it without your help, but this is much safer and cleaner."

Five ounces of gold was a lot of money, but Buddy wasn't sure it was going to be enough.

Not for the work the kid wanted done, that was going to be cheap by comparison.

No, he wasn't sure it would be enough to cover his therapy when this was done.

-----

Alchemist dropped out of the teleportation and listed to the side, almost falling over before his shoulder hit the brick of the building next to him.

He'd dropped into an alley a few blocks from his next destination, still a dragon and maybe more than a little light-headed. He'd walk to the seven-eleven he needed to get to after those two things were fixed.

Regeneration was up and running, but it was trying to recover about four liters of blood, give or take a bit.

"Note to self." Alchemist muttered, watching the exsanguinated debuff fade second by second in his status window. "Have regeneration up before losing blood, not after." He was just going to sit here and wait, relax, not do anything too strenuous for a bit.

He did wonder how long it was going to take before Bernhard figured out that a lot of the old, toothless, crippled and blind animals had most of those same problems resolved. Except the old part. He wasn't too interested in solving that.

Probably about the time the doc figured out he was going to have to neuter and spay all of the animals all over again.

It wasn't really funny, but he giggled a little anyway. A lot of animals were a lot more adoptable, and he'd gotten a few levels to the spell. All good things!

-----

Slade Wilson watched the store across the street from him from his place sitting on the bench at a bus stop.

The same place he'd been for nearly a week.

Tracking down 'L' had proven time consuming and difficult. The person didn't have any kind of existence on the internet aside from what he'd been doing to harass Luthor. Tracking him had proven mostly fruitless, his computers physical address was all over the place. All over the world.

Tracking back the pre-paid debit card had been easier, in the end. L had used the same card to make the purchases on the food websites every single time. It was registered to a Lawrence Locksley, no address and the birth date was clearly fake. The only piece of actionable information his hacker could find was that it was being refilled at the same physical location roughly once a week, a corner store at the edge of gang territorry in Hartford.

He'd been taking pictures of everybody who'd been going in or out, making notes of the time to corroborate against L refilling his card. He would have liked to use the stores security footage, but the proprietor Khan Duong didn't have any cameras.

He had connections to the local bosses instead.

It was tedious and boring investigative work, but he really did prefer it to the more action-oriented parts of being a mercenary. There were fewer things that could or would go wrong. Especially in the same state as the Bat.

Slade set down his coffee as he prepared to take another picture, some Vietnamese kid with clothes so baggy they'd be falling off if he didn't have a belt when his hand hit something.

"Oh Mister Wi~ilson!" Quick as the Flash he pulled the gun from his holster, practically slamming the barrel into whatever had made the noise.

A doll. Dressed in red overalls with a blue and white striped shirt, blond hair and drawn on eyes and eyebrows.

What?

He'd been setting his coffee down in the same spot for nearly a week. He'd done that literally dozens of times today alone. The doll hadn't been there.

Holstering the gun and ignoring the woman who was now running away that had been waiting for the bus, he picked the doll up.

Light, made entirely of cloth...

It didn't have a voicebox in it.

"That tickles Mister Wilson!" Slade very nearly froze except for his one eye widening.

What the hell was this?

"What are you?" Slade turned the toy around, ignoring the strange, child-like giggling come from it. There was a tag on the back of it.

Ketcham Inc. 1982

That told him nothing.

"I'm bored Mister Wilson. Do you want to play a game?" The thing in his hands didn't answer his question.

"No." And he set it back down, facedown on the bench. It wasn't part of this job, he could deal with it later.

"But I want to play!" It whined. "Please? Pretty please? Pretty please with sugar on top?"

The thing was whining like a child and, not for the first time, Slade was thankful that he hadn't actually had to raise any of his own children through that phase.

"Oh Mister Wi~ilson! Oh Mister Wi~ilson! Oh Mister Wi~ilson!" The cloth devil screamed from right next to him, constantly distracting him from watching the storefront to try and find his target. "Oh Mister Wi-"

He pulled his gun back out of the holster, flicked the safety in one smooth motion and shot it.

Looking down at the doll, Slade was more than a little disturbed to see that it was bleeding.

"That hurt Mister Wilson!" Slowly, very slowly the head twisted to look at him. "I don't want to play with you any more! I'm gonna go play with someone else!"

Whatever force was being exerted on the head of the doll let go, making it twist back into place. It just lay there, in a puddle of impossible blood and finally, thankfully silent.

Slade got up, holstering his gun and got ready to move. This may have been gang territory, but it was the very edge. Police were going to be coming soon to ask about the gunshot.

He managed two steps before he looked back.

The doll was gone...

But the blood remained.

Chapter Text

Project: Gamer Ver. 2 Alpha Build X-Mas

Disclaimer Me Do: I own nothing you recognize. And most of what you don't recognize, I still don't own.

_________________________________________________________________________

Penny stretched, raising her arms well above her head and grinning.

It was getting colder, snow was piling high and she loved this time of year!

Even her system agreed with her!

~~ Special Quest! ~~
~~ The most wonderful I.D. of the year! ~~
~~ Defeat the evil Krampus in the zombie I.D. for special Christmas rewards! ~~

Which had not gone well for her, sadly. He was super strong, but she'd escaped the fight and the I.D. every time she'd taken him on so far!

So maybe it was time to ask for some help?

And she knew just the gamer to ask.

Which was convenient, since he was in the mountain base today!

...Which was actually kind of sad. Christmas was tomorrow, didn't he have anyone to visit? If she wasn't here looking for him specifically she'd be at home with her family.

"Hey Alchemist!" She finally found him, on his way to the Zeta terminal. "I need some help in an I.D., do you mind giving me a hand? There'll be loot! You like loot, right?"

"...Sorry Patty. I've got something going on today. Maybe later?" He... Had something going on?

She had noticed he was wearing a new, oversized white hoodie with red triangles around the hem, the sleeves and the hood. But she'd thought it was literally just a new piece of clothing.

"Oh... Okay. I'll see you later, I guess." He gave her a short wave before the terminal activated.

Leaving her alone and dejected. Maybe feeling a little rejected.

What did he even have to do? He never talked about a family, she'd seen his hobbies... He was a total nerd!

"You alright there, Penny?" She jumped in a full body flinch at the sound of Robin's voice. "Woah, hey chill!"

"Geeze, sorry. Kinda confused, I guess. I invited Alchemist to go do something for Christmas and he said he was busy!" Now who was she going to get to help her fight Krampus and save Christmas?

"Well it's just Christmas Eve, right? Maybe he'll be free tomorrow." Penny nodded glumly at Robin's attempt at helping before going home herself.

She'd just spend the holiday with her mom and dad and brother and sisters.

-----

Christmas morning rolled in, bright and early and filled with excitement! Penny could barely control herself, she wanted to run into the living room and see what her parents had put under the tree for her and everyone else!

Instead she found her parents and half of her siblings staring at the television, utterly entranced.

"What's going on?" She had to push one of her sisters over a bit to get a seat where she could see.

"Some metahuman turned up at all of the hospitals in Gotham yesterday." Her mom sounded worried. "He wasn't caught until he was leaving St.Judes."

"What was he doing?" And why hadn't Robin or anyone else told her about it?

"We don't know. We're just hoping your cousin Stacy is okay." Oh. That's why her mom was worried.

Stacy was a patient in St.Judes. They, her family was supposed to visit tomorrow.

Her dad turned up the volume as the news began to play an interview.

"-and this elf just walked right into our sons room. He was, had to be about six feet tall with long red hair, pointy ears. We thought, well, might just be some cosplayer or someone dressing up as Santa's elf. And he- he asked my son what he wanted most for Christmas." The woman on screen was crying, but she didn't seem as distraught as Penny expected.

"My son, my wonderful son. He told him he didn't want mommy to cry anymore. And he-he just- the elf clapped twice and said granted with this big, dopey grin on his face. He left a small box for [Censored] with a little hand-held game in it and waved and left. He walked right down the hall, did that in every room." She reached her hands up into the blur where her face would've been, probably to wipe away at her tears.

"When we went back this morning, [Censored] looked healthier than we'd seen him in months. He was sitting up on his own and smiling! He told me 'Mommy, can we get pancakes? I'm so hungry!' but he-he had a feeding tube in. He'd had it there since the chemo made it too hard for him to keep down food. My husband practically ran out the room to get a doctor since we- since we'd been told..." The woman on screen hiccupped before continuing her story.

"It-it has to be a miracle. It has to be! The doctors can't explain it, my little [Censored] has-had leukemia. This... This would have been our last Christmas with him but now... Most of the tests aren't back yet. But-but the ones that are, my boy, my little boy is healthy for the first time in his life. Ni'klas, if you're out there? Watching this? You gave my son back his life. You gave me back my child. I- my family and I can never repay you. Thank you. Thank you so much!" The screen soon cut off to show other families with their children, all excited and eager to run and play in their hospital rooms.

"Christmas miracle or mass hallucination?" The news anchors voice came in over the picture. "We asked more families as well as adult patients all throughout Gotham and got nearly the same story. Someone claiming to be Ni'klas the Christmas elf visited all of the long term patients across Gotham's various hospitals and did something, experts have yet to determine what, and seemingly cured the various and very different illnesses overnight. Everything from cancer to burns to even Smilex inhalation. All before being arrested outside of St.Judes where he went with the police willingly to the tune of several hundred possible charges of assault with a metahuman power. When asked about the status of the supposed Christmas elf, the Gotham City Police Department declined to respond."

"Hey mom?" Penny finally asked, feeling somewhat faint. "Maybe you should call Stacy's mom."

While her mom went to do that, Penny finally sat down in her now unoccupied seat on the couch.

She could hear the news anchor saying something about breaking news and the elf going missing, with only a bag of candy canes being left behind, but it was washing over her.

This... She got the strangest feeling that this was Alchemist's fault and she didn't know why.

-----

Batman had been furiously searching through Gotham for hours with no luck. Two-Face was lying low, Cobblepot was too 'legitimate', The Riddler had been drunk and the Hatter was just looking at a book and crying when Batman found him in an old-fashioned haberdashery.

Everyone else was still in Arkham.

Where they'd gotten Christmas gifts. That had completely gotten around the guards and didn't appear on camera.

Mostly books. Like Poison Ivy getting a new book on modern plant discoveries.

Scarecrow got a lump of coal in a red stocking taped to the outside of his door.

The Joker, much to the clowns ire, had received a book. 'Timing: The Secret to the Perfect Punchline'.

Though there was one odd outlier, The Joker's doctor, Harleen Quinzel had been gifted a book about cults and cult leaders called 'Who's Making it and Why? The Kool-Aid Kronicles'.

The closest thing to a breakthrough had been Player One calling him about Alchemist acting weird the day before and her suspicions as to his connection to the Christmas Elf.

It was a stretch and utterly absurd.

Which meant she was probably right.

The magician either didn't have his communicator with him, or he'd let the battery run out. Either way, Batman hadn't been able to contact him and he was nowhere to be found in Gotham.

In the mountain though?

The irksome wizard was sitting in the lounge, leaning back in the couch between Superboy and Power Girl half-asleep while Megan was telling a story.

He'd probably been here the entire time.

"-and then? And then my brother got a psychic skirlik to run under the priests robes! We got in so much trouble but for the next year Priest M'der couldn't go anywhere without hearing someone talk about him and the skirlik in his pants!" Neither of the two clones were laughing at her story, but Alchemist was at least chuckling.

Instead Connor was chugging his steaming brew, likely cocoa, while Karen seemed to be trying to get each of the marshmallows floating in her beverage.

"Alchemist!" The Dark Knight growled, immediately grabbing the attention of the rooms occupants.

"Present." And the one in question refused to be serious, choosing instead to remain perpetually flippant.

Bruce took a slow, deep breath and calmed down. Being hostile when dealing with Alchemist tended to have negative results. He would be perfectly reasonable and pliant, even doing exactly as demanded of him.

Exactly as demanded. However he chose to interpret that.

"Alchemist. Did you magically transform yourself into a tall, redheaded elf to go to the various hospitals throughout Gotham and heal people without their permission? And then, once arrested, escape from police custody while leaving behind a bag of custom made candy canes?" The last part had seemed to be insult to injury. The elf, according to Gordon, had literally disappeared between eyeblinks.

It had left behind a bag of handmade candy canes on top of a present addressed to Harvey Bullock.

It was coal.

"Batman?" Alchemist grabbed a mug from in front of him and sat forward, taking a long draw of his own cocoa while the various aliens were looking between them. "No offense intended, but that sounds like a lot of effort."

He offered no further answers, nor explanations.

A deflection, rather than a serious answer one way or the other.

With a growl, Batman turned to stalk off... Only to meet with J'onn just outside the room.

"Were you able to get anything?" He asked the taller, greener man.

It wasn't that Bruce disagreed with what had been done. If this worked, it would probably do as much good as Batman himself had done on the ground in Gotham all in one night.

But the problem was precedent, and copycats going out and deciding to 'help' when they were only making things worse instead.

"Yes." The male Martian answered. "Though I doubt you'll like it."

"Well, hit me."

J'onn J'onnz cleared his throat and then, in his usual monotone, began. "I want a dakimakura for Christmas."

Bruce raised one eyebrow in confusion before the Martian Manhunter continued, singing in a drab tone.

"Only a waifu Rainbow Dash one will do."

...He should have known better than to ask him to try and check Alchemist mentally. If this was intentional...

Batman would have preferred the coal.

Chapter Text

Project: Gamer Ver. 2 Alpha Build 0.7.2

Disclaimer Me Do: I own nothing you recognize. And most of what you don't recognize, I still don't own.

_________________________________________________________________________

Karen Winters woke up with a splitting headache, a sour taste in her mouth and a feeling like her tongue had been reupholstered in her sleep.

A bit too common for her, recently.

She could hear some noise in the kitchen, but she didn't feel like dealing with things right now. Leslie could make his own...

She jolted off the couch, stumbling and nearly falling over as the world swam around her, blurry and out of focus. She stumbled into the kitchen, bile rising, lights burning her eyes but she had to see, she had to.

There were empty bags on the table and her son was standing at the sink, washing dishes.

Leslie hated washing the dishes.

"Why are you here?" It was him. That-that thing wearing her sons face.

"Hi Karen." There was a clink as he set a glass he'd been scrubbing into the drainer, alongside a lot of other ones. He turned around to face her and...

He looked so tired.

"Are you alright?" Was she alright? Was she alright?! This- He- He... He had a pair of goggles pulled up into his hair and he looked worried. Tired, worn out and worried. The eyes were the wrong color, and the expression hurt something deep in her chest. "Why don't you sit down and let me get you some water? We need to talk."

She didn't know if it was the hangover or the confusion, but she sat down at the table. Her eyes never left him.

He was right there, so close she could touch him. Hug him. Hold him and never let go- but it wasn't Leslie.

"Why are you here?" She repeated. She couldn't stand to look at him, keeping her eyes locked on the glass of water he'd given her.

"I've made a lot of progress on getting out of your sons body." She lifted her cup with trembling hands. Cold, pure, refreshing. It almost felt like her headache was fading with just the one sip. "I'm pretty much down to the last step, though I don't actually know how long it'll take me to complete it."

"Is that why you're here?" She finally looked back up at him, at her sons face. "Just to give me an update that you don't know how much longer you'll be?!"

"...No." He slumped down in the chair across from her, just like Leslie did when he was hiding something from her. "I'm here to talk about a few things for when he's back."

There was certainty in that statement. It actually sounded like bringing her son back was a matter of when, not if.

She hated how hopeful it made her feel.

"I've started taking anti-depressants. When he's back, Leslie should probably keep taking them." That was it? He'd just- He'd just come in from who knows where to tell her he'd put her baby on drugs?! "I'm putting a lot of effort in to bringing him back and I'd like to make sure he doesn't, well, decide things were better wherever he is."

And just like that, whatever flicker of fury was building in her gut had its heat ripped away.

"And what do you expect me to do about it?" She winced after the words spilled from her mouth. It was a lot more confrontational than she'd intended.

"Keep on him about taking them. By the time he's back, we-he-I-" He sighed, struggling with the wording. "the side effects should be over with. So far that's been more insomnia and more depression."

"I... Couldn't I just give them to him with his Adderall?" He sighed again at her question, though this time it was very different. A long-suffering sigh like she'd missed something obvious.

"He was never taking those. His art teacher had been buying them, god only knows how long. I've been up here for a bit-" He brought up his fist and rapped the knuckle against his temple. "-and I'm pretty sure he doesn't have ADHD."

"But the doctor said he had all of the signs! And his grades got better after he-" She stopped and actually thought about what he'd told her.

As well as what he'd told her in the car, so long ago.

"A lot of childhood family doctors say every kid has that and needs medicated. It's easy for them to say it, and the drugs work pretty much the same across the board. Loss of appetite, loss of interest and general zombification, but at least the kids are quiet and not asking questions." Karen winced, remembering the weeks after she'd started her son on his medication and seeing all of those things. "...I'd suggest getting a referral for a neurologist. But I guess that's for later."

He leaned back in the chair, looking up at the off-white ceiling. Karen, feeling nervous, choked down some more water.

It really was helping with the migraine. Weird.

"Karen." He finally said after a moment of painful silence. "He's going to need a home when he's back, you know that right?"

"Is this- Is this some plan to take him from me again? Just- Just dangle the possibility in front of me, tell me he-"

"No." He interrupted her, calm as could be. "I'm referring to the drinking and the overdue bills I just paid."

She wasn't actually sure what to say to that.

"He thought he had friends. Addicts and complacent cowards, it turns out. He thought he had someone who loved him, but she was screwing someone more than twice her age for cheap weed and cheaper beer." Karen felt her eyes prickling at that, tears threatening to spill. She'd known Tiffany since the girl was a toddler, and hearing about that felt almost like hearing it about her own child. "So he's going to need his mom when I get him back."

Karen swallowed heavily and let that sink in. She looked down at her dirty clothes, could feel her grimy hair.

She didn't want to imagine what she smelled like.

"You're manipulating me." She finally said as she got her thoughts in order.

"Yes." He admitted. "By telling you what I want, and why, as well as what I've done."

She choked out a laugh that was more sob than joy. It was something Leslie would've said, her baby boy being blunt as a hammer when there was something he wanted.

He let her cry it out before putting a piece of paper in her hands, a couple of cell phone number. "If you need me for anything, call, please. And if you can't get to me, the second number is for my boss, Batman."

She stared at the numbers for a moment when he said that. She understood the words, they made sense... Just not put together.

"You... You work for Batman?" That couldn't be right. She knew he was real, everyone knew he was real, but nobody could contact him!

"Well, yeah? I'm a forcibly incorporated spirit. My options were Batman or Jason Blood, and Batman doesn't have a poorly leashed demon to feed me to."

It was a good thing she was already sitting down, she was already feeling faint and-

Wait. What did he mean by 'Demon'?

-----

Robin paced back and forth, keeping an eye on the too-big windows on one side of the room, and the narrow door with a big window on it at the other side of the room.

There were two people with him in the room. Power Girl, calmly sitting at a desk and staring out the window at -something-... And a young blue eyed, blond haired woman furiously typing away at a computer.

Doctor Serling Roquette, a nano-robotocist who had been missing for a little while now. The team had been directed to her by an anonymous call that had gone straight to the mountain instead of the Justice League. Whomever had been on the other end, possibly a girl, had used a voice synthesizer to make tracking them incredibly difficult.

Serling had refused to elaborate on who rescued her, and even mentally connected the woman was difficult to understand.

Numbers and logic and hooks, referencing one thing and calling out to another.

The rest of the team was spread around the campus of Happy Harbor High School, trying to keep an eye out for infiltrators and assassin's from Infinity Island.

-Do you believe in magic, in a young girl's heart!-

Robin ripped the communicator from his belt. "Alchemist, what is it?!"

"Hey, uh, Robin? There's this goopy grey cloud eating Waynetech. Do you guys know anything about it?"

"We're aware of the situation, Alchemist. Is there-"

"It's not grey goo!" Serling yelled from her computer. "It's an incredibly advanced nano-tech information extraction technology!"

"Does it self-replicate?" That... Was a very good question.

"Alchemist is asking if it self-replicates." Serling stopped typing for just a moment as Robin relayed the question at a slightly higher volume.

"...Yes." The woman admitted.

"So it's grey goo." Serling's typing picked up speed as she heard, through Robin, what the other guy had said. "What operating system does it run on?"

"Alchemist wants to know-"

"I heard him!" Serling cut the boy wonder off. "It's a custom made operating system designed specifically to allow for it to disassemble and transmit data without actually reading or parsing it."

Robin reminded himself to check the perimeter as Alchemist took time to think of something.

"What about the computer receiving the data? Is it the same operating system?" Robin was the teams hacker, he felt a bit miffed that Alchemist was the one asking these questions.

"...No." The woman finally admitted, her typing slowing down further. "Those computers are running a simplified version of Windows. Everything except for the receiver program, a word processor, PDF viewer and media player had to be removed to maximize operation speeds... Although everything has been reskinned to look like the computers are running Windows 95."

"Wait, even the basic security suites have been removed?" Robin asked before Alchemist could. Knowing him, he would've gotten distracted by the comment on how it was made to look old.

"Especially that, actually. During the test runs, it kept on throwing up error screens about harmful programs and interrupting data reassembly." Robin didn't have a chance to repeat that before Alchemist hung up.

Rude.

Still, without Alchemist interrupting her, Serling was able to even out the pace she was typing at.

It was almost an hour later when Megan said the magic word. "--Contact.--"

"--Robin.--" Kaldur said through Megan's mental network. "--Remain with Serling. Power Girl will assist. Player One will engage in stealth and attempt to ambush. Kid Flash, do your best to corrale hostiles to Player One's position. Superboy, do your best to assist.--"

"--Roger--"

"--Got it--"

"--Understood--"

Came the various voices of his team mates.

Megan definitely needed to work on how well she could maintain multiple conversations while she had the team connected through her telepathy. As things got more violent and more heated, the words became more and more garbled and unintelligible.

It was making Robin nervous, and he could see Power Girl had started tapping her hand on her leg like Alchemist did.

"--Been shout!--" Megan mentally shouted, or at least that's what it sounded like. Robin didn't have much time to ponder over it before there was the sound of breaking glass in the air.

And choking, noxious smoke as well.

Robin tried to rush towards the door, the glass window on it now broken but he couldn't see. Powergirl was bent in half, hacking and coughing and Roquette wasn't much better.

He was knocked off his feet by a woman wearing a grinning cat mask who quickly crossed the distance between him and Serling while Power Girl was left wheezing.

Whatever was in the smoke, it was hitting her a lot worse than him.

The woman, Cheshire, he recognizes her from a briefing Batman had put him through a few months back. Of new, identified members of the League of Assassins. She doesn't waste time, she doesn't banter.

She doesn't even make a threat before she rams a sai into the robotocists throat.

Chapter Text

Project: Gamer Ver. 2 Alpha Build 0.7.3

Disclaimer Me Do: I own nothing you recognize. And most of what you don't recognize, I still don't own.

_________________________________________________________________________

"--Kid Flash!--" Kaldur's voice screams in his head. "--Get to Serling immediately! Robin, call Alchemist!--"

"--On it!--" Wally responded, leaving the hook-handed assassin behind as he moved. Going through the school is a matter of seconds for him. Finding Serling, though...

His stomach bottoms out and he feels nauseous. She's holding her throat with both hands, a three-pronged piece of metal embedded in it. The blood is...

The blood. It. There's so much of it.

"Kid Flash!" Robin is next to her, rubbing his eyes. Power Girl is on the floor, coughing and wheezing, whimpering and holding her hands against her ears. "Keep pressure on her throat! Don't take out the sai, I need to-"

The boy wonder pulled out his communicator with his off hand, thumbing through menus without looking.

"Alchemist! Alchemist, this is an emergency! Meet- meet Kid Flash at-" Robin stopped for a moment, looking at Serling. At Kid Flash.

At the blood on Wally's hands while he tried to keep the wound from bleeding so much.

"There's an abandoned lot three blocks east of the Happy Harbor High School!" He disconnected, his eyes locked on Wally. "Go. We'll keep the assassin's busy!"

Wally didn't need to be told twice. He picked up Serling in a bridal carry, ignoring the...

Ignoring-

Pushing through the discomfort of feeling warm blood dripping from the woman, the way it clung to his uniform, how he could feel it, slick and hot all over his hands.

He moved, accelerating as much as he safely could while holding someone. One of the assassins tried to get in the way.

Tried.

Wally wasn't running anywhere near his maximum, but he was moving more than fast enough to out-think and out-maneuver the guy with a hook for a hand.

Wasn't he supposed to be in jail?

No. Focus. One foot in front of the other and don't think about the dying woman in your arms.

Don't think about her choking gasps.

Don't think about the fear in her eyes.

Don't think.

Move.

Once he's on the ground floor, he's able to accelerate. Still far from his top speed, but he can hurry now.

It takes Wally six seconds to run the length of a city block while carrying her, and it feels so slow. It takes him eighteen to reach the empty lot Robin mentioned.

It was an eternity that the Flash, the real Flash, could have crossed in an instant.

And Alchemist isn't there yet.

"Hold on, please!" Kid Flash pulled Roquette against him, one hand trying to stem the blood, so much blood. "Help will be here soon. He can fix this, so please just hold on!"

He didn't see Alchemist, not at first. He was too focused on the doctor gurgling around the chunk of metal in her throat. When the shadow crossed over the woman he almost reacted, almost lashed out.

"Hold her still." Alchemist was there. His voice was flat and there was something under it. Something hard.

Something cold.

Wally tightened his grip on her, one arm around her shoulders and another holding her hip. Alchemist reached across, grabbing on to the sai with a gloved hand and pulled it free.

He dropped it to the ground. Along with a bent yellow needle, Wally noted.

The younger looking boy leaned down, the hole in her throat sealing up and he whispered to her.

"Be angry."

Her hands flew up to her throat, feeling the spot where the weapon had been.

Unblemished skin, a little spot of clean, untouched flesh surrounded by darkening crimson. She stared at Alchemist for a moment, unsure and uncertain.

He was looking over Wally's shoulder, tension building in his frame.

"You-" Serling's voice was raspy, rough and edging on hysterical. "You-you-you call this protecting me?! You just-you just kept me locked up in a school, slaved to a computer just like the assassins! Do you seriously think this is acceptable? That you- you've done some kind of a good job?! If you think for one moment that-!"

Wally flinched back hard when her clothing was suddenly empty.

And Alchemist was pulling a toad out of the dirty, bloody pile.

"We'll be taking the doctor back now, Hero." Wally spun around at hearing another voice. The girl, the one wearing the smiling cat mask had snuck up on them.

No, just him. Alchemist had been watching the space behind Wally, he'd seen her approaching.

He stood back up fully, slowly walking back until he was shoulder to shoulder with the younger, smaller boy.

"You mean the toad?" Alchemist asked, almost lightly. Playfully, even, as he tossed the animal back and forth, from his left hand to his right and back again.

"...Yes, the toad. Give us the toad." The girl, Cheshire, leveled another sai at Alchemist, ready to launch it at him.

Wally tensed, ready to run. Ready to cover the distance and fight.

And then Alchemist threw the toad at her.

"What?!" Wally rounded on the boy. "What are you doing?!"

"Kid Flash?" Alchemist unsubtly looked from him to the assassin and shook his head. He grabbed on to Wally's wrist, holding him in place with surprising strength. "I'm paid to fix up you and the team. Not fight wonderland rejects."

Wally stared at him, unsure of how long before he ripped his arm free of Alchemist's grip and spun around.

The assassin, Cheshire, was already gone.

"You?! Do you have any idea what you've done? What the hell is wrong with you?!" Alchemist didn't bother answering him as he bent down, picking up the sai, the bent needle and the doctor's clothes.

-----

It was a very subdued team that sat in the ops center, Batman glaring menacingly from in front of the monitors.

Alchemist was sitting in the middle, directly in front.

Utterly calm, grinning even.

As though he didn't wreck the mission.

Like he wasn't the center of everyone's ire.

Like he hadn't sent a woman off to suffer a short, brutal life of slavery, torture and death.

"As I understand." Batman began, deceptively calm to Robin's ears. "The team went off on an unsanctioned mission, after failing to inform anybody of said mission. Is this correct?"

There was some uncomfortable nodding coming from the team.

"And during the course of this mission, performed without my knowledge or the knowledge of Red Tornado you encountered an assassination squad from the League of Shadows. Is this also correct?" There's a scattered mumbling of 'yes' and 'yeah's. "At which point you retreated to a local high school rather than falling back to the mountain or another fortified position?"

He didn't get an answer this time.

"And... Alchemist, what were you doing at this point?"

"Called the team, asked if they knew about the grey goo eating Waynetech. They said they did, I asked a few more questions, then I watched an Indian guy on youtube for a bit." How his voice was so light, calm, it beggared the mind.

"...What was the content of the videos you were watching?"

"A bit of coding and a couple of guides to change a program from text to an executable, and swap the image file from a notepad to the PDF image. Did you know there's this command prompt to tell a computer to reset its hard drive?" Alchemist leaned forward, lips bared in a smile that was all teeth. "Doesn't work if the computer has any kind of antivirus though."

There was an extended, increasingly uncomfortable silence as the two stared at each other.

"We'll be following up on that. Returning to this mission." The lenses of Batman's cowl honed in on Aqualad. "Once the mission met with failure in keeping Doctor Serling Roquette safe, what was the plan?"

"We..." Robin started, flinching under his mentors gaze as he spoke in place of the team leader. "We didn't have one. From the start, we were reacting instead of acting. We thought... We're being pushed to act independently more often, we thought we could accomplish this by ourselves."

Batman nodded, his gaze sliding across the members of the team. Lingering on Player One, Alchemist and Robin himself.

"And we do want you to act independently as best you are able. However, once you recognize that your opponents or situation exceeds your capabilities, you need to call in reinforcements or request advice. Alchemist?" The boy perked up. "Where is Roquette?"

The magician pulled a toad out of his pocket and then walked out of the room. He came back about five minutes later. "She's getting dressed, give her a minute."

"Wait..." Player One spoke up. "If you had her the entire time, what did you give to the assassin?"

"Zombles." He was utterly amused as he said that, heedless of Player One going pale. "Zombles the Toad."

Chapter Text

Project: Gamer Ver. 2 Alpha Build 0.7.4

Disclaimer Me Do: I own nothing you recognize. And most of what you don't recognize, I still don't own.

_________________________________________________________________________
Ra's Al Ghul had been around for quite some time.

It was often difficult to remember exactly how long, but he'd certainly been around before the Spaniards had ever set foot on the Americas.

He'd lived many lifestyles, from pauper to prince. He'd acquired many, many skills as well. He could kill a man with a bare flick of his fingers, or he could cobble together a most comfortable pair of boots.

But for all of his many, countless masteries magic was not among them. He knew some, yes. Quite a bit more than the average hedge mage, certainly. But he was no true master and he felt no shame in admitting that.

But this? This was quite the curiosity.

"And you mean to tell me that this is the recovered Doctor Serling, yes?" Cheshire, Black Spider and Hook all stood at attention before the Demon Head's desk.

And sitting innocuously enough on it is a toad in a rather small jar.

At least one of them had been clever enough to poke some holes in the lid.

"Yes, sir. Upon successfully making an attempt on the objectives life, the Speedster, Kid Flash, managed to extract her to meet up with a sorceror for some form of emergency healing. After the objective became hysterical and verbally abusive the sorcerer turned her into this." Cheshire repeated for him.

Again.

It really was quite amusing. A 'mercenary' healer who dipped their fingers into some of the old curses.

Most likely the same individual who performed quite the upset with Luthor's pet project, Cadmus. Klarion had been beside himself with laughter at hearing about that.

Literally.

"And you chose to flee rather than demand he restore her to human form?" Ra's asked as he unscrewed the lid, tipping the toad out on to his hand.

"Yes, sir. I deemed it better to evacuate with the objective in a less than ideal form rather than risking the magician turning myself into a toad as well." Cheshire's back was ramrod straight, her voice even.

The old man quite appreciated that about her. A level head was worth so much more than most would think.

"Prudent of you, yes. With her here, we can simply break the curse and we'll have the lovely Doctor Roquette available to us once more. Hook, Spider, inform the servants that they'll be putting together a room for her. Make sure this one is secure." Once the two left the room, leaving Cheshire alone with him, he tossed the toad at her. "Now, Jade. Remove your mask and kiss the toad."

"...Sir?"

-----

Serling Roquette kept touching her throat.

Hours after she'd been left bleeding out by an assassin, healed, turned into a toad and then restored to human form-

(Goodbye, doubt in magic.)

- and that was the part she kept coming back to.

The one boy, Alchemist, he'd turned her back into a human in one of the bathrooms in the upstairs part of their mountain base. Her clothes had been completely clean, no sweat, no grime from being worn for days on end while she'd been imprisoned and forced to work on the fog. No- no blood.

He'd said she was safe now. That Batman was involved, now. That she could take a shower, take her time. To call for M'gann if she needed anything and to come downstairs once she felt human again.

All without actually looking at her.

She... She appreciated that. It was a small thing, just a shred of decency after- after everything and it was still so much more than the Shadows had allowed her. She didn't know how long she spent under the spray of water, but it had long since stopped running red.

After the last few days, she wouldn't be ashamed to admit she'd spent half her time in the shower crying.

But now she was clean, she was dressed and she was going to find out what Batman was going to do to keep her safe!

Just... Just as soon as she opened the door to the ops center.

Where Batman was waiting for her.

Just one little push and-

"-explain again why I shouldn't be calling Superman, Alchemist?" It's just the two of them, Alchemist and Batman, looking at a monitor.

A very big monitor.

"Not a single innocent soul to save, there." It's a massive monster on the screen, it has to be if they can make it out from what looks like a satellite view. Scuttling around on too many limbs and uprooting trees, smashing buildings. "Every single life saved there is a dozen or two other people killed. Evil begets evil, and all- Oh, hey!"

Serling awkwardly walked into the room, the eyes of both men on her momentarily until she finds a chair and sits down.

Batman returned to watching the screen, though Alchemist at least was holding out a styrofoam cup to her. She took it and held it up to her nose as he continued.

Hot chocolate. She'd been expecting coffee.

"Hopefully the Hive Lord will destroy enough of Infinity Island that the Shadows will have to abandon it, maybe even destroy the Lazarus pool if we're lucky." Alchemist kept his glowing yellow eyes locked on the destruction for a moment before they turned on her. "Sorry it took me a bit to get to you. How are you feeling?"

"I... I'm okay? I think?" She wasn't. She knew she wasn't. Her hand came up to her throat, where... Where...

"It doesn't get easier, not the way everyone says it does." The kid, he'd seen it. He'd seen her reaching for the spot where the sai had been. "You'll think about it every day for a while. Constantly. You'll get lost in that moment, sometimes. You'll be there. The pain will be there. That helpless feeling will be there."

She could see Batman clenching his fist and she didn't know if it was because of what the kid was saying or the explosions happening on screen as the Shadows tried to fight the skittering, scrambling nightmare.

"It gets easier because you eventually have other things on your mind. You'll get too busy, too distracted to let it take you. In time it'll go from constantly on your mind to once a day. Once a day to once a week. Week to month to every few months to a few times a year and on and on." Alchemist sighed and his eyes were some place far, far away.

She could tell the moment he came back because his eyes locked on to hers.

"Ah, sorry. I try to avoid people so I monologue a bit when I get to really talk about something. Are you hungry for anything? So long as they're open, I can get anything from anywhere." Another impossible statement, but she was too tired to be surprised.

"...There's this pizzeria in Star City. Donnatello's? I could really... Can you get me a supreme with extra peppers?" The kid flashed her an empty grin and a thumbs up and then he was just gone, disappearing between one blink and the next.

She brought her hand back up to her neck, pushing against a hole that isn't there and staring at the screen.

The Shadows had managed to use explosives to rip the top half of the thing off, and it was busy cramming itself into a cave that had been uncovered.

"So what happens to me now?" She asked after a quiet moment. "Do I just go back to my life? Pretend none of this happened? Try-try not to-"

"...There are experts who can help." Batman finally turned around to look at her. She could swear his face was carved from stone. "If you want to return to your normal life, the Justice League will do what it can to make that happen."

"And will it get better? I think- I don't think I'll be able to sleep. Not with that on my mind every second. Afraid that girl will come out of every shadow or be behind any corner I'm not watching!" She didn't -want- to sound hysterical, she didn't want to. But she couldn't control herself right now and she hated that.

And maybe herself, a small, dark part of her thought, for being weak enough to let it happen.

"Eventually." The dark knight admitted. "Alchemist is speaking from his experience. Your experience may be different."

"Unlike him." Batman turned back around to watch as something crawled back out of the cave on Infinity Island. "You didn't actually die."

-----

Well. This... Was proving rather difficult.

Ra's Al Ghul, short an arm and hobbling on a broken leg, can only stare in disbelief as wave after wave of his Shadows do their very best to kill the thing that had crawled back out of the Lazarus Pit.

With melee weapons.

If Sensei hadn't already been eaten, he may well have thrown the man into the monsters maw himself.

He had no idea what happened to Jade, the fool girl had been thrown through a wall when the abomination had sprung into existence. Ra's himself had been buried under his desk before being stepped on.

That had not, unfortunately, been where he'd lost his arm.

As the beast rampaged across his island many... oh blast it. Almost all of his Shadows had acted as though they were some chosen hero and tried to slash, stab or spear the blind, putrid thing. Whichever acolyte or student had been clever enough to use the demolition charges from the sabotage courses was going to be personally trained to take Sensei's place.

Provided that student was also not among the fresh batch of the deceased.

Or worse, the devoured.

The top torso of the monster, once it had been cleaved free of its mount, had crawled into the mountain cave leading to the Lazarus Pit.

And returned as something altogether different and far more horrifying.

It still crawled, but now its lower body was supported by hundreds of small, human sized hands. And in between each arm, there was often a head or at the very least a face. Protruding like a grotesque boil and screaming. Crying. Begging.

"It hurts!" "So hungry!" "Father!"

That voice. That last voice.

He'd seen the beast devour his daughter. It had claimed his own arm in the process as he'd tried to pull her free.

"Father please!" The beast had slowed down as it approached him, near one of the few remaining boats moored to his island. It towered above him now, standing on its two true arms and smiling at him.

The teeth were massive squares, not meant for meat at all. Its eyes glinting a maddened red.

"Join us father! Please! We're so hungry..." Countless voices chorused his daughters words, each of them having once been a student before this thing had consumed them.

Made them part of its flesh.

Ra's did, in fact, have an answer for the beast.

Among his remaining students, many having barely even begun their training, there was one boy in particular he'd had his eye on. A rather slow child who took poorly to his training.

He'd made a good pack mule so far, but alas all things must end.

Ra's grabbed the child by his rucksack and twisted, his broken leg screaming in pain much like the child was screaming as he was launched at the face of the abomination overhead.

The nightmare lashed out, the boys screams cut off in an instant.

And then Ra's pulled the trigger on the detonator in his hand.

He lingers only a moment afterwards, long enough to be sure the beast is dead this time before he hustles the remaining students on to the boat.

It's not the first time he's lost a child... Most often it was by his own hand, his own machinations.

Feeling a burning hatred in his breast, a true need for revenge... Well, it's actually a rather novel experience. One, he decides, he does not like.

He makes a vow, silent as he watched the island fading away behind them. He would drag the secrets out of the Justice League and discover what foul necromancer had made such a beast.

And their suffering would be legendary.

Chapter Text

Project: Gamer Ver. 2 Alpha Build 0.7.5

Disclaimer Me Do: I own nothing you recognize. And most of what you don't recognize, I still don't own.

_________________________________________________________________________

Serling, it turned out, would be a guest of Mount Justice for a few days as her apartment was retrofitted with whatever security measures Batman could fit in to it.

Which was probably both more and less than what she'd be expecting.

Secured door bar? Yes.

Automated laser turret? Maybe.

Today was apparently the first day of school for many of the kids. For three of them, it was their first day going to a human school at all. The green Martian girl and the two silent, almost expresionless superhuman teens.

That left her alone with the magician, Alchemist, and the World War Two era android, Red Tornado.

Surprisingly, they were rather good company.

They accomplished that by being -quiet- company.

Red Tornado had informed her of where he could be found, a small apartment in the mountain above the Ops Center.

And Alchemist just loaned her his laptop while he was working on something spread across nine sheets of paper arranged in a three by three grid on the table in the rec room.

It was kind of nice, even if her mind kept stuttering back to last night. It was calm here, quiet. The most noise in here actually came from either her typing or the calico cat laying against her side purring.

Occasionally she'd catch Alchemist mutter something to himself, a quick 'That's not right' or sometimes an 'Almost, I think'. She had no idea what he was working on, but at least it kept him busy and not bothering her.

She was keeping herself busy, too. Checking the news in Star City. And, well...

She wasn't even reported as missing.

She didn't have many friends, but seriously? None of them had noticed she was gone? She knew she wasn't exactly personable, and she wasn't exactly good at communicating...

Huh. Well.

She may have partially been at fault, but at this point it's a matter of scale. She'd never just disappeared for a week in the past.

She lifted her eyes from the laptop screen to look at the boy, Alchemist for a moment. Watching him transcribe his messy and oft corrected scribbling to fresh sheets of paper.

Well, he had told her to do whatever she wanted on his computer after all...

His bookmarks weren't terribly interesting. Material and density reference charts, conversion calculators... How-to videos on wiring and plumbing? Even an interesting article explaining that the maximum theoretical potential output of a standard sized solar panel would cap out close to four-hundred watts between the suns intensity and the opacity of the Earth's atmosphere.

Actually a rather interesting read, though what he needed it for she had no idea.

And she got distracted, wonderful.

Alright, what would the little perv have in his history?

More of the same. Youtube videos, news, science articles... He spent a good amount of time on a message board called 'Relativistic Speed', but it was just people arguing about how the superheroes could use their powers better.

Wait, there was one. Blonde chicks in glasses... And it was baby chickens with drawn on glasses. Hilarious.

He had a lot of entries to Gotham1stbankonline? She clicked that and...

"What? What!? How?!" He had more in his bank account than she did! By an order of magnitude!

"You okay over there?" She looked up at him. Wearing scruffy, grease-stained jeans and a well worn shirt. Back down to the monitor with the nine digit figure, then up at him again.

"How do you have two-hundred and fifty million dollars?!" He just blinked at her, processing that for a moment before comprehension dawned on him.

"I stripped Fort Knox down to the bedrock and then hit the bullion repository next door in an alternate reality." He brought his pencil up and scratched the side of his head with the eraser. "But I could only fit ten tons on the back of a flatbed cargo hauler."

...Between taxes, commissions and fees, that sounded about right. At least for the value. But those two sentences had so many implications it left her head spinning.

"When you say stripped down to the bedrock...?" She asked leadingly.

"Guns, guns, more guns. Enough ammo to drown in, hundreds of BDU's, about two-thousand canteens, a platoons worth of blankets and sheets... I left the MRE's behind because it's a zombie world and I wasn't sure if it was in the food. Probably not, but better safe than sorry." He moved his fingers in front of him, his eyes locked on something that wasn't there. "Claymore mines, anti-material rifles, anti-material rounds... A dozen ghillie suits, every first aid kit I could find. Grenade launchers, grenades..." As the list went on and on she felt increasingly nervous.

On the other hand, she was absolutely certain anyone or thing trying to attack her here would meet a very sticky end.

"Actually." She interrupted him somewhere around the word 'Kabar'. "Would you be willing to teach me how to shoot?"

He tilted his head to the side, just a bit. It kind of reminded her of the dog she'd had when she was little, honestly.

"Sure." He finally decided. "Let me just tell Red Tornado what we're up to. He can give the cops a heads up so we don't get someone coming around and throwing a fit."

He put his papers away in... Somewhere. They just disappeared from right in front of him when he tapped them. Standing up, his eyes roamed over her form, settling uncomfortably on her hips, chest and finally... Her shoulder?

"Hmm... M11 nine-millimeter, because it's small and easy to use. Everyone would expect that." A small gun appeared in his hand and, with a motion that was almost too quick to see, he did something that caused a brass shell to pop out the side and the magazine to drop out. "Some jackass left their sidearm loaded."

He shook his head, setting the gun down on the table before holding out his hand again.

This time, the gun that appeared was significantly bigger. And meaner. He pulled on something on the bottom half that slid back, but nothing happened this time. "And we'll get you trained up on how to use the Mossberg M500 shotgun. Because nobody would expect a boom stick from someone as small as you."

"First rule." The kid said as he put the shotgun down on the table next to the handgun. "There is no such thing as a safe gun. There is no such thing as an unloaded gun. A gun is always loaded, a gun is always live. Period. Especially when it isn't."

Chapter Text

Project: Gamer Ver. 2 Alpha Build 0.7.6

Disclaimer Me Do: I own nothing you recognize. And most of what you don't recognize, I still don't own.

_________________________________________________________________________

Leslie grunted in irritation at what lay before him.

A branching path. Another branching path.

The caves under Infinity Island were twisting, irregular, uneven and had a variety of ups and downs that played havoc on his sense of location and direction. He could probably walk back to the entrance, but that was more to rote memorization of left-right-left than a good internal map.

He'd left Roquette to Red Tornado's instruction after about an hour of practice. The poor girl didn't have any kind of natural gift for weapons, but she was motivated. Extremely motivated, especially after he'd transmuted a few logs into Cheshire-shaped mannequins.

He'd taken a couple of videos while she wasn't paying attention. Like when the handgun jumped out of her hands the first time she fired it. Or when she fired the shotgun and got thrown down on to her butt.

Red... Actually knew a lot about how to use both weapons, especially in a practical matter.

He and Roquette could have both done without him talking about how messy it is to use a shotgun to clear a trench. It wasn't the worst thing he'd ever heard... But the doctor had looked fixated, like his clinical descriptions of violence were some great, deep truth she'd never known before.

Leslie had wanted to get a Green Lantern to do a flyby of Infinity Island, see if anything worthwhile had been left behind, or if there were any computers or documents that could be salvaged.

Both had been too busy, Red Tornado had said, and for some reason Guy Gardner wasn't even on the list.

He probably should have phrased it as looking for survivors. They would've come running if he'd said that.

As for him? He was trying to track the bottom corpse from the Hive Lord. The top torso had been blown off and eventually died when it had an explosive child yeeted at it, leaving behind a pile of massive humanoid bones. The bottom one, though, it had either been dormant or recovering for a while before it disappeared.

And the hideous, putrid thing was the size of a house trailer, its options for hiding places should be pretty limited.

Should be, and yet he still hadn't found it. Considering the narrative and the location, the damned thing should be in the Lazarus Pit. If he could just find that... Oh. Well.

That works.

The room glowed an infernal red, not the color he'd been expecting. Alchemist mostly remembered the Lazarus Pit under Gotham, glowing an eerie, ghastly green. In contrast, the Lazarus Pit at the core of Infinity Island was connected directly to the magma vents.

That's right... It was richer. Stronger. Somehow more intense.

Or at least Ra's believed it was. That was good enough, really.

Peering over the edge into the pool beneath, Leslie had to sigh. Right on the money, the 'horse' of the Hive Lord was basking just under the surface. It inhaled, drawing the crimson waters into itself for a long moment before exhaling something black and rotted.

Its torso, what he could see of it from up here, looked bloated. Distended.

Was it going to grow a new 'Rider' segment?

It seemed to be dormant for the moment, so Leslie took a step back and looked around. Fighting here would be a poor choice.

Narrow caves, dead-ends, dead-drops, dead-bodies.

Turning back around to face the ledge, Leslie had a puzzled look on his face. The Hive Lord should've been slowly, menacingly crawling up while he was distracted instead of just staying down there sucking up Lazarus water like Juggernaut drinking... Mist.

Huh.

Well, if he wanted to be a half-wit, he could just try to collapse the cavern and pretend that killed it, like those three kids did to fail at killing Juggernaut in Legend of Legaia.

Or functionally anything that dies off-panel or off-screen in comics and cartoons.

So that option was out.

The Brock Samson method was much more reliable. Double-tap and desecrate.

Well, that was an idea, actually. And he could multi-task while doing it!

Pulling out a dozen land-mines from his inventory, Leslie got to work. He didn't know quite what the Lazarus Pit had to do with the Zombie Hive Lord's baby bump, and if he was lucky he wouldn't find out.

It took the better part of an hour to actually get everything set up. The weapons were very clearly labeled crescents that said 'Front toward enemy'... Although he was setting them up in caves, along the walls, a few were on the ceiling. He'd taken the time to block off the various branching pathways so, while it wasn't a straight shot back out, neither he nor the zombie boss could go the wrong way.

He cast Berserk on himself, pulled the Zastava out of his inventory, hit that with Blessed Weapon, then cast Haste on himself, but not the gun.

He'd made that mistake before. The bruise hadn't been visible, but he'd felt it for days before he just cast Cure to get rid of the stiffness.

All of his preparations done, he lined up the... Titan? That part was the Zombie Titan, but Alchemist wasn't sure if it was still the Titan, or if it was still considered the Hive Lord. Observe would be amazing right now.

Either way, he locked on to the monsters left eye, pulled back the action to chamber the massive bullet, flicked off the safety...

And squeezed the trigger.

Leslie gently worked the action after flicking the safety on, absentmindedly grabbing the spent brass as the beast began screaming.

While still in the pit.

Great.

Meaning the eye he'd just popped regenerated at a speed that was impressive even under Haste.

Still, it did the job. It was climbing up the walls now.

Perfect. That was the easy part...

Now came the fun part.

-----

The fun part actually wasn't very fun. Alchemist would teleport back through the caves to a bit past where he'd set the mines and wait until the Hive Part was in sight.

Then he'd shoot it again, keep it pissed off and chasing him through the very painful and hopefully very damaging explosions of shrapnel.

Kiting, because cheap strategies are worth the price.

By the time they'd actually escaped the caves and returned to the wilderness outside, the Hive Part was looking pretty rough. Muddy brown filth was oozing out of countless small injuries and its face was a shredded, ugly wreck. One cheek was torn open, an eye was deflated and the nose was gone.

It was still growling something. Something that sounded suspiciously close to English.

Which would make this incredibly uncomfortable.

Regardless, Leslie removed the empty magazine and pulled a special one from his inventory. Every cartridge in it had their tips painted green with a gray ring around it. Combined effect ammunition, armor piercing, incendiary... High explosive. Overkill of the highest order for anything short of a heavily armored target.

The Hive Part is fast, far faster than anything of its size should be. Not as fast as Haste, thankfully, but still. It would've been able to chase down anything limited to normal, 'human' speeds.

The action of his gun locks the bullet into place with a very satisfying cla-chick. Leslie raises the too-long gun and takes aim, taking in what he can see. What he can hear. Hell, even what he can smell.

The sickly-sweet smell of infection rolling off the damned thing. The crackle of static in the air. The writhing, pulsating -pushing- in the things abdomen where the hole had sealed over with a ropy, knotted white scar.

Not today.

The beast opens its mouth in slow motion, a distorted scream building in its throat... Before it reels back, an explosive bullet hitting it right in the uvula.

Four more pepper its face in quick succession, three punching into and through the eyes. The last, missing by just a bit, slams into the hard bone just underneath.

Alchemist sighed in relief when the thing slumped to the ground, seemingly dead. Now, he just had to get out a bit of gasoline and get started with the whole desecration part.

Before he can even make it five steps there's a pulse of something dark in the air. Something foul. In slow motion, he watches as the remains of the Hive Part starts to squelch and bubble.

Wonderful.

He put the gas can back in his inventory and pulled the Zastava back out as a blood-red orb slowly rose into the sky, tearing out of the zombie with an all too organic sucking noise.

"I-!" The orb exploded out, raining blood and gore on the landscape to reveal a robed figure within. "-a̰̺̼͕ͅm̟̗̜ ̲̲͇̜͚̕ͅt̨̞h̨̤͙͚̦̦̠e̵̟̬̖͍̰ ̛͉̳̤e̟̪̩͇̥ͅl̵̰͕̬̜͈ͅd̤͈̞̦͈e͏̼͈̦̯̬s҉̼̙͖ͅt̩̙̳̻͕ ̭͔͕̼̝ͅḽ̞ͅi̫̫̳͚̱c̮̟͟h͕ ̺͖͖̤͕w̬it̤͔̭c͍͉̝͠h̷͙̭̠̰,̱̙ ̜̝̩͉̤̭ͅB̰̹͙̙r̷̭i̡͔̝͎̫̼̗̘ar̺ ̻̥͔͔̰͢W͏̯̘̭h̤͢i͈͕͙̫̻t̙̦͙̜͘ͅe̵̼̳!̯͚̺̲̙ͅ"͍̻͖͢

That... Didn't sound right?

Leslie was lining her up in his sights when the sun started flickering and green bands crossed the length of the sky and-

~~Con-con-con-con-co~~
~~A̸̠u͓g̙̦͙̘͍̝u̶̙͚̲̩̭r͍y̯ ̯̤͎̜͎̝̯h̸a̖s͇̭̝͖̻ ̘̭͔͟r͕e͕̗͟a͈̹̬c͔̭͘h̝͘e͏d̴̻̹̝̙̮̘ ͙̘͈l͝e̱̞̖̖̥̖͘v̺̠̥̩ͅe͔̱l̻͍̼̻ ҉̗2̻!̬~~

Chapter Text

Project: Gamer Ver. 2 Alpha Build 0.7.7

Disclaimer Me Do: I own nothing you recognize. And most of what you don't recognize, I still don't own.

_________________________________________________________________________

~~WARNING!~~
~~Skill: Augury has suffered a fatal error and could not be recovered!~~
~~Parent file gamers_mind.gia not found!~~

~~WARNING!~~
~~Skill: Mana Attunement has suffered a fatal error and could not be recovered!~~
~~Parent file gamers_mind.gia not found!~~

~~WARNING!~~
~~Skill: Iron Body has suffered a fatal error and could not be recovered!~~
~~Parent file gamers_body.gia not found!~~

~~ ERROR! Skill: Augury has crashed! ~~
~~Critical hit!~~
~~ -6 VP! ~~
~~ A defect ticket has been automatically generated ~~
~~ Please contact your local administrator if you need further assistance ~~

What?

What just-?!

Alchemist's head was killing him.

He'd been... He'd been fighting a crippled Zombie Hive Lord, hadn't he? And then... Briar White had come out of it?

"Dude, are you alright?" He looked to his side and found Kid Flash... He had two toads in his hands.

"Well, Hero? If you don't want to give me the-" Jade Nguyen's clothes dropped to the ground, one very confused toad inside of them.

Leslie wasn't feeling up to making a sarcastic remark, which was unfortunate. He had a fantastic one lined up about how her little sister had a nicer butt. He was sure the assassin would understand the layers of threat underneath of it.

"Get-" He slipped the right toad into his pocket, that one was Serling.

Wasn't it?

He couldn't remember when he did the switch!

"-Get back to the others. I'll grab her and head back to base." Kid Flash didn't look convinced, but that was fair.

Leslie could feel something hot and wet trickling down his face, he probably looked like a mess.

He shook his head, trying to clear out the cobwebs when Kid Flash took off, one last concerned glance thrown over his shoulder. He put one hand up to his nose, slowing the flow of blood as he looked around, casting Life on himself because holy shit he was down to one VP!

Owls were watching him. Three of them on the rooftops across the street from the empty lot. He could see two cats, too.

Either really creepy or completely natural if they saw the toads. Both of those animals hunted the little buggers.

Right. That.

He really didn't want to have to explain to Batman that a criminal he apprehended died because he was busy admiring the scenery.

He picked her up, pulled an empty water bottle from his inventory (It's passed time to clean out your trash, Alchemist) and wedged her into it. Then he did the same with the toads in his pockets, leaving small marks on each to indicate which was which.

He'd get Player One to use observe and figure out who was who.

In the mean time? He was going to head back to Mount Justice and get some headache medicine.

Well... He had some good news at least?

Bruce was going to finally pay him tomorrow!

-----

Instead of retreating this time around, the assassin's fought to the bitter end and were eventually captured. Which was, in Alchemist's opinion, a very mixed bag. The average amount of time Ra's agents spent incarcerated could be measured in weeks, and their escapes usually came with a body count.

Hell, Hook had killed two guards and used another inmate as a living shield... Until he wasn't alive anymore and was just demoted to 'Shield', something like two weeks ago.

Still, much as he wanted to comment on the heroes holding actions, he knew he wouldn't be heard. The group was practically married to their ideals, in sickness and in health, yada yada yada.

He'd been the first to sit down in the ops center after the 'mission' had been completed. Sitting himself down at a desk to the side, three bottled toads on its surface and one bottle of sports drink in his hands.

Brawndo! Its got electrolytes!

...Yeah, alright. It wasn't helping. He still had a migraine and his healing spells barely took the edge off. It probably had something to do with those skills he hadn't purchased. Or the message he still hadn't read from Terra.

"As I understand-" Batman started. Calm. Controlled... Disappointed? "-the team went off on an unsanctioned mission, after failing to inform anybody of said mission. Is this correct?"

Second verse, same as the first. This was why he'd stuck to using scrying for past and present viewing. The future shouldn't be lived twice.

"-And... Alchemist? Were you injured?" What? Leslie hadn't been paying attention, focused instead on holding his cold drink against his face and trying to dull the pounding.

"No. No, just- A bad reaction with my new medication, I think." He had no idea how to explain 'I saw a vision where I accidentally redid Bikini Atoll with my pet zombie.'

Actually...

"Well, that or my power acted up and I had a vision where I used my pet zombie to run a remake of Bikini Atoll on Infinity Island." And that frustrated, disbelieving look half the team sent him did more to soothe his headache than all the magic he knew.

"You..." Aqualad looked lost. "You have a pet zombie?"

"Yep. Was gonna switch it with Serling, throw it to Cat-mask instead of the good doctor... Speaking of which. Player One? Which one of these is the doctor?" Alchemist grabbed the bottles that he'd put question marks on and held them out.

Player One looked to the left one first and didn't react, so that was probably not Zombles. Then she looked at the right.

"What the hell is wrong with you!" She screeched, which probably meant that one was the Hive Lord.

"I've got a list, I can show you later." He tossed her the bottle with Zombles in it and moved towards the door. "I'm gonna go turn Serling back into a human. You be careful with Zombles, alright?"

He waved over his back, more than a little amused as Player One held the bottle as far away from herself as possible.

"And be gentle with her! She's pregnant."

-----

Ra's Al Ghul hung up his phone with a bit more aplomb than many would expect after hearing that three of his subordinates had been captured.

But then, most people haven't spent hundreds of years learning to master themselves and their emotions.

And even beyond that, the capture of his assassins was hardly a setback. The primary target of the Fog had been accomplished, the secondary had significant progress and the assassination squad had been sent to preserve an additional advantage, rather than secure something truly critical.

Overall, the mission was a success, just not a total success.

Ra's steepled his fingers and leaned forward over his desk. Their locations would trickle in over the next few days...

"Talia." The old man said to the empty air. "Bring me some of our more promising students, I have a task for them."

Professor Ojo had delivered the data packet containing the stolen files a scant hour earlier, the laptop that had the receiver and reconstruction program. He booted it up to peruse the files before it was to be handed off to another member of The Light.

His mentor, Vandal Savage had a specific plan for something it contained, but he'd hide and bury everything else until such time as he thought it would be useful. And what Savage considered useful would often be rather different than what Ra's Al Ghul considered useful.

unknown_extraterrestrial_epidermis.pdf
nth_alloy_substitute.pdf
pink_kryptonite_isotope.mp4

Likely all useful, especially for various other members of the Light. Kryptonite most definitely should excite Luthor. There was a different file that caught his eye, however. A pdf file called salamander_regeneration_serum.exe.

That one could be critical, especially as the leading cause of retirement in his assassins was a crippling injury. And it may well be important for him as well. The Lazarus Pit could restore a body to near-perfect health... Provided most of it was present. A few missing fingers would usually regrow, but whole missing limbs would often just result in a sealed over stump.

The less said about his experiments involving missing organs, the better for everyone involved.

He clicked to open the file as several of Sensei's finer students were escorted into his lair.

"Very good, Talia. You may leave us." He pushed the laptop aside as a trio of teenagers were assembled before him. "Now then, I have a task of utmost importance for you to complete."

He briefly saw a black box open onscreen and fill with scrolling text, but image was often important when dealing with youths so he couldn't turn to look at it. Filling them with confidence and bravado about how 'important' they were and how 'critical' the mission was could often lead to much greater results, he'd found.

"A trio of your elders have been captured and are soon bound to be sent to one of the countless prisons across the United States. It is paramount that you succeed in finding, tracking and when the time is most opportune, freeing your fellow shadows." He heard the laptop shut off, but was still in the middle of- Oh, it just turned back on! "Talia will be your handler for this mission. Do not disappoint me."

As one, the two girls and one boy bowed before vacating his office. Once he was alone, he turned to look at the laptop and-

Why was it asking which language he spoke?

Chapter Text

Project: Gamer Ver. 2 Alpha Build 0.7.8

Disclaimer Me Do: I own nothing you recognize. And most of what you don't recognize, I still don't own.

_________________________________________________________________________

Alchemist sat backwards in an office chair, one with no arms.

He'd had to grab it from a desk upstairs, the ones in the ops center were all professional ones. Arms and wheels, some of them were even ergonomic!

Eugh, trying to be funny was not helping. His entire head felt like it was throbbing in tune to his heartbeat. He cracked one eye open to look at Batman, but the man was just silently staring at rolling text on a screen.

He just set his chin back on the backrest and waited. It had already been fifteen minutes since he'd turned Serling back into a human and told her Batman would be downstairs, that M'gann would hear her if she needed anything.

Yeah, he felt like crap and his day sucked. The mood swings weren't helping anything, either. He'd been so angry, earlier today. Back when he decided to try a bait and switch with Jade. It had been a long time since he'd been that furious, not since before he'd come to this world.

Hurting or torturing people because it was convenient made him feel sick to his stomach. When it happened to people he knew... Well, he was used to feeling impotent rage over it. Here, now, he had power and options. And the call from Robin had set him from darkly amused to incandescent, he'd thought the person who was dying was one of the kids.

Finding it was Serling instead, and consigned to a relatively slow, painful death... Well, he didn't regret the future that never was, nor did he regret his actions. Jade Nguyen was an unrepentant murderer. Riding Speedy's 'arrow' in the canon timeline didn't change that fact. Ra's Al Ghul losing access to Infinity Island would have slowed down or halted so many of the monster's plans.

All that, and he definitely couldn't blame the doctor for taking her time. His day sucked, hers was significantly worse.

Well, Batman didn't seem interested in talking to him and there wasn't a zombie crisis going on at the moment, he should probably see Terra's explanation for whatever the hell that had been.

--

~~ FROM: Ultra-powerful best goddess Terra-Tan! ~~
~~ Oh me! Are you okay? Please be okay! I tried to implement milestone awards! You've been doing really good lately, and I thought it'd make for a cool surprise! And then things got all corrupted and things crashed and the whole Game system nearly crashed! It was going almost okay, things were running sort of good and then it all just fell apart when the milestone skill for Wisdom tried to level up!
I would, like, love to give you our Bugfinder title, but you don't even have those in your system!
Just hang tight, alright? I can totes fix this! ~~

--

...Not filling him with confidence.

He'd deal with that later, after the mile long list of other things he was shoving down so he could deal with his immediate concerns.

And speaking of immediate concerns... "Hey Batman, what did Player One do with my toad?"

"She took it back to her... Zombie I.D. for disposal." The man didn't even have the decency to turn around to talk at Alchemist, focused entirely on the text in front of him.

Well, that sucked. Zombina and Zombro were going to get so lonely, sitting in his inventory all by themselves.

He'd picked them up back during his impromptu therapy session around the time he'd met Jinx, after he'd seen that a trio of Zombie Hive Lords could turn into a lich.

Though, apparently they didn't need to eat each other to make the magic happen. A Lazarus Pit could make for an adequate substitute...

"Alright. And the other one that I had sitting here?" Jade Nguyen. The eldest of the Crock children. Ready, willing and able assassin.

"She has been transported to a tank made to cater to her biological needs. With Cheshire adequately secured for the moment, her criminal charges will likely be delayed until after Hook and Black Spider have been tried." Good news! At least he wouldn't be in charge of feeding or cleaning up after her! "Taking care of her will be added to your duties while on base."

God dammit.

Batman was content to silently review whatever was on the screen and Serling hadn't returned yet, so Alchemist just settled for reviewing his recent notifications.

~~Enemy Defeated!~~
~~Serling Roquette X1!~~
~~You have gained 0 XP!~~
~~(Enemy Level Too Low!)~~
~~You have gained 50 GP!~~

Yeah, that was fair. Serling might be intelligent, but so were a lot of internet tough guys.

~~Enemy Defeated!~~
~~Jade Nguyen X1!~~
~~You have gained 50 XP!~~
~~You have gained 5000 GP!~~

The experience requirements had gotten really steep, he'd need somewhere in the range of ninety-thousand to level up. Which meant Jade was too low to really bother with. Definitely a good method to discourage the murderhobo obsession a lot of gamers got up to.

Which just left Alchemist as a hobo.

Well, he was supposedly getting his gold money tomorrow. He had an idea he'd been floating about... For a while, really. He didn't enjoy living here with a bunch of angsty kids while trying to develop his skills in secret. Hell, he was supposed to be on-call outside of his secretarial duties. Not live-in support!

He had a metric crap load of thermally damaged solar panels, his fusion skill was at the point where he could put two items into a receiving item at sixty-one percent efficiency, so it wouldn't take him too much effort to reach the theoretical solar input limit there.

He had tried to use transmutation to repair one, but it just didn't work out well. A lot of the damage was just too small for him to see and unlike iron, he couldn't just visualize the molecular structure. It was too complex. Casting repair on all of them though? It would take maybe three hours.

He could purchase a prebuilt five meter by twelve meter cabin for about ten grand... Transportation could be an issue, but he knew there was magic to shrink buildings. Or he could have Superboy lift it and then teleport him?

Something to experiment with later. There were boulders nearby that should easily weigh more than the cabin would.

Alright. Basic plan. Now he just needed to figure out where to put everything. Ideally he wanted some place that was reasonably temperate, mountainous and green. His future wyrmling should be able to handle that just fine, provided it wasn't one of the kind that needed a really extreme environment.

So... Maybe Arkansas? Nothing important happened in Arkansas.

And maybe another trip to Zombie Earth so he could rob, er, loot a few hardware stores. He could buy everything, sure, but the fewer leads he left behind to his plans, the better.

He boxed up and put away those plans for the moment when Serling finally came into the room... And he could see immediately why his go-to option was going to be hot chocolate. The poor girl was a mess, her eyes were puffy and red, her hair was damp and matted where she'd run her fingers through it but hadn't brushed it and...

Oh, oh he could definitely see the problem here. She kept moving as though she was reaching for her throat.

She hesitated for a moment when he materialized a takeaway cup of hot cocoa in his hand and held it out, but she still ended up taking it anyway.

"How are you holding up?" He asked her once she'd finally taken a sip.

She held her hand against her throat, barely able to mumble out "I'm okay."

Looking into her eyes, Leslie wished he had an easier time reading people. Talking to people. Direct communication was easy, bring up a topic and share information. Small talk, emotions... Not so much.

Regardless of that, he knew she needed to hear the truth instead of the empty platitudes she'd be getting later in 'Sympathy'.

"It's okay to not be okay after that, you know?" Hell, he wasn't okay after that either. But he could cry and scream and deal with that somewhere private later. "And it's not going to get better anytime soon."

He held his hand up to his own throat, roughly in the same place she'd been stabbed. "It's going to haunt you for a while. Sometimes you'll be back there, back with her and it... It's going to feel like you're back in that moment."

Just like him. Just like sometimes he was @**&@%$#% again in that moment where he realized it wasn't just a headache.

"For a while, it's going to be the only thing on your mind. Eventually it'll get chipped down, go from every moment to a few times a day. Then maybe a few times a week... It does get better though. Eventually it might only get triggered once a month, and it'll keep fading. You'll never forget it, you never forget your first near-fatal experience... But eventually it won't control you." He broke her gaze and looked down. If he'd hurried straight to deal with it instead of wasting time buying a golden needle to break the petrification spell he'd put on the boss toads, well... It wouldn't have saved that much time, but it was a handful of seconds that would've counted for her. "I'm just sorry I couldn't have gotten there sooner."

The silence was probably uncomfortable for her, and it was anyone's guess what Batman was thinking.

"Sorry." Alchemist finally continued. "I tend to avoid people, so I monologue a bit when I do get to talk. Is there anything you're hungry for? I can go anywhere and get anything, provided they're still open."

"There... There's this little Italian place, near the university? Leonardo's? They do this twice-baked lasagna thing and-" That was odd, different from the Augury skill screwup. Maybe it had only really worked on the broad strokes? "-and they have this amazing chocolate cake with ice-cream and some breadsticks and- I'm sorry. You've already done so much and I-"

"No, you're fine." Alchemist interrupted. "I did offer after all."

He tried to offer her a smile he really didn't feel and, with a quick snap of his fingers, he disappeared.

And reappeared in front of the Zeta terminal.

It's not like he'd ever been to Star City before, and this was faster than taking the time to fill a bowl with water and spend five minutes scrying.

He was happy to cheat and mislead, but he wasn't omniscient after all.

-----

Sitting down just inside the busy restaurant, on a bench near the door and surrounded by strangers... It was an odd place to feel alone.

But nobody here knew him. Whatever judgement they made of him, it'd be forgotten within minutes.

He had two fingers pressed into the sinuses above his eyes, and it did help alleviate the migraine. For a little while at least.

He... He needed to look at what he'd done. Been planning to do. Tried to do, even. And he didn't want to do it at the base. Not with M'gann just a few rooms away. Probably hearing everything, maybe even feeling everything.

He didn't know how he felt about Zombles, about the Shadows. About himself.

He'd been... Furious. Earlier. When Robin called.

That part was fine. Feeling emotions was fine. Deciding to go to a nuclear option because he was angry was not fine.

Most of Ra's Al Ghul's students were indoctrinated children. Where they actually came from, he didn't know. The point remained however that they were children, taken advantage of by a monster.

He was going to figure something else out. Some other way of dealing with Ra's. There was no shortage of options. He'd need more spells, need to do more research. So much more research. Wards offered some possibilities. So did illusions...

Before he got further distracted, Alchemist stopped to purchse two spell scrolls. Ghost Sound, a purpose-built cantrip for making noise. Up to the sounds of what forty people, or the equivalent for whatever greater animals are out there, can make.
And Adjustable Disguise. It would let him be anyone, provided they were at least humanoid. And he could change the disguise at the blink of an eye.

If he was making plans to sneak around Infinity Island and find the best spots to set up wards and illusions to basically steal the Lazarus Pit, he didn't want it getting connected to Leslie. If he was smart, slow and careful though, he should be able to avoid things. Cameras, traps, children.

Children...

And he... He'd been perfectly fine with them being collateral? That it was for the best, because they were destined to be killers?

Except right now he was disgusted. The bottom of his stomach had dropped right out and even poking at that thought was discomforting. So that part wasn't adding up.

And Batman just let that go? That definitely didn't seem right. He would've been throwing Wonder Woman and Captain Marvel at Zombles regardless of where he'd been unleashed.

Unless... They hadn't been available?

And Future Alchemist hadn't really paid much attention, but Red Tornado was very much a figure it out yourself kind of teacher. He might have provided safety instructions, but Alchemist doubted he'd bother spending a significant amount of time showing Roquette how to shoot or sharing stories of the good old days.

He... Alchemist was starting to feel a fairly unpleasant suspicion settle itself in the back of his mind.

Red Tornado wouldn't be watching Roquette. He'd be watching Alchemist.

And the Green Lanterns hadn't been available to do a fly-by of the island... Had they been in a meeting discussing how severe of a threat Alchemist had shown them he could be?

Someone just casually pulling a city-buster out of their back pocket would be... Pretty damned worrisome, actually.

He leaned back against the wall and took his hand off of his face, only to start running it through his hair, one leg bouncing nervously.

Tomorrow. He-he'd check with Red Tornado tomorrow, ask him to pass a question on to Green Lantern. If they were busy, that was fine. If not... Well... That was fine too.

If he were a normal hero, battling chemical depression and suffering mood swings from his medication, this is probably where he'd make some kind of vow or promise to stop taking them and just man up.

But he wasn't. And he wouldn't. An adjustment period was normal with mood altering medicines. Stopping because the side effects were bad would just put him right back to where he was, possibly even worse off.

And manning up?

Alchemist snorted derisively at the thought.

Be brave, be courageous, be self-sacrificing and never admit that you're hurt, that you need help, that you're tired and just need a break. He'd rather treat himself as a human, a person, rather than whatever Leslie had struggled with and decided on that... That created the opportunity for Alchemist to be here.

He still... He needed to be more aware of himself though. He needed to watch himself better, though.

That... That couldn't happen. Not again.

"Number fifty-seven, K.Emist? Your order of two twice baked lasagna platters with extra garlic bread and two orders of triple-chocolate ice-cream cake are ready!" A pimply faced teen said to the crowd of other patrons as he brought out a large paper bag.

That was Alchemist's order. And Roquette's.

...It wasn't good or healthy, but he was feeling sad, depressed, stressed and angry still. If he could dull those with some cheese, grease and chocolate, well, maybe he'd sleep better tonight.

Probably not, he'd have to figure something else out for the migraine, but it'd be a start!

Chapter Text

Project: Gamer Ver. 2 Alpha Build 0.7.9

Disclaimer Me Do: I own nothing you recognize. And most of what you don't recognize, I still don't own.

_________________________________________________________________________

Leslie woke up the next morning, bright eyed and bushy tailed and ready to...

Alchemist woke up the next morning, bleary eyed and with a stiff back. He'd drank half a bottle of cold medicine and fallen asleep looking through the game shop.

It was difficult for him to sleep with a migraine otherwise.

Groggy and more than a little asleep, he made his way to the shower.

He'd gotten curious last night, once Serling got settled in, and he started looking through the shop for things from Legend of Legaia. He actually found a lot more than he'd been expecting. A -lot- more than he'd been expecting. As in, all of the accessories from the game. Such as a life grail, it had a cost of forty-thousand GP and would restore two-hundred HP per minute. And a magic grail, which was ninety-thousand GP and restored fifty mp per minute.

They were actually little pins, shaped like a golden chalice and a silver chalice respectively. They were probably supposed to be worn as earrings... But Alchemist wasn't going to even start going down that route. Earrings were incredibly easy to grab in the middle of a fight. And also very easy to rip out.

Then there were the familiars... Ra-seru eggs. Basically the equivalent of the local gods direct servants from that game. From all of the in-game elements. That hadn't even properly computed for him. Why did Gaia have those? How the hell had she even gotten them?! It had legitimately bothered him enough that he had to ask Terra-tan.

He did make two, non-video game related purchases though. A scroll of Shades and a scroll of Shadow Evocation. Oddly enough, Greater Shadow Evocation was missing. Both illusion spells, but they drew on, well, shadows and darkness to give the illusions substance. Shades would allow him to conjure nearly real monsters and elementals of all shapes and sizes, though the pinnacle of conjured beasts were beyond it. The evocation spell worked in a similar fashion, it could be used to imitate any and all evocation spells from the tier below it. Both relied upon belief to function at full power, but even against a foe that knew they were illusions they would still hold a significant fraction of their power.

Alchemist hoped he could find a perk or two that would cover the difference.

Well, he had two messages and the hot water of the shower had him feeling alive enough to deal with Terra.

~~ FROM: Ultra-powerful best goddess Terra-Tan! ~~
~~ Wow, you're like, really old aren't you? Nobody ever asks after those things. Everyone is all like "Chakra! Kusanagi! Needs more rasengan!" instead. So uh yeah, I might have stolen those? Except it's more like salvage? Tieg is really, really dead. So the infinite realities he presided over are up for grabs, and I used to think some of that stuff was kind of cool. I might have, maybe, kind of, sort of snuck in while I had Aqua throw a fit to keep the other gods distracted and staked a claim.
Right, so, I've got a lesser infinity of snapshots and failed starts for the world of Legaia and I occasionally mine those for materials. So... I'm not actually sure how well these things would actually work as familiars. Might not work at all, since, y'know, Tieg is dead and the mirror reality they draw power from doesn't exist outside of Legaia. Maybe you should buy one and let me know! I could really use them to revamp the tutorial system to be a little more personable!~~

Well, that was... Helpful? Alchemist started scrubbing shampoo out of his hair while he opened the next message.

~~ FROM: Ultra-powerful best goddess Terra-Tan! ~~
~~ I have some exciting news! Upon sharing your recent experiences across a review panel of trusted gods and slash or goddesses we have determined that an update is required. This update, which will be applied automatically upon opening this message, will reduce the cost of certain in-game items. It was decided, upon review, that reducing the cost of skills, spells, items and familiars may encourage a more expansive build.
To offset this, however, you may notice that spells above tier-7, skills at or above A rank and all familiars will now initiate an 'Instant Quest', as will all loot that is normally acquired through special boss fights. This will, we hope, encourage future gamers to explore alternative options instead of saving GP to purchase the strongest skills, weapons or familiars available.
I understand this may come as a form of hardship for you, as it was not a feature implemented in the original Alpha build you agreed to test. As such, you have been afforded 2(!) single use tickets which can be used to initiate any Instant Quest that can be found in the game shop free of charge!
Please pick carefully. An Instant Quest will, as the name implies, occur instantly and can only be completed once. The Player will be teleported to an arena or dungeon and cannot escape through the use of I.D. escape until such time as the goal has been completed. Or the Gamer dies. Upon completion of the goals of an Instant Quest the Gamer will be returned to the same point in timespace to resume their experience.
We hope you have lots of fun!~~

Leslie stared at the screen. He stared at the screen while he struggled to decide how he felt. He was definitely angry. He'd had plans, and he didn't know how much they'd been disrupted yet. And he hadn't agreed to this Game at all!

He opened the game shop, returning to his last viewed item.

~~ Ra-Seru Egg: Jedo ~~
~~ Type: Familiar ~~
~~ Description: A crystalline egg in which slumbers the Ra-Seru Jedo, guardian of Darkness and one of the chosen children of Tieg. ~~
~~ Instant Quest Location: Seru-Kai ~~

Yeah, no.

Not just no, but Hell no! That place was lethally hostile to human life! And that probably meant he'd be expected to fight the penultimate boss of the game, a martial artist fist-wizard who'd been mostly eaten and subsumed by an insane undead god fragment!

What in the ever loving-!

Alchemist very carefully, very intentionally set down the bottle of shampoo he'd been about to launch at the mirror across from the shower.

-----

Calming down took him more time than he'd have liked. He'd finished his morning exercise and was halfway through preparing food for dinner later in the day when he was finally able to think about the hiccup without wanting to throw something.

Ultima now had a quest that would take him to the Tower of Mysidia. The Incorruptus blueprints had a zero removed from them, going from five-million GP to five-hundred-thousand but he'd have to go to an instant quest called 'The Rift'.

Ra-Seru eggs had all been brought down from two-million to two-hundred-thousand as well, but they all also required going to the Seru-Kai. The various elemental talismans cost half that, but all demanded the Gamer go to the 'Absolute Fortress'.

Except for the Evil Talisman. That sent the Gamer off to the 'Rim Elm: Consumed'. Which made a bit of sense. It gave whichever character had it equipped access to the ultimate spell in the game, the ability to summon the final boss.

Now, did Alchemist need any of these things? The answer was mostly no. Ultima would be incredibly handy to have, true, but he was having a hard enough time finding ways to level up his offensive abilities.

The Incorruptus was a pipe-dream, really. A relatively small knight-like mech coming in at around seven meters tall. The benefit to it was that it could use significantly larger tools. Like turning an artillery cannon into a hand-held weapon.

The Ra-Seru... Well, cutting through the bullshit and justifications, Alchemist could admit to himself that he was lonely.

He didn't connect to the children here, he didn't act the part for it. And he wasn't really friends with any of the adults, because he had the body of a child. Even if he wanted to be friends, rather than just friendly, he had a lot of other hang-ups that would be getting in the way. Like knowing who people were under the mask and how a decent amount of them got their powers.

Power disparities like that tended to end explosively, even without super-powers involved.

And having someone he could fully confide in and discuss how to deal with the insanity of this reality with... He was well past the point of needing that. The psychiatrist he was seeing in Gotham was nice, but rather limited to human perspectives and issues.

...And the Ra-Seru would have a few other benefits. A psychic piece of living armor, it could probably help defend his brain from mind-readers. He had Mind Blank, but the only time he'd tried to use it had been kind of horrifying.

For M'gann.

He'd cast the spell once before leaving his room and had headed to the kitchen. He'd caught M'gann there, asked her if the stove was free... And she had screamed, spun around, saw him and then screamed louder.

There was a confused screech about the Black Martians coming for the team and then she literally flew off.

Alchemist still hadn't gotten that explanation, but he assumed they were some kind of Martian boogeyman or ghost story.

With a... Decent, decent enough at least. A decent night's sleep under him, he could look at yesterday now that he wasn't oscillating between furious and terrified and realize that, maybe pulling out Zombles was never going to end well. Even if it completed the goal and succeeded in killing Ra's Al Ghul, which Leslie wouldn't be willing to bet someone else's money on, it would reveal his hand. He wasn't ready for that.

Now, being fair, he was probably never going to be ready for that. But if he did it now, if they succeeded in killing him in retribution, Leslie would never come home.

His mother would never see her kid again.

Hell, thinking about that... What about Artemis? Or Paula? Someone would have, at least should have, told them about Jade. In that reality he'd seen, would he have gotten around to it? Or would he have just ignored it as collateral?

Ra's had to go, but jumping straight to a nuclear option...

Alchemist finished cutting up the last of the vegetables for the stew tonight and set them in the crockpot to simmer.

Serling was up by this point, it looked like. She was sitting in the recreation room, just staring at the television.

Which wouldn't be too concerning if it were turned on.

Leslie shook his head and pulled his laptop out of his inventory. This time around, he'd made sure to clear his login credentials.

And he might have, also, definitely visited a few websites with very suspicious names that had a lot of pictures of a particular breed of cat.

This time around if she thinks about embarrassing him with his history, she'll get a face full of saggy, wrinkly, ugly Sphynx cat.

Chapter Text

Project: Gamer Ver. 2 Alpha Build 0.8.0

Disclaimer Me Do: I own nothing you recognize. And most of what you don't recognize, I still don't own.

_________________________________________________________________________

Serling really was motivated when it came to learning how to shoot.

She sucked, sure, but everyone did when they started out.

Without the money conversation that had fed into him admitting to stripping a military base down to the nails he'd actually had to offer to teach her, rather than her asking.

Beyond that though, things had basically been the same.

"Hey, you're doing really good. Just keep it up!" Alchemist shouted to her from her side.

They both had large plastic earmuffs on. She hadn't asked where he'd gotten bright orange safety vests from, which was good. He didn't plan on explaining.

They'd been at this for a while and her aim wasn't getting any better, but Serling was shooting with a lot more confidence. Whenever they'd stop to reload, he'd have her repeat the basic rules of using a gun for him.

She probably thought he was being patronizing, but it was how he'd been taught.

Rule one; Treat the gun as though it's always loaded and the safety is off.
Rule two; Unless you're planning to kill them, you never point a gun at a person. Unless you're planning to shoot it, keep your finger off the trigger.
Rule three; You're not just shooting the target, but what's behind the target. Make sure you know what that is.
Rule four; You flick the safety off before you pull the trigger and it goes back on immediately afterwards.

She'd made a few mistakes here and there, but until it's ingrained deeply enough to be done without thought, such things happen. He just had to gently remind her.

Before coming out, he'd briefly stopped by to talk to, well, at Red Tornado. Mentioning taking her out to shoot, asking him to let the local authorities know that nobody was being murdered on Mount Justice, that sort of thing.

...And he'd asked if Green Lantern was available to answer a question, which had been answered in the positive. He'd made up something about wondering if they might have some kind of sympathetic connection through the Green light of Will to the planet wide mystical plant biosphere known as the Green.

This time around, Red Tornado hadn't offered to come out and help teach Serling how to shoot, and that was just another item on the list that he really would've goofed if he'd let Zombles out to play.

It was probably time to take a break now though, Serling's arms were shaking and the end of the barrel of the handgun was wobbling.

"Alright! Unload your clip and we'll go to town for a break!" Serling didn't say anything to him, but she did put the last four rounds into a wooden dummy that used to look like Cheshire.

The following few minutes weren't exactly interesting. He took the weapons from her and confirmed they were empty, double checked the safety on them both and dropped them into his inventory.

"Here, help me pick up the brass and we can go." He handed her a small metal bucket before crouching down in the dirt. Barely a moment later and she was down there with him. For a few moments the only sounds in the clearing were...

Nothing.

Alchemist paused for a moment to pull off his ear protection, letting him hear the wind gently blowing through the leaves.

This was... Actually really nice. He hadn't done something like this since his own father had passed on.

"Hey Roquette!" She turned to look at him, blinking owlishly when he tapped at his ears.

After a moment if incomprehension it seemed to click and she pulled her earmuffs down around her neck.

"You're doing great!" She really wasn't. "I think you're picking that up faster than I did!"

She really, really wasn't. But it got her to smile and that was important after yesterday.

"...Thank you." She mumbled when they were nearly done. "This is actually a lot more fun than I expected."

"Yeah." He answered easily. "It's loud and the guns are heavy, but there's something primal and fun about making things go boom."

He probably shouldn't mention his attempts at making his own fireworks as a kid. That hadn't gone well.

"You mentioned going to town?" She asked as she grabbed one of the last few shotgun shells on the ground. "What are we doing?"

"Grocery, then gun store. I can't give you any of mine since they're extradimensional duplicates and you don't want to have a gun that's registered to someone else pop up in your stuff if something happens." Alchemist pulled out one of the spent bullets from the bucket she handed back and considered something.

He snapped his fingers and it was surrounded in a golden glow, warping for a moment before the plastic tube sealed shut.

Neat. Repair worked on bullets!

He'd save that for later though. Instead he put the spent ammunition away in his inventory and stood up, wiping his hands off on his trousers.

"Though for that, we're going to need your I.D.. You do have that, right?" The woman patted at her pockets for a moment before coming up with a wallet.

That was... Nice? He'd thought they were going to have to go back to base to get her purse.

"What do I need my I.D. for?" Was she serious? He'd just said- Right, Star City is in California.

"So the gun store can run a background check. That'll take a few days and you won't get your guns until it comes back clean of felonies." Yeah, it was the U.S., but there were -some- safeties to keep legal guns out of the hands of repeat offenders.

She seemed content with that answer, at least, and the walk to town was made in peace. Alchemist used that time to look through the shop to see what had changed and how he needed to change his plans.

The majority of the weapons he'd been considering were right out. They involved going to important game locations and probably fighting the original wielder. Alchemist may have been a lot of things, but none of them were that good.

He did eventually settle on an iteration of the Enhancer Sword. There were a variety of them from the various world of Final Fantasy, some clearly stronger or weaker, but he grabbed the one from Final Fantasy Seven. It offered the highest magic boost for the price, twelve-thousand GP... And no boss fight.

There -were- stronger swords, but how that actually affected their ability to cut, he had no idea.

Guns had been a pretty hit and miss category. They tended to either be very, very good... Or hot garbage, depending on the game. Again, a significant number of the especially good ones were hidden behind boss battles. A fantastic option, Vortex Abandon had a lot of amazing stat bonuses, but would require he fight a raging elemental goddess who could brainwash anyone without arbitrary immunity.

However he found another option, probably an oversight, but one he was going to take advantage of before it got closed off.

From the spinoff slash continuation game, Final Fantasy Seven: Dirge of Cerberus was a large handful of guns. Handguns, rifles, assault rifles that were called machine guns because that's what people understood off the cuff... Anyway, for a simple comparison, the Zastava he was fond of cost about eight-thousand GP.

Pretty close to its cost in real life, too.

The Gigant Hydra he was looking at cost fifty-four thousand GP. To start with. The full complement of equipment for it, the barrel, a power booster, scope and accuracy booster altogether brought the price up to one-hundred and fifty thousand GP.

Yes, he bought it, but only after second, third and fourth thoughts on the matter.

It was an immensely powerful rifle capable of knocking a Behemoth off its feet. The range was phenomenal, as was the accuracy. Unfortunately, it was also impossibly heavy, so much so that it slowed a (Unwilling) magically enhanced super-soldier down to a crawl while he was wielding it and it was strictly a single shot bolt action rifle, it couldn't accept a magazine.

Thankfully, Alchemist didn't need an I.D. to buy a generic rifle bipod at the gun store. Especially since he had a few from the last time he'd been there in the zombie I.D.

The last thing he bought, practically an afterthought after that spending spree, was a spell he was going to need soon.

Shrink Item, a transmutation spell from D&D. Its effects were incredibly simple, but no less useful. It could miniaturize a target's dimensions, limited only to non-living targets.

It was three-hundred and seventy-five GP.

And it was probably going to see more overall use than the gun.

-----

Thinking on the way the day went, Alchemist had to hold back a laugh. Serling had picked out two guns that were nearly identical to what she'd practiced with. A Mossberg 500 pump action shotgun and a Taurus G... Something. He hadn't paid much attention. He was competent with a handgun out to about fifteen meters and even then he preferred a short barrel rifle.

The thing that had him laughing was how he paid for Serlings purchases.

He'd sold Legacy Firearms and Coins their own gold coins back to them.

So in a couple of days he'd be taking Serling back there to get her new 'Babies' and collect his change.

Now though, they were back in the cave. Superboy, Powergirl and M'gann were back as well. Back from their first day in human school.

Unfortunately for them, they got to start directly in High School.

Hormones, posturing, social climbing and cliques galore. Bruce couldn't pay him enough to do that, once had been enough.

"-and there were so many people, and they were all thinking and feeling so much!" M'gann seemed to love it though.

Alchemist simply nodded along as she spoke, preparing the second half of dinner. The vegetable stew was simmering along nicely and he planned to have salmon with it. He was slicing the lemons he'd bought earlier when he got a notification about a message.

~~ FROM: Ultra-powerful best goddess Terra-Tan! ~~
~~ So I went and had a look at the whole Seru-Kai killing all humans thing and you're kinda right. Except it doesn't work on Gamer's Body. Or at least it doesn't work quickly on Gamer's Body. Shi Wa survived for a bit before he got discombobulated, I'm sure a better Gamer would be fine.
Either way, you don't have Gamer's Body. Kind of my bad. Totally keep forgetting that.
Just use your dragon form. The place is hostile to human life, not dragon life.
Duh ~~

Well, he just had one thing to say to that.

~~ To: Ultra-powerful best goddess Terra-Tan! ~~
~~ Thanks for the heads up, Aqua! ~~

Was it petty?

Well... Yes.

That did give him a solid option though, but as seemed all too often the case lately it wasn't one he could immediately act on. He was still clumsy as a dragon and he still hadn't figured out how to fly. He needed time and a place where he could work on that without too many distractions.

It also meant he'd be on a time limit, one with a potentially lethal end. It depended on how much exposure he could have to a hostile reality before he expired.

"-then one of the other girls suggested I try out for the cheer team and I thought that sounded like fun! So when tryouts happen I want to do that!" Leslie flashed the chatty redhead a thumbs up even as he mentally debated his options.

Cheer squad was absolutely out unless he wanted to wear a mascot suit, and he hated playing organized sports. He might love music, but he couldn't carry a tune in a bucket. Mind, neither could most of the other band kids but that wasn't really the point. Maybe AV club? Chess clubs weren't much of a thing anymore and he was only a casual player and what the hell was he thinking?

Alchemist put down the garlic cloves he'd been mincing and shook his head.

Right, he got distracted.

Terra said the Instant Quests would return him to where he was in time-space when they were completed, but that he couldn't stop them halfway or leave. So if he found one that was doable for him, that'd be all the time in the world where he could practice...

Now, which one would offer him a large space to try and fly in without having too many things that could actually succeed at trying to kill him?

He sprinkled some salt and pepper on the pink fish fillets just before putting them in the oven and finally settling on an option.

Leslie hovered over the selection for the Incorruptus Blueprints. Half a million GP, putting him down to a little under one-million left... But The Rift, the place it would be taking him to, it was a massive location removed from local space, filled with undead, elementals, demons and giants. Except for the starting location, at least that's what he remembered...

Actually, Leslie put a pause on that for a moment and headed back to his room. Once there, he removed a set of boxers from his inventory and used Synthesis: Fusion to feed two spells into them.

Protect and Esuna. It added an additional three-hundred and ten points to the defense stat and offered total immunity to status ailments.

He was going to call them his Clean Undies!

On his socks, he used one different spell and Protect again.

Blink worked exactly as intended, providing a significant bonus to evasion... But apparently he could not stack Additional Equipment Enhancements.

Ah well, it was still a massive bonus. The enchanted equipment -did- stack with the spells he'd cast directly on himself.

Satisfied with his meager preparations, Alchemist clicked continue on the purchase screen.

And between one blink and the next, he found himself standing on cracked flagstones, surrounded by broken pillars and slowly swirling purple in the far distance.

There was nothing alive near him. Nothing undead, either. He could, however, just make out the shape a large, almost goatlike creature in the distance carrying a crude axe.

Alright. Alright, he could work with this.

He slowly spun around, getting a good idea of this spot, this one safe location so he could teleport back to it before stripping off his clothes.

-----

Meanwhile, not that far away, a nigh-incorporeal demon, a succubus in this world, began floating back where it came from.

The crazies were always too much trouble to deal with.

Chapter Text

Project: Gamer Ver. 2 Alpha Build 0.8.1

Disclaimer Me Do: I own nothing you recognize. And most of what you don't recognize, I still don't own.

_________________________________________________________________________

Looking over the edge of the floating aerial island, Alchemist was having second thoughts. Even as a dragon.

Somewhere down there might be a bottom, and he couldn't tell because it was all just purple. To the left, purple. To the right, purple. Way up high? More islands.

And then purple.

For the past ten or so minutes he'd just paced around the edge, trying to work up the nerve to do something. There really wasn't any absolute need for him to learn how to fly here, right? He could just teleport over to a small floating island and just plink away at the enemies, couldn't he?

He'd gotten around to looking over the ledge and he knew it would make him more nervous than he'd started as. And he'd been right.

He pulled away from the edge and walked along the length of his island, counting his steps.

Not even a full hundred. Eighty on one side, seventy-ish on the other. A lot of broken rock all over the place that made for uneven footing.

Alright. Alright. Thinking about it, he weighed about six-hundred and fifty kilograms as a dragon. His wingspan was about seven meters... He couldn't remember the rest of the formula for determining lift.

Wonderful.

Not that it would probably matter. Dragons were magic and magic only cared about physics when it benefited off of it.

Still, that had worked as a fantastic distraction, his brain was too busy trying to puzzle that out to be nervous!

He flared his wings out, adjusted his front feet. Adjusted his back feet. And took off! With a great loping gait he crossed the length of the island in seconds, his wings flapping madly...

Until he fell right over the edge.

-----

Up above, watching from the edges of the various islands floating in the sky, countless skeletal warriors and mages stared at the newest Gamer in confusion.

It had been ages since they'd seen a new Player, and this one was even more unusual than normal! Instead of some strange mute weilding the same weapons they'd seen a thousand times, it was some weirdo who'd stripped naked and just hung around the safe zone.

That it had turned into a dragon wasn't really that weird. They had dragons on some of the other islands. And they were used to seeing Players and other NPC's that could turn into Knights.

That it was tiny compared to either of those was odd, but at least it was something different.

A skeleton warrior elbowed a mage and silently pointed as the jet-black dragon was desperately clawing its way back up the side of the safe island.

If only they were programmed to laugh!

-----

Alchemist wasn't sure how long it had taken him to get here. He'd had to renew his Dragon Form spell a few times...

Once while in midair because he wasn't keeping an eye on the timer.

But he'd done it! He'd finally learned how to... glide.

He was probably being a little more harsh on himself than was necessary, but it was something like six hours in and he was only just figuring out the basics. That said however, the majority of time a dragon would spend in the air was while gliding, with only the occasional wing-beat to regain altitude.

So looking at it like that, he'd gotten the most used part figured out! He just... Needed to get all the rest.

-----

The green feather cloak attached to the owl-like head dress floated lazily in the air alongside a multitude of others. Watching. Waiting.

It had taken a good bit of time, but the dragon-player was flying now. He'd gotten confident, too. Flying close enough to be in archery and spell range. He'd been fast though, never lingering long enough for them to finish charging.

How long had it been? To her, and all like her, that was immaterial. Time for them was measured in events. An enemy got close enough, and they counted the seconds. How long it would be for them to cast their spell. How long the Player's cooldown was.

How long their respawn timers took.

Though... The Player going in and through their area of effect and moving too quickly for them to cast upon... Once was fine. Twice, too, was acceptable. But now it was getting frustrating! He'd just kept buzzing through and laughing!

At least the Skeleton Archers were able to fire off an arrow here and there. It never seemed to land, but at least those guys had a chance!

The black speck was coming back into view, meaning the Player was coming back through. This time around, she was going to get off a spell! This time, she was going to matter!

Unlike the other succubi, she started charging her spell early. Her staff waving back and forth in the air, magical power building around her.

She ignored the way the others were staring at her.

The player was getting close, close enough that her sisters were beginning to power up their spells. And while they were charging, she was already done!

Fire lanced forth from her staff, striking the laughing dragon across the side!

As it fell, she finally felt a sense of fulfillment after countless hours of teasing and frustration!

That turned to dread however. The Player fell from the sky, its burning gaze on her cabal as it dropped into the abyss.

Her sisters let their staves drop once more to their sides, the magic fading away as they milled about and looked to each other in confusion. They'd never seen a Player go down to one spell before.

They heard it before they could see it.

Clink. Crunch.

Stone being pierced and crushed. It kept on sounding out, over and over again. She looked to her sisters, but they were looking around at each other too. Finally one of them pushed against the back of her cloak, the one solid piece, and aimed her at the ledge the noise was coming from.

She slowly hovered over, the growing sounds making her feel something deep in her code.
Nervous?
Afraid?

Either way, she leaned over and there, not even a meter away from the lip was a black, arrowlike face staring directly at her. Yellow eyes boring hatefully into the empty eye-sockets of her mask.

She started to charge a spell.

He Roared, and the world turned white-

-----

Looking around, the succubus found herself in the Respawn room. Waiting until it was time to warp her back to the island alongside her sisters.

Who were quickly finding their way to the room right next to her.

That was new! She'd never been beaten by a single spell before!

-----

He'd gotten cocky. Arrogant. Distracted!

Eh, happens.

The fire spell hitting him in the side hadn't really hurt -too- much, but it had been surprising. He'd thought he was too far up for them to aim at!

He might have, maybe, possibly over reacted after that. Most of the things in here were either undead or demonic, and all of the stuff was balanced oddly. The small fry went down with just one cast of Holy, but the big thing, the goat-like axe wielding demon called the Betapente Gigas, it was a sponge.

It had some whole 'Break' mechanic which was supposed to make it drop special items if a player focused on hitting certain body parts with certain damage types...

Like bullets. To the knees.

His new, very expensive gun the Hydra was insanely heavy for something that looked like an overcomplicated and over-modified Springfield or Winchester. Instead of having a wooden frame going under the barrel, it had two additional, unused barrels.

Made of adamantite.

More than a bit of time had been spent asking 'Why?'.

And also complaining because 'Goddammit this is so frickin' heavy!', but that didn't exactly go anywhere.

The one positive, at least, was that it fired .50 caliber rounds just like the other heavy-hitting rifles in his inventory. So he could load in the armor piercing black tips he'd stolen from Fort Knox. Those worked incredibly well for activating the break mechanic! Of course, about thirty seconds later the Gigas would just get back up and stomp around like nothing happened. He couldn't get duplicate items by re-breaking the same appendage until the unit itself was defeated and given time to respawn, however.

That had been a while back. He'd maxed out Holy, was working his way through Holy Weapon... And maybe entertaining himself a bit. A combination of Curse on a skeleton, then popping over to shrink whatever weapon they had before stealing it.

What? They attacked him first!

Still, he'd harassed things here long enough. He was just about-

~~Congratulations!~~
~~ Holy Weapon has reached Level 100 (Max)! ~~

He was done. Time to pack up, clean up and go deal with the boss on the top island!

But first...

-----

The succubus stared in confusion when the Gigas next to her disappeared. She floated over, wary of the small, holy projectiles that the Hacker had been sending at them sporadically.

She wasn't quite sure what she was looking at. Instead of a towering Gigas, there was a tiny amphibian where it had been. She cocked her head to the side, quite puzzled when the small green creature was retextured in gray.

And then the Hacker was there! Just picking it up and-

And-

And-

~~ Error! ~~
~~ ID-3855 "gigas25" cannot be found! ~~
~~ Spawning ID-3801 "troll01" ~~

She didn't know she could be surprised before! But watching a massive troll spawn in the Nether, in the place of another NPC...

Her A.I. package didn't have any direct ways to handle it!

And the stutter just got worse when the troll was turned into something else, too!

~~ Error! ~~
~~ ID-3801 "troll01" cannot be found! ~~
~~ Spawning ID-3807 "direspideru" ~~

"What?" A voice whispered as the errors kept racking up. As large enemies would spawn only to disappear an instant later. "What's going on?!"

As the latest and newest large enemy spawned, the Dark Knight Incorruptus; Dinivas, she realized who had spoken.

Her.

Which wasn't supposed to be possible! She didn't even have any voice files!

-----

Alchemist scratched the back of his head as he took a step to the left.

Well, things had gotten pretty weird.

A massive, rapier-like longsword almost seven meters long from tip to hilt crashed into the spot he'd been standing in a second ago.

He wasn't entirely sure how this was happening, but it looked like putting an enemy NPC into his inventory messed up something.

At a guess? He'd thought the way this world handled NPC's was like how the Zombie I.D. handled them, by despawning them and creating new ones as needed. A bit more resource intensive but also a much more flexible system.

He would admit he'd been wrong... But he hadn't actually thought about it at all before now.

If this world didn't do that, then it probably pulled a few tricks instead. Maybe it flagged a 'dead' enemy into a non-interactable state and just reset them after a set time period? Or it might teleport them to an area off-screen and then just teleport them back once their respawn counter flipped over.

Alchemist took two steps to the right, and just barely avoided being stepped on.

The almighty side-step, bane of all Anime and JRPG fight scenes!

Either way, he wasn't entirely invested in square-dancing around a three-story edgelord.

It pulled the longsword up into both hands, point down and plunged.

And plunged.

And plunged, falling over as the now miniaturized weapon didn't hit the ground when it had expected it to. It let go of the now-shortsword sized (For him) blade to try and catch itself before it fully fell over.

Alchemist put both hands on the near-half meter piece of metal and it disappeared, much to the ire and fury of the Dark Knight.

Alchemist teleported to the left when the ancient superweapon tried to slam a fist into him, and then back to the right when it arced that arm out to try and swipe him over the edge.

It screeched something unintelligible at him, or that might have just been the intense slowdown from having haste up, and tried to lunge at him.

Alchemist ducked.

It sailed over him, dangerously close to the edge now...

Its yellow eyes were locked on his own, filled with a fury unchained!

Alchemist, in response, pointed at it. He cocked back his thumb as though it were the hammer of a revolver... And then slammed it forward, mimicking the recoil of a handgun as he cast Flare at the head of the Knight. Sending it rolling back and over the edge of the island.

...That was probably supposed to be more impressive, but Alchemist had gotten over how cool the stupid thing had looked almost a decade ago.

Seriously, the thing had a bear trap on its right elbow as some sort of fashion accessory! And the stupidly long codpiece! Honestly, the coolest thing about it had to be the golden feathers mixed with the black in its helmet and... The... Wings.

He'd forgotten it could fly!

And not a moment too soon, either. It flew straight up, almost touching the final island of the area before dropping down in a kick.

One the one hand, at least it was learning? On the other, stupid enemies are much easier to fight.

Alchemist teleported five meters to the side, the Hydra in his hands as he crouched down to stabilize himself. Dinivas was already adjusting her descent, she'd be on him in a matter of seconds!

But for him, while under Haste, two seconds became something akin to thirty. He only needed half of that to line up his shot.

With a slow, measured exhale he pulled the trigger.

-----

Bruce, already exhausted after a long day, looked at his beeping communicator with something akin to dread.

He'd been overseeing the updated security measures being applied to Serling Roquette's apartment while fielding a handful of queries sent by the Justice League. Between both of those, he'd been trying to stay appraised of what was happening at the mountain through communications from Red Tornado.

And now Alchemist was calling him.

He appreciated the magician, he really did. He was surprisingly calm, patient and actually willing to listen to criticism. He did seem to have some avoidant tendencies, but Batman was going to chalk that up to trauma.

That didn't stop him from being a walking, talking disaster zone.

"Batman here. What is it?"

"My powers got an update, I was experimenting with them and I brought back a person." The young mans voice was exhausted and guileless. Short, direct and to the point.

That said, it still took the caped crusader a second to process what he heard.

He... Alchemist what?!

Chapter Text

Project: Gamer Ver. 2 Alpha Build 0.8.2

Disclaimer Me Do: I own nothing you recognize. And most of what you don't recognize, I still don't own.

_________________________________________________________________________

Up in the Watchtower, Batman was stuck trying to make a decision. On the monitor bank in front of him, ignoring the dozen odd other windows up and open, were two in specific that were bothering him.

In one, he could see Alchemist casually leaning back in a chair, wearing a decontaminated surgical gown and reading a scroll.

In the other was a young woman, long green hair and dark eyes that hovered somewhere between violet and red.

In Alchemist's words, she was an enemy NPC that piggy-backed on him when he finished what he'd been doing and was transported back. Alchemist had dressed her in some of his baggier clothing though now she, like him, wore a sterile apron.

In her words? She'd said nothing. Done nothing. Just stood in place listlessly as everything was done around her.

The few other members of the League who'd been available had taken a look at her, all with anomalous results.

To Green Lantern she was a completely mundane human, though her dimensional resonance didn't match anything on record.

Giovanni said she absolutely thrummed with deep, powerful necromantic and elemental magics.

Diana... Diana said it was like looking at a newborn child, a fresh, innocent soul that hadn't yet seen the world.

Batman had no idea what to do about her. Alchemist was less than helpful.

'She's a real person now, I didn't even know that could happen. If she hadn't been trying to kill me with her staff-scythe thing I wouldn't even know now!' And then he'd been put into decontamination because now Batman had solid, living proof that at least one of the kids had actual extradimensional abilities.

Onscreen, just outside the girls room, Diana was hovering by the door.

Well, it looks like that particular problem might just resolve itself. Meanwhile he should probably have words with the reincarnate.

-----

Alchemist looked up from his scroll as the door slid open. Silhouetted by extra bright lights likely set just outside the door for this exact scenario was...

Probably Batman. Alchemist couldn't tell through the glare.

Either way he put away the scroll of Shadow Evocation and leaned forward.

"We need to talk." Yep, that's Batman.

"That -is- why I called you, yes." Alchemist put both elbows on the metal table in front of him, steepling his fingers together and bringing his head down until his mouth was hidden behind them. "Have my claims been verified?"

He was probably not going to take control of the conversation, and that was fine. Any excuse to use Gendo Pose Number One and pretend things were going according to plan was worth taking though.

Batman sat down on the other side of the plexiglass containment window and mirrored his pose. "That your unwanted tagalong came from another dimension? Yes, that has been verified. Beyond her being magical in some way, we've discovered nothing else."

Yellow eyes stared unblinking into the lenses of Batman's cowl, watching... Waiting...

Alchemist blinked first. Probably.

"You understand that bringing strays back from other realities is something that cannot continue, don't you?" And there it goes.

"I'm quite aware that such a situation would be untenable." Seriously, where would he even put people? He was basically homeless! "Unfortunately some of my plans do involve attempting to acquire one other individual. A sophont member of a race otherwise doomed to extinction."

"And if I forbid it?"

"Then we both laugh because my contract stipulated the use of my abilities in ways that benefit you, veto powers were never included." The two of them stared at one another after Alchemist's statement.

He'd already acted well outside the limits of it, acting as emergency transportation twice and battlefield medic once. Teleportation and healing on demand was convenient, and he was being paid... Decently well for it, in his opinion. For someone with no history and no documentation at the time.

"...Do you know what you're doing?" The actual concern in Batman's voice was surprising, moreso than he'd been expecting.

Alchemist brought his hands down and leaned back, crossing his right arm across his gut. "...I know what to avoid next time. Everything else, I'm planning for what I can and learning the rest as I go."

"I need to understand this dimension crossing that you and Player One do, the Justice League needs to understand-"

"I'm gonna stop you right there." The Caped Crusader looked disgruntled at being interrupted, but motioned for the mage to continue. "The League has no real information security in place. And I can't actually think of a secret hideout you guys use that hasn't been invaded some time in the last five years. If you want to understand how our powers work, nothing is put on paper and nothing is put on a computer. Period."

The Batman didn't react to that statement, not that he could really defend it. The Justice League had been hacked three times in the last year alone (That the public knew of) and every hero, each and every single one, had been attacked in their own base at least once.

Hell, the U.S. Military had even had a go at the 'Fortress of Solitude' down in the Antarctic not that long ago! ...Or had that been another continuity? They kind of blended together after a while.

"Assuming we accept that demand, we would need an access point and a guide." Alchemist motioned for Batman to continue. "Am I to assume that Player One has a more reliable means of accessing alternate realities?"

"Significantly so, yes. I think I have a wider array of options, but hers are more stable and less hostile. Dangerous, certainly, but her Zombie world is intended for people new to our power set to learn and develop the basics of our skills. Her system is less restricted than mine, which meant her physical options were more impactful. I... Would love to explain more, but not where I'm being recorded." Yeah, that was going to be a hard pass for him.

"I understand that it's outside the boundaries of your contract, but, should she be willing, would you assist myself and the team in exploring the Zombie world?" Batman stood back up, signalling that the conversation was nearing its end.

"I'd be happy to." Alchemist would have liked to stand up and prepare to leave himself, but he was supposed to stay under observation for another ten hours before getting another medical scan. "There are some things I need to collect, that would be a fantastic opportunity."

Alchemist gave a short, clipped wave before Batman turned to leave.

He really did like talking to the man. He didn't have to affect so many exaggerated behaviors to convey his intent, didn't need to curate his vocabulary to be better understood.

...He really did envy the Martians. They could properly, truly understand each other. Rather than struggling to fit people to behaviors and patterns and being confused when they just wouldn't explain themselves! A full lifetime of experience helped, but he was still thrown off guard and left stumbling all too often.

Really, it felt like he was a teenager all over again!

Chapter Text

Project: Gamer Ver. 2 Alpha Build 0.8.3

Disclaimer Me Do: I own nothing you recognize. And most of what you don't recognize, I still don't own.

_________________________________________________________________________

Robin waited impatiently in the mountain base after school.

It was silent, for the most part. He could only really hear the slow whirring of fans circulating air while he stalked the halls.

He didn't know where the others were, and it was long past irritating him. Batman had told them he'd have a training exercise once Serling was back in Star City, and she'd finally left yesterday!

So where was everyone!?

He'd checked the lounge, the workout room, even the library and medical bay! He'd started to think the team had skipped out on whatever Batman was planning until he found them in the hangar.

Alchemist and Kid Flash were working on something, a large door laying flat across a couple of saw-horses. Miss Martian was chatting animatedly with Player One, who was wearing new, red and black boots that matched her hood, while Superboy and Power Girl were also watching what Alchemist and Kid Flash were doing.

Aqualad had a few sheets of paper in his hands while he was working on the opposite side of the other magician and the speedster.

"What's everyone doing in here?" Robin was still frustrated, but at least he knew everyone was on base. They were even dressed and ready for a mission!

"Kid Flash discovered Alchemist was working on making a pocket dimension and wanted to see if he could do it too." Aqualad answered him.

...You know what? Sure. Fine. Whatever.

"...How does that work?" He may have been exasperated, but he was still curious.

"Are you familiar with the theories posited by Lemaris on the manipulation of elemental forces and their domains as determined by the greater universal subconscious?" Aqualad had to shout to be heard over the sound of Alchemist carving into the old-fashioned oaken door with a dremel.

"I don't think so?" He'd never even heard of this Lemaris, so how would he know anything about their work?

"Ah, well, to be very succinct... She believed that magic altered reality on a fundamental level that superseded the physical world and its limitations. Thus the limitations on magic came, not from magic, but rather our comprehension of it. We've had some evidence that would support her suppositions come in the form of advancements in physics and our understanding of the world around us allowing us to create new spells and use old magic in new and better ways. Are you following so far?" Robin nodded along easily. It wasn't his area of study, but Aqualad hadn't brought out the field-specific jargon yet.

"Moving on. Throughout the millennia, various traits, phenomena and even objects have been attributed with elemental properties. Arbitrarily, in most cases. What Alchemist is doing is using a language he referred to as 'Draconic', which is supposedly inherently magical, and using that to describe the traits and environment of the small reality he's attempting to create. The purpose of the door is to create the idea of a portal and bind it to physical actions. In his words, and he was paraphrasing another book as he explained it to me, this space can either be bound to a location or a person. If he was binding it to a space, he could simply install this door somewhere and, after completing the ritual, all of us could use it at any time to access the extra-dimensional space." Aqualad shuffled through the papers near the end of his explanation when Alchemist stopped using a dremel to carve channels between the runes. Robin could see they had large, clear numbers in the top left of the pages counting up to nine.

Though, now he had two other, very important questions.

"However-" But they would have to wait until Aqualad finally finished up. "-if he is instead binding it to a person it can be accessed from anywhere. Provided, of course, the magician has the strength needed to open the portal as well as a closed doorway through which he can enter."

"That sounds..." Like a security nightmare? "Complicated. When did Alchemist learn some other magical language? And where did you get a solid wooden door, anyway? I didn't know they even still made these."

Alchemist handed the tools he was using to Kid Flash to put away before he stood up and stretched, something in his back audibly popping. "Actually I never learned the language. Like every other language I've tried to learn, it just doesn't stick. There are English to Draconic dictionaries and even more complicated translators though, so I got them instead. The other option would've been to do this in Elvish but that's way more complicated. Like, half of their language is rhyme!"

Alright, Robin could understand that. He'd struggled to learn Japanese and Mandarin, but Bruce insisted they would be important.

"As to the door? You know the Amish? Those people who reject the modern world and live like it's sixteen ninety-nine? Fantastic craftsmen, I paid to have a couple of doors made like this and they were done in a few days." Huh. That... Was a significantly simpler solution than Robin likely would have gone for.

He really needed to work on that. He was so used to complicated problems having complicated solutions that he had trouble finding simple answers.

Regardless, the buzzing in his pocket reminded him that they all had somewhere they needed to be.

-----

The Zeta Tube for Gotham ended up in an alley behind an old, out of order phone booth.

It always bothered M'gann when she came here. There was something pervasive here, in the minds on every person. She almost felt it was in the air, too.

She felt it whenever Robin opened his mind to her, when Player One let down her guard.

Batman's mind was perpetually distant. An unending screech of sour fear muffled behind blocks and walls of distrust and self-doubt.

Alchemist, strange and frightening at times (Fire and blood and rotting meat. Someone beautiful and terrible. Briar White. An ageless child, frustrating and powerful beyond comprehension) but his thoughts were open. Thoughtless memories of music and ideas filled with lists and steps and questions.

Gotham filled him with irritation and fear, yes, but it was different from the pervasive spreading rot that came from those native to the city. She couldn't get to the details without intentionally digging, but he knew what was here, he knew what caused the spiritual filth infesting the people here.

The last time she'd tried to intentionally find something in the disorganized chaos in his head, she'd struggled to keep from singing some Narwhal song out loud for a week!

Apparently they can keep Cthulhu from eating you. Somehow.

"Alright everyone." Player One said after they'd stepped deeper into the alley. "Hold each others hands. Or I might have to do this one person at a time. I've only ever taken Alchemist into the zombie I.D. before."

M'gann looked to her left and right, grabbing Connor's hand on one side and Player One's hand in the other. Around her the others did the same.

There was a jarring shift, like the world suddenly turned left, and the gibbering background noise edged with fear and desperation was gone.

Penny had said that the buildings would look worn down and dilapidated, but she couldn't tell a difference. The alley looked just as sad as before, just silent beyond the wind whistling between the buildings.

"Is... Is this it?" Robin asked from where he stood next to the ever-intimidating Dark Knight.

"I believe so." Aqualad answered for him, motioning to the end of the alley where something- someone was shambling towards them.

Several of the team members shifted into a fighting stance, uncertainty singing in their motions...

Alchemist, however, just walked up to the shuffling corpse, pulled a police baton from seemingly nowhere with a little green plus on it, and poked the corpse.

Which fell over and stopped moving.

"Yep." Alchemist bent down and started rifling through the pockets of the corpse. "That's a zombie."

"Are they all this weak?" M'gann floated over and looked down, poking the generic looking body with a toe.

"Well, it's either that or I've got a magic healing stick and they're allergic to restorative magic." He was being completely honest, which wasn't surprising.

Batman was exasperated by him, as was Player One. It had reached the point where even Kid Flash didn't doubt him, but he was about to-

"Uh huh. Right. Magic healing stick. And you've never brought this thing out before now?"

"Hold this-" Alchemist handed Kid Flash the wallet he just pulled from the corpses pocket. It was filled with... Little golden tokens? Alchemist thought it was 'Bonus GP'.

And then he smacked Kid Flash across the back of his head with the stick.

"Ow! Hey, what...? Okay, now my headache's gone. Dude, what the heck?" Kid Flash was rubbing the back of his head where he'd been smacked, but he felt amused.

"Never really needed it, it's a prototype anyway. Once I get Regenerate mastered I'm thinking of making a staff. Maybe with twin snakes crawling up it?" M'gann got a brief flash of his idea, a cane made of some kind of heavy wood, a pair of snakes engraved along the side coiling their way up to the handle.

He seemed to think it was thematic, but she didn't get the reference.

Watching Alchemist smack around another zombie, she got the distinct impression this was going to be the nature of the entire trip.

Chapter Text

Project: Gamer Ver. 2 Alpha Build 0.8.4

Disclaimer Me Do: I own nothing you recognize. And most of what you don't recognize, I still don't own.

_________________________________________________________________________

"The thing to remember when dealing with Zombies-" Alchemist narrated as he lead the pack of teens and one very immature adult. "-is that there are a variety of different kinds. How they're dealt with will vary dramatically based on that."

He would've liked to take this time to finally get some real practice in with a handgun so he could get his accuracy problems under control, but he wasn't about to let go of a teachable moment.

"A zombie's a zombie, right?" Kid Flash asked with uncertainty from somewhere behind him. "I mean, they walk real slow. Groan a lot. Y'know, zombie stuff."

"Following movie logic, yes. And following movie logic, one of you should be getting distracted by something completely inconsequential and unimportant right about now." Alchemist snapped his fingers, casting Regenerate on a zombie. Coming from D&D, the spell was supposed to be touch targeted only.

Except he wasn't putting his hands on some goopy rotting remains.

While he couldn't make any major changes to the spells, there were perks that could.

He was out of metamagic options, not being allowed to double back on the perk trees, but there were alternatives.

Haphephobic, for example. It let him ignore the touch requirements for skills and spells. It didn't give them some fantastic range, but going from having to touch something to being able to affect things three meters out was huge!

He'd picked that up, along with Archmage and another perk geared towards marksmanship.

'Sharpshooter? Smartshooter.' Had the flavor text of 'Swap the Gun damage formula to use Intelligence instead of Agility'. He wasn't sure if it actually -did- anything, seeing as he didn't have access to enemy damage notifications. Still, he wasn't hurting for perk points and that might help him out later.

Yay for hitting level fifty-one, it didn't actually change much. More Intelligence, more Wisdom, more Vitality. Same old, same old.

The zombie managed three shambling steps before it crumpled, healed to death.

"There's basically two families of zombie with a solid handful of subtypes. Knowing what you're dealing with can be critical in actually dealing with it. Those two being magical zombies and biological zombies. Who can guess what we're dealing with here? Don't answer that M'gann."

"Magical." Power Girl answered when they stopped at a crossroads.

That wasn't who he'd expected to answer. Player One had been oddly subdued the entire time since they'd come here.

"Correct. These can be considered Conjured Zombies. Necromancers tend to use them because they're often cheap to summon and work well as distractions given their ability to take a beating and keep going. They're also one of the two kinds capable of operating without a head, though that's not a universal trait. Though even with that in mind, decapitation is a very valuable and viable means of crippling a zombie. For most zombies, that's a killing blow. Most biological zombies have some form of parasite operating whatever remains of their brains, be it a virus, bacterium or even some form of the cordyceps fungus." He motioned to Player One when the next zombie came into view, but she just stared at him oddly.

He tried again, and got more of the same.

"Player One, would you mind demonstrating a Power Strike to the cranium for the audience, please?" The zombie made it a few more steps forward before the girl took off in a flash, faster than Alchemist could track without Haste.

There was a hollow 'Thunk!' sound and brains splattering across the pavement as Player One's new weapon, an oversized sword carved from some kind of stone, was slammed into the zombie.

"Oh, god!" Kid Flash shrieked before turning to the side, his lunch joining the gray matter on the road.

"Unfortunately." Alchemist cast Esuna on the boy, but knew it wouldn't have much effect. It could clear up mental defects caused by outside sources, not from your own disgust or shock. "That would be the reason Player One was given the Zombie I.D. as her first training zone. In the event that you encounter any other gamers? They will all have likely come through a place like this, become incredibly desensitized to hurting things that are human-shaped. Many of them even suffer from an external force crippling their emotions so that they'll enjoy, not necessarily this, but watching their little numbers and skills tick up, point by point."

"Alchemist." Batman interrupted his meandering thoughts. "Focus, please. We're here to discuss zombies, not your or Player One's powers."

"Right, I... Sorry..." Alchemist shook his head and picked a not-so-random direction.

If he remembered right, there was a large hardware store over to the east.

"You mentioned biological zombies." Robin reminded him. "Can you explain how they're different and why it's important?"

"Right, yes, absolutely! Biological zombies tend to be more fragile, but are actually significantly more dangerous than their necromantic counterparts. The reason being infection vectors, and how quickly it tends to spread. Magical zombies are often powered by curses or even primal elemental forces to accomplish some kind of goal and rarely spread after the initial rising. They're sometimes intelligent and even reasonable. Biological zombies aren't. Imagine a human shaped animal that has no fear, no self-preservation and an almost cat-like desire not to eat, but to kill. Often they spread their infection through a bite, and just as often that bite is how they transmit a fatal pathogen that transforms someone into something." He never thought a ten dollar 'fictional' survival guide would actually be important.

"Those zombies usually have a life expectancy that can be measured in weeks, months in ideal environments. Unfortunately, how they spread is the concern. Who here can tell me what happens if a random corpse is found in the city?" Nobody answered from behind him. "This isn't a classroom, speak up if you think you know."

"They're... Taken to a hospital?" Superboy finally asked after a few moments of near-silence.

"Sometimes." Alchemist agreed, more zombies slowly falling down as regeneration took its toll on them. "They're taken to the Medical Examiner's workplace. Sometimes that's in its own building. Sometimes the police station. Sometimes the hospital. Different towns and different cities have different methods. The most dangerous is when it's in a hospital. That will turn into ground zero, the core from which the plague will spread. On its deathbed, the human body has a lot of strength they just can't access, but a zombie can."

The wizard legitimately shuddered as he thought of kids, the elderly, and really any of the other reasons a person would be at a hospital and how easily they could be turned.

"And how do we deal with such an outbreak? Perhaps a cure might be developed?" Aqualad seemed to have similar thoughts, if the disquiet in his voice meant anything.

"Probably not a cure." Alchemist disagreed. Not out of any enjoyment, unfortunately. "Vaccine maybe, but it's not wise to try and cure death-"

A pale arm, covered in a few wristbands and charms, some ankh shaped, waved at him from an alley.

"-because it's cruel. Let the dead rest. Most likely you'll need to worry about two things. Containment until an area of effect method of destruction is determined and approved of- firebombing is good, nukes are not. If I have to smack that into the president, I'll do it. -and securing the aftermath to ensure no specimens escaped to start this all over again. You can be damned sure that every supervillain and government spook will think it's a good idea to smuggle a sample out and I'll guarantee that on my own life, it's not." Seriously, why did everyone think weaponizing something that couldn't be controlled was a good idea? He'd been avoiding summon magic for a reason!

"...You make it sound like the potential loss of an entire town would be a good outcome." Player One finally said. She sounded faint, like the scope of everything was finally settling in.

"Compared to the alternative?" World War Z was a terrible movie. "It is."

Chapter Text

Project: Gamer Ver. 2 Alpha Build 0.8.5

Disclaimer Me Do: I own nothing you recognize. And most of what you don't recognize, I still don't own.

_________________________________________________________________________

It hadn't taken long for the teams to separate. Alchemist had his own interests, and they didn't align with training a bunch of teenagers on how to actually fight zombies. So long as Player One actually kept up on the Cannibals, this should be a relatively safe expedition for them.

No, Alchemist's interests today involved looting a warehouse sized Do-it-yourself hardware store. Magic would make applying everything pretty easy, but he still needed base materials. And the closer it was to its final needed shape or form, the cheaper it was to transmute.

His end goal? Building a bunker far enough away from civilization that it would be inconvenient for anyone, villain or otherwise without some form of movement power to harass, harangue, beg or otherwise bother him.

He had plans. Not necessarily well thought out plans, but still! And step one was to not be stuck begging for a place to sleep or squatting.

Identity? Check! Money? Now he could write a check! He could get an apartment, he supposed, but he had a feeling that explosions and a curious baby dragon might end up costing him his deposit.

And it'd be kind of hard to explain why he was digging out a mine shaft, lining it in lead and Darksteel only to have it end in a door that went nowhere.

Speaking of, he really needed to meet up with his underground contact. Batman probably knew he'd gone to get a secondary identity... But hopefully he'd keep it to himself.

If Alchemist hadn't been busy thinking to himself while inventorying the entirety of the stores stock of black and white PVC pipes, he might have heard the sound of someone shuffling nearby.

If he'd been paying attention to his surroundings more, he might have noticed he was being watched by someone, or perhaps something, stalking around the shelves.

Maybe, if he hadn't been looting the building wholesale, he'd have noticed he was being hunted before he'd been attacked.

It happened quickly, as these things often do. A quick 'fwip' 'fwip' 'fwip' noise, practically inaudible was very, very quickly followed by Alchemist cursing up a storm.

~~ -20 HP! ~~

~~ -20 HP! ~~

~~ -20 HP! ~~

~~ Bleeding Debuff -Minor- ! ~~

"Ah, god! Son of a- Christmas tree!" He pulled the objects out of his backside with a quick and painful jerk.

Nails.

Thanks to protect, they hadn't gone deep. Twenty HP a pop wasn't terrible.

Didn't make it hurt any less.

He cast cure on himself, repairing the damage with ease and erasing the debuff before it could pile up.

By default of it being a back attack, he hadn't seen whoever had nailed him in the butt. They hadn't stuck around to announce themselves, either.

Alchemist growled in frustration when he looked and looked, but couldn't find them.

"I will get you." He said to the seemingly empty building. "If you think you can hide, I will burn this entire building down with both of us in it. Do you hear me?!"

'Fwip!'

~~ -20 HP! ~~

"Gah- Again?! Seriously?!"

-----

Batman watched with a critical eye as the team took down a 'Corpsulant', a grotesquely over-large zombie with a bulging abdomen and disproportionately long limbs.

They were doing rather well, all in all. It was clearly stronger and far more durable than a normal human, but the team was making good use of its clumsiness and overall lack of agility.

That it was also a regenerator of some sort was interesting, though the mechanic left quite a lot to be desired. Watching it backhand three members of the team so it could grab a normal zombie and eat it was... Well, he wouldn't be too harsh on the team for backing off from the gory display.

Though as interesting as all of that was, one thing he was keeping an eye on was Player One.

Penny.

The implications of what Alchemist said when he'd been rambling earlier were hardly lost on him.

That this place, this power, was not unique was worrisome. That Alchemist seemed to think it was made to intentionally create people with a casual disregard for life and an incessant hunger for power was troubling in the extreme.

He'd noticed that much of the girls growth was sporadic, occurring in bursts of sudden gains compared to a more natural progression like he'd see in a normal person.

That said however?

She was, it seemed, a normal girl. She spent the majority of her time with Miss Martian and Power Girl. She watched teenage drama shows on television at the base, talked about clothes and shopping or whatever else caught her attention.

Even in here, in this mockery of His City, he could see her hesitate at times. Look at her teammates before going in for a crippling strike or fatal blow.

She wanted their approval and she was afraid of how they would perceive her.

He didn't know if that was because she was, regardless of her powers, a teenage girl... Or she'd seen how much Alchemist had floundered through his own explanations of how his 'Alpha' system worked and simply hadn't wanted to be treated as an outsider.

As a point of fact, the girl showed no real symptoms of psychopathy.

Alchemist, however, seemed to. At least at first. It was one of the key issues Black Canary had expressed. He seemed to have a glib, almost amused dint to his emotions...

On the surface.

When he was caught off guard, or else intentionally exposed himself emotionally, it was fairly different. The mage was aware of his difficulty connecting to people, and it seemed to honestly bother him.

In front of Batman, Aqualad finally managed to use his water conjuration spell in tandem with his Water Bearers to trip the ghoulish beast, letting Player One ram her burning stone greatsword through its eye and ending the battle.

Grisly, messy and terrible. Not something he genuinely wanted the kids to be learning... But somewhere between alien invasions and unquiet dead, this...

This would be necessary. For all of them.

"Good work. All of you." It was a small thing, but praising the team as a group should encourage them to continue honing their skills as a group.

Rather than strictly as independent operators who occasionally worked together.

"Player One, how long does it normally take for you to defeat-" Not kill. Don't say kill. "-one of these Corpsulants?"

"Maybe... Five times as long? I have to be careful to dodge around its swipes and lead it to attack in a way that leaves it open." The girl was futilely trying to wipe the vitreous fluid off the porous stone blade to no avail. Whatever the source of the magical fire, it didn't seem to have any effect on her.

Batman could smell the rotten fluid burning from ten meters away. Easily.

"And you fought these things regularly?" Aqualad asked, struggling to catch his breath after seemingly expending a significant amount of his magic in that last attack.

"These? No. There's a stronger version though. It offered better rewards." The majority of the team didn't quite seem certain how to handle that knowledge. Miss Martian and Power Girl didn't seem surprised, however.

"Alchemist said this is how you got started? Was that true?" Batman nodded almost imperceptibly at Robin's question. The boy should know that verifying that could verify more of what the wizard had said.

Or at least offer those claims more weight.

"Ah, yeah? I'm not really sure how he knows that, since... Well, I guess he kind of just knows a lot about this power. It's kind of weird though, since his is really different." That... Was actually a very good observation on her part.

Similar powers could be expressed very differently, that was true. Superman and Wonder Woman were fantastic examples of that. One was blessed with a divine heritage and the gifts of multiple deities, the other had an alien biology that was above and beyond anything else that Bruce had ever even heard of.

On the surface though? Both had flight, super-strength and super-speed.

"That's... Probably not good." It took a moment for the others to see what Miss Martian meant, helped immensely by her pointing helpfully at what she was looking at.

At a rising plume of smoke in the distance.

"Isn't that where Alchemist went?" Superboy pointed out.

Player One sighed dejectedly as she began walking towards the fire, the rest following her lead.

The poor girl seemed to have some expectation of what she'd find, something else with Alchemist's skewed comprehension behind it.

Bruce, however, would reserve judgement and keep an eye on how Miss Martian handled things. She and J'onn seemed much better able to understand how the magician thought.

-----

"Oh. Hey." Alchemist seemed largely unaffected when the others found him, watching the warehouse burn down from the other end of the block.

He was standing nonchalantly, hands in his pockets and a neutral expression on his face.

Bruce could see the bloodstains throughout his clothing though.

"Alchemist, what happened here?" Aqualad stepped forward, acting in his role as the team leader.

"Yeah, so, I found a spider." A lie. A very obvious lie.

"A... Spider?" Player One asked, falling right into it.

"Yeah, a really big one." He waved at the inferno that, even from a block away they could feel the heat rolling off of it. "So I burned the whole place down."

"You burned down a store, to get rid of a spider?" Robin should have known better, but he was still letting Alchemist get to him.

Miss Martian was silent, but Batman noted that she was rubbing her own arms in places consistent with Alchemist's bloodstains.

"Well, yeah?" The magician shrugged, unconcerned with the lack of belief the others had in him. "Sometimes you just have to make sure."

-----

Meanwhile, just a bit earlier...

Alchemist ripped another set of nails out of his arm and ducked low, sprinting under a now-emptied shelf that once held doorknobs.

He'd caught sight of the zombie attacking him, but the denim-clad monster was clever. It kept ducking and weaving through the aisles and shelves, climbing and dropping to keep out of his sight while they set up more traps and ambush points.

He didn't admire them for it, not when it was something he'd do.

Dropping flat to the ground, he barely avoided getting shot in the face by a handful of steel ball bearings being fired out of a pipe attached to an air compressor.

The valve on it controlled by nothing so complex as a little piece of string.

He inventoried the hastily made potato launcher and got back to work. Every shelf he cleared off, all of the junk he was storing took away more and more cover. A practice he'd normally disagree with, preferring to ambush and disorient enemies himself.

A reflection off of a nearby window pane (Freestanding, for display) saw him juking to the side as another trio of nails shattered the glass. Looking over his shoulder, he just barely caught sight of the zombie disappearing between the shelves again.

Still, he'd gotten a decent glance. He was being attacked by a feminine blonde zombie in denim coveralls... A carpenter?

Hold on. Not A carpenter. The Carpenter.

Jenna Duffy.

And he was in a hardware store. A big one.

Her domain.

Wonderful. What was next, a walrus? ...Probably best to not think like that, he might actually show up.

Alchemist took a deep breath-

~~ Congratulations! ~~
~~ Haste has reached level 13! ~~

-and the world slowed down.

He took the time to actually observe what was going on around him, to try and listen for where she'd be attacking from next.

Sounds were weird, slowed down. And it just kept getting worse the higher the spells level. At least sight didn't suffer the same problems.

He'd looted everything he needed. Pipes, wiring, insulation, loads of fixtures and other materials... He was basically a fully stocked doomsday prepper at this point.

He'd been playing her game of hide and seek.

Well, he was done seeking.

She wasn't visible, whether by game mechanic or skill he didn't know... But he was going to fix that.

He jogged down the aisles, keeping his head on a swivel as he passed by every support pillar for the massive ceiling high shelves. Transmutation pitting them with holes near the base with ease, especially since he had no need to actually touch them now.

'Buh-whip' The sound was a lot deeper, and a lot easier to hear now that it took longer than a fraction of a second.

He actually had time to dodge now, Blink properly working since, being aware of it now, the attack didn't benefit from being a sneak attack.

He brought his rifle out of his inventory... But put it back after he got a good look. The Carpenter was practically out of sight already, he wasn't going to try and shoot at a foot that was quickly going out of his field of view.

A quick hop had him avoiding another tripwire as he continued, covering the distance of the store and avoiding several more ambush attempts.

Definitely a game mechanic. The zombie shouldn't be able to keep up with him otherwise.

'Buh-whip' again, but he didn't make any specific effort to avoid the nails this time.

Rather, he ran at the shelves he'd weakened, ignoring the notice of lost HP. He jumped up after picking up speed, angled so he'd hit at what would honestly be a very painful angle.

And cast Ironize on himself.

-----

It took a moment for him to regain his senses, wedged as he was between bags of sand and concrete powder.

After a second, he simply inventoried them so he could stand up and look at the mess he'd made.

Half the store was a mess of mixed everything all over the floor, shelves knocked over like dominoes from one end to the next.

~~ Enemy Defeated! ~~
~~ The Carpenter X1! ~~
~~ You have gained 500 XP! ~~
~~ You have gained 15000 GP! ~~
~~ Special Perk "The Handyman" has been acquired! ~~

Nice. Awesome. He'd look at that later.

Though that didn't stop him from thinking the experience had been crap.

He dispelled Haste (And reapplied Protect) and was getting ready to leave when he heard clapping coming from the side.

Near the managers office.

The grotesque, balding, fat zombie there was looking at him. Smiling.

"Ooh, very good. The meat is quite clever today!"

A zombie that could talk. That was probably going to be a problem.

Alchemist rolled his neck and spat out some dust and dirt.

"Funny. Is this the part where you offer to kill me quickly if I don't resist?" Alright, what did Alchemist remember about Duffy?

Smart enough, good with her hands. Con-artist? Which was a counterpoint to smart, he supposed. Gambler, he recalled that she took her payday to Vegas... Never quite meshed with the other girls in Gotham.

No, no, that was the end of her arc. How did she begin? Alchemist had a feeling that was how she was connected to the egg-shaped sophist-cum-zombie.

"Oh, no no no! That simply wouldn't do at all! The fear? The pain? Oh-h-h." The filthy creature moaned. "Those are what give meat like you the most delectable flavors!"

Alchemist was so heavily focused on the tub of lard in front of him, he never even noticed the sandbag swinging down at him.

~~ Critical hit! ~~
~~ -2 VP! ~~
~~ -50 HP! ~~

"Oh-hoh! Good show, cousin! Splendid work!" The fat bastard clapped and laughed as Alchemist pulled himself back out of the wreckage of the shelves.

Cousins. Fat. Well-dressed.

Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum.

Well now, Alchemist was feeling rather stupid.

Not as stupid as the zombies at least.

The one up in the rafters was easy to spot now, and he wasn't moving with anything resembling the grace or speed of The Carpenter.

This time, Alchemist brought out his Gigant Hydra, cast Carthus Flame Arc on it, and fired.

He dropped to the ground in between Alchemist and whichever cousin had started on the ground floor in a smoking heap.

"No! Cousin! How could you?!" The zombie waddled to the well cooked corpse, tears and snot pouring from its face.

"I mean, I just pointed and pulled the trigger? It wasn't exactly difficult." Right, even as a zombie these guys were Batman villains. They weren't used to being on the other side of the gun.

"And you call us monsters!" The zombie dropped down to its knees, cradling its cousins head in his hands.

"Well, yeah? I mean, you guys- Okay, that's just sick." The 'living' zombies head split open at the jaw, the maw opening wider and wider as it descended on its deceased family member.

Alchemist did try putting a few bullets into it, but it casually ignored them with all of the aplomb of cutscene induced invincibility frames.

"Oh, you cheap bastard!" Tweedle Dee, or maybe Dum, glared at him over his cousins bulk. The two joined grotesquely as one cousins head was down the others gullet, but both were moving again.

Hunched over, with all eight limbs crawling along the ground like some kind of demented centipede, it tried to charge Alchemist.

Who stepped to the side and let it run right past him.

Rather than playing this game again, he simply began pulling gas cans out of his inventory.

He didn't like zombies on a good day. Smart ones even less.