15

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 at what they contained.

"Can do, Boss."

Stats!

Name: (@**&@%$#%) Leslie Winters

Race: Human

Level: 21

GP: 220000

USD: $17000

Stats-

HP: 600

MP: 322

-STR: 10

-VIT: 30

-DEX: 6

-AGI: 10

-INT: 43

-WIS: 43

-LUK: 7

Abilities:

-Alchemy

--Transmutation (50)

--Conversion (1)

--Advanced Homonculus Creation (1)

-Divination

--Scrying (4)

-Magical Engineering

--Living Steel Manufacturing and Production (Max)

Spells:

--Final Fantasy series!

-Esuna (11)

-Life (16 -Max)

-Teleport (12)

-Cure (16 -Max)

-Blink (10)

-Protect (10)

-Toad (6)

-Flare (8)

-Osmose (16 -Max)

--Dark Souls series!

-Repair (10)

-Twisted Wall of Light (25)

-Hidden Weapon (1)

-Hidden Body (1)

-Cast Light (1)

Inventory:

-Weapons

--Nagrarok (Atk: 1, Evade +50%, On-hit: Toad)

-Skillbooks

-- Transmutation (read)

-- Scrying (read)

-- Advanced Homonculi by C.Grande (read)

-- De Le Metalica (Unread)

-Consumables

--Nectar X63

--Magic Carrot X77

--Heal Berry X99

-Spellbooks

-- Esuna (read)

-- Protect (read)

-- Cure (read)

-- Teleport (read)

-- Blink (read)

-- Life (read)

-- Toad (read)

-- Flare (read)

-- Osmose (read)

-- Golden Scroll (read)

-- Necronomicon X3 (Unread)

-Familiars

-- ??? Dragon Egg

Perks:

-Bright Soul (MP regen +50%)

-Shining Soul (MP +50%)

--Combined effect! Magical attunement is now visible!

-Metamagic: Expand (Double spell area of effect OR double spell duration)

-Metamagic: Lock (Persistent spell effects are more difficult to dispel based on level)

-Metamagic: Pierce (Spells ignore magic resistance. Up to 50% at max level)

-Metamagic: Minimum Powah! (Spells retain potency when multicast. Up to 50% at max level)

-Magically Apprenticed (Spell values are increased by 10%. Spell costs are reduced by 10%)

-Magically A-Practiced (Spell Values are increased by 20%. Spell costs are reduced by 20%0