24

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 kinda 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.

Edit: Corrected some spelling.