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.